The Techno-Capable Disaffected

A Not Sure piece to accompany Alan Watt Redux 264, World Planners are Brewin' Your Road to Ruin.

by Not Sure

24 May 2026

In my inbox ‘news feed’:

Favipiravir is an antiviral medicine used to treat coronavirus (COVID-19) infections. Robert F. Kennedy Jr. is the Secretary of the Department of Health and Human Services (HHS) and he invoked the Public Readiness and Emergency Preparedness (PREP) Act on May 22, 2026. This grants legal immunity to pharmaceutical manufacturers and healthcare providers for the use of favipiravir (Avigan) to treat Andes virus infections.

Andes virus (ANDV) is the most common cause of hantavirus pulmonary syndrome (HPS) in South America. The Andes hantavirus outbreak occurred aboard the Dutch-flagged cruise ship MV Hondius.

An interesting aside, which has nothing to do with this piece is that Hondius is from the Dutch word ‘hond,’ meaning dog, a hunter or a herder. The ship was named for Jodocus Hondius, a Flemish engraver and cartographer best known for his early maps of the New World and Europe.

Another interesting aside, pointed out to me by Neil Foster and a listener, is that in the Lakota language Hanta means ‘move/get out of the way’, in Sanskrit ‘killer/alas,’ in Hungarian ‘nonsense’ and in Hebrew slang it also means ‘nonsense.’

Other headlines in my inbox today include some of the following:

• The “genetic excuse” for medical failure applies big-time to cancer chemotherapy

• The CIA Won: Everything You Believe Is False

• Office for the Impact Economy - this one has to do with the His Majesty’s Treasury and the Department for Culture, Media and Sport which last year published recommendations from the Social Impact Investment Advisory Group. This is about the ‘arrival of a financing model built over the previous fifteen years at private meetings the public never knew took place.’

• U.S. says it’s close to a deal with Iran to end the war, reopen the Strait of Hormuz and dismantle its enriched uranium stockpile.

• AI Quantum Leap. And Earth Changes?

  END OF THE WORLD AS WE KNEW IT?

• The inaugural Enhanced Games are streaming live on Rumble, and you’re invited to watch it all unfold from Las Vegas.

• The Office of Strategic Services (OSS) had many connections to the Vatican during World War II. Who’s at the top, Zionists or Jesuits?

And from earlier in the week:

• Bobby Kennedy Fakes a Pandemic in One Easy Step - by Issuing a PREP Act Declaration for Hoax-a-Virus.

• Bioweapons Are the New Bogeyman

• The US indicted Raul Castro for deterring CIA-backed terrorists

• Israel bombed this hospital, called it a 'terror HQ'

• Max Blumenthal: The Israeli plot against Thomas Massie exposes US oligarchy

• Iran threatens war 'beyond the region' if U.S. attacks - Tehran’s remarks come after Trump said he had come within an hour of restarting the military campaign.

This doesn’t include the headlines from several major mainstream publications to which I subscribe for a daily glimpse of propaganda, and numerous links and quotes that were sent to me via email, X, Telegram, Teams, or comments made on Rumble and Substack. Some of this was worth reading and considering, but the ‘daily discernment drive’ is always filled with hazards and time-consuming detours.

Today’s Redux is from June 9, 2010. Alan Watt talked about how we’re trained in this system, from birth, to accept all changes as normal. He said, “From the minute you were born you were taught that everything was normal and it was a bit different from your parents. As soon as you were into school, of course, you were taught a different curriculum, a different world view in fact. You didn’t even discuss it with your parents because you thought they knew. Meanwhile, your parents were watching television, being updated daily into a whole new way of thinking as well. It wasn’t their thinking; it was all programmed for them. It becomes their thinking and even their behavior patterns are emulated off of what they see. Nothing has happened…actually since the time of H.G. Wells when he talked about it and the Fabian Society. Nothing has happened in culture across the whole Western world that wasn’t planned by very big WEALTHY powers to bring in a whole new society of total control.”

As I was making the video for Alan’s portion of the Redux, I settled on sheep as a visual motif. Alan talked about how we’re herded, guided into accepting each new change as normal. Even what is there to rile us is managed. He illustrated that point by talking about sheepdog trials, where dogs compete in various exercises to show how skilled they are at corralling sheep. “The shepherd would often use two dogs for a large herd. They’d go on either side, to the left and to the right of them. Sometimes they would even take a whole swathe of the sheep off into one direction with one dog, and one with another; take them around in a circle and put them all back into the same pen. Well, that’s the technique that they use through politics to manage the public. The sheep don’t know that the shepherd is the bad guy. They kind of like the shepherd, they’re kind of fond of him. They’ve seen him so many times and he will often feed them with extra tidbits and stuff. But when he kills them off to eat them - because that’s their function - or sell them, or for the wool to wear his woolen clothing with, they don’t know that. All they see is this nice guy and the dogs really are their enemy as far as the sheep are concerned. So, it’s very, very clever. That’s how the public are generally run, in all countries.”

I took a break from making the video to watch some sheepdog trials. I saw that some trials used as many as four sheepdogs to corral the sheep. This technique applies to much more than politics.

In Hegel’s The Phenomenology of Spirit, he gives us the parable of the Lord and Bondsman, Herrschaft und Knechtschaft, Master and Slave. This is a story of an asymmetric relationship. The struggle is resolved when one party submits to the other to preserve their life.

The Master risks his life. He does not fear death and emerges as the independent consciousness. The Slave submits and accepts his servitude and becomes the dependent consciousness.

However, Hegel sees this dynamic as inherently unstable and a relationship that can be reversed. The bondsman can achieve independence and self-consciousness through labor; “by working on and transforming the external world, he overcomes his fear of death, develops discipline, and realizes his own power and creativity, thereby attaining a more authentic form of self-awareness than the lord.”

Arbeit macht frei - work makes (one) free

The phrase which is associated with Nazi work camps in World War II came from Lorenz Diefenbach’s novella with that title. Personal and spiritual redemption comes from disciplined and voluntary labor, not forced exploitation.

I don’t know about Diefenbach, but I am pretty sure Hegel was a sheepdog.

Retired Lieutenant Colonel Dave Grossman wrote an analogy about sheep, sheepdogs, and wolves in his 2004 book, On Combat.

In 2012, former U.S. Navy SEAL Chris Kyle published an autobiography entitled American Sniper: The Autobiography of the Most Lethal Sniper in U.S. Military History. In 2013, Kyle and his friend Chad Littlefield were killed at a shooting range by Eddie Ray Routh, a 25-year-old former Marine suffering from post-traumatic stress disorder (PTSD). In 2014, Clint Eastwood directed the film, American Sniper, and included the story of the sheep, sheepdog, and wolf, which was not in Kyle’s autobiography.

Dave Grossman said that he was given the analogy by a Vietnam veteran. “Most of the people in our society are sheep. They are kind, gentle, productive creatures who can only hurt one another by accident.” Grossman writes, “We may well be in the most violent times in history, but violence is still remarkably rare. This is because most citizens are kind, decent people who are not capable of hurting each other, except by accident or under extreme provocation. They are sheep. I mean nothing negative by calling them sheep. To me it is like the pretty, blue robin’s egg. Inside it is soft and gooey but someday it will grow into something wonderful. But the egg cannot survive without its hard, blue shell. Police officers, soldiers, and other warriors are like that shell, and someday the civilization they protect will grow into something wonderful. For now, though, they need warriors to protect them from the predators.”

‘Then there are the wolves,’ the old war veteran told Grossman, ‘and the wolves feed on the sheep without mercy.’ Grossman continued, “Do you believe there are wolves out there who will feed on the flock without mercy? You better believe it. There are evil men in this world, and they are capable of evil deeds. The moment you forget that or pretend it is not so, you become a sheep. There is no safety in denial.”

‘Then there are sheepdogs,’ the Vietnam veteran told Grossman, ‘and I’m a sheepdog. I live to protect the flock and confront the wolf.’

I did not see American Sniper, but I recall that when it came out, many people in the ‘patriot’ and ‘truth’ community referred to themselves as sheepdogs.

Let us return to Alan Watt’s talk from June 9, 2010. The sheepdog works for the shepherd. The sheepdog does not work for the sheep.

Here is the poem that goes along with Alan’s talk:

World Planners are Brewin’ Your Road to Ruin,
This Show You’re Living Becomes Quite Chilling:

“Predictive Programming Slogans Repetitive,
Unperceived by Most, that Socialist and Conservative,
Although they Spar and Hiss in Public Mime,
Are One and the Same on Laws they Sign,
With Marx’s Plan for Unified Blocs,
Super-Parliaments Over Multi-National Flocks,
In Turn are Subservient to their Covenance,
Taking Instructions from Covert Governance,
Can’t Claim the Planners Silly, with Myopia,
This Dystopia is On Their Road to Utopia,
Brainwashed ‘Unwashed’ Beading with Sweat,
Truly Believing they Must Work Off the Debt,
The Means-to-an-End, Money is Just a Tool,
Along with Debt, The Masses to Fool,
Aristocracy, Marxists, Fabians it Seems,
Believe the Future’s for Superior Genes,
Here’s Austerity, Medicine, Food Unattainable,
As the Poorer Go First for World ‘Sustainable’ “
© Alan Watt June 9, 2010

As I was attempting to categorize and prioritize all the information that came at me just today, just this morning, before I even had a clue what to write about, I considered the opening paragraph of “Constant Conflict,” an oft-cited article by Ralph Peters for the U.S. Army War College Quarterly Parameters, from the spring of 1997. We have entered an age of constant conflict. “Information is at once our core commodity and the most destabilizing factor of our time. Until now, history has been a quest to acquire information; today, the challenge lies in managing information. Those of us who can sort, digest, synthesize, and apply relevant knowledge soar--professionally, financially, politically, militarily, and socially. We, the winners, are a minority.”

Reading it again today, with sheepdogs on the brain, I approached it from a different angle. Ralph Peters was writing about the U.S. military’s handle on information, and that of opposing militaries who could be seen as competitors (possible winners). He described non-competitive cultures as being ‘enraged’ by our superiority; they will be deeply resentful because they are fed “a deluge of information telling [him] (exaggeratedly and dishonestly) how well the West lives.”

In Grossman’s story, military personnel are good guys just like the old Vietnam vet he spoke with. The fellow saw himself as a sheepdog, who lived to ‘protect the flock and confront the wolf.’ But does the MIC spend its time, energy and budget seeking ways to protect us on behalf of the shepherd? It also begs the question, who is the shepherd?

Are we run by wolves in shepherd’s clothing? Was Peters writing from the perspective of the shepherd, the sheepdog, or the wolf?

Does the wolf represent the system we are born into?

This is how I see it, because once you swallow the bitter pill (not the red, blue, or black) you see that ‘just war theory’ paints a veneer of ethical and moral justification on the turd of resource and territory acquisition. No, Hitler wasn’t a good guy, but he gathered his eugenics ideas from Britain and the U.S., and who bombed Dresden?

Vietnam? Not today.

Peters wrote, “How can you counterattack the information others have turned upon you? There is no effective option other than competitive performance. For those individuals and cultures that cannot join or compete with our information empire, there is only inevitable failure (of note, the internet is to the techno-capable disaffected what the United Nations is to marginal states: it offers the illusion of empowerment and community).

We are the techno-capable disaffected.

If the shepherd and the sheepdog are working together for the interests of the shepherd, that’s enemy enough for the poor flock. What harm is a wolf? The wolf takes out one or two or three of the flock. Who is it that castrates the entire flock? Who is that uses our produce (our wool) and then kills most of the flock for meat when the time is right? Is it the wolf? No. It’s the shepherd and his sheepdogs (military, police, and yes, academia and religious leaders too).

The Fabian Society famously uses the wolf in sheep’s clothing to signal their slow and steady approach (they use a turtle too - ‘When I strike, I strike hard’) to change society to suit themselves. Here enters a third motif of this Society, the anvil holding the world, beat into shape by a couple of hammers. This window was designed by George Bernard Shaw, the old fruit who said we (the sheep) would need to go to our masters to justify our existence. The master will ask the slave, “What are you contributing that will convince me to let you live?”

“Pray devoutly, hammer stoutly." From whomever that quote in the Fabian stained glass originates, it should have been, “Prey devoutly, hammer stoutly.”

Cybernetics, the internet, and now artificial intelligence; every step of the way, this is a military operation against us. Norbert Weiner was in the research group that coined the word cybernetics and was perhaps the most important early thinker on feedback processes for biological and technological systems. His work with the Macy Conferences brought him in contact with Max Horkheimer (Frankfurt School) and some of the most important scientists of that era; the Conferences were tasked with coordinating communication across all the scientific disciplines.

The idea of cybernetics is that all complex systems are self-regulated by the feedback of information. Weiner’s understanding of feedback came from work he did with several others during World War II on behalf of the US. They were working on a device that controlled and targeted anti-aircraft guns. Their “A-A Predictor” didn’t function too well but it did give many important insights into feedback loops for self-regulation.

Cybernetics comes from the Greek word κυβερνητικός (kubernētikos), ‘good at steering.’ The word κυβερνητικός appears in Plato’s The Republic. A steersman was used to signify the governance of people.

On his father’s side, Weiner was related to Maimonides, the 12th century Sephardic Jewish rabbi who was one of the most important Torah scholars of the Middle Ages, and Akiva Eger, the chief rabbi of Posen from 1815 to 1837. Eger was a scholar of the Talmud and a halakhic decisor; one who is learned in written and oral Torah, Talmudic and rabbinic law, and all customs and traditions, and therefore qualified to determine the application of Halakha, or Jewish religious laws.

Weiner described his father as dogmatic, holding beliefs in vegetarianism and filling the house with vegetarian tracts on the abuse of animals. He planned to take the family from Germany to South America to set up a commune based on these ideas but when his companion abandoned him, he ended up in the United States, where Norbert was born and raised.

A child prodigy, Weiner attended Harvard where he was awarded a PhD in 1913 at the age of 19, and in 1914, he traveled to England and was taught by Bertrand Russell. During World War I, he underwent military training, but was denied a commission. He later made another successful attempt and was disappointed that he could only serve a few days before the conclusion of the war.

In 1941, he accepted an appointment with the National Defense Research Committee (NDRC) and it was in this capacity he worked on the A-A Predictor device. The NDRC became the template for post-war bodies such as the Office of Naval Research, the Atomic Energy Commission, and the National Science Foundation.

Norbert Weiner died in 1964. J.C.R. Licklider was heavily influenced by the work of Weiner and initiated the Advanced Research Projects Agency Network (ARPANET) in 1966. This was a wide-area packet-switched network. From this came remote login and file transfer, an early form of email. ARPA became DARPA (Defense Advanced Research Projects Agency) in March 1972.

It’s all interesting to me; the Fabian slow-cooking of lamb, Hegel’s Lord and Bondsman/Master and Slave, the cybernetic steering of the ship (of state? of shepherd? of wolf?), Weiner, Frankfurt School, Macy Conferences, ARPA/DARPA, but how to end this story on this day?

The internet was designed by the military-industrial complex (MIC); the tracks of each step of development can be traced back to MIC, and the incipient stages of artificial intelligence were developed side by side with the technologies that gave us H.G. Wells’ World Brain. You can believe the foundation myth stories of your personal computer heroes such as Gates (hahaha) and Jobs and every ‘self-made’ Silicon Valley ‘tech bro’ who came before or since, from Mark Zuckerberg to Elon Musk to Peter Thiel to Larry Ellison to Sam Altman, etc., or you can take a shortcut and accept as a given, that those heroes and the mythology surrounding them are products of the MIC.

Ralph Peters asks the question “How can you counterattack the information others have turned upon you?” and he delivers the answer: “There is no effective option other than competitive performance.”

Scroll back up for a glance at just a few things that came into my inbox today. I’m sure you could make an interesting list for yourself of what you hear on television, from endless scrolling, from your boyfriend, or your father. This information has been turned upon us by MIC wolves who masquerade as sheepdogs, media talking heads, and loud voices amongst the controlled opposition. We cannot compete with it, therefore we cannot counterattack it.

It bears repeating, “For those individuals and cultures that cannot join or compete with our information empire, there is only inevitable failure (of note, the internet is to the techno-capable disaffected what the United Nations is to marginal states: it offers the illusion of empowerment and community).

If you are reading this, you are not a sheep. If you can read, you are not a sheep. I’m not asking you to get up out of your chair and go to the window and scream. We had enough of that nonsense during Covid. Screaming, or applauding? What’s the difference if you’re doing it on command? But the character Howard Beale in the movie Network still makes a good point, “All I know is that first, you've got to get mad. You've gotta say, “I’m a human being, goddammit! My life has value!”

Alan Watt told us more than a few times that the ‘personal’ computer and the internet were not given to us to help us. The shepherds, the sheepdogs, and the wolves have the power in an asymmetrical relationship. We are the ‘techno-capable disaffected,’ and for us the internet is the illusion of empowerment and community.

As Alan said, “It’s the net. It’s there to catch us. It’s the web. It’s there to trap us.” The news we’re given, and the alternative media who comment on that news, and purport to warn us of danger surrounding us and ahead, is a weapon, and unlike Weiner’s anti-aircraft predictor, it’s effective, and it’s lethal. The only defense is to disconnect.

Bits of useful information are so seldom found online; our time would be better spent planting a seed, talking to a neighbor, walking a dog, reading a book.

Alan used to say that if he wasn’t using the computer to get his message across, he would toss the damn thing out the window. He wasn’t trying to ‘get the word out’ to lots of people who could ‘turn things around’ because he was a realist. He hoped to reach a few individuals who could still think for themselves, who might be able to do some small thing to delay what is coming and could help one or two others along the way. He knew, and he said it often, that the bitter pill was not one the mass man could swallow. Meanwhile, he used the computer and the internet.

I say the same thing. “Just a few individuals. Just a little while longer.” But for me, there’s no truth ‘out there.’ No groundswell movement.

Are you one of those individuals? If the snail mail is still running when we’ve disconnected, let’s write some letters in longhand, cursive.

“Dear friend,

I did it. I put the computer in a large anvil and secured it, then I slowly beat the hell out of it with a hammer. I don’t miss it.

I hope you’re keeping well these days. Are you pining for news about this year’s election fraud or the latest super-deadly nasty outbreak of the highly contagious blah blah bug? Probably not.

Without those QR codes, I’m a bartering savage and I don’t have much to trade, just some funny (and sad) stories and an occasional roll of toilet paper. Eating radishes and wearing rags, but you know what? I like radishes, and I don’t mind rags.

Love to the wife and children.

Yours truly,

Not Sure.”

© Not Sure

Additional reading:

Constant Conflict by Ralph Peters for Parameters, 1997