We often forget that major historical events were not instantanous with neat summaries and conclusions. They were messy and evolved. It took time to absorb what happened and make sense of it – especially tragedies.
Enter a quiet trend of re-living things in real-time. Some examples I’ve run across were NASA’s realtime Apollo lunar landing missions. Another, even more somber, would be the sinking of the Titanic. I think it’s important to realize that the sinking happened at 2am when people were asleep and were caught off guard. It only took 2 hours and 40 minutes from being fine to the deaths of the majority of the passengers. Experiencing it in realtime was surprising to me. It’s amazing how just about nothing seems really bad until the very end – something that financial markets often mimic. The signs of trouble are there for a long time before a very quick, shockingly violent end.
When people talk about the “immanent collapse of capitalism”, I think old time videos like this demonstrate that it’s not capitalism that’s necessarily the problem – it’s the greed and corruption of the system that’s gotten us where we are today.
If you look at other economic systems that were destroyed by those same factors of corruption/greed, simply changing the system out or letting it collapse simply enables those doing the worst destruction to have even MORE free reign and control because now there is no police and no system to stop them. Modern history shows time and again that the people that helped collapse/change a government or economic system to replace it with another are usually the first people oppressed and killed by it.
It doesn’t matter if you’re going from capitalism to communism or vice versa. Witness what happened to the resources and industries of the former Soviet Union when it collapsed. They were all taken over by the oligarchs and firmly controlled by the new ruling class.
The French Revolution turned into the Reign of Terror – the wholesale slaughter of whole classes of elites, educated, and anyone branded a ‘traitor’ to the cause. Most of those who led the original revolution ended up beheaded by their own movement.
When the old tzars of Russia were overthrown or Mao overthrew China – the first things that happened were millions dying by famine, disease, and a very rapid deterioration of even basic goods and services. That figure excludes the open genocide of anyone that opposed them that started right after the revolution. Communist takeovers of Central and South American countries tell similar stories.
Contrary to current American arm-chair activists that think swapping ‘power systems’ will fix racism/classism/etc – the reality is you aren’t going to get rid of the mud by simply swapping the sheets on the bed. The rich and those in power can and will not just sit there. You have to go clean the dog or it’ll just jump up there again on the new sheets and keep being who they are.
This is why the Gospel is the only way to change the world – by the conversion of hearts. Even the Soviet Union/China/Cambodia/etc and other countries ruled by coercion learned that at some point, you simply don’t have enough guns to keep pointing at enough heads to keep it going. Jesus’ kingdom has outlived every world government and corrupt member in history by not fighting against oppressive systems – but by changing individual’s hearts.
The College of Cardinals is gathering in the Sistine chapel and soon the papal conclave will convene to elect the next pope. They’ll leave their cell phones behind and go into isolation for prayer, discussions, and voting.
The papal conclave has it’s roots all the way back to how the original bishops were elected by the apostles – but has undergone a long and storied history to fight everything from political meddling to setting age limits of who is to be elected.
For the faithful, it’s a time for prayer and fasting, which is probably why you don’t get quite the media circus of a presidential election. I know I have been praying the Church gets a worthy and wonderful pope in these rocky global times.
Here are the odds for the top 10 candidates who could be named the next pope via Sports Interaction in Ontario. Odds as of Thursday, May 1. (If you’re in the U.S., you can make predictions on the next pope via Kalshi)
Breakfast is a art design company that makes a lot of interactive and kinetic art pieces. Many utilize split-flap, flip-discs, and other moving elements to make their creations. They recently started their Billion Dollar Arcade series that re-creates old video games with gold-foil lined flip-discs to create the playfield.
