Mar 22, 2020, 1:04 PM Reciprocity functions as the explanation of the preservation of demonstrated interest, against which people will not retaliate. Starting with reciprocity instead of the first principle of time, the utility of cooperation, the self defense of limiting yourself to reciprocity, and the offensive defense of your interests by demanding reciprocity starts with presumption (dependency, contingency). Instead: Time > value of cooperation > incentive to cooperate > incentive to cheat > incentive to punish, restitute, prevent > incentive to preserve cooperation (reciprocity) > incentive to produce restitution, punishment, and prevention. So, if we said reciprocity was the first principle we would be stuck with a contingency. But once we start with the necessity of time, proximity, cooperation, incentives, cheating, suppression of it, and work up from there, reciprocity is simply the logical and empirical means of obtaining the greatest rewards and the lowest costs outside of war etc. It provides universal decidability in matters of conflict. But It cannot function as a via positiva. It’ is not a ‘good’. It is the means by which we prevent the bad. Good is anything else that is not bad. This means people adopt a normal distribution of behaviors and we seek to use the test of reciprocity to suppress the violators thereby preserving all the value of cooperation across the scale from the individual to the polity. The problem arises when an unsupportable number of people in any market cannot survive by reciprocal means because they have noting to trade – not even labor – and therefore we have passed the limit of proportionality (reciprocity within the limits of proportionality.) It is no longer possible for these people to obtain ANY proportion of the returns on cooperation. Traditionally that means ‘leave this market for another’ or ‘retreat from the market into subsistence farming’ or ‘retreat from the market into crime’. From which we cull criminals by prosecution and those on subsistence by starvation and disease. Government intervention no longer provides this selection pressure. The current human training is to seek the via positiva moral claim as a demonstration of (in dominance order) fealty < loyalty < conformity < submission to the group. Positives are easy because we only have to imitate them. Negatives are harder, because we are required to think (problem solve). This is why we need multiple means of communicating across a population from high empathy low precision to limited empathy limited precision, to low or no empathy high precision. And it is the preservation of all THREE means that has made possible the western avoidance of monopoly by regression to the mean of the ability of the population.
Form: Mini Essay
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An Essential Insight Into the Status of Our Religions
Mar 22, 2020, 5:39 PM by Tim Beckley I do see this as an essential insight. Christianity could never have maintained a monopoly in the Western market for religious goods and services (ritual, education, etc.). I think one problem preventing this realization in the West is that we were subjected to its belligerence for so long that we’ve largely forgotten what native European polytheism actually looks like in all its kaleidoscopic diversity. The interesting thing is that Western polytheism has been developing in defiance of the One Church from at least the 12th century AD and has since, in large measure, conquered the world, but we simply don’t recognize it as such, don’t see our conquest as having a spiritual or properly religious component- an effect, I think, of the violence with which Christianity asserted its claim to exclusive and unassailable religious Truth. Most still view our native expressions of religious sentiment through a Christian filter that falsely renders them profane, even many who explicitly reject or never believed the claims of that faith. Another complicating factor is that an equally anti-Western, authoritarian competitor to Christianity with the same fanatical aspirations to monopoly power is already well-established- what we call Judaism 3.0, or Christianity 2.0, or Marxism/Feminism/Postmodernism- and it’s been receiving Christian apostates (mostly women, underclasses, and betas) for over 150 years. These new zealots also fail to recognize their conversion as a religious one, or as a conversion at all, and for the same reason that so few recognize the advancements of European polytheism in the arts and sciences- the old claim that everything non-Christian must be secular is still tacitly accepted by most. So it makes me wonder, considering their innate psychological differences, to what extent are the adherents of Christianity 2.0 faithful to its absurd doctrines simply for lack of a viable market alternative. Also, as Christianity absorbed the best and most celebrated aspects of pagan religious belief and custom, so too has Christianity 2.0 been appropriating and subverting the best of modern Western polytheism, presenting distorted versions of our myths in advertising and entertainment, in Universities, in the diversity meetings of the business world- absolutely everywhere, so that the disorientation of the religious consumer, as well as any aspiring producer of a new authentically European religious or spiritual art form, is practically debilitating. I see at least three general types of pre-packaged religious product being marketable in our circles. The first is a kind of translation of the Christian Bible in P-terms in the way that James describes. The second, for those who want nothing to do with Christianity, is a kind of an assembled canon of evocative and useful native European myths, from classical to contemporary times. The third, and most interesting to me, is an entirely new creative myth that orients itself in direct opposition to the still amorphous yet ever-expanding Levantine church that threatens to engulf the whole of the Western world today. This would be a counterpart of the grail quest legends and courtly romances of High Middle Ages which represented the reemergence of the European principles of individual judgement and rational thought and marked the beginning of the end of that first failed attempt to suffocate the West in Abrahamic ignorance and deceit.
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An Essential Insight Into the Status of Our Religions
Mar 22, 2020, 5:39 PM by Tim Beckley I do see this as an essential insight. Christianity could never have maintained a monopoly in the Western market for religious goods and services (ritual, education, etc.). I think one problem preventing this realization in the West is that we were subjected to its belligerence for so long that we’ve largely forgotten what native European polytheism actually looks like in all its kaleidoscopic diversity. The interesting thing is that Western polytheism has been developing in defiance of the One Church from at least the 12th century AD and has since, in large measure, conquered the world, but we simply don’t recognize it as such, don’t see our conquest as having a spiritual or properly religious component- an effect, I think, of the violence with which Christianity asserted its claim to exclusive and unassailable religious Truth. Most still view our native expressions of religious sentiment through a Christian filter that falsely renders them profane, even many who explicitly reject or never believed the claims of that faith. Another complicating factor is that an equally anti-Western, authoritarian competitor to Christianity with the same fanatical aspirations to monopoly power is already well-established- what we call Judaism 3.0, or Christianity 2.0, or Marxism/Feminism/Postmodernism- and it’s been receiving Christian apostates (mostly women, underclasses, and betas) for over 150 years. These new zealots also fail to recognize their conversion as a religious one, or as a conversion at all, and for the same reason that so few recognize the advancements of European polytheism in the arts and sciences- the old claim that everything non-Christian must be secular is still tacitly accepted by most. So it makes me wonder, considering their innate psychological differences, to what extent are the adherents of Christianity 2.0 faithful to its absurd doctrines simply for lack of a viable market alternative. Also, as Christianity absorbed the best and most celebrated aspects of pagan religious belief and custom, so too has Christianity 2.0 been appropriating and subverting the best of modern Western polytheism, presenting distorted versions of our myths in advertising and entertainment, in Universities, in the diversity meetings of the business world- absolutely everywhere, so that the disorientation of the religious consumer, as well as any aspiring producer of a new authentically European religious or spiritual art form, is practically debilitating. I see at least three general types of pre-packaged religious product being marketable in our circles. The first is a kind of translation of the Christian Bible in P-terms in the way that James describes. The second, for those who want nothing to do with Christianity, is a kind of an assembled canon of evocative and useful native European myths, from classical to contemporary times. The third, and most interesting to me, is an entirely new creative myth that orients itself in direct opposition to the still amorphous yet ever-expanding Levantine church that threatens to engulf the whole of the Western world today. This would be a counterpart of the grail quest legends and courtly romances of High Middle Ages which represented the reemergence of the European principles of individual judgement and rational thought and marked the beginning of the end of that first failed attempt to suffocate the West in Abrahamic ignorance and deceit.
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A Spectrum of Religions
Mar 22, 2020, 7:13 PM STOICISM-EPICUREANISM A (scientific) methodology for self authoring virtues that insulates you from the opinions of others, and a philosophy for living within your means, emphasizing family, friends, and the joys in life. BUDDHISM Faith is defined as serene trust that the practice of the Buddha’s teaching will bear fruit. A proto-scientific method of self discipline. SECULAR CHRISTIANITY Faith is defined as serene trust that the practice of the jesus’ teaching will bear fruit. A rational philosophy informed by mythology. P-CHRISTIANITY Extending the Natural Law of Sovereignty and Reciprocity with Trust in the evidence that the teachings of christianity: 1) the eradication of hatred from the human heart. 2) the extension of kinship love to kith. 3) the demand for personal acts of charity and personal cost, 4) the extension of exhaustive forgiveness before rejection, boycott, abandonment, punishment, enserfment, enslavement, death, or war; will lead to the best life for me, for those near me, and for our people – and that this is a necessary and sufficient means of my dedication to myself my family and others. SUPERNATURAL CHRISTIANITY a belief in the existence of God, in the reality of a transcendent domain that God administers as his kingdom and in the benevolence of the will of God or God’s plan for humankind; believing God’s promises, trusting in his faithfulness, and relying on God’s character and faithfulness to act; belief in Jesus’ resurrection from the dead The precise understanding of the term “faith” differs among the various Christian traditions. Despite these differences, Christians generally agree that faith in Jesus lies at the core of the Christian tradition, and that such faith is required in order to be a Christian.
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Intuition Is a Jealous Elephant.
Mar 22, 2020, 8:43 PM I spent years on the analytic, logical, operational, and empirical to climb through the ladder of disciplines one ring at a time, and finally reach the end – religion and aesthetics. And the conversation followed a predictable trajectory. An indifferent “Huh?” to “Yes, yes” enthusiastic engagement. Everyone wanted me to work on philosophy, secular theology, and religion BEFORE I constructed the scaffolding underneath it – so that I wasn’t hanging on priors – just the truth. … Now watch as everyone else reverts to prior despite all the work. You know why? No one, or almost no one, ever learns, adapts, changes, evolves. We want power over our mind, our emotions, our environment, and others. And we want it on our terms. And we want the grammar our brain wants. We want any excuse to confirm our priors. Because the cost of cognitive reconstruction is too high. Can you help it? No. You will gain the ability to speak about your bias in more precise terms. You will adopt the parts of P that solve problems for you – explanatory power or justification of priors. You will imitate those who you can benefit from. And those of us for whom truth is enough, were destined to be here all along. We just know how to speak the truth now in the language of truth: the laws of nature, the natural law, and the law of evolution and transcendence. Intuition is a jealous elephant. ( Our consciousness is not just a rider on the elephant of our intuition, on the landscape of our genes. The elephant is not just undisciplined. it jealously guards its independence from our consciousness. )
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Intuition Is a Jealous Elephant.
Mar 22, 2020, 8:43 PM I spent years on the analytic, logical, operational, and empirical to climb through the ladder of disciplines one ring at a time, and finally reach the end – religion and aesthetics. And the conversation followed a predictable trajectory. An indifferent “Huh?” to “Yes, yes” enthusiastic engagement. Everyone wanted me to work on philosophy, secular theology, and religion BEFORE I constructed the scaffolding underneath it – so that I wasn’t hanging on priors – just the truth. … Now watch as everyone else reverts to prior despite all the work. You know why? No one, or almost no one, ever learns, adapts, changes, evolves. We want power over our mind, our emotions, our environment, and others. And we want it on our terms. And we want the grammar our brain wants. We want any excuse to confirm our priors. Because the cost of cognitive reconstruction is too high. Can you help it? No. You will gain the ability to speak about your bias in more precise terms. You will adopt the parts of P that solve problems for you – explanatory power or justification of priors. You will imitate those who you can benefit from. And those of us for whom truth is enough, were destined to be here all along. We just know how to speak the truth now in the language of truth: the laws of nature, the natural law, and the law of evolution and transcendence. Intuition is a jealous elephant. ( Our consciousness is not just a rider on the elephant of our intuition, on the landscape of our genes. The elephant is not just undisciplined. it jealously guards its independence from our consciousness. )
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The Market For Justifying Low Agency
Mar 23, 2020, 11:54 AM THE MARKET DEMAND IS FOR “AN EXCUSE TO HAVE LOW AGENCY WHILE STILL FEELING GOOD ABOUT MYSELF AND EVEN FEELING SUPERIOR TO OTHERS”. by John Mark I’ve been pondering along these lines, don’t have full answer fleshed out yet by any means. A couple things I’m confident of:
- Asking Christians to “keep their faith private” will piss them off. Won’t work. For the reason Daniel gave. It’s a monopoly religion – “If you don’t believe, you are evil and going to hell.”
However, it’s not a monopoly religion (in America today’s version) that tries to force itself on you (there’s no “believe or we’ll kill you”), they believe conversion must happen by genuine persuasion.
If we do (continue) what Bill describes regarding keeping faith out of the courtroom, and just implement P-law (enforce reciprocity), where nothing is an excuse to violate reciprocity or bait the public into hazard, (I think) we can let Christians keep the outward expression of their faith & let them “evangelize” (they’re not winning many/any converts in the west anyway by the way) but if they cross the line into irreciprocity/baiting into hazard, they find their butts in court like anybody else. This combined with “reciprocal christianity is real christianity” could work. In limited experimentation in convos with rightwing-instinct Christians, they “get” reciprocity and fairly quickly give into my total intolerance for irreciprocity & hazard baiting. Cuz it makes sense to them & they quickly realize “my faith can’t contradict reciprocity or it’s nonsensical & harmful”.
We high agency unadulterated truth-speakers cannot compete with Christianity in terms of persuading the low-agency/intuitive/emotional crowd (spectrum chart Curt posted last couple days). My wife still attends church, she watched online service yesterday by a somewhat well known preacher – sermon addressing coronavirus situation using bible verses & “God told me” type stuff. It was masterful. Mix of stoicism (fine) with bible verses loosely interpreted (classic trick) and supernatural claims, humor injected, total alpha vibe “I’m not afraid, I’m full of joy”. Messages:
“God will protect you.” “You don’t have to be afraid.” “We Christians are the only ones full of joy and not afraid during this time.” (Effective out-grouping of anyone attempting to think rationally and act with agency during the crisis. Excuse for lack of agency presented as a positive.) “The Bible foretold this” (quotes a Bible prophecy about pestilence/plague and people being afraid.) “God is accomplishing a purpose through this – He is purifying His church” (provides meaning -answers “why is this happening?”). (Common tactic – anything bad that happens is presented as punishment/correction for bad people.) Again, this provides excuse for low agency and encourages it – why fight God’s will? This stuff is like crack for the low agency. I talked to my wife about it and she admitted I was right. She is pretty high-agency for a woman and high IQ and ultra right wing, understands baiting into hazard but I can tell it is still like removing an addiction. Imagine what it is like for a lower-agency person,medium-low IQ to hear us talk. For comparison, our message, the unadulterated truth:
- No one is going to help you except you, and your immediate family, and our fellow grassroots rightwingers.(Did God save millions of christians in soviet russia from being killed by the commies? No. So what guarantee do we have that He’ll help us?)
The only reason this is happening is that there are too many crappy people in the world (e.g. chinese peasant wet markets, chinese govt face-before-truth liars, and/or elite scumbags), and we have not sufficiently separated from and/or eliminated them.
The only meaning this event has is as a wake up call to the consequences of not doing that.
It is our responsibility to fix this.
Notice that every one of our points demands high agency. Which they are either incapable of, or need a lot of training for. If given a free market choice, they will choose the “excuse for low agency” message every time over ours. And this is the problem I don’t know how to solve: How to lead such people without lying to them, and/or provide them a religion/mindfulness that does not lie to them. Because what they demand is lies – which are their excuse for low agency. Removing the lies removes the very reason they are attracted to the religion in the first place. (There are exceptions, high-agency Christians exist and for them Christianity operates as just a pre-packaged “defense container” for conservative instincts – but most Christians their religion is also an excuse for low agency.) Maybe it is possible to provide a lie-free mindfulness “religion” or version of Christianity that promotes agency rather than reducing it, but who will buy it? The actual market demand is for “an excuse to have low agency while still feeling good about myself and even feeling superior to others”. Edit
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The Market For Justifying Low Agency
Mar 23, 2020, 11:54 AM THE MARKET DEMAND IS FOR “AN EXCUSE TO HAVE LOW AGENCY WHILE STILL FEELING GOOD ABOUT MYSELF AND EVEN FEELING SUPERIOR TO OTHERS”. by John Mark I’ve been pondering along these lines, don’t have full answer fleshed out yet by any means. A couple things I’m confident of:
- Asking Christians to “keep their faith private” will piss them off. Won’t work. For the reason Daniel gave. It’s a monopoly religion – “If you don’t believe, you are evil and going to hell.”
However, it’s not a monopoly religion (in America today’s version) that tries to force itself on you (there’s no “believe or we’ll kill you”), they believe conversion must happen by genuine persuasion.
If we do (continue) what Bill describes regarding keeping faith out of the courtroom, and just implement P-law (enforce reciprocity), where nothing is an excuse to violate reciprocity or bait the public into hazard, (I think) we can let Christians keep the outward expression of their faith & let them “evangelize” (they’re not winning many/any converts in the west anyway by the way) but if they cross the line into irreciprocity/baiting into hazard, they find their butts in court like anybody else. This combined with “reciprocal christianity is real christianity” could work. In limited experimentation in convos with rightwing-instinct Christians, they “get” reciprocity and fairly quickly give into my total intolerance for irreciprocity & hazard baiting. Cuz it makes sense to them & they quickly realize “my faith can’t contradict reciprocity or it’s nonsensical & harmful”.
We high agency unadulterated truth-speakers cannot compete with Christianity in terms of persuading the low-agency/intuitive/emotional crowd (spectrum chart Curt posted last couple days). My wife still attends church, she watched online service yesterday by a somewhat well known preacher – sermon addressing coronavirus situation using bible verses & “God told me” type stuff. It was masterful. Mix of stoicism (fine) with bible verses loosely interpreted (classic trick) and supernatural claims, humor injected, total alpha vibe “I’m not afraid, I’m full of joy”. Messages:
“God will protect you.” “You don’t have to be afraid.” “We Christians are the only ones full of joy and not afraid during this time.” (Effective out-grouping of anyone attempting to think rationally and act with agency during the crisis. Excuse for lack of agency presented as a positive.) “The Bible foretold this” (quotes a Bible prophecy about pestilence/plague and people being afraid.) “God is accomplishing a purpose through this – He is purifying His church” (provides meaning -answers “why is this happening?”). (Common tactic – anything bad that happens is presented as punishment/correction for bad people.) Again, this provides excuse for low agency and encourages it – why fight God’s will? This stuff is like crack for the low agency. I talked to my wife about it and she admitted I was right. She is pretty high-agency for a woman and high IQ and ultra right wing, understands baiting into hazard but I can tell it is still like removing an addiction. Imagine what it is like for a lower-agency person,medium-low IQ to hear us talk. For comparison, our message, the unadulterated truth:
- No one is going to help you except you, and your immediate family, and our fellow grassroots rightwingers.(Did God save millions of christians in soviet russia from being killed by the commies? No. So what guarantee do we have that He’ll help us?)
The only reason this is happening is that there are too many crappy people in the world (e.g. chinese peasant wet markets, chinese govt face-before-truth liars, and/or elite scumbags), and we have not sufficiently separated from and/or eliminated them.
The only meaning this event has is as a wake up call to the consequences of not doing that.
It is our responsibility to fix this.
Notice that every one of our points demands high agency. Which they are either incapable of, or need a lot of training for. If given a free market choice, they will choose the “excuse for low agency” message every time over ours. And this is the problem I don’t know how to solve: How to lead such people without lying to them, and/or provide them a religion/mindfulness that does not lie to them. Because what they demand is lies – which are their excuse for low agency. Removing the lies removes the very reason they are attracted to the religion in the first place. (There are exceptions, high-agency Christians exist and for them Christianity operates as just a pre-packaged “defense container” for conservative instincts – but most Christians their religion is also an excuse for low agency.) Maybe it is possible to provide a lie-free mindfulness “religion” or version of Christianity that promotes agency rather than reducing it, but who will buy it? The actual market demand is for “an excuse to have low agency while still feeling good about myself and even feeling superior to others”. Edit
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The Intermarium Begins. (I Am Thrilled)
Mar 24, 2020, 9:08 AM Europe’s plan to checkmate Russia youtube.com No one can defeat russia in a land war until china chooses to defeat russia in a land war. No one can afford to conduct other than an economic war against russia because of the nuclear arsenal (that we should never have taken from Ukraine.) But … could russia HOLD ukraine? Russia has too small a population and too small an economy to compete as a world power by other than monopolizing the territorial resources to fund and build military prowess – which in and of itself always provides host peoples with extraordinary technological advantage – over time. This is one of the secrets of american success. the military industrial complex performs the majority of basic competitive research. If russia stays on trend, uses resources to accumulate military and technological power, then restores the fabulous russian education system, and continues putin’s program of incrementally expanding rule of law into the economy, the future requires only the limitation of islam ,the reconquest of the southeast (kazakhstan), until nato abandon’s turkey, and russia is free to pursue southward. It is possible to negotiate with ukraine for east of the dnipr. The west of ukraine is too european for russia, and will join the intermarium (three seas initiative). The balance of resources in russia, and rule of law, agrarian production, in the intermarium (three seas), and the eventual end of the need for nato given french existing arms, germania’s necessity of rearmament, and the intermarium’s rearmament should provide a balance of powers across europe. Naturally the UK, USA, Australia with mexico as labor force and canada as resource provider will form a pseudo-anglo block. South americans will eventually solve their problems and form a block. China, india, and three or four islams will form different blocks. and africa, at some point will form a block and the end of the globalist project will be over with and we will return to historical norms EUROPEAN CIVILIZATION’S SUB-CIVILIZATIONSGreater Anglosphere UK 68m USA 330m (200m really) Canada 37m Australia 25m
NZ 4.6m
~464m (340m?) Greater Scandinavia Protestant Europe: Finland 5.5m Norway 5.3m Sweden 10m Denmark 5.8m Netherlands 17.4m Germany 83m
And yes, Italy North. 60.5m GDP $2.07 trillion USD (2018)
~187.5m Catholic West Europe France 66m Spain 46.4 Portugal 10.2
South Italy …
~110.4m Intermarium(three seas) Austria 9m Bulgaria 7m Croatia 4m Czech Republic 11m Estonia 1.3m Hungary 10m Latvia 2m Lithuania 3m Poland 38m Romania 20m Slovakia 5.4m
Slovenia 2m
~213m 470,649 square mile.
European Ukraine: ~30m. ~160,000sq m
30m Russia 144m GDP: $1.66 trillion USD
Belarus 10m
~154m ~6,601,670 sq m. (Russia is VAST) So russia has a vast territory, a medium population and only 1.6T in gdp. Italy has a third of the population of russia and a third more gdp. What does that mean? Russia has a cheaper labor force to use in a military. But it can’t afford a military with that labor force. Can italy be a world power? Can russia be a world power? No.
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The Intermarium Begins. (I Am Thrilled)
Mar 24, 2020, 9:08 AM Europe’s plan to checkmate Russia youtube.com No one can defeat russia in a land war until china chooses to defeat russia in a land war. No one can afford to conduct other than an economic war against russia because of the nuclear arsenal (that we should never have taken from Ukraine.) But … could russia HOLD ukraine? Russia has too small a population and too small an economy to compete as a world power by other than monopolizing the territorial resources to fund and build military prowess – which in and of itself always provides host peoples with extraordinary technological advantage – over time. This is one of the secrets of american success. the military industrial complex performs the majority of basic competitive research. If russia stays on trend, uses resources to accumulate military and technological power, then restores the fabulous russian education system, and continues putin’s program of incrementally expanding rule of law into the economy, the future requires only the limitation of islam ,the reconquest of the southeast (kazakhstan), until nato abandon’s turkey, and russia is free to pursue southward. It is possible to negotiate with ukraine for east of the dnipr. The west of ukraine is too european for russia, and will join the intermarium (three seas initiative). The balance of resources in russia, and rule of law, agrarian production, in the intermarium (three seas), and the eventual end of the need for nato given french existing arms, germania’s necessity of rearmament, and the intermarium’s rearmament should provide a balance of powers across europe. Naturally the UK, USA, Australia with mexico as labor force and canada as resource provider will form a pseudo-anglo block. South americans will eventually solve their problems and form a block. China, india, and three or four islams will form different blocks. and africa, at some point will form a block and the end of the globalist project will be over with and we will return to historical norms EUROPEAN CIVILIZATION’S SUB-CIVILIZATIONSGreater Anglosphere UK 68m USA 330m (200m really) Canada 37m Australia 25m
NZ 4.6m
~464m (340m?) Greater Scandinavia Protestant Europe: Finland 5.5m Norway 5.3m Sweden 10m Denmark 5.8m Netherlands 17.4m Germany 83m
And yes, Italy North. 60.5m GDP $2.07 trillion USD (2018)
~187.5m Catholic West Europe France 66m Spain 46.4 Portugal 10.2
South Italy …
~110.4m Intermarium(three seas) Austria 9m Bulgaria 7m Croatia 4m Czech Republic 11m Estonia 1.3m Hungary 10m Latvia 2m Lithuania 3m Poland 38m Romania 20m Slovakia 5.4m
Slovenia 2m
~213m 470,649 square mile.
European Ukraine: ~30m. ~160,000sq m
30m Russia 144m GDP: $1.66 trillion USD
Belarus 10m
~154m ~6,601,670 sq m. (Russia is VAST) So russia has a vast territory, a medium population and only 1.6T in gdp. Italy has a third of the population of russia and a third more gdp. What does that mean? Russia has a cheaper labor force to use in a military. But it can’t afford a military with that labor force. Can italy be a world power? Can russia be a world power? No.