Tag: Speculative fiction

Certainty, Circulation, and Minds That Cannot Change

The week after a big public contest, everyone is more certain than they were the week before. Thus, winners are certain they were right, and losers are certain they were robbed. Moreover, certainty can feel like strength. However, I’ve come to think it’s closer to a blood clot in the mind.

The Light Pole of Certainty

Indeed, certainty does have a good side inside the mind. Conviction lets a person finish the book, keep a promise, or hold a line when holding it is costly. As a result, integrity calls for a line I will not cross.

The Shadow Pole of Certainty

The shadow version appears when doubt is foreclosed rather than answered. Consequently, a person’s mind becomes self-sealing. It takes in only what confirms it, discards the rest, and looks for institutions that will outlive its owner’s doubt, so that being wrong becomes structurally impossible.

Two figures from Isaac Asimov’s Robots novels show how this concept works.

Dr. Levular Mandamus is the closed loop. He is the true believer. Once he commits to the plan, everything he meets becomes confirmation. His arteries have hardened: nothing new gets in, and nothing stale gets out.

Kelden Amadiro is the vampire. To carry out his darkest desires, Amadiro needs other people’s ideas, loyalty, and energy. He doesn’t seal himself off. He lives off other people’s circulation, and he uses believers like Mandamus to do the work.

They need each other. The extractor needs a sealed believer’s mind to act, and the believer needs someone to supply the cause. Both are dependent on external sources of supply or what Carl Jung would have called psychic energy. Each type of individual seems unable or perhaps choose not to cultivate their own inner psychic energy inside their own minds. Thus, to exist in the human world, they must scavenge it from some other place, namely other conscious humans who are capable of generating and maintaining inner psychic energy.

Think plant vs predator but upon the invisible Field of Mind.

What the Body Knows That the Mind Forgets

In my notes on Jung, I once wrote that ideas are the blood of the mind. That’s my own margin-shorthand, not a quotation, but I trust it.

Drain the blood from a body and it dies. Trap the blood in a loop, clogged and unable to move throughout the body, and you get a stroke or a heart attack. Two deaths, one system: exsanguination and blockage. I believe that the same is true for the human mind.

Health in both the body system and mind system is a two-way flow. Exchange happens at the smallest scale, one to one, and the blood has to return to the lungs to be re-oxygenated. Ideas have to return to the inner chamber, to solitude and reflection, or they circulate stale.

A sealed mind has stopped that return. An extracting mind has stopped its own circulation and borrows someone else’s.

So after any election, any argument, or any moment when I feel very sure, I ask myself: where does my circulation return? Where do my ideas come back to the inner chamber to be tested, and what would it take for me to change my mind?

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P.S. — A Current Example of Mind Loops

Hakeem Jeffries and Jared Kushner

I’d planned to end there, but this week’s news offered an example from the party many readers would assume is exempt from the pattern.

The headline that caught my attention was Hakeem met with Jared to discuss ways to compromise. It turns out that this meeting did happen, but it happened in n August. The New York Times reported that House Democratic leader Hakeem Jeffries met privately with Jared Kushner. Jeffries confirmed it, saying that Kushner requested the meeting, and they discussed the affordability crisis.

After this week’s election, as Democrats won the House, Jeffries said on Morning Joe that voters want results rather than “getting even,” and progressives pushed back. Many of them, and many voters like me, want investigations, impeachments, prosecutions and accountability, not just pretty words.

Mandamus or Not

I’m not claiming Jeffries is Mandamus, not at all. Russell Vought or Stephen Miller strike me much more Mandamus-like than Jeffries. However, what he said deserves real scrutiny, about how affordability won the election.

Also, given his huge majority in the House of Representatives, will he act like Mike Johnson but for left leaning issues. It was Mike Johnson’s utter abdication to govern his majority Republican congress that lead to the Blue Wave.

How to Lead a Super Majority in the House with Integrity

But might Jeffries now do the same with his majority Blue Congress given his ties to corporate funding?

AI Overview

• AIPAC and Pro-Israel PACs: The American Israel Public Affairs Committee (AIPAC) and aligned donor networks have contributed heavily to Hakeem Jeffries, routing over $427,000 to $1 million+ through PACs and earmarked individual donations across recent election cycles. Critics and progressive groups argue these contributions influence his stance on foreign aid and legislation regarding Israel, while supporters emphasize broad bipartisan backing for the alliance.
• Tech and Defense Corporations: Investigative reports by Sludge note that Jeffries' fundraising has drawn significant support from tech and defense executives, including leadership at Anduril (CEO Brian Schimpf and COO Matthew Grimm gave $144,300) and Palantir (government affairs head Mehdi Allhassani contributed $44,300).
• Wall Street and Financial Sector: His donor roster includes major Wall Street and investment executives from firms such as Bain Capital, D.E. Shaw, and Renaissance Technologies, as well as cryptocurrency advocacy interests.
• Dark Money and Allied Groups: Allies have utilized external vehicles such as the nonprofit All for America and its associated super PAC, which funneled hundreds of thousands of dollars into political spending and issue-advocacy ads (alongside groups like House Majority Forward) to support Democratic candidates without disclosing all underlying corporate or individual donors.
• Epstein Solicitation Archive: Released congressional records indicated that a firm representing Jeffries sent a funding solicitation to financier Jeffrey Epstein in 2013 during an early phase of his congressional career.

His super majority allows him not to pursue the hard, messy, and difficult work of reclaiming accountability for the American people and our system of democracy. And it is accountability that is duly needed now for all the corruption, lies, and dark deals we have lived through over the past two years. Not to mention the dark descent of ICE and the illegal wars, among many other things Trump & Co. have been up to.

Accountability Check of Trump Corruption Won the Midterms

Moreover, it is accountability of rampant corruption that really won the midterm election for Democrats—the power is so that Congress and States can put a Big Check on Corruption.

So the question remains: Is the conviction that normal politics still works a Light-Pole Conviction or a Sealed Loop of Certainty that is padded by billionaires who are playing both sides of America’s political system?

Moreover, I’ll ask: How much of the establishment’s circulation is fed by corporate money, that often funds the other side?

I don’t know the answer. It’s the question I’d want a reader to follow the money to find.

Several people who are making a lot of sense to me on this issue:

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Sources for Certainty & Mind

Asimov, I. (1983). The robots of Dawn. Doubleday.

Asimov, I. (1985). Robots and empire. Doubleday.

Hakeem Jeffries declares bid for House speaker after GOP’s midterm massacre. (2026, November 4). Fox News. https://www.foxnews.com/politics/hakeem-jeffries-declares-bid-house-speaker-after-gops-midterm-massacre

Morrissey, E. (2026, November 5). Here it comes: Jeffries eschews vengeance; progressives revolt. Hot Air. https://hotair.com/ed-morrissey/2026/11/05/it-begins-jeffries-eschews-vengeance-progressives-revolt-n3820688

Scott, R. (2026, August 23). Sources: Private meeting between Hakeem Jeffries and Jared Kushner. Good Morning America. https://www.goodmorningamerica.com/news/story/jeffries-kushner-met-privately-discussed-potential-areas-common-135882503

Sources for Hakeem Jeffries

• readsludge.com – The Money Behind Hakeem Jeffries – SludgeNov 4, 2026 — With the Democrats’ sweeping midterm victory, Hakeem Jeffries is preparing to lead House Democrats’ promised investigations of the…
• Futurism – Hakeem Jeffries Is Bankrolled by the Most Controversial Tech …Sign up to see the future, today His donor list includes controversial figures like Anduril CEO Brian Schimpf and his COO Matthew …
• House.gov – Hakeem Jeffries solicited funding from Epstein in 2013Nov 18, 2025 — It has been revealed that House Minority Leader Hakeem Jeffries (D-NY) solicited funding from disgraced financier Jeffrey Epstein.
• Facebook ·The 50501 Movement – Hakeem Jeffries’ ties to AIPAC and potential Speaker of the …Nov 4, 2026 — Any politician that is taking in AIPAC money should be voted out their judgment is clouded and they are compromised. Hakeem Jeffries…
• TikTok · NBCNews – During an address early Wednesday, Rep. Hakeem Jeffries …Nov 4, 2026 — Hakeem Jeffries has received over $1.5 million from AIPAC-linked groups, combining direct PAC contributions and earmarked individual…0:18
• Facebook · I’ve Had It Podcast – WOW… Hakeem Jeffries’ AIPAC Money EXPOSED as Schumer …Hakeem Jeffries recently received AIPAC PAC’s largest ever earmarked contribution to his joint fundraising committee. Today, he ca…7:36
• The New Republic – Hegseth Expands National Guard in D.C. Amid Arrest Over “Finger Gun”Nov 5, 2026 — “Hakeem Jeffries has longstanding political and financial ties to corporate interests and influential pro-Israel lobbying organization…
• Punchbowl News – Hakeem Jeffries’ allies get in the dark-money game, Sep 10, 2026 — All for America also gives corporations and individuals a way to support Jeffries without their donations becoming public; non-pro…

Archetypal Animation for Certainty & Mind

The Returning Current: 03:10 – Stability: Slow ambient piano and soft strings begin with one sustained tone. Sparse, open harmonies gather warmth through the middle scenes; a low drone and gently dissonant string intervals create tension near the end. No solos, percussion, or vocals. Resolve on a quiet, spacious chord.

Images and vids created by Genolve.

Archetypal Merch for Certainty & Mind

Two of the archetypal products are symbols from this blog and two are products from an earlier post exploring the multilayered web of how billionaires and Multinational Corporations trap us in a system that benefits the rich getting richer and the poor getting poorer. But, even here, we do have the power of choice!