Year of the Wood Snake

I'm thinking how many AI ads there are going to be during this year's Superbowl. It reminds me of the 2022 crypto commercials and the crypto crash, or one of the many crypto crashes and booms, and I thought "Great, we are done with this bullshit". There is no end in the Age of Bullshit. Crypto's back, the AI bubble only partly deflated and we have an entire year ahead of us. I turned to divination. 

I cast a hexagram using the I Ching the binary divinator, to see how we will do. Is it wrong for a Northern barbarian to use the I Ching?  Wy am I not casting runes? Well, I'm not a witch. I can't see the future. So I use the ancient Chinese computer to winnow out an interpretation.

Question: Will We The People make it through the Year of the Wood Snake?

(Meaning, how badly will our democratic institutions be eroded? How much more power will the .01% accrue? There will be an artillery battle of lawsuits soaring over our heads, but is there any way for lawsuits to overcome the deep pockets of the Filthy Rich? We couldn't keep the Republic. Can we win it back, or at least fight a continuous rearguard action?

I cast the hexagram and I got one changing line, number 2 in hexagram 64, Unfulfillment. 

Hexagram 64

The changing line 2 (second from the bottom, yang to yin) produces hexagram 35, Advance. Sounds promising.

Before I go into context, I read the changing line's text:

He lifted the front tip of his sash. Good omen.

(Taking small precautions can protect against large mistakes).

I take this too read this is going to be a shit year, but if you prep now, you'll make it through. What do I mean by prep? Not just real life preparations, but the psychic equivalent of checking your tire pressure and oil levels and have a kit in the trunk before going on this road trip.

The Context? It's fun to read. Hexagram 64 .

Sign of the Sacrifice

A little fox, crossing at the shallow

Got its tail wet

There is nothing to be gained.

Hexagram 35.

Marquis Kang presents a herd of horses

The spoils of three victories in a day.

The judgement is there is no advantage to pushing ahead from weakness; therefore rendering unto Caesar is the auspicious course for now.

I can remember the flatulent triumphalism of 2017, Trump 1.0 dullards swaggering around, until it was realized that all that neo-Nazi shit was uncool, and we muddled along until the plague came. Oh sure there were massive protests and pussy hats galore, but it was the incompetence and laziness of Trump's phone-in golf presidency that made things seem normal.

This time out, still a lot of protests and pussy hats, but not so well covered by the media. Not when you've got a skipping dipshit Seig Heiling all over the place. Now Trump & Co can and will do real damage to things. There is the worry of privatisation of government functions (home to so much corruption and waste) but the bigger worry is the chopping down of the federal rainforest. What I mean by that is the federal government is a treasure house, strike that, an Aladdin's cave of precious data and metadata on practically everything. The AI boys sure want a piece of that, as do all the filthy rich, who can't swait to sift it through their filthy hands. I fear it will be eaten up completely. 

It's bad enough to deal with kaiju nation-states, the corporate kaiju have nothing but greed and utility, and they would reduce the world to a zero if they could.