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Capitalism likes to think its enemies are obvious: red flags, tanks, nuclear posturing. In reality, its greatest threat wears a tailored suit, flashes a Rolex, and calls the whole thing a business opportunity.
Here’s the trick: China doesn’t need to invade markets or wage wars. It just waits for capitalism to do it to itself. Billionaires—hungry, impatient, dazzled by valuations—are the perfect vectors. They buy media companies, fund campaigns, build empires, and somehow never pause to wonder if their golden goose might one day lay eggs for someone else’s nest.
Take Robert Murdoch. Yes, that Murdoch. The man who built an empire so sprawling it makes medieval kingdoms look like hamlets. Analysts whisper that Murdoch’s outlets have, at times, mirrored Beijing’s preferences. Why? Ownership matters. Access matters. And greed—a craving for influence, prestige, and profit—works wonders. Murdoch didn’t sign a loyalty oath. He didn’t even need to. All it took was money and ambition to bend the narrative his way.
Or look at Forbes and young Austin Russell, the 29-year-old LIDAR nerd who suddenly owns a magazine that literally names the world’s richest people. His deal wasn’t solo: foreign capital crept in, quietly, politely, and legally. Washington noticed. CFIUS noticed. And if Russell thought this was just entrepreneurial ambition, he’s playing the oldest game in the book: greed trumps national self-interest every time.
Even Donald Trump’s campaigns show this. Through a complex network of deals, investments, and entanglements, both Russian and Chinese capital had leverage points. Not because anyone was overtly conspiring, but because billionaires are spectacularly bad at thinking past the next check.
You think this is new? Think again. Post-war Italy saw media and publishers quietly funded to counter communist influence.ⁱ Post-war West Germany licensed newspapers selectively to steer public opinion.ⁱⁱ No headlines. No shouting. Just incentives doing the work. Post-Soviet Russia perfected it: energy giants, oligarchs, media investments.ⁱⁱⁱⁱ You don’t need propaganda posters when you have pipelines and stock options. Silence is far more persuasive.
China watched, learned, refined, and folded the lessons into a system. Extreme wealth concentration plus strategic foreign investment equals influence without firing a shot.
The cast is global: David Tepper, betting heavily on Chinese tech;⁶ Neville Roy Singham, funding media sympathetic to the CCP;⁷ Jack Ma, Xiao Jianhua, Li Ka-shing, Robin Zeng, Chau Chak Wing—all billionaires whose wealth, structure, and access make them tools of influence without anyone signing an NDA.⁸⁹ⁱ⁰ⁱ¹ⁱ²
Intent is irrelevant. Short-sightedness is everything. Money does the talking, perception shifts, discourse narrows. And the world reads it as “business as usual.”
China’s playbook is audaciously simple: find the greedy, follow the money, and let human nature do the rest. Billionaires prioritize profit, prestige, and growth over national interest. They invest, acquire, and expand—and, in doing so, quietly help foreign powers shape public perception, policy, and narrative. Legally. Politely. Profitably.
CFIUS understands this. Its job is not to accuse anyone of espionage. Its job is to calculate risk. Could the structure of a billionaire’s wealth matter strategically in a crisis? Increasingly, yes.
China doesn’t need to destroy capitalism from the outside. It just sits back while capitalism destroys itself from within. Billionaires are not conspirators—they are vectors. Media consolidates, narratives narrow, investments cross borders, and influence spreads. No agents. No tanks. Just greed, access, and a system that rewards both.
So, the next time someone claims the real threat is ideology, laugh a little. The real threat is greed, strutting through the corridors of power, counting its money, and occasionally buying Forbes. Capitalism hands the keys to the very people most likely to hand over influence for a good deal. And that, my friends, is how you win a war without a single shot fired.
i. Ginsborg, Paul. A History of Contemporary Italy: Society and Politics, 1943–1988. London: Penguin Books, 1990.
ii. Frei, Norbert. Adenauer’s Germany and the Nazi Past: The Politics of Amnesty and Integration. New York: Columbia University Press, 2002.
iii. Stern, Jonathan. The Russian Gas Matrix: How Markets Are Driving Change. Oxford: Oxford Institute for Energy Studies, 2014.
iv. Lucas, Edward. The New Cold War: Putin’s Russia and the Threat to the West. New York: Palgrave Macmillan, 2008.
v. Service, Robert. Lenin: A Biography. Cambridge, MA: Harvard University Press, 2000.
vi. Barron’s, “David Tepper’s China Moves,” 2024.
vii. Wikipedia, “Neville Roy Singham,” 2025.
viii. The Wire China, “Jack Ma and Chinese Capital Networks,” 2024.
ix. Wikipedia, “Xiao Jianhua,” 2025.
x. AP News, “Li Ka-shing: Business and Beijing,” 2024.
xi. WSJ, “Robin Zeng and CATL,” 2023.
xii. Wikipedia, “Chau Chak Wing,” 2025.
Dr Richards – Sociologist, Professor, Provocateur
Sam Richards is one of those professors whose lectures you stumble across online and immediately realize: this isn’t your typical PowerPoint snooze-fest. He’s a sociologist at Pennsylvania State University, teaching courses like SOC 119: Race, Ethnicity, and Culture, and his classroom discussions have been broadcast to the world, clipped, and shared widely.
Richards isn’t afraid to wade into controversy. Whether he’s dissecting MAGA and Trump approval, debating the weight of values in political life versus everyday choices, or challenging students to think critically about the society they inhabit, he blends data, history, and cultural commentary with a distinctly provocative style. Some viewers love him for making complex topics digestible; others bristle at the way he frames politically charged questions.
Behind the viral clips, Richards is a serious scholar — pulling from polls, sociological studies, and historical context — but he knows how to make a classroom feel like a live debate. Controversy isn’t accidental; it’s part of the method, prompting students and online audiences alike to wrestle with messy realities rather than tidy narratives.
In short: Sam Richards teaches data, culture, and politics, but he’s really teaching people to think—and sometimes to squirm a little while doing it.
Big Beautiful Bill
It would be illegal for a state to require schools to get a license before using AI tutoring systems.
It would be illegal for a state to ban AI reading-assist tools for young children.
It would be illegal for a state to restrict the use of AI that grades children’s homework automatically.
It would be illegal for a state to require safety audits for AI used in children’s math or language apps.
It would be illegal for a state to stop schools from using AI classroom-monitoring systems that track attention or behavior.
It would be illegal for a state to require parental opt-in before a school can use an AI learning platform with a child.
It would be illegal for a state to ban AI from generating personalized lesson plans for students.
It would be illegal for a state to impose transparency rules about how educational AI makes decisions.
It would be illegal for a state to regulate the training data used in children’s educational AI tools.
It would be illegal for a state to block AI speech models from being used as “teaching assistants” in classrooms.
It would be illegal for a state to restrict AI-powered behavior prediction tools used on students.
It would be illegal for a state to require that all AI tools used on children undergo mental-health or developmental-impact testing.
It would be illegal for a state to require schools to provide a non-AI alternative if a child or parent objects.
It would be illegal for a state to ban AI systems that track student progress using biometric signals (like voice patterns or typing speed).
It would be illegal for a state to limit AI usage in special-education programs or require human-only intervention.
It always starts the same way: a man asking what children ought to learn, as if the answer were fixed somewhere in the stars, or trapped inside the skull of a brain surgeon who can’t do multivariate calculus. We pretend we know the purpose of school, that grand factory of minds, but the truth is we’re improvising. The world keeps shifting under our feet and we’re still teaching as though nothing has changed since the day Euclid sharpened his quill.
Someone proposes the three essential questions — what to learn, how well, and why — and suddenly the whole discussion tilts. Because once you ask why, the floor gives out. Is the child being shaped into a worker, or into a citizen? Into an obedient technician or into a human being capable of staring reality in the face without flinching? Everyone claims they know the answer; in reality no one does.
And then the voices rise like a chorus. One says education is not just a ticket to a job but the passport to a functioning democracy. Another says the pandemic proved how brittle the public mind has become — a nation wandering through contradictory announcements, grabbing at rumors like they were life rafts. Misinformation blooms when people forget how to think, but forgetting how to think is what happens when a society stops caring about thought in the first place.
A man from Eastern Europe joins in. He remembers when an “A” burned your fingertips because you had to earn it through blood, sweat, and midnight lamps. But here, in America, As fall like confetti from a careless hand. Grades are not measures anymore — they’re decorations. Little badges for parents to brag over and administrators to tally, while knowledge itself grows thin and ghostlike.
Then come the faithful defenders of the tests — the SAT, the ACT, those stark little rites of passage. Bring them back, they say. At least tests can tell whether someone is ready for the next step. Maybe they’re right. Maybe they’re clinging to driftwood. Because grades are inflated, tests are attacked, and the institutions don’t know which signals to trust. If everything lies, who’s telling the truth?
Meanwhile the schools push students forward like products on a conveyor belt. No one fails; no one is held back. Entire districts exist where not a single student reads at grade level, yet everyone marches upward. Social promotion, the gentle phrase for a quiet catastrophe. Children who cannot calculate, cannot read, cannot distinguish a fact from a fable — yet somehow they graduate. The system would rather avoid embarrassment than admit collapse.
And beneath all of it, like a current under the street, lies the deeper truth: we have no shared philosophy of education anymore. No common story about what learning is for. Once it was clear — apprenticeships, civics, moral instruction. Now it's a blurred collage of job prep, political battles, test scores, and cultural panic. A nation that cannot decide what its children should know cannot decide what sort of future it wants.
In the end, everyone argues about the symptoms because no one wants to face the disease. We have built an educational world without a center, without purpose, and without memory. And until we choose what we believe in again, the children will continue to drift through the system like travelers moving through a fog — passing every milestone, yet arriving nowhere at all.
Theme: What should children learn, how well, and why?
We still aren't asking the three core questions:
What do we need children to learn?
How well do we need them to learn it?
Why?
Example: Top brain surgeons can’t do multivariate calculus — does that make them “morons”? Of course not.
So education must be aligned with purpose.
Bonus questions:
Will these answers be the same in 100 years?
What process should society use to update these answers when needed?
Education isn’t just job prep.
It builds citizens who:
Make informed decisions
Understand systems
Participate responsibly in democracy
Focusing only on “useful” skills undermines civic foundations.
Many people understand job training but not the need for informed citizens in a democracy.
Pandemic confusion showed why civic literacy matters.
Contradictory federal announcements + misinformation made the situation worse.
Social control has moved away from civic virtue, leading to “Trump and other disasters.”
Eastern Europe: getting As = hard work.
US: majority of students get As.
Too much focus on grades, not enough on actual knowledge.
Standardized tests ensure proper college placement.
Bring back the SAT/ACT requirement.
Colleges stopped accepting SAT/ACT; now they face consequences.
Problem: letting students graduate without basic skills.
Schools no longer hold back students who haven't learned the material.
Some school districts have zero students performing at grade level.
Science as Civic Duty
CITIZEN CANADA PRESENTS
🔴 “BUY, BELIEVE, OBEY: SAVE THE SCIENCE CENTRE EDITION”
November hums in fluorescent light.
Concrete corridors echo with footsteps of curious feet.
Exhibits hum with electricity, projectors beam equations onto walls, and hands reach out to touch rotating planets.
The Science Centre is alive — a cathedral of discovery in the middle of the city.
Click. Swipe. Look. Learn.
Hands-on learning is currency. Curiosity is contagious.
Interactive exhibits are sermons; workshops are rites of passage.
Even the quiet labs speak, whispering formulas into the imagination.
The silence of neglect threatens. Only advocacy hums.
Truth flickers in petitions, emails, and fundraising tabs: We cannot afford to lose this.
INSIDE THIS ISSUE:
🧧 “Civic Curiosity Under Threat”
Education outsourced to screens. Schools shrink budgets. Kids’ access limited.
Science centres act as public classrooms, hands-on labs, and exposure to careers that textbooks alone can’t teach.
When science is privatized or cut, curiosity is auctioned.
🪙 “The Economics of Wonder”
Admissions, memberships, gift shops — revenue streams barely cover operating costs.
Yet closing means losing millions of learning moments, countless future STEM careers, and community trust.
Investment isn’t charity. It’s building the next generation of scientists, engineers, and innovators.
🚀 “Exhibits as Experiments”
Planetariums, chemical demos, robotics, and immersive science shows.
Interactive, visceral, unreplicable online.
Removing these experiences reduces science to videos — sterile, flattened, unengaging.
📺 “Science as Civic Duty”
Public engagement builds informed citizens.
Understanding climate, health, and technology isn’t optional; it’s survival.
Science centres are trust anchors in an era of misinformation and algorithmic echo chambers.
🌍 “Community in Motion”
Programs for underserved neighborhoods, outreach initiatives, workshops for kids with limited access — these are social infrastructure.
Closing the doors breaks more than a building; it fractures a network of equity, education, and inspiration.
The magazine hums with fluorescent urgency.
Jagged lines. Capital/lowercase flips. Pings in the margins.
Every page a rally. Every article a beat.
Hyperpop reportage meets civic advocacy: chaotic, urgent, cinematic.
You read it, scroll it, sign petitions, share it.
And still you buy. Believe. Obey.
Attention wrapped in the shimmer of knowledge.
Routine masquerading as activism.
Screens ping. Emails fly. Servers hum.
The world keeps selling itself — and the Science Centre is worth saving.
#BuyBelieveObey #TorontoScience #SaveTheScienceCentre #STEMEducation #CitizenCanada
My Day With The FBI
In January 1980, the FBI raided TSR—the publisher of Dungeons & Dragons—after receiving a tip about an alleged plot to assassinate a corporate executive named William Weatherby. The plot and the “target” were both fictional, part of internal playtest notes for TSR’s upcoming espionage RPG Top Secret. A concerned citizen discovered the notes (on TSR letterhead) and reported them. Two FBI agents investigated and quickly realized the “operation” was nothing more than game designers at work.¹
This accidental raid became legendary marketing, highlighting the “realism” of Top Secret during a period when Cold War spy fiction captured American culture.
Designed by Merle M. Rasmussen, Top Secret was released as a boxed set and included a 64-page rulebook and the adventure Operation: Sprechenhaltestelle.² It introduced a skill-focused percentile system and placed players in one of three bureaus—Assassination, Confiscation, or Investigation—within a fictional espionage agency. Early rules were uneven, leading to the later Top Secret Companion, which refined combat, reintroduced character classes, and leaned into the James Bond-style “super-spy” fantasy.³
The incident remains a cautionary tale and a piece of tabletop folklore:
Never leave realistic assassination notes sitting around on official company stationery.
Zambrano, J.R. “Top Secret: The Espionage RPG That Got TSR Raided by the FBI – PRIME.” Bell of Lost Souls, July 30, 2021.
Ibid.
Ibid.
Japanese macaques generally fail the mirror test.
They often treat their reflection as another monkey — showing aggression or social behavior rather than recognizing themselves.
That said, some individuals have shown ambiguous behavior, like using mirrors to look at body parts — but these are inconclusive and rare.
Scientists are rethinking the mirror test as the only measure of self-awareness. For example:
Some animals may understand the reflection but not care about a mark.
Others may be self-aware in different ways — like having theory of mind, deceptive behavior, or long-term planning.
Japanese macaques do show:
Empathy-like behaviors (like grooming injured members)
Deception (e.g., hiding food from higher-ranking monkeys)
Memory of social hierarchies and allies
These suggest a kind of practical or social self-awareness, even if they don’t pass the mirror test.
🧠 Mirror test: No
🔍 Social awareness: High
🤔 Practical intelligence: Strong
🤯 Philosophical self-awareness: Unlikely, but we can't rule out more subtle forms
In its earliest seasons, The Walking Dead framed the undead phenomenon as science fiction, grounded in biology and virology rather than fantasy. Over time, however, the show’s internal logic shifted—moving from scientific plausibility toward symbolic horror. Tracing that change reveals how the “walker virus” evolved both within the story’s world and its creative intent.
The Season 1 finale, “TS-19,” remains the most scientific moment in the franchise.
Dr. Edwin Jenner at the CDC demonstrates that the pathogen reanimates the brainstem, restoring only primal motor functions while leaving higher brain activity dead.
He describes this as a limited metabolic reboot:
“It restarts the brain, but only the brainstem—not memories, not personality, just the primal drives.”
This establishes walkers as biologically altered organisms, not supernatural entities.
They move, consume energy, and decay, all under the control of a parasitic agent.
Jenner’s revelation—that everyone is infected—implies a global, airborne or waterborne spread.
He fears this dormant infection will eventually cause species-wide extinction, as every death leads to reanimation.
At this early stage, the series still treats the virus as an evolving pandemic, not a static curse.
In early seasons, it’s unclear whether bites transmit the virus or merely introduce lethal infection that triggers it.
Later series clarify that all humans already carry the pathogen; the bite simply kills through sepsis.
Yet the early episodes hint at a stronger, more contagious strain—one that could spread through bites or contaminated water.
This supports the idea that the virus mutated over time into a milder, universal carrier state.
Jenner’s analysis implies that the reanimated body still uses energy.
Walkers exhibit muscle movement, heat generation, and slow decay—suggesting a rudimentary metabolism powered by the pathogen itself.
Rather than functioning like humans, the virus may induce anaerobic biochemical reactions (without oxygen), explaining how movement continues despite death.
This means the undead burn through limited internal reserves and degrade faster without feeding.
Early episodes show inactive walkers in low-stimulus environments—such as the barn walkers or the motionless herds in Atlanta.
This behavior resembles energy conservation, much like hibernation in animals.
The walkers reawaken when sound, scent, or light triggers them, implying packs may roam only when prey is sensed from miles away, while others remain inert.
Such dynamics could make large regions appear completely human again between activity cycles.
After Season 1, the franchise gradually abandons scientific explanations.
Spin-offs like Dead City and Daryl Dixon feature hordes still active decades later, without accounting for biological decay.
Robert Kirkman later remarked that “how it works doesn’t matter anymore,” signaling a move from science fiction to mythic horror.
The walkers become eternal symbols of collapse, not metabolically plausible organisms.
Combining both eras of lore suggests a coherent internal timeline:
Early outbreak: The virus operates with an active, energy-dependent metabolism requiring feeding and allowing dormancy.
Later years: The pathogen stabilizes into a low-activity variant, slowing decay and enabling long-term survival without sustenance.
This interpretation preserves the scientific depth of the original CDC storyline while explaining the later, more fantastical depictions.
The series can still remain within the science-fiction genre if later developments are read through human ignorance and viral complexity rather than mysticism.
Off-screen dormancy, environmental mutation, and behavioral adaptation could plausibly explain the persistence of walkers over decades.
Such mechanisms would revive the story’s speculative rigor: a study of biology, evolution, and entropy, not a static myth of the undead.
The push toward the mythic, while visually powerful, risks freezing the narrative in metaphor.
Restoring the scientific dimension—grounding the horror once again in biology and uncertainty—could rejuvenate The Walking Dead universe and reconnect it with the curiosity and dread that defined its beginning.
https://edmunds-playersbook.blogspot.com/2025/11/the-scientific-foundations-and.html
Key words World Building, Undead, 2025,FILM,watchlist,youtube, AMC, WORLD BUILDING
Every time we eat, we are performing a chemical experiment inside our bodies.
Our food contains molecules that react, combine, and release energy through metabolism — a series of chemical reactions that keep us alive.
Let’s analyze one real meal: liverwurst, fried potatoes, and a bread bun (fried in canola oil).
Each part provides different chemical compounds your body uses to build, repair, or energize itself.
Main Source: Liverwurst
Chemical Class: Organic compounds made of amino acids (C, H, O, N)
Proteins are the building blocks of muscles, skin, and enzymes.
In your body, proteins are broken down into amino acids, which are reused to create new tissues.
Equation (simplified):
Protein → Amino Acids → New Proteins + Energy (if needed)
Too little protein: slow healing, fatigue, weak muscles.
Too much: strain on kidneys and dehydration.
🧩 Check Your Understanding:
Why do you think your body reuses amino acids instead of creating them from scratch?
Main Source: Potatoes and the bread bun
Chemical Class: Carbon-based molecules (C₆H₁₂O₆ type structure)
Carbohydrates are made of sugars and starches.
They are broken down into glucose, the body’s main fuel.
Your cells “burn” glucose with oxygen in a reaction called cellular respiration.
Chemical Equation:
C₆H₁₂O₆ + 6O₂ → 6CO₂ + 6H₂O + energy (ATP)
Too little carbs: tiredness and brain fog.
Too many: stored as fat, leading to weight gain.
💭 Science Note:
This process is similar to how fuel burns in a car engine — except your “engine” is a living cell!
Main Source: Canola oil and liverwurst
Chemical Class: Lipids (chains of carbon and hydrogen)
Fats are energy-rich molecules (about 9 kcal per gram) and help absorb vitamins like A, D, E, and K.
Canola oil contains unsaturated fats — a healthier type with flexible chemical bonds.
If oil is heated too high, it oxidizes, producing unwanted compounds called free radicals.
Too little fat: dry skin, low hormones.
Too much: clogged arteries, obesity.
⚗️ Chemistry Focus:
Unsaturated fats contain double bonds (C=C) — these are what make the fat liquid at room temperature.
| Nutrient | Chemical Role | Too Little | Too Much |
|---|---|---|---|
| Iron (Fe) | Forms part of hemoglobin for oxygen transport | Anemia, fatigue | Liver damage if excessive |
| Vitamin A (C₂₀H₃₀O) | Needed for vision and cell growth | Night blindness | Headaches, bone pain |
| Vitamin B12 | Helps DNA and nerve function | Numbness, brain fog | Very rare toxicity |
| Sodium (Na⁺) | Maintains nerve impulses | Muscle cramps | High blood pressure |
| Potassium (K⁺) | Balances sodium and fluids | Weak muscles | Irregular heartbeat |
💡 Key Concept:
Micronutrients don’t provide energy, but they control reactions that do.
They act like “chemical assistants” (called cofactors) that enzymes need to work.
Healthy eating is about maintaining chemical equilibrium — just like balancing a chemical equation.
When you eat too much of one nutrient (like sodium or vitamin A), it shifts the balance and causes side effects.
For example:
Too much vitamin A → liver overload, nausea
Too little iron → not enough red blood cell formation
Think of your body as a living chemistry lab constantly trying to stay balanced.
| Molecule | Example in Meal | Function | Chemical Concern |
|---|---|---|---|
| Protein | Liverwurst | Builds body tissues | Excess → kidney strain |
| Carbohydrate | Potatoes, bun | Provides energy | Excess → fat storage |
| Fat (lipid) | Canola oil | Stores energy, absorbs vitamins | Oxidation if overheated |
| Vitamin A | Liver | Vision, cell growth | Toxic in high doses |
| Iron | Liver | Oxygen transport | Toxic in large amounts |
What chemical reaction provides energy from glucose?
Why does overheating oil change its chemistry?
How are fats and carbohydrates chemically different?
Which element (Fe, Na, or K) helps carry oxygen in your blood?
What might happen if you ate liver every day for a month?
make a diagram version next (molecule structures + body pathway flow chart)
| Nutrient | Level | Common Symptoms if Too Low | Common Symptoms if Too High |
|---|---|---|---|
| Protein | 🟢 Moderate | Fatigue, slow wound healing, muscle loss, brittle hair/nails | Kidney strain (rare), dehydration if protein > need |
| Fat | 🔶 High | Dry skin, low hormones, fatigue | Weight gain, fatty liver, sluggish digestion |
| Carbohydrates | 🟡 Moderate | Low energy, brain fog, sugar cravings | Blood sugar spikes, sleepiness after meals |
| Fiber | ⚪ Low–Moderate | Constipation, bloating, unstable blood sugar | Gas, bloating, nutrient absorption issues |
| Nutrient | Status | Helps With / Functions | Low – Deficiency Symptoms | High – Excess Symptoms |
|---|---|---|---|---|
| Iron | 🟢 High | Energy, red blood cells, oxygen transport | Fatigue, pale skin, shortness of breath | Joint pain, fatigue, liver overload (if chronic) |
| Vitamin A | 🔴 Very High | Vision, skin, immunity, growth | Night blindness, dry eyes/skin | Headaches, dizziness, nausea, bone pain, hair loss |
| Vitamin B12 | 🟢 Excellent | Nerve function, mood, red blood cells | Tingling hands/feet, low mood, brain fog | Rare excess toxicity — body stores safely |
| Folate (B9) | 🟢 Good | Cell division, mood, DNA repair | Fatigue, irritability, poor focus | May hide B12 deficiency if too high |
| Sodium | 🔴 Very High | Nerve function, hydration | Muscle cramps, low blood pressure | Water retention, high blood pressure, headaches |
| Potassium | 🟡 Moderate | Heart rhythm, fluid balance, muscles | Muscle weakness, irregular heartbeat | Tingling, heart arrhythmia (only with supplements) |
| Omega-3 (ALA) (from canola oil) | 🟢 Mild | Reduces inflammation, supports brain & heart | Dry skin, poor concentration, joint stiffness | Thinning blood, easy bruising (only with large doses) |
Helps with: fatigue prevention, blood health, nerve function, skin repair, and energy stability.
Potential excess symptoms: dizziness, nausea, or joint stiffness if vitamin A and sodium remain high for days.
Potential deficiencies avoided: good iron, B12, and omega-3 levels protect against anemia, low mood, and poor focus.
When we think of secret societies, the first images that come to mind are often shadowy figures in robes, arcane rituals, or conspiracies whispered behind closed doors. But what if I told you that a group doesn’t need to consciously call itself a “secret society” to function like one? The essence of a secret society isn’t the label—it’s secrecy, exclusivity, and shared esoteric knowledge. In fact, many groups throughout history, and even in modern life, have been secret societies in practice, without ever realizing it.
At its core, a secret society is defined by a few key characteristics. There is secrecy—deliberate concealment of meetings, knowledge, or even existence from outsiders. There is exclusive membership, where only those “initiated” have access to the group’s rituals, knowledge, or goals. There is shared knowledge or purpose, a kind of insider wisdom or structured experience understood only by members. And finally, there is the social context: these groups are often misunderstood or mythologized by outsiders, creating a feedback loop of secrecy and mystique. Notice that nowhere in this definition does a group need to know it is a secret society. Functionally, the secrecy and structure matter more than the label.
Consider the Carbonari, a loosely organized network of revolutionary groups in 19th-century Italy. Their members used coded messages, secret rituals, and passwords to organize politically against oppressive rulers. Many participants didn’t think of themselves as part of a “secret society”; they were simply patriots working toward reform. To outsiders, though, their hidden meetings and esoteric symbols painted the picture of a classic clandestine organization. Here, the function of secrecy created the society, even if self-awareness was absent.
Similarly, in medieval Europe, craft guilds provide another example. Guilds controlled trade secrets and restricted knowledge to apprentices, often requiring years of training to access the full range of techniques. Most members didn’t consider themselves part of a secret society—they were artisans learning a craft. Yet the exclusivity, rituals, and hidden knowledge effectively mirrored secret society structures. Outsiders could not access the guild’s “arcane” knowledge, and thus, from a structural standpoint, the guild functioned exactly as a secret society would.
The Invisible College, a precursor to the Royal Society in 17th-century England, followed the same pattern. Early natural philosophers gathered privately to share experimental results and discuss ideas that could attract religious or political scrutiny. Their correspondence and meetings were restricted to a trusted circle, and the public had no access to their discussions. Members viewed themselves as scholars and collaborators, not initiates in a secret society. But by meeting in private and exchanging exclusive knowledge, they fulfilled the operational definition of a secret society. History, then, can sometimes label groups as secret societies long after the fact, based on structure and secrecy rather than intent.
Even more contemporary examples exist. Resistance networks in Europe during World War II—small civilian cells hiding Jews, sabotaging occupiers, or transmitting intelligence—exhibited extreme operational secrecy. Many participants saw their work as simply helping neighbors or serving their country. They didn’t imagine themselves as part of an organized secret society; survival was the priority. Yet from a sociological perspective, these cells had all the hallmarks of secret societies: hidden membership, shared esoteric knowledge, structured activities, and a clear purpose. Functionally, they were clandestine organizations, whether they used that label or not.
This phenomenon is not confined to historical or political contexts. Even everyday hobbies and cultural activities can create secret societies without explicit self-awareness. Take, for example, a group of friends playing Dungeons & Dragons in the 1980s, during the height of the anti-D&D movement. Weekly meetings were private, membership was exclusive, and game mechanics, campaigns, and character roles constituted esoteric knowledge. Some members even lied to outsiders about what they were doing, to avoid misinterpretation. To the participants, it was simply a game—a shared hobby. To outsiders, however, it carried an aura of mystery, suspicion, or even danger. The structure and secrecy of the group mirror classic secret society characteristics perfectly, demonstrating that intention is not required for a group to function in that way.
Why does this matter? Understanding that secret societies are defined by their function rather than their self-awareness reshapes how we see human social structures. Many organizations, networks, and hobby groups might operate in secrecy for reasons as benign as privacy or as serious as survival. Yet in sociological terms, they share patterns with historical secret societies: initiation-like processes, insider knowledge, shared rituals, and deliberate concealment from outsiders.
In the end, the label is less important than the mechanics. The secret exists in how knowledge is shared, who is allowed access, and how outsiders perceive the group. A secret society can be deliberate or accidental, formal or informal, ancient or modern. From clandestine political networks to craft guilds, early scientific circles, wartime resistance cells, and even D&D campaigns, the defining thread is secrecy combined with shared insider knowledge. And whether the members ever realized it or not, they were, in practice, secret societies.
I’ve only ever won one world record—in 2008—and it was a city group record. I was one of thousands, and while it was nice to see my name with an asterisk, you’d have to dig through a long list of people to even notice it.
For 2026—or, if I move fast, December 2025—I’m going for a personal world record. I’ve got a few in mind, and I’ve already started the journey. Maybe one day I’ll go for the most world records.
As someone with the Fame Gene, the attempt alone—the thrill of possible failure—will be electrifying. Of course, I expect victory. And this time? This time, I’m taking the risk fully—I might actually let myself be famous.
I’m doing this not just for me, but for my clients. None of them on the fame track have world records, and most scoff at the idea of achieving one. I’ll show them what pure willpower can achieve.
Of course, sometimes you get distracted, so this is the stage where I wake up and decide: I’m going to tie this attempt to ongoing projects. That way, I can kill two serial killers with one bullet—ambition and action in a single strike.
