Notes from the edge of civilization: May 25, 2025
'Wired' builds a ghost gun on camera; the hidden cost of wearable wellness; Americans planning their exit strategies; steerage class is back, baby!
File this under: “What the actual hell?”
As ZeroHedge just highlighted, Wired posted a DIY video showing viewers how to build an untraceable 3D-printed handgun. They literally printed, built, and fired the same model allegedly used by Luigi Mangione, the guy accused of shooting the CEO of UnitedHealth. What could go wrong?
Content guidelines at YouTube ban this kind of video outright. Their policy couldn’t be clearer: no tutorials on making firearms, full stop. But, we all know that in Clown World, it’s ‘rules for thee, not for me.’ Random gun enthusiasts and DIY creators get the ban, not the senior editor of Wired with a Condé Nast expense account and aspirations of winning a Pulitzer Prize for “investigative reporting.”
Put this to the sniff test, however, and you’ll see that publishing a step-by-step guide to building a ghost gun allegedly tied to a high-profile assassination isn’t just tone deaf. It’s suspicious as hell. Why is this content being made in the first place? Why is it allowed on YouTube? Why now? Is it a soft-launch of impending civil unrest?
As one ZeroHedge user wisely commented, “This is all the warning you need that they’ve now moved beyond strategically placed pallets of bricks…” To which we say: YEP!
Technocrats love hyperquantification — breaking everything down to programmable units that can then be ‘optimized.’ That makes wearable wellness tech, and the explosion of products in that space, a veritable treasure trove of data for the control-addicted: Optimize your sleep! Find your optimal fertility window! Optimize your heart rate! Optimize your sports performance!
How about: optimize your paranoia?
The New York Times reports that some users of tech like the Oura Ring are reporting skyrocketing anxiety, obsessive behaviors, and the sneaking suspicion they are somehow failing at life. One woman said she ended up feeling “like I couldn’t do anything right to make the ring happy." (That’s optimized behavior for our coming control grid overlords, too. Handy!)
Top company executives from Oura even acknowledge that excessive data can be stressful, with one reporting he needs to take breaks from wearing his ring when it all gets to be ‘too much.’
It’s true, there are a slew of miracle stories; the ring that caught appendicitis or the nurse who used data to discover she had cancer. But the more important takeaway from this story — a stark reminder if there ever was one — is that gamifying biology, outsourcing human intuition, and hooking up body parts to digital devices does not end well. You’ve been warned, Neuralink fanbois.
The American Dream used to mean building a life in the land of opportunity. Now, for an increasing number of people, it means securing a second passport to be able to ‘get out of Dodge’ when our Republic eats itself.
Dual citizenship, once the hobby of tax-dodging billionaires and retirees with Italian grandmothers, is being pursued by more young, middle-class Americans with no trust in the future and a creeping sense that the country is becoming uninhabitable.
According to Newsweek, a recent poll found 42% of Americans are considering moving abroad for a better life, and that tracks up to 63% among Gen Z. They’re driven by fears over political collapse, skyrocketing costs of living, eroding rights, and a gnawing sense that the country is ‘McGyver’d’ — that is, held together by string, chewing gum, duct tape and a bit of denial for good measure.
Firms that sell “Golden Visas” (aka legal escape hatches via investment) are reportedly seeing demand spike 400% to 1,000%. And while most people pursuing dual citizenship say they don’t really want to leave the country, they also don’t trust it enough to stay. In their view, institutions are on life support, and hope is being replaced by contingency planning.
Those of you who have read The Collapse Clock, our guide to sensing that the excrement is getting ready to make contact with rotating blades, will recognize this as a warning sign… a signal that people are doing the math, taking the temperature, and making sure they’re not the ones left holding the bag when the power finally goes out. Last one out, please bring Old Glory with you.
After spending all their money on Golden Visas, the people fleeing for greener pastures may find themselves in the 21st century’s version of steerage class, aka ‘cattle wagon.’ Some airlines are apparently looking to introduce standing room only as soon as next year. Welcome aboard. Please ensure your tray table is upright and your dignity is securely stowed in the overhead compartment.
Your examples are an indication of an out of control social breakdown. Whether by design or by default it's happening. Like during covid, some consequences were intended and some weren't.
The fallout from years of indoctrination, the erosion of values in favor of relentless pursuit of wealth is upon us. The "american dream" was a pipe dream all along it seems.
The ship is foundering and steerage isn't going to cut it.
GenX here, ‘73. After 10 years in the US together starting our family (the first four of our five children), in 2014 I suggested that we move to my wife’s native Japan. This country looks rich to my American eyes - because everything’s still functional instead of dysfunctional: both the physical & institutional infrastructures are still functional, healthy. That said, certainly I do suffer homesickness every day, but the move was ultimately all about the children’s futures & us parents’ future end-of-life experience.
… 1995 was my political wake up call. We were in Nowhere Special, France, university students. Sometime after midnight my future wife came down with the first & only UTI of her life.
A young doctor arrived faster than pizza delivery, and administered a shot, and wrote a prescription. The house call cost only $10 (in 1995 USD; that’d be like $40-$50 today 😂 but still a bargain!) And the prescription cost only $6(?); the pharmacy was just around the corner - no car needed, no waiting, no insurance needed.
My political awakening began with the “evils” of socialist medicine. (That means socialist, not communist!)
‘They’ (i.e. my childhood indoctrination in “unbridled capitalism”) had been lying to us about everything, not just medicine it turns out, but e.v.e.r.y.t.h.i.n.g. 😡: employment conditions/ workers’ rights, education, housing, transportation, zoning & small business regulation, the denatured & adulterated food supply, etc., just everything, welfare, Big Pharma, etc.. As my awareness continued to grow, the list of institutional & infrastructure dysfunction just kept growing longer ‘n’ longer over the years 😡
And really, I kept looking for a way out of the US’s “middle class squeeze” ever since 1995. It was lonely talking about it back then because my fellow Americans (Boomers & GenX) didn’t see the problems.
… What a boon social media has been. At least I’m connected now to people who see the problems 👍🙂 “A problem shared is a problem halved.”