Notes from the edge of civilization: September 7, 2025

The great American past time as behavioral conditioning; casualty planning in France; 'Idiocracy' comes true, AGAIN.

Of all the various takes on the Phillies fan fiasco, one of the most interesting is the theory that the Jumbotron theatrics we’re witnessing are conditioning us for a social credit system — being rewarded or punished for our behavior in public.

For anyone who hasn’t seen it, the scenario is basically this: At the Phillies baseball game on September 5, a player hit a home run into the stands. A man ran over and picked up the ball, then gave it to his son. A woman who had attempted to get the same ball then approached the man, yelling that he "took it from" her and demanding that he give it back. Which he did. Meanwhile, the child looked on in confusion and horror.

People arguing over a ball at a game is as old as baseball itself.

What’s new here is the fact that everyone in the stadium and then millions more people online were invited to watch the archetypal narrative play out: villain, victim, hero. The crowd learns its lesson, the internet weighs in, reputations are made or destroyed in real time.

Half the internet thinks the woman is a jerk. Half thinks the man is a wimp for giving in to her demands. But one Twitter user astutely remarked:

“My new favorite conspiracy theory is that these interactions are staged to normalize social credit scores and utilizing social media to target individuals deemed “bad” by society.”

Think about it: the cheating couple caught at the concert, the nice guy who catches a ball and immediately hands it over to the nearest minor... They’re morality plays plastered on the big screen for all to see, and learn, what we should and should not do to be rewarded. China did exactly the same thing with ‘struggle sessions’ during its cultural revolution. Only, China didn’t have social media back then, which allows the ‘lessons’ here in America to be exponentially broadcast.

Before you claim this is tinfoil hat territory, please know that we’re not saying the baseball league, or the team, sat down and said “let’s prep the masses for a Western social credit system.” But entertainment culture already functions that way: It’s a mini-panopticon where your standing in the tribe depends on whether you play your part properly. And the scary thing is how seamless the transition could be from “the crowd boos Karen” to “your credit score drops 40 points.”

It’s social conditioning and it’s exactly what the technocrats were writing about a century ago. Read it (below) and tell us we’re wrong. You are nothing more than an animal, to be trained like one of Pavlov’s dogs. And if you think that is tinfoil hat, watch our interview with Patrick Wood.

The human animal responds to its external environment through the mechanism of the conditioned reflex, which is a purely automatic but tremendously complex, nervous control mechanism. These conditioned reflexes are, however, subject to control and manipulation through the device of manipulating an individual's environment.

— Technocracy Study Course, page 203

France is apparently asking its hospitals to prepare for thousands of war casualties by March 2026. The country’s health minister, Catherine Vautrin, sent a letter to French health agencies on July 18, asking hospitals to prepare for a potential "major engagement," be aware of the "limitations in wartime," and be ready to care for both French and foreign soldiers in the event of a major conflict.

Now, while this news is important and alarming on its own, what’s crazy is the source. The information was not released via official press release or sober government briefing. It was shared with Le Canard enchaîné, a satirical weekly newspaper that often doubles as France’s leakiest leak machine.

To be clear, the letter is apparently real. Vautrin didn’t deny its existence when she was questioned on national television; she only tried to tamp down fears and spin it as “contingency planning.”

So here we are, just as we were warned: you will hear of wars and rumors of wars, only we didn’t realize the rumors would come sandwiched between political cartoons and off-color jokes. That’s the 21st century for you — where the serious business of preparing for mass casualties leaks out like celebrity gossip, and gets half-mocked and half-ignored.

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Speaking of mockery, the real question we need to ask as a nation, perhaps a species, is whether we even need satire anymore? Truth is so much stranger than fiction, isn’t it? It’s certainly getting hard to tell The Onion or The Babylon Bee from the real news anymore.

Nothing demonstrates that better than the surge in people turning to Google this week to ask: “Is the White House cage match real?”

Sadly, the answer to that question is a resounding “yes.” How is that possible, you ask? Because it’s 2025, that’s how.

We learned this week that the Trump administration is teaming up with the UFC to organize a mixed martial arts competition on the South Lawn of the White House as a way to mark the country’s 250th birthday. Because nothing says ‘enlightened democracy’ more than a cage fight.

There’s really not much more to say than this: Mike Judge, you called it again. Can you please come on the podcast and dissect this insanity for us?

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