PREDICTING CONFLICT

Truth; it’s stranger than fiction. And far more, wonderful. A few years ago a group of academics at a German university launched an unprecedented collaboration with the the German military. Their aims; to amass a database of nonfictional novels, conflicts, to predict.

That first database is become this. This psychographic, poem. This psychographic, novel. Recall. He works — mysteriously. Al-Malhama Al-Kubra — it’s Armageddon. Eschatological scenarios, are numerous. Witness Joe’s warning: Cometh, Armageddon — Joe predicts.

The name of the initiative was Project Cassandra: for the next two years, university researchers would use their expertise to help the German defence ministry predict the future. Cassandra promised to register disturbances five to seven years in advance; that would be, extraordinary. 

In 1914’s prescient The World Set Free, HG Wells wrote of atomic bombs whose radioactive elements contaminate battlefields, decades before the accidents at Chernobyl and at Three Mile Island; decades before even Hiroshima and Nagasaki.

And in 1968 John Brunner’s Stand On Zanzibar imagined Europe’s states forming a collective union, China’s rise as a global power, the economic decline of Detroit and the inauguration of a “President Obomi”. Such events have come to pass. That’s extraordinary.

In George Orwell’s 1949, Nineteen Eighty-Four, in which a one-party state uses “telescreens” to identify people from their expressions and heart rate — written more than half a century before NSA’s Prism surveillance and China’s use of facial recognition software to track its citizens, routinely.

The academics weren’t AI specialists, or scientists, or political analysts. Instead, the people the colonels had sought out in a stuffy top-floor room were a small team of literary scholars led by Jürgen Wertheimer, a professor of comparative literature; and, a netizen.

But Wertheimer theorizes that great writers have a “sensory talent”. Literature, he reasons, has a tendency to channel social trends, moods and especially conflicts that politicians prefer to remain undiscussed, until they break out, in violent fashion, into the open.

“Writers represent reality in such a way that their readers can instantly visualise a world and recognise themselves inside it. They operate on a plane that is both objective and subjective, creating inventories of the emotional interiors of individual lives throughout history.” Writers, at times — write — prophetically.

WHAT’S IN A NAME?

What’s in a name? More importantly, what’s up with meaning? Food for the spirit, is meaning. To that end, there’s a lot to be learned from the shades of meanings. Words like alien and asteroid; fiction and nonfiction; such words, I’ve been considering.

In Greek mythology Cassandra was a daughter of Priam, the King of Troy. Stricken by her beauty, Apollo provided her with the gift of prophecy but when Cassandra refused Apollo’s advances he placed a curse upon her ensuring that nobody would ever believe her warnings.

Cassandra was left accursed with the knowledge of future events. But she could neither alter these events nor convince others of their forthcoming. Cassandra’s name thus came to be associated to a person whose valid warnings are disbelieved by others. Nobody ever believes, their warnings. 

The unique nature of doomsday predictions tends to evoke in others a refusal to believe what at the same time they know to be true. There is a universal tendency toward denial, it being a potent defence against persecutory anxiety and guilt. Nobody ever believes the Cassandras’ warnings. 

Witness Armageddon. Witness, Russia. Witness, Iran. Witness, China. Witness nuclear weapons, including, tactical ones. Everything man touches, gets corrupted. Witness, England. Witness, the United States. Witness, Israel. Witness, the nations. Cometh, Armageddon. 

Witness Armageddon. The climactic great battle; the location, prophesied of a gathering of armies for a battle near the end of the end times. In Islamic theology, Armageddon is referred to in the Hadith as the Al-Malhama Al-Kubra. Al-Malhama Al-Kubra — It’s Armageddon.

Witness me. Who better than me (not The Watcher nor Arthur), to pen this psychographic, epic? Recall. He works, mysteriously. Al-Malhama Al-Kubra; it’s Armageddon. The eschatological scenarios, are numerous. Witness Joe’s warning: Cometh, Armageddon.

How ironic is it? How ironic is it that ‘tis I — amongst all the the men who ever lived (even unto this very day), that was predetermined to be — the Orange One. I would negotiate a postponement, of Armageddon. I would put off for us, Armageddon.

I am the Orange One. By me, I’ve been chosen. The eschatological scenarios are various; numerous even, given the various nations; and cultures. Given too the experiential nature of living and learning, along with a natural propensity for error — I would put off, for us, Armageddon. 

Indeed, I would personally negotiate a postponement of Armageddon. I would put off, for the time being, Armageddon. I would it put it off to some future date; a date, far off, in the future. Disregard, Joe’s warning: Cometh not, anytime soon, Armageddon.

Throw caution to the wind. Witness the winds in Florida; Hurricane Ian. Those treacherous winds; some say they’ve blown up a bridge in Crimea; and an election campaign, in Georgia. Throw not caution, to the wind. I’m no prophet. Cometh tho — an asteroid — and the aliens.

Russia says Crimea is hers. Terrorism. Freedom-fighting. When is enough, enough? My niece Mary wisely once said, “too much — is never enough.” Wiser is Mary, than her uncle. But she don’t know the half of it. She don’t know — I know — some aliens.