Digital Harvest: BlackRock, Vanguard, State Street – Shareholders in the Shadows
Colin Todhunter
Image source
They don’t sell seeds. They don’t own tractors. They don’t run warehouses or ship grain. But BlackRock, Vanguard and State Street are among the most powerful actors in global agriculture.
Together, these three asset managers control more than $26 trillion in assets—more than the GDP of the United States and India combined. They are shareholders in nearly every major agribusiness: Bayer, Cargill, ADM, Nestlé, Deere & Co and more. They don’t compete. They co-own. And through that ownership, they govern.
This is not capitalism as competition. It’s capitalism as quiet coordination.
These firms don’t need to dictate policy. They shape the terrain on which policy is made. Their influence is structural, not spectacular. It’s exercised through boardrooms, shareholder resolutions and capital flows. And it’s largely invisible to the public.
But its effects are everywhere.
According to the Food Barons 2022 report by ETC Group, BlackRock, Vanguard and State Street hold dominant stakes across the agrifood chain—from seeds and chemicals to supermarkets and logistics platforms. In many sectors, they are the top three shareholders in all the major firms. This means that ‘competition’ between companies like Bayer and Syngenta, or Nestlé and PepsiCo, is often little more than a performance. The real power sits behind the curtain.
These firms don’t micromanage. They don’t need to. Their power lies in alignment—in shaping what counts as value, what counts as risk and what counts as acceptable behaviour. And increasingly, that behaviour is being framed through the lens of ESG: Environmental, Social and Governance metrics.
But ESG is not a moral compass. It’s a risk framework.
In recent years, BlackRock and its peers have positioned themselves as climate-conscious investors. They speak of ‘net zero’, ‘transition finance’, and ‘sustainable agriculture’. But this is not about decarbonising the food system. It’s about de-risking portfolios.
The same firms that invest in fossil fuels also invest in carbon offset schemes. The same firms that back industrial agriculture also fund ‘climate-smart’ seed technologies. It’s a hedging strategy, not a transformation.
And in India, this logic is taking root.
Asset managers are increasingly backing land-leasing platforms, agrifintech startups and carbon credit aggregators that promise to ‘unlock value’ from farmland. But unlocking value often means locking farmers into new forms of dependency—on scoring systems, digital compliance and speculative markets they don’t control.
This is not investment. It’s extraction with a sustainability label.
The most dangerous shift in agriculture today is not technological—it’s financial. Land is no longer just a place to grow food. It’s an asset class. A hedge against inflation. A site for data capture and carbon speculation.
In this model, the farmer is not a producer. They are a tenant on someone else’s spreadsheet.
And the spreadsheet is global.
BlackRock doesn’t need to own the land. It just needs to own the firm that owns the firm that leases the land. Through layers of investment vehicles, farmland is being bundled, securitised and traded—often without the knowledge of those who live on it.
This is enclosure without fences. Governance without government.
Asset managers like to present themselves as passive investors. They claim they don’t direct company strategy—they just follow the market. But when you own 5–10 per cent of every major firm in a sector, you are the market.
And when you vote on shareholder resolutions, appoint board members and shape executive pay, you are not passive.
In 2023, BlackRock and Vanguard voted against resolutions that would have required agribusinesses to disclose their impacts on deforestation and land rights. Their justification? The proposals were “too prescriptive”. But what they were really protecting was the freedom to operate without scrutiny.
What makes BlackRock, Vanguard and State Street so dangerous is not that they are evil. It’s that they are structural. They don’t need to conspire. Their incentives are aligned. Their tools are abstract. And their power is exercised through absence—of regulation, of transparency, of accountability.
They are not the villains of this story. They are the architecture.
And that makes them harder to fight.
Food sovereignty is not just about seeds or soil. It’s about power. And power today is financial. It flows through indexes, benchmarks and capital allocations. It decides which crops are grown, which firms survive, and which futures are funded.
And it does so without ever touching the soil.
The above article is taken from Colin Todhunter’s new open-access book Digital Harvest: Unmasking the Corporate Enclosure of Food, which can be read or downloaded via Figshare.
Colin Todhunter specialises in food, agriculture and development and is a research associate of the Centre for Research on Globalization in Montreal. You can read his two free books Food, Dependency and Dispossession: Resisting the New World Order and Sickening Profits: The Global Food System’s Poisoned Food and Toxic Wealth here.
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PR China today: luxury food Lychees dropped in free market price from 60 to 1 yuan per kg due to over production by desperate gambling farmers. No demand.
Chapter 5: The Master and His Emissary
The arrival of Iain McGilchrist transformed the vicarage’s atmosphere entirely. With him came what he called his “Pantheon of Thinkers”—not physical presences, but the intellectual spirits that had shaped his understanding of consciousness, culture, and the crisis of Western civilization.
games create reality, not just describe it. The Circle of Blame works because it’s a language game that makes certain thoughts possible and others impossible. When we speak only in terms of blame and counter-blame, we lose the ability to see the system that benefits from the conflict itself.”
Trump’s Tremendous Skit: [Trump enters wearing a graduation cap] “Iain McGilchrist—very smart guy, probably too smart for his own good, you know what I mean? All this talk about hemispheres and emissaries—sounds like something from Star Wars! But I get it, I totally get it. The left brain, the right brain—I’ve got the best brain, by the way, tremendous brain, some people say the best brain in politics. But here’s what I think he’s saying: we’re all thinking wrong! The computers are making us stupid! Which explains a lot about my Twitter account, to be honest. But seriously, folks, when a Scottish psychiatrist and a reality TV president agree that something’s wrong with how we think, maybe it’s time to pay attention. Though I still don’t understand what an emissary is. Sounds foreign!”
Trump’s Tremendous Skit: [Trump enters, adjusting his tie] “Let me tell you about these neo-reactionary guys, okay? I know them, I know them very well. Tremendous people, really tremendous. Curtis Yarvin—great writer, maybe the best writer, some people say better than Shakespeare, but I don’t know about that. But here’s the thing—they want to make America feudal again! Can you believe it? Feudal! I said to Peter Thiel, I said ‘Peter, we already tried kings, didn’t work out so good.’ But these guys, they think they’re so smart with their computers and their—what do they call it—their ‘exit’ strategies. The only exit I’m interested in is exiting the swamp, not exiting democracy! Though I have to say, some of their ideas about propaganda—tremendous ideas, really tremendous.”
https://open.substack.com/pub/grubstreetinexile/p/a-farewell-to-all-that-the-father?utm_source=share&utm_medium=android&r=l1oox
Concluding Volume in the Dialogues at Father Browns Vicarage will stream live at 7 pm Swedish Time this evening. 6 pm UK Time “Tea Time” Not Afternoon tea but a substitute for the 6pm news.
You Might Wish to fill a glass with Father Browns favourite tipple a small glass of sherry. I will reamain on line for an Hour post the stream
https://www.youtube.com/live/M5XqCtx-9Hg?si=hB1b96z9Ey4O7PgL
Good news from the Guardian:
“Class no longer main dividing line in UK politics, survey shows”
Has class been abolished?
“Age and education now bigger indicators, according to study, which also shows record support for electoral reform”
Indicators of what?
“Age and education have displaced class as the main demographic dividing line in British politics, according to a leading study on trends in public views.
The British Social Attitudes survey, which has run annually since 1983, found that traditional class-based support for parties had diminished.”
Ah so we are talking purely about support for parties. Which tells us nothing about the matter of class and everything about the increasing irrelevance of the electoral system.
… which is the intended outcome. Remember Schwab: No need for elections in the future, as ‘they’ will already know what’s to be done (and we vill be happy, or else).
Solutions? Solutions? Solutions? A new Hitler?
Same factual circumstances was exposed in Germany in the 1930’es. International finance causing hyperinflation.
Ordinary workers carrying their salary home on a wheelbarrow. Today it is your CBDC debt on your flatscreen. https://th.bing.com/th/id/OIP.jgSK_foYObULZf6gl0ywugHaE6
Whilst Big mac is the symbol of poison yet still eaten daily.
Some healthy food outlets will not sell food if the suppliers does not have a sustainability or certain certifications.
Very manipulative on both sides.
My comment from today (4:03 PM) is still pending – please can you publish it, thank you.
I’ll post it again here (just in case you have lost it):
Brilliant article. Talking of digital harvesting and what could lead us to the complete installation of the digital gulag:
I’ve just seen some info that could mean PLANDEMIC #2 could be just around the corner?!?!? Not saying this lighly!
As we all know by now, in this era we need to keep a balance of maintaining our high spirits on the one hand but also be vigilant and be prepared with knowledge and all things practical on the other hand.
Re: vigilance – I only stumbled on the following last night and I think we need to be concerned about it due to the past history and patterns of tyranny we have seen.
There is a US document from Spring 2024 named ‘National Blueprint for Biodefense’ (see below) outlining a training simulation/scenario extremely similar to Event 201 which is stated to occur on 4th July 2025 in the cities of the USA (and then spread worldwide). Well, in the context of the recent Israel and Iran confrontations (and India and Pakistan confrontations, etc) and statements made about so-called ‘sleeper cells’ in countries like the US, and as I just mentioned the history and patterns we have seen (including Event 201 and the subsequent ‘going live’ of the Convid plandemic) – isn’t it vitally important that we remain on guard when new info comes to light? Please could you share the info as widely as you can – I reckon the more people know of this the more difficult it will be for tptb to pull it off.
Hopefully I/we will be wrong about this scenario ‘going live’ (although some of the other simulations did including covid) but isn’t it better to be paranoid and prepared rather than sorry and enslaved by the digital gulag? Like the document ‘Silent Weapons for Quiet Wars’ outlines: all the following things could be a multi-pronged weapon to use as a ‘cover’, an excuse to roll-out the digital gulag and forced jabs on all of us: things like plandemics, financial collapse, civil war, WW3, cyber attacks (Cyber Polygon), extreme weather to herd us into cities (DEWs and scalar weapons and infrastructure sabotage and geoengineering), energy routes collapse (due to confrontations with Iran) and subsequent energy and food lines being disrupted and probable future shortages? Please note that I personally have an inkling that any symptoms from this bio-attack may well come from the 5G/Wi-Gig weapons system rolled-out all around us now (so probably wise to keep that at the back of our minds too because we live in an era of such deception and the scale of it is so very deep that it would not surprise me if this telecoms stuff is involved too).
=== Document ‘National Blueprint for Biodefense’:
https://biodefensecommission.org/wp-content/uploads/2024/05/National-Blueprint-for-Biodefense-2024_final_.pdf
=== Summary of the document (H/T to @FluxxState):
•Date: July 4, 2025
•Event: A large-scale bioterrorist attack using biological weapons during Independence Day celebrations
•Impact:
•280,000 Americans killed
•800,000+ sickened in a single day
•Coordinated attacks in allied nations
•Purpose: To describe inter-agency coordination challenges and consequences of failed preparedness
=== A couple of interesting videos on this new plandemic scenario (and the second video also has some of the history of data collection linked to our computers, mobiles, landlines, etc by the tech-military industry over the many decades much of it well before this recent palantir era too).
VIDEO 1: Part of the Syncromystic Podcast with Richard Willett and @Alchemical_Tech:
https://video.twimg.com/amplify_video/1937201742023639040/vid/avc1/1920×1080/Lk1YQd8KMBoV45mM.mp4
VIDEO 2: Plandemic 2.0: The July 4th Bioterror Plot & Palantir’s Master Plan w/ Dr. David Martin:
https://rumble.com/v6ua26z–plandemic-2.0-the-july-4th-bioterror-plot-and-palantirs-master-plan-w-dr.-.html
Thank you for your vigilance and sharing of info and also keeping your spirits up despite all the tyranny – so very much appreciated!
Shit. I wanted to have a picnic.
Sounds like the project 2025 blueprint.
If the links don’t work, try these:
https://video.twimg.com/amplify_video/1937201742023639040/vid/avc1/1920×1080/Lk1YQd8KMBoV45mM.mp4
https://rumble.com/v6ua26z–plandemic-2.0-the-july-4th-bioterror-plot-and-palantirs-master-plan-w-dr.-.html
One week into my holiday fogging shiiiiiiiit. I am sick and tired of this bs!
Are you sure Uncle Sam isnt going to just show up a year early at some post office, this is a bit far fetched and tipsy
“Together, these three asset managers control more than $26 trillion in assets”
That is what they tell you but is it true. They could be lying. In fact they admit they do not control the assets. They can advise on what to do with assets. Lobby and bribe to get what they want, But it is all based on confidence. That elusive confidence like the kings new clothes that did not exist. So long as everyone agreed the non existing clothes looked good. But the thing about exponential growth. Is it sort of spirals out of control like derivatise were the 700 trillion or more or maybe not. A Ponzi scheme like Enron to big to fail. They are the flavour of the day but fashion is so fickle. Will there own greed be there down fall if everything you touch turns to gold you will starve to death.
rewilding
During the seventh year, you must let the land rest.Leviticus 25 NCV
In Israel, every seventh year is supposed to be a sabbath year when farmers don’t raise crops.
Bible Gateway
https://www.biblegateway.com › verse
And let there be trees on the land that grow fruit with seeds in it. Let … It happened just as God said. WEB. God said, “Let the earth yield grass
Let the earth eat grass?
The American woman replied again:
[My nickname], I am fine with agreeing to disagree but I keep responding to get clarification on certain things you are saying. For instance I don’t understand the following paragraph you wrote:
“Perhaps they are so prudish that they only make love in the dark like shy nuns or inexperienced teenagers? Which in my opinion is as fulfilling as eating in the dark. Are you sure you live on the same continent as your fellow citizens?”
I never said American women act like nuns when having intercourse in the privacy of a bedroom. There is a difference between that and walking in a park naked.
I notice in a lot of your examples you only focus on women. This is typical in a country like America where female nudity is considered sexual and male is considered funny but both are considered inappropriate ( I didn’t create this concept of funny vs sexual but this is just how it is). In Europe I get the impression that nudity is viewed equally for both sexes. So I just find it interesting that in a lot of your examples you are only talking about women and not men. I bring this up mostly out of curiosity and not to argue. As a European I figured you would talk about men too when giving examples to make your point. Or maybe you are just trying to relate to me as an American.
My answer:
Dear [her nickname], thank you very much, I appreciate your interest. Unfortunately, comments on my part in which nude men were also discussed have not (yet?) been activated, but men can also be seen in Vigeland Park (there are some videos about it on YouTube).
The fact that naked femininity is equated exclusively with sexuality is probably a consequence of Christianization and the moral judgement that goes hand in hand with it. Naked women are seen as witches who are in league with the devil and intend to tempt the weak spirit of men.
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Luis_Ricardo_Falero
We now live in a “shame(hair)-less society” (Schamhaar means pubic hair). Not even the biblical fig leaf still exists as a privacy shield. Man is desecrated and limited to his genitals through pornocratization.
I strongly suspect that the unmanly fear of mature femininity is also behind this, as is the case with the popularization of this whole infantilizing manga culture that caters to the cuteness scheme. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Cuteness
I don’t think Americans are very different from European whites. Perhaps the Amish or Mennonites have stricter moral codes. In contrast to them, who have many children with one partner, polygamy was not taboo among the Mormons for a long time.
I think it’s right and good when women and girls don’t dress and act like hookers, and when American women don’t do that, they are respectable. But as everything has two sides, you can overdo it with abstinence and impose it on yourself as a kind of “divine punishment”.
“And God blessed them, and God said unto them, Be fruitful, and multiply, and replenish the earth, and subdue it…” (Genesis 1:28)
Brilliant article. Talking of digital harvesting and what could lead us to the complete installation of the digital gulag:
I’ve just seen some info that could mean PLANDEMIC #2 could be just around the corner?!?!? Not saying this lighly!
As we all know by now, in this era we need to keep a balance of maintaining our high spirits on the one hand but also be vigilant and be prepared with knowledge and all things practical on the other hand.
Re: vigilance – I only stumbled on the following last night and I think we need to be concerned about it due to the past history and patterns of tyranny we have seen.
There is a US document from Spring 2024 named ‘National Blueprint for Biodefense’ (see below) outlining a training simulation/scenario extremely similar to Event 201 which is stated to occur on 4th July 2025 in the cities of the USA (and then spread worldwide). Well, in the context of the recent Israel and Iran confrontations (and India and Pakistan confrontations, etc) and statements made about so-called ‘sleeper cells’ in countries like the US, and as I just mentioned the history and patterns we have seen (including Event 201 and the subsequent ‘going live’ of the Convid plandemic) – isn’t it vitally important that we remain on guard when new info comes to light? Please could you share the info as widely as you can – I reckon the more people know of this the more difficult it will be for tptb to pull it off.
Hopefully I/we will be wrong about this scenario ‘going live’ (although some of the other simulations did including covid) but isn’t it better to be paranoid and prepared rather than sorry and enslaved by the digital gulag? Like the document ‘Silent Weapons for Quiet Wars’ outlines: all the following things could be a multi-pronged weapon to use as a ‘cover’, an excuse to roll-out the digital gulag and forced jabs on all of us: things like plandemics, financial collapse, civil war, WW3, cyber attacks (Cyber Polygon), extreme weather to herd us into cities (DEWs and scalar weapons and infrastructure sabotage and geoengineering), energy routes collapse (due to confrontations with Iran) and subsequent energy and food lines being disrupted and probable future shortages? Please note that I personally have an inkling that any symptoms from this bio-attack may well come from the 5G/Wi-Gig weapons system rolled-out all around us now (so probably wise to keep that at the back of our minds too because we live in an era of such deception and the scale of it is so very deep that it would not surprise me if this telecoms stuff is involved too).
=== Document ‘National Blueprint for Biodefense’:
https://biodefensecommission.org/wp-content/uploads/2024/05/National-Blueprint-for-Biodefense-2024_final_.pdf
=== Summary of the document (H/T to @FluxxState):
•Date: July 4, 2025
•Event: A large-scale bioterrorist attack using biological weapons during Independence Day celebrations
•Impact:
•280,000 Americans killed
•800,000+ sickened in a single day
•Coordinated attacks in allied nations
•Purpose: To describe inter-agency coordination challenges and consequences of failed preparedness
=== A couple of interesting videos on this new plandemic scenario (and the second video also has some of the history of data collection linked to our computers, mobiles, landlines, etc by the tech-military industry over the many decades much of it well before this recent palantir era too).
VIDEO 1: Part of the Syncromystic Podcast with Richard Willett and @Alchemical_Tech:
https://video.twimg.com/amplify_video/1937201742023639040/vid/avc1/1920×1080/Lk1YQd8KMBoV45mM.mp4
VIDEO 2: Plandemic 2.0: The July 4th Bioterror Plot & Palantir’s Master Plan w/ Dr. David Martin:
https://rumble.com/v6ua26z–plandemic-2.0-the-july-4th-bioterror-plot-and-palantirs-master-plan-w-dr.-.html
Thank you for your vigilance and sharing of info and also keeping your spirits up despite all the tyranny – so very much appreciated!
Very good analysis by Colin. Thank you.
Money is god in capitalism. Money makes money without ever producing anything.
Money was an invention to establish the idea of private property, the idea that some individual could forcefully own the land and take it away from everyone else.
Private property is stolen from others to benefit someone who says he owns it.
We are talking about the planet Earth. Some firm, a company, a business, an organization owned by someone owns this planet. How could that happen?
Money is the owner of this planet and everything in it. So say those who have money. They made us believe in it. How could that happen?
This man-made god called money or private property has always been at war against its enemies. And anyone can be its enemy if perceived that way.
As money exists only for itself, it was necessary to make people believe in it, even when it’s totally fabricated and evil.
This article brings to mind the banking oligarchs who gathered on a train to Jeckly Islandin 1910 for a secret meeting where the Federal Reserve was created.
Instead of competing the idea was to cooperate, as this article describes about Vanguard et al.
What a world.
Agree whole-heartedly that Environmental and Sustainability Goals are a Risk Management framework whose enforcement will not only control the economy, but commodify and dictate the roles of the participants in that economy.
I believe that they (Vanguard, Blackrock et al) are also shareholders in each other, which seems to muddy the waters still further.
Or helps to pinpoint those list of culprits behind the veil to be blamed for all the ills of humanity?
Anyway, there are rich people and there are poor people. Little change in the big scheme of things, it would seem since the dawn of time 🤔
Money was created in a historical time and place by certain people. It hasn’t always existed.
The State organization was created to protect the money system, as money requires violence to maintain it. This violence isn’t just physical extermination of living things; it is mental and psychological abuse where people are forced to believe in the Money-god.
Money is based on belief, and only in it.
The Money-go-round.’
Just watched the BBC News and it’s remarkable the way they base just about every story on obvious bullshit which they now just take for granted- the “threat posed by Iran”, the climate change shit and the covid shit.
Oh and how could I have forgotten the obligatory item about how AI is paying the way for a cure in etc etc.
That should be paving the way.
“Why BBC editors must one day stand trial for colluding in Israel’s genocide
In a confrontation with BBC news chief Richard Burgess, journalist Peter Oborne sets out six ways the state broadcaster has wilfully misled audiences on Israel’s destruction of Gaza
Veteran journalist Peter Oborne eviscerated the BBC this week over its shameful reporting of Gaza – and unusually, he managed to do so face-to-face with the BBC’s executive news editor, Richard Burgess, during a parliamentary meeting…
Oborne’s remarks relate to a new and damning report by the Centre for Media Monitoring, which analysed in detail the BBC’s Gaza coverage in the year following Hamas’ one-day attack on 7 October 2023. The report found a “pattern of bias, double standards and silencing of Palestinian voices.” These aren’t editorial slip-ups. They reveal a systematic, long-term skewing of editorial coverage in Israel’s favour…”
Why BBC editors must one day stand trial for colluding in Israel’s genocide
Havent you heard that? BBC was sold to an investment company and and restructured into AI and ChatGpt more than 12 years ago. AI is handling everything now.
I love it. Technology is so fantastic.
Chat GPT slop.
“It’s not this, its that.” AI output is ever so obvious and cringeworthy.
You can do better, Colin.
Tis ‘Neti Neti’ Tori.
You’re barking up the wrong Bodhi Tree.
What is strange about Todhunter ‘s article is that he does not tackle the question of the economic beneficiaries of these 3 asset managers. His article implies by omission that these firms are self-serving. Far from it.
That is, if Larry Fink and the entire staff of Blackrock quit from one day to the next it makes not a jot of difference initially to those getting the dividends. Which does not mean they may not divest from the firm in question if the new management fails to deliver.
AFAIK it is impossible to get a list of the beneficiaries: the House of Windsor? the Sauds? Qatar? the Black Nobility? Khazars? Space Lizards? the Vatican?
No, the firms are serving the system they are part of. Dean Henderson, more than a decade ago, wrote who the ultimate beneficiaries of the system are.
So who are they?
Look it up. The article is on Global Research. Eight banking families.
And all the rest of everyday Joe’s who invest in any of the companies owned by Vanguard, et al.
Of which there are many, I’m sure.
Yes to all your question marks.
As I use to say, “Rothschild is only financial economic advisor for the Queen, wake me up when the Queen is hanging in a lamp post”.
The tactics are those of colonialism, colonial wars,
and revolutions always happen in times of war. But this is a revolution from above. It is no coincidence that the intelligence in war gear is at the service and protection of the absolute power of the main financial centers of the planet: they are the ones who accelerate the process of social and economic disintegration of entire nations. Anyone who opposes is considered an enemy, a terrorist, like the Palestinians who oppose the expropriation of their territories by Israel. Who controls Palantir and in whose favor or what does he do it?
Keees van der Pijl writes:
– The world has been forced by the oligarchy into a revolutionary situation and must choose between submission or a viable alternative that leads to the expropriation of the billionaire owners of what Marx calls the “social brain”. In this process, a broad and politically diverse freedom movement will emerge that will restore and renew democracy by exploiting the possibility of the information revolution for a sustainable human future, otherwise it will be the end.-
It seems that Van der Pijl was even too optimistic when he wrote these words.
Perhaps the deadliest of the seven deadly sins is greed.
Of that, there’s no doubt.
The others don’t even come close.
Can agree that globalists are trying to take over world food production/ security. They succeeded in much of the world but not yet in India, which is something to celebrate.
Western billionaires took over the UN, WHO, IMF, IPCC etc. and implanted their ESG goals to control the billions of plebs. They use money and technology for this but the game is now at a tipping point of being found out. Nations in the South will take their money but not their policies. Their rule based world hinges on patents a la Microsoft Windows to for ever monetize their little input. The South will play them by their own rules, just like the example of Uncle Sam does himself. The U$ will self destruct internally soon enough.
For simplicity, it’s just Vanguard. State Street’s top three holders are Vanguard, BlackRock and State Street itself. BlackRock’s top three holders are Vanguard, BlackRock and State Street. This is the definition of circular ownership. The biggest questions remains: who is behind Vanguard?
Vanguard, definition:
noun:
• The foremost position in an army or fleet advancing into battle.
Yep, waging an economic war against the Useless Eaters.
GREED WITHOUT BORDERS.
I got their mandate; it’s pretty clear. But it would be interesting to know the names behind the “private” ownership of Vanguard.
Ha! From
https://hannenabintuherland.com/asia/corporate-power-who-owns-the-world/
Vanguard has a unique structure that blocks us from seeing who the actual shareholders are. “The elite who own Vanguard don’t want anyone to know they are the owners of the most powerful company on earth.”
In this connection, Catherine Fitts in the recently posted “Their vision, your future” video seems to laugh off any inquiry – “If you know the name they’re not at the top“.
Surely she can do better than that! Since these people want to be anonymous, wouldn’t a serious attempt to name (and shame), including domicile(s) be a worthwhile exercise?
Yeah, what’s up with that. She implies she knows the names, as opposed to us. Why won’t she name the names?
Leaning over backwards to be fair to her, maybe she fears she’s already at the edge of what they will tolerate? I don’t know.
But 150 years ago the then Lord Roths was the subject of Punch cartoons and bawdy music hall ditties. Then they bought up the press. It would be a worthwhile exercise to clearly name some real world identities and with internet and social media it must be possible to do that risk free t this point in time. Maybe not for too much longer!
There are reports that Iran ‘may have removed its enriched uranium
stockpile to other secret sites.’
If the sites are secret, how do we know that they’re secret ? Because
they are secret ? But if we know they are secret, then how can they
be secret ?
Reminds me of ‘Germ Theory’… Virologists not having proved virus
exist still claim viruses exist… “They exist, therefore they exist !” (Des Cartes)
If the sites are secret, how do we know that they’re secret ? Because
they are secret ? But if we know they are secret, then how can they
be secret ?
I suggest it’s another case of double-dutch nonsense a la Rumsfeld – There are known unknowns and unknown unknowns 🙂
The Liars are being rewarded:
Free at last
As Mark Carney and Lord Winterbottom said, “either you are with us and will be handsomely rewarded (with usury loans), or you are with the terrorists and will be erased from the earth surface.”
Threatening the entire world with “Financial Armageddon”.
Isnt it fantastic that people who only claim hot air ownership to fiat paper and now hot air figures a inside a computer, can make people so afraid?
It was only a matter of time before number crunchers became the Hit Squad for the Ruling Psychopaths.
Economists, accountants, financial advisors, MBAs etc, all have one thing in common: COLD BLOODED INSATIABLE GREED.
Human beings and Mother Nature do not figure in their calculations.
Profit for profit’s sake, not ‘nuclear’ weapons, will bring the world undone.
It’s happening right in front of us.
Thanks Colin.
Coincidentally, and fortuitously, this piece confirms the above:
https://stylman.substack.com/p/everyone-was-just-doing-their-job
Specialists in every field are blinded by their trained TUNNEL VISION.
Fuck em.
‘Ultimately it would require all of us frail, stupid, ignorant human beings to admit our limitations and rationally, objectively pursue the evidence – regardless of where it leads. It would require Intellectual Integrity and a Clinical Attitude Toward Arguments. Not to mention the removal of monetary & political influence ($$$) with regards to outcomes and expectations. Science claims to do that today, but it unequivocally does not.’
Common sense is not that common.
More here:
http://www.artofwondering.com/2023/02/24/specialization-vs-generalization/
Where do you think we are heading Johnny? Is it a case of that by the time we reach a certain age the realisation dawns that we can only try to save ourselves – don’t bank on the masses to do much about it?
More of the same I think Joshua, unless some worldwide catastrophe occurs.
Divide and conquer schemes. All in the 8 circle are doing their fragment and expect it to be good in the end, but the 8 Sisyphus circle never ends.
“Thank you always for sharing such thoughtful posts.
In the past, they used to hide behind the ideology of conservatism.
Now, they hide behind the banner of progressivism—
using environmental issues, the weakest link of the progressive movement,
as a front to deceive the public.”
Good piece but their control is revealed in the comment, they don’t need to conspire.
“Their power lies in alignment—in shaping what counts as value, what counts as risk and what counts as acceptable behaviour. And increasingly, that behaviour is being framed through the lens of ESG: Environmental, Social and Governance metrics.”
These trillion dollar asset management firms direct the intelligence agencies to reshape how nation-states are governed to suit their economic needs as well as to sustain power.
Case in point is Iran, while the West initially supported the Shah, particularly for his role in containing Soviet influence and as an oil producer, concerns grew over his domestic policies and the potential for instability and civil war.
Fearing a socialist revolution and the nationalizing of Iran’s oil the
CIA coalesced around religious leaders like Ayatollah Khomeini.
The CIA even provided information to Khomeini’s government about communists, this was to suppress the Tudeh Party. 🤑
Ayatollah Khomeini actually nationalized oil, I don’t know from the Covid era onwards, and from 2024, which saw a change at the top of Iranian power, but Iran was in fact a theocracy with a socialist economic system, not by chance it has always been in the crosshairs of the West and its neoliberal economic system.
You can’t deny historical facts the MI6 and CIA overthrew Mosadegh and replaced him with the Shah and then when his regime caused instability intelligence agencies rallied around the Ayatollah as they preferred Mullahs over Marxism. 🤑 Historically, Empires always install and then overthrow satrap regimes.
Kissinger said: “It may be dangerous to be America’s enemy, but to be America’s friend is fatal.” 😁
Those huge companies set the tone in the agricultural field – which affects us further down the chain, its frightening knowing that they have such a tight grip on many aspects of agriculture via owning other companies, is it all about maximising profits, or is something more sinister afoot – can it – is it, being weaponised against us in one form or another – food is vital, and for these firms to have such a grip on it via smaller firm closer to the coal face – leaves the masses vulnerable to their whims – these firms have cemented their position in this field – (and other too) so it looks like we’re beholden to whatever they have planned in the agriculture field.
Very worrying, thanks for the information!
Not just thank you. I admire you for bringing out the truth.
This is not just alarming. It is terrifying.
__
Bloobock, what do you think about the problem?
It’s not the problem science fiction had prepared us to face, that’s for sure! We were warned that AI would drain the meaning out of life by doing everything better than we can. We weren’t warned about this dismal prologue that we’re living through right now, in which AI does everything worse than we can do it… but for free. It truly is the end of human involvement in planetary-scale culture as anything other than consumers — the hard, cold realities of capitalism ensure that. There’s no way back. No corporation will ever again pay a human to do a great job slowly and for a living wage when a machine will do an acceptable job in five hundred milliseconds and for free.
Luddism. It’s the only future for humanity. The only future with any dignity, anyway. We have to abandon planetary scale culture entirely. Listen to humans whose humanity is verifiable. Bards, minstrels, soapbox populists, people at the pub. This other destiny — to be a captive audience for LLMs — is not just humiliating. It is unendurable.
Ned is the teacher.
Ned Nelson? Tudo Passará
Eu te dei meu amor por um dia
E depois, sem querer, te perdi
Não pensei que o amor existia
Que também choraria por ti
Mas tudo passa, tudo passará
E nada fica, nada ficará
Só se encontra a felicidade
Quando se entrega o coração
https://youtu.be/U67yRLO43TI
Trying to do my bit as an ageing busker Bloobock.
Mixed in with my Love songs (After all Love is supposed to make the world go round), I throw in some songs about the journey of Life we all share, political protests, and silly songs about the absurdity of living in a damaged world.
Most Folks seem to enjoy them, though I can’t afford a Rolls Royce yet.
Good for you, man. Where do you ply your trade?
To my shame, until computers hollowed out the modern world, I’d been blind to the critical importance to humanity of your profession, and I haven’t given near enough time or money to the buskers I’ve encountered. Keep that flame alive. Use it to burn down the rest of this Potemkin Civilization.
I play on the streets up and down the East coast of Australia.
I Love it Bloobock: Smiling faces, dancing kids, interesting conversations and some petty cash to help cover my costs.
Thats what I thought. So Ned Nelson was bull’s eye.
I apologize for the delayed response, Bloobock. While I was thinking about an answer for here, I got tangled up in answers under other articles and, because I have limited energy… I apologize if it seems disrespectful.
You again explain perfectly (but as a person) the situation and I have nothing to add. As well as in your previous comments, which for me personally are terribly useful. (The only thing I think differently, or at least I doubt, is
*The only thing I think differently, from my profane, about the question, bell tower, or at least I doubt, is that, although the mechanics of the process you describe led to the imposition of the model “Not A; B” is most likely accurate, I doubt that, being something so obviously influential and already widespread, it was started by “a single, low-paid assessor during the RLHF phase of the training process”, as you explain here.
I don’t know how wild conspiratorial it sounds to you, but this “Not A, but B”, reminds me very much of the model, the intensive application of which we observe around us, especially in recent years, of creating clearly opposite images of all kinds that are at war with each other (but, if you dig deeper, something is always wrong at the back and at the bottom, there are contradictions and doubts about some common game with a different from the obvious goal).
Do you see a realistic possibility, through the diligent imposition of this model “No A; B” to aimed, for example, to influence deeper thought processes among broad sections of the population who consume all sorts of slop from these LLM models (without knowing it, as you said), thus facilitating the perception of the deliberately increased to extreme degrees of models of social, ideological, political and other types of division? For example, in order to manage settings and collapse to certain predetermined choices? Or some other purpose.
Too conspiratorial and/or complicated, maybe; maybe is more simple. I don’t know, I’m just pondering the possible reason behind such an apparently widespread spread and imposition.
_____
Beyond that, if you have a blog where you describe the things you talk about in your comments (and others), you have at least one reader in my person, provided that I find out the address of this blog, if there is one. If not, I’ll settle for your comments here, they’re pretty descriptive and helpful, after all. : )
The whole mystery about this repetition is that I open a lot of windows with different pages that I look at, and it happened that while writing a comment, I close the window with what I wrote. And that’s why I first write (some of) my comments in a separate simple text file, that’s how such repetitions happen. (Although when you write a comment here, if you accidentally click on the X, the Off-G software first asks you “Do you want to close the window?”, but my healthy habit remains.) I’m human, I can even handle Captcha! (From the easier ones, of course.)
I just wanted to clarify. (But we’re Borg, after all.)
Warte auf den Brunnenstein.
Wait for the fountain stone.
In a supporting role: Morde-
chai Levi M. (a.k.a. “Marx”).
Subtitles at the bottom edge.
Why Afrikaans sounds more similar to Low German
than Dutch could also be because the Low Frankish
Afrikaans is strongly influenced by “Saxon” English,
which is ultimately a kind of sibling of Low German.
The similarity between Franconian & Saxon, which
have an unmistakable common root, is astonishing.
The Christianized Franks subjugated pagan Saxons.
https://www.perplexity.ai/search/is-it-possible-that-afrikaans-czWYlOaTTqGmxU2GleGV4A
“Low Saxon – The Secret Language of NW-Europe”
No playlist exists,
but I created one.
https://linkmix.co/39948685
https://www.perplexity.ai/search/https-www-youtube-com-watch-v-4uoEFNXFTlyIGrgEJIfe.A
Description: “Martin ter
Denge, a Low Saxon enthu-
siast and artistic regional
language fanatic, performs
his song ‘Dit is Twente’.”
Translation lyrics:
A man sings about New Orleans
Blue Eyes from New York
The French find Paris very beautiful
The Irish sing about Cork
Wherever you go
They write songs about their places.
It must be beautiful there,
But they shouldn’t exaggerate
Because this is Twente, this is my place
No matter how far I go from here
I always come back
This is Twente, this is my place
I could have been born anywhere
But it just happened to be here
Somewhere else it must also be very beautiful
I haven’t denied that.
I’d like to go and have a look there sometime
But I always end up back here.
Here lives my people
Here I know my neighbor and his brother too
Here I know every little tree
Here people walk just as beautifully as I do
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=VPhP9A_svmo
Mr. ter Denge: “We’re Dutch, we’re not German.” Well, dear Martin: You are undoubtedly kinda German – you’ve just forgotten it! Even your founding father William of Orange sings in your national anthem that he is “of German blood”. Of course, the Germanophobes among the Wikipedia admins falsify this to “Dutch” in the English translation.
What’s more, the Dutch’s choice of partner seems to contradict their supposed reservations about their neighbors. According to the 2014 study, no one in Europe prefers Belgians, French, Dutch and Portuguese of either s*x. British women are also not sought after. Spanish women are said to be the most desirable for almost everyone else.
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Frau_Antje
The reality:
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=vElGt0mcYpE
Was kinda hoping the elegant gentleman would be Peter Kropotkin.
Now, HE had something to say.
Tolstoy called him ‘The White Buddha’.
This is clearly a deliberate reinterpreta-
tion of a genuine Irish rune stone for po-
litical reasons. The true inscription reads:
“In 1200 years time there will be an impostor
standing on this spot, pretending to be a scholar
and distorting my meaning. You will recognize
him by a leathern flat cap that hides his baldness
and which he wears even in his sleep and in the
shower. There is nothing but hot air underneath.”
Only PhD Empty Shell himself knows why he
quotes Jews in connection with Germanism,
but wears a Thor’s hammer around his neck.
https://scottshelldotnet.wordpress.com/about-me/
Moreover, it is cowardly and indecent to
hide behind Jews who insult other Jews.
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Anatoly_Liberman
ps.
Fake rune decrypter/debunker “Docta Lindsay”
What a beautiful hybrid baby:
It smiles like Buddha himself!
What is “dis”, a self-description?