A Ghost in the Machine by Daniel D A Ghost in the Machine: part absurdist humor, part armchair philosophy, and part political dissidence! It's all part of Life's rich pageant!

How does the Muslim World see America? Check out this episode (and the next) for a two-part conversation with Ahnaf Ibn Qais, a.k.a., the “Doom Merchant,” author of The Annals of America and The Fall of the West on Substack! This is part one of two, so be sure to also listen to the second part of this interview with here>!
You can also follow The Doom Merchant on Twitter/X at twitter.com/HabibAhnaf9784.
Speaking of Twitter/X, connect with Daniel D there as well at twitter.com/DanielDHumor.
And if you’re on Telegram, join my all resurrected, all new, and totally improved channel at t.me/AGhostInTheMachine.
A Ghost in the Machine is a reader and listener supported publication. To receive new posts and support my work, consider becoming a free or paid subscriber.



Get full access to A Ghost in the Machine at aghostinthemachine.substack.com/subscribe

How does the Muslim World see America? Check out this episode for the second part of my two-part conversation with Ahnaf Ibn Qais, a.k.a., the “Doom Merchant,” author of The Annals of America and The Fall of the West on Substack! This is part two, so if you haven’t already done so, listen to the first part of this interview with here>!
You can also follow The Doom Merchant on Twitter/X at twitter.com/HabibAhnaf9784.
Speaking of Twitter/X, connect with Daniel D there as well at twitter.com/DanielDHumor.
And if you’re on Telegram, join my all resurrected, all new, and totally improved channel at t.me/AGhostInTheMachine.
A Ghost in the Machine is a reader and listener supported publication. To receive new posts and support my work, consider becoming a free or paid subscriber.



Get full access to A Ghost in the Machine at aghostinthemachine.substack.com/subscribe

Greetings and salutations, fellow weirdos, misfits, and heterodox thinkers! Welcome to another episode of A Ghost in the Machine, the Podcast. This time I discuss two excellent posts, Against the Psychologization of Philosophy, by , and The Autism Horseshoe, by . These two essays complement each other quite well and raise some interesting issues. Why do we think the way we do? What do our beliefs, attitudes, and mental habits say about us? And is being neuro-atypical (a.k.a., a “weirdo”) actually a blessing in disguise?
Are the causes of our beliefs psychological or logical? Well, obviously it can be both, and it probably depends on the belief in question, but those beliefs that are attached to a narrative with which we identify are likely to be more deeply rooted in our own psychology than we may care to admit.
As Bob Mayer points out in Who Dares Wins , it can be instructive to approach incidents from our own past the way a detective might approach a crime scene, looking for clues about the type of person who would act (or react) the way we did. If we’re rigorously honest with ourselves, the results of that investigation can be eye opening — perhaps painful to admit, but potentially transformative in a profoundly beneficial way.
Richard Hananiah has conducted just such an investigation into his own life, coming to terms with the way his autism has influenced and even, ultimately, improved his understanding of social dynamics. If you’re on the spectrum yourself, you can no doubt relate to things Hananiah says about his own journey of self-discovery.
Hananiah’s essay raises some intriguing questions about the nature of autism. If you’re “on the spectrum” you know your mind works differently from the average Joe or average Jane. This, in turn, makes it challenging to form a predictive “theory of mind,” since the default is to project one’s own inner state of mind onto others and proceed from there. This is especially true of children. Without even being aware that this is what you are doing, you try to make sense of what another person says and does by imagining what would motivate you to speak or act similarly in the same situation. For the average Joe or average Jane, this method works more often than not, so they probably never even think about it. But for someone who is “neurodivergent,” this method can easily lead to misunderstandings and frustration (and to humorous perspectives on social situations, like what you get from comedians like Jerry Seinfeld and Larry David). For those with sufficient determination and intelligence to take a trial-and-error approach (like a scientist) to social interaction, however, you can overcome this difficulty and end up with more self-awareness and a deeper understanding of human nature than the average person has (which is what Hananiah appears to have done). Of course, it helps to have enough humility to learn from your own mistakes and to seek insights from others.
My own recommendation for “neuro-divergent” young people who want to improve their social functioning is (1) read and seek to apply lessons from Dale Carnegie’s How to Win Friends and Influence People , and (2) get a job that requires you to interact with the public and make a favorable impression on them, like waiting tables.
Anyway, check out both of these excellent posts and, if you are so inclined, the books I referenced as well. (The above links to those books are Amazon affiliate links that kick a few cents my way, at no additional cost to you, if you buy them — or if you buy something completely unrelated that you were planning to get anyway.) And of course, if you have not already subscribed to this most excellent podcast, don’t forget to do so, so you don’t miss out on any future spectrum-y weirdness from yours truly!
A Ghost in the Machine is a reader (and listener!) supported publication. To receive new posts and support my work, consider becoming a free or paid subs

In this episode (and in time for MLK Day), we revisit the “Jewish Question,” the “Black Question,” and the “Neanda Question,” and via airtight logic and unimpeachable evidence we arrive at the inexorable conclusion that Mike Benz should be our next President and that Candace Owens should be Vice President. (And George Soros, Fanni Willis, and Joe Brandon should be given the most “cruel and unusual punishments” imaginable for their crimes.)
Side note: when discussing the upcoming election, I use the first-person plural possessive with you, dear reader and listener, because I want to give you the benefit of the doubt that you are a fellow American — if you are not, this is no doubt due to a moral failing on your part or on the part of your ancestors, but since you are “doing the work” by listening to my podcast, I will extend grace and overlook this flaw in your otherwise noble character and consider you as an honorary American (Lord knows anyone and everyone who wants to waltz across our wide-open southern border is permitted by our catamite government to seize the label “American” for themselves).
If you are listening to this on a podcast app or streaming platform, don’t forget to visit https://aghostinthemachine.substack.com/p/mike-benz-candace-owens-2024 to share your thoughts in the comment section. If you enjoyed this episode, I’d really appreciate it if you’d “like” this post on Substack and share it with a friend, and if you’re listening on Apple or Spotify, please be a pal and leave a glowing review there (even if you have to make up great things to say about it)!
If you want to check out the classic Richard Jeni bit (from A Big Steaming Pile of Me) I reference in this episode, you can do so here:
When it comes to understanding the issues involved in the “Jewish Question,” I cannot recommend highly enough ’s series on the Holocaust and its cultural significance in the post-WWII West (beginning with the the first in the series: “Transed and Nationless: the Post Hitler West (Introduction)”), which is about as fair, nuanced, and comprehensive an examination of this difficult topic as is humanly possible to do on an internet blog (hopefully Mowrey will expand this series into a book). ’s post “The complicated relationship between the central bank owners and the Jewish people” is also excellent. And while you’re at it, check out ’s extremely insightful and nuanced essay about the Rorschach Blot that is pre-Cold War German history, and especially the years of The Mustachioed Maniac: “Hitler, the Ultimate Rorschach Test.”
As for the black/white issues, ’s review of “South Africa's Brave New World” provides a powerful and concise warning about what happens if the race communists win: rapid regression from an advanced and prosperous First-World country, to a dystopian and dysfunctional Third-World shit-hole. Guaranteed. Chose wisely, America! We can follow the wise counsel of Thomas Sowell, or indulge the childish folly of that clownworld con-artist Ibram X Kendi. The choise is ours! (Though with the rise of race communism since the advent of the Obama administration — some “post-racial President” he turned out to be! — we have already been sliding down that slippery slope for several years now.)
And finally, for the Neandas who can be so terrified of being called “racist” or “antisemitic” or “xenophobic” or “Islamophobic” or “misogynistic” or whatever else that they would rather suffer silently under crime and corruption than confront it, has a great post on “toxic empathy” called “Colossus of Troy.” It should be required reading before you can vote. Also, has several excellent posts on the relationship between toxic empathy and narcissism and how it impacts our civilization.
Oh, and one more “finally:” if you have not already done so, you absolutely, positively need to read ’s essay, “Power without Accounta

In this podcast episode, we discuss living well amidst a culture of death. Here’s the TL;DL (Too Long; Didn’t Listen):
* Politics is downstream of Culture, and Culture is downstream of Metaphysics (or Spirituality);
* While it may be helpful, or even necessary, to treat symptoms of an illness, treating the symptoms is no substitute for treating the underlying illness itself;
* The symptoms of illness we see in our politics are a product of the spiritual sickness ravaging our culture — our culture is under the sway of a Spirit of Nihilism, and to quote Walter Sobchak from The Great Lebowski (when he compared Nazism to Nihilism), “Say what you want about the tenets of national socialism, dude, at least it’s an ethos” — the illogical, inconsistent, ever-changing ideology of the Globohomo American Empire (GAE) and its Marxcissist apparatchiks is just a smokescreen to conceal a black hole of bottomless nihilism — their utopia has to be impossible, their revolution can never be completed, because if they ever ran out of things to “fix” in the world, they would have nothing and no one left to blame but themselves, and this is a reality they will avoid at all costs — they would rather destroy the entire world than deal with who and what they actually are;
* Though our culture is in the terminal stage of this spiritual cancer, it has been sick for so long, nobody alive today really remembers a time when our civilization was spiritually cancer-free — given the state our culture was in 50 years ago, or 100 years ago (or who even knows how long ago?), even then it was inevitable that we would reach our current state of accelerating decay and collapse — in other words, there’s no going back to some romanticized vision of a past that didn’t even exist;
* Those with eyes to see are recognizing that something big is happening — for a couple of good examples from Twitter, check out «this» and «this» — it’s like the charged atmosphere right before a lightning strike, where everyone’s hair is standing on end and you can feel the energy building up dangerously around you;
* In Romans 7:21-25, St. Paul distinguished between the Law of God and the “law of sin and death,” and that distinction provides a helpful conceptual framing or metaphor for the spiritual conflict underlying our cultural and political conflicts;
* Think of how an American embassy or military post can be located within the territory of another nation, yet operate under the Law of the USA, as an analogy to St. Paul’s discussion about the Law of God — you can be in Kuwait, but if you are within the boundaries of Ali Al Salem Air Base, you are under the Law of the USA;
* Our civilization is clearly under the law of sin and death, the law of nihilism, the law of suicide and murder, whatever you want to call it — on a civilizational level, things are heading very quickly in a very bad direction;
* If we are in a culture that is subject to the law (or logos or tao) of nihilism, but it is possible for us to connect with God and reorient our consciousness and lifestyle towards Life rather than death, then we can be in an analogous position to the personnel at Ali Al Salem Air Base in Kuwait, who are in Kuwait but not of Kuwait — we can change the governing principle (or logos or tao or law) of our lives from nihilism to Life, from separation from God (and alienation from ourselves and each other) to communion with God (and inner healing and healthier relationships with others);
* In a world of nonstop lies and manipulative propaganda, where institutions and historical records have been corrupted by duplicitous men with malicious intent and then amplified by millions of unwitting dupes and true believers, it can be extremely difficult to know what is of God and what is not, but a helpful heuristic can be abstracted from the words of Jesus in John 10:10:
The thief cometh not, but for to steal, and to kill, and to destroy: I am come

The American ship of has hit the iceberg — or more like a series of icebergs. The CIA-backed coup in 1963 (i.e., the assassination of JFK and the installation of LBJ), the cultural revolution of the 1960s, and Vietnam. The financialization of the economy following whatever the f**k happened in 1971. NAFTA, and all of Ross Perot’s warnings that came to pass in its aftermath. 9/11 and 20 years of GWOT, ending in a disastrously embarrassing withdrawal under Joe Brandon (after which the Taliban emerged stronger and more fully in control of Afghanistan than they had been on 9/11). A fraudulent Iraq War, with trillions of dollars down the drain and thousands of lives needlessly sacrificed, leaving American and the Middle-East less safe and less stable than before. A financial meltdown, to which our bankster-occupied government responded by printing a shit ton of money and giving it all to the very banksters that caused the whole mess, while doing absolutely nothing to help the regular Americans whose livelihoods had been wrecked by the economic cataclysm. The scamdemic, and all the lies and tyranny of psychopathic public officials eager to capitalize on a manufactured crisis. Weaponized federal law enforcement and Soros DAs unleashing anarcho-tyranny with one hand and politically-motivated prosecutions of the regime’s opponents with the other. And now that the military has been thoroughly degraded in terms of its weaponry and personnel, and now that the strategic petroleum reserve has been depleted —not for a national emergency, but for Joe Brandon’s short-term political benefit, the psychopathic war pigs in DC are clamoring for World War III, trying desperately to provoke a fight with Russia and Iran. We are in worse shape than we have ever been — economically, militarily, industrially, culturally, spiritually, physically, etc. — and the next Black-Swan event will reveal the full extent of all our self-destruction over the past several decades . . . and that Black-Swan event could happen anytime (indeed, our governing elites seem hell bent on causing one to occur). With escalating geopolitical tensions, indicators of a looming financial crisis, and all the craziness that the upcoming 2024 election cycle will bring, the collapse phase will probably accelerate sooner rather than later.
So what should we do in light of all this? How should we spend our remaining time before the impending (and inevitable, at this point) collapse? Who deserves our loyalty? And who does not? How do we prepare? Is there a silver lining in all this apparent doom and gloom? Such are the topics of discussion in this podcast episode.
If you’re listening to this on a podcast app or streaming platform, be sure to visit this episode’s post on Substack to join in the conversation via the comment section!
A Ghost in the Machine is a reader (and listener!) supported publication. To receive new posts and support my work, consider becoming a free or paid subscriber.



Get full access to A Ghost in the Machine at aghostinthemachine.substack.com/subscribe