I want to preface that the contents of this post is for informational purposes. I do not condone or approve of any harassments or witch-hunting or the attacking of anybody.
 
Richard Lewis recently did a stream talking about the terrible state of CS esports and I thought it was an important stream anyone who cares about the CS community should listen to.
Vod Link here: https://www.twitch.tv/videos/830415547
I realize it is 3 hours long so I took it upon myself to create a list of interesting points from the stream so you don't have to listen to the whole thing, although I still encourage you to do so if you can.
I know this post is still long but probably easier to digest, especially in parts.
Here is a link to my raw notes if you for some reason want to read through this which includes some omitted stuff. It's in chronological order of things said in the stream and has some time stamps. https://pastebin.com/6QWTLr8T

Intro

• "The last month has convinced me, that we are going to be heading into a dark place for Counter-Strike esports in 2021."
  • "I think I've seen the scene essentially kill itself."
• "For the past 5 to 6 years, we've basically been in a holding pattern of people coming into our game wanting to run it, wanting to run all of the esports and wanting to profiteer and its been sort of a concerted effort to drive them off and push them away."
  • "We're spread way too thin."
• "If Riot don't get involved and stop the scumbags that have moved over to Valorant from getting their feet under the table, Valorant is going to have real problems."
• RL thinks too much has happened all at once for us to do anything except watch it play out, like:
  • Recent CSPPA strike against BLAST
  • ESIC failures and them not being supported enough
  • Teams cheating i.e. coaches/bugs
  • Widespread match fixing
  • The Pandemic
    • "People who try to hold bubble events are so incompetent and fuck up and people get the 'rona and its their fault."
    • "People who say Flashpoint is a bubble is full of shit and is a lie and people are now suffering for that lie."
      • "To save money they let people go home and break the bubble for a week."
      • "Not just Flashpoint peoples decision, they have a partner that handles the production." (hinting FACEIT)
      • "People are trapped in hotels essentially under house arrest because of COVID restrictions and has fucked peoples lives up."
• "It's all too much, all of this incompetence, all of this greed, maybe we ride it out."
  • RL says he has talked to the Riot devs (the ones working on Valorant) and says, "They are so cognizant of all the fuck ups and all the problems we have in Counter-Strike."
    • He continues to say that this is factored into their business plan and that we never had a competitor, but just so happens to have one coincide, when we are at our worst.

CSPPA - Counter-Strike Professional Players' Association

"Who does this union really fucking serve?"

• RL believes that the CSPPA is a mockery.
  
  • He points out the hypocrisy that they wouldn't strike for the pros who were kicked out of ESL Pro League, or for Jamppi or dream3r.
    • He also says ESL paid CSPPA and are racketeering and many other TOs have to pay them to get their "seal of approval"
      • He says they would strong-arm TOs saying "well if you don't give us the money, these guys are so we'll just have to commit to playing their event."
    • Also points out that they will strike against a competitor they are not in agreement with (Flashpoint)
    • RL: "It's what it says about every other time you haven't done it and it's about every time you don't do it now moving forward." "The issues they've chosen to ignore this year alone are embarrassing."
    • Then he points out that there was no strike for Valve qualifiers even if we have no major but Jamppi and dream3r can't play in them.
      • "and Valve have said 'Oh yeah we know actually their stories are accurate, Jamppi didn't cheat, now in a legally binding document. Yep dream3r did have his account hacked in a LAN café', but they still can't play. Where is the fucking solidarity? Gone. Doesn't exist. It's not important [because] it doesn't affect you." "That's what the union does right now, it looks after all the tier 1 people."
• He says the CSPPA doesn't represent all players all the time and has driven a divide where you have the haves and have-nots
  
  • "We have a tier of players that operate with impunity and do not help their tier 2 or tier 3 players out at all." "If you are not a tier 1 player you do not matter, they don't event ask your opinion."
  • He tells chrisJ to admit and own the fact that the reason he didn't speak up during the ESL Pro League debacle is because it didn't affect him
  • "They are looking after some players at the expense of other players. How the fuck is that a union?"
• He says the BLAST situation is a reasonable dispute and supports the players but is not the right time for a strike and have not even identified the correct enemy
  
  • He thinks players are lashing out now due to previous incidents and are upset that BLAST are working with ESIC
    • He stated that CSPPA shouldn't beefing with ESIC and they should be working in harmony
  • He says what they need to do is talk with the teams/organizations that have sold that right to BLAST
    • RL: "Your employers, the people who pay you that massive exorbitant salaries, when you don't stream and you don't do interviews and you offer no value beyond your ability to click heads and you get 25k dollars a month." "Why don't you talk to them about it? Oh right. You're happy to take away BLAST's paper, but you don't want to risk your own."
  • "I am seeing such unbelievable cowardice from the players here with the battles you choose."
  • "Where was the strike action when in the qualifiers for the world championship, there were teams and players engaged in huge conflicts of interest?" "Where was the strike action when your image rights were taken and sold to every league you've ever been in every union type organization you've ever been associated with like, WESA, to your org every time you sign a contract, to the leagues you play in."
    • "Your image rights are essentially worthless now, there's about 10 fucking separate parties that have them, and how many of them are giving you anything for it? Not much pretty much your org by the way."
    • "That's a big issue. Your image is you, your image is your brand. What are you doing about that? Nothing."
• He is also angry at SirScoots who is "popping off" at people on Twitter who all want the same thing, which is 'A unified Counter-Strike scene for everybody, that works for everybody, that has a sustained ecosystem that nourishes everybody.' "We don't have that now."
  
• He also says their rankings are a joke
  
  • "Just so happened, oh look TACO, that very important prominent member of the board, we pushed his team artificially up when they weren't even in the fucking top 20, not by a long shot."
• He also says the ineptitude of the CSPPA cost Flashpoint a monitor sponsor
  
• "Is it really a player association or is it like a fucking agency at this point"
  

ESIC - Esports Integrity Commission

"They have been put in an impossible position."

• RL says that Ian Smith, the founder of ESIC and who was done work in mainstream sports, is a good and honorable man who has dedicated his life to integrity and sports. He takes on both sides, ensuring match fixers are punished, but also doing appeals and ensuring those punishments were fair.
• "ESIC is a tiny organization" and are in need of money, "They didn't run a grift like the CSPPA did."
  • "Saying 'you want our support and you want the players to turn up you better pay us.' They don't do that."
  • "Had startup seed money from MTG and since then they've been pecking shit with the hens."
    • Ian Smith made sure that the money given by MTG (Modern Times Group, parent company of ESL, ESEA, DreamHack) was nothing more than startup money and wouldn't be in debt to them
      • Ian Smith sat down with other TO's not part of MTG and wanted to partner with them. They declined and called ESIC "ESL spies and we will never align ourselves with you"
  • "They only were just able to afford, hiring a PR guy on a full time salary to deal with the press and send out those releases you've seen, this year."
    • "They have a tiny group of staff investigating these things and they have taken on the biggest problems in our scene: the cheating, the match fixing."
• ESIC have had "unprecedented levels of cheating to deal with, because there's something wrong with our scene ever since we went online. There's something wrong with it, everyone's lost their fucking pride and self-respect and they got no passion for it anymore, so they think fuck it, what's in it for me?"
  • He calls out coaches who are talking about players rights when they would rob and steal from them.
    • Also says more coaches being banned are coming
    • He also points out flaws in community's reaction to the punishments to coaches bans: "Half of the cunts still have jobs and some of the cunts got new jobs. We didn't even shun the cheating coaches."
• ESIC have "found I think another 2 or 3 exploits like that one and they are investigating them all right now, it's going on right now."
  
  • "I know that there are going to be more names getting banned, again."
  • "So they're doing that on a skeleton crew while, investigating 3 continents worth of match fixing in MDL and semi-pro level CS." "They're doing this with half a dozen people." "They don't have any money or any help. People barely even fucking cooperate with them, they are treated like pariahs. It's ridiculous."
    • "Why are the CSPPA popping off at ESIC on my Twitter timeline, when you should be working together." "because its all about what's in it in for me." "2020, the online era of CS: 'What is in it for me?' How can I cheat, how can I get my paper, how can I bleed this scene one last time before I fuck off and play shooty shooty bang bang Riot Games babys first fps."
• RL says that in the CIS region, teams have gone to tournaments and have been eliminated multiple times by the same team. We found out they were cheating and those players who lost, have been cut from their roster, careers ended because of cheaters.
  

Stream Sniping

"They're all at it in the online era, they're all at it, they're all cheating, they're all using exploits, probably that see through smoke bug got used a bunch of times"

• RL talks about how there is no integrity from dead (the player), always denying when caught doing something
  • On the topic of 'BLAST never said we couldn't stream snipe': "Lies, BLAST never said you could do that, they had to sort of retcon it." "because what happened after that they fucking started snitching and squealing"
    • "Suddenly you had like, 10 of the top 15 teams in the world, staring into the abyss of being banned for 6-12 months in line with ESIC recommendations."
      • He says that ESIC was put in a tough situation and couldn't enforce the bans because it would have resulted in killing CS. What resulted was, BLAST, ESIC, and teams came together and gave them a warning and told them, in RL's words "don't do this again or you're gonna get got."
        • He then says the top teams brushed this off and didn't give a fuck
        • The new MiBR team playing Flashpoint, that wasn't involved in the previous incidents are doing it again (stream sniping). He gave credit to Flashpoint for the quick resolution and punishment and respect for cogu's response to the situation.
        • "ESIC came out and said, once more, 'Guys, zero tolerance from now on.'" RL then got upset at community's reaction calling ESIC "pussies" for their non enforcement and said if we want competitive CS we cant ban the top 10 teams.
• He points out how players have no integrity and will do anything for an edge as long as they won't get detected or banned or it's within a grey area.
• "All of this shit was mad avoidable, even in the pandemic era."
  • He talks about why aren't we filming them. Why aren't there representatives for leagues and tournaments making sure players aren't cheating?

Match Fixing

"How many years have we let our scene be fucking pillaged by these greedy cunts?" "We just let it happen."

• RL says that gambling and skins betting which existed in moderation was "accelerated and blown up by the Call of Duty greedy fucks."
  • "Never forget TmarTn was on the board of EnVyUs." "His website, CSGOLotto, they had a bunch of off-the-books sponsorships." "NBK promoted them. People forget."
• "Those people who had access to the skins, go to the players" "Even people like s1mple, best player in the world, even he scammed knives and skins off fucking fans."
• Owners of skin casino sites would approach pros and lend them skins to use in tournaments and possibly keep them after reaching a deal
  • Players would tip off inside info about matches and teams in exchange for skins. Info such as: roster changes, how they played in scrims
    • They would use this info to bet and subvert the odds on their sites. "That happened religiously, I can't even tell you how many times it happened."
      • "I had access to the biggest database of information, from an inside betting circle in NA, and it would take information and screenshots from other pro players, who were feeding them info in exchange for money or skins."
        • "Some of these players are still playing." "Incredibly, there are players still in the CSPPA today, complaining about the BLAST recordings, that were embroiled in this murky shit back then."
• RL also says that there were tournaments where teams contrived with each other, who should throw, who should win.
• "There's a handful of people that are trying to fucking clean it up, and you think you get something over the line and you see something like the CSPPA and it's run by corrupt fucking chuckle heads, and now you've got another corrupt body you have to fight on a fucking daily basis, it's demoralizing."
  • "It's too far gone. Our entire semi-professional scene is compromised."
• "It's rife guys, I'm not going to lie any more. It's not just China, it's not just Russia, it's here, it's NA, it's Europe, it's Australia, so much more than you think, so much more than we can prove."
  • "I get sent chat logs all the time […] and they're morons, these players, short-sighted, amateur, morons and they're doing it on WhatsApp." People would get cut from the bets because they want to make more money, then they leak the logs. He says, from the chat logs, they spread "little" bets across every site they can (400 to 1k dollars) to prevent shifting odds
• He says the scumbags who've fucked off to Valorant will do the same there if Riot doesn't do something and says Valorant "is an esports scene heading for a very early fall based on the sheer volume of scumbags that are already there."
• "That's tier 2 CS in a nutshell these days. They know they're never going to play in a major, so what's the punishment?"
  • "All of these tier 2 fucks that are fixing games now they are like the fucking mafia compared to iBuyPower" "These guys are working with organized criminals to fix entire seasons worth of games. That's what's going on in your tier 2 CS."
• "I'm literally being told that there are players fixing games at all levels of Chinese esports and motherfuckers with guns are turning up to team houses and stuff."

North America

"Everyone in NA has left we've lost a continents worth of support during this pandemic and Valve haven't said a fucking word."

• RL says the Call of Duty "goblins" that destroyed CS for years are the same people who are now trying to leave CS. "The nerve to treat a game where the fans, and the community, and the TO's were nothing but good to you." "To just kick the players out now and go and leave and say 'It just doesn't make financial sense.' Oh you'll slither back when we have a major though for them stickers won't you."
• There's a cascading effect in NA where people don't bother with CS anymore and people like Chaos suffer.
• He says NA team owners are incompetent for always wanting it easy and always wanting a guarantee on their investment without skill or nuance.
  • RL says he would be able to market a team correctly and would have a good ROI and also points out how TSM wouldn't even be bothered to tweet that their team, which was one of the best in the world, was playing at the Major.
  • He also says not all NA owners are like that, compliments and respects Jason Lake who nearly lost everything to keep Complexity going.
• He then calls out the incompetence in Infinite Esports when they acquired OpTic Gaming and bought an Indian CS team.
  • He says HECZ is not to blame here and that they couldn't tell forsaken was cheating when it was so obvious.
    • They measured his reaction time to the likes of dev1ce and s1mple
    • When an enemy showed up on his screen he won that duel something like 44% of the time
    • "was like the number 1 player in the world statistically"
    • He brought a laptop to their bootcamp and refused to use the high end PCs that hey provided
• He respects Andy Miller (NRG CEO) and HECZ but says that the attitude of not being able to easily monetize their teams is "piss weak" and there needs to be a risk.
  • He says Chaos EC shouldn't be cutting their roster and should be competent enough to be able to figure out how to make money off their team.
• He says there are still opportunities in NA and people are panicking and pulling out, and says Valorant will be the same if not worse.
  • He also says "bums" who couldn't even get out of groups in NA competitions, are making crazy money in Valorant and says it will continue to inflate.
• He also said that he heard rumors that EG (Evil Geniuses) are done.
• He also thinks that the rumors of a Valve franchised league from before was sparked up from "these lazy fabled weak NA fucking team owners basically trying to see if Valve would bite at the hook if it was dangled and they didn't"
  • Slasher says NA team owners are really in favor of franchised leagues because they want to make more money. "Most of the powerful team owners right now are on board with ditching this third party organization structure, or they are trying to play this power politics with all the TOs, and that is contributing to a lot of the problems there"
• RL says that Riot has proved they can run a franchised league (LCS) and will be profitable in 2021 which is what a lot of team owners care about and says the competition will only serve to snatch people away from CS.
• RL continues to say, "I am so sick and tired of what we have done to this scene, I am just exhausted with it." "I think we have legitimately fucked it, I really think we have. I think we're staring into almost like a CGS (Championship Gaming Series) wasteland in NA." "Counter-Strike esports is a fucking joke."

Talent

"TO's have treated CS talent like absolute human garbage for years now."

• RL says that people like Sean Gares and ddk switching over to Valorant isn't for financial reasons because they are making less over there.
• He points out that TO's can't even give talent a 3 month in advance calendar.
• Because of the pandemic TO's won't hire certain people and some people are working more hours for the same money.
• He says we as a community don't respect journalists enough which is why we don't have good journalists.
  • He also says DeKay is leaving the scene soon and that Thorin is close to leaving also
• He says he had to talk a caster down from quitting and was struggling to find reasons.
• He says that DreamHack told Vince they would hire him but not if he wants to stick with dusT and says that this is the norm in esports. "Constant leveraging of people against each other." and says this is why we don't have a talent union.
• New gen casters are getting put into shit situations and the community's reaction to them is adding fuel to the fire
• He says the reason Moses left was because of the terrible conditions
• He says that Anders had to constantly leave his family and kid because someone fucked up or broke promises and had to constantly tell his kid to their face that "daddy can't be home this weekend."
• He says that esports has always been a lie to sell you this dream, "Meanwhile there's about 2% of the cunts getting all the checks."

Valve

"Anything that Riot does, is better than Valve's inaction"

• Slasher says that the larger aspect of esports as a whole compared to other entertainment mediums and Valve's lack of inattention are the bigger problems. He continues saying that the fact that Valve let their game be ran as an esport, they need to take on the responsibilities of it.
  • Both Slasher and RL wants Valve to take control but not on the level of Riot Games, there needs to be a balance.
• In case it was ever a question: Gabe Newell has been to 0 CSGO Majors.
• RL calls Valve out saying they could have done something during the gambling era.
• He says Valve used to come to the majors, but doesn't think they do anymore.
• RL had met with Valve at the Cluj-Napoca Major and had tried to appeal iBP's indefinite punishment and had also gave Brax's life story:
  • A recent family member passed away, they had lost a lot of income, they had to live in trailer, iBuyPower did not pay any salaries, and was pressured by family to make money who didn't support his career.
  • RL said that Valve told him, "How dare you try and make us feel guilty." "We shouldn't feel bad about enforcing the only thing that matters that we need to make players afraid of: cheating and match fixing"
  • RL also tried to share other info about match fixing and nothing came of it
• RL points out that Source 2 or a new engine is not something you will want based on the experience of transitioning from CS 1.6 to CS:S. "Valve's track record with brand new engines being launched, not fucking great from what I remember."
• Slasher says "If there is anything the community should do, is pressure Valve to hire a community manager."
  • They say that we need a commissioner, a community manager (not the person who runs the Twitter who posts memes all day), then we need to have a circuit
• RL reiterates that Valve doesn't care about CS esports and says they need to change the culture at Valve to make them care about CS esports
  • Slasher says a systemic problem is making it so working on CSGO would be a bad decision for you as an employee for Valve
• He also hasn't talked to Valve in ages and have sent over bugs and cheats and doesn't get emails back anymore
• Slasher says we should be directing attention at the developer leads, pointing out Ido Magal, if he even is still the project lead
  • RL thinks that Ido and Brian are the only people that "vaguely even give a fuck about CS" and were the only people that RL recalled that actually read Reddit and paid attention from time to time
• "It is really fucking precarious. Somebody has got to step the fuck up and start giving a shit"
  • Slasher suggests org owners, with CSPPA, with ESIC, with TOs have a concerted effort against Valve
• "Riot Games are doing better things than Valve in the esports space" which is something RL didn't think he'd say.
• "People who used to be talent, working with unions, arguing with other talent, when the unions fucked them over, can't understand their perspective, TOs fucking over broadcast talent, broadcast talent wanting to leave and go and work for orgs, orgs having no money, Valve might take coaches away because all the coaches are cheating, ESIC has about 4 people in a fucking call doing the investigations, everyone thinks they're spies for ESL, ESL are just the evil fucking overlords wanting to rule the scene and will just somehow, like cockroaches outliving a nuclear bomb, and Valve are in a fucking holiday in Hawaii thinking about the next Dota character because they don't give a fuck about us."

Closing Statements

"We've peaked. If we want to sustain and exist, now is the time to figure it out. No esports lasts as long as this, we've already done 8 years. We've already broke the records. We have got to figure out a way to coexist and drive the negative forces out and we need to do it as a collective and we're not doing that."

• RL compared the Counter-Strike scene to the people on the Titanic who ran around with guns robbing people while the boat was sinking.
• "We have given up on being a respectable esports scene." "We are now a conduit to make money for those who want to just milk it, just have one last ride, one last roll of the dice. It's done." "What a fucking mess. What have we done to our fucking scene?"
• "There's just too much self-interest driving all of this." "I don't see a way we stop the dominoes." "When it's that bad, when there's that many dishonest people that ESIC have to come out and say that if we punish them all there's no one left. What does that tell you?"
• "How many opportunities have we had to clean house? How many times have we said, 'this must never happen again', and another scandal." "The entire skins betting operations was the biggest criminal conspiracy in esports ever executed and no one has been punished for it." "The people who could be driving that don't want to."
• "Right now people are fans of those organizations because the scene has value. It is worth being a fan of Astralis because they are excellent at Counter-Strike. It is worth being a fan of s1mple because he is the best player in Counter-Strike, maybe the exception of ZywOo. If the scene is devalued, if the scene loses its meaning, those things lose its meaning too, and people will leave, people will stop tuning into the games. I have seen it happen in multiple esports, this is not my first time at the rodeo. I am getting big Brood War vibes right now and I don't like it."
• "The role you play in all of this as fans, as viewers, as listeners, as consumers of esports content, it's absolutely imperative that you know who the good guys are. It's absolutely imperative that you use your voice. It's absolutely imperative that when things are bad, you know who, at least, is trying to make them good, and you have to apply your criticism to the right targets."
  • He continues saying it's no good in continuing to attack ESIC and saying how they are bad, ESIC have it hard
• He says CSPPA are on the right side of the argument on BLAST but have been on the wrong side of many arguments many times.
  • "If you are not willing to stand along side the weakest member of the union, with the least amount of influence, and the least amount of power, then it is not a union at all and you shouldn't pose as one." "You wanna serve a bunch of special interest do it, everyone else in esports fucking does, but do not pose as something you are not." "We love the players. I've been fighting for players rights for as long as I've been able to, but the CSPPA is not what we needed."
    • "They are not applying the pressure to the right people, they are not fighting the right battles, they are not helping their weaker members."
• He says what orgs have done by keeping or hiring coaches is bad. "When you give up on holding an appreciable standard, you've lost the scene" "Competition matters, rules matter, punishments matter, achievements matter, excellence matters" "If you start stripping that away, you have nothing" "You guys need to take that knowledge and apply it sensibly."
• "Valve has sold you all down the river, they sold everyone in the esports scene down the river, tournament organizers are selling their talent down the river. Don't hate on them for sounding tired after a 16 hour day. Don't hate on them because the hype for a matchup they've seen for the 20th time in the past 3 months, they can't be as excited or it sounds contrived. Support your guys, they're there for you, these are your people."
• "This community has got to start acting like one for the first fucking time. Just put the petty shit away, let's try and fix this fucking scene while we still have one to save."
• "You can't rely on Valve, you can't rely on ESL, you can't rely on the CSPPA, you can't rely on anyone." "Once again, it's gonna be the likes of us, the amateurs, the people who give a fuck, rolling up our sleeves and grafting." "I'm old and tired and I don't want to have to do it again. People need to pick up the torch and do it."
  • "Like Michal did, like Dudenhoeffer did. You see something wrong, fix it. You see somebody doing something wrong, call it out. If you think something could be better, let people know."
• "Vote with your wallets if you're not happy with the direction Valve goes in. If when we do get to the Major, they serve up another subpar, same old bullshit stickers and signatures package again, do not buy it."
  • "You're a powerful block and if you use it correctly we can fucking avert this disaster."
• "I'm not doing another year in this broken, bust-up fucking scene, where everyone is miserable, everyone is broke, everyone is tired, and everyone is trying to fucking rob everyone else, blind, while the fucking people who are meant to be protecting you, are just fucking enhancing it and lining their own pockets."
  • "I'm not doing it anymore and you shouldn't want to do it either."
• "I stand by every fucking thing I said. I mean it, because this game fucking matters to me, this scene fucking matters to me. I put my life into this, my adult life, and to see it in this state is fucking sad."

Hi everyone, there's been a lot of news about Loop Insights ($MTRX.V) and I know a couple of friends who are/thinking of investing in it too, so I decided to do a little DD -- pulled out whatever data I could find about the company, had the company mail me their investor package, read/listened to company releases, and dug into it. I thought I'd share my findings and my outlook, in case this is helpful for anyone thinking of investing.
I like Loop Insights’ mission. I like the markets in general that it’s targeting. Its technicals are often cited as a reason to shovel more and more money into the stock while it still trades in dimes. I agree there’s momentum with this one, so I’m inclined to say this is a short- to mid- term play, but there are serious concerns about its long-term prospects. As with all businesses, execution trumps ideation. This is what’s got me stuck about Loop.
(1) Its cash burn has been somewhere near 14 million a year. That’s not how much money they raised. That's just how much they've been spending per year. For a start-up of just a couple years and one, as far as I can tell, whose products are mainly software, this screams lack of financial discipline.
(2) Because of (1), it’s now fairly deep into negative shareholder equity territory. This means its liabilities exceed its assets. Hypothetically, if you were to liquidate the entire company, it still wouldn’t be enough to offset losses. This doesn’t usually happen, but it does forewarn about the company’s next steps in response to this situation (below).
(3) Because of (1) and (2), it desperately needs more cash in the eight figures, which raises the possibility of doing so through more debt or equity.
(4) I’m a little concerned about how the management’s been handling the cash burn conundrum. The CEO and COO salaries combined amount to roughly $450,000. I can’t stress how incredibly rich this is for (a) a start-up of just a couple years, (b) most of all when said start-up is this far in the red.
It’s short-sighted and financially imprudent to siphon out half a million each year from a pre-revenue, early-stage start-up, adding more to its existing short-term cash flow stress, when it’s already well-past its cash runway and skidding on concrete. The CEO of Loop is pretty respectable, but he's a CEO in another, much larger company (Fobisuite Technologies Inc), so it reads as if Loop is just a pet project/cash cow for him (which might be why he feels sucking the cash out of Loop at such a critical time is acceptable).
Add to this the fact that the leadership are all 50+ year old business executives, none of whom are programmers or engineers. It’s important to have in-house tech so you avoid outsourcing or commissioning as much of the heavy-lifting in early development and design as you possibly can and lower your cash burn (1).
(5) Loop Insights only JUST filed provisional patents and trademark registries for its products (contactless solutions and contact tracing software) early this month in October (https://www.globenewswire.com/news-release/2020/10/05/2103339/0/en/Loop-Insights-Files-Provisional-Patents-And-Trademark-Registries-For-Venue-Tracing-And-Contactless-Solution-Applications-In-Wake-Of-Growing-Demand.html).
That’s a really slow pace, given that these are their main (and only) products and which they’ve been attempting to sell to clients for the past quarter already. Patent and trademark registries themselves also take a year or two on average to pan out, after which Loop may or may not even receive them (even barring the possibility of larger competitors blitzing the market ahead of this date). We won’t find out till 2021-2022, but at the moment, they don’t even own the name of their products.
(6) It’s pre-revenue and the company’s financial data is pretty hard to find. Without an inkling about how much this company can even sell, let alone stand to profit, you can’t put a multiple on it or apply any kind of valuation model. The leadership has been fairly conservative as well about providing concrete projections for investors to go on.
This problem is exacerbated by the fact that the forward guidance and market outlook that Loop does provide in the investor information package that they mail out has highly unrealistic valuations of their future market. “31.88 trillion from Brick and Mortar Retail”? “614.5 billion from Sports & Entertainment”?? “565.4billion from Casino Gaming”??? It’s cringey that these whole-market valuations are what Loop pitches to investors as its potential market, as if it could capture even a dime, let alone the full dollar, of every dollar a consumer spends on a shirt and a beer just because consumers use their payment system.
(7) It’s fighting on too many fronts at once. It intends to create its own independent cloud server (Loop Cloud), its own payment system (Fobi), and contactless NFC reader (SmarTap). Any meaningful disruption to any of these markets could easily cost tens and hundreds of millions. To attempt to compete in all of them threatens to bleed your company dry before you even start.
And as Apple learned in the adolescent days of Apple Pay, it’s easier, faster, and significantly less costly to collaborate and tap into an existing distribution network like Mastercard’s, especially in a saturated market – rather than compete against it.
How would Fobi and SmarTap capture any ground from a payments systems market already dominated by big players like Mastercard, Visa, AXP, or even up-and-coming growth players like Square and PayPal?
At this point in the game, how would Loop Cloud steal market share from an already-saturated space lorded over by Microsoft, Google, Amazon, or even young bucks like Cloudflare, Salesforce, etc? It cost Alibaba close to a billion dollars to crack the US cloud market.
How would SmarTap add any value to retailers or consumers? It seems SmarTap has a hardware component that allows it to contact trace people and, at the moment, is being pitched to retailers and consumers. I'm not too clear on how it works, but from what I gather, the software attached to it then publishes information about what kinds of people (in terms of their exposure to previously identified hotspots) have been flowing in and out of retail stores. SmarTap seems like a pitch for government clients, not retailers or consumers.
How would retailers benefit from adding contact tracing? Retailers benefit more from not having any contact tracing information about their stores published, so that consumers can give them the benefit of the doubt and still visit their stores. Ignorance is bliss.
How could you convince consumers to use this network service? I’ve received pitches from network service startups in the past, so I know a little about this space and I can say adoption and churn rates truly can’t be underestimated (and they’re ridiculously expensive to keep low) for anything attempting to be a new network service. Don’t underestimate how hard it is to convince more and more people (think network effect here) to adopt a new technology/network service. Again, it'll cost an astronomical sum to gain and keep any traction in the network service space (and the payment system space and the Cloud space, let alone all of them).
All in all, I think Loop has potential, and I congratulate anyone who’s made buck on the recent momentum. But as a long-term investment, it has an incredible amount of work cut out for it that could well take years to iron out, provided it doesn’t bleed out on the way there. Thanks for reading.
EDIT: lol @ the snowflakes screaming shorter. Unclench. No company's ever gone bankrupt or hit the moon because of a Reddit post.
I have no intention to short Loop (or any company whose market cap is so small no analyst has even bothered to measure its beta).
Everything I wrote is a publicly available fact from Yahoo Finance, Loop's own materials, and public filings. As I said, I think Loop has potential, but its poor financial health deserves attention -- and some questioning as to how it got here and where it wants to go. That's all. GLTA.

Hi dear audiogamers and friends
Year 2019 has been a very interesting one. It was full of challenges, but also of a lot of learning. Before it ends, I thought it could be a good moment to send you some updates and thank all of you for the support. I’m normally very open to tell about our company’s actions and thoughts, so this post includes good, bad news, and a little bit of criticism too.
1. TEAM. After losing last spring our main developer (who basically decided to leave from one day to another), we have found the desired stability we needed. At this moment our team is composed by five; Axel, Aleksi, Jani, Joonas and David. From January, a new programmer called Marko will join the team. Unfortunately, incomes are not yet enough to provide us a salary, but we try our best to optimize resources and time. Motivation is quite high, and we all row in the same direction.
2. AUDIOWIZARDS. Our first real game was successfully launched in September 2019 for iOS and Android. After 2 months we updated it with 5 new pretty challenging levels. In January, the game will be also available for PC through Steam. All the music in the game was composed by nine very talented blind musicians, and we have decided to make that music also available in Steam. More news about that in 2020. The game received very positive critics, but it didn’t reach the selling numbers we needed. We had invested a lot of time and effort in marketing, and the game was good, so the only clear reason for us was that most of audiogamers don’t want to spend even 5 € for a game, even though the game proved to be worth that price. This was a surprised, because it is common to read in the forums that the gaming community is tired of simplistic games, and that they want to play the same games that are played by sighted. We tried to do both, a complex game with nice music and sound effects, challenging tasks and simple but interesting visuals. Perhaps we are living the time of the “everything should be free”. Mobile gaming is saturated of free to play games including in-app purchases or publicity adds. We tried the other way, a quality game that costed 5 € but once purchased it was for you forever. It didn’t work. And it is a pity, because perhaps it could be true that the community is not ready to really take new developers in. I’m sorry about this terrific fact, but developers also need to eat, and if I can’t provide them a salary, sooner or later they will leave. How all this has affected us is detailed further in next points 3, 4 and 5. We also noticed some members of the community were sharing ways in the internet to make pirate versions of our game. Shame on you!!!
3. MUSICMAZE. We were developing an infinite runner type game for few months. The game included pixel art graphics and very professional music and sound effects. In the game you advanced through 6 finite levels and the final infinite, each level with a different atmosphere resembling desert, jungle, temple, catacombs and so on, while meeting the new enemies and collecting coins to earn XP and different collectables. Game mechanics were based in combinations of swipes and tabs. Last October, after spending quite much money and effort on it, we reached alpha-test version. Once we tested ourselves, we decided to cancel the game and stop its development in order to minimize losses. The game was not bad, but based on the experience with games including a fix price of 5 €, we thought it was not a viable project any longer. Sure we considered to add in-app purchases and learn from this type of monetization model. But that was not the way we wanted to go because of ethical issues, e.g. our games are not casino-type-games where you need to pay to collect things. At this point, I take myself all the responsibility from this failure. I was not able to see in advance what could happen, and I actually maintain the development for few more months because of sentimental reasons, e.g. many people had been involved and I don’t like to quit and fail. End of the story.
4. FUTURE GAME. But the good games come now. We have started to work on a new game in the category of RPG-Manager Auto-Battler. Perhaps some of you ask what the hell is that, or ask for more info. We will answer those questions in the next months to come. If everything goes well, in 3-4 months we will launch a DEMO and offer interested players some kind of Early Access or Pre-Order option. The new game will be very ambitious, including graphics but fully accessible for the blind, originally developed for PC but if possible it will be migrated to mobile systems at some point. We are very far from launch yet, and actually we have not yet all the funding we need for it. If you want to help us on our way, then jump to point number 5.
5. FUNDING and CROWFUNDING. Along the last months we talked with a series of investors. We told them there was a huge market for the blind and their answer was always the same: “good idea and nice social impact. Like it!, but show me the numbers little man. Prove to me that you can make that money”. And it was here where I again failed because I was not able to show them any impressive selling numbers from AW-game. To me, the door of investors or business angels investing in this market at this moment is quite closed. And that is a pity because we were quite close! The next Option is CROWFUNDING, but the government of the country where we are based, Finland, is not so fan of KickStarter systems and alike, and actually KickStarter is not available from our geographic location. We need some time to figure out what would be the best way to do it. But until then, you can, if you want, try to help us. For instance, if you still didn’t get your own copy of AudioWizards go ahead and get one. If for instance you have the game already and you liked it, why not to share the joy with a friend that can’t afford it? It is x-mas time soon, so a good chance to make presents to your friends without actually spending much money. DISCLAIMER: I’m not begging, but I just give some ideas. Well, I’m begging a bit I suppose ; )
6. COMMUNITY. It is time to say “thanks and see you next year”. It has been a pleasure working for you and develop games for the community. We have make good friends and we have learnt like a lot, listening and accepting polite criticism as much as we could. We really feel well with you, and we would like to keep that relationship for many years. As long as myTrueSound is alive, you have also friends here, and be sure we will never turn our back to AudioPlayers. Our games will be always accessible, or at least, that we have promised to ourselves. Gaming, playing and having fun should be universal rights, and we will keep working with all of you to make that happen any day soon. We would also like to thank also other developers in the community. Thanks Joe from Mental Vision for calling me every second friday. You know I like you!. Thanks also Liam Erven from L-Games for giving us a hand with the mouth to mouth and beta testing our game. And thanks also to Harry from Pitch Black. It was a pleasure to meet last week. We are waiting for that incredible RPG! Thanks also to Brandon (SuperBlindMan), Jesse (Illegally Sighted), Riley (Acces4Gamers,) Ryan (The Blind Man Theory), Jeff (Blind Abilities), and specially to DARK (audiogames.net), for all the support you provided along the last 12 months. It has been amazing. Thanks also to the 33 talented musicians that participated in the AudioWizards music competition. The game would not have been the same without your input. Thank you too all audiogamers and people from this nice community. We like you all. And absolutely, big cheers to all the people. Last but not least, thanks to Dani, Aku, Eveliina, Fareeda, Hassan, Janne, Jaro, Maksim, Maria, Niko, Shane, Jussi and Petri for giving us your hand too.
Sincerely David Oliva and the myTrueSound team.
Ps: please, comment this post. Your comments will help to bring us more light. It will also help this post not to sink very fast in the list, and this way it would be read by more people. Thanks also for that.

Sunday:
NORTH:
· 1. First U.S. Olympic rhythmic-gymnastics team trained in Deerfield (Chicago Tribune)
· 2. Skokie woman chosen to be part of GOP presidential nominee Donald Trump's National Hispanic Advisory Council (Chicago Sun-Times)
WEST:
· 3. New addition to Glenbard West High School in Glen Ellyn sets stage for school's future (Daily Herald)
· 4. Cicero man killed in shooting in Cicero (CBS 2)
SOUTHWEST:
· 5. Person tackles Plainfield man who robbed Bolingbrook Bingo hall of $4,000 at knifepoint before robber gets away (ABC 7)
SOUTH:
· 6. Lansing: Little Calumet River levee-improvement project stalled because 11 residents haven't signed off on easement agreements (Northwest Indiana Times)
NORTHWEST INDIANA:
· 7. Cancer Resource Centre in Munster offers healing garden for meditation, reflection(Northwest Indiana Times)
· 8. Merrillville looking into partnership with Gary Public Transportation Corp. that would provide shuttles to connect town's residents with existing bus routes (Northwest Indiana Times)
· 9. Man fatally shot after fight that started at Hammond bar (CBS 2)
· 10. Gary Redevelopment Commission selects East Chicago native to paint mural with the theme of 'resurgence' (Chicago Tribune/Gary Post-Tribune)
· 11. Munster resident pens book in hopes of saving elephants (Northwest Indiana Times)
· 12. Former Gary mayoral candidate sues city, Redevelopment Commission over deal with MaiaCo LLC (Northwest Indiana Times)
· 13. Municipalities, including Michigan City, call for citizen panel to draw legislative district lines (Northwest Indiana Times)
Monday:
NORTH:
· 14. U.S. Sen. Mark Kirk says President Obama 'acting like drug-dealer-in-chief' in response to question about money paid to Iran, release of hostages (NBC 5)
· 15. Glenview police search for man who tried to lure several children into his car (FOX 32)
· 16. Alleged victim files medical-malpractice lawsuit against Wilmette doctor whom she claims provided prescription medications in exchange for sex while she was 17-years-old (Chicago Sun-Times)
· 17. Skokie police arrest four people in connection with several car burglaries that took place Sunday, Aug. 21 (Chicago Sun-Times)
NORTHWEST:
· 18. 18-year-old charged with stabbing man at Woodstock house party (FOX 32)
· 19. Arlington Heights Elementary School District 25 to spend about $600,000 to buy laptops for all of its middle-school students (Daily Herald)
· 20. Bartlett village administrator to retire next January after 35 years on the job (Daily Herald)
· 21. Driver of SUV seriously injured when semi truck runs red light on Route 176 in Crystal Lake (Daily Herald)
· 22. Des Plaines Subway restaurant robbed of more than $400 at 3 a.m. Sunday (Daily Herald)
WEST:
· 23. Fire at Oakbrook Terrace motel causes evacuation; one person injured (CBS 2)
· 24. Rosemont swears in original 'Incredible Hulk' actor Lou Ferrigno as honorary public-safety officer during Wizard World Chicago (ABC 7)
· 25. Car lands 200 feet off road following crash in Batavia; driver extricated from vehicle (Chicago Sun-Times)
· 26. Dow Furniture in North Aurora closing (Daily Herald)
· 27. Fox Valley Wildlife Center reports goose recovering after group of Batavia High School students attacked it (Daily Herald)
· 28. Soldier from Maywood dies in Food Hood, Texas, barracks (CBS 2/Associated Press)
· 29. DuPage Public Safety Communications (DuComm) may move to DuPage County Complex in 2018 (Daily Herald)
· 30. 14 people taken to hospital after gas leak at Sugar Grove chemical distributor (Daily Herald)
· 31. New Jersey-based Strategic Properties of North America buys Briarbrook Village apartments in Wheaton for $50 million (Crain's Chicago Business)
SOUTHWEST:
· 32. Cyclist critically injured after being hit by car in Chicago Ridge; driver being questioned (CBS 2)
· 33. Pregnant Florida woman moves in with mother in Orland Park to avoid Zika virus (CBS 2)
· 34. 28-year-old Crest Hill man convicted of possession of child pornography, given three years probation, must register as sex offender for life (Chicago Tribune)
SOUTH:
· 35. Police, SWAT team engage in 8-hour standoff on Monday at Park Forest home where they thought burglary suspects were; suspects remain at large (CBS 2)
NORTHWEST INDIANA:
· 36. Airports across Northwest Indiana fighting economic head winds, drop in licensed pilots (Northwest Indiana Times)
· 37. Lake County deputy rescues dog from burning car in Gary (Northwest Indiana Times)
· 38. Crete man arrested in Dyer after high-speed chase that followed attempted traffic stop in Cedar Lake (Northwest Indiana Times)
· 39. Michigan City-based NW Indiana Gay Straight Coalition aims to improve relations with LGBT community, reduce gun violence (Northwest Indiana Times)
· 40. Northwest Indiana communities witness decrease in homicide rate (Chicago Tribune/Gary Post-Tribune)
· 41. East Chicago police seek hit-and-run driver who injured ArcelorMittal worker on his way to work (Northwest Indiana Times)
Tuesday:
NORTH:
· 42. Libertyville-Vernon Hills Area High School District 128 to look for places to cut after board approves $98.3 million budget (Daily Herald)
· 43. Fourth-grade teacher at Skokie school uses rap video to introduce himself to his students (NBC 5)
· 44. Would-be smash-and-grab burglary of Libertyville gun shop thwarted by weapons not being on sales floor (Chicago Tribune/Libertyville Review)
· 45. Manager of Northbrook beauty salon, daughter narrowly missed being hit by car that crashed into salon's front door (Chicago Tribune/Northbrook Star)
· 46. Armed robber gets away cash, cigarettes during robbery at Libertyville gas station (Chicago Sun-Times)
NORTHWEST:
· 47. West Dundee approves downtown special taxing district despite business owners' objections (Daily Herald)
· 48. 87-year-old Arlington Heights man charged with battery for using pepper spray on officers sent to check on his well-being (Chicago Tribune/Arlington Heights Post)
· 49. Carpentersville launches interactive shopping/marketing tool on village website (Daily Herald)
· 50. Sears Holdings reopens Des Plaines Kmart (Daily Herald)
WEST:
· 51. Special census to be conducted in North Aurora beginning Sept. 1 (Daily Herald)
· 52. Wheaton City Council reducing plans for downtown improvements, while debating bond sales (Daily Herald)
· 53. Darien man struck and killed by train on Metra BNSF line in Hinsdale (Chicago Tribune/The Doings)
· 54. Man robs Addison bank (ABC 7)
· 55. Clarendon Hills cyclist struck and killed in Hinsdale (Chicago Sun-Times)
· 56. Aurora man dies as result of rollover accident in Virgil Township (Kane County) (Chicago Sun-Times)
· 57. Glen Ellyn Elementary School District 41 has busing problems on first day of school (Daily Herald)
· 58. Elk Grove Village gives Marino's Wood Fire Restaurant permission for outdoor dining (Daily Herald)
· 59. Kane County Sheriff's Office reinstates school-resource officers in Kaneland, Burlington Central high schools (Daily Herald)
· 60. Head of Choose DuPage urges better use of public transit, bicycles as way to boost county's job market (Crain's Chicago Business)
SOUTHWEST:
· 61. Woman reunited with doctors, nurses who saved her life 10 years ago at Oak Lawn hospital, where she now also works (NBC 5)
NORTHWEST INDIANA:
· 62. Taltree Arboretum & Gardens in Valparaiso euthanizes 4-year-old 16-pound Giant Chinchilla rabbit after it gets sick (Northwest Indiana Times)
· 63. Woman from East Chicago, man from Hammond charged with child endangerment after leaving infants in car while they were gambling at casino (Northwest Indiana Times)
· 64. Crown Point considers pay hikes for non-elected employees, incentives for police officers to live in city (Northwest Indiana Times)
· 65. Split decision forces choice of new Portage Township School member to courts (Northwest Indiana Times)
· 66. Hobart may create program to encourage businesses to invest in green infrastructure (Northwest Indiana Times)
· 67. NIPSCO plans to shutter coal-fired generation station in Chesterton by 2018, much of Wheatfield facility by 2023 (Northwest Indiana Times)
· 68. Porter County Board rejects wheel tax to generate money for road/bridge projects; moves $5.5 million into rainy-day fund (Northwest Indiana Times)
· 69. Fugitive from LaPorte County leads officers on chase; found in cubby hole underneath plywood door in his home (Northwest Indiana Times)
REGIONAL
· 70. Indiana shore drawing Chicago-area commuters away from the big city (Chicago Tribune)
Wednesday:
NORTH:
· 71. Morton Grove, Wheeling men plead guilty to defrauding schools of $33 million of tutoring funds (CBS 2)
· 72. Highland Park extends contract with embattled red-light-camera firm Redflex Traffic Systems to give police time to find a replacement (Chicago Tribune/Highland Park News)
· 73. Two people arrested after drug lab discovered in Waukegan apartment during eviction (Chicago Sun-Times)
· 74. Lincolnshire-Prairie View School District 103 OKs budget, which includes additions at two schools (Daily Herald)
· 75. Island Lake Village Board to consider raising mayor's salary to $25,000, tops in Lake County (Daily Herald)
NORTHWEST:
· 76. Former Crystal Lake resident pleads guilty to drug-induced homicide in death of McHenry mother (Chicago Tribune)
· 77. Streamwood teen accused of running over his father three times with a car during fight with relatives in Chicago (Chicago Sun-Times)
· 78. Law going into effect in 2017 would allow Elgin Area Unit School District U-46 CEO to also serve as district's superintendent (Daily Herald)
· 79. Illinois Department of Transportation agrees to $4 million in funding for proposed U.S. 14 underpass beneath Canadian National Railroad tracks in Barrington (Daily Herald)
WEST:
· 80. Forest Park-based Nadeau's Ice Sculptures turns ice into works of art (WGN TV)
· 81. Engineering firm: Batavia needs larger stormwater pipes, to invest more in culvert maintenance to resolve flooding problems on city's southeast side (Daily Herald)
· 82. Naperville launches program to help police officers, firefighters, members of the military, reservists, veterans, health-care and EMS workers, teachers with real-estate financing (Daily Herald)
· 83. One person killed in car crash in Maywood (NBC 5)
· 84. DuPage judge orders release of dash-cam video related to Lisle man's claim Naperville police tried to run him over during a protest (Chicago Tribune)
· 85. Bloomingdale to reduce telecommunications tax from 5 percent to 3 percent (Daily Herald)
· 86. Aurora activists upset about using non-local artists for blues mural, which they say doesn't represent the city or its connection to the style of music (Daily Herald)
· 87. Atlanta-based T5 Data Centers acquires former Forsythe Technologies building in Elk Grove Village for new data center (Crain's Chicago Business)
SOUTHWEST:
· 88. Actor Nick Offerman to visit Minooka High School on Oct. 23 as part of book tour (Chicago Tribune)
SOUTH:
· 89. Man shot outside house in Flossmoor (Chicago Sun-Times)
· 90. Child struck by car in Merrionette Park (FOX 32)
NORTHWEST INDIANA:
· 91. Thieves steal more than $1,000 worth of razor blades in less than four minutes at Chesterton CVS store (NBC 5)
· 92. Northwest Indiana's unemployment rate drops to 5.8 percent in July (Northwest Indiana Times)
· 93. Highland town officials want new municipal building, citing numerous condition issues with current facilty (Northwest Indiana Times)
· 94. East Chicago man accused of stealing cologne from Hobart's Southlake Mall, attempted to carjack a woman leaving the mall (Northwest Indiana Times)
· 95. Gary police seek man in connection with bank robbery (Northwest Indiana Times)
REGIONAL
· 96. Illinois legislator introduces bill to protect parks, sensitive properties from Pokémon GO players (ABC 7)
Thursday:
NORTH:
· 97. Northwestern University unearths 1954 time capsule inside institution's library (CBS 2)
· 98. Lake County coroner appeals removal from ballot to Illinois Supreme Court (Chicago Tribune/Lake County News-Sun)
· 99. Zion man charged with multiple felonies in fatal May 13 car crash in Graylake (Chicago Tribune/Lake County News-Sun)
· 100. Woman convicted of Deerfield toddler's death at Lincolnshire daycare facility to get new trial (Chicago Tribune)
· 101. Wheeling man charged with criminal aggravated sexual assault, predatory criminal sexual assault of two children from his neighborhood (Daily Herald)
· 102. Fox Waterway Agency struggling to deal with sediment in Chain of Lakes, Fox River (Chicago Tribune/Lake County News-Sun)
· 103. Prairie Grove police officer on trial for DUI following crash that wrecked village-owned vehicle (Chicago Tribune)
· 104. Mundelein Parks & Recreation District to borrow $4 million to replace Chalet at Keith Mione Community Park with larger multi-use facility (Daily Herald)
NORTHWEST:
· 105. Former Rosati's Pizza building on Route 31 in Carpentersville to be torn down; village hopes it will spur further redevelopment (Daily Herald)
· 106. Imam of Elgin Islamic center pleads guilty to sexual abuse of student, must register as a sex offender (CBS 2)
· 107. Bartlett family battles Canadian National Railroad over fallen trees, branches that damaged their fence (NBC 5)
· 108. Pennsylvania woman charged with filing false rape/battery report in Schaumburg; Rolling Meadows man charged with trespassing in same incident (FOX 32)
· 109. Executive director of Schaumburg Township District Library to retire at year's end (Daily Herald)
· 110. Rivers Casino donates $5,000 to help bring traveling Vietnam Veterans Memorial Wall to Des Plaines (Daily Herald)
WEST:
· 111. Environmental activists claim Cicero-based Tough Cuts Inc. is allowing construction rubble to creep into Chicago Sanitary and Shipping Canal, threatening wildlife (CBS 2)
· 112. Pizza-delivery driver robbed at gunpoint in Willowbrook (CBS 2)
· 113. Terror suspect from Hillside deemed unfit to stand trial; sent to psychiatric facility for treatment (CBS 2/Chicago Sun-Times)
· 114. Aurora mayor to step down from post in October due to cancer, treatment (ABC 7)
· 115. Gas leak closes South Finley Road in Lombard (ABC 7)
· 116. DuPage judge rules against Hinsdale in attempt to remove sculpture from couple's yard (ABC 7)
· 117. Batavia aldermen indicate willingness to demolish historic First Baptist Church to make way for redevelopment (Daily Herald)
SOUTHWEST:
· 118. Tickets go on sale for Freaky Deaky 2016 Halloween festival at Toyota Park in Bridgeview (CBS 2)
SOUTH:
· 119. Homeless man wanted for fatal shooting in Harvey arrested in Virginia (CBS 2)
· 120. Hammond man believed to have robbed Lansing Goodwill store dies in car crash on Ridge Road (Chicago Sun-Times)
· 121. 20-year-old man shot to death in Flossmoor (Chicago Tribune/Daily Southtown)
· 122. Midlothian bank robbed (Chicago Sun-Times)
NORTHWEST INDIANA:
· 123. Man killed by semi trailer on I-80/94 near Lake Station after exiting his pickup, which was involved in a crash with another vehicle (FOX 32)
· 124. Vote on East Chicago homeless shelter postponed after city planner says dry-cleaning business was located on proposed site (Northwest Indiana Times)
· 125. Portage Rotary Club looking to rebuild after membership dwindles to one person (Northwest Indiana Times)
Friday:
NORTH:
· 126. Waukegan man charged with drug-induced homicide in Antioch man's death (Chicago Sun-Times)
· 127. U-Haul pulls out of Lake Zurich; Life Storage Inc. has eye on same property (Daily Herald)
· 128. Fox Lake pension board to await outcome of Melody Gliniewicz's criminal trial before making decision on late husband's pension (Daily Herald)
· 129. Two carjackings reported overnight in Evanston (CBS 2)
· 130. Waukegan School District 60 to replace pipes, water fountains in areas serving preschoolers, kindergarteners (Chicago Tribune/Lake County News-Sun)
NORTHWEST:
· 131. Lemonade Brigade raising money for McHenry County girl who crawled into a hot car and passed out, suffering heat injuries (CBS 2)
· 132. Schaumburg woman convicted of killing her severely-disabled daughter granted bond, could be freed (Chicago Tribune)
· 133. Elgin councilman objects to city's sale of parking lots to St. Joseph Catholic Church without putting the properties on the market first (Daily Herald)
· 134. St. Louis-based Capstone Development Group buys The Tower Building in Elgin after two years of negotiations (Daily Herald)
· 135. Two men jailed for crimes in Woodstock now charged with burglary in Union (CBS 2)
· 136. Elgin-based Nick's Pizza & Pub plans expansion into Chicago (NBC 5)
· 137. Referendum on ballot to decide fate of proposed early-learning center in Mount Prospect-based River Trails School District 26 (Daily Herald)
· 138. Palatine-Schaumburg High School District 211 schedules parent open houses for Thursday, Sept. 1 (Daily Herald)
· 139. Elgin Community College lays off 15 employees, considers other cuts in face of state funding shortfalls (Daily Herald)
· 140. Taxpayers question referendum seeking $130 million for construction put forward by Palatine Elementary School District 15 (Daily Herald)
WEST:
· 141. Naperville 'salt spa' shuts down suddenly, leaving cystic-fibrosis patients out money and nowhere to go(CBS 2)
· 142. Fenton High School District 100 board, teachers reach pact, holding off on cost-of-living increases for two years, but giving them raises based on experience, education (Daily Herald)
· 143. Kareem Abdul-Jabbar discusses social action during book-promotion appearance at North Central College in Naperville (Daily Herald)
· 144. Residents raise concerns about intersection of Oak Street and Ravine Road following cyclist's death (ABC 7)
· 145. Batavia police: Investigation shows teens didn't attack goose at Batavia High School corn boil (Chicago Tribune/Aurora Beacon-News)
· 146. No injuries reported when bus rolls over on Roosevelt Road in West Chicago (Chicago Sun-Times)
· 147. Elk Grove Park District demolishes buildings at Community Athletic Fields to make way for new facilities (Daily Herald)
SOUTHWEST:
· 148. Lockport man pleads guilty to domestic abuse, sentenced to 9 years in prison (FOX 32)
· 149. Darien woman become first DuPage County person with West Nile virus in 2016 (Daily Herald)
SOUTH:
· 150. Car struck by bullets on I-57 in Matteson (CBS 2)
· 151. Dolton man in custody in Lansing now charged with multiple armed robberies in Hammond (Chicago Sun-Times)
NORTHWEST INDIANA:
· 152. Semi-truck driver from LaPorte killed in crash with three other vehicles on I-80/94 near Hammond (Northwest Indiana Times)
· 153. Security guard in Gary hit with hammer, robbed of bag containing gun (Northwest Indiana Times)
· 154. Lowell, Tri-Creek School Corp. to partner on school resource officer (Northwest Indiana Times)
REGIONAL
· 155. Cook County assessor refunds $6.1 million to municipalities collected because of 'erroneous' exemptions (NBC 5)
Saturday:
NORTH:
· 156. Woman killed in high-speed, head-on crash on Golf Road in Morton Grove (WGN TV)
· 157. Firefighters rescue group of teens from Deerfield water tower (WGN TV)
· 158. North Chicago police arrest suspect in Waukegan home invasion that left disabled man injured (Chicago Tribune/Lake County News-Sun)
· 159. Extensive restoration work under way at St. Paul the Apostle Church in Gurnee (Daily Herald)
NORTHWEST:
· 160. Governor signs into law bill spawned by fight over Crystal Lake South High School bleachers (Chicago Tribune)
WEST:
· 161. Aurora to review liquor license for Latin American Club where man died in Aug. 1 shooting (Chicago Tribune/Aurora Beacon-News)
· 162. Naperville opens $24 million Fort Hill Activity Center (Chicago Tribune/Naperville Sun)
SOUTHWEST:
· 163. Oak Lawn mothers/teachers create one-of-a-kind books that teach kids acceptance, confidence, kindness, respect (ABC 7)
· 164. Joliet man charged with grooming Mokena boy for sex via e-mail (CBS 2)
SOUTH:
· 165. Cook County State's Attorney's Office investigating case where lawyer who posed as judge at Markham courthouse (Chicago Tribune)
NORTHWEST INDIANA:
· 166. Lowell girl who found abandoned baby in family's back yard to appear on 'The Steve Harvey Show' on Oct. 4 (Northwest Indiana Times)
· 167. South Haven man charged with molesting a child now facing child-porn charges (Northwest Indiana Times)
· 168. St. John swears in first female police officer (Northwest Indiana Times)
· 169. Merrillville warns residents to lock Dumpsters after Waste Management threatens to cut off garbage collection because of illegal dumping (Northwest Indiana Times)

Hey guys, I’m a Nuggets fan from China and below is my analysis on Nuggets operation. The article covers Mason Plumlee, Wilson Chandler, Darrell Arthur, Juan Hernangomez, and possible future for Nuggets.
Mason Plumlee: good player, bad timing
This is the next issue on the table, should Nuggets re-sign Mason Plumlee? Usually this should have been a no-brainer, but Nuggets just got caught in an unusual situation.
Mason is good, and still improving. He is probably one of the top 5 long passers in the league, not quite creative, but reliable. That combined with his quality finishing makes him a top pick and roll partner in the league, as Lillard and McCollum would tell, and it's not his fault that Nuggets is in desperate short of threatening guards. Mason is not as effective delivering handoff, the play-type that Nuggets heavily relies on, since he lacks shooting range to pull the defender out, but he managed to keep the offense running when Jokic sits.
He also worked on his criticized defense. According to nba.com he contested 435 shots within 6 feet from the rim in the last season and allowed a shooting percentage of 52.0%, a grade comparable to Hassan Whiteside or Robin Lopez. He still had trouble boxing out, but with these strengths he already deserves a starting position. I would say 13 to 15 million per year sounds about right. Plus, Nuggets might even get a discount considering all teams' tight budgets this season.
However, the Nuggets already have a overlong list of expensive big reserves. If Plumlee stays, they will spend 35 million dollars on bench players sharing 3500 minutes, a disadvantageous situation as Harris and Jokic expecting big extensions. Let's take a look at how Nuggets got caught up in this Plulee issue.
A brief review on the Nuggets Blazers deal
The major thrusts for the Plumlee-Nurkic trade still stands. Nuggets solved their locker room problem, and Blazers heged a exploding payroll. For the on-court part, Nurkic was a unpolished, struggling young player in his third year, while Plumlee looked like a reliable forth grader. A late first round pick wound have been a fair compensation, but Plumlee was five years older than Nurkic and his rookie contract was counting down, so I would say Nuggets suffered a minor loss in the trade.
But minor loss matters, and it can matter a lot when the team strives. Plumlee is not an ideal combo big to pair with Jokic for his price. He is most productive in a 1-5 pick and roll supported by 3 shooters, and yet diminished in any other task. Nuggets knew that, but now with Millsap on board (as well as Trey Lyles and Taylor Lydon acquired from a trade I don't understand), his lack of adaptiveness suddenly becomes a severe problem. Meanwhile, Nuggets still need to dump unworthy contracts and upgrade at wing and point guard to ensure long term competitiveness, which would have been easier if they found a better bargain and kept the 20th pick. Perhaps they could have taken a slower pace by simply sending Nukic away without extra bid and relying on their young talents for the playoff race.
But on the positive side, Plumlee did improved the team. After Plumlee joined, Nuggets went 15-12 and only missed playoff by a unbelievable 3 pointer from the MVP. He helped Nuggets to achieve a outstanding +4.2 margin of victory in March and April, a typical level of a 50-winning team. It would only take 2 more losses for Nuggets to look uncompetitive and should that happen, would Millsap still choose here? Teams exceeding expectations catch free agencies attention. This summer Houston seduced Paul, and Miami at least got to meet Hayward, so maybe the 20th pick was Nuggets entrance fee for the big names' casino, and we won a bite on the apple.
2019 Summer: the real chance
2018-19 season is only 15 months from now. Nuggets already have 45 millions guaranteed for that year, including Millsap, Faried and Taylor Lydon. The best chance would be opting out on Jokic to make sure he signs our max, and Gary Harris is taking his 20 million. If we keep all rookie contract the number sums up to 105 million on 10 players. Wilson Chandler and Darrell Arthur will potentially take 20 extra millions if they choose to stay. Keeping Plumlee, and we're well over the expected tax line of 122 million. It won't help to give up on several below-expectation rookies.
For such price, we better accomplish something. Bottom-line conference semi-finals. But the real problem is, Nuggets will pay high amount of tax for a roster not significantly better than today. Sure, the young players will improve, but Millsap, Faried and Chandler won't be as good.
But the good news is that we are not locked up. So far the team will expect to have only Jokic, Harris and several rookies for 2019-20 season. Faried's contract will expire. So would Chandler and Arthur's, if any of them choose to stay. Millsap will hold some cap space, but Nuggets will have the crucial flexibility to make improvement. By that time, our young core of Jokic, Harris, Murray and Hernangomez will reach their prime, and hopefully have proven themselves in several competitive series. The 19-summer is the real chance for Nuggets.
That leads to the conclusion on Plumlee. It's ok to keep him, and even a bit overprice is affordable, since tax in 2018-19 is unavoidable anyway. But his contract should in no circumstances extend into 19-20 season. I think a 2+1 deal of 36 million would be ideal.
Will Chandler opt out next year?
Wilson Chandler and Darrell Arthur both have player options on 18-summer, and their choice may wipe 20 million off club's salary book and inject significant flexibility. Given their age, money should be their top concern, so let's talk about how much they would worth.
Wilson is distinctive in today's NBA. All small forwards playing over 2000 minutes last season can be divided into two groups: the franchise players, and the functional players like shooters or defense specialists. But Wilson is different. He was at most the fifth best player in the team, but his usage of 22.0% was way too high for a supporting role, and his average level efficiency is not quite convincing. There is simply not a big market for ball demanding small forwards.
Wilson is very likely not part of Nuggets' long-term plan since he is not suited for Jokic. He is not efficient off the ball, making only 34% of his catch and shoot 3 attempts, the lowest among Nuggets' major rotation. More often he chose to waste the open look, dive into the crowded paint and end with a turnover. Neither could he support the team with brutal isolation when offense stuck, like Gallinari or Barton did. As for the defense he had good combination of size, strength and mobility, but his attention was always a problem. According to espn.com his defensive real plus minus ranked 62 among 69 players on the same position, and in 14-15 he was 43 in 55.
For reference, PJ Tucker was offered 3/33 by Raptors this season, CJ Miles 3/25, Jared Dudley signed 3/30 last season, and these are all better players according to rpm, so a 3/25 million contract seems to be what he can get. I tend to believe he will stay for his 12 million in 18-19 season, in which case tax paying would be unavoidable.
Darrell Arthur, the player I'm most concerned with
Nuggets fans should pay more attention to Darrell because he is a player with many possibilities. Jokic is solid, so are Millsap and Harris. Murray, will full health, is going to improve anyway. But Darrell is unpredictable. Will he recover? Can he continue his amazing shooting? Will he replicate his defense performance in 15-16? We would be really lucky if it's yes to all three questions.
The guy just earned himself a 23 million contract a year ago. In 15-16 when he was healthy, Darrell was a stretch four plus a defender. With his mobility, he contested 3.3 spot up plays per 36 minutes and allowed only 0.83 point per play, lower than 82.6% of all players. He also provided center-level rim protection, reducing opponent’s percentage down to 55.8%, ranking 13th of 169 6'10-or-less players that defended over 200 shots below the rim.
Darrell didn't get a higher contract only because he is bad at rebounding, thus unable to switch to center. But what he could provide is still exciting. A rotation made of him, Plumlee and Faried is really luxury from both basketball and financial perspective. It's hard to say how much Arthur is worth since everything is up to his condition. I wish he could at least be ready to bear a task of 1000 minutes, even though that many contributions from him may not exactly be necessary.
Hernangomez: How Millsap's deal might affect his path
There's nothing to complain about landing Millsap with a max. Actually, Nuggets robbed him of 30 million dollars with the team option on the third year. But it is still necessary to see a few moves ahead. Undersized power forwards typically have short primes. Admittedly Millsap did a great job staying competitive in his early 30's, but is also implies an increased risk of unexpected cliff fall in the coming years, which is why the 2+1 deal is such a remarkable victory. To ensure that Jokic's prime will not be wasted, Nuggets still need a backup, and it seems their perfect choice, Juan Hernangomez, would be forced to play 3 after Millsap joins.
Juan could develop into a decent stretch 4, if not a top one. His size and shooting could be lethal in pick and roll, with quality defense on isolation and above average rebounding as bonus. He is facing an identity choice: playing power forward would require him to gain some weight so he could hold his position better, while small forward is more about remaining swift and versatile, But now the Nuggets seem to feed him an answer. Among the 6 reserve bigs (if Plumlee returns) Juan has the greatest potential to switch down to 3 without being much of a burden. The dilemma is like a diminished version of Anthony Davis issue a few years ago: the better player is forced to adapt to a different role because it's the only viable solution.
Vison for the Team
The NBA is a league dominated by stars. If Nuggets want to be a regular playoff team and even more, the best hope is for Jokic to grow into an All-NBA player and truly build around him. We need to collect players synchronized with his growth, players that support him and complete him. We need a decent pick and roll guard to create mismatch post up opportunities for him, we need versatile forwards to release him from switches, and we need a bit playmaking and isolation from the wing.
But there’s no hurry. This is Jokic’s team, and Nuggets shouldn’t go after any players that’s gonna challenge his authority. Don’t pay future first round picks to trade off expensive contracts. Don’t tighten cap room up in 19-summer, and don’t make any upgrade that contradicts current plan.

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https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=e0hMbDOT264
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https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=1eqFp_1OomE
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https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=q_7iYeZeXSU
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The Daily Fantasy Sports industry is booming year after year. Just alone in December 2018 the Fantasy Sports industry generated About $220 Million In Entry Fees.
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New to the fantasy sports industry? You can read more articles on the top financially here:
https://www.reuters.com/brandfeatures/venture-capital/article?id=78816
https://www.legalsportsreport.com/21627/ny-dfs/
https://fsta.org/press-release-fantasy-sports-now-a-7-billion-industry/

A snippet of a conversation from the start of the season with a man who has been firmly entrenched at St James’ Park for more years than he would care to admit and whose senses are attuned to approaching turbulence. “You know what this club’s like. You’ve seen the summer we’ve had. Lose a game and we’re under pressure. Lose the next and it’s backs to the wall. Lose a third and it’s a full-blown crisis. This is Newcastle.”
Alan Pardew was not happy. He was not incandescent, but he was not happy. The summer transfer window had just closed and his firm belief was that Newcastle United’s first-team squad had not been strengthened sufficiently, particularly in attack, that forward propulsion had been placed in jeopardy and that the club was storing up trouble. There might be a reckoning.
Clarification: numbers one and two were in reference to last season, not this, which just goes to show how football can change, how momentum – for good or ill – can influence a club’s fortunes. Let us transport ourselves back to August 2011; Kevin Nolan had left, Jose Enrique and Joey Barton would do so, legal letters about the use of Twitter were sent to players, who were still in dispute with Newcastle over bonus payments.
With his resources looking light, Pardew was asked in a press conference whether this was the old, drama-addled Newcastle reaffirming itself and while he answered in the negative, it felt like yet another precipice was being approached. Then the football started. And a decent draw with Arsenal was followed by a 1-0 victory at Sunderland and suddenly Pardew, to use Kevin Keegan’s parlance, was riding the black and white tiger.
A slight interlude. For a little while on Saturday, I frothed with rage. Brighton and Hove Albion! Again! Twice in two years, Newcastle have gone out of the FA Cup to the npower Championship team and the year before they lost to Stevenage and while these things can happen, to me – and this may be a personal thing, I accept – it feels like a betrayal of history, never mind those supporters who traveled to the south coat
I’m 42. I was born in 1970, which was only 15 years after Newcastle won their last FA Cup final and the exploits of Jackie Milburn, Bobby Mitchell and Bob Stokoe were part of the heritage I grew up with. I’m too young to remember Sunderland lifting it in 1973, managed by the very same Stokoe, but the same applies; at the start of each season the FA Cup was as much as a priority as the league.
That concept is gone now, I realise, but I hate that slow death. I know that staying in the Barclays Premier League has, with the money it entails, with the media-driven bombast which accompanies it, taken overarching importance for clubs (and some fans). And I come from the North East, so I have absolutely no expectation of trophies, but I do expect teams to give it a bloody good go. Newcastle’s performance was unworthy. Grrr.
There is a difference between Newcastle’s transfer policy and the implementation of that policy. Buying young, ambitious players for a decent price on manageable wages and with a likely sell-on value represents good sense, particularly at a club which has a lamentable record of paying too much for vanity signings at the expense of genuine team-building and with Financial Fair Play coming to the fore.
If Mike Ashley, the owner, is reluctant to spend/waste any more of his personal fortune bankrolling Newcastle, then there is little alternative, in any case; the club must become self-sufficient. Under the influence of Graham Carr, bargains have been unearthed in the likes of Yohan Cabaye, Cheik Tiote and Hatem Ben Arfa, while Mathieu Debuchy, last week’s £5.5m arrival from Lille, is a quality right back.
The system is fine and Carr’s reputation is merited, but Newcastle are hugely reluctant to compromise in a business where compromise is rife. They have their structure, they have their policy and they stick to it. Having targeted Debuchy, Douglas, the Twente centre-half, and strikers including Luuk de Jong and Andy Carroll, they either walked away from complex deals or were outbid by other clubs.
Five months after refusing to pay £7m for Debuchy, they have got him for less, but at what cost to results? The lack of cover in defence has been critical. Newcastle argue that Debuchy (he is 27), just as with Papiss Cisse’s fee and age 12 months earlier, represent flexibility in their policy, but not much. After all, with the £35m they originally received from Liverpool for Carroll, they benefited from the biggest compromise ever.
And is there now a glass ceiling at St James’? The uncertainty caused by the £7.5m release clause in Demba Ba’s contract is now over, thankfully, but another element to Newcastle’s policy is their stance on salary. Again, this is sensible. But there may come a time when Ben Arfa, Cabaye and others will wish to have their deals renegotiated. What happens then? Can Newcastle grow with their players?
Roll the dice. Ashley and Derek Llambias, his managing director (and former casino man, which is not a coincidence) are inveterate gamblers. The decision to sell Carroll with no replacement was a risk, as was sacking Chris Hughton, selling Nolan and the others – putting Newcastle’s team spirit in jeopardy – but, at least until recently, they could argue that all of them were successful. Now, though? It is funny how time alters perspectives.
The dice were tossed again in the summer, but their luck ran out. The previous year, Pardew expressed concern when Ba was the only addition to his strikeforce, but Ba scored plenty, there were few medical problems and, the following January, Cisse arrived when Newcastle were in a position of strength. The goals flowed immediately, even as they dried up from Ba (who was stationed on the wing).
This time, Newcastle’s squad has been left exposed and it makes their planning look suicidal, particularly with the extra complication of the Europe to consider. There has been a general dip in form which has come in tandem with more matches, less confidence, the feeling that other teams have worked them out, injuries have derailed them and the young players that Pardew wanted to emerge have not done so, albeit in difficult circumstances.
The Europa League came a year too soon. This is easy to say, but it is a widely-held belief within the club’s hierarchy, some of whom were not overjoyed when Pardew’s players finished fifth last season. Fourth could have meant the riches of the Champions League (although it didn’t, thanks to Chelsea), and sixth would have meant progress without the added burden of a tournament which brings games but little financial reward.
The vision of Llambias and Ashley, somewhere down the line, is that when Newcastle need new players, if they get hit by injury or suspension, they do not reach first for the company credit card but scan the reserve and development squads for replacements. It is why attainting the top grading for their Academy is viewed as so important and why they continue to pay for young players who promptly sink into the structure.
It is what Llambias and Carr were doing in Paris last weekend; not just seeking a ready-made replacement for Ba and, possibly, another defender, but tying up deals for more youngsters. They will tell you that this is not cheap and although the record is mixed on this front – players like Mehdi Abeid have not kicked on as they were expected to – investment now is intended to save money later.
The first-team is what people care most about, of course, and these are precarious moments. The eight-year contract which Pardew signed earlier this season has allowed him to work without the usual backdrop of chatter and gossip which has afflicted his predecessors – usually due to the itchy trigger-fingers of those above them – but that positivity and opportunity has to be translated into points.
Sussed out by opponents, hampered by selection issues and fleeting time on the training pitch, Newcastle’s fluency has deserted them, morphing into a lumpen, uneasy style. With the get-out of Ba’s goals gone, that must change, while the manager needs to use his authority to win an argument or two about the depth of his squad because, even when everyone is fit, there is a lack of competition.
Newcastle is a very different club to the one which was relegated in 2009. They are slimmed down and, in relative terms, financially secure. The dressing-room is solid. The way they do business can be meticulous and single-minded – see the way they rode roughshod over popular feeling with naming rights and Wonga’s sponsorship – yet they believe that everything is done in the cause of self-sufficiency.
Meticulous dice-throwers, jaw-dropping decisions but a stringent, transfer policy; it is the contradiction at the heart of the modern Newcastle. The one area where they have shown a reluctance to gamble is over that old, footballing cliché, where you speculate to accumulate. They should not be risking the club’s future by paying over the odds, yet by paying under them they have done precisely that.

I've machine translated an article from ResearchGate.net that is further research on the subject of Quadra Progression. I didn't change much of the translation here. It is a little rough at times, but the parts that really matter are basically clear enough to leave alone. When I note the presence of infographics, I'd recommend referring to the original link to see what the translation is referring to. The format of the source doesn't play well with machine translators so the content of the infographics I wasn't able to translate, but you can get the gist. It took much more effort than I was expecting to translate this article, but I think that it is worthwhile to see what the Socionics view of history is and how it compares and contrasts to Strauss-Howe. It is different, less neatly and clearly defined, but I think it adds some interesting dimensions, namely the differentiation between quadra epochs and quadra sub-phases. The article is too large to post here, so the second half will be in the comments. The following is the translation of the article.
LECTURES ON INTEGRATED SOCIONIC UDC 159.923.2
Bukalov AV FORECASTING SOCIAL POLITICAL PROCESSES
The application of the law of replacement of Bukalov-Gulenko quadras and the concepts of integral socionics analyzes the events of recent history in Russia, the United States, and Ukraine. The interaction of state leaders of different countries with national mentality is described. Various aspects of the world economic crisis are analyzed in connection with the integral type of the United States. Key words: socionics, intertype relations, ethnopsychology, integral type of ethnos, state management. There are a lot of components in this thread. I will try to dwell on some issues, in particular, I will consider in detail the law of removability of quadra [1]. Let's start from the beginning. Recall that we have socionics, that is, the theory of psycho-information structures, or the psyche - individual and societal. And any psyche processes 8 aspects of the information flow. The instrument for this is the type of information metabolism. There is a certain dynamics of processing information: information moves 4-tact, on two rings - the vital and the mental. We also know that there are 16 types of information metabolism, they form a society - a single integrated system. And within this system, types are interconnected by inter-type interactions-intertype relationships. And moreover, there are social order and control relations in the societal - from 1st quadra to 4th and back - from 4th quadra to 1st. That is, the direct transmission of information and control and return transmission.
As soon as there is a transmission of information from the quadra to the quad, the dynamics appears. From this follows what was later called the law of removability of the quadra. How did we find this? Considering an era, some phases of the development of society, the society as a whole.
First, we can begin an abstract consideration: there is a system that is described by a combination of 8 information aspects, and it has its own dynamics of processing information. It turns out that if we look closely at this system, then we can distinguish four phases in it – Alpha, Beta, Gamma, Delta - which replace each other. A certain period of development of society can be described by one of such phases. When the corresponding phase occurs, then on the wave of this phase, as they say on the crest of this wave, there are people with types belonging to the quadra corresponding to this phase. Thus, we can see that some social and political movement first arises, then it acquires some organizational forms, then these forms break down, then the socionics, mentology and personality psychology change, and finally the movement ceases, comes to a steady, steady state. This, for example, concerns political parties.
On the other hand, since the entire human civilization, in general, is also such an information system, and any culture can be so described, we can globally look at it. Classical history, historiography identifies certain phases of the development of society - primitive and savage, primitive communal relations, then class relations, then the development of capitalism, etc. And, according to historians, civilization begins with the emergence of cities and states. Actually, the beginning of writing, money, etc., is fixed by history as the beginning of civilization. This scheme is generally accepted, no one opposed it - neither in the West, nor even Marxists. This was the fundamental thesis: there is a state - the machinery of violence - and the class history of mankind begins. And before that there was prehistory.
The problem, however, is that states began to emerge not so long ago, historically, of course. The oldest, in Shumi, is the 4th millennium BC. E., And in other territories of the state appeared in 2,000 – 3,000 BCE. What was before then? Really before that there was prehistory?
It turns out that before that, well-known monuments of material and spiritual culture, say, the same Stonehenge in England, on the Salisbury Plain, were erected. And the pre-historic people who lived in communities, under the rule of the leaders, did not know writing, which did not have cities, it turned out, perfectly able to process stone and erect huge structures - wooden or stone, like Stonehenge. Moreover, they possessed the highest astronomical knowledge, I no longer speak of processing technology, the installation of multi-tonnages weighing tens of tons of stones, but that astronomical information, which is encrypted in the same megaliths, is so sophisticated ... It is now considered Proved that the rings of Stonehenge model the ten planets of the Solar System and many other astronomical objects and phenomena. Moreover, it turns out that in the place of Stonehenge even before the stone structure was wooden. And next to it there was one more -Woodhenge. Moreover, at this time, almost synchronously throughout the vast expanse of Eurasia, up to the Trans-Urals, similar structures were built, mostly of wood, of course. Again, the information that was encrypted in them is completely unique. The oldest such ring of megaliths was found in southern Egypt, one can say in Nubia, on the border with Libya, it dates back to the 6th millennium BCE. Of course, there were no states then.
If you take, for example, the temples of the island of Malta, and there are dozens of these temples, and, apparently, when the island sank under the water, many such temples disappeared under water - there are roads and stuff - it's again 4,000-3,000 BCE. A sophisticated technique of working with a stone, sophisticated solar coding, stellar. The orientation of all these structures, connected with equinox and other astronomical events ... Again, all this was created at a time when there was no written language, there was no state. Nevertheless, somebody organized these works, somebody did all this synchronously. That is, the society was undoubtedly sufficiently developed, but there was no civilization in the historical sense. There is a paradox ...
The existing historical paradigm in this sense cuts off a giant piece of human history. But this phase lasted, without exaggeration, for several thousand years. The first villages and even cities appeared very long ago: Jericho – 9,000 BCE., Chatal-Guyuk in Asia Minor, in the territory of modern Turkey - the 7th millennium BCE. Even the Sphinx, which stands on the Giza plateau near the pyramids, as geologists have shown, was hollowed out and made not simultaneously with the pyramids, not in the 3rd millennium BCE., But much earlier. It was created around at least 7,500 BCE. It turned out very simply. American geologists began to study it and found that the Sphinx is in a trench, where limestone was extracted, and deep furrows remained on the trench and the Sphinx. From what? They began to investigate: if sand had left them, then the furrows would be of the same species, and furrows with all others. Just the same as water does, more precisely - strong streams of rainwater. The problem is that throughout the well-known history of the Sphinx periodically swept the sand, it’s all the time, regularly dug up. There was a question: when did the rains and sand go? It turned out that the rains were between the seventh and fourth millennia BC. E. Those rains that could leave such traces ... And there was no sand, because this area was green, there grew grass ... People made the Sphinx 7,500 years BCE., A little later than Jericho was built. And next to it, right before the Sphinx, stands the Sphinx temple. This temple is made of that limestone that was taken out of the trench. Among the floors in this temple there are blocks of 50 tons. How do you raise 50 tons? The stones of Stonehenge are 10 tons, for example. And then they still wonder how they were raised. And how to raise 50 tons? Today, the whole world has two cranes that lift such a weight. In general, everything is very difficult to explain, but this temple has the same gates. And the most curious, which few people paid attention to, (but I was there in Egypt and specially photographed it) - this temple was so sacred for the ancient Egyptians, who in the third millennium BCE. They either erected or modernized the pyramids, making an internal granite cloak for this temple, they kept these furrows. And these are not slabs, but large, thick, massive blocks of red granite that cover the entire interior of the temple. So, the granite they blew up so that they closed the cavity (gully) in this temple. Granite is much harder than limestone and harder to process. But, apparently, it was so important and sacred for them that they did not even dare to rinse or rumble these gullies, but in their form, they drilled hard granite. So, these bogs have survived to our time.
What is this phase of history? You can argue a lot, put forward a variety of hypotheses, down to aliens. But in any case, since this process took place globally, that is, it was in Egypt, Eurasia, and other parts of the world, then, of course, there were some general characteristics of it.
When they began to understand the structure of societies, which, in particular, were associated with megaliths and other material remnants-the same Triplanskaya civilization, in the Balkans it is the culture of linear ceramics, and many others-it turned out that these societies existed for thousands years. They were governed by the leaders, they had a very developed religious and other ritual culture, but they did not have a state. What is this phase?
If from the point of view of socionics we look at the characteristics given by the modern historical paradigm, then the beginning of human civilization, that is, the presence of the state, writing, army, etc. - is that? These are typical manifestations of what we call the phase Beta. Then we can compare everything that we talked about a little bit earlier - and high knowledge and so on - and understand that it was a phase Alpha. And in phase Alpha, in fact, in contrast to phase Beta, organizational structures are very weak, but spiritual and other knowledge are very high, which are achieved intuitively.
Megaliths and other structures are surprising, in particular, "what high knowledge is encrypted in such a design." But if we look at a graph that was built by me long ago [3], we will see how the redistribution of free information in different squares is proceeding. In phase Alpha - a huge amount of free information, phase Beta - limiting information. Next, the next burst is the Gamma phase and, finally, some kind of stabilization - phase Delta. But at the same time there is an inverse process, let's say, materialization-Information. And it turns out that in phase Alpha it is weak, the largest peak reaches in the second phase, then a small dip in the Gamma phase, and finally a long phase of large-scale information materialization, that is, the phase of accumulation of material values-phase Delta, when ideas are little, but people live very well. This is how several countries in Western Europe, which have already reached this phase, live in it.
It is clear that then we can compare with the vast period of history, from about the seventh millennium BCE. Up to the second – third millennium BCE., The phase of Alpha. Almost five thousand years lasted phase Alpha. This is very long time. How many modern civilizations exist? From Christ's Nativity - only 2000 years. And the same Trypillian culture or related cultures in the Balkans existed for more than 5000 years. This is a completely different scale. Moreover, they existed without any major shocks - stably and calmly. Apparently, they tried to somehow live in harmony with nature and environment, all this was achieved through complex rituals, any action had some sacred meaning, etc. But these cultures were very stable: 4-5 thousand years is not a joke.
INFOGRAPHIC, CLOCKWISE FROM TOP:
Beta. The formation of a centralized, up to totalitarian, governance structure with the implementation of grandiose projects is accompanied by a sharp decrease in the circulation of free information in society-it is transformed into "construction projects of the century"
Delta. The stabilization phase: almost all free information is linked to the material, technological and other achievements of the society. The minimum number of fundamentally new ideas, conservatism.
Gamma. "Perestroika": the increase in freely circulating information is accompanied by the collapse of the administrative command system, its economic, social and production structures.
Alpha. The maximum of free information circulating in society, and the minimum of its implementation (materialization).
Circulation of free (ρ (I)) and materialized (ρ (E)) information in society.
Then, because of drought and other troubles, these cultures are slowly disappearing, dying, and new cultures are emerging, including in Eurasia, with Indo-Europeans, who at this time tamed the horse and began occupying these lands, practically without resistance. When they say that there were wars there, this does not correspond to archaeological data. There just happened a certain natural crisis, and the phase changed.
And the synchronism of this phase is amazing. Not only did Indo-Europeans simply occupy settlements, say, in the territory of Ukraine Tripolye and others. But if you take the same India, it was once thought that the fierce Aryans came with their flocks and horses to the territory of India and all began to destroy and destroy, including the civilization of Mohenjo-Daro. But later studies have shown that the Mohenjo-Daro civilization died of natural causes (droughts and floods) several hundred years before the arrival of the Aryan tribes. The fact that the arias in India were not conquerors and did not destroy the Dravidian tribes, but actually assimilated them, is even said by the structure of the Indian pantheon. There are also Shiva and other gods, many of them clearly Dravidian, South Indian. They were integrated, possibly together with religious and philosophical ideas, and thus Hinduism arose.
These protocivilizations, Alpha-cultures died under the influence of internal and natural causes. That is, they, as they say, just lived their own phase.
Since historians were inclined to see history as a process of continuous wars and conquests, they gave it some aggressive coloring. But in fact, not every culture can survive for several thousand years without much shock.
Knowing socionics, we can say that the historical paradigm should include not only the 2nd phase, but also the 1st, Alpha-phase ... That prehistory, in which people only learned farming, cattle breeding, etc.
It's another matter, that since these phases are very global, and now we see the development of capitalism, then, do we really have the third phase? Nothing like this. Since the world consists of states, the state according to Lenin is the "apparatus of violence", coercion, in fact, in the global sense, for the human civilization, there is a second phase. Only it lives its subphases: -Alpha subphase, Beta-subphase, Gamma-subphase. It can be assumed that now mankind is experiencing a certain Gamma-sub-phase, but within the framework of this global 2nd quadra. That is, such representations that "the state will wither and disappear", as the communists dreamed, are still very far from realization, the third phase has not yet come. Of course, some attempts are being made to unite with the destruction of interstate borders within the framework of the European Union and similar events. But nevertheless, if we think in phases of millennia, now we have a Gamma-subphase of the global Beta phase.
Socionics in a sense restores a whole historical layer in its rights. A significant part of the mythologies and other achievements of the second phase are based, of course, on the discoveries and knowledge of the Alpha-phase - those societies that were before them. Certainly, with the loss of part of understanding, some technologies, etc.
When we talk about the development of an ethnos, in the same way we can distinguish several sub-phases in its development. In general, the theme of the development of society or ethnos is well suited to analysis by the methods of socionics. For example, it was convincingly shown that all these phases described by Gumilev : the rise of passionarity, the ac- matic phase, the phase of the break, the obscuration phase, the decay phase, the memorial phase are very well modeled by the information Aspects. And, of course, if we move from such global issues to narrower ones, then, for example, we can analyze the world history of, say, the 20th century ... Let us recall the middle and the end of the 19th century, when a storm of technical and scientific discoveries began: Steam, the era of electricity, the discovery of X-rays, the novels of Jules Verne and other writers. A real hymn to human knowledge in its pure form. It seemed - a little bit more and humanity will enter the "golden age", all for it will make cars, all the unpleasant work, a person will live comfortably, his task will only be something new to do, discover, learn, etc. The whole end of the nineteenth - beginning of the twentieth century was saturated with such a feeling. A kind of Alpha-sensation: "Forward!", "Discoveries!", "Progress!". The discovery of the radioactivity of the atomic nucleus, the discovery of quantum mechanics, the discovery of the theory of relativity, is a continuous flow of development. It seemed, in just a little bit, humanity will enter into the "golden age". And suddenly - Bam! - The First World War begins. First, local conflicts, that is, the Anglo-Boer War, the Russo-Japanese War, other wars, but they are still far from Europe ... And suddenly, in the midst of archi- cy-armed Europe, there is a gigantic massacre.
What is the First World War? This is in fact the moment of transition from one phase to another, that is, when the old idea breaks down, the old structures ... And a new, imperialist order arises. As formulated by VI Ulyanov-Lenin: "imperialism as the highest stage of capitalism." There are new empires, new Unions, new formations, there are authoritarian and totalitarian states. Not only in Russia, instead of the Russian Empire, but everywhere: in Italy - the fascist state, in Hungary - the totalitarian regime, in some countries such authoritarian or semi-authoritarian regimes arise - one can recall Poland, that is, the government of Marshal Pilsudski. But not only almost all of Europe is governed by such regimes. Even in China, there are certain processes of militarization. In Japan, a new militaristic state is being formed. That is, globally the whole epoch, the whole world is turning, sliding into the 2nd phase - phase Beta. And wherever we look - everywhere we see a huge number of all kinds of authoritarian or frankly totalitarian regimes. They capture most of Europe. Let's just say that they struggled hard in England, although the sympathy for Nazism among the British establishment was very strong, it's enough to recall Lord Chamberlain (who, by the way, was a logical-sensory introvert ( LSI) and admired Hitler - ethical- Intuitive extrovert (EIE), considering that the Messiah) ... In France, there was an attempt ... And in the United States of America too. But, since Roosevelt was in charge there (SEE), this trend was stopped. However, it had roots: economic depression, a decline in production. And again, the recession was not only after the war of Germany, which was ruined by reparations, the Weimar world under humiliating conditions and so on. But in the seemingly prosperous America, the same thing happened - the crisis of 1929 ... The crisis is a crisis for them - they have a 20% drop in production. It was a gigantic catastrophe and depression of America and all those who were associated with it. Against the background of our 90's, we would say: "Ha! Is this called a crisis? Against the background of the fact that in the former Soviet Union, production fell by 80%, and nothing - survived! ".
The second phase: a whole conglomerate of Beta-regimes is created that are friendly to each other, they arrange some unions, but at the same time they do not mind (among themselves, again) divide the remaining territories. And in the end, the two largest regimes clashed. Japan occupied part of China, which was completely defenseless before it, and attacks the United States. Simultaneously Hitlerite Germany attacks the Soviet Union, which itself was preparing to attack, but did not have time. And the struggle of totalitarian regimes begins between themselves. We know how it ended. But the fact is that the 2nd phase lasted quite a long time. And if it was practically destroyed in the territory of Western Europe and Japan by means of military actions, in the Soviet Union, as in one of the victorious countries, it safely survived, despite all the reforms, until 1991. Before that, China experienced a similar transition. There, this phase ended with the death of Mao Tse Dong and Deng Xiao Ping, they began to "crawl" into the 3rd phase, that is, the γ-phase. If to take globally, then in the post-war period, the third square predominates, of course. And it's understandable why - because it's time. And the locomotive of all this was the United States of America, which, with the help of the Marshall Plan for Europe, with huge investments, breathed in the spirit of entrepreneurship, economic and financial management methods, individual initiative, personal success - the ideas of the Gamma-quadra - into consciousness and organization.
If taken globally, then in the post-war period, the third square predominates, of course. And it's understandable why - because it is their time. And the locomotive of all this was the United States of America, which, with the help of the Marshall Plan for Europe, with huge investments, breathed in the spirit of entrepreneurship, economic and financial management methods, individual initiative, personal success - the ideas of the Gamma-quadra - into consciousness and organization. Life in many countries of the world. The US not only restructured political regimes and, of course, economies in a number of countries in Europe and Asia, but also, due to their economic power, they actually made the dollar the world's reserve currency. After the Second World War, the dollar, not the gold security, began to play the role of world currency. This is a very serious moment. As a result, all countries began to copy or adapt to the economic template or criterion that was set by the United States of America.
The United States of America is described by an integral type of logical-intuitive extrovert (LIE, Entrepreneur). Let's look at model A of this type. On the 1st place There is a 4-dimensional business logic (Te), that is, "everything for business", "make money" 1. It is a country of capitalism, not of classical, but of little-restrained capitalism. Those laws and those institutions that exist in the United States provide every kind of encouragement for any business. Moreover, since logic is 4-dimensional, and the United States is an extravert structure, then, of course, the business and processes of the extrovert with business logic are business processes all over the world, that is, the entire globe. Dolbar is a continuation and an instrument of this 4-dimensional business logic. When the United States says in any developing country that "there must be a market economy in the country", they establish their own rules of the game. The problem is that, although by these rules everyone seems to be profitable to play - they encourage the benefits, but there is a downside - in this field, in these rules the United States automatically becomes the strongest. Because only this is their field of activity. If they had ethics in the first function, they would have ruled some ideological moments, but, as there is business logic, the circumstances develop exactly this way.
Further, this type is not only logical, but also intuitive. In the second place is the intuition of time (Ni), that is, the ability to predict the results of its financial, entrepreneurial actions. This intuition of time is also the intuition of risk: "whoever does not risk, he does not win." Therefore, this type is characterized by the desire to "flirt" with finances, with some other moments. And as a result, from time to time he "brings". And any speculative financial combinations lead to a financial crisis.
One economist described well what was happening in the United States of America: a person buys a house on credit, the house costs 100 thousand dollars. Further, since there is such a process where everyone buys something from each other, the house costs 200 thousand a year later, nominally. The owner is called from the bank, they say: "Look: you took a house on bail, it cost 100 thousand, and now it already costs 200. Do not want to take under these extra 100 thousand furniture, equipment, etc.?". - "Of course, I want". - "No questions". The price is still growing, the person still picks up ... That is, the fictitious price of a house, the fee for ensuring the standard of living increases several times. But for all this, a person collects loans: for entertainment, for new household appliances, etc. And then the banks become not that much, and they increase the interest on the loan. Only by 2-3%. But with this amount, a person is required to pay a month more than his salary, after deduction of taxes, after paying for utilities and so on. He says: "But I cannot." The bank has a reflex - it takes away the house. And it remains with nothing. Because when he takes away from everyone, it turns out that no one can pay. On the TV showed a village in Florida: thousands of houses are standing, thousands of houses, of which evicted residents who could not pay loans. The police are forced to somehow guard houses, because in them teenagers are disgraceful, tramps are populating them. And so, throughout America. This is speculation: "I thought that it costs 200, and put it here, and now it is already worth 300 ..." and again, and more ... And after several such speculations it turned out that such "money" by one estimate is 1.5 trillion, According to others - 10 trillion dollars "wound up". And what to do with it? Then it turns out that at one point, when people refuse to pay, and the house cannot be sold by the bank, and, in turn, has debts to other banks - what happens? It turns out a default, that is, a refusal to pay. And a chain reaction begins. It turns out that those assets that cost the imagination of financiers 5 trillion are not worth one trillion. And the dollar is the world's reserve currency. And the problems of the USA immediately become problems of the whole world. Extraverted approach. The introvert's problems are his problems. And the extrovert's problems are the problems of everyone around him. In this case, financial problems. And the whole world is beginning to shake, because 25% of the world's consumption is the United States of America. And GDP in the US is 11 trillion. This, of course, is a gigantic figure ...
And, as a result, the slightest instability in this giant economic organization, the slightest "sneeze" brings down the world economy. Like Gulliver sneezed among Lilliputians. There is an interesting paradox: everyone knows that the US economy is in crisis and the stock exchange is falling, and the dollar has risen sharply. What happened? Investors began to take money from everywhere, from all countries, to collect them and buy back very cheap American shares, which have now collapsed. In a word: "the stock market has reached the bottom, broke it and began to dig."
INFOGRAPHIC: Integral Types of Russia, Ukraine, USA (INFJ, INFP, ENTJ). Fragments of models of mentality of ethnoses of Russia, Ukraine and the USA.
The problem consists that the combination of business logic and intuition of time at this type sometimes gets speculative character. The fact is that even on a personal level, Jack London or the Entrepreneur has a propensity for a certain risk. And there is such a literary character - Ostap Bender, the "great combinator" - in his image one side of this quality is underlined. On the other hand, for some people of this type, there are, of course, not many of them, there is a great passion for games in casinos or on slot machines. Apparently, they feel a resonance with their business logic when they see how a mechanical device accidentally ejects something. Perhaps there is a psychological moment of identification: "this is a machine, I'm inside a car; He throws away by chance, so I can guess. " I know some people who came to the "one-armed bandits", could not stop ... One large entrepreneur could squander 20-30 thousand, and could not leave until he was pulled out by the collar of a comrade-SEE: he simply pulled out the rest ... Another person, an amateur to play, took in his firm money for settlements with the client and decided to "wrap" them at the same time - he went into the casino. And, of course, not only this money was squandered, but twice as much. Then he disappeared, leaving a note to his wife: "do not look for me, I have disappeared." These are all real cases ... It turns out that the intuition of time brings a person who usually realistically calculates some moments, because he is betting on an unlikely forecast, as in the case of games.
But in the case of the mortgage crisis in the US, we see that there was a banal risk-playing game, which ended in big problems. The uncontrolled movement of capital on world exchanges, which is in full compliance with the Gamma-phase, is now trying to introduce some limits, limit: stop trading, or simply close for a few days the exchanges or prohibit short operations ... That is, the states of the whole world began to actively intervene in this structure. Now voices are heard that it is necessary to refuse altogether from the entire system, including somehow from the dollar, although no one knows how to do it. We can say that now the world economy is like a strained string - it can withstand, and maybe burst. What does it mean to burst? This means that America will refuse to pay its obligations. And trillions of dollars from foreign countries are invested in these obligations. What will happen? It will be complete financial chaos. But even now in America, the state is trying to introduce regulatory mechanisms through the purchase of controlling stakes at low prices. The thing is unheard of: an American state that has always preached a free market has already bought up a third of its banking assets. In the UK, almost all banks went under state control. In France, in Holland - too. Thus, governments take out primarily controlling stakes and banks become state or semi-public. In Russia, a similar process is also taking place. States are beginning to actively regulate the market. And what is it? This is nothing more than a "slip" into the 4th quadra, when there is no free financial "binge", but there are frames and various restrictions. Not like in the 2nd quadra - "they just took and took away", "commissars came and ..." - but softly, not selected, but bought out for less money, and such parastatal management is introduced. The fourth square is also a square of aristocrats - there is its own hierarchy, there its limitations and prohibitions ...
Now it is done, of course, spontaneously, at the level of reflexes, just completely different states, even the United States, do not see any other way out. But, from the point of view of socionics, this is nothing more than a rejection of permissiveness inherent in the 3rd quadra in the financial sense and a transition to technologies and regulatory practices characteristic of the 4th quadra, that is, the transition from a bundle of business logic - intuition (Te-N) to a bundle of business logic - sensorics (Te-S), from financial speculation to production-secured ones. Already in this phase there will be less "blown" speculation, and there will be real, secured assets that will be sold on the stock exchange, quoted, etc. Now the stock market is so divorced from reality that the shares are worth 50-60 denominations. If you count, with the profit that is given there - usually 15-20% per year, how many dozens of years to get this profit? But, nevertheless, quotes were just like that. And now there is a sharp decline - at times - the cost of these shares. Apparently, after all the fluctuations of the shares will become closer to real security. Of course, all this can be accompanied by financial catastrophe, because if the dollar string breaks, then one end, of course, it will hit the States, and the other end - for all who are associated with dollar assets. The situation is very dangerous. But, on the other hand, the transition from the 3rd quadra to the 4th can be either catastrophic or smooth. Both scenarios are possible, and it is quite possible that this will happen through a local or serious catastrophe with finances. It is very difficult here for something to be predicted, now we see just these waves. Obama won, but it is unlikely his team will cope with this. Because he has a lot of populism, but to build a competent strategy to fight against this is, of course, difficult.
In any case, we see that the phase that dominated after the First World War - the third phase - is coming to an end. The harbinger of this was already the "crawling" of Europe into this phase, that is, the formation of the European Union, the abolition of borders, customs and so on. While this was more or less local, and now we see that this process corresponds to the crisis that has arisen. Each time, with each new wave, such a crisis becomes stronger. Such waves unfold on a large scale, this shaft is growing more and more. Therefore, let's say, the world dollar system cannot survive the next crisis. And after a while, a significant part of human civilization will "crawl" or "throw it" into the 4th phase. And then other processes will go on, when people will come to their senses after a stormy Gamma-phase.
Let's turn to the history of specific countries. I will now say two words about Russia, then - about Ukraine. If we look at the history of Russia in the 20th century, including, of course, the period of the existence of the USSR, what do we see? There was an Alpha-phase - very small in a country with a Beta mentality - this is the February revolution, the actual organizational manifestation of this Alpha phase, which quickly changed as a result of the October coup by the Beta phase, that is, the construction of such a clearly centralized, rigid state with an integral type of logic - Sensory introvert (LSI, Maxim). And further - this state lasted 73 years, and then collapsed. That is, upon transition to the Gamma-phase, it underwent de-construction. We can say that the transition "strongly shakes", the flutter is such that the USSR has developed into a number of states and republics, other countries have arisen, and Russia has emerged.
If we now consider Russia, and it is the successor of the USSR, then in its history it is easy to single out several sub-phases, already inside the Gamma-phase. However, in the Beta-phase it was also possible to clearly distinguish 4 sub-phases: Alpha-sub-phase - after the civil war, this is the NEP; Beta-subphase-elimination of all and all, and the emergence of the unified authority of Stalin, continued until 1953; Further attempts by N. Khrushchev to reorganize the state apparatus, to introduce some changes are the Gamma-sub-phase. Khrushchev was displaced, and the "era of developed socialism" or "decaying socialism" began, as he was still jokingly called when everything calmed down, when all began to live more or less securely, in comparison with previous years, that is, the Brezhnev era. In this phase, four subphases are very clearly distinguished, while the Beta-structure of the state and society was preserved.
And now, a new countdown begins. The epoch of Boris N. Yeltsin is obviously the Alpha-subphase in the Gamma-phase. That is, the Gamma-square won, as it was said: "take independence as you want", the economic collapse began, and then the reforms began, and the other, already uncontrolled features of the Gamma-phase became more and more apparent. We all remember it well. Yes, this is the Alpha-sub-phase of the Gamma phase.
And then Boris Nikolaevich understands that the country has reached a certain limit. He understands that new forces are needed, he is looking for successors. He has a kind of casting premiers - who remembers who was not there. And he chooses Vladimir Putin. And, he rests: "Why? To me and so it is good ", -" No, you will be ". And the Beta-sub-phase begins in the 3rd phase. What does this mean? That with the parade of sovereignties is over, rigid centralized management is introduced, governors are no longer elected, but are appointed, the country gets a new administrative division - to the presidential offices, to 6 such super-regions. The "vertical of power" is being built. Restrictions, vowels and, what is characteristic, secret, associated with the press, with freedom of speech, with attempts at sovereignty are introduced ... On the other hand, military power is increasing, that is, a manifestation of strong-willed sensorics (Se). Recall that in the Alpha-phase Yeltsin's Russia actually lost two wars to a small Chechnya. Now - no, the struggle is getting tougher, fighting is under way, the term "sweep" appears. There is, let us say, the pacification of the Caucasus, and with harsh force methods. At the same time, as is known, a number of oligarchs are repressed: B. Berezovsky, V. Gusinsky, M. Khodorkovsky and others. Thus, the state shows that it is the main player - both political and economic. But the ownership forms do not change at the same time. A significant part of the oligarchs, who are friendly with this power, remain with this power or cooperate with it - remember the billionaire R. Abramovich, who simultaneously became the governor of Chukotka, and the super-billionaire, etc. That is, the Gamma-phase continues, that interesting. That is, there is no nationalization, but at the same time the state apparatus is strengthened.