I could talk about the other books and why they torture me so, but at the forefront of my mind is Jacobsen's Biological War.

Jacobsen is hardly shy. She has done the podcast tour, self promoting and sometimes exaggerating for dramatic effect. Its easy enough to roll your eyes at another doomer selling books, but this... this is different. And I can say that because I have read Jacobsen's previous works and I found them a tad boring and awfully dramatic. Even the nuclear war book didn't get much of a rise out of me.

But her newest book... I tried every old trick to downplay the gravity of the situation. And in the end I just gave up. The scenario she describes in the book is not just horrifying, its completely possible and, depending on who you ask, maybe inevitable.

Nuclear war is scary, but the worst case scenario is often presented as immediate oblivion. Here one moment; gone the next. Climate change is horrific too, but unless you're a fool you can admit it will unfold over centuries, not years. And it may be so gradual that we scarcely notice the disaster happening all around us.

Biological war is different. It won't be over quickly, and it won't unfold over centuries either. It strikes a middle ground that is so deeply upsetting its almost beyond words. Jacobsen tried and she did a decent job, but there really are no words for this kind of disaster.

I finished the book last night and I cannot stop thinking about it. I actually think the author coulda been WAY more dramatic but for some reason she made it the best case scenario of the worst case scenario, if that makes sense. After day 6 of the hypothetical outbreak, her scenario very abruptly stops.

The horror continues but what happens next, in detail, is a matter of highly classified programs that we will never know. Classified because if anyone knew the details - things would suddenly go from catastrophic to the 9th circle of hell. Keeping the public in the dark is the best chance of survival, not just of one particular government but of civilization as a whole.

I grew up watching live leaks, dicking around on the dark web, reading some of the most awful books about human history. I've also had plenty of traumatic experiences that most men and women never will, scars that will never heal - so it takes a lot to scare me.

This book fucking terrifies me

I've been trying to figure out for years why certain people are willing to defend Trump, no matter what evidence emerges that points to him being implicated in a horrible crimes. Why can't they just admit they were wrong about him? I've noticed these people share a lot of common traits.

Why can none of these people ever admit they are wrong about anything?

What is it about these people that makes them seem too stubborn to change?

They're protecting themselves from an unbearable truth.

The answer is narcissism, but a specific type of narcissism.

Narcissism better explains everything about who Trump supporters really are And why they can't quit the Trump cult ever.

Here are five psychological reasons why narcissistic Trump supporters will never admit they were wrong about Trump One.

What creates narcissists?

It's built through specific failures and how you're raised.

Heinz Kahoot was a psychologist at the University of Chicago who spent his career studying how narcissism develops in children.

He found that when children experience specific parental failures, something breaks inside of them.

They can't develop real self-worth, so their brain builds a defense mechanism. Instead, he called it compensatory narcissism.

Compensatory narcissism is one of person acts superior and Invincible on the outside to hide the fact that they feel fundamentally empty and worthless on the inside.

Neglect as love parents withhold attention unless the child produces results.

So the child learns.

I only exist when I achieve something or get in trouble for something conditional acceptance.

Parents praise only performance, making the child a tool for their own Ambitions.

So the child learns.

I'm only valuable when I'm useful to someone.

Emotional abandonment parents are physically present, but emotionally absent, making the child feel invisible.

Feeling an emotions are deemed as weaknesses, So the child learns my inner world doesn't matter to anyone else but me.

A parent builds the child up as destined for greatness, then withdraws that projection without warning.

So, the child learns my worth is temporary and can be taken away at any moment and the last one unpredictable responses.

The same behavior gets praised one day and shame the next day with no explanation.

So the child learns I can never be safe. I could never predict what will happen to me next. The term walking on eggshells comes from this unpredictable pattern. These five failures don't create one type of broken person, but they all lead to the same place. Each of these wounds run so deep at the person spends their entire life who running from it.

These children who become adults believe they are fundamentally empty or broken without external validation, they don't exist, so their brain constructs a defense.

They build a false self that acts invincible and Superior. This defense becomes their survival mechanism, but it's fragile.

It requires constant maintenance, constant admiration, constant proof that they matter, and this defense mechanism will destroy anyone who threatens to expose it. This is a psychological survival mechanism built in childhood that now drives every decision they make as adults. The weakness underneath. These are not strong people. They are fragile, mediocre people pretending to be powerful. But why not get help? Why keep on rationalizing, denying, lying, avoiding until death? Do you think that's really a good life strategy? Are you happy? Can you even remember what happiness felt like?

Since around an year, I've lost all my sense of hope and optimism. Till last year, whenever I faced any adversity, I believed that if I put enough effort in and worked on it, I can get through. I'm still a student in university. But, lately with everything that has been happening around the globe, I keep wondering why I'm doing anything at all... every other day, something or the other is happening, be it with the climate or politics or healthcare or industries. And now a prospective staged cyber pandemic! I'm not sure how credible that is but the recent global events seem to align with that narrative...

Everything seems very bleak and I've been feeling extremely powerless, pessimistic unlike ever before! I'm also struggling with making and sticking to decisions. Earlier whenever I felt this melancholic, I knew there was this light at the end of the tunnel if I make through it... like if I'm somehow pulling myself through, I can reach the light. But now everything seems staged.

I now find myself questioning the purpose of all this, even though I busted my ass off to get into uni! Where I'm from we've a decent NHS, but all the major private hospitals in my state have now been bought by US insurance giants and the effects are already visible in the management and the billing and the pushing of treatments! Patients are going into humongous debts now!

Every system I grew up believing in looks staged and manipulative now. And all these thoughts while I'm supposed to be a believer of science and I do, I really do have first hand proof of how all these scientific advances are changing lives for the better but at the same time I keep coming across all these different theories and global events that somehow seem to align in their narratives!

Till recent past, I'd have scoffed at them and not paid them any attention. I used to be an atheist but this whole fiasco is pushing me to being a believer- I've begun to hope there really is some superior entity because I've lost all my sense of agency and power. I do realise it maybe a coping mechanism but this state of mind is paralyzing!

At times I wonder whether I've gone insane.. . it's like some part of my brain has been switched off since over an year. It's even more depressing when I realise many of my colleagues seem to still be functioning at their full potential, not worried about the state of the world, with well-laid plans for their future while I'm believing almost everything I come across now, catastrophizing and ruining my own potential by inaction and some deep-seated hopelessness that never seemed to exist before.