Where did H.G. Wells get his futuristic predictions?

H.G. Wells is lauded for his futuristic predictions of email, energy weapons, genetically engineered humans, and an international framework to control nations, like the United Nations. In "Men Like Gods" (1923), he wrote, "In Utopia, people do not talk together on the telephone except by previous arrangement," he writes. "A message is sent to the district where the recipient is known to be, and there it waits until they choose to tap their accumulated messages."

Herbert George Wells visited Bolshevik Russia three times. The photo above is from his 1921 book on Russia, captioned "Messrs. Lenin and Wells in Conversation." Wells was a communist, his fiction books such as 'War of the Worlds' are really describing the triumph of global socialist ideology. Like his murderous colleagues in Soviet Russia, he wanted to see a world government, as described in 'A Modern Utopia' (1905). He was a friend of feminist Margaret Sanger and active in the Marxist Fabian Society. The "History of the Fabian Society" (1916) mentions him with enthusiasm: "New Worlds for Old, published in 1908, whilst he was a member of the Fabian Executive, is perhaps the best recent book on English Socialism."

During the National Socialist period, Germans viewed him as a propagandist for the British secret service. This particular quote is a translated from Eugen Hadmovsky's "Propaganda und nationale Macht: Die Organisation der öffentlichen Meinung für die nationale Politik": "The English intellectuals worked hard under the leadership of Herbert George Wells, the popular novelist, trade unionist, and socialist, following the firm directives from the Propaganda Ministry headed by Lord Northcliffe. Müller-Freienfels wrote that Wells, in his reminiscences, said: “Those in England had carefully considered how best to reach the German mentality, and had agreed that we had to catch the Germans through their tendency towards speculative ideas; therefore, it was decided that the League of Nations was by far the best way. It was played up like a roman candle.” The enemy press completely cooperated with such propaganda. Significantly, the press chief (Lord Northcliffe) was a member of the Allied government, and conversely, the members of government considered it self-evident that the press should be a participant in decision making and in the center of discussion and debate. The foreign press portrayed us as having started the war, as war criminals, as protracting the war through our desire for world conquest, and as the final losers. This was done to strengthen their own militant posture and their alliance, and to prepare for a devastating peace. They worked towards a systematic weakening of our fighting force, and mobilized enemies of the German state as well as international fanatics in neutral nations and even in Germany itself to assist their cause. They were exceptionally clever in that they directed their propaganda against the Kaiser and General Ludendorff as the organizers of the war..." (Hadamovsky, 1933).

Basedcon Panel: Has Publishing Forgotten About Men?

Traditional publishers don't seem interested in selling books to men anymore. Is this because publishing is dominated by women, or perhaps because our culture is hostile to masculinity? Is it true that men don't like to read? Are men more difficult to market to? Are men's tastes more varied than women's, generally speaking? Is there an opportunity for indie authors/publishers to meet the demand for books that appeal to men?

Declan Finn,  Blaine Pardoe, Daniel Humphreys (mod.)

🇫🇷A historic French church, dating back to 1854 and having survived two World Wars, has tragically burnt to the ground. This latest incident adds to a troubling pattern of church fires across the West, raising concerns about the sustained attacks on Christianity. Many are questioning why these destructions continue to occur, with some attributing it to a greater evil at work.
The cause of the fire is still under investigation.
🇺🇸Join👉 @SGTnewsNetwork
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In 1663, the partial fossilised skeleton of a woolly rhinoceros was discovered in Germany. This is the “Magdeburg Unicorn”, one of the worst fossil reconstructions in human history

"Russia has for weeks been getting pummeled by Ukrainian cross-border drones strikes, which have especially impacted oil and gas facilities.

"So in an unprecedented escalation, Russia's military is saying the deadly strike on the military academy was fundamentally to take out foreign instructors from the West who allegedly were involved in guiding drone operations on Russian soil.

"Russian state media is going so far as to call the academy located in Poltava a "NATO instructor base"..."

https://www.zerohedge.com/geopolitical/foreign-instructors-targeted-mass-casualty-strike-ukraine-military-academy-russia#:~:text=Russia%20has%20for,instructor%20base%22...

The case for repealing the 19th amendment in only 18 seconds.

A BasedCon custom is for participating authors to offer a reading of their works in progress. Fields & Energy was a bit out of place among the science fiction and fantasy stories, but I shared a (brief and heavily edited) snippet of an upcoming post. Enjoy!

Would you like to learn more? Subscribe to my Fields & Energy Substack:
https://aetherczar.substack.com/p/whats-wrong-with-conventional-electromagnetism

BasedCon Presentation: Catechism and God's Entry into Time: Old English Poetry, Alice in Wonderland, and the Conversion of the Anglo-Saxons to Christianity (Rachel Fulton Brown)

Catechism, historically, begins with telling a story in time: “And the Word was made flesh, and dwelt among us” (John 1:14). For modern Christians, this story-telling typically involves discovering Jesus of Nazareth as an historical figure — the “Jesus of history” who lived in the Roman province of Judea a generation before the destruction of the Second Temple in A.D. 70. For ancient and medieval Christians, the exercise was somewhat different. The problem, for modern Christians wanting to participate more fully in the long tradition of our faith, is that this ancient and medieval version of the story often sounds like nonsense worthy only of a children’s tale — or myth — “a tale begun in other days, when summer suns were glowing — a simple chime, that served to time, the rhythm of oar rowing — whose echoes live in memory yet, though envious years would say ‘forget.’” And yet, somehow, we need to learn to tell it, if we are, with Alice and the hobbits, to find ourselves in the same tale still, if only we knew where to begin without falling down the rabbit hole into the Mordor of lost time — and unbelief.

Cædmon's Hymn, the oldest extant text written in (Old) English.
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/C%C3%A6dmon's_Hymn

BasedCon Panel: Fairy Tales to Fight the Culture War

We all love re-telling fairy tales, using them as structures for our own stories, reframing them to point to current tensions, revealing them as the basis for our own sense of meaning and reality. In Tolkien's words, they enable us to recover the truth, escape from the lies, and experience the consolation of eucastrophe'which makes it all the more painful when others take these stories and subvert them to their own purposes. And yet, isn't this the whole point of re-telling the tales? In the woods with Granny Weatherwax, do we side with Red Riding Hood or the Wolf'particularly when Lily is using mirror magic to force the Happy Ending?

Kimberly Crilly, Ann Lewis, Bill Willingham, Rachel Fulton-Brown (mod.)

“Do not meddle in the affairs of wizards, for they are subtle and quick to anger.” - The Fellowship of the Ring

Irish people out demonstrating for Enoch Burke. The school teacher who has been jailed for refusing to endorse trans ideology.

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