The Year of the Jackpot

When I started thinking about this essay, I remembered that I had used the same title in the past. I looked up the original — it turned out to have been posted more than fourteen years ago, when I was still a neophyte in the blogging business.

Here’s my summary of the Heinlein story that inspired the post:

Back in the early 1950s the science fiction writer Robert Heinlein wrote a story for Galaxy magazine called “The Year of the Jackpot”.

The protagonist is a statistician named Potiphar Breen, who consults as an actuary for various insurance companies. He deals with probability and statistical trends in his work, but his hobby is the study of various cycles in human behavior and natural phenomena.

To entertain himself he has plotted graphs of various cycles — the rise and fall of the hemlines of women’s skirts, the incidence of various diseases, climatic fluctuations, and so on. He has noticed that whenever several of the significant trendlines bottom out at the same time, a major human catastrophe inevitably occurs, such as the French Revolution or the Civil War, with the most recent being the Great Crash of 1929.

Breen, observing that all the trendlines are about to bottom out again, and to an extreme not seen before in human history, decides to retire to a cabin in the desert with provisions and ammo to wait out the coming troubles. The situation deteriorates, with earthquakes, contagion, insurrection, and anarchy, culminating in a mushroom cloud rising high over the city of Los Angeles.

But that’s not the real jackpot. I don’t want to spoil the ending of the story; you’ll have to read it for yourselves…

Circumstances have changed a lot since then, but the theme remains a compelling one. The conceit involves what the poet Ted Hughes called the “cycles of concurrence”: the multifarious tides in the affairs of men that converge upon a single moment, which becomes a singularity in human history.

At one point I had my eye on 2009 as the Year of the Jackpot, and then later 2012 (to coincide with the end of the Mayan “Long Calendar” cycle and the reelection of Barack Hussein Obama). After that I gave up predicting the jackpot. We seem to be a lot closer to it every day, but it will arrive whenever it arrives.

Ten or twelve years ago the trends I noticed involved mass immigration, Islamization, political correctness, government debt, and “quantitative easing”. Since then a number of additional sine waves have emerged to warrant attention: the actions of the Deep State vis-à-vis Donald Trump, the baleful interference of Communist China in American affairs, the Western effort to gin up a war with Russia, the increasingly overt machinations of the globalist New World Order, and of course the “pandemic” of COVID-19 and its accompanying “vaccinations”. The last two draw together a lot of other threads as all the cycles trend towards bottoming out at the same time.

I’d like to say: “The Year of the Jackpot will be 2022,” or 2023, or some other specific year. But I’ve learned my lesson. I don’t make predictions anymore.

We seem to be heading for a cataclysmic dénouement in the near future, but there may be yet more cycles whose oscillations have yet to be plotted on the graph. Who knows?

Yet the jackpot is coming. It could be this year or next year, or it could be postponed for a generation or so. The system has proved remarkably resilient so far. It’s too early to write its obituary.

17 thoughts on “The Year of the Jackpot

  1. Here is my prediction for 2022, the EU will fall, the nation state will take back what is theirs and turn their energies to a Great Purge of everything 3rd world and the marxist traitor globullist class, Europe will once again be ruled by the strongman( Pinochet and Franco types) democracy as we know it dead. It will at some point, it will come to the US and Canada, for no country anywhere at any time as ever lasted under diversity/multiculturalism EVER, without devolving into massive bloodshed.

    • Ho! You’ve been making similar predictions in this space for more than ten years. Your track record does not inspire confidence.

      • Ok Baron, my predictions have been a tad off(bad track record if there ever was) , I just never thought or believed in a million years that people would actually vote for their own demise, and voted for more free stuff, while taxes keep getting more by the day, all the while the backdoor is left open and the enemies of western civilization come pouring in without so much as a whimper. They let the 3rd world rape, murder and grift off of us with complete impunity. Our so called betters keep clamping down on our rights and we cheer them for it, the globullist rob us blind, and engineer economic collapse and tell ourselves they know better and have humanity’s interest at heart. You are right Baron, I have been completely wrong in the belief that people would have woken the hell up by now and put things right. Well it seems that the western world are sheep, ripe for the slaughter and really do deserve to be ruled for freedom means nothing to them except as a slogan with no meaning. Hence why we seem to be moving in the direction of the utterly ruthless strongmen ruling it all when everything goes to hell in a hand basket, and the people bloody well deserve it. Welcome to the land of Wolves now and everything is up for grabs. I don’t think in 10 years we will recognize so called democracy or whatever they call it then. Let it rain.

        • violence starts with hunger: once the famine comes (and every hyperinflationary event had been followed by hunger) – once the food is short, that is when people begin to do crazy things.

          Western World had seen hunger once – before the second world war. And it shall come again.

          Two weeks of empty supermarkets, and we will see violence like we have never seen before, that is my prediction. Hope it never comes to that, of course, but I count on that it will…

          • Very true Barn Swallow, it really does come down to empty bellies for things to change, the problem is, the change is never what we want nor expect. We give power to those who promise to feed us, LOL

  2. It’s called “Attractor”. Everything. You can’t get out of it anymore.
    It’s like before the 1917 revolution – fatal mistakes accumulated, the system was shaken from the inside, and then what happened happened. I read the literature of that time.
    Someone during the First World War played a global game that changed the whole world.
    I think the same thing is happening in the world now, but many times worse.
    We can only envy the Indians of the Amazon.

    • Yes, chaos theory calls it a “basin attractor”. I think that’s what we’re seeing here.

  3. I think a lot depends on what the elites view as their end goal; is it to just return to a feudal state with themselves installed as technocratic overlords, or is it more sinister, as I believe, with the elimination of most of us useless eaters. Add to this the fact that the elites are not necessarily monolithic in their goals and the certainty of competing factions within them.

    As they meet more and more resistance, the trend seems to be to take more desperate action, and to drop the mask regarding their motives and designs. Flying orcs directly into Europe for example, or the US. If I had to guess as to a jackpot, it would be a war for the usual purposes, but also to mask their financial crimes by destruction of financial records and infrastructure in cyber attacks which can be blamed upon Russia or China or homegrown “domestic terrorists”. The same thing happened on a smaller version during the 9-11 false flag when empty gold vaults at the base of the Towers were destroyed along with the burying of a breaking story implicating the Pentagon in the misplacing and loss of over a trillion dollars. If the heat starts to get too close for comfort and the public still sees through their lies, I would expect to see the releasing of a far more deadly virus or plague which does indeed eliminate most of us useless eaters. Those viruses already exist in many places around the world and only require the proper motive to be turned loose. If it looks like those who are patriots and desire freedom are likely to win, biological warfare will be turned loose on us.

  4. Of course, there is always the taking out of the Christians as Jesus calls them up to be with Him forever, which is then followed by judgment. The Book of Revelation is an appropriate read.
    I also analyze data and trends as a habit that I acquired after 18 years as a real property appraiser and Bus. Admin. Degree. You were correct about 2009-2010 being the year but the Lord gave us an additional ten years breathing space to come to Him. Our response to His mercy as seen in the general lawlessness and self-serving attitudes these days is nothing less than insulting. Yes, judgment is just around the corner, but it will be on His time as He alone is Lord.

  5. Yes, it is also my gut feeling that some sort of cataclysm is approaching. (No wonder nowadays.)

    But my intuition may also be influenced by a “Great Cataclysm Psyop”. Which does not imply that a real cataclysm is not approaching; it just means that the PTB probably know that it is approaching and thus they want to make the livestock behave in predictable ways during the ongoing controlled demolition they want to turn the cataclysm into for their own benefit.

  6. I tend to scoff at predictions of cataclysmic demise. It’s been going on for 2000 years.
    I grew up in basically a religious personality cult where predictions of the end of the world as we know it came, and went.
    And then I saw the silliness with the yr. 2000, and 2012.
    It’s not a good thing to focus on, especially when it comes to children. Children don’t need that kind of influence around them.
    But, people are going to do what they are going to do.

    • Indeed. We’re all dooooomed! Which is not to say I’m not concerned about the future of humanity on this planet; leaving aside the question of climate change, and whether or not it’s anthropogenic, we are using up limited resources such as rare earth minerals, with little thought of recyclng, and polluting the land and seas with plastics, for all of which future generations may rightly curse us.

      • Oh, I am a nature lover, (except for things like mosquitos, and lice). 🙂
        I definitely agree with doing much better than we have. Am totally supportive of reforestation, biodiversity, clean up for plastics, and any other environmental problems.
        And I really hate that more western govt doesn’t crack down in whatever way it can on China with human abuses, as well as all the poaching of wild animals and the murdering of those trying to protect them.
        There’s always a lot of work to be done in the world.

  7. What a fascinating group of writers, readers, commenters here. Thank you for being!

    Heinlein’s novel, Starship Troopers, was formative for me. I read it well before the silly “Bug Movie” version was made. Have not heard of Jackpot, but it is resonating and will seek out a copy to read in full.

    Am certain it will join the pile of prescient works that reflect or predict elements of our culture universal: The Lottery, The Yellow Wallpaper, Clockwork Orange, 1984, Fahrenheit 451, Brave New World, The Trial.

    So many movies (and news cycles) out there with predictive programming. What does it mean that one of the scariest movie series of recent times is “A Quiet Place” wherein humans learn to survive by sheltering in place and Not Making A Sound or the big horrifying monsters will come and eat you… or just kill you for sport?

    Am praying for all people of goodwill, everywhere. Peace be with you!

  8. At the beginning of the “shutdown” in my state, I got so bummed when every single park was shut down. Even the freakin’ beaches.
    I am no doctor but I new it’s doing a virus MORE favor to stay shuttered up in a house with other people. I really felt like I was in a very weird dystopian novel, and I didn’t like it one but.
    My thoughts kept replaying an old, “Outer Limits” show.
    A small group of people in an upstairs apartment are very serious debating whether they should go outside or not. It’s a huge deal, and they go back and forth about whether to do it or not. The viewer is left wondering what the heck are they so afraid of?
    Finally, they decide to dare to open the door, and proceed to walk down the stairs. A flying globe only about as big as 6″ in diameter moved in front of them, and a computerized female voice starts speaking and telling them to, “Go back, go back! You must not proceed any further!”
    They hesitate, and get quite frightened about proceeding. The story simply ends there.
    I was left wanting to whack that little speaking, flashing globe myself.

    I have no idea who created that story, but man, oh, man, were they prophetic.

  9. I just finished reading Heinlein’s story The Jackpot – and it was not science fiction but science nonsense. I won’t spoil “the ending” as that was more utter nonsense.

    I still think the movie “Forbidden Planet” was the best of science fiction.

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