{"id":326463,"date":"2026-04-28T06:20:43","date_gmt":"2026-04-28T06:20:43","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.thetruthseeker.co.uk\/?p=326463"},"modified":"2026-04-29T07:54:45","modified_gmt":"2026-04-29T07:54:45","slug":"this-week-in-the-new-normal-119","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.thetruthseeker.co.uk\/?p=326463","title":{"rendered":"This Week in the New Normal #119"},"content":{"rendered":"

Off-Guardian \u2013 April 26, 2026<\/strong><\/h1>\n

Our successor to This Week in the Guardian<\/em>, This Week in the New Normal<\/a><\/em> is our weekly chart of the progress of autocracy, authoritarianism and economic restructuring around the world.<\/p>\n

1. CBDCS JUST KEEP ON TRUCKIN\u2019<\/strong><\/h2>\n

With war and Trump and Epstein et al. dominating the headlines, we\u2019ve stopped getting our regular updates on the global move toward central bank digital currencies.<\/p>\n

This is entirely accidental, I\u2019m sure. But don\u2019t worry, they\u2019re still out there doing their thing.<\/p>\n

In India, for example, a pilot scheme was launched,<\/a> testing the digital rupee as a payment platform for state welfare plans.<\/p>\n

In South Korea, the new Chief of the Central Bank \u2013 Shin Hyun-song \u2013 announced in his inauguration speech<\/a> that the second phase of \u201cProject Hangang\u201d, the central bank\u2019s scheme testing digital currency across payment platforms, is still ongoing.<\/p>\n

In New Zealand, \u201cexperts\u201d are telling the press that a digital currency is needed to \u201chelp NZ\u2019s monetary sovereignty\u201d<\/a>.<\/p>\n

And that\u2019s just from the last three days.<\/p>\n

Technocracy is coming, no matter who sinks what in the Strait of Hormuz.<\/p>\n

2. Space Race 2.0<\/strong><\/h2>\n

Fresh from Artemis II (allegedly) going around the moon and then coming back, we\u2019re about to be launched into a new space race. Or even two!<\/p>\n

First, there\u2019s the private race between Elon Musk\u2019s SpaceX and Jeff Bezos\u2019 Blue Origin. Who\u2019s going to win? It doesn\u2019t matter. In the long run, it will be related to us as a symptom of billionaire hubris. Irresponsible use of private wealth to harvest something that should belong to all of us \u2013 the sky.<\/p>\n

The real space race will be national and geopolitical \u2013 mostly US\/China, but maybe Russia and others too. What nation will be the first to mine on the moon<\/a>? It\u2019s going to be so exciting to find out!<\/p>\n

My prediction is that America will \u201cpush too hard\u201d, and maybe get a photogenic (and totally real) astronaut killed, while China\u2019s \u201cgrown-up\u201d approach means they win long-term rewards and \u201cinternational respect\u201d.<\/p>\n

The current characterisation of these nations in the news narrative makes this an easy-ish guess. The Guardian even calls them \u201cthe tortoise and the hare\u201d.<\/a><\/p>\n

In the long run, the \u201csuccessful team\u201d will be the one who cooperates with the \u201cinternational community\u201d, and it will be a sign of all the great things that are possible when \u2026sorry, I mean \u201cwhen we work together\u201d.<\/p>\n

That\u2019s what Nature thinks<\/a>, anyway.<\/p>\n

3. Norway comes to the PArty<\/strong><\/h2>\n

Every country of the world is announcing, one at a time, that they are banning social media for the under 16s, or the under 18s, or under 14s or\u2026whatever.<\/p>\n

It\u2019s actually becoming pretty much a joke at this point.<\/p>\n

Like an episode of a sitcom where, by pure coincidence, all the characters turn up at a Halloween party dressed in the same costume.<\/p>\n

And, just like this, that contrivance would be the rather predictable and derivative work of writers who are paid more than they are worth but think they\u2019re very<\/em> clever.<\/p>\n

If you\u2019re interested in Norway\u2019s particular brand of online anonymity-ending legislation<\/a>, it will be for under-16s, and they are introducing it because\u2026<\/p>\n

[We] want \u200ba childhood where children get to be children,\u201d<\/p>\n

\u2026according to Prime \u200bMinister Jonas Gahr Stoere.<\/p>\n

As I said on Twitter, politicians are constantly playing a game where they all have to say the same sentence in slightly different words.<\/p>\n

And they all suck at it.<\/p>\n

BONUS: Poorly chosen date of the week<\/strong><\/h2>\n

Multiple reports this week claimed that Germany was concentrating resources into re-arming, with the aim becoming \u201cthe strongest military in Europe\u201d by a particular date\u2026<\/p>\n

\"\"<\/a><\/div>\n
.<\/span><\/div>\n

Hmmm. That sounds familiar, doesn\u2019t it?<\/p>\n

It\u2019s hard to believe a media machine so saturated in WWII imagery and references could possibly have chosen that year by accident.<\/p>\n

It\u2019s not all bad\u2026<\/strong><\/h3>\n

The good news this week is that the UK\u2019s Assisted Dying bill is, well, dead. For now.<\/p>\n

The House of Lords stopped the bill with a successful filibuster on Monday. So, no state-backed murder yet, or at least no legal<\/em> state-backed murder.<\/p>\n

Backers of the bill are up in arms, complaining about the will of the people being thwarted by a \u201chandful of zealots\u201d in the Upper House.<\/p>\n

So the good news comes with a rider: it is temporary. They will push \u201creform\u201d of the Lords, citing this as an excuse, and then force the bill through again in the future. They\u2019ve been floating that since January<\/a>.<\/p>\n

It takes only a glance over the always-educational Guardian comments to see where this is going<\/a>.<\/p>\n

Kim Leadbetter, the MP driving the bill, said after the defeat<\/a>:<\/p>\n

\u201cWe will go again. The issue is not going away. There\u2019s a very clear direction of travel around the world.\u201d<\/p>\n

Somewhat ironically, the Assisted Dying bill is going to be kept alive by artificial means until it can be fully resuscitated.<\/p>\n

*<\/p>\n

There\u2019s a lot of change in the air, a lot of agendas in the works, if you see a headline, article, post or interview you think is a sign of the times, post it in the comments, email us<\/a> or share it on social media and we will add it to the next edition.<\/p>\n

Support Off-Guardian:<\/p>\n

Ko-fi<\/a><\/p>\n

Subscribestar<\/a><\/p>\n

Paypal<\/a><\/p>\n

 <\/p>\n

Source\u00a0<\/a><\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

A review of the progress of autocracy, authoritarianism and economic restructuring around the world.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":39262,"featured_media":280317,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_acf_changed":false,"_et_pb_use_builder":"","_et_pb_old_content":"","_et_gb_content_width":"","footnotes":""},"categories":[61,58],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-326463","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-Commentary","category-Current_Affairs"],"acf":[],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.thetruthseeker.co.uk\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/326463","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.thetruthseeker.co.uk\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.thetruthseeker.co.uk\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.thetruthseeker.co.uk\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/users\/39262"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.thetruthseeker.co.uk\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcomments&post=326463"}],"version-history":[{"count":3,"href":"https:\/\/www.thetruthseeker.co.uk\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/326463\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":326467,"href":"https:\/\/www.thetruthseeker.co.uk\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/326463\/revisions\/326467"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.thetruthseeker.co.uk\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/media\/280317"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.thetruthseeker.co.uk\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fmedia&parent=326463"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.thetruthseeker.co.uk\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcategories&post=326463"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.thetruthseeker.co.uk\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Ftags&post=326463"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}