It's worth noting that the people's favourites were, in order:
- Croatia (an energetic, rock-adjacent anthem written in broken English)
- Israel (a standard Euro-ballad that was originally called 'October Rain', forced to change by the producers)
- Ukraine (a vaguely ethnic, vaguely religious ballad with light effects very reminiscent of bombs)
- France (a minimalist love song by an established French singer with an impressive voice)
- Switzerland (the jury winner)
The juries came with a similar list, but put Switzerland much higher, and gave very few points to Israel. So either Israel's song was great, and the juries were biased against them, or it was meh and the public were biased in favour of them. Also the juries love a man in a skirt.
Other highlights include:
- Finland - A comedy song by 'Windows95Guy' which involved him running around on stage wearing nothing from the waist down, his skin-tone pouch strategically blocked by scenery a la Austin powers.
- Ireland - Another non-binary (a woman this time) seemingly trying to summon a literal demon.
- UK - A gay guy sings while buff male backing dancers gyrate on eachother. Somehow not the gayest entry this year.
- Audible booing every time the head of the European Broadcasting Union appeared on screen (for letting Israel compete).
- Several coded anti-Israel statements from national representatives (ostensibly talking about peace and love).
- Plus lots of 90s throwbacks, obscure ethnic instruments and young women in Beyonce-esque bodysuits.
Altogether a fairly standard year for Eurovision.
Crowstep
8d ago
'Since forever' was hyperbole on my part, but this article suggests that Jews have been conservative for most of the post-war period. While they started off as poor, Eastern European immigrants (and voted left), they moved up the class pyramid and switched to voting right. This report suggests that the preference for Conservative voting was well established by 1995 but I couldn't find any data from earlier.
Plus the Victorian Britains elected the extremely Jewish-sounding Benjamin Disraeli as Conservative Prime Minister in 1874, although he had converted to the Church of England as a child so his Jewishness was ethnic if not religious. The end of (limited) legal discrimination against Jews is usually dated to 1858, when they were allowed to become members of Parliament without taking a Christian oath of office.
Crowstep
9d ago
The British Jews have been solidly conservative since like, forever. Continental European Jews also tend to be right wing.
I'm pretty sure American Jews vote left wing because the American right has a history of racial discrimination, which Jews pattern match to Nazism.
The (global) Jews aren't opposed to western civilisation. The anglosphere left is opposed to western civilisation, and the American Jews have integrated into that.
Crowstep
9d ago
If that were true, we would expect traditional societies to be more willing to allow women to suffer and die in place of men, because they have less value.
Except we don't. Every human society treats men as disposable relative to women.
However human psychology shakes out in any particular society, I think 'high status vs low status' is simply an inappropriate measure to use when comparing the stations of men and women. Men and women are not competing ethnic or religious groups, where power and status differentials can be clear, deliberate and explicit. The relationship is more complicated than that.
Crowstep
9d ago
That 12% gap seems pretty large to me (presumably it's mostly driven by motherhood). But OP was talking about working in a particular field, not employment more generally. We should expect college graduates (who are smarter than average) to mostly be gainfully employed. That's different from studying Psychology and actually getting a job as a therapist or whatever.
Crowstep
10d ago
The Open Society Foundation isn't a 'Jewish' organisation, it was just founded by a Jew. George Soros may love multiculturalism, but that doesn't mean that Jews love it.
'Every mainstream Jewish organisation in Europe' - The fact that you haven't been able to name a single organisation here suggests that you don't actually have any examples.
Barbra Spectre is an individual, not an organisation.
The JIDF is, as far as I can tell, an Israeli nationalist group. I can't see any examples of them promoting multiculturalism outside of Israel.
As far as I can tell, the ADL is the only thing you've listed that is a Jewish organisation and promotes multiculturalism.
Look, there is a world outside America. American Jews may be left wing, but that doesn't make global jewry left wing. One of the most influential French anti-immigrationist is Eric Zemmour, an Algerian Jew. Britain's only Jewish Prime Minister was a proud British imperial nationalist. I could go on. This idea that western countries invited millions of third worlders because the Jews made us do it is a cope. Our own political class did it to us, not the semitic enemy within that you're imagining.
Crowstep
10d ago
while promoting multiculturalism everywhere else
Do you have any evidence of this? Ideally from countries that aren't America.
Crowstep
11d ago
can.
Food has been getting cheaper, we're growing more of it on less farmland since the 1990s, and malnutrition is declining rapidly. There's no reason to expect that all of the trends that have been occurring since the industrial revolution will suddenly reverse, especially since global birth rates (gross) peaked in 2016 and global TFR is about to fall below replacement (if it hasn't already).
Crowstep
20d ago
This article seems to have details about going about it.
Crowstep
22d ago
I believe there are malicious, intelligent, competent agents
Looks like the present tense to me. I assume that you're retreating from your original claim then? Unless you're willing to be even a tiny bit specific about who you're talking about I can't see how it is possible to have a meaningful discussion.
Crowstep
22d ago
Well, we don't live in pods, nor do we eat bugs. I'm not sure how being able to walk to work counts as a 'cage' but whatever. Falsified, I guess?
But you haven't answered the key question. Who are these malicious actors? What evidence do you have for their exitence or motives?
Crowstep
22d ago
I think it was pretty clear from the context that the first part was a summary of your views. Plus, I did literally quote you later on with a far stronger claim.
Your prediction isn't predicting all that much. Birth rates are plummeting and have been for decades. Global births peaked in 2016 and the world's TFR is about to fall below replacement. That the global population will shrink significantly is mathematically certain.
The second part is stronger (at least the 'absolute' part if not the 'relative' part), but seems very unlikely to me.
However, we weren't discussing whether or not the average human will be poorer in 2100 than they are now. The discussion was about the 'malicious, intelligent, competent agents'. Who are these agents? Where is your evidence for their existence and motives? What would you accept as falsification of these claims?
Crowstep
23d ago
I think the accusation of Bulverism is unfair. 'Me and people like me are being oppressed by shadowy, unnamed forces' is impossible to falsify. The onus is on you to prove it. If you can't or won't do that, then speculating on why you might believe that there are malicious, intelligent, competent agents which plan for humiliation and elimination of large masses of populations is a reasonable thing to do.
Crowstep
25d ago
Many people who would laugh at the idea of the Aztecs believing the conquistadores to be emissaries of the Aztec gods also themselves believe in the literal truth of the Jewish covenant, that Jews are a people Chosen by god and they are a race of god-creators vis-a-vis the ancestry of Jesus Christ.
I wondered how long it would take for this to be about Jews. You never fail to disappoint.
As far as I can tell, you are upset that Rationalists regard high-IQ Jews as superior to Kurt, despite his noble physiognomy and the fact that they are 'short, weak, ugly nerds'. Am I getting that right?
I would worry about this being an uncharitable take, except for the fact that you cannot stop posting about how Jews are bad.
Have I misinterpreted the post? Could you summarise your thesis in a sentence?
Crowstep
26d ago
I wouldn't put too much stake on 'the realities of CICO'. No matter how much the public hears 'calories in, calories out' the obesity epidemic continues unabated. If it was as simple as choosing to eat less, we'd see far fewer fat people than we do. Nobody wants to be fat.
Maybe your wife will be able to reverse her expanding waistline, but if she does, it might be because she's started taking ozempic rather than through sheer force of will. Hoping that the latter will work has a good chance of disappointing both of you.
Crowstep
27d ago
If the annexed territories are ‘officially’ part of Russia, why hasn’t Russia nuked Kiev for invading its sovereign territory?
It’s a bluff, it always was. If NATO tanks roll in from Poland, Russia will choose retreat over nuclear Armageddon.
Crowstep
27d ago
What's bizarre is the Western world asking Ukrainian men to bear nearly the entire brunt of this conflict as if their lives have no value.
The 'Western world' isn't asking anything of them. The Ukrainian people and government want to fight, and want the west to support them. If the Ukrainian government wanted to surrender, they could do so tomorrow without asking for anyone's permission.
Other countries have agency too.
We pressured Ukraine into committing suicide.
That's not how it happened. The west originally assumed that Ukraine would be conquered in three days. It was only after the Ukrainians themselves demonstrated their will to fight against Russia (and their success doing so) that NATO et al started arming Ukraine.
America is not the only country in the world with agency.
Crowstep
30d ago
Do you have a wife, or children?
If you want to do something good for the world, passing on your successful software engineer genes would be right at the top of the list. If you want something meaningful, having kids will probably be the most meaningful thing you will ever do. If you're worried about living a selfish life, bringing new life into the world is pretty selfless.
Crowstep
1mo ago
It might be because I live in a city, but I've found the easiest way to socialise is just to invite people round to mine.
They enjoy not having to plan or host. I enjoy not having to travel or spend too much money.
Board games, film nights, drinks, house parties, dinner parties. I've found that people are looking for an excuse to meet up in person. If you build host it, they will come.
Having a girlfriend or wife who you live with also helps. I've outsourced a lot of my friendship maintenance to her. Plus our joint friendship group is larger than our individual ones.
Crowstep
1mo ago
Just finished Joseph Conrad's Heart of Darkness but I think I may have hit the limits of my audiobook comprehension because I was left thinking "wait, when does stuff start happening?". Maybe it's just not that type of book, there have been enough potent lines that it may be a book you just have to enjoy the language of.
Were you listening to the Kenneth Branagh version? I think his reading is amazing but I haven't heard any others.
Crowstep
1mo ago
When most people say 'work' they mean something like 'provide good living standards for the median person'. Marxists tend not to brag about how communist countries have the biggest armies, although having a huge army is certainly possible when the state (nominally) controls the entire economy and the leadership doesn't have to pay too much attention to the needs and wants of the populace.
Like sure, the USSR worked in the sense that Russia colonised all its neighbours, spent huge amounts on its military, suppressed opposition and built walls to keep its citizens in. It failed at providing good living standards, innovating technologically, creating economic equality (arguably its cardinal goal) or creating a society that wasn't rife with corruption.
Crowstep
1mo ago
I think he was referring to Dor Yeshorim. The organisation's database is used by the traditional Jewish matchmakers to avoid pairing up carriers of diseases like Tay-Sachs.
Crowstep
1mo ago
The millennials are the children of the boomers, they are going to inherit those expensive houses that the boomers are living in. Some people think that they will end up being the wealthiest generation who have ever lived.
But yes, I'm sure that millennial pension schemes will be drastically less generous than their parents get now, due to ageing populations and the fact that those pensions were never sustainable to begin with.
From what I recall there was no notable booing during Israel's performance, but lots while the head of the EBU was on screen. I'm guessing they assumed there would be booing for the Israeli entry and planned accordingly, but didn't think that the audience would boo the inoffensive bureaucrat who's technically in charge.
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