Capital_Room
rather dementor-like
Disabled Alaskan Monarchist doomer
User ID: 2666
Capital_Room
rather dementor-like
6d ago
In short terms (based on my experience), I'd say something like "Blue Tribers who like the movie Idiocracy for being 'so true,'" or "racist Progressives who've figured out they hate Red Tribe 'fellow whites' more than they do blacks or browns."
The first time I ever encountered the term, it was in a Substack essay by a "former white nationalist" who pretty much fit that second description — the moment he got out of his diverse, coastal, urban, Blue Tribe bubble into the >90% white "flyover country" and met his "fellow whites" of the Red Tribe, suddenly he wasn't a "white nationalist" anymore. The essay also went on about how "progressive" his politics were, how they were solidly in the tradition of past progressives like Galton and Sanger, and how eugenics are really the most progressive thing (I'd say he's not wrong about that), and that his "project" to "fix" our politics is about reclaiming "solidly Anglo" progressive eugenics from it's "unfair" association with Nazi Germany. (Meanwhile, I noted that his list of past pro-eugenics "Anglo" progressives that started with Galton included the rather non-Anglo Wernher von Braun.)
Basically, this is one of the places where I agreed with Hlynka, that there's a lot of these sorts who are supposedly on the "far-right." (My primary disagreement with him was always that he held being a "principled loser" as the essence of "the Right," and thus pronounced all atheists — and anyone else who disbelieves in "a future state of rewards and punishments" after death — as automatically and inherently Leftists, and thus The Enemy.)
Capital_Room
rather dementor-like
7d ago
In practice, feminist journalists always want highly successful men to marry women like themselves.
I'm reminded here of "Sailer's Law of Female Journalism":
The most heartfelt articles by female journalists tend to be demands that social values be overturned in order that, Come the Revolution, the journalist herself will be considered hotter-looking.
Capital_Room
rather dementor-like
14d ago
It reminds me of the sage, soft-speaking Islamic cleric speaking with profound meaning "democracy means government by the people, of the people, for the people... but the people are retarded"
Point of correction: Rajneesh (AKA Osho, born Chandra Mohan Jain), the man in that video, was an Indian "godman," guru, and founder of the eponymous "Rajneesh movement," which had an intentional community in Oregon in the 80s:
Rajneeshpuram was a religious intentional community in the northwest United States, located in Wasco County, Oregon. Incorporated as a city between 1981 and 1988, its population consisted entirely of Rajneeshees, followers of the spiritual teacher Rajneesh,[1][2][3][4] later known as Osho.[5]
Some of its citizens and leaders were responsible for launching the 1984 Rajneeshee bioterror attacks, as well as the planned 1985 Rajneeshee assassination plot, in which they conspired to assassinate Charles Turner, the United States Attorney for the District of Oregon.
Capital_Room
rather dementor-like
22d ago
Are the blackbagging tactics of ICE a necessary evil, a dangerous overstep, or some nuanced in-between?
My thoughts? I think think they're not "a necessary evil" only because they're insufficient. I think Neema Parvini has a point when he asks:
Tell me why the mayor of L.A. and Gavin Newsom aren’t arrested for aiding and abetting an insurrection against America? Why aren’t they arrested for treason, under the Insurrection Act?
and calls for the Democratic Party to be banned, and replaced with a left-wing party that isn't "mental":
And like I said, we're getting to the point where they just need to be banned. It's like, at what level of corruption, and at what level of stupidity, do you just say, look, this is not a viable party anymore. We need to just, like, ban it, and replace it with, you know— okay, it can still be leftist, but you at least have to be… you at least have to agree to basic things.
Like, one, America is an actual nation. Number two, the concept of having a passport and citizenship mean something. Being an American means something. Therefore, number three, different laws apply to foreigners, illegal immigrants, than to the native population. Number four, if people who are not native to America start burning things down, then you not only have to take action, you have to deport those people immediately. Number five, if foreign politicians like the President of Mexico starts cheering on, you know, effectively a kind of invasion into your country, you don't side with them, you side against them.
These are just basic, basic, basic kind of… I know there's no such thing as the social contract, right? But there's a tacit agreement between the rulers and the ruled in all societies that would agree to all of those things that I just said.
If you do not agree to that, you should not be allowed to be part of public life. You shouldn't be allowed to be an official if you don't agree to all those things I just said. These dickheads are meant to take an oath on the Bible. That they're meant to take an oath, you know, on the Constitution when they take office. This is treason. It shouldn't be allowed.
Capital_Room
rather dementor-like
19d ago
I remember when movies had a trope- I'm not defined by my work, I do x from 9-5, but all day long I'm a dad- one who happens to do x to pay the bills. The idea of an identity to be proud of, genuine pride in our differences and diversity, was singing its swan song. It's now dead. How many of the world's problems are actually downstream of that? I'm reminded of the several AAQC's about why South Koreans aren't having kids(my answer is pretty simple- it's not fun. Rednecks have kids because they look forwards to going to t-ball games. South Koreans don't because they don't look forwards to twelve hour study sessions).
I'd say this is clearly Max Weber's "Protestant work ethic," and it's triumph is, to a great extent, thanks to Blue Tribe cultural dominance (and, in turn, the Puritan and Quaker roots of the Blue Tribe).
Plenty of people misunderstand what Weber meant (probably because they haven't read him), but, IIRC, he never actually argued that Protestantism caused the "work ethic," merely that they were correlated (and, indeed, looking at history, the causation was more the other way around, with the parts of Early Modern Europe that developed the work ethic being much more likely to go Protestant in the Reformation). Further, it's not just about hard work; Weber made an explicit comparison to monasticism.
To understand the work ethic, look at the etymologies and historical usage of the words "profession" and "vocation." The former especially was originally religious in context. The idea is that, in the pre-work ethic Medieval view, secular work is the curse of Adam — you do it because "he who does not work shall not eat." In contrast, there is the religious calling ("vocation"), whereby one is called by God to make a "profession" of faith in the form of holy vows, becoming a priest, a monk, a nun, etc.
Weber argued that the "work ethic" emerged when Europeans began removing that idea of a "calling" from the monastic context, and bringing it into the secular world; whereby, one could be "called" to serve God by being a farmer, a craftsman, or whatever. Bringing the same sense of mission, and thus identity, to whatever career you have.
And this is deeply embedded in American culture. Practically the first question someone asks upon being introduced to someone else is "what do you do?" — meaning, of course, "what is your job?"
(As a NEET, I'm particularly sensitive to this one. Further, neither of my parents are big on the Protestant work ethic. My Dad never had "a career," only jobs; and my mom (a very lapsed German Catholic) had no problem marrying out of high school and becoming a homemaker, only going to work after my youngest brother graduated high school. I was raised with the understanding that "work" is just whatever horrible, shitty drudgery you do to put a roof over your head and food on the table, and should absolutely not be expected to provide any kind of "meaning" or "purpose" — or even enjoyment. "Work to live, not live to work," and such. And yes, I agree we could do with far less of the work ethic.)
I'm reminded here of Arnold Kling's "Where are the Servants?" from back in 2011:
In an economy where some folks are very rich and many folks are unemployed, why are there not more personal servants? Why don’t Sergey Brin and Bill Gates have hundreds of people on personal retainer?
Both in the comments there, and in responses I remember reading elsewhere, some posit cultural factors (I recall someone elsewhere recounting a passage from a history book talking about the culture clash when a European aristocrat visiting a wealthy American in the mid 19th century tried treating an employee like a European domestic servant). But plenty of people point out that the same services are still available to the rich, just in the form of specialized firms. To quote commenter "mark" on that page:
It’s a definitional issue – what is a “servant” vs “employee” vs “contractor”. Think of administrative assistants, personal trainers, personal chefs, cleaning services, car services, handymen, private plane pilots, personal book keeper, family wealth manager (the “family office”) and so on. Would you call them “servants”? I suspect not. But all they do is provide personal services to higher income people who have specialized their labor towards a lot of income. You can call them “small business owners”, “contractors or “employees”. The differences are modest. Maybe “servant” connotes livery, a small room in one person’s mansion etc. But in the old days “servant” was just another word for employee – “master – servant” relations was another phrase for the employment relationship.
And Bryan Willman:
I’m no billionare, though I have known a few.
But there is a squad of people who maintain my lawn – I don’t call them servants, or retainers, I call them the landscaping company, and I hire them for that specialized task like all the rest of their clients. The “manage the staff” bit that a butler (I think) would have done is dealt with by me hiring the company – that company’s management deals with everybody else.
Likewise the house cleaners (again, a company that specializes in that.)
No so different, the garage I take my cars to for maintence (they give me a ride to my office), my Doctor (who is no retainer but certainly provides personal medical services better than any King of England got until fairly recently.)
I do, in a sense, have “retainers” – but we tend to call them lawyers….
I have an accountant, whom I share with his other clients, but is very much paid to tend to a particular part of my affairs.
Bill Gates has private planes, whose pilots are most likely provided by a service like netjets even if the plane isn’t leased out. So there’s a “family transportation staff” even if none of them see a check signed directly by Bill.
You don't have a gardener, you hire a landscaping service to come by regularly. You don't have maids, you hire a cleaning service. Instead of a "lady's maid" taking care of your hair, you've got a hair dresser. You don't have a coachman, you call up a car service. And instead of nannies, you've got daycare.
From other comments there:
Dan Hill:
As Don Bordreaux points out that they probably buy many of these services in the marketplace, rather than employing people to provide those services as rich people used to do.
That’s a function of two things; how efficient and liquid markets now are at providing these services and the significant fixed costs (and legal risks) in being an employer in a modern regulatory environment.
Bottom line, I’m pretty sure one way or another these guys do not mow their own lawns, wash their own cars or clean their own toilets!
Tracy W:
I’m a bit puzzled by your terminology. The labour market is as much a market as the appliance market. Perhaps the main difference is standardisation – if I buy a dishwasher I can get a pretty good idea of the quality by recommendations and reviews of dishwashers, if I own a good dishwasher and I suddenly lose it (say to a home fire), I can buy another of the same brand with reasonable confidence that I’ll get another good quality one. But people differ more, my neighbour might employ a great maid, but her sister might be hopeless, and if I employ a fantastic maid and she quits for whatever reason, I can’t just go out and hire another version of her. (Not that I employ servants, but I have for example noticed far more quality differences between different waiters than between different dishwashers of the same brand.)
More from Bryan Willman:
“Help” is NEVER CHEAP, unless the help ALREADY KNOWS WHAT TO DO.
It’s not just minimum wage, or government regulations and burdens.
It’s that for very many tasks, I can do it faster than I can explain it. That’s not true of landscaping or house cleaning, but it is of many many other tasks. No matter how I value my time, paying somebody else to listen to me explain it and then do it, all more slowly than I could do it, is a loss. Worse when they have to ask me questions about it.
Now add management of people, the risks and hazards of having people around (being sued for something, having stuff stolen, people quarreling with one another, people forgetting their keys, etc.)
Note that most of these issues apply even if the wage rate is 0. That is, I would refuse to have people come “help me” for free.
The person who had a staff in Thailand (which was a pain) only had to put up with that due to lack of appliances and weirdness of the transport system. Who today would hire a dish washer for their household? Somebody to manually do what the clothes washer does?
…
Two more items to add to the thread.
1. My accoutants and lawyers give me a body of advice which can be summed up as “NO EMPLOYEES EVER”. There is a minimum cost associated with having an employee – a minimum (long) list of things one must do and do right to avoid fines, surprize costs, meddling, and sometimes jail. Hiring all services out to companies side steps all of that.
People who already have companies with employees have a much easier time adding a personal assistant using that same infrastructure.
2. A fair part of the current “rich” are folks who are geeks like me, often from modest backgrounds, who made fortunes in the PC revolution (and to a lesser extent the .com bubble.)
There’s a whole host of “fancy services” some of these new rich just don’t care about. Another set that involve human interactions they are uncomfortable with. (Remember, we’re talking programmer geeks here. We can be way stranger than most people realize.)
In short, hiring somebody directly is legally and financially scary, requires out-of-the-ordinary personal interactions, and may have low perceived effective returns.
The modern way is more efficient, taking advantage of specialization and centralization. (Of course one can make the case, as Yarvin once did, that this is the sort of area where increasing employment might be preferable to raw economic efficiency.) Further, the burden of finding and sorting out quality staff, of dealing with all the tax and regulatory burden of employment, the employer liability, et cetera, is borne by the landscaping/cleaning/daycare/whatever service instead of the rich person.
Thus, as Steve Sailer notes:
Life is better for rich people than ever before. They get all the advantages of being rich, including all the personal services they want when and where they want them, without the old-fashioned disadvantages like having to dress for dinner to set a good example and discussing things “not in front of the servants.”
Edit: here's a follow-up of sorts from Kling on his Substack "Servants to the Rich, 1/18" in 2022:
Some of the components of the twentieth-century middle class are declining . The percentage of the work force that can be called manufacturing production workers is down. Many mom-and-pop retail businesses have been defeated by Wal-Mart and Amazon.
Ten years ago, I wrote Where are the Servants?
In an economy where some folks are very rich and many folks are unemployed, why are there not more personal servants? Why don’t Sergey Brin and Bill Gates have hundreds of people on personal retainer?
Perhaps we are now living in the New Servants economy. Tyler Cowen has a series called “those new service-sector jobs.” My favorites include Coffin Whisperer and Wedding Hashtag Composer. The demand for such services can only come from people with excess wealth, and the supply comes from people who realize that their best source of income is to cater to those with excess wealth. This is very different from the age of mass consumption, when Henry Ford tried to manufacture cars that his workers could afford.
Actually, I think that the biggest engine of the trickle-down economy is the nonprofit sector. I don’t have data on this, but I suspect that if you ask the next 10 young professionals you meet where they work, at least 3 of them will reply that they work for nonprofits.
In the 1970s, the catch-phrase “petro-dollar recycling” became popular among international economic technocrats. The idea was that oil-rich countries accumulated substantial wealth, and this wealth would somehow find its way to poor countries, primarily being channeled as loans.
Today, I think that what we are seeing is “techno-dollar recycling.” Winners in technology and finance have accumulated substantial wealth. This wealth finds its way to young professionals, primarily being channeled through nonprofits.
(One interesting bit — for me — that really dates the piece is from the very end:
And here is Sam Harris interviewing, and slobbering over, young billionaire Sam Bankman-Fried. Not once does Harris ask the question of why it is more ethical for Bankman-Fried to donate his money in an unaccountable way than it is for him to invest his money in profit-seeking business. I don’t count on Congress allocating resources wisely, so I don’t favor wealth taxes. But I don’t count on any billionaire allocating resources wisely without any feedback mechanism.
I find Bankman-Fried scary, and my guess is that I would find other billionaires with his approach to altruism just as scary. I don’t think that any one person has as clear a picture of morality as Bankman-Fried and Harris believe that they own.
Yeah, we saw how that turned out, didn't we?)
Capital_Room
rather dementor-like
21d ago
Everyone knows
Consensus building
the real agenda here is that you don't want
So you're a mind-reader? You're not going to engage with the argument being made, but only with what you think the "real" position is?
Plainly uncharitable.
Capital_Room
rather dementor-like
2mo ago
So, there's a recurring criticism I see in many spaces regarding various right-wing projects in building parallel institutions, alternative ideological frames to that of the left, cultural resilience, and so on (ranging from critics of "Benedict Option" strategies, to Neema Parvini when talking about why "American nationalism" does not and cannot exist), which is that the thing in question is "a LARP," or "LARP-y," or something similar. Which is to say that it is "performative," that the actions aren't backed by some sort of deep-down "genuine" belief.
To which I say: so what?
First, whence this idea that the "deep-down" internal mindset of a person is more important than the actions themselves? Do a person's deeds carry so little weight, compared to their mental state when doing them?
But more importantly, isn't this how anyone gets started with something? I mean, a lot of the examples that come to my mind are things that I'm only familiar with second-hand, but I'll try to explain.
I'm old enough that back in the first few grades of elementary school, they made us stand and recite the Pledge of Allegiance every day. I think back on us as first graders, doing that. Were we actually earnestly pledging our undying allegiance to the Republic and its flag? We didn't even understand all the words we were saying. We were just reciting what we were told to recite, the way we were taught to recite it, because we didn't want to get in trouble. It was all fake, all performative, all "a LARP."
Those of you who grew up religious, did you really understand every hymn you sang, every element of each ritual you participated in, from the very first time you did it? Or was there at least some "going through the motions" and mimicking your elders, with true understanding coming later?
In one of the replies to that Twitter post on the "homeschool prom" linked late last thread, someone described school dances as "a LARP" of the actual 'courtship' scene/process. Well, how else do people learn?
One common criticism of Pascal's Wager is that, even if you buy the argument, it only serves to persuade you that you should believe God exists, and there's a clear gap between thinking "I should believe God exists" and thinking "God exists." I mention it, because Pascal himself addressed this point shortly after introducing the Wager. And his answer is LARPing. Once you're convinced you should believe in God, then start acting as if He exists. "LARP" as a person who believes in God. If you do it thoroughly enough for long enough, Pascal argues, you'll start to actually believe it.
I've seen similar arguments in everything from job interview advice to dating advice — picture the person you want to be, and then act as they would, even if it's "all pretend."
It all comes down to the same classic piece of advice: "fake it till you make it." And what is the "fake it" stage, if not "LARP-y"? If not "performative" and, well, fake?
The reason given for this strategy is that it rarely stays fake forever. Maintaining a performative pretense, saying and doing one thing all while constantly going "this is silly, this is stupid, this is fake, this isn't me, I don't believe any of this" in your head is hard (at least for non-sociopaths). It's why governments have made citizens recite propaganda slogans over and over, why they made us say the Pledge of Allegiance over and over — because many times, it doesn't stay fake, doesn't stay merely performative. Again, it's fake it till you make it.
And even if an individual never "makes it," never achieves real belief no matter how long they perfectly maintain "the LARP"? Well, when we're talking about a long-term project involving a significant number of people, you have to consider future generations. Which gets to a concept mentioned here on the Motte before: generational loss of hypocrisy. Even if the first generation never get rid of their inner "this is so fake" thoughts… well, the next generations — whether that's new recruits, or their literal children — can't see those inner thoughts, only the outer "act." The LARP will not be multi-generational. To quote @WhiningCoil again:
I'm reminded of some joke about the difference between a cult and a religion. A cult is all made up by people. In a religion, all those people are dead.
So, to sum up, the accusation that a project of this sort is "LARP-y" is kind of irrelevant. Yes, it'll be LARP-y to start with; it kind of has to be. That's how things work. It's a phase — a necessary phase in the process of becoming something more, and if the people involved stay determined enough, and keep it up long enough, that phase will pass, and it will become something more.
Fake it till you make it.
(I'm hoping this isn't too incoherent, and isn't too low effort for a top-level post.)
Capital_Room
rather dementor-like
27d ago
And the latter is also possible, just look at the U.A.E.
But does the UAE scale? Further, the UAE isn't exactly a democracy, especially not one with birthright citizenship. I've seen some open borders advocates argue for a "billion immigrants" America that follows the UAE model (Nathan Smith for one), but none of them seem very clear on how to get there from here — well, beyond something like just throwing open the floodgates and hoping that the resulting effects force our political elites to make the desired changes and adopt the desired system in order to keep the country from collapsing (and the answers to "and if that doesn't work?" tend to be rather disheartening).
Capital_Room
rather dementor-like
28d ago
Outside of Aella, the whole SAM (Speaking with American Men) initiative is indicative of this line of thinking. SAM seems to be focused on how to "market" Democrat's ideas to men instead of finding ideas that men actually want. I don't know if this is just me or if anyone else noticed this or if I'm just recognizing too many patterns.
It's not just you; I did a post on my Tumblr last week noting it as one of the three recurring elements in discussions about SAM. It's also part of my teacher/classroom analogy, specifically, the 'well, if some of the kids aren't absorbing the lesson, it's because the teacher isn't presenting in properly — she just needs to figure out those kids' particular "learning style" and tailor her instruction accordingly' part. (I'm also reminded a bit of a couple of people I've known who unironically endorsed Orwellian "duckspeak" — though not by that term, of course — as the ideal of human communication.)
Capital_Room
rather dementor-like
19d ago
Serfs these were not, but no one in this forum could be said as being of "serf stock,"
I'd say I'm pretty close, though — particularly compared to most people here. Functionally-illiterate high school dropout handyman father, stay-at-home mother, grew up in low-population-density Alaska (including time in a community so rural, it lacks electricity, and has a community well for water).
Capital_Room
rather dementor-like
19d ago
what are they supposed to do? Every institution they're supposed to trust has lied outrageously. Are they supposed to double down and believe the NYT and MSNBC even harder?
I've seen multiple people, via two different arguments, answer this with "yes, you have to keep believing them." Either because it's your duty to keep society functioning, or (less often) because the "truth-telling institutions" are definitionally incapable of lying.
Capital_Room
rather dementor-like
27d ago
It’s like a tour of duty. There’s lots of industries that are hyper seasonal and / or are intensive for short amounts of time.
Oil workers are like that, for example. Fisherman, cowboys, that’s just off the top of my head.
We've got plenty of this sort of seasonal work up here in Alaska — and not just the oil workers and the crab boats, but also a lot of tourist-adjacent jobs, ranging from seasonal airport baggage handlers to RV park attendants.
Capital_Room
rather dementor-like
3mo ago
What's the idea behind this kind of discourse? It seems so alien to any kind of strategic understanding of politics and campaigning to me, especially now when the liberal order is more vulnerable than ever.
As someone who spends time on Tumblr (and thus sees a lot of people on the left behaving the way you describe), I've written a lot about this, both here and elsewhere. (See here, here, here, here, here, here, here, here, here, here, here, here, here, and here.)
In short, they're operating on a very different definition of "democracy" than you are.
you need to get people on your side.
No, you need to get elite institutions on your side. The peasant masses are irrelevant.
It's practical effect is essentially them saying "please see yourself as our political opposition and consider yourself excluded from our political project"
Except it's not "our political project" they see themselves casting people out of, it's "polite society," it's "the right side of history"… in short, you are being excommunicated from the One True Church, cast into the outer darkness with the damned, unless and until you repent and make penance. And, of course, shunning only works if everyone does it, thus those who fail to shun must be shunned themselves.
How does a firebrand Puritan preacher accumulate a flock? Not by friendly chats "exclusively through the lens of what we could agree on," but through fire-and-brimstone sermons denouncing them as damned sinners, and demanding they repent.
I come back to my classroom analogy (it's in one of those links above). It's long been a noted phenomenon — the subject of jokes, even — that whenever someone on the Left says "we need to have a conversation about [X]," what they actually mean is "I'm going to lecture you about [X], and you're going to sit down, shut up, and listen uncritically to what I say." Which I bring up because it's also what a teacher usually means when saying they "need to have a conversation" with a student and/or their parents about the student's behavior.
How does a teacher "get students on her side"? By asserting her authority, telling them to sit down, be quiet, and listen up; and punishing those who fail to obey.
That's the way the classroom works. The Expert speaks, and everyone else listens. Your grade, your status, is based on how well you absorb what Teacher says, and how flawlessly you parrot it back. Then you get to college, and its more of the same. Professor gives you the Correct Position, and your progress is based on how well you parrot it back. And then you get your degree that says you're an Expert now, so you either stay and become Professor, and tell the kids How It Is; or you leave into the world… and tell all the non-Experts How It Is. In both cases, when you speak, everyone is supposed to Listen to Teacher; that's how it's always worked.
And if students aren't learning the lesson? Well, maybe the teacher isn't matching their learning styles ("Democrats have a messaging problem"). Or maybe the kids are being distracted ("pipelines for alt-right disinformation like Musk's x.com") and you need to shut down anything that keeps them from Listening to Teacher. Or maybe they're just being stubborn and refusing to accept that the curriculum is Correct, and thus they are misbehaving and need to be punished; perhaps even expelled. In any event, the curriculum, the Lesson, is never wrong, no matter how large a fraction of the student body disagrees with it.
Are they still this oblivious to the disillusionment and loss of trust in institutions that is well entrenched in Western society today?
No, from what I've seen, they're quite aware of it, and do see it as a problem. They just don't see it as a problem with the institutions, but a problem with the people. If you don't find the mainstream media credible anymore? Then you're willingly choosing to believe lies over The Truth, and you're what needs fixed. You need to be made to trust the institutions again, even if it means literal re-education camps.
Where does this desire to grow your own political opposition come from?
It's not a desire to "grow their own political opposition," it's a desire to make people submit, to punish disagreement until people stop disagreeing with them. To make all the Bad Students Listen To Teacher. To denounce all the sinners, heretics, apostates, and infidels, and impose all the punishments their priestly powers allow them to inflict, until all repent and accept the dogmas of the One True Church. Because error has no rights.
Now, you might argue that America's heart wasn't really in it. Is their heart going to be more in it when it's their own homeland they're burning and shelling?
"Outgroup vs. Fargroup" comes to mind here. Fighting a bunch of people on the other side of the world who you are somewhat sympathetic toward, versus fighting the useless, inbred, gap-toothed, room-temperature-IQ, religious fanatic, every -ist and -phobe, Klanazis that make up the hated enemy tribe?
Also, in the GWOT, America's military operated in a foreign land, while their entire support structure, industrial base, and their soldiers' friends and family were perfectly safe on the other side of an ocean.
Which means they had nothing to fear from giving up and going home. When "home" is where you're fighting, it's win-or-die, so the motivation is much stronger.
I don't remember where it was, but I remember a year or two ago reading an editorial online from a retired general, ostensibly about the possibility of civil war in the US (though he ultimately used it to lay out his — IMO ridiculous — position on counter-insurgency), where he gave this as one of the arguments as to why whichever side of a second civil war the military pics simply cannot lose — the US military, since the 20th century, has not been and cannot be defeated, the politicians have merely gotten tired and called it off; but since doing so in a civil war is suicide…
Capital_Room
rather dementor-like
19d ago
Healthy cultures are evolved phenomena, and most cultures currently alive are no longer suited to their environments.
This right here is a big part of what makes me a "reactionary" right there. The entire modern world vastly overestimates the capacities of intelligently-designed, top down "culture and education program[s]."
Capital_Room
rather dementor-like
19d ago
Cruz also thinks that the Bible requires Christians to support the nation of Israel, which is somewhat non-mainstream in theology: "Where does my support for Israel come from, number 1 we're biblically commanded to support Israel". Tucker tries to ask 'do you mean the government of Israel' and Cruz says the nation of Israel, as if to say it's common-sense that the nation of Israel as referred to in the Bible is the same as the state of Israel today. It seems like he's purposely conflating the dual meanings of nation as ethnic group and nation as state, which is a stupid part of English.
I'm reminded of a video I saw some time ago, where Neema Parvini reacted to a video someone linked him to, of sermonizing by an American preacher of the "dual covenant" variety. The preacher laid out the basic "dual covenant" argument, including the assertion that any other position constitutes a claim that God does not keep all his promises, and is thus rank heresy. He then went on to say things like claiming that in Matthew 25:40, when Jesus said "Truly I tell you, whatever you did for one of the least of these brothers and sisters of mine, you did for me," that by "the least of these brothers and sisters of mine" he clearly meant the Jews, and thus Christians will be judged primarily on how they've treated the Jews. He then further elaborated that this isn't just about not persecuting them or being anti-Semitic, but is about what you've done for the Jews — how much you've given to them, what work you've done to their benefit — and that, come the Day of Judgement, Christians' eternal fates will be decided first and foremost by how much they did to serve the Jews.
(Much like Parvini, I was rather dumbfounded by the entire thing.)
Capital_Room
rather dementor-like
14d ago
right wing atheism is hedonic self indulgence.
Well, this right wing atheist isn't exactly generating a bunch of hedons these days, nor indulging in much of anything (except being poor and miserable)…
Capital_Room
rather dementor-like
14d ago
Where are you getting this? I’ve seen zero conservatives squarely blaming men for not getting married.
How much do you hand around old school church-going (Protestant) conservatives — typically age 50+ — IRL? Because that's the main place I've seen it. Also preacher blogs. (And some younger religious conservatives blogging from the Eastern European or Latin American country they moved to.)
Capital_Room
rather dementor-like
29d ago
I do think a lot of the conversations that used to happen here have moved to TPOT and postrat twitter.
What is TPOT? As with acronyms in general, Google is pretty useless at figuring it out.
Capital_Room
rather dementor-like
27d ago
That kind of transactional relationship sounds like the opposite of normal and healthy.
How many accounts — real or fictional — about relationships and marriage have you read that were written prior to the 19th century? Or from a non-Western culture (like any where arranged marriages were common). Marriage being treated to a great extent like a sort of financial/institutional merger involving two families, or a sort of "mutual physical/financial support" arrangement first, with "mutual love and desire" being a secondary factor — indeed, as something a couple deliberately builds over time — seems to be the more "normal" attitude across the history of settled human societies, with the 20th century West "all you need is love" attitudes being rather the outlier.
Edit: see also OracleOutlook's longer comment below.
Capital_Room
rather dementor-like
19d ago
That Devon Eriksen quote pretty much describes a good portion of my own worldview, and your analogy about mitochondria versus viruses sums up another chunk (indeed, it's a metaphor I use myself from time to time). And I, for one, think #1 is pretty much inevitable, with maybe the slimmest hope of #3 (though I think that to be successful, #3 can't rely on "outbreeding the enemy" alone, and will ultimately have to resort to a superior capacity for violence).
Capital_Room
rather dementor-like
1mo ago
Counterpoint: I wish a mothafucka would. Unfortunately right-wing nationalist violence often seems to manifest as mass shootings carried out by clearly mentally unstable people that target the entirely wrong targets. I.e. random people in a school or grocery store instead of assassinations targeting politicians, the leadership of NGOs that help illegal migrants illegally migrate, etc
First, this reads as a touch fedpost-y (I say as someone who's eaten some bans for the same). Secondly, I don't recall where I've read it, but I know I've encountered at least a couple of people on the right arguing that the Labour Party of Norway was noticeably weakened by their loss of up-and-coming young talent at Utøya, and thus, contra Yarvin, Breivik did make a difference for his side. (I'd argue that this is actually why Yarvin spent so long pooh-poohing ABB, because — particularly after listening to him on podcasts — so much of Yarvin's political program seems to be aimed first and foremost at preventing this sort of thing — for entirely understandable historical reasons.)
Capital_Room
rather dementor-like
28d ago
I mean, can you name any former porn stars who have gone on to become high-status, influential people?
Well, depending on how you define "porn star" (and how much credence you give to Procopius), Empress Theodora immediately comes to mind.
That may be how it is in the Lower 48, but not so much here in Alaska. At least partially because the [Native corporations](Alaska Native Regional Corporations) serve as loci for activism, as well as helping maintain the individual tribal identities, but also that we have the highest population percent Native at 20.7%, and, further, we already have a precedent for reparations in ANCSA (even if it was meant to settle all such future claims, it hasn't stopped activists from seeking more).
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