Lewis2
6mo ago
Yeah, if it weren’t for hairshirt environmentalists and watermelon Green Parties using climate change as an excuse to create a better world, conservatives would probably be more on board with conservation and more opposed to pollution.
Lewis2
1yr ago
I had to take a BS cultural diversity class in college. The professor was a black female adjunct who started off day one by trying unsuccessfully to create racial and sex-based divisions between the students. In day three or four, she snapped at me in class for “questioning” her and thereby “undermining her authority.” I was frankly stunned. I pretty regularly asked questions in other classes if something sounded off to my ears and even directly argued with professors. In all those previous classes, the professors loved it (at least I was engaged, which couldn’t be said for many of my classmates). After I challenged her for including inaccurate information in her presentations, she stopped uploading them to the class site. These were insane errors too, like claiming that Max Weber, close friend and colleague of Martin Luther, invented the Protestant Work Ethic as a way to discriminate against Jews and Catholics, which in turn served as a model for later Jim Crow laws (I swear I’m not making any of that up). Her final straw was when she said something blatantly wrong in class, and one of the other students turned around to me and asked, “Is that right?” The fire in the prof’s eyes was quite a sight to behold. She naturally failed me, but fortunately, I’d been meeting with my advisor after every class to document the issues, so I was able to get the grade overturned on appeal.
That’s the kind of bullshit that these diversity classes make people put up with. If you have even the slightest inkling that the professors teaching those classes will treat students fairly or allow multiple points of view, you need to spend more time with The Nybbler. Maybe some his cynicism will rub off.
Lewis2
1yr ago
Any demand that a venue provide “appropriate context” is a hostile one. Who is to decide which context is important to include, if not the show’s creators? Would anyone find it reasonable if far-right protestors demanded that any show that denigrated Hitler must include the context that he was a vegetarian, animal-loving artist who worked tirelessly and apparently quite unselfishly in service for his country? Of course not. So why should anyone take these far-left protestors’ similar demands seriously?
Lewis2
9mo ago
At this point, the medical establishment and government don’t (or at least, I really, really hope they don’t) have enough credibility left to enforce anti-pandemic measures. Even if avian flu does become a human pandemic and is widely acknowledged as such, it’s probably just going to have to rip through the population like any other transmittable disease. Those who get sick, get sick; those who die, die; and those who survive eventually reach herd immunity.
Lewis2
11mo ago
The British knowledge of Roman culture and military techniques came from a careful and deliberate study of the few remaining Roman writings available to them (a process that only began during the Renaissance), not due to ancestral memories of a conquest that occurred 1,500 years prior.
Lewis2
11mo ago
In his interview with Stephanopoulos, Biden said, “Look. I mean, if the Lord Almighty came down and said, ‘Joe, get outta the race,’ I'd get outta the race.”
I think it’s pretty clear what happened.
Lewis2
1yr ago
An appraisal will tell you roughly what the market value of a property is. An assessment will tell you what the government values the property at for tax purposes. You might think that those should be the same, but in many, if not most, jurisdictions, they aren’t. Some city and county assessors even provide separate assessment and appraisal values each year.
The last time we discussed this, I gave the example of farmland in my area, which is pretty much universally assessed at around $2,000 per acre, even though the sale price of farmland is typically close to $20,000 per acre. The counties choose to assess farmland at a far lesser rate than its market value in order to keep farming financially viable in the area. It’s essentially a sort of hidden subsidy. Some jurisdictions also cap the rate at which property taxes can rise from year to year, which can eventually cause assessments to fall far behind appraisal values, even if they were once fairly close.
Lewis2
1yr ago
a substantial number or people on the right who believe that Biden is a Mao or Stalin
Does anyone on the right actually believe that? I only ever hear complaints that Biden is old, senile, and obviously being puppeted around by various other figures in his administration. In other words, he is personally weak and pathetic, something even their worst detractors can’t say about Stalin and Mao.
Lewis2
1mo ago
The total number of excess deaths is probably the best you can do, but even that isn’t perfect, since it also encompasses deaths from delayed medical treatment, deaths of despair, etc., due to the shutdowns.
Lewis2
1yr ago
I don’t quite understand your position here. To summarize, a Broadway musical might not be an appropriate venue for a controversial story, unless the cast and author are non-white, in which case it’s okay because it will make a lot of sales. If the cast and authors are all white, the play should be relegated to a museum, where the story can be told with sensitivity (i.e., told in a way that makes its worst critics happy), regardless of profitability.
You seem to be subtly merging two different criteria (ethical and financial) to judge whether a play is appropriate to perform on Broadway. No one would disagree that an unpopular play shouldn’t be performed on Broadway; the question is whether a financially successful play that upsets leftists should be allowed to be performed. In other words, the question is one of censorship, not popularity.
Lewis2
1yr ago
Here is the article immediately before it was merged, and here is the article as it appeared in March of 2021, before an activist editor significantly changed it, summarizing his changes as follows: “Per talk page request, adding content to reduce bias in the article toward Hajnal'a theory, as well as to mention the racialist history of this research.”
This editor’s Wikipedia user page gives some insight into his views and editing motivations: “I am primarily interested in the documented history and photography of American small towns and railroads. Most of my activity on Wikipedia would consist of edits of that nature; if it weren't for the fact that I seem to find myself entrenched in lengthy disputes over culture-related articles; typically with trolls. I adamantly oppose the rise of racism, HBD, bio'truth', nationalism and jingoism, and I consider these to be the most compelling threats of our time to human dignity and safety.”
Lewis2
8mo ago
Hillary Clinton didn’t speak to her supporters election night either. She called Trump and conceded at 2:40 a.m.
Lewis2
1yr ago
Conservative voters are obviously more likely to have seen videos and discussion of Biden falling, freezing up, or talking incoherently (whether fairly edited or not). Liberal and swing voters, otoh, are much more likely to have only seen positive coverage, which is why they are currently freaking out about Biden’s performance.
Lewis2
1yr ago
What social class do these couples belong to? Long afternoon naps and constantly falling asleep in front of the TV (or at least, constantly watching TV) are traits I would associate with lower and lower-middle class suburbanites and urbanites. Most of the older men I know are (semi-) retired farmers, small shop owners, professors, or blue- and white-collar workers who saved enough to be solidly middle class. These old men still help with the farm, cut firewood, paint the siding, clean the gutters, mow the yard, garden, hang out with their friends, golf, do a bit of carpentry or mechanical work, and so forth. Even in their old age, they’re typically still quite a bit stronger than their wives, which enables them to continue doing the more moderately physically-demanding tasks for longer.
Also, while old men may be more likely to go into a rage and fly off the handle, don’t discount the ability of old women to be petty, vindictive, sarcastic, rude, and catty, and to make the lives of everyone around them a living hell. I’m not sure either gender’s social failures are really much better than the other’s.
As a final thought, I can’t help but notice that elderly spouses seem to frequently follow each other into the grave within a relatively short time span. Even if one spouse survives for a long time, he (or more usually, she) is usually forced to move into a home shortly after the death of the other, which to my mind indicates that there was probably some mutually-beneficial division of labor going on beforehand, even if it wasn’t completely equitable.
Lewis2
1yr ago
In my experience, the truly difficult task is convincing 22-year-old women that it’s a bad idea to put off marriage and kids until their 30s. They don’t need to be convinced that relationships are good and fun; they know that already. What they need to realize is that A) dating is much tougher after 30, and B) women’s fertility drops off significantly after that point. I’ve had this conversation with several young ladies, and all I’ve ever gotten in response is disagreement. Ah, well, maybe they’ll be singing a different tune in ten years.
ETA: Thinking about it, in 10–15 years, they might start sounding like the ladies in the NYT comments section.
Lewis2
1mo ago
They work well in rural, tight-knit, high-trust environments where plenty of young to middle-aged men work on farms or in small factories or shops close to the station (that is, they don’t commute to the nearest city for a desk job). Which is to say, the system worked extremely well for over a century but is starting to fail now in many locations. In some cases, this is because the close-knit and high-trust part is less true than it once was, while in others, the population density has fallen to the point that there aren’t enough people to keep things going. On that note, though, it usually doesn’t take a huge number of volunteer firefighters per station, as multiple neighboring stations will be called out to fight larger blazes.
It’s also possibly worth noting that volunteer firefighters in some areas receive health benefits to compensate them for their work. That makes the position much more attractive for self-employed individuals, including farmers. It’s the same reason a lot of rural self-employed people also work as part-time school bus drivers. The pay and hours kind of suck, but the health insurance makes it worthwhile.
In the U.S., I would think that HBD has much more to do with civil rights precedent, disparate impact arguments, and accusations of racism than with immigration. Blacks make up a disproportionately large percentage of the prison population, do worse in school, and have worse job prospects than whites and Asians. Is that due to overt racial discrimination or hidden structural racism? If all races have the same IQ, that doesn’t seem like a bad explanation, but if blacks have a lower average IQ, then you can take racism out of the equation. Likewise, Jews are overrepresented in elite universities and positions of power. Is that the result of an insidious Semitic plot? Possibly, or it could just be that they have a higher average IQ than Gentiles.
Lewis2
7mo ago
You say this like it’s the anti-euthanasia and anti-trans people who decided to start pushing for ridiculous outcomes in order to bolster their side. But in every case, it’s the proponents who have no sense of moderation.
Edit: On reflection, your second paragraph is basically just “Republicans pounce,” except with other groups subbed in for Republicans.
Lewis2
8mo ago
Oh, I’m sure it was completely crushing for Hillary. I have no disagreements there. But I would still think that today is probably the worst day in Harris’ life, even if it isn’t as bad for her as it was for Clinton. Coming so close to the presidency and then losing it (and losing it to Trump, in an explicit rejection of Harris’ and Biden’s last four years) has to be the bitterest pill she’s ever had to swallow.
Lewis2
8mo ago
Using this definition of fascist, I’m forced to ask, what’s so bad about fascism?
This reminds me of Scott’s essay, “Social Justice and Words, Words, Words,” specifically this bit:
I think there is a strain of the social justice movement which is very much about abusing this ability to tar people with extremely dangerous labels that they are not allowed to deny, in order to further their political goals.
And later,
If racism school dot tumblr dot com and the rest of the social justice community are right, “racism” and “privilege” and all the others are innocent and totally non-insulting words that simply point out some things that many people are doing and should try to avoid.
If I am right, “racism” and “privilege” and all the others are exactly what everyone loudly insists they are not – weapons – and weapons all the more powerful for the fact that you are not allowed to describe them as such or try to defend against them. The social justice movement is the mad scientist sitting at the control panel ready to direct them at whomever she chooses. Get hit, and you are marked as a terrible person who has no right to have an opinion and who deserves the same utter ruin and universal scorn as Donald Sterling. Appease the mad scientist by doing everything she wants, and you will be passed over in favor of the poor shmuck to your right and live to see another day. Because the power of the social justice movement derives from their control over these weapons, their highest priority should be to protect them, refine them, and most of all prevent them from falling into enemy hands.
If “fascism” is just a neutral descriptor of one quadrant of the political graph, then supporting fascism should be no more controversial or upsetting than supporting libertarianism or neoliberalism or socialism, and it certainly shouldn’t result in people losing their minds TDS-style. But I think that there’s a bait and switch going on here, that labeling the socially-conservative-yet-fiscally-progressive quadrant “fascism” is a deliberate choice to poison the public discourse by tarring your political opponents as Hitler wannabes.
It’s the same tactic Greatest Generation and Boomer conservatives used when constantly decrying their political opponents as communists for supporting even a modicum of socialism, just in reverse. It seems to me that the tactic wasn’t particularly honest then, and it isn’t particularly honest now.
But again, if I’m wrong, and you’re using “fascism” in a neutral, judgement-free, purely descriptive sense, then what’s the the big deal? Why be so upset about fascism?
Lewis2
9mo ago
Not thinking to grab your social security card and birth certificate I fully understand, but how would you possibly leave behind your driver’s license? Do you not keep it in your wallet, phone case, car, or some other similar place? I honestly couldn’t tell you the last time I left home without my driver’s license, since it never leaves my wallet.
Lewis2
11mo ago
(choice moment: the rioter responding with 2 fingers when asked how many brain cells he has)
You’re aware that this is a rude gesture, right? If someone asked me that question, I’d likely respond with one finger, but it would be a horrible misinterpretation to assume that I meant I only had one brain cell.
Huh, looking back through old stories and discussion boards, it appears I misremembered the timeline. For example, /r/themotte’s initial thread was pretty unanimously condemnatory. One user’s comment actually makes my original response to @coffee_enjoyer look pretty hopelessly naive (bolding added):
More options
Context Copy link