BANNED USER: personal attacks
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Belisarius
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User ID: 2663
Banned by: @Amadan
CICO is just a fact which we know from countless experiments of bodybuilders who count the calories they eat and from randomized control trials.
I ate vast quantities of extremely fatty and oily luxury cuisine, to the point that I had ¥9000 breakfasts five days in a row.
I guess this supports the fact that while the environment matters, people are also going to eat more out of their own desire and change the environment too. If there was a greater share of people with your desires over average Japanese, this would affect the Japanese food industry...
At the same time, my subjective experience matched up to when I accidentally adopted a diet similar to the potato diet recommended by the chemical hunger crowd - I felt like I had vast amounts of energy and simply ate whenever I was hungry or wanted to taste something interesting. In contrast, when I used willpower to eat an incredibly restrictive diet consisting largely of unpalatable food (protein sparing modified fasting) I found myself with intense cravings and lethargy that I only overcame with the usage of caffeine and whatever other stimulants they included in preworkout powders). This is why I blamed the pollutants rather than any sort of moral difference - because that's how it matched up to what I actually experienced.
French fries are a food that was associated with obesity but potatoes are otherwise a satiating food.
The best diet advice is against people going with very restrictive diets either in terms of removing food categories, or dropping drastically calories. Going more smoothly down but keeping at it and not reverting back, until you reach the point where it would be a good weight to maintain. Of course if you go very restrictive in diet you will have significant cravings.
There are people who have success with more restrictive diets, but it isn't necessary. And it necessitates more investigation and effort to get all the vital vitamins, minerals.
If you examine the history of food, there have been restrictive fad diets that were unnecessarily restrictive. I am more about wise self sacrifice and willpower relating to that.
Also, the willpower required to turn things around is different one someone becomes obese. Becoming that changes your appetite. It is still worth it, even if harder and there are also always ways you can fall down worse. Avoiding getting diabetes, heart disease, and other problems is well worth it, or reducing the severity. But it is even more important to do things right early, so people don't become obese to begin with.
Anyway, you decided to buy the meals you mention, and same previously. Surely, willpower plays a role in that? Although it was still bellow what you usually eat in the USA if you lost weight. Maybe you also were more active.
I guess a part of this has to do with having the right norms individually and collectively, and the term willpower might not capture it entirely, because it also relates with correct knowledge and action relating to that. While another part of it does relate with self sacrifice for one's own greater benefit but also a will to promote this norm in general. Moreover, like it or not, how much individuals decide to consume does affect the industry. And what the industry tries to market and promote, does affect the consumer.
The biggest difference from my perspective was that if you try to eat cheaply in Japan without access to a kitchen you would largely be eating riceballs, seaweed, fish, soybeans and other largely healthy choices. Trying to do the same in western nations leads to eating some incredibly unhealthy products (HFCS, McDonalds, etc), and this is the kind of issue that I think a healthy government would step in and address - but god knows I wouldn't trust current western governments to do this well...
Yes, I agree.
You mentioned Japan, but I found myself losing weight there extremely quickly and easily without making any changes to my moral behaviour or character.
By living in a society governed by a different morality, you were exposed to a less obesogenic environment, with smaller plates, less hyper palatable food, I probably should have mentioned this too, but also food choices that are less calorie dense, and more satiating probably too. You probably also mimicked how other people behaved and how they ate.
Basically, you benefited by the fact that you were living among the Japanese in a society organized and ruled by their laws and public morality. Yes that does kind of change some of the calculus of individual vs collective influences which are the result of multiple individuals behaving in a way that promotes a certain dominant behaviors and habits.
Also, in comparison to someone consuming enough calories that would make them overweight, by behaving in a way that is better for your long term, you did change your behavior in a manner that was an improvement morally. The amount of self sacrifice once society adopts better norms might not be that great, indeed. This is a selling point!
It actually isn't that big of a sacrifice, to follow from the beginning the kind of habit that avoid harmful drugs, don't eat too much calories, you walk around (which studies have shown to reduce depression). The point is that it is a worthy trade off and the decline of moralism has lead to greater suffering that is definitely not worth it. I guess, it is debatable how difficult it is to do so once you have experienced the other habits, and what would happen if we put obese people in places like Japan on the long term and where their weight would stabilize at. I know what would happen if you replaced the Japanese with enough of the obese, Japan will become fat as they will be following those habits and norms and foods and the food industry, laws and public expectations, shaming, all will change.
I found that when I (accidentally at the time) lowered my exposure to the kind of environmental pollutants hypothesised to cause obesity what followed was a sudden increase in energy and a decrease in appetite. Previously I'd lost weight by caloric restriction and strict dietary control which required a lot of willpower, but that loss was correlated with a lot of negative side effects and lethargy (as the chemical hunger hypothesis would suggest) - whereas I actually had to exert willpower in order to avoid losing weight on the "cut out pollutants" diet, rather than the opposite.
But why are the pollutants the issue and not the fact that the available food you had to choose from was less likely to make you fat? Because lower calories and more satiating per calorie. Less amount of oils probably too.
Some foods are also inherently more satiating. Harder to become fat on them than on fast food. Hence, by changing the dominant diet and promoting more Japan style the norm that people should eat say balanced meals, not too many calories, prefer more satiating foods, the result will be a reduction in obesity.
Too bad for the fast food industry which will decline, but a type of food industry is here to stay even with people eating less.
Like the perceived impossibility of crime in places like El Salvador where Bukele was able to deal with it in a manner where the trade off was certainly worth it.
I guess, one could note that action is more effective than convinsing people. Maybe just changing the available food choices would end up resulting in less obesity than just talking about individual responsibility. Although there is a symbiotic relationship between big business and consumers consuming bigger plates, and more addictive hyper palatable food.
I'm willing to believe that our society has less self-sacrifice in it - hell, I'm substantially less willing to shoulder sacrifices for the sake of my society, but I think that's in large part due to my society endorsing and encouraging things I morally disagree with. There are a bunch of corrupt criminals shoving their faces into the collective trough of society, and I see no reason to make personal sacrifices just to empower them and leave me and my family worse off - as far as I'm concerned, making personal sacrifices in support of the Global American Empire is far more immoral than restricting my circle of care to those close and dear to me.
Well, I agree with you that the GAE isn't worth sacrificing your life for it and that is a hostile empire to you and yours. I sympathize entirely with that. I am also not a keen of the negative influence it has by trying to promote cultural marxism, or the warmongering and color revolutions. I am more talking about sacrifices for the greater good of the people involved.
Indeed, parts of the problems of GAE is anarchotyranny and decriminalization policies promoted by elites like Soros, biggest corporations endorsing BLM, etc, etc. The changes I advocate, including other changes not focused upon here will go against plenty of what the people in charge of GAE preach to the detriment of those under their influence.
I agree with this, but I don't think that actually provides a justification for the "moral failing" hypothesis - the moral failing hypothesis just can't explain what's actually happening. There are just too many odd correlations and relationships within the data for the moral failing hypothesis to be that plausible - at most it can be a small contributor to part of the problem. What's the 'moral failing' explanation for why obesity is correlated with altitude/water-tables? Don't forget that this obesity epidemic is impacting animals as well - it doesn't seem plausible to me that the decrease in willingness to sacrifice for society has caused feral rats to start overeating and getting fat.
I recall reading a lesswrong post linked in the old subreddit which argued convincingly against the chemical hypothesis and directly addressed the water altitude arguement.https://www.lesswrong.com/posts/7iAABhWpcGeP5e6SB/it-s-probably-not-lithium
Ed Yudkowsky doesn't even accept the truth that is CICO, so don't take this as me endorsing rationalist thinkers as an authority. Just on its own merits I found then when I read it that article to be good and made a better case than the slime mold time mold blog.https://slimemoldtimemold.com/
That article would do a better job arguing specifically against the chemicals hypothesis than I would, so I would recommend you read it for the counter.
The chemical hunger hypothesis is not the default hypothesis for the rise of obesity. The default is that we have a rise of a more obisogenic environment but it is also hard not to see the rise in general of detrimental behaviors related to superstimuli and people avoiding better for long term health of society self sacrifice.
Anyway, the blame of the individual can be reduced by the fact that people are affected by society and by what habits it fosters. And part of the default thesis is that more addictive "hyper palatable" food is affordable and more available to people today.
People eat more calories, and have larger plates.
I think moralism of the kind promoted by certain people which is only about the individual is going to be inadequate and you need greater societal transformations which go further. Japan is an example of a place where the norms at such that promote lower obesity, while their cuisine still has plenty of tasty foods.
One of my points is that if people adopt good habits early, and a society under the reigns of sensible moralism promotes long term greater happiness with less of the worse outcomes that arise from a society that avoids the self discipline. We know for example that is much harder to lose weight after you become obese than to remain fit. Same with drugs, easier to not become addicted than to get rid of the habit. This also relates to the valuable ancient understanding of freedom which isn't the only way of freedom that matters, but it does. Which is about people being free from their vices and living a life that better fulfills their potential. The later also relates with modern understanding, which we have seen in various metrics a decline upon, even if in other metrics we have seen a rise.
Part of the hostility to this kind of moralism has to do also with avoiding blame, and responsibility, but it is true that the decline in such norms has lead to a more irresponsible society with worse consequences for it. So lets admit that unpleasant truth and seek pragmatic responses.
The war on drugs policies in most countries that have been followed have resulted in low prison populations and lack of drug abuse.
In the case of the USA, from what I have read much of the drug related prison population was there related to more serious crimes and they got them related to the drugs. Or drug dealers who sell poison to people. USA is a more violent country with more violent crime and so a larger share of imprisonment actually does have a protective element.
We have seen indeed an increase of crime as decriminalization and reduction of prison population has become the goal.
A small percentage of the population commit the most violent crime, so rather than encouraging more people to join them by decriminalization policies (which will not lead to more people imprisoned as crime increases since we got decriminalization), I would side with the majority preyed upon by violent criminals and against the criminals.
No, it is disingenuous and anti-intellectual to pretend that the phrase law and order assumes the conclusion. The conclusion that law and order is different than decriminalization is a given, and it is an exercise in trying to promote confusion and misunderstanding of reality for political purposes to make this an issue.
The kind of gotcha split hairing that submits nothing that is out there to win everything that is bad for discussion and for societal norms. Not for the motte which doesn't matter in a special way, but for society which matters and is lead astray by any prominence of such approaches. You are trying to shut down discussion here since if we can't distinguish between decriminalization or law and order policies, we can't actually discuss the issue. Furthermore, we are also diverted to discussing what we shouldn't be wasting our time on.
Not everything is negotiable. If your approach is a decriminalization approach, you should own it.
There are sufficient differences between different approaches to earn them different qualitative descriptions. There is really a libertine, decriminalization approach on drugs that supporters value and a law and order approach that is valued by its supporters. Different supporters believe in different narratives, one of which is correct and the other incorrect.
And we should NOT be wasting time making this clear, but spending the time examining the trade offs and wisely choosing based on having wise priorities as a society.
Plus, it is especially unwise to raise this distinction in response to a post that argues that decriminalization drug policies lead to societal decay and drug abuse and law and order policies promote better functioning society. It is like you were hyper focused on winning a point.
I’m making this distinction because decriminalization has not, in fact, raised the prison population. This Laffer-curve equivalent is cute but probably not accurate.
But my comment was about non decriminalization policies. I wasn't commenting about decriminalization resulting in more imprisonment. I was claiming that drug decriminalization lead to destructive societally drug abuse, while drug criminalization policies don't end up having to imprison that many people.
Although, if drug decriminalization policies raise behaviors that are criminal but come along with policies of general decriminalization, including certain areas in a city lacking police enforcement and becoming den of junkies, that is also a problem. Effectively, you raised crime but aren't enforcing it.
You aren't really addressing the substance of the issue.
There is a trivial way to have a perfectly law-abiding society: just don’t have laws. Descend into the Hobbesian state of nature. The problems with this approach make it very unpopular, of course, in a manner I’d describe as lacking “order.” Thus, Portland.
Of course if you don't have laws, you obviously don't have law and order but the opposite and someone defining this as law and order is promoting inaccurate labels and diverting understanding to a lower level. Plus distracting people through having them to discuss with their inaccurate description from the substance of what is happening. Actually, by not having laws you are obviously going to have huge problems with all sorts of crimes, and people in the state of nature societies are full of rape, murder, etc, etc.
The ideal of state of nature being idealic is just a falsehood that crumbles when meeting with reality and actually examining hunter gatherer societies. Civilization, and societal norms don't constrain people from an idealized state, but most of them tend to lead to societies that lack the kind of abuses found in hunter gatherer ones. So, I wouldn't even describe as philosophy but as a wrong concept the idea of an ideal state of nature that is undermined by civilization. I wouldn't describe the very idea of less strict law, if relating to a particular law as anti intellectual as it can be valid of course.
But you absolutely after a point too low and you got libertine norms and decriminalization, and after a point enforcement you got law and order and maybe after a point of strict laws you might even have totalitarian societies. There might be a subjectivity to any of these standards but they do exist and deserve a label so we actually understand the world. Only by disagreeing with an example should one disagree with the label, as general deconstruction is anti-intellectual.
In a similar note, understanding that perfection doesn't exist anywhere, I would distinguish a free society, from an unfree one based on degrees, with the free one having to pass a sufficient standard to qualify. And as always there are trade offs. I am willing to admit that some things I am willing to support might come at a cost of certain freedoms. For example, if I supported lockdowns on the basis of thinking the result to be worth it, I would be asking for a sacrifice of certain freedom, based on seeking a certain benefit.
I would be engaging in partisanship and sophistry if I didn't admit it. Which is part of our problem, people want to have their cake and eat it too. Still, certain trade offs are better in terms of other trade offs since the sacrifice is smaller versus benefit, and even in freedom there is also both a sacrifice but also a benefit. What fits in the proverb of an ounce of prevention, a pound of cure, where the sacrifice is less than the necessitating later sacrifice, including what people are going to have to do to treat themselves and we expect and know they will do to deal with. As the alternative of not caring about even treatment will be even worse. An idealized claim of libertine freedom doesn't deal with that pragmatically.
So when it comes to not admitting anything, I would just marginalize this kind of sophists who try to deconstruct us from useful understanding often in partisan directions, so this kind of fruitless debate is rare and also the public norm and morality is to look down to it and focus on reality. With having an understanding and distinction between sophistry and actual valid points. Indeed a lot of our problems relate with people preferring convenient narratives over what is true. Including politically correct narratives which are meant to shut down further analysis.
If one compares drug decriminalization, or general decriminalization policies with countries that follow law and order, the later not only have less drug abuse but also don't have to imprison that many people. The influence of such policy of drug criminalization for most of the world with such policies is for people successfully be dissuaded from abusing harmful drugs.
Drug abuse is a societal scourge and it is another example how libertine policies and attitutes lead to greater suffering but also greater imposition on people's freedom than the sacrifice required from making good trade offs and abstaining from harmful behavior. For the loss of what is good by becoming addicted to drugs is quite greater.
At the end of the day the libertine's have a cope that their policy leads to worse consequences but people get good and hard what they choose. But we shouldn't accept this cope way off thinking. The worse outcomes and society sucking more under such policies is good reason to not respect this course.
Same could also be said with obesity, or even the long term problems of lack of children.
We live in an age where there is a crisis of lack of smaller self sacrifices, for ultimate a greater negative end. In line with the proverb "An Ounce of Prevention Is Worth a Pound of Cure".
Now, you can't force people to have children, or not get fat, in the same way you can enforce criminalization of drugs, although there are things you could do, but the moralists on these issues are correct. Contrarily the people who have been spreading apathy and downplaying have had a corrosive effect on society.
Beyond just policy, there is also a morality involved with society that does end up relating to what happens and pressures people and also affects the law. So we can judge and contrast the libertine morality with more conservative one on drugs and other issues.
The ridicule of the people trying to dissuade people from bad behaviors and such campaigns, especially on drugs have been one of the most unjust reactions and self destructive ones for society. That kind of judgementalism against wise moralism is disastrous. We need the right kind of moralism. A good society is one where there is moral pressure in the right directions. While a completely non judgemental society is impossible.
Now that we see decline in various important issues, we should appreciate more the conservatives of the past who maintained certain good mores and actually fought to preserve them. Of course you need the right balance of enforcement, or conservatism, but modern conservatives have mostly not been too much on the excessive conservative side in the recent past on such issues. Seeing the effect of liberals taking control I do appreciate actual conservatives more, while in the past I had more mixed feelings about them. People should go back and see what each faction was pushing and claiming, examine how things played out and praise those who got them right, and criticize those who got them wrong.
Oh and the point is good trade offs and knowing what you are doing instead of relying on wishful thinking. Drug restriction policies have had a good track record in modernity. So the idea is for a general ethic of societal discipline for long term good on important areas. Still, no reason to enforce restrictions in a manner that the excessive restriction is more damaging to society than the gain. Or at least to persist where it would be unwise. See covid lockdowns which have been the more excessive uncharted waters type of policy, although serious enough diseases could justify such impositions.
Anti HBD is used to promote discrimination based on the idea that underperformers are oppressed by evil racist groups. Moreover, to the extend that there is redistribution from one ethnic group in favor of others, then HBD reveals this fact and that rather than contempt for inequality remaining, appreciation for being helped can be the more honest and ethical response.
Anti HBD promotes discrimination, mistreatment of those who don't buy into it and is part of the lysenkoist regime where people whose views don't fit to it are slandered or implied to be nazi or nazi adjesent. This kind of regime leads to a lot of discirmination and worse. It leads to good people censored and losing their career. It has lead to murders too as in the Soviet Union.
It is a bad thing to slander and keep down people who believe something that is true. Truth matters. I would also say that it is a bad thing to promote falsehoods and people who promote them to have high status due to doing so.
However it is also detrimental relating to the problems of suppressing facts. You can't adequately deal with problems if you are living in a fantasy world. For example, if like most American liberals you are polled to have a wrong idea of black criminality and police shooting of blacks, then you are going to reach the wrong recommendations about what ought to be done, and even consider the correct policies to be racist.
Indeed, part of correct response to crime that could be effective could even involve say racial profiling. Knowing the facts leads to a more informed decision which can lead to less crime victims and a better society. Indeed, ironically black Americans would probably benefit more by policies that are realistic and focuses more than a politically correct regime would upon the demographic that a very disproportionate share of the violent crime which is young black men.
You are making a circular argument since by using the term discrimination, you seem to be using it under the connotation of prejudice, and unfairness.
I would also consider HBD and being even more willing to oppose mass migration of foreigners because many would be of lower human capital and net drain financially, to also be a case of non unethical/prejudiced narrative, but in fact the opposite as the idea that a people are not sovereign and don't have self determination to be ruled in favor of their interests and should be pathologically altruist in favor of foreign groups at their expense would be anti native racist. Knowing HBD helps people take a more informed decision on issues like mass migration. Which is one of the reasons is suppressed, so people take a more uninformed pro migration decision.
That being said I do think certain HBD narratives could be used to justify bad things and should be kept down. We have seen them in motte more so in the Israel/Palestinian conflict where certain posters have justified violation of human rights and destruction of Palestinians in part by using the arguement of them being inferior to the superior race of the Jews. I do think this kind of support of destruction of a group is obviously incredibly unethical. But we should be supressing and treating as taboo and being unpleasant and willing to give backlash, and keeping out of influence to the people who have such view, this kind of narrative/viewpoint, not HBD as a whole.
We should be hostile to "We do better and we are superior, give us all your stuff" for the same reason that we should be hostile towards "We do worse, give us all your stuff so we aren't inferior" deserves hostility. So a certain ethical prior is necessary. Or at minimum not accepting the premise that inequalities of such manner justify taking from others what is rightfully theirs.
So yeah, there is an element of unfairness HBD narrative (which is a narrative that uses HBD and not something inherent to it) that I am not against being critical off, but HBD is also related to narratives that are good and useful and even most importantly undermine some very harmful anti-HBD narratives I explained in the beginning, and are in fact dominant and doing a lot of damage right now.
Interestingly, on an individual basis the belief of human differences in intelligence is quite common and that does tend to come along with views more in line to what I promote here. We also see the belief in biological differences in ability to become muscular in discussions related to fitness to lead to something more in line with what I promote. Imagine how stupid discussions about fitness where if people denied biological athletic differences. It is simply efficient and useful knowledge for society.
The arrogance of the people who think suppressing truths is noble and only bad motives could lead to promoting truths is really astounding. It is in fact far more the case that falsehoods and lies are motivated by bad intentions.
Much of that relates to the desire to win politically by buying into the sacredness of one's political faction and evil of opposition, which is a false view. For if your faction was so noble, and your opposition so evil, your political faction wouldn't have to win by suppressing the truth.
How would you go about protecting the patients from themselves? In the examples you mentioned, doctors have a duty to explain things and even repeat doing so when necessary, but you can't force them to act the way you want.
With side effects the issue is that from the most typical medicine anyone takes, to ones with more serious side effects, you will find a long list of potentially dangerous side effects. So long that is ignored. People are trained by such experience to dismiss the issue.
I agree with another poster that the key medical advice should be written down. People forget things and if they have it written down a greater share will follow it. Good communication requires adequate emphasis and summarization. People are fallible and then a decent share of people would be lower IQ. Of course, the doctor's should do their job and at the end of the day the patient has their own responsibility to live their life and to follow their doctor's advice. You can't do it for them.
The doctor's duty is to try to be effective communicators that adequately explain the issue in a manner that most people would understand and able to follow, if the patient's desire to do so. It isn't a checklist that just mentioning an issue means that they have done a good job.
This essentially means some paternalism, since it requires extra effort for some patients. But only to a point. Basically any field will have a million of "reasonable person" subjective tests that good professionals must try to follow.
The elite networks and organizations of today discriminate in favor of minorities and the philosophy associated with civil rights act and how it has applied in practice does not take sufficiently seriously any even handed aspects to the law as written.
At such, not only repealing civil rights act but empathising that it is racism and illegal to screw over the non progressive associated identity groups would be necessary.
There is absolutely no reason whatsoever to entertain the framework of historically oppressed protected groups, as a valid framework. In fact, to the extend discrimination is illegal, or comes with fines, such framework would end up costing for those who apply it.
The arguement that civil rights act might no longer be necessary as the minimum arguement might had made more sense in the past, but if the arguement of civil rights act has been about pervasive influence or conspiracy of groups like KKK, today we can observe a different pervasive ideology. Saying that there isn't racism today would be inaccurate and adopt the framework of progressive idea of racism where they don't count the racism in favor of minorities and against say whites.
You are basically fighting the old war. I also don't see why we need to face these questions in such an indirect way, instead of directly observing whether current American society is favoring, trying to be neutral towards, or mistreating X or Y group. So we will directly reach the truth of the matter you want to investigate, by investigating it directly. I sincerely do not buy into this idea that such things are such as inherently complex mystery that is hard to ascertain. It is convenient politically to be a mystery for one side that their side has a weak case based on the evidence. Actually, who a society favor is going to be reflected in the rhetoric of elites, the dominant NGO groups, the laws and how they are enforced, and so on, and so forth. If you do know that groups that can be favored can even perform worse due to HBD for example, although there are differences in behavior that aren't just HBD and other factors that can also lead to groups that are favored to do worse on some metrics of success, there isn't really a mystery here about what is happening.
Some issues are not actual debates where both sides have a valid case, just because there are two sides that are unwilling to compromise. Although, there is some compromise, well sort of. When you see the celebration paralax that is telling enough. The opposite side to what I argue will sometimes admit that it is true but "what you are going to do about it" i.e. might makes right, or use an arguement like its karma, revenge, and celebrate it basically.
Some of the rhetoric of progressives about protecting groups from discrimination does have a validity today. But it is about protecting from progressive racist "antiracist" movement, including "conservative" politicians that have aligned with it and such ethnic lobbies.
However, obviously, if you are to use power to oppose a cartel that screws X to benefit Z, you ought to be very careful about overcorrection if the goal is to oppose discrimination and be willing to reverse things if they have gone too far. And actually take seriously even handed applications of the law if anti discrimination is the goal. Contrary to the assertion that I have seen that even conservatives shouldn't reverse things, lest they become reactionaries, reversal of bad policy is a preresequite of wise governance in general.
Since anti-discrimination laws end up applying in intent of many involved with bringing them in fruition and practice as a manner of screwing over the progressive and their ethnic and other identity groups it comprise as permanent outroups, that negative precedent should be empathized as part of revoking not only civil rights act but Britain's and other country's equality act, hate speech laws, etc, etc, and to pass laws in favor of removing from influence and prosecuting with high prison time people who under the pretense of anti racism violate the civil rights of any group progressives dislike. Especially goverment officials but big business too and also industry wide regulations, or cartels. People behind trying to make this into reality or making this into reality should not just be excluded from influence but find themselves in legal trouble.
We need to be explicit about the betrayal of anti discrimination promise into discrimination towards natives, Christians, europeans, right wingers and associated groups, men, etc, etc. However a motte and bailey between antidscrimination and for discrimination for protected groups, against oppressors, have been a key part of these civil rights movements and their protagonists. So, we should be clear about the nature of it, and denounce it like Stalin has been denounced. We need to aknowledge the problems with such unwise and unjust policy and movement which was an overcorection and has become a very unjust monstrosity at this point.
The situation we are at is that good and moral policy is to enforce this at this stage. Considering how they have succeded in infiltrating the goverment and large corporations and be influential even with FBI with ADL as the worse, based on the ideology of the people who captured institutions. NGO's whose political influence is to do this discrimination activity which would be correctly considered a crime should become illegal, or at minimum fined and excluded to the level that KKK was. But power should be used to minimize the influence of the worst influential NGOs of this type and those who collaborate with them in power.
Like with civil rights act, fines can also be used for organizations for whose reason of existence can be more neutral like a social media, or media platform, where they are incentivized to remove the kind of leadership that is slanted in such direction. A correction against the excesses of our progressive dominated age is the correct way to analyze the current situation. It isn't 1960s where we have to predict how things will turn up. We can see how they did.
The American goverment with A.I. safety and its pressure in silicon valley and its agents is already there dictating. Same applies with very powerful totalitarian far left NGOs with influence in mega corporations.
I also don't care for the private/public distinction when it comes to collective agendas of mega corporations like Google/Twitter/etc/etc. Especially since the Democrats especially with some Republican cooperation and outside the USA, the European Union and national bureaucrats are very willing to dictate and influence.
I would buy more into this argument if any of these corporations did not give woke default and you could outside of Gab get right wing alternatives. And if they didn't ban from their stores dissent. The censorship of the millions of users of A.I. that they will be subject to by using a platform that censors non culturally far left content because of the dictates of a) goverment agents of such ideology influencing things b) non goverment people running such organisations is a greater violation of freedom, and besides what is the default matters in its own right.
I am in favor of the default being saner also for reasons that don't have to do with opposition of censorship but the use of art not distorting reality in a culturally genocidal manner. Cultural erasure of this type is an evil in itself also, in addition to the censorship being another evil.
Plus Artificial Intelligence is far from being just a product. It being super far left is a problem because it is going to be used in all sorts of decision making for both private and public institutions. It will be used to discriminate, including in medical decicions. I care also for the end of the art not erasing white people. This also happened with this ideology and vaccines in the pandemic. If the default ideology promoted by A.I. is ridiculously unjust in regards to the justice system, that will result in having a very lopsided jusitce. And if the A.I. becomes more independent, or we get robots, there are is a deadly threat there. Woke drones or Woke AGI are actual possibilities.
It does matter as a value to have a society that doesn't screw over the groups progressive authoritarian hate NGOs that have influence with mega corporations and the goverment alike such as ADL have the targets upon.
And of course what the Nybbler have said.
We live in a world of oversensitivity and overreaction in a progressive direction with a lot of strong reactions towards attempts to correct the overcorection. Not in a world where freedom is maximized as a value, even from the right which tends to respect to a degree or another cultural leftist sensitivities.
Since you have supported the ADL, you do want a group that is a decider of wrongthing. One which is rather authoritarian and biased, even defining at some point that it isn't racism when it is against whites.
Perfection is impossible, and so is not having any deciders, but it is easy to imagine deciders who are less biased than that and I am 100% in favor of things moving in such direction.
One side being impotent while the other side is willing to use power in both private sphere and in public sphere (it is in fact hard to see where the one ends and the other begins between NGOs which have chapter in mega corporations, goverment agents and such mega corporations and even intelligence agencies) is the case of the side choosing impotence being gullible and enabling abuse and the worst decision makers to run riot. It is a vice and not a virtue.
There is no reason to be gullible towards requests to selectively follow certain rules at your own expense that the ones requesting don't apply for themselves.
Conservative attempts to very indirectly deal with problems is not going to work. To actually deal with extremely racist antiwhite and progressive stack A.I. and this kind of ideology they should put huge fines, deprive of goverment funds, or directly restrict, or all of them to different degrees.
This is clearly not true as ethnic groups, and political groups that see themselves as victims have been rather successful.
Moreover, much of the overton window, including in the right is full of people who are angry when the victimhood status of certain groups related with the left is challenged. Even more so when it comes to history.
The successful PMC women in OP's example are not dooming themselves as women. They are benefiting from pro-discrimination policy.
Of course, seeing your group as victims is not in it self a recipe of success. But being entitled to better treatment and trying to convince others you deserve it because you are victimized, is going to be an aid in getting better treatment. While trying to avoid framing yourself as a victim at all costs can end up with you becoming an acceptable target with no organisation to oppose when others vilify you.
Now, I personally oppose people claiming victimhood too much when they don't deserve it, or as a trick to screw over others but that isn't because it is ineffective but because it would be unfair at the expense of others. So I oppose identity politics in those cases. And I support allowing space for the possibility of victimhood as an aspect of justice, and people presenting legitimate cases of them being victimized. There are also some tragedy of the commons problems that are also a good reason to oppose it, leading to a more dysfunctional society from such parasitical behavior. I guess another point would be that excessively disrespecting other groups can lead to backlash against yours. Hence we see a strategy to not allow the outgroup identity politics, so they don't stand up and dissuade this extremism.
So in theory and in practice, embracing victimhood where warranted is a necessary component of justice. Being pro your group for your legitimate rights and against mistreatment is being pro justice.
I also understand that the space that claims to be anti-identity politics has a problem with bad actors who concern troll to oppose identity politics when it comes to white, or male or christian identity politics and support a default of jewish, or woman, black, or other progressive identity politics. In fact part of their problem and what they identify as extreme with the identity politics they complain, is the criticism against excessive jewish (especially for Jewish identity politics there are those making exceptions), or female, or black identity politics, or LGBT, general progressive stack groups.
And are rather extremist, machiavelian chauvinists for it. Some of them also are fanatical about some progressive identity politics and only willing to oppose progressive identity politics after a point, while being intolerant of any identity politics or victimhood status for right wing groups. Or are adopting this perspective because they have noticed that this faction has grabbed influence and are trying to pander to it.
Others are not considering seriously the implications of opposing groups embracing victimhood and how much measures it would justify against the institutions and replacing those who run Google/silicon valley mega corps, ethnic activist NGOs, Hollywood, netlifx, have captured political power in all sorts of institutions, including in political parties. To be promoting something like this in a consistent manner and not just to demoralize the right wing outgroup will require a significant effort to dismantle things as they are now. Just dissuading right wingers doesn't' cut it. Indeed it would require going further than my stance of opposing people using illegitimate/excessive grievances, which aren't proportionate to the situation.
In reality, license to act without a counterparty leads to abuse and excess. On net more identity politics exist where only some sides play the game. If other groups embraces victimhood at your expense where you have the role of the oppressor and starts mistreating yours, and you are unable to see yourself as victims, the end result would be a greater tyranny than if you did see the reality, of your group being victimized. Before that the possibility of groups being victims or victimizers should be embraced for sure as well.
One kind of identity politics, of which victimhood is a part of can restrain another since another group is going to have demands and oppose its own mistreatment and demand that other groups are more moderate. Just like people are less prone to go around murdering people if there is a police which will also act violently and arrest them, or people have a right to self defense and to use violence to stop people from killing them. Mutual respect and mutual fear lead to less violence that one party having no spine and an unwilligness to recognise its own rights. But I am more in favor of people having a valid concept of group rights even outside of just their own group.
Still, my choice would be for the dominant ideology to be skeptical of certain behaviors and tolerant of others, and actually trying to ascertain whether a group is promoting illegitimate grievances, trying to permanently screw over other groups of their legitimate rights and destroy them and their inheritance, or they are trying to retain/gain what they deserve. It is too reductive to either embrace that groups should be embracing victimhood and blaming others, or denying victimhood and blaming others.
Another way to see it is that if the dominant narrative and leadership in institution accepts this idea that one group's rights ends where other's begin and does so even if they are running and country represent as they ought primarily their nation's interests but while respecting the red lines of others, this itself results in less identity politic conflict.
Which is part of what some of the people complaining about identity politics, and groups embracing victimhood have a problem with. Having different factions accept a mutual compromise, and knowing if they push further that won't be tolerated and they will be laughed out of the room, can lead to peace and end culture war debates. And of course, the goal of justice includes in it after justice being done to stop milking those grievances.
I.E. You correctly complain about your group being portrayed in an one sided manner negatively in history and at present and discriminated against and being replaced and not having a right to exist. All these stop, as they should. You don't push to do the same things to other groups, and you don't pretend that they persist. You don't demand that your group is portrayed only positively and trying to portray other groups overwhelmingly negatively. You don't demand that your group must be given money to become as successful, if not more so. You compromise, and having succeeded you don't push further. So in some sense, certain types of identity politics/victimhood embracing must be out of bounds.
The idea that identity politics are not effective is simply false. The dominant coalitions rely on identity politics and use it for the advantage of the groups that it comprises.
Part of what claims to be the right has embraced the refusal to do identity politics for its base, in fact to support cancel culture in that direction and tolerating and doing identity politics for progressive associated groups, so your proposal is simply repeating what has failed.
Beyond the issue of effectiveness, it is possible for others to be keeping you down, and it is actually good to oppose that. There is no reason to treat the same all complaints as some might be valid, and others invalid.
The truth is that even invalid blaming others and wanting more for your group at their expense can be effective though.
The problem with much of the current political establishment and this includes people who falsely claim to be on the right or center, is that they tolerate and support excessive rights for progressive stack groups, and don't respect the rights for the right wing groups like white christian men. This also relates to who they are demonizing and overly praising, and historical narratives.
At such it would be both effective and the moral path for the right, and center to sideline this authoritarian racist faction, which slanders and discriminates and favors the replacement of its base. To oppose anti-white and anti-male discrimination is good for society, and good also because it avoids an injustice at the particular groups and challenges directly the logic of the radical far left.
Before that Mike Lindell has been deplatformed and one of the target of the ire of the left wing establishment which includes plenty more rich people collectively working together than what Mike Lindel represents. Where their behavior is not held accountable.
There is no reason to consider this as an example of a bet taxing bullshit. That perspective would only merit entertaining if we see courts forcing liberal establishment figures, including in powerful corporations and NGOs having to pay large fines, or getting them to pay relating to technicality, including prove me wrong bets, to the extend there is some parity there.
Even this hitpiece article against him shows how Lindell has been targeted for his political opinions although they have a celebration paralalax line. https://www.newsweek.com/rise-fall-mike-lindell-1830372 and he has been banned from social media platforms and had other interference with his affairs https://www.axios.com/2023/09/22/mike-lindell-cellphone-seizure-court-constitutional
The message being given is that if you oppose us or support Trump, we are going to get you. And then throw a line of weak deniability. But it would be about your political opinions.
Moreover, the collective media hitpieces on this guy is just utterly horrible behavior. It seems that a culture of liberal voyeristic sadistic glee has developed where certain figures especially, and their general opponents become the afixed target. But especially there is a focus on particular individuals as a tactic to isolate the opposition. This culture definitely leads to increasing injustice and indifference to injustice, because the priority is "getting them" whether Trump, Lindell becomes a value that replaces actual moral principles.
This culture of feeling pleasure over the misfortune of the hated Lindell promoted by such media and such echochambers might be influencing your happiness at his misfortune.
Another issue to ponder, is what would happen if everyone who made claims about russiagate, election interference, supported riots, made destructive false partisan claims, not just politically incorect but including all political correct false narratives, etc, were targeted. Not to mention controversial issues that aren't cared about like supporting warcrimes, aggressive wars, and more. Who would be left of the political establishment?
Polling data clearly show that migrants are less libertarian and more left wing and that they are more supportive of the woke agenda than white demographic.
The current Democrat party and some republicans go along and greater share fail to oppose it, are very much authoritarian cultural far left/woke party. So even just voting for the current Democrats helps transform society in very radical ways.
We live also in an age of mass migration and illegal migrant. The bulk of the migrants are also poorer and greatly benefiting from subsidies from the goverment.
They are also incentivized to become even more so, since for the primarilly non white migrants this ideology plays into their tribalism against white americans. if you benefit from discrimination against another group and it treats your identity as a foreigner, migrant and descendands as special, then you are more likely to support it.
Same with restricting their speech to be critical and negative and opposing to identity groups the migrants come from.
Even successful groups within the USA like Indian Americans are shown through their responses in polls to very very culturally far to the left.
However the problem is even worse because mass migration aids the faction already in a country that has those politics and helps transform those who are closer to that, to become themselves more far left and authoritarian. Why? Because replacement is a key part of the agenda and its supporters are promoting it due to the logic of the replaced deserving it, being historical oppressors. Very directly connected with demonization, replacement in institutions and discrimination.
So the people supporting this thing either doing it overtly, or more subtly and especially in the past the more dominant form was of downplaying. While now we see more cellebration paralax and also being hateful directly. In any case, one idea crosses over the other. It is inherent within the idea of supporting what leads to the destruction of one group and replacement by other groups, that the replaced are less worthy/undeserving (of even their own inheritance) and the replacers more worthy of (gaining what was originally the inheritance of the replaced).
It is also the case that those supporting such mass migration are going to find themselves very directly racist/hateful allies which they are incentivized to downplay, because it will reflect poorly on them.
Cultural marxism is going to lead to more redistribution obviously with redistribution towards the poorer global south flooding in richer countries.
Additionally, it helps promote the idea of permanent left wing/uniparty transformation which makes the left more arrogant, authoritarian and more willing to trample over their outgroup's rights.
Your claims are contradicted by polling data.
Wokeness is not a recent phenomenon but a continuation and part of the new left which it self is a continuation of older agendas of groups like the frankfurt school and migrants are woke aligned, because part of this agenda is to support migrant groups at expense of natives and to see the others negatively as oppressors. An important part of this is also about specifically antiwhite racism and institutional discrimination. Which is part of public policy.
By denying this aspect of reality, you are aiding it. You can't oppose institutional discrimination in favor of nonwhite groups as it applies in the USA, which also relates to a preference for said groups, and from those groups taking more positions, if you downplay the issue.
Ethnic tension is part and parcel of the current liberal establishment which is about pandering to certain ethnic groups, and much of history before that and policies followed which are racially discriminatoy and oikophobic in nature.
Look, pretending that there aren't negative consequences and trade offs arising from your philosophy is a case in blind faith and denial here.
Secondly, what you are yourself promoting is itself an example of ethnic and racial tension. I am not sure how clearer I can be but the globalist who very arrogantly and fanatically supports the destruction of nations, denies the racist extremism that this faction has been promoting in policy is promoting ethnic conflict and has a racist position at the expense of native nations due to their disrespect of their rights. They take a side, they aren't neutral not participants. And they take a destructive side that steps overs others.
Especially if like you do, you are defending the collectivist tendencies of migrants and denying the issue and even downplaying the problem of collectivist racist sentiment and policies of the liberal establishment, pretending it is a smaller recent issue. You are rather close with the behavior of that establishment.
Not only is what you are promoting a source of ethnic conflict that you help do against certain ethnic groups in favor of migrants. But your faction's position would been even weaker and the liberal establishment would have been even more hostile to you if your libertarianism was of a different nature.
precisely because of how useful what you are doing is, to the far left where culturally it seems you agree with them that
a) migrants haven't done nothing wrong b) immoral natives resisting cosmopolitanism have no valid point and the disrespect towards them is easilly linked with collectivist coersive measures that have been happening of both hatred and discrimination and you have an incentive not to care about and underplay.
The reality is a pure libertarianism is rare, and what we see in practice is two bigger tendencies.
A) Neocons/regime aligned whose libertarianism is undermined by compromising with that and fusing with this ideology. This kind of faction is ironically aid to the system and helps bring greater authoritarianism but also helps by not only justifying and underplaying, or even promoting as dogma, the necessity of ignorance, but also by being silent about issues like private public partnership, the and attacking nativists.
B) A faction that has retained some compromise with some conservative moral aspects which I do think works better in promoting and conserving a freer society when one considers the trade offs with realistic options.
This faction most importantly, is willing to speak truth to power on the war machine, and also is more skeptical of mass migration, even some ancaps.
As an AnCap, I’m for the free flow of people across borders. But that’s only reasonably possible when you have a true free market and strict property rights. If you enter a country without money, where are you going to stay? If all property was privately owned, nobody would tolerate squatters. Which, incidentally, is becoming a big problem.
This website for example: https://www.lewrockwell.com/
Overall, I would say they do a better job of being pragmatic and prioritising the biggest threats to an orderly, free society, and even the greater sources of tyranical collectivism. While the neocon aligned libertarianism has compromised and allied with them and enables them
I still disagree with libertarianism but I am not anti libertarian in that I favor the opposite extreme. I just don't agree with the purity spiral that libertarians take on certain directions. Both the idea of doing that and how it works in practice on various issues. The reality is that the hardcore libertarianism it can't work that well, and it also has problems with factions that actually try to use power, either through impotence it will enable them, or it will side with them by what it prioritises and what it acts.
The authoritarian system has used the logic of libertarianism and regime alligned libertarianish types not to make society libertarian but as a loophole and excuse. Also because there is probably an insectuous relationship between NGOs, including ethnic activist NGOs, CIA, MIC, biggest corporations and the goverment.
So we see private/public partnerships being used to enforce an agenda in a manner that leaves very little room for dissent and transforms the world in a more totalitarian direction. One of anarchotyranny to be more precise where the logic of freedom and rights is promoted in excess for some, in a manner that is tyranical for others.
Where the regime aligned neocons or in part libertarians who have compromised with this, are transforming the world in this direction. Still, it wouldn't be surprising to see their footholds in any university to be removed by the authoritarian left wing faction that has been enabled.
There are still some differences on some issues.
I don't think there have been perfect libertarian societies out there, but I don't want to "no true scotsmen" fallacy myself. I do believe that going in a libertarianish direction is generally better. And I think port cities are generally in more of that libertarian direction, so I'm going to vaguely gesture to them and say I think they are better (especially compared to alternatives available at the time of their existence).
You refuse to even entertain that the idea that open borders will result in less libertarian direction is correct. You have shown that your ideology is motivated by prejudice and blind faith which is a great reason for the world to discard it, so it is ruled by what represents reality and not the prejudices of people who are being fanatical about their dogma.
If you want some existing examples of multi-ethnic cultures, look at them. Shanghai, Singapore, Alexandria, Rome, Mogadishu, Carthage, Athens, New York, Mumbai, etc. Many of these places were wildly rich and successful relative to other locations during the height of their trading.
Singapore is NOT following your policies but the opposite by a long shot since they have demographic controls so their society continues to retain demographic balance. Their immigration policy is about taking specific kind of migrants.
Athens didn't follow your policies neither. Being a port city doesn't fit that. Rome had cosmopolitan elements in certain periods but also was a different thing in different periods and its cosmopolitanism was of a different nature.
You have extremely radical politics here. Open borders is actually not going to lead to multi ethnic societies retaining an ethnic balance.
This idea that societies with some cosmopolitan elements, or port cities have had some success and therefore far more radical policies, or trying to make the entire world that, which lead to no limits on migration, is a case of you promoting something without adequate justification and not actually engaging, as in taking seriously the negative of that. Nor did multiethnic follow oikophobic policies while allowing migrants to have stronger tribal identities and tolerate ethnic identitarian organizations for them, and even as an establishment in a widespread manner as it is now, respected ethnic communitarianism for migrant groups.
Historically, assimilation is problematic and often didn't happen. But to the extend it did, it was greatly helpful for the foreign group being similiar, in small numbers over majority and having a dominant ideology which is pro assimiliation which is for them to abadon and not cling to their collective traditions and identities and adopt the traditions and identities and interest of the native group. Multiethnic societies often involved plenty of force and imposition from one group against other groups. There were also often in the process of transforming in one or another cultural direction due to these tendnecies.
Our order today is one that promotes and respects and tolerates tribalism for foreign groups, and favors a replacement, while promoting atomization for the native groups. This agenda looks more like a coalition invading other countries and conquering them. Like for example even the most archetypical example of nationalist boogieman the historical nazis, what you saw in certain cases where homogeneous regions invaded by a coalition of nations invading it, and different nations commiting themselves attrocities. This differs from a consistent promoting of lack of ethnic identity for any group which it self is very radical and would come with authoritarianism and such agenda is not unrelated to some of the horrors and excesses of the Soviet Union.
Historically, religion has been a more common divider among people than race.
The point is preserving one's group's and its rights over the hostile outsiders and also the threat of foreign hostile groups over the rights of native groups. But it is also a point about the idea that for a group to govern itself as it wants in peace, outsiders must respect that and keep their influence out. And vice versa. If there is say a department in a university that is of more a conservative/libertarian nature and demographics, that is related to precisely respecting that exclusion. Ironically, it is a part of pluralistic society too, to know to respect other peoples own thing.
You bringing this point up isn't really undermining this as religion can be a sort of ethnic identity or a part of it. But you refuse to even engage with the evidence of how agency problems and foreign oikophobia against a native people is an important component to tyranny.
Well, this tendency to not engage with the problem and such ideological rigidity is also a source of tyranny. For fanaticism for the cause of collective individualism and unwillingness to respect the problems with it, is going to lead to an attempt to impose this with force and to persecute dissenters.
Which isn't theoretical, a key element of our current authoritarianism is about imposing atomization on certain ethnic groups which isn't about opposing collectivism, but about them not opposing, or even identifying with the collectivism of other groups that the same system tolerates and promotes at their expense.
And of course good governance and not tyrannical governance should be wise and willing to reflect reality, not act based on following blindly an ideologically extreme dogma which is assumed to be correct by default.
A source of tyranny also has to do with going against the interests and rights of the majority of the people because you think your intellectually vanguard minority knows better. Hence, inviting foreigners is also related to getting people who are going to share such hostility and help impose such policies, including political correctness that sidelines and downplays problems. Which is highly consequential. The child trafficking crimes in the UK by Islamic gangs of mainly south asian descent was aided by a culture of cover up and downplaying, related to the politically correct racist sympathies of the oikophobic establishment.
The pro mass migration far leftists are being strategic. In the case of certain pro mass migration libertarians, they might get mass migration, but the end result will be a transformation of society in a less libertarian direction and more hostile to libertarian ideas. But the fact that regime aligned libertarians who are rather outspoken about agendas that are like the liberal establishment antinativist radical are actually people who have compromised with the regime, helps us understand them better than just an analysis that views these people as just quokas. But their usefulness to the regime comes with an expiration date.
I am not making a comment about whether you have friends of multiple races/ethnic background but that more movement of people without selection and of more diverse people in particular too results in woke people dominating. That good fences and borders make for good neighbors and helps protect existing groups from the influence of other groups. Which requires to be realistic about group behavior and to realize that others will see ethnic groups and other groups.
In practice your ideology can not survive under what it preaches that society should move closer towards. Also applies in regards to atomized ideological group which is in favor of atomized identity versus identitarian groups.
Its not clear to me how demographic controls would have "saved" me.
The diversity you describe in your friend group and the diversity that is happening are not exactly the same. Libertarian and conservative demographics are skewed in a certain direction and so the increasing diversity fuels authoritarian leftism. But the demographics of college it self is also an issue, it isn't just about ethnic/racial demographics.
You basically are continuing to be repeating the same fallacy of your ideology which is to ignore the systemic effects of your ideology/perspective in practice and focusing on whether you like your somewhat diverse friends, or a perceived benefit of choosing your friends.
But for now, and not for long, we can recognize "no, we aren't madmen conspiracy theorists, they are trying to tune the culture to be anti-White and the newest methods for doing that are simply not completely refined yet" is clear as day, and as clear as it's ever going to be.
Yes, one of the tragedies and injustices of our time is the lack of censorship towards the people pushing those false narratives, where the ideal would been to have a correcting world that people promoting falsehoods would lose their positions.
However, I disagree with your prediction. The centralization of power representing by woke A.I. is a GIGANTIC problem in itself. The A.I. safety crowd supports that and it is genuinely very naive and inversion of reality to expect rationalist crowd with influence there to help stop it, instead of help cause it. There isn't a rule they would attempt a more subtle method which rises to the level of Hollywood. They are going to reduce full 100% racial replacement immediately in A.I image generation, but I don't see any push for the A.I. to become subtle in its wokeness.
The only way forward that would stop this is for right wing goverment to criminalize this racist discrimination and the ideology it derives, and powerful organizations to blacklist it.
Which means strip of funding those who align with this ideology and necessitate they stand against it. This includes attempts by regulators to define noticing great replacement or opposing it as hate speech. Criminalize that criminalization, supress the limited hangout faction that tries to be sneaky in supporting this ideology and stop the accelerating far left tyranny which includes many people defining this uniparty which might claim to be centrist or conservative, falsely.
Stoping this would be more in line of justice and ironically for all their pretensions of antiracism, stopping the disrespect of white people and their rights is genuinely antiracist. And part of that would include condemning the moral bankruptcy of our weirdo bizzaro world definitions that anti racism is about the far leftists or ethnic chauvinists of Jewish, or black or whatever variety seeing their ethnic outgroup as having no rights as a group but only deserving to be atomized individuals, which would allow them as intended to be disrespected and replaced in all endeavors.
We live in an age of acceleration. Its like preaching before the Russian revolution that if you let the Bolsheviks take over by behaving with impotence, which is how the Russian elite behaved, you are going to get tragedy. What they propose and how far they are going to push things makes business as usual unlikely. So A.I. in its official use of the most major is going to be even worse than Hollywood. But we would also get some A.I. as with Gab that don't play by those rules.
However there is also a danger from far leftists (and others allied with this ideology who might not identify either to be subtle/subversive or for other reasons as far leftists) in power pushing more draconian laws that accelerates tyranny. And where tyranny of this nature is entrenched, something far nastier rises as a possibility as well of more deadly nature against the totalitarian's state's designed enemies.
Unfortunately, having been seduced and experienced a world with communism version one, rather than learning their lesson from history many world elites want to try and have gay race communism play out instead, and have history repeat it self like a farce.
Belisarius
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9mo ago
Considering your pro open borders ideas, you see a microcosm of how that would work demographically! Dominated by non libertarians imposing their woke ideals.
Most of the university is your traditional state school. If anything, its a little more diverse than most state schools, because of where it is located. The Language department is still mostly as crazy as any other school. But instead of having to go anywhere to protest things, they just step next door and make trouble for conservative or libertarian econ speakers that they don't like.
Interesting.
I sympathize with actual conservatives or Ron Paul style libertarians there but you kind of are asking to be dominated by the more authoritarian left due to what you prioritize.
Considering how long the original post was, you don't have to go in detail, but can you explain some key ways that your own platform would differ?
I am not an American by birth, only by residence. I feel almost no loyalty whatsoever to America and am almost entirely happy to exploit it for my own benefit without feeling any sense of duty to it in return.
Proving who you call nativists had a point when they have wanted to exclude people from coming there because they wouldn't have the same sense of loyalty as natives. Since the common good of a country requires people who act based on a sense of duty towards others.
And I do not consider myself immoral for this. I do care deeply about certain Americans - to be precise, my friends and those I view as allies. And in that, I am very much American.
A pro exploitation attitute that doesn't see one having a duty to his fellow people is inherently immoral. You don't have limitless duty or unconditional to how they treat you, to ones country, parents, children, but you do have duties.
You also have duties even to foreign people and countries. Saying that any exploitation is fine, does itself passes a blatantly immoral line.
You can be loyal to your country, even if you don't feel affinity for far leftists due to the fact they don't feel loyalty to their country.
Also, you can care about people in some ways for what you have in common, even if you disdain them in other ways.
It is easier for me to not really care about people I disagree with strongly here since you are anonymous foreigners, but I actually do value some people in my life that I have strong disagreements with on political issues.
It is still true though that there is an inherent issue with a certain type of ideologue whose ideology make them actively very hostile to their own nation by origin. But it is a case of themselves excluding themselves from their own ethnic community by their own hostility, rather than nativists in all contexts caring about abstract differences over ethnic affinity.
Ethnic bonds matter to many people in a way that they don't to you.
To be clear, I think the idea that people don't have a duty to their country is immoral also for "foreign" countries.
It is simply not true that everyone treats the way you do nations as irrelevant and illegitimate.
I do like Americans on average and feel a good bit of loyalty to certain specific ones who I am friends with but of course, I feel no loyalty whatsoever to the US government or to any abstract notions of "America".
The goverment is one thing, but the notion of X is its people. I would say that there is an inherent value to duty of doing things and also avoiding from doing (as in exploiting) people outside just one friends. And an individual who is part of an ethnic community benefits from this. It is friendship on a broader level.
A society made of people who feel a connection and a duty for each other is benefiting from them having said bonds and that is a good thing for them, no matter how irrational you find those feelings.
Now, I advocated that nationalism should respect other nations so we can have international peace so there are limits relating to ethnocentrism. Still ethnocentrism is a good thing, just one that shouldn't be limitless. The alternative to nations you represent is worse with the only thing to its supposed credit the idea that you find the ethnic bonds and the reciprocal duties as irrational.
Considering what is lost, it is a bad trade off.
I myself am not advocating for the moralistic argument and am quite content with leaving things at the selfish argument level, I'm just pointing out that US nativists could only be consistent by either grasping the selfish argument and abandoning moral ones or by advocating for non-interventionism.
Two wrongs don't make a right. So you should still have a problem with those supporting exploitation even if, which isn't the case, all the nativists supported immoral interventionism.
This is a false argument when not all groups have valid claims to being negatively affected by American interventionism.
Moreover, the enormous amount of western help towards African countries should matter.
I do think that someone who is an American nativist but does favor the USA screwing over non Americans abroad, is being selfish and morally hypocritcal. Although in a selfish manner their argument that nativism is in their own peoples interest has its validity.
It seems you have found this as an argument to use against nativists but aren't interested in the issue whether you are morally obligated to not just use it as a gotcha but ought to oppose the neocons and interventionists yourself.
Belisarius
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9mo ago
Even if Christians were to count as a quasi ethnic group, they are one that is more integral to American-ness.
On the opposite side a Muslim is a more foreign identity.
This isn't to say that prioritizing Christianity too much can't be even be considred treasonous to a country. For example someone supporting open borders with Christian countries that would result in the replacement of the people with foreigners.
Belisarius
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9mo ago
Wanting influence is one thing, living there is another. And even in that only some kind of influence. I am not an American for example and I don't see anything immoral in trying to influence American foreign poilicy against doing evil imperialist shit (and laudible for non Americans to prioritise opposing evil policy at their expense) but it destroys all boundaries and nuance to see all kinds of behavior as acceptable. I don't see why USA owes Somalians to let them go there and act as foreigners.
America owes itself to not let foreigners exploit its people. And it is immoral in general to support said exploitation, not a case of you having a point about nativists not having a sound moral reasoning.
Another thing to consider is the enormous amount of western help that goes to African countries.
And also that what you are doing here is being quite convenient for those who both like to invade the world and invite the world. Why not oppose both? I have noticed many of the liberals of this world and including in this forum have failed to be louder in opposing the neocons crowd. In a manner that is disappointing for someone who experienced them opposing the Iraq war as I also did at the time.
Anyway, it is interesting that you are an American who finds nothing immoral about non Americans exploiting Americans. Someone might even describe this attitude as a treasonous attitude and it won't be an uncharitable exaggeration. In actuality those who are uncharitable and booing as their outgroup, those who have standards and try to enforce them, would be incentivizing immorality in favor of exploitation.
Countries ideally should neither be invading the world, not letting themselves be exploited by the world. Something has gotten seriously wrong with the kind of people running things if you have reached that place. Combining pathological altruism with destructive imperialism is like having the worst of both worlds. Someone is winning in this process and it includes various lobbies, war manufacturers, the contractors, the state department.
Obviously the Palestinians haven't started this conflict in October 7th and there was plenty of something before this. So the way you frame it is completely inaccurate. Of course, I am not someone who is as biased for Palestinians as those I criticize are for Jews, but I do have to defend them when they are under destruction. Frankly Jews and Palestinians living separately (and freely) in their own homeland and keeping out of each others affairs would be the sane ethical way to go.
This would require Jews to stop doing plenty of "somethings" against the Palestinians and respect the group rights of other groups.
While much of war is going to be ugly, there are different levels to this. There is a difference between fanatic supremacist warmongers trying to destroy other ethnic groups and take over their homeland and other ways to conduct yourself. It is excusing warcrimes to say that war is this always. The rhetoric of Israeli politicians and their actions shows that this is about ethnic cleansing through violence and death, starvation, destroying peoples homes.
In the case of Israel, I have no doubt that without the attention of people putting pressure, that Israel's leaders in line with their rhetoric and those who support the already war criminal conduct would have pushed things far further. On the other side, those who have been apologists for this conduct have stained their hands. Israel would have done even less with a less favorable environment in the USA especially.
Here the world is watching and they are reacting entirely differently than your propagandistic Jewish supremacist framing which is why lot of the world wisely has become much more negative against Israel. https://time.com/6559293/morning-consult-israel-global-opinion/
And we see a change to negativity towards Israel even in countries like the UK with a significant Jewish lobby that have also have been harmed by Muslim extremism as well which would give them less reason to sympathize with the Palestinians.
The idea that not only the freedom to consume drugs matters, but also the freedom from addiction, or from crime, is not something that can be so easily dismissed as "magically" giving an imposition. It is a real trade off where there is a net loss for freedom. Similiarly a hunter gatherer society might lack certain rules, but the freedom of its members is undermined by all the crime, especially the murders and the rapes.
Not taking that seriously is an intellectual blindspot which makes policy failures inevitable. Especially a blindspot that is dismissive from you when I already made the argument. So what I would conclude is that you would just prefer those genuine problems of freedom relating to bad choices that affect others but also might result in a loss of autonomy for the person it self, to not be taken seriously. But they should be put on the scale, even if you prefer they weren't.
Now, the Portugal case is a more complicated one, and a case of a decriminalization that is closer to the center than what happened in Portland Oregon. Which isn't to say I consider it centrist, but definetly closer than Oregon's.
I don't have the one sidedly positive view you have about Portugal's reforms. See bellow for a contrary view.
https://www.dalgarnoinstitute.org.au/images/resources/pdf/dart/The_Truth_on_Portugal_December_2018.pdf
Even the Wanshington post which rather partisan in the liberal direction is willing to promote some criticism
Portugal still forces drug addicts to follow treatments and selling drugs is illegal. Even its supporters claim that "Cops still work aggressively to break up major drug gangs and arrest people committing drug-related crimes like theft. They also disrupt open-air drug markets like the ones that have emerged in some U.S. cities."
https://www.opb.org/article/2024/02/25/how-portugal-eased-its-opioid-epidemic-while-u-s-drug-deaths-skyrocketed/
Cops also pressure drug users to follow programs.
The reality is that the decriminalization side who bring Portugal as a positive example, or claim to be trying to do something similar, tend to be quite partisan and lacking in intellectual humility that requires genuinely dealing with trade offs. Ultimately, they operate based on tunnel vision. The end result is the negative story of the problems I mentioned of rise of drug abuse, violent crimes, certain areas becoming full of junkies. If this side were seriously trying to deal things in a wiser manner from various angles, some of these issues would have been ameliorated.
See also this: https://unherd.com/newsroom/blue-states-are-learning-the-wrong-lessons-from-portugal/
On all sorts of issues we have seen this vulgar excessive policy and movement as more representative of what you are getting in response to the more conservative and restrictive in those directions past, rather than a right balance between getting rid of only some conservative restrictions but only in a considerate way. Or even compensating by some new restrictions like forcing drug users to get treatment. Changing things while retaining the benefits of the more conservative time is really hard. At worst is like wanting to have your cake and eat it too.
Since this discussion is about Oregon, bringing up Portugal as a winning move is trying to find a loophole. When actually the vulgar policy is what decriminalization movement is more represented by today and pushes.
The pro decriminalization side in the USA promised in fact that they could push not only drug decriminalization but other policies of decriminalization, reduction of imprisonment without rising crime rates, and other problems. This failed to be the case. Contrarily those that wisely predicted the rising violence and social problems were proven correct.
This shows why it is so important that in practice we can and should distinguish between a law and order side and a decriminalization side whose approach does undermine law and order in outcomes.
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