TheAntipopulist
Voltaire's Viceroy
No bio...
User ID: 373
TheAntipopulist
Voltaire's Viceroy
2d ago
Sure, I mostly have a US perspective.
I'd say it's probably mostly still untrue in the rest of the West. Even for the UK which has been stagnant for the last decade or so, I doubt that people actually had better or even equivalent standards of living just looking at the data. Though this data isn't quite at the quality I would like (inflation-adjusted median wages).
TheAntipopulist
Voltaire's Viceroy
2d ago
Very much an open question, and I presume it differs significantly from person to person. A lot of it is young men not being able to status signal like they would like to.
TheAntipopulist
Voltaire's Viceroy
3d ago
Sure, young people eventually become old people.
The problem is that young people don't want to pay for old people, but they want still have someone pay for them when they get old. They want to keep SS + Medicare, and have little inclination to fight against NIMBYism. But they don't like high taxes or high housing costs that come along with those. So they use criticism of "the establishment", or "society", or immigrants, or billionaires in place of the real culprit.
TheAntipopulist
Voltaire's Viceroy
3d ago
I said society and culture, not state, so I don't know where you're getting this from.
You're right that you didn't say "state". But your advice in the third to last paragraph was mostly pointed at things that would affect the country/nation which is what I meant.
The degenerate "my group is oppressed" narrative is extremely attractive for most people, and it leads to vicemaxxing where being an awful person is recast as getting karmic justice for perceived inequalities. Blacks went down that path in the US and it turned their culture into something worthy of nothing but contempt. It's insane to me that the online right wants whites to also go down that path. Your post is echoing similar sentiments.
Young men become old men. It wasn't old men in their capacity as men who caused a lot of these problems.
Wokes were responsible for a lot of terribleness that afflicted Western cultures recently. They're getting a lot of hate now, which is well deserved.
But the Olds have rigged the welfare state in most Western nations far more than feminists or wokes ever have. If you want to complain about taxes, we should compare the amount of money going towards groups like feminists vs how much is going towards the Olds. It's not even close. Then we'd also need to throw in all the problems caused by NIMBYism, which is a defacto subsidy for Olds.
People hate high housing prices and high taxes, but for some reason that doesn't translate towards animosity towards the actual source of the problem.
I said they have been betrayed, not that they are overall poorer than 100+ years ago.
Saying there was a "betrayal" is weak without backing it up.
If your argument was "our money we once had was stolen!" then OK. But that's not true as I've pointed out.
If your argument is instead just "we're much richer than we were before, but not quite as rich as I wish we were", it's hard to call that a "betrayal".
TheAntipopulist
Voltaire's Viceroy
3d ago
[citation needed]
Nostalgia economics is totally wrong.
So if you were some rando making say 60k a year, he should just quit his job, forego his bills, drive far out of his way and somehow live on the countryside?
By "countryside" I meant more of "anywhere outside the urban core". It doesn't have to be the complete boonies. There are plenty of low crime areas out there still relatively close to cities, and it will usually actually be cheaper to buy a house out there than it will be in the city. The downside is a longer commute.
Maybe freedom of speech is a corny idea.
"Freedom of speech" has always been fairly limited if your idea is actually "freedom to express prejudice". It's true that you probably can't expect to shout the word n!gger 20 times in a professional setting today... but I doubt you could get away with that 30 years ago either.
I know about wokes wanting to make any political opinion to the right of far-left verboten in polite society, and I agree that's bad. But your "freedom to express prejudice" is just a complaint about the Overton Window, which has always been mushy and ever-shifting.
There’s nothing “stopping you,” from having the same opportunity to become as good of a Basketball player as Michael Jordan.
What? There's genetics which is a hard-stop, and a ludicrous amount of effort too. That's very different from simply moving somewhere else. I really don't understand your point here.
If someone wanted to move across the country, it's far easier today to apply for jobs before moving than it would be in the 1990s or 1950s. There are of course things that could stop people from moving, but the point of this discussion is what's changed over time for the worse.
TheAntipopulist
Voltaire's Viceroy
3d ago
If you're trying to get your first job and have no better options that spamming resumes online then OK I can see your point, especially if you were unlucky enough to choose computer science.
If you're mid-career or later though, with a STEM degree and 135 IQ then this is really just a skill issue.
Seems to mainly go to people of preferable ethnicities.
There is just no way someone with a 100 IQ can do what you're saying
It was never trivial to support yourself, especially as a midwit or worse. The point is that it's easier today thanks to technology than it ever has been.
TheAntipopulist
Voltaire's Viceroy
3d ago
Sexual access dominates a huge portion of the mindshare of men, especially young men. Obviously it's not the only thing they care about, but it's a huge aspect of their lives. I don't think this post reduces men unfairly in that way. And this post is correct that the sexual marketplace has gotten much worse for the average man, though I'd chalk that up more to how much more efficient the internet has made sorting, although feminists certainly haven't helped things with their occasionally insane demands.
TheAntipopulist
Voltaire's Viceroy
3d ago
absence of financial insecurity
It's never been easier for the average person to make enough money to not feel financial insecure.
the absence of neighborhood crime
If this is critical you can move to the countryside, which is much less crime-riddled than it was during the frontier days.
the ability to express prejudice without retribution
This is a pretty corny idea of freedom
being empowered to get up on a whim and move somewhere else.
There's nothing stopping you from moving except a way to support yourself financially, and it's easier than ever to save a bunch of money and/or get a remote work gig.
TheAntipopulist
Voltaire's Viceroy
3d ago
The idea that young men are somehow financially worse off than they were previously is just dead wrong. It's another example of the demand for bad economic news being much higher than the supply. There's never been more opportunity in an absolute sense. Taxes paid to foreigners is a total red herring. Taxes sent to the Olds is definitely a problem, but it's a problem that even the young infuriatingly don't want to solve -- trying to get people to slash SS + Medicare is almost a nonstarter, even though I've been pushing for it for years. The average 20 year old man still sees himself as a temporarily embarrassed septuagenarian.
Sexually, this piece is more defensible, although I still wouldn't support what it's saying unconditionally.
The other big problem with this post is the target. Saying "the West" or "the state" is at fault is wrong in the sense that it treats the government as some ultimate entity that must ensure fairness. The state just does whatever the people tell it to do in a democracy. Feminists and wokes have co-opted it a little bit, while Olds have co-opted it a lot. If you think it's doing something bad, then the solution isn't vicemaxxing, it's to change the government to something better. There's been quite a bit of success pushing against feminists and wokes, but much less success pushing against the Olds because people have not mobilized against them.
TheAntipopulist
Voltaire's Viceroy
3d ago
Trade and business ties really don't do that much to deter conflict. There is a long history of people hoping that stuff would make war less likely or even impossible, and they always end up being disappointed.
TheAntipopulist
Voltaire's Viceroy
3d ago
it is a world-historic foreign policy fuckup and unparalleled humiliation
It's a clear loss by Trump compared to what came previously, but I don't think it's that bad. What Trump will get is likely just going to be a more watery version of the JCPOA in terms of the nuclear stuff.
TheAntipopulist
Voltaire's Viceroy
3d ago
Absent a long-lasting deal, they can just rebuild any facilities that were destroyed (and most were just damaged).
TheAntipopulist
Voltaire's Viceroy
3d ago
Iran’s nuclear weapons program is being destroyed!
This is less true under Trump's negotiating than it was under Obama's Iran deal. The deal Trump tore up, mind you.
Also, for some reason Trump decided to lift sanctions before hammering out the specifics, thereby kneecapping any negotiating leverage he had.
That said, the direction Trump is going is better (less bad) than where he was previously. Small mercies I guess.
TheAntipopulist
Voltaire's Viceroy
1mo ago
My issue with you isn't your actions as a moderator, it's your response style when you're acting as a normal user. I looked through a few pages of your comments here and all of your moderator actions were taken against posts that either clearly deserved, or were at least reasonably defensible. I'm pretty sure I've never gotten what felt like an unreasonable mod action from you either, even as I've gotten a few from other mods that were a bit iffy. I don't doubt that No_one probably got what he deserved.
But then I get warned for this while you're doing something very similar here and it feels like the traffic cops are speeding.
That's a small example and we could chalk it up to a one-off. My main issue is how often you devolve into making personal attacks when you're having a regular discussion with other people. I've seen you ban other people when they start swearing at each other -- which you should! But then you consistently get right up to that line with some of your posts doing so in practically every other paragraph (accusations of dishonesty, insults, mockery, sarcasm, etc). I'm sure you get a lot of unnecessary flak as a moderator and that can make you want to lash out, but as a moderator you should be held to a somewhat higher standard and not use that as an excuse.
TheAntipopulist
Voltaire's Viceroy
1mo ago
My estimation of your reasonableness and sincerity has been trending upward of late, so let me put a little more effort into this.
Thank you for this, not just for the compliment but the longer post as well that makes for a far better discussion point.
My overall philosophical retort is this post.
To this point specifically, I'm not appealing to the "majesty of the law". I agree that if one side is selectively enforcing rules against you while exempting themselves, then unilaterally disarming is suicidal. I essentially said that in the hypocrisy post, that some hypocrisy is justified when refusing to reciprocate leaves you permanently disadvantaged.
But the point where I disagree is the jump from "the outgroup abused power" to "there is not law to uphold" or "our side now gets a blank check and none of our sins count" as I've been effectively hearing from MAGA apologists on this site and on others. Most of Trump's corruption doesn't directly advantage MAGA as a movement, and in fact does some amount of harm. MAGA as something other than just a Trumpist personality cult would be stronger if everything else was the same, except that Trump didn't sell off pardons. There would be some momentary discomfort as the right had to undergo self-criticism, but it would emerge stronger for it. The fact that it mostly refuses to do so is a cancer that eats it from the inside.
My position isn't "never fight back", it's that people should be very clear about what counts as fighting back, and not trying to launder every act of corruption as defensive necessity. If the claim is "the law is already dead", then the burden is on you to explain why a specific escalation improves the situation rather than just helping to bury it.
In your view, does the Trump administration get points for not engaging in this particular "arms race to see who can be worse?"
Yes! Or rather I'd frame it as Trump not losing points in this instance while Biden would have.
TheAntipopulist
Voltaire's Viceroy
1mo ago
The guys on here have little to no conception (ha!) of the reality of pregnancy or the kind of physical toll it exacts.
I've read a lot of what other people have been writing in this thread, and I can't find anyone who's asserting that pregnancy is a walk in the park. Obviously it's extremely rough on women's bodies in a number of ways.
But we're not looking at in a vacuum though. We're comparing it to war, and saying pregnancy is clearly worse than being a frontline infantryman is where my credulity strains. My response to this comment can be cross-applied here pretty much as-is.
TheAntipopulist
Voltaire's Viceroy
1mo ago
No_One would never have eaten humble pie.
I mean, obviously not. There would have always been another cope, another reason to show why Ukraine's doom was imminent, but for real this time when in reality they'd probably be able to just muddle through again.
I had a vague inkling that he was shoveling Russian propaganda but had never perused that information space so I only had a hunch. Reading your post was interesting (and quite cathartic) for me.
TheAntipopulist
Voltaire's Viceroy
1mo ago
Because there's no war currently happening that the major Western nations are a part of. But the international situation is looking darker every year. The threat still looms.
State-mandated pregnancies would not be required if the fertility rate was naturally >2.1, so there's symmetry in that the government only uses these options when necessary.
TheAntipopulist
Voltaire's Viceroy
1mo ago
This comparison describes pregnancy from the inside in the most visceral possible terms, but then describes the draft from the outside as "only a 0.5–1.8% death risk."
But the horror of conscription is not exhausted by your chance of being killed. Being drafted means the state seizes your body, removes your freedom, ships you away from your family, subjects you to total institutional discipline, and may order you to kill strangers, watch friends be dismembered, be shelled, step on mines, burn, drown, lose limbs, suffer brain injury, be captured, tortured, or come home with permanent psychological damage and moral injury. It also means you may be forced to participate in acts you find evil under threat of prison or execution.
So I don't disagree with you that forced pregnancy is horrific. But I'd argue that conscription still comes out handily ahead as the most extreme violation of bodily autonomy states have ever imposed, ahead of mandated pregnancies if they were to be implemented.
TheAntipopulist
Voltaire's Viceroy
1mo ago
Well put! It really sucks to see both sides engaged in an arms race to see who can be worse. At least have a little bit of introspection and be willing to say "that thing our side is doing is bad, and although I don't support the outgroup, we still shouldn't do that".
TheAntipopulist
Voltaire's Viceroy
1mo ago
We're not there yet though.
But assuming we get there in our lifetimes then that would eliminate the fairness argument for state-mandated pregnancy in terms of the gender balance. However, there would still be the state-interest argument for state-mandated pregnancies that conscription originally relied on.
Hopefully eventually that would also go away with the advent of artificial wombs.
TheAntipopulist
Voltaire's Viceroy
1mo ago
This is the comment I keep coming back to as pretty clearly violating at least the spirit of "be no more antagonistic than is absolutely necessary". He includes several personal attacks including the following:
Sometimes I think you just read posts, decide who's expressing the "conservative" (bad) position, and reflexively argue the opposite. a lot of people think you are and always have been a bad faith borderline troll
you are either being astoundingly clueless or just flat out disingenuous.
You have actually spouted a ton of bullshit
Transparent straw man. Stop this kind of disingenuous whining.
If stuff like this isn't against the rules, it should be.
Or when he's warned me of posting short comments. In this case he's justified since it's hard to tell if something is sarcasm on the internet. In my case it wasn't but it could be read as such, so I was fine with the warning. But then he does his own "ok bud" sneer comments which pretty clearly are sarcastic, and it's hard to read the situation as anything other than "rules for thee but not for me".
You can just read through some of his comments and it's not hard to find him being very aggressive like in this conversation:
You will not like getting into an IQ dick-measuring contest with me.
Are you aware that that there are numbers between 0 and 1? And other numbers besides?
Your hypothetical … is ridiculous and, of course, dishonest.
The problem with your farcical debate tactics is...
Do you actually know anything about Palestinians and Muslim culture besides what you have gleaned from the Internet about dogs and ‘honor culture’? No, you do not.
This was just one I found after scrolling on the front page of his profile. He's constantly getting into these hostile back-and-forths, so when I see No_one's profile has this banner: "Amadan is a power-tripping delusional idiot." It makes me think there might be an issue with how he was modded, although all his posts were deleted so I can't check.
TheAntipopulist
Voltaire's Viceroy
1mo ago
There's apparently no public-facing list exactly, you have to dig through various databases and hope it's accurate. Someone like DataRepublican has probably done some of that work on twitter but it's not the kind of thing I'll be spending project time on.
fair enough.
From my perspective as a taxpayer, Trump is undignified, but fraud costs a helluva lot more.
My original point was claiming Trump was uniquely corrupt as far as American presidents go. You're almost certainly correct that in a direct dollar comparison, fraud costs more. But corruption is particularly pernicious far beyond the direct dollars lost. Here's a good rundown of what I mean. That's in a military context specifically, but corruption spills out into all layers of society and is quite difficult to excise once it takes root.
Welfare fraud is a problem and probably has some second-order effects of its own, although it's more of an issue of simple dollars going missing by way of going to people who don't deserve them.
TheAntipopulist
Voltaire's Viceroy
1mo ago
Sure, women were a small percentage of the armed forces of some of the countries that fought in WW2. But they were overwhelmingly not on the frontline, and most were entirely noncombat. As I said in my first comment you responded to, I don't see noncombat roles as being anywhere close to as awful as frontline combat duty where the risk of being killed is far higher. If people wanted to subject women to the draft out of a sense of equality, but then the women ended up mostly just getting noncombat roles, I would call that performative equality.
Yep, thanks for making my point for me.
More options
Context Copy link