Capital_Room
rather dementor-like
Disabled Alaskan Monarchist doomer
User ID: 2666
Capital_Room
rather dementor-like
2d ago
doesn't involve continuous high-intensity ground combat between armies.
Did our war in Afghanistan involve "continuous high-intensity ground combat between armies"? For that matter, how about the Yugoslav wars?
Capital_Room
rather dementor-like
2d ago
Create a pro-American superhero narrative that gets released to the same theaters that Woke Marvel goes to and I think they’ll at least downplay the Message. Have a pro-American, pro-Western Oikophillic Space Opera (maybe a revived Flash Gordon) release at the same time as Star Wars Old Republic, and when Star Wars flops, they might get the message.
Which is why nobody in the movie biz is going to let that happen. I've read some stuff about how Hollywood works — and particularly the stranglehold of the Big Five - that make it clear the industry functions in many ways like a cartel (particularly in regards to distribution), making it incredibly difficult for "outsiders" to compete. To quote:
Since the dawn of filmmaking, the major American film studios have dominated both American cinema and the global film industry.[5][6] American studios have benefited from a strong first-mover advantage in that they were the first to industrialize filmmaking and master the art of mass-producing and distributing high-quality films with broad cross-cultural appeal.[7] Today, the Big Five majors – Universal Pictures, Paramount Pictures, Warner Bros., Walt Disney Studios, and Sony Pictures – routinely distribute hundreds of films every year into all significant international markets (that is, where discretionary income is high enough for consumers to afford to watch films). The majors enjoy "significant internal economies of scale" from their "extensive and efficient [distribution] infrastructure,"[8] while it is "nearly impossible" for a film to reach a broad international theatrical audience without being first picked up by one of the majors for distribution.[4] Today, all the Big Five major studios are also members of the Motion Picture Association (MPA) and the Alliance of Motion Picture and Television Producers (AMPTP).
Capital_Room
rather dementor-like
2d ago
The migrants you see milling around aimlessly in the public squares of London, Berlin, Rome etc. are largely poor, sporadically criminal, disorganized and disconnected.
Yes, but for how long? Look at the changes in at least British politics — how long before Islamic parties emerge to start providing leadership and organization for those masses.
Capital_Room
rather dementor-like
2d ago
Speak plainly; I have no idea what this is supposed to mean, or what argument you're trying to make. (And how is simply copy-pasting a quote not "low-effort" at that?)
Capital_Room
rather dementor-like
2d ago
try shrooms and more illegal psychedelic drugs
What part of "illegal" (and can't afford, and wouldn't know how to get) and "schizophrenic" (psychedelics and hallucinogens are known to make it much worse) are unclear to you?
Capital_Room
rather dementor-like
3d ago
I could have sworn that I'd previously and seriously advised him to see a psychiatrist or therapist IRL.
I've been seeing therapists, and on psych meds, since 2004. This is me with those.
This is excluding the possibility that his life and personal circumstances are utterly FUBAR, which happens more often than I'd like.
I've talked about them on this forum before, if you're willing to search through my posting history to find them.
If you want solutions, they exist.
[Citation needed].
I've been on psych meds and getting therapy since 2004.
Edit:
I don't know you or your life situation.
I've posted on my situation repeatedly here on the Motte (and the subreddit before that, and SSC before that), if you search through my post history.
Capital_Room
rather dementor-like
3d ago
@Capital_Room , take some happy pills, for god‘s sake
This is me on "happy pills." I've been on multiple psych meds, including antidepressants, since my first suicide attempt back in 2004.
Capital_Room
rather dementor-like
3d ago
the capture of the government by the administrative state, if the elected official in charge of the executive branch seems to be irrelevant?
Like @FiveHourMarathon said, the capture of the government by the administrative state. That "the elected official in charge of the executive branch seems to be irrelevant" because he is irrelevant. That unelected bureaucrats and functionaries of the "NGO-cracy" run everything, insulated from electoral feedback, and elected officials are mere figureheads. That, as the old saying goes, if voting could change things, it would be illegal.
Capital_Room
rather dementor-like
3d ago
if it comes to it, European countries can simply expel their migrants,
I'm not sure they can; as in, I'm not sure they have the capacity — particularly if you compare demographics of fighting-age men. And even if they do, that won't be for long — can you still "expel the migrants" when they outnumber you?
Capital_Room
rather dementor-like
3d ago
if we manage to beat back stasis without a true catastrophe, I think that will be enough for me and my children.
That's a very big "if." Far, far, far more likely we don't. And what then?
Capital_Room
rather dementor-like
3d ago
I would consider myself heavily blackpilled, but no, not remotely a doomer. Mostly because personally I still get to enjoy life. I had to scale my ambitions back heavily and lower my standards, but I've been able to get small carveouts of joy.
Nice bit of humblebragging there. (Some of us are not so fortunate.)
Capital_Room
rather dementor-like
3d ago
First, are there any societies where this happened at all? Secondly, are there ones where it happened with our level of technological sophistication and state capacity?
And third, sure, in the long enough run it probably won't endure — for "in the long run we're all dead" values of long run. There's a lot of ruin in a nation, the market can remain irrational longer than you can remain solvent.
And for the closest examples I can think of, the usual way it was resolved was conquest by higher-fertility (and more patriarchal) "barbarians" with enough military force to impose their social system on (the women of) the newly-conquered people.
But that sort of conquest doesn't look like a thing that's happening much any more — the GAE does a good job of suppressing it. And most of the "barbarians" aren't really doing all that better themselves. Basically, it looks like what a commenter at Jim's said recently:
If you want the truth, the truth is that right now all of mankind is about to go up in one big fire. Without any use of nukes, bombs, or guns, billions of people have already disappeared from the Earth… by not being born.
So what awaits our world-wide South Korea? Probably an Afghan Goat Herder, making his own journey to the west to investigate ancient ruins and whatever trinkets he happens to find (god forbid he thinks we were all funkopop hooligans).
Expect this situation to last (and get worse) for the rest of our lives, at the minimum.
Capital_Room
rather dementor-like
3d ago
Ok, but on an individual level, don’t you want a solution that works for you
Assumes that there is a solution that works for your individual situation. I know that for me, personally, there's no fixing my problems — I'm a defective sub-human with no reason to live, and should probably spare myself the decades of pointless misery that lie ahead and just gas (helium) myself now.
Capital_Room
rather dementor-like
3d ago
I hate to be pithy, but the problem is that we have forgotten God. I'm serious.
If by "forgotten God" you mean learned he never existed in the first place, then yes.
Capital_Room
rather dementor-like
3d ago
One of my friends from grade school and his wife looked into adopting when infertility issues prevented them from having biological children. They are rather well-off and well-connected — a major street in this city is named after my friend's grandfather, and more than one local politician would occasionally attend his family's Christmas party.
And yet, they were denied. No kids. (Now he mostly just channels it into being uncle to his sister's kids, and his wife into her hobbies.)
(I've brought up this example to more than one therapist, when they recommended that I try adopting a kid. Because they'll just hand off a kid into the care of a single, jobless, literal crazy man like me while denying a wealthy, stable couple like my friends?)
Capital_Room
rather dementor-like
3d ago
A female-to-male ratio of 3:2 among college graduates means that one in three college-educated women remains childless and single or intentionally becomes a single mom or marries a working-class man.
Yes, and I'd say that almost all of them are going to be the first (childless), with a few taking the second option (intentional single mom, likely via artificial insemination or, given aging, IVF). It doesn't matter whether we're "prepared to normalize such prospects" or not, it's what's going to happen.
Capital_Room
rather dementor-like
3d ago
Equally, Tapper mostly ignores the great question of the Biden presidency: Why did everything basically run just fine? There is very little in the way of actual policy outcomes that is easily traced to Biden’s senescence. It pretty much felt like all the other presidential administrations I’d seen. What does that say about the capture of the government by the administrative state, if the elected official in charge of the executive branch seems to be irrelevant?
IME, it's not just Democrats who ignore this question. I find people on the right are also reluctant to consider this, and especially unwilling to draw the obvious conclusions.
Capital_Room
rather dementor-like
3d ago
By now, most everyone has forgotten about the war.
I read this sentence, and my first thought was: which war? Israel-Gaza? Israel-Iran? Syrian civil war? Or (as it turned out) Russia-Ukraine?
You might have wanted to be more specific — or at least give an explanation why, out of all those ongoing conflicts, Russia-Ukraine is the war.
Capital_Room
rather dementor-like
5d ago
Because it’s already happening
"[Citation needed]" as they say
blue America has neither the consistent control nor the willingness to put in the work to stop it.
I very much disagree with this — I think it's but a matter of time until they come down hard on this sort of thing.
Capital_Room
rather dementor-like
5d ago
Sure, those are the birth rates, but what are the retention rates? How many of those children stay with the religion of their parents? For example, I remember reading somewhere not long ago that the above-replacement birth rate for the Mormons goes pretty much into producing ex-Mormons, and that once you add in that exit rate, they're at or below replacement. And, AIUI, the retention numbers for Evangelicals are even worse — they're pretty much having the liberal kids current liberals aren't.
Pretty much the only groups I know of with above replacement birth rates plus retention rates are the Amish and Haredi Jews (which you didn't separate out from other Jews — when you do, the numbers for non-Orthodox Jews are pretty bleak, IIRC).
Capital_Room
rather dementor-like
6d ago
What makes you think pillarization will happen — or, more specifically, that "blue America" will tolerate the existence of a parallel "red" hierarchy?
Capital_Room
rather dementor-like
7d ago
I'd like to thank you for posting this, and note that most of this describes the Alaskan Independence Party pretty well too.
Capital_Room
rather dementor-like
7d ago
I have discovered, by dint of fucking around, that SwiftKey keyboard for Android allows me to insert em-dashes with relative ease. I'm torn about using them—on one end, they're more expressive than standard hyphens or semi-colons; but on the other, in this climate, that invites accusations of AI writing.
I, for one, find this highly disappointing, because — as many of you probably have noticed — I tend to use em-dashes quite often myself. It's partially a combination of how I was taught to write — particularly in college — and them being rather easy to type on my Mac (option+shift+hyphen, with option+hyphen being the en-dash). But, being the old, new-technology-hating curmudgeon that I am, I will not be changing my writing style because of this.
Pitched, yes, but would you consider those fighting "armies" — particularly if you contrast "insurgencies" as something distinct, as your comment applies.
In any event, you seem to have a pretty narrow and idiosyncratic definition of what constitutes "a real war"; one which, it seems to me, most people do not share.
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