DBDr
11mo ago
I'd say the unique factor in the south wasn't awfulness per se; but a planter aristocratic class who's entire position depended on directly chattel slavery right in their back yards.
In the rest of the western world, the owning class was insulated from whatever they owned by a couple layers of middle class professional technocrats. "Doing business? How dreadfully plebeian my dear, now pass the port and deal me another hand".
The current War of Northern Aggression "discourse" has brought to mind the top 100 first place greatest mistake in US state craft: not letting Burnen' Sherman just march back and forth for a couple years or finishing hardcore full reconstruction.
Every degenerate tendency in US Con. politics has originated directly from the South's special position as a rebellious territory that was allowed to maintain it's cultural legitimacy, or second order effect from it. Imagine the conservatives we could have in this country if the wellspring of the tendency was John Adams and the federalists; rather than Rutherford and the lost causers.
Wrapping up the entire holographic southern cultural package with opposition to Washington eg. the North, eg the technocratic, rich part of the country has led to a situation where Technocratic Tech-billionaire Technologists are shackled to the cultural traditions of south, either Cavalier hedonistic indulgence papered over with cheap aristocratic pretension lacking any of the actual cultural roots that european aristocrats have; or hill people proud ignorance and shiftless rebellion against anyone who might have gotten any of that big city 'lernin.
You can watch these tendencies poison Republican politics live all the time; it's why even though the Democratic party is jam packed full of passionless ossified corporate aphorism chat bots, when republicans have all three wings of the government they STILL can't get anything done. There is a deep state problem, but it's not the 'unelected bureaucrats' in washington, it's the decaying corpses of Jefferson Davis and Johnny Reb clinging on to conservatism's ankles and dragging it down into the mud.
In order but unsourced:
Israel has dropped white phosphorus on Gaza. Yes, but it's not unique. White phosphorous is too useful to not drop; everybody be dropping white phosphorous. If it lands on you you will die one of the worst deaths imaginable; but armies generally don't directly try to land it on people.
No babies were killed. The video evidence was faked or actually of things done to Palestinians. Maybe. Most of the claims of Jr. getting Wopper'ed. have been retracted; but there is no way to know for sure and such things have happened before on both sides of this conflict.
Israel is bombing Northern Gaza indiscriminately. Yes. Any 2000lb dumb bomb on a dense city is definitionally indiscriminate; and they are going fucking crazy on the city with dumb munitions.
Hamas is has not been proven to be operating out of any hospitals. Yes and no: hamas has operated in those areas before and there is infrastructure there; but every hospital shut down or destroyed by Isreal durring this round of conflict has had +/- 0 Hammas command centers under it, and only PDWs stored in the actual hospital. That doesn't mean they weren't there before, however.
Israel has cut off all food, water, electricity aide (I know there was some of this, but has it continued and are they completely blockading it?) Kinda. They are doing as much as they can, but it's more like "throttled as much as is practical" than "Cut off totally". This might have changed since I last looked at it, though.
Israel killed the Palestinians when they tried to leave Northern Gaza. She denied there was any evidence Hamas actually did this. True. Israel has bombed sufferal safe evacuation corridors and the areas the told people to evacuate too, fairly consistently over several missions. It is basically impossible this isn't at least willfully negligent on their part.
Israel bombed Palestinians as they left to go to Egypt. True; but misleading. They weren't at the border crossing. That said, they have had at least one fragment from a tank shell hit someone standing in egypt, so they are being pretty frisky there.
The UK and the US were allied with Israel from the beginning and supported the establishment of the country. True (kinda). Part of the founding of Israel is the balfour declaration; and it was less allied at the beginning than standing aside and letting it happen. They were firmly US allies REALLY quickly after ww2 though; as a capitalist white-enough outpost in the middle east.
Thousands of Palestinian civilians have been killed by Israelis during the occupation. Ten(s of?) thousand(s?) at least; many of them by small arms at close range; cluding at least a couple hundred on the west bank where hammas doesn't exist. This is not in doubt, and is not surprising to anyone. If you want to ruin your day and your brain you can go look at the pictures, but I don't recommend it.
DBDr
1yr ago
Aren't all those objections kinda pointless? Also, why are you talking about Skinner and Marx? Shouldn't you be talking about Nietzsche and Schopenhauer?
I can't make those predictions, because it is impossible for me to have that information. But the information exists, and the events happen.
I am making the non special claim that all matter behaves as matter, and all energy behaves as energy. Basically, that there are no special cases. If you are making the strong claim for free will, you are claiming that all matter behaves as matter, and all energy behaves as energy; except for the bit that is inside the skulls of humans.
Why should I believe this strong claim, and how do you back it up?
DBDr
1yr ago
You say materialists have given up, but isn't it the opposite?
Materialism has become the base state that all other claims need to beat to be considered; and the strongest free will claim is especially weird.
Re. incoherent: you are describing compatibilism, which is what I hold: there is no free will in a mystical, 'my decision are unconstrained in some essential way' but there is free will in practice.
EG, I think that you are absolutely constrained by your history and the nature of experiencing time as a three dimensional creature. When you can choose, you only choose one thing and looking at it from a 4th dimensional perspective, you could imagine your life as a written narrative. That said, you still experience free will and I believe that free will as a concept still exists. Just because every decision you will ever make and have ever made could only have been made as you made them, doesn't mean those decision still didn't happen.
Basically, if you refer solely to the experience of free will, then yes it exists. If you claim that you can make a decision that isn't wholly the result of your nature and your history, what the fuck does that even mean?
DBDr
1yr ago
Idols in the sense of the sacred and the profane.
An atheist can erects a statue to baphomet or baal or whatever evil spirit but they can't make it into an idol because atheism is a wholesale rejection of such things.
Basically, when a christian rasis a chross, it is an idol to their god; when a roman raises a cross it is a tool to torture enemies of the state. Atheists having figures of particular note is not the same as Christians worshiping christ, or whatever the fuck the catholics have going on.
Re. Reality maintenance: you are describing maintenance in your post. Having to reconcile things at all is what I am getting at. An atheist doesn't have to reconcile shit; no atheist has ever needed to set something aside.
Re. faith: no, not really. Just that faith is definitionaly belief without proof. You won't know if you were right to have faith until you die; and unfortunately nobody gets to do a quick check in after the fact to let the rest of us know which religion had it right.
DBDr
1yr ago
I don't believe in free will in a mystical sense as a motive force that comes from nothing and goes nowhere; so I don't believe in free will the way you mean it.
People can make decisions, but those decisions aren't free. They are constrained by physics and history. This can be observed by the fact I can't simply will myself into the air, and instead have to jump.
A question for you: do you believe in cause and effect? That every effect is preceded by a cause?
If so, isn't free will an incoherent concept?
DBDr
1yr ago
Your list of things to trigger and own the atheists betrays a complete lack of understanding of non-theist world views.
You are holding up a list of things that exist as though they are the same thing as a given religions idols (the cross, the prophet, the tablets, etc) when the whole point of atheism is that there is no such thing as an idol.
If you are a committed christian (or theist in general, I guess) your reality requires lots of maintenance. You have to believe in things for their own, not believe in other things because that would endanger the things you do believe in, hold things sacred for no reason other than because they are, abore things that are aborent for no reason other than that they are.
Atheists don't have to do that: they just have to not respect and privilege your personal reality over the shared reality that is the material world. Religion is the practice of having faith in things you can't deduce through empiricism, atheism is a rejection of faith, and anti-theism considers faith the be a type of negative utility delusion.
There is no special claim atheists have to uphold or special symbol they have to respect. All they need to do is shrug.
DBDr
1yr ago
No, you right as hell.
You start with following the recipe exactly, measuring hydration, etc and so forth to get your eye in; then once you know what good feels and looks like you do that shit by eye.
Optimal results can never be achieved by measurement and recipe, because that recipe was written for 800 ft. of elevation at 30% humidity and 68 degrees; and you are at sea level 40% and 78 degrees, and that shit matters.
DBDr
1yr ago
It is a microcosm of the world of man; it is a little voodoo doll of society.
As above, so bellow; and then you add in GIFT(https://www.penny-arcade.com/comic/2004/03/19/green-blackboards-and-other-anomalies) and you get reddit.
It's not that reddit is bad, it's that social interaction is bad when you take down all the screens and rules and protections imposed by the other person being in front of you and having the ability to eg hit you with a big rock.
DBDr
1yr ago
Sure, if you want to have a six pack and big guns you gotta do all sorts of silly shit.
The thing to remember though: if a you see somebody and they are cut, shredded, ripped as fuck: they are as weak as they will ever be with that muscle mass (note: certain genetic FREAKS excluded).
You don't have to be fully spheroid like dudes banging out 1000 lb. squats, but if you want to perform fully you gotta gain some weight.
ALSO: the point of bulking is to put on as much weight as possible because you can only gain muscle while gaining weight. Due to build and genetics I have an easier time than most gaining muscle and a harder time losing weight; so I just put on muscle until even a normal amount of exercise puts me into caloric deficit and maintain.
DBDr
1yr ago
Dieting doesn't work for me because I don't want to diet lol
For real though; diet is thing 1 for weight loss but if you have a healthy body thing 2 is putting on as much muscle as you can easily maintain (at least for me). When I am carrying the full amount of muscle I can get without doing heavy workouts, I would need to try really hard at the buffet to gain much weight at all. Just going around at 220 (where I am now) I barely have to watch my diet excepting around the holidays when it's feasts every 10 days and cookies in between.
The muscle gain attempt is mainly just to see if I can get back into fighting trim without being a teenager.
DBDr
1yr ago
Nope, short (average) king here. I just got that monke body type; no waist no neck no problem, size 38 waist size 40 shoulders size 34 legs size 42 arms, when I stand next to the gorilla enclosure at the animal park people wonder how I got out and the keepers start rolling up with the dart guns, etc and so forth.
I just put on weight really easy, so the best way for me to stay fit is to keep ahead of it by putting on tons of muscle, which I also do easily. I'm never gonna have a six pack, but I can lift your fridge and run an eight minute mile and do a 10 mile hike (not back to back unfortunately); so whatever.
DBDr
1yr ago
In the afternoon I walk the dog a couple miles, then sprint back in short sections; If I see a convenient horizontal solid I do a pullups till I start to feel it, plank until failure at the end, and If I don't feel exercised after that before I take my shower I do pushups and crunches and squats until I do.
Basically, I just do normal shit until I feel like my body has had enough, but not so much I get that lactic burn or loose feeling.
The only extra thing I do beyond gym class shit is heavy bag sprints when I think I need more cardio; which are the ultimate in full body heart rate raising exercise IMO.
I don't have a routine or record numbers; because that turns it into work instead of play and it becomes boring real quick and I quit doing it.
Having the dog around has been a godsend for fitness actually, it means I don't get to the end of the day having just mindlessly forgotten to move my body outside of work stuff at all.
DBDr
1yr ago
Pretty much. My claim is that the American right has to choose between their economic and social goals; they can't have both. They (and other conservatives in free market/free association states) have goals which I believe to be contradictory.
DBDr
1yr ago
We're entering in to the time of year when I need to diet or exercise and this year I choose exercise.
Right now I'm 220ish; my most fit weight when I was wrestling and competing in martial arts and doing manual labor was 240ish. I'm going to see if I can get at least to 230 in the next couple months without going to the gym at all.
I set up a heavy bag for extra cardio, and I'm going to move a couple tons of sand and gravel by hand over the next while, I'll see if that plus expanding my usual calisthenics will turn enough fat into muscle to get me back up there.
DBDr
1yr ago
If you actually do that shit I will be BTFO for real. I will never recover from this thing that hasn't happened but might.
DBDr
1yr ago
I don't believe you. Post your family tree yea on for 10 generations, squire.
DBDr
1yr ago
The normal churn of society.
Watch as the Ancap fails to implement any policy whatsoever that deviates from the standard economic rails laid down post WW2.
I haven't been paying attention because lol Argentina, but dollars to donuts the dude finishes out his term as a normal ass austerity conservative while the imf nods on approvingly; unless he fails to do anything at all because cancelling grandmas medicare gets him lynched.
Again: capitalist realism baby!
DBDr
1yr ago
Mellowing*. This is what the market is, this is what the market does. It connects your country to the global super culture; which overwhelms you with it's fitness. They managed to maintain their shitty standards because they were decoupled from the global economy; as they become actual states that need to do shit instead of just saying shit and as they want to participate in the market, they mellow.
It's like how republicans and libertarians talk a big game, but when they get elected what they do is cut taxes and take the most minor possible step in the culture war as red meat for the base, which immediately gets shouted down and rolled back usually while they are in office.
*You can avoid lots of the supercultre effects by being a totalitarian dictatorship, but you also miss out on lots of the benefits. Trading ideological purity strength, as it were
DBDr
1yr ago
I won't smash the system, is the thing. It's not gonna happen until shit gets BAD bad.
DBDr
1yr ago
I don't consider myself an SJW because that's a boomer ass term from 10 years ago, but conservatives do.
I am a gender abolitionist philosophically, and pro everything on that cringe liberal yard sign more practically. Also, I am more equality of outcome than I am equality of opportunity (with limits, ofc).
I can't imagine the future planes of shit I don't like that will eventually get normalized; but when it comes I will know it. Or maybe I will be the cool old guy who remains both "hip" and "with it", who nows.
DBDr
1yr ago
A: It won't happen.
B: If it does, it they get iced by dudes with rifles because AI can't violate thermodynamics and energy density is energy density.
DBDr
1yr ago
I think you believe this because of the people around you and the bubble you are in; but it just isn't true. Historically when money is tight, SJW's make even faster, harder, more permanent progress. Prosperity produces empty gestures because everybody can get by well enough, hardship produces actual clicks of the ratchet because people have enough potential energy to be actualized into political will.
But even if that doesn't happen, nothing ever happens for you. Even if nobody believes in DEI (which they don't because it's dumb); the gesture is all that is required. If DEI goes away, it will be replaced with something you hate equally because, again, you can't win permanent victories, just like you can't make water flow up hill.
You can expend cultural capital; you can burn that shit as fuel and pump that shit back up; but eventually water finds it's way to the sea.
Because we live under capitalist realism, because even with two (do I hear three!) wars going on right now, History has Ended. Nothing Ever Happens. If you want to actually see the changes you desire in your heart, you are going to need to take a risk; to smash the system just like I will to see the economic changes I want to see.
The north had it's own set of piccadillies and fucked up bullshit, but the south was uniquely bad at elite generation outside of specific, narrow fields (cavalry and cavalry officers). It's why they lost the war even when the majority of the professional military class defected; why the north had time to spin up an entire new military and MIC after dumpstering two or three armies one after another.
It's not even that the south was poor, the south had tons of money at the begging of the war. It's that the south was committed to a form of social organization that had become outdated decades before they decided to have a war over it.
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