Eetan
1yr ago
But to address your point - not only do I not see how it would "optimize" the Church, I am yet to see one of these "we must make a fundamental change to [institution] to appeal to more prograssive audiences, and grow our membership" scenarios play out in a non-destructive way,
Except that LGBTQ+ doesn't seem to grow membership.
In formerly most Catholic part of the world one fifth of Catholics left the Church at historically unprecedented speed. Not left as stopped attending Catholic churches, but left as started attending evangelical churches.
And not rainbow flag adorned LGBTQ+ affirming churches, but bible believing (and full of Israeli flags) churches.
This is one of world's important trends that is rarely grasped outside the region, popular image of Latin America is still of traditional 99,9% Catholic continent.
If Catholic Church was about saving souls, it would drive it into panic, it would desperately try to do something to stop this hemorrhage.
The Church seems unperturbed. As if the power and influence of the Church came from property and real estate worth trillions all over the world and possession of world's preeminent money laundering machine, not from masses of peons in the pews, and as if keeping this power required staying in good grace of world's elite human capital.
Eetan
1yr ago
Right, just like the story behind the pope's decision is not as simple as "he's a central authority, of course it would happen"?
No, the story is: if you give one man unlimited and unaccountable power, do not be surprised and do not complain when he uses it against you and things you like.
Eetan
1yr ago
And yet, any form of democratic rule, or even decentralization, ended up accelerating "progress" exponentially, and was a disaster if the goal was preserving tradition.
Not true. The most successful attempt to preserve tradition in modern world is explicitly decentralized one.
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Ordnung
Because the Amish have no central church government, each assembly is autonomous and is its own governing authority. Thus, every local church maintains an individual set of rules, adhering to its own Ordnung, which may vary from district to district as each community administers its own guidelines. These rules are largely unwritten, yet they define the very essence of Amish identity.
Eetan
1yr ago
Is pope Francis attempting to bring in gay marriage by the back door?
Welcome to absolute power unaccountable and unanswerable to anyone (on Earth at least).
The pope can do whatever he wants, and no one can do anything about it. There is no recall, no vote of no confidence, no impeachment. The pope can make any rules he wants or freely disregard his own rules with impunity, and you can just watch helplessly. Or leave and start your own church.
Well, legally at least, the popes were in the past replaced by extra legal means, but this couldn't happen in our modern age.
This is nothing compared to other Ukrainian public relation efforts.
First there was picking American transgender woman as official spokesperson for Ukrainian army, who then went on unhinged rant threatening to kill "Russian propagandists" all over the world.
(speaking in English, not Russian, so it is clear that it were not Russians in Russia who were target of this threat)
This speech is there, it is something you will hear from mouth of cartoon Evil Mastermind(TM) in corny B movie, just before Action Hero(TM) storms in and drops the villain into his/her/their/zir/xir own shark tank.
Someone in charge then noticed this does not make Ukraine look exactly like Avengers team and decided to suspend Cirillo.
So sanity prevailed and all will be good (optics) from now?
Well, Zelensky just decided to make honorary "ambassador of Ukraine", of all people, Marina Abramovic, world famous performance artist.
It sounds like 4chan fake news prank, but it is real, reported by mainstream media(and then vanishing from their pages).
Ukraine knows well what it is doing, Ukraine tries hard to signal it is on the right side and win hearts and minds.
Hearts and minds of people who matter, not yours.
edit: links
Eetan
1yr ago
Eetan
1yr ago
Yes, ancient history was full of violence (just like modern history), but we (we non psychopaths) admire other ancient achievements.
There is difference between someone who, when thinking about Roman empire, thinks "The Romans built roads, bridges and aqueducts that lasted for millenia, they created unparallelled law, literature, art and architecture, they were so cool!" and someone who thinks "The Romans razed and burned cities so thoroughly that no trace remained, they perfected the art of torture, they decorated their roads with lines of crosses, they fed people to the beasts for fun, they were so cool!"
The sheer scale of the IE conquests is what makes it stand out especially.
Spread of black plague was even wider and faster. Do you too find Yersinia pestis "inspiring"?
Eetan
1yr ago
Most significant accomplishment of Sardinians?
Rule of law and limited constitutional government, much better system than, for example, "one failed artist can do whatever he wants, including declaring war on the whole world".
All of this without even one drop of very special Aryan blood. Remember, by Aryan theory these people should be capable only of grunting and rooting for grubs.
Eetan
1yr ago
How much wealth is generated by the mere fact that you own land would vary by era, but no scarce resource will ever be without value.
Yes it varies, and in our era pure ownership of land brings less wealth than ever before.
#7. Real Estate 193 billionaires | 7% of list Richest: Donald Bren ($17.4 billion), chairman of California-based real estate firm Irvine Co.
Only 7% of world's billionaires have real estate as source of their income (and most of it is from real estate development, not raw ownership of unimproved land).
Eetan
1yr ago
In contrast, the Sardinians provide insight into the pre-Bronze Age farmer populations, as:
Sardinia appears to harbor the highest amounts of Neolithic farmer ancestry and very little of the pre-Neolithic hunter-gatherer or Bronze Age pastoralists ancestries.
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_people_from_Sardinia
Not bad achievements for small island, sparsely populated and desperately poor for all of recorded history. Continent of such people had no need to be "liberated" and "uplifted" by invasion of Ted Bundys and Jeffrey Dahmers.
Eetan
1yr ago
Classical Greece, Rome, India, Persia, were all spawned from Indo-European cultural, genetic, and linguistic legacy after the Bronze Age invasions.
Millenia later, time enough for psychopathic genes of original Indo-Europeans to be selected out and more pro-civilization traits emerge. Before it happened, Indo-Europeans achieved exactly zilch. Nothing "vague" about it, straight HBDIQ materialist science.
Razib is right, there is absolutely nothing to respect about continent size psycho killing spree, nothing to admire about people so stupid that cannot grok even idea of slavery.
Friends, stop the killing for a moment! Maybe if we leave the peasants alive and make them work for us, we can live well in big houses instead of huts and dugouts?
NO! BLOOD! GORE! DEATH! KILL! KILL! KILL!
...
I.E studies is going to likely remain a growing area of interest in the DR. It combines genetics, history, and mythmaking in a way that fosters a positive sense of identity and aspiration
Perhaps if you aspire to be school shooter or serial killer. If you have higher ambitions, the IE "legacy" has nothing to offer you.
Eetan
1yr ago
Joe Studwell's How Asia Works makes a case that land reform (AKA "stealing" land from some people and giving it to others) was an important part of the transition to being a middle income country for many Asian countries. Exactly. These were pre-industrial feudal countries completely unlike modern developed world.
Exactly. These were extremely poor pre-industrial countries completely unlike modern developed world.
Assuming you are in US. You waved your magic wand, expropriated all 1,3 billion acres of privately owned agricultural land and distributed it equally. Every US citizen now owns whole 3.9 acre of land.
Now what? How is poverty alleviated? How are people who "live in hovel and eat gruel" helped, what are they supposed to do with this land?
And we even have examples of land reform under the Gracchi brothers in ancient Rome, so the issue of land concentrating into a few hands and leading to issues in society is a well-trodden one. To avoid the kind of stagnation that tends to result from that, why shouldn't we adopt something like Georgism, which would weaken land-based property ownership within society but attempt to make it fair going forward?
All pre-industrial, pre-modern ancient civilizations.
Demonstrate that the stagnation we see now (assuming we have stagnation) is due to poor people lacking land of average value about 4000 dollars per acre.
For people who defend the current conception of property in the industrialized world
If your whole post is applicable anywhere, it is applicable to pre-industrial world, where the rich were rich because they inherited land from their ancestors who arrived with William the Bastard centuries ago.
It has no meaning in industrial civilization, and even less in post-industrial one. How many of today's rich are rich because of unbroken inheritance of land stolen from Indians or Saxons?
Even in country where some of old feudal customs, traditions and wealth still survive you can, at best, justify expropriation of property of Duke of Westminster while not touching the rest of billionaires.
There is a reason why equal distribution of land, most extremely extreme extremist rebel demand for millenia, was quietly dropped back in the 19th century.
Did the passage of time, and inheritance of property down through the generations somehow make the society more fair and just?
Yes, ideas of statute of limitations and adverse possession are universally considered fair and just, given that the alternative is state of eternal vendetta, eternal revenge for ancient slights that were revenge for even more ancient slights.
The Talmud has passages condemning agricultural work
Can you give us a cite where? I think what quotes (passed through several hundred years chinese whispers game) you mean, but they do not say what you think they say.
and encouraging learned / literate work.
No surprise, who you think wrote the Talmud?
According to Solzhenitsyn, the Tsar tried to get Russian Jews to farm but failed.
People were not eager to become Russian peasants? What a surprise.
BTW, if true, it confirms that the tsars were idiots, lack of people in agriculture was the last of Russia problem.
It is not 14th century but 19th one, you are not playing Crusader Kings, but Victoria and your first task is to move peasants out of villages into cities and factories (if you want to win and not only goof around).
Eetan
1yr ago
As you said, this is alleged apocryphal quote.
If you want to hear authentic Spartan voice from antiquity justifying their treatment of helots (that was seen as outrageous even by ancient standards), start here, this is the closest you can get.
This speech was written by Isocrates, one of most famous orators of the time in voice of Spartan king of the day. It summarizes arguments used by Spartans themselves and presents the best possible case for Spartan peculiar institutions.
So what he says:
1/God gave us this land and these people.
For we inhabit Lacedaemon because the sons of Heracles gave it to us, because Apollo directed us to do so, and because we fought and conquered those who held it; and Messene we received from the same people, in the same way, and by taking the advice of the same oracle.
2/It was ours for a long time. Its a tradition.
Then again you are doubtless well aware that possessions, whether private or public, when they have remained for a long time in the hands of their owner, are by all men acknowledged to be hereditary and incontestable. Now we took Messene before the Persians acquired their kingdom23 and became masters of the continent, in fact before a number of the Hellenic cities were even founded.
3/You are doing far worse, you have no right to judge us.
and although it was only the other day that they razed both Thespiae and Plataea to the ground
4/Both the greatest kingdom and the greatest democracy of the world were fine with it for a long time, why are you making into a big issue now?
But, although our treaties were concluded under circumstances in which it was impossible for us to seek any advantage, yet, while there were other matters about which differences arose, neither the Great King nor the city of Athens ever charged us with having acquired Messene unjustly.
See that despite the delusions of modern wannabe bronze age keyboard warriors, raw psychopathic "might makes right" attitude was not something believed in ancient times, even by Spartans.
Eetan
1yr ago
I interpret the posts you started this thread with as making the claim that Jews as a group categorically refuse to do agricultural work because the Talmud says they aren't allowed to.
Yes, this is the most surreal part of anti-Jewish discourse, remnant of premodern villager mind floating around in post-post-post modern cyberspace.
Medieval Jews indeed avoided peasant farm labor, just like medieval Christian nobility, clergy, merchants, craftsmen, town dwellers in general and everyone else who could.
If you ever did even a day of manual field work, you would understand why.
The Talmud is a pretty complex and obscure subject. You pretty much never hear any Jews who are not Talmudic scholars talking about it or basing their lives around it.
"The Talmud" is not a book, it is a library. The full edition in printed form weighs impressive 330 pounds.
Imagine, for example, treating 217 volumes of the Church Fathers as "one book."
Just like all traditional religious works, Talmud is full of stuff extremely unsavory for modern audiences.
If you listen to people who are not fond of Jews, they have idea that Talmud is some sort of encyclopedia of crime, grand manual how to cheat, rob, deceive and manipulate the goyim, they make Talmud much cooler that it is in reality (extremely dreary discussions about minutiae of religious laws).
As you said, only religious Jews are studying Talmud for real, even people who are really not fond of Jews are not interested in learning the "Jewish secrets" and are satisfied with copying and pasting of short list of mostly fabricated "Talmud quotes".
Eetan
1yr ago
Not just that. Nobody called the cops on you. Nobody tried to get you maimed or killed - or even beat up. Nobody tried to get you fired. In fact...I'd guess that the "really bad conversation" wasn't terrible - they didn't call you a rapist or something or make a scene. You're not unattractive, bro...keep up the good work.
Had any of these things happened to you?
Eetan
1yr ago
What do you think about the idea that in order to be morally worthy of a romantic relationship, you need to be willing and able to endure great suffering either for the greater good, or for your tribe, or for no reason at all?
What I think? I think you made your own personal religion worshipping suffering for its own sake as holiest thing ever, and try to preach it here, with little success so far. Do not let it dissuade you, keep up the good work.
Eetan
1yr ago
I couldn't understand just exactly what was meant to be so wonderful about them, and the common reason seemed to be "they're not fungible", which left me where it found me.
Buying outrageously ugly ape for outrageous price, and reselling it to bigger fool shrewder crypto investor for even more outrageous price? Everything is wonderful about this plan, when it works as intended.
Eetan
1yr ago
I should remember to be humbled by my opinion in February 2022 that the Biden administration was blustering for some political advantage rather than responding to a real threat.
I remember watching unprecedented Russian military buildup near Ukraine before February 2022, remember OSINT sphere panicking and Russian nationalist sphere (then adjacent to Anatoly Karlin) gloating, and I should remember to be humbled by my opinion that Mosul and Kabul would be repeated, that some eastern European shithole country stands no chance against world's second superpower.
My only excuse is that I do not watch this depressing part of the world too closely and do not fancy myself to be analyst or military scientist, even amateur one.
Eetan
1yr ago
Liberals calling out conservatives for their hypocrisy about promiscuity, homosexuality and so on is as old as time, what's your point?
"Look at this self-identified Mormon conservative trying to sleep with his interns against the core tenets of his church" is a story, sure.
This. See that Biden scandal is not about "look at this degenerate druggie pervert", but "look how so called servants of the people abuse their position for personal enrichment".
Eetan
1yr ago
Honestly I don’t think you are being intellectually honest saying your fine with those people having free speech.
If the commies were in position to actually win and their numbers just went from 20 to 30% and you knew in 5 years they would succeed taking over every institution and you would suddenly being living in Mao China then you would not say you support free speech for them.
Let’s say you are Musks. You own twitter. You can hit a red button let’s call it the deplatform button. If you hit it the commies lose momentum and disappear. If you don’t hit it then you live in communists china in 5 years.
"Imagine you are richest man in Russia who (among other things) owns largest network of newspaper kiosks in St. Petersburg in April 1917. Would you stop selling Pravda if it is the only way to stop the dastardly commies?"
This is hypothetical scenario unconnected to real life.
1/Nowhere in history communists won due to "free speech" , nowhere communists won by convincing majority on free marketplace of ideas that communism is the best thing since sliced bread. Countries where communists prevailed were countries that practiced heavy censorship (at the time), it did not helped.
Closest example is possibly Czechoslovakia after WW2, but it was heavily managed "democracy" with only four political parties(and their newspapers) alloved and all criticism of Soviet Union treated as fascist treason.
2/ In situation where communists are in such ascendancy and ready to take power, they now have their political party, trade unions, organizations of all kind (including well armed militias) and their own newspapers, radio, TV stations and, in modern conditions, their equivalent of Twitter.
Speech = win battle of ideology = win power = enforce their ideology on you
Does Elon have any comprehensible "ideology"? He is against long list of things (that changes every week), but what exactly is he for? What he wants the world look like?
Eetan
1yr ago
So, you are saying the West does not have any manufacturing capacity to produce something what doesn't even require any modern technology? This is a very sharp contradiction with everything I can observe, where the West is producing a lot of things right now.
Yes, the West does have high tech cutting edge technology, but the lower tech WWI/WWII style mass production lines required to churn out mountains of dumb stuff are lacking, being outsourced to third world long ago, and nothing at all is being done to restore this capacity.
If you are reduced to bribing and begging Pakistan for such basic things as artillery shells, it is rather clear sign.
Eetan
1yr ago
It’s not. It’s an assault on privacy. I shouldn’t have to tell the government everything about my finances.
This ship sailed long ago.
Thank people who began war on drugs 100+ years ago and pushed it into overdrive 50 years ago. It was all for your own good.
Every boy who grew in formerly Marxist Central Europe is friend of Karl May, because Marxists liked Karl May a lot, because they printed his books by the millions and made(together with Western capitalists) dozens of movies based on his works.
No surprise, these are extremely progressive works where working class heroes fight against big landlords, big ranchers, railroad and oil companies and other exploiters.
If Karl May was really cancelled in today's Germany, it is anything than victory for Marxism.
Yes, we shall judge Marxism according to the decades when Marxists were in power, not according to contemporary rainbow furry freaks, even when they wave red flags.
Just like we, for example, judge Christianity according to 15+ centuries when Christianity was in power, not according to disheveled freaks screaming at street and internet corners that the end is near.
More options
Context Copy link