MelodicBerries
virtus junxit mors non separabit
No bio...
User ID: 1678
MelodicBerries
virtus junxit mors non separabit
1yr ago
These trends come in waves. Liberals in the 1960s and 1970s also lost control and then turned sharply towards the center during the 1980s and 1990s. Biden used to brag about passing the most draconian anti-crime bills in the 1990s until the optics changed and it became a liability. Perhaps he will now remind voters yet again in 2024?
I think the turnaround on crime is simply an outgrowth of "everyone has a plan until they get hit in the face" theory that was proposed by Mike Tyson and which I subscribe to. The plan was defund the police and getting hit in the face part is what followed. Will liberals learn? History shouldn't make us optimistic given that we've seen these patterns before.
MelodicBerries
virtus junxit mors non separabit
1yr ago
That Karen is an anti-white slur only directed against white women seems pretty obvious. I never understood why so many on the right embraced the term. I am also not surprised that most of the people in the chatlogs are other women, since the term was mostly used by women or gay men.
One interesting point is that the most anti-white group at uber are blacks whereas Asians were most sympathetic. Latinos were sort of in-between but a bit closer to the Asian position. This makes me a bit more hopeful about America's future as traditionally the two most hostile anti-white groups were either blacks or Jews and both are losing relative demographic importance since the bulk of non-white growth is Asian and Latino.
MelodicBerries
virtus junxit mors non separabit
1yr ago
Good summary. There are simply too many structural factors favouring SF in a way that e.g. Detroit never had. Moreover, it helps that firms like OpenAI are vocally supporting of the city even while they criticise the leadership.
One final point. Even many people who move don't move far. There was one VC who made a big splash on Twitter a few months ago about how he's moving out of SF due to spiralling crime. Where did he move? To Palo Alto. SF mostly rose as a cheaper alternative but the wider Bay Area isn't losing its luster as much as people think. Moreover, even alternatives like Seattle are seeing a rise in similar problems, but with substantially worse weather.
MelodicBerries
virtus junxit mors non separabit
1yr ago
His fellow billionaires think it is beautiful
And how do you know this?
MelodicBerries
virtus junxit mors non separabit
1yr ago
On the same day.
Not sure how this decoupling/containment business is going, but it sure doesn't seem to be flying with all colors. I'm not someone who buys into the de-dollarisation thesis, nor do I think the US with its allies (vassals?) is going to be displaced. But neither is China. It'd be nice if US policy would take on a more realistic bent and acknowledge these basic facts instead of pursuing futile policies doomed to failure. We might even have auxiliary benefits such as less need to spend on a bloated military as a consequence. Fat chance, I know, but hope is the last thing that leaves man.
I'll make a few brief observations.
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These videos are mostly an American phenomenon. Attempts at blowing up a banal social interaction to a national scandal doesn't happen in Europe. I'm not talking about something going viral on social media because it's funny or whatever. I'm talking about a genuine witch-hunt, invariably on racial grounds. Sure, there's public shaming in Europe but it isn't extrapolated to the person's race like it is in America.
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The victims of these witch-hunts are almost always white. I don't think this is a coincidence. For the same reason, when mass shooters are non-white, media interest drops off. For this reason, I think it tells of a societal sickness in the US which is missing in Europe. It isn't just "obsession with race" but rather "obsession with white people", always in a negative way.
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Many white women went along with the anti-white bandwagon in the (naive) belief that the mob would spare them. Well, they sure did miscalculate on that one. In fact, I get the sense that white women are often treated worse than white men in the media when there's a pile-on like now. There's a particular resentful nastiness to the "Karen" insult - which again is only applied to white women and not women of other races - which has no real equivalent among white men.
MelodicBerries
virtus junxit mors non separabit
1yr ago
I suspect most Poles will stay, though the wave of emigration has almost certainly stopped. Your point about EU membership superceding the need for citizenship is well-taken. It probably will act as a break of further rooting themselves. In a way that is a success of the European project, which aims for all Europeans to see the entire continent as their homeland.
MelodicBerries
virtus junxit mors non separabit
1yr ago
I was following the Irish protests against asylum seekers on various Telegram channels for months. It was something rarely reported in the media but it must have scared TPTB, hence the draconian anti-speech bill.
I think Irish nationalism suffered from two main flaws. First, it was based on Catholicism against the English Protestants, in a world where Pope Francis is trying to outdo himself at every turn in how liberal he can be. Second, it was based on an ethnicity which, let's be frank, barely has any distinction from the English at this point. Even the language war was lost ages ago.
So the old rationales for Irish nationalism have faded one by one. It will take time for the Irish to re-tool and re-adjust. Another fact that needs to be acknowledged is that Ireland has taken in a lot of European migrants. So we may be at the start of a new "melting pot" in Ireland, where various white ethnicities meld into one larger white identity, the way it happened in America during the early 20th century. I suspect this process has just begun and will need time to play itself out.
MelodicBerries
virtus junxit mors non separabit
1yr ago
During the 2015-2016 crisis the top countries for asylum applicants were Syria, Afghanistan and Iraq
That's what they claimed. In reality, many just bought fake passports in Turkish bazaars. Others threw away their passports once they crossed the border and claimed they were from Syria. Under the rules that existed then, it wasn't possible to deport them.
Today countries like Tunisia, Pakistan and Bangladesh are much more numerous even if the old ones like Syria still dominate. It has morphed into a general economic migration. Of course, everyone will claim they are fleeing war because they know that will increase their chances.
That said, the wars in Syria and Afghanistan certainly made matters worse. Which is why Europe's enthusiasm for America's imperial wars is perplexing to me. The blowback often shows up on Europe's shores - literally.
MelodicBerries
virtus junxit mors non separabit
1yr ago
The cliche woke academic line is that illegal undocumented immigrants do the jobs Americans won't do. But I think it's more accurate to say that they do the jobs that the establishment doesn't want to pay for, or at least not as much they really ought to
I agree with this, there's a weird "alliance" between the proles of the third world and the elites of the first. That is also why, incidentally, the embrace of neoliberal economics by the conservative movement was a major historical error. At least conservatives in the US have stopped being braindead gung-ho war supporters of the kind we saw during the Bush era. Perhaps there could be a further evolution to a more organic skepticism of endless GDP growth, which is the underlying ideology justifying mass migration.
As an aside, I find it amusing that Biden is now as tough - and perhaps tougher - than Trump ever was. All while promising to run a much more liberal immigration system during the campaign. For open borders supporters (all five of them), this must be a dark day.
On a more general note, I think the reason why people come is banally simple: money. Much of the third world has been either stagnant (Brazil) or actively declining (Venezuela). I've read that even many Indians and Chinese are now also increasing their numbers. Europe is seeing huge surges in illegal migration too. The 2015 refugee crisis is likely just a prelude of what's coming down the pike in this century.
The only really effective way to truly repel people at the border would probably be lethal violence in an organised way, which is obviously a non-starter for any liberal democracy. I'm not making any predictions, but I wouldn't be shocked if the Biden admin began to really ramp up construction of the border wall and upgrading it in older areas. Would be a funny troll in the event of Trump against Biden in 2024, which at this point seems almost certain.
MelodicBerries
virtus junxit mors non separabit
1yr ago
Top people are the ones who need the most loyalty, instead the WASP-elites are surrounded by foreigners while much of the elite are actual foreigners. This puts the elite and the people in different universes, while dismantling any sense of noblesse oblige.
This is an important argument but it would be difficult to combine it with recruiting the best from the world. You'd have to essentially put in practice an officially-sanctioned discriminatory system that tells the best and the brightest from abroad that they will always operate under a glass ceiling despite their abilities. That in of itself would act as a great repellent for any prospective talent. Why work hard in a society where there are limited avenues for personal growth?
So in my view, you'd essentially have to make a choice: either you welcome the best from the world over but with differing loyalties or you aim to consolidate a very homogenous elite but accept that their capabilities will be less. You can't have both. The US elite apparently chose the former and so far, at least, it isn't obvious to me that the US has suffered from it. That may change, then again, it may not.
Importing tens of thousands of Chinese people into the university system, getting China up to speed, and then trying to keep them making plastic toys won't work. They were obviously going to bring a lot of that know how home.
True, but a lot of them also ended up staying. A non-trivial fraction of top AI talent comes from China. Almost 90% of Chinese postgrads choose to stay in the US. In my view, the US has benefited more than China from this exchange. Just as the US has benefited more than India from their brain drain.
MelodicBerries
virtus junxit mors non separabit
1yr ago
Those slots could be taken by American students
Does America have enough smart people? Don't get me wrong, there are plenty of smart Americans but the rest of the world combined has more. Way, way more. So it is a smart idea to select the very best for the most prestigious STEM institutions - which is precisely what the US has been doing. It'd be foolish to stop or even put a damper on it.
MelodicBerries
virtus junxit mors non separabit
1yr ago
Why wouldn't they return to China?
Twenty or even ten years ago they probably wouldn't because the opportunities back home would have been meager, so instead of the US they'd likely move to Western countries without such a racial system of institutionalised discrimination. That may still happen to some extent, but the difference today is that their domestic research ecosystem is already world-class. That makes all the difference, so there is not only a pull-factor but it's combined with a push-factor (China initative).
MelodicBerries
virtus junxit mors non separabit
1yr ago
It's depressing because it implies their anti-racist veneer is mostly a function of status-seeking rather than conviction. I suspect that is the case for many if not most such people.
MelodicBerries
virtus junxit mors non separabit
1yr ago
Isn't the more obvious trigger to losing foreign academics the multi-year Covid travel problems?
Well, the issue with that interpretation is it doesn't describe how not only China but also "non-US OECD" countries have gained. In other words, what's being measured aren't domestic citizens not going abroad but non-citizens coming in. Certainly China's zero covid policies were brutal yet they still gained folks from abroad and so did countries in Europe, Australia, Canada etc.
MelodicBerries
virtus junxit mors non separabit
1yr ago
I suppose the argument is that one shouldn't treat all ethnic Chinese as a giant blog of Borg working in perfect co-ordination. While the Chinese government and some of their VC firms do act like you describe, many ordinary Chinese people have nothing to do with it but were unfairly targeted in a broad campaign that often was remarkably crass in its target-selection - as even former administrators of the program now admit.
MelodicBerries
virtus junxit mors non separabit
1yr ago
Your latter argument is wholly correct but also misleading, since it concerns commercialisation where America's capitalist system easily beats the one-party state of China. While some go into academia to make money, preferably in start-ups, a lot of researchers don't dream of making big money but of making a big scientific impact. Having a comfortable but not wildly high salary is sufficient.
If you're a Mandarin-speaker it isn't at all clear if the US has a clear advantage over China at the elite level in fields like chemistry or physics today. In fact, it is unlikely.
The libertarian Cato institute points out that the US has been losing international scientists in recent years whereas not only has China gained but so has "non-US OECD" countries. The latter is code for Europe and AU/NZ/CA.
The immediate cause is probably the misguided and arguably racist "China initiative" which essentially led to a witch-hunt against ethnic Chinese people. But I suspect domestic factors in China and Europe are also responsible. Both have been ramping up R&D spending in recent years and visa policies in Europe are often more favorable for researchers than American policies are. Easier to get and easier to stay.
It is no exaggeration to say that most of STEM innovation in US academia is now being carried out by foreign-born people. So this development should worry Americans. I also think many people in the West underestimate how much genuine innovation there is in China. Viewing data from the Nature Index, which tracks elite science production, it isn't clear that China is far behind anymore. If at all. In areas like EV batteries, China is now ahead of the West. Progress in their semiconductor industry has been faster than even many insiders had expected.
I still think the US has a series of unique advantages over its competitors, but falling prey to scare-mongering campaigns and McCarthyite tactics isn't going to capitalise on them.
MelodicBerries
virtus junxit mors non separabit
1yr ago
Bari Weiss and other "anti-woke activists" have a long history suppressing critics of Israel. She herself even tried it as a student at Columbia. The same is true of the "IDW" people. Most of them were Zionist Jews and a few shabbos goyim like Jordan Peterson.
Cancel culture exists on the right too, just that it is often directed against anyone opposing Zionism. Lots of anti-BDS bills have been signed in red states in recent years and I don't see any of the "free speech activists" talking about it, thereby exposing their hypocrisy. Ben Shapiro is of course highly active here, too.
MelodicBerries
virtus junxit mors non separabit
1yr ago
I suspect they will fail. But some of them have gotten smarter over the years. It was common to come across "America on the brink of collapse" doomsday talk in previous years. Some of that may have been due to crossovers from the GOP hard-right, the kind of folks who watched Alex Jones and became even more radicalised.
These days, my impression is that they understand that the beast they are fighting isn't going down easily. But I don't even think they bother with taking power in conventional ways. Gathering a significant block of whites to cause significant friction will be sufficient in their minds.
I think the system understood this and has in response pulled back from the most extreme anti-white rhetoric. You see it everywhere now in the media. It may work for some time, but I think the racial dynamics of America is such that it will be hard to sustain the fantasy that "we're all in this together" as whites become a clear and distinct minority.
The US army being unable to recruit people doesn't portend well for the future in terms of patriotic attachment of the nation's youth. Why would white men die for a system that hates them?
Yet, my expectation is that while America will slowly slide into further dysfunction, it is unlikely to ever become critical. A slow descent is more likely and white elites can still do very well for themselves in America. That is important since intra-political conflict often needs a significant elite fractional support. That's a major missing ingredient for them. And I don't see it suddenly changing.
MelodicBerries
virtus junxit mors non separabit
1yr ago
All societies have hierarchies. Mehdi Hasan, when he was attacking Tulsi Gabbard during the 2020 campaign went through her entire donor list and counted all the Hindus.
Needless to say, if someone would have gone through the donor list of Trump or Biden and counted all the Jews as a public media figure, it's quite likely they would have been out of a job very shortly thereafter. Everyone understands this, which is why nobody is doing it.
That's why the Kanye dust-up was interesting to me. You had two groups with the highest "anti-racism" cred suddenly pitted at each other and in the end, we got to learn that Jews had more social power in that struggle. This is another instance re-affirming that, as Diane is grovelling in a way she would never have done if she hadn't included Jews in her diatribe.
MelodicBerries
virtus junxit mors non separabit
1yr ago
Also, Corbyn's sins were far greater than just his views on Israel. He opposed the MIC and he was far more radical when it came to taxation on the super rich than the Labour establishment.
But the Israel lobby did play a prominent part in getting him removed, even if they were one of several constituencies for wanting to have him gone. One could survive attempts by one powerful pressure group but not a concert of them, simultaneously.
MelodicBerries
virtus junxit mors non separabit
1yr ago
You know things are bad when even liberals are despairing at DeSantis' poor performance. I think her analysis is mostly correct. Voters don't really care about issues so much as who is the strong candidate. Trump is funny but also strong. DeSantis is neither - despite being the actual principled conservative by comparison.
Given Kamala's own exposure as a weak air-head, it seems almost inevitable to me that we will see Biden vs Trump once again in 2024. I try not to be ageist but American politics is really becoming a gerontocracy. The refusal of Dianne Feinstein to step down is par for the course.
That said, while I believe the author is right about the primal nature of Trump's appeal, it's probably a mistake to ascribe his popularity entirely to it. I suspect many in the media still haven't understood that he rose as a consequence of structural changes that will outlast him. Seeing the GOP as the more anti-war party would never have crossed my mind during the Bush era when accusations of insufficient liberal patriotism was rife. Now it appears to me that the veneration of the CIA, Pentagon and FBI are all highly liberal-coded.
There was never a referendum on multiculturalism in Sweden just like there wasn't in America for the 1965 immigration act. This "people chose this themselves" is a tired and unconvincing argument.
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