Interestingly, even Banks doesn't see mass migration as a feature of the Culture.
It's always fun to see just what a person given free reign to create their personal utopia leaves out or insists on. Banks stacks the deck with basically infinite material wealth but then goes back and insists that certain cultural traits (also including sex-swapping and universal promiscuity) are apparently necessary
In general the Culture doesn't actively encourage immigration; it looks too much like a disguised form of colonialism. Contact's preferred methods are intended to help other civilisations develop their own potential as a whole, and are designed to neither leech away their best and brightest, nor turn such civilisations into miniature versions of the Culture. Individuals, groups and even whole lesser civilisations do become part of the Culture on occasion, however, if there seems to be a particularly good reason (and if Contact reckons it won't upset any other interested parties in the locality).
YMMV on whether Banks is letting himself off the hook with "it's colonialism". And why.
Tiffany Henyard-style corruption will probably die down. It's just too fucking stupid.
Enron corruption on the other hand...
I suppose the "don't want to move away" stipulation will muddy the waters a lot. A lot of Third World corruption is precisely because people want to buy a lifeboat for themselves and their family in the West. Which makes it a more rational decision than American Henyardism even though it's equally brazen and destructive. But these people don't have that outlet so they'd likely be less corrupt and you can't really attribute it to intelligence.
The results of supporting these popular movements is basically that the region is much more unstable
The same region that erupted into flames due to the clear, unresolved dissatisfaction of its people not too long ago under the regimes you support?
Yeah, it's pretty unstable.
The result of democracy in Iraq was a radical Shia regime, not a Jeffersonian democracy.
I recall it was a bit bumpy after the French Revolution.
and more likely to persecute women and minorities in their own countries
As opposed to the autocrats who don't persecute people? I suppose wrecking half your country like Assad or shooting unarmed protestors like Sisi and the general jailing of dissidents and other features of autocratic regimes are okay so long as it doesn't have disparate impact on women?
And it's not like these places are good for things like sexual minorities or apostates either way.
This is what I mean; liberals lined up behind anti-Islamist forces but those forces don't ever seem to give way to liberalism or democracy. You just get more corrupt autocracy with seething dissatisfaction. You're not even protecting the groups you're talking about.
The Arab Spring wasn’t about democracy, it was an Islamist movement based in getting rid of the old guard who were largely secular socialists and nationalists.
Maybe democracy in the Middle East will naturally tend towards some form of Islamism and we just have to get over it?
Imagine if early Western democracy was under the watch of secular aliens searching for any sign of deviation from laicite. It'd never get off the ground because it'd permanently be at odds with the desires of the population.
Even granting that Islam is exceptional that's probably an argument for some role instead of continually trying to quash it. That may just radicalize Islamist parties into jihadis.
Yes, the midwit position of "let them have democracy and they'll converge on modern liberalism on some reasonable timescale" is ludicrous. But maybe they should just have democracy , damn what happens to the gays and women.
If any of these nations were at risk of spawning some Lee Kuan Yew-esque illiberal reformer or a liberal autocracy that could set the stage for liberal democracy it'd be one thing. But Egypt was corrupt and autocratic before Morsi and corrupt and autocratic after and all of this will almost certainly happen again.
or the designated target of the Jews
Yeah, you got me there. Democratic Islamic governments will have more issues with Israel.
Tanista
1mo ago
You hear similar things about how HRC focus tested each word in public to death due to being burned badly in the past.
Not sure how seriously to take it. Or whether or not it's still a failure of intelligence and character worth noting.
Tanista
1mo ago
Remember, Kamala was never supposed to get this far. 2020 was peak woke and Biden felt pressured into choosing a minority. Kamala had the perfect optics - woman, blackish, indianish, well educated, compliant, could signal as woke but fundamentally centrist.
I'd disagree that she was centrist. She was simply the only option. Clyburn didn't demand a minority. He demanded a black person. IIRC Biden already promised a woman.
Who else could it be?
Putin clearly wanted in, was cooperative post 9/11, asked to be considered for membership and seeing as NATO has at times contained wholly authoritarian regimes like Turkey's various juntas , Portugal (somehow a founding member) etc, there were no obvious reasons why not to admit them.
It wasn't about them being authoritarian, it was about them being Russia. I doubt Poland has the same emotions about Portugal
If you look at Disney getting into a pointless fight with DeSantis it's clear that many of the elites in this company just buy into this stuff themselves and so leaders have to tread carefully.
I wouldn't say it's just "capitalism". If you believe wokeness is government-enhanced or government-coerced, then this is just what happens when the market is distorted by people who know better. The push for "diversity" turns the company's personnel into the sorts of people who can't help but act this way.
No one would find tribalism or religious parochialism to be particularly odd in a Third World corporation, especially if you were getting slight "encouragements"' from the people in power.
I would buy that the MCU is just suffering from a natural reversion if they hadn't also changed the recipe. Sure, a lot of it was Disney+ (and, in the case of Star Wars, pure mismanagement even before that). But I don't think it was purely that. They tried to grab a new audience and fell into similar behavior as other culture war fodder IPs (including battling and haranguing their own fanbase for not liking the change). Something like Rings of Power was based on an IP in hibernation since 2003 on the film side. There was no fatigue. Yet they did the same diversity stuff.
But Coppola used his own money.
Yes, which means less oversight. Which means we wonder less why he was allowed to go up his own ass. It's easier to imagine one autocratic artist being fooled than a whole host of overseers with a track record.
These franchises are notorious for over-management.
I think it's much more likely the studios thought Joker 2 would be successful, and if it pissed off a few incels that would be an added bonus.
Sure. I'm not one of those arguing it was purely spiteful behavior. I did say the theory was that they'd make more money. I guess I just give more weight to ideology/spite than you.
I think it's a convergence of self interest and ideology. But that doesn't mean that the ideology doesn't encourage somewhat contemptuous behavior towards the legacy audience as well. Or that it is a purely rational decision on profit. If you proved to them that catering to a whitebread or stereotypical "Real American" audience would play better I think it'd take them vastly longer to flip than it would if you argued that "diversity" really does pay more. Even if this is recognized, the personnel they have may not be able to help themselves because this is now SOP (there is some evidence this is changing)
A good example of this is NPR's ill-fated push for diversity which led to a bunch of cancelled progressive shows
There clearly seem to be principal-agent problems here and echochamber issues. It shouldn't be a surprise to NPR that catering to middle of the road white folx would play better than trying to explain who Saucy Santana is to grab a black audience. But staff and leadership seem to buy in (we saw this at Disney itself, when Chapek was forced by a revolt of some execs, aided by Iger, into an utterly irrational battle with DeSantis) so they have to waste a lot of the company's money before they come to their senses.
EDIT: And everyone has made every point in this post six times over, down to the same wording, by now lol.
Tanista
1mo ago
A small kink in that explanation: The second movie was written and directed by the same people. So, what happened?
The Joker was a surprise hit. And a surprise controversy. Todd Philips likely didn't think it would ever be this big or get attacked so much for being liked by the wrong people.
The solution to this would be to just live with it. But a) the movie made a lot of money, of course it would get a sequel. And b) some artists are arrogant hacks who actually think that the audience's behavior hangs on their word. If they didn't take the right message then I guess they just communicated wrong.
Truth is most people get when a character is supposed to be bad. They just also see it as a fantasy and so don't care as much about realistic standards.
But you listen to the media and its self-aggrandizing delusion that everyone is hanging on the teachings of wordcels and you want to go back and fix it. And because Todd Philips already had a bad track record with sequels going in and Joker never needed one you get...something that is apparently not good at pushing its message.
Tanista
1mo ago
Their primary motivation is profit and status, and for the money people behind the scenes, it's profit. They care a lot less about culture war than you do.
The problem for your theory is that a lot of the creatives gain status by parroting or reproducing the tenets of their side of the culture war. Look at things like Amandla Stenberg's victimhood complex because she's -half - black, or how entire works like Eternals are marketed on "diversity", or the asinine changes made to Snow White because Peter Dinklage decided other dwarves getting jobs was problematic.
If you're a mediocre creative on a mediocre show that was hired because of inclusion standards to a work that far predates you and is frankly beyond your competence, what do you have to sell but The Message^(tm)? You have to dance with the one that brung ya.
Hollywood looks the way it does because Hollywood has always been full of both "creatives" and studio execs who are actually very bad at their jobs and make bombs regularly.
Sure. The odd bit is that what's happening now is that Hollywood is incredibly IP-heavy compared to the past and even IPs with a track record are suddenly bombing despite us knowing they can appeal to their audience.
Nobody spends time on theories about why Sony comic book movies suck. They suck cause Sony sucks. Nobody wonders why Coppola took a huge shot and failed with Megalopolis. It happens.
It is worth wondering why successful franchises like MCU and Star Wars seem to be going against their audience desires (and outright being hostile to their fans) and suffering though.
I wouldn't say that they're burning money just to Subvert Expectations cause they hate people. In fact, it's probably because they've been successful with these franchises that they think they can experiment with drawing in new audiences without their contempt for the legacy fanbase costing them.
The theory is that they don't have to choose. They can serve their diversity goals (both in front of and behind the camera) while also making more money because there's an untapped market of female nerds who want to push the MCU as far as it's gone with the male cast.
It's a weird sort of incumbent's arrogance that they can have it all, made worse by their ideological commitments.
Tanista
1mo ago
I think, if a society already has a strong taboo against alcohol consumption, there's good reason to maintain said taboo legally. Whatever benefits were gained historically, I'm not sure it matters now. And the taboo suppressing consumption would hopefully tamp down on the natural consequences of creating a black market good.
I've seen some Muslim reformers like Mustafa Akyol defend the right to drink alcohol as part of liberalizing Islam and I always thought it was not just a huge strategic error (I worry it seems very suspicious to focus on that element - which brings Muslim cultures more superficially in line with Western ones - to conservatives who might otherwise listen) but of little practical good and much harm anyway.
Tanista
1mo ago
I mean, it's entirely possible Iran targeted like, empty deserts and artillery ranges because the point was showing that they could get through Israeli air defenses, not inflicting casualties.
Iran seems to have targeted Israeli air bases
Maybe they weren't aiming at casualties, but they seem to have been making a statement.
Tanista
1mo ago
I recognize that the policies of the GOP are dangerous to minority groups in this country.
How?
Perhaps it’s a technology thing
It's probably also an accountability thing. For democracies like America it can be very damaging to have your name on a political boondoggle like a war. Arguably, voting for the Iraq War is what cost Hillary the Presidency. So it's easier to just let the President stretch his powers to wage what are effectively wars.
For other states a declaration of war would have to be withdrawn in a negotiated or imposed peace which may cause the regime to incur political costs it just doesn't want to deal with.
Tanista
1mo ago
These things are always hard to tell when you're hearing about it second-hand
A problem that also extends to whoever is responsible for managing this dispute in the end unfortunately.
Most colonized societies didn't have anywhere near the ability to do this.
There are more modest achievements that make the point.
If I wanted to pick a topical example it'd be El Salvador. You also hear people blaming deported US gangs (like that makes it the US' responsibility) but a solution was not only imposed by local elites, following well-meaning Western liberals likely would have made things worse.
I said it was simple, not that you would find it credible. But that's the argument.
You start giving counter-examples and you'll hear about Haiti's reparations, slaves building America, coups in LatAm, how India had X% of the world's GDP before Britain looted it, bad borders in Africa and the ME, sanctions against Zimbabwe meanwhile honorary white Japan (which was spared colonialism - somehow) was needed as a bulwark against the Soviets and so was treated relatively well. They have explanations, it's just a matter of how much you think they're cope (I've swung over to the "cope" side but I change most of my opinions an average of every eight years and I'm in the "converted zealot" stage and it's really not helpful for digging out nuance.)
It may not hold up but it's the closest thing to a coherent justification for the asymmetry I've seen.
You asked for some theory that would allow one and not the other, not just an explanation of nakedly self-serving behavior. I doubt anyone needs to hear "my opponents want me to believe things that help them and to avoid things that don't" from me.
I feel like Canadians used to be very smug about being a first world nation. America with +40% niceness and +20% multiculturalism basically.
I don't know what happened. My social circle has narrowed in terms of ethnic Anglo/native-born Canadians outside of a few at work and my media diet is extremely Americanized (and hyper-guilt driven) so maybe I don't see it as much (or people really are just tired after the recent migrant wave). On the other hand that may be true of Canadians themselves, which might explain the increased pessimism. Or whatever common factor drove the hope-and-change era around the time I arrived in both countries is just done everyone is now more pessimistic.
I am utterly unclear as to the mechanism that allows blame to propagate forward through time and generations but doesn't allow credit and pride to propagate as well.
Other countries didn't succeed in becoming first world nations because Canada/America/the West's success is based on their exploitation. Simple.
As a migrant who mainly works with migrants , the complaints about housing and traffic are identical to what you'd assume the white "racist" would say.
It's at the point where more secure migrants are annoyed at the last wave.
What makes you think there isn't direct evidence?
It'd be one thing if we were talking about middle class Indians piling into an inordinately expensive and crowded Toronto apartment and a shitty mall degree. But I think most asylum seekers to Europe are probably right that it's a better deal.
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