TequilaMockingbird
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User ID: 3097
TequilaMockingbird
1mo ago
Who says they aren't already?
TequilaMockingbird
1mo ago
Fair point but still something to keep in mind going forward.
I don't know if your username is intended as a reference to this classic but I like it either way, and if so, mad respect for the deep cut.
Interestingly there seems to be similar situation brewing with Walz.
https://facebook.com/story.php?id=100006969510534&story_fbid=2192944367614526
That post is from 2018 but i expect that it will be either memoryholed or suddenly relevant shortly.
TequilaMockingbird
1mo ago
I'll keep that in mind and be extra sure to keep an alt account in my back pocket.
TequilaMockingbird
1mo ago
The Harris Campaign has existed for all of two weeks and has thus far managed not to accidentally shoot themselves.
That this is impressing anyone says more about the current weakness of and low-expectations for Democratic Party than it does Harris' strength
TequilaMockingbird
1mo ago
There's also the Jewish question aluded to above. Democrats need to drive turnout and and that means keeping Dearborn and and all those student activists waving Palestinian flags onboard.
I know the BabylonBee is supposed to be satire but in this case I think they may have scooped the New York Times.
TequilaMockingbird
1mo ago
Its interesting to me that mods can apperently see who reports which comments. I'd have assumed that reports would be anonymous.
Good to know.
These rioters are generally low human capital people who take out a lot more over the course of their life than they put in. It's not scientists and lawyers you see giving the middle finger to police officers and pushing garbage bins in their general direction. I think it is perfectly fair to say that as a group they are best characterized as failures who have disappointed their betters and what's more don't even think there is anything wrong with their current state and behavior.
I know I shouldn't be feeding the troll, but I am curious. Have you considered the inverse formulation?
When you are not sneering at Western culture and expressing your disdain for "the natives" you will often wax on about how poorly run your home country is and how pleased you were to escape.
What if the reason your home country is poorly run is that it's elite is comprised of people like you? That is "effete button pushers" who only extract value from a system/community without ever adding any value.of thier own.
Other users such as @RandomRanger and @functor have already touched on this idea, but what if the reason for our superior western standards of living is those very "low human capital people" you despise so much? The kind of person who remains orderly and organized even in a riot. Perhaps the reason that Great Britain has declined from owning half the world to its current state is that its "elites" have chosen to privilege parasites such as yourself over the yeoman steelworkers and Tommy Atkins who actually built the Empire.
TequilaMockingbird
1mo ago
TequilaMockingbird
1mo ago
Color me surprised that there are other people here who follow NASCAR.
The point of that subthread was that it was difficult to read the moralistic framing of thier objection as genuine or sincere when they had, up until very recently, been advocating for and engaging in similar behavior and that when confronted with fact thier responce was "screw you" instead of "I screwed up".
My point is that these incidents are not "unrelated" they are examples of the same fundemental failure-mode being discussed and make for a better example than Scott Alexander for the reasons stated above
TequilaMockingbird
1mo ago
I was introduced to the rat-sphere around late 2012/early 2013 and the transition period I'm thinking of was around 2015-ish. Its hard to point to exactly when the schism began as it happened slowly over time, but it was largely complete by the time Scott had his "You're Still Crying Wolf" moment in 2016.
As for the rest lets just say that those who attended some of the early rat-space meet-ups at the house of the UC professor who carried a duck were a memorable crowd.
TequilaMockingbird
1mo ago
See my reply to 4bpp below
It's not an "unrelated context" though.
Ive been reading and commenting in Rat-Adjacent spaces under various pseudonyms since my freshman year of college. I watched the transition of LessWrong from a place to discuss epistemology to a social club for a Silicon Valley nerds to vent thier spleens and "pwn the normies" in real time.
The three people I mentioned were not picked at random, they were picked because they played an active role in that transformation by arguing for the legitimacy of the so-called "dark arts" so long so long as they were weilded "appropriately".
As those "dark arts" gained acceptance, those who were not part of the SV/MIRI/EA clique drifted away and evaporative cooling took over.
I agree with @raakaa is that Scott is a bad example, because as i remember it Scott was one of the few grandees of the rationalist movement to actually stick to his guns and try to push-back against this transformation while it was happening, for this he became a target for these "dark arts" himself.
Call it "Seething" if you like but as @Dean observed last month memory and context are powerful things.
TequilaMockingbird
1mo ago
The US was neutral for the first couple decades of Isreal's existence becaus the US was trying to cozy up to Syria and Egypt to keep them out of the Soviet orbit.
It wasn't until 1962 that JFK lifted the embargo prohibitting Isreal from purchasing US arms and by which time the Isrealis had already fought two wars against the Arab world without US help.
This idea you seem to have that US relations with the arab world would be cordial and the middle east peaceful it weren't for those medlesome Jews displays a deep ignorance of both the diplomatic and economic realities of the 20th century (cough oil and the Cold War) as well as the centuries of cultural conflict both within the Arab world and between the Arabs and the West preceding it.
TequilaMockingbird
1mo ago
Did you not finish reading the comment? Specifically the bit about them all being in the same camp.
True,
people like Matthew Yglesias, Contrapoints, and TracingWoodgrains would be far better examples as they were all solidly in the "no bad tactics, only bad targets" and "its just a bit of harmless trolling" camp right until those tactics started to be weilded against people/institutions they cared about.
TequilaMockingbird
1mo ago
"Catastrophic" compared to what?
TequilaMockingbird
1mo ago
Proof? Of course not. But FWIW, Communists entering biological men into women's sporting competitions as a means to pwn the West is a meme that significantly predates the current Trans movement
TequilaMockingbird
1mo ago
The fundemental problem facing pretty much any Democratic candidate today is that "woke people" are overwhelmingly pro-Iran/Hamas and anti-Isreal while US interests both economic and diplomatic skew the other way.
This puts the Democrats in a bit of a pickle. They need to be seen providing material support to Hamas lest they alienate thier base, hence the Gaza pier. But they also need to credibly signal that they don't really mean it if the want to appear competent hence the failure of said pier and the nomination of Shapiro as VP.
TequilaMockingbird
1mo ago
There was a whole thing back in the late 00s/early 10s over Hezbollah leaders vacationing and doing speaking engagements in France due to so many Lebanese holding dual citizenship.
TequilaMockingbird
1mo ago
I think a lot of the wehraboos are still salty about '36.
but why not assassinate in Qatar?
Qatar was one of the first Arab nations to start normalizing thier relations with Isreal back in the 90s. Unlike those of Iran or Syria, Qatari diplomatic opinion actually carries some whieght with the Isreali government.
The classic breast and side strokes are slow but efficient so you do see them used a fair bit in combined events like triathalons and by channel swimmers and the like. Butterfly and freestyle are faster but also have significant downsides when used outside a pool or closed course
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