Tree
22hr ago
The only reason we let russians blame the west/liberalism for their 90s economic woes is pity for being so shameless and pathetic. The awareness and agency of an 8-year old kid. They really thought that if they mouthed magical words like capitalism and liberalism, their crumbling garbage economy would be instantly fixed, and if not, they would be freed from all responsibility. They’re still there now, taking no responsibility, obsequiously following and approving whatever their rulers tell them, as if it were a religious ritual.
The anti-west allies of russia (cuba, north korea) got it worse, an entire generation of malnourished dwarves.
You’re not citing these better-run countries you are admiring and enjoying, I can’t argue against a figment of your imagination.
Try to have a honest discussion of the heresies of biology in the West, see what happens to you.
We have them here, and nothing happens. I’m very much anti-censorship, but even with it, I think you can stack liberal democracies against its credible rivals and they come out ahead on individual liberty.
I think your entire ideology is based on a strawman of liberalism. For example, you guys rail against the ‘liberal rules-based international order’, and when russia invades some country you say: “you see, there is no such thing”, as if the LIO was a supernatural being or a ‘sacred covenant’ whose existence was disproven by the lack of a miraculous intervention. And so, seemingly, everything is still alright and we should do nothing.
But of course the LIO was never real in that sense. Real are the consequences that follow the realization that russia is not an economic partner, but a threat and an enemy. If there was no LIO, or if we were in the past, we would already be at war with russia for attacking our vassal.
And that's to say nothing of the utter self betrayal that liberal economics has become. Bastiat has been rolling in his grave, and not because of some populist's tariffs.
I live in the real world, not in the construct of philosophers, and down here, liberal democracies are the most economically successful.
Tree
1d ago
Makes sense because traditional film criticism got unreadable right around that time. It was either marvel-fried brain « things asplode good ! » or rigid DEI point-counting in the style of christian film criticism for children : swearing -1 point, ignoring parents’ advice -2 points, etc.
Tree
1d ago
You think the russian people are flourishing ? As bad as our elites possibly are, they have not sent us to die in some ditch for some retarded historical larp.
Our elites may not differ in kind, especially if you compare them to some ideal of incorruptible honesty and virtue, but they differ in degree. They may lie here and there, but trump lies more because he does not care at all about the truth. And Putin does not care at all if his people die.
I understand your frustrations with being insulted and stuff (although really, the worse offenders are your postmodern cousins. It’s not me and my people’s doing ; if anything, we were sorry to lose you), but one can always do way worse than government by liberal elites. Just look anywhere else.
Tree
1d ago
That does not explain our different positions, iggy, old branch. When I denounce someone like putin, which you sort of support, as a corrupt murderer, my criticism does not rely on him breaking a ‘sacred covenant’. And when I call trump a liar, the truth he tramples on is not an illusion.
Tree
1d ago
Defend your postmodern beliefs directly, instead of appealing to their popularity.
How do you retvrn to hobbes and bentham if foucault’s right, exactly ?
A, it’s not true, and B, even if, I’m not in the habit of surrendering my beliefs to the zeitgeist.
I think Trump II being so very unbounded in its trumpism has the potential to flush out a lot of postmodernist rot on both sides out of the west’s system. Step 1 : conscious sledgehammer to woke institutions. Step 2 : unintentionally fuck the rest up with post-truth populism. Step 3 : everyone’s back in the happy happy modernist center.
Tree
2d ago
I’m not bound by your partisan tactical considerations when describing the world. The woke right has been saying stuff like ‘the woke are more correct than the mainstream’ so naturally the label fits. They are postmodernist in outlook, they straight up adopt the oppressor-oppressed dichotomy with the valence switched.
Tree
2d ago
Who gives a shit though? Like you say, maybe this jury-rigged relationship is the best they can get. So good luck and god bless.
I dislike the use of the word ’normalization’, I feel it grants the woke frame of living under ‘hegemonic heterosexuality’, and all the other axes of oppression. Ie, that the abnormal are oppressed. The alt right/woke right otoh, believe they should be. So they angrily debate whether normalization is a good thing or a bad thing.
But to me it is nothing. Because modern society does not, and I especially do not, oppress anyone for not being normal. So the stakes are very low.
Tree
3d ago
To the degree that the christian sexuality norms can work for a society, they do so in the compromises, between the cracks, of the true christian vision, which is just anti-sex asceticism. Like paul’s ‘ok fine, if you have to, I guess you can fuck your wife’. Or Thomas aquinas borrowing of pagan aristoteles’ sexual ideas rather than augustine’s. Or all the priests who looked away when young people had sex, or when married men went to prostitutes. That was christian sexuality norms’ finest hour, when they did not insist upon themselves, but accomodated human nature.
Tree
3d ago
For Augustine every sex act not for procreation is a sin. Augustine never left any space for healthy sexual desire after the fall. Thomas Aquinas follows Augustine’s opinion when he says that sexuality exists for the sake of propagation and for the strengthening of the marriage bond between a man and a woman. So here again there’s the idea that sexuality is just an instrument, and there’s no inherent value in physical sexual enjoyment itself.
But then Thomas also borrows from Aristoteles’ view that the spiritual and the physical are closely related to each other instead of in conflict, and that reason should ‘coach’ our desires instead of suppressing them, and so accepts that the physical-sensual part of the person has its own longings and joy. Sensual pleasure is good for the physical-sensual and therefore for the entire person.
So I think it's pretty confusing under what circumstances you're allowed to enjoy yourself. As a byproduct mostly.
Tree
3d ago
I read it as: it's one spouse's duty to release the other's demons. It's not about you, it's not about having fun, it's a means to an end. I have my own biases, but I don't buy the christian counseling websites spin of 1 corinthians 7 to be a 60s hippy pro-sex message. Cite me some pre-20th century catholic authority that encourages sexual pleasure in marriage.
Tree
3d ago
They're not exactly "encouraged to enjoy sex with their spouse", that's new age degeneracy. It's better to abstain and pray according to the church fathers. But because humans are so weak, the married are supposed to occasionally close their eyes and think of canaan so their spouse does not engage in sexual intercourse with lucifer or other people, which would be like, so much more disgusting.
1 Corinthians 7: 1 Now for the matters you wrote about: “It is good for a man not to have sexual relations with a woman.” 2 But since sexual immorality is occurring, each man should have sexual relations with his own wife, and each woman with her own husband. The husband should fulfill his marital duty to his wife, and likewise the wife to her husband. 4 The wife does not have authority over her own body but yields it to her husband. In the same way, the husband does not have authority over his own body but yields it to his wife. 5 Do not deprive each other except perhaps by mutual consent and for a time, so that you may devote yourselves to prayer. Then come together again so that Satan will not tempt you because of your lack of self-control.
Tree
3d ago
Pretty good idea, I have a lot in cash and defensive stocks atm myself. This paper argues that you should only invest at ATH and bail when the going gets tough.
Tree
3d ago
I have no ideological affinity to hlynka, quite the contrary, since he was once the most pro-censorship of all the mods of this place, and I think they should ease up on it.
Tree
6d ago
Damn, I have to register that you were right and I was wrong, it was not an insane guess. In light of the fact that the pool of internet people is so fucking shallow, I must conclude that igi is lemoine, dase is karlin and rafa is yarvin.
Tree
6d ago
That‘s not evidence of anything. He had like 50 responses, he can‘t be expected to respond to all.
How interesting the discussion he was trying to have is, is really beside the point.
If you threaten to shoot me and I leave I did not ‚self-deport‘ of my own free will. If you threaten to put me in jail and I cop a plea I did not willingly go to jail. The man was bargaining in the shadow of the law.
Tree
6d ago
I think you're a reasonable guy, like the two under discussion, so I would never do that.
Tree
6d ago
Right, I disagree that "his comments were pretty obviously unkind and failing to make reasonably clear and plain points, on top of making extreme claims without proactively providing evidence" and 'deleterious to debate'. So at least take out the 'obviously's and 'blatant's.
Else I'd have to report an "attempt to build consensus or enforce ideological conformity." (illustrating the point about the rules applying to whoever we choose).
Tree
6d ago
Those rules are so vague they can apply to anyone. And when you‘re facing a hostile community, they apply to you.
The ‚they‘re obviously not interested in debate‘ talking point is an absurd, but very common justification for censoriousness. Just dumping the responsibility for one‘s negatively- coded actions onto the victim. Here or on reddit, you hear that every time an OP doesn‘t cave immediately to the social consensus. To the stake with OP! He „has been given ample opportunity“ [to repent].
Tree
6d ago
Well, if he‘s really not interested in debate, let him leave, don‘t ban him(or threaten to ban him). Call it keeping the moral high ground. I don‘t see anything wrong with ‚starting an argument‘.
But bottom line, I think millard or hlynka are reasonable people, who should not be banned for their overconfident tone.
Tree
6d ago
We should ask the pseudo-communist. He was genuine. How did you find us, @MillardJMelnyk?
I‘ll also note that the harsh moderation pushed him away (He‘s also obviously been downvoted for disagreement, but I‘m just wasting my time complaining about this, and it‘s not the main factor).
Tree
8d ago
This is perverse whether it's your funeral or some other party. As I've said like 3 times now, it has nothing to do with your death!
Disagree, it’s way worse when the sponsor’s a dead guy. And destroy value for the dead used to be a common cultural practice.
Or I could still do it myself in this bizarro world, but I'd have to go through a convoluted legal process to do so. For example, I could build a nonprofit with the sole stated goal of giving me a funeral, hire someone to run the nonprofit, and then give them enough money to pay for the funeral.
I’d close that loophole. I don’t like foundations controlled by a ‘dead hand’ anyway, especially if they have large assets. Harvard, the rockefeller foundation, churches etc, they don’t need all those assets, they need to be brutally taxed imo. As long as joe sixpack still has to pay some taxes, the state should go after those zombie assets first.
If your opinion is actually that contracts with dead people should be voided
What examples of contracts that should not be voided by death, are you thinking of? Marriage and mortgage are , hum, liquidated. Insurance contracts, work contracts, are just cancelled. Wills would definitely be voided if the inheritance tax was 100%.
Tree
8d ago
You're setting yourself up for failure when you start these conversations by talking about whether dead people have any right to their assets at all.
I'm not doing PR, you know. I often phrase my opinions in a deliberately provocative manner to poke the bear, encourage discussion and the questioning of assumptions. "We're living in a necrocracy, sheeple!".
Any contract I make that involves paying for a funeral is void upon my death--the company can just run off with my money.
Let's say you organized your funeral where there'd be a bonfire of priceless works of art, destroying hundreds of brand-new washing machines , slaughtering and burning 10,000 heads of cattle. I do find that a bit perverse.
Likewise, sometimes your organs can save another human - it should not be allowed to be buried with such treasures.
Any contract I make that involves paying for a funeral is void upon my death--the company can just run off with my money.
You would not make such a contract obviously. If your family and friends care about you, I'm sure they will organize something.
Tree
8d ago
Sure, that's a problem I acknowledge. I'd have to tax live gifts to children, though the argument there is weaker than in the inheritance case.
But the state taxes you whatever you do: working, buying, owning a house, making capital gains etc (a lot of it is economically productive, and in theory entirely yours), so I never understand the 'double dipping' complaints, or how people get offended when a new tax is proposed: "But it's my money, I should be able to do whatever I want with it, and I want my kids to get it"
"Okay, but it was also your money when they took part of your salary, then when you bought something with it, and when your investments paid off, and the public media tax, and the car licence tax and so on.... it's not double dipping, it's infinite dipping, you're on a merry-go-round of taxes, so what's one more at this point?" .
And no matter what guys like @The_Nybbler think, not all discussion of taxes is some dishonest ploy by his blue enemies to raise taxes. I would like overall taxes and spending to be slashed, starting with the pensions and welfare. We should be able to discuss which taxes are better (obviously inheritance, wealth, property, tobacco, congestion, consumption, and speeding tickets) without the bad faith accusations.
Are there any non-muslim immigrants doing this at scale? You don’t hear about the vietnamese or mexican rape gangs. You need the islamic peculiarities of :
Anyway, looks like germany will close the border so this insanity can finally end, or at least, not get worse.
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