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Culture War Roundup for the week of August 5, 2024

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Who is going to fight for them and why?

This is not the position of strength you imagine it to be. In fact, threatening non-participation is a lose-lose-lose position for anyone not absolutely and forever essential - which is almost everyone.

Imagine that young natives don’t join up the fight, but young immigrants do. Now you have immigrants taking over your armed forces from the bottom. Whichever amount of immigrants die in war is replaced by more immigration. Natives lose.

Now imagine that neither natives nor immigrants join. The natives will be forcibly drafted, since they obviously won’t organize as a community to resist a draft. The immigrants will organize and not be drafted. Natives die off in war and their relative numbers further decline. As draftees they are ejected back at the end of the war, worse off than before. Natives lose again.

If only natives join up and immigrants don’t, then the threat is seen for the bluff that it was and the natives earn nothing but death at the front lines. Natives lose.

The natives will be forcibly drafted, since they obviously won’t organize as a community to resist a draft. The immigrants will organize and not be drafted. Natives die off in war and their relative numbers further decline. As draftees they are ejected back at the end of the war, worse off than before. Natives lose again.

Drafts are theoretically compulsory but realistically if people don't want to fight that still makes a big difference. For a lot of reasons.

This is some fun fictional thought experiments but remember Vietnam? Remember fragging? I’m a millennial but even I know how bad things can get

Is that supposed to be a counter example? If so, please explain who threatened non-participation and gained something for it.

I would argue blacks fought hard against being forced to enlist, saying “why should we fight for a country that hates us? No viet cong ever called me nigger” and therefore benefited greatly in their fight for greater social privileges

Did they benefit because they threatened not to go to war and gained their rights before enlisting, or because they did actually go to war?

The went to war because they were drafted but they rioted heavily as a result

No Russian ever called me privileged cis-hetero white male.

The natives will be forcibly drafted

By who? The Ukrainian 'drag them into the van' approach works because they've been pumping out nationalist and anti-Russian sentiment for years and years, plus they have a very clear threat and plenty of useful history to draw upon. And it only works in that the country hasn't yet collapsed. Huge numbers of people have already fled, they don't want to die for Zelensky.

Trying forcible conscription in a country like America today would be a courageous decision, both amongst politicians and draft officers. The US military was thoroughly demoralized in Vietnam, they could not adequately motivate the troops. A world war against multiple great powers is a much bigger stress-test.

Non-participation is already happening. All across the West, nobody is joining the military. Despite all this geopolitical tension and war propaganda, our armies and fleets are actively shrinking. Elite Human Capital cannot find anyone to die for them, they are lowering physical and mental standards and still falling short as the white population opts out. Qualitative and quantitative decline is already locked in. That's the force that we go to war with, the hard core that the conscripts are supposed to support.

Unwilling soldiers are not very effective in combat and neither are most immigrants (on both HBD and motivation grounds). We are set to lose and lose badly, which is bad for everyone but especially troublesome for the reigning political elite.

By who?

By the same mechanisms that makes native populations generally law abiding as is. Social shaming, an internal drive to be pro-social, and a few resistors being made example of.

Ukraine

Ukraine is a losing position for the natives. The men are dying, the women are fleeing and marrying foreigners. Their culture is suffering greatly. Their only hope is that they won’t let in migrants post-war, so that they may slowly rebuild. Otherwise they may forever lose their civilization.

We are set to lose and lose badly

Another lose condition for your culture, then. I didn’t intend to catasrophize like this, but obviously literally losing to a foreign power is a lose condition.

The intended win condition should have been “natives threaten non-participation and earn concessions from the elites”, and I intended to show that it’s unrealistic and empirically isn’t happening.

I point out that you won't be doing well in a world where the US takes a major loss. Assuming that you're Israeli based on the hebrew and 'your culture' remark, there will be all kinds of problems coming your way. China might like a bit of Israeli technology but they're ideologically and historically committed to the other side of the Middle East struggle, they've been working with Iran for some time now. It'll be back to '67 borders for you and that's a best-case scenario.

Social shaming, an internal drive to be pro-social

That stuff works in a disciplined, united society where men are actually moved if they get a white feather. It doesn't work today, especially amongst young people from Western Europe and its offshoots where nationalism has been all but stamped out and individualism is the order of the day. Nobody is going to get blown up by a drone so that Taiwan can have gay pride parades, only a small fraction truly believe.

obviously literally losing to a foreign power is a lose condition

China is far away. The biggest effects will be political and economic. Ukraine and Asia excepted, we are not looking at annexations. People are already fed up with how government is run, losing a big war will be the end for Elite Human Capital.

I point out that you won't be doing well in a world where the US takes a major loss.

I don’t want you to lose. I want the part of American culture that’s aligned with my values to participate in America’s institutions. I want you to flourish, but you won’t get there by lying down! You need to pick yourself up and rediscover civic duty!

China

China is no friend of ours, I agree.

That stuff works in a disciplined, united society where men are actually moved if they get a white feather. It doesn't work today, especially amongst young people from Western Europe and its offshoots where nationalism has been all but stamped out and individualism is the order of the day. Nobody is going to get blown up by a drone so that Taiwan can have gay pride parades, only a small fraction truly believe.

That’s a bad thing, that you shouldn’t accept. If native Americans / Brits don’t participate, either someone else will or your entire nation will suffer. That is my point.

China is far away. The biggest effects will be political and economic.

Those effects are terrible! Besides the fact that I don’t believe there will be a hot war between the US and China, and that I don’t think you’ll lose if there is one, if you do lose a hot war to China the implications are huge. I’m not sure if you know how rich the US is today thanks to your world hegemony, which implies how far you could sink. Don’t downplay it, there are only bad outcomes that can come from a free society losing to the world’s biggest fascist state.

Edit, forgot to answer this:

Assuming that you're Israeli

Correct. I used to think the pfp gave it up, but I guess Shabbat candles aren’t as obvious reference as I thought.

That’s a bad thing, that you shouldn’t accept. If native Americans / Brits don’t participate, either someone else will or your entire nation will suffer. That is my point.

Would you tell this to jews who were offered the choice to collaborate with nazis?

Jews were a minority barred from participating in the public institutions of Nazi Germany, so it’s not a good parallel to the natives majorities who are willingly giving up their places and power. If Jews could e.g. join the SS, I would absolutely think it was a good idea for them to join en-mass and change it from within.

If Jews could e.g. join the SS, I would absolutely think it was a good idea for them to join en-mass and change it from within.

What if they were only allowed to join as canon fodder, and never as higher ranks? If "changing from within" could happen the way you describe, we wouldn't be where we are now.

For that instance specifically, and with the benefit of hindsight, I’d tell them to join for the arms and training.

In this instance, what exactly is keeping your tribe from rising in the ranks of institutions? Especially given that you already were there. Is it some analogue of the patriarchy or institutional racism?

More comments

Another lose condition for your culture, then. I didn’t intend to catasrophize like this, but obviously literally losing to a foreign power is a lose condition.

So we go from western hegemony to a multipolar world (we are actually already there but many still haven’t woken up to that fact). I’m not miffed. Western hegemony has unleashed stagnation and decadence. Conflict breeds innovation and potentiates natural selection, important forces for revitalizing humanity

Where is the part where you, your children and your culture flourish? You won’t get there by losing a war to China, of all things.

What does it benefit me for Taiwan to remain free? Why should I sacrifice my brother, my son; or my life for some Taiwanese and the EHC that hates me?

It benefits you to be hegemon, and it benefits your camp to be in the institutions of hegemony. It doesn’t matter if the fighting happens in Taiwan, Korea, or the Department of Education

It doesn’t benefit me if me I’m dead or my relatives die in the fighting.

How about we making immigration conditional on being automatically drafted in any foreign wars instead?