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naraburns  nihil supernum  1yr ago (text post)   31654 thread views

Culture War Roundup for the week of January 9, 2023

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The massive growth in "administrators" has been one of the factors responsible for education cost inflation far in excess to the general economy.

Well, turns out the same problem exists in health care too. The data is clear. If people can carve out a comfortable but ultimately superflous sinecure for themselves and get away with it, why wouldn't they? That part is obvious. What I don't understand is why everyone else lets them, whether in healthcare or education. Because the rest of us end up footing the bill.

The first issue is the principle agent problem. "The rest of us" aren't in charge of hiring and firing them, their boss is. And for the most part their boss doesn't suffer negative consequences of having them around, because they do mildly useful administrative work which makes the boss' life slightly easier. Nowhere near enough to justify their full salary, but enough for the boss to justify a numerical increase on their budget spreadsheet.

In most businesses, this is partially, but not fully, countered by economic incentives. Shareholders in a company demand profit, and customers demand lower prices, and these can't be fulfilled simultaneously except by cutting costs. Companies with more slack: ones with natural monopolies or regulatory advantages or just temporarily on an upswing, are much more vulnerable to administrative bloat because there is less of this pressure. Look at all the cushy but low-productivity positions in the tech industry in the past few years, it's because they have so much slack that people can afford to waste someone else's money. The investors are unlikely complain or even notice that they only earned $1 billion this year when by all rights they should have earned $1.2 billion, while the difference between +$100 million versus -$100 million is going to cause heads to roll.

The situation in healthcare, at least in America, is broken in a slightly different way than just having lots of money though. It's this weird trifecta between the healthcare provider, the insurance companies, and the customers. Rather than customers shopping around for products they like, and declining or substituting a different good if costs are too high, demand is unpredictable and drastic. Bam, health problem happens, person goes to the nearest hospital, gets treated, and then gets a bill afterwards. Further, they don't even pay the bill themselves, they forward it to an insurance company who pays most of it and makes the customer pay some "deductible" which is usually not tied to how much the treatment actually costs. So the demand is highly inelastic. If healthcare prices rise the same number of people are going to have healthcare problems, and although some of them might choose not to get treated, that's a really bad outcome. And even if a customer manages to get to a cheaper more efficient healthcare provider, they're unlikely to see the benefits because of how insurance works.

All of this means that everything is much less tied to the normal economic incentives that keep prices low. Each hospital has something like a small local monopoly over their area and can raise prices and afford bloat with little consequence.

The second issue is that not all of the administrative work is bloat, from a local perspective. The weird adversarial relationship between insurance companies and healthcare providers necessitates a lot of administrative work that isn't productive on a global economic scale but is locally useful to their employer. If the provider hires someone who increases the success rate of convincing the insurance company to pay for treatment that already happens by a small amount, they might bring in an extra $200k a year, which justifies a salary of $100k a year and earns $100k profit. But if the insurance company hires a similar person who lowers the probability by the same amount, that justifies a salary of $100k for that person and when considered alone is a $100k profit for the insurance company. But these two people cancel each other out, and then net effect to the economy is that $200k extra is being used up on administrative salaries. Rinse and repeat until the marginal effect of such people decreases enough that the companies are no longer incentivized to hire more of them, and now there's millions of dollars going down the drain in a way that is locally rational for each company, but globally wasteful. It's a classic public goods dilemma.

Add in a bunch of nonsense legal regulations that exist for ostensibly good purposes but probably don't actually justify their costs, and you have even more demand for locally rational but globally wasteful administration.

The entire system is a mess and needs to be destroyed and replaced with... something. National healthcare fixes the second problem but not the first. Maybe that's good enough? The primary complaint about nationalizing anything is that it causes the first problem: prices are decoupled from economic incentives so nobody is incentivized to reduce bloat. We already have that problem in healthcare, and I don't nationalizing it would make it much worse, so I'm tentatively in favor, but if possible would prefer a privatized system that somehow fixed both problems (I have no idea how though).

It's Monday, you might want to wait for the new thread for this one.

The way the Russian government is handling the war in Ukraine strongly reminds me of the Kursk incident.

As a brief reminder, the incident featured a Russian nuclear submarine that experienced a fatal malfunction: the explosion of a torpedo that then triggered more of its torpedoes to explode. The blasts killed most of the crew and the few that remained alive sheltered in the tail end of the submarine, which dropped to the bottom of the Barents Sea. The incident received international attention in August 2000 because of a seemingly endless series of mishaps during the rescue operation:

  • the Russian Navy was accustomed to frequent comm equipment failure so it didn't take any action when the Kursk failed to check in.

  • the Navy's rescue ship was a former lumber ship and could only operate in calm seas.

  • the admiral in charge of the military exercise that Kursk was part of informed the Kremlin of the incident about 12 hours after it it took place.

  • the next day, the same admiral informed the Russian press that the exercise had been a resounding success.

  • one of two Russian submersibles used for the rescue operation collided with the Kursk and required repairs.

  • the second submersible was used but failed to locate the Kursk.

  • the next day, the first submersible was fit for action and sent to attach itself to the Kursk, but it took too long and it ran out of batteries. There were no spares, so the rescue operation had to be put on hold until the batteries was recharged. Meanwhile, the weather got worse and the operation had to be held off until the next day.

  • the first official report of the incident to the Russian media stated that the Kursk had experience a minor technical difficulty.

  • Russian officials first stated that the problem was a result of a collision, most likely with a WWII mine.

  • the second submersible was damaged again while being it was being prepared to be lowered for another mission.

  • the second submersible was repaired and made two attempts to attach itself to the Kursk, but both failed. As it was being picked up by its ship, it was seriously damaged.

  • a few days into the operation, the Navy was reporting that from the evidence it had obtained there had been no explosions on the Kursk. (This despite the first two explosions being serious enough to be heard by other vessels taking part in the training as well as seismograph sensors operated by multiple other countries.)

  • initial offers of international assistance were denied. Only 5 days later were they accepted.

  • another admiral of the Russian Navy stated that the incident occurred because of a collision with a NATO submarine. Other officers backed up this report, although no evidence was produced. They kept to this line for nearly two years after the incident.

  • after the wreck was lifted from the sea floor and transported to Russia, an investigation found the incident to have been caused by (get ready) torpedo explosions. It is suspected the root cause was a faulty weld. Also, the automated recording system was disabled along with the rescue bouy.

(For others like me who accidents fascinating I recommend reading the full wiki page: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Kursk_submarine_disaster. Spoiler alert: the remaining Kursk sailors died within a few hours of the accident. The wikipedia entry contains some quite disturbing details of how they died, eg. "(..) abdomen was burned by acid, exposing the internal organs, and the flesh on his head and neck was removed by the explosion.")

What stands out to me here, just from the perspective of incident response is:

  • ineffective incident management. Awful communications. General lack of understanding of the problem at hand, what to do, etc.

  • ineffective rescue equipment. Outdated, unmaintained.

  • numerous human errors: the rescue submersibles were damaged multiple times by their operators!

  • lack of transparency with public. Numerous false statements eg. calling the incident a "minor malfunction."

  • blameful-postmortem. Blaming WW2 mine, at first, then trying to sell a completely made up story about a collision with a NATO vessel.

From where I stand, I see all of these patterns replaying themselves in the current war in Ukraine.

  • Frequent painful logistics problems. Problems with supplying front-line troops with food, water, even adequate clothing.

  • Ineffective, outdated, unmaintained weapons and vehicles. No air superiority. Foreign-made drones that don't work well in cold weather. Not being able to defend bases hundreds of kilometers inside the motherland from a suicide drone strike. The infamous analysis of truck tires from the beginning of the conflict showing that regular maintenance was not done.

  • Bad management. Awful communications. Changes in leadership. Risking and losing high-value equipment like the Moskva.

  • Lack of transparency. 3 day "special operation" that has been going on for 300+ days. The need to mobilize 300k civilian men to fight what was supposed to be a simple little conflict.

  • Lies. Painting the conflict as fight against nazism, Satan, or NATO (ironic to pull the NATO card again after the "collision with NATO submarine" during the Kursk incident). Even starting the conflict by staging a military exercise that, allegedly, even the participants didn't know was the first step in the war. Reassuring the Russian public that Russia will bear no economic pain from being cut off from various trade systems. Repeated threats of using nuclear weapons. Threatening Finland and Sweden.

Note that I'm not touching on the moral aspects of the war, just on the operational ones. In both of these stories, the salient patterns appear to be corruption, inadequate training, lack of management, and constant lying and bluffing that serves to create internal confusion.

If these patterns reflect reality, then the future doesn't look good for the Russian government. I can see two probable ways this can end: a long, drawn burn that ends in the eventual "suffocation"--lack of basic resources to continue the conflict--or a quick, short ending meant to stop the hemorrhaging of resources on a futile conflict. Either is catastrophic or nearly catastrophic for the Federation.

All true, but Russia always looks like this, and it didn't stop them being a global superpower.

As Napoleon used to say "quantity has a quality all its own". Russia is the national avatar of that sentiment.

Yeah, but these aren't the days where survival for a political entity means throwing literal bodies into a figurative meat grinder in order to beat off the Germans. Being a power of any note means having and spending a lot of resources that don't necessarily draw breath or need to take bathroom breaks. This is harder when, as outlined above, your society is a low-trust omnishambles that not only chronically fucks up, but keeps doing so because it refuses to acknowledge that there are problems and instead chooses to deflect the blame on its outgroups.

beat off the Germans.

I think we've all seen that video.

It's heuristics that almost always work all over again. If you're an officer in the armed forces, the chance that your unit or formation will see actual combat is small and gets vanishingly tiny if you're in one of the branches that is useless for changing or supporting the regime in poor and sunny countries. So what if your rescue craft is half disassembled and the crew is incomplete? It's not like it will be required today, or tomorrow, or this week.

When left to its own devices, the armed forces degrade into a bunch of lazy fucks that don't do anything until it's time to play cover your ass, musical chairs edition. You need to create a culture in which hardasses can thrive without being singled out as assholes, and this happens either via attrition during wartime (a very expensive lesson) or via a very deliberate top-down enforcement: never punish the man who reports a fuckup, always punish the man who tries to cover one up, promote men who discover and fix other men's fuckups.

Why single out the Kursk incident specifically? The Soviet/Russian way of handling of any problem is always the same: lie, hide it as long as possible, until it becomes so bad it can not be hidden anymore, sacrifice lives in heroic efforts to un-bungle the mess they made, fail at it due to the inadequacy of means and inability to organize anything in time, lie again about how it is going, blame the victims, bury the evidence, lie a bit more, then promote and award medals to people that presided over the whole mess and blame the West for everything.

Why single out the Kursk incident specifically?

It just came up in a talk I was having with a friend. It was a major News Thing back in the day and I realized I didn't really know the whole story. When I did some reading, it just struck me as tragicomic in how history just repeats itself.

You do not have to even recall the Kursk incident, you could do similarly well investigating sinking of the Moskva cruiser and Black Sea fleet flagship. There are some reports of very poor results from last maintenance report regarding the overall readiness of the cruiser. We are talking about basic things like only 10% of fire extinguishers being functional during the day of the sinking, not to even speak about faults with internal communication, problems with steering and power plant, problems with radars as well as certain anti-missile defence systems that were canibalized to maintain the other ones on the ship.

Even under the best circumstances the Russian military budget is insufficient to maintain one of the largest nuclear arsenals in conjunction with large navy in conjunction with large conscript army with aviation and all the rest. And Russia is far from ideal with huge amount of corruption, nepotism and plain incompetence getting in the way of this already challenging task of maintaining their forces. The result is what we see now.

You do not have to even recall the Kursk incident, you could do similarly well investigating sinking of the Moskva cruiser and Black Sea fleet flagship.

not entirely sure how well Moskva report is confirmed and checked, while Kursk situation is 100% clear.

Note that I'm not touching on the moral aspects of the war, just on the operational ones.

It is noteworthy that a private military company (Wagner) is doing a lot of the difficult front fighting, and the normal Russian army is just following later.

https://twitter.com/MihajlovicMike/status/1612936331587649537

What is interesting is that Soledar is basically PMC against the western-backed (equipment, weapons and above all intelligence) military: Wagner group distinguished themselves as a true crack fighting force, in many aspects better than the French Foreign legion.

Is the private sector also in war more efficient than state bureaucratic militaries?

Is the private sector also in war more efficient than state bureaucratic militaries?

Executive Outcomes was a lot better at fighting than the state militaries of Angola or Sierra Leone. That said, state armed forces usually make up for being inefficient by being able to marshal vastly more resources than any company could dream of and it's rare that a PMC/political paramilitary is bestowed enough resources to really compete on a major battlefield (the Waffen SS is the example of this).

Also, it could be the case that both Executive Outcomes and Wagner derive much of their effectiveness from being able to pick from manpower/leadership pools that are either elite (veterans, often of special forces), motivated (Right Sector militants like the Azov Battalion or their copycats on the Russian side like the Sparta Battalion) or expendable (Wagner's convicts) instead of having to start with average raw civilians.

It'll be interesting to see if Wagner can leverage its competencies (I'd caution that PR may be one of these. Prigozhin seems to at least know the value of a photo shoot.) into getting a bigger share of the Russian military resource pie and what they can do with it.

Executive Outcomes was a lot better at fighting than the state militaries of Angola or Sierra Leone. That said, state armed forces usually make up for being inefficient by being able to marshal vastly more resources than any company could dream of and it's rare that a PMC/political paramilitary is bestowed enough resources to really compete on a major battlefield (the Waffen SS is the example of this).

There's also a matter of the difference between 'efficiency' and 'completeness.' In high-risk/high-cost endeavors, multiple measures of efficiency are meaningless if compromised by a lack of completeness to things outside the scope of the efficiency matrix. 'Efficiency' might be measured in metrics like 'ability to fire X rounds in Y time at Z range,' but completeness might be other factors as 'is there an entirely different unit capable of providing protection to allow the asset to live.' In the Moskva case, the Moskva was likely a very efficient cruise missile launcher right up until the point it sank for lack of a complete air defense concept being implemented.

This is a function of resources, but it's also the sort of resources that differentiate efficient private actors- who focus on cutting costs and unnecessary expenditures- to effective government actors, who use those resources for things other than the primary mission but which support other purposes in aggregate. Even if the governments were to chase 'efficiency' in the private-sense, there's no guarantee that the efficiency won't compromise the non-evaluated metrics and make things more-efficient-but-worse.

A well regarded amateur analyst of the war in Ukraine (Perun) posted a video talking about the Russian concept of 'Vranyo' (враньё). This is a pattern of lying where various parties are aware that the lying is taking place and for what purpose. He basically cites it as a major reason for the lack of effectiveness of the special operation. The video is worth a watch if you have time (1 hour).

talking about the Russian concept of 'Vranyo' (враньё). This is a pattern of lying where various parties are aware that the lying is taking place and for what purpose.

No, "враньё" just means "lying". Source: am a native speaker. There is no some special esoteric concept here that would require the reader to posses a deep familiarity with Orthodox mysticism and ideology of the "Narodnaya Volya" movement, it looks like the analyst is reifying a generic pattern common to any low trust society. Reminds me of those endless "The Japanese concept of..." articles journalists produce when there's a slow news week.

Everybody knows and always knew that Russian state power always lies. People are fine with it. I mean, they of course object when the lies concern something personally important to them (though it almost never has any consequences) but in general everybody accepts and endorses constant and endless stream of lies. In fact, it makes them more content - without the lies, realizing the harsh picture of reality in Russia and what is happening there would be psychologically crushing for many, because most people aren't inherently evil. However, when they have the crutch of government lies, they can believe - or at least pretend to believe, they know it's lies, but they don't care - everything is going fine, Russia is a mighty empire which the rest of the world is in envy of, they are fighting nazis, and they are winning, due to overwhelming power of Russian advanced weapons and strength of its military, etc etc. Lies is what is holding Russia together and allows the war to continue. If somehow Russian government could no longer lie, there wouldn't be any war - or any Russian government as it is now, for that matter.

Lies is what is holding Russia together and allows the war to continue. If somehow Russian government could no longer lie, there wouldn't be any war - or any Russian government as it is now, for that matter.

To be fair, the same applies to all the western governments as well. The only difference is westerners aren't as cynical.

Sometimes I think there are parts of a culture that are not communicable unless a person spends considerable time inside that culture.

This is a subjective and completely anecdotal take: the amount of lying that happens in Eastern European cultures (and others too, probably) is difficult to imagine for someone from a high-trust society. It's just hard to imagine that people could lie for almost no reason at all, I guess. It's somewhat similar in that way to corruption: many of my American friends think they live in a corrupt society. I grew up in a society where my mother, just before ejecting me from her womb, had to present a 'gift' of cognac to the doctor, the head nurse, and the receptionist. A society where lying is as common as asking "How ya doing?" or talking about the weather is in the US.

Lying about big things. Small things. And that gets you accustomed to not relying on anything anyone has said. Did an online merchant say they sent you the item you paid for? Or did the clerk at the store promise your construction materials will be delivered by eod tomorrow? Or perhaps your employee called out sick? There is no way you could know for sure. The only way to increase reliability is to increase the effects of retaliation--hit people where it hurts--meaning, their long-term social standing. So you get to know the other party's friends and family so when an occasion for renege on a promise, the cost of doing so involves shame, perhaps even some ostracism if the stakes are high enough.

In contrast, while you still have a bunch of lying going on in a high-trust society, the happens sporadically enough that it's effective to bet that the other party mostly truthful most of the time: most business concludes in a predictable way.

To be fair, it does not. American government could do most of its business (excluding some spy matters, etc.) without lying, and it wouldn't break anything much. Of course, it doesn't matter American government does not lie - unfortunately, especially recently, it lies a lot, but these lies are more aimed at subverting the government to use it for private or partisan needs than a foundational necessity of governing. As it exists in Russia now, the lies are foundational for the government there. If American politicians stopped lying, we'd have a bit less rich politicians, and maybe some shuffling of the names on the doors, but the government would be largely the same. If Russian politicians stopped lying, Russia would descend into chaos.

Could the federal government also just stop lying that affirmative action works, that right-wing extremists pose the largest terrorist threat, that Common Core and other programs targeting disparate racial outcomes work etc. without significant political consequences? Is that what you really believe?

Yes.

I mean, surely there would be consequences, as names on the doors change and money stops to flow in the hands of one set of grifters and inevitably starts to flow into another, and so on. Instead of Common Core, we'd have Educational Excellency, and affirmative action university attendees would go back to sportsman's scholarships or something other designed for the same purpose (of getting that sweet federal loan money without actually trying hard to educate someone). That wouldn't change the overall political system. Withdrawing governmental meddling with education - both by prescribing standards and providing a torrent of tax money - would lead to some significant changes, but that is not based on lies. Everybody knows the government meddles, and everybody (about 98% of voters at least) wants it to meddle, the only difference is how exactly it meddles and who benefits from it. The system is not a secret, there's no lie there and everybody agrees with it - the only contention is who gets the profits and who is left holding the externalities.

I really don't see how you can come to this conclusion, but on the other hand I don't see how we could resolve our dispute barring a visit to a parallel universe. Maybe I'm underestimating people's capacity for doublethink, but I find it hard to imagine that most people truly believing we live in a mostly democratic society would shrug of their government went full yes_chad.jpg at every accusation they're using their alphabet agencies against their own citizens in order to suppress dissent. Several past wars that happened in the last two decades would also be a hard sell, if all the governments would be forced to tell the truth. Same for policies that they chose to pursue in the aftermath of these wars. Or what they're doing or not doing in the name of climate change. If they even just stopped lying about the culture war issues, that would either have massive impacts on current policy, or would require shifting to a fully jack-booted fascist state.

Again, you are confusing two things. Let me give you an example. We know US government orchestrated the suppression of the Hunter laptop story. We know there was a lot of lying involved. Did it impact the policies? Hugely. Imagine they wouldn't be able to do that. What would be different? Would we have a different name on the door of the Oval Office? Sure. (yes, I know there's not the actual name, I am speaking metaphorically). Would the Federal Government look differently, US political system work differently, Congress work differently, SCOTUS work differently? Not substantially. The political decisions certainly would differ, but the system would remain mostly the same. Same about climate change. Right now we waste trillions of dollars and sacrifice quality of life and sometimes lives on the altar of the Angry Gaia cult. If we stopped to do that, would those dollars and lives be saved? Sure. Would America work differently? Not much, it'd work the same, but better. Sure, a bunch of old hippies and young idiots would be pissed off (which they are permanently even now, tbh) but it'd be the same country with the same political system, it's not a fundamental systemic change.

Would we have a different name on the door

This statement is doing all the work for you. If you had different names on the doors of Russian offices, it would probably be on par the US, and maybe even surpass it. My entire point is that just because people in power are not allowed to lie, it doesn't mean they will be stop doing what they wanted to do, or let go of power.

If you had different names on the doors of Russian offices, it would probably be on par the US,

That's the whole point, it wouldn't. Not in the Russia as it is today. It's not 140 millions of people under the magic spell of a single Volde-Putin. It's a country whose moral fiber is by now profoundly rotten and corrupt. That's what allows Putin and his henchmen to thrive. Changing the names wouldn't help anymore (maybe if it happened 20 years ago, it could, but not today).

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but I find it hard to imagine that most people truly believing we live in a mostly democratic society would shrug of their government went full yes_chad.jpg at every accusation they're using their alphabet agencies against their own citizens in order to suppress dissent.

Bush did it about AT&T Room 641a, and Obama did it about the Snowden revelations. They didn't even promise to stop (nor, of course, did they).

"Every" is doing some work in my statement, if it only happens now and again people can always say "well, that was an exception". But yeah, I'm not dismissing the doublethink hypothesis.

I had not ever seen "враньё" used as a specific term. Perhaps it is a Kremlinologist artifact?

Sounds like a pure exoticism to me, like "hygge".

Ah yes, the Finnish concept of "comfy".

"Hygge" is Danish, mind. We are never comfy.

Right. The Finnish one was "underpants-drinking", wasn't it?

Yes, that's right. If one wanted a new source for drinking-related terms, Finnish would surely provide an endless source for them.

Yeah. As evidenced by that phrase of hugging-for-strength just being a joke. I am very disappointed by this reinforcement of Finnish stereotypes.

Perhaps, in the end, it's the conscious self-maintenance of national stereotypes that will provide the last line of defence against ongoing creeping global Americanization.

One of the tragic parts of the Kursk incident is that Russia declined several Western offers of aid (from the US and parts of Europe) until such time as it's own efforts had completely failed several days later. In particular putting national pride above the lives of it's sailors seems like quite a tragedy for the families of those lost.

But perhaps that also speaks to attitudes toward the current situation that I have trouble understanding from a Western perspective.

I'm skeptical the Kursk was about national pride at all, although I would believe you if you told me it was corruption or officer-level CYA. Nuclear submarines, their limitations, their strengths, their uses, and their construction are highly prized national secrets, to it stands to reason that the Russian Navy would be reticent to welcome foreign aid, let alone rescue subs or divers from NATO navies, which would no doubt be beaming video direct to Langley.

To put it another way, from the perspective of Russian Naval command, the secrets of the Kursk are arguably worth more than the lives of the crew (even before accounting for corruption and CYA), as those secrets protect all the other submarine crews. But telling that to the public in so many words is a great way to ruin future crew recruiting efforts.

To put it another way, from the perspective of Russian Naval command, the secrets of the Kursk are arguably worth more than the lives of the crew

That explains nothing or makes it worse, as British and Norwegian assistance was in the end accepted.

When you mention technical secrets it does put the decision into a slightly more favorable perspective. Not the lies, though. In my opinion it should be perfectly fine telling people "those soldiers knew how confidential the subs are when they signed up, they died as heroes". It isn't citizens we recruit nuclear sub crews from (I hope). We trust those guys to start or fail to start a nuclear war, but not to protect military secrets in death? Ridiculous if true.

In particular putting national pride above the lives of it's sailors seems like quite a tragedy for the families of those lost.

Question: do you think Ukraine should surrender to Russian demands immediately, or do you think that it should continue to lose its men at the front and lose its women (and therefore its next generation) to permanent refugee-vacation in glamorous Western Europe?

Because for one of those cases, you have no cause to be finger-wagging anyone else at placing national pride above human lives.

If Ukraine would surrender to Russian demands, exactly how large a share of those women do you think would return?

Russian demands currently include destroying Ukrainian nation, and they aren't exactly shy of proclaiming it. It's not a matter of "pride", it is a matter of survival - both national, political and for millions of Ukrainians, physical - since Russians are not exactly shy of just murdering whoever dares to oppose them or look at them in a wrong way, or just looks suspicious enough, in places which they are occupying.

Do you think the Treaty of Versailles represented the Entente's intention to destroy the German nation? Because I see no evidence that whatever outcome the Russians want to impose on Ukraine is potentially more extreme than the Treaty of Versailles was.

I do not know if there was such an intent, though the terms were decidedly punitive. But I do not see how anything that happened 100 years ago in Versailles could change anything that is happening now. There's ample evidence, provided by Russian propaganda materials, Russian officials words and Russia's effective actions, that the intent is the destruction of Ukraine existence as an independent nation. Russians have never hidden their disdain for Ukraine, considering it a "fake" nation, whose language is nothing but broken Russian, whose territories have always been the rightful part of the Russian empire, and whose national existence being nothing but a fantom, created by the West to spite Russians. They are fully intent on fixing that mistake and subsuming the "brotherly nation" back into the Great Russia's fold. I.e. perpetrating a cultural genocide - and if needed, a little of physical genocide too, as we saw in places which Russians managed to capture but turned out Ukrainians are less brotherly than they expected. Nothing that happened in Versailles can change that reality, so any references to that is nothing but word games trying to paint over the reality.

Russian demands currently include destroying Ukrainian nation

I'm pretty sure if Ukraine willingly gave the rest of the donbass, made public statements about becoming neutral towards the russian culture and interests, including allowing russian to be taught again in schools, russia would make peace.

The issue with the dehumanization of the orcs and with the tribal manicheanization of russian interests that the western media and people parrot is that despite having some elements of truths, overall obviously leads to a criminal utilitarian disaster of continued intense human lives and economic attrition.

russia would make peace

Today yes. Tomorrow maybe. A few short years later no.

Giving in to salami tactics is choosing to lose one slice at a time. Russia now shows a pattern of invading Ukraine and the most recent invasion included an attempted decapitation of the Ukrainian government. It would be madness to start trading territories for extremely temporary peace now. Russia would merely grow hungrier by the eating.

So is it your belief that all Ukrainian territories pre-2014 can be recaptured through force?

I'm pretty sure if Ukraine willingly gave the rest of the donbass, made public statements about becoming neutral towards the russian culture and interests, including allowing russian to be taught again in schools, russia would make peace.

No they wouldn't. Why would they if they can take the whole thing in three days (as they were sure at the start)?

Also, guess what, Ukraine did all that. Almost all.

Donbass was occupied by Russia since 2014 (so were Crimea, which somehow the Russian propagandists always ignore) and Ukraine de-facto accepted this situation, due to inability of changing it. It obviously was just a stepping stone for Russians which only encouraged their appetites and showed them Ukraine is weak and the West is indifferent, so why not finish the job?

Ukraine has never been any threat to Russian culture - majority of Ukrainians speak Russian at least as the second language, for majority in large cities, especially in the East and the South, it is the primary language at home, huge number of Ukrainians worked in Russia, etc. Before Russia started its war with Ukraine in 2014, Russian was taught in schools freely and there was no restrictions - they came after 3 years of war, in 2017.

As for "interests", given that the official position of Russia is that Ukraine should not exist as a nation and should be owned by Russia instead, since "we are the same people" and Ukraine is "an artifact of Western meddling", it is impossible for Ukraine to both exist and "become neutral towards Russian interests" - you can not be neutral in the question of your own existence.

The issue with the dehumanization of the orcs and with the tribal manicheanization of russian interests that the western media and people parrot is that despite having some elements of truths

Like 100% of those elements. When somebody fires a stream of rockets each containing a ton of explosives into a densely populated city, pretending they do it because they don't teach enough Russian in the same city, and not allow 80% of the population that speaks Russian there to speak Russian more freely, and that's why they all have to be murdered by Russian rockets - I have no trouble figuring out which side is evil here. And no fancy words like "manicheanization" will change that. Whoever fired the rockets dehumanized themselves by their own actions.

russia would make peace.

Yeah, and sign peace promising respecting remaining part of Ukraine. Maybe it should be signed in Budapest and called Budapest Memorandum II ( see https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Budapest_Memorandum )

So is your position that no peace should ever be signed with Russia at all?

I am well aware of this broken promise but should we be consistent and take into account other broken promises?

The Ukrainian people voted in vast majority to stay in the USSR

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/1991_Soviet_Union_referendum

I think sacrificing lives to defend a country's sovereignity against an invader is generally more excusable than sacrificing lives to a technical accident by not accepting aid. I'm sure the same Ukrainians that are the sacrifices in the former case would generally be more eager to sacrifice themselves in the former case than in the latter.

Indeed, I've heard quite a few opinions to the effect of "I will sacrifice my life if I have to, to defend my country/my family/my culture/kill those fuckers". I've heard "I will sacrifice my life if it means my country doesn't have to show weakness" far less often.

I think sacrificing lives to defend a country's sovereignity against an invader is generally more excusable than sacrificing lives to a technical accident by not accepting aid

Why?

National sovereignty is just national pride writ large.

National sovereignty is just an extension the same game theory that insists upon the existence of private property. There's nothing irrational or arbitrary about it. Even the specifics of drawing the national lines are a fairly straightforward exercise in carving the space of people's interlocking loyalties at the joints.

Only if national sovereignty is useful in the same way as private property. But national sovereigns don't internalize the costs of their mistakes or reap the rewards of their enterprise like private proprietors do. So that seems doubtful. And the linked post only explains why entities that already have sovereignty in a given area consistently fight to defend it, on the assumption that such sovereignty is worth retaining. It does not explain the value of assigning such entities sovereignty over such areas in the first place.

But national sovereigns don't internalize the costs of their mistakes or reap the rewards of their enterprise like private proprietors do.

Life is generally better for the head of state and leading members of government when the government is popular than when it isn't, and good stewardship of national resources and policy is generally an effective path to popularity.

It does not explain the value of assigning such entities sovereignty over such areas in the first place.

Maybe it would be helpful (both here and generally in your commentary) if you made more of an effort to state your thesis directly instead of only implying it by criticizing other comments for what you view as the negative space of your unstated thesis.

That is not internalizing costs like private proprietors do. It would be ridiculous to say there’s no connection whatsoever between how political leaders’ fates and the ups and downs of their countries. But no one denies that (certainly not me). And the connections that you name, at best, float quite free of the actual state of the country. (See, e.g., The Myth of the Rational Voter.)

I’m not criticizing you for disagreeing with some thesis hidden up my sleeve. I’m criticizing your argument for the reasons that I stated. If you disagree, please be more specific about why.

But national sovereigns don't internalize the costs of their mistakes or reap the rewards of their enterprise like private proprietors do.

Really? I can think of more cases where sovereign nation-states do "internalize the costs of their mistakes or reap the rewards of their enterprise like private proprietors do" than I can think of cases where they don't, unless by "sovereigns" you are referring to tinpot dictators who "externalize" failures by blaming their failures on foreign actors. Poor social policy can f-- up demographics, which weakens the state. Poor farming policy leads to crop failure. Poor educational policy leads to low labor productivity. Failure to safeguard the borders leads to loss of territory. Failure to balance the books leads to national default, usually by way of hyperinflation (with a singular exception in the USD, which is supported by its use in international trade). Environmental pollution can be externalized, but it's much easier for an individual land proprietor to externalize pollution. Honestly, I'm failing to see how nations are different here.

I think that you're confusing nation-states with national sovereigns. National sovereigns are the people who rule a nation-state. Nation-states are not agents in their own right and so cannot internalize costs at all. There is, at best, an extremely attenuated connection between the events that you're describing and the fortunes of the people who rule the countries that they happen to, as history amply shows.

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What? No. Sovereignity is specifically about the control you have over the territory. Pride is more about keeping face.

And you would want your country to be hegemon over some clay because...?

Because they don't want to be Putin's slaves?

Because (and when) I can be sure that the current government will treat me better than the other guys.

The other guys marching in with tanks and artillery seems to make people less assured that they'd be better than the current government.

Because (and when) I can be sure that the current government will treat me better than the other guys.

This sounds like remarkably similar logic to Russians wanting to rescue their own submariners than having other countries do it for them.

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Can geopolitics also be culture war? I'd argue yes.

PM Modi: Global South must create new world order

“We, the Global South, have the largest stakes in the future. Three-fourth of humanity lives in our countries. We should also have equivalent voice. Hence, as the eight-decade old model of global governance slowly changes, we should try to shape the emerging order,’’ he said, while underscoring the need to escape the cycle of dependency on systems and circumstances which are not of developing world’s making.

My question is, what makes people living in Third World countries think that just because they are numerous, that means they count? Nigeria has a much bigger population than France. Which country matters more in international affairs? Why is Taiwan so important? The country has a huge footprint in semiconductors despite having only 24 million people. Had it been a primitive basket-case, its potential capture by China would still be opposed but there wouldn't be fears of far-reaching economic ramifications.

I worry that a narrative of "our time is due" has set in, giving birth to unreasonable expectations of international influence that may in fact never materialise for most Third World countries. Once this finally dawns on them, rage and jealousy may set in, a feeling of being betrayed of "our rightful influence". Influence is earned, not given. I'm reasonably optimistic about India but not so optimistic on most other poor large countries (Egypt, Pakistan, Ethiopia etc). Given disparate birth rates over the world, a growing imbalance between countries who hold the actual power versus where most of humanity will increasingly be located could lead to increased international tension.

There's a concept in international relations where you can mortgage your not-yet-realized future power and wield some of it in the present. For example, Indonesia has 275 million inhabitants, it's the 4th most populous country in the world. In theory, as countries are supposed to converge in prosperity, Indonesia should become quite powerful. So they get more influence on the basis they'll soon be stronger than they are, it would be foolish to anger them now while they're weak and then have to deal with them when they're strong.

Of course, this ignores geography, resources, political stability, organization and HBD. I think Australia is the more useful ally, Australia has gas, iron, coal, uranium, surplus agricultural production for export... Even though Australia has a smaller economy and low prospects for growth, Australia will retain greater power and influence IMO.

In addition to the size of one's economy it's important to consider how much wealth one can mobilize. 19th century Russia was a large and populous economy but couldn't mobilize most of its wealth since a lot of it was locked down in subsistence agriculture. Much of modern India's wealth is similarly locked or tied up in basic state-maintenance tasks, it can't be wielded so easily. There's a vast gulf in organization-skills between Indian military procurement and Chinese procurement. China is pumping out modern frigates and destroyers, fielding hundreds of 5th gen aircraft, India has managed 40 small 4.5 gen aircraft and has no stealth aircraft at all.

Pakistan at least has a superpower sponsor in China and nuclear weapons but I am similarly skeptical as to how the other poor countries will perform. Iran is also pretty capable, they're able to contest the West in the Middle East.

Isn't the "Global South" project a rebranding of Third Worldism, which had obvious ties to the Communist International and Maoist Movement?

Anyway. The developed nations have had a couple of centuries of capitalism. As a result, they have become forever-rich, irrevocably prosperous; they can even drop capitalism if they feel that way, the accumulated resource and technological base allows for implementing planned economy in all but name ("stakeholder capitalism" and "advance market commitments" and "carbon credits" it's called now). As is the established practice, they kneecap other nations with the extremist vomit of their intellectuals, inciting premature and unsustainable transitions with unreasonable theories and promises of fixing consequences of the previous step. Before, it was mainly Communism, where the free lunch of a new social order was dangled in front of backwards peoples; then it was Neoliberalism, when they were allowed to poison their ecosystems, capture lowest-margin markets like raw materials and textiles, and inflate the valuation of a bunch of oligarchs with poor taste. Now it's the ecological and social-progressive stuff – the worst offer of all, for it's all stick and no carrot. That is how the gap is maintained; and to narrow that gap, to gain the ability to meaningfully resist Western goading and stand as its equal, a common identity and antagonistic posture are needed.

Or so the thinking goes, I guess. Realistically, integrating with the West is the best they could do.

Isn't the "Global South" project a rebranding of Third Worldism, which had obvious ties to the Communist International and Maoist Movement?

It probably has more to do with the non-aligned movement, in terms of family resemblance. This is the Indian prime minister, after all.

That is how the gap is maintained; and to narrow that gap, to gain the ability to meaningfully resist Western goading and stand as its equal, a common identity and antagonistic posture are needed.

That and an average IQ of at least 95.

I'll say this recipe for success has been working great for China despite a non-ideal government situation with the PRC.

One thing that many people don't realize is that, despite how far China has come, they still have a lot further to go. When they are fully "mature", aka at Japan levels of income, China will far eclipse the U.S. as a world power due to having 4x the population, and probably 10x the population of +3 std IQ people.

This isn't some crazy moon shot goal either. This is just the natural development of things which are already in progress and only an extreme setback could arrest.

The growth in China's economy in 2023-2024 alone will shock many.

When they are fully "mature", aka at Japan levels of income, China will far eclipse the U.S. as a world power due to having 4x the population, and probably 10x the population of +3 std IQ people.

Which is why we may see the US kneecap them by embroiling Taiwan into a conflict with PRC by pushing Taipei to declare independence etc. It's certainly the smart thing to do if you're the top dog and what I'd have done if I were in 1600 Pennsylvania Avenue. Why wait for your rival to get stronger?

One should also add that China may only have 500 million people at the end of this century due to their TFR only being ~1 per woman now and will likely fall even lower as they get richer. Meanwhile, the US could potentially even pass them by the 2090s. If America is still a richer country (big if) then the so-called 'Chinese century' may in fact never materialise. I think America's superpower is that it is better than anyone else at drawing in skilled migrants, something China can never copy.

In addition, America has a very large friendship network. So just comparing China and America on their own is probably a mistake. In my view, while China is unlikely to be subdued it is also unlikely to replace the US as the global hegemon.

One should also add that China may only have 500 million people at the end of this century due to their TFR only being ~1 per woman now and will likely fall even lower as they get richer.

I wonder if China will be able to mandate higher fertility. It's certainly possible. Other regimes have tried and failed, but China I think could do it. Here's how:

"City residency permits are reserved for those with children. Want to stay unmarried? That's fine, go live as a rural peasant".

"Children with siblings are given first choice admission to universities".

Of course, with so many single young men and a massive gender imbalance this could prove a bit tricky.

But even if they don't fix fertility, China will still have 20-30 years of great economic growth before the real declines start. And in any case, according to UN medium fertility variants, China will still have 777 million people by 2100 compared to 395 million in the United States. And of course I don't have to tell you that the U.S. demographics are highly dysgenic. In terms of demographics, the U.S. in 2100 will be closer to today's Brazil than to our current state. No one is projecting Brazil as a future world power.

Other regimes have tried and failed, but China I think could do it. Here's how:

Silly question, but has any regime tried banning contraceptives?

Good question. I don't know. But I do know that people were already worried about birth rates in ancient Rome so presumably it's not enough.

Communist Romania in 1966.

Well, that's underwhelming. Anything in particular happen in 1963?

On the other hand, the shear weight of their population pyramid, brain drain, and general mismanagement in the name of petty tyranny is a massive limiting factor. Israel, for example, probably has one of the largest per-capita populations of +2 std IQ persons, and while they're certainly prosperous, they're hardly one of the wealthiest countries in the world

Israel, for example, probably has one of the largest per-capita populations of +2 std IQ persons, and while they're certainly prosperous, they're hardly one of the wealthiest countries in the world

Israel is indeed one of the wealthiest countries in the world (by nominal GDP per capita). They surpassed Germany last year.

Israel, for example, probably has one of the largest per-capita populations of +2 std IQ persons, and while they're certainly prosperous, they're hardly one of the wealthiest countries in the world

I've thought about why this is. The simplest explanation would be Israel's paucity of natural resources. Other explanations include the high level of civil strife, necessary defense spending, sanctions, and of course the wastage due to religious study.

I think these explanations contribute but are not the main factor to Israel's underperformance relative to U.S. Jews.

My preferred explanation is that, for high IQ people, scale matters. Take a person with an IQ of 160, put them on a tiny isolated island, and there is very little advantage to their high IQ. Put them in New York City and they can leverage networks of influence that will greatly amplify their talents. This, to my mind, explains why U.S. Jews have an income far in excess of Israeli Jews.

The weight of Israeli defense spending functions fairly similarly to the weight of demographic age in other high IQ countries(Israel is literally the only one with above replacement fertility, isn't it? I mean unless you count Argentina), so we might have a natural experiment soon.

the accumulated resource and technological base allows for implementing planned economy in all but name ("stakeholder capitalism" and "advance market commitments" and "carbon credits" it's called now)

Points like this are legion among the far-right (even though it's plausibly exaggerated rhetoric in this case, it's deeply believed elsewhere). But 'advance market commitments', 'carbon credits' and 'stakeholder capitalism' are each small changes of historically normal magnitudes - subsidies to specific industries bid upon by competing companies, or companies putting small amounts of effort into political and social appearances along with profit. A government guiding existing market mechanisms via the profit motive is ... not a planned economy. And these are still less than a tenth of the overall economy - openAI and deepmind didn't need central-planner permission to get billions of dollars of capital as you would in one. There's a stronger case for e.g. healthcare, welfare, defense spending being like planned economies, but it's still very free-market there compared to actual planned economies.

"Carbon credits" are not a small change; they're rationing in the same way as wartime rationing. "Stakeholder capitalism" is a rebranding of a command economy.

War rationing implies 'extreme deprival' of some sort, like government-issued canned beans and rags, but carbon credits are just an ... environmental regulation. Potentially a very bad one, but that has be justified aside from allusion - fisheries management is also rationing, and that's fine. Stakeholder capitalism seems to refer to things like 'not donating to anti-climate change political groups' or 'auditing supply chains for human rights' or general philanthropy, which isn't a command economy, even where those are useless / bad. Both of those seem like significant exaggerations?

As a result, they have become forever-rich, irrevocably prosperous; they can even drop capitalism if they feel that way, the accumulated resource and technological base allows for implementing planned economy in all but name

Please, people unfortunate enough to live in the fucking EU would beg to differ. It's shambolic and getting worse, and there's seemingly no hope of it stopping. The idiots will ruin the economy and the power grid and honestly, I feel like if I want to keep living in a normal country of similar climate type, I'm doomed to learn Japanese and move there. Shouldn't be that hard, it's not tonal, and discord gaming allows for endless free practice.

It's over, really. If we only fall back to 1950s living standards, we will be able to count ourselves fortunate, but most likely we'll be getting omnipresent technological snooping, police state and tone policing too.

Japan wouldn't take you, unless you have a highly skilled blue collar occupation. You'd have to hope for an economic miracle in Argentina, which does not seem realistic.

I'd be only considering emigration there, to some rural area, in case I had a record of stable, reasonably paid remote work. Are they declining to take people who have a source of income ?

It'd not be the comfiest lifestyle, as it's an expensive place, but Japanese are still capable of building nice stuff and even their declining areas have a sort of charm, that's much easier to appreciate than decaying modernism or commie architecture.

They don't seem to be getting taken over by wokies, probably innate psychological differences.

I have no such hopes for e.g. Poland or even Russia. Woke western stuff is mostly seen as cool among Poland's careerists and normies.

Japan is indeed a better bet than Eastern Europe in terms of resistance to wokeness but how comfortable would you really feel to be an alien in the most basic, racial sense on a perpetual basis? The Japanese, even in supposedly cosmopolitan areas, will always treat you as an outsider. Maybe you're fine by that, but for me, being around my own kin will always be preferable. Wokeness is a small price to pay and it has likely peaked anyway, certainly there's much more skepticism today than even 3-4 years ago.

I've always felt like an outsider in my own native land, fwiw. I lack the instinct for tribal affinity entirely. To feel I fit in with some group, I have to be engaged in some cooperative enterprise with them.

But if I mastered the language, which shouldn't be that hard as it's not tonal, and I probably have some talent for language, and respected their culture and didn't try to fuck with them, they'd probably respect me, or at least many of them enough to make it bearable. And given my gracile [1] build and look and coloration (brown and brown, respectively), and children I'd have would probably fit in well.

[ 1]: Actual question I was once asked: "hey, do you have a sister? I saw a tall girl who looked exactly like you?" .. (sigh).

[ 1 ]: Also, clean shaven with a certain hairstyle I kept getting mis-sexed by Faceapp which would insist I'm a woman.

It will certainly be interesting to see. The math on renewables is sobering. The amount of energy input per unit of energy output is just too damn high. And that doesn't even take into account the massive shortfalls of rare earths, copper, and other minerals which are required for the massive build out of solar, wind, and power grids. That's not a one-time investment either. The usable lifetime of solar and wind generation assets is less than 20 years. Germany has spent hundreds of billions on renewable energy and all it has brought is less reliable and more expensive power.

So Europe does seem to be headed down the road of rationing. "Sorry, you can't charge your electric car today". "Planned blackout for Tuesday". "Smart thermostat set to 17 degrees by central ministry", etc..

On the other hand, Germany is burning a shit ton of coal this year, so maybe they are willing to pivot if the misery level gets high enough.

what makes people living in Third World countries think that just because they are numerous, that means they count?

(Some small amount of influence/money/power) * (a lot of people) = a lot of money/influence/power.

Above is just the GDP/Capita equation rearranged and rephrased. China and India's GDP is more than most 'powerful' countries, and that is weight to throw around. Nigeria and Egypt however should not think they are India or China.

Also account for Nationalistic posturing, especially when dealing with Third World leaders. They are tasked with the (un)enviable job of leading and controlling 10s of millions of functionally retarded IQ people (Or just extracting their [almost nonexistant] wealth). Point being abstract or logical or lofty ideals won't land.

what makes people living in Third World countries think that just because they are numerous, that means they count?

Because per-capital numbers matter less than net market size. A market that negotiates as a block, represents its buying power and influence as a block. The EU exists for a reason. Global consumerism means that powerful developed countries rely on access to big market blocks like India to keep their profits high. You're right that just being numerous doesn't mean much. But a 2x poorer per-capita country, can make up for the smaller per-capita market by having 2x as many people.

The real negotiation here is : India closing itself off and accepting a QOL hit, while lost sales hurt the exporting 1st world's industries.

Now, this is no different from an employee trying to negotiate a higher wage with its employer. Here, collective bargaining gives you more leverage. India is effectively asking the global-south to present as a more unified negotiating block, that allows for more favorable terms due to collective bargaining.

We should also have equivalent voice

Here, Modi does not just mean negotiations and importance. He means the humiliation, unilaterally pushed on (non-binding as they may be) initiatives, the talking down to and general apathy that these poor-big nations face. There is effectively this bit which goes : "If you're going to chide me every time I visit you club, then I don't want to be part of your club."

'Being spoken down to' feels especially rich coming from the 1st world because they are often to blame for or have taken advantage of similar setups already. Low-emissions nations being asked to be sustainable so western-gas-guzzlers can live a happy life. Or complaints about de-forestration, when the 1st world chopped its own trees with reckless abandon during its industrialization. Or the judgement passed towards the pollution of the rivers that is partially tied to 1st world clothing companies having terrible waste disposal practices in their 3rd world plants. It is irritating to see the imposition of western social ideas (Wokeism) or being given ranks based on scales that prioritize western sensibilities.

None of these are about influence. It is about not optics, and optics are far easier to control with numbers if you so wish to leverage them.

escape the cycle of dependency

Modi correctly points out that post-WW2 institutions are primarily concerned with maintaining peace and status quo. IE. maintaining western hegemony. Modi's suggestion is to demand inclusion or push for the formation of parallel institutions that prioritize the interests of these nations in the global south.

Now 1st world countries have a lot to lose here. A lot of their economies are based on maintaining a perception of superiority. If European cuisine, culture, architecture & luxury goods stop being seen as high class, then they suddenly cannot demand the kind of absurd margins and prices that they demand.

If countries of the global south can provide each other with economic guarantees, then that allows them to strike out more favorable deals with the 1st world.

Given disparate birth rates over the world, a growing imbalance between countries who hold the actual power versus where most of humanity will increasingly be located could lead to increased international tension.

That is part of the negotiation too. The soft threat that so many refugees will flood your beautiful 1st world countries that you won't know what to do.

Influence is earned, not given

I would rephrase it a little bit : "Influence is seized, and then held on to tightly". The global south isn't asking for influence, they are trying to test the waters on what will allow them to seize it. Germany and Japan should have more power by their economic sizes too, but the post-ww2 suppression and papa-USA means that they are reluctant to do so.

You might complain about economic per-capita differences, but the UK sits as a permanent member of the UNSC not because it has earned power. But, it is because it seized it post-ww2 and is now holding onto it tightly until another country chooses to seize it.

Here, Modi does not just mean negotiations and importance. He means the humiliation, unilaterally pushed on (non-binding as they may be) initiatives, the talking down to and general apathy that these poor-big nations face. There is effectively this bit which goes : "If you're going to chide me every time I visit you club, then I don't want to be part of your club."

I don't think Modi actually means to do anything he's saying here. He doesn't give a shit about other third world countries he just wants to tap into anti-colonialist sentiment that is still strong in India. For one thing a lot of those other third world countries are Muslims and the Muslims and Modis Hindutva party hate each other. India and China also hate each other. In lots of other third world countries Indians are market dominated minorities despised by the natives. There isn't any real plan here to unite the third world against the first and if anything India is best served by demanding a seat at the table in the first world.

I have a feeling India and Islamic 3rd world countries would butt heads with or without Hindu Nationalist politics in India. I mean, didn't they fight 3/4 wars with Pakistan during the INC era including the largest one (1971)? And of course, it's not like the Islamic countries themselves are united in any way, most recently demonstrated by the uptick in hostilities between Pakistan and the Taliban.

A market that negotiates as a block, represents its buying power and influence as a block. The EU exists for a reason. Global consumerism means that powerful developed countries rely on access to big market blocks like India to keep their profits high.

That doesn't really ring true. India is a net importer, but not from western countries, and many western countries are also net importers.

India is effectively asking the global-south to present as a more unified negotiating block, that allows for more favorable terms due to collective bargaining.

Which is not realistic because they don't share common economic interests. The Western world contains both importers (the US and UK) and exporters (Germany, the Netherlands), while the 'global South' does the same.

The real negotiation here is : India closing itself off and accepting a QOL hit, while lost sales hurt the exporting 1st world's industries.

Indians are not splurging on American movies and European wine. India mostly imports important economic inputs - machinery, energy, raw materials and fertilizer. Protecting domestic markets from foreign competition can be advantageous in some cases, but it's not really clear what the goal would be. There's no point in cutting off oil imports if your country can't produce it's own oil.

Ethiopia seems to be getting better. Pakistan clearly has the potential to, even if it’s not exactly improving right now. Of course Egypt and Nigeria are trainwrecks, though.

If you broaden to include middle income countries, Mexico and South Africa are the only two big ones that seem to be notably getting worse, although Russia and Brazil sized caveats are glaring.

mexico

I'm out of the loop, what's going on there?

Cartel violence.

Open cartel warfare is starting to spill over into locations where tourists notice it.

Ethiopia seems to be getting better.

Relative to when? I agree that they're doing better than during their most recent civil war, but that ended just 2 months ago.

What do you think Modi should have said? ’We suck and will never amount to anything’? Of course Modi the (Hindu) Indian nationalist is going to chart out a path to power and glory for the country he leads.

I am not so sure about that.

Eastern Africa & SEA have strong Indian influenced cultural roots (esp. SEA). The food, the importance of the family unit, the pagan roots, all have very clear similarities.

Then you have secondary similarities, such as a history with colonization & general similarities that come with living in tropical climates.

This isn't so much the west vs south as global financial elite vs the rest. We have lived in a world order in which a liberal elite class in a few major cities have wanted a world consisting of atomized consumers in a global market managed by a few large institutions in the west such as NATO, the world bank and the IMF. The ideas to really turn the world into americanized urban sprawl in which we are all free to choose what Hollywood sequel we want to watch and what Nestlé product to consume.

This worked when the rest of the world was entirely dependent on the west. Banana republics either had to accept the trade deals they were offered or go back to the 1700s. They sold bananas to the west that were delivered on GM trucks using Exxon's oil and that were paid for with US dollars using american financial institutions. The profits were used to buy goods made in the US. Today Huawei telecom products are used to sell bananas shipped on Chinese ships using Saudi oil and profits are used to buy clothes from Cambodia and software from India.

In the 50s militaries either faught with western weapons, Sovjet weapons or laughably obsolete weapons. This isn't true anymore as the west has had real difficulty even against the taliban and countries like Iran, China, Pakistan, India etc have improved their arms industries and militaries by leaps and bounds.

What Modi is saying is that the world no longer is Goldman Sachs, the state department and people in the City of London. Their power levels aren't dwarfing China's. The rural Americans that the US sent to Iraq to ensure that Iraq was inline with American interests would be much less friendly to the coastal elites and less willing to fight today. If anything the elites in the west are having an increasingly difficult managing their own countries let alone an empire which maintenance costs are shooting through the roof. Empires tend not to be defeated by getting steamrolled by an enemy army as much as declining due to rising costs of maintaining the empire. Taiwan has gone from being a cash cow to a major liability for the US. Defending American influence over Ukraine is causing all sorts of economic mayhem and is draining western stockpiles of military hardware.

Modi isn't envisioning India and Nigeria running the world together in a revanchist alliance, he is telling the people who live on a skyscraper on Manhattan that the world doesn't revolve around them.

This isn't so much the west vs south as global financial elite vs the rest.

The elephant curve implies that the objective interests of the various social classes don't line up this way. During the neoliberal era (roughly from the fall of the Berlin Wall to the present), the big picture in global inequality is:

  • The "tail" of the elephant consisting of poor people in poor countries which are not developing due to civil wars or such like: 5-15% of the world's population depending on how you count.

  • The "body" of the elephant consisting of the respectable working and middle class in rapidly growing economies including China, who are experiencing rapid income growth: c.60% of the world's population

  • The "neck" of the elephant - around the 80th-90th percentile of the world's population we see very low income growth, driven by the bottom 80% in rich countries who have been the main losers of globalisation.

  • The "trunk" of the elephant - the top few percent (including most of the top 20% in rich countries) who are doing well, with the top 1% doing better still and the super-rich making out like bandits.

The idea of an alliance between the "body" and the "neck" against the "trunk" to repeal neoliberal globalisation doesn't make sense. And if you look at what Modi is saying, he isn't saying that. The demand isn't "reverse neoliberal globalisation" it is "give me money". The anti-globalisation faction in Indian politics is peasant advocates, because Indian peasants are part of the "tail".

Banana republics either had to accept the trade deals they were offered or go back to the 1700s. They sold bananas to the west that were delivered on GM trucks using Exxon's oil and that were paid for with US dollars using american financial institutions. The profits were used to buy goods made in the US. Today Huawei telecom products are used to sell bananas shipped on Chinese ships using Saudi oil and profits are used to buy clothes from Cambodia and software from India.

The problem with Banana republics isn't that they could only trade with one partner, it's that their elites are able to extract all the natural resource wealth and are anti-incentivized to educate their populace. Being able to trade with different countries that give even less of a shit what they do to their slaves doesn't really spell their ascension.

A world without western hegemony isn't a many polar world where poor countries take an equal place at the top, it's one where the US no longer protects oil shipments from the middle east along the somali coast if they aren't bound for US controlled markets and the price of energy rises for developing countries multiplying their problems.

Modi isn't envisioning India and Nigeria running the world together in a revanchist alliance, he is telling the people who live on a skyscraper on Manhattan that the world doesn't revolve around them.

The response of the global south to the world no longer revolving around safe manhatten board rooms should properly be terror and trembling, not triumphalist speeches.

A world without western hegemony isn't a many polar world where poor countries take an equal place at the top, it's one where the US no longer protects oil shipments from the middle east along the somali coast if they aren't bound for US controlled markets and the price of energy rises for developing countries multiplying their problems.

In other words a world in which countries aren't dependent on the US for oil It is essentially like not being on a bus where one person has a gun and everyone else is unarmed. It is a world in which countries have their own ability to protect their oil shipments, write their own laws and aren't controlled by an american elite who rig global trade in their favour. It is a world in which millions of Iraqis won't be bombed to death, a world in which European countried don't have to ask the US for permission to sell things in the middle east, and a world in which companies don't have to dance to the tune of wall streets ESG-ratings.

It is a fundamental prerequisite for sovereignty in this world and for the survival of what makes our countries unique so that we don't all become a giant wallmart.

A world without western hegemony isn't a many polar world where poor countries take an equal place at the top, it's one where the US no longer protects oil shipments from the middle east along the somali coast if they aren't bound for US controlled markets

I have never understood if Zeihan seriously thinks this is a hard problem or merely uses it as a way to gesture at an entire class of unclear novel threats.

Poor countries could hire Wagner or something to hunt pirates. In a world without Western hegemony these challenges would be possible to solve on a functional safety market.

I think this is ignoring the obvious, opposite incentive- Saudi wants to be able to ship their oil safely, so they're incentivized to suppress piracy. They will probably choose far less humane means to do so than the USA would, partly because the Saudi military is built around terror to incentivize accepting Saudi bribes, but a bunch of Somali camel herders being ruled under a brutal islamic theocracy that bans sea travel is not terribly relevant to goings on in the capitals of the world.

When you have a hegemon above the conflict you really do prevent a lot of incentive patterns from forming. If there is no world police committed to totally free trade to appeal to what actually stops state level piracy or looting? Sure, you can hire some mercs to stop some small time Somalis on fishing boats but what happens when Japan notices that their idle navy can keep themselves sharp by doing a little state supported piracy? What if china decides to do this? Who is going to stop them?

This is the old stationary vs roving bandit thing. The Japanese don’t want to pirate so much that they stop shipping activity altogether, because this would be a loss for them. Instead, they want to introduce moderate tax, extracted by threat of their state approved piracy. This is, of course, bad, but this is not much different than the status quo, it’s just the tax proceeds will go to different recipients.

Influence is earned, not given

Influence is won and lost, and even the top dogs don't always get to set terms.

If Third World countries want to demand the West make good on its humanitarian promises, promises upon which the soft power of the latter largely depends, then either the West makes good or people learn not to take their humanitarian promises seriously. A space opens up for China to step in.

Given disparate birth rates over the world, a growing imbalance between countries who hold the actual power versus where most of humanity will increasingly be located could lead to increased international tension.

If that tension can't safely be ignored, then maybe the Third World countries are correctly assessing a growing power to make demands. In the age of mass immigration and poor integration a population disparity seems like quite the weak point.

He explicitly says why, in the portion you quote: he says that they "have the largest stakes in the future." The article also quotes him as saying, "Most of the global challenges have not been created by the Global South. But they affect us more. . . . The search for solutions also does not factor in our role or our voice." He could not be more clear what his rationale is. Your implicit argument that economic activity should be the only determinant of whether a country's citizen "matters" does not address his argument at all. It is also a silly argument to make re India in particular, given that it is 6th in the world in total GDP.

Given disparate birth rates over the world, a growing imbalance between countries who hold the actual power versus where most of humanity will increasingly be located could lead to increased international tension.

Well, the solution to that problem would seem to be obvious: Give them more actual power, starting by giving countries like India, Indonesia, Brazil, and Nigeria seats on the Security Council and taking similar steps re other international organizations and international agreements.

It is also a silly argument to make re India in particular, given that it is 6th in the world in total GDP.

I explicitly wrote that I was pretty optimistic about India and centered my argument around countries like Pakistan, Egypt, Nigeria. Do read carefully.

Well, the solution to that problem would seem to be obvious: Give them more actual power, starting by giving countries like India, Indonesia, Brazil, and Nigeria seats on the Security Council and taking similar steps re other international organizations and international agreements.

Right... except geopolitics isn't run on charity. You get a seat at the table if you can wrangle your way there. Thus far, most of the Third World is too weak and incapable of doing that, which contrasts with the "our time has come" rhetoric. It clearly hasn't and may in fact never. There's no reason to expect someone else to voluntarily do your heavy lifting for you, which appears to be the underlying premise of a lot of these arguments.

Right... except geopolitics isn't run on charity.

No one said it was. You seem to think that an increase in international tensions would be a bad thing, including for current "winners." So, pure self-interest is a sufficient reason to give those countries more power.

There's no reason to expect someone else to voluntarily do your heavy lifting for you

I agree. This is precisely why I refuse to help old ladies carry their shopping up the stairs of the subway.

More seriously, the source of your befuddlement at the speech in question is that you value different things. Whether the current geopolitical structure benefits actual human beings, as opposed to states, seems not to be a question that is relevant to you. Other people might think differently.

Im a little hungover and decided to open up my phone.

No of course not. A poor maga voice in the rust belt matters more than some Indian aristocrats in global affairs. That’s the way the world works. Between a combination of hbd being real (so Africa will never matter) and people respecting history that America inherited and carried western civilization.

America has an internal cultural war but it’s our war to fight internally. The rest of you just get to cheer on a side. And I don’t think it’s as one sided as it feels like some times. Elon Musks did not choose the maga side (whatever that means) because he thinks it’s a loser despite elites on the other side capturing nearly every elite institution. He’s generally not a loser.

And yes maga and pcm would reunite the second they think their dominance is under threat. Losing to the other sucks but losing to China is even worse.

A plumber in Grand Rapids Michigan cares as much as a NYT Ivy League columnist that an American matters more than a x,y,z aristocrat somewhere else and if that ever got challenged they would unite.

Musk is on team "Maga" for the same reason 1st and 2nd generation immigrants to the west tend to be anti-woke. They came to the place for the blackjack and hookers and here you have it some of the natives want to ban day drinking and titty bars.

America has an internal cultural war but it’s our war to fight internally.

It's not an internal culture war when America is the largest cultural exporter in the world, it's become a global culture war. Those fights are being exported all over the globe. There were BLM protests in places like Finland and Ireland. The rest of the world (or the West, at least) is part of the fight now whether you or they want it or not.

Partial agree with the caveat that it goes both ways- Ireland has BLM protests but Africa has mega churches that wouldn’t look out of place in a sun belt suburb, country music jumped the language barrier, and rodeo is proportionately more popular in Brazil than the USA. Really there’s a fight between the NYC cultural package and the Texas cultural package and it very well could go either way.

We really would benefit from having LW-style separate upvotes for liking and agreeing.

Well you should like it too (assuming that’s your meaning) it’s not like western civ is bad and we have to carry and promote that.

Nah, I viscerally dislike the image of either maga or wokes (or their unholy union) asserting dominance over humanity. But more importantly I reject your claim to stewardship of the West – and the self-serving belief in this stewardship being beneficial for the West or for the rest. You're going to hell in a handbasket, taking us with you, and not letting anyone leave.

The latest drama is a case in point. Bostrom is part of the best that the West has to offer. He has developed his views in Sweden and in England. It takes the black-obsessed, anti-intellectual American purity spiral to drag him through the mud. You folks aren't really Western, at least not post-Enlightenment West, you're something new and simultaneously ancient – simpler, stronger, cruder, driven by primitive taboos and collective hysterias, and unlike similar archaic resurgencies in other places, entirely invulnerable to reality checks. Carl Jung would attribute this to «spiritual negrification», and Hlynka would boast (perhaps misleadingly) of being an «inbred degenerate» and Scott would speak of Moloch, but there's little point: might as well blame Tezcatlipoca. Drag Queen Story Hour isn't a Western thing, and Megachurches are even less so, and you're right they do have more in common than they have with Western debauchery and religion, respectively. To the extent that you define the West with your gimmicky fascinations, you brutalize it. And you take pride in your dominant brutality. This, too, is ancient.

You should have had a few more centuries of isolationism to figure out some bearable attitude. It's too bad that history is ending in this generation, under your yoke.

You folks aren't really Western, at least not post-Enlightenment West, you're something new and simultaneously ancient – simpler, stronger, cruder, driven by primitive taboos and collective hysterias, and unlike similar archaic resurgencies in other places, entirely invulnerable to reality checks.

Reminds me of that book review of The Dawn of Everything on ACX, where the author described the "sapience trap"(?) as being, in all likelihood, a sociality trap where reputation was the biggest currency of all.

You folks aren't really Western, at least not post-Enlightenment West

And we would also benefit from having a special BASED upvote.

Can geopolitics also be culture war? I'd argue yes.

Not so much that it should matter in actual policy formulation. These remarks seem to solely be pointed at a domestic audience, just like their MEA Jaishankar's remarks vis-a-vis Ukraine which seem to be increasingly pro-Russia rather than neutral. There does seem to be a populist streak to it.

But the new world order is supposedly emerging as western influence in global politics is increasingly under challenge, not by the Third World but only by China and Russia. They're well aware that the US cannot contain China's influence anymore, they're hedging one superpower against another, not themselves. It's also worth noting that much of these countries are only "united" in their hostility towards the west, but if they wish to take authority over their own fates and become power players that matter, they'll have to confront the internal strife and frustration that plague them through no fault of the west. You're responsible for all your historical achievements but your current failings have to be pinned on an external force? Not how it works. I still see the future power dynamic looking like this: the US shall remain dominant in the west, China in the east, India remaining a distant third, while the rest of the world won't even be in the race.

These remarks seem to solely be pointed at a domestic audience,

If you're a politician and you say something in public as part of politics, people are entitled to act as if you believe it.

It is true that there's a long history of politicians saying things they don't believe, but that's the politician hacking the system. They're not actually supposed to do that in an ideal system, and if the lies can be heard by other people than the intended audience and these people find them to be hostile, then tough, the politician shouldn't be lying in the first place.

Nobody is entitled to have their lies heard only by the people who would look upon them favorably. And that's what "he's only saying it for domestic consumption" means.

My question is, what makes people living in Third World countries think that just because they are numerous, that means they count?

Pro-democracy memes blared all over the world by richer countries?

"You should get what you want because you're more numerous" is the raison d'etrê of the West's whole system of government. The system of government they keep forcing on other countries through both soft and hard power

Or to put it another way - they understandably but naively listened to and believed the West.

In response to my last post, @FCFromSSC hit me with his trademarked signature move - “Hlynka was right about you” and then further clarified:

The thesis I was referencing is that WNs and alt-righters are, in fact, Blues applying a fundamentally Blue worldview. You are jointly your own closest brothers and worst enemies.

If I can say to you, "A mighty fortress is our God, a bulwark never failing", and mean it, live by it, raise my children and build my community by it, what does any of the above or below have to entice me? The standard response is that Christianity has failed... delivered, generally, by people who willingly chose to abandon the faith of their fathers to embrace an alien and alienating worldview, and refuse to let it go.

Your post honestly deserves a more detailed response than that, but this, to me, is the core of the issue: You're looking for a banner to rally behind, but you've rejected the most proven banner known to man because it's incompatible with fundamental elements of the Blue worldview, which you still hold. Meanwhile, the Reds that comprise most of the people you're trying to rally have no interest in the alternative banners you offer, because they recognize their fundamentally Blue nature.

To which I replied:

Right, this is all well and fair, and I don’t disagree with much of it. Where I differ from you and Hlynka is that I don’t actually believe Red and Blue are true enemies. They’re two complementary halves of a syncretic whole - two equally-valuable parallel strains of the European psyche, which function best when they can strengthen each other by checking each other’s worst impulses. They’re the two components of a Babble & Prune machine, cyclically working in ostensible conflict in order to ensure long-term mutual success. The fact that Red and Blue are locked into what appears to be an existential conflict is due to a complicated mix of factors, which have been discussed to death here already, but in the long run both must succeed equally for European man to continue in the next step of his cosmic journey.

(My separate exchange with Hlynka himself on the same topic can be found here.

FC promised a more detailed rejoinder from him would be forthcoming, but while he charges up his special move, I want to get out ahead of him and open a separate conversation, since I think this line of discussion is sufficiently divergent from the thrust of my original post - and might be interesting to users who would otherwise have no reason to weigh in on an inside-baseball rumination on white identitarianism - that it’s worth its own top-level post.

First off, I want to point out that it’s very rich for you, as a Christian specifically, to impugn me for “abandoning the faith of [my] fathers”, when getting millions of people to abandon the faith of their forefathers was literally the entire way Christianity spread across Europe. Like, the conversion of the pagans is a central element of the narrative of early Christianity, and was considered - rightfully so - a spectacular win for the faith. Every one of those Germanic and Celtic converts was repudiating the entire spiritual infrastructure which had sustained his or her ancestors for millennia, and I’m pretty sure you don’t look down on them for it. On the contrary, you celebrate this act of betrayal as an unalloyed liberation - a brave and enriching act. And to be clear, while a not-insignificant number of those early conversions were sincere and entirely voluntary acts of conscience undertaken by individuals, I think the evidence strongly suggests that the lion’s share of these conversions involved, let’s say, ambiguous consent.

That’s because Christianity was the globohomo, elite-imposed ideology of its day. The story of how it spread throughout Europe is pretty well-documented. Adopting Christianity was a way for the ruling class of a given polity to integrate that polity into the vast political-financial-mercantile patronage network linking an ever-expanding patchwork of formerly-sovereign peoples with the hyper-wealthy urban centers where the power centers behind the ideology were situated. For a Germanic or Slavic or Celtic king who agreed to publicly bend the knee to his new Christian backers - sorry, to accept baptism - it was generally a calculated political move and a way to secure access to resources, influence, and patronage, for himself and his court. Generally there would be a transitional grace period in which the normie citizens of the polity would be strongly encouraged to convert voluntarily; after that - and sometimes skipping that step entirely - laws would begin being passed, formally outlawing any public practice of the old faith, any display of its symbols, etc. And if some of the folks out in the boonies or in the vassal states started to get uppity and refused to abandon the faith of their forefathers, oftentimes the Christian power centers would just openly slaughter them - the Saxon Wars and the Northern Crusades are illustrative examples - and gleefully destroy their sacred symbols and houses of worship in front of them until they understood that resistance was futile. (Look how much clout good ol’ Saint Boniface earned himself by chopping down Donar’s Oakand using the timber to build a church to the new god in town, just to flex on the poor worthless chumps and rubes he had just helped conquer.)

My ancestry is pretty much 100% Anglo-Saxon as far back as I can trace it, which is a long way back. (Shout-out to FamilySearch.org, the extensive and meticulously-documented ancestry database operated by the Mormon Church.) As you’ve probably gathered, I’m very interested in the history of pre-Christian European religion, so I’ve tried to do some research into the religious practices of the early Anglo-Saxons, before they were converted to Christianity. It is surprisingly difficult to find much reliable information about what they believed in those days - certainly nothing like the comparatively well-attested beliefs of Norse pagans. That’s because within 80 years of the first conversion of an Anglo-Saxon regional king, the entire rest of the kingdoms were ruled by Christian kings - after they fought brutally-bloody battles to slay the remaining pagan kings and replace them with pliant Christian vassal kings - and those kings set right to work outlawing the practice of the thousands-of-years-old religious traditions of their subjects. This included literally destroying their sacred objects, burning their sacred groves to the ground and dismantling their temples, and even punishing the private practice of personal veneration at trees and wells by private individuals. This was a comprehensive crushing of the native religion and ideology of the normal working people, imposed by effete aristocrats who were tired of being looked down on as backward hillbillies by their betters on the continent. (Is any of this sounding familiar to you yet?) And it wasn’t enough to just outlaw the practice for openly pragmatic reasons - to say, “I’m banning this because if I don’t, our ESG score will get downgraded and the EU will cut our funding the Pope will excommunicate me. Nope, they had to officially declare that the old gods - who, again, less than eighty years ago everyone on this fucking island, including the kings and clergy who were making and enforcing these laws, were worshipping - were actually demons. They had been demons the whole time! The agricultural/fertility goddess we all used to get together and sing songs to in hopes that she would bless our crops and keep our wombs fecund? It was a demon! The talisman you wear around your neck, depicting the minor household spirit your grandmother taught you watches over your family’s homestead? A demon! That grove of sacred trees in which you would often sit in silent contemplation, connecting with the numinous and the sublime? You guessed it: treemons!

(And as far as I’m aware, that’s still a mainstream orthodox take on pagan gods, right? That they were in fact real, disincarnate supernatural/spiritual entities - not just juvenile figments of the imagination - but that rather than gods they had actually been malevolent demonic agents the whole time, corrupting the souls of the pagans for millennia before Christ came? I know there have been other theological approaches to what exactly pre-Christian religion was and how we should feel about their gods and myths, but I’m not totally hip to where the general consensus lies at this point.)

And I say all of this without commenting at all about whether or not the truth claims of Christianity are valid or not! One’s interpretation of these events, and one’s assessment of whether or not the people’s of Europe were better off after being forcibly converted to “an alien and alienating worldview” than they were before certainly depends a lot upon one’s assessment of the relative value of the new worldview in question. I just want to point out that men like Widukind, full of piss and vinegar and unwilling to bend the knee and “abandon the faith of his forefathers” were butchered, and their children and wives forced upon penalty of death and imprisonment to enthusiastically affirm the new worldview, to get us to the point where you can claim that Christianity is the only banner worth mustering under.

This post has all the trappings of a spectacular gotcha without any of the substance. You seem to have latched onto one phrase, "the faith of your fathers," and interpreted it in the most literal possible way as any religion held by any of one's ancestors. This enables you to score a formal "win" by pulling an Uno Reverse card. But, for all of your shared blood, the Anglo-Saxons might as well have lived on Mars for how much cultural, moral, or otherwise organic connection that you have (or could) with them. By contrast, the culture in which you now live and the moral concepts in which you were inculcated are, at their roots, Christian through and through. Christianity is the faith of your fathers in a much stronger sense than Celtic druidism or whatnot could ever be. Even the pathos that you invoke on behalf of the poor pagans forced (strongarmed!) by Christian kings into converting gets all of its bite from a uniquely Christian emphasis on freedom of faith. (And before you object that this is a modern innovation, read some pre-Constantinian theologians like Tertullian and look into the shitshow over the [post-Constantine] execution of Priscillian.) Likewise the sympathy for these put-upon underdogs "[wrestling] against principalities, against powers, against the rulers of the darkness of this world, against spiritual wickedness in high places." ("Underdogs" who would probably have taken your pity as the highest insult.) If you are going to hold to the "faith of your fathers" in your chosen sense, then you should defend that without relying on tropes and attitudes that they would have found "alien and alienating."

I would also point out that it is highly dubious whether the violence visited upon outlying northern backwaters was remotely necessary "to get us to the point where you can claim that Christianity is the only banner worth mustering under." First, that this was in fact the way things went down doesn't mean they couldn't have easily gone another way had Christians remained pacifistic. Empires tend to like solving problems with violence even where inefficient. Second, Christianity had already conquered one of the largest, richest, most intellectually-vital polities the world had ever seen, and it did so more or less peacefully. Unless you have a grossly inflated conception of British power to resist cultural diffusion (pre-Christian Roman accounts do not paint a flattering picture), I doubt the ultimate result there would have been much different had leading Christians stuck to their initially peace-loving ways. (Compare the fantastic success of private Christian missionaries across the globe in the post-colonial era.) Finally, even granting the dubious supposition that these places would never have been converted peacefully, we have no good reason to believe that their un-Christianized versions would have reached the heights that their Christian versions did, instead of remaining the tribalistic minor powers that they had been to that point. So Christianity would most likely still have remained the only banner worth mustering under even if the Celts had never come to be mustered under it.

If the first generation of anglo-saxon Christians did something good by abandoning the faith of their fathers for a better faith, that takes the punch out of the accusation that Hoff is abandoning the faith of his recent ancestors, if he is doing so for something better.

from a uniquely Christian emphasis on freedom of faith

Pre-christian rome involved in many ways tolerated worship of other gods, and was polytheist with varied practices. Christianity was, as noted above, harsh on worship of any other gods. I'm not sure it's uniquely christian, exactly? I'm not familiar with the general works of tertullian, but priscillian practiced a heretical form of christianity, as opposed to rejecting it. Religious freedom in an expansive modern sense came later as christianity transitioned towards religious tolerance, and universalism, and then agnosticism, and there being negative reactions to executing a heretic doesn't change that given he was executed.

have no good reason to believe that their un-Christianized versions would have reached the heights that their Christian versions did

Eh, rome itself achieved its size and trade without christianity, there's no reason to presume it's necessary.

I'm going to try to steelman some of FC's points. I don't necessarily fully agree with these, but I think they have some merit. First, most of your comment seems to be premised on the idea that the objection is to converting all. You keep repeating and extrapolating the phrase "abandoning the faith their forefathers" as if that, itself, is FC's core argument: that converting to a different faith is bad/traitorous. This is an inherently relativist perspective, trying to be fair and treat all belief structures equally. No Christians ever object to the notion of conversion in general, it is always a position that Christianity is actually true/good, and other religions, therefore conversion to Christianity is good and conversion away from it is bad. It's possible to make all sorts of objections to this position, but the fact that you argue from a relativist perspective suggests you (or maybe FC, or both) are missing the point.

Second, independently from whether Christianity is true/good in some objective sense, there's the additional issue you don't seem to notice which is a simple pragmatic alliance. Currently, Christianity is in the middle of being conquered by wokeism. These are the two major factions argument FC seems to be putting forth, or maybe a steelman of their position, is that Christianity, as the defender and the prominent force for thousands of years, is the most realistic faction capable of actually defeating wokeism. The criticism is not just that you didn't choose his prefered faction, but that, in the middle of a war between two major powers, you joined a minor third party with no hope of defeating either. If you want to defeat woke-ism, you need to ally with or preferably join the Red Tribe for real, not play third party half-ally half-enemy where you're fighting against both.

Personally, I'm less optimistic than these arguments would imply about how realistic it is for Christianity to make a comeback and defeat woke-ism without significant Blue-Tribe support. More realistically, I'm hopeful if we can defend for long enough then woke-ism will eventually collapse on itself and/or mutate into something less horrible and/or the Blue Tribe will come up with something less horrible which can outcompete woke-ism, which will then conquer and take over everything and be worse than Christianity but better than current woke-ism and our society won't collapse. But I do think that Christianity has a powerful defense against woke-ism that non-woke atheists lack, which is a strong mostly-objective morality system. We know what is right and what is wrong, and when progressives make moral arguments it's relatively easy for us to A. not be seduced by their arguments, and B. make strong defensive arguments against them. And while these arguments aren't necessarily convincing to non-Christians if they rely on biblical principles which are not shared by non-Christians, but sometimes they are. I don't think most atheists have the same level of moral conviction (a lot of Christians lack it too), which is why they keep ceding more and more ground to the leftists over time. A lot of people don't care that much about moral philosophy, but they don't want to be a bad person. If they don't already know what's right and wrong then they let someone else tell them what to do, the only question is whether it's the church or the diversity officers. And, despite all of its many flaws throughout the years, if they're not going to think for themselves then I'd rather have people listen to the church than an alternate source.

These are good points, but my larger thesis here is that the method by which Christianity spread, and the political and economic model employed by those spreading it, strikingly mirrors the way that Blue ideology is colonizing and homogenizing Red countries and regions today. Furthermore, the people resisting forceful conversion to Christianity by their own local cosmopolitan elites were precisely the Reds of their day. They were salt-of-the-earth normal people, defiantly clinging to their proud ancestral traditions. They weren’t even allowed to continue to practice their religion privately; the state knew that in order to secure long-term the power and legitimacy of its new ideology, it had to stamp out any displays of the old worldview, no matter how comparatively feeble.

If Red and Blue are to have any meaning in a macro-historical context - if they refer to recurring psychological archetypes or discrete clusters which we can observe in humans of any time period, rather than simply being petty expressions of context-dependent political conflicts between modern Americans - then it’s incredibly instructive to notice these parallels, because it suggests that there is nothing inherently Red about Christianity, and I would say that it also suggests that the success of the Red project moving forward has no inherent connection to the success or failure of Christianity specifically.

it, strikingly mirrors the way that Blue ideology is colonizing and homogenizing Red countries and regions today. Furthermore, the people resisting forceful conversion to Christianity by their own local cosmopolitan elites were precisely the Reds of their day. They were salt-of-the-earth normal people, defiantly clinging to their proud ancestral traditions.

Except it wasn't though. By the time of the Edict of Milan Christianity was already so prevalent in the Roman Countryside and amongst the urban working class that many modern historians posit that Emperor Constantine's conversion was in fact a cynical ploy to cut his rivals off at the knees by buying the loyalty of the plebs. It wasn't the "salt of the earth" who were resisting conversion (that phrase itself bein an explicit reference to Christ's Sermon on the Mount BTW), it was the cosmopolitan elites who were trying and failing to suppress it.

This in turn plays into my wider thesis because it's clear from these posts that you yourself are operating under the assumption that the woke's theories about culture and society are fundamentally accurate and correct. You say you're frustrated by people like me "not making the effort to evaluate our actual arguments", but what people like you don't seem to understand is that people like me don't share your moral relativism. We don't buy into your pseudo-Marxist/Hegelian framework of "colonization" and class/racial interest, we roll our eyes at "elite theory" and and other such nonsense. What is there to for us to even evaluate in light of such a core disagreement? It's not like this is our first lap around this particular track. We've already heard all of your arguments from the woke and have rejected them as invalid.

Your dismissal of red and blue tribe as mere "psychological archetypes" rather than distinct cultures with their own histories, beliefs, approaches, etc... Is simply the cherry on the sundae as it's exactly what one would expect from a disciple of the globohomo agenda. Christianity may not be inherently "red tribe" but Christianity is a major component of the red tribe's history and culture and you discard these factors at you peril.

Except it wasn't though. By the time of the Edict of Milan Christianity was already so prevalent in the Roman Countryside and amongst the urban working class that many modern historians posit that Emperor Constantine's conversion was in fact a cynical ploy to cut his rivals off at the knees by buying the loyalty of the plebs. It wasn't the "salt of the earth" who were resisting conversion (that phrase itself bein an explicit reference to Christ's Sermon on the Mount BTW), it was the cosmopolitan elites who were trying and failing to suppress it.

I made it abundantly obvious in my post that I was referring to the Christianization of Western and Northern Europe, and not the initial conversion of Rome and its immediate surroundings. All of the examples I provided were clearly about the regions outside of direct Roman rule, so you bringing up Rome is either an intentional dodge - because you’re not conversant in the history of the regions and era that I’m talking about, or because you don’t have a counterargument against my interpretation of the events in question - or (once again) a failure of reading comprehension on your end.

As for everything else here, you’re correct that we have incredibly orthogonal worldviews. I’m primarily interested in questions about whether or not Red and Blue are analytical categories that can be applied to people across a wide geographical and temporal field of comparison - was Oliver Cromwell a Blue? Was Charlemagne? Whereas you are very intent on keeping the conversation about these categories firmly rooted in the specific cultural and political context of the modern United States. As a result of this fundamental difference in analytical frameworks, you’re probably correct that you and I are indeed doomed to always talk past each other.

Ultimately I would love for someone in my faction - probably not me personally, since you very obviously find my specific style very grating - to convince you that we’re not your enemy, but rather an ally of convenience, with whom you’re going to have to coexist both before and after the eventual victory of our coalition. We’re Blues, but we’re not leftists, and that means we’re not your real enemy. I truly do believe that, and I haven’t given up hope that one of us will eventually break through to people of your inclination.

They weren’t even allowed to continue to practice their religion privately; the state knew that in order to secure long-term the power and legitimacy of its new ideology, it had to stamp out any displays of the old worldview, no matter how comparatively feeble.

You're attributing a huge amount of capacity to early Medieval states that didn't really exist. It's generally accepted that pagan practices with a Christian gloss persisted for a long, long time after formal conversion. I've seen some historians claim that the countryside in most of Europe wasn't really converted in anything but name until AFTER the Middle Ages, more or less just in time for the Protestant Reformation.

Medieval Catholic Christianity was able to maintain such religious unity over a large area by essentially being hands off once the temples were torn down and the churches put up. Just morph your old cults into veneration of some newly discovered local Saint and you're good to carry on more or less unchanged (for example: It's entirely possible that the Irish Saint Brigid is more or less literally a religio-translation of the pre-Christian Irish goddess Brigid). All the same practices and festivals can be held in all the same places, just with a different name in the middle.

It's always easier to add the cherry on top to an already existing edifice and then claim that you made the whole thing, this certainly being how people remember it. You don't need to convert people properly, only strike at their capital, force them to do an exclusively Christian act such as undergoing a Mass, to then be able to claim that all their leftover superstitions are just variations on the Christian religion. Inverting a thing is the easiest way to prove master over it, whilst still allowing it to appear mostly as it once was. The final

Too fervent proselytizing will summon up a force to oppose it; far better to just cut off the head, as here was done through mainly inducements, there not being any strong reason for an Anglo-Saxon ruler to remain stolid in his mystic beliefs lacking both depth and expediency as they did, and then to allow the remnants to follow, trusting that there won't be any strong counter movement.

Christianity seems to have originally been most popular among lower middle class urbanites, and to have been adopted by the elites following the discrediting of traditional Roman religion due to a series of system shocks(beating out competitors to do so; notably Manichaeism). From thence it spread by state force. This is not the work story

Christianity spread outside the Roman Empire through conversion that looks a bit more like woke, it’s true. Inasmuch as the early Middle Ages can be similar it is similar, I’ll give you that. But the analogy breaks down because woke mostly doesn’t see itself as a competitor to Christianity(except ‘fundamentalism’, whatever that means)- woke types mostly think going to a Christian church on Sunday is well, good, and even admirable. They happen to be competitors with Christianity for a dominant ideology, but progressives don’t seem to have any problem with going to a catholic or SBC or Mormon church. And there’s prominent woke individuals who go to all three, and at least the first two have woke individuals in important positions. I mean yes it’s difficult to be a good catholic or baptist or Mormon while being woke. But wokes mostly don’t believe that and have no issue with sufficiently pro-woke people who are Christian, even if they are members of quite conservative denominations(again unless those denominations get declared fundamentalist like the OPC or SSPX or the baptist Bible fellowship or one of the old calendarist groups, but that’s more of a declaring themselves to be an enemy thing).

By contrast Christianity explicitly demands that the old pagan gods be repudiated, in those words.

They happen to be competitors with Christianity for a dominant ideology, but progressives don’t seem to have any problem with going to a catholic or SBC or Mormon church.

The primary problem with your own explanation is that wokeness is subversive by design. The woke "don't seem to have a problem" with someone going to a church if and only if the church is a woke church. You kind of hint at this but is important to be explicit about this. They are fine with people who go to a woke church because wokeness is subversive by design and they know that the primary focus of worship will be wokeness (Critical Social Justice), not God. They are then Catholic or SBC or Mormon in name only. Like you say "it's difficult to be a good Christian while being woke", I would go further and say, actually "woke Christian" is an oxymoron, you can only worship one God, and if you're a "woke Christian" it means you're not worshipping God of the Bible, which is why the woke don't care. There's not "woke Christian churches" but "woke churches which have the aesthetic trappings of Christianity". Liberation theology specifically was designed to do this. The Southern Baptist Convention is undergoing a major schism right now over this kind of thing. A major incident that lead to the schism was that in 2019 the SBC adopted "Resolution 9" which basically said that the SBC will adopt Critical Race Theory as "analytical tools" - except Critical Race Theory is a totalizing ideology (or part of an ideology) which can never accept subordination. It Is directly competing with Christianity.

By contrast Christianity explicitly demands that the old pagan gods be repudiated, in those words.

In practice many nominally Christian communities were functionally pagan for centuries after their apparent conversion. Pagan rituals and worship would coexist alongside Christianity in remote Alpine villages and dense Baltic forests for many centuries after conversion.

but progressives don’t seem to have any problem with going to a catholic or SBC or Mormon church.

This only applies to people who go to church but nothing more. People who actually follow the teachings of the church are considered homophobes and misogynists who want to deny women reproductive rights

Fr James Martin SJ might be heretical, but he colors far enough inside the lines to avoid formal censure and seems to be generally well regarded among the woke. There’s similar figures among the Mormons and SBC.

And of course this ignores the total thrust of my point, which is that Christianity considers paganism’s morality or lack thereof to be a strictly secondary concern to its opposition to pagan worship itself, which the woke do not have to Christian worship, including the worship of generally quite conservative sects and the woke maintain Allies in good standing among many of these groups.

Critical Social Justice in the Era of Large Language Models

https://parrhesia.substack.com/p/critical-social-justice-in-the-era

Many anticipate that AI will have the ability to engage in novel and complex philosophical reasoning or contribute to scientific progress. While AI has yet to achieve this level of sophistication, models like ChatGPT demonstrates an impressive ability to generate meaningful text. I am skeptical about the usefulness and meaningfulness of articles from certain disciplines falling under the banner of Critical Social Justice. Finding connections between abstractions or interpreting text through a postmodern critical lense isn't particularly difficult. Nor does it lend itself to error or falsification. I think traits that allow CSJ scholarship to be hoaxed will put it at risk of domination by AI-generated articles. Scholars in the future will be highly prolific, but all their work will be generated trough computers. This will become a sort of open secret. All this scholarship produced will not advance humankind because CSJ scholarship is, at best, rather useless, and, at worst, socially harmful. In other disciplines more tethered to reality, AI generating acceptable papers would mean genuine progress.

Why does it matter how much of a threat AI is to the soft sciences that CSJ resides in? Even putting aside the long-theorized threats that AI posed to truck drivers and coders vs. the current threat it poses to artists, I think the bigger issue with this idea is something you pointed out at the start: humans can already make a mockery of CSJ writings using their own brainpower. I am kind of an AI cheerleader, but I doubt that bullshitting at-scale will actually cause the field to collapse under Stephenson-esque "good crap."

At the risk of mod intervention, CSJ academics can remain irrational for far longer than you can remain sane, rational, or uncancelled. If the decade-plus-long trend of CSJ's prominence is anything like a game of Chicken, the entire field started off with their steering wheel already loosened and those infamous Toyota floor mats pre-installed.

Many anticipate that AI will have the ability to engage in novel and complex philosophical reasoning or contribute to scientific progress. While AI has yet to achieve this level of sophistication, models like ChatGPT demonstrates an impressive ability to generate meaningful text

Referencing my comment from last month my interaction with chatgpt has convinced me that we are actually very far from general AI. I think the current approaches are deadends, we need to find a different way and this new breakthrough could happen tomorrow or it could happen in 500 years, with equal probability.

That's unfair, it really struggles comprehending that words are comprised of individual letters. It's opaque to the alphabet by the nature of what it can see and learn from. I asked it to generate anagrams and it was absolutely hopeless at it. It gave me nonsense like 'overwrite is an anagram of obverse'. When I really coaxed it for an anagram of obverse and observe, it gave me rubbish like 'oversbe' and 'beovers' but recognized they weren't words. It couldn't get verbose, which was really ironic seeing as it was incredibly verbose in its descriptions.

It also could not answer a question about perfect numbers, it could not find the pattern between 8128, 496 and 28 no matter how I coaxed it. I doubt a human would've made that error after being prodded and poked toward seeing the answer.

But I don't talk about the other 50 university challenge questions it got right. I don't talk about the fairly creative and reasonable ideas it came up with for how to redesign vehicles. Teething problems like the perfect number issue and your time zone issue could surely be solved by increasing the power a thousandfold - that's what GPT-4 will be doing. At least it's likely that's the case. The anagram problem or 'word ending in i' problem requires a different kind of data processing but it's not really that important. You don't need to be able to identify anagrams to be functionally intelligent and achieve things in the real world.

If we have an intelligence that's 95-98% human-level, with superhuman speed and knowledge, we're not that far from AGI.

If we have an intelligence that's 95-98% human-level, with superhuman speed and knowledge, we're not that far from AGI.

We've been seeing, and can predict, that there are plenty of tasks which can be done by machines at the 95%-98% level, but which can't be done better than that by machines because the 95%-98% are the low hanging fruit and the remaining few percent requires much more intelligence. (Self-driving cars are one of these, but it's been known for far longer than this.)

My experience with it is different. I've never seen it answer any question intelligently. It can fool me into thinking it's intelligent by being extremely verbose and pivoting from the question to some generic pat that is vaguely on topic. There is something fundamental missing.

What examples did you find of it behaving unintelligently? I think they just programmed it to be verbose after so many episodes of people asking it to elaborate in the previous configuration. I agree that it just doesn't know when to shut up.

For example:

What five letter word may precede the words 'slate' 'verse' and 'look'?

The word you are thinking of is "clean." It can be used to describe the act of wiping a slate clean, or to describe a verse in a song as "clean" or free of explicit language. It can also be used to describe someone's appearance or behavior as "clean," as in "He has a clean look about him."

Now the better answer would've been 'blank', since clean verse isn't really a thing. But clean is pretty good. I think clean verse could be a thing. That's a fairly intelligent answer.

It's pretty good at maths too:

written as a function of y what is the inverse of the function y equals x plus one all raised to the power three?

The inverse of a function y = f(x) is a function x = f^-1(y) such that f(f^-1(y)) = y = I(y) where I(y) is the identity function.

To find the inverse of the function y = (x + 1)^3 , we will follow these steps:

Switch x and y in the original function: x = (y + 1)^3

Solve for y in terms of x: y = (x^(1/3)) - 1

Replace x with y in the inverse function: y = f^-1(y) = (y^(1/3)) - 1

So the inverse function of y = (x + 1)^3 is y = f^-1(y) = (y^(1/3)) - 1.

It also got this question right:

For a cube, what number is obtained by adding the number of vertices to the number of faces and subtracting the number of edges of that cube.

I think it's generally intelligent, only with a few weird weaknesses like perfect numbers and a couple of other things I jotted down, it got confused at the wording of some more complicated questions.

Now the better answer would've been 'blank', since clean verse isn't really a thing. But clean is pretty good. I think clean verse could be a thing. That's a fairly intelligent answer.

No, it isn't.

People tend to interpret this kind of thing as if it was produced by an intelligent creature. After all, it's in proper grammar, and is phrased in a way that seems to resemble thoughts. It's hard to think of it as just being a text processor.

But it is. You shouldn't be making charitable interpretations of errors made by machines. "Clean verse" in this context is a mistake. It doesn't become not-a-mistake by saying "well, it's pretty good even though it's clearly the wrong answer". If a human said that, you'd probably say "oh, he was thinking of 'blank verse'", but the computer isn't a human, and wasn't thinking of anything; it shouldn't get partial credit for that.

But it literally justified 'clean verse' as verse that didn't have profanity in it. There's a clear relationship with meaning, it created a plausible phrase. If someone used the phrase 'clean verse' in context, it's unobjectionable and the meaning comes through.

If the machine said 'Australopithecus verse' or 'sabot-discarding verse' or 'rhinocerous verse' then I'd have a serious problem with it. It's not clearly a wrong answer if I had to check that it's not a real term. Maths questions in exams are graded on how many parts of the question you get right. Even if you get a wrong answer as long as part of your working is right you can still get some marks. I would give the machine 2/3 for its answer, it's a good attempt.

Now, the University Challenge format doesn't give half-marks, you're either right or wrong. Even so, there's being wrong and being spectacularly wrong. At one point they had an appallingly bad set of human teams. They made catastrophic, ridiculous errors.

https://youtube.com/watch?v=VLD3MtSXv5s?list=PLkjGBrjEcmjUBZSXKv5eCCrdlhP5WcRTR&t=433

In 1936 which mathematician conceived an eponymous model of an abstract general computer that manipulates symbols on an infinite strip of tape

IBM! They answer IBM! IBM is certainly not the correct answer, it's not even a mathematician. If that answer came from a machine you'd surely call it fundamentally flawed and inhumanly stupid, yet it came from a team of four (highly credentialed) people. Quality of thought should be graded on results, not on the kind of processing machinery that's used to produce it.

If you're grading the machine on quality of thought, it should get zero because it has no thoughts.

This also applies to giving it partial credit for wrong answers because it was "thinking" along the right lines, or something like that.

The machine can judge, solve problems and reason. Therefore it thinks. I have tested this experimentally.

Wrongness of answers is not an all or nothing affair, even in artificially simple questions like this. Partial credit for wrong answers is standard practice.

More comments

it really struggles comprehending that words are comprised of individual letters. It's opaque to the alphabet by the nature of what it can see and learn from. I asked it to generate anagrams and it was absolutely hopeless at it. It gave me nonsense like 'overwrite is an anagram of obverse'. When I really coaxed it for an anagram of obverse and observe, it gave me rubbish like 'oversbe' and 'beovers' but recognized they weren't words. It couldn't get verbose, which was really ironic seeing as it was incredibly verbose in its descriptions.

There's a structural and idiosyncratic reason for this, which has to do with how text is processed before it goes in and out of the model. Basically it processes "tokens," which are chunks of words. Training text is "tokenized" before being fed in, and the model itself outputs tokens which are converted back to text before being printed. The specific tokenization scheme that it uses (as far as we know, based on prior iterations of OpenAI's large language models) is "byte-pair encoding," which has itself been optimized so that common words are a single token, and then common chunks of words are tokens, and then (way down the list) individual letters are tokens. BPE is designed to minimize the size of the tokenized training data within a vocabulary of (I think) ~65k possible tokens. So the trained model has no way of knowing that the word "overwrite" starts with the letter 'o', since most likely it sees one token for "over" and another for "write" and the encoding doesn't need to resort to tokens for the individual letters, and it does not know that the "over" token has any special relationship to the "o," "v" etc. tokens. Gwern hypothesizes that BPE encoding is why it also cannot rhyme, and I assume he's right although the specific mechanism for BPE creating that deficiency isn't as clear to me.

Gwern hypothesizes that BPE encoding is why it also cannot rhyme, and I assume he's right although the specific mechanism for BPE creating that deficiency isn't as clear to me.

if [way], [may], and [day] are entirely different tokens (they are in gpt2 at least), it can't learn that they rhyme from their structure (the way we would), only from those specific tokens being used in other rhymes, i think?

Can't rhyme? A poet friend of mine was lamenting that it rhymes too much!

A whisper on air,

A silent thought

That lingers there.

Though none can hear

It still exists,

A hushed connection

Of souls that share.

Glorpth yoozled down the blizbevy tree, His muttazels aflutter with glee. Beside him stood the zibbablock, Gloating and ready with a shock. But the brave Glorpth didn't falter, He battled the beast with a clatter. He thrashed and he slashed 'til the night was done, And the Jabberwock was won.

I specifically asked for three nonsense words for this one...

Through the dark woods I heard a howl,

Flittering through like a silken owl.

The slonky creatures stirred below,

As they rose and began to flow.

Crossing through the gnelpy grove

I saw what I could not move.

It was covered in gloopy scales

And had a thousand hissy tails.

It was the jabberwocky, fierce and wild

Ready to attack with a baleful smile.

I ran and ran and never looked back

The terror of its presence slack.

I guess it can! Maybe it finally has enough training to overcome whatever impediment hobbled previous incarnations' attempts.

Crossing through the gnelpy grove

I saw what I could not move.

That's a shoddy non-rhyme, but if we accept Blake's "eye / symmetry"...

Many anticipate that AI will have the ability to engage in novel and complex philosophical reasoning or contribute to scientific progress.

Many? That seems like a stretch. I think there is a big distinction between AI automating some tasks vs. AI developing actual reasoning ability comparable to a science researcher. I think it shows really how faulty or useless peer review is, especially for the humanities. People are not even reading these papers...total nonsense can slip through, or the distinction between what is nonsense or not is undefined, as the Sokal and other hoxes showed.

Many among rationalists at least. I agree with you otherwise, at least peer review for these specific disciplines.

Why Boston’s “Embrace Statue” has led me to embrace Western chauvinism

Boston Common is a beautiful park in America’s true historic city. It’s a must see when visiting, and features a number of old monuments. There’s the Soldiers and Sailors monument, the Robert Gould Shaw memorial, and a memorial to the Boston Massacre. All of these are in a beautiful timeless design that the common man appreciates, which is appropriate for the common park of Boston. I wouldn’t say these monuments compare to achievements in European cities, but they are nevertheless noble attempts to celebrate the glories of the nation. As in all great art, the form befits the content, and the statues artfully imitate the gravity of their depicted scene.

Boston liberals decided to plop down a new monument, called “Embrace”, in dedication of MLK Jr — a figure mired in controversy over his support and instructions on raping women and the evidence that he plagiarized both his PhD thesis and his famous dream speech. (If that sentence was strange to read, it’s because I’m trying a new writing style where I introduce progressive heroes like they introduce mine). But the reason I disagree with the statue isn’t because MLK is a cheat or a misogynistic rape-enabler. Were the statue beautiful and heroic, and adequately conveyed the perseverance and dedication and cultural significance of MLK, this post wouldn’t be written. But that didn’t happen. Instead the statue looks like shit.

I mean this literally: it looks like a gigantic turd. The real world angles (not the architectural projections) make it look like a man firmly gripping monumental dung [1]. Some go further, and say it looks like a man gripping a monumental dong — that Boston has erected nothing short of an erection [2] [3] [4]. Surely the view of the common people should take primacy for the statues of the Boston Common, and Twitter is filled with normal people laughing hysterically at this statue.

So why erect something so ugly? The root cause here is the conscious betrayal of the Western legacy. What we see in the Boston Common is what we saw in Obama’s official portrait, with many questioning the artist’s choice of a casual background and hiding semen in his work [5]. The Western legacy and its hundreds of years of artistic development, which made a science out of beautiful monuments, is seen as intrinsically white — which is intrinsically bad. And so the novelty of experimental artists is privileged over the traditional and beautiful forms of art. Many of these artists make bad and gaudy work. The public knows this, but they are chosen anyway by the powers that be, who notoriously have an undeveloped sense of beauty.

And so I embrace western chauvinism. The West is the best, not in all the ways, but in important ones. Their statuary history is surely the best. Because the West is the best, we should privilege the traditional modes of art. Accepting this fact would make the public beautiful again.

Google images "black dude sucking his own dick", tell me that's not what it looks like.

I'll take your word for it.

From another point of view looks like he is between pair of thighs and munching like it is his last meal ...

https://twitter.com/AmakaUbakaTV/status/1614002232180998145

Look it is the public fault. In democracy what happens in the public square is eventually the voters responsibility.

Look it is the public fault. In democracy what happens in the public square is eventually the voters responsibility.

That's called the 'Populist Delusion' and there's a good book written about it. You can buy the book, pirate it if you're poor, and there's a video presentation on why blaming the voters is wrong here.

It cover elite theory, the modern managerial regime, how it operates and it makes it clear 'voters' do not really have a say and literally can't have unless they decide to become borderline criminal. And mere public ugliness doesn't jolt the normie as much as perverts trying to mess with their kids, which led to FBI investigating school board revolts.

It reminds me of the mangled messes of limbs and flesh that Stable Diffusion occasionally generates when it's trying to draw people.

It can't be a Stable Diffusion image, it doesn't have ((((large breasts))))

So far, apart from WW3 the best new development of the twenties. I see that in five years time, photorealistic impossibly beautiful generated e-thots animated by sophisticated LLMs are going to drive all women that are online offline back into technophobic patriarchal submission through sheer looks-mogging and thus civilization may end up being saved by pure horny accident by self-aware geeks trying to make false idols to simp for.

/images/16738187451575873.webp

From another point of view looks like he is between pair of thighs and munching like it is his last meal ...

I must say this statue is a masterpiece in demonstrating just how many different ways a single sculpture can be seen as absolutely, totally inappropriate, while at the core being perfectly SFW. If that was the intent of the designers then bravo to them.

Sculpture, being in three dimensions, is always prone to "I intended the work to be seen from this angle but people can walk around it and see it from different angles" problem. See this video about how Rodin's "The Kiss" has different emphases depending on the angle you view it from.

Unless you have something that is placed in a specific positioning where it will only be seen from the front, you are going to have unintended views. Good artists take this into account. I can't speak for the artist or artists who cast this statue. This is a flaw of conceptual art: they had an idea which they wanted to work out, but they didn't or couldn't see past the idea to what it would look like in reality.

Why they couldn't have gone with a conventional life-size statue or pair of statues of MLK and his wife I don't know, it would have attracted less comment of this kind (to me, it doesn't look like a turd or a penis from the angles shown, but it does look like a pair of arms grappling with a pillow or a sausage). That's why I say the concept (embrace meant to include all the ideas of inclusion and equality and welcome and support and so on) over-rode the practicalities.

Tbf, the statue's 'correct' viewing angle probably reflects direct reference from a famous photo of MLK and his wife, modified by the limitations of the material and the designer's skills; it is meant to be a pair of arms grappling at the shoulder. And if you've rejected the theory of the Great Man (although I disagree), it's not entirely nonsensical to emphasize the famous moment.

It's just... famous in a sense that very few people would recognize without huge amounts of prodding, even if they knew a lot about the time period in question, executed poorly.

See this video about how Rodin's "The Kiss" has different emphases depending on the angle you view it from.

Right, but (didn't watch the video but have seen "The Kiss" IRL) pretty much all of these emphases reflect different facets of the artist's vision for the piece -- this is why Rodin's work is worth zillions of dollars and whoever built this thing has to flog his stuff to mindkilled city councilors. (unless his vision involved MLK holding big pieces of poo, I guess)

Look it is the public fault. In democracy what happens in the public square is eventually the voters responsibility.

For better or for worse, that isn't really true of a representative democracy. You can vote out someone that does something stupid. You can, if there is such a candidate, vote for a candidate who promises to undo the stupid thing. But for any given issue, there's no guarantee that candidates for office will even realize that $issue is something the voters care about and want to change. In many elections you simply will not have the option to weigh in on a given issue by using your vote.

It never cease to amaze me how little we expect from politicians and state employees compared to CEOs ... if only there was fiduciary duty for poilticians ...

I think there are a couple factors, or at least I can think of a couple which make a difference. One is that politicians are selected by the general public, which is not always wise to put it mildly. Anyone who has worked in a customer facing job can tell you how foolish the raw unfiltered public can be. And those people are picking our leaders too.

Second thing is that as you get to positions representing more people, they get more and more out of touch with those people. A mayor in a small city can have a decent idea what people want from him because there aren't as many voices to listen to. A mayor of a big city has a much harder time, and so on. When you get to an office like the president of the US, there's simply no way any human could listen to all his constituents and follow what they want. Businesses have the same problem too, but they aren't as big as governments (generally) so it's not as pronounced.

Finally there's a coordination problem in how you deal with it, which makes things tough. If your CEO is fucking up, the board of directors replaces him. That is a pretty small group compared to even a small city, which will have hundreds or thousands of voting adults you need to convince to get rid of a politician. That makes it a lot harder to hold them accountable, of course.

I think the core of this very real problem, which we see in architecture and subway art as well as public statues, boils down to two things: Scott's barberpole theory of fashion and the tragedy of the commons.

The barberpole theory of fashion holds that being fashionable requires distinguishing your aesthetic from the aesthetics of the masses. It naturally drives elite circles who define themselves on the basis of their aesthetic sensibilities (artists and architects) to equilibrate on an aesthetic that most people will find unsettling or discomforting.

And the tragedy of the commons manifests from individual artists, architects and public works decisionmakers prioritizing their personal status among their aesthetically elite circle over the interests of the people who will see the art. Each time they decide whether to erect some modernist abomination in place of something that will actually brighten the day of the people who see it, they are deciding whether to give themselves a large direct payoff at the expense of everyone else receiving a small diffuse harm.

I guess this is inevitable in a post-scarcity society. Showy wealth and extravagance is no longer fashionable basically for the same barberpole reason that it associates one with the wealth-craving aesthetic of the masses, so elites compete for adulation of their peers in a contest to most dramatically degrade public spaces with unpleasant art.

I think the barberpole theory is pretty lame.

First of all, it doesnt actually tell you what new thing the upper classes will adopt. Before modernism, public art and architecture was neoclassical. If I had asked you at that time what style one could adopt to best differentiate from neoclassical, would you have come up with modernism or postmodernism from first principles? I think the best answer there would have been imitating rural peasants, but its hard to say. In practice a "style" has lots of attributes, and giving an exact inverse is difficult and also unnecessary, because anything thats different enough cam be used as a repudiation.

And "obvious inversion" is only one way this could go. Another example that certainly seems to be true often is that only the people youre signaling to can read the signals. If this is "elites compete for adulation of their peers", that doesnt explain the uglyness. It only needs to be obvious if you want to show the proles that youre different from them.

Also, theres a lot of low-class coded things that lower-class people themselves dont consider beautiful. Consider for example these very loose-cut shirts littered with branding: The people who wear these like them, and they think theyre cool, but they dont think theyre beautiful. You have to really scrape the bottom of the barrel to find people who e.g. wear them to a wedding. Returning to the topic of public art, I have yet to see anyone argue we should have e.g. a statue of Mickey Mouse in public square. Why not? Mickey Mouse figures are certainly more popular home decoration than classical statuettes.

So, its not given that the lower classes will even dislike it, if public buildings and art are distinctly higher-class. I dont think postmodern art is an obvious consequence of post-scarcity. Theres plenty of people floating around telling us that things shouldnt be beautiful because thats fascist: consider taking them seriously.

I think you're right that the artistic design space is high-dimensional enough that in theory there'd be any number of vectors orthogonal to popular beauty that one could embrace to assert your position at the top of the barberpole while still producing something beautiful... but being as they're orthogonal, you can strive toward those vectors while also including a directionally inverted component of the popular beauty vector. After all, if you can create a piece with hidden nuance appreciable only by your fellow elites, isn't it still a bigger flex to do that with art that the masses will also find revolting? And it's also true that the theory doesn't tell us what specific style the anti-beauty will take -- the SF Federal Building, the Toronto subway sketches and the MLK Embrace statue all achieve their hideousness in unique ways, and all seem to strive toward various other indicia of elite art -- but if the question is why elite art selection tends to embrace hideousness rather than which particular type of hideousness it will settle on, then the theory seems to do pretty well.

Theres plenty of people floating around telling us that things shouldnt be beautiful because thats fascist: consider taking them seriously.

Taking them seriously means asking why they associate beauty with fascism, and I think barberpole theory provides an answer: fascism is low-class, and is just one of the many things that would-be elites signal their status by equivocating with beauty. We also hear that beauty is consumerist, looks cheap, is reactionary, means embracing an aesthetic of a white supremacist past, etc.

Re the first part, I think your reasoning here depends on the directions orthogonal to beauty still corresponding relatively closely to terms in which we normally think about art.

the SF Federal Building, the Toronto subway sketches and the MLK Embrace statue all achieve their hideousness in unique ways, and all seem to strive toward various other indicia of elite art

Do I read correctly that you think its possible to make something thats clearly art of our current elite and also beautiful?

We also hear that beauty is consumerist, looks cheap, is reactionary, means embracing an aesthetic of a white supremacist past, etc

What did you have in mind with "looks cheap"? Are there really people who would say e.g. the Lincoln memorial looks cheap?

"Reactionary" here means basically the same thing I did with "fascist", and the association with bad old times is somewhere between made up and self-fulfilling, so it cant be the cause of the dislike.

Do I read correctly that you think its possible to make something thats clearly art of our current elite and also beautiful?

I think so. The new Moynihan Train Hall is maybe the best example, drawing accolades from elites and normies alike (extension to Penn Station on which I wrote a treatise about a conservatism founded on this specific kind of greatness). One World Trade Center (the "Freedom Tower") was controversial but probably also qualifies, although isn't new anymore. I would say the movie Everything Everywhere All at Once is both a great movie and an elite favorite. On statues specifically I do not know, because I don't follow the topic carefully and only the controversial stuff makes the headlines.

What did you have in mind with "looks cheap"? Are there really people who would say e.g. the Lincoln memorial looks cheap?

Cladding. Elite architects think cladding "looks cheap" even though it makes buildings more appealing to mainstream sensibility. That's just one example.

No, the Lincoln Memorial doesn't look cheap; the pejorative there would probably be implications of fascism or white supremacy. When Trump issued an executive order that federal buildings should be designed in neoclassical style, the American Institute of Architects responded in part that "Rather than pre-qualified architects receiving the chance to design uniquely-contemporary federal structures for the cities they serve, all future government buildings would instead be reminiscent of the monumental, white construction that has defined Washington, D.C., since its inception, as well as the structures built-in ancient Rome and Greece, and more recently, in Hitler’s Third Reich." I think that's reflective of the genre.

"Reactionary" here means basically the same thing I did with "fascist", and the association with bad old times is somewhere between made up and self-fulfilling, so it cant be the cause of the dislike.

It isn't the cause of the dislike. The cause of the dislike is barberpole theory and elite fashion. The excuse for the dislike is this latter litany.

I guess this is inevitable in a post-scarcity society. Showy wealth and extravagance is no longer fashionable basically for the same barberpole reason that it associates one with the wealth-craving aesthetic of the masses, so elites compete for adulation of their peers in a contest to most dramatically degrade public spaces with unpleasant art.

I think this is a choice. The elites could also willingly choose to compete in more victorian games to reject the excesses of such unpleasantness from the past. There's no reason to assume that virtue decays forever.

This is only tangentially related, but this reminds me of a comment on reddit the other day about how public art is often divorced from a practical purpose, meaning that ultimate finished product is bizarre and unsettling even if it is executed well.

Wow. Holy shit. That is horrible, perverse. Also brilliant. It's like that scene in strange days where the murderer puts on a telepathic device so the victim can see her own murder from his perspective.

The artist went on the subway, found it depressing, and now the grey ants have to look at themselves through his disgusted eyes. You could go one deeper. Paint what it feels like to go on this subway on a rainy day to a job you hate, thinking of jumping onto the tracks, when you see this piece, a tainted mirror reflecting and amplifying your pain, put there by the sinister entity that rules over you. And you know the entity approves of and watches your despair, yet it is not motivated by cruelty or sadism, for it too could never feel joy, it merely searches for an aesthetic, endlessly.

You're gonna need more black paint.

Thanks for linking, this case is especially atrocious.

I really agree with this comment and I agree also with some extra

I get more of an “all aboard! Next stop: Auschwitz!” vibe.

(...)

It's awful. I can't imagine being a visitor to Toronto and being greeted with this. Like an out-of-place Holocaust Memorial.

(...)

I stand here in the same clothes I wore yesterday, 38 years old, waiting for the same train I take every single day to my minimum wage job. Every aspect of my life is falling apart. I can barely afford my rent. The grocery store is stealing my retirement. And i'm at the edge of a mental breakdown.

But here I am. Facing a wall of depression that is my literal being, funded by own tax dollars. A very interesting piece of "art" indeed.

(...)

This art makes you want to succumb to the dangerously narrow passages near the tracks. We should start a petition to get it taken down. No art at all would be an improvement over this frosted glass suicide note

(...)

That's the subway station most inhabited by tourists. This is what we think represents Toronto. Depression. Death.

(...)

It's so ugly, so depressing, and even with the vaguest of linework, it still manages to be notably misogynist. The most detailed figure is a teenaged girl dancing around a pole, and she's further dehumanized by having her body outlined more sharply than anyone else's, but her face hidden, AND a yucky guy leering at her - who may be racialized as Black, just to be even more offensive. I despise everything about this.

(while last one is matching claims that are usually false here it mostly matches my own initial impression)

most detailed figure is a teenaged girl dancing around a pole

The "art" is awful, but she's clearly holding on to a train pole rather than dancing on a stripper pole.

Yes, but I admit that it was one of my immediate thoughts. Maybe because it was depressing and pole is without any context? And in my areas public transport poles are not standalone in the middle but more bundled with other parts of the vehicle?

Wow, those are...not inspiring.

I do think the pole is a subway handrail, for what little that's worth.

Yes, but I admit that it was one of my immediate thoughts. Maybe because it was depressing and pole is without any context? And in my areas public transport poles are not standalone in the middle but more bundled with other parts of the vehicle?

Did you mean to write the same comment twice?

I wanted to respond to both people. Should I respond to one of them and hope that other will coincidentally see the other reply?

You can tag the other commenter @traveller

They'll get a ping and it kind of consolidates the thread.

The standard workaround that I've seen is to use a username reference ("@‌ToaKraka") for a second or third person. Reddit silently disables username alerts if you attempt to use too many username references in a single comment, and I assume that this software has a similar limitation.

(Obligatory reminder that imageboard software doesn't have this problem, and allows conversation threads to merge as well as to branch.)

Thanks, I was unaware of that!

@FiveHourMarathon

Somewhat amusingly the section highlighted by the original poster might not even be the worst part. Some other nightmarish panels:

1 2 3

I thought the people were overselling it given the OP, it looks drab and depressing but nowhere near these schizo looking things.

It feels like the environment was designed by people who actively hate those who have to be in it or something.

What the hell.

There's a wider selection, and an explanation, from the artist's website:

On the track side, while you think you can see the entire expanse of the mural, and the train track gives you some mandatory distance from its glass panels, you are often less than 12’ away from an artwork which is over 500’ long. Walking the full length of the terminal, the work is visible only in the intervals between the arrival and departure of trains. At rush-hours, this is less than every 5 minutes.

This time-bracketed viewing of the artwork, as well as its intimate contemplation of our contemporary urban human condition, mirrors and channels the structure and meaning of Charles Dickens composed epic novels, made in intimate sections for his daily 19th century newspaper readership.

Although the project is conceived as a whole (this work has the overall sweep of an entire city block and can be seen as a continuously unfolding ribbon), the title zones of immersion implies that seeing the work close up is a both a necessity and an affordance, allowing a charged intimacy in this public space – a pathos rarely available in public art.

The expression of psyche in public space can give public art a purpose greater than spectacle or decoration. This work presents the unvarnished witnessing of our human dwelling – which speaks of our collective separateness. (I feel a kinship here with Daumier’s Third Class Carriage, and Henry Moore’s wartime subway drawings). The unwritten code of the subway gaze, which says ‘look down/look away’, is challenged as we see ourselves in the work, through drawings and reflections. This window into our contemporary isolation offers faces and body language, blurred and revealed poetic writings from my journal entries, and rhythms of colour that punctuate the ribboned expanse.

And in a certain sense, it's definitely not wrong: "pathos", "separateness" and "urban condition" are definitely things expressed very well in the 'art', to the extent that many critics of urbanism could point to it pretty precisely as an example.

((Uh, though the 'poem' is schlock.))

It's just no one seemed to stop to consider whether that was the right goal.

It would look better if they just had the coloured panels and scrapped the (bad) charcoal drawings of "let us remind you why you hate travelling on public transport, because it reminds you that you are just a faceless cog in the economic machinery forced into a routine like a rat in a cage".

There is no sense of beauty anymore. And yet people want beauty, as the comments from ordinary people show.

Normal people have a strong sense of beauty. Unfortunately sociopaths have figured out how to get themselves into positions of power and we’re ruled by people who largely don’t give a shit about their job and have no sense of responsibility.

I meant from a purely aesthetic standpoint it's extremely strong, people are definitely getting an artistic experience out of this, it's not some forgettable triviality. But I'm not sure I'd consider breaking people's spirits like this a wise or ethical use of the power of art.

I miss art déco.

Yeah I can easily see someone like me (but with money) picking that piece. Particularly with modern art, where so much is about the interpretation, it is easy to get lost in your own perspective or too focused on one or two concepts to the exclusion of everything else. It wouldn't even occur to me how miserable it would be to see every day until it was installed, I'd be too busy jerking the author off over the irony of it all.

The West is the best, not in all the ways, but in important ones.

If only westerners would realise this themselves and actually believe it... Also The West that's "the best" isn't progressive modernism, but rather tradional Westernism, which modern westerners disavow completely, and to bring it back we to remove modern westerners from every ounce of power they may hold first.

Your flair has never been more relevant. That Toronto artwork really drove home to me how much we’ve lost.

Don’t love the statue. It feels like they wanted a unique MLK statue and just missed the mark. MLK’s memorial in the national mall is a a much more traditional monument and looks great, especially lit up at night.

Not sure one statue ties into a wider point on “The West”. Seems like most of our statues are just a guy on a horse or standing in a military uniform. Doesn’t seem like a sign of downfall to try out new styles even if this one turned out poorly.

We have these statues in Downtown Phoenix around the Herberger Theatre and the Science Museum, I think they look pretty okay. I also like the gigantic mirror in the Convention Center. I guess my point is that it's not all bad, maybe it's one of those cultural-folkways-genetics things and not simply "all modern art sucks."

MLK’s memorial in the national mall is a a much more traditional monument and looks great, especially lit up at night.

Oh dear. That is not true at all. That thing is ugly.

Perhaps the problem is that memorializing MLK other than with a street name is impossible.

What upsets me is that it feels like the artist got halfway through doing an amazing sculpture and someone came in and said "What are you doing? If you keep going like that it's going to look fantastic - cut it out with the good sculpting already!" so he just stopped and shipped it as is.

The unfinished part is referring back to Michelangelo's sculptures, so they are trying to do reference to "heroic classical sculpture", so I can forgive them for the unfinished look, the image arising part-way out of the stone.

The statue itself is not bad, if a little too reminiscent of Chinese Communist style, but it could be a lot worse. So for public art that is a memorial to a heroic figure, it gets a pass from me.

Have you been in person? The memorial as a whole just works in a way that isn't apparent in pictures. The white stone conjures up images of Mount Rushmore, subtly asking the viewer, "what would a modern Mount Rushmore look like?" but without taking on the virulent anti-imperialist tone all too prevalent in other artworks of the genre.

My ex said something similar when we saw it. Maybe I'm too enamoured with the image of the finished sculpture I have in my head.

Doesn’t seem like a sign of downfall to try out new styles even if this one turned out poorly.

Maybe try these experiments in Autodesk to see if they work before you cast them in immortal bronze and erect them eternally in a place of honor in the heart of the city.

Or at least open it up to see that they don't look like some guy carrying an armload of shit.

‘Western’ is a dumb category. Instead we should refer to Christian or post Christian cultures- and, obviously, Christian cultures are aesthetically superior to post Christian cultures because they don’t make embracing ugly art an elite cultural shibboleth, but post Christian cultures are distinctive in being post christian and not post Islamic or post pagan. Christianity’s marriage laws, social attitudes, taboos, and attitudes towards worship leave fingerprints stamped all over these people, even if they’re post Christian and not Christian. ‘Western’ is a meaningless category. The fact that the civilization values prominent, representational art of important people at all is something that sets a post Christian society apart from a post Islamic society.

Instead what you’re arguing for is the superiority of a Christian society over a post Christian society, and I won’t disagree with you there. As a Christian conservative myself I have obvious reasons for this preference that go beyond artistic preferences, but ‘I like art to be beautiful’ is a reasonable preference.

I would disagree - Western is a perfectly apt description, or at least there's not much better. I disagree with the term of just 'Christian' because it ignores or downplays the pre-Christian Greco-Roman intellectual tradition the West inherited. The history of the West intellectually and philosophically has been attempts to attempts to synthesize Greek rationality with Jerusalemite faith. Many influential figures made this their explicit goal, such as Thomas Aquinas. These two broad schools of thought sharpened each other and I think lead to the remarkable intellectual achievements of the West. I think this is the true legacy of the West, at least intellectually.

Agreed. Modern Westernism has taken all the bad aspects of Christianity and kept them while throwing out the actually civilisationally useful stuff.

As someone from a completely different society in the UK I meet atheists all the time whose brief system is so so Christian it boggles the mind, the only thing is they don't believe in is God/the Bible.

So, what does this mean for pre-Christian societies? It wasn’t Christians who built the Parthenon or all of those gorgeous Greco-Roman statues. You draw a distinction between “post-Christian” and “post-pagan” societies, but, at least in the entirety of Europe, Christian societies are all post-pagan societies. Pagan Europeans made beautiful representational art many centuries before they were converted to Christianity.

Just what I was thinking. The essential features of Western civilization were all there BC or at least pre-Constantine. Mosaics too, as well as statues. Indeed, Christianity brought with it the introduction of iconoclasm as an idea, which caused long and ridiculously bloody (for the tininess of the stakes) factional strife in the Byzantine empire.

We had Roman Law, we had Plato and Aristotle, we had vaguely representative government and the rights of the citizen. That is the essential components IMO.

Linking pre-Christian Greece and Rome(and these were different societies even if they had a few similarities due to being indo-European and Mediterranean) to the modern ‘west’ can only be done through Christianity. The Italian renaissance that revitalized classical art? That was at the behest of Christianity.

To the extent that they’re similar to Christianity, it’s either because of geographic similarities(Christianity being, like Rome and Greece, based out of, well, Rome and Greece) or Christian borrowing.

I have to disagree. Renaissance architecture and statuary, and consequent developments, are influenced by Pagan architecture and rediscovered architectural/theoretical treatises more than anything Christian. Ethiopia, despite being Christian longer than Germany, does not have the same standard of beauty that you find in the West. Western architecture is its own category distinct from Christian non-Western communities in Ethiopia and Lebanon. Even Gothic (medieval) architecture was heavily influenced by Romanesque which was influenced by the developments of the Roman Empire.

“Western” only became befuddling as a category when postmodern academics willed this thought into existence. It pretty much just refers to Europe influenced by Rome and various hegemonic European groups (themselves influenced by Rome) (Goths, Franks, etc). The West, of course, does include Western Christianity. But it’s a perfectly useful term to use. Everyone seems to know exactly what region I’m referring to when I use it, absent edge cases in like the Balkans or Finland.

Gothic architecture was notably also influenced by Islamic architecture.

When you say "Gothic (medieval) architecture", are you implying that Gothic architecture is mediaeval architecture?

"Western" is also extended into pre-Christian Europe. Hence, Plato and Socrates etc. are "Western philosophers", but not Christian philosophers. Greek and Roman art is all "Western", but not all of it is Christian.

Also, the important distinction here is modernist vs. non-modernist. For example, there are plenty of horrendously ugly modernist churches, while pre-modernist churches tended to be gaudy at worst.

Well yeah, but counting those societies as western is dumb- they don’t have any more in common with later Christian and post Christian societies than they do with middle eastern societies.

A category that includes 1950s America and 4th century Rome is already very broad. However, "Western" is a category referring to a set of intellectual, linguistic, and other cultural traditions, typically taken to descend from the cultures of Ancient Greece, Rome, and the Hebrews (up to the 1st century). It's not defined in terms of degree of similarity. A South Pacific Island that had miraculously and independently become Christian, democratic, individualistic, and had a play in in Iambic Pentameter about an existentially tormented prince would still not be "Western", because despite its similarities it would not be part of the same tradition.

Saying that ancient Greeks and Romans weren't Western is a bizarre understanding of "Western". We could redefine words to mean the opposite of their common definition. But then communication would be very difficult and full of misunderstanding.

I took a year long Western Civ class in high school. It was almost all ancient Greece and Roman.

There's heterodox opinions and then there's just failure to use terms in a sensible manner.

Well yes, the category ‘western’ includes ancient Athens as well as 21st century America- that’s why the category is dumb. Not completely absent of meaning, but not defining something that needs to be defined.

To be fair, hydroacetylene's contention is that "Western" is a bad category and that we should replace most of its uses with "Christian".

While I don't disagree with your conclusion I do doubt that it was really the statue that led you to this. Be honest - you were ready to embrace western chauvinism beforehand, weren't you?

Yeah I had the same thought when I read the op - it's like if I wrote an op saying 'guys I have decided to stop taking things so seriously'. That template is supposed to be for unexpected new developments, not natural outgrowths of previously stated beliefs.

Unfortunately, the modernist ugliness you are right to complain about is Western, or at least it came from the West originally, and has now been embraced by decision makers globally.

Traditional architecture, sculpture and painting are beautiful everywhere, regardless of the geographic background. The modernist equivalents are ugly regardless of background.

Compare two recent statues in London. The first is a pile of whipped cream, with a drone, fly and cherry sitting on top. It is designed by a British woman and is an example of contemporary western art.

https://news.sky.com/story/fourth-plinth-whipped-cream-and-fly-sculpture-unveiled-at-trafalgar-square-12038929

The second is a recreation of the ancient Winged Bull statue from Iraq, which was destroyed by ISIS. It was designed by an Iraqi Jew and is a literal recreation of ancient middle eastern art.

https://www.theartnewspaper.com/2018/03/28/londons-fourth-plinth-unveiled-michael-rakowitzs-winged-bull-sculpture-made-from-date-syrup-cans

The Winged Bull statue is self-evidently far superior, it is also not western. It is superior because it is traditionalist and not modernist.

The whipped cream statue is not modernist, either. Modernist art is this stuff. And it is worth noting that some people then made the same criticism of that art that you are making re contemporary art, and, as you do, said that this was "real art).

I guess the mods don't have a problem with you darkly hinting that anyone who doesn't like modernism is a nazi, but I think it is weak and lazy and I know you can do better G. At least build up to it or something.

I didn't hint that at all. The point was simply that "modernism bad, traditional good" does not have a great pedigree, and so a convincing argument re the merits of modernism needs a lot more than that bald claim. And, anyone who thinks that "Nazis didn't like modernism" implies "all who dislike modernism are Nazis" needs 1) a refresher course on basic logic; and 2) a refresher on history, since Stalin was not a fan, either.

Your point was that "modernism bad, traditional good" does not have a great pedigree, and so to get that across you told Crowstep that the whipped cream statue isn't modernist and then implied you would give an example of modernist art, but instead of linking an art gallery, or GIS for modernism, or even just the Wikipedia page, you linked a page about an exhibition the nazis held to "inflame public opinion against modernism". So you weren't darkly hinting, you just lost all ability to communicate normally?

And, anyone who thinks that "Nazis didn't like modernism" implies "all who dislike modernism are Nazis" needs 1) a refresher course on basic logic; and 2) a refresher on history, since Stalin was not a fan, either.

Nobody thinks "Nazis didn't like thing" implies "all who dislike thing are Nazis", but plenty of people pretend to for political gain as you know, which is why you can get side eyed for buying a tiki torch. To me it looks like it is also why you claimed it was "worth noting" that the nazis made "the same criticism" Crowstep did when he said he preferred soup can lamassu. Especially since you apparently do have non-nazi links, you just didn't use them.

As it happens, the Degenerate Art exhibit is the most complete survey of modernist art that I know of personally and, given that the OP was essentially arguing, as others have here repeatedly, that contemporary art is degenerate, and/or that the creators thereof are intentionality trying to destroy all that is True and Good, a link to the Degenerate Art exhibit was too hard to pass up.

The whipped cream statue is very technically competent. It is also ugly, and meant in a spirit of ugliness. The lamassu statue out of syrup tins may be gaudier and cheekier, and even tackier, but I prefer it. First, I like lamassu. Second, it is colourful and hopeful. There's enough ugliness and rubbing our faces in despair and cultish nihilism. Third, it really does represent something more rooted in the common people. If we're going to be all democratic about our public art, then there are a lot worse out there.

I sincerely doubt that the whipped cream statue was "meant in a spirit of ugliness," whatever that means. It was probably supposed to be some sort of political commentary, or perhaps meant in a spirit of whimsy, or in the spirit of the type of art school sophistry that is so common to artists' statements. You have no actual evidence that it was "meant in a spirit of ugliness" (again, whatever that means), as opposed to simply being, in your view, ugly? And it isn't even that ugly; there are plenty of great works of art that are uglier than that and plenty that depict ugliness, and plenty that are both. Are those "meant in a spirit of ugliness"? And, if so, perhaps that is not a bad thing.

From your first link (emphasis added):

When asked why he was compelled to revisit Velázquez's Portrait again and again, Bacon replied that he had nothing against popes, but merely sought "an excuse to use these colours, and you can't give ordinary clothes that purple colour without getting into a sort of false fauve manner".[24] At the time Bacon was coming to terms with the death of a cold, disciplinarian father, his early, illicit sexual encounters, and a very destructive sadomasochistic approach to sex.[25]

Almost all of the popes are shown within cage-like structures and screaming or about to scream. Bacon identified as a Nietzschean and atheist, and some contemporary critics saw the series as symbolic execution scenes, as if Bacon sought to enact Nietzsche's declaration that "God is dead" by killing his representative on Earth. Other critics see the series as symbolizing the killing of a father figure.[26] However Bacon balked at such literal translations, and later said that it was Velázquez himself he sought to "triumph over." He said that in the same way that Velázquez cooled Titian, he sought to "cool" Velázquez.[26]

Yes, I think that is the very definition of "a spirit of ugliness".

Then I really have no idea what "meant in a spirit of ugliness" means. All art that is produced by the stereotypical "tortured artist"? All art that some Freudian can impose the standard Freudian interpretation on? That is pretty much all art.

And, btw, the key phrase in OP's claim is not "spirit of ugliness" but rather "meant."

it is worth noting

Please speak directly. Why is it worth noting?

Unfortunately, the modernist ugliness you are right to complain about is Western, or at least it came from the West originally, and has now been embraced by decision makers globally.

A host / parasite distinction needs to be made here, I think.

If course, the original host / parasite diatinction that Scott made about the West was that authentic Western culture involves Odin and daubing yourself in blue woad. Anything after 1492 is a globohomo skinwalker ghoulishly possessing Europe's animated corpse.

daubing yourself in blue woad.

SMH modern westerners probably think Alizarin is a spell from Harry Potter... When will this age of ignorance end...

Anything after 1492 is a globohomo skinwalker ghoulishly possessing Europe's animated corpse.

What, you mean you'd count stuff AFTER Western civilization was corrupted by Arabs like Avicenna and his minions like Aquinas in the High Middle Ages?!

The 13th century was the high water mark of European culture. Fight me.

Certainly not the worst claim...

But seriously, you'd count Western civilization AFTER the Romans conquered the Greeks? Everything else was basically corrupt.

But would we say the Chinese cultural revolution was Chinese in culture? I would say it was Marxist-globalist, and I would say the same about Soviet art. These nations have since tossed aside their Marxist-globalist chains and have put on their authentic culture once again. We should do the same. Perhaps the seed of Global Man art (globo-homo) did originate in the West, in the form of capitalism or Bolshevism, but its adherents consciously place their works outside the tradition of their ancestors. They themselves see it as global, and not Western.

What's wrong with Soviet art? I would expect the kind of people who complain about "modern art" to be delighted by socialist realism.

The realism is fine, the futurism is where it's at. I fucking WANT to be flying superman style with nuclear power in my hand.

The difference is in the intent of the author. They didn't actively hate the people, they weren't miserable piles of neurosis taking it out on you the observer.


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