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naraburns  nihil supernum  2yr ago (text post)   Edited 2yr ago   5919 thread views

Quality Contributions Report for February 2023

This is the Quality Contributions Roundup. It showcases interesting and well-written comments and posts from the period covered. If you want to get an idea of what this community is about or how we want you to participate, look no further (except the rules maybe--those might be important too).

As a reminder, you can nominate Quality Contributions by hitting the report button and selecting the "Actually A Quality Contribution!" option. Additionally, links to all of the roundups can be found in the wiki of /r/theThread which can be found here. For a list of other great community content, see here.

These are mostly chronologically ordered, but I have in some cases tried to cluster comments by topic so if there is something you are looking for (or trying to avoid), this might be helpful. Here we go:

Quality Contributions to the Motte

@Rov_Scam:

@wlxd:

Contributions for the week of January 30, 2023

@OracleOutlook:

@MathWizard:

Rowliphobia

@FarNearEverywhere:

@DaseindustriesLtd:

Identity Politics

@faceh:

Contributions for the week of February 6, 2023

@TransgenicSolution:

@Walterodim:

@Ecgtheow:

@Dean:

Who Teaches the Teachers?

@gog:

@Lewyn:

Identity Politics

@ymeskhout:

@RandomRanger:

@100ProofTollBooth:

@ChestertonsMeme:

Contributions for the week of February 13, 2023

@whatihear:

@ActuallyATleilaxuGhola:

@Dean:

@FiveHourMarathon:

Babies Everywhere

@wlxd:

@SSCReader:

Identity Politics

@DaseindustriesLtd:

@ThisIsSin:

Contributions for the week of February 20, 2023

@Rov_Scam:

@urquan:

@ThisIsSin:

Battle of the Sexes

@Ecgtheow:

@FiveHourMarathon:

Battle of the Genders

@hanikrummihundursvin:

@Amadan:

@Harlequin5942:

@RococoBasilica:

Identity Politics

@Hoffmeister25:

@HlynkaCG:

@hooser:

@FCfromSSC:

@FiveHourMarathon:

Contributions for the week of February 27, 2023

@TheDag:

@DaseindustriesLtd:

@dovetailing:

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He surely would. Sorry, was a bit distracted, see edit:

This is literally a racket with clear finite conditions and demands, coordinated by a high-profile activist group, with a specific man, called Jonathan Greenblatt, calling the shots, as they say. They have invested a lot of effort into making it appear as some decentralized grassroots movement they have merely volunteered to champion and which would have meaningfully existed regardless, but this is just a practical expression of what Yarvin talks about here:

Bluntly, I do not believe that leaders, coordinators, instigators, Machiavellians do not matter and do not determine how the vague popular sentiment and antagonism swells and turns. In some galaxy-brained Civilizational Big Picture it may be different, but on the timescale of real politics, at least, wins and losses are largely determined by the quality of commanding corps and their ability to not be handicapped, distracted and dispersed.

To think otherwise is supremely democratic, ironically. Yarvin consistently downplays the relevance of specific decisionmakers, unusual capabilities and intelligence (see his rhetoric on AGI). Well, I've already explained how I interpret this impulse.

Or it might not - after all, you can call the villification of Schwab a lot of things, but effective probably isn't one of them

To the extent that Schwab is not a figurehead, it could be effective. I just don't think Schwab is who he is alleged to be by right-wing conspiracy nuts. Greenblatt's authority over his organization is not a conspiracy theory but a fact of life, a fact that upsets even Jews who feel he's too focused on culture war bullshit they didn't subscribe to, compare him negatively to Abe Foxman, and it is plausible that him being replaced by a straightforward Bibi-style Zionist, as they'd prefer, would change matters for the better (or for the worse). Schwab, like @2rafa says, is for the most part just an old man, a normie European economist who likes to run conferences – he does not even peddle ideas right wingers attribute to him, nor does he have the power to compel others to act on his actual views. Actually the degree of Schwab demonization should be suspicious in itself – it's almost like he's a lightning rod to distract enemies of the forming political consensus (which is, incidentally, not «globalist» any more) from its high-agency advocates. See the previous point.

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