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Culture War Roundup for the week of June 12, 2023

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These words like "genetic impulse to destroy all members of their outgroup" and many others you've scattered through your posts is just your own weak-manning, feel free to copy + paste anything I've said that you object to because you aren't characterizing my position accurately.

I am obviously phrasing it in a more blunt way, because you try to put it in a more evasive and less obviously culture warry way, but I genuinely do not see how my characterization is inaccurate. Why don't you explain it to me, as I've asked you to do numerous times? You do believe Jews act as they do for reasons that can be ascribed to HBD (i.e, genetics), yes? You do believe that Jews act to undermine and disempower their outgroup, yes? (Perhaps "destroy" assumes too much - maybe they'd be satisfied with complete subjugation?) I understand why you don't want to be pinned down admitting, in those words, that you believe Jews have a genetic impulse to destroy all members of their outgroup, because that would require showing your power level too blatantly, but no, I do not believe I am weakmanning you. You believe Jews are hostile and dangerous to non-Jews, that they are this way for genetic reasons and therefore it is a predilection that all Jews possess, even if they deny it or are unaware of it, and they are, if not uniquely so, then at least unusually energetic and successful at prosecuting tribal warfare, with the end goal of suppressing or extirpating rival tribes, across a span of millennia. Is any of that not correct?

You do believe Jews act as they do for reasons that can be ascribed to HBD

Yes, do you not?

You do believe that Jews act to undermine and disempower their outgroup, yes?

Yes, do you not?

If I were to ask you: which open-border supporting Jew provides the absolute steel-man for the rational and economic case for open borders? It would without a doubt be Bryan Caplan, I've read a lot of his work and enjoy reading his perspective. But what are we to make of his admission that "Mormons scare me"?

Occasionally, though, I wonder: What would happen if Mormons were a solid majority of the U.S. population? Maybe they’d be as wonderful as ever, but I readily picture a sinister metamorphosis. Given enough power, even Mormons might embrace a brutal fundamentalism. Despite my lovely experiences with Mormons, they scare me.

To be fair, they’re hardly alone. You know who else scares me? Muslims, Christians, Jews, Hindus, and atheists. Sunnis, Shiites, Catholics, and Protestants. Whites, blacks, Asians, Hispanics, and American Indians. Democrats, Republicans, liberals, conservatives, Marxists, and reactionaries. Even libertarians scare me a bit. Why? Because given enough power, there’s a serious chance they’ll do terrible things. Different terrible things, no doubt. But terrible nonetheless.

If you’re afraid of every group, though, shouldn’t you support whatever group has the minimum chance of doing terrible things once it’s firmly in charge? Not at all. There’s another path: Try to prevent any group from being firmly in charge. In the long-run, the best way to do this is to make every group a small minority – to split society into such small pieces that everyone abandons hope of running society and refocuses their energy on building beautiful Bubbles. As Voltaire once put it:

When people lament the political externalities of open borders, they’re usually picturing an influx of a group with a bad track record of being in charge. In a sense, these critics understate their case; numerical superiority can turn even the nicest groups into a mortal danger. But critics also overlook the open borders remedy: Diaspora dynamics notwithstanding, welcoming everyone is a great way to turn everyone into a minority. And while that hardly guarantees safety, it’s less menacing than the status quo...

Once the members of the group that scares you the most loses all hope of running the show, most will calm down. In time, they too might be nice as Mormons.

I would qualify Caplan's perspective as "undermining and disempowering" his outgroup, wouldn't you?

Anti-racism also specifically seeks to disempower white people, as in it's the overt agenda of the program. If a Jew supports anti-racism, which specifically aims to empower Jews with social and legal protections and disempower white people, would you qualify that advocacy as "undermining and disempowering" their outgroup?

Edit:

You believe Jews are hostile and dangerous to non-Jews, that they are this way for genetic reasons and therefore it is a predilection that all Jews possess, even if they deny it or are unaware of it, and they are, if not uniquely so, then at least unusually energetic and successful at prosecuting tribal warfare

I don't believe it's a predilection that "all Jews possess", sometimes it's a psychology that manifests in different ways, even as Jews who are especially contrarian and themselves anti-Semitic. Many Jews are apolitical altogether. Why is it when we talk about IQ you understand we ware talking about averages and distributions, but when it comes to talking about Jews we can only be talking about every single one at the same time? Why do you insist on pushing this fallacy that is pushed by the IQ deniers all the time?

Caplan literally listed Jews in that list of groups that scare him.

It's pretty clear that he fears most groups, and what he actually wants is power to be shattered in such a way that no one can cause too great disasters with it.

Yes, do you not?

I do not. Or rather, I do not thing the things you believe Jews specifically do are part of a biological imperative. If you're asking do I think Jews are human beings whose behavior has been shaped by evolution, well yes, of course, but that's not really what you're asking, is it?

Yes, do you not?

No, I do not think Jews act to undermine and disempower their outgroup, or at least, no more so than any other human beings.

You keep throwing chaff in response to questions by quoting more Jews who endorse policies you consider inimical to you. Why should I care what Bryan Caplan thinks? Why is what Bryan Caplan thinks a statement about the malignant evolutionary path of the Jewish race?

More to the point, if all you are saying is that Jews act like every other human being, why do you care about them so much, and why do you think I should care about them in particular?

I don't believe it's a predilection that "all Jews possess", sometimes it's a psychology that manifests in different ways, even as Jews who are especially contrarian and themselves anti-Semitic. Many Jews are apolitical altogether. Why is it when we talk about IQ you understand we ware talking about averages and distributions, but when it comes to talking about Jews we can only be talking about every single one at the same time? Why do you insist on pushing this fallacy that is pushed by the IQ deniers all the time?

I've already addressed this. I understand you don't think literally every Jew is a Cylon. (Probably a better metaphor than "lizard person.") But you think the "Jew average and distribution" is such that most Jews are basically Cylons - meaning, they will naturally act as hostile, subversive agents among non-Jews.

This is what you believe, and you believe this is true of Jews generally and not true of non-Jews generally. True or false?

Why should I care what Bryan Caplan thinks?

Because I'm trying to calibrate our understanding of what we can consider "disempowering their outgroup." Caplan is acknowledging ethnic anxieties behind his support for open borders- he doesn't want the legacy majority to have power and organize against him. So in this case the support for demographic change is explicitly based on disempowering the legacy majority.

What about anti-racism, where disempowering white people is the specific goal of that cultural movement? If a Jew supports that movement, can we say he is advocating for the disempowerment of his outgroup? If we can't acknowledge these things as examples of what we're talking about, then we're talking past each.

More to the point, if all you are saying is that Jews act like every other human being, why do you care about them so much, and why do you think I should care about them in particular?

They are better at creating culture and propaganda and they use their talents to prioritize the well-being of their ethnic group above my own ethnic group to the detriment of my ethnic group. Why would I need more of a reason to care?

But you think the "Jew average and distribution" is such that most Jews are basically Cylons - meaning, they will naturally act as hostile, subversive agents among non-Jews.

Say theoretically there are Jewish professors or Hollywood producers who prioritize the production of anti-racist content. Would you agree that they are being hostile and subversive?

I don't think that's Caplan's primary cases for immigration; though I admittedly haven't read enough of him in a while. My impression was that it was mostly economics-oriented, in that it relocates a lot of people to much more efficient jobs (since the market is willing to pay them vastly higher quantities), driving economic growth.

Because I'm trying to calibrate our understanding of what we can consider "disempowering their outgroup." Caplan is acknowledging ethnic anxieties behind his support for open borders- he doesn't want the legacy majority to have power and organize against him. So in this case the support for demographic change is explicitly based on disempowering the legacy majority.

I think your understanding is hopelessly flawed, and frankly, I think your analysis is as disingenuous as most of these link drops you do.

Bryan Caplan wrote an essay about why he worries about any one ethnic group having too much power. Notice that he included Jews.

From there, you have spun many other conclusions without foundation: (1) That he is motivated by "ethnic anxiety"; (2) That this is why he supports open borders; (3) That he feels this way specifically because he is Jewish; (4) This his particular concern is "the legacy majority" (I notice how you sneakily slipped that buzz phrase in there, even though, as I noted, he actually said he is worried about any majority, including his own); (5) That all this is a Jewish trait which he shares with other Jews; (6) That this does not arise merely from shared cultural experiences, but their DNA.

I mean, any or all of those things could theoretically be true. But put together it's a narrative that obviously fits your ZOG worldview, but it is all nothing more than a just-so story. You're pointing at random Jews who say things in the media and saying "See? See???" like this is supposed to convince us of the --Joo--Cylon menace. When you can't even avoid ignoring points in the very examples you cite (like Caplan himself not excluding Jews from his point), it becomes patently obvious how you are ignoring, say, all the Jews who don't conveniently say things that pattern-match to "Cylon" and even say things that contradict it.

What about anti-racism, where disempowering white people is the specific goal of that cultural movement?

I am not particularly interested in steelmanning "anti-racism," because we'd get bogged down in definitions starting with "racism" and not ending with "disempowering" or "white people." But you are still overgeneralizing. Not every person, Jewish or otherwise, who is "anti-racist" is Ibrim X Kendi or subscribes to Kendism, and even of those who do, your assumption is that they actually support that because they consider white people their enemy and they are waging tribal warfare against them. And not, say, because some people actually believe racism is a bad thing and this is the best way to combat it.

Say theoretically there are Jewish professors or Hollywood producers who prioritize the production of anti-racist content. Would you agree that they are being hostile and subversive?

No. I actually think racism is a bad thing and fighting racism is a good thing. I'm certainly not a Kendiist, but I do not classify everyone producing anti-racist content as "hostile and subversive" and my racial enemy.

Why is it so taboo for white people to advocate for their ethnic identity? Can we at all attribute this phenomenon to the narrative-generation of cultural elites? If so, what are those narratives and what are their origins? Even boomer-cons have picked up terminology like "critical race theory" from which we get closer to acknowledging an actual origin for these narratives, rather than pretending they fell from the sky.

Every discussion with you reaches this point, where I observe that for post after post, you have ignored all my direct and specific challenges to each point you made, and simply try to grab the ball and run in a different direction with it.

Until next time, I am done playing "Look, squirrel!"

You never even bothered answering my question re: Caplan, and I guess you don't want to answer the question I just posed either. "But Caplan said he didn't want Jews to get too much power" is a non-answer. The point was that Caplan looks at society and says "damn, it would be better for it to be diverse so that the majority cannot organize against me." I asked you if this could be considered an example of disempowering a legacy majority and reading your post I see no answer.

You never even bothered answering my question re: Caplan

This is a falsehood. I wrote an entire paragraph in response, which you have chosen to ignore. "Caplan directly contradicted your entire premise, and also you snuck in a lot of assumptions that weren't actually there" is not a non-answer.

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