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VoxelVexillologist
Multidimensional Radical Centrist
2m ago
In at least a few non-Ivy schools I keep tabs on, student-led BDS efforts last year got forcibly pushed aside by non-student university leadership, presumably concerned more about federal law regarding national origin discrimination (and maybe also in response to major benefactors grumbling). Generally this took the form of "student elected leadership may not even debate this motion" and while there was (and probably remains) some grumbling from some students, it seemed that the university won.
naraburns
nihil supernum
9m ago
I was saddened this morning to read of the resignation of one of the founders of La Leche League from that organization.
La Leche League was founded in 1956 to improve breastfeeding rates in the United States. Many people are unaware, or do not fully grasp the implications of, the fact that the mid-20th century was an era of hyper-medicalization and scientific interventionism. Probably most college students today know how to make the proper noises concerning the historic exclusion of women (or racial minorities) from medical studies, but few could tell you why in 1965 Robert Bradley made waves by arguing that childbirth shouldn't be such a medicalized process. It would be a good half century before skyrocketing c-section rates persuaded the AMA (etc.) to take seriously the idea that medicalization was harming mothers at least as frequently as it was helping them.
Breastfeeding has not received quite as much cultural attention as childbirth, for reasons I can only guess at. One is probably just that breastfeeding does not typically present quite the same "life-or-death" questions that childbirth sometimes can. Another is that, historically, not all mothers have been successful breast-feeders, whether by chance or by choice; relying on other mothers to feed one's own infant, at least for a time, is attested cross-culturally. Breastfeeding has well-established health benefits for babies and mothers both (in particular, nothing else is more decidedly protective against breast cancer), but between the availability of adequate (if not really optimal) substitutes, psychological difficulty come have treating breasts in non-sexualized ways, and a sometimes steep learning curve, many mothers find the whole proposition... unpalatable.
La Leche League's most visible influence (at least in my experience) has been their gratis lactation consultants. Some mothers, and some babies, take to breastfeeding like the proverbial ducks to water, but many, maybe most women have at least a little difficulty. Will the baby latch, will the latch hold, how to avoid painful latching, how to deal with chafing, what if I don't produce enough milk, are there foods I need to avoid, etc. are things women once shared with their daughters, or learned from their midwife, and aren't necessarily things your average OB/GYN has any grasp on. (It's not unusual for full-fledged OB/GYNs to spend 6-8 weeks (or less!) in their entire training learning about normal pregnancy and childbirth; their job, after all, is to fix such problems as may arise.) For women who are willing to accept input (and, I suppose, for women who capitulate to the sometimes, er, zealous lactation consultants), La Leche League has filled the gap left by the steamrolling of familial bonds by cultural "progress."
So why, as a 94-year-old woman, would Marian Tompson denounce decades of work brought about, in large measure, by her own efforts? Here is what she wrote:
From an organisation with the specific mission of supporting biological women who want to give their babies the best start in life by breastfeeding them, LLL’s focus has subtly shifted to include men who, for whatever reason, want to have the experience of breastfeeding, despite no careful long-term research on male lactation and how that may affect the baby.
This shift from following the norms of nature, which is the core of mothering through breastfeeding, to indulging the fantasies of adults, is destroying our organisation.
... By including men who want to breastfeed in its services, LLL is destroying its founding mission to support breastfeeding mothers.
It also goes against the wishes of many mothers, group leaders and trustees around the world, who have been fighting to convince LLL International to hold fast to its woman-focused mission...
Conquest's Laws win again. La Leche League has been profoundly nonpartisan, but it was not explicitly and constitutionally right-wing, and so "another previously innocent activity" heads toward "World War I style trench warfare."
Glassnoser
9m ago
There is a reason why people kept this place heterogeneous for thousands of years.
What reason is that?
5434a
11m ago
Finished Pride & Prejudice yesterday. I was expecting crisp and refined writing but what I got, which certainly was not parallel to, indeed not sharing many aspects with, a style one could generously, or as befits opinion parsimoniously, describe using a range of terms, carefully chusen from the refracted, diffuse spectrum of all potential lexical motifs, as one of focus, indeed moreso not an under abundance of sidewards steps and circumlocution.
Better than Madame Bovary though.
hydroacetylene
13m ago
No. Bezos’ wife number one was a key part of him being able to build Amazon; she has a legitimate partial claim on the fortune and it’s not like she divorced him because she felt like it.
hydroacetylene
16m ago
No, this is life expectancy at age 20. People in the past didn’t die in their forties very often, but they did die younger than we do today.
mrvanillasky
23m ago
Read Nancy Fridays book my secret garden for more lol
hydroacetylene
24m ago
This is largely the sentiment I see from normie cons, with the caveat that many believe some groups- they’re always cautious about which ones but if pressed would probably name heavily Muslim groups to start with- are essentially unassimilable, and that only their children, or more probably mixed race grandchildren, can be expected to buy into American values enough to be ‘real Americans’.
>ask if the abstract property is kiki or bouba
>he laughs. "It's a good property, sir"
Just thinking out loud here, really. I've had various dealings with Indians.
First of all, I'll freely admit that every Indian doctor I've encountered has been at least competent even if the bedside manner often leaves something to be desired. They often seem more disrespectful to their patients (or at least me) than doctors of other races, which I imagine has to do with how social status is understood in their culture generally.
In the corporate environment it's a very different dynamic. The Indians I've worked with are often spectacularly incompetent and, worse, preternaturally skilled at covering this up by spoofing the impression of a sincere, genuine colleague. It's frankly very creepy. Like they've modeled us whites, know how to exploit our good nature, recognize that they're intrinsically worse, and have zero shame in faking us out while leading us into situations where we're completely screwed and they're incrementally better off. It makes my skin crawl. After enough of this one is sadly obliged to develop a thick wall of prejudice simply for barely-minimal self defense. Chinese are often the same way except somewhat more reluctant because, I think, they realize they're less-convincing. Perhaps I might say that Chinese are smarter about modeling the future and not being too brazen in their duplicity? Whereas Indians often seem totally oblivious to the possibility that we might catch on to them, which adds a measure of insult to the injury. But, you know, they promote each other, so somehow this never seems to catch up to them.
There's some deep ancestral memory, some terror and hatred, of things which mimic benign features of the environment while actually intending to have us for dinner. Indians often push that button for me harder than I can believe.
When dealing with Indian business proprietors, based on the way they look at me and treat me, I'm often unable to shake the impression that they don't even recognize me as basically human. I'm a resource and they'd step over me as I die in a gutter as soon as they'd sell me a bottle of water. Again, it's creepy. But less so than corpo-Indians, since at least these ones have dropped the pretense. It's a bit strange that this should bother me. I'm engaging in a simple economic transaction; why should there be an expectation of mutual respect and friendliness? But again the sensation is that they know I'm dumb enough to assume good faith and have zero compunction about punishing that as hard as they can. Defect-bots. Namaste, indeed!
It can be almost cartoonish. They can be so unsubtle about it, and yet so simultaneously inept, that they remind me of the stock character of 'adorably incompetent pint-sized would-be villain'. Except it's not so adorable when you remember how few safeguards are actually in place. Not so cute when you walk through an area with dozens of dark eyes in dark faces tracking your every movement, calculating.
One oddity I've noted is that Indian men seem much worse about all this than Indian women. The Indian women I've met do generally seem to be nicer people and don't set off my "you are being eaten" alarm to anywhere near the same degree. I don't know whether the difference is fundamental or some kind of observation bias thing. I've also never actually worked with an Indian woman. Someday I'll probably find out what's going on here.
So all that plus the general impression of filthiness (caste-dependent, I'm sure) and I'm not surprised that there is some backlash. Frankly I think they're overdue for much, much more.
hydroacetylene
30m ago
Republicans 100% believe that there are democrats who can be convinced to vote Republican with the right pitch(and that Trump did this), although often holding that non voters are mostly people who shouldn’t be voting anyways.
daguerrean
33m ago
Just in my own experience what makes anti-Indian racism different from other forms is that it faces less social censure in places where racism is normally taboo, particularly from women. I think any woman that posts photos of herself on social media has probably experienced some "noticing" that online sexual harassment she receives is not equally perpetrated by all ethnicities. I think women play a big role in defining social taboos and have carved out an exception for Indian men that you notice in places like Reddit. I think this is evidenced by the fact that I never notice any hostility towards Indian women (outside of some fringe places like the Motte where their frequent HR-style wokeness is noticed).
Source: See "send bobs and vegana" meme which IIRC predates all the focus on Indian scammers.
Ben___Garrison
Voltaire's Viceroy
33m ago
The casual scamming is really doing a number on perceptions of India like you say, and Kitboga is at least a little uncomfortable that people are noticing all his targets are Indians. I can't believe an entire country is so relaxed about being known as casual scammers, and will lash out at you if you criticize this behavior with whataboutisms or saying white people deserve it. It's like the country has taken the worst aspects of the left (obsession with race, hatred of whites, constant indignation) and the right (hypernationalism, also constant indignation) into a horrible synthesis.
hydroacetylene
35m ago
That certainly seems to be what it means in practice.
daguerrean
38m ago
the fortune you were able to accumulate because your wife was loyal enough
What do you think each of their value over replacement spouse is?
Rov_Scam
42m ago
He's an idealogue who tracks further to the right of most conservatives, essentialy a slightly more credible version of Lauren Boebert or Marjorie Taylor-Greene. He's known for making intentionally provocative statements that his colleagues don't even try to defend, as well as engaging in stupid publicity stunts. After the GOP took the House in 2022, he insinuated that they should put policy-making on hold and focus on investigating and impeaching Democrats they didn't like. He was the ringleader of Kevin McCarthy's ouster as speaker, earning him a lot of enemies in his own party. He's also a sleazeball, having been accused of sexual misconduct, illegal drug use, showing other members of congress nude photos of women he'd slept with, misappropriating campaign funds for personal use, and accepting impermissible gifts. The centerpiece of all of this is a sex trafficking investigation he got roped into. A close associate of his pleaded guilty and while the evidence didn't support an indictment for any of the crimes that were being investigated, it's pretty clear that Gaetz was partying with this guy and paying him for prostitutes. It didn't help that Gaetz was the only member of congress to vote against a sex trafficking bill. He topped it all off by asking Trump for a blanket pardon for any crimes he may have committed.
While he is a barred attorney, his legal career isn't one typically befitting of an Attorney General. The sum total of his legal experience is a few years as a junior associate at a small law firm, where he handles pennyante matters like debt collection, a dispute over a volleyball net, and a stolen boat. He owes his entire political career to his father, a successful Florida politician who bankrolled his first run for office. the only conceivable reason Trump would nominate him for AG are his personal loyalty (he supported Trump from the beginning and hasn't wavered) and his zeal for going after political enemies. Gaetz resigned from the House after being named as AG; the mainstream view is that he was under investigation for numerous ethics violations and used the nomination as cover to avoid the issuance of the report, now that the House Ethics Committee no longer has jurisdiction. It seems unlikely, however, that Gaetz will ever actually be AG. No Democrat will vote for his confirmation, and only 4 Republicans would need to oppose him to block his nomination. Susan Collins of Maine has already suggested that he's unacceptable, and the guy has enough enemies within his own party that it shouldn't be too hard to find three more (Lisa Murkowski and Mitch McConnell are almost certain nos, and one more wouldn't be hard to find). Any confirmation hearing would air all this dirty laundry publicly in a way that hasn't been done yet. To this point, news of his improprieties has been of the continuing story nature where information comes out in dribs and drabs over the course of years. The only people who can tell you all the ins and outs are the kinds of political junkies who follow scandals involving minor figures. Given the increased scrutiny that's already being given, I'd be surprised if this nomination isn't withdrawn before we even get to the confirmation stage.
hydroacetylene
42m ago
Anti-Indian sentiment within the Anglosphere seems mostly confined to Canada and the UK
Indians are not a popular ethnicity among blue collar Americans.
TitaniumButterfly
44m ago
Can we agree to call that debatable?
gattsuru
44m ago
In addition to a Supreme Court decision overturning Obergfell, revoking federal recognition of gay marriage would also require either overturning in court or revoking at Congress the Respect for Marriage Act, with no credible extant theory for the former, and the latter dependent on either 60 Senators going against gay marriage or 50 Senators willing to nuke the filibuster over it. And neither the Trump admin or any of its affiliates ran against gay marriage, with even the often-nutty Project 2025 avoiding the topic entirely.
hydroacetylene
46m ago
Mail-order-brides are just the default for old country types in the USA. It’s not because American women find East Indians unattractive(although in practice they probably do).
netstack
Texas is freedom land
46m ago
The people who don’t get that education form equally strong opinions and have an equal lack of knowledge. You simply like their opinions better.
Most people do not, in fact, teach themselves philosophy or statistics from the Internet. Instead they learn directly-relevant job skills plus whatever knowledge floats around their social sphere. The conflict happens when someone tries to privilege their social-sphere knowledge.
“Well, The Science says…”
“This is what they don’t want you to know…”
“Everyone knows that…”
These are standard, intuitive social tactics. They’re also decoupled from reality. Unfortunately, the natural response is similarly decoupled, because it’s way easier to shout “nuh uh!” than to explain law or philosophy or chemistry to amateurs. Especially when the Truth is genuinely still under debate.
I’d like to think that’s why we’re here.
ArjinFerman
Tinfoil Gigachad
47m ago
It might have happened to intra-party disputes between different factions afterwards, but it's definitely not the modal outcome when dealing with Trump.
Well, we are talking about intra-party disputes, that leaves people in the position where after settling who's top dog, they still have to deal with the fact that they're on the same team. Also didn't Vance was oppose him originally and now he's his VP?
hydroacetylene
48m ago
To put it bluntly, losing a few billion dollars in a divorce is a patently absurd, and extremely harsh outcome, and even if we admit that it doesn't render the guy destitute.
Bezos didn’t lose billions of dollars. It was their money and it was divided in a divorce settlement. Losing a big chunk of the fortune you were able to accumulate because your wife was loyal enough to support you into building a business that turned into the most profitable one in the world is a fair penalty for deciding to cheat on her.
TitaniumButterfly
48m ago
Jeez, yeah, that's... that's enough internet for today.
hydroacetylene
57m ago
It kinda sound like they got elected on a platform of violating the actual red letter rules and the adults in the room noticed it and are having them impeached?
You create clusters of smart capable people and eek out better outliers than you normally would.
Also because people always want to marry their own.
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