2rafa
5mo ago
This stuff never stays confined to one community forever. In addition, the US medical system guarantees anyone access to healthcare (if they don’t pay for it, the state and/or all insurance users do), so you’ll be paying for much more expensive AIDS treatment in the long haul. If reducing promiscuity is the goal, cutting funding for PrEP seems like a poor place to start; gay men were highly promiscuous even at the height of the AIDS pandemic (that is in fact how it happened) and I doubt they will become less so today, when the disease is more easily treated and no longer a death sentence.
2rafa
4mo ago
I mean, you’re essentially correct. It’s practically axiomatic that civilization requires (and arguably is) the control of young men. Whether they are controlled by old men (as was historically the case, and indeed this is what patriarchy is) or a mix of old men and old women (as is increasingly the case now) varies, but they were always controlled. This is also why you can’t really describe BAPism or Andrew Tateism as ‘trad’, even aside from the performative misogyny, because they appeal to some kind of mythical past where young men were in control to appeal to their powerless young male audience who are, like many young men, angry at the world and their lack of pussy (again - this is often as or even more true in many socially conservative societies, hence Tate’s popularity among young men in Muslim countries where sex before marriage is taboo). But a simple glance at currently extant highly patriarchal societies makes clear they were never in control, absent the state of nature of course (and even there, our knowledge of the pre-neolithic-revolution societies our ancestors lived in is limited; modern tribesmen are by nature exceptional).
2rafa
7mo ago
By the way, and I truly am sorry if you’ve gotten that impression, I have a great deal of respect for doctors. I think you do a great job, and I think you should be well-paid for it. And and, I think doctors’ pay is only one part of the issue with the US system’s immense inefficiencies, of which a great deal can be laid at the feet of Congress, insurance companies (not out of ‘evil’ or even the profit motive, but just because of the perverse regulatory and incentive environment they’ve been out in), the way big pharma is funded and to some extent the tragedy of the commons.
My only real ‘thought’ on doctor pay is that we should have more doctors. Let’s train them, let’s import them (from native english-speaking countries with decent standards, like our peers in the anglosphere), let’s do whatever it takes to increase residency spaces. And let’s make residency easier, let’s limit medical liability to bring down the ridiculous cost of malpractice insurance, let’s make medicine an undergraduate course like it is elsewhere so doctors don’t have to waste four years and more money going into debt.
But yes, ultimately, let’s work to bring down some salary costs. Is that so unreasonable?
Demographics alone are insufficient to explain the status of Baltimore and St Louis. The black populations of these inner cities have by far the highest violent crime rates (outside of actual war zones) of any black population on earth (Cape Town is still lower when controlled for demographics). Higher than any major African city (and yes, there are plenty of Bantu-majority African cities where it’s likely that the majority of violent homicides are captured by publicly recorded data). Higher even than Haiti, which is in many ways literally lawless.
The complete explanation for Baltimore’s poor status includes inertia and options. The US is the wealthiest major country on earth. Anyone in Baltimore who is unhappy with the state of affairs can leave without expending any great effort. There are plentiful jobs almost everywhere else. The city is entirely selected for people who are satisfied with the state of affairs and do not care to change it. There are a lot of people (including rich and powerful people) who have to live in New York. Nobody has to live in Baltimore.
To the question "Do you support the claim that the IDF, when conquering an enemy city, should act in a manner similar to the way the Israelites acted when they conquered Jericho under the leadership of Joshua, that is, kill all its inhabitants?" 47% of all respondents responded in the affirmative.
If the population of Gaza were polled on October the 8th, 2023 on the same question (with regards to a conquering Arab army entering Israel), I wonder what they would have said? I suspect that the percentage would have been higher than 47%, and indeed on the previous day, almost every Israel Jewish civilian they encountered who did not successfully flee was either killed or captured to ransom for their own prisoners.
There is wisdom to the most famous adage about revenge. I am on record here as saying that I suspect Israel’s founding in its current location, fated as it was, is the most likely cause of its eventual undoing, which is likely to be far more brutal, more horrific and more violent than the conflict since 1947 so far.
But if an Israeli says “well, the Arabs would do the same or worse to us if they had the whip hand” he speaks the truth, and he does so without persuasive counter-argument. This is what people in this part of the world do. When you move to Arabia, when you become indigenous, when you believe it…well, thats why it’s called going native.
2rafa
2mo ago
Apparently a progressive in general terms, albeit not a radical one by the standards of the church.
2rafa
5mo ago
What I’d like to see (like significantly cutting medicare coverage for treatments that prolong the lives of the very elderly / sick for minimal benefit) happen still seems very unlikely to happen, so I’m not updating any beliefs now.
Here in the UK every government comes to power promising to cut “waste” in the welfare and/or healthcare bill. And sure, there is some waste here and there. But in the end, they all find that real savings require real cuts to coverage, quality and funding, and they lack the guts to do that.
Perhaps Trump will be different, but I think Trump’s instincts run against that. As with calling for a federal abortion ban, he knows that’s unpopular.
2rafa
5mo ago
That isn’t even remotely my argument. The change I want is far more radical than anything imagined by Trump/Musk.
But the public demand their bennies, and if you want to significantly cut spending you have to cut them. It’s that simple. Nothing DOGE has uncovered even somewhat challenges that thesis.
2rafa
7mo ago
PS3: Yes, I am Jewish, how can you tell? (half the people at the campus protests were too)
So are half the people here, including the person you’re replying to of course, and including me. That Jews would advocate against their own identity is unsurprising, gentile whites do it all the time. The question is what you hope to gain from it.
2rafa
1mo ago
It is crazy to me that most people alive today will be around to see how this - this journey of civilization, this grand process of technological development - ends, or at least moves far, far beyond us. There is a millenarian tension in the air. Paradise or extinction (at least for most people), it seems increasingly clear it will be one or the other.
2rafa
7mo ago
We’re less than 20 years from the vast majority of labor being automated by AI and robots. A huge proportion of white collar jobs can already be automated by LLMs, SDCs are working fine in San Francisco, warehouse automation is proceeding at pace, in many cases we’re just waiting for regulatory approval, better wrappers and some minor improvements to multimodality in practice.
The problem with low tfr in the West is mass immigration, not labor shortages. If natives in Germany or Sweden stop reproducing, they’re going to end up being 30% of the population by 2100 and they and their descendants will be living in somebody else’s country, forever. Korea and China will likely still be 90%+ Korean and Chinese, there will simply be fewer of them. This is no major issue.
Depopulation itself is completely fine, the US is pretty sparsely populated but Western Europe is very dense and could easily benefit from an 80%+ drop in population over a couple hundred years (deflationary impact can be managed in various ways, including rising consumption). The issue is that if mass immigration continues, the population won’t drop, just change.
2rafa
5mo ago
What is the change you want?
Repeal birthright citizenship (through congress, or at least fight for it there, given its central importance to the entire future of the country), repeal CRA (certain limited provisions of which can be replaced by much more limited, targeted laws), begin preparations to hand Taiwan to China after domestic chip production scales up and use intimidation and force to relocate as much of what remains to the US, end all federal student loans and tuition support, force Ukraine into the most realistic peace deal (threaten to unilaterally revoke sanctions on Russia if they drag their heels), begin realistic preparations to deport ALL 13+ million illegal migrants in the US (investing tens of billions in holding facilities, hire 300+ thousand temporary ICE staff, checkpoints in every city, raid every blue collar contracting business in any major city, mandatory nationwide E-verify enhanced with biometric security to get around existing loopholes as part of a national ID program - as discussed above the feds probably already have your biometrics), abolish all postal voting (Americans abroad can vote at embassies), end the carried interest loophole, tax childlessness heavily, jack up interest rates to unfathomable levels to force an asset price crash, abolish NASA (fold some defense programs into DOD, Elon can explore space on his own dime or for commercial interests), breakup Google and Amazon, allow and encourage hospitals to refuse to treat homeless drug addicts, hand out free lethal dose fentanyl in certain urban centers and ban narcan for first responders in overdose hotspots, execute roughly 20-40x the number of criminals per year the US does now, mandate all office-based male federal government employees and their peers at all institutions that receive federal funding wear a suit, tie and black oxford shoes to work every day, NO exceptions, hand Ozempic out for free to every fat American at taxpayer expense, destroy much of the HFCS industry, grant unlimited 5 year work visas with pathway to citizenship to citizens of all western european nations (call it the ‘ellis island program’) if they have ‘distant family’ matches ithw Americans in popular DNA databases, adopt a foreign policy built around getting European countries to change immigration policy with the stick if necessary, implement a mandatory ‘national college admissions test’ that must be the sole criterion for admission at any federally funded college, but also reserve 5% of places at elite colleges for the highest performing URM, and fire loud, midwit racists from DOGE and wider government since that kind of thing is just vulgar and racial hatred is cruel and wrong.
2rafa
6mo ago
If an LLM achieves AGI, how is the question of consciousness not answered? (I suppose it is in the definition of AGI, but mine would include consciousness).
Male behavior doesn’t support body count rhetoric. This isn’t bitterness, I would even have met your own standard before I met my spouse, it’s just fact.
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Very high status men marry formerly very promiscuous women all the time. Prince Harry, Ronald Reagan, Jeff Bezos, Edward VIII, Evan Spiegel, even probably Donald Trump (NYC was a crazy place for Eastern European models in the early 1990s). If even men with the highest status and most options do this, clearly the revealed preference isn’t very strong.
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Status signalling about not marrying a promiscuous woman is more for other men than women. “For the streets” rhetoric is for the boys, it’s male bonding, often times it’s even post-breakup comforting of the “don’t worry babe, he didn’t DESERVE you. Men suck!” variety, just between men rather than women. The truth is that men love promiscuous women and always have, I suspect because promiscuous women are disproportionately likely to be more ‘masculine’, more outgoing, more likely to have male interests and are more likely both to enjoy male company and enjoy entertaining men.
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Other rules explain male courtship behavior better, including assortative mating and related patterns around class, hotness, shared extraversion (which means people who…partied a lot in their twenties usually settle down with people who partied a lot in their twenties).
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Public disdain for promiscuous women is mostly redirected class signalling. See copious 4chan memes where the trad chaste woman in the sundress is compared to the nasty tattooed whore with the body jewelry and the (mixed race) baby, no father in sight. Many of the most promiscuous women I know are hot, not tattooed, have no children or OnlyFans and are otherwise indistinguishable from other urban PMC other than being marginally more outgoing than average. I presume there are also low class women (maybe even some single mothers) who were not particularly promiscuous at all and who have tattoos.
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In my long experience knowing many women in their twenties of varying levels of promiscuity, I have never encountered one case where a woman was actually ‘punished’ for her promiscuity. Women do share their Ls with the girls, at least a lot of the time. Certainly there are examples where the woman might never know, but I have never found an example of a beautiful woman who couldn’t settle down with a man in her league and social class because she was too promiscuous in modern America or Britain.
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Some quick fire anecdotes: my Arab coworker, who told our mutual male coworkers that all British women were whores, just married a bottle blonde Dubai Russian with a dubious past, but it’s OK because she’s converting to Islam. The sluttiest girl in my high school class just married er boyfriend of 5 years, a handsome Ivy rower with family money from the same extended social circle and so undoubtedly knows all about her past.
The woman punished for her promiscuity is a male obsession in a deeply seated and likely unchangeable way. Men are obsessed by ‘fallen women’ because men (gay and straight, which make me think this is even deeper than just sexuality) love sluts (and not just for sex). Men are scared and in love with promiscuous women. They imagine grand punishments for them (many of the greatest novels and plays of all time). In the end, the joke is that there is no real punishment, at least most of the time.
Seems more like a big failure on the part of the secret service than anything else.
Political assassination attempts don’t swing votes in favor of the candidate who was almost killed. During the Brexit campaign a prominent Labour MP was assassinated, which was the first assassination of a British politician in a very long time, and I remember everyone saying that “surely” this would swing the vote to Remain, and Leave still won comfortably by the margin the more generous polls were showing, the effect was zero.
2rafa
29d ago
Human beings have worked in agriculture picking crops for thousands of years. Modern technology (including novel reflective materials) makes fruit picking more comfortable than ever. Change the incentives and people will do it. Put simply, if I had the choice between starving and picking fruit, I’d pick fruit. Everything else is just moving incentives along a scale.
The high school kid who picks the most fruit gets guaranteed entry to Harvard, suddenly every child of every tiger mom and pushy Indian dad in America is out there training their kids to pick strawberries from the age of 8. You can literally do anything, it’s not hard.
2rafa
5mo ago
In the end X.com HBD stans overcorrected on the ‘population differences aren’t just for IQ, they also explain why Chinese etc inherently aren’t as creative / innovative’ front, which was extreme cope from day one. They were always capable, they just needed to borrow the Silicon Valley move fast and break things culture in addition to the technical foundation.
Now we can see that 1.5 billion people with an IQ 105 average is entirely capable of competing with a population of 300 million with a 100 average + some smart Jews, Europeans, Chinese emigrants and 4 sigma third worlders.
In the end, and this isn’t just because I mostly like the Chinese, I truly think this makes a major war less likely and therefore means those of us living in major Western (and Chinese) cities are more likely to keep on living.
2rafa
3mo ago
Dominant ideologies can afford to gatekeep; weaker ideologies can’t. The far left struggles because in some ways it is both strong (it largely agreed with the liberal consensus on social issues, tolerance, immigration, identity, prisons/justice etc) and in other ways it is weak (private property, capitalism, the existence of rich people). As you note, this means it struggles to build an electoral coalition beyond young middle class students who agree with the liberals on social issues but who are personally poor, and therefore sympathetic to leftist arguments around redistribution.
Trans issues were never going to be a permanent part of the Dem ideological setup because it’s precisely the children of PMC urban Democrats (ie NYT readers, DNC and associated think tank / lobbyist staffers etc) who are at increasing risk of coming out as trans. Nice upper middle class Democrats often don’t like it when their own kids want to transition and the result is something inherently unstable. The same thing is happening to center-left parties across the West. Stuff that primarily affects poor people like crime is one thing. This is another.
2rafa
2mo ago
One of the problems with judges is that there is no accountability for legislating from the bench unless extremists are in power. Under moderates or even principled radicals, judges can be impeached for personal misconduct, but not for bad rulings that run contrary to the basic desires of most people. This inevitably drives radicalization.
For several decades, in both North America and Europe, judges have ruled on immigration cases in ways that fundamentally violate the popular will, and have unjustifiably prevented the deportation of people that most citizens did not and do not want to share their countries with. Unlike politicians, the people cannot really even try to remove judges, because while some are technically political appointees, the ‘profession’ has largely wrangled the ability to regulate itself away from legislatures in both spirit and practice.
The historical Anglo-Saxon judicial tradition upon which the Common Law is based always afforded judges the right, and indeed in many cases implicitly obligated them, to respect the people’s will. If a crowd of people clamor outside the courthouse for a man’s innocence or guilt, judges were and should be swayed by it. For millennia, and to the great detriment of the Jewish people, Christians blamed the Jews (the civilians) and not Pilate, who ultimately sentenced Christ, for his execution. Less (although sometimes not much less) controversially, there are countless cases in the English legal tradition in which judges heeded the popular call for a specific kind of justice.
I don’t want to live in an unaccountable dictatorship, in the Chinese legal system in which lawyers are either set dressing, fixers or enemies of the state or powerful officials with a very short career and freedom expectancy. But that is inevitable in the West unless judges use their verbal ability to sense the way the wind is blowing on immigration and start giving the people what they have so often and so politely requested.
2rafa
5mo ago
There’s almost as much antisemitism on Instagram (have you ever checked out reel comments on anything featuring any Jewish person?) and nobody seems to care at all, least of all Zuck. Hard to believe that’s the reason.
2rafa
9mo ago
Until the alien is shown (in person, in a traveling exhibition, where I can maybe touch it or at least see it being touched), there is no reason to believe and every reason to disbelieve. That even the DoD and/or congress have people autistic/schizo/gullible enough to believe the US government (and NOBODY else) has been secretly keeping little green men on ice for 50 years is unsurprising. That otherwise smart people here might believe it is sad.
2rafa
10mo ago
It is telling, though, that Musk is regularly in Europe and yet has never been arrested, while Durov has avoided it for some time and was arrested upon landing in France for the first time in a while.
In reality, everything that the EU wants Durov to remove from Telegram is stuff Musk’s X already does remove and is happy to remove if a takedown notice is filed.
Yeah, this is the eternal threat, right? But ok, what are these people going to do? How many jobs in America are there that pay as much as medicine and aren’t ’top of the corporate pile after a 40 year career’ type jobs?
Very, very few.
A few jobs in big tech. A few jobs in front office high finance. A few jobs in big law. A relative handful in (other) professional services.
None of those professions have medicine-tier job security. All of them (save maybe big tech) have very long hours. All of them are ultra-competitive.
Doctors on the internet always seem to assume they could be investment bankers or deepmind engineers instead, but I don’t think they could. The truth is that medicine is a lot less competitive and more midwit than most of these jobs. Plus, most of these jobs have an extreme up-or-out career progression that medicine just doesn’t have. Of a thousand junior investment bankers at Goldman Sachs who already passed an application process with a 1% acceptance rate, how many become managing directors or seniors in PE? Maybe thirty or forty. Most end up failing out into comfortable PMC professions, often paid less than many medical specialties and again still with far, far less job security.
Plus, there’s status. Nobody in modern American society has higher status than doctors, not billionaires and certainly not bankers, lawyers or engineers. That also has value - socially and for one’s own ego - that can’t be measured solely in pecuniary terms.
Even if medicine paid half as much there would still be doctors. There are still huge numbers of bright eyed, intelligent college students with elite credentials who want to be journalists.
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