Chrisprattalpharaptr
Ave Imperaptor
No bio...
User ID: 1864
Chrisprattalpharaptr
Ave Imperaptor
4mo ago
I’ll vote for Trump next November, but only because I personally dislike a lot of influential progressives and will enjoy the crying and wailing on social media if he wins (and perhaps in the faintest, 5% chance he might do something about immigration).
Setting aside the 'own the libs' part, you've got a better chance of immigration reform under Biden or his successor. Trump being Trump (or the media being the media, depending on your perspective), will inevitably make immigration reform so toxic that no democratic politician could support any proposal he makes without getting absolutely shredded by their base.
Chrisprattalpharaptr
Ave Imperaptor
9mo ago
That time he claimed Clinton engaged in election denialism as bad as Trump is infinite orders of magnitude wrong
Also, this other time he claimed Czech, or Slovak or Czechslovak (the details are lost to the sands of time and greedy reddit admins) hockey players are good
Oh, and he likes to argue that rural African hustlers are smarter than all us big brain types. Many, many orders of magnitude there
Lab leak is shorthand for half a dozen scenarios I've seen bandied about. Off the top of my head:
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Secret Chinese bioweapons program inadvertently released.
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Secret Chinese bioweapons program intentionally released to depopulate an aging population and wreak havoc in the soft Western countries.
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Good-faith Chinese Coronavirus study program that released it through negligence/misconduct (stuff like Chinese researchers historically eating research animals after experiments conclude)
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Good-faith Chinese Coronavirus program that inadvertently made it more pathological via humanized mice or other experiments.
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Good-faith Chinese Coronavirus program in some small part funded in collaboration with NIH (In which I've previously argued Fauci has little personal responsibility and you should primarily be upset with the study section which approved the grant).
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Globalist plot by Fauci and NWO to [use your imagination lest I be accused of strawmanning or partisan hackery].
In the majority he bears no responsibility, in some cases he bears (I would argue) some small amount of blame relative to a number of other actors and in only one is he ill-intentioned. I maintain that even if you strongly believe in the lab leak and malfeasance, most of the animus towards Fauci is based on the fact that his face is on TV and telling people things they didn't want to hear while leaving most of the people who made those decisions to get off scot-free.
edit: fixing numbering scheme
Chrisprattalpharaptr
Ave Imperaptor
1yr ago
There is a fundamental difference between being stuck with a fucked system that no one actually knows how to improve
Really? Nobody on the left has suggested any improvements for the American carceral system, nor have they been extolling the virtues of European systems for years now? Issues like forced labor, chronic understaffing, murder and rape1 2 and so on and so forth are rampant. The first time I've seen anyone on the right express any kind of sympathy for the plight of prisoners was the J6 rioters.
Would you disagree with that characterization? Are there communities of conservatives decrying prison conditions that I'm unaware of?
...Put it this way: your best defense is that there might be a net-reduction in rape, because transgenders and transtrenders together have such high rape numbers. If it turned out to be the other way around, and this was just a straight increase in rape, would you agree it's a bad idea?
The thrust of my argument is that I don't trust any of you on this topic because I think you're motivated more by anti-trans animus than compassion. You can't spend days talking about how trans people are ugly, disgusting, mentally ill freaks and then turn around and expect me to believe that You (the right) care for their wellbeing, just like You can't say things like FAFO/carjackers and rioters should be shot/prisoners experiencing rape and violence deserve it and claim some moral high ground. And so far, while all the replies reiterate feeling gaslit and frustration about being told that this would never happen, nobody has actually responded to that point.
...Put it this way: your best defense
You're acting like I'm dead set on allowing anyone into female prisons at any time for any reason. I don't personally have a well-thought out opinion on the issue; probably some screening based on whether they were living as trans outside of prison prior to arrest would be useful if messy. But even there, I strongly suspect the real reason most of you want that is to get a foot in the door for limiting the rights of trans people such that in the future you can say 'Well, look at the example of prisons! If you've already accepted these limitations on trans identity, why should I be barred from doing X?'
is that there might be a net-reduction in rape, because transgenders and transtrenders together have such high rape numbers. If it turned out to be the other way around, and this was just a straight increase in rape, would you agree it's a bad idea?
If you're appealing to my inner utilitarian. There's also an argument that the majority of trans people are malicious actors and should shoulder a higher burden of the externalities (OP's usual favorite hobby horse), but I've yet to see evidence of it.
And lastly, as I state above, I'd accept that you could probably do better than either with some very forgiving screening or a much smaller third set of institutions for trans people if you could get it past the 'trans women are women' crowd.
Chrisprattalpharaptr
Ave Imperaptor
1yr ago
You sure about that? I'm obviously not in a position to offer anything more than hearsay or anecdote, but there are plenty (possibly a majority) of modern models with tiny waists rather than child-bearing hips. Ditto with variation in preference for ass size.
Chrisprattalpharaptr
Ave Imperaptor
1yr ago
Would you take any such argument seriously?
Of course not, I'm just a mindless Pelosi-bot regurgitating whatever normie talking-points the NYT and George Soros tell me to.
Because it's kinda hard to treat 'we're going to keep things the way they are/turn back the clock to the 1970s/1950s/1776!' from the guy who's gone whole-hog on "Do you want to drive over to my apartment and put a bullet in my head, or set off a bomb at my workplace?" as someone who would.
I don't see why those two are incongruent. The spirit of '76 is practically synonymous with civil war/violent revolution/boogie boys in some parts.
As for the actual violent rhetoric, it seems to have quieted down a bit. Particularly here, but I also think in the broader political arena.
((Even for this specific case. It's not like libertarians and the Gray Tribe haven't had long arguments over the scope of 'dangerous' or dangerous public information!))
So, if I'm understanding correctly, you're upset at the drive-by about 'libertarians slinking away' from Musk when 90% of the post was about conservatives? Okay. For all my very limited criticism of libertarians, I think they do have a fairly grand vision for the future. A Randian utopia where personal freedoms allow the ubermensch to throw off their shackles and accomplish wonders. I don't see this much on the right these days; they seem to want just as much government regulation and interference as the left does.
I'll note that this, likewise, doesn't look like an unusually Positive Vision -- indeed, even if Scott hides it, I'd argue it's more 'turn back the clock' than a lot of mainstream conservative ones!
Hardly. I used that as an example of Scott giving commentary or advice to Republicans, not necessarily the object level arguments themselves. I'm trying to express that my intention wasn't to put down conservatives but rather to point out a real deficit in their platform, and that I think filling it in would benefit the entire country regardless of political affiliation. Perhaps my position in this community just precludes me from making that argument, or I just don't have the chops. Who knows.
((And, uh, your tendency to ghost.))
I'm sure you have some lovingly nursed examples ready-at-hand, but regardless, this one misses the mark. I've written a novella-sized series of replies to your previous objections, 2-3 novellas to FC, another few for professorgerm, others that I can't remember at the moment. When I get 10 replies to something I write I just physically can't give all 10 an effortpost, and if I did anything less, you'd be sitting there smugly accusing me of low-effort posting.
Other times, I find people offensive or off-putting enough that I leave the conversation rather than say something that would get me banned. As you already know, I'm not particularly intelligent; you should add thin-skinned and poor impulse control to your list, and laud me for knowing when to leave the conversation rather than writing something that would get me banned.
Chrisprattalpharaptr
Ave Imperaptor
1yr ago
He's butthurt about this one. I specifically said it'd be pretty unreasonable to get that kind of data:
I assume we're never going to get (4) short of some really impressive investigative journalism, so I think it'd be an interesting conversation what kinds of evidence could stand in for it. If you want to convince me that some significant fraction of people involved in the trans debate are fetishists, I need some kind of evidence that a bunch of them are fetishists. Maybe really widespread reports of children who say they are not trans who were being pressured into it? Some kind of internal slack channels being leaked? The FBI busting some kind of pedophile ring implicating a bunch of these people? Maybe something like your post implicating just a few people, but it happens again and again for months on end?
But he's clearly still upset about it. /shrug
Chrisprattalpharaptr
Ave Imperaptor
1yr ago
Violent nutjobs have gone after whoever they hated most - not infrequently, gays among others - since long before groomer discourse was a thing. You trying to hang this on anyone who ever complained about Drag Queen Story Hour is honestly kind of repulsive. As is trying to spin something out of "His grandfather is a Republican."
And you're not engaging with anything near a steelman of the argument he made. Painting relatively benign opponents as fascist white supremacists is not particularly productive, nor is it particularly controversial in these spaces that this kind of speech is dangerous. People don't like Arthur Chu talking about putting bullets in tumorous nazi Republican flesh or whatever that quote was. Seems fair to me that PM doesn't appreciate being called a groomer pedophile out to rape your kids, no?
Let's assume Aldrich was persuaded by LibsOfTikTok that we must stop the gays from grooming our children by any means necessary. It's still very unlikely that this otherwise stable and non-violent individual was just going to live a peaceful life until Twitter and grandpa told him about the "groomers."
Bad things happen. Bad people do bad things. We will always have bad people doing bad things. Therefore, why bother?
I hear this logic hasn't worked so well with defunding the police, and that actually, there are people who respond to incentives and the environment they live in. Seems pretty reasonable to me that there people out there who may not have been stable, peaceful individuals that nevertheless wouldn't have become mass shooters if it weren't for the toxic political waters we swim in.
I expect to see "If you say (fairly mainstream thing) you are Literally Killing People" on Twitter, but you offering it unironically here is crap argumentation.
It probably wasn't framed in an ideal way, nor does putting it in the context of his previous posts paint a very flattering picture, but...I think his point about not calling your fellow citizens pedophile groomers is valid? If you don't want to engage with it, you don't need to try and reduce it to puerile twitter one-liners.
Chrisprattalpharaptr
Ave Imperaptor
14d ago
When poverty is defined as a percentage of median household income and explicitly excludes food and housing aid, the problem simply cannot be solved
I'm confused; wasn't there a brouhaha about this specific point just in the last year? Where some folks on the right said the census bureau was cheating as they redefined poverty to include food and housing aid, to make it seem like we've made progress eliminating poverty when really all we've done is increase government handouts?
I remember a number of articles like this one:
In the late 1950s, the poverty rate in the U.S. was approximately 22%, with just shy of 40 million Americans living in poverty. The rate declined steadily, reaching a low of 11.1% in 1973 and rising to a high of nearly 15% three times – in 1983, 1993 and 2011 – before hitting the all-time low of 10.5% in 2019. However, the 46.7 million Americans in poverty in 2014 was the most ever recorded.
Also articles like this. Apparently there's also absolute and relative poverty. Oh well.
Regardless, the fact that definitionally 49% of people will be forced to earn sub-median incomes isn't necessarily a reason to shrug away poverty and/or the degree of income inequality in society. As evidenced by the last decade of politics. Do you think that the anger at elites is unfounded (given nobody falls below your definition of poverty anymore), more related to status than income (although definitionally 49% of people will also be sub-median statuswise...) or are you more sympathetic to discourse around income inequality than poverty?
Chrisprattalpharaptr
Ave Imperaptor
1mo ago
Capitalism as a source of problems, perhaps, rather than an unalloyed good? There's likely a difference between textbook definitions in the communist manifesto or the little red book and the way people use these terms colloquially. If you want the former, I'm not your guy. I read both a decade and a half ago and that was about the extent of my interest. Reading Hayek now, it's interesting to see how much the meaning of the term 'liberal' has shifted in the last 70 years. Gives me a better understanding of the gap between the way my generation uses these words and the way I expect some of the older posters here think.
To turn the question on it's head - if I supported free markets, welfare and socialized medicine, am I a communist? It's advantageous for the right to say so because communism calls to mind Soviet Russia, gulags, starvation, stasi, etc. But I'd argue there's a very material difference between Canada and the USSR, and only the latter would widely be regarded as 'retarded.' I'd agree that many intellectuals on the left fetishize Canada (if Trump wins a second term, this time we're definitely moving meme), but the number who'd want to live in a USSR-style communist hellscape is much lower.
Chrisprattalpharaptr
Ave Imperaptor
1mo ago
So let's build a wall says the right-winger.
No you can't do that says the left-winger, you just can't. You really can't says the left-winger, so the right-winger says, ok we'll jan6 then
You mean the wall I was promised Mexico would pay for (oops), the wall that was actually built by Trump after refusing compromises offered by Democrats and instead built by appropriating funds from the military? The wall that, as far as I can tell, has had virtually no effect on the number of illegal immigrants showing up at the border? That wall?
Leaving aside the fact that your implied definition of 'having agency' means 'getting whatever policy you want at the federal level.' By that definition, you're denying me agency every time you vote for a Republican. Nobody has agency.
So let's gather all the gang-members says the El Salvadoran President. But at what cost??? Asks the NYT.
Sure, we could crack down on crime in the US as well if we instituted a police state. This is diametrically opposed to what most conservatives want. When is the last time you saw a conservative cheering on NSA wiretappings or the FBI?
How's 'relocating' working as a strategy generally? Plenty of 'relocated' Americans homeless on the streets of blue cities, not sure what good it does them.
You do understand that homeless make up a minute portion of a state's population (~90k for New York out of a population of 19 million), and the number of them that were shipped there from red states is a fraction of them? Meanwhile, there are plenty of kids who leave West Virginia for college, work, etc and never come back - and they do just fine. People typically refer to this as a negative as the talented are leaving West Virginia, exacerbating the problem. Any hard data on the subject would suffer from selection effects as well, so maybe it isn't a solution for someone with a high school degree or less, who knows.
Doesn't really matter though. You seem more interested in 'zingers' and waging the culture war, right?
Chrisprattalpharaptr
Ave Imperaptor
1mo ago
There's Cernovich, or Bronze Age Pervert, or dozens of smaller accounts.
Fair enough, I confess to not reading BAP and I've never heard of Cernovich. I'm surprised you wouldn't mention Joe Rogan or JD Vance, but I know the phenotype you're referring to.
Maybe you're thinking of Ben Shapiro and Cadence Owens and Hanania types
Well, also the vast majority of the Trump administration, people like Steve Bannon, Alex Jones (I guess he hawks his supplements) and other conservative talk radio hosts, red coded media (fox news, OANN, Breitbart), most of the local commentariat, most any public figure on the right whose schtick isn't self-help/redpill/MGTOW style. You know the rhetoric I'm referring to, right?
Chrisprattalpharaptr
Ave Imperaptor
3mo ago
Since you have been asking questions and asking if it is fair for progressives to be calling others as white nationalists, let me ask my question in the same manner.
Brother, you can ask me all the questions you want. Generally I don't volunteer my opinions that often as they rub people the wrong way, but if you're polite I'll probably answer anything.
Do you think that progressives who have massive double standards and might in fact support making minorities or even the extinction of white people, are not racist? Couldn't such agenda be accurately labeled as anti-white racist supremacy?
I don't believe that progressives are calling for white genocide. You can probably find some people on twitter making jokes about how they hope all white people die in a fire, which I frown upon, but I don't think it's the same thing. Assuming you mean something along the lines of demographic trends and immigration meaning that white people will be a minority in America at some point this century, I don't believe it's an explicit agenda a la Great Replacement Theory. I agree that some people would cheer at those trends which I also find distasteful.
The phrase 'anti-white racist supremacy' doesn't make a whole lot of sense. But sure, if you come up with some other negative term to describe people cheering on white people dying or being outbred then I would likely agree with using said term.
Is someone who either supports or tolerates the existence hateful identitarian organizations, and mainstream organizations that promote the same agenda and large double standards and stigmatizes whites in particular, not in fact nationalist to an extreme degree for various progressive identity groups
No, I don't think they are 'Black nationalist' in a meaningful way. As far as I'm aware, the vast majority are not advocating for an exclusive 'Black America' based on race, they are advocating for equality of outcomes in (what they see as) a biased system. I also would dispute the language you use to describe them, although without examples (beyond the ADL) it's difficult for me to say.
But yes, I would denounce someone who supported the black equivalent of the KKK or stormfront.
Absolutely not. I think progressives calling others white nationalists as pejorative towards any legitimate white ethnic identity should be treated as an example of them engaging in extremist racism and this behavior ought not be tolerated. It is an uncharitable conduct that stigmatizes white ethnic groups in particular and their advocates.
The word 'faggot' was a pejorative for a long time, until it was reclaimed. Whether progressives consider it a pejorative is orthogonal to the actual definition of the word and whether you think it accurately describes the worldview you're describing. If you think 'white nationalism' doesn't accurately describe your views, then what view would constitute white nationalism and what would you call your views instead? But I assume you do agree with the accuracy and just object to the fact that most people think white nationalism is a bad thing based on:
If the term is used in sufficient number in a non charged and abusive context, then it might become more legitimate. But it is bad conduct to be used in this manner.
I had always been skeptical when progressives called conservatives and the MAGA crowd white nationalists, but here you are, espousing views that I think broad, bipartisan swathes of America would call white nationalist. I suspect that the vast majority of American conservatives disagree with your worldview, and in the old place, when this topic was discussed, the defense was invariably that 'no, conservatives don't actually believe those things.'
This framing of white nationalism can justify destroying all european countries/people. So if someone opposes it and think their people shouldn't go extinct and shouldn't become a minority in their own homeland they are just called a white nationalist under an one sided culture of critique.
I disagree with the base assumptions of this statement on multiple levels, as well as most of the rest of your post, but this is already getting too long for both of us.
Chrisprattalpharaptr
Ave Imperaptor
3mo ago
Thanks for taking the time to explain.
It is both moderate and right wing to think that white people have legitimate ethnic communities too. But in terms of identification, it tends to attract people who identify more as right wingers in certain countries. But is in fact the moderate position.
What, concretely, do you mean when you say white people have legitimate ethnic communities? As in, there are physical communities in the USA that should be able to exclude non-whites? Or even non-physical communities/cultural...events, or what-have-you that are necessarily white rather than race-blind mainstream American?
To lay some cards on the table, what you're arguing seems to be that most conservatives are some flavor of white nationalist. I assume at the mild end of the spectrum you describe, this is less blood and soil rhetoric and more 'it's okay that my tabletop game club is made up entirely of white men' or 'the president should be white as the USA is a majoritarian white country.'
While to oppose nationalism only for white people should count as the extreme far left. No matter how many people who identify with this want to frame their perspective as moderation.
I just don't think it is true that progressives or liberals oppose nationalism specifically for white people. Japan may be a fargroup for progressives in the US and as such doesn't receive much attention, but I've certainly heard people express discomfort at their attitude towards foreigners/non-Japanese and a national identity built on race. Any kind of nationalism built on race makes progressives and liberals deeply uncomfortable.
Furthermore, I don't believe that conservatives writ large support carveouts and national-identity/community building based on race. Perhaps I'm typical minding, perhaps my mental model is wrong and you're right - I'd honestly encourage you to tighten up your argument to something more concise and write a top-level post to see what people think so we can get more data.
If most conservatives do explicitly believe in nation and community building based on race, would you agree with progressives that call them white nationalists? And your argument is simply that being a white nationalist isn't a bad thing, because to you progressives are black/asian/hispanic nationalists?
Chrisprattalpharaptr
Ave Imperaptor
5mo ago
That was their screwup.
If the foundation of your worldview is that liberal Jewish elites run the show/elections are just Kayfabe (insert your favorite variant here so we don't end up quibbling over your beliefs) and you work your way out from there, interpreting data as you go, I can guarantee that you'll find a lot of data that supports your worldview. Flat Earthers have long chains of logic where no individual link is completely bonkers, but it's built on a rotten foundation.
From my perspective, Hillary Clinton was a fairly strong candidate who was done dirty by a combination of conservative media (proto-Qanon cheese pizza/adrenochrome/comet ping pong beliefs? Collapsing like a sack of meat showing that she was on death's door?), email server bullshit, bad feelings around the Bernie Sanders saga (were the Kochs involved???) and genuine dissatisfaction amongst working class whites towards the system and elites. With this framing, conservative media isn't so worthless after all.
There's this odd dichotomy in Conservative circles; Trump will rant about how the media hates him and he's the underdog, then turn around and brag about how Fox News is the most watched channel while CNN and the failing New York Times are hemorrhaging viewers because the General Public is on our side and hate being lectured about trannies. Dan Crenshaw is some Alpha Male soldier bro who releases ads of him obliterating the libs, but everyone in DC is a feckless RINO who drops their trousers and bends over anytime the White House comes knocking for more funding. The libs are a bunch of soyboy faggot snowflakes who REEEEEE at our dank memes, but they're also shadowy elites pulling the strings in Davos that we're on a righteous crusade against.
Just because they screwed up doesn't mean they don't have power. (And of course the Supreme Court and abortion are downstream of that mistake.)
Just because they have power, doesn't mean they're omnipotent or even (apparently) that they get what they want most of the time. Furthermore, blaming shadowy elites for all your problems is usually (1) cope and (2) easier to confront than the fact that tens of millions of your countrypeople genuinely believe what they say they believe and they aren't just being manipulated by the media or George Soros or whatever else you want.
Chrisprattalpharaptr
Ave Imperaptor
9mo ago
Can't tell if you're being sarcastic or still playing the bit, but if the latter you've pushed it far enough that I'm officially confused.
The system is fine; much as there are changes I'd like to make, I'm not so naive to think that they'd genuinely solve our problems. A large enough group of people acting in bad faith will tank any political system you try to build.
Chrisprattalpharaptr
Ave Imperaptor
9mo ago
The system isnt failing the people, the people are failing the system.
Chrisprattalpharaptr
Ave Imperaptor
1yr ago
People constantly conflate gender/sex preferences that are culturally/socially contingent and those that are universal (and thus almost certainly biological in nature).
I'm not going to deny that there are certain behaviors or traits that are dominated by genetic influences (if we dropped a pair of children off on a deserted island and they made it to adulthood, I'm sure they could figure out how to propagate the species), and I do agree with what you say generally, however I do believe that even in your post you overstate your case.
Men liking things and women liking people is an example of number 1. It is universal and biological, and reflects the biological division of labour.
What do you think the world would look like if from birth all the media men were exposed to showcased men as caregivers while women were out earning a living? Where their male role models were all stay-at-home dads taking care of the domestic duties and their female role models were breadwinners? To the extent that we're all exposed to this pervasive monoculture(ish) it seems to me that it's impossible to say just how far we could move the needle on what you're describing with (benign) environmental changes alone.
Sexual attraction to well defined, feminine hips might be an example of number 1.
From my other reply:
You sure about that? I'm obviously not in a position to offer anything more than hearsay or anecdote, but there are plenty (possibly a majority) of modern models with tiny waists rather than child-bearing hips. Ditto with variation in preference for ass size.
Chrisprattalpharaptr
Ave Imperaptor
1yr ago
Have you considered that and are related?
Yes. I had written a long rebuttal, but maybe we'll let another comment wither on the vine and for today and I'll knock off complaining about the community for another 6 months or so until I lose my temper again.
Chrisprattalpharaptr
Ave Imperaptor
1yr ago
For the record, I wrote 30,000 some odd words about that post and related topics with gattsuru already, hence my frustration at being told I'm guilty of ghosting. I was banned for a day and then took a month or two off from writing anything on the sub after that.
I've since also written 30,000 odd words in multiple conversations with FCfromSSC that you could dig up if you're so inclined. I don't think the other two people I specifically called out would be particularly interested in doing the same, but if they really want to rehash it, I'm willing.
Chrisprattalpharaptr
Ave Imperaptor
1yr ago
Alright, thanks for the feedback.
Chrisprattalpharaptr
Ave Imperaptor
1yr ago
I don't think you ever needed my help on that front, friend.
Chrisprattalpharaptr
Ave Imperaptor
1yr ago
Ah, glad to see you've adopted some healthier epistemic practices comrade!
Chrisprattalpharaptr
Ave Imperaptor
1yr ago
I asked for formatting tips since the new site is different from reddit. ~ kept giving me strikethrough
edit: yeah the tilde is bugged
Are you confident that other countries without those single motherhood benefits, such as the US, have lower rates of single motherhood than Canada? Because I don't think that's true even controlling for race. I'm sure cheaper daycare has an effect on the margin, but I'm skeptical that if Canada elected a clean Conservative slate and abolished the entirety of their welfare system that all the problems OP gestures at would evaporate. Even leaving aside the new problems generated as a consequence.
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