@DuplexFields's banner p

DuplexFields

Ask me how the FairTax proposal works. All four Political Compass quadrants should love it.

0 followers   follows 1 user  
joined 2022 September 05 05:51:34 UTC
Bronze Recruiter 

				
User ID: 460


				
				
				

			

		

	














	


		


			



	

		

			

			

				

					

						

							
						

						

							
							

								
DuplexFields


								

								

								
								
								

								
							
					
 
				


				
Ask me how the FairTax proposal works. All four Political Compass quadrants should love it.

				
				
				

				

					0 followers  

					follows 1 user  

					joined 2022 September 05 05:51:34 UTC
				


				
					

					
No bio...

				

				

				

				

				

					

					

					
					
					

					
User ID: 460


					
					
					
				

			


					

						
							
								Bronze Recruiter
							
						
					



		

	

 











			
			

			
			

			




	


		

			
‎

			

				
				

					Hour
					Day
					Week
					Month
					Year
					
				

			


			
‎

			

	
	

	 Hot Bump Top Bottom New Old Comments
	



		

	






	

		
		

		
		
	

	

  







		

			
			
				Culture War Roundup for the week of May 1, 2023
			
		

	

	

	

		
			

			

				

			

		

			


				

					
And there it is. The deaths of people who have been injected with the vaccine, but who are not yet immunized to Covid, have a huge death rate.


Calling people within that fourteen day window “unvaccinated” is blatantly disingenuous. Playing with words for political reasons is dangerous. Sticking with the moneyed narrative in a time of total narrative collapse can be deadly.


Those of us who were paying attention to the biology of the effects of SARS-CoV-2 were screaming to high heaven that vaccinating humans to replicate the spike protein was a Bad Fucking Idea. But since we were red-tribe coded, our words fell on stone-deaf ears.


How can we do better as a civilization next time (assuming for the sake of discussion Global Pandemic II won’t be deliberate)?


EDIT: Spike protein mechanism for causing myocarditis detailed in my reply here, for those who think I’m just being a reactionary.


				

				

						

							

								
							

						


						
					

				
			


			

	


			
			
				

			
		

	






		

			
			
				Culture War Roundup for the week of February 6, 2023
			
		

	

	

	

		
			

			

				

			

		

			


				

					
Sterilize any other group to prevent them having children, it’s genocide. Refuse to sterilize trans people, and they call it genocide.  …Not because genes won’t be passed on, but because presumably they’ll commit suicide. but the pithy observation stands for a different reason.


Today I learned two new words:


    

  • 

    memocide: the deliberate and/or systematic elimination of an idea (a memetic unit).
    

    • 

  • 

    memorcide: the elimination of a people’s history or the memory of a people, often a part of ethnic cleansing.
    

    • 



The culture war is a memocidal total war between modernism (the gaining and use of objective knowledge, the rights of individuals, the identification and shunning of bias, and the creation of a unified narrative) and postmodernism (the rejection of objectivity, universalism, and individualism).


The culture war has seen the weaponization of narratives, knowledge, pseudo-knowledge, anti-knowledge, bias, anti-bias, and pseudo-bias. (The latter includes objective observations about statistics which resemble bias.) This is one of the reasons Alex Jones called his show InfoWars.


				

				

						

							

								
							

						


						
					

				
			


			

	


			
			
				

			
		

	






		

			
			
				Culture War Roundup for the week of October 24, 2022
			
		

	

	

	

		
			

			

				

			

		

			


				

					
I am sufficiently fixed in my views that engagement with you would likely only produce heat. Nonetheless, I dislike you calling me sad for sticking with my man.


He was the only President in my working life whose administration produced an economy sufficient for me to earn money for a retirement account, which is now down to 60% of what it was when he left office. Tangible personal results like that are memorable and anecdotal by their very nature, and thus unfalsifiable, so no data-based argument would sway me.


				

				

						

							

								
							

						


						
					

				
			


			

	


			
			
				

			
		

	






		

			
			
				Culture War Roundup for the week of June 5, 2023
			
		

	

	

	

		
			

			

				

			

		

			


				

					


Jewish communists and Jewish fascists




…Jewish libertarians, Jewish Objectivists, Jewish capitalists, Jewish socialists, Jewish eugenicists, Jewish Muslims, Jewish Christians, Jewish atheists, Jewish Ukrainian Nazis, Jewish CEOs, Jewish actors, Jewish news editors, Jewish bloggers, Jewish poor people on welfare, Jewish homeless drug addicts.


Jews are so fully integrated into mainstream culture in every respect that they’re in every profession, creed, and political group. To assign any collectiveness to Jews as a whole at this point is as fallacious as making the same list with Irish-descended or German-descended people. That’s my answer to “the Jewish Question.”


				

				

						

							

								
							

						


						
					

				
			


			

	


			
			
				

			
		

	






		

			
			
				Culture War Roundup for the week of June 19, 2023
			
		

	

	

	

		
			

			

				

			

		

			


				

					


Russians might or might not manage to keep Donbas and/or the Crimea but the rest of Ukraine has remained an independent country and that is not going to change.




When Putin said all he wanted was Crimea and the Donbas, people called him a liar, an imperialist, and a murdering conqueror. If the bear stands down and leaves Ukraine alone once it’s finished biting off those two chunks, as he stated, I won’t be surprised.


If Belarus is next for a weird contested election, I expect to see a repeat of wars and rumors of wars.


				

				

						

							

								
							

						


						
					

				
			


			

	


			
			
				

			
		

	






		

			
			
				Small-Scale Question Sunday for September 24, 2023
			
		

	

	

	

		
			

			

				

			

		

			


				

					
HCQ, when taken with zinc, has always been the silver bullet. It worked wherever it was tried. People were sneaking it into the hospitals to give to their relatives. I guess the Mayo Clinic finally had to bow to actual science.


Anecdote:


Since I couldn’t get any HCQ, I took tonic water (quinine water) with lots of zinc, plus horse paste (ivermectin), vitamin D, and vitamin C during my first bout (probably Delta, Nov. 2021). I remember the final night of the fight, when I felt the characteristic flu-like aches, and took aspirin. The next morning, I felt far better than the previous week, and I was on the mend; I lost my sense of smell for a year, but didn’t have brain fog or long COVID. My dad and mom, squarely in the risk zone of their 70’s, took a similar medicine regimen and also both survived without long COVID.


On my second bout (summer 2022, Omicron), I got a week’s groceries and prepared for another long haul. Vitamin D and zinc, plus tonic water and walking outdoors in direct sunlight, but to my surprise it was over in three days. Not only that, I felt great afterward! I felt better than I had before the illness, oddly.


				

				

						

							

								
							

						


						
					

				
			


			

	


			
			
				

			
		

	






		

			
			
				Culture War Roundup for the week of December 26, 2022
			
		

	

	

	

		
			

			

				

			

		

			


				

					


Honestly don’t get why westerners object to US in Ukraine.




World War 3 will last half an hour.


US soldiers are on the ground demonstrating weapons systems to Ukrainians. The first American serviceman to lose his life will be a cause celebre and a causus belli.


				

				

						

							

								
							

						


						
					

				
			


			

	


			
			
				

			
		

	






		

			
			
				Wellness Wednesday for September 7, 2022
			
		

	

	

	

		
			

			

				

			

		

			


				

					
Reading a My Little Pony fanfiction of Harry Potter and the Methods of Rationality. Suddenly realizing something very important to my self-image:


I didn’t get D’s and Unfinisheds in college because of stupidity. I got them because I was too curious and didn’t want to stop thinking long enough to plough through the homework which didn’t require any thinking beyond rote calculation.


				

				

						

							

								
							

						


						
					

				
			


			

	


			
			
				

			
		

	






		

			
			
				Culture War Roundup for the week of March 13, 2023
			
		

	

	

	

		
			

			

				

			

		

			


				

					
Sex is physical, gender is emotional. Both are based in physiology, and both are accounted for in science.


Sex is hardware, gender is software. Software can be misconfigured, and it can be reconfigured.


Sex is a fact, gender is an experience. Experiences are reactions to apprehended facts.


				

				

						

							

								
							

						


						
					

				
			


			

	


			
			
				

			
		

	






		

			
			
				Small-Scale Question Sunday for October 9, 2022
			
		

	

	

	

		
			

			

				

			

		

			


				

					
This post on the Objectivism sub is a fantastic journey through how the Successor Ideology grabs people up, uses them like a drug cartel uses addicts, and wrecks their present and future. It’s not angrily culture-war, but it is pure and stunning culture war.


				

				

						

							

								
							

						


						
					

				
			


			

	


			
			
				

			
		

	






		

			
			
				Culture War Roundup for the week of July 31, 2023
			
		

	

	

	

		
			

			

				

			

		

			


				

					
I’d just like to register my repugnance with your axioms and your conclusions. Statistics are not people, and people who believe in eugenics and dysgenics believe (in my experience) in genetic destiny far more than statistics does.


				

				

						

							

								
							

						


						
					

				
			


			

	


			
			
				

			
		

	






		

			
			
				Culture War Roundup for the week of July 17, 2023
			
		

	

	

	

		
			

			

				

			

		

			


				

					
Part of the joy and sorrow of Heaven I anticipate is having no illusions.


This means I will remember the full depths of the public and secret sins I’ve been saved from by Jesus’ sacrifice. I will be made aware of the kinds of sins I would have committed if I hadn’t been sealed by the Holy Spirit and motivated by love instead of spite or greed. I will be left knowing just how righteous God would have been to condemn me away from His presence for eternity.


With no illusions, I will also be able to see the righteousness of the condemnation of all who chose to reject the Way of love-for-all and the damage they willingly cause wherever they may be. If one of the dwellers in misery is a close relative or even a lover, I will mourn them, but I will be disgusted by the depths of the evil they chose and agree they deserve their fate, just as I would have.


This all assumes the particular variant of Christianity I’ve been taught is theologically and cosmologically accurate. I’d like to be pleasantly surprised that all humans throughout history have ended up accepting Jesus’ forgiveness either before or after their death, and Hell ends up holding only the demonic angels who rebelled. I pray nightly that all will have ended up saved. But having watched both Sound of Freedom and the documentary Anne Frank Remembered this month, I don’t have hopes quite that high.


				

				

						

							

								
							

						


						
					

				
			


			

	


			
			
				

			
		

	






		

			
			
				Culture War Roundup for the week of May 15, 2023
			
		

	

	

	

		
			

			

				

			

		

			


				

					
I think the problem you're having with the terminology here is due to trying to describe a coalition with varied heritages, interests, and purposes as a single group with solidarity.




The most commonly reported ancestries of non-Hispanic White Americans include German (13%), Irish (12%), English (9%), Italian (6%), French (4%), Polish (3%), Scottish (3%), Scots-Irish [Borderers] (2%), and Dutch, Norwegian, Swedish, and Russian, each (1%) respectively. (Wikipedia)




Add in the Spain-ish whites, German-Mexicans (but not the German-Mexican Jews), Greeks, non-Jewish eastern Europeans, and the Roma, and now you have the entire pale rainbow.


Except the Ashkenazi.


I’d like to see people make noise about how underrepresented the Roma are in the Biden White House, for a change. Or perhaps overrepresented, but we don’t know because those aren’t the stats you wanted to retrieve and publicize.


				

				

						

							

								
							

						


						
					

				
			


			

	


			
			
				

			
		

	






		

			
			
				Culture War Roundup for the week of January 16, 2023
			
		

	

	

	

		
			

			

				

			

		

			


				

					
I don’t have an actual conspiracy theory of who spurred who to doing what, if anything. It was just an amazingly bad coincidence for Albuquerque Republicans that we didn't have the info on Peña’s criminal actions in time to vote out the chairman under whom he was nominated.


It feels like a successful intelligence operation, similar to school shootings by suspects who were on the FBI’s radar. “Sources & methods” is a shorthand reference to the intel community claims that their vital national security work was endangered by attempts to disprove the Trump Russia hoax operation, [Crossfire Hurricane](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Crossfire_Hurricane_(FBI_investigation)).


				

				

						

							

								
							

						


						
					

				
			


			

	


			
			
				

			
		

	






		

			
			
				Culture War Roundup for the week of November 28, 2022
			
		

	

	

	

		
			

			

				

			

		

			


				

					
You mention the ironic, edgy use of the name Moloch by mostly atheist rationalists to describe a mindless yet malevolent emergent societal process.


I don’t believe it to be good faith to deliberately conflate it with the ancient Canaanite deity which inspired the reference. Its worship involved the abandonment or sacrificial murder of children.


Given the nature of the art, which do you think is being referenced in that Tweet? Here’s a hint:




Here’s an old photo of Bohemian Grove where the worlds most elite men gather each year and worship an effigy of moloch




EDIT: Since I've gotten several replies on the same basic theme, I'll elevate one of my later comments to here: The point is they’re not physically gathering around a symbol of society losing all the mutually-observed bits of politeness and turn-taking which kept us from all-out culture war. The conflation I pointed out does nothing to serve the conversation.


				

				

						

							

								
							

						


						
					

				
			


			

	


			
			
				

			
		

	






		

			
			
				The Motte and the future
			
		

	

	

	

		
			

			

				

			

		

			


				

					
PoliticalCompassMemes is probably your best bet, though half of it is trolling.


				

				

						

							

								
							

						


						
					

				
			


			

	


			
			
				

			
		

	






		

			
			
				Culture War Roundup for the week of February 26, 2024
			
		

	

	

	

		
			

			

				

			

		

			


				

					
I do find myself wondering which of the COVID vaccines Navalny had taken. It’s almost more “scissor statement” than Navalny’s death itself.


				

				

						

							

								
							

						


						
					

				
			


			

	


			
			
				

			
		

	






		

			
			
				Culture War Roundup for the week of June 5, 2023
			
		

	

	

	

		
			

			

				

			

		

			


				

					
Some time during my initial philosophic/theological foray into what I now call Triessentialism, I encountered the idea of the anti-Trinity:


    

  • 

    Where the Father is ultimate power and causal impetus, the atheist universe can only have endless void and the inexorable flow of all usable energy over time into its maw.
    

    • 

  • 

    Where the Son is ultimate logic and infinite planning, the atheist universe can only have coincidences piling up through combinatorics over uncountable stretches of time to generate the unlikely human thinker.
    

    • 

  • 

    Where the Spirit is ultimate purpose and strong love, the atheist universe can only have cosmic purposelessness and apathy for those who abuse free will for their own reasons.
    

    • 



Were we to find “Copyright 4004 BC Jesus Christ” encoded in English or Hebrew in the DNA of nerve proteins, there would be someone explaining how it’s a total coincidence, an artifact of decoding and combinatorics. Were scientists able to summon a tangible demon (who can throw lightning bolts and use telekinesis) reliably through ritual, there would be someone explaining it as a purely naturalistic phenomenon, citing Arthur C. Clarke.


Baileys abound in cosmological discussions, and mottes are few and far between. Thank you for helping us keep our epistemologies tidy.


				

				

						

							

								
							

						


						
					

				
			


			

	


			
			
				

			
		

	






		

			
			
				Culture War Roundup for the week of May 1, 2023
			
		

	

	

	

		
			

			

				

			

		

			


				

					
it’s been known for quite a while that Covid itself leads to heart attacks, arrhythmias, and other heart problems.


Research presented at the American Heart Association’s Basic Cardiovascular Sciences Scientific Sessions 2022 suggests SARS-CoV-2’s spike protein can lead to heart muscle injury through an inflammatory process:




“It’s already known from the clinical side that COVID-19 infection can induce heart injury, however, what we don’t know is the mechanistic details of how this occurs. What we suspect is that the spike protein has unknown pathological roles,” said Dr. Zhiqiang Lin, lead author of the study and an assistant professor at the Masonic Medical Research Institute in Utica, New York. “Our data show that the spike protein from SARS-CoV-2 causes heart muscle damage. That’s why it’s important to get vaccinated and prevent this disease,” he added. [emphasis mine]




But that's old news to amateur followers of virology news; doctors were warning early on that the spike protein itself was not just a highly identifiable piece of the virus, it was also likely the mechanism behind COVID-19 heart attacks — and thus any rise in heart attack deaths among vaccinated people not normally considered at risk for heart disease:




[Researcher Byram Bridle] claimed the information shows that the spike protein produced by the vaccines, which is intended to prevent the coronavirus from infecting the body, does not remain in the shoulder muscle but gets into the blood — and can lead to clotting, bleeding, heart problems and neurological damage.  "In short, the conclusion is, we made a big mistake," Bridle said. "We didn’t realize it until now. We thought the spike protein was a great target antigen. We never knew the spike protein itself was a toxin, and was a pathogenic protein. So, by vaccinating people, we are inadvertently inoculating them with a toxin. Some people, this gets into circulation, and when that happens in some people, they can cause damage, especially in the cardiovascular system. And I have many other legitimate questions about the long-term safety, therefore, of this vaccine."




Politifact rated these claims False because “Experts say there is no evidence that the spike protein produced by the vaccines is a toxin that could cause heart problems and neurological damage. The Canadian viral immunologist who made the claim has not produced evidence to back it up.”


Reading between the lines, the cited experts are saying the spike protein is not toxic because the vaccine and vaccinated cells stay at the injection site and never reach the heart to cause myocarditis. If further research shows that claim to be false, it’s the last link in the chain giving strong evidence that the spike-producing vaccines were indeed a Bad Fucking Idea.


				

				

						

							

								
							

						


						
					

				
			


			

	


			
			
				

			
		

	






		

			
			
				Culture War Roundup for the week of April 3, 2023
			
		

	

	

	

		
			

			

				

			

		

			


				

					
Comedian and marriage guy Mark Gungor has a whole schtick on why men and women are fundamentally incomprehensible to each other, the model of boxes vs wires. I’ve linked to the start of the part most people go to the video for, 55 seconds in.


Other examinations I’ve leaned on for preparing for understanding women’s behavior and choices include the Dave Sim’s Cerebus comics and Carla Speed McNeil’s Finder comics, particularly her graphic novel “Five Crazy Women”. (If a woman warns you that all women are crazy, listen to her.)


				

				

						

							

								
							

						


						
					

				
			


			

	


			
			
				

			
		

	






		

			
			
				Culture War Roundup for the week of January 2, 2023
			
		

	

	

	

		
			

			

				

			

		

			


				

					
A Right narrative for Brexit’s “failure” is that of COURSE the EU is punishing Britain for leaving, with punitive measures subtly built into every trade issue.


Geopolitical power plays are a great narrative. Just as Communist China claims the famine which killed nearly a hundred million was mostly the result of the west’s embargo, Britain’s conservatives can claim unpleasant EU trade unfairnesses will continue until either Britain once again allows Belgium to be its sovereign or the EU collapses under a dozen Greeces.


				

				

						

							

								
							

						


						
					

				
			


			

	


			
			
				

			
		

	






		

			
			
				Rationality and Religion
			
		

	

	

	

		
			

			

				

			

		

			


				

					
I remember being nine (or so) and trying to figure my way through theology with my dad, with whom I had watched a great deal of Star Trek TNG. I started with "So, God is an entity-" and that's where my dad cut me off. He didn't like me using the word entity, because to him it was a fancy word for "thing" and God is not a thing.


My revelatory moment about God-as-reality came while thinking through the implications of the Trinity and the multi-omni-ness of God. Axiomatically, nothing came before God. Well, what about that very "beforeness"? Did causal sequence exist prior to God? Axiomatically no; so therefore causal sequence must either be a creation or an inseparable attribute of God. The same was true of logic; "before" God created anything, there were no things which weren't God; but "not" is logic, which means either there was a "time" before He invented logic where there was not even an implication of "not-God", or logic itself is a fundamental attribute of God.


These thoughts lead inexorably to the idea that every good and right choice is somehow tied to God on a level I can't apprehend with my merely physical senses, and that sin must be a terrible contagion indeed to even theorize it separates a small and fallible human from God forever... and that free will and consciousness are so important and glorious that it required the possibility (and resulted in the eventuality) of humans becoming so depraved that they would prefer Hell to Heaven.


				

				

						

							

								
							

						


						
					

				
			


			

	


			
			
				

			
		

	






		

			
			
				Culture War Roundup for the week of July 17, 2023
			
		

	

	

	

		
			

			

				

			

		

			


				

					
Thanks! Clarification: …but I will be disgusted by the depths of the evil they chose and agree they deserve their fate, a fate I would have shared were it not for grace.


				

				

						

							

								
							

						


						
					

				
			


			

	


			
			
				

			
		

	






		

			
			
				Culture War Roundup for the week of May 29, 2023
			
		

	

	

	

		
			

			

				

			

		

			


				

					
Whenever reviewing the stats on Trump’s first term, I haven’t seen much disambiguating between BC and DC - Before Covid and During Covid. Consequently, both sides can point to the term and say they were right about Trump.


    

  • 

    BC stocks soared, DC they plummeted.
    

    • 

  • 

    BC employment hit record highs, DC it tanked.
    

    • 

  • 

    BC a rising tide floated all boats, DC the megacorps were the sole allowed source for America’s goods and services.
    

    • 



So, what evidence are you citing for the very general statement “If you want to punish generic "people in power", the evidence suggests that electing Trump seems like a bad idea.”?


				

				

						

							

								
							

						


						
					

				
			


			

	


			
			
				

			
		

	






		

			
			
				Culture War Roundup for the week of April 17, 2023
			
		

	

	

	

		
			

			

				

			

		

			


				

					


But I know that he doesn't have the ability to implement it. Consider that in the first part of his presidency they had both parts of the legislature and executive. He got nothing done with all that!




Paul Ryan and John McCain and the rest of the neocon Nevertrumpers stymied him from the beginning, all the  way to the vote to cancel Obamacare and the McCain “FU I’m dead anyway” move. The wall was getting built, and until COVID, all of the economic indicators were nice.