Eetan
1yr ago
As myself and others keep pointing out, intersectionality/identity politics is basically just a re-rebranding of Marxism with a bunch race and sex stuff in the place of economic class.
Well, using this mode of analysis, everything is Marxism. When Ugg in they year 2,000,000 BC called his tribe to club heads of the other tribe on the other bank of the river, he was the first Marxist ever.
Other people keep pointing out that words mean something, including people like this lifelong Christian fundamentalist anti communist fighter Gary Kilgore North.
Cultural Marxism Is an Oxymoron
Ignore Anyone Who Says Marxism Is a Threat
But the postmodernist caravan goes on.
Maybe you don't notice because you grew up in the Soviet Union surrounded by literal Marxist so to you it's just the default
Unless @DaseindustriesLtd is really ancient, he grew in totally disilusioned society where it was easier to meet abominable snowman than "literal Marxist". If he remembers anything at all, he remembers indifferent teacher droning something about Lenin to indifferent class.
The teacher knew it was BS, the pupils knew it was BS, the teacher knew the pupils know it is BS (plus all possible permutations).
Eetan
1yr ago
It depends what is your plan for your children's future.
If they will have to live in the jungle where only right is might and only laws are teeth and claws, they do need to learn how to be animals.
Of course, when you are the biggest, strongest and toughest jungle animal, you are still jungle animal, and some people another ambitions for their lives.
Eetan
1yr ago
I find it interesting that The Motte tends to treat Christianity with kid gloves that are not reserved for other belief systems.
As others said, these other belief systems are clear and present danger while Christianity is not.
The noughties are over, Bush of out of office, intelligent design is out of schools, it is just not a live issue any more. If Christians were here to agressively preach and proselytize, I am sure they would met with strong pushback.
Similar example: I presume most people here strongly condemn communism, but it is not discussed there often. If some hard core tankies arrived and started forcefully explaining how Stalin did nothing wrong, it would change quickly.
Eetan
1yr ago
So it is all about old school grudges?
If true, we would observe that home schooled children who completely missed the whole uplifting experience of American education, would be the bitterest and most vengeful woke warriors.
Do we observe it?
Eetan
1yr ago
Conversely in the west, our entire culture is built around the message that we're all equal and that we all have an equal say in democracy and so on.
This whole thread is about deep, millenia long history or different civilizations, not skin deep modern fashions century old at best.
And Chinese culture was always based on principle of meritocracy and unlimited opportunity. Every Chinese boy knew he could have great career if he studies and works hard, and could even become a emperor if he finds few friends to help him. Predictably, revolts and revolutions were neverending.
While European culture was for millenia based on principle of feudal hierarchy, divine right and noble blood. If you were born a peasant, you are going to be a peasant, as God ordered. To rebel against your betters was to rebel against God himself. Predictably, peasant revolts were rare and ended very badly.
Eetan
1yr ago
This would fail spectacularly and I can't imagine the CCP big shots ever being high enough on their own supply to attempt it. "force people at gunpoint to have kids" is such an obviously bad idea that there is a reason it has not been tried already.
Yea. See how the Party quickly backtracked over COVID lockdowns in the face of very mild protests and disturbances.
Maybe China is really the country where the government fears the people? (insert your favorite Guy Fawkes meme)
It would be wise attitude - one brief look at Chinese history demolishes all racist canards about "oriental slavish nature". How many peasant revolts in Europe came ever close to succeeding?
Eetan
1yr ago
Nothing dies unless it is moribund, I agree with that. Christianity is finished, there are new ideas that inspire greater fervor.
Christianity is alive and thriving with greater fervor than ever before.
Together, worldwide Pentecostal and Charismatic Christianity numbers over 644 million adherents.[15] While the movement originally attracted mostly lower classes in the global South, there is a new appeal to middle classes.[16][17][18] Middle-class congregations tend to have fewer members.[19][20][21] Pentecostalism is believed to be the fastest-growing religious movement in the world.[22]
Note that it is Christianity explicitly devoid of intellectual content and rational thought.
Eetan
1yr ago
One possible way I can interpret this argument: any character, unless explicitly characterized as non-white, is assumed white and anthropomorphic characters of no particular ethnicity are impossible? E.g., baby shark is white (not Korean?!?) since it's a yellow shark of indeterminate gender who sings a 3 word song.
If the story is set in completely fantastic world unrelated to anything IRL, you are right that assigning RL racial identity to characters is absurd.
If the characters live in world that is just like our (North American suburban) world, except that the people are funny furry animals, assigning RL racial identity to characters is unavoidable.
Eetan
1yr ago
Most of issues debated here are issues where existence of God/Supreme Being/Great Architect/Intelligent Designer is not relevant at all.
I disagree.
Well, in the last days, this space is mostly dedicated to Elon Musk and his Twitter escapades. What is the religious/biblical perspective on this current event? How could this issue be even explained in Biblical terms?
Poor man Sveneicus was watching from his window road to his town, and suddenly saw rich man Elonus on the road, traveling, as was his custom, on elephant covered with gold and jewels shining far away.
Sveneicus climbed to the roof and yelled loudly: "Rejoice, citizens! Great Elonus is coming to visit our town! What great honor for all of us!"
Elonus heard Sveneicus and was very displeased. "Stop it! I have many enemies, some of them might heard you and try to harm me. Do you want to have my innocent blood on your hands?"
Who is in the right, Elonus or Sveneicus? What would Jesus say to them?
Eetan
1yr ago
Does that paint a clearer chain of logic for you?
No. This guy tracked lots more wealthy people that Elon, and no one of them complained that putting publicly available info on Twitter makes them feel unsafe. Including Russian oligarchs, who possess fraction of Elon's net worth while having several magnitudes more of serious enemies.
So, it is not "poor Elon so afraid, please stop", it is more like "how dare you lowly peasants look at mighty lord!"
Eetan
1yr ago
I don't know what this means. Who is doing the restricting? What is meant by "restrict" here?
Tell self appointed missionary, whether religious or secular, to shut up, no one likes unwanted preaching.
Eetan
1yr ago
I doubt anyone at the time and place felt shame.
You can be shamed by someone you recognize as authority. When your mother , even old and frail, yells at you, you will feel ashamed. When wild animal howls at you, you might feel afraid, but not ashamed.
Eetan
3mo ago
This is a funny way to put it, because the whole gas chamber story is really what aims to resolve the ambiguity not just on the Eastern front, but on the entire war. Imagine how ambiguous the entire war effort and war consequences become if you take the gas chamber story away.
"Great Patriotic War" is considered sacred only in Russia, much more so in recent post-Soviet times than during USSR.
In the West, modern academic consensus is now that WW2 (at least the 90% of it that happened in the East) was fight between 100% evil and 99,9% evil.
Ernst Nolte was cancelled in his time, but his thesis won, to the dismay of remaining old time leftists.
And this trend will accelerate, both due to WW2 receding in historical memory and current events in Eastern Europe and Middle East.
No one is going to build any memorials to Nazi Germans any time soon, but Soviet monuments are going down everywhere outside Putin country.
Looks like mission accomplished, and without any questioning of "gas chamber story."
Eetan
4mo ago
For maximally cynical, conspiratory and blackpilling take, seek, as usual Rolo Slavski.
Eetan
4mo ago
This sacrifice was, of course, quite ephemeral
as he then became an ultra-powerful warlord with multiple wives and an army of devotees.
Yes, Mo made it big, unlike 99,9999% self proclaimed prophets in history. Their stories usually end with "murdered" "executed" "died in prison" "died in poverty". Mo knew it, but never gave up, because he meant it, he was certain that his message true revelation from God.
Yeah wow, poor guy, his life sure must have been hard.
Would you openly stand for your beliefs for ten years, while your town hates and despises you, would you persevere while your neighbors regularly spit at you and smear your house with camel dung?
Eetan
4mo ago
In your opinion, should the mullahs try harder? Should they do more?
Assuming they could try harder - remember that Iran is country with massively disaffected populace, with regular riots and urprisings with death toll in the hundreds. Country more like Tsarist Russia than Stalin's one.
Eetan
4mo ago
This isn't true. In western society that remark is hyperbole and we all know it, because nobody here is forcing tradition and religion down people's throats at gunpoint.
This subthread is not about Western society, it is about Iran.
He asked what a more traditional solution sounded like. Well, I gave him one. Current trends and demographics seem to be making the case that the latter is the more attractive long-term option.
Iran - society with all drawbacks of modernity and none of its benefits - is not attractive at all.
If your solution is Iranian one, it is unsatisfactory.
Eetan
4mo ago
Iran has a TFR of 1.7, is regularly roiled by massive anti-regime protests, and religious affiliation is sharply declining among the nation's youth. Not much of a start.
Okay. And? That's unrelated to what you originally asked for. I don't know what this response is supposed to make me think in light of what I quoted.
This response is supposed to make you grasp that the most thorough effort in current times to force tradition and religion at gun point failed as thoroughly as it could fail.
Where did ayatollahs go wrong? Were they too soft, were they too concerned about human rights, should they imprison, torture and kill more?
"Unable"? The shells would be there in 24 hours if the order was given by Biden to get them there. If something different happens, it's not the lack of ability, it's the lack of willingness to do that.
No, he cannot, because the industry necessary to provide them does not exist in NATO countries, and nothing had been done to build up this capacity since 2022.
Well, US promises to increase production to 100,000 shells per month ... by 2025.
By world war standards, it is one big unfunny joke.
I'd like to see a proof of any factory producing anything reminding modern artillery ammunition
Nothing "modern" about artillery shell production.
created from an empty field in 20 days. I also assume the metal, chemicals, machinery, trained workers and supply lines for both incoming materials and the product will have to come from the empty field in the same 20 days?
metal, chemicals, machinery
Modern world industrial production and logistical capacity is at least by magnitude higher than during WW2 time, all these things can be ordered online (from China, through intermediaries if you do not want to raise suspicion) unlike in these times.
trained workers
We are talking about classical industrial mass production, that could operate with minimaly skilled workers freshly arriving from farms and villages.
supply lines
Enough places near sea port or rail line, no need for WWII style heroic building achievements
in the same 20 days?
This is not even slight exaggeration of things that were routinely done in the past.
edit: links fixed
Eetan
8mo ago
Their methods and their numbers are good enough for Pentagon, the unfortunate leaks showed that Pentagon uses Oryx data.
Belllingcat and Oryx are anything but "random internet people".
Eetan
8mo ago
The military's logistical pipelines become an order of magnitude less complex
With collapse of US (and world) economy, logistical pipelines become nonexistant.
Do not imagine masses of shiny wunderwaffen crushing the rebels, imagine Second Civil War as two (at minimum) African style armies with pickup trucks and jerry rigged armored vehicles duking it out in Mad Max apocalypse land.
Eetan
8mo ago
There is no communal ritual in wokeism where the adherents focus on the absolute good, what they are striving towards. No woke church. Just virtue through signaling and destruction of enemies.
Lack of colorful rituals and celebrations is the least problem with woke faith.
Better criticism of wokeism is that wokes do not breed, that full woke society would die off.
Christians of first centuries had similar problem - they refused to kill.
Pagan Romans saw it as absurd - every empire is built on oceans of blood and pyramids of skulls, every empire needs professional soldiers, torturers and executioners. If the empire was Christian only, it would collapse in a fortnight.
Well, Christians took over Roman empire, and quickly reconsidered this part of their teaching, quickly discovered that shedding blood in the name of Christian Empire is holy and glorious.
No reason why woke religion cannot manage similar plot twist.
Eetan
8mo ago
I don't call it preaching to say that non-Christians go to Hell when you're making points about Christianity, in a context where argument is welcome.
Threatening someone with hell would be seen by most people as hostile act, but the original Xeet that started it all was not agressive fire and brimstone sermon, it was talking about hope, not about eternal fire.
Civilization is creeping in, so you probably only have 5-10 years left, but the ruling class are keenly aware that preserving a certain charming pastiche backwardness (while also being very safe, clean and welcoming) is the future of the economy, and they act accordingly. It’s also a lot of fun to be in a Buddhist country that hasn’t yet been turned into a strip mall like the more developed parts of the rest of Southeast Asia.
The rulers also decided that cryptocurrency is the future, and heavily invested in crypto mining.
Quietly, but infrastructure of such magnitude is not something that can be hidden. Something for people who worry how easily you can get away with AI development in coming Katechon Pact world.
What is future of Jews in medium an long term, ofc assuming the current trends continue and we are not paperclipped by Omnius?
In the Middle East, Great Israel from Nile to Euphrate ran according to old time Biblical laws, with beautiful temple in Jerusalem covered in blood of sheep and goats all the time. Country as important as Saudi Arabia or Iran are today.
Outside the Middle East, there are many ultra Orthodox communities as influential as Amish and Mennonites are today, plus lots of people with some Hebraic tchotchkes inherited from great-grandparents stashed in the attic.
Conspiracy theorists complaining about Jews will be still there, but these complaints would be seen as absurd and quaint as complaints about freemasons are seen today.
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