Eetan
1yr ago
Finally, concrete plan how to save the world from paperclipping dropped, presented by world (in)famous Basilisk Man himself.
https://twitter.com/RokoMijic/status/1647772106560552962
Government prints money to buy all advanced AI GPUs back at purchase price. And shuts down the fabs. Comprehensive Anti-Moore's Law rules rushed through. We go back to ~2010 compute.
TL;DR: GPU's over certain capability are treated like fissionable materials, unauthorized possession, distribution and use will be seen as terrorism and dealt with appropriately.
So, is it feasible? Could it work?
If by "government" Roko means US government (plus vassals allies) alone, it is not possible.
If US can get China aboard, if if there is worldwide expert consensus that unrestricted propagation of computing power will kill everyone, it is absolutely feasible to shut down 99,99% of unauthorized computing all over the world.
Unlike drugs or guns, GPU's are not something you can make in your basement - they are really like enriched uranium or plutonium in the sense you need massive industrial plants to produce them.
Unlike enriched uranium and plutonium, GPU's were already manufactured in huge numbers, but combination of carrots (big piles of cash) and sticks (missile strikes/special forces raids on suspicious locations) will continue dwindling them down and no new ones will be coming.
AI research will of course continue (like work on chemical and biological weapons goes on), but only by trustworthy government actors in the deepest secrecy. You can trust NSA (and Chinese equivalent) AI.
The most persecuted people of the world, gamers, will be, as usual, hit the hardest.
No idea if eternal spy and counterspy cat and mouse game counts as part of culture wars, but here are some recent news from this area.
1/Teixeira leaks were discussed here when they happened, here is the resolution of the case.
We would all agree that 16 years of maximum security prison is price worth paying to impress your gamer buddies in Thug Shaker Central Discord.
2/In related news, important US Foreign Service officer, former ambassador to Bolivia was uncovered to be lifelong spy for ... Cuba.
Another source.
Do not laugh, Cuban DI counts among the better ones in the spook world, infiltrating Washington DC previously while running circles aroud US agents in Cuba. US is rather lucky that Cuba is shithole in every other measure.
3/Another, more pedestrian case of desperate American greed and disgraceful Chicom penny pinching. Surely US top secrets are worth more that $42,000? What insult.
Conclusion: US security is as big shitshow as it had always been. No loyalty (if you keep back stabbing everyone who trusts you, what could you expect), no grand idea inspiring self sacrificing volunteers and no rewards for service either.
Good that any superpower or wannabe superpower competitors are even worse. Notoriously insular Chinese who understand nothing about outside world and have to rely on cash and Chinese ethnic ties, and the less said about Russian Petrov & Boshirov clown show, the better.
Unlike the great and tragic struggle of the First Cold War, the second one is going to be slapstick comedy. Freedom and Democracy (TM) vs. Bright Communist Future(TM) are over.
LGBTQ+BLM vs Xi Jinping Thought is the game now. Enjoy the show.
edit: links now work
More developments on the AI front:
Big Yud steps up his game, not to be outshined by the Basilisk Man.
Now, he officially calls for preemptive nuclear strike on suspicious unauthorized GPU clusters.
If we see AI threat as nuclear weapon threat, only worse, it is not unreasonable.
Remember when USSR planned nuclear strike on China to stop their great power ambitions (only to have the greatest humanitarian that ever lived, Richard Milhouse Nixon, to veto the proposal).
Such Quaker squeamishness will have no place in the future.
So, outlines of the Katechon World are taking shape. What it will look like?
It will look great.
You will live in your room, play original World of Warcraft and Grand Theft Auto: San Andreas on your PC, read your favorite blogs and debate intelligent design on your favorite message boards.
Then you will log on The Free Republic and call for more vigorous enhanced interrogation of terrorists caught with unauthorized GPU's.
When you bored in your room, you will have no choice than to go outside, meet people, admire things around you, make a picture of things that really impressed with your Kodak camera and when you are really bored, play Snake on your Nokia phone.
Yes, the best age in history, the noughties, will retvrn. For forever, protected by CoDominium of US and China.
edit: links again
Eetan
7mo ago
Time for some links about breaking and not so breaking culture war news.
It is happening, Sam Bankman-Fried finally arrived in prison.
Here is exclusive dead bird thread about his first days in the big house.
2/Catholic church
The Pope gets more based and redpilled every day. On his latest visit in Mongolia, he celebrates achievements of Mongol Empire and praises unifying legacy of Genghis Khan.
No response so far, even after 800 years no one dares to disrespect memory of the greatest conqueror ever.
In contrast, when the Pope recently praised Russian tsars Peter and Catherine and called Russians do not forget their heritage, the feedback was massive.
Many people vigorously protested and pointed that Russian tsars were never friends of Catholic faith, and Ukraine put the Pope on official list of enemies.
Backlash was so big that Pope was cancelled and forced to apologize for his "faulty comments".
3/ Alt-right movement
New wild white warriors just appeared, one Christopher Pohlhaus with his Blood Tribe and became front page news overnight.
No surprise, their fashion sense is superb, their salutes are brisk, their flags are well ironed and their tattoos of Nazi and Satanic symbols are just perfect. Everone loves Nazis who look properly Nazi, and these guys cannot get any Nazier.
Why nobody heard about these people before?
Why they walk away scot free, no matter how many crimes they do?
Where they get money for their stunts?
Do not ask, just watch the show, be very, very afraid and support whatever measures are necessary to combat the Nazi menace.
4/Ayys
UFO enthusiasts can celebrate, long awaited secret document is now there in the wild, available for download.
It is really big thing if you are part of UFO community.
This book was written about 1960 by Albert Vernon Bowen, copywriter, journalist and children book author.
The manuscript was mysteriously seized by USAF, kept classified for 39 years, and then, it was even more mysteriously declassified and sent unsolicited by mail to UFO researcher Timothy Cooper.
It was the original manusript, but with notes added by unknown hand with ballpoint pen.
Timothy Cooper gave the book to another UFO researcher Robert Wood who published it - without the ballpoint notes. Since then, Woods kept the manuscript for himself and never allowed anyone to see it.
No surprise that all these sheeningans agitated UFO community and the book achieved near mythical status.
Now, it is finally out there. Was it worth the hype?
Let us see what is Bowen's argument for alien origin of flying saucers.
Such reasoning might lead to the asking of another question: Are Major Keyhoe, Ray Palmer, Kenneth Arnold, George Adamski, Harold T. Wilkinson, Donald E. Menzel, Frank Scully — and all other writers on the subject of saucers — counter espionage agents for the U.S. Government? Are all of them, by official directive, muddying-up the greatest cover- up job of modern times?
Such a question is equally absurd in the light of the record, in the light of the fact that saucers — or of things with the same attributes of saucers have been sighted for centuries, if not for millennia.
Furthermore, it is equally inconceivable, in trying to explore the possibility of hoax, that FATE Magazine, LIFE Magazine and TRUE Magazine, with their circulations and their reputations at stake, would deliberately involve themselves in a hoax. It is inconceivable that the Readers Digest, with its millions in circulation, would reprint the LIFE article claiming that saucers are extraterrestrial, or publish J.R. Aswell's article on saucer sightings for 150 years, if its editors thought saucers were a _ hoax. It is equally inconceivable that LOOK Magazine, with its millions in circulation, would first cling to the side of scientific explanation, then follow-up with an article on the seriousness of the Air Force's search, and later on, in October 1953, publish excerpts from Major Keyhoe's book, Flying Saucers From Outer Space, even though the editors said they did not commit themselves one way or the other. It is inconceivable that LIFE would publish an article Flying Saucers Bounces Off Design Board, a completely factual report on Canada's flying saucer and how it could work, and then follow, in its November 1, 1954 issue, with an equally factual report on what various Frenchmen claimed they had seen in the way of “little men” climbing out of flying saucers in the fall of 1954. It is inconceivable that The New York World Telegram & Sun should claim, early in 1955, that the U.S. Air Force knows what flying saucers are — if WT&S had any belief that they could be a hoax.
It is likewise equally inconceivable that men of the stature of Professor Herman Oberth, international rocket authority, Air Chief Marshall Lord Dowding, Commander in Chief of the British Air Force, Dr. Maurice A. Biot, leading American aerodynamicist, Dr. Walther Riedel, once chief designer and research director of the German rocket station on Peenemunde, and now doing work for the U.S., should have expressed the belief that saucers are real — and extraterrestrial — unless they had real reason for doing so.
Yes, it is rather underwhelming - but illustrating how people in the 1950's really felt, how trust in government, media and authorities in general was real thing, even among self professed skeptics.
This ship really sailed, there is no coming back.
Eetan
5mo ago
Since special thread dedicated to current Middle Eastern issues fell into abeyance, I am posting latest war culture war report from the scorching sands of Middle East cold and brutal streets of Gotham City.
And the latest victim of the war is one Stuart Seldowitz, former humanitarian diplomacy consultant, National Security Council member and deputy director of the US State Department’s Office of Israel and Palestinian Affairs,who fell in glorious struggle against terrorism was arrested by NYPD for persistent harrassment of halal food street vendor.
In one widely shared video, Seldowitz is heard to ask the unidentified vendor: “Did you rape your daughter like Muhammad did?” In another, he states: “If we killed 4,000 Palestinian kids, you know what? It wasn’t enough. It wasn’t enough.”
When the vendor says he doesn’t speak English, Seldowitz laughs and says, “That’s why you’re selling food in a food cart, because you’re ignorant,” before suggesting that the vendor will be deported to Egypt and tortured by intelligence agents.
“The mukhabarat in Egypt will get your parents,” Seldowitz said in the video. “Does your father like his fingernails? They will take them out one by one.” The vendor is heard asking Seldowitz to “please go” and saying that he would call the police.
An NYPD spokesperson told the outlet that they are aware of the videos and monitoring the situation but that no reports had been filed. The woman who posted the videos, who is believed to be a social activist and Columbia University graduate, said Seldowitz had been harassing the vendor for weeks.
According to some reports, the street vendor was allegedly previously tearing down posters with dead and kidnapped Israelis.
Whole incident was covered on dead bird site in every possible angle, if you are even only casual deadbirders, you already learned about it and made your own minds.
What is my take?
In the best possible world, no one would be tearing these posters, because there would be no such posters on the streets of Gotham City, because whole world, including Middle East, would live in peace and harmony, there would be no wars, no one would be killed, no one would be kidnapped, no house would be bombed or bulldozed.
In the second best possible world, no one would be tearing these posters, because there would be no such posters on the streets of Gotham City, because no one living in Gotham City would care enough about some war going on the other side of the world to deface their beloved city.
In the third best possible world, no one would be tearing these posters, because there would be no such posters on the streets of Gotham City, because laws of Gotham City against posting and graffiti would be strictly enforced and people splattering around unauthorized posters and leaflets would be fined (and, in case of repeated and persistent vandalism, deported from the city).
Well, we do not live in any of these worlds.
Eetan
8mo ago
Since religion is also part of culture wars, it is time for sharing some latest religious culture war battles, this time on Judeo-Christian front, originating from the crucified bird site.
1/ Case of Lizzie Marbach
Lizzie Marbach, Republican and anti abortion activist from Ohio, person with 7k followers and otherwise not notable, posted this.
There's no hope for any of us outside of having faith in Jesus Christ alone.
This is Christianity 101, this is exactly what Christian is supposed to say and believe. There is no reason for anyone to be surprised.
Except Max Miller, Jewish Republican representative of Ohio with 52k followers who was not amused.
This is one of the most bigoted tweets I have ever seen
Mega dead bird storm ensued, and many people came to Lizzie's side to support her.
Including Ilhan Omar.
Things went so far that Max Miller was forced to apologize.
GOP lawmaker apologizes for ‘religious freedom’ tweet
But, nevertheless, Lizzie Marbach lost her job.
By sheer coincidence, Miller’s wife, Emily Moreno Miller, sits on the board of Ohio Right to Life.
This thing will continue, and it is not looking good for official GOP.
2/ Case of Darryl Cooper, rather lighter one.
Darryl Cooper, known as Martyr Made on the interwebs, substacker, podcaster on several sites and dead birder with 173k followers.
So this is rather important person, in internet terms, who suddenly decided that this is the time, of all things, to preach to Jewish people and convert them to Christianity.
It turned out that lot of his followers are Jews who do not appreciate being evangelized, especially by such D- apologetic piece. Massive dead bird storm ensued, and DC doubled, quartupled and octupled his efforts.
Darryl Cooper himself seems to be rather unorthodox Christian of somewhat Marcionite tinge. This makes the whole thing more confusing, what exactly are his Jewish followers supposed to convert to?
What have these cases in common? They illustrate the difficulty of actual interfaith cooperation between sincere believers in different faiths. If you really believe in truth of your religion, it is realy hard to desist from preaching and evangelizing, and even harder to do not take offence if you are (or perceive to be) preached at and evangelized by your fellows.
It looks that this forum either missed, or lacked interest in latest OSINT/spook world apocalyptic scandal.
Normie introduction:
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/2023_Pentagon_document_leaks
Twitter thread with more links:
https://twitter.com/RidT/status/1645048624294895619
TL;DR: Classified Pentagon documents suddenly appeared out of nowhere on front page of New York Times obscure Discord server. From this place, they circulated among less and less obscure Discord servers until they, in about a month, percolated into Russian Z telegram channels (who, in fit of genius, crudely changed in photoshop the casualties numbers, to make Russia look less bad).
According to Pentagon insiders and online autists, the documents look genuine - internal consistency, consistency with open source information, the style, the powerpoint presentation, the bureaucratic lingo - all is correct. It is either work of expert team who studied Pentagon documents for their whole lives, or it is the real deal, the real leak.
The frantic behavior of TPTP - banning the responsible telegram channel, scrubbing the documents from Twitter and similar desperate fortifying the barn door when the horse is far beyond the horizon, also suggests authenticity.
How important they are? If FSB or GRU were monitoring "Thug Shaker Central" Discord channel and got the info when it was fresh, it could have very serious consequences. Now it is mostly of historical interest. Big mistake.
Now, the implications.
1/ US OPSEC is not as shitty as usual, it is getting worse. Any loser could walk around with his phone, take pictures of everything he wants and no one GAF. It is fortunate that no enemy agents managed to infiltrate Pentagon, only gamers who want to impress their buddies.
2/ Quality and loyalty of US personnel is getting way worse. The man responsible is supposed to be /pol/ style racist gun nut. Exactly the kind of person who is not wanted by the system, who should be stopped by even most basic background check. Another F for failure.
3/ Ukraine is not US puppet, Ukrainian government is in charge and keeps their plans and information for itself. Pentagon does not have any insider knowledge what is going on there - even their classified info is copy of official UKR announcements.
Now, what will be the consequences?
Not good for anyone. No one responsible will be punished (except the leaker, who will be made example of), and hammer will hard on anything resembling racism, transphobia and other unapproved thought. Take care.
Edit: leaker is named.
As expected. Racial science discovered long ago that while Hispanics are noble oppressed victims of white racism, Lusitanics are no good and should never be trusted.
https://www.pewresearch.org/fact-tank/2022/09/15/who-is-hispanic/
People with ancestries in Brazil, Portugal and the Philippines do not fit the federal government’s official definition of “Hispanic” because the countries are not Spanish-speaking. For the most part, people who trace their ancestry to just these countries are not counted as Hispanic by the Census Bureau even if they identify as Hispanic. Only about 2%-3% of immigrants from Brazil are counted as Hispanic, as are about 1%-2% of immigrants from Portugal and the Philippines, according to the 2010- 2019 American Community Surveys.
Eetan
5mo ago
Time for current culture war item, reviving 20 years old controversies in much different world.
Ayaan Hirsi Ali is now a Christian
Some feel it as betrayal, some as vindication, but all see it as big thing. But is it a thing of any importance?
Reading through the manifesto, it seems strange. First, it does not contain the word "Jesus", not even once. Neither the word "salvation".
So what it talks about?
Threats to precious Western democracy, freedom, rules based international order and Judeo-Christian tradition
Part of the answer is global. Western civilisation is under threat from three different but related forces: the resurgence of great-power authoritarianism and expansionism in the forms of the Chinese Communist Party and Vladimir Putin’s Russia; the rise of global Islamism, which threatens to mobilise a vast population against the West; and the viral spread of woke ideology, which is eating into the moral fibre of the next generation.
But we can’t fight off these formidable forces unless we can answer the question: what is it that unites us? The response that “God is dead!” seems insufficient. So, too, does the attempt to find solace in “the rules-based liberal international order”. The only credible answer, I believe, lies in our desire to uphold the legacy of the Judeo-Christian tradition.
historical facts as accurate as "Cleopatra was black"
To me, this freedom of conscience and speech is perhaps the greatest benefit of Western civilisation. It does not come naturally to man. It is the product of centuries of debate within Jewish and Christian communities.
and mid-life crisis. Permanent Middle Eastern crisis is child's play compared to eternally recurring middle life crisis.
Atheism failed to answer a simple question: what is the meaning and purpose of life?
So why Christianity?
In this nihilistic vacuum, the challenge before us becomes civilisational. We can’t withstand China, Russia and Iran if we can’t explain to our populations why it matters that we do. We can’t fight woke ideology if we can’t defend the civilisation that it is determined to destroy.
How is Christianity supposed to help in fighting "China, Russia and Iran" is left unclear. Of these coutries, Russia explicitly claims to fight for Christianity against Western Jewish Nazi homosexual Satanism.
How would AHA answer Putin, how would she prove that his interpretation of Christianity is wrong and her "Judo-Christian" faith is the true Christian tradition and true message of Jesus?
And for wokeism, Christianity hadn't proved not to be very effective in fighting it.
(and if you need Christianity do defeat something so absurd as wokeism, you already lost)
SENIOR: What would you like for your birthday, son?
JUNIOR: I want to chop off my dick, dad.
SENIOR: Do not do it, son!
JUNIOR: Why?
SENIOR: (long pause and head scratching) The Bible! The Bible forbids it, son!
JUNIOR: Where?
SENIOR: (fast and frantic searching through book) Wait, son! It must be here, somewhere!
That is why I no longer consider myself a Muslim apostate, but a lapsed atheist. Of course, I still have a great deal to learn about Christianity. I discover a little more at church each Sunday. But I have recognised, in my own long journey through a wilderness of fear and self-doubt, that there is a better way to manage the challenges of existence than either Islam or unbelief had to offer.
Curious what exact church AHA joined. Churches that simultaneously reject wokeism and support "civilization war" against Axis of Evil, churches that fly Ukraine, Israeli and Taiwan flags but lack rainbow, trans and BLM flags tend to be rather thin of the ground.
Eetan
8mo ago
More like blast from the past than current burning culture war battle, but one interesting fact dropped from court documents concerning FTX effective altruist saga.
Sam Bankman-Fried wanted to buy the nation of Nauru to wait out the world's end
This article is more clickbaity and sensational than factual, actual quote from the court documents docket 1886 - "Adversary case 23-50448. Complaint by FTX Trading Ltd., Alameda Research LLC" is:
One memo exchanged between Gabriel Bankman-Fried and an officer of the FTX Foundation describes a plan to purchase the sovereign nation of Nauru in order to construct a “bunker / shelter” that would be used for “some event where 50%-99.99% of people die [to] ensure that most EAs [effective altruists] survive” and to develop “sensible regulation around human genetic enhancement, and build a lab there.” The memo further noted that “probably there are other things it’s useful to do with a sovereign country, too.”
Hard to imagine worse place to be stuck in the case of TEOTWAWKI that deserted and devastated island that lacks even drinkable water.
It was never a serious plan, nothing more than one of many ideas brainstormed among elite human capital of FTX Foundation, but it is symptomatic as for elite thought and for their beliefs that everything and everyone is for sale. As people on EA forum pointed up, it could achieve nothing than give EA a bad name (if it already hadn't one).
We are not any more in the Holy Roman Empire, selling and buying sovereign principalities is, legally, not a thing anymore and trading land between sovereign states is also thing of the past.
Last case was in 1791, when Christian Friedrich Carl Alexander, last margrave of Brandenburg-Ansbach sold his country to Prussia so he could enjoy comfy retirement in England (stereotypical boomer behavior, but probably the smartest move at the time).
Eetan
6mo ago
And by the way: good for them. I, a Catholic American, am jealous (although jealous is the wrong word since that sortof implies an animosity, which I have none of) of the power that the Jewish people have.
For this, you would need to invent some "secular Catholic" identity and community, where someone who never went to Church, who does not obey and does not care about any of Catholic religious laws, someone who does not know transubstantiation from transmission, someone whose only connection to Catholicism is that some of his ancestors were sprinkled with water by priest hundreds years ago, would still identify as proud Catholic.
Eetan
7mo ago
I Want To Believe (in Marx's Labor Theory of Value)
Content warning: this post contains MARXISM. If seeing Marx's massive beard or even hearing his name is too traumatic for you, stop reading now.
...
Recently I found one interesting article, not interesting in itself, but how it illustrates arguments about psychological necessity of faith and belief frequently discussed here.
Yes, it is Marxist article written by professional Marxist in Marxist journal. Last chance to avert your eyes from forbidden lore is now.
...
Yes, it is very obscure, but if post about civil war in furry community can pass there, this might too.
If you are interested how I got there, the route was Anatoly Karlin -> devcroix -> journal article by distinguished academic historian -> academic journal dedicated to Marxist theory
Was Stalin a Marxist? And If He Was, What Does This Mean for Marxism?
(tl;dr: yes he was, it means lots of things for Marxism, none of them nice)
This is not the article I wanted to share.
This is the article.
Unfree Labour and Value Productivity: Challenges for the Marxian Labour Theory of Value by another academic, not distinguished enough yet to deserve his own Wiki page.
So what is it all about?
Labor theory of value(LTV), the cornerstone of Marxist thought. If LTV fails, whole Marxism crashes to the ground.
Narrator voice: it failed, it was debunked many times, starting in 1890's. Somehow, it had no effects on world historical events of 20th century.
So, what exactly is this article about?
This paper explores the question: does unfree labour produce value?
According to Big Beard Man's theory, it does not. (Practical Marxists later strongly disagreed, but this is not topic of this article)
Since the direct purpose and the actual product of capitalist production is surplus value, only such labour is productive [...] as directly produces surplus value.
But why is it? (except that Marx said so) What is the distinction between wage and slave labor, slave and animal labor, animal and machine labor?
Author examines these distinction, and finds them rather arbitrary.
No need to read 40 pages of Marxspeak(I hadn't either), this table summarizes the argument and the dilemma.
there is no theory-internal logical barrier to believing that wage labourers do produce value but unfree human labourers do not, that human slaves produce value but animal slaves do not, or that animals produce value but machines do not. All of these options lie within the space of open possibilities.
So, Marxist author in this article deboonks cornerstone of Marxist philosophy and watches the whole thing tumbling down in its own footprint like the towers on Nine Eleven.
This had been done many times before, this is not the importance of this article, the importance is in his last sentences.
At times, Marx is adamant that wage-labour is an absolute sine qua non for the creation of surplus-value, and I have a hunch that this is the view he should stick with
(long Marx quote)
But I do not know how to affirm this tenet except as an article of faith.
It is not about materialism and science, it is about faith.
The author still has faith, still needs to believe, still wants to "stick with Marx", still wants to "affirm" the tenet he just destroyed, still considers himself Marxist and begs desperately fellow professional Marxists to help him (these are the only people who would ever read this journal, I am possibly first non-Marxist to stumble on this article)
This is completely natural human behavior. Rationalist credo "That which can be destroyed by the truth should be" is deeply abnormal for human beings.
Are you laughing at him? This is exactly the same thing as all who people who wish wistfully "if only I had faith in God" "if only I could belong to Church".
Eetan
1yr ago
Somewhat tangentially, I don't really understand how "eat the rich" isn't read as a really, really extreme position. Yes, I know that literally eating people is tongue in cheek and it isn't earnest advocacy of cannibalism, but the underlying sentiment really is that people that have too much money should have their wealth expropriated by force. This seems at least as ideologically extreme as the sentiments implied by 14 words styling, but one is read as being a literal Nazi and the other one is just a cute hippy slogan. It's really quite remarkable how communist-adjacent positions are inside the Overton Window.
Because people saying nazi slogans mean it, while people saying communist slogans are LARPers in clown costumes.
No one is afraid of contemporary communists, everyone, and especially the rich, knows no world worker revolution is coming, no one is going to seize means of production, no one is going to expropriate the expropriators.
Eetan
3mo ago
And now some news from Ukraine: Gonzalo Lira is dead.
More details about his demise in Ukrainian prison.
You probably heard about him. Former pickup artist guru who turned into journalist/propagandist lambasting Ukraine and Zelensky - from Ukraine in war time. Whatever you think about him and his opinions, this tooks serious guts (and GL was well aware of the risks).
English Wikipedia finds him not enough notable and deleted him at 4th attempt, but, strangely enough, simple English Wikipedia keeps his article.
Now, he is notable enough to be noticed by Tucker Carlson and notable enough make it to Twitter worldwide trends (as for now), notable enough to be added as another reason for Red tribe to oppose supporting Ukraine.
Not smart move from Ukrainian government. You gained a little bit of sadistic revenge and even smaller bit of intimidation of people inside Ukraine (who already know well what will happen to them if they open their mouth too much). You lost rather bigger piece of credibility with people whose support you desperately need.
RIP Coach Red Pill. Whatever you were in your life, now you are symbol and martyr.
Eetan
11mo ago
Update of previous culture war post in May 1 thread.
The contentious marker was removed without any ceremony and all dwindled into nothingness.
Maybe other more cinematic events, like New York Subway Thunderdome fight, stole the limelight, maybe the whole thing was just too obscure to turn into major culture war battlefield.
Elizabeth Gurley Flynn is still dead and so are most of causes she dedicated her life for. Causes like communism, that moved hundreds of millions and turned the Earth asunder, are now just forgotten or reduced to cosplay attire.
As will happen to all of us, as will happen to every cause we hold dear.
Eetan
1yr ago
This article detailing how abortion access actually works across the first world. It seems to be significantly less accessible than the seeming American / Feminist default position of on-demand all the way up to birth across the rest of the first world.
No compromise breeds no compromise. Supporters of abortion rights know well that pro-lifers do not want "reasonable regulations", but want to ban abortion completely at any place and time (and then move to ban contraception, pornography, "sodomy", race mixing and everything else they see as immoral).
The same in gun politics - gun right supporters know well that anti-gunners do not want "reasonable gun control", but ban everything that looks like gun (and then move to knives and all sharp instruments, like in UK). If you compromise with the uncompromising, you always lose.
Among left-wing activists, they seemed to have moved from the previous default of "safe legal and rare" to being proud of abortions, shouting them from the rooftops, and openly advocating for as many of them as possible. This seems sick to me.
Again, the same with guns. Instead of fudds who just wanted to shoot Bambi, you got hard core gun nuts openly carrying big scary black rifles. This seems sick to gun controllers, and this is the point.
Eetan
11mo ago
Time for report about another culture war battle that just flared up.
This time not current titanic struggle concerning fate of all mankind, but small reminiscence of another titanic struggle of remote past.
On May 1, New Hampshire Department of Natural & Cultural Resources unveiled in town of Concord new memorial marker honoring famous daughter of the city, one Elizabeth Gurley Flynn.
EGF was famous woman in her time, her adventurous life culminated in position of first chairwoman of Communist Party USA and after her death she was honored with official state funeral at Red Square.
It is easy to understand why many people are not amused with this decision.
Executive Councilor Dave Wheeler (R-Milford) brought up the marker during Wednesday’s Executive Council meeting, expressing his outrage that the state would approve a memorial to an enemy of the United States.
Wheeler said Flynn’s maker in Concord is an insult to every Granite Stater who ever served in the military, including the veteran who led the council’s Pledge of Allegiance before the meeting. “I’m just totally offended by that. I think it’s a slap in the face to the veteran who did our Pledge of Allegiance this morning,” Wheeler said.
Fellow Republican Joe Kenney also voiced his opposition.
“This is a devout Communist. We are the ‘Live Free or Die’ state,” Kenney said. “How can we possibly promote her propaganda, which still exists now through this sign in downtown Concord?”
...
Gov. Chris Sununu learned of the marker Wednesday morning and was not happy with what he heard during the Governor’s Council meeting.
So far, this stays local teapot tempest, blame game going between the state and the city, but it can easily escalate into major Culture War battle, it could take only some national right wing politicians or influencers take notice.
Concord better get ready for long hot summer of battles between red hat crowds trying to tear down the sign and black flag ones trying to defend it.
We had on this forum long and hard debates about historical statues and memorials, Confederate in the US, colonialist and slave trader in the UK, Soviet and Czarist in Eastern Europe, both debates about who deserves to be publicly honored and meta debates about who deserves to decide who gets to be publicly honored.
My take? If there is any issue fit for democratic decision of the people, it is exactly this one. Let people, actual people of the city, debate and vote who deserves to be memorialized.
If the citizens want statue of Czar, Lenin, Stalin, Hitler, Satan or Nathan Bedford Forrest on their town square, it is their choice and no one else.
Progressives have their wisdom – as any reactionary who's noticed he's reinventing bits of Derrida or Foucault may attest. My personal belief, in these terms, is admittedly close to the progressive one (rejoice, Hlynka) – with a humble twist informed by my notion of Death. I think supra-individual mental structures are only deserving of power inasmuch as they increase human freedom, with freedom imprecisely defined as the capacity to make diverse and spontaneous choices. Humans can be goaded, conditioned and coerced today if that allows them to be freer tomorrow, help them not mode-collapse into degenerate flanderized versions of themselves, not die a little. In this sense, the ethos of «legalize» was illegitimate, and the prudish ethos of contempt for deadbeat junkies is valid and, ultimately, liberating.
It's an egoistic point of view, of course. Were the latter more powerful, maybe I'd still have had one more friend.
So, what your proposal means in practice?
Cannabis is already illegal in Kyrgyzstan where your friend lives. He was able to easily evade these laws.
Therefore, valiant law enforcement of Kyrgyzstan should be more active and less lazy, should be given more power and really put their remaining gloves off, should double, quartuple and octuple their efforts.
Kyrgyzstan needs more arrests, more early morning raids, more prisons, more torture, more rape, more gouging of eyes and cutting off tongues, more skinning people alive, more boiling people alive in cauldrons. For great justice, for great freedom of free choices.
East Asian countries managed to do it, you would say. Japan, Singapore etc. are, for all practical purposes, drug free paradises.
True, and they are also completely gun free countries - something you, if I remember your stance correctly, very much disapprove of.
(IIRC, you strongly supported gun ownership not only for mainstream self defense reasons, but as a mean for the people to independently and preemptively hunt down bad hombres, very much in @KulakRevolt style. Someone with such attitude also supporting War of Drugs is not something I can grok.)
And this is connected. You cannot have war on drugs when everyone is armed, if you want to sent people to hell prison if they ingest the wrong substance, you need to disarm them first to the last nail clipper.
What's yours?
My view? Old timey internet view, I had no reason to update.
Drugs are bad.
Drug dealers, drug gangs, drug cartels are among the worst scum of the world.
War on drugs (started century ago for openly and proudly racist reasons and on completely false pretenses that make WMDs in Iraq look like pinnacle of transparency) is worse by several magnitudes, on every metric you can imagine.
Eetan
9mo ago
Another casualty in the great Confederate statues war: the grave of General Lee's horse. Good riddance to this rebellious and traitorous ungulate.
What is more significant than the event is reaction on twitter - reaction consisting, as usual, of empty talk of revenge and even more empty threats, with no hint that posters intend to take part in their fight themselves.
"Someone shall do something!"
Narrator voice: "No one did anything at all."
Eetan
1yr ago
Death is a necessary and natural part of life.
Revolution against people who insist that their way is "natural" "necessary" and "god ordered" even when it leads to endless death and suffering is necessary and natural part of history.
You don't repair what's not broken.
What if I do repair what is "not broken" to avoid dying?
What will you do to stop me? What will you threaten me with that is worse than death?
Eetan
5mo ago
In another related dead bird news, Vivek goes into full Hindu Zionist mode.
2000's Onion satire again becomes 2020's reality.
Now is the moment for Israel to return to its founding premise: the Jewish State has an absolute right to exist. A Divine gift, gifted to a Divine nation, charged with a Divine purpose.
Very strange for professing Hindu to say.
Yes, technically, all life has a divine soul and divine essence, but we know Vivek does not wanted to say it, we know he wanted to say: "Hello my fellow Evangelicals, I am one of you! Vote for me!"
And, judging from bird site, it does not work. Every Vivek's tweet talking about God is followed by numerous Christians posting pics of many armed Hindu deities and asking "What God, Vivek? WHAT GOD?"
Eetan
6mo ago
I am surprised that no one yet opened the most inflammatory aspect of the latest events in Israel. So I am going to do it.
Who if not me, when if not now?
So why it happened? It happened as it happened because, in words of our friends in US Dept of Justice: Israel Has a Successful Gun Control Policy.
Yes, it is from 1992, but things changed little since then. Israel has strict gun laws and they work as intended. Israel has 6,7 guns per 100 inhabitants, very good 108th place in the world. Just 2.1 more than David Hogg heaven land England and Wales, considered to be gun control movement dream and aspiration.
It is easy to understand why we do not hear about Israeli gun laws.
People who do not like guns usually do not like Israel either and would loathe to praise anything coming from there. The same reason why we never heard about Israeli health care or Israeli abortion laws despite that they would make excellent talking point for Blues against Israel loving Reds.
And people who like guns usually like Israel too (while knowing about it only from dank memes that show it as tough nation armed to the teeth).
So, you want to ask, you are blaming the victims? How dare you?
The Israelis were told by their government: "Millions of people who want to kill you live near your homes separated by wire fence. Do not panic and do not prepare to defend yourselves. Your government and your army will protect you, nothing can happen. Fear that they will cross the fence and slaughter you in your own homes is absurd and delusional. Do not be conspiracy theorist, do not be extremist, trust the plan". And, being normal human beings, they trusted because the government was right so far, because nothing happened so far. This is normal human nature, no one to blame.
Now, when something happened, and if nothing changes and Israelis will continue trusting their government as previously, yes I will blame them, and you shall too.
Are there signs that something is changing?
Looks like it.
https://thereload.com/israeli-loosens-gun-carry-rules-after-unprecedented-terror-attack/
Any citizen who meets the detailed tests for carrying a private firearm due to self-defense and serving the security forces and is without a criminal or medical record will be required to undergo a telephone interview instead of a physical interview
What are the tests?
Residence in an eligible settlement, rifle veterans 07 and above, officers in the rank of lieutenant and above and combatants in the rank of major and above in the IDF and the security forces, service in special units, firefighters, policemen, and workers and volunteers in the rescue forces
So very generous. And, in addition, citizens will be able to purchase, instead of previous fifty, whole ONE HUNDRED rounds of ammo! Yay!
Eetan
1yr ago
So, does Israel have a case? Is Israeli behavior justifiable?
It depends on your premises.
1/If you believe in individual human rights, if you believe that murder is wrong, torture is wrong, imprisonment without trial is wrong, taking someone land and property without compensation is wrong, destroying people's houses and other collective punishments are wrong, then Israel is wrong.
2/If you believe in collective national rights, if you believe that land belongs to nation that lives there and foreigners showing up uninvited in someone else's country are wrong, then Israel is wrong.
3/If you believe in authority of United Nations, then Israel was right 76 years ago and is wrong ever since then.
4/If you believe that Bible is literally true, that Biblical laws are eternally binding, if you believe that Land of Israel was given by God to Hebrews for forever and ever, then Israel is wrong (for leaving any Palestinian or their livestock live).
5/If you believe that only right is might and only law is law of tooth and claw, then Israeli behavior is fine (and Palestinian terrorism is too).
Eetan
1yr ago
I do not think rationalists are duped more easily than normies that never heard about Less Wrong, but people who claim to be the smartest people in the world should be held to higher standard, and claim that studying their super special sequences will make anyone as smart as they are should be put to close scrutiny.
If you are boasting you are Airborne Navy Seal Ranger specially trained in gorilla warfare, and get your ass regularly kicked by ordinary drunks in bar fights, people would be justified doubting the value of super secret martial arts training you offer.
Obligatory link:
Where are All the Successful Rationalists?
Where are all the former losers who read the sequences, pulled themselves by their bootstraps and became brilliant winners?
Eetan
5mo ago
It's not about the pedophilia. It's about the acceptance of pedophilia.
Where you see any "acceptance" of pedophilia?
I am talking about the confused atmosphere of the 1960s and 1970s where there was sort of an anything goes atmosphere. Hip people thought it was sort of okay for a 13 year old girl to explore her sexuality with Roman Polanski. Alan Ginsburg was a non-ironic member of NAMBLA and a celebrated member of leftist society. At the time, the left was pushing the sexual frontier in all areas, and children weren't off limits.
Yes, and these people lost as decisively you can lose.
Laws about age of consent, underage sex and child porn are tightened every day, pedophiles are the most hated people in the world, anyone accused of being "pedo" is considered to be devil in human form and treated likewise.
The future is not free love hippy commune where anything goes. The future is "age gap" enshrined in laws and total internet and AI censorship/ban to protect children. If it saves one (pixelated) child, it is worth it!
This is nothing compared to other Ukrainian public relation efforts.
First there was picking American transgender woman as official spokesperson for Ukrainian army, who then went on unhinged rant threatening to kill "Russian propagandists" all over the world.
(speaking in English, not Russian, so it is clear that it were not Russians in Russia who were target of this threat)
This speech is there, it is something you will hear from mouth of cartoon Evil Mastermind(TM) in corny B movie, just before Action Hero(TM) storms in and drops the villain into his/her/their/zir/xir own shark tank.
Someone in charge then noticed this does not make Ukraine look exactly like Avengers team and decided to suspend Cirillo.
So sanity prevailed and all will be good (optics) from now?
Well, Zelensky just decided to make honorary "ambassador of Ukraine", of all people, Marina Abramovic, world famous performance artist.
It sounds like 4chan fake news prank, but it is real, reported by mainstream media(and then vanishing from their pages).
Ukraine knows well what it is doing, Ukraine tries hard to signal it is on the right side and win hearts and minds.
Hearts and minds of people who matter, not yours.
edit: links
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