Eetan
2d ago
The point is to show you are doing something and standing strongly against whatever is the villain of the day, the rewards are various, ranging from promotion and pay raise to clicks and retweets.
You do not need wait for internet age, actual censorship of physical books was long string of defeats since the invention of printing press.
Tsarist Russia, was know for the most extensive censorship in the world back in 19th century.
When he was about thirteen, Lado Ketskhoveli took him to a little bookshop in Gori where he paid a five kopeck subscription and borrowed a book that was probably Darwin’s Origin of Species. Stalin read it all night, forgetting to sleep, until Keke [his mother] found him. ‘Time to go to bed,” she said. “Go to sleep — dawn is breaking.” “I loved the book so much, Mummy, I couldn’t stop reading.” As his reading intensified, his piety wavered.
One day Soso [Stalin] and some friends, including Grisha Glurjidze, lay on the grass in town talking about the injustice of there being rich and poor when he amazed all of them by suddenly saying, “God’s not unjust, he doesn’t actually exist. We’ve been deceived. If God existed, he’d have made the world more just.” “Soso, how can you say such things?” exclaimed Grisha. “I’ll lend you a book and you’ll see.” He presented Glurjidze with a copy of Darwin.
Another culture wars item of the week, this time involving culture, and this means culturally cultured culture. Books, luxury bookstores and fine wine, what's not to like?
World famous superstar Dua Lipa decided to do something about rising tide of censorship.
What? Open a library of banned books.
The doors are open to the Manifesto Library
To celebrate its inauguration, we gathered inside one of Europe’s most storied bookshops for a very special Book Tasting, exploring four titles from the collection, each representing one of its core themes:
Nineteen Eighty-Four (Power)
The Handmaid’s Tale (Control)
My Pen Is The Wing Of A Bird (Voice)
Patriot (Memory)
Accompanied by thoughtfully paired Portuguese wines from @sogrape, the evening opened up conversations around censorship, resistance and the importance of preserving voices that challenge power and refuse to be silenced.
Full list of the books is in the Cosmopolitan article, it is exactly what you would already expect.
Actually banned books in UK and EU banned as "serious prison time for production, distribution and possession" are not on the shelves, for obvious reasons.
Yea, it is about performance, about sticking it up to fictional MAGA villain, not about reading. Neither Dua Lipa not any of the prestigious guests are not going to read these books (and neither any other), not that there is something wrong with it.
Just another notch on the list of centi millionaire celebrities doing nothing with their wealth and influence except to climb up the ranks to hopefully ascend from paltry nine figure wealth to glorious ten and finally make it.
Another reminder that no god, no tsar, no hero and certainly no millionaire is there to save you. You must save yourself by your own hand, aided by huge spare disk space.
Addendum: so what can be done to thwart the censorship of banned books? There are already efforts to make information free on the internets, too numerous to count, just pay their bills, support and amplify them. Just about any book ever digitized is out there at the click of your fingertips.
What about books that were not digitized? Cryptocurrency solves it - establish forum/website where you can put up bounty for ultra obscure book you are looking for, payable at successful upload of usable scan at free book pirate site. Something like this, only with stronger incentives than reddit upvotes. (it had probably had been done somewhere, the hypothetical millionaire has to make the effort more visible).
Eetan
2d ago
What is the US military supposed to do? More bombing?
Iran is, unlike Iraq and Afghanistan, developed industrial country.
World #12 in electricity production
World #18 in motor vehicle production
etc, etc...
Serious war against Iran would entail dusting out WW2 playbook and go for full strategic campaign - blockade of the country plus destruction of industrial base. Unlike WW2 times, precision bombing means not "hit the tight quarter of the right city" but "hit the right pane of the right window of the right building" and industrial plants are not something that can be hidden.
But it will still mean multi year prolonged campaign, and it would mean 6-7 figure of Iranians dying, unlike in WW2 times streamed online, and this would not be seen by the world as spreading freedom, democracy and human rights.
Eetan
2d ago
The social contract used to be that after your parents took care of you when you grew up, you would take care of them in their old age.
The social contract used to be that in the improbable case that your parents live into so decrepit old age when they are unable to work any more, they will spend at most few months in such state until they are carried away by some respiratory illness.
Eetan
3d ago
What exactly is this worthy cause? Consolidating control of the sandbox? Greater Israel? Something else?
Yes, at least according to large part of USG decision makers, the Holy Land is what is it all about. Something hard to really grok for aspiring rationalist types, but this is really the best explanation for this mess.
If it was really all about oil, you would not see even one tenth of part of IRL Middle Eastern drama - US would just do business with anyone willing to pump and sell the black goo. See, for example, Africa - Nigeria, Angola, Congo etc are as riven with intractable conflicts, but The Free World(TM) is not tempted to intervene.
See recently deceased Lindsey Graham as typical example
There is no one to say Kaddish for Lindsey Graham. He had no wife. He had no children. He dedicated his entire life, mostly for us. We are his children.
Lindsey loved the Jews more than the Jews loved themselves. He traveled the world, from country to country, and fought like a lion for the State of Israel. He wasn't even Jewish himself. He simply believed with all his heart, with all his might, that it was the right thing to do.
The culture war angle is two-fold: First, it seems weird that people go so hard on clavicular when stuff like this is accepted (at least by the online left).
Easy to understand - F1nn let his face be remodeled by professionals, the best and the brightest experts, while Clavicular performs the looksmaxing care on himself with hammer in his own hands.
The same reason why suicide is discouraged, why stopping suicide and saving human life is one of main pretexts of rising internet censorship and gun control, while simultaneously Canadian care is spreading around the world.
Your face, your skull and your life do not belong to you, they belong to the experts. Trust the science, trust the experts, only they can decide, not dumb muggle like you.
Equivalent to Clavicular style looksmaxing in woke world is DIY gender affirming care, ranging from injecting yourself with various bathtub made substances to fully self performed gender affirming surgery.
But this is problematic.
This is not something praised and encouraged by mainstream left online and offline, this is domain of real hardcore underground very very far from public acceptance.
edit: links linked
Eetan
5d ago
He got a literal golden casket, but nobody actually looks up to Floyd in any way, nor did any lasting social change occur in his name. BLM took the money and ran, people clamored back for the police once it was gone, and all that remains is a landmark of peak woke.
Nah, peak woke is this.
Far more inspiring than St. Floyd festivities and with universal worldwide appeal.
And it is still open whether it is really over, or if it will return after Trump with vengeance.
Eetan
5d ago
That's an interesting point. If being the Pope is like being the best at any other profession, he probably DOES question his identity as a Catholic a lot.
If the pope has only little grain of actual faith, he knows that nothing happens by accident (at least at such spiritual pinnacle of the world as Vatican), he knows that Pope is not picked by fallible sinful men, but Holy Spirit personally.
(sometimes as inspiration and reward, sometimes as warning and chastisement)
Eetan
6d ago
It is gratifying, though unsurprising, that Kirk's death did not kick off a wave of revenge killings and mass violence, as fedposters fervently predicted.
Not only random shitposters, but even the most serious esoteric Catholic fascist conspiracy theorist who at the time correctly disavowed all conspiracy theories and called it what it was, act of self radicalized lone wolf, predicted this event to be the turning point, end of debate.
America will not have a Years of Lead moment as the age of armed ideological cells is over. Contrary to popular opinion, organizations like Ordine Nuovo and Le Brigate Rosse were not wholly created by intelligence services but were ALLOWED to operate by intelligence services and/or political backers at the vertices of state power. It is the blind eye that facilitates groups like this, even more so in the age of mass surveillance. Kash Patel is not going to allow armed right-wing extremist groups to operate with impunity; nobody in the GOP is ballsy enough to allow an American NAR. Antifa is allowed to operate when the DNC is in power because Democrats ALLOW them to. Having Lumpenproletariat foot soldiers deployed to punish your enemies is rational. Killing Charlie Kirk while they are not even in power is not.
Instead, the age of American political violence will be lone gunmen blowing someone’s head off on camera every couple of weeks.
Well, 10 months after, even this did not happened, no copycats so far on any side.
There just aren't so many people willing to sacrifice their lives who are so functional they can track single even moderately protected target (instead of random indiscriminate massacre).
It all turned out to be one big nothingburger. Is current situation still far from revolutionary conditions, or modern culture of circus and spectacle just lacks the seriousness necessary to create martyrs?
Eetan
8d ago
Bourdain, who grappled with drug addiction and depression, kills himself at 61 during a bout of unrequited love.
One missing, but important piece for judging B according to content of his character: when he killed himself, he left behind his 11 years old daughter.
Sorry, but when you have children, your life is no longer your own, that's the point of the whole enterprise. If your "twu wuw" is more important to you than your kid, you are, in technical terms, piece of shit.
Eetan
8d ago
The recovered text is a philosophical treatise on ethics, and the evidence points to a Stoic work
Or it might be Epicurean work after all - formal debate between Epicurean and Stoic, genre popular in ancient times.
Only small part from the inner layers of the scroll was recoverable, the outer parts are gone, worn down by 19th century experts who tried to unroll them by technology then available. Maybe this is the part where the Stoic thinker makes his case, and we will never see the Epicurean demolishing him by facts, logic, reason, science and power of friendship.
It is only the first scroll, several hundred to go. Keep your hopes up.
Eetan
9d ago
Well, if you are VIP owning such villa, and current emperor is aspiring writer, it would be strongly recommended to acquire his works and prominently display them in your library, regardless how you personally feel about their merits.
Assuming the Latin library was not evacuated in time, and is still there properly baked by the volcanic heat, chance to find Claudius' writing is rather high.
Eetan
9d ago
I suppose they might be useful for the history of philosophy, though I suspect that we are already indirectly aware of the philosophical hits of the era via citations in works that have come down to us. Would we benefit from having the full text of some lost work? I suspect not.
Survival of ancient philosophical works was not on the principle "the best of the best", but rather random chance, heavily weighted by Christian principles.
Plato, Aristotle and (some of) Stoics were found to be compatible with Bible, Epicureans absolutely not (not to speak about other schools of philosophy that had to exist, but were forgotten so completely that not even names and quotes remain).
It would be interesting to find out what lost ancient thinkers really were about, and even more interesting to find out whether their ideas were independently reinvented by modern thinkers who couldn't know about them.
Eetan
9d ago
Time for some positive culture news, free of gloom, doom and blackpill. Are there any?
Yes. The Vesuvius project to digitally decipher ancient scrolls from Herculaneum - discussed here previously - yielded first fruits.
First rather badly mangled scroll read.
It seems to be not Epicurean, as expected, but Stoic philosophical work.
PHerc. 1667 is what survives of a larger roll: earlier attempts to open it by hand — in the nineteenth century, and again in 1969 and the 1980s — destroyed its outer layers and left only the compact inner core, about 8 cm of an original height of 19–24 cm. From that surviving portion we have now recovered and read the text in full — the lower parts of some twenty-two columns, transcribed and reviewed by papyrologists. It is the first time the preserved text of a rolled Herculaneum scroll has been read continuously, end to end, rather than in isolated words or patches.
The recovered text is a philosophical treatise on ethics, and the evidence points to a Stoic work: it turns on human nature, impulse, and the moral progress of human beings, and its final preserved column names Aristocreon — nephew and disciple of the great Stoic Chrysippus — which, together with the language and themes of the text, places it in a Stoic context and dates it to the 2nd century BC.
What it means? It means fears that the recovered heap of scrolls is remnant of purely Epicurean collection were overblown, that the library was general philosophical library and we can expect works of all ancient philosophical schools - those known whose works survives, those known only by name and those completely forgotten.
Remember, the villa - nothing fancy like Nero's house, just average dwelling of top 1% of top 1% of Roman Empire - was expected to contain just as basic barebone fixtures, among masterpieces of sculpture, painting and other arts, two complete libraries (one Greek, one Latin). There is chance that they are still there and were properly carbonized to withstand millenia.
(to excavate the whole site properly would mean to demolish modern town of Ercolano, but this is problem solvable by modern billionaire emptying his pockets for spare change)
Time for degenerate moderns to shut up and listen to the ancients.
Remember, mechanical arts might be nice, but are lacking something.
… being practical wisdom about that, is also about this. This [person? aspect?] that concerns the mechanical arts seems to me to be very distant from such a [conception?], and to have the technical fulfilment that is, so to speak, lame and something of such type lacking, and in regard to the …
Eetan
9d ago
I did my Mormon mission in the Czech Republic. The Czechs have been in a fierce competition with the Estonians for a few decades over who can be the most atheist country in the world. Estonia appears to have a slight edge in the competition. Estimates range from approximately 1/2 to about 2/3 of either country being atheists.
Having talked to an extremely high number of (ostensibly atheist) Czechs about religion, I learned something important: being nominally atheist often doesn't mean believing in strict adherence to rationalism, the scientific method, etc. as a source of knowledge. I'd estimate that the overwhelming majority of "atheist" Czechs believed in what could loosely be called "new age gibberish" or "woo".
Well, Czechia is not paradise on Earth, but according to most official statistical metrics and impressions of visitors and expats it is one of the best countries of the world. Including homicide and general crime rate.
This example alone rather disproves common religious argument that without faith there is no morality.
For example, here is local crime blotter - use autotranslator and see that most newsworthy habbenings from 10M country are traffic accidents and low rent scams and thefts. No deluge of grisly murders and gang violence, as you would expect from similar sized highly religious US state or city.
Driver ends up with car flipped on its side in Prague, passenger injured
He hit a cyclist on the sidewalk and drove away. A young driver in the Frýdek-Místek region breathed in alcohol, the man died
After crashing into a tree in the Vsetín region, he left the crew to die and fled. The driver faces up to sixteen years in prison
He claimed to be a doctor and an American soldier. A woman in love from South Bohemia lost a million
He broke into seven apartments and tried in vain to open four more. The man from Pilsen was caught by the police after weeks of searching.
Yes, the birth rate is low, but this is the case for all developed countries. Generally, it is unclear how would Czechs benefit from conversion to Mormonism and giving up alcohol, including beer.
Eetan
12d ago
Sounds like a better plan
You want better plan how to raise birth rate?
There is no need to reinvent the wheel, it was perfected long ago by Amish, Mennonites, Orthodox Jews and similar insular groups defying the modernity, groups found in rather unexpected places.
The plan includes early marriage, but it absolutely does not include anime, and all known examples require supernatural beliefs and practices.
Benefits of such life summarized here.
Unlike membership in an outlaw motorcycle club, being part of normal Haredi society brings benefits beyond a meth habit, jailtime and dental issues. For instance, if you minimally have your stuff together, you’re guaranteed gainful employment or a sinecure. Unless you have severe physical or mental issues, you’re gonna get married off to someone with whom you are basically compatible.
You’re going to live in a place with very low crime. When you have many kids-!כן ירבו-they’ll grow up in a place that’s full of kids, where kids and their behavior are normal and expected, not a bizarre imposition. You can have a high expectation of seeing those kids grow up to follow in your footsteps, to aspire to live as you lived in the ways that both you and them see as important, to marry early and have lots of children.
You will not be lonely, uninvited to the party, because the parties are all simchas-kiddush, weddings, engagements, circumcisions-to which everyone is invited, and they happen constantly.
(well, this part would be seen by many not as paradise, but hell on earth)
You will always be in places where you belong. When you die, you will be buried and mourned by your children, nephews grandchildren, greatgrandchildren, instead of by a dwindling and sad bunch of your equally old siblings and cousins.
Because your community is ruled hierarchically, has a high median IQ and pools its resources towards explicitly defined and concrete political goals, you can punch way above your weight in politics, ranging from primitive block voting and mass protests to filling important positions with your members who are actually qualified to fill them instead of being Somali congressional diversity hires or whatever. All of this leads to political success (until Tucker gets his Harbor Freight pitchforks and torches shipment delivered.) The spoils of this success are distributed to the community.
Here is the sales pitch, the benefits. The drawbacks: you have to follow all your life lots of very detailed rules, and live in equivalent of cosplay, including costume designed to look maximally ridiculous to outsiders.
Is it price worth paying? It is up to you.
Eetan
12d ago
So I have to wonder is this a sub-theme that Houellebecq intends? Is he comparing Catholicism in 19th century France to Islam in his invented 20th century France?
We now know that 20th century hadn't turned to be Catholic, despite flashy conversions of many artistic and intellectual types.
In this analogy, Islamic threat will also ultimately turn to be one big nothingburger. Doubt that Houellebecq wants to make this analogy.
Eetan
13d ago
Well I disagree with your point because people who matter do. Russian elite is supposedly hiring Mandarin-speaking nannies for their children. American elite – Musk, Zuckerberg, Bezos, Trumps – do the same. Some random Africans do.
Whether they do, and on what scale, is not too relevant - remember that the civilized world of antiquity continued to speak Greek while being under Roman Empire. The Romans forced their language only on barbarians of the West, never ever thought to do it in the East (the famous scene from Life of Brian is fictional, real historical Eastern natives and Roman legionaires would be speaking Greek and understanding each other rather well).
Eetan
13d ago
Time for another news from the original culture war, the religious war. The affair might seem weird and obscure to normies, even well learned and informed normies, but might well turn to be of more importance than any other current habbenings.
The long awaited event, unauthorized conscecration of new bishops by Society of Saint Pius X finally happened, despite papal final warning.
And so did the inevitable response.
Yes, the big holy hammer fell as expected, the most trad catholics that ever tradded are catholic no more. Not only the leadership, but the lay followers too.
No surprise, there are few red lines remaining in today's catholic church, but unauthorized ordination of bishops without papal approval is one of them, and had always been so.
The church always wanted to prevent proliferation of vagrant priests and hobo bishops with no official position just wandering around the countryside and making trouble.
See Code of Canon Law, article 1387
Analogy from the secular world: Imagine army general one day walks into military base, meets private Billy Bob, is impressed and promotes him on the spot. "Billy Bob, you are now general too!"
You would not expect the general getting away with this in any organized military force of the world.
Where is no analogy with secular world is that the ordinations are illicit but valid.
The four new bishops are bishops, with all spiritual powers of bishops, and no one can take them away. They can do anything that bishop can do, including making more bishops, nothing can stop them.
This event can end with reconciliation like the first illicit consecrations in 1988, but this can also be beginning of full counter church arising from SSPX.
There were attempts in modern time, all flopped, even the most successful true trad church is not so important in grand scale of things. But the Vatican has still good reasons to be worried.
Eetan
14d ago
I am not obligated to endorse some sort of one world government, and I am certainly not obligated to endorse open borders.
The early church endorsed one world government when they were living under it. Were they wrong?
Had any early church father called to dissolve the Roman Empire into separate provinces (and to split Latin language into dozens of mutually incomprehensible dialects) as something more pleasing to God?
Eetan
14d ago
It can be both, of course. Babel is the divine frustration of a human-willed plan, which is therefore experienced as tragic, even if the scattering was intended all along.
In this story, creation of different languages is explicitly described as divine punishment, not blessing (as was famine and plague in other biblical stories).
This does not stop mainstream Christianity from embracing and encouraging fighting against hunger and plague.
Why should be language diversity any different. Had any notable theologian ever condemned learning and teaching foreign languages as sinful attempt to thwart God's will?
Eetan
14d ago
Yes, expert can always know better than the person themselves, expert can always psychoanalyse you and discover that your deepest held beliefs and values are result of trauma caused by absent father and overbearing mother (or vice versa). It is guaranteed to work on anyone with any beliefs and values at all.
Eetan
14d ago
I'd argue the reason why many young Americans become rabid leftists
Instead of speculating, just ask them: "What radicalized you?"
Rabid political activist are absolutely eager and willing to share their origin story, many such confessions are easily found online.
Eetan
14d ago
If that were true, in countries with free or near-free higher education and/or with nationalized healthcare the youth would be significantly less leftist than in America.
Let's turn this question around.
Look at countries where the youff is "significantly less leftist" than in America. By whatever definition of non-left you want - less LGBTQ+? more religious? more nationalist? more pro free market?
Do these countries have super expensive education and health care, or is this all non relevant to the question, and "left" or "right" orientation comes from somewhere else?
Well, it depends what the Bible is.
Ancient book written by ancient Near Easterners for ancient Near Easterners, or inspired, incorrupt and infallible guide for all men of all times and places?
If the latter, then it should be indeed comprehensible for all human beings, applicable to any situation and should not require explanations and footnotes longer than the original text in cases where the original context obvious to all people in ancient culture changes meaning of story or parable rather drastically.
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