@FirmWeird's banner p

FirmWeird

Randomly Generated Reddit Username

0 followers   follows 0 users  
joined 2022 September 05 23:38:51 UTC 

				
User ID: 757


				
				
				

			

		

	














	


		


			



	

		

			

			

				

					

						

							
						

						

							
							

								
FirmWeird


								

								

								
								
								

								
							
					
 
				


				
Randomly Generated Reddit Username

				
				
				

				

					0 followers  

					follows 0 users  

					joined 2022 September 05 23:38:51 UTC
				


				
					

					
No bio...

				

				

				

				

				

					

					

					
					
					

					
User ID: 757


					
					
					
				

			


					

						
					



		

	

 











			
			

			
			

			




	


		

			
‎

			

				
				

					Hour
					Day
					Week
					Month
					Year
					
				

			


			
‎

			

	
	

	 Hot Bump Top Bottom Old Controversial Comments
	



		

	






	

		
		

		
		
	

	

  







		

			
			
				Culture War Roundup for the week of November 27, 2023
			
		

	

	

	

		
			

			

				

			

		

			


				

					


philosophy starts from a position that the primary axioms of the left are true




No, it really doesn't.




That Rousseau is Right and Hobbes is wrong




Uh are you sure about that? Nietzsche doesn't really "start" with the idea that all men are created equal, and I don't think you're talking intelligently about him or his work if you make that claim.


I'm honestly not sure if this is just you reacting to a half-baked understanding of Nietzsche gleaned from a mixture of other people reacting to his work (and maybe some disconnected quotes) or an incredibly artisanal hot take, but I feel like stressing that Nietzsche's philosophy very much did not start from the axiom that all men are created equal.


				

				

						

							

								
							

						


						
					

				
			


			

	


			
			
				

			
		

	






		

			
			
				Culture War Roundup for the week of November 27, 2023
			
		

	

	

	

		
			

			

				

			

		

			


				

					
Discovering Arthur C. Clarke was (probably) a pedophile was a big one for me.


				

				

						

							

								
							

						


						
					

				
			


			

	


			
			
				

			
		

	






		

			
			
				Culture War Roundup for the week of November 27, 2023
			
		

	

	

	

		
			

			

				

			

		

			


				

					
One of my personal hypotheses is that these men are so lacking in their ability to understand women/put themselves in their place that they look at what attracts them and assume that women will want the same thing - the mirror image of a careerist woman who wonders why men are more impressed with her hips than her ability to manage a marketing team.


				

				

						

							

								
							

						


						
					

				
			


			

	


			
			
				

			
		

	






		

			
			
				Culture War Roundup for the week of November 27, 2023
			
		

	

	

	

		
			

			

				

			

		

			


				

					


(to avoid mentioning The Cathedral)




Awkward constructions like this are why I still appreciate and use the term Cathedral even though I don't actually like Moldbug's writing.


				

				

						

							

								
							

						


						
					

				
			


			

	


			
			
				

			
		

	






		

			
			
				Culture War Roundup for the week of November 27, 2023
			
		

	

	

	

		
			

			

				

			

		

			


				

					
If you're already at the point where you can actually get the education system/government to agree to this as a goal, actually implementing it would be child's play. You've already blown up the existing orthodoxy completely to get here after all, there's nothing stopping you from just putting minimum parental IQ levels for the bonuses. If someone from the underclass can actually qualify for a subsidy accurately and competently designed to encourage people with good genes to procreate, that's a net benefit.


				

				

						

							

								
							

						


						
					

				
			


			

	


			
			
				

			
		

	






		

			
			
				Culture War Roundup for the week of November 27, 2023
			
		

	

	

	

		
			

			

				

			

		

			


				

					


Especially Moldbug, who I believe to be a sensationalist and possibly a grifter.




I agree with you, and I'm on the record as not bothering to read his articles anymore.


But I find the rest of your post a bit odd because that kind of approach reliably generates bad information and decreases your level of understanding.  The extremes are very obviously wrong, but there's a useful concept here that conveys accurate information about the world. The Deep State is something that undeniably exists and has influence in the world, and the concept doesn't stop being useful because a REAL QANON PATRIOT blames the Deep State for why he keeps getting parking tickets.


				

				

						

							

								
							

						


						
					

				
			


			

	


			
			
				

			
		

	






		

			
			
				Culture War Roundup for the week of November 27, 2023
			
		

	

	

	

		
			

			

				

			

		

			


				

					


So concepts like “The Cathedral” or “The Deep State” have always elicited some amount of skepticism from me.




Why?


They're straightforwardly true and if you've managed to find the Motte at all I find it hard to believe you're the kind of unperceptive individual who wouldn't be able to read or understand the arguments being made. I can understand being skeptical of any new claim or term, but what exactly has you so incredulous?


				

				

						

							

								
							

						


						
					

				
			


			

	


			
			
				

			
		

	






		

			
			
				Culture War Roundup for the week of November 20, 2023
			
		

	

	

	

		
			

			

				

			

		

			


				

					
I totally agree with you that it is possible for someone to be deceptive in a subtle manner like this, but that doesn't change anything about the obligation to make your accusations comprehensible. There's nothing about this type of deception that makes it impossible to describe - even something simple in the form "While the situation was actually x, Sam deceived us into believing that the situation was y" would work. If the deception is so subtle and mysterious in its effects that it had no impact whatsoever, it wasn't a good enough justification for Sam's ouster.


				

				

						

							

								
							

						


						
					

				
			


			

	


			
			
				

			
		

	






		

			
			
				Culture War Roundup for the week of November 20, 2023
			
		

	

	

	

		
			

			

				

			

		

			


				

					


if we all counted his dishonesty as a demerit against his WN ideology, he would finally shut the fuck up




But you'd be throwing the baby out with the bathwater - this approach is bad and leads to bad outcomes even when people aren't actively fucking with it. You're giving random bad faith actors an opening that grants them astonishing amount of power and influence over what you believe.


If you disagree, let me know - "fuckduck9000defender" seems to be an available account, and if you think people acting like shitheads in support of one particular ideology is a mark against that ideology, you're going to be changing your mind on everything real soon.


				

				

						

							

								
							

						


						
					

				
			


			

	


			
			
				

			
		

	






		

			
			
				Culture War Roundup for the week of November 20, 2023
			
		

	

	

	

		
			

			

				

			

		

			


				

					
Actually I was referring to people like Rod Rosenstein, Reince Priebus and Christopher Wray. The US government is actually exceedingly complex and has a lot of moving parts - I'm not going to disagree that some of those people were turned off Trump by his conduct or actions, but I object to the implication that there can only be one cause for all these personnel issues. And as for Jeff Sessions, I'm honestly not sure where he stands - his original recusal seemed explicable, but his own connections to the issue were actually far less substantive than Rosenstein's (who notably did not recuse himself and then went on to actively work against Trump).


				

				

						

							

								
							

						


						
					

				
			


			

	


			
			
				

			
		

	






		

			
			
				Culture War Roundup for the week of November 20, 2023
			
		

	

	

	

		
			

			

				

			

		

			


				

					
DR doubters? Dissident right? I mentioned previously that it was an open question, and it was given that people were actually talking about it and discussing it. Here he just straightforwardly includes "we" when talking about white nationalists which really gives the game away and closes the question, but it isn't like this is particularly surprising. The main argument I had in my head against him being a troll was just that he was particularly bad at it (if I was going to troll under the name "JewDefender" I'd just be an incredibly obnoxious pro-Israel partisan with insanely obvious double standards, and who makes arguments with big glaring flaws that strengthen the WN cause when defeated).


I'm not rethinking what I know generally because I followed the rules and mores on this forum about assuming hidden intentions on the part of other people. You also don't seem to know what my ideology is or who counts as "one of my own" - I'm only an antisemite in the sense that I don't support Israel's treatment of the Palestinians and think that a lot of the things they've done are utterly heinous (white phosphorus usage in civilian areas is something I will very consistently condemn). That said, most of my arguments on here tend to be on the topics of Trump, environmentalism and EROEI more than anything else.


If you think I won any arguments because the other side let me win to boost my confidence, please let me know and point these arguments out - I don't have my profile locked down, you're free to go looking through my history to find instances of this happening... and I'm going to expect you to actually do so if you're making an accusation like that.


				

				

						

							

								
							

						


						
					

				
			


			

	


			
			
				

			
		

	






		

			
			
				Small-Scale Question Sunday for November 19, 2023
			
		

	

	

	

		
			

			

				

			

		

			


				

					
Agreed. I'd also add that if you are at all unsure about your status as a member of the aristocracy or think you need to reinforce that status, you are not a member of the aristocracy.


				

				

						

							

								
							

						


						
					

				
			


			

	


			
			
				

			
		

	






		

			
			
				Culture War Roundup for the week of November 20, 2023
			
		

	

	

	

		
			

			

				

			

		

			


				

					
The link doesn't work for me - maybe this is explained elsewhere in the article, but going solely on the excerpt...




The board said that Altman had been so deft they couldn’t even give a specific example, according to the people familiar with the executives.




Horseshit. "Oh he was lying but we can't give you any examples because he's that good at lying" is the kind of excuse I would expect from a four year old, not a group of supposedly intelligent and qualified professionals. At this point I think that unless they actually give us the specifics, this all boils down to the GPT marketplace blowing up Poe and making a boardmember unreasonably angry.


				

				

						

							

								
							

						


						
					

				
			


			

	


			
			
				

			
		

	






		

			
			
				Culture War Roundup for the week of November 20, 2023
			
		

	

	

	

		
			

			

				

			

		

			


				

					


Wouldn't it have been better to insist that he was a has-been, washed-up, useless and incapable?




During Trump's first election campaign he was artificially boosted by media companies on the order of the Clinton campaign, because they believed that his extreme politics would make people run away from the Republican party. I don't see any reason to believe that they will have changed their approach or learned from their mistakes in 2016.


				

				

						

							

								
							

						


						
					

				
			


			

	


			
			
				

			
		

	






		

			
			
				Culture War Roundup for the week of November 20, 2023
			
		

	

	

	

		
			

			

				

			

		

			


				

					
I don't think that's the right lens to view this with - it doesn't matter how good you are at inspiring loyalty when you're being forced to recruit from a pool of people that are diametrically opposed to both you and your base of support. The main problem that I was talking about was that the recruiting pool for a lot of these positions is not that deep - how many people do you think would have been viable contenders for Comey's job? Picking ones who actually supported Trump's goals from that extremely small list would have been extremely challenging and I'm not at all surprised that he ended up with a bunch of people in his orbit that were actively working against him.


				

				

						

							

								
							

						


						
					

				
			


			

	


			
			
				

			
		

	






		

			
			
				Culture War Roundup for the week of November 20, 2023
			
		

	

	

	

		
			

			

				

			

		

			


				

					
This gets exceedingly difficult to untangle, because several of the people involved in the Trump administration, including Trump appointees, were working against him for the entire time. Take Rod Rosenstein for example - he was a Trump-appointee, and took over managing the Mueller investigation after Sessions recused himself... but he was one of the people who signed off on the Carter Page warrant, and he authorised the raid on Michael Cohen's offices to boot. Several of the people in Trumpland were actively working against him for the entire time he was in office, and that doesn't include the people who were simply passively resisting. Nobody's going to blackball Rod Rosenstein for being a Trump hire, because he was never actually working for Trump and did everything he could to bring him down.




Other than those I mentioned above, I am unaware of any high-ranking Trump Administration officials who have been blackballed from polite society because of their associations with him.




I include those mentioned above as people who were subject to this kind of politically motivated prosecution, and the other problem is that the strategy worked. Trump had an exceedingly difficult time finding people who he could trust to staff various positions, and in many cases he didn't. The Mueller investigation was a massive sword hanging over Trump's head, and it had a big impact on what he could do and the people who would have been willing to work for him.


				

				

						

							

								
							

						


						
					

				
			


			

	


			
			
				

			
		

	






		

			
			
				Culture War Roundup for the week of November 20, 2023
			
		

	

	

	

		
			

			

				

			

		

			


				

					


The problem for Trump, though, is that he doesn't really have any cronies other than the kind of people for whom ass-kissing is their only skill. Trump's most notable battles weren't with faceless lifetime bureaucrats who refused to follow his orders, they were with people he chose himself.




You're not necessarily wrong here but I think it is worth pointing out that the inability to hire good people was actually a direct result of said faceless bureaucrats. Anybody who signed up for a prominent job in Trumpland also signed up for an immediate bad-faith prosecution and investigation (this was one of the reasons the Mueller special counsel was spun up). This is also a case of the process being the punishment - even defending yourself against one of these investigations would be extremely expensive, and they'd be going back over your entire historical record. Finding competent people is hard enough when you aren't also asking them to subject their entire life to the baleful gaze of a motivated deep state.


				

				

						

							

								
							

						


						
					

				
			


			

	


			
			
				

			
		

	






		

			
			
				Culture War Roundup for the week of November 20, 2023
			
		

	

	

	

		
			

			

				

			

		

			


				

					


people on the left who hyperbolically opine in outlets like Newsweek and The Economist about how a second Trump term would “end democracy” and “poses the biggest danger to the world.”




These people are correct from their own limited perspective. Remember that "democracy" to them just translates to "rule by the managerial class" - this is why Donald Trump being democratically elected by a majority of the voting population would be a defeat for democracy (FBI agents arresting the winner of the election and announcing the Hillary Clinton caretaker government would be a victory for democracy in their view). At the same time, he would pose an incredibly big danger, but to their world rather than the world as a whole. Term 2 Trump would absolutely represent an end to the world that these people live in and know (as has been pointed out by some other commenters) - when your entire worldview is based upon being part of the elect, the class of managers who optimise society and tell people what to do, what happens when the people you consider your workers/underlings tell you in no uncertain terms that you're worse than useless and they want to listen to a person diametrically opposed to you and everything you stand for?


				

				

						

							

								
							

						


						
					

				
			


			

	


			
			
				

			
		

	






		

			
			
				Small-Scale Question Sunday for November 19, 2023
			
		

	

	

	

		
			

			

				

			

		

			


				

					
I find it incredibly amusing that it is actually an open question whether or not someone called "jewdefender", who is currently asking why people don't defend jews enough, is actually trying to promote attacks on jews.


				

				

						

							

								
							

						


						
					

				
			


			

	


			
			
				

			
		

	






		

			
			
				Culture War Roundup for the week of November 6, 2023
			
		

	

	

	

		
			

			

				

			

		

			


				

					
I don't think the Israelis would agree to it either - but that doesn't mean I can't say that a ceasefire would be ideal and voice my support for it. Similarly, I protested against the Iraq war because I thought that simply not invading Iraq was a better idea, despite knowing that George Bush probably wouldn't agree to it.


				

				

						

							

								
							

						


						
					

				
			


			

	


			
			
				

			
		

	






		

			
			
				Culture War Roundup for the week of November 13, 2023
			
		

	

	

	

		
			

			

				

			

		

			


				

					


The way SS presents his antisemitism, it’s both intellectually robust somehow (‘anti-fragile’) and dependent on the behaviour of jews. But we’ve established that it’s neither of those things.




That isn't what "anti-fragile" means - anti-fragile here effectively means that efforts to suppress antisemitism will have a paradoxical effect and actually bolster it. You also haven't actually demonstrated that it isn't dependent on the behavior of jews - or at least not in any of the posts I've seen.




"Simply, antifragility is defined as a convex response to a stressor or source of harm (for some range of variation), leading to a positive sensitivity to increase in volatility (or variability, stress, dispersion of outcomes, or uncertainty, what is grouped under the designation "disorder cluster"). Likewise, fragility is defined as a concave sensitivity to stressors, leading to a negative sensitivity to an increase in volatility.




In this particular case, he's claiming that if the jews decide to use their power over discourse to make sure that antisemitic speech is suppressed and the people who hold those ideas are driven out of society, that actually strengthens the argument "jews have control over societal discourse and use this for their advantage". He's straightforwardly correct here too - simply getting the government to ban criticism of jews isn't actually going to make people start liking them, and would most likely generate additional animus. The claim that some particular group has too much influence over societal discourse actually does get stronger when that particular group uses their influence over societal discourse to suppress criticism of said influence, and it isn't really hard to see why. Note however that there's no requirement for fragility/antifragility to match up to whether or not something is intellectually robust - this effect would take place whether jews did actually have a disproportionate amount of influence over societal discourse or not.




SS is supposed to change his mind if they don’t do X. There is no way to validate or invalidate his argument if it just consists of his personal hatred of jews (or love of mother).




But he has admitted that there would be things they could do to change his mind, he just thinks they aren't going to do them. You're correct when you say that there's no way to validate or invalidate his argument if it just consists of "I hate jews", but you haven't actually managed to convince me that that's his entire argument.


Furthermore, you're presenting an utterly false dilemma. SS is talking about how this particular strategy would actually bolster antisemitism, but that not adopting this strategy would also have negative impacts. Doing nothing or attempting a larger societal crackdown on this kind of speech would confirm his pre-existing beliefs, but those aren't the only options on the table. If the Israeli government came out and made an announcement that the recent surge in support for Palestine among people of colour means that encouraging white nationalism in the USA and Europe was better for their goals and long-term survival, and then took action to use their massive influence operation (AIPAC etc) to further the cause of white nationalism, I'd consider his argument totally falsified. Similarly, if there was a serious repression effort that actually worked and didn't engender a hostile reaction his argument would be proven wrong as well.


				

				

						

							

								
							

						


						
					

				
			


			

	


			
			
				

			
		

	






		

			
			
				Culture War Roundup for the week of November 13, 2023
			
		

	

	

	

		
			

			

				

			

		

			


				

					


Indeed, there is nothing they can possibly do that would bring antisemites to change their position. There's another word for that sort of belief: unfalsifiable.




No there isn't. You're conflating two different ideas and making your thinking on this matter less clear. Antisemitic beliefs are entirely falsifiable, but that has no bearing on whether people are willing to change their mind on that matter or not. As an example, I love my family members and would never sacrifice my mother to save some random financial criminal. I'm not changing my mind on this matter, but the belief is very clearly falsifiable and testable.




And so it is found that both 'pushing for greater authoritarianism' and 'staying mum' all leads to the same rotten conclusion.




Are those the only two possible answers? You've presented two options that won't work, and that's it? I agree with you that both of those options are bad and won't work, but I don't think that's a good spot to just stop thinking. There are a lot of other actions the jews could take, and a lot of them wouldn't actually lead to that same rotten conclusion.


				

				

						

							

								
							

						


						
					

				
			


			

	


			
			
				

			
		

	






		

			
			
				Culture War Roundup for the week of November 13, 2023
			
		

	

	

	

		
			

			

				

			

		

			


				

					
I'm not claiming that those people don't exist - I'm making a comment based on my experiences with jews on the internet and in person. I've got no doubt that there's a lot of sophisticated thought among certain circles, I just haven't really seen it in my conversations with jews on other parts of the internet. I almost definitely disagree with Freud, but I haven't gotten around to Herzl or Marx's work on antisemitism yet - I'll add them to the reading list.


				

				

						

							

								
							

						


						
					

				
			


			

	


			
			
				

			
		

	






		

			
			
				Culture War Roundup for the week of November 13, 2023
			
		

	

	

	

		
			

			

				

			

		

			


				

					
I'm talking mostly about the people that I see on social media and in real life, and that's not an assumption - I'm talking about direct experience. There are absolutely thoughtful jews who think about this seriously, but I don't think a statement like "men are taller than women" needs an army of qualifiers despite the fact that there are 4 foot tall men and 7 foot tall women.


				

				

						

							

								
							

						


						
					

				
			


			

	


			
			
				

			
		

	






		

			
			
				Culture War Roundup for the week of November 13, 2023
			
		

	

	

	

		
			

			

				

			

		

			


				

					


Scholars seem to think some kind of widespread invasion and war caused the collapse.




I've heard an interesting theory that the widespread invasion and war was actually the result of a powerful volcanic eruption, Hekla 3, that threw up so much ash that it impacted on the global climate. The ash cloud and global cooling that resulted caused widespread crop failures and famines that were likely the motivating event behind the invasions of the Sea Peoples, as well as severely impacting the ability of the various civilizations to fight back. It sounds plausible to me, though there is some debate over the dating of the eruption.