Goodguy
2d ago
Chesterton's fence is a very useful concept. However, sometimes the fence actually isn't useful. To me that's the point of Chesterton's fence - you have to actually figure out whether the fence is useful or not, not just reflexively accept or reject tradition.
To me, much of social conservatism seems like the kind of norms that are well suited for communities that deal with a lot of material scarcity and threats from nature. Think what the typical farming village was like until some point in the 20th century. For example, in such communities the economic and family-uniting value of sexual relationships is more important than the pleasure value or the becoming-a-better-person value (getting to know oneself and others better, spiritual growth, etc.). Hence the told-a-million-times story of "my parents want me to marry the safe and economically pragmatic person A but I want to marry the more exciting person B". Another example is the emphasis on the socially uniting quality of shared religious belief and practice.
Now, when I say this, I'm not thereby rejecting all of social conservatism. I'm just saying that it evolved in certain material conditions, and is a good adaptation for those conditions, and it may not necessarily be a good fit for the modern developed world. It is quite possible that it is simply a local maximum for certain conditions and it is possible for society to actually move to a higher maximum.
As for slut shaming, there are other alternatives besides just "slut shaming" and "disease and illegitimate children". The prevalence of STDs, abortions, and single motherhood among some ethnic groups is a real phenomenon, but in large part the question of what to do about that phenomenon boils down to the question of "to what extent should people be free to make stupid choices?". And this is a very real and broad topic. Good arguments can be made for various positions.
Goodguy
16d ago
People can use words however they want to, of course, but my personal definition of "invasion" requires top-down coordination, and the numbers are pretty irrelevant. So to me, the D-Day landings were an invasion not because tens of thousands of people landed on the French coast, but because the whole thing was coordinated top-down.
I don't know if there was top-down coordination in Ceuta, I'm just riffing on the topic of the word "invasion".
Goodguy
16d ago
What makes you think that it is likely to end the government? The sudden migration from yesterday has already been largely reversed (or at least, that is what the popular narrative currently is), and I'm not sure that Spanish voters really care that much about migration to begin with.
Goodguy
16d ago
The idea of a conspiracy is unnecessary to explain is happening. An ideology can spread and control politicians' actions without there being a conspiracy to spread it.
To me it seems that the ideology that is responsible for how Europe has been reacting to immigration is not fundamentally an ideology that seeks the replacement of native Europeans. Its main immigration-related goal is not replacement, it is to treat migrants very altruistically, even if that imposes some costs on the natives. I imagine that the number of European politicians who genuinely want to eliminate the native European population and replace it with Africans and Middle Easterners is very small.
"except the WEIRD" is going too far, but does have truth to it. The West has unusually strong norms about conscientiousness. Luckily for us, these norms contribute to evolutionary success in enough ways that their continued existence seems likely.
Even among the WEIRD, an overwhelming majority would take the "be a nuisance" path as soon as the stakes were high enough.
Goodguy
16d ago
Israel and Jewish lobbying has a lot to do with the US' actions towards Iran, but saying "Israel bringing the American Empire to the brink in order to take care of its rival Iran" is going too far, I think.
The US foreign policy establishment has strong motives to hate Iran even without Jews/Israel in the picture. They are probably still butt-hurt about what happened in 1979. The CIA and the US military both had people killed in Hezbollah actions in the 1980s. Institutions hold grudges. Iran is also the last major blocker to these institutions' domination of the Middle East.
Goodguy
22d ago
Every Pronoun Person also hates capitalism and billionaires.
I think that's mostly true. However, it doesn't go the other way. Not every leftist who hates capitalism and billionaires is a social activism leftist of the "modern woke" variety.
Goodguy
22d ago
I think the story of CHAZ shows that Democratic cities will not, indeed, let leftist activists get away with whatever they want to. Which is what you claimed in your previous post ("operate unfettered").
I agree that Seattle allowed them to get away with too much in that case.
You tell me how we should differentiate between the hard lefties and the moderates when the hard lefties get to operate unfettered where-ever the moderate lefties have power.
This seems untrue to me:
- ChatGPT says that 24 people received prison time in connection to the Kenosha riots, and not all were federal charges.
- You can't expect to throw a brick through the front window of a bank in San Francisco next to a cop and just walk away.
- The NYPD arrested more than 70 anti-ICE protestors at the Jacob K. Javits Federal Building on September 18, 2025.
- If you murder a rich person in Boston because you are a communist, the cops are actually going to try to arrest you.
- CHOP/CHAZ in Seattle was shot down by police after 3 weeks, not allowed to continue.
Etcetera.
Goodguy
23d ago
If you've got 10 people seated around a table, and a Nazi violent dirtbag leftist sits down, and nobody gets up, you've got 11 Nazis violent dirtbag leftists.
This is not true whether we're talking about Nazis or about violent leftists.
The simple truth is that activists can forcefully occupy territory in downtown Madison, a jurisdiction controlled entirely by the left from the city council all the way up to the governor, because sending in the national guard to break it up is not politically feasible.
There are leftist activists in all parts of the US. However, leftist territory occupations that are permitted by the local leftist authorities are extremely rare. And the overwhelming majority of the time, leftist violence is met with police reaction.
Even if they made some correct predictions, this argument might still just be cherry picking. Surely social conservatives have also made many wrong predictions. And the time when people who were social conservatives by modern standards controlled nearly all human societies was not a utopia, or even close to one. Personally, I see little reason to think that that time was actually better than our current time, even if you control for technological progress. Of course that partly is a matter of preference.
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