The post-Stalin USSR worked alright. Creakily, and not as well as the West, but it wasn't a failed state or anything. It had a decent quality of life for people. That only lasted for about 35 years, but most 20th century right wing dictatorships also did not last very long. Granted, some of the right wing dictatorships ended because of outside pressure. But the USSR could maybe have also lasted longer if it had not stupidly devoted such a huge portion of its resources to its conventional military forces, which it barely ever ended up using in war, and which it did not decide to use to keep itself together.
Goodguy
1d ago
so it's a bit weird to me that you want to boil it down to favoritism
I guess I do it because you can have public order and rules with just plain authoritarianism. To me what makes fascism distinct from authoritarianism is that it attempts to make the state and the nation the same thing. So there is a notion of some privileged nation. Although, it is important to note that the nation does not have to be defined based on genetics. For example, Italian fascists were relatively comfortable with Jews, as long as the Jews participated in the "Italian" nation.
It seems to have forgotten to put a limit on what can be done in the name of a minority.
And, to the extent that it's done that, it has become less liberal.
Goodguy
2d ago
your claim that actually what any fascist must actually be arguing for is favoritism for their group is just flatly wrong
I suppose there are fascists who care more about the principle of fascism than about ensuring that their own group is on top, but to me that seems kind of pointless. I guess I don't see any appeal to fascism unless it's to get my own group on top. But some people have different preferences and genuinely like other things about fascism. I suppose many of those would be people who for whatever reasons genuinely like the idea of collectivism.
There's also a hidden assumption in what you're saying that democracy prevents favoritism, which is also just flat out wrong.
Democracy definitely does not prevent favoritism. Almost by definition. But so-called "liberal" democracy does limit the degree to which favoritism causes problems by limiting the power of the majority to change things just because they are a majority. Of course when enough voters want to do things that are prevented by "liberal" democracy, then "liberal" democracy does tend to go away.
Goodguy
2d ago
In the sense that you believe you'd be better off, yes.
I actually kind of doubt you'd be better off under fascism that favors East Asians than under current European democracy, but whether you would or would not be really depends on the degree of fascist favoritism.
Nobody in S America could ever convince me that Democracy is better than Fascism.
What you seem to mean by this sentence is "Nobody in S America could ever convince me that democracy is better than fascism that favors my group".
You wouldn't be happy with fascism that favors your opponents.
I don’t see why White Europeans should be governed by a corrupt commie because a bunch of negros voted for it.
This is an imprecise description of the situation. White Brazilians are not even close to a monolithic political block. Whites do lean Bolsonaro over Lula, but it's more like a 60-40 split, not something like 90-10.
Anyway, I think that fascism is the inferior solution to the problem. The superior solution is some kind of secession. Solves the problem, without creating the new problem of living in a fascist shithole.
Goodguy
2d ago
Modern police are pretty good at stopping masses of unarmed, calmly-moving people. They just form themselves into lines and block the people. No violence necessary.
Goodguy
7d ago
I've thought that Vivek's political instincts were questionable ever since he made his infamous tweet about work culture.
When an Indian billionaire posts online the day after Christmas and tells Americans that they should adopt the stereotypical Asian childraising style if they want to be economically competitive, I might give it credit for audacity, but good politics it is not.
I am not convinced that this is primarily the work of ethnic non-French. The livestreams I watched had plenty of ethnic French people in them. But I am definitely open to the possibility that it is majority ethnic non-French.
The idea that ethnic French need Algerians to teach them how to riot also strikes me as unconvincing, given France's history.
I, like you, noticed that there isn't much "riots are the language of the unheard" messaging in mainstream media about these riots. The conspiracy theorist in me wants to say that this is because France is seen as a fragile linchpin of the whole US-led neoliberal order. But I don't think that's really the explanation. Too complicated, and wouldn't explain why even The Guardian isn't wholly on board. I think it's more likely that the ideas around African Americans and their history are just uniquely potent, which explains the mainstream's submissive reactions to BLM violence.
A few years ago I would have been against something like the France riots, but now I find myself sympathetic and wishing that Americans would start rioting as well. Politics as usual is showing itself to be incompetent to handle the problems of economic stagnation, corruption, enshittification, and the potential problem of AI job loss. Middle class Americans have been trained to believe that if they are poor, it is entirely their fault. This ideology was a good adaptation to the conditions of early America, but not a good adaptation to today's more zero-sum situation. In our current situation, a better adaptation for those outside the ranks of the elites might be to blame everything on the rich and to scare the living shit out of them until they give up their resources.
Does capitalism work better in the long term than socialism? Does it lift all boats higher than socialism does? In the conditions of 20th century economics, yes, undoubtedly. In the conditions that we are now entering, however, I am not so sure. In any case, I don't care much. To the degree that I have any socialist tendencies, they are selfish -- I'm not primarily concerned with what economic system is more moral or is better for the majority of people. If capitalism lifts all boats higher 30 years from now but leaves me poor for the next 30 years, I will support something other than capitalism. If I become rich, it is quite possible that I will start to support the current system.
The culture war angle about the riots is interesting when it comes to the most mouth-frothing types on places like X. I find myself in the position of disliking both sides. One side is making mouth noises I like about taking down the elites, but are also, realistically speaking, probably much too bought into the lefty memeplex, including the anti-white stuff, for my liking. And obviously there is a significant Islamist component. As a social liberal, I view the Islamic memeplex as being primitive barbarity. Do I have any illusions that if the rioters gained power it would actually be good for people at me? No, I view them as a potentially useful tool, not as a beneficial new ruling class.
The other side says things like "the Limoges town hall is worth more than thousands of rioters". And personally, I don't really care that much about the lives of the rioters, but I also don't give a single shit about the Limoges town hall. If burning it scares the elite, then I support burning it. Would I feel the same way about rioters burning, say, my building? Or would I feel the same way if they burned down thousands of city halls rather than just a few? No. But like I already said, my support is selfish, it's not some grand moral statement about what political/economic system is more just. I just hope that acts of this nature do not cause ordinary people to lose their lives. I'm fine with some degree of burning, but am not comfortable with killing people of my own socioeconomic class or below, and am squeamish even about the idea of killing the rich. Obviously the actual riots have burned hundreds of small shops and the like, which I do not support.
Goodguy
12d ago
No they didn't. Maybe some did, but the negative commentary I've seen did not treat it as mandatory viewing.
Apparently it's legally impossible to whip out a sidearm and blow her head off, since you can only kill people in the exact way and time that a judge finds pleasing. Otherwise it's something like murder, so that woman has to be rushed off to hospital to save her from the death she was supposed to suffer.
Well yeah, procedure and oversight is a big part of what distinguishes a justice system from violent chaos. And it's good to have a justice system rather than violent chaos.
No matter how brutal a person's crimes might be, the fact remains that there is a strong incentive to do the entire capital punishment process in a very careful way. A short duration between conviction and execution would lessen the chance of new evidence being discovered to exonerate an innocent person. A brutal and pragmatic approach to the actual execution would add an element of bloodthirstiness that I think it is dangerous to let the government exercise.
Would I care about any of that if the convict was someone who I was convinced had killed a loved one of mine? Almost certainly not. But that's not necessarily a good argument.
There's also what Scott called Moloch and I sometimes call the Darwinian principle. Basically, "we have to build it because if we don't, the other people will and then they'll conquer us".
As for risk-taking, well... if I was purely selfish, I think I might be fine going for a 50-50 risk of either AI-driven human extinction or Star Trek utopia. Why? Because I don't have kids, am not sure I ever will, and to me the chance of benevolent AI giving me a significantly increased lifespan and reducing aging problems seems really tempting even if the odds are low, since the alternative is accepting a normal human lifespan and normal human aging. If we stop AI progress, it means that AI will not destroy humanity, but I'm still going to die within a few decades so for me it's almost as if the world will end within a few decades anyway, unless there is an afterlife.
I am not purely selfish, but some important people in the AI space are probably closer to being purely selfish than I am. Which is not to say that longevity is necessarily a significant factor in their calculations. At least, they don't seem to talk about personal longevity much.
Goodguy
21d ago
Culture war would happen. The two main sides would be 1) "This is terrible. We should control AI and put my preferred political ideology in charge of society, even the parts of my ideology that have nothing to do with AI." and 2) "But you didn't care when the coal miners were committing suicide. We should put my preferred political ideology in charge of society, even the parts of my ideology that have nothing to do with job loss."
I don't think that any kind of work is necessary for meaning. There are other sources of meaning, such as curiosity, philosophical exploration, and social connection.
The supposed connection between work and meaning is, I think, largely just humanity making the best (meaning) of a bad thing (work).
People of the ruling class in societies like Classical Athens would have been shocked by the idea that productive work is necessary for meaning. They thought of work as something for defeated people, slaves, inferiors. Yet they did not lack a sense of meaning in life. But AI is coming for some of their sources of meaning, too, such as the feeling of being on top compared to other Earthly beings.
Well, communists did often say that capitalism would bring about its own destruction. Communists also often said that far from capitalism being useless, it is in fact the necessary precursor for communism.
It's hard to give them full props for these ideas given that originally these ideas did not envision something like AI being the mechanism.
However, communists did think that increases in production would play a major role in the transition, and they were aware that technology is key in increases in production.
Marx: "This “alienation” (to use a term which will be comprehensible to the philosophers) can, of course, only be abolished given two practical premises. For it to become an “intolerable” power, i.e. a power against which men make a revolution, it must necessarily have rendered the great mass of humanity “propertyless,” and produced, at the same time, the contradiction of an existing world of wealth and culture, both of which conditions presuppose a great increase in productive power, a high degree of its development. And, on the other hand, this development of productive forces (which itself implies the actual empirical existence of men in their world-historical, instead of local, being) is an absolutely necessary practical premise because without it want is merely made general, and with destitution the struggle for necessities and all the old filthy business would necessarily be reproduced;".
Engels: "Only the immense increase of the productive forces attained by modern industry has made it possible to distribute labour among all members of society without exception".
Physical aspect or legal aspect, I figure. By legal aspect I mean that for a while to come laws will probably mandate that certain social positions must be filled by humans. No AI politicians yet, although many might soon become meat proxies of AI instead of being meat proxies of teams of human staffers.
Maybe there are other aspects as well.
In STEM, it's probably mostly over for pure programmers. There's still going to be room for being a person who understands what customers want, coordinates the various aspects of the business, tracks down humans with domain knowledge to pump their knowledge out of them, and prompts the AI. But AI will probably cut more and more into that too.
Mathematicians are big mad. View the relevant subreddit on our progenitor site.
I did. Most of the top comments do not have an angry tone. It's more like, a mix of resignation and excitement. With some mad mixed into it.
Anyway and more importantly, it might be time to start thinking harder about the key question of our time: is it over for humancels?
Not any time soon, I think, but I tell you this: social positions in which being human is an inherent part of the value proposition are starting to seem like much more appealing things to devote one's time to than STEMing it up.
I'm thinking positions like prostitute, politician, athlete, stage actor, bartender, socialite, rock star, cult leader, man who makes money by befriending rich people, or man who makes money for taking the fall when an organization gets in trouble.
If y'all got any other ideas, share 'em. Cause it's time to strategize. Unless you're rich already, in which case: all good. Unless Skynet scenario.
I hope the AI-boosted productivity gains soon outstrip the job losses and we get the utopian diseases-cured Star Trek scenario instead of the Great Depression or Skynet ones.
I suppose that if the long-prophesied Civil War 2 becomes a reality, I might have an interesting time trying to evade being gulaged by left-wingers for not being a left-winger and evade being Pinochet'd by right-wingers for not being a right-winger.
Luckily for me, years of participating in online politics discussions have given me the ability to convincingly pretend to be either a left-winger or a right-winger. A skill that could prove useful in such a scenario.
It would be better if I could just sit back and watch the left-wingers and the right-wingers fight while I munch on popcorn, but sometimes a man's gotta do what a man's gotta do.
Geopolitically, America gains a lot from the brain drain that draws talented people here from all over the rest of the world. This brain drain both makes America stronger geopolitically and makes other places weaker.
Deporting people who vocally sympathize with their birth countries while still contributing to the US economy could hurt the power of that brain drain.
In Ovechkin's case it probably doesn't matter. He's not really innovating anything that would be economically transformative. But if one started deporting people who sympathize with "back home" left and right, it would start to matter.
Now, does the average American benefit from the brain drain? Maybe not -- one could argue that the average American is hurt by it at least as much as helped. However, the average American also doesn't benefit from the US-Russia conflict, so for the average American, there is also no actual good reason to deport Ovechkin. It's kind of a wash.
Truth be told, if America got rid of everyone who has ever wished for a foreign power to defeat the US government's foreign policy, we might be looking at a deportation campaign that rivals Trump's wildest border promises. The number of Democrats who consciously or unconsciously hope for US military defeat every time a Republican is running a war and the number of Republicans who consciously or unconsciously hope for a US military defeat every time a Democrat is running a war is colossal. More Democrats than Republicans, I'm sure, since Republicans tend to identify with the military much more frequently.
America is so strong that the vast majority of its wars don't really matter that much. We have the freedom to care more about a war's impact on domestic politics than about whether the war is actually won or lost.
And one of the key tenets of American mass political thought is that when the Other Side is sitting in Washington, our foreign policy is being run by shadowy elites who hate the American people and are just trying to steal our money. But when Our Side is sitting in Washington, our foreign policy is being run by noble crusaders who are trying to spread freedom and democracy.
Goodguy
24d ago
I think most of them just indulge this as a thought experiment. They wouldn't actually choose 10 shrimp over one toddler if forced to make the choice in real life.
Also, they don't think of their moral position as morally valuing humans less, they view it as valuing humans the same as before, while correcting the previously incorrectly low appraisal of the moral value of shrimp.
An argument can be made that since resources are limited, morally valuing shrimp more amounts to the same thing as morally valuing humans less. However, I think that the intent matters. The EA people by and large don't seem to intend to be misanthropic. I don't even detect subconscious misanthropy from them, at least not any more than the average person has. To me, their seeming lack of the normal pro-human stance seems to be genuinely motivated by taking logical arguments to their conclusions and by unusually high degrees of empathy for beings like shrimp, not by bitterness against humanity.
That said, I don't know any people like this in "real life". So I'm just going by the impressions I get from reading a small amount of online content.
Goodguy
24d ago
Ah. Lol. Nice catch.
Both flaunting and flouting works, for different examples of the group in question.
Goodguy
24d ago
Thanks for the advice!
I didn't know that rye bread was often also dyed to darken the color. That doesn't really bother me assuming it's safe. It's the trying to pass mostly wheat bread off as rye that I find annoying.
I wish RFK Jr. didn't act so crazy and/or seem so crazy to people, it was nice to see the left and right getting united on the issue of food safety.
I don't know what the data shows, but if Kerouac's On the Road is an accurate picture of what the 1940s/50s were like, it was a time when a young man could arrive in any big city with a thriving social scene, like New York, San Francisco, or Denver, spend a few days job hunting and find a random manual labor job like parking lot attendant or railroad worker, grab a shitty but private apartment (no roommates) somewhere, and spend his free time having fun and/or making art.
So part of me wants to say that a lot of the problem is that housing in dense, fun parts of the country is fucked. And the entry level job market is fucked.
I myself remember seeing my own city, in the last 20 years or so, go from a place where it's hard but reasonable for a person who doesn't have a solid career to pay the rent with random jobs to a place where it's very difficult to do it.
At the same time, modern media (both mainstream and non-mainstream) is constantly exposing people to pictures of stunning material success. Politicians, socialites, celebrities ranging from YouTubers to Hollywood actors. There's kind of a sense in the gestalt that either you hustle your way to being some kind of at least mini-celebrity with a personal brand, smart your way to being a tech/entrepreneur genius, or you're fucked, condemned to the permanent underclass.
On the sexual front, the blackpill has really risen in popularity compared to 20 years ago. 20 years ago a young man who typed "how to get laid" into Google would have found the pick-up artist community, which would tell him that by doing fun adventurous things like approaching women he could gain social skills and have a lot of sex. This was true, by the way. And it still is, despite dating apps. But now with the rise of the blackpill, it's more common for the young man to get sucked into some community that tells him that he is fucked if he doesn't looksmax his way to being a 6'2" male model with a square jaw. The dating advice for men has also become more political. 20 years ago it had more a libertarian, fun, adventurous attitude. Now it's gotten sucked more into the miserable culture war, with both male and female influencers spreading misogyny and misandry, the kind of energy that if one buys into it, makes one wonder why there's even any point in interacting with the opposite sex. Meanwhile women are comparing themselves more than ever to hot female influencers on social media.
The vibes in the country are bad. There's a sense that something big has to change, soon. The overall feel is of living in a declining empire rather than in an ascending one. Overall social optimism is scarce despite some good things happening (for example, homicides are way down compared to say the 1980s though part of this might be that medicine lets more people survive getting shot than in the past). And now with the AI revolution, things appear even scarier. It's nice if hypothetically AI increases social productivity, cures disease, and so on at some point in the future, but that's hard to enjoy if there is fear of becoming unemployed in the near future. There's a general precarious sense that seeking a stable career is a fool's errand and one has to constantly be on one's toes, ready to pivot one's life in an instant, if one wants to be able to adapt.
Third places have gotten scarcer and also people spend more time sitting at home online. Many young people complain about having zero friends. The Internet makes it easier for people to get sucked into a lifestyle where one doesn't meet people in physical reality, to spend many years in that lifestyle and then realize that one is 30 and has no social skills and no off-line social connections.
I think tech also may be starting to reach the natural biological limits of the human organism when it comes to being a cyborg, a tool-user. Beyond a certain level, constant engagement with technology might become corrosive to certain needs that the human organism comes hard-wired with. The typical human organism needs a certain dose of touching grass and socializing off-line in order to stay healthy. The modern software-enabled lifestyle also has a certain constant annoyance factor. One has the sense of living in a dystopian cyberpunk world of giant corporations that are constantly pursuing you with advertisements and pestering you with notifications.
Now, does all this explain the change in suicide rates? I really don't know. That would require some deep analysis to determine. But it's what first comes to mind.
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