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Iconochasm

2. Bootstrap the rest of the fucking omnipotence.

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joined 2022 September 05 00:44:49 UTC 

				
User ID: 314


				
				
				

			

		

	














	


		


			



	

		

			

			

				

					

						

							
						

						

							
							

								
Iconochasm


								

								

								
								
								

								
							
					
 
				


				
2. Bootstrap the rest of the fucking omnipotence.

				
				
				

				

					2 followers  

					follows 10 users  

					joined 2022 September 05 00:44:49 UTC
				


				
					

					
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User ID: 314


					
					
					
				

			


					

						
					



		

	

 











			
			

			
			

			




	


		

			
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				Culture War Roundup for the week of June 30, 2025
			
		

	

	

	

		
			

			

				

			

		

			


				

					
Seems mostly fine.  It's hard to tell what, if anything, might be actually objectionable.  Most of the articles I've seen criticizing it are of the "outrageously stupid and blatant fearmongering propaganda" type, that actively doesn't want you to understand anything at all except Blue Team Good Red Team Bad.


For example, the increase to the deficit seems to be mostly the extension of the 2017 tax cuts?  The ones where, after they passed them, tax revenues went up?  I feel like I need to see a homework essay about the Laffer Curve and the limits and gameabillity of CBO scoring before anyone complaining about this deserves to be taken seriously.


Same with the Medicaid thing.  When this was first being proposed months ago, progressives crashed out about it, and the actual numbers were "lower rate of increase" rather than anything a mentally healthy person would call a "cut".  And again, all of the articles look like unhinged fearmongering from wordcels who don't understand calculus, and aren't even trying to understand what is even actually happening.


17 million people losing Medicaid... do you mean illegal immigrants?  14 states openly give Medicaid to illegal immigrants.  And that's not counting however many more are getting it on fake SSNs.  Some people might lose access due to the 20 hour per week work requirement for healthy people, but let me give you an example.


My employees at MegaCorp are generally hired for full time positions.  The starting pay is... not great.  Hourly wages,  works out to around 75% of the median salary in the state.  If you're working full time.


One of my employees has been slowly getting her hours cut back.  She's continually late.  Frequently calls out.  Zero interest in learning the position better, or working towards a promotion.  At this point she's working 15-25 hours per week.  Her finances baffle me, because I know she had two kids and lives in an apartment by herself.  Not only does the math somehow work out, but she takes 2+ vacations a year, one usually international.


But she gets a ton of government benefits.  Section 8 housing.  Medicaid.  Tons of other stuff.  My own boss, a woman who varies oddly between pragmatic and bleeding heart, has pulled me aside to express concern about changes to the Section 8 rules.  The two of them actually live in the same apartment complex, and my boss pays ~5x as much for a 1BR as the employee does for a 2BR.  But her concern was that "they" were going to tighten the rules so that the employee (a perfectly healthy 30yo woman) would have to work more (possibly getting a second job), or pay more, to qualify, because it was absurd that a person like that was barely bothering themselves to show up for part time hours at a single job.


And yet that employee, who is probably subsidized by the state to the tune of something like $50k per year, would still pass the threshold to keep receiving Medicaid.


Also, I'm stoked about the ICE stuff.  Democrats are mad about it because if mass deportations happen (or we just stop counting illegals for apportionment in the census), they are going to lose 20-40 House seats and electoral votes, and be relegated to minor league status until they thoroughly reform their extremist ideology.


				

				

						

							

								
							

						


						
					

				
			


			

	


			
			
				

			
		

	






		

			
			
				Culture War Roundup for the week of June 30, 2025
			
		

	

	

	

		
			

			

				

			

		

			


				

					
Your first two links are both thoroughly articulated arguments in defense of specific positions.  They broke no rules.  Every one else is free to marshal arguments against them - as I see that you did, terribly, for the first.  The second still got a mod warning.  The third one is perhaps more openly insulting (if you fall into the exaggerated position it's attacking), but it has always been the case that statements prefaced with "I think" and the like get a lot more leeway.  And oh, there you are downthread, completely missing the point of that comment.


Meanwhile, the routine criticism of Turok is that he never actually stakes a position in the first place, but just engages in borderline incoherent, miserable performance art.


				

				

						

							

								
							

						


						
					

				
			


			

	


			
			
				

			
		

	






		

			
			
				Wellness Wednesday for July 2, 2025
			
		

	

	

	

		
			

			

				

			

		

			


				

					
Intermediate gym-goer for a decade.  I started rucking a year or so ago, just recently decided I was doing it enough and enjoying it enough to splurge on nicer equipment than "old backpack full of dumbbell weights".


It's combining them into a back-to-back mega workout that I've only thought of doing in the last few weeks... because yeah, the individual ones weren't getting me to exhausted ecstasy anymore.


Hm.


Maybe I will just double check the macro/nutrient basics and otherwise enjoy the post-workout fugue while it lasts, and while my schedule permits me to devote a third of a day to exercise/recovery multiple times per week.


				

				

						

							

								
							

						


						
					

				
			


			

	


			
			
				

			
		

	






		

			
			
				Wellness Wednesday for July 2, 2025
			
		

	

	

	

		
			

			

				

			

		

			


				

					
Any advice for recovery from serious fatigue?


My new favorite thing is to go to the gym, do arms for 60-90 minutes, and then go hiking with a 40lb backpack for another 1-2 hours.


Unfortunately, afterwards I am kind of obliterated for a few more hours.  Obviously some turndown is going to be necessary after expending that much energy, but I'd like to get a higher resting state than "staring blankly at Youtube", and/or a duration shorter than "as long as I was just working out".


And I guess I might specify that I'm hoping for suggestions more like "cold shower" or "hydrate with X" rather than "steroids or meth".


				

				

						

							

								
							

						


						
					

				
			


			

	


			
			
				

			
		

	






		

			
			
				Culture War Roundup for the week of June 30, 2025
			
		

	

	

	

		
			

			

				

			

		

			


				

					
Nah, there's a middle ground.  "Trad with liberal characteristics" or whatever, where you acknowledge that some people are gonna do what they want and have it mostly work out for them, and encourage them to do it in isolated enclaves like SF, while still discouraging it in the general case.


What we instead got is this monstrous inversion where our successful people generally act conservative in their personal lives while encouraging self-destructive libertinism and emotional disregulation in the rest of the population.  This helps those individuals, by hamstringing their competition, but it is virulently anti-social.


				

				

						

							

								
							

						


						
					

				
			


			

	


			
			
				

			
		

	






		

			
			
				Culture War Roundup for the week of June 30, 2025
			
		

	

	

	

		
			

			

				

			

		

			


				

					
It gets thrown around by goblinoids like Richard Hanania to explain why they viscerally hate regular people and instead offer unlimited, unjustified consideration for people with proper credentials, in spite of their decades of total incompetence and failure.  It's a sad effort by the untalented to ingratiate themselves into the popular kids table, even as the popular kids are having their lives fall apart.


				

				

						

							

								
							

						


						
					

				
			


			

	


			
			
				

			
		

	






		

			
			
				Culture War Roundup for the week of June 30, 2025
			
		

	

	

	

		
			

			

				

			

		

			


				

					


distasteful comments




Speaking as a millennial who was raised to genuine colorblindness, complete with black and Jewish cousins... have you ever heard anyone else talk about anyone else?


				

				

						

							

								
							

						


						
					

				
			


			

	


			
			
				

			
		

	






		

			
			
				Culture War Roundup for the week of June 23, 2025
			
		

	

	

	

		
			

			

				

			

		

			


				

					


Yes, and they too would be alienated by the tradcon message that puts 100% of the blame for the decline in marriage on men.




"100%" is doing a lot of work there.  I see a lot of "Women often suck, but you can only work on yourself, so fix that first", and it seems like it's resonating fairly well.  There's a reason Peterson blew up with "Clean your room".  "Get good" is a message young men are primed to be ready for.


				

				

						

							

								
							

						


						
					

				
			


			

	


			
			
				

			
		

	






		

			
			
				Culture War Roundup for the week of June 23, 2025
			
		

	

	

	

		
			

			

				

			

		

			


				

					


There are some talks going around how if we look at the geographical breakdown, it's a separation between transplants (Manhattan LES, Brooklyn Williamsburg, etc.) vs natives (Bronx, deep Brooklyn, deep Queens). I still want to wait for the full numbers though before more speculation.




When those transplants eventually flee the consequences of their votes, what color and letter should they be forced to wear to let everyone know that they are dangerous idiots?


I wonder if Zohran would be open to, say, a 50% wealth tax on people who leave NYC?


				

				

						

							

								
							

						


						
					

				
			


			

	


			
			
				

			
		

	






		

			
			
				Culture War Roundup for the week of June 23, 2025
			
		

	

	

	

		
			

			

				

			

		

			


				

					
Bezos' Addendum to Goodhart's Law: If your anecdotal evidence flies in the face of your data, you are probably measuring the data wrong.


				

				

						

							

								
							

						


						
					

				
			


			

	


			
			
				

			
		

	






		

			
			
				Culture War Roundup for the week of June 23, 2025
			
		

	

	

	

		
			

			

				

			

		

			


				

					
Nope, you and Caplan are both just wrong about what the "reasonable hawk" looks like.  You are the ones missing a mood, namely "competing when the stakes really, really matter".  Actively hemming and hawing over the acceptable costs of a desired, good outcome is retarded and maladaptive.  The overwhelming majority of human beings, even highly intelligent ones, are not psychologically capable of the the level of sociopathic, rationalist autism required to attempt his "reasonable hawk" nonsense - and even one of those 0.0001% decouplers would rapidly find themselves dehumanizing the enemy because it's just wildly more efficient in terms of mental load.


Worrying about the feelings of a lethal, intractable enemy is the sort of luxury you spare for things you outclass on the same level that we outclass wolves and bears.  And even then, the people who actually live in areas with wolves and bears are less sympathetic about it than urban fools.


				

				

						

							

								
							

						


						
					

				
			


			

	


			
			
				

			
		

	






		

			
			
				Culture War Roundup for the week of June 23, 2025
			
		

	

	

	

		
			

			

				

			

		

			


				

					
A: "Why is this marathon runner sweating so much?  I would expect them to not want to be sweating.  Do they not realize that sweating is unpleasant?"


B: "They're sweating because they are running a marathon.  The sweat is an adaptive strategy that makes them better at running marathons.  If they did not sweat, they would be worse at running marathons, and probably not be able to do so at all."


A: "Isn't that what I just said?"


B: "No.  It really isn't."


				

				

						

							

								
							

						


						
					

				
			


			

	


			
			
				

			
		

	






		

			
			
				Culture War Roundup for the week of June 23, 2025
			
		

	

	

	

		
			

			

				

			

		

			


				

					
No, that's just how human psychology works.  Earnestly keeping in mind the pain suffered by the innocent in the prosecution of a just/necessary/Good war is just asking for your enemies to act like puppy-killing utility demons.  That's what dehumanization is for, so you can fight and win without being hobbled and cripped (and eventually, raped, murdered and genocided) by your own suicidal empathy.


It's the same reason conservatives post Ghibli memes about crying deportees.  They are no longer willing to give a shred of concern or credibility for crocodile tears of the people who caused the situation on purpose.  Accusations of cruelty are met with mockery, because if you give an inch they'll let in another 50 million unvetted randos.


It's the same reason progressives never, ever, ever express any concern about the feelings and harm they may cause to their outgroup.  It's the same reason no one is even bothering to try to use anything like this argument on Hamas or Iran, or their supporters in the US.


Just round the situation off to "blame goes to the aggressor" and win the damn war.


				

				

						

							

								
							

						


						
					

				
			


			

	


			
			
				

			
		

	






		

			
			
				Small-Scale Question Sunday for June 22, 2025
			
		

	

	

	

		
			

			

				

			

		

			


				

					
I think part of the reason the sight was so viscerally upsetting to me is that I think early childhood is a critical time to develop core physicality.  Beyond the forced feminization, the forced passivity feels more akin to foot-binding or raising a vegan cat than religious beliefs.


But I don't think the comparison is entirely invalid.


				

				

						

							

								
							

						


						
					

				
			


			

	


			
			
				

			
		

	






		

			
			
				Friday Fun Thread for June 20, 2025
			
		

	

	

	

		
			

			

				

			

		

			


				

					
This.  And I don't really find the murder sympathetic.  Just more of a "Leopards Eating Faces" situation than I had known or would have expected.


				

				

						

							

								
							

						


						
					

				
			


			

	


			
			
				

			
		

	






		

			
			
				Small-Scale Question Sunday for June 22, 2025
			
		

	

	

	

		
			

			

				

			

		

			


				

					
I was recently at a Faire type event and briefly saw a family I've known for a long time.  The mother was a part of my college-aged social circle, and the older daughter is my son's age.  They live down the street, and we have little contact for reasons that will be made abundantly clear.


The younger child, chronologically 5, biologically a son, was clad in a full Faire style Faerie Princess regalia, complete with wings.  His long hair was plaited, and every article of clothing was not even unisex, but just straight up girl's clothing and sandals.  Anyone seeing a picture of the lad would have thought him a girl, and anyone seeing him as I did, in the minute before I made hurried excuses and fled, would have suspected he was a boy by the way he reached insistantly for an ornate foam weapon, like the song in his blood knew his hand was made to grip a sword.  He was stymied in his efforts by the gentle chiding of his blue-haired pussy cuck "father" (I use the scare quotes because I'd bet 5:1 odds that the kid is literally not his).


In the time I've known them, in all my observations, I've never seen the boy hold a ball.  Pick up a stick.  Have a single instant of non-supervised or mildly rambunctious fun.


I feel so bad for that boy, and so angry at his Devouring Mother, who homeschools both children because our Blue State curriculum isn't woke enough.  That situation seems at least as bad as gay conversion camp, and I would call it flatly worse if and when it progresses to medical interventions.


And yet.


I'm not going to violently free the poor oppressed child.  I'm not even going to call out his mother.  I might say something to the daughter's father, a close friend.  I feel a deep aversion to so overtly criticizing the way other people raise their kids, even when I find it abhorent.  I might try to slip the kid some ball games, and maybe leave a few High Quality Sticks in his yard, but I probably wouldn't even risk a socially awkward conversation for the sake of it.


Where do you all draw the line?  At what point would you intervene?  When should the State intervene?


				

				

						

							

								
							

						


						
					

				
			


			

	


			
			
				

			
		

	






		

			
			
				Friday Fun Thread for June 20, 2025
			
		

	

	

	

		
			

			

				

			

		

			


				

					
Happy Solstice!  Enjoy some mead-fueled rambling!


Earlier this week I was gazing into one of the endless amusing abysses of the internet when I stumbled across a post that spoke to me, all out of place.  It was a brief meditation on aging and monogamy that echoed some of my own thoughts on the topic (tl;dr: a psychologically healthy man should still find beauty in the grandmother of his grandchildren), phrased and pic-related with a vibe I appreciated.


So I looked at the pseudonymous poster.  They seemed to be some sort of TTRPG designer, or at least that's what their recent posts were about.  A very brief perusal showed hints of extremely grognard-y concern about weapon minutia and a post talking about having bards be the representation of the gods, which were based on historical pantheons.  Gave some extremely low (or even no) magic, gritty vibes, but that was a cool thought, using Bards telling stories of the Gods in the place of the more "mundane" divine power of healing and light spells.  Felt like something William H. Stoddard would have put into a GURPS: Hyperborea book.


And, oh, cool, this person has an Amazon author page, let's check that and see what else they've written and-


It's Varg Vikerness.


Holy shit, I laughed my ass off.  I really should have seen something like that coming.  But it gave me a great excuse to remember one of my favorite memes.


And it gave me a good excuse to look up what happened in the Norwegian Black Metal scene in the early 90's, to at least Wikipedia standards of quasi-reliability, instead of just Shit My Punk Friend Told Me Over A Blunt Twenty Years Ago.  There's a bunch of overlapping articles, but start here or here.


The overall picture I see, reading between the lines a bit, looks like a classic purity spiral.  Euronymous installs himself as the Prince of Norwegian Black Metal because he owns the record shop and label and talks a very extreme game about how obsessed he is with death and nihilism and being maximally evil and hating everything bright and fair.  But he develops a reputation as a poseur, a guy using the aesthetic for personal gain or self-aggrandizement.  Meanwhile, newcomers are taking his rhetoric to logical conclusions and start taking actual actions, like burning churches and murdering strangers.


Feeling his position is threatened, Euronymous escalates his rhetoric, confiding specific, private death threats at other members of the scene.  But he does this so much, to and about so many people, that rumors get out and one of those newcomers responds and kills him first.


It's an interesting look into the psychology of a subculture.  And while I do appreciate some of the music and other elements, it just reaffirms how thoroughly I find that kind to evil-maxing to just be utterly gauche.  For fuck's sake, kids, even The Crow is a fundamentally hopeful film!


It can't rain all the time!


But it's also interesting to square that nihilism with how Varg presents himself now, as a committed family man espousing a more positive vision of simple living and racialism (for which he was subjected to a Vampetaço).


And as an added bonus to this whole rabbithole, I got confirmation that Kulak is aware of his theme song, which I admit had been bothering me for a bit.  You know I don't usually hold with the Abominable Intelligence, but this Imperium Hymn stuff - it's not bad.


Hell, let's be honest.  Black Templar's Prayer is a fucking banger, and it's been dominating my gym-time listening for months.  I'd shed blood to have Sabaton or Powerwolf fix the soulless bits and cover it.


Finally, hi Chris!  Hope you're doing well.


				

				

						

							

								
							

						


						
					

				
			


			

	


			
			
				

			
		

	






		

			
			
				Culture War Roundup for the week of June 16, 2025
			
		

	

	

	

		
			

			

				

			

		

			


				

					


Illegal immigrants are generally not eligible for welfare




No, they totally are, at least in many blue states.  Medicaid is often open to illegal immigrants and many of them qualify because they don't report their taxes.  I don't want to self-dox, but I literally see people who can't speak English interacting with state welfare systems on a daily basis.


				

				

						

							

								
							

						


						
					

				
			


			

	


			
			
				

			
		

	






		

			
			
				Small-Scale Question Sunday for June 15, 2025
			
		

	

	

	

		
			

			

				

			

		

			


				

					
The first two are solid adventure fantasy.  Starting in 3 and really picking up in 4, it delves into this horrible amateur philosophy that just guts the life out of the entire world and concept.


				

				

						

							

								
							

						


						
					

				
			


			

	


			
			
				

			
		

	






		

			
			
				Culture War Roundup for the week of June 9, 2025
			
		

	

	

	

		
			

			

				

			

		

			


				

					


The connections to Walz are incredibly tenuous, that he was reappointed six years ago to a large bipartisan workforce advisory board (one of 130 total state boards, advisory councils, task forces, etc) with this including volunteer small business owner representatives from around the state where most of the nominations came from basically just rubber stamping local council choices.




That is super weak, but FWIW, I'm also seeing claims that his wife was an intern for Walz at one point.


				

				

						

							

								
							

						


						
					

				
			


			

	


			
			
				

			
		

	






		

			
			
				Culture War Roundup for the week of June 9, 2025
			
		

	

	

	

		
			

			

				

			

		

			


				

					
I'll admit there is a certain appealing poetry to ending the immigration debate by offering Democrats a compromise that is front-loaded to what MAGA wants, and then ruthlessly stiffing them on the back end.


				

				

						

							

								
							

						


						
					

				
			


			

	


			
			
				

			
		

	






		

			
			
				Wellness Wednesday for June 11, 2025
			
		

	

	

	

		
			

			

				

			

		

			


				

					
Yes, the happy chemicals after picking up the heavy things or covering a long distance makes me happy.  The heavy things also have numbers on them, and if you keep doing it, you can watch the numbers go up.


				

				

						

							

								
							

						


						
					

				
			


			

	


			
			
				

			
		

	






		

			
			
				Culture War Roundup for the week of June 9, 2025
			
		

	

	

	

		
			

			

				

			

		

			


				

					


Shame we'll never know because Trump backed off




We can't really say that based on this.  Total number of hotel and farmworkers in the US is around 4 million.  Even if they're all illegals, there's 20+ million illegals in the US, and some estimates put the number much higher.  "Target that group last" is very different from just giving up altogether.


				

				

						

							

								
							

						


						
					

				
			


			

	


			
			
				

			
		

	






		

			
			
				Culture War Roundup for the week of June 9, 2025
			
		

	

	

	

		
			

			

				

			

		

			


				

					
If food spending goes up by $300 per year, the media will have an amazingly hypocritical freakout about it.  But if, at the same time, rents drop by 10%, ER wait times go down, and many common areas feel less crowded by people who don't share a common culture or language, I think the American people would be quite happy with the outcome.


				

				

						

							

								
							

						


						
					

				
			


			

	


			
			
				

			
		

	






		

			
			
				Culture War Roundup for the week of June 9, 2025
			
		

	

	

	

		
			

			

				

			

		

			


				

					
I live near a popular tourist area, and we get flooded with Eastern European's on guest worker visas every summer.  The jobs are in hospitality, which isn't that much more productive than farm work, if it is at all.