JeSuisCharlie
Sumner, Hebdo, Kirk
Some times Charlie was in the trees.
User ID: 4009
in a material world, which is what most of our society lives in...
That is one of the core points of disagreement is it not?
You say pain and suffering are variables that must be minimized or eliminated, and I say that this attitude is dysgenic and fundamentally incompatible with human flourishing.
Neuroticism, extremely short time-preferences, hyper-feminization, lack of emotional regulation, pre-occupation with one's own validation/gratification. These are not healthy qualities to have in a partner but they are endemic (and often celebrated) within the liberal striver class because they are the qualities celebrated and promoted by the philosophies of "Emancipation", "Self Actualization", Etc...
JeSuisCharlie
Sumner, Hebdo, Kirk
15d ago
I think it is extremely pertinent.
There is a common assumption here on theMotte that a high verbal IQ is a direct proxy for knowledge, competence, virtue, grit, etc... and it is that assumption that I am challenging.
See @HereAndGone2's comment on "midwits" down thread.
JeSuisCharlie
Sumner, Hebdo, Kirk
15d ago
That is one of my favorites as well.
The recent Southport riots have shown that a lot of people just aren't that competent at rioting,
Please define "competent at rioting"?
by what metrics are we judging a rioter's proficiency? Property damage? Amount of favorable press coverage?
Do you believe that the median Silicon Valley Tech-Bro has a higher IQ than the median 19th century Tommy? If so, do you believe that if the historical defenders were to be magically replaced with a randomly selected band of tech-bros, that the tech-bros would perform better than the Tommys did?
JeSuisCharlie
Sumner, Hebdo, Kirk
20d ago
It is good that we have been able to speak plainly.
And this is where Friedman and his disciples would point out that "the myth" is true. There is a very real sense in wich being willing to die does in fact make make you free. Someone can put a gun to your head but they can't make you do anything if you are sincerely prepared to eat that bullet.
"To every man upon this earth.
Death cometh soon or late.
And how can man die better.
Than facing fearful odds,
For the ashes of his fathers,
And the temples of his Gods."
Nor would i say the right is "baffled" so much as we have different reasons and motives.
The point is that a Venn diagram of the most wealthy and influential men in the colonies pre Boston Massacre in 1770 and post Constitutional Convention in 1787 is practically a circle, thier power didn't come from "shooting the British army until they fled back to England" they already had it.
Who is allegedly committing this fraud?
Presumably the same people and organizations who've been benefiting from the redirected funds.
"They prioritised their movement and their vision above that of the governing state"
Except they didn't. As David Friedman and many other Libertarian Scholars are fond of pointing out, the end-result of the American Revolution was not a transfer of power from the King of England to the Continental Congress, but rather a rectification of De Jure (on paper) authority with the reality on the ground.
Given how much Pratt's campaign has focused on the damage caused by the fires and lack of progress in rebuilding, the removal of said damage from google maps and street view has been interpreted by many as Google putting thier finger on the scales in favor of Bass.
For the record, as much as I would love to take credit for the excellent pun/dad-joke, I am not @TequilaMockingbird and everything I said in this post about taking a year off and why I chose to "rejoin" is the absolute truth.
Moldbug is wrong (as he often is) in that he is trying to cram a fundamentally anti-technocratic and anti-materialist ideology into a technocratic materialist frame-work.
Yes, the left defines morality in terms of what what helps the movement, as long as your actions are in service of the movement they are good and just. And that is why they often end up building mountains of skulls.
Moldbug (and yourself it would seem) see the failure of "the right" to follow a similar playbook as proof that they are "stupid" or just "don't understand" when the truth is that they simply have vastly different ideas about from whence power comes, and what constitutes "morality" and "moral authority". If HlynkaCG or David Friedman were still here they would be banging on about Hobbes, and the diverse origins of assorted legal systems, but they aren't, so in their stead I pose to you the following questions...
Why would anyone feel a need to "claim moral authority" when they know for a fact that they already have it?
What value is there in an "Overmind" when every man is an agent in his own right?
Popping the Filter Bubble
Part 1 of what may become an ongoing series
Before @seething_spendcel published their post on the Henry Nowak I had actually started writing a post of my own as it had been easily rank in the top-5 if not top-3 of culture war stories for over a week based on the amount of coverage it was getting yet there had been literally Zero discussion of it here. Now I see @Quantumfreakonomics talking about this being a "Slow news week" and how "The current thing is still Graham Platner" and I am suddenly motivated to bring up another top-3 culture war story that does not appear to have been discussed here.
So let's talk about Spencer Pratt and the Unburning of Pacific Palisades.
For those just joining us Spencer Pratt is an MTV Entertainment executive who got his start in reality TV. He lost his home in the 2025 Palisades fire, and he is currently running for Mayor of Los Angeles. His platform is simple, Karen Bass (the Incumbent) is both corrupt and incompetent. He claims that she has been redirecting funds intended to rebuild the burnt-out neighborhoods to her friends while championing policies that make life worse for ordinary Californians.
Those who pay attention to Right-Wing Twitter are no doubt familiar with the proliferation of AI generated ads like this, and the meme about Spencer Pratt contributing money to his opponent's campaigns so they could run more ads like this.
Anyway the important thing that you need to know is that over the last 6 weeks Pratt has gone from being a complete outsider with a snowball's chance in hell to being neck-and-neck with the incumbent, and then last week just days before the polls officially opened, a miracle occurred Google "Unburned" the Pacific Palisades restoring the Google Maps and Street View to their pre-fire state, now Google claims this is all a mistake but many, myself included, would like to know how imagery that was clearly pre-fire came to be labeled as having been taken in May of 2026. I might have believed a story about having to restore the servers from an old back-up even if the timing was a bit suspicious, but clearly pre-fire imagery being labeled as having been taken in 2026 would seem to go a step further than just "a glitch".
Speaking of "glitches". Californians are famously incompetent when it comes to anything involving voting be it Elections or the Academy Awards, polls in person voting was this Tuesday but with the majority of votes being cast by mail it's unlikely we will have an official result till next week and right-wing tweeters have noticed something interesting...
39.3% vote in…
Karen Bass: 117,579
Spencer Pratt: 86,323
42.4% vote in…
Karen Bass: 130,429
Spencer Pratt: 86,323
0 out off 13,000 votes for Pratt would seem to stretch credulity and Gov. DeSantis is calling Shenanigans
JeSuisCharlie
Sumner, Hebdo, Kirk
21d ago
No, the implication here is that "Trace" the assistant producer described as having helped expose LibsfTikTok, and TracingWoodgrains the motte poster are the same person.
JeSuisCharlie
Sumner, Hebdo, Kirk
22d ago
I'm about 10 years older than you and had courtesy drilled into me from a young age by my parents. I spent the mid 2010s in Silicon Valley where I was also considered a bit of a stick-in-the-mud for using "Sir/Mam" and "Mr./Ms." on a regular basis. Now I reside in "fly-over country" and feel like people would look at me funny if I didn't.
I do not see what genetic diversity has to do with any of this. It seems to me that both you and @2rafa are trying to deflect attention from the real issue.
I think I speak for many on the right when I say that I don't care about the genetic diversity of the subcontinent or what the IQ of the median Sikh is. What I care about is that a young man got stabbed and the police displayed no obligation nor inclination to help him. Everything else is a fucking distraction.
Wrong direction
Indeed. When a scoundrel acts like a scoundrel that's just the way of things. When someone who says they're all about honesty and integrity and then treats honesty and integrity as a chump's game, that is a betrayal of principal.
...and a betrayal is always going to be worse than honest enmity
it didn't happen.
This is the sequence of events as I recall them...
- April 19th 2022: Taylor Lorenz "unmasks" LibsofTikTok in the Washington Post
- April 23rd 2022: Blocked and Reported Ep 111: "Let's Talk About How People Are Talking About Libs of TikTok"
- April 25th 2022: TWG posts "How fake news happens"
- April 29th 2022: Blocked and Reported Ep 112: "How Our Assistant Producer Exposed Libs of TikTok"
JeSuisCharlie
Sumner, Hebdo, Kirk
22d ago
The ones without power don't matter.
You are not beating the "might makes right" allegations here
Maybe I'm just some backwater degenerate who's not plugged into modern norms, but using your "Sir"s and "Mam"s is not "degrading" it's basic courtesy.
If you think keep your hands visible, voice neutral, and movements slow and deliberate is "so degrading to the non-police person that many self-respecting people simply cannot manage to engage in them" I think it stands to reason that you are part of the problem.
Too bad I beat you to the punch! You had a lot of good links there
Don't worry about it.
I was actually in the process of writing a post on this story myself as I was genuinely surprised when a search for "Henry Nowak" turned up nothing given how throughly this story has dominated the right-wing/MAGA media space for the last week.
Here are some of the links I had collected for the post i was writing:
- Nowak's Father addressing the crowd
- Mostly Peaceful Protests
- Vickrum Digwa’s family ‘deeply sorry’ to Henry Nowak’s relatives - but warn his murder should not ‘inflame division’
- Labour MPs defend race-based policing
- How Racialist politics is poisoning Britain
- the body-cam footage (Note: UK outlet so may get taken down)
For me the most disturbing thing is how the cops are just chatting amicably with each other the whole time. No apperant concern for the man coughing up blood, no attempt to assess his injuries or render first aid, no call for back-up or an ambulance, just 2.5 minutes of casually watching an 18 year-old gurgle and choke on his own blood like this is just another day at the office.
It's sad that I need to keep pointing this out, but again it's not about skin-color it's about whether you present as belonging/being a member of the culture.
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