Jim
3mo ago
I get your point. At the same time, it’s hard to imagine any Democrat pol would’ve been able to make “Drumpf” stick no matter how many times he repeated it.
Jim
4mo ago
The european mind cannot comprehend this
Jim
4mo ago
That’s illegal, in the US and elsewhere.
I’m gonna need a citation on this one … if this were true then it seems by definition the little ads atop my search results advertising — you guessed it, TVs — would also be illegal. Yet there they are.
Jim
5mo ago
When they’re not discussing political programs they have a lot of the same takes or bugbears with popular ‘liberal’ or ‘mainstream’ culture (marvel, games, funkopops, consoomerism etc).
I wouldn’t really say “same takes” so much as inverted or mirror images.
E.g., with all those you’ve got one side — the left in case of these specific examples — with almost a parody level enthusiasm for marvel/funkopops/etc and the other side with some over the top curmudgeonly hatred for some harmless hobby (in this case literally plastic trinkets).
It goes the other way as well. There’s no shortage of ultimately harmless right coded interests/products — NASCAR, bodybuilding, country music, etc — that seem to get treated like punching bags for the left.
Jim
5mo ago
he even follows @cremieuxrecueil
Who the hell is this and why is he significant?
If someone like myself — by all accounts an “extremely online” person compared to your typical man in the street — does not know a thing much less heard of this person/thing then it’s pretty much a given that any scandalous association you seem to think this implies won’t amount to anything with your typical reality TV addicted swing voter (i.e., the ones who ultimately swing elections one way or the other).
Jim
5mo ago
Kirk realizes that if Elon and Tucker are the bellwethers of post-Covid conservativism
Tucker sure, but fwiw I’ve never been convinced that Elon genuinely views himself as part of “conservativism” or even more broadly “the right”.
I would agree there’s been some definite shift in his public persona, where he seems to have pivoted from the “real life Tony Stark” to an almost parody level Chud Inc. persona. My best guess and working theory here is the shift is more social than political. As it nearly coincides with his move Texas and when he first started appearing on Joe Rogan, displaying a public interest in firearms, smokers, and all the other stereotypical interests of a Texas Chud type person r rather than a Silicon Valley scion.
Jim
5mo ago
Hmm, I think the site may just put it like that for mega threads. I don’t seem to have the option to edit it.
Jim
5mo ago
Just created it since it seems like no one else did: https://www.themotte.org/post/757/israel-gaza-megathread-iv
Jim
6mo ago
This is meaningless though without the accounting for the political leanings of where Jews happen to live. I’m willing to bet if you the average Jew was no more democrat leaning than the median voter in his county, you’d still come away with Jews, measured at the national level, leaning democrat. But normalize for the political leanings of where Jews live and I guarantee you’d see a very different picture.
Jim
6mo ago
They'll more likely support Hamas than Republicans, exceptions like Kushner aside.
As a Jewish man, i can’t even begin to describe how misinformed this is. Believe you me, we are the furthest thing from a monolith, with the quirky Larry David-esque stereotype being but a minuscule sliver of the diversity of the American Jewish community.
Consider this: just today in my random internet readings, I’ve come across Jewish opinion running the full gamut: from far-right hawks like Ben Shapiro, to stereotypical campus, progressives, academic leftists, deeply religious orthodox and pickup-driving gun toting southerners. We are all of that and more, plus everything in between.
Jim
6mo ago
Are the pure native Australians able to speak in languages in a fully fluent way?
Jim
6mo ago
How is it safe for Biden to visit Israel with a war raging next door? Like he’s got what, 100 secret service with him at a given time? Or maybe it’s even 500, I dunno. But I assume he’s not bringing tanks, mounted guns, and all that good stuff.
What is stopping like Hamas/Iran/Al Qaeda from saying “here’s our chance” and throwing everything last thing they’ve got and going after him? Is it just the host county, Israel in this case, is responsible for security, and must I assume go to great lengths with a US president in town?
Jim
6mo ago
Why doesn’t Israel just blow up the wall on the Eygpt border so all the Gazans can flee there?
Jim
6mo ago
my looks/dress probably code me as a westernized urban progressive as well so this doesn't mean they were so
Can you unpack what this dichotomy between your “looks/dress” and what you actually are? Like are too a BAP/DR chud type with blue hair or something?
Don’t mean to interrogate you or anything, I’m just genuinely curious.
Jim
7mo ago
universally mocked book
What the hell are you talking about? It literally won the Pulitzer Prize…
Jim
7mo ago
I feel like in the post Gun Germs and Steel world, that any civilizational thesis of this scale that doesn’t grapple with the enormous consequences of climate, access to resources and diseases is intrinsically weak.
Jim
7mo ago
This actually gets at how I personally define “IQ”, which is the physical level at of detail at which a being understands reality. In this sense, there is a theoretical — and arguably practical — upper bound on intelligence, where a being understands all of reality across all time — that is, the position of every atom in the universe across every temporal dimension.
I have no doubt in the near future we will have AIs which achieve a significant portion of this — the ability to perceive and manipulate reality at the atomic level across a substantial — say, galaxy sized — slice of the universe. In practice these would be indistinguishable from magic to someone alive today. You could just say “get me a beer” to the AI, it would instantly assemble atoms into a glass (ice cold with frost on it) filled with atoms assembled as freshly brewed beer.
Jim
7mo ago
That’s because these guys aren’t Twitter dissident right, they’re much lower brow working class types, some veterans, some ex-cons, some both
This doesn’t line up with my personal experiences with the types you’re talking about: the kinds of low brow toughs you’re talking about are far too disengaged from politics and history to even really understand what it means to have an ideology, let alone one imported from a regime that hasn’t even existed for 70 years.
Not to say these types can’t be every bit as provocative and antagonistic as actual Nazis. But it would almost always take the form of low level reactive aggression; think randomly attacking a brown guy “cuz we don’t like dem coloreds round here” rather than an ideology an actual fascist transported from 1930s Europe would recognize.
Jim
8mo ago
Well regardless, there’s at most hundreds or let’s even say thousands. Like, there are major cities with 10 times as many police officers. And all tacticool swat team style weapons, armored vehicles, etc.
Jim
8mo ago
If he won, he'd pardon himself from federal charges and order the secret service to physically prevent his arrest
Surely the Secret Service cannot lawfully follow orders to break they law. They are after all a law enforcement wing and sworn to uphold the law above all else. I can’t imagine there not being something explicit like “if the president orders you to break the law you must refuse”.
And putting all that aside for a moment: the Secret Service are, what, several dozen guys in suits with handguns? If a state police force truly wants to arrest Trump I don’t think trying to “physically prevent” it would end well for the Secret Service.
Jim
10mo ago
“Wagner” was apparently the call sign of Dmitry Utkin, the founder of the group, while in the Russian special forces:
Utkin, who reportedly has a passion for the history of the Third Reich, had the call-sign Wagner, allegedly in honour of Richard Wagner.
Jim
1yr ago
I hate that society has been gaslit, into thinking that there is some aspect of our mutual humanity that is served by cracking down on the police doing their job as the biggest gang in town.
Here’s the problem and here’s why it’s not “gasliting”: the second you give police free reign to “crack down” on “actual scum” is the second where the definition of “actual scum” evolves to mean anyone who is politically undesirable for those in power. In other words, straight up authoritarian tyranny. Dangerous path that.
How do you explain the entire history of the failed War on Drugs, which seems to contradicts this?
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