LacklustreFriend
37 Pieces of Flair Minimum
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User ID: 657
LacklustreFriend
37 Pieces of Flair Minimum
1yr ago
It does feel like an increasing amount of Western economies are just build on rent seeking and extraction of wealth produced elsewhere rather than producing wealth themselves.
Story Continued
The major theme in Wasteland 3 is about compromising on values to achieve your goals. It is true of the Patriarch, ruling Colorado with an iron fist despite false promises of elections and appeals to pre-War America, signing a secret deal with raider gangs to leave Colorado Springs alone in exchange for giving them supplies and slaves. Angela Deth does this, she goes AWOL and commits treason against to the Rangers to bring down an unjust tyrant, to the point she is even willing to free and work with a leader of a slaver gang (betraying the Ranger good guy ethos), if indirectly, to bring down the Patriarch. You as the Player Rangers, have to make plenty of compromises which leaves no one happy to get (in my opinion) is the 'best' outcome.
The theme and the story WL3 is trying to tell doesn't work is because the Patriarch is unambiguously the good guy. Here I don't mean unambiguously to mean there's nothing to criticize him for, but rather he is obviously the correct choice, at least morally. The Patriarch basically built/formed Colorado Springs from scratch, the only beacon of real civilisation for anywhere in Colorado. He did defeat many of the raider gangs, but eventually he reached a stalemate and struggled to beat them. So eventually he reached an agreement with the gangs to pay them off to protect Colorado. As presented by the game, this was pretty much the only way to keep Colorado safe. Angela Deth doesn't seem to appreciate that that the Patriarch might actually be a just tyrant rather than an unjust tyrant and he had good reasons to do what he did. This is a (post-)post-apocalyptic world! The Patriarch actually seems like a decent guy otherwise and seems to genuinely care for the people of Colorado. While he obviously doesn't tell you the whole truth, he never actually lies to you and completely upholds honours his deal with you. Ironically, his biggest flaw is probably the fact he allowed his dangerous, crazy children to run free and didn't punish them earlier like he should have when he had the chance, the most human of the flaws, not wanting to punish his children out of fatherly love.
I'm really not sure what the developer intentions were here. I've seen some people try to explain Angela Deth's stupidity by saying that's the point, she's being a Ranger forever, she's become disillusioned and radicalized. I really don't think that was the intent, and I think the intent was really genuine attempt to portray some deep tale of grey morality that just falls flat. I think Angela Deth wasn't meant to be an disillusioned idiot is further evidenced by the "best" ending of the game, where you overthrow the Patriarch peacefully (rather than violently), which you do pretty unapologetically to the Patriarch (you get no choice), which seems to completely vindicate Deth. I think this is just a case of bad writing.
This is really compounded by the fact you are offered virtually zero opportunity to interrogate the Patriarch or Deth or any other major character about their beliefs and philosophy, you really have to try and just piece it together and justify it in your head. Even at the end of the game, where you meet Death and/or the Patriarch at the end of the game before you clash, there is no real examination of the characters and their beliefs. The conversation lasts five seconds and you even just pass a shitty speech check for them to stand down just because to skip the fight. To make a direct comparison with Fallout: NV, which Wasteland shares DNA with, you get multiple opportunities to talk in quite some detail with each of the major factions and their representatives and their justification. Even at the end of the game, where you can use a speech check to 'defeat' your enemies (e.g. Lanius), FNV doesn't just have some generic 'surrender please' dialogue, but puts serious effort into actually justifying how you convince the factions and it relates to their circumstance. The last section of WL3 does seem rushed and incomplete, and I wonder if it was their intention to flesh it out more.
I know it's perhaps unfair to WL3 to compare it to FNV, but WL3 is emblematic of what as I see as a growing negative trend in video game stories. The writers will raise some complex themes or ideas in their story, fail to or only superficially engage with those ideas, and then conclude like they've said something meaningful. It seems like they think that merely raising these ideas is good enough on its own. It's like the writers think they have to deconstruct their own story and characters (because they're overeducated hacks who were taught to do that in writing school), but don't actually have the writing chops or philosophical depth to anything interesting with it. The writers routinely fail to imagine living in post-apocalyptic society like Wasteland's would actually like. They're stuck in a presentist mindset where I think they just take things like 'Patriarch = despot, despot = bad' for granted because it appeals to modern sensibilities, even if such a moral judgement doesn't make sense in context of the world. I would rather they just stick to simple good vs evil stories rather that have the pretence of moral complexity without actually doing the work.
Another thing that I found really annoying was the portrayal of (true) AI/'synths' in Wasteland 3. As far as I know (mostly reading the wiki), prior to Wasteland 3, AI and synths were unambiguously evil, and the primary antagonists of the game. All the synths were created by the Cochise AI, an evil genocidal AI. Wasteland 3 I guess tried to change this I guess because there's numerous friendly AI/synth you come across in Wasteland 3. It feels incredibly jarring, because synths are meant to be the mortal enemy of the Rangers, and some dialogue reflects this, but they also seem to be going really hard on trying to get you to empathize with the synths. I've seen it suggested that this is deliberately done to try and create some moral ambiguity, or complexity. Maybe the synths are just pretending to be good to get the human's trust! Again, I don't buy it. In the endings where you help the synths/AI it's portrayed as unambiguously positive. It's just so jarring.
Other characters aren't really developed either, Liberty, who is presented as interesting character and antagonist, you only have two very brief conversations with which don't say much. All the companions are uninteresting or one-note except for Lucia Wesson, a daughter of an elite family who matures through the game (and her presentation is basically identical that of Mattie Ross in Coens' remake of True Grit), and Ironclad Cordite, the former leader of one of the gangs who has a grudge against the Patriarch and believes his destiny is to become the next Genghis Khan.
Other than that, the writing is just generally wacky, Fallout style dark comedy style of writing which can be pretty good in some parts and in the side quests.
Music
One of the best parts about the games is the music, it's utilized really effectively. During major boss fights or set battles, a really interesting and unusual song will usually play that relates to the circumstances of the battle. Usually this will different-genre cover of a song. For example, the final song of the final DLC plays a country western cover of a old sitcom theme song. The songs are surprising enjoyable, even if I don't really like all the genres that play. I wish more games tried something a bit unorthodox with their soundtrack.
DLC
Quick comment on the two DLC:
Battle for Steeltown - Help the leader of a super advanced factory that supplies all the advanced goods to Colorado resolve issues in her factory. Superficial anti-capitalist commentary with striking workers, and more synth-love. Some new gameplay mechanics. Alright, worth buying on sale.
The Holy Detonation - Help restore an experimental nuclear power plant to power Colorado, the power plant is being worshipped by two warring cults who deliberately radiate and mutate themselves. I guess this is meant to be some 'biting' satire of religious belief 20 years out of date? Has some interesting gameplay ideas, atrocious execution. Not worth buying.
Conclusion
I have criticised Wasteland 3 a lot, especially it's writing, but mostly because it's more enjoyable to criticise than it is to praise. I mostly enjoyed my experience with Wasteland 3, even if it was frustrating at times. It's a competent game that gets the basics right, but is otherwise pretty unremarkable. I would recommend it to anyone who likes tactical RPGs and is looking for some time to kill.
LacklustreFriend
37 Pieces of Flair Minimum
1yr ago
And Karl Marx was an bourgeois wannabe who lived on handouts from his parents and Engels and never worked a day of real labour in his life. And neither was he able to fully articulate what the ideal communist state would look like.
Just because their personal lives don't perfectly reflect their stated ideological preferences doesn't mean their preferences aren't real or don't resonate with a lot of people.
LacklustreFriend
37 Pieces of Flair Minimum
1yr ago
How do men benefit more from marriage and what research are you referring to?
Keeping in mind that men are uniquely screwed over by divorce/family courts and that ~80% of divorces are intiated by women (of the top of my head).
LacklustreFriend
37 Pieces of Flair Minimum
1yr ago
Yeah except this falls apart when men aren't also allowed to improve and be given a second chance. Because a significant portion of men, probably a majority, will fail this torturous mind game at some point. This level of sabotage against men leaves only a small portion of successful men. This is how you end up with the implicit polygynyous relationships of today.
The deck is completely stacked against (young) men now. In the past, there were social conventions and explicit courtship rituals even a social inept but otherwise good man could follow and be reasonably successful. Now it's the wild west, men have no idea that there are no rules, no guidance, the publicly acceptable advice is sabotaging you and you don't even know it, you as a young man assume all the social risk and put at the mercy of a woman's reaction who can utterly destroy you. This is not a stable arrangement.
This arrangement isn't even good for women in the long run either, because it sabotages the formation of long-term stable relationships which both men and women benefit from.
I agree with this advice.
From my own experience, you can mostly disregard the calls for woke signaling as long as you do not do it overtly at all. Do not explicitly disagree with anyone on woke-related issues (it can end REALLY badly if you do, keep your mouth shut and know when to pick your battles), just simply ignore their requests. If it comes to it, feign ignorance but never follow through with their requests. You can just ignore the email telling you to use pronouns and just don't put them in your email. Specifically in my case in Australia, I also avoid putting any 'Acknowledgement of Country' in any of my work as much as I can get away with.
You do have to be careful around true believers, who will notice your lack of participation and will try to ostracize you, and you might not even realize it. It probably heavily depends on your specific context, but just avoid them at all costs.
The plus side of this strategy is that fellow covert conscientious dissenters will likely notice your lack of participation and will hopefully network with you.
The Life and Suffering of Sir Brante Review
My previous game reviews on the Motte:
A (somewhat) short review for a short, but compelling game. I will try to avoid major spoilers because this is a game I can easily recommend, at a relatively low playtime with a relatively low price, especially on sale.
The Life and Suffering of Sir Brante is a text-based adventure game, where guide the life of our titular character, Sir Brante, from birth to death (or at least late adulthood). It might be more accurate to call the game an interactive novel, or more in the vain of adventure gamebooks (but no combat). Player reads about an event in Sir Brante’s life, and the player makes a choice for how Brante’s life will progress, some of which have more serious impacts than others. The game is obviously very reading heavy, though there are some nice illustrations too.
The game is set in the fictional Arknian Empire, a low-fantasy word that is roughly analogous to late 18th Century Europe in terms of technological and social development. The Arknian Empire has an extremely rigid, oppressive and perhaps actually divinely ordained social system – the “Lots”. The Noble, Priest and Commoner Lots. It’s an extreme form of feudal hierarchy, where commoners are abused and exploited by their social superiors, perhaps far more than happened in our real world. You play as Sir Brante, the commoner son of noble father and a commoner mother. Your father was born a commoner and earned his nobility through service to the empire (“Noble of the Mantle”), and not by blood or hereditary rights (“Noble of the Sword”), so the nobility is not granted to you. So Brante occupies a liminal space in society, not a noble, nor a lowly commoner, at a time of great social upheaval within the Arknian Empire (again, analogous to late 18th and early 19th century Europe). Stop here and play the game if this sounds interesting to you! Some spoilers ahead.
What The Life and Suffering of Sir Brante does exceptionally well is create an incredibly believable world and honestly is one of the best portrayals of social upheaval (and revolution...?) in a fictional setting. It highlights the moral complexities of reform and revolution. There are shades of grey everywhere – oppressor nobles, nobles supporting tradition as the believe stability is critical, nobles supporting reform, devout commoners supporting the social order, humanistic commoner revolutionaries, brutal, murderous commoner revolutionaries, the Church is undergoing a theological schism. The game also raises some other interesting themes and questions – destiny, family, duty, religion and many others. Just to give one example of how clever the writing can be in this game, the most powerful noble families (including the Emperor) in the Arknian Empire are not human but are Arknians, who are more or less light blue skinned “human” nobles of great beauty who are treated with the utmost respect and deference by all humans. It’s deliberately left ambiguous about the relationship between Arknians and humans, it’s possible (if not likely) that the Arknians are in fact humans, who are blue-skinned by virtue of extreme selective breeding/endogamy, and maybe more beautiful, smarter and stronger than 'regular' humans only because of access to superior education, medicine etc. I found this to be a pretty clever commentary on real world nobility, and high-status class more generally – the Arknians may or may not be humans, but what’s important is that the commonfolk and even the lesser nobles believe in the natural, perhaps even divine superiority of the Arknians over humans.
I think another brilliant element of the writing is how it draws you into the game’s universe. You play as Brante from baby, and you learn about the world along with him as he grows up, slowly getting fed titbits of information about the world and forming a coherent picture in your mind. As Brante forms relationships with his family as he grows, so will you get attached to them. This makes it all the more heart wrenching when the suffering does happen. The Brante family does struggle and suffer throughout the game, as the title promises. I’ll admit that I teared up a couple times playing the game.
The story has some strong parallels to real world historical events, including the Protestant Reformation, the French Revolution, the Russian Revolution (the developers are Russian), and generally is critical about all kinds of ideology, radical and traditional. However, I think the game’s writing ultimately leans towards a Burkeian conservative gradual reform position ideologically, where the best outcomes and endings seem to arise from approaching the political issues in the game this way. This doesn’t significantly detract from the political commentary and critique the writing offers overall, though. The game also has a surprisingly Christian message or at least mentality that I think might go over some players’ heads – the Christian part specifically, not the religious themes in general. It’s hard to comment on this without getting to major spoilers, I will just say there is an implication that the societal problems within the game are at least partially derived from the fact the in-universe religion is basically an incomplete Christianity – Christianity missing some key features.
Unfortunately, like many story-driven choice-based RPGs, the game does fall apart a bit in the last third of the game, particularly in the last act, as the writers struggle under the weight of all the choices they have to account for. Some of the choices only have real impact on certain paths. The final act feels far too short for the events that it’s portraying, the choices and stats you need to get certain endings are maybe a bit unfair and I left feeling a bit unsatisfied. Still, this is a relatively small blemish on an otherwise excellently written game. The draw of the game I think not really having an “ending” per se, but this peephole it gives you into this highly believable if sometimes fantastical world.
I strongly recommend The Life and Suffering of Sir Brante to any one who likes text/reading heavy games or interactive novels. The game is relatively short, maybe a few hours long for your first playthrough if you’re not someone who agonizes over choices/restarts RPGs frequently like me. There are three main paths to play in the game, each with their own narrative arc for replayability, though the paths do converge towards the very end of the game.
LacklustreFriend
37 Pieces of Flair Minimum
1yr ago
but their current solution is probably something like a dead-simple "no divorce allowed" stance.
How many prominent conservatives (particularly politicans) openly advocate for getting rid of no-fault divorce?
If you marry your ideology to claims that animals aren't sapient, are stupid, are incapable of reason, aren't conscious, you're... well I think you're just already wrong based on things I've seen animals do in life and studies.
Those things are true. Animals aren't capable of reason, they aren't sapient (which is distinct from sentience). Animals are incapable of making moral judgements, asking and dealing with abstract concepts.
Like sure, a crow can pick up a stick and use it get some food from a puzzle box. That doesn't make the crow capable of reason.
There has been I think general push to present animals as capable of human like reason, to the point of fraudulent science. Infamously Koko the sign language-using gorilla's abilities were highly misrepresented to the point of fraud. Even our nearest, smartest primate cousins are incapable of human reason. They can't learn grammar, they can't understand abstract concepts, no matter how much researchs tried to make it appear so.
In some sense I would say your argument has an even less stable intellectual foundation. It's basically 'humans have power over animals, so whatever we say goes'. This argument is just weak as as if you were apply it to humans - "justice is the advantage of the stronger" or "might makes right".
R.G. Collingwood and the Idea of Historical Progress
Every so often a discussion about the nature of progress, why society seems to trend ‘leftwards’ or similar teleologically related questions. In the past I have given my own answer to such a question. However, I recently came across the book the Idea of History by historian and philosopher of history R.G. Collingwood, one of the more interesting philosophies and theories of history and what it means or if it is even possible for society to ‘progress’. But first, some context.
R.G. Collingwood was a British historian and philosopher of history during the early 20th century (I will admittedly simplifying his ideas here for brevity). Collingwood was a major and influential figure in neo-idealist or British idealist movement. The neo-idealists, as idealists, believe that human actions and events, and therefore history, is driven by human thought, ideas, or reason. This is contrasted with materialist or naturalists who aim to explain human action and history through laws or law-like processes, the classic example being Marxist historiography. Collingwood believes the analogy between human history and natural processes is wrong. For this reason, Collingwood history proper is the study of human thought, ideas or reason over time. Natural history (e.g. geological history) is not true history, because it is driven by natural processes and laws. It is no more history than a mathematical equation or scientific theory is history.
The neo-idealists could broadly be described Hegelian but deviate or disagree with Hegel’s philosophy of history in several ways. Collingwood, like Hegel, was a historicist – that all human culture or nature is contingent on its historical period, and therefore all historical events are unique. This lends itself towards a kind of historical moral subjectivism, though I would argue in Collingwood’s case it is a weak form of subjectivism. According to Collingwood, as part of truly understanding history, one must attempt to inhabit or relive the experience of historical figures to understand them. To understand Caesar and crossing of the Rubicon, we must put ourselves in Caesar’s shoes. But we can still understand empathise and reason as those figures did (at least to some degree) and make judgements about their behaviour relative to their context, hence ‘weak’ subjectivism.
Collingwood’s best-known work is The Idea of History in which the majority is dedicated to how the idea of history has developed across time, from Thucydides to Collingwood’s fellow neo-idealist contemporaries like Croce and Oakeshott. Essentially, a history of history. However, I admit I have not read much of this part of the book. It is the final third of the book (the “Epilegomena”) which I found most interesting, in which Collingwood explains his philosophy and theory of history, including in which he addresses “Progress as created by Historical Thinking”.
Collingwood denies the existence of historical progress, primarily by his argument that historical progress is not a natural process. He argues that the belief in historical progress arose out of this false analogy to natural progress (particularly natural evolution). It is here where Collingwood deviates from and contradicts Hegel and earlier idealists the strongest. Collingwood does not believe in a teleology of human history - that human history is leading or progressing towards something. However, human thought still changes and develops (and thus history occurs) over time. Collingwood believes it improper to conceptualize history as a whole as progressing because it is impossible to evaluate a historical period as a whole. This is for both practical and philosophical reasons – the historian can never have complete data to truly recreate (relive) the entire historical period, and even if the historian did have enough data, he will be unable to truly grasp the historical period as a whole. Collingwood provides the example of Christianity being ‘progress’ on Roman paganism – such an evaluation would require us to understand the entire internal religious experience of the Romans, which is inaccessible to us, even if we have a robust understanding of their rites and myths.
Collingwood does believe that progress can occur, however. For Collingwood, progress can only ever occur within a limited field or scope. Progress occurs when a change occurs to solve a problem with no loss of the essence of the original. As Collingwood puts it:
If thought in its first phase, after solving the initial problems of that phase, is then, through solving these, brought up against others which defeat it; and if the second solves these further problems without losing its hold on the solution of the first, so that there is gain without any corresponding loss, then there is progress.
This is essentially a form of the Hegelian dialectic. A thought is formed – thesis. It has problems – antithesis. The problems are solved while preserving the essence of the original thought – synthesis. An example of where Collingwood believes progress can occur is progress in science. We can say Einstein is progress on Newton because Einstein is able to solve the problems of Newtonian mechanics while retaining its essence. It is appropriate to say that Aristotle provides progress on Plato so far as Aristotle resolves problems within Platonic philosophy, but it would be inappropriate to say that it is progress when Aristotle rejects Platonic philosophy. We can apply this idea of progress to other fields, e.g. economics, law, morality etc. - A new precedent in common law for a previously unresolved issue is progress, but we cannot say whether the idea of common law itself represents progress from other systems of law.
What does this mean for us online who constantly argue about the nature of progress? I’m not really sure but I think it might be wise to keep this dual notion of progress in mind. That progress can and will occur within a certain part of history and society but it cannot progress (or be said to progress) as a whole. That Cthulhu does indeed swim leftwards, but only within a given scope. A Liberal society will continue to solve problems within its society and progressively become ‘more liberal’ until the liberal period ends, after which we cannot tell which way he swims from our perspective.
If you want to hear some more about Collingwood’s philosophy of history and clarify my butchered attempt to summarize it, I recommend this video lecture which got me to read Collingwood in the first place. The Idea of History is also available on the Internet Archive to read.
I recently visited our nation's great capital, Canberra. While I was there, I did some the of typically touristy things. It's not the first time I have been Canberra, though it's hard to tell how much has changed with Canberra and how much has changed with myself and how I perceive things with culture war overtones being imbedded in my mind. But regardless, my perception was that broadly speaking left-wing politics dominates even in what is ostensibly non-partisan, politically neutral public institutions.
Firstly, there was the National Gallery of Australia. Frankly, I think the NGA is a pretty piss-poor gallery overall. It's international and pre-modern (pre-1800) collections is almost laughably bad for what is apparently Australia's highest public gallery. Outside of a couple of notable pieces, such as a couple of Monets and the infamous Blue Poles by Pollock, there is very little of interest. There were a lot of (post)modern pieces which I found atrocious (I probably don't have to go into a rant about why postmodern art sucks here), the worst offender being a piece that was literally just a square canvas planted black. That's it. The lack of a good international and historical collection is at least somewhat understandable because the NGA is a very young gallery by international standards, and (I imagine) it's pretty hard to build up a great collection especially with a relatively small budget. But even compared to other Australian galleries such as the National Gallery of Victoria and especially the American great galleries which I have had the pleasure of visiting- as unfair as the comparison to the Met or the National Gallery of Art might be - the National Gallery of Australia falls short.
The NGA's strength is naturally it's very large and extensive Australian art collection, including artists ranging from Arthur Streeton (and other Australian Impressionists) to Sidney Nolan to more contemporary artists that I or most people couldn't give two shits about. But the Australian collection is where some of the 'woke' influence was most apparent, on the descriptions of the works of art. Every single piece of Australian art had to have its 'indigenous' name of the location prefaced before the actual common name, regardless of how (ir)relevant it is to the actual artwork. So every piece of artwork created in Melbourne was labelled as 'Naarm/Melbourne'. In addition, there would often be huge non-sequiturs at the end of an artwork's description to insert some connection to Indigenous peoples. For example, it would describe the artist's personal history, how they ended up painting that specific painting, etc, only for the last sentences to abruptly talk mention the local Indigenous group and their connection to the area (bonus points if they mention how it was then taken over by English settlers). This also happened to a lesser extent in some of the other landmarks I visited. There is a lot of this general handwringing over Indigenous issues that has become pervasive in Australia and the Anglosphere more broadly. Now, one might argue that the NGA is simply catering to its dominant audience - the leftwing 'intelligentsia' who both dominate in the art world and the kind of person who would bother to visit an art gallery in the first place. But honestly this isn't good enough to me. The NGA is meant to be a national gallery for all Australians, and should be making a conscious effort to make themselves approachable for the general Australian public.
Next, we have Old Parliament House, now home to the Museum of Australian Democracy. It's honestly a pretty interesting museum, more than its name would suggest. However, there is a pretty stark contrast between the newer and rotating exhibits and the older, permanent exhibits. The older exhibits mainly aim to preserve and present Old Parliament House as it was in 1988 when the Australian government moved to (New) Parliament House (it's pretty awesome), and explain how Australian democracy works more generally. It's pretty politically impartial. The newer exhibits have an implicit left-liberal political ideology in their presentation that might be hard for the casual viewer to realise. It's not just being unabashedly pro-Australian democracy which it understandably is. The more charitable explanation is that the Museum is taking an implicitly teleological view of Australian democracy - all the historical events in Australia's political history led up to the political system we have today, and current Australian democracy is good (it's literally the point of the Museum) therefore all those events were necessary if not good (Gillard's 'misogyny speech', gay marriage plebiscite and and historical political protests generally so on are all presented positively and uncritically). This charitable interpretation really falls apart when you consider what is lacking in the exhibitions and what the counterfactual would be. There was no real rightwing political victories presented and definitely not presented positively, such as Abbott's 'Stop the Boats' campaign (Operation Sovereign Borders) which despite its poor reputation was quite popular with the general population and more-or-less remains the basis of both Labor and Liberal's policy towards asylum seekers/refugees/boat people to this day. It's also hard to imagine that if the gay marriage plebiscite had failed, there would be a exhibition celebrating this as a triumph of Australian democracy like there currently is one celebrating its success (ironic given that many pro-gay marriage advocates initially opposed the plebiscite before they got the results). it was occasionally less subtle with its bias, like an exhibit on Australian Prime Ministers ending with 'Who is Next' and showing a drawing a Muslim woman, an Asian woman and an Aboriginal man, and some shibboleths about 'all Australians from all cultural backgrounds'.
Lastly, I'll talk Parliament House itself. Of all the landmarks visited, Parliament House thankfully (and perhaps somewhat ironically) most apolitical (or politically neutral might be more accurate) presentation, other than the obvious stance of Westminster pro-liberal democracy. As an active political institution which contains Members of Parliament and Senators that may actively support or opposite any given political issue, greater care must have been places to present everything as politically neutral. This is probably aided by the fact that the number of public exhibits is relatively small, given that its primary role is actually a working institution and not a museum, and the main draw for the tourist or member of public is going to see the the House and Senate Chambers. Visiting Parliament House did make me realise an interesting statistic, however due to the obligatory 'Women in Parliament' mini-exhibit. Less than one-third of House of Representatives are women, yet over half of the Senate are women. A pretty notable discrepancy, which I would suggest may be caused by the fact Senators are usually selected by intraparty politics (and thus the agenda to promote female politicians) while seats in the House of Representatives are far more competitive.
To end of a positive note, here is where I make declare my love for Australian democracy. Australian Parliament House represents the best of Australian democracy. The architectural design is fantastic, with lots of open space and big sweeping boomerang wings that feel inviting. It open and accessible to the public, and you can pretty wander around much the building (not counting offices) unescorted. It really does feel like there Parliament is there to serve the Australian public. Sorry to bash our American cousins, but in stark contrast when I visited Congress you had to book a tour, and had to be escorted around the entire time. I understand that security may be a bigger concern for you Americans, but the ability to more-or-less freely walk around the most important political body is the prime example of why I love and appreciate Australian democracy.
LacklustreFriend
37 Pieces of Flair Minimum
3mo ago
Probably because the US has a need for Israel in the Middle East as basically the best army in the region. Perhaps not 100% capable of paying for their own bombs but extremely capable at using those bombs to modern military standards.
This seems like a bit of circular reasoning. The US support Israel because it has the best army in the region. Why does US need to support Israel? Because the Arabs (generally) hate the US and the US need geopolitical support in the region. Why do the Arabs hate the US? Because the US supports Israel.
Additionally, the US actually gets very little from Israel. Israel fragrantly acts against US interests and ignores US calls all the time. Even the most milquetoast request from the US to Israel to maybe tone it down just a bit is just blatantly ignored. Israel demands the US intervene on its behalf all the time but rarely reciprocates. Prior to post-WW2, the Americans were actually seen very favorably by the Arabs.
LacklustreFriend
37 Pieces of Flair Minimum
10mo ago
I guess moving theMotte off Reddit has proven itself more and more to be a good decision
Other commentors have made some good rebuttals but there's an obvious one missing:
The vast, vast majority of people do cannot or could not be bothered putting this much effort into nutrition. You are obviously an outlier, being an amateur athlete who seems to get some enjoyment out of monitoring your nutrition needs like a hawk. Most people cannot or do not want to do this. If you're a 'casual vegan' (in that you just eat vegan and you are not monitoring your food for nutrient content) it is incredibly easy to end up with a vitamin or some other deficiency. I've seen it happen to multiple friends and family who have gone vegan.
It is far, far easier (in fact, it's the norm) to eat a nutritionally complete diet incidentally as a non-vegan. And this is not even considering the mental energy expended on working out whether certain food is vegan in the first place, let alone the nutritional content of said food.
LacklustreFriend
37 Pieces of Flair Minimum
1yr ago
Frankly, this has been a long time coming and I think very little has been actually lost.
The stark reality of the liberals arts courses in most Western universities/colleges is that they have been in decline in quality for a long time, and very little is actually being taught in them. I say this from both personal experience and from data. Unless you're lucky enough to have gotten a really engaging and intelligent teacher in the arts (needle in the haystack), most students come away from a liberal arts degree with very little (or in the case of ideological brainwashing, have actually been made worse).
The quality of liberal arts graduates and how little they know is frankly quite shocking. They know little to nothing of the classics, they know nothing of the works of important figures from Socrates all they way up until modern thinkers like Dewey. For many students, they think, or are taught there is nothing of intellectual value prior to the 1970s or so. Rawls is as about as far back and sophisticated they go (well, other than Marx of course, though even this is often through an attenuated way).
I'm not completely sure why this is the case, but I think it's some combination of the postmodern intellectual brainrot that continues to infect the academy and credentialism driving everyone to get degrees (which lowers standards).
If anything, I see the drop-off in student numbers for the liberal arts as a positive development, because hopefully that means the students who do remain actually care about things like philosophy, politics and the humanities generally aren't being held back by being in a larger, stupider cohort, and in time actually will remake the liberal arts degree into something respectable again (unlikely, but a man can dream).
Re: all the "The Motte is not that smart" comments.
As an Australian, I semi-frequently see people say some variation of "Australia is a horribly racist country" in the MSM, social media, in person or elsewhere. While this is often just a leftwing shibboleth, it's said frequently enough even among moderate voices that it has become part of the cultural conciousness.
When I hear this, I often think to myself, "what the hell are you talking about? Australia is an incredibly unracist country by any comparison. It would be hard to find any country less racist than Australia - maybe a couple in Europe or something (although even that's changing very fast) or maybe New Zealand, but that's about it. China? Japan? Brazil? Saudi Arabia? Nigeria? Italy? All more horribly racist than Australia by any meaningful standard.
The real issue is that Australia is not horribly racist (by any relative standard) but that Australia, being a Western liberal democracy among other reasons, is hypersensitive to racism. Whenever any racist incident does occur (and they will always occur to some degree), it blasted accross the media as an example of how bad we all and how much we still have to improve, even if such incidents are relatively rare and unrepresentitive (I'm sure American and Canadian readers can relate). Ironically, it is precisely because Australia is so unracist that we percieve ourselves as racist.
I feel the same way about this bashful comments about the Motte being really not all that smart. Are you crazy? By any reasonable, necessarily relative standard, the Motte is full of very smart people writing interesting posts and comments on a wide range of topics from a very varied perspectives. This is matched by few other places on the internet. Even if people are wrong (and people are often wrong), they're still wrong in the right kind of way, the way that's illuminating like when you argue an absurd postition to its fullest extent just for the hell of it.
And yes, as per the original topic of this thread, the Motte could be more intelligent. Yes, there are hyper-geniuses doing their third PhD in astro-quantum-biomechanical-neuroscience engineering, or whatever else who are not on the Motte and probably don't use the internet all the much. But by any reasonable standard, the Motte is pretty smart. We just are hypersensitive to our own intellectual inferiority specifically because this is a community build around casual intellectualism and full of people smart enough to realise there are people smarter than them who are not the Motte.
LacklustreFriend
37 Pieces of Flair Minimum
1yr ago
They aren't actual aristocrats because Republic of India has abolished any such titles or positions (with a couple minor exceptions). But this is not really that different from many (not all) European countries that abolished all official recognition of nobility or higher status. But the people themselves didn't disappear. And yes, the Brahmins of today are descendants of yesteryear. But the point is that there was no wholesale social upheaval and discontinuity in India elites, at least not to an extreme extent like the Russian or Chinese Revolution, or to be more 'positive' about it, the US where the nation was build completely from scratch.
LacklustreFriend
37 Pieces of Flair Minimum
9mo ago
This response made me laugh so hard (in agreement).
LacklustreFriend
37 Pieces of Flair Minimum
1yr ago
I would love to hear from a Christian a compelling argument for why western civilization owes it such a great debt, but this is just not convincing.
I'm not necessarily defending the post you are replying to, but the influence of Christianity on Western civilisation is so obviously self-evident that it's hard for me to take such a proposition seriously. If anything, the burden on proof should be on the argument that Christianity isn't influential on Western civilisation or doesn't 'owe it such a great debt'. Whatever your opinion of Christianity is as a religion, the reality is that for many centuries (let's say, from 400 to 1800) Christianity was the belief system of virtually all 'Westerners' (Europeans). Even post-1800 which I'm demarcating as the point where political ideologies took centre stage and God took a backseat, Christianity still remained extremely influential. I'm not sure how you could have the primary belief system of your civilisation for centuries not be influential. The only caveat is that I would say that Western civilisation is not merely Christianity, but also the Greco-Roman tradition of 'reason'. Indeed, much of the history of philosophy of the West can be seen as attempts to reconcile the two (the most obvious example being Thomas Aquinas).
Virtually all intellectual thought during this period was intertwined in Christianity. The distinction between natural philosophy and theology was paper thin at best, really only becoming distinct magisteria (sorry Gould) during the Enlightenment. The vast, vast majority of European philosophers and thinkers were unavoidably intertwined wtih Christian theology, and even those who explicitedly avoided or criticised Christianity (e.g. Machiavelli or Spinoza) were still necessarily working in and shaped by a Christian society. Saint Augustine, Aquinas, Luther were explicitly Christian, and those like Descartes and Kant were still heavily influenced by Chrisitian (Kant (catagorical imperative) is sometimes described as trying to construct a secular reason-based version of Christian ethics to complement but not conflict with Christianity). Even those not engaged in what today we would describe as religious and theological endeavours still explicited said their goal was to study God's creation or similar. Nietziche believes that the West's development of natural science was a evitable consequence of Christianity for this reason (though it would ultimately destroy Christianity, a snake eating its own tail). Some have even described Marxism as the last 'great' Christian heresy.
Of course, we can't neglect the political consequences of Christianity and debates over Christianity. The Investiture Controversy, the Thirty Years War, both the Great Schism and the Western Schism and soon. These political consequences in turn resulted in political outcomes which further in turn resulted in further developments in political and non-political philosophy. The Thirty Years War resulted in the Peace of Westphalia, often cited as the origin of modern notions of statehood and international relations.
Liberalism and the concept of natural, individual and human rights - inventions of Western civilisation - have their clear origins in Christianity theology - we are all made in the image of God, and everyone is a sinner. This is hardly a novel argument. When the US Declaration of Independence states - "We hold these truths to be self-evident, that all men are created equal, that they are endowed by their Creator with certain unalienable Rights, that among these are Life, Liberty and the pursuit of Happiness" - it's not immediately obvious to an atheistic/materialist or non-Christian view how these truths are 'self-evident' but they are to a Christian worldview, it literally states men are endowed these rights by their (Christian) Creator. The speeches, personal letters etc of the US Founding Fathers basically confirm that this was their belief.
LacklustreFriend
37 Pieces of Flair Minimum
1yr ago
The natives weren't capable of beating back the Portuguese alone, they usually had to get help from the Dutch or somebody else.
The real answer is because, generally speaking, the natives had no reason to 'beat back' the Portugese, or any other colonial state. They benefited from colonial contact, especially in the 18th century onwards. Colonial states had legitimacy and widespread local support until the mid-20th century.
It was less the natives 'getting help from the Dutch or somebody else' but more 'Europeans getting the help from the natives' to kick out their European rivals.
LacklustreFriend
37 Pieces of Flair Minimum
1yr ago
People constantly conflate gender/sex preferences that are culturally/socially contingent and those that are universal (and thus almost certainly biological in nature).
Some actors obviously do this in bad faith. Like the typical feminist/queer theorist who says 'pink used to to be for boys, blue for girls, now it's the opposite, thus proving all gender preferences are arbitrary and that the idea that women prefer people and men prefer things is also arbitrary and socially contingent!' Gotta love those huge non-sequiturs.
Really, you can seperate gender preferences (including sexual preferences) into three rough catagories - (1) things that are universally/biological, (2) things that are socially determined but are influenced and constrained by biology to some degree and thus are not completely arbitrary, and (3) things that are socially determined and are completely arbitrary.
Men liking things and women liking people is an example of number 1. It is universal and biological, and reflects the biological division of labour.
Most (historically) gendered clothing fits into number 2. Clothing still has to reflect the practical needs of each sex, which is in turn derived from the gender role (which in turn is derived from the biological division of labour). But there is obviously a significant degree of wiggleroom which is culturally contingent. An obvious example is the fact that women wear bras and men don't. This obviously isn't an arbitrary completely socially determined choice. Though the specific designs or styles of bras might be.
Colour preference for genders is an example for number 3. There is generally no compelling reason why certain colours should be assigned to either men and women. This is culturally socially determined (though I suppose someone could try to make an attenuated evo psych argument about how red is biologically masculine cause blood or some shit).
All this basically applies to sexual preferences too.
Sexual attraction to well defined, feminine hips might be an example of number 1.
Sexual attraction certain kinds of modes of behavior (e.g. stoic, dominant nature in men) might be an example of 2.
Certain kinds of decoration, such as tattoos might be an example of 3.
I strongly disagree. This position presupposes that the Russians are/were a siginificant geopolitical threat to American interests, and ignores the decades of prior American foreign policy that led to this postion in the first place i.e. in some sense, the US is just 'solving' a foreign policy crisis it created in the first place.
The first is an issue because Russian geopolitical interests since the crisis of the 90s have been strictly regional, limit to Eastern Europe (and not even all of it), Central Asia and not much else. These are areas of relatively little interest or importance to the US, other than the mostly ideological (but not much else) goal of "democratising" the former Iron Curtain. Even if the idea is to somehow stop the "domino effect" of a resurgent Russia controlling Eastern Europe (a pretty unlikely scenario relying on some questionable assumptions) the reality is that Russia is not capable of excerting global influence even if it were to gain control of much of the former Soviet Union/Russian Empire. It's economy is weak, population dwindling, technology stagnant. It would take many decades of miracles for Russia to ever develop the power and influence to be a serious global player as it once was. The US has spent a lot of time, money, manpower and lives that could be been used elsewherte.
Second, the US has deliberately (or at least intentionally failed to avoid) developing an antagonistic relationship with Russia in the first place after the dissolution of the Soviet Union in the first place. There was originally a real sense of optimism in the 90s for reconciliation between Russia and the US which was ultimately sabotaged (intentionally or not) by US actions which I have described in a previous comment on the Motte. US economic foreign policy towards Russia in the 90s is partially responsible for the creation of Putin's Russia in the first place. So it can be argued that the US, even if they are enjoying a geopolitical success with Ukraine, mostly just solving a problem they contributed to.
Third, even if Russia is weakened or neutralised by Ukrainian victory (whatever that entails), it's not exactly clear to me that will result in geopolitical success in the long term. The elephant in the room is China. A weakened Russia will almost certainly turn to Chinese patronage for support and protection, which would be a disaster for the US, give that China is that actual global geopolitical rival, not Russia. Even before this war, US antagonism towards Russia caused strange bedfellows as it pushed Russia and China together, two countries who have competing interests in Central Asia and would probably be weakly competing rather than weakly cooperating as they are now. If the concern is that the USA shouldn't cooperate/should be antagonistc to Russia on (liberal democratic) principle, fair enough, though I will point out that's not an issue with other counties and allies, most obviously Saudi Arabia. There are so a lot of actual really bad outcomes that could result from Russian collapse, including but no limited to: the rise of an extremist ideology in Russia, nukes being used (either by current Russia or successor state) the increase of global terrorism, including Islamic terrorism, based in Russian territory.
Lastly, it's not even clear if the US has gained any clear long term economic advantage. Yes, other countries have become more dependent on US gas exports, which is good for US gas industry, but this ignores the huge damage the supply chain and economic disruption has caused to the global economy, including the US (broken window fallacy?). Maybe the US gains a relative economic advantage over China (probably not significantly if at all), even if US citizens have to suffer for it. Increased dependency on US gas might also be short lived, because the lack of cheap Russian gas has renewed efforts in Europe and elsewhere to seek alternative forms of energy, though it remains to be seen how that plays out.
LacklustreFriend
37 Pieces of Flair Minimum
1yr ago
Forgive me, but I don't think the war devistating Ukraine and absolutely crippling their country in the hopes that maybe a couple decades from now they join the EU (who knows how the EU is doing in 10 or 20 years anyway) and hopefully get something out it economically is/was the most optimal of all possibilities.
I agree with a lot of your post, but your actual original premise ("Radical feminism is essentially an unhelpful defensive response to the sexual revolution") is untrue. For two pretty straightforward reasons: One, radical feminism predates the sexual revolution. Two, most of the early radical feminist literature supported sexual liberation, if not outright sexual libertinism. People (in this thread even) who argue the sexual revolution was mostly just a ploy by men to get access to sex are wrong. Not that there's no truth to the idea some men loved the idea of free non-committal sex and supported it for this reason, but the idea that feminism and women more generally did not play an active and leading role in the sexual revolution is false.
Radical feminist ("second wave") texts such as Beauvoir's 1949 The Second Sex, Friedan's 1963 The Feminine Mystique predate or coincide with the beginning of the sexual revolution.
Other, slightly later radical feminist texts, such as Firestone's 1970 The Dialectic of Sex or Millet's 1970 Sexual Politics, call for sexual liberation, either explicitly or implicitly (it's explicit with Firestone, it's more implicit with Millet who says sexual repression of women is an oppressive tool of patriarchy). The idea that radical feminism is a defensive response to the sexual revolution is historical revisionism by more contemporary radical feminists who realise that the sexual revolution actually was negative for women (and the majority of men for that matter, not that it matters to them), but don't actually want to condemn earlier feminists works or the whole political project of feminism so the 'reinterpret' them or otherwise reframe it (most often is the "true sexual liberation has never been tried"). "Men created ('false') sexual liberation for sexual access" is unironically a radical feminist revisionist myth.
A while ago, I had a thought. God granted humanity stewardship over nature. Humans are above nature and have a responsibility towards nature for this reason. But you remove God, and that's all good. Then you only have two logical conclusions. That humans are no better than animals, and that animals are raised to the same status as humans. I think that trend and this article are examples of both of that.
I used the term 'God' generally here. For any metaphysical doctrine that similarly gives special status to humans the argument stays the same. If you adopt a purely materialist or naturalist outlook it's hard not to reach the conclusion that human are no different or better than animals.
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