MelodicBerries
virtus junxit mors non separabit
No bio...
User ID: 1678
MelodicBerries
virtus junxit mors non separabit
1yr ago
Yeah, I think this basically boils down what their issue is: inauthenticity. You can't claim to fight bigotry in all its forms when you do it selectively depending on which ethnic group we're talking about.
It makes them very unsympathetic and their previous role in constantly pushing social media to censor more hasn't exactly helped their reputation either.
MelodicBerries
virtus junxit mors non separabit
1yr ago
Frankly, I think that dissident rightists are really taking their eye off the ball by taking the side of insanely spoiled black multimillionaires who have accrued obscene amounts of money for things like throwing a ball into a net.
Right, but I suppose it is less about personal sympathy for someone rich and more about power dynamics in the US. These black elites are so rich that they get in touch with that world whereas most of us never will. So when there is conflict, these things get exposed. In other words, the "quiet part out loud".
White entertainers and athletes are also, presumably intimately involved with Jewish lawyers, agents, executives, etc. However, most modern whites lack anything more than a rudimentary racial consciousness, and are especially uncomfortable with noticing anything about Jews, so it probably does not occur to a lot of these whites to even reflect on the Jewishness of those industries.
Most blacks, though, are primed for racial/identitarian thinking by their upbringing and cultural milieu, so they’re far more likely to notice things like that.
I suspect one major difference is that White entertainment elites both tend to intermarry with Jews to a much greater extent (indicating greater social compatibility) but also that they can often fight back in ways that appears to elude the black community. A typical example would be Taylor Swift's fights against her former Jewish manager Scooter Braun. She actually read the contract and re-recorded the entire back catalog while simultaneously signing a new contract with much better terms for herself. Admittedly, Swift is probably way smarter than most White entertainers, but it is still an interesting data point.
MelodicBerries
virtus junxit mors non separabit
1yr ago
Yeah, the "Black Hebrews" hypothesis is basically just 85 IQ gibberish. Which is precisely why it would've been smart of the ADL to let it slide, since it is goofy nonsense. But Greenblatt just couldn't help himself. The man seems to only have a sledgehammer and not understand the concept of "pick your battles". The special six-item demand list they gave to Kyrie for him to redeem himself came across as vindictive and almost as a public humiliation ritual. Chappelle also brought up the list, so it seems to have irked him.
I read somewhere that this book that Kyrie promoted is now in the top 10 list on Amazon. Talk about Streisand Effecting yourself.
MelodicBerries
virtus junxit mors non separabit
1yr ago
SBF had a long interview with NYT where they were remarkably soft on him. The whole thing can be read read here.
For my part, it seems like he has little remorse and is spinning things as "things expanded too fast and I made a mistake". The fact that his hedge fund (Alameda Research) was propped up by client deposits without their knowledge is not something he wishes to mention.
Over at Twitter, he has been consistently deleting tweets such as his Nov 7th tweet assuring everyone that FTX has a "long history of safeguarding client assets". Some are speculating that his recent gibberish tweets are in fact a way to keep his tweet count constant, so to not alert bots when a large amount of tweets are suddenly deleted (as some bots may begin to do auto-archiving). In his interview with NYT, he instead spun his new tweets as some kind of cryptic message he wants to send.
All these things re-affirm my view that he's basically a manipulative psychopath. What's disappointing but not surprising is the soft gloves treatment he gets in the NYT. One cannot help but ask whether his status as democrat megadonor plays a part in that.
MelodicBerries
virtus junxit mors non separabit
1yr ago
Someone making earnest attempts that go bad isn't the same thing as intentionally misleading depositors and taking their money without their knowledge for various speculative bets. I think people who wish to whitewash what he did haven't frankly read up enough on the details.
MelodicBerries
virtus junxit mors non separabit
1yr ago
If Twitter dies then it is because TPTB want it to die. There's an ADL-sponsored advertiser boycott going on right now, for one.
The fact of the matter is that Twitter doesn't need as many people as it had. Many of those employees had "narrative control" functions. Some of the Japanese users noted that when the mass firings began, suddenly all the trending topics were things like manga or video games rather than politics which is what it was before. Thereby suggesting that Twitter employees had a "steering function".
That's the crux of this entire affair. Twitter wasn't a free platform, it was used as a propaganda vehicle by powerful establishment interests. A mass firing of these "narrative control" workers is potentially dangerous to the regimes, because free speech is now seen as a threat to their power. It is the same reason why Julian Assange had to be taken down.
MelodicBerries
virtus junxit mors non separabit
1yr ago
Translation: Bankman-Fried is a lying liar
Seems pretty obvious to anyone paying close attention, but SBF has gotten swooning media coverage which desperately wishes to whitewash what he did by going along his explanation of "it was just a big mistake". We'll see how many dumb people fall for it.
MelodicBerries
virtus junxit mors non separabit
1yr ago
I am interested in following Rumble's growth. It is a free speech-oriented alternative. As they grow, so too will pressure on them to conform.
MelodicBerries
virtus junxit mors non separabit
1yr ago
Saudi Arabia is now more feminist/liberal than 1950s United States
This is actually amazing. Shows you that the paranoia of religious conservatives in Islamic countries is not unwarranted. Change happens very fast. One wonders if the reversal can also be done as easily. People may try to bring up Afghanistan as proof that it can, but I am skeptical about how much real change there was outside a small comprador Westernised class in Kabul.
Would also like to note my appreciation of your high-quality comment(s).
MelodicBerries
virtus junxit mors non separabit
1yr ago
The Cathedral
So ADL are Christians now?
MelodicBerries
virtus junxit mors non separabit
1yr ago
I know about the source of the term. I'm just ridiculing its use here (in fact, I think it is misleading in general).
The ADL has been the organising force in pushing for an advertiser boycott here, which started the revenue collapse. This is simply the latest salvo in the war that they started.
MelodicBerries
virtus junxit mors non separabit
1yr ago
Why is SBF still free or at least not in trouble?
Because it's all about who you are and who you know. How many people got jailed after the 2008 crash? I can only think of a single person. Financial crimes pay off because you can bribe, sorry, I meant "donate", to politicians.
MelodicBerries
virtus junxit mors non separabit
1yr ago
There's a philosophical question whether genuine altruism even exists, e.g. there may be evolutionary advantages to being generous. Even to complete strangers. If that's the case, then there are underlying self-serving That said, I find the attacks on EA overdone. The media has been unbelievably soft on SBF, often going along with his portrayals of himself as hapless (rather than malicious) and more than happy to spread to blame to the wider EA movement instead of focusing on his personal culpability.
MelodicBerries
virtus junxit mors non separabit
1yr ago
So Ed West has a good piece up on immigration. He's British, so naturally he will focus on the British angle but I think his main takeaways have wider applicability across the West. His argument is that so-called "experts" have consistently underestimated the potential for mass migration for decades. Ed makes the case that given a confluence of factors (established migrant communities, English being the lingua franca, a whole apparatus of NGOs/judicial activists and a very pro-immigration media envionrment), we're likely to see a continued rise in immigration unless there is a drastic shift in policies.
For my part, I think any serious restriction is out the window. That ship has basically sailed for the West. Trump did what he could but was sabotaged by the courts and political insiders at every step. So instead of trying to prevent what is essentially the inevitable, better ask what our future look like.
American social scientist Garrett Jones has written an important new book which argues that new research suggests that assimilation is fact very rare and cultural patterns persist for decades, perhaps even centuries. Even if we were to restrict ourselves to white immigration, how many of the Catholic and East European immigrants who came to the US during the 1870-1924 period truly assimilated into the Anglo-Saxon ethos of limited government? Was JFK's and FDR's winning coalitions not in small part due to these new immigrants?
Jones makes the case that even attitudes like propensity to save or social trust are passed down through generations. This would suggest that the future of the West is a hyper-unequal and low-trust society. Perhaps we are already well on our way. Politically, it could paradoxically help the right since to enact a leftist agenda on economics you need a cross-racial coalition among the working class and this seems to be unlikely if you cannot have assimilation across population groups even after decades, as Jones suggests.
MelodicBerries
virtus junxit mors non separabit
1yr ago
But this loss didn't happen thirty or forty or whenever the immigrants started to come in big numbers years ago, rather it happened in the aftermath of the Second World War when the UK dropped its long standing traditions of Classical Liberalism, "an Englishman's home is his castle" and the Anglo developed system of limited government, preferring to go for the expansive and nannying welfare state model instead.
Well, if you want Limited Government then I hear Somalia is a great place. You can even buy arms in open air markets with minimal regulations. Perhaps you can sense my dripping sarcasm, but I have little patience for these kinds of arguments. Taxes can go up and they can go down, but what - or rather, who - made Britain were the Anglo-Saxons.
This type of argument is the right-wing version of the blank slate.
MelodicBerries
virtus junxit mors non separabit
1yr ago
And that was still an improvement in most QoL measures over the previous socialist government.
Interesting, have you lived in Somalia during this period?
MelodicBerries
virtus junxit mors non separabit
1yr ago
Singapore is actually a great place
Yeah, and it's also a place that is 75% Han Chinese, thereby proving my point. Demographics will always trump whatever laws is on paper, libertarian or not.
US can't defend Taiwan's integrity anymore and has begun exploring "scorched earth" strategies instead. That's the conclusion of various US reports that David Goldman has read and now written about.
Trump's former NSA Robert O'Brien at a recent conference basically conceded the same argument, saying the US won't let China take Taiwan's semiconductor factories intact. So the focus has shifted from winning a war to making China's victory a phyrric one.
All this makes sense given that aircraft carriers are now more or less sitting ducks in the SCS given China's massive and rapidly growing missile inventory, many who can hit moving targets and that's even excluding hitting stationary ones such as airbases on islands, where China's hypersonic missiles can't really be defended against.
I guess the "good" news is that sending in US troops to die on foreign soil in large quantities has now been all but eliminated in the case of Taiwan. Senior US officials are telegraphing to the Taiwanese that if SHTF, then we will take out your crown jewels whether you like it or not. It also tells a story of diminishing US innovation advantage in military matters. America is still the top dog, but the days when it could send a few carriers to the Taiwan strait without seriously worrying about a Chinese military response - as Bill Clinton did in the 1990s - are now long gone.
I suspect the big constraint for China is now economic blowback. Chinese companies are still big exporters and would essentially lose those markets in the event of a major geopolitical conflict. This differentiates China from Russia, which doesn't have much to sell other than natural resources, is why I think a hot war over Taiwan is unlikely. And even in Ukraine, it's a proxy war and not a direct one. In Taiwan, all sides agree that the US would have to get directly involved for Taiwan to even have a chance because the numbers are absurdly lopsided in China's direction otherwise. I suspect the Taiwanese just didn't used to calculate that the Americans would be contemplating destroying vital Taiwanese infrastructure in the event of an outbreak of hostilities.
I find it bizarre that so little is being talked about the US border crisis right now. The numbers are shooting up like crazy.
Most of these "encounters" are essentially catch-and-release. The illegal immigrants are then given a court date to show up and naturally the vast majority never do.
Are Americans just tired of this subject? Trump running on this issue during the 2016 campaign and then essentially doing nothing to prevent it perhaps jaded people. I mean, would-be illegal migrants respond to signals. If more and more folks are allowed to flood in without a meaningful response then each new "caravan" will only get bigger. Perhaps Biden is trying to emulate Trudeau's hyperliberal immigration policies through purposeful inaction rather than Trudeau's open immigration targets.
Will everyone who said he would walk away Scot Free because he's in bed with NYT or Dems or whoever please adjust your priors or whatever?
Why? Hopes of him getting arrested fell after the MSM were running what could only be described as kids' gloves stories (if not outright puff pieces), giving ample cover for the "it was just a mistake" scam he was doing. The media is owned by powerful interests in any society, and so how they treat a person is often indicative of that person's social standing (which isn't the same as their financial muscle).
Even leading CEOs in the industry, like the guy running Coinbase, was publicly admonishing the media for going supersoft on him. The fact that many people are surprised over this development is a testament to the extreme deference he was shown.
Moreover, it wasn't just the media. It took the authorities a long time to get to this. They now claim it's a slam-and-shut case of fraud. Newsflash: it always was. So there was likely deliberation, otherwise he'd have gotten arrested weeks ago as his scam wasn't particularly sophisticated, as the SEC now acknowledges.
What made the scales to tip over, we'll never know. But I am not willing to bet that he will be persona non grata forever. He may be stupid in finance, but he's politically savvy. Look at someone like Michael Milken. He went to prison for securities fraud and has now re-invented himself as a benign political benefactor. SBF may still have a few cards to play, even if he gets indicted.
MelodicBerries
virtus junxit mors non separabit
1yr ago
I've read that he also apparently blamed anti-Semitism in one of his written statements. Which is hilarious, but also topical and politically savvy of him.
As for his veganism, I´ve seen photos showing eggs in his fridge. And he has been cagey about this in the past.
SBF honestly seems like a guy who is incredibly willing to say or do anything to gain even a minor advantage for himself.
MelodicBerries
virtus junxit mors non separabit
1yr ago
Remember the "AI ethicist" Timnit Gebru? Her being a woman and black working in tech, where that combination is very rare, I was shocked, distraught and frankly terrified over Google's firing of her when she started calling them racist and irresponsible.
It almost appears as if Google prefers these PR stunts for optics but when it actually matters, their policies are diametrically opposite. (For the record, I have zero issues with Google firing her, my sarcasm aside. She should've never been hired in the first place. All I'm asking is for Google's messaging to be consistent with their actual behaviour).
MelodicBerries
virtus junxit mors non separabit
1yr ago
I understand where you're coming from. Pragmatically speaking, you're correct that this will have zero impact. But I think people get angry over the principle. Just because something cannot harm me directly or indirectly, doesn't mean that it's right.
MelodicBerries
virtus junxit mors non separabit
1yr ago
I think the reasoning is that blacks are already discriminated against so the only way to even the balance is to go out of your way to favor them. Of course, this implies that all differences between races is purely a function of discrimination, which isn't my view and probably not of many others here. But in the wider cultural discourse, questioning this assumption would be a fringe if not suspect act. What goes unsaid ultimately goes unthought.
Doesn't change the fact that his family background is deeply connected to democrat elites. Which also probably tells us why he was such a huge backer (2nd after Soros) of that party. The EA thing perhaps was genuine, but he still used it cynically to advance other political objectives.
More options
Context Copy link