RandomRanger
Just build nuclear plants!
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User ID: 317
RandomRanger
Just build nuclear plants!
9mo ago
“I cannot guarantee the future. I am not a prophet. I said that if things don’t change, there will be a revolution affecting all of us – and that will include me and black people in suburbs. Those rising up from townships will accuse us of abandoning them in squalor and in poverty. We will all be in serious trouble.”
“It may not be me [calling for the slaughter of white people]. But it could be me. What will necessitate such a thing? I can’t guarantee I can’t or won’t call for the slaughter of white people. But why would I make a pledge to say I definitely won’t call for that? I won’t do it.”
Imagine looking at the state of South Africa and thinking 'what this country really needs is more brain drain, capital flight, international isolation, even more intense ethnic conflict.' I suppose this goes to show the power of nationalist feeling - it can override all other considerations.
I think this also highlights the importance of HBD. Some people on this forum have disputed its value, saying 'so what do we gain in the real world from this knowledge'? We'd gain useful information about the destiny of states that go from white rule (indigenous fighter jet programs, first heart transplant, nuclear program) to black rule (mass unemployment, constant power outages, ludicrously high crime/murder rate). We'd know it was unlikely that South Africa, along with Brazil, would be a meaningful part of BRICS, the source of future world economic growth. Useful investing information! And we'd know that since the situation in South Africa was very unlikely to markedly improve, future racial conflict is likely as the economic gap between black and white remains.
RandomRanger
Just build nuclear plants!
1yr ago
What is the appropriate level for diplomatic discussion on twitter?
Recently Elon Musk has been heavily criticised for an admittedly naïve proposal for a negotiated peace in the Russian-Ukrainian war. His proposal:
https://twitter.com/elonmusk/status/1576969255031296000
Now this isn't how politics actually works, twitter polls are not actually binding instruments of diplomacy. Nor is a UN administered vote terribly helpful given how it'd just turn into a vote-rigging contest between the pro and anti-Russian forces within the UN and the Ukrainian state obviously wouldn't let the territories leave given the amount of blood that's been shed. They've threatened 15 year jail sentences for those who did vote in the most recent Russian referenda. It's also very hard to see why the Ukrainian govt would bind itself to allowing a Russian Crimea water since they dammed it off even before this war.
You can see from the replies that the objections aren't really on the object level, they're more on the 'go fuck yourself', 'educate yourself', 'you're using Putin talking points', 'Crimea is Ukraine'. All of this is essentially the official line of the Ukrainian state, as summarized by their ambassador to Germany: "Fuck off is my very diplomatic reply"
This seems rather ungrateful to me, as well as undiplomatic. As Elon reasonably argues, he has made a significant effort to assist the Ukrainian armed forces with communications via his satellites, paid from out of his own pocket:
https://twitter.com/elonmusk/status/1577081450263769089
The fundamental power balance in this war is that Russia could obliterate the entirety of Ukraine in under an hour and still have plenty of nukes left to raze Europe and North America if they intervene. There are some people on this site who think that Russian nuclear forces probably don't work and so we can safely discount Russia's 2000 tactical nuclear weapons and 4000 strategic weapons. How they've come to that conclusion is beyond me, given that the technologies involved are fairly simple and old. The same people have been critiquing Russia for fighting a war with 1970s level technology - miniaturized thermonuclear weapons are 1970s technology! Yes, the tritium has a low half-life and needs to be replaced often. Yes, Russia doesn't have the best maintenance standards. But isn't it reasonable for them to prioritize their nuclear forces in terms of maintenance and development? Are we seriously prepared to risk tens if not hundreds of millions of our citizens dying in a full nuclear exchange if we are wrong about their nuclear preparedness? Their conventional tactical ballistic missiles work fine - doesn't it follow that their nuclear missiles work. This is the logic Musk is getting at. The penalty for emboldening dictators is not worse than the penalty for encouraging nuclear war, let alone losing a nuclear war by joining it.
I think this kind of hysterical diplomacy is dangerous and stupid, even from a Ukrainian-focused perspective. Why would you speak so rudely to a notoriously thin-skinned individual (remember when he called that diver 'pedo-guy') who has volunteered their services for your defence? One imagines Musk is seething with rage at his critics. The impression I get from Ukrainian media is that they are bent on getting back every scrap of territory and reparations to boot, won't suffer for anything less. This is the approach that is most likely to end with them getting nuked into submission.
Also, twitter should be for fun, not serious diplomacy.
RandomRanger
Just build nuclear plants!
2d ago
Australian boys make spreadsheet of girls attractiveness, national media, federal minister and state premier rush to condemn them. I'm pretty surprised this got any media attention, doesn't it seem trivial? This all happened on some discord server, it's not like they were parading it around. Does anyone think this would happen in their country?
It reportedly ranked female students from "wifeys", "cuties", "mid", "object", and "get out" to "unrapeable".
The school flagged notifying police about the list and looking into whether using the term "unrapeable" constitutes a threat, The Age reported.
I can't see how 'unrapeable' could possibly be a threat. Saying someone is vulnerable could be a threat, calling someone invulnerable is not... OK it's very rude, suspend the ringleaders - do police need to be involved? There's a certain level of hysteria here, you get the sense that the male principal fears for his job unless he takes this as seriously as humanly possible.
Allan said her thoughts are with the young women, who have received counselling at Yarra Valley Grammar.
It would be pretty crushing to be labelled unrapeable or 'get out' by your male peers, though I don't see how a counsellor could help.
Context: Australian media and govt have been panicking about male-on-female violence for a few weeks now. We recently had a mass stabbing by a mentally ill man, who targeted mostly women. Accordingly, male on female violence has increased statistically and the government has thrown a lot of money at various NGOs.
The Yarra Valley Grammar incident comes as the federal government last week announced nearly $1 billion of funding towards tackling violence against women, which has been labelled a "crisis" of "epidemic" proportions.
Additionally, there has been a lot of concern about Tate corrupting the minds of the youth. So this lets the media hit two talking points at the same time.
Merry said Yarra Valley Grammar holds "respectful relationship" classes but because of mixed messages on social media, "young boys get it wrong".
A related matter - youtuber argues that ranking women's attractiveness upsets the Byzantine system of female intrasexual competition, where every queen is praised as a 10/10 regardless of ugliness. I found the video pretty decent albeit a few minutes longer than it needed to be. It features the infamous Gorlock the Destroyer claiming to be a 10/10 (sarcastically?), which does make you think. There might be something to it - ranking women by attractiveness seems more dangerous than one might naively imagine.
In the male-dominated patriarchal society of the distant past, accusing men of being bastards or having incorrect lineage was a very serious matter. Legitimacy and preventing cuckoldry was deeply important to men, it informed the whole structure of European politics, inheritance and succession. Perhaps in the emerging future it's female sexual dynamics that will take priority and we'll see more of this kind of thing.
Premier (woman): "This pattern of violence against women — not only does the act of violence have to stop, but these displays of disrespecting women. Like, it's just disgraceful."
Lèse-majesté: an offence or defamation against the dignity of a ruling head of state or of the state itself.
American Elites
https://www.rmgresearch.com/wp-content/uploads/2024/01/Elite-One-Percent.pdf
I found this recent Rasmussen presentation, it focuses on subsections of the elite. It was funded by the Committee to Unleash Prosperity, a libertarian thinktank. One might consider them elite heretics or counter-elites (and sure enough they have a slide at the end saying ‘oh there are some elites who are good and trustworthy'). Us non-Gold Circle normies only get the slides, so it's a little unclear what they mean.
Anyway, they define elite as postgrad urbanite with 150K per year income. They further split elites into those who went to 12 top colleges and the ‘politically obsessed’ (definition unclear but I imagine it means they spend a certain number of hours reading/watching/discussing political media). For instance, I imagine we would be considered ‘politically obsessed’.
As you might expect, the elite are the ones who approve of Biden and Congress. They trust the government to do the right thing. I imagine that even if they don’t think the government’s doing a great job they’re friends with high ranking officials and feel a certain amity for them. In my experience, their brother might be an ambassador, they might have an AI regulator over for lunch. Even if they’ve been astonished by the stupid questions journalists ask them, they’ve still got fairly positive impressions of the prestige press and read at least two or three newspapers.
Elites are also much more likely to say ‘there’s too much individual freedom in the US’ than voters, especially the politically obsessed elites. Likewise, they favour strict restrictions on private usage of gas, vehicles, meat and electricity. It’s bizarre that 55% oppose non-essential air travel since this class is the most likely to go on overseas holidays, I don’t understand how this works. Anyway, they want restrictions on everything except border security, which they couldn’t care less about. Plebs hold the opposite beliefs.
I was most surprised by how 29% of the elite thinks that China is an ally, compared to 9% of ordinary voters. I would’ve thought the elites were the hawks! Maybe some of them have commercial interests in China or they want to work with China on climate change or they’re ethnically Chinese, anyway this is really odd to me. The hawk faction may be in control but the doves haven’t been totally eviscerated. Does anyone have any explanations or observations on this matter?
35% of the elite would rather cheat than lose a close election, rising to 69% of the ‘politically obsessed’. Only 7% of pleb voters would cheat. That seems like an underestimate to me – who goes and says ‘I would rather cheat than lose an election’ on a poll? Wouldn’t people be embarrassed (or tactical) and lie – they’re cheats after all! Again, I don’t know the exact definition of cheat but I imagine many more would do something subversive like hold back successful COVID vaccine results until after the election or engage in various procedural manipulations. Edit for an example of what I mean for 'non-cheating' manipulation: https://twitter.com/stevenmackeyman/status/1764876192648499220
I think it’s clear that these are the people with actual power and influence, the ones who set the agenda, the key actors in tech, media, government and law. They create outcomes, or lack thereof. Just about every judge would be elite by this definition, along with nearly all AI workers (OK maybe not the work-from-home guys in the Colorado mountains). All lobbyists, the heads of most NGOs, the most important lawyers – everyone except the right-wing politicians who seem unable to achieve any of their goals.
It’s not like it’s hard to close the US border. The US is a global power after all. The US seems to think it can defend Ukraine’s borders against the Russian army from the other side of the world and secure Taiwan’s borders against the PLA, it must be at least 1000x easier to defend the US border against stateless, unarmed mobs. They just don’t care, indeed their energy seems to swing the other way – see the recent US-Texas standoff over barbed wire and the border. The survey said not one respondent cared about the border as a priority, presumably some think immigration is quite a good thing and want more, illegal or otherwise.
On other fronts, we observe these creeping changes – everyone seems to need a college degree if they want to do anything. That’s not the will of the majority but it is what the elite want. You can see these articles that go ‘relax nobody’s coming to take your gas stove’, how they struck down the federal bill. But the state legislation in New York and other cities is proceeding, it’s clear that this is the path that the US is on. Likewise, the disputes over the 2020 election. I'm suspicious but can't prove that the election was rigged, or that Epstein didn't kill himself. Nevertheless, US democracy doesn't seem in very good shape if its elites are so willing to win by fraud.
RandomRanger
Just build nuclear plants!
10mo ago
I also think we should've had more discussion of the war.
This caught my eye: https://www.eeas.europa.eu/eeas/singapore-speech-hrvp-borrell-shangri-la-dialogue_en
Some Brussels swamp creature swans out to East Asia and says many banal things but also this:
For the first time ever, we have been funding military support to a country under attack. Providing about €40 billion of military support to Ukraine, coming from the [EU] Institutions, coming from the resources I manage in Brussels, and coming from the Member States. Yes, much less than the US support. But if you add up all the support – military, civilian, economic, financial and humanitarian – the level of support to Ukraine is about €60 billion for Europe. But let me show another figure which is really impressive: if you include the support that the European governments have had to pay in order to help their families and firms to face the high prices of electricity, of food, the subsidies to our people in order to face the consequences of the war is €700 billion – ten times more than the support for Ukraine.
700 billion euros! And there's economic damage in addition to that. 700 billion is just the cost of the bandage for the stab wound (self-inflicted I might add). Europe could've chosen to ignore the US hectoring them into sanctioning Russia, as Hungary did. And what is the cost of the bleeding? What is the cost outside of the EU? Germany and Britain are in a recession, as I recall.
What is the point of it all? Why are we defending borders that were randomly redrawn by the Soviets (in the case of Crimea), why care? Why are we supplying weapons so that Kiev can hold onto predominently Russian-speaking territories whose population mostly doesn't even want to be part of Ukraine? It goes rather against the Kosovo/Palestine/Kurds principle, if principle is an appropriate word to apply in relation to foreign policy.
This whole operation only makes sense if you start with the assumption that Russia is an enemy to be crushed. Then it makes sense to arm the Ukrainians to maximize the number of dead Russians at a relatively low cost. Relatively low, compared to a nuclear war. The War in Afghanistan probably killed more Russians/$ thanks to the sheer amount of poppies produced under our abysmal occupation government.
Anyway, trying to crush Russia has all kinds of bad effects. It pushes Russia towards China and Iran, solidifying an anti-Western axis that spans Eurasia. Our oil sanctions have unsettled OPEC, who might reasonably see a danger in the West trying to crush socially conservative, autocratic states that engage in 'illegal wars' and weaken their energy leverage. Saudi-Iranian rapprochement is accelerating rapidly and is brokered by China: https://www.nationalreview.com/corner/persian-gulf-states-to-form-joint-navy-in-coordination-with-china/
And then there are all the problems Russia can cause for us. Do we want Russian missiles being contributed to China during a Pacific war? Do we want enormous numbers of troops and considerable airpower tied down in Europe, just in case some 'volunteers' move across the border and set up shop in Estonian towns that border Russia? That's a precedent that the Polish Volunteer corps set in Belgorod. Do we want Russian energy and agriculture powering a gigantic mobilized Chinese war machine? Are we really confident in funding a war of attrition against Russia of all countries?
We can't really back down now that Leopards and Bradleys are aflame in Ukraine but it is not clear how any of this is in the national interests of most Western countries. We could've just ignored the whole thing, chose not to have an opinion on Ukraine in 2008, in 2014 in 2018 or 2022. It could be swept under the carpet, like the war in Yemen. Without Nuland, without NATO proposals, without Western training for the Ukrainian military, would there be a long and grinding war? It may well be in the interests of Lockheed Martin and Raytheon to pursue a foreign policy full of exciting conflicts and intensify rivalries, yet it is not so good for people with gas bills, fertilizer needs and taxes to pay.
RandomRanger
Just build nuclear plants!
4mo ago
Has anyone seen Republican Nikki Haley supporters in the wild?
I read a paywalled article the other day in Australian media optimistically hoping for a sudden realignment of fortunes, that Trump might possibly lose the primary.
The best recent example was the Democratic primary in 2004. In December 2003, Howard Dean, a left-wing radical, was 19 points ahead of John Kerry, the Massachusetts senator. When Iowans went to vote, Kerry beat Dean by 20 points – 38 per cent to 18 per cent – with John Edwards coming in second at 33 per cent. You may recall the infamous Dean scream that greeted the result.
A month before the 2012 Republican caucuses, Newt Gingrich was ahead of Mitt Romney by 12 percentage points. He lost to Romney by 10.
A Kerry-style shift of 40 points against Trump and in favour of, let’s say Nikki Haley, who now seems the most serious challenger, between now and January 15 would give the state to Haley. Even a Romney-like 20-point shift would transform perceptions of the race.
The article is realistic that Haley's chances are quite low but it favours her nonetheless. I also saw NYT charts that said Haley won the debates. I still doubt that the NYT knows what makes for a good Republican candidate. Their support may be toxic.
Of course, there are polls showing that Haley is coming close to Trump. The funny thing is that nearly all the unrehearsed commentary I've seen about Haley is extremely negative. Even the Boomers commenting below the Australian article seem to favour Trump. Online people have mocked her for the 'I wear heels. They’re not for a fashion statement. They’re for ammunition' comment, which is admittedly pretty bizarre. I never saw any support for her, only people urging Trump not to pick her as VP. Even DeSantis had some traction on twitter, even if it was just his supporters getting shouted down by the overwhelming Trump chorus.
But I'm slightly self-aware, it's no good saying 'well nobody I know voted Nixon' when I'm not even American. Is Haley the new astroturf candidate like Jeb Bush or am I living in an infobubble? Should we all just trust the polls that say she's the primary challenger? Do you see people in real life or online who favour her? If you do, are they actually Republican primary voters as opposed to Democrats? Do any of you support Nikki Haley? Does she have a chance, perhaps if Trump is sent to prison?
I think we shouldn't assume that there are any moderates ready to take up Putin's job. Getting rid of Putin should not be our goal.
The second largest political party in Russia (behind Putin's United Russia) is the Communist Party. They support the war in Ukraine.
Zhirinovsky led Russia's 3rd largest political party, the Liberal Democratic Party, until his death early this year. Far from being liberal or democratic, the party is generally considered to be fascist if not megalomaniacal imperialist.
https://twitter.com/GodCloseMyEyes/status/1500973674811346946
All these parties are considered pawns of Putin to some extent but they have more of a presence than the genuine liberals. As I understand it, they're still reeling from the disaster of the 1990s.
Putin is the moderate candidate. If Russia loses we'll very likely get a much more exciting, much more dangerous leader. Since when did non-total military defeats in authoritarian countries ever lead to a strengthening of liberal forces? The specific conditions of a defeat and coup would be extremely unpromising - what patriot is going to work with the West given that our weapons were killing their troops just a few weeks ago? What is the point of replacing Putin if our options are communist Putin or fascist Putin?
I expect that Russia will begin to mobilize and start taking this war seriously, as they have made motions towards recently. There is no good reason for power to still be on in Ukraine, they have a great deal of ballistic and cruise missiles that could be striking power infrastructure. During the Iraq War the US intensively bombed Iraq's infrastructure until electricity output was at 4% of pre-war levels. There is no good reason for Russia to be outmanned by a smaller, less populous country. They have a large force of reservists. There appear to be motions towards recognizing Donetsk, Luhansk and Kherson as parts of Russia. That would let them deploy their reservists 'legally'.
Conditional on them taking the war seriously by deploying the rest of their army and destroying Ukrainian infrastructure, Russia will start winning decisive victories. The war thus far has been an offensive war half-heartedly fought against a numerically larger, well entrenched defender. It's easy to see how the defender has an advantage in such a conflict. If all else fails, Russia has 2000 tactical nukes to Ukraine's 0. There's no level of grit or clever Western technology that can stand up to firepower of that magnitude.
Support for the war in Russia is fairly high.
The physical fundamentals really are on Russia's side, the constraints are mostly imagined within the Kremlin.
Edit: Live speech from Putin: https://youtube.com/watch?v=iCdPPYtJeag
I think he's just announced partial mobilization.
Why are so many Americans committed to sneering at and impugning the traditions of their warrior class? We all know that the South provides a disproportionate number of soldiers. Washington DC has the lowest enlistment ratio proportionate to population (this reveals a lot about how the US works), South Carolinas has the highest. Furthermore whites take up a larger proportion of the combat arms, diversity is more prevalent in rear areas and admin. I conclude that Southern whites are integral to the US war machine.
Nearly all of the people here are white-collar, I assume. A few have military experience but not very many. It's not our place to belittle those who march off to fight and die at our direction, at the will of the white-collar class. We can give orders, we can enjoy a privileged position at the top of a hierarchy, we can enjoy the fruits of war without sharing in the costs (should there be any fruits) - the bare minimum we should do is give some respect to those who do the fighting.
In Australia we had this case where some of our special forces were a bit overenthusiastic, they shot a couple of prisoners because there was no room on the helicopter, according to legend they stole one guy's artificial leg for use as a drinking trophy. There was a huge media storm about it, a Royal Commission, a massive defamation trial trial that our special forces guy Roberts-Smith lost. He was uncouth, the whole thing was a bit of a shambles. You could tell that the legal class were disgusted and repulsed by this guy and he despised them back.
OK, so Australian special forces killed a few dozen people they shouldn't have. That's a drop in the ocean compared to the West extending the war 10 years past the point we'd clearly lost, allying with the child molesters and drug exporters against the Taliban. The vast majority of the moral harms were committed by careless policymakers and senior officers who committed troops to achieving the unachievable. A huge part of it must have been embarrassment over losing to a small band of semi-literate goatherders with no advanced weapons, foreign backers or money.
And yet nobody dragged Bush, Obama, Petraeus or Trump over the coals - no Royal Commissions (or whatever American equivalent) for them, not for disastrous wars at least. If our leaders get zero accountability for huge crimes, those who follow their commands and deal with the farcical conditions should enjoy immunity for small crimes, let alone not being sufficiently classy.
Who wants to join special forces, do intense training, go off to fight a meaningless, futile war and be hauled over the coals for any excesses?
Who wants to join the US army if the war memorials and bases for their subculture are going to be defaced and renamed, if they're going to be sneered at for being uncouth hill people? Perhaps this is why the US military is so understrength in a time of global crisis. You don't tend to get classy, sophisticated people joining as infantry (who are still vital) - we should appreciate this and not demand this from them.
Do you want to go and risk getting turned to meat paste by Chinese hypersonics? Do you want to risk getting your guts ripped out by HE, get burned to the point everyone is repulsed by the sight of you? No. I don't either. Those who take that risk are making a special social contract and deserve support from the top of the pyramid, not contempt.
RandomRanger
Just build nuclear plants!
7mo ago
One counterargument to meritocracy is that majority or minority populations don't like it when they're outperformed and seek redistribution or expropriation. From a naively utilitarian point of view, it makes sense to sacrifice a little bit of meritocracy to achieve a bit more stability, or to find an equilibria somewhere you can get a good amount of both.
See Malaysia's temporary-cum-permanent introduction of affirmative action. For example, Malays get access to higher-paying government bonds, they can buy cheaper property in new developments, their companies are privileged for govt contracts, they can more easily get into universities... There's a similar system in India as self_made_human points out. In Australia, Indigenous people get their own special job pathways and a great deal of govt expenditure focused on their communities.
Personally, I think this is a bad idea that leads to long-run instability. Opening up and strengthening divisions in the population of the country is a bad idea. If you have meritocracy, then you will have groups of winners and angry losers. If you have affirmative action, then you have new, state-defined groups of winners and angry losers, a recipe for toxic politics. Better a nation-state without such dividing points. Or, if you can't have a nation-state then at least try to avoid huge divisions in ability between populations, if you have to import people then aim for similar levels of skill to the general population.
RandomRanger
Just build nuclear plants!
1yr ago
This is obviously an American op. The Poles know:
https://twitter.com/radeksikorski/status/1574800653724966915
Biden made the threat:
https://twitter.com/townhallcom/status/1490791554088321024
The Scandies say it was explosives:
Seismologists in Denmark and Sweden said they had registered two powerful blasts on Monday in the vicinity of the leaks.
"The signals do not resemble signals from earthquakes. They do resemble the signals typically recorded from blasts," the Geological Survey of Denmark and Greenland (GEUS) said.
And seismologists at Sweden's Uppsala University, which cooperates with GEUS, said the second, bigger explosion "corresponded to more than 100 kilos (kg) of dynamite", adding the blasts were in the water not under the seabed.
And best of all, the US had mine-planting/explosives forces right on Bornholm island in June! The bombs we're talking about detonated just off the coast of Bornholm island!
In support of BALTOPS, U.S. Navy 6th Fleet partnered with U.S. Navy research and warfare centers to bring the latest advancements in unmanned underwater vehicle mine hunting technology to the Baltic Sea to demonstrate the vehicle’s effectiveness in operational scenarios.
Experimentation was conducted off the coast of Bornholm, Denmark, with participants from Naval Information Warfare Center Pacific, Naval Undersea Warfare Center Newport, and Mine Warfare Readiness and Effectiveness Measuring
How much more clear could it be? A few mines were left behind.
With friends like America, Europe doesn't need enemies. The US-initiated war on terror got them targeted for terrorist attacks. The US destabilization of Syria and Libya got them a flood of refugees. Yes, the Europeans were partially complicit in these foreign adventures but they were really just being dragged along. The Prime Mover was Washington. When NATO made that fateful statement that Ukraine and Georgia would one day join the alliance, the French and Germans were trying to tone it down. They didn't want to antagonize Russia. Thanks to the US, Western Europe has been pushed into a proxy war against their energy supplier. Now, the US is making sure Russia can't supply Germany with energy, that it will be dependent upon US puppet states in the Middle East or expensive fuel from America directly.
I don't even think this is a wise strategy for American interests. If you try to weaken your allies so they can't form a viable bloc to oppose you, you're antagonizing them. You're giving them a reason to oppose you and sabotage you. Why should the US expect much help from Europe on the main front against China in the Pacific? 'You're fighting your main industrial supplier? Tough - we'll sell you some overpriced goods. Good luck!'
RandomRanger
Just build nuclear plants!
1yr ago
Approximately none. Black on white violence isn't uncommon and doesn't generate much in the way of outrage at all.
The above is the complete reverse of the above, except the white kid is 12 here. Race is not mentioned at all, though it shows the picture of the perpetrator.
Or another more blatant case of racial hatred: https://www.washingtonexaminer.com/news/nbc-abc-cbs-and-cnn-show-zero-results-for-reports-on-the-5-year-old-white-child-allegedly-executed-by-black-25-year-old-neighbor
Snopes shot back, saying that nbc, CNN and ABC did write articles about the murder, albeit after the above article was written. Even so, note the headlines they give:
"A 25-year-old man has been charged in the shooting death of 5-year-old Cannon Hinnant" (CNN)
"5-year-old shot to death in North Carolina; suspect sought" (The Associated Press)
"Authorities capture suspect in 5-year-old's fatal shooting" (The Associated Press)
"Motive a Mystery in 5-Year-Old's Murder" (NBC New York and NBC Boston).
"Funeral planned for 5-year-old boy shot at point-blank range in N.C."(NBC12 in Richmond, Virginia).
"Wilson man wanted in fatal shooting of 5-year-old apprehended" (WRAL-TV, an NBC-affiliated station, in Raleigh).
"'He meant the world to me': Family, friends honor life of Cannon Hinnant, the 5-year-old boy shot and killed while riding bike in Wilson" (ABC11 in Raleigh).
"5-year-old shot and killed while outside on bike, 25-year-old charged with murder" (ABC7 in Los Angeles).
"Funeral, vigil scheduled for Cannon Hinnant, the 5-year-old boy killed in North Carolina" (ABC6 in Philadelphia).
"Boy, 5, 'shot dead by neighbour' as he played with sisters" (Yahoo! News)
I took a quick look through half the above articles, they do not mention race in the text though they might show images of the victim and the accused. Now compare to the headlines for this incident from OP's links:
CNN: "Accused shooter in Kansas City shooting of Black teen who went to the wrong house is White man in his 80s"
Kansas City Defender: “This Is A Hate Crime”: Kansas City Black Family Demanding Justice After A White Man Shoots Black Boy, Ralph Yarl, In The Head Twice For Ringing Doorbell Of The Wrong Home, White Man Released By Police Hours Later
(it's like one of those light novels that tells the whole story in the title!)
NBC: Lawyers for Black teenager shot after ringing wrong doorbell criticize release of man who opened fire
NYT: Family calls for charges in shooting of black teenager in Kansas City...
Kansas City Star: Ralph Yarl released from hospital and recovering at home in Kansas City, father says
This article doesn't mention race but links to a fair few from the same newspaper that do. Anyway, there's breathless coverage and racial spin for this white-kills-black story in the majority press (Washington Examiner and similar excepted) while the earlier black-kills-white story gets slow-walked and purged of any racial element. This is not what you'd expect from a country where a minority, blacks, kills proportionately vastly more of the majority, whites, than whites kill of blacks. Naively, people would assume that bigger trends get bigger coverage. This is clearly not the case.
RandomRanger
Just build nuclear plants!
3mo ago
Let them do whatever they like, with their own capabilities and let them deal with the consequences. We, the West, shouldn't be standing behind the Israeli military, supplying the bombs and shells they're using, bankrolling their operation, threatening anyone who attacks them. Once they start taking our aid, we become a participant.
Azerbaijan has a spat with Armenia? Not my problem, let them handle it.
One of my friends was asked to help develop parts of a national curriculum and tells me that teachers are pretty stupid, allergic to nuance and don't even follow the curriculum that much. Not all teachers and so on... But it was like there was some vast Power that was inserting errors of fact, errors of punctuation, errors of logic into the curriculum, that my friend was swimming against the tide. Endless anecdotes of frustration at incompetence.
I get the sense that mainstream education in the West is systemically broken, not something that can be fixed by tweaks around the edges. Sometimes you have to disassemble the whole thing and try again from another angle. It's like an auto-catalytic process: there's a force that makes certain dysfunctional teaching doctrines prestigious, so education professors teach bad dogma, smart people are filtered away by various incentives, bureaucracy proliferates out of control, behaviour and culture of school declines and everyone just asks for more money even as standards fall.
What can you do other than set up charter schools or similar outflanking? How do you change incentives if the institution is already rotten? If you reward schools with high graduation rates, they simply raise the graduation rate and everyone is worse off with grade inflation.
RandomRanger
Just build nuclear plants!
5mo ago
Everyone in the linked thread seems to take it for granted, and just argues about why it was a failure and how bad of a failure it was. What's the evidence that the SR was worsened people's lives, and what metrics are being used to assess that?
Fertility has fallen hugely, which is bad IMO. In addition to hundreds of millions of lives not lived, there are surely many discoveries and artistic products that were never made, because their creators were never born. I don't buy Malthusian logic, we could've used our resources more efficiently to sustain higher populations. Labour and brainpower is the most important economic input, more is better.
The advanced world is now below replacement rate, our civilization is literally unsustainable. A lot of people seem quite depressed and need powerful drugs to cope - I recall a statistic showing unmarried women in the 40-50 age group were hardest hit. Having children is probably good for you. At least it ought to be a default setting for wellness, like sunlight and sea-level air pressure. Our brains and bodies evolved to have children.
Anyway, the massive fall in fertility came just as the sexual revolution showed up, it's not like there was a massive plague or war at the same time. What other cause could there be?
Nayyib Bukele's war on crime: real or fake, good or bad?
Basically, they've arrested at least 60,000 who seem like criminals, without a warrant, and sent them to a newly created prison. There are now troops based in high-risk communities and a whole swathe of the constitution was suspended. Considering the videos, it's hard to see how people with such extensive tattoo-collections could be law-abiding - the usual suspects have been protesting about human rights and the need to see a lawyer.
Gangs in El Salvedor tended to be incredibly violent and powerful, there was a huge problem with them killing 76 people in 2 days back in March 2022, at which point the government declared a state of emergency. El Salvedor used to be the murder capital of the world, reporting an astonishing 103 homicides per 100K residents in 2015, which then fell steadily to about 18.1 in 2022 and further since. El Salvedor is now out of the top 20 most murderous countries. Bukele took office in 2019, so the decline isn't all under his watch. Obviously, homicide rates don't tell the whole story. They don't include the number of people who die in shootouts with police (120 gang members in 2022). Furthermore, they do not include 'disappearances' which is what the US state department says is replacing homicides in El Salvedoran statistics. Finally, homicides do not capture the level of conflict between gangs and govt - we can imagine a govt that arranges to give the gangs what they want in exchange for peace, a govt that lashes out and crushes them or tries to crush them (causing homicides to spike) or a govt that lets them run rampant (with consistently high homicides). The US alleges that Bukele's been making deals with the gangs, as have all the previous govts. They say Bukele's plans are indistinguishable from previous iron fist policing methods that didn't work either and that El Salvedor's being turned into a one-party state under a state of exception. They suggest instead that El Salvedor adopt 'comprehensive gang prevention, intervention and rehabilitation programs in marginalized communities'.
Bukele says that the US is smearing him because he takes a less-than-liberal approach to human rights for violent criminals. He's also been experimenting with introducing a non-USD basis for his currency in Bitcoin, something that would naturally anger Washington. There's definitely a level of conflict here, they've sanctioned some of Bukele's govt leaders.
I'm inclined to favor Bukele, on the basis that iron fist policing methods should work. I've espoused 'send the criminals to prison or shoot them' policies before. This is on the assumption that the definition of 'criminal' centers around violence, organized crime or serious drug trafficking. Copyright infringement should not be met with summary executions for example. (But if they were it would probably reduce copyright infringement more than 'rehabilitation programs in marginalized communities').
If there's enormous amounts of murder, it follows that there are too many dangerous criminals on the streets. Thus more intensive policing is needed. High levels of crime is extremely damaging, you end up with capital flight, limited investment, a frayed social fabric and so on. I think that a safe society is the foundation upon which legal niceties and so on can be built. You can't build a functional society in a country full of gangs. You can only get a kayfabe liberal democracy like Brazil (or more specifically the North East) which has all the appearances of rights and laws and judges but there's immense corruption and a permanently high rate of crime with gangs enjoying considerable freedom to bully everyone else. What are the rights and laws and judges for if not reducing crime and improving quality of life? In my view, they're not ends in and of themselves.
It's better to dictate terms with the gangs than let them run rampant. I believe Bukele was negotiating for that very reason, before the gangs performatively defected from the terms with the bloodbath in March. The harsher policies since then are better yet. Gangs should not be trying to use leverage on the government by saying 'we can raise the crime level at any time and lower your election prospects'. El Salvedor's gangs seem to be in the 'worst of the worst' category and most El Salvedorans seem to be satisfied with the crackdown.
But I can see there are arguments against the crackdown as well, that certainty relies upon statistics we can't know for certain. Thoughts? Applicable in what Trump would call 'shithole countries' but not in the West? Slippery slope to tyranny?
RandomRanger
Just build nuclear plants!
10mo ago
But then please don't take a high moral ground. You are just as evil as "elites".
What is so wrong about caring about one's own interests, as opposed to the interests of others? The 'elites' are the ones going out and randomly, incompetently wrecking various countries or behaving incredibly recklessly. Standing aside while others fight is sound policy. We should not get involved in other people's problems. Firstly, it's expensive and makes enemies. Secondly, we don't necessarily understand what's going on and can't necessarily fix it. Thirdly, it benefits special interests and socializes losses. Everyone is poorer due to energy shortages or debt incurred by these wars - the benefits go to military contractors, bureaucracies, favoured NGOs and PMCs.
Just consider the last 20 years of military adventurism. What did we get? A pro-Iranian (wrecked) Iraq, wrecked Libya, wrecked Syria, wrecked Afghanistan. All this came with a huge price tag and a long list of new enemies. The military establishment is not very smart, nor are they good at winning. They are very good at wrecking and lying.
This is what happens when we listen to the 'moral high ground, think of the civil society' camp. We get wrecked countries and 12-figure bills. Why should Ukraine be any different? Long, expensive conflict which doesn't improve our position at all. The realist school has warned and warned that getting involved in Ukraine was a bad idea, that it would make the Russians very angry, that they'd rather wreck the country than let it fall into our hands. They've been totally vindicated. Russia is wrecking Ukraine, missile by missile and refugee by refugee.
How hard would it be to... do nothing? If we had done nothing for the last 20 years we'd be richer, safer and stronger.
People will go on and on about how we have to stand up and support the 'international rules based order' - the biggest crock of shit. What are the rules (is there any clear law anywhere)? Who wrote them? Who agreed to them? Apparently it's OK when we invade or bomb countries, yet it's illegal for Russia to invade its neighbours? This is arbitrary nonsense.
Let's support our interests, which are not present in Ukraine. There's nothing we need in Ukraine, there's no need to get hysterical about it. Ukraine is a core Russian interest and a peripheral interest for the West as a whole. Foreign policy should distinguish between core and peripheral interests.
RandomRanger
Just build nuclear plants!
11mo ago
Anyone else think that there's an uptick in gender-provocative advertisements recently? Adidas has now hired a biological male as a women's underwear model, with chest hair and a distinct bulge at the groin:
https://twitter.com/OliLondonTV/status/1658934499118309379
https://www.adidas.com/us/pride (It definitely is classified as women's swimwear)
There was also that other now-withdrawn Miller Lite beer ad where the woman spends her time swearing and professing how happy she is to compost images of women in bikinis. Just recently, we had the original trans beer ad that has proven very damaging to Bud Light.
Is this kind of advertising increasing, or are people noticing it more, or am I making up a trend? I suppose one could conceptualize a waves and troughs model, as advertisers tone it back after boycotts (Gillette comes to mind as having suffered from its choices). Some have argued that Gillette took an immediate and serious financial penalty from the ad, 350 million in six months. On the other hand, there have been arguments that P&G, Gillette's owner didn't suffer in the medium term, or at least that there's too much noise to tell. They stood by their advertisement choice. Perhaps merely being aggressive towards gender roles is much less risky than promoting trans.
Or maybe the conservative response to these ads is essentially random? I never heard that Gillette made another trans ad in 2019, that all got subsumed by the toxic masculinity ad. Thoughts and theories welcome.
RandomRanger
Just build nuclear plants!
1yr ago
A big can of worms. This is why we should have stuck with properly interpreted obscenity laws (no, Japan's farcical censorship code does not count) and nipped this stuff in the bud. There would be no Mindgeek, no status quo where this stuff is part of popular culture and freely accessible. Nixon said it best I think:
The Commission contends that the proliferation of filthy books and plays has no lasting harmful effect on a man's character. If that were true, it must also be true that great books, great paintings, and great plays have no ennobling effect on a man's conduct. Centuries of civilization and 10 minutes of common sense tell us otherwise.
The Commission calls for the repeal of laws controlling smut for adults, while recommending continued restrictions on smut for children. In an open society, this proposal is untenable. If the level of filth rises in the adult community, the young people in our society cannot help but also be inundated by the flood.
Pornography can corrupt a society and a civilization. The people's elected representatives have the right and obligation to prevent that corruption.
The warped and brutal portrayal of sex in books, plays, magazines, and movies, if not halted and reversed, could poison the wellsprings of American and Western culture and civilization.
I'm fairly sure if Nixon were alive today, he would fully agree that the wellsprings of Western culture have been poisoned, in part by Mindgeek and co. Nobody wants to reproduce anymore, which in itself is enough to end civilization (not accounting for AI or life extension).
Israel boasts of genocidal intent. Everyone from former policymakers to children singing war propaganda songs talks about how the Israelis are going to stamp out the Palestinians, annihilate them.
There's been a lot of discussion about how the slogan 'from the river to the sea, Palestine will be free' is a genocidal mantra. If so, then there can be no doubt that 'within a year we will annihilate everyone and then return to our fields' is a genocidal slogan. Moving on from rhetoric, Israel is genocidal in action, blowing up an enormous amount of Gaza without regard for civilian casualties.
Well, that's how borders are formed, that's how nations move or get moved around. Survival of the fittest. History is written in blood.
What I object to is how Israeli expansion is somehow turned into this normative, moralistic end as opposed to the cold functioning of nature, tooth and claw. They can't reasonably cry 'help us we're being attacked by genocidal inhuman monsters' as they kill 20x more than they've lost. If Hamas and the Palestinians generally are genocidal, it follows that Israel and Israelis generally are also genocidal. And they clearly need no help in defending themselves.
Israel is using US-supplied weapons, US-supplied diplomatic and military coverage to wage this war. It's geopolitical cuckoldry to subsidize the imperial operations of other powers, assist Israel de facto with its settlement-building and colonization of Palestine (since that's what US aid unarguably does, by strengthening Israel's position). I live in a colonized country, the essence of civilization is conquest. But the big idea is that if you do the conquering, you enjoy the spoils. You don't do the conquering for other peoples. We are literally paying so the Israelis don't have to come to any reasonable accord with the Palestinians or other Arabs, so they can take more land, annex it, ignore the NPT and attack their neighbours with impunity. They know that they won't have to pay the price of their actions in Arab hostility, that we'll shield them militarily like we are now.
The US and the West more broadly doesn't need Israel, Israel has never joined the US in any war. They've made a lot of enemies for us, they provided phoney intelligence to encourage the Iraq War, they sold US tech to China, they brought down the Arab Oil Embargo on us. Israel clearly doesn't consider itself part of the Western bloc, they've never contributed anything. They only cause us problems, lap up aid and beg for more assistance like the aforementioned cuckoo bird. Now they've gotten us into another conflict in the Red Sea with their zeal for bombing. So be it if they want to kill lots of Palestinians - why is that our problem? Why do we have to guard their container ships from the Houthis and get ourselves targeted, start yet another expensive war? Why do we have to provide them munitions (out of already depleted stocks) and make Arabs angry with us? Strength is needed elsewhere, we've expended about 4 years worth of Tomahawk production (yes, that amounts to 80 missiles) on this campaign, which hasn't yet yielded any results.
Even this proposed moral trade 'if we get to expel our troublesome Palestinians from their own land as we annex it, that means you get to expel your troublesome migrants from your land' is unnecessary. I have no doubt that the plethora of Jewish refugee/migration NGOs would reject it, many are consistent in their contempt for both Israeli and Western national homogeneity: Soros and Ignatiev for example. The fact is that the Western world can do a great deal because there are hundreds of millions of us and we wield vast resources. Israel is a small country that acts as though it's a great power, having us shoulder the cost of its supersized ambitions.
RandomRanger
Just build nuclear plants!
9mo ago
Doesn't this just establish how Chaotic Evil the US is as a political entity?
George W. Bush (the hanging chad to Trump's virgin 'unlawful means') invaded Iraq with a lie, recklessly oversaw a pointless, insane war in Afghanistan. He has rivers of blood on his hands, a good chunk of it American. How many US soldiers have killed themselves from their pointless service in his pointless, retarded wars? But this is all Presidential and Acceptable so he gets off scot-free. The most anyone thinks of it is when he makes a Freudian slip in the standard anti-Putin diatribe and suffers a little embarrassment:
Instead, while criticising Russia’s political system, he said: “The result is an absence of checks and balances in Russia, and the decision of one man to launch a wholly unjustified and brutal invasion of Iraq.
“I mean, of Ukraine,” he said quickly.
He then said “Iraq too” to laughter from the crowd.
Is it a mask-off moment? Is there even a mask?
Trump... moved some documents about that he shouldn't have? Had his supporters come into the Capitol where they were shot at and then left peacefully once they turned on the announcement system telling them to leave? And this is the most awful and terrible thing to ever happen to US democracy? This is the man who needs to go to prison, out of all living US presidents?
What kind of insane world is this? Obama got a Nobel Peace Prize before he even did anything, back in 2009 'for fostering nuclear non-proliferation and reaching out to the Muslim World'. He then preceded to wreck Libya. He should've been getting Nobel Prizes for War or Destruction of Functioning Countries.
This reminds me of Nixon too. Nixon could bomb Laos into oblivion without any approval for war and that was totally fine, apparently. It happened before and after Nixon too, it's basically standard practice. Yet Nixon authorizes somebody to break into a journalist's apartment and that's just beyond the pale? It's a parody of justice, anarcho-tyranny on a grotesque scale.
It's not even Chaotic Evil where one is unabashed and upfront about doing whatever one pleases. It's Chaotic Evil dressed up as Lawful Good, how the US is some noble Paladin defending the Rules-Based International Order (though just what those Rules are is never made clear, for obvious reasons). 'Wink wink, nudge, nudge, the International Criminal Court is based in one of our vassal states and if that's not enough, we'll invade the Hague the moment a US service member is brought there.'
RandomRanger
Just build nuclear plants!
9mo ago
What about Japan? Obesity rate there is lower than Ethiopia!
https://worldpopulationreview.com/country-rankings/obesity-rates-by-country
I keep hearing people I presume to be Americans bemoaning obesity like it's an otherwise incurable curse that needs a technical fix. It really isn't impossible to have a healthy country if you have a healthy diet. Japan is fairly wealthy. Japan has access to American-style food, they just have their own cuisine which is healthier than the stuff we eat in the West. And I've never heard complaints that Japanese food is boring and unpleasant to eat. Hyperstimulus is just a description of problems localized to Western diet. And it is also possible to be healthy with a Western diet, if people put in a little effort cooking at home and buying food with proper ingredients that our ancestors would recognize. Cooking is not an advanced skill like programming, every household could do it a century ago.
HFCS-enriched chemical food is a choice. Like with its drugs problem, the US chooses to be fat and sick. It is possible for rich countries to be healthy and thin. It is possible for countries to build HSR. There are examples of it happening all around us.
RandomRanger
Just build nuclear plants!
9mo ago
How convenient, it's just the culture. Will you also argue that culture can make a chihuahua into a hunting dog? Will an improved culture of running put Europeans at the top of the 100m sprints? Will changes to black culture mean they start getting many Fields Medallists or STEM Nobel Prizes?
Genetics is real. Evolution is real. These things will remain real regardless of what you think about them, that's the beauty of material reality.
RandomRanger
Just build nuclear plants!
1yr ago
You say 'this forum, as a splinter faction of the rationalist movement skews wealthy, secular, cosmopolitan, college-educated, and frankly Democrat' but also 'there is a lot of talk here on the motte about progressives controlling the narrative' and 'ostensible right wingers lamenting the progressives' omnipresence and inevitable victory'.
What if this forum just isn't terribly Democratic, even though it might be wealthy, secular, cosmopolitan and well-educated? That's why people complain so much about progressives. They're not just ostensible rightists, they're rightists. Just look at this week - we have:
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Criticism of male circumcision
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Criticism of Fetterman, a dem candidate as well as Biden somewhat
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Criticism of reducing meritocracy in special forces
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Fairly anodyne Canadian demographic predictions
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Mild criticism of some drama in minecraft modding where leftists are turfing out a vaguely rightist/anti-left modder
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Mild comparison between Griner and Jan 6 as political prisoners
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Mild suggestion that some/many gays would be happier in a heterosexual lifestyle
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Anodyne post about AI
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FcFromSSC suplexing rationalism and Scott's mistake theory, to great applause
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Discussion of weaponization of the FBI against the left in the past and the right today
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Discussion of Kanye's cancellation, with the comments going into what probably would be called anti-semitism by the people who are calling Kanye anti-semitic.
Now I'm distilling long posts into short summaries, so a great deal of nuance is lost. But I think we can conclude that this forum is not Democratic. There's nothing clearly pro-Democratic that I can see at the top level.
This forum is an offshoot of rationalism but it's a pretty distant offshoot. Yud-Scott-motte and now motte.org... And let's not forget there were a fair few rightists back at the start on lesswrong, the whole hbd and neoreaction crowd had some presence there.
In the spirit of Tulsi Gabbard leaving the Democratic Party because her pro-meritocracy, anti-war, vaguely anti-PC views weren't really tolerated there, I think we should admit that this isn't an anti-PC Democratic forum, a forum for observing the culture war from an ivory tower, or a 'gray tribe' forum (how could it be given the level of anti-crypto sentiment, given gray tribe per Scott is supposed to be nerdy, tech-savvy libertarians). I think this is a rightist forum. Maybe that's too close to consensus building, I don't know. Is it wrong to observe a tendency?
RandomRanger
Just build nuclear plants!
1yr ago
If they have access to guns, then they could form militias and wage an insurgency against the government if they wanted. That capacity reduces government power, increases the power of the population. The more power you have, the more free you are.
Imagine if nobody in Afghanistan or Iraq had any guns - I think we would have won those wars and imposed our will upon those countries!
J. K. Rowling challenges new Scottish hate speech legislation, openly challenging them to arrest her for calling trans criminals men who pretend to be women:
https://twitter.com/jk_rowling/status/1774747068944265615
#ArrestMe is, dare I say it, brave and powerful. At least she's putting skin in the game. It's also pretty well calculated in my opinion.
They can't really attack her for being a right wing extremist when her world famous books are a pretty clear allegory of Racism Bad. She even makes sure to target India Willoughby, who is apparently anti-black. Rowling has an enormous pot of money for expensive litigation and automatic worldwide attention on her. It's hard to righteously defend people such as
It's very practical politics to fish out the worst of the enemy milieu to preface one's normative statements. I think Rowling has a good shot at tactical victory - either the govt won't charge her or she'll win in court. On the other hand, only systemic change is going to change the progressive-leaning status quo. You need an Orban or some similar force to drag out the weed by the roots, rather than just pruning away when it grows particularly egregious. Rowling is no Orban, that's probably far too extreme for her.
The legislation is here: https://www.legislation.gov.uk/asp/2021/14/contents
Crimes include 'stirring up hate' by 'behaving in a manner that a reasonable person would consider to be threatening, abusive or insulting' to select groups. Looks like it allows nigh-limitless opportunities for selective enforcement. And a huge drain on police resources, given they can't even investigate all crimes:
https://www.bbc.com/news/uk-scotland-68703684
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