RedRegard
1yr ago
Not only do we not see female losers as losers, but I think that often we fail to perceive them at all. A third of homeless people are female, for instance, but the prototypical homeless person in the public consciousness is almost invariably male. I think there's also a recent upswing in young male dysfunction owing to the collapse of masculine-coded blue-collar work. Service sector jobs code as more feminine and better pair with female agreeability, while males chaff under the subservience required of them.
RedRegard
1yr ago
Sometimes they really are on the street (usually obese, weird looking, skeletal, etc.), but I think people tune them out because they don't enjoy contemplating unfeminine women. They are actively unwholesome in ways that slovenly men are not. It is the dual edge of the women are wonderful trope.
RedRegard
1mo ago
There's a problem with your Darwinian reasoning - and it has economic resonance, such that I recall David Friedman once writing about it - which is that a single man's contribution towards victory in a line battle is so minuscule as to make no difference in the battle's result, and so would neither make for a powerful behavioral incentive, nor for a powerful influence on his ability to reproduce. Instead, it would be his compatriots' group effort that would make the difference, thus suggesting the possibility of group selection being a thing, although I think there are broader arguments (with a mathematical basis?) for why group selection isn't likely to be a thing, either.
I think there is some Darwinian selection going on here, but it works more like this: the cost of being a coward isn't that your tribe gets slaughtered in battle, it's that your social reputation gets ruined and your fellow tribesmen shun you.
So men are selected on the basis of whether they integrate into their tribes properly, courage being a particularly valued trait, but also conformity - whatever gets you there. Courage is perhaps more of a manifestation of behavioral traits than a trait that is selected for by itself, or perhaps it is both. In any case, I think it's more likely to be intra-tribal social selection that drives gene selection in this case than inter-tribal warfare.
Actually, the natives of Canada are extremely demographically relevant. Their overall TFR was 2.5~ in 2011 and was higher for those on reserves, where it was over 3, and substantially lower for those assimilated urban populations you mentioned. Their share of Canada's overall population has actually substantially increased over time despite Canada's sky-high immigration rates.
In 2011, when Canada’s TFR was 1.61 children per woman, the TFR for Status Indian women was 2.63 children per woman, 3.25 if living on reserve. The TFR for women identifying as First Nation but without Status was 1.47 children per woman, and the TFR for self-identified Métis women was 1.81 children per woman. The TFR for Inuit generally was 2.75 children per woman, with records collected by Nunavut and the North-West Territories indicating a TFR of 3.02 children per Inuit woman living there.
https://ecampusontario.pressbooks.pub/indigenouseconomics244/chapter/104/
RedRegard
1yr ago
We've already seen the mass obsolescence of humans. The result was to push people towards the service economy while also increasing social dysfunction among the former blue-collar working class. Political outcomes actually led to the reduction of social programs under the auspices of neoliberalism and Reaganism, as the blue-collar class had lost the organizational potential that their former labor involvement had granted them. Probably we will see more people employed in the service economy as well as a 'shadow economy' while the real economy falls under the sway of capitalists and their robotic labor forces.
RedRegard
1yr ago
why do you think that building more will actually solve the problem with unaffordable housing? We have been adding lanes to highways since time immemorial (aka the 50s) and the congestion is still here.
If instead of adding lanes, you employ technology designed to transport large numbers of people through dense areas (mass transit systems), you can indeed defeat congestion. Likewise with housing. Technology exists for high-density housing, and if you implement it then more people can live according to their preferences, and less taxes, less pollution, less economic inefficiencies must be endured in the name of car-dependent, utility-subsidized suburbs.
RedRegard
1mo ago
It's in peoples' rational self-interest to stand up for victims because being a victim could happen to anyone and the costs for the victim are often greater than the benefits for the abuser. Same reason why torture is usually outlawed the moment democracy is implemented: the benefits of torture are small, the costs great, so people outlaw it as they themselves don't think the costs of foregoing torture outweigh the benefits of never having to be a potential recipient of it.
That this reasoning sometimes errs is because the analysis of who constitutes a victim/abuser is, like all other democratic analyses, based on outward optics and scant information. It's the satellite view of a conflict and so misses all of the nitty-gritty. So only a rough approximation of the matter is made. The roles, only vaguely educed.
And there are also perverse incentives that the average human holds. There's the Harrison Bergeron impulse on the part of the mediocre multitude to hold down and discredit the talented few. Retarded, violent populations are not as maligned as they perhaps should be following utilitarian calculations, as the average citizen to some extent identifies with them or else narcissistically considers themselves to be a savior. So populations like the Palestinians earn protected status, while their haughty superiors are brought low, but it all follows from the base self-interest of the demos, those muddled idiots who wish to protect themselves...
RedRegard
1yr ago
I think the reason I prefer playing chess with people rather than AIs is due to the competitive aspect of it. There's pride to be had in besting a human opponent - and thus stakes to the game - that doesn't exist when playing an emotionless, uncaring AI. The values of pride and shame are what make human opponents preferable to machines.
RedRegard
1yr ago
Political beliefs are used to construct egotistical fantasies of importance and self-righteousness. Market forces commoditize this via talk shows and podcasts. They're also used to win popularity among conformist hierarchies such as office spaces. The only true insight into a person's character is through their actions. This has always been known but narcissism and widespread delusion induce mass fantasy in the political sphere. Many other types of fantasy pervade society as well.
RedRegard
1yr ago
Evolution doesn't have a 'job', it's a mindless process that doesn't care about human values. Eugenics is merely about guiding the process to achieve results in accordance with human values. Currently, evolution is selecting for low intelligence, social malignancy, and poor immune systems, among a very long list of other undesirable things. So it would accord with my values to have a eugenics program correct for this. The future I would desire would initially look like Israel — a nation with a mere ten million relatively intelligent souls and yet also with a space program. But the sky's the limit. Who knows what wondrous societies would be possible if intelligence were pushed higher than even the Jews'?
RedRegard
2mo ago
The disadvantaged groups that get on the 'stack' all have something in common: their qualities act as tribalistic signifiers, which in turn provides a basis for political coordination. This might just be an outgrowth of human evolutionary history, where apes gathered themselves into tribes and warred against rival tribes, mirroring our present political circumstances not by accident but because of the encoding of behavior into genes. We are witnessing the modern potential of ape-evolution.
Mental and psychological disabilities are not close enough to the tribal dynamic to serve as signifiers in this way, so they are not adequate, in the same way, as a basis for political organization. To the extent that policy is made to take these things into account I would say that it's probably driven by higher mental processes and philosophies than by instinctual ape-tribalism.
RedRegard
1yr ago
Having Putin invade Ukraine was the worst possible outcome. Russia is now excluded from Western markets and politically stigmatized, so it will no longer have an incentive to behave itself in interactions with the West. It will become like North Korea, an insular security state that uses terrorism and criminality to get what it can from a hostile global order. Ukraine itself has lost a third of its population, had a large amount of land permanently scarred, and had its economy destroyed, and even if it wins it will find itself with a long-term hostile neighbor. Large amounts of Western capital have been sacrificed to the war effort, and Russia's resources and economic contributions to the world are now for China to take. So economically, security-wise, and in terms of Ukraine's well-being it seems like the war has been a monumental disaster for Western diplomacy.
RedRegard
12d ago
The Liberals have dramatically increased the immigration rate, which certainly has inflated property values. There are good arguments to defend this, among them that the higher property values are a net gain for Canada since the vast majority of property is owned by Canadians and most Canadians are homeowners. It really only hurts renters whose parents aren't homeonwers and therefore won't inherit that wealth. Most young Canadians, even if they rent, have parents who are benefiting from this and therefore shouldn't really complain (although they do).
It's bleak compensation for me if after twenty years of a degenerative enforced lifestyle I receive some wealth from my parents after they die. Yours seems to be an extremely materialistic view: you are placing immense value on greatly delayed net worth maximization while discounting life choices that people are funneled into today. I'd go so far as to say that net worth is of minor value compared to qualitive aspects of lifestyle which do not depend on it so much as on personal and public choice making. A society that chooses to be more healthy and virtuous is better than one which is simply richer, particularly if the riches are withheld until given members reach middle-advanced age. Net worth calculation should take a definite back seat to other matters such as intellectual, physical, and creative enhancement.
RedRegard
1mo ago
As an aside, it's interesting how the apartheid government never even tried to adjust population. Not through white immigration, not through population control programs for blacks, not through attempts to boost the native white fertility rate. Obviously it's a hard problem, but it's interesting that they didn't even try.
It seems like governments mostly focus on solving acute problems rather than long-term progressive ones. The payoff for fixing birthrates wouldn't come for at least twenty years after the fact, only once the added batches of children begin reaching maturity, while the costs would begin immediately. Governments are typically run by people who only expect to be in power for short durations, so for them it's better to deal with staving off coups and electoral defeats. That means focusing on who gets the $$$ and making the right noises.
There's also a weird tendency for normies to deny all matters pertaining to biology in pretty much any context. Possibly, this due to narcisism. Or maybe it's about optimizing for personal social advancement over coordinating against civilization threats. It is as though they sit at the very precipice of oblivion maintaining attitudes of perfect nonchalance. As long as they do not fall in, they are content; and those who do fall in do not have the luxury of further action. That's essentially what happened to the white South Africans, and probably all other fallen societies.
I think you neglect the way in which power factors into status considerations. People would fawn over Elon Musk or an emperor not because they believe such people to be meritocratic but because they hope to receive rewards and avoid punishments. The people at the top of power hierarchies manipulate those below them through various means in order to encourage and shape desirable consensuses. People buy into these for selfish reasons having more to do with personal fitness than group fitness. That's why people who aren't in a position to benefit from or be punished by Elon Musk (random journalists on Twitter) pile on him so relentlessly. They do it because he does not matter to them, but the opinions of their peers and employers do, so they demonstrate commitment to the group consensus in the hopes of impressing other members of the hierarchy.
Also, people often base their status evaluations on personal egotism. People who fancy themselves to be technophilic, market-oriented individuals will argue that Elon Musk deserves utmost respect, while people who fancy themselves to be more artistic and empathic rather than logical will decry him, and this is simply based on how their own qualities are reflected in Elon Musk. They use their perceptions of other peoples' status to feel good about themselves.
I've read that medieval workers averaged 1600 hours annually, while modern people work 1900 hours, and industrial revolution-era workers put in 3000+ (https://tudorscribe.medium.com/do-you-work-longer-hours-than-a-medieval-peasant-17a9efe92a20). The horror stories about the wretched condition of peoples teeth and health in premodern times I've come across also seem to mostly come from the industrial age. I suspect that Malthusianism is partly to blame for declining standards, but also the power that capitalists and landowners gained over the commonfolk. Medieval economic systems were chaotic and inefficient, but they served to protect the peasantry against the ruling class through their illegibility. As the economy became more streamlined and efficient, it also gave the powerful greater leverage over the common people. The maximization of profitability for those at the top led to the sacrifice of complex arrangements that satisfied a broader array of needs for those at the bottom.
On a similar note, I've come to believe that medieval peasants weren't necessarily super different from tribalists in their economic engagement, and also that the distinction between hunter-gatherers, agriculturalists, etc. is somewhat misleading, since most societies derived their nourishment from a motley of sources. Medieval people fished, foraged, hunted, etc., too, and many hunter-gatherers I've read about seem to have engaged in some amount of cultivation, so the categories aren't entirely discrete. In Seeing Like A State, it seems to be indicated that primitive peoples, including medieval peasants, had a complex arrangement of nutrient sources, which depended on access to farms, forests, and streams, but as society became streamlined and living spaces monopolized, they were forced into factories and workshops and fed mono-diets of grain. From there, various vitamin deficiencies and rapid tooth decay ensued.
RedRegard
1mo ago
The purpose of immigrants is to strengthen Canada for the future in absolute rather than relative terms. The power elite figure that they will be able to command greater respect internationally if they grow their population faster than peer countries. I suspect that this is not true, as further technological advance will render low-quality human capital increasingly obsolete in both military and economic terms. We are already seeing economic growth potential increasingly reliant on tech sector success. The commodities-driven market of Canada is expected to fare poorly and there's no apparent alternative. All these masses of humanity have been brought here, and it is for no reason.
RedRegard
1mo ago
Don't Asians have some gene that makes them less likely to get fat (but more likely to get diabetes and heart disease) as well?
RedRegard
1mo ago
Sounds like you need a long-term eugenic environment to cost-efficiently correct this. The social matrix that enables this behavior is itself founded on genetics. To fix a country you must fix its people.
RedRegard
1yr ago
Manipulate housing prices in order to extract rents from all the anti-British immigrants and have the last laugh while they squabble over pronouns and shit?
RedRegard
1yr ago
Humans inevitably impose themselves on the natural world in pursuing their goals, so I would say that I am simply a human who has systematized this particular matter and sees value in bringing evolution, like other natural processes, under human cultivation. The values would have to do with wanting to see generally positive, virtuous behaviors increased in their distribution and negative behaviors decreased, and ultimately this would be because I would rather live in the resultant world rather than our present, declining one, so it would be about serving myself.
RedRegard
13d ago
The DEI stuff is built around internet fads, upper-middle-class pretensions/narcissism, and establishment imperatives. The terms left and right are malleable and relative, so it's both left-wing and not-left-wing. In any case, it's very convenient for the knowledge worker class and the giant institutions they serve, as it not only leaves their deeper structures and economic advantages uncontested (while merely arguing for superficial alterations), it also argues for increased power to be given to these people and institutions, as their credentials, HR departments, teams of lawyers and such are put forward as the necessary cures for 'systemic' bigotry or whatever.
What 'true' leftists, which exist only as fully as true rightists, lament is that there aren't strong working-class involvements in this new left, and indeed it lacks much revolutionary spark at all. It's not about solving or changing modern society so much as it's about keeping things in place and expanding the purvue of some of its most powerful factions. I think it deserves to be treated as a process of its own, best understood as a unique development that began around the 1960's, rather than something that matches patterns as broad as 'leftism'. Although, I can see the propagandistic appeal of accusing them of being false leftists, given that the term left enjoys positive valence with many of the people who would benefit from more working class, economically focused initiatives, such that it's a way of signaling to them that they are missing out. It's a matter of brand manipulation rather than objective understanding.
RedRegard
1mo ago
Also the welfare state they complain about disproportionately favors them in many regards. A hugely outsized portion of healthcare costs go towards treating the elderly, and they also (probably) get all sorts of old age benefits and subsidies for caretaking, retirement homes, public transportation, and such.
RedRegard
1mo ago
A panopticon society might fix the problem everywhere, but if you're talking about just a single implementation of the legibility fix then you're only resolving the surface aspect of the problem. If you simply wish for parking spaces to not get stolen, sure, it would work. If you're viewing the problem as 'bad actors use intimidation and bullying to create unfair, anti-utilitarian outcomes', then implementing the fix in one place will simply squeeze the problem out elsewhere.
There are two practical reasons to avoid war crimes:
They encourage a defect-defect race toward the bottom, as the enemy is encouraged to reciprocate by killing your own soldiers.
They create bad optics. Given that Ukraine is highly dependent on foreign aid, its public image is important. Tarnishing that image in order to kill small numbers of enemy prisoners and thus jeopardize large amounts of foreign aid seems like a poorly calculated strategy.
So the Halla-aho guy's reasoning seems poor. (Also, killing enemy soldiers is just one of many factors that could advance one's war aims.)
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