RenOS
Dadder than dad
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User ID: 2051
RenOS
Dadder than dad
7d ago
Depends quite a bit on the particulars, but in general terms no. As I wrote:
Many of the more extreme options will probably result in some levels of emigration, but that's still very different than forcibly removing people of which a decent percentage would likely have been willing to adjust.
As long as you give people the option to adjust, the requirements are clearly aimed toward creating a sustainable state with citizens that hold a shared identity and they are reasonably attainable for the great majority of people, them leaving out of their own accord is not meaningfully "ethnic cleansing" in my view. The change can obviously still be bad in many other ways, though.
RenOS
Dadder than dad
7d ago
While the theory about how medieval executions drove a certain kind of evolution is cute and somewhat plausible, I consider it far from proven. If you asked me numbers, I'd say 20% to be true in broad terms, 40% to be true directionally but too weak pressure to be notable, and 40% to be just wrong. There is also the problem that executions have been a mainstay of cultures everywhere. As I remember, the relevant paper was OK in terms of "this is a theory, and it somewhat fits with some available evidence" but bad in terms of "this theory is actually significantly better than competing theories".
Much more plausible to me is simply that the cradle of humanity from which most non-africans descend was a pretty strong bottleneck with, among other things, multiple neurology-related mutational sweeps. Secondly the civilisational band of europe - middle east - asia has exerted pro-civilisation pressure over literal millenia, and from the available evidence the centre of highest development has changed multiple times. The problem with arabs really isn't biology, the moment they bother to assimilate they're pretty good citizens. That argument applies much more to (sub-saharan) africans, which still are a pretty small minority here.
In addition, I happen to be a pretty strong proponent of genetic engineering anyway.
I really don't get why people go straight to ethnic cleansing. It's a political non-starter for one unless we're on the brink of collapse, and there is several steps in-between here and there that are much more reasonable. Every single larger european country used to be multiple regions & ethnicities that didn't really identify as one, and there are quite a few accidents of history which would have led to a very different structure; Burgundy as an independent entity, or a much larger (or smaller, or integrated) Austria, or a mostly-unified Scandinavia, and so on. That the current shape feels so "solid" was the result of a deliberate process of propaganda and suppression of minority identities. The only reason why we nowadays can be so laizze-faire with european minority identification is precisely because of this process. My mom didn't speak high german for example, only low german, but was bullied in school even by the teachers until she could speak "proper" german. My parents only taught high german to me. And this obviously was toward the far end, both in time and in tameness, of the process.
There is so much we can change; We can tie welfare to much more stringent requirements, enforce a common language, or for a more extreme option we can require extensive civil/military service with explicit statements of loyalty. And there's even some "positive" actions still lacking; For example, I personally know an arabic guy who fell into alcoholism bc he was literally not allowed to work for multiple years due to his legal status, and he wasn't willing to engage in illegal work (in itself a laudable quality, even if it arguably was wrong in this case!). Many of the more extreme options will probably result in some levels of emigration, but that's still very different than forcibly removing people of which a decent percentage would likely have been willing to adjust.
RenOS
Dadder than dad
8d ago
It's imo very clearly about affluence and not having better things to do. here in europe there are plenty of poor white (mostly eastern german/european) women who don't give a shit, while affluent black or middle-eastern women get into the same stuff as the white.
RenOS
Dadder than dad
8d ago
FWIW, I actually apply this moreso to the protesters, in particular Foster, than to Perry. Even if they technically stay within the realms of the law, they're just asking for something to happen. I mostly read Armed's first paragraph, thinking he would be talking about Foster, and skipped straight to the comment, not noticing that in the second paragraph he calls out Perry in particular.
RenOS
Dadder than dad
8d ago
There is a saying for cyclists here, which is widely applicable and succinctly describes what you're talking about: "Saying 'but I had the right of way' does not help after you got run over".
RenOS
Dadder than dad
8d ago
That's the thing, if anything a successful assassination would make it more likely for the next russian leader to use a nuke, and a failed assassination would make it more likely for Putin to use a nuke. On the other hand reserving these tactics for extreme situations makes them less likely.
RenOS
Dadder than dad
8d ago
I also have to vote for "seems fishy" here. OF has a known problem that most models aren't actually super-profitable, with two broad exceptions: A tiny number of superstars, and those exploiting parasocial relationships with whales. The former is quite hard and unpredictable. For the latter, the model needs to convince the guys that she isn't just some camgirl, but that she is special. There are obviously many ways to do this, but some of the most popular are "I got exploited in the past and now just trying to survive, this isn't the REAL me", "actually, I'm a virgin/have a low number of physical partners, unlike all those other sluts" or "but I'm really smart". In this essay, she is hitting ALL these simultaneously. She gets a shot at superstardom, and if it doesn't work out, she has the necessary background to still go for the parasocial relationship.
In general given her OF, the essay is also quite hypocritical imo. She is literally exploiting what she is decrying.
RenOS
Dadder than dad
9d ago
Because the sales pitch of the inquisition wasn't "we will stop witch hunts", it was "we will do witch hunts the proper way". Granted though, this did reduce insane witchery nonsense substantially, and it probably was the most pragmatic way of doing so.
RenOS
Dadder than dad
13d ago
I agree - similar to men, who seek an outlet for their competitive and violent drives, women seek an outlet for their maternal and social drives. The problem is that while society is appropriately - sometimes overly - wary of toxic masculinity that results from not channeling these drives into something non-destructive or even constructive, society is completely in denial about the entire concept of toxic femininity; You can't reign in something you deny exists. The only remotely close concept I've heard in the mainstream was the "Karen", and even there it AFAIK only took off because a woman misjudged her position in the progressive stack, and it is generally not used by the mainstream in a way that fundamentally calls into question the feminine worldview.
I get the impression it's something else. When I lived in London, one thing I especially noticed was that many of the parks are arguably more beautiful than any german cities' I've been to, and if you look up the financing of restorations or new developments, it's not strictly London-specific, it's often from diverse sources. Same goes for the London museums in particular. Meanwhile, cheap neighbourhoods are worse dumps than anything I've ever seen in Germany. Trash in the streets, barbed wire everywhere, junkies, the housing quality would literally be illegal. Small towns are the same or worse; When I visited Hastings as a teen it looked pretty dead, lots of obvious junkies as well, and the english teachers who lived there also complained constantly about how awful Hastings has become (as a teen I didn't mind it much, actually found it fascinating). Other small towns I've visited as an adult also just look terrible, except for a minority of historically relevant cities such as Oxbridge, that often are disproportionally rich. I can't help get away with the impression that the UK is actively pooling its money extremely non-equitably into very few places (which is funny, given that the UK elite likes to talk about equity much more than the german elite does).
On the other hand in (western) Germany, it's not rare that I drive through a rural area and just stumble into a really nice, well maintained playground, or a park, or a nice-looking town centre. I only know the funding for my tiny home town, ~5k people, but I don't think it's unusual: large parts are actually from greater german/european sources, the town itself couldn't afford it. On the other hand, even the nicest centres of large cities don't really compare to central London. Eastern Germany is a different beast though, the countryside looks as awful as UKs, and the youth is fleeing in droves. On both sides, small cities often offer the best of both worlds and are correspondingly popular; Large enough to support most kinds of jobs, hobbies and locations, small enough to be somewhat affordable , with accessible nature & farms, and it still profits from certain funding sources explicitly targeted away from the large cities. I don't see something similar to UK/London happening any time soon.
Maybe it's just a feedback loop; once a critical mass of power is concentrated into a center it feeds itself until nothing else is left, the social equivalent of a black hole. In the past, countries didn't really care or even actively worked toward centralisation, so early unification countries are especially liable. Modern countries seem to care though, so late unification countries can stave it off successfully much more easily.
RenOS
Dadder than dad
17d ago
Kudos for actually putting in the work. It's not a proper study by any means, but at least trying to get an overview of broader tendencies is valuable.
FWIW, I've also never felt that this is a big deal if it's a modern setting. Even if the stats are slightly off, it's hardly unusual. What I really hate instead is the tendency for making every cast in all media a perfect match for [current year] US urban pop stats, independent of the setting, and for all morals to always reflect [current year] morality. If the setting is a rural backwater with an alleged clan-like family structure, concepts such as "blood money" you have to pay when your relatives screw up, etc. ... but then each clan has a perfect mix of distinguishable races from all over the world, absolutely everyone is constantly bitching about how blood money is unfair and actually, you can just trivially change families through adoption ... Why even bother? It's obvious the writers don't get how people who actually grew up in such a world would think, nor what the implications of different social structures and physical limitations are and how they would shape the world. It's all just "wouldn't it be cool if ..." but then keeping everything else bland and inoffensive.
RenOS
Dadder than dad
20d ago
In the sentence construction "X means nothing, [elaboration]" , the first part is usually slight hyperbole, and the second part explains in which way it does mean something. So for example if I talk about a video game and say "HP means nothing, you're either dead or not" it tells you the important lesson that you can freely use HP as a resource, except for the very last point, which is the one that does matter.
For dating, if you meet couples in their forties or later, you'll often notice how little it matters whether they were successful daters in the past, had good conversion rates, etc. The rate only matters insofar as to get a single success. Then suddenly other things matter much more. And even if you have pretty crappy rates, you actually can compensate, by just trying more often, or trying for longer. So even that minimum rate tends to be lower than you intuitively think.
RenOS
Dadder than dad
23d ago
Thanks a lot for the recs. Irontower indeed seems quite interesting.
RenOS
Dadder than dad
24d ago
FWIW, I was raised (catholic) christian, found his remark about God mostly being referred as Father weird & didn't recognize his Mormonism since it's not very common in Europe. I would have preferred if he had been specific.
RenOS
Dadder than dad
27d ago
I guess Outward was a worse example than i thought. It definitely "feels" indie in many ways, but probably is more like A game instead of AAA.
Nevertheless, even if I think about "true" Indie such as Trese Brothers, I struggle to think of examples that aren't noticably woke unless they literally have no story involving humanoids whatsoever (and even then, they sometimes somehow manage).
RenOS
Dadder than dad
27d ago
Always remember, dating for long-term relationships is one of the things where rates mean nothing, a single true success is enough. I also was struggling badly to get any positive attention whatsoever from women until I met my wife.
RenOS
Dadder than dad
28d ago
Is Indie really better in that respect? I'm currently playing Outward and enjoying the gameplay, but in terms of setting it has quite a few insufferably woke moments. Before, it was Battletech, which is also very woke. It just seems to be in the water supply at the moment.
RenOS
Dadder than dad
30d ago
I think at the core it's surprisingly a variation of "might makes right", but updated for a modern audience. It vaguely sounds moralistic at first glance, but it can also be used as a simple "your objections don't matter, you will die and we will prevail". It's also an important part of the progressive message as a counter to the natalist objection: Progressive ideologies generally have terrible TFR, and as such are liable to simply be replaced. So they adopted a self-conception as a vanguard that lives on in the ideals of the future society, even if they may not have biological offspring.
RenOS
Dadder than dad
30d ago
And boy the stories I have of what happens when they actually meet foreign men!
You can't write this and then not give us anything!
RenOS
Dadder than dad
1mo ago
Ah, I was being facetious. Highly-educated Indians don't have a bad rep at all (at least not in London where I lived for a while, can't really speak about Scotland but would be surprised if it was different there), and being a doctor has always been in the particular sweet spot of being both reasonably high-status and being a good person that makes women swoon, even if the UK is arguably not the best place to be one. I'd be surprised if you'd struggle terribly.
On online dating in general, the worst at everything are universally men, and more obviously so as well. My point is rather that it seems like "medium-value" guys, while having less matches overall, seem to have a better ratio since mostly serious, normal woman show interest in them. "High-value" guys attract a lot of attention, which will disproportionally be crazy attention. That girls fall in love from like meeting you twice lends credence to this, imo. But in the end this really is just second-hand impressions from acquaintances; I've never used, nor intend to ever use, dating apps myself.
On therapies, I've gotten that impression more than once; Though it also seems to be the reason why some people seem to get stuck in therapy perpetually.
RenOS
Dadder than dad
1mo ago
Don't worry, as a Paki Indian in the UK you're bottom very slightly above bottom rung in terms of dating, and being a doctor is roughly comparable to construction worker in terms of income there.
On a more serious note, I've noticed that men who are having decent success (in terms of lots of matches) on dating apps seem to run into a lot of crazies, and it's unsurprising that psych med students have the worst ratio of all. Having "doctor/psych trainee" in your dating app bio kind of screams "do therapy for free, but you can tip me with sex". Neurotypical women also don't really want to date, they want to have a stable relationship, so they spend as little time as possible on these apps, so you're already oversampling from a biased sample.
RenOS
Dadder than dad
1mo ago
My experience has been that it's generally a fool's errand to try to change someone's behaviour whom you're not in a position of power over (heck, I find changing my own behaviour difficult enough, at least our daughter listens for the time being). Also, sleeping 16 hours a day is not really something people do for fun, does it really matter whether it's the depression or just physical? She is 81 and clearly very unhealthy, at that point it's kinda understandable to just wait for death with minimal discomfort, even if that sounds sad. It does not seem clear to me that "just become more active and healthy again" is actually an option on the table for her.
For your father-in-law, I would consider a serious talk about wasting away since he is clearly in a better shape and would benefit more from more activity, but in the end it's also up to him. We have a somewhat similar situation with my wife's grandfather, who was struck by the unexpected death of his wife. Before, he was unusually healthy for his age both physically and psychologically, since then he has started to explicitly say he's now just waiting for his time to come to an end. He stopped almost all physical activity and he has started to show signs of a rapidly deteriorating dementia. Despite all his children constantly trying to to talk him into becoming more active again, with varying angles. It's unclear (though not unlikely) whether he will actually die anytime soon - they're certainly not letting him.
In general, I'm happy that we have the options of modern technology and medicine, but it seems to me we're culturally failing pretty hard at gracefully taking advantage of them. Though I guess that is now going beyond the scope of this thread.
Quiet quitting/just not giving a shit is imo much more common & relevant. If you make your boss look like a fool, it is trivial for him to make it fall back on you. But if everyone tries to do slightly less than everyone else, bc doing more is plainly not rewarded, then you enter a race to the bottom that deteriorates everything.
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