SSCReader
3mo ago
Mods are judge, jury and executioner, and the legislative branch. They are the ones who set up and run the space, therefore they get to decide everything. If Zorba wants to shut the site down entirely that is his prerogative. We don't have any rights in a space, we didn't create and don't help run. We don't even pay taxes!
In other words this is not our house, it is Zorbas and as per the Castle doctrine, he is quite entitled to "shoot" anyone he doesn't want here. Think of yourself as a guest, and consider the host has an absolute right to throw you out, if you do not behave the way they want you too.
The fact Zorba handles that generally with a light touch (as do his deputies) is irrelevant. That is the cold hard truth of the matter.
SSCReader
6mo ago
Just open free Halal McDonalds and Pizza Hut, free supermarkets packed full of goods with high fructose corn syrup and give out free Steamdecks and Starlink access and flat screen tvs. Free cellphones with TikTok and Insta and Tinder baked in. Free condoms, free birth control pills. Start up the Real Housewives of the Gaza Strip and make a whole bunch of tv shows ostensibly set in the Islamic Middle East but pushing Western sexual mores. Open free pharmacies giving out opiates and antidepressants. We can do so much better than blue jeans and rock music nowadays.
Bring the full force of Western Decadence against them, and see who the strong horse really is.
SSCReader
20d ago
The Sexual Revolution pitch was that we could remove shame from sex completely, that everyone could have all the sex and everything would be fine.
I don't think that was the pitch, because like every change, there was no single one movement responsible for it. What you had was a coalition who wanted slightly different things, one part wanted gay sex to be accepted, another wanted women to have more freedom outside of marriage, another wanted men to have more freedom without getting married, another felt sexual urges in general should not be shamed as much, etc. etc. There were few would if you asked would have said for example, should we stop shaming sex with animals or corpses? Almost no-one wanted to remove shame from sex entirely.
To be clear almost everyone is shamed under the old model. They just use that shame to behave differently. Every kid who felt guilty about masturbation. Every husband who felt shame at cheating, or even having thoughts of cheating. Every woman who felt shame at sex outside of wedlock, or who had a sex drive society felt was too much. Every gay person who felt shame at being attracted to their own sex. All of those groups constitute probably a majority of people. That's what I mean by a tipping point.
Now as for why Puritan America did not change, well Puritan America was a result of people fleeing from cultures that shamed differently. There is a reason we call them Puritans after all! So they in fact are a product of a "Revolution" of their own (among other things of course). But even more the 20th Centuries Sexual Revolution I would say the sexual norms of the Puritans did not last, they were relaxed within decades. It's just in the New World there was a lot of space for people who felt differently to just..go somewhere else. And practice things differently. But that isn't the case in the US anymore.
Just to point out, I do think shame is important, as is empathy. They are evolved mechanisms given humanity is a social species. And they are important in ensuring societal stability. I'm not saying that shaming sex is bad, or that not shaming sex is good. I am saying that our history shows that shame has limits and ANY society or culture that wants its beliefs and conditions to continue is on a tight rope. Can't shame to much for too many, can't shame too little. Both will result in the destruction of your system. The good (depending on your point of view!) news is that also is true for whatever comes next. I think there are signs that the shame mechanisms invoked by "wokism" are also going too far and will fail.
Social dynamics mean we are not good at simply arriving at a pretty good spot and just staying there. We almost always push too far, or not far enough.
SSCReader
27d ago
If CO2 emissions really as as catastrophically dangerous as they are made out to be, then nuclear is the obvious, guaranteed-to-work, 100% solution that would completely have already solved this problem by now
Unless the same people also fear nuclear power to roughly the same extent. And unfortunately many people who drive environmental concerns grew up in an era where fear of nuclear power was rampant. The Cuban Missile crisis, Chernobyl, Three Mile Island. In other words if you think A will be a catastrophe and can be solved by B, which will also be a catastrophe then it becomes easy to see why people look for options C through F.
The real test is once those people die/retire/age out of leadership roles will the movement reorient itself.
Same as generals still fighting the last type of war instead of the next one.
Notably, they can of course be wrong about how catastrophic A or B might be, but from direct exposure to very many high level "climate alarmists" it is my opinion they are absolutely sincere in being worried about the climate. They are just also worried about nuclear catastrophes. And a whole bunch of other things. In fact I would say the thing that connects them (or most of them), is they worry way too much about a lot of things.
After all if this fear of climate change is driven by hysteria, what makes you think their other fears are going to be rationally evaluated against climate change in order to solve climate change?
SSCReader
2mo ago
Christianity is pretty disordered itself. So I am not sure Christianity really has much of the moral high ground here. Even setting aside the truth value of the existence of God. Why else are there 85 different sects which have had (and still do have) their own violent confrontations?
Which exact Christian sect is going to be at the head of this Christian nationalism? I suspect there will be some pretty big push back coming from inside its own house. Are you really wanting to bring back Catholic vs Protestant as a live issue?
Being from Northern Ireland, I can tell you, that might not go as well as you would like.
SSCReader
3mo ago
That protesters were allowed into the Capitol has resulted in the largest political victory for either party in my lifetime. And that really should mean something to anyone discussing the events of that day.
The problem is that says too much. Under this metric any action that gives ammunition to one side of the other is suspect. Increased immigration at the border is an opportunity for Trump to use against Biden, does that mean Trump is secretly funding caravans in Mexico? Did Democrats organize Trump getting enough SCOTUS seats so they would overturn Roe V Wade and thus bring abortion back on the table to energize their base?
In other words there are so many things that happen that look bad for one side or the other that you have to have something other than that to be useful for this determination. The fact it can be used as ammunition tells you nothing about whether it was manufactured or simply a mistake that was then exploited.
To consider, what would look different in a world where J6 was a frame and a world where it was not? From a media and attacking Trump point of view, I would contend nothing. The media would jump on it either way, his opponents would jump on it either way. So those actions after the fact don't give you any actual information about whether it was an inside job or not.
SSCReader
1mo ago
This is counter-signalling. He knows defending them makes him look like he is on the other side (and so his arguments will be reflexively ignored), so he must counter that signal by also making sure to point how how much he doesn't like them.
SSCReader
2mo ago
Baldur's Gate 1&2,
Look, I love Baldur's Gate as much as the next DnD geek, but its writing on its own was not very good. I love Ed Greenwood and Forgotten Realms as a setting (I am currently running a DnD game set near Neverwinter right now) but his writing is, well saying derivative is putting it very kindly. Icewind Dale is renowned for being even more of a combat simulator than BG1 and 2. I thought the Arkham's were good games, but their story was just very basic Batman.
I will definitely give you Planescape, VtMB and New Vegas though. Portal was ok, Silent Hill were very hit and miss. Undying I will say was very true to Clive Barker, but he is definitely an acquired taste.
SSCReader
4mo ago
I've seen the same in the UK and Ireland with poor whites
Which is interesting because black culture derives a lot from Ulster-Scots borderer culture in the first place, (hence the many comparisons between poor white rural culture and poor black urban culture in the US sharing so many norms) the poorer half of my own family in Northern Ireland have very similar honor culture based beliefs and behaviors as do my black American wife's poorer relatives. The specifics are different (dog fighting vs badger baiting, joining the UDA/UDR instead of a gang, 1619 vs 1690) but the behaviors driving it are the same.
ADOS culture is itself a mish-mash of the only cultures they were able to see around them, given their original cultures and beliefs were stripped away. Which is why black soul food is basically just southern cuisine and so on (fried chicken is believed to have come from Scots immigrants in the first place) and both AAVE and Ulster-Scots share the "habitual be" linguistically.
I suppose it does mean that if black culture does get a foothold in the South of Ireland, then we Ulster-Scots will have finally won that particular culture war in a roundabout way.
More seriously, the fact that the UK is just re-importing the behaviors of troublemaking types who moved to America in the first place is kind of elegant. Though I would point out it isn't necessarily less pro-social in either the Ulster or black variants. It simply has a much more restricted ring of who you regard as part of your society. It creates tight networks within groups who may be targets from other groups. Which is less adaptive than say the more WASPy behaviors of the other side of my family in a modern context, most likely. But is very adaptive when your group is in a potentially precarious position.
SSCReader
5mo ago
Republicans in PA in 2019 opened up mail in ballot access because it would help turn out in rural voters who had to travel long distances to a polling place. They did this in 2019, before Covid.
If they thought it would always be a benefit to Democrats then they would probably have not done that. Once it did, some of the very same Republicans who passed it, lobbied for it to be declared unconstitutional.
For whats its worth, your opinion is the conventional wisdom, that it helps Democrats over Republicans. Whether that would have been the case in PA absent Covid and it becoming a direct partisan issue, I guess we will never know.
SSCReader
6mo ago
Eh, the IRA wanted a United Ireland, many Catholics also wanted that. But I think you can support Irish Nationalists without supporting the violence of the IRA. And I say that as a Unionist.
The question is how much of the Palestinian population supports the murder of Israelis to get their nation and how many do not. Presumably some portion of their population is actially "sane".
SSCReader
6mo ago
To do the thing, He set up the rules to require Him to do? Not exactly making me feel the love, honestly.
You don't get to be the omnipotent, omniscient creator God, then also want kudos for solving some problem you created. The sacrifice of Jesus is only required because God wanted it to be so.
It's very theatrical I will give you that. God is clearly a drama queen if nothing else.
SSCReader
7mo ago
Many Irish-Americans supported the IRA, and indeed one can imagine, Native Americans complaining about why these Anglos came here and brought all their nonsense from the Old World, with their Protestants and Catholics and Monarchists and so on.
You're starting from a premise that Anglos didn't bring their grievances with them, and I don't think that is clearly true. In fact the truth is, I think everywhere we go, (people in general) we always bring our grievances with us. From Puritan settlers to Quakers and on, you can see those grievances impact on today. Why do you think PA has such restrictive liquor laws compated to say Texas?
We can just over a long enough period, replace our old grievances with new ones that better fit our new situation. It just takes time.
Give it a minute and just like Irish-Americans complaining more about blacks in Boston, or Polacks somewhere else, everyone will get proper new grievances against the people next door instead. Yes, yes Israel is bad, but have you seen that they want to put a half way house just down from the mosque?
SSCReader
7mo ago
Notably McCarthy has not asked for support from the Democrats. Probably correctly realizing that doing that weakens his position with his own party. If the Democrats want to make things awkward for him, voting for him is exactly the way to do it. He wins this vote, sure, but it's a terrible look for him and he would probably be gone in a month or two.
This is not a backstab, because it is what McCarthy expected to happen. Remember winning the vote is not the only thing at stake here for him. Losing clean is probably preferable to winning due to your opponents voting for you. It would taint him for close to a third of his House brethren.
The Democrats best way to help him is to stay out of it, which means voting against him, so doing what they are expected to do. If any of them do vote for him, that will be the interesting scenario.
SSCReader
24d ago
He is suggesting you are blaming the victim. Though really the analogy would need to be: Someone walking in a bad neighborhood was raped, so their lawyer suggested showering afterwards, not calling the police and simply hoping the perpetrator was caught.
I think it would be reasonable to criticize the lawyer, while still being aware that the rape was bad in and of itself as well.
SSCReader
1mo ago
Jailed doesn't happen often for speech, fined and community service is more normal. In 94 LGBT protestors (including Peter Tatchell, protesting an Islamist group) were arrested for having placards, and took 2 years to be acquiited. In 98 Tatchell was found guilty under a law from 1860 outlawing protest in a church for mounting the pulpit to give a speech opposite the Archbishop of Canterbury. In 2012 Azir Ahmed was fined and sentenced to community service for speech about soldiers who should go to hell. In 2012 Barry Thew was jailed for 8 months for wearing a T-Shirt that approved of cops being murdered.
Whether you would call them leftists I don't know but, being pro LGBT, anti colonial (or neo-colonial) use of soldiers and being ACAB, seem pretty left coded.
SSCReader
2mo ago
Yeah they get hammered 10-1, but "win" because Sisko realized his competitiveness was getting in the way of actually playing the game for fun which is the most important thing, and lets their worst player in (who then scores them their only run by accident), and then their celebrations annoy the Vulcans.
I'm more concerned about why O'Brien was infusing the gum with Scotch and not Irish whiskey...
SSCReader
2mo ago
This isn't just a blue tribe/liberal thing however. Pro-life people are pushing for abortion to be outlawed through out the US, not just where they live. It's a simple outgrowth of a moral judgement. If I believe X is wrong, then people should not be allowed to do X. It's the fundamental basics of civilization. If I think murder is wrong, I can't simply not murder, I have to try and stop other people murdering. Otherwise Christians could simply not try to outlaw abortion, just simply not get one themselves. But that isn't enough. Not for Christians and not for liberals. We want to live in a society that does the things we think are good, and does not do the things we think are bad.
SSCReader
4mo ago
I'm the opposite, until recently I thought there was a big drop in the amount of moderating, to the detriment of the space. Hopefully the additional mods, mean we can keep a tightly moderated space. The whole point of theMotte is that civility needs to be modded for, in order that people with very different opinions can interact. TheMotte allows you to say almost anything...as long as you do it with an eye to framing it civilly for even your opponents. Good faith is helpful, but you still have to maintain your civility. That means not using terms that are likely to be inflammatory to your outgroup, unless those terms are vital to your post.
That requires a significant amount of moderating I think.
SSCReader
6mo ago
If oppressive monarchies have a tendency to experience revolutions in the first place that wreck the country, that has to be taken into account as a negative for oppressive monarchies though. Thats one of the functions of democracy, so that the common people feel they have a say and don't overthrow the government.
You're seeing the end state of an oppressive monarchy collapsing and blaming it on what follows. If oppressive monarchies were so stable, then they wouldn't collapse like this.
SSCReader
6mo ago
I've always been somewhat stoic (I've been called a soulless automaton and an emotionless sociopath at different times by different people), but I think this would be normal for me as well. The only times I have ever cried as an adult that I can recall was losing my infant son, and losing my wife (at different times, just to be clear). One was sudden and unexpected, the other was after a long slow battle with cancer. An acquaintance is unlikely to get more than a passing feeling of sadness. Though of course my wife's feelings would be more of what I would focus on helping with in your case.
Having said that, while both of those losses made me heartbroken, it didn't particularly last, I never fell into a depression. I don't think I have ever been depressed, no matter how bad things get. You have to move on, no matter how bad things were, things will get better. And I did find my (innate?) optimism did get some odd reactions from people who expected me to be depressed for months or more perhaps. I cried on and off for maybe a day or two, then very sporadically when something reminded me of the loss for another few weeks. In both cases though I was supporting other people, my wife or my other kids as well as dealing with all the practicalities, so there was a limit to how much falling apart I could allow myself.
I do have very distinct memories, of thinking to myself, ok, time to put a lid on this, it hurts, but there is nothing to be done except to deal with what needs to be dealt with and get through it.
Would you really though? If their first proclamation was, "With our immense IQ we have decided BurdensomeCountTheWhite, his family line and all his friends and family must be wiped from the Earth, so as to facilitate the future flourishing of the great Tralfamadore Empire". Are you going to walk your friends and family into the disintegration chamber? You are just going to trust that they know what's best?
SSCReader
6mo ago
I genuinely don't understand the Western insistence that Islamists aren't telling the truth when they say that they kill infidels for Allah.
That can be true, and it still be true, that it is harder to find people willing to kill when the population is wealthier. I believe the IRA were killing in the name of Irish nationalism, but they still struggled to find recruits once Catholics in Northern Ireland became richer. You might still believe in the cause, but once you have a comfortable life, risking your life for it looks like a worse deal. You'll probably still get some, of course.
SSCReader
14d ago
This is not to say that reality is as we wish it to be, only that our beliefs about reality are under our direct, willful control, and always will be.
Interestingly I think it is the exact opposite. We don't choose out beliefs about reality by act of will, they emerge from our sub-conscious (our "true" self) and then rationalized thereafter. I think you are right they are not driven by evidence, but I have never ever in my life made a willing act of choice in my beliefs. I simply realized that I believed X, or didn't believe Y (sometimes after someone made a point and I argued against only to realize weeks later, that my belief had changed). I don't know how I would even go about choosing through an act of will to just believe something to be true.
I might also go so far as to say that almost by very definition beliefs cannot be under our conscious control. I cannot choose to believe in God, and I should know because I spent a lot of time trying so that I would fit in. I just could not do it, no matter how I tried.
They certainly weren't hyper-logical and hyper competent. Dogged, probably, yes. I think there is also the fact, that of the female police officers I know, they do seem to act more masculine, presumably because they are in an overwhelmingly masculine space. If you are going to portray female cops I think you should show them as more masculine acting than the average woman, because they probably would be in real life. Female cops are likely to be more aggressive, because those who are not, are not likely to want to be cops at all.
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