SecureSignals
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User ID: 853
The most specific is the claim that the change in population after the collapse of Rome was dysgenic
You have that backwards.
Latin warlords conquer Italian Peninsula: "Hard Times" that create good men (From frame A towards B, essentially genetic replacement of Early European Farmers with Indo European colonizers).
Genetic Changes during Imperial Rome: "Good times" that create weak men (From From B to Frame C). Decadence, dysgenic cultural practices enabled by prosperity: fertility decline, population replacement, decay of noble status and lineage. Huge genetic shift in the population.
Late Antiquity: "Weak mean create hard times" - From Frame C to D and onwards, imperial Rome collapsing and being genetically cleansed by the barbarians.
Medieval and Early Modern: "Hard times create good men": Genetic changes from Imperial Rome are reversed, genetic foundation for the next phases of European culture.
Yeah. It's a tradeoff. What would you rather have, a genetic resistance to Y. Pestis that is far from perfect, and obsolete with the age of antibiotics, or elevated risk of Crohn's disease, which is chronic and lifelong?
The question is what would I have preferred my ancestor to have had who was actually living in that time and place? Obviously I'm still here, meaning all my ancestors survived all that war and disease to reproduce. If they did not have that variant there's a higher likelihood I am not here.
They were doing just fine before being exposed to alien pathogens
They were doing just fine until.... they met other people. That's a great evolutionary strategy. They didn't have to survive those apocalyptic diseases like Europeans did, and they melted on first contact with the outside world.
The wealthy also had the luxury of flight in the face of the plague. They also, yes, probably have better genes for physical and mental health overall, but probably not to that drastic an extent.
Yes they did, and I am saying that was a selection pressure, as ugly as it is to say. The overall quality of the survivors is higher than the population before the event. That is the definition of eugenic.
It is a very good thing we have options these days, like gene therapy as I've mentioned previously. We do not need war and disease to trim the herd, it's a horribly crude solution at best.
I feel like you are refusing to understand what I am trying to say. I am not trying to say "war and apocalyptic diseases are good options today to improve society." I'm saying very real selection effects from these high-mortality events lend credence to the "hard times create strong men" meme and "good times create weak men" adage, but do not guarantee that a people living in a miserable situation will always become better for it. "Hard times" are often, but not always, associated with major historical genetic changes. In the case with Rome the genetic changes follow the cycle well from end-to-end: Latin tribal upstarts raise hell on the Italian peninsula, create strong imperial genetic stock and Civilization. Civilizational success leads to decadence: importing slaves from all over the world, population replacement, decay of Noble status and lineage. Decadence creates stagnation and decline. Decline creates a genetic cleansing event that creates the modern European/Italian and progresses to the Middle Ages, where these cycles of pressure continue until we are here today.
Are you aware of the fact that the same genes that convey resistance to the Black Plague also cause increased risk of autoimmune disease?
Are you aware those genes don't simply convey resistance to the Black Plague, they provide more generalized resistance against lethal infectious diseases?:
These results suggest that the Black Death influenced the evolution of the human immune system. “When a pandemic of this nature—killing 30 to 50% of the population—occurs, there is bound to be selection for protective alleles in humans,” Poinar says. “Even a slight advantage means the difference between surviving or passing. Of course, those survivors who are of breeding age will pass on their genes.”
And recall the Native Americans were devastated by diseases for which Europeans had developed immunity. It provided a strong genetic advantage.
The Black Plague certainly impacted all classes of people, but the poor masses were hit harder, which yes would be another selection effect suggesting eugenic pressure. Higher immunity among higher social classes is observed even today.
Scholars cite the pressures created by the Black Plague on the Catholic Church as being decisive in the Protestant Reformation in Europe, and in the breakdown of feudalism in England towards the manorial economic system which then gave way to the market system.
I already cited the genetic trajectory of Rome (genetic decline -> civilizational decline), granted that bakes in the assumption that population replacement from North Africa was dysgenic, and the subsequent correction towards Northern Europe was eugenic. But it did happen that way.
War, starvation and apocalyptic disease are terrible ways to go about it.
If you took away war, starvation, and apocalyptic disease from our evolutionary timeline we would be devolved and unrecognizable and not human. Not saying I support all those things, but the eugenic effects of these sorts of pressures: war, disease, etc. lends credence to the "hard times create strong men" meme, but it's not always true. The pressure has to be eugenic in nature to ring true. Somalis living in a shithole isn't going to make better Somalis unless there's a eugenic selection effect. "Hard times" that are also dysgenic do not make good men.
Decadence is the cultural conditions enabled by prosperity that cause dysgenics. Hard times can be, but are not always, eugenic. The Black Death, the high mortality during the Middle Ages, the violent organization of the early Roman Republic all served eugenic functions- even the collapse of the Roman Empire served an important eugenic function. "Hard times create strong men" is a nod to the eugenic function of growth and the dysgenic effects upon realization, stagnation, and ultimate decline. Goethe:
The Godhead is effective in the living and not in the dead, in the becoming and the changing, not in the become and the set-fast; and therefore, similarly, the reason is concerned only to strive towards the divine through the becoming and the living, and the understanding only to make use of the become and the set-fast.
You can see the full "Hard times create good men, good men create week men" cycle in the genetic evolution of the Roman Empire, with the collapse of the Roman Empire forming an important eugenic function reversing the dysgenic effects of late Roman decadence.
I am very skeptical, and I generally agree with @2rafa's criticisms on there being no smoking gun for the most salacious accusations, just an (increasingly abundant) amount of suggestion and innuendo. Especially since I do believe in similar heterodox views, very hesitant to put much weight on a really outlandish claim. With that said these are probably the five strongest pieces of evidence I am aware of for the claim Epstein is still alive:
- Suicide weapon not identified, I am not a forensic expert. It seems unusual to me that they could not identify the noose used for the job since to apply the requisite amount of force necessary for a suicide would seem to leave identifiable forensic traces (skin cells, worn fabric, etc.) but I'm not an expert so maybe it's more difficult than I think even when all the evidence is conveniently sitting in a single small room.
- Witness account: Allegedly hours before Epstein's suicide was even announced (can't independently confirm that), someone posted on 4chan claiming to have worked at the prison facility and having witnessed a body swap. Normally I would attribute no weight to that, but the Epstein files showed the FBI investigated that 4chan poster and identified him as someone who was an actual MCC prison guard... the recency of that account (before wild theories about body swaps that could have influenced the perception of a bystander) adds weight, but ultimately witness testimony is highly unreliably especially in chaotic and unusual situations like this. Maybe the FBI ID'd the wrong person, maybe that person wasn't even on shift or something. Camera malfunctions add some weight here though.
- Recent Photograph in Tel Aviv: Alleged, recent photograph of someone who does look quite like Epstein in Tel Aviv. There are two versions of that photograph, one of which is more expanded and bears the Gemini watermark on the bottom right, but I myself saw that version appear later than the initial "cropped" version. If it were an authentic photograph, reprocessing it with AI and claiming the authentic photograph is a crop of the forgery would be an easy and effective way to sow doubt.
- Photograph of the body being brought out of MCC prison: Some suggest the facial features of that body do not match Epstein. I see all the time though that people don't understand faces can look very different in photographs depending on a huge number of factors, although I can also see the difference in the features between the two people that people call out (mostly nose and ears).
- Activity on gaming accounts associated with him: He's a confirmed gamer from the file drop (he was banned from Xbox live). That specific account on Fortnite is definitely associated with him and shows recent activity (even geolocates in Israel IIRC). Account was privated when people started talking about it (understandable even if he weren't the actual player) and removed from Internet Archive (not sure how unusual that is). This could be explained by somebody hacking his account, or someone else using his login or playing on a console that is authenticated under his account.
Tentative conclusion: Maybe 5% chance, I hesitate to give larger confidence to the theory because it's not something I would want to be wrong about, I have no need for it to be true to really change my opinions of the overall situation. Definitely enough there though for people to plausibly ask questions and these points should be investigated to increase public trust in the face of warranted public distrust.
Edit: Fortnite responds, was a name change by a user: https://x.com/FortniteStatus/status/2019817972831780952 - More than plausible explanation.
Edit 2: Polymarket also currently gives 5% chance, didn't see that before nice: https://polymarket.com/event/is-jeffrey-epstein-alive-498
SecureSignals
20d ago
Epstein also cited TRS in reference to B/W IQ gap, greatest ally after all???
SecureSignals
23d ago
Yes, they need better uniforms, they need more funding and equipment, they need more numbers and while they are at it they need to roll through American cities and pick up vagrants and put them in humanitarian facilities away from society. There's a lot of things they should do but we can't because it genuinely is Nazi-adjacent, and being Nazi-adjacent is the worst thing in the world because of the Gas Chamber story. That's really it, it's a historical myth that disarms us from self-protection because if we engage in that to any real degree it's evil because of the Holocaust.
If they did have better uniforms it would just provoke more violent resistance. Looking like DEA-lite is probably the best balance given the real-world constraints, obviously it is not ideal. But yeah, they are knocking on doors to find and deport people, just like the Nazis did. That is an accurate comparison, but that isn't an indictment on their mission as much as it is an indictment our finely-tuned sensitivities we have been culturally trained with our entire lives. That is the major obstacle.
Where do you think the animosity from Iran and its urgency to have a nuclear deterrent fomes from? It comes from Iraq, Libya, Syria, Lebanon, all locations in which the US and Israel directly flexed hard military power to achieve regime change on behalf of Israel's geopolitical objectives. Iran has only made it this far because if its missile deterrent.
Israel has been hostile and aggressive against all of its regional neighbors and used the US for its dirty work, and it's a shock that makes an enemy of Iran? It's one of the steep costs of this pseudo-alliance with Israel, which is not an alliance at all. It's subversive and always has been.
The notion that Turkey has 10 times more domination of those neighbors than Israel, who is actively bombing them and taking credit for overthrowing Assad and on the verge of overthrowing Iran, is of course totally delusional.
SecureSignals
28d ago
It is no longer an "ambitious enclave", after Zionist Jews in the American government influence Trump to overthrow Iran on behalf of Israel, which is going to happen imminently, Israel will be the undisputed hegemon in the region. Imagine if Rome were dominated by Carthegian-loyal senators who influenced Rome to destroy all of Carthage's enemies so Carthage could be the undisputed hegemon in the region. That's not a hypothetical, that is the present day, and it's the consequence of allowing your society and culture to be governed by a people loyal to a foreign empire.
SecureSignals
29d ago
It is not a client state, it's an aspirational empire. It's not a good idea to have people run your empire that are loyal to a foreign empire, because they will probably use their power to exploit your empire to the benefit of that foreign empire.
SecureSignals
30d ago
During the period of two wars in Iraq it should be noted. It was at peak unfashionability at the exact same time of peak relevance of the question with respect to American foreign policy in the Middle East.
SecureSignals
30d ago
Shapiro described himself in his own words as a "past volunteer in the Israeli army." He also worked briefly in the Israeli embassy- no; not the US embassy in Israel, the Israeli embassy in Washington:
According to his spokesperson, “His job largely involved educating the public about Israel by visiting local schools and hosting open houses for the public at the Embassy.”….
Screaming anti-Semitism in the face of questions over "dual loyalty" is losing effectiveness because the problem of dual loyalty among Zionist Jews in the American government is undeniably a very real phenomenon. They clearly do identify and love that foreign country and advocate for it and work for it directly! They are loyal to Israel, there is no question. You cannot serve two masters.
SecureSignals
1mo ago
It's the Monroe Doctrine 2.0 described in the recent National Security Strategy. Denying China any foothold in the hemisphere is a more sensible foreign policy than the notion of fighting China across the globe. Maduro met with a special envoy sent by Xi Jinping the same day US kidnaps him, hah.
SecureSignals
1mo ago
Yeah I'm definitely speaking relative to expectations. Seasons 2-4 were barely above garbage, so this finale "was better than expected" for me, but my expectations were low.
Woke Trappings versus Woke Story
I thought Stranger Things wrapped up nicely and the finale was great. The pre-final episode received the lowest ratings and reception in the entire series, with a lot of commentators claiming the entire series was ruined, but the finale was great television. It's true the pre-final episode was not great due to the fact it was dedicated to setting up the 2 hour finale, but the overreaction to that episode is mostly driven by one of the characters named Will coming out as gay, and making that central to his personal story and character growth needed to win the entire conflict. The surface-level criticisms are true, the scene was terrible, it was LGBT propaganda, sure. And my woke radar is as fine-tuned as anyone, but I find anti-woke observers become too hung up on woke trappings rather than critically analyzing the story itself.
The Stranger Things story itself is not necessarily woke, it's 1980s nostalgia blended with fish-out-of-water, heroes journey, coming-of-age, revenge, fantasy, and all the elements that audiences tend to like and that is carried through the end. I would contrast that with IT: Welcome to Derry in which the story itself is Woke and it ruins the series.
But I think those complaining about Woke elements in Stranger Things - this never would have happened in the 1980s!, the multiple LGBT characters and their acceptance by everyone in the story, the feminism, etc. They miss the point that 1980s culture did lead to these things. Sure, the transition was slower than is symbolically represented in the show; in the show the transition happens rapidly, without resistance, and faster among the characters in the story than it did in American culture. But the fact is American culture did follow the cultural trajectory depicted in Stranger Things which warps up 1989. So the show depicts an accelerated cultural trajectory going out of the 80s into the 90s and 2000s, which are cultural changes that actually happened.
Although I do like a lot of parts of 1980s American culture, the vapidness in that culture which triggers our nostalgia reaction did lead to these things the anti-woke commentators are complaining about being featured in the show. 1980s culture led to 90s culture, and so on until we are right here. The lesson isn't "Great Hollywood will just wokify everything" the lesson is that 1980s nostalgia is not a good source of inspiration for those who oppose the cultural forces that came out of the 80s and further developed since then. Of course that insight can be backpropagated, is a 1960s muscle car a symbol of a pre-woke culture we must retvrn to, or is it a symbol of cultural decay representing vapid status games, siphoning masculine energy into meaningless pursuits, and materialistic national identity that led exactly where we are?
SecureSignals
1mo ago
Yes he did provide enough proof provided your prior beliefs are well-calibrated. If you are "anti-racist" then he didn't nearly provide enough proof. If your priors are well-adjusted he provided enough proof for systematic, mass fraud to a high enough confidence for this reaction and subsequent investigations.
The people complaining he wasn't rigorous enough won't even care that his methods were effective in bringing public attention and reform to an important issue.
SecureSignals
1mo ago
Every single time you reply to me I know it's you complaining about me talking about da Joos.
Jews are one of the most important political and cultural forces in understanding Culture War in the United States and globe. But because of their political and cultural power, it's taboo to critically analyze their perspective, behavior, and identity. People like you and Aamadan constantly complaining about me talking about Jews is a side-effect of that.
My interest in Jews pertaining to the Culture War issues discussed is appropriate, and whether you want to call it obsessed is a question I do not care about. If it's an "obsession" it's appropriate. Notice now you don't say I'm wrong you just say I'm obsessed. Do you really think you're the first one to engage in this tactic of pathologizing criticism of Jewish identity and behavior? It's not going to work on me, I dismiss your concerns. If I say something you disagree with feel free to make an argument.
I also think I do post on a breadth of some of the most important Culture War nuances that are tangentially related to Jews but cover important concepts.
You might say, for example, when I wrote a short review of IT: Welcome to Derry, I couldn't help myself and I just had to take a jab at the Jews and the Holocaust because I'm obsessed. But I just wanted to watch a half-decent IT show, I didn't ask to be bombarded by Jews flexing cultural status and promulgating Holocaust lies. So is my criticism of this episode in the show me being obsessed with Jews, or is it Jews being obsessed with broadcasting their own cultural status, victim narratives, and lies in mass media? I just wanted to watch a TV show!
This is the reason why "you're so obsessed" is never going to work on me. I can't just sit and watch IT without Jewish lies being thrown directly in my face, and the sad part is I'm one of the very few people who knows it's a lie and the mass audiences are going to believe it and buy into it- because if they don't believe it they are a Holocaust denier, liable to be arrested in Europe, for daring to challenge the notion that Jews were turned into lampshades at Buchenwald. This is real CULTURE WAR by the way, this is how CULTURE WAR is waged, by weaving symbols and myths into popular culture in this exact fashion. But I didn't force them to put that in the show, if I'm OBSESSED for Noticing and criticizing it, then so be it because it must be done by someone.
SecureSignals
1mo ago
I believe these points are substantially true, and the fact that all you attempt to contest is the relatively trivial charge of whether you have "ghosted" a debate seems to me to be just further evidence of your fundamental unseriousness.
No, I have contested that claim by counter-claiming that you are just offended by what ought be an appropriate level of discourse surrounding Jews in serious analysis of Culture War issues. And I do not care, you can complain about it all you want! The fact it makes people upset is a byproduct of the fact it strikes a nerve, as much as you'll deny it.
- I replied to you 3 times, how is that "ghosting a debate" when I engage in a longer-than-average discussion.
- Your last reply to me was over 30 hours after my last reply, a faster reply isn't a hard requirement but waiting more than a day makes it more likely I'll just let you have the last word.
- Your reply was bad, saying things like You return to this "vertically integrated propaganda apparatus". That's a conspiracy. Let me present an alternative hypothesis - you are likely to find Jewish authors independently, without any particular coordination or malice, writing things relevant to them, which, yes, includes concerns about anti-semitism, and we are so wildly off base with each other we are at an impasse. Obviously they do coordinate and they are motivated by their particular identity.
You are absolutely wrong in this discussion, but I made my case and you made yours, if you want to return >30 hours after my last reply and get the last word be my guest. But this is absolutely not me ghosting a debate in any sense. You also called plainly observable reality a "conspiracy theory" and that makes it more likely I'm going to write off discussion with you because we simply aren't operating on similar enough premises. Is it a "conspiracy theory" that Bari Weiss being a pro-Zionist Jew was central to her being selected by the new proi-Zionist Jew owners to lead CBS news? What would you say if a Chinese billionaire who was as engrained in the CCP as Ellison is with Israel (Ellison family is largest private donor to IDF by the way) acquired CBS News, and installed to lead the network a Chinese Nationalist as fanatically loyal to the CCP as Bari Weiss is to Israel? "Nope no coordination here! I don't see any coordination do you? They just happen to be super passionate about China, calling it coordination is a conspiracy theory."
But whatever, not even here to rehash the debate, but you have absolutely not posted an example of me doing what @Amadan accused me of. I'm letting you have the last word because you are describing things as conspiracy theory that to me are plainly observable. So it's an impasse, the reader can read both and decide which perspective is more plausible. I'm not going to spend days debating this with you when you deny what are to me plainly observable premises.
SecureSignals
1mo ago
AGI not achieved until LLM can craft a novel antisemitic argument.
SecureSignals
1mo ago
So crushedoranges accuses me of not being here to debate. I say, ok, point to anything I've posted you disagree with and we can debate. He refuses and says "debate is pointless."
Then you come in here and say I disappear for weeks at a time in order to avoid debate, and I say, ok, point to a single time you feel I've done that. You refuse and say "you're fooling no one."
The only ones making unfalsifiable claims are you and @crushedoranges. Because when I ask you to substantiate your accusations you refuse to do so.
SecureSignals
1mo ago
Ok, point to one example. Giving someone else the last word is not shirking a debate, the notion I disappear for weeks to avoid an argument is a false accusation. But feel free to point to a single instance where I've engaged in the behavior you're accusing me of, but you won't.
SecureSignals
1mo ago
Can you cite an example of when I've ghosted a debate?
"Ghosting a debate" doesn't mean I neglect to reply to every single comment, or when I decide to give my opponent the last word. Feel free to cite one example when you think I've done what you've described, but you won't.
Biological evolution is not too slow. The Roman Empire was created in more than two generations and it declined over many generations. Biological evolution inarguably happened during the Black Death. Biological Evolution of what an "American" is is happening in 2 generations.
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