In most of their their worldviews(there are several different factions with different answers) there is an intrinsic 'trans' quality that some people are born with.
Yes, and what is that quality?
The 'trans' quality frequently causes kids great distress around puberty
Frequently? So not always? So what else can we use to judge if a kid is "trans"? Dysphoria is hugely problematic (given kids desist) but at least concrete.
If we grant that there is an innate quality that we can easily distinguish, there is no problem. The point is that nailing this down in some definitive way seems to be difficult
Just as, if we accept that there is a trans-inclusive category called "women", there is no fundamental problem. Yet some random Daily Wire dad who dresses like an actuary has driven left-wingers into a frenzy trying to get an answer to this basic question.
This is a microcosm of this whole debate. All of this sounds good in the abstract. Once you start discussing it you not only get tough questions from traditionalists, but even feminists who ask how the markers of this innate quality are not regressive (it often boils down to stereotypes).
Tanista
1mo ago
It's all part of the game at this point. The recent "leak" of the "Royal racist" in Dutch translations right when Omid Scobie's book was coming out was basically PR while maintaining the illusion of respecting the rules.
Tanista
3mo ago
Because democracy isn't just an arbitrary principle, it's a political technology for nonviolent resolution of unrest. People who live in your country but don't vote can still riot, can still strike, and can still join insurgent groups.
Which is why the Gulf States are a hotbed of insurrection?
but I get the impression that Fury figured this was just going to be a warm-up and didn't take it as seriously as he probably should have
Isn't this the story of Fury's life? I can't count how many times I've heard this.
It seems like every time I watch a boxing match, no matter the level, they all end in TKOs after one guy gets ground down to the point that he can no longer defend himself.
Yeah, that'd be a bad plan. It took Stipe being a much better boxer AND outwrestling him AND Ngannou throwing recklessly to wear out Francis in the first fight and, even near-dead from exhaustion, he still didn't get KOed or submitted.
He rarely gets rocked, even with 4-oz gloves. In fact, Stipe thinking he rocked him with a counter is what got him KOed in their rematch
I don't know if he watched old tape of Francis from the first Stipe fight or what, but he's learned to be more measured and patient and not punch himself out. If Fury wanted to wear him down he was gonna have to work harder than waiting for Ngannou to come to him and he didn't.
Anyone watched the Fury-Ngannou fight? Spoilers below.
As an MMA fan: what the fuck? We're kinda used to the unreasonable effectiveness of Francis Ngannou (Rozenstruik is a tenured kickboxer, for context. So was Overeem) and he has a general reputation as a very fast learner but this is kind of ridiculous.
Before the fight, even fans of his were mainly glad he was going to get a boxing style payday, despite the likely KO.
I almost suspect Saudi shenanigans but they're having Fury-Usyk so it wouldn't be in their interests. I guess Fury's used to tiring people in the clinch and Francis' famous strength + greater experience clinching turned the tables. It was absurd how he threw him around at some points. But Francis looked good even outside that.
Ngannou went into MMA because the skill level was seen as much more favorable for a late starter. But, as a latecomer, he beat multiple strikers, submitted wrestlers, adapted so much to his one serious loss that Stipe Miocic looked like he had nothing for him, wrestlefucked Gane...him going straight into boxing or being discovered as a teen is the biggest what-if in combat sports.
Tanista
7mo ago
Yeah, "keto" can easily be "low carb" in actuality, especially if you're not tracking. When I wasn't I was probably just doing low-carb - especially if you consider that a lot of keto diets call for a lot more fat than protein and I always found it harder to hit the targets for the former compared to the latter.
But I think even low carb will work for a lot of people simply by forcing you to cut out a lot of bad shit you might otherwise unthinkingly consume.
Tanista
8mo ago
It also discredits them with the dissatisfied. This is why Putin was so angry at Naryshkin's slight hesitance to invade Ukraine. They don't want anyone that can even appear to be a rallying point later on.
Everyone signs the death warrant. That way no one can later go to the mob and playact innocence.
He ran into the "don't make the USA your enemy" exception.
(Even he got away with killing rebels after the first Gulf War and likely would have stayed in place despite sanctions if not for 9/11 and the free shot it gave Bush and Cheney)
Granted, they'll have to compete against poor white and asian students for those slots
And, apparently, they lose. Which is why Harvard and the NY magnet schools were in the mess they were in.
Your point might be true, if we took "disadvantaged" to mean "pushed to engage in slanted competition" as opposed to "disproportionately loses in competition". But the latter situation is at least in play now.
but they won't have to compete against wealthy Nigerians.
They will have to compete with a bunch of poor or "poor" Nigerians and other immigrants who are technically lower SES still have some social capital (this is the standard explanation of "model minority" success)
But, again, if people like Hanania are right: both groups are not only taken to the cleaners by Asians now, they will continue to do so indefinitely.
If your argument was for race + class-based affirmative action to cut out well-off Nigerians it'd be one thing. But pure class AA is another thing entirely.
Are you going to force these elite Nigerians to live in places that most black Americans actually live and intermarry with them?
Maybe not them but their grand-kids?
I think you underestimate how good Americans are at assimilation. They only have to win once, and they usually do.
If instead you hold everyone to the same standard, then even if fewer black people get through, the ones who do will actually gain full values from their degree. Which, especially if culture is the dominant factor, creates a gateway to success for black people who want to escape that culture and become successful. But even if genes predominate, this still enables a way for above-average intelligence black people to distinguish themselves from the average.
I see no way in which the benefit to fewer degree holders will overcome the total wreckage for everyone else.
If the anti-hereditarians are right, I see far less reason to not provide AA since we know class-based AA will disadvantage blacks. If we can't blame genes we will have to look at things like where blacks live, which may or may not be blamed on racism. But, even putting that aside, if blacks won't inherently revert to the mean as HBDers claim, if the "dumb" AA students are only merely disadvantaged by living with the wrong people (as opposed to being promoted to schools well past their competence) why not take them? You're going to miss out on the chance to give the future leaders of the community even more cachet so they can shape the community? In the name of...changing the norms of the community?
Like, I don't think Obama has caused a major change in norms but it's probably better to have had him and men like him than not. By his wife's own account people like her might not have made it without AA.
If Hanania and Murray are right there's also almost no way getting rid of AA is better for black people.
I'll use Murray, since he gives us clear numbers on what he thinks happens at the top scores in Facing Reality:
The College Board declined my request for the data that would give me the precise numbers, but the published breakdowns allow for reasonably accurate estimates of how many students of each race get 1500 or higher on the SAT.1 The numbers of test takers with a combined verbal and math score of 1500+ were around 900 for Africans and around 3,300 for Latins. Meanwhile, the numbers for Europeans and Asians with scores in that range were about 27,500 and 20,000 respectively.
900 & 3,300...to 27,000. There is no set of hidden benefits to disadvantaging everyone apart from this population that'll make it worth it for the losers.
If you want to do as Murray does and argue for meritocracy or a politics of difference, okay. But it just isn't one of those "rising tide" situations. Someone has to lose in a meritocracy. Allegedly entire categories of "someones", sometimes.
Yes, John McWhorter and Neil DeGrasse Tyson will lose that asterisk - but they seem to have shed it on their own anyway. But plenty of black people will never get a shot at all at that level. Yes, as it stands now there's some drag on Harvard's credibility and the credibility of black AA beneficiaries. But, as I said, most people are normies and either don't know the details of AA or know better than to say and Harvard is clearly maintaining enough of its prestige for them to get benefits.
You're also leaving out the problem that feminists run into: women's revealed preference is to work less, let's say we had a legal situation that allowed most women to do so. It would create its own negative stereotype. You're worried about the stereotype that McWhorters have to swim against, but you forget the much older prejudice of "yeah, he made it through X but maybe he slipped through the cracks. I'd prefer a white. "
There's almost no way a wipeout better from the African-American perspective than the current messy system that at least incentivizes Harvard to find some ADOS blacks (even if most of them are Nigerians)
I don't agree. I can use MMA as an example: you don't have to fight your opponent's game (in fact, you're given an incentive to exploit the holes in their game), but some amount of actual fighting is not just expected, it's required under the rules (timidity is a sanctionable offense).
Something not being a collaboration doesn't mean that there aren't rules or standards of behavior meant to extract the goods from that endeavor. It was fair to ask Rufo/whoever that question, it's fair for Rufo/whoever to answer and then pull their own uncomfortable question. "Not until you go" is closer to timidity imo.
Otherwise why bother? Just don't deal with Robinson or the concept of debate at all. According to Rufo this has worked very well for the radical leftists he loathes, but isn't that part of why he loathes them?
Huh. I actually share most of those assumptions (my full opinion on HBD is...up in the air). It's more that I just don't share the sense of statistical implausibility. I was just wondering if I just wasn't getting the math.
I guess, ironically, HBDers who gleefully cite things about how overrepresented Jews or whoever are in this or that place has simply deadened my reaction to the idea that some segments of the populace will just do way too well (based on what a layman thinks is "fair"). If you tell me a highly restricted group of the best off people from a billion-strong pool do well enough to seize a couple of thousand spots a year from one of the worst performing ethnic groups in the US...it's hardly the biggest overepresentation they've claimed.
To me, when you combine the intuitions that:
- Black migrants probably have a lower crime rate
- Black migrants probably from better educated families.
- Black migrants are probably likely to be in two parent families.
- If HBDers like Charles Murray are right then there should be a huge shortage of the top-top ADOS students. Of course supplementation would be necessary if you didn't want to drop standards (more).
I find it harder to be shocked.
I would find it more unintuitive if it was across the entire college system.
"Incels" existed in every generation and always have, but they're not really who I'm talking about. There are a lot of more average men who are now falling through the cracks and failing to start, who now often get clumped in with the actual incels
That sounds like a description of modern incels (obviously we don't care that much about the floor of men who'd just never reproduce, we care that the number seems to be growing....)
But let's say we mean some people who haven't totally blackpilled themselves. Sure. It's a more viable demographic. But I wonder to what degree they aren't subject to similar problems like obesity. After all, what did they fail to start? School sports and all those other physical virtues?
She doesn't seem like she has a particularly interesting perspective from what I've seen here
I read her book, and I more or less agree tbh
"It's true that the warning lights are on and weird noises are coming from the engine, but the engine hasn't actually stopped so there's no problem."
No, I think you're thinking of the late USSR or Impeprial China and I'm thinking about a random awful African country.
Like, both have problems. But one collapsed and was replaced by a new, perhaps more viable model. The other just continues to dwell (or spiral) in a low-level equilibrium with no end in sight.
That's how I see it. Bad regimes and systems can persist for a long time without a real counter. When we're talking about some of the richest and most mature democracies with ever increasing government-corporate control of the digital infrastructure and their visible testing of means of curbing revolt (e.g. the attack against the bank accounts of trucker protestors)...
The public is way too divided and been trained to both hate each other and feel fatalist about a lot of this. They've already proven that plenty of them are for authoritarian tactics so long as it's framed correctly.
This is without even getting into more speculative (though unfortunately less speculative every day) uses of autonomous tech to put down prole revolts without even depending on the usual "class traitors" that make up the thin blue line.
We're now seeing reports from school teachers that they have to stage special interventions because boys are sharing Andrew Tate content
The psychological fragility and neuroticism of the average leftist activist or booster doesn't mean the system is won't strike back. Quite the opposite
The system has its problems yes, but it uses panics like Andrew Tate to justify more control.
You point out that they're holding interventions with teenage boys. I'd note that they moved to curtail his influence online and he's literally on trial right now... In the meantime sixty different "experts" are probably calling for increased intervention against "misinformation" and "radicalism" and the social media sites are probably tuning their systems (we now know they have a lot of coordination with the government) to make sure it never happens again.
Why include the "looks" qualifier?
To emphasize the totality and...arbitrariness? A better word is escaping me, but the image that comes to mind is a scared cop shooting anything that moves
Tanista
8mo ago
I think that the current system of relations between the sexes is untenable and producing large numbers of frustrated young men with nothing tying them to society.
True. Luckily for them it's an evolutionarily novel environment and the most frustrated men are basically poisoned by fast food and the internet.
Those men are disappearing into video games and porn and, even if they weren't, simply don't have the psychological and physical profile for rebellion (incels are well overrepresented in traits like depression and low internal locus of control).
There ARE roving bands of men (or close enough) but that just seems to be due to lax law enforcement (and, tbh, I doubt low-IQ criminals are as sexually frustrated. From what I know it's the opposite; they tend to have higher partner counts).
Who? I have no idea who this person is and I can't see any links to her work, so I'm not going to talk about her or her positions at all.
Louise Perry, who has also written a book attacking liberal feminism and the sexual revolution. In my head women like her and Emba are of a class.
Hard disagree - the cathedral is currently in serious disarray and is openly failing in new and exciting ways every single day. There are serious problems with the government of the west as it is currently constituted, and these doctrines and ideas have been spreading through the population like wildfire. Prosocial illusions about femininity have been largely destroyed and women are unhappier than ever, even as male dysfunction finally grows noticeable enough that people are talking about it. The regime absolutely has not won - they have a rapidly failing grip on society that is forced to grow more nakedly authoritarian and less credible as time goes on. If that's what counts as winning, I'm curious as to what defeat looks like.
All of this is true. And yet dissent is not manifesting in any sort of constructive alternative. Young men are unhappy, they either buy into the prog line in some way or dig into a variety of reactionary content creators playing whack-a-mole with the censors. Women are unhappy, they either get increasingly desperate talks on how misogyny is still the problem or maybe they read works like Emba's and Perry's that offer critique but no solution. Anything that even looks vaguely constructive is written off as misogynist or unviable.
It's a form of "feminist realism": complaining about capitalism means nothing if no one can actually conceive of or execute a replacement vision. Socialists can talk all they want about the system being this close to collapse, it clings on.
Tanista
9mo ago
What do people use for sleep tracking? I honestly feel like Fitbit gets worse every product, time to look for alternatives.
Tanista
10mo ago
coup gone wrong. Prig had some supporters he relied on, but they decided to sit this one out, so he got off on the first face-saving stop
The speculation is that it was Surovikin, who Prigozhin was complementary of but quickly came out with a cease and desist video.
Of course, that might be US intelligence trying to get him Rommel'd.
Tanista
10mo ago
As I said there are people who just run around posting disproportionately and being negative. One example is podcast threads: you can have someone jump into a thread that was just posted (well before they could listen to it ) and make snide, low-effort comments about guests or the host (including back-handed comments like "well, at least he had a good guest this time"). Then that's the first thing everyone sees and a significant portion of the discussion is not about the topic but whether the guest is awful or not in some unrelated issue or, even worse, whether the sub is too toxic and so on.
Then there's users who have some grudge with each other and it can drag out across threads and weeks. Nipping it in the bud by simply removing those comments removes the incentives for that pettiness cause no one will ever see it.
I've previously described the psychology of a certain sort of poster that seems determined to ruin a sub and such people just have to be deterred or banned early.
There's also inflammatory off-topic stuff like HBD that has, ime, never went anywhere good. If it doesn't violate the relevance rule then we're stuck with it. But it actually did make life more bearable for everyone to just not discuss it (it seemed to draw the above sort of people like flies). The sub markedly became worse when it actually became relevant and we could no longer remove it.
Tanista
11mo ago
The people chose it' is maybe a slight exaggeration
The exact phrase was "Sweden chose this"
Tanista
11mo ago
Didn't TJ Holmes also lose his job after a similar affair around the same period?
Hm...
Tanista
11mo ago
because you need to got so many details right and the audience is far more astute than just shareholders or other employees
The audience may have more aggregate wisdom but that doesn't necessarily mean much: I know some stuff about programming but, when I listen to Last Week Tonight talking about Turkmenistan, I have no idea how right or wrong they are. But I like (or liked) John Oliver so it feels more trustworthy.
Which is why the sort of shamelessness Jim Cramer (to use 2rafa's example) has might be useful. You can't fool all of the people, but you can fool some of them a lot of the time. If you simply refuse to take responsibility for being wrong you probably last longer by not popping the confidence of the people who are sticking with you compared to a more intellectually honest person.
If you tell me you believe in fluxberries and can define it and therefore I should do what you want but:
I have to wonder to what degree you believe you think you can justify belief in fluxberries - certainly you seem to believe in a distinct way to how you believe in say...policemen, or fish.
I don't see how OP's original point about the reluctance to square this doesn't apply:
Like, we know for a fact that some already do this with "woman", that one is not even debatable because Kentaji Brown did it in front of Congress - and all the same problems apply there. I'm supposed to grant extra charity on "trans child"?
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