When the clueless blame Hip-Hop for hood culture, they are blaming rock for the decline in lasting relationships and the rise in casual sex and they are blaming GTA and Call of Duty and 2A for Sandy Hook. In Hip-Hop it is that most classic mistaking of cause for effect: Hip-Hop didn't cause hood culture, hood culture caused Hip-Hop.
Except soft power matters. Hip hop may not have created gangs but it provided prestige to, for example, California gang culture which everyone around the world knows of for a reason.
Not only do we see this mystique ruin rappers who are from the hood but refuse to stay out of it once they make it, we see people who are not (Chris Brown) get entangled with gangsters because of the cultural cachet it possesses (Tupac is probably the ur-example of this, and should be in Wikipedia under "when keeping it real goes wrong").
If rich people who have every incentive to avoid this are falling victim to the allure of this stuff, I don't think marginal youths in weak communities are going to be less susceptible. That, imo, is the difference between rap and CoD: neurotic suburban mothers who don't have real problems and so have to manufacture a panic are not in the same boat as people whose children actually are at huge risk. They don't need additional cultural pressure pushing in the direction of hedonism and violence.
If that slice of ability in the community suddenly lost or never had that outlet, do you think those communities would be better or worse? Worse, obviously. Some of those artists, the few who did grow up in the shit, who do have a real brilliance, they'd have fallen into crime and not gotten out. They would have done very well. More crime, more violence, more kids, more deaths.
What about all the cases where hip hop money was essentially used to fuel gang beefs? The whole Tupac/Biggie beef was made infinitely worse by drawing in gang members who were looking for money. Both died (it almost sparked a war between gangs), the artform was weaker for it and the community hardly benefited when Death Row folded and even the hyenas soon went hungry again
In places like Chicago drill only seemed to feed the cycle of violence. It was bad enough, people making songs insulting dead enemies didn't help. Lots of people - including rappers - died as a result.
And, of course, Young Thug who was apparently using his money and cachet to get involved in all sorts of organized crime in Atlanta - beware any man who can maintain street cred after dressing like a woman in the most homophobic genre ever - allegedly almost leading to the death of Lil Wayne, another rap potentate.
It’s clear that wokeness isn’t the cause of bad game writing. The very suggestion is ridiculous.
Obviously. This still doesn't really say anything.
I agree that Dragon Ball Z is badly written in many ways. The bloat is infamous, the way it handles succession to new characters (it doesn't) is bad, the plot is built on a loop of new transformations that boil down to differently colored hair and so on. These are all recognized flaws. So recognized that they literally invented their own Abridged series to handle the bloat. They charged people twice to get a passable viewing experience! And the fans bought in anyway. They know what they're getting.
Handing it over to woke American show runners would lead to a very different sort of bad.
Which is what fans care about.
Feminism's defenders will counter that there are many existing role models available for men, often listing real or fictional people like Ryan Gosling, Marcus Rashford or Ted Lasso. These men are either fake orliteral one percenters whose lifestyle an average young man has no hope of to attaining.
"Unrealistic standards" is a feminist complaint. Most men will never be like Tate either. Every kid on the football pitch wanted to be Ronaldo, down to the overpriced boots and free-kick pose, even though it was obvious that he was a 99 percenter in looks, before we even get into athletic talent.
Don't disagree with the general point that (progressive) women seem to be the target for a lot of this, which is what stops many of these efforts from being effective, though. EDIT: Norms are also enforced bottom-up, regardless of your idol, but that's harder when no one can agree what they are.
Tanista
30d ago
If you take migration to be about short-term goals like getting engineers, sure. If populations have different mean IQs and will trend towards them then no? Yes, your Nigerian quantum physicist is going to work great, what's going to happen in three generations? Especially given they might (almost certainly, in some countries like the US) assimilate into the existing non-migrant population of the same race...
That is the killer.
In any case, it doesn't need to follow in some absolute way. Historically what happened when the majority of Westerners had these beliefs is clear. That alone makes being concerned rational, and that alone makes the "focus on the individual" refrain unconvincing. People are not failing to understand individualism as the Harrisian-Hughesian argument goes. It's not confusion, it's experience.
Plenty of Americans describe themselves as "Irish" or "German" or whatever without trying to imply they are less American.
It should go without saying but: She didn't call herself Somali. She gave a speech advocating for Somali interests and called herself Somali.
Fair to say that's a different thing from half-Indian Jay highlighting his heritage at the icebreaker.
Well, assuming a Euro win, I'm sure there'll be votes. And, if people vote to become just one part of a Euro federation, who's to say it's a bad choice? They chose it, better than being Belarus.
I'm sure some Irish revolutionary who died wanting wanted a socialist state or some other vision of the country is dissatisfied in his grave. The people seem to be managing fine.
As lines go, not that bad.
Of course, that's assuming a Euro win.
Tanista
2mo ago
Progressives won’t be convinced by the “HBD supports meritocracy” argument because meritocracy isn’t axiomatic for them
- You don't necessarily have to convince hardcore progressives. All "respectable" antiwoke complaints are basically aimed at liberals who share progressive assumptions about helping people and remedying racial injustices but have relatively positive attitudes towards things like meritocracy (it's just they have no conceptual answer to "meritocracy hasn't worked, so it's clearly also racist")
- While we're at it, how many people have soured on meritocracy because they've just take for granted that racism is the cause of group differences that they keep seeing meritocracy recreate?
But then it occurred to me: the message makes 100% sense if we start from the assumption that modern feminists, eager to right cultural wrongs of the past that they perceive, really want to make sure their messaging never ever entails even a hint of the notion that women need to exercise any level of agency in order to avoid rape, assault or harassment of any type i.e. avoid bad men, because in all cases that would be “victim blaming” and horrific etc.
You could do this while admitting that rape is disproportionately carried out by Dark Triad types (especially when society has already been trying for decades to grab all of the low-hanging fruit of "normal men who just think this is okay") and not harangue Robin Hanson types as well. From what I recall from my early internet days when Jezebel was strong, feminists were insistent on rejecting this sort of point.
There's an element of class guilt that is also useful.
Also, if you believe rape is about power or some patriarchal ideology not sex, I suppose "teach men not to rape" sounds more appealing as an actual solution and not just a cynical messaging tactic.
He's "clinging to guns and religion" and stopping progressives from solving the gun crime problem.
And that was Obama trying to be charitable.
Popular youth figures Andrew Tate and Sneako became Muslims and made it a part of their media personality, which frequently gets millions of unique views with the audience mostly impressionable young boys.
This is just grifters recognizing the market.
Lots of Muslims, even if many of them are in poorer countries and so are harder to monetize. Muslims also love to be reflected (who doesn't?) in the media they watch so they lovebomb the youtube channels of Westerners that touch on Islam even vaguely positively.
What you're seeing here is no different than when a reaction channel suddenly starts doing Bollywood videos.
If a genuine Muslim upheaval was undertook in the west it would require millions of people to learn Arabic, something which is almost more ridiculous to imagine then swarms of white men wearing thobes.
I can assure you that people get by fine without learning Arabic. I honestly wonder if even the "high effort" types fully learn it (a lot of people burn huge amounts of time on phonetic memorization more than anything - the most annoying educational gauntlet with the least value).
In essence, it works on Harry Potter rules for most people: you don't need to speak Latin to cast the spells. The most important thing is to know enough to be able to pray and perform the common rituals. That can be a relatively light load (especially if praying in groups).
This can honestly be useful: you don't need to learn theologically problematic things directly.
There is also a strong semblance within Islam to have the government and religious system be thoroughly connected with one another, and even among most religious believers that does not seem to be a desire they have, and among secular people that is literally something i feel they would go out and die to prevent.
That is a real problem.
There's also the Problem of Mohammed. A person who actually had to rule combined with prophetic infallibility, so he cannot simply be hollowed out and worn as a skin by secular cosmopolitans like Jesus (who is basically just some hippie in modern Westerners' view), nor can he be treated like the fallible rulers and sometimes prophets of the Jewish and Christian tradition.
You're not owning anyone, you're just marginalizing yourselves, and ceding the entire institution to your rivals. It's not a gain.
The rivals were already calling shots in the institution. The two-mothers, non-binary woman ad came from inside the house.
By your own account police departments are red-triber enclaves. But I think blue states made their displeasure felt after George Floyd and other such incidents. Budgets were cut, people were made uncomfortable enough that older cohorts took retirement...
The reason "DEI" has taken over as a general online-conservative curse-word is cause it allows them to express the insight that not all institutions need to be taken over from the bottom-up.
Tanista
1mo ago
The idea of "irreversible damage" to kids bodies complements the idea of "driving trans kids to suicide." Together they are a recipe for endless back and forth argument, since both sides can position themselves as the ones most concerned about children's well-being.
Assuming that these are not rival empirical claims that can be investigated, yes.
Tanista
1mo ago
As was mentioned, this clashes with Cesar Chavez Day so congratulations on pissing off at least part of the Hispanic voting bloc
Has the Hispanic voting bloc raised a stink, honestly?
Tanista
1mo ago
Then I guess the segment of the poor population that favors the lottery has to be relatively high IQ, or I have even more questions.
Tanista
27d ago
So would you say that Asian women's exogamy rates say more about how much it sucks to be an Asian man rather than them just being able to find white mates (as the stereotypes insist)?
Because I'm pretty sure it's the same dynamic with similar numbers (AA women also date out twice as much)
Tanista
3mo ago
As Dave Chappelle put it (speaking about white women): "you were in on the heist, you just didn't like your cut".
When a "privileged" person is overthrown in elite spaces, it's rarely by the weak. It's by "the weak": people in the same space or close enough who want power and use the few levers they have to beat their rivals/tormentors.
They are advancing their interests, but that often involves punching up (allegedly) rather than down.
Tanista
2mo ago
And so if we listen to a lot of HBD proponents like Murray and ‘accept’ it and dismantle those programs that largely benefit those communities, and abolish / criminalize affirmative action and so on, do we really think that the social problems we see in black communities are going to improve? That issues with eg violence are going to improve? It just seems very unlikely to me.
Problem is that the anti-HBDers are not standing in place: recent anti-policing pushes have made black communities worse off.
It's not simply "keep what works even if you have to lie about it". The other theory has motivated policy that is now not only hurting black people but affecting others, with no sign of stopping.
The latter is a much less attractive status quo.
it was often because they didn’t want to see the country burn.
A black guy gets shot by police at the wrong time and the country may burn anyway.
Tanista
1mo ago
Leftists want to change society and select for people interested in that. It's thus harder to depend on existing role models.
I go the opposite way: the Oscars should get more snobby and up their own ass and should frankly demoralize the people on Twitter and op-ed pages who want their latest topical message movie (Black Panther being nominated was ludicrous - thanks Dark Knight!) to win. Those films already make money, but people are now convinced the Oscars should be "relevant" by validating their taste.
Nope, the Oscars should act as a billboard for pretentious movies that'd otherwise not come to the attention of the general public. That's the main way I see some of this shit.
Tanista
4mo ago
Concurring with Nate Silver that the whole thing was an embarrassment and the time it took means Harvard still looks awful despite doing the thing
The problem for the Tates is the set of scams they were running before they hit the jackpot. All of this is blowback from their alleged pimping days that their newfound fame as the internet's red pill gurus cast a light on.
I think Dr. K will be fine.
Tanista
1mo ago
and demonstrating superhuman qualities.
This is the problem with cutting down on the BG ninja shit and having Paul's killing of Jamis happen in the last film and be relatively understated. When Stilgar seems to flip early on in Part Two, it's a bit less impactful.
In the books, Paul's defeat (and perceived humiliation) of Jamis alone was shocking to the Fremen. Jessica's POV hammers just how fucking strange (and terrifying) a creature trained like Paul appears, even when he's reluctant to kill.
Tanista
30d ago
As for immigration, I'd say "regardless of any arguments about regression to the mean, nobody in the West is giving race-based preferential immigration to Asians. If they're not going to do that, then they don't have the excuse 'we don't want smart black people to immigrate because regression to the mean'."
Can I translate this as "in an anti-HBD West, people don't cite arguments specific to HBD in their immigration policy"?
Either it's not victim blaming because we tell other people in similar situations (e.g. leaving a car unlocked in a bad neighborhood) to take preventative measures without that label. Or it is but it's a specific thing where we don't apply the same logic to other places, which raises questions.
Either way, I can get people putting it in quotes.
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