It's also not even clear that this sort of precision is worth chasing. Just consider how many more people there are who speak English as a second language than are trans (this has already potentially caused questions about the UK census)
Tanista
1yr ago
That's Pandora's Box and Democrats can not open it.
It's pretty telling that even criticisms from the establishment are near uniformly disciplined about making this about the campaign.
If they admit he may be incompetent in his duties everyone will be dragged forward and asked what they knew and when.
Tanista
1yr ago
At this point, it's unclear to me that Kamala is worse than Biden. All of that was based on polling from back when the media and party thought the age issue was manageable and so tried to contain it. The cat's out of the bag now.
Though I have to grant that there is a risk that she'll be framed as the worst of all worlds: complicit in Biden's deception but not in his actual successes.
To avoid doing another dissection of Peterson: he certainly seems to have been bitten by the Zionist bug. For all his posturing as a rational and reason minded clinical psychologist when talking to feminists about feminism and the difference between the sexes, the merits of individualism and focusing on immediate short term goals and family, he seems completely unhinged when it comes to semitism.
He hates Fuentes for the same reason he hates the feminists.
His reaction to complaints from UofT pro-trans progressives was to liken them to Maoists. He accuses Trudeau of having a "murderous equity doctrine" for defending gender equity. Anything that blames/focuses on groups earns his ire as the revival of some murderous 20th century movement.
If feminists are like murderous communists and pro-trans activists are Maoists, how should he feel about anti-Semites?
There are absolutely philosemites nakedly driven by shared enemies (Douglas Murray comes to mind) but Peterson has always leaned towards unhinged rhetoric about people if he feels they resemble certain baddies. We don't need an explanation. What would be strange is him having any patience for Fuentes at all.
Tanista
1yr ago
I can't think of "a single player game in which the campaign takes the average player 100 hours to complete" at all...
It seems cost-prohibitive for AAA games especially.
After reading more leaks, I'm now drastically less confident he lasts the course.
Tanista
1yr ago
Man, you read my clarification, right? And yet still I use the word and get the inevitable (another cursed word) "Not all righties." I know not all righties.
True, sorry. I guess I got triggered and instinctively went into my version of "the Democrats aren't left wing!"
Tanista
1yr ago
Even if they wanted to do the same comedy Americans are probably too close to it.
It would end up like The Boys or Handmaid's Tale .
Righties don't want men to be held responsible ever for wanting to get their dicks wet, not even to the degree that we might say "Tut tut" and socially shun him. Or I guess we can do that but if and only if we also agree that women are property.
"Righties" is doing a lot of work here.
Andrew Tate and Ben Shapiro look similar to their outgroups but have totally different values.
One group wants infinite women to abuse and so don't want to be blamed.
Another group simply thinks you can't fix this shit the way feminists want (blaming men and creating cyclical witch hunts) and so you have to let people face the consequences of their actions and learn the hard way. Given that women are the selective sex, they have to deal with it and be circumspect. They don't really admire or like men like Tate but those men will always exist and are easier to check when women are onboard.
It's not significantly different from their view on say...welfare. No one made you get that kid. You're not foisting the problems unto us.
Tanista
1yr ago
The UK is exporting people like Jesse Armstrong who worked on the last round of British political comedy like The Thick of It. And Ianucci did work with some Americans for Death of Stalin, which was pretty funny.
Can't write off getting a very dark comedy from them out of this.
It would absolutely be a feckless, stupid move to sleepwalk into a disastrous Biden campaign, I don't disagree. But that's exactly what they've been doing?
I doubt their capacity to draw a line, not see the issue. Maybe Biden absolutely shits the bed in the upcoming interview and Obama flies out there. But the fact that it even theoretically needs to get to that stage is damning. And they don't have a lot of time to gather their courage.
It's hard to measure that benefit, because it's hard to see "could have been a victim, but wasn't, thanks to a well-functional society" but it's still there.
Where is this "well-functioning society"? I thought we were talking about anarchy?
I think you're thinking of this as sexual Bukelism: we shoot all the gangsters and, yes, sadly some innocents will be caught in the crossfire but then kids can go back to playing in the yards. No, it's more like gangs killing people for wearing the wrong colors, or the wrong brand. It's disorganized, capricious and ultimately meaningless to most people.
None of the problems with sexual inequity will be solved by a woman trying to cancel a high status man who didn't treat her the way she wanted. The game will continue, with adjustments. In a sense, it's a reinforcement of the status quo; the "eunuchs" are already non-characters in this great drama.
Tanista
1yr ago
And as I said before, I think the fact that the Democratic Party is breaking ranks on Biden’s cognitive decline is very telling as they would not be doing this if they expect him to be able to continue. They’re basically own-goaling with every such rumor and statement. If he does continue, these attacks will be front and center in Trump’s campaign. In fact, these rumors are so damaging that basically if the republicans are smart, they’ll just campaign by playing these messages and doing nothing else.
Never underestimate the ability of Democrats to take a feckless middle stance that's the worst of all worlds.
The general optics of the meeting, at least as per the Politico article, read much less like governors getting together to influence Biden and much more like Biden summoning a group of governors to influence them and assess/reinforce their loyalty.
I've said it before: the most likely outcome is like when the GOP came home after any one of Trump's innumerable gaffes and problems. They can buck as much as they like. But, unless they're willing to go nuclear on Biden, he can simply refuse to bend and they will.
Ted Cruz had more to lose against Donald Trump because his donors had more to lose.
Unlike Biden and his handlers, they'll actually still be in politics in a couple of years. If Trump wins, he wins. If Trump wins because they tackled their own candidate...
Tanista
1yr ago
I take the exact opposite message from it: after the debate a strong party would not be taking anything on Biden's word. A strong party wouldn't be waiting for some hail Mary interview or strategy change.
A strong party would simply defenestrate him because it's quite clear what the problem is. It has been clear in polling for months now - the public has made it clear this is a huge issue for them. It's been clear in the reporting since the debate. This is not the "break glass" moment. This is past that.
What is the point of elites if they can't just make the decision?
All of this seems like a weak party moving from the denial to the bargaining stage. Now it's clear they've gone too far and it's just too gosh-darned hard to remove Biden (especially with Kamala on maneuvers, making it clear they're not jumping her) they're listening and hoping something happens, someone else does it, when they should be telling Biden.
Of course, they don't have the time to get to acceptance. So Biden likely runs out the clock.
Besides the reporter who gets a pelt, who is this benefiting? Who gains in the long run?
Many high status men will continue to sleep with young women regardless , many aren't as public-facing and woke as Gaiman so have less to fear from this particular form of reactive punishment. (Andrew Huberman just had a recent case of "hell hath no fury" journalism and he just...ignored it) Many women like this will probably continue playing these games, come to regret it and they'll never get even that brief moment of vindication when stories like this going viral before having to go back to their anonymous lives.
It certainly makes no difference to the great mass of humanity if a rockstar discovers that 19 y/o groupie isn't as easy a target as they assumed.
This is akin to saying that there're "positive benefits" if you burn someone's mother-in-law as a witch and she turned out to be absolutely awful at PTA meetings. It's not a benefit, it's a coincidence. If it was a benefit, it wouldn't be anarchy.
Tanista
1yr ago
Bitterly complaining about historical whites without giving up their good job for a non-white person.
Yes, this is the standard explanation but I don't think it can fully explain the situation.
White people do lose out on positions. Most progressive whites aren't at the top of the stack, able to ride out issues like AA and so on until retirement. Even those that are can suffer from cancellation when they violate a new rule.
Tanista
1yr ago
Now explain why progressive whites - who actually possess the bulk of the power in situations like this - indulge it.
Tanista
1yr ago
The whole situation with Lloyd Austin just seemed fundamentally unserious. Something that shouldn't even be possible if anyone had their eye on the ball.
For it to go unpunished...
Tanista
1yr ago
Depends on whether Kamala does more damage to down ballot races?
If you're gonna lose anyway, why not let her take the hit? It might be better than trying to dislodge her.
Tanista
1yr ago
We also just have more video and it just lives for longer. Anyone can find it.
If anything it's a wonder it's gone on this long
With everyone focused on the election, little attention is being paid to what would otherwise be an obvious question in light of the new scrutiny on Biden's health: Is he even fit to continue being president for the remainder of his term?
It's amazing to see smart people who pride themselves on their rationality think around this
Ezra Klein - who actually called for Biden to step down, so he's already an outlier - started with the take that maybe Biden could do the Presidents job but not campaign for it.
Then he "admitted" that campaigning is part of the job.
Except the real epiphany would be to wonder whether someone who can't campaign (and is prone to sundowning, according to recent reporting) can do the job at all! I thought the criticism of Trump was whether he could handle the "midnight phone call"?
I can only assume that part of the reason for the refusal to truly consider if he's incompetent in daily life as well is how many people would be caught in the blowback, because someone had to be minimizing and hiding it. If Biden resigns because of the campaign then this problem is more likely to disappear. Otherwise we might have to ask about specific things that happened in the White House.
They have Jewish (and now) Muslim populations, so they have reasons to care. Small numbers of dedicated people make a lot of noise.
It's also just...fun? A little geopolitical drama, a little proxy culture war to fill our days.
If you're a Westerner skeptical of Islam or the sorts of people who push for some cosmopolitan accommodation with it but are too cucked to just argue your own nationalism (or you don't have a nation) Israeli nationalism is something you can support.
If you're on the flip side you can inveigh about the brutality of Western imperialism and those who support it and believe you're like your parents opposing apartheid. And, of course, give voice to vicious instincts you're not brave enough to slake yourself.
Both sides get to pretend that they care about the world as such, and many smaller nations get to pretend they have a say in outcomes.
It's great for everyone but Israelis and Palestinians, tbh.
Oh, he is.
Biden barely won last time with a >4% lead in the popular vote. He's behind now by ~3% I think.
That's before we get into specific swing states, at which point you get why there were allegedly tears in meetings from swing state Democrats who have to be stuck with him at the top of the ticket.
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