But they are there people
They won't take them. What can we expect? They're not of the "civilized world"!
But Israelis are your people. Your struggles are their struggles, their struggles are your struggles. This really is the neatest possible solution. As the article points out: they've tried other things (including allowing an election that led to Hamas, on the behest of their allies) and it hasn't worked. If everyone is standing shoulder to shoulder against barbarism, think how dire the straits had to be (or how limited the downsides to allies with more demographic inertia) for them to suggest this.
Tanista
5mo ago
I've said it before and I'll say it again. Christianity is at least as unbacked by evidence and reason as transgender ideology.
It has much more of a track record of encouraging adaptive behavior and institutions though.
Celebs, boundaries and emotional abuse
So two stories have popped up around the same topic recently: how much men have the right to complain about or police their women's public behavior.
First off: recent mother Keke Palmer finally got to go out and enjoy herself, and her outing involved being serenaded by R&B star and notorious hound Usher Raymond. Her "baby daddy" decided to come out and complain that: "A man of the family doesn’t want the wife & mother to his kids to showcase booty cheeks to please others".
Well, that didn't go well. The feminist-aligned internet tore into him and he appeared to have been promptly dumped and, insult to injury, merch clowning him is now being sold
At the same time, "toxic masculinity" has a white representative to balance it out: Jonah Hill is now being attacked for being a misogynistic narcissist. Soon after the birth of his child, his ex decided to post texts showing his demand that she stops sexy photo shoots or overly close relationships with men or hanging out with women from her "wild past"
Hill is also facing a backlash from the DM women for "emotionally abusing" his ex via his boundaries and non-negotiables and his exploiting of "therapyspeak" to sanctify controlling behavior.
In both stories both men are excoriated for hypocrisy because these women behaved this way when they met, and expecting them to change (including after childbirth) is inconsistency.
So, what culture war implications to take from this?
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Keke Palmer's boyfriend had a very standard male reaction, regardless of charges of hypocrisy. Making it public that way was unwise, especially since he was the comparative minnow in the status competition. Times have changed. Maybe men like that should reconcile themselves to playing the role of the honorable wife who conveniently never sees any of these shenanigans, for everyone's sake. Of course, that would suggest some more restraint on Palmer's part...
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The situation is reversed with Hill. He has the status. Which I suspect is a significant part of the motive to release it now and draw in Deuxmoi-reading women to help win a battle that she couldn't have won in the relationship. As many people asked: why did she put up with his absurd demands (asking her to not post risque surfing photos when he met her through them) for any time whatsoever? Well, because he was Jonah Hill, presumably.
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No pretense to even wrestle with why men don't want the mother of their kids publicly on display. Just near-total lack of care.
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Obviously the concept creep on abuse continues.
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Is the celebrity (and wannabe celebrity) class just going to litigate every relationship online now for fans and political affinity group points...forever? The Hill thing happened a while ago and now it's supposed to be a thing? I suspect part of the push to call some of this "abuse" is precisely that there's a realization that no one should care about messy personal business. I assume the word game is retarding us coming to the conclusion one should in a panopticon: to stop caring. I wonder how long it'll hold.
I do see where the Left is coming from here. Most migrants aren't committing violence, and it does seem cruel to kick out people who have been living somewhere for years or even decades. But I also think a given community has the right to maintain the integrity of its society and culture.
Sweden had and still has that right.
They chose to let in migrants. They chose to have a non-ethnic conception of citizenship.
Everything happening is Europe's choice. None of these Ancient Roman comparisons really map. One of the wealthiest, highest human capital regions in the world is not being presented with a fait accompli by Somalians or a technical problem it can't figure out.
This is just what they chose.
Tanista
4mo ago
Maybe America could do with a general taboo against the display of all flags except the US flag?
I recall the debate over Tlalib's Palestinian flag (and comparisons to a Congressman showing up in his IDF uniform) and it all seems like a - somewhat distasteful - hassle.
There is, however, one type of leader who tends to create long-term positive impacts for a country. And that is a benevolent dictator, or dictator-lite. Examples of leaders in this mold are Rwanda's Paul Kagame or Singapore's Lee Kuan Yew.
That list is tiny, and you might have to drop a few if you consider whether they have successfully locked in their gains and had an orderly succession to a still flourishing system.
Nobody has any idea how to make Lee Kuan Yews or General Parks*, or they'd make a dozen of them. Often people act enlightened to fool the West and then do whatever (Obama used to think Erdogan was that guy) Which is why a lot of people default to "get a democracy going".
TBH there is no "Western narrative" - there's many. Even in the same government you'll find people supporting democracy and change until they turn around and support the only strongman on the grounds that they're the ones who can keep the state running or, at least, do what the US wants (basically Obama's relationship with Egypt after the Arab Spring).
(I don't think you're wrong about Western NGO-types framing people like Bukele as autocrats for violating "civil rights" but that just makes me skeptical that he is autocrat, as opposed to proving he's a successful one)
* This being The Motte, someone might also remark on it being a strange coincidence that the examples that immediately come to mind are East Asian...
Streaming Bill Regulating Netflix, Amazon And Co In Canada [Finally] Becomes Law
Felt like it's been a slow-motion battle happening for years right past the horizon.
The key impact of Bill C-11 is that streamers such as Netflix, Prime Video and Disney+ will now be regulated by similar laws to those overseeing the country’s networks.
In practice, the streaming services are now required to “contribute to the creation and availability of Canadian stories and music” and “pay their fair share in supporting Canadian artists, just like traditional broadcasters,” as per government bill guidelines issued last year. Canadian networks are compelled to hit certain quotas to fulfil terms of their licenses.
Basically: major streamers content sites will be obliged to push more Canadian content like television broadcasters are. For internet companies the goal would be to provide them with an incentive to increase the visibility of "Canadian" (defined by the government) content.
I'm...ambivalent. On the one hand, I constantly attack Canada for having limited independent cultural generation or even political discourse. So I find it hard to be too critical at them for taking proactive steps to push Canadian content. The cultural exception is an old concept at this point.
On the other hand...I just...don't trust the Canadian governments' competence at actually pushing "Canadian" (which they'll define for us) content. It's possible that this'll lead to more "non-descriptly Canadian" shows, but also more Nickelback-style shows (one common explanation for why they're hated is CanCon requirements meant radio stations had to play some Canadian and they benefited disproportionately, with a corresponding backlash).
There's also the question of just how this'll affect Canadian content creators (especially individuals uploading in spaces like Youtube), who probably benefit from basically being seen as indistinguishable from Americans and don't necessarily want the government putting its finger on the scale of what content gets rewarded. It might lead to less good Canadian content, as creators who could probably do a "one for us, one for them" model might find that harder. Or just lead to the people being promoted being part of a government-sustained, low-stakes artistic ghetto that can't be allowed to fail or we might have to give up on this "cultural sovereignty" thing.
Tanista
10mo ago
Mark Zuckerberg is ready to fight Elon Musk in a cage match
I'm really not sure how I feel about this new trend of nerdy billionaires getting into wellness and steroids (Bezos went from Lex Luthor to Kingpin) but this'd be an interesting contest. If we're gonna have bread and circuses...
I'd put my money on Zuckerberg btw
Of course I think the same problem exists with Hannania’s new position on race. Treat everyone the same. Be tough on crime. Do I think being colorblind will be accepted by the left when it ends up with whites always on top and blacks on the bottom with a lot of black men in prison? No.
Thank you for the chance to vent on this: I just listened to him talk with Rufo on this and they sounded - frankly - delusional.
The things that they and others cite - AA is unpopular with the general public - just don't seem to matter that much. Because...the public hasn't had to live with the outcomes Hanania predicts in living memory (when they did, they could easily blame it on racism).
When I see normies and progressives agree with SCOTUS' AA decision the idea is always "good, do it by class". But that's cause normies aren't HBDers like Hanania. What does he think is going to happen when we get #OscarSoWhite every couple of years at some major college or you see huge jail sentences for black people?
Most likely outcome: exactly what we're seeing now. People like Kendi are looking a step ahead, like Hanania and unlike normies they know "lol, class" isn't a solution right now, which is why they've forced the dilemma of "either it's society or you're saying our kids are broken". As you say: most people, even Republicans, don't want to bite the bullet here. If they do, they do similar moves to "I'm not against gays but.." like "well, it's the culture...", which not only gets called racist but still suggests AA.
I don't even know what I'd do if it came to my vote, and I think just being here and being so open to his takes marks me out as pretty atypical.
The only charitable explanation I have is that Hanania doesn't actually think you can reason people into separating race from everything (at least not those with a lot to lose). The plan would be to simply not sound super-racist (Hoste-like, one might say) so you can build enough of a mixed coalition with minorities with success in America like Vivek that you can tell blacks and their most devoted prog allies to suck it up without causing another Racial Reckoning. But even that sounds dubious.
While I think these positions are unstable I’m not sure the right could move the country to the stable positions.
I doubt it. Because the consensus has been broken and leftists , deliberately or not, act in ways that break up groups that might stand against the new status quo (e.g. more and more people identifying as some sort of alphabet person). Even if the Right could muster up the courage to maintain a substantive exclusionary position I don't know that it matters.
It's like racial homogeneity: easy to keep. Once it's gone it's much harder to argue for.
Tanista
5mo ago
If Christianity is not true then I don't care about what kind of record it has at encouraging adaptive behavior and institutions.
That is a value judgment (arguably a very Christian one) you're entitled to make. It's not just a fact.
I don't want to build society on a bedrock of delusions.
I'd prefer a non-deluded, rational secular humanism where we dispense with all superstitions and life is improved in every way by it, as was promised to me by Dawkins and Harris (PBUT) at a formative point in my teens.
But I'm no longer certain that truth and value are the same (especially when it comes to an individual life). And I'm not sure that option is available. What I see in that clip are dueling "delusions", except one has a longer track record of encouraging kids and pro-social behavior.
I'm pretty doubtful here. I don't think Obama is ideologically motivated enough to shape ongoing policy
The article has an answer: it started as a response to Trump and continues cause Obama wants to push his non-achievements like rapprochement with Iran.
It doesn't seem contradictory but it's yet another thing that is blamed on his narcissism.
Tanista
6mo ago
Did Hamas debunk the "Bronze Age Mindset"?
There has been a lot of discourse among the American Right about the recent Hamas attack on Israel. This specific attack has caught this attention of the "vitalist Nietzschean" sphere of the Right, often followers of Bronze Age Pervert.
This sphere is known to be against moralizing and all "slave morality" coming from either the liberal establishement, the left or religion. An example of this would be the meme culture of the BAP sphere, which openly celebrates murder, rape and death. However, with an ironic twist of reality, Hamas is precisely getting accused of what these BAP rightists vitalists uphold. But when they are faced with Hamas's "barbarian vitalist attack" on Israel, utilizing non-modern warfare techniques, they suddenly all cowered out.
All of the BAP sphere has stopped celebrating "vitalism" when it came to Israel. This is because it is now "low IQ Muslims" that do it. It is very clear that Islam challenges the ontological foundations of the Nietzschean worldview. They can not explain Hamas on their terms.
Since you are forced by the rise of the world market to take a position (the American people's money is going into this), the Nietzschean BAP sphere can not say anything. They are practically rendered politically irrelevant. Thus, their position is reduced to fence-setting or straight zionism, a position completely and utterly in line with the political establishement in America. All of this to claim to be "right-wing dissidents". All of the rejection of moralizing now became an endorsement of moralizing. BAP openly retweeted a post denouncing "the rape & genocide" of Hamas (unproven by the way) while he himself, a couple days earlier, celebrated the killing of a leftist journalist saying it turned him on.
This reveals a huge hole in BAP's worldview. A gap between his "complete surrendering to natural instinct" and "transcendetal Platonist moralizing". He has now suddenly decided to start moralizing! He has found the exception to his Nietzscheanism! This single event has proven the complete bankruptcy of the Nietzschean outlook. It can never explain REVOLUTIONS, it can only react to it in its own moralizing sense through its metaphysical lense of "will to Power". It is fundamentally a whining ideology.
The Nietzschean outlook does not understand that high culture is only secondary to material harmony of society. Only when inherent tensions are solved in modernity can "high culture" be produced once again. Harmony is directly derivative of political & economic realities. Thus, taking the metaphysical lense of "will to Power" becomes non-sensical when faced with a pre-modern (non-aristocratic) revolutionary force. It is what creates (or destroys) aristocracy itself. Faced with the deep ancient Islamic spirit, the Nietzscheans have no answer. In the same way that the revolutionnaries of the 20th century rendered Nietzschean fascism politically useless (this was done by Mao and the creation of Neo-China), the same is happening with the new Hamas partisan. This is material Being asserting itself against ideology.
This has forced the online political sphere, specifically the Right, for a re-alignement. You either oppose the current political establishement (left-wing) or you support it (right-wing). BAP has chosen to support it.
The choice is clear.
Tanista
7mo ago
Except Iger was responsible for some horrible content like Star Wars, which he rushed into production - which caused a cascade of production issues and failures. Which then basically killed the movie side
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.
See, this is why center-left people don't feel like allying with the right, despite our increasing frustration with the regressive far-left
If the center left had proven even vaguely able to resist this sort of thing, the Right would also find them to be a more attractive option than tit for tat. Or would not have needed to get involved at all.
People like Rufo & DeSantis exist because attempting to appeal to universal principles or allowing the academy to police itself has utterly failed. A lot of this stuff (especially in America, in the UK the Tories take a lot of blame since they were in power) happened under their eye. They not only refused to do anything about it, they often attacked both right and left critiques of it.
And then, when someone goes "too far" in response, they lament that there's no partner for common sense and sanity and they definitely would have done something if not for those crazies who made it too tense to get involved.
Yeah, uh-huh.
Tanista
7mo ago
I think it's a combination of arrogance and general "Prequels PTSD"'.
The arrogance is not just in Iger rushing it to have it out in his time. It's also in the fact that the people on the A-side - the movies - just didn't give a shit about any of this. Joss Whedon admitted as much about the original MCU shows like Agents of Shield. They're lower budget fanfiction that just interfere with their canon (which is the real canon) and may confuse fans but they have to pretend to indulge because some nerds buy the tie-ins. In that way, they treat it much like Lucas did. They just didn't care. Especially since there's just so much you can point to to shit on the EU.
The second thing is that basically everyone old enough to work on these films either hates the Prequels or remembers the absolute, wall-to-wall hate the Prequels got. Simon Pegg is a friend of Abrams and look how he talks about them in an otherwise diplomatic industry.
But people disagree on what exactly was bad about the Prequels. As someone who grew up with them I hated the dialogue and characterization. I was not only fine with but loved the Republic era - plenty of us found some quality in the games, books or The Clone Wars show even if we agreed with the criticisms of the mainline films.
The message Disney apparently took was that they were bad in their essence: people didn't just hate the prequels cause of bad execution, they hated the idea. What everyone wanted more OT-like stuff, fewer Jedi, less of a Republic, more Empire v. Rebels, less shiny CGI Coruscant so give them a ton of that, at least at the start. Well, that led to the derivative mess we got and the insistence on movies like Rogue One and Solo which all stayed in the very safe "post-Revenge of the Sith, pre-A New Hope" space.
Which would have perhaps been survivable (The Force Awakens made too much money) but the rush meant no ability to plan for a coherent trilogy and each movie not only pissed off fans of anything original, it even pissed off fans of the previous movie.
"Black" is a statistical concept that emerges at the population level as an amalgamation of traits and individuals. The race doesn't make the people, the people make the race...HBD is not a unique cataclysmic injustice; rather it is just one more square in the patchwork of immiseration that is mankind's natural state.
I think these are the sorts of things Westerners say because they have an atypically low focus on group honor. No man is an island, we all have a tribe and that tribe and its success matters.
"Someone died of cholera" is very different from "my tribe is, essentially, fucked for the foreseeable future" and this difference matters. Both in that the first affects individuals and that we can easily see it being otherwise. We know how to vaccinate groups, we don't know how to raise IQ.
All of this Coleman Hughes "focus on individuals" stuff is essentially an ameliorative tactic to save individualism and group agnosticism, but that only makes sense if groups are the broadly same. As the dissident right joke goes: "individualism and freedom for all (* obviously for 130 IQ Anglos)". On this view, "equality" and not caring about groups works because they just assumed power would be limited to those capable of handling it. And then everyone forgot range restriction and became optimists.
Once we actually accept that blacks can't be "130 IQ Anglos" all sorts of group judgments can flow from this that should concern any individual. For example: I'm African (my post history goes back so I can't be accused of being a troll - and you can probably find me on reddit with minimal effort too tbh). There's a legitimate argument against the immigration that changed my life measurably based on HBD grounds. That argument has historically worked against me (which is why Western nations mainly took white people and didn't even consider African migration) and may again, if people come to believe it again.
Am I supposed to go "well, as an individual, this is not my concern"? Are my opponents supposed to say "oh, okay then"? I cannot escape my race except under the very system HBD destroys.
It's "bad sh*t" from a female point of view because it makes average women look unattractive in comparison.
If women stated that the issue was avoiding runaway intrasexual competition it'd be one thing.
But that's not what they say. They say it's bad as such, immoral. Some feminists will even draw a line between this "objectification" and actual violence.
What there is something hellishly dystopian about, is that the very same people who demand you fulfill your duties to the nation, are working tirelessly to abolish the very idea of there being a nation to start with.
Well, there is an argument that what's really being fought for here is not a nation but a federation. Ukraine gives the West/the EU something to rally around, and someone (the European nation most hostile to their vision) to rally against.
So, from the perspective of non-Ukrainians, it may not be incoherent. Ukraine's right to self-determination is important because they chose to join the great melding, and freedom is worth dying for.
The Ukrainians on the ground can fight for some specific, blood-and-soil concept of Ukraine if they want.
People have really summed up the issue with the guy; he really does sound like he's playing Paradox grand strategy games with actual grand strategy.
With Nixon and Monroe firmly in hand, we can now move into application. Let us start with our great power rival, China, and the jewel of their near-abroad, Taiwan. We have operated in strategic ambiguity with regard to Taiwan for far too long. I will move to strategic clarity, by which I mean that China must understand that I will defend American interests in Taiwan. If Taiwan wants any partnership in their defense, then they will need to raise their defense spending and military readiness to acceptable levels. Meanwhile, I will commit to making sure Taiwan has the weapons they need for that defense, both from a sea-borne invasion, and in future, for a long-term insurgency against any occupying foreign force, if needed.
Vivek has publicly said that he's going to tell China "we'll defend Taiwan until we get semiconductor independence". Which...I guess everyone is supposed to take well?
Can we consider one potential consequence of telling Taiwan that the US will defend them right now (against an enemy that continually states it'll declare war if Taiwan ever tries for independence) while also promising to throw them under the bus as soon as the US is sufficiently diversified?
In Paradox-land, only the player has agency so it isn't that big a deal. People are less cooperative.
Tanista
25d ago
OP does go on to say:
Because without that there's no binary boundary to transit. A woman cannot be a transwoman.
Seems to me the argument is not circular, just compact: without a concrete definition of man and woman, there is nothing to be "trans" in comparison to.
This sort of argument is not new - a common variant is to argue that trans and non-binary are inherently in tension for this reason.
Tanista
6mo ago
You'd think being a very immigration friendly nation would prevent blood and soil rhetoric like:
"It is the legitimacy of the non-Indigenous occupation in this country that requires recognition, not the other way around."
But apparently not for all groups. I guess the brown "occupiers" just stay out of this stuff?
The dating market is more competitive for men than for women; women are far more selective than men about sex partners. Imagine an attractive person of the opposite sex walking up to you on a college campus and saying, “Hi, I’ve been noticing you around town lately, and I fnd you very attractive. Would you have sex with me?” How would you respond? If you are like 100 percent of the women in one study, you would give an emphatic no. You might be ofended, insulted, or just plain puzzled by the request. But if you are like the men in that study, the odds are good that you would say yes— as did 75 percent of those men (Clarke & Hatfeld, 1989). As a man, you would most likely be flattered by the request.
I'm sympathetic enough to the general post that I actually want someone to debunk it (I've swung a little too hard towards Caplan and Hanania on this I feel) but this seems like the weakest point.
This can easily be put down to evolved sex differences: women have more risks and less benefits from casual sex..
See, this is actually the argument for feminism: why should men's internal experience and preference be the standard here?
Tanista
7mo ago
Here is exclusive dead bird thread about his first days in the big house.
- When Sam arrived at MDC his bunkmate wouldn't let him into the cell because he thought he was a "Chomo" or C*d Mester. They tried to move him to multiple cells but he was having disputes with his bunkmates. They finally moved him to the 4th floor with the Asians. He is hooked up with a gang from Downtown Manhattan. They are either protecting or extorting him, there is a thin line in prison. He has been sitting on the floor with newspapers, likely doing Sudokus.
...
- Being Jewish might be a problem for Sam because of the high amounts of anti-semitism in Prison, especially if he lands in a Penitentiary after trial. When Prison riots happen the prisons split into White, Brown, and Black. Sam needs to decide which group to align himself with. Martin suggests that Sam may unironically have luck converting to Islam for protection.
I feel like I've seen a bunch of variations on these kinds of stories on TV and from actual ex-cons (it's a mini-industry on Youtube) and I still find it hard to believe these sorts of dynamics are just taken for granted. It almost feels like ludicrous cliches repeated until they're just assumed to be true...
And the idea that SBF willingly fucked himself into one of these places...Can Michael Lewis just release the book? Because I need to know how his mind ticks.
I'm glad you feel that way because some members of the Israeli Knesset and Israel's intelligence minister have found ways to help defend them: The West Should Welcome Gaza Refugees & Victory is an opportunity for Israel in the midst of crisis - opinion
Those refugees, if spread out, will have a relatively low impact on the West and will benefit themselves and Israel will be closer to a secure ethnostate. A win for the "civilized" world and an example of the value of allies. So better make some room.
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