Tanista
54m ago
and bad for me to restrict them so they can't keep jumping in the lake.
I don't think this holds for most of Christian history. Yes, you had to fish the babies out of Roman trash heaps. I don't think Christians, once they had the power, were against using it for their own good.
It becomes a lot less altruistic if you add in "...and I will be the one who did it", as the people who do that rather typically do. People with master morality will sometimes make everyone better off for their own glory. Elon Musk, yes, but also Andrew Carnegie and many others.
This fits Alfred Nobel, who gave his money to do something to glorify his name after the invention of dynamite. But...this is slave morality too no? He already achieved something great, yet he was so guilty he needed to do something to atone. All great men possess agency, but they're not really free of slave morality either.
Bill Gates already was a great man, giving away his money to strangers merely to improve their lives (some might cynically say as a way of washing off his more unsavory reputation as Microsoft's ruthless head), hell this entire notion of billionaires handing off their money is pretty Christian (it's of dubious acceptability in Islam iirc).
Tanista
2d ago
Trudeau wasn't kicked out for the same reason Trump wasn't for so many things: he was ultimately answerable to the public.
Most cancellations would probably be short circuited if there was a public vote on them.
Another sign is the apparent collapse in the popularity of Hip-Hop and the return of Country music with a vengeance.
Thing is that hip hop is an incredibly "unwoke" genre in content if not allegiance. If these battles are no longer being fought it's cause the wokes accepted only a partial victory: rampant misogyny, actual toxic masculinity in gangster rap and barely-even-coded homophobia but the top talent are expected to toe the line if they want to go really mainstream. But the low end, especially the regional drill scenes? Can be functionally amoral.
I would think it's female pop stars like Beyonce that would be benefitting from consumption as a sign of loyalty and who you'd expect to drop off if we're past peak woke.
Tanista
7d ago
But isn't the fully based response that, ideally, you actually want shamelessly sexist/racist hiring in humanities jobs that produce cultural products for the US and for the world? You want people who intimately understand the demographics you're selling to. A team of 99% white male writers is probably not the best way to go if there are black women who might buy your product.
Japan seems to get by with many 100% Japanese writing teams for works that are internationally popular, including with American blacks they should be even more distant from.
Tanista
9d ago
Tanista
9d ago
especially when nobody else gets to play the same game.
Didn't Trump just roll back disparate impact protections?
he's more of a morning TV show host
Yes, he was! You just reminded me of this excruciating clip.
I'm doubling down on my "just a bit thick" diagnosis.
So now I guess it would be fine to have Morgan's sons under microscope and digging up any potential problematic antisemitic, misogynistic and racist behavior if they are such exemplars of uprightness. From now on to forever.
From what I understand his wife is a public figure who made a bunch of "funny" comments about Piers publicly. It isn't fun but she put it out there.
No. I think that it is a distraction and a low blow. I think it is a normal gentlemen's agreement not to bring family into such a debate, even if people brought their family up before themselves
In that case, Coates himself brought it up as part of a discussion on his evolution on Israel iirc. It's sort of odd to me that no one else can do the same, for the exact same reasons.
Like, it's one thing to defend Fuentes for being defensive given his strange life and because he's afraid of violence or his dad being fired but it was literally bringing up his own anecdote for the exact same reasons.
His father was not there to defend himself about such a wild speculation and accusation. It is just not right.
Given that his dad never appears on Fuentes' streams (AFAIK) this sort of argument functions more as a good reason Fuentes should never have put that into the world. He already put his father in that position. There actually isn't a firewall between what Fuentes says on stream to hardcores and what comes out in the more mainstream outlets especially when Fuentes is doing a promotional tour on said outlets.
Tanista
13d ago
Obviously no one should go to her house but it's not that hard a case. They're both public figures. He spouted off at the mouth, she did so too, multiple times. I don't know that anyone outside of groypers care but you can obviously bring up the state of his marriage if he's bringing it up and putting others down.
His sons are what would give me pause but I can't recall what context they were brought up in. I'd hope young kids could be kept out of it.
Assume Nick Fuentes was some rando leftist, like Ta-Nehisi Coates, would it be fair to bring up things his dad said about politics when asking about his own left radical views?
Tanista
13d ago
By the way Piers Morgan also mentioned his wife Celia Walden numerous times on his show. He literally mentioned his sons during this show, showcasing how empathetic and upright they are. Does this mean that Morgan's family is now fair game for any future discussion with him?
The behavior of his wife is literally one of the main rebuttals being used by Fuentes fans right now.
Fuentes did not reply, because he did not want to drag his father into this. He did not want to apologize or even explain his fathers behavior, because frankly it is none of Morgan's business.
Fuentes made it Morgan's business by putting it out there. Sorry, he pussied out. This was, to use OP's language, a shit-test where he didn't agree and amplify or even deflect, he just got angry and all of that Zoomer irony and unapologetic energy fell away.
Morgan did more harm to his cause than if he was muted but it's kind of absurd to think that we can't question a man who admits he's racist about potentially racist statements his dad made that he publicized and how that might have shaped his worldview from the start.
The modern leftist intellectual doesn't have any knowledge about why they think what they think
Modern intellectual leftists (the ones who get repeatedly booked anyway) often have a very elaborate theory of why they believe what they believe. Maybe it doesn't hold up but they can spin those assumptions out enough to fill up the time in a debate. And they'll at least have a set of anecdotes about why black people commit crime or the Middle East is a basket case because of the US. They'll at least have a filibuster. Piers sat around pretending to not get per capita.
I don't know if he's even a leftist, I think Piers is just a boomer from a genteel time when We Don't Discuss These Things (and, from his perspective, they weren't really major problems yet). And not a particularly smart or reflective one. My understanding is that his main talents are shamelessness and social climbing. Things have gone well for him, so why would he really think too hard about anything?
The stories out of Canada(which many people might not realize are from Canada) probably make it worse.
Ah, the old Canadian Internet Theory.
That said, when the tariffs first hit I was surprised at how many angry Canadians who'd otherwise pass I saw in the comment section of (EDIT: American) right wing youtubers.
This would matter if a) Europeans didn't already pay vastly more attention to US elections than the US does to theirs (it would not be a throwaway story if GOP volunteers came to the UK to campaign for Farage the way a few Labour volunteers worked for Harris) and b) there's any evidence that this would have a large impact.
America is just too polarized for it to matter. There are some Americans who love to be thought of well by Europeans but those people are now all in the Democratic Party. It doesn't really matter much to the populists and the right wingers are well aware that the elite class of Europe looks down on them for their coarse ways. Americans just don't have to care, frankly. Elections are for beating the near enemy.
Besides, there's an obvious power differential here. "Hit him back just as hard" is good advice for the playground but probably not smart here.
"Have police arrest more criminals while being less violent and more discerning" was not a significant camp in the BLM discourse, eithe
Because the BLM awakening (especially post-Floyd) wasn't actually about police brutality. It was about conjuring a scapegoat for the general failure of an entire community, one acceptable to both white and black educated classes.
Your solution is a solution to some problem, but not the one people care about. The result of more effective police would be to make the failure even more visible without the face-saving excuse.
There's no want for agency. A whole lot of effort is being expended, a bunch of plans are constantly made and acted on. It's more that only plans that fit a narrow window of acceptable discourse are even legible let alone tolerable.
Wait until you find out how much top entertainers in other disciplines make. Actors, models, sports stars...
A significant amount of the resentment towards mainstream celebrities who are political opponents is caused by this too I feel. It's explicitly the justification for "shut up and dribble"
Ingraham said she was not interested in the political advice from "someone who gets paid $100 million a year to bounce a ball."
There's an additional wrinkle with Bonnie Blue (and some streamers who basically sell antisocial behavior like Johnny Somali or Logan Paul during his forest-exploring days also fall into the same bucket) because people probably think she represents a particularly corrosive mainstreaming of shamelessness. Is she significantly more attractive than some of the top pornstars over the last fifty years of the category? Not really. Is she more of a degenerate on camera? No. I'm not sure she's even richer than Jenna Jameson or others of that level. What she does exploit is the total breakdown of any cordon around this sort of behavior due to the internet and sites like Onlyfans.
Goddamnit, I was just considering dipping my feet in! I guess the six month wait period for Paradox holds.
Tanista
30d ago
Given the situation at the time and how much the Europeans needed America, Biden had far more leverage for his words to matter than usual. The majority of work for this would have been done under his administration, and certainly it would have helped if the American President showed zero ambiguity about how the court could be used.
Tanista
1mo ago
Oop, cut an earlier bit. Biden supported the Europeans trying Putin for war crimes, while admitting the US didn't recognize the court either.
“He’s clearly committed war crimes,” Biden told reporters on Friday. “I think it’s justified,” he said, referring to the arrest warrant.
“It’s not recognised internationally by us either. But I think it makes a very strong point,” he added.
So basically a warrant from an organization that neither the US nor Russia recognize and will never actually lead to Putin's arrest because it's a "strong point".
While no one might be suicidal enough to try to try US servicemen there are other more vulnerable US allies that could be the victims of said court, so a strong US line (as opposed to "it's okay if it makes a strong rhetorical point") may have given people second thoughts.
Tanista
1mo ago
There was also his stepping down to Prime Minister because of the constitutional limits on consecutive terms.
Tanista
1mo ago
There's accusations that it was driven by more mundane motives, specifically to distract or avoid a sexual harassment charge
Putting that aside, I wouldn't underestimate the ability of Europeans to actually get high on their own supply.
He publicly came out in support of the action (while also maintaining the ICC's jurisdiction didn't apply to the US because ??)
As this situation is showing, the US president has some ability to make things difficult for the ICC. He could have held the line on the taboo and made it clear he didn't approve of the warrant. Instead he backed it.
China and North Korea bad
Honestly, one of my niggling doubts when I didn't take a stance on HBD was how the hell North Korea - despite appearing like an Africa-level basket case - was able to get nukes and survive being an incredible pain in the ass. It fit uncomfortably well with general East Asian competence, just for evil. Then again, of all cases listed, that's probably the one you can blame on geography the most.
If they didn't have Seoul in their sights and China at their backs they would likely have gotten stomped by the US regardless. But it always raised uncomfortable questions.
When the same set of easily rebuttable set of ideas that all resemble each other are always easily wack-a-moled one by one, its not a good sign for the overarching theory or set of theories that is outputting those theories. And that is a fundamental problem for environmental and historical theories at this point.
These books are also often mum on the next most likely success story, whereas Genes>Institutions/Lynnian takes have a clear answer we can at least consider (Lynn was bullish on former socialist states with high IQ like China and Poland but by 2000 that might not have really been inhuman foresight)
Was quite an experience slowly cottoning on to the fact that Cameron literally just remade Avatar 1 & 2. I would understand if we were coming full circle and ending this but we have two more to go!
I don't know if he realized he didn't have enough material or he's trying to stuff theaters but the audacity is incredible.
I would be more angry if I paid IMAX prices but they only had 3d showings (eye issues make it pointless). TBF: I was also high and Spyder's triumphant welcome to the cookout sent me out on a high note. Glad we're all past the Abraham/Isaac thing.
I mean, she was pretty wrong - and I don't remember her being that antagonistic or stupid in the first sequel. Quaritch didn't go native. He made an alliance with a local tribe ( and used them more effectively than she used RDA resources btw) leveraging a personal relationship with the local chieftain (usually you'd marry his daughter or something but w/e) . That meant absorbing a few of their visible traditions to keep them onside.
What did she think colonialism meant? Vibes? Papers? Essays?
As with The Culture, I wonder at what point the things you have to do to make your utopia work undermine the IRL advocacy for the principles that it's based on.
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