The expansion is that western civilisation is fucked.
To expand the expansion further: around the gay marriage debates of the 2010s, a losing rearguard argument was put forward by the anti side that I nonetheless think was sound. It goes: expanding the concept of marriage such that it could include gay couples without self-contradiction means changing what all marriages are about. Or more precisely, affirming a change which had been underway in high Western culture since the 60s/70s.
This was the change whereby marriages went from being a cradle for families and child-rearing, to being a site for self-fulfilment and self-actualisation. Marriage's telos was to be fulfilment, and a right to marriage therefore follows from enlightenment rights to "life, liberty and the pursuit of happiness". No-one within the thinkable window in the 2010s was going to make the argument that gay couples couldn't pursue happiness and shared fulfilment as effectively as straight couples, so excluding them from marriage became artirary, a relic of an earlier belief system. A 1950s vision centred on nuclear families ironically began to look a bit camp (the sincere concern with flower arrangements! A man's wedding is the absolute zenith of most straight men's concern with flower arrangements).
There's a pretty direct line from no-shame divorce to gay marriage. The internal logic leads naturally there, as was pointed out many times by both pro and anti sides (Jon Stewart voice: "What sanctity?? [Republican] is already three-times divorced, and my great aunt Ethel is dancing her tuchas off at over-70s singles nights at the [conservative place]. What are gays going to do to this institution that you haven't done already?)
Anyway, back to the West being fucked: in a context where marriage is a thing that some people like to do because it's fulfilling (and self-fulfilment is high status, marriage is decreasingly for the hoi polloi, who probably are fulfilled by like nativism or something idgaf), then there's only a weak vestigial pairing between pairing and rearing. At this stage the link between the two is like having English mustard with steak; some people like it and it's a traditional combo, but others find [the continuation of the human species] a bit uncomfortable and that's okay.
This is the sense in which, post-2010s, all marriages are gay marriages. "If you don't like gay marriage then don't marry someone of the same sex!"
Too late, Jon Stewart from 2010: I'm now gay-married to my straight spouse.
Hence, together with the brittle crystalising of sexuality taking place in modern culture (you may have one of several dozen/hundred sexual tastes, that's consumerist liberation, but your predilictions must be ordered and legible. Disordered, messy, dangerous sex goes back in the "problematic" box) it follows naturally that the act of sustaining the human race becomes kink #312a, and a rather outré one at that.
It's funny in a late 20th century UK sitcom way; the empire shrinks and crumbles, we are reduced, but there are bleak gags to be had.
A final note: the reason why this "kink" is a bit outré is due to demographic anxiety in whites, which by the way both isn't happening and is A Good Thing. I've never heard anyone criticise a profoundly fecund NBA player as being possessed of a breeding kink.
Titus_1_16
1yr ago
Ah that's right, the Kardashians, heirs to a thousand-year tradition and noble bloodline, models of discretion, and the ceremonial heart of a nation.
You're giving ugly credence to American stereotypes by equating a woman/family famous for a sex tape with actual royalty.
Titus_1_16
6mo ago
Okay I'll bite on the pictures: the first, more attractive, woman is the nice one who wrote the Slate piece, and the second woman is the one that wrote "Cat Person".
Titus_1_16
5mo ago
Ah now, everyone knows he was a Gypsy, not a Slovak. Ironically it would mainly be over-the-hill, state TV watching, identity-is-citizenship types (ie not far right) that would fail to make that distinction.
Titus_1_16
5mo ago
The emotional explosiveness isn't limited to twitter.com, but that's fine because it's a good thing.
Ethical reasoning is something a person can be better or worse at, and it's good that most people do not engage in a priori ethical reasoning - they follow the guidelines laid down by those who've examined an issue deeply (their betters, to be maximally provocative).
There's a complex system through new norms are derived by experts, road-tested by organs of opinion propagation, the common man's reception is incorporated iteratively into refinements, and so on.
It's no more desirable that everyone should invent his own ethical systems than that he should invent his own electrical systems.
I won't disagree with your contention that forcefully supressing a population keeps them, you know, surpressed. But I will contend that this imprudent and short-term civilisational management, because oppression degrades a people culturally and spiritually. Oppression makes brutes of a people, and the oppressor ends up riding a tiger.
I contend that there's strong empirical evidence in support of the brutalising effect of harsh oppression. If you're willing accept that premise then please skip the next two paragraphs.
Despite what a lot of activists will claim, the vast bulk of sub-Saharan Africa only experienced European colonialism for a bit less than a century: 1875 or so until 1965 or so, arguably starting later with the Berlin Conference in 1885. The obvious exception is South Africa, which had much earlier settler colonialism as opposed to the later and more popular extractive model. Looking at the societies that have emerged post-decolonisation, a really striking fact is how much more violent South Africa is than any other country in the continent, even those that have experienced recent military conflict. I'm talking specifically here about murder rates, by far the most reliable measure of violence even in extremely badly-run societies (ie most of Africa). South Africa is notably more violent than almost any other African country; in some cases up to 30× more (note that oppression is colourblind, and SA's only large competitor in the murder stakes is Nigeria, anothe country cursed with intense ethnic conflict, and jockeying, alternating subjugation of the Yoruba by the Hausa historically, and the inverse now).
This presents a serious challenge for a strictly white supremacist position; South African blacks had by far the most contact with civilising whites of any peers on the continent, and have come out of the encounter by far the most violent. This pattern shows up throughout the world; Russia is famous for tsarist oppression of its populace, and really high levels of interpersonal violence. Brazil was the largest slave nation in the world (surely an oppressive institution...) and is far more violent as a result than the vast majority of African countries. Even thinking of my own lovely nation of Ireland; historically oppressed, and authentic brutes for much of history as a result. In our case we were a big European outlier for most of the 20th century as a country with vastly higher levels of interpersonal violence than others; but the longer we went post-independence, the closer we tracker to the European norm. This was separate too and preceded our (literal) enrichment; getting richer didn't make us less violent and ignorant, it was a precondition for same.
I could go on and on but to my mind there are more than sufficient natural experiments around the world showing that, whatever the quality of the biological substratum of a people in the first place, oppression en masse tends to coarsen and degrade en masse. There are certainly very many interesting sub-mechanisms and processes behind this but, sinilar to your own big-picture view of oppression working as a large-scale system, I won't bother to speculate on them here.
Given this observation about the development of peoples, oppression as you propose it is storing up trouble for the future. In a world than has experienced the French and American revolutions, it just doesn't seem tenable to me politically that any Western society is going to have the will to keep oppressing its untermenschen forever (or at least, not in the form of coarse and ill-fitting explicit racial oppression; something a bit more subtle like a class system can of course coexist with liberal democracies forever). You can genocide them, or you can fully emancipate them, but history demonstrates that you can't keep kicking the oppression can down the road forever. And about genocide, let's be realistic; it is the civilisational equivalent of murder, the guilt of which is analogous to the guilt in a single (non-deranged) individual. It cannot have no effect. If you want to argue for the desirability of an America which had sent its formerly enslaved population to concentration camps once it was done with them... that actually would be interesting and I'd engage with it. But I doubt it's your belief.
Full legal and social emancipation, with all the calamities it entails, is a plaster (band-aid in American) that the US had to rip off sooner or later. An interesting counterfactual for you is this; what do you think would be the state of the US today if reconstruction of the slave regions had been completed in earnest and totally? This has been pulled off successfully in other societies; my understanding is that it's not a sociological impossiblitiy but rather a particular project which failed and was aabandoned in the 1870s US, only to be picked up again from the mid 20th. Really fascinating "what if?" there. And incidentally, lest you think Haiti is the only possible model of post-slavery societies in the western hemisphere: no! Look at Barbados, look at Jamaica; both pretty respectable societies that made a much better go of the same raw material, through better stewardship, institutions etc.
Titus_1_16
5mo ago
An interesting specification here:
a pretty (by conventional Western standards) blonde lead
Is the detail in the brackets really necessary? Is there really any hetrosexual man who wouldn't, in his heart of hearts, grant that this woman is at least "pretty"?
I mean perhaps there are some freaks who'd demur - but they'd simply be wrong. This is "pregnant people" hair-splitting.
If the word "pretty" means anything, and if there are any moral/æsthetic truths at all, then it's just simply true that this actress is "pretty".
Titus_1_16
5mo ago
Ah look, I'm sure they're fine on their own terms - this isn't a critique any Brazilian should take seriously. I'm describing a mob of Brazilians versus any individual, etc.
Behold: classic Irish obsequiousness and indirectness and backpedalling coming out even on an anonymous board. I'm sure a Brazilian could take an equally good potshot at us - I've heard they find our lack of cosmetic surgery troubling and wrongheaded, for example.
As for poverty explaining vice - I don't think that's the case in an interesting way. Sure, poverty drives people to vice - but which vices, and which first, are culture. Brazilians in Ireland are generally here on bad-faith student visas (they must get a stamp from an "english language school" as a visa condition, making these schools de facto a private arm of Irish migration control - this incentive structure leads to exactly the outcome you'd predict) and I don't see, say, Indian students that dool the same visa scam turning en masse to dealing or prostitution.
Titus_1_16
5mo ago
OpenAI researchers warned of AI breakthrough before CEO ouster according to Reuters. It seems that, disappointingly, there's more to the Sama exit than just petty politics.
I had found myself greatly reassured by the thought that, actually, this whole debacle was just (human) politics as usual - and not the eerie dawn of some new era.
Have other motizens noticed a substantial disconnect between their foremost worry the past while, and that of the normies in their life? Everyone else is chanting for Palestine, and I'm chanting sotto voce for a decade or two more of human supremacy before the singularity. And anytime I could comfort myself by the thought that, well, Serious People are not yet concerned, I see some preposterous headline from selfsame Serious People about how hillwalking is white supremacy, or equivalent bullshit. The illusion is bollocked.
Titus_1_16
5mo ago
It was a bunch of people writing books at the same time.
What's the difference between that and an intellectual movement?
Titus_1_16
4mo ago
I'm sorry to report that I could not resist downvoting this post, but will make amends with a comment.
Also - I think the downvote is useful, it's interesting sometimes to see the tally of up and down votes. Highlights contentiousness in an interesting way
Titus_1_16
7mo ago
The average person with that title on LinkedIn (and by extension Hinge) is literally one step (or no step) above a ‘hustle’ crypto influencer and hangs around their city’s startup coworking scene selling ‘networking services’ and asking for 5% in exchange for ‘marketing and connections’
Roman criminals weren't nailed this hard my god
Titus_1_16
1yr ago
Because they do business in Europe, ie sell to advertisers here. They could of course withdraw from the EU market if they though that was in their best interest.
Titus_1_16
1yr ago
How offensive is the term "Abo" in Oz? Ive heard it's about on a par with "Paki" in the UK, or "Tranny" in the US. Ie not something to be said in polite company, firable offense if you're in a public-facing job, a kid in school would probably be suspended for taunting another with the term, but not absolutely taboo and referred to with an initialism?
On a scale of the N word (nincompoop) to the N word (redacted), where wpuld you place it? Closer to N, or N?
Titus_1_16
5mo ago
Yes, the same class of youth is given to trangress in both cases.
Amusingly, there actually was quite a bit of looting by Africans of sports goods stores - presumably caught up in the far-right spirit and violently enthused by the prospect of their own deportation.
This all took place extremely close to my flat (I live in a rough but very convenient/central part of Dublin), and I can attest the escalation was : angry protests by a cross-section of Irish working class (mammies with prams, old people, the youth, etc), followed by garda over-reaction, which tipped the crowd into a fury and attracted red-blooded young proletarians mainly interested in trouble. What's underexplored is that the police were on edge because there had just been a potential terrorist attack, and they were greatly concerned by the prospect of additional attacks.
Titus_1_16
6mo ago
Standard physiognomy win, nice
Titus_1_16
7mo ago
Twitter is a lot more crass than this place, it's like putting your mouth right on the tap.
I know the answer is always to curate one's feed, but it's hard to stop the low content creeping in on twitter
Titus_1_16
1yr ago
As much as Americans kvetch about their black people, there really is no population over there that's really comparable to Gypsies.
It's an unfair over-generalisation to assume, without any other evidence (habitus, dress, accent, etc) that some individual black American person has a meaningfully higher chance of committing crime. But with Gypsies, man, it's an iron law, there's not even a question. A gypsy president, or for that matter gypsy lawyer or doctor or other middle-class type, is inconceivable.
Titus_1_16
4mo ago
It's ubiquitous porno usage, not obesity. The Japanese example supports this heavily
Titus_1_16
1yr ago
If the principal of a school is responsible for all injuries on the playground, the result is going to be obese kids who aren't allowed to play fun games.
Side note, but I've long thought it would be a pro-social act for someone to sue a school over their child's obesity/ADHD, and charge that policies mandating physical inactivity for most of a child's waking hours are the direct, proximate cause.
Just establishing this legal risk would provide cover with insurance etc to allow more short-term risk (eg running at playtime)
Titus_1_16
1yr ago
The quality of the discourse here is incredibly shoddy.
Okay, let's see some evidence?
It is 95% as if Ibram Kendi were debating Ben Shapiro.
You immediately provide direct, contrary evidence with this simile. 4D chess or...?
Titus_1_16
1yr ago
also pro-infanticide
I'll take the bait. Go on then, spell it out
Titus_1_16
1yr ago
We previously were kind of a tax haven, yes. That's no longer the case, and what keeps all the tech HQs here is a mixture of inertia, business-friendly climate, etc. These aren't letterbox offices: Google is the largest private employer in Dublin, tech is the largest sector of the Irish economy both in employment numbers and GDP contribution, most US tech companies you could think of (bar Amazon) have their European HQ here. When I worked in the sector it would often surpise visitors from the US that [company's] largest office and official HQ was in Dublin and not London or Paris.
Titus_1_16
1yr ago
many indigenous /antiracist/ anticolonial movements in recent times are demanding not reconciliation but restorative justice. Never before has this been such a global and forceful phenomenon, all directed at one group: white Europeans.
Two points of contention here. First, there certain has been a strong global anticolonial movement before now: back in the 60s, when decolonisation was at its height.
Second, speaking as a right-wing European: second-wave colonialism from 1870 - 1970 in Africa was bad policy. It didn't help European imperial powers on net, and (to be generous) it helped African natives only in a very suboptimal way.
You'd be wrong actually - Brazilians have congregated heavily in certain areas of Dublin and are widely viewed as a scourge there (eg, the area I live in, where this attack and subsequent riot took place - literally 100m from my flat).
True, they are more economically productive than the median African or Arab, but have some cultural traits that make them rub Irish people the wrong way. For one, they are more crassly materialistic than even Nigerians, and are heavily involved in every sort of vice trade.
Second, their sexual mores are extraordinarily lax in comparison to the Irish, who would be one of the more chaste European nations - prostitution in Dublin is dominated by Brazilians, and a "Brazilian wife" gives rise to the same sort of sniggering that a "Thai wife" might elicit elsewhere. Brazilians have a reputation as being ruthlessly mercenary in matters romantic, and the visa-marraige-to-ugly-man-until-passport-divorce is a very true pattern I've seen in a mate myself.
Third, they are facilely _un_cynical in a way that grates on Irish people - I have yet to get through a conversation with a Brazilian without them telling me about their "dream of Europe" in such a gormless way as would make a beauty pageant contestant squirm.
What's interesting is that Brazilians actually embody many of the traits that Irish people claim to dislike in Americans, with none of the redeeming characteristics whatsoever.
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