Tollund_Man4
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User ID: 501
Tollund_Man4
1d ago
Right, there is no 'respectable conservative' establishment to funnel the energy of Irish right wingers through, the two wings of these protests are the more moderate 'We don't want them here (in this particular village)' accompanied by some complaints about how a big increase in population will strain GPs, policing, harm tourism etc, and 'We don't want them here, deport them'. The most respectable opposition you'll get are instances like this fairly satisfying grilling of the Minister for Justice.
I wonder if the Irish politicians will clock on and embrace the Tory policy of talking the talk on migration and then just not doing anything about it (or indeed increasing it further).
Fine Gael are supposed to be the closest thing we have to the Tories, but as long as they continue to call people bigots this is just what leftists say not what right wingers think.
Ireland
Riot police have been called out to the small town of Newtownmountkennedy (population 2,800) in response to another protest outside a site which is soon to become an asylum centre. It got violent and the riot police charged the protesters after they set fire to a building on the outer portion of the site. It seems like most of the protesters/rioters have been pushed into an adjacent field, but police are still moving through the town and running into more angry locals.
Ballina had a ]far larger peaceful protest](https://x.com/Mick_O_Keeffe/status/1781727303283692017) a few days ago, it would be harder to shut this one down given how big the town is (c. 10,000) and how isolated it is.
The Lebor Gabála tells of Ireland being settled (or "taken") six times by six groups of people: the people of Cessair, the people of Partholón, the people of Nemed, the Fir Bolg, the Tuatha Dé Danann, and the Milesians. The first four groups are wiped out or forced to abandon the island; the fifth group represents Ireland's pagan gods, while the final group represents the Irish people (the Gaels).
So basically yes, or at least the previous indigenous people stopped existing as a distinct race in prehistoric times.
Ireland
The National Party leadership dispute, an argument which started over some missing gold bars, has been solved with the launching of Clann Éireann - an explicitly ethnonationalist party lead by the NP's former leader Justin Barret. "Anything other than ethnonationalism is not good enough . . . we can measure who is Irish and who is not by blood".
In somewhat related news Ireland has had its first ethnonationalist murder (first that has nothing to do with the United Kingdom at least). I'll wait for the court case to judge myself but the headline is 'Killed for not speaking English'.
And the Minister of Integration Roderic O'Gorman (also the Minister for 4 other things but this is the relevant one) had masked men putting up 'Close the Borders' signs and protesting outside of his house.
Tollund_Man4
5d ago
The craziest examples aren't from my own life but I learned some lessons observing friends. As far as my experience goes in school I gave people way too much charity to people when they were disrespectful, this is good attitude with good people who don't actually mean any harm but bad for the type that is testing how much they can get away with to climb the social ladder. I've had times when other people stepped in and reminded a guy "do you know he [me] could just beat you up?" and I'd defuse it and ignore the insult. It didn't cause me great trouble but I was pretty surpised at how tit-for-tat escalation quickly sets clear lines with people who would otherwise be long term problems.
I hear the real crazy stuff from a friend who has the organizational talent for making music gigs happen and getting musicians to show up on time (though the bar isn't high in the first place as he complains). There's a lot of competition for not much money and the whole scene involves some very weird people, so there's a big incentive to make accusations that would make a pub owner think twice about letting this guy be involved with anything (and given the weird people on drugs their priors are that bad things happen).
The two I can remember offhand is him being accused of shouting "nigger" in a crowded bar by some other group trying to poach a black singer he was working with and a rumour that he was homophobic because he pushed a guy trying to kiss his neck to the ground. He still gets work from both of those places, the "nigger" was actually shouted by the people accusing him and the homophobia thing was settled with the argument "what if it was me going up to a girl and grabbing her like that?". It's a good thing that his personality is suited to confrontation because you let these rumours go unanswered and you're out of work.
Raw hostility really is the best way to set boundaries with certain types of people.
Some problems can be brute forced with time even if you don't know what you're doing, more often than not you can figure things out as you go along.
I don’t know, from the Australians I’ve seen this is just more evidence in favour of the Chad physiognomy theory of hospitality.
Tollund_Man4
9d ago
I specify IQ in relation to graciousness and patience because low IQ people really have little concept of delayed gratification and so will want to address any perceived slight immediately instead of stopping to let the incident stew a bit and decide whether confrontation, much less escalation, is necessary.
Not that I know much about IQ but it’s hard to believe that character is circumscribed to this degree by intelligence. ‘Patience is a virtue that can be cultivated’ seems to hold true below the 110IQ cutoff point, even if there are retarded people who can genuinely never grasp it the best predictor of whether someone is patient (above or below that threshold) is simply whether they value patience (whether through religion, personality, experience, and so as not to disagree too much with you - reasoning).
Tollund_Man4
10d ago
Going by surnames they're Irish-Americans.
Tollund_Man4
15d ago
No one seems happy with the one they have.
I think “mine but 30 years ago” would actually account for a decent number.
Tollund_Man4
17d ago
There are probably thoughts human minds cannot think, though obviously I can't think of any.
The squared-circle is the most common example, but then I am sort of thinking about it already and if I turn mad I might worship it.
Why would constraining thought be an unacceptable restriction on free will but not constraining action?
A Christian might correct me here, but I think the answer is that what you can or cannot do in this temporal world is simply unimportant compared to what you do in your soul. And so we have free will in the things that matter.
One is constraining what you can think and the other what you can do no? I can't really think of any other desire or valuation (whatever mental category worship falls into) that can't conceivably be negated, though maybe somebody could suggest one. It would be odd to have one where there really is no choice.
Tollund_Man4
19d ago
I'm only listening to what I can find for free on Spotify, mostly librevox recordings. A good reader can make a difference so maybe that explains it.
Tollund_Man4
19d ago
Thinking about it, it makes no sense to ever retort “well did it work for the USSR?” when someone brings up the prospect of communism.
Generally people are advocating for communism for the quality of life it promises, this still seems like an appropriate retort regardless of how the country fared in great power competition.
If it didn’t work well, the USSR could never have been a competitor to America
Wouldn't present day Russia be a competitor to America if it controlled the same territory as the USSR + satellite states?
Tollund_Man4
19d ago
Just finished Joseph Conrad's Heart of Darkness but I think I may have hit the limits of my audiobook comprehension because I was left thinking "wait, when does stuff start happening?". Maybe it's just not that type of book, there have been enough potent lines that it may be a book you just have to enjoy the language of.
The Brother's Karamazov was much more comprehensible. I did have some confusion with the names, not just because of the Russian naming conventions but because apparently none of the readers could agree on a single pronunciation of 'Ivan'.
Ireland
Continuing from last week's post on Sinn Féin making a u-turn on the hate speech bill, the Irish Independent has reminded us of one of Sinn Féin's proposed amendments to the bill just one year ago:
The definition of “hate” is laid out in section 10 of the bill and is about preparing or possessing material likely to incite violence or hatred against people on account of their protected characteristics.
Under the Sinn Féin amendments, migrant status would have become one of these protected characteristics.
The party’s amendments to the laws specified that reference to a person’s migrant status included references “to persons seeking international protection, persons with refugee status, persons with permission to remain and persons with any other regular or irregular migrant status”.
Now given the party's present (probably tactical) lack of clarity on why they are opposing this bill, and the fact the past year has seen the controversy garner worldwide attention, there is still a possibility that Sinn Féin have woken up to the fact that there is political gain to be had in curtailing the most extreme woke tendencies which until recently have gone unopposed amongst all the main parties. This is more plausible in light of the fact that some genuine opposition has arisen within the coalition government, notably Fianna Fáil TD Willie O’Dea accusing the Justice Minister of playing to the "woke gallery". It does seem like every party has simultaneously remembered that elections are still a thing and that they've been doing a lot of very unpopular things recently, but whether that will actually lead to a change in direction seems far less likely.
Still, unless some very clear statements are made that leave no doubt about the party being genuinely opposed to any hate speech bill, I'm going to rule out the scenarios of Sinn Féin remembering that a good portion of their base are the same working class types who have to live beside asylum centres and chalk this down to "left-wingers think left-wing law doesn't go far enough!".
Tollund_Man4
21d ago
Yeah it’s amazing how strong caffeine is after your tolerance is reset. I remember being off it for a few months before discovering that an americano can give you an adrenaline rush.
Tollund_Man4
21d ago
If you’re into coffee for the taste this won’t work but usually I’ll switch to tea if I’m trying to cut down on caffeine.
Tollund_Man4
22d ago
There's a video of the incident out there right? Or maybe this isn't that uncommon and I'm remembering someone from some other agency being arrested on the job.
Tollund_Man4
23d ago
I'm not going, to by any means, memorize all the facts in an audiobook
In my case, unless I set out to study it, this is also true for reading. My problem with audiobooks is more practical: I get distracted by something, the audiobook plays on regardless, I realise I've missed a few steps in the argument/missed some important turn of events and fumble about on my phone's touchscreen trying not to accidentally jump back 20 minutes. With reading getting distracted usually just means you stop reading for however long your attention is elsewhere.
Rise and Fall of the Third Reich was excellent
I might take your recommendation and give it a shot, I haven't noticed myself getting distracted too often with this recent run of fiction audiobooks so maybe I've just gotten used to the format over time.
Tollund_Man4
23d ago
I realize the critique of the "finishing quantity of books" approach to reading, but I stick to it anyway, sometimes I just need the feeling of closure.
I'm also breaking this rule but it has been very enjoyable. Being able to listen to audiobooks at work has paradoxically increased my reading pace by a lot. Sure you can read much faster than you can listen to someone read aloud, but 6-8 hours of slow listening each day still adds up to more than however many hours I could realistically devote to sitting down and reading after work when I'm tired and have the internet to distract me.
I'm still pessimistic about the use of audiobooks for denser stuff like history and philosophy, but another hack that works here is to bring a kindle to the gym and spend 40 minutes reading on the exercise bike. You can read between sets while lifting too (24 2-3 minute rest periods is a decent chunk of time) but I'm not confident that all the stopping and starting is good for comprehension.
Tollund_Man4
23d ago
Second this. My experience with all dating apps is pretty much the same as far as number of matches go, few and far between, but on Bumble 3 out of 4 are going to turn into an actual date (which suits me because I do much better in person).
Tollund_Man4
26d ago
They brought in age of consent laws in line with most western countries in 2021. The crime of atteinte sexuelle sur mineur didn't carry as long a sentence as a rape conviction so you still had to prove rape to get the full 20 year sentence, now it's a 20 year max regardless.
Tollund_Man4
26d ago
We can, and should, frown on and punish that behavior. But it's not rape.
Reading him as charitably as I can I'd say he's advocating something like what the French had before they brought in age of consent laws a few years ago. You still got sent to prison for having sex with a minor but it wasn't called rape, and you got sent to prison for much longer if your case satisfied the coercive bar needed for a rape conviction.
Objectively I’ve gotten the best reading sessions done on desks, but lacking a desk at the moment I just read in bed.
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