ZeStriderOfDunedain
Ze Strider
There Is Always Hope
User ID: 812
ZeStriderOfDunedain
Ze Strider
1yr ago
ZeStriderOfDunedain
Ze Strider
1yr ago
It's always the "cultural heterodoxy" that campaigns for free speech to accommodate as many dissidents as possible and freely criticise the regime, the left used to be the champion of free speech as early as the 2000s and now that they've ascended to "orthodoxy" status, they treat it as a far-right dogwhistle, their own rendition of "heresy". And of course, the right has been guilty of censorship for the longest of times. It just shows that you're either in control or you aren't.
And given what a huge platform Twitter is and its ability to influence culture, given that it so easily enables mob rule like I said, I do think it is a W for the right now that it's veering closer to them.
Elon Musk has suspended a slew of liberal journalists and pundits from Twitter. It is, as Benjamin Braddoc puts it, a red wedding for the liberal establishment. I initially believed that he was just the "controlled" opposition of the deep state, obviously he's stepped on way too many toes for that. This imo underscores an important truth to the ultra principled who believe in free speech absolutism and neutral institutions, the overton window won't shift the other way just to punish the "heretics" who've assailed this sacred virtue. Social media, our Frankenstein, has made it insanely easier for mob rule to influence culture (not that it wasn't already).
I still don't believe we're witnessing complete course reversal, but this could just be the first legitimate W for the right.
EDIT: It looks like he's lifting the suspension.
ZeStriderOfDunedain
Ze Strider
1yr ago
Extremist politics online is mostly just virtue signal to seek any kind of validation. I remember seeing a map on twitter which geolocated most racists online. I can't speak for its veracity nor do I remember the exact source, but it produced some interesting results. Apparently, upwards of 70% of online wignats live in India, Brazil, Mexico and Philippines. Perhaps I shouldn't be surprised after the twitter race war between Blacks and Indians.
ZeStriderOfDunedain
Ze Strider
1yr ago
I don't think much is going to change besides some aesthetics. I do suspect Tory Indians will end up deporting the grooming gangs to signal to the more right coded voters that they're the 'right kind' of minority. Stoking the immigration debate and other culture war issues is a neat way for the party to distract the public from the mess the country's found itself in in the last 10-15 years. Then going on to sanction Russian oil just two years after formally withdrawing from the EU. And it turns out, importing subcontinental issues like Kashmir was not wise. It snowballed into everything from the Modi-Boris leaflets in Batley and Spen to Leicester to Khalistanis vandalising the Indian High Commission a few weeks ago apparently to protest the Indian government's crackdown on insurgents in Punjab, prompting Jaishankar to make more abrasive statements about western hypocrisy just months after he took a shot at the west for 'preferring Pakistan's military dictatorship over India while Russia stood by them' (obviously in reference to the 1971 war and genocide). You can't expect multiculturalism to succeed whilst also signaling strong stances as the 'correct stance' on divisive issues that have historically escalated into conflict.
ZeStriderOfDunedain
Ze Strider
1yr ago
Its also worth noting that Galadriel was married to Celeborn in the First Age and their daughter Celebrian was born early in the Second Age, but looks like both of them have been retconned from the show. It may be one thing that the Elvish society has evolved beyond human borders of intimacy, and become far more comfortable expressing closeness in a platonic way, but the show doesn't sufficiently establish exactly what kind of relationship Elrond and Galadriel share, its just coming off like he's making googly eyes at her. They might as well be completely different characters then, given that Elrond is married to Celebrian in canon. So what then, Arwen and the Twins are "written out" too?
ZeStriderOfDunedain
Ze Strider
1yr ago
So I've been spending some time on the radfem pipeline. It's been my opinion for some time that radical feminists, like Marxists, are correct on their analysis of their subjects, with no regard to one might think about their solutions. Take the topic of promiscuity; a trait that was historically seen as far more taboo in women that it was in men. Double standards?
The argument is that the male desire seeks virgin wives and prostitutes. The whores will provide sexual release without reproduction and emotional investment to minimise the demand on men’s resources. On the other hand, virgin wives are meant to provide both sexual and reproductive services but exclusively to him so that his resources and labour are spent on his family and progeny alone. While relations with promiscuous women are intended to be secretive and secondary. Essentially, they play the role of sexual garbage collectors who clear the excesses when no one's watching. This is especially true for fighting men, who are separated from their families for extended periods in foreign places and under hard conditions. They miss female company, they seek comfort, relief from loneliness, sexual desire, and recreation. War-like conditions create a huge demand for such promiscuous women, who either seek financial reward in exchange, or security, or both. And so, when a woman has multiple partners, she is slotted into the whore sub-class automatically. This sub-class doesn't demand respect or commitment, they knows their place and that they're not likely to move up the ladder, and so they're viewed as the lowest value women. And in an age before industrialisation when paternity tests weren't even a twinkle in anyone's eyes, and of constant conflict and strife, such promiscuous women with kids especially would lose out of the support structure. Perhaps these standards did make sense in this period. But what role do such standards play now, in ultra societies like the West, with large populations, high levels of specialisation, divisions of labour, lasting peace and advances in medicine? The breakdown of families comes to mind, which is of course for a myriad reasons, to a point where families are becoming far too expensive to sustain. We still have sufficient demographics and functional infrastructure and institutions to keep civilisation alive, even if we reach SK levels of atomisation.
So here's where I'm less certain; will decadence necessarily mean decline? Or maybe we'll just draw out the inevitable and decline will come very slowly, say over a few centuries? Should we turn to traditional norms to reverse this trend? If so, how can traditional norms become tenable enough to be a potential solution?
ZeStriderOfDunedain
Ze Strider
1yr ago
And that IMO is the biggest problem with the manosphere - it doesn't offer you solutions to your problems, but makes you feel good for having problems. And of course, it also doesn't take away from the fact that, as much as feminists hate them, confident and materially successful men do rank very high in the sexual market. That's why guys like Tate can say can go as far enough as they did and not face any consequences.
He said it was due to them doxxing his live location. Do keep in mind though that last month right after he bought twitter, he said he'll keep Jack Sweeny's ElonJet account (which tracks Musk's private jets in real time) on twitter even though it does track his live location, only to change his mind two days ago.
EDIT: It seems he's also suspended Donie O'Sullivan for tweeting a police statement.
ZeStriderOfDunedain
Ze Strider
1yr ago
What would a China-led world order look like, in cultural terms?
Its a hypothetical, so let's set aside the probability of such a future for the moment.
Part of what made the US so uniquely influential over the world was that its primary language is widely spoken across the world. And American books and movies feature events and histories from across the world. These two factors have allowed the US to transmit its culture and values far and wide. Americanism is now the de facto culture of the Western web, and it has shaped the cultures of countries as diverse as India, Australia, Israel, the UK, Philippines, etc. Hollywood, comics, animations even back in the rubber hose and classical Disney era, were very popular globally.
But right now, Chinese culture is largely closed off from the outside world. Chinese books and movies are mainly about China. Furthermore, few people outside of China speak Chinese. However, this might not necessarily be a barrier for China to project its cultural capital. Hong Kong films have been very popular outside China too. Kung Fu icons like Bruce Lee left a lasting impact on Hollywood. While this seems to have retreated as a trend in recent years, the mainland Chinese developer Game Science Interactive seems to be intent on marketing Black Myth Wukong to the global audience. And of course, there's Japanese anime and video games, Kpop and Kdrama that have penetrated into the western market despite lingual barriers. Films coming out of mainland China are targeted at the Chinese audience, so they'll likely maintain some form of insularity? The Battle at Lake Changjin and its sequel were extremely successful, easily held up by their massive domestic market. I think HK films will also increasingly rely on the Chinese market as the Kung Fu magic isn't quite working anymore.
Furthermore, if China does compete in cultural hegemony, would the US finally be forced to roll back on its own excesses re wokeism? Or would China continue to be inward looking and be content with its economic weight, and the US would remain the cultural hegemon?
ZeStriderOfDunedain
Ze Strider
1yr ago
NY Mag published a piece defending Yoel Roth from Musk's "smears", declaring that Musk "falsely implied" that Roth had advocated for normalising child sexualisation in his old tweets.
Turns out, he's apparently a Zionist too! Wonder how this will sit with sections of the left rigorously defending Roth knowing that he probably lobbies for an apartheid state, or the rigorously pro-Israel right exposing his bizarre tweets. And I doubt Musk is in any way interested in exposing the Israeli lobby.
And now, another killing.
I did once visit a gurdwara in Auckland a few years ago, it had an open donation box with call for support for Khalistan in Indian Punjab. No matter how dead the movement is in India, there does seem to be somewhat of a resurgence among the Sikh diaspora. I'm not convinced yet that the Indian government would pull this off on North American soil, but suffice to say that this really has seemed to have united all major political parties in India. I'd hardly call it a "Modi issue" anymore.
Either way, such a public call out is shocking, to say the least. Posting this from /r/geopolitics:
Also it’s common courtesy between so called allies that you do not name or call-out in public press conferences the station chiefs or the intelligence liaison of friendly nations that are posted in each other embassies and also actually known to the respective govts. Its mostly official communique done through the Ambassador asking for a recall and expulsion. These folks are generally present not to Spy on Canada but to run interface and share threat information , potential terror attack perceptions and/or any harm to citizens between the intelligence agencies of both countries. The Canadian FM went to a press conference and not only humiliated the diplomat by naming the expulsion but also exposed his intelligence alignment. Immature. When India did a tit-tat for expulsion , the communication only mentioned high ranking Canadian diplomat, though everybody would have guessed by know that he was the Canadian Intelligence station chief. Now all these intelligence sharing channels would have gone dark.
India and China who have fought wars never did that to each other. Even India and Pakistan who fought 5 wars have never done that.
There are certain unwritten diplomatic protocols that you breach only deliberately to pass a message .
The language here is very hostile, equally aggressive was the MEA's response and the aforementioned Shashi Tharoor statement. I feel like what people gleamed from what they see of India/Modi from the media has at least partially allowed this to erupt to this extent.
ZeStriderOfDunedain
Ze Strider
1yr ago
The fact that they kept Arwen white made the blowback a lot worse in some wignat circles on twitter. Although the reverse wouldn't have calmed the backlash to a significant extent either, I think.
I don't fully understand the Israel conundrum.
The ideological stake over the issue hasn't been divided merely between the left and right, but within each aisle too. In recent years, it seems as though liberals have fallen out of love with them and many of them believe that (on principle) Israel shouldn't exist. While others believe in the two state solution. The mainstream media has been louder about the IDF's excesses in occupied territories (like this one, a cursory search). Tankies over at GrayZone and related websites are convinced that western mainstream media is still defending Israel. I don't get this position, are they arguing that western media isn't criticising Israel enough or that the media is silent altogether? The right seems to be divided too, many of them enthusiastically support them while others don't like that billions of dollars of taxpayer money is sent to Israel every year and they're convinced that their lobby in the US is most supportive of liberalism and progressivism and the war machine.
My questions are what drove the evolution of these views into what they are, exactly how influential is the Israel lobby in the US, why do tankies believe that Israel doesn't get criticised in the media, are the liberals starting to decouple from Israel, are there any other reasons besides the treatment of Palestinians that the Israel question takes up so much oxygen in the foreign policy room?
ZeStriderOfDunedain
Ze Strider
1yr ago
What's also noteworthy is that a huge section of the "far right" actually idolises Russia and China for the reasons I'd described above: they see the west as a decadent civilisation spreading wokeism worldwide, while those two are "strong, confident societies" resisting it and that their hegemony would end progressivism altogether.
ZeStriderOfDunedain
Ze Strider
1yr ago
I'm curious what folks here think about tankies.
I remember seeing a twitter thread during the onset of the Ukraine war explaining why Russia and China growing powerful even to the point of imperialism is vital to combat western imperialism, "someone has to do it". Whether one agrees that Russia has been constantly provoked by NATO or not, its difficult to spin Russian actions as "anti-imperialist". Similarly, China's land and water disputes with its neighbours. It appears both these countries have become a sort of canvas to project their ideologies. They often call western conservatives "far right" and often attack their criticisms of feminism. But how do they explain China's own censorship of feminist activism, the fact that independent labour unions are illegal, the push for pro-natalism, the push for masculinity training, etc.? I've seen many articles countering the stories about Uyghurs, but not much on the above. What really makes the "tankie ideology" attractive? I can fully understand and even sympathise with their gripes over western imperialism and even Israel to an extent, but I don't get the narratives that its all the neoliberals and the "far right" against China, essentially projecting the whole issue as a new cold war of ideologies between neoliberalism and communism.
ZeStriderOfDunedain
Ze Strider
1yr ago
I have a cousin in rural Montana with two teenage kids. Apparently, no CRT or overt LGBT stuff in their education there - thus far. Although his youngest (14) did make certain "friends" who tried getting her into TikTok and even injected this idea that she could be trans - which is strange, considering she isn't even a tomboy personality with masculine traits that should supposedly imply that she is. Anyway, she eventually fell out with them and is still figuring things out - but so far, so good. She's happier, more proactive with her hobbies, and has significantly cut down her time on social media. Her brother (18) will be going off to college soon though, and we do expect he'll be going through some courses that involve some culture war stuff and of course likely to be around a very left leaning circle. Honestly though, it'll be unavoidable throughout America in the next 5 years tops. Going forward, you may have to send your kid to do their degree in China or something, if you've lost all hope for American universities.
ZeStriderOfDunedain
Ze Strider
1yr ago
Dating apps have a severely skewed gender ratio, so the competition is indeed stiff no matter how much work men put on their profiles. Throughout university and even after graduating, I've always found my dates through shared hobbies and mutual friends. Never installed a dating app on my phone and don't plan to.
The most frustrated young men seek companionship in online echo chambers filled with depression, anxiety and body dysmorphic disorder. None of them have learned to talk about their problems. It feels easier to take what they call "the black pill", the belief that you are genetically predisposed to be ignored by women.
Well I partially agree, though I'm not sure it's easier to take the black pill that you're inescapably fucked genetically instead of just deferring your happiness to the future. "I'll get there but I'm finding myself right now" is an easier coping mechanism than "It doesn't matter how much I lift, how much I read and how much I spend on clothes, I didn't win the lottery at birth and all that awaits me is a lifetime of desolation and solitude". Guys who take the black pill genuinely do believe what they say, they aren't merely making excuses to avoid overhauling their lifestyle and routines. And the only medium of human interaction they're exposed to confirms every negative bias they have about themselves, be it through what randoms say online about them or through "experiences" of men like them. You see this kind of behaviour the most among Asian-centric spaces, particularly South, East and South East Asians. So they give up, because they do believe it is futile to try.
ZeStriderOfDunedain
Ze Strider
1yr ago
A lie repeated over and over becomes truth, that adage is self evident too, given that there is no evidence that Goebbels actually said anything of the sort. This my favourite rebuttal of this myth. An excerpt to add on to what you've described in the 2nd paragraph:
Furthermore, if rape or sexual harassment were indeed motivated by the desire to feel powerful, then one would expect them to be less common among those who already feel powerful, and that they would more often go against the power gradient rather than along it; that is to say, raping or sexually harassing someone more powerful would have greater appeal than sexually abusing someone less powerful.
There's something similar on stalking as well, its often not due to any consciously learnt behaviour as it is an act of impulse and primal instinct.
I think that while most(?) people do take this as fact, despite the efforts to "unlearn" the supposed entitlement have yielded no tangible results, a part of the effort is to regurgitate this trope that "men in power" is always a bad thing, even dangerous and predatory towards women.
ZeStriderOfDunedain
Ze Strider
1yr ago
This sums it up, really. 15% of Gen Z's are apparently queer, but I think they just saw the biggest zeitgeist in society that also comes with a very easy ticket and went about seeking validation and care they never received at home elsewhere. Many socially maladjusted folk join online subcultures because of this too.
ZeStriderOfDunedain
Ze Strider
1yr ago
Then the vast majority of the people on the planet for the vast majority of human history would be "mentally deranged", so what is mentally healthy? I think the query you're trying to pose here is whether intelligent and well educated people (that is, neither mentally disabled nor ignorant) can hold irrational beliefs, to which I would say yes.
ZeStriderOfDunedain
Ze Strider
10mo ago
Specifically, the dynamic is different because pre-1991, countries could get away with things the US didn't like as long as they were willing to suck up to the USSR.
The opposite is also true, states that sucked up enough to the US did get away with committing such atrocities, for instance Pakistan's genocide in Bangladesh.
ZeStriderOfDunedain
Ze Strider
1yr ago
those have all been destroyed on purpose by the powers that be, and as they dance on their graves they will pounce on any burgeoning attempt at creating such things again.
Why do you say it's on purpose? Now I do agree the breakdown of families and fertility rates, high costs of education, housing crisis, etc., did demoralise many young men and true enough, the hard left seems to be gleeful about it. But is there any evidence that this is deliberately induced by the elite?
ZeStriderOfDunedain
Ze Strider
1yr ago
Forgive me if I'm misreading you, but I take it you mean black pill beliefs don't necessarily stem from reality? If so, I don't really disagree. My point is that the response itself need not be reasonable and there could be more to the data than the OKCupid stats for example might reflect. But if some asocial Asian fellow in an Ivy League school sincerely believes that even if he shoots for a Lanny Joon physique, he'll never match the SMV of an average white athlete in his class, and ends up deciding that it's all too much effort for too little gain that isn't even guaranteed (in his mind), is it really just a coping mechanism or has he prematurely given up on life altogether? There's still a section of woke who'd sympathise with fat activists, but a maladjusted young male who effectively exists as a ghost in society, who can literally disappear today and no one will notice and let alone miss him, is fair game for shaming regardless of his ethnicity.
The topic of Muslim conservatism has been talked about to death for years now, and I keep posing the same query: am I to be elated that this intersectionality grift keeps collapsing like a house of sand? Should I care if, amidst a home invasion, one burglar beats down another? Both men wish to fleece me of my belongings, any "shared interests" I might have with the former is a fleeting one, if anything. Not a 1:1 comparison, of course, (and no, I'm not calling migrants "robbers") but this "gotcha" stuff is only good enough as a meme generator for "cringe lib gets owned compilation #314". Reactionary politics cannot tilt the vogue in my favour.
Again, what is the American right's playbook? I see this brouhaha about how "The Right is now the counterculture" but virtually all hardcore leftists believe they're still the counterculture and do all the countercultural work in the media, entertainment, etc. Sadly, I think rightists are taking the wrong conclusion, that like some law of historical thermodynamics, these views and policies will change.
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