coffee_enjoyer
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User ID: 541
coffee_enjoyer
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11mo ago
Great insight! Didn’t know that about the Hebrew. I know there’s also a lot of punning in Jonah, too, which I imagine can only be enjoyed by knowing Hebrew.
coffee_enjoyer
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11mo ago
I’m a fan of summaries, bullet points, and bolded key conclusions
coffee_enjoyer
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11mo ago
Unz goes through a litany of historians who (seemingly?) confirm the authenticity of the papers. Whereas the JTA link you posted reasserts the denial of the Polish ambassador who would have surely said the same thing no matter the veracity of the documents, as the documents were embarrassing to Poland’s relationship to the Allies. In any case I am also interested in your question.
coffee_enjoyer
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11mo ago
The problem is that if we allow unknown provocateurs to “make topics annoying” by posting about them in the shittiest way, it gives anyone the power to veto the topic altogether. So, absent knowing the motivations of the shitty poster, it’s a better idea to just delete the posts and write them off completely. You would be amazed the lengths evil people go to ruin discourse. Back on Reddit there were people who would literally pretend to be a sockpuppet account of a different user in order to get that user banned, and other such shenanigans
coffee_enjoyer
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11mo ago
The Terror, Chernobyl, Utopia (the UK channel 4 show from 2013), season 1 of Twin Peaks, Scrubs for its moralizing.
coffee_enjoyer
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11mo ago
The original Halo, playing it in like 2002. The story was super compelling and thrilling. The beginning of Kingdom Hearts, the island where the protagonist lives, was a great part of the story
coffee_enjoyer
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11mo ago
[5] Tax the extremely wasteful top 10% of urbanites that exist in every country, who spend their money on lavish vacations and hedonic treadmilling, and instantiate a subsidy for healthy food stuffs so that that every family can buy cheap healthy food.
If it’s a small island nation, it probably does not need to protect the environment like a nation like Brazil. If it’s prosperous, it doesn’t need to grow its own food. The national security vulnerability can be dealt with by simply stockpiling non-perishables.
coffee_enjoyer
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11mo ago
Not only is it public obedience, but it’s public obedience that is inherently interesting for children, as they have a natural interest in colorful things and unique identity marks that give social reinforcement. It is certainly making some percentage points of the children gay, the only question is what percent.
coffee_enjoyer
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11mo ago
I’m positive that in the formative years where their sexualities and preferences and philias develop (remember it’s not unusual for people to have fetishes they trace to childhood), that these things are causing some percentage of boys to become gay:
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Having special days where you show only the positive role models of gays, no evil members, and no positive straight members, which artificially increases gay positive valence
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Having a colorful flag for gays and no colors and no flag for straight people. For children, color = objectively better. Color is an objective “attractive marker”
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Giving special esteem, attention, and “interesting points” to gays
coffee_enjoyer
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11mo ago
I’m expanding on my comment because you asked a question, and in any case the rainbow flag is a symbol of the whole LGBT enterprise. The question is whether childhood experiences and culture can influence sexuality. There’s evidence that it does:
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gays are more likely to have been molested in childhood
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boys like the bachi bazi culture in Afghanistan, who are picked regardless of orientation in childhood, grow up to be gay: According to Khan et al. (2009, p. 24), bacha bereesh appear to predominately “grow up to follow a sexually active pattern as receptive males, self-identifying with their femininity and receptive role” as a “third gender” within a trinary gender system of man/woman/non-man
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it’s common knowledge that childhood experiences can result in lifelong philias, whether this be the appearance of a mate or a sexual activity
So, IMO, it is established that childhood sexual experiences mold adult orientation. The remaining question is whether reinforcement of sexuality in childhood molds adult orientation. This needs to be studied, but I am positive that it does to some degree, because that makes sense based on what we know about reinforcement.
coffee_enjoyer
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11mo ago
Conservatives should restrict mainstream Muslim immigration because (1) mainstream Islam is impossible to reform, (2) mainstream Islam believes that music is sinful, (3) there is no proven longterm assimilation of mainstream Muslims, (4) Muslim nations oppress Christians and so why on earth would we allow any to migrate to predominately Christian lands. Of course, this has nothing to do with LGBT stuff, but it’s vastly more important, isn’t it? Imagine a religion that would gladly burn every trace of Bach and Mozart. I would gladly burn any trace of that religion!
coffee_enjoyer
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11mo ago
The alternative is that we demand native birth rates to increase, or, you know, East Asians and Hindus and Igbos
coffee_enjoyer
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11mo ago
No, see:
as they have a natural interest in colorful things and unique identity marks that give social reinforcement
Re:
There is a huge difference
But therein lies the rub. It’s not a huge difference at all. It’s a little difference. The difference between being molested by a gay man physically, and being put through a gauntlet of pro-homosexuality propaganda, is not actually different from the standpoint of “how reinforcement works psychologically”. If I watch Alizee’s performance of J’en ai marre as a boy I may become hopelessly infatuated with dancing French brunettes, for no other reason than an association was placed in my mind. This happens all the time: associations predicated on reinforcement.
coffee_enjoyer
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11mo ago
I would argue that it only appears axiomatic because it was useful for the millennia humans lived in tribes where a small action to a neighbor or stranger benefitted the group’s sum total good (including expansion of lands and progeny down the line). If the well-being of my descendants is inherently tied to the well-being of the person down the street, which it is in pre-modernity, then the rule of always helping neighbors or strangers is optimal for the group’s good. Today, spending even an iota of thought on a stranger is worse for your own group’s interest, unless you are picking and choosing who to help.
Perhaps an equivalent example would be how there’s a difference between doing extra help in a group project, and then secretly helping a competing project.
coffee_enjoyer
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10mo ago
If I’m a person who rides the bus daily, the thought is not trivial
coffee_enjoyer
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10mo ago
Fun article I found: East Asians rarely have imaginary friends as children, whereas Westerners have imaginary friends at a prevalence of 50%. On the other hand, East Asians are more likely to personify inanimate objects. The authors say that this is for cultural reasons, but i’m actually leaning toward deep genetic differences in tendency — Western religion, poetry, and music are much more likely to extol brotherly affection than those of East Asia, which (imo) favors an emphasis on place, natural objects, and strict hierarchy.
coffee_enjoyer
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10mo ago
This would be excellent PR for Zuckerberg.
The Titanic heroine is every woman’s dream. She is a wealthy and sought-after nubile. She has a wealthy fiancé who represents maximal resource and power, a wealthy father as well, and gets to have an affair with the handsome DiCaprio who represents maximal youth, vigor, and primal sexual desire. This is a combination of Zeus, Apollo, and Adonis, the children of the Titans all on board the Titanic. Our heroine gets to choose the best of all worlds. She has the affection of the two competing interests of the fertile women.
But the movie doesn’t end there. The smut (and the movie is emotional pornography) piles on. Because our heroine has all the right decisions made for her. She is captivated by DiCaprio, her interests momentarily cut in two like the Titanic, but she gets to leave him frozen in time while her “heart goes on”. She gets everything out of him that she wants while getting to keep her privileged status. The iceberg and the icy sea represent this process of freezing into memory. The female viewer takes away that she could have his child, while also retaining a powerful and resourceful upper class position.
Lastly, she’s the victim, while also looking superior to her peers. What more does a woman want than this? All the money, the vigorous male, the damsel distressed, and finally the superiority over the men guiding her. There is nothing more to add.
Obligatory Zizek: https://youtube.com/watch?v=9DocwBZyESU . The true tragedy would be if Jack survived, they had sex for a month in New York, and then she is hanged to try. Lastly, this emotional processing in the Titanic allows the modern woman to put Jack to death in her own life, much like the Christian can behold the Passion and put sin to death. You have been baptized in the frozen sea with Rose and buried with Jack, and now you can put away forever the delusions of youth.
TheMotte is probably going to be self-selecting for the cohort least likely to have an imaginary friend, in a similar way that 19th century scientists self-selected for those who did not typically visualize with the mind’s eye (see Scott’s essay on that, whose title I forgot). A hyper-rationalist offshoot is probably genetically influenced to be less social, or at least not so social that their mind creates for themselves imaginary companions. How many of our parents were hyper-social butterflies who conceived of the world in primarily social relational experiences?
Metaphysical explanations for pretend companions are not at all limited to the wast because, to some extent, they have existed even in recent times. Studying pretend companions in the early 20th century, Harvey (1918) found that many parents provided spiritual explanations for pretend companions. Even at the end of the century, some groups within America still described pretend companions in terms of possession and as preternatural powers that sometimes "will result in spiritual bondage" (Anderson, Vanderhook, & Vanderhook, 1996, p. 196) or that need to be exorcized (Allison, 2000). Perspectives on pretend companions from before the Euro-American repudiation of metaphysical explanations may also be inferred from research conducted in villages of Northern India (Barker & Pasricha, 1979): Pretend identities, a phenomenon similar to pretend companions in which an imagined personality is assumed rather than projected by the child, were explained in terms of spiritual connections with previous lives. Research in India on pretend companions suggests another reason why few reports of pretend companions have survived from previous centuries. Mills (2003) reported that there is no recognition of the concept of pretend companions in India.
Even when allowing for the belief that some children have interactive memories of past lives, the prevalence of pretend companions was calculated to be only 0.2% (Barker & Pasricha, 1979).
Early research in 1930s reported a 13% prevalence: https://psycnet.apa.org/record/1935-01508-001 . 1969 reports 30%: https://psycnet.apa.org/record/1970-02218-001 . We also have a study from 1930s (Harriman) alleging one-third of all children have imaginary friends
So I’d say that there are three possibilities:
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The first is that this is learned from media (very unlikely given that the earliest research shows a prevalence despite its absence from media)
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the second is that it is culturally transmitted and children are “practicing” the skills in the form of play, because Western culture was more friendship-oriented than other cultures, and permitted children to play
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the third is that Europeans are genetically oriented to be more social in the form of fraternal bonding. This would fall in line with what we know about European history, religion, art, dance, and music culture. There’s also the prevalence of blue eyes in Europeans, which is found only in domesticated animals [goats, dogs, some foxes], and blonde hair, which is found in the more social and friendly dog breeds [compare: “golden retriever boyfriend”].
coffee_enjoyer
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10mo ago
I think what’s missing in your worldview is propaganda. Their point is really that Americans should focus on the Hunter texts; by accusing this as a psy-op they are drawing a connection between the Wagner events and the Hunter texts. They are claiming it is a distraction but what they mean is that we should be focusing on the evidence that our President is woefully corrupt.
Whatever patience I had with American "anti-establishment" right-wingers
Probably very little to begin with if you’re conflating millions of people with a discursive propaganda technique of a few Twitter accounts
coffee_enjoyer
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10mo ago
Can you flesh out your argument for why it was the smart thing to promote Ukraine entering NATO, rather than negotiating Ukraine as a neutral region? Given that this was their red line since the early 2000s, I have no idea how someone could consider it “appeasement”. It seems to me that the worst case scenario has transpired: our continual pressure and influence in Ukraine has destroyed the country, probably forever (given fertility rates), has cost enormous sums of money, has wasted American influence in Ukraine, has pressured Russia into developing better drone technology, has finalized the alienation of Russia from the West, has influenced Arab nations into cozying with Russia, and all we get in return is some dead Russians, and maybe we will increase German weariness to America given we destroyed their pipeline. This was a bad decision, unless we only care about dead Russians. What will we gain in five years from it all?
coffee_enjoyer
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10mo ago
The idea that one is not threatened by a neighboring state because there are other neighboring states unaligned with Russia doesn’t make sense. I am not threatened by five enemies because I have four? But it makes especially little sense given: the important of flat eastern Ukraine for invasion, and the importance of the Black Sea for Russia. America may very well have been threatened by the Saudis funding radical Islam, but that doesn’t mean they can just blow up Saudi Arabia. Instead we settled on lesser Arab countries.
neutrality would have meant that Ukraine will always remain weaker
Ukraine is small, it will always be weaker, but now it will be destroyed. This argument doesn’t hold up to either the predictions made years before (they will be annihilated), or the present data (look at the birth rates). “I will either attempt to be more significant than I am or be destroyed” is a recipe for narcissistic ego death.
Russia violated the
NATO violated the promise not to expand east as part of the negotiations involving German reunification.
No, the invasion has.
Yes, the invasion that was promised for years because of the sequence of actions that NATO + NATO-influenced Ukraine took. This is like when the Mongels invaded Iraq and destroyed Baghdad after Baghdad slew their emissaries. Sorry Baghdad, you don’t get to “be sovereign” against the Mongols, just like Cuba and Iraq don’t get to “be sovereign” against America. This isn’t how reality works, and indeed it has never worked like this in the whole history of nations. Cause and effect is a much clearer way to understand what is best for America and/or Ukraine.
coffee_enjoyer
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10mo ago
Do you want to provide your ideas instead of linking to YouTube videos?
coffee_enjoyer
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10mo ago
Right, I’m obviously not going to watch a random YouTube video, but here’s the archival research of a top institution in foreign policy studies
U.S. Secretary of State James Baker’s famous “not one inch eastward” assurance about NATO expansion in his meeting with Soviet leader Mikhail Gorbachev on February 9, 1990, was part of a cascade of assurances about Soviet security given by Western leaders to Gorbachev and other Soviet officials throughout the process of German unification in 1990 and on into 1991, according to declassified U.S., Soviet, German, British and French documents posted today by the National Security Archive at George Washington University
Not once, but three times, Baker tried out the “not one inch eastward” formula with Gorbachev in the February 9, 1990, meeting. He agreed with Gorbachev’s statement in response to the assurances that “NATO expansion is unacceptable.” Baker assured Gorbachev that “neither the President nor I intend to extract any unilateral advantages from the processes that are taking place,” and that the Americans understood that “not only for the Soviet Union but for other European countries as well it is important to have guarantees that if the United States keeps its presence in Germany within the framework of NATO, not an inch of NATO’s present military jurisdiction will spread in an eastern direction.” (See Document 6)
Afterwards, Baker wrote to Helmut Kohl who would meet with the Soviet leader on the next day, with much of the very same language. Baker reported: “And then I put the following question to him [Gorbachev]. Would you prefer to see a united Germany outside of NATO, independent and with no U.S. forces or would you prefer a unified Germany to be tied to NATO, with assurances that NATO’s jurisdiction would not shift one inch eastward from its present position? He answered that the Soviet leadership was giving real thought to all such options [….] He then added, ‘Certainly any extension of the zone of NATO would be unacceptable.’” Baker added in parentheses, for Kohl’s benefit, “By implication, NATO in its current zone might be acceptable.” (See Document 8)
It’s a good book!
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