fritz-iv
6mo ago
I think it's worth pointing out here that our three biggest media rape spectacles of our lifetime are probably the Duke Lacrosse team, Rolling Stone's UVA frat, and Kavanaugh confirmation hearing. Based on every piece of evidence, not only was there no gray line crossed, but the accused(s) had never even met the accuser. Nonetheless the claims were considered by many to be true in some sense and led to more protections and measures against the imagined crimes.
On the other hand, quietly we are learning tens of thousands of English women, and increasingly now French, Dutch, and German had been subjected to extremely hard core rapes by muslims. We're talking group orgies of adult men on teenagers with forced consumption of alcohol and narcotics and victim intimidation. When possible, police suppressed the evidence. The media never reported any of these allegations and even convictions never made it into a news cycle. This was never allowed to become a talking point in immigration debate.
Even far outside anything like college bar scene, we Westerners now all live on eggshells in any "institution" - since any accusation, no matter how frivolous or demonstrably wrong can destroy our career. The court system is designed to take a maximalist view of harassment, where simply psychological damage can be seen as grounds for million dollar settlements.
Stepping back and examine the system, we see it is clearly not in place to protect women, or even render them justice. It is in place to ram through socially engineered change at the cost of millions of women raped, and millions of men ostracized or imprisoned, leaving almost all of us worse off ... except the skilled manipulators who use this system to their advantage. As such there can be no reform of the system - the Media/HR/Academia sex-police - or engagement of its defenders. It must be completely destroyed.
But there was no way a protest could "win" that day, the entire machine had already lined up behind a predetermined outcome. They could certainly have lost by going too far with the LARP but they didn't.
The main thing they could win is a public, well documented grievance. This has been difficult for the right because it suffers the death of a thousand cuts from third parties that can never be tied directly to the Dems. The grievance is useful when the system falls into crisis, it will naturally seek "reform" to reach a new equilibrium, and that involves the establishment feeding one of their factions to the crocodile, namely the parties responsible for the grievance. For example, an ordinary Joe might wonder "where did this new coronavirus come from?" as his life is completely upended in the Spring of 2020 (crisis). You don't want to answer that question, so you pull a grievance - "there are childrens bones under the school!" - feed some churches to the crocodile, reform, equilibrium, order restored.
This response to Jan6 has also created a highly useful as a Motte and Bailey: treatment of Jan6 prisoners and Fed infiltration is the motte, electoral corruption is the bailey. Vivek is now using this tactic: although he has not ventured into the bailey (AFAICT) he is establishing himself in a very reasonable and sympathetic motte.
This is exactly my point: J6 got GWB to "disrespect the troops". Respect for troops was the single political legitimacy card that guy had left when he left office. And he just used it up...for that.
Think about British police in India, or Alabama police swinging their clubs in the 60s. Sure the police won physically. And yes the protestors had more sympathetic backing and portrayal in the media than MAGA does. But the major source of legitimacy for British rule in a colony like India was that their administrative services were considered far more restrained and civilized than anything a third world country like India could muster on its own. Gandhi's activism forced that frame to break, revealing savagery where cool competence was assumed by most of the public. Babbit likewise did something almost impossible, made the shooting on an unarmed white woman by a black guy the lead story on CNN for weeks (something there had been a lot of but never mentioned, or if so only briefly then memoryholed). And they had to figure out how to get their audience to cheer it on.
If you want a white pill: Babbit getting shot on the Capitol steps easily did one thousand times as much to advance her values then getting blown up in Kabul would have done.
fritz-iv
7mo ago
Somewhat uniquely it seems, I'm finding these events to be a white pill. So despite the complete abnegation of the right's political class to audit the 2020 election, its plebians showed up to carry the banner as far as they could. Of course they lost every possible tactical battle (no recount, no trump, were shot to death on tv, persecuted, humiliated, brutalized) they may have won the strategic war in terms of what could have possibly been achieved on that day to set the foundation for change.
First, the brouhaha of the protest forced the hand of the establishment into doubling down on the righteousness of an election where procedure was at best a complete aberration. The bodies are buried all over the place here, and many actors have credible knowledge that can tell you where to dig them up. In essence a now much larger faction of the left's power players are vulnerable to a special commission into election corruption. That's a completely legitimate superweapon that might not be picked up by yesterday's or today's congress, maybe not even tomorrow's either. But the threat of it is certainly a bargaining chip from here on out to encourage compromise. Just like how D's like to think out loud about court packing when they want to influence decisions.
Second, the official legal system now has blood on its hands too. Other means of control - riots, lockdowns, and mandates - were plausibly deniable from the court system's responsibility. Not so here; every obscure legal trick trotted out, every partisan and prejudicial comment is now on record. And now the face of this chicanery is a charismatic black man being held for decades on purported terrorism charges, but where its rather obvious even to causal international observers that he's more a political prisoner. Wait, haven't we seen this one already?
Finally, for as dumb as the right can be, it seems like they learned a lot from this action. They saw their enemy utilize their advanced weapon systems on what was at best a light expeditionary force. As an insurgent, you must not funnel into your opponent's strength. What those strengths are, and an instinct for the warning signs that indicate they are incoming is much better understood and communicated than it was before.
There's something that feels desperate and weak about the establishment response to Jan6 and Canadian truckers protest. Let's not get carried away and say we've got 'em right where we want 'em, just yet. But somehow, someway, a bunch of boomers, e-grifters and one or two shamans have made every branch of government in DC role around in the mud with them. I respect the great sacrifice many are now paying for to win this outcome and think their actions will be seen in the long view as extremely beneficial.
fritz-iv
8mo ago
I'm coming from the book, not the documentary but I think you're correct that NXVIM is the most tentative example of the ones listed. One commonality from each of the situations is that sexual policing started out soft and voluntary and then ratcheted up when the members became permanently fixed to the compound.
A counter example that might prove the point is the Rajneeshee who I think were a complete free love compound. Most members got taken financially and some did time for their spree of oddball crimes. But I'm not aware of any complaints that many women there felt consent was removed from them despite having lots of sex, highlighting the pernicious role of policing and positive role of community adoration.
fritz-iv
8mo ago
If we're being glib here, can we impeach Biden for his documented creepiness to pre-pubescent girls?
fritz-iv
8mo ago
Indeed, Harry Styles - GQ magazine man of the year - can go for the kiss. So could David Karesh, Jim Jones, and Keith Raniere. What I find compelling and relevant to these aforementioned cult leaders is not just that they built themselves sexual access to their followers but how important they found it to create community policing and punishment around any other men in the community to display affection towards the women.
Free people display affection for each other when they publicly celebrate. Controlled people enact "Dear Leader" parades and anyone who falls out of line is made an example of. Once you remove the ability of men and women to form bonds of affection, you remove their ability to resist ideology. At that point, the hierarchy of violence overrides all personal autonomy, and it will be much more than a peck on the lips, and it won't be up for debate.
fritz-iv
8mo ago
"Display of affection" not sexual assault! If the jumbotron at stadiums starts zooming in on a man and woman and instead of saying "kiss?" says "sexual assault?" it seems things have gone too far. In fact, even if there is "full consent" and you go for a really long sexy kiss on the jumbotron, the crowd will boo. A peck on the lips is neither a step too far nor should it be taken further: a perfect social ritual as it stands.
But perhaps we should improve society somewhat, and remove this burden of a sometimes deeply unpleasant experience? I'll expand below in reply to 2rafa how this kind of thinking is a clever trap that promises increased personal empowerment but actually ends in the opposite.
fritz-iv
8mo ago
Good thing our POTUS would never do such a thing...But I jest.
To get some context, displays of affection from a powerful male to a female is an incredibly important social status signal that woman crave. For the man it displays he is powerful enough to be permitted to make this display, and for the women it is an honor to be chosen for this role. From puberty onwards, women make most (?) of their rituals about this very act; most boy band concerts, Ricky Martin (and yes R Kelly) will select a girl from the audience to be ritually (and hopefully tastefully) wooed by the singers and dancers.
All that being said, the Foucalt-ian left can never leave a win-win social tradition be, especially if there is some power to be extracted from subverting it. Dictating who can and can't give displays of affection is of course of the most basic elements of creating social power, something found in almost every cult, and every chimp pack. And now in probably every womens sports for some time.
Anyways to get to my black-ish pill: you'll never win back the right to give a woman a celebratory kiss at your mutual moment of world triumph via LessWrong style debate. Only by being socially recognized as the one who decides who can and can't make these display of affections, can you regain that pleasantry. Traditional society forfeited this power without realizing it when they adopted "who cares what two adults do". Someone always cares, and someone always gets to decide.
fritz-iv
9mo ago
Great points, regarding whether society restructures deliberately or organically, I think you see both: For organic bottom up, the China One-Child example seems mostly due to individual preferences, with boys being favored due to their ability to earn more income on a farm or a factory for the parents. For deliberate top down, I've heard that suffragette-ism/first wave feminism was suppressed by FDR admin in the recruitment drive to WWII, the beneficiary in this case being the State in need of soldiers.
fritz-iv
9mo ago
is the nature of taking risks, no? You can always say in hindsight that it was a bad idea, but when you succeed it's a triumph. They can seem more or less sensible in the prior analysis, but you're only really going to know if your assumptions are correct once you try it.
You seem to know a lot more about this example than I do. And I'd be interested to hear an elaboration.
But you misunderstand my interpretation: the quality of men (strong/weak/crap etc) is not really the changing or even important factor. Instead it's the incentive system of culture and society that varies greatly and is the most important factor. "Strong" men are simply those who inhabit a society which prioritizes masculine virtues, like Soviet Union society and culture after 1945.
fritz-iv
9mo ago
Good times create Weak men is predominately about this very issue, where daughters are favored over sons in the family and society.
To cite examples, it's easier to look at the mirror image: When do families and society most want sons? Two example in modernity come to mind - Soviet Union post WWII, and China during One Child policy era. In the words of the saying, Hard time create Strong men.
The way that happens, I posit, is hard times cause society to re-structure the rules to incentivize men to be productive and have loyalty to the system or family. Unfortunately for women, these social rules means shame if you don't marry by a certain age (ridiculously low to our sensibility), family constantly implying you are a burden, and cutoff from many avenues of independence.
In the good times, the lower X% of men are seen as the burden. From both society's and the individual family's perspective, they are not threatened by any attack, and have no shortage of food or material goods. Thus no need for aggressively catering society to the working class man. While some men will still be valued for being highly charismatic leaders, risk taking entrepreneurs, even charming rogues, there is no reason to supply a floor for failures. For society, this social darwinism may be considered feature not bug, after all these low ability males are still potential competition and threats. And for family, daughters are far more "a joy to have in the household" than sons, being more clean and less subversive, especially in teenage through early twenties. Since productivity/defense is of no concern to the family, the daughter is the better deal and she will likely take care of the parents more in old age.
Yikes, if we're creating weak men, hard times can't be far off! Which of course will apply to all the genders, but as the joke goes (and my analysis portends) Hard times occur, Women most effected.
fritz-iv
10mo ago
For a tourist vessel ... the Wrights flying the Wright Flyer
Funny enough, the Wright brothers almost did kill Teddy Roosevelt in 1908 when they crashed their plane in a public demonstration. Roosevelt was scheduled to be the passenger but due to last minute scheduling conflict was replaced by an Army Lieutenant who was killed in the crash.
It was the first fatal plane crash, and the first "I was almost on that plane" story as well.
fritz-iv
1yr ago
hoping that if they and the Soviets can get on the same page
Whatever's coming, it is coming.
This is the correct take and it's sad to see Rationalists, who were first to anticipate AI advances, adopt this naïve solution that takes the worst ideas from Model UN ("just nobody defects") and Civ V-esque video games ("I'm rushing drone tech to take out his Fabs").
Doubly sad because this imagined golem of hard take off AGI is what will be used by power players to gain a regulatory monopoly on the technology. And disenfranchise these same Rationalists (and the vast majority of the public) from any benefits that actual AI tech does generate.
fritz-iv
1yr ago
The El Salvador city state experiment is reminiscent of Dubai and Singapore: a state which seeks to a.) adopt a monopoly on violence while b.) maintaining a capital friendly, laissez faire economic posture c.) exists as a relatively small land and people compared to giants in its region.
There is no shortage of examples for an (a) strong autocrat cracking down on rebel terror groups or (b) economic permissive havens like Geneva, Bermuda, Hong Kong, and Cayman Islands. But deliberate combination of both these characteristics in a truly sovereign nation seems to be a growing trend in the global south, and one that mirrors the musings from the Western dissident right about exit or alternative through seasteeding or "network states".
The limited size of these city states also seems advantageous over large polities for the purposes of preventing outside interference. As others have noted, the crackdown on criminality (and human rights pearl clutching) is reminiscent of Duterte and Bolsonaro. But the smaller surface area of El Salvador make it possibly more difficult for subversion to gain a foothold.
But even with MS13 caged for the moment, what hope do these emerging city states like El Salvador have of defying the international order in the long term? I will speak on two things which may not seem related, but I believe will play a decisive role in accumulating influence to city states, or perhaps a coalition of them, in the decades ahead. These factors are very briefly stated 1.) MeToo, and 2.) Bitcoin on which I will elaborate tomorrow
fritz-iv
1yr ago
The more alarming question the article raises is : /If/ the US did blow the pipeline, could anyone in traditional civilian or military leadership corroborate they gave their blessing (or even stern objection) to this operation before or during or after those charges were placed?
The article highlights that this project was run out of a A. small inner circle of whitehouse insiders, B. an intelligence agency, C. a small detached unit of navy personnel, D. some collaboration with NATO commanders in the Baltics. Not a single member of congress (or a single Republican?) is ever told about this for nine months.
Basically, we may have initiated an act of war against a nuclear power, and 99.9% of our leadership is completely ignorant if we even did it! Obviously, the military chain of command under proper civilian leadership is broken if the whitehouse insiders are allowed to run black ops that could trigger a nuclear war with no accountability or oversight.
Hersch has given an investigator with subpoena powers everything they need to corroborate or debunk his claims: the location of the navy base where the divers would have been stationed, and the dates the charges were planted. From there, narrowing the small cadre of elite divers, to the even smaller cohort actively diving on the days should narrow the list down to a manageable set of interviews and figure out if they placed the charges. Then the other question to ask, ideally again through subpoena of all records: is it true that all of congress can claim full ignorance of this operation?
This feigned incredulity from Scott comes off as quite dishonest:
Hi, I'm Scott Alexander, I bounce around different Rationalist Group houses, where me and everyone else in my circle forms poly-amorous relationships with with our intellectual collaborators, and spend all their time building up inside jokes, private parties, etc. You see that piece in the New Yorker about the girl who was scared about AI? I was dating her, haha. Stole her from this other guy I used to do collaborate with.
Also Scott Alexander: I guesssss I could see some weirdos who'd want their work to give them to have some banter and flirtation. I don't know if there's a lot of people, but Hannania is entitled to his opinion here, as far out as that seems to you and me.
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