Affirmative action in universities wasn't going to last.
The upper middle class/lower upper class stops being woke when it impacts them. Defunding the police is fun, but they still want rigorous security around their lower Manhattan office. Affirmative action gave too many seats to non whites making it harder for the children of the lower elite to get into college. The Asian problem will be fixed with an increased focus on sports, extra circulars and personality.
Regime stability is nearly always prioritized over ideology. Promoting a sizeable group of lower Iq people into the elite threatens the long term viability of the American empire. Harvard graduates are put in positions of power, and an increasing portion of the graduates were simply not meeting the standards. The issue is exacerbated by lower entrance standards necessitating lower educational standards during the degree. The result is mediocre people who have studied subjective topics and lack skill and knowledge. Now that we are reentering an era of great power competition, having the Pentagon staffed by people who didn't make it there based on merit is shooting oneself in the foot. The political radicalism of the affirmative action students was probably viewed as a positive a few years ago, as they were seen as committed to left-liberalism. Today, there is probably increasing concern that the radicalism has gotten to a point at which the loyalty of junior members of the elite is questionable. The state department can't be staffed by people who believe the US is a white supremacist state that needs to be destroyed.
functor
10mo ago
On the other hand if college is based on merit it shouldn't be expensive. Pay to play isn't a great way to select the best. Colleges could very will be more like monasteries where people go to live a simple life in order to focus on higher pursuits. Certain degrees may require expensive equipment, but most degrees should be low cost. A simple dorm to live in, some food and access to great intellectuals could be provided for far less than 50k per year. If anything, a spartan lifestyle would be more in tune with the ideals of a college.
functor
10mo ago
If you buy a House that is three times larger than the house your British equivalent buys and then get two massive SUVs that you use for all your transportation needs being broke is kind of expected. I work as a software engineer in Europe, and I can't really afford a massive house or a car. Yet, I am able to save 20% of my salary every month.
functor
10mo ago
that the freedom to refuse service will generally amount the freedom to get out-competed.
People pay a fortune to live in an area with "good schools". Groups that are overrepresented in causing trouble can cost far more money than the revenue they bring in. When I worked in a ghetto the gym I went to had outrageous prices on the door, yet offered discounts to almost every pro social group such as students, office workers, retired people. Basically they priced everyone they didn't want out of the gym.
A handful of crazy people can scare away a hundred mild mannered customers.
functor
10mo ago
Belgians are still split after 211 years in the same country. Northern Ireland can't overcome differences so small that the average western European would have difficulties telling them apart. Czechs and Slovaks couldn't function together. Turks and Kurds have tried for a millennia. Sri Lanka had major terrorist attacks committed by people whose ancestors came there during Charlemagne's lifetime. Sunni and Shia arabs have spent 1400 years fighting over a minute doctrinal difference and the conflict is so infected that some believe it is a divine will to exterminate the other. Russia has tried to integrate Chechens for centuries. 70 years of Soviet propaganda washed off in a few years.
People are wildly optimistic concerning integration. While most people realize that they would not become Ugandan by taking a language course or reading about Ugandan values, people assume that Ugandans can become middle class westerners simply by being informed. There is a deep underlying Chauvinism behind the western view of assimilation. It is simply assumed that our way of life is superior and once the barbarians have been instructed in our superior ways they will adopt them. Meanwhile, the west is busy deconstructing the same "racist, patriarchal, oppressive social structures" that we are bewildered that the migrants don't adopt.
Integration is exceedingly difficult, takes multiple generations, and often doesn't occur at all. The lack of miracles is not failure. France has succeeded far beyond Syria, Mexico with its natives revolting, Kashmir or Ukraine.
I honestly think much of the debate is driven by wishful thinking caused by the fear of accepting that the multicultural project won't work.
functor
10mo ago
Yet race is a constant major topic in the US that hasn't been solved despite decades of trying. There are vast differences in outcome, there is high level of segregation, there are large differences in crime. What would even be the point of removing all Algerian elements from Algerians? Why go through a massive social engineering process to try to strip people of their culture?
functor
10mo ago
There is a level lower than culture: material reality. Unlike less intelligent beings, humans can adapt quickly to a new ecosystem by learning traits that are advantageous in that ecosystem. We don't have to wait for multiple generations for small changes in behaviour, we can develop a culture in a company in a matter of weeks. A national culture can evolve in centuries, while the corresponding differences would take at least three orders of magnitude longer if they were genetic.
Culture changes as the ecosystem changes and new cultural adaptations arise. These changes can be due to cultural changes as well as the material reality changing. Much of the cultural change we have seen in the past decades has happened in the parts of the world that consume the most oil. The social upheaval of the past century is less grounded in cultural innovation and more grounded in the ecosystem being fundamentally altered by fossil fuels. Hyperindividualism makes sense when mortality salients are largely gone. When there is enough material excess for people not to have to rely on social networks in order to get by the selection becomes a function of standing out in the crowd.
The Afghan culture is a function of small groups of isolated people trying to survive in a resource constrained environment.
Climates change, resources become more or less scarce, pandemics, wars and other factors will change the ecosystem. I do agree with human cultural change being a major driving factor but the world around us has changed profoundly.
functor
10mo ago
Modern TVs are marvellous. A huge 4k screen with stunning colours and high contrast is now easily affordable. Going to the cinema for the big screen experience is no longer as justified.
Expensive: Movie tickets are expensive and are an easy item to cut back on when impacted by inflation.
The abundance of entertainment. There is no longer a single song, movie or book that can define a generation. There availability and choice is to great for there to be a must see movie. The same goes with sport. The question did you see the game last night is less clear when people can stream whatever sport they want. Many people saw "the game" just so that they could fit in. When "the game" no longer is the topic of conversation fewer people will watch it causing a death spiral
functor
10mo ago
The US is stuck in a cold war mindset and can't stop thinking in a two-polar world. The world isn't split in pro America/anti Soviet and pro Soviet/anti America. The world now consists of multiple poles with their own interests and that can cooperate and have their own conflicts. India is the largest country in terms of population, has nuclear weapons, is a major economy and their borders mainly consists of ocean and impenetrable mountains. They aren't Norway in 1955 trying to avoid being conquered by the Soviets in some ideological struggle. The US elites seem to swing between India doing business with the US and thinking they have almost joined NATO and India buying Russian military hardware and thinking they have almost joined a neo-Warsaw pact. India isn't going to be a junior member of someone else's pole, they are going to be their own pole. India is going to do tech deals with the west, buy manufactured products from China, buy natural resources with Russia and buy oil from Arabs.
Until the US realizes that the rest of the world in many ways has caught up, they are going to be frustrating much of the world by treating them like children.
functor
10mo ago
Hard times are darwinistic and kill off weak men. Hard times require group oriented people. Under difficult conditions individual self expression is valued less than the survival of the group.
Group oriented people with strong genetic health create good societies.
Strong socieites allow for more individualism and self centered people. People start avoiding military service, become atheistic, marriage is no longer sacred, immigration increases.
Self centered people create chaos. Andrew Tate-types, Tribes such as the vandals or Mexican drug cartels flurish in this environment. These people party their civilization into hard times.
functor
10mo ago
The issue is that there isn't enough content to fill facebook with quality content. People are spending several hours a day scrolling on their phone. There aren't enough childhood friends getting married and second cousins graduating to fill such a massive feed. People are opening their phone 50 times a day. The world isn't eventful enough to provide content.
functor
10mo ago
Mostly because they are built at such a low rate. If Canada were to send four rockets into space and use custom built Canadian ones, they would cost a fortune and be delayed for years. Spacex is cheap because spacex launches several times a month. The nuclear industry in the west is stuck between silly levels of regulation, such as the decades of fighting over how to store waste and a lack of an industrial base.
If we are actually going to get somewhere with nuclear, we need to build 10+ reactors a year in the west.
functor
10mo ago
Yes, the failure of many men was in not screening the mothers of their children for acceptable behaviour before knocking them up.
To be fair though, there aren't exactly as many innocent virgin women without an instagram account as there are men. Men have to compromise on something, looks, virginity, Iq, personality, tattoos, mental health, weight etc. Most people are forced to settle rather than are able to chose whatever they dream of.
I believe that one of the reasons why so many people are single today is because too many people are unattractive. Lots of people are obese, many women have tonnes of bagage, there are men who can't do a single pull up or survive three days without electricity. Partially due to the housing market a lot of young men live with their parents. People are remaining single because they can't find someone decent while they themselves aren't decent.
functor
10mo ago
There are two options for countries, go liberalism or the Iran route. Even Poland is opening up for mass immigration and the Ukrainian parliament is ramming through all sorts of LGBT stuff in the middle of a war. Either one cooperates with the neoliberal order or one takes the Iran/North Korea or Russia option and goes to war against it. China might be the exception simply because neoliberalism can't cut them off.
Italy is a deeply indebted country with a chronic unemployment problem. If the major financial institutions want them to increase their labour supply they either comply or they will get regime changed or have their economy crashed.
Few countries are actually sovreign, the majority of them are effectively controlled by finance.
Again and again, why do people keep on jumping to race as the most accurate way to filter for being able to integrate?
If two groups are separated for so long that there are clear genetic differences they aren't going to be easy to integrate. First off there are differences between groups and they are to some extent biologically different. If they have been separated for that long their cultures will have almost no common points.
functor
9mo ago
The US barely has public transport or walking streets. It is also a wildly divided country.
functor
9mo ago
The obvious response should be to point out that the mainstream parties have done far worse. Invading Afghanistan killed 200 000 people are tenfolded their heroin production. Two decades of bombing a country can't remotely compare to edgy forum posting. Nationalists in western countries are too quick to accept being the boogeyman when the mainstream parties have flooded Syria with support for jihadists, destroyed Libya for decades to come, invaded Iraq twice, starved the population of Iraq and blocked medicines to Iran during a pandemic. The mainstream parties tears for the migrants seem hollow when the migrants are fleeing their bomb wars.
Compare pointing finger guns on a train and sending soldiers to their home country with the rules of engagement that every boy above the age of 16 will be counted as a combatant.
Why don't politicians who caused a week of rioting in France have to appologize? When will the politicians that caused dozens of terrorist attacks with hundreds of dead have to appologize? When will the politicians whose policies led to a massive increase in rapes appologize? When will they appologize to all the people who have effectively been ethnically cleansed by being forced to participate in white flight due to immigration policies that make life intolerable in their neighborhood.
The true Finns should never appologize, never cede the moral high ground and make it clear which side they percieve as the evil ones.
functor
9mo ago
The one big advantage that the conservative catholics have is that they are actually becoming priests. There is a sizeable portion of homosexual priests in the catholic church who became priests when being a celibate priest was the alternative to marrying a woman. Today, homosexuals raised catholic aren't really becoming priests. People who want to dedicate their lives to the church are largely deeply conservative. Once the boomer-liberals die off, they are leaving behind liberals who barely go to church. Meanwhile, the actually conservative catholics are tending to have a lot more children and being more engaged in the church.
functor
9mo ago
In a society with no collective identity this is inevitable. There isn't a sense of the country being one big family with people fighting for the common good, instead countries are viewed as a legal platform and a market administrated by a government. In many ways it isn't too different from Iraq, a plot of land which arbitrarily became a country. Within this arbitrary zone the obvious winning strategy is to form a group and promote your group's special interest. That may be feminism, it may be more money to the military industrial complex, lower taxes for wall street, more money for Israel, extra spending on infrastructure in the place you live etc depending on what group you belong to. The society is a nothing more than a shopping mall and people want to benefit themselves.
The US is largely government by a legal system and the legal system is has as one of its primary duties to defend victims. For lawyers and judges, having grievances is hold the aces. In previous societies claiming noble birth and belonging to the main ethnic/religious group would have provided one with benefits. In a society that has equality before the law combined with a society largely run by lawyers whose job it is to compensate victims people are going to perpetually try to gain maximal victim status.
functor
9mo ago
It may be related to a mindset common in the American right, the type of siege mentality that is the justification for a lot of right wing politics. American right wingers tend to want to live on a farm with many guns and shoot at the imposing threats. The pedos are coming for the kids, the taxman is coming for your money, the green people are coming for your car, the FDA is coming to forcibly vaccinated etc. The left does see itself as oppressed but sees more structural oppression rather than conspiratorial oppression and has less of a siege mentality.
The journalists may be picking up on the siege mentality perspective of the film and therefore coding it as right wing.
functor
9mo ago
The idea that we can just replace the population with other people is ludicrous. A nation is like a family, just because someone does the dishes and is pleasant doesn't make them a part of my family or mean that they can live there. France is a nation and a people, not an economic zone. There are countries that are nothing but administration of an area of land and these countries tend to be unsuccessful. Countries created after colonialism as nothing more than lines drawn on a map by foreigners concerned by 19th century geopolitics are terrible. Not to mention that we are giving up our history, culture and our way of being to save a government program.
Furthermore, every country is now in serious resource overshoot. Our consumption is wildly unsustainable. The population of humans is several times higher than what it was when we lived sustainably and each human consumes far more. Population reduction has benefits, cheap housing and nature. If you ride through rural Europe on a train you will barely see any real nature. You will mainly see urban sprawl and agriculture upheld by mountains of petrochemicals. Exponential growth in the number of humans isn't sustainable at all. We have witnessed a collapse in insect and bird populations over the past decades. Forests in Europe are largely gone and high intensity agriculture wrecks the land it uses.
functor
9mo ago
That poem was written by a jewish immigrant 130 years after the country was founded and about 300 years after it was settled. The US wasn't founded as a multicultural experiment but rather as a WASP country minus the british monarchy. The US is great where it isn't diverse. It isn't South side Chicago that makes the US great.
What would be the signs of the elites believing in aliens?
If the top of society believed in aliens, we would notice a few changes. The obvious first move if we are in real risk of an invasion would be aiming more sensors towards space. We would need far more telescopes, satellites observing other bodies in our solar systems and antennas. Astronomy is a miniscule portion of the global economy and ramping it up Manhattan project style could greatly increase capacity within a decade or two. We wouldn't even need investments that would account for 0.01% of global GDP to completely change the roadmap for telescope construction. Instead, the 30 meter telescope in Hawaii is getting delayed in endless legal processes.
Defending a solar system is far easier than attacking one. Even at relativistic speeds it takes decades to get here. There is no hiding in space, and hitting dust particles with a large ship at 10% of light speed will make the ship glow brightly. Sci-Fi often presents aliens as magical, but they would be bound by the same laws of nature as we are. Slowing down from relativistic speeds requires immense amounts of energy. Hitting a small metal object at relativistic speeds is equivalent to being nuked. At 10% of light speed, a tungsten rod is 30 000 km away one second before impact. Launching swarms of weapons at them would realistically be able to destroy an enemy ship.
If we are facing an alien invasion in the coming decades, we would see far greater investments in launch capacity. The SLS program was delayed and not exactly managed as a project critical to the survival of all life on the planet. The European Space Agency is meandering along with the Ariane 6. We aren't seeing the capacity to put large numbers of nukes in orbit. We aren't seeing a race to build a rail gun on the moon to launch volumes of munitions at high speed toward an enemy armada.
If the world leaders truly believed the aliens were here, NASA wouldn't be struggling with a budget 2.5% the size of the US militaries.
The issue is that the most liberal migrants have 0-2 kids. They embrace the individualist culture while not having parents that help them get established in the housing market. They get their small condo in a city when they are in their 30s. The most conservative migrants have 8 kids and make due. When it comes to muslim immigrants we are selecting for religiousness at an extreme level.
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