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hydroacetylene


				
				
				

				
6 followers   follows 1 user   joined 2022 September 04 20:00:27 UTC

					

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User ID: 128

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What Happened to Society's Life Script

In the fifties, the American dream was, for the vast majority of people, pretty obvious. You find a job with the main employer of the town, whether that was a coal mine or a factory or a railyard or whatever the case may be. You marry, if not literally the girl next door, then something close; maybe a high school sweetheart. If you were a woman you were then expected to stay home and be a housewife, and except for a few very highly-female coded jobs, that's just what you did. If you were a man you might have been required to serve in the army beforehand, but few people went to college; only if you were wealthy and/or very, very smart. It mostly wasn't your decision either way, about any of it. 'Should I go into the military, or skilled labor, or go to college?' wasn't a question very many people had to ask; usually what you did next after finishing high school was readily apparent, often literally by having only a single option or a very small set thereof. If you did have the opportunity to go to college- most people didn't- both the university and your parents had much more say in what you did there. And I think we should note- the vast majority of people here could find respect as a worker bee. This is important because the vast majority of people have to be worker bees to have a functioning society.

Today, that is not the case. Everyone who wants to can go to university, or near enough. Many people stay in university long past the point at which it does any good, in point of fact. The military is 100% volunteer, and few people live with access to a single major employer. Young people can't find spouses, and these days don't seem to be able to blunder into relationships either. Every individual can, with certain reasonable limits, do what he wishes, and nobody with institutional power seems keen to say no, that's stupid, do this instead.

And it seems that we have lost something, there. Occasionally conservative pundits will start talking about the success sequence- finish high school, work full time, get married, and then have children. There's some other obvious things that go along with it, like 'don't do drugs'. But the gist of the success sequence is, well, a (somewhat vague)life script. And realistically the success sequence is the sort of thing our culture should be putting more effort into promoting; it isn't the default message despite every idea therein being a good one.

I think the youth agree with me, here. Jordan Peterson's popularity, notoriously, came from offering boomer dad advice. Recently there's been discussion of positive male role models to replace Andrew Tate; Andrew Tate's pitch isn't much different from tons of other redpill influencers. What's different is he's selling 'you, too, can be like me, just do x, y, z'. Obviously he's a lying grifter, but his fanbase are mostly teens. What replacement for his (dumb)life script are these positive male role models offering? The pro-social version of Andrew Tate isn't the male feminist activist. It's Mike Rowe.

Unfortunately, "work hard, at a quite possibly unpleasant job" isn't a great sales pitch. But I want to circle back to the point I made ending my discussion of the fifties- most people have to be worker bees. In a functioning society there are few girlbosses because there simply are not very many bosses- the average person will always make the median income, live a not particularly impressive lifestyle, and live in flyover. To put it more pithily, average people will always be average. And being average isn't, well, a flashy and appealing thing. In the past, lack of options meant people became average worker bees. Today, people have the option not to do that; they may not be Indian chiefs and fighter pilots and surgeons and other high status jobs instead, but they're being something, and usually that something is below average, gig workers and basement dwellers. It has to be said, therefore- most people can't figure it out on their own. For every unrecognized genius there's a dozen schizos. Boring middle-aged advice serves a useful purpose; to throw out the social pressure to follow it was a mistake. The question becomes, then, 'how do we bring it back?'

Texas Border Flareup... Again

https://www.supremecourt.gov/DocketPDF/23/23A607/295564/20240112012220571_23a607%20DHS%20v%20TX%20supplement.pdf

Border Patrol’s normal access to the border through entry points in the federal border barrier is likewise blocked by the Texas National Guard installing its own gates and placing armed personnel in those locations to control entry. See id. at 4a. And the Texas National Guard has likewise blocked Border Patrol from using an access road through the pre- existing state border barrier by stationing a military Humvee there.

Texas has seized a public park in Eagle Pass to take control of a 2.5 mile stretch of the border(https://www.cbsnews.com/news/texas-blocks-federal-border-agents-processing-migrants-eagle-pass-shelby-park/). This is a bigger deal than it seems; the only boat launch and main surveillance point for miles is located there, effectively preventing border patrol from operating over a relatively wider frontage.

Context

The State of Texas has long been adding concertina wire to the border to prevent crossings, and has been accusing the federal government of cutting it to allow migrants to cross. Recently Texas won an injunction in court blocking the federal government from doing this, and the federal government has of course appealed, but the injunction includes an exception for if cutting the wire is necessary to assist migrants experiencing a medical emergency.

So Texas seized the main surveillance point and boat launch(in this sector) for the border patrol to prevent them seeing migrants experiencing a medical emergency. For the record, I don't trust the federal government with this "medical emergency" exception either, but this is flatly illegal in, well, pretty much every way you approach it.

https://news4sanantonio.com/news/trouble-shooters/texas-blocks-border-patrol-from-entering-key-area-for-illegal-crossings

Of course the border patrol union is siding with Abbott, which would make it awkward for fedgov if they cared. Although Abbott's justification has nothing to do with the border patrol union's:

Texas has the legal authority to control ingress and egress into any geographic location in the state of Texas, and that authority is being asserted with regard to that park in Eagle Pass

And anecdotally his fundraising emails are talking a lot more about state sovereignty than normal. It led to a twitter breakdown by Gina Hinojosa(head of the Texas democrats) accusing him of being a secessionist, and the admittedly low chance of Gina Hinojosa of all people meming Texas independence into the political mainstream through the power of negative partisanship is kind of hilarious.

But back to the topic at hand; it's unclear what Abbott's actual game is; he's an accomplished constitutional lawyer(literally; that's how he became governor) and knows he's going to lose at court. He's also never been the reckless type and so it's unlikely he did this without thinking it through. Angling for a Trump cabinet seat, maybe? It also surprises me that he did this now; primaries are coming up in March, and Abbott endorsed a relatively wide array of candidates to try to shift the house in a more partisan republican direction; taking a political risk like this one is unlike him.

Fellow Motteizans, what are your small scale conspiracy theories? I'm not talking grand narratives here. What minor, apolitical conspiracy theories do you explain to the next table at a diner.

For myself, I think at least some large portion of lottery drawings are not random. I base this belief on the fact that of repeat lottery winners, a suspicious number of them are math professors.

Texas tries to put Planned Parenthood out of business again(and might succeed this time)

https://www.texastribune.org/2023/08/15/texas-abortion-planned-parenthood-lawsuit/

Last year, the state filed a federal lawsuit claiming Planned Parenthood improperly billed Medicaid for $10 million in payments during the period when the state was trying to remove the organization from the program.

Texas is seeking more than $1.8 billion in reimbursement, penalties and fees.

So Texas wants to lawfare Planned Parenthood out of being able to operate. This isn't new. What is new is this part:

U.S. District Judge Matthew Kacsmaryk, a conservative who previously worked on anti-abortion cases as a religious liberty lawyer, will hear arguments from both sides today in Amarillo.

"A conservative who previously worked on anti-abortion cases as a religious liberty lawyer" is a technically accurate description of Matthew Kacsmaryk. It is, however, leaving out the context that was the judge who suspended FDA approval for mifepristone, had only previously worked for conservative activist groups, and also got handpicked by the plaintiffs. There is a 0.0% chance he will rule in favor of Planned Parenthood under any circumstances.

So what's the practical effect?

The 2022 lawsuit, filed by Paxton before he was impeached this year, argues that Planned Parenthood erred by not appealing the initial termination through administrative channels and instead pursuing the case through the courts.

Though they’re seeking to claw back $10 million in payments, they’ve asked the judge to order Planned Parenthood to pay an additional two times that value, plus civil penalties and interest from the day the payment was billed as well as expenses, costs and attorneys fees.

The estimated $1.8 billion payment would likely bankrupt Texas’ three Planned Parenthood affiliates several times over at a moment the organization argues they are needed more than ever.

So basically similar to what New York tried with the NRA. It should go without saying that while I find Planned Parenthood an unsympathetic defendant, this would not be happening to a less politically charged organization and 180 times the overbilling amount is just absurd. Also the legal interpretation seems dubious and probably would've been dismissed by a less biased judge.

I do want to point out some incredible naivety:

“Our organization knows we always have to be making decisions that are the most ethical and the most compliant with any rule or regulation out there, so it just felt like a great injustice,” she said. “I had hoped that if you play by the rules and do the right thing, it will turn out right, but that’s not the case.”

PP is, uh, not going to get left alone in the culture wars, and that's their fault for constantly making themselves a target in every way they can come up with. It's fair to point to people who don't have access to whatever healthcare services they provide(do they actually provide mammograms? The claim seems debunked but the people who did the debunking are not fans of PP) but trying to paint Planned Parenthood as an innocent victim of broadsides unleashed for no reason, even if it's playing pretty hardball, is not totally in contact with reality. Planned Parenthood is not in any universe apolitical and their side did after all start the trend of trying to punish the opposition.

Is pope Francis attempting to bring in gay marriage by the back door?

Kind of a long story, so bear with me for the background(https://www.ncregister.com/news/cardinals-send-dubia-to-pope-ahead-of-synod-on-synodality):

Dubia are formal questions brought before the pope and the Dicastery for the Doctrine of the Faith (DDF) aimed at eliciting a “Yes” or “No” response, without theological argumentation. The word dubia is the plural form of dubium, which means “doubt” in Latin. They are typically raised by cardinals or other high-ranking members of the Church and are meant to seek clarification on matters of doctrine or Church teaching.

The dubia were signed by German Cardinal Walter Brandmüller, 94, president of the Pontifical Committee for Historical Sciences; American Cardinal Raymond Burke, 75, prefect emeritus of the Apostolic Signatura; Chinese Cardinal Zen Ze-Kiun, 90, bishop emeritus of Hong Kong; Mexican Cardinal Juan Sandoval Íñiguez, 90, archbishop emeritus of Guadalajara; and Guinean Cardinal Robert Sarah, 78, prefect emeritus of the Dicastery for Divine Worship and the Discipline of the Sacraments.

Submitting dubia is not a particularly uncommon occurrence and does not have a strong partisan(for lack of a better term) valence. The summary of these particular dubia later on in the same article is fairly accurate, but you can read them in their entirety, along with Cardinal Burke's statement on resubmitting them, here: https://rorate-caeli.blogspot.com/2023/10/full-text-of-new-dubia-sent-to-francis.html

What is unusual is resubmitting dubia after being dissatisfied with the response received, which is what happened here:

The same group of senior prelates say they submitted a previous version of the dubia on these topics on July 10 and received a reply from Pope Francis the following day.

But they said that the pope responded in full answers rather than in the customary form of “Yes” and “No” replies, which made it necessary to submit a revised request for clarification.

Pope Francis’ responses “have not resolved the doubts we had raised, but have, if anything, deepened them,” they said in a statement to the National Catholic Register, CNA’s partner news outlet. They therefore sent the reformulated dubia on Aug. 21, rephrasing them partly so they would elicit “Yes” or “No” replies.

The cardinals declined the Register’s requests to review the pope’s July 11 response, as they say the response was addressed only to them and so not meant for the public.

Interestingly, the pope's(in reality Cardinal Fernandez's[head of the DDF, the Vatican's doctrine branch, occupying the position that in recent pontificates has been a de facto #2 spot]) responses were leaked anyways, by the Vatican(https://www.catholicnewsagency.com/news/255539/read-pope-francis-response-to-the-dubia-presented-to-him-by-5-cardinals). As that link demonstrates, the responses are indeed not the customary yes or no replies. I'm not quoting the whole thing, because they're lengthy word salad, but the most interesting, and controversial, part, is below, the response to the second dubia:

a) The Church has a very clear conception of marriage: an exclusive, stable, and indissoluble union between a man and a woman, naturally open to the begetting of children. It calls this union “marriage.” Other forms of union only realize it “in a partial and analogous way” (Amoris Laetitia, 292), and so they cannot be strictly called “marriage.”

b) It is not a mere question of names, but the reality that we call marriage has a unique essential constitution that demands an exclusive name, not applicable to other realities. It is undoubtedly much more than a mere “ideal.“

c) For this reason the Church avoids any kind of rite or sacramental that could contradict this conviction and give the impression that something that is not marriage is recognized as marriage.

d) In dealing with people, however, we must not lose the pastoral charity that must permeate all our decisions and attitudes. The defense of objective truth is not the only expression of this charity, which is also made up of kindness, patience, understanding, tenderness, and encouragement. Therefore, we cannot become judges who only deny, reject, exclude.

e) For this reason, pastoral prudence must adequately discern whether there are forms of blessing, requested by one or more persons, that do not transmit a mistaken conception of marriage. For when a blessing is requested, one is expressing a request for help from God, a plea for a better life, a trust in a Father who can help us to live better.

f) On the other hand, although there are situations that from an objective point of view are not morally acceptable, pastoral charity itself demands that we do not simply treat as “sinners“ other people whose guilt or responsibility may be due to their own fault or responsibility attenuated by various factors that influence subjective imputability (cf. St. John Paul II, Reconciliatio et Paenitentia, 17).

g) Decisions which, in certain circumstances, can form part of pastoral prudence, should not necessarily become a norm. That is to say, it is not appropriate for a diocese, an episcopal conference or any other ecclesial structure to constantly and officially authorize procedures or rites for all kinds of matters, since everything “what is part of a practical discernment in particular circumstances cannot be elevated to the level of a rule,“ because this “would lead to an intolerable casuistry“ (Amoris Laetitia, 304). Canon law should not and cannot cover everything, nor should the episcopal conferences claim to do so with their various documents and protocols, because the life of the Church runs through many channels in addition to the normative ones.

That's a lot of words to come full circle, but the middle part- about blessing same sex non-weddings- is what has hair on fire. If you take the position that any of those paragraphs are not meaningless argle-bargle, paragraph g about the need to ensure blessings of same sex couples doesn't become a norm would not be among them. Again from the first article:

On the topic of blessing same-sex unions, which have been pushed for in places like Germany, the Vatican’s chief doctrinal office, the Dicastery for the Doctrine of the Faith, weighed in on the matter in 2021, clarifying that “the Church does not have, and cannot have, the power to bless unions of persons of the same sex.” However, some have speculated that, in spite of the DDF text referencing his approval, Pope Francis was displeased by the document. Relatedly, Antwerp’s Bishop Johan Bonny claimed in March that the pope did not disapprove of the Flemish-speaking Belgian bishops plan to introduce a related blessing, although this claim has not been substantiated and it is not clear that the Flemish blessing is, in fact, the kind explicitly disapproved by the DDF guidance.

Regarding the DDF text, Vatican Secretary of State Cardinal Pietro Parolin cited it in his criticism of the German Synodal Way’s decision to move forward with attempted blessings of same-sex unions, but he also added that the topic would require further discussion at the upcoming universal synod. More significantly, new DDF prefect Cardinal Victor Manuel Fernández, a close confidant of Pope Francis, stated in July that while he was opposed to any blessing that would confuse same-sex unions with marriage, the 2021 DDF guidance “lacked the smell of Francisco” and could be revisited during his tenure.

I am inclined to believe Cardinal Fernandez here, because A) responsa ad dubium are normally approved by the pope himself, so the middle paragraphs about blessing same sex non-weddings were approved by pope Francis B) firing Cardinal Fernandez over a previous screw up and disowning his comments would be trivially easy due to his atrocious record on handling sex abuse cases, yet he was appointed personally by Pope Francis rather than as a compromise(as Ladaria, the previous occupant of the office- and the issuer of the 2021 clarification against blessing same sex unions which it is rumored played a part in Francis' decision not to appoint him to a second term) or a holdover from Benedict XVI(as was Muller, the predecessor to Ladaria) and C) breaking with precedent in this manner is so highly unusual for a cabinet-level Vatican position that there's something there, and dragging your boss under the bus is not recommended.

What would it mean if the synod on synodality(which starts wednesday, and kicked off the whole brouhaha with this particular round of dubia) does in fact create significant wiggle room for bishops to authorize same sex non-weddings? Well, back to Cardinal Muller, who has previously pointed to this as a possible red line for some kind of ill-defined drastic action(https://www.lifesitenews.com/blogs/cardinal-muller-warns-same-sex-blessings-are-blasphemy-as-synod-on-synodality-looms/):

“A fictitious ‘blessing’ of same-sex couples,” he expounded, “is not only a blasphemy against the Creator of the world and man, but also a grave sin against the salvation of the people concerned, who are led to believe that sexual activity outside of marriage is pleasing to God, which is described in the revealed Word of God as a grave sin against the sixth commandment (Rom 1:26f; 1 Cor 9:-11).”

And:

Here, Cardinal Müller raises the question of the status in the Church of those who wish to change the Church’s teachings, by quoting St. Irenaeus: “With apostolic succession, bishops have received the reliable charism of truth (charisma vertitatis certum), as it pleased God. But all others who do not want to know about this succession, which goes back to the origin, and who gather arbitrarily anywhere, are suspected of being either heretics with evil in mind, or schismatics…. All these people forsake the truth.” (Irenaeus of Lyons, Against Heresies IV 26, 2).

For Cardinal Müller, the truth of Christ is what matters at the synod: “I hope that the truth of Christ will determine the direction of the Synod and not a group dynamic process will lead the participants in the direction of an anti-Christian anthropology that questions the two-gendered nature of man created by God. This blatant contradiction to the divine and Catholic faith is gladly veiled with an alleged pastoral care for persons with any ‘erotic preferences.’”

That is to say, Cardinal Müller will not go along with such an attempted change of Church teaching at the upcoming synod in Rome.

Cardinal Muller, for those who are unfamiliar, is powerful enough within the church oligarchy to have previously vetoed a candidate for Cardinal Fernandez's current spot(https://rorate-caeli.blogspot.com/2022/12/cardinals-block-appointment-of-heiner.html), so him saying something like this is a very big deal, albeit poorly defined what it would actually look like.

I'm assuming the discussion over red state efforts to crack down on voter fraud are sufficiently far downthread to justify another top level comment:

https://www.houstonpublicmedia.org/articles/news/politics/2022/10/19/435531/texas-agencies-plan-to-monitor-harris-county-elections-raises-concerns-among-observers/

TLDR is that Texas government agencies are sending their own teams of pollwatchers, inspectors, and legal advisors to Harris county(Houston metro area) to monitor the conduct of the election. This is only the latest round in an ongoing saga of escalating tensions between the Harris county and state governments, the previous episode of which- a controversy over property taxes and policing- is fascinating in its own right.

The Texas Secretary of State's Office, in a letter submitted days before the start of early voting for the 2022 midterm election, has informed Harris County it will send a team of inspectors and election security trainers to observe and help administer the Nov. 8 election in the state's largest metropolitan area.

Representatives from the office of Texas Attorney General Ken Paxton, who is on the ballot and seeking reelection, also will be present in Harris County to "immediately respond to any legal issues" raised by the inspectors, poll watchers and others, according to the Tuesday evening letter sent to Harris County Elections Administrator Clifford Tatum and obtained by Houston Public Media.

The letter cites preliminary findings of the secretary of state's ongoing audit of the 2020 election in Harris County, claiming there are unexplained irregularities in vote tabulation and chain-of-custody procedures, as the basis for the state's involvement in this year's election.

My priors, like with other red state election security measures, is that it will spend some amount of money to accomplish precisely nothing, but it will give Beto O'Rourke and Rochelle Garza ammunition to claim voter suppression/vote rigging if they underperform in Harris county(which is likely; Harris county is probably the lightest shade of blue of Texas's blue counties and also has an unpopular dem county judge running for reelection). It should go without saying that the commission being sent to oversee things is... not exactly non-partisan, the line between the Texas GOP and Texas governor being much thinner in the case of the secretary of state(a political appointment in a one party state) and Ken Paxton's office, but the Texas government has historically not taken large risks they weren't 100% sure they could get away with and even if Abbott and Paxton were able to flip votes, they almost certainly wouldn't be able to do so without it being widely known, and in any case they both have a single digit chance of losing which gives them almost no upside to pulling stunts like that.

https://apnews.com/article/ron-desantis-250c8ed4b49843350e258f0c2754c8ba

Ron Desantis has dropped out of the republican presidential primary and endorsed Trump.

Now, obviously, this will not change the end result- Trump will win the primary and obtain the republican nomination. But, there is a dim chance that it takes Haley into the #1 spot in New Hampshire, embarrassing for Trump, by consolidating the anti-Trump vote. Granted this is an increase from like 5% to 10%, but it's more likely to give Nikki Haley a boost before a do-or-die primary for her. It's I guess dimly possible that there's a few voters undecided between Desantis and Haley who will now support Trump, but I have to think this isn't a very big group.

Ron Desantis will likely try to find a Trump cabinet position; but it seems likely that he won't get one. Trump's broadsides against Desantis have lasted long enough to think they might be genuine. I would expect Desantis to finish his term and then look into either a senate seat, or a run in 2028.

Backlash to the border bussing policies: To the surprise of no one, sanctuary cities don't actually want hundreds of thousands of poor foreigners wandering about in their backyards. New York City- which has received the largest number of migrants shipped from the southern border by Greg Abbott- is the site of protests https://nypost.com/2023/09/05/another-massive-rally-expected-outside-staten-island-school-turned-migrant-shelter/ Obviously not all of these people are democrats, but some of them seem to be. But the real story is down below, in LA.

https://abcnews.go.com/Politics/la-city-council-texas-governor-migrant-busing/story?id=102840424

One motion directs the city attorney to investigate whether any crime was committed by Abbott and if there's any potential civil legal action that can be taken against him and Texas regarding the initial busing incident. The other is a resolution calling on LA County District Attorney George Gascón, California State Attorney General Rob Banta and U.S. Attorney General Merrick Garland to similarly investigate Abbott's actions, as well as urges the county, state and federal government to assist in responding to the needs of the migrants. MORE: Texas Gov. Greg Abbott buses group of migrants to Los Angeles

Both motions, which passed 13-0, were filed on June 16 -- two days after the first bus originating from McAllen, Texas, arrived in LA carrying 42 migrants, including 18 minors, according to the motions. Since then, 10 more buses have arrived from Texas -- the most recent Wednesday morning, a spokesperson for LA Mayor Karen Bass said.

Obviously, some of this is just hypocrisy and looking out for number one- it's fine for you to have hundreds of thousands of asylum seekers camped under highway overpasses with no say in the matter, but don't you dare dump any on me- but I'm struck by 1), the fact that the LA city council thinks injunctions and lawsuits will work

"[Abbott] is just going to continue to do it, because he has no incentive at all whatsoever until there is legal teeth put to this," he said. "And that means an injunction by a U.S. federal judge to stop the trafficking of these individuals." Abbott has also sent buses to cities including Washington, D.C., New York City, Chicago, Denver and Philadelphia.

When in reality Abbott has no incentive to stop when a federal judge tells him to, he has every incentive to appeal to the supreme court and ignore the federal judge- he does after all want to win his 2026 primary- and realistically unless the federal government decides to take over the border itself, or meet his demands, they can't make him stop. Both practically- he wants these people to be someone else's problem- and politically- this makes him look tough to a base that doesn't already think of him that way- there's every reason for Greg Abbott to just keep doing this until he's lost much, much bigger than anybody seems to be talking about, or his demands are met.

And of course, 2), the decision to cast this as human trafficking

During Wednesday's meeting, LA City Council member Imelda Padilla addressed the strain the influx of migrants causes on service providers while calling the busing an "ugly form of political theater."

"It's against all dignity and humanity of all people -- especially towards immigrants, families and children who have fled their country due to injustices or threats against their lives, who have faced unimaginable obstacles to seek asylum," she said prior to the vote.

When, likewise in reality, "free bus tickets to New York/LA/DC" is quite an appealing pitch to migrants living under a bridge in McAllen and Eagle Pass Texas. After all, most of them didn't walk from Venezuela with the intent of settling in McAllen, they wanted to go further into the US. And obviously Abbott's real incentive is to get them out of his jurisdiction as fast as possible, which means offering free bus tickets to the places they actually wanted to go to in the first place. There just isn't a scenario where the migrants stayed in Eagle Pass long term; they could be deported to Honduras or wherever they came from, or they could go somewhere else in the country.

I still don’t know what gamergate is or was, other than ‘a sufficiently massive train wreck that everyone involved on either side should be fired into the sun’, but I don’t see how it’s notable that a not-very-prominent participant is a minor attracted person.

Is the decline in teen mental health mostly about parenting?

https://ifstudies.org/blog/parenting-is-the-key-to-adolescent-mental-health

The findings are clear. The most important factor in the mental health of adolescent children is the quality of the relationship with their caregivers. This, in turn, is strongly related to parenting practices—with the best results coming from warm, responsive, and rule-bound, disciplined parenting. The data also reveal the characteristics of parents who engage in best-practices and enjoy the highest quality relationships.

A mildly interesting competing hypothesis in itself compared to "smartphones and instagram wreck teen girls' psyches". But where it really gets interesting is here:

Yet, some parental characteristics do matter. Political ideology is one of the strongest predictors. Conservative and very conservative parents are the most likely to adopt the parenting practices associated with adolescent mental health. They are the most likely to effectively discipline their children, while also displaying affection and responding to their needs. Liberal parents score the lowest, even worse than very liberal parents, largely because they are the least likely to successfully discipline their children. By contrast, conservative parents enjoy higher quality relationships with their children, characterized by fewer arguments, more warmth, and a stronger bond, according to both parent and child reporting.

That paragraph actually understates the findings compared to the chart just above it, if you click on the link- just look at the stark discontinuity between 'very conservative' and everyone else. In fact the order by political ideology, on parenting quality, is 1) very conservative 2) blank spot 3) conservative 4) moderate 5) very liberal 6) liberal. And I would hazard a guess that this is majorly correlated with the other two, quality of parents' relationship, factors.

Now there's a couple of hypotheses as to why this is- it could be that parenting has just been getting shittier recently, that more conservative types are somewhat insulated from the trend by being, well, conservative, and that there's some population discontinuity between 'liberal' and 'very liberal'. This could be red tribe-blue tribe ethnogenesis manifesting itself in an interesting way- the red tribe adopted adaptive parenting measures, the blue tribe didn't(or alternatively, they both used to share good parenting practices but as part of ethnogenesis the blue tribe is moving away from them, which I guess is pretty close to the first explanation. It seems pretty clear that they didn't both used to have terrible parenting with the red tribe moving away because teen mental health is a relatively newer problem). It could be a regional difference. It could be that, given fertility differences by political ideology, conservative parents have more role models allowing them to more easily adopt good parenting practices. Personally, I lean towards number two, myself- I'm reminded of a section in Irreversible Damage, describing how nearly every girl with rapid onset gender dysphoria had a liberal mother, and some had country club republican/rino fathers but most of the fathers were liberal as well. The section goes on to claim that at least some parents of daughters with ROGD found success in sending their daughter to live with more conservative relatives, resulting in desistance. That's obviously not conclusive, or even particularly strong, evidence(and it's also confounded all to heck by duh), but it's a second datapoint on a trend.

In any case, it seems like the other interesting question raised by this report is, well:

Returning to the present crisis, it would appear as if this scholarship has been forgotten. No effort is being made by leading public health organizations to inform parents about what works to prevent depression, anxiety, or behavioral problems in teens. ...... Expert-led services that could heal relationships—through family or individual therapy, for example—are often not even covered by health insurance, in part because reimbursement rates are too low. Parents are disempowered and sidelined, and yet social science continues to show that their actions, judgments, and relationships are the key to their teen’s mental health.

My assumption is that inscrutable bureaucratic reasons are the main factor in that. But it's worth noting that this is probably the main explanatory factor behind why conservative teens have so much better mental health than liberal ones; after all, the competing "it's smartphones and instagram" hypothesis doesn't explain this. And even if you assume parenting doesn't matter much in the long run, it doesn't pass the smell test to say it doesn't affect kids while they're being parented.

So, motteizeans, thought experiment- you’ve been hired by the government of a country you’ve conveniently never noticed before, let’s call it genericland. Genericland has a problem- they have an economy dependent on high tech manufactured exports using highly skilled labor that can’t be imported, it has to be homegrown, and has had a TFR of 1.5 for long enough that the government is seriously worried about a labor crunch taking them from an upper to a middle income economy in 20 years or so. They’ve hired you to raise the birthrate enough to save the economy in the long run, and are willing to spend .5% of GDP to get it to 1.8 or 1% to get it to 2.1. You don’t have reserve currency status, but genericland has excellent credit ratings. The government is dominated by long-running consensus politics and will stick with your recommendations long term. They aren’t concerned with feminism, but are dependent on remaining in American good graces and are well aware that they cannot get away with saudi-level black sheep behavior. The population is homogenous and speaks a language not spoken elsewhere, but 90% are fluent in English. Family norms are perhaps slightly more conservative than PMC American ones, but not by a wide margin. And, of course, because the government wants future factory workers, it’s strongly preferred if the fertility increase doesn’t come from genericland’s underclass and doesn’t care how it affects the elites, it needs to target the working to middle classes.

What do you do?

For myself, all women with white collar jobs get two year’s entitlement to WFH after every childbirth in addition to parental leave, in which they can’t be required in the office more often than 1x week. Renters who get married have access to a government loan to buy the apartment or house they rent, and the government issues loans to couples having a 3rd child to help buy a bigger home. At a fifth child these loans are forgiven and payments pause for three years after a fourth. The ministry of culture is directed to work with generican-language pop culture producers to promote pro-family memes, female pop stars are paid to give interviews and sing about how much they love being a mom. High schools now require ‘family formation’ classes to graduate in which teens assist existing families with childcare(particularly for girls this is strongly associated with wanting kids) and learn social skills for forming relationships, along with some basic home ec. New fathers get an automatic 5% raise regardless of employer. Female civil servants have the option to go part time if raising a child, and genericland’s many factories are enrolled in a subsidy program that pays them to allow female workers with a child under ten to work part time.

I mean, honestly, killing lots of babies in NICU is obviously a gruesome crime, but it’s justified by the exact same arguments that would be used to justify late term abortions. Is it just that the BBC, being good progressives, are squeamish about being conspicuously upset about murdering babies in a NICU?

That would be my go to assumption if this was a story in the US not being covered, but I admit that importing US culture war angles to Britain is a possible failure mode.

Surprised no one’s posted this yet: https://apnews.com/article/texas-border-water-barriers-doj-immigration-83bcb38e7f5ab613117634d0c439d6b6?taid=64bee0cde6315400010b8821&utm_campaign=TrueAnthem&utm_medium=AP&utm_source=Twitter

The justice department has filed a lawsuit against Texas for installing a system of buoy barriers in the rio grande after Mexico demanded the federal government make Texas remove them, and Greg Abbott published a response to the justice department’s demand telling them to pound sand. This comes on the heels of a news cycle about Texas border security repelling migrants into the Rio grande and using razor wire, which in turn seems to have happened once the mass bussing of migrants to places outside of Texas became old news.

Politically, Abbott is strongly incentivized to refuse to comply, even if it’s illegal, and it’s worth noting that he’s literally a constitutional lawyer and knows that he’s not going to win the lawsuit. So the most likely outcome is this getting dragged out in courts until federal agents remove the barriers themselves.

The other major culture war angle here is that the state’s defense is a previous declaration of invasion giving them the right to secure their own border, even in contravention of federal policy. This argument does not seem likely to hold up in court; it’s based on far-right legal theorizing that gained traction for political reasons. As Abbott is a thoroughly establishment creature it’s an interesting development in itself and likely portends that the Texas center-right(which, despite what the media will tell you, is solidly in control of the Texas state government) will choose to build a coalition with the far right rather than the moderate left in the future, and it probably has broader implications/lessons for far-right movements in wealthy first world countries seeking political influence.

Texas primary ballot propositions for 2024 released

https://texasgop.org/wp-content/uploads/2023/12/2024-Primary-Ballot-Propositions.pdf

You can read all thirteen of them above. They're not binding on the legislature, but in a dominant party system the results of referenda on the primary ballot have a strong say. You can read past year's propositions, and the results, here: https://texasgop.org/republican-primary-ballot-propositions/. All of the ones which aren't just fluffy signaling had at least a serious attempt to enact them by the government, except for the life amendment(this is probably because the Texas GOP isn't flat out delusional and realizes such an amendment would fail). Greg Abbott called two special sessions to address 2022's #9(school choice) and put 10,000 troops on the border to address #1(they're still there). The results of these referenda are a very strong guide to what Greg Abbott's priorities for the following legislative session are and have a lot of influence over other state officials as well- although not everything happens. And given that Texas has an economy the size of the Netherlands and the second largest population in the USA, it seems like Texas legislative priorities for the next session(Texas's legislature meets once every other year, so this is the 2025 session, not a 2024 session) are relevant culture war fodder.

To start with, a note on the secession proposal- the threshold for putting a proposition on the primary ballot is, under state law, signatures equivalent to 5% of the votes for the party's gubernatorial candidate in the last election, which for republicans turned out to be about 100k. The secessionists got 140k, then, well, read the rejection letter(https://texasgop.org/texit-prop/). To note Matt Rinaldi is not a rino; he's not using loopholes to reject this proposition because he loves Joe Biden or would be uncomfortable with the policy direction of a Texas that doesn't have to answer to DC. The Texas GOP seriously appears to want to not have to deal with the secession question right now, although a case can be made that most of the state party leadership wants to keep it in their back pocket for if a socialist gets elected or a Lebanon-style civil war breaks out or something. The Texas Nationalist Movement, which occasionally has success on less core issues, is posturing on twitter about wanting to sue the GOP to get a ballot referendum, but it'll probably just get dismissed if they do file it.

Onto the actual proposals-

1- Eliminating property taxes. Texas property taxes are legitimately too high and have to be brought under some sort of control(and the GOP primary electorate are very heavily homeowners); this proposition is probably going to pass at like 99/1. What the legislature actually does with it is unclear, but I'd expect a stricter regulation on raising property appraisals(although nothing like california's prop 13; there are enough technocrats in the legislature to avoid something so stupid) coupled with a buydown of rates.

2- Is about the border. So are 3, 4, and 5. I expect e-verify(system for checking workers to be US citizens) to be enacted, then evaded with temp agencies that never get prosecuted, the border to get tightened up, and in state tuition at state universities to require proof of citizenship. Public schools probably won't kick the illegal immigrants out.

6- Prohibiting overseas national guard deployment without a declaration of war. The national guard is technically federal troops, so there will be a very carefully worded bill about this one that winds up in court.

7- This is an interesting one. It's calling on the state government to create a metallic-standard currency through the Texas bullion depository(a real thing which already exists- https://www.texasbulliondepository.gov/). I think it's technically legal? Definitely an interesting one to watch- both the bill that gets drafted and what comptroller Glenn Hegar(who's perhaps best known for trying to shut down drag shows by sending them a bill for unpaid strip club taxes, and running an anti-ESG crusade) actually does with it if it passes.

8- Banning vaccine mandates. Boring, will pass, probably going to have a bunch of exceptions in it.

9- Closing the primary. I don't have a particularly strong opinion on this and I think it's to very mildly push the republican primary electorate towards nominating hardliners over moderates.

10- Giving the attorney general authority to prosecute election crimes. It seems like three things are notable about this- Harris county(the state's largest, it has Houston in it) is widely believed by republican primary voters to have rigged their 2022 election in favor of democrats, this is pushing a constitutional amendment so it needs to go to a public referendum after the legislature approves it, and the current attorney general is Ken Paxton.

11- School choice again. Greg Abbott is currently campaigning against republicans he blames for killing the schoolchoice bill last session; we'll see if it works this time.

12- Requiring proof of citizenship to register to vote. Tinkering with election rules is predictable drama and I expect whatever the legislature comes up with to result in a quorum bust again.

13- Ban citizens of x countries from owning land in Texas. This failed on a technicality in the last session.

I'm doing another low-stakes/small scale conspiracy theory thread(I think I'll probably start doing these once a quarter or so in the SSQ thread). What are your minor conspiracy theories? Not things that dramatically change how the world works(eg "the davos group is behind the simultaneous rise in both house prices and interest rates in the United States to eliminate home ownership"), nor that would be too interesting and sexy not to be common knowledge if they were both true and had sufficient evidence(eg "Bush was behind 9/11"). What are your boring, small scale schizo posting?

Bullets from me:

  • General health advice about salt is knowably false to most well-informed people. I think the same thing is probably true about cholesterol, but with the added motivation of public health advisors taking bribes from eg Kellogg and Coca-Cola to understate the effects of sugar, so they blame cholesterol instead.
  • The effects of Freon(R-22) on the atmosphere were drastically overstated to keep dupont's control over the provision of refrigerant at around the time the patent on R-22 was expiring.
  • School districts as a group resist adopting the best pedagogical practices to prevent enough improvement in student outcomes for the public/lawmakers to conclude they don't need more money.
  • The world population is probably massively overstated because officials in corrupt countries routinely inflate population figures in their areas of responsibility to try to seek budget increases/international aid.

On Credit Scores

I stumbled across this voxplainer on pocket: https://www.vox.com/videos/2023/12/14/24000469/what-does-credit-score-mean, and it reminded me of the Biden admin rule increasing the fees on mortgages to borrowers with good credit(https://thehill.com/opinion/finance/3978409-why-is-the-biden-administration-punishing-financially-responsible-homeowners/), and I think that at the time the justification was some kind of racial justice angle. And that in turn led me to think "golly willikers, people are going to start fighting each other over credit scores, might as well get ahead of it on the motte". (If you're not familiar with how credit scores work for some reason, here's an advertisement for a credit scoring company that explains pretty well: https://www.experian.com/blogs/ask-experian/credit-education/score-basics/understanding-credit-scores/).

Well not really, I'm not a 50's comic book character. But it seems odd in retrospect that we didn't have a motte discussion in April/May about the change in fee structure, and it seems like there is or is about to be a woke push to try to adjust credit scoring for equity reasons, and this is the kind of boring economic mismanagement that can really jack up the economy if it happens. Now most of the things vox suggests are anodyne if probably stupid and mildly negative, but it's easy to see a jump to government rules getting a whole lot stupider and more destructive; the whole sector is very heavily regulated.

Now a personal story- when I was much younger, I needed to buy a car because the beatermobile I had was broken down and I lived too far from work to walk(and in Tarrant county, there is no public transportation to speak of), and I decided I might as well buy something good that would last a while, even if I had to borrow for it, in lieu of buying another craigslist beatermobile that I'd have to replace in a year or two. I found a good gently used truck online, it was a good deal... and I got denied financing because of lack of credit history. But, my dad put it in his name and told me to get a credit card with a major bank and pay off the full amount on autopay so we didn't have to do that again. I'm still driving that truck and haven't had to spend any money on repairs in five years except new tires(because there was something in the road) and a battery(which was cheap), and I have good credit and don't need my parents to cosign loans. But I can easily imagine if I'd been estranged, didn't know who my dad was, just had parents who were financially illiterate/had bad credit(but I repeat), whatever. I would have had to buy a beatermobile, spend as much on mechanical repairs as I did on buying it, and then buy another beatermobile and do the same thing. And I wouldn't have been able to buy a house; I'd have been stuck in flophouses or the kind of apartments that don't bother to have an English language application because it's all illegal immigrants. So I can kind of see vox's point- there really are people with generational advantages(I'm one of them), although I don't think most of it is an aftereffect of 50s racism(it's mostly just lack of impulse control) some people get the short end of the stick. Most of them would probably still be behind if we had a level playing field, sure, but we don't- something as simple as "your parents can give good advice" is a major advantage, and it correlates with being the sort of person who would figure out how to have a good credit score anyways, but it's not a perfect correlation.

And for a lot of reasons, people who lack those major advantages are disproportionately black, and this isn't fixable. I happen to hold the belief that we shouldn't try very hard because of omelets, eggs, and the history of ideologically-driven progressive interventions in the economy. Current credit scoring is probably about as fair as can reasonably be expected(which is not perfectly fair). Adding financial literacy classes to high school curricula might be good, but let's be real, the kids who need the instruction aren't learning anyways. I don't think there's much to be done about it, and credit scoring formulae do what they're intended to do, which is accurately reflect creditworthiness.

However, it does not seem to me like people holding the opposite view are obviously delusional the same way as progressive attitudes towards crime are. Some people, through no fault of their own, are bad credit risks, and there really are things that don't get reported to credit agencies which probably should so some people who are good credit risks lack sufficient history for a credit score. And so we can probably expect the "we should do something to make credit scores more equitable" idea to survive the backlash against woke. Vox mentioned multiple states banning the use of credit scores in making insurance decisions; I don't support this, but it's perfectly understandable to me that some people would even if I disagree with them. It seems like this is an underrated aspect of wokeness which will probably survive and where the woke have the potential to do real damage. The Biden admin rule above I don't expect to have good results, but it also seems like something with a pretty minor impact, but which is also the tip of the iceberg. Which raises the question: what else might a woke federal government do to try to hamfistedly improve "equity" in this area?

If the war drags on for another year then even if Ukraine prevails and all the men return and start enthusiastically knocking up women

IIRC the statistically average Ukrainian woman wanted to be a mail order bride before the war, so it’s entirely possible that the vast majority of the most fertile women leave and never come back.

It isn’t exactly uncommon in desperately poor Eastern European countries for young people to really want to leave, after all.

Honestly, if you’re a conservative American man like most motteizeans, finding a middle of the roader to moderate liberal by Ukrainian standards woman from a country poorer than Mexico(or for that matter some of the even worse shitholes south of it) is probably a lot easier than finding a local who shares your values.

Back to aliens again- I haven’t seen this posted yet. https://abc7.com/amp/mexico-aliens-corpses-ufos/13776957/

Tdlr is Mexico’s congress has what are claimed to be mummified alien bodies ‘with eggs inside’ which is a significant escalation if you assume they’re copying the US congress.

Now obviously I don’t believe in aliens, and it’s going to take a bit more effort than that to convince me. But one government is pushing an aliens narrative, and now a different government which has a lot of official tensions with it is pushing an aliens narrative. There’s got to be some reason governments would do aliens.

My question is why? Is it something that just makes sense to government officials?

I think the answer is ‘maybe, maybe not, but he can almost certainly get away with it for a while and it’s cold comfort to an Indian housewife who has to send her children to the sweatshops because of her husband’s gambling addiction that she’ll eventually start getting some portion of his checks’.

So, this feels up the motte's alley- https://www.romecall.org/the-call/

I apologize for the Vatican's web design. TLDR important figures from the major Abrahamaic religions have signed a call for AI ethics which has also been signed onto by representatives from, among others, IBM, Microsoft, and the Italian government.

It's not 100% clear to me what any of this means, per se-

Now more than ever, we must guarantee an outlook in which AI is developed with a focus not on technology, but rather for the good of humanity and of the environment, of our common and shared home and of its human inhabitants, who are inextricably connected. In other words, a vision in which human beings and nature are at the heart of how digital innovation is developed, supported rather than gradually replaced by technologies that behave like rational actors but are in no way human. It is time to begin preparing for more technological future in which machines will have a more important role in the lives of human beings, but also a future in which it is clear that technological progress affirms the brilliance of the human race and remains dependent on its ethical integrity

and

in this context and at a national and international level, to promote “algor-ethics”, namely the ethical use of AI as defined by the following principles:

• Transparency: in principle, AI systems must be explainable;

• Inclusion: the needs of all human beings must be taken into consideration so that everyone can benefit and all individuals can be offered the best possible conditions to express themselves and develop;

• Responsibility: those who design and deploy the use of AI must proceed with responsibility and transparency;

• Impartiality: do not create or act according to bias, thus safeguarding fairness and human dignity;

• Reliability: AI systems must be able to work reliably;

• Security and privacy: AI systems must work securely and respect the privacy of users.

Are more like typical Francis-era Vatican boilerplate than anything concrete. But as a milestone it's probably the first time anyone even attempted to define AI ethics, isn't it? Anyways, I'd be interested in hearing from Motteizans who know a lot more about AI than I do(which, to be clear, is that it's hilarious to feed ChatbotGPT black nationalist conspiracy theories) about what this probably means.

How is this different from "You’ve put yourself in a dangerous situation because you’ve done a foolish thing by flirting with that guy wearing that dress"?

Who/whom.

You also, as walterodim points out below, have a situation where there’s no language to describe sexual bad behavior other than ‘unconsensual’. I think everyone acknowledges that making a move on a vulnerable woman when she’s a bit drunk is taking advantage of her, but it’s not rape. And feminism simply doesn’t have the vocabulary for ‘it’s a scummy thing that everyone involved has consented to’, nor does it have any ability to conceptualize the need for that vocabulary.

And conservative communities have little difficulty producing positive role models for boys. Which seems like an obvious drawback- leftist communities need to astroturf someone into a role that is already filled elsewhere.

I'm struggling with his statement because it seems like the "filmed sex tape at work in the Senate hearing room on Amy Koobuchar's desk" is more of the issue here than the staffer's sexuality itself, but the language used insinuates that he is using his sexuality as a defense for an act that straight people also probably could not have "gotten away" with.

That seems pretty common, though. There is quite a bit of "but it's OK when straight people do it, bigot" directed at opponents of gay pride parades and the like.

Obviously the uncharitable explanation is that gay men are all perverts, but that's not the sort of thing that, well actually I guess it could be a quality contribution if you put enough effort into it, but it usually isn't and I don't particularly want to do it. It's also not a particularly interesting explanation. I think it's more productive to discuss what the charitable explanations are- not because I like gays, but because they're probably not all just evil, that's rarely a good model of anybody.

Instead I think there's an experiential gap. Gay male culture is simply accepting of things within itself(very public displays of sexuality, harassment-ish behavior, teen sex, extreme promiscuity, etc) which are controversial to verboten among straight people. I think that neither gays nor their straight allies are aware of both sides of this- gays that it's not considered acceptable to simulate sex in public in the straight community, straight allies that the gay community doesn't care about such things or understand why anyone would. And obviously that has relevance for gay pride parades- a bunch of straight people parading down main street doing the exact same things would get arrested for indecent exposure and public nudity, and I don't think the pro-pride-parades side is willing to acknowledge that. But it also has relevance for all sorts of other things; the gay stuff in schools is controversial, but sex ed was hot culture war when it was "sometimes when a mommy and daddy love each other very much....", too. And in the current case, waving identity about like a shield probably will not save his job, but it might allow him to get a job at some LGBT NGO or other, because there's just a big experiential gap about how big of a faux pas it is.

The Texas state government claims that migrants boarding busses volunteered to go wherever they were being sent(and my prior is that setting foot in a refugee camp on the border and asking "Quieres una boleta gratis a Nueva York?" would result in very many takers, so this isn't implausible, and the Texas government has produced waivers signed by migrants before) and that food and water are stocked on the busses(I believe this, if only because you don't do anything to move groups of people in south Texas in the summer without laying in water) and migrants are offered a medical exam before boarding(I am more skeptical of this one, at least if the medical exam is more extensive than a national guard soldier checking to make sure no passengers have open wounds or are in labor before departure).