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non_radical_centrist


				

				

				

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joined 2022 September 23 15:54:21 UTC
				

				

				

				

				

				

					
				

				

				
				
				

				
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non_radical_centrist


								

								

								
								
								

								
							
					
 
				


				

				
				
				

				

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					joined 2022 September 23 15:54:21 UTC
				


				
					

					
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User ID: 1327


					
					
					
				

			


					

						
					



		

	

 











			
			

			
			

			




	


		

			
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				Friday Fun Thread for November 24, 2023
			
		

	

	

	

		
			

			

				

			

		

			


				

					
I recently got a nicer mouse that has 8 extra buttons you can customize. I have to say it's very nice and I fully recommend it. I also got bands for my glasses so they don't slip off, and it's also been nice having them not slip at all


				

				

						

							

								
							

						


						
					

				
			


			

	


			
			
				

			
		

	






		

			
			
				Culture War Roundup for the week of April 29, 2024
			
		

	

	

	

		
			

			

				

			

		

			


				

					
I don't have anything to say directly on the content, but writers like Zizek who seem to try to make their writing as difficult to parse as possible in order to show off their vocabulary have always annoyed me. There are times when a big, unusual word captures something that a shorter word doesn't, or is more convenient than using a string of shorter common words to represent the same concept. But when you're having to take a second to understand a phrase, time after time, it's irritating.


				

				

						

							

								
							

						


						
					

				
			


			

	


			
			
				

			
		

	






		

			
			
				How Should We Think About Race And "Lived Experience"?
			
		

	

	

	

		
			

			

				

			

		

			


				

					
Scott agrees with you, except for the assertion that biological race is entirely useless. Biological race is what ancestry.com identifies you as when you do a DNA test. It's different but has substantial overlap with cultural race. Biological race is, usually, less useful than cultural race, but that doesn't mean it doesn't exist like how, say, a biological Star Wars fan doesn't exist. There are lots of genes associated with certain geographic regions and cultures, there aren't genes particularly associated with liking Star Wars.


				

				

						

							

								
							

						


						
					

				
			


			

	


			
			
				

			
		

	






		

			
			
				Culture War Roundup for the week of February 20, 2023
			
		

	

	

	

		
			

			

				

			

		

			


				

					
I think Ukraine has a much better chance at regaining their full sovereignty through military force than Palestine does though, so Russia would have to give a lot in their compromise. In my view there's a very low chance that Palestine's current strategy will even reverse the Israeli settlements, let alone lead to something like a single state that's majority Palestinian, or a two state solution with the 1948 borders. But I think there's a good chance Ukraine's current strategy will push things back to the 2021 scenario, and possibly even back to 2013 borders.


6 years is a lot less than 60 years. If Russia held onto Crimea for another 50 years, I would say Ukraine at that point should give up on ever reclaiming Crimea. I'd also say Taiwan and China should both give up on ever unifying, and North and South Korea should also both give up on ever unifying.




So by your own logic, it's Ukraine's fault that they're at war with Russia, because they don't want to negotiate peace by sacrificing their territory to the invader, which is an unreasonably inflexible position for a country that is being invaded.




The current war started from Russia pushing far further than Crimea, not by Ukraine refusing to acknowledge Russia's sovereignty over Crimea.




But for sake of argument, let's assume Palestina is willing to compromise. Do you think Israel would accept the original 1947 borders assigned by the UN? Or the 1949 green line which assigned the Golan heights, the Gaza strip, East Jerusalem and the West Bank to Palestine? I think there is no chance they would. This makes it obvious that Israel is just as guilty, if not more so, of obstructing a peaceful solution.




I do not think Israel would. But I think asking for those, at this point, is asking for too much. Palestine went to war with Israel to try to expand their borders, and Palestine lost; there are consequences for losing wars like that.


I think these sorts of problems are tricky because there are a few different lenses to view this through. One lens is, what is the best possible world, even if it's totally unrealistic? Like say I was Prime Minister of Israel and magically had 99% popularity and for some reason 99% of the Palestinians also loved me and would go along with whatever I said in the short term, what solution would I propose that would lead to the best utilitarian outcome? I think I'd want all Israelis to leave the settlements, Israel signs a binding treaty guaranteed by a bunch of countries that they won't do any more settlements, Palestine gets that land back and is officially recognized by everyone as an independent country, Palestine's military is still limited for the next ~15 years, and Israel and the US pumps a ton of money in aid and infrastructure into building up Palestine.


But that just wouldn't ever happen. So another lens is, what is the best world that's remotely possible to actually happen and we should be striving towards making? I think it would be something like the Camp David Accords, where Israel gets to keep a lot of the settlements still. Because realistically, Israel is in a much stronger negotiating position than Palestine.


But if absolutely nothing else, I think Palestinians need to actually come out with a proposal for peace. Would Palestine even actually accept the 1947 borders themselves? There can't be any sort of compromise until Palestinian leadership comes forward with concrete demands. That they don't is fairly damning in my eyes.


				

				

						

							

								
							

						


						
					

				
			


			

	


			
			
				

			
		

	






		

			
			
				Culture War Roundup for the week of March 20, 2023
			
		

	

	

	

		
			

			

				

			

		

			


				

					


Miranda he 33 year old lawyer with 42 partners and chlamydia is basically guaranteed to be miserable for the next 45 years of her statistical life.




I'm not convinced a counter-factual Miranda with 0 partners and 0 chlamydia at age 33 would have a particularly easier time finding a man who'll make her happy for the next 45 years of her life.


There's lots of references in the redpill-sphere of how high body count leads to infidelity, but that sounds like something very easily prone to mistaking correlation for causation. I think it's very plausible that women with high body counts have high body counts because they enjoy having sex with lots of different people, and that that desire was already present in them before they had sex for the first time.


				

				

						

							

								
							

						


						
					

				
			


			

	


			
			
				

			
		

	






		

			
			
				Culture War Roundup for the week of March 4, 2024
			
		

	

	

	

		
			

			

				

			

		

			


				

					


I wanted to write about my state banning non-"cage free" eggs




The blatant lying aside, where do you stand on animal rights? Chicken cages do look fairly torturous.


				

				

						

							

								
							

						


						
					

				
			


			

	


			
			
				

			
		

	






		

			
			
				Small-Scale Question Sunday for March 3, 2024
			
		

	

	

	

		
			

			

				

			

		

			


				

					
When do you think a group of people are justified in seceding from their larger nation state? I generally lean towards that people generally should be allowed to have self-determination, but there are lots of complicating factors. Like imagine a county of Alphastan, majority Alphstani, which has one province which is 60% Betlish and 40% Alphstani. If that province wants to secede, when would that be permissible? What would be acceptable actions from the Betlish population if the Alphstani majority would doing things like oppressing their language in federal schools? What should the Alphstani reaction be if they had reason to believe that, if the province did secede, they'd start oppressing the Alphstani minority there? What if Alphstanis used to have a majority in that province, but then their hostile neighbor of Betland started sending settlers in as a preemptive move to try to annex that province?


All those scenarios aren't particularly important in and of themselves, I just want to have a better framework of when I should be supporting independence movements vs not. One area in particular that divides me in real life is Crimea- from what I understand, that area probably really would prefer to be part of Russia than Ukraine. But that's only after Russia has taken the region by force and increased the number of Russians living there.


				

				

						

							

								
							

						


						
					

				
			


			

	


			
			
				

			
		

	






		

			
			
				Israel-Gaza Megathread #1
			
		

	

	

	

		
			

			

				

			

		

			


				

					
I don’t think there’s any plausible scenario the leads to Palestine being free from river to sea. They’re an US ally, so presumably even if they did start getting pushed back immensely the US would intervene to stabilize the IDF.


Maybe if Israel commits such atrocities in Gaza that the US feels the need to completely distance themselves from Israel, it compels all the arab neighbours to intervene against Israel, and Israel is unable to fight them off on its own like it has multiple times in the past. But that’s a lot of ifs.


				

				

						

							

								
							

						


						
					

				
			


			

	


			
			
				

			
		

	






		

			
			
				Culture War Roundup for the week of February 20, 2023
			
		

	

	

	

		
			

			

				

			

		

			


				

					


Sure, but that's mostly because the U.S. and the West heavily support Ukraine, while sanctioning Russia. If the U.S. and the West heavily supported Palestine and sanctioned Israel, Palestine would stand a much better chance of repelling the Israeli invaders too.






You realize this is kind of circular reasoning right? “We support whichever side has a chance to win” combined with “whichever side we support probably wins” means you can choose which side to support almost arbitrarily.




I don't think the logic is circular. We support Israel for other reasons. Similarly for Ukraine. I am not saying the US should provide military arms to Israel because Israel is stronger than Palestine; I think the US should provide military arms to Israel because they are important ally against Iran. And I think the US should provide military arms to Ukraine because they're an important ally against Russia.


Those countries being in those strong positions changes how other nations should act. When Palestine launches missiles at Israel, I think it falls under Talleyrand's quote of "it was worse than a crime, it was a mistake". Palestine gains nothing besides a feeling of self-righteousness by continuing the conflict. Ukraine does gain a higher likelihood of retaking its territory by continuing the conflict.




Not to rehash the entire history of Israel, but there were no Israeli borders when Zionists declared a Jewish state in the middle of a predominantly Arab area. The surrounding Arab countries (Palestine did not exist as a nation when Israel was founded) didn't take kindly to that and invaded. Yes, they lost, but again: this is basically the same argument of “might makes right”. And to repeat my position: if that's your view, then you cannot moralize about Russia occupying Crimea or Donbas.




I think time changes things. If I was alive in 1945 and in the British government, I might speak out against carving out territory to form Israel. But 80 years has passed, things have changed. Like say we magically discovered a new continent in the Pacific Ocean with primitive peoples in it; I would speak out against modern nations conquering it by force and moving their inhabitants to reservations. And if it was conquered, I would want the conquerors to reverse their decision and give the land back. But it happening recently is important; I do not think the modern US should give back land it conquered 150 years ago to natives, or that modern Russia should give Siberia back to the natives there.


What are your opinions about what should be US policy regarding Israel/Palestine and Ukraine/Russia?


				

				

						

							

								
							

						


						
					

				
			


			

	


			
			
				

			
		

	






		

			
			
				Culture War Roundup for the week of January 2, 2023
			
		

	

	

	

		
			

			

				

			

		

			


				

					
I don't think there are any easy solutions here. What do you think should be done if the mother doesn't want to abort but the father wants to just ditch both the mother and child? What should be done for mothers who put their own career to the side to focus on taking care of the home and children, but they find out their husband has been cheating on them? I don't think there are easy answers for those. Maybe family courts as they are are too biased towards women, but I think there is no good alternative.


				

				

						

							

								
							

						


						
					

				
			


			

	


			
			
				

			
		

	






		

			
			
				FILM REVIEW: India the Worst country on Earth
			
		

	

	

	

		
			

			

				

			

		

			


				

					
I don't read much of Kulak's stuff, I find most of his writing to be wrong in some way. I would call this piece he had pretty racist too, since it implicitly dismisses any possible environmental cause for India's woes. The amount of extreme government disfunction, poor nutrition and poor healthcare many, many Indians receive I think are very plausible candidates for low human capital there, which he doesn't address at all.


				

				

						

							

								
							

						


						
					

				
			


			

	


			
			
				

			
		

	






		

			
			
				Small-Scale Question Sunday for April 7, 2024
			
		

	

	

	

		
			

			

				

			

		

			


				

					
I don't think Cuba is doing that well, even if they're doing better than some of the Caribbean nations. Maybe they're evidence that authoritarianism can be better than democracy, when the voters inevitably elect populists who just turn the country into authoritarianism with a veneer of democracy anyway. I don't think Cuba is evidence that centrally planned economies are better than free markets.


https://www.discoursemagazine.com/p/in-cuba-the-terminal-stage-of-communism


				

				

						

							

								
							

						


						
					

				
			


			

	


			
			
				

			
		

	






		

			
			
				Culture War Roundup for the week of January 30, 2023
			
		

	

	

	

		
			

			

				

			

		

			


				

					
I really can't imagine what could've been a better geopolitical victory for America short of Putin reading John Locke and deciding to go all out on pushing democracy and individual rights then retiring.


				

				

						

							

								
							

						


						
					

				
			


			

	


			
			
				

			
		

	






		

			
			
				Culture War Roundup for the week of January 23, 2023
			
		

	

	

	

		
			

			

				

			

		

			


				

					


I genuinely have no idea why anyone would prefer porn over sex.




Ease. No need to get your partner in the mood, no need to pleasure your partner, you get to focus solely on your own pleasure when you want to be pleasured and you're done when you want to be done.


				

				

						

							

								
							

						


						
					

				
			


			

	


			
			
				

			
		

	






		

			
			
				Small-Scale Question Sunday for March 31, 2024
			
		

	

	

	

		
			

			

				

			

		

			


				

					


As for actually answering your question—the only winning move is not to play. Reneging on a popular promise is suicide. A politician ought not to make ones he thinks are stupid or immoral. He should run on a positive platform that just happens to deprioritize or counter the popular thing; it’s much easier to be ignored than be told you’re a dumb idiot.




Sure, but say 2 years into a 5 year term there's a massive gasoline shortage, and the majority of people start calling for price caps like in the 70s. What do the politicians do then?


				

				

						

							

								
							

						


						
					

				
			


			

	


			
			
				

			
		

	






		

			
			
				Culture War Roundup for the week of March 4, 2024
			
		

	

	

	

		
			

			

				

			

		

			


				

					


There are more accounts of casting out of demons that appear that appear in four books. Foot washing only appears in one. From the response of the disciples it seems like the first time.






My thoughts are that 'Big Eva' frequently presents an unbalanced view of Jesus. It's all love and footwasing, where this is only half the story. 'As yourselves', is frequently missing from 'Love your Neighbor'




I can get the argument that 'Big Eva' didn't spend their money the best way because they presented an unbalanced view of Jesus. But I don't see the argument that anything they said about Jesus was actually false.




Also if they're sacrificing children to Molech they should be stoned to death.




When does Jesus ever endorse stoning anyone to death?


				

				

						

							

								
							

						


						
					

				
			


			

	


			
			
				

			
		

	






		

			
			
				Friday Fun Thread for January 19, 2024
			
		

	

	

	

		
			

			

				

			

		

			


				

					
https://old.reddit.com/r/PoliticalCompassMemes/comments/sjeplg/which_way_lib_right/


This meme contains more wisdom about politics in it than most books about politics do. It displays 5 starving children about to be run over by a trolley, a metaphor for how every day many, many people die from circumstances that are both preventable but out of those people's control. There is a rich man capable of saving them, but for whatever reason he doesn't want to. He didn't cause their doom, but he has the ability to stop it. Maybe he has a reason behind not wanting to save them, like he's really busy and a second of his time is worth thousands of dollars, or maybe he's a sadist who enjoys watching people die, but regardless he's not the one who put them on the tracks. Then there's you, with a gun, which gives you greater power than even the richest man if he doesn't have a gun. This is a metaphor for state power and how its individuals like us that ultimately control the state with its monopoly on power. You can force the rich person to save the children. Using force on an innocent person is normally very wrong, but is it justifiable to save even more innocents?


And this isn't just a hypothetical with no true real world comparison. There are many, many rich people out there whose wealth the US could tax or otherwise seize, and spend that money on saving real lives. Most of the affordable lives to save are outside America, but there are even American lives that could be saved if a portion of Bezos' wealth was seized.


Now today I personally believe that generally US taxes are high enough that any social benefit from even higher taxes is offset by the negative effects on the economy. But I do very much think that the optimal taxes are much higher than 0, and that going full libertarian would result in a lot of people suffering who could be helped if billionaires had a bit of their yacht money taken away.


				

				

						

							

								
							

						


						
					

				
			


			

	


			
			
				

			
		

	






		

			
			
				Culture War Roundup for the week of February 20, 2023
			
		

	

	

	

		
			

			

				

			

		

			


				

					


It would be nice to hear those reasons rather than the usual “of course invading another country is bad!” which is clearly not an issue when it concerns Israel, so it cannot be the true reason for opposing Russia. (That's assuming a lot of the Ukraine supporters are also Israel supporters.)




I gave those reasons, Israel is an important ally against Iran(and other actors in the middle east), and Ukraine is an important ally against Russia. If you want me to give a full breakdown about why it's important to have allies against Russia and Iran I could, but it'll take me a decent amount of time to refresh myself and compile arguments and I think it's getting a bit off topic. Especially since my argument is not that "We should ensure the existence of Israel to oppose Iran", it's that "Given that Israel is not likely to cease to exist anytime soon, Palestine should pursue a strategy that is not trying to make Israel cease to exist".




But Israel is unique in that it's probably the only country in the world that has been flagrantly violating international law virtually non-stop since its inception. It's one thing to forgive someone who mistreated you 60 years ago, but quite something else to forgive someone that has been mistreating you continuously for the past 60 years and shows no willingness to do better in the future.




Palestine has been also attacking Israel non-stop for the past 60 years. I'd be a lot more sympathetic to claims like "Israel just bombed a school and killed Palestinian civilians, they're evil!" if Palestine wasn't launching missiles from schools. I think Israel can and should stop building settlements, I don't think there's much else as a state Israel can do to stop abusing Palestine without jeopardizing their own national security. Individual Israeli soldiers sometimes commit abuses against Palestinians that are unnecessary and cruel, but that's only so much a state can do to prevent their soldiers from committing crimes beyond punishing them after the fact.




and stop supporting Israel until they withdraw within their internationally recognized borders




I don't think the US should support Israel because Israel is aggrieved, I think the US should support Israel because they're an ally that provides utility to the US. The US supports Israel for selfish reasons, like how it supports Saudi Arabia and Pakistan. Ukraine is different because the US supports Ukraine for both selfish reasons(to oppose Russia) and selfless reasons(helping a people who're having their land stolen). That said if Israel got sufficiently bad, like they were rounding up Palestinians into gas chambers or Netanyahu declared himself a president for life, I think that would outweigh the benefits of supporting Israel. Personally, I don't think Israel's current actions outweigh their value as an ally.


				

				

						

							

								
							

						


						
					

				
			


			

	


			
			
				

			
		

	






		

			
			
				Culture War Roundup for the week of January 23, 2023
			
		

	

	

	

		
			

			

				

			

		

			


				

					
I mostly disagree, there are a few natural categories like periodic elements, since every element has an exact integer number of protons; but pretty much everything more complex than an atom does not fit into a natural category.


For flight, you'll get into blurry areas when you consider stuff like gliding, whether an animal can fly but only under optimal nutrition and wind conditions, animals that have true flight but for shorter distances than some other animals can jump, etc.


For whatever definition of "flying animal" you can come up with, I'm pretty sure I could come up with an exception, unless maybe you write a couple hundred words in your definition explicitly listing exceptions to the point where it's a very obviously unwieldy and not particularly natural category.


				

				

						

							

								
							

						


						
					

				
			


			

	


			
			
				

			
		

	






		

			
			
				[AstralCodexTen]Book Review: The Origins of Woke
			
		

	

	

	

		
			

			

				

			

		

			


				

					
Part of what makes it obviously artificial is that hispanic is an ethnicity, not a race, in the US census. So someone can be both hispanic and white, or hispanic and black, or even hispanic and Asian American Pacific Islander! And it was chosen like that because black activists didn't want to lose any influence from black spanish speakers choosing to identify as hispanic over black.


				

				

						

							

								
							

						


						
					

				
			


			

	


			
			
				

			
		

	






		

			
			
				How Should We Think About Race And "Lived Experience"?
			
		

	

	

	

		
			

			

				

			

		

			


				

					


There probably are people who will deny that there is some genetic variation in different populations if you cherry pick for radicals, but just because something is a social construct doesn't mean it has no utility.




There are lots of people who deny that race has any biological basis. If you grill them on what exactly they mean by it they might eventually realize that obviously race has some biological basis, but otherwise, they'll be pushing HR policies and going to the ballot box working under the assumption there is no such thing as biological race.




Saying something is a social construct was never meant (in a serious discussion) to mean it is useless.




He concludes with essentially saying that the social construct definition, where race is based off lived experience, is more meaningful anyways.


				

				

						

							

								
							

						


						
					

				
			


			

	


			
			
				

			
		

	






		

			
			
				Violent Class: the Point of Empire.
			
		

	

	

	

		
			

			

				

			

		

			


				

					
I recently completed basic training in the Canadian military. About 8 of the 50 who graduated with me were going to infantry next. Personally, they didn't seem dumber than anyone else, and over all my platoon in basic seemed about average intelligence, with maybe the dumbest and smartest tails cut off.


I do agree everyone who went infantry was motivated by a desire to "be a badass", David Goggins in particular as a major inspiration to a lot of people.


				

				

						

							

								
							

						


						
					

				
			


			

	


			
			
				

			
		

	






		

			
			
				Culture War Roundup for the week of May 15, 2023
			
		

	

	

	

		
			

			

				

			

		

			


				

					


Many white women went along with the anti-white bandwagon in the (naive) belief that the mob would spare them. Well, they sure did miscalculate on that one. In fact, I get the sense that white women are often treated worse than white men in the media when there's a pile-on like now. There's a particular resentful nastiness to the "Karen" insult - which again is only applied to white women and not women of other races - which has no real equivalent among white men.




Many people have observed that terms like "Karen" and "white women moment" let people get away with blatant sexism that would be otherwise considered unacceptable. While I think the woke movement has gone too far in general, I think it's a real thing that a vocal minority of people hold anger and bigotry towards women. And where for a little while that bigotry was unacceptable in public discourse, it's situationally acceptable again as long as it's against a white woman.


				

				

						

							

								
							

						


						
					

				
			


			

	


			
			
				

			
		

	






		

			
			
				Culture War Roundup for the week of April 24, 2023
			
		

	

	

	

		
			

			

				

			

		

			


				

					


"Controversy" like playing footsie with the idea the election as stolen? If so, do you think Fox always cares about controversy?




I think Fox probably should be firing people who have lied or severely misled about the facts of the 2020 election.




Let's put it another way: let's say this information leaked about Fox (or any other workplace) but there was zero lawsuit risk. How important do you think the "controversy" would be in practical terms?




I think it's a tough comparison because before you fire someone for skepticism about the 2020 election, you've got to firmly establish the facts of what happened in the 2020 election. That takes some time to do. Whereas Don Lemon's comments,




“Nikki Haley isn’t in her prime, sorry,” the journalist said in February while discussing Haley’s suggestion that politicians over age 75 should be subject to mental competency tests. “When a woman is considered to be in her prime — in her 20s, 30s and maybe her 40s.”






When Harlow, 40, asked her cohost to clarify, Lemon said that an internet search would explain what he meant. “Don’t shoot the messenger, I’m just saying what the facts are,” the Transparent author told his fellow anchor. “Google it. … Nikki Haley should be careful about saying that politicians are not in their prime, and they need to be in their prime when they serve. Because she wouldn’t be in her prime, according to Google or whatever it is.




are pretty clearly sexist to me. Unless I'm missing some key context, it's saying a women's prime as a politician is equivalent to her prime as a sexual partner. That's just clear cut not acceptable for a mainstream news anchor to be saying, at least if the news network isn't trying to break into some dissident right niche.


				

				

						

							

								
							

						


						
					

				
			


			

	


			
			
				

			
		

	






		

			
			
				Culture War Roundup for the week of March 6, 2023
			
		

	

	

	

		
			

			

				

			

		

			


				

					


"Hello, would you like to have sex with me?" is not an appropriate thing to say to a woman unless you are in a relationship with her.




Maybe it should be. Right now, I feel like a lot women are under the impression that most of their male friends do not want to have sex with them. I don't know the exact numbers, and I can't think of a way to find out the exact numbers, but I'm pretty sure a lot of men would be happy to fuck their female friends if given a no-strings-attached opportunity. Especially the single males but even a decent amount of guys in a relationship. But I constantly see stories like this, where a woman finds out a man wants to have sex with her, and she's disgusted. But why is she surprised? I understand that she doesn't want the sexual attention, but that doesn't change the fact that it exists, and women should be aware of just how common it is. Just because being aware of true facts is good. Lots of woman are friends with lots of men who sexually desire them, but the men just keep it a secret- would it be that much of a disaster if it wasn't a secret, if women were aware their friends desired them?


Maybe our current equilibrium is better. Maybe putting immense pressure on men not to let women know that they're sexually desired is good and prevents women from being pressured into sex they don't want. Maybe this equilibrium has to exist otherwise women would only make friends with the portion of men who genuinely don't want to have sex with them, so other men need to fake not having desire to make female friends. But it still just leaves me scratching my head when I see the degree to which women are shocked and disgusted when they learn that they're desired, since it shows that their mental model of the world was pretty damn off.