omw_68
1d ago
The culture war element here is that there are women going on the defense for Lindsay Clancy because she is a woman and because they want to defend the people who think like them. It's a combination of insane empathy coupled with identity politics that makes this what it is. It’s mostly the same crowd that demands full agency for women who are now pivoting to "women have no agency, so it's not her fault" to defend one of their own.
Yeah, I pretty much agree with this 100%. I don't have a strong opinion about the case itself -- quite possibly she really did have a psychotic break. My objection is to people (mainly women) who automatically side with her because she's a woman. And to this idea that women get to pivot back and forth between being children and adults depending on what's most convenient. And to this idea that women should never be held criminally responsible for anything. (Admittedly, the last two sentences exaggerate the feminist position a bit, but it's really not that much of an exaggeration.)
omw_68
2d ago
Perhaps what you are trying to argue is that all things equal a larger amount of black crime would be interracial compared to white crime?
It seems to me that this would apply equally to both perpetration and victimization, so @Jiro 's point still doesn't make any sense.
So for example, suppose there are 100 blacks and 100,000,000 whites in society. If crime is randomly distributed, one would expect that if a black person is involved in a crime, almost certainly the other participant is white (while at the same time, if a white person is involved in a crime, almost certainly the other participant is NOT black).
But critically, this point applies equally to both black perpetrators AND black victims. So that if one looks only at interracial crimes, the ratio should still be equal.
Here's the point that was being responded to:
nearly all cross-race rapes between Whites and Blacks involve a White female victim
The argument that @Jiro made -- about relative sizes of populations -- doesn't explain this at all.
omw_68
2d ago
Damn, are we even breaking arithmetic and/or algebra to carry water for blacks now?
FWIW I agree that @Jiro's math is nonsensical. It doesn't matter what the relative population sizes are, because a smaller population size means fewer potential rapists and fewer potential victims, which should precisely balance out (assuming even distribution of criminality and random victim selection).
that does mean that black men are more prone to committing rape than white men and/or are more likely to commit interracial rape.
Part of the issue, which came out during the Duke Lacrosse hoax, is that white on black rape is so rare as to be practically unheard of. This is a fact which causes liberals to freak out almost as much as other, more talked-about, racial disparities. And probably it's part of the reason why hoaxes like Duke Lacrosse can get so much traction.
omw_68
2d ago
I read "nearly all" to be a statement about ratios, not absolute numbers
Even so, your math is completely wrong. In a hypothetical world where (1) blacks and whites are equally likely to be rapists; and (2) victims are chosen at random, one would expect the ratio to be 1:1 as between black on white rape and white on black rape.
omw_68
3d ago
There isn't much of an opposite side on the Russian invasion of Ukraine
I tend to disagree with this, but in the interest of avoiding a culture war skirmish, perhaps you can give me a few examples of popular views on the Latest Thing for which you would agree there is an opposite side?
omw_68
3d ago
Sadly, I've spoken to enough friends in real life to know that it isn't astroturfed.
Are these friends the sort of people who more or less go along with the Latest Thing? For example, how did they feel about the Russian invasion of the Ukraine?
If your friends are real independent thinkers, then fine, but in my experience such persons are pretty rare. And if they aren't independent thinkers, the fact that they oppose data centers (arguably) is not evidence one way or another on the astroturf issue.
Perhaps I am misusing the word "astroturf" here. I don't dispute that there are a lot of real people out there who are opposed to data centers. I just get the feeling that there is some institution or government entity which is quietly rousing and encouraging the opposition. It reminds me of the anti-nuke campaigns in the 1980s
omw_68
4d ago
I have not been following the issue closely, but FWIW to me there is kind of an astroturf vibe to this opposition to data centers.
omw_68
4d ago
The problem is, those are all sort of plausible lies
I basically agree. I think it would have been "roughly equivalent" if (1) he had claimed to have been a medal of honor winner who singlehandedly prevented the massacre of a village; and (2) he had publicly made the claim BEFORE he had been made professor in 1979.
The world, of course, is full of liars. But a rarer breed is a person who I would call a "compulsive liar." What I mean by this is a person who instead of telling lies which are occasional, calculated, plausible, and difficult to falsify, tells lies which are outrageous on their face (or at least highly suspect), and much less likely to stand up to mild scrutiny.
When a person is a compulsive liar, it usually becomes pretty clear after the second or third whopper, at which point most people stop taking the person seriously.
I think it would be extremely difficult, perhaps impossible, for a straight white man to make it through college and grad school and to get hired as a professor if he were a compulsive liar. Because at each level there are recommendations, interviews, etc. and it's difficult to get past these hurdles if (1) people don't take you seriously; and (2) for whatever reason you are unable to stop yourself from making statements which damage your credibility.
So what was different about Jason Arday? It seems to me it's pretty obvious the difference was race. That Cambridge was desperate to hire a black professor and people in the academy are (reasonably) scared to death to question or criticize a black academic.
omw_68
4d ago
"Roughly equivalent" has to do a lot of work
But it's necessary work, in my opinion. So for example, as best as I can tell from the Wikipedia article, Ellis became a full professor in 1979 and started BSing about his past some time after 1981. Moreover, the lies he told were not outrageous on their face, or even highly suspect.
In my view, it would have been roughly equivalent if (1) he'd claimed to have been a medal of honor winner who had singledhandedly prevented a massacre of a village; and (2) he had made the claim publicly BEFORE being hired and/or promoted. But I don't think something like that would have happened. Because people aren't (and weren't) afraid to express skepticism about a straight white man in the way in that in 2026 people are afraid to express skepticism about a black person.
I think that most people have met compulsive liars in their lives. People who constantly tell stories which are just not that believable on their face. For the most part, such people just aren't taken seriously. In my view, what's different about this case is that (1) the compulsive liar was a black person; (2) Cambridge University desperately wanted to hire a black person to be a professor; and (3) people in academia are (legitimately) scared to death of publicly criticizing a black academic.
In other words, it seems to me this is all about race and is not just some kind of generalized groupthink phenomenon which could just as easily apply to a white person. A white person who was a compulsive liar would, generally speaking NOT get into a situation like this.
omw_68
5d ago
I mean, I have to think a great many people realized his autobiographical tall tales were bullshit, but treated them as just that - the tall tales of an eccentric egotist, which academia isn't short on
I would challenge you to identify 3 individuals who (1) are straight white men; (2) are or were professors at mainstream universities; (3) had publicly spun tall tales roughly equivalent to those of Jason Arday (i.e. numerous and highly suspect on their face); and (4) were nonetheless hired and/or promoted in spite of their autobiographical tall tales.
I'm skeptical that such individuals exist. And if they don't, it lends support to the hypothesis that Arday's race was the main factor. That either (1) people knew he was there just to be a black professor and therefore didn't care about this other stuff; or (2) were scared to death of saying anything negative about Arday for fear of being accused of racism.
omw_68
5d ago
I would agree that, broadly defined, emergencyism is pretty common. Perhaps it would be better to call it a "war mentality." Because for the most part, the rhetoric I have seen is framed along the lines of "this is necessary in light of the circumstances" as opposed to "this is only temporary," although the two arguments are really not all that different.
In any event, here's my question: Suppose you are dealing with a political opponent which has an emergencyist or war mentality towards your group. Rightly or wrongly, they see your group as a dire threat and they feel justified in doing what would otherwise be seen as pretty bad things in order to defeat you. Would you agree that under such circumstances, the rational thing to do is to adopt a similar mentality yourself?
I'm not a representative of Israel, but I am pretty sure Israel would claim that it's Jew hatred.
This is apparently from the original Hamas charter:
Of course, anyone can say anything about their motivations, and people (obviously) have a strong tendency to engage in whitewashing when describing their motivations. It's pretty likely that if you asked Hamas leadership today about their motivations, they would insist it's just about "fighting Zionism."
But consider that (1) Egypt occupied Gaza for many years; and (2) Egypt blockaded Gaza for many years up to and including the present day. What did the Palestinian Arabs do to resist this "occupation"? Practically nothing. In fact, if I'm not mistaken, back in the day the PLO issued a statement to the effect that it was not contesting Egyptian control of Gaza or Jordanian control of J+S.
The phrase "targets for elimination" seems oddly worded to me. As if the person who wrote that phrase is trying to create a misleading impression. Do you believe that there was significant religious persecution of Jews in the Ottoman Empire?
Can we agree that there were significant attacks against the Jews in the area before 1948? Can we agree that numerous Arab countries formally declared war on Israel before being defeated in the 1948 war? It seems to me that if you include this context, it appears that the Arabs created themselves as enemies before being defeated in the 1948 war.
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