urquan

urquan Every one who exalts himself will be humbled, but he who humbles himself will be exalted. 7hr ago

However, the proper comparisons here are between Australia, New Zealand, Canada, and the United States. On those terms I feel like Australia is arguably the least grovelling. All three other Anglo colonies already have treaties with indigenous peoples that make those peoples semi-autonomous. Australia is the only one that doesn't, and the Voice was roundly rejected by the Australian people, which tells me that actual grassroots support for this is pretty low.

I don't know that this really demonstrates an understanding of what the Indian treaty system does in the United States or its historical context.

It's not about being smug, but the situation in the US is remarkably different from the other Anglo colonies. In US history, the concept of treaties with various tribes developed essentially as a way to take tribes out of their land -- the point was "here's a treaty that gives us your land and requires you to leave it and go towards land we consider less valuable." The point of the treaties was they gave a legal veneer for the goal of conquest: we didn't take the land, they gave it to us fair and square. Sometimes this was better, and sometimes worse; every American kid learns about the Trail of Tears.

It's for that reason that any concept of Indian sovereignty above and beyond simply the tribal governments and their reservation land is dead in the water, though some activists still try. The concept in US law is "dependent nations"; the US government has historically seen Indian tribes as completely subsistent upon US sovereignty, but with special carve-outs that make them similar in some ways to states. The fact that tribes have self-governing is kind of a point in federal power above state power, not so much that tribal governments are massively powerful. Only the national government constitutionally has the right to control Indian affairs and make treaties with tribes.

It's true that in the US there are Indian reparation programs and lots of federal funding. But a lot of this is very token, and doesn't help anyone all that much. And there's little or no calls for expanded reparations programs and land acknowledgements are rather rare; black political activism sucks all the oxygen out of the air for anything like that, and for a lot of people the situation for American Indians is basically "out of sight, out of mind."

Land acknowledgments are becoming slightly more common, but only among progressive activist groups, and essentially never with actual native involvement: there's no American equivalent to "welcome to country." Because in the American context, such a thing is incoherent. You say that this stuff is the result of importing American culture war into Australia, but as far as I can tell the land acknowledgement stuff in the US, such as it exists, is the exact opposite.

The two big culture war flashpoints for native affairs have basically been "should they be called American Indians or Native Americans?" which among actual Indians is a generational thing; older tribal members prefer "Indian", younger ones prefer "Native American." The other one is more of a culture war flashpoint in Oklahoma, specifically, but a Supreme Court case said that the five tribes of Oklahoma were never disestablished, and angered a lot of non-Indians in Oklahoma. But the point is that Indian sovereignty is limited to the reservations, and this is spelled out and a matter of consensus.

I think the idea that a proper-noun Treaty or some level of self-government for natives is the high-water-mark of native activism is an importation of Australian political categories upon other countries where they're not relevant. Actually, it surprises me that Australia doesn't have any sort of treaty system with aboriginals and the Torres Strait groups, that clarifies sovereignty and makes it clear what the limits of native power are and are not! I might suggest that one of the reasons why native activism in Australia is so maximalist and the demands so bombastic is that there are apparently no documents or conventions that spell out their obligations and the limits of their sovereignty. So native activists can insist that their due is the moon, and there's no way for this to be effectively rebutted without denying any concept of native political power altogether.

I understand that "aboriginals are just like you and me" is the conservative view of Australian politics, and it follows that any political representation for them is controversial. But the US view is that tribal governments exist, and so there's no need for actual political representation for them. The need for Treaty is forestalled by the existence of treaties.

In the US, tribal governments petition the federal government to do things, and maybe they do them, maybe they don't. But there is no widespread call for, say, a congressional seat. Or a "Voice." Their voice is their own tribal government, which is dependent upon the whims of the federal government and sometimes the courts.

So, I think if we're comparing "who is most concerned about native activism in their country," and we look at one where natives have limited autonomy, clearly spelled out territorial limits (in places like the helldirt of New Mexico and the plains of Oklahoma -- "out of sight, out of mind"), and formal dependence upon federal whims, and then one where the government proposed for a public vote the idea of a formal advisory panel for indigenous political activism which even in its most unclear form won 40% of the vote, and natives are sometimes treated as the quasi-spiritual owners of the whole Country with spiritual welcomes that open meetings like a national anthem... yeah, I'm going to go with the first one as the one that cares less.

Context

urquan Every one who exalts himself will be humbled, but he who humbles himself will be exalted. 3d ago · Edited 3d ago

What's particularly odd to me about his essay is that his descriptions of what "normie conservative church girls" are like doesn't ring true to me. It's true that a lot of country women are into burly, hardworking country men. Obviously! But I'm pretty close to his description of an "extremely online neurotic weirdo intellectual", and I've always had an easier time dating "normie conservative church girls" than dating "bohemian art hoes." Who, to be honest, are often more unstable, which the author admits in a comment describes him; like attracts like. The ideal, of course, is "intellectual country girl," and let me tell you, "she is far more precious than jewels."

I'm guessing it was the outright white nationalism, disagreeableness, and evident heterodoxy that made it hard for him, not the fact that he's smart and creative.

It's also really funny when he says this:

People there would get very hostile when I tried to start conversations comparing their region with others where I’d lived, regardless of how polite I was about it.

Considering his ultimate reflections on the Midwest, I'm guessing this conversation was a lot more critical and judgmental than he believes they were, and his interlocutors picked up on it. I take as my evidence for this point the fact that he calls German-Americans "low T" and says that they like smooth brains and not thinking about things, and then has the gall to say, "believe it or not the point of this article isn’t to shit on Midwesterners."

This is a disagreeable man whose default mode is to critique to death everything he sees. Of course agreeable church girls didn't like him!

16

Context

urquan Every one who exalts himself will be humbled, but he who humbles himself will be exalted. 2d ago

He may not be a utilitarian, for instance. Both virtue ethicists and deontologists are often sensitive to suffering, but they ground their ethics in a framework where actively minmaxing suffering isn’t the goal. I think reducing suffering is good, but it’s one good goal out of many.

Even Kant had a famous footnote where he argued that not causing unnecessary suffering to animals is an indirect duty to human beings, because harming animals can be a stepping stone to harming humans. See every serial killer’s origin story.

Simply put, “I care about animal suffering” does not imply “I am a negative utilitarian.”

13

Context

urquan Every one who exalts himself will be humbled, but he who humbles himself will be exalted. 1d ago · Edited 23hr ago

Christian views on the resurrection of the dead are very similar to the Orthodox Jewish view. This is a key area where the Pharisees’ perspective was shared by Jesus and of course Paul, and so rabbinic Judaism and Christianity pulled from the same source.

Interestingly enough, though the Pharisees were usually the foil for Jesus’ preaching, there’s a key point in all the synoptic gospels where a Saducee constructs a complicated question about the resurrection to try and probe the meaning of it, and Jesus gives an answer that compares the resurrected dead to the angels. Luke adds this interesting anecdote: "Some of the teachers of the law responded, 'Well said, teacher!'" In other words, the argument of Luke is that some of the Pharisees responded, "yeah, stick it to those Saducees who deny the resurrection!"

It's an interesting story that complicates the view common in Christian preaching that the Pharisees were uniquely evil or the great enemies of Jesus, rather than people he was so critical of because they shared certain important values in common, particularly the place of common people in living out the commandments of God and the importance of the "kingdom of priests" beyond simply the Levitical priesthood, as well as, of course, the resurrection of the dead.

Most Christian traditions approve of organ donation, however, seeing it as a meritorious act of charity.

Views on cremation were historically very critical, but the main source of opposition has been twofold: 1) cremation creates a culture where the bodies of the dead are seen as disposable rather than a part of their person that should be laid to rest and 2) cremation destroys the remains that might become relics (which themselves are usually skeletal).

The view of all Christian traditions that venerate relics is that the body of holy people is a vessel of grace, which persists after death. Catholicism and Orthodoxy both historically reject cremation for this reason, but Catholic canon law has changed to allow for cremation so long as point 1 isn't a problem and the remains are reverently interred. As a prudential judgment, I disagree with this, as I think the culture of cremation leads too easily into denial of Christian views of the body and not permitting it draws a firm line in the cemetery that divides the Christian view from non-Christian views.

3

Context

urquan Every one who exalts himself will be humbled, but he who humbles himself will be exalted. 1d ago

It’s hardly surprising that a movie playing on those themes is going to resonate with modern western people raised with the idea of a separation between the mind and the body

Sometimes you'll even find evangelicals who misunderstand Christian teaching on the dead -- it's really common among evangelicals to find people discussing how "I won't need my body when I'm gone," or speaking of "Jesus taking me out of this vessel of a body," in a way that reveals they misunderstand the ultimate Christian view of the human person as body and soul and the Christian agreement with the Pharisees on the resurrection of the dead.

Obviously this isn't an indictment of evangelicalism as a belief system -- informed evangelicals are firm believers in the resurrection -- but it just shows how widespread this view is. I also strongly agree with the Orthodox on the point that cremation is just a bad call, because the overall culture of cremation encourages the neglect of the bodies of the dead by making them scatterable and transportable. The proper resting place of human remains is the ground or the crypt, not an urn on a mantlepiece or the ocean or -- God help us -- Disney World.

7

Context

urquan Every one who exalts himself will be humbled, but he who humbles himself will be exalted. 2d ago

I'm often startled at how culturally significant the Matrix has been. The sequels weren't all that good, the plot of the original was strange and confusing, and the concept of "the world is revealed to be an illusion" has been done better -- but the concept of the colored pills, bullet time, and Laurence Fishburne's performance as Morpheus just made the movie hard to forget. The strange aesthetic made it both confusing and memorable. (Sometimes I think the flaws of Star Wars did the same -- both the OT and the prequels have diehard fans precisely because they were tacky and disjointed. The sequels are so polished, but they're polished like a turd.)

The Matrix definitely sticks out in my memory, but personally I'd rather everyone take the Christpill from Catholic Morpheus.

5

Context

urquan Every one who exalts himself will be humbled, but he who humbles himself will be exalted. 1d ago

What was the home video market like in the US? Because, for us, The Matrix was one of the first DVDs we got which gave it even more staying power but we were generally a bit behind the West (especially on TV)

In 1999? 2000? Absolutely huge. Things were gearing up for the DVD transition, Disney was getting ready to do their old hat trick where they "take the classics out of the vault," basically every American home had shelves and shelves of tapes or disks, probably in an entertainment center.

It's definitely true that people had to be more selective in movie watching than they do now. But if you didn't have a copy of a movie you wanted to see, you went to Blockbuster and you rented it. Going to Blockbuster on Friday evening to rent a movie was a big tradition.

I do feel like a movie release was a big deal in the late 90s/2000s. Movie tie-ins were everywhere, movies would get websites where you could see trailers or character profiles, children's movies often had websites with games and movie-tie in games were widespread. A movie felt like an event that had ripple effects. I still remember when I was fairly young and Monsters, Inc. came out -- they had a huge website and a hunt-and-seek game where you would walk through the whole scare factory. That was cool enough that it cemented Monsters Inc as one of my favorite Pixar movies even all these years later.

The only times in the past 10 years where movies have felt like that are when The Force Awakens came out, and when Avengers: Endgame came out. But neither have really lasted in the public consciousness the way movies seemed to in the past. It feels a lot like the "extras" that companies used to put in for lots of products have fallen by the wayside. And websites are way less cool than they used to be.

5

Context

urquan Every one who exalts himself will be humbled, but he who humbles himself will be exalted. 2d ago

Are sexual offenders going to testify that they confessed their sins and then the priest didn't provide testimony to the state? Will the state be bugging confessionals?

While I understand that privilege has a precise legal situation, where a defendent themselves can claim it, I don't know if the legislators are thinking of it that way. I believe the point is they want priests to testify, if they find out some accused person has a confessor, they want to be able to compel that priest to testify in court. Not a lawyer, but I suspect you're right, and this wouldn't stand up as evidence in a real courtroom. But Washington wants that power, the legislature despises that religions allow people to confess a serious crime to a spiritual leader without that spiritual leader having to report it. Mandatory reporting rules are probably the ultimate target; apparently there was a court case in Louisiana about that topic.

Of course, the view of the Catholic Church is that priests should be willing to be imprisoned or die, even, rather than reveal something told to them in the confessional. A priest who does it is supposed to be punished severely -- the old Lateran canon said they would be imprisoned, basically, in a monastery for life as penance, and more recent canon law is simply excommunication. The moral theologians argued that a priest should lie and say they know nothing when asked about a person's sins.

Personally, I think this could become an asylum situation. This is probably a strength of the temporal power of the Pope. Before it was abused by economic migrants, the concept of asylum was supposed to apply to situations like this: where the laws of the state penalize or compel activity that it shouldn't against a specific targeted person. I've read that applications for ending the excommunication of a person who commits a sin that incurs automatic excommunication (abortion, apostasy, eucharistic desecration, etc) are often sent in diplomatic pouches. So the principle of the Pope using international law to protect the seal of the confessional is already in use.

5

Context

urquan Every one who exalts himself will be humbled, but he who humbles himself will be exalted. 3d ago · Edited 3d ago

And most descendents of Borderers have intermarried with descendents of non-Borderers. You simply can't trace most white Americans' ancestry in a clean unbroken line back to specific founding-era groups without lots of intermarriage and interconnection. This is why I find the discussion in some groups about "founding stock" to be inane, I have a large cluster of ancestors who were apparently here before portions of the 13 colonies were even ruled by Britain, and another large cluster of ancestors who came in the 1800s and early 1900s. Most whites are the same.

I fully understand the diversity of my ancestors, and I think picking just one of those and saying "this is me" is very silly. I treasure their stories and what they contribute to my heritage; I have a copy of the original Lutheran hymnal in German that my great-great grandmother owned. But I speak American English, watch American movies, am concerned about American politics and eat American cuisine, I celebrate the Fourth of July and when I stand, I lean. I'm an American, of European descent. Anything more specific is irrelevant.

6

Context

urquan Every one who exalts himself will be humbled, but he who humbles himself will be exalted. 4d ago

If being on the motte should teach any one anything, it’s that men often care about female promiscuity as much as if not more than women do.

6

Context

urquan Every one who exalts himself will be humbled, but he who humbles himself will be exalted. 10d ago · Edited 10d ago

Also, "Increased experience of meaningness in day-to-day life." - yeah, making major life changes, having a new project, and potentially a new social group, can do that for you.

I have an acquaintance from college who transitioned male to female. They once showed me a picture of a neckbeard with acne, saying "this is what I used to look like, then I transitioned and I'm so happy with how I look." Well, no crap my friend, you shaved the neckbeard and started taking care of yourself!

Whacking it to not being able to do math is a common AGP pastime.

Now I want to know whether "being forced to find the derivative of an integral" is someone's kink. Surely not?

19

Context

urquan Every one who exalts himself will be humbled, but he who humbles himself will be exalted. 9d ago

I often reflect upon the fact that “your desire shall be for your husband, and he shall rule over you” is one of the curses put upon Eve in Genesis 3.

14

Context

urquan Every one who exalts himself will be humbled, but he who humbles himself will be exalted. 10d ago · Edited 10d ago

Many young Christians I know, of various stripes, play DnD. I’m sure there are some boomers still railing against it but millennial and zoomer Christians are generally in agreement that fantasy stories are cool, and fantasy roleplay is a fun hobby.

Now something has to be responsible for the increase in Wicca and various forms of witchery over the past couple decades, but that seems concentrated within new agey women and not the geeky introverts who played DND in the 90s.

It turns out the real problem was ~~the dawning of the age of Aquarius~~ the hippies and their intellectual descendants after all, though I will certainly stand firm on the proposition that occasional atheistic/countercultural men were more than willing to invoke the occult if it meant getting inside some witchy panties.

I think the problem was social conservatives conflated several different countercultural groups who all rebelled against the moral majority, and couldn’t tell the fantasy roleplay apart from the new age cults. This hardened a lot of hearts, which was a shame.

But I still see the spread of witchcraft among women as an unresolved historical question. But I suppose people on the other side would say the same about the spread of conservative Christianity among men. Dissatisfaction with secular materialism is startlingly widespread, a fact I find hard to diagnose despite being a part of it. But if I had to make a diagnosis, perhaps it’s because technology increasingly feels like it limits human freedom rather than enhancing it. (Let’s not start another debate about the automobile or social media.)

The invocation of supernatural forces of any kind becomes a kind of trump (no relation) card that lets people feel like they have control over their lives, or at least have a direct line to someone who does. I suspect that magical thinking and superstition also load on neuroticism, because neurotic people often feel like the world is dangerous and they’re too weak to face it. Supernatural powers serve as a means of personal protection against a world they feel like they cannot control. Occultism spiked during COVID, where people felt like they had little power to control the situation (whether because of state authority or fear of the disease itself). Hence you get people panicking over the election of Trump (relation intended) and trying to trump (no relation) his political power by casting hexes on /r/witchesvspatriarchy.

Sometimes I wonder if being so morally concerned about the occult in the 80s and 90s actually was the cause of increased occultism. It certainly demonstrated that getting into occult things would really piss off conservatives! So if you're a young lady and you hate conservative Christianity, and you want to express in strong terms your contempt for it, well, you might go reaching for the very things they said were deeply wrong. In particular, this might go some ways towards explaining how massively popular these things are among gay people.

Perhaps if conservatives had mocked occultism and superstition the way a lot of skeptics did instead of getting incredibly angry and treating it like a real thing, we wouldn't live in a world where 40% of young women believe in astrology. Mockery and indifference kills ideas; outrage reifies them.

14

Context

urquan Every one who exalts himself will be humbled, but he who humbles himself will be exalted. 2d ago · Edited 2d ago

But I know moderates who strongly oppose a lot of the trans stuff but are firmly in support of gay marriage. Have people with this viewpoint just flipped away from identifying as Republican en masse?

Looking at the Gallup data, independents don’t show much of a change. My supposition is that a lot of moderate Republicans have left the party since 2020, leaving more firm conservatives. I’m not convinced this change is due to a massive number of people changing their minds.

2

Context

urquan Every one who exalts himself will be humbled, but he who humbles himself will be exalted. 2d ago

But the changes have happened since, Gallup says, 2022 — I just don’t know what’s happened since 2022 that would make such a big shift make sense! Except for Trump 2. But Trump has shown no indication of reticence about gay marriage.

1

Context

urquan Every one who exalts himself will be humbled, but he who humbles himself will be exalted. 4d ago

If the argument you’re making is “less than 100% of marriages are worthwhile,” I think that’s completely uncontroversial. If the argument is “100% of marriages are not worthwhile,” then I think that’s wrong.

It sounds to me like you’re intending to say the first, but the way you put it at first — “I've never had a single person tell me it's easier to have a wife” — implies you mean the second. People are bringing up their own marriages to argue against the second, while you’re defending the first. I think an unintentional motte and bailey has been set up, just because of a lack of clarity in the discussion.

But the big difference in views I think I see is that the “wife guys” are arguing for marriage through the concept of companionate love: “she’s the best part of my day, she makes my life meaningful,” etc. You’re talking about it in terms of economic and sexual utility: “I could have sex with any woman, and get assistants to do things around the house I don’t want to do.” If that’s what the utility of a marriage consists of then of course Bezos doesn’t need it! But if marriage includes an intimate relationship of growth in and with the other person, then it’s no wonder at all why Bezos would throw such a lavish wedding if he believes he’s found someone he can have that with. He can be right or wrong about the particular woman he made that choice with (like he apparently did with the first one), but it’s not straightforwardly stupid.

People are bringing up their own marriages to insist that this kind of companionate love is possible in the long term, even if all or even most marriages don’t live up to it. They’re protecting the concept of a pair-bond.

2

Context

urquan Every one who exalts himself will be humbled, but he who humbles himself will be exalted. 8d ago

A further complication is the difference between brand names and generic names. I generally know the names of my prescription medications by the generic name, because that's what the pharmacy prints on the labels. However, every doctor I've ever seen refers to drugs by the brand name (which is usually easier to say).

9

Context

urquan Every one who exalts himself will be humbled, but he who humbles himself will be exalted. 9d ago

Their description of what testosterone does to their mental processes sounds completely alien to me. I cannot relate to it whatsoever.

Can you give some examples? What I can recall is trans men talking about becoming incredibly and uncontrollably horny after starting T, and, well, not to put too fine a point on it, but that seems reasonably accurate to the experience of any man who’s ever gone through puberty.

9

Context

urquan Every one who exalts himself will be humbled, but he who humbles himself will be exalted. 7d ago

Who was he?

5

Context

urquan Every one who exalts himself will be humbled, but he who humbles himself will be exalted. 2d ago

Wow, that’s… massive. Is it just party coalitions reshuffling? But such a massive drop in such a short amount of time makes me want to assume the null hypothesis, measurement error.

1

Context

urquan Every one who exalts himself will be humbled, but he who humbles himself will be exalted. 10d ago

A much better set of citations is Colossians 3:8:

But now put them all away: anger, wrath, malice, slander, and foul talk from your mouth.

And Ephesians 4:29:

Do not let any unwholesome talk come out of your mouths, but only what is helpful for building others up according to their needs, that it may benefit those who listen.

9

Context

urquan Every one who exalts himself will be humbled, but he who humbles himself will be exalted. 10d ago

I tried to come up with some sort of calculus joke that would fit, but I think I’ve reached my limit.

Then again I remember barely anything from Calculus and I got Cs on many of my Calc exams. Maybe I’m a woman. (I’m not. The Asian girls always did way better than me.)

8

Context

urquan Every one who exalts himself will be humbled, but he who humbles himself will be exalted. 8d ago · Edited 8d ago

Yeah, the feeling is almost like I'm being shocked, it tickles in an uncomfortable way. I don't know enough about fabrics to say what actually triggers it.

I used to be very sensitive to noise. When I first rode on an airplane as a little kid, my mom had to buy some of these earplanes which were made to equalize pressure but also work well to reduce noise. This was back when turboprop planes were still in use at some regional airports in the US.

Well, still am I guess, but it's a lot better. I have to cover my ears during fireworks shows. Which is probably a good thing -- even fireworks explosions sometimes get loud enough that it could damage your hearing.

It's also true that I have a penchant for repetitive fidgeting. I have a box of fidget toys I keep on my desk.

I don't know that autism was ever really suspected, but my mom did have several books on her bookshelf whose titles rounded off to "What To Do If Your Child Is A Weirdo" and my social development was somewhat stunted. As far as I know, I don't have any relatives with either suspected or diagnosed autism. I do have first cousins with OCD, and OCD-like traits would probably explain my excessive concern for contamination and orderliness.

I don't know that I ever met diagnostic criteria for autism, although some people in my life have occasionally suggested it. But it is definitely true that I share some traits in common with high-functioning autism.

6

Context

urquan Every one who exalts himself will be humbled, but he who humbles himself will be exalted. 9d ago

So when some socially adept and quite rapacious men figure out that there's an ample supply of idiots out there who just need a meager offering of romance-lit aesthetics and who can't initiate or sustain a real romance from their own abilities, they have no idea of how to approach romance from... well, not exactly an adversarial stance, but at least an active one, where you accept the base fact that life between man and woman (possibly man and man or woman and woman, not much personal insight there) is always a negotiation and you need to stake out your own ground to get what you want.

This is a really long sentence — can you clarify who doesn’t know how to approach a relationship from an adversarial stance?

5

Context

urquan Every one who exalts himself will be humbled, but he who humbles himself will be exalted. 10d ago

Ok, I guess we're taking this seriously as an idea.

If we're speculating about it like this -- I could easily see a humiliation kink developing around self-esteem issues involving math; I've struggled with math since I was in primary school, and despite having a lot of interest in tyical "geeky dude" hobbies like computers and spacecraft, I find math really hard to wrap my head around. I don't think that was bad teaching or anything, I just don't have the aptitude, and it shows up on actual IQ tests because my verbal IQ massively outstrips my performance IQ. So I've always had a bit of a complex about being intersted in lots of things where math is very significant, but finding it really hard to grasp the mathematical concepts that make them work. I could easily see a complex like that becoming a kind of humiliation kink, because being unable to do things that people you respect can do creates a power hierarchy!

6

Context

What is this place?

Why are you called The Motte?

New post guidelines

Rules

Recommended Posts And Communities

Recommended Realtime Chats

urquan

urquan