wemptronics
No bio...
User ID: 95
wemptronics
21hr ago
How long does Catbox keep files for? Forever. If you don't want your file to stick around until the heat death of the universe, use Litterbox.
Nice, this is basically why I asked. I use imgur out of ease of use and habit forum posting, but I'm pretty sure they delete them eventually.
wemptronics
21hr ago
Next time I get a hankering I intend to look at unique commenters per thread to see something in the shape of weight of regulars over time. I also have a mild curiosity in word count trends per thread, comment, and top levels.
Small question: Is imgur considered good enough for embedding links to images in posts, or are there better alternatives? The forum's image upload appears unsuitable for the task.
Not a question: Comments+View count for all of TheMotte.org's 158 Culture War threads to date.*
*Reliability not guaranteed.
wemptronics
1d ago
And what does one do after reaching that conclusion (besides leaving this site, of course, since that runs counter to the basic ethos of the Motte)?
There are users here, mods even, that have reached this conclusion and they still manage to contribute. I don't think there's great arguments to wage the culture war online as a good use of your time unless you get paid for it or your name is JD Vance. A normal citizen moves to a stronghold of their tribe and builds a life there. Maybe purchase a firearm.
Great example.
And some people are paying for recordings where they can hear a woman's tongue unstick from her hard palate.
I don't need to know these things!
I've experienced "low-grade euphoria" observing people doing some task, although rarely. I've experienced frisson from music or speech. I've never seen how ASMR as a media format ties these experiences together or delivers them. The term was apparently coined on a forum in 2007, so it seems more like a cultural memeplex ("brainrot") fueling an industry with paraphilia and fetish branches.
On second thought the Primitive Technology guy could be ASMR adjacent content I've enjoyed.
wemptronics
3d ago
Very cool, is he still with us? Get'em on here! (But probably Friday Fun not on my Gaza polluted post)
Israel and friends did parachute pallets in late July/early August in coordination with the UAE and Jordan. Footage and image of a pallet. It was criticized for being a dangerous (probably untrue) and token (true) effort.
A big Berlin airlift that aims to feed everyone is doable if the US is supporting in a major way. Israel has maybe 15 Hercules. UAE/Jordan around the same between them. If everyone tries hard, and the US matches with airframes and maintenance support, you get 40 planes.
Running the numbers through the robot, bottleneck is space (only 6-8 pallets per flight) and available airframes. Somewhere between 200-400 flights to deliver one daily ration of ~2100 calories to 2 million mouths. The high numbers were when I tried to get a guesstimate on the GHF's 20kg 3-5 day rations. To get to the low end we need x5 sorties per day from our fleet of 40. If, however, you managed to fill the back of the plane with loose grains of rice until max load, you could cut that down to 60 flights. The robot tried really hard to convince me "you can’t pour loose grain in the cabin" because "loose bulk will shift during flight and create dangerous center-of-gravity," but I am not convinced.
See, Finns on bikes seems appropriate. Swedes? Ehhh...
that motorcycle gangs can be seen as a replication of certain elements of industrial working class existence
Neat. I am only partially surprised this connection has been made. You could also tie in the post-war origins that @HereAndGone provided context for above. The American proletariat returned home from the war to replace the women in manufacturing who they perceived as having emasculating their manhood. Without any other way to ease their suppressed class consciousness or account for their male insecurity they sought out to create alternative recreational hobbies with an industrial identity...
I offer an alternative:
Machine go brrhuum-brrhuum-brrhuum and chuugha-chuugha-chuuugha-chuuugha and vvvvvvrrrRRRRRrrrroooooom. Boy like machine. Boy ride machine. Machine go fast.
On a practical level biker gangs, like many gangs, actually exist less from the financial angle (though that helps) but from (often violent but not always) kids from broken families getting caught up in a group that fills most of the needs a family would normally fill. Brotherhood, purpose, importance, outlets for anger, structure, exhilaration at breaking the rules, all that. It's a fake family in the ways that count, of course, but much like pets filling child-sized holes, it works pretty well overall - that's why it exists.
On one end is La Cosa Nostra. The mafia has all the usual organized crime traits including a shared ethnic identity and occultist rituals. Unlike, for example, Salvadoran gangs the mob was regularly motivated by business interests more than common thuggery. Matt Lakeman has a great blog post on El Salvador which includes a chunk on the history of its gangs. Technically Salvadoran gangs made money like the American mob or any other organized crime outfit. They provided a living for members primarily by extorting impoverished people. Even accounting for the poverty, Lakeman says their violence was usually more street conflict than financial as the mob or cartels might operate. Even guys at the high end of the hierarchy were making peanuts.
I picture biker gangs as landing between the two. Although, there are many instances of serious and significant criminal enterprise involving bikers. The decentralized nature and sheer number of criminals on 2 wheels makes it a difficult comparison. The bonds, friendship, and potential for a surrogate family apply to all of them and to non-criminal clubs, too.
I remember hearing I think this story a month and a half ago
Yeah, I don't know what to think about that guy. He made claims as a "whistleblower," did rounds of press, then claimed a kid was killed who turned out to not be killed and was instead "saved" by Israelis so as to avoid him being murdered to prove he was killed. I never did see anything to refute that counter-counter-propaganda with regards to that dead kid claim. There were other efforts to discredit that guy. Mess, noise, I don't know. Someone's muddy psyop working on me as planned I suppose.
They directly created this cratered, destroyed, lawless zone with arbitrary and changing rules for civilians and a crippling need to import virtually all of its food, and need to take responsibility for it - direct responsibility for it.
Israel doesn't win humanitarian plaudits or reprieves by taking responsibility which could mean a lot of things. Nonetheless, I agree it looks like they meander and coast on current status quo to avoid certain outcomes. They probably prefer it this way than a hypothetical Hamas-less Gaza with a path to statehood. They do have their reasons.
It's interesting that non-Americans and even non-Westerners interested in joining the criminal lifestyle would so often choose a format that is, as said, so very specifically American,
A couple lines I cut mentioned this. As an American, the aesthetic does feel like it should be out of place in the Netherlands (Satudarah), but clearly somewhere like the Mongolian Steppe is natural. I have no idea if Mongolian riders share criminal aspects. Australia also shares (or shared) a comparable individualist frontier spirit and history, along with a similar fascination with bushwhacker outlaws, that it also seems a natural candidate for outlaw bikie gangs.
Uh, do they actually idealize themselves as Christian warriors?
Biker gangs broadly I don't know, but yes I would say this biker club that chooses to get tattoos with Christian iconography, references the crusades, and identifies themselves as an infidel in the land of Islam idealize themselves as Christian warriors rather than pagans.
I nixed a lot of biker musings, but yes the IMC is not a criminal gang. As I understand, even those sharing a national name and a 1%-er patch can still vary a great deal in criminality on a chapter by chapter basis. Anyway I only mean to draw a line between prominent markers across the hobby. Which definitely seems like a thing. The only biker clubs members (big bikes, loud pipes, cool patches) I've spoken with have been nice enough people of the trades, not criminals, but there was no question which tribe they belonged to.*
Damn good way of reducing the possibility of the group being suborned or infiltrated, I'd say.
True. A case in point with the Anthony Aguilar guy whose name and stories got full blast as a "whistleblower" before complications to his credibility.
- I: Red Tribe Criminals
What's the deal with biker gangs?
Hunter S. Thompson followed a biker gang called the Hell's Angels. He wrote a book about his experience and the Angels became the most famous biker club/gang/organization in the world. The romanticization of biker gangs traveled far thanks to the interwoven cross-section of 1960s counterculture that helped popularize it. Groups of American ruffians on two-wheeled transport, sexual revolutionaries, and psychedelic entrepreneurs found commonality in their love of drugs and rebellion to the Man.
It's obligatory to mention that one time in 1969 where the Rolling Stones chose to hire America's most famous biker gang to provide security for a concert with 300,000 attendees. Things went about as well as one might expect. The ignominy of Altamont is sometimes framed as the end of an era. Bay Area hippies played a part in elevating their preferred drug traffickers and bad boy cousin heavies to legendary Americana status-- on par with other household outlaw names.
A romanticized, rugged individualist archetype is a favorite of Americans. If you tack on criminal then, baby, you got a stew goin'. The outlaw who plays by their own rules is not welcome in our towns, they are certainly not welcome around our daughters, but Americans undeniably welcome their stories into our imaginations. Media of the 21st century carries on the tale which, yes, includes dangerous, criminal elements, but also includes loyalty, faith, patriotism.
These are red blooded, freedom loving types of criminals. This is the organized crime profile of the Red Tribe. Someone probably once wondered why the swarthy ethnic criminals get to rent space in American heads -- Mexicans, Italians, even the Jews got their own -- before deciding it was only right that the white, protestant Middle America should collect rent too. Respectable New England derived stock would never have allowed us to entertain a criminal mythos. It was the pioneers, ruffians, and rebels who helped shape the story of the American outlaw, and probably created it. These are the progeny of the Borderers, the trailblazers, underclass, and bushwhackers found far away from refined cosmopolitanism of Yankees.
If you want to talk about biker culture and its intersectional qualities I invite it. I found another intersection reason to flesh out this idle thought last week. All roads lead to Gaza.
- II: What's the deal with the GHF operation in Gaza?
GHF would be the Gaza Humanitarian Foundation that popped up to distribute food aid this year. The organization itself was established in February in anticipation of Israel relieving its own embargo to manage food distribution. In May, only weeks after the program got off the ground, the founding GHF director quit. This was reported as a protest exit. The man himself said he quit as a duty to "strictly [adhere] to the humanitarian principles of humanity, neutrality, impartiality and independence." This was, well, hmm interesting. As far as I know he never went so far to say, "Israel and the spooks took over," but that'd be one interpretation.
Charities dislike the GHF. The UN dislikes the GHF. The only entities that appear to support the GHF are Israel, the US State Department which throws some cash at it, and a number of evangelical Christian charities. Which is about about where the lines are drawn on more general opinion on Israel and its conflicts. Mike Huckabee, US ambassador to Israel, said private donations helped as well:
"It is not currently being funded largely by the U.S. There are other countries, there are NGOs, there are humanitarian funds, and there are private individuals who have funded it, all of which have requested to remain anonymous. I think they don't want to become the targets of the hate that has befitted those who have tried to do something positive in what is a very difficult situation."
- III: Deus Vult!
What do biker gangs and food distribution in Gaza have in common?
Reportedly there happens to be an American style biker gang social club operating out of Gaza right now. In the spirit Ukraine's Azov Battalion Brigade the BBC reported a story, constructed a story, or both: Anti-Islamic US biker gang members run security at deadly Gaza aid sites.
The firm guarding sites where aid is distributed in Gaza has been using members of a US biker gang with a history of hostility to Islam to run its armed security, a BBC investigation has found.
BBC News has confirmed the identities of 10 members of the Infidels Motorcycle Club working in Gaza for UG Solutions - a private contractor providing security at Gaza Humanitarian Foundation sites, where hundreds of civilians seeking food have been killed in scenes of chaos and gunfire.
Towards the end of the article the BBC expands its claims up to 40 -- out of 320 total -- security contractors from the Infidels Motorcycle Club (IMC) based on an unnamed source. IMC has a website. They present themselves as GWOT veterans who "reject the radical jihadist movement that threatens liberty and freedom around the world. The Infidels MC will support the fight against terrorism as military members, contractors in support of the military, and as patriotic Americans supporting our fighting forces from the homeland." Wayback machine confirms the group's roots online go as far back as 2008 when they wrote:
Brothers in the Military You know what it feels like not to be welcomed in a country that is a third world shit hole. You were probably called an "infidel". Call me an Infidel! That's what I am. Be proud of what you have done. We thank all our brothers that service this country.
The company which recruits the security contractors still has openings for the role. I don't think I am recruiting for a cause, though if anyone does go to Gaza I would be most interested in reading your experience.
I expect there are a number of selection effects that shape the pipeline for Gazan breadline security. The compensation, as I understand, is competitive (~1000 USD/day) but not extraordinarily generous for a you may die, become a news story, or become a war criminal war zone. Even if salary was high enough to attract the most talented professionals, those who want a steady, high paying role might stick with relatively secure jobs on merchant shipping and corporate jobs at home or in the field. The more charity friendly contractors could already work for UN affiliated NGOs in more respectable organizations-- roles unassociated with a barrage of weekly accusations of massacres. The more mercenary, thrill seeking contractors looking to "Get some!" are perhaps more likely far away from a thousand prying media eyes in the middle of Africa. These are merely guesses.
The GHF adjacent (associated or blamed maybe) massacres are reported with some regularity. I personally remain agnostic to specific reports of "hundreds reported killed near aid distribution sites in Gaza." It is a callous position, but given so many interests do not care for the GHF, Israel, or America I have high confidence any damning videos will find little resistance surfacing. So far I am not aware of any that might suggest hundreds are being massacred while waiting for food. I extend the same courtesy to the GHF as well. One instance I recalled from this Summer was a report of Hamas members who allegedly "threw grenades" and injured GHF staff at a distribution site. It is possible Hamas militants did attack GHF staff and charity staff with grenades, although the journalists found and shared a different kind of testimony. That testimony built a picture of armed contractors throwing stun grenades to disperse a pugilistic crowd and 'aid seekers' throwing the stun grenades right back. That all sounds very plausible.
It would be nice to have journalists I could more-or-less trust with access to report on the ground, but we only have "Gen Z Republican influencers" invited by Israel. They don't buy a lot of purchase with me, although some are not wholly discredited.
BBC's reporting does succeed in persuading me to move a peg towards unprofessional shitshow on the Genocide Scale. Hiring members of a social club who idealize themselves as Christian warriors on a crusade would be low on my list. That is if I had the option to prioritize professionals able to run a tight ship in a contested war zone and controversial mission. If one did want to build a group to shoot civilians, or ignore cases of it, then ideological and righteous reasons to keep their mouths shut about crimes would be convenient. For whatever reason, the GHF hired up to a few 1095 fans to carry out their mission. Ukraine has great use for fanaticism and is no position to purge radicals, but the GHF shouldn't share this need. Chicano gangbangers exist in the US Army, but Chicano gangbangers don't make up 12% of its forces. I'm not saying that Crusader Kings enjoyers can't execute a clean charity mission, but...
When I wrote this, there was a brief press push around the story, but since then not much more.
- Why would the GHF choose to employ radicals?
- Does The Motte attract any private security who might guess better? Is it a buyers or sellers employment market for an organization that sets up shop in 3 months?
- Or, maybe this is not that big of a deal?
I could believe that the BBC would write this story no matter if their investigation found 100 or 1 contractors with "crusade" mentions. Reckoning with ones faith in a far and distant land is a thing. Finding people with the same experiences to form a social club is a thing. At best, there's a performative aspect that gets all the blame. These fellas volunteered for a charity mission, are getting paid for it, and the Pope has not issued a decree.
"Oh, I can know what he's referencing I can add some helpful links for this post. A little context, too." Oops. I guess I didn't not add helpful links or minor context. I have allowed myself to get lost in the textual sauce. An LLM, but worse.
Lefties are far more likely to cut off family, friends, and other relationships over 'minor' political squabbles...
This one is a trend that's been polled and surveyed for over a decade. It's bad. If we're pointing fingers I think this is one of many potential indicators of finger pointing direction.
Lefties also have far, far less diversity of thought within their circles than righties.
The Heatmap is more interesting than the "ideological diversity" (ooo nodes) study. This one does not grab me like The Heatmap and instead I concluded, "Sure thing, social science. Run it back." For sake of brevity, this study asked 8 questions (n=400ish, 25%ish Republicans) and I'll share 3: (1) "Abortion should be illegal", (4) *"The federal budget for welfare programs should be increased", and (6) "The government should regulate business to protect the environment".
I don't think these are definitive type questions to accurately measure "diversity" -- a word the authors do not use -- of political temperament or ideology. The fun part is at the end where the authors remind us:
According to the present findings, Democrats (more than Republicans) tightly centre their belief-system around a set of positions at the extremes of these particular items, implying that people who deviate from these positions are likely to be considered as outgroup members (extremity should thereby be understood as a function of both, the formulation of the item and the response). It is possible that holding extreme (and thus unnegotiable) attitudes on important social-political issues has become increasingly identity defining for Democrats, not least in response to Donald Trump's controversial presidency.
Ah
The pattern does not imply that Republicans are more tolerant than Democrats, nor that Republicans could deal better with attitudinal uncertainty. It does imply, however, that –at this particular moment in time– Democrats and Republicans are constructing and managing their partisan identities differently in relation to the topics reflected in these questionnaire items. Research suggests that social category membership (e.g., being White, Christian) is more important for the construction of Republican identity than it is for Democrat identity (Mason & Wronski, 2018).
When academics invoke But, Trump, White, Christian in a context is important tone one must resist the temptation. Ah-ha! These inconvenient findings must be evidence for why the paper is correct. I, on the other hand, once again recall that science science is sham. Do it again, bozos, and do it better.
Yes the famous 'heat map' study is very flawed, but the point made by said heat map has been confirmed in varying ways by different studies.
What other studies are you thinking of? This one got me good. What started as "helpful link":
This references the "heat map" study which you call flawed. For The Heatmap, or Ideological differences in the expanse of the moral circle, the study compares how liberals and conservatives express and/or extend "moral concern." The authors find liberals are prone to extend moral concern in a loose "universalist" fashion, whereas conservatives distributed moral concern a tighter "parochial" shape. They then mapped these response in concentric circles for our benefit. These circles start from the category of immediate family at the center, out to all of humanity, lifeforms in the universe, and finally everything that ever exists including space rocks.
People, like me, interpret "moral concern" as a synonym for units of caring. Which is not wholly accurate. This is a stated preference, but not a tested preference. A polite interpretation is that liberals are capable, or would like to be, of loving all of humanity and beyond to a greater extent than conservatives. From there, the "liberals love space rocks as much as their kids" dunks write themselves.
One of the exercises has the participants distribute their moral concern as a zero-sum resource. Liberals were more likely to apply concern to things far away from the center than conservatives, although they still applied concern to the center. That maps the same direction as the non-zero-sum, unlimited distribution which brings liberals and conservatives closer, but still distinct in pattern. Conservatives, even when told that moral concern is not finite, won't ascribe much moral value to space rocks. The gradient for conservatives shows they don't consider space rocks worthy of concern at all. In the study they stop giving moral concern points, regardless if they're finite, much sooner when extending outwards. They do so to the point where the outer circles are closer to non-existent.
If I can believe that these exercises can provide insight, then I would very much like to see the study repeated, then simplified, and finally standardized. I want to see this deployed across cultures and through time. What would populations in Somalia, South Africa, or Spain land if we replicated the study in those population? Does safety and prosperity change the disposition and by how much? Race/ethnicity? Climate?
A million questions. How does this interact with other parts we know to be (at least partly) hardwired like temperament and preferences? If the finding that liberals generally have a higher IQ is true, then might it be related? I know the findings are not so broad, but it's hard to not think there could be costs (and benefits) in processing the world in such a way. So long as we can consistently clamp down moral temperament as dimorphic across culture and time.
How exciting! Of course, because it's exciting, triggers my imagination, and was made into a meme then I assume it won't hold up. The limited/unlimited sample sizes for the exercises were 131 and 263 people respectively, however each only had about 35 conservatives. Maybe this should have been its own post, but I figure someone smarter and most handsome could do it better than I.
This crystalized for me when I watched everyone on the Dem side fall into line behind Kamala Harris as Biden's successor in one day, even ones who had, that very same day, said she was the wrong choice.
Dems are more conformist if we take the Do It Again, Bozo science at face value. This would suggest they're at least a little better about backing Their Guy. As a counter-point, the above quoted text sounds like an obviously bipartisan phenomena to me. It is normal for the average politically interested voter to vote for plainly partisan reasons.
What behavior should we expect from Dems when their election plans fall apart? "Yesterday I said it would be a mistake to let the Californian machine "brown and a woman" candidate takeover, but the party fucked it-- oh well we'll get you guys next time." Nobody wins elections by telling the opposition they are right on the tepid candidate. No way, that billion dollar campaign is gonna happen. It may as well be spent on a fun, joyful Brat! campaign.
This is exactly the kind of example where we -- you, me, everyone else -- are programmed to notice the enemy's transgressions, but forget our own. Your average MAGA voter was railing against TikTok a year ago. Now? All quiet on the big bad Chinuh! front. Difference in degree, not kind? Maybe. Team Trump can turn on a dime. I consider this as an uncontroversial statement without comparison to anything else. The D machine's effort in 2024 was absurd and, yes, it worked to an extent. It had to work. It was always going to work. You can't just give up at the end of democracy. [Which should put in perspective the monumental and historical fuck-up of Democrats in 2024.]
All the consensus backs the Republican candidate no matter what some writer at National Review said ten minutes ago. Trump has some in-house resistance, but how'd that work out? How many Republicans backed Trump after calling him some name or even disavowed him? Many, including Vance. Democrats have seen this and they've called it out! "People can change their minds, you know?" Yeah, yeah, some more than others.
The mainstream Dem machine is impressive and has some unique advantages. Concepts of optics, messaging, and narrative are more prominent in the minds of Blue voters and, to some extent, this has trained them. Maybe the Republicans don't get as close as Kamala did if the parties swapped position and infrastructure. Falling in line behind Kamala for the party -- or whoever it is -- can be your expectation next time. No surprise or condemnation or special accusation necessary.
it is pretty much incontrovertible that more lefties than righties tend to support, or at least excuse violence as a means of settling political disputes
Political disputes at the moment, but more righties than lefties tend to support violence as a means in other general settings. Is this the same? No, it's frequently not the same. There are many qualities of American leftism that are in not mirrored or symmetric to the right. That is another fundamental problem with the left-right paradigm not solved by another axis. There are qualities of leftism that I also find frustrating, abhorrent, or special. Nature nurture blank slateism is a huge fundamental contradiction in liberal and leftist ideology.I share many of the same grey tribe suspicion of lefty thinking, culture, and politics. I still* think you lean too far in your condemnation of people.
With enough publicity you could make faculty uncomfortable, but "in trouble" based on something like a viral X post that embarrasses the school is a longshot. A publicity route requires your case to be egregious or for your case to be at one of the universities already in the hot seat. I don't recall the last time I read a story in the wild of a professor eschewing course material to make the class about themselves and their beliefs. Especially not one with severe consequences. This is common enough to border on uninteresting.
If you decide you care enough, then you should start building a dossier yesterday. Syllabus, e-mails, rubrics, published learning outcomes if they exist, recorded lectures, etc. That's going to bring about any type of return for a decision to commit to the bureaucratic process. I don't think you're going to find a shortcut around a formal complaint. At the end of your effort all you might have is more uncomfortable relationship with Prof. SJ and the corrected grading accommodations. Give'em hell.
Was there some more israel/gaza stuff?
There was one other Israel-Gaza story I cooked up a post for partly motivated by accusations of boredom. The doldrums turned out to be false, so everyone is spared of it. For now.
I'm not seeing it in the OST so maybe it is a song in an expansion or a menu song not included in OST.
If it's in the game it was most definitely included with the historical meaning in mind. Paradox knows its audience and many appreciate a lesser known song that flatters the aspirational History Buff in them. I'm not sure if that's neutral, but Hoi4 players do cover the spectrum. It is is a game where one can LARP as Hitler or Stalin if they want. User created alt-history mods by political history nerds, usually ideologues of some flavor, are popular. Kaiserreich was the big one back in the day.
Charlie Kirk video? Hah! Have you seen what's happening in Gaza? He supported genocide by the way.
Don't go on the attack trying to look for ulterior motives and ideology behind the cheering - just call out the cheering as unkind and inhuman at the rawest level.
This is an okay way to make a good life and suss out potential friends. Decent folk-like. That you suggest it means I suspect we would get along fine. It is not, however, a solution that we can deploy at scale with any expectation of change.
Above all else keep the clip in circulation, with all its visceral, disquieting pathos. The idea that Charlie Kirk Is Dead can be thoughtlessly celebrated, but the actual sight of it - no, not unless you're a sociopath.
Technically we need not lose our decency as a side effect of value differences, but if you were to go on reddit and deploy your pathos attacks and appeals to empathy I'll wager you'll be disappointed. I have been! Most people who think better of themselves won't defend a video that they can't. Some can find cause, but far more can blink twice, move along, and get back into the groove after a moment. That's the domain that needs to change. If we can do that then, hell, what're we doing here? We can 10x improve politics in no time.
It sounds sort of like you want to slot this into something like trolling or outrage bait? I don't think I agree with that if so. Yes I don't care that he's dead. I love that he's dead. He was evil! That my enemies are incorrectly modeling my behavior and, were they only to change how they treated me, sounds like something that I would want to believe if I knew my participation in an activity was irresponsible or unjustified. Passing this responsibility onto others, especially onto my enemy, sounds ideal. You made me do it is tried and true.
because it has a significant risk of Streisanding the idea of actively supporting assassinations among people who currently don't support them
Personally, I think this is already out of the bag, among all manner of other things that make one a leftist, fascist, good, or bad. The left-coding isn't for the benefit of or in response to the right. The left-coding is and -- rather than something new -- we should consider this a resurgence of an old meme the left has relied on and used to great effect before. I suppose the right could try a 4D play and reclaim calls to violence (doesn't go well for them) or attempt its own social media-gov't speech restriction on behalf of conservatives which also doesn't go well.
I agree nobody should want to will something like this into existence or exacerbate it. A vicious, more violent left benefits some. What appropriate response do you have in mind?
An interpretation that leftists are responding to a freak accident as a bystander is somewhat accurate. Rather than an act of God, like a hurricane, this is more like civilians watching an enemy bomber fall from the sky over their city. The civilians look up to the sky and cheer. The civilians aren't killing anyone themselves, no, and the fact they are bystanders -- victims, even -- relieves any responsibility for cheering on death. It could even be considered imperative to cheer. This is their city, their neighbors, and friends suffering under the bombardment. Who wouldn't cheer as the enemy is made to pay?
Leftists don't take this behavior seriously, are having a good time, and don't consider themselves responsible. I suspect that is usually true. Individuals enjoy becoming partners in crime by crossing a taboo, signal allegiance, or justify celebration with a commitment to conflict. The performative intent is also there when leftists decide to dance on the grave of a dead healthcare CEO then decide to worship his dreamy murderer.
Don't get me wrong I am glad that most expressions of celebration are made by bystanders having a good time rather than by hardened killers. This doesn't ease concerns or my condemnation. Don't celebrate murders is a good norm and weakening it among a significant, visible category of people raises the risk we see predictably bad outcomes. That leftists do not consider or respect this risk is of no comfort. In darker times, should they become apparent, It wasn't my fault isn't going to cut it.
Plus, it's not as if leftists are detached from the events. Rather than a comedian looking for a punch-line to tragedy they care as much any other group. They jump in the trenches when its their turn to spin the Guess the Perp wheel and argue about this policy or another. They have a good time celebrating the death of their enemy, then they have another kind of time of as they commiserate with each other on a perceived state of crisis. They have a third, additional kind of time declaring fascism of yesterday eclipsed by the fascism of tomorrow. They are no more or less accidental bystanders to these social phenomena as any other part of the lefty egregore.
I contend that for the average left-wing rando, "some nutjob has shot Charlie Kirk" has about the same valence as "Charlie Kirk has been struck by lightning"
What is the polar opposite case? I'd expect there to be plenty of right-wing anons dancing on the grave of, say, Hasan Piker. It's not a 1:1 comparison. Kirk, unlike Piker, was legitimized inside mainstream political power, whereas Piker is still primarily a shitposter millionaire who streams to teenagers and gets NYT profiles. Right wing anons aren't usually professors comfortable with expressing support for political murders. But, yeah, I wouldn't say that the right-wing is impervious to breaking this norm, or even faithful followers of this norm. The political class still mutters the words, but it doesn't take.
In the future, if we aren't living it, we may all have permission to cheer on one person or another bleeding out on a stage. We may even take turns. It's a darn shame.
This whole attempt to lionize Kirk after his death has been extremely black pulling, as a leftist.
I don't think any lionization is aimed at blackpilled leftists. Ezra Klein says free speech is good, but he doesn't lionize him. This is about the best response that can be mustered among a sea of "he didn't deserve to die, but..."
I don't know much about Kirk. As far as political influencers go, a commitment to the exercise of speech and "Debate*" is worth a nod even in an asterisked, scare quoted own-the-lib form. Doubly so in an environment where an exercise of (obnoxious) speech, the bedrock of our polite society, will get you targeted. I wish Kirk's politics were more like mine in his life and advocacy, but that goes for everyone.
Would it be helpful if you pretended Joe Rogan was killed instead? That sounds snarky, but I am curious who might be a controversial, but deserving figure you dislike to receive more than mostly derision with a he didn't deserve, but... primer.
wemptronics
15d ago
https://youtube.com/watch?v=IeWMw2hb4gY&ab_channel=Motte%26Bailey
The Intellectual Dark Web lives on in our memories. In case anyone else is curious here is the first CW thread top-level post on the discussion with Harris. Probably the first of several.
Ezra Klein is a woke idiot who lied about Charles Murray to push blank slate liberalism and he did it knowingly, and not out of ignorance, because the narrative was more important than the truth.
There's an argument to be had around the value of any given noble lie or paternalistic social engineering. Ezra Klein, however, is not the person to make these arguments, because he can't give much than an inch without falling into a crisis of dissonance.
wemptronics
22d ago
I am still immature enough to find humor in it.
The only gay bar I can remember going to was definitely fully... gentrified. Straightified? City, trendy nightlife, etc. Which is probably why an invading war band of very suspiciously not gay people was not an issue. It also wasn't ethnography friendly as it was not talking friendly. I wonder if we even have many gay pub equivalents in the states.
be me
be on long weekend with normies
find time to comfymaxx
visit wordy castle website
its weekly threads shitpost /general/
first post another post from not gay doctor indian anon
hes serially documenting becoming regular at gay bar
very suspiciously not gay famalam
scroll
read second post where anon complains about chinese cartoons
sigh
he doesnt know
he doesnt fucking know
anon doesnt know 2000s era travel blogs was the only good thing the internet ever made
think about how i didnt read the post of the very suspiciously not gay man bc i made a greentext instead
feelsgoodman.jpg
Log off
Because, "lies, damned lies, and statistics." Check the right side Y axis.
It's not less in absolute terms. December 19, 2022 is that first red major dip: https://www.themotte.org/post/240/culture-war-roundup-for-the-week. For whatever reason (technical probably) it is the only thread to receive <20k (16884) views, but it also received many (1806) comments. The graph is created in a way that is meant to show a relationship between comment:views. This weirdo week breaks an otherwise easy to see relationship. Whether this was a smart way or a good way to go about doing this I leave to the floor.
More options
Context Copy link