Eetan
3d ago
In particular, I see the key difference as somewhere between pre-modern state projects like, say, King Zhao of Qin ordering the construction of the Dūjiāngyàn irrigation and flood control project (around 256 BC, and still in use today!), and the sort of "High Modernist" technocratic projects discussed in James C. Scott's Seeing Like a State. Something like "ivory-tower Scientific Expertise" versus "ground-level metis."
Ancient megaprojects were not designed by peasants "on the ground", but by most experienced mathematicians and engineers of the time, with top tier technological and scientific expertise that was available.
The peasants had as much say in the whole process as peasants today. The Grand Canal is going to run over your farm? Tough luck.
Eetan
3d ago
The official, top expert approved line is "bodily autonomy above all else"
This is why medical profession advocates for legalizing all drugs, free market in human organs, end of conscription (in countries where it is applicable), legal dueling and gladiator fights among consenting adults and absolutely opposes any proposals for compulsory vaccination.
Eetan
3d ago
I'm not seeing it. For one, I've never heard anyone argue fornthe pro-trans position in those terms, so even if such people exist, they're a tiny minority.
This is the official, top expert approved line. Why you think "sex change" is obsolete bigoted term and gender affirming treatment is the proper terminology now?
Because the real gender was always deep down there, in soul that got stuck by mistake in wrong body, and must be affirmed by hacking and chopping the body until it conforms to the soul (just like statue was always inside the boulder, and the sculptor just gets it out).
Eetan
4d ago
Am I missing something essential about how this is supposed to work?
You are supposed to dispose of your desktop computer and do everything on your phone. Age of computer is over, modern youff computer skills make average boomer look like hacker wizard.
Sic transit gloria mundi.
Eetan
4d ago
Just curious, when was the last documented case of someone dying of starvation due to poverty in United States?
Pure starvation for economic reason, as "cannot afford enough calories to stay alive", not mentally ill people, drug addicts who forgot to eat, children starved by their parents, people stuck in place with no exit or lost in the wild etc.
Eetan
1mo ago
The motte is Marxists caring about culture, which obviously they have done throughout history. The Soviet Union is just one famous example.
Yes, Soviet Union cared about culture a lot, by promoting classical literature, art, music, opera and ballet to the masses (even when the masses were not interested and would prefer pop music, comic books and cowboy and gangster movies). Marxist-Leninist line always was that feudal and capitalist culture is great and belongs to working class, what was wrong with it was that the oppressors kept it only for themselves.
Eetan
1mo ago
Within the next two generations, Israel will be significantly larger than today, both in population and land area.
Israeli population growth shows no sign of abating, and, while the world is transfixed to Gaza, ancient biblical land of Bashan is now in the play.
Judea and Samaria and faith accompli, Bashan (and Gilead, when something happens in Jordan) are the next steps. Handmaid Tale fandom could rejoice, their fantasy could soon become real.
Eetan
1mo ago
It was in that spirit, that the ardent young Marxist, Éva Izsák, could be persuaded that it was her duty to kill herself for the sake of the cause.
Grim story. Now, let me add the necessary context to understand it, and it would be time and place where it happened.
It was late 1944 in Nazi occupied Hungary.
In this context, choosing to join underground resistance group was choosing to die for the cause, soon and often in rather unpleasant way, and it was clear to everyone.
Nothing "marxist" or "materialist" about this particular case, staunch Christian anticommunist Polish resistance would also execute their members at the slight suspicion they are compromised and endanger the group as a whole. These are rules of actual guerilla resistance against serious and determined enemy.
Eetan
1mo ago
Can someone please steel-man the American system of making individual citizens responsible for filing their taxes
MODE OF STEEL ON
In a free democratic republic, citizens should be aware about the true cost of state, and if they think it is too high, they should organize and vote for smaller and leaner government.
MODE OF STEEL OFF
Yea, it looks, walks and talks like mob extortion, but, unlike most parts of the system, can be steel manned. Not that it was ever deliberately designed for this reason.
Eetan
1mo ago
The killing themselves really gives me the spooks. No matter how I try I just can't imagine myself in that person's skull.
For me, it is the exact opposite. I just can't imagine myself committing long list of felonies and capital crimes, and then just ... give up, surrender to face rest of my life in American torture hell prisons.
Eetan
1mo ago
The vast majority of the MK ULTRA program files were destroyed and never released or leaked, so it’s hard to say. There were probably multiple types of techniques tested, and any that were successful were probably spun off into their own programs. In tinfoil hat circles I’ve heard of successor programs called MK NAOMI and MK MONARCH.
The short list of the programs is here.
I suspect some of the techniques of MK ULTRA or other similar programs ended up in mass media. In a democracy, being able to manipulate a huge number of people a small degree could be very useful.
What the professionals were looking for were not better marketing, advertising and PR technologies, not better interrogation and torture methods. By "mind control" they meant actual mind control from pulp science fiction of the time - methods of deleting and rewriting human memory like one deletes magnetic tape, reprogramming human mind like one programs electronic computer, marvel of this age. For some reason, they felt this is the thing Free World(TM) needs to defend freedom and fight communism.
So far, there is no sign it is possible, no sign that anyone in the world has such capability. It would be truly nightmarish world if it was real, world where killing is obsolete, world where they (for value of "they" you fear and hate the most) instead of cutting your head just stick you into machine, and it will turn you into one of "them".
Eetan
1mo ago
Again, he used a gun. It may be difficult for me to get across to a genuine Red Triber how alien that is to a Blue worldview.
Yes, worldwiew of ordinary Clinton and Biden voting normie with "in this house we believe" sign. The shooter was not one of these people and was not interested in "blue company".
Once you go far enough left, once you cross the threshold, you get to hate liberals and love guns as much as any MAGA hat wearing redneck.
Eetan
1mo ago
I'm sure he would have been identified eventually, but on the other hand he had sufficient leeway if he didn't confess/brag to probably get out of the country without anybody raising him.
Get out where?
If you look at succesful escapees from highest profile manhunt, the secret is to have friends/family in third world country who will hide you (while the authorities are not looking very hard).
If you are Diego Robles, your chances are good. If your name is James Robinson, forget it.
Eetan
1mo ago
How many Muslims that moved to Europe converted to Christianity, vs. how many Christian Europeans lost their faith within the same timeline?
Europe ceased to be Christian in traditional sense long before modern Muslim immigration began.
The question you need to ask is: how many Muslims assimilated into modern Western godless materialist life, vs how many Muslims reacted to living in unbeliever land by becoming more strict and fundamentalist?
(native European conversion to Islam is, so far, demographically insignificant. Michel Houellebecq utopia is far away.)
The issue is that not only is the creed not enforced, being active hostility to it is allowed, and often encouraged
The creed is very much enforced and resistance was not tolerated until very recently. See that even as recent refugee from war zone, you have no choice than to actively affirm the creed to be accepted by society.
Eetan
1mo ago
Are you looking for a complete creed and list of enforcement mechanisms? If so, I'll concede that I haven't thought that deeply about it. But as a summary, I'd say, "I'm imperfect, so I'll just go with whatever the pope wants." (See also: Edict of Thessalonica)
Yes, you need to think deeply about it. Who is the Pope (or Council, if you happen to be Conciliarist) who gets to decide what the Creed is?
When the Creed changes, what should happen to Americans who do not get along fast enough, and to Americans who actively reject it?
Eetan
1mo ago
As a side note on the child porn, let me ask a conspiratorial question: Without any opinion on this particular case, given the level of tech access of government agencies and corporations, what are the odds that nobody is putting child porn files onto the devices of people they want to discredit?
Remember Stephen Paddock, current solo mass shooting world record holder? And remember his brother, who, by coincidence, happened to possess indecent images of children (until he hadn't).
Eetan
2mo ago
The average Gazan's life would improve immensely if they just complied and stopped fucking with Israel.
Too late for this. Israel moved on and lost any interest in improving Palestinian quality of life. The plan for Gazans is to leave or die. And since Gazans have nowhere to go...
Eetan
2mo ago
Israel is dropping like a rock in the polls and especially among young people.
On one side, young people with cute frog hats are not fond of Israel. How sad.
On other side, Israel just demolished city of two million, reduced neighboring countries to wrecks, terminates anyone it wants , whether by bombing or targeted killings, and no one in the region can do anything about it. You do not have to love Israel to admit that it is on the roll and it is not going to stop.
Things could change when American boomers raised on Hollywood biblical epics and Scofield bible start dying off in earnest, but this is at least decade away.
Eetan
2mo ago
Your argument was that private and corporate owned cities would be "world so full of hate that no human being would want to live in it." Dubai is closest real world example of propertarian utopia.
Eetan
2mo ago
In libertarian world, society is as laissez faire as owner of the society (technically, land where the society is) wants it to be. Do not like it? Pull yourself by your bootstraps and build your own society.
Eetan
2mo ago
privately own cities operating as if they were corporate fiefdoms and see that as the highest form of social organization, in reality it'd be a world so full of hate that no human being would want to live in it.
Lots of people want to live in Dubai. This place has its own problems, it is not exactly known as land of freedom, but no one described it as "full of hate".
Eetan
2mo ago
Shortage of weapons, was, to put it mildly, never a problem for the Arab countries. Israel faced this situation before.
Eetan
2mo ago
If this is how culture war is defined, it's too broad to be a useful phrase. By this standard how would you have separated civil rights from culture war? Or would you consider them together?
Culture war could be meaningfully defined as struggle/war for non-material reasons (more precisely, one that began this way). This is not something modern, examples galore from premodern history (mostly religious).
Politics as usual:
"Who is the rightful heir of the throne?"
"Should the nobility submit to the king, or the other way around?"
Culture war:
"Was Son created by the Father, or are they co-eternal?"
"Is veneration of icons proper piety or idolatrous pagan abomination?"
etc, etc.
Eetan
2mo ago
I believe the incestigations are going to keep turning up evidence that he was a radicalized leftist, and there were no personal motives for his shooting.
Why the need to "believe"?
The shooter is alive and, according to news, cooperating with the investigation. Just have patience, just wait how he explains his deed, how he answers the question "why you did it?"
We are retvrning 1500 years back. Mere ability to read, write and do basic arithmetic will again make you a superman seen by superstitious populace as wizard. Onwards to 6th century, bring back Dark Ages!
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