Botond173
15hr ago
This is admittedly a half-assed thought experiment of mine, but here it goes.
A voice recording surfaces one day of a discussion between some local ICE official and some prominent local Republican politician where they sort of joke around about some locally infamous MtF transsexual activist, calling "her" a man and an annoying twat or something similar. Both get condemned, even by many Republicans, and they release some non-apology "apologies" and otherwise keep their positions.
There are protests against them of course, but the local orgs/chapters of the Proud Boys, Oath Keepers, Patriot Front etc. announce a rally/demonstration in support of them. The local Blue Tribe generally gets fired up about this and some local LGBT groups specifically announces a counter-demonstration/protest. One of the announced organizers is this fringe mask-worshipping lesbian cult. These groups release a united statement that they are inviting all decent, caring, empathic etc. local citizens to attend, or something like that.
So what do non-fringe Blue Tribe groups do as a response? Do they state that they refuse to attend because one of the organizers is a fringe group of insane people? Or do they simply not attend and otherwise refuse to comment on this particular aspect? Or do they attend but refuse to have pictures taken with these mask-worshippers or to shake hands with them? Will struggle sessions ensue?
Botond173
16hr ago
His subordinates either had him poisoned and falsely portrayed it as a natural death, or deliberately withheld medical assistance in order to cause his death. In either case his death is on them, particularly Beria.
Botond173
16hr ago
Nobody is beyond reproach or suspicion regardless of position except for the one supreme ruler who is revered basically as a deity, that is.
Botond173
1d ago
I'm not sure it makes sense to ponder this subject. It can surely be stated that the executors of the wholesale repression of kulaks, Cossacks and 'treasonous' ethnic minorities etc. were themselves repressed afterwards but not for the reason that they committed atrocities. It was due to the peculiar logic of Stalinism and the overall nature of totalitarian systems which operate by the rule that nobody is beyond reproach or suspicion regardless of position or rank and everyone is to live in a constant state of dread.
Botond173
2d ago
The campaigns of collectivization and industrialization were initiated in 1929. Both of these essentially entailed show trials, local purges and waves of terror directed at 'wreckers', 'saboteurs', 'hoarders', 'terrorists' and other so-called anti-revolutionaries. The leaders of the state security service (GPU, formerly Cheka) who carried these out were so-called Old Bolsheviks, that is, participants of the revolution and civil war, not appointed by Stalin and generally lacking a sense of personal loyalty to him which he found suspicious. The short story is that these officials and their subordinates were purged during the great terror wave of 1937-38. The state security commissar who carried this out was himself purged in 1940 by his successor who was then himself purged after Stalin’s death.
Botond173
2d ago
They're not even mainstream among LGBT people. This is the fringe of the fringe.
Are you sure about that? Are they getting disowned and purged from the tribe?
Botond173
2d ago
the outgroup's most ridiculous exemplars
Does that also make them rare and irrelevant though?
Alternatively:
Rural – no traffic jams ever anywhere
Suburban/exurban – having to routinely get stuck in traffic jams when a) commuting to and from work via car b) going shopping on Saturday morning
Urban – traffic jams are the norm and not the exception; any car commute is basically impossible to schedule safely as there might be an accident etc. anytime
Botond173
4d ago
A stray comment on the culture-war thread from two weeks ago reminds me that, IMO, people on this website have been talking very loosely when they compare "urban", "suburban", and "rural" living.
Pinging @TIRM as that stray comment of mine was a response to his. I stand by what I said. I think the romanticization of suburban living is understandable in light of disastrous urban decay and dysfunction but ultimately still a bit silly.
Botond173
4d ago
I don't want to sound like a dick but we're living in the age of fancy, flashy, addictive touchscreens so the time your kid is going to willingly spend running around with your dog in your personal garden will be rather limited, and this will probably annoy the hell out of you.
Botond173
4d ago
I tend to agree with the view that suburbs actually combine the disadvantages of urban and rural living while offering the advantages of neither.
Botond173
4d ago
This is only tangentially related but I'm reminded that the adverse effects of unchecked mass immigration are mostly felt by those natives who have to live among the new arrivals - lower middle-class and working-class people employed in the service and manufacturing sectors. They usually rely on public transport and use public places in their neighborhoods so they have no option to avoid the masses of immigrants. Many of them don't have cars. They cannot afford to move to the suburbs or exurbs either, or to pay for private tuition of their children. And many of these people are also middle-aged or elderly with a small social circle. From the ruling class they receive nothing but mockery and disdain because NPC normies believe that anyone who cannot socially isolate oneself from the smelly underclass in general is a loser. In their frustration they often start supporting anti-immigration parties which in turns invites even more mockery, disdain, hatred and seething.
It's the same reason why the bygone tramway/streetcar network of London was never extended to anywhere near the Westminster and Kensington districts.
Botond173
5d ago
So is there something to be said about barber shops of all places? The Wikipedia article on the social phenomenon known as the third place has featured a photo of a barber shop in Brazil as one illustration for a long time as a reflection of the simple fact that barber shops are among the evident third places for men. These are a subject we have discussed here multiple times as there seems to be broad consensus (outside of this forum as well) that they (i.e. third places for [single] men) are mostly dead by now. Broadly speaking there appears to be two opposing narratives on this; one is that these places are dead because men (and adults in general) no longer want them and no longer think they need them, the other is that adults would actually prefer to visit them but they're dead anyway, and they died off because adults in the past bought into the illusion that these are no longer necessary and now it's impossible to resurrect them.
After visiting the Wikipedia page above I went on to ask myself multiple questions. Who goes to the barber shop anymore? As far as I can tell, barber shops are still around, but only in dense urban core areas. Do they exist in the suburbs and exurbs where walkable neighborhoods do not exist? I guess not. Is it that a growing proportion of men are single and many of them let themselves go to such an extent that they don't bother going to the barber? Are married men reluctant or unable to visit the existing barber shops?
Botond173
6d ago
One of the recurring arguments of Steve Sailer is that it's actually the Latinos that are generally reluctant to build community, do civic engagement, run for office, get involved in politics etc. They are generally indifferent towards society as a whole and limit their social life to their wider family which they do strongly care about.
Botond173
11d ago
most of Lindsay's supporters want her to be committed to a mental hospital
Also the real crazy women are saying the husband did it which is surprisingly wide spread
It almost seems like it's their...motte and bailey.
Botond173
11d ago
My general belief about third spaces is that they are only dead because we've killed them. People aren't going to them because they don't want to.
In the US at least I assume most of it happened as a result of the gradual dissolution of white (Polish-American, Italian-American, Irish, German etc.) inner-city ethnic enclaves/quarters which happened in parallel with suburbanization. When we think of third places, it's usually these neighborhoods we associate them with. They were both walkable and were served by public transportation. In a suburb, children generally only go anywhere after leaving the house when being transported on wheels by their parents, which generally hinders any socializing.
Botond173
11d ago
The women in this area also tend to wear jeans and baggy t-shirts instead of high heels and clubwear.
I guess it's pointless to ask this but are they generally just tagging along or do they also do some of the driving that happens? Because that'd partially explain the lack of high heels.
Botond173
11d ago
I guess the RETVRN types, or at least chill conservatives are to be found mainly among the Viking/Gladiator reenactors instead. I admit I have no idea what "Historical European Martial Arts" are.
Botond173
11d ago
Other sub cultures and scenes have been destroyed by the internet and modernity.
What do you have in mind? As far as the metal scene is concerned which you already mentioned, it's not exactly destroyed but is greatly transformed for sure, and the usual explanation that I'm familiar with is that it's completely mainstreamed and gentrified, to a point where old rock stars get knighted etc., and is thus no longer a fitting avenue to express teenage rebellion. This is why relatively few youths and much more adults and middle-aged people attend metal events nowadays. Also, much of its popularity was generated by a hostile Christian conservative right-wing milieu, and that has largely lost its relevance by this point. I guess that does count as a consequence of modernity but only in a rather wide sense of the word. Regarding the Goth scene, on the other hand, I've seen accounts that its members were prone to practising rather strict gatekeeping and exclusion due to an overall strong antipathy and concern regarding 'posers', which meant that rather few youngsters were entering the scene and eventually it withered away. Not exactly the fault of modernity, I think.
The internet surely has a corrosive effect on all of this, but I think only in the sense that teenagers and young people no longer feel compelled to meet in person whenever they merely want to chat. I'm guessing this was a big factor in the demise of malls, although I'm also guessing the mall is an institution that is particularly vulnerable to any social pathology.
You don't have to do drugs to be a raver, but you absolutely need to tolerate people being high around you [2]. This provides some level of costly buy in that separates it from mainstream culture. My tentative theory is that the desire for a space where you can semi openly use drugs provides a constant incentive towards holding underground shows.
It seems then that from a sociological point of view, the rave scene sort of hits the spot - it scares the normies away, as open and massive drug use is technically illegal, which prevents gentrification, but at the same time it's sufficiently acceptable to the mainstream so that large numbers of people are attracted to it: the police are apparently willing to generally look the other way, rave music is not seen as countercultural or fringe, and the drug consumption is of the sort that is not seen as a serious social problem by most normies.
See my response to TheDemonRazgriz here.
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