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Culture War Roundup for the week of May 27, 2024

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Another week, another Tucker interview, another transcription of a juicy part by yours truly. I promise, this is unusual, I haven't listened to two in a row, at all, ever.

This week is Jeffrey Sachs. The part below is just after 1:44.

JS: I also have a big measure of resentment: I don't like the risks we are being put under, Tucker.

TC:Yes, well I agree with that completely.

JS: I don't like it. This is not a game.

TC: Well, you've got children.

JS: I've got grandchildren, and I really care about this, and I don't like the games, and I want people to tell the truth. And if we told the truth, we could actually stop the wars, today. I don't mean, that sounds crazy, it's not crazy. If we told the truth about the Ukraine, if Biden called Putin and said, that NATO enlargement we've been trying for 30 years, it's off. We get it, you're right, it's not going to your border, Ukraine should be neutral. That war would stop today. Oh, there'd be lots of pieces to figure out, where exactly will the borders be, how will go, I don't say that there won't be issues, but the fighting would stop today.

JS: If the government of Israel either were told, or said, there will be a state of Palestine, and we will live peacefully side by side, the fighting would stop today. These are basic facts, basic matters of truth that if we actually spoke them, if we actually treated each other like grown-ups we would resolve to seem to be these insurmountable crises. They're not at all insurmountable, they just require a measure of truth.

That was the first mention of Israel, that I could recall, but the whole conversation is about Ukraine, Russia, Putin, and NATO. It's not exactly new to me, but it's refreshing to hear someone so clearly say that this is a war of choice, and the choice is being made by the USA, and their puppet states involved in NATO.

And that was all before any discussion of COVID. tl;dl, it's obviously from a lab, we (USA) pretty clearly funded it, and Fauci has been running the germ warfare branch of the DoD for decades. Which lab, and how is unknown, but, in his own words:

JS: Our government has lied to us about every single moment of this from the start, hasn't told us anything about any of this, it's all whistleblowers or Freedom of Information Act. That's the only way we know any of what I'm describing to you right now. No one has told the truth at all.

Great interview, and I'm glad that Tucker has twitter dot com to host his stuff, rather than be consigned to the fringes of the internet.

If the government of Israel either were told, or said, there will be a state of Palestine, and we will live peacefully side by side, the fighting would stop today. These are basic facts, basic matters of truth that if we actually spoke them, if we actually treated each other like grown-ups we would resolve to seem to be these insurmountable crises. They're not at all insurmountable, they just require a measure of truth.

Yeah, the fighting would stop today, but then resume as soon as the newly empower Hamas government rebuilt its capacity to lob rockets into Israel. I enjoy listening to Sachs on podcasts, but the consistency with which he believes that shithole countries and murderous Islamists just need a nice little nudge in the right direction is absurd and fails to predict much of anything about the world. Yeah, fighting an endless holy war sucks for Israel and is a suboptimal outcome, but the alternative is not actually just recognizing a nice Palestinian neighbor.

Are there any major issues where Sachs basic position isn't the US sucks and should stop being such meanies? I did a cursory search and these are what I find:

  • China should gain power and dismantle US hegemony. Also, everyone should stop being such jerks to them about the Uyghurs.
  • The US shouldn't intervene in Syria.
  • Venezuela sucks because of American sanctions.
  • Covid was a US government conspiracy.
  • The US is pretty much solely to blame for Ukraine.

I even partially agree with some of these, but when someone's solution to everything is anti-American, it might be best to just consider them anti-American and respond accordingly.

The simple fact is that this guy is a soup-to-nuts career academic.

Which means he's basically been an anon posting on a very expensive board for years and has sat in the stew of his own filth echo chamber without interruption.

Although N.N. Taleb is increasingly crazy, his concept about Skin In The Game is a good one. Career academics who never ventured outside of those ivory towers should be treated with great suspicion. They live in a land of make believe ideas.

Some policies are so pollyannaish I can hardly believe people considered them. When I remember that, despite huge increases, only so many people have a college degree it makes more sense.

Yeah, if you could just slice off the bottom half of the population in terms of agreeableness and so on I'm sure plenty of ideas like "don't punish criminals" and "unilaterally disarm and hope for the best" might work better.