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PaperclipPerfector  24d ago (text post)   32411 thread views

Culture War Roundup for the week of April 7, 2025

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I can only say that engaging with the Chinese, and with people like you, has gradually convinced me that White People (Hajnali European stock specifically) are basically jumped-up serfs, the confused lower caste of prawns from District 9, with little more to offer to the world sans stale kanging and hollow, corporate-coded pretense of “soul” that, if it ever existed, resided in your currently extinct owners. You don't even notice my point about simple economics and logistics, so lost you are in your racial superiority masturbation. But of course those issues are related.

if Japan were in China's position instead

But it isn't, and you are largely responsible for that, because your previous generation had the exact same attitude towards the Japanese. Deaths from overwork, rigid hierarchy, soulless collectivist automatons cheating and copying to flood the markets and dispossess our Christian Germanic workers – this can't be allowed, can it? Oh, what a pity that now that we know them better, Japan is a geriatric country of no ambition, that mainly produces anime to give you some respite from the toxic antihuman sludge of your own media. (Presumably this is the fault of Joos. Somehow for all your natural nobility of spirit you are not capable of resisting a tiny tribe of natural wordcels. At least the Chinese managed to overthrow the Manchu).

Regrettably, China is 10 times larger and the same tricks won't work.

A change in American economic policy sent global markets into a tailspin, so objectively speaking, America is in fact a big deal.

Yes, you can do a great deal of damage to humanity. This is akin to the bafflingly swinish line of argument that “China needs us more than we need them, because they need to sell their valuable manufactured goods to someone; our consumption is more valuable than production”. We shall see how well this philosophy works.

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You don't even notice my point about simple economics and logistics

No, I did notice your point about economics and logistics. But your point wasn't relevant. The likelihood of winning a conflict has little relevance to whether that conflict should be waged in the first place.

Ironically, and contrary to your accusation, it is the serf who acts in accordance with prudence and rationality. The serf is a serf precisely because he correctly calculates that servitude is what gives him the best odds of continued survival. The nobleman, in contrast, acts in accordance with virtue, even when the outcome is certain destruction.

A Nietzsche quote for every situation:

Noble and common. - For common natures all noble, magnanimous feelings appear to be inexpedient and therefore initially incredible: they give a wink when they hear of such things and seem to want to say, 'Surely there must be some advantage involved; one cannot see through every wall' - they are suspicious of the noble person, as if he were furtively seeking his advantage. If they become all too clearly convinced of the absence of selfish intentions and gains, they view the noble person as a kind of fool: they despise him in his pleasure and laugh at the sparkle in his eye. 'How could one enjoy being at a disadvantage? How could one want with open eyes to be disadvantaged? Some disease of reason must be linked to the noble affection' - thus they think and look disparagingly, the way they disparage the pleasure that a madman derives from his fixed idea. What distinguishes the common nature is that it unflinchingly keeps sight of its advantage, and that this thought of purpose and advantage is even stronger than its strongest drives; not to allow these drives to lead it astray to perform inexpeditious acts - that is its wisdom and self-esteem. In comparison, the higher nature is more unreasonable - for the noble, magnanimous, and self-sacrificing person does in fact succumb to his drives; and in his best moments, his reason pauses. An animal that protects its young at the risk of its own life or during the mating period follows the female unto death does not think of danger and death; its reason likewise pauses because the pleasure in its brood or in the female and the fear of being deprived of this pleasure dominate it totally; the animal becomes stupider than it usually is - just like the person who is noble and magnanimous. [...]

The likelihood of winning a conflict has little relevance to whether that conflict should be waged in the first place.

It actually has a lot of relevance. The real reason you act like it doesn't is that you do not seriously engage with the possibility of losing, and losing badly (losing what? To what degree? How many cards do you have left at the point of losing, and what terms can be negotiated?). People make unreasonable maximalist demands when they are assured of their invulnerability. You treat a great power conflict like another Middle Eastern adventure, “oh we found WMDs in this shithole, our Democracy will perish if we do not conquer it hue hue!”. It's an instinct that's hard to overcome after a century of uninterrupted wins and cost-free losses. The same Main Character Syndrome, coupled with low human capital in Trump team, explains decidedly suboptimal and cost-insensitive means that were chosen for prosecuting the conflict. Americans think they can afford anything, because that's recorded in their institutional DNA. But they have never fought a superior power, due to it never having existed prior to this day. So they have developed an auxiliary belief that the very fact of them antagonizing any power confirms it is inferior. It's hard to feel pity for such a narcissistic people.

it is the serf who acts in accordance with prudence and rationality. The serf is a serf precisely because he correctly calculates that servitude is what gives him the best odds of continued survival. The nobleman, in contrast, acts in accordance with virtue, even when the outcome is certain destruction.

In Imperial Russia, there was a trend when mujiks, LARPing as nobles, initiated duels over petty spats, murdering each other with axes; eventually the state had to put its boot down. Due to extremely low literacy rates they couldn't have plausibly cited Nietzsche when doing so, but I believe that they'd have appreciated your quote.

Self-serving, petulant, handwavy, shallowly aesthetic notions of virtue are cheap and easy to brandish in defense of one's animalistic impulses; any kind of impulsive retardation can be dressed up as a calling of aristocratic, virile masculine nature, there's a whole genre of extremely popular Western music about it, authored by the impromptu warrior aristocracy of the streets. Your own elite has been wiped out to such a degree that this whole discourse is vacuous, we can't consult with a living bearer of a tradition, only speculate. It is plausible that I am wrong and there's just never been any substance to the whole fraud.

But they have never fought a superior power, due to it never having existed prior to this day.

America fought Britain twice and the Ottoman Empire once when they were far superior powers.

I know. This was a completely different America, it's like saying that Moscow was once conquered by Poles or something (Russians are very proud of that episode, thanks to propaganda in history lessons, but obviously there is no memory, institutional legacy or military tradition that survived) – a dim fact people learn in school. America that lives today was born in the Civil War and was fully formed in McKinley's era, probably. Since then, it was straight up dunking on weaker powers. With some tasteless underdog posturing from time to time, of course.

Russians are very proud of that episode

Really, very proud? Because, against all odds, it ended with Romanov dynasty rather than a Polish king, or did you mean to write 'Poles' there?

I always mean to write what I write.

Oh, there even is a national holiday. We of course focus on the conquest and 'ugh, what could have been', so one gets the impression Russians could only be embarrassed by the episode. Dumb, I need to pick up a history book written from Russian perspective.

We are aware that at the time the Polish-Lithuanian Commonwealth wasn't the «poor little plucky Poland, the sacrificial lamb of Europe, bullied and partitioned by cruel great powers» which I'm told is your national narrative, but a more developed and organized, competent expansionist power and that, indeed, it «could have been» that we'd have lost sovereignty indefinitely and been supplanted in history by the mighty Polish Empire. This feeds into schadenfreude and relief about your subsequent decline and losses of sovereignty. Pre-Romanov era Poland is viewed as a quite serious actor, without any condescension.

So, there's enough of a cause for pride to both sides I guess.

P.S. I also should look into how the Polish side sees that episode.

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