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Culture War Roundup for the week of November 28, 2022

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Via information from Twitter's Archives, Elon has released what he calls "THE TWITTER FILES" part one, via journalist Matt Taibbi.

And uh...

it's nothing?

So we learn the following events that I highlight because they seem important to me. If you believe I have omitted an important fact from the thread, feel free to point it out.

  1. There were ways for VIPs to report tweets to twitter staff in a way the average person couldn't. As an aside, all of the tweets in that image were nude images of Hunter Biden - not anything about the laptop story, or corruption exactly, just nudes of Hunter Biden, which are arguably prevented by any policy on revenge porn.

  2. Both the Biden Campaign and the Trump White House used these lines of communication. It is notable that only one of Biden and Trump was President in October 2020, and it was not Biden.

  3. It was biased to Dems because more dems work at Twitter. I'm kinda missing the causation here but sure.

  4. It seems like different teams at Twitter were not on the same page about their policy.

  5. Matt Taibbi sees no evidence of any government or intelligence agency having spoken to Twitter directly about the laptop story in any fashion.

  6. Twitter internally argued some more about whether this was good or bad

  7. Ro Khanna reached out to Twitter to tell them that they shouldn't be supressing speech.

  8. Twitter asked the opinions of 9 Republican and 3 Democratic House Staffers

  9. The house Dems thought there should be more moderation, said "The first amendment isn't absolute"

  10. Dorsey often intervened on high profile suspensions

Uh, this story contains the following actions from Democratic party officials who were either in office or affiliated with the government in some fashion at the time:

  1. Ro Khanna, house rep, said they should not censor the story

  2. Some Democratic staffers said that there should be more moderation in an informal bitching session

Nevertheless, Elon and others are treating this like it was some sort of horrid crime by the Biden administration, which was not in office, and when it had exactly the same capabilities as the Trump administration, actually in office had with Twitter?

And Taibbi confirmed that the federal government, FBI, CIA, etc., did at no time, for any purpose, contact Twitter directly regarding the laptop story, or tell them what to do about it?

I'm struggling to see how this is anything other than a complete repudiation of everything that was being said about the deep state colluding with Twitter to censor the news story. It seems that mid-high level staff at Twitter made a decision that about half of the company disagreed with, and they argued about it the whole time, and nobody in the Government ever told them to censor the laptop story?

Social networks are biased. News at 11.

Elon should turn the tables on Section 230 and use it against the the left, and then get it overturned or amended, and then resell the site , so he solves online censorship against conservatives at almost no cost . That would be a 4d chess move.

The emails make it clear the management at Twitter reflexively did not want the Hunter story to spread, and they either deluded themselves or made up the "hacked materials" excuse as a pretext to suppressing the story. In the end, the suppression likely became way bigger of a story than the story itself, to the point that even Democratic lawmakers were contacting Twitter to tell them what a boneheaded move that was.

When this story first came out, I was skeptical about the laptop in part because Rudy Guiliani was the source but since then I don't have any doubts that this was really Hunter Biden's laptop and emails. I still don't know how this was supposed to be such a smoking gun. Hunter is obviously a fuck up, and I think it's obvious that he only got executive positions because of who his father is, but the attempts to stretch this up the chain haven't really delivered so far, even an another two years after.

Tony Bobulinski personally confirming that Joe was offered to be cut in on (at least one of) the deals wasn’t enough for you? This story is from just a few days after the last linked post in your comment, btw, and it wasn’t hard to find either.

I don't think I was aware of that but no, that moves the needle very slightly but isn't enough. It seems plausible that "big guy" is indeed Joe Biden but the deal details he outlines are somewhat vague and it doesn't seem to have been consummated. I'm not exactly clear on what the accusation is here, is the idea that Joe Biden was exploiting his political position for monetary gain? We already know from the tax returns he released that him and his wife made $17 million in a year primarily just from public speaking and book deals. Is the idea that he made even more from influence peddling? That seems plausible, but an unconsummated deal vaguely outlined in an email is weak evidence.

Bobulinski was one of the people who received the email, so presumably he knows. And “moves the needle” with respect to what? All you said in the linked post was that no one had successfully “run things up the chain,” which seems like you’re saying no one had shown Joe to be directly involved. If that was all you were asserting, then this seems like pretty good evidence that he was.

Yes, the accusation is that a Biden was influence peddling. And the fact that Biden made a lot of money elsewhere says nothing at all about whether he’d want more. Rich people do bad things all the time to get more money, especially politicians. (E.g. the Clintons were making even more money pre-2016 and AFAIK it’s pretty widely agreed that they were influence-peddling too.)

Trying to influence-peddle and not succeeding is still intending to influence-peddle, and it’s still being directly involved with Hunter’s stuff. It’s perfectly strong evidence of that. I’m not trying to convict Joe Biden of a crime here, but his intentions and complicity are entirely relevant to his character and motives.

All you said in the linked post was that no one had successfully “run things up the chain,” which seems like you’re saying no one had shown Joe to be directly involved. If that was all you were asserting, then this seems like pretty good evidence that he was.

@Folamh3 helpfully pointed me to this recent Washington Post article about the CEFC deal:

James Gilliar, a business associate summarizing the allocation of the equity in Oneida Holdings LLC., in the email, wrote how four partners would get 20 percent each, except for Jim Biden, who would get 10 percent. He added a question: “10 held by H for the big guy?” One of the recipients of the mail, Anthony Bobulinski, has said that the “big guy” referred to Joe Biden and that “H” referred to Hunter. Bobulinski was a guest of Trump at one of the 2020 presidential debates.

But Gilliar told the Wall Street Journal in 2020: “I would like to clear up any speculation that former Vice President Biden was involved with the 2017 discussions about our potential business structure. I am unaware of any involvement at anytime of the former vice president. The activity in question never delivered any project revenue.”

Three days after the email was sent, a draft agreement setting up Oneida was circulated. It shows each partner would receive 20 percent, including Jim Biden. No mention is made of Joe Biden. The company agreement signed on May 22, 2017, had the same allocation. Oneida was to hold 50 percent of another corporate entity called SinoHawk. Neither Gilliar nor James Biden responded to requests for comment.

The Wall Street Journal said that it had reviewed corporate records and found no role for Joe Biden. The Washington Post, in an extensive report on the CEFC dealings, also did not find evidence that Joe Biden personally benefited from or knew details about the transactions with CEFC. The Biden campaign at the time denied he had any role.

So one guy involved in the deal claims that there was 10% of the CEFC venture set aside for Joe Biden, but another guy involved in the deal denies that, a draft agreement doesn't mention Joe Biden, the final agreement doesn't mention Joe Biden, and both WSJ and WaPo examined CEFC and saw no involvement or benefit to Joe Biden. The weight of the evidence here seems very one-sided to me, and it seems reasonable to conclude that Bobulinski is either lying or exaggerating. Do you disagree?

Yes, I do. “10 held by H for the big guy” literally means Hunter would be receiving 10% on behalf of whoever the “big guy” is. That entails that the “big guy” wouldn’t be getting it directly, so even if Joe were the “big guy,” that means he wouldn’t appear in the contract. So his not appearing in it is exactly what you would expect if he were being cut in after the fashion described in the email. That reduces Giliar’s statement to mere he-said-she-said, in which case Bobulinski is no less intrinsically credible than him. And in fact, Hunter getting 20% (10% more than Jim Biden) in the contract directly supports Bobulinski’s hypothesis (10% for him, just like Jim, then another 10% for Joe).

Would you still find Bobulinski's claim to be credible if he had a falling out with Hunter or was chasing a moment in the media spotlight?

Would you find his claim credible if neither of those were true? Are they even?

More comments

If this is the first time you heard the name Bobulinkski then the suppression worked on you. I heard about him, and his testimony, before the 2020 election, but I had to go looking in alternate sources to hear about it.

Seems likely that Bobulinski is either lying or exaggerating. See my comments above. And I don't know what you mean by "suppression" here.

I still don't know how this was supposed to be such a smoking gun.

Lee Smith's analysis may be informative:

These included communications regarding a deal with a Chinese energy company that earned Hunter $5 million, and his work with Burisma, the Ukrainian energy firm that paid him $83,333 per month to sit on its board. His father later boasted in public that he’d threatened to withhold a $1 billion loan guarantee to Ukraine unless the central government in Kyiv fired the prosecutor investigating Burisma.

...

Maxey says he also saw information on the laptop that has direct implications for U.S. national security. According to Maxey, this material includes documents relating to Pentagon cyber programs and others regarding former FBI Director Louis Freeh. According to a previously released email on Hunter’s laptop, Freeh worked with him to help a Romanian tycoon evade bribery charges. In April 2016, according to an earlier trove of emails, Freeh deposited $100,000 in a trust fund for two of Joe Biden’s grandchildren.

...

While [Joe] Biden said he never spoke with his son about his business abroad, a voicemail from another recently released laptop cache shows the president was being less than forthright. He knew about his son’s business with the Chinese energy firm and one of its top officials, Patrick Ho. After The New York Times published a softball article in December 2018 about Hunter’s work with Ho and other businessmen tied to the Chinese Communist Party, Biden left a message for his son saying, “I think you’re clear.”

Of course Hunter was clear: The FBI was watching over him. The bureau knew what he was doing because it had obtained a Foreign Intelligence Surveillance Act (FISA) warrant in 2017 on Ho, who Hunter called the “spy chief of China.”

...

Reports like the ones the Treasury Department is now withholding formed the basis of a September 2020 Senate Republican investigation by Sens. Ron Johnson of Wisconsin and Chuck Grassley of Iowa that documented Hunter Biden’s business with foreign officials and companies. It included his relationship with Burisma in Ukraine; the Chinese energy company, which also gave money to the president’s brother Jim and his wife, Sara; and Elena Baturina, the widow of a former mayor of Moscow, from whom Hunter received $3.5 million.

The Washington Post also reports that Hunter organised various trade deals with 10% of his fee earmarked for "the big guy", said to be referring to Joe Biden.

I don't know how damning this information is, but it seems at least as damning as Trump's various scandals (Trump University etc.). If Joe Biden was bribed by a Romanian tycoon in order to make criminal charges against him go away, I think he could conceivably be brought up on charges of corruption and perverting the course of justice.

Thanks for that link. I was intrigued by the passage "Freeh worked with [Hunter] to help a Romanian tycoon evade bribery charges". It links to a NY post story with more details. Describing Louis Freeh as "former FBI Director" seems a bit misleading in this context, because at the time that he talked to Hunter he was a partner in a law firm, not a government official. It's (unfortunately) common for government officials to cash in on the contacts they made to pivot into a lucrative private practice, and in my ideal world that wouldn't happen. But I read the email between Freeh and Hunter as just a referral in the form of "hey I have a client that could use legal representation with criminal charges he's facing", and I don't see anything wrong with that. The fact that Freeh gave $100k to Biden's grandkids shows just how much these people can rake in the cash, but referral fees are neither illegal nor necessarily unethical (I once referred a client to another attorney that was probably worth $1000 and the attorney sent me a $20 amazon gift card which was kind of funny).

It's obvious Freeh made a "donation" in 2017 hoping he could convince Joe Biden to get him more client referrals. That's definitely slimey, but I don't see where you claim that Joe Biden was "bribed" by a Romanian tycoon to make charges go away. The follow-up NYpost story says there was no evidence Joe Biden ever followed up with Freeh (probably because Joe Biden was planning to be president rather than a consultant or whatever).

The Washington Post also reports that Hunter organised various trade deals with 10% of his fee earmarked for "the big guy", said to be referring to Joe Biden.

I'm confused, did you read your own link?

James Gilliar, a business associate summarizing the allocation of the equity in Oneida Holdings LLC., in the email, wrote how four partners would get 20 percent each, except for Jim Biden, who would get 10 percent. He added a question: “10 held by H for the big guy?” One of the recipients of the mail, Anthony Bobulinski, has said that the “big guy” referred to Joe Biden and that “H” referred to Hunter. Bobulinski was a guest of Trump at one of the 2020 presidential debates.

But Gilliar told the Wall Street Journal in 2020: “I would like to clear up any speculation that former Vice President Biden was involved with the 2017 discussions about our potential business structure. I am unaware of any involvement at anytime of the former vice president. The activity in question never delivered any project revenue.”

Three days after the email was sent, a draft agreement setting up Oneida was circulated. It shows each partner would receive 20 percent, including Jim Biden. No mention is made of Joe Biden. The company agreement signed on May 22, 2017, had the same allocation. Oneida was to hold 50 percent of another corporate entity called SinoHawk. Neither Gilliar nor James Biden responded to requests for comment.

The Wall Street Journal said that it had reviewed corporate records and found no role for Joe Biden. The Washington Post, in an extensive report on the CEFC dealings, also did not find evidence that Joe Biden personally benefited from or knew details about the transactions with CEFC. The Biden campaign at the time denied he had any role.

So one guy involved in the deal claims that there was 10% of the CEFC venture set aside for Joe Biden, but another guy involved in the deal denies that, a draft agreement doesn't mention Joe Biden, the final agreement doesn't mention Joe Biden, and both WSJ and WaPo examined CEFC and saw no involvement or benefit to Joe Biden. The weight of the evidence here seems very one-sided to me.

I don't see where you claim that Joe Biden was "bribed" by a Romanian tycoon to make charges go away.

The fact that the tycoon in question made a $100k donation to Biden's family after the fact looks suspiciously like a bribe to me, even if it's technically on the level. Point taken that Smith was being a little misleading in his characterisation.

I'm aware that Joe Biden wasn't mentioned in the final agreement. I remember reading an article at some point in the last year or two which claimed that Joe Biden's 10% would come from Hunter's share "under the table", but I haven't been able to track the article in question down.

The fact that the tycoon in question made a $100k donation to Biden's family after the fact looks suspiciously like a bribe to me, even if it's technically on the level.

Maybe I'm missing something, but where is this mentioned? The $100k "donation" came from Freeh. I didn't see anything about the Romanian tycoon giving money.

Now I feel embarrassed, you're dead right, I misread that passage.

Nothing to be embarrassed about, it happens :)

the attempts to stretch this up the chain haven't really delivered so far, even an another two years after.

You're not wrong, but I'd feel a lot more confident in the lack of such a chain if there was a horde of serious journalists attacking the matter as ferociously as possible instead of insisting that there's absolutely nothing to see and no evidence of any problems at all, so they're not going to treat it as a real story.

Really though, I actually do think having a fuck-up, crackhead failson extracting millions in graft from various sketchy dealings around the world should be disqualifying for a Presidential candidate. Obviously, I'm not going to get my wish there (and the last thing that Trump enthusiasts would want is to apply that principle consistently), but I think it's entirely fair to demand that the democratically elected most powerful person in the world not have first-order family ties to a comical level of corruption.

Your first point is fair, and I don't really disagree with your second point. In an ideal world, there wouldn't be even a whiff of nepotistic graft anywhere near the highest position of the land, but that's never going to happen. Given how far we are from that reality, I sort of understand the general lack of interest on the topic.

You're right that there isn't anything substantially new here. Yes it proves that Twitter wrongfully censored a true news story, but we already knew that. What these revelations do show is that the previous Twitter administration was incompetent (which makes Elon look better by comparison).

they were malicious, not just incompetent

I'm struggling to see how this is anything other than a complete repudiation of everything that was being said about the deep state colluding with Twitter to censor the news story.

You don't need a formal conspiracy when interests converge. These people went to the same universities, they have like interests, they don't need to call a meeting, they know what's good for them, and they're getting it. The things that matter in this country have been reduced in choice, there are two political parties, there's two mobile phones and one desktop computer, there are a handful of social media companies, there's one email provider, but if you want a coffee you can get it any way you want because of the illusion of choice.

It seems that mid-high level staff at Twitter made a decision that about half of the company disagreed with, and they argued about it the whole time, and nobody in the Government ever told them to censor the laptop story?

It seems that Twitter worked actively for the Biden campaign by spiking a damaging story before the election, and they got their way when Biden won. Elon Musk spent $44 billion to show you clearly how the illusion of choice works, and you're choosing to say there's nothing to see. Extraordinary.

I don’t see how any illusion of choice is relevant here, choice between what?

The reference is to the George Carlin bit about how concentrated power makes people think they have choice by offering different coffee and bagel flavors, but not anything meaningful. I don't really know how the analogy is supposed to map though, I think @KMC might have jumbled their understanding of it.

The illusion is more that these things are independent and unrelated. OP fell for it when he says there was no proof, no conspiracy, no There there.

But yes, the money quote is the first sentence.

Thinking that's the best of the three possibilities is backward, IMO. If major communications networks are being strong-armed by the CIA, well, we can cut them a bit of slack. They're working as propagandists pro-bono, and you can't stop that without buying the company (maybe).

Which is why the media has taken the Musk acquisition of Twitter with such equanimity.

https://twitter.com/TaylorLorenz/status/1585838262173675520

On 5., I think you’re misinterpreting the tweet. Pretty sure he’s saying he’s seen no evidence of foreign government involvement in disseminating the laptop. As in, contrary to the “general” warning given by the feds prior to the laptop dropping. Not that there was no USG involvement in suppressing it.

I don't think FBI falsely telling a major social network that incoming story about Hunter Biden is foreign disinformation (which they very well knew isn't since they had the laptop in their custody) and asking to suppress it, and the social network suppressing it under excuse of "hacked material", which they freshly invented to protect their partisan interests, and which they had zero proof of, and which they never consistently followed, immediately before election in which Biden has been the candidate - is nothing. I think it's a collusion between partisans in law enforcement and partisans in social media to hide information from the public and thus influence the election - which was done to maintain plausible deniability (not using the words "New York Post laptop story" but talking in generics while perfectly knowing which exactly story is about to drop) - and which, according to poll data, worked.

I'm struggling to see how this is anything other than a complete repudiation of everything that was being said about the deep state colluding with Twitter to censor the news story

Very simple. Everything that was being said about the deep state colluding with Twitter to censor the news story is actually true, that's how. The government knew that the laptop exists and is genuine. They literally had it. They warned Twitter that some big story is about to drop soon (I don't remember the exact wording but you can find it), and as we learn now (not sure if Taibbi mentioned it) Hunter was specifically mentioned. They did not say "censor the laptop story" - they didn't need to. It was enough for them to say "we want you to be cautious - there would be some foreign disinformation dropping soon", knowing the laptop story is the one that is going to be dropping soon, and then, after it dropped, come out and say "this looks exactly like the foreign disinformation!". Twitter guys aren't idiots, they made their conclusions and knew what is required from them.

Another store that turned out completely true is that DNC told them who/what to ban and they routinely did. Yes, Trump admin did too, albeit more rare and reluctantly - somehow incomprehensibly, you understand it as an excuse. It's like you learned that a person robbed a bank, but also robbed a grocery store - and you think since he's not just a bank robber but also grocery store robber it's somehow better!

It's not an FBI agent demanding they take down the story or risk arrest, so in that sense it's not a 'bombshell', but the 'room temperature' here started with public statements that social media would face increased regulation if they didn't clamp down on misinformation, and a bunch of former and a few not-so-former intel people saying the story “has all the classic earmarks of a Russian information operation.” by the 19th. Having them also say it privately by the 16th is unsurprising, but it's also kinda scandalous even if not unconstitutional in any enforceable way.

That Taibbi didn't find direct contact specifically about the laptop story is pleasantly surprising -- as is the Dem congressional staffer with any interest in the First Amendment -- but it's not the only thing required for there to be a scandal, here, if a lesser one. I mean, that's especially the case given that it's already known that Twitter Safety people were meeting directly with the Biden team in non-e-mail approaches, but even if all of those things were never intimidating anything about this specific story or threats of future regulation, you still have other problems:

Since 2018, I have had regular meetings with the Office of the Director of National Intelligence, the Department of Homeland Security, the FBI, and industry peers regarding election security.

During these weekly meetings, the federal law enforcement agencies communicated that they expected "hack-and-leak operations" by state actors might occur in the period shortly before the 2020 presidential election, likely in October. I was told in these meetings that the intelligence community expected that individuals associated with political campaigns would be subject to hacking attacks and that material obtained through those hacking attacks would likely be disseminated over social media platforms, including Twitter. These expectations of hack-and-leak operations were discussed throughout 2020. I also learned in these meetings that there were rumors that a hack-and-leak operation would involve Hunter Biden.

That's genuinely less bad than if the Biden administration called them up and said 'fuck the NYPost in particular', but it's still at a particularly ugly nexus of federal power and speech that's largely gone unexplored because no one with standing could challenge it. And the defense that this was the Trump ODNI, DHS, and FBI doesn't reduce the scandal very severely, for the same reason that Peter Strzok being part of the Trump FBI doesn't make Strzok's behavior less bad.

((And there's separate mini-scandals, here: the DNC was pointing at a RealJamesWoods tweet that... it's blurry as hell, and I don't really want to look at any politician's junk for very long, so I assume it's a dick? But it's also the man smoking crack. Note that the Twitter declaration above emphasizes the lack of coordination as a defense against electioneering claims. Yes, the media exception probably matters more, and yes, the RNC and DNC have long been political 'fixers', but even assuming every such removal was perfectly legitimate, it's still the DNC e-mailing Twitter and telling them to remove a private citizen's commentary on a matter of political interest. Not illegal! The DNC isn't a government! Probably not even unprecedented, given past cozy relationships to newspapers. But come on; people were raising concerns when federal campaigns said maybe Palin's involuntary biographer shouldn't rent the house nextdoor and stare at her backyard all the time.))

There's some 'charitable' explanations, here -- the FBI had a Hunter laptop well before the NYPost story and probably before the meeting warning about it, so maybe their concerns about hacks related to it were 'really' making sure none of their people leaked, for example -- but this is a pretty severe issue even if not The Worst Case.

Biden administration

You mean campaign?

Not every specific instance would break down that way, but I think it would be worse if it were someone who got hired into the early Biden admin in 2021, or worked as part of the team for that, even if not on the Biden campaign team during the 2020 election season. And, in turn, it would be even worse were anyone who held office or a Hill job at the time. Partly that's just the more direct ties to government force, but it also just feels closer to power than politics.

Now, as you point out, the Biden administration as a whole wasn't in office before the election, and it's not clear a lot of individuals who could have made those calls had other personal offices. So it's not likely, and without any specific evidence needs to be treated as purely imaginary. But it's the hypothetical a lot of people are motioning around when they say that the reveal here wasn't that bad.

What's odd is that Mark Zuckerberg has gone on the record saying he was contacted by the FBI about the laptop story being Russian Misinformation.

This is not true. What Zuckerberg said is that the FBI contacted him with a generalized warning about a potential "Russian propaganda dump" before the Hunter laptop story came out. Rogan asked him if the FBI specifically say they needed to be on guard for that story and Zuckerberg says "No, I don't remember if it was that specifically, but it basically fit the pattern".

That's fair. I wasn't intending to fog their statement and your interpretation is reasonable. The overall claim is still a bit vague, and there's no indication the FBI told Zuckerberg to do anything nor does he say if the FBI said anything about the veracity of this upcoming dump. After the Rogan interview, FBI said as much and Meta also said "“The FBI shared general warnings about foreign interference — nothing specific about Hunter Biden".

And Taibbi confirmed that the federal government, FBI, CIA, etc., did at no time, for any purpose, contact Twitter directly regarding the laptop story, or tell them what to do about it?

That's not accurate. He said he did not see anything like this in this subset of emails. He has no way of knowing anything that happened outside of these emails. This is like saying, "He confirmed God doesn't exist and has never existed," because there is no mention of God in these emails.

Let me put it like this.

A small Russian troll farm was enough to put a permanent asterisk on the Trump presidency as illegitimate.

Also, lets not forgot that Twitter taking down the article, banning all sharing of it, banning the NYPost and the White House Press account, essentially said "Anyone sharing this document is spreading Russian disinformation". "Good People^tm" were not supposed to traffic in it. On the debate stage, when asked about it, Joe Biden just said the whole story was Russian lies, and that was that. No follow up, no pressing him on it, nothing.

How many votes do you think that moved? Not just memory holing the story, but lighting up the Virtue Signal that if anyone tries to inform you of it, you should ignore and hate them.

If a small Russian troll farm with a small, though measurable, success at going viral counts as delegitimizing an election, Twitter's actions easily meet that goal post.

And this change in the story matters. Before people were somehow claiming it was an honest mistake. Just an oopsy. Now it seems nakedly obvious it wasn't. Activist at Twitter were on Team Biden, and their decisions were biased to the core. It was not a mistake, and especially not an honest one. We are finally allowed to claim, without being told we aren't being "charitable", that these are partisan liars who were out to swing an election. I don't need there to be explicit collusion where the FBI specifically told them to memory hole the story. The receipts we currently have are enough to damn them forever more in my eyes, and put just as much of an asterisk on the Biden election as there was on the Trump election.

Activist at Twitter were on Team Biden, and their decisions were biased to the core.

Wait just a moment. From what Taibbi said, the key role was played by Vijaya Gadde. What's the proof she's a Biden supporter?

I looked at her donations. Being straight D is weak evidence she's a Biden supporter (she donated to Harris). It seems possible that this is why, but very weak overall.

If that were my first conclusion, I'd not beclown myself with it in public.

It seems that mid-high level staff at Twitter made a decision that about half of the company disagreed with, and they argued about it the whole time, and nobody in the Government ever told them to censor the laptop story?

Through any of these communications. Ah-hah!

I don't think we need to get conspiratorial though. The absence of any direct communications does mostly confirm that the decision to censor the story based off the "Hacked Info" policy was kinda-sorta just made up by Twitter employees. We find out in the string of posts that previous implementation of the Hacked Info policy required authorities to say some content was h4x0r3d in order for Twitter to remove it. Had this occurred, and we had Twitter employees citing a statement from the WH as reason for censoring it, we'd have a much stronger case to say it was the result of government pressure with Twitter laundering a false statement.

It sounds like Twitter staff made the decision to censor the laptop story and suspend the NYPOST based on personal political leanings. This was in direct contradiction to company policy. I believe "not 2016 again" was mentioned by at least one exec in these communications. I'd be more willing to cite the thing if it was in a dang news article or substack.

"The first amendment isn't absolute" bit is a conspicuous wink wink, nudge nudge vote of approval. I agree it doesn't exude the air pressure. To characterize it as a coordinated campaign of governmental interference or conspiracy would not be accurate. One thing I thought about after seeing was the Moldbuggian Cathedral essence of it all. When you look at the event as a whole it's pretty convincing. It all worked swimmingly.

Truthful October Surprise smear campaign targeting favored party candidate gets censored by employees of the largest politically relevant social media platform in the world. No direction between between favored party and party loyalists required. My recollection is the "Hunter Biden laptop story = Russian hackers" narrative went on for some weeks as the premier explanation and deflection. The media cover for a Biden win was total, complete, and impressive. So impressive that Ro Khanna thought it was too impressive and not a good look.

Maybe that theory of decentralized coordination can't ever be disproven as a convenient explanation, or we can accept this result as a logical, realistic end in a string in decisions. Of course the Twitter staff wanted to, and then did, successfully censor the story! Why wouldn't they?

EDIT: Tangential, but I checked out of curiosity. NYPost was suspended on the 14th of October. The account was reinstated 2 weeks later on the 30th and Twitter made this announcement.

Had this occurred, and we had Twitter employees citing a statement from the WH as reason for censoring it, we'd have a much stronger case to say it was the result of government pressure with Twitter laundering a false statement.

By "WH" do you mean the Trump White House?

"WH" is a personal nickname I have for what can broadly be described as the Deep State. It stands for "Werm Hat."

Okay, that part is a lie. This could not be possible. The WH today could have possibly have strong armed Twitter so long as they had a time machine. Not a good or accurate sentence, yeah.

This is essentially why I think the 2020 election probably was "stolen" from Trump and there really isn't anything to be done about it.

There were too many people with motive and opportunity to break or bend the rules, and they don't need to be centrally coordinated or even explicitly communicate with each other. They all just need to be on the same team and know they're fighting against fascism. The cheating is going to be opportunistic, contextual, usually bending rather than breaking the rules. There isn't going to be a clear pattern or smoking gun, because this process exploits the local knowledge of motivated individuals in positions of responsibility who know what they can get away with in each circumstance.

Thia incident at Twitter is the kind of thing I expect to be happening everywhere, and most of the time it goes unimpeded or unnoticed. This also applies to the midterms and all elections going forward for the foreseeable future, because they learned their lesson in 2016. There is nothing that can realistically be done about this.

Look upon them, and weep.

Recently @2rafa responded to a jannied comment of mine on Reddit saying that within 80 years, my homeland and her homeland would still exist and have roughly a similar character to what they currently do but England would not, as its people and its traditions slowly get replaced by les peuples outremers. The original character of the towns and cities of the UK would slowly be gnawed at and eaten away while the institutions, traditions and social fabric dissolve in the alkahest of multiculturalism. She mentioned that it isn't surprising that the native population would fight against it as this replacement basically severs the link between the them and the future.

I agree with that sentiment and I absolutely agree the original character of what made Great Britain truly Great has been lost. But this loss didn't happen thirty or forty or whenever the immigrants started to come in big numbers years ago, rather it happened in the aftermath of the Second World War when the UK dropped its long standing traditions of Classical Liberalism, "an Englishman's home is his castle" and the Anglo developed system of limited government, preferring to go for the expansive and nannying welfare state model instead.

There is a saying that tradition is like a legacy codebase, half of it is deprecated stuff you can get rid of safely while half of it is absolutely mission critical to the project functioning and it's very difficult to tell exactly which bit is which. The UK had over the centuries since the enlightenment created both a social and legal system based on individual rights centred on liberty and freedom and built on a bedrock of Christian values where it was expected that the government would minimise it's interference with what you do with your personal property and take steps to ensure other people also couldn't interfere with it. Charity and helping the less fortunate was very strongly encouraged and the Christian values indoctrinated in everyone since birth meant that lots of people with the means to do so gave away a large portion of their income/wealth to the needy, but crucially it wasn't forced onto anyone. Indeed income tax was first introduced as a temporary measure to fund the British armed forces during the Napoleonic Wars, an existential threat to the country and most definitely not the "lets use it to pay the rent of those who don't have the skills to earn enough to stay in London otherwise" racket that's going on at the moment.

This system generally functioned extremely well, but like all systems there were edge cases where it failed. In a severely misguided attempt since the end of WWII (and continuing until the present day!) successive governments tinkered with this system and slowly removed the things that made the system work (e.g. The Town and Country Planning Act 1947 which gave locals extreme levels of say into what you could build on your own property and is the prime culprit for the UK's current housing crisis), while if anything amplifying the things which were peripheral at best originally and now have become burdens upon society (e.g. how poor people renting in London effectively have the right to get to stay in of one of the only two alpha++ cities in the world and the taxpayer will fund their rent if they can't afford it themselves).

At the point the immigrants started arriving "Great" Britain was already in the process of dying. The things that made it great were being removed slowly the the British themselves. Plus new fads that were counterproductive like the destruction of the nuclear family were being adopted wholesale. It was only a small matter of time before things degenerated to the point where it was necessary to either import immigrants to make up for the collapsing birth rate or accept extreme economic pain for the vast majority of people. Britain choose to do the former. Indeed as Kipling warned a good thirty years in advance:

On the first Feminian Sandstones we were promised the Fuller Life

(Which started by loving our neighbour and ended by loving his wife)

Till our women had no more children and the men lost reason and faith,

And the Gods of the Copybook Headings said: "The Wages of Sin is Death."

What remains of the original culture of the UK are not the things that made it great. Much like how a cadaver (initially at least) still looks like the person when they were alive but has lost that divine spark that made it more than just a heap of flesh and bones what we have at the moment is little more than a poor caricature of what the Great Thinkers of the Enlightenment envisaged the perfect society to be like. It is an ersatz, cargo cult imitation where things as fundamental as the right against double jeopardy are no longer respected (see the Criminal Justice Act 2003).

Now admittedly the specific cases behind why this right was abolished were quite clearly where a guilty person had been acquitted but was clearly guilty after new DNA evidence was discovered and so their retrial led to justice being delivered (and equally, the family of Emmett Till were denied justice due to the Fifth Amendment which protects against double jeopardy in the US) but at the same time this change showed that another fundamental enlightenment ideal, that "you should not create laws based upon a few specific examples, but rather upon general principles" was no longer respected.

As such, the rot had already set in on the inside well before immigrants started coming over in large numbers and changing the outward, visible character and appearance of British society. Hence what they are now replacing is not a culture with hundreds of years of history, but a thoroughly modern creation that for most of its existence has had mass inward migration. This bastardised culture is not worthy of the protection that should have been granted to Enlightenment Liberalism, but unfortunately that is dead and has been long buried, and no amount of effort will ever bring it back. Indeed as a crude mockery of what I consider to be the best societal system discovered yet by man I would prefer if it disappeared as soon as possible. I see modern British culture as belonging to the same class of objects as smallpox and polio - something to be eradicated post haste - rather than that of the Giant Panda and the Snow Leopard - valuable diversity that should be protected by humanity and nourished.

Just yesterday ethnicity estimates for the 2021 UK census were revealed. As expected the percentage of the UK that is white British fell from around 81% to 75% since 2021. Given the continuing high migration that this country is now basically reliant on - the recent budget depended on very high levels of inward migration to be balanced, lower migration than expected in the next few years will create a short term fiscal black hole that will be very painful to British society, see what happened when Truss and Kwarteng tried to borrow with abandon- and the higher birthrate of immigrants it is practically a given that the Replacement is going to happen come hell or high water. British culture and the country character will continue to change over the coming generations and it will be best for the natives themselves if they just go with the flow rather than trying to fight an inevitability.

This is exactly the kind of post we don't want. "I can't wait to see you get lined up against the wall" (no, you didn't explicitly say that, but this is clearly the message you are trying to send) is nothing but antagonistic.

It has not escaped our notice that @BurdensomeCount is trying to push buttons. Consider not rewarding this behavior by telling him how hard he's pushed yours.

Too late: the Brahmins are coming. Bangladeshification imminent! Learn to love your humble Varna and Jāti, fellow Aryan – and you, too, may hope to reincarnate into the upper class.

t. ex-Goldman Sachs employee

Funnily enough while I'm not a Brahmin (as a non-Hindu I'm technically outside the caste system) I do have the light skin/height that's indicative of being a Brahmin and if I had to pick a caste I think I'd fit there more than anywhere else.

I don't get all the Brahmin hate though, especially from westerners who were never made to serve the Brahmins. Just because they're at the top doesn't mean they need to be brought down a peg. And while Varna may still be important Jati really doesn't matter too much if you're in the west. And this too is just for marriage, for friendships etc. anything goes.

He's an /r/dramanaut doing an uno-reverso on white nationalists, and getting off on the responses. The moderation style here has the unfortunate effect of letting obvious trolls wreak havoc, as long they post in a certain style, so it is up to you to not take the bait.

One must leave open the possibility of a non-self-respecting dramanaut.

In this house we believe that effort is a virtue unto itself.

And the "pedofascist" is deliberately edgy, but his position is coherent and makes sense – it's not far from what Peter Thiel preaches. He could have opted not to edge so hard and not call himself, well, a pedofascist, taboo squared, and he'd have sounded rather anodyne.

True, it's a bit derivative I agree and poor fashion. I shouldn't have included it and I would still have made effectively the same point.

I'm a long time /r/themotte and /r/slatestarcodex poster. I've never seen that poem before.

Some of us are déclassé enough to appreciate it; I thought the reminder that some in the UK already saw the connection was well placed. And if it introduces somebody new to The Gods of the Copybook Headings, that's great too.

I am going to disagree. I've been hanging around the Motte a long time now, and this is literally the first time I've ever seen the poem. I don't think it is as common as you're asserting, or else I would've seen it at least once before.

If we want to talk Kipling quotes which get used a lot, it has to be the Danegeld quote.

Really?

I’m not sure I’ve seen it from this community, but much like Catcher, it came up in high school English.

My pick for most overused would have to be “If-”:

If you can keep your head when all about you

Are losing theirs and blaming it on you...

It’s just chock full of reactionary bait noble, masculine sentiment.

I haven't read Catcher in the Rye either, it didn't come up in high school for me. I did have some Kipling, just not this particular poem.

Are you right wing and looking for some poetry? Come on down to Rudyard Kipling's Poetry Palace! No matter what kind of right winger you are, we have a poem for you!

Drifting rightward because your wife just had a son and you are worried about the influence modern society has on masculine development? If- is the work for you!

Right wing because you oppose the racial spoils system we seem to be implementing and consider it a failure to understand the dynamics of negotiation? Dane-geld is now 50% off!

Consider both of those bad, but more symptoms of living in a society which has forgotten the most important lesson of history - that those who don't learn from their mistakes are doomed to repeat them? This weekend buy one copy of The Gods of the Copybook Headings and get a second free!

Gone full on conflict theory, and convinced the left are satanic pedophiles trying to exterminate white people? The Beginnings is now available, with a special introductory price!

So come on down to Rudyard Kipling's Poetry Palace for some hot, hot stanzas today, and remember our price match guarantee - find your poem cheaper elsewhere and you're a better man than I am Gunga Din!

You missed The Old Issue

All we have of freedom, all we use or know—This our fathers bought for us long and long ago.

Ancient Right unnoticed as the breath we draw—Leave to live by no man’s leave, underneath the Law.

Don't forget "The Wrath of the Awakened Saxon", that's a popular one about how the right wing will eventually have enough and rise up.

I've referenced it a handful of times, and seen many more. Purported contemporaneous politics aside, it's a potent admonishment to remember your basics and common sense in the face of utopian promises. The usefulness in the rationalist community feels obvious.

I'm surprised someone managed to end up at the Motte without having read Meditations on Moloch, which quotes from "Copybook Headings" extensively.

I have read it, though it has been a while so I reread (well, skimmed) it to see if I had forgotten details. I think you and I have very different ideas of what "extensive" means. The Kipling poem gets a few mentions in one small section of a much larger piece. Granted that I apparently had seen the poem before, but it is so insignificant within Meditations on Moloch that I'm not at all surprised that I didn't remember it.

I also do not recall this poem being mentioned in Scott’s blog post, but it is a pretty concise reminder of why conservatism tends to increase with life experience, now that I’ve looked up what a copy-book was.

The difference is that the poem is good.

But this loss didn't happen thirty or forty or whenever the immigrants started to come in big numbers years ago, rather it happened in the aftermath of the Second World War when the UK dropped its long standing traditions of Classical Liberalism, "an Englishman's home is his castle" and the Anglo developed system of limited government, preferring to go for the expansive and nannying welfare state model instead.

Well, if you want Limited Government then I hear Somalia is a great place. You can even buy arms in open air markets with minimal regulations. Perhaps you can sense my dripping sarcasm, but I have little patience for these kinds of arguments. Taxes can go up and they can go down, but what - or rather, who - made Britain were the Anglo-Saxons.

This type of argument is the right-wing version of the blank slate.

  • -12

Well, if you want Limited Government then I hear Somalia is a great place.

Singapore is actually a great place and their government is significantly more limited on the tax and spend side (well, they have a ton of social housing, but that's a good thing). The UAE is also pretty good with a very limited government, Dubai has effectively run out of oil and they still do extremely well because of government fees on transactions. You don't have to choose the literal worst option.

Singapore is actually a great place

Yeah, and it's also a place that is 75% Han Chinese, thereby proving my point. Demographics will always trump whatever laws is on paper, libertarian or not.

Total overstatement. I feel the need to drag out the trope of East/West Germany and North/South Korea.

Don't know about Korea, but at least for Germany there were some notable differences even before the split after WWII. To name a few:

  • the east was much more agrarian than the west, although there were of course many industrial centers like Halle, Berlin or Breslau/Wrocław but these were much more spread-out than in the west

  • politically, the east was dominated by the protestant Junker class, the descendants of the feudal nobility that conquered/colonized the east, while in the west industrialist families like the Krupps had the most influence, with a much more mixed religious background overall, as most German Catholics lived in the areas that were to become part of West Germany

  • in terms of cultural history, the west was largely congruent with the core German territory since the first time there was something like Germany, while the east was a colonial conquest taken from the territory of the relatively unorganized Western Slavic tribes like the Sorbs or the Pomeranians that were stuck between Medieval Germany and Poland. Go back in history far enough and I guarantee that anyone whose ancestors have lived in Eastern Germany for a while will have a lot of Slavic ancestry, this is completely unusual for Western Germany outside of regions that have received heavy Polish immigration in the Industrial Age

I can't find a good map to illustrate this, but the most notable political thing about the territory of DDR - and I mean the specific territory - was that even during the pre-WW2 times they were the strongest area of support for the left parties, ie SPD/USPD/KPD combined. In the West German territories the Centre was a force, while the areas annexed by Poland were the ones where the Nazis had their most hardcore base of support, but the left dominated most of the territories that would end up forming the DDR.

(also @Syo)

Maybe these maps help: SPD, USPD, KPD; for comparison NSDAP, DNVP (monarchists, revanchists and hard conservatives), Zentrum (Catholic centrists and conservatives).

Looking at these, I agree that there is a trend, but it's not that strong and centered less on East Germany as a whole and more on Saxony* in particular, especially for the KPD votes. Both Nazis and DNVP were pretty strong in Brandenburg, Mecklenburg and Pomerania, all three of which would become part of the DDR.

*Funnily enough, my parents always called the Saxons the 5th occupying power (besides Russia, the US, France and the UK), because chances were high when talking to a representative of state power like a policeman in East Berlin you'd be spoken to in Saxon dialect. EDIT: I just found this article from the early 60s that investigates this cliché via a statistical deep dive quite like the debates about Jewish overrepresentation elsewhere in this thread. The result: while strongly overrepresented among the chief leaders of the DDR, Saxons are actually underrepresented in various important committees and positions.

I can't make out the territory which would in 1945 find itself behind the Iron Curtain, on these maps of results of German elections from 1920-1930.

China is over 90% Han Chinese, but I far prefer Singapore to it (and the Chinese state has higher taxes and government spending etc.).

I don't actually know. LKY was a great man (far far greater than me, if I could achieve the level of greatness he had in his pinky finger I would die happy) capable of performing magic tricks well beyond mere mortals. One factor that may have contributed is the onerous fines for public littering. I've been to plenty of houses back home that are really clean on the inside but are on a very very littered street so it's not like South Asians are hardwired to be dirty (equally I've been in plenty of unclean dwellings back home, but these were usually the homes of the middle class and below) but I feel it's more of an mentality thing where people see the outside as "not their property, not their problem" and either freely litter or don't agitate to create a situation where street cleaners come by regularly/people are educated to not throw their rubbish away. Plus the lack of public trashcans can be a contributing factor, here in the UK there's like a trash can every 100m in most cities while back home you can spend an entire day out without seeing more than two or three, which means people are just naturally more inclined to throw their trash on the street since the alternative is carrying it the whole day.

You find similar clealiness in Hong Kong Indian markets.

People tend to adapt really well. There's nothing unirradicable in Indian culture or DNA that makes them inclined towards bad hygiene.

How many Singaporeans do you actually know, and have you ever been there? I can't comment on the tax situation, but it seems to me that in pretty much every other domain Singapore is close to being the opposite of a small government, and rather like the perfect pervasive micromanagerial state. (Most recently, they were basically location-tracking everyone at all times under the pretext of COVID contact tracing.) Moreover, they manage their ethnic patchwork by mandatory quotas in government and even public (in Singapore, this is a sizeable chunk) housing, and by less outside-legible policies that seem to be directed at gradually whittling down the ethnic identities of everyone to food, dress and a handful of festivals. Hardly the Anglo right-winger's paradise it is made out to be.

I've been to Singapore and count quite a few Singaporeans among my close friends. The UAE is also quite micromanegerial as a country, to start a business you need to pay thousands in fees (fees like this are how they fund themselves given that there is no income tax) and of course there is the whole Islamic morality thing you have to adhere to (not an issue for me, may be for some westerners).

My point on limited government was geared towards the taxation aspect, Singapore is pretty damn big in the social control aspect of government (chewing gum bans, car licences costing 10s of thousands of dollars, mandatory military service, mandatory forced saving for medical bills etc.), but that isn't really something I mind too much when the policies align reasonably well with my personal views.

Hardly the Anglo right-winger's paradise it is made out to be.

Correct. It's most definitely not an Anglo liberal paradise, but that's fine. It was meant to be an example of a place where you could have small (taxation wise) government but still be very successful. I still wouldn't mind spending my life there because at least they have a coherent, consistent vision for society that doesn't depend on extracting wealth from a small productive class and spending it on everyone else.

My point on limited government was geared towards the taxation aspect, Singapore is pretty damn big in the social control aspect of government (chewing gum bans, car licences costing 10s of thousands of dollars, mandatory military service, mandatory forced saving for medical bills etc.), but that isn't really something I mind too much when the policies align reasonably well with my personal views.

Places like Singapore are also really easy to enter or leave, so if you don't like how the government is doing things, it is easy to go to somewhere else. That's one reason why so many people and businesses have been relocating from Hong Kong to Singapore recently.

Singapore is like a country club. It tries to attract rich and talented people by rules for being clean, pleasant, and orderly. Shame about the horrible weather.

Taxes can go up and they can go down, but what - or rather, who - made Britain were the Anglo-Saxons.

And who unmade Britain?

It seems like we should pay attention to the arguments those Anglo-Saxons were having amongst themselves, and explain the making or unmaking of Britain with a focus on the political questions they saw fit to focus on, like that of taxes. After all, one Anglo-Saxon's vision of the desired society can be radically different from another's.

Well, if you want Limited Government then I hear Somalia is a great place.

Somalia-the-meme was a civil war between a half dozen competing governments, many of which were fundamentalist Islamic. And that was still an improvement in most QoL measures over the previous socialist government.

And that was still an improvement in most QoL measures over the previous socialist government.

Interesting, have you lived in Somalia during this period?

I believe the situation was that the Islamic fundamentalists defeated the powerless, corrupt, ‘democratic’ government which did nothing but accept bribes from warlords, brought meaningful improvement to the public for a few years, and then were overthrown by Ethiopian military intervention.

I’m not sure where anyone’s getting that it was an improvement over the previous socialist regime; it seems clearly to have been an improvement over the ‘democratic’(read US backed and corrupt) regime which replaced it.

I frequently see Somalia trotted out as what a limited state might look like, but surely you can see why people who prefer a limited state don't find that compelling? Setting aside that the reference is outdated and Somalia has a government with explicit power over just about everything, "limited government" and "collapsed government" are not synonyms. Outside of the most fringe libertarians, people that favor limited government are not suggesting that there be no government to enforce contracts and maintain general public order. Rather, the claim is that governments shouldn't have the powers flexed during Covid or shouldn't be reallocating half of the economy.

Regarding blank slates, I'm inclined to note that the demographics of Somalia aren't what some of us would consider conducive to being the sort of place I'd like to live. I might even go so far as to note that I expect any local unit that has a sufficient number of Somalis to become the sort of place I would not like to live in short order.

Are you talking about supporters of "limited or small governments" or just anarchists? There isn't any sort of unified state over all of Somalia, small or otherwise.

Also, I don't think that someone like David Friedman wants a transition like Somalia in the early 1990s. I think he'd say that, under those circumstances, a small but effective government would be better.

Well except there are countless examples of very limited government and places succeeding. I’m very unfamiliar with communist countries not be totalitarian hellholes.

Warlordism might be a fair critique of David Friedman but…not of classic liberals who see a vital role for the state but one that is heavily limited.

What are the best examples of very limited governments succeeding?

I certainly agree that there have been governments which didn’t provide much in terms of social welfare but grew the economy quickly. But AFAIK most of the examples of libertarian success stories were not actually libertarian, they were just pro-business.

United Kingdom, United States, Swiss, Hong Kong, Netherlands, etc.

They might not all be that way today but they they all at different times experienced significant growth under a classically liberal framework.

I interpreted "stronger sorts of libertarian" to basically mean right-anarchists.

"Warlordism" is another term for "autocratic government that isn't internationally recognized". It's not as if warlords can't take your money and call it taxes.

It's a frequent critique of anarchocapitalism (anarchocommunism, too, for that matter) is that their systems just reinvent the government expect with some different characteristics (enough to allow ideologues to term it "not government) and in a worse format.

I have my issues with limited government types (namely that they're frequently hypocritical or at least self-deluding), but this is really only a critique of the far end of the spectrum. Most people who want limited government don't want a government that limited - they still want publicly funded police and fire departments, infrastructure they use, courts, schools, etc... When they object to "big government", they're generally objecting to the welfare and regulatory state (or at least parts of it) and infrastructure they don't use.

Reductions to the welfare and regulatory state might increase social disorder to some degree, but there's clear historical example that it's not enough to render states nonviable.

I would describe the Soviet Union as a much more central example of "communism" than Somalia of "limited government", but I suppose the problems we'll bump into are the exact definitions of things like "communism" and "limited government". I would be more than satisfied with a United States federal government that took approximately the fiscal role of 100 years ago, and I don't buy that this involves a swift descent to total anarchic collapse.

Well yes, because the federal government could disappear outright and most of the population is not looking at a total anarchic collapse, although interstate conflict might mean some people are in for a bad time and the poorer states would probably have a declining standard of living.

I'm not sure if this is intended as argument or addendum. Yes, part of the reason that I think the federal government is excessive is because American states are already large, powerful entities that can handle the vast majority of governing problems themselves. The federal government should handle external-facing issues and internal coordination problems between states, but generally take a hands-off approach to policies and spending that are intrastate matters (in my view, of course).

Maybe I'm misreading others, but I think this is much closer to the median position of American people that would describe themselves as favoring limited government than Somalia or Ancapistan or something.

A little of column a, a little of column b. The patchwork that replaces a disappeared federal government is unlikely to be predominantly libertarian(major land powers usually aren’t), and the federal government retrenching wouldn’t cause the same issue but as California shows, states are perfectly capable of overregulating, overtaxing, and overspending all on their lonesome.

Most states aren’t Florida or Utah. Federal regulations will just get replaced with state regulations that are more obviously one sided if anything.

I’m wondering- do you think a society that’s 80% Utah Mormon or Japanese or whatever other high performing group, and 20% Somali, would be a bad place to live?

I mean, based off the demographics, I’d expect it to be a pretty nice place to live, but probably with some neighborhoods to avoid.

Probably fine in the short run. I just looked at my current Census tract and a couple neighboring tracts and found that they're approximately 80% white, 10% Asian, and a scattering of everything else. If that shifted to 20% Somali over the next few years, I would take it as a strong signal to sell and relocate - I would not like the odds of the neighborhood retaining the characteristics that made me select it with that population shift and I would expect the population to continue shifting further. Currently, there are no neighborhoods to avoid within walking distance of me, so a shift to some neighborhoods to avoid is a noticeable worsening.

Let’s assume this is a stable society- some town in Oregon or whatever that’s had those demographics for 20 years. Does it seem like the sort of place you’d be willing to live in, assuming your work offers you a transfer with relocation assistance and you have the ability to make friends there or nearby.

Sure. I'm kind of skeptical of the sustainability of the arrangement, but I would not rule a place out based on a large Somali population. Minneapolis remains one of my favorite American cities despite their issues with Somali corruption (and more American-based violence).

Well, if you want Limited Government then I hear Somalia is a great place.

"If you like to keep warm, you can jump in a bonfire."

It worked for Sam McGee.

Since I left Plumtree, down in Tennessee, it's the first time I've been warm."

You've done an excellent, high-effort job of trolling here. You got several people to lash out at you in a way that required warnings. Well done.

Now stop this. This has been your schtick for a very long time, and while we more or less gave you a clean slate with the move here, this kind of supercilious baiting will not continue. Make well-crafted culture war arguments and talk about how awesome and superior your culture is - fine. But we are not blind to what you're doing here (trying to see how many people you can goad into losing their shit while you are technically abiding by the rules). You are not immune to having the wildcard rule applied just because you use lots of words.

There should be a word for the kind of situation where people who profess their love for intellectual diversity in practice prove incapable of perceiving any viewpoints outside of a narrow range as legitimate.

From what I know of the Count, including private communication, he was pretty much sincere here, at least in the "I contain multitudes" sense. If that triggered someone that's entirely on them; and especially given the everpresent concerns about our intellectual diversity the administration of this forum probably shouldn't strive to protect the feelings of the white supremacist-adjacent users in particular.

There should be a word for the kind of situation where people who profess their love for intellectual diversity in practice prove incapable of perceiving any viewpoints outside of a narrow range as legitimate.

If there is, find a situation where it's applicable, which this is not. If I were "incapable of perceiving any viewpoints outside of a narrow range as legitimate," I'd have banned him and the white supremacists.

We value intellectual diversity. We do not value trolling. BurdensomeCount may indeed actually believe what he's saying, but that doesn't mean he's not expressing it in a manner calculated to be flamebait. Just like the white supremacists who are able to stick around manage to do it without dropping pointless n-bombs and 13% memes, and the ones who aren't... can't.

You know at this point i'm not actually sure if your a troll. Your posts here, the other place, /r/drama, and the old place are so consistently truimphalist. What you're saying basically matches up with what your average muslim believes but you could also be a troll that's just commited to the bit. You know exactly where the line is and just how genocidal you can be without being dismissed. Some of your posts, if you are a troll, are outstanding. But i'll bite.

British culture and the country character will continue to change over the coming generations and it will be best for the natives themselves if they just go with the flow rather than trying to fight an inevitability.

Roll over and die: Or else!

Or else what? You'll carry on doing what you're already doing and what you always planned to do? A fate worse then a fate worse then death? That sounds pretty bad.

The fundamental isssue your people (and your paedophilic religion that you desire to force upon the west) have is that you don't build functioning societies. For all of your talk about saving the west through islam, it doesn't seem to be saving muslims living in the west who similar reputation around women as Africans, and a much worse reputation around children, who cannot seem to stop themselves joining gangs, who are hugely overrepresented in basically every voilent crime stat, and who are much more likely to live off the labour of others then any other group (the behaviour of Somali muslims in the benefits system is famous across Europe).

Your demands of acceptance already require massive, overwhelming campaigns of propaganda, censorship and social engineering and it is still only mildy successful.

I see modern British culture as belonging to the same class of objects as smallpox and polio - something to be eradicated post haste - rather than that of the Giant Panda and the Snow Leopard - valuable diversity that should be protected by humanity and nourished.

Maybe you are right. But the issue you will find, is that given the choice between living with us or you, everybody chooses us - Including your own people!

The fundamental isssue your people (and your paedophilic religion that you desire to force upon the west) have is that you don't build functioning societies.

Not acceptable. No, we don't have a rule against criticizing Islam here. We do have a rule about not making inflammatory statements about broad groups of people. Stop taking the ragebait.

stay in of one of the only two alpha+ cities in the world and the taxpayer will fund their rent if they can't afford it themselves

What on earth does this even mean? Is the other one NYC? You don't think any other cities on earth have a "alpha"? They're the largest Financial hubs, I won't dispute that and as that's your business I'm sure that looms large in your view. but there are other industries and plenty of places that are booming with them. Hollywood/LA don't have alpha? Silicon valley, no alpha? Hell, I think there are multiple cities in Texas alone that can be described as having alpha.

There's a think tank called Globalization and World Cities Research Network which basically ranks cities periodically based on how important to the global economy they are. They rank cities in terms of Alpha, Beta, Gamma and Sufficincy where cities are less important as you go down the list. Also alpha,beta,gamma get +- signs based on where they fall in their category. You can find their most recent rankings here (naturally there is a lot of subjectivity):

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Globalization_and_World_Cities_Research_Network

And my bad, I misremembered London and NYC are alpha++ in their rankings, not alpha+.

Hollywood/LA don't have alpha?

LA is an alpha city in their rankings. SF is alpha-.

Other city ranking thinktanks do exist, but GaWC is one of the most used ones and they all have London+NYC at the top of the world.

Ah, it's a measure of interconnectedness, this framing does color the complaint of being unable to live in an alpha+ city a little differently. I suppose the foreign influx of cities that are particularly connected to the rest of the world might reasonably increase the demand and thus make supply of housing more scarce for natives, but I'm not sure this makes me more or less sympathetic to native claims to the right to live in their own society's greatest city over foreign claims. It's essentially the same reasoning behind denying their claims that is used to advocate for open borders, "This is more economically efficient and you have no rights over the more naturally talented foreigner". On the flip side I am generally not sympathetic to people who feel entitled to live in expensive cities for more mundane reasons.

Can’t say I really understand this system. For example, how is Boston ranked higher than Houston? Houston has either the busiest or second busiest port in the US depending on how you measure it, Houston is just way larger than Boston in terms of population, Houston has a higher GDP than Boston, and it’s a major city for the energy and finance industries.

Don't ask me, I didn't make it, and as I said it's very very subjective once you get below the first few top cities. You can find a summary of rankings from many different organisations here: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Global_city#Summary_of_rankings and they pretty much all have NYC+London as the top two.

how is Boston ranked higher than Houston?

Boston's top universities

Houston's top universities

Boston also beats Houston on GDP per capita $80k to $63k, and is often known as the most educated major city in America (thought I don't know the stats on it outside of Harvard and MIT being nearby). Also the Red Sox and the Patriots have been annoyingly good for years, and the Celtics are young and good; while the Astros cheat and the Texans and Rockets suck. On the other hand, Houston has Meg while Boston hasn't produced a great band since This is Boston Not L.A. came out. But the Boston Pops are legendary, while I don't know of anything out of Houston.

Point is there's more to city quality than GDP and population.

while the Astros cheat

I mean, so do the Patriots.

True, but I've forgiven the Patriots, since they had the decency to lose to Philly.

The list is very weird. I can't really fathom why LA is not in the Alpha+ tier. It just seems obviously more like those cities than any of the cities in regular Alpha.

And the Gods of the Copybook Headings said

Ouch, this dreary poem again, the poem everyone loves and no one knows what is it about.

This poem was written in 1920, and it was not meant as timeless wisdom for all times and places, but as a commentary about current events.

What were the current events?

If you lived in UK 102 years ago, there were three major issues that split the country, issues that everyone politically aware had to take a stand on.

1/ Military. Should UK negotiate with other great powers to limit armaments, or should it strive to be greatest power ever at any cost?

This is what "the Cambrian measures" of the poem mean.

If you thought that what the country needs right now are more battleships, the bigger and shinier the better, congrats, you are Kipling.

2/ Social question, especially eight hour working day.

"the Carboniferous Epoch"

If you thought that workers and miners already live high on the hog and do not need any handouts, congrats, you are Kipling.

3/ Votes for women.

"the Feminian Sandstones"

If you thought that the country has already too much democracy, congrats, you are Kipling.

Now, what happened? Did the country followed Kipling's advice?

No, it did not.

The British establishment negotiated Washington Naval Treaty, let women over age 30 vote and even gave some concessions to the working class.

Were it good choices? If instead they engaged in massive military buildup and crushed the uppity mob with iron fist, would it make Britain great again, greater than ever?