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PaperclipPerfector  3d ago (text post)   17737 thread views

Culture War Roundup for the week of June 23, 2025

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There seems to be a large cohort of fairly far-left educated millennial voters that frankly scare me a bit. Call it the Reddit generation. It's the same group that powered Bernie Sanders into stardom. They have the politics of university campus but they are larger than in the past due to the expansion of college education and they keep ideological coherence longer into adulthood due to reinforcement over social media.

We rely on older voters to notice when their policies are going off the rails and elect center-left liberals to clean up their messes. But boomers are a scarce resource and overall it seems like the ideological mix of the American voter is heading in a bad direction, with Mamdani as the latest symptom. The more ideological voters seem to be indifferent to how their policies affect their city or economy. Politics is a badge of righteousness rather than a tool for governance.

It reminds me of the sage, soft-speaking Islamic cleric speaking with profound meaning "democracy means government by the people, of the people, for the people... but the people are retarded"

It's the same with economics. It's known how to do economics to increase prosperity. You need to do capital deepening and R&D. The more the better. It's a little more complicated than that but only a little!

Capital deepening and R&D isn't even a topic of discussion in politics, outside of maybe Singapore, China or the UAE. Instead it's 'how much money can we take from productive people and give to old people?' Or 'how can we make things more expensive, can it take longer to build out any capital?' Could we make irritating popups appear on all the world's websites? Let's cap the number of doctors we train for zero rational reason, while lawyers proliferate beyond all control. How about invading and conquering an incredibly low-value, poor country and spending huge amounts on it? How about demolishing our industrial base and offshoring it? How about making medicine 'free' (funded by taxes)?

'Let's build some infrastructure at ludicrously uncompetitive prices' is at least capital deepening but it's not very good.

The closest they come to R&D is more spending on education which is 90% unrelated to capital deepening or R&D, it's Ipads or laptops in schools or making low value university degrees cheaper (funded by taxes) - or just administrative bloat.

It reminds me of the sage, soft-speaking Islamic cleric speaking with profound meaning "democracy means government by the people, of the people, for the people... but the people are retarded"

Point of correction: Rajneesh (AKA Osho, born Chandra Mohan Jain), the man in that video, was an Indian "godman," guru, and founder of the eponymous "Rajneesh movement," which had an intentional community in Oregon in the 80s:

Rajneeshpuram was a religious intentional community in the northwest United States, located in Wasco County, Oregon. Incorporated as a city between 1981 and 1988, its population consisted entirely of Rajneeshees, followers of the spiritual teacher Rajneesh,[1][2][3][4] later known as Osho.[5]

Some of its citizens and leaders were responsible for launching the 1984 Rajneeshee bioterror attacks, as well as the planned 1985 Rajneeshee assassination plot, in which they conspired to assassinate Charles Turner, the United States Attorney for the District of Oregon.

Interesting, never knew that.

He seems to be rather like the Mule in terms of charisma, which is to be expected if such a simple clip of him can get 16 million views on youtube, forever memorable:

A number of commentators have remarked upon Rajneesh's charisma. Comparing Rajneesh with Gurdjieff, Anthony Storr wrote that Rajneesh was "personally extremely impressive", noting that "many of those who visited him for the first time felt that their most intimate feelings were instantly understood, that they were accepted and unequivocally welcomed rather than judged. [Rajneesh] seemed to radiate energy and to awaken hidden possibilities in those who came into contact with him".[286] Many sannyasins have stated that hearing Rajneesh speak, they "fell in love with him".[287][288] Susan J. Palmer noted that even critics attested to the power of his presence.[287] James S. Gordon, a psychiatrist and researcher, recalls inexplicably finding himself laughing like a child, hugging strangers and having tears of gratitude in his eyes after a glance by Rajneesh from within his passing Rolls-Royce.[289] Frances FitzGerald concluded upon listening to Rajneesh in person that he was a brilliant lecturer, and expressed surprise at his talent as a comedian, which had not been apparent from reading his books, as well as the hypnotic quality of his talks, which had a profound effect on his audience.[290] Hugh Milne (Swami Shivamurti), an ex-devotee who between 1973 and 1982 worked closely with Rajneesh as leader of the Poona Ashram Guard[291] and as his personal bodyguard,[292][293] noted that their first meeting left him with a sense that far more than words had passed between them: "There is no invasion of privacy, no alarm, but it is as if his soul is slowly slipping inside mine, and in a split second transferring vital information."[294] Milne also observed another facet of Rajneesh's charismatic ability in stating that he was "a brilliant manipulator of the unquestioning disciple".[295]

After watching the video and some others on the same channel, it seems mostly interesting as a really extreme example of the art of generating gravitas by speaking slowly and pausing a lot. Somehow, he manages to get you to slow down your mental clock to match the pace of his speech, rather than getting bored or distracted.

(And yes, he does come across as wise and witty, but a lot of people could probably muster this level of wit if they actually could take that long to decide what to say without losing their audience. The ability to keep the listener suspended seems to be key.)

Tbf, I think in both parties, filter bubbles are removing the natural flow towards the center that used to exist in politics. Politics in the 21st century has more of a hold on a person than religion would. No one cares what you think about reformed Christianity. They do care if you have the right opinion on immigration, taxation, woke, etc. and furthermore, people are often choosing interests and hobbies and lifestyles based on their political views. If you’re on the right, you collect guns and drink beer and watch football or hockey. If you’re on the left you’ll be interested in art and vegan or organic foods, drink tea, and meditation.

What about people who collect guns to eat organic food(a good portion of hunters rambling on about the health benefits of venison) or who drink tea while they watch football?

Tribal tendencies are just tendencies. I think we all know that but I also think the causation goes the other way; people who think driving a pickup truck is a marker of a respectable man belong to a particular culture, and it's a culture that Trump appeals to. People who seek solace in Buddhist practices divorced from spirituality belong to a different culture that really cares about LGBT rights.

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