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naraburns  nihil supernum  1yr ago (text post)   5412 thread views

Small-Scale Question Sunday for January 22, 2023

Do you have a dumb question that you're kind of embarrassed to ask in the main thread? Is there something you're just not sure about?

This is your opportunity to ask questions. No question too simple or too silly.

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I found this archive of Scott's LiveJournal, but I'm wondering of there's a list somewhere picking out the most interesting articles to read. https://archive.fo/fCFQx

Ever wonder how the world's bluest person starts engaging with reactionary thought and HBD honestly? It's the power of (strike)rationality(strike) volunteering in Haiti and seeing every western institution replicated in cargo cult form.

https://web.archive.org/web/20150407223525/http://squid314.livejournal.com/297579.html

Excerpt:

"It has proven hard for me to appreciate exactly how confused the Haitians are about some things. Gail, our program director, explained that she has a lot of trouble with her Haitian office staff because they don't understand the concept of sorting numerically. Not just "they don't want to do it" or "it never occurred to them", but after months and months of attempted explanation they don't understand that sorting alphabetically or numerically is even a thing. Not only has this messed up her office work, but it makes dealing with the Haitian bureaucracy - harrowing at the best of times - positively unbearable."

Chicken or egg? The converse is that after spending a few years in east Africa you realize that the dude living in a dirt-floor hut who speaks multiple languages fluently and could run circles around the median ivy-league grad student is the norm rather than the exception because anyone who isn't speaking at least two languages and working three side hustles either emigrated or starved to death decades ago.

Self-deleted original response which expressed the view that cartoonish red tribe's mockery of blue tribe intelligence is seriously challenged by the reality of blue tribe's basically unchallenged rule over red tribe. I apologize for it's boo ?ingroup but not really ingroup...? nature.

Define "rule" because if anything the 30 last years have seen a precipitous decline in both the prestige and de-facto power of blue tribe "experts".

By what metric?

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