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PaperclipPerfector  9mo ago (text post)   31379 thread views

Culture War Roundup for the week of July 24, 2023

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How healthy and productive is it to adopt the mental framework that the world, along with all of its problems, is simply nature, and so is amoral and immutable, which means we should expend no energy trying to change it, and should instead focus on making sense of as much as we can while adapting to the reality as it is?

I consider myself psychologically even-keeled and don't doomscroll, but unless you actively try to avoid information, nasty stuff inevitably seeps through. For instance, I saw in the last 24 hours a surveillance video of someone carjacking a poor helpless woman at the gas station, and another who wrote that they know of a backyard puppy breeder who has four bitches constantly getting pregnant and living in filth just to cheaply breed and sell puppies for some absurd sum. I think the normal reaction is to feel a combination of anger and sadness. But rationally, that emotional response seems pointless. It's easy to point to greater suffering in quantity and magnitude in Ukraine or Niger, and I'm not sure what's the point of thinking about that either.

I realized that it would be much simpler to frame everything as nature and natural. Crying over a mouse being gobbled up by an owl seems as pointless as doing the same for a fly being caught by a Venus flytrap or a blueberry being decomposed by fungi. These things just happen. I'm not super familiar with zen or its equivalent. Is what I'm describing part of some ancient philosophy or religion?

At any rate, I plan to remind myself of this whenever I feel any emotion the next time I see a headline that some DA dropped charges against repeat criminals or some author pulled her novel because some nobody complained that she was culturally appropriating an oppressed minority group. Nothing to see here--it's all part of nature. Understand how it works, make sure you're not the mouse/fly/blueberry, and move on happily with your own life.

Observation:

mental framework that the world, along with all of its problems, is simply nature, and so is amoral

Conclusion:

and immutable, which means we should expend no energy trying to change it,

This observation doesn't have to lead to that conclusion.

The world is the world. You likely won't fix it by yourself. But nature, society and civilization are emergent properties of aligned collective effort by sentient individuals. So, yeah, your efforts won't do anything on their own. But, find like minded people, set up systems, and get things moving in a one direction. Over decades and generation you will see it become the next version society, nature and civilization.

The way I frame it, is to focus on actions instead of outcomes. Plan your actions to best achieve the outcomes. Readjust your actions depending on how badly your previous actions have missed the target outcome. But, don't place any importance on the outcome itself. You have agency, but you do not have determinism. If the action was right, given the information you had, then you did will. The world is the world, it is going to throw unforeseen wrenches in the works.

You have agency, but you also have limited time. Identify your circle of concern and put in effort to help those people & initiatives navigate around nature. But repeated navigation around nature leads to desire paths that eventually becomes the roads that facilitate the future of nature itself.

it's all part of nature

An awareness of this helps you stomach losses and failures more easily. A resignation to it leads to Nihilism.

Nothing to see here--it's all part of nature. Understand how it works, make sure you're not the mouse/fly/blueberry, and move on happily with your own life

Sounds a lot like Indic religions and the 'dharmic' way of life. Both tie the concept of 'harmony with nature' to 'ego-death'.

Most Indic religions can be notoriously hard to capture in short quotes. The diversity of philosophical schools and the the prioritization of metaphor over specifics is not conducive to concise expression. But, newer Indic religions that take Abrahamic inspirations do a better job of being concise and grounded in their claims. In that spirit, I quote Guru-nanak of Sikh-fame.

One must walk the path in accordance with the law of nature, which can be realized only through personal experience. This law (hukami) or will (rajā) cannot be found in any book or discourse. It is within ourselves and can be realized only through experience. This law is within every individual. Seeking it outside is meaningless. One can progress only by understanding it through personal experience. This law is universal. When one realizes this law (hukamai) by his own experience, one’s ego is completely destroyed and one no longer says ‘I’ and ‘mine’. Ego is the origin of karma and of birth. Ego is the fetter that causes repeated birth.

This observation doesn't have to lead to that conclusion.

Strictly/rhetorically speaking you've caught me slipping, but more colloquially I think you follow my logic. Immutable doesn't mean that we have no free will or our free will is unable to bring about any change, but rather that even if you can lift a rock, when you stop lifting it, it will fall back to the ground. A slightly more meaning example/metaphor may be that, if I'm a monkey, and I don't want to be eaten by a tiger, I could learn to climb trees, or perhaps even set up specialized roles within a communal system with other monkeys so one or two scouts alert the rest of approaching tigers while everyone else create tools to hunt down the tigers. But that only applies to my tribe. If a rival tribe's monkey or antelope gets eaten by a tiger, it really does me very little good to lose sleep over it, especially if the other monkey can easily copy my tribe but chose to nap instead. Except this simple cause-and-effect and reap-what-you-sow system breaks down when the tribe of 20 monkeys grows into an ecosystem of a city of a million that's subject to state oversight at 10 million and federal oversight at 350 million, and even if you are keen to set up a scout against the tiger, others can brazenly defect, and when you get too zealous about shooting a tiger yourself, a pack of mules from a far away forest issues you a consent decree to avoid systemic prejudice against the oppressed tigers.

Sounds a lot like Indic religions and the 'dharmic' way of life. Both tie the concept of 'harmony with nature' to 'ego-death'.

Fascinating. Thanks for the insight, though I do not fully understand just from the quote.

It's weird because most outlooks that start with your premise have very strong moral components to them usually. Classical Eastern and Western philosophies center on one's quest to be a good part of Nature, to be a good specimen of whatever it is you eternally and innately are.

To whit, I do not believe Realism of this kind and Nihilism to be compatible.

If nature is immutable, it has an innate quality to it, a particular way of things, an order, which one can upset with terrible consequences.

And you, as part of it, have a duty to avoid this error, you can't just sit it out as an observer because apathy is death.

Of course these duties are much less grand than making the perfect society. You just have to be a good whatever it is you are. Neighbor, husband, mother, worker, student, businessman, beggar; it doesn't really matter what or who you are, but you have to play the cards you have as well as you can. Only because to not do it is a waste.

Of course these duties are much less grand than making the perfect society. You just have to be a good whatever it is you are. Neighbor, husband, mother, worker, student, businessman, beggar; it doesn't really matter what or who you are, but you have to play the cards you have as well as you can. Only because to not do it is a waste.

That is quite important, yes. If you're in actor in the middle of a play and you think that the play sucks, you're not going to make it better if you start stealing lines from another actor because you think you can say them better than he can. That will only ruin the play even more. The only thing you can do to improve the play, is to play your own role as best you can.

How healthy and productive is it to adopt the mental framework that the world, along with all of its problems, is simply nature, and so is amoral and immutable, which means we should expend no energy trying to change it, and should instead focus on making sense of as much as we can while adapting to the reality as it is?

As an individual, this is exactly what you should do in the larger political sphere. In the smaller sphere of personal relationships you can have a larger effect and should aim to do so. You can also consider things like moving to a more amenable place if you're young enough and it makes sense to do so.

As others said, it is basic premise of stoicism and its teachings on locus of control.

I find it especially useful to avoid certain manipulations - including those asking money from you, like EA. As a pragmatic observation, my internal spidey sense now lights up as spoon as I hear “we” as in “we humanity”. We should stop climate change, racism and if we are at it why not also hunger, all murder and pineaple pizza?

I think saying “not my problem” and even “fuck you, I wont do what you tell me” is perfectly fine stance for random ask by some stranger, especially online.

You wouldn’t save a drowning child if you were walking by one?

I'd save a central example of a drowning child if I was walking by one. There are circumstances under which I would not save a drowning child.

Given the number of "died trying to save drowning victim" cases (seriously, there are probably a dozen news articles in the US from this summer alone: [1] [2] [3]), I think it's prudent to point to the "reach, throw, row, don't go" advice from professionals that sometimes getting involved just creates another victim. By all means, do what you can -- reach with something, throw a float, call for help -- but actually entering the water can be very dangerous to even strong swimmers, especially if untrained.

I'm a pretty strong swimmer, but not a trained lifeguard or anything -- I'd keep my distance (although swim out there with a floaty if it seemed like it might help) from a drowning adult, but a literal drowning child I wouldn't hesitate to try to grab for any number of reasons. 'Sense of social duty' is one I guess, but not the main one -- have you ever played dunk/water wrestling with kids? You can literally throw them around while treading water, they are very unlikely to be able to drown you if you are actually a strong swimmer and a grown-ass man who outweighs them by 4x or whatever.

I think a lot of the times when people drown trying to save others is when they are not as good at swimming as they think they are, and underestimate the distance to the victim, currents etc -- also panic-swimming will tire you out pretty fast. So keep a cool head and do what you can -- it wouldn't be considered heroic behaviour if it weren't potentially dangerous. But I am not prepared to live with myself watching a kid drown from the shoreline.

This is good advice for the vast majority of people. Non-swimmers panic and will use the rescue swimmer as a climbing device in a large number of cases. From what I understand this is mindless, and they're filled with regret if they survive, but it's a thing that needs to be expected.

Should I save a drowning child in such a situation? Is it better for a child to die than to develop a strong social bond to a pedophile with all the risks that entails? Or should I save them and stoically endure the eventual "Stay away from my kid, creep!" or just plain "Thanks, now gtfo.", content in the knowledge that I did "the right thing" even while everyone thinks I just did it to get in the kid's pants? Why shouldn't I just say "not my problem" and keep walking?

If my kid was drowning, I couldn't care less if they were saved by a pedophile or Mother Teresa. They could give CPR while slapping them in the face with a flaccid cock and I'd still rather my kid live than not.

They could give CPR while slapping them in the face with a flaccid cock and I'd still rather my kid live than not.

Does this mean the calculus changes if they were giving CPR while slapping your child in the face with an erect cock?

It might, but I'd wager that just makes the kid wake up faster!

Sure, and once the euphoria of realizing your kid isn't going to die wears off, you'll be a good parent and start worrying about the next set of risks facing them--namely me. Hence the "Thanks, now gtfo." Helping kids almost always ends up being a net negative for my mental health, to which your response would almost certainly be "not my problem".

EDIT: Also, on a more humorous note, is it even physically possible to give CPR to a person "while slapping them in the face with a flaccid cock"? The flexibility required seems inhuman to me...

Well, SMH only said a cock, not your cock...

Look, I'm unusually sympathetic to pedophiles, especially when Wokists try to extend that category to men who want to sleep with big breasted 16 year olds, which is almost universal in distribution and a fact of life for the majority of human existence. The only reason most men don't state they want to do that is fear of social disapproval.

I really see it as as the same kind of paraphilia as say, homosexuality, it's just that it's politically easier for one side to get what they want without the rest of society murdering them. If people want to consume artificial CP that doesn't hurt real kids, I literally don't give a fuck, especially since it likely has the opposite effect that critics claim of increasing the propensity to commit physical crimes to fulfill their lust.

If a pedophile saved my child, I'd be grateful, and assuming they didn't have a track record of arrests, not even care particularly about future interactions.

Now, you're a pedophile and I'm not, so I won't argue too hard about what kind of difficultly you face in being accepted by society. It's certainly much worse in the West, where there's no end of people slobbering at the mouth to put a bullet in your head for the crime of existing and not being able to change your brain, regardless of whether you act on it.

Still, I think you're wrong in that it's clear to me that almost every parent on their planet would rather have their child saved by a pedo/Hitler or even Pedo-Hitler rather than allowed to drown to death.

Also, on a more humorous note, is it even physically possible to give CPR to a person "while slapping them in the face with a flaccid cock"? The flexibility required seems inhuman to me...

If you're not too intent on the mouth to mouth rescue breaths, then you can do it while crouching above their head and facing their feet. Not recommended of course, and not in the ALS or BLS guidelines, but I'm sure someone can pull it off, and likely already has in a porno haha

I agree that almost every parent on the planet would prefer to have their child saved than not. I don't know that that preference implies I should try to save them though. I've never saved a kid's life before, but I have been an important figure in one's life and have seen first-hand how quickly people go from thankful to "never contact us again" when they find out, no matter how innocent your intentions or how careful you were to avoid even the hint of sexual behavior. That hurts, a lot, and I now find it hard to feel motivated to risk going through that again for the benefit of people who in all likelihood have nothing but disgust for me. The younger, less bitter me had the will to be somewhat altruistic, but that seems to be fading as I get older.

Saving a kid from drowning is not typically an ongoing relationship (unless the kid is very incident-prone I guess) which seems to be a big difference?

I believe the basic CPR training hasn't included rescue breaths in a while. Specifically they are nice to have, but continuing compressions is more useful in non-professional (read: watched training a year ago, no hands on experience) contexts.

I believe the basic CPR training hasn't included rescue breaths in a while. Specifically they are nice to have, but continuing compressions is more useful in non-professional (read: watched training a year ago, no hands on experience) contexts.

This recommendation is focused on adults as they are far more likely to have cardiac arrest due to a non-aphyxial cause. If you found an adult lying on the street, without a pulse it would be likely that they had taken a breath moments ago and still had oxygen in their blood stream and performing chest compressions can help circulate that oxygen. However, the majority of pediatric cardiac arrests have an asphyxial cause, therefore it is still recommended to do rescue breathes to introduce oxygen back into the bloodstream. In the case of drowning, where the person is likely to be hypoxic it would be recommended to do rescue breaths to introduce oxygen back into the bloodstream.

There is also the "team" version, where IIRC the "breath" person has a lot of time on his, um -- hands?

Healthier for you, worse for society. Obviously.

I don’t think it’s actually worse for society though. Hyper-focus on problems in itself creates all kinds of mental illnesses and creates a paralysis that can prevent the person from seeing a solution even if one exists.

On a social level, hyper focus on a problem can create the conditions that allow all kinds of tyrannical ideas to take hold. The entirety of 2020 would be pretty much an object lesson on this point. By simply getting everyone scared of illness, all kinds of things that are ordinarily unthinkable— locking people in their homes, closing businesses, requiring passes and proof of compliance with government mandates for participation in society. If someone would have proposed something like what we did in 2020 in any other situation, it would have been seen as police-state actions. There would have been wide-scale protests and disobedience. The same thing happened in 2001; just by making people afraid of terrorists you can build government watchlists, build spy programs, and hold people without trial. And history absolutely shows this, most tyrannical states start taking power by creating a crisis.

Yeah this is what my reply said in less words and less judgey. Well done.

Is what I'm describing part of some ancient philosophy or religion?

Indeed, as others have pointed out, this mindset is at the heart of Stoïcism. It's also fairly close to Taoism.

What Stoïcism instructs is what to direct your will at: yourself. If you think that you have some influence over the DA, even just as a private citizen voting and writing letters to other people, then consider doing that. Or shape yourself into someone who would become a DA that would achieve the outcomes that you consider optimal. Make yourself into a better person and a better world will flow from that. The world is what it is; it can be improved if the people in it are improved, but the only one you can ultimately control is yourself. "But this DA is bad and is encouraging more bad people to do bad things!" Good is virtue, bad is vice. And virtue and vice can only be truly known from the inside. If the DA's actions are driven by greed and the desire to be popular, that would be vice. But most people would consider forgiveness to be virtuous, maybe that's what's driving this DA? And your view that these charges should be brought up against these criminals, it's important that you observe your own thinking to understand if that's truly driven by wisdom, a virtue, or by a vice (in that case I think most would see wrath as a vice). Broadly: worry about yourself. Your soul, your actions, your reasoning.

And couching things in emotional terms, is a sure way to lessen your power of reasoning, to lessen the quality of your very soul. You see it everywhere; the originally well-meaning extremists that believe that because they see what they consider an injustice, it gives them licence to cause similar injury to others. Or single issue political/social crusaders who become blind to unintended consequences because they see one thing as "bad".

Ah, yes, I should have thought of stoicism.

If the DA's actions are driven by greed and the desire to be popular, that would be vice. But most people would consider forgiveness to be virtuous, maybe that's what's driving this DA?

With this, did you mean to reinforce the idea that it's a waste of energy to fret about what the DA does? Because my interpretation is that it simply doesn't matter whether s/he's driven by what s/he thinks is virtue or vice. A crusader or jihadist could genuinely believe his actions are divine will to cleanse the world of evil, but why does that matter, at the end of the day? The average person is not intelligent or well-reasoned; attempting to understand how much of their actions is driven by virtue seems like a fool's errand.

Yes. It's not a waste of energy to understand his actions in the sense that if you have to make a decision on his actions, like voting for or against him in an election, you need to act wisely and justly. But it doesn't really matter to YOU whether it was driven by vice or vertue, I was simply pointing out that you can't really tell whether something outside of yourself is good or bad; you can't know all outcomes, and you can't know other people's internal thoughts. All you can really know is your own.

Now this is one of the parts where Stocism tends to lose some people, but Stoics, like most ancient virtue ethics philosophers, consider that ethics are simple and innate. When we're close to nature, we do not need to be taught that being rash, cowardly, mean and violent is bad, it "feels" innately bad. Likewise being wise, bold, nice, and calm feels good. The Crusader or the Jihadist who commit large scale murder are doing so because instead of focusing on themselves and their actions, they focus on the world, which they see as "evil". And trying to correct the world directly blinds you to your own actions. If instead of focussing on whether the world or other people are good or evil, he were to think "is my conduct virtuous?" as he's about to massacre an innocent, he would likely come to a different conclusion. You can commit an awful lot of evil when trying to improve the world, that you wouldn't be committing if you were trying to improve yourself.

I get your point, though I suppose in the end it comes down to blending all these systems and beliefs into some kind of approximate heuristics, since few decisions we make day to day entails whether we should massacre an innocent or not, and the moment you step away from the extreme example, things start looking mighty murky.

I think the stoic framework is the healthy one in most cases. There are things you can control: what you do, how you react, and what you say. The rest is simply outside of your control. You cannot make the DA press charges, so you don’t need to worry about the outcome here. The universe doesn’t owe you anything and what it does give you is best held lightly as it can be just as easily taken. Enjoy it, but don’t get attached to it.

The rest is simply outside of your control. You cannot make the DA press charges, so you don’t need to worry about the outcome here.

That seems like abdicating responsibility. DAs are often elected. A US citizen is capable of doing many things that would damage their re-election chances. You arguably have a duty to draw attention to their transgressions if you're upset.

You still can’t force him to do anything the best you can do is apply pressure or perhaps remove him. Doing something is better than doing nothing, but you still can’t force things to go your way.

True, but the Stoic take is that you engage in these actions as means to an end, which is making the world a better place, and not as an emotional catharsis without which you cannot achieve happiness and life satisfaction. The goal is that even if your efforts are frustrated and ultimately futile, you should be able to judge your own acts to be virtuous.

I mostly disagree. Almost everything in the world can be influenced to some degree or with some probability. If you dedicated the next year to it, you could probably shut down that puppy mill, or somehow make them a little less profitable.

Picking battles is absolutely necessary, and happens whether you choose it or not. I think that's a better approach than trying to divide the world into "under my control" vs "not".

Seconding this, and emphasizing that stoicism doesn't mean passivity; it means really truly internalizing that sometimes "You want it to be one way. But it's the other way".

You can try to change it, but you gotta accept reality first.

Do people who try to change things usually not accept that the things are in a state they don't like?

I've always seen it more as "accept that water runs downhill." Yes, you can pump water uphill, but there is a cost, and it must be done intentionally. Try as you might, you will never be able to get the universe into a state where "water runs uphill or downhill as needed at no cost" is a fundamental law.

People who successfully change things for the better tend to have internalized this. They understand that their actions have tradeoffs, opportunity costs, and that some things, like the past, are unchangeable. Others beat their heads against the brick wall that is reality.

That makes total sense, I agree that framing things in terms of tradeoffs is a huge upgrade from how most people think about what problems to go after. But that doesn't sound much like the stoicism I've heard about.

No, because you're switching connotations of acceptance from 'willing to tolerate' to something more like 'acknowledgement / recognition.' 'I acknowledge that this is bad, but I will not/ do not have to tolerate it' is not acceptance in the form that stoicism advocates.

I think you'd have to deny some very in your face facts to think that the world is immutable. Perhaps you are powerless (a state of affairs which can conceivably be changed) but obviously things do change and people change them. When immoral acts are committed it's because someone is committing them, when the justice system works properly it's because people are making sure it does. You're no less of an actor than the people who visibly make stuff happen.

I notice that all your examples don't affect you. Just to be clear, would you tell yourself to act the same if you were the victim of those things?

It's easy to point to greater suffering in quantity and magnitude in Ukraine or Niger, and I'm not sure what's the point of thinking about that either.

The point is to do better. It is to insist that those with the power to affect change do better. I understand that you personally cannot alter the course of events in Ukraine. But an ocean is a trillion drops of water, an avalanche is a trillion snowflakes, and likewise, the world gets better with each successful individual act of doing better.

I'll go one step further. A great many things would improve if people didn't try to insist on some "nature" equivalent of the just world hypothesis. Humans have remarkable ability to not only learn morality, but to implement it in their own lives. The fact that some have a predisposition towards doing unjust things is not a defense, because if your urges to act immorally are so strong, then you have forsaken some claim of being a wholly reasonable person who is due the rights privileges given by default.

I notice that all your examples don't affect you. Just to be clear, would you tell yourself to act the same if you were the victim of those things?

Of course not. My point was to focus exclusively on things that affect me, and ignore the rest. It's precisely because I'm not the victim of that carjacking that I posit here perhaps it's smart for me to be mindful about not losing any sleep over it. If criminality and victimhood are both natural, then it is preordained that someone will be carjacked and someone else will be the carjacker. My framework here simply says that I pledge to never be the carjacker (unless, I suppose, extraordinary circumstances demanded it, and I'd pay compensations or suffer the consequences after), and will focus my energy on not being carjacked (e.g., never leaving the key in the ignition while fueling, avoiding shady fuel stations, having someone on me for self-defense).

because if your urges to act immorally are so strong, then you have forsaken some claim of being a wholly reasonable person who is due the rights privileges given by default.

A good sentiment, but I think you're preaching to the choir here. We're here talking about this because we believe we are the good ones and lament that more people aren't better.

A good sentiment, but I think you're preaching to the choir here. We're here talking about this because we believe we are the good ones and lament that more people aren't better.

That was most definitely not me trying to preach to the choir. I see defenses of that sort quite often here.

Edit: feel free to take my observation with a grain of salt. I swear I've seen that stuff, but I can't find it, in part because I spend far less time on this site.

Can we get some examples for reference?

Goddammit, you just had to do the right thing and ask me to back up my claims, didn't you? Ultimately, I don't save that stuff and this realization was one of hindsight. I got nothing for ya, sorry. Will edit the post to reflect this.

heh, sorry. I'm asking to try to understand the argument better, not out of skepticism over whether they exist. Obviously links would be best, but I'm not Gatsaru either; I'd be happy with just your rough impressions.

That article claimed Russia was openly waiting for Ukraine fatigue to set in but never provided any evidence to back this statement. Funnily enough the author of the article seems to be the disinformation Mary Poppins.

But why on Earth would «Russia» not wait for Ukraine fatigue to set in? I don't think some evidence like a document must be shown, it's just common sense and the burden of proof is on you. Pro-Z Russians I know are very explicitly banking on it, channelling Kremlin beliefs. And of course it's expected of them – the whole thing is revealed as senseless struggle the moment you accept that the US and by extension «the West» won't stop backing Ukraine. Which they won't of course: no matter how tired proles get, how many new current things they pivot to in the attention economy, they won't become pro-Russian (not with how Putin acts anyway; @Dean details a plausible rationale, but I think there's conscious reveling in depravity too, certain edgelording, Putin has an adolescent's sense of humor); and it will remain political suicide and betrayal of the premise of NATO to actually abandon Ukrainian cause.

The US, as a geopolitical entity, actually values the loyalty of all those peoples in Central Europe/Baltics who are (more than anyone else on the continent) directly interested in the suppression of Russian imperial agenda and aid Ukrainians as their fellow former subjects of the empire, as well as their current shield.
The US also cares directly about the diminution of Russia in the context of American grand strategy (where international economic isolation of China and denial of usable allies to China is the primary objective for the foreseeable future); victorious Russia is a substantially more valuable ally to China than one bogged down in trench warfare and suffering attacks on its capital, so it must not come to exist.

For these and other reasons, whatever fatique will be felt by the NATO camp, it won't be a big factor. But yes, Russians ignore these reasons and absolutely hope it will be, and this has been a consistent theme in the commentary for the whole duration of the war (except the first delusional week or so). This has been a common theme prior to the war, since 2014 at least – «Hohols will freeze to death without our gas» and so on (perfectly mirrored in that Gazprom middle finger to the EU); protracted resource throttling (or even just threatening it) in hopes of getting opposition to yield is a staple of Kremlin playbook, informed by the foundational belief that you can win by continuously imposing costs which translate into fatique and giving up. «These Gayropeans spoiled by their democracy are not tough, they can't endure remotely as much hardship [as our slaves]» is a very typical conviction both of authoritarians and of their powerless supporters and in Russia it has perhaps been developed into its ultimate form of a pervasive philosophical attitude to life. It's wrong about the other side, and it's mostly empty posturing with regard to one's own, these people aren't prepared for meaningful sacrifices, nor do they really care about the goal such as taking Ukraine, indeed most of them feel war fatique and would've given up if it were up them. But to the extent that they have something like strategy, all pro-war Russians from P. himself do the lowest Z conscript do pin their hopes on war fatigue in the West.

I’m not sure that it is sustainable. We’re spending billions a month on propping up the Ukrainian side. Given a lot of other needs at home, I don’t think you can keep doing that and still maintain power in a democracy. The public isn’t opposed to independence for Ukraine, but they’re also not nearly as engaged as they were a year ago. A year later I would expect even less interest. If some other crisis comes in, I would expect there’s going to be a formidable anti-war backlash.

whatever fatique will be felt by the NATO camp, it won't be a big factor.

Never say never. Trump has openly said he would blackmail Ukraine into surrendering, and he currently has a runaway chance to be the RNom. There's no guarantee that would actually happen if he became president again since Trump is a waffle and if the people surrounding him (e.g. Kushner) or cable news pundits are all against it then he could soften his approach. But he could also very much... just do what he's saying he will, and the modern US political system centralizes an overwhelming amount of military power in the chief executive, so dissenting Dems + Repubs in Congress would have little recourse.

A critical reason this war is going to be a long one is because the question of "which side benefits from a drawn out war of attrition" is very unsettled.

That article claimed Russia was openly waiting for Ukraine fatigue to set in but never provided any evidence to back this statement.

I'm not sure what you'd consider 'evidence,' but it is consistent plausible end-state motivations for most Russian strategic efforts since last summer. After it became apparent that Russian conventional offensives would be generally ineffective and disproportionately costly even as Putin demonstrated that mobilization waves would be a resort rather than a primary means of maintaining offensive mobility, there were three general dynamics for Russia: to keep trying to attack irregardless, to try and escape the conflict, or to adopt a defensive posture to conserve power and extend the clock. Putin has progressively tried to axe any viable Russian withdrawal route by various means to limit the political viability of such (the annexation of unoccupied territory, blowing up dams), and redirected offensive capabilities away from conventional targets towards things like the attacks on civilian power grids, which is classic economic transition that had the effect of running up the bill for western support, i.e. trying to strain western electrical industrial support and increasing the economic costs if Europe wanted to rebuild Ukraine after a war to incentive a shorter war.

The spring offensive aside- and that was at least conceptually supposed to be a more limited offensive to get territory that was part of the initial nominal casus belli- Russia has generally adopted the defensive posture to extend the clock, even as it has tried to continue its usual sort of IO efforts to fan anti-war efforts or actors and encourage divisions in the western coalition backing Ukraine. I'd personally consider that 'waiting for Ukraine fatigue to set in' a fair characterization, though it's a bit more proactive than that.

Of course, this is not 'evidence' as much as 'assessment,' based on things that are presumably open knowledge but not claiming any Russian internal document saying 'this is the goal,' a standard which would largely preclude evidence from being relevant.

Not sure how we would tell the difference between Russia hoping NATO will get tired and hoping that Ukraine will get tired -- the latter seems much more realistic. I'm pretty sure we will keep sending the Ukrainians bombs so long as they are prepared to keep shooting them at the Russians -- but at some point (one supposes) Ukrainians might tire of being blown to shit over the soil of various unimportant podunk farm towns where the action seems to be now taking place.

Selection of propaganda framings. Framing the conflict as being over unimportant podunk farm towns is the Russian-desired framing fit for westerners, not for Ukrainians, which is rather the point.

The Ukrainian support for the war is sky-high because the Ukrainians see this as an existential struggle that wouldn't end with a cease fire (because Russia could consolidate, regroup, and try yet another continuation war in what is already a series of continuation conflicts). If the Russians were trying to target Ukraine, they would focus on themes undermining this perception, and conceal, rather than amplify, narrative claims about how Ukraine was a fake country (that does not deserve to exist) and Nazis (for which total war and destruction is jusitfied) and properly russion (annexation). Anti-Ukrainian resolve IO would try to dissuade that Ukrainians in their power will be killed / kidnapped / tortured / moved as demographic pawns, and cast such allegations as ridiculous.

Instead, the state media and state-influenced media spheres practically revel in it, validating Ukrainian perceptions of Russian threat.

Framing the war as being a futile struggle over nothing important is a messaging theme for westerners providing Ukraine support. It is an entirely temporally-isolated narrative framing that focuses on ignoring what came before and what could come after, and stresses material value contrasts in the present tense (podunk farms vs billions in military/economic aid to continue fighting). This creates a maximally unfavorable framing for supporting the Ukrainians in terms of people providing things of value to them, which works in parallel with Russian efforts to use political proxies in Europe to act as 'peace activists' for pro-Russian settlements, signal boost or inflame opposition/dissident actors framing domestic complaints in terms of the war.

There were also the really unsubtle narrative campaigns regarding last year's energy cutoffs and Nord Stream Pipeline politics. Germany has long been the target of Russian information efforts. It failed, but not for lack of Russian trying.

Returning the previous post's point: at some point when beating their head against walls didn't work out, the Russians had to make a choice between cutting losses but also loosing gains, and playing for time in hopes they could end up keeping gains. They chose to play for time. The strategy to make that time turn to their favor is to change the conditions that enable the Ukrainians to resist against Russia's larger economic mass, which is to say the even larger Western economic mass. If Western mass can be disconected, then the conflict may go back to one Russia can 'win.'

Is it a probably stupid plan? Yes. But it's also very characteristic of Putin.

Selection of propaganda framings. Framing the conflict as being over unimportant podunk farm towns is the Russian-desired framing fit for westerners, not for Ukrainians, which is rather the point.

Who desires that framing seems to depend largely upon who's currently in possession of the podunk towns -- I certainly saw Bakhmut referred to this way in Western media as Russia was on the cusp of occupying it; ie. "Look how hard it has been for Russia to capture this one little town, they are so dumb/ineffectual/whatever". Now that Ukraine is making progress (?) on retaking it's bombed out husk it has suddenly been framed as a more important place. I have limited exposure to Russian/Ukrainian media, so IDK how it's framed to the people who are actually getting killed over it.

The Ukrainian support for the war is sky-high

I believe it -- just that it seems not-unreasonable to think that this might change at some point before NATO tires of spending single digit percentages of its military budget on having other people kill Russians for them? "Ukraine is little puppy, we are big bear" seems like a pretty easy sell for the Russian leadership?

Framing the war as being a futile struggle over nothing important is a messaging theme for westerners providing Ukraine support. It is an entirely temporally-isolated narrative framing that focuses on ignoring what came before and what could come after, and stresses material value contrasts in the present tense (podunk farms vs billions in military/economic aid to continue fighting). This creates a maximally unfavorable framing for supporting the Ukrainians in terms of people providing things of value to them, which works in parallel with Russian efforts to use political proxies in Europe to act as 'peace activists' for pro-Russian settlements, signal boost or inflame opposition/dissident actors framing domestic complaints in terms of the war.

None of this is working, at all, though? "Current Thing" support for weapons delivery/profile flags seems strong as ever -- and even if it weren't there would be a long ways to go before public opinion stopped the Pentagon from doing as they please, no?

If Western mass can be disconected, then the conflict may go back to one Russia can 'win.'

Is it a probably stupid plan? Yes. But it's also very characteristic of Putin.

I mean it's probably the only plan -- full retreat would be the end of Putin I should think.

Who desires that framing seems to depend largely upon who's currently in possession of the podunk towns -- I certainly saw Bakhmut referred to this way in Western media as Russia was on the cusp of occupying it; ie. "Look how hard it has been for Russia to capture this one little town, they are so dumb/ineffectual/whatever". Now that Ukraine is making progress (?) on retaking it's bombed out husk it has suddenly been framed as a more important place. I have limited exposure to Russian/Ukrainian media, so IDK how it's framed to the people who are actually getting killed over it.

You're confusing propaganda narrative for assessment of value.

Bakhmut was referred to as strategically insignificant by non-Russian analysts because it's capture was (correctly) analyzed as not going to allow Russia the sort of breakthrough or impact to Ukrainian offenses to meaningfully change the strategic posture in a way to facilitate more effective follow-on Russian operations. Early in the war, Bakhmut falling was a pre-requisite for the Russians having a pincer attack that threatened the entire Ukrainian position in the Donetsk, one of the key territories in Russia's nominal casus belli for the administrative boundaries of the Donetsk separatists they claimed to be fighting for. As a pincer at a theater level, it would have allowed the Russians to deny the pocket access to artillery, given localized air superiority, and greatly diminished the ability of the Ukrainians to defend, as we saw earlier in the summer elsewhere during the grinding artillery offensive. After Kharkiv, the Russians lost both the territory and the logistics hubs required for any sort of pincer, negating the potential for overlapping artillery to keep out the Ukrainian artillery, greatly limiting the effectiveness of aviation, and so on. Without the second pincer to weaken the Ukrainian defenses by denying them safe space for artillery in the 'pocket', the advance from Kherson became the same general prospects as the advance into Kherson, which was not only massively wasteful in manpower, but the political consequences ended up resulting in a mutiny. Analysts didn't know the later would happen, but they were completely correct about the former, hence why it was a fight for a city and not what was beyond because the city became it's own target regardless of anything else.

By contrast, referring to the current offensive as over (non-specific, temporally isolated, inherently insignificant) podunk farms ignores that the podunk farms are simply where a defensive line is that- if broken, would radically reshape the viability of follow-on operations in war-altering ways. Namely, that the southern offensive threatened to reach the black sea, or at least put it into artillery range, thus cutting off land-based resupply of Crimea. Russia was highly dependent on the Crimean bridge to move forces and supply the Crimean peninsula, a logistics lift which was throttled by the bridge attacks but somewhat mitigated by the land corridor. Compromising that land corridor forces the Russians to be far more dependent on a far more limited supply chain itself still vulnerable to disruption, and by limiting that supply chain would enabled the Ukrainians to have future more favorable operations against the Russians in those undersupplied areas (i.e. by going from the sea and then west, towards the peninsula's opening).

The Ukrainians don't/didn't care where particularly the southern lines were breached, but no matter where it was, it would be through podunk farms. Framing the offensive as over podunk farms, as opposed to being over what the podunk farms are in the way towards, is a propaganda framing, not an analysis of what the target.

The Ukrainian support for the war is sky-high

I believe it -- just that it seems not-unreasonable to think that this might change at some point before NATO tires of spending single digit percentages of its military budget on having other people kill Russians for them? "Ukraine is little puppy, we are big bear" seems like a pretty easy sell for the Russian leadership?

And yet, the Russians don't believe this (which I believe is correct), and are focusing their propaganda efforts at the west instead (which is reflected in the prevalence of themes and prioritization of efforts).

The question is not whether you think the Russians are doing the sensible thing. The war was not a sensible thing. The question is what the Russians are doing, and how we might know it.

Framing the war as being a futile struggle over nothing important is a messaging theme for westerners providing Ukraine support. It is an entirely temporally-isolated narrative framing that focuses on ignoring what came before and what could come after, and stresses material value contrasts in the present tense (podunk farms vs billions in military/economic aid to continue fighting). This creates a maximally unfavorable framing for supporting the Ukrainians in terms of people providing things of value to them, which works in parallel with Russian efforts to use political proxies in Europe to act as 'peace activists' for pro-Russian settlements, signal boost or inflame opposition/dissident actors framing domestic complaints in terms of the war.

None of this is working, at all, though?

'At all' is totalizing language that would be inherently wrong. There are anti-war / 'don't support the Ukrainians' movements, and there have been diplomatic flareups between the western coalition that Russia has signal-boosted and amplified.

It is not working enough at the moment, but that's why the Russians are playing for time in Ukraine while trying to shape the western information sphere via propaganda over time.

"Current Thing" support for weapons delivery/profile flags seems strong as ever -- and even if it weren't there would be a long ways to go before public opinion stopped the Pentagon from doing as they please, no?

Hence why they are strategically playing to the defensive and buying time and going after the long-term viability of the Ukrainian government (which would collapse without Western aid).

The Russian wish-fantasy-strategy is that someone like Donald Trump comes into power on a wave of discontent (that the Russians help amplify), and once in power overrules the military / fundamentally breaks the alliance / does things that Russia would like.

It doesn't matter that even Donald Trump didn't do that when in office, that's just what the Russian hail mary is, and Putin is well into hail-mary territory.

I mean it's probably the only plan -- full retreat would be the end of Putin I should think.

Putin still has full control of the internal security forces, and the ability to shoot dissenters. He'll be paranoid and miserable, but it's not like he'll lose an election. Wagner's mutiny was worse for showing how little the military was able/willing to stop it, not for it's (in)ability to take over Moscow or a lack of government control of the internal security services. Moscow would have been bloody and embarrasing, but not the end of Putin for the same reason that the war itself isn't: Putin has made all his potential successors complicit, so that they would share his fate, so they have an interest in avoiding it.

That article claimed Russia was openly waiting for Ukraine fatigue to set in but never provided any evidence to back this statement.

This is basically all arguments about Russian collusion/subversion in a nutshell.

Nothing to see here--it's all part of nature. Understand how it works, make sure you're not the mouse/fly/blueberry, and move on happily with your own life.

This ideology may work decently for you individually, although I think it takes a heroic individual to truly accept that brutal state of affairs.

Over time though, and on a societal level, this type of thinking will inevitably descend back into the might-makes-right, strong eat the weak world that we rose from. During the Axial revolution back around the time of Socrates, men realized that they could make themselves better. That there was a different way to live than simply accepting Nature as red in tooth and claw - we could master nature. But more importantly, we could master ourselves.

All the beauty and ease your life is filled with has been delivered to you from generations of your ancestors that rejected this naturalistic worldview in order to build a better future for their descendants. You can spit on their sacrifices and just focus on getting yours, man, but I reject your worldview as fundamentally selfish, and wrong.

inevitably descend back into the might-makes-right, strong eat the weak world that we rose from

Maybe I exaggerate slightly, but aren't we functionally there? In what realm is might not right and strong not eating the weak?

You can spit on their sacrifices and just focus on getting yours

This sounds good but I think is facile. The beauty of capitalism is that, barring certain tragedy of the commons exceptions, the system allows society to flourish while people simply focus on getting "theirs".

I think it’s really more or less human nature that when push comes to shove, it’s still about the same laws of power and control that it always was. We’ve repainted the castles pink and lavender, we’ve given our serfs the veneer of control over things but if you’re sitting in a powerful position, you’re doing things pretty much the way we always did. And for those at the bottom, again life isn’t that much better outside of the sheer material comforts. If you’re in a low position on the social hierarchy, your life is still dictated to you. Your boss can choose your dress, your hours, and force you to say things you don’t want to. Those in the middle also have to be careful to be properly orthodox and to protect their positions in the social hierarchy. This is how human societies work and always have worked.

I’ve never seen much reason to pretend otherwise. The elite’s favorite game is the game of thrones, and when it comes to that point, you don’t have any say.

I hate the world my ancestors have made. I hate the shiny metal prison that uses drugs and manipulative interactive propaganda to try and convince people they're happier or have more agency than a medieval serf.

I yearn for brutality and its reality. I yearn for the truth of man's condition in this Chtonic age of lies.

But most of all I despise those that, as you do, hide their cowardly quest for mere comfort behind a communal social standard that only exists to leech on their betters with impunity.

If rejecting this giant daycare is egoism then egoism is a moral duty.

Well at least you're honest. If you want to go back to an apocalyptic world of brutal violence, Girardian scapegoating, and evil then you're welcome to it I suppose. You and the rest who follow you into hell will reap what you sow. I'd argue that you have no idea what you're in for, but given the fact that you despise me, I doubt you'll listen.

I just hope those of us against that dark vision can stop you before you and your cohort destroy the world.

I just hope those of us against that dark vision can stop you before you and your cohort destroy the world.

The world deserves to be destroyed. I don't aim to do it myself though, it's doing fine on its own. All I want is to survive and inherit the Earth.

I yearn for brutality and its reality.

rejecting this giant daycare

Feel free to travel to Somalia, Syria or Ukraine with brutality available to experience. Personally I am entirely not looking for more brutality in my life, thank you very much.

or have more agency than a medieval serf

They have. (for "happier" I do not really have enough knowledge to answer, but I also expect that)

Claiming that typical people nowadays have less agency than medieval serf is a quite wild claim. What kind of serfdom you compare to modern life?

I mean I've been to places like that. It is refreshing in a way, but you don't really get the proper experience as a tourist.

Plus none of that is needed, I can just go to my cabin in the woods.

But all my personal tribulations make your quest for comfort that has sacrificed freedom and humanity no less evil, of course.

Claiming that typical people nowadays have less agency than medieval serf is a quite wild claim.

How many years of manual labor do you need to buy a dwelling for you and your family? How much free time do you have per day? Per year? How much control do other humans have on the way you live your daily life? How many hours do you have away from anybody? How much do you pay in taxes? Can you be conscripted in an army against your will?

I don't find it wild at all personally once you actually look at what is going on instead of the stories people tell about what is going on.

But of course the only answer when we start to look at the grim reality of modern man is to clutch at the true purpose: comfort. Oh but wouldn't you just get sick and die, wouldn't it all be very hard work? Yes, but at least you would have lived a human life and not that of a machine.

I'm not stopping you from retiring to your cabin in the woods where you can bask in the absence of civilization all you want, while you don't seem to be satisfied unless everyone is plunged there along with you. I find your way far more imposing on freedom.

Unfortunately if you did practice what you preach you wouldn't be able to prove it because you wouldn't have network.

I find your way far more imposing on freedom.

Somehow, though I've found a lot of red tape to constrain me to live away from civilization, I fail to see the coercion I have ever generated.

Must be of the invisible sort that only exists to grasp at when one doesn't want to consider alternatives to their position.

You sound like the people who call out socialists for using phones made by capitalism or call out Christians for not being socialists like they imagine Jesus was. Have you considered that people can have belief systems that aren't constrained by the principes you yourself hold?

Cop-out. Is a communist blameless because right until his party took power, he had not coerced anybody?

This is a nonsense question, communists do not believe coercion is immoral.

But I fail to see how this is relevant to my position. I'm merely exiting from society. Are you saying I deserve blame because I intend to create a society you disapprove of once this one is done for?

Am I, the individual, unfairly restricting the will of the State by having thoughts and desires that go against its will? Is mere dissent a moral crime? Well tough shit, I'm not a fascist.

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How many years of manual labor do you need to buy a dwelling for you and your family? How much free time do you have per day? Per year? How much control do other humans have on the way you live your daily life? How many hours do you have away from anybody? How much do you pay in taxes? Can you be conscripted in an army against your will?

How many times have you had to fight for your life against an angry mob? A wild animal?

How many times have you had to face starvation, or thirst, or truly look the spectre of death in the face?

When in your life have you had to sit back while a corrupt noble comes in and rapes your wife and daughter?

You are so deluded it would be comical if your ideologies weren't so dangerous.

You are so deluded it would be comical if your ideologies weren't so dangerous.

More light, less heat, please.

How many times have you had to fight for your life against an angry mob? A wild animal?

I did once run from a mob and had my share of wild animal encounters by now. I also got pepper sprayed and robbed at knifepoint by lowlives some years ago. Turns out cities are much more dangerous than the countryside in my experience, especially if like me you are armed.

If anything this is how I ended up believing what I believe.

How many times have you had to face starvation, or thirst, or truly look the spectre of death in the face?

I've been poor, but it is legitimately impossible to starve in the modern world if you're not mentally ill. I did almost freeze to death once and I think that one counts.

When in your life have you had to sit back while a corrupt noble comes in and rapes your wife and daughter?

I'm not a modern day German, so never. And I never will.

You are so deluded it would be comical if your ideologies weren't so dangerous.

I fully understand that my beliefs are outside of what you deem acceptable, but it's fine, I also think yours are. The difference is that I actually have reasons for my belief that don't boil down to increasing my comfort at any cost.

My reasons boil down to the fact that I think violence is wrong, and I believe in the Christian ideal of suppressing our urge for violence. Fighting for a future where humanity can be something better.

Yeah I don't think upholding Christian ideals is the route you want to take in arguing for transhumanism -- it's extreme hubris and rejection of God rolled into one (either of which tends to be rapidly fatal in the OT, and non-negotiable bars to salvation in the NT), almost inherently and certainly in practice. "Another bite at The Apple", if you will.

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Interesting. I don't really see Christianity as incompatible with my goals or even in large disagreement with my complaints about modernity.

In fact I don't disagree at all that man is a beast that has to be tamed and that violence must be correctly contained to appropriate settings. Do not mistake me for a savage. The quest for a more brutal truth is not the quest for slavery to the passions.

If anything my complains are fully translatable to Christian theology. The modern world is a tower of Babel, and this aim you speak of to make humanity better is the scourge of hubris. And is destined to ignominious failure. Man is as he has been made and he will remain so until judgement. Salvation is not to be attained by making ourselves perfect but by seeking redemption in Christ.

Besides, the Christian ideal as I understood it has never been to completely renounce violence, but to tame our nature to prevent us from using it unwisely. Jesus himself had to right some wrongs by the sword and I've seen many scholars insist that his message is not one of weakness but of properly restrained strength. Blessed is the soldier who keeps his weapon sheathed and is patient in dealing with others rather than use anger, even though he very well could overpower others and get his way. Or as the mistranslation calls him, the meek.

How many times have you had to fight for your life against an angry mob? When in your life have you had to sit back while a corrupt noble comes in and rapes your wife and daughter?

I don't think these happened all that often.

A wild animal? How many times have you had to face starvation, or thirst, or truly look the spectre of death in the face?

I think the lack of these is precisely what he's lamenting.

You are so deluded it would be comical if your ideologies weren't so dangerous.

The feeling's mutual.

How many years of manual labor do you need to buy a dwelling for you and your family?

Dwelling of quality matching one that serf had? Zero, better is available for free and abandoned. I prefer to pay for superior standard.

How much free time do you have per day? Per year?

Much more than serfs. Much much more than median, but that is also higher than what serfs had.

How much control do other humans have on the way you live your daily life?

For start, I am allowed to leave settlement where I was born. I guess you can find axis on which serfs had more freedom but overall this claim seems extremely shaky.

Can you be more specific? Freedom of selecting how I will work, freedom of movement are fairly important to me and would not switch to serfdom unless forced.

Can you be conscripted in an army against your will?

Are you under impression that serfs could not be? And I am vastly less likely to die in war than serf and vastly less likely to be conscripted. And in case of conscription I am vastly more likely to survive.

How much do you pay in taxes?

Less than serfs, unless you mean some nonsense metrics like absolute tax value. Or you do not count mandatory work as taxes.

On any meaningful metric like tax burden I pay less.

How many hours do you have away from anybody?

As much as I want, unlike serfs (though if anything I would focus on family/meaningful connections with others - that seems much better target if you want to go "we are in worse situation than serfs")

better is available for free and abandoned

You're not allowed to live in shantytowns and shacks, you're not even allowed to build them, I know men who tried, eventually the constabulary comes to kick you out of your illegal out of code dwelling and force you to pay into the racket.

Best I've seen is people who convert existing farming structures, and that runs you at least some years of labor to buy the land.

Much more than serfs. Much much more than median, but that is also higher than what serfs had.

You'll have to forgive me, I don't see our 80 days a year of mandated holy rest from here.

Can you be more specific?

I'm not talking about freedom to choose what you do for a living, the modern world clearly requires that flexibility and thus give you much larger on paper freedom there. I'm talking about the amount of scrutiny you get doing this work, hence why I follow up with asking how long of a time you spend away from anybody's gaze. But that one's not really a contest, the serf doesn't have a black rectangle in his pocket that tells everybody where he is and allows them to summon him at all times.

Are you under impression that serfs could not be?

Outside of perpetually insane places, such as Russia, conscription has been viewed as abominable throughout the middle ages and a clear act of tyranny. It took a literal revolutionary government beset by ennemies on all sides to change that norm in France. And the change of that norm led to the Napoleonic era and the invention of total war.

People always seem surprised when they learn about this, but ask any medieval historian and they'll tell you just this.

unless you mean some nonsense metrics like absolute tax value

I don't think I need to say anything here really.

lets take simple one...

You'll have to forgive me, I don't see our 80 days a year of mandated holy rest from here.

For start, weekends alone give you 105 free days in 2023. Add to that public holidays, paid holidays (last one may not apply in USA, I guess - but I expect that you can still take unpaid time off).

Also, [citation needed] for that 80 days.

Also, you seem to narrow down from serfdom in general to some specific variety. Can you be more specific? Again, what kind of serfdom you compare to modern life?

How much do you pay in taxes?

unless you mean some nonsense metrics like absolute tax value

I don't think I need to say anything here really.

(all numbers are for comparison purposes only)

If I earn 6 000, got taxed 3 000 while serf would have total income 600 and got taxed 500 then my tax burden is lesser. Despite that I pay 3000 and serf 500.

If I earn 6 000, 4 000 going to taxes then burden may be still lesser than earning 600 and getting taxed 350.

Obviously this comparisons are fraught with problems given that vast majority of tax burden for serfs was mandatory labor, which could be treated also as payment for land (and partially was). And many restrictions both past in modern are effectively taxes.

Also, [citation needed] for that 80 days.

Medieval historian friend of mine gave me that particular figure, Of course it's more complicated than that, but if anything it's a lower bound you can work out out of Urban VIII's limitation of non sunday days of obligation to 36 in the 17th century. Bishops could institute at many new feasts for their dioceses as they wanted before then and you'll find larger lists if you look for them.

But really what we're arguing about is the total amount of work people put in and how comparable it is to the modern work week, which is unsurprisingly a debated topic. Lower estimates, such as what you'll find in Schor's heavily quoted book are around 150, higher estimates are about 300. But fittingly for this thread since Schor's book became popular it's become a culture war topic that people use to push various labor related agendas so I'm disinclined to believe any American view on the matter.

I'm mostly going off Pierre Goubert's account which is definitely on the lower side of that debate, but I don't have those books around me to give you a proper figure from him.

you seem to narrow down from serfdom in general to some specific variety.

I'm really only talking about what I know and have been taught about, which is its form in Anglo-French civilization.

If I earn 6 000, got taxed 3 000 while serf would have total income 600 and got taxed 500 then my tax burden is lesser. Despite that I pay 3000 and serf 500.

Oh I see what you mean.

I think a better measure is effective total tax rate. Though as you say that's more difficult to measure because there were so many different entities at the time and most of it was in kind.

We do have extensive scholarly work on that in my country because tax has such a storied history in France and was one of the specifically claimed reasons for the French Revolution.

The way the historians measure it, since it is mostly composed of indirect taxes, is to measure the amount of days worked a year.

François Hincker in his book on this topic Les Français devant l'impôt sous l'Ancien Régime, which I eventually read because it was quoted on one of my exams, gives us a pretty stunning figure that stayed with me:

The 25 million inhabitants of [Ancien Régime] France have to pay 470 millions in tax, that is to say between 18 or 19 livre each. At that time the monthly salary of a mason in Paris is at a little less than a livre. So a middling salaryman would work about seven days to pay tailles, capitation and vingtièmes, about two to pay gabelle and a little more than nine to pay other indirect taxes

18 days total, which can be compared to say, France's current mean total tax rate of 56.9% which with the equivalent average salary computes to 208 days yearly to pay taxes.

Now I'm not saying the comparison holds for every place in Europe at that time, but when De Jouvenel and others argue that the revolution actually worsened the tax burden for everyone including myself, I'm inclined to believe them.

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