site banner
PaperclipPerfector  6mo ago (text post)   29304 thread views

Culture War Roundup for the week of October 2, 2023

This weekly roundup thread is intended for all culture war posts. 'Culture war' is vaguely defined, but it basically means controversial issues that fall along set tribal lines. Arguments over culture war issues generate a lot of heat and little light, and few deeply entrenched people ever change their minds. This thread is for voicing opinions and analyzing the state of the discussion while trying to optimize for light over heat.

Optimistically, we think that engaging with people you disagree with is worth your time, and so is being nice! Pessimistically, there are many dynamics that can lead discussions on Culture War topics to become unproductive. There's a human tendency to divide along tribal lines, praising your ingroup and vilifying your outgroup - and if you think you find it easy to criticize your ingroup, then it may be that your outgroup is not who you think it is. Extremists with opposing positions can feed off each other, highlighting each other's worst points to justify their own angry rhetoric, which becomes in turn a new example of bad behavior for the other side to highlight.

We would like to avoid these negative dynamics. Accordingly, we ask that you do not use this thread for waging the Culture War. Examples of waging the Culture War:

  • Shaming.

  • Attempting to 'build consensus' or enforce ideological conformity.

  • Making sweeping generalizations to vilify a group you dislike.

  • Recruiting for a cause.

  • Posting links that could be summarized as 'Boo outgroup!' Basically, if your content is 'Can you believe what Those People did this week?' then you should either refrain from posting, or do some very patient work to contextualize and/or steel-man the relevant viewpoint.

In general, you should argue to understand, not to win. This thread is not territory to be claimed by one group or another; indeed, the aim is to have many different viewpoints represented here. Thus, we also ask that you follow some guidelines:

  • Speak plainly. Avoid sarcasm and mockery. When disagreeing with someone, state your objections explicitly.

  • Be as precise and charitable as you can. Don't paraphrase unflatteringly.

  • Don't imply that someone said something they did not say, even if you think it follows from what they said.

  • Write like everyone is reading and you want them to be included in the discussion.

On an ad hoc basis, the mods will try to compile a list of the best posts/comments from the previous week, posted in Quality Contribution threads and archived at /r/TheThread. You may nominate a comment for this list by clicking on 'report' at the bottom of the post and typing 'Actually a quality contribution' as the report reason.

11
Top Bottom Old Controversial Comments
Jump in the discussion.

No email address required.

Suella Bravermans Tory conference speech caught my attention as it seems to more bluntly come out anti-immigration and she specifically says don’t be afraid of being called racists. Here is the key quote with a lot of other red meat in the speech.

'The wind of change that carried my own parents across the globe in the 20th century was a mere gust compared to the hurricane that is coming.'

As far as I can tell Sunak did not slam immigration as much. He did have one-nanny state policy of banning cigarettes (which I sort of support) but was also very clear on gender ideology (a man is a man a women is a women parts). A politician would not have those two policies in America.

Back to Braverman there are a few things I find interesting. The specific phrase “hurricane” seems to have far more meaning to my long term views on Europe and immigration. Along with her using the term economic migrants. Africa’s population is the one place in the world with absolutely booming population. In the next 50 or so years the amount of people acting in their own best interest and economically migrating should absolutely boom. There will be a hurricane of migrants.

The issue for Europe and I do believe in HBD is the desire to economically migrate won’t disappear because the economic gaps between Europe and Africa won’t disappear. And while some of these people will end up being quite smart and successful there will be an addition of a large low hbd population.

The end result of this would be a South Africanization of Europe. If my view of this is correct and I do think demographics are destiny then I expect as time goes by and the negatives of mass immigration become more apparent that eventually Europe will fully adopt Bravermans views. The question is will they realize this before it’s too late. Europe already has their right wing political parties gaining support all thru Europe.

I do not see the same sort of risks for the US. South Americas population doesn’t have the same boom dynamics. And the US has shown an ability to partially integrate Hispanic communities into US society. The data I’ve seen in the past has the Hispanic community eventually reaching mean white criminality levels of the US but with far lower educational attainment. I believe we should reduce illegal immigration but I don’t see the same fears of immigration as I would have if I lived in Europe.

The other thing I find interesting is the rise of Indian voices in right wing voices. Sunak, Braverman, Ramaswamy. I have my theories on this - one is a fluke, two is a coincidence, 3 is a pattern.

Article includes video of the key quotes https://www.standard.co.uk/news/politics/suella-braverman-andrew-boff-home-secretary-labour-tories-b1111176.html

Completely unrelated and not worth it’s own post this caught my eye today as I have no idea what it means. El Chapo’s son bans any fentanyl in northern Mexico https://www.zerohedge.com/geopolitical/el-chapos-sons-allegedly-ban-fentanyl-production-northern-mexico

Could be nothing. Could indicate a CIA/Sinaloa deal.

Edit: wouldn’t be surprised if people find the fentanyl stuff more interesting. It seems this was the catalyst.

https://insightcrime.org/news/extradition-fentanyl-prohibition-mexico-tries-counterdrug-reset/

Could be nothing. Could indicate a CIA/Sinaloa deal.

Alternatively, fentanyl is a terrible thing for the profits of heroin and cocaine dealers because it drastically cuts the lifespan of addicts, who make up the steadiest source of revenue.

Bit of a tragedy of the commons situation, it's cheaper and easier to smuggle..

He did have one-nanny state policy of banning cigarettes (which I sort of support)

Personally, I will cheer for any country that bans smoking to be destroyed by a tidal wave of third-world immigrants. There's something poetic about having a government that's so intimately involved in its citizens personal lives that it can force them to stop smoking, but completely disinterested in preventing uninterested in preventing mass colonization. Maybe something else can top it for the platonic ideal of anarchotyranny, but it's pretty good.

A related tangent, Joe Biden recently said directly that White Americans deserve respect in the face of these changes, even in the face of the interviewer who was trying to present it in kosher terms of assuring white people with promises of economic benefits. I don't remember any Conservative politician asserting that White Americans deserve respect and assurance in the face of demographic change, it's somehow Joe Biden who gets close to breaking the ice. The fact is White Identitarianism is getting closer to becoming normalized, and Europe needs it if it is going to survive and thrive.

I don't remember any Conservative politician asserting that White Americans deserve respect and assurance in the face of demographic change

I will continue to note that the United States becoming majority minority is still a choice, an explicitly chosen set of policies intended to do that. Fertility rates by race differ in the United States, but not anywhere near as much as immigration rates.

Suella Bravermans Tory conference speech caught my attention as it seems to more bluntly come out anti-immigration

Suella is the home minister and under her watch the amount of student visas has gone up significantly. So has net migration. I personally never understood why right-wingers posing as populists talk as if they were in the opposition when they actually have the control of the government. Meloni is another character who speaks about what's happening in a worried passive tone even as she opens up the floodgates wider (legally!) while doing the bare minimum to stop the boats.

The end result of this would be a South Africanization of Europe

Probably, though the question is if AI will supercede all these demographic concerns. In an era of superhuman intelligence, even what we consider to be significant differences between humans may fade into a mere rounding error.

Coz Meloni recognizes she's looking at extinction-tier fertility rates in the native Italian population.

What is she supposed to do? Who's going to pay for the upkeep of all these aging Italians?

While it may be in vogue to treat people as fungible, it is unlikely that mass migration will result in these problems being fixed.

As to what to do, at the very least it would be nice to open a proper public debate about it. If Italians decide they don't want to reproduce and prefer to be replaced by immigrants, at least it will be their explicit choice, and not this "it's not happening, and it's a good thing that it is" nonsense.

I suspect sub-Saharan Africans and Arabs aren't as capable as Italians in maintaining an advanced industrial economy.

Ok, but that's not answering the question of what Meloni's course of action should be. If Africa is the only place with a booming population, then that's where the immigrants are going to come from.

If even a quasi-fascist like her did the numbers and saw this as the only option, what alternatives do you recommend?

I mean offering citizenship to Hong Kong or even Chinese citizens would be prefereble to sub Saharan African migration. You could even just move Taiwan to Italy (which would solve some geopolitical issues). Those places do have the city-state vibes of the renaissance.

Those are people capable of maintaining Italy as something.

Of course boosting native births would be preferable.

You could even just move Taiwan to Italy

While we're engaging in this level of fantasy, why not just import a bunch Numenoreans instead? They're importing Africans because they're the ones with excess population to spare and high fertility rates.

Again, I'll ask why you think a right-wing, nativist government isn't considering all these alternatives you guys are coming up with.

If even a quasi-fascist like her did the numbers and saw this as the only option, what alternatives do you recommend?

If the continuum for number of African migrants accepted is just a heuristic for "fascist", then I guess I would say that "quasi-fascist" isn't far enough on the continuum.

Perhaps the actual situation is that "fascism" (real or imagined) isn't really the determining factor for immigration policies though.

In 1992, Meloni joined the Youth Front, the youth wing of the Italian Social Movement (MSI), a neo-fascist political party founded in 1946 by former followers of Italian fascism. She later became the national leader of Student Action, the student movement of the National Alliance (AN), a post-fascist party that became the MSI's legal successor in 1995 and moved towards national conservatism.

If it's a continuum, she's a little further along it than those who don't happen to find themselves in fascist movements.

what alternatives do you recommend?

Some problems cannot be solved but only managed. I don't have any good (realistic) solutions - if we define solution as actually solving the issue once and for all. But that isn't an excuse for passivity and resigned fatalism. There are certainly things that can and should be done to manage the issue, e.g. making citizenship harder and akin to the Gulf model, rewriting asylum laws and possibly removing asylum courts. Making controversial practices such as pushbacks legal. Ban certain NGOs who engage in smuggling. And so on.

These things would make matters better but they would not fundamentally solve the underlying issue, which you alluded to (demographic disparities, who are only getting wider). People want easy solutions but I don't see any here, but at the same time it seems to me that the old very generous asylum model has to end.

Having a two-tiered society where the ones shut out of everything are much younger and increasingly more numerous is a recipe for disaster. You ironically need the Roman model, where the peoples subsumed by Rome came to view themselves as Roman.

You ironically need the Roman model, where the peoples subsumed by Rome came to view themselves as Roman.

This has been the standard policy for the past 50 years and I don't think it has worked well. It may be different in the US since most immigrants either come from a Westernised background (Latinx America) or are from the upper elites of Third World countries, which tend also to be fairly Westernised. Europe gets neither.

I agree that a two-tiered system is probably untenable in the long run, but this goes to my point about some problems not being able to be solved but merely managed. Besides, it also depends on the willingness of natives to enforce it. Gulf Arabs do it just fine, but I suspect Europeans are too soft. OTOH, the current status quo is a massive failure too. No easy answer here.

What is she supposed to do?

At the very least, she shouldn't do something she based her entire campaign on opposing!

Who's going to pay for the upkeep of all these aging Italians?

Germany, unless the EU disintegrates. But either way immigration isn't actually a solution to this problem any more than taking out another credit card to deal with your problem of too much credit card debt is - migrant fertility rates revert to the native mean within a generation or so. Instead you just pay a bunch of money to "integrate" them, pay more in policing costs, depress wages, increase real estate costs (further damaging native family formation), impose the various other costs of diversity (lowered social trust chief among them) and in exchange you get a few unqualified workers and a lot of dependents.

and in exchange you get a few unqualified workers and a lot of dependents.

You forgot the most important thing, which is that depressing wages and increasing real estate costs are things that affect the middle class of the nation disproportionately, and erasing them is just what the powerful naturally do.

The best time to form a bulwark against it was when the middle class was at the height of its political power but the fact they couldn't or wouldn't is kind of what makes the middle class the middle class.

I think this is a totally valid fear for some additional reasons: China, Russia, and the Arab world have men running things behind the scenes who have no qualms about using a surge of low IQ immigrants to destroy rival nations in the longterm. They are likely already funding pro-immigration and anti-nationalist rhetoric for this reason (obviously behind sevenfold proxy orgs and middlemen). The threat is not just “West with smart immigrants” versus “worse West with dumb immigrants”, but “dominant West on global stage” versus “weakened West with globally dominant Han Chinese, Arabs, and Slavs”. China has shown no interest in diversifying their mostly Han nation state. There’s also the domestic lobbying effects of ethnic-exclusivist communities that do not see a threat in a weakened America because they chiefly identify with their bloodline or the state of Israel. As most Jews in America will be ultra-orthodox in the next century, this is going to pose an issue.

They are likely already funding pro-immigration and anti-nationalist rhetoric

Russia has only ever been caught funding explicitly anti-immigrant parties.

Russia famously funded European (especially German) green parties for years, and they’re broadly pro immigration.

Did they?

Why wouldn't the US get a surge of immigrants from Africa too?

So far, rising incomes in Africa has led to more migration as more people gain the means to do so. I'd expect this process to continue. Already, there are significant Somalian populations in cities like Seattle and Minneapolis. Chain immigration alone can increase these numbers hugely, without the need for boat people showing up.

Future migrants will arrive via a $1000 plan ticket.

It’s extremely hard to travel to South America as a citizen of almost any sub Saharan African nation. It’s weird but first worlders have no real idea of the way that 80% of the world’s population travels because EU/US/UK/AU passports have visa free access almost anywhere, you just show up somewhere and they let you in, maybe you pay $20 on arrival or fill in an ESTA form of something.

The US has lobbied extensively over the last decade to make sure almost no South American nation easily lets in Africans. Over 95% of current border crossers are from the Americas.

I don't think you meant to reply to me, but African immigration is hugely increasing in the United States.

In the 1970s, there were 140,000 African immigrants gaining permanent status. In the 2010s this had increased to 1.04 million. This will continue to increase due to chain immigration.

By percent, African immigration composed about 3% in the 1970s and 10% in the 2010s. I do concede that Latin American immigration is a bigger problem for now, but just follow the trends. Demographics is destiny as always.

Those initial migrants are likely to be middle class as a result of the visa restrictions, and so are likely to invite other middle class people rather than lumpens.

That's a good pushback. This is meta but I'm sad to see that your comment is sitting at -1 on the voting system. Agree or disagree (and I mostly disagree based on the quality of the Somalian diaspora in my city), it certainly contributes to the conversation and should have been upvoted.

Eh. Voting systems are weaponised and have always been weaponised to express agreement or disagreement with a point rather than to indicate quality. Hope is irrational.

What about all of the African migrants who are joining the hordes of illegal immigrants surging across the southern border? What is stopping an African from hopping on a plane to Mexico or Guatemala and hoofing it across the border, same as all the Mexicans and Central Americans?

The plane ticket alone costs several years wages in Africa. These are by definition not the poorest of the poor, even if they’re poor by our standards.

Unless they are being actively funded and assisted by international NGOs.

Then you know what's stopping (most of) them: it's expensive, compared to e.g. going to Spain. Those NGOs don't have unlimited funds.

That Indian (politicians) in the UK have gone anti-immigration doesn't shock me. As a group, they are wealthy, well-educated, law-abiding and immune to accusations of hating brown people. They're natural Tories. Of course, that doesn't mean they actually reduce legal or illegal immigration, they just talk stridently about it.

What I'm curious about is why so many of the native Tories (Boris Johnson, George Osborne, David Cameron) were so open-bordery. Aristocratic disdain for the native proles? Desire for cheaper servants? Regular cosmopolitan posturing?

As @No_one said, 10,000 British (most of whom were soldiers, a few merchants, maybe a thousand largely-upper-class bureaucrats) successfully ruled 250,000,000 Indians for 200 years, if you were a British elite, why would you think the composition of the native working class would be a terminal risk to your power?

The truth is that the dissident right has a very democratic view of power; numbers = power. Perhaps the British know that that’s not the truth.

@2rafa said something along the lines of "to the British upper class, the plebs are plebs, what color is their skin is irrelevant"-

were so open-bordery

Maybe because they genuinely believe it is the best thing for Britain?

Aristocratic disdain for the native proles? Desire for cheaper servants? Regular cosmopolitan posturing?

This is so fucking boring, and at least an uncharitable as 'accusations of hating brown people' towards anti-migration politicians.

It would be easier for me to be sympathetic to the open border case if British politicians ever actually made that case.

Instead they strongly argue that we must reduce immigration for myriad reasons, and then immediately increase it.

Even pro-immigrationists don't seem to make a case for it, they just make the case against any type of restriction or enforcement of the law.

Mass migration has never been higher than under Sunak in Britain. https://www.aljazeera.com/news/2023/5/25/sunak-under-pressure-as-net-migration-to-uk-hits-record-606000

I think you need to consider your post. You are praising Indians rulers of UK as others have done so. Doesn't this show you share some of this mentality?

At best it is just Suela who is ineffectively pushing back. But considering talk in combination with opposite action has been commonly seen by the Torries for decades and even others behaving likewise to Sulla, why trust her.

Be more stingy with your praise for politicians until they have done enough to earn it.

What I'm curious about is why so many of the native Tories (Boris Johnson, George Osborne, David Cameron) were so open-bordery. Aristocratic disdain for the native proles? Desire for cheaper servants? Regular cosmopolitan posturing?

It probably also has something to do with why they made gay marriage legal, enforce zero carbon agenda, promoted hate speech laws, and in fact expanded the authoritarian culturally left wing state quite a bit and enforced affirmative action in the party. And entrenching groups like hope not hate as activist organisations that are powerful within the state. Oh and the fact that Cameron selected members of the party based on being culturally left wing enough and excluded others for being right wing. Before that Blair also empowered NGOs.

It also has something to do with right wingers being gullible and willing to vote for them after doing these things. The Torries have been promising for decades to reduce migration. Cameron also said he would control it. If right wingers were more intolerant like leftists and more demanding and condemning and willing to abandon political parties promoting false promises and go to other right wing parties of a more genuine and right wing sort, then maybe politicians would be inlined to keep their promises so they can keep their chairs.

Alas, unlike the never satisfied even when winning leftist, many a right winger is easily satisfied by little when they are losing.

Unlike the people here who have been praising this while it has been happening and always seen moderation and based torries, or based Indian Torries, I would recommend to people who are interested in this phenomenon Peter Hitchen's books or articles about these events who called it as he saw it. Like the Cameron Delusion for example or abolition of Britain that focused on Blair. In all honesty I have read parts of the first and articles, speeches/debates from Hitchens, so you can get some of the content in that manner too.

Anyway, talk is cheap, only action on issues like migration matters. When it comes to politicians by the results you will judge them.

Exactly. My rule of thumb is that, when it comes to immigration, the most right-wing candidate who is electable will do roughly what the mainstream leftist says that they will do, while the electable mainstream leftist candidate does what they say they will do + additional pro-immigration policies.

Similarly for macroeconomic policy. For all the talk of austerity, the Cameron government practiced Keynesianism (spending rose rapidly until the UK economy was several years into recovery) just as the Labour party said they would do in the 2010 election. Public spending remained at higher proportions of GDP than during the Blair years: https://www.ukpublicspending.co.uk/uk_national_spending_analysis .

Even Thatcher, elected on an inflation-fighting platform in 1979 and subsequently said by many to have brought inflation down too rapidly, only brought inflation down to about 5% by late 1982, which was exactly the figure that Labour promised in their 1979 manifesto:

http://www.labour-party.org.uk/manifestos/1979/1979-labour-manifesto.shtml

That doesn't mean that Thatcher made no difference to UK inflation - it just meant that the difference was only to close the gap between the left's electoral promises and actual government policy.

Right wing voters face a Lewis Carroll-style situation, where they have to run very hard to stand still, or even move slowly to the left.

Even Thatcher, elected on an inflation-fighting platform in 1979 and subsequently said by many to have brought inflation down too rapidly, only brought inflation down to about 5% by late 1982, which was exactly the figure that Labour promised in their 1979 manifesto:

That is more that the UK followed USA monetary policy. Even after the fixed exchange rate system that was Bretton Woods ended, countries still didn't want their exchange rates to the dollar to change very much. It was the tightening by the Federal Reserve that forced the Bank of England's hand.

True to some extent, but the UK exchange rate with the dollar did vary a lot in this period:

https://fred.stlouisfed.org/graph/?g=19Q2p

Exchange rates always vary alot for various reasons. The question is if they follow changes in USA monetary policy. And they do. It's easy to see in the graph.

Insofar as exchange rates are varying due to divergences between UK and US monetary policy, the Fed is not forcing the Bank of England's hand.

In theory they could just let the exchange rate vary, but in practice they don't. That was my point. It's no coincidence inflation fell world wide after 1982 when it fell in the USA. Just like there was worldwide deflation in 2008 when there was deflation in the USA.

It's hardly relevant to his point. They were still being criticized for implementing the Labour platform. Your argument means they might not have even done that, were it not for the US.

I am more concerned with continuing western civilization and their cultural institutions which does include Democracy.

I don’t have a huge concern with maintaining racial purity. I have a big concern with the west importing huge amount of low IQ groups which will be a permenent underclass and if they become the majority would force political situations that occur in the Middle East and Africa.

How can you continue western civilization without western people? its an absurdity. I don't think nations should allow too many foreigners of the same race neither. But if there a little bit of diversity it aint the end of the world as that doesn't undermine the rights of the ethnic group. Note, since you are an American you can define your nation as a multi-ethnic one but that still necessitates restrictions on immigration or else the original American historical nation and comprised ethnic groups will no longer exist.

Ironically your way of thinking probably leads to more dangerous path over the idea that nations have rights. Like the ideas of groups who think their ethnic group is superior invading others. It seems you are ok with colonialism if it is done by a smarter group.

How about what is happening is bad both for the reasons you say and because genocide, colonialism, being discriminated by foreigners and local antinative racists is undesirable. It genuinely is a bad thing for people to be replaced in their own homeland and the discrimination and hatred of their history is a byproduct of said proccess you choose to align with.

which does include Democracy.

You think the behavior of the Tories and friends and what Britain has become with the authoritarian hate speech laws, with the NGOs marching into power, and the public voting for less migration, not for hate speech laws and getting them. Is that democracy to you? What about elites excluding rightists from political power?

Western civilization is about much more than just democracy. You can have democracy without western civilization and you can have western civilization without democracy. And you can have a tyrannical situation that calls itself democracy, when it is an oppressive regime.

Democracy, I was taught in the past was more than just the tyranny of the majority. That supposedly it respected certain rights and principles, and were organized in respecting the rights of the native peoples such as

You cannot be for democracy and be against national self determination and sovereignty. Any regime that replaces its people fails to be representative of their interests and well being and is really wearing the concept as a skin suit having adopted a different ideology and goal. Hence the political power that enacts agendas contrary to populace and criminalizes dissent to mass migration, while also discriminating against the native populace as happening in Britain. Cultural Marxism like class Marxism which claimed to be the most democratic regime of all, is far from that. So, I am sorry but your wishy washy ways fail to preserve western civilization and have already degenerated the democracy that used to exist to something worse.

Here is a quote by someone who has been part of western civilization for you:

"However [political parties] may now and then answer popular ends, they are likely in the course of time and things, to become potent engines, by which cunning, ambitious, and unprincipled men will be enabled to subvert the power of the people and to usurp for themselves the reins of government, destroying afterwards the very engines which have lifted them to unjust dominion."

"The power under the Constitution will always be in the people. It is entrusted for certain defined purposes, and for a certain limited period, to representatives of their own choosing; and whenever it is executed contrary to their interest, or not agreeable to their wishes, their servants can, and undoubtedly will be recalled."

I view western civilization as an idea and not a people.

I would best describe myself as a Christian and an old school neoliberal. I wouldn’t disagree with immigration at all if I believed in blank slatism.

I don’t have any issues with colonialism. But that’s because I think there are group differences in IQ.

Your idea of western civilization makes no sense. Democracy and being colonized are incompatible.

And also other basic human rights. Colonialism, and foreign conquest comes along and this applies today too with discrimination at their expense, demonization of their history, with the colonized being second class people. There can be more or less nasty versions of it, but it tends to be nasty.

Also, like western people carry their culture and sense of ancestry with them, so do people outside of western civilization who will bring their civilization with them and under the logic where western civilization is particularly guilty, it is going to be imposed. People carry civilization with them and those who support colonialism at their expense lack the attitude of those who manage in small numbers to assimilate foreign ethnic groups by imposing to them the native identity. This aint happening.

Of course western civilization did have a history of colonilization but at the expense of others.

When it was western (in the broad sense)countries being colonized, lets say that democracy didn't work well. The results of being under the thrall of Ottomans, Communists (with overepresentation of certain smart ethnic groups). Quite different to supporting being colonized yourself.

Also, the Germans have historically been more successful than their neighbors. Even now Germany has an important lead in patents per capita. Japan has also been much more successful in modernity than China. And yet their empires were rather oppressive and bloody. Being smart or even smarter than others does not give you a right to control their country and property, the smart slave master becomes an oppressor.

Of course, there is much to say about the historical trajectory of colonialism. Whether the Communist, or nazi or Italian fascist, or Japanese imperialist version it worked awfully with a litany of warcrimes. While other forms of colonialism which were more of a mixed bag included their own share of human rights abuses.

You aren't really making any sense and your dismissal of the enormous agency problems of foreigners mistreating those foreign to theirs betrays a lack of understanding of history. Or that you don't care about massive abuses that are the result of your pro colonialism ideology.

I find it funny that in the overton window of many in the motte colonialism is more kosher than immigration restrictionism. This type of political correctness to neoconservatism both lacks a moral highground and leads to the destruction of the people who abide by them. If you are going to be immoral, at least being selfish immoral is more understandable to me. This is worst of both worlds. Colonialism is good... now that it is at my expense.

The fact that over 90% of new corporate jobs of S and P 100 in accordance to bloomberg have went to nonwhites after BLM isn't only bad because of the IQ/HBD issue!

Property rights are superior to commie extremism in class, and national group rights are superior to the alternative which as we see ends up aligning with the evils of colonialism. Thank you for helping me make my point of where that logic leads to. An International justice which is about national self determination, sovereignity and nation states respecting each other rights, is the best system humanity has come with, and is a more moral and even progressive (but not leftist) force than multinational empites, or marxist nationalism that plays a motte and bailey between pretensions of universalism but also allowing tribalism and targeting specifically right wing associated ethnic groups for destruction and discrimination, by making their tribalism as specifically immoral.

Democracy and being colonized are not incompatible if intelligence isn’t equal between groups. In that case a utilitarian argument is fine for colonization.

Not it is incompatible, even when intelligence isn't equal between groups. You seem to be operating with a model of colonization that is hypothetical and not how it ends up applying in practice, and how it worked historically.

More comments

I view western civilization as an idea and not a people.

What's the idea, and how long does it take to inculcate? Because if it's significantly illegible or otherwise complex to transfer to new populations, which seems likely, you can still break it with a population transfer.

As I said in my post, they are only talking about reducing immigration, not actually doing it.

Part of me wonders if it isn't a strategy to import more future conservative voters. International students will be (mostly) middle class, so will Hong Kongers, I can see them and their children becoming Tory voters. The Ukrainians will probably vote conservative as well, seeing how strongly the UK has supported their war against Russia.

Maybe they realised that actually reducing immigration was impossible (perhaps due to obstruction from the civil service and judiciary, or just a lack of state capacity) so better import immigrants that are more likely to vote for your party.

I don't think you can really blame the gullability of the voters though. If we had a proportional electoral system, we'd likely have had a UKIP/Conservative coalition and that would probably produce at least some change. With first past the post, the median voter has two parties to choose between, and they're hardly going to expect Labour to reduce immigration.

Maybe they realised that actually reducing immigration was impossible (perhaps due to obstruction from the civil service and judiciary, or just a lack of state capacity) so better import immigrants that are more likely to vote for your party.

Despite Blair's incomplete neo-liberalization of Labour, the Conservatives are still the party of Big Business and (to massively simplify) "line goes up". Migration contributes to both of those and they are under significant pressure from large donors. The Tories could have cut immigration in half while still remaining in the EU. The fact they never did, was an indication that the campaign on reducing immigration through leaving the EU, was just a strategy (and an effective one!), and this is demonstrated by the fact they have never taken any action to reduce it since.

I think it’s remnants of Christianity along with neoliberalism. In the Christian worldview you can’t turn away people looking for a better life and the neoliberal worldview says yay gains from trade. It’s not until you add in HBD logic and fears of adding a permenent underclass which may have more criminality that you begin to see significant negative economic effects.

Sandra Day O’Connor’s justification for allowing affirmative action was that I. 20 years of her decision if we just forced more African Americans into Harvard then we could get rid of affirmative action because we established sustainable upper class minority communities. That was in 2003 and affirmative action began long before. I think the old right leaders thought if we just did all these programs and spent more on education that the issues would disappear but they have no disappeared. Which to me means they had the wrong root cause. Integration did not occur.

I wonder if fentanyl is ultimately bad for the cartels? Its primary advantage over traditional opioids is the extremely small dosages that users require. They’re so small I assume you could simply impregnate a letter with the stuff, mail it and almost certainly get away with it. This has to undermine the cartels business model which is predicted on smuggling relatively large quantities of drugs across international borders.

I thought about perhaps fentanyl is killing too many customers. The cartels would need to be united on banning fentanyl for it to work as a business strategy. It’s a cheaper better product. Another cartel could take market share by being willing to sell it. More profits for the cartel being willing to sell fentanyl would mean they can hire more soldiers and take more territory.

I do believe the conspiracies (might be fact now) that Chapo, the Mexican Gov, and DEA/CIA partnered primarily against the Zetas who were too violent. It does get me thinking if this Sinaloa fentanyl ban is real that they may have reestablished that partnership against the other cartels. With Chapo in custody there’s a lot we could offer him on his living arrangements in custody.

Alternatively, sinoloa and new generation are the two dominant cartels and can both enforce their will pretty easily.

What is this place?

This website is a place for people who want to move past shady thinking and test their ideas in a court of people who don't all share the same biases. Our goal is to optimize for light, not heat; this is a group effort, and all commentators are asked to do their part.

The weekly Culture War threads host the most controversial topics and are the most visible aspect of The Motte. However, many other topics are appropriate here. We encourage people to post anything related to science, politics, or philosophy; if in doubt, post!

Check out The Vault for an archive of old quality posts. You are encouraged to crosspost these elsewhere.


Why are you called The Motte?

A motte is a stone keep on a raised earthwork common in early medieval fortifications. More pertinently, it's an element in a rhetorical move called a "Motte-and-Bailey", originally identified by philosopher Nicholas Shackel. It describes the tendency in discourse for people to move from a controversial but high value claim to a defensible but less exciting one upon any resistance to the former. He likens this to the medieval fortification, where a desirable land (the bailey) is abandoned when in danger for the more easily defended motte. In Shackel's words, "The Motte represents the defensible but undesired propositions to which one retreats when hard pressed."

On The Motte, always attempt to remain inside your defensible territory, even if you are not being pressed.


New post guidelines

If you're posting something that isn't related to the culture war, we encourage you to post a thread for it. A submission statement is highly appreciated, but isn't necessary for text posts or links to largely-text posts such as blogs or news articles; if we're unsure of the value of your post, we might remove it until you add a submission statement. A submission statement is required for non-text sources (videos, podcasts, images).

Culture war posts go in the culture war thread; all links must either include a submission statement or significant commentary. Bare links without those will be removed.

If in doubt, please post it!


Rules


Recommended Posts And Communities

Recommended Realtime Chats