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PaperclipPerfector  1yr ago (text post)   28070 thread views

Culture War Roundup for the week of April 15, 2024

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Kurt Caz: The Physiognomy of Colonization

Take up the White Man’s burden—

Send forth the best ye breed—

Go send your sons to exile

To serve your captives' need

I don't follow travel vloggers in general, but there's one who is more anthropologist than tourist, documenting a phenomenon that no modern academics would dare acknowledge in this day in age. Kurt Caz, the Aryan Wanderer, mostly travels alone, sometimes accompanied by a beautiful woman of the local variety. He only visits non-tourist locations, strides the peasant countryside like a colossus, shows up uninvited and unannounced where the locals have likely never seen a tourist, and is instantly treated with respect by the men and admiration by the women. This is a pattern which is perfectly consistent in his videos across all continents and villages he has traveled through.

Once he visited a village in Papua New Guinea, and I'm not sure how to describe what happened other than they started worshipping him, declaring his visit as the fulfillment of some local prophecy of a white man coming to the village.

Kurt is clearly aware of the racial dynamics at play (and drops hints that he's secretly Based), but he leans into them in the best way. He uses his physical presence and charisma to engage with the locals, who immediately show admiration and respect, and Kurt reciprocates with a genuine racial tolerance that is more real, but completely unlike, what passes for it today.

You see, today "racial tolerance" means fixing the dynamics which are obviously at play in Kurt's content. Don't believe your lying eyes, beauty is relative and the engrained reactions we seem to have is a conspiracy of White Supremacy. Body physique is just a trait with an attractiveness that is brainwashed into us by an intolerant culture; the indigenous reaction to a White Man showing up uninvited and unannounced is just an artifact the legacy of colonization.

And to be sure, there are many factors at play here. Conventional wisdom would likely point to these factors exclusively:

  • Kurt's content is just a demonstration of rule #1: Be attractive, and rule #2: Don't be unattractive. He would have a similar reception if he were on the equally "attractive" point of the Belle Curve as an Africa, Asian, or Indian.
  • The local women are attracted in particular because they associate him with Western wealth.
  • The locals have consumed Western media so they are primed to welcome such a person into their homes.
  • The locals are aware of Western cultural customs, so even if Kurt is this physically large stranger they have no fear inviting him into their homes or granting a baseline level of trust.

These factors surely come into play, but they also beg the question. White Colonization could not have happened in the first place without a much smaller number of White Men subjugating a much larger population of indigenous peoples in all cases. India, relative to its population size, was controlled by the British with an extremely small elite pool. Much ado is made about technological supremacy and the violence of colonization, again there's a lot of truth there, but the uglier reality is that the colonization was in many cases more peaceful than existing cultural practices and conflicts if the locals had been left to their own devices.

There's a myth that the Aztecs interpreted the arrival of Spanish Conquistadores as fulfilling a prophecy of the return of the Aztec's gods. That dynamic can be seen as a microcosm in Kurt's interactions throughout his travels. In general, the phenomenon of a race of people regarding another race as divine is much more common than we would expect at first glance. Many people who would laugh at the idea of the Aztecs believing the conquistadores to be emissaries of the Aztec gods also themselves believe in the literal truth of the Jewish covenant, that Jews are a people Chosen by god and they are a race of god-creators vis-a-vis the ancestry of Jesus Christ.

This dynamic also serves an important counterpoint to IQ supremacy. Imagine being a short, weak, ugly nerd with somewhat higher IQ than Kurt. The Rationalists would tend to regard that person as the Superior Being, taking for granted the relativity of Beauty and dismissing the importance of a Noble physiognomy and charisma to civilizational achievement.

This dovetails with @naraburn's post about the Pokemon Go avatar changes being designed, apparently, to challenge conventional beauty standards- especially the sub-question in that thread regarding a conspiracy to promote ugliness. That conspiracy exists, in its declaration that there is no Noble Physiognomy, and our attractions are just manipulated by White Supremacy. Whereas Kurt can just show up and use his physical presence and charisma to exert command, they are trying very hard to engrain - "don't believe your lying eyes, ugliness is beautiful." But in the same way educational interventions constantly fail to close the IQ gaps, these cultural initiatives will also fail because our brains have been tuned to perceive a person's physical attractiveness as a proxy for genetic fitness.

While they will never make Ugly become Beautiful, they absolutely can and will destroy Beauty through Ressentiment. Culture War has fomented a large amount of hostility towards White People from non-white people in the West, but it will never be able to reproduce the racial dynamic that Kurt is able to tap into in his content.

This one caught another report for "disguised Jew posting", but frankly, even I can't find any connection to them. Congratulations?

White Colonization could not have happened in the first place without a much smaller number of White Men subjugating a much larger population of indigenous peoples in all cases. India, relative to its population size, was controlled by the British with an extremely small elite pool.

This is very bad history. Colonization in India occurred not because a few god-like white people showed up and crushed all before them, but instead because very clever and ruthless opportunists, through a combination of skill and luck, managed to co-opt local power structures by backing challengers to weak overlords. The British didn't rule India in their own name; they slowly accumulated alliances and legal rights and privileges through local intermediaries.

There's a myth that the Aztecs interpreted the arrival of Spanish Conquistadores as fulfilling a prophecy of the return of the Aztec's gods.

This is also very bad history. The Aztecs didn't think Cortez was a god - they in fact whipped his men out of Tenochtitlan in La Noche Triste, after killing the collaborator Moctezuma. Instead, Cortez proved himself a diplomat of no small skill, and put together a coalition of the Aztec's subject peoples which ultimately strangled Tenochtitlan, and then entered into negotiated political relationships with the Spanish crown. The influx of more and more Spaniards into the region, coupled with the massive disruption to Mexica society caused by the plagues of the Columbian exchange, was what finalized the ultimate subjugation of the locals.

Instead, Cortez proved himself a diplomat of no small skill, and put together a coalition of the Aztec's subject peoples which ultimately strangled Tenochtitlan, and then entered into negotiated political relationships with the Spanish crown.

When I took a class on Spanish colonization in the Americas, this was repeatedly emphasized. It was an astoundingly fascinating class, taught by a really passionate professor. And the core message was that it wasn't the Spanish that swooped in and single-handedly took down the Aztecs, it was the resentment of those subject groups that took them down. Which, as @2D3D notes, is incredibly inconvenient both for people who want to say white people are uniquely evil and, I strongly suspect, for indigenous activist groups in Latin America who want to whitewash (pun intended) the cruelty of the indigenous empires of the Americas.

There are many, many bad things you can say about European activity in Latin America. The other thing emphasized in my class was how terrible the encomienda system was. But what was also emphasized about that was how many members of the clergy were intensely opposed to what was happening in New Spain, including this fire and brimstone sermon against slavery from a Dominican friar:

It is to make these sins known to you that I have ascended this pulpit, I who am Christ’s voice in the wilderness of this island; and it behooves you, therefore, to hear this voice, not with commonplace attention, but with all your heart and with all your senses—this voice which will be unlike any you ever heard, a voice more harsh and severe, more frightful and devastating, than you ever thought to hear.

This voice declares that all of you are in mortal sin, living and dying in it, because of the cruelty and tyranny you practice toward these innocent people. Tell me, by what right or justice do you hold these Indians in such cruel and horrible slavery? By what right do you wage such detestable wars on these people who lived mildly and peacefully in their own lands, where you have consumed infinite numbers of them with unheard of murders and desolations? Why do you so greatly oppress and fatigue them, not giving them enough to eat or caring for them when they fall ill from excessive labors, so that they die or rather are slain by you, so that you may extract and acquire gold every day? And what care do you take that they receive religious instruction and come to know their God and creator, or that they be baptized, hear mass, or observe holidays and Sundays? Are they not men? Do they not have rational souls? Are you not bound to love them as you love yourselves? How can you lie in such profound and lethargic slumber? Be sure that in your present state you can no more be saved than the Moors or Turks who do not have and do not want the faith of Jesus Christ.

People like to point to Christianity as some evil thing that made European colonization worse, but amen amen I say to you, it was the only thing that kept it from being even worse than it was. Fire and brimstone, baby.

Well if British rule isn't a close enough basis of comparison for you, then certainly we can go back further to the Aryan invasion of India and even more clearly recognize a similar dynamic. Those racial dynamics did become deeply embedded in their religion and have had a profound impact in the ethnogenesis of those peoples.

Whereas people today can point to, ostensibly, historically contingent factors like the Western economy and media, in the Bronze and classical age we see evidence of a similar dynamic, of a quasi or often literal worship of a noble, Aryan phenotype.

You even see this within European culture, for example in the Aryan sun-god Apollo the Hyperborean, demonstrative of a Noble Phenotype worshipped and posited as a physical ideal in ancient Greece.

Apollo is identified as a founder of civilizations, with his epithet Archegetes, we see a physiognomy associated with the social orders that others identify as being so crucial to those racial dynamics and colonial development across the world.

Archegetes was notably an epithet of the Greek god Apollo, under which he was worshipped in several places, as at Naxos in Sicily,[2][3] where Archegetes was the most popular cult of Apollo,[4] and at Megara.[5] The name has reference either to Apollo as the leader and protector of colonies, or as the founder of towns in general, in which case the import of the name is nearly the same as Δεὸς πατρῷος. The altar of Apollo Archegetes at Naxos had particular importance as Naxos was the first Greek colony, founded in 734 BC. Though the altar was initially likely set up due to the maritime aspects of Apollo – most importantly the God of Happy Landing, έκβάσιος – the aspect of foundation, Archegetes, grew more important over time. As Archegetes was the aspect of Apollo relating to foundations and hence colonisation, the altar became a symbolic foundation and center of Sicilian Greek identity

Apollo, the Greek god of colonization, and beauty, is directly associated with this same phenotype even in Ancient Greece. These racial dynamics are even at play in intra-European civilization, and have been for thousands of years.

You made a claim about the British colonisation of India and the Aztec response to Cortez. Both of those claims are false, and you were challenged on them, and your response is to... what? Assert that the Indo-Aryans somehow prove it as well? Despite not presenting anything that would plausibly indicate that?

And then you somehow pivot to ancient Greece, where Apollo is actually a deity of many things (including prophecy, music, light, disease, archery, healing, etc.), and the only arguments you make are firstly that one of Apollo's many epithets relates to the founding of cities (never mind that that is also true of many other deities), and that... you think one statue of Apollo looks like some guy on Imgur? Okay? This isn't even considering that an ancient Greek 'colony' is something very different to British India.

This is all, frankly, bullshit. You have some sort of general theory about superior racial archetypes - it's basically just a recapitulation of the old Nordic/Aryan category you get from people like Gobineau - but whenever any specific claim based on it turns out to be false, as indeed it does in both your initial examples here, you leap to some other isolated 'fact'.

Let's try to clarify this a bit.

Motte: More attractive, more physically capable people are more likely to successfully reproduce.

Bailey: There is a well-defined Aryo-Nordic race that is recognised across many cultures for its superior beauty and intellectual capacity.

The motte is true, sure. But the position you're arguing for overall is under-specified, you haven't made any actual argument for it beyond gesturing at a handful of isolated observations that fail to cohere into a theory, and whenever any one of those observations is indicated to be false, you ignore it and immediately jump to a completely different observation, often centuries or even millennia away. This is not a real argument.

What are the actual points of evidence here? Some guy on YouTube makes videos of himself flirting with girls around the world. The British colonised India. The Aztecs thought Cortez was a god. Indo-Aryan peoples conquered northern India around four thousand years ago. Apollo was revered as a founder of cities. One statue of Apollo has a similar nose shape to some guy. Even if all these points were true, they don't cohere into a plausible macrohistorical theory. Anyone could, with a similarly arbitrary process of selection, cobble together a theory of racial superiority from the same random noise. There is no rigour to this hypothesis.

It's not exactly a pivot to point towards more evidence of the deification of a certain phenotype, which was explicitly associated with the founding of cities and colonization. To say "the statue of Apollo looks like some guy on Imgur" is a pretty dishonest handwaving for what is very obviously a Northern European phenotype being venerated as the physical ideal of a Founder and Colonizer racial-type in ancient Greece and Rome. Yes, I do think that despite the obvious differences there is a similar dynamic at play in European colonization across the entire world, and this behavior was explicitly identified with a European phenotype in the ancient world.

An of course the Physiognomy of Apollo is just one piece of the puzzle. The broader mythos accounts the race of Hyperboreans emerging from the northern most land in existence and constructing the temples to Apollo at Delphi and Delos. The Ionians in particular, who constituted the Athenian elite, claimed descent from Apollo and were associated with tall stature and blonde hair by ancient sources. In Greek myth, among all the Olympians, only Apollo was worshipped by the Hyperboreans.

I do see a coherence in this dynamic in both the ancient and modern world, I don't think it's all a coincidence or that these myths and symbols have a non-racial meaning. They do point towards a racial archetype if such a thing can possibly exist, and of course I think they do.

whenever any specific claim based on it turns out to be false, as indeed it does in both your initial examples here, you leap to some other isolated 'fact'.

None of my specific claims have been false, they have all been true. The British colonization of India, the Aryan invasion of Iran and India in which the word "Aryan" was synonymous in civic society with "noble", the colonization of North and South America, the colonization of Australia and Africa. It's not exactly a stretch to relate this behavior to a racial archetype, especially when we have evidence for cult-religions in the ancient world which venerated Colonization with a racialized portrayal that is identical to the race of people who have colonized almost the entire world. Your comment reminds me of the mainstream which says "oh those race realists are just repeating the debunked claims of ye olde' racists who measured skulls", but actually the old theories were the correct ones and the new theories based on fraudulent science from the likes of Stephen Jay Gould or Jared Diamond are false.

It should also be noted that the "old theories" about the Aryan invasions of Indo-Europe were proven true by recent genetic evidence, whereas the politically correct post-War narrative that emerged about cultural diffusion of Indo-European languages were proven false. So the "new theories" are already on very weak footing, it's passe at this point to make fun of the old racial theories which are proving to be more accurate than politically correct post-war theories with every passing year.

What we call "wokeism" also picks up on the primordial reality of this racial archetype, they simply resent it and want to see it destroyed, and I interpret this as having a large amount of overlap with the war on beauty discussed by others here.

What are the actual points of evidence here?

I do think Kurt's videos are evidence of this phenomenon, that was the point of my post. You can take a look at another video of him wandering through a city in Bangladesh, the only foreigner in sight. You can say "he would get the same reaction if he were an attractive/physically fit Chinaman or African, but I simply don't believe you. I do think the dynamic Kurt leans into in his content is racialized specifically in relation to White people, the only question is whether this dynamic is contingent on historical factors or if it's pointing to something different.

One could say, for example, that since the English colonized Bangladesh then the people are primed to behave this way in Kurt's presence, but that's just begging the question.

There is no rigour to this hypothesis.

The pattern of behavior, for thousands of years, of European people colonizing the world is very strong evidence that points towards a certain racial archetype. Furthermore, there is direct evidence that one of, perhaps the most important, god of the Greco-Roman world associated a European, Nordic phenotype to that archetype. That is very strong evidence, and Kurt's content is a modern-day demonstration of a certain phenomenon which is taboo to acknowledge as anything except historically contingent brainwashing by Western media and the legacy of colonization.

Colonization in India occurred not because a few god-like white people showed up and crushed all before them, but instead because very clever and ruthless opportunists, through a combination of skill and luck, managed to co-opt local power structures by backing challengers to weak overlords

This is often downplayed because it places the burden of modern societal failures away from the evil whites who came in and stole everything. If my country continues to be a failure it is better for the leader to externalize all blame as much as possible, and even better if the blamed entity is besotted by internal tensions promoting reparations instead of reprisals. There is no blood to be squeezed from the hardened hearts of modern Arabs or Serbs who colonized Egypt, or the Bantus that drove the Khoisan to the edge.

The incentive to eternally blame whites is to keep the spotlight away on exploitable past transgressions, not on modern failures. If focus is turned onto how local polities collaborated with the colonizers, the question arises of where the spoils reaped by these collaborators went

The Rationalists would tend to regard that person as the Superior Being, taking for granted the relativity of Beauty and dismissing the importance of a Noble physiognomy and charisma to civilizational achievement.

No I wouldn't. Not necessarily anyway. It's not easy to quantify, and it's not all one thing the way IQ is, but sanity/wisdom/rationality/whatever-you-want-to-call-it matters as much as IQ. If the short weak ugly guy is full of contempt for others and wants to see the people he dislikes suffer and the tall handsome guy is somewhat empathetic then that counts for a lot in my book too.

  • He only visits non-tourist locations, strides the peasant countryside like a colossus, shows up uninvited and unannounced where the locals have likely never seen a tourist, and is instantly treated with respect by the men and admiration by the women.

From his videos, these are quite run of the mill places, really. Vietnam e.g. is full of Western tourists and these people speak more English than the average person.

Are you aware that Kurt's content is curated by Kurt's and material unflattering to Kurt will be not shown?

Why you think that you can draw any strong conclusions from such biased sample?

I think it's more common to have naive Westerners wandering into off-the-beaten-path places and getting robbed/raped/kidnapped/killed/all of the above. US Gov's travel warnings don't come with an "unless you're really cute" exception.

Also I think you're really downplaying novelty effect. John Derbyshire's review of An African In Greenland includes passages on how the Eskimos reacted to a coal-black African guy having never seen one before (they let him sleep alongside their families in the big beds they all shared):

https://www.johnderbyshire.com/Reviews/Miscellaneous/africaningreenland.html

Also that African guy who spread HIV to dozens of Polish women. A lot of people are just drawn to something they've never seen before.

Many people who would laugh at the idea of the Aztecs believing the conquistadores to be emissaries of the Aztec gods also themselves believe in the literal truth of the Jewish covenant, that Jews are a people Chosen by god and they are a race of god-creators vis-a-vis the ancestry of Jesus Christ.

I wondered how long it would take for this to be about Jews. You never fail to disappoint.

As far as I can tell, you are upset that Rationalists regard high-IQ Jews as superior to Kurt, despite his noble physiognomy and the fact that they are 'short, weak, ugly nerds'. Am I getting that right?

I would worry about this being an uncharitable take, except for the fact that you cannot stop posting about how Jews are bad.

Have I misinterpreted the post? Could you summarise your thesis in a sentence?

you are upset that Rationalists regard high-IQ Jews as superior to Kurt

...do they?

Obviously intelligence is important, but it's not the only thing that matters. I don't think Rationalists would be worried about AI alignment if they thought that more intelligent = more better in every relevant way.

(I'm sure there are a lot of high IQ individuals who they think are in fact superior to Kurt, but the justification they would cite would be that those high IQ individuals are involved in frontier AI research or they're earning-to-give or something else, it wouldn't just be because of their IQ.)

I see this accusation thrown at rationalists a lot, and I'm honestly not sure what to think about it. As someone who's mostly ambivalent to the whole rationalist movement/identity but one who spend a lot of time interacting with them on Scott Alexander-related forums, I've rarely seen rationalists imply any sort of greater value on individuals for their IQ. They're often accused of being high IQ people bitter at not being worshiped like the gods they deserve to be merely for their high IQ, but, again, I've rarely ever seen them do or state anything that even remotely implies this sort of belief. I feel like this most likely reflects a sort of intelligence fetishism on the part of the critic, who sees rationalists talk about IQ and intelligence and how useful they are in certain (well, to be fair, many, MANY) contexts and can't separate that idea of usefulness from some sort of inherent superiority.

I don't think Rationalists would be worried about AI alignment if they thought that more intelligent = more better in every relevant way.

Isn't that exactly why they are worried about AI alignment? They don't necessarily consider intelligence to confer moral superiority, but many do consider it to be among the most important qualities in determining how competent/powerful an agent is. That's exactly why it's scary to think of what would happen if an extremely intelligent, hence powerful, agent that didn't share any of humanity's core values were to emerge.

When Jews stop being 20% of Harvard grads they can stop being 20% of the conversation.

It's absurd to think that a group of people that over-represented in elite circles and receiving more foreign aid than any other country on earth would not be a major point of discussion.

Isn't the HBD argument that Jews are overrepresented in these circles because they average higher-IQ?

Of course it is. HBD proponents should be begging for more Ashkenazi Jews to immigrate.

You are highlighting one passing sentence of his out of a ~100-sentence post about something else. The highlighted sentence is a bash against Christians too. In any case his bash is incorrect; traditional/historic Christianity believes God simply chose to begin his revelation via a covenant with the nation (not an ethnicity yet) of Ancient Israel, and that this covenant is cut off with the induction of the Christian Faithful (with the exception of a remaining few who were yet to convert). So, traditionally speaking, Christianity does not hold that Jews are privileged by God in any way.

You are highlighting one passing sentence of his out of a ~100-sentence post about something else.

This is a poor response - if making a dig about Jews is not the point of the post, why is it there? Would you be dismayed if someone wrote a 100 sentence post, included a dig at straight white men in the middle, and someone bristled?

In general I'd prefer to see high quality, well written posts that address the substantive thesis of the parent post, instead of posts that nitpick on a single sentence. Regardless of political valence. A low effort drive-by comment that calls someone out for attacking white men is still a low effort drive-by comment.

In fact if there was an otherwise well written, well argued post that happened to include a jab at straight white men, I'd view that as a net positive overall, because it would be evidence that our ideological diversity situation is improving.

In general I'd prefer to see high quality, well written posts that address the substantive thesis of the parent post, instead of posts that nitpick on a single sentence.

The more people do that, the more it gets gamed by throwing in single sentences of objectionable material. So it's unsustainable.

I don’t think it’s a dig against Jews. I think it’s highlighting a random thing that’s kind of a similarity if you squint.

Let's not overthink it. It's SS (or is it ϟϟ?) He has to mention Jews every post even if he has an unrelated topic to discuss. I'm just glad this one is about a real topic instead of questioning the Holocaust again.

Depends on how "traditional" you want to get. St. Paul was pretty clear that God had not abandoned his covenantal promises to Israel.

Romans 11 says that the “natural branches” have been broken off due to their unbelief, and that there is a small “reserved” remnant who believe by faith. That reserved remnant are the Jews who believed / will believe in Christ. I don’t believe any early Christian theologians interpreted this differently

Paul appears to believe that in his infinite mercy, God blinded the Jews and caused them to reject Jesus en masse so that the gentiles would have time to believe and be saved before the imminent judgment. But this apparently was only supposed to be temporary, until "the fullness of the gentiles" had come in, and then "all Israel" would be saved. Paul even says in Romans that an important goal of his ministry is to make Israel jealous of the gentiles and thus spur their repentance.

“All Israel” in that passage does not mean something like “literally every proclaimed Israelite”. In Romans 9 you find:

For not all who are descended from Israel belong to Israel […] it is not the children of the flesh who are the children of God, but the children of the promise are counted as offspring.

Isaiah cries out concerning Israel: “Though the number of the sons of Israel be as the sand of the sea, only a remnant of them will be saved”

These are instrumental to understanding what Paul says in Romans 11, preceding it in the same epistle (an epistle without original delineations nonetheless). Israel != flesh, and Israel = a saved remnant. If not all who are descended from Israel are Israel, then when we read in 11 that “all Israel will be saved”, we must take this to mean the aforementioned real Israel rather than descended Israel by flesh (otherwise there would be no point in making the distinction beforehand).

This is why there’s a theme of a remnant Israel and a “broken off” Israel. Consider how pointless Paul’s effort would be to “save some” of his brothers by preaching if, at the end of the day, literally all of them are saved regardless of his preaching.

This may come off as mere miscellany to any non-Abrahamist readers but the consequences are serious for keeping the gospel stable. If every Jew is saved at the end of days, then there is no reason to convert to Christianity as a Jew or to preach to Jews (which the original apostles did). And Jesus’ threats of hell make no sense. It destroys the integrity of the Gospel in the same way that someone saying “you don’t have to follow the mitzvahs to be rewarded and saved” would destroy the integrity of Judaism.

When Paul says "all Israel will be saved" he is referring to ethnic Israel, since in the sentence immediately preceding he explicitly contrasts "Israel" with "the gentiles." This does not necessarily mean every single Jew but it does mean corporate Israel, not just a small remnant. Paul doesn't seem to think that God has voided his contract with the Jews, but that he is including gentiles in the promises to Abraham, which is different from creating a new covenant where the distinction between Jew and gentile is entirely obviated. Paul obviously doesn't think this since he states that when/if Israel is "grafted back in" it will be much easier for them who are "natural" branches than for the gentiles who are not. The mission to the gentiles is framed largely in reference to God's dealings with the Jews, "Just as you were once disobedient to God but have now received mercy because of their disobedience, so also they have now been disobedient in order that, by the mercy shown to you, [the Jews] may receive mercy."

If every Jew is saved at the end of days, then there is no reason to convert to Christianity as a Jew or to preach to Jews (which the original apostles did).

"What's the point of evangelism if God already knows who will and who won't be saved" is a general problem for the coherence of Christianity, not just in this particular instance.

The mass conversion of the Jews at the end of days is an ancient Christian eschatological belief that endures to this day.

since in the sentence immediately preceding he explicitly contrasts "Israel" with "the gentiles."

We can read until that sentence starting with 11:20

Jews were broken off because of their unbelief, but you stand fast through faith. So do not become proud, but fear. For if God did not spare the natural branches, neither will he spare you

Who are the natural branches that are not spared, which causes gentiles to be afraid lest they share the same fate? If all are spared, then there are no natural branches who are not spared. The phraseology explains that the verdict on Israel is more severe, hence “fear, for if God did not spare natural branches he will not spare you”, but your reading has it that Israel’s verdict is less severe. If gentiles fear a loss of salvation, and Israel’s verdict is more severe, but all of Israel is saved… this is a very silly interpretation which is all over the place.

Note then the kindness and the severity of God: severity toward those who have fallen, but God’s kindness to you, provided you continue in his kindness. Otherwise you too will be cut off

Just continuing the reading, gentiles must fear God’s severity toward those who have fallen.

And even they, if they do not continue in their unbelief, will be grafted in, for God has the power to graft them in again. For if you were cut from what is by nature a wild olive tree, and grafted, contrary to nature, into a cultivated olive tree, how much more will these, the natural branches, be grafted back into their own olive tree.

This supports my view given the conditional if. We are now back to talking about the grafted in Israel, the Israel by faith, which was defined two chapters ago. If Paul believes that they will all be saved, why is it if and not when? Why is it “God has the power” rather than “God will”?

Finally we have

a partial hardening has come upon Israel, until the fullness of the Gentiles has come in. And in this way all Israel will be saved as it is written

The key to understanding the above is clearly the sentence that makes zero sense in your theology: “It is not as though the word of God has failed. For not all who are descended from Israel belong to Israel”. This makes no sense in your theology because it necessarily implies that not all of born-Israel are saved. There are (A) those descended from Israel, who (B) are not Israel, (C) which is important to know for the purposes of salvation, and we know (D) all of Israel will be saved. Your theology requires something that conflicts with (B) because you allege that all descended from Israel are Israel, whereas Paul specifically denies this. (C) is also a stumbling block to your theology because Paul specifically mentions (A+B) in the context of salvation and in the context of understanding the prophecy of saved Jews. An additional point (E) is that Paul writes “Though the number of the sons of Israel be as the sand of the sea, only a remnant of them will be saved”, which against conflicts with an all-inclusive salvation. If all are predestined to be saved then never can there be only a remnant saved.

it will be much easier for them who are "natural" branches

That’s just saying that the natural branches would have an easier time fitting into Christianity than a Pagan Greek, given the monotheism and the shared scriptures which they are familiar with

This does not necessarily mean every single Jew

So which ones aren’t?

not just a small remnant

Then why does he specifically mention a remnant?

More comments

Echoing the other respondents, this is just how people react to travelers/tourists; I'm nowhere near as attractive as him and have similar experiences. On my last trip to Mexico City, I made friends with an abuela who treated me to a family dinner in her small one room apartment. She even accommodated my dietary preferences: after telling her I was a vegetarian and didn't eat meat, she happily made a bunch of fish for us to eat (which I did anyway without complaint, because who turns down a delicious home cooked meal?)

This is actually also my experience being an (Australian) tourist in Europe.

I doubt it says anything about race, because English people, who are by any definition the same race as me, were also enthusiastically inviting me to stay in their homes and to give me meals and to take me to the places they felt were most important to them.

I don’t know, from the Australians I’ve seen this is just more evidence in favour of the Chad physiognomy theory of hospitality.

I accept your compliment!

Are you white? I don't think it's "just how people react to travelers." In the comments to the video I posted, I saw one black guy who is obviously trying to emulate Kurt's channel ask for feedback on his own videos, and the first thing I saw clicking through this fledging channel was him getting refused service for coffee by stone-faced locals- something I've never seen on many interactions on Kurt's channels. You might say "ok well obviously a black guy is going to be treated a little differently", but really you wouldn't get the same dynamics we see on Kurt's channels with any sort of Indian or Asian tourist as well, at least I've never seen it. I did see videos making the rounds on Twitter last week of Indian tourists being turned away from bar after bar in Tel Aviv.

This isn't to say locals are only ever friendly to White tourists, but it's to say that only a white man could travel like Kurt does and get the reactions he does every single time.

Why would you see anything unflattering on Caz's channel? The channel is curated. Obviously he's not going to post things that make him look bad. Indeed, why would you think that you can draw general conclusions about anything from this? The videos are not unvarnished reality.

Hapa, though white passing.

Re beauty: Kurt is good looking by our western-media influenced standards, but the locals are acting with a fairly common hospitality extended towards unthreatening transients. Some of his baseline attractiveness is compounded by exoticism, but the locals are hardly treating him like their gracious god has entered their midst. If you want to see deference to beauty in Vietnam, put a kpopped oppa or unnie in their midst; that'll get you blonde-in-Varanasi level attention.

Nevertheless, it is true that Kurt is not 'ugly' and thus automatically distrusted, and it is interesting to examine the reasons for that: Across all cultures male and female beauty are associated with certain common factors:

  1. Neoteny (young people aren't as unhealthy as old fogeys)
  2. Facial symmetry (deformities are indication of poor health or genetic defect)
  3. Physical robustness (can act as an inverse to 1) depending on specific societal preferences for sexual predilections but cripples and mutants usually aren't seen as attractive)
  4. Sexual presentation conformity (including twinks/catamites/hirja/eromenos/bacha etc etc). This is more for ease of knowing the local cultural dynamic so the interactions within the high-context culture are immediately outlined, but it still matters.

There are of course a large variety of ostensibly common cultural values that tend to flow depending on specific economic and geographical considerations, notably fat=wealthy and pale=professional, but those factors are also influenced by a dynamic cultural environment shaped by competing social value vectors.

It has been scientifically proven multiple times, that attractiveness has strong value. Meaning, the opposites of the above 4 values I outlined have strong NEGATIVE value. There are extremely racist statements, perhaps too spicy for even this board to state openly, that especially highlight why some races especially value White and East Asian phenotypes - greater obvious dimorphism is the sole point I will state explicitly, for fear of offending even the toughened skins of mottizens.

That conspiracy exists, in its declaration that there is no Noble Physiognomy, and our attractions are just manipulated by White Supremacy

Playing into the culture war angle, it is quite obvious that there are strong attempts to promote weird plainly ugly features, and this is clearly less about raising the attractiveness of ugly people than it is about lowering the standards of what is considered beautiful. https://www.vice.com/en/article/wjq99z/why-cant-my-famous-gender-nonconforming-friends-get-laid https://www.bbc.com/news/blogs-trending-42652947 The entire clown show of NB redditors posting themselves in dresses and asking for updoots. Its too mean to crosspost here, but its pretty sad.

Anyways, the point is that the modern culture war DOES have elements of deliberate celebrating of nonattractiveness, but their lack of sexual fulfilment is not a front being fought in this war. This circles back to a relatively common observation, that this is bitter losers in the sexual marketplace attempting to diminish sexual market value of attractive people in order to level the playing field out of spite. Ultimately, there are plenty more people who perceive themselves as losers rather than winners in the sexual marketplace hence why entities keep trying to put their finger on the scale. Whether we as consumers/participants in the marketplace Notice is the concurrent battle being waged as well.

My brother and I have traveled to a number of 3rd worldly places and also just regular European cities etc... This guy is just traveling, people are nice to you if you're out traveling and have money to spend and time to kill. I've invited travelers on adventures to stay at my cabin instead of having to tent out when they are passing through our vacation spot, I'm excited to meet a different culture and make a new friend. I'm not worshiping a French Canadian a who is biking the east coast. They are also being recorded the whole time, which is always weird and I don't really see how any of these bloggers can have genuine interactions while recording all of it for profit.

It isn't radically different to have a night out in Lisbon or in shitty Mexican shantytown far outside of Tulum. People like travelers for the most part. Especially if they are buying beer and massages, why wouldn't they? I don't see anything more than people being kind to a traveling dude and curious and open. They aren't worshiping a godlike Aryan dude, they are just being kind and having a good time with a traveler. If you haven't traveled a lot or hosted, this is a super common dynamic. You make a meal, introduce your friends have some drinks and hey it is great. Breaking bread with strange folk passing through is a tradition as old as time.

Second this, and also plenty of places are still very nice to travelers even when they don't have much money, either because it's fun, or because their culture demands it. Perhaps both. I've wandered around the Republic of Georgia as an average looking young foreign woman, and they were universally both extremely hospitable (impromptu BnB in their house for cheap, free wine, show me around town, introduce me to their local English speaker), and fairly protective. People would think it very shameful if a foreigner got in any kind of scary situation in their town. Kind of the same ethos as Abraham and family, or the Odyssey -- you deserve the wrath of the gods if you aren't hospitable to wanderers.

Do you speak Georgian? If not, how was the language barrier?

I don't, it's very hard to learn, and I am not much good at languages. I learned enough to do things like go shopping, hire a cab, or give an extremely basic toast.

It wasn't too bad -- most communities have at least a couple of English speakers, and will go find them. Most older people know some Russian, and younger people know some English. We were part of a government volunteer program specifically to provide English speakers for people to practice with. The latter goal had mixed success in my case, since I'm more introverted than ideal for the role. I went to a lot of occasions where I just didn't know what anyone was saying most of the time, but didn't really mind it.

Yeah I think some posters are reading way too much into what is just general traveler hospitality culture. I mean we have it here in the states, especially in smaller towns or rural spots that don't get much foreign traffic. If a Congolese dude shows up with money to burn and some good stories in Norway Maine, they are going to get a very hospitable welcome.

While they will never make Ugly become Beautiful, they absolutely can and will destroy Beauty through Ressentiment. Culture War has fomented a large amount of hostility towards White People from non-white people in the West, but it will never be able to reproduce the racial dynamic that Kurt is able to tap into in his content.

I’ve got a couple of points/counterpoints:

  1. Everyone in the world wants to look like a European in practice. Arabs, Indians, Latin Americans explicitly so, but blacks- both locals and Africans- seem to wish for more European features regularly and what I’ve heard from white guys who lived in Asia indicates the same dynamics at play. It doesn’t surprise me that primitives give whites the deference that very attractive/imposing people often get.

  2. I don’t think ‘hostility towards white people from non-white people’ is the best summary of the culture war- there’s a dynamic where one tribe of whites tries to turn non-whites against the other tribe of whites and it’s working a lot less well than the median motteizean seems to believe. IME African American hostility towards whites is mostly directed at the blue tribe and if they mean to refer to the red tribe directly they would say rednecks. And, of course, every racial group would prefer a white manager- of either tribe- to a manager from a different racial group. It is very rare for a majority black workplace to have a hispanic boss or Vice versa, but both have white bosses regularly if there isn’t a member of their own group. It just seems minorities might prefer a higher relative status to whites, but not at the expense of a different minority group having a higher status relative to them.

  3. I think your colonization narrative leaves out that euro technological and social organization gave a huge advantage, and that Europeans managed to develop this advantage over societies with in-theory higher HBD like China. In 1000 AD European dominance over China looked implausible; in 1700 it was practically assured. European methods of organizing themselves and doing things was the main reason for dominating the globe, although I suppose Spaniards conquering mesoamerican primitives could’ve happened regardless.

How exactly would you describe the European way of socialisation?

And how would you describe the Chinese way of socialisation?

This dovetails with @naraburn's post about the Pokemon Go avatar changes being designed, apparently, to challenge conventional beauty standards- especially the sub-question in that thread regarding a conspiracy to promote ugliness. That conspiracy exists, in its declaration that there is no Noble Physiognomy, and our attractions are just manipulated by White Supremacy.

"Conspiracy to promote ugliness" in that context is mostly about women, so it doesn't apply here.

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