domain:novum.substack.com
The_Nybbler
In the game of roller derby, women aren't just the opposing team; they're the ball.
3m ago
Why should Ted or Bush or anyone bother weighing up the pros and cons if God is on his side and will sort it out anyway?
You have perhaps heard the sayings "God helps those who help themselves" and "God is on the side with the superior firepower"?
MaiqTheTrue
Renrijra Krin
4m ago
I mean, ideally all of this would happen organically. Subculture is how you get new ideas, new insights. But because of modern technology and our understanding of psychology we managed to basically take artificial control over the engines of culture. Music used to come from seedy dive bars where local artists would work on their sound before being discovered by labels. They’d sound unique because the isolation from the mainstream music scene allowed them to experiment and invent new and interesting sounds. New ideas tend to come from the fringes where an idea can be worked on and perfected away from mainstream culture.
The internet and especially social media have changed all of this. Those hidden pockets of creativity are now put online where the concepts are put online and co-opted or destroyed before they can be refined enough to stand on their own. Worse, the internet has created a situation in which everyone is almost constantly being bombarded with content (read:propaganda) all the time. You think like everyone around you unless you take special care to unplug. But especially in politics, this means it’s almost impossible to come up with something new, unless you’re pretty much a radical. Everyone else is reading the same script, the one that doesn’t work anymore because it’s not 1982 anymore. Most of the apparatus of politics runs on inertia a dead system that ran on Consensus, on very carefully crafted campaigns and old tired bromides and ideas about politics that were invented for your grandparents or great grandparents. We have AI and fentanyl, we’re possibly approaching WW3, and our traditional ways of thinking about politics was laid down when digital clocks were the height of modern technology, Spock was on TV, and kids hid under their desks because the commies were going to nuke us.
Give me the radicals, even if they’re wrong. It’s the only defense against total stagnation and irrelevance.
RandomRanger
Just build nuclear plants!
5m ago
Well Chirac said that's what happened and he was on the phone with Bush.
I think it's strange and concerning that leaders of a nuclear superpower are using this apocalyptic, religious language regarding high-profile foreign policy. There are both deniable (Chirac and Trump stuff) and undeniable instances of this weirdness. Diplomats do not usually send back this kind of message to a head of state, Huckabee is a wildly inappropriate choice for ambassador but that's to be expected at this point.
I don't like Ted Cruz's support of Israel but it seems to be more than simply 'I've been paid off' or 'I know this is good for my political career', it's 'I am a true believer'. The latter has fewer limits on their enthusiasm and is more dangerous because of it.
Leaders should be reasoning in a sober, secular way, weighing up the pros and cons. When a CEO says 'God is guiding my hands' then it's a bit sus. Why should Ted or Bush or anyone bother weighing up the pros and cons if God is on his side and will sort it out anyway?
Fruck
Lacks all conviction
8m ago
How long are you going to keep doing this? Why can't you just put forward your positions and then defend them instead of constantly strawmanning your opponents? And no matter what you think, that is what you are doing to Natalie Winters. Well, aside from boosting her media profile. I'll admit, this was a unique variant, but that is still all you do, strawman your opponents and then demand they defend your insane understanding of their position. Cut it out for fucks sake.
and being so low-class the spacetime continuum bends under the enormous weight of the lack of class.
And being so low-class the spacetime continuum bends under the enormous weight of it.
And being so low-class the spacetime continuum bends under the enormous weight of all the trash.
And being so low-class the sheer inferiority warps the spacetime continuum.
And being so low-class the very air around them felt greasy.
What does lack of class weigh Alex?
The_Nybbler
In the game of roller derby, women aren't just the opposing team; they're the ball.
8m ago
Iranians are friendlier to Western Civilization than Israelis.
If you skip over the whole batshit Islamic theocracy and the "Death to America"/"The Great Satan" thing
chooky
10m ago
One obvious move is to just get rid of the marriage penalty on taxes. But... here we are seriously looking at getting rid of taxes on tips.
hanikrummihundursvin
34m ago
I'm not sure where you are from but 'Bomb everything and then watch mass starvation, suffering and death whilst shrugging your shoulders saying 'Iran can't have nukes' sounds, at best, bizarre.
Like, at what point does nuking Israel just become a more humanitarian option to your proposals.
Vacuous predictions. That broken record keeps spinning.
Read a relationships thread here some time. Read similar conversations elsewhere. Observe the collapses in sex, relationships, marriages and fertility. Observe general attitudes to such modern marvels as the Dating App. Observe how men and women talk about each other, as a class. Observe the history of the #MeToo movement, and its deployment of unsustainable coercion and attempts to escalate to the police and jail to settle what it perceived to be failures of the previous sexual order, an order built and defined entirely by the Progressive sexual revolution. Observe the grooming gangs in the UK, the total failure of governments at all levels to do anything but pointedly ignore the problem, and contrast that with their heavy-handed efforts against anyone who refused to allow the subject to be quietly buried. Observe the number of Americans willing to endorse political murder of their opponents, the generally bleak outlook, the proliferation of black pills, the evident rise of extremism on all sides.
It is entirely possible that the above is not your problem. It seems unlikely to me that it will continue to not be your problem indefinitely.
Your life so far has been that of a zealot, flip-flopping from one extreme group to the next, fanning the flames of CW and even civil war wherever he went.
I do not mind personal criticisms. I do mind inaccuracy.
I've spent long portions of my life as a moderate by-the-book "none of this matters, let's just chill out and go to work and save and invest in the stock market and let the experts sort it all out." When I became an extremist, I have been the sort that points out that widespread endorsement of unrestrained, lawless mob violence in support of tyrannical and unaccountable government authority will end badly, that incentives are decisive, and that sooner or later reckless hatred will recoil to the ruin of those who wield it. And now I confine myself to attempting to warn people of the foolishness they are evidently stumbling toward.
always trying to force on others the one thing, or its opposite.
It's an evocative image, but the charge is baseless. I do not want to rule you. I do want to live in an orderly, structured environment, and I understand that this requires a non-trivial degree of coercion. There are many whose idea of an ordered, structured environment conflict with my own; we should each do our best to leave each other's communities alone, up to and including moving away from each other. To the extent that it is possible, I want to live in peace and plenty. To the extent that living in peace and plenty is not possible, I am pretty sure it is not the fault of people like me.
It would help to identify our enemies first. Iranians are friendlier to Western Civilization than Israelis.
hanikrummihundursvin
51m ago
That would be a relevant point if we knew nothing about Iran. But we do know things about Iran so I don't see the need for games of analogy.
What does the existence of no fault divorce have to do with all of this? Your point seems like a slam dunk with just 1, 2 and 4.
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