domain:greyenlightenment.com
VoxelVexillologist
Multidimensional Radical Centrist
23hr ago
The modern theory of deterrence may look more like identifying the humps that disrupt the slippery slope, and trying to beat your opponent back to one of those humps but no further, versus... trying to push your humps as far up the slope as possible?
I think the term in the literature you're looking for is "escalation dominance."
VoxelVexillologist
Multidimensional Radical Centrist
23hr ago
My advice for rulers, especially ones on the outs with major geopolitical powers...
It seems like "on the outs with major geopolitical powers" is doing a lot here. It's not even "be a democracy": nobody is threatening to invade Eritrea (not far from Yemen, also a dictatorship). It's not exclusively Muslim nations either (Venezuela, Cuba, and North Korea are in the club).
As best as I can tell, the only consistent rule seems to be "don't be jerks to your neighbors beyond your borders," but I'll accept there's some level of Realpolitik at play.
Hoffmeister25
American Bukelismo Enthusiast
23hr ago
Again, I’m not saying that Ignatiev’s beliefs are good — I oppose pretty much every aspect of his worldview — but simply that they are sincere and internally consistent. They’re not hypocritical. He doesn’t appear to want any special carve-out for Jewish people, nor does he seem to have any special affinity for Jewishness on account of his own personal ancestral background.
Like, yes, many Jews, Ignatiev himself, are hardcore believers in deracinated progressive abolishment of blood ties. So are many non-Jews! If you want to oppose their beliefs — and I do! — it is a useless distraction to try and smoke them out as secret Zionist special-pleading hypocrites. We can just oppose their actual stated beliefs, which are bad enough, instead of grasping at straws to call them liars.
Hoffmeister25
American Bukelismo Enthusiast
23hr ago
There are plenty, including within China, who want to see “the Han nation” — as in, a national self-understanding in which Han people are believed to be the central example of what a Chinese person is, in which their language and their customs are given pride of place, and in which they are “supreme” over other ethnic groups within the borders of the country” — abolished as such. This can be true even while also believing that every individual Han-descended person should live a happy, thriving life as a deracinated invidual.
I agree that this would be a foolish thing for me to advocate were I to move to China. It would also be laughable because I have no power whatsoever to effect such an outcome in China. Ignatiev does believe, with some justification, that he can do his part to move the needle closer to that outcome in America. He has been extremely open about that, and has also been equally extremely open about not wanting to replace the cold American white-centric paradigm with a new Jewish-centric one. He is, so far as I can tell, a sincere believer that the entire concept of a hegemonic “national ethnicity” should be abolished everywhere. This inherently means taking power away from hegemonic groups; there’s no time-sensitive reason, and therefore no reason to expend any political/intellectual capital, in also trying to abolish the folkways of minorities whose ethnic preferences are already not given pride of place within America.
Ignatiev does not expect to live to see the day when any non-white ethnic group(s) have achieved hegemonic dominance over America (and I assume he believes that such an outcome is both implausible and undesirable) so why would he waste his time distracting from the far more urgent need to discomfit and dispossess (culturally and otherwise) the dominant group? Thus, again, the “double standard” makes perfect sense and is entirely intellectually justifiable, given Ignatiev’s priors.
Amadan
Enjoying my short-lived victory
23hr ago
He vocally supported ending the white race, while at the same time declaring anti-Semitism a Crime against Humanity. That was my statement, and your context does not refute that in any way.
You only mention him objecting to anti-Semitism, as usual implying that Jews only care about Jews and are enemies of everyone else. The context makes it clear you're being disingenuous:
Finally, at least one Crimson headline writer and one cartoonist have suggested that I am anti-Semitic. I regard anti-Semitism, like all forms of religious, ethnic and racial bigotry, as a crime against humanity
As for "vocally support ending the white race," when academics and activists talk about "ending whiteness" they are not talking about literally genociding white people. Their argument is that "whiteness" is an arbitrary social construct. Of course most of us consider this a stupid argument, much like the claims that "male" and "female" are arbitrary social constructs. But just as people who want to "end masculinity" and "end the gender binary" are not talking about literally exterminating males, you know perfectly well what Ignatiev actually meant.
Hadad
23hr ago
SS says a lot of pretty nakedly racist things, but man, a screed defending a literal call to abolish the White race that ends in claiming the desire to protect one's culture and homeland from foreign replacement is some vile thing -- as if literally every people don't want to do that, as if it wouldn't be considered mad, bigoted offense to promote this same replacement for minority groups -- is quite possibly the only situation where Secure sounds more sympathetic than the person he's arguing with.
Lykurg
We're all living in Amerika
23hr ago
Hm, did not expect to end up sympathetic about the murder part. Can you link the essay?
AlexanderTurok
Alt-MSNBC
23hr ago
However, it means something different to lead with a call to abolish a powerful, hegemonically-empowered group than it does to lead with a call to abolish a more vulnerable, historically-persecuted group.
This is one way to look at it. You could also ask if maybe the double standard is what's causing the hostility in the first place.
If you immigrate to China, say "abolish the Han nation" and when called out on it say "I just mean the Han should stop persecuting the Uyghurs, why I am always being scapegoated and blamed for everything," that might not be the best idea.
hydroacetylene
23hr ago
What risk? AFAIK if you're not 80 or diabetic, covid is a trivial inconvenience.
hydroacetylene
23hr ago
It's a name for a region encompassing deep east Texas as well as parts of Oklahoma, Arkansas, and Louisiana.
Hadad
23hr ago
It'd be a very odd right-winger of any sort who concerns himself with the Congo. Even a genuinely Christian soul, selfless and eager to help, would probably not then pair it with anti-American conspiracy theories. More than anything, the guy codes as pure crazy, but definitely crazy from a liberal direction.
That said, he's absolutely fucking cuckoo for cocoa puffs, and no one should take any sort of vindication. I'm a right wing man and I don't think him being a Democrat or a left-leaning weirdo is a slamdunk against progressives in general. This guy is actually just mad, and he would have done some mad thing no matter what group he attached to.
hydroacetylene
23hr ago
Whether ADHD is real or just hasn't been spanked syndrome, I highly doubt it's caused by food additives.
hydroacetylene
23hr ago
We have no indication he doesn't, even if abortion is a weirdly prominent issue for him.
hydroacetylene
23hr ago
Would anyone mind if he treats this as a nomination?
MaiqTheTrue
Renrijra Krin
23hr ago
I’m just looking at his particular interest in Africa, and food insecurity in Africa and tge Congo. None of this sounds like a guy with right-leaning tendencies. He does have a grandiose agenda and vision for how and what he’s going to do in DRC, but the choice of “American hunger to control black people in Africa” has no right-coded hooks, but does have left-coded hooks (international food security, American Empire, etc). This just doesn’t read like even a center left idea. This sounds pretty progressive in its choice of location and race-hierarchy and America-booing. I don’t think anyone remotely MAGA, NRx, or dissident right is going to glom onto “people in Congo need my help because America is using food to control black people in Africa.” They won’t because this isn’t on the list of concerns right leaning people would have. Right spaces tend toward nationalism, religion, masculinity, and similar issues. He doesn’t care about any right-coded ideology at all.
hydroacetylene
23hr ago
There's definitely conspiracy theorists of all stripes who believe the colored population is being controlled with food.
hydroacetylene
23hr ago
Probably neither of them voted republican, though.
Whoops, that's what I get for writing when I'm tired.
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