domain:mgautreau.substack.com
jake
23hr ago
Rome is the example. It failed to exert sufficient control on male avarice and turned empire. It failed to exert sufficient control on female caprice and its birthrates collapsed. When birthrates decline in an otherwise prosperous nation the cause is always the same: multiple avenues for intrasexual competition where women attain status aside from wifehood and motherhood. This started before Caesar was born as changing laws on land ownership and divorce gave women significant privilege. Come Augustus, he attempted to correct their declining population by laws that incentivized having children, but the target was wrong and the incentives were wrong. Women aren't incentivized to become mothers through extra rights, money, or praise; they're incentivized to become mothers when that's the only thing they can do.
I'm not saying this is good, because it's not, it's terrible, unfortunately it's the truth. If women didn't work, if they couldn't go to college and it was legal to discriminate against them in employment, they would be getting married and having children as soon as they could. They wouldn't have avenues for status in what university they attended and where they worked, but only in their household, in their husband and their children. Again I am not remotely saying "WE MVST RETVRN." I'm observing the facts, women are every bit as competitive as men, and every bit as good at it in their domains of competition. Add to that the broader incentive, good alma mater, good career, husband with a better career, lots of money, of course they'll put off having kids, for the individual it follows a line of perfect reason. They are acting entirely logically, for themselves. Society suffers.
Rome's collapse wasn't even that bad though, at least not compared to Weimar Germany. There, wanton greed and profligacy triple threating with Bolshevism precipitated the Nazis. But you don't need to look at them, either, you can look right now to the American black community. Relative to America as a whole, the black community has enclaves that have all but collapsed, only holding on as ample taxpayer assistance keeps them afloat. Were the assistance citizens of Baltimore received limited to what the city could extract as taxes, it would be a wasteland. What characteristics define the American black community? Male avarice and female caprice.
But even if there were no examples, it's enough to say "This was the practice of every successful group of people in history." When the most contentious and bloodthirsty, divided by mountains and jungles, arrive at a uniform conclusion on one a given subject, it's not "just-so" to point out their practice. Uniform agreement makes it the implicit paradigm and means challengers are presumed false. They didn't agree on their gods, they didn't agree on worship, they didn't agree on how they should go about ruling themselves and what should be done with foreigners, but all of them agreed about women. Note, I also didn't use it to justify the metaphysics of "they all said the gods said so," I said they used religious framing for what they already knew.
What they didn't know was how to perfect it, which Christianity did and does for its inspired understanding of biological realities, of those biotruths. You look back from the top of history and think of the chain of progress as inevitable and so you say I'm post-hoc justifying Christianity as integral, but I'm not because I also am looking at history and I can see all the instances of what happened when it was discarded. The French tried, their streets ran red with blood, and created the pinnacle of hubris Directorate, thus Napoleon. Germany tried, thus Hitler. Russia tried, thus Stalin. China never had it, thus the worst of them all in Mao. The healthiest societies are Christian because Christianity is unique in its ability to produce the greatest share of societal buy-in. Without it, assuming Muhammad still exists, either Islam conquers Europe or we get another Attila or a European Temujin and practically all of Europe is ethnically Norman, or it's German, or it's Anglo.
The Japanese have to be mentioned. They are not as healthy as the healthiest Christian civilizations, but they have the highest buy-in, they're secular and they exert sufficient controls on avarice and caprice. I've said I think they're in the perfect position by temperament and population for the coming age of simulacra, so their low birthrates may prove ideal. This is one group, or maybe almost two given how closely related they are the Koreans, and therein the interesting quality of the Koreans having those occasionally flamboyant moments of personal instability (one presidential crisis after another; also, the DPRK). Thing is, Japan would be on the precipice of a crisis if it weren't for that coming automation, but that crisis would be less than nothing to the Weimar's comparative nothing to what might come in America. White America is holding on by its bleeding fingernails, the scenario I've posted about here twice of us making it through this turmoil specifically requires the appearance and ubiquity of the relation surrogate wife-bot.
You can't have civilization without buy-in and we've pissed it away. Buy-in is the same thing for most men, the everyman who comprises the actual society. It's not money, land, fame or praise; it's children. Us wordcels can jerk ourselves into upholding civilization from pure reason, the normies think about their kids, or the kids they will have, or the kids they wish they could have. That's what makes them care, but the family is at its hardest to obtain for at least the last thousand years, and not for actual economic reasons, not for conflict or disease or famine, but because of the profit that was made in doubling the work force and because of the insatiable lusts of the "elites." We can't unfuck this. The laws and social changes that would be required can't happen without cataclysm, because we rightly don't want to enact such laws and make such changes and would only from existential necessity. That cataclysm is what's looming. If I'm wrong about the timeframe and it would take another 50 years to develop the wifebot, we won't get that far, because given another 25 years of the status quo and America will give rise to a figure who makes Mao look like a reasonable man.
You can't have young men who have no hope for the future. It is the terminal condition for civilization. You can have rampant, gross greed in the acquisition of material wealth. If young men were all still getting married, if they had to grind hard in life, but they had a reasonable domicile and they could provide for their wife and children, that would be enough for their buy-in. They don't even have that. It's what people need to understand, especially the righties who do have superior faculties at assessing danger and keep saying "one of these days, man" while the lefties correctly mock them, just for the wrong reasons. Violence will come if this isn't addressed, but it's not from us, we're not the generations who turn violent, we still have enough buy-in. We're the gap, we are the harbingers, it's the boys being born today who will reach adulthood and see a barren wasteland waiting ahead of them and they will be ready to follow anyone who says "Get your guns, we're burning everything down."
You want evidence of the inevitable end of societies that don't control avarice and caprice. You are living in it.
fribble
23hr ago
The gloves were finger/palm saver. My hands are bruised to bits but no blood was shed.
Auto work is a reminder that men are so much stronger than women. The recommendations that a particular task might take a little force really means I need to use all my strength.
Bartender_Venator
23hr ago
It's a funny barber-pole-of-status-signaling thing. I have never encountered someone on the internet who is actually upper-class for whom "lower-classness" is an object of vitriol rather than of disinterested study (for a motte example, I don't know Cim's background but she's acculturated into a desirable rung of the London class ladder very well).
For another instance, Richard Hanania is from Oak Lawn, a Chicago suburb which would provide plenty of experience in the dysfunction of the underclass (about 2-3 miles from Chicago's PvP zones) but zero opportunity to mingle with the kids of the tony 'burbs up North.
faceh
1d ago
Yeah. Need to be exhibition rounds in UFC events that are just there to be a spectacle, not everything has to be completely serious.
faceh
1d ago
Seconding this.
And if you have a decent amount of training in some of the disciplines on display, you can actually sort of comprehend what's going on in that tangle of appendages, and understand why landing that particular spinning kick-into-right-cross combo took a lot of skill to unleash, even if it didn't land.
faceh
1d ago
So how DO you punish rulebreakers?
And more to the point, if the rulebreakers just ignore the punishment what's the ultimately sanction/enforcement mechanism?
quiet_NaN
1d ago
I have just looked on the list, and I have to say I am a bit perplexed why typical use for condoms is so ineffective (13 out of 100 -- only a bit better than pulling out).
My theory is that there might be confounders, because condoms also protect from STI while most other methods do not, so they would select for a more risky sexual lifestyle in general. Relying on a guy you just met to have a condom and use it correctly is likely riskier than relying on remembering to take a pill a day.
Not a one of those criticisms of Obama is more severe than criticism I see of Trump.
From a like source? The NYT is literally the archetypal Obama-ite left-liberal internationalist publication. If anyone should show him unquestioning support, it would be them. The equivalent would be equal criticism coming from, say, Newsmax or Breitbart.
though feel free to look back on Russiagate if you want similar elite conspiracies. There are plenty of Democrats decrying the election, just like with Gore, just like with the next election they'll lose
These are completely different. With Russigate, no-one of any significance was suggesting that there was anything compromised about the voting process itself, which obviously crosses into very new and dangerous territory. Same with Gore - there was no suggestion of fraudulent malfeasance, the dispute being about recount boundaries and timings etc. Plus, luckily, we have a like-for-like way of comparing these different instances. How did the losing party react in the days and weeks after it became clear they would not win?
Hillary:
Last night, I congratulated Donald Trump and offered to work with him on behalf of our country. I hope that he will be a successful president for all Americans. This is not the outcome we wanted or we worked so hard for and I’m sorry that we did not win this election for the values we share and the vision we hold for our country... We have seen that our nation is more deeply divided than we thought. But I still believe in America and I always will. And if you do, then we must accept this result and then look to the future. Donald Trump is going to be our president. We owe him an open mind and the chance to lead.
Gore:
Now the U.S. Supreme Court has spoken. Let there be no doubt, while I strongly disagree with the court's decision, I accept it. I accept the finality of this outcome which will be ratified next Monday in the Electoral College. And tonight, for the sake of our unity as a people and the strength of our democracy, I offer my concession. I also accept my responsibility, which I will discharge unconditionally, to honor the new President-elect and do everything possible to help him bring Americans together in fulfillment of the great vision that our Declaration of Independence defines and that our Constitution affirms and defends... And now, my friends, in a phrase I once addressed to others: it's time for me to go.
Trump (in a speech longer after the election than Gore):
They cheated and they rigged our presidential election, but we will still win it. We will still win it. We'll still win it. And they're going to try and rig this election too. Stop the steal. Stop the steal. Stop the steal. Stop the steal. Stop the steal. Stop the steal. Stop the steal. Stop the steal. Stop the steal. Stop the steal. Stop the steal. Stop the steal. No, we continue to fight. We've had some great moments. We just need somebody with courage to do what they have to do because everyone knows it's wrong... there's no way this could have happened other than the obvious cheating or a rigged election. There's no way it could have happened
There is just no comparison and it's blindingly obvious.
The only reason no Democrat President is pushing this is that there's no Democrat President, period.
No mainstream Democrat (as in a sitting Senator o/e) ever cast any doubt on the integrity of the voting counting process in 2024. Next.
The government is not more sacred than the people it rules. We are citizens, not subjects, and not lessers.
Obviously I don't disagree. But the J6 riots were different because they attacked the very legitimacy of the democratic process - their aim was to, by force, overturn the result of a democratic election and install a new leader. That was and is unique, as was the extent to which they were indulged and encouraged by Trump.
And of course, once that context couldn't be repeated, Trump won again. Fortifying an election, and loudly bragging about it, makes it easier to counter the second time around. The Trump campaign was much more aggressive this time around, to their success.
Cult mindset. Luckily I'm well adjusted and can believe that sometimes Trump wins fair elections and sometimes he loses them. Your mindset literally cannot comprehend the world in which a majority of voters simply voted against Trump in one election. It's also completely unfalsifiable, another cult warning sign. When he loses, it was rigged. When he wins, he fought back against the rigging.
Glaukopis
1d ago
Occam's razor here is that chronic pain is very mediated by meaning/embodied community. Heard very similar stories from people becoming more situated in other types of communities (I.E. trans person with chronic pain cessating after increased in person community interaction)
SubstantialFrivolity
I'm not even supposed to be here today
1d ago
Jersey Mike's just doesn't have any subs that I actually enjoy, so JJ wins by default. However, Erbert & Gerbert's (a sub chain in Wisconsin and I believe other midwestern states) blows both out of the water. It's just a shame that I can't get them any more where I live.
faceh
1d ago
I think my main point is that Trump, for all his weirdness, apparently has pretty decent genes and can't be a particularly bad parent if his kids are all successful in their own right and are still on good terms with him.
Someone else pointed out Elon's kids as a comparison and, yeah.
cjet79
1d ago
Summer pool season started a few weeks ago. I'm on the board for the local pool. It is probably one of my most time consuming volunteer activities.
On the upside the board is mostly fun people who have real lives, so the meetings are often productive with a minimal amount of political jockeying. We drink at board meetings, and one of the guys on the board runs a local wine shop and does a yearly wine and dine event for board members.
On the downside the type of people that join the board are still generally busybodies. The treasurer is very opinionated on people following the rules and has a strong desire to punish rule breakers. She had a very Political-Managerial-Class idea of how to enforce rules though. Her latest idea was a strongly worded email to all the members with enumerated punishments for not following particular rules. I had to point out that the people breaking rules were probably least likely to read any such email, and that we already had the authority to punish them we didn't need to warn them first.
I would generally suggest people get involved with their local community. There will absolutely be people that disagree with politically. But if you are serving a common cause then that political difference gets papered over as irrelevant more than you'd think. And it's a good way to have things bent in a direction you'd prefer.
I will maybe share more board stories in the future. Some stories might be heavily more culture war oriented, like the little trans kid on the swim team, or the twelve year old that pulled a knife out on another kid in the park across from the pool. These stories are kind of uninteresting in the way that we are generally trying to optimize for non-controversy. None of us want to be in a media segment about trans kids on a local swim team.
The actual controversial stuff that people argue over during the board meetings are financial things. Money is tight, and it's hard to know how to beat spend it to maintain a good experience for the pool members.
George_E_Hale
insufferable blowhard
1d ago
As far as I know, yes. Certainly culturally.
quiet_NaN
1d ago
Per WP, the typical-use Pearl Index of "Symptoms-based fertility awareness ex. symptothermal and calendar-based methods" is 24 (i.e. 24 pregnancies per 100 women per year), which is slightly worse than Coitus interruptus. Contrast this to a good method like IUD (0.8).
Awareness methods are only good enough if getting pregnant is not that big of a deal. For example, if you have access to abortions and no objections to them, or if you plan to have a baby with your husband in a year anyhow and would only be mildly inconvenienced by an earlier pregnancy.
For a teenager who is strongly pro-life, but not sufficiently abstinence-only that one can rely on that (which basically is most teenagers), relying on this method seems like a good way to end up being a single mom at 16.
FiveHourMarathon
Wawa Nationalist
1d ago
It could just be our location for whatever reason, but I have very little reason to keep going there after two mediocre sandwiches in a row.
HaroldWilson
1d ago
I understand a 50 Stalins criticism to be that someone's positions aren't extreme enough and he should lean into them even more
If that were true then Stalin would be a desperately confusing example to use for the reasons @Stefferi points out.
It was the first one I found by googling that sounded good enough.
Fine but the two are obviously not equivalent. Manchin was a sitting Senator and former state governor. 'Dace Potas' is a journalist who is two years out of college whose various bios tout him as a writer for such pillars of journalism as USA Today and something called 'The College Fix'.
HaroldWilson
1d ago
Sanders is claiming that Obama isn't left wing enough, which is a 50 Stalins criticism
This is very silly. On this basis it is impossible for a left-winger to give anything but 50 Stalins criticism to those on the centre-left. Obviously Sanders will claim Obama isn't left-wing enough, because he's... to his left.
anon_
1d ago
The core issue here is that 40 years ago is a long time and there should probably be some automatic statute of limitations for psychiatric stays to fall off your record
Our track record at actually curing serious mental illness isn't that great (especially if it's controlled by medication that the patient is always one dose from going off). Many of those conditions are inherent and fairly permanent.
The_Nybbler
In the game of roller derby, women aren't just the opposing team; they're the ball.
1d ago
For example, PA prohibited firearm ownership to "Any person going about from place to place begging, asking or subsisting upon charity, and for the purpose of acquiring money or living, and who shall have no fixed place of residence, or lawful occupation in the county or city".
This isn't a permanent restriction.
Or more aptly, Kansas
Entered the union in 1861.
Will speak as a fan.
MMA is really the only bloodsport I watch. First, I love the progression from the prelims to the main event, with the latter often being not worth watching at all. It's very fun to watch in a group with 8 light beers and a pizza showing up.
What it's not: A way to fantasize about my own fighting capability
What it is: A way to observe the pinnacle of human achievement in pain tolerance and performance. Making our bodies into weapons is an insane counterpoint to modern western living. Sure you can get like... 60% of that experience by being a traditional athlete, but nothing comes close to the insane violence in MMA. It gets my blood pumping, and even the women's events are a type of masculinity that the elites have done their best to smother everywhere.
anon_
1d ago
I don't think that's right -- a number of the founding States had restrictions against those unsuitable that did not rest upon a criminal conviction.
For example, PA prohibited firearm ownership to "Any person going about from place to place begging, asking or subsisting upon charity, and for the purpose of acquiring money or living, and who shall have no fixed place of residence, or lawful occupation in the county or city".
Or more aptly, Kansas prohibited transferring a firearm "to any person of notoriously unsound mind". It's hard to imagine "treated for a violent mental illness" as not coterminous with "unsound mind".
quiet_NaN
1d ago
Probably true, most women I know are STEM-adjacent. In these circles, not having a boyfriend or husband and not being on the lookout for one either is well within the spectrum of accepted behavior, certainly more so than constantly getting your heart broken by hot men interested in sex.
It might be different for, I dunno, the typical social circles of someone working for a nail studio?
Hadad
1d ago
Not a one of those criticisms of Obama is more severe than criticism I see of Trump.
I can't quite tell if you're joking. On the one hand, we have the sitting President of the United States alleging that millions of votes were cast fraudulently. On the other, we have "Reddit communities". I wonder, might there be a slight asymmetry between these two things?
No, though feel free to look back on Russiagate if you want similar elite conspiracies. There are plenty of Democrats decrying the election, just like with Gore, just like with the next election they'll lose, too. The only reason no Democrat President is pushing this is that there's no Democrat President, period.
This is such a strange rendering of the riot in abstract terms. Indeed it was directed against ruling elites, but unfortunately in this case those elites were democratically elected representatives of the people certifying a fair election, and the rioters were targeting them because the process had failed their cult leader.
And Trump is the democratically elected representative of the country, yet people still rioted against him -- only the left destroyed innocent people's property, lashing out in blind rage at the fact their cult lost. The government is not more sacred than the people it rules. We are citizens, not subjects, and not lessers.
Good job for those J6ers that the same election riggers who had the power to magically turn the result against Trump didn't show up for 2024 (or 2016), I suppose. Perhaps they overslept.
The ability to rig an election does not mean a guarantee of success; elections have many moving parts. This is why it took 2020, and sweeping, unprecedented changes to the voting process, to properly fortify the election.
And of course, once that context couldn't be repeated, Trump won again. Fortifying an election, and loudly bragging about it, makes it easier to counter the second time around. The Trump campaign was much more aggressive this time around, to their success.
Is there any objective evidence that Leone saw Yojimbo before making A Fistful of Dollars, or for that matter that Kurosawa read Red Harvest before making Yojimbo?
On the topic of plagiarism: myself and the missus were recently listening to a Marvin Gaye compilation album, and I mentioned that it infuriates me that the Gaye family's suit against Robin Thicke for ripping off "Got to Give it Up" to make "Blurred Lines" was successful, whereas their suit against Ed Sheeran for ripping off "Let's Get It On" to make "Thinking Out Loud" wasn't. The latter seems a far more blatant rip than the former.
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