domain:shapesinthefog.substack.com
The_Nybbler
In the game of roller derby, women aren't just the opposing team; they're the ball.
1d ago
or even done the George Floyd thing of portraying fentanyl-users as victims of someone other than themselves
There's definitely right-wingers who have jumped on the "it's Pharma/The Sacklers/Purdue's fault" bandwagon, and some who blame China.
rae
1d ago
There’s also big differences outside of the Hajnal line in Europe itself. Slovenia is a prosperous country with well functioning infrastructure on track to surpass the UK in terms of GDP per capita while Serbia is a poor corrupt autocracy, even if both were part of Yugoslavia and are ethnically south Slavs.
I don’t know any circumstances where HBD is a better explanation than culture and history.
Supah_Schmendrick
1d ago
see how anthropologists feel about Guns, Germs, and Steel
My understanding was that GGS was deprecated because it got objective facts wrong about the subjects it purports to address, not because it was ambitious in scope.
TIRM
1d ago
Don't you have bigger problems? It's not like you should feel any "political" loyalty to them...
This is a general anti-empathy argument. Too general. If this was a principled consistent stance applied fairly to all political groups, then it would be merely ruthlessly cutting support for low performers in order to focus on broader goals. We can instead want to support some lower performing people and also pursue other goals. It is some bearable amount of opportunity cost that political groups accept.
I'm not concerned about imaginary white extinction or getting coal miners back to work, etc. But, I can feel some empathy for the victims wage suppression schemes. People who can't outcompete a Bangladeshi child or a Guatemalan in willingness to live in poverty or accept harsh working conditions. Even if they were hypercompetent, they can't and shouldn't want to win this race to the bottom against literal 3rd worlders.
If some white racist also extends some empathy to such people and feels some affinity to them, I don't think it makes sense to criticize that as not sufficiently important. The health and prosperity of their chosen group seems obviously important. Of all the criticisms to level at white nationalists, I'll give them a pass for wishing poor white people in the Midwest were healthier and had a higher labor participation rate.
MathWizard
Good things are good
1d ago
I'll admit that I don't follow politics super closely, so could have missed something, but I have literally never heard any right wing person defend the use of fentanyl. None have ever said that fentanyl is good, or that people should have fentanyl, or even done the George Floyd thing of portraying fentanyl-users as victims of someone other than themselves.
I might be missing some large coalition of right-wing fentanyl apologists, but I think it's more likely that you're tilting at strawmen here.
ArjinFerman
Tinfoil Gigachad
1d ago
but the basic point is valid: the Online Right, insofar as I casually track its movements on Twitter, emphasizes HBD less than it used to.
Liberals used to explicitly believe that their belief system is justified by science, and anything that contradicts it must be not only morally, but factually wrong. This was the background for the rise of the HBD conversation, trying to own those stupid racists by showing how scientifically illiterate they are. After they crashed into that particular wall, head first, several times, and noticed it ain't budging, they decided to avoid the conversation altogether, which is why it also lost a lot of it's utility for the right. It's not even limited to this particular topic, there's a broader trend that Dave Green calls "the death of discourse".
There's a kind of coarser, more vitriolic type of racism and anti-semitism emerging to take its place.
This isn't even specific to the right.
Iconochasm
2. Bootstrap the rest of the fucking omnipotence.
1d ago
distasteful comments
Speaking as a millennial who was raised to genuine colorblindness, complete with black and Jewish cousins... have you ever heard anyone else talk about anyone else?
How often does everyone here wash his cars? Do you hand wash or car wash?
I let the sky wash my car whenever it rains.
What conditions are they put through?
No garage; a daily commute of 40 miles each way in the New York–Philadelphia corridor
TitaniumButterfly
1d ago
Did I argue otherwise?
aceventura
1d ago
Hygiene
Europeans don't exactly have a good reputation around the world when it comes to hygiene.
aceventura
1d ago
So, again, let's start with the heart of the issue: why does the concept of white solidarity make you uncomfortable?
Obviously can't speak for OP, but for me it's the way that the Online Right talks about non-white people: really distasteful comments about Indians and "third worlders", vulgar anti-Jewish sentiments, calls to denaturalize and deport tens of millions of "browns". The overlap between these people and the "white solidarity" people is nearly 100%.
You can think it's silly because the "Online Right is small and powerless", but they certainly don't see themselves that way, and they're working towards creating a real political movement.
ControlsFreak
1d ago
How often does everyone here wash their cars? What conditions are they put through? (Garage/outside, daily driver/weekend fun, extreme conditions, salty winters...) Do you hand wash or car wash? Do you find a sense of ritual/peace in doing it, or is it a chore?
deluxev2
1d ago
I like to cold brew some black tea with a hint of citrus (usually bergamot e.g. Earl Gray) and vanilla. For caffeine free, I mostly like strong aromatics like lavender, rosemary, nettles or mint. Best in my opinion to take them individually so it isn't all muddied together.
magic9mushroom
If you're going to downvote me, and nobody's already voiced your objection, please reply and tell me
1d ago
but still is free to publicly proclaim and propagandize them.
As I noted, this is not actually how it works in most of the non-US West. Literally, where I live (Victoria, Australia), @SecureSignals' posts on theMotte (not even what he's not said but never denied; what he's explicitly said) would (AIUI; IANAL) constitute a crime and he could be jailed for it.
As a high-profile example, Björn Höcke got fined (twice) for quoting a relatively-inoffensive Nazi slogan ("Everything for Germany"). This is a matter of record.
The simple fact of the matter in a significant chunk of the world is that Nazis are persecuted for their political views. You may think, as I do, that their views are a heap of steaming shit, and you may think, as I do, that that persecution is also a heap of steaming shit, but neither of these changes the fact of the persecution occurring.
Also, obligatory Scott quote:
If you start suggesting maybe it should switch directions and move the direction opposite the one the engine is pointed, then you might have a bad time.
Try it. Mention that you think we should undo something that’s been done over the past century or two. Maybe reverse women’s right to vote. Go back to sterilizing the disabled and feeble-minded. If you really need convincing, suggest re-implementing segregation, or how about slavery? See how far freedom of speech gets you.
In America, it will get you fired from your job and ostracized by nearly everyone. Depending on how loudly you do it, people may picket your house, or throw things at you, or commit violence against you which is then excused by the judiciary because obviously they were provoked. Despite the iconic image of the dissident sent to Siberia, this is how the Soviets dealt with most of their iconoclasts too.
If you absolutely insist on imprisonment, you can always go to Europe, where there are more than enough “hate speech” laws on the book to satisfy your wishes. But a system of repression that doesn’t involve obvious state violence is little different in effect than one that does. It’s simply more efficient and harder to overthrow.
aceventura
1d ago
I expect non-Hajnali 'whites' to basically end up as an underclass, so it is what it is I guess.
Lots of the underclass whites he refers to would have had ancestors within the Hajnal line.
aceventura
1d ago
His tone is annoying, but the basic point is valid: the Online Right, insofar as I casually track its movements on Twitter, emphasizes HBD less than it used to. There's a kind of coarser, more vitriolic type of racism and anti-semitism emerging to take its place. There's also a vocal right-wing element that thinks the anti-semitism is stupid, or at least overemphasized. Each side invariably accuses the other of being feds.
Don't get me wrong, the liberals are still very annoying as well, but there's been a perceptible vibe shift among the right. It remains to be seen whether this gains any foothold IRL.
dr_analog
top 1% of underdog fetishists
1d ago
I originally got into computer programming as a teenager because I wanted to make video games, but I found windows insufferable and got distracted by Linux and a career in SRE.
I've since decided to try to go back to my roots, so to speak. This would all be a lot easier if I just used UE5, but what's the fun in that?
Primaprimaprima
...something all admit only "TRUMP", and the Trump Administration, can do.
1d ago
In this post, you condemn and criticize the concept of white solidarity. This is a sentiment that you share with almost everyone else in the Western "first" world today, except for a tiny minority of self-conscious white advocates.
Your primary motivation for writing the post was your negative sentiment towards white solidarity, rather than your positive support of an alternative political program. We can tell this by the way you framed your post: almost the entirety of it is dedicated to criticisms of the white identitarian right. If your goal was to give people positive, substantive reasons for supporting your own preferred political program, you would have instead titled your post "why I think the right should support pure meritocracy / free trade neoliberalism / race blind Nietzschean will to power / whatever terms you would use to describe your own ideology".
Why does the concept of white solidarity make you uncomfortable? It can't be a purely "formal" concern like, "I think the Online Right is wasting their time pursuing a futile and unhelpful set of policies; they could instead be devoting their time and resources to my cause instead". The Online Right is small and powerless; you can't be that eager to enlist their help. Whatever your preferred political program is would probably find itself right at home in the agenda of Ramaswamy, or Musk, or Thiel, or the Koch brothers, or maybe even Trump himself. You have far more powerful and influential backers you could be appealing to, instead of wasting your time trying to persuade the "Online Right".
So, again, let's start with the heart of the issue: why does the concept of white solidarity make you uncomfortable?
TitaniumButterfly
1d ago
This whole post relies upon an extremely facile (and uncharitable) conception of HBD. I find myself entirely uninterested in the points being made here.
"White people" is a bad category when discussing HBD. I'm not sure if it's quite as bad as 'Hispanic' but it's gotta be close. Skin color matters much less than ancestry even if they usually correlate. Consider Obama, or almost any other high-achieving 'black person' who happens to be heavily or even mostly Hajnali genetically.
Is that really what you want your political ideology to be?
I expect non-Hajnali 'whites' to basically end up as an underclass, so it is what it is I guess.
The solution here is more and better HBD, not less.
The American conflation of race with class is bizarre.
Yes. The 'white' people of appalachia are not the same race as the 'white' people of New England, c.f. Albion's Seed or for that matter the Hajnal Line. Or for blacks we could easily distinguish between, say, Bantu and Igbo.
And even after distinguishing race at a more granular level, yes, there are classes within races.
aceventura
1d ago
If you were to say ‘ white people are clearly the most intelligent people, and the most innovative ‘ I would also agree
Fine, but can we agree limit it to white people in this small area? You can throw in Jews too.
Doesn't seem fair that all white people should get credit for the accomplishments of a small minority. Personally, I would prefer to not group people up in most cases.
TitaniumButterfly
1d ago
As I said, it doesn't make sense.
FiveHourMarathon
Wawa Nationalist
1d ago
One sees it everywhere, even by those who otherwise denounce HBD.
The basic formula is: [My ingroup's positive attributes] are genetic, set in stone, impossible to imitate; while [ingroup's negative attributes] are the random result of circumstance or interest or are entirely mythical. [My outgroup's positive attributes] are random results of circumstance or interest, or are entirely fake; but [outgroup's negative attributes] are genetic, set in stone, impossible to improve or mitigate.
VoxelVexillologist
Multidimensional Radical Centrist
1d ago
The term antisemitism came into existence from Germans trying to justify that This Time it wasn't just dumb, bigoted Judenhass (literally "Jew-hatred"), and they had good (pseudo)scientific reasons to dislike them. Bringing other semitic peoples into it implicitly validates Nazi race science like talking about related Aryans in India.
Although some seem to be trying the This Time approach again, using "anti-Zionist" as the new label. Maybe in a century someone will claim it applies to Zionist Mormons in Utah.
Nice strawman. But even the most hardcore HBD believers would accept that the worst whites are likely worse in some aspects than the best non-whites. That doesn't imply at all that bringing in foreigners, even pretty ok ones would be a net increase in the average quality of the humans in the country. So the motivation for closed borders is not at all inconsistent with HBD ideology. And trade protectionism, while largely supported by the same coalition that supports HBD, is not the same as keeping foreigners out.
Wanting to support the weakest and most vulnerable inside the country is also not really a component of HBD. That's just being a good person.
This post reminds me of this meme just replace christian with HBD beliver
Yes
Absolutely not. Job losses and wage depression are a harm in themselves. But few people are arguing that it's the cause of fent zombies. And the vast majority of people affected by illegals and free trade do not become fent zombies.
In fact the mainstream right wing opinion has little sympathy for fent zombies. They would be happy to have the zombies rounded up and disappeared, while also advocating for secure borders and trade protection.
Yes
Can't even begin to respond to how hateful this message is.
And it's near the lowest ever
You have zero evidence of that.
Interesting that all the things rightists propose help (or affect, if you think they're bad) all Americans equally, but you're the one over here projecting your racism on others.
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