domain:savenshine.com
ArjinFerman
Tinfoil Gigachad
2d ago
Call centers? A bit of an assembly line, but they do pay, and give zero fucks if it's online.
JTarrou
2d ago
The day a brass-fed AR isn't the best choice, I've no doubt there will be someone ready to sell whatever is. AR killers are like Glock killers. There's fifty a year and none in ten. Everyone just makes slightly different Glocks and ARs because what we're optimizing for is peripherals, and popularity determines compatibility.
It's not that Glocks and ARs are the best things ever. But they are optimized for value and reliability, and there's so many of them that the industry innovation has been immense within those platforms. In many ways, standardizing on two weapon platforms let the civilian market go nuts with ways to modify and improve all the bits.
There was always going to be an inflection point where the idea of what a gun is stabilized around some reasonable approximation of the mature state of the art. You can see this as a lack of innovation, or a shift of innovation to the areas where serious progress is still possible, such as optics, lasers, weight etc.
The only part of the NGSW I think is conceptually sound is the optic, which in my view if it works, they should strap to full length accurized ARs in 5.56 or 7.62 and give to squad designated marksmen only.
ThisIsSin
Liberty has an anti-privilege bias
2d ago
They're 'young adult of indeterminate age'-coded. They're not children, because we have clear examples of what those look like in-universe, and they're not elderly, because we have clear examples of that too.
The reason for the overwhelming popularity of young adults in media is that young adults are really the only group that both have goals they haven't achieved yet, and have the power and energy to drive towards those goals. Biologically speaking, that's naturally early-teenager-to-early-20s territory (obfuscated as that may be in modern times), but can be slightly less (or more) depending on how complicated the thing is and how complex the participant is.
Writing teenagers in particular still lets you get away with immaturity if/as the situation calls for it, so you still have reasonable latitude for character growth while not being constrained by the general lack of drive that typifies people as they get older and more established.
Of course, most of the "they're all over 18" comments for MLP has "so it's OK to look up porn of them" tacitly attached to it. Places that are less neurotic about that have more accurate estimates.
faceh
2d ago
If any of them had seen the opportunity to cross the Rubicon and make themselves dictator, they would likely not have taken it, because nobody wanted to go down as that figure in the history books.
Taking this analogy more literally, none of them faced the sort of ultimatum that Caesar did. They weren't seen as overly popular and powerful and thus a danger to the status quo in and of themselves if they returned to the public sphere.
They enjoyed the mutually agreeable reassurance that if they gracefully retire they can live out their days in ease.
Trump's Rubicon moment was probably in the vein of "If you keep up this election denialism and run again we'll burn down your entire life." Maybe he sincerely truly believed that the election was stolen from him, or he just really hates losing, or he does legitimately think he's uniquely qualified to get the country back on track, but for whatever reason he called that bluff and then survived the onslaught. Where's that leave him now?
I am however wondering what will happen to the Trump party once Trump finally croaks. As any player of Crusader Kings can tell you, these systems of personal loyalty are all fine while you are alive, but tend to get very messy on succession.
Very curious too. How much of the coalition is genuinely tied into Trump the man. There's some who buy into "MAGA" as a broader idea, or "America First," but if Trump does die or, hell, even retires and endorses a successor, what portion of the current GOP will just stop participating for want of an inspiring leader?
Vance is positioned as a legitimate successor, but Trump could throw him under a bus too before going out. Succession fights get ugly. And a decent number of people, on both sides of the aisle, have their careers/livelihoods pinned on Trump's activities and they'll have to re-align quickly if they can't hook on to his train any longer.
ArjinFerman
Tinfoil Gigachad
2d ago
I think you might be using the "dark" theme, which indeed uses a barely perceptible in difference shade of gray. If you don't like the "reddit" color scheme, here's the custom CSS:
.active.arrow-up::before {
color: #ff8b60;
}
I mean, what's the actual disagreement?
The fact that there are no persons who can be held to account for any given decision benefits the entire structure, and makes it easier to pull off graft and rig things for the outcomes that they find preferable. Get the incentives aligned towards your preferred goals, even if it means that you have to tolerate a few bad actors in the mix.
I'd argue the main difference in view would be whether its appropriate for these people to receive rewards for their successful service to the regime/cause. Amorally, if a bad person does the 'right' things during their tenure and we get good outcomes, then letting them earn a few million buckaroos off their public office is not a big deal. But if it is generally known that you can earn millions via graft if you attain public office, you will attract a lot of people who might not do the 'right' things.
From whence should the 'rewards' for good service come?
Anyhow, my point is that the thought of a 'deep state' made up of your ideological bedfellows is comforting to liberals, not that it actually is made up of such folks.
It's remarkable that 250 years after Adam Smith, the classical liberal worldview is so hard to understand and so easy to round off to the complete opposite.
I'm definitely NOT talking about "Classical" libs when I say this, in point of fact.
ArjinFerman
Tinfoil Gigachad
2d ago
I don't think I'm color blind.
Which theme are you usinng? I think there are several dark ones, and I never had issues like that on mine (called "reddit" even if though it looks nothing like it). And if you're using the same one, I might have some news about that color blindness...
But if not, give me the name of the theme, and I'll come up with something.
ToaKraka
Dislikes you
2d ago
This dissertation is concerned with an investigation of palatalization which covers a majority of the above-mentioned processes. I will refer to two types of palatalization: in one case the consonant shifts its primary place and often its manner of articulation while moving toward the palatal region of the vocal tract, as in (1), and in the other it is co-articulated with a following palatal offglide, as in (2).
(1) Full Palatalization
k, t → tʃ /dont ju/ → [dontʃju] 'don't you' (English)
(2) Secondary palatalization
t, d → tj, dj
/yamati/ → [yamatji] 'a person' (Watjarri, W. Pama Nyungan; Douglas 1981)
Finally in (5c) we see a change that has been adopted into the English lexicon, thimble, where the lip closure for [m] and the velic opening for [l] overlap and cause the perception of a voiced bilabial stop. This is a case of 'stop intrusion' between a nasal and a fricative/continuant that has been proposed as the transitional element between the two distinct sounds (Clements 1987). Another well known example from English where stop intrusion occurs is in the pronunciation of prince, where a [t] is perceived between the nasal and [s], [prɪnts]. The release of the alveolar nasal [n] and the transition into the [s] gesture produce the acoustic effect of an alveolar stop [t] (see also Yoo & Blankenship 2003). Arvaniti, Kilpatrick and Shosted (submitted) tested the perception of epenthetic and underlying [t] in the same [n_s] context as in prince vs. prints, and found that American English speakers could not distinguish reliably between epenthetic and underlying [t], which suggests that the [nts] and [ns] alternation is moving toward complete neutralization.
Further support for perceptual epenthesis is provided by Davidson (2004) who presents experimental evidence showing that native speakers of English do not repair illegal onset clusters such as [zb], [zd], and [zg] by epenthesizing schwa, as is typically assumed. Davidson claims that the English speakers, not having experience coordinating the gestures of the consonants in these clusters, instead pull them apart, mistiming the gestures, which leads to the perception of an epenthesized schwa. This schwa, however, is qualitatively different from other schwa sounds that are normally produced during speech (lexical schwas; see Hall (2006) for additional evidence of perceived schwas resulting from gestural overlap).
i_know_some_of_these_words.gif
quiet_NaN
2d ago
Compare it to a Romney or even Bush-like figure, who are seemingly more content to twist the dials on the administrative state a few degrees here and there and not interfere with their enemy's tactics (or disrupt their funding) so the actual 'balance of power' doesn't shift much.
I would argue that this was a feature. Bush, Obama, McCain, Clinton all had some investment with the status quo. They were playing the game by its written and unwritten rules. If any of them had seen the opportunity to cross the Rubicon and make themselves dictator, they would likely not have taken it, because nobody wanted to go down as that figure in the history books. For all the differences between GWB and Bernie Sanders, neither is willing to throw the democracy experiment under the bus to beat the other.
Not so with Trump. He is acting with a self-interest that would make most kleptocrats blush. He will happily burn 100$ of commons to earn 1$ for himself. He is prizing personal loyalty far beyond qualification.
I am however wondering what will happen to the Trump party once Trump finally croaks. As any player of Crusader Kings can tell you, these systems of personal loyalty are all fine while you are alive, but tend to get very messy on succession.
Tiber727
2d ago
Here we go again. Going to generalities and completely omitting the specifics. Yes, protesting in general is not criminal. "Protesting" like the Hamas mobs did definitely is - property destruction, attacking other students, shutting down campus, preventing other students from learning, etc. It should have been criminally prosecuted, if the campus management did their jobs - but they do not intend to, because of their ideology. That does not make criminal actions less criminal.
You are the one omitting the specifics. If Trump wants to cancel the visa of John Smith, then the argument should be that "John Smith committed property destruction" and bring the evidence, not "the mob committed property destruction and John Smith shares ideological views with the mob." Sorry, when it comes to government, guilt is not communal.
Seriously, you are choosing a MS-13 member, a human trafficker, a domestic abuser and an illegal migrant who has an active removal order from a judge, to be your best example of how Trump is deporting people just because he's racist and no other reason but thinking there's too many foreign people in America. I guess that does close the case, just not the way you think it does.
No, I think the combination of Trump's views on travel bans from Muslim countries, birthright citizenship, asylum claims, ICE tactics, student visas, etc. and the way he goes about doing them almost exclusively through poorly thought out executive orders, combined with his belligerence to any pushback from the judicial branch on virtually every issue, represent an attitude of "I am going to take every nativist stance (I don't care whether this is genuine or political), and I don't give an actual fuck about the people this will affect or how this policy will actually work."
Not controlled, but coordinated. And not by CNN alone, of course, as I explained numerous times, it's a network. Propagandist outlets like CNN serve the coordination function in it, disseminating the Currently Correct THinking, so that the faithful would know what they must think. I'm not sure what this has to do with "profit" - their point is not to make a profit, and they are doing piss-poor job as a business, but they are not traditional businesses anymore. They don't need to be, it's not their function.
Big CNN was a joke by the way, not that I thought you meant CNN alone. If CNN is simply "disseminating" information, who is the shadowy figure giving CNN and MSNBC and so on their next propaganda to deliver? Because if it's just "people share information when they agree with it" that's just how society works. They need to make a profit because they can't disseminate propaganda if they close. More money means more propaganda.
So what? Stalin murdered Trotsky, and they both were Communists (and Stalin murdered many, many more communists too). Of course inside the left there would be some tensions and clashes. I am not saying the leftists always and in everything are in lockstep. I am saying in the question of suppressing the political opposition they are able to deploy vast number of resources, and the banking system is one of those resources that they were successfully able to use for that. Of course it doesn't mean some on the left never had any conflicts with any banks (ignoring now Visa/MC aren't even banks) for any reasons.
I am saying that you act as if they are coordinated when it's convenient. I am asking you to elaborate on where the actual coercive power lies. What group fills the Stalin role of the current left, and can make everyone bend the knee? Sure, maybe the Visa example was too small potatoes. But progressives really want to put pressure on Israel right now. How much actual coercion are they deploying, and how much effect is it having? How much coercion power are they using on the left to coerce them to put more pressure on Israel?
In other words, did they put pressure on the banks to stop gun sales or did the bank do it themselves? If they put pressure, why are they not successfully doing it in other leftist causes?
Why? Because if was set up this way. Why it was setup this way? Because this way it's much easier to control and manage. Who controls and manages all this system? Deep state bureaucracy. Which side of political spectrum the deep state bureacracy leans to? Bingo! The dependency on the government is a feature that was carefully implemented and entrenched. That's why the left is so infuriated that the right is trying to use it against them - how dare they to use the weapon that was designed and implemented by the Left to fight back against the Left?! It's not fair!
LOL no. Business wants people who are already trained. You can learn programming on your own, but when it comes to job hunting that paper makes it so much easier. Government wants to be more prosperous, so funding college increases the net wealth of America. Colleges know their value and price accordingly. It's not "deep state," it's three portions of society interacting with other to fulfill their own goals.
That's what the govenrment had been saying for many years, only the X beliefs were the correct beliefs, that the Left and the deep state condoned, so everything was well. Now that the right is trying to use same tools, the left is screaming "what happened to the small government?!" You killed it, you bastards, that's what happened to it.
The left was never really crying for small government, the right was. Now they are not, but what they stand for now I genuinely only have vague ideas. You want to say I wasn't paying attention to all the left's transgressions, you are probably to some degree right. And by the same token you aren't really paying attention to the right's transgressions. That's how information bubbles work, and the right is not immune to it either.
Yes they did. BLM riots were widely endorsed and supported - including absolutely mind-blowing declaration in the middle of pandemic that mass gatherings against racism are exempt from any medical concerns - and the premise of US being deeply racist country, solely based on oppression of non-whites by whites, and various race hate hoaxes, from "hands up don't shoot" to finding various nooses in random places etc. has been very actively propagandized.
You are missing the nuance of what I am saying. I am not saying BLM wasn't supported. It absolutely was. I am saying that the elements of the left that specifically call for violence are not endorsed, they are denied. Denied in the sense that most of the left doesn't even want to think about the fact that some of their members commit violence. That's not a good thing, but it's a thing you wouldn't really do if you were on board with the violence.
I do. Well, the label is different, but recording things that pissed me off about US politics had been a little hobby of mine for over a decade. Call me crazy but that helps me being less pissed off about them, kind of therapy if you will. I don't often re-read them but sometimes I do. [...] And when you repeatedly say that you haven't seen or noticed things that I witnessed to happen - either in person or by reading contemporary reports about them as they were happening, and I know that they happened, then I know whatever you read it's not enough to keep you informed.
But do you keep a record of everything that pissed off other people? And second of all, you're missing a big thing here. I did not say I had never read those stories. I said that I do not know which stories you are referencing, which can also mean that I have read those stories but I am not remembering or not making the connection of what you are referring to.
People with guns tell protestors to stop all the time, and protestors ignore them all the time. If that led to killings each time, all Portland antifa would be dead already, and most of other leftist militants were too. It's not how it works though - except in one single case. In the case where this person posed absolutely no immediate danger to the people with guns or anybody else - and was actually surrounded by people with guns, and people much stronger than her (5'2" woman) who were able to subdue her in seconds without any danger to themselves.
During your average protest, the police's goal is to prevent violence towards other people, and if they can arrest someone causing property damage without triggering the mob or leaving a formation that needs to hold, do so. During this particular protest, the goal was to protect a specific group of people that the mob was moving towards. The police had to back off before, and now the mob is getting close. They don't know what Babbitt will do, and they don't know what the group of people behind her will do. But if she goes through, more will follow.
It was easy to prosecute, especially because all the FBI and all the surveillance network (including financial companies, cell companies, etc.) have been mobilized to hunt those horrible criminals - old women that walked in "restricted area". But it wasn't the right thing to prosecute, and it was absolutely horrible injustice in the way it was done. And it was done on purpose - they were prosecuted with maximal effort and maximal cruelty specifically because this was to send the message - the left can do such things any time they want, but the right is not allowed it. There is no symmetry, there is no equality, and the right must be put in their place.
Even if a prosecutor wanted to, it's very difficult to make a case out of someone being on the street in Kenosha when a protest happened. It's easy to prove that they didn't have the right to be in the Capitol building. It absolutely was the right thing to prosecute. First of all you argue that the left should be punished. Sorry, but the government does not operate on "you can't prosecute a murderer unless you prosecute all murderers equally." Either you did it or you didn't. Unsurprisingly the government looks down on actions taken directly aimed at the heads of government.
You know btw who FBI didn't find easy to prosecute, despite lots of cameras? Somebody who placed the pipe bombs at DNC and RNC HQs. Somehow nobody cares about that, and the FBI is absolutely content to let it slide while zealously prosecuting every last grandma and grandpa who walked anywhere near the Capitol. Is this normal?
Don't know enough about that case, but a politically motivated prosecutor certainly would try to find someone who tried to bomb their own HQ, even if said person also attempted to bomb the opposition.
He would say the bank refused to open his account because he was gay? Or the college kicked him out? Or he was attacked by a mob in a restaurant? Or blacklisted by all employers? Which town is that?
Debanked, no. Christian colleges absolutely have kicked out gay people. Attacked by a mob, no, but absolutely hazed at times, sometimes physically, and without facing any consequences. Blacklisted? Can't say but fired, absolutely.
sarker
It isn't happening, and if it is, it's a bad thing
2d ago
This is just a motte and bailey, right?
Bailey: The US needs to avoid going bankrupt. We (well, not we, since functor is not an American) need Trump to take extraordinary measures to achieve this and should trust the plan.
Counter: Trump is only making the debt crisis worse.
Motte: It's actually impossible to address the debt crisis.
Wait a minute, why are we trusting the plan again?
Capital_Room
rather dementor-like
2d ago
"A Crosslinguistic Investigation of Palatalization," Nicoleta Bateman's 2007 doctoral dissertation.
No leaders needed, just the abstract forces of 'good people' making decisions en masse without being beholden to the fickle, stupid electorate.
It's funny that you say this because this is basically a complete misunderstanding and, really, the exact opposite of the classical liberal worldview that Munger endorses. From another interview:
Michael Munger: Yeah. 'That's not real capitalism. But, what if it's true that, as industries mature, they find that crony capitalism is more profitable in an accounting sense than playing it straight? Then I do this thing that I would criticize in other people. What I will say is, 'Oh, we need better people. All we need is better politicians that don't engage, don't allow this rent seeking.' Or, 'We need better CEOs [Chief Executive Officers].' That's the one thing, Russ, that you know that I cannot say--
Russ Roberts: it's against the rules--
Michael Munger: because the premise is: You cannot say, 'Good people.'
Russ Roberts: Right. 'We need'--our premise, our team, is that incentives matter, institutions matter. And with bad incentives, the best people become corrupted. And with good incentives, not-so-great people do the right thing. So, that's the--right. So you can't say that... Before we go on, I want to read the Milton Friedman quote that came to mind a minute ago, that I think deep and important. He says,
It's nice to elect the right people, but that isn't the way you solve things. The way you solve things is by making it politically profitable for the wrong people to do the right things.
So, the point there is that--the counterpoint to that is that, eventually, the political system is going to be structured by capitalist influence to give out those goodies, so that even good people do the wrong thing.
The classical liberals emphatically do not think that if you just put the right people in the right place then everything will be OK. This is, in fact, the contrary perspective they are arguing against and that you are implicitly defending- that if you just install /ourguy/ in the oval office or as permanent secretary of the department of administrative affairs, or, worst case, if we could just fill the deep state with /ourguy/s then finally we would retvrn to the vaunted glory days.
It's remarkable that 250 years after Adam Smith, the classical liberal worldview is so hard to understand and so easy to round off to the complete opposite. Perhaps this is due to its great success turning it into the water we swim in.
Capital_Room
rather dementor-like
2d ago
Anyone know some ways for a person — one without any particular skills at either coding or handicrafts — to make a few extra bucks online?
The_Nybbler
If you win the rat race you're still a rat. But you're also still a winner.
2d ago
Mu. The government is not too intimidated to act, not in the US. If it were, that would be a failed state.
quiet_NaN
2d ago
Until the 2020 election, Trump's opponents were mostly crying wolf. His first administration was a shit show, but besides putting a few migrant kids into cages, he mostly harmed the reputation of the US.
His election denial changed that. The idea that the vote is generally fair and sacred was previously a universal of US politics. Sure, candidates would sometimes quibble over individual districts with irregularities and might need the SCOTUS to resolve their differences, but at least once a verdict was in, the losing side would accept the result and concede. Trump was the first candidate whose ego could not admit defeat, and his party mostly backed him in his lies. J6 showed that he was not committed to a peaceful transfer of power.
Of course, the Democrats reacted with a lot of lawsuits. Some with merit, some pure lawfare. In his 2nd administration, Trump seems completely free of traditional political advice, instead relying on his clique of yes-men to implement his personal ideas. Previous administrations had the decency to do corruption under a mantle of plausible deniability. With Trump it is ubiquitous and brazen.
The key difference I see is that the government has built-in checks and balances designed to prevent abuse of power, while social movements and mob pressure operate without those same institutional restraints.
While I am reluctant to defend the woke mob, I will also notice that government can do a lot of things that most social movements can not do at scale. The BLM riots happened because local governments were willing to turn a blind eye to rioting rather than employ police violence. So the government should at least get half-credit for them. But a bunch of criminals looting is small fries compared to the kind of damage the federal government can do.
Saying that you are less worried about government because it has checks and balances is like saying that you are less worried about nuclear weapons than you are about knives because nukes need a code to activate them while knives let anyone stab people. Sure, the median crazy killer will murder more people with a knife than a nuke, but if the safety mechanism fails the nuke-wielding crazy will be able to do orders of magnitude more damage.
hydroacetylene
2d ago
Of course it's not evenhanded. There are figures like Ross Douthat who criticize both sides- and they do not have TDS.
faceh
2d ago
Yep.
This is also what the "Deep State" represents, and why liberals can regard the concept with fondness. The thought that there's a whole passel of administrators with specific 'expertise' (lol) in certain governmental functions who are able to act independently of the actual elected Executive is comforting to them. It means the government will putter along on a particular course even if there's a raving lunatic at the helm, they know when to ignore him, when to humor him, and when to take steps to reign him in. It represents the inversion of the hierarchy as it is supposed to exist (i.e. President is the plenary ruler of the executive branch itself) while diffusing responsibility enough that nobody needs to be punished for any given mistake. You all know my thoughts on that.
No leaders needed, just the abstract forces of 'good people' making decisions en masse without being beholden to the fickle, stupid electorate.
Vague guess is that Clinton was the apotheosis of this mindset. She would (intentionally) make very few actual decisions, but would be happy as a figurehead of the ship of state, and would get credit for good things that happen and could generally avoid blame if bad things happened (Goddamn, I STILL remember the Benghazi hearings, she really pretended like her position as SoS did NOT make her accountable for people dying on her watch). They did it with Biden but... well, you need your figurehead to at least look like he's in charge for it to work.
Their honest mistake WAS turning that machinery into a tool for directly resisting Trump 1. That made it way more legible and marked it as an enemy. Whoops.
hydroacetylene
2d ago
People love the king. For unlimited loyalty, declare yourself supreme leader.
Be that as it may, the literal only cuts that would make a difference would have to be to entitlements. Slice the defense budget to ZERO and it wouldn't actually fix the issue.
And reducing entitlements is the political equivalent of navigating a field of nuclear landmines.
And for this same reason, raising taxes would directly imply taking money from productive sectors of the economy to give to the nonproductive sectors. Which is not exactly a formula for growth.
So if you think Trump is not doing enough, please, PLEASE specify exactly which programs he should start making drastic cuts to, and then go and explain to the voters who will see their benefits reduced why this is important and necessary and they SHOULDN'T revolt at the ballot box.
Or, alternatively, explain to the various taxpayers why THEY should be on the hook for programs they generally don't receive a direct benefit from.
Simple problem to solve, I'm sure.
(Incidentally, I suspect that part of the plan RE: Tariffs is to help spread around the tax burden in a way that most Americans won't see as a direct extraction from their wallet, so as to avoid the outrage that would come with congress passing an actual income tax hike)
Capital_Room
rather dementor-like
2d ago
The US can survive with a different form of government.
I know a lot of people — including plenty on the Right — who would deny it, because they'd argue that the United States is its form of government. "Proposition nation" and all that. America is the Constitution; America is the ideals of the Founding Fathers. Wherever those ideals exist, there is America. Whoever believes in those ideals, they are the American People. If maintaining "all procedures and checks and balances" means economic collapse, so be it. If it means entire replacing the "legacy" population with a newly imported one, so be it. If the system of government is at odds with the people living under it, then too bad for the people. The Constitution cannot fail, it can only be failed. "America" the ideal is perfect (some even argue the Founders were divinely-inspired when they wrote the Constitution).
I'm informed by experts that the ponies in MLP are late teens to early 20s. Having never watched any of it seen only a single episode over a decade ago, I really can't speak to the moral messages or role models in the show.
I'm not sure what kids these days are watching so I can't create a table as comprehensive as yours, and I didn't watch too many cartoons as a teenager. But I do seem to remember watching e.g. Teen Titans as a kid and, besides saddling me with a lifelong appreciation for dark haired women, I have a sense that the show had uplifting moral messages, though after all these years of course I don't remember a single plot point.
Imaginary_Knowledge
2d ago
very deep breath
Adopting an exasperated, superior attitude when trying to address pointed and persistent historical inconsistencies isn't doing orthodox historiography any favors.
- But I said it once and I'll say it thrice: why the fuck would you care? "Hitler wanted to kill all the Jews" is not a claim that anyone can dispute with a straight face
Some people care about the truth for its own sake. Insisting that people accept untruths unquestionably offends them even when these untruths are directionally correct. Civilization depends on these people.
Suppose one of these people believes you when you say Hitler wanted to kill all the Jews. He investigates the matter just as he would, say, 19th century British rolling stock or Pokemon exegesis. He discovers something that appears inconsistent. He asks about it. And then, unlike in his entire previous experience, he finds his questions generate neither indifference nor answers, but hostility and outright censorship. He comes to understand this subject is a third rail.
What you don't appreciate is that this person doesn't then back down and go back to obsessing over trains. He seeks understand why this subject is a third rail. He finds Irving. He finds internet witch dens. And he comes to understand, rightly or wrongly, that the entire narrative is bullshit.
Is that the outcome you want? Shutting down investigations into "well, how many actually died in the gas chambers?" out of a paranoid sense of a need to exert narrative control makes the whole narrative unravel.
That's where we are now. A lot of people doubt not only the six million figure and the gas chambers but the whole fucking story, and it's the fault of people who used every dirty wordcel trick in the book to prevent truth seekers doing their thing.
And you know what? That's a damn shame in the case the holocaust narrative is mostly correct, because it plays directly into the hands of its perpetrators. Good job.
Capital_Room
rather dementor-like
2d ago
Personally I think what terrifies a certain class of people about Trump is just that he seems actually interested in wielding power, and has, I dunno, 'agentic' behavior when he does it.
I've talked multiple times over on Tumblr — particularly this longer post about how modern liberalism (or at least the strain typified by Michael Munger in the interview linked at that post) is about opposition to exactly that. To quote Munger:
Liberalism is the actual belief that no one should be in charge… Even I, if I have the chance to be in charge, I should say no, no one should be in charge. Because anyone who’s in charge, it’s like the Ring of Sauron; it will turn you, and it will make you evil.
And as I put it in my post:
…so much of the West has so thoroughly internalized this distrust of human authority that they can no longer even conceive the idea of a good leader, and are deathly afraid of taking charge of anyone or anything — a deep terror of responsibility, of exercising leadership.
And I'd argue it's why so many opponents of Trump, right and left, struggle to find any vocabulary to describe why people follow Trump beyond "cult of personality" — because they've so internalized Weberian rationalization and this liberal view that they can't really even recognize actual human leadership as anything but some kind of pathology.
Could try having a look at the pinned threads and top scoring posts from the last year in /r/beermoney. Seems like people are claiming anything from $50 to $1000 per month, and I imagine it all entails grinding your way through endless hoops.
More options
Context Copy link