domain:nfinf.substack.com
FiveHourMarathon
Wawa Nationalist
3d ago
Might have been, I just know it wasn't a factor in 2003
MadMonzer
Temporarily embarrassed liberal elite
3d ago
At least in the Anglosphere, the public support State funding of political parties (which is the alternative) even less. In the past, you could probably have reduced the cost of politics by restricting the ability of FCC-regulated broadcast media to accept paid political ads (this is how the UK kept the cost of politics down) but that is increasingly irrelevant in the modern media landscape.
HereAndGone
3d ago
he seems to think that the Right is full of people who haven't done such work and fail to see just how awful it is
No, he doesn't. He doesn't mention "I worked such jobs/older family members worked such jobs, I know how shitty they are", he just goes on about "fetishing" working with your hands and makes little to no mention of the left fetishing the trash culture of people of colour or the like. And if he did talk about "black trash culture" there are plenty who would hop on him for that.
I wish, once and for all, Alexander would give a clear statement of his exact position, because all I'm left with is the impression overall that "ugh, poor people, how disgusting; they have too many babies as it is, they should all be contracepted and aborted into extinction so aspiring strivers like myself can ascend to our proper place on the socio-economic class ladder and not be confused with the mudblood milieu out of which we unfortunately arose; those damn pro-lifers are getting in the way of exterminating the eugenically unfit".
Lizzardspawn
3d ago
Those who have been left behind by the media are not going to be easy to convince that modern TV shows are now worth watching.
They devour everything that Tylor Sheridan shits out. Btw - one has to wonder why he is rarely praised as a feminist, when he has the best written and not annoying female characters around.
thejdizzler
3d ago
You ever flip a coin to help you make a decision and end up figuring out the choice you wanted to make independent of the outcome? Tarot is basically like that. It helps me figure out what I'm subconsciously thinking about a certain problem.
KMC
3d ago
The last time a republican served on that district JFK was still alive, but not President. White liberals sent her to Congress, but African Muslims sent her to the general election.
I don't think your debunk is worth anything. It's too lazy to take seriously, and you've already been corrected once.
a lot of what the anti-immigrant Right habitually blames on immigrants is actually done by white liberals.
The men of my own stock,
Bitter bad they may be,
But, at least, they hear the things I hear,
And see the things I see;
And whatever I think of them and their likes
They think of the likes of me.
Totalitarianit
3d ago
The medical accuracy and fast-paced intensity of the show are really good. After watching a good portion of this season, I ended up going back to the old ER from the 1990s and 2000s and watched several seasons. There's a lot of nostalgia and good accuracy with series as well, which I enjoyed, but I noticed the same sort of progressive lecturing in the 1990s ER episodes as I did in the The Pitt. I've come to realize over recent years that social lecturing is heavily baked into a lot of these mainstream shows. It's incredibly powerful and influential.
The side effect of this realization it is that I am quick to dismiss any new series or movies wherein I catch a whiff of this sort of presentist lecturing. Even though I recognize the moral framework and lecturing of older 1980s and 90s shows and movies, it aligns more with how I view the world so I can tolerate a certain amount of it. I find the current progressive ideological force-feeding in entertainment to be insufferable though. I understand that society moves on and changes, and that some of my frustration is just a natural reaction to entertainment no longer appealing to my age group, but I also think this era of film entertainment is objectively terrible when it comes to the hit:miss ratio.
Big budget film companies adhere to certain formulas that will turn a profit, while the only real social risks taken in big films is the left-leaning. The latter isn't new but the type of leftwing ideology being pushed is. To add insult to injury, these large production companies churn out something like 6 superhero/comic book films per year at about $200m per film, along with a biopic or two that are well done, but not really worthy of the praise they typically get. Smaller studios like A24 are promising, but they too are unfortunately captured by the same progressive ideology that has consumed every Western institution on the planet. There are still some diamonds in the rough (Top Gun: Maverick), but it is mind-numbing how widespread and pervasive this sort of progressive lecturing has become.
JarJarJedi
3d ago
US demands to know what allies would do in event of war over Taiwan
Express grave concern? Maybe even issue a strongly-worded letter of condemnation.
HereAndGone
3d ago
Right now, yes, but the price of meat is rising and who can forecast what things will be like in ten to twenty years time?
MadMonzer
Temporarily embarrassed liberal elite
3d ago
In this case I don't doubt that Epstein was molesting children, but the supposed intelligence connections could be embarrassing for rather unrelated reasons ("reveals methods").
Sources and methods is a very obvious issue. It would be embarrassing to admit that the NSA had tapped Prince Andrew's phone, and compromising to say how they did it. It would be even more embarrassing to admit that the CIA and Mossad are spying on each other like they are in MAD magazine.
HereAndGone
3d ago
It's not that he's biased against 'the right', it's that he has a demonstrable animus against those he considers lower-class, and that includes people who would work for a living (see his snobby remarks about manual labour).
That's anywhere from 30-46% of the American population, depending on definition and self-identification as such. That includes people who do the kinds of things that support Alexander in his lifestyle as Elite Human Capital:
The majority of working-class workers work in services. 78 percent of the working class works in services, with 12.8 percent working in construction, 8.3 percent working in manufacturing, and less than 1 percent working in agriculture.
Alexander may well think Vivre? les serviteurs feront cela pour nous but what are you going to do, when you dismiss 30% of your working population as beneath notice or dignity? The AI serfbots are not quite here just yet. Have you any right to be surprised then, when the people you have mocked vote for a demagogue and a populist? Will you take any responsibility for driving people away?
JarJarJedi
3d ago
Israeli-linked ringleaders and elements arrested in southwestern Iran, says Iran's news agency
Through vigilant efforts, Iranian security and judicial authorities have identified and arrested several individuals connected to opposition groups who were operating in line with the enemies’ aims, Vahid Mousavian said.
Quite clear those have zero to do with Israel, just local dissidents rounded up. They can't even bring themselves to claim those actually are Israeli agents, just "operating in line with aims", which is pretty much any opposition to the current regime.
thejdizzler
3d ago
I'm quite partial to the Rider-Waite deck, but I also got one of my friends an Odyessian Tarot based on Greek mythology that I perhaps like better. He ended up buying the Rider-Waite deck as well, so maybe not a ringing endorsement.
mrvanillasky
Indo Aryan Thot Leader
3d ago
Happy birthday!
Thanks big guy
At the age of 25, you're at your physical and cognitive peak, and it's all downhill from here. Your mind slows down, though your productivity is kept up by knowledge/wisdom compensating for decreased fluid intelligence. Your body slows down, becomes weaker and frailer, but this can be temporarily alleviated with exercise and a fastidious attitude towards your health.
Temporary alleviation is alright though, you do decline but its not as much or in all areas. Jonathan Blow is 52 and is as youthful and as productive as ever. Human life is a fight with entropy and a journey towards union with the divine, everyday I get to do both and I will be okayish till 30, 35-40 does feel different.
Don't worry, it doesn't become obvious until about a decade later. The initial slope of the decline is gentle, you can make a good picnic on that plateau.
Yep, and man's not meant to grow old while the sun shines on his back. I have a decade left, and I look forward to becoming the man I am supposed to be. It's good to be alive and healthy, I feel grateful in a non-phoney sense. You live only once. Everything ends, best enjoy it whilst it lasts.
TheAntipopulist
Formerly Ben___Garrison
3d ago
If making a statement about a group that could be considered negative is mean then you can never have any discussions about anything.
I broadly agree with this sentiment and think the rule should be relaxed a bit in general. But under the current status quo, if the moderators of this forum insist it should have a bad rule no matter what, it should at least be enforced consistently.
I think Sloot's post is closest to being at the same level of badness as Turok's post.
The modal chick’s interests and hobbies consist of consooming, painting her face, taking selfies, and teeheeing around in skimpy outfits
vs
conservatism is increasingly the ideology of uneducated people and those who went to third-rate universities
Your statement here:
You can challenge this statement. Is Sloot wrong? It could be implied sloot thinks the modal chick is dumb but sloot doesn't actually make that statement.
Can be applied symmetrically to Turok's post. You could challenge Turok's post through a discussion on education polarization if you wanted to. You could have anecdotes pointing in one direction, but the data consistently points in another, at least for now: the higher your education, the more likely you are to vote Democratic.
But correctness of these points isn't really the issue. The issue is that it's framed in a somewhat antagonistic light for both of these posts. A right-wing poster might see Turok's post and assume he thinks Republicans are all retards who support stupid things because they're stupid, while a left-wing poster would probably be closer to saying "he's just making a neutral point about which side tends to go to college more".
SkoomaDentist
3d ago
Back in the reddit times, the only truly consistent thing was that a large majority of The Motte user base was anti-woke.
HereAndGone
3d ago
No, that was rhetorical exaggeration, but based off cases like this from eight years back:
In a sworn statement, Barry O’Kelly said while conducting research for the programme he came across an advert on Facebook in Portuguese advertising rental accommodation at 79 Old Kilmainham Road.
Prices of €30 per night, €100 per week and €350 per month were quoted.
As a monthly figure had been quoted he said he did not believe the accommodation being offered constituted short-term accommodation and the property was being advertised to the public at large and not simply students.
O’Kelly said he and an undercover reporter, known as Mary, viewed the property.
It appeared to be like a hostel, and was packed with bunk beds capable of sleeping 40 people in three bedrooms.
One bedroom had 16 beds, while other bunkbeds were located in the corridor.
He said the undercover reporter paid €200 in advance for two weeks accommodation.
mrvanillasky
Indo Aryan Thot Leader
3d ago
Pai, Thailand, unsurprisingly.
My startup LARP, where I went along with people despite having zero skills or money, was fucking with my head. I knew that I had to quit and start learning real things from scratch. Pai felt alive, it's not a real place. I felt like a child in a massive sandbox of a summer camp, surrounded by people my age who wanted to have fun. I did drugs, consumed liquor, met girls, and made friends.
My head was at peace. Throughout my life, the mistakes of my past always resulted in a negative feedback loop; I could never fully relax. Everyone around me had a perception that I wanted to maintain and behaving differently in any way would get me judged, not there. People did not care. My last post on my previous account (practical_romantic) or the first ones here are about my week there.
A creepy pajeet I met by chance in Chiang Mai told me to to go there as he saw me gaming in the clubs there and asked me to go there since getting laid there was easier, I spoke with my then founder who was footing both our bills since he had a good rmeote job and he encouraged me to go there, I did not expect that and went along, he gave 10k baht even though i wanted to just take 2, that 10k lasted me a full week.
I did not get laid there, I got close, but I experienced a level of aliveness I have never before or since, by the end, I really did not care about getting laid. I met the two Danish girls and shared some things that I cannot disclose. Living out a lot of fun stories that are bizarre even for movies. Meeting that girl who pulverised my obsession with my oneitis, microdosing acid, doing mushrooms with two girls and the rest of that incident.
By the middle of the week, I could not stop smiling. I would wake up drunk or high and experienced life to the fullest. The place is magical, I feel torn about it since it also made me aware of the temporary nature of existence. Everyone I met there was only in my life for a short time, unlike people who i have a lot of memories with, these people are very transient. There is a saying that you cannot step into a river twice. If I go again, I would meet different people, and that is alright because there are many out there who I would have a lot of fun with since time passes by, a day or a decade are the some once they are gone. I got to be in the memories of people who helped me have a fun time.
Leo DiCarpios or rather Danny Boyle's beach makes sense to me now that I did something similar. Pai is an amazing awesome youthful hedonistic hippie paradise. My direction in life is directed mostly by yogic teachings that you internalise or at least are aware of, to experience something that is so different from it and come out of it alright was fun. I hope to visit it soon, someday, once my sabbatical is done and I have something valuable locked in. I feel grateful about life because most people I know never experience what I could, god is kind. I don't want to bum around or anything long term lol, it's good for the heart to do it occasionally.
The_Nybbler
In the game of roller derby, women aren't just the opposing team; they're the ball.
3d ago
If you want to be incredibly pedantic about race not existing, fine, let me rephrase: race is fundamentally incapable of being defined with any kind of real rigor. Happy?
This is just setting yourself to move the goalposts so any definition isn't rigorous enough.
We still have to recognize that (the modern idea of) race has more of the properties of a social construct than it does the properties of some innate, rigorous, underlying biological truth.
No, we don't. There are alternatives to this, such as "race is an inherited physical, biological phenomenon which is written into our every bone and tissue".
MadMonzer
Temporarily embarrassed liberal elite
3d ago
I thought it was after the first conviction in 2008.
Primaprimaprima
...something all admit only "TRUMP", and the Trump Administration, can do.
3d ago
I was just using rightist as a synonym for anti-woke. Because I think that’s basically the most salient definition of “rightist” in the West today. Some people will say that true rightism means neo-monarchism, or tradcathism, or whatever, but what actually matters most on a day to day basis and what determines how you interact with people and how well you integrate into various social spaces is how woke you are.
KMC
3d ago
It's not credit I care about, it's ownership. These people are not American, will never become American, and ought not be citizens nor voters.
As for Asians, if not even material success can prevent them from opportunistic anti-american, anti-white attitudes, then what hope do we have for the less successful races?
I'll give the east and southeast Asians credit where due: I vastly prefer them to Africans, Indians, and Mestizos of various countries. One reason is they have given their children English names like Emily or Grant or Michelle or Christopher. Another is their relative lack of criminality.
I still don't want them outnumbering Americans in America.
aldomilyar
3d ago
Yeah but recent immigrants are very literally mobile towards wherever suits them and know the right buttons to press in terms of media representation. Where was this hypothetical black American conscript going to bail off to? Europe was a complete mess at the time, people were fundamentally far less mobile.
CrispyFriedBarnacles
3d ago
I'm pretty sure there's a fascinating generational divide at play in things like this.
Here's my folk theory on that. Because of the particular circumstances Boomers were born into, many of the more artistic ones were raised in a much more conservative environment, then had a massive crisis of faith / trust / belief in the late 60s through the 70s, and then had to figure out a way to reintegrate themselves into society and make art about it. And because of that, whatever their other flaws, they were often VERY good at making entertainment that could talk to actual moderates and conservatives, because in many cases, they were the black sheep who had charted an overt path away from where they had started. They were the prodigal sons, but when they returned, they intended to remake culture with what they had found.
If you were a conservative, trying to maintain a traditional culture, these people were like the pied piper of Hamelin. They were really good at targeting younger members of your home communities, seductively you might say. They were legitimately good at representing things you recognized while also undermining it with a certain kind of criticism or nuance, at their best. Or even when they were provoking, they were good at signaling that they were provoking from within a shared tribe, so to speak.
Gen X didn't have the formative experience of the draft, and they grew up in the shadow of both this artistic explosion as well as the backlash, the stagflation of the 70s, and the rise of the religious right, and the cold war of the 80s. They saw the huge excesses of the divorce revolution and the drug culture and AIDS as-it-was-experienced and various miserable, alienating radical activist movements. They were, perhaps, particularly attuned towards cynicism about politics and messy ambiguity in art as a result. The best Gen X (at least when they were young) was often provocative, knowing exactly how to needle a conservative majority, but rarely preachy... (although if I go back and listen to, say, Eddie Vedder now, I can recognize the west coast SJW inclinations there the whole time). And also, the left of center counter culture got stomped down so incredibly hard in the 80s that they legitimately recognized themselves as outsiders, a kind of marginalized dissent. And Gen X got irony.
I think (when it comes to art and communication), everything kind of went to hell with the combination of the collapse of conservatism in the George W Bush years, the rhetorical success of, especially, Jon Stewart, and the messianic rise of Obama. Because it ushered in a kind of generational change, and that meant that a lot of the Millennials, especially, developed their early political identities during the Bush years and then experienced a conversion experience with Obama, all while internalizing the worst elements of Jon Stewart's frequent stance of "we, the smart ones, don't even need to refute the arguments of these moral monsters and intellectual imbeciles, and so we will use a condescending sneer at them instead". And I mean, I liked that tone during the Bush years too - it was very fun and self-satisfying. But it mixes with thoughtful art really, really poorly, it doesn't do nuance or ambiguity, and it really only works when you're preaching to the choir. And once Obama swept it, it turned out that being against something legitimately lousy was easy mode, and when you're for things (like high speed rail in California, or a really aggressive trans agenda), and you leave a giant trail of wreckage in your wake, sneering at your opponents simply isn't enough. That doesn't persuade. It doesn't take reality seriously, or your own failures. Everything that made those messy dissident Boomers so effective had dried up. And I really do think radically different life experiences played a major role here. I think there's an ugly tendency in modern progressive culture broadly for people to want to feel as though they are both, at once, the eternal put upon victims and dissidents of power, while also the natural experts, the aristocratic power that stands in perpetual judgement due to intellectual merit and thus moral merit. And... that just really sucks for sophisticated art. And then the radicalization that happened in the lead up to Trump has just made everything vastly worse, of course. I've noted it before, but the run up to the 2016 election was the first time in my life that I had EVER seen artistically cooler, non-cringe media from Republicans than Democrats. It felt, at the time, like that was an important bellwether of something.
I've seen Freddie de Boer bemoan what he calls the "We are already decided" stance (or something like that). I think if you're in communities that have already adopted that stance, it becomes very difficult to make sophisticate, nuanced art that can reach out to people with other life experiences.
I remember early on in cancel culture Chris Rock (I think) talking about how he couldn't play colleges anymore. And he had some statement that was like, "You can't be wrong anymore on your way to being" - suggesting, I think, that even if you were going to tell a joke that ended up with an approved morality, you weren't allowed to even play around rhetorically with the unapproved morality, or give it is due, or take it serious, as a rhetorical technique before ending up where you were supposed to. I think I'm paraphrasing that roughly right. And I think (if I am) that that captured some of the specific tension I find so interesting here.
I haven't seen this show, but all the praise being lavished on it makes me go "Really? Do none of you remember the likes of St. Elsewhere, for example, which also trod this path of 'slice of life reality in a hospital serving lower economic area'?"
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