domain:kvetch.substack.com
ToaKraka
Dislikes you
just now
Gamblers think that the chance of a third-party victory is a whopping 2.5 percent. (Note, however, that this single number is an aggregation of multiple betting services, whose underlying numbers (available by tapping on or hovering over the Dem. and Rep. party symbols) seem to be all over the place.)
sliders1234
8m ago
What is the dog that didn’t bark here?
They inserted a black character into a Japanese story why? Could they not find a black story tell and have the setting in black civilization.
A fun game would be to get the woke upset that Ubisoft thinks so little of black civilization that they insert black characters into other civs instead of doing a game based on black history.
The anti woke shouldn’t be attacking the cultural appropriation of Japanese culture by inserting Hollywood’s preferred racial balance they should be autistically demanding a black story and accusing Ubisoft of racism for refusing to do that.
2D3D
9m ago
The coopting of leftist language by trump and his toadies is frankly the best part of his presidency. nothing gets me giggling like police going 'did you presume his gender?' when some dangerhair screams defund the police crap at a police officer.
Walterodim
Only equals speak the truth, that’s my thought on’t
9m ago
How many votes will Robert Kennedy Jr receive in the Presidental election? For the most part, this is treated as silly or just a footnote, but he keeps polling at around 10%. This also isn't even that weird - we all know Perot got a ton of votes, but did you know that in 2016 Gary Johnson got 3.28% of the vote? Looking at state-by-state totals, there's a pretty good chance that Johnson flipped Maine, New Hampshire, and Minnesota to Clinton and almost did the same in Michigan and Wisconsin. At no point do I recall him polling anywhere near as high as RFK and he certainly didn't have the name recognition, which makes it entirely plausible to me that something like 10 million people are going to vote for RFK.
netstack
Texas is freedom land
11m ago
Almost finished With the Old Breed. Vivid and chilling. I’d recommend it to anyone interested in war memoirs.
Thank God we don’t have to experience this. I don’t just mean American civilians—I suspect no one on the planet faces such a level of industrialized brutality. Two hundred thousand men crammed into 5 miles of front.
jeroboam
15m ago
My explanation for puzzling CEO behavior.
CEO's don't care about corporate profits or woke politics. What they do care about is status signalling within their elite group. They get more plaudits for woke initiatives than they do for meeting quarterly earnings targets. Therefore, they will purse woke nonsense at the expense of earnings, up to the point where they lose their jobs.
Corporate boards, also caring mostly about intra-elite status games, will give woke-presenting CEOs a long leash before they pull the plug.
However, there is a limiting principle. CEO's with extremely poor performance will lose their job. Being fired is low status so it keeps things from getting too ridiculous.
faceh
16m ago
My working theory which I don't (yet) endorse is that MBA grads and SJWs actually have a lot of aligned incentives.
MBAs come into a company and try to figure out how to broaden their target market beyond whatever core demographic they have established. Regardless of what your company sells, the MBA wants to find a way to sell it to EVERYBODY.
SJWs also have a 'product' they want to sell to 'everybody.' That is, their ideology.
And SJWs can claim to be the ones who can tell the MBAs how to sell beyond their core demo. "If your product isn't selling well to women, it is probably too sexist. If your product isn't selling well to minorities, its probably too racist. If you can't get LGBT folks to buy, your product is too heteronormative. If you denounce the patriarchy and white supremacy and become known as a queer ally, you can reach out to those otherwise unattainable groups who will then buy your product."
An MBA presumably doesn't bother to comprehend the ideology or its goals, but thinks "Ah, we hire extra women, we run some ads that uplift black people, and we start openly celebrating pride and that will kick open new, untapped markets. Lets do it!"
And because SJWs have indeed done the groundwork in prepping the larger society to accept more diversity, this strategy might even pay off in the short term.
In this sense, MBAs and SJWs form a symbiotic team, with both having the similar end goal of achieving 100% market saturation for their product even if it means 'sacrificing' those things that made the product successful to begin with.
quiet_NaN
17m ago
As I see it, conscripted military in a democratic country are the ones who it is least just for someone attacked by that country to retaliate against, because they are coerced into doing what they do and often are not even allowed to leave before completing their service.
Well, draft dodging is a thing in most democratic countries, as few countries provide the kind of coercion which would get people to assist a serial killer.
In my mind, there is a kind of pyramid of responsibility.
On the lowest rug is the taxpayer. Most democratic countries do not wage total wars most of the time, so it is likely that only a small fraction of their productivity goes towards sustaining the war. Intentionally targeting these civilians is generally considered a war crime, but they may become collateral damage.
The next rug are people working full time for the war effort in low end jobs. This includes the conscript but also the person who works in a munitions factory or writes software documentation for killer drones. Killing them during their work seems a legitimate tactic to me.
Then you have the specialists, like fighter pilots, star programmers of smart munitions and so on. I think these might be legitimate subjects of targeted elimination.
Then you have the leadership, like generals and politicians. Legitimate targets.
(Note: I am not a lawyer or ethics expert, please consult with your lawyer and spiritual guidance provider before killing anyone.)
Ideally, you would want to achieve your tactical and strategic goals with minimum loss of life. Practically, the easiest way to neutralize enemy infantry is to shoot them, which is why every army in the world has weapon systems for that purpose. Sometimes (e.g. WWI), the best strategy is to to feed your men into the meat grinder and hope the enemy runs out of people first. Sometimes, it is mostly about taking out high tech materiel or leaders and any grunts killed are only collateral. Sometimes people decide to go for the tax base of their enemy, but we have thankfully agreed that the military benefits are too low to justify the costs in human lives and call these people "war criminals".
I will grant you that if Hamas had killed a thousand IDF conscripts on Oct 7 instead of civilians, that would not have achieved any strategic or tactical goals either. Still, I think the distinction of "unarmed civilians" and "soldiers" forms a very useful Schelling fence.
Is it really that bizarre? As an intuition pump, what does the total morality thing say about obligatory meat consumption? Does the wrongness of the Inuit hunter who tries to kill the walrus to feed his family and the walrus that gores the hunter trying to kill it sum up to >=1? I would consider dodging this question by saying that the walrus can not be a moral subject to be a copout.
I think in that case I might be okay with the outcome of the struggle for life.
If I were a follower of Odin who thinks that battle is good, I might say the warriors of tribes A and B are both totally justified in trying to murder each other, because I like the resulting outcome (war).
Instead, I am a normalish modern Westerner who thinks that modern war is terrible, an inadequate equilibrium to be avoided almost all of the time. There are a small number of cases where war may be justified to remove vast amounts of negative utility, e.g. by liberating Auschwitz. But if the argument for side A being justified hinges on "if they win the war, this will create a better world than if they lose it", then the argument can not be true for both sides at once.
Tophattingson
18m ago
It seems to me that every single one of your arguments again places a convenient cutoff point on history.
I quite deliberately mentioned that you can keep finding earlier original wrongs. "repeat this process for pre-1948 wrongs". The point is that the origin mentioned by OP is definitely incorrect because these earlier wrongs exist.
The 1948 war was preceded by massive Jewish immigration into Palestinian lands
Massive immigration fits most of Europe and Europeans are generally not considered to be entitled to commit random acts of violence.
terrorism by armed groups representing it,
Same.
and them leveraging their ties to the international community to secure support for plans that already amounted to mass expropriations of Palestinians
The housing crisis in many major cities in Europe has this same de facto outcome.
The particular reason why Palestinians are more entitled to engage in unrestrained terror tactics than these groups is that they have been subjected to unrestrained terror tactics first and continuously.
And this would also apply to Israelis, who also believe that they were subjected to unrestrained terror tactics first and continuously. So once again we end up with no special reason why Palestinians are uniquely entitled to do this.
aqouta
19m ago
I think you're onto something with underdog victory being a guiding principle among progressives. It's why they can't accept any framing that they are actually in power. I think shooting this particular victim complex is also one of the genuinely new things about the Trump right as well, it's a very useful combination of memes to have for motivating a group.
marinuso
21m ago
Will Elon throttle me if he finds out I’m short Tesla stock?
You probably meant this as a joke, but I'd be wary of buying a car from a tech company. What happens in X years when they shut the servers down that it wants to connect to? Or what happens if your account gets banned?
Tesla employees have been caught sharing videos from the cameras on the cars. That tells me that a) they can access whatever you can, and b) there isn't much stopping even individual employees screwing around with people's cars, neither in terms of IT security or company culture.
2D3D
25m ago
White leftists writing fiction about black people is basically never going to turn out good, because white leftists worship blacks
They don't worship blacks, they worship the idea of an underdog achieving victory, and the eternal failure that is blacks in america (and frankly most blacks save for certain hyperperforming subgroups like tswana igbo or maybe tutsi) is moral cocaine for leftists. Ask a leftist what blacks cultural values are and you'd get at BEST some southern baptist flavors on a bog standard secular humanist post-race fairytale. That blacks themselves either just want to be left alone like white normies or are violent assholes is never considered; blacks can shout from the rooftops that yakub is evil and leftists will plug their ears to advance a black narrative that no black ever actually elides. Fuck, even bell hooks doesn't spout the weird shit leftists say about blacks, and she's pretty much the sole 'sane' black leftist intellectual.
cae_jones
26m ago
As I recall, the Jamaican Maroons were badass and used the "all look the same" trope to pull some ninja crap in their rebellions. FFS, wouldn't Black Flag have gotten into that general time and region?
Black Panther illustrates that there is/was demand for black people being awesome in their own right, not as a participation trophy in other people's stories. You'd think someone would have picked up on that and done something based on historical black badasses. Instead, they tried making a movie about a notoriously atrocious slavemongery kingdom as though they were the exact opposite, and when that failed, shrugged and went back to the cultural colonialism treatment.
zeke5123a
28m ago
The question is why does it seem ubiquitous. And maybe it is because leftist culture is the culture of PMC.
hanikrummihundursvin
40m ago
And? Douglas Murray also exists. Fielding a similar point of view. His wiki page is filled with a similarly long list of 'controversial comments'. None of them go against the bigger elements of the white mans burden. All of them hold to the typical conservative ideals of 'family values are the reason the browns are the way they are' or 'Islam is the problem'. If they even stepped a foot near total expulsion of the brown or flirted openly with the ideas you have entertained their heads would be on a spike.
This is a feature of the culture War I'm seeing more and more. Proxy battles that few people care deeply about but have features that make them better or worse to do battle on. This game seems like favorable terrain from the woke angle and it's tempting to just give them it but I understand the impulse to fight on the terrain anyways.
Not engaging and being critical is a default victory for the minoritarian/woke supporters. Does this means you are obligated to take part in the culture wars? Well, kind of. Like it or not, those who show up are those who win. Disengagement is not a neutral position but helps the aggressive side making moves that doesn't want criticism. It is of course very understandable for someone not to want to debate such issues, but I wouldn't praise disengagement as a good attitude.
In general, a good society only exists and works when people comprising it are sharing good moral values as priors and work together based on that shared ground. And even then, even if the majority has good moral principles organized minorities who have captured sufficient power can infringe on the values of the majority. Maybe part of sufficiently good morals includes controlling such issues without going off the rails.
I am increasingly of the view that we need antiwoke industry regulations to stop such things and force on institutions, including private corporations to have to show some level of sensitivity that goes against the progressive stack. Or making quotas in favor of progressive stack groups downright illegal and if not large fines, perhaps even harsher criminal penalties. Including rnforcing laws in the book that already would stop this agenda. Of course the end point wouldn't be no black guys or women ever, or zero cultural appropriation ever, sorry anyone wishing this, but there should be penalties for excessive cultural appropriation, or trying to stack the deck with progressive stack diversity.
Nor can say Japanese be expected to not have mainly Japanese characters. I would say that it is understandable for nations to promote more of their own culture, but not understandable to have to shoe horn an excess of progressive associated demographics, or protagonists where they shouldn't be under such goals. I don't know exactly where the lines should be put, but I am firmly confident that it would be better if there were such lines against the woke/intersectionalists, provided an attempt of being reasonable about it is made.
On the tally we can add:
Loss of freedom of those who want to push the woke agenda. A sacrifice I am very willing to make.
More freedom for those working in companies, journalism, etc, who want to dissent from this but can't.
Fairer arrangement for actors, including voice actors.
Greater historical accuracy and even respect of mythos that are related to specific people. For example Japanese semi mythological settings, or Lord of the Rings which are related to particular peoples.
Greater quality as checkbox diversity isn't prioritized.
Better options for the people don't like woke content who outnumber those who do.
Enforcing a good general principle and eroding an ideology that is not isolated in media but from double standards there and elsewhere can and will lead to greater discrimination and further slippery slope dangers.
aardvark2
52m ago
and sports (or sport-like skills such as juggling).
heavy athletics and marathon running are very antagonistic
netstack
Texas is freedom land
53m ago
No, the day job is American enough.
My family has been in the Carolinas since the 1700s. We’re pretty firmly integrated.
functor
53m ago
The initial religions were people worshiping local natural phenomena, such as a pile of rocks. As city states arose, we got local pantheon gods who sit in the local palace/temple and exert power over the local community. As Rome became an empire, it became too hard to have gods that were too Roman to be gods for the known world. Therefore, Catholicism arose as a more universal religion. The same thing happened in the Middle East with Islam. Islam allows for a billion people to follow it, previous religions couldn't.
As the church lost its power, we started to get more localized forms of religion in Protestantism where the power was shipped to the bourgeoisie, who could now read the bible in a way that fit them. The power structure became north-western European merchants.
After WWII the US became a global empire and needed a global religion. Evangelicalism is too particular to WASPs for an empire that covers most of the globe. They needed a far more universalist ideology. Human rights which morphed into wokeness is the perfect imperialist american ideology. It is extremely generic, easy to follow and preaches that we are just random individuals who happened to be born a certain way. We can be whatever gender we want and there are no groups. We are all just consumers in a world which we are allowed to consume whatever product or identity we want. The US military exists to ensure we can all be liberated from any cultural context or organic social structures.
Black people in Japan are a part of this. There is no Japanese culture, history or people. Japanese people are not a collective. They are just a bunch of players who happened to be spawned in that corner of the empire and can easily more around and be exchanged for another group. Ubisoft's ideology reflects the imperial ideology. As for profitability, they are far more profitable than building giant mosques and cathedrals was.
aardvark2
56m ago
Building ice is easy, why it's not used already? What about building codes? Small ice houses would require large per unit costs, and large would be potentially illegal. ... I happen to live in a place where avergage yearly temp is +2C and nobody is doing that
netstack
Texas is freedom land
56m ago
Go for it. Nothing wrong with having the extra data, and I believe it’s actually more important than the (directional) volunteer sorting.
This falls into the famous preference cascade
My rules. In this case, race blindness.
Your rules, enforced fairly. In this case, all races are treated as protected classes.
Your rules, enforced unfairly. In this case, white people are uniquely disrespected. Black people, uniquely sanctified. Everyone else, somewhere in between.
I prefer 1, then 2, then 3.
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