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Apartheid is almost universally derided. But was it better for South Africa? This is a variation of the Ian Smith argument.

It was clearly better for the whites. Perhaps it was better for the non whites (less crime, better functioning government).

It raises the question of what the purpose of government is (ie is it about creating a good life or is it about self determination). If the latter, then what is the SA argument against allowing the Boers to form their own separate country. There isn’t even the anti colonialism argument.

Yep, make some sort of paid "Minimalist Phone UI plus timed app/website blocker" if you can program.

If you have the start-up capital, make a clubhouse. I think the trick to making a third space is to make it so that you don't have to pay every time you visit. Something with a monthly or even annual fee. Keep costs down by encouraging patrons to clean up after every event. Maintain a few vending machines, offer free clean water.

Have bookshelfs with a "take a book, leave a book behind" kind of policy. Board games, cards, a kitchen playset for young kids. Have scheduled learning/crafting events, but encourage people to come in even if there's nothing going on. Maybe have sex-segregated areas if you can manage.

Gyms aren't really pleasant places to linger. Coffee Shops and Bars become expensive if you visit every day and they aren't suitable for a whole family.

A lot of European leftist politicians will know of him and have read at least some of what he’s written. That’s not a huge amount of influence but probably more than most successful philosophers have in the 21st century.

The most influential modern philosophers among politicians will be neolibs with very mainstream books like Stephen Pinker. But that’s questionable ‘influence’ really.

you could probably do well creating something to re-orient gen z people into healthier directions.

You need to teach them to want.

Yeah I agree I don’t think there are major issues with regular nicotine consumption from vapes. One of the few smart policy decisions from the UK in recent years is allowing large scale advertising of vaping which I think has contributed to the decline in smoking. Vaping is essentially harmless as far as I’m aware, fears of health issues were always overblown.

Has Zizek ever put out any idea that had any tangible effect on the real world?

You could ask the same question about the majority of academics in both the humanities and STEM and the answer would be "no". So it's not a very interesting question.

That being said, Zizek is reasonably well-connected and is e.g. friends with Yanis Varoufakis, the former finance minister of Greece, so I wouldn't be surprised if he influenced the thinking of someone in power at some point.

It’s impossible to outrun a bear should it decide it wants to hurt you.

That's why we are not calling it by its secret name, Arth, we'd all be attacked before we could finish typing our post on the Mott----

I think honestly, you could probably do well creating something to re-orient gen z people into healthier directions. I’ve personally found a philosophy of Stoicism mixed with secular Buddhism to be helpful for me, and I suspect such a thing mixed with proper socialization and physical activity as a sort of “adult summer camp” experience could not only make you a fair amount of money, but help to make them and by extension the rest of society a bit healthier.

Agreed, "stuck in the woods with" sounds like a "Most Dangerous Game" situation. "Stuck on a deserted island" prompts the listener to think of cooperation.

Good to know, thanks! I can now recall a specific time it was invoked against me, ages and ages ago on the old subreddit, but I haven't noticed it come up since then.

That's hardly surprising, or else we wouldn't have so many people offing themselves from COPD or lung cancer. Though the claim is that there are additional substances in cigarettes that are addictive in of themselves, or potentiate the addictive properties of nicotine.

At least in my case I can claim it was an informed decision, I don't really have many vices, and I did come to the conclusion that if vaping is bad for you, it's an order of magnitude or less so than getting your fix through cigarettes. Certainly it's gotten me through some real stinker shifts, with far less hassle. And just nicotine, by itself? Unless you're some poor bastard with diabetes so bad your toes are liable to fall off, it's not really any worse for you than coffee is. I wouldn't call it a nootropic, but it at least lets you choose when to be at your 110%, paid back by the fact that you're 90% when not on it.

I'm ashamed both of the fact that activity level was enough to cause an injury...

Any level of activity is enough activity to cause an injury if you try hard and believe in yourself!

After casting my eyes down a bit, I see @Rov_Scam already said the same thing, but seriously, it's true. Similarly to Rov, I have the experience of being perfectly fine for 65 miles/week of running for an extended stretch, then tweaking my back getting out of bed in the morning. I ran a marathon on Sunday and the thing that hurts the most today is the shin that I slammed into the corner of the bed at the hotel last night. I will never cease being amazed at the capacity of the human body to simultaneously be durable to incredible insult while being frail to the slightest twist or bonk.

Yes, there's certainly an argument that a well-fed and generally fit European female has less to fear from many of the individual males of certain populations on a sheer physical prowess angle, compared to most grown bears. If she can run faster and further that's all she really needs.

I can understand why that argument ("those men can't rape you, they're too small/weak") wouldn't be comforting in this context, though.

Fine, yeah. But consider how many times the Soviet Union used extremely harsh measures to try to eradicate ethnic identity and still failed at doing so. Nothing is guaranteed. But the option is still better than either (a) fighting impotently and getting crushed or (b) doing nothing and guaranteeing failure.

Again, the only alternative is coup-complete and in that case the far right just doesn’t have the necessary amount of elite human capital versus the center and left as Tracing and others have (in my opinion) persuasively argued.

Thanks, I got the book and I'll check it out.

I didn't realize there was an update, thanks for letting me know

You can't be all those things in the US census system. You can only choose one. It's only Hispanic that's a both ethnicity instead of a race.

That's why Hanania is calling it obviously artificial.

Edit: as /u/toakraka said, that's old news and they've updated the system to reflect less artificial categories. It's still somewhat arbitrary though.

Generic statement, I don't spend enough time here to form an image of any individual poster.

Also not meant to be a fully exhaustive answer, just an example of things that can be done. I don't think I need to repeat what other people have said, they have already said it far better than I can.

The Jews waited 2000 years.

And how many other minority groups ended up assimilating and dying out? There's a survivorship bias here.

But if you have a tight knit group, with money, that practices endogamy, that produces children,

That's a lot of "ifs." Especially the money part, these days; but also endogamy (few manage it, and are often under suspicion, save maybe the Hasidim — who have the advantages of being Jewish — and the Amish — who are seen as "quaint" and harmless) and producing children.

it also allows you to impose your own kind of order on a community,

Only as much as the broader society allows you to.

preserving a space for yourself and people like you

Until the government decides to crush your communities, arrest your leaders, and take and "residential school" indoctrinate/assimilate your children.

Could be a regional/linguistic thing, I haven't been up north to the more Afrikaans parts in quite some time, and most of the Afrikaners I know in the Cape are very Anglicized. Imo it would come across as either pretentious or trying to make some political point if a native English-speaking South African put emphasis on the Afrikaans pronunciation (for a foreigner, of course, it's just "ah, you actually know about South Africa!" South Africans, black and white, tend to be quite happy when people know them as more than a caricature - I've been asked more than once "Oh, South Africa? Where's that?")

Nicotine seems very tough to quit. A lot of people with not hugely addictive personalities who can control their gambling / drinking / weed use / etc seem to very much struggle with it.

Typically some mix of prostitution, protection rackets, recruitment of purposeless young men with non-monetary rewards, carving out parts of state power for yourself, exploiting legacy social structures for creating personal loyalties etc is how others do it.

I don’t have any original ideas but you can try starting from these first principles

I think some form of this is going to be extremely popular. It would have to be sold as affirmation, as about confidence, that kind of thing.

People on the right need to be better at winning the culture war by producing more of their own entertainment.

This might help some, but I doubt its enough. Because the marketplace of ideas doesn't select for truth, but for virulence. Many left wing memes are "cognitive heroin"; however bad they are long-term, too many people will prefer them. The Left's positions is simply more persuasive — or should I say "seductive"? — than the right's.

Start a family.

Far easier said than done in today's environment. And is this section aimed at me personally, or just a generic "you"? Because I'd have different answers each way.

Funnily enough black bears are less dangerous than your average bear while black men are more dangerous than your average man. If this leads to percentages inverting to the point more people end up choosing the man then all I can say is Lol, Lmao even.