domain:kvetch.substack.com
Skibboleth
11mo ago
Many have remarked how the cosmopolitan product manager/twitterati of New York, Toronto and Paris are much more similar to each other than they are to the Freedom Convoy, Gilets Jaunes or Dutch farmers dropping manure in highways and vice-versa.
Is this actually true? Or is its appearance just a consequence of contentious proximity? It might be easier for a New Yorker to get along with a Parisian than an Alabaman, but in some respects that's because they have less in common. French politics are inconsequential to the NYer, French culture a curiosity. People from Alabama and New York share a government and have to fight over how the pie gets divvied up, what the drug store can actually sell, and whether being gay is going to be illegal or mandatory.
Walterodim
Only equals speak the truth, that’s my thought on’t
11mo ago
While anyone that's done the work knows that the construction of scientific papers is more than a little post hoc, I think you can get the idea for what I think science should look like from reading a typical paper in the Journal of Biochemistry or Journal of Immunology with a focus on the results sections. Yes, there is something that can be described as descriptive commentary, but the work typically follows the flow of hypothesis->experiment->result, which subsequent figures building on the previous result. Of course, people can and do draw incorrect inferences, run pointless experiments that don't test what they think they're testing, make statistical mistakes, and so on, but there really is an effort to get at the base physical reality of what's going on. I do not see similar patterns of genuinely hypothesis-driven work in the vast majority of social "science" papers, with the worst of it coming in major sociology journals that read more like fancy editorials than actual science.
Tarnstellung
11mo ago
OK, let me raise you this human-made art, which someone has happily vandalized (an intolerable abuse as far as Emmanuel Macron is concerned): https://twitter.com/karlitozero/status/1655510062335492098
I thought this one was weird at first, but I looked into it and found this:
In response to a petition by several voluntary organisations, the urgent applications judge of the Conseil d’État found today that the display of the painting “Fuck abstraction!" at the Palais de Tokyo, a venue dedicated to contemporary design, does not seriously and unlawfully harm the best interests of the child or the dignity of the human person. It found, firstly, that measures have been taken to deter access by minors and, secondly, that explanatory notices along the access path give the painting the meaning intended by Miriam Cahn, denouncing rape in Ukraine.
Voluntary organisations had appealed against the ruling of the urgent applications judge of the administrative court of Paris, who had dismissed their petition for an order to remove the painting “Fuck abstraction!” by the artist Miriam Cahn, displayed in the Palais de Tokyo, on the grounds that it depicted the rape of a child by an adult and could be seen by minors.
The Conseil d’État firstly observed that Palais de Tokyo had surrounded access to the painting with precautions intended to keep unaccompanied minors away from it and deter adults accompanied by minors. Two security guards are placed at the entrance and in the room and a mediator is always present near the painting.
The hearing and exhibits also demonstrated that the artist's only intention was to denounce a crime. The judge pointed out that information labels were placed along the path leading to the work. This contextual information gives the work the meaning intended by Miriam Cahn. The sign placed in the centre of the room indicates that the painting was made after the broadcasting of images of the massacre in Bucha in Ukraine. The sign placed next to the painting refers to the crimes committed in Bucha, denounced as war crimes, and specifies that the victim is an adult.
In view of the above, the urgent applications judge found that the display of the painting, in a venue dedicated to contemporary design and known as such, and accompanied by detailed contextual information, does not seriously or clearly unlawfully harm the best interests of the child or the dignity of the human person.
That is, the painting is meant to criticize wartime rape and other war crimes. It doesn't celebrate its subject matter, and it's not meant to be beautiful. This isn't clear without context, but context was provided in the gallery where it was exhibited, and the only place you can find it without context is on the internet where people are deliberately omitting it to stir outrage.
I don't think it's a particularly great or novel artwork, but neither is it celebrating "pedocriminality" (the French sure do have a way with words). The style is kind of ugly, but if it were more realistic, it would be much closer to actual pornography.
Or we have the art of Cleon Peterson, which is (and I say this charitably) overtly ugly and malevolent. If you saw one of these on the wall of someone's house, you could have no doubt that they're a villain. He's not some no-name either, he somehow managed to get a mural under the Eiffel Tower: https://www.artsy.net/artist/cleon-peterson
I didn't even have to research this, the message is clear from the images. Those that portray police beating people are obviously meant to denounce police brutality, and this one which is literally titled "Genocide" isn't very subtle, either.
Compare Picasso's Guernica and Massacre in Korea. If you saw them in someone's house, without knowing anything about them before, they would certainly seem bizarre and creepy.
Between Cleon Peterson and Fuck abstraction, it seems you have a problem with art that has a message and isn't just meant to be pretty. I don't think every artwork must have social change as a goal; I don't think art should necessarily be, as the quote goes, "not a mirror to hold up to society but a hammer with which to shape it". But there is a place for such art, just as there is a place for art that is only meant to be beautiful without having any deeper meaning.
Again, I'm not a fan of Peterson. I wouldn't buy anything from him or go to an exhibition of his works. He apparently has hundreds of works with the same theme. Boring. And this one is like a Ben Garrison cartoon. But complaining that his works are "overtly ugly and malevolent" is missing the point.
Amadan
"I would put a screwdriver through your eyeballs if I could"
11mo ago
I suspect you are not new here, but if you are: this kind of posting is not permitted here.
Banned for a week.
I read it many years ago, but this seems to be pretty good: https://www.coursehero.com/lit/The-End-of-History-and-the-Last-Man/plot-summary/
Thanks!
Note, that to me, "not to be taken seriously" implies that it can be summarily disregarded, whereas something that is carefully (and thoroughly, I should have included that as well) might be wrong, but cannot be dismissed, even if it wrong; it must be engaged with.
I disagree, this sort of approach is easily hackable by mining scholarly works for whatever data suits your idea and shaping it into a narrative that is trendy with the current zeitgeist, thus ensuring few people will be interested in challenging you to begin with, and the remainder is too intimidated by the sheer magnitude and obscurity of the material you've dug out.
Massive Theories of Nearly Everything belong in the same category as musing of your local pub philosopher until they withstand the test of time, and many challenges from opponents.
You might ask how are you supposed to challenge something without taking it seriously, but at least half of what I meant by "taking seriously" would be something more like "putting on a pedestal". When 4channers were freaking out about what's going on in Wuhan circa 2019, while all the experts were asleep, no one was taking them seriously. You could still engage with their arguments though.
but that does not seem to me to describe either Guns, Germs and Steel
Didn't it spend pages upon pages talking about how lucky Europeans were because they started off with caloric and easy to cultivate crops, and easily tamable animals, only for it to turn out that ancient European plants/animals were about as useful to humans as those anywhere else, and what the authors were comparing were products of generations of artificial selection to wild plants/animals?
Skibboleth
11mo ago
I find it reminiscent of many pro-Chavismo arguments from Western leftists I read some 15 years ago: authoritarian populism is more authentically democratic than liberal democracy because the former (supposedly) draws upon mass popular support while the latter uses sterile proceduralism to deprive The People of their voice while pretending otherwise.
This was mostly due to the fact that they liked Chavez' economic policies and needed a way to rationalize supporting an increasingly dictatorial government while claiming to still believe in freedom, human rights, etc...
For the contemporary American populist, it is much the same dilemma, except from the right. Your electoral fortunes have been tenuous at best and you're clearly losing the popularity contest with the younger generation. You can try to retool your message to be more appealing, or you can argue that corrupt institutions are creating a false consciousness and need to be swept away.
Amadan
"I would put a screwdriver through your eyeballs if I could"
11mo ago
Not a mod comment, but what is the deal with all the «brackets» used for emphasis? Is it just a stylistic thing, or is it a meme I'm missing?
Amadan
"I would put a screwdriver through your eyeballs if I could"
11mo ago
ArjinFerman
Tinfoil Gigachad
11mo ago
I think this was discussed back on reddit. It's Russian quote marks.
Wasn't the confusion the source of some creepy red-name censorship that led to us ending up here?
Amadan
"I would put a screwdriver through your eyeballs if I could"
11mo ago
Yes, I vaguely remember an admin interpreting them as the (((Jew))) flag. I just was not sure what they're actually meant to signify.
MadMonzer
Temporarily embarrassed liberal elite
11mo ago
Google is a mature company which wants its shares to trade with the P/E of a startup (in the sense that senior and middle management have a very direct, personal, interest in a short-term run-up in the stock price, not in the long-term profitability of the core business). The easiest way to do that is to convince investors that management are entrepreneurial geniuses who are going to come up with another "big enchilada" that will be as profitable in 2040 as Google Search is now. Both management and the investors know that getting there involves a lot of failed investments. So investing in all those new "products" is somewhere between an honest-but-unsuccessful strategy of running an internal VC operation and an unusual way of spending the investor relations budget.
MadMonzer
Temporarily embarrassed liberal elite
11mo ago
At the time the 8 hour day campaign was going on, your wife would have done most of those things. Commuting is an obvious exception, but according to my relatives on the working-class side of the family, typical working class commutes were much shorter then than they are now. (My grandfather was able to cycle home, eat, and cycle back to work within his lunch hour).
benny
11mo ago
Germany thinks they are the zero leaders: https://youtube.com/watch?v=_zfnlkiPCVA
It was admins [Removed by Reddit]-ing a comment which was, verbatim:
"Nazis do (((this)))
But « thiis » is just a different type of quotation mark used in French, German, Russian and so on. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Guillemet"
ActuallyATleilaxuGhola
Axolotl Tank Class of '21
11mo ago
But the bigger issue is that Mainland China is so incredibly sheltered. They don't have the sense of what is possible, their culture is a tiny shallow hothouse for midwit takes. It's like Belarus or some other stale post-Soviet backwater; actually worse. This is true of their entertainment as well as of their tech and politics. I've tried to take them seriously for a while, and came to this conclusion. Ignoring China and assuming they won't do anything consequential nor retaliate in any meaningful way when Anglos are kicking them in the balls has consistently been the rational choice.
Finally, someone else on The Motte who gets it.
Tarnstellung
11mo ago
Asians, yes, that makes sense, but Black people benefit from dropping the SAT more than any other group.
ArjinFerman
Tinfoil Gigachad
11mo ago
It's not a question of authoritarianism or false consciousness, it's a question of whether a different election result will actually mean a different policy. With strategies like "you get to vote in a referendum until you give the right answer", unelected bureaucracies pushing through policies that were never voted on, and half-assing the policies that people did vote for, you make elections more or less irrelevant. Add to that the demonization and censorship of dissent, and I'd say it's on you to prove these "public consultations" are in any way meaningful.
Stefferi
Chief Suomiposter
11mo ago
Damn, even though it was a common joke how much we suck in Eurovision before 2006 (and to some degree even after it), we've only received 0 points three times.
TIRM
11mo ago
It was years ago that Romney correctly pointed out that around half of Americans are net receivers of federal spending. They pay no federal income tax or so little that direct benefits make them net receivers of cash from the feds.
And of course the revulsion and horror showed by major media outlets in response to his statement.
The_Nybbler
Does not have a yacht
11mo ago
You can hold it explicitly and still judge people -- individually -- by "their character, not the color of their skin."
The_Nybbler
Does not have a yacht
11mo ago
A lot of other cities have blue politics, and are still notorious for having the above problems, (well minus shitty down towns).
Including shitty (literally) down towns in at least one case (SF). But go ahead, keep voting D to solve problems which the Ds don't solve; it's traditional.
The_Nybbler
Does not have a yacht
11mo ago
Then, anything can happen, but it will all be worse for us personally than a gradual shift to greater empire.
Seems to me the rise of an opponent might stave off the transition to decadence and decline.
07mk
11mo ago
He literally believes that US leaders wouldn't lift a finger if millions of their citizens were dying. This is absurd. No one not living in a cave could plausibly think that US leaders wouldn't lift a finger if millions of their citizens were dying. At the very least such a claim requires explanation/justification as per the rules
I disagree that it's absurd or inflammatory. I think it's probably wrong, but it seems an entirely reasonable belief, not just about US leaders, but basically anyone in general. Erring on the side of "people won't give a shit about megadeaths and megasufferings of people who are useless to them and powerless to stop them" doesn't seem like a major error, even if it is an error.
Gdanning
11mo ago
I disagree, this sort of approach is easily hackable by mining scholarly works for whatever data suits your idea, shaping it into a narrative that is trendy with the current zeitgeist, thus ensuring few people will be interested in challenging you to begin with, and the remainder is too intimidated by the sheer magnitude and obscurity of the material you've dug out.
Yes, but isn't that a claim that the argument might be wrong, rather than a claim that they must be wrong? It seems to me to be an argument for skepticism, rather than an argument for dismissal out of hand.
Didn't it spend pages upon pages talking about how lucky Europeans were because they started off with caloric and easy to cultivate crops, and easily tamable animals, only for it to turn out that ancient European plants/animals were about as useful to humans as those anywhere else, and what the authors were comparing were products of generations of artificial selection to wild plants/animals?
-
As a possibly non-relevant aside, the book is about why Eurasia developed more quickly than elsewhere, rather than Europe.
-
Glancing at my copy of the book, he says: "Experimental studies in which botanists have collected seeds from such natural stands of wild [fertile crescent] cereals, much as as hunter-gatherers must have been doing over 10,000 years ago, show that annual harvests of up to nearly a ton of seeds per hectare can be obtained[.] ... [In contrast,] [c]orn's probable ancestor, a wild plant known as teosinte, ... was less productive in the wild than wild wheat . . ." So he certainly at least tried to compare like with like. In addition, that is only one of three advantages he claims that Eurasian cereal plants had over wild plants elsewhere; the others, he argues, are that they are annuals, and that most are plants that "usually pollinate themselves but are occasionally self-pollinated." I don't know whether either of those attributes can be changed via artificial selection. Re animals, he notes that only 14 of the world's large (100lbs+) herbivorous animals were ever domesticated (including only 13 of 72 in Eurasia) and notes that even modern efforts to domesticate large wild animals other than the "ancient fourteen" that were domesticated failed, and makes arguments why so few have been domesticated.
-
Most importantly, that is an argument that Diamond is wrong, or that that he overstates his case. But it is not an argument that "no one ever should have taken him seriously," and I note that on the Wikipedia page on the book, Joel Mokyr is cited as saying that "Diamond's view that Eurasia succeeded largely because of a uniquely large stock of domesticable plants is flawed because of the possibility of crop manipulation and selection in the plants of other regions, the drawbacks of an indigenous plant such as sumpweed could have been bred out, Mokyr wrote, since 'all domesticated plants had originally undesirable characteristics' eliminated via 'deliberate and lucky selection mechanisms'", which sounds like the criticism you are citing.* But he is also quoted as saying that the book is "one of the more important contributions to long-term economic history and is simply mandatory to anyone who purports to engage Big Questions in the area of long-term global history". And I will say that one of the strengths of the book is that is explicitly states the assumptions behind its arguments, repeatedly refers to possible weaknesses in supporting evidence, and also repeatedly suggests avenues for future research which might undermine some of its claims.
- But I note that, re teosinte, Diamond's argument is not that such changes were impossible -- they obviously weren't -- but that they took a very long time (at p. 137), which helps explain why development in the Americas lagged behind development in Eurasia (and, of course, it is the lag that he seeks to explain).
This is bullshit propaganda for the ruling class of liberal democracy.
The people are never intentionally consulted about important issues, and when they are and vote against the wishes of the elite, their will is ignored in practice or slow walked to oblivion.
When were the European people's consulted on immigration? And those few times they were consulted about higher EU integration they said no and were summarily ignored.
Americans keep desperately voting to end their foreign wars and the elite will literally have generals disobey the people they elect to conserve foreign entanglements.
The idea of popular sovereignty is a fiction as self evidently self serving by now as the divine right of kings.
More options
Context Copy link