For now, here's a quick reminder of how powerful the solid government is over its shadow:
While Rex Tillerson is on his first overseas trip as Secretary of State, his aides laid off staff at the State Department on Thursday.
Much of seventh-floor staff, who work for the Deputy Secretary of State for Management and Resources and the Counselor offices, were told today that their services were no longer needed.
You may remember the Seventh Floor Group (capitalized for ominousness) from a Wikileaks release just before the election:
One revelation in the documents came from an interview with an unidentified person who suggested that Freedom of Information Act requests related to Clinton went through a group sometimes called "the Shadow Government."
"There was a powerful group of very high-ranking STATE officials that some referred to as 'The 7th Floor Group' or 'The Shadow Government.' This group met every Wednesday afternoon to discuss the FOIA process, Congressional records, and everything CLINTON-related to FOIA/Congressional inquiries," the FBI's interview summary said.
Shadow schmadow.
The big change unfolding now is from weak government to strong government (another topic deserving its own post), and the foundation of strength is a robust immune system -- otherwise you will get colonized and compromised by parasites.
Now that the immune system of the body politic is being switched back into the "on" position, all of these opportunistic infections are going to clear right up ("you watch"). They only thrived on such a defenseless host, making their skill / influence / power more illusory than actual.
Although it had been an increasingly more common worldview, now the concept of a shadow government will only find belief among the hardcore conspiratorial minds, with leftists viewing it as their deus ex machina ready to come to their rescue, and rightists dreading it as a mostly unmovable obstacle in Trump's way.
Normal people are going to start laughing about anyone ever believing in such a thing.
Reminds me of the people who think we need to kiss up to countries like China and Mexico because they make our (outsourced and low quality) goods. It's time people start showing strength instead of letting us get pushed around. We saw how much of a paper tiger the Bushes and Clintons are, we need to start doing this to the CIA, NGOs, George Soros, etc.
ReplyDeleteI don't think most people have internalized the lesson of Trump winning on election night -- the failure of all the various groups on the other side proves that they are all paper tigers.
ReplyDeleteIf they really had it in their power to take down Trump, the time to do that was before he won the election -- take no chances with a potential catastrophe to their side. And nobody came close, not even the national GOP or Fox News during the primary stage when he was most vulnerable.
Given the ratings bonanza of Trump kicking the other side's asses, he could televise putting the CIA leakers in front of a firing squad, and we would never stop replaying it. "Like they used to do to traitors in the old days -- BING"
Unfortunately the election of Trump has simply made Canadians more determined to destroy their own country in order to prove that they are not Americans. Until Trudeau is removed, there is no winning in Canada.
DeleteExcept that communists were already infiltrating the state department in the 1940s and 50s (McCarthy was right!) and we're never kicked out. The 1940s and 50s were still a period of strong government, and even they couldn't stop them.
ReplyDelete> Unfortunately the election of Trump has simply made Canadians more determined to destroy their own country in order to prove that they are not Americans. Until Trudeau is removed, there is no winning in Canada.
ReplyDeleteI expect the same thing to happen for most of the west as well. Despite the mounting tensions with immigration in Europe, it is likely there will be a leftward shift in the next few years of elections in order to prove how they are more virtuous than those pigdog Americans.
I think this is exactly right as well as your comment that we haven't internalized the lesson of Trump winning. I can't remember the TrueCon who said it, just several weeks ago, he cogently observed during some overwrought and anxious episode (for Trump diehards on the internet) that "Trump supporters haven't realized they won".
ReplyDeleteAnyway, I look forward to it. I think our government's actions overseas, often shadowy and suspect (Iraq War lies, CIA involvement in foreign affairs and elections, etc.) help feed into this. It would be nice to know: how much foreign involvement is actually consequential? Given what clowns some have been exposed to be, I'm starting to wonder! It doesn't seem irrational, though, for people to worry about such nefarious power being turned against them...
Another question: what is the meaning behind Scott Ritter, who was totally right about Iraq and crucified for it, also has written at length about how and why our Intel missed the collapse of the Soviet Union? He's incredible smart, but seems rather alone. Also, what's the meaning behind not too many people being interested in what he has to say about our intel, Russia, or anything for that matter?
In the main, I'm laughing. A lot.
Have you read Moldbug's latest comments on this subject matter?
ReplyDeleteThey are helpfully summarized here:
https://lawrenceglarus.wordpress.com/2017/02/12/boldmug-says-scott-aaronsons-blog/
But the one that suggests Trump will be frustrated (I wish it weren't so) was excerpted by the guys at Uncouth Reflections:
https://uncouthreflections.com/2017/02/15/quote-du-jour-moldbug-er-boldmug-is-back/
This appears to be a problem that even Trump can't fix.
I've never read Moldbug and do not plan to. Skimming through the comment at UR, I stopped when I read that Nixon and Reagan were both elected on "populist" platforms, and since they didn't achieve populist victories, that goes to show how little Trump's populist election will accomplish.
ReplyDeleteNo one thought at the time or since that Nixon or Reagan were elected on populist platforms, which everyone recognizes belong to the Progressive era (there was even a party named that). McKinley and his Prog Republican successors accomplished all sorts of populist victories -- winding down then shutting off immigration, direct election of Senators, term limits for Pres, collective bargaining between unions and management mediated by government (albeit finalized under the New Deal Dems), income tax, tariffs to boost domestic industrial workers, and so on and so forth.
Nixon was at the very end of the Great Compression, and was a bridge figure between the New Deal and the rebirth of laissez-faire robber baronism (trade w/ China, exiting Bretton Woods, etc., but also wage/price controls to help out the little guy).
In general: why listen to people who were totally wrong about the re-alignment under way, or who were at best silent and MIA?
If there's a nugget of insight in there somewhere, he needs an editor who tweets out the nugget, while the walls of text don't get published.
I see from the dates that Moldbug tried to blackpill people about "you can't just fire career civil servants en masse" less than one week before the so-called Shadow Government at State was fired en masse -- and not even by President Trump or Secretary Tillerson, but his *aides*!
ReplyDeleteEvery time a Dark Enlightenment ignoramus tells us what cannot be done, we need to hear Trump's derisive impression of low-energy stiffs. "You, can't, do, that!"
Something could happen that makes me look like a fool for ever saying this, but it's just possible that Trump has stopped domestic Islamic terrorism.
ReplyDeleteIF the terrorism that occurred up until inauguration day was part of a coordinated plan by the muslim world to extract better treatment from the west (don't laugh, it worked; Bush and Obama spent the entire post-9/11 era doing the 'Religion of Peace' thing and importing Muslims en masse), then it's possible that Trump's tough rhetoric is enough to make them abandon the strategy.
Admittedly that's speculative, but I think everyone knows that a San Bernadino-sized attack now (to say nothing of a 9/11-sized one) would be met with unprecedented sternness, and probably a (real) Muslim ban would ensue. They don't want that and will do what it takes to prevent it.
One thing that Jews do not understand is the role of force (or threat of force) in politics. They're not used to wielding it, and have not since the Second Temple period. With them it's more about money and connections -- important, but neither more so than force.
ReplyDeleteIn a modern state, there's a monopoly on the legitimate use of force (or threatening). In our government, it's localized within the Executive branch at all levels.
So at the end of the day, that is who can do what they please -- provided they are backed up by the people, who would otherwise revolt.
Most of the time, all you have to do is threaten force, and the other side will not want to show down against the police / National Guard / US Army.
In their minds, it's either force is never used or martial law is imposed and every little action is accompanied by jackbooted men with guns. Libertarians have no contact with reality regarding police, army, etc.
Back on Planet Earth, Trump would not have to be constantly ordering the police / Natl Guard / Army around to surround this building and arrest that person. It'll only be occasionally to make the point that he holds the cards and is not bluffing, so they'd better do what the citizens want done.
Really, who would it take to block a bunch of civil servants who Trump fired? They are wimps. It wouldn't take more than a handful of police officers, and they wouldn't have to be the most badass looking ones in the department either.
Career civil servants, especially the slimy swampy ones, are not fighters. They will bitch about it on Twitter, get some face time on MSNBC if they have an in with the media, and that's the end of their parasitic career.
I have to go back to Heartiste to reiterate that physiognomy is real. Career civil servants will probably pull the Clinton trash the White House on the way out low class
ReplyDelete> Every time a Dark Enlightenment ignoramus tells us what cannot be done, we need to hear Trump's derisive impression of low-energy stiffs. "You, can't, do, that!"
ReplyDeleteThe Dark Enlightenment and its current version, NRx, are defeatists who think it is better to wallow in the decline while citing dead gay German philosophers. TDE made more sense a few years ago when Democrats did whatever they felt like while the "opposition" was concerned with making sure that the people who were never going to vote for them ever didn't think they were racists. It was a very depressing time so not a surprise that you saw something like TDE emerge.
I don't think Trump is a savior but he buys us time. These eight years are a stay in execution. If we see real immigration reform and mass deportations (ICE has made several high profile busts since the inauguration that is getting surprisingly little media coverage), we might see this country's demographics move the other way. Maybe we don't become North Brazil for another 20 years thanks to Trump.
Besides, you're not going to untangle decades worth of byzantine leftist bureaucracy in four weeks. Let's give the man a chance instead of wallowing in defeatism and believing that nothing can be done. In the end, these are all just career bureaucrats, the deep state "exists" only because we let it run around unchecked. Trump is a guy who rises to the challenge. Maybe the "deep state" will exist when Trump leaves office in 2025 but I guarantee you it will be much weaker and far more responsive to the needs of the public than a group of paper pushers who feel they are above the people who pay them (the public).
"I have to go back to Heartiste to reiterate that physiognomy is real. Career civil servants will probably pull the Clinton trash the White House on the way out low class"
ReplyDeleteIf you're interested, the most accurate personality inventory right now is braintypes.com
Not so much physiognomy, but you can judge people by their mannerisms, speaking style, and facial expressions.
"TDE made more sense a few years ago when Democrats did whatever they felt like while the "opposition" was concerned with making sure that the people who were never going to vote for them ever didn't think they were racists."
ReplyDeleteIt didn't even make sense back then.
It started from the completely bogus premise that we had a democracy -- "Democracy cannot be solved by throwing more democracy at it".
What an utterly ridiculous equivocation.
I just searched the blog for "populist / ism" and found a bunch of posts throughout 2013, when I started reading more about Turchin's model for rising vs. falling inequality, and linking that with the hyper-competitive vs. accommodating social atmosphere.
Even wrote a post about how the Left used to be populist in the 1980s, before the culture wars took over.
That must have alienated the Neo-reactionary types (good), while enthusiasm for Trump over the past year and a half must have alienated a good deal of those who were drawn to discussion about cycles of inequality (only Bernie is acceptable).
The Dark Enlightenment / Neo-reactionary people were just as out-of-date as the mainstream cuckservatives, and crossed over here and there with them. They hail from the libertarian wing of the Reagan coalition, frustrated that the Establishment never gave them what they wanted (just like the Cultural Right).
Neo-reactionaries, far from getting the need for populism or at least seeing its imminent arrival, were stuck pining for the good ol' Reagan days when libertarianism was still revolutionary, cool, and not-embarrassing.
After decades of not getting what they felt they were promised, they sunk deeper and deeper into LARP-y delusion and wishful thinking.
I'm still proud to say that I was never included in any of those info-webs showing the various wings of the Dark Enlightenment, Neo-reactionaries, Alt-Right, etc.
Libertarianism is an argument for elitism, which is what social Darwinism and laissez-faire lead to.
ReplyDeleteYet its proponents are rarely in the elite.
Therefore it is the ideology of failed strivers, who are bitter that the actual elite is not as awesome as their own elite rule would be.
That's why they largely distrusted, loathed, or at best laughed off the Trump phenomenon -- it was going to undo elitism in any form, not catapult libertarian elitists over the White House gates.
The only exceptions were some Trad Liberal ("Classical") types like Rand Paul and Alex Jones, who are also big on gun rights (a populist check on tyranny). If they weren't big on guns and hunting, libertarians had little to resonate with in Trump.
Even now, how many within the libertarian-inflected Right are loudly taking Trump's side against the CIA and other "deep state" agencies? I thought they were against unaccountable Big Gubmint doing whatever it pleased without popular input.
Total fucking phonies.
I was pretty impressed, though, when Peter Thiel openly questioned democracy; one of my favorite moments in politics of the last couple years (not withstanding Trump, of course). Not that I want to throw out our republic, but because it was so funny. Oh, geez, neo-reaction has arrived! And you know what? I suspect Julian Assange may be influenced by it (or totally not, I don't know).
DeleteI'm not what they're into at all, but a nerd being a-okay with some authoritarianism versus one who wants "prison reform" over a "racist" system imprisoning so many black people... I'll take the former every single time, lol!
Fundamentally, I wonder if realizing the Blank Slate is false is mostly responsible for why these guys go from libertarianism to NRx.
"Jesus" crashing the Libertarian presidential debate and Stripping Fat Ginger Man at the Libertarian Convention were another couple great moments in 2016, too. There will never be another 2016 and that so many people thought it was awful rather than glorious? Sad!
DeleteAnother quick comment. I'm not so sure it's being a failed striver that is the main attraction, but simply being on the autism spectrum.
ReplyDeleteMy husband is a bit out there, but he's so techy, he has no interest in long, long, long manifestos. Or even short ones. But even though he's never really identified as a libertarian, he loved to watch their conferences and what not. I guess because it was a community of implicit geekness.
Now, he loves to send me memes extolling the superiority of geeks, people with Asperger's, and the need for women to be submissive to men; all stuff that's friendly to NRx. He's actually incredibly down-to-earth, but he thinks this stuff is hilarious with more than a grain of truth to it. He also finds absolute hilarity in some alt-right stuff, but it mostly turns him off.
There have been spergs for awhile, though, whereas libertarianism has only been fashionable during status-striving periods (Gilded Age, neo-Gilded Age).
ReplyDeleteDuring the Great Compression, the only one espousing it was the Ayn Rand cult -- of no consequence.
One thing that Jews do not understand is the role of force (or threat of force) in politics. They're not used to wielding it, and have not since the Second Temple period. With them it's more about money and connections -- important, but neither more so than force.
ReplyDeleteIn a modern state, there's a monopoly on the legitimate use of force (or threatening). In our government, it's localized within the Executive branch at all levels.
So at the end of the day, that is who can do what they please -- provided they are backed up by the people, who would otherwise revolt.
Agreed in part, but with a caveat. Jews understand force, but they always expect that the current rules will apply and that the goyim will always follow them without question. Therefore, Jews assume that so long as they gain control of the rules, the force contingent will always be on their side, and therefore they need not worry about it.
In other words, Jews assume that the army and the secret police will always be obedient to certain folks, and therefore so long as they control them, they are in power. And the Jews also assume the goyim will always obey the rules of law set out by the powers that be, the secret police, and the army.
Of course history teaches otherwise. The goyim are not unthinking following sheep, they just have higher trust and higher forgiveness limits that Jews. But once those limits have been breached....
Well, hucksters and con men of all stripes have long realized you can't run an eternal con, you have to get out of town before the jig is up and you get tarred and feathered.
"There have been spergs for awhile, though"
ReplyDelete^ Then why was Asperger's Syndrome a new, 20th century diagnosis? Were there many autists in prior centuries?
Agnostic, are you focused on inequality mostly because of your charitable impulses, or sociological interest? And isn't justice everyone's top political priority?
I worry people exaggerate how much money can buy- are billionaires really living better than happy poor people? I hope this isn't a straw man against having fair trade treaties and labor policies, which I support.
It is quite reasonable to expect the elite to be fair leaders, not exploiters, but I don't know if any modern society has much wealth equality, outside of regional variation. The precise econometric index for it, Gini coefficient, does indicate we may even numerically specify how much equality we want, but that's very nerdy to do.
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_countries_by_income_equality
If inequality matters so much, why don't more people want to move to Mauritius or Mongolia? I think the answer lies in national income and GDP per capita and the standard of living all varying, and not being the same as inequality per se.
And some officially socialist countries have higher Ginis than socialism would normally allow for, so the conventional politics=> economic outcomes model has flaws. Switzerland is unofficially the most capitalist, yet has only a moderate Gini. I also wonder why, as Agnostic has written, women care more about such inequality. I don't remember what post it was, but it was a long one, on the former paid-access blog.
Widening inequality inevitably leads to social and political turmoil -- the last peak saw the Russian Revolution, labor wars circa WWI in the West, and that only calmed down with the Progressive 1920s policies (including no more immigration) and the New Deal.
ReplyDeleteNow we face a potential new civil war in America over the oligarchs who want cheap foreign labor vs. stewards over American well-being.
This has happened throughout history (Turchin).
Anyone with libertarian leanings who argues that it's OK for inequality to widen and widen, whatever their reasoning, is arguing for the eventual and predictable political instability.
"But they shouldn't respond that way to widening inequality" -- like or don't like the popular response, but they will in fact respond that way.
On an abstract level, inequality isn't so bad if it reflects good-faith and fair behavior -- but time and again, we find widening inequality resulting from the very rich and powerful leveraging their top status to exploit those below them, re-work the laws to benefit only them, privatize profit while off-loading risk onto the public, and so on and so forth.
When inequality widens because of ill-gotten gains, it is unjust, and must be re-distributed back to how it was before the fraud, theft, and other unfair and illegal behavior.
For example, I strongly support seizing the money and illiquid assets of those who have gamed the system, so that we can pay down our massive debt.
ReplyDeleteTHEY ran it up for THEIR benefit, and have stuck US with the bill for it all -- I don't think so.
And we're not going to just default and take a huge hit to OUR credit score, so to speak, while THEY suffer no such credit catastrophe.
THEY have ripped US off, and soon THEY will pay US back.
I don't see that happening much under Trump's administration, since there is so much else to do. It may even take until the next New Deal, after this new Progressive era. But one way or another, inequality is going to go back to how it used to be, and many professional gamblers and grifters will lose their shirts in the process.
That's what the Great Depression was, btw -- narrowing inequality as the top fell off of the wealth pyramid (no more speculative stock bubbles).
The general public in the West is no longer fooled by clever-silly arguments about "if you like equality so much, why not move to a foraging tribe in the Kalahari Desert?"
ReplyDeleteCross-sectional comparisons are not the same as cross-temporal trends. We had BOTH a high standard of living AND a low level of inequality AND a falling trendline for inequality, circa the 1950s and '60s.
We will send the libertarians to Mauritius to lecture the natives about why inequality is good, while we go back to the America, Britain, and Australia of the 1950s.
https://www.washingtonpost.com/opinions/i-didnt-think-id-ever-leave-the-cia-but-because-of-trump-i-quit/2017/02/20/fd7aac3e-f456-11e6-b9c9-e83fce42fb61_story.html?tid=pm_politics_pop
ReplyDeleteHope he didn't forget to take his leash, knee pads, and tampons back home.
http://www.lifezette.com/polizette/cia-analyst-who-quit-to-protest-trump-is-clinton-donor/
Don't forget the Hillary blow up doll either.
It's great how the Official Boo Trump team has made kneejerk jerkoff of the CIA, of all things, to define their anti-Trump posture.
ReplyDeleteThat makes it all the easier for normal people to decide that they're on the Trump side. The "shadow" government and media are forcing the general public to pick sides in what they're pitching as an apocalyptic showdown -- who the hell do they *think* middle America is going to side with?
Forcing identity politics on the liberal / moderate mainstream Democrat voters was already a bit too much to tolerate -- now they're being asked to swear blind faith in the CIA, George Soros, Russian conspiracy theories, and who knows what other symbol of anti-democratic rule next week.
I don't think they get that the alternative they must pose to Trump has to still lie within the populist / nationalist zeitgeist -- just a more liberal variation on the theme.
In their myopic rush to naysay against anything Trump ever says, they've cheered the arrival of neocons into their circles.
You want 'em, you can have 'em, losers!
Here's the quote I should have cited earlier:
ReplyDelete"Finally, there is a gigantic sex difference, dwarfing anything else we've seen. While 57% of men are satisfied with their income, only 34% of women are. We can't attribute this to women wanting to shop more, or for more expensive things -- men have their eyes on super-expensive cars and other auto-related junk, amateur sports equipment, big flashy gadgets and electronics, and so on. And men don't make that much more than women, so it can't be due to differences in income. I think it must be a personality difference rooted in the brain's wiring. In questionnaires, women consistently score much higher on the personality trait Neuroticism than men. And this shows up in the real world, as they suffer more from depression than men. The feelings of anxiety, self-doubt, and impulsiveness that characterize Neuroticism should show up when we ask people if they're satisfied with their income level."
http://akinokure2.blogspot.com/2009/09/what-predicts-income-dissatisfaction.html
I would love to see an economist rigorously examine the relationship between this question,
"The General Social Survey asks the following question:
Do you feel that the income from your job alone is enough to meet your family's usual monthly expenses and bills?"
and the Gini coefficient in the surveyed population's place. Seriously, how much does inequality actually upset people? People of different classes might care differently, or there might again be "a gigantic sex difference." I expect some surprises, and am sure this kind of study is worthwhile.
"Widening inequality inevitably leads to social and political turmoil"
ReplyDelete^ I want emic data on this. I remember hilarious articles during Occupy W.S. showing that those arrested during the protests often lived in 7-figure houses. This was amazing to me- why are they the ones complaining enough for altercations with police if they're officially the beneficiaries of inequality?
It is alleged that people who complain about inequality tend to follow a "noblesse oblige" model of economic relations, where they are obligated to complain about how they inherited sooo much wealth. At least, plenty of impoverished people are not angry. We would have already had the new progressive era sooner if people were so impatient, unless the historical cycles follow really strict schedules.
This table has good data over time on inequality from the mid-70s until the late 2000s:
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_countries_by_income_equality#OECD_countries
But I have no idea how much of a difference Gini coefficient shifts make. Is a .01 change palpable? What was it like, econometrically, when Iran recently had a loss of unity, according to some Iranians, because of new class divisions and painful poverty?
I used Mauritius and Mongolia as examples because I wouldn't mind living there, based on what I've read and seen about them. Their large cities are as modern as suburban America. They seem "first world" and peaceful enough, is what I mean.
Real libertarians do not usually believe that inequality is ok. They adore Switzerland and Singapore and Hong Kong for their free markets, though Switzerland has much lower income disparity than the other two. Singapore and Hong Kong are almost identical, by the numbers. And what I meant by regional differences, spelled out, is that for example, Scandinavia has more equality than Latin America, throughout these regions.
Maybe official government doesn't change the economy much- is Iceland more socialist than Venezuela? I think not.
Gini coefficient, which I do consider very precise and accurate, thus scientifically valuable, is not the same as conventional development. Luxembourg has greater equality than the Congo, and just compare a small, building-filled country with a vast jungle-containing one. But there are contrary examples, too. If equality mattered even more to people than it already does, maybe we all would have moved to Europe, not joined foraging tribes. But more Europeans immigrate to the U.S. than vice versa. By the way, during the end of the Great Compression, hippies did emulate primitivism, before the 80's tribal and contemporary paleolithic movements began.
https://atlassociety.org/commentary/commentary-blog/3802-atlas-shrugged-in-haight-ashbury-a-memoir
"...oligarchs...vs. stewards..."
ReplyDeleteThe common excuse here is that oligarchs are stewards of the global poor, who deserve jobs because their economies are like premature babies, in need of incubation, while the first world is like an overfed kidult who won't share. Serious progressives believe in jobs as welfare for everyone, including the second and third worlds. They realize the best charities help people along the lines of teaching a man to fish, not feeding him free rice which bankrupts his rice farmer neighbors.
Here are two views:
http://prospect.org/article/outward-looking-economic-nationalism
http://prospect.org/article/full-employment-best-social-program
An underrecognized part of inequality is in the unreasonable rewarding of outstandingly talented work, as if those economic contributions matter much more. They might be vastly more entertaining and ingenious, but only in the beginning of a new product's life. Then, it needs sales, customer service, maintenance, etc.- ordinary work. So I think an obsession with novelty and standing out from the competitive crowd contributes to inequality in the market- and work-place.
Re-distribution and reparations are big deals in academic philosophy, ever since the epic Rawls vs. Nozick debates. They're tiresome, but important to contemplate, if you're into philosophy.
https://plato.stanford.edu/entries/nozick-political/#HisEntDocAboJusHol
https://plato.stanford.edu/entries/nozick-political/#RecHisInj
The counterargument against reparations is that we have no idea how far back to go in justice-time. Should we return territory won in wars? Are descendants responsible for their ancestors' misdeeds? And how can the real suffering of deprivation be paid off with money which allows for compensatory luxuries, but mostly in later generations, not the deprived themselves? And interest costs add up on debt.
It's funny that in the past, liberals were nationalists:
"Rawls makes the simplifying assumption that the society is self-sufficient and closed, so that citizens enter it only by birth and leave it only at death."
https://plato.stanford.edu/entries/rawls/#BasStrSocIns
https://plato.stanford.edu/entries/rawls/#NonIdeTheOutStaBurSoc
"I want emic data on this."
ReplyDeleteAlready pointed you to Turchin. Here's a starter article:
https://aeon.co/essays/history-tells-us-where-the-wealth-gap-leads
You can't be clueless enough to not know about the Gilded Age, and that inequality was widening. You also must know about the Great Compression / Midcentury, when inequality was falling.
Somewhere in between, things changed -- circa 1920.
And you can't be so clueless as to not know about how much turmoil of all sorts there was during and after WWI, continuing into the early '20s.
There were major race riots in major cities in the US, not just taking lives but destroying massive amounts in property damage. Immigrant anarchists lobbing bombs on Wall Street. The Palmer Raids. 10,000 West Virginia coal miners taking up arms against law enforcement during the Battle of Blair Mountain, part of the longer Coal Wars.
That's just in America -- don't ignore the Russian Revolution, the Biennio Rosso in Italy, and all other sorts of conflict raging throughout Europe.
Ancient Rome -- same thing. Period of increasing lavishness among the elites led up to civil collapse, whereas periods of greater internal harmony were ruled over by the Stoic emperors.
Not to mention Periclean Athens - which shows the main markers of inequality: construction of garish architecture, state-sponsored prostitution(which was not common prior to Pericles), rampant unemployment and a concomitant welfare system, etc.
ReplyDeleteScholars have long puzzled over the collapse of that society, but have never been able to put the dot on inequality and status-striving.
For instance, during the beginning of the Peloponnesian War, a plague ravaged Athens killing a 1/3rd of the population, including Pericles himself. Turchin specifically ties plagues to inequality(caused by overpopulation), yet the most distinguished historians consider it a stroke of fate.
Saw the same thing in the 80s - AIDs, the onset of serious mental illnesses such as autism(debilitating autism, not Asperger's) etc. All those plagues were one of the factors that scared people into cocooning.
The larger point is that inequality doesn't just have to do with not having enough money or a low level of materiel achievement. ?It causes all kinds of other bad things - physical illnesses, mental illnesses, bullying, prostitution, sexual harassment, etc. When people see their friends and neighbors as disposable, they don't have much of a reason to be nice to each other or look out for each other.
ReplyDelete"The counterargument against reparations is that we have no idea how far back to go in justice-time."
ReplyDeleteHow about against those who are still alive, and whose crimes were within the last generation? No need to get philosophical here.
"And how can the real suffering of deprivation be paid off with money"
Not suffering -- they took out massive amounts of money, and stuck us with the bill ($20 trillion in debt), which will have to be paid in money. It's not repaying money for suffering -- but money for money. No need to get philosophical here.
Academic philosophy dulls a person's insightfulness.
"The larger point is that inequality doesn't just have to do with not having enough money or a low level of materiel achievement. It causes all kinds of other bad things - physical illnesses, mental illnesses, bullying, prostitution, sexual harassment, etc."
ReplyDeleteI'd phrase it as the status-striving mindset (psychology) drives the aggregate phenomena (sociology), which then feeds back into the psychology.
Turchin's data was pretty suggestive that attitudes changed before economic and other aggregate data did (such as inequality). The Temperance and Progressive movements came before the Great Compression, and then the "do what feels good" Sixties and Me Generation '70s came before the revival of laissez-faire economic and political actions, or the yuppie / greed is good revolution.
That is a legitimate criticism against the people who only want more equal outcomes without changing attitudes -- it would reward strivers for failing. They're bitter for striving and failing, and a fairer distribution of income would soothe their pain.
The key is to get a more equal distribution by everyone (top, middle, and bottom) returning to a less competitive, ambitious, and self-indulgent attitude. Then the failed strivers can move into small towns where no one will think they're cool, but they'll earn decent incomes just like everyone else there. And the sociopathic climbers will bump up against regulations on their climber-ism, and will not be able to leverage their ambition into richer-than-God status.
Older posts here on how the rise of epidemics links to rising inequality (both are reflections of the laissez-faire set of norms, critically about migration from distant lands):
ReplyDeletehttp://akinokure.blogspot.com/2013/11/the-return-of-old-diseases-and-pests.html
http://akinokure.blogspot.com/2015/02/returning-epidemics-driven-by-inter.html
If anyone thinks Gilded Age inequality is A-OK, ask them how cool it is that city dwellers have become plagued by bedbugs for the first time since the fin-de-siecle? Tuberculosis, influenza, all sorts of wonders that a "let anyone move anywhere" mindset brings us.
Spanish flu pandemic hit right at the last peak of global inter-connectedness circa WWI, and added to the social, political, and economic turmoil. Christ only knows what it'll be this time...
And BTW, those epidemics spread outside of urban concentrations, too, albeit to a lower degree due to lower population density.
ReplyDeleteNevertheless, don't consider yourself safe from the scum of all kinds that is brought first to the city cores.
My grandfather lost a sibling before adulthood due to the Spanish flu pandemic, and they were growing up in backwoods Appalachian Ohio. But Pittsburgh, a major immigrant destination during the Gilded Age, is only 50 miles away.
When even rural and suburban Americans start getting affected, things will turn around very quick. In less than a decade after the Spanish flu, immigration to this country was zero.
The 10-year delay between status-striving and equality/inequality does make sense. Status-striving seems to have peaked under Bush's first term - but then when was shaken by the double whammy of Abu Ghraib and Hurricane Katrina. Abu Ghraib in particular made pepole realize that status-striving had gone too far, since the military had been considered incorruptible before that(hazing is a form of status-striving, also).
ReplyDeleteBush's immigration plan was defeated in Congress, which shows that at least that early the public had soured on immigration. Compare to NAFTA which managed to pass 10+ years earlier.
I'll read Turchin's articles more thoroughly. I didn't remember seeing anything about attitudes or psychological factors. And I am ignorant of history.
ReplyDeleteCurtis might like Ralph Nader's description of how trade 'agreements' are passed. They are treaties, which constitutionally require a two-thirds vote in the Senate, not 51%. The treaties are called 'agreements' to be fast-tracked, and then deregulate the affected economies. Nader's new book Breaking Through Power is good, but annoyingly socialistic.
I think you're into the "1 Percent" model of inequality, while I focus on the R/P 10%: The ratio of the average income of the richest 10% to the poorest 10%, and R/P 20%. Maybe the very rich and powerful do not mind compensating their cronies or promoting trickle-down inequality beyond the top 1%.
You might not be aware of how catastrophic the Dust Bowl was, aside from economic effects, and how it was partly the result of, guess what,government-supported and sometimes implemented modern agriculture policy. This was like, plant some crops, and the rains will come, because we want to make food. Blind faith in technology is common during communist times, because we make technology, so humanists consider it miraculous, made through holy science.
I suppose some people did starve to death, because of bad farming causing shortages, regardless of what food prices were. I do not focus on the financial aspect of the Great Depression, rather the Caspian-WWI-WWII form of that period's history, focused on philosophy and war. I have not learned economic history. You're right about narrowing inequality during the 1930s, but I still think the poor suffered worse then, some dying, while the rich mostly lost the luxuries they used to show off.
About how inequality happened recently, I like this article: http://prospect.org/article/skills-myth
It points out that labor supply matters more than economists admit. This newer article updates the first one: http://prospect.org/article/full-employment-best-social-program
I overrely on the inadequate history I was taught in public schools. Maybe your teachers did a better job, or you learned later in college. I'm catching up.
"Period of increasing lavishness among the elites "
ReplyDeleteHaven't you written that it's everyone striving together? How can only the top classes be striving? Is elite striving more harmful, as role modeling?
"Stoic emperors"
Libertarians cite the Stoic philosophers, so I assume libertarians are Stoic.
"state-sponsored prostitution"
This surprised me about Athens. I thought they had religious prostitution in temples. And I am surprised pro-lifers do not claim abortion/ birth control encourages prostitution.
"All those plagues were one of the factors that scared people into cocooning."
Did people really believe the hysterical doom predictions back then, like Oprah pronouncing that something like 5-10% or even more of Americans would die of AIDS? Did heterosexuals give up on sex and relationships because of what was formerly called GRIDS?
I recently learned that AIDS was first found in a Los Angeles hospital, and L.A. is the world's gay capital. I thought it was San Francisco, but the facts show otherwise.
Everyone is striving together, but it's hard for that to leave a record if it's poor people. Rich people striving leads to notorious decadence.
ReplyDelete"Did people really believe the hysterical doom predictions back then, like Oprah pronouncing that something like 5-10% or even more of Americans would die of AIDS? Did heterosexuals give up on sex and relationships because of what was formerly called GRIDS?"
ReplyDeleteIt wasn't so much that they were afraid of the apocalypse, more like they were traumatized by personal experiences - which made them afraid to leave the house. The crime and disease got so bad that most people ended up being personally effected, and enough of those people became reclusive to change the zeitgeist.
"First, people (i.e., potential victims, not criminals) become more trusting of others. Higher trust levels allow criminals to gain access to the prey, who are basically defenseless once access has been gained. So, second, crime rates begin rising a bit after trust levels do. Rising crime rates make people more wary of others. Hence, third, after crime rates have been going up for awhile, average people begin to withdraw their trust of others. Falling trust levels make it more difficult for criminals to gain access to victims, so fourth and finally, crime rates begin to plummet a bit after trust levels begin to fall."
"When people withdraw into their cocoons, it's not only a physical isolation -- even when out and interacting with others, they have their guard up. So the analogy from biology is not where the prey merely avoid spaces where would-be predators could snag them, or honing their escape/evasive maneuvers (although that's going on too)."
http://akinokure.blogspot.com/search?q=mimicry
"...with leftists viewing it as their deus ex machina ready to come to their rescue, and rightists dreading it as a mostly unmovable obstacle in Trump's way."
ReplyDeleteTruly disappointing that in their manic myopic moment right now, some journalists got Journolist up and running again. I'm not linking or showing the evidence/proof that AnonChan is right because it would likely cost one man his job and I won't do that. Won't do it, Ag! If he, or anyone else is outed, it's not by me. But, yeah, Journolist.
I'm going dark for awhile; I don't want anybody to think or wonder at all, that I cost them their job or caused them to be humbled. Because I didn't.
ReplyDeleteAnd I do think it will come to that. For all the reasons you've laid out about how the Left is losing their minds, growing more incoherent to deal with cognitive dissonance presented them by the election, I do expect bumbling and screw-ups.
And it's already happening! I couldn't believe the carelessness that allowed me to see what I saw. Incredible
"I recently learned that AIDS was first found in a Los Angeles hospital, and L.A. is the world's gay capital. I thought it was San Francisco, but the facts show otherwise."
ReplyDeleteSF and LA have always had kind of a rivalry. The culture of SF was heavily influenced by Yankee puritans, whose legacy can be seen in the architecture, the Gaia worshiping, the general solemnity of things (compared to SoCal), and so on. Clint Eastwood got an accent from the region that has little to no trace of a Western drawl that's more common among older generations who grew up in the Okie traveled Southwest.
On the other hand, Southern Cal has had more of a loose and freewheeling vibe, reinforced by the various people's who ended up there. Before the 1970's, the Okies, Mexicans, and Jews developed a lifestyle and economy based on the sun, gritty industry (especially the Defense industry), Hollywood, and exploitation of natural resources (oil, fertile soils, etc.) As Steve Sailer woud point out, this arrangement, to natives, offered greater mid-century individuality and opportunities than the puritanical paternalism of the Bay Area. He admits though that the North got the last laugh; the weather is less inviting and greater regulations up North kept housing expensive, insuring that most of the rabble would stay in the South.
L.A. has been the butt of so many jokes and is so flawed in obvious ways that nobody besides Hollywood, not even gays, wants to claim it as their turf. Look at transportation alone; it's too sprawling and too modern in development to make walking feasible in most areas and mass transit is a joke compared to the East Coast. Solution? Driving, right? Well.... The sheer number of people, all of whom feel like they have no choice but to drive, creates legendarily horrible traffic.
SF is much whiter and more Asian than L.A. (aka Mexico North) these days.
WRT the AIDS epidemic, L.A. was just as hedonistic as anywhere else. In spite of being, in the 60's-90's, superficially more conservative than the Yankee NW. Remember that the dominant impulse Out West has always been libertarianism, not real conservatism.
you should do something on these absurd poll numbers i'm seeing.
ReplyDeleteWhich polls?
ReplyDeleteThe main take-home message I got from the election, having never studied opinion polls, is that there's a major effect of the mood on a person's willingness to respond to the interviewer.
If Trump is doing well, they're more willing to respond, and the result is pro-Trump.
If Trump is getting hammered, they're less inclined to publicly affiliate with him, they don't respond as much, and the result is anti-Trump or at best meh-Trump.
The only way to solve that is to have a probability sample like the GSS, or even better to do a panel poll where the same individuals are asked each time.
And Trump is aware of this, which is why he doesn't pay much attention to polls.
ReplyDeleteHe knows the public broadly supports his agenda, and if a poll result says otherwise, it's because the agenda's supporters are less inclined to respond to the interviewer -- probably because the media has blown up the issue.
That bad poll result is only a fake result, though -- if it came to showing their numbers at rallies and counter rallies, obviously the pro-Trumpers would dwarf the anti-Trumpers.
Whether or not they report their stance to pollsters, doesn't change that fact. And Trump only cares about the real, not the fake. So he knows he has the real mandate, regardless of the phony mandate implied by a bad poll result.
a bunch but i was thinking Quinnipiac in particular. it seems like there's a good 4 point gap between phone vs internet as has been noted
ReplyDeletebut lately the divergences are getting more wild. quinnipiac and politico/morning consult polls released in the same week differed by almost 10 points.
ReplyDeleteQuinnipiac shot their credibility during the election. They weren't that bad during 2012, and started off well during the primaries. But as the general wore on, they totally lost it.
ReplyDeleteIt's one thing if a firm doesn't know how to do good polling -- it's another if they used to have a decent track record, and chose to destroy it in order to score fleeting ideological points.
I wouldn't believe anything Quinnipiac puts out until they can get their track record back during another important and contested election.
I now remembered reading a book about the sudden rise of conspicuous consumption around 1972 or 1968. It was about how a newspaper had countless letters to the editor slamming a guy who spent tons of money on a home sound system and other luxuries, not even a mansion or yacht.
ReplyDeleteThis was in New York City, I think, and the book was on fashion. The point was that styles change quickly. I could find this book at the library, but forgot the title.
Then I saw a New York Times article titled "Yawning at Excess," about Stephen A. Schwarzman, "a funder of the Blackstone Group and chairman of President Trump's strategic policy forum." He has expensive birthday parties, and people's reactions to this are a barometer for general attitudes toward decadence. Reactions have really changed from his 60th birthday party to his 70th this year. 10 years ago, there was an outcry, but now, media and viewers are largely ignoring it. So maybe people are now less bothered by conspicuous consumption.
Would a consumption/value-added tax replacing income tax encourage less spending and more saving, equalizing standards of living? Would this promote equality? I don't know at all.
I have wondered what I could do with a higher income, and can't figure it out. This is a big part of my aversion to focusing on money matters- I don't know what more of it can be used for. A higher standard of living is not just dollars, I know. It's better quality products, manufactured not so far away, better service from well-paid workers, easier family formation, and general economic cooperation. So I want less poverty in society, but I am unclear on what exact Gini coefficient would be appropriate. I'm guessing .50 is good, and will try researching this sometime.
"The larger point is that inequality doesn't just have to do with not having enough money or a low level of materiel achievement. ?It causes all kinds of other bad things - physical illnesses, mental illnesses, bullying, prostitution, sexual harassment, etc. When people see their friends and neighbors as disposable, they don't have much of a reason to be nice to each other or look out for each other."
ReplyDeleteI focused on Gini coefficient because it seems so scientifically easy to work with. I think how people treat each other is a moral and religious issue, because we are taught morality through the Bible, and atheism is a sort of inequality against God. Agnostic's revealing post on the upper classes having lower religiosity supports the idea that faith begets humility.
http://akinokure2.blogspot.com/2009/08/class-and-religious-fundamentalism-in.html
"The GSS measures such beliefs in two ways -- by asking if you think the Bible is God's word and is to be taken literally, and by asking if you know God exists without a doubt (the latter might not be so fundamentalist, but it's worth looking at too)."
Is fundamentalism taking Genesis 1-2 to be about science? And I think most surveyed people have not read most of the Bible, so how can their opinion be serious? And what about other religions, are they surveyed in the GSS?
-
I remembered a book on the political economy of schizophrenia, where a Boulder, Colorado psychiatrist describes how unemployment correlates with mental illness. The economic "misery index" seems valid.
"I remembered a book on the political economy of schizophrenia, where a Boulder, Colorado psychiatrist describes how unemployment correlates with mental illness. The economic "misery index" seems valid."
ReplyDeleteNot just that, but debilitating mental illness, such as schizophrenia and RainMan-style autism, are probably caused by biologic viruses. So when a country is dirtier(because of inequality and overpopulation) and sickness in general is more common, we can assume that biologically caused psychotic illness is also more common. For instance, there was a growing awareness of nonverbal, non-functioning autism in the 1980s, with the release of Rain Man - around the same time there was an explosion in AIDs and STDs.
Schizophrenia, interestingly, also seems to track with cocooning. In the biography "A Beautiful Mind", its said that John Nash's schizophrenia developed in the 60s, but then he had a remission in the mid-90s. Coincidence? I think not. Probably the more social interactions and general stress associated with rising crime, put him under more stress in general and he went off the deep end. And it also could be that he was always crazy, but that in a cocooning environment, people didn't get enough exposure to him to realize it, or schizophrenic behavior was just more accepted, for whatever reason.
"How about against those who are still alive, and whose crimes were within the last generation?"
ReplyDeleteRich people when deprived of their wealth have a tendency to suicide, somewhat literally. One French billionaire aristocrat did this when his huge investment in the Madoff scheme was lost. They would need supervision or counseling or something to help them adjust to life with normal finances.
I assume you would like to lower the minimum level for paying estate taxes, and make the rate progressive, too. This discourages dynasty formation.
"they took out massive amounts of money, and stuck us with the bill ($20 trillion in debt), which will have to be paid in money"
I thought they've spent most of the money already on things like war, and a small part of that bill went towards poorer people's striving. Strivers owe the humble, but the humble are not demanding people, by definition. Humility correlates with forgiveness, not that forgiving means not getting reparations. I wonder if humble people can be encouraged to defeat the striving phenomenon without strife. Nonviolence might be overrated though, in that the threat of violence is ambiguously violent or not.
"Not just that, but debilitating mental illness, such as schizophrenia and RainMan-style autism, are probably caused by biologic viruses."
ReplyDeleteI had no idea about this, and will look at Agnostic's referenced studies on this.
http://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/entrez/query.fcgi?cmd=Retrieve&db=pubmed&dopt=Abstract&list_uids=14609251
He wrote about it long ago: http://akinokure.blogspot.com/2006/02/politically-incorrect-fashion-iii.html
One thing that Jews do not understand is the role of force (or threat of force) in politics.
ReplyDeleteThe Jewish genocide of some 60 million Whites in the USSE seems to prove otherwise. So does WWII and Israel's decades' worth of expansion in the Middle East. Jews understand force probably better than any other race.
They're not used to wielding it,
No, they are not used to NOT wielding it. This is why they can't handle Trump. Jews have had immense power in the West for at least 200 years, and just now it's starting to come undone.
A cursory look at Jewish history, from the biblical era of their genocidal rampages throughout the Levant, to 19th Century Russia and their constant assassinations of Russian officials, to 20th Century Europe and their revolutionary activity, to today with Israel constantly battling its neighbors, gives a portrait of an excessively violent tribe.
"Schizophrenia, interestingly, also seems to track with cocooning. In the biography "A Beautiful Mind", its said that John Nash's schizophrenia developed in the 60s, but then he had a remission in the mid-90s."
ReplyDeleteThere actually was a big trend to "liberate" unbalanced people in the late 60's and 70's. Reagan is sometimes criticized for letting out thousands of people from Cali psych wards in the 70's, but trad. psychiatry was totally discredited at the time. Lobotomies, Dr. Feelgood treatments, involuntary commitments, misogyny, and so forth. Hell, urban legends developed about people weaseling their way out of accountability by citing mental illness (the twinkie defense). I understand that by the 80's, the majority of people downplayed their issues to the extent that they had any. This did cause some troubled people to avoid confronting real problems before it was too late, but overall most people did fine. After all, when did hoarding become a problem? The later 90's. OCD was relatively rare in the 70's and 80's.
There's some merit to the idea of stress making people go kookoo, but I've got a hunch that it also reveals our true character. The majority of G.I.s and Silents handled whatever stresses they faced pretty well. Then hot-headed Boomers came along. Boomers, esp. the later ones, somehow parlayed a lot of advantages into the gutter. Addiction problems, obesity, excesses of vanity (body building/plastic surgery), strained relationships, poor handling of money, homelessness, and so on. With Boomers leading the way, many X-ers have also succumbed to these issues though not to the same degree (with the possible exception of drugs and booze).
If memory serves, cult sci-fi author Micheal Moorcock has claimed that he learned to accept hallucinations as a "natural" part of his imagination in the 70's. People are better at accepting various stages of moods and mental states in outgoing times. In cocooning times, we're intimidated by these cycles and phases. So in comes drugs, psych therapy, and institutions. This also fits into the adoration that SCIENCE inspires in cocooners. Whereas in other times people take refuge in creativity, spirituality, and just plain getting out more often.
Things like the excess of mid-century communism/fascism and psychiatry ought to teach us that cocooners develop blind spots regarding obedience towards "expert" scientists and utopian world builders.
"Jews have had immense power in the West for at least 200 years, and just now it's starting to come undone."
ReplyDeleteJews have had power and influence for maybe 100 years, not 200. And it was not based on force -- nor has it ever been.
Don't equivocate on who "the Jews" are, if unspecified. We mean the affluent middle-man Ashkenazim, not the honor-bound pastoralists of the Old Testament.
Israeli Jews are different, having used massive force to get their way -- and of course, a good chunk of them are not Ashkenazi. In fact, what I recall people saying 15 years ago was that the Mizrahi Jews from the Middle East were more eager to use violence than the nerdy European transplants.
I am now agreeing even more with Agnostic's idea that the Democrats are counterproductive in their current political strategy. They seriously think they can only finnagle a win in the 2018 midterms. They don't plan on offering anything positive to voters, only fulfilling their promise to obstruct the president and then claim he failed. I think they'll lose congressional seats they considered solid blue. This might be hilarious, even for me, a Green Party voter so far.
ReplyDeleteHere's the confirming article:
http://prospect.org/article/why-democrats-need-forget-about-reaching-out
In the novel "Vengeance", the source materiel for Spielberg's movie Munich, the narrator, a Massad agent, draws a further distinction between Jews from West Europe and East Europe:
ReplyDelete"In the kibbutz, however, Avner learned to distinguish between different types of Israelis - in terms of their own choosing. Most of the other kids in the kibbutz were Galicianers, which to Avner translated into a vulgar, push, know-nothing lots of East European Jews. He, on the other hand, was a Yekke. A civilized, sophisticated sabra of West European roots.
The two terms - at least as Avner came to understand them - described qualities associated with spirit as much as geography. Galicia, the easternmost Polish province of the old Austro-Hungarian Empire, was the breeding ground of everything that was clannish, corrupt, smart-alecky, deceitful and low-class about Jews. Undeniably, Galicianers were also clever, resourceful and determined: Avner would readily grant them that. Often they had a marvelous sense of humour. They could personally be very brave and utterly devoted to Israel. But they would always be on the lookout for an angle. They would understand nothing about the finer things. They would cheat and lie; they would be materialistic beyond belief. They would stick to each other like glue. They would use expressions like le'histader - taking care of yourself. Or "sharing out the dumplings". They might not all come from Galicia, But if they had these qualities, they were Galicianers.
Yekkes had come to Israel mainly from Germany or other Western European countries, like Avner's parents, but wherever they had come from, their main distinction was that they had been assimilated Jews. They had not lived in ghettos, in shtetls. They had few of the survival instincts of hunted animals, the kind of eye-for-the-main-chance nature that Jews in Galicia had to develop to stay alive. Yekkes were polite, ordely and clean. They had books in their homes, they listened to classical music. More importantly - since some Galicianers would also read books or listen to good music - Yekkes had an idea of European civilization that was different. They expected Israel to become a kind of Scandinavia for Jews, with lots of symphony orchestras playing Beethoven and art galleries exhibiting paintings by Rembrandt.
"Yekkes also had a different idea about civic virtues. In times of scarcity, they expected to have things rationed, then to line up for them in an orderly fashion. They were prepared to take orders, or to give them, but not to arrange, fix, manipulate. They were punctual, methodical, maybe just a touch pompous. In the great Yekke city of Nahariya they'd built their houses in neat, uncluttered rows. In many ways they were more Germanic than Germans."
"The Galicianers would take care of their own. They were the magic circle. The best jobs, the best opportunities went to them."
"In Israel the Galicianers had their hands on the helm, and other Jews - German, Dutch or American - would get to do very little steering. Oriental Jews, next to nothing, if the Galicianers could help it."
I don't get how disproportionate births by season are in schizophrenia. Is it 7%, from the 1.07 number? And is this infection at birth, even though the disease onset is usually way later, around age 20? I'm curious as to why the virus has not been found yet. Scientists might prefer genetic explanations for why this disease runs in families.
ReplyDeletehttps://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pubmed/14609251?dopt=Abstract
Looking on a map, Galicia is located at the souternmost part of Poland, bordering Ukraine. The historic region of Galicia is considered to actually extend into Ukraine. It seems to be part of the Ukrainian steppe that historically was known for producing pastoralist societies.
ReplyDeleteIsrael absorbed over a 1 million Jews from the old Soviet Union and Eastern Europe, after the collapse of the USSR. I wonder how many of these were from Southern Russia - also known for pastoralism(ever hear of the Cossacks) - or the aforementioned steppe region in southern Eastern Europe.
Curtis, I've never met a Southern Russian Jew. There are some "Mountain Jews" from places like Kyrgyzstan, and they are known for being pastoral. Most Soviet Jews lived in urban or suburban places, which mostly excludes the South. The older "pale of settlement" where Jews were legally permitted to live, under the empire's segregation, is shown in a map on Wikipedia. I think that even though it's old, the map was still roughly accurate later on in the 20th century.
ReplyDeleteYou are right that pastoralism matters, but varying relations with the Gentile neighbors probably matter more. I think earlier Israeli Jews were more western European, especially from German areas. This is the case in America too, because western Jews immigrated before eastern ones did. They don't always get along, as described in a good biography of the physicist Robert Oppenheimer, who was a German Jew, but had a close Galician Jewish friend. The Galicians are far less influential and wealthy, typically.
While we're on the subject, a real mystery to me is the fact that Jewish people ignore, condone, or support uncontrolled Islamic immigration. Not only does this allow dangerous radicals to come in who intend to do them harm, but these immigrants, due to their sheer numbers and their high birth rates and chain migration, threaten to outnumber them.
ReplyDeleteWhile we're on the subject, a real mystery to me is the fact that Jewish people ignore, condone, or support uncontrolled Islamic immigration.
ReplyDeleteWhat don't you understand? Jews hate Europe and are using their power to open the flood gates to its enemies, just as they did in the cities of Spain when the Moors invaded in the 700s.
Jews feel a natural kinship with Muslims and see them as their allies against Whites. For the most part, they are. There are plenty of articles on Jewish websites lavishing praise on Jews who bring Muslims into Europe to subjugate the hated native Europeans, who they blame for their past "persecutions."
There may be some attacks on Jews by Muslims in Europe, but they're few and far between compared to attacks on Europeans. If Europe ends up being flooded with Muslims, the Jews who brought them there will flee to Israel. Some are already doing that.
Jews have had power and influence for maybe 100 years, not 200. And it was not based on force -- nor has it ever been.
ReplyDeleteIt was absolutely based on force in the USSR. In the modern West they've implemented a soft tyranny, but it's every bit as destructive to the host societies as the Red Terror was.
Don't equivocate on who "the Jews" are, if unspecified. We mean the affluent middle-man Ashkenazim, not the honor-bound pastoralists of the Old Testament.
There is genetic continuity between the Ashkenazic "middle men" (they aren't) of today and the old Hebrews. Reading Tacitus and Strabo, it's clear there's also little difference in behavior between modern Jews and those of the Ancient world.
Israeli Jews are different, having used massive force to get their way -- and of course, a good chunk of them are not Ashkenazi. In fact, what I recall people saying 15 years ago was that the Mizrahi Jews from the Middle East were more eager to use violence than the nerdy European transplants.
Those Israeli Jews behave the exact same way as their diaspora brethren the moment they set foot outside of Israel. There are plenty of Israeli organizations involved in bringing Muslims into Europe.
All Jews- right and left, capitalist and communist, atheist and religious- share the same hatred of Whites and the West. They only disagree on how to arrive at its destruction.
So, Agnostic any thoughts on Evan Mcmullin? To me he looks like he's got creepy levels of gayface plus hints of other kinds of... issues from his face alone. Nevermind his political stances, being a conspicious bachelor in his 40s.
ReplyDeleteIs it just gayface or something worse in your opinion?
He's gay for sure -- aside from gayface, he's a Mormon over 40 who's never been married, had kids, or ever had a girlfriend. Mormons get married early and have large families.
ReplyDelete"...ever had a girlfriend"
ReplyDeletePlenty of gays have girlfriends, as I learned during a sort of diversity education assembly in middle school (California leads the nation in these things). In a famous gay comedian's memoir, the implication was that they're more sexual overall, with higher libido levels.
The gay guy in school explained he's still friends with his high school girlfriend, from before he "realized" he wasn't heterosexual. He came out decades later, so it's not so simple as girlfriend = straight. I assume men with more than three children cannot be gay, but that's not verified by actual data, only my observations.
I assume McMullin has dated, but CIA agents probably don't marry as much as ordinary Americans.
I imagine they are lonely, and worry too much to commit to a spouse or start a family, because of their line of work. I don't pity them in this regard though, they could reduce risks faced by their families by doing a good job, just like anyone else.
Mormons have an exaggerated reputation for large families. Their total fertility rate is not that high, partly because they really like upper middle class lifestyles, and tithing to the LDS is expensive. They get married earlier, yes,but never protest the age of consent laws, and how often do they marry at 17? Mormons are a variety of SWPL. Mormons stand out against the contrast of typical libertine far Westerners, but are not that different.
I do suppose McMullin's unusual, in that CIA people rarely get into politics openly, or run for office. They seem to not see the point, and focus on their usual operations.
His recent running mate, Mindy Finn, calls herself a "Tech Titan," which is funny, but indicates they're just quirky people, not really bad. He does have what you call gayface, but that's not quite enough evidence for me. I know gays who don't have gayface too.
Not sure where to post this, but this is some interesting stuff about what is going on at the State Department. All the excess employers, hired because of overproduction of the elites, are now left twiddling their thumbs:
ReplyDeletehttps://www.theatlantic.com/international/archive/2017/03/state-department-trump/517965/?utm_source=twb
The lame thing is that so much real work has been off-shored or pawned off to invaders. Meanwhile, more and more people want to do socially prestigious elite work. End result? Way too many people with way too little in terms of honest work to do.
ReplyDelete"“If I left before 10 p.m., that was a good day,” said the State staffer of the old days, which used to start at 6:30 in the morning."
ReplyDeleteThat sounds fake. Time for sleep, commuting both ways, and anything but work, hello? Regularly doing more than 12 hours of work per day is not realistic. I don't think she was that busy; careerists are irrational about doing their jobs.
"the State Department, which employs nearly 70,000 people around the world"
I guess their staff is 90% unneeded. There are only hundreds of countries in the world, not tens of thousands. Many countries need only a few staff to deal with them So my rough estimate is 5 for tiny countries, and hundreds of staff for the very few largest countries. 196 countries total, so, 30*196= ~6,000. Not 70,000.
“Not since I began at the department a decade ago has it been so quiet.”
So it's still too loud, given that 2007 was a year of major war, counting both Iraq and Afghanistan. Hush, civil servants.