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As a New Year’s present, here’s a new Open Thread for the Karlin commenting community, jump started with a few relocated comments from the previous thread.

— Ron Unz

 
• Tags: Blogging, Open Thread 
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  1. Surprised that the Greens in Germany haven’t yet come out in support of mandating a transition to English and changing the country’s name to something more palatable to its members, like “Refugium” or “Queermany.”

    • Agree: Bardon Kaldlan
    • LOL: showmethereal
    • Replies: @A123
    @songbird


    Surprised that the Greens in Germany haven’t yet come out in support of mandating a transition to English
     
    You mean the language of CAPITALISM? That would never happen. Perhaps they would chose Arabic or Farsi. How about an invented language, like Esperanto?

    The image below is circulating, but I have not found a tie back to the original source. Based on Cem Özdemir's record, the quote is highly plausible.

    PEACE 😇

     
    https://pjmedia.com/instapundit/wp-content/uploads/2021/12/Screen-Shot-2021-12-31-at-9.01.01-AM-482x600.png

    Replies: @songbird, @Barbarossa

  2. Interestingly, the mayor of Mexico City is a Jewish woman, Claudia Scheinbaum Pardo. There was some controversy this past year, as she had a 150 year old statue of Columbus taken down and replaced with an indigenous woman.

    She has been floated as a possible presidential candidate for 2024.

    • Replies: @showmethereal
    @songbird

    don't look now... now even Chile has elected a "left winger"... the mestizos and the indigenous have almost all taken taken back Latin America. If Bolsonaro gets voted out - it will be pretty much complete except Colombia and a couple of stragglers. US Monroe Doctrine is faltering... Which most of the brown and peach colored people below Texas are happy about.

    Replies: @sher singh, @songbird

  3. @songbird
    Surprised that the Greens in Germany haven't yet come out in support of mandating a transition to English and changing the country's name to something more palatable to its members, like "Refugium" or "Queermany."

    Replies: @A123

    Surprised that the Greens in Germany haven’t yet come out in support of mandating a transition to English

    You mean the language of CAPITALISM? That would never happen. Perhaps they would chose Arabic or Farsi. How about an invented language, like Esperanto?

    The image below is circulating, but I have not found a tie back to the original source. Based on Cem Özdemir’s record, the quote is highly plausible.

    PEACE 😇

     

    • Replies: @songbird
    @A123


    How about an invented language, like Esperanto?
     
    Once read a novel where the villains spoke Esperanto, and I thought it was a really clever idea. Though, a parasitical model of politics (which I think holds) would suggest that the Left would rather speak Sioux or Choctaw, as they have more speakers.

    Similarly, Farsi and Arabic would be terrible choices from their perspective. Only the Arab oil states have any money. The others are all dirt poor (it is amazing how poor Morocco and Algeria are), and there are a lot of antagonisms between bordering countries. They are not intellectual centers, so not much of an academic niche to exploit. Plus, the disadvantage of gendered words.

    What makes English attractive is that it is a language of maximization. You can exploit the most resources using English - the most money, the most minds. English has 1.348 billion first and second language speakers - that's more than Mandarin, and it's better than Mandarin because there is no Great Firewall, or censorship by the CCP.
    _____
    I wonder whether Cem Özdemir feels any sympathy for the price that his fellow Turks are paying for food in inflated currency. Or whether it is just his radical politics that are being shown. Probably if the Greens ever took total power there would be a worse famine than happened under Mao.

    Replies: @German_reader, @China Japan and Korea Bromance of Three Kingdoms

    , @Barbarossa
    @A123

    On that German agriculture minister; I don't find what he's saying to be that outlandishly evil, at least from my perspective in the American food system.

    Food is cheap in the US, but artificially so, with things like corn and soy monocrops heavily government subsidized. We pay for the true cost alright, just not at the checkout. This does lead to a variety of negative effects on the environment, health, and farmer livelihood. This includes societal costs from the ever increasing push to consolidate farms into larger and larger entities.

    80 years ago or so, in my part of the world, a man could raise a respectable family on a 15 or 20 head dairy. Now a 500 cow dairy is considered too small to make it. This was a shift that was engineered and pushed at the government level, not something that "just happened". Needless to say, it's been a disaster for the vitality of rural communities and for the ability of young farmers to start up. Farm decentralization should be a big plank in the MAGA revitalization, if such a thing ever came to fruition.

    The dairy farmers that I know are loosing money badly right now. Fuel, grain, and other inputs are skyrocketing while the milk price keeps dropping. One farmer would sell his whole herd tomorrow, but there is no market to buy the cows. He'd be better off financially to sell them for beef, so he holds on while he can.

    So, I do think there is a strong argument that food should be more expensive to the consumer, but that the government should get out of the subsidies, so that we pay the true cost.

    I'm not sure what the agriculture policy in Germany looks like for context. Maybe German_Reader would have some idea?

    Replies: @songbird, @A123, @Philip Owen

  4. Many thanks to Ron Unz for creating another Open Thread for this community, it is much appreciated!

    • Agree: songbird, Dan Hayes
    • Replies: @Emil Nikola Richard
    @German_reader

    Happy New Years to all! Thanks to Mr. Unz for he is a jolly good fellow.

    https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=TLIppgE45wM

  5. @A123
    @songbird


    Surprised that the Greens in Germany haven’t yet come out in support of mandating a transition to English
     
    You mean the language of CAPITALISM? That would never happen. Perhaps they would chose Arabic or Farsi. How about an invented language, like Esperanto?

    The image below is circulating, but I have not found a tie back to the original source. Based on Cem Özdemir's record, the quote is highly plausible.

    PEACE 😇

     
    https://pjmedia.com/instapundit/wp-content/uploads/2021/12/Screen-Shot-2021-12-31-at-9.01.01-AM-482x600.png

    Replies: @songbird, @Barbarossa

    How about an invented language, like Esperanto?

    Once read a novel where the villains spoke Esperanto, and I thought it was a really clever idea. Though, a parasitical model of politics (which I think holds) would suggest that the Left would rather speak Sioux or Choctaw, as they have more speakers.

    Similarly, Farsi and Arabic would be terrible choices from their perspective. Only the Arab oil states have any money. The others are all dirt poor (it is amazing how poor Morocco and Algeria are), and there are a lot of antagonisms between bordering countries. They are not intellectual centers, so not much of an academic niche to exploit. Plus, the disadvantage of gendered words.

    What makes English attractive is that it is a language of maximization. You can exploit the most resources using English – the most money, the most minds. English has 1.348 billion first and second language speakers – that’s more than Mandarin, and it’s better than Mandarin because there is no Great Firewall, or censorship by the CCP.
    _____
    I wonder whether Cem Özdemir feels any sympathy for the price that his fellow Turks are paying for food in inflated currency. Or whether it is just his radical politics that are being shown. Probably if the Greens ever took total power there would be a worse famine than happened under Mao.

    • Replies: @German_reader
    @songbird


    Or whether it is just his radical politics that are being shown.
     
    It's partly class snobbery. Greens are the party of well-off people employed by the state (civil servants, teachers etc.) who can afford buying expensive bio products and who look down on the proles who go shopping at cheap supermarkets like ALDI.

    Replies: @Matra, @Yevardian, @Mr. Hack

    , @China Japan and Korea Bromance of Three Kingdoms
    @songbird


    English has 1.348 billion first and second language speakers – that’s more than Mandarin
     
    Mandarin is the spoken language, all the Sinitic languages / dialects are written in the same script, Chinese characters, hànzì 漢字.

    So it's incorrect to say "It's written in Mandarin", only "It's written in Chinese" since all the dialect speakers write using the same script.

    This is similar to Swiss German and other dialects are written in Standard German. But hànzì is logographic so can be used for vastly different languages, i.e. the agglutinative language Japanese.

    Someone fully literate in Chinese should be able to read 50 to 60% of a Japanese text. The reverse is somewhat less true since only mostly the educated knows kanji well, but still holds.

    So hànzì and kanji can be said to be used by ~1.5 billion people. (subject to Koreans reviving hanja which would increase that figure)

  6. German_reader says:
    @songbird
    @A123


    How about an invented language, like Esperanto?
     
    Once read a novel where the villains spoke Esperanto, and I thought it was a really clever idea. Though, a parasitical model of politics (which I think holds) would suggest that the Left would rather speak Sioux or Choctaw, as they have more speakers.

    Similarly, Farsi and Arabic would be terrible choices from their perspective. Only the Arab oil states have any money. The others are all dirt poor (it is amazing how poor Morocco and Algeria are), and there are a lot of antagonisms between bordering countries. They are not intellectual centers, so not much of an academic niche to exploit. Plus, the disadvantage of gendered words.

    What makes English attractive is that it is a language of maximization. You can exploit the most resources using English - the most money, the most minds. English has 1.348 billion first and second language speakers - that's more than Mandarin, and it's better than Mandarin because there is no Great Firewall, or censorship by the CCP.
    _____
    I wonder whether Cem Özdemir feels any sympathy for the price that his fellow Turks are paying for food in inflated currency. Or whether it is just his radical politics that are being shown. Probably if the Greens ever took total power there would be a worse famine than happened under Mao.

    Replies: @German_reader, @China Japan and Korea Bromance of Three Kingdoms

    Or whether it is just his radical politics that are being shown.

    It’s partly class snobbery. Greens are the party of well-off people employed by the state (civil servants, teachers etc.) who can afford buying expensive bio products and who look down on the proles who go shopping at cheap supermarkets like ALDI.

    • Replies: @Matra
    @German_reader

    During my only ever visit to an Aldi (Munich-Schwanthalerhöhe) in 2019 I noticed when standing in the queue that I was the only white person in the store. They also had a security guard. Right after that I went to the Alnatura on Sonnenstraße - just a couple of minutes away. There, everybody was white, including the checkout staff. (Never saw a single automated checkout in Germany). No security guard either. It was like two different cities. I'm guessing Green voters shop at Alnatura.

    Replies: @sher singh

    , @Yevardian
    @German_reader


    It’s partly class snobbery. Greens are the party of well-off people employed by the state (civil servants, teachers etc.) who can afford buying expensive bio products and who look down on the proles who go shopping at cheap supermarkets like ALDI.
     
    Even mostly, I've witnessed too many conversations (e.g. forestry, a working-class guy mentioning how his father experienced green activists putting spikes in the sawmills and seriously injuring people, his interlocutor simply said with disgusting arrogance 'ok.. I'm not having this conversation') growing up not to notice it.

    It's a shame that enviromentalism has been so totally commandeered by those on the cultural extreme-left (funny, considering it originated with romantic nationalists and conservatives), and now in reaction the mainstream right takes equally imbecilic takes.
    Not to mention, since all this global warming hysteria (I'm agnostic on the topic), every other major enviromental problem seems to have become relatively ignored. Most seriously, the still constantly-increasing amounts of plastic, which, even if the worst predictions of athropogenic global warming are true, I feel things like microplastics circulating everywhere, as far as the Mariana Trench, are much more concerning.

    I mean, evolution has dealt with rapid climatic changes dozens of times over, but the ubiquitousness of indistible and often toxic compouds breaking down far enough to be ingested by microscopic organisms seems unprecedented.


    But this isn't really my area, I don't know if anyone within the hard sciences regularly comments here, I mostly just get my takes on energy issues from Vaclav Smil.

    Replies: @German_reader, @Philip Owen

    , @Mr. Hack
    @German_reader

    I'm not sure just how "cheap" Aldis really are, perhaps, inexpensive would be a better term to describe them? I've been to Aldis twice in Minnesota, once in Fridley (a suburb of Minneapolis) and also in Hutchinson, a good sized town in the center of the state. I thought that there were a lot of good products on display all reasonably priced and a lot imported from Germany. A friend of mine just purchased a duck at Aldis and was not disappointed, paying half a much as he would at other food stores. There are now 2-3 in the Phoenix area. Perhaps, I should be aware of something first before shopping there? I'd be grateful to know, for they seem to sprouting up all over the US.

    Replies: @Dmitry, @German_reader

  7. Former commenter here Andrei Martyanov did an interview for Geopolitics & Empire. Long time commenters here probably won’t be shocked at how he laughs at NATO capabilities and says NATO will be easily defeated if it gets into a conventional with more advanced Russia. IIRC he fell out with AK over the latter’s disparaging remarks about sovoks or the USSR or something like that.

    • Replies: @Philip Owen
    @Matra

    Let's just say that the road into Georgia in 2008 was lined with broken down Russian tanks (think Ukraine in 2014, bascically the same army). Since then Russia has more or less completely re equipped its conventional forces, 90% done in some categories, 70% in others. The trouble is, that antitank weapons are cheaper than tanks if fighting real NATO forces. = won't happen. Also, the Russian army is perhaps the most corrupt institution in Russia. The Stavka successfully framed Medvedeev's chosen Mr Reform for corruption hiself. The army hides behind the Great Patriotic War. The Air Force seems to be a lot better.

    The present burst of hysterical Russophobia is a product of the Ukrainian propaganda machine. In 2015, Congress voted $750m for arming Ukraine. Neither Obama nor Trump released it. The present war hysteria is a Ukrainian bid for that money. Stopping NS2 is a secondary objective.

    Replies: @Barbarossa

    , @Thulean Friend
    @Matra


    Former commenter here Andrei Martyanov did an interview for Geopolitics & Empire. Long time commenters here probably won’t be shocked at how he laughs at NATO capabilities and says NATO will be easily defeated if it gets into a conventional with more advanced Russia. IIRC he fell out with AK over the latter’s disparaging remarks about sovoks or the USSR or something like that.
     
    Skimming the interview, at minutes 26-27 he starts ranting that he doesn't care about "zeroes and ones" and computers and clearly displays his boomer tendencies. He thinks an economy should only be judged on things you can touch or eat. It is not hard to see why AK had disdain for him, even if I think AK himself is as a mediocre analyst, I can't see him making these sorts of cardinal errors.

    As for "NATO easily defeated", given reality of MAD the entire question is moot. There will never be a full conventional war for obvious reasons so making arguments based on a non-eventuality strikes me as a waste of time.

    In general, I find Martynov to be of limited utility. I would only read him on narrow technical topics like submarines or jets, and even then I'd use a pinch of salt or more since these discussions tend to be polluted by nationalist flag-waving, which cloud people's judgements and prevents them from dispassionate analysis.

    Replies: @silviosilver, @china-russia-all-the-way, @Jim Christian, @AP

  8. @Matra
    Former commenter here Andrei Martyanov did an interview for Geopolitics & Empire. Long time commenters here probably won't be shocked at how he laughs at NATO capabilities and says NATO will be easily defeated if it gets into a conventional with more advanced Russia. IIRC he fell out with AK over the latter's disparaging remarks about sovoks or the USSR or something like that.

    Replies: @Philip Owen, @Thulean Friend

    Let’s just say that the road into Georgia in 2008 was lined with broken down Russian tanks (think Ukraine in 2014, bascically the same army). Since then Russia has more or less completely re equipped its conventional forces, 90% done in some categories, 70% in others. The trouble is, that antitank weapons are cheaper than tanks if fighting real NATO forces. = won’t happen. Also, the Russian army is perhaps the most corrupt institution in Russia. The Stavka successfully framed Medvedeev’s chosen Mr Reform for corruption hiself. The army hides behind the Great Patriotic War. The Air Force seems to be a lot better.

    The present burst of hysterical Russophobia is a product of the Ukrainian propaganda machine. In 2015, Congress voted \$750m for arming Ukraine. Neither Obama nor Trump released it. The present war hysteria is a Ukrainian bid for that money. Stopping NS2 is a secondary objective.

    • Thanks: Matra
    • Replies: @Barbarossa
    @Philip Owen


    the Russian army is perhaps the most corrupt institution in Russia.
     
    So, similar dynamic to the US, if accurate. I suppose that Russia can't afford the scope of wasted military spending that the US seems addicted to.

    Replies: @Mikhail

  9. Interestingly, Putin has proposed lifting Gazprom’s monopoly on exporting pipeline gas to the EU. He has suggested that Rosneft, the state oil company, (Charman Gerhard Schroder, 2nd biggest shareholder BP at 20%), should supply gas to Europe through the Brotherhood pipeline that runs through Ukraine. As an oil company, Rosneft has more flexibility to play the spot market in gas than Gazprom (which may be blocked from offering competitive prices by contracts with China etc). As a private company it is more compatible with EU market philosophy. Also, as a private company, it adds an arms length relationship with Naftogaz of Ukraine so defusing the issues slightly.

    Rosneft is sanctioned by the US but not the EU.

    Meanwhile note that the UK received 29 shipments of LNG from Yamal in 2021 up from 22 in 2020. Until NS2 opens, the UK is Russia’s biggest buyer of gas in Europe as a some also comes via pipeline. In the other direction, Russia is the UK’s biggest foreign gas supplier (although the UK is not very dependent on foreign gas). Most reports on the matter only count pipeline gas so the LNG is missed.

  10. @German_reader
    @songbird


    Or whether it is just his radical politics that are being shown.
     
    It's partly class snobbery. Greens are the party of well-off people employed by the state (civil servants, teachers etc.) who can afford buying expensive bio products and who look down on the proles who go shopping at cheap supermarkets like ALDI.

    Replies: @Matra, @Yevardian, @Mr. Hack

    During my only ever visit to an Aldi (Munich-Schwanthalerhöhe) in 2019 I noticed when standing in the queue that I was the only white person in the store. They also had a security guard. Right after that I went to the Alnatura on Sonnenstraße – just a couple of minutes away. There, everybody was white, including the checkout staff. (Never saw a single automated checkout in Germany). No security guard either. It was like two different cities. I’m guessing Green voters shop at Alnatura.

    • Replies: @sher singh
    @Matra

    Hmm, my only interest in the EU is getting Kirpan restrictions (3ft sword) rescinded & I guess hijab.
    Since, women covering up is good and it creates cultural space for others to do so.

    Otherwise, u get retarded homeless lvl wignats attacking women who cover their hair.. which is rape.

    This thread doesn't show up on the Karlin blog but on Mr. Unz's page btw.

    ਵਾਹਿਗੁਰੂਜੀਕਾਖਾਲਸਾਵਾਹਿਗੁਰੂਜੀਕੀਫਤਿਹ

  11. @German_reader
    Many thanks to Ron Unz for creating another Open Thread for this community, it is much appreciated!

    Replies: @Emil Nikola Richard

    Happy New Years to all! Thanks to Mr. Unz for he is a jolly good fellow.

  12. A few Open Threads ago, I forcefully argued that in the event of a Nazi Germany victory on mainland Europe, the world that we live in today would not have been materially different.

    I noted that capitalism has an internal logic of its own, following a rhythm not dependent on external exigencies or political preferences. This is playing out in China. Xi Jinping has been drumming on about ‘common prosperity’ but rhetoric aside, the most consequential economic policies have not substantially changed:

    Socialism and communism as economic systems appear to be dead. This so-called “Cold War 2.0” is decidedly more boring than the old one, for at least there was an ideological contest at stake back then. On issues like climate change, China and the US also see eye to eye. I am happy about this, but this also means that the ideological fervor of the 20th century has given way to a stale technocratic consensus, where the only real fight is who gets to be top dog in a system all agree to the basic ground rules rather than which set of ideas should rule. Yawn.

    • Agree: Barbarossa
    • Replies: @Derer
    @Thulean Friend


    Socialism and communism as economic systems appear to be dead.
     
    For some reason you forgot about 2009 one trillion "socialist" bailout of corrupt crony capitalists. Taxpayers paid twice to corporate bums. That just tells you who controls the government.

    Replies: @Yellowface Anon

  13. @Matra
    Former commenter here Andrei Martyanov did an interview for Geopolitics & Empire. Long time commenters here probably won't be shocked at how he laughs at NATO capabilities and says NATO will be easily defeated if it gets into a conventional with more advanced Russia. IIRC he fell out with AK over the latter's disparaging remarks about sovoks or the USSR or something like that.

    Replies: @Philip Owen, @Thulean Friend

    Former commenter here Andrei Martyanov did an interview for Geopolitics & Empire. Long time commenters here probably won’t be shocked at how he laughs at NATO capabilities and says NATO will be easily defeated if it gets into a conventional with more advanced Russia. IIRC he fell out with AK over the latter’s disparaging remarks about sovoks or the USSR or something like that.

    Skimming the interview, at minutes 26-27 he starts ranting that he doesn’t care about “zeroes and ones” and computers and clearly displays his boomer tendencies. He thinks an economy should only be judged on things you can touch or eat. It is not hard to see why AK had disdain for him, even if I think AK himself is as a mediocre analyst, I can’t see him making these sorts of cardinal errors.

    As for “NATO easily defeated”, given reality of MAD the entire question is moot. There will never be a full conventional war for obvious reasons so making arguments based on a non-eventuality strikes me as a waste of time.

    In general, I find Martynov to be of limited utility. I would only read him on narrow technical topics like submarines or jets, and even then I’d use a pinch of salt or more since these discussions tend to be polluted by nationalist flag-waving, which cloud people’s judgements and prevents them from dispassionate analysis.

    • Replies: @silviosilver
    @Thulean Friend


    As for “NATO easily defeated”, given reality of MAD the entire question is moot. There will never be a full conventional war for obvious reasons so making arguments based on a non-eventuality strikes me as a waste of time.
     
    I am not so sure about that at all. It only makes sense if you assume that a conventional war must be a war to the absolute finish. But why can't there be a limited conventional war, fought over limited objectives? If there can be a limited war, then MAD logic would seem to hold - ie better to lose the limited war than effectuate MAD.
    , @china-russia-all-the-way
    @Thulean Friend


    It is not hard to see why AK had disdain for him, even if I think AK himself is as a mediocre analyst
     
    Nonsense. I haven't come across a clearer thinking and more talented geopolitical analyst on the Internet as Karlin.

    Replies: @Jim Christian, @Mikhail

    , @Jim Christian
    @Thulean Friend

    Thule, in Russian territory out to the Atlantic, the Russian military can handle easily handle NATO. Further, Russia is not Saddam, Russia is NOT going to allow the U.S. a 7 month buildup. So NATO would have to cope, and given stern warning, Washington might call it a day. For decades it's been speculated that the U.S. will NOT risk war (especially nuclear) with the SovietBloc/Russian entities. After all, it was Russia that really destroyed Hitler. The US collected their kills merely firebombing helpless victims in the German cities when it was all but over. The US ruling class knows better than to go all out against the people who beat Hitler.

    , @AP
    @Thulean Friend

    His biography (publicly available) is that he was a junior Soviet military officer from a second tier military academy, who in the early 90s left for the USA and worked as a tutor for smart kids (someone his age should have done better in life, this doesn't speak well for him). He is useful and interesting in the sense that not many actual Soviet military officers write and argue in English with people, so exposure to his POV is good. But take what he says with a big grain of salt and no need to idealize him.

    Commenter Twinkie easily bested him in a series of arguments about World War II.

    Replies: @Mikhail, @Dmitry

  14. @songbird
    Interestingly, the mayor of Mexico City is a Jewish woman, Claudia Scheinbaum Pardo. There was some controversy this past year, as she had a 150 year old statue of Columbus taken down and replaced with an indigenous woman.

    She has been floated as a possible presidential candidate for 2024.

    Replies: @showmethereal

    don’t look now… now even Chile has elected a “left winger”… the mestizos and the indigenous have almost all taken taken back Latin America. If Bolsonaro gets voted out – it will be pretty much complete except Colombia and a couple of stragglers. US Monroe Doctrine is faltering… Which most of the brown and peach colored people below Texas are happy about.

    • Replies: @sher singh
    @showmethereal

    America has been focused on Asia more or less since the 50s.
    Europe will always be the #1 focus but Asia has been the #2.

    The Western hemisphere will get fkd hard once USA retreats from Asia.
    https://youtu.be/W9fnmLPpAvM

    ਵਾਹਿਗੁਰੂਜੀਕਾਖਾਲਸਾਵਾਹਿਗੁਰੂਜੀਕੀਫਤਿਹ

    Replies: @showmethereal

    , @songbird
    @showmethereal

    Heard that the president of Uruguay is an open borders guy.

    Replies: @showmethereal

  15. @showmethereal
    @songbird

    don't look now... now even Chile has elected a "left winger"... the mestizos and the indigenous have almost all taken taken back Latin America. If Bolsonaro gets voted out - it will be pretty much complete except Colombia and a couple of stragglers. US Monroe Doctrine is faltering... Which most of the brown and peach colored people below Texas are happy about.

    Replies: @sher singh, @songbird

    America has been focused on Asia more or less since the 50s.
    Europe will always be the #1 focus but Asia has been the #2.

    The Western hemisphere will get fkd hard once USA retreats from Asia.

    ਵਾਹਿਗੁਰੂਜੀਕਾਖਾਲਸਾਵਾਹਿਗੁਰੂਜੀਕੀਫਤਿਹ

    • Replies: @showmethereal
    @sher singh

    Not sure what you mean by that... They US has sponsored coups - or invasions - or interfered in elections - in every single one of those countries since the 1950's (Caribbean and Latin America). Many a right wing dictator or faux democratic ruler was propped up.... But in the past 20 years the tides have been turning. Even a coup in Nicaragua failed a couple of years ago... less famous than the attempt in Venezuela. But the people shrugged it off. And personally I never thought Chile would remain in the US orbit for the rest of my days... But that has just changed.

    But that was indeed an interesting video you posted...

  16. sher singh says:
    @Matra
    @German_reader

    During my only ever visit to an Aldi (Munich-Schwanthalerhöhe) in 2019 I noticed when standing in the queue that I was the only white person in the store. They also had a security guard. Right after that I went to the Alnatura on Sonnenstraße - just a couple of minutes away. There, everybody was white, including the checkout staff. (Never saw a single automated checkout in Germany). No security guard either. It was like two different cities. I'm guessing Green voters shop at Alnatura.

    Replies: @sher singh

    Hmm, my only interest in the EU is getting Kirpan restrictions (3ft sword) rescinded & I guess hijab.
    Since, women covering up is good and it creates cultural space for others to do so.

    Otherwise, u get retarded homeless lvl wignats attacking women who cover their hair.. which is rape.

    This thread doesn’t show up on the Karlin blog but on Mr. Unz’s page btw.

    ਵਾਹਿਗੁਰੂਜੀਕਾਖਾਲਸਾਵਾਹਿਗੁਰੂਜੀਕੀਫਤਿਹ

  17. Happy New Year, Ron!

    • Agree: Barbarossa
  18. @Philip Owen
    @Matra

    Let's just say that the road into Georgia in 2008 was lined with broken down Russian tanks (think Ukraine in 2014, bascically the same army). Since then Russia has more or less completely re equipped its conventional forces, 90% done in some categories, 70% in others. The trouble is, that antitank weapons are cheaper than tanks if fighting real NATO forces. = won't happen. Also, the Russian army is perhaps the most corrupt institution in Russia. The Stavka successfully framed Medvedeev's chosen Mr Reform for corruption hiself. The army hides behind the Great Patriotic War. The Air Force seems to be a lot better.

    The present burst of hysterical Russophobia is a product of the Ukrainian propaganda machine. In 2015, Congress voted $750m for arming Ukraine. Neither Obama nor Trump released it. The present war hysteria is a Ukrainian bid for that money. Stopping NS2 is a secondary objective.

    Replies: @Barbarossa

    the Russian army is perhaps the most corrupt institution in Russia.

    So, similar dynamic to the US, if accurate. I suppose that Russia can’t afford the scope of wasted military spending that the US seems addicted to.

    • Agree: Philip Owen
    • Replies: @Mikhail
    @Barbarossa

    How corrupt is its US counterpart, seeing that America spends more than the next 7 leading countries in defense spending combined?

    Replies: @Barbarossa

  19. @showmethereal
    @songbird

    don't look now... now even Chile has elected a "left winger"... the mestizos and the indigenous have almost all taken taken back Latin America. If Bolsonaro gets voted out - it will be pretty much complete except Colombia and a couple of stragglers. US Monroe Doctrine is faltering... Which most of the brown and peach colored people below Texas are happy about.

    Replies: @sher singh, @songbird

    Heard that the president of Uruguay is an open borders guy.

    • Replies: @showmethereal
    @songbird

    Not sure... But little by little Uruguay has been moving in it's own direction. In fact it's even upsetting Brazil and Argentina right now because they are negotiating an FTA with China on their own - and not part of Mercosur

    https://en.mercopress.com/2021/09/08/uruguay-brokers-one-on-one-free-trade-deal-with-china-hoping-it-will-not-affect-mercosur

  20. [from previous Op Th]

    Clannish people get it, Germanics who are individualist-universalist can’t. Only black-white thinking.

    If I take that to mean race is either everything or it’s nothing, then yeah, I agree.

    Or as I like to put it, when they were bad, they were bad; when they were good, they were very, very cucked.

    • Agree: sher singh
  21. @Thulean Friend
    @Matra


    Former commenter here Andrei Martyanov did an interview for Geopolitics & Empire. Long time commenters here probably won’t be shocked at how he laughs at NATO capabilities and says NATO will be easily defeated if it gets into a conventional with more advanced Russia. IIRC he fell out with AK over the latter’s disparaging remarks about sovoks or the USSR or something like that.
     
    Skimming the interview, at minutes 26-27 he starts ranting that he doesn't care about "zeroes and ones" and computers and clearly displays his boomer tendencies. He thinks an economy should only be judged on things you can touch or eat. It is not hard to see why AK had disdain for him, even if I think AK himself is as a mediocre analyst, I can't see him making these sorts of cardinal errors.

    As for "NATO easily defeated", given reality of MAD the entire question is moot. There will never be a full conventional war for obvious reasons so making arguments based on a non-eventuality strikes me as a waste of time.

    In general, I find Martynov to be of limited utility. I would only read him on narrow technical topics like submarines or jets, and even then I'd use a pinch of salt or more since these discussions tend to be polluted by nationalist flag-waving, which cloud people's judgements and prevents them from dispassionate analysis.

    Replies: @silviosilver, @china-russia-all-the-way, @Jim Christian, @AP

    As for “NATO easily defeated”, given reality of MAD the entire question is moot. There will never be a full conventional war for obvious reasons so making arguments based on a non-eventuality strikes me as a waste of time.

    I am not so sure about that at all. It only makes sense if you assume that a conventional war must be a war to the absolute finish. But why can’t there be a limited conventional war, fought over limited objectives? If there can be a limited war, then MAD logic would seem to hold – ie better to lose the limited war than effectuate MAD.

  22. China just upped their timeline for lunar landing by 6 years, from 2033 to 2027. And their plan includes a one megawatt nuclear reactor, as well as a rover with a rage of 1000 km, and AI.

    NASA’s website still seems to say 2024, though Wikipedia gives 2025. Neither seems very reasonable to me. The official webpage for Artemis begins with this, right after “Artemis”:

    With Artemis missions, NASA will land the first woman and first person of color on the Moon, using innovative technologies to explore more of the lunar surface than ever before. We will collaborate with commercial and international partners and establish the first long-term presence on the Moon. Then, we will use what we learn on and around the Moon to take the next giant leap: sending the first astronauts to Mars.

    https://www.nasa.gov/specials/artemis/

    I hope the Chinese build a mass driver lickety-split, and send a few lunar rocks to NASA, boom-boom style, before they contaminate the moon with black lesbos.

    • Replies: @Emil Nikola Richard
    @songbird


    With Artemis missions, NASA will land the first woman and first person of color on the Moon, using innovative technologies to explore more of the lunar surface than ever before.
     
    This will be entertaining as hell if nothing else. Hope she is hot like Liutenant Uhura.

    https://biobreak.files.wordpress.com/2010/01/mirror_mirror.jpg

    Replies: @songbird

    , @Thulean Friend
    @songbird

    China recently disclosed that their fusion reactor had an uptime of nearly 17 minutes. The previous record was 100 seconds. They have several fusion projects, this was the so-called EAST reactor (Tokamak version).

    There's an international effort in France on the same technology called ITER. It's not even constructed yet (scheduled to happen in 2025 and likely after 2030 due to chronic delays). The budget went from $6 billion to well past $35 billion now.

    If this is an indication of the future, then I'd bet on China making it happen before NASA.

    Replies: @showmethereal

  23. @A123
    @songbird


    Surprised that the Greens in Germany haven’t yet come out in support of mandating a transition to English
     
    You mean the language of CAPITALISM? That would never happen. Perhaps they would chose Arabic or Farsi. How about an invented language, like Esperanto?

    The image below is circulating, but I have not found a tie back to the original source. Based on Cem Özdemir's record, the quote is highly plausible.

    PEACE 😇

     
    https://pjmedia.com/instapundit/wp-content/uploads/2021/12/Screen-Shot-2021-12-31-at-9.01.01-AM-482x600.png

    Replies: @songbird, @Barbarossa

    On that German agriculture minister; I don’t find what he’s saying to be that outlandishly evil, at least from my perspective in the American food system.

    Food is cheap in the US, but artificially so, with things like corn and soy monocrops heavily government subsidized. We pay for the true cost alright, just not at the checkout. This does lead to a variety of negative effects on the environment, health, and farmer livelihood. This includes societal costs from the ever increasing push to consolidate farms into larger and larger entities.

    80 years ago or so, in my part of the world, a man could raise a respectable family on a 15 or 20 head dairy. Now a 500 cow dairy is considered too small to make it. This was a shift that was engineered and pushed at the government level, not something that “just happened”. Needless to say, it’s been a disaster for the vitality of rural communities and for the ability of young farmers to start up. Farm decentralization should be a big plank in the MAGA revitalization, if such a thing ever came to fruition.

    The dairy farmers that I know are loosing money badly right now. Fuel, grain, and other inputs are skyrocketing while the milk price keeps dropping. One farmer would sell his whole herd tomorrow, but there is no market to buy the cows. He’d be better off financially to sell them for beef, so he holds on while he can.

    So, I do think there is a strong argument that food should be more expensive to the consumer, but that the government should get out of the subsidies, so that we pay the true cost.

    I’m not sure what the agriculture policy in Germany looks like for context. Maybe German_Reader would have some idea?

    • Agree: sher singh
    • Replies: @songbird
    @Barbarossa

    Just my ignorant 2 cents:

    There is an egalitarian movement to drop subsidies, so that food production can be moved to the Third World. It seems seductive. Refrigerated shipping means that we can get fresh food. Maybe, they will stop coming, if we buy their produce, and make them richer. But that is not what explains their poverty. (America buying Chilean fruit just made them import Haitians to pick it, eventually they got tired of them and send them our way.)

    And less seductively, they can develop the farmland into tracts of housing for more Third Worlders, as they are already doing in much of Western Europe. (Think of how much that will grow the economy!) England is food negative, reliant on imports.

    It is inherently insane. We've just seen some pretty big supply interruptions with covid. The Pinkerian view of history seems obviously wrong. Why point a gun at our heads and then hand it over to the Third World?

    Replies: @Barbarossa

    , @A123
    @Barbarossa


    On that German agriculture minister; I don’t find what he’s saying to be that outlandishly evil, at least from my perspective in the American food system.
     
    GR makes a good point. There is a class perspective in play.

    Food prices have dramatic impact on quality of life for the working poor. It can be 20% of their budget. Food price inflation is particularly hard on these folks.

    For those with substantial disposable income, increased food price is a nuisance issue.


    Food is cheap in the US, but artificially so, with things like corn and soy monocrops heavily government subsidized.
     
    As concepts, I see the point you are trying to make. However, one cannot look simply at the farm end.

    Monoculture is very difficult to tackle. Food processors have equipment that is not easily adjustable, thus consistent inputs are required. The distribution chain needs long lasting products to reach the shelves for purchase and consumption.

    Government subsidies are also difficult to address. All of the major producers have Agriculture policies. For the U.S. to cut while other countries continue is the equivalent of "unilateral disarmament".


    Farm decentralization should be a big plank in the MAGA revitalization, if such a thing ever came to fruition
     
    MAGA Reindustrialization can work on a small scale. Equipment is often flexible, so a small shop can be profitable. Over regulation and subsidized imports can be tackled by MAGA policy.

    Even for small shops there is an understanding that the nation is not headed back to 1960's style production. New manufacturing is not going to be individual skilled craftsman. It will involve tasks like optimizing use of computer controlled machinery. Craft will still be required, but it has to be leveraged.
    ___

    Do you have specific policy proposals for small farms that would not mostly benefit the largest ones?

    "MAGA Family Farms" would be a good tag line. The % of shelf price reaching the farmer has been going down for years. BigAg processors & distributors use scale to their advantage when dealing with raw material inputs. However, I am not sure how to directly address that split.

    PEACE 😇

    Replies: @Barbarossa

    , @Philip Owen
    @Barbarossa

    In the UK, the 20 dairy cows that delivered a decent living in the early 1970's were heavily subsidised even than. The subsidy went tothe farmer so kept the smaller farmers going. Inside the EU, the subsidy moved to the product. Thanks to overproduction, the subsidy was cut. Smaller farms were squeezed. Now as you say, 100's of cows aer needed.

    Meanwhile in Russia, 2000 milk cows and maybe 5000 animals are considered a minimum farm size. I talk to farms with 20,000 milkers. They are not for the Russian market but India, Thailand and China. Milk quality from Russian owned farms is still poor. Low levels of solids. Not much good for cheese.

  24. Silviosilver said https://www.unz.com/akarlin/open-thread-171/#comment-5094372

    patriot like AK could very easily be embraced

    Almost nobody will care. Russia is a very antiracist and tolerant (in terms of nationality) culture.

    I have memories from school (this was in Russia, many years ago) when quite young, we were learning that the most important thing is to not judge people from appearance, to respect every culture. I remember we listen to stories on this theme in the meetings in the hall. It’s one of the things you learn if you were fortunate to go to school in Russia, this kind of moral message.

    It’s partly because of the Christian and European heritage of the culture, but it’s more because of being an imperial country, which has ruled and absorbed many nationalities, and with a sense of many years of success in this area. For example, there are historical periods where territory is conquered and the populations are managed with less events like genocides than in some comparable empires.

    Only a very small minority of people in Russia would be racist to AK. Probably the only group where a majority of people would be racist, are nationalists. Nationalists are also the most forbidden or illegal political groups in the Russian Federation, and even those who do no physical crime, can have parts of their life in prison. They really had to go underground, to the extent they can still exist at all today.

    As AK redefining of terms, and saying “I am a nationalist”. This is partly in concordance to the government’s strategy to try to remove nationalism from the political discourse, and replace it with imperialism, and to literally call the imperialists as “nationalists”. I’m not saying he is some kind of kremlinbot. It’s actually looks like a flex when he posts photos of himself and says “I am a Russian nationalist”, and you can see in the last blog posts (about Putin’s role as a “perfect nationalist”, who runs open borders and imprisons nationalists) he had such a dry sense of humor. It’s like Kubla Khan standing on the broken bones of the nationalists.

    It’s also indication he was starting to absorb the postmodernist culture of the postsoviet politics. There is in Russia a Jewish politician called “Zhirinovsky” (his family name is really “Eidelshtein”). He throws all kinds of wild imperialist views and calls for everyone who annoys him to sit in the prison. Meanwhile this is head of the “Liberal Democratic Party”. There are many other funny stories related to this politician, but the international audience can begin understand some of postsoviet Dada in terms of the definition of terms. It’s a kind of a masterpiece of comedy.

    hateful Hitler-worshiping skinhead types who would detest someone like

    It’s not only negative, for a nationalism based on the desire for self-determination of peoples, in an imperial state like Russia, which is occupying other nationalities

    While the imperialism has many pluses, a lot of things people can complain about are also a result of the Great Power imperialism.

    There are features of a great empire which can be probably effective structural features, like the always over-representation of minority nationalities in the country’s elite. This is a constant feature across different regimes and has likely helped to extend power of the Moscow. This is an effective feature in terms of power projection. But it might also be if not a cause, then at least a symptom, of how the country does not function like a normal European nation state even after divesting many of the territories after 1991.

    There is also a side of nationalism in the imperial state, that can rebel against the imperialist external policy. This imperialist external policy can often overextend and only be beneficial for the elites’ power, but not carry many benefits to the ordinary citizen. A view that people should stay in their country and not try to impose and occupy other nationalities, is not such an unsensible view in theory.

    Of course, history is not so simple, and great empire that supports its security interests against rival empires, is a more accurate description of Russia’s position in the early 21st century. Such great powers will need to defend imperial interests in countries like Ukraine, even if in the moral sense Ukraine should have self-determination by its majority nationality. Powerful countries have such additional rights and duties.

  25. @Barbarossa
    @A123

    On that German agriculture minister; I don't find what he's saying to be that outlandishly evil, at least from my perspective in the American food system.

    Food is cheap in the US, but artificially so, with things like corn and soy monocrops heavily government subsidized. We pay for the true cost alright, just not at the checkout. This does lead to a variety of negative effects on the environment, health, and farmer livelihood. This includes societal costs from the ever increasing push to consolidate farms into larger and larger entities.

    80 years ago or so, in my part of the world, a man could raise a respectable family on a 15 or 20 head dairy. Now a 500 cow dairy is considered too small to make it. This was a shift that was engineered and pushed at the government level, not something that "just happened". Needless to say, it's been a disaster for the vitality of rural communities and for the ability of young farmers to start up. Farm decentralization should be a big plank in the MAGA revitalization, if such a thing ever came to fruition.

    The dairy farmers that I know are loosing money badly right now. Fuel, grain, and other inputs are skyrocketing while the milk price keeps dropping. One farmer would sell his whole herd tomorrow, but there is no market to buy the cows. He'd be better off financially to sell them for beef, so he holds on while he can.

    So, I do think there is a strong argument that food should be more expensive to the consumer, but that the government should get out of the subsidies, so that we pay the true cost.

    I'm not sure what the agriculture policy in Germany looks like for context. Maybe German_Reader would have some idea?

    Replies: @songbird, @A123, @Philip Owen

    Just my ignorant 2 cents:

    There is an egalitarian movement to drop subsidies, so that food production can be moved to the Third World. It seems seductive. Refrigerated shipping means that we can get fresh food. Maybe, they will stop coming, if we buy their produce, and make them richer. But that is not what explains their poverty. (America buying Chilean fruit just made them import Haitians to pick it, eventually they got tired of them and send them our way.)

    And less seductively, they can develop the farmland into tracts of housing for more Third Worlders, as they are already doing in much of Western Europe. (Think of how much that will grow the economy!) England is food negative, reliant on imports.

    It is inherently insane. We’ve just seen some pretty big supply interruptions with covid. The Pinkerian view of history seems obviously wrong. Why point a gun at our heads and then hand it over to the Third World?

    • Replies: @Barbarossa
    @songbird

    Not surprisingly, I would be extremely opposed to off shoring food production 0r using arable American land for more tract housing.
    I wholeheartedly agree about the vulnerabilities of a (more) off site food production system. It would be a step even further in the wrong direction.

    It rather parallels the same thought process that sold NAFTA to both US and Mexicans.
    Mexicans never really got the wage parity and great jobs that they were promised in Mexico, but the small scale corn farmers got decimated when the border was opened up to cheap US subsidized corn imports. This in turn drives collapse of rural economies and economic migration...to our very own El Norte where they can be used as pawns to depress the wages of American workers.

    https://thecounter.org/border-crisis-immigration-mexican-corn-nafta/
    This article ties it together pretty succinctly.

    Curiously, the only folks that get screwed over in this arrangement are the workers and the small farmers. The big guys make out just fine, as it was designed to deliver, naturally.
    It's important to remember that NAFTA was just as disruptive to Mexicans culturally and economically as Americans.

  26. Don’t know if there isn’t a better term than “Great Replacement.” Guess it doesn’t cover all the bases, but I do like the term “the Great Gibs Rush.”

  27. @songbird
    China just upped their timeline for lunar landing by 6 years, from 2033 to 2027. And their plan includes a one megawatt nuclear reactor, as well as a rover with a rage of 1000 km, and AI.

    NASA's website still seems to say 2024, though Wikipedia gives 2025. Neither seems very reasonable to me. The official webpage for Artemis begins with this, right after "Artemis":


    With Artemis missions, NASA will land the first woman and first person of color on the Moon, using innovative technologies to explore more of the lunar surface than ever before. We will collaborate with commercial and international partners and establish the first long-term presence on the Moon. Then, we will use what we learn on and around the Moon to take the next giant leap: sending the first astronauts to Mars.
     
    https://www.nasa.gov/specials/artemis/

    I hope the Chinese build a mass driver lickety-split, and send a few lunar rocks to NASA, boom-boom style, before they contaminate the moon with black lesbos.

    Replies: @Emil Nikola Richard, @Thulean Friend

    With Artemis missions, NASA will land the first woman and first person of color on the Moon, using innovative technologies to explore more of the lunar surface than ever before.

    This will be entertaining as hell if nothing else. Hope she is hot like Liutenant Uhura.

    • Replies: @songbird
    @Emil Nikola Richard

    IIRC, there were a couple of unexpected events with astronauts, where I don't think that a diversity hire would have cut it. For example, on one lunar mission, there was some knob that they were supposed to turn, and it broke off, with only seconds to spare until liftoff. (maybe solved with digital controls?)
    ____
    It was funny when they made Sulu gay. I mean, obviously it was politics. But, the more I think of it now, he probably would be less gay in the Mirrorverse.

  28. German Reader says

    https://www.unz.com/akarlin/open-thread-171/#comment-5092074

    October revolution and the civil war led to much greater discontinuities,

    In terms of changeover of elite, there is a full revolution, at least as much as in the French Revolution. And in terms of the more brutal, and also more competent, new managers of the company, can include former revolutionary bank robbers like Stalin.

    But the discontinuity of the political system from 1917 is less than you expect, if you had been naïve to believe the self-presentation of Soviet propaganda. They pretend to be representative of the hopes of the proletariat and a dawn of justice and equality promised in Marxist theory.

    Under the old management before February 1917 , was a weaker dictatorship of the Russian Empire, where you can go to prison camp if you criticize the authorities. Under the new management, a stronger dictatorship of the Soviet Union, where you can even more likely go to prison camp if you criticize the authorities.

    Lenin and Stalin understood that he they inherited the Russian Empire and work soon to rebuild its autocracy with stronger foundations, learning from the previous mistakes. For example, they are rapidly upgrading secret security services to a far higher level, with branches in every major city, so that the revolution would not be repeated. From blockage of the Bastille 1789, to Napoleon adding a crown on his head, is around 15 years. And in Stalin says to his mother that he is the Tsar around 17 years after October.

    As for the collapse of the Soviet Union. There is in some ways more of a break of structure, from a dictatorship to democracy, communism to capitalism, censorship to freedom of press.

    However, in reality, there is already not much of democracy by 1996. This is not an equal election in 1996. Freedom of press was a few more years, although always conditional under financial interests.

    One of the culture shocks today is to look at some television shows after the terrorist bombings in Moscow in 1999. There was an incident where FSB agents were burying a bomb. And in television after, they allow the audience to question the FSB representative and ask if they were responsible. Within a few months however, the oligarch who owns this television channel (Gusinsky) is arrested and goes to exile. Then Gazprom has a hostile takeover of the television channel . So, this is all around 2000.

    And already by 1996 there was a fake election.

    “nationalist” turn in Soviet culture in 1930s/40s is a bit surprising at first sight.
    (at least it seems to me, sorry if that’s a bit of a naive take)

    They aren’t promoting the immediately previous elite, but only the elite of some dozen generations ago. It’s not difficult for them to promote Nevsky as a great hero, that supported the Russian people, consistent with the narrative that the previous elite were parasitical imperialists.

    But there is something surprising for naïve people who had expected that the Soviet Union would be some kind of utopian futurist culture, and not just a change of management in one of the great empires.

    Although there were less naïve leftists in Europe like George Orwell, who enjoyed a lot this theme of “same difference”. If you remember in “Animal Farm”, at the end they don’t even continue with a change of name of the farm.

    • Thanks: German_reader
  29. @Barbarossa
    @A123

    On that German agriculture minister; I don't find what he's saying to be that outlandishly evil, at least from my perspective in the American food system.

    Food is cheap in the US, but artificially so, with things like corn and soy monocrops heavily government subsidized. We pay for the true cost alright, just not at the checkout. This does lead to a variety of negative effects on the environment, health, and farmer livelihood. This includes societal costs from the ever increasing push to consolidate farms into larger and larger entities.

    80 years ago or so, in my part of the world, a man could raise a respectable family on a 15 or 20 head dairy. Now a 500 cow dairy is considered too small to make it. This was a shift that was engineered and pushed at the government level, not something that "just happened". Needless to say, it's been a disaster for the vitality of rural communities and for the ability of young farmers to start up. Farm decentralization should be a big plank in the MAGA revitalization, if such a thing ever came to fruition.

    The dairy farmers that I know are loosing money badly right now. Fuel, grain, and other inputs are skyrocketing while the milk price keeps dropping. One farmer would sell his whole herd tomorrow, but there is no market to buy the cows. He'd be better off financially to sell them for beef, so he holds on while he can.

    So, I do think there is a strong argument that food should be more expensive to the consumer, but that the government should get out of the subsidies, so that we pay the true cost.

    I'm not sure what the agriculture policy in Germany looks like for context. Maybe German_Reader would have some idea?

    Replies: @songbird, @A123, @Philip Owen

    On that German agriculture minister; I don’t find what he’s saying to be that outlandishly evil, at least from my perspective in the American food system.

    GR makes a good point. There is a class perspective in play.

    Food prices have dramatic impact on quality of life for the working poor. It can be 20% of their budget. Food price inflation is particularly hard on these folks.

    For those with substantial disposable income, increased food price is a nuisance issue.

    Food is cheap in the US, but artificially so, with things like corn and soy monocrops heavily government subsidized.

    As concepts, I see the point you are trying to make. However, one cannot look simply at the farm end.

    Monoculture is very difficult to tackle. Food processors have equipment that is not easily adjustable, thus consistent inputs are required. The distribution chain needs long lasting products to reach the shelves for purchase and consumption.

    Government subsidies are also difficult to address. All of the major producers have Agriculture policies. For the U.S. to cut while other countries continue is the equivalent of “unilateral disarmament”.

    Farm decentralization should be a big plank in the MAGA revitalization, if such a thing ever came to fruition

    MAGA Reindustrialization can work on a small scale. Equipment is often flexible, so a small shop can be profitable. Over regulation and subsidized imports can be tackled by MAGA policy.

    Even for small shops there is an understanding that the nation is not headed back to 1960’s style production. New manufacturing is not going to be individual skilled craftsman. It will involve tasks like optimizing use of computer controlled machinery. Craft will still be required, but it has to be leveraged.
    ___

    Do you have specific policy proposals for small farms that would not mostly benefit the largest ones?

    “MAGA Family Farms” would be a good tag line. The % of shelf price reaching the farmer has been going down for years. BigAg processors & distributors use scale to their advantage when dealing with raw material inputs. However, I am not sure how to directly address that split.

    PEACE 😇

    • Replies: @Barbarossa
    @A123

    You are certainly correct that the American farming system would be difficult to turn around. It took decades of concerted effort to get to where it is and would require concerted effort to turn round.

    As I mentioned earlier, the centralizing push was concerted since the early 70's and "Get big or get out!" Ag secretary Earl Butz. This has resulted in food producers who are inflexible, completely dependent on the banks and government, and trapped in a cycle of increasing their scale of production to desperately reach some level of security which never appears.

    This has absolutely destroyed the traditional rural backbone of America. 20 small farms make a town. 1 mega farm does not. The anti-social aspects of industry and agriculture consolidation are hard to overestimate and have done much to hollow out conservative America. Besides, I can tell you that farm kids are not going to be too susceptible to trans messaging and other liberal madness. Conservatism is rightfully based in reality, which must involve a connection to the natural world. The collapse of rural life and the rise in adoption of liberalism by the masses hardly seems unrelated. We have a world increasingly unmoored from any reality.

    I actually dispute the idea that industrial farming techniques are always more efficient than more traditional ones. It often depends on one's metric of "efficiency". For example, industrial meat production is a very grain heavy process, where corn and soy (grown on prime rich soil) get fed to animals in managed containment conditions.

    In the shift to industrial agriculture a corner of the country like mine has become abandoned. We don't have much of the rich soil to grow corn or soy. What we can grow well is grass, and indeed the area was rich with independent sheep farmers and dairies until the post-WW2 shift.

    Cows and sheep have been blessed with rumens, those miraculous stomachs capable of turning grass and other roughage, which has no food use to humans at all, into meat and milk. However, in our constant quest for "mechanized efficiency" we would rather use our best land to feed animals and let our land suited for animals lie fallow.

    You are correct that the middle men are a massive amount of the issue. The dairy farmers that I know are virtual slaves to the milk coops who can dictate terms since a virtual monopoly exists.

    The dairy of the past could market directly to it's community, banking on the evident quality of the product. Some farms would advertise that they kept Jersey or Guernsey cows for thick rich cream which the customer could clearly see. Modern milk is a commodity, one which the farmer has no ability to sell independently or set the price on. The middle men ought to be minimized.

    I agree with your point that food price hikes are hardest on the poor. There are a number of different ways to approach this. However, I don't think there are as many poor as poor in spirit in this country. When I see families (term used loosely) with four wheelers, nicer cars than me, the newest smartphones with data plans etc., yet receiving food stamps, HEAP etc. I suspect that our metric of poor has become skewed. I don't think it would hurt a lot of those folks to pay more for better food which supports a local community member. People could also garden more, especially poor people. A substantial amount of vegetable production used to happen in backyards, which is healthy and pro-social.

    Food as a percentage of total budget is as low as it's ever been in human history, which is not sustainable when the farmers can't make a living.

    My guess on where this is heading is that as the older farmer age out, which is rapidly happening, the younger generation will be unwilling or unable to make a smart of it. Increasingly larger scale agricultural land ownership and management will consolidate American agriculture ownership in a smaller and smaller pool of mega owners, such as Bill Gates is doing with his 242,000 acres ag holdings.

    Replies: @RadicalCenter

  30. china-russia-all-the-way says:
    @Thulean Friend
    @Matra


    Former commenter here Andrei Martyanov did an interview for Geopolitics & Empire. Long time commenters here probably won’t be shocked at how he laughs at NATO capabilities and says NATO will be easily defeated if it gets into a conventional with more advanced Russia. IIRC he fell out with AK over the latter’s disparaging remarks about sovoks or the USSR or something like that.
     
    Skimming the interview, at minutes 26-27 he starts ranting that he doesn't care about "zeroes and ones" and computers and clearly displays his boomer tendencies. He thinks an economy should only be judged on things you can touch or eat. It is not hard to see why AK had disdain for him, even if I think AK himself is as a mediocre analyst, I can't see him making these sorts of cardinal errors.

    As for "NATO easily defeated", given reality of MAD the entire question is moot. There will never be a full conventional war for obvious reasons so making arguments based on a non-eventuality strikes me as a waste of time.

    In general, I find Martynov to be of limited utility. I would only read him on narrow technical topics like submarines or jets, and even then I'd use a pinch of salt or more since these discussions tend to be polluted by nationalist flag-waving, which cloud people's judgements and prevents them from dispassionate analysis.

    Replies: @silviosilver, @china-russia-all-the-way, @Jim Christian, @AP

    It is not hard to see why AK had disdain for him, even if I think AK himself is as a mediocre analyst

    Nonsense. I haven’t come across a clearer thinking and more talented geopolitical analyst on the Internet as Karlin.

    • LOL: Mikhail
    • Replies: @Jim Christian
    @china-russia-all-the-way

    Agree all CR, except to add Andrei Martyanov to that class. I've wondered over the years if Anatoly and Mr. Martyanov have ever met. But the both of them have deep bases of writing and opinion. Andrei Martyanov is the go-to on military matters, equipment and states of military minds, he's seen the inside of both sides, he's certainly taken the measure of out American leaders. Anatoly being the traveler and much younger obviously gets the nod for social commentary as regards the yewts of Europe and Russia. Anatoly is also expert with his photography, St. Petersburg especially.

    I get different things from each. Except I wish Anatoly would stand further back from the ledges of tall buildings.

    , @Mikhail
    @china-russia-all-the-way

    Numerous quality folks out there.

  31. @Thulean Friend
    @Matra


    Former commenter here Andrei Martyanov did an interview for Geopolitics & Empire. Long time commenters here probably won’t be shocked at how he laughs at NATO capabilities and says NATO will be easily defeated if it gets into a conventional with more advanced Russia. IIRC he fell out with AK over the latter’s disparaging remarks about sovoks or the USSR or something like that.
     
    Skimming the interview, at minutes 26-27 he starts ranting that he doesn't care about "zeroes and ones" and computers and clearly displays his boomer tendencies. He thinks an economy should only be judged on things you can touch or eat. It is not hard to see why AK had disdain for him, even if I think AK himself is as a mediocre analyst, I can't see him making these sorts of cardinal errors.

    As for "NATO easily defeated", given reality of MAD the entire question is moot. There will never be a full conventional war for obvious reasons so making arguments based on a non-eventuality strikes me as a waste of time.

    In general, I find Martynov to be of limited utility. I would only read him on narrow technical topics like submarines or jets, and even then I'd use a pinch of salt or more since these discussions tend to be polluted by nationalist flag-waving, which cloud people's judgements and prevents them from dispassionate analysis.

    Replies: @silviosilver, @china-russia-all-the-way, @Jim Christian, @AP

    Thule, in Russian territory out to the Atlantic, the Russian military can handle easily handle NATO. Further, Russia is not Saddam, Russia is NOT going to allow the U.S. a 7 month buildup. So NATO would have to cope, and given stern warning, Washington might call it a day. For decades it’s been speculated that the U.S. will NOT risk war (especially nuclear) with the SovietBloc/Russian entities. After all, it was Russia that really destroyed Hitler. The US collected their kills merely firebombing helpless victims in the German cities when it was all but over. The US ruling class knows better than to go all out against the people who beat Hitler.

  32. @songbird
    China just upped their timeline for lunar landing by 6 years, from 2033 to 2027. And their plan includes a one megawatt nuclear reactor, as well as a rover with a rage of 1000 km, and AI.

    NASA's website still seems to say 2024, though Wikipedia gives 2025. Neither seems very reasonable to me. The official webpage for Artemis begins with this, right after "Artemis":


    With Artemis missions, NASA will land the first woman and first person of color on the Moon, using innovative technologies to explore more of the lunar surface than ever before. We will collaborate with commercial and international partners and establish the first long-term presence on the Moon. Then, we will use what we learn on and around the Moon to take the next giant leap: sending the first astronauts to Mars.
     
    https://www.nasa.gov/specials/artemis/

    I hope the Chinese build a mass driver lickety-split, and send a few lunar rocks to NASA, boom-boom style, before they contaminate the moon with black lesbos.

    Replies: @Emil Nikola Richard, @Thulean Friend

    China recently disclosed that their fusion reactor had an uptime of nearly 17 minutes. The previous record was 100 seconds. They have several fusion projects, this was the so-called EAST reactor (Tokamak version).

    There’s an international effort in France on the same technology called ITER. It’s not even constructed yet (scheduled to happen in 2025 and likely after 2030 due to chronic delays). The budget went from \$6 billion to well past \$35 billion now.

    If this is an indication of the future, then I’d bet on China making it happen before NASA.

    • Replies: @showmethereal
    @Thulean Friend

    Just for the record - I think western media got it confused about 2027 for the lunar base. What China said was that they would be working between 2022 and 2027 with Russia on how they will go about the lunar base and other space issues (I assume the Chinese space station that is currently being put into full usage). it is a China and Russia joint project... it doesn't appear they were saying 2027. I think they are still shooting for 2030+

  33. @china-russia-all-the-way
    @Thulean Friend


    It is not hard to see why AK had disdain for him, even if I think AK himself is as a mediocre analyst
     
    Nonsense. I haven't come across a clearer thinking and more talented geopolitical analyst on the Internet as Karlin.

    Replies: @Jim Christian, @Mikhail

    Agree all CR, except to add Andrei Martyanov to that class. I’ve wondered over the years if Anatoly and Mr. Martyanov have ever met. But the both of them have deep bases of writing and opinion. Andrei Martyanov is the go-to on military matters, equipment and states of military minds, he’s seen the inside of both sides, he’s certainly taken the measure of out American leaders. Anatoly being the traveler and much younger obviously gets the nod for social commentary as regards the yewts of Europe and Russia. Anatoly is also expert with his photography, St. Petersburg especially.

    I get different things from each. Except I wish Anatoly would stand further back from the ledges of tall buildings.

  34. China likely peaked demographically in 2021.

    Interestingly, the US population growth rate in 2021 was just 0.1%. The main attack on China is that they have “terrible demographics”. Maybe, but I don’t see the US doing much better.

    China also seems more internally stable to me than the US. Polarisation in the US is reaching comical levels, with even something as simple as vaccination campaigns becoming weaponised and politicised.

    Still think the US will have the upper hand vis-a-vis China given its alliance network but I just want to puncture the common attack themes against China since most of them make little sense.

    • Replies: @Pericles
    @Thulean Friend

    The US white population has even shrunk in absolute numbers, so I think they are overall demographically worse off and in a worse trend than China.

    NYT: "Census Shows Sharply Growing Numbers of Hispanic, Asian and Multiracial Americans"

    The white population [of America] declined for the first time in history. People who identify themselves as white on the census form have been decreasing as a share of the country’s population since the 1960s, when the United States lifted strict ethnic quotas aimed at keeping the country Northern and Western European.
    That drop, of 2.6 percent, was driven in part by the aging of the white population — the median age was 44 in 2019, compared with 30 for Hispanics — and a long-running decline in the birthrate. Some social scientists theorized that another potential reason for the decrease was that more Americans who previously identified as white on the census are now choosing more than one race.

     

    https://archive.ph/PYU9w

    (I don't think the fake latinos and fake indigenes, while existent, are numerous enough to matter in raw numbers.)

    NYT: "It was a terrifying census for white nationalists"

    https://archive.ph/GaSml

    Replies: @Thulean Friend, @showmethereal

    , @Dmitry
    @Thulean Friend


    internally stable to me than the US
     
    It's a predictable dynamic, as a result of the collapse of the USSR, American culture losing some of their sense of "cosmic role".

    In the second half of the 20th century, a lot of their culture's identity has been derived from their position in the Cold War.

    This is not just merger of cultural identity with capitalist ideology, but also some brutal aspects of capitalism could be accepted and sublimated with a sense of meaning into a clash of world civilization.

    When the Soviet Union is not longer pretending to act as a contrast or alternative, the sense of cosmic role of America is turning inwards, or lost in becoming a world culture.

    In Russia, is sadly now culturally on the trashheap of history, and only the authorities can robotically create fake acting, on non-important topics, as a vulgar form of opposition. Chinese culture unfortunately appears stillborn and doesn't present sufficient contrast to stimulate the American culture sphere. My intuition is that Chinese culture will become much more productive by the middle of this century. But we might hope the Chinese will eventually contribute to culture at least like Japan.

    Perhaps it sounds funny, but the boycotted 1980s Olympic might be seen one day, as the premonitory goodbye for this 20th century "Agon". Some symbolic moment of the world spirit, when people were suddenly expressing sadness as they were singing goodbye to the Olympic bear who flew away from Moscow, goes back to hide in the forest, and did not return.
    https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=TzuGK5tH1G4

    Replies: @songbird, @Philip Owen

  35. Jeff Bezos lost \$40 billion in a divorce but he looks happier than ever.

    He also made the correct move of shaving his hair instead of trying to latch onto a fake toupé like Musk when he started to bald.

    • Replies: @Yevardian
    @Thulean Friend


    Jeff Bezos lost $40 billion in a divorce but he looks happier than ever.
     
    Easy to remain content when you have as many billions remaining (and still underpay your workers), why post this? We don't need to see any more of the tasteless lives of anodyne plutocrats and parasites, Dmitri posts enough already.

    Replies: @Dmitry

    , @Barbarossa
    @Thulean Friend


    He also made the correct move of shaving his hair instead of trying to latch onto a fake toupé like Musk when he started to bald.
     
    Even if it does make him look disturbingly like Lex Luther...
    , @Pericles
    @Thulean Friend

    Ha ha ha, that's a memorable picture if nothing else.

    , @Philip Owen
    @Thulean Friend

    That's happy?

    Replies: @Barbarossa

    , @melanf
    @Thulean Friend

    Either a bad photo, or Bezos is wasting his money badly. With his wealth, he could buy himself a concubine at the sight of which the men would be dumb with delight and envy, and not this lady with the face of a bitch

    Replies: @Barbarossa

  36. @German_reader
    @songbird


    Or whether it is just his radical politics that are being shown.
     
    It's partly class snobbery. Greens are the party of well-off people employed by the state (civil servants, teachers etc.) who can afford buying expensive bio products and who look down on the proles who go shopping at cheap supermarkets like ALDI.

    Replies: @Matra, @Yevardian, @Mr. Hack

    It’s partly class snobbery. Greens are the party of well-off people employed by the state (civil servants, teachers etc.) who can afford buying expensive bio products and who look down on the proles who go shopping at cheap supermarkets like ALDI.

    Even mostly, I’ve witnessed too many conversations (e.g. forestry, a working-class guy mentioning how his father experienced green activists putting spikes in the sawmills and seriously injuring people, his interlocutor simply said with disgusting arrogance ‘ok.. I’m not having this conversation’) growing up not to notice it.

    It’s a shame that enviromentalism has been so totally commandeered by those on the cultural extreme-left (funny, considering it originated with romantic nationalists and conservatives), and now in reaction the mainstream right takes equally imbecilic takes.
    Not to mention, since all this global warming hysteria (I’m agnostic on the topic), every other major enviromental problem seems to have become relatively ignored. Most seriously, the still constantly-increasing amounts of plastic, which, even if the worst predictions of athropogenic global warming are true, I feel things like microplastics circulating everywhere, as far as the Mariana Trench, are much more concerning.

    I mean, evolution has dealt with rapid climatic changes dozens of times over, but the ubiquitousness of indistible and often toxic compouds breaking down far enough to be ingested by microscopic organisms seems unprecedented.

    But this isn’t really my area, I don’t know if anyone within the hard sciences regularly comments here, I mostly just get my takes on energy issues from Vaclav Smil.

    • Agree: Barbarossa
    • Replies: @German_reader
    @Yevardian


    Not to mention, since all this global warming hysteria (I’m agnostic on the topic)
     
    I think it's real, the change in climate has been quite noticeable even over my lifetime, and I think it will indeed be a very serious issue (if the worst scenarios become reality, some regions might become entirely uninhabitable after all). Question is of course what to do about it, I don't believe the German Greens (deeply stupid people imo) have any sensible ideas. But the full-on denial of climate change a lot of right-wingers have adopted is counter-productive.
    The plastics issue might indeed be pretty bad, I'm rather disturbed by those suggestions that the steadily declining sperm count of men in Western countries might be due to cellular damage caused by ubiquituous plastics, definitely an issue that should be urgently investigated to a much greater extent, since it could eventually evolve into an existential threat. More generally, there's definitely a lot wrong with environmental influences in modern Western societies...I'm always surprised and somewhat baffled by how many people of my age seem to have pollen allergies and the like.
    Thanks for reminding me of Vaclav Smil, haven't yet read any of his books, but I probably should.

    Replies: @A123, @Dmitry, @songbird, @Mikel

    , @Philip Owen
    @Yevardian

    The British Tories have a green streak. Maggie Thatcher set up the Montreal Protocol, drove the IPCC into existence and put a moratorium on nuclear power. Johnson and his present wife have just promoted COP26 on climate change with vigour. Environmentalism is quite selfish. It is about self preservation, not the social good.

  37. @Thulean Friend
    Jeff Bezos lost $40 billion in a divorce but he looks happier than ever.

    https://i.imgur.com/FztuUAS.jpg

    He also made the correct move of shaving his hair instead of trying to latch onto a fake toupé like Musk when he started to bald.

    Replies: @Yevardian, @Barbarossa, @Pericles, @Philip Owen, @melanf

    Jeff Bezos lost \$40 billion in a divorce but he looks happier than ever.

    Easy to remain content when you have as many billions remaining (and still underpay your workers), why post this? We don’t need to see any more of the tasteless lives of anodyne plutocrats and parasites, Dmitri posts enough already.

    • Agree: Barbarossa
    • Replies: @Dmitry
    @Yevardian


    tasteless lives of anodyne plutocrats and parasites, Dmitri
     
    At least it is a post that describes real life though, as you can talk about the people directly, or become confused with discussions about the extremely indirect concepts ("political ideologies", "countries", "GDP growth") which are just derived from that reality.

    In this forum, you often read people become comically lost in arguing about meaningless "teams" and concepts, which they were just fed to them by such people, and which already have a response "ready made". The response of rightwing people, is already "readymade" or contained inside an opposing concept. Because they are built just like scripts.

    For example, when you see a large corporation, it seems very impressive and official. When a young graduate is joining on a graduate course, they might feel excited that they are joining a real institution. It feels like entering a great mansion or castle.

    But when they are old, they might know the managers and the operation, and will understand it is just some people with certain formal agreements between each other. There is not really this existing company with its symbols/icons, "corporate culture", etc. It was all just a dream.

    It's actually like animals throwing up some camouflage to seem larger than they are. And humans are very vulnerable to being lost in the patterns of the camouflage.

    And of course, these people (like all people) are also not the "mature adults" that are presented in their business life. They are the same kids you remember from your playground or classroom, and our adult persona is another camouflage.

    You'll be very confused if you were trying to understand Amazon, from the code used in its website, or it's symbols, corporate, ideology ,etc. On the other hand, it's a just a person who is selling you some things. Bezos' mother understands Amazon intuitively, if she remembers cleaning after her son as a child.

    And this is the same for much of the politics and history. People are very confused arguing about ideologies, political parties, and countries, as if they were real objects. This sounds very grandiose and prestigious, even magical. It's of course, just indirect ways to refer to what some people are doing. And those behaviors you might understand intuitively when you were in the school playground.

    That's not to say, that people will not learn from improving their understanding of political theory e.g. Hegel, Adam Smith, Marx, etc, and should just read "Hello magazine". But looking at what you rulers are really doing, would be healthy for the society, to prevent some of the confusions.

    Replies: @Yevardian

  38. @German_reader
    @songbird


    Or whether it is just his radical politics that are being shown.
     
    It's partly class snobbery. Greens are the party of well-off people employed by the state (civil servants, teachers etc.) who can afford buying expensive bio products and who look down on the proles who go shopping at cheap supermarkets like ALDI.

    Replies: @Matra, @Yevardian, @Mr. Hack

    I’m not sure just how “cheap” Aldis really are, perhaps, inexpensive would be a better term to describe them? I’ve been to Aldis twice in Minnesota, once in Fridley (a suburb of Minneapolis) and also in Hutchinson, a good sized town in the center of the state. I thought that there were a lot of good products on display all reasonably priced and a lot imported from Germany. A friend of mine just purchased a duck at Aldis and was not disappointed, paying half a much as he would at other food stores. There are now 2-3 in the Phoenix area. Perhaps, I should be aware of something first before shopping there? I’d be grateful to know, for they seem to sprouting up all over the US.

    • Replies: @Dmitry
    @Mr. Hack

    Aldi and Lidl are some of the best supermarkets in Europe. It's really a good value shop. I'm such a fanboy of them that I would have posters of these German supermarkets in my walls.

    But when I young I actually had studied a little with such kind of German people whose family are billionaires owning such chains, and they were not exactly the less disruptive or most sympathetic classmates.

    I'm not really sure what to say about such divergence of the consumer and personal experience. But maybe I'm not the only one with such experiences or divided perceptions.

    Replies: @Mr. Hack

    , @German_reader
    @Mr. Hack


    Perhaps, I should be aware of something first before shopping there?
     
    I don't think you need to worry more than about any other supermarket chain, generally the quality of their products should be fine, it's just that it's got a certain low-class image in Germany, because their prices are low and the assortment of wares is somewhat limited (also they sell a lot of cheaper ALDI knock-offs instead of more expensive brand articles).
    Of course the usual caveats apply, if you want quality meat, you're probably better off to some butcher's shop.

    Replies: @Dmitry, @songbird, @RadicalCenter

  39. @Thulean Friend
    Jeff Bezos lost $40 billion in a divorce but he looks happier than ever.

    https://i.imgur.com/FztuUAS.jpg

    He also made the correct move of shaving his hair instead of trying to latch onto a fake toupé like Musk when he started to bald.

    Replies: @Yevardian, @Barbarossa, @Pericles, @Philip Owen, @melanf

    He also made the correct move of shaving his hair instead of trying to latch onto a fake toupé like Musk when he started to bald.

    Even if it does make him look disturbingly like Lex Luther…

  40. @Mr. Hack
    @German_reader

    I'm not sure just how "cheap" Aldis really are, perhaps, inexpensive would be a better term to describe them? I've been to Aldis twice in Minnesota, once in Fridley (a suburb of Minneapolis) and also in Hutchinson, a good sized town in the center of the state. I thought that there were a lot of good products on display all reasonably priced and a lot imported from Germany. A friend of mine just purchased a duck at Aldis and was not disappointed, paying half a much as he would at other food stores. There are now 2-3 in the Phoenix area. Perhaps, I should be aware of something first before shopping there? I'd be grateful to know, for they seem to sprouting up all over the US.

    Replies: @Dmitry, @German_reader

    Aldi and Lidl are some of the best supermarkets in Europe. It’s really a good value shop. I’m such a fanboy of them that I would have posters of these German supermarkets in my walls.

    But when I young I actually had studied a little with such kind of German people whose family are billionaires owning such chains, and they were not exactly the less disruptive or most sympathetic classmates.

    I’m not really sure what to say about such divergence of the consumer and personal experience. But maybe I’m not the only one with such experiences or divided perceptions.

    • Thanks: Mr. Hack
    • Replies: @Mr. Hack
    @Dmitry

    I'm not totally following you here, Dmitry. I think that you had imbibed a little too much bubbly the night before? What you're stating though sounds quite interesting about the upper class German kids
    though...Happy New Year!

    Replies: @songbird

  41. So looks like the 5 eyes are ratcheting up their efforts against China

    is this the proverbial “carrot” that will be used to coerce Indians into the alliance?

    • Replies: @Yellowface Anon
    @Svidomyatheart

    The rules for immigration from HK is loose enough.

  42. @Yevardian
    @Thulean Friend


    Jeff Bezos lost $40 billion in a divorce but he looks happier than ever.
     
    Easy to remain content when you have as many billions remaining (and still underpay your workers), why post this? We don't need to see any more of the tasteless lives of anodyne plutocrats and parasites, Dmitri posts enough already.

    Replies: @Dmitry

    tasteless lives of anodyne plutocrats and parasites, Dmitri

    At least it is a post that describes real life though, as you can talk about the people directly, or become confused with discussions about the extremely indirect concepts (“political ideologies”, “countries”, “GDP growth”) which are just derived from that reality.

    In this forum, you often read people become comically lost in arguing about meaningless “teams” and concepts, which they were just fed to them by such people, and which already have a response “ready made”. The response of rightwing people, is already “readymade” or contained inside an opposing concept. Because they are built just like scripts.

    For example, when you see a large corporation, it seems very impressive and official. When a young graduate is joining on a graduate course, they might feel excited that they are joining a real institution. It feels like entering a great mansion or castle.

    But when they are old, they might know the managers and the operation, and will understand it is just some people with certain formal agreements between each other. There is not really this existing company with its symbols/icons, “corporate culture”, etc. It was all just a dream.

    It’s actually like animals throwing up some camouflage to seem larger than they are. And humans are very vulnerable to being lost in the patterns of the camouflage.

    And of course, these people (like all people) are also not the “mature adults” that are presented in their business life. They are the same kids you remember from your playground or classroom, and our adult persona is another camouflage.

    You’ll be very confused if you were trying to understand Amazon, from the code used in its website, or it’s symbols, corporate, ideology ,etc. On the other hand, it’s a just a person who is selling you some things. Bezos’ mother understands Amazon intuitively, if she remembers cleaning after her son as a child.

    And this is the same for much of the politics and history. People are very confused arguing about ideologies, political parties, and countries, as if they were real objects. This sounds very grandiose and prestigious, even magical. It’s of course, just indirect ways to refer to what some people are doing. And those behaviors you might understand intuitively when you were in the school playground.

    That’s not to say, that people will not learn from improving their understanding of political theory e.g. Hegel, Adam Smith, Marx, etc, and should just read “Hello magazine”. But looking at what you rulers are really doing, would be healthy for the society, to prevent some of the confusions.

    • Agree: sher singh, Yellowface Anon
    • Thanks: Yevardian
    • Replies: @Yevardian
    @Dmitry

    When you explain it like that, you have a very good point, and it does certainly reflect how the vast majority of everyday people actually experience and view the world. But that's easy to forget for most of us nerds and autistes (including our benevolent overlord himself?) commenting here, who naturally prefer to see everything in terms of abstractions and systems.
    But we do have a few bigbrains such as A123 who interpret politics et all in an extremely personalised manner, so it's not all one-sided.



    Bezos’ mother understands Amazon intuitively, if she remembers cleaning after her son as a child.
     
    Ok, but you can take this too far, that applies to understanding a man's (and by extension, their company) drives and goals, but it doesn't do much at all to explain the means, which is arguably more important.

    Since we're on the topic of personalities, alongside extremely vain businesspeople or politicians that revel in the media spotlight (somewhat like a pig in a trough), there must also be many equally (or more) influential/powerful figures that the world simply never hears about, since they prefer to keep a low profile.

    Of course, politicians by definition are public and media-focused figures, but I wonder if anyone could point out businesspeople with personal convinctions that greatly affect the world we live in. I'd like to say there a probably dozens of private-minded Chinese billionaires or party-functionaries in this category, but that's more likely due to our own ignorance about the country.

    Replies: @Dmitry

  43. German_reader says:
    @Yevardian
    @German_reader


    It’s partly class snobbery. Greens are the party of well-off people employed by the state (civil servants, teachers etc.) who can afford buying expensive bio products and who look down on the proles who go shopping at cheap supermarkets like ALDI.
     
    Even mostly, I've witnessed too many conversations (e.g. forestry, a working-class guy mentioning how his father experienced green activists putting spikes in the sawmills and seriously injuring people, his interlocutor simply said with disgusting arrogance 'ok.. I'm not having this conversation') growing up not to notice it.

    It's a shame that enviromentalism has been so totally commandeered by those on the cultural extreme-left (funny, considering it originated with romantic nationalists and conservatives), and now in reaction the mainstream right takes equally imbecilic takes.
    Not to mention, since all this global warming hysteria (I'm agnostic on the topic), every other major enviromental problem seems to have become relatively ignored. Most seriously, the still constantly-increasing amounts of plastic, which, even if the worst predictions of athropogenic global warming are true, I feel things like microplastics circulating everywhere, as far as the Mariana Trench, are much more concerning.

    I mean, evolution has dealt with rapid climatic changes dozens of times over, but the ubiquitousness of indistible and often toxic compouds breaking down far enough to be ingested by microscopic organisms seems unprecedented.


    But this isn't really my area, I don't know if anyone within the hard sciences regularly comments here, I mostly just get my takes on energy issues from Vaclav Smil.

    Replies: @German_reader, @Philip Owen

    Not to mention, since all this global warming hysteria (I’m agnostic on the topic)

    I think it’s real, the change in climate has been quite noticeable even over my lifetime, and I think it will indeed be a very serious issue (if the worst scenarios become reality, some regions might become entirely uninhabitable after all). Question is of course what to do about it, I don’t believe the German Greens (deeply stupid people imo) have any sensible ideas. But the full-on denial of climate change a lot of right-wingers have adopted is counter-productive.
    The plastics issue might indeed be pretty bad, I’m rather disturbed by those suggestions that the steadily declining sperm count of men in Western countries might be due to cellular damage caused by ubiquituous plastics, definitely an issue that should be urgently investigated to a much greater extent, since it could eventually evolve into an existential threat. More generally, there’s definitely a lot wrong with environmental influences in modern Western societies…I’m always surprised and somewhat baffled by how many people of my age seem to have pollen allergies and the like.
    Thanks for reminding me of Vaclav Smil, haven’t yet read any of his books, but I probably should.

    • Agree: Barbarossa
    • Replies: @A123
    @German_reader

    The Globalists have been pushing climate myths for elite enrichment. The scare story "only 10 years to act" has collapsed under its own weight after 50 years of inaction.

     
    http://3.bp.blogspot.com/-vJz41fofy0k/VQXNF7Apd9I/AAAAAAAAC34/AljPAlRyu1U/s1600/time_covers.jpg
     

    If the climate hysterics were accurate, the human race ended decades ago.

    Did all humans die as they predicted?

    The time of False Prophets and their Global Cooling / Warming / Change doom calls is at an end. The hordes of private jets that descend on each climate event is an obvious display of Elite insincerity.

    Part of the MAGA platform needs to be total defunding of every university credentialed Science Denier that fabricated results in return for grant money. With no funding and no ability to publish fake science, the grifters of "faux academia" will no longer have sheeple to fleece.

    PEACE 😇

    , @Dmitry
    @German_reader


    ubiquituous plastics,
     
    With the plastic bottles alleged effect on male fertility, there could be an indicator by comparing to Russia or Poland. In many EU countries people can still feel confident to drink tap water. In Russia, in most cities you have to drink plastic bottle water. (In many cities, tap water is full of dangerous levels of trichlorethylenes, organochlorine, as they can send you tap water from a pond, which is later reported as an industrial wastewater site)

    Of few studies I could see sperm quality in Russia. For example, they only studied in the city of Arkhangelsk . "The sperm quality in Russian men was slightly worse than in men from Finland, Norway, Sweden, or Estonia, but very similar to that in men from Denmark or Poland. " https://journals.sagepub.com/doi/10.1177/1557988320939714

    In Denmark, there should be not people drinking from plastic bottles, as they still have clean tap water that people are confident to drink, whereas in Poland it's common to drink water from plastic bottles as the tap water is becoming more dangerous. (Although even in the West, the water machines in offices are from plastic containers) So at least Russia, Poland and Denmark are all similar in that study.

    In all this, I guess I'm more comfortable to drink from a plastic bottle and suffer some microplastics, than from a pond which might be reported in a few years later that it was actually a wastewater site. Known carcinogens are also more concerning than potential health concerns or potential carcinogens of plastic bottles or food packaging.

    Replies: @utu

    , @songbird
    @German_reader


    But the full-on denial of climate change a lot of right-wingers have adopted is counter-productive.
     
    I'm a skeptic. But putting that aside, it is hard to see the benefit of giving ground.

    They seem to be saying stuff like, "The equatorial zone will become uninhabitable, so we will need to accept hundreds of millions of Africans and Arabs, starting now. And you must begin eating bugs."

    If they instead said, "We want your support for nuclear energy, in order to save the world. We are sorry about trying to drown you with Third Worlders and trying to turn everyone gay. To show our contrition, we are willing to deport all of the people you deem undesirable, starting with ourselves." Then my ears would really perk up.

    Replies: @Yellowface Anon, @Beckow, @A123

    , @Mikel
    @German_reader


    the change in climate has been quite noticeable even over my lifetime
     
    The change in climate has been noticeable over the lifetimes of everyone born in the last ~170 years, provided they lived past 3-4 decades.

    The planet began warming at the end of the Little Ice Age, in the mid 19th century. Records are less reliable in those early times but there are lots of land stations and maritime observations (sea water temperature logs collected by ships during decades while they traversed shipping lanes all over the globe) since the 19th century and sometimes earlier. The consensus estimate (from the IPCC itself) is that from 1850 to 1945 the global atmosphere warmed at a rate comparable to that of the most recent decades (less than a factor of 2 of difference):

    https://earthobservatory.nasa.gov/ContentFeature/GlobalWarming/images/giss_temperature.png

    But we don’t know why this initial global warming took place. In its initial reports the IPCC attributed this early warming mainly to solar influences. But we now have much more precise data taken by satellites of how much solar irradiance varies between cycles of high to low solar activity and we know that it is not enough to alter the temperature significantly (which is why direct solar explanations for the current warming have also been discarded). The latest scientific reports of the IPCC (Working Group I) don’t include any consensus explanation for this initial global warming.

    One other interesting aspect of that graph is that when the actual concentration of CO2 and other anthropogenic greenhouse gases began to really rise in the atmosphere after the end of WWII, as observed at the Mauna Loa long-term observatory, the global temperature went down until the mid 70s. The usual explanation for this paradox is that the cooling was produced by sulfates and other industrial aerosols but this is debatable. This type of aerosols are short-lived, they get removed of the atmosphere by rain in a matter of days or weeks so they mostly affect the source regions and those downwind of them. However, the Southern Hemisphere, where these aerosols were practically absent, also cooled down from the mid 40s to the late 60s. Moreover, a strong cooling effect of sulfates that could more than compensate for the warming effect of GHGs would mean that nowadays we would be seeing strong cooling in regions heavily affected by aerosols, such as China, but we don’t see that.

    The media coverage of the climate change problem is abysmal. Biased, alarmist and politicized like on any other subject. Attributing all sorts of weather phenomena, such as a spat of tornadoes, to climate change is asinine. The frequency and intensity of tornadoes in the US has actually decreased over the past century. But it is impossible to get this kind of scientific facts from the MSM. One has to go to specialized blogs or, ironically, to the IPCC reports themselves.

    In summary, there are good grounds to be rather skeptical of the climate catastrophism. But at the same, time, we know from physical first principles that increasing amounts of CO2 and other long-lived GHGs must necessarily lead to a warmer global temperature. The question is how much warmer, what the effects will be and how logical it is with our present knowledge to reduce our wealth in order to try and combat these possible effects.

    In the mid 2000s Roger Pielke, a more or less skeptical climate researcher, argued that climate science was not being conducted as a real scientific discipline and asked what kind of observation would disprove specific claims made by the anthropogenic global warming theory, as is customary in all hard sciences.



    A very interesting debate took place on the internet, far away from the mainstream discourse, and both skeptic and mainstream scientists agreed that in 2001, in the IPCC Third Assessment Report, a specific prediction was made of a global warming of 0.2C/decade from that date until the 3rd decade of this century, independent of the emissions scenario. The IPCC numerical models, taking into account the direct effects of the GHGs and the thermal lag of the oceans, showed that this would be the warming in the next 3 decades, largely independent of how much more CO2 we emitted.

    It soon became apparent that the models were overestimating the actual observed warming. In fact, from 2001 to 2015 all observational records, both surface and satellite-based, showed little or no warming during half of the period established in the IPCC 2001 prediction. This even led to the 5th Assessment Report to acknowledge the existence of a pause in global warming.

    But things changed dramatically in 2015-2016. First, a Super-Niño episode took place those years that moved the trend upwards and second, a paper was published in the literature arguing that the ocean part of the surface-based observational studies had important errors and the past global temperatures needed to be corrected downwards. This made the trend become more positive again. As a consequence of this paper, all surface records were corrected and now exhibited a trend line basically in agreement with the IPCC predictions. One of the two main satellite records (RSS) was also modified for different reasons to cool down the past and all but one satellite-based record (UAH) right now show broad agreement with the 0.2C/decade warming prediction.

    The models-observations discrepancy was solved in the worst possible way, by correcting the observations rather than by making the theory conform to the observed facts. But this is what the state of climate science is at present. If the global temperature continues warming at ~0.2/decade during the following 10 years and no more corrections are made to the observations, I think that one could more or less trust that the models are capturing the essence of how the atmosphere works with the current forcings. Making a successful prediction of how the global temperature will evolve in a period of 3 decades is a tremendous feat. But if we have another pause the conclusion will obviously have to be that mainstream climate science is exaggerating the global warming problem, which is probably the case even if that specific prediction pans out. The “Climategate” papers showing how the IPCC used to work for its initial reports show a disturbing picture of corrupt peer-review practices and generalized politicization.

    Replies: @utu

  44. German_reader says:
    @Mr. Hack
    @German_reader

    I'm not sure just how "cheap" Aldis really are, perhaps, inexpensive would be a better term to describe them? I've been to Aldis twice in Minnesota, once in Fridley (a suburb of Minneapolis) and also in Hutchinson, a good sized town in the center of the state. I thought that there were a lot of good products on display all reasonably priced and a lot imported from Germany. A friend of mine just purchased a duck at Aldis and was not disappointed, paying half a much as he would at other food stores. There are now 2-3 in the Phoenix area. Perhaps, I should be aware of something first before shopping there? I'd be grateful to know, for they seem to sprouting up all over the US.

    Replies: @Dmitry, @German_reader

    Perhaps, I should be aware of something first before shopping there?

    I don’t think you need to worry more than about any other supermarket chain, generally the quality of their products should be fine, it’s just that it’s got a certain low-class image in Germany, because their prices are low and the assortment of wares is somewhat limited (also they sell a lot of cheaper ALDI knock-offs instead of more expensive brand articles).
    Of course the usual caveats apply, if you want quality meat, you’re probably better off to some butcher’s shop.

    • Thanks: Mr. Hack
    • Replies: @Dmitry
    @German_reader

    From everything I was told, EU has relatively very strong regulations in terms of food safety. In the USA (perhaps not in California though), there is usually lower regulation in comparison.

    So Mr Hack buying food imported from Germany is not a bad idea at all. From my superficial experience, Aldi usually seems subjectively high quality products as well, if you are happy to eat non-organic products.

    Except there are some areas in EU agriculture like extra virgin olive oil, where there is apparently a lot of fraud in Europe where testing shows evidence of refining process in supposedly unprocessed products.

    I guess this is stereotypically expected considering the country of origin of olive oil are those stereotypically more corrupt EU countries like Spain, Italy and Greece, with perhaps relatively worse regulation enforcements.


    https://i.imgur.com/zBbAGss.jpg

    https://olivecenter.ucdavis.edu/media/files/report2011three.pdf

    Similarly, Aldi is selling products like processed meat products from Poland, which apparently is often failing EU standards. So maybe avoid those products when you are shopping through Aldi (or just avoid processed meat from less regulated countries too much).


    want quality meat, you’re probably better off
     
    With meat, you are also exposing much more to those pollutants which accumulate in proteins higher in the food chain. But at least with private land there is more possibility to isolate it than with fish. If you can find at least organic, unprocessed meat.

    Fish is all sharing the same extremely polluted oceans, and you can see some studies where more expensive wild fish ocould measures even more pollutants than farmed one.

    It's these areas which are a real "commons" - the air and the oceans, where the pollution can been often apparently with almost free impunity. And the real situation of pollution in the ocean and air, is probably far worse than we are usually presented in the media.

    Replies: @LatW

    , @songbird
    @German_reader


    also they sell a lot of cheaper ALDI knock-offs instead of more expensive brand articles
     
    Brand names have lost a lot of their prestige in my eyes, with globohomo, and so I feel an odd convergence with the Left, where they used to be saying stuff like CocaCola is bad because they are trying to buy up all the clean water in Africa and sell it to Africans, and I didn't really care about it. Frankly, I prefer store brands now.

    What is interesting with supermarkets is that sometimes the lower end ones pay their workers the most.

    Don't know much about Aldis specifically, but in America, in my little experience with it, the main detraction seems to be that they have big crowds and relatively few cashiers. I once saw evidence that rats had gnawed on a bag of flour, but I think that is pretty par for the course with supermarkets in general, in some locations - though most people wouldn't like to think so.
    , @RadicalCenter
    @German_reader

    We shop at Aldi in both California and New Jersey and are quite satisfied. Ganz zufrieden.

    I have German heritage and used to speak some German. But like many white Americans, Germans are a pathetic, easily frightened, aging, dying people making systematically stupid decisions about immigration, energy, and culture and failing even to reproduce while lecturing the rest of us. Globalist Germans also manage to be both arrogant Besserwisser (know-it-alls) / bullies and self-hating at the same time — impressive. We have been socializing with German immigrants to the US for the better part of a decade here in SoCal and wow, half of them are willfully obtuse and confident in their suicidal naivete, counterfactual assertions, and enthusiasm for proven-disastrous prescriptions.

    Who gives a damn what Germans think? As the old joke about “modern” Western “liberals” goes, they wouldn’t take their own side in a fight. They’re not going to be around for long.

  45. @German_reader
    @Mr. Hack


    Perhaps, I should be aware of something first before shopping there?
     
    I don't think you need to worry more than about any other supermarket chain, generally the quality of their products should be fine, it's just that it's got a certain low-class image in Germany, because their prices are low and the assortment of wares is somewhat limited (also they sell a lot of cheaper ALDI knock-offs instead of more expensive brand articles).
    Of course the usual caveats apply, if you want quality meat, you're probably better off to some butcher's shop.

    Replies: @Dmitry, @songbird, @RadicalCenter

    From everything I was told, EU has relatively very strong regulations in terms of food safety. In the USA (perhaps not in California though), there is usually lower regulation in comparison.

    So Mr Hack buying food imported from Germany is not a bad idea at all. From my superficial experience, Aldi usually seems subjectively high quality products as well, if you are happy to eat non-organic products.

    Except there are some areas in EU agriculture like extra virgin olive oil, where there is apparently a lot of fraud in Europe where testing shows evidence of refining process in supposedly unprocessed products.

    I guess this is stereotypically expected considering the country of origin of olive oil are those stereotypically more corrupt EU countries like Spain, Italy and Greece, with perhaps relatively worse regulation enforcements.

    https://olivecenter.ucdavis.edu/media/files/report2011three.pdf

    Similarly, Aldi is selling products like processed meat products from Poland, which apparently is often failing EU standards. So maybe avoid those products when you are shopping through Aldi (or just avoid processed meat from less regulated countries too much).

    want quality meat, you’re probably better off

    With meat, you are also exposing much more to those pollutants which accumulate in proteins higher in the food chain. But at least with private land there is more possibility to isolate it than with fish. If you can find at least organic, unprocessed meat.

    Fish is all sharing the same extremely polluted oceans, and you can see some studies where more expensive wild fish ocould measures even more pollutants than farmed one.

    It’s these areas which are a real “commons” – the air and the oceans, where the pollution can been often apparently with almost free impunity. And the real situation of pollution in the ocean and air, is probably far worse than we are usually presented in the media.

    • Replies: @LatW
    @Dmitry


    So Mr Hack buying food imported from Germany is not a bad idea at all.
     
    The higher end grocery stores in the US are of utmost quality. Especially smaller, local co-op type stores. They will mostly carry locally produced, very clean (non-GMO, no hormone, no corn syrup, organic, etc), often times family farm sourced, nicely packaged items, in a great variety. Including meat and seafood, good wines (both local and imported), higher quality supplements and cosmetics. But they will be a bit pricey. The way to go about this is to buy a smaller amount of higher quality items (they may be lower calorie and lower sugar content and more nutritionally dense at the same time). Unless you have a big family, ofc, but even then you can buy a lot of the produce, bulk staples at the co-op and maybe meat somewhere else. More commonly than in Europe, you can buy a lot of stuff in bulk, such as nuts, cereal, all types of exotic spices, teas, etc. So Mr Hack has nothing to worry about. :) Of course, these shops also carry imported items, like German and French cosmetics, wine. Although American wine is the same quality but cheaper.

    And, of course, there is the same class delineation between the higher end stores and regular stores, which is just reality. There's no need to trash the lower end stores, ofc, one just has to be more careful picking items there (read the contents).

    Replies: @Mr. Hack, @Dmitry, @AP

  46. @Thulean Friend
    China likely peaked demographically in 2021.

    Interestingly, the US population growth rate in 2021 was just 0.1%. The main attack on China is that they have "terrible demographics". Maybe, but I don't see the US doing much better.

    China also seems more internally stable to me than the US. Polarisation in the US is reaching comical levels, with even something as simple as vaccination campaigns becoming weaponised and politicised.

    https://twitter.com/ianbremmer/status/1476693654400081922

    Still think the US will have the upper hand vis-a-vis China given its alliance network but I just want to puncture the common attack themes against China since most of them make little sense.

    Replies: @Pericles, @Dmitry

    The US white population has even shrunk in absolute numbers, so I think they are overall demographically worse off and in a worse trend than China.

    NYT: “Census Shows Sharply Growing Numbers of Hispanic, Asian and Multiracial Americans”

    The white population [of America] declined for the first time in history. People who identify themselves as white on the census form have been decreasing as a share of the country’s population since the 1960s, when the United States lifted strict ethnic quotas aimed at keeping the country Northern and Western European.
    That drop, of 2.6 percent, was driven in part by the aging of the white population — the median age was 44 in 2019, compared with 30 for Hispanics — and a long-running decline in the birthrate. Some social scientists theorized that another potential reason for the decrease was that more Americans who previously identified as white on the census are now choosing more than one race.

    https://archive.ph/PYU9w

    (I don’t think the fake latinos and fake indigenes, while existent, are numerous enough to matter in raw numbers.)

    NYT: “It was a terrifying census for white nationalists”

    https://archive.ph/GaSml

    • Replies: @Thulean Friend
    @Pericles

    There's a center-right German intellectual who I like quite a bit, named Gunnar Heinsohn. His latest analysis is available online. He has strong attention to detail but weak artistic skills, hence his graphs and charts are pretty messy and incoherent (typical German). But his core numbers are persuasive and strongly argued.

    I think the most important table is probably this one:

    https://i.imgur.com/HLK3FOC.png

    (A full-sized image can be viewed here).

    A naïve extrapolation would indeed give a 40X difference in raw absolute math aces between China and the US, but this is unlikely. Chinese fertility is likely lower than reported. China also selects its best provinces while the weakest students (offspring of those without Hukou permits) are not tested. Nevertheless, if we put their per capita performance closer to Japan and adjust for lower fertility, you still get a 10 million number compared to barely 1 million for the US of top math aces.

    Mathematics is the queen of sciences, after all. The US position is stronger than the table indicates, given US being the net emigration destination for most of the world's talent, but I don't think they can bridge such a chasm.

    I counted all the European countries (ex Russia) and came out to 2.5 million people. America barely has 1 million math aces under the age of 15. This is the central Achilles' heel of Europe. The talent is there, in fact more than twice as many as in USA, but it divided among too many countries, thus missing the crucial network effects. On top of just plain lower wages, leading to persistent brain drain.

    So when I hear about China going to 700 million by the end of this century, I just roll my eyes. What matters is what proportion of the top talent in the world that you have and China will have, and already has, a very large fraction of them. The key problem in China has been putting all those brains to good use. That was missing for most of the 20th and 19th centuries. It isn't a problem now.

    Replies: @Pericles, @Oscar C.

    , @showmethereal
    @Pericles

    Yeah western Europe is basically only growing because of immigrants (Eastern Europe is in decline overall). The white population is going into decline in much of Europe.... I'm not sure why anyone thought the US would be different. Likewise Japan is declining - with South Korea not far behind (they are below replacement).... China is heading that way (Chinese in Taiwan - Singapore - Hong Kong were already below replacement)....

    Replies: @Pericles

  47. @Thulean Friend
    Jeff Bezos lost $40 billion in a divorce but he looks happier than ever.

    https://i.imgur.com/FztuUAS.jpg

    He also made the correct move of shaving his hair instead of trying to latch onto a fake toupé like Musk when he started to bald.

    Replies: @Yevardian, @Barbarossa, @Pericles, @Philip Owen, @melanf

    Ha ha ha, that’s a memorable picture if nothing else.

  48. @German_reader
    @Yevardian


    Not to mention, since all this global warming hysteria (I’m agnostic on the topic)
     
    I think it's real, the change in climate has been quite noticeable even over my lifetime, and I think it will indeed be a very serious issue (if the worst scenarios become reality, some regions might become entirely uninhabitable after all). Question is of course what to do about it, I don't believe the German Greens (deeply stupid people imo) have any sensible ideas. But the full-on denial of climate change a lot of right-wingers have adopted is counter-productive.
    The plastics issue might indeed be pretty bad, I'm rather disturbed by those suggestions that the steadily declining sperm count of men in Western countries might be due to cellular damage caused by ubiquituous plastics, definitely an issue that should be urgently investigated to a much greater extent, since it could eventually evolve into an existential threat. More generally, there's definitely a lot wrong with environmental influences in modern Western societies...I'm always surprised and somewhat baffled by how many people of my age seem to have pollen allergies and the like.
    Thanks for reminding me of Vaclav Smil, haven't yet read any of his books, but I probably should.

    Replies: @A123, @Dmitry, @songbird, @Mikel

    The Globalists have been pushing climate myths for elite enrichment. The scare story “only 10 years to act” has collapsed under its own weight after 50 years of inaction.

     

     

    If the climate hysterics were accurate, the human race ended decades ago.

    Did all humans die as they predicted?

    The time of False Prophets and their Global Cooling / Warming / Change doom calls is at an end. The hordes of private jets that descend on each climate event is an obvious display of Elite insincerity.

    Part of the MAGA platform needs to be total defunding of every university credentialed Science Denier that fabricated results in return for grant money. With no funding and no ability to publish fake science, the grifters of “faux academia” will no longer have sheeple to fleece.

    PEACE 😇

    • Agree: Alden
  49. @German_reader
    @Yevardian


    Not to mention, since all this global warming hysteria (I’m agnostic on the topic)
     
    I think it's real, the change in climate has been quite noticeable even over my lifetime, and I think it will indeed be a very serious issue (if the worst scenarios become reality, some regions might become entirely uninhabitable after all). Question is of course what to do about it, I don't believe the German Greens (deeply stupid people imo) have any sensible ideas. But the full-on denial of climate change a lot of right-wingers have adopted is counter-productive.
    The plastics issue might indeed be pretty bad, I'm rather disturbed by those suggestions that the steadily declining sperm count of men in Western countries might be due to cellular damage caused by ubiquituous plastics, definitely an issue that should be urgently investigated to a much greater extent, since it could eventually evolve into an existential threat. More generally, there's definitely a lot wrong with environmental influences in modern Western societies...I'm always surprised and somewhat baffled by how many people of my age seem to have pollen allergies and the like.
    Thanks for reminding me of Vaclav Smil, haven't yet read any of his books, but I probably should.

    Replies: @A123, @Dmitry, @songbird, @Mikel

    ubiquituous plastics,

    With the plastic bottles alleged effect on male fertility, there could be an indicator by comparing to Russia or Poland. In many EU countries people can still feel confident to drink tap water. In Russia, in most cities you have to drink plastic bottle water. (In many cities, tap water is full of dangerous levels of trichlorethylenes, organochlorine, as they can send you tap water from a pond, which is later reported as an industrial wastewater site)

    Of few studies I could see sperm quality in Russia. For example, they only studied in the city of Arkhangelsk . “The sperm quality in Russian men was slightly worse than in men from Finland, Norway, Sweden, or Estonia, but very similar to that in men from Denmark or Poland.https://journals.sagepub.com/doi/10.1177/1557988320939714

    In Denmark, there should be not people drinking from plastic bottles, as they still have clean tap water that people are confident to drink, whereas in Poland it’s common to drink water from plastic bottles as the tap water is becoming more dangerous. (Although even in the West, the water machines in offices are from plastic containers) So at least Russia, Poland and Denmark are all similar in that study.

    In all this, I guess I’m more comfortable to drink from a plastic bottle and suffer some microplastics, than from a pond which might be reported in a few years later that it was actually a wastewater site. Known carcinogens are also more concerning than potential health concerns or potential carcinogens of plastic bottles or food packaging.

    • Replies: @utu
    @Dmitry

    Drop in sperm count grows with popularity of oral and anal sex. The sperm just gets discourage as it finds it futile to be fertile.

    Replies: @Yevardian

  50. @songbird
    @Barbarossa

    Just my ignorant 2 cents:

    There is an egalitarian movement to drop subsidies, so that food production can be moved to the Third World. It seems seductive. Refrigerated shipping means that we can get fresh food. Maybe, they will stop coming, if we buy their produce, and make them richer. But that is not what explains their poverty. (America buying Chilean fruit just made them import Haitians to pick it, eventually they got tired of them and send them our way.)

    And less seductively, they can develop the farmland into tracts of housing for more Third Worlders, as they are already doing in much of Western Europe. (Think of how much that will grow the economy!) England is food negative, reliant on imports.

    It is inherently insane. We've just seen some pretty big supply interruptions with covid. The Pinkerian view of history seems obviously wrong. Why point a gun at our heads and then hand it over to the Third World?

    Replies: @Barbarossa

    Not surprisingly, I would be extremely opposed to off shoring food production 0r using arable American land for more tract housing.
    I wholeheartedly agree about the vulnerabilities of a (more) off site food production system. It would be a step even further in the wrong direction.

    It rather parallels the same thought process that sold NAFTA to both US and Mexicans.
    Mexicans never really got the wage parity and great jobs that they were promised in Mexico, but the small scale corn farmers got decimated when the border was opened up to cheap US subsidized corn imports. This in turn drives collapse of rural economies and economic migration…to our very own El Norte where they can be used as pawns to depress the wages of American workers.

    https://thecounter.org/border-crisis-immigration-mexican-corn-nafta/
    This article ties it together pretty succinctly.

    Curiously, the only folks that get screwed over in this arrangement are the workers and the small farmers. The big guys make out just fine, as it was designed to deliver, naturally.
    It’s important to remember that NAFTA was just as disruptive to Mexicans culturally and economically as Americans.

    • Thanks: songbird
  51. @Pericles
    @Thulean Friend

    The US white population has even shrunk in absolute numbers, so I think they are overall demographically worse off and in a worse trend than China.

    NYT: "Census Shows Sharply Growing Numbers of Hispanic, Asian and Multiracial Americans"

    The white population [of America] declined for the first time in history. People who identify themselves as white on the census form have been decreasing as a share of the country’s population since the 1960s, when the United States lifted strict ethnic quotas aimed at keeping the country Northern and Western European.
    That drop, of 2.6 percent, was driven in part by the aging of the white population — the median age was 44 in 2019, compared with 30 for Hispanics — and a long-running decline in the birthrate. Some social scientists theorized that another potential reason for the decrease was that more Americans who previously identified as white on the census are now choosing more than one race.

     

    https://archive.ph/PYU9w

    (I don't think the fake latinos and fake indigenes, while existent, are numerous enough to matter in raw numbers.)

    NYT: "It was a terrifying census for white nationalists"

    https://archive.ph/GaSml

    Replies: @Thulean Friend, @showmethereal

    There’s a center-right German intellectual who I like quite a bit, named Gunnar Heinsohn. His latest analysis is available online. He has strong attention to detail but weak artistic skills, hence his graphs and charts are pretty messy and incoherent (typical German). But his core numbers are persuasive and strongly argued.

    I think the most important table is probably this one:

    (A full-sized image can be viewed here).

    A naïve extrapolation would indeed give a 40X difference in raw absolute math aces between China and the US, but this is unlikely. Chinese fertility is likely lower than reported. China also selects its best provinces while the weakest students (offspring of those without Hukou permits) are not tested. Nevertheless, if we put their per capita performance closer to Japan and adjust for lower fertility, you still get a 10 million number compared to barely 1 million for the US of top math aces.

    Mathematics is the queen of sciences, after all. The US position is stronger than the table indicates, given US being the net emigration destination for most of the world’s talent, but I don’t think they can bridge such a chasm.

    I counted all the European countries (ex Russia) and came out to 2.5 million people. America barely has 1 million math aces under the age of 15. This is the central Achilles’ heel of Europe. The talent is there, in fact more than twice as many as in USA, but it divided among too many countries, thus missing the crucial network effects. On top of just plain lower wages, leading to persistent brain drain.

    So when I hear about China going to 700 million by the end of this century, I just roll my eyes. What matters is what proportion of the top talent in the world that you have and China will have, and already has, a very large fraction of them. The key problem in China has been putting all those brains to good use. That was missing for most of the 20th and 19th centuries. It isn’t a problem now.

    • Replies: @Pericles
    @Thulean Friend

    I wonder how many of the 'brightest math 15 y/o' in the US are ethnically Chinese? The US math olympiad teams of recent years tend to look that way, at least. See the slides for some examples.

    The slides were also interesting in another respect: I'm a lot more pessimistic than Heinsohn about his 'western fortresses of competence'. Our experiences with these are mixed or bad, IMO. Any functioning fixes will instead have to be made internally.

    , @Oscar C.
    @Thulean Friend

    Oh yes, Gunnar Heinsohn. I first knew about him due to his book "Söhne und Weltmacht", a demography-is-destiny kind of work, very interesting since it comes from a German, I find it hard to find Germans speaking out on these issues, it is almost everything coming from the English-speaking countries. I guess hate speech laws have a lot to do with it.

    David P. Goldman also talks a lot about the STEM gap between the US and China:

    https://www.breitbart.com/radio/2018/03/19/goldman-china-graduating-twice-many-doctorates-stem-fields-we-are/

  52. @Dmitry
    @German_reader


    ubiquituous plastics,
     
    With the plastic bottles alleged effect on male fertility, there could be an indicator by comparing to Russia or Poland. In many EU countries people can still feel confident to drink tap water. In Russia, in most cities you have to drink plastic bottle water. (In many cities, tap water is full of dangerous levels of trichlorethylenes, organochlorine, as they can send you tap water from a pond, which is later reported as an industrial wastewater site)

    Of few studies I could see sperm quality in Russia. For example, they only studied in the city of Arkhangelsk . "The sperm quality in Russian men was slightly worse than in men from Finland, Norway, Sweden, or Estonia, but very similar to that in men from Denmark or Poland. " https://journals.sagepub.com/doi/10.1177/1557988320939714

    In Denmark, there should be not people drinking from plastic bottles, as they still have clean tap water that people are confident to drink, whereas in Poland it's common to drink water from plastic bottles as the tap water is becoming more dangerous. (Although even in the West, the water machines in offices are from plastic containers) So at least Russia, Poland and Denmark are all similar in that study.

    In all this, I guess I'm more comfortable to drink from a plastic bottle and suffer some microplastics, than from a pond which might be reported in a few years later that it was actually a wastewater site. Known carcinogens are also more concerning than potential health concerns or potential carcinogens of plastic bottles or food packaging.

    Replies: @utu

    Drop in sperm count grows with popularity of oral and anal sex. The sperm just gets discourage as it finds it futile to be fertile.

    • Replies: @Yevardian
    @utu

    That sounds a bit puritan. I'm fairly confident that these practices (you seem to be implying yourself to be above such.. perversions) were as popular (if not moreso) in the past, due to reliable contraception not being available. And speaking of 'futile emissions', that sort of thing most be absolutely negligible when merely comparing to the epidemic levels of westoid inceldom, combined with the omnipresent ubiquity of free HD internet pornography, now accessible to any child with a 'smartphone', where practically anything can be found with a few illiterate fingertaps.

  53. @Thulean Friend
    @Pericles

    There's a center-right German intellectual who I like quite a bit, named Gunnar Heinsohn. His latest analysis is available online. He has strong attention to detail but weak artistic skills, hence his graphs and charts are pretty messy and incoherent (typical German). But his core numbers are persuasive and strongly argued.

    I think the most important table is probably this one:

    https://i.imgur.com/HLK3FOC.png

    (A full-sized image can be viewed here).

    A naïve extrapolation would indeed give a 40X difference in raw absolute math aces between China and the US, but this is unlikely. Chinese fertility is likely lower than reported. China also selects its best provinces while the weakest students (offspring of those without Hukou permits) are not tested. Nevertheless, if we put their per capita performance closer to Japan and adjust for lower fertility, you still get a 10 million number compared to barely 1 million for the US of top math aces.

    Mathematics is the queen of sciences, after all. The US position is stronger than the table indicates, given US being the net emigration destination for most of the world's talent, but I don't think they can bridge such a chasm.

    I counted all the European countries (ex Russia) and came out to 2.5 million people. America barely has 1 million math aces under the age of 15. This is the central Achilles' heel of Europe. The talent is there, in fact more than twice as many as in USA, but it divided among too many countries, thus missing the crucial network effects. On top of just plain lower wages, leading to persistent brain drain.

    So when I hear about China going to 700 million by the end of this century, I just roll my eyes. What matters is what proportion of the top talent in the world that you have and China will have, and already has, a very large fraction of them. The key problem in China has been putting all those brains to good use. That was missing for most of the 20th and 19th centuries. It isn't a problem now.

    Replies: @Pericles, @Oscar C.

    I wonder how many of the ‘brightest math 15 y/o’ in the US are ethnically Chinese? The US math olympiad teams of recent years tend to look that way, at least. See the slides for some examples.

    The slides were also interesting in another respect: I’m a lot more pessimistic than Heinsohn about his ‘western fortresses of competence’. Our experiences with these are mixed or bad, IMO. Any functioning fixes will instead have to be made internally.

  54. @sher singh
    @showmethereal

    America has been focused on Asia more or less since the 50s.
    Europe will always be the #1 focus but Asia has been the #2.

    The Western hemisphere will get fkd hard once USA retreats from Asia.
    https://youtu.be/W9fnmLPpAvM

    ਵਾਹਿਗੁਰੂਜੀਕਾਖਾਲਸਾਵਾਹਿਗੁਰੂਜੀਕੀਫਤਿਹ

    Replies: @showmethereal

    Not sure what you mean by that… They US has sponsored coups – or invasions – or interfered in elections – in every single one of those countries since the 1950’s (Caribbean and Latin America). Many a right wing dictator or faux democratic ruler was propped up…. But in the past 20 years the tides have been turning. Even a coup in Nicaragua failed a couple of years ago… less famous than the attempt in Venezuela. But the people shrugged it off. And personally I never thought Chile would remain in the US orbit for the rest of my days… But that has just changed.

    But that was indeed an interesting video you posted…

    • Thanks: sher singh
  55. @songbird
    @showmethereal

    Heard that the president of Uruguay is an open borders guy.

    Replies: @showmethereal

    Not sure… But little by little Uruguay has been moving in it’s own direction. In fact it’s even upsetting Brazil and Argentina right now because they are negotiating an FTA with China on their own – and not part of Mercosur

    https://en.mercopress.com/2021/09/08/uruguay-brokers-one-on-one-free-trade-deal-with-china-hoping-it-will-not-affect-mercosur

    • Thanks: songbird
  56. @A123
    @Barbarossa


    On that German agriculture minister; I don’t find what he’s saying to be that outlandishly evil, at least from my perspective in the American food system.
     
    GR makes a good point. There is a class perspective in play.

    Food prices have dramatic impact on quality of life for the working poor. It can be 20% of their budget. Food price inflation is particularly hard on these folks.

    For those with substantial disposable income, increased food price is a nuisance issue.


    Food is cheap in the US, but artificially so, with things like corn and soy monocrops heavily government subsidized.
     
    As concepts, I see the point you are trying to make. However, one cannot look simply at the farm end.

    Monoculture is very difficult to tackle. Food processors have equipment that is not easily adjustable, thus consistent inputs are required. The distribution chain needs long lasting products to reach the shelves for purchase and consumption.

    Government subsidies are also difficult to address. All of the major producers have Agriculture policies. For the U.S. to cut while other countries continue is the equivalent of "unilateral disarmament".


    Farm decentralization should be a big plank in the MAGA revitalization, if such a thing ever came to fruition
     
    MAGA Reindustrialization can work on a small scale. Equipment is often flexible, so a small shop can be profitable. Over regulation and subsidized imports can be tackled by MAGA policy.

    Even for small shops there is an understanding that the nation is not headed back to 1960's style production. New manufacturing is not going to be individual skilled craftsman. It will involve tasks like optimizing use of computer controlled machinery. Craft will still be required, but it has to be leveraged.
    ___

    Do you have specific policy proposals for small farms that would not mostly benefit the largest ones?

    "MAGA Family Farms" would be a good tag line. The % of shelf price reaching the farmer has been going down for years. BigAg processors & distributors use scale to their advantage when dealing with raw material inputs. However, I am not sure how to directly address that split.

    PEACE 😇

    Replies: @Barbarossa

    You are certainly correct that the American farming system would be difficult to turn around. It took decades of concerted effort to get to where it is and would require concerted effort to turn round.

    As I mentioned earlier, the centralizing push was concerted since the early 70’s and “Get big or get out!” Ag secretary Earl Butz. This has resulted in food producers who are inflexible, completely dependent on the banks and government, and trapped in a cycle of increasing their scale of production to desperately reach some level of security which never appears.

    This has absolutely destroyed the traditional rural backbone of America. 20 small farms make a town. 1 mega farm does not. The anti-social aspects of industry and agriculture consolidation are hard to overestimate and have done much to hollow out conservative America. Besides, I can tell you that farm kids are not going to be too susceptible to trans messaging and other liberal madness. Conservatism is rightfully based in reality, which must involve a connection to the natural world. The collapse of rural life and the rise in adoption of liberalism by the masses hardly seems unrelated. We have a world increasingly unmoored from any reality.

    I actually dispute the idea that industrial farming techniques are always more efficient than more traditional ones. It often depends on one’s metric of “efficiency”. For example, industrial meat production is a very grain heavy process, where corn and soy (grown on prime rich soil) get fed to animals in managed containment conditions.

    In the shift to industrial agriculture a corner of the country like mine has become abandoned. We don’t have much of the rich soil to grow corn or soy. What we can grow well is grass, and indeed the area was rich with independent sheep farmers and dairies until the post-WW2 shift.

    Cows and sheep have been blessed with rumens, those miraculous stomachs capable of turning grass and other roughage, which has no food use to humans at all, into meat and milk. However, in our constant quest for “mechanized efficiency” we would rather use our best land to feed animals and let our land suited for animals lie fallow.

    You are correct that the middle men are a massive amount of the issue. The dairy farmers that I know are virtual slaves to the milk coops who can dictate terms since a virtual monopoly exists.

    The dairy of the past could market directly to it’s community, banking on the evident quality of the product. Some farms would advertise that they kept Jersey or Guernsey cows for thick rich cream which the customer could clearly see. Modern milk is a commodity, one which the farmer has no ability to sell independently or set the price on. The middle men ought to be minimized.

    I agree with your point that food price hikes are hardest on the poor. There are a number of different ways to approach this. However, I don’t think there are as many poor as poor in spirit in this country. When I see families (term used loosely) with four wheelers, nicer cars than me, the newest smartphones with data plans etc., yet receiving food stamps, HEAP etc. I suspect that our metric of poor has become skewed. I don’t think it would hurt a lot of those folks to pay more for better food which supports a local community member. People could also garden more, especially poor people. A substantial amount of vegetable production used to happen in backyards, which is healthy and pro-social.

    Food as a percentage of total budget is as low as it’s ever been in human history, which is not sustainable when the farmers can’t make a living.

    My guess on where this is heading is that as the older farmer age out, which is rapidly happening, the younger generation will be unwilling or unable to make a smart of it. Increasingly larger scale agricultural land ownership and management will consolidate American agriculture ownership in a smaller and smaller pool of mega owners, such as Bill Gates is doing with his 242,000 acres ag holdings.

    • Thanks: sher singh
    • Replies: @RadicalCenter
    @Barbarossa

    Perhaps we should limit the amount of agricultural land that can be owned by any one person (or married couple).

    We need to outright PROHIBIT corporations and non-citizens from owning agricultural land or residential rental property in our country.

  57. @Dmitry
    @German_reader

    From everything I was told, EU has relatively very strong regulations in terms of food safety. In the USA (perhaps not in California though), there is usually lower regulation in comparison.

    So Mr Hack buying food imported from Germany is not a bad idea at all. From my superficial experience, Aldi usually seems subjectively high quality products as well, if you are happy to eat non-organic products.

    Except there are some areas in EU agriculture like extra virgin olive oil, where there is apparently a lot of fraud in Europe where testing shows evidence of refining process in supposedly unprocessed products.

    I guess this is stereotypically expected considering the country of origin of olive oil are those stereotypically more corrupt EU countries like Spain, Italy and Greece, with perhaps relatively worse regulation enforcements.


    https://i.imgur.com/zBbAGss.jpg

    https://olivecenter.ucdavis.edu/media/files/report2011three.pdf

    Similarly, Aldi is selling products like processed meat products from Poland, which apparently is often failing EU standards. So maybe avoid those products when you are shopping through Aldi (or just avoid processed meat from less regulated countries too much).


    want quality meat, you’re probably better off
     
    With meat, you are also exposing much more to those pollutants which accumulate in proteins higher in the food chain. But at least with private land there is more possibility to isolate it than with fish. If you can find at least organic, unprocessed meat.

    Fish is all sharing the same extremely polluted oceans, and you can see some studies where more expensive wild fish ocould measures even more pollutants than farmed one.

    It's these areas which are a real "commons" - the air and the oceans, where the pollution can been often apparently with almost free impunity. And the real situation of pollution in the ocean and air, is probably far worse than we are usually presented in the media.

    Replies: @LatW

    So Mr Hack buying food imported from Germany is not a bad idea at all.

    The higher end grocery stores in the US are of utmost quality. Especially smaller, local co-op type stores. They will mostly carry locally produced, very clean (non-GMO, no hormone, no corn syrup, organic, etc), often times family farm sourced, nicely packaged items, in a great variety. Including meat and seafood, good wines (both local and imported), higher quality supplements and cosmetics. But they will be a bit pricey. The way to go about this is to buy a smaller amount of higher quality items (they may be lower calorie and lower sugar content and more nutritionally dense at the same time). Unless you have a big family, ofc, but even then you can buy a lot of the produce, bulk staples at the co-op and maybe meat somewhere else. More commonly than in Europe, you can buy a lot of stuff in bulk, such as nuts, cereal, all types of exotic spices, teas, etc. So Mr Hack has nothing to worry about. 🙂 Of course, these shops also carry imported items, like German and French cosmetics, wine. Although American wine is the same quality but cheaper.

    And, of course, there is the same class delineation between the higher end stores and regular stores, which is just reality. There’s no need to trash the lower end stores, ofc, one just has to be more careful picking items there (read the contents).

    • Disagree: utu, Yevardian
    • Replies: @Mr. Hack
    @LatW

    Why do utu and Yevardian disagree with LatW?

    Replies: @LatW

    , @Dmitry
    @LatW


    American wine
     
    But if you like less famous grapes, it seems countries like Italy and France have a lot of specific ones.

    I'm not at all knowledgeable about wine. But I mean e.g. if you like some taste of a specific grape like "Greco Di Tufo", then it seems you need to buy the Italian wine.


    They probably disagree that American wine is just as good as Italian or French.

     

    Lol Utu is definitely somekind of upper class connoisseur. And Yevardian is from Armenia, so probably fussy if they don't sell orange wine in Whole Foods.

    Then there is AaronB who will start writing about "terroir" if he was here. But how much of AaronB's income is wasted on tariffs for imported EU wine from Campagna or Loire Valley. And then Trump has added things like 25% tariff on Scottish whisky in the USA (25%!).

    Again I don't know anything about wine. I did remember like some Californian brands for Merlot tastes different to the South American ones? However, my knowledge and sample far too small to say this is "terroir".

    Replies: @utu, @LatW

    , @AP
    @LatW

    At the start of Covid we switched to Wholefoods because the public there was much more likely to be masked, and noticed an improved quality in seafood and meats versus the regular grocery store. However, neighborhood butchers and local East European ethnic stores are as good or better than Wholefoods at a much lower price.

  58. @Barbarossa
    @Philip Owen


    the Russian army is perhaps the most corrupt institution in Russia.
     
    So, similar dynamic to the US, if accurate. I suppose that Russia can't afford the scope of wasted military spending that the US seems addicted to.

    Replies: @Mikhail

    How corrupt is its US counterpart, seeing that America spends more than the next 7 leading countries in defense spending combined?

    • Replies: @Barbarossa
    @Mikhail

    Clearly there is no comparison in terms of total scope or scale. I was referring more what Philip Owen said as per the Russian army being the most corrupt institution in Russia.

    I would assume that military spending is somewhat universally among the more unaccountable and corrupt national expenditures due to it's status as a political "sacred cow".

    Don't worry, if America spends as much as the next 7 combined, I'll bet we can throw money away on pointless boondoggles more than the next 17 combined. The Pentagon is working hard to make certain that those Ruskies will never come close to closing the critical Pissing Money Away Gap!

  59. @china-russia-all-the-way
    @Thulean Friend


    It is not hard to see why AK had disdain for him, even if I think AK himself is as a mediocre analyst
     
    Nonsense. I haven't come across a clearer thinking and more talented geopolitical analyst on the Internet as Karlin.

    Replies: @Jim Christian, @Mikhail

    Numerous quality folks out there.

  60. @Barbarossa
    @A123

    On that German agriculture minister; I don't find what he's saying to be that outlandishly evil, at least from my perspective in the American food system.

    Food is cheap in the US, but artificially so, with things like corn and soy monocrops heavily government subsidized. We pay for the true cost alright, just not at the checkout. This does lead to a variety of negative effects on the environment, health, and farmer livelihood. This includes societal costs from the ever increasing push to consolidate farms into larger and larger entities.

    80 years ago or so, in my part of the world, a man could raise a respectable family on a 15 or 20 head dairy. Now a 500 cow dairy is considered too small to make it. This was a shift that was engineered and pushed at the government level, not something that "just happened". Needless to say, it's been a disaster for the vitality of rural communities and for the ability of young farmers to start up. Farm decentralization should be a big plank in the MAGA revitalization, if such a thing ever came to fruition.

    The dairy farmers that I know are loosing money badly right now. Fuel, grain, and other inputs are skyrocketing while the milk price keeps dropping. One farmer would sell his whole herd tomorrow, but there is no market to buy the cows. He'd be better off financially to sell them for beef, so he holds on while he can.

    So, I do think there is a strong argument that food should be more expensive to the consumer, but that the government should get out of the subsidies, so that we pay the true cost.

    I'm not sure what the agriculture policy in Germany looks like for context. Maybe German_Reader would have some idea?

    Replies: @songbird, @A123, @Philip Owen

    In the UK, the 20 dairy cows that delivered a decent living in the early 1970’s were heavily subsidised even than. The subsidy went tothe farmer so kept the smaller farmers going. Inside the EU, the subsidy moved to the product. Thanks to overproduction, the subsidy was cut. Smaller farms were squeezed. Now as you say, 100’s of cows aer needed.

    Meanwhile in Russia, 2000 milk cows and maybe 5000 animals are considered a minimum farm size. I talk to farms with 20,000 milkers. They are not for the Russian market but India, Thailand and China. Milk quality from Russian owned farms is still poor. Low levels of solids. Not much good for cheese.

  61. @Thulean Friend
    Jeff Bezos lost $40 billion in a divorce but he looks happier than ever.

    https://i.imgur.com/FztuUAS.jpg

    He also made the correct move of shaving his hair instead of trying to latch onto a fake toupé like Musk when he started to bald.

    Replies: @Yevardian, @Barbarossa, @Pericles, @Philip Owen, @melanf

    That’s happy?

    • Replies: @Barbarossa
    @Philip Owen

    I agree, it looks like a deeply desperate shot.

    What I don't don't get is why in the hell one would ditch your wife with whom you've had 4 kids, to take up with an overripe trollop who looks like shes had a couple too many plastic surgeries?! That's just stupid, sad, and demonstrates poor taste. I honestly think that Bezo's ex is better looking than his current tart.

    Replies: @Yevardian, @Showmethereal

  62. @Yevardian
    @German_reader


    It’s partly class snobbery. Greens are the party of well-off people employed by the state (civil servants, teachers etc.) who can afford buying expensive bio products and who look down on the proles who go shopping at cheap supermarkets like ALDI.
     
    Even mostly, I've witnessed too many conversations (e.g. forestry, a working-class guy mentioning how his father experienced green activists putting spikes in the sawmills and seriously injuring people, his interlocutor simply said with disgusting arrogance 'ok.. I'm not having this conversation') growing up not to notice it.

    It's a shame that enviromentalism has been so totally commandeered by those on the cultural extreme-left (funny, considering it originated with romantic nationalists and conservatives), and now in reaction the mainstream right takes equally imbecilic takes.
    Not to mention, since all this global warming hysteria (I'm agnostic on the topic), every other major enviromental problem seems to have become relatively ignored. Most seriously, the still constantly-increasing amounts of plastic, which, even if the worst predictions of athropogenic global warming are true, I feel things like microplastics circulating everywhere, as far as the Mariana Trench, are much more concerning.

    I mean, evolution has dealt with rapid climatic changes dozens of times over, but the ubiquitousness of indistible and often toxic compouds breaking down far enough to be ingested by microscopic organisms seems unprecedented.


    But this isn't really my area, I don't know if anyone within the hard sciences regularly comments here, I mostly just get my takes on energy issues from Vaclav Smil.

    Replies: @German_reader, @Philip Owen

    The British Tories have a green streak. Maggie Thatcher set up the Montreal Protocol, drove the IPCC into existence and put a moratorium on nuclear power. Johnson and his present wife have just promoted COP26 on climate change with vigour. Environmentalism is quite selfish. It is about self preservation, not the social good.

  63. @Thulean Friend
    @songbird

    China recently disclosed that their fusion reactor had an uptime of nearly 17 minutes. The previous record was 100 seconds. They have several fusion projects, this was the so-called EAST reactor (Tokamak version).

    There's an international effort in France on the same technology called ITER. It's not even constructed yet (scheduled to happen in 2025 and likely after 2030 due to chronic delays). The budget went from $6 billion to well past $35 billion now.

    If this is an indication of the future, then I'd bet on China making it happen before NASA.

    Replies: @showmethereal

    Just for the record – I think western media got it confused about 2027 for the lunar base. What China said was that they would be working between 2022 and 2027 with Russia on how they will go about the lunar base and other space issues (I assume the Chinese space station that is currently being put into full usage). it is a China and Russia joint project… it doesn’t appear they were saying 2027. I think they are still shooting for 2030+

  64. @Pericles
    @Thulean Friend

    The US white population has even shrunk in absolute numbers, so I think they are overall demographically worse off and in a worse trend than China.

    NYT: "Census Shows Sharply Growing Numbers of Hispanic, Asian and Multiracial Americans"

    The white population [of America] declined for the first time in history. People who identify themselves as white on the census form have been decreasing as a share of the country’s population since the 1960s, when the United States lifted strict ethnic quotas aimed at keeping the country Northern and Western European.
    That drop, of 2.6 percent, was driven in part by the aging of the white population — the median age was 44 in 2019, compared with 30 for Hispanics — and a long-running decline in the birthrate. Some social scientists theorized that another potential reason for the decrease was that more Americans who previously identified as white on the census are now choosing more than one race.

     

    https://archive.ph/PYU9w

    (I don't think the fake latinos and fake indigenes, while existent, are numerous enough to matter in raw numbers.)

    NYT: "It was a terrifying census for white nationalists"

    https://archive.ph/GaSml

    Replies: @Thulean Friend, @showmethereal

    Yeah western Europe is basically only growing because of immigrants (Eastern Europe is in decline overall). The white population is going into decline in much of Europe…. I’m not sure why anyone thought the US would be different. Likewise Japan is declining – with South Korea not far behind (they are below replacement)…. China is heading that way (Chinese in Taiwan – Singapore – Hong Kong were already below replacement)….

    • Replies: @Pericles
    @showmethereal

    Yeah, to take a close example, Sweden now has a population of about 10 million ... but at least 2 million of those are non-Swedes. It's difficult to be more precise because, for some reason, ethnical statistics are not tracked very carefully or at all.

    We also have France and Belgium in fairly deep demographic trouble, and, while I can't recall the specifics at the moment, likely the UK too. There are presumably more but just those taken alone is pretty bad.

    Replies: @sher singh

  65. Re: https://www.trtworld.com/europe/russia-faces-backlash-over-closure-of-prominent-rights-group-memorial-53102

    Via Twitter, Karlin has been good at busting on the BS concerning Memorial’s status:

  66. @German_reader
    @Mr. Hack


    Perhaps, I should be aware of something first before shopping there?
     
    I don't think you need to worry more than about any other supermarket chain, generally the quality of their products should be fine, it's just that it's got a certain low-class image in Germany, because their prices are low and the assortment of wares is somewhat limited (also they sell a lot of cheaper ALDI knock-offs instead of more expensive brand articles).
    Of course the usual caveats apply, if you want quality meat, you're probably better off to some butcher's shop.

    Replies: @Dmitry, @songbird, @RadicalCenter

    also they sell a lot of cheaper ALDI knock-offs instead of more expensive brand articles

    Brand names have lost a lot of their prestige in my eyes, with globohomo, and so I feel an odd convergence with the Left, where they used to be saying stuff like CocaCola is bad because they are trying to buy up all the clean water in Africa and sell it to Africans, and I didn’t really care about it. Frankly, I prefer store brands now.

    What is interesting with supermarkets is that sometimes the lower end ones pay their workers the most.

    Don’t know much about Aldis specifically, but in America, in my little experience with it, the main detraction seems to be that they have big crowds and relatively few cashiers. I once saw evidence that rats had gnawed on a bag of flour, but I think that is pretty par for the course with supermarkets in general, in some locations – though most people wouldn’t like to think so.

  67. @Dmitry
    @Yevardian


    tasteless lives of anodyne plutocrats and parasites, Dmitri
     
    At least it is a post that describes real life though, as you can talk about the people directly, or become confused with discussions about the extremely indirect concepts ("political ideologies", "countries", "GDP growth") which are just derived from that reality.

    In this forum, you often read people become comically lost in arguing about meaningless "teams" and concepts, which they were just fed to them by such people, and which already have a response "ready made". The response of rightwing people, is already "readymade" or contained inside an opposing concept. Because they are built just like scripts.

    For example, when you see a large corporation, it seems very impressive and official. When a young graduate is joining on a graduate course, they might feel excited that they are joining a real institution. It feels like entering a great mansion or castle.

    But when they are old, they might know the managers and the operation, and will understand it is just some people with certain formal agreements between each other. There is not really this existing company with its symbols/icons, "corporate culture", etc. It was all just a dream.

    It's actually like animals throwing up some camouflage to seem larger than they are. And humans are very vulnerable to being lost in the patterns of the camouflage.

    And of course, these people (like all people) are also not the "mature adults" that are presented in their business life. They are the same kids you remember from your playground or classroom, and our adult persona is another camouflage.

    You'll be very confused if you were trying to understand Amazon, from the code used in its website, or it's symbols, corporate, ideology ,etc. On the other hand, it's a just a person who is selling you some things. Bezos' mother understands Amazon intuitively, if she remembers cleaning after her son as a child.

    And this is the same for much of the politics and history. People are very confused arguing about ideologies, political parties, and countries, as if they were real objects. This sounds very grandiose and prestigious, even magical. It's of course, just indirect ways to refer to what some people are doing. And those behaviors you might understand intuitively when you were in the school playground.

    That's not to say, that people will not learn from improving their understanding of political theory e.g. Hegel, Adam Smith, Marx, etc, and should just read "Hello magazine". But looking at what you rulers are really doing, would be healthy for the society, to prevent some of the confusions.

    Replies: @Yevardian

    When you explain it like that, you have a very good point, and it does certainly reflect how the vast majority of everyday people actually experience and view the world. But that’s easy to forget for most of us nerds and autistes (including our benevolent overlord himself?) commenting here, who naturally prefer to see everything in terms of abstractions and systems.
    But we do have a few bigbrains such as A123 who interpret politics et all in an extremely personalised manner, so it’s not all one-sided.

    Bezos’ mother understands Amazon intuitively, if she remembers cleaning after her son as a child.

    Ok, but you can take this too far, that applies to understanding a man’s (and by extension, their company) drives and goals, but it doesn’t do much at all to explain the means, which is arguably more important.

    Since we’re on the topic of personalities, alongside extremely vain businesspeople or politicians that revel in the media spotlight (somewhat like a pig in a trough), there must also be many equally (or more) influential/powerful figures that the world simply never hears about, since they prefer to keep a low profile.

    Of course, politicians by definition are public and media-focused figures, but I wonder if anyone could point out businesspeople with personal convinctions that greatly affect the world we live in. I’d like to say there a probably dozens of private-minded Chinese billionaires or party-functionaries in this category, but that’s more likely due to our own ignorance about the country.

    • Replies: @Dmitry
    @Yevardian


    extremely vain businesspeople or politicians that revel in the media spotlight

     

    Lol well what about Emin? This "musical genius" responsible for building a lot of Moscow and creating some of the more funny parts of the Trump Russia conspiracy theory.

    Here is some of banal reality which underlies our grand talks about politics. Aliev's son in law that builds New Moscow, wanted to make really bad music videos with Trump and sent to Trump's hotel room prostitutes. Some years later, this will enter somekind of world mythology.

    This is when he made this video with Trump.
    https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=iuZUNjFsgS8


    low profile.. businesspeople with personal convinctions that greatly affect the world we live in
     
    Much of the wealthy and important people in Russia are quiet really and behave like cuttlefish. They are the people who mainly control politics, but much of their activities are not very publicized to the ordinary people.

    One of the "weird" or "suspicious" behaviors were doing is moving money outside Russia before 2014, so they are insulated from the devaluation, which was not fairly publicized to the ordinary people.

    I should have been so suspicious already a decade ago. Because I know a rich person and a decade ago, buying a coffee in the cafe, was with a Deutsche Bank card given by parents. That's even small bank accounts for daily transactions are given to the children, have to be from a different country.

    Yet in the public media there was no talking about this. I guess you either knew this stuff or not and it should just seem obvious. Myself "not", as a naive middle class person, category unfortunately.


    probably dozens of private-minded Chinese billionaires or party-functionaries in this category

     

    There was an interesting documentary on YouTube I posted before here in a different context, about the "migration" of some of the ruling class children to Canada (https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=IZs2i3Bpxx4.) You can also see a lot of those people in London.

    Probably their activities, will probably not be too publicized in local media. As the local people are usually only shown a part of the activity. Canadians only see a very small part of it, and China's public only another part. A "whole cycle" of their activity is more difficult for people to see.

  68. @Emil Nikola Richard
    @songbird


    With Artemis missions, NASA will land the first woman and first person of color on the Moon, using innovative technologies to explore more of the lunar surface than ever before.
     
    This will be entertaining as hell if nothing else. Hope she is hot like Liutenant Uhura.

    https://biobreak.files.wordpress.com/2010/01/mirror_mirror.jpg

    Replies: @songbird

    IIRC, there were a couple of unexpected events with astronauts, where I don’t think that a diversity hire would have cut it. For example, on one lunar mission, there was some knob that they were supposed to turn, and it broke off, with only seconds to spare until liftoff. (maybe solved with digital controls?)
    ____
    It was funny when they made Sulu gay. I mean, obviously it was politics. But, the more I think of it now, he probably would be less gay in the Mirrorverse.

  69. @Mikhail
    @Barbarossa

    How corrupt is its US counterpart, seeing that America spends more than the next 7 leading countries in defense spending combined?

    Replies: @Barbarossa

    Clearly there is no comparison in terms of total scope or scale. I was referring more what Philip Owen said as per the Russian army being the most corrupt institution in Russia.

    I would assume that military spending is somewhat universally among the more unaccountable and corrupt national expenditures due to it’s status as a political “sacred cow”.

    Don’t worry, if America spends as much as the next 7 combined, I’ll bet we can throw money away on pointless boondoggles more than the next 17 combined. The Pentagon is working hard to make certain that those Ruskies will never come close to closing the critical Pissing Money Away Gap!

  70. @utu
    @Dmitry

    Drop in sperm count grows with popularity of oral and anal sex. The sperm just gets discourage as it finds it futile to be fertile.

    Replies: @Yevardian

    That sounds a bit puritan. I’m fairly confident that these practices (you seem to be implying yourself to be above such.. perversions) were as popular (if not moreso) in the past, due to reliable contraception not being available. And speaking of ‘futile emissions’, that sort of thing most be absolutely negligible when merely comparing to the epidemic levels of westoid inceldom, combined with the omnipresent ubiquity of free HD internet pornography, now accessible to any child with a ‘smartphone’, where practically anything can be found with a few illiterate fingertaps.

    • Agree: Barbarossa
  71. @Philip Owen
    @Thulean Friend

    That's happy?

    Replies: @Barbarossa

    I agree, it looks like a deeply desperate shot.

    What I don’t don’t get is why in the hell one would ditch your wife with whom you’ve had 4 kids, to take up with an overripe trollop who looks like shes had a couple too many plastic surgeries?! That’s just stupid, sad, and demonstrates poor taste. I honestly think that Bezo’s ex is better looking than his current tart.

    • Replies: @Yevardian
    @Barbarossa

    Ok, since Dmitri and 'Thulean' Friend opened this can of worms, maybe the expert gossips could point out really powerful world leaders or prominent tycoons who do have demonstrated good taste (this naturally excludes Bibi, Bojo, Macron, Musk etc), without getting divorced (this excludes Sarkozy, Putin), in this regard?
    It's definitely harder than it first appears.

    Also got me thinking about the practically co-ruling 'power-couples' of history, e.g. the Ceaușescus, the Perons, Akhenaton & Nefertiti, Justinian & Theodora, Ferdinand & Isabella, Catherine & the entire Russian officer corps, and so on.

    Replies: @LatW, @Yahya

    , @Showmethereal
    @Barbarossa

    Yeah she looks like shes had too much surgery and had sex with probably 50 too many men.. But if he was just Jeff the mailman - he probably wouldn't make it into her next dozen or so count.. The poor guy is losing it..

  72. @Thulean Friend
    A few Open Threads ago, I forcefully argued that in the event of a Nazi Germany victory on mainland Europe, the world that we live in today would not have been materially different.

    I noted that capitalism has an internal logic of its own, following a rhythm not dependent on external exigencies or political preferences. This is playing out in China. Xi Jinping has been drumming on about 'common prosperity' but rhetoric aside, the most consequential economic policies have not substantially changed:

    https://twitter.com/hancocktom/status/1476871039028277249

    Socialism and communism as economic systems appear to be dead. This so-called "Cold War 2.0" is decidedly more boring than the old one, for at least there was an ideological contest at stake back then. On issues like climate change, China and the US also see eye to eye. I am happy about this, but this also means that the ideological fervor of the 20th century has given way to a stale technocratic consensus, where the only real fight is who gets to be top dog in a system all agree to the basic ground rules rather than which set of ideas should rule. Yawn.

    Replies: @Derer

    Socialism and communism as economic systems appear to be dead.

    For some reason you forgot about 2009 one trillion “socialist” bailout of corrupt crony capitalists. Taxpayers paid twice to corporate bums. That just tells you who controls the government.

    • Replies: @Yellowface Anon
    @Derer

    corporate socialism is the opposite of socialism.

  73. @Barbarossa
    @Philip Owen

    I agree, it looks like a deeply desperate shot.

    What I don't don't get is why in the hell one would ditch your wife with whom you've had 4 kids, to take up with an overripe trollop who looks like shes had a couple too many plastic surgeries?! That's just stupid, sad, and demonstrates poor taste. I honestly think that Bezo's ex is better looking than his current tart.

    Replies: @Yevardian, @Showmethereal

    Ok, since Dmitri and ‘Thulean’ Friend opened this can of worms, maybe the expert gossips could point out really powerful world leaders or prominent tycoons who do have demonstrated good taste (this naturally excludes Bibi, Bojo, Macron, Musk etc), without getting divorced (this excludes Sarkozy, Putin), in this regard?
    It’s definitely harder than it first appears.

    Also got me thinking about the practically co-ruling ‘power-couples’ of history, e.g. the Ceaușescus, the Perons, Akhenaton & Nefertiti, Justinian & Theodora, Ferdinand & Isabella, Catherine & the entire Russian officer corps, and so on.

    • Replies: @LatW
    @Yevardian


    point out really powerful world leaders or prominent tycoons who do have demonstrated good taste
     
    Emperor Akihito & Empress Michiko.
    , @Yahya
    @Yevardian


    Ok, since Dmitri and ‘Thulean’ Friend opened this can of worms, maybe the expert gossips could point out really powerful world leaders or prominent tycoons who do have demonstrated good taste (this naturally excludes Bibi, Bojo, Macron, Musk etc), without getting divorced (this excludes Sarkozy, Putin), in this regard? It’s definitely harder than it first appears.
     
    I'd say both Bashar Al-Assad and King Abdullah of Jordan did a good job in the marital sphere.

    Queen Rania of Jordan. Business graduate of the American University in Cairo (AUC). Jordanian of Palestinian origin. Sunni Muslim. Married to Abdullah II of Jordan since 1993.


    https://see.news/wp-content/uploads/2019/11/queen-rania-1000x1000jpg.jpg


    Asma Al-Assad of Syria. Graduate of King's College London with first-class honors in Computer Science and French literature. Sunni Muslim of Syrian origin. Speaks Enligh, Arabic, French and Spanish. Married to Bashar since 2000.


    https://www.al-monitor.com/sites/default/files/styles/article_header/public/almpics/2020/06/RTSBIGF.JPG/RTSBIGF.JPG?h=088a5503&itok=15gsbVUO


    In terms of looks, i'd say its a 2-way tie between the two. Frau Assad seems a bit more intelligent than Queen Rania.

    Replies: @AP

  74. @Yevardian
    @Barbarossa

    Ok, since Dmitri and 'Thulean' Friend opened this can of worms, maybe the expert gossips could point out really powerful world leaders or prominent tycoons who do have demonstrated good taste (this naturally excludes Bibi, Bojo, Macron, Musk etc), without getting divorced (this excludes Sarkozy, Putin), in this regard?
    It's definitely harder than it first appears.

    Also got me thinking about the practically co-ruling 'power-couples' of history, e.g. the Ceaușescus, the Perons, Akhenaton & Nefertiti, Justinian & Theodora, Ferdinand & Isabella, Catherine & the entire Russian officer corps, and so on.

    Replies: @LatW, @Yahya

    point out really powerful world leaders or prominent tycoons who do have demonstrated good taste

    Emperor Akihito & Empress Michiko.

  75. Tesla increased its deliveries far more than expected. Its stock is going to open really high in the New York stock exchange (Monday) now, after the recording breaking deliveries, and likely climb over the week.

    Even I’m aware that the stocks are objectively overpriced. But this is a question of group psychology in the short run and these kinds of headlines cause a rapid climb if temporarily. It’s inevitable that the stock will rapidly climb in New York this week.

    It is funny to see watch how it pay for a few bottles of wine every time it happens after it dips, without condoning this.

    As for Tesla’s achievements (independently of its overpriced stocks). Factories do not open yet in Berlin and Texas, and yet they are already above a million cars a year production rates. It is following the optimistic scenario. I remember posting graphs on this forum almost 4 years ago, when they were producing the first 20,000 Model 3 cars.

    Tesla delivered 936,172 electric vehicles in 2021, with the fourth-quarter setting a new record

    https://www.cnbc.com/2022/01/02/tesla-tsla-q4-2021-vehicle-delivery-and-production-numbers.html

    • Replies: @Yellowface Anon
    @Dmitry

    It is still dwarfed by traditional (not just gasoline but also EV-building) automakers

    Replies: @Shortsword

  76. @Yevardian
    @Dmitry

    When you explain it like that, you have a very good point, and it does certainly reflect how the vast majority of everyday people actually experience and view the world. But that's easy to forget for most of us nerds and autistes (including our benevolent overlord himself?) commenting here, who naturally prefer to see everything in terms of abstractions and systems.
    But we do have a few bigbrains such as A123 who interpret politics et all in an extremely personalised manner, so it's not all one-sided.



    Bezos’ mother understands Amazon intuitively, if she remembers cleaning after her son as a child.
     
    Ok, but you can take this too far, that applies to understanding a man's (and by extension, their company) drives and goals, but it doesn't do much at all to explain the means, which is arguably more important.

    Since we're on the topic of personalities, alongside extremely vain businesspeople or politicians that revel in the media spotlight (somewhat like a pig in a trough), there must also be many equally (or more) influential/powerful figures that the world simply never hears about, since they prefer to keep a low profile.

    Of course, politicians by definition are public and media-focused figures, but I wonder if anyone could point out businesspeople with personal convinctions that greatly affect the world we live in. I'd like to say there a probably dozens of private-minded Chinese billionaires or party-functionaries in this category, but that's more likely due to our own ignorance about the country.

    Replies: @Dmitry

    extremely vain businesspeople or politicians that revel in the media spotlight

    Lol well what about Emin? This “musical genius” responsible for building a lot of Moscow and creating some of the more funny parts of the Trump Russia conspiracy theory.

    Here is some of banal reality which underlies our grand talks about politics. Aliev’s son in law that builds New Moscow, wanted to make really bad music videos with Trump and sent to Trump’s hotel room prostitutes. Some years later, this will enter somekind of world mythology.

    This is when he made this video with Trump.

    low profile.. businesspeople with personal convinctions that greatly affect the world we live in

    Much of the wealthy and important people in Russia are quiet really and behave like cuttlefish. They are the people who mainly control politics, but much of their activities are not very publicized to the ordinary people.

    One of the “weird” or “suspicious” behaviors were doing is moving money outside Russia before 2014, so they are insulated from the devaluation, which was not fairly publicized to the ordinary people.

    I should have been so suspicious already a decade ago. Because I know a rich person and a decade ago, buying a coffee in the cafe, was with a Deutsche Bank card given by parents. That’s even small bank accounts for daily transactions are given to the children, have to be from a different country.

    Yet in the public media there was no talking about this. I guess you either knew this stuff or not and it should just seem obvious. Myself “not”, as a naive middle class person, category unfortunately.

    probably dozens of private-minded Chinese billionaires or party-functionaries in this category

    There was an interesting documentary on YouTube I posted before here in a different context, about the “migration” of some of the ruling class children to Canada (https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=IZs2i3Bpxx4.) You can also see a lot of those people in London.

    Probably their activities, will probably not be too publicized in local media. As the local people are usually only shown a part of the activity. Canadians only see a very small part of it, and China’s public only another part. A “whole cycle” of their activity is more difficult for people to see.

  77. What to make of this idea that Neanderthals were burning forests?
    https://www.newscientist.com/article/2302065-neanderthals-may-have-cleared-a-european-forest-with-fire-or-tools/

    One of the wilder theories is that they were practicing an early form of agriculture.

    • Replies: @Philip Owen
    @songbird

    Hunter gatherers burn forest to increase the amount of pasture for grazing animals.

    Replies: @songbird

  78. @LatW
    @Dmitry


    So Mr Hack buying food imported from Germany is not a bad idea at all.
     
    The higher end grocery stores in the US are of utmost quality. Especially smaller, local co-op type stores. They will mostly carry locally produced, very clean (non-GMO, no hormone, no corn syrup, organic, etc), often times family farm sourced, nicely packaged items, in a great variety. Including meat and seafood, good wines (both local and imported), higher quality supplements and cosmetics. But they will be a bit pricey. The way to go about this is to buy a smaller amount of higher quality items (they may be lower calorie and lower sugar content and more nutritionally dense at the same time). Unless you have a big family, ofc, but even then you can buy a lot of the produce, bulk staples at the co-op and maybe meat somewhere else. More commonly than in Europe, you can buy a lot of stuff in bulk, such as nuts, cereal, all types of exotic spices, teas, etc. So Mr Hack has nothing to worry about. :) Of course, these shops also carry imported items, like German and French cosmetics, wine. Although American wine is the same quality but cheaper.

    And, of course, there is the same class delineation between the higher end stores and regular stores, which is just reality. There's no need to trash the lower end stores, ofc, one just has to be more careful picking items there (read the contents).

    Replies: @Mr. Hack, @Dmitry, @AP

    Why do utu and Yevardian disagree with LatW?

    • Agree: Barbarossa
    • Replies: @LatW
    @Mr. Hack

    They probably disagree that American wine is just as good as Italian or French.

    Replies: @Mr. Hack

  79. @Thulean Friend
    @Matra


    Former commenter here Andrei Martyanov did an interview for Geopolitics & Empire. Long time commenters here probably won’t be shocked at how he laughs at NATO capabilities and says NATO will be easily defeated if it gets into a conventional with more advanced Russia. IIRC he fell out with AK over the latter’s disparaging remarks about sovoks or the USSR or something like that.
     
    Skimming the interview, at minutes 26-27 he starts ranting that he doesn't care about "zeroes and ones" and computers and clearly displays his boomer tendencies. He thinks an economy should only be judged on things you can touch or eat. It is not hard to see why AK had disdain for him, even if I think AK himself is as a mediocre analyst, I can't see him making these sorts of cardinal errors.

    As for "NATO easily defeated", given reality of MAD the entire question is moot. There will never be a full conventional war for obvious reasons so making arguments based on a non-eventuality strikes me as a waste of time.

    In general, I find Martynov to be of limited utility. I would only read him on narrow technical topics like submarines or jets, and even then I'd use a pinch of salt or more since these discussions tend to be polluted by nationalist flag-waving, which cloud people's judgements and prevents them from dispassionate analysis.

    Replies: @silviosilver, @china-russia-all-the-way, @Jim Christian, @AP

    His biography (publicly available) is that he was a junior Soviet military officer from a second tier military academy, who in the early 90s left for the USA and worked as a tutor for smart kids (someone his age should have done better in life, this doesn’t speak well for him). He is useful and interesting in the sense that not many actual Soviet military officers write and argue in English with people, so exposure to his POV is good. But take what he says with a big grain of salt and no need to idealize him.

    Commenter Twinkie easily bested him in a series of arguments about World War II.

    • Replies: @Mikhail
    @AP

    Martyanov's background and content are qualitatively better than the Moscow based Pavel Felgenhauer. For the purpose of having someone with more agreeable Western mass media/Western mass media influenced spin, Felgenhauer is the one typically getting airtime, unlike Martyanov and Mark Sleboda.

    Replies: @AP, @Aedib

    , @Dmitry
    @AP

    He was a very interesting commentator because he actually knows a lot of culture and literature. He walking all these books and writers he read, which very few other people have read those things or that quantity of literature. His political views were pretty crazy and bizarre, but that is true for many people even not his age. I didn't realize he was quite so old though. Deserves some more respect from the netizens if just for his age alone. But then he was often writing angry and aggressively with political views, that is not where he senses much of what is really happening.

    It would prefer to read him, if he was writing more about literature or culture. Or about his first person experiences.

    Replies: @AP

  80. @Mr. Hack
    @LatW

    Why do utu and Yevardian disagree with LatW?

    Replies: @LatW

    They probably disagree that American wine is just as good as Italian or French.

    • Replies: @Mr. Hack
    @LatW

    I'm no wine connoisseur and generally try to buy a bottle in the $10 range. I've come across a California wine company called Apothic, that puts out some interesting red wines that you can still find at around $9/bottle. Last night I tried their cabernet sauvignon that was quite drinkable, IMHO. Others that I've tried in the past were pretty good too. I haven't tried any of their white wines. They seem to be marketing towards a hipster and gay clientele, although they've captured my interest too. The regular website price for their wines is $11 although you can find it at around $8 -$9 here in Phoenixland. Have you tried their output?

    https://www.apothic.com/

    Replies: @LatW

  81. @Thulean Friend
    China likely peaked demographically in 2021.

    Interestingly, the US population growth rate in 2021 was just 0.1%. The main attack on China is that they have "terrible demographics". Maybe, but I don't see the US doing much better.

    China also seems more internally stable to me than the US. Polarisation in the US is reaching comical levels, with even something as simple as vaccination campaigns becoming weaponised and politicised.

    https://twitter.com/ianbremmer/status/1476693654400081922

    Still think the US will have the upper hand vis-a-vis China given its alliance network but I just want to puncture the common attack themes against China since most of them make little sense.

    Replies: @Pericles, @Dmitry

    internally stable to me than the US

    It’s a predictable dynamic, as a result of the collapse of the USSR, American culture losing some of their sense of “cosmic role”.

    In the second half of the 20th century, a lot of their culture’s identity has been derived from their position in the Cold War.

    This is not just merger of cultural identity with capitalist ideology, but also some brutal aspects of capitalism could be accepted and sublimated with a sense of meaning into a clash of world civilization.

    When the Soviet Union is not longer pretending to act as a contrast or alternative, the sense of cosmic role of America is turning inwards, or lost in becoming a world culture.

    In Russia, is sadly now culturally on the trashheap of history, and only the authorities can robotically create fake acting, on non-important topics, as a vulgar form of opposition. Chinese culture unfortunately appears stillborn and doesn’t present sufficient contrast to stimulate the American culture sphere. My intuition is that Chinese culture will become much more productive by the middle of this century. But we might hope the Chinese will eventually contribute to culture at least like Japan.

    Perhaps it sounds funny, but the boycotted 1980s Olympic might be seen one day, as the premonitory goodbye for this 20th century “Agon”. Some symbolic moment of the world spirit, when people were suddenly expressing sadness as they were singing goodbye to the Olympic bear who flew away from Moscow, goes back to hide in the forest, and did not return.

    • Replies: @songbird
    @Dmitry


    My intuition is that Chinese culture will become much more productive by the middle of this century. But we might hope the Chinese will eventually contribute to culture at least like Japan.
     
    Don't know how common it is, but I've heard that some talented Japanese are beginning to jump ship to China because of stagnant wages and long hours - for instance, in anime.

    IMO, it is an interesting question, when most Americans will begin to feel like they are overshadowed by China and what will cause them to feel this way. Right now, short of some major change, it don't think they will feel that way by watching Chinese movies, even though Hollywood ones are quite bad.

    Winning a race to the Moon would seem like the possibly easy way to do it. What will happen, if it doesn't come easily? Maybe, war.

    Replies: @Yellowface Anon, @Dmitry

    , @Philip Owen
    @Dmitry

    Russia dominates children's animation. Niroshka TV and Masha and the Bear are in the top 5 (last time I looked) most watched children's films on You Tube. Masha has often held #2 position. If Russia had sense they would build on this with coproductions et al.

  82. @LatW
    @Mr. Hack

    They probably disagree that American wine is just as good as Italian or French.

    Replies: @Mr. Hack

    I’m no wine connoisseur and generally try to buy a bottle in the \$10 range. I’ve come across a California wine company called Apothic, that puts out some interesting red wines that you can still find at around \$9/bottle. Last night I tried their cabernet sauvignon that was quite drinkable, IMHO. Others that I’ve tried in the past were pretty good too. I haven’t tried any of their white wines. They seem to be marketing towards a hipster and gay clientele, although they’ve captured my interest too. The regular website price for their wines is \$11 although you can find it at around \$8 -\$9 here in Phoenixland. Have you tried their output?

    https://www.apothic.com/

    • LOL: sher singh
    • Replies: @LatW
    @Mr. Hack


    Have you tried their output?
     
    Yes, I've tried their red once or twice. Frankly, what stands out about this brand is their logo, it's a little bit intense. One that I like and can recommend is Chateau St Michelle, they have a lot of wines in that price range but also more expensive ones. What is interesting, is that some New World grapes are actually grown in basalt soil.

    Replies: @Mr. Hack, @Mr. Hack

  83. @AP
    @Thulean Friend

    His biography (publicly available) is that he was a junior Soviet military officer from a second tier military academy, who in the early 90s left for the USA and worked as a tutor for smart kids (someone his age should have done better in life, this doesn't speak well for him). He is useful and interesting in the sense that not many actual Soviet military officers write and argue in English with people, so exposure to his POV is good. But take what he says with a big grain of salt and no need to idealize him.

    Commenter Twinkie easily bested him in a series of arguments about World War II.

    Replies: @Mikhail, @Dmitry

    Martyanov’s background and content are qualitatively better than the Moscow based Pavel Felgenhauer. For the purpose of having someone with more agreeable Western mass media/Western mass media influenced spin, Felgenhauer is the one typically getting airtime, unlike Martyanov and Mark Sleboda.

    • Replies: @AP
    @Mikhail

    I’m not familiar with Felgenhauer, but you are probably correct because Felgenhauer is popular with Americans and Americans are about as objective and accurate when they describe Russia, as Russian sources are when describing Ukraine.

    Replies: @Mikhail, @Aedib

    , @Aedib
    @Mikhail

    Martyanov and The Saker belong to the team “We Russians are soooooooo powerful” which is a sort of mirror of the way bigger “We Americans are soooooooo powerful” team played by Stratfor, The Heritage Foundation, etc.
    While both “stronk teams” exercise in wishful thinking, they are basically inoffensive. The danger may arise if some politicians take decisions about the real world based in such a type of delusions. It seems to me that Russia is led by people with a ferocious and pragmatic realism but current USA no so. People like Kissinger are out of the last administrations.
    I recognize that Martyanov have knowledge about weapon systems while Saker sometimes seems to be out of the reality. Some technical analysis from Martyanov are very interesting but for geopolitical analysis I prefer people like Alexander Mercouris (pro-Russian bias but within the real world) rather than Saker.

    Replies: @Mikhail

  84. @AP
    @Thulean Friend

    His biography (publicly available) is that he was a junior Soviet military officer from a second tier military academy, who in the early 90s left for the USA and worked as a tutor for smart kids (someone his age should have done better in life, this doesn't speak well for him). He is useful and interesting in the sense that not many actual Soviet military officers write and argue in English with people, so exposure to his POV is good. But take what he says with a big grain of salt and no need to idealize him.

    Commenter Twinkie easily bested him in a series of arguments about World War II.

    Replies: @Mikhail, @Dmitry

    He was a very interesting commentator because he actually knows a lot of culture and literature. He walking all these books and writers he read, which very few other people have read those things or that quantity of literature. His political views were pretty crazy and bizarre, but that is true for many people even not his age. I didn’t realize he was quite so old though. Deserves some more respect from the netizens if just for his age alone. But then he was often writing angry and aggressively with political views, that is not where he senses much of what is really happening.

    It would prefer to read him, if he was writing more about literature or culture. Or about his first person experiences.

    • Replies: @AP
    @Dmitry

    Most educated Russians over 45 are well read. It was one of the few good features of the Soviet system. I remember fondly, back in the 90s, observing the people reading literature on the Moscow metro. Over time it devolved to trash books and finally phones.

    At a party back then my wife was once surprised to find an American with whom she could have an intelligent discussion of Latin American literature. Then the mystery was solved - the guy was a professor of that subject.

    So Martyianov is just a Russian guy over 45 who happens to have had a brief and mediocre (low rank) career in the Soviet military in his youth, who also writes in English and is willing to share his views with people who otherwise would never have encountered and interacted with a Soviet officer.

    Replies: @Dmitry, @Philip Owen

  85. @Dmitry
    @Mr. Hack

    Aldi and Lidl are some of the best supermarkets in Europe. It's really a good value shop. I'm such a fanboy of them that I would have posters of these German supermarkets in my walls.

    But when I young I actually had studied a little with such kind of German people whose family are billionaires owning such chains, and they were not exactly the less disruptive or most sympathetic classmates.

    I'm not really sure what to say about such divergence of the consumer and personal experience. But maybe I'm not the only one with such experiences or divided perceptions.

    Replies: @Mr. Hack

    I’m not totally following you here, Dmitry. I think that you had imbibed a little too much bubbly the night before? What you’re stating though sounds quite interesting about the upper class German kids
    though…Happy New Year!

    • Replies: @songbird
    @Mr. Hack

    I was once in the house of the mayor of a major German city, hanging out with his teenage daughter and her female friends, but I think they were only upper middle class, so Dmitry has me beat.

  86. @Mr. Hack
    @LatW

    I'm no wine connoisseur and generally try to buy a bottle in the $10 range. I've come across a California wine company called Apothic, that puts out some interesting red wines that you can still find at around $9/bottle. Last night I tried their cabernet sauvignon that was quite drinkable, IMHO. Others that I've tried in the past were pretty good too. I haven't tried any of their white wines. They seem to be marketing towards a hipster and gay clientele, although they've captured my interest too. The regular website price for their wines is $11 although you can find it at around $8 -$9 here in Phoenixland. Have you tried their output?

    https://www.apothic.com/

    Replies: @LatW

    Have you tried their output?

    Yes, I’ve tried their red once or twice. Frankly, what stands out about this brand is their logo, it’s a little bit intense. One that I like and can recommend is Chateau St Michelle, they have a lot of wines in that price range but also more expensive ones. What is interesting, is that some New World grapes are actually grown in basalt soil.

    • Replies: @Mr. Hack
    @LatW

    apotheca:

    "In ancient Greece and Rome, a storeroom of any kind, but esp. one for storing wine."

    Intense name? Their wines do have an element of intenseness to them. I do think the correct term would be "fruit forward". But I do like a wine where you can actually taste the grape from which it's made from, the "tannins", "coffee" "leathery" and "peppery" profiles are interesting, but less important to me. I'll keep an eye out for the output of Chateu St Michelle, thanks for the tip! Apotheca's "claim to fame" appears to be their ability to blend and marry different wine profiles into one unique wine.

    , @Mr. Hack
    @LatW

    apotheca:

    "In ancient Greece and Rome, a storeroom of any kind, but esp. one for storing wine."

    Intense name? I think that the word's association with a pharmacy came later. Their wines do have an element of intenseness to them. I do think the correct term would be "fruit forward". But I do like a wine where you can actually taste the grape from which it's made from, the "tannins", "coffee" "leathery" and "peppery" profiles are interesting, but less important to me. I'll keep an eye out for the output of Chateu St Michelle, thanks for the tip! Apotheca's "claim to fame" appears to be their ability to blend and marry different wine profiles together into one unique wine. I've tried their "red", their "crush" :"black"and now their cabernet sauvignon, and they all seem to have an intenseness and I would say a richness to the taste that doesn't inspire me to drink more than two glasses. I think that this is good. :-)

    Replies: @LatW

  87. @showmethereal
    @Pericles

    Yeah western Europe is basically only growing because of immigrants (Eastern Europe is in decline overall). The white population is going into decline in much of Europe.... I'm not sure why anyone thought the US would be different. Likewise Japan is declining - with South Korea not far behind (they are below replacement).... China is heading that way (Chinese in Taiwan - Singapore - Hong Kong were already below replacement)....

    Replies: @Pericles

    Yeah, to take a close example, Sweden now has a population of about 10 million … but at least 2 million of those are non-Swedes. It’s difficult to be more precise because, for some reason, ethnical statistics are not tracked very carefully or at all.

    We also have France and Belgium in fairly deep demographic trouble, and, while I can’t recall the specifics at the moment, likely the UK too. There are presumably more but just those taken alone is pretty bad.

    • Thanks: Showmethereal
    • Replies: @sher singh
    @Pericles

    https://cdn.discordapp.com/attachments/640459736919048202/927099677667635230/IMG_5406.png

    Replies: @AP, @sudden death, @Cutler

  88. @Dmitry
    Tesla increased its deliveries far more than expected. Its stock is going to open really high in the New York stock exchange (Monday) now, after the recording breaking deliveries, and likely climb over the week.

    Even I'm aware that the stocks are objectively overpriced. But this is a question of group psychology in the short run and these kinds of headlines cause a rapid climb if temporarily. It's inevitable that the stock will rapidly climb in New York this week.

    It is funny to see watch how it pay for a few bottles of wine every time it happens after it dips, without condoning this.

    As for Tesla's achievements (independently of its overpriced stocks). Factories do not open yet in Berlin and Texas, and yet they are already above a million cars a year production rates. It is following the optimistic scenario. I remember posting graphs on this forum almost 4 years ago, when they were producing the first 20,000 Model 3 cars.


    Tesla delivered 936,172 electric vehicles in 2021, with the fourth-quarter setting a new record

    https://www.cnbc.com/2022/01/02/tesla-tsla-q4-2021-vehicle-delivery-and-production-numbers.html

    https://i.imgur.com/NkJSK2a.png


     

    Replies: @Yellowface Anon

    It is still dwarfed by traditional (not just gasoline but also EV-building) automakers

    • Replies: @Shortsword
    @Yellowface Anon


    It is still dwarfed by traditional (not just gasoline but also EV-building) automakers
     
    It's an interesting situation. Tesla has larger market capitalization than the next 9 biggest automakers combined. So now that Tesla's production rates starts increasing towards millions per year, is their market cap going to keep ballooning?

    Replies: @Showmethereal

  89. @Derer
    @Thulean Friend


    Socialism and communism as economic systems appear to be dead.
     
    For some reason you forgot about 2009 one trillion "socialist" bailout of corrupt crony capitalists. Taxpayers paid twice to corporate bums. That just tells you who controls the government.

    Replies: @Yellowface Anon

    corporate socialism is the opposite of socialism.

  90. @Svidomyatheart
    So looks like the 5 eyes are ratcheting up their efforts against China

    is this the proverbial "carrot" that will be used to coerce Indians into the alliance?

    https://twitter.com/fbfsubstack/status/1477379548568244225

    Replies: @Yellowface Anon

    The rules for immigration from HK is loose enough.

  91. @Yellowface Anon
    @Dmitry

    It is still dwarfed by traditional (not just gasoline but also EV-building) automakers

    Replies: @Shortsword

    It is still dwarfed by traditional (not just gasoline but also EV-building) automakers

    It’s an interesting situation. Tesla has larger market capitalization than the next 9 biggest automakers combined. So now that Tesla’s production rates starts increasing towards millions per year, is their market cap going to keep ballooning?

    • Replies: @Showmethereal
    @Shortsword

    Yeah their stock price is completely ridiculous and are not based on any real market realities. It is basically based on Elong Musk as a sales person. Yes in some ways they have first mover advantage... But its not that much of an advantage.... The incumbents will be ramping up production more and more - meanwhile other startups sales are growing quickly too. Teslas market share is already being reduced and they will be squeezed more from both ends. There is no fundamental basis for their stock price to be where it is...

  92. @Dmitry
    @AP

    He was a very interesting commentator because he actually knows a lot of culture and literature. He walking all these books and writers he read, which very few other people have read those things or that quantity of literature. His political views were pretty crazy and bizarre, but that is true for many people even not his age. I didn't realize he was quite so old though. Deserves some more respect from the netizens if just for his age alone. But then he was often writing angry and aggressively with political views, that is not where he senses much of what is really happening.

    It would prefer to read him, if he was writing more about literature or culture. Or about his first person experiences.

    Replies: @AP

    Most educated Russians over 45 are well read. It was one of the few good features of the Soviet system. I remember fondly, back in the 90s, observing the people reading literature on the Moscow metro. Over time it devolved to trash books and finally phones.

    At a party back then my wife was once surprised to find an American with whom she could have an intelligent discussion of Latin American literature. Then the mystery was solved – the guy was a professor of that subject.

    So Martyianov is just a Russian guy over 45 who happens to have had a brief and mediocre (low rank) career in the Soviet military in his youth, who also writes in English and is willing to share his views with people who otherwise would never have encountered and interacted with a Soviet officer.

    • Replies: @Dmitry
    @AP


    educated Russians over 45 are well read

     

    I remember he was saying he doesn't like Solzhenitsyn, because Solzhenitsyn is copying of all these other 20th century writers in different ways. I don't think I know anyone who has read Solzhenitsyn books, and definitely not all the authors who Solzhenitsyn had copied.

    He definitely knows far more of 20th century literature, than any normal people. This is not typical. He's a kind of 20th century literature connoisseur. Unfortunately, I haven't read enough 20th century literature to write anything on those threads, when he had suddenly seemed interesting (i.e. when he was not boasting excitedly about who has the largest missile).


    Martyanov is just a Russian guy over 45
     
    He is nothing typical for Russian, except I guess he was an ordinary dude.

    He looks around 70 or 75 years old, so he perhaps moved to the USA because of his children have dragged him there, and this could explain why he seems to hate the USA.

    His idealization of Russian politicians is only really possible for rational people, if you weren't living in Russia for the last decades or something.

    It's probably some kind of brutal geographic dislocation in the biography, which created his political views, not that they are interesting.

    He's probably a person who is interesting to listen to on a thousand different topics. But of course, politics is not one, as he seemed to be very unclose to anything happens in Russia. It's often that political views are the least interesting aspect of a person.

    Replies: @siberiancat, @AP

    , @Philip Owen
    @AP

    The view from the bottom can reveal more than the view from the fast track even if what you say is true. Things are made to work or not in the middle.

  93. @LatW
    @Mr. Hack


    Have you tried their output?
     
    Yes, I've tried their red once or twice. Frankly, what stands out about this brand is their logo, it's a little bit intense. One that I like and can recommend is Chateau St Michelle, they have a lot of wines in that price range but also more expensive ones. What is interesting, is that some New World grapes are actually grown in basalt soil.

    Replies: @Mr. Hack, @Mr. Hack

    apotheca:

    “In ancient Greece and Rome, a storeroom of any kind, but esp. one for storing wine.”

    Intense name? Their wines do have an element of intenseness to them. I do think the correct term would be “fruit forward”. But I do like a wine where you can actually taste the grape from which it’s made from, the “tannins”, “coffee” “leathery” and “peppery” profiles are interesting, but less important to me. I’ll keep an eye out for the output of Chateu St Michelle, thanks for the tip! Apotheca’s “claim to fame” appears to be their ability to blend and marry different wine profiles into one unique wine.

  94. @LatW
    @Mr. Hack


    Have you tried their output?
     
    Yes, I've tried their red once or twice. Frankly, what stands out about this brand is their logo, it's a little bit intense. One that I like and can recommend is Chateau St Michelle, they have a lot of wines in that price range but also more expensive ones. What is interesting, is that some New World grapes are actually grown in basalt soil.

    Replies: @Mr. Hack, @Mr. Hack

    apotheca:

    “In ancient Greece and Rome, a storeroom of any kind, but esp. one for storing wine.”

    Intense name? I think that the word’s association with a pharmacy came later. Their wines do have an element of intenseness to them. I do think the correct term would be “fruit forward”. But I do like a wine where you can actually taste the grape from which it’s made from, the “tannins”, “coffee” “leathery” and “peppery” profiles are interesting, but less important to me. I’ll keep an eye out for the output of Chateu St Michelle, thanks for the tip! Apotheca’s “claim to fame” appears to be their ability to blend and marry different wine profiles together into one unique wine. I’ve tried their “red”, their “crush” :”black”and now their cabernet sauvignon, and they all seem to have an intenseness and I would say a richness to the taste that doesn’t inspire me to drink more than two glasses. I think that this is good. 🙂

    • Replies: @LatW
    @Mr. Hack


    Apotheca:

    “In ancient Greece and Rome, a storeroom of any kind, but esp. one for storing wine.”
     

    "A mysterious place where wine was blended and stored in 13th century Europe," according to owner.

    Sorry, I didn't mean that the name was intense, but the design, label. It has a kind of a gothic design with a flashy, red letter A in the center. This brand is very popular, especially among the millennials, maybe partly because of the way the label looks, which is very different from a classic, more conservative look.

    They have wines called "Crush", "Inferno", "Dark". This brand really stands out with its intense image. And it's a mass product, not boutique.

    Replies: @Mr. Hack, @Emil Nikola Richard

  95. @Mikhail
    @AP

    Martyanov's background and content are qualitatively better than the Moscow based Pavel Felgenhauer. For the purpose of having someone with more agreeable Western mass media/Western mass media influenced spin, Felgenhauer is the one typically getting airtime, unlike Martyanov and Mark Sleboda.

    Replies: @AP, @Aedib

    I’m not familiar with Felgenhauer, but you are probably correct because Felgenhauer is popular with Americans and Americans are about as objective and accurate when they describe Russia, as Russian sources are when describing Ukraine.

    • Replies: @Mikhail
    @AP

    Or Kiev regime/pro-Kiev regime sources describing Russia.

    Replies: @AP

    , @Aedib
    @AP

    Felgenhauer is a biologist pretending to be an “expert on Russian military affairs” which predicted that Russia would be defeated in war against Georgia's "NATO trained quite good military". After the Russian army managed to defeat the Georgians in five days, he started to write some strange conspiracy theories to “explain” his wrong predictions. His predictions about the Donbass war were also systematically wrong.
    He just write pieces of wishful thinking for the Westerner audience that love reading about how bad the Russian military is. He also got furious several times when some commenters (probably Russians) on his articles ridiculed himself by remembering his consistently wrong predictions.

    https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Pavel_Felgenhauer

    Replies: @Mikhail, @AP

  96. @AP
    @Mikhail

    I’m not familiar with Felgenhauer, but you are probably correct because Felgenhauer is popular with Americans and Americans are about as objective and accurate when they describe Russia, as Russian sources are when describing Ukraine.

    Replies: @Mikhail, @Aedib

    Or Kiev regime/pro-Kiev regime sources describing Russia.

    • Replies: @AP
    @Mikhail

    Yes, those aren’t very objective either. Though no worse than what Russians claim about Ukrainian events.

    Replies: @Mikhail

  97. How inaccurate is this Russian based source, who has roots on the territory of the former Ukrainian SSR?

    American neocons and some others downplay that Israel protested the above mentioned demonstration, in addition to voting for a Russian proposed UN General Assembly resolution condemning the glorification of Nazism. The US and Kiev regime were the only two voting against that resolution.

    Regarding what the BBC prefers to concentrate on:

    https://www.rt.com/russia/545020-uk-funding-influence-meddling-leak/

  98. @AP
    @Mikhail

    I’m not familiar with Felgenhauer, but you are probably correct because Felgenhauer is popular with Americans and Americans are about as objective and accurate when they describe Russia, as Russian sources are when describing Ukraine.

    Replies: @Mikhail, @Aedib

    Felgenhauer is a biologist pretending to be an “expert on Russian military affairs” which predicted that Russia would be defeated in war against Georgia’s “NATO trained quite good military”. After the Russian army managed to defeat the Georgians in five days, he started to write some strange conspiracy theories to “explain” his wrong predictions. His predictions about the Donbass war were also systematically wrong.
    He just write pieces of wishful thinking for the Westerner audience that love reading about how bad the Russian military is. He also got furious several times when some commenters (probably Russians) on his articles ridiculed himself by remembering his consistently wrong predictions.

    https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Pavel_Felgenhauer

    • Replies: @Mikhail
    @Aedib

    A continued favorite nonetheless:

    https://www.google.com/search?q=%22Pavel+Felgenhauer%22&source=lnms&tbm=nws&sa=X&ved=2ahUKEwi2mYGK9pX1AhUul4kEHbEuA_0Q_AUoAXoECAIQAw&biw=1024&bih=643&dpr=1

    https://www.google.com/search?q=%22Pavel+Felgenhauer%22&tbm=vid&source=lnms&sa=X&ved=2ahUKEwiJq-eL9pX1AhVwkIkEHWUyDjgQ_AUoA3oECAEQBQ&biw=1024&bih=643&dpr=1

    CGTN has had its hare of anti-Russian leaning folks getting coddled treatment. This probably has a good deal to do with the Chinese higher ups not fully knowing what's going on, while giving too much influence to Western mass media influenced folks - some of them transplanted from Western mass media.

    Replies: @Aedib

    , @AP
    @Aedib

    I just looked through Google and Twitter. FWIW Felgenhauer claimed that Trump was Putin’s puppet, that Russia was poised to invade Turkey in 2016, and that Russia he made a decision to occupy Ukraine’s South in May 2021. Haven’t read what he has to say right now, and don’t watch videos.

    Came across this from 2019: “Pavel Felgenhauer on the shipment of Russia's troubled new 40N6 missiles to China that was mysteriously "destroyed" by a storm: "Sinkings were a classic Soviet way of writing off defective equipment & parts. I signed such documents myself"

    Was he once involved in the Soviet defence industry?

    Replies: @Aedib, @Mikhail

  99. @Aedib
    @AP

    Felgenhauer is a biologist pretending to be an “expert on Russian military affairs” which predicted that Russia would be defeated in war against Georgia's "NATO trained quite good military". After the Russian army managed to defeat the Georgians in five days, he started to write some strange conspiracy theories to “explain” his wrong predictions. His predictions about the Donbass war were also systematically wrong.
    He just write pieces of wishful thinking for the Westerner audience that love reading about how bad the Russian military is. He also got furious several times when some commenters (probably Russians) on his articles ridiculed himself by remembering his consistently wrong predictions.

    https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Pavel_Felgenhauer

    Replies: @Mikhail, @AP

    A continued favorite nonetheless:

    https://www.google.com/search?q=%22Pavel+Felgenhauer%22&source=lnms&tbm=nws&sa=X&ved=2ahUKEwi2mYGK9pX1AhUul4kEHbEuA_0Q_AUoAXoECAIQAw&biw=1024&bih=643&dpr=1

    https://www.google.com/search?q=%22Pavel+Felgenhauer%22&tbm=vid&source=lnms&sa=X&ved=2ahUKEwiJq-eL9pX1AhVwkIkEHWUyDjgQ_AUoA3oECAEQBQ&biw=1024&bih=643&dpr=1

    CGTN has had its hare of anti-Russian leaning folks getting coddled treatment. This probably has a good deal to do with the Chinese higher ups not fully knowing what’s going on, while giving too much influence to Western mass media influenced folks – some of them transplanted from Western mass media.

    • Replies: @Aedib
    @Mikhail

    I’m sorry but I will not waste my time reading his rants. He seems too afraid about the prospect of a real Russian-Ukrainian war erasing his wishful based “analysis”.

  100. @Dmitry
    @Thulean Friend


    internally stable to me than the US
     
    It's a predictable dynamic, as a result of the collapse of the USSR, American culture losing some of their sense of "cosmic role".

    In the second half of the 20th century, a lot of their culture's identity has been derived from their position in the Cold War.

    This is not just merger of cultural identity with capitalist ideology, but also some brutal aspects of capitalism could be accepted and sublimated with a sense of meaning into a clash of world civilization.

    When the Soviet Union is not longer pretending to act as a contrast or alternative, the sense of cosmic role of America is turning inwards, or lost in becoming a world culture.

    In Russia, is sadly now culturally on the trashheap of history, and only the authorities can robotically create fake acting, on non-important topics, as a vulgar form of opposition. Chinese culture unfortunately appears stillborn and doesn't present sufficient contrast to stimulate the American culture sphere. My intuition is that Chinese culture will become much more productive by the middle of this century. But we might hope the Chinese will eventually contribute to culture at least like Japan.

    Perhaps it sounds funny, but the boycotted 1980s Olympic might be seen one day, as the premonitory goodbye for this 20th century "Agon". Some symbolic moment of the world spirit, when people were suddenly expressing sadness as they were singing goodbye to the Olympic bear who flew away from Moscow, goes back to hide in the forest, and did not return.
    https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=TzuGK5tH1G4

    Replies: @songbird, @Philip Owen

    My intuition is that Chinese culture will become much more productive by the middle of this century. But we might hope the Chinese will eventually contribute to culture at least like Japan.

    Don’t know how common it is, but I’ve heard that some talented Japanese are beginning to jump ship to China because of stagnant wages and long hours – for instance, in anime.

    IMO, it is an interesting question, when most Americans will begin to feel like they are overshadowed by China and what will cause them to feel this way. Right now, short of some major change, it don’t think they will feel that way by watching Chinese movies, even though Hollywood ones are quite bad.

    Winning a race to the Moon would seem like the possibly easy way to do it. What will happen, if it doesn’t come easily? Maybe, war.

    • Replies: @Yellowface Anon
    @songbird

    It's more like basic anime production like art being outsourced to China and South Korea, and direction staying in Japan. No one in the Japanese production team moving there, and probably some artists in Japan are thrown out of work.

    Replies: @songbird

    , @Dmitry
    @songbird

    China currently appears weak culturally.

    It should improve in the future. For example, as it's known that much of students in elite art colleges in Western Europe and America, are from China. So China will have a lot more trained creative professionals in the future.

    However, even if they develop more skilled workers and higher incomes, it's possible that the political system will prevent much of a cultural production.

    This can be like investments. If the country's politicians can crush you when they like, there is a significant weight carrying down its cultural workers.

    In the USSR, there was among the most skilled creative professionals in the world, but there were limits for creativity, and then in postsoviet time hare have been many years of almost empty harvests. When there is a talented film director like Zvyagintsev, then the lowest cultural level politicians will be sure to try to disrupt him.


    Chinese movies, even though Hollywood ones are quite bad.
     
    A lot of Hollywood films have or were funded by China (or Chinese state vehicles) .

    For example, 25% of Paramount films, had been financed from China. After Baywatch (2017), they seemed to cancel this at least, so perhaps they try to stop wasting so much money on America, and focus on funding more domestic films. https://news.cgtn.com/news/3449544f34597a6333566d54/share.html

    Replies: @songbird

  101. @Yevardian
    @Barbarossa

    Ok, since Dmitri and 'Thulean' Friend opened this can of worms, maybe the expert gossips could point out really powerful world leaders or prominent tycoons who do have demonstrated good taste (this naturally excludes Bibi, Bojo, Macron, Musk etc), without getting divorced (this excludes Sarkozy, Putin), in this regard?
    It's definitely harder than it first appears.

    Also got me thinking about the practically co-ruling 'power-couples' of history, e.g. the Ceaușescus, the Perons, Akhenaton & Nefertiti, Justinian & Theodora, Ferdinand & Isabella, Catherine & the entire Russian officer corps, and so on.

    Replies: @LatW, @Yahya

    Ok, since Dmitri and ‘Thulean’ Friend opened this can of worms, maybe the expert gossips could point out really powerful world leaders or prominent tycoons who do have demonstrated good taste (this naturally excludes Bibi, Bojo, Macron, Musk etc), without getting divorced (this excludes Sarkozy, Putin), in this regard? It’s definitely harder than it first appears.

    I’d say both Bashar Al-Assad and King Abdullah of Jordan did a good job in the marital sphere.

    Queen Rania of Jordan. Business graduate of the American University in Cairo (AUC). Jordanian of Palestinian origin. Sunni Muslim. Married to Abdullah II of Jordan since 1993.

    Asma Al-Assad of Syria. Graduate of King’s College London with first-class honors in Computer Science and French literature. Sunni Muslim of Syrian origin. Speaks Enligh, Arabic, French and Spanish. Married to Bashar since 2000.

    In terms of looks, i’d say its a 2-way tie between the two. Frau Assad seems a bit more intelligent than Queen Rania.

    • Replies: @AP
    @Yahya

    Asma is far more attractive IMO. I saw her husband’s hacked e-mails - they are a very endearing couple. I wish them well.

  102. @Mikhail
    @Aedib

    A continued favorite nonetheless:

    https://www.google.com/search?q=%22Pavel+Felgenhauer%22&source=lnms&tbm=nws&sa=X&ved=2ahUKEwi2mYGK9pX1AhUul4kEHbEuA_0Q_AUoAXoECAIQAw&biw=1024&bih=643&dpr=1

    https://www.google.com/search?q=%22Pavel+Felgenhauer%22&tbm=vid&source=lnms&sa=X&ved=2ahUKEwiJq-eL9pX1AhVwkIkEHWUyDjgQ_AUoA3oECAEQBQ&biw=1024&bih=643&dpr=1

    CGTN has had its hare of anti-Russian leaning folks getting coddled treatment. This probably has a good deal to do with the Chinese higher ups not fully knowing what's going on, while giving too much influence to Western mass media influenced folks - some of them transplanted from Western mass media.

    Replies: @Aedib

    I’m sorry but I will not waste my time reading his rants. He seems too afraid about the prospect of a real Russian-Ukrainian war erasing his wishful based “analysis”.

    • Agree: Mikhail
  103. @Mr. Hack
    @Dmitry

    I'm not totally following you here, Dmitry. I think that you had imbibed a little too much bubbly the night before? What you're stating though sounds quite interesting about the upper class German kids
    though...Happy New Year!

    Replies: @songbird

    I was once in the house of the mayor of a major German city, hanging out with his teenage daughter and her female friends, but I think they were only upper middle class, so Dmitry has me beat.

  104. @Mikhail
    @AP

    Or Kiev regime/pro-Kiev regime sources describing Russia.

    Replies: @AP

    Yes, those aren’t very objective either. Though no worse than what Russians claim about Ukrainian events.

    • Replies: @Mikhail
    @AP

    Felgy has gotten his share of play in the now defunct Kyiv Post.

  105. @Aedib
    @AP

    Felgenhauer is a biologist pretending to be an “expert on Russian military affairs” which predicted that Russia would be defeated in war against Georgia's "NATO trained quite good military". After the Russian army managed to defeat the Georgians in five days, he started to write some strange conspiracy theories to “explain” his wrong predictions. His predictions about the Donbass war were also systematically wrong.
    He just write pieces of wishful thinking for the Westerner audience that love reading about how bad the Russian military is. He also got furious several times when some commenters (probably Russians) on his articles ridiculed himself by remembering his consistently wrong predictions.

    https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Pavel_Felgenhauer

    Replies: @Mikhail, @AP

    I just looked through Google and Twitter. FWIW Felgenhauer claimed that Trump was Putin’s puppet, that Russia was poised to invade Turkey in 2016, and that Russia he made a decision to occupy Ukraine’s South in May 2021. Haven’t read what he has to say right now, and don’t watch videos.

    Came across this from 2019: “Pavel Felgenhauer on the shipment of Russia’s troubled new 40N6 missiles to China that was mysteriously “destroyed” by a storm: “Sinkings were a classic Soviet way of writing off defective equipment & parts. I signed such documents myself”

    Was he once involved in the Soviet defence industry?

    • Replies: @Aedib
    @AP

    AFAIK, S-400 sold to China lack the 40N6 missile. He's basically a liar.

    , @Mikhail
    @AP

    He's if my not mistaken 71, which would make him Soviet era draft material. I'm reminded of this Twilight Zone character:

    https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=xLtY98fj_eY

    Felgenhauer is saying and doing all this in Moscow, without any apparent hassle (no Intel knocks on the door or legal restrictions put on him) from the authorities.

    He's also a blowhard:

    http://exile.ru/articles/detail.php?ARTICLE_ID=7937&IBLOCK_ID=35

  106. @Yahya
    @Yevardian


    Ok, since Dmitri and ‘Thulean’ Friend opened this can of worms, maybe the expert gossips could point out really powerful world leaders or prominent tycoons who do have demonstrated good taste (this naturally excludes Bibi, Bojo, Macron, Musk etc), without getting divorced (this excludes Sarkozy, Putin), in this regard? It’s definitely harder than it first appears.
     
    I'd say both Bashar Al-Assad and King Abdullah of Jordan did a good job in the marital sphere.

    Queen Rania of Jordan. Business graduate of the American University in Cairo (AUC). Jordanian of Palestinian origin. Sunni Muslim. Married to Abdullah II of Jordan since 1993.


    https://see.news/wp-content/uploads/2019/11/queen-rania-1000x1000jpg.jpg


    Asma Al-Assad of Syria. Graduate of King's College London with first-class honors in Computer Science and French literature. Sunni Muslim of Syrian origin. Speaks Enligh, Arabic, French and Spanish. Married to Bashar since 2000.


    https://www.al-monitor.com/sites/default/files/styles/article_header/public/almpics/2020/06/RTSBIGF.JPG/RTSBIGF.JPG?h=088a5503&itok=15gsbVUO


    In terms of looks, i'd say its a 2-way tie between the two. Frau Assad seems a bit more intelligent than Queen Rania.

    Replies: @AP

    Asma is far more attractive IMO. I saw her husband’s hacked e-mails – they are a very endearing couple. I wish them well.

  107. @German_reader
    @Yevardian


    Not to mention, since all this global warming hysteria (I’m agnostic on the topic)
     
    I think it's real, the change in climate has been quite noticeable even over my lifetime, and I think it will indeed be a very serious issue (if the worst scenarios become reality, some regions might become entirely uninhabitable after all). Question is of course what to do about it, I don't believe the German Greens (deeply stupid people imo) have any sensible ideas. But the full-on denial of climate change a lot of right-wingers have adopted is counter-productive.
    The plastics issue might indeed be pretty bad, I'm rather disturbed by those suggestions that the steadily declining sperm count of men in Western countries might be due to cellular damage caused by ubiquituous plastics, definitely an issue that should be urgently investigated to a much greater extent, since it could eventually evolve into an existential threat. More generally, there's definitely a lot wrong with environmental influences in modern Western societies...I'm always surprised and somewhat baffled by how many people of my age seem to have pollen allergies and the like.
    Thanks for reminding me of Vaclav Smil, haven't yet read any of his books, but I probably should.

    Replies: @A123, @Dmitry, @songbird, @Mikel

    But the full-on denial of climate change a lot of right-wingers have adopted is counter-productive.

    I’m a skeptic. But putting that aside, it is hard to see the benefit of giving ground.

    They seem to be saying stuff like, “The equatorial zone will become uninhabitable, so we will need to accept hundreds of millions of Africans and Arabs, starting now. And you must begin eating bugs.”

    If they instead said, “We want your support for nuclear energy, in order to save the world. We are sorry about trying to drown you with Third Worlders and trying to turn everyone gay. To show our contrition, we are willing to deport all of the people you deem undesirable, starting with ourselves.” Then my ears would really perk up.

    • Agree: A123
    • LOL: sher singh, Emil Nikola Richard
    • Replies: @Yellowface Anon
    @songbird

    Bug or lab-grown meat-eating is about caste, not anything environment or resource-conservational. It's ultimately about assigning an aesthetically inferior option to the lower castes and reserving meat to the upper castes. In Archeofuturism, the peasants get to grow their meat and the city-dwellers eats industrial agricultural food, including bug feed, and this is why what the WEF wants is the spitting image of Archeofuturism. Which is to say, the horseshoe.

    I think you rank these two more pressing political subjects than the climate, but what do race and Globohomo have to do with the climate?

    Replies: @Yellowface Anon

    , @Beckow
    @songbird


    ....sorry about trying to drown you with Third Worlders and trying to turn everyone gay. To show our contrition...
     
    The liberals' whole-existence is contrition: they are sorry, sorry for the good things they have and the things their ancestors did to assure the good things. But, as weak individuals that they are, they want to keep their own good stuff and give away others' stuff to make themselves feel better. No St.Francis here. It is a form of mental collapse: deep regrets combined with massive incompetence, in the past we would just run them out of a tribe.

    Currently the liberals are scared of heat (also cold, actually any weather event scares them), procreation (the classical type, the fakes titillate their weak fancies), large white men, Russkies of any kind (Ukies also scare them, they are too close), Orban and circulating viruses.

    The key to understanding the liberals is that they are narcissists who have come to despise their own biology - often for a good reason, just look at them, that Bezos for God's sake, what the f..k is that, shiny velvet with a plastic burping bubble? The end-of-a-line came for them, they know it, they are just too scared to leave, yet.

    Replies: @sher singh, @songbird, @LatW

    , @A123
    @songbird


    it is hard to see the benefit of giving ground.

    They seem to be saying stuff like, “The equatorial zone will become uninhabitable, so we will need to accept hundreds of millions of Africans and Arabs, starting now. And you must begin eating bugs.”
     
    Small Modular Reactors [SMR] and Thorium fuel are obvious, science driven, choices to produce vast amounts of cheap, reliable. zero carbon electricity.

    Leftoids are highly emotional acolytes to faith based dogma. Wind turbines, solar panels, and electric cars solve nothing. However, they are highly visible symbols for virtue signaling.

    https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ecnS1Ygf0o0

    The last thing that Science Deniers want is a potentially effective solution. That would deprive them of the opportunity to be, "Pious In Their Prius".

    PEACE 😇
  108. @Barbarossa
    @Philip Owen

    I agree, it looks like a deeply desperate shot.

    What I don't don't get is why in the hell one would ditch your wife with whom you've had 4 kids, to take up with an overripe trollop who looks like shes had a couple too many plastic surgeries?! That's just stupid, sad, and demonstrates poor taste. I honestly think that Bezo's ex is better looking than his current tart.

    Replies: @Yevardian, @Showmethereal

    Yeah she looks like shes had too much surgery and had sex with probably 50 too many men.. But if he was just Jeff the mailman – he probably wouldn’t make it into her next dozen or so count.. The poor guy is losing it..

  109. @Shortsword
    @Yellowface Anon


    It is still dwarfed by traditional (not just gasoline but also EV-building) automakers
     
    It's an interesting situation. Tesla has larger market capitalization than the next 9 biggest automakers combined. So now that Tesla's production rates starts increasing towards millions per year, is their market cap going to keep ballooning?

    Replies: @Showmethereal

    Yeah their stock price is completely ridiculous and are not based on any real market realities. It is basically based on Elong Musk as a sales person. Yes in some ways they have first mover advantage… But its not that much of an advantage…. The incumbents will be ramping up production more and more – meanwhile other startups sales are growing quickly too. Teslas market share is already being reduced and they will be squeezed more from both ends. There is no fundamental basis for their stock price to be where it is…

  110. @songbird
    @Dmitry


    My intuition is that Chinese culture will become much more productive by the middle of this century. But we might hope the Chinese will eventually contribute to culture at least like Japan.
     
    Don't know how common it is, but I've heard that some talented Japanese are beginning to jump ship to China because of stagnant wages and long hours - for instance, in anime.

    IMO, it is an interesting question, when most Americans will begin to feel like they are overshadowed by China and what will cause them to feel this way. Right now, short of some major change, it don't think they will feel that way by watching Chinese movies, even though Hollywood ones are quite bad.

    Winning a race to the Moon would seem like the possibly easy way to do it. What will happen, if it doesn't come easily? Maybe, war.

    Replies: @Yellowface Anon, @Dmitry

    It’s more like basic anime production like art being outsourced to China and South Korea, and direction staying in Japan. No one in the Japanese production team moving there, and probably some artists in Japan are thrown out of work.

    • Replies: @songbird
    @Yellowface Anon

    Don't know how reliable this is, but this article suggests that not only are Japanese animators moving to Japan, but China is now outsourcing to Japanese studios.

    https://otakuusamagazine.com/chinese-animation-projects-outsource-japan/


    what do race and Globohomo have to do with the climate?
     
    Nothing intrinsically, but nevertheless rhetoric strongly links migration to global warming. And migration is linked to the gayness (ex: some NGO specializes in importing gays to Canada), and ideology links them both to global warming. If you asked Greta what she thinks, is there any doubt about what she would say?
  111. @songbird
    @German_reader


    But the full-on denial of climate change a lot of right-wingers have adopted is counter-productive.
     
    I'm a skeptic. But putting that aside, it is hard to see the benefit of giving ground.

    They seem to be saying stuff like, "The equatorial zone will become uninhabitable, so we will need to accept hundreds of millions of Africans and Arabs, starting now. And you must begin eating bugs."

    If they instead said, "We want your support for nuclear energy, in order to save the world. We are sorry about trying to drown you with Third Worlders and trying to turn everyone gay. To show our contrition, we are willing to deport all of the people you deem undesirable, starting with ourselves." Then my ears would really perk up.

    Replies: @Yellowface Anon, @Beckow, @A123

    Bug or lab-grown meat-eating is about caste, not anything environment or resource-conservational. It’s ultimately about assigning an aesthetically inferior option to the lower castes and reserving meat to the upper castes. In Archeofuturism, the peasants get to grow their meat and the city-dwellers eats industrial agricultural food, including bug feed, and this is why what the WEF wants is the spitting image of Archeofuturism. Which is to say, the horseshoe.

    I think you rank these two more pressing political subjects than the climate, but what do race and Globohomo have to do with the climate?

    • Replies: @Yellowface Anon
    @Yellowface Anon

    Aesthetically pleasing meat substitutes exist. It's soy, the way East Asian vegans prepare it.

    https://i2.chuimg.com/c9a23953b7214b309266ac72631b1328_681w_783h.jpg?imageView2/2/w/660/interlace/1/q/90

    https://www.consumer.org.hk/f/media_library/308431/960p0/W1908CHOI_vegetarian-meat_01ps.jpg

    They can fit into the menu of all-you-can-eat restaurants:

    https://static5.orstatic.com/userphoto/Article/0/63/0017DKF8D152593FF5844Dj.jpg

    https://resource01-proxy.ulifestyle.com.hk/res/v3/image/content/2385000/2387594/c_1024.jpg

    I don't think lab-grown meat is all that different presentation-wise to industrial mystery meat. But unprepared bug paste and Soylent Green will be humiliating low caste food.

  112. @AP
    @Aedib

    I just looked through Google and Twitter. FWIW Felgenhauer claimed that Trump was Putin’s puppet, that Russia was poised to invade Turkey in 2016, and that Russia he made a decision to occupy Ukraine’s South in May 2021. Haven’t read what he has to say right now, and don’t watch videos.

    Came across this from 2019: “Pavel Felgenhauer on the shipment of Russia's troubled new 40N6 missiles to China that was mysteriously "destroyed" by a storm: "Sinkings were a classic Soviet way of writing off defective equipment & parts. I signed such documents myself"

    Was he once involved in the Soviet defence industry?

    Replies: @Aedib, @Mikhail

    AFAIK, S-400 sold to China lack the 40N6 missile. He’s basically a liar.

    • Thanks: AP
  113. @songbird
    @German_reader


    But the full-on denial of climate change a lot of right-wingers have adopted is counter-productive.
     
    I'm a skeptic. But putting that aside, it is hard to see the benefit of giving ground.

    They seem to be saying stuff like, "The equatorial zone will become uninhabitable, so we will need to accept hundreds of millions of Africans and Arabs, starting now. And you must begin eating bugs."

    If they instead said, "We want your support for nuclear energy, in order to save the world. We are sorry about trying to drown you with Third Worlders and trying to turn everyone gay. To show our contrition, we are willing to deport all of the people you deem undesirable, starting with ourselves." Then my ears would really perk up.

    Replies: @Yellowface Anon, @Beckow, @A123

    ….sorry about trying to drown you with Third Worlders and trying to turn everyone gay. To show our contrition…

    The liberals’ whole-existence is contrition: they are sorry, sorry for the good things they have and the things their ancestors did to assure the good things. But, as weak individuals that they are, they want to keep their own good stuff and give away others’ stuff to make themselves feel better. No St.Francis here. It is a form of mental collapse: deep regrets combined with massive incompetence, in the past we would just run them out of a tribe.

    Currently the liberals are scared of heat (also cold, actually any weather event scares them), procreation (the classical type, the fakes titillate their weak fancies), large white men, Russkies of any kind (Ukies also scare them, they are too close), Orban and circulating viruses.

    The key to understanding the liberals is that they are narcissists who have come to despise their own biology – often for a good reason, just look at them, that Bezos for God’s sake, what the f..k is that, shiny velvet with a plastic burping bubble? The end-of-a-line came for them, they know it, they are just too scared to leave, yet.

    • Replies: @sher singh
    @Beckow

    I think it's Germano-nords from the interior trying to push out Judeo-Puritans, all else is incidental.

    , @songbird
    @Beckow


    in the past we would just run them out of a tribe.
     
    i think a lot of modern discord and dysfunction comes from lack of exiling people. It used to be something that was done virtually everywhere. There are still groups who do it today, in improbable places, like the slums of Lagos.

    Too much money is put into prisons. Prisons mostly seem like an attempt to make the streets safer. They don't seem to do much in the way of encouraging pro-social behavior. They seem to be based on the idea that people can be reformed. (doesn't acknowledge rates of recidivism. ) In most cases, we would be better off writing them a check to accept exile.
    , @LatW
    @Beckow


    Russkies of any kind (Ukies also scare them, they are too close)
     
    In a recent, rather depressing article on Ukraine Niall Ferguson speculated:

    "The Ukrainians not unreasonably complain that Romania and Bulgaria scarcely met all these [Copenhagen] criteria in 2006 (the year before they became EU members), to say nothing of 2000, when negotiations began. The fact that a current EU member — Hungary — today ranks not far above Ukraine in the Freedom House rankings of political freedom is also not lost on the Ukrainians.

    However, this is just an additional reason for EU foot-dragging [on supporting Ukraine's accession]. So unpopular is Hungarian Prime Minister Viktor Orban in Brussels these days that many European leaders and officials worry that admitting Ukraine would add another illiberal semi-autocracy within the EU fold, which might then join forces with Hungary, Poland and any other populist-led states against an increasingly woke European Commission."
     

    Interesting that he knows the word "woke".

    Replies: @Beckow

  114. @Pericles
    @showmethereal

    Yeah, to take a close example, Sweden now has a population of about 10 million ... but at least 2 million of those are non-Swedes. It's difficult to be more precise because, for some reason, ethnical statistics are not tracked very carefully or at all.

    We also have France and Belgium in fairly deep demographic trouble, and, while I can't recall the specifics at the moment, likely the UK too. There are presumably more but just those taken alone is pretty bad.

    Replies: @sher singh

    • Replies: @AP
    @sher singh

    Austria-Hungary not looking too bad but
    PLC even better.

    Replies: @showmethereal, @silviosilver, @Aedib

    , @sudden death
    @sher singh

    Are gypsies really the third of all newborns in Bulgaria???

    Replies: @Shortsword

    , @Cutler
    @sher singh

    iirc Italy's non European/ non White births are less than 10% not 15%. Data is found on Istat Italian language sites.

  115. @Beckow
    @songbird


    ....sorry about trying to drown you with Third Worlders and trying to turn everyone gay. To show our contrition...
     
    The liberals' whole-existence is contrition: they are sorry, sorry for the good things they have and the things their ancestors did to assure the good things. But, as weak individuals that they are, they want to keep their own good stuff and give away others' stuff to make themselves feel better. No St.Francis here. It is a form of mental collapse: deep regrets combined with massive incompetence, in the past we would just run them out of a tribe.

    Currently the liberals are scared of heat (also cold, actually any weather event scares them), procreation (the classical type, the fakes titillate their weak fancies), large white men, Russkies of any kind (Ukies also scare them, they are too close), Orban and circulating viruses.

    The key to understanding the liberals is that they are narcissists who have come to despise their own biology - often for a good reason, just look at them, that Bezos for God's sake, what the f..k is that, shiny velvet with a plastic burping bubble? The end-of-a-line came for them, they know it, they are just too scared to leave, yet.

    Replies: @sher singh, @songbird, @LatW

    I think it’s Germano-nords from the interior trying to push out Judeo-Puritans, all else is incidental.

  116. @Yellowface Anon
    @songbird

    It's more like basic anime production like art being outsourced to China and South Korea, and direction staying in Japan. No one in the Japanese production team moving there, and probably some artists in Japan are thrown out of work.

    Replies: @songbird

    Don’t know how reliable this is, but this article suggests that not only are Japanese animators moving to Japan, but China is now outsourcing to Japanese studios.

    https://otakuusamagazine.com/chinese-animation-projects-outsource-japan/

    what do race and Globohomo have to do with the climate?

    Nothing intrinsically, but nevertheless rhetoric strongly links migration to global warming. And migration is linked to the gayness (ex: some NGO specializes in importing gays to Canada), and ideology links them both to global warming. If you asked Greta what she thinks, is there any doubt about what she would say?

  117. @sher singh
    @Pericles

    https://cdn.discordapp.com/attachments/640459736919048202/927099677667635230/IMG_5406.png

    Replies: @AP, @sudden death, @Cutler

    Austria-Hungary not looking too bad but
    PLC even better.

    • Replies: @showmethereal
    @AP

    Yeah but Austria's birth rate is 1.46 and Hungary is 1.49... Basically the whole region is below replacement...

    Replies: @AP

    , @silviosilver
    @AP


    Austria-Hungary not looking too bad
     
    Exactly. And we all know it's only going to improve from here.

    Oh wait.
    , @Aedib
    @AP

    The Carolingian empire is screwed.

  118. @Mikhail
    @AP

    Martyanov's background and content are qualitatively better than the Moscow based Pavel Felgenhauer. For the purpose of having someone with more agreeable Western mass media/Western mass media influenced spin, Felgenhauer is the one typically getting airtime, unlike Martyanov and Mark Sleboda.

    Replies: @AP, @Aedib

    Martyanov and The Saker belong to the team “We Russians are soooooooo powerful” which is a sort of mirror of the way bigger “We Americans are soooooooo powerful” team played by Stratfor, The Heritage Foundation, etc.
    While both “stronk teams” exercise in wishful thinking, they are basically inoffensive. The danger may arise if some politicians take decisions about the real world based in such a type of delusions. It seems to me that Russia is led by people with a ferocious and pragmatic realism but current USA no so. People like Kissinger are out of the last administrations.
    I recognize that Martyanov have knowledge about weapon systems while Saker sometimes seems to be out of the reality. Some technical analysis from Martyanov are very interesting but for geopolitical analysis I prefer people like Alexander Mercouris (pro-Russian bias but within the real world) rather than Saker.

    • Replies: @Mikhail
    @Aedib

    https://muckrack.com/michael-averko/articles

  119. @Beckow
    @songbird


    ....sorry about trying to drown you with Third Worlders and trying to turn everyone gay. To show our contrition...
     
    The liberals' whole-existence is contrition: they are sorry, sorry for the good things they have and the things their ancestors did to assure the good things. But, as weak individuals that they are, they want to keep their own good stuff and give away others' stuff to make themselves feel better. No St.Francis here. It is a form of mental collapse: deep regrets combined with massive incompetence, in the past we would just run them out of a tribe.

    Currently the liberals are scared of heat (also cold, actually any weather event scares them), procreation (the classical type, the fakes titillate their weak fancies), large white men, Russkies of any kind (Ukies also scare them, they are too close), Orban and circulating viruses.

    The key to understanding the liberals is that they are narcissists who have come to despise their own biology - often for a good reason, just look at them, that Bezos for God's sake, what the f..k is that, shiny velvet with a plastic burping bubble? The end-of-a-line came for them, they know it, they are just too scared to leave, yet.

    Replies: @sher singh, @songbird, @LatW

    in the past we would just run them out of a tribe.

    i think a lot of modern discord and dysfunction comes from lack of exiling people. It used to be something that was done virtually everywhere. There are still groups who do it today, in improbable places, like the slums of Lagos.

    Too much money is put into prisons. Prisons mostly seem like an attempt to make the streets safer. They don’t seem to do much in the way of encouraging pro-social behavior. They seem to be based on the idea that people can be reformed. (doesn’t acknowledge rates of recidivism. ) In most cases, we would be better off writing them a check to accept exile.

  120. @sher singh
    @Pericles

    https://cdn.discordapp.com/attachments/640459736919048202/927099677667635230/IMG_5406.png

    Replies: @AP, @sudden death, @Cutler

    Are gypsies really the third of all newborns in Bulgaria???

    • Replies: @Shortsword
    @sudden death

    Bulgaria has a sizeable number of Turks too. Turks and gypsies together makes up around 15-20% of the population. But I don't think Bulgarian Turks have high fertility.

  121. @AP
    @Dmitry

    Most educated Russians over 45 are well read. It was one of the few good features of the Soviet system. I remember fondly, back in the 90s, observing the people reading literature on the Moscow metro. Over time it devolved to trash books and finally phones.

    At a party back then my wife was once surprised to find an American with whom she could have an intelligent discussion of Latin American literature. Then the mystery was solved - the guy was a professor of that subject.

    So Martyianov is just a Russian guy over 45 who happens to have had a brief and mediocre (low rank) career in the Soviet military in his youth, who also writes in English and is willing to share his views with people who otherwise would never have encountered and interacted with a Soviet officer.

    Replies: @Dmitry, @Philip Owen

    educated Russians over 45 are well read

    I remember he was saying he doesn’t like Solzhenitsyn, because Solzhenitsyn is copying of all these other 20th century writers in different ways. I don’t think I know anyone who has read Solzhenitsyn books, and definitely not all the authors who Solzhenitsyn had copied.

    He definitely knows far more of 20th century literature, than any normal people. This is not typical. He’s a kind of 20th century literature connoisseur. Unfortunately, I haven’t read enough 20th century literature to write anything on those threads, when he had suddenly seemed interesting (i.e. when he was not boasting excitedly about who has the largest missile).

    Martyanov is just a Russian guy over 45

    He is nothing typical for Russian, except I guess he was an ordinary dude.

    He looks around 70 or 75 years old, so he perhaps moved to the USA because of his children have dragged him there, and this could explain why he seems to hate the USA.

    His idealization of Russian politicians is only really possible for rational people, if you weren’t living in Russia for the last decades or something.

    It’s probably some kind of brutal geographic dislocation in the biography, which created his political views, not that they are interesting.

    He’s probably a person who is interesting to listen to on a thousand different topics. But of course, politics is not one, as he seemed to be very unclose to anything happens in Russia. It’s often that political views are the least interesting aspect of a person.

    • Replies: @siberiancat
    @Dmitry

    Martyanov does not hate the USA. He loves the country but despises her elites.
    You don't have to read his mind, he explicitly writes about that.

    , @AP
    @Dmitry

    I found this post thanks to the response.


    He definitely knows far more of 20th century literature, than any normal people. This is not typical.
     
    I know lots of educated Russian people over 45 (perhaps the cutoff is 48 or so) and they are as well-read as he is (and far more than I, raised in the USA, am). I'm not sure why you found him to be more well-read than typical educated Russians his age. Perhaps you don't spend much time with educated older Russians. There is a dramatic cutoff after which Russians started to read much less, perhaps because they were too busy surviving. And after that, the next batch of Russians were more like non-reading Westerners, distracted by other things that they can enjoy with the wealth that previous Russian generations didn't have.

    He looks around 70 or 75 years old, so he perhaps moved to the USA because of his children have dragged him there, and this could explain why he seems to hate the USA.
     
    IIRC he left the USSR right when he was young, in the beginning of the 90s, after having graduated from a naval academy with an engineering background and having been a low ranking naval officer for a few years. So he is probably around 60.

    Someone like that should have had a successful career in technology in the 1990s. Instead, it seems that he just tutored kids at private schools, the sort of job an educated pensioner would do, not a man in the prime of his life. So something went wrong in his life, this could explain his bitterness towards the USA. And sadly for him, by the time Russia got back on its feet he was too old to go back. Or he might be from another republic, not even a Russian citizen, so he is an orphan with nothing to come back to. He can only admire and idealize Russia from a distance and feel good about Russia being stronger or more wily than the West - living vicariously through Russia like a Balkanoid.

    Replies: @melanf, @Dmitry

  122. @songbird
    What to make of this idea that Neanderthals were burning forests?
    https://www.newscientist.com/article/2302065-neanderthals-may-have-cleared-a-european-forest-with-fire-or-tools/

    One of the wilder theories is that they were practicing an early form of agriculture.

    Replies: @Philip Owen

    Hunter gatherers burn forest to increase the amount of pasture for grazing animals.

    • Replies: @songbird
    @Philip Owen

    It is interesting to ponder whether they may have planted any trees, for pine nuts, acorns, and walnuts.

  123. https://www.forbes.com/sites/georgecalhoun/2022/01/02/beijing-is-intentionally-underreporting-chinas-covid-death-rate-part-1/?sh=27c339f44352

    An interesting read. I’ve thought that the Chinese official numbers seem clearly implausible, despite what Ron Unz says about the Uber-Chinese Covid Response. Even factoring in anti-Chinese motivations in a Western outlet, I find their estimate far more plausible that the Chinese self reporting.

    • Replies: @showmethereal
    @Barbarossa

    So you think the parties in Wuhan while the west was being ravaged was fake??? No they weren't. Outsiders have to quarantine for 2 weeks in a hotel... When clusters erupt in a city there is mass testing and SERIOUS contact tracing.... If you had contact - you have to quarantine... it's not an option. Enough cases in a city - they go into lockdown. No - you can't even go to the supermarket. The supermarkets go to each housing area and delivers food to the people in a controlled environment. Unless you have been there or speak to someone who actually lives there - you wouldn't understand. To even get on a domestic long distance train - you have to show Covid results... No such thing exists for domestic planes and trains in the US.
    Now in terms of reported cases - there is a difference because China only reports symptomatic cases... But the death rate??? Nope... They really take it that serious.

    The death rate in Hong Kong and Singapore was similar... Until South Korea began to open up and follow the west - it's death rate was similar as well. What about "Taiwan"??? There death rate is the same. So those US friends death rates are not questionable?? No - the answer is they all handled it very similarly (until recently).

    Replies: @Yellowface Anon

  124. @Dmitry
    @Thulean Friend


    internally stable to me than the US
     
    It's a predictable dynamic, as a result of the collapse of the USSR, American culture losing some of their sense of "cosmic role".

    In the second half of the 20th century, a lot of their culture's identity has been derived from their position in the Cold War.

    This is not just merger of cultural identity with capitalist ideology, but also some brutal aspects of capitalism could be accepted and sublimated with a sense of meaning into a clash of world civilization.

    When the Soviet Union is not longer pretending to act as a contrast or alternative, the sense of cosmic role of America is turning inwards, or lost in becoming a world culture.

    In Russia, is sadly now culturally on the trashheap of history, and only the authorities can robotically create fake acting, on non-important topics, as a vulgar form of opposition. Chinese culture unfortunately appears stillborn and doesn't present sufficient contrast to stimulate the American culture sphere. My intuition is that Chinese culture will become much more productive by the middle of this century. But we might hope the Chinese will eventually contribute to culture at least like Japan.

    Perhaps it sounds funny, but the boycotted 1980s Olympic might be seen one day, as the premonitory goodbye for this 20th century "Agon". Some symbolic moment of the world spirit, when people were suddenly expressing sadness as they were singing goodbye to the Olympic bear who flew away from Moscow, goes back to hide in the forest, and did not return.
    https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=TzuGK5tH1G4

    Replies: @songbird, @Philip Owen

    Russia dominates children’s animation. Niroshka TV and Masha and the Bear are in the top 5 (last time I looked) most watched children’s films on You Tube. Masha has often held #2 position. If Russia had sense they would build on this with coproductions et al.

  125. @AP
    @Dmitry

    Most educated Russians over 45 are well read. It was one of the few good features of the Soviet system. I remember fondly, back in the 90s, observing the people reading literature on the Moscow metro. Over time it devolved to trash books and finally phones.

    At a party back then my wife was once surprised to find an American with whom she could have an intelligent discussion of Latin American literature. Then the mystery was solved - the guy was a professor of that subject.

    So Martyianov is just a Russian guy over 45 who happens to have had a brief and mediocre (low rank) career in the Soviet military in his youth, who also writes in English and is willing to share his views with people who otherwise would never have encountered and interacted with a Soviet officer.

    Replies: @Dmitry, @Philip Owen

    The view from the bottom can reveal more than the view from the fast track even if what you say is true. Things are made to work or not in the middle.

  126. @Aedib
    @Mikhail

    Martyanov and The Saker belong to the team “We Russians are soooooooo powerful” which is a sort of mirror of the way bigger “We Americans are soooooooo powerful” team played by Stratfor, The Heritage Foundation, etc.
    While both “stronk teams” exercise in wishful thinking, they are basically inoffensive. The danger may arise if some politicians take decisions about the real world based in such a type of delusions. It seems to me that Russia is led by people with a ferocious and pragmatic realism but current USA no so. People like Kissinger are out of the last administrations.
    I recognize that Martyanov have knowledge about weapon systems while Saker sometimes seems to be out of the reality. Some technical analysis from Martyanov are very interesting but for geopolitical analysis I prefer people like Alexander Mercouris (pro-Russian bias but within the real world) rather than Saker.

    Replies: @Mikhail

  127. @AP
    @Aedib

    I just looked through Google and Twitter. FWIW Felgenhauer claimed that Trump was Putin’s puppet, that Russia was poised to invade Turkey in 2016, and that Russia he made a decision to occupy Ukraine’s South in May 2021. Haven’t read what he has to say right now, and don’t watch videos.

    Came across this from 2019: “Pavel Felgenhauer on the shipment of Russia's troubled new 40N6 missiles to China that was mysteriously "destroyed" by a storm: "Sinkings were a classic Soviet way of writing off defective equipment & parts. I signed such documents myself"

    Was he once involved in the Soviet defence industry?

    Replies: @Aedib, @Mikhail

    He’s if my not mistaken 71, which would make him Soviet era draft material. I’m reminded of this Twilight Zone character:

    Felgenhauer is saying and doing all this in Moscow, without any apparent hassle (no Intel knocks on the door or legal restrictions put on him) from the authorities.

    He’s also a blowhard:

    http://exile.ru/articles/detail.php?ARTICLE_ID=7937&IBLOCK_ID=35

  128. @AP
    @Mikhail

    Yes, those aren’t very objective either. Though no worse than what Russians claim about Ukrainian events.

    Replies: @Mikhail

    Felgy has gotten his share of play in the now defunct Kyiv Post.

  129. @Philip Owen
    @songbird

    Hunter gatherers burn forest to increase the amount of pasture for grazing animals.

    Replies: @songbird

    It is interesting to ponder whether they may have planted any trees, for pine nuts, acorns, and walnuts.

  130. @songbird
    @Dmitry


    My intuition is that Chinese culture will become much more productive by the middle of this century. But we might hope the Chinese will eventually contribute to culture at least like Japan.
     
    Don't know how common it is, but I've heard that some talented Japanese are beginning to jump ship to China because of stagnant wages and long hours - for instance, in anime.

    IMO, it is an interesting question, when most Americans will begin to feel like they are overshadowed by China and what will cause them to feel this way. Right now, short of some major change, it don't think they will feel that way by watching Chinese movies, even though Hollywood ones are quite bad.

    Winning a race to the Moon would seem like the possibly easy way to do it. What will happen, if it doesn't come easily? Maybe, war.

    Replies: @Yellowface Anon, @Dmitry

    China currently appears weak culturally.

    It should improve in the future. For example, as it’s known that much of students in elite art colleges in Western Europe and America, are from China. So China will have a lot more trained creative professionals in the future.

    However, even if they develop more skilled workers and higher incomes, it’s possible that the political system will prevent much of a cultural production.

    This can be like investments. If the country’s politicians can crush you when they like, there is a significant weight carrying down its cultural workers.

    In the USSR, there was among the most skilled creative professionals in the world, but there were limits for creativity, and then in postsoviet time hare have been many years of almost empty harvests. When there is a talented film director like Zvyagintsev, then the lowest cultural level politicians will be sure to try to disrupt him.

    Chinese movies, even though Hollywood ones are quite bad.

    A lot of Hollywood films have or were funded by China (or Chinese state vehicles) .

    For example, 25% of Paramount films, had been financed from China. After Baywatch (2017), they seemed to cancel this at least, so perhaps they try to stop wasting so much money on America, and focus on funding more domestic films. https://news.cgtn.com/news/3449544f34597a6333566d54/share.html

    • Replies: @songbird
    @Dmitry

    I think that the Soviet film industry was hampered a lot by economics, which is a problem that China has already circumvented, to a large degree. That leaves the political - the political priority seems to be to emphasize Chinese culture and domestic consumption, as China is still in a period of economic growth. By 2025 China is expected to have 100,000 screens. (US has 44,000), and the idea is to fill those seats. Though I think exports are a secondary goal - not unconsidered, but something not in focus, right now.

    And part of it is beyond political - learning the craft and learning to export.


    It should improve in the future.
     
    In a kind of subliminal sense, I suspect that it is improving now. For example, Netflix did buy the exclusive rights for The Wandering Earth (bad movie, IMO) for probably some millions. And they have bought other Chinese films. And though, I think HK is long past its heyday, the Chinese have been learning a lot of lessons by working with HK people. The number of films with HK influence is at an all time high, and some of them are the bigger hits.

    A lot of Hollywood films have or were funded by China
     
    There's a lot of foreign money that goes into Hollywood movies. In a certain way, I guess it is strange that we consider them "American" movies, even if Hollywood (using term broadly) itself is considered weird to a lot of Americans. Maybe, the fact that Chinese movies are starting from a Chinese base, might be a strategic strength?

    I was really shocked when Wanda bought the AMC theater chain. Seemed like a horrible waste of money. I suspect that it was built on past perceptions of prestige. It seems like a lot of Americans stopped going to the theaters. They have nowhere near the same amount of seats, as when I was a kid. In 2022, I don't even know where the local theater is - the closest one closed down and became an Amazon warehouse.

    Replies: @Yevardian

  131. @German_reader
    @Yevardian


    Not to mention, since all this global warming hysteria (I’m agnostic on the topic)
     
    I think it's real, the change in climate has been quite noticeable even over my lifetime, and I think it will indeed be a very serious issue (if the worst scenarios become reality, some regions might become entirely uninhabitable after all). Question is of course what to do about it, I don't believe the German Greens (deeply stupid people imo) have any sensible ideas. But the full-on denial of climate change a lot of right-wingers have adopted is counter-productive.
    The plastics issue might indeed be pretty bad, I'm rather disturbed by those suggestions that the steadily declining sperm count of men in Western countries might be due to cellular damage caused by ubiquituous plastics, definitely an issue that should be urgently investigated to a much greater extent, since it could eventually evolve into an existential threat. More generally, there's definitely a lot wrong with environmental influences in modern Western societies...I'm always surprised and somewhat baffled by how many people of my age seem to have pollen allergies and the like.
    Thanks for reminding me of Vaclav Smil, haven't yet read any of his books, but I probably should.

    Replies: @A123, @Dmitry, @songbird, @Mikel

    the change in climate has been quite noticeable even over my lifetime

    The change in climate has been noticeable over the lifetimes of everyone born in the last ~170 years, provided they lived past 3-4 decades.

    The planet began warming at the end of the Little Ice Age, in the mid 19th century. Records are less reliable in those early times but there are lots of land stations and maritime observations (sea water temperature logs collected by ships during decades while they traversed shipping lanes all over the globe) since the 19th century and sometimes earlier. The consensus estimate (from the IPCC itself) is that from 1850 to 1945 the global atmosphere warmed at a rate comparable to that of the most recent decades (less than a factor of 2 of difference):

    But we don’t know why this initial global warming took place. In its initial reports the IPCC attributed this early warming mainly to solar influences. But we now have much more precise data taken by satellites of how much solar irradiance varies between cycles of high to low solar activity and we know that it is not enough to alter the temperature significantly (which is why direct solar explanations for the current warming have also been discarded). The latest scientific reports of the IPCC (Working Group I) don’t include any consensus explanation for this initial global warming.

    One other interesting aspect of that graph is that when the actual concentration of CO2 and other anthropogenic greenhouse gases began to really rise in the atmosphere after the end of WWII, as observed at the Mauna Loa long-term observatory, the global temperature went down until the mid 70s. The usual explanation for this paradox is that the cooling was produced by sulfates and other industrial aerosols but this is debatable. This type of aerosols are short-lived, they get removed of the atmosphere by rain in a matter of days or weeks so they mostly affect the source regions and those downwind of them. However, the Southern Hemisphere, where these aerosols were practically absent, also cooled down from the mid 40s to the late 60s. Moreover, a strong cooling effect of sulfates that could more than compensate for the warming effect of GHGs would mean that nowadays we would be seeing strong cooling in regions heavily affected by aerosols, such as China, but we don’t see that.

    The media coverage of the climate change problem is abysmal. Biased, alarmist and politicized like on any other subject. Attributing all sorts of weather phenomena, such as a spat of tornadoes, to climate change is asinine. The frequency and intensity of tornadoes in the US has actually decreased over the past century. But it is impossible to get this kind of scientific facts from the MSM. One has to go to specialized blogs or, ironically, to the IPCC reports themselves.

    In summary, there are good grounds to be rather skeptical of the climate catastrophism. But at the same, time, we know from physical first principles that increasing amounts of CO2 and other long-lived GHGs must necessarily lead to a warmer global temperature. The question is how much warmer, what the effects will be and how logical it is with our present knowledge to reduce our wealth in order to try and combat these possible effects.

    In the mid 2000s Roger Pielke, a more or less skeptical climate researcher, argued that climate science was not being conducted as a real scientific discipline and asked what kind of observation would disprove specific claims made by the anthropogenic global warming theory, as is customary in all hard sciences.

    [MORE]

    A very interesting debate took place on the internet, far away from the mainstream discourse, and both skeptic and mainstream scientists agreed that in 2001, in the IPCC Third Assessment Report, a specific prediction was made of a global warming of 0.2C/decade from that date until the 3rd decade of this century, independent of the emissions scenario. The IPCC numerical models, taking into account the direct effects of the GHGs and the thermal lag of the oceans, showed that this would be the warming in the next 3 decades, largely independent of how much more CO2 we emitted.

    It soon became apparent that the models were overestimating the actual observed warming. In fact, from 2001 to 2015 all observational records, both surface and satellite-based, showed little or no warming during half of the period established in the IPCC 2001 prediction. This even led to the 5th Assessment Report to acknowledge the existence of a pause in global warming.

    But things changed dramatically in 2015-2016. First, a Super-Niño episode took place those years that moved the trend upwards and second, a paper was published in the literature arguing that the ocean part of the surface-based observational studies had important errors and the past global temperatures needed to be corrected downwards. This made the trend become more positive again. As a consequence of this paper, all surface records were corrected and now exhibited a trend line basically in agreement with the IPCC predictions. One of the two main satellite records (RSS) was also modified for different reasons to cool down the past and all but one satellite-based record (UAH) right now show broad agreement with the 0.2C/decade warming prediction.

    The models-observations discrepancy was solved in the worst possible way, by correcting the observations rather than by making the theory conform to the observed facts. But this is what the state of climate science is at present. If the global temperature continues warming at ~0.2/decade during the following 10 years and no more corrections are made to the observations, I think that one could more or less trust that the models are capturing the essence of how the atmosphere works with the current forcings. Making a successful prediction of how the global temperature will evolve in a period of 3 decades is a tremendous feat. But if we have another pause the conclusion will obviously have to be that mainstream climate science is exaggerating the global warming problem, which is probably the case even if that specific prediction pans out. The “Climategate” papers showing how the IPCC used to work for its initial reports show a disturbing picture of corrupt peer-review practices and generalized politicization.

    • Agree: utu
    • Replies: @utu
    @Mikel

    "but one satellite-based record (UAH)" - UAH product is controlled by two outliers not belonging to the consensus: Roy Spencer and John Christy. As long as Spencer and Christi are there I have some hope that satellite data won't be tweaked.

    I have serious doubts about the homogenization process and other corrections of the data from the past. It really seems that some data in some places were pushed down to show greater temperature gradients: "Who controls the past controls the future." Satellite data that are true global data exist only since the end of the 1970s.

    "The media coverage of the climate change problem is abysmal. " - At some point BBC, NYT and other important media outlets decided that there would no longer be any dispute about global warming and thus only pro global warming stories - sometimes very idiotic - are reported. All kinds of scum scientists in peripheral sciences jumped on the global warming bandwagon realizing that is where the money is. The public is bombarded with nonsense of irrelevant and false stories.

    You are right that there is some integrity left in science as counterclaims are being investigated to some degree and if only their results were reported and popularized we would have more cool heads about the global warming. However my personal experience of people from NOAA, NCAR, NASA and DOE who work on climate and atmospheric science do no make me too hopeful that some meaningful coalition of more reasonable skeptics would emerge from among them. Reasonable skeptics are still purged like Judith Curry. But life for atmospheric science practitioner was never that good as it is now as long as you go with the flow. Acid rain and ozone hole were just a prelude. Now they got drunk on power and prestige. They are like nuclear scientists in 1950s who won WWII and had power to destroy the whole world and thought that nuclear science and energy would answer all questions which led to hubris like nuclear planes. Most people were not aware that nuclear power was just the steam age technology where you would burn uranium instead of coal.

    Replies: @Mikel, @Philip Owen

  132. @LatW
    @Dmitry


    So Mr Hack buying food imported from Germany is not a bad idea at all.
     
    The higher end grocery stores in the US are of utmost quality. Especially smaller, local co-op type stores. They will mostly carry locally produced, very clean (non-GMO, no hormone, no corn syrup, organic, etc), often times family farm sourced, nicely packaged items, in a great variety. Including meat and seafood, good wines (both local and imported), higher quality supplements and cosmetics. But they will be a bit pricey. The way to go about this is to buy a smaller amount of higher quality items (they may be lower calorie and lower sugar content and more nutritionally dense at the same time). Unless you have a big family, ofc, but even then you can buy a lot of the produce, bulk staples at the co-op and maybe meat somewhere else. More commonly than in Europe, you can buy a lot of stuff in bulk, such as nuts, cereal, all types of exotic spices, teas, etc. So Mr Hack has nothing to worry about. :) Of course, these shops also carry imported items, like German and French cosmetics, wine. Although American wine is the same quality but cheaper.

    And, of course, there is the same class delineation between the higher end stores and regular stores, which is just reality. There's no need to trash the lower end stores, ofc, one just has to be more careful picking items there (read the contents).

    Replies: @Mr. Hack, @Dmitry, @AP

    American wine

    But if you like less famous grapes, it seems countries like Italy and France have a lot of specific ones.

    I’m not at all knowledgeable about wine. But I mean e.g. if you like some taste of a specific grape like “Greco Di Tufo”, then it seems you need to buy the Italian wine.

    They probably disagree that American wine is just as good as Italian or French.

    Lol Utu is definitely somekind of upper class connoisseur. And Yevardian is from Armenia, so probably fussy if they don’t sell orange wine in Whole Foods.

    Then there is AaronB who will start writing about “terroir” if he was here. But how much of AaronB’s income is wasted on tariffs for imported EU wine from Campagna or Loire Valley. And then Trump has added things like 25% tariff on Scottish whisky in the USA (25%!).

    Again I don’t know anything about wine. I did remember like some Californian brands for Merlot tastes different to the South American ones? However, my knowledge and sample far too small to say this is “terroir”.

    • Replies: @utu
    @Dmitry

    "Lol Utu is definitely some kind of upper class connoisseur. " - Fuck off and Fuck no, I disagreed because LatW's post was too Pollyannish about the special food stores, no GMO and so on in the US and too uncritical about the alleged importance of differences between foods in stores of class A and class B in terms of health impact.

    Yes, if he lives in Boulder, CO which was the epicenter of health food stores boom where the most important of them like Wild Oats were taken over by The Whole Foods (and I am dubious about TWF) I can see his position but I do not think that Boulder experience is scalable and I do not believe that you necessarily can trust local farmers or mom-and-pop stores and sometimes even less than big suppliers.

    I do not care about wines this way or another. Most I ever drunk I did not enjoy and most people who style themselves to be some kind of wine connoisseurs I see as people who are unaware of their own silliness and pretentiousness. The same goes for beer and whisky connoisseurs and the most ridiculous are vodka connoisseurs.

    Replies: @silviosilver, @Dmitry

    , @LatW
    @Dmitry

    I didn't mean for the conversation to veer towards just wine, it's just your passive aggressive dig about how Mr Hack needs Aldi to eat clean kind of triggered me. :) You're really good at that. :) When you said Mr Hack needs European stores with EU regulations to be protected and healthy it sounded a bit like when Andrei Martyanov said he won't be buying German cars because they are "over engineered and overpriced".

    High end grocery stores, especially the co-ops, are better than anything in Europe and Europe will probably never have anything of that quality or variety. And European stores, including in EE, are great. Btw, it's good that the EU has those protective regulations. But in the US it's less regulated (although I doubt it it's the case with food), but people get to choose themselves what's good for them or not. This is why religion was traditionally more important in the US, because religion helps you make more "healthy" lifestyle choices. You're independent but still constrained by religion. Anyway, nowadays it's a class thing. But it can make a difference, for instance, there is less sugar in the peanut butter and jelly that's sold at the high end store vs the regular store. Over the long term, this can make a difference in your child's weight.

    If Aldi is really as cheap as they say, then it speaks very well for Germany... not surprising as Germany is known for its cheap but good quality food, clothing and rents. When you take care of your population like that, that's a sign of real wealth.

    Replies: @Dmitry

  133. @AP
    @sher singh

    Austria-Hungary not looking too bad but
    PLC even better.

    Replies: @showmethereal, @silviosilver, @Aedib

    Yeah but Austria’s birth rate is 1.46 and Hungary is 1.49… Basically the whole region is below replacement…

    • Replies: @AP
    @showmethereal

    That's not good, but it is better than a higher birthrate in which non-natives are 30%. Better one's own country but with a smaller population, than another country.

    Replies: @showmethereal

  134. @songbird
    @German_reader


    But the full-on denial of climate change a lot of right-wingers have adopted is counter-productive.
     
    I'm a skeptic. But putting that aside, it is hard to see the benefit of giving ground.

    They seem to be saying stuff like, "The equatorial zone will become uninhabitable, so we will need to accept hundreds of millions of Africans and Arabs, starting now. And you must begin eating bugs."

    If they instead said, "We want your support for nuclear energy, in order to save the world. We are sorry about trying to drown you with Third Worlders and trying to turn everyone gay. To show our contrition, we are willing to deport all of the people you deem undesirable, starting with ourselves." Then my ears would really perk up.

    Replies: @Yellowface Anon, @Beckow, @A123

    it is hard to see the benefit of giving ground.

    They seem to be saying stuff like, “The equatorial zone will become uninhabitable, so we will need to accept hundreds of millions of Africans and Arabs, starting now. And you must begin eating bugs.”

    Small Modular Reactors [SMR] and Thorium fuel are obvious, science driven, choices to produce vast amounts of cheap, reliable. zero carbon electricity.

    Leftoids are highly emotional acolytes to faith based dogma. Wind turbines, solar panels, and electric cars solve nothing. However, they are highly visible symbols for virtue signaling.

    The last thing that Science Deniers want is a potentially effective solution. That would deprive them of the opportunity to be, “Pious In Their Prius“.

    PEACE 😇

    • Agree: songbird
  135. @Barbarossa
    https://www.forbes.com/sites/georgecalhoun/2022/01/02/beijing-is-intentionally-underreporting-chinas-covid-death-rate-part-1/?sh=27c339f44352

    An interesting read. I've thought that the Chinese official numbers seem clearly implausible, despite what Ron Unz says about the Uber-Chinese Covid Response. Even factoring in anti-Chinese motivations in a Western outlet, I find their estimate far more plausible that the Chinese self reporting.

    Replies: @showmethereal

    So you think the parties in Wuhan while the west was being ravaged was fake??? No they weren’t. Outsiders have to quarantine for 2 weeks in a hotel… When clusters erupt in a city there is mass testing and SERIOUS contact tracing…. If you had contact – you have to quarantine… it’s not an option. Enough cases in a city – they go into lockdown. No – you can’t even go to the supermarket. The supermarkets go to each housing area and delivers food to the people in a controlled environment. Unless you have been there or speak to someone who actually lives there – you wouldn’t understand. To even get on a domestic long distance train – you have to show Covid results… No such thing exists for domestic planes and trains in the US.
    Now in terms of reported cases – there is a difference because China only reports symptomatic cases… But the death rate??? Nope… They really take it that serious.

    The death rate in Hong Kong and Singapore was similar… Until South Korea began to open up and follow the west – it’s death rate was similar as well. What about “Taiwan”??? There death rate is the same. So those US friends death rates are not questionable?? No – the answer is they all handled it very similarly (until recently).

    • Replies: @Yellowface Anon
    @showmethereal

    This is why it's unsustainable in the face of Omicron, which is far more transmissible but less virulent and lethal. I can imagine the entirety of China under such kind of lockdown for months on end, which will crush the entire global supply chain and fulfill A123's dream of total production onshoring. Xian citizens are already sending SOS messages of shortages as this kind of distribution system is starting to fail, now scale it up to 1.4 billion in a few months. It will be the Great Leap Forward 2.0, and I hope they have learnt their lesson in not being institutionally suicidal. We count on a strong China to counter a failing US, and if both of them fails, the WEF takes over.

    Replies: @PedroAstra, @Showmethereal

  136. @AP
    @sher singh

    Austria-Hungary not looking too bad but
    PLC even better.

    Replies: @showmethereal, @silviosilver, @Aedib

    Austria-Hungary not looking too bad

    Exactly. And we all know it’s only going to improve from here.

    Oh wait.

  137. @AP
    @sher singh

    Austria-Hungary not looking too bad but
    PLC even better.

    Replies: @showmethereal, @silviosilver, @Aedib

    The Carolingian empire is screwed.

    • Agree: AP
  138. https://www.foxbusiness.com/technology/elizabeth-holmes-decision

    She is guilty on four of the counts after 6 days of jury deliberation. I wonder if Gwern will update his opinion that she could be back doing startups real soon now.

    Who gets a longer sentence? Holmes or Maxwell?

  139. @Mikel
    @German_reader


    the change in climate has been quite noticeable even over my lifetime
     
    The change in climate has been noticeable over the lifetimes of everyone born in the last ~170 years, provided they lived past 3-4 decades.

    The planet began warming at the end of the Little Ice Age, in the mid 19th century. Records are less reliable in those early times but there are lots of land stations and maritime observations (sea water temperature logs collected by ships during decades while they traversed shipping lanes all over the globe) since the 19th century and sometimes earlier. The consensus estimate (from the IPCC itself) is that from 1850 to 1945 the global atmosphere warmed at a rate comparable to that of the most recent decades (less than a factor of 2 of difference):

    https://earthobservatory.nasa.gov/ContentFeature/GlobalWarming/images/giss_temperature.png

    But we don’t know why this initial global warming took place. In its initial reports the IPCC attributed this early warming mainly to solar influences. But we now have much more precise data taken by satellites of how much solar irradiance varies between cycles of high to low solar activity and we know that it is not enough to alter the temperature significantly (which is why direct solar explanations for the current warming have also been discarded). The latest scientific reports of the IPCC (Working Group I) don’t include any consensus explanation for this initial global warming.

    One other interesting aspect of that graph is that when the actual concentration of CO2 and other anthropogenic greenhouse gases began to really rise in the atmosphere after the end of WWII, as observed at the Mauna Loa long-term observatory, the global temperature went down until the mid 70s. The usual explanation for this paradox is that the cooling was produced by sulfates and other industrial aerosols but this is debatable. This type of aerosols are short-lived, they get removed of the atmosphere by rain in a matter of days or weeks so they mostly affect the source regions and those downwind of them. However, the Southern Hemisphere, where these aerosols were practically absent, also cooled down from the mid 40s to the late 60s. Moreover, a strong cooling effect of sulfates that could more than compensate for the warming effect of GHGs would mean that nowadays we would be seeing strong cooling in regions heavily affected by aerosols, such as China, but we don’t see that.

    The media coverage of the climate change problem is abysmal. Biased, alarmist and politicized like on any other subject. Attributing all sorts of weather phenomena, such as a spat of tornadoes, to climate change is asinine. The frequency and intensity of tornadoes in the US has actually decreased over the past century. But it is impossible to get this kind of scientific facts from the MSM. One has to go to specialized blogs or, ironically, to the IPCC reports themselves.

    In summary, there are good grounds to be rather skeptical of the climate catastrophism. But at the same, time, we know from physical first principles that increasing amounts of CO2 and other long-lived GHGs must necessarily lead to a warmer global temperature. The question is how much warmer, what the effects will be and how logical it is with our present knowledge to reduce our wealth in order to try and combat these possible effects.

    In the mid 2000s Roger Pielke, a more or less skeptical climate researcher, argued that climate science was not being conducted as a real scientific discipline and asked what kind of observation would disprove specific claims made by the anthropogenic global warming theory, as is customary in all hard sciences.



    A very interesting debate took place on the internet, far away from the mainstream discourse, and both skeptic and mainstream scientists agreed that in 2001, in the IPCC Third Assessment Report, a specific prediction was made of a global warming of 0.2C/decade from that date until the 3rd decade of this century, independent of the emissions scenario. The IPCC numerical models, taking into account the direct effects of the GHGs and the thermal lag of the oceans, showed that this would be the warming in the next 3 decades, largely independent of how much more CO2 we emitted.

    It soon became apparent that the models were overestimating the actual observed warming. In fact, from 2001 to 2015 all observational records, both surface and satellite-based, showed little or no warming during half of the period established in the IPCC 2001 prediction. This even led to the 5th Assessment Report to acknowledge the existence of a pause in global warming.

    But things changed dramatically in 2015-2016. First, a Super-Niño episode took place those years that moved the trend upwards and second, a paper was published in the literature arguing that the ocean part of the surface-based observational studies had important errors and the past global temperatures needed to be corrected downwards. This made the trend become more positive again. As a consequence of this paper, all surface records were corrected and now exhibited a trend line basically in agreement with the IPCC predictions. One of the two main satellite records (RSS) was also modified for different reasons to cool down the past and all but one satellite-based record (UAH) right now show broad agreement with the 0.2C/decade warming prediction.

    The models-observations discrepancy was solved in the worst possible way, by correcting the observations rather than by making the theory conform to the observed facts. But this is what the state of climate science is at present. If the global temperature continues warming at ~0.2/decade during the following 10 years and no more corrections are made to the observations, I think that one could more or less trust that the models are capturing the essence of how the atmosphere works with the current forcings. Making a successful prediction of how the global temperature will evolve in a period of 3 decades is a tremendous feat. But if we have another pause the conclusion will obviously have to be that mainstream climate science is exaggerating the global warming problem, which is probably the case even if that specific prediction pans out. The “Climategate” papers showing how the IPCC used to work for its initial reports show a disturbing picture of corrupt peer-review practices and generalized politicization.

    Replies: @utu

    “but one satellite-based record (UAH)” – UAH product is controlled by two outliers not belonging to the consensus: Roy Spencer and John Christy. As long as Spencer and Christi are there I have some hope that satellite data won’t be tweaked.

    I have serious doubts about the homogenization process and other corrections of the data from the past. It really seems that some data in some places were pushed down to show greater temperature gradients: “Who controls the past controls the future.” Satellite data that are true global data exist only since the end of the 1970s.

    “The media coverage of the climate change problem is abysmal. ” – At some point BBC, NYT and other important media outlets decided that there would no longer be any dispute about global warming and thus only pro global warming stories – sometimes very idiotic – are reported. All kinds of scum scientists in peripheral sciences jumped on the global warming bandwagon realizing that is where the money is. The public is bombarded with nonsense of irrelevant and false stories.

    You are right that there is some integrity left in science as counterclaims are being investigated to some degree and if only their results were reported and popularized we would have more cool heads about the global warming. However my personal experience of people from NOAA, NCAR, NASA and DOE who work on climate and atmospheric science do no make me too hopeful that some meaningful coalition of more reasonable skeptics would emerge from among them. Reasonable skeptics are still purged like Judith Curry. But life for atmospheric science practitioner was never that good as it is now as long as you go with the flow. Acid rain and ozone hole were just a prelude. Now they got drunk on power and prestige. They are like nuclear scientists in 1950s who won WWII and had power to destroy the whole world and thought that nuclear science and energy would answer all questions which led to hubris like nuclear planes. Most people were not aware that nuclear power was just the steam age technology where you would burn uranium instead of coal.

    • Replies: @Mikel
    @utu


    As long as Spencer and Christi are there I have some hope that satellite data won’t be tweaked.
     
    To be fair, they also modified the UAH record. But they did it in both directions, which is what you expect from observational errors, that they will be random, and not always in the same direction, as we only seem to get from the "consensus" temperature series. Still, Steven Mosher, part of the Berkeley Earth team and former skeptical blogger, says that the net effect of the homogenization of land records is to reduce the historical warming.

    Reasonable skeptics are still purged like Judith Curry.
     
    Judith Curry committed the worst sin. She transitioned from part of consensus group to the skeptical camp and now doesn't bother trying to publish. She explained that it's not worth the effort, trying to circumvent the "peer-review" gatekeepers. Still, her latest papers were at least mentioned in the last IPCC report and she has been testifying before Congress several times.

    I think that the Working Group I reports of the IPCC (the scientific basis) have become quite reasonable, despite their pro-model bias, unlike the jokes of the WG-II, WG-III and the Summary for Policymakers, which is actually negotiated with the politicians themselves and often contains claims that are contradictory with the WG-I contents.

    I have an open mind to the global warming question but I'm old enough to remember how this scare began, right after the global cooling scare, and I've seen too many predictions that never materialized, such as part of Manhattan being under water by the year 2000 (James Hansen dixit). It is quite obvious that the climate science field is full of second-rate researchers who went to College with the intention of saving the world rather than the much more difficult task of understanding how nature really works.

    The most likely scenario while we trasition away from fossil fuels is a continuation of the benign warming that we have experienced up to now (both natural and man-made) but it has already become impossible to take rational measures based on a sane cost-benefit analysis. The Gretinist camp has won and I fear irrational politician's actions more than global warming itself. They are clueless and, by their own words, they genuinely believe that we can stop floods and hurricanes from happening if we abandon fossil fuels.

    Replies: @A123

    , @Philip Owen
    @utu

    I will add my concerns about the probity of the Hadley Centre in the UK. It was set up by Mrs Thatcher (a CAGR believer with the data of the time, as was I) to confirm CAGR. It is colocated with the Meterological Office.

    Replies: @utu

  140. @Dmitry
    @songbird

    China currently appears weak culturally.

    It should improve in the future. For example, as it's known that much of students in elite art colleges in Western Europe and America, are from China. So China will have a lot more trained creative professionals in the future.

    However, even if they develop more skilled workers and higher incomes, it's possible that the political system will prevent much of a cultural production.

    This can be like investments. If the country's politicians can crush you when they like, there is a significant weight carrying down its cultural workers.

    In the USSR, there was among the most skilled creative professionals in the world, but there were limits for creativity, and then in postsoviet time hare have been many years of almost empty harvests. When there is a talented film director like Zvyagintsev, then the lowest cultural level politicians will be sure to try to disrupt him.


    Chinese movies, even though Hollywood ones are quite bad.
     
    A lot of Hollywood films have or were funded by China (or Chinese state vehicles) .

    For example, 25% of Paramount films, had been financed from China. After Baywatch (2017), they seemed to cancel this at least, so perhaps they try to stop wasting so much money on America, and focus on funding more domestic films. https://news.cgtn.com/news/3449544f34597a6333566d54/share.html

    Replies: @songbird

    I think that the Soviet film industry was hampered a lot by economics, which is a problem that China has already circumvented, to a large degree. That leaves the political – the political priority seems to be to emphasize Chinese culture and domestic consumption, as China is still in a period of economic growth. By 2025 China is expected to have 100,000 screens. (US has 44,000), and the idea is to fill those seats. Though I think exports are a secondary goal – not unconsidered, but something not in focus, right now.

    And part of it is beyond political – learning the craft and learning to export.

    It should improve in the future.

    In a kind of subliminal sense, I suspect that it is improving now. For example, Netflix did buy the exclusive rights for The Wandering Earth (bad movie, IMO) for probably some millions. And they have bought other Chinese films.

    [MORE]
    And though, I think HK is long past its heyday, the Chinese have been learning a lot of lessons by working with HK people. The number of films with HK influence is at an all time high, and some of them are the bigger hits.

    A lot of Hollywood films have or were funded by China

    There’s a lot of foreign money that goes into Hollywood movies. In a certain way, I guess it is strange that we consider them “American” movies, even if Hollywood (using term broadly) itself is considered weird to a lot of Americans. Maybe, the fact that Chinese movies are starting from a Chinese base, might be a strategic strength?

    I was really shocked when Wanda bought the AMC theater chain. Seemed like a horrible waste of money. I suspect that it was built on past perceptions of prestige. It seems like a lot of Americans stopped going to the theaters. They have nowhere near the same amount of seats, as when I was a kid. In 2022, I don’t even know where the local theater is – the closest one closed down and became an Amazon warehouse.

    • Replies: @Yevardian
    @songbird


    I think that the Soviet film industry was hampered a lot by economics, which is a problem that China has already circumvented, to a large degree.
     
    What the hell are you talking about? The USSR made an extremely large proportion of the greatest films ever made. Soviet-era directors like Alexei German, Aleksandr Sokurov & Nikita Mikhalkov continued to make strong films even after the dissolution of the USSR, sometimes obtaining non-Russian funding on the strength of their reputations.
    Even the average output was of very high quality, there was little to no outright trash, no pandering to people's worst instincts, and films of that era remain popular to this day in all the former states of the Soviet Union (perhaps with the exception of the Balts, which I can't speak of, though I imagine cinema output crashed utterly there, as everywhere else in the region).

    Quality filmmaking, like airlines or non-profitable areas of scientific research, depends heavily on state-protectionism and funding, being as expensive and volatile as it is. Look at the total collapse of European film production outside of France (which continues to heavily subsidise its industry) since the 1980s, with most other European films being produced in conjuction with French funding and technical support.

    I don't actually this is a trivial issue either, especially with the Western youth population becoming increasingly illiterate, states should put up some sort of effort to stall the total Americanisation of its coming generation.

    I can't really say the same for Chinese films (I have seen about 30 odd, not a large number), certainly not in terms of artistic quality, though I understand that they do very well financially. Though that still says very little about their intrinsic merits, given China's enormous internal market and its cultural distinctiveness.

    Replies: @Shortsword, @songbird, @Dmitry

  141. @Dmitry
    @LatW


    American wine
     
    But if you like less famous grapes, it seems countries like Italy and France have a lot of specific ones.

    I'm not at all knowledgeable about wine. But I mean e.g. if you like some taste of a specific grape like "Greco Di Tufo", then it seems you need to buy the Italian wine.


    They probably disagree that American wine is just as good as Italian or French.

     

    Lol Utu is definitely somekind of upper class connoisseur. And Yevardian is from Armenia, so probably fussy if they don't sell orange wine in Whole Foods.

    Then there is AaronB who will start writing about "terroir" if he was here. But how much of AaronB's income is wasted on tariffs for imported EU wine from Campagna or Loire Valley. And then Trump has added things like 25% tariff on Scottish whisky in the USA (25%!).

    Again I don't know anything about wine. I did remember like some Californian brands for Merlot tastes different to the South American ones? However, my knowledge and sample far too small to say this is "terroir".

    Replies: @utu, @LatW

    “Lol Utu is definitely some kind of upper class connoisseur. ” – Fuck off and Fuck no, I disagreed because LatW’s post was too Pollyannish about the special food stores, no GMO and so on in the US and too uncritical about the alleged importance of differences between foods in stores of class A and class B in terms of health impact.

    Yes, if he lives in Boulder, CO which was the epicenter of health food stores boom where the most important of them like Wild Oats were taken over by The Whole Foods (and I am dubious about TWF) I can see his position but I do not think that Boulder experience is scalable and I do not believe that you necessarily can trust local farmers or mom-and-pop stores and sometimes even less than big suppliers.

    I do not care about wines this way or another. Most I ever drunk I did not enjoy and most people who style themselves to be some kind of wine connoisseurs I see as people who are unaware of their own silliness and pretentiousness. The same goes for beer and whisky connoisseurs and the most ridiculous are vodka connoisseurs.

    • Replies: @silviosilver
    @utu


    I do not care about wines this way or another. Most I ever drunk I did not enjoy and most people who style themselves to be some kind of wine connoisseurs I see as people who are unaware of their own silliness and pretentiousness. The same goes for beer and whisky connoisseurs and the most ridiculous are vodka connoisseurs.
     
    Of course. They can discuss taste and flavor all day long, but if those beverages did not contain alcohol, virtually nobody would drink them.
    , @Dmitry
    @utu


    Fuck no, I disagreed
     
    Ok you can still pretend you are not an upper class connoisseur.

    But lol there is some people here like AaronB definitely already betrayed they are not on the side of the working class, after that post he was writing about why he only eats Normandy butter and appreciates "Jasper Hill Farms in Vermont" https://www.unz.com/akarlin/open-thread-168/#comment-4969089


    health food stores boom where the most important of them like Wild Oats were taken over by The Whole Foods (and I am dubious about TWF)
     
    This Whole Foods chain was what they were referring in 0:30 in a Sacha Baron Cohen film "Dictator (2012)" (btw this film is not recommended even as a comedy film, although with some funny sections).

    https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=WnRnwJuW_Zg


    vodka connoisseurs.
     
    Yes I felt like although there are great differences in the taste of vodka, it's all because you buy a really too cheap bottle. As long as you didn't buy a too cheap bottle, then it tastes not much better or worse. Although who knows maybe the connoisseurs notice more.
  142. Were the Scythians proto-Ukrainians? Or did the Slavs kill them off, like in the Russian movie The Scythian (2018)?

    And should we believe Herodotus, when he says that they wove marijuana into clothing, as well as bathed in its smoke? Not to mention, had capes made out of the scalps of their enemies?

    • Replies: @AP
    @songbird

    Scythians and their cousins the Sarmatians made a genetic contribution to the proto-Slavs and several Slavic words came from their languages, but they were a different people. I guess a rough analogy might be to the Norse influence and settlement among the Gaels, they were thoroughly assimilated and the language borrowings are so ancient they don't feel like foreign borrowings. But they are a different people.

    https://www.quora.com/How-many-Norse-loanwords-do-you-find-in-Irish

    This occurred before the Slavs spread out from their original homeland in northern Ukraine/southern Belarus/eastern Poland, so all the Slavs are a little bit Scythian (and Sarmatian) though Ukrainians perhaps more than the others because they stayed in the original homeland and didn't mix with others as they moved out (like Russians mixed with Finnic peoples, Czechs with Germans).

    Details of the influence of Scythian and Sarmatian Iranic languages on proto-Slavic are here:

    https://referenceworks.brillonline.com/entries/encyclopaedia-iranica-online/slavic-iranian-contacts-linguistic-relations-COM_336467

    The consensus within the current state of research holds that Iranian- and Slavic-speaking peoples came into contact in the second half of the first millennium BCE in the transition zone between steppe and forest to the north of the Black Sea.The Scythian language of these Iranians is known only fragmentarily, from names quoted by Herodotus and other ancient Greek authors and inscriptions from the northern coast of the Black Sea (see SCYTHIAN LANGUAGE); it has also left its trace in numerous place names, most famously the rivers Danube, Dniester, Dnieper, and Don (Ancient Gk. Tánais), all containing PIr. (Proto-Iranian) *dānu- ‘river’ (cf. Oss. don). The Scythians were dispersed westward by the arrival of the Sarmatians, who dominated the steppe in the last centuries BCE and early centuries CE. Commercial and military contacts between Iranians and Slavs intensified during this period, as successive waves of peoples moving westward from Asia pushed the Sarmatians and then the Alans west and north into the proximity of the Slavs’ home territory.

    That the religious and cultural worldview of the Iranians influenced the early Slavs is demonstrated by Slavic lexical items with solid PIE etymologies, but whose meanings are otherwise restricted to Iranian (Jakobson; Kuryłowicz; Benveniste, 1967): PSl. (Proto-Slavic) *slava ‘word’ (OCSl. [Old Church Slavonic] slovo) < OIr. *sravah- ‘glory, renown; word’ (Av. sravah-; contrast Ved. (Vedic) śrávas-, Gk. kléos ‘glory’); *bagu ‘riches, richness; god’ (OCSl. bogŭ; cf. bog-atŭ ‘rich,’ u-bogŭ ‘poor’; later replaced in the sense “richness” by bogatĭstvo) < OIr. *baga- ‘fortune; god’ (Av. baga- ‘share, lot; god,’ Sogd. βɣ- ‘god’; contrast Ved. bhága- ‘abundance; allocation (with reference to gods)’); and probably also *dīvu ‘demon, evil spirit of wilderness’ (OCSl. divŭ; cf. Old Rus. díviĭ, BCSM divlji ‘wild,’ Cz. divý ‘wild, mad,’ Bulg. div ‘wild, feral’) < OIr. *daiva- (q.v.) ‘demon, daēvic being’ (Av. daēva-, OPers. daiva-; contrast Ved. devá-, Lith. diẽvas, Lat. deus, Old Irish día ‘god’) and *rāji ‘paradise’ (OCSl. rajĭ) Arm. bagin ‘altar’; Reczek, 1987). The opposition of *bagu and *dīvu, and particularly the semantic depreciation of the latter from “god” to “demon,” suggest that the Iranians with whom the early Slavs came into contact adhered to a “primitive” version of Mazdaean dualism (Gołąb, 1975). However, despite the claims of Jakobson and others, no names of pagan Slavic deities may be definitively identified as Iranian borrowings.

    Standing beside these religious borrowings or calques are potential examples related to social organization: PSl. *mīru ‘world, peace’ (OCSl. mirŭ; Old Rus. mirŭ ‘village community’) < PIr. *miθra- (Humbach, pp. 124-25); PSl. *gaspadi ‘lord’ (OCSl. gospodĭ) < Mid. Pers. *guspad < OIr. *wić-pati- (with the Middle Persian change of word-initial *wi-) or Mid. Ir. *gas(t)pad < OIr. *gasti-pati- (Szemerényi, pp. 384-86, with preference for the former; but gospodĭ could have been remodeled after svobodĭ ‘free’).Additional items with likely Iranian sources are OCSl. čaša ‘potḗrion,’ Rus. chásha ‘drinking glass, bowl,’ etc. < Ir. *čaša(ka)- (to the root of Mod. Pers. čašidan ‘taste’; cf. Skt. caṣaka- ‘cup, wine glass,’ Arm. čašak ‘drinking vessel’); Rus. sobáka ‘dog’ (also attested outside East Slavic in Pol. (dial.), Kashubian sobaka ‘lecherous man’), which despite doubts can hardly be separated from Av. spaka- ‘doglike,’ Median spáka ‘female dog’ (Herodotus); PSl. taparu ‘ax’ (OCSl. toporŭ, Rus. topór) < Mid. Ir. *tapara- (Mid. Pers. tabrak, Pers. tabar, cf. Arm. tapar; perhaps metathesized from the notorious Wanderwort attested in Oss. færæt, Khot. paḍa, Toch. B peret, A porat, Turk. balta, etc.; see Abaev, 1995, I, p. 451); and, among words beginning with x-, *xarnā ‘food, sustenance’ (OCSl. xrana, Bulg. khrana, BCSM hrana) < OIr. *xwarnah- (Av. xvarənah- ‘food, drink’; Reczek, 1968), *xvaru ‘sick’ (Rus. khvóryĭ ‘sickly,’ Pol. chory ‘sick’) < OIr. *xwara- (Av. xvara- ‘wound’), and perhaps the name of the Croats, *xŭrvatŭ, if from OIr. *(fšu-)harwatar- ‘pastoralist’ (cf. Av. pasuš.hauruua- ‘watching over sheep’; Vasmer, 1953-58, III, p. 261). Two words of Iranian origin which have spread far and wide beyond Slavic are *xumeli ‘hops’ (OCSl. xŭmelĭ, Rus. khmel’, Pol. chmiel) < OIr. *hauma-aryaka- ‘Aryan soma’ (Oss. xwymællæg, Digor xumællæg ‘hops’; also borrowed into Germanic, Finno-Ugric, and Turkic; see Abaev, 1995, IV, pp. 261-62) and OCSl. sapogŭ ‘hypódēma,’ Rus. sapóg ‘boot’ < Mid. Ir. *sapaga- ‘hoof’ (cf. Av. safa-, Oss. sæftæg), the source of Mong. sab, Manchu sabu ‘shoe’ (Vasmer, 1953-58, II, pp. 578).

    To the second period of Slavic-Iranian contacts belong specifically East Slavic lexical items of Iranian origin.Their number is modest, but three likely examples are Old Rus. íreĭ (also výreĭ, výraĭ) ‘a southern land to which birds of passage migrate, a fabled magical realm’ < OIr. *a(i)rya- ‘Aryan’ (cf. Av. airiia-, OPers. ariya-; Vasmer, 1913, pp. 176-77; idem. 1924, pp. 367 [1971, pp. 6, 172]), Rus. mórda ‘snout’ < OIr. *mr̥da- ‘head’ (cf. Av. kamərəδa- ‘head (daēvic),’ Skt. mūrdhán- ‘head, peak’), and Rus. Church Slavonic xoměstorŭ ‘hamster’ < Mid. Ir. *hamēstar- (cf. Av. hamaēstar- ‘the one who throws to the ground’).Other candidates are Rus. step’ ‘steppe,’ cf. Oss. t’æp’æn ‘flat, level’ (< PIr. *(s)tap-; Bailey, p. 87; Trubachev, p. 39); Rus. khoróshiĭ ‘good,’ cf. Oss. xorz (Digor xwarz, Alanic [Tzetzes] xas /xwarz/); and Ukr. kháta ‘hut,’ if from OIr. *kata- ‘room, chamber’ (Av. kata-; Trubachev, pp. 41).In contrast, the West Slavic Iranianisms claimed by Trubachev and others, including such common verbs as Pol. patrzeć, patrzyć ‘look (at),’ Cz. patřit ‘belong’; Pol. (dial.) szatrzyć ‘know, remember,’ Cz. šetřit ‘save, spare’; Pol. dbać, Cz. dbát ‘take care’; and the all-important title Pol. pan, Cz. pán (Old Cz. hpán) < PSl. *gŭpanŭ < OIr. *gu-pāna- ‘cowherd’ (cf. Av. pəšu.pāna- ‘bridge-guarding,’ CSogd. xwšp’ny < *fšu-pāna-ka- ‘shepherd,’ but why *gu- for OIr. *gau- ‘cow’?) must be regarded as extremely uncertain (for alternative etymologies, see the respective entries in Rejzek, Boryś) and how such influence of an Iranian variety on the western dialects of Slavic could be interpreted in historical terms is also far from obvious.

    ::::::::::::::::::::::::

    Although the Slavs are partially Scythian/Sarmatian, the Ossetians are the last remaining "pure" speakers of that language.

    Replies: @songbird

    , @Emil Nikola Richard
    @songbird

    https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=_1OVwuCdkK4

    (fellow who made the video is a zealot! It's a pretty decent video.)

  143. @showmethereal
    @AP

    Yeah but Austria's birth rate is 1.46 and Hungary is 1.49... Basically the whole region is below replacement...

    Replies: @AP

    That’s not good, but it is better than a higher birthrate in which non-natives are 30%. Better one’s own country but with a smaller population, than another country.

    • Replies: @showmethereal
    @AP

    Oh - I see what you mean... The origin of it though was those who talk of "demographic collapse" being a detriment to some countries - while seeming to leave out others with the same predicament... But I get you.

  144. @LatW
    @Dmitry


    So Mr Hack buying food imported from Germany is not a bad idea at all.
     
    The higher end grocery stores in the US are of utmost quality. Especially smaller, local co-op type stores. They will mostly carry locally produced, very clean (non-GMO, no hormone, no corn syrup, organic, etc), often times family farm sourced, nicely packaged items, in a great variety. Including meat and seafood, good wines (both local and imported), higher quality supplements and cosmetics. But they will be a bit pricey. The way to go about this is to buy a smaller amount of higher quality items (they may be lower calorie and lower sugar content and more nutritionally dense at the same time). Unless you have a big family, ofc, but even then you can buy a lot of the produce, bulk staples at the co-op and maybe meat somewhere else. More commonly than in Europe, you can buy a lot of stuff in bulk, such as nuts, cereal, all types of exotic spices, teas, etc. So Mr Hack has nothing to worry about. :) Of course, these shops also carry imported items, like German and French cosmetics, wine. Although American wine is the same quality but cheaper.

    And, of course, there is the same class delineation between the higher end stores and regular stores, which is just reality. There's no need to trash the lower end stores, ofc, one just has to be more careful picking items there (read the contents).

    Replies: @Mr. Hack, @Dmitry, @AP

    At the start of Covid we switched to Wholefoods because the public there was much more likely to be masked, and noticed an improved quality in seafood and meats versus the regular grocery store. However, neighborhood butchers and local East European ethnic stores are as good or better than Wholefoods at a much lower price.

  145. Could AK claim Italian citizenship based on their definition of jus sanguinis?

    And shouldn’t it be considered a structural flaw of the EU, as it seems to open up the possibility than tens of millions of Mestizos could immigrate to Europe? (not counting the millions who have come already)

    • Replies: @Yellowface Anon
    @songbird

    "White Hispanic" Criollos (under the old colonial caste system) should definitely be able to claim Spanish & Portuguese citizenship.

    Replies: @songbird

    , @Dmitry
    @songbird

    I guess it's interesting question, if Italy accepts those commercial DNA tests (I doubt it). Italy does give citizenship to anyone with an Italian ancestor. But the commercial DNA test can probably just misread people from small nationality who were not in their database. Are there any DNA experts here who can comment.

    Karlin's said he is descended from Laks, which is a very small tribal nationality in Dagestan, with only a few thousand people. It's possible the DNA test company simply doesn't have an Lak people in its database. Maybe the company doesn't want to provide refunds (they are just private money-makers) and assigns some Italian ancestry to the mystery DNA, as that had some similar patterns.

    It wouldn't be surprising if Karlin was the first person from Lak nationality to apply for a DNA test.

    If you look at the interviews of a Lak at 1:09 in the video, they have identical twin of AK. Such a visual resemblance is perhaps more accurate than the commercial DNA test, for such a small nationality.

    This dude at 1:09 it looks visually identical to Karlin. So there is indeed probably the real nationality.

    https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=NmLXW4QSpmM

    It would be funny if you could attain Italian nationality though by such methods. Kind of absurd but it would be worth trying considering the potential reward would be so high.

    Replies: @songbird

  146. @AP
    @showmethereal

    That's not good, but it is better than a higher birthrate in which non-natives are 30%. Better one's own country but with a smaller population, than another country.

    Replies: @showmethereal

    Oh – I see what you mean… The origin of it though was those who talk of “demographic collapse” being a detriment to some countries – while seeming to leave out others with the same predicament… But I get you.

  147. AP says:
    @songbird
    Were the Scythians proto-Ukrainians? Or did the Slavs kill them off, like in the Russian movie The Scythian (2018)?

    And should we believe Herodotus, when he says that they wove marijuana into clothing, as well as bathed in its smoke? Not to mention, had capes made out of the scalps of their enemies?

    Replies: @AP, @Emil Nikola Richard

    Scythians and their cousins the Sarmatians made a genetic contribution to the proto-Slavs and several Slavic words came from their languages, but they were a different people. I guess a rough analogy might be to the Norse influence and settlement among the Gaels, they were thoroughly assimilated and the language borrowings are so ancient they don’t feel like foreign borrowings. But they are a different people.

    https://www.quora.com/How-many-Norse-loanwords-do-you-find-in-Irish

    This occurred before the Slavs spread out from their original homeland in northern Ukraine/southern Belarus/eastern Poland, so all the Slavs are a little bit Scythian (and Sarmatian) though Ukrainians perhaps more than the others because they stayed in the original homeland and didn’t mix with others as they moved out (like Russians mixed with Finnic peoples, Czechs with Germans).

    Details of the influence of Scythian and Sarmatian Iranic languages on proto-Slavic are here:

    https://referenceworks.brillonline.com/entries/encyclopaedia-iranica-online/slavic-iranian-contacts-linguistic-relations-COM_336467

    [MORE]

    The consensus within the current state of research holds that Iranian- and Slavic-speaking peoples came into contact in the second half of the first millennium BCE in the transition zone between steppe and forest to the north of the Black Sea.The Scythian language of these Iranians is known only fragmentarily, from names quoted by Herodotus and other ancient Greek authors and inscriptions from the northern coast of the Black Sea (see SCYTHIAN LANGUAGE); it has also left its trace in numerous place names, most famously the rivers Danube, Dniester, Dnieper, and Don (Ancient Gk. Tánais), all containing PIr. (Proto-Iranian) *dānu- ‘river’ (cf. Oss. don). The Scythians were dispersed westward by the arrival of the Sarmatians, who dominated the steppe in the last centuries BCE and early centuries CE. Commercial and military contacts between Iranians and Slavs intensified during this period, as successive waves of peoples moving westward from Asia pushed the Sarmatians and then the Alans west and north into the proximity of the Slavs’ home territory.

    That the religious and cultural worldview of the Iranians influenced the early Slavs is demonstrated by Slavic lexical items with solid PIE etymologies, but whose meanings are otherwise restricted to Iranian (Jakobson; Kuryłowicz; Benveniste, 1967): PSl. (Proto-Slavic) *slava ‘word’ (OCSl. [Old Church Slavonic] slovo) < OIr. *sravah- ‘glory, renown; word’ (Av. sravah-; contrast Ved. (Vedic) śrávas-, Gk. kléos ‘glory’); *bagu ‘riches, richness; god’ (OCSl. bogŭ; cf. bog-atŭ ‘rich,’ u-bogŭ ‘poor’; later replaced in the sense “richness” by bogatĭstvo) < OIr. *baga- ‘fortune; god’ (Av. baga- ‘share, lot; god,’ Sogd. βɣ- ‘god’; contrast Ved. bhága- ‘abundance; allocation (with reference to gods)’); and probably also *dīvu ‘demon, evil spirit of wilderness’ (OCSl. divŭ; cf. Old Rus. díviĭ, BCSM divlji ‘wild,’ Cz. divý ‘wild, mad,’ Bulg. div ‘wild, feral’) < OIr. *daiva- (q.v.) ‘demon, daēvic being’ (Av. daēva-, OPers. daiva-; contrast Ved. devá-, Lith. diẽvas, Lat. deus, Old Irish día ‘god’) and *rāji ‘paradise’ (OCSl. rajĭ) Arm. bagin ‘altar’; Reczek, 1987). The opposition of *bagu and *dīvu, and particularly the semantic depreciation of the latter from “god” to “demon,” suggest that the Iranians with whom the early Slavs came into contact adhered to a “primitive” version of Mazdaean dualism (Gołąb, 1975). However, despite the claims of Jakobson and others, no names of pagan Slavic deities may be definitively identified as Iranian borrowings.

    Standing beside these religious borrowings or calques are potential examples related to social organization: PSl. *mīru ‘world, peace’ (OCSl. mirŭ; Old Rus. mirŭ ‘village community’) < PIr. *miθra- (Humbach, pp. 124-25); PSl. *gaspadi ‘lord’ (OCSl. gospodĭ) < Mid. Pers. *guspad < OIr. *wić-pati- (with the Middle Persian change of word-initial *wi-) or Mid. Ir. *gas(t)pad < OIr. *gasti-pati- (Szemerényi, pp. 384-86, with preference for the former; but gospodĭ could have been remodeled after svobodĭ ‘free’).Additional items with likely Iranian sources are OCSl. čaša ‘potḗrion,’ Rus. chásha ‘drinking glass, bowl,’ etc. < Ir. *čaša(ka)- (to the root of Mod. Pers. čašidan ‘taste’; cf. Skt. caṣaka- ‘cup, wine glass,’ Arm. čašak ‘drinking vessel’); Rus. sobáka ‘dog’ (also attested outside East Slavic in Pol. (dial.), Kashubian sobaka ‘lecherous man’), which despite doubts can hardly be separated from Av. spaka- ‘doglike,’ Median spáka ‘female dog’ (Herodotus); PSl. taparu ‘ax’ (OCSl. toporŭ, Rus. topór) < Mid. Ir. *tapara- (Mid. Pers. tabrak, Pers. tabar, cf. Arm. tapar; perhaps metathesized from the notorious Wanderwort attested in Oss. færæt, Khot. paḍa, Toch. B peret, A porat, Turk. balta, etc.; see Abaev, 1995, I, p. 451); and, among words beginning with x-, *xarnā ‘food, sustenance’ (OCSl. xrana, Bulg. khrana, BCSM hrana) < OIr. *xwarnah- (Av. xvarənah- ‘food, drink’; Reczek, 1968), *xvaru ‘sick’ (Rus. khvóryĭ ‘sickly,’ Pol. chory ‘sick’) < OIr. *xwara- (Av. xvara- ‘wound’), and perhaps the name of the Croats, *xŭrvatŭ, if from OIr. *(fšu-)harwatar- ‘pastoralist’ (cf. Av. pasuš.hauruua- ‘watching over sheep’; Vasmer, 1953-58, III, p. 261). Two words of Iranian origin which have spread far and wide beyond Slavic are *xumeli ‘hops’ (OCSl. xŭmelĭ, Rus. khmel’, Pol. chmiel) < OIr. *hauma-aryaka- ‘Aryan soma’ (Oss. xwymællæg, Digor xumællæg ‘hops’; also borrowed into Germanic, Finno-Ugric, and Turkic; see Abaev, 1995, IV, pp. 261-62) and OCSl. sapogŭ ‘hypódēma,’ Rus. sapóg ‘boot’ < Mid. Ir. *sapaga- ‘hoof’ (cf. Av. safa-, Oss. sæftæg), the source of Mong. sab, Manchu sabu ‘shoe’ (Vasmer, 1953-58, II, pp. 578).

    To the second period of Slavic-Iranian contacts belong specifically East Slavic lexical items of Iranian origin.Their number is modest, but three likely examples are Old Rus. íreĭ (also výreĭ, výraĭ) ‘a southern land to which birds of passage migrate, a fabled magical realm’ < OIr. *a(i)rya- ‘Aryan’ (cf. Av. airiia-, OPers. ariya-; Vasmer, 1913, pp. 176-77; idem. 1924, pp. 367 [1971, pp. 6, 172]), Rus. mórda ‘snout’ < OIr. *mr̥da- ‘head’ (cf. Av. kamərəδa- ‘head (daēvic),’ Skt. mūrdhán- ‘head, peak’), and Rus. Church Slavonic xoměstorŭ ‘hamster’ < Mid. Ir. *hamēstar- (cf. Av. hamaēstar- ‘the one who throws to the ground’).Other candidates are Rus. step’ ‘steppe,’ cf. Oss. t’æp’æn ‘flat, level’ (< PIr. *(s)tap-; Bailey, p. 87; Trubachev, p. 39); Rus. khoróshiĭ ‘good,’ cf. Oss. xorz (Digor xwarz, Alanic [Tzetzes] xas /xwarz/); and Ukr. kháta ‘hut,’ if from OIr. *kata- ‘room, chamber’ (Av. kata-; Trubachev, pp. 41).In contrast, the West Slavic Iranianisms claimed by Trubachev and others, including such common verbs as Pol. patrzeć, patrzyć ‘look (at),’ Cz. patřit ‘belong’; Pol. (dial.) szatrzyć ‘know, remember,’ Cz. šetřit ‘save, spare’; Pol. dbać, Cz. dbát ‘take care’; and the all-important title Pol. pan, Cz. pán (Old Cz. hpán) < PSl. *gŭpanŭ < OIr. *gu-pāna- ‘cowherd’ (cf. Av. pəšu.pāna- ‘bridge-guarding,’ CSogd. xwšp’ny < *fšu-pāna-ka- ‘shepherd,’ but why *gu- for OIr. *gau- ‘cow’?) must be regarded as extremely uncertain (for alternative etymologies, see the respective entries in Rejzek, Boryś) and how such influence of an Iranian variety on the western dialects of Slavic could be interpreted in historical terms is also far from obvious.

    ::::::::::::::::::::::::

    Although the Slavs are partially Scythian/Sarmatian, the Ossetians are the last remaining "pure" speakers of that language.

    • Thanks: songbird
    • Replies: @songbird
    @AP

    My snap impression is that there was potentially a lot of genetic turnover in the area of the Black Sea from Classical Greek times. Weren't the Thracians (modern day Bulgaria) described as being red-haired and blue-eyed?

    Replies: @Yellowface Anon

  148. @Dmitry
    @LatW


    American wine
     
    But if you like less famous grapes, it seems countries like Italy and France have a lot of specific ones.

    I'm not at all knowledgeable about wine. But I mean e.g. if you like some taste of a specific grape like "Greco Di Tufo", then it seems you need to buy the Italian wine.


    They probably disagree that American wine is just as good as Italian or French.

     

    Lol Utu is definitely somekind of upper class connoisseur. And Yevardian is from Armenia, so probably fussy if they don't sell orange wine in Whole Foods.

    Then there is AaronB who will start writing about "terroir" if he was here. But how much of AaronB's income is wasted on tariffs for imported EU wine from Campagna or Loire Valley. And then Trump has added things like 25% tariff on Scottish whisky in the USA (25%!).

    Again I don't know anything about wine. I did remember like some Californian brands for Merlot tastes different to the South American ones? However, my knowledge and sample far too small to say this is "terroir".

    Replies: @utu, @LatW

    I didn’t mean for the conversation to veer towards just wine, it’s just your passive aggressive dig about how Mr Hack needs Aldi to eat clean kind of triggered me. 🙂 You’re really good at that. 🙂 When you said Mr Hack needs European stores with EU regulations to be protected and healthy it sounded a bit like when Andrei Martyanov said he won’t be buying German cars because they are “over engineered and overpriced”.

    High end grocery stores, especially the co-ops, are better than anything in Europe and Europe will probably never have anything of that quality or variety. And European stores, including in EE, are great. Btw, it’s good that the EU has those protective regulations. But in the US it’s less regulated (although I doubt it it’s the case with food), but people get to choose themselves what’s good for them or not. This is why religion was traditionally more important in the US, because religion helps you make more “healthy” lifestyle choices. You’re independent but still constrained by religion. Anyway, nowadays it’s a class thing. But it can make a difference, for instance, there is less sugar in the peanut butter and jelly that’s sold at the high end store vs the regular store. Over the long term, this can make a difference in your child’s weight.

    If Aldi is really as cheap as they say, then it speaks very well for Germany… not surprising as Germany is known for its cheap but good quality food, clothing and rents. When you take care of your population like that, that’s a sign of real wealth.

    • Replies: @Dmitry
    @LatW


    just wine,

     

    Lol what is so bad about talking wine? We can always return to more exciting topics of kale and mushrooms if you wish.

    Actually I didn't like wine until a couple years ago. So many nights indoors with the pandemic, has pushed me to enjoy wine. I'm even not disliking red wines nowadays. What about you?

    I would agree with you about not needing to import EU wine in the USA. But then I just buy the cheapest wine bottles, so just here to add my opinion uselessly.

    I remember Aaron B was posting about "terroir" ( https://www.unz.com/akarlin/open-thread-168/#comment-4969089 ). And considering the style and organization of his posts, I'm assuming we should listen to his expertise as he knows more about wine than the rest of us. :)


    Aldi is really as cheap as they say, then it speaks very well for Germany…

     

    They also sell expensive luxury products, as well as cheaper less quality ones. But those luxury products are usually seeming good value relative to what product quality they sold.

    You know Mr Hack said they started to open Aldi in the USA and I was recommending it to him so he can eat more cleanly like the EU people. But it looks like they are selling a lot of American products there. Then there are some German wines like Riesling
    https://www.aldi.us/en/products/alcohol/white-wine/

  149. @Beckow
    @songbird


    ....sorry about trying to drown you with Third Worlders and trying to turn everyone gay. To show our contrition...
     
    The liberals' whole-existence is contrition: they are sorry, sorry for the good things they have and the things their ancestors did to assure the good things. But, as weak individuals that they are, they want to keep their own good stuff and give away others' stuff to make themselves feel better. No St.Francis here. It is a form of mental collapse: deep regrets combined with massive incompetence, in the past we would just run them out of a tribe.

    Currently the liberals are scared of heat (also cold, actually any weather event scares them), procreation (the classical type, the fakes titillate their weak fancies), large white men, Russkies of any kind (Ukies also scare them, they are too close), Orban and circulating viruses.

    The key to understanding the liberals is that they are narcissists who have come to despise their own biology - often for a good reason, just look at them, that Bezos for God's sake, what the f..k is that, shiny velvet with a plastic burping bubble? The end-of-a-line came for them, they know it, they are just too scared to leave, yet.

    Replies: @sher singh, @songbird, @LatW

    Russkies of any kind (Ukies also scare them, they are too close)

    In a recent, rather depressing article on Ukraine Niall Ferguson speculated:

    “The Ukrainians not unreasonably complain that Romania and Bulgaria scarcely met all these [Copenhagen] criteria in 2006 (the year before they became EU members), to say nothing of 2000, when negotiations began. The fact that a current EU member — Hungary — today ranks not far above Ukraine in the Freedom House rankings of political freedom is also not lost on the Ukrainians.

    However, this is just an additional reason for EU foot-dragging [on supporting Ukraine’s accession]. So unpopular is Hungarian Prime Minister Viktor Orban in Brussels these days that many European leaders and officials worry that admitting Ukraine would add another illiberal semi-autocracy within the EU fold, which might then join forces with Hungary, Poland and any other populist-led states against an increasingly woke European Commission.”

    Interesting that he knows the word “woke”.

    • Replies: @Beckow
    @LatW


    ...admitting Ukraine would add another illiberal semi-autocracy within the EU fold
     
    The plan was to make them liberal enough during the admission process - a lengthy rainbow ritual with Brussels freaks offering money for each additional act. They like that kind of stuff, to the likes of Neill Fergusson it brings back deep memories of the raj and the homo burdens they carried around the globe. (I will not speculate what Fergusson means by "woke", with the anglo-Belgian perverts they probably reenact it.)

    Ukraine never had a chance to be in the EU: they missed the window and by 2014 it was all pretence. The EU cannot afford additional poor members (esp. large ones) and no rich ones are applying. Ukraine would bring down the average living standards in EU by 5-10% - that would had been manageable during the times of growth, but with the current stagnation it cannot be done. UK leaving was the last financial straw, the numbers just can't be balanced.

    As all liberal global institutions they will stay around to provide illiberal benefits to their employees, issue verbiage and celebrate their anniversaries. A bit like the late-Middle Age Popes in Rome: jobs, money, parties, and ad maiorem dei gloriam...

    Replies: @A123, @LatW, @Mikhail

  150. @Mr. Hack
    @LatW

    apotheca:

    "In ancient Greece and Rome, a storeroom of any kind, but esp. one for storing wine."

    Intense name? I think that the word's association with a pharmacy came later. Their wines do have an element of intenseness to them. I do think the correct term would be "fruit forward". But I do like a wine where you can actually taste the grape from which it's made from, the "tannins", "coffee" "leathery" and "peppery" profiles are interesting, but less important to me. I'll keep an eye out for the output of Chateu St Michelle, thanks for the tip! Apotheca's "claim to fame" appears to be their ability to blend and marry different wine profiles together into one unique wine. I've tried their "red", their "crush" :"black"and now their cabernet sauvignon, and they all seem to have an intenseness and I would say a richness to the taste that doesn't inspire me to drink more than two glasses. I think that this is good. :-)

    Replies: @LatW

    Apotheca:

    “In ancient Greece and Rome, a storeroom of any kind, but esp. one for storing wine.”

    “A mysterious place where wine was blended and stored in 13th century Europe,” according to owner.

    Sorry, I didn’t mean that the name was intense, but the design, label. It has a kind of a gothic design with a flashy, red letter A in the center. This brand is very popular, especially among the millennials, maybe partly because of the way the label looks, which is very different from a classic, more conservative look.

    They have wines called “Crush”, “Inferno”, “Dark”. This brand really stands out with its intense image. And it’s a mass product, not boutique.

    • Agree: Mr. Hack
    • Replies: @Mr. Hack
    @LatW

    Interestingly enough, I just got through looking over the Chateau St. Michelle website. Of the wines that I'd be interested in sampling, most were in the $65/bottle range, some as high as $200. I'm not currently interested in white wines, and for some reason don't pursue merlot wines either, finding them somehow lacking the right notes for my palate. I did see their "everyday" cabernet sauvignon that was going for about $12/bottle that I'll definitely be looking for. Can you recommend any others that I may have missed for say under $15/bottle? What are some of your favorites, even those going for $200/bottle?

    , @Emil Nikola Richard
    @LatW

    In my neighborhood wine outlet they have a life size cardboard placard of Snoop Dogg peddling vintage red wine. It is bizarre. I'm pretty sure Snoop drinks Hennesey and Coke. His label is called Nineteen Crimes.

    https://cdn.shopify.com/s/files/1/0602/7673/6237/products/Cali-Red_2048x.png

    Replies: @A123, @Dmitry

  151. On environmentalism, so much of the discussion gets limited to energy forms while ignoring the wider social ramifications, such as the destruction of our cities.

    This degradation is invisible to those who were born into it, so they take it for granted or, worse, even defend it. But all over Europe there is a slow movement to reclaim our cities. Latest example from Austria, above.

    There is also the fact that our food supply system is deeply broken. A lot of diseases begin in animals due to factory farming and then jump to humans. I don’t eat meat, but even if I did I would be worried about this. As should everyone who cares about limited and preferably eliminating disease spread from animals to humans.

    Air pollution by coal is an obvious issue, but far less attention is given noise pollution, especially in big cities, where cars are a major problem. In other words, environmentalism isn’t just about crossing the baseline of “we should survive as a species”, which is pathetically low. It should be about “we must dramatically raise our standard of living and civilisation”.

    It’s natural that any progress will be opposed by reactionaries, because that is what reactionaries do. Given these realities, there is no alternative than just bulldozing any opposition. Should people have listened to those opposed to women’s right to vote? It’s not a serious argument. Anyone still holding those views understands well to keep them private since social ostracisation is now very strong, and rightfully so.

    • Replies: @Yevardian
    @Thulean Friend


    There is also the fact that our food supply system is deeply broken. A lot of diseases begin in animals due to factory farming and then jump to humans. I don’t eat meat, but even if I did I would be worried about this. As should everyone who cares about limited and preferably eliminating disease spread from animals to humans.
     
    I'm not a fan of factory farming, but there's no need to jump the shark and forebear meat entirely, I instinctively distrust all vegetarians as misanthropic extinctionists. As for city-planning, especially considering the contribution of cars to noise pollution in 'our' cities, agreed. But this isn't a left/right issue.

    It’s natural that any progress will be opposed by reactionaries, because that is what reactionaries do.
     
    The automobile was once seen as the vanguard of social 'progress' too. The word as you use it has no meaning. Progress over what, from where, to what end? Are you aware that the Nazis viewed themselves as 'progressive'? And quite accurately, too?

    Given these realities, there is no alternative than just bulldozing any opposition. Should people have listened to those opposed to women’s right to vote?
     
    How typically progressive, you completely contradict yourself in just two sentences.

    Should people have listened to those opposed to women’s right to vote?
     

    It's always the progressive's prerogative to define what argument is 'serious' and therefore even worth debating at all. Such would-be open-minded "revolutionaries" invariably turn out to be the most narrow-minded and fanatical of people.

    Anyone still holding those views understands well to keep them private since social ostracisation is now very strong, and rightfully so.
     

    If you have actually read any pre-20th Century literature, you will notice that such 'social ostracisation' for any political view taken was practically unheard of. Even in strongly conservative states such as Tsarist Russia or the Hapsburg Empire, people with even the most radical views were generally looked upon fondly as curious eccentrics, unless they engaged in actual terrorism (and even then, they often remained admired, see how murderers of Tsarist state-officials had sentences commuted for 'purity of motive').
    Social shaming of people of dissenting views is recent phenomenon, it's absolutely cowardly and pathetic, and absolutely a direct result of female political franchise, or simply the adoption of 'mass' politics of the hysterical mob.

    Replies: @utu, @AP

    , @songbird
    @Thulean Friend


    but far less attention is given noise pollution, especially in big cities, where cars are a major problem.
     
    I agree completely, but would go further: sun-belt people, like Brazilians, increasingly are going for jaunts in the countryside, with their car speakers blazing horrible, tasteless music, which should be confined to eco-friendly zones of rap, like the hellscape of Somalia, where there is not much worthwhile wildlife to concern oneself about disturbing.
  152. @utu
    @Dmitry

    "Lol Utu is definitely some kind of upper class connoisseur. " - Fuck off and Fuck no, I disagreed because LatW's post was too Pollyannish about the special food stores, no GMO and so on in the US and too uncritical about the alleged importance of differences between foods in stores of class A and class B in terms of health impact.

    Yes, if he lives in Boulder, CO which was the epicenter of health food stores boom where the most important of them like Wild Oats were taken over by The Whole Foods (and I am dubious about TWF) I can see his position but I do not think that Boulder experience is scalable and I do not believe that you necessarily can trust local farmers or mom-and-pop stores and sometimes even less than big suppliers.

    I do not care about wines this way or another. Most I ever drunk I did not enjoy and most people who style themselves to be some kind of wine connoisseurs I see as people who are unaware of their own silliness and pretentiousness. The same goes for beer and whisky connoisseurs and the most ridiculous are vodka connoisseurs.

    Replies: @silviosilver, @Dmitry

    I do not care about wines this way or another. Most I ever drunk I did not enjoy and most people who style themselves to be some kind of wine connoisseurs I see as people who are unaware of their own silliness and pretentiousness. The same goes for beer and whisky connoisseurs and the most ridiculous are vodka connoisseurs.

    Of course. They can discuss taste and flavor all day long, but if those beverages did not contain alcohol, virtually nobody would drink them.

    • Agree: utu, sher singh
  153. @songbird
    @Dmitry

    I think that the Soviet film industry was hampered a lot by economics, which is a problem that China has already circumvented, to a large degree. That leaves the political - the political priority seems to be to emphasize Chinese culture and domestic consumption, as China is still in a period of economic growth. By 2025 China is expected to have 100,000 screens. (US has 44,000), and the idea is to fill those seats. Though I think exports are a secondary goal - not unconsidered, but something not in focus, right now.

    And part of it is beyond political - learning the craft and learning to export.


    It should improve in the future.
     
    In a kind of subliminal sense, I suspect that it is improving now. For example, Netflix did buy the exclusive rights for The Wandering Earth (bad movie, IMO) for probably some millions. And they have bought other Chinese films. And though, I think HK is long past its heyday, the Chinese have been learning a lot of lessons by working with HK people. The number of films with HK influence is at an all time high, and some of them are the bigger hits.

    A lot of Hollywood films have or were funded by China
     
    There's a lot of foreign money that goes into Hollywood movies. In a certain way, I guess it is strange that we consider them "American" movies, even if Hollywood (using term broadly) itself is considered weird to a lot of Americans. Maybe, the fact that Chinese movies are starting from a Chinese base, might be a strategic strength?

    I was really shocked when Wanda bought the AMC theater chain. Seemed like a horrible waste of money. I suspect that it was built on past perceptions of prestige. It seems like a lot of Americans stopped going to the theaters. They have nowhere near the same amount of seats, as when I was a kid. In 2022, I don't even know where the local theater is - the closest one closed down and became an Amazon warehouse.

    Replies: @Yevardian

    I think that the Soviet film industry was hampered a lot by economics, which is a problem that China has already circumvented, to a large degree.

    What the hell are you talking about? The USSR made an extremely large proportion of the greatest films ever made. Soviet-era directors like Alexei German, Aleksandr Sokurov & Nikita Mikhalkov continued to make strong films even after the dissolution of the USSR, sometimes obtaining non-Russian funding on the strength of their reputations.
    Even the average output was of very high quality, there was little to no outright trash, no pandering to people’s worst instincts, and films of that era remain popular to this day in all the former states of the Soviet Union (perhaps with the exception of the Balts, which I can’t speak of, though I imagine cinema output crashed utterly there, as everywhere else in the region).

    Quality filmmaking, like airlines or non-profitable areas of scientific research, depends heavily on state-protectionism and funding, being as expensive and volatile as it is. Look at the total collapse of European film production outside of France (which continues to heavily subsidise its industry) since the 1980s, with most other European films being produced in conjuction with French funding and technical support.

    I don’t actually this is a trivial issue either, especially with the Western youth population becoming increasingly illiterate, states should put up some sort of effort to stall the total Americanisation of its coming generation.

    I can’t really say the same for Chinese films (I have seen about 30 odd, not a large number), certainly not in terms of artistic quality, though I understand that they do very well financially. Though that still says very little about their intrinsic merits, given China’s enormous internal market and its cultural distinctiveness.

    • Agree: utu
    • Replies: @Shortsword
    @Yevardian


    The USSR made an extremely large proportion of the greatest films ever made. Soviet-era directors like Alexei German, Aleksandr Sokurov & Nikita Mikhalkov continued to make strong films even after the dissolution of the USSR, sometimes obtaining non-Russian funding on the strength of their reputations.
    Even the average output was of very high quality, there was little to no outright trash, no pandering to people’s worst instincts, and films of that era remain popular to this day in all the former states of the Soviet Union (perhaps with the exception of the Balts, which I can’t speak of, though I imagine cinema output crashed utterly there, as everywhere else in the region).
     
    The problem was low quantity. United States produced maybe as many films in a month as Soviet Union did in a year (counting only cinematic releases).

    Replies: @utu

    , @songbird
    @Yevardian


    What the hell are you talking about? The USSR made an extremely large proportion of the greatest films ever made
     
    You think economics wasn't a handicap? Well, the film Stalker was shot twice - the first time they messed up the film development because they weren't used to working with Kodak 5247 stock. Wouldn't have happened in the West.

    If you are a fan of Soviet film, perhaps, you should post a list.

    Anyway, I am not talking about critics' favorites. I am talking about audience favorites. And it seems probable that a lot of Soviet hits abroad were made with the aid of shady trade deals, and not by audience choice. The Soviet Union had nothing to compare with American blockbusters, like Star Wars or Aliens. The year the Soviet Union collapsed, Hollywood released T2. In a general way, The Soviet Union was bad at spectacle. (not that I am a fan of Hollywood, from my perspective they are cancerous)

    The Chinese definitely have a lot more potential to make waves. One reason being that they have more technology available to them. In theory, they could match Hollywood tit-for-tat when it comes to special effects. They could be very competitive in computer animation, whereas the Soviets were short on computers, and smuggling them in, was a way to make business deals.

    Even the average output was of very high quality, there was little to no outright trash, no pandering to people’s worst instincts
     
    I think you may be looking at it with rose-tinted glasses, to say "zero." The film Zerograd (1988, have no seen it) has tits on the poster. Of course, that was after perestroika.


    Quality filmmaking, like airlines or non-profitable areas of scientific research, depends heavily on state-protectionism and funding, being as expensive
     
    I've never said that I am a free-trader when it comes to culture, and the Chinese, even with their rather large market, have't taken precisely that position either.

    BTW, I'd actually go further than you and say quality film-making requires careful censorship and cultural themes.

    I can’t really say the same for Chinese films (I have seen about 30 odd, not a large number),
     
    If we were to compare Russian films or Hollywood films post-2010, to Chinese films, I would say that they were honestly all mostly crap.

    I see more potential for growth in Chinese quality than anywhere else. They don't need to pander to diversity, unlike the US. One thing to keep in mind is that they are really trying to play economic catch-up. Yes, total box office has been exceeded, but they probably don't have as many films that get above $15 million. Right now, they are concerned more with growth than quality or export potential, but I expect that to change in a few years.
    , @Dmitry
    @Yevardian


    USSR .. greatest films
     
    There are indeed wonderful films from the Soviet Union. And innovations of directors, especially Eisenshtein who had significant influence on even international 20th century film editing culture.

    But there was also downward pressure from the authorities, which actually ruins many films, creates many problematic changes to stories.

    You also said the name Tarkovsky, who has become an exile and his later films were produced in Italy, Sweden, etc, despite his cult popularity in the USSR. He was also possibly killed by industrial pollution in Estonia.

    There is this very dual pressures in the USSR, where the level of artistic training was possibly the highest in the world. But the potential is not always realized.

    Another mixed situation could be Mikhail Kalatozov. Incredibly talented director, but who produces very propagandistic film for Cuba "Soy Cuba" that can be a bit difficult to watch today.

    Then there are artists like Shostakovich, which could be an ambiguous example, where he wasn't allowed to develop organically. But his most popular works (e.g. Fifth Symphony) sometimes came after the authorities bully him.

    But then Shostakovich has a very stressed life and perhaps we lost a couple symphonies at the end from his heart failure.


    heavily on state-protectionism and funding
     
    There are mixed situations on this topic in the Soviet Union.

    For example, Kurosawa's "Dersu Uzala", a wonderful film, funded by Mosfilm. On the other hand, ( fashionable cult director) Tarkovsky goes to exile, with last films funded by Gaumont.

    I agree that these artistic directors often require state funding, as there isn't enough of popular to demand to realize private funding for their often expensive visions.

  154. @sudden death
    @sher singh

    Are gypsies really the third of all newborns in Bulgaria???

    Replies: @Shortsword

    Bulgaria has a sizeable number of Turks too. Turks and gypsies together makes up around 15-20% of the population. But I don’t think Bulgarian Turks have high fertility.

  155. @Thulean Friend
    On environmentalism, so much of the discussion gets limited to energy forms while ignoring the wider social ramifications, such as the destruction of our cities.

    https://i.imgur.com/GIplVM8.jpg

    This degradation is invisible to those who were born into it, so they take it for granted or, worse, even defend it. But all over Europe there is a slow movement to reclaim our cities. Latest example from Austria, above.

    There is also the fact that our food supply system is deeply broken. A lot of diseases begin in animals due to factory farming and then jump to humans. I don't eat meat, but even if I did I would be worried about this. As should everyone who cares about limited and preferably eliminating disease spread from animals to humans.

    Air pollution by coal is an obvious issue, but far less attention is given noise pollution, especially in big cities, where cars are a major problem. In other words, environmentalism isn't just about crossing the baseline of "we should survive as a species", which is pathetically low. It should be about "we must dramatically raise our standard of living and civilisation".

    It's natural that any progress will be opposed by reactionaries, because that is what reactionaries do. Given these realities, there is no alternative than just bulldozing any opposition. Should people have listened to those opposed to women's right to vote? It's not a serious argument. Anyone still holding those views understands well to keep them private since social ostracisation is now very strong, and rightfully so.

    Replies: @Yevardian, @songbird

    There is also the fact that our food supply system is deeply broken. A lot of diseases begin in animals due to factory farming and then jump to humans. I don’t eat meat, but even if I did I would be worried about this. As should everyone who cares about limited and preferably eliminating disease spread from animals to humans.

    I’m not a fan of factory farming, but there’s no need to jump the shark and forebear meat entirely, I instinctively distrust all vegetarians as misanthropic extinctionists. As for city-planning, especially considering the contribution of cars to noise pollution in ‘our’ cities, agreed. But this isn’t a left/right issue.

    It’s natural that any progress will be opposed by reactionaries, because that is what reactionaries do.

    The automobile was once seen as the vanguard of social ‘progress’ too. The word as you use it has no meaning. Progress over what, from where, to what end? Are you aware that the Nazis viewed themselves as ‘progressive’? And quite accurately, too?

    Given these realities, there is no alternative than just bulldozing any opposition. Should people have listened to those opposed to women’s right to vote?

    How typically progressive, you completely contradict yourself in just two sentences.

    Should people have listened to those opposed to women’s right to vote?

    It’s always the progressive’s prerogative to define what argument is ‘serious’ and therefore even worth debating at all. Such would-be open-minded “revolutionaries” invariably turn out to be the most narrow-minded and fanatical of people.

    Anyone still holding those views understands well to keep them private since social ostracisation is now very strong, and rightfully so.

    If you have actually read any pre-20th Century literature, you will notice that such ‘social ostracisation’ for any political view taken was practically unheard of. Even in strongly conservative states such as Tsarist Russia or the Hapsburg Empire, people with even the most radical views were generally looked upon fondly as curious eccentrics, unless they engaged in actual terrorism (and even then, they often remained admired, see how murderers of Tsarist state-officials had sentences commuted for ‘purity of motive’).
    Social shaming of people of dissenting views is recent phenomenon, it’s absolutely cowardly and pathetic, and absolutely a direct result of female political franchise, or simply the adoption of ‘mass’ politics of the hysterical mob.

    • Agree: Yellowface Anon
    • Replies: @utu
    @Yevardian

    Reactionaries do not get respect from TF and his ilk and this is because they do not resort to drastic methods the so called progressives can openly talk in cafes. Would resorting to "escuadrones de la muerte" restore reactionaries respect in TF's eyes? What about couple slashed throats and acid attacks on the most obnoxious progressive activists? At some point some people will do it and it is then when the reactionaries will have to make their most important decision.

    , @AP
    @Yevardian


    Social shaming of people of dissenting views is recent phenomenon, it’s absolutely cowardly and pathetic, and absolutely a direct result of female political franchise, or simply the adoption of ‘mass’ politics of the hysterical mob
     
    It seems to have been common among the American Puritans for moral/religious reasons. Secularised Puritans view social and political issues in moral terms. So the phenomenon of social shaming for incorrect political beliefs is not feminisation so much as it is a form of Americanisation.

    Replies: @Beckow

  156. @Yellowface Anon
    @songbird

    Bug or lab-grown meat-eating is about caste, not anything environment or resource-conservational. It's ultimately about assigning an aesthetically inferior option to the lower castes and reserving meat to the upper castes. In Archeofuturism, the peasants get to grow their meat and the city-dwellers eats industrial agricultural food, including bug feed, and this is why what the WEF wants is the spitting image of Archeofuturism. Which is to say, the horseshoe.

    I think you rank these two more pressing political subjects than the climate, but what do race and Globohomo have to do with the climate?

    Replies: @Yellowface Anon

    Aesthetically pleasing meat substitutes exist. It’s soy, the way East Asian vegans prepare it.

    https://i2.chuimg.com/c9a23953b7214b309266ac72631b1328_681w_783h.jpg?imageView2/2/w/660/interlace/1/q/90

    They can fit into the menu of all-you-can-eat restaurants:

    I don’t think lab-grown meat is all that different presentation-wise to industrial mystery meat. But unprepared bug paste and Soylent Green will be humiliating low caste food.

  157. @songbird
    Could AK claim Italian citizenship based on their definition of jus sanguinis?

    And shouldn't it be considered a structural flaw of the EU, as it seems to open up the possibility than tens of millions of Mestizos could immigrate to Europe? (not counting the millions who have come already)

    Replies: @Yellowface Anon, @Dmitry

    “White Hispanic” Criollos (under the old colonial caste system) should definitely be able to claim Spanish & Portuguese citizenship.

    • Replies: @songbird
    @Yellowface Anon


    “White Hispanic” Criollos (under the old colonial caste system) should definitely be able to claim Spanish & Portuguese citizenship.

     

    I agree, but I don't know if there is a state in Europe with a rational system of Jus sanguinis (though in theory it is widespread). It seems like it is often one parent (who for instance could be an Arab or African). In the case of Italy, in theory, it could be like one GGG grandparent, who miscegenated with Africans. (indeed there are Eritreans who are suing to get in)

    It is pretty clear that Europeans crafted their systems when they were used to interacting with their near neighbors and not with Africans. Like France with Germans in Alsace-Lorraine.

    Any rational system would involve an understanding of genetic distance, color-signaling, and group co-evolution. It would acknowledge truths like someone who miscegenates is less related to their children than they are to other co-ethnics.

    Replies: @Cutler

  158. @Yevardian
    @songbird


    I think that the Soviet film industry was hampered a lot by economics, which is a problem that China has already circumvented, to a large degree.
     
    What the hell are you talking about? The USSR made an extremely large proportion of the greatest films ever made. Soviet-era directors like Alexei German, Aleksandr Sokurov & Nikita Mikhalkov continued to make strong films even after the dissolution of the USSR, sometimes obtaining non-Russian funding on the strength of their reputations.
    Even the average output was of very high quality, there was little to no outright trash, no pandering to people's worst instincts, and films of that era remain popular to this day in all the former states of the Soviet Union (perhaps with the exception of the Balts, which I can't speak of, though I imagine cinema output crashed utterly there, as everywhere else in the region).

    Quality filmmaking, like airlines or non-profitable areas of scientific research, depends heavily on state-protectionism and funding, being as expensive and volatile as it is. Look at the total collapse of European film production outside of France (which continues to heavily subsidise its industry) since the 1980s, with most other European films being produced in conjuction with French funding and technical support.

    I don't actually this is a trivial issue either, especially with the Western youth population becoming increasingly illiterate, states should put up some sort of effort to stall the total Americanisation of its coming generation.

    I can't really say the same for Chinese films (I have seen about 30 odd, not a large number), certainly not in terms of artistic quality, though I understand that they do very well financially. Though that still says very little about their intrinsic merits, given China's enormous internal market and its cultural distinctiveness.

    Replies: @Shortsword, @songbird, @Dmitry

    The USSR made an extremely large proportion of the greatest films ever made. Soviet-era directors like Alexei German, Aleksandr Sokurov & Nikita Mikhalkov continued to make strong films even after the dissolution of the USSR, sometimes obtaining non-Russian funding on the strength of their reputations.
    Even the average output was of very high quality, there was little to no outright trash, no pandering to people’s worst instincts, and films of that era remain popular to this day in all the former states of the Soviet Union (perhaps with the exception of the Balts, which I can’t speak of, though I imagine cinema output crashed utterly there, as everywhere else in the region).

    The problem was low quantity. United States produced maybe as many films in a month as Soviet Union did in a year (counting only cinematic releases).

    • Agree: songbird
    • Replies: @utu
    @Shortsword

    "maybe as many films in a month as Soviet Union did in a year" - Great overstatement. In mid 1980's 150 feature films released in the USSR and about 500 in the US + Canada.

    https://www.statista.com/statistics/187147/movie-releases-in-north-america-since-1980/

    https://www.psupress.org/books/titles/0-271-01982-4.html

    Replies: @Shortsword

  159. @Yevardian
    @Thulean Friend


    There is also the fact that our food supply system is deeply broken. A lot of diseases begin in animals due to factory farming and then jump to humans. I don’t eat meat, but even if I did I would be worried about this. As should everyone who cares about limited and preferably eliminating disease spread from animals to humans.
     
    I'm not a fan of factory farming, but there's no need to jump the shark and forebear meat entirely, I instinctively distrust all vegetarians as misanthropic extinctionists. As for city-planning, especially considering the contribution of cars to noise pollution in 'our' cities, agreed. But this isn't a left/right issue.

    It’s natural that any progress will be opposed by reactionaries, because that is what reactionaries do.
     
    The automobile was once seen as the vanguard of social 'progress' too. The word as you use it has no meaning. Progress over what, from where, to what end? Are you aware that the Nazis viewed themselves as 'progressive'? And quite accurately, too?

    Given these realities, there is no alternative than just bulldozing any opposition. Should people have listened to those opposed to women’s right to vote?
     
    How typically progressive, you completely contradict yourself in just two sentences.

    Should people have listened to those opposed to women’s right to vote?
     

    It's always the progressive's prerogative to define what argument is 'serious' and therefore even worth debating at all. Such would-be open-minded "revolutionaries" invariably turn out to be the most narrow-minded and fanatical of people.

    Anyone still holding those views understands well to keep them private since social ostracisation is now very strong, and rightfully so.
     

    If you have actually read any pre-20th Century literature, you will notice that such 'social ostracisation' for any political view taken was practically unheard of. Even in strongly conservative states such as Tsarist Russia or the Hapsburg Empire, people with even the most radical views were generally looked upon fondly as curious eccentrics, unless they engaged in actual terrorism (and even then, they often remained admired, see how murderers of Tsarist state-officials had sentences commuted for 'purity of motive').
    Social shaming of people of dissenting views is recent phenomenon, it's absolutely cowardly and pathetic, and absolutely a direct result of female political franchise, or simply the adoption of 'mass' politics of the hysterical mob.

    Replies: @utu, @AP

    Reactionaries do not get respect from TF and his ilk and this is because they do not resort to drastic methods the so called progressives can openly talk in cafes. Would resorting to “escuadrones de la muerte” restore reactionaries respect in TF’s eyes? What about couple slashed throats and acid attacks on the most obnoxious progressive activists? At some point some people will do it and it is then when the reactionaries will have to make their most important decision.

  160. @showmethereal
    @Barbarossa

    So you think the parties in Wuhan while the west was being ravaged was fake??? No they weren't. Outsiders have to quarantine for 2 weeks in a hotel... When clusters erupt in a city there is mass testing and SERIOUS contact tracing.... If you had contact - you have to quarantine... it's not an option. Enough cases in a city - they go into lockdown. No - you can't even go to the supermarket. The supermarkets go to each housing area and delivers food to the people in a controlled environment. Unless you have been there or speak to someone who actually lives there - you wouldn't understand. To even get on a domestic long distance train - you have to show Covid results... No such thing exists for domestic planes and trains in the US.
    Now in terms of reported cases - there is a difference because China only reports symptomatic cases... But the death rate??? Nope... They really take it that serious.

    The death rate in Hong Kong and Singapore was similar... Until South Korea began to open up and follow the west - it's death rate was similar as well. What about "Taiwan"??? There death rate is the same. So those US friends death rates are not questionable?? No - the answer is they all handled it very similarly (until recently).

    Replies: @Yellowface Anon

    This is why it’s unsustainable in the face of Omicron, which is far more transmissible but less virulent and lethal. I can imagine the entirety of China under such kind of lockdown for months on end, which will crush the entire global supply chain and fulfill A123’s dream of total production onshoring. Xian citizens are already sending SOS messages of shortages as this kind of distribution system is starting to fail, now scale it up to 1.4 billion in a few months. It will be the Great Leap Forward 2.0, and I hope they have learnt their lesson in not being institutionally suicidal. We count on a strong China to counter a failing US, and if both of them fails, the WEF takes over.

    • Replies: @PedroAstra
    @Yellowface Anon

    It seems to me (from talking to various contacts living there) that whatever Hong Kong is doing right now, is working, as far as non-suicidal zero-covid policies go. Is this your experience on the ground?

    Replies: @Yellowface Anon

    , @Showmethereal
    @Yellowface Anon

    Oh well I was just addressing the issue of whether the death rate is true or not... But I make no judgements otherwise. The breakdown in supply chain happened least in China actually... Check the import/export and production numbers around the globe.
    As to the people in Xian--- again not unique. Everywhere there was a lockdown in China some people complained..
    As to going forward - my GUESS is they are waiting as more managable strains work their way and the virus becomes "normal". But I dont pretend to have specific insight as to what they will do.

    Replies: @Yellowface Anon

  161. @Shortsword
    @Yevardian


    The USSR made an extremely large proportion of the greatest films ever made. Soviet-era directors like Alexei German, Aleksandr Sokurov & Nikita Mikhalkov continued to make strong films even after the dissolution of the USSR, sometimes obtaining non-Russian funding on the strength of their reputations.
    Even the average output was of very high quality, there was little to no outright trash, no pandering to people’s worst instincts, and films of that era remain popular to this day in all the former states of the Soviet Union (perhaps with the exception of the Balts, which I can’t speak of, though I imagine cinema output crashed utterly there, as everywhere else in the region).
     
    The problem was low quantity. United States produced maybe as many films in a month as Soviet Union did in a year (counting only cinematic releases).

    Replies: @utu

    “maybe as many films in a month as Soviet Union did in a year” – Great overstatement. In mid 1980’s 150 feature films released in the USSR and about 500 in the US + Canada.

    https://www.statista.com/statistics/187147/movie-releases-in-north-america-since-1980/

    https://www.psupress.org/books/titles/0-271-01982-4.html

    • Replies: @Shortsword
    @utu


    In mid 1980’s 150 feature films released in the USSR and about 500 in the US + Canada.
     
    That doesn't sound right to me. I think you have to include tv films and such to get that number.

    You can find Soviet films by year here. They list about 90 per year in the 80s and that still includes a significant number of tv films and short films. There were probably more films than this made but this should at least include all proper "big release" films.
  162. @utu
    @Shortsword

    "maybe as many films in a month as Soviet Union did in a year" - Great overstatement. In mid 1980's 150 feature films released in the USSR and about 500 in the US + Canada.

    https://www.statista.com/statistics/187147/movie-releases-in-north-america-since-1980/

    https://www.psupress.org/books/titles/0-271-01982-4.html

    Replies: @Shortsword

    In mid 1980’s 150 feature films released in the USSR and about 500 in the US + Canada.

    That doesn’t sound right to me. I think you have to include tv films and such to get that number.

    You can find Soviet films by year here. They list about 90 per year in the 80s and that still includes a significant number of tv films and short films. There were probably more films than this made but this should at least include all proper “big release” films.

  163. @Yevardian
    @Thulean Friend


    There is also the fact that our food supply system is deeply broken. A lot of diseases begin in animals due to factory farming and then jump to humans. I don’t eat meat, but even if I did I would be worried about this. As should everyone who cares about limited and preferably eliminating disease spread from animals to humans.
     
    I'm not a fan of factory farming, but there's no need to jump the shark and forebear meat entirely, I instinctively distrust all vegetarians as misanthropic extinctionists. As for city-planning, especially considering the contribution of cars to noise pollution in 'our' cities, agreed. But this isn't a left/right issue.

    It’s natural that any progress will be opposed by reactionaries, because that is what reactionaries do.
     
    The automobile was once seen as the vanguard of social 'progress' too. The word as you use it has no meaning. Progress over what, from where, to what end? Are you aware that the Nazis viewed themselves as 'progressive'? And quite accurately, too?

    Given these realities, there is no alternative than just bulldozing any opposition. Should people have listened to those opposed to women’s right to vote?
     
    How typically progressive, you completely contradict yourself in just two sentences.

    Should people have listened to those opposed to women’s right to vote?
     

    It's always the progressive's prerogative to define what argument is 'serious' and therefore even worth debating at all. Such would-be open-minded "revolutionaries" invariably turn out to be the most narrow-minded and fanatical of people.

    Anyone still holding those views understands well to keep them private since social ostracisation is now very strong, and rightfully so.
     

    If you have actually read any pre-20th Century literature, you will notice that such 'social ostracisation' for any political view taken was practically unheard of. Even in strongly conservative states such as Tsarist Russia or the Hapsburg Empire, people with even the most radical views were generally looked upon fondly as curious eccentrics, unless they engaged in actual terrorism (and even then, they often remained admired, see how murderers of Tsarist state-officials had sentences commuted for 'purity of motive').
    Social shaming of people of dissenting views is recent phenomenon, it's absolutely cowardly and pathetic, and absolutely a direct result of female political franchise, or simply the adoption of 'mass' politics of the hysterical mob.

    Replies: @utu, @AP

    Social shaming of people of dissenting views is recent phenomenon, it’s absolutely cowardly and pathetic, and absolutely a direct result of female political franchise, or simply the adoption of ‘mass’ politics of the hysterical mob

    It seems to have been common among the American Puritans for moral/religious reasons. Secularised Puritans view social and political issues in moral terms. So the phenomenon of social shaming for incorrect political beliefs is not feminisation so much as it is a form of Americanisation.

    • Agree: Yellowface Anon
    • Replies: @Beckow
    @AP

    ...social shaming for incorrect political beliefs is not feminisation so much as it is a form of Americanisation.

    A core value of the original Puritan mentality was conformism. Within a group, shaming is used to enforce conformism.

    With Americanisation everything over time becomes for sale, that has been the key invention of America: everything-is-for-sale universal philosophy, all activities are monetised. That puts an actual price on courage and during times of stress courage becomes more expensive, and rare.

    The price of courage has gone up, it has left most people behind.

  164. @LatW
    @Mr. Hack


    Apotheca:

    “In ancient Greece and Rome, a storeroom of any kind, but esp. one for storing wine.”
     

    "A mysterious place where wine was blended and stored in 13th century Europe," according to owner.

    Sorry, I didn't mean that the name was intense, but the design, label. It has a kind of a gothic design with a flashy, red letter A in the center. This brand is very popular, especially among the millennials, maybe partly because of the way the label looks, which is very different from a classic, more conservative look.

    They have wines called "Crush", "Inferno", "Dark". This brand really stands out with its intense image. And it's a mass product, not boutique.

    Replies: @Mr. Hack, @Emil Nikola Richard

    Interestingly enough, I just got through looking over the Chateau St. Michelle website. Of the wines that I’d be interested in sampling, most were in the \$65/bottle range, some as high as \$200. I’m not currently interested in white wines, and for some reason don’t pursue merlot wines either, finding them somehow lacking the right notes for my palate. I did see their “everyday” cabernet sauvignon that was going for about \$12/bottle that I’ll definitely be looking for. Can you recommend any others that I may have missed for say under \$15/bottle? What are some of your favorites, even those going for \$200/bottle?

  165. @LatW
    @Beckow


    Russkies of any kind (Ukies also scare them, they are too close)
     
    In a recent, rather depressing article on Ukraine Niall Ferguson speculated:

    "The Ukrainians not unreasonably complain that Romania and Bulgaria scarcely met all these [Copenhagen] criteria in 2006 (the year before they became EU members), to say nothing of 2000, when negotiations began. The fact that a current EU member — Hungary — today ranks not far above Ukraine in the Freedom House rankings of political freedom is also not lost on the Ukrainians.

    However, this is just an additional reason for EU foot-dragging [on supporting Ukraine's accession]. So unpopular is Hungarian Prime Minister Viktor Orban in Brussels these days that many European leaders and officials worry that admitting Ukraine would add another illiberal semi-autocracy within the EU fold, which might then join forces with Hungary, Poland and any other populist-led states against an increasingly woke European Commission."
     

    Interesting that he knows the word "woke".

    Replies: @Beckow

    …admitting Ukraine would add another illiberal semi-autocracy within the EU fold

    The plan was to make them liberal enough during the admission process – a lengthy rainbow ritual with Brussels freaks offering money for each additional act. They like that kind of stuff, to the likes of Neill Fergusson it brings back deep memories of the raj and the homo burdens they carried around the globe. (I will not speculate what Fergusson means by “woke“, with the anglo-Belgian perverts they probably reenact it.)

    Ukraine never had a chance to be in the EU: they missed the window and by 2014 it was all pretence. The EU cannot afford additional poor members (esp. large ones) and no rich ones are applying. Ukraine would bring down the average living standards in EU by 5-10% – that would had been manageable during the times of growth, but with the current stagnation it cannot be done. UK leaving was the last financial straw, the numbers just can’t be balanced.

    As all liberal global institutions they will stay around to provide illiberal benefits to their employees, issue verbiage and celebrate their anniversaries. A bit like the late-Middle Age Popes in Rome: jobs, money, parties, and ad maiorem dei gloriam…

    • Replies: @A123
    @Beckow


    Ukraine never had a chance to be in the EU: they missed the window and by 2014 it was all pretence. The EU cannot afford additional poor members (esp. large ones) and no rich ones are applying
     
    Albania, Montenegro, North Macedonia, Serbia, and Turkey are also on the list for EU expansion.

    In addition to money, there is a structural problem. Under the existing EU deal, every sovereign nation has a veto on matters requiring unanimous consent. The system is already hamstrung at 27 members. It is hard to imagine any expansion under the existing structure.

    PEACE 😇

    Replies: @showmethereal

    , @LatW
    @Beckow


    the plan was to make them liberal enough
     
    And hence lies the problem with Western liberals. How liberal is liberal enough? This Ferguson's article is the first one I've seen openly admitting that Ukrainians might willingly swing illiberal and that the West might want to tread carefully here by investing too much in them. I will even insinuate further - let's keep Poland separated from Ukraine (the wild East), we don't want a whole group of large countries organizing because in that case the West will simply be unable to control them. They are wary of a larger illiberal Intermarium.

    These doubts from Ferguson, while valid, are not entirely fair to Ukraine since there are many democrats there. But they are typically center right liberals, not the woke type. The woke type would only develop much later from a small group of the European Solidarity types. Even the ones marching in remembrance of Stepan Bandera are mostly democrats in the sense of respecting and desiring the popular vote and national democrats. Very few even in that crowd are national socialists that support one man or one party rule.

    But it seems that it might not be liberal enough for certain Western types. Because if you're a national Democrat you are still looking out for your own and may not be very open to globalists either economically or politically.
    , @Mikhail
    @Beckow


    The plan was to make them liberal enough during the admission process – a lengthy rainbow ritual with Brussels freaks offering money for each additional act. They like that kind of stuff, to the likes of Neill Fergusson it brings back deep memories of the raj and the homo burdens they carried around the globe. (I will not speculate what Fergusson means by “woke“, with the anglo-Belgian perverts they probably reenact it.)
     
    Fergy is a pro-Brit Empire Scot, with little, if any appreciation for the Russian Empire.
  166. @utu
    @Mikel

    "but one satellite-based record (UAH)" - UAH product is controlled by two outliers not belonging to the consensus: Roy Spencer and John Christy. As long as Spencer and Christi are there I have some hope that satellite data won't be tweaked.

    I have serious doubts about the homogenization process and other corrections of the data from the past. It really seems that some data in some places were pushed down to show greater temperature gradients: "Who controls the past controls the future." Satellite data that are true global data exist only since the end of the 1970s.

    "The media coverage of the climate change problem is abysmal. " - At some point BBC, NYT and other important media outlets decided that there would no longer be any dispute about global warming and thus only pro global warming stories - sometimes very idiotic - are reported. All kinds of scum scientists in peripheral sciences jumped on the global warming bandwagon realizing that is where the money is. The public is bombarded with nonsense of irrelevant and false stories.

    You are right that there is some integrity left in science as counterclaims are being investigated to some degree and if only their results were reported and popularized we would have more cool heads about the global warming. However my personal experience of people from NOAA, NCAR, NASA and DOE who work on climate and atmospheric science do no make me too hopeful that some meaningful coalition of more reasonable skeptics would emerge from among them. Reasonable skeptics are still purged like Judith Curry. But life for atmospheric science practitioner was never that good as it is now as long as you go with the flow. Acid rain and ozone hole were just a prelude. Now they got drunk on power and prestige. They are like nuclear scientists in 1950s who won WWII and had power to destroy the whole world and thought that nuclear science and energy would answer all questions which led to hubris like nuclear planes. Most people were not aware that nuclear power was just the steam age technology where you would burn uranium instead of coal.

    Replies: @Mikel, @Philip Owen

    As long as Spencer and Christi are there I have some hope that satellite data won’t be tweaked.

    To be fair, they also modified the UAH record. But they did it in both directions, which is what you expect from observational errors, that they will be random, and not always in the same direction, as we only seem to get from the “consensus” temperature series. Still, Steven Mosher, part of the Berkeley Earth team and former skeptical blogger, says that the net effect of the homogenization of land records is to reduce the historical warming.

    Reasonable skeptics are still purged like Judith Curry.

    Judith Curry committed the worst sin. She transitioned from part of consensus group to the skeptical camp and now doesn’t bother trying to publish. She explained that it’s not worth the effort, trying to circumvent the “peer-review” gatekeepers. Still, her latest papers were at least mentioned in the last IPCC report and she has been testifying before Congress several times.

    I think that the Working Group I reports of the IPCC (the scientific basis) have become quite reasonable, despite their pro-model bias, unlike the jokes of the WG-II, WG-III and the Summary for Policymakers, which is actually negotiated with the politicians themselves and often contains claims that are contradictory with the WG-I contents.

    I have an open mind to the global warming question but I’m old enough to remember how this scare began, right after the global cooling scare, and I’ve seen too many predictions that never materialized, such as part of Manhattan being under water by the year 2000 (James Hansen dixit). It is quite obvious that the climate science field is full of second-rate researchers who went to College with the intention of saving the world rather than the much more difficult task of understanding how nature really works.

    The most likely scenario while we trasition away from fossil fuels is a continuation of the benign warming that we have experienced up to now (both natural and man-made) but it has already become impossible to take rational measures based on a sane cost-benefit analysis. The Gretinist camp has won and I fear irrational politician’s actions more than global warming itself. They are clueless and, by their own words, they genuinely believe that we can stop floods and hurricanes from happening if we abandon fossil fuels.

    • Thanks: utu
    • Replies: @A123
    @Mikel


    I have an open mind to the global warming question but I’m old enough to remember how this scare began, right after the global cooling scare, and I’ve seen too many predictions that never materialized
     
    The persistent hoaxes by Al Gore and his colleagues have permanently discredited and politicized the subject.

     
    https://3.bp.blogspot.com/-xVpuA_bA_To/UgMF79s16MI/AAAAAAAAa8U/U0l1cohaNpA/s1600/algorehoax.jpg
     

    The correct reaction to hysterical "Karens" panicked over climate mythology is pointing & laughing.

    Elites benefit from the non-science of Global Cooling / Warming / Change. Those at the top of the house set funding priorities. And, they will continue to channel grants to those who produce papers justfying their authoritarian ideology.
    ________

    It would be desirable to move the discussion out of the political realm, returning it to hard science. However, I do not see how to achieve that outcome.

    PEACE 😇
  167. @AP
    @songbird

    Scythians and their cousins the Sarmatians made a genetic contribution to the proto-Slavs and several Slavic words came from their languages, but they were a different people. I guess a rough analogy might be to the Norse influence and settlement among the Gaels, they were thoroughly assimilated and the language borrowings are so ancient they don't feel like foreign borrowings. But they are a different people.

    https://www.quora.com/How-many-Norse-loanwords-do-you-find-in-Irish

    This occurred before the Slavs spread out from their original homeland in northern Ukraine/southern Belarus/eastern Poland, so all the Slavs are a little bit Scythian (and Sarmatian) though Ukrainians perhaps more than the others because they stayed in the original homeland and didn't mix with others as they moved out (like Russians mixed with Finnic peoples, Czechs with Germans).

    Details of the influence of Scythian and Sarmatian Iranic languages on proto-Slavic are here:

    https://referenceworks.brillonline.com/entries/encyclopaedia-iranica-online/slavic-iranian-contacts-linguistic-relations-COM_336467

    The consensus within the current state of research holds that Iranian- and Slavic-speaking peoples came into contact in the second half of the first millennium BCE in the transition zone between steppe and forest to the north of the Black Sea.The Scythian language of these Iranians is known only fragmentarily, from names quoted by Herodotus and other ancient Greek authors and inscriptions from the northern coast of the Black Sea (see SCYTHIAN LANGUAGE); it has also left its trace in numerous place names, most famously the rivers Danube, Dniester, Dnieper, and Don (Ancient Gk. Tánais), all containing PIr. (Proto-Iranian) *dānu- ‘river’ (cf. Oss. don). The Scythians were dispersed westward by the arrival of the Sarmatians, who dominated the steppe in the last centuries BCE and early centuries CE. Commercial and military contacts between Iranians and Slavs intensified during this period, as successive waves of peoples moving westward from Asia pushed the Sarmatians and then the Alans west and north into the proximity of the Slavs’ home territory.

    That the religious and cultural worldview of the Iranians influenced the early Slavs is demonstrated by Slavic lexical items with solid PIE etymologies, but whose meanings are otherwise restricted to Iranian (Jakobson; Kuryłowicz; Benveniste, 1967): PSl. (Proto-Slavic) *slava ‘word’ (OCSl. [Old Church Slavonic] slovo) < OIr. *sravah- ‘glory, renown; word’ (Av. sravah-; contrast Ved. (Vedic) śrávas-, Gk. kléos ‘glory’); *bagu ‘riches, richness; god’ (OCSl. bogŭ; cf. bog-atŭ ‘rich,’ u-bogŭ ‘poor’; later replaced in the sense “richness” by bogatĭstvo) < OIr. *baga- ‘fortune; god’ (Av. baga- ‘share, lot; god,’ Sogd. βɣ- ‘god’; contrast Ved. bhága- ‘abundance; allocation (with reference to gods)’); and probably also *dīvu ‘demon, evil spirit of wilderness’ (OCSl. divŭ; cf. Old Rus. díviĭ, BCSM divlji ‘wild,’ Cz. divý ‘wild, mad,’ Bulg. div ‘wild, feral’) < OIr. *daiva- (q.v.) ‘demon, daēvic being’ (Av. daēva-, OPers. daiva-; contrast Ved. devá-, Lith. diẽvas, Lat. deus, Old Irish día ‘god’) and *rāji ‘paradise’ (OCSl. rajĭ) Arm. bagin ‘altar’; Reczek, 1987). The opposition of *bagu and *dīvu, and particularly the semantic depreciation of the latter from “god” to “demon,” suggest that the Iranians with whom the early Slavs came into contact adhered to a “primitive” version of Mazdaean dualism (Gołąb, 1975). However, despite the claims of Jakobson and others, no names of pagan Slavic deities may be definitively identified as Iranian borrowings.

    Standing beside these religious borrowings or calques are potential examples related to social organization: PSl. *mīru ‘world, peace’ (OCSl. mirŭ; Old Rus. mirŭ ‘village community’) < PIr. *miθra- (Humbach, pp. 124-25); PSl. *gaspadi ‘lord’ (OCSl. gospodĭ) < Mid. Pers. *guspad < OIr. *wić-pati- (with the Middle Persian change of word-initial *wi-) or Mid. Ir. *gas(t)pad < OIr. *gasti-pati- (Szemerényi, pp. 384-86, with preference for the former; but gospodĭ could have been remodeled after svobodĭ ‘free’).Additional items with likely Iranian sources are OCSl. čaša ‘potḗrion,’ Rus. chásha ‘drinking glass, bowl,’ etc. < Ir. *čaša(ka)- (to the root of Mod. Pers. čašidan ‘taste’; cf. Skt. caṣaka- ‘cup, wine glass,’ Arm. čašak ‘drinking vessel’); Rus. sobáka ‘dog’ (also attested outside East Slavic in Pol. (dial.), Kashubian sobaka ‘lecherous man’), which despite doubts can hardly be separated from Av. spaka- ‘doglike,’ Median spáka ‘female dog’ (Herodotus); PSl. taparu ‘ax’ (OCSl. toporŭ, Rus. topór) < Mid. Ir. *tapara- (Mid. Pers. tabrak, Pers. tabar, cf. Arm. tapar; perhaps metathesized from the notorious Wanderwort attested in Oss. færæt, Khot. paḍa, Toch. B peret, A porat, Turk. balta, etc.; see Abaev, 1995, I, p. 451); and, among words beginning with x-, *xarnā ‘food, sustenance’ (OCSl. xrana, Bulg. khrana, BCSM hrana) < OIr. *xwarnah- (Av. xvarənah- ‘food, drink’; Reczek, 1968), *xvaru ‘sick’ (Rus. khvóryĭ ‘sickly,’ Pol. chory ‘sick’) < OIr. *xwara- (Av. xvara- ‘wound’), and perhaps the name of the Croats, *xŭrvatŭ, if from OIr. *(fšu-)harwatar- ‘pastoralist’ (cf. Av. pasuš.hauruua- ‘watching over sheep’; Vasmer, 1953-58, III, p. 261). Two words of Iranian origin which have spread far and wide beyond Slavic are *xumeli ‘hops’ (OCSl. xŭmelĭ, Rus. khmel’, Pol. chmiel) < OIr. *hauma-aryaka- ‘Aryan soma’ (Oss. xwymællæg, Digor xumællæg ‘hops’; also borrowed into Germanic, Finno-Ugric, and Turkic; see Abaev, 1995, IV, pp. 261-62) and OCSl. sapogŭ ‘hypódēma,’ Rus. sapóg ‘boot’ < Mid. Ir. *sapaga- ‘hoof’ (cf. Av. safa-, Oss. sæftæg), the source of Mong. sab, Manchu sabu ‘shoe’ (Vasmer, 1953-58, II, pp. 578).

    To the second period of Slavic-Iranian contacts belong specifically East Slavic lexical items of Iranian origin.Their number is modest, but three likely examples are Old Rus. íreĭ (also výreĭ, výraĭ) ‘a southern land to which birds of passage migrate, a fabled magical realm’ < OIr. *a(i)rya- ‘Aryan’ (cf. Av. airiia-, OPers. ariya-; Vasmer, 1913, pp. 176-77; idem. 1924, pp. 367 [1971, pp. 6, 172]), Rus. mórda ‘snout’ < OIr. *mr̥da- ‘head’ (cf. Av. kamərəδa- ‘head (daēvic),’ Skt. mūrdhán- ‘head, peak’), and Rus. Church Slavonic xoměstorŭ ‘hamster’ < Mid. Ir. *hamēstar- (cf. Av. hamaēstar- ‘the one who throws to the ground’).Other candidates are Rus. step’ ‘steppe,’ cf. Oss. t’æp’æn ‘flat, level’ (< PIr. *(s)tap-; Bailey, p. 87; Trubachev, p. 39); Rus. khoróshiĭ ‘good,’ cf. Oss. xorz (Digor xwarz, Alanic [Tzetzes] xas /xwarz/); and Ukr. kháta ‘hut,’ if from OIr. *kata- ‘room, chamber’ (Av. kata-; Trubachev, pp. 41).In contrast, the West Slavic Iranianisms claimed by Trubachev and others, including such common verbs as Pol. patrzeć, patrzyć ‘look (at),’ Cz. patřit ‘belong’; Pol. (dial.) szatrzyć ‘know, remember,’ Cz. šetřit ‘save, spare’; Pol. dbać, Cz. dbát ‘take care’; and the all-important title Pol. pan, Cz. pán (Old Cz. hpán) < PSl. *gŭpanŭ < OIr. *gu-pāna- ‘cowherd’ (cf. Av. pəšu.pāna- ‘bridge-guarding,’ CSogd. xwšp’ny < *fšu-pāna-ka- ‘shepherd,’ but why *gu- for OIr. *gau- ‘cow’?) must be regarded as extremely uncertain (for alternative etymologies, see the respective entries in Rejzek, Boryś) and how such influence of an Iranian variety on the western dialects of Slavic could be interpreted in historical terms is also far from obvious.

    ::::::::::::::::::::::::

    Although the Slavs are partially Scythian/Sarmatian, the Ossetians are the last remaining "pure" speakers of that language.

    Replies: @songbird

    My snap impression is that there was potentially a lot of genetic turnover in the area of the Black Sea from Classical Greek times. Weren’t the Thracians (modern day Bulgaria) described as being red-haired and blue-eyed?

    • Replies: @Yellowface Anon
    @songbird

    How much of Thracian genes have stayed in modern Bulgaria?

    Replies: @songbird, @AP

  168. @AP
    @Yevardian


    Social shaming of people of dissenting views is recent phenomenon, it’s absolutely cowardly and pathetic, and absolutely a direct result of female political franchise, or simply the adoption of ‘mass’ politics of the hysterical mob
     
    It seems to have been common among the American Puritans for moral/religious reasons. Secularised Puritans view social and political issues in moral terms. So the phenomenon of social shaming for incorrect political beliefs is not feminisation so much as it is a form of Americanisation.

    Replies: @Beckow

    …social shaming for incorrect political beliefs is not feminisation so much as it is a form of Americanisation.

    A core value of the original Puritan mentality was conformism. Within a group, shaming is used to enforce conformism.

    With Americanisation everything over time becomes for sale, that has been the key invention of America: everything-is-for-sale universal philosophy, all activities are monetised. That puts an actual price on courage and during times of stress courage becomes more expensive, and rare.

    The price of courage has gone up, it has left most people behind.

  169. @Beckow
    @LatW


    ...admitting Ukraine would add another illiberal semi-autocracy within the EU fold
     
    The plan was to make them liberal enough during the admission process - a lengthy rainbow ritual with Brussels freaks offering money for each additional act. They like that kind of stuff, to the likes of Neill Fergusson it brings back deep memories of the raj and the homo burdens they carried around the globe. (I will not speculate what Fergusson means by "woke", with the anglo-Belgian perverts they probably reenact it.)

    Ukraine never had a chance to be in the EU: they missed the window and by 2014 it was all pretence. The EU cannot afford additional poor members (esp. large ones) and no rich ones are applying. Ukraine would bring down the average living standards in EU by 5-10% - that would had been manageable during the times of growth, but with the current stagnation it cannot be done. UK leaving was the last financial straw, the numbers just can't be balanced.

    As all liberal global institutions they will stay around to provide illiberal benefits to their employees, issue verbiage and celebrate their anniversaries. A bit like the late-Middle Age Popes in Rome: jobs, money, parties, and ad maiorem dei gloriam...

    Replies: @A123, @LatW, @Mikhail

    Ukraine never had a chance to be in the EU: they missed the window and by 2014 it was all pretence. The EU cannot afford additional poor members (esp. large ones) and no rich ones are applying

    Albania, Montenegro, North Macedonia, Serbia, and Turkey are also on the list for EU expansion.

    In addition to money, there is a structural problem. Under the existing EU deal, every sovereign nation has a veto on matters requiring unanimous consent. The system is already hamstrung at 27 members. It is hard to imagine any expansion under the existing structure.

    PEACE 😇

    • Replies: @showmethereal
    @A123

    Well there is something I can agree with you on.... It doesn't make any sense how the EU functions - trampling on each country's sovereign rights. I think ASEAN is a better model of a bloc. Even Mercosur. In a way I can't even blame the UK for leaving the EU. Trade and customs is one thing - but dictating individual laws and social structures is another.

  170. @Mikel
    @utu


    As long as Spencer and Christi are there I have some hope that satellite data won’t be tweaked.
     
    To be fair, they also modified the UAH record. But they did it in both directions, which is what you expect from observational errors, that they will be random, and not always in the same direction, as we only seem to get from the "consensus" temperature series. Still, Steven Mosher, part of the Berkeley Earth team and former skeptical blogger, says that the net effect of the homogenization of land records is to reduce the historical warming.

    Reasonable skeptics are still purged like Judith Curry.
     
    Judith Curry committed the worst sin. She transitioned from part of consensus group to the skeptical camp and now doesn't bother trying to publish. She explained that it's not worth the effort, trying to circumvent the "peer-review" gatekeepers. Still, her latest papers were at least mentioned in the last IPCC report and she has been testifying before Congress several times.

    I think that the Working Group I reports of the IPCC (the scientific basis) have become quite reasonable, despite their pro-model bias, unlike the jokes of the WG-II, WG-III and the Summary for Policymakers, which is actually negotiated with the politicians themselves and often contains claims that are contradictory with the WG-I contents.

    I have an open mind to the global warming question but I'm old enough to remember how this scare began, right after the global cooling scare, and I've seen too many predictions that never materialized, such as part of Manhattan being under water by the year 2000 (James Hansen dixit). It is quite obvious that the climate science field is full of second-rate researchers who went to College with the intention of saving the world rather than the much more difficult task of understanding how nature really works.

    The most likely scenario while we trasition away from fossil fuels is a continuation of the benign warming that we have experienced up to now (both natural and man-made) but it has already become impossible to take rational measures based on a sane cost-benefit analysis. The Gretinist camp has won and I fear irrational politician's actions more than global warming itself. They are clueless and, by their own words, they genuinely believe that we can stop floods and hurricanes from happening if we abandon fossil fuels.

    Replies: @A123

    I have an open mind to the global warming question but I’m old enough to remember how this scare began, right after the global cooling scare, and I’ve seen too many predictions that never materialized

    The persistent hoaxes by Al Gore and his colleagues have permanently discredited and politicized the subject.

     

     

    The correct reaction to hysterical “Karens” panicked over climate mythology is pointing & laughing.

    Elites benefit from the non-science of Global Cooling / Warming / Change. Those at the top of the house set funding priorities. And, they will continue to channel grants to those who produce papers justfying their authoritarian ideology.
    ________

    It would be desirable to move the discussion out of the political realm, returning it to hard science. However, I do not see how to achieve that outcome.

    PEACE 😇

  171. @Yevardian
    @songbird


    I think that the Soviet film industry was hampered a lot by economics, which is a problem that China has already circumvented, to a large degree.
     
    What the hell are you talking about? The USSR made an extremely large proportion of the greatest films ever made. Soviet-era directors like Alexei German, Aleksandr Sokurov & Nikita Mikhalkov continued to make strong films even after the dissolution of the USSR, sometimes obtaining non-Russian funding on the strength of their reputations.
    Even the average output was of very high quality, there was little to no outright trash, no pandering to people's worst instincts, and films of that era remain popular to this day in all the former states of the Soviet Union (perhaps with the exception of the Balts, which I can't speak of, though I imagine cinema output crashed utterly there, as everywhere else in the region).

    Quality filmmaking, like airlines or non-profitable areas of scientific research, depends heavily on state-protectionism and funding, being as expensive and volatile as it is. Look at the total collapse of European film production outside of France (which continues to heavily subsidise its industry) since the 1980s, with most other European films being produced in conjuction with French funding and technical support.

    I don't actually this is a trivial issue either, especially with the Western youth population becoming increasingly illiterate, states should put up some sort of effort to stall the total Americanisation of its coming generation.

    I can't really say the same for Chinese films (I have seen about 30 odd, not a large number), certainly not in terms of artistic quality, though I understand that they do very well financially. Though that still says very little about their intrinsic merits, given China's enormous internal market and its cultural distinctiveness.

    Replies: @Shortsword, @songbird, @Dmitry

    What the hell are you talking about? The USSR made an extremely large proportion of the greatest films ever made

    You think economics wasn’t a handicap? Well, the film Stalker was shot twice – the first time they messed up the film development because they weren’t used to working with Kodak 5247 stock. Wouldn’t have happened in the West.

    If you are a fan of Soviet film, perhaps, you should post a list.

    [MORE]

    Anyway, I am not talking about critics’ favorites. I am talking about audience favorites. And it seems probable that a lot of Soviet hits abroad were made with the aid of shady trade deals, and not by audience choice. The Soviet Union had nothing to compare with American blockbusters, like Star Wars or Aliens. The year the Soviet Union collapsed, Hollywood released T2. In a general way, The Soviet Union was bad at spectacle. (not that I am a fan of Hollywood, from my perspective they are cancerous)

    The Chinese definitely have a lot more potential to make waves. One reason being that they have more technology available to them. In theory, they could match Hollywood tit-for-tat when it comes to special effects. They could be very competitive in computer animation, whereas the Soviets were short on computers, and smuggling them in, was a way to make business deals.

    Even the average output was of very high quality, there was little to no outright trash, no pandering to people’s worst instincts

    I think you may be looking at it with rose-tinted glasses, to say “zero.” The film Zerograd (1988, have no seen it) has tits on the poster. Of course, that was after perestroika.

    Quality filmmaking, like airlines or non-profitable areas of scientific research, depends heavily on state-protectionism and funding, being as expensive

    I’ve never said that I am a free-trader when it comes to culture, and the Chinese, even with their rather large market, have’t taken precisely that position either.

    BTW, I’d actually go further than you and say quality film-making requires careful censorship and cultural themes.

    I can’t really say the same for Chinese films (I have seen about 30 odd, not a large number),

    If we were to compare Russian films or Hollywood films post-2010, to Chinese films, I would say that they were honestly all mostly crap.

    I see more potential for growth in Chinese quality than anywhere else. They don’t need to pander to diversity, unlike the US. One thing to keep in mind is that they are really trying to play economic catch-up. Yes, total box office has been exceeded, but they probably don’t have as many films that get above \$15 million. Right now, they are concerned more with growth than quality or export potential, but I expect that to change in a few years.

  172. @Yellowface Anon
    @showmethereal

    This is why it's unsustainable in the face of Omicron, which is far more transmissible but less virulent and lethal. I can imagine the entirety of China under such kind of lockdown for months on end, which will crush the entire global supply chain and fulfill A123's dream of total production onshoring. Xian citizens are already sending SOS messages of shortages as this kind of distribution system is starting to fail, now scale it up to 1.4 billion in a few months. It will be the Great Leap Forward 2.0, and I hope they have learnt their lesson in not being institutionally suicidal. We count on a strong China to counter a failing US, and if both of them fails, the WEF takes over.

    Replies: @PedroAstra, @Showmethereal

    It seems to me (from talking to various contacts living there) that whatever Hong Kong is doing right now, is working, as far as non-suicidal zero-covid policies go. Is this your experience on the ground?

    • Replies: @Yellowface Anon
    @PedroAstra

    As far as every incoming flight is quarantined. And even then the floodgate has been opened after some air crew was exempt from quarantines.

    HK's vaccination rate is close to the US, and serious mandates are coming. Just imagine installing a vaccine passport system right after the civil unrest of 2019 - you'll see European levels of dysfunction.

    Replies: @Mikel

  173. @Yellowface Anon
    @songbird

    "White Hispanic" Criollos (under the old colonial caste system) should definitely be able to claim Spanish & Portuguese citizenship.

    Replies: @songbird

    “White Hispanic” Criollos (under the old colonial caste system) should definitely be able to claim Spanish & Portuguese citizenship.

    I agree, but I don’t know if there is a state in Europe with a rational system of Jus sanguinis (though in theory it is widespread). It seems like it is often one parent (who for instance could be an Arab or African). In the case of Italy, in theory, it could be like one GGG grandparent, who miscegenated with Africans. (indeed there are Eritreans who are suing to get in)

    It is pretty clear that Europeans crafted their systems when they were used to interacting with their near neighbors and not with Africans. Like France with Germans in Alsace-Lorraine.

    Any rational system would involve an understanding of genetic distance, color-signaling, and group co-evolution. It would acknowledge truths like someone who miscegenates is less related to their children than they are to other co-ethnics.

    • Replies: @Cutler
    @songbird

    The majority of Jus Sanguinis applicants from Latin America are from Argentina and Southern Brazil and I would assume the vast majority are White/ Phenotypically European as most have ancestors who left Italy at the turn of the century who largely settled areas that were already heavily European ie Espirito Santo Parana Buenos Aires etc and mixed amongst themselves for the most part.
    The Brothers of Italy party are saying Italy should be finding its immigrants from the Italian diaspora rather than non Europeans from Africa Asia etc.

  174. @Yellowface Anon
    @showmethereal

    This is why it's unsustainable in the face of Omicron, which is far more transmissible but less virulent and lethal. I can imagine the entirety of China under such kind of lockdown for months on end, which will crush the entire global supply chain and fulfill A123's dream of total production onshoring. Xian citizens are already sending SOS messages of shortages as this kind of distribution system is starting to fail, now scale it up to 1.4 billion in a few months. It will be the Great Leap Forward 2.0, and I hope they have learnt their lesson in not being institutionally suicidal. We count on a strong China to counter a failing US, and if both of them fails, the WEF takes over.

    Replies: @PedroAstra, @Showmethereal

    Oh well I was just addressing the issue of whether the death rate is true or not… But I make no judgements otherwise. The breakdown in supply chain happened least in China actually… Check the import/export and production numbers around the globe.
    As to the people in Xian— again not unique. Everywhere there was a lockdown in China some people complained..
    As to going forward – my GUESS is they are waiting as more managable strains work their way and the virus becomes “normal”. But I dont pretend to have specific insight as to what they will do.

    • Replies: @Yellowface Anon
    @Showmethereal

    I was actually imagining all, or even much of the country in lockdown. It nearly happened back in the first outbreak.

    They still plan for elimination judging by their eagerness to lock down over a handful of cases. They'll probably change their mind very late, since they are thinking in terms of biosecurity.

    Replies: @showmethereal

  175. @Thulean Friend
    On environmentalism, so much of the discussion gets limited to energy forms while ignoring the wider social ramifications, such as the destruction of our cities.

    https://i.imgur.com/GIplVM8.jpg

    This degradation is invisible to those who were born into it, so they take it for granted or, worse, even defend it. But all over Europe there is a slow movement to reclaim our cities. Latest example from Austria, above.

    There is also the fact that our food supply system is deeply broken. A lot of diseases begin in animals due to factory farming and then jump to humans. I don't eat meat, but even if I did I would be worried about this. As should everyone who cares about limited and preferably eliminating disease spread from animals to humans.

    Air pollution by coal is an obvious issue, but far less attention is given noise pollution, especially in big cities, where cars are a major problem. In other words, environmentalism isn't just about crossing the baseline of "we should survive as a species", which is pathetically low. It should be about "we must dramatically raise our standard of living and civilisation".

    It's natural that any progress will be opposed by reactionaries, because that is what reactionaries do. Given these realities, there is no alternative than just bulldozing any opposition. Should people have listened to those opposed to women's right to vote? It's not a serious argument. Anyone still holding those views understands well to keep them private since social ostracisation is now very strong, and rightfully so.

    Replies: @Yevardian, @songbird

    but far less attention is given noise pollution, especially in big cities, where cars are a major problem.

    I agree completely, but would go further: sun-belt people, like Brazilians, increasingly are going for jaunts in the countryside, with their car speakers blazing horrible, tasteless music, which should be confined to eco-friendly zones of rap, like the hellscape of Somalia, where there is not much worthwhile wildlife to concern oneself about disturbing.

  176. @Yevardian
    @songbird


    I think that the Soviet film industry was hampered a lot by economics, which is a problem that China has already circumvented, to a large degree.
     
    What the hell are you talking about? The USSR made an extremely large proportion of the greatest films ever made. Soviet-era directors like Alexei German, Aleksandr Sokurov & Nikita Mikhalkov continued to make strong films even after the dissolution of the USSR, sometimes obtaining non-Russian funding on the strength of their reputations.
    Even the average output was of very high quality, there was little to no outright trash, no pandering to people's worst instincts, and films of that era remain popular to this day in all the former states of the Soviet Union (perhaps with the exception of the Balts, which I can't speak of, though I imagine cinema output crashed utterly there, as everywhere else in the region).

    Quality filmmaking, like airlines or non-profitable areas of scientific research, depends heavily on state-protectionism and funding, being as expensive and volatile as it is. Look at the total collapse of European film production outside of France (which continues to heavily subsidise its industry) since the 1980s, with most other European films being produced in conjuction with French funding and technical support.

    I don't actually this is a trivial issue either, especially with the Western youth population becoming increasingly illiterate, states should put up some sort of effort to stall the total Americanisation of its coming generation.

    I can't really say the same for Chinese films (I have seen about 30 odd, not a large number), certainly not in terms of artistic quality, though I understand that they do very well financially. Though that still says very little about their intrinsic merits, given China's enormous internal market and its cultural distinctiveness.

    Replies: @Shortsword, @songbird, @Dmitry

    USSR .. greatest films

    There are indeed wonderful films from the Soviet Union. And innovations of directors, especially Eisenshtein who had significant influence on even international 20th century film editing culture.

    But there was also downward pressure from the authorities, which actually ruins many films, creates many problematic changes to stories.

    You also said the name Tarkovsky, who has become an exile and his later films were produced in Italy, Sweden, etc, despite his cult popularity in the USSR. He was also possibly killed by industrial pollution in Estonia.

    There is this very dual pressures in the USSR, where the level of artistic training was possibly the highest in the world. But the potential is not always realized.

    Another mixed situation could be Mikhail Kalatozov. Incredibly talented director, but who produces very propagandistic film for Cuba “Soy Cuba” that can be a bit difficult to watch today.

    Then there are artists like Shostakovich, which could be an ambiguous example, where he wasn’t allowed to develop organically. But his most popular works (e.g. Fifth Symphony) sometimes came after the authorities bully him.

    But then Shostakovich has a very stressed life and perhaps we lost a couple symphonies at the end from his heart failure.

    heavily on state-protectionism and funding

    There are mixed situations on this topic in the Soviet Union.

    For example, Kurosawa’s “Dersu Uzala”, a wonderful film, funded by Mosfilm. On the other hand, ( fashionable cult director) Tarkovsky goes to exile, with last films funded by Gaumont.

    I agree that these artistic directors often require state funding, as there isn’t enough of popular to demand to realize private funding for their often expensive visions.

  177. @songbird
    Could AK claim Italian citizenship based on their definition of jus sanguinis?

    And shouldn't it be considered a structural flaw of the EU, as it seems to open up the possibility than tens of millions of Mestizos could immigrate to Europe? (not counting the millions who have come already)

    Replies: @Yellowface Anon, @Dmitry

    I guess it’s interesting question, if Italy accepts those commercial DNA tests (I doubt it). Italy does give citizenship to anyone with an Italian ancestor. But the commercial DNA test can probably just misread people from small nationality who were not in their database. Are there any DNA experts here who can comment.

    Karlin’s said he is descended from Laks, which is a very small tribal nationality in Dagestan, with only a few thousand people. It’s possible the DNA test company simply doesn’t have an Lak people in its database. Maybe the company doesn’t want to provide refunds (they are just private money-makers) and assigns some Italian ancestry to the mystery DNA, as that had some similar patterns.

    It wouldn’t be surprising if Karlin was the first person from Lak nationality to apply for a DNA test.

    If you look at the interviews of a Lak at 1:09 in the video, they have identical twin of AK. Such a visual resemblance is perhaps more accurate than the commercial DNA test, for such a small nationality.

    This dude at 1:09 it looks visually identical to Karlin. So there is indeed probably the real nationality.

    It would be funny if you could attain Italian nationality though by such methods. Kind of absurd but it would be worth trying considering the potential reward would be so high.

    • Replies: @songbird
    @Dmitry

    From reading the subtext, I got the impression that AK could recognize an Italian surname in his tree somewhere.

    Though, I agree with you in principal that commercial tests often leave something to be desired - to do a really good job, IMO, you would have to spend more money on it than they did and even dig up 500 year old (or older) skeletons.

    One funny thing is all the Euro nationalists who think they are being gaslit, by the companies claiming they have trace Jewish roots. IMO, this probably isn't intentional, but has to do with the models being flawed as Jews were really excited with the technology and probably participated more and were given more weight in the models.

    Replies: @Dmitry

  178. @songbird
    @AP

    My snap impression is that there was potentially a lot of genetic turnover in the area of the Black Sea from Classical Greek times. Weren't the Thracians (modern day Bulgaria) described as being red-haired and blue-eyed?

    Replies: @Yellowface Anon

    How much of Thracian genes have stayed in modern Bulgaria?

    • Replies: @songbird
    @Yellowface Anon

    I suspect that they have been diluted and subsumed. Easy to hide recessive genes. When I look at images, it seems a surprising number of Bulgarians have light or red hair. Though, IIRC, AC Doyle observing Bulgarians POWs in WWI, described them as looking small (probably partly due to lower development), dark, and weak compared to British people.

    , @AP
    @Yellowface Anon

    Probably a fair amount. Not many Slavic genes in that place though.

  179. @PedroAstra
    @Yellowface Anon

    It seems to me (from talking to various contacts living there) that whatever Hong Kong is doing right now, is working, as far as non-suicidal zero-covid policies go. Is this your experience on the ground?

    Replies: @Yellowface Anon

    As far as every incoming flight is quarantined. And even then the floodgate has been opened after some air crew was exempt from quarantines.

    HK’s vaccination rate is close to the US, and serious mandates are coming. Just imagine installing a vaccine passport system right after the civil unrest of 2019 – you’ll see European levels of dysfunction.

    • Replies: @Mikel
    @Yellowface Anon


    you’ll see European levels of dysfunction.
     
    That was a cruel remark. Please be merciful with us when you finally become the world overlords.

    Replies: @Yellowface Anon

  180. @Showmethereal
    @Yellowface Anon

    Oh well I was just addressing the issue of whether the death rate is true or not... But I make no judgements otherwise. The breakdown in supply chain happened least in China actually... Check the import/export and production numbers around the globe.
    As to the people in Xian--- again not unique. Everywhere there was a lockdown in China some people complained..
    As to going forward - my GUESS is they are waiting as more managable strains work their way and the virus becomes "normal". But I dont pretend to have specific insight as to what they will do.

    Replies: @Yellowface Anon

    I was actually imagining all, or even much of the country in lockdown. It nearly happened back in the first outbreak.

    They still plan for elimination judging by their eagerness to lock down over a handful of cases. They’ll probably change their mind very late, since they are thinking in terms of biosecurity.

    • Replies: @showmethereal
    @Yellowface Anon

    "They’ll probably change their mind very late, since they are thinking in terms of biosecurity."

    Well that is absolutely what this is all about... Preparing for potential biowarfare from the west (which probably has already been going on agriculturally - which is why we saw in 2021 - food reserves were boosted as well - and grain production hit an all time high). No question about it.

    Replies: @Yellowface Anon

  181. @LatW
    @Dmitry

    I didn't mean for the conversation to veer towards just wine, it's just your passive aggressive dig about how Mr Hack needs Aldi to eat clean kind of triggered me. :) You're really good at that. :) When you said Mr Hack needs European stores with EU regulations to be protected and healthy it sounded a bit like when Andrei Martyanov said he won't be buying German cars because they are "over engineered and overpriced".

    High end grocery stores, especially the co-ops, are better than anything in Europe and Europe will probably never have anything of that quality or variety. And European stores, including in EE, are great. Btw, it's good that the EU has those protective regulations. But in the US it's less regulated (although I doubt it it's the case with food), but people get to choose themselves what's good for them or not. This is why religion was traditionally more important in the US, because religion helps you make more "healthy" lifestyle choices. You're independent but still constrained by religion. Anyway, nowadays it's a class thing. But it can make a difference, for instance, there is less sugar in the peanut butter and jelly that's sold at the high end store vs the regular store. Over the long term, this can make a difference in your child's weight.

    If Aldi is really as cheap as they say, then it speaks very well for Germany... not surprising as Germany is known for its cheap but good quality food, clothing and rents. When you take care of your population like that, that's a sign of real wealth.

    Replies: @Dmitry

    just wine,

    Lol what is so bad about talking wine? We can always return to more exciting topics of kale and mushrooms if you wish.

    Actually I didn’t like wine until a couple years ago. So many nights indoors with the pandemic, has pushed me to enjoy wine. I’m even not disliking red wines nowadays. What about you?

    I would agree with you about not needing to import EU wine in the USA. But then I just buy the cheapest wine bottles, so just here to add my opinion uselessly.

    I remember Aaron B was posting about “terroir” ( https://www.unz.com/akarlin/open-thread-168/#comment-4969089 ). And considering the style and organization of his posts, I’m assuming we should listen to his expertise as he knows more about wine than the rest of us. 🙂

    Aldi is really as cheap as they say, then it speaks very well for Germany…

    They also sell expensive luxury products, as well as cheaper less quality ones. But those luxury products are usually seeming good value relative to what product quality they sold.

    You know Mr Hack said they started to open Aldi in the USA and I was recommending it to him so he can eat more cleanly like the EU people. But it looks like they are selling a lot of American products there. Then there are some German wines like Riesling
    https://www.aldi.us/en/products/alcohol/white-wine/

  182. @Beckow
    @LatW


    ...admitting Ukraine would add another illiberal semi-autocracy within the EU fold
     
    The plan was to make them liberal enough during the admission process - a lengthy rainbow ritual with Brussels freaks offering money for each additional act. They like that kind of stuff, to the likes of Neill Fergusson it brings back deep memories of the raj and the homo burdens they carried around the globe. (I will not speculate what Fergusson means by "woke", with the anglo-Belgian perverts they probably reenact it.)

    Ukraine never had a chance to be in the EU: they missed the window and by 2014 it was all pretence. The EU cannot afford additional poor members (esp. large ones) and no rich ones are applying. Ukraine would bring down the average living standards in EU by 5-10% - that would had been manageable during the times of growth, but with the current stagnation it cannot be done. UK leaving was the last financial straw, the numbers just can't be balanced.

    As all liberal global institutions they will stay around to provide illiberal benefits to their employees, issue verbiage and celebrate their anniversaries. A bit like the late-Middle Age Popes in Rome: jobs, money, parties, and ad maiorem dei gloriam...

    Replies: @A123, @LatW, @Mikhail

    the plan was to make them liberal enough

    And hence lies the problem with Western liberals. How liberal is liberal enough? This Ferguson’s article is the first one I’ve seen openly admitting that Ukrainians might willingly swing illiberal and that the West might want to tread carefully here by investing too much in them. I will even insinuate further – let’s keep Poland separated from Ukraine (the wild East), we don’t want a whole group of large countries organizing because in that case the West will simply be unable to control them. They are wary of a larger illiberal Intermarium.

    These doubts from Ferguson, while valid, are not entirely fair to Ukraine since there are many democrats there. But they are typically center right liberals, not the woke type. The woke type would only develop much later from a small group of the European Solidarity types. Even the ones marching in remembrance of Stepan Bandera are mostly democrats in the sense of respecting and desiring the popular vote and national democrats. Very few even in that crowd are national socialists that support one man or one party rule.

    But it seems that it might not be liberal enough for certain Western types. Because if you’re a national Democrat you are still looking out for your own and may not be very open to globalists either economically or politically.

  183. @Dmitry
    @songbird

    I guess it's interesting question, if Italy accepts those commercial DNA tests (I doubt it). Italy does give citizenship to anyone with an Italian ancestor. But the commercial DNA test can probably just misread people from small nationality who were not in their database. Are there any DNA experts here who can comment.

    Karlin's said he is descended from Laks, which is a very small tribal nationality in Dagestan, with only a few thousand people. It's possible the DNA test company simply doesn't have an Lak people in its database. Maybe the company doesn't want to provide refunds (they are just private money-makers) and assigns some Italian ancestry to the mystery DNA, as that had some similar patterns.

    It wouldn't be surprising if Karlin was the first person from Lak nationality to apply for a DNA test.

    If you look at the interviews of a Lak at 1:09 in the video, they have identical twin of AK. Such a visual resemblance is perhaps more accurate than the commercial DNA test, for such a small nationality.

    This dude at 1:09 it looks visually identical to Karlin. So there is indeed probably the real nationality.

    https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=NmLXW4QSpmM

    It would be funny if you could attain Italian nationality though by such methods. Kind of absurd but it would be worth trying considering the potential reward would be so high.

    Replies: @songbird

    From reading the subtext, I got the impression that AK could recognize an Italian surname in his tree somewhere.

    Though, I agree with you in principal that commercial tests often leave something to be desired – to do a really good job, IMO, you would have to spend more money on it than they did and even dig up 500 year old (or older) skeletons.

    One funny thing is all the Euro nationalists who think they are being gaslit, by the companies claiming they have trace Jewish roots. IMO, this probably isn’t intentional, but has to do with the models being flawed as Jews were really excited with the technology and probably participated more and were given more weight in the models.

    • Replies: @Dmitry
    @songbird

    Recently my relative has the commercial DNA results, we found significantly higher Jewish ancestry than expected. I have an official, documented Jewish ancestry. But the DNA said significantly higher than we know from documents.

    However, this is surely because Jews have been constantly bleeding into the population. This is the theme of Sholem Aleichem stories. Jews are running away and marrying into the population.

    So my documented Jewish ancestry is from Jews who didn't run away from their community (which we know from our documents). But my additional undocumented Jewish ancestry points could be just from the background levels in the non-Jewish population.

    But only the documented Jewish ancestry has any value (the other additional DNA is considered meaningless from the Jews themselves). So you still can only really claim to be as Jewish to extent as your family documents can prove. I'm still probably not in a position to claim to be more Jewish.

    We also were shown a lot of Baltic ancestry in that tests. But probably just noise from the way they measure background population, rather than any interesting stories of secretly, undercover Baltic great-grandparents.

    Replies: @Mikhail, @songbird, @AP

  184. @Yellowface Anon
    @PedroAstra

    As far as every incoming flight is quarantined. And even then the floodgate has been opened after some air crew was exempt from quarantines.

    HK's vaccination rate is close to the US, and serious mandates are coming. Just imagine installing a vaccine passport system right after the civil unrest of 2019 - you'll see European levels of dysfunction.

    Replies: @Mikel

    you’ll see European levels of dysfunction.

    That was a cruel remark. Please be merciful with us when you finally become the world overlords.

    • Replies: @Yellowface Anon
    @Mikel

    Wait, what? Compradors-turned-emigrants becoming the Masters?

    The least thing I'm preparing my descendents to be are Jews.

  185. @Yellowface Anon
    @songbird

    How much of Thracian genes have stayed in modern Bulgaria?

    Replies: @songbird, @AP

    I suspect that they have been diluted and subsumed. Easy to hide recessive genes. When I look at images, it seems a surprising number of Bulgarians have light or red hair. Though, IIRC, AC Doyle observing Bulgarians POWs in WWI, described them as looking small (probably partly due to lower development), dark, and weak compared to British people.

  186. @utu
    @Dmitry

    "Lol Utu is definitely some kind of upper class connoisseur. " - Fuck off and Fuck no, I disagreed because LatW's post was too Pollyannish about the special food stores, no GMO and so on in the US and too uncritical about the alleged importance of differences between foods in stores of class A and class B in terms of health impact.

    Yes, if he lives in Boulder, CO which was the epicenter of health food stores boom where the most important of them like Wild Oats were taken over by The Whole Foods (and I am dubious about TWF) I can see his position but I do not think that Boulder experience is scalable and I do not believe that you necessarily can trust local farmers or mom-and-pop stores and sometimes even less than big suppliers.

    I do not care about wines this way or another. Most I ever drunk I did not enjoy and most people who style themselves to be some kind of wine connoisseurs I see as people who are unaware of their own silliness and pretentiousness. The same goes for beer and whisky connoisseurs and the most ridiculous are vodka connoisseurs.

    Replies: @silviosilver, @Dmitry

    Fuck no, I disagreed

    Ok you can still pretend you are not an upper class connoisseur.

    But lol there is some people here like AaronB definitely already betrayed they are not on the side of the working class, after that post he was writing about why he only eats Normandy butter and appreciates “Jasper Hill Farms in Vermont” https://www.unz.com/akarlin/open-thread-168/#comment-4969089

    health food stores boom where the most important of them like Wild Oats were taken over by The Whole Foods (and I am dubious about TWF)

    This Whole Foods chain was what they were referring in 0:30 in a Sacha Baron Cohen film “Dictator (2012)” (btw this film is not recommended even as a comedy film, although with some funny sections).

    vodka connoisseurs.

    Yes I felt like although there are great differences in the taste of vodka, it’s all because you buy a really too cheap bottle. As long as you didn’t buy a too cheap bottle, then it tastes not much better or worse. Although who knows maybe the connoisseurs notice more.

  187. @songbird
    @Dmitry

    From reading the subtext, I got the impression that AK could recognize an Italian surname in his tree somewhere.

    Though, I agree with you in principal that commercial tests often leave something to be desired - to do a really good job, IMO, you would have to spend more money on it than they did and even dig up 500 year old (or older) skeletons.

    One funny thing is all the Euro nationalists who think they are being gaslit, by the companies claiming they have trace Jewish roots. IMO, this probably isn't intentional, but has to do with the models being flawed as Jews were really excited with the technology and probably participated more and were given more weight in the models.

    Replies: @Dmitry

    Recently my relative has the commercial DNA results, we found significantly higher Jewish ancestry than expected. I have an official, documented Jewish ancestry. But the DNA said significantly higher than we know from documents.

    However, this is surely because Jews have been constantly bleeding into the population. This is the theme of Sholem Aleichem stories. Jews are running away and marrying into the population.

    So my documented Jewish ancestry is from Jews who didn’t run away from their community (which we know from our documents). But my additional undocumented Jewish ancestry points could be just from the background levels in the non-Jewish population.

    But only the documented Jewish ancestry has any value (the other additional DNA is considered meaningless from the Jews themselves). So you still can only really claim to be as Jewish to extent as your family documents can prove. I’m still probably not in a position to claim to be more Jewish.

    We also were shown a lot of Baltic ancestry in that tests. But probably just noise from the way they measure background population, rather than any interesting stories of secretly, undercover Baltic great-grandparents.

    • Replies: @Mikhail
    @Dmitry


    Recently my relative has the commercial DNA results, we found significantly higher Jewish ancestry than expected. I have an official, documented Jewish ancestry. But the DNA said significantly higher than we know from documents.

    However, this is surely because Jews have been constantly bleeding into the population. This is the theme of Sholem Aleichem stories. Jews are running away and marrying into the population.

    So my documented Jewish ancestry is from Jews who didn’t run away from their community (which we know from our documents). But my additional undocumented Jewish ancestry points could be just from the background levels in the non-Jewish population.

    But only the documented Jewish ancestry has any value (the other additional DNA is considered meaningless from the Jews themselves). So you still can only really claim to be as Jewish to extent as your family documents can prove. I’m still probably not in a position to claim to be more Jewish.

    We also were shown a lot of Baltic ancestry in that tests. But probably just noise from the way they measure background population, rather than any interesting stories of secretly, undercover Baltic great-grandparents.

     

    Suspect a lot of people believing a Jewish or mostly Jewish background would get similar results. Syrian and other Jews from the Middle East typically look more Syrian than East European Jews. Comparatively speaking, the latter often looking like their non-Jew inhabitants from Eastern Europe.

    Replies: @Dmitry

    , @songbird
    @Dmitry


    So you still can only really claim to be as Jewish to extent as your family documents can prove.
     
    Probably anywhere in the Med would have to have really strict definitions, as there are wide cultural gaps, as well as some ancient gene transfer. Like Taleb is probably somewhat Greek, maybe quite a bit, but sometimes he really acts like an Arab.

    In the case of the Ashkenazim, I suspect that there is some Italian or German ancestry that has been misattributed to them, when really it is the reverse, which makes quite a bit of sense, when one considers that they are a bottleneck population. So, for example, the DNA that they got from some Italian woman, might appear more prototypically Jewish than it is prototypically Italian, because it appears in more Jews than Italians, even though its origin is Italian.

    In the case of Russians, I think Russians are more motley group, who may genuinely more often have trace Jewish DNA, and it is possibly easier to pick out than in Central Europeans, who in part form a root input into the Ashkenazim.

    Replies: @Dmitry

    , @AP
    @Dmitry


    So my documented Jewish ancestry is from Jews who didn’t run away from their community (which we know from our documents). But my additional undocumented Jewish ancestry points could be just from the background levels in the non-Jewish population.
     
    AFAIK the database looks at reported ancestry and genetics. So therefore, if in the Middle Ages a Polish man had kids with a Jewish woman and they had numerous descendants, while meanwhile his siblings and cousins collectively had fewer descendants, his particular genetic type would be counted as Ashkenazi Jewish even though in reality it was not, because most people in the database with that fingerprint are Jews.



    Something similar is probably true of small obscure nationalities that have mixed with larger ones. My wife is 1/8 Kalmyk, one can see her Asian features and stronger ones in her 1/4 Kalmyk father and very strong ones in her 1/2 Kalmyk grandfather (who completely looked like an Asian guy despite having had a blonde blue eyed Russian father). But according to 23andme she is 99.8% European. Probably this is because there are very few Kalmyks in the database but a lot of Russians of partial Kalmyk descent in the database, so Kalmyk genes are counted as Eastern European/Russian.

    Replies: @Dmitry

  188. @songbird
    Were the Scythians proto-Ukrainians? Or did the Slavs kill them off, like in the Russian movie The Scythian (2018)?

    And should we believe Herodotus, when he says that they wove marijuana into clothing, as well as bathed in its smoke? Not to mention, had capes made out of the scalps of their enemies?

    Replies: @AP, @Emil Nikola Richard

    (fellow who made the video is a zealot! It’s a pretty decent video.)

    • Thanks: songbird
  189. @LatW
    @Mr. Hack


    Apotheca:

    “In ancient Greece and Rome, a storeroom of any kind, but esp. one for storing wine.”
     

    "A mysterious place where wine was blended and stored in 13th century Europe," according to owner.

    Sorry, I didn't mean that the name was intense, but the design, label. It has a kind of a gothic design with a flashy, red letter A in the center. This brand is very popular, especially among the millennials, maybe partly because of the way the label looks, which is very different from a classic, more conservative look.

    They have wines called "Crush", "Inferno", "Dark". This brand really stands out with its intense image. And it's a mass product, not boutique.

    Replies: @Mr. Hack, @Emil Nikola Richard

    In my neighborhood wine outlet they have a life size cardboard placard of Snoop Dogg peddling vintage red wine. It is bizarre. I’m pretty sure Snoop drinks Hennesey and Coke. His label is called Nineteen Crimes.

    • Replies: @A123
    @Emil Nikola Richard

    The alcohol business attracts surprising participants.

    Racing legend Scott Pruett opened his own winery.
    https://www.pruettvineyard.com/

    Top Gear / Grand Tour host James May launched his own brand of gin.
    https://www.ginandtonicly.com/news/james-may-launches-his-own-craft-gin/

     
    https://www.ginandtonicly.com/wp-content/uploads/2021/07/james-gin-3-1170x600.jpg
     

    PEACE 😇

     


     
    https://www.motorsport-total.com/img/2015/150919/210752_w620_h500.jpg

     
    https://www.cawineclub.com/images/featured_wineries/523_wi_2_650X306_PRUETT__1_.png

    Replies: @Mr. Hack

    , @Dmitry
    @Emil Nikola Richard

    This is just a popular Australian blended red wine in the supermarkets in Europe. They signed some sponsorship with Snoop I guess.

    This wine usually markets by posting stories about Australian criminals on the bottle. I assume their marketing strategy is to seem "gangster" to attract slightly younger wine buyers, but also to represent the Australian heritage of the wine.

    It normally has some photos of impressive looking Australian gangsters and criminals on their bottle.

    I'm kind of a fan of some of Snoop Dogg's early songs so would be their target demographic. I.e. people that buy cheap red wine in the supermarket and are fans of 1990s hip hop. But even I'm not gullible enough for such incoherent marketing to buy an Australian blended wine, because of an Californian rapper. At least Snoop should be on a Californian wine label.

    Have to appreciate, the graphic designers who made that bottle have some professional skill though.

    Replies: @Emil Nikola Richard

  190. @Beckow
    @LatW


    ...admitting Ukraine would add another illiberal semi-autocracy within the EU fold
     
    The plan was to make them liberal enough during the admission process - a lengthy rainbow ritual with Brussels freaks offering money for each additional act. They like that kind of stuff, to the likes of Neill Fergusson it brings back deep memories of the raj and the homo burdens they carried around the globe. (I will not speculate what Fergusson means by "woke", with the anglo-Belgian perverts they probably reenact it.)

    Ukraine never had a chance to be in the EU: they missed the window and by 2014 it was all pretence. The EU cannot afford additional poor members (esp. large ones) and no rich ones are applying. Ukraine would bring down the average living standards in EU by 5-10% - that would had been manageable during the times of growth, but with the current stagnation it cannot be done. UK leaving was the last financial straw, the numbers just can't be balanced.

    As all liberal global institutions they will stay around to provide illiberal benefits to their employees, issue verbiage and celebrate their anniversaries. A bit like the late-Middle Age Popes in Rome: jobs, money, parties, and ad maiorem dei gloriam...

    Replies: @A123, @LatW, @Mikhail

    The plan was to make them liberal enough during the admission process – a lengthy rainbow ritual with Brussels freaks offering money for each additional act. They like that kind of stuff, to the likes of Neill Fergusson it brings back deep memories of the raj and the homo burdens they carried around the globe. (I will not speculate what Fergusson means by “woke“, with the anglo-Belgian perverts they probably reenact it.)

    Fergy is a pro-Brit Empire Scot, with little, if any appreciation for the Russian Empire.

  191. @Emil Nikola Richard
    @LatW

    In my neighborhood wine outlet they have a life size cardboard placard of Snoop Dogg peddling vintage red wine. It is bizarre. I'm pretty sure Snoop drinks Hennesey and Coke. His label is called Nineteen Crimes.

    https://cdn.shopify.com/s/files/1/0602/7673/6237/products/Cali-Red_2048x.png

    Replies: @A123, @Dmitry

    The alcohol business attracts surprising participants.

    Racing legend Scott Pruett opened his own winery.
    https://www.pruettvineyard.com/

    Top Gear / Grand Tour host James May launched his own brand of gin.
    https://www.ginandtonicly.com/news/james-may-launches-his-own-craft-gin/

     

     

    PEACE 😇

     

    [MORE]

     

     

    • Replies: @Mr. Hack
    @A123

    This is probably the most unbelievable commercial endorsing a cheap wine ever produced, with the blue blooded James Mason (a great actor) endorsing Thunderbird wine. T-bird wine was most notably known as a cheap wine that alcoholic bums (homeless transients) would drink along with other stellar choices such as "Ripple" "Mad Dog", "Bali Hi" and some others too that now escape me. Our favorite was a sweet Spanish one called "Yago", but we were teenagers, not English movie stars that undoubtedly had bankrolls that should have merited something all together on a higher plane. "Drink what you like" is taken to a whole new level here:

    https://youtu.be/0xY7mBQrzXU

    "T-Bird wine has an unusual taste, all its own. An exceptional wine good for all occasions. Not quite like anything I've ever tasted...it has a delightful flavor..." Indeed. :-)

    Replies: @Mr. Hack

  192. @Emil Nikola Richard
    @LatW

    In my neighborhood wine outlet they have a life size cardboard placard of Snoop Dogg peddling vintage red wine. It is bizarre. I'm pretty sure Snoop drinks Hennesey and Coke. His label is called Nineteen Crimes.

    https://cdn.shopify.com/s/files/1/0602/7673/6237/products/Cali-Red_2048x.png

    Replies: @A123, @Dmitry

    This is just a popular Australian blended red wine in the supermarkets in Europe. They signed some sponsorship with Snoop I guess.

    This wine usually markets by posting stories about Australian criminals on the bottle. I assume their marketing strategy is to seem “gangster” to attract slightly younger wine buyers, but also to represent the Australian heritage of the wine.

    It normally has some photos of impressive looking Australian gangsters and criminals on their bottle.

    I’m kind of a fan of some of Snoop Dogg’s early songs so would be their target demographic. I.e. people that buy cheap red wine in the supermarket and are fans of 1990s hip hop. But even I’m not gullible enough for such incoherent marketing to buy an Australian blended wine, because of an Californian rapper. At least Snoop should be on a Californian wine label.

    Have to appreciate, the graphic designers who made that bottle have some professional skill though.

    • Replies: @Emil Nikola Richard
    @Dmitry

    Today on my morning walk I passed an old lady with two beagles on leashes. I cheerfully said "snoopy dogs!"

    She harrrumffd at me. : (

  193. @Dmitry
    @songbird

    Recently my relative has the commercial DNA results, we found significantly higher Jewish ancestry than expected. I have an official, documented Jewish ancestry. But the DNA said significantly higher than we know from documents.

    However, this is surely because Jews have been constantly bleeding into the population. This is the theme of Sholem Aleichem stories. Jews are running away and marrying into the population.

    So my documented Jewish ancestry is from Jews who didn't run away from their community (which we know from our documents). But my additional undocumented Jewish ancestry points could be just from the background levels in the non-Jewish population.

    But only the documented Jewish ancestry has any value (the other additional DNA is considered meaningless from the Jews themselves). So you still can only really claim to be as Jewish to extent as your family documents can prove. I'm still probably not in a position to claim to be more Jewish.

    We also were shown a lot of Baltic ancestry in that tests. But probably just noise from the way they measure background population, rather than any interesting stories of secretly, undercover Baltic great-grandparents.

    Replies: @Mikhail, @songbird, @AP

    Recently my relative has the commercial DNA results, we found significantly higher Jewish ancestry than expected. I have an official, documented Jewish ancestry. But the DNA said significantly higher than we know from documents.

    However, this is surely because Jews have been constantly bleeding into the population. This is the theme of Sholem Aleichem stories. Jews are running away and marrying into the population.

    So my documented Jewish ancestry is from Jews who didn’t run away from their community (which we know from our documents). But my additional undocumented Jewish ancestry points could be just from the background levels in the non-Jewish population.

    But only the documented Jewish ancestry has any value (the other additional DNA is considered meaningless from the Jews themselves). So you still can only really claim to be as Jewish to extent as your family documents can prove. I’m still probably not in a position to claim to be more Jewish.

    We also were shown a lot of Baltic ancestry in that tests. But probably just noise from the way they measure background population, rather than any interesting stories of secretly, undercover Baltic great-grandparents.

    Suspect a lot of people believing a Jewish or mostly Jewish background would get similar results. Syrian and other Jews from the Middle East typically look more Syrian than East European Jews. Comparatively speaking, the latter often looking like their non-Jew inhabitants from Eastern Europe.

    • Replies: @Dmitry
    @Mikhail


    Middle East typically look more Syrian
     
    Yes you can see in Israel, the population is a mix of many races, although to be fair to Israel unlike in some claims the majority of people are (Jews and Muslims) immigrants directly from nearby regions of the Middle East, and this is evident in the appearance of the population.

    For genetics of European Jews, there would be surely pre-existing desire to discover their origin as native to the Middle East, as this would both match the secular political state-building, as well as religious narratives.

    So it's understandable that conspiracy theorists can be questioning about genetic studies of European Jews, when the topic has a politically desired answer. But who knows? I'd like to believe scientists will try to be objective.

    -


    In terms of the Russian DNA, it's possible these commercial tests are discovering non-slavic ancestry, because the population of Russia which preceded the slavic tribes' invasion/colonization in Russia.

    This is just my superficial, amateur speculation.

    But slavic tribes immigrated to Russia in the 8th-9th century. But when the slavic population flooded into the territory as described in the chronicles, there were many native tribes in Russia who are perhaps only displaced culturally, rather than genetically.

    These nationalities which existed before the slavic tribes flood into Russia, like the Ves, Chud Zavolochskaya. These became mostly extinct in the cultural sense, but surely not in the genetic one. Perhaps this is one reason for the confusion of commercial genetic tests are saying many Russian people are not having slavic ancestry.

    When you look at pre-slavic populations of Russia like Vepsy today, it's not like we could visually distinguish them from the slavic (or slavicized) population.

    https://lenobl.ru/media/cache/21/6e/216eca8e43a15021eb33960751fa4471.png

    http://администрация-алеховщина.рф/wp-content/uploads/2019/02/24aaf3447d4fdbcc8ae16c6370d8510f.jpg

    Replies: @Mr. Hack, @melanf, @melanf

  194. @Yellowface Anon
    @songbird

    How much of Thracian genes have stayed in modern Bulgaria?

    Replies: @songbird, @AP

    Probably a fair amount. Not many Slavic genes in that place though.

  195. @Dmitry
    @songbird

    Recently my relative has the commercial DNA results, we found significantly higher Jewish ancestry than expected. I have an official, documented Jewish ancestry. But the DNA said significantly higher than we know from documents.

    However, this is surely because Jews have been constantly bleeding into the population. This is the theme of Sholem Aleichem stories. Jews are running away and marrying into the population.

    So my documented Jewish ancestry is from Jews who didn't run away from their community (which we know from our documents). But my additional undocumented Jewish ancestry points could be just from the background levels in the non-Jewish population.

    But only the documented Jewish ancestry has any value (the other additional DNA is considered meaningless from the Jews themselves). So you still can only really claim to be as Jewish to extent as your family documents can prove. I'm still probably not in a position to claim to be more Jewish.

    We also were shown a lot of Baltic ancestry in that tests. But probably just noise from the way they measure background population, rather than any interesting stories of secretly, undercover Baltic great-grandparents.

    Replies: @Mikhail, @songbird, @AP

    So you still can only really claim to be as Jewish to extent as your family documents can prove.

    Probably anywhere in the Med would have to have really strict definitions, as there are wide cultural gaps, as well as some ancient gene transfer. Like Taleb is probably somewhat Greek, maybe quite a bit, but sometimes he really acts like an Arab.

    In the case of the Ashkenazim, I suspect that there is some Italian or German ancestry that has been misattributed to them, when really it is the reverse, which makes quite a bit of sense, when one considers that they are a bottleneck population. So, for example, the DNA that they got from some Italian woman, might appear more prototypically Jewish than it is prototypically Italian, because it appears in more Jews than Italians, even though its origin is Italian.

    In the case of Russians, I think Russians are more motley group, who may genuinely more often have trace Jewish DNA, and it is possibly easier to pick out than in Central Europeans, who in part form a root input into the Ashkenazim.

    • Replies: @Dmitry
    @songbird

    There are times in modern European history, when Jewish villages had very high fertility rates, at the same moment that a significant proportion of the young villagers are escaping the villages, even changing their name, converting to Christianity and running away from Judaism.

    There were events like unvoluntary conscription of children from the Jewish villages to the army for decades, who then could not return to their villages, or when they return from the army would not be religious enough to be able to marry some rabbi's daughter in their village.
    https://www.jewishvirtuallibrary.org/cantonists

    There are also often Jewish prisoners and settlers being thrown to the Far East and Siberia, where they would almost never be able to marry Jewish women.

    So it's possible that the commercial genetic tests are catching some of the traces of this very distant ancestry, from that historical outflow of people from Ashkenazi villages. This is aside from the more knowable ancestry people have from the 20th century.

    Of course, it's also possible that the tests are simply unreliable. Either way, it's considered meaningless from the viewpoint of the Jewish authorities.

    You need to prove you have Jewish ancestry with the documents and family research. It can cost quite a lot of money. Then you have send these documents to be inspected by their experts, who stamp that they are authentic (as a lot of people are trying with fake documents). ​

    In my family we were able to prove Jewish ancestry for my grandfather. But it was like a history research project. We had all the real documentation, chains of evidence. It's fortunately not based from some unreliable commercial DNA tests, which seem partly designed for Influencers to post about themselves on Instagram.

  196. @utu
    @Mikel

    "but one satellite-based record (UAH)" - UAH product is controlled by two outliers not belonging to the consensus: Roy Spencer and John Christy. As long as Spencer and Christi are there I have some hope that satellite data won't be tweaked.

    I have serious doubts about the homogenization process and other corrections of the data from the past. It really seems that some data in some places were pushed down to show greater temperature gradients: "Who controls the past controls the future." Satellite data that are true global data exist only since the end of the 1970s.

    "The media coverage of the climate change problem is abysmal. " - At some point BBC, NYT and other important media outlets decided that there would no longer be any dispute about global warming and thus only pro global warming stories - sometimes very idiotic - are reported. All kinds of scum scientists in peripheral sciences jumped on the global warming bandwagon realizing that is where the money is. The public is bombarded with nonsense of irrelevant and false stories.

    You are right that there is some integrity left in science as counterclaims are being investigated to some degree and if only their results were reported and popularized we would have more cool heads about the global warming. However my personal experience of people from NOAA, NCAR, NASA and DOE who work on climate and atmospheric science do no make me too hopeful that some meaningful coalition of more reasonable skeptics would emerge from among them. Reasonable skeptics are still purged like Judith Curry. But life for atmospheric science practitioner was never that good as it is now as long as you go with the flow. Acid rain and ozone hole were just a prelude. Now they got drunk on power and prestige. They are like nuclear scientists in 1950s who won WWII and had power to destroy the whole world and thought that nuclear science and energy would answer all questions which led to hubris like nuclear planes. Most people were not aware that nuclear power was just the steam age technology where you would burn uranium instead of coal.

    Replies: @Mikel, @Philip Owen

    I will add my concerns about the probity of the Hadley Centre in the UK. It was set up by Mrs Thatcher (a CAGR believer with the data of the time, as was I) to confirm CAGR. It is colocated with the Meterological Office.

    • Replies: @utu
    @Philip Owen

    The release of their emails was really damaging. There were two, iirc, official inquiries in the UK to whitewash it while in the US there was one so somebody quipped that American whitewash is stronger as application of one layer is enough.

  197. @A123
    @Beckow


    Ukraine never had a chance to be in the EU: they missed the window and by 2014 it was all pretence. The EU cannot afford additional poor members (esp. large ones) and no rich ones are applying
     
    Albania, Montenegro, North Macedonia, Serbia, and Turkey are also on the list for EU expansion.

    In addition to money, there is a structural problem. Under the existing EU deal, every sovereign nation has a veto on matters requiring unanimous consent. The system is already hamstrung at 27 members. It is hard to imagine any expansion under the existing structure.

    PEACE 😇

    Replies: @showmethereal

    Well there is something I can agree with you on…. It doesn’t make any sense how the EU functions – trampling on each country’s sovereign rights. I think ASEAN is a better model of a bloc. Even Mercosur. In a way I can’t even blame the UK for leaving the EU. Trade and customs is one thing – but dictating individual laws and social structures is another.

  198. @Dmitry
    @songbird

    Recently my relative has the commercial DNA results, we found significantly higher Jewish ancestry than expected. I have an official, documented Jewish ancestry. But the DNA said significantly higher than we know from documents.

    However, this is surely because Jews have been constantly bleeding into the population. This is the theme of Sholem Aleichem stories. Jews are running away and marrying into the population.

    So my documented Jewish ancestry is from Jews who didn't run away from their community (which we know from our documents). But my additional undocumented Jewish ancestry points could be just from the background levels in the non-Jewish population.

    But only the documented Jewish ancestry has any value (the other additional DNA is considered meaningless from the Jews themselves). So you still can only really claim to be as Jewish to extent as your family documents can prove. I'm still probably not in a position to claim to be more Jewish.

    We also were shown a lot of Baltic ancestry in that tests. But probably just noise from the way they measure background population, rather than any interesting stories of secretly, undercover Baltic great-grandparents.

    Replies: @Mikhail, @songbird, @AP

    So my documented Jewish ancestry is from Jews who didn’t run away from their community (which we know from our documents). But my additional undocumented Jewish ancestry points could be just from the background levels in the non-Jewish population.

    AFAIK the database looks at reported ancestry and genetics. So therefore, if in the Middle Ages a Polish man had kids with a Jewish woman and they had numerous descendants, while meanwhile his siblings and cousins collectively had fewer descendants, his particular genetic type would be counted as Ashkenazi Jewish even though in reality it was not, because most people in the database with that fingerprint are Jews.

    [MORE]

    Something similar is probably true of small obscure nationalities that have mixed with larger ones. My wife is 1/8 Kalmyk, one can see her Asian features and stronger ones in her 1/4 Kalmyk father and very strong ones in her 1/2 Kalmyk grandfather (who completely looked like an Asian guy despite having had a blonde blue eyed Russian father). But according to 23andme she is 99.8% European. Probably this is because there are very few Kalmyks in the database but a lot of Russians of partial Kalmyk descent in the database, so Kalmyk genes are counted as Eastern European/Russian.

    • Replies: @Dmitry
    @AP


    23andme
     
    Your explanation seems plausible considering 23andme is banned or unavailable in Russia. So 23andme might have unusually limited samples from Russia, considering Russia is one of the few countries it is not available.

    The commercial genetic test people use in Russia is the Israel startup "MyHeritage". I don't know if it was more reliable, but I guess it would have samples from Russia.

    -

    "MyHeritage" actually has a strategic partnership with the Mormon's "FamilySearch" (https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/FamilySearch). It even has an office in Salt Lake City. So it's surprising how it is allowed and mainstream in Russia, while they do not allow 23andme for being American.

    Nobody is more paranoid about Mormons than in the Russian government, perhaps with some justification (if Mormon groups are really working for the CIA). But it's perhaps possible they didn't read enough to notice the connection with "FamilySearch".

  199. @Yellowface Anon
    @Showmethereal

    I was actually imagining all, or even much of the country in lockdown. It nearly happened back in the first outbreak.

    They still plan for elimination judging by their eagerness to lock down over a handful of cases. They'll probably change their mind very late, since they are thinking in terms of biosecurity.

    Replies: @showmethereal

    “They’ll probably change their mind very late, since they are thinking in terms of biosecurity.”

    Well that is absolutely what this is all about… Preparing for potential biowarfare from the west (which probably has already been going on agriculturally – which is why we saw in 2021 – food reserves were boosted as well – and grain production hit an all time high). No question about it.

    • Replies: @Yellowface Anon
    @showmethereal

    Swine fever being weaponized against the Chinese meat industry is an open secret by now. It decimated hogs and made export barriers forbiddingly high.

    I heard there's a forex shortage up there and serious controls of capital outflows + taxation. Provably they shouldn't seriously damage their tax base by shutting downs the productive economy, instead commandeering and mobilizing it.

    Replies: @Yellowface Anon

  200. Just commented on Kazakhstan on Kevin Barrets’s Thread. Seemed more appropriate than here.

    Putin is now surrounded on three sides.

    • Replies: @Yevardian
    @Philip Owen

    Is Kevin Barret really all the only person on this site who's writing on this Kazakhstan mess, other than Andrew Anglin? Karlin really did choose an inaspaucious time to virtually quit blogging to chase the crypto-'currency'-dragon...

    Replies: @Dmitry, @Philip Owen, @LondonBob

  201. What’s going on in Kazakhstan? True popular protests or a color revolution try?

    • Replies: @Shortsword
    @Aedib

    Government removed price caps on fuel. This resulted in people suddenly having to pay more than twice as much for it so many got angry.

    Replies: @Aedib

  202. @Aedib
    What’s going on in Kazakhstan? True popular protests or a color revolution try?

    Replies: @Shortsword

    Government removed price caps on fuel. This resulted in people suddenly having to pay more than twice as much for it so many got angry.

    • Replies: @Aedib
    @Shortsword

    It smells like a color revolution try

    https://southfront.org/in-videos-coordinated-chaos-in-qazaqstan/

    Will Russia let it triumph and later go "little green men" in Semipalátinsk?

    More

    https://www.rt.com/russia/545215-kazakhstan-unrest-police-president/

    https://www.rt.com/russia/545217-kazakhstan-tokaev-protests-security/

    Replies: @Shortsword

  203. @A123
    @Emil Nikola Richard

    The alcohol business attracts surprising participants.

    Racing legend Scott Pruett opened his own winery.
    https://www.pruettvineyard.com/

    Top Gear / Grand Tour host James May launched his own brand of gin.
    https://www.ginandtonicly.com/news/james-may-launches-his-own-craft-gin/

     
    https://www.ginandtonicly.com/wp-content/uploads/2021/07/james-gin-3-1170x600.jpg
     

    PEACE 😇

     


     
    https://www.motorsport-total.com/img/2015/150919/210752_w620_h500.jpg

     
    https://www.cawineclub.com/images/featured_wineries/523_wi_2_650X306_PRUETT__1_.png

    Replies: @Mr. Hack

    This is probably the most unbelievable commercial endorsing a cheap wine ever produced, with the blue blooded James Mason (a great actor) endorsing Thunderbird wine. T-bird wine was most notably known as a cheap wine that alcoholic bums (homeless transients) would drink along with other stellar choices such as “Ripple” “Mad Dog”, “Bali Hi” and some others too that now escape me. Our favorite was a sweet Spanish one called “Yago”, but we were teenagers, not English movie stars that undoubtedly had bankrolls that should have merited something all together on a higher plane. “Drink what you like” is taken to a whole new level here:

    “T-Bird wine has an unusual taste, all its own. An exceptional wine good for all occasions. Not quite like anything I’ve ever tasted…it has a delightful flavor…” Indeed. 🙂

    • Replies: @Mr. Hack
    @Mr. Hack

    Hey, you don't need to believe me, nor James Mason either. I think that this reviewer pretty much nailed this one right on the nose! He thinks that he's getting ripped off at $3.99 a bottle and feels that $1.99 would be more in line and appropriate. I love his clincher, where he feels that Thunderbird would pair well with a total change in identity and lifestyle, while "jumping on a moving freight train". :-) :-)

    https://youtu.be/tq7EDDm9cJI

  204. @Philip Owen
    @utu

    I will add my concerns about the probity of the Hadley Centre in the UK. It was set up by Mrs Thatcher (a CAGR believer with the data of the time, as was I) to confirm CAGR. It is colocated with the Meterological Office.

    Replies: @utu

    The release of their emails was really damaging. There were two, iirc, official inquiries in the UK to whitewash it while in the US there was one so somebody quipped that American whitewash is stronger as application of one layer is enough.

  205. We could also consult Greco-Roman historians in our search for less harmful superstitions to replace the modern ones in the West.

    I believe that the Romans whose civilization lasted almost uniquely long, used chickens as auguries.

    Why not combine advances in communication with those in farming to give each progressive their own flock, which they could monitor via remote cameras?

  206. @AP
    @Dmitry


    So my documented Jewish ancestry is from Jews who didn’t run away from their community (which we know from our documents). But my additional undocumented Jewish ancestry points could be just from the background levels in the non-Jewish population.
     
    AFAIK the database looks at reported ancestry and genetics. So therefore, if in the Middle Ages a Polish man had kids with a Jewish woman and they had numerous descendants, while meanwhile his siblings and cousins collectively had fewer descendants, his particular genetic type would be counted as Ashkenazi Jewish even though in reality it was not, because most people in the database with that fingerprint are Jews.



    Something similar is probably true of small obscure nationalities that have mixed with larger ones. My wife is 1/8 Kalmyk, one can see her Asian features and stronger ones in her 1/4 Kalmyk father and very strong ones in her 1/2 Kalmyk grandfather (who completely looked like an Asian guy despite having had a blonde blue eyed Russian father). But according to 23andme she is 99.8% European. Probably this is because there are very few Kalmyks in the database but a lot of Russians of partial Kalmyk descent in the database, so Kalmyk genes are counted as Eastern European/Russian.

    Replies: @Dmitry

    23andme

    Your explanation seems plausible considering 23andme is banned or unavailable in Russia. So 23andme might have unusually limited samples from Russia, considering Russia is one of the few countries it is not available.

    The commercial genetic test people use in Russia is the Israel startup “MyHeritage”. I don’t know if it was more reliable, but I guess it would have samples from Russia.

    “MyHeritage” actually has a strategic partnership with the Mormon’s “FamilySearch” (https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/FamilySearch). It even has an office in Salt Lake City. So it’s surprising how it is allowed and mainstream in Russia, while they do not allow 23andme for being American.

    Nobody is more paranoid about Mormons than in the Russian government, perhaps with some justification (if Mormon groups are really working for the CIA). But it’s perhaps possible they didn’t read enough to notice the connection with “FamilySearch”.

  207. @songbird
    @Dmitry


    So you still can only really claim to be as Jewish to extent as your family documents can prove.
     
    Probably anywhere in the Med would have to have really strict definitions, as there are wide cultural gaps, as well as some ancient gene transfer. Like Taleb is probably somewhat Greek, maybe quite a bit, but sometimes he really acts like an Arab.

    In the case of the Ashkenazim, I suspect that there is some Italian or German ancestry that has been misattributed to them, when really it is the reverse, which makes quite a bit of sense, when one considers that they are a bottleneck population. So, for example, the DNA that they got from some Italian woman, might appear more prototypically Jewish than it is prototypically Italian, because it appears in more Jews than Italians, even though its origin is Italian.

    In the case of Russians, I think Russians are more motley group, who may genuinely more often have trace Jewish DNA, and it is possibly easier to pick out than in Central Europeans, who in part form a root input into the Ashkenazim.

    Replies: @Dmitry

    There are times in modern European history, when Jewish villages had very high fertility rates, at the same moment that a significant proportion of the young villagers are escaping the villages, even changing their name, converting to Christianity and running away from Judaism.

    There were events like unvoluntary conscription of children from the Jewish villages to the army for decades, who then could not return to their villages, or when they return from the army would not be religious enough to be able to marry some rabbi’s daughter in their village.
    https://www.jewishvirtuallibrary.org/cantonists

    There are also often Jewish prisoners and settlers being thrown to the Far East and Siberia, where they would almost never be able to marry Jewish women.

    So it’s possible that the commercial genetic tests are catching some of the traces of this very distant ancestry, from that historical outflow of people from Ashkenazi villages. This is aside from the more knowable ancestry people have from the 20th century.

    Of course, it’s also possible that the tests are simply unreliable. Either way, it’s considered meaningless from the viewpoint of the Jewish authorities.

    You need to prove you have Jewish ancestry with the documents and family research. It can cost quite a lot of money. Then you have send these documents to be inspected by their experts, who stamp that they are authentic (as a lot of people are trying with fake documents). ​

    In my family we were able to prove Jewish ancestry for my grandfather. But it was like a history research project. We had all the real documentation, chains of evidence. It’s fortunately not based from some unreliable commercial DNA tests, which seem partly designed for Influencers to post about themselves on Instagram.

    • Thanks: songbird
  208. @Mikhail
    @Dmitry


    Recently my relative has the commercial DNA results, we found significantly higher Jewish ancestry than expected. I have an official, documented Jewish ancestry. But the DNA said significantly higher than we know from documents.

    However, this is surely because Jews have been constantly bleeding into the population. This is the theme of Sholem Aleichem stories. Jews are running away and marrying into the population.

    So my documented Jewish ancestry is from Jews who didn’t run away from their community (which we know from our documents). But my additional undocumented Jewish ancestry points could be just from the background levels in the non-Jewish population.

    But only the documented Jewish ancestry has any value (the other additional DNA is considered meaningless from the Jews themselves). So you still can only really claim to be as Jewish to extent as your family documents can prove. I’m still probably not in a position to claim to be more Jewish.

    We also were shown a lot of Baltic ancestry in that tests. But probably just noise from the way they measure background population, rather than any interesting stories of secretly, undercover Baltic great-grandparents.

     

    Suspect a lot of people believing a Jewish or mostly Jewish background would get similar results. Syrian and other Jews from the Middle East typically look more Syrian than East European Jews. Comparatively speaking, the latter often looking like their non-Jew inhabitants from Eastern Europe.

    Replies: @Dmitry

    Middle East typically look more Syrian

    Yes you can see in Israel, the population is a mix of many races, although to be fair to Israel unlike in some claims the majority of people are (Jews and Muslims) immigrants directly from nearby regions of the Middle East, and this is evident in the appearance of the population.

    For genetics of European Jews, there would be surely pre-existing desire to discover their origin as native to the Middle East, as this would both match the secular political state-building, as well as religious narratives.

    So it’s understandable that conspiracy theorists can be questioning about genetic studies of European Jews, when the topic has a politically desired answer. But who knows? I’d like to believe scientists will try to be objective.

    In terms of the Russian DNA, it’s possible these commercial tests are discovering non-slavic ancestry, because the population of Russia which preceded the slavic tribes’ invasion/colonization in Russia.

    This is just my superficial, amateur speculation.

    But slavic tribes immigrated to Russia in the 8th-9th century. But when the slavic population flooded into the territory as described in the chronicles, there were many native tribes in Russia who are perhaps only displaced culturally, rather than genetically.

    These nationalities which existed before the slavic tribes flood into Russia, like the Ves, Chud Zavolochskaya. These became mostly extinct in the cultural sense, but surely not in the genetic one. Perhaps this is one reason for the confusion of commercial genetic tests are saying many Russian people are not having slavic ancestry.

    When you look at pre-slavic populations of Russia like Vepsy today, it’s not like we could visually distinguish them from the slavic (or slavicized) population.

    • Replies: @Mr. Hack
    @Dmitry


    Perhaps this is one reason for the confusion of commercial genetic tests are saying many Russian people are not having slavic ancestry.
     
    Averko is sliding here. He usually jumps on the opportunity to try and put genetic testing to rest, doubting its ability to accurately reflect ethnic lineages. He always falls flat on his face trying though. There's no doubt that there's a large Finnic sub-stratum within the make-up of the Russian nation. Just how large? I think that this question is fraught with political motivations. More analysis should be done, perhaps by outsiders. :-)

    Replies: @Dmitry, @Mikhail

    , @melanf
    @Dmitry


    When you look at pre-slavic populations of Russia like Vepsy today, it’s not like we could visually distinguish them from the slavic (or slavicized) population.
     
    At the level of individual people, it is impossible to know nationality by face. Bashir Assad's family will easily fit into any European nation up to the southern shore of the Baltic Sea, although the Asads are definitely not Europeans

    But slavic tribes immigrated to Russia in the 8th-9th century.
     
    Where native speakers of the Slavic language lived before the 6th century is a riddle of riddles (perhaps somewhere in the territory of European Russia). But in any case, they appeared on the territory of Russia earlier than the 8th century
    , @melanf
    @Dmitry

    If you remove the national costume - an ordinary Northern European face
    https://lenobl.ru/media/cache/21/6e/216eca8e43a15021eb33960751fa4471.png

    https://www.phun.org/celebrities/kirsten_dunst/images/kirsten_dunst_nude_38.jpg

  209. 😁 Open Thread Humor 😂

    Only one item tonight. I need to gather up links for a larger post.

    PEACE 😇

  210. For his New Year television show, Ivan Urgant’s show (it’s like David Letterman show in Russia) produces last couple of years a satire of an Italian 1980s New Year show.

    They study Italian and it sounds like they speak very fluently.

    Then at the end (1:09:40 in the video) they added an Italian speech by Putin as a deepfake. But there you can already see how sinister the deepfake of Putin is, in the difficulty to distinguish it from a real (Italian-speaking) Putin. In theory, Putin never needs to present a real speech for television again. He can just hire the people who made the deepfake for Urgant’s show. Even if a politician dies, they could continue to be present speeches to the media as being alive with such a production.

    • Thanks: Mr. Hack
    • LOL: Mikel
    • Replies: @Mr. Hack
    @Dmitry

    Wonderful! Something surreal and Felliniesque about it all....

    https://www.villagevoice.com/wp-content/uploads/2008/08/2429448.0.jpg

    What next? :-)

    , @Thulean Friend
    @Dmitry

    Skimming the video, I chuckled when I saw the overdone Pepsi placements. People complain about modern YouTubers doing "in video ads" but that feels far more genuine - since it is honest and upfront - than this kind of kitschy product placement. It'd be interesting going back to watch various Swedish gameshows from the same era if they had these kinds of hamfisted product placements with terrible acting or if it was an Italian thing.

    While I know neither Russian nor Italian, the vibe I got was that they were bantering but never in a mean-spirited way. I felt they were praising it while simultaneously making fun of it, if that makes sense. Respectful satire?

    Replies: @Dmitry

  211. @Mikel
    @Yellowface Anon


    you’ll see European levels of dysfunction.
     
    That was a cruel remark. Please be merciful with us when you finally become the world overlords.

    Replies: @Yellowface Anon

    Wait, what? Compradors-turned-emigrants becoming the Masters?

    The least thing I’m preparing my descendents to be are Jews.

  212. @showmethereal
    @Yellowface Anon

    "They’ll probably change their mind very late, since they are thinking in terms of biosecurity."

    Well that is absolutely what this is all about... Preparing for potential biowarfare from the west (which probably has already been going on agriculturally - which is why we saw in 2021 - food reserves were boosted as well - and grain production hit an all time high). No question about it.

    Replies: @Yellowface Anon

    Swine fever being weaponized against the Chinese meat industry is an open secret by now. It decimated hogs and made export barriers forbiddingly high.

    I heard there’s a forex shortage up there and serious controls of capital outflows + taxation. Provably they shouldn’t seriously damage their tax base by shutting downs the productive economy, instead commandeering and mobilizing it.

    • Replies: @Yellowface Anon
    @Yellowface Anon

    I didn't say this clearly to avoid offending some of your mildly Sinophile sensibilities, but wheels are coming off from the total lockdown regime in Xian. Anti-lockdowners need to guess why or see the agony of the residents in Xian, and Sinophobes are free to pick this as another evidence of an argument you're familiar with.

    First off, their original goal was to cut off all social transmissions (that means no transmissions outside of those who have been quarantined centrally, and all contacts and contacts of contacts have been quarantined), by 1/4. It failed but the curve is starting to flatten, which means there's still about 1-2 months to go.

    Before that, lots of things are falling apart:
    - Some people destined for centralized quarantine found out the lack of facilities at the site, which has no running water, electricity and heating, and attempted to return to their homes on feet.
    - For some time only potatoes and broccolis were distributed in some blocks.
    - Some patients weren't attended at all and left outside medical facilities until it was too late.
    - The health code system malfunctioned twice.
    - Like in Wuhan, the usual anti-Chinese prop outlets are alleging a higher lockdown death count than those dead with COVID. Those who allegedly are dead from starvation or exposure were "socially removed", unpersoned.

    All the above are likely real anecdotes except the last point, and there are Weibo evidence substantiating them. Now consider this is only the first 14 days and there's still a long way to go before they start loosening things up.

    The Chinese medical leadership's calculation might be like the Soviets in 1941- there is indeed an enemy, metaphorical in COVID's case, and a large human cost is acceptable as far as the enemy is ultimately destroyed. The Soviet Union lost 20 million in the war, much of them needlessly and avoidable with better strategic planning or without earlier purges. But a mutating virus isn't a country with leaders, generals and troops; Zero COVID is an unattainable goal. Of course, if you believe China has a part in the plans of the WEF, from the initial lab experiments and lockdowns, then more malicious explanations become possible.

    Replies: @Yellowface Anon

  213. @Mr. Hack
    @A123

    This is probably the most unbelievable commercial endorsing a cheap wine ever produced, with the blue blooded James Mason (a great actor) endorsing Thunderbird wine. T-bird wine was most notably known as a cheap wine that alcoholic bums (homeless transients) would drink along with other stellar choices such as "Ripple" "Mad Dog", "Bali Hi" and some others too that now escape me. Our favorite was a sweet Spanish one called "Yago", but we were teenagers, not English movie stars that undoubtedly had bankrolls that should have merited something all together on a higher plane. "Drink what you like" is taken to a whole new level here:

    https://youtu.be/0xY7mBQrzXU

    "T-Bird wine has an unusual taste, all its own. An exceptional wine good for all occasions. Not quite like anything I've ever tasted...it has a delightful flavor..." Indeed. :-)

    Replies: @Mr. Hack

    Hey, you don’t need to believe me, nor James Mason either. I think that this reviewer pretty much nailed this one right on the nose! He thinks that he’s getting ripped off at \$3.99 a bottle and feels that \$1.99 would be more in line and appropriate. I love his clincher, where he feels that Thunderbird would pair well with a total change in identity and lifestyle, while “jumping on a moving freight train”. 🙂 🙂

    • LOL: A123
  214. @Shortsword
    @Aedib

    Government removed price caps on fuel. This resulted in people suddenly having to pay more than twice as much for it so many got angry.

    Replies: @Aedib

    • Replies: @Shortsword
    @Aedib

    The usual Russia watchers and "human rights enthusiasts" are jumping on it. That makes it "suspicious" I suppose. But I doubt this started as anything else but a simple angry mob protest (similar to say the recent protests in Chile or Colombia).

    Now there are probably forces that are trying to hijack it all. This would start with trying to present a group of people as leaders who have demands for the government. These people would likely come from some typical fake human rights organisation.

    Here's a funny tweet which makes it look like that's what happening

    https://twitter.com/nexta_tv/status/1478725986971701248

    I'm sure this is entirely made up though. But that could change.

    Replies: @Aedib

  215. @Dmitry
    For his New Year television show, Ivan Urgant's show (it's like David Letterman show in Russia) produces last couple of years a satire of an Italian 1980s New Year show.

    They study Italian and it sounds like they speak very fluently.

    Then at the end (1:09:40 in the video) they added an Italian speech by Putin as a deepfake. But there you can already see how sinister the deepfake of Putin is, in the difficulty to distinguish it from a real (Italian-speaking) Putin. In theory, Putin never needs to present a real speech for television again. He can just hire the people who made the deepfake for Urgant's show. Even if a politician dies, they could continue to be present speeches to the media as being alive with such a production.

    https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=RyMgs0DXZrY

    Replies: @Mr. Hack, @Thulean Friend

    Wonderful! Something surreal and Felliniesque about it all….

    What next? 🙂

  216. ColonelCassad about the color revolution try in Kazakhstan (in Russian)

    https://colonelcassad.livejournal.com/7350408.html

  217. @Dmitry
    @Mikhail


    Middle East typically look more Syrian
     
    Yes you can see in Israel, the population is a mix of many races, although to be fair to Israel unlike in some claims the majority of people are (Jews and Muslims) immigrants directly from nearby regions of the Middle East, and this is evident in the appearance of the population.

    For genetics of European Jews, there would be surely pre-existing desire to discover their origin as native to the Middle East, as this would both match the secular political state-building, as well as religious narratives.

    So it's understandable that conspiracy theorists can be questioning about genetic studies of European Jews, when the topic has a politically desired answer. But who knows? I'd like to believe scientists will try to be objective.

    -


    In terms of the Russian DNA, it's possible these commercial tests are discovering non-slavic ancestry, because the population of Russia which preceded the slavic tribes' invasion/colonization in Russia.

    This is just my superficial, amateur speculation.

    But slavic tribes immigrated to Russia in the 8th-9th century. But when the slavic population flooded into the territory as described in the chronicles, there were many native tribes in Russia who are perhaps only displaced culturally, rather than genetically.

    These nationalities which existed before the slavic tribes flood into Russia, like the Ves, Chud Zavolochskaya. These became mostly extinct in the cultural sense, but surely not in the genetic one. Perhaps this is one reason for the confusion of commercial genetic tests are saying many Russian people are not having slavic ancestry.

    When you look at pre-slavic populations of Russia like Vepsy today, it's not like we could visually distinguish them from the slavic (or slavicized) population.

    https://lenobl.ru/media/cache/21/6e/216eca8e43a15021eb33960751fa4471.png

    http://администрация-алеховщина.рф/wp-content/uploads/2019/02/24aaf3447d4fdbcc8ae16c6370d8510f.jpg

    Replies: @Mr. Hack, @melanf, @melanf

    Perhaps this is one reason for the confusion of commercial genetic tests are saying many Russian people are not having slavic ancestry.

    Averko is sliding here. He usually jumps on the opportunity to try and put genetic testing to rest, doubting its ability to accurately reflect ethnic lineages. He always falls flat on his face trying though. There’s no doubt that there’s a large Finnic sub-stratum within the make-up of the Russian nation. Just how large? I think that this question is fraught with political motivations. More analysis should be done, perhaps by outsiders. 🙂

    • Troll: Mikhail
    • Replies: @Dmitry
    @Mr. Hack

    It possibly that descendants of these nationalities discussed in the chronicle of past years, like Chud are showing in these modern commercial DNA as Baltic. So perhaps this is the population before the slavic invasions, which could be descendants of the modern population. It's something possible as a speculation anyway.

    The language category and the genetic category is not necessarily overlapping in every case.

    We just don't have reliable source. The chronicle of past years is a very mentally simple text, like something which would be written by modern 12 year old children or younger.

    While the pagan population before the slavic tribes immigrated to Russia, were not writing, and so you can't read anything.


    how large? I think that this question is fraught with political motivations.
     
    It's more question of terminology or semantics probably.
    , @Mikhail
    @Mr. Hack


    Averko is sliding here. He usually jumps on the opportunity to try and put genetic testing to rest, doubting its ability to accurately reflect ethnic lineages. He always falls flat on his face trying though. There’s no doubt that there’s a large Finnic sub-stratum within the make-up of the Russian nation. Just how large? I think that this question is fraught with political motivations. More analysis should be done, perhaps by outsiders.
     
    The aforementioned Finno-Ugric trait is large by what measurement? Like there's no non-Slav DNA among numerous Ukrainians.

    DNA tests have given varied results on the same individual, in addition to entire populations not participating in them on the same scale as censuses. The point I made concerning Jews and DNA testing isn't faulty.
  218. @German_reader
    @Mr. Hack


    Perhaps, I should be aware of something first before shopping there?
     
    I don't think you need to worry more than about any other supermarket chain, generally the quality of their products should be fine, it's just that it's got a certain low-class image in Germany, because their prices are low and the assortment of wares is somewhat limited (also they sell a lot of cheaper ALDI knock-offs instead of more expensive brand articles).
    Of course the usual caveats apply, if you want quality meat, you're probably better off to some butcher's shop.

    Replies: @Dmitry, @songbird, @RadicalCenter

    We shop at Aldi in both California and New Jersey and are quite satisfied. Ganz zufrieden.

    I have German heritage and used to speak some German. But like many white Americans, Germans are a pathetic, easily frightened, aging, dying people making systematically stupid decisions about immigration, energy, and culture and failing even to reproduce while lecturing the rest of us. Globalist Germans also manage to be both arrogant Besserwisser (know-it-alls) / bullies and self-hating at the same time — impressive. We have been socializing with German immigrants to the US for the better part of a decade here in SoCal and wow, half of them are willfully obtuse and confident in their suicidal naivete, counterfactual assertions, and enthusiasm for proven-disastrous prescriptions.

    Who gives a damn what Germans think? As the old joke about “modern” Western “liberals” goes, they wouldn’t take their own side in a fight. They’re not going to be around for long.

  219. @Barbarossa
    @A123

    You are certainly correct that the American farming system would be difficult to turn around. It took decades of concerted effort to get to where it is and would require concerted effort to turn round.

    As I mentioned earlier, the centralizing push was concerted since the early 70's and "Get big or get out!" Ag secretary Earl Butz. This has resulted in food producers who are inflexible, completely dependent on the banks and government, and trapped in a cycle of increasing their scale of production to desperately reach some level of security which never appears.

    This has absolutely destroyed the traditional rural backbone of America. 20 small farms make a town. 1 mega farm does not. The anti-social aspects of industry and agriculture consolidation are hard to overestimate and have done much to hollow out conservative America. Besides, I can tell you that farm kids are not going to be too susceptible to trans messaging and other liberal madness. Conservatism is rightfully based in reality, which must involve a connection to the natural world. The collapse of rural life and the rise in adoption of liberalism by the masses hardly seems unrelated. We have a world increasingly unmoored from any reality.

    I actually dispute the idea that industrial farming techniques are always more efficient than more traditional ones. It often depends on one's metric of "efficiency". For example, industrial meat production is a very grain heavy process, where corn and soy (grown on prime rich soil) get fed to animals in managed containment conditions.

    In the shift to industrial agriculture a corner of the country like mine has become abandoned. We don't have much of the rich soil to grow corn or soy. What we can grow well is grass, and indeed the area was rich with independent sheep farmers and dairies until the post-WW2 shift.

    Cows and sheep have been blessed with rumens, those miraculous stomachs capable of turning grass and other roughage, which has no food use to humans at all, into meat and milk. However, in our constant quest for "mechanized efficiency" we would rather use our best land to feed animals and let our land suited for animals lie fallow.

    You are correct that the middle men are a massive amount of the issue. The dairy farmers that I know are virtual slaves to the milk coops who can dictate terms since a virtual monopoly exists.

    The dairy of the past could market directly to it's community, banking on the evident quality of the product. Some farms would advertise that they kept Jersey or Guernsey cows for thick rich cream which the customer could clearly see. Modern milk is a commodity, one which the farmer has no ability to sell independently or set the price on. The middle men ought to be minimized.

    I agree with your point that food price hikes are hardest on the poor. There are a number of different ways to approach this. However, I don't think there are as many poor as poor in spirit in this country. When I see families (term used loosely) with four wheelers, nicer cars than me, the newest smartphones with data plans etc., yet receiving food stamps, HEAP etc. I suspect that our metric of poor has become skewed. I don't think it would hurt a lot of those folks to pay more for better food which supports a local community member. People could also garden more, especially poor people. A substantial amount of vegetable production used to happen in backyards, which is healthy and pro-social.

    Food as a percentage of total budget is as low as it's ever been in human history, which is not sustainable when the farmers can't make a living.

    My guess on where this is heading is that as the older farmer age out, which is rapidly happening, the younger generation will be unwilling or unable to make a smart of it. Increasingly larger scale agricultural land ownership and management will consolidate American agriculture ownership in a smaller and smaller pool of mega owners, such as Bill Gates is doing with his 242,000 acres ag holdings.

    Replies: @RadicalCenter

    Perhaps we should limit the amount of agricultural land that can be owned by any one person (or married couple).

    We need to outright PROHIBIT corporations and non-citizens from owning agricultural land or residential rental property in our country.

    • Agree: Barbarossa
  220. @Dmitry
    For his New Year television show, Ivan Urgant's show (it's like David Letterman show in Russia) produces last couple of years a satire of an Italian 1980s New Year show.

    They study Italian and it sounds like they speak very fluently.

    Then at the end (1:09:40 in the video) they added an Italian speech by Putin as a deepfake. But there you can already see how sinister the deepfake of Putin is, in the difficulty to distinguish it from a real (Italian-speaking) Putin. In theory, Putin never needs to present a real speech for television again. He can just hire the people who made the deepfake for Urgant's show. Even if a politician dies, they could continue to be present speeches to the media as being alive with such a production.

    https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=RyMgs0DXZrY

    Replies: @Mr. Hack, @Thulean Friend

    Skimming the video, I chuckled when I saw the overdone Pepsi placements. People complain about modern YouTubers doing “in video ads” but that feels far more genuine – since it is honest and upfront – than this kind of kitschy product placement. It’d be interesting going back to watch various Swedish gameshows from the same era if they had these kinds of hamfisted product placements with terrible acting or if it was an Italian thing.

    While I know neither Russian nor Italian, the vibe I got was that they were bantering but never in a mean-spirited way. I felt they were praising it while simultaneously making fun of it, if that makes sense. Respectful satire?

    • Replies: @Dmitry
    @Thulean Friend


    Respectful satire

     

    Yes they really know Italian language, and have according to Italian audiences a very strong understanding of Italian culture, the 1980s culture.

    Italians watching have reported they are shock that the Russian celebrities know so much Italian culture. It's not that funny, but I don't think David Letterman transform himself into an Italian man.

    Ivan Urgant speaks Italian so fluently and fast. But a large proportion of Russian celebrities, have houses in Italy.

    Urgant has a house in Italy and the celebrities are referencing sometimes in the show that they "remember when I saw you in Italy". So maybe from their perspective of being often in Italy for vacations, it's not that special to learn to speak Italian, watch some Italian television, copy some of the Italian body language.

  221. @Aedib
    @Shortsword

    It smells like a color revolution try

    https://southfront.org/in-videos-coordinated-chaos-in-qazaqstan/

    Will Russia let it triumph and later go "little green men" in Semipalátinsk?

    More

    https://www.rt.com/russia/545215-kazakhstan-unrest-police-president/

    https://www.rt.com/russia/545217-kazakhstan-tokaev-protests-security/

    Replies: @Shortsword

    The usual Russia watchers and “human rights enthusiasts” are jumping on it. That makes it “suspicious” I suppose. But I doubt this started as anything else but a simple angry mob protest (similar to say the recent protests in Chile or Colombia).

    Now there are probably forces that are trying to hijack it all. This would start with trying to present a group of people as leaders who have demands for the government. These people would likely come from some typical fake human rights organisation.

    Here’s a funny tweet which makes it look like that’s what happening

    I’m sure this is entirely made up though. But that could change.

    • Replies: @Aedib
    @Shortsword

    It likely started as a spontaneous protest by the hike on energy prices. But that’s already gone. The Kazakh government backtracked on these hikes and the protests grew up. I think the protests are already hijacked by the usual suspects. Anyway, the Kazakh government just has to follow Batka’s example on how to drown the color revolution. If Tokayev goes by the Yanukovitch’ path, that’s his fault.

    Replies: @Beckow, @AP

  222. Kazakh protestor is interviewed: “We want to live like in Sweden or in Norway“.

    There is also a demand list floating about. It asks for a range of socio-economic measures. These demands should be seen in context:

    Kazakhstan basically never recovered after the 2014 oil crash, yet their population’s expectations didn’t adjust to the new reality.

    It is of course possible – maybe even probable – that there is foreign meddling involved, but you can’t get this kind of anger to explode without significant grievances simmering in the background.

    We can say for certain that major cities are seeing unrest, dozens are dead and massive property damage is ongoing. That doesn’t strike me as a surefire way to get to prosperity.

    • Agree: Aedib
    • Replies: @Dmitry
    @Thulean Friend

    Considering similar aspects of the situation in the postsoviet space, it's probably even predictable to generalize, without knowing too many local details.

    Most of all postsoviet countries have the similar political elite which is untrammeled in corruption, with very low bargaining power of ordinary citizens.

    When for Kazakhstan the oil price is high, there should be enough breadcrumbs from the table to maintain sufficient to manage the public, but when the commodity cycle turns down then even some of world's most "cucked" populations to their elite (e.g. postsoviet populations) can sometimes begin to seem more difficult to managed.

    The authorities in the postsoviet space need to develop more strategies or political technologies to manage the population during a down turn in the commodity cycle, and some countries are cleverer in political technology to manage their public than other countries.

    Kazakhstan's government is promoting a lot of anti-Russian agitation and jingoism. But their popular protests in recent years are going more against China. Perhaps popular protests there is more anti-Chinese, even while their official media tries to promote more anti-Russian views

    Replies: @Yellowface Anon, @Aedib

    , @Yevardian
    @Thulean Friend


    “We want to live like in Sweden or in Norway“.
     
    Lol. This sort of retarded populist monkey logic is how useful idiots, incompetents and traitors like Saakashvili, Perón and Pashinyan get elected.

    NOTHING good will come of this, Central Asia only needs one big spark for that whole region to go off.

    Replies: @Yellowface Anon, @silviosilver, @Dmitry

  223. @Shortsword
    @Aedib

    The usual Russia watchers and "human rights enthusiasts" are jumping on it. That makes it "suspicious" I suppose. But I doubt this started as anything else but a simple angry mob protest (similar to say the recent protests in Chile or Colombia).

    Now there are probably forces that are trying to hijack it all. This would start with trying to present a group of people as leaders who have demands for the government. These people would likely come from some typical fake human rights organisation.

    Here's a funny tweet which makes it look like that's what happening

    https://twitter.com/nexta_tv/status/1478725986971701248

    I'm sure this is entirely made up though. But that could change.

    Replies: @Aedib

    It likely started as a spontaneous protest by the hike on energy prices. But that’s already gone. The Kazakh government backtracked on these hikes and the protests grew up. I think the protests are already hijacked by the usual suspects. Anyway, the Kazakh government just has to follow Batka’s example on how to drown the color revolution. If Tokayev goes by the Yanukovitch’ path, that’s his fault.

    • Replies: @Beckow
    @Aedib


    ...It likely started as a spontaneous protest by the hike on energy prices.
     
    Sure, most events are spontaneous. Oswald also took a spontaneous walk all those decades ago, too bad he was spontaneously shot. It happens, life is full of spontaneity.

    Opening a new front suggests that the West is either superbly confident or trapped. I don't see much confidence in the Western behaviour: they have been talking way too much about paperwork, both the irrelevant and the missing types. A year ago they planned a 'regime change' and thought they had the Belarus in the bag. They even flew in the pretender and pre-announced mass demos.

    They moved on to how the "German elections" will fix it, finally a kibosh: no pipes, no way to pay, Wehrmacht in Smolensk. Instead they got a British lesbo polishing metal on the Estonian border and Nato forward forces trapped in no-man's land.

    So on to Almaty...this will go well, excited talkers confronting un-moveable objects. Maybe they will put some nasty graffiti all over and go home to collect a few more 'human-rights' awards.

    , @AP
    @Aedib

    It isn't completely up to the the government, the people make a difference. What worked with Belarussians wouldn't have worked in Ukraine and may or may not work in Kazakhstan. Less docile Kazakhs have already grabbed some arms depots, shot some soldiers, and taken over a bunch of buildings, so already this is a more serious event that what happened with docile Belarussians.

    Neither you nor I know if this is a popular revolution or not, or how popular it may be. But your idea that a so-called "color revolution" can not also be a popular revolt is mistaken (you write as if the two are somehow mutually exclusive).

    Will Russia answer Kazakhstan's president's call for help? What will be the impact on attitudes towards Russia by Kazakhs if they get killed by Russian soldiers? If the revolt is more anti-Chinese than anti-Russian as Dmitri says, then it will become anti-Russian if Russia comes to kill Kazakhs in order to keep the hated government in power (if it is indeed, hated by most of its people). How many Russian troops will have to be kept there in order to keep the allied government in power?

    Replies: @Dmitry, @Aedib

  224. @Aedib
    @Shortsword

    It likely started as a spontaneous protest by the hike on energy prices. But that’s already gone. The Kazakh government backtracked on these hikes and the protests grew up. I think the protests are already hijacked by the usual suspects. Anyway, the Kazakh government just has to follow Batka’s example on how to drown the color revolution. If Tokayev goes by the Yanukovitch’ path, that’s his fault.

    Replies: @Beckow, @AP

    …It likely started as a spontaneous protest by the hike on energy prices.

    Sure, most events are spontaneous. Oswald also took a spontaneous walk all those decades ago, too bad he was spontaneously shot. It happens, life is full of spontaneity.

    Opening a new front suggests that the West is either superbly confident or trapped. I don’t see much confidence in the Western behaviour: they have been talking way too much about paperwork, both the irrelevant and the missing types. A year ago they planned a ‘regime change‘ and thought they had the Belarus in the bag. They even flew in the pretender and pre-announced mass demos.

    They moved on to how the “German elections” will fix it, finally a kibosh: no pipes, no way to pay, Wehrmacht in Smolensk. Instead they got a British lesbo polishing metal on the Estonian border and Nato forward forces trapped in no-man’s land.

    So on to Almaty…this will go well, excited talkers confronting un-moveable objects. Maybe they will put some nasty graffiti all over and go home to collect a few more ‘human-rights‘ awards.

  225. @Thulean Friend
    Kazakh protestor is interviewed: "We want to live like in Sweden or in Norway".

    There is also a demand list floating about. It asks for a range of socio-economic measures. These demands should be seen in context:

    https://i.imgur.com/YwBVDVK.jpg

    Kazakhstan basically never recovered after the 2014 oil crash, yet their population's expectations didn't adjust to the new reality.

    It is of course possible - maybe even probable - that there is foreign meddling involved, but you can't get this kind of anger to explode without significant grievances simmering in the background.

    We can say for certain that major cities are seeing unrest, dozens are dead and massive property damage is ongoing. That doesn't strike me as a surefire way to get to prosperity.

    Replies: @Dmitry, @Yevardian

    Considering similar aspects of the situation in the postsoviet space, it’s probably even predictable to generalize, without knowing too many local details.

    Most of all postsoviet countries have the similar political elite which is untrammeled in corruption, with very low bargaining power of ordinary citizens.

    When for Kazakhstan the oil price is high, there should be enough breadcrumbs from the table to maintain sufficient to manage the public, but when the commodity cycle turns down then even some of world’s most “cucked” populations to their elite (e.g. postsoviet populations) can sometimes begin to seem more difficult to managed.

    The authorities in the postsoviet space need to develop more strategies or political technologies to manage the population during a down turn in the commodity cycle, and some countries are cleverer in political technology to manage their public than other countries.

    Kazakhstan’s government is promoting a lot of anti-Russian agitation and jingoism. But their popular protests in recent years are going more against China. Perhaps popular protests there is more anti-Chinese, even while their official media tries to promote more anti-Russian views

    • Replies: @Yellowface Anon
    @Dmitry

    If Kazakhstan falls to the color revolutionaries, Russia is surrounded on all sides! The Baltics, Ukraine, Georgia, Kazakhstan, Japan, and Canada across the Arctic. Even worse, China is now surrounded too: the 1st Island Chain, Vietnam, India, and Kazakhstan. Mongolia could even be used as a wedge between the 2 powers - Inner Mongolian secessionism is going to see a resurgence.

    Replies: @Dmitry

    , @Aedib
    @Dmitry

    No. Just look at this.

    https://twitter.com/nexta_tv/status/1478725986971701248?ref_src=twsrc%5Etfw%7Ctwcamp%5Etweetembed%7Ctwterm%5E1478725986971701248%7Ctwgr%5E%7Ctwcon%5Es1_&ref_url=https%3A%2F%2Fwww.unz.com%2Fakarlin%2Fopen-thread-172%2F

    Franak Viakorka, Bill Browder and the rest of this gang is now full steam with anti-Russian agitprop. I miss Jihadi Julian. LOL.

    Replies: @Aedib, @Dmitry

  226. @Thulean Friend
    @Dmitry

    Skimming the video, I chuckled when I saw the overdone Pepsi placements. People complain about modern YouTubers doing "in video ads" but that feels far more genuine - since it is honest and upfront - than this kind of kitschy product placement. It'd be interesting going back to watch various Swedish gameshows from the same era if they had these kinds of hamfisted product placements with terrible acting or if it was an Italian thing.

    While I know neither Russian nor Italian, the vibe I got was that they were bantering but never in a mean-spirited way. I felt they were praising it while simultaneously making fun of it, if that makes sense. Respectful satire?

    Replies: @Dmitry

    Respectful satire

    Yes they really know Italian language, and have according to Italian audiences a very strong understanding of Italian culture, the 1980s culture.

    Italians watching have reported they are shock that the Russian celebrities know so much Italian culture. It’s not that funny, but I don’t think David Letterman transform himself into an Italian man.

    Ivan Urgant speaks Italian so fluently and fast. But a large proportion of Russian celebrities, have houses in Italy.

    Urgant has a house in Italy and the celebrities are referencing sometimes in the show that they “remember when I saw you in Italy”. So maybe from their perspective of being often in Italy for vacations, it’s not that special to learn to speak Italian, watch some Italian television, copy some of the Italian body language.

  227. @Yellowface Anon
    @showmethereal

    Swine fever being weaponized against the Chinese meat industry is an open secret by now. It decimated hogs and made export barriers forbiddingly high.

    I heard there's a forex shortage up there and serious controls of capital outflows + taxation. Provably they shouldn't seriously damage their tax base by shutting downs the productive economy, instead commandeering and mobilizing it.

    Replies: @Yellowface Anon

    I didn’t say this clearly to avoid offending some of your mildly Sinophile sensibilities, but wheels are coming off from the total lockdown regime in Xian. Anti-lockdowners need to guess why or see the agony of the residents in Xian, and Sinophobes are free to pick this as another evidence of an argument you’re familiar with.

    First off, their original goal was to cut off all social transmissions (that means no transmissions outside of those who have been quarantined centrally, and all contacts and contacts of contacts have been quarantined), by 1/4. It failed but the curve is starting to flatten, which means there’s still about 1-2 months to go.

    Before that, lots of things are falling apart:
    – Some people destined for centralized quarantine found out the lack of facilities at the site, which has no running water, electricity and heating, and attempted to return to their homes on feet.
    – For some time only potatoes and broccolis were distributed in some blocks.
    – Some patients weren’t attended at all and left outside medical facilities until it was too late.
    – The health code system malfunctioned twice.
    – Like in Wuhan, the usual anti-Chinese prop outlets are alleging a higher lockdown death count than those dead with COVID. Those who allegedly are dead from starvation or exposure were “socially removed”, unpersoned.

    All the above are likely real anecdotes except the last point, and there are Weibo evidence substantiating them. Now consider this is only the first 14 days and there’s still a long way to go before they start loosening things up.

    The Chinese medical leadership’s calculation might be like the Soviets in 1941- there is indeed an enemy, metaphorical in COVID’s case, and a large human cost is acceptable as far as the enemy is ultimately destroyed. The Soviet Union lost 20 million in the war, much of them needlessly and avoidable with better strategic planning or without earlier purges. But a mutating virus isn’t a country with leaders, generals and troops; Zero COVID is an unattainable goal. Of course, if you believe China has a part in the plans of the WEF, from the initial lab experiments and lockdowns, then more malicious explanations become possible.

    • Replies: @Yellowface Anon
    @Yellowface Anon

    More nuanced perspective:
    https://twitter.com/Chri5tianGoebel/status/1478412075005362176

  228. @Dmitry
    @Thulean Friend

    Considering similar aspects of the situation in the postsoviet space, it's probably even predictable to generalize, without knowing too many local details.

    Most of all postsoviet countries have the similar political elite which is untrammeled in corruption, with very low bargaining power of ordinary citizens.

    When for Kazakhstan the oil price is high, there should be enough breadcrumbs from the table to maintain sufficient to manage the public, but when the commodity cycle turns down then even some of world's most "cucked" populations to their elite (e.g. postsoviet populations) can sometimes begin to seem more difficult to managed.

    The authorities in the postsoviet space need to develop more strategies or political technologies to manage the population during a down turn in the commodity cycle, and some countries are cleverer in political technology to manage their public than other countries.

    Kazakhstan's government is promoting a lot of anti-Russian agitation and jingoism. But their popular protests in recent years are going more against China. Perhaps popular protests there is more anti-Chinese, even while their official media tries to promote more anti-Russian views

    Replies: @Yellowface Anon, @Aedib

    If Kazakhstan falls to the color revolutionaries, Russia is surrounded on all sides! The Baltics, Ukraine, Georgia, Kazakhstan, Japan, and Canada across the Arctic. Even worse, China is now surrounded too: the 1st Island Chain, Vietnam, India, and Kazakhstan. Mongolia could even be used as a wedge between the 2 powers – Inner Mongolian secessionism is going to see a resurgence.

    • Agree: sher singh
    • Replies: @Dmitry
    @Yellowface Anon

    These protests in Kazakhstan are apparently showing more in anti-China sentiment rather than anti-Russian sentiment, according to journalists. Spontaneous anger in Kazakhstan seems more against China, than against Russia. But for the government in Kazakhstan it has been convenient to try to promote anti-Russian anger for their masses

    Kazakhstan's situation in relation to Russia has similarities to Azerbaijan. This is the authorities try feed for their people an anti-Russian nationalism, but the country itself is far more of dependency of Russia. Kazakhstan's government promotes anti-Russian views, while much of their elite and political class invest in Russia.

    Of course, the public in Kazakhstan has a good reason to be angry with their own authorities, considering it is seems typical of a postsoviet country, i.e. turned into a machine for harnessing money for their narrow elite.

    But this is different topic from its implications for other countries. In my opinion, the most serious aspect of Kazakhstan in Russia, because the opiates flood across the border from there, into some of the most important cities, and this has been like the fuel that feeds an HIV epidemic in these cities.

    Replies: @A123, @Shortsword

  229. @Mr. Hack
    @Dmitry


    Perhaps this is one reason for the confusion of commercial genetic tests are saying many Russian people are not having slavic ancestry.
     
    Averko is sliding here. He usually jumps on the opportunity to try and put genetic testing to rest, doubting its ability to accurately reflect ethnic lineages. He always falls flat on his face trying though. There's no doubt that there's a large Finnic sub-stratum within the make-up of the Russian nation. Just how large? I think that this question is fraught with political motivations. More analysis should be done, perhaps by outsiders. :-)

    Replies: @Dmitry, @Mikhail

    It possibly that descendants of these nationalities discussed in the chronicle of past years, like Chud are showing in these modern commercial DNA as Baltic. So perhaps this is the population before the slavic invasions, which could be descendants of the modern population. It’s something possible as a speculation anyway.

    The language category and the genetic category is not necessarily overlapping in every case.

    We just don’t have reliable source. The chronicle of past years is a very mentally simple text, like something which would be written by modern 12 year old children or younger.

    While the pagan population before the slavic tribes immigrated to Russia, were not writing, and so you can’t read anything.

    how large? I think that this question is fraught with political motivations.

    It’s more question of terminology or semantics probably.

  230. @Yellowface Anon
    @Dmitry

    If Kazakhstan falls to the color revolutionaries, Russia is surrounded on all sides! The Baltics, Ukraine, Georgia, Kazakhstan, Japan, and Canada across the Arctic. Even worse, China is now surrounded too: the 1st Island Chain, Vietnam, India, and Kazakhstan. Mongolia could even be used as a wedge between the 2 powers - Inner Mongolian secessionism is going to see a resurgence.

    Replies: @Dmitry

    These protests in Kazakhstan are apparently showing more in anti-China sentiment rather than anti-Russian sentiment, according to journalists. Spontaneous anger in Kazakhstan seems more against China, than against Russia. But for the government in Kazakhstan it has been convenient to try to promote anti-Russian anger for their masses

    Kazakhstan’s situation in relation to Russia has similarities to Azerbaijan. This is the authorities try feed for their people an anti-Russian nationalism, but the country itself is far more of dependency of Russia. Kazakhstan’s government promotes anti-Russian views, while much of their elite and political class invest in Russia.

    Of course, the public in Kazakhstan has a good reason to be angry with their own authorities, considering it is seems typical of a postsoviet country, i.e. turned into a machine for harnessing money for their narrow elite.

    But this is different topic from its implications for other countries. In my opinion, the most serious aspect of Kazakhstan in Russia, because the opiates flood across the border from there, into some of the most important cities, and this has been like the fuel that feeds an HIV epidemic in these cities.

    • Replies: @A123
    @Dmitry


    These protests in Kazakhstan are apparently showing more in anti-China sentiment rather than anti-Russian sentiment, according to journalists. Spontaneous anger in Kazakhstan seems more against China
     
    The CCP's allegiance to Iran carries with it implications about Shia Islam and Persian ethnicity. Kazakhstan is primarily Sunni and definitely not Persian ethnic.

    Iran is a strategic competitor with Iran for Caspian Sea resources.

    Why would the people of Kazakhstan want ties to Shia & CCP regimes?
    ___

    There is no comparable reason to worry about Putin. Russia has little interest in Kazakhstan territory. While also on the Caspian Sea, they have more interesting opportunities in the Pacific Ocean, Black Sea, and the Baltic Sea.

    Russian ethnicity is ~20% of the Kazakhstan population. Kazakh standard rail is the same 1.5m gauge that exists in Russia. This allows for easy North-South flow of goods, especially with the population centers across the Northern border. Shared commerce and family connections are helpful in maintaining good relations.

    PEACE 😇

     
    https://i.pinimg.com/736x/5d/8d/07/5d8d07f73be6a701b886c6ec3def6c7f.jpg

    Replies: @sudden death

    , @Shortsword
    @Dmitry


    These protests in Kazakhstan are apparently showing more in anti-China sentiment rather than anti-Russian sentiment, according to journalists. Spontaneous anger in Kazakhstan seems more against China, than against Russia.
     
    I don't think there is much anti-Russian sentiment in Kazakhstan. From any poll I've seen Russia is seen positively in Kazakhstan. But this could change. If people are continually told that Russia is at fault for Kazakhstan not being powerful/prosperous enough this will eventually change many people's opinions. For example, the Kazakh famine could be weaponized for this purpose similar to how the Ukrainian famine is.

    Kazakhstan’s situation in relation to Russia has similarities to Azerbaijan. This is the authorities try feed for their people an anti-Russian nationalism, but the country itself is far more of dependency of Russia. Kazakhstan’s government promotes anti-Russian views, while much of their elite and political class invest in Russia.
     
    I'm not sure if this is true. Kazakhstan has a more careful approach. They do promote some anti-Russian views but the government but it's not as overt. So for example, naturally independence is pushed as being amazing and wonderful but this is done without making it a story of national liberation from evil Russians.

    Replies: @AP, @Dmitry, @A123

  231. @Dmitry
    @Thulean Friend

    Considering similar aspects of the situation in the postsoviet space, it's probably even predictable to generalize, without knowing too many local details.

    Most of all postsoviet countries have the similar political elite which is untrammeled in corruption, with very low bargaining power of ordinary citizens.

    When for Kazakhstan the oil price is high, there should be enough breadcrumbs from the table to maintain sufficient to manage the public, but when the commodity cycle turns down then even some of world's most "cucked" populations to their elite (e.g. postsoviet populations) can sometimes begin to seem more difficult to managed.

    The authorities in the postsoviet space need to develop more strategies or political technologies to manage the population during a down turn in the commodity cycle, and some countries are cleverer in political technology to manage their public than other countries.

    Kazakhstan's government is promoting a lot of anti-Russian agitation and jingoism. But their popular protests in recent years are going more against China. Perhaps popular protests there is more anti-Chinese, even while their official media tries to promote more anti-Russian views

    Replies: @Yellowface Anon, @Aedib

    No. Just look at this.

    Franak Viakorka, Bill Browder and the rest of this gang is now full steam with anti-Russian agitprop. I miss Jihadi Julian. LOL.

    • Replies: @Aedib
    @Aedib

    Jihadi Julian started to rant

    https://twitter.com/JulianRoepcke/status/1478784637514174464

    LOL

    , @Dmitry
    @Aedib

    The Kazakh government encourages rusophobia as part of a nationalist program (https://regnum.ru/news/3354590.html) or derussianization.

    However, the Kazakh elite is very invested in Russia and dependent on Russia. It's quite analogous to the situation with Azerbaijan in relation to Russia.


    No. Just look at this.

     

    There are constant anti-Chinese protests in their Kazakhstan as the government concedes with China.

    In terms of anti-Russian actions, this anti-Russian sentiment is a program of the Kazakhstan government. Their project is to encourage Russian emigration and build a mono-ethnic state. ( https://www.politnavigator.net/zachem-tokaev-falsificiruet-istoriyu-i-razduvaet-rusofobskie-nastroeniya-v-kazakhstane.html )

    So if the anti-government and pro-government are not disagreeing on these topics. But as always in postsoviet space, the nationalism is a good distraction from the real problems of the country of corruption, inequality, asset stripping by the political class.
  232. @Aedib
    @Dmitry

    No. Just look at this.

    https://twitter.com/nexta_tv/status/1478725986971701248?ref_src=twsrc%5Etfw%7Ctwcamp%5Etweetembed%7Ctwterm%5E1478725986971701248%7Ctwgr%5E%7Ctwcon%5Es1_&ref_url=https%3A%2F%2Fwww.unz.com%2Fakarlin%2Fopen-thread-172%2F

    Franak Viakorka, Bill Browder and the rest of this gang is now full steam with anti-Russian agitprop. I miss Jihadi Julian. LOL.

    Replies: @Aedib, @Dmitry

    Jihadi Julian started to rant

    LOL

  233. @Dmitry
    @Yellowface Anon

    These protests in Kazakhstan are apparently showing more in anti-China sentiment rather than anti-Russian sentiment, according to journalists. Spontaneous anger in Kazakhstan seems more against China, than against Russia. But for the government in Kazakhstan it has been convenient to try to promote anti-Russian anger for their masses

    Kazakhstan's situation in relation to Russia has similarities to Azerbaijan. This is the authorities try feed for their people an anti-Russian nationalism, but the country itself is far more of dependency of Russia. Kazakhstan's government promotes anti-Russian views, while much of their elite and political class invest in Russia.

    Of course, the public in Kazakhstan has a good reason to be angry with their own authorities, considering it is seems typical of a postsoviet country, i.e. turned into a machine for harnessing money for their narrow elite.

    But this is different topic from its implications for other countries. In my opinion, the most serious aspect of Kazakhstan in Russia, because the opiates flood across the border from there, into some of the most important cities, and this has been like the fuel that feeds an HIV epidemic in these cities.

    Replies: @A123, @Shortsword

    These protests in Kazakhstan are apparently showing more in anti-China sentiment rather than anti-Russian sentiment, according to journalists. Spontaneous anger in Kazakhstan seems more against China

    The CCP’s allegiance to Iran carries with it implications about Shia Islam and Persian ethnicity. Kazakhstan is primarily Sunni and definitely not Persian ethnic.

    Iran is a strategic competitor with Iran for Caspian Sea resources.

    Why would the people of Kazakhstan want ties to Shia & CCP regimes?
    ___

    There is no comparable reason to worry about Putin. Russia has little interest in Kazakhstan territory. While also on the Caspian Sea, they have more interesting opportunities in the Pacific Ocean, Black Sea, and the Baltic Sea.

    Russian ethnicity is ~20% of the Kazakhstan population. Kazakh standard rail is the same 1.5m gauge that exists in Russia. This allows for easy North-South flow of goods, especially with the population centers across the Northern border. Shared commerce and family connections are helpful in maintaining good relations.

    PEACE 😇

     

    • Replies: @sudden death
    @A123


    There is no comparable reason to worry about Putin. Russia has little interest in Kazakhstan territory. While also on the Caspian Sea, they have more interesting opportunities in the Pacific Ocean, Black Sea, and the Baltic Sea.

    Russian ethnicity is ~20% of the Kazakhstan population. Kazakh standard rail is the same 1.5m gauge that exists in Russia. This allows for easy North-South flow of goods, especially with the population centers across the Northern border. Shared commerce and family connections are helpful in maintaining good relations.
     

    Meanwhile in RF many, including AK, are drooling uncontrollably now at the mere thought of grabing land of Northern Kazakstan during current chaos where majority of those 20% Russians are living, just the timing may be little inconvenient for Putin in practice when he is quite preoccupied with military puffing&huffing games at the Ukraine border.

    Replies: @Philip Owen, @sudden death

  234. @Mr. Hack
    @Dmitry


    Perhaps this is one reason for the confusion of commercial genetic tests are saying many Russian people are not having slavic ancestry.
     
    Averko is sliding here. He usually jumps on the opportunity to try and put genetic testing to rest, doubting its ability to accurately reflect ethnic lineages. He always falls flat on his face trying though. There's no doubt that there's a large Finnic sub-stratum within the make-up of the Russian nation. Just how large? I think that this question is fraught with political motivations. More analysis should be done, perhaps by outsiders. :-)

    Replies: @Dmitry, @Mikhail

    Averko is sliding here. He usually jumps on the opportunity to try and put genetic testing to rest, doubting its ability to accurately reflect ethnic lineages. He always falls flat on his face trying though. There’s no doubt that there’s a large Finnic sub-stratum within the make-up of the Russian nation. Just how large? I think that this question is fraught with political motivations. More analysis should be done, perhaps by outsiders.

    The aforementioned Finno-Ugric trait is large by what measurement? Like there’s no non-Slav DNA among numerous Ukrainians.

    DNA tests have given varied results on the same individual, in addition to entire populations not participating in them on the same scale as censuses. The point I made concerning Jews and DNA testing isn’t faulty.

  235. My theory is that there is an algorithm in Youtube that, regardless of politics, promotes more feminine or gay-sounding men, like Linus Tech Tips, and shadow bans more masculine men, with squarer jaws and deeper voices, unless they are confirmed to be pozzed or black, or unless a lot of gays enjoy watching them.

  236. IMO, one of the biggest signs of decadence in the East is anime about playing video games. Even the Chinese seem to be making them, or did, before the crackdown. Japan may be a worse case in some manner, since they have accepted video games as being a leg of their national identity.

  237. Dumb National Interest Article

    Re: https://nationalinterest.org/blog/reboot/moldova-illustrates-putins-plan-eastern-europe-198982

    Excerpt –

    One of the Putin regime’s favorite tricks is to support pro-Russian political parties while simultaneously doing everything possible to undermine the credibility of pro-Western parties and politicians. In some instances, Russian money has gone simultaneously to both pro-Russian and extreme nationalist parties. This would seem to be a self-contradicting strategy.

    Russia has a long history of interfering in Moldovan politics. Soon after Moldova split from the Soviet Union, Russia fomented a separatist movement in that country’s Transdniestria region, which is in the northeast along the border with Ukraine. The local government invited in Russian troops who have been there for more than two decades.

    At the above linked excerpt, the first two hyperlinks provide little, if any substantive support to what the author says.

    The Moldavian SSR was created when Soviet forces took much of that territory away from Romania in 1939. Prior to WW I, that land was part of the Russian Empire.

    “Transdniestria” (Pridnestrovie) was already part of the Soviet Union before 1939, as an “autonomous” part of Ukraine. When the Moldavian SSR was created, Pridnestrovie was undemocratically put into it.

    Upon the Soviet breakup, nationalist and pan-Romanian elements in Moldova prompted a backlash from the population in Pridnestrovie, which has a mostly pro-Russian outlook. The Russian troop presence in Pridnestrovie has arguably limited the severity of the short war which existed there.

    The above linked article is another example of a US establishment politico, downplaying the fact that not every former USSR dispute is primarily the fault of Russia. When Russia behaves like what’s described below, it’s called meddling:

    https://www.rferl.org/a/united-states-dodik-sanctions-expanded/31640889.html

  238. A neocon weenie gets roasted:

    • Replies: @Mikel
    @Mikhail

    I haven't been following Ukrainian politics much lately but Poroshenko being sought for arrest under the accusation of treason sounds like the Maidan revolution entering a Thermidor phase of sorts. Last time I checked he was the leader of the second party in Ukraine and in the elections he had represented a more revolutionary alternative to Zelensky, even accusing him of being a Putin stooge. I wonder if Poroshenko's former friends in the EU will have anything to say this time. It's not just pro-Russians and communists being prosecuted now.

    Replies: @Mikhail

  239. @Aedib
    @Dmitry

    No. Just look at this.

    https://twitter.com/nexta_tv/status/1478725986971701248?ref_src=twsrc%5Etfw%7Ctwcamp%5Etweetembed%7Ctwterm%5E1478725986971701248%7Ctwgr%5E%7Ctwcon%5Es1_&ref_url=https%3A%2F%2Fwww.unz.com%2Fakarlin%2Fopen-thread-172%2F

    Franak Viakorka, Bill Browder and the rest of this gang is now full steam with anti-Russian agitprop. I miss Jihadi Julian. LOL.

    Replies: @Aedib, @Dmitry

    The Kazakh government encourages rusophobia as part of a nationalist program (https://regnum.ru/news/3354590.html) or derussianization.

    However, the Kazakh elite is very invested in Russia and dependent on Russia. It’s quite analogous to the situation with Azerbaijan in relation to Russia.

    No. Just look at this.

    There are constant anti-Chinese protests in their Kazakhstan as the government concedes with China.

    In terms of anti-Russian actions, this anti-Russian sentiment is a program of the Kazakhstan government. Their project is to encourage Russian emigration and build a mono-ethnic state. ( https://www.politnavigator.net/zachem-tokaev-falsificiruet-istoriyu-i-razduvaet-rusofobskie-nastroeniya-v-kazakhstane.html )

    So if the anti-government and pro-government are not disagreeing on these topics. But as always in postsoviet space, the nationalism is a good distraction from the real problems of the country of corruption, inequality, asset stripping by the political class.

  240. @A123
    @Dmitry


    These protests in Kazakhstan are apparently showing more in anti-China sentiment rather than anti-Russian sentiment, according to journalists. Spontaneous anger in Kazakhstan seems more against China
     
    The CCP's allegiance to Iran carries with it implications about Shia Islam and Persian ethnicity. Kazakhstan is primarily Sunni and definitely not Persian ethnic.

    Iran is a strategic competitor with Iran for Caspian Sea resources.

    Why would the people of Kazakhstan want ties to Shia & CCP regimes?
    ___

    There is no comparable reason to worry about Putin. Russia has little interest in Kazakhstan territory. While also on the Caspian Sea, they have more interesting opportunities in the Pacific Ocean, Black Sea, and the Baltic Sea.

    Russian ethnicity is ~20% of the Kazakhstan population. Kazakh standard rail is the same 1.5m gauge that exists in Russia. This allows for easy North-South flow of goods, especially with the population centers across the Northern border. Shared commerce and family connections are helpful in maintaining good relations.

    PEACE 😇

     
    https://i.pinimg.com/736x/5d/8d/07/5d8d07f73be6a701b886c6ec3def6c7f.jpg

    Replies: @sudden death

    There is no comparable reason to worry about Putin. Russia has little interest in Kazakhstan territory. While also on the Caspian Sea, they have more interesting opportunities in the Pacific Ocean, Black Sea, and the Baltic Sea.

    Russian ethnicity is ~20% of the Kazakhstan population. Kazakh standard rail is the same 1.5m gauge that exists in Russia. This allows for easy North-South flow of goods, especially with the population centers across the Northern border. Shared commerce and family connections are helpful in maintaining good relations.

    Meanwhile in RF many, including AK, are drooling uncontrollably now at the mere thought of grabing land of Northern Kazakstan during current chaos where majority of those 20% Russians are living, just the timing may be little inconvenient for Putin in practice when he is quite preoccupied with military puffing&huffing games at the Ukraine border.

    • Replies: @Philip Owen
    @sudden death

    The railroad to China passes through Nothern Kazakhstan where the Russian settlers live.

    , @sudden death
    @sudden death

    https://zen.yandex.ru/media/holmogorow/chto-nam-delat-s-kazahstanom-i-chego-delat-ne-sleduet-61d5a521e27786705a5e2a96

    Replies: @sudden death

  241. Roko is saying he would like custodianship of Elizabeth Holmes.

    She is way too creepy, IMO.

    • Agree: sher singh
  242. @sudden death
    @A123


    There is no comparable reason to worry about Putin. Russia has little interest in Kazakhstan territory. While also on the Caspian Sea, they have more interesting opportunities in the Pacific Ocean, Black Sea, and the Baltic Sea.

    Russian ethnicity is ~20% of the Kazakhstan population. Kazakh standard rail is the same 1.5m gauge that exists in Russia. This allows for easy North-South flow of goods, especially with the population centers across the Northern border. Shared commerce and family connections are helpful in maintaining good relations.
     

    Meanwhile in RF many, including AK, are drooling uncontrollably now at the mere thought of grabing land of Northern Kazakstan during current chaos where majority of those 20% Russians are living, just the timing may be little inconvenient for Putin in practice when he is quite preoccupied with military puffing&huffing games at the Ukraine border.

    Replies: @Philip Owen, @sudden death

    The railroad to China passes through Nothern Kazakhstan where the Russian settlers live.

  243. @sudden death
    @A123


    There is no comparable reason to worry about Putin. Russia has little interest in Kazakhstan territory. While also on the Caspian Sea, they have more interesting opportunities in the Pacific Ocean, Black Sea, and the Baltic Sea.

    Russian ethnicity is ~20% of the Kazakhstan population. Kazakh standard rail is the same 1.5m gauge that exists in Russia. This allows for easy North-South flow of goods, especially with the population centers across the Northern border. Shared commerce and family connections are helpful in maintaining good relations.
     

    Meanwhile in RF many, including AK, are drooling uncontrollably now at the mere thought of grabing land of Northern Kazakstan during current chaos where majority of those 20% Russians are living, just the timing may be little inconvenient for Putin in practice when he is quite preoccupied with military puffing&huffing games at the Ukraine border.

    Replies: @Philip Owen, @sudden death

    • Replies: @sudden death
    @sudden death

    Possible look of landgrab in KZ:


    https://avatars.mds.yandex.net/get-zen_doc/1721884/pub_61d5a521e27786705a5e2a96_61d5b3384fc4cd232de7e89c/scale_1200

  244. Now that Tony Blair has been finally knighted, the Queen should send him into the interior of Africa, to help establish Harry’s mineral kingdom.

    • Replies: @Philip Owen
    @songbird

    Tony Blair pocketed 3.6 m GBP a year for advised Nursultan, former President of Kazakhstan. Isn't that interesting?

    Replies: @Dmitry

  245. @sudden death
    @sudden death

    https://zen.yandex.ru/media/holmogorow/chto-nam-delat-s-kazahstanom-i-chego-delat-ne-sleduet-61d5a521e27786705a5e2a96

    Replies: @sudden death

  246. @Dmitry
    @Yellowface Anon

    These protests in Kazakhstan are apparently showing more in anti-China sentiment rather than anti-Russian sentiment, according to journalists. Spontaneous anger in Kazakhstan seems more against China, than against Russia. But for the government in Kazakhstan it has been convenient to try to promote anti-Russian anger for their masses

    Kazakhstan's situation in relation to Russia has similarities to Azerbaijan. This is the authorities try feed for their people an anti-Russian nationalism, but the country itself is far more of dependency of Russia. Kazakhstan's government promotes anti-Russian views, while much of their elite and political class invest in Russia.

    Of course, the public in Kazakhstan has a good reason to be angry with their own authorities, considering it is seems typical of a postsoviet country, i.e. turned into a machine for harnessing money for their narrow elite.

    But this is different topic from its implications for other countries. In my opinion, the most serious aspect of Kazakhstan in Russia, because the opiates flood across the border from there, into some of the most important cities, and this has been like the fuel that feeds an HIV epidemic in these cities.

    Replies: @A123, @Shortsword

    These protests in Kazakhstan are apparently showing more in anti-China sentiment rather than anti-Russian sentiment, according to journalists. Spontaneous anger in Kazakhstan seems more against China, than against Russia.

    I don’t think there is much anti-Russian sentiment in Kazakhstan. From any poll I’ve seen Russia is seen positively in Kazakhstan. But this could change. If people are continually told that Russia is at fault for Kazakhstan not being powerful/prosperous enough this will eventually change many people’s opinions. For example, the Kazakh famine could be weaponized for this purpose similar to how the Ukrainian famine is.

    Kazakhstan’s situation in relation to Russia has similarities to Azerbaijan. This is the authorities try feed for their people an anti-Russian nationalism, but the country itself is far more of dependency of Russia. Kazakhstan’s government promotes anti-Russian views, while much of their elite and political class invest in Russia.

    I’m not sure if this is true. Kazakhstan has a more careful approach. They do promote some anti-Russian views but the government but it’s not as overt. So for example, naturally independence is pushed as being amazing and wonderful but this is done without making it a story of national liberation from evil Russians.

    • Replies: @AP
    @Shortsword

    I don't know much about Kazakhstan and don't pretend to.

    IF the government is genuinely unpopular and this is truly a mass revolt, than if the revolt is crushed by Russian troops and the hated government is kept in power by Russians, Kazakhs will become anti-Russian even though they are not so now. In that case Russia will be in trouble: if it pulls out and is "defeated" the new government will be anti-Russian. Doubly so if Russia grabs Russian-populated territory in the North as it exits. If Russia stays to prop up the hated government, it will be invested as an occupying power for a long time.

    Of course, it may be that the revolt is not supported by majority of the Kazakhs and will be crushed locally without Russian help. Or the people may even be grateful for Russian help, if most of them support the government and the revolt is the work of a minority of troublemakers.

    Might pan-Turkicism play any role in any of this?

    https://upload.wikimedia.org/wikipedia/commons/thumb/d/d1/Map_of_Turkic_languages.svg/1920px-Map_of_Turkic_languages.svg.png

    Replies: @Shortsword

    , @Dmitry
    @Shortsword


    much anti-Russian sentiment in Kazakhstan.

     

    Yes and I was talking to some Kazakhs in Western Europe a few months ago. Although my impression they have a negative view of politics or life in Russia, don't even visit Russia for vacation, but of course they are in the Russian culture. They're not going to escape that easy.

    Kazakhstan has a more careful approach
     
    Azerbaijan had a more brutal independence, but I wouldn't say Kazakhstan's politicians are more careful today.

    "Mono-ethnic state" is a common word of Kazakhstan politicians for years. Whereas Azerbaijan promotes multiculturalism, their royal family visits Ivanovka (collective farm in Azerbaijan) as a showcase. (https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=0o_-CAmkW-k.) Azerbaijan loves to promote the Russian Orthodox Church.

    Russian minorities in Azerbaijan are not complaining in the internet or media, whereas with Kazakhstan there are people complaining about the rising nationalism. There's a lot on internet forums over the years where you read about the mild unease they feel with the official supported nationalism in Kazakhstan. Although I guess (just my very superficial impression) this is just in terms of their fear of the nationalism in words.

    , @A123
    @Shortsword


    I’m not sure if this is true. Kazakhstan has a more careful approach. They do promote some anti-Russian views but the government but it’s not as overt. So for example, naturally independence is pushed as being amazing and wonderful but this is done without making it a story of national liberation from evil Russians
     
    This seems about right. There is a great deal of "talk" about national unity, with ethnic overtones. However, there does not seem to be a great deal of "action" along those lines.

    -- Would Putin intervene if ethnic Russians were threatened? Possibly.
    -- Does he want to? Clearly not.

    The ethnic Russians in Kazakhstan are poorer that native Russians. Absorbing this region would be a resource challenge, much like assimilating Donbass or Belarus. Putin would rather deploy Russian assets elsewhere.

    PEACE 😇

    Replies: @Dmitry

  247. @songbird
    Now that Tony Blair has been finally knighted, the Queen should send him into the interior of Africa, to help establish Harry's mineral kingdom.

    Replies: @Philip Owen

    Tony Blair pocketed 3.6 m GBP a year for advised Nursultan, former President of Kazakhstan. Isn’t that interesting?

    • Agree: songbird
    • Replies: @Dmitry
    @Philip Owen

    Kazakhstan's political class invests a lot for the UK. They invest a lot in London (but so does everyone in the postsoviet countries) and their elites are living there.

    -


    Kazakhstan's government has the friendly relations with the USA as well, with the US leading military exercises there.
    https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=xG3eMILtcXU

    But unlike Uzbekistan they are still in CSTO, which might actually help them now, unlike some exercises with the USA.

  248. @Philip Owen
    @songbird

    Tony Blair pocketed 3.6 m GBP a year for advised Nursultan, former President of Kazakhstan. Isn't that interesting?

    Replies: @Dmitry

    Kazakhstan’s political class invests a lot for the UK. They invest a lot in London (but so does everyone in the postsoviet countries) and their elites are living there.

    Kazakhstan’s government has the friendly relations with the USA as well, with the US leading military exercises there.

    But unlike Uzbekistan they are still in CSTO, which might actually help them now, unlike some exercises with the USA.

  249. @Aedib
    @Shortsword

    It likely started as a spontaneous protest by the hike on energy prices. But that’s already gone. The Kazakh government backtracked on these hikes and the protests grew up. I think the protests are already hijacked by the usual suspects. Anyway, the Kazakh government just has to follow Batka’s example on how to drown the color revolution. If Tokayev goes by the Yanukovitch’ path, that’s his fault.

    Replies: @Beckow, @AP

    It isn’t completely up to the the government, the people make a difference. What worked with Belarussians wouldn’t have worked in Ukraine and may or may not work in Kazakhstan. Less docile Kazakhs have already grabbed some arms depots, shot some soldiers, and taken over a bunch of buildings, so already this is a more serious event that what happened with docile Belarussians.

    Neither you nor I know if this is a popular revolution or not, or how popular it may be. But your idea that a so-called “color revolution” can not also be a popular revolt is mistaken (you write as if the two are somehow mutually exclusive).

    Will Russia answer Kazakhstan’s president’s call for help? What will be the impact on attitudes towards Russia by Kazakhs if they get killed by Russian soldiers? If the revolt is more anti-Chinese than anti-Russian as Dmitri says, then it will become anti-Russian if Russia comes to kill Kazakhs in order to keep the hated government in power (if it is indeed, hated by most of its people). How many Russian troops will have to be kept there in order to keep the allied government in power?

    • Replies: @Dmitry
    @AP

    For now, it is at least only for ODKB to go to help Tokaev. Pashinyan announced this.

    But indeed if you help too openly Tokaev, then you are invested that he does not lose his position. If there is a reversal, then the new government in Kazakhstan would likely exit from the security agreements. (As Uzbekistan and Azerbaijan exited already).

    On the other hand, if it helps Tokaev survive? Then in such a scenario, there is a new motive for the Uzbekistan or Azerbaijan to re-join the security agreement. It's finally something useful as a security agreement, even if as an insurance policy for the postsoviet elites to control this kind of protest by their own people. Rather than to defend countries from non-member countries as e.g. Pashinyan would hope.

    , @Aedib
    @AP

    Things are more complicated than docility or lack of docility necessary for a legitimate uprising or an inducted color revolution to triumph. By the way, in these events, the less docile people were the Donbass people that rose against the Maidan regime which, in turn, was the product of a color revolution. Docility and popularity are just two variables of a complex multivariable game that do not necessarily define the result. For example, you can have a popular color revolution failing (like in Iran) or you can have an unpopular color revolution triumph (like in Bolivia, 2019).
    These games tend to be defined in the upper echelons of the power pyramid and in the Turkic world thing are even more complex because of the infighting between the power clans. In Kazakhstan we have so far riots which seems ultranationalists, the usual Internet agitprop from the usual suspects (Nexta, etc), an ongoing intervention by CSTO, infighting(?) between Nazarbayev and Tokayev, local oligarchs maneuvering and, in addition, possible maneuvers also from China and Turkey. Things are not only multivariable. The complicated power management of Turkic cultures lead to intricate power games (also in Turkey which nowadays is not ethnically very Turkic, LOL).

    Replies: @Dmitry

  250. @Shortsword
    @Dmitry


    These protests in Kazakhstan are apparently showing more in anti-China sentiment rather than anti-Russian sentiment, according to journalists. Spontaneous anger in Kazakhstan seems more against China, than against Russia.
     
    I don't think there is much anti-Russian sentiment in Kazakhstan. From any poll I've seen Russia is seen positively in Kazakhstan. But this could change. If people are continually told that Russia is at fault for Kazakhstan not being powerful/prosperous enough this will eventually change many people's opinions. For example, the Kazakh famine could be weaponized for this purpose similar to how the Ukrainian famine is.

    Kazakhstan’s situation in relation to Russia has similarities to Azerbaijan. This is the authorities try feed for their people an anti-Russian nationalism, but the country itself is far more of dependency of Russia. Kazakhstan’s government promotes anti-Russian views, while much of their elite and political class invest in Russia.
     
    I'm not sure if this is true. Kazakhstan has a more careful approach. They do promote some anti-Russian views but the government but it's not as overt. So for example, naturally independence is pushed as being amazing and wonderful but this is done without making it a story of national liberation from evil Russians.

    Replies: @AP, @Dmitry, @A123

    I don’t know much about Kazakhstan and don’t pretend to.

    IF the government is genuinely unpopular and this is truly a mass revolt, than if the revolt is crushed by Russian troops and the hated government is kept in power by Russians, Kazakhs will become anti-Russian even though they are not so now. In that case Russia will be in trouble: if it pulls out and is “defeated” the new government will be anti-Russian. Doubly so if Russia grabs Russian-populated territory in the North as it exits. If Russia stays to prop up the hated government, it will be invested as an occupying power for a long time.

    Of course, it may be that the revolt is not supported by majority of the Kazakhs and will be crushed locally without Russian help. Or the people may even be grateful for Russian help, if most of them support the government and the revolt is the work of a minority of troublemakers.

    Might pan-Turkicism play any role in any of this?

    • Agree: Philip Owen
    • Replies: @Shortsword
    @AP

    The CSTO assistance seems like a blunder no matter the result. Both from Kazakhstan and Russia. It just doesn't look good.

  251. @Shortsword
    @Dmitry


    These protests in Kazakhstan are apparently showing more in anti-China sentiment rather than anti-Russian sentiment, according to journalists. Spontaneous anger in Kazakhstan seems more against China, than against Russia.
     
    I don't think there is much anti-Russian sentiment in Kazakhstan. From any poll I've seen Russia is seen positively in Kazakhstan. But this could change. If people are continually told that Russia is at fault for Kazakhstan not being powerful/prosperous enough this will eventually change many people's opinions. For example, the Kazakh famine could be weaponized for this purpose similar to how the Ukrainian famine is.

    Kazakhstan’s situation in relation to Russia has similarities to Azerbaijan. This is the authorities try feed for their people an anti-Russian nationalism, but the country itself is far more of dependency of Russia. Kazakhstan’s government promotes anti-Russian views, while much of their elite and political class invest in Russia.
     
    I'm not sure if this is true. Kazakhstan has a more careful approach. They do promote some anti-Russian views but the government but it's not as overt. So for example, naturally independence is pushed as being amazing and wonderful but this is done without making it a story of national liberation from evil Russians.

    Replies: @AP, @Dmitry, @A123

    much anti-Russian sentiment in Kazakhstan.

    Yes and I was talking to some Kazakhs in Western Europe a few months ago. Although my impression they have a negative view of politics or life in Russia, don’t even visit Russia for vacation, but of course they are in the Russian culture. They’re not going to escape that easy.

    Kazakhstan has a more careful approach

    Azerbaijan had a more brutal independence, but I wouldn’t say Kazakhstan’s politicians are more careful today.

    “Mono-ethnic state” is a common word of Kazakhstan politicians for years. Whereas Azerbaijan promotes multiculturalism, their royal family visits Ivanovka (collective farm in Azerbaijan) as a showcase. (https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=0o_-CAmkW-k.) Azerbaijan loves to promote the Russian Orthodox Church.

    Russian minorities in Azerbaijan are not complaining in the internet or media, whereas with Kazakhstan there are people complaining about the rising nationalism. There’s a lot on internet forums over the years where you read about the mild unease they feel with the official supported nationalism in Kazakhstan. Although I guess (just my very superficial impression) this is just in terms of their fear of the nationalism in words.

  252. @songbird
    @A123


    How about an invented language, like Esperanto?
     
    Once read a novel where the villains spoke Esperanto, and I thought it was a really clever idea. Though, a parasitical model of politics (which I think holds) would suggest that the Left would rather speak Sioux or Choctaw, as they have more speakers.

    Similarly, Farsi and Arabic would be terrible choices from their perspective. Only the Arab oil states have any money. The others are all dirt poor (it is amazing how poor Morocco and Algeria are), and there are a lot of antagonisms between bordering countries. They are not intellectual centers, so not much of an academic niche to exploit. Plus, the disadvantage of gendered words.

    What makes English attractive is that it is a language of maximization. You can exploit the most resources using English - the most money, the most minds. English has 1.348 billion first and second language speakers - that's more than Mandarin, and it's better than Mandarin because there is no Great Firewall, or censorship by the CCP.
    _____
    I wonder whether Cem Özdemir feels any sympathy for the price that his fellow Turks are paying for food in inflated currency. Or whether it is just his radical politics that are being shown. Probably if the Greens ever took total power there would be a worse famine than happened under Mao.

    Replies: @German_reader, @China Japan and Korea Bromance of Three Kingdoms

    English has 1.348 billion first and second language speakers – that’s more than Mandarin

    Mandarin is the spoken language, all the Sinitic languages / dialects are written in the same script, Chinese characters, hànzì 漢字.

    So it’s incorrect to say “It’s written in Mandarin”, only “It’s written in Chinese” since all the dialect speakers write using the same script.

    This is similar to Swiss German and other dialects are written in Standard German. But hànzì is logographic so can be used for vastly different languages, i.e. the agglutinative language Japanese.

    Someone fully literate in Chinese should be able to read 50 to 60% of a Japanese text. The reverse is somewhat less true since only mostly the educated knows kanji well, but still holds.

    So hànzì and kanji can be said to be used by ~1.5 billion people. (subject to Koreans reviving hanja which would increase that figure)

    • Thanks: songbird
  253. Soo… Baikonur – Ours!

    Or too soon? I don’t know much or care to know about Kazakh politics. I only care about the spaceport. Rogozin said it was calm last night but i was wondering more long term.

    Baikonur is a useful strategic place so if Russia decided to start securing things I would urge not to forget about it.

    • Replies: @songbird
    @mal

    Hope they at least cut the rent.

    , @AP
    @mal

    Baikonur is a Russian enclave far south of the main Russian settlement area in northern Kazakhstan. The surrounding region is 96% Kazakh.

    Even the 4 northern provinces are only about 40%-55% East Slavic depending on province, so annexation would add a lot more Muslims to Russia's population (unless those provinces were themselves split on ethnic lines).

    https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/North_Kazakhstan_Region

    https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Kostanay_Region

    https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Pavlodar_Region

    https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Akmola_Region

    Replies: @mal, @Dmitry, @Aedib

  254. @AP
    @Aedib

    It isn't completely up to the the government, the people make a difference. What worked with Belarussians wouldn't have worked in Ukraine and may or may not work in Kazakhstan. Less docile Kazakhs have already grabbed some arms depots, shot some soldiers, and taken over a bunch of buildings, so already this is a more serious event that what happened with docile Belarussians.

    Neither you nor I know if this is a popular revolution or not, or how popular it may be. But your idea that a so-called "color revolution" can not also be a popular revolt is mistaken (you write as if the two are somehow mutually exclusive).

    Will Russia answer Kazakhstan's president's call for help? What will be the impact on attitudes towards Russia by Kazakhs if they get killed by Russian soldiers? If the revolt is more anti-Chinese than anti-Russian as Dmitri says, then it will become anti-Russian if Russia comes to kill Kazakhs in order to keep the hated government in power (if it is indeed, hated by most of its people). How many Russian troops will have to be kept there in order to keep the allied government in power?

    Replies: @Dmitry, @Aedib

    For now, it is at least only for ODKB to go to help Tokaev. Pashinyan announced this.

    But indeed if you help too openly Tokaev, then you are invested that he does not lose his position. If there is a reversal, then the new government in Kazakhstan would likely exit from the security agreements. (As Uzbekistan and Azerbaijan exited already).

    On the other hand, if it helps Tokaev survive? Then in such a scenario, there is a new motive for the Uzbekistan or Azerbaijan to re-join the security agreement. It’s finally something useful as a security agreement, even if as an insurance policy for the postsoviet elites to control this kind of protest by their own people. Rather than to defend countries from non-member countries as e.g. Pashinyan would hope.

  255. @AP
    @Shortsword

    I don't know much about Kazakhstan and don't pretend to.

    IF the government is genuinely unpopular and this is truly a mass revolt, than if the revolt is crushed by Russian troops and the hated government is kept in power by Russians, Kazakhs will become anti-Russian even though they are not so now. In that case Russia will be in trouble: if it pulls out and is "defeated" the new government will be anti-Russian. Doubly so if Russia grabs Russian-populated territory in the North as it exits. If Russia stays to prop up the hated government, it will be invested as an occupying power for a long time.

    Of course, it may be that the revolt is not supported by majority of the Kazakhs and will be crushed locally without Russian help. Or the people may even be grateful for Russian help, if most of them support the government and the revolt is the work of a minority of troublemakers.

    Might pan-Turkicism play any role in any of this?

    https://upload.wikimedia.org/wikipedia/commons/thumb/d/d1/Map_of_Turkic_languages.svg/1920px-Map_of_Turkic_languages.svg.png

    Replies: @Shortsword

    The CSTO assistance seems like a blunder no matter the result. Both from Kazakhstan and Russia. It just doesn’t look good.

  256. @mal
    Soo... Baikonur - Ours!

    Or too soon? I don't know much or care to know about Kazakh politics. I only care about the spaceport. Rogozin said it was calm last night but i was wondering more long term.

    Baikonur is a useful strategic place so if Russia decided to start securing things I would urge not to forget about it.

    Replies: @songbird, @AP

    Hope they at least cut the rent.

  257. @mal
    Soo... Baikonur - Ours!

    Or too soon? I don't know much or care to know about Kazakh politics. I only care about the spaceport. Rogozin said it was calm last night but i was wondering more long term.

    Baikonur is a useful strategic place so if Russia decided to start securing things I would urge not to forget about it.

    Replies: @songbird, @AP

    Baikonur is a Russian enclave far south of the main Russian settlement area in northern Kazakhstan. The surrounding region is 96% Kazakh.

    Even the 4 northern provinces are only about 40%-55% East Slavic depending on province, so annexation would add a lot more Muslims to Russia’s population (unless those provinces were themselves split on ethnic lines).

    https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/North_Kazakhstan_Region

    https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Kostanay_Region

    https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Pavlodar_Region

    https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Akmola_Region

    • Replies: @mal
    @AP

    Good point. There are like 800,000 people in the province that hosts Baikonur, with population density of 3.5/km2. So don't annex the whole thing, just secure Baikonur, declare E-38 highway some sort of "international safe transit zone", +/- 100 km to either side to neutralize the hotheads with rocket launchers, and probably less than 100,000 tribals will have to move out of the way. Compensate them of course for loss of huts etc. Easily doable i think, and worth keeping the spaceport.

    As songbird mentioned rent savings alone will be worth it.

    , @Dmitry
    @AP


    more Muslims to Russia
     
    From what I could see, Kazakhs not usually such "fanatical Muslims" that you would scared of adding them in the country. It's mostly a modernized, secular, educated population.

    Of course, any concept of annexing Kazakhstan territory to Russia, would be crazy. It would be a sign of senility.

    It might add some small territory and alienate thousands of kilometres of border, millions of people.

    If the opiates epidemic (which causes the HIV epidemic) is not difficult to control, it would be unseen floods of opiates if Kazakhstan would be not co-operating in its border policy.

    There is no option of "build a wall" and "Kazakhstan will pay for it" on this border. It requires not alienating Kazakhstan. Although Kazakhstan was more "closed borders" and strict monitoring on this border than in the Russian side. Kremlin policy in recent years has been to create an open border zone with Kazakhstan, which also requires co-operation from Kazakhstan. You need good relations for either policy,

    Replies: @Dmitry

    , @Aedib
    @AP

    These data shows that an Anschluss is no longer feasible. Jihadi Julian and the “Nexta team” are ringing the alarm bells about the “imminent takeover of South Siberia by Russia”. These are wild fantasies. What might happen, and as “last reaction”, are (de facto and not de jure) minor land grabs for ethical Russians to be saved from Khazak headchoppers and this is now very unlikely.

  258. @Shortsword
    @Dmitry


    These protests in Kazakhstan are apparently showing more in anti-China sentiment rather than anti-Russian sentiment, according to journalists. Spontaneous anger in Kazakhstan seems more against China, than against Russia.
     
    I don't think there is much anti-Russian sentiment in Kazakhstan. From any poll I've seen Russia is seen positively in Kazakhstan. But this could change. If people are continually told that Russia is at fault for Kazakhstan not being powerful/prosperous enough this will eventually change many people's opinions. For example, the Kazakh famine could be weaponized for this purpose similar to how the Ukrainian famine is.

    Kazakhstan’s situation in relation to Russia has similarities to Azerbaijan. This is the authorities try feed for their people an anti-Russian nationalism, but the country itself is far more of dependency of Russia. Kazakhstan’s government promotes anti-Russian views, while much of their elite and political class invest in Russia.
     
    I'm not sure if this is true. Kazakhstan has a more careful approach. They do promote some anti-Russian views but the government but it's not as overt. So for example, naturally independence is pushed as being amazing and wonderful but this is done without making it a story of national liberation from evil Russians.

    Replies: @AP, @Dmitry, @A123

    I’m not sure if this is true. Kazakhstan has a more careful approach. They do promote some anti-Russian views but the government but it’s not as overt. So for example, naturally independence is pushed as being amazing and wonderful but this is done without making it a story of national liberation from evil Russians

    This seems about right. There is a great deal of “talk” about national unity, with ethnic overtones. However, there does not seem to be a great deal of “action” along those lines.

    — Would Putin intervene if ethnic Russians were threatened? Possibly.
    — Does he want to? Clearly not.

    The ethnic Russians in Kazakhstan are poorer that native Russians. Absorbing this region would be a resource challenge, much like assimilating Donbass or Belarus. Putin would rather deploy Russian assets elsewhere.

    PEACE 😇

    • Replies: @Dmitry
    @A123


    region would be a resource challenge
     
    Well, Kazakhstan has a lot of oil and natural resources. It can feed itself, at least when the commodity cycle is in uptrend. But you can assume they have a lot of corruption and lack of objective legal system that would allow development of competitive industries not connected to commodities market.

    assimilating Donbass or
     
    Donbass was a relatively economically strong region before 2014, with optimistic forecasts by professional economists' reports (at least optimistic in regional standards, which are low of course). Donetsk had one of the highest incomes in Ukraine and second largest number of wealthy people after Kiev.

    It's a strange feeling to read those old reports nowadays.

    You can see with each year after, what kind of pointless and terrible disaster 2014 has been for the region with the majority of its population now in poverty, a large proportion pensioners, with most of the younger population gone.

  259. @AP
    @mal

    Baikonur is a Russian enclave far south of the main Russian settlement area in northern Kazakhstan. The surrounding region is 96% Kazakh.

    Even the 4 northern provinces are only about 40%-55% East Slavic depending on province, so annexation would add a lot more Muslims to Russia's population (unless those provinces were themselves split on ethnic lines).

    https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/North_Kazakhstan_Region

    https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Kostanay_Region

    https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Pavlodar_Region

    https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Akmola_Region

    Replies: @mal, @Dmitry, @Aedib

    Good point. There are like 800,000 people in the province that hosts Baikonur, with population density of 3.5/km2. So don’t annex the whole thing, just secure Baikonur, declare E-38 highway some sort of “international safe transit zone”, +/- 100 km to either side to neutralize the hotheads with rocket launchers, and probably less than 100,000 tribals will have to move out of the way. Compensate them of course for loss of huts etc. Easily doable i think, and worth keeping the spaceport.

    As songbird mentioned rent savings alone will be worth it.

  260. @AP
    @mal

    Baikonur is a Russian enclave far south of the main Russian settlement area in northern Kazakhstan. The surrounding region is 96% Kazakh.

    Even the 4 northern provinces are only about 40%-55% East Slavic depending on province, so annexation would add a lot more Muslims to Russia's population (unless those provinces were themselves split on ethnic lines).

    https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/North_Kazakhstan_Region

    https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Kostanay_Region

    https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Pavlodar_Region

    https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Akmola_Region

    Replies: @mal, @Dmitry, @Aedib

    more Muslims to Russia

    From what I could see, Kazakhs not usually such “fanatical Muslims” that you would scared of adding them in the country. It’s mostly a modernized, secular, educated population.

    Of course, any concept of annexing Kazakhstan territory to Russia, would be crazy. It would be a sign of senility.

    It might add some small territory and alienate thousands of kilometres of border, millions of people.

    If the opiates epidemic (which causes the HIV epidemic) is not difficult to control, it would be unseen floods of opiates if Kazakhstan would be not co-operating in its border policy.

    There is no option of “build a wall” and “Kazakhstan will pay for it” on this border. It requires not alienating Kazakhstan. Although Kazakhstan was more “closed borders” and strict monitoring on this border than in the Russian side. Kremlin policy in recent years has been to create an open border zone with Kazakhstan, which also requires co-operation from Kazakhstan. You need good relations for either policy,

    • Replies: @Dmitry
    @Dmitry


    that you would scared of adding them in the country
     
    That's without saying, that the whole population of Kazakhstan are already like de facto Russian citizens now, with the policy of the Eurasian Economic Union for citizens of member states to have interchangeable movement and work rights.

    All Kazakhstan citizens can live and work freely in Russia without any need of permit, or to register anywhere. Except in terms of voting in elections, Kazakhstan citizen already have essentially the same position to live or work inside Russia as if they are Russian citizens.

  261. @Dmitry
    @AP


    more Muslims to Russia
     
    From what I could see, Kazakhs not usually such "fanatical Muslims" that you would scared of adding them in the country. It's mostly a modernized, secular, educated population.

    Of course, any concept of annexing Kazakhstan territory to Russia, would be crazy. It would be a sign of senility.

    It might add some small territory and alienate thousands of kilometres of border, millions of people.

    If the opiates epidemic (which causes the HIV epidemic) is not difficult to control, it would be unseen floods of opiates if Kazakhstan would be not co-operating in its border policy.

    There is no option of "build a wall" and "Kazakhstan will pay for it" on this border. It requires not alienating Kazakhstan. Although Kazakhstan was more "closed borders" and strict monitoring on this border than in the Russian side. Kremlin policy in recent years has been to create an open border zone with Kazakhstan, which also requires co-operation from Kazakhstan. You need good relations for either policy,

    Replies: @Dmitry

    that you would scared of adding them in the country

    That’s without saying, that the whole population of Kazakhstan are already like de facto Russian citizens now, with the policy of the Eurasian Economic Union for citizens of member states to have interchangeable movement and work rights.

    All Kazakhstan citizens can live and work freely in Russia without any need of permit, or to register anywhere. Except in terms of voting in elections, Kazakhstan citizen already have essentially the same position to live or work inside Russia as if they are Russian citizens.

  262. @A123
    @Shortsword


    I’m not sure if this is true. Kazakhstan has a more careful approach. They do promote some anti-Russian views but the government but it’s not as overt. So for example, naturally independence is pushed as being amazing and wonderful but this is done without making it a story of national liberation from evil Russians
     
    This seems about right. There is a great deal of "talk" about national unity, with ethnic overtones. However, there does not seem to be a great deal of "action" along those lines.

    -- Would Putin intervene if ethnic Russians were threatened? Possibly.
    -- Does he want to? Clearly not.

    The ethnic Russians in Kazakhstan are poorer that native Russians. Absorbing this region would be a resource challenge, much like assimilating Donbass or Belarus. Putin would rather deploy Russian assets elsewhere.

    PEACE 😇

    Replies: @Dmitry

    region would be a resource challenge

    Well, Kazakhstan has a lot of oil and natural resources. It can feed itself, at least when the commodity cycle is in uptrend. But you can assume they have a lot of corruption and lack of objective legal system that would allow development of competitive industries not connected to commodities market.

    assimilating Donbass or

    Donbass was a relatively economically strong region before 2014, with optimistic forecasts by professional economists’ reports (at least optimistic in regional standards, which are low of course). Donetsk had one of the highest incomes in Ukraine and second largest number of wealthy people after Kiev.

    It’s a strange feeling to read those old reports nowadays.

    You can see with each year after, what kind of pointless and terrible disaster 2014 has been for the region with the majority of its population now in poverty, a large proportion pensioners, with most of the younger population gone.

  263. And also, as a space hydrogen shill/troll, to people interested in the next SpaceX.

    For what it’s worth, Stoke plans to use liquid hydrogen as the fuel for its second stage, and methane for the first stage. Methane isn’t a carbon-neutral fuel, which runs counter to Breakthrough Energy Ventures’ zero-emission vision. But Lapsa argued that other carbon-based rocket fuels (like kerosene, for example) are worse.

    “The best thing you can do, if you’re using a hydrocarbon fuel, is use the simplest hydrocarbon possible — and that’s methane,” he said.

    Bill Gates’ Breakthrough Energy leads \$65M funding round for Stoke Space’s reusable rockets

    https://www.geekwire.com/2021/breakthrough-energy-ventures-leads-65m-funding-round-for-stoke-spaces-reusable-rocket-stages/

    The ultimate best rocket configuration is – lower stage methane, upper stage hydrogen, electric plasma accelerator for the rest.

    We are slowly getting around to this, which is good news. Whoever rules space will rule the planet.

  264. It’s still not fully clear to me how the security apparatus lost control so easily.

    Or maybe they didn’t. There are indications that there could be elements of an inside job at play:

    FWIW, some CSTO members have already expressed reservations about an intervention.

    As a general rule, when there is a sudden lack of enforcement of key critical institutions, then there is usually foul play involved from the inside. We saw that on Jan 6th in the US last year, as Capitol police would let in protestors. It seems fairly obvious that FBI and intelligence agencies were aware of what was going to happen and allowed it proceed, if not instigated it. We now also know that FBI had moles inside the mob, thanks to NYT disclosures.

    If this is true in America, then a sudden disappearance of security forces in Kazakhstan likely hews to the same script. The situation did escalate much more in Kazakhstan, but that is a risk in any high-stakes gamble. My reading of the history of civil unrest is that there is rarely any “spontaneous” uprisings on this scale and often requires elite intervention (whether domestic or foreign). The sudden disappearance of security forces makes the entire episode even more bizarre.

    • Replies: @mal
    @Thulean Friend


    It’s still not fully clear to me how the security apparatus lost control so easily.
     
    Easy. The Soros guys are needy and pushed too hard ahead of Russia - NATO summit. So they shot their load prematurely. It happens to the best of us. From Russian side, why interrupt your "esteemed Western partner" when they are making a mistake? No reason at all.

    Kazakhstan contains a strategic spaceport and like 40% of world supply of uranium. I think it desperately needs the presence of Russian peacekeepers, and now it will get them.

    So all is well and how it is supposed to be. Thank you revolutionaries.
  265. @Thulean Friend
    It's still not fully clear to me how the security apparatus lost control so easily.

    https://twitter.com/tkassenova/status/1478827441397379073

    Or maybe they didn't. There are indications that there could be elements of an inside job at play:

    https://twitter.com/KassenovaNargis/status/1478863179832832009

    FWIW, some CSTO members have already expressed reservations about an intervention.

    As a general rule, when there is a sudden lack of enforcement of key critical institutions, then there is usually foul play involved from the inside. We saw that on Jan 6th in the US last year, as Capitol police would let in protestors. It seems fairly obvious that FBI and intelligence agencies were aware of what was going to happen and allowed it proceed, if not instigated it. We now also know that FBI had moles inside the mob, thanks to NYT disclosures.

    If this is true in America, then a sudden disappearance of security forces in Kazakhstan likely hews to the same script. The situation did escalate much more in Kazakhstan, but that is a risk in any high-stakes gamble. My reading of the history of civil unrest is that there is rarely any "spontaneous" uprisings on this scale and often requires elite intervention (whether domestic or foreign). The sudden disappearance of security forces makes the entire episode even more bizarre.

    Replies: @mal

    It’s still not fully clear to me how the security apparatus lost control so easily.

    Easy. The Soros guys are needy and pushed too hard ahead of Russia – NATO summit. So they shot their load prematurely. It happens to the best of us. From Russian side, why interrupt your “esteemed Western partner” when they are making a mistake? No reason at all.

    Kazakhstan contains a strategic spaceport and like 40% of world supply of uranium. I think it desperately needs the presence of Russian peacekeepers, and now it will get them.

    So all is well and how it is supposed to be. Thank you revolutionaries.

  266. @Yellowface Anon
    @Yellowface Anon

    I didn't say this clearly to avoid offending some of your mildly Sinophile sensibilities, but wheels are coming off from the total lockdown regime in Xian. Anti-lockdowners need to guess why or see the agony of the residents in Xian, and Sinophobes are free to pick this as another evidence of an argument you're familiar with.

    First off, their original goal was to cut off all social transmissions (that means no transmissions outside of those who have been quarantined centrally, and all contacts and contacts of contacts have been quarantined), by 1/4. It failed but the curve is starting to flatten, which means there's still about 1-2 months to go.

    Before that, lots of things are falling apart:
    - Some people destined for centralized quarantine found out the lack of facilities at the site, which has no running water, electricity and heating, and attempted to return to their homes on feet.
    - For some time only potatoes and broccolis were distributed in some blocks.
    - Some patients weren't attended at all and left outside medical facilities until it was too late.
    - The health code system malfunctioned twice.
    - Like in Wuhan, the usual anti-Chinese prop outlets are alleging a higher lockdown death count than those dead with COVID. Those who allegedly are dead from starvation or exposure were "socially removed", unpersoned.

    All the above are likely real anecdotes except the last point, and there are Weibo evidence substantiating them. Now consider this is only the first 14 days and there's still a long way to go before they start loosening things up.

    The Chinese medical leadership's calculation might be like the Soviets in 1941- there is indeed an enemy, metaphorical in COVID's case, and a large human cost is acceptable as far as the enemy is ultimately destroyed. The Soviet Union lost 20 million in the war, much of them needlessly and avoidable with better strategic planning or without earlier purges. But a mutating virus isn't a country with leaders, generals and troops; Zero COVID is an unattainable goal. Of course, if you believe China has a part in the plans of the WEF, from the initial lab experiments and lockdowns, then more malicious explanations become possible.

    Replies: @Yellowface Anon

    More nuanced perspective:

  267. @Thulean Friend
    Kazakh protestor is interviewed: "We want to live like in Sweden or in Norway".

    There is also a demand list floating about. It asks for a range of socio-economic measures. These demands should be seen in context:

    https://i.imgur.com/YwBVDVK.jpg

    Kazakhstan basically never recovered after the 2014 oil crash, yet their population's expectations didn't adjust to the new reality.

    It is of course possible - maybe even probable - that there is foreign meddling involved, but you can't get this kind of anger to explode without significant grievances simmering in the background.

    We can say for certain that major cities are seeing unrest, dozens are dead and massive property damage is ongoing. That doesn't strike me as a surefire way to get to prosperity.

    Replies: @Dmitry, @Yevardian

    “We want to live like in Sweden or in Norway“.

    Lol. This sort of retarded populist monkey logic is how useful idiots, incompetents and traitors like Saakashvili, Perón and Pashinyan get elected.

    NOTHING good will come of this, Central Asia only needs one big spark for that whole region to go off.

    • Replies: @Yellowface Anon
    @Yevardian

    Perón???

    , @silviosilver
    @Yevardian

    There is nothing wrong with the desire itself. The masses, however, typically have outrageously unrealistic expectations of how quickly and easily that goal can be achieved, so they readily fall prey to political scammers who've mastered the lexicon of western liberalism but whose main aim is to enrich themselves no matter the cost to the country. (And Yellowface is right, Peron hardly fits this model.)

    Replies: @Yellowface Anon

    , @Dmitry
    @Yevardian

    Every postsoviet country (except Estonia/Latvia/Lithuania) has gone to this political dystopia for the median citizen, with the wealthy clans, "harvesting" the majority of the population for salaries which are multiples less than the salary of MacDonald's workers in developed countries.

    If you would try to investigate the systems in any serious sense, you would go to a morgue. Meanwhile, governments are feeding every strange ideology to try to distract citizens (sometimes opposing their own life directly, as Aliev's family lives in Russia, while promoting Turkey), while prioritizing investment in security services.

    If it was one or two countries, it would be funny. But every country with the same situation. You are in Armenia, so you know already. For someone from any postsoviet country, talks to someoneone thousands of kilometres, completely different climate or ethnicity, to someone from another postsoviet country, and it's all the same situation.

    Of course, comparison postsoviet coutnries to Sweden and Norway, is absurd. Aside from their wealth and historical fortune, those countries have not been dictatorships since at least the 19th century.

    But perhaps Estonia would be interesting to study. E.g. It's only 40 years ago, they possibly killed film director Tarkovsky with their levels of carcinogenic pollution. Nowadays, OECD is saying they have very low pollution.

    They are actually managing to develop somekind of responsible governance to their ordinary citizens in just three decades? Although perhaps Estonia has an older advantage itself. They were already vastly most educated population in the Russian Empire.


    Pashinyan get elected.
     
    Pashinyan is announcing the rescue mission to help Тokаev. But nobody even offers help for Pashinyan when his wife is "fighting" in a war against Azerbaijan (while thousands of soldiers are killed by drones for YouTube). Neither help for Armenian citizens are breaking to his office, stealing "multiple bottles" of his perfume.

    Pashinyan's own election promise is about improving democracy in Armenia. But the benefit being demonstrated by CSTO support of Тokаev, is its ability to work as insurance for the postsoviet clan system.

    CSTO is finally, for the first time, showing that it is useful for the member countries. For Pashinyan though, it would imply he is hoping to be protected by this clan politics' insurance policy. I wonder if he is buying a villa in Forte dei Marmi already, perhaps near Zelensky's villa.

    Replies: @Thulean Friend

  268. @Yevardian
    @Thulean Friend


    “We want to live like in Sweden or in Norway“.
     
    Lol. This sort of retarded populist monkey logic is how useful idiots, incompetents and traitors like Saakashvili, Perón and Pashinyan get elected.

    NOTHING good will come of this, Central Asia only needs one big spark for that whole region to go off.

    Replies: @Yellowface Anon, @silviosilver, @Dmitry

    Perón???

  269. @Yevardian
    @Thulean Friend


    “We want to live like in Sweden or in Norway“.
     
    Lol. This sort of retarded populist monkey logic is how useful idiots, incompetents and traitors like Saakashvili, Perón and Pashinyan get elected.

    NOTHING good will come of this, Central Asia only needs one big spark for that whole region to go off.

    Replies: @Yellowface Anon, @silviosilver, @Dmitry

    There is nothing wrong with the desire itself. The masses, however, typically have outrageously unrealistic expectations of how quickly and easily that goal can be achieved, so they readily fall prey to political scammers who’ve mastered the lexicon of western liberalism but whose main aim is to enrich themselves no matter the cost to the country. (And Yellowface is right, Peron hardly fits this model.)

    • Replies: @Yellowface Anon
    @silviosilver

    I don't see why a former Latin American leader is listed between two Caucasian leaders.

    Replies: @Yevardian

  270. @silviosilver
    @Yevardian

    There is nothing wrong with the desire itself. The masses, however, typically have outrageously unrealistic expectations of how quickly and easily that goal can be achieved, so they readily fall prey to political scammers who've mastered the lexicon of western liberalism but whose main aim is to enrich themselves no matter the cost to the country. (And Yellowface is right, Peron hardly fits this model.)

    Replies: @Yellowface Anon

    I don’t see why a former Latin American leader is listed between two Caucasian leaders.

    • Replies: @Yevardian
    @Yellowface Anon

    Perón is arguably the example of a populist leader who managed to run his country into the ground by making outrageous promises to his mob (his followers were referred to as 'los descamisados', or 'the shirtless') with practically no chance of becoming reality. Perhaps to his 'credit' he did attempt to make good on his unrealistic promises, at the cost of radically polarising society, and totally dislocating the economy. At the end of his first period in power, as Argentina's economy was imploding from hyperinflation and food-riots and street fights were breaking out, Perón made public statements urging his followers 'to kill 5 for every dead Perónist', which is when the military finally had enough and overthrew him to prevent civil war.

    The nature of his promises and ideology were so vague that his fanatical following immediately split off into far-left and far-right factions, with 'Perónist' urban guerillas and corrupt unions (and I am generally pro-union) plaguing the country for decades. In fact, his social and economic legacy left Argentina so unmanagable that the military actually invited Perón back in hope that he could tame the populist monster he'd created. Tragically, on his return, dozens of his avowed supporters actually managed to kill each other at a mass rally of his that degenerated into a brawl between leftist and rightist Peronistas.

    Perhaps I could have just shortened this by specificing that Perón exemplified incompetence, Pashinyan a traitor, and Saakashvili a useful idiot.

  271. @AP
    @Aedib

    It isn't completely up to the the government, the people make a difference. What worked with Belarussians wouldn't have worked in Ukraine and may or may not work in Kazakhstan. Less docile Kazakhs have already grabbed some arms depots, shot some soldiers, and taken over a bunch of buildings, so already this is a more serious event that what happened with docile Belarussians.

    Neither you nor I know if this is a popular revolution or not, or how popular it may be. But your idea that a so-called "color revolution" can not also be a popular revolt is mistaken (you write as if the two are somehow mutually exclusive).

    Will Russia answer Kazakhstan's president's call for help? What will be the impact on attitudes towards Russia by Kazakhs if they get killed by Russian soldiers? If the revolt is more anti-Chinese than anti-Russian as Dmitri says, then it will become anti-Russian if Russia comes to kill Kazakhs in order to keep the hated government in power (if it is indeed, hated by most of its people). How many Russian troops will have to be kept there in order to keep the allied government in power?

    Replies: @Dmitry, @Aedib

    Things are more complicated than docility or lack of docility necessary for a legitimate uprising or an inducted color revolution to triumph. By the way, in these events, the less docile people were the Donbass people that rose against the Maidan regime which, in turn, was the product of a color revolution. Docility and popularity are just two variables of a complex multivariable game that do not necessarily define the result. For example, you can have a popular color revolution failing (like in Iran) or you can have an unpopular color revolution triumph (like in Bolivia, 2019).
    These games tend to be defined in the upper echelons of the power pyramid and in the Turkic world thing are even more complex because of the infighting between the power clans. In Kazakhstan we have so far riots which seems ultranationalists, the usual Internet agitprop from the usual suspects (Nexta, etc), an ongoing intervention by CSTO, infighting(?) between Nazarbayev and Tokayev, local oligarchs maneuvering and, in addition, possible maneuvers also from China and Turkey. Things are not only multivariable. The complicated power management of Turkic cultures lead to intricate power games (also in Turkey which nowadays is not ethnically very Turkic, LOL).

    • Replies: @Dmitry
    @Aedib

    Without wanting to depreciate the brutality of security services in Belarus (many protesters imprisoned and beaten), I agree with AP that it was quietly dissolved.

    Remember how the hi-tech workers in Belarus, supported the protest so strongly. But nowadays they just quietly emigrate.

    One reason Belarus is not so difficult to manage for the authorities, is a very aging population. This is bad for dependency ratio of future decades, but positive for the stability of the government.

    https://i.imgur.com/slxxU84.jpg

    In the Russian Federation, it is a similar situation with an aging population (especially among the slavic population), which means it should be increasingly easy to manage with each year for the government. By the 2040s, it will be too late for any street protests of energetic youth to generate much energy, as only a small proportion of the public will have the energy of youth.

    However, there is currently a high flood of young people into the largest cities. So because of the flood of young people internal immigration, cities like Moscow have disproportionate populations of young people. This can be potentially difficult to manage for the authorities. Although I think they will have few problems overall, considering the strength of security systems.

    As for Kazakhstan. Like other central Asian countries, a high fertility rate, with upcoming larger youth population. This could be difficult for the government to survive. But there is at least an offpressure of emigration to Russia or even China. Uzbekistan can potentially use this offpressure even more, as much of their young people can emigrate to Russia and China.

    Without offpressure of emigration of youth, it could seem a very unstable future situation for the authorities to manage the population in Central Asia.

    Replies: @Beckow

  272. @AP
    @mal

    Baikonur is a Russian enclave far south of the main Russian settlement area in northern Kazakhstan. The surrounding region is 96% Kazakh.

    Even the 4 northern provinces are only about 40%-55% East Slavic depending on province, so annexation would add a lot more Muslims to Russia's population (unless those provinces were themselves split on ethnic lines).

    https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/North_Kazakhstan_Region

    https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Kostanay_Region

    https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Pavlodar_Region

    https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Akmola_Region

    Replies: @mal, @Dmitry, @Aedib

    These data shows that an Anschluss is no longer feasible. Jihadi Julian and the “Nexta team” are ringing the alarm bells about the “imminent takeover of South Siberia by Russia”. These are wild fantasies. What might happen, and as “last reaction”, are (de facto and not de jure) minor land grabs for ethical Russians to be saved from Khazak headchoppers and this is now very unlikely.

  273. @Yevardian
    @Thulean Friend


    “We want to live like in Sweden or in Norway“.
     
    Lol. This sort of retarded populist monkey logic is how useful idiots, incompetents and traitors like Saakashvili, Perón and Pashinyan get elected.

    NOTHING good will come of this, Central Asia only needs one big spark for that whole region to go off.

    Replies: @Yellowface Anon, @silviosilver, @Dmitry

    Every postsoviet country (except Estonia/Latvia/Lithuania) has gone to this political dystopia for the median citizen, with the wealthy clans, “harvesting” the majority of the population for salaries which are multiples less than the salary of MacDonald’s workers in developed countries.

    If you would try to investigate the systems in any serious sense, you would go to a morgue. Meanwhile, governments are feeding every strange ideology to try to distract citizens (sometimes opposing their own life directly, as Aliev’s family lives in Russia, while promoting Turkey), while prioritizing investment in security services.

    If it was one or two countries, it would be funny. But every country with the same situation. You are in Armenia, so you know already. For someone from any postsoviet country, talks to someoneone thousands of kilometres, completely different climate or ethnicity, to someone from another postsoviet country, and it’s all the same situation.

    Of course, comparison postsoviet coutnries to Sweden and Norway, is absurd. Aside from their wealth and historical fortune, those countries have not been dictatorships since at least the 19th century.

    But perhaps Estonia would be interesting to study. E.g. It’s only 40 years ago, they possibly killed film director Tarkovsky with their levels of carcinogenic pollution. Nowadays, OECD is saying they have very low pollution.

    They are actually managing to develop somekind of responsible governance to their ordinary citizens in just three decades? Although perhaps Estonia has an older advantage itself. They were already vastly most educated population in the Russian Empire.

    Pashinyan get elected.

    Pashinyan is announcing the rescue mission to help Тokаev. But nobody even offers help for Pashinyan when his wife is “fighting” in a war against Azerbaijan (while thousands of soldiers are killed by drones for YouTube). Neither help for Armenian citizens are breaking to his office, stealing “multiple bottles” of his perfume.

    Pashinyan’s own election promise is about improving democracy in Armenia. But the benefit being demonstrated by CSTO support of Тokаev, is its ability to work as insurance for the postsoviet clan system.

    CSTO is finally, for the first time, showing that it is useful for the member countries. For Pashinyan though, it would imply he is hoping to be protected by this clan politics’ insurance policy. I wonder if he is buying a villa in Forte dei Marmi already, perhaps near Zelensky’s villa.

    • Replies: @Thulean Friend
    @Dmitry


    Of course, comparing post-Soviet countries to Sweden and Norway, is absurd. Aside from their wealth and historical fortune, those countries have not been dictatorships since at least the 19th century.
     
    Sweden was almost unique in Europe insofar as that our peasants had significant democratic rights early on. Secondly, a significant share nobility's privileges - not to mention their wealth and estates - began to be dismantled and re-nationalised by Karl XI without barely a shot fired. Of course, some privileges were kept to maintain systemic stability, but they nevertheless faced considerable losses compared to what their used to have.

    Typically such convulsions require revolutions and massive civil wars, yet both changes went quietly.

    When we lost Norway in early 20th century, there was a lot of recalcitrant talk of massing a huge army and doing a hostile occupation. Thankfully, our government ignored such voices.

    I think this is a key difference between us and the Caucasoids/Balkanoids. We had plenty of opportunities to enter the same kind of meaningless bloodfeuds but we chose otherwise. We have our prosperity to thank for it.

    At root, it's probably a difference in temperament. My impression is that we are considerably calmer and more collected than hotheaded Caucasoids/Balkanoids and thus better able to settle disputes in a formalised manner. Importantly, the losers are restrained when faced with their loss (as the nobility were when losing some of their privileges), which helps overall stability.


    CSTO is finally, for the first time, showing that it is useful for the member countries.
     
    That was a long time coming.

    https://twitter.com/mhikaric/status/1478863588332916738

    Replies: @Yevardian, @Dmitry, @silviosilver, @silviosilver

  274. @Aedib
    @AP

    Things are more complicated than docility or lack of docility necessary for a legitimate uprising or an inducted color revolution to triumph. By the way, in these events, the less docile people were the Donbass people that rose against the Maidan regime which, in turn, was the product of a color revolution. Docility and popularity are just two variables of a complex multivariable game that do not necessarily define the result. For example, you can have a popular color revolution failing (like in Iran) or you can have an unpopular color revolution triumph (like in Bolivia, 2019).
    These games tend to be defined in the upper echelons of the power pyramid and in the Turkic world thing are even more complex because of the infighting between the power clans. In Kazakhstan we have so far riots which seems ultranationalists, the usual Internet agitprop from the usual suspects (Nexta, etc), an ongoing intervention by CSTO, infighting(?) between Nazarbayev and Tokayev, local oligarchs maneuvering and, in addition, possible maneuvers also from China and Turkey. Things are not only multivariable. The complicated power management of Turkic cultures lead to intricate power games (also in Turkey which nowadays is not ethnically very Turkic, LOL).

    Replies: @Dmitry

    Without wanting to depreciate the brutality of security services in Belarus (many protesters imprisoned and beaten), I agree with AP that it was quietly dissolved.

    Remember how the hi-tech workers in Belarus, supported the protest so strongly. But nowadays they just quietly emigrate.

    One reason Belarus is not so difficult to manage for the authorities, is a very aging population. This is bad for dependency ratio of future decades, but positive for the stability of the government.

    In the Russian Federation, it is a similar situation with an aging population (especially among the slavic population), which means it should be increasingly easy to manage with each year for the government. By the 2040s, it will be too late for any street protests of energetic youth to generate much energy, as only a small proportion of the public will have the energy of youth.

    However, there is currently a high flood of young people into the largest cities. So because of the flood of young people internal immigration, cities like Moscow have disproportionate populations of young people. This can be potentially difficult to manage for the authorities. Although I think they will have few problems overall, considering the strength of security systems.

    As for Kazakhstan. Like other central Asian countries, a high fertility rate, with upcoming larger youth population. This could be difficult for the government to survive. But there is at least an offpressure of emigration to Russia or even China. Uzbekistan can potentially use this offpressure even more, as much of their young people can emigrate to Russia and China.

    Without offpressure of emigration of youth, it could seem a very unstable future situation for the authorities to manage the population in Central Asia.

    • Replies: @Beckow
    @Dmitry

    Kazakstan is basically a landlocked country - no outlets other than across the Caspian that can easily be blocked. You have millions of people cooped-up in a large, open space with no realistic way to go anywhere (esp. after corona). The local elites have been harvesting the resources and moving their wealth out. Of course the young riot. After the riots they will still be a landlocked backwater dominated by comprador elites .

    Maybe they are doing it out of ennui, the pure hopelessness of the situation, some plunder, a few will manage to escape (Sweden?). Or maybe a blood-bath, that always clears minds. Another way to go is to fight with each other, there are enough different groups. We are back to the premodern era, the countries consciously reject any responsibility for how their people live - that would be "socialism", and we can't have that. Markets rule - as they have since the stone age. Markets rule by the rule of a bigger wallet, or sometimes a bigger stick. The elites absolutely love it, they have both.

    This is what life is like after people give up, after they buy the liberal claptrap that "freedom" is all that matters, that material lives don't have to managed, that the invisible hand in a divine fashion rules over us in the best of the all possible worlds. In reality, freedom is a simple neglect, and liberty is nothing else than elite accumulation of assets. Enjoy, at least the evil state is not keeping enterpreneurs from flourishing. This is good stuff, they say so, it must be. There is no alternative.

    Replies: @Dmitry

  275. Is cheap energy for consumers the mechanism that made for the Kazakstan bitcoin manufacturing market share?

    Is there an overlap between bitcoin big dogs and color revolution promoters?

  276. Hey Tolly,

    I don’t know if you are still here, but if not maybe Ron can do it:

    The inherent depression that white men suffer depresses me. Maybe you should utilize this thread to teach non-Slavic whites (most of the readers) to enjoy life as much as the Russkies do…

    https://worldstarhiphop.com/videos/video.php?v=wshh2vOo220IWzp5oZZ0

  277. @Dmitry
    @Aedib

    Without wanting to depreciate the brutality of security services in Belarus (many protesters imprisoned and beaten), I agree with AP that it was quietly dissolved.

    Remember how the hi-tech workers in Belarus, supported the protest so strongly. But nowadays they just quietly emigrate.

    One reason Belarus is not so difficult to manage for the authorities, is a very aging population. This is bad for dependency ratio of future decades, but positive for the stability of the government.

    https://i.imgur.com/slxxU84.jpg

    In the Russian Federation, it is a similar situation with an aging population (especially among the slavic population), which means it should be increasingly easy to manage with each year for the government. By the 2040s, it will be too late for any street protests of energetic youth to generate much energy, as only a small proportion of the public will have the energy of youth.

    However, there is currently a high flood of young people into the largest cities. So because of the flood of young people internal immigration, cities like Moscow have disproportionate populations of young people. This can be potentially difficult to manage for the authorities. Although I think they will have few problems overall, considering the strength of security systems.

    As for Kazakhstan. Like other central Asian countries, a high fertility rate, with upcoming larger youth population. This could be difficult for the government to survive. But there is at least an offpressure of emigration to Russia or even China. Uzbekistan can potentially use this offpressure even more, as much of their young people can emigrate to Russia and China.

    Without offpressure of emigration of youth, it could seem a very unstable future situation for the authorities to manage the population in Central Asia.

    Replies: @Beckow

    Kazakstan is basically a landlocked country – no outlets other than across the Caspian that can easily be blocked. You have millions of people cooped-up in a large, open space with no realistic way to go anywhere (esp. after corona). The local elites have been harvesting the resources and moving their wealth out. Of course the young riot. After the riots they will still be a landlocked backwater dominated by comprador elites .

    Maybe they are doing it out of ennui, the pure hopelessness of the situation, some plunder, a few will manage to escape (Sweden?). Or maybe a blood-bath, that always clears minds. Another way to go is to fight with each other, there are enough different groups. We are back to the premodern era, the countries consciously reject any responsibility for how their people live – that would be “socialism”, and we can’t have that. Markets rule – as they have since the stone age. Markets rule by the rule of a bigger wallet, or sometimes a bigger stick. The elites absolutely love it, they have both.

    This is what life is like after people give up, after they buy the liberal claptrap that “freedom” is all that matters, that material lives don’t have to managed, that the invisible hand in a divine fashion rules over us in the best of the all possible worlds. In reality, freedom is a simple neglect, and liberty is nothing else than elite accumulation of assets. Enjoy, at least the evil state is not keeping enterpreneurs from flourishing. This is good stuff, they say so, it must be. There is no alternative.

    • Replies: @Dmitry
    @Beckow


    millions of people cooped
     
    Although Kazakhstan citizens are not really cooped, as they can live in Russia, just as easily as any Russian citizen.

    Eurasian Economic Union is like a nationality exchange program. If you are a Kazakhstan citizen, you can live and work in Russia without any paperwork, the same as any Russian citizen. Soon it is supposed to be able to even travel by plane between constituent countries without needing an external passport. It will be like traveling inside the same country. I believe the only difference of the citizenships, will be that Kazakh citizens cannot vote in the Russian election.

    So, with such kind of border and mutual trust, you can see how important it should be to not alienate the Kazakh popular viewpoint.


    local elites have been harvesting the resources and moving their wealth out
     
    Much of the money of their vast natural resources and oil wealth, will be in politicians' $500,000 watches, and in Monaco and London. Then it will re-enter Kazakhstan as "FDI", but this "FDI" actually just Kazakhstan's money returning after being cleaned through offshore accounts and assets.

    It's completely predictable, but it shouldn't be inevitable if people would be able to create a little more bargaining power.

    In Norway, a lot of vast profits from their oil, probably really will return to be invested in education or hospitals of the ordinary. It doesn't require socialist revolution, but some reliable accountancy and transparency with administration.


    the evil state is not keeping enterpreneurs from flourishing. This is good stuff, they say so,
     
    But if the state doesn't have any one to one relation to the people in the state. If it is built on self-interest of a few narrow clans or clique, and one person can have more influence in its direction than a hundred million citizens?

    Of course, state is not necessarily evil. Many problems of our collective life, can only be solved through a state. Food safety regulation or street lights, will not be too successful without a state. But how much would you trust it to have more control over you? If it's not reasonable for you to trust them, then it can indeed be reasonable to celebrate for situation where state is more limited, has stricter rules to define it in relation to the public. It depends a lot on the nature of state, its contract with the public, whether there are self-correction mechanisms, or mechanisms for the population to correct it (which are hopefully not so destabilizing as blockading the Bastille).

  278. Australia has the greatest tennis player ever under hotel arrest because of vaccination.**

    https://www.reuters.com/lifestyle/sports/exclusive-novak-djokovic-denied-entry-australia-seeking-injunction-stop-2022-01-05/

    “They are keeping him in captivity. They are stomping all over Novak to stomp all over Serbia,” said his father, who earlier described his son to local media as “the Spartacus of the new world”.

    ** that is the greatest ever so far.

    • Replies: @silviosilver
    @Emil Nikola Richard


    They are stomping all over Novak to stomp all over Serbia,” said his father,
     
    Lol, it's probably not news to anyone here, but that sort of conspiratard thinking is sadly very widespread among Serbs (and related peoples). Pity for Novak, who seems like a nice guy (not that I know anything about him) and who you can easily imagine being embarrassed by such a fuckwit of a father. There was Serbian-Australian tennis player, Jelena Dokic, who made a bit of a splash about twenty years ago, whose father was cast from the same fuckwit mold as Novak's, and who gave similarly embarrassing media interviews. You have to figure these people have no idea how nutty they sound to others, else they'd restrain themselves a bit.

    ** that is the greatest ever so far.
     
    Thanks for that clarification bro. For a minute I thought you might be visiting us from the distance future.

    Replies: @Yevardian

  279. @Mikhail
    A neocon weenie gets roasted:

    https://twitter.com/27khv/status/1478767027343044611

    Replies: @Mikel

    I haven’t been following Ukrainian politics much lately but Poroshenko being sought for arrest under the accusation of treason sounds like the Maidan revolution entering a Thermidor phase of sorts. Last time I checked he was the leader of the second party in Ukraine and in the elections he had represented a more revolutionary alternative to Zelensky, even accusing him of being a Putin stooge. I wonder if Poroshenko’s former friends in the EU will have anything to say this time. It’s not just pro-Russians and communists being prosecuted now.

    • Replies: @Mikhail
    @Mikel

    If I'm not mistaken, the basis against Porky is because he bought coal from Donbass. Whatever, the case, calling the Kiev regime a democracy is farcical.

    Farkas at it again:

    https://mobile.twitter.com/MaxBlumenthal/status/1478936905278541825

  280. Seems remarkable to me that Kazakhstan is the world’s largest Muslim country by area. Even bigger than Sudan before it split. Though, I suppose it is not very relevant, as a categorization.

  281. @Dmitry
    @Yevardian

    Every postsoviet country (except Estonia/Latvia/Lithuania) has gone to this political dystopia for the median citizen, with the wealthy clans, "harvesting" the majority of the population for salaries which are multiples less than the salary of MacDonald's workers in developed countries.

    If you would try to investigate the systems in any serious sense, you would go to a morgue. Meanwhile, governments are feeding every strange ideology to try to distract citizens (sometimes opposing their own life directly, as Aliev's family lives in Russia, while promoting Turkey), while prioritizing investment in security services.

    If it was one or two countries, it would be funny. But every country with the same situation. You are in Armenia, so you know already. For someone from any postsoviet country, talks to someoneone thousands of kilometres, completely different climate or ethnicity, to someone from another postsoviet country, and it's all the same situation.

    Of course, comparison postsoviet coutnries to Sweden and Norway, is absurd. Aside from their wealth and historical fortune, those countries have not been dictatorships since at least the 19th century.

    But perhaps Estonia would be interesting to study. E.g. It's only 40 years ago, they possibly killed film director Tarkovsky with their levels of carcinogenic pollution. Nowadays, OECD is saying they have very low pollution.

    They are actually managing to develop somekind of responsible governance to their ordinary citizens in just three decades? Although perhaps Estonia has an older advantage itself. They were already vastly most educated population in the Russian Empire.


    Pashinyan get elected.
     
    Pashinyan is announcing the rescue mission to help Тokаev. But nobody even offers help for Pashinyan when his wife is "fighting" in a war against Azerbaijan (while thousands of soldiers are killed by drones for YouTube). Neither help for Armenian citizens are breaking to his office, stealing "multiple bottles" of his perfume.

    Pashinyan's own election promise is about improving democracy in Armenia. But the benefit being demonstrated by CSTO support of Тokаev, is its ability to work as insurance for the postsoviet clan system.

    CSTO is finally, for the first time, showing that it is useful for the member countries. For Pashinyan though, it would imply he is hoping to be protected by this clan politics' insurance policy. I wonder if he is buying a villa in Forte dei Marmi already, perhaps near Zelensky's villa.

    Replies: @Thulean Friend

    Of course, comparing post-Soviet countries to Sweden and Norway, is absurd. Aside from their wealth and historical fortune, those countries have not been dictatorships since at least the 19th century.

    Sweden was almost unique in Europe insofar as that our peasants had significant democratic rights early on. Secondly, a significant share nobility’s privileges – not to mention their wealth and estates – began to be dismantled and re-nationalised by Karl XI without barely a shot fired. Of course, some privileges were kept to maintain systemic stability, but they nevertheless faced considerable losses compared to what their used to have.

    Typically such convulsions require revolutions and massive civil wars, yet both changes went quietly.

    When we lost Norway in early 20th century, there was a lot of recalcitrant talk of massing a huge army and doing a hostile occupation. Thankfully, our government ignored such voices.

    I think this is a key difference between us and the Caucasoids/Balkanoids. We had plenty of opportunities to enter the same kind of meaningless bloodfeuds but we chose otherwise. We have our prosperity to thank for it.

    At root, it’s probably a difference in temperament. My impression is that we are considerably calmer and more collected than hotheaded Caucasoids/Balkanoids and thus better able to settle disputes in a formalised manner. Importantly, the losers are restrained when faced with their loss (as the nobility were when losing some of their privileges), which helps overall stability.

    CSTO is finally, for the first time, showing that it is useful for the member countries.

    That was a long time coming.

    • Replies: @Yevardian
    @Thulean Friend


    I think this is a key difference between us and the Caucasoids/Balkanoids. We had plenty of opportunities to enter the same kind of meaningless bloodfeuds but we chose otherwise. We have our prosperity to thank for it.

    At root, it’s probably a difference in temperament. My impression is that we are considerably calmer and more collected than hotheaded Caucasoids/Balkanoids and thus better able to settle disputes in a formalised manner. Importantly, the losers are restrained when faced with their loss (as the nobility were when losing some of their privileges), which helps overall stability.
     

    How very in character when people in your demographic feel perfectly comfortable in blaming the national character of Balkans and Caucasian peoples for their middling levels of development, but when discussions of third-world immigration come up, India, the Arab world and Africa are purely the 'victims' of colonialism, and Europeans should feel obliged to take as many of them as possible.

    Unlike Scandinavia (and unlike the other regions I mentioned) the Balkans and Caucasus were submerged under alien rule for many hundreds of years, almost half a millennia in some instances such as Bulgaria. Those internecine Balkan feuds were also heavily stoked by external great power involvement (San Stefano, Austria's annexation of Bosnia, etc.) upon their independence.

    , @Dmitry
    @Thulean Friend


    difference in temperament
     
    But look at Kazakhs. In some ways, they could seem like they should be very different to Ukrainians. Yet politically, Kazakhstan is behaving very analogous to Ukraine.

    It reminds of my discussion last week with Mikel, about Latin America, when he was writing that the region is dysfunctional partly because of indigenous nationalities. This postsoviet space (also postrussian Empire space) has a very wide range of ethnicities, with different cultural history, temperament, etc.

    Yet in terms of the political problems, all countries are behaving very similar, with very similar dysfunctions and problems. It's an example where local differences of constituent nationalities seem less important than this wider situation.


    CSTO's transition to a Warsaw Pact lite where it's purpose is to maintain internal regime stability as opposed to external defense.
     
    Yes, but only a "transition" in terms of knowledge of ordinary people, learning that the purpose CSTO's is to maintain internal regime stability of the member governments. This is always its real purpose, but in this example it is a little too obvious.

    You can not underestimate how gullible and easily controlled, postsoviet ordinary people are. For example, until the coronavirus pandemic, I didn't understand that official data are so regularly faked. I was naively for years reading about such data, and believing it is serious because it is published in a respectable media (e.g. "Vedomosti", "Kommersant"). But even the census is miscounting by millions of people and many cities are faking their population numbers. Patterns of official numbers in many areas of life, could only be understood by forensic accountants.

    Replies: @Mikel, @AP

    , @silviosilver
    @Thulean Friend


    Typically such convulsions require revolutions and massive civil wars, yet both changes went quietly.
     
    Yes, that's what is most impressive to me about the Swedish achievement. Even though, based on available GDP data, Sweden was considerable poorer than the rest of western Europe, when at some in the latter 19th century it decided - in a nutshell - that prostrating oneself before kings and God was an altogether useless way to live, and that what really mattered was addressing the common man's material needs, they set about accomplishing that end with remarkable speed and efficiency.

    At root, it’s probably a difference in temperament.
     
    I think that goes without saying, but the way that difference plays out in the world is a bit more subtle than "oh those balkanoid hotheads, you can't expect anything good to ever come from them." It's not as if no one in that part of the world is conciliatory. For instance, Greco-Bulgarian reconciliation is on the level of Franco-German, in terms of the historical rivalry and bitterness it has overcome. (Of course, vigilance is required to maintain it, but the same is true of France and Germany.)

    You might also consider the vast numbers of homegrown communists who, for all their failings, made a very sincere effort to tamp down on ethnic hostilities. (They didn't go hard enough; if I had been in charge, I'd have given those bastards a thousand Bleiburgs.)

    A simple model to understand the subtle difference is the boiling point analogy. Water boils at 100, but alcohol boils at 78. So if the germanics are water, balkanoids are alcohol - it takes less to set them off. But if you can maintain a suitable temperature, there's no reason that things must boil over. In addition to that, the greater prevalence of outright shitheads among balkanoids means that, when the conditions arise, the balance is comparably more likely to be tipped towards narrow, unreasoning chauvinism.

    To me, the greatest problem is that, once tipped, the foregoing reasons also make it more likely that it will stay tipped. Since right action springs from right thought, the consequences of setting out with, and then rigidly maintaining - come what may - fallacious assumptions about reality can be utterly devastating. It's like when humans begin with the question "what does God want?" instead of "what do humans need?", literally thousands of years can be wasted in needless suffering because the latter question, far from being answered, is never even asked.

    Anyway, strecan Bozic svima koji danas slave!

    Replies: @Dmitry

    , @silviosilver
    @Thulean Friend


    We had plenty of opportunities to enter the same kind of meaningless bloodfeuds but we chose otherwise. We have our prosperity to thank for it.
     
    Not trying to grammar shame you, but... well, okay, I am, but since all's fair in love and race war, if you'll kindly permit me: I think you meant to say, you owe your prosperity to it. Otherwise, your statement is saying your prosperity is responsible for the fact that you have avoided meaningless bloodfeuds - which may even true, but I don't think it's what you intended to say.
  282. @Emil Nikola Richard
    Australia has the greatest tennis player ever under hotel arrest because of vaccination.**

    https://www.reuters.com/lifestyle/sports/exclusive-novak-djokovic-denied-entry-australia-seeking-injunction-stop-2022-01-05/

    "They are keeping him in captivity. They are stomping all over Novak to stomp all over Serbia," said his father, who earlier described his son to local media as "the Spartacus of the new world".
     
    ** that is the greatest ever so far.

    Replies: @silviosilver

    They are stomping all over Novak to stomp all over Serbia,” said his father,

    Lol, it’s probably not news to anyone here, but that sort of conspiratard thinking is sadly very widespread among Serbs (and related peoples). Pity for Novak, who seems like a nice guy (not that I know anything about him) and who you can easily imagine being embarrassed by such a fuckwit of a father. There was Serbian-Australian tennis player, Jelena Dokic, who made a bit of a splash about twenty years ago, whose father was cast from the same fuckwit mold as Novak’s, and who gave similarly embarrassing media interviews. You have to figure these people have no idea how nutty they sound to others, else they’d restrain themselves a bit.

    ** that is the greatest ever so far.

    Thanks for that clarification bro. For a minute I thought you might be visiting us from the distance future.

    • Replies: @Yevardian
    @silviosilver


    They are stomping all over Novak to stomp all over Serbia,” said his father,
     
    Classic Serbian mentality lol.

    But in general Tennis players tend to be self-centred primadonnas, even by the usual standards of sportsball, I suppose it comes from the extremely individual nature of the game. Jokovic himself seems like a nice regular guy, just very vain.

    I have no interest in spectator sports myself (admittedly, I have friends who follow it closely), but just off the top of my head I can think of the following tennis players with highly brash, hystrionic or arrogant personalities: Sharapova, Lleyton Hewitt, Nick Kyrgios, Sabalenka etc. Humble and balanced players like Simona Halep or Federer are rather the exception.

  283. @Mikel
    @Mikhail

    I haven't been following Ukrainian politics much lately but Poroshenko being sought for arrest under the accusation of treason sounds like the Maidan revolution entering a Thermidor phase of sorts. Last time I checked he was the leader of the second party in Ukraine and in the elections he had represented a more revolutionary alternative to Zelensky, even accusing him of being a Putin stooge. I wonder if Poroshenko's former friends in the EU will have anything to say this time. It's not just pro-Russians and communists being prosecuted now.

    Replies: @Mikhail

    If I’m not mistaken, the basis against Porky is because he bought coal from Donbass. Whatever, the case, calling the Kiev regime a democracy is farcical.

    Farkas at it again:

    https://mobile.twitter.com/MaxBlumenthal/status/1478936905278541825

  284. @Thulean Friend
    @Dmitry


    Of course, comparing post-Soviet countries to Sweden and Norway, is absurd. Aside from their wealth and historical fortune, those countries have not been dictatorships since at least the 19th century.
     
    Sweden was almost unique in Europe insofar as that our peasants had significant democratic rights early on. Secondly, a significant share nobility's privileges - not to mention their wealth and estates - began to be dismantled and re-nationalised by Karl XI without barely a shot fired. Of course, some privileges were kept to maintain systemic stability, but they nevertheless faced considerable losses compared to what their used to have.

    Typically such convulsions require revolutions and massive civil wars, yet both changes went quietly.

    When we lost Norway in early 20th century, there was a lot of recalcitrant talk of massing a huge army and doing a hostile occupation. Thankfully, our government ignored such voices.

    I think this is a key difference between us and the Caucasoids/Balkanoids. We had plenty of opportunities to enter the same kind of meaningless bloodfeuds but we chose otherwise. We have our prosperity to thank for it.

    At root, it's probably a difference in temperament. My impression is that we are considerably calmer and more collected than hotheaded Caucasoids/Balkanoids and thus better able to settle disputes in a formalised manner. Importantly, the losers are restrained when faced with their loss (as the nobility were when losing some of their privileges), which helps overall stability.


    CSTO is finally, for the first time, showing that it is useful for the member countries.
     
    That was a long time coming.

    https://twitter.com/mhikaric/status/1478863588332916738

    Replies: @Yevardian, @Dmitry, @silviosilver, @silviosilver

    I think this is a key difference between us and the Caucasoids/Balkanoids. We had plenty of opportunities to enter the same kind of meaningless bloodfeuds but we chose otherwise. We have our prosperity to thank for it.

    At root, it’s probably a difference in temperament. My impression is that we are considerably calmer and more collected than hotheaded Caucasoids/Balkanoids and thus better able to settle disputes in a formalised manner. Importantly, the losers are restrained when faced with their loss (as the nobility were when losing some of their privileges), which helps overall stability.

    How very in character when people in your demographic feel perfectly comfortable in blaming the national character of Balkans and Caucasian peoples for their middling levels of development, but when discussions of third-world immigration come up, India, the Arab world and Africa are purely the ‘victims’ of colonialism, and Europeans should feel obliged to take as many of them as possible.

    Unlike Scandinavia (and unlike the other regions I mentioned) the Balkans and Caucasus were submerged under alien rule for many hundreds of years, almost half a millennia in some instances such as Bulgaria. Those internecine Balkan feuds were also heavily stoked by external great power involvement (San Stefano, Austria’s annexation of Bosnia, etc.) upon their independence.

  285. @silviosilver
    @Emil Nikola Richard


    They are stomping all over Novak to stomp all over Serbia,” said his father,
     
    Lol, it's probably not news to anyone here, but that sort of conspiratard thinking is sadly very widespread among Serbs (and related peoples). Pity for Novak, who seems like a nice guy (not that I know anything about him) and who you can easily imagine being embarrassed by such a fuckwit of a father. There was Serbian-Australian tennis player, Jelena Dokic, who made a bit of a splash about twenty years ago, whose father was cast from the same fuckwit mold as Novak's, and who gave similarly embarrassing media interviews. You have to figure these people have no idea how nutty they sound to others, else they'd restrain themselves a bit.

    ** that is the greatest ever so far.
     
    Thanks for that clarification bro. For a minute I thought you might be visiting us from the distance future.

    Replies: @Yevardian

    They are stomping all over Novak to stomp all over Serbia,” said his father,

    Classic Serbian mentality lol.

    But in general Tennis players tend to be self-centred primadonnas, even by the usual standards of sportsball, I suppose it comes from the extremely individual nature of the game. Jokovic himself seems like a nice regular guy, just very vain.

    I have no interest in spectator sports myself (admittedly, I have friends who follow it closely), but just off the top of my head I can think of the following tennis players with highly brash, hystrionic or arrogant personalities: Sharapova, Lleyton Hewitt, Nick Kyrgios, Sabalenka etc. Humble and balanced players like Simona Halep or Federer are rather the exception.

  286. @Thulean Friend
    @Dmitry


    Of course, comparing post-Soviet countries to Sweden and Norway, is absurd. Aside from their wealth and historical fortune, those countries have not been dictatorships since at least the 19th century.
     
    Sweden was almost unique in Europe insofar as that our peasants had significant democratic rights early on. Secondly, a significant share nobility's privileges - not to mention their wealth and estates - began to be dismantled and re-nationalised by Karl XI without barely a shot fired. Of course, some privileges were kept to maintain systemic stability, but they nevertheless faced considerable losses compared to what their used to have.

    Typically such convulsions require revolutions and massive civil wars, yet both changes went quietly.

    When we lost Norway in early 20th century, there was a lot of recalcitrant talk of massing a huge army and doing a hostile occupation. Thankfully, our government ignored such voices.

    I think this is a key difference between us and the Caucasoids/Balkanoids. We had plenty of opportunities to enter the same kind of meaningless bloodfeuds but we chose otherwise. We have our prosperity to thank for it.

    At root, it's probably a difference in temperament. My impression is that we are considerably calmer and more collected than hotheaded Caucasoids/Balkanoids and thus better able to settle disputes in a formalised manner. Importantly, the losers are restrained when faced with their loss (as the nobility were when losing some of their privileges), which helps overall stability.


    CSTO is finally, for the first time, showing that it is useful for the member countries.
     
    That was a long time coming.

    https://twitter.com/mhikaric/status/1478863588332916738

    Replies: @Yevardian, @Dmitry, @silviosilver, @silviosilver

    difference in temperament

    But look at Kazakhs. In some ways, they could seem like they should be very different to Ukrainians. Yet politically, Kazakhstan is behaving very analogous to Ukraine.

    It reminds of my discussion last week with Mikel, about Latin America, when he was writing that the region is dysfunctional partly because of indigenous nationalities. This postsoviet space (also postrussian Empire space) has a very wide range of ethnicities, with different cultural history, temperament, etc.

    Yet in terms of the political problems, all countries are behaving very similar, with very similar dysfunctions and problems. It’s an example where local differences of constituent nationalities seem less important than this wider situation.

    CSTO’s transition to a Warsaw Pact lite where it’s purpose is to maintain internal regime stability as opposed to external defense.

    Yes, but only a “transition” in terms of knowledge of ordinary people, learning that the purpose CSTO’s is to maintain internal regime stability of the member governments. This is always its real purpose, but in this example it is a little too obvious.

    You can not underestimate how gullible and easily controlled, postsoviet ordinary people are. For example, until the coronavirus pandemic, I didn’t understand that official data are so regularly faked. I was naively for years reading about such data, and believing it is serious because it is published in a respectable media (e.g. “Vedomosti”, “Kommersant”). But even the census is miscounting by millions of people and many cities are faking their population numbers. Patterns of official numbers in many areas of life, could only be understood by forensic accountants.

    • Replies: @Mikel
    @Dmitry


    Kazakhstan is behaving very analogous to Ukraine.
     
    In fact, the protests in Kazakhstan have been very different from the ones in Ukraine and almost the opposite of what they were in Belarus.

    The may have started peacefully but in a matter of days escalated to an amazing level of armed violence that included widespread looting and vandalism. They actually remind me a lot of the Chilean street protests of the past years that were invariably followed by wanton looting and destruction. The recently elected president of Chile became famous as as a leader of this sort of protests. They used to start as marches demanding equality in education but always ended in pure vandalism. Incidentally, they also claimed to be fighting for a Scandinavian model :-)

    Chileans spent years hearing discussions on the media about the merits of the Scandinavian education system and they even brought some Finish experts to counsel them on how to reform their model.

    In general, the aspiration to become like Scandinavians is incredibly widespread around the world. I remember Spanish politicians also promising to implement policies based on the Swedish model. For some reason, people in poorer countries seldom think about emulating Hong-Kong, Taiwan or Singapore in order to achieve higher levels of income. Redistributing wealth is much more popular than increasing it.

    Replies: @Dmitry, @Pericles

    , @AP
    @Dmitry


    Yet politically, Kazakhstan is behaving very analogous to Ukraine.
     
    Other than in the sense that there is a popular uprising*, not really.

    Maidan was peaceful for about 2 months before the cycle of violence started - police beating protesters then vice versa, and sniper attacks. Even so, the death toll never exceeded 200. In only a few days there are dozens if not hundreds dead - mass shooting of protesters, police getting beheaded, etc. in Kazakhstan.

    There was no mass looting in Ukraine, it was more purely political in nature; there appears to be mass looting in Kazakhstan

    In Ukraine, the protesters were linked to political parties that had won the popular vote in the recent election. It's much more murky in Kazakhstan.


    *Given the widespread nature of events and number of participants in Kazakhstan we can conclude that the uprising is popular; it isn't a coup of some sort. I do not know whether it enjoys majority support in Kazakhstan, but it certainly enjoys widespread support.

    Replies: @Dmitry, @Emil Nikola Richard

  287. @Thulean Friend
    @Dmitry


    Of course, comparing post-Soviet countries to Sweden and Norway, is absurd. Aside from their wealth and historical fortune, those countries have not been dictatorships since at least the 19th century.
     
    Sweden was almost unique in Europe insofar as that our peasants had significant democratic rights early on. Secondly, a significant share nobility's privileges - not to mention their wealth and estates - began to be dismantled and re-nationalised by Karl XI without barely a shot fired. Of course, some privileges were kept to maintain systemic stability, but they nevertheless faced considerable losses compared to what their used to have.

    Typically such convulsions require revolutions and massive civil wars, yet both changes went quietly.

    When we lost Norway in early 20th century, there was a lot of recalcitrant talk of massing a huge army and doing a hostile occupation. Thankfully, our government ignored such voices.

    I think this is a key difference between us and the Caucasoids/Balkanoids. We had plenty of opportunities to enter the same kind of meaningless bloodfeuds but we chose otherwise. We have our prosperity to thank for it.

    At root, it's probably a difference in temperament. My impression is that we are considerably calmer and more collected than hotheaded Caucasoids/Balkanoids and thus better able to settle disputes in a formalised manner. Importantly, the losers are restrained when faced with their loss (as the nobility were when losing some of their privileges), which helps overall stability.


    CSTO is finally, for the first time, showing that it is useful for the member countries.
     
    That was a long time coming.

    https://twitter.com/mhikaric/status/1478863588332916738

    Replies: @Yevardian, @Dmitry, @silviosilver, @silviosilver

    Typically such convulsions require revolutions and massive civil wars, yet both changes went quietly.

    Yes, that’s what is most impressive to me about the Swedish achievement. Even though, based on available GDP data, Sweden was considerable poorer than the rest of western Europe, when at some in the latter 19th century it decided – in a nutshell – that prostrating oneself before kings and God was an altogether useless way to live, and that what really mattered was addressing the common man’s material needs, they set about accomplishing that end with remarkable speed and efficiency.

    At root, it’s probably a difference in temperament.

    I think that goes without saying, but the way that difference plays out in the world is a bit more subtle than “oh those balkanoid hotheads, you can’t expect anything good to ever come from them.” It’s not as if no one in that part of the world is conciliatory. For instance, Greco-Bulgarian reconciliation is on the level of Franco-German, in terms of the historical rivalry and bitterness it has overcome. (Of course, vigilance is required to maintain it, but the same is true of France and Germany.)

    You might also consider the vast numbers of homegrown communists who, for all their failings, made a very sincere effort to tamp down on ethnic hostilities. (They didn’t go hard enough; if I had been in charge, I’d have given those bastards a thousand Bleiburgs.)

    A simple model to understand the subtle difference is the boiling point analogy. Water boils at 100, but alcohol boils at 78. So if the germanics are water, balkanoids are alcohol – it takes less to set them off. But if you can maintain a suitable temperature, there’s no reason that things must boil over. In addition to that, the greater prevalence of outright shitheads among balkanoids means that, when the conditions arise, the balance is comparably more likely to be tipped towards narrow, unreasoning chauvinism.

    To me, the greatest problem is that, once tipped, the foregoing reasons also make it more likely that it will stay tipped. Since right action springs from right thought, the consequences of setting out with, and then rigidly maintaining – come what may – fallacious assumptions about reality can be utterly devastating. It’s like when humans begin with the question “what does God want?” instead of “what do humans need?”, literally thousands of years can be wasted in needless suffering because the latter question, far from being answered, is never even asked.

    Anyway, strecan Bozic svima koji danas slave!

    • Replies: @Dmitry
    @silviosilver


    balkanoid hotheads,
     
    Well since the 1990s, the Balkans is viewed like the "Africa of Europe" or "Middle East of Europe". And this is also how it was seen in the later 19th century, as the most undeveloped and tribal region of Austro-Hungary's Empire.

    But then in a different historical epoch, with a different system of Yugoslavia under dictator Tito, I believe it was viewed as one of Europe's more quiet and peaceful regions. Yugoslavia has this much calm image in decades like 1960s or 1970s.

    Think about Ukraine today. The stereotypical image presented of Ukrainians which is in popular culture, is of angry, radical, nationalism and intolerance. But I remember just a decade in the past, the primary image of Ukrainians was presented as of charming and hospitable culture. Of course, it's still the same Ukrainians (excluding some births and deaths). Just history turning the kaleidoscope on our view of them, as their country was thrown in chaos and civil war.


    Water boils at 100, but alcohol boils at 78. So if the germanics are water, balkanoids are alcohol
     
    Today Germans' national temperament might appear to have "high boiling point". But in the first half of the 20th century, it was the opposite situation, under unfortunate historical conditions.

    Japanese today have one of the world's friendliest images, with anime and cat cafes. However, in 1930s Manchuria?

    It's a reality where you need professional historians, who see a thousand different factors that determine the complexity of these situations. That's not to say that we can't see common "essentialist" aspects in nationalities. Japanese were drawing the same anime pictures in the 19th century, as today. But the results of their deeper habits, can be very nonpredictive on a longer time-horizon, and can be determined by extra-territorial events sometimes as easily as by some internal, endogenous trajectory.

    Replies: @silviosilver

  288. @Yellowface Anon
    @silviosilver

    I don't see why a former Latin American leader is listed between two Caucasian leaders.

    Replies: @Yevardian

    Perón is arguably the example of a populist leader who managed to run his country into the ground by making outrageous promises to his mob (his followers were referred to as ‘los descamisados’, or ‘the shirtless’) with practically no chance of becoming reality. Perhaps to his ‘credit’ he did attempt to make good on his unrealistic promises, at the cost of radically polarising society, and totally dislocating the economy. At the end of his first period in power, as Argentina’s economy was imploding from hyperinflation and food-riots and street fights were breaking out, Perón made public statements urging his followers ‘to kill 5 for every dead Perónist’, which is when the military finally had enough and overthrew him to prevent civil war.

    The nature of his promises and ideology were so vague that his fanatical following immediately split off into far-left and far-right factions, with ‘Perónist’ urban guerillas and corrupt unions (and I am generally pro-union) plaguing the country for decades. In fact, his social and economic legacy left Argentina so unmanagable that the military actually invited Perón back in hope that he could tame the populist monster he’d created. Tragically, on his return, dozens of his avowed supporters actually managed to kill each other at a mass rally of his that degenerated into a brawl between leftist and rightist Peronistas.

    Perhaps I could have just shortened this by specificing that Perón exemplified incompetence, Pashinyan a traitor, and Saakashvili a useful idiot.

  289. @Thulean Friend
    @Dmitry


    Of course, comparing post-Soviet countries to Sweden and Norway, is absurd. Aside from their wealth and historical fortune, those countries have not been dictatorships since at least the 19th century.
     
    Sweden was almost unique in Europe insofar as that our peasants had significant democratic rights early on. Secondly, a significant share nobility's privileges - not to mention their wealth and estates - began to be dismantled and re-nationalised by Karl XI without barely a shot fired. Of course, some privileges were kept to maintain systemic stability, but they nevertheless faced considerable losses compared to what their used to have.

    Typically such convulsions require revolutions and massive civil wars, yet both changes went quietly.

    When we lost Norway in early 20th century, there was a lot of recalcitrant talk of massing a huge army and doing a hostile occupation. Thankfully, our government ignored such voices.

    I think this is a key difference between us and the Caucasoids/Balkanoids. We had plenty of opportunities to enter the same kind of meaningless bloodfeuds but we chose otherwise. We have our prosperity to thank for it.

    At root, it's probably a difference in temperament. My impression is that we are considerably calmer and more collected than hotheaded Caucasoids/Balkanoids and thus better able to settle disputes in a formalised manner. Importantly, the losers are restrained when faced with their loss (as the nobility were when losing some of their privileges), which helps overall stability.


    CSTO is finally, for the first time, showing that it is useful for the member countries.
     
    That was a long time coming.

    https://twitter.com/mhikaric/status/1478863588332916738

    Replies: @Yevardian, @Dmitry, @silviosilver, @silviosilver

    We had plenty of opportunities to enter the same kind of meaningless bloodfeuds but we chose otherwise. We have our prosperity to thank for it.

    Not trying to grammar shame you, but… well, okay, I am, but since all’s fair in love and race war, if you’ll kindly permit me: I think you meant to say, you owe your prosperity to it. Otherwise, your statement is saying your prosperity is responsible for the fact that you have avoided meaningless bloodfeuds – which may even true, but I don’t think it’s what you intended to say.

  290. @Beckow
    @Dmitry

    Kazakstan is basically a landlocked country - no outlets other than across the Caspian that can easily be blocked. You have millions of people cooped-up in a large, open space with no realistic way to go anywhere (esp. after corona). The local elites have been harvesting the resources and moving their wealth out. Of course the young riot. After the riots they will still be a landlocked backwater dominated by comprador elites .

    Maybe they are doing it out of ennui, the pure hopelessness of the situation, some plunder, a few will manage to escape (Sweden?). Or maybe a blood-bath, that always clears minds. Another way to go is to fight with each other, there are enough different groups. We are back to the premodern era, the countries consciously reject any responsibility for how their people live - that would be "socialism", and we can't have that. Markets rule - as they have since the stone age. Markets rule by the rule of a bigger wallet, or sometimes a bigger stick. The elites absolutely love it, they have both.

    This is what life is like after people give up, after they buy the liberal claptrap that "freedom" is all that matters, that material lives don't have to managed, that the invisible hand in a divine fashion rules over us in the best of the all possible worlds. In reality, freedom is a simple neglect, and liberty is nothing else than elite accumulation of assets. Enjoy, at least the evil state is not keeping enterpreneurs from flourishing. This is good stuff, they say so, it must be. There is no alternative.

    Replies: @Dmitry

    millions of people cooped

    Although Kazakhstan citizens are not really cooped, as they can live in Russia, just as easily as any Russian citizen.

    Eurasian Economic Union is like a nationality exchange program. If you are a Kazakhstan citizen, you can live and work in Russia without any paperwork, the same as any Russian citizen. Soon it is supposed to be able to even travel by plane between constituent countries without needing an external passport. It will be like traveling inside the same country. I believe the only difference of the citizenships, will be that Kazakh citizens cannot vote in the Russian election.

    So, with such kind of border and mutual trust, you can see how important it should be to not alienate the Kazakh popular viewpoint.

    local elites have been harvesting the resources and moving their wealth out

    Much of the money of their vast natural resources and oil wealth, will be in politicians’ \$500,000 watches, and in Monaco and London. Then it will re-enter Kazakhstan as “FDI”, but this “FDI” actually just Kazakhstan’s money returning after being cleaned through offshore accounts and assets.

    It’s completely predictable, but it shouldn’t be inevitable if people would be able to create a little more bargaining power.

    In Norway, a lot of vast profits from their oil, probably really will return to be invested in education or hospitals of the ordinary. It doesn’t require socialist revolution, but some reliable accountancy and transparency with administration.

    the evil state is not keeping enterpreneurs from flourishing. This is good stuff, they say so,

    But if the state doesn’t have any one to one relation to the people in the state. If it is built on self-interest of a few narrow clans or clique, and one person can have more influence in its direction than a hundred million citizens?

    Of course, state is not necessarily evil. Many problems of our collective life, can only be solved through a state. Food safety regulation or street lights, will not be too successful without a state. But how much would you trust it to have more control over you? If it’s not reasonable for you to trust them, then it can indeed be reasonable to celebrate for situation where state is more limited, has stricter rules to define it in relation to the public. It depends a lot on the nature of state, its contract with the public, whether there are self-correction mechanisms, or mechanisms for the population to correct it (which are hopefully not so destabilizing as blockading the Bastille).

  291. @silviosilver
    @Thulean Friend


    Typically such convulsions require revolutions and massive civil wars, yet both changes went quietly.
     
    Yes, that's what is most impressive to me about the Swedish achievement. Even though, based on available GDP data, Sweden was considerable poorer than the rest of western Europe, when at some in the latter 19th century it decided - in a nutshell - that prostrating oneself before kings and God was an altogether useless way to live, and that what really mattered was addressing the common man's material needs, they set about accomplishing that end with remarkable speed and efficiency.

    At root, it’s probably a difference in temperament.
     
    I think that goes without saying, but the way that difference plays out in the world is a bit more subtle than "oh those balkanoid hotheads, you can't expect anything good to ever come from them." It's not as if no one in that part of the world is conciliatory. For instance, Greco-Bulgarian reconciliation is on the level of Franco-German, in terms of the historical rivalry and bitterness it has overcome. (Of course, vigilance is required to maintain it, but the same is true of France and Germany.)

    You might also consider the vast numbers of homegrown communists who, for all their failings, made a very sincere effort to tamp down on ethnic hostilities. (They didn't go hard enough; if I had been in charge, I'd have given those bastards a thousand Bleiburgs.)

    A simple model to understand the subtle difference is the boiling point analogy. Water boils at 100, but alcohol boils at 78. So if the germanics are water, balkanoids are alcohol - it takes less to set them off. But if you can maintain a suitable temperature, there's no reason that things must boil over. In addition to that, the greater prevalence of outright shitheads among balkanoids means that, when the conditions arise, the balance is comparably more likely to be tipped towards narrow, unreasoning chauvinism.

    To me, the greatest problem is that, once tipped, the foregoing reasons also make it more likely that it will stay tipped. Since right action springs from right thought, the consequences of setting out with, and then rigidly maintaining - come what may - fallacious assumptions about reality can be utterly devastating. It's like when humans begin with the question "what does God want?" instead of "what do humans need?", literally thousands of years can be wasted in needless suffering because the latter question, far from being answered, is never even asked.

    Anyway, strecan Bozic svima koji danas slave!

    Replies: @Dmitry

    balkanoid hotheads,

    Well since the 1990s, the Balkans is viewed like the “Africa of Europe” or “Middle East of Europe”. And this is also how it was seen in the later 19th century, as the most undeveloped and tribal region of Austro-Hungary’s Empire.

    But then in a different historical epoch, with a different system of Yugoslavia under dictator Tito, I believe it was viewed as one of Europe’s more quiet and peaceful regions. Yugoslavia has this much calm image in decades like 1960s or 1970s.

    Think about Ukraine today. The stereotypical image presented of Ukrainians which is in popular culture, is of angry, radical, nationalism and intolerance. But I remember just a decade in the past, the primary image of Ukrainians was presented as of charming and hospitable culture. Of course, it’s still the same Ukrainians (excluding some births and deaths). Just history turning the kaleidoscope on our view of them, as their country was thrown in chaos and civil war.

    Water boils at 100, but alcohol boils at 78. So if the germanics are water, balkanoids are alcohol

    Today Germans’ national temperament might appear to have “high boiling point”. But in the first half of the 20th century, it was the opposite situation, under unfortunate historical conditions.

    Japanese today have one of the world’s friendliest images, with anime and cat cafes. However, in 1930s Manchuria?

    It’s a reality where you need professional historians, who see a thousand different factors that determine the complexity of these situations. That’s not to say that we can’t see common “essentialist” aspects in nationalities. Japanese were drawing the same anime pictures in the 19th century, as today. But the results of their deeper habits, can be very nonpredictive on a longer time-horizon, and can be determined by extra-territorial events sometimes as easily as by some internal, endogenous trajectory.

    • Replies: @silviosilver
    @Dmitry


    It’s a reality where you need professional historians, who see a thousand different factors that determine the complexity of these situations.
     
    Historians are as subject to biases as the rest of us. It hardly matters much that they might possess some special ability to see a thousand different factors if their biases determine which of those factors they give weight to.

    But in the first half of the 20th century, it was the opposite situation, under unfortunate historical conditions.
     

    Japanese today have one of the world’s friendliest images, with anime and cat cafes. However, in 1930s Manchuria?
     
    The temperature was above 100? Then a traumatic defeat imparted the lesson that they're better off keeping the temperature under 100, and so they have done. That's as good as anything that a historian might come up with.

    That’s not to say that we can’t see common “essentialist” aspects in nationalities. Japanese were drawing the same anime pictures in the 19th century, as today.
     
    I simply accept a hereditarian model based on evolutionary psychology which holds that individuals and groups tend to differ in evolutionarily influenced inclinations. If you think that the Japanese draw anime just as a beaver builds a dam, you are much more of an essentialist than I am.
     
     

    Replies: @Dmitry

  292. @Dmitry
    @Thulean Friend


    difference in temperament
     
    But look at Kazakhs. In some ways, they could seem like they should be very different to Ukrainians. Yet politically, Kazakhstan is behaving very analogous to Ukraine.

    It reminds of my discussion last week with Mikel, about Latin America, when he was writing that the region is dysfunctional partly because of indigenous nationalities. This postsoviet space (also postrussian Empire space) has a very wide range of ethnicities, with different cultural history, temperament, etc.

    Yet in terms of the political problems, all countries are behaving very similar, with very similar dysfunctions and problems. It's an example where local differences of constituent nationalities seem less important than this wider situation.


    CSTO's transition to a Warsaw Pact lite where it's purpose is to maintain internal regime stability as opposed to external defense.
     
    Yes, but only a "transition" in terms of knowledge of ordinary people, learning that the purpose CSTO's is to maintain internal regime stability of the member governments. This is always its real purpose, but in this example it is a little too obvious.

    You can not underestimate how gullible and easily controlled, postsoviet ordinary people are. For example, until the coronavirus pandemic, I didn't understand that official data are so regularly faked. I was naively for years reading about such data, and believing it is serious because it is published in a respectable media (e.g. "Vedomosti", "Kommersant"). But even the census is miscounting by millions of people and many cities are faking their population numbers. Patterns of official numbers in many areas of life, could only be understood by forensic accountants.

    Replies: @Mikel, @AP

    Kazakhstan is behaving very analogous to Ukraine.

    In fact, the protests in Kazakhstan have been very different from the ones in Ukraine and almost the opposite of what they were in Belarus.

    The may have started peacefully but in a matter of days escalated to an amazing level of armed violence that included widespread looting and vandalism. They actually remind me a lot of the Chilean street protests of the past years that were invariably followed by wanton looting and destruction. The recently elected president of Chile became famous as as a leader of this sort of protests. They used to start as marches demanding equality in education but always ended in pure vandalism. Incidentally, they also claimed to be fighting for a Scandinavian model 🙂

    Chileans spent years hearing discussions on the media about the merits of the Scandinavian education system and they even brought some Finish experts to counsel them on how to reform their model.

    In general, the aspiration to become like Scandinavians is incredibly widespread around the world. I remember Spanish politicians also promising to implement policies based on the Swedish model. For some reason, people in poorer countries seldom think about emulating Hong-Kong, Taiwan or Singapore in order to achieve higher levels of income. Redistributing wealth is much more popular than increasing it.

    • Replies: @Dmitry
    @Mikel


    very different from the ones in Ukraine
     
    I wasn't talking about the rebellions though with my comment. Kazakhstan events are economic protests, without the nationalist aspect that was important in Ukraine and Belarus.

    Ukraine 2013-2014 was unfortunately very violent, more than what happens in Kazakhstan, at least unless things become terrible in Kazakhstan. I was following it by different Ukrainian resources on the internet at that time. Although it was slow in the beginning, then there was some exponential momentum and we were seeing unfortunately a very large quantity of videos of brutally violent, almost medieval events were happening in Ukraine.

    However, I mean that the total political situation of Kazakhstan is very similar to Ukraine, and also Russia and everywhere in the postsoviet space (except perhaps Latvia/Lithuania/Estonia).

    I was talking to some Kazakh students in Western Europe a few months ago. If you ask those young (in my opinion very wealthy) dudes "how is it in Kazakhstan", the words are as you would be said if asked "how is in Russia", or "how is in Ukraine". It's like everyone has been living in the same system. You just need to hear about 10 words and you can shrug with mutual sympathy.


    -

    By the way, I read a funny comment on YouTube. He is saying that CSTO are like princes of old times, who send their knights to crush peasant insurrection in neighboring regions.

    https://i.imgur.com/RTNs2Yx.jpg

    This is very much the impression of the priorities, when you remember how uninterested CSTO reacts in October 2020, when Armenia is fighting Azerbaijan.

    Pashinyan's wife was pretending to be a "soldier" for Facebook in Nagorno-Karabakh. Every day, hundreds of Armenian soldiers are killed for YouTube drone videos by an external enemy.

    But CSTO is not interested, says "don't worry Armenia, we are monitoring the situation, as your army is being destroyed for YouTube audiences".

    On the other hand, citizens internally protest against fuel prices in Kazakhstan. Within a few hours, CSTO sending combat soldiers in military planes.

    Replies: @Mikel, @sudden death

    , @Pericles
    @Mikel


    In general, the aspiration to become like Scandinavians is incredibly widespread around the world. I remember Spanish politicians also promising to implement policies based on the Swedish model. For some reason, people in poorer countries seldom think about emulating Hong-Kong, Taiwan or Singapore in order to achieve higher levels of income. Redistributing wealth is much more popular than increasing it.

     

    Ironically enough, this redistributionist image of Sweden, at least, is built on the failed model of Olof Palme. Sweden had roughly a century of strong growth, from the 1850s -- when the country switched from fruitless wars to industrialization -- to the 1960s, where the taxes were low (20% of GDP) and the state worked to help Swedish companies industrialize and export. Then taxes skyrocketed (deliberately), the growth curve was broken and ...

    http://eh.net/encyclopedia-graphics/schon.sweden.figure1.png

    Swedish GDP per Capita in Relation to World GDP per Capita, 1870-2004
    (Nine year moving averages)

    The slow down in Swedish growth from the 1970s may be considered in this perspective. While in most other countries growth from the 1970s fell only in relation to growth rates in the golden post-war ages, Swedish growth fell clearly below the historical long run growth trend. It also fell to a very low level internationally. The 1970s certainly meant the end to a number of successful growth trajectories in the industrial society. At the same time new growth forces appeared with the electronic revolution, as well as with the advance of a more service based economy. It may be the case that this structural change hit the Swedish economy harder than most other economies, at least of the industrial capitalist economies. Sweden was forced into a transformation of its industrial economy and of its political economy in the 1970s and the 1980s that was more profound than in most other Western economies.

     

    https://eh.net/encyclopedia/sweden-economic-growth-and-structural-change-1800-2000/

    Note that Palme also encouraged a lot of strange ties to the third world, a contributing reason to why he's so respected there. But his socialistic experiment was basically what broke Sweden as an economic success story. There has been a lot of struggling to get out of that, and for whatever reason we haven't resumed the high growth path even today.

    Replies: @Thulean Friend, @silviosilver, @Mikel, @Emil Nikola Richard

  293. “Someone irresponsible is not a citizen.” is perhaps the line that the French generals should take.

  294. @Mikel
    @Dmitry


    Kazakhstan is behaving very analogous to Ukraine.
     
    In fact, the protests in Kazakhstan have been very different from the ones in Ukraine and almost the opposite of what they were in Belarus.

    The may have started peacefully but in a matter of days escalated to an amazing level of armed violence that included widespread looting and vandalism. They actually remind me a lot of the Chilean street protests of the past years that were invariably followed by wanton looting and destruction. The recently elected president of Chile became famous as as a leader of this sort of protests. They used to start as marches demanding equality in education but always ended in pure vandalism. Incidentally, they also claimed to be fighting for a Scandinavian model :-)

    Chileans spent years hearing discussions on the media about the merits of the Scandinavian education system and they even brought some Finish experts to counsel them on how to reform their model.

    In general, the aspiration to become like Scandinavians is incredibly widespread around the world. I remember Spanish politicians also promising to implement policies based on the Swedish model. For some reason, people in poorer countries seldom think about emulating Hong-Kong, Taiwan or Singapore in order to achieve higher levels of income. Redistributing wealth is much more popular than increasing it.

    Replies: @Dmitry, @Pericles

    very different from the ones in Ukraine

    I wasn’t talking about the rebellions though with my comment. Kazakhstan events are economic protests, without the nationalist aspect that was important in Ukraine and Belarus.

    Ukraine 2013-2014 was unfortunately very violent, more than what happens in Kazakhstan, at least unless things become terrible in Kazakhstan. I was following it by different Ukrainian resources on the internet at that time. Although it was slow in the beginning, then there was some exponential momentum and we were seeing unfortunately a very large quantity of videos of brutally violent, almost medieval events were happening in Ukraine.

    However, I mean that the total political situation of Kazakhstan is very similar to Ukraine, and also Russia and everywhere in the postsoviet space (except perhaps Latvia/Lithuania/Estonia).

    I was talking to some Kazakh students in Western Europe a few months ago. If you ask those young (in my opinion very wealthy) dudes “how is it in Kazakhstan”, the words are as you would be said if asked “how is in Russia”, or “how is in Ukraine”. It’s like everyone has been living in the same system. You just need to hear about 10 words and you can shrug with mutual sympathy.

    By the way, I read a funny comment on YouTube. He is saying that CSTO are like princes of old times, who send their knights to crush peasant insurrection in neighboring regions.

    This is very much the impression of the priorities, when you remember how uninterested CSTO reacts in October 2020, when Armenia is fighting Azerbaijan.

    Pashinyan’s wife was pretending to be a “soldier” for Facebook in Nagorno-Karabakh. Every day, hundreds of Armenian soldiers are killed for YouTube drone videos by an external enemy.

    But CSTO is not interested, says “don’t worry Armenia, we are monitoring the situation, as your army is being destroyed for YouTube audiences”.

    On the other hand, citizens internally protest against fuel prices in Kazakhstan. Within a few hours, CSTO sending combat soldiers in military planes.

    • Replies: @Mikel
    @Dmitry


    Ukraine 2013-2014 was unfortunately very violent, more than what happens in Kazakhstan
     
    If you're talking about the events before the Donbass war, we must have been watching different videos. I can't imagine Victoria Nuland flying to Almaty and handing out cookies to the heavily armed rioters that are beheading policemen.
    , @sudden death
    @Dmitry

    https://pbs.twimg.com/media/FIXorwXXoAAtot0?format=jpg&name=900x900

    Replies: @sudden death

  295. @Dmitry
    @silviosilver


    balkanoid hotheads,
     
    Well since the 1990s, the Balkans is viewed like the "Africa of Europe" or "Middle East of Europe". And this is also how it was seen in the later 19th century, as the most undeveloped and tribal region of Austro-Hungary's Empire.

    But then in a different historical epoch, with a different system of Yugoslavia under dictator Tito, I believe it was viewed as one of Europe's more quiet and peaceful regions. Yugoslavia has this much calm image in decades like 1960s or 1970s.

    Think about Ukraine today. The stereotypical image presented of Ukrainians which is in popular culture, is of angry, radical, nationalism and intolerance. But I remember just a decade in the past, the primary image of Ukrainians was presented as of charming and hospitable culture. Of course, it's still the same Ukrainians (excluding some births and deaths). Just history turning the kaleidoscope on our view of them, as their country was thrown in chaos and civil war.


    Water boils at 100, but alcohol boils at 78. So if the germanics are water, balkanoids are alcohol
     
    Today Germans' national temperament might appear to have "high boiling point". But in the first half of the 20th century, it was the opposite situation, under unfortunate historical conditions.

    Japanese today have one of the world's friendliest images, with anime and cat cafes. However, in 1930s Manchuria?

    It's a reality where you need professional historians, who see a thousand different factors that determine the complexity of these situations. That's not to say that we can't see common "essentialist" aspects in nationalities. Japanese were drawing the same anime pictures in the 19th century, as today. But the results of their deeper habits, can be very nonpredictive on a longer time-horizon, and can be determined by extra-territorial events sometimes as easily as by some internal, endogenous trajectory.

    Replies: @silviosilver

    It’s a reality where you need professional historians, who see a thousand different factors that determine the complexity of these situations.

    Historians are as subject to biases as the rest of us. It hardly matters much that they might possess some special ability to see a thousand different factors if their biases determine which of those factors they give weight to.

    But in the first half of the 20th century, it was the opposite situation, under unfortunate historical conditions.

    Japanese today have one of the world’s friendliest images, with anime and cat cafes. However, in 1930s Manchuria?

    The temperature was above 100? Then a traumatic defeat imparted the lesson that they’re better off keeping the temperature under 100, and so they have done. That’s as good as anything that a historian might come up with.

    That’s not to say that we can’t see common “essentialist” aspects in nationalities. Japanese were drawing the same anime pictures in the 19th century, as today.

    I simply accept a hereditarian model based on evolutionary psychology which holds that individuals and groups tend to differ in evolutionarily influenced inclinations. If you think that the Japanese draw anime just as a beaver builds a dam, you are much more of an essentialist than I am.

    • Replies: @Dmitry
    @silviosilver


    Historians are as subject to biases
     
    Sure perhaps even more biased than most normal people, but if you look at a history book, in the European tradition, since at least the 18th century (actually even in Herodotus and Thucydides), they look at hundreds of variables. Perhaps even thousands, depending how you define them.

    The idea of this historical tradition, has been not to reduce details too much, but rather to overload details and particularities.

    This tradition of history has been useful because they are just talking about human reality, where the details are really more interesting and important, than our opinions or theories that can be added as a conclusion (not that models like Marxism have not been inspiring for historians). You can read history books where you disagree with the conclusion, but can be very interested in the details.


    as good as anything that a historian might come up with.
     
    And if you are writing about Yugoslavia history, you can add this opinion. And someone else can add fifty counter-examples. And if we are professional historians like German Reader, we might be able to get a university to pay for it, and call this the "historical conference".

    But then in the discussion we would likely become more interested in the examples and counter-examples. Because that is the actually interesting thing we find in history - examples and details from the more complex reality, which we don't necessarily understand too well.

    Replies: @silviosilver

  296. @Dmitry
    @Mikel


    very different from the ones in Ukraine
     
    I wasn't talking about the rebellions though with my comment. Kazakhstan events are economic protests, without the nationalist aspect that was important in Ukraine and Belarus.

    Ukraine 2013-2014 was unfortunately very violent, more than what happens in Kazakhstan, at least unless things become terrible in Kazakhstan. I was following it by different Ukrainian resources on the internet at that time. Although it was slow in the beginning, then there was some exponential momentum and we were seeing unfortunately a very large quantity of videos of brutally violent, almost medieval events were happening in Ukraine.

    However, I mean that the total political situation of Kazakhstan is very similar to Ukraine, and also Russia and everywhere in the postsoviet space (except perhaps Latvia/Lithuania/Estonia).

    I was talking to some Kazakh students in Western Europe a few months ago. If you ask those young (in my opinion very wealthy) dudes "how is it in Kazakhstan", the words are as you would be said if asked "how is in Russia", or "how is in Ukraine". It's like everyone has been living in the same system. You just need to hear about 10 words and you can shrug with mutual sympathy.


    -

    By the way, I read a funny comment on YouTube. He is saying that CSTO are like princes of old times, who send their knights to crush peasant insurrection in neighboring regions.

    https://i.imgur.com/RTNs2Yx.jpg

    This is very much the impression of the priorities, when you remember how uninterested CSTO reacts in October 2020, when Armenia is fighting Azerbaijan.

    Pashinyan's wife was pretending to be a "soldier" for Facebook in Nagorno-Karabakh. Every day, hundreds of Armenian soldiers are killed for YouTube drone videos by an external enemy.

    But CSTO is not interested, says "don't worry Armenia, we are monitoring the situation, as your army is being destroyed for YouTube audiences".

    On the other hand, citizens internally protest against fuel prices in Kazakhstan. Within a few hours, CSTO sending combat soldiers in military planes.

    Replies: @Mikel, @sudden death

    Ukraine 2013-2014 was unfortunately very violent, more than what happens in Kazakhstan

    If you’re talking about the events before the Donbass war, we must have been watching different videos. I can’t imagine Victoria Nuland flying to Almaty and handing out cookies to the heavily armed rioters that are beheading policemen.

  297. It’s amazing how easily one can get a bad vibe from an area.

    Just seeing the overpowering color and dark shadows of a still is often enough to tell me that the place has killer heat and UV.

    Conversely, one could be blind and still hear the murderous cacophony of some places.

  298. @Dmitry
    @Mikel


    very different from the ones in Ukraine
     
    I wasn't talking about the rebellions though with my comment. Kazakhstan events are economic protests, without the nationalist aspect that was important in Ukraine and Belarus.

    Ukraine 2013-2014 was unfortunately very violent, more than what happens in Kazakhstan, at least unless things become terrible in Kazakhstan. I was following it by different Ukrainian resources on the internet at that time. Although it was slow in the beginning, then there was some exponential momentum and we were seeing unfortunately a very large quantity of videos of brutally violent, almost medieval events were happening in Ukraine.

    However, I mean that the total political situation of Kazakhstan is very similar to Ukraine, and also Russia and everywhere in the postsoviet space (except perhaps Latvia/Lithuania/Estonia).

    I was talking to some Kazakh students in Western Europe a few months ago. If you ask those young (in my opinion very wealthy) dudes "how is it in Kazakhstan", the words are as you would be said if asked "how is in Russia", or "how is in Ukraine". It's like everyone has been living in the same system. You just need to hear about 10 words and you can shrug with mutual sympathy.


    -

    By the way, I read a funny comment on YouTube. He is saying that CSTO are like princes of old times, who send their knights to crush peasant insurrection in neighboring regions.

    https://i.imgur.com/RTNs2Yx.jpg

    This is very much the impression of the priorities, when you remember how uninterested CSTO reacts in October 2020, when Armenia is fighting Azerbaijan.

    Pashinyan's wife was pretending to be a "soldier" for Facebook in Nagorno-Karabakh. Every day, hundreds of Armenian soldiers are killed for YouTube drone videos by an external enemy.

    But CSTO is not interested, says "don't worry Armenia, we are monitoring the situation, as your army is being destroyed for YouTube audiences".

    On the other hand, citizens internally protest against fuel prices in Kazakhstan. Within a few hours, CSTO sending combat soldiers in military planes.

    Replies: @Mikel, @sudden death

    • Replies: @sudden death
    @sudden death

    For whatever reason posted image does not load here, so will try another link, even if monstrous looking :)

    https://scontent.fplq1-1.fna.fbcdn.net/v/t39.30808-6/271599385_1051078149070077_5253900647516274173_n.jpg?_nc_cat=104&ccb=1-5&_nc_sid=dbeb18&_nc_ohc=RL7zTVWoeNkAX_kGWVb&_nc_ht=scontent.fplq1-1.fna&oh=00_AT_UTobq8tn4SUuqh2upCr5CJ1KGcs2zle-YvSZwJBJujA&oe=61DF7079

  299. @Dmitry
    @Thulean Friend


    difference in temperament
     
    But look at Kazakhs. In some ways, they could seem like they should be very different to Ukrainians. Yet politically, Kazakhstan is behaving very analogous to Ukraine.

    It reminds of my discussion last week with Mikel, about Latin America, when he was writing that the region is dysfunctional partly because of indigenous nationalities. This postsoviet space (also postrussian Empire space) has a very wide range of ethnicities, with different cultural history, temperament, etc.

    Yet in terms of the political problems, all countries are behaving very similar, with very similar dysfunctions and problems. It's an example where local differences of constituent nationalities seem less important than this wider situation.


    CSTO's transition to a Warsaw Pact lite where it's purpose is to maintain internal regime stability as opposed to external defense.
     
    Yes, but only a "transition" in terms of knowledge of ordinary people, learning that the purpose CSTO's is to maintain internal regime stability of the member governments. This is always its real purpose, but in this example it is a little too obvious.

    You can not underestimate how gullible and easily controlled, postsoviet ordinary people are. For example, until the coronavirus pandemic, I didn't understand that official data are so regularly faked. I was naively for years reading about such data, and believing it is serious because it is published in a respectable media (e.g. "Vedomosti", "Kommersant"). But even the census is miscounting by millions of people and many cities are faking their population numbers. Patterns of official numbers in many areas of life, could only be understood by forensic accountants.

    Replies: @Mikel, @AP

    Yet politically, Kazakhstan is behaving very analogous to Ukraine.

    Other than in the sense that there is a popular uprising*, not really.

    Maidan was peaceful for about 2 months before the cycle of violence started – police beating protesters then vice versa, and sniper attacks. Even so, the death toll never exceeded 200. In only a few days there are dozens if not hundreds dead – mass shooting of protesters, police getting beheaded, etc. in Kazakhstan.

    There was no mass looting in Ukraine, it was more purely political in nature; there appears to be mass looting in Kazakhstan

    In Ukraine, the protesters were linked to political parties that had won the popular vote in the recent election. It’s much more murky in Kazakhstan.

    *Given the widespread nature of events and number of participants in Kazakhstan we can conclude that the uprising is popular; it isn’t a coup of some sort. I do not know whether it enjoys majority support in Kazakhstan, but it certainly enjoys widespread support.

    • Replies: @Dmitry
    @AP


    Other than in the sense that there is a popular uprising
     
    I'm not talking about the uprising, as I already said to Mikel. I'm not sure why people are inferring that. I'm talking about the politics of the country. Considering both you and Mikel read my comment the same way, I'm assuming I need to improve my writing style though lol.

    Of course, political situation is very similar, from small details, to larger pictures. But except for Estonia/Latvia/Lithuania, all postsoviet countries are similar, so this is a minor point. Perhaps it's more interesting to try to notice differences.

    In terms of postsoviet countries, Ukraine and Kazakhstan politics are not the closest in every way.

    For example, Kazakhstan's dictatorship uses a cult of personality, like in Belarus, Russia, Azerbaijan and Turkmenistan. These cults of personality systems have a stronger obsession with presenting order, and they invest a lot in things in creating an ultra-clean impression in the center of the capital city* (importing Parisian streetlamps), or in their media.

    However, in terms of the national policy, Kazakhstan's government is more in the cluster with postmaidan Ukraine, Georgia, Kyrgyzstan. These are countries where the official policy has promoted a concept of turning into a mono-ethnic state. Whereas in Russia or Azerbaijan, the focus is promoting an image (and in Russia creating a reality) of multi-culturalism.

    Also Ukraine is in a different cluster, as there has been able to have some extent of elections that change its government from time to time. Whereas in Kazakhstan, Azerbaijan, Russia (even 1996 election was mostly faked, although there were at least rival groups in the media and elite then, and still in 2000) and Belarus, there has been no change of government since the early 1990s.

    -

    *Clean streets and chocolate bars named after him with cocoa levels proportional to his election victory percentages, are trademarks of Lukashenko.


    Maidan was peaceful for about 2 months before the cycle of violence started – police beating protesters then vice versa, and sniper attacks. Even so, the death toll never exceeded 200

     

    There were around 130 people killed in Kiev, mostly by intermittent sniper rifles, but within some months there were thousands killed in Ukraine. Artificially separated events in central Kiev, from the country, is something created years later.

    This isn't related to my comment though. I didn't never say the rebellion is the same, but the wider picture.


    hooting of protesters, police getting beheaded,
     
    I wouldn't be so sure, especially if there is no video presented.

    You know Kazakhstan is a postsoviet country, it's not a Benelux country. The proportion of fakes in the media can rise to a majority during these events. In 2014, there was the mainstream media reporting about how a boy was crucified by the Ukraine army.

    Replies: @AP

    , @Emil Nikola Richard
    @AP


    There was no mass looting in Ukraine, it was more purely political in nature; there appears to be mass looting in Kazakhstan
     
    Maybe after the mass publicity of the BLM looters we have passed a milestone where all future domestic unrest anywhere anytime is going to have looting as a sideshow. It appeared to me that was new. It was widely mocked but people with authority were calling it mostly peaceful and House Speaker Pelosi was washing looters' feet and begging forgiveness. If there is any historical precedent for that I would be interested to learn it.

    Replies: @A123

  300. Biden at his best lively rhetorical performance since quite long ago:

    Make no mistake about it, we’re living at an inflection point in history, both at home and abroad. We’re engaged anew in a struggle between democracy and autocracy, between the aspirations of the many and the greed of the few. Between the people’s right of self-determination and self-seeking autocrat. From China to Russia and beyond, they’re betting the democracies’ days are numbered – they’ve actually told me democracy is too slow, too bogged down by division to succeed in today’s rapidly changing, complicated world.

    And they’re betting, they’re betting America will become more like them and less like like us. They’re betting in America is a place for the autocrat, the dictator, the strongman. I do not believe that. That is not who we are. That is not who we have ever been. And that is not who we should ever, ever be.

    Our founding fathers, as imperfect as they were, set in motion, an experiment that changed the world, literally changed the world. Here in America, the people would rule. Power would be transferred peacefully. Never the tip of a spear or the barrel of a gun. They committed paper and idea that couldn’t live up to – they couldn’t live up to, but an idea it couldn’t be constrained.

    Yes, in America, all people are created equal. Reject the view that if you, if you succeed, I fail. If you get ahead, I fall behind. If I hold you down, I somehow lift myself up.

    The former president who lies about this election and the mob that attacked this Capitol could not be further away from the core American values. They want to rule or they will ruin. Ruin when our country fought for at Lexington and Concord at Gettysburg and Omaha Beach, Seneca Falls, Selma, Alabama. What – and what we were fighting for: The right to vote. The right to govern ourselves. The right to determine our own destiny.

    With rights come responsibilities. The responsibility to see each other as neighbors. Maybe we disagree with that neighbor, but they’re not an adversary. The responsibility to accept defeat, then get back in the arena and try again the next time to make your case. The responsibility to see that America is an idea. An idea that requires vigilant stewardship.

    I did not seek this fight right to this Capitol year ago today, but I will not shrink from it either. I will stand in this breach. I will defend this nation, and I will allow no one to place a dagger at the throat of democracy. We will make sure the will of the people is heard. That the ballot prevails, not violence. That authority of this nation will always be peacefully transferred. I believe the power of the presidency and the purpose is to unite this nation, not divide it.

    To lift us up. Not tear us apart. It’s about us, not about me. Deep in the heart of America, burns a flame lit almost 250 years ago of liberty, freedom and equality. This is not the land of kings or dictators or autocrats.

    We’re a nation of laws of order, not chaos, of peace, not violence. Here in America, the people rule, through the ballot. And their will prevails. So let’s remember together, we’re one nation under God, indivisible, that today, tomorrow and forever, at our best, we are the United States of America.

    .

    https://www.npr.org/2022/01/06/1070931178/jan-6-anniversary-biden-speech-transcript

    • Replies: @Pericles
    @sudden death

    Lol, the President-Legit furthermore appreciates the sacrifice of Minnesota, Portland and many other places in the struggle against racism and whiteness.

    , @songbird
    @sudden death

    Wonder whether they will continue to reference the Founding Fathers with negative qualifiers or whether we are just in a period of transition, before they try to re-articulate the founding completely.

    I've recently been amazed by the fact that almost the entire American space industry can now be understood to operate under a naked ideology of getting black women to the Moon. And I'm not even joking, it is just a theme that one sees again and again. Like Sierra Nevada Corp has CGI footage of a Dream Chaser (not even a moon vehicle) landing which ends with a black woman gazing smilingly up at the Moon.

  301. Speaking of the Balkans…

    Bulgaria’s population fell by 11% from 2011-2011

    Bulgaria’s population stood at 6,520,314 as at September 7, 2021, the National Statistical Institute (NSI) told a news conference on Thursday. The last four censuses showed a population decline, the biggest being registered in the 2021 census: by 844,000 people, or by 11.5 per cent compared to 2011

    The share of people aged 65+ is higher by 5.4 percentage points compared to 2011 and by 9.6 percentage points compared to 1992. The number and relative share of children and people of active age is decreasing.

    Eurostat’s fairly pessimistic projections assumed Bulgaria would hit these numbers in 2025, so Bulgaria’s population is falling faster than even the pessimists thought.

    Romania will have a census this year and I expect it to be equally gory. Ukraine’s census numbers are wildly inflated and nobody believes them.

    This is but one of many reasons why I am skeptical of deluded claims that Eastern Europe has a bright future. Czechia is one of the few countries that has both high (relatively) fertility and low emigration, combined with reasonable prosperity. But they are very clearly a major outlier.

    I think the line where Europe ends and Turkey starts will gradually creep up as the decades roll along.

    • Replies: @AP
    @Thulean Friend

    Population decline in EE is certainly a negative, but fortunately those places have little immigration so they are at least set up for an eventual rebound. Ukraine might have the population it had in the 1920s, but it is still Ukraine and nothing but Ukraine. France, which is achieving the demographics of 1940s Lebanon, has a less bright future.

    Bulgaria has many Turks and gypsies; this is not true of Visegrad (Hungary and Slovakia have gypsies only), former PLC and Baltics.

  302. One major underreported reason why Western economic systems look the way they do is because they faciliate the co-option of foreign elites.

    As Kazakhstan burns over inequality, the elite’s wealth is safe and sound in London

    I am reminded of stories of Saudi princes going on shopping sprees in LA and occasionally running over students from Berkeley, UCLA, UCSD with their Ferraris and Lambhorginis since they don’t view traffic rules fit for their bloodlines. It causes minor stirs but significant punishment is somehow always elusive because the larger objective of co-opting the spoiled offspring of foreign elites is simply too important to let up.

    That’s also why these “investigations” never go anywhere nor lead to meaningful action. If I am to be cynical, one might even suspect they are mainly published as leverage against said elites to keep the educated (and naïve) diaspora informed of their own elites’ corrupt dealings, even if the West shields them.

    This is also why China will struggle to win over corrupt elites from third- and second-world countries, since it has limited possibilities to let in foreign elites live and work in China. At any rate, it is an insular country with a hard language, so its relative attractiveness will always fade compared to English-speaking countries. One may recall how Huawei chairman’s daughter got ensared in Canada precisely because her family bought up plenty of properties as a hedge against any future crackdown in China. Little did she know…

  303. @sher singh
    @Pericles

    https://cdn.discordapp.com/attachments/640459736919048202/927099677667635230/IMG_5406.png

    Replies: @AP, @sudden death, @Cutler

    iirc Italy’s non European/ non White births are less than 10% not 15%. Data is found on Istat Italian language sites.

  304. @songbird
    @Yellowface Anon


    “White Hispanic” Criollos (under the old colonial caste system) should definitely be able to claim Spanish & Portuguese citizenship.

     

    I agree, but I don't know if there is a state in Europe with a rational system of Jus sanguinis (though in theory it is widespread). It seems like it is often one parent (who for instance could be an Arab or African). In the case of Italy, in theory, it could be like one GGG grandparent, who miscegenated with Africans. (indeed there are Eritreans who are suing to get in)

    It is pretty clear that Europeans crafted their systems when they were used to interacting with their near neighbors and not with Africans. Like France with Germans in Alsace-Lorraine.

    Any rational system would involve an understanding of genetic distance, color-signaling, and group co-evolution. It would acknowledge truths like someone who miscegenates is less related to their children than they are to other co-ethnics.

    Replies: @Cutler

    The majority of Jus Sanguinis applicants from Latin America are from Argentina and Southern Brazil and I would assume the vast majority are White/ Phenotypically European as most have ancestors who left Italy at the turn of the century who largely settled areas that were already heavily European ie Espirito Santo Parana Buenos Aires etc and mixed amongst themselves for the most part.
    The Brothers of Italy party are saying Italy should be finding its immigrants from the Italian diaspora rather than non Europeans from Africa Asia etc.

  305. @Thulean Friend
    Speaking of the Balkans...

    Bulgaria's population fell by 11% from 2011-2011

    Bulgaria's population stood at 6,520,314 as at September 7, 2021, the National Statistical Institute (NSI) told a news conference on Thursday. The last four censuses showed a population decline, the biggest being registered in the 2021 census: by 844,000 people, or by 11.5 per cent compared to 2011

    The share of people aged 65+ is higher by 5.4 percentage points compared to 2011 and by 9.6 percentage points compared to 1992. The number and relative share of children and people of active age is decreasing.
     

    Eurostat's fairly pessimistic projections assumed Bulgaria would hit these numbers in 2025, so Bulgaria's population is falling faster than even the pessimists thought.

    Romania will have a census this year and I expect it to be equally gory. Ukraine's census numbers are wildly inflated and nobody believes them.

    This is but one of many reasons why I am skeptical of deluded claims that Eastern Europe has a bright future. Czechia is one of the few countries that has both high (relatively) fertility and low emigration, combined with reasonable prosperity. But they are very clearly a major outlier.

    I think the line where Europe ends and Turkey starts will gradually creep up as the decades roll along.

    Replies: @AP

    Population decline in EE is certainly a negative, but fortunately those places have little immigration so they are at least set up for an eventual rebound. Ukraine might have the population it had in the 1920s, but it is still Ukraine and nothing but Ukraine. France, which is achieving the demographics of 1940s Lebanon, has a less bright future.

    Bulgaria has many Turks and gypsies; this is not true of Visegrad (Hungary and Slovakia have gypsies only), former PLC and Baltics.

  306. @AP
    @Dmitry


    Yet politically, Kazakhstan is behaving very analogous to Ukraine.
     
    Other than in the sense that there is a popular uprising*, not really.

    Maidan was peaceful for about 2 months before the cycle of violence started - police beating protesters then vice versa, and sniper attacks. Even so, the death toll never exceeded 200. In only a few days there are dozens if not hundreds dead - mass shooting of protesters, police getting beheaded, etc. in Kazakhstan.

    There was no mass looting in Ukraine, it was more purely political in nature; there appears to be mass looting in Kazakhstan

    In Ukraine, the protesters were linked to political parties that had won the popular vote in the recent election. It's much more murky in Kazakhstan.


    *Given the widespread nature of events and number of participants in Kazakhstan we can conclude that the uprising is popular; it isn't a coup of some sort. I do not know whether it enjoys majority support in Kazakhstan, but it certainly enjoys widespread support.

    Replies: @Dmitry, @Emil Nikola Richard

    Other than in the sense that there is a popular uprising

    I’m not talking about the uprising, as I already said to Mikel. I’m not sure why people are inferring that. I’m talking about the politics of the country. Considering both you and Mikel read my comment the same way, I’m assuming I need to improve my writing style though lol.

    Of course, political situation is very similar, from small details, to larger pictures. But except for Estonia/Latvia/Lithuania, all postsoviet countries are similar, so this is a minor point. Perhaps it’s more interesting to try to notice differences.

    In terms of postsoviet countries, Ukraine and Kazakhstan politics are not the closest in every way.

    For example, Kazakhstan’s dictatorship uses a cult of personality, like in Belarus, Russia, Azerbaijan and Turkmenistan. These cults of personality systems have a stronger obsession with presenting order, and they invest a lot in things in creating an ultra-clean impression in the center of the capital city* (importing Parisian streetlamps), or in their media.

    However, in terms of the national policy, Kazakhstan’s government is more in the cluster with postmaidan Ukraine, Georgia, Kyrgyzstan. These are countries where the official policy has promoted a concept of turning into a mono-ethnic state. Whereas in Russia or Azerbaijan, the focus is promoting an image (and in Russia creating a reality) of multi-culturalism.

    Also Ukraine is in a different cluster, as there has been able to have some extent of elections that change its government from time to time. Whereas in Kazakhstan, Azerbaijan, Russia (even 1996 election was mostly faked, although there were at least rival groups in the media and elite then, and still in 2000) and Belarus, there has been no change of government since the early 1990s.

    *Clean streets and chocolate bars named after him with cocoa levels proportional to his election victory percentages, are trademarks of Lukashenko.

    Maidan was peaceful for about 2 months before the cycle of violence started – police beating protesters then vice versa, and sniper attacks. Even so, the death toll never exceeded 200

    There were around 130 people killed in Kiev, mostly by intermittent sniper rifles, but within some months there were thousands killed in Ukraine. Artificially separated events in central Kiev, from the country, is something created years later.

    This isn’t related to my comment though. I didn’t never say the rebellion is the same, but the wider picture.

    hooting of protesters, police getting beheaded,

    I wouldn’t be so sure, especially if there is no video presented.

    You know Kazakhstan is a postsoviet country, it’s not a Benelux country. The proportion of fakes in the media can rise to a majority during these events. In 2014, there was the mainstream media reporting about how a boy was crucified by the Ukraine army.

    • Replies: @AP
    @Dmitry


    Of course, political situation is very similar, from small details, to larger pictures. But except for Estonia/Latvia/Lithuania, all postsoviet countries are similar, so this is a minor point. Perhaps it’s more interesting to try to notice differences...

    In terms of postsoviet countries, Ukraine and Kazakhstan politics are not the closest in every way.
     
    These two observations are contradictory. I don't know much about Kazakhstan, but it seems to be very different from Ukraine and more like Russia, Belarus, Azerbaijan, Uzbekistan, Turkmenistan, etc. Within Ukraine, Donbas was within the same tradition (monolithinc power under Yanukovich) but the attempt to turn all of Ukraine into this style of rule ended in complete failure and defeat.

    For example, Kazakhstan’s dictatorship uses a cult of personality, like in Belarus, Russia, Azerbaijan and Turkmenistan. These cults of personality systems have a stronger obsession with presenting order, and they invest a lot in things in creating an ultra-clean impression in the center of the capital city* (importing Parisian streetlamps), or in their media.
     
    This is a characteristic feature of post-Soviet Eurasian states. Ukraine, Moldova, Georgia, Armenia, and the Baltics don't follow it. Russia, Russified Belarus, Russified Donbas, and the Turkic countries follow it. Political cultural legacy of the Tatars?

    The Baltics seem to be fully European. As is Galicia, within Ukraine. It's not dominated by oligarchs, has a normal political system of parties with party programs (Svoboda like Austria's Freedom Party, Samopomich a normal center-right party), rather than oligarch projects, its economy seems to be based on smaller businesses, IT startups and offshorers, and factories owned by Western European companies (again, like Central Europe) rather than huge inefficient Soviet-era industrial conglomerates controlled by oligarchs. If Galicia were independent it would be about the same as Poland, Hungary or Slovakia.

    However, in terms of the national policy, Kazakhstan’s government is more in the cluster with postmaidan Ukraine, Georgia, Kyrgyzstan. These are countries where the official policy has promoted a concept of turning into a mono-ethnic state.
     
    But this is true not only of ex-Soviet republics, including the Baltics, but also Visegrad countries.

    Also Ukraine is in a different cluster, as there has been able to have some extent of elections that change its government from time to time. Whereas in Kazakhstan, Azerbaijan, Russia (even 1996 election was mostly faked, although there were at least rival groups in the media and elite then, and still in 2000) and Belarus, there has been no change of government since the early 1990s.
     
    Correct, from this perspective Ukraine is more like the Baltics. Note that within Ukraine the eastern-style leaders such as Yanukovich and to a lesser extent Zelensky (house arrest of Medvedchuk in his mansion and freezing some of Poroshenko's assets is not the same as throwing Tymoshenko and Lutsenko in prison) are more repressive than Yushchenko or Poroshenko.

    Basically, Ukraine has more European-style politics but outside Galicia has Soviet-style economics (oligarch domination, incredible corruption).

    There were around 130 people killed in Kiev, mostly by intermittent sniper rifles,
     
    Yes, after about two months of peaceful protests.

    but within some months there were thousands killed in Ukraine.
     
    This was the Russia-sustained civil war in Donbas, which was already post-revolutionary.

    You know Kazakhstan is a postsoviet country, it’s not a Benelux country. The proportion of fakes in the media can rise to a majority during these events. In 2014, there was the mainstream media reporting about how a boy was crucified by the Ukraine army.
     
    Good point. The mass looting of stores and property destruction seems to be corroborated by Western sources but the beheading is not.

    Replies: @Dmitry

  307. Christmas Greetings to all who visit this site. I was looking for one nice Christmas card to share with everybody here, and lucked out and found this nice collage. Let’s all wish Anatoly Karlin greetings too, and hope that he come back to lead his flock of merry pranksters, after his long and well deserved sabbatical. Substack anybody?

    • Thanks: songbird
    • Replies: @Mr. Hack
    @Mr. Hack

    https://open.spotify.com/album/4rAJiTu8uivhzLLcjRo6c8?si=wmG5Jb-MSXuiY-1wGip7tQ

    This is probably my very favorite Ukrainian Christmas album. Check out the spectacular energy that is exhibited on the first carol featuring Jarema Cisaruk from the Detroit area. The whole album is a refined gem of Ukrainian artistry. Give it a spin, maybe you'll get tingles up and down your spine like I do when I listen to it - Merry Christmas!

  308. @silviosilver
    @Dmitry


    It’s a reality where you need professional historians, who see a thousand different factors that determine the complexity of these situations.
     
    Historians are as subject to biases as the rest of us. It hardly matters much that they might possess some special ability to see a thousand different factors if their biases determine which of those factors they give weight to.

    But in the first half of the 20th century, it was the opposite situation, under unfortunate historical conditions.
     

    Japanese today have one of the world’s friendliest images, with anime and cat cafes. However, in 1930s Manchuria?
     
    The temperature was above 100? Then a traumatic defeat imparted the lesson that they're better off keeping the temperature under 100, and so they have done. That's as good as anything that a historian might come up with.

    That’s not to say that we can’t see common “essentialist” aspects in nationalities. Japanese were drawing the same anime pictures in the 19th century, as today.
     
    I simply accept a hereditarian model based on evolutionary psychology which holds that individuals and groups tend to differ in evolutionarily influenced inclinations. If you think that the Japanese draw anime just as a beaver builds a dam, you are much more of an essentialist than I am.
     
     

    Replies: @Dmitry

    Historians are as subject to biases

    Sure perhaps even more biased than most normal people, but if you look at a history book, in the European tradition, since at least the 18th century (actually even in Herodotus and Thucydides), they look at hundreds of variables. Perhaps even thousands, depending how you define them.

    The idea of this historical tradition, has been not to reduce details too much, but rather to overload details and particularities.

    This tradition of history has been useful because they are just talking about human reality, where the details are really more interesting and important, than our opinions or theories that can be added as a conclusion (not that models like Marxism have not been inspiring for historians). You can read history books where you disagree with the conclusion, but can be very interested in the details.

    as good as anything that a historian might come up with.

    And if you are writing about Yugoslavia history, you can add this opinion. And someone else can add fifty counter-examples. And if we are professional historians like German Reader, we might be able to get a university to pay for it, and call this the “historical conference”.

    But then in the discussion we would likely become more interested in the examples and counter-examples. Because that is the actually interesting thing we find in history – examples and details from the more complex reality, which we don’t necessarily understand too well.

    • Replies: @silviosilver
    @Dmitry


    This tradition of history has been useful because they are just talking about human reality, where the details are really more interesting and important, than our opinions or theories that can be added as a conclusion
     
    Whether one finds the details more interesting is a matter of individual taste and not something worth arguing about. But the study of the past is socially important because it helps us to understand the present, and to plot a course for the future, so I cannot see how the details - the 'raw facts' (in as much as there can be such a thing) - could possibly be more important than our interpretation of them.

    If hereditary factors are important part of our human reality and historians choose ignore them, then historians are doing us a disservice and handicapping our ability to understand both past and present. Imagine some race-denying libtard sack of shit writing a history of the BLM riots in 2020. His 'explanation' will make no mention of blacks' lower average intelligence and greater impulsivity and criminality. Such a history would be fit for little besides wiping your butt with. So sometimes we have no choice but to ignore the blathering of historians and rely upon understandings drawn from other fields in order to understand various historical phenomena.

    Replies: @Dmitry

  309. @Mr. Hack
    https://youtu.be/kxjcaTqOe-E

    Christmas Greetings to all who visit this site. I was looking for one nice Christmas card to share with everybody here, and lucked out and found this nice collage. Let's all wish Anatoly Karlin greetings too, and hope that he come back to lead his flock of merry pranksters, after his long and well deserved sabbatical. Substack anybody?

    Replies: @Mr. Hack

    This is probably my very favorite Ukrainian Christmas album. Check out the spectacular energy that is exhibited on the first carol featuring Jarema Cisaruk from the Detroit area. The whole album is a refined gem of Ukrainian artistry. Give it a spin, maybe you’ll get tingles up and down your spine like I do when I listen to it – Merry Christmas!

  310. The propaganda and ideological purity of the Fake Stream Media is now so vicious that even *Progressives* are too right wing. Both trust and viewership are at all time lows. Everyone is catching on to the endless string of misinformation.

    PEACE 😇

     

  311. Pashinyan is sending 100 Armenian soldiers to help protect facilities of Kazakhstan from protests. But it was only a year in the past, Kazakhstan was celebrating Azerbaijan’s victory against Armenia.

    Although it is more multinational in terms of supporting their interests , as facilities CTSO will be possibly be defending, might include output of American (Chevron) operated oil fields in Kazakhstan. Much of the oil and mineral industry in Kazakhstan is extracted by American companies, while Turkish companies dominated their construction. Kazakhstan has also been having joint military exercises with the US and Turkey.

    First President of Kazakhstan congratulates Azerbaijani President on Victory

    First President of Kazakhstan, Honorary Chairman of the Turkish Council Nursultan Nazarbayev has congratulated Azerbaijani President on victory in his speech at non-formal Summit of Cooperation Council of Turkic Speaking States held on March 31 in a video format, APA reports.

    https://apa.az/en/xeber/foreign-news/First-President-of-Kazakhstan-congratulates-Azerbaijani-President-on-Victory-345757

    Kazakh President congratulates Azerbaijani President

    Kassym-Jomart Tokayev, President of Republic of Kazakhstan has congratulated Azerbaijani President Ilham Aliyev on the occasion of November 8-Victory day, APA reports.

    https://apa.az/en/xeber/official-news/kazakh-president-congratulates-azerbaijani-president-361336

    Heads of large companies in Kazakhstan congratulate Azerbaijan on victory

    The heads of large companies of Kazakhstan operating in Azerbaijan congratulated the President and the people of Azerbaijan on the anniversary of the victory in the 44-day war.

    “While in Azerbaijan, we witnessed the unparalleled courage, will and determination of the Azerbaijani army, which, under your leadership, ensured the historic triumph of justice and returned the previously lost lands of Azerbaijan.

    The liberation of Karabakh was an achievement not only for Azerbaijan, but also a source of pride for all peoples of the Turkic world,” the appeal says.

    Armenia Sends 100 Soldiers to Kazakhstan as Part of CSTO “Peackeeping” Force

    On January 5, Kazakhstan President Kassym-Jomart Tokayev petitioned CSTO to send military assistance, which he said was needed “to help Kazakhstan overcome this terrorist threat.”

    Later that day, Armenian PM Nikol Pashinyan, the current chair of the CSTO’s Collective Security Council, announced that the organization had agreed.

    “In light of the threats to national security and sovereignty to the Republic of Kazakhstan, including from external interference,” the CSTO agreed to send the organization’s collective peacekeeping forces to Kazakhstan “for a limited period with the aim of stabilizing and normalizing the situation,” Pashinyan wrote in a Facebook post.

    In 2021, the CSTO rejected a request from Armenia to send troops after Azerbaijani military units made incursions into Armenian territory.

    https://hetq.am/en/article/139788

    • Replies: @AP
    @Dmitry

    Further humiliation for Armenia. And it has no choice, otherwise Putin will let Azerbaijan grab more territory.

    , @Aedib
    @Dmitry

    The fact that Pashinyan, a man who reached Armenia’s presidency riding a color revolution, had to announce that the CSTO will act in Kazakhstan to abort another color revolution is a delicious irony.
    By the way, he should have accepted Putin’s initial offer to deploy Russian peacekeepers along the perimeter of Nagorno-Karabaj. This way he would have saved the whole exclave.

    Replies: @Dmitry

  312. @Dmitry
    Pashinyan is sending 100 Armenian soldiers to help protect facilities of Kazakhstan from protests. But it was only a year in the past, Kazakhstan was celebrating Azerbaijan's victory against Armenia.

    Although it is more multinational in terms of supporting their interests , as facilities CTSO will be possibly be defending, might include output of American (Chevron) operated oil fields in Kazakhstan. Much of the oil and mineral industry in Kazakhstan is extracted by American companies, while Turkish companies dominated their construction. Kazakhstan has also been having joint military exercises with the US and Turkey.

    First President of Kazakhstan congratulates Azerbaijani President on Victory

    First President of Kazakhstan, Honorary Chairman of the Turkish Council Nursultan Nazarbayev has congratulated Azerbaijani President on victory in his speech at non-formal Summit of Cooperation Council of Turkic Speaking States held on March 31 in a video format, APA reports.

     

    https://apa.az/en/xeber/foreign-news/First-President-of-Kazakhstan-congratulates-Azerbaijani-President-on-Victory-345757

    Kazakh President congratulates Azerbaijani President

    Kassym-Jomart Tokayev, President of Republic of Kazakhstan has congratulated Azerbaijani President Ilham Aliyev on the occasion of November 8-Victory day, APA reports.
     

    https://apa.az/en/xeber/official-news/kazakh-president-congratulates-azerbaijani-president-361336

    Heads of large companies in Kazakhstan congratulate Azerbaijan on victory

    The heads of large companies of Kazakhstan operating in Azerbaijan congratulated the President and the people of Azerbaijan on the anniversary of the victory in the 44-day war.

    “While in Azerbaijan, we witnessed the unparalleled courage, will and determination of the Azerbaijani army, which, under your leadership, ensured the historic triumph of justice and returned the previously lost lands of Azerbaijan.

    The liberation of Karabakh was an achievement not only for Azerbaijan, but also a source of pride for all peoples of the Turkic world,” the appeal says.
     

    Armenia Sends 100 Soldiers to Kazakhstan as Part of CSTO "Peackeeping" Force

    On January 5, Kazakhstan President Kassym-Jomart Tokayev petitioned CSTO to send military assistance, which he said was needed "to help Kazakhstan overcome this terrorist threat."

    Later that day, Armenian PM Nikol Pashinyan, the current chair of the CSTO’s Collective Security Council, announced that the organization had agreed.

    “In light of the threats to national security and sovereignty to the Republic of Kazakhstan, including from external interference,” the CSTO agreed to send the organization’s collective peacekeeping forces to Kazakhstan “for a limited period with the aim of stabilizing and normalizing the situation,” Pashinyan wrote in a Facebook post.

    In 2021, the CSTO rejected a request from Armenia to send troops after Azerbaijani military units made incursions into Armenian territory.

     

    https://hetq.am/en/article/139788

    Replies: @AP, @Aedib

    Further humiliation for Armenia. And it has no choice, otherwise Putin will let Azerbaijan grab more territory.

  313. @Dmitry
    @AP


    Other than in the sense that there is a popular uprising
     
    I'm not talking about the uprising, as I already said to Mikel. I'm not sure why people are inferring that. I'm talking about the politics of the country. Considering both you and Mikel read my comment the same way, I'm assuming I need to improve my writing style though lol.

    Of course, political situation is very similar, from small details, to larger pictures. But except for Estonia/Latvia/Lithuania, all postsoviet countries are similar, so this is a minor point. Perhaps it's more interesting to try to notice differences.

    In terms of postsoviet countries, Ukraine and Kazakhstan politics are not the closest in every way.

    For example, Kazakhstan's dictatorship uses a cult of personality, like in Belarus, Russia, Azerbaijan and Turkmenistan. These cults of personality systems have a stronger obsession with presenting order, and they invest a lot in things in creating an ultra-clean impression in the center of the capital city* (importing Parisian streetlamps), or in their media.

    However, in terms of the national policy, Kazakhstan's government is more in the cluster with postmaidan Ukraine, Georgia, Kyrgyzstan. These are countries where the official policy has promoted a concept of turning into a mono-ethnic state. Whereas in Russia or Azerbaijan, the focus is promoting an image (and in Russia creating a reality) of multi-culturalism.

    Also Ukraine is in a different cluster, as there has been able to have some extent of elections that change its government from time to time. Whereas in Kazakhstan, Azerbaijan, Russia (even 1996 election was mostly faked, although there were at least rival groups in the media and elite then, and still in 2000) and Belarus, there has been no change of government since the early 1990s.

    -

    *Clean streets and chocolate bars named after him with cocoa levels proportional to his election victory percentages, are trademarks of Lukashenko.


    Maidan was peaceful for about 2 months before the cycle of violence started – police beating protesters then vice versa, and sniper attacks. Even so, the death toll never exceeded 200

     

    There were around 130 people killed in Kiev, mostly by intermittent sniper rifles, but within some months there were thousands killed in Ukraine. Artificially separated events in central Kiev, from the country, is something created years later.

    This isn't related to my comment though. I didn't never say the rebellion is the same, but the wider picture.


    hooting of protesters, police getting beheaded,
     
    I wouldn't be so sure, especially if there is no video presented.

    You know Kazakhstan is a postsoviet country, it's not a Benelux country. The proportion of fakes in the media can rise to a majority during these events. In 2014, there was the mainstream media reporting about how a boy was crucified by the Ukraine army.

    Replies: @AP

    Of course, political situation is very similar, from small details, to larger pictures. But except for Estonia/Latvia/Lithuania, all postsoviet countries are similar, so this is a minor point. Perhaps it’s more interesting to try to notice differences…

    In terms of postsoviet countries, Ukraine and Kazakhstan politics are not the closest in every way.

    These two observations are contradictory. I don’t know much about Kazakhstan, but it seems to be very different from Ukraine and more like Russia, Belarus, Azerbaijan, Uzbekistan, Turkmenistan, etc. Within Ukraine, Donbas was within the same tradition (monolithinc power under Yanukovich) but the attempt to turn all of Ukraine into this style of rule ended in complete failure and defeat.

    For example, Kazakhstan’s dictatorship uses a cult of personality, like in Belarus, Russia, Azerbaijan and Turkmenistan. These cults of personality systems have a stronger obsession with presenting order, and they invest a lot in things in creating an ultra-clean impression in the center of the capital city* (importing Parisian streetlamps), or in their media.

    This is a characteristic feature of post-Soviet Eurasian states. Ukraine, Moldova, Georgia, Armenia, and the Baltics don’t follow it. Russia, Russified Belarus, Russified Donbas, and the Turkic countries follow it. Political cultural legacy of the Tatars?

    The Baltics seem to be fully European. As is Galicia, within Ukraine. It’s not dominated by oligarchs, has a normal political system of parties with party programs (Svoboda like Austria’s Freedom Party, Samopomich a normal center-right party), rather than oligarch projects, its economy seems to be based on smaller businesses, IT startups and offshorers, and factories owned by Western European companies (again, like Central Europe) rather than huge inefficient Soviet-era industrial conglomerates controlled by oligarchs. If Galicia were independent it would be about the same as Poland, Hungary or Slovakia.

    However, in terms of the national policy, Kazakhstan’s government is more in the cluster with postmaidan Ukraine, Georgia, Kyrgyzstan. These are countries where the official policy has promoted a concept of turning into a mono-ethnic state.

    But this is true not only of ex-Soviet republics, including the Baltics, but also Visegrad countries.

    Also Ukraine is in a different cluster, as there has been able to have some extent of elections that change its government from time to time. Whereas in Kazakhstan, Azerbaijan, Russia (even 1996 election was mostly faked, although there were at least rival groups in the media and elite then, and still in 2000) and Belarus, there has been no change of government since the early 1990s.

    Correct, from this perspective Ukraine is more like the Baltics. Note that within Ukraine the eastern-style leaders such as Yanukovich and to a lesser extent Zelensky (house arrest of Medvedchuk in his mansion and freezing some of Poroshenko’s assets is not the same as throwing Tymoshenko and Lutsenko in prison) are more repressive than Yushchenko or Poroshenko.

    Basically, Ukraine has more European-style politics but outside Galicia has Soviet-style economics (oligarch domination, incredible corruption).

    There were around 130 people killed in Kiev, mostly by intermittent sniper rifles,

    Yes, after about two months of peaceful protests.

    but within some months there were thousands killed in Ukraine.

    This was the Russia-sustained civil war in Donbas, which was already post-revolutionary.

    You know Kazakhstan is a postsoviet country, it’s not a Benelux country. The proportion of fakes in the media can rise to a majority during these events. In 2014, there was the mainstream media reporting about how a boy was crucified by the Ukraine army.

    Good point. The mass looting of stores and property destruction seems to be corroborated by Western sources but the beheading is not.

    • Replies: @Dmitry
    @AP


    two observations are contradictory
     
    It's not intended to be contradictory. If you buy the new iphone, You know it's interesting to talk about the differences in your new iphone compared to your other iphone. It doesn't need to be said that your new iphone has more similarities than differences in total.

    feature of post-Soviet Eurasian states.

     

    Sure, with the presentation of the city centers, it's like a "Potemkin village" strategy, kind of old in the region. At least it has not always bad results for the future of tourism (e.g. Saint-Petersburg). .

    It is interesting that we saw it now more strongly in the postsoviet countries, where there is also "cult of personality" of the leader. Russia, Belarus, Azerbaijan, Kazakhstan, etc.

    But remember how Poroshenko was trying to copy Putin/Lukashenko personality marketing, videos of him flying in planes, etc. I'm not so optimistic Ukraine has endogenous protection from cult of personality politics.


    Baltics seem to be fully European

     

    But not so much in the 1990s. You see they receive OECD reports every year, and OECD is writing about how responsive they are to the previous advice.

    For example, now in Lithuania there is still a lot of corruption in the state industry, and OECD reports are giving a lot of advice for how they should improve accountancy, install ways monitor the financial transactions within state sector.

    Those countries are in progressive transition from the postsoviet political life.


    also Visegrad countries.

     

    Visegrad countries are already mono-ethnic. In Ukraine, Kazakhstan, the project is "becoming mono-ethnic". Language laws become an area of conflict. This is part of their state-building project, but it overshoots (in Ukraine, but potentially can in Kazakhstan) for Russian minorities.

    Good point. The mass looting of stores and property destruction seems to be corroborated by Western sources but the beheading is not.

     

    There are some videos of the protests, although not in large numbers like Ukraine.

    I'm not anything expert, but it looks like sometimes police must be shooting in the air or with not live ammunition. As in many videos with sounds of shooting, but groups of protesters run away without casualties.

    Hopefully, it's not become too deadly there.

  314. @Mikel
    @Dmitry


    Kazakhstan is behaving very analogous to Ukraine.
     
    In fact, the protests in Kazakhstan have been very different from the ones in Ukraine and almost the opposite of what they were in Belarus.

    The may have started peacefully but in a matter of days escalated to an amazing level of armed violence that included widespread looting and vandalism. They actually remind me a lot of the Chilean street protests of the past years that were invariably followed by wanton looting and destruction. The recently elected president of Chile became famous as as a leader of this sort of protests. They used to start as marches demanding equality in education but always ended in pure vandalism. Incidentally, they also claimed to be fighting for a Scandinavian model :-)

    Chileans spent years hearing discussions on the media about the merits of the Scandinavian education system and they even brought some Finish experts to counsel them on how to reform their model.

    In general, the aspiration to become like Scandinavians is incredibly widespread around the world. I remember Spanish politicians also promising to implement policies based on the Swedish model. For some reason, people in poorer countries seldom think about emulating Hong-Kong, Taiwan or Singapore in order to achieve higher levels of income. Redistributing wealth is much more popular than increasing it.

    Replies: @Dmitry, @Pericles

    In general, the aspiration to become like Scandinavians is incredibly widespread around the world. I remember Spanish politicians also promising to implement policies based on the Swedish model. For some reason, people in poorer countries seldom think about emulating Hong-Kong, Taiwan or Singapore in order to achieve higher levels of income. Redistributing wealth is much more popular than increasing it.

    Ironically enough, this redistributionist image of Sweden, at least, is built on the failed model of Olof Palme. Sweden had roughly a century of strong growth, from the 1850s — when the country switched from fruitless wars to industrialization — to the 1960s, where the taxes were low (20% of GDP) and the state worked to help Swedish companies industrialize and export. Then taxes skyrocketed (deliberately), the growth curve was broken and …

    Swedish GDP per Capita in Relation to World GDP per Capita, 1870-2004
    (Nine year moving averages)

    The slow down in Swedish growth from the 1970s may be considered in this perspective. While in most other countries growth from the 1970s fell only in relation to growth rates in the golden post-war ages, Swedish growth fell clearly below the historical long run growth trend. It also fell to a very low level internationally. The 1970s certainly meant the end to a number of successful growth trajectories in the industrial society. At the same time new growth forces appeared with the electronic revolution, as well as with the advance of a more service based economy. It may be the case that this structural change hit the Swedish economy harder than most other economies, at least of the industrial capitalist economies. Sweden was forced into a transformation of its industrial economy and of its political economy in the 1970s and the 1980s that was more profound than in most other Western economies.

    https://eh.net/encyclopedia/sweden-economic-growth-and-structural-change-1800-2000/

    Note that Palme also encouraged a lot of strange ties to the third world, a contributing reason to why he’s so respected there. But his socialistic experiment was basically what broke Sweden as an economic success story. There has been a lot of struggling to get out of that, and for whatever reason we haven’t resumed the high growth path even today.

    • Replies: @Thulean Friend
    @Pericles

    Your comment is an example of an old saying: most people's economic preferences are ideological preferences. It is certainly true that growth in Sweden slowed down in the 1970s, but to draw a monocausal relationship to taxes is childish.

    It's been some time since I read this history, but I recall that a major problem in the 1970s was that we used to have a significant shipping industry which was butchered by cheap Korean competition in the 1970s. Kockums still do decent high-end stuff, but not on the scale as they used to. Finland got battered badly as Nokia & their paper industry got hammered in the post-2008 crisis. Sometimes some countries get hit disproportionately since they are overexposed in some sectors.

    At any rate, the biggest crisis in modern Swedish history - even bigger than the 2008 crash - was the financial crisis of the early 1990s. That was driven by rampant neoliberalism and deregulation. Ironically, the initial steps were taken by the Social Democrats who nevertheless started to abandon their own legacy.

    FWIW, Denmark has among the highest tax-to-GDP ratio in the world, and higher than Sweden's, yet is wealthier. It's almost as if prosperity is driven by far more fundamental things than taxes. People shouldn't confuse empiricism with personal preferences.

    Replies: @Pericles

    , @silviosilver
    @Pericles


    Swedish GDP per Capita in Relation to World GDP per Capita, 1870-2004
     
    Although I agree with the overall point of the article, that is an absurdly tendentious metric. With the leading developing economies growing at breakneck speed, that graph would depict a "slowdown" even if Sweden had continued to grow at the same pace as the 50s and 60s. But it's hard to see why China's growth rate in its catch-up phase should have any bearing on Swedish policy decisions.
    , @Mikel
    @Pericles

    Yes, I remember the pro-market reforms in Sweden when the Scandinavian model showed signs of exhaustion in a liberalizing global economy. In the 90s I met a Swedish guy working in Scotland who told me about a 20%+ unemployment rate in his Gothenburg area.

    But you guys have managed to maintain some of the world's highest per-capita incomes along with a generous welfare state and stable societies. It is little wonder that social-democrats of all countries look up to you.

    The EU open labor market, by the way, has disproportionately benefited eastern and southern European countries but it has also been an escape valve in times of distress for the wealthier northern ones, such as Germany during the reunification process and Sweden when unemployment increased, with the UK always bearing the brunt of the continental labor market dysfunctions. Little surprise that they eventually got tired of that role.

    Replies: @mal

    , @Emil Nikola Richard
    @Pericles

    Palme was also murdered (unsolved as near as I can tell). In one of the George Knapp interviews of Tom Delonge, George got the confused Tom to say (it's been awhile since I heard this so it is not verbatim but I will use quotation marks anyway):

    "if the CIA assassinated John Kennedy I'm sure they had a good reason."

    Were there a lot of Swedes who had to fake their mourning ritual for Palme?

  315. @AP
    @Dmitry


    Yet politically, Kazakhstan is behaving very analogous to Ukraine.
     
    Other than in the sense that there is a popular uprising*, not really.

    Maidan was peaceful for about 2 months before the cycle of violence started - police beating protesters then vice versa, and sniper attacks. Even so, the death toll never exceeded 200. In only a few days there are dozens if not hundreds dead - mass shooting of protesters, police getting beheaded, etc. in Kazakhstan.

    There was no mass looting in Ukraine, it was more purely political in nature; there appears to be mass looting in Kazakhstan

    In Ukraine, the protesters were linked to political parties that had won the popular vote in the recent election. It's much more murky in Kazakhstan.


    *Given the widespread nature of events and number of participants in Kazakhstan we can conclude that the uprising is popular; it isn't a coup of some sort. I do not know whether it enjoys majority support in Kazakhstan, but it certainly enjoys widespread support.

    Replies: @Dmitry, @Emil Nikola Richard

    There was no mass looting in Ukraine, it was more purely political in nature; there appears to be mass looting in Kazakhstan

    Maybe after the mass publicity of the BLM looters we have passed a milestone where all future domestic unrest anywhere anytime is going to have looting as a sideshow. It appeared to me that was new. It was widely mocked but people with authority were calling it mostly peaceful and House Speaker Pelosi was washing looters’ feet and begging forgiveness. If there is any historical precedent for that I would be interested to learn it.

    • Replies: @A123
    @Emil Nikola Richard


    Maybe after the mass publicity of the BLM looters we have passed a milestone where all future domestic unrest anywhere anytime is going to have looting as a sideshow
     
    Looting & other types of misbehaviour are not unusual when law enforcement is unavailable or out matched. Look at the riots and car burnings experienced in "no-go" areas of France.

    The newness from recent U.S. events is local authorities *chosing* to intentionally allow the problems. Defund the Police, minimum $1,000 to prosecute shoplifting, and other obvious malfeasance by George IslamoSoros's hand picked DA's.

    As long as the #NeverTrump crazies inflict damage on themselves and their communities, that is their choice. However, there has to be a solution that contains dystopian Leftoids. That solution is Chuck Norris Kyle Rittenhouse.

    PEACE 🤔 .... Through superior firepower 😇

    https://i.imgflip.com/4cv5zu.jpg

  316. @sudden death
    Biden at his best lively rhetorical performance since quite long ago:

    Make no mistake about it, we're living at an inflection point in history, both at home and abroad. We're engaged anew in a struggle between democracy and autocracy, between the aspirations of the many and the greed of the few. Between the people's right of self-determination and self-seeking autocrat. From China to Russia and beyond, they're betting the democracies' days are numbered - they've actually told me democracy is too slow, too bogged down by division to succeed in today's rapidly changing, complicated world.

    And they're betting, they're betting America will become more like them and less like like us. They're betting in America is a place for the autocrat, the dictator, the strongman. I do not believe that. That is not who we are. That is not who we have ever been. And that is not who we should ever, ever be.

    Our founding fathers, as imperfect as they were, set in motion, an experiment that changed the world, literally changed the world. Here in America, the people would rule. Power would be transferred peacefully. Never the tip of a spear or the barrel of a gun. They committed paper and idea that couldn't live up to – they couldn't live up to, but an idea it couldn't be constrained.

    Yes, in America, all people are created equal. Reject the view that if you, if you succeed, I fail. If you get ahead, I fall behind. If I hold you down, I somehow lift myself up.

    The former president who lies about this election and the mob that attacked this Capitol could not be further away from the core American values. They want to rule or they will ruin. Ruin when our country fought for at Lexington and Concord at Gettysburg and Omaha Beach, Seneca Falls, Selma, Alabama. What – and what we were fighting for: The right to vote. The right to govern ourselves. The right to determine our own destiny.

    With rights come responsibilities. The responsibility to see each other as neighbors. Maybe we disagree with that neighbor, but they're not an adversary. The responsibility to accept defeat, then get back in the arena and try again the next time to make your case. The responsibility to see that America is an idea. An idea that requires vigilant stewardship.

    I did not seek this fight right to this Capitol year ago today, but I will not shrink from it either. I will stand in this breach. I will defend this nation, and I will allow no one to place a dagger at the throat of democracy. We will make sure the will of the people is heard. That the ballot prevails, not violence. That authority of this nation will always be peacefully transferred. I believe the power of the presidency and the purpose is to unite this nation, not divide it.

    To lift us up. Not tear us apart. It's about us, not about me. Deep in the heart of America, burns a flame lit almost 250 years ago of liberty, freedom and equality. This is not the land of kings or dictators or autocrats.

    We're a nation of laws of order, not chaos, of peace, not violence. Here in America, the people rule, through the ballot. And their will prevails. So let's remember together, we're one nation under God, indivisible, that today, tomorrow and forever, at our best, we are the United States of America.
     

    .

    https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ct6MM2gkte4

    https://www.npr.org/2022/01/06/1070931178/jan-6-anniversary-biden-speech-transcript

    Replies: @Pericles, @songbird

    Lol, the President-Legit furthermore appreciates the sacrifice of Minnesota, Portland and many other places in the struggle against racism and whiteness.

  317. @Dmitry
    Pashinyan is sending 100 Armenian soldiers to help protect facilities of Kazakhstan from protests. But it was only a year in the past, Kazakhstan was celebrating Azerbaijan's victory against Armenia.

    Although it is more multinational in terms of supporting their interests , as facilities CTSO will be possibly be defending, might include output of American (Chevron) operated oil fields in Kazakhstan. Much of the oil and mineral industry in Kazakhstan is extracted by American companies, while Turkish companies dominated their construction. Kazakhstan has also been having joint military exercises with the US and Turkey.

    First President of Kazakhstan congratulates Azerbaijani President on Victory

    First President of Kazakhstan, Honorary Chairman of the Turkish Council Nursultan Nazarbayev has congratulated Azerbaijani President on victory in his speech at non-formal Summit of Cooperation Council of Turkic Speaking States held on March 31 in a video format, APA reports.

     

    https://apa.az/en/xeber/foreign-news/First-President-of-Kazakhstan-congratulates-Azerbaijani-President-on-Victory-345757

    Kazakh President congratulates Azerbaijani President

    Kassym-Jomart Tokayev, President of Republic of Kazakhstan has congratulated Azerbaijani President Ilham Aliyev on the occasion of November 8-Victory day, APA reports.
     

    https://apa.az/en/xeber/official-news/kazakh-president-congratulates-azerbaijani-president-361336

    Heads of large companies in Kazakhstan congratulate Azerbaijan on victory

    The heads of large companies of Kazakhstan operating in Azerbaijan congratulated the President and the people of Azerbaijan on the anniversary of the victory in the 44-day war.

    “While in Azerbaijan, we witnessed the unparalleled courage, will and determination of the Azerbaijani army, which, under your leadership, ensured the historic triumph of justice and returned the previously lost lands of Azerbaijan.

    The liberation of Karabakh was an achievement not only for Azerbaijan, but also a source of pride for all peoples of the Turkic world,” the appeal says.
     

    Armenia Sends 100 Soldiers to Kazakhstan as Part of CSTO "Peackeeping" Force

    On January 5, Kazakhstan President Kassym-Jomart Tokayev petitioned CSTO to send military assistance, which he said was needed "to help Kazakhstan overcome this terrorist threat."

    Later that day, Armenian PM Nikol Pashinyan, the current chair of the CSTO’s Collective Security Council, announced that the organization had agreed.

    “In light of the threats to national security and sovereignty to the Republic of Kazakhstan, including from external interference,” the CSTO agreed to send the organization’s collective peacekeeping forces to Kazakhstan “for a limited period with the aim of stabilizing and normalizing the situation,” Pashinyan wrote in a Facebook post.

    In 2021, the CSTO rejected a request from Armenia to send troops after Azerbaijani military units made incursions into Armenian territory.

     

    https://hetq.am/en/article/139788

    Replies: @AP, @Aedib

    The fact that Pashinyan, a man who reached Armenia’s presidency riding a color revolution, had to announce that the CSTO will act in Kazakhstan to abort another color revolution is a delicious irony.
    By the way, he should have accepted Putin’s initial offer to deploy Russian peacekeepers along the perimeter of Nagorno-Karabaj. This way he would have saved the whole exclave.

    • Replies: @Dmitry
    @Aedib

    Recall that Pashinyan's office was broken by protesters in 2020 and they stole his watch and perfume.

    Considering that CSTO's priority seems to be to prevent against internal stability, rather than external enemies, perhaps it's not really so ironic for Pashinyan. Who can say, he might need to call for the CSTO to protect his perfume next time.

    https://www.twitter.com/301_AD/status/1326031699172585472

  318. Did Chinese netizens nip Africanization in the bud, when they rejected the Three Squirrels advertisement with model Cai NiangNiang for having thick lips?

    (BTW, I agree with their rejection, as she has an ugly tattoo on her arm)

    https://www.globaltimes.cn/page/202112/1243536.shtml

    • Replies: @Thulean Friend
    @songbird

    I thought the controversy centered around her thin eyes rather than her supposed thick lips?


    "I was born with eyes like that. They are even smaller in real life. Does that mean I should not be a model because I was born with small eyes?" the model involved posted on her Weibo account under the name Cainiangniang. "I am all for patriotism… but this is kind of morbid," she added, calling on netizens to be reasonable.

    The image of "slanted eyes" and a "braid" comes from Western stereotypes of the Chinese in the 19th century, according to Zhu. It is not an objective description of the features of the Chinese people but a Western "label" for East Asians based on their sense of ideological superiority, Zhu said.

    Some voices from social media regard the advertisement as typical "orientalism," with many artistic elements derived from Western stereotypes, which are based on the imagination of Westerners.

    "We do not blame the models themselves, we blame those companies which still insist on making promotions by using images that might offend Chinese to gain internet popularity or for catering to Western stereotypes about Asian people," Zhu said, "A responsible brand should not do this."
     

    It's hard not to come away with the impression that Chinese people still carry an inferiority complex. As the model explained, she has even smaller eyes in real life than the ad portrayed it as. If a people is self-confident they wouldn't obsess with how they are portrayed by Westerners, or try to shame innocent women for being born they way they are.

    It seems to be a problem in many other Asian countries. Korea is known for many women surgically making their eyes more oval and bigger, and changing their jaw lines. It's sad.

    Replies: @songbird

  319. TF’s antagonism towards cars is very understandable, if one supposes that he comes from Mumbai.

    • Replies: @Thulean Friend
    @songbird


    TF’s antagonism towards cars is very understandable, if one supposes that he comes from Mumbai.
     
    I do not understand the fetishism that so many Americans have towards cars. Perhaps it is because so many of your cities were designed around cars, so another world does not seem possible.

    https://i.imgur.com/4rfVkQb.jpg

    Moreover, I think you underestimate the sentiment in Europe, which is moving in my direction and not in yours. With some luck, even some American cities will slowly start turning towards a more prosperous future.

    https://twitter.com/johnbauters/status/1477734442009444354

    Replies: @A123, @AP, @Dmitry

  320. @AP
    @Dmitry


    Of course, political situation is very similar, from small details, to larger pictures. But except for Estonia/Latvia/Lithuania, all postsoviet countries are similar, so this is a minor point. Perhaps it’s more interesting to try to notice differences...

    In terms of postsoviet countries, Ukraine and Kazakhstan politics are not the closest in every way.
     
    These two observations are contradictory. I don't know much about Kazakhstan, but it seems to be very different from Ukraine and more like Russia, Belarus, Azerbaijan, Uzbekistan, Turkmenistan, etc. Within Ukraine, Donbas was within the same tradition (monolithinc power under Yanukovich) but the attempt to turn all of Ukraine into this style of rule ended in complete failure and defeat.

    For example, Kazakhstan’s dictatorship uses a cult of personality, like in Belarus, Russia, Azerbaijan and Turkmenistan. These cults of personality systems have a stronger obsession with presenting order, and they invest a lot in things in creating an ultra-clean impression in the center of the capital city* (importing Parisian streetlamps), or in their media.
     
    This is a characteristic feature of post-Soviet Eurasian states. Ukraine, Moldova, Georgia, Armenia, and the Baltics don't follow it. Russia, Russified Belarus, Russified Donbas, and the Turkic countries follow it. Political cultural legacy of the Tatars?

    The Baltics seem to be fully European. As is Galicia, within Ukraine. It's not dominated by oligarchs, has a normal political system of parties with party programs (Svoboda like Austria's Freedom Party, Samopomich a normal center-right party), rather than oligarch projects, its economy seems to be based on smaller businesses, IT startups and offshorers, and factories owned by Western European companies (again, like Central Europe) rather than huge inefficient Soviet-era industrial conglomerates controlled by oligarchs. If Galicia were independent it would be about the same as Poland, Hungary or Slovakia.

    However, in terms of the national policy, Kazakhstan’s government is more in the cluster with postmaidan Ukraine, Georgia, Kyrgyzstan. These are countries where the official policy has promoted a concept of turning into a mono-ethnic state.
     
    But this is true not only of ex-Soviet republics, including the Baltics, but also Visegrad countries.

    Also Ukraine is in a different cluster, as there has been able to have some extent of elections that change its government from time to time. Whereas in Kazakhstan, Azerbaijan, Russia (even 1996 election was mostly faked, although there were at least rival groups in the media and elite then, and still in 2000) and Belarus, there has been no change of government since the early 1990s.
     
    Correct, from this perspective Ukraine is more like the Baltics. Note that within Ukraine the eastern-style leaders such as Yanukovich and to a lesser extent Zelensky (house arrest of Medvedchuk in his mansion and freezing some of Poroshenko's assets is not the same as throwing Tymoshenko and Lutsenko in prison) are more repressive than Yushchenko or Poroshenko.

    Basically, Ukraine has more European-style politics but outside Galicia has Soviet-style economics (oligarch domination, incredible corruption).

    There were around 130 people killed in Kiev, mostly by intermittent sniper rifles,
     
    Yes, after about two months of peaceful protests.

    but within some months there were thousands killed in Ukraine.
     
    This was the Russia-sustained civil war in Donbas, which was already post-revolutionary.

    You know Kazakhstan is a postsoviet country, it’s not a Benelux country. The proportion of fakes in the media can rise to a majority during these events. In 2014, there was the mainstream media reporting about how a boy was crucified by the Ukraine army.
     
    Good point. The mass looting of stores and property destruction seems to be corroborated by Western sources but the beheading is not.

    Replies: @Dmitry

    two observations are contradictory

    It’s not intended to be contradictory. If you buy the new iphone, You know it’s interesting to talk about the differences in your new iphone compared to your other iphone. It doesn’t need to be said that your new iphone has more similarities than differences in total.

    feature of post-Soviet Eurasian states.

    Sure, with the presentation of the city centers, it’s like a “Potemkin village” strategy, kind of old in the region. At least it has not always bad results for the future of tourism (e.g. Saint-Petersburg). .

    It is interesting that we saw it now more strongly in the postsoviet countries, where there is also “cult of personality” of the leader. Russia, Belarus, Azerbaijan, Kazakhstan, etc.

    But remember how Poroshenko was trying to copy Putin/Lukashenko personality marketing, videos of him flying in planes, etc. I’m not so optimistic Ukraine has endogenous protection from cult of personality politics.

    Baltics seem to be fully European

    But not so much in the 1990s. You see they receive OECD reports every year, and OECD is writing about how responsive they are to the previous advice.

    For example, now in Lithuania there is still a lot of corruption in the state industry, and OECD reports are giving a lot of advice for how they should improve accountancy, install ways monitor the financial transactions within state sector.

    Those countries are in progressive transition from the postsoviet political life.

    also Visegrad countries.

    Visegrad countries are already mono-ethnic. In Ukraine, Kazakhstan, the project is “becoming mono-ethnic”. Language laws become an area of conflict. This is part of their state-building project, but it overshoots (in Ukraine, but potentially can in Kazakhstan) for Russian minorities.

    Good point. The mass looting of stores and property destruction seems to be corroborated by Western sources but the beheading is not.

    There are some videos of the protests, although not in large numbers like Ukraine.

    I’m not anything expert, but it looks like sometimes police must be shooting in the air or with not live ammunition. As in many videos with sounds of shooting, but groups of protesters run away without casualties.

    Hopefully, it’s not become too deadly there.

  321. @sudden death
    Biden at his best lively rhetorical performance since quite long ago:

    Make no mistake about it, we're living at an inflection point in history, both at home and abroad. We're engaged anew in a struggle between democracy and autocracy, between the aspirations of the many and the greed of the few. Between the people's right of self-determination and self-seeking autocrat. From China to Russia and beyond, they're betting the democracies' days are numbered - they've actually told me democracy is too slow, too bogged down by division to succeed in today's rapidly changing, complicated world.

    And they're betting, they're betting America will become more like them and less like like us. They're betting in America is a place for the autocrat, the dictator, the strongman. I do not believe that. That is not who we are. That is not who we have ever been. And that is not who we should ever, ever be.

    Our founding fathers, as imperfect as they were, set in motion, an experiment that changed the world, literally changed the world. Here in America, the people would rule. Power would be transferred peacefully. Never the tip of a spear or the barrel of a gun. They committed paper and idea that couldn't live up to – they couldn't live up to, but an idea it couldn't be constrained.

    Yes, in America, all people are created equal. Reject the view that if you, if you succeed, I fail. If you get ahead, I fall behind. If I hold you down, I somehow lift myself up.

    The former president who lies about this election and the mob that attacked this Capitol could not be further away from the core American values. They want to rule or they will ruin. Ruin when our country fought for at Lexington and Concord at Gettysburg and Omaha Beach, Seneca Falls, Selma, Alabama. What – and what we were fighting for: The right to vote. The right to govern ourselves. The right to determine our own destiny.

    With rights come responsibilities. The responsibility to see each other as neighbors. Maybe we disagree with that neighbor, but they're not an adversary. The responsibility to accept defeat, then get back in the arena and try again the next time to make your case. The responsibility to see that America is an idea. An idea that requires vigilant stewardship.

    I did not seek this fight right to this Capitol year ago today, but I will not shrink from it either. I will stand in this breach. I will defend this nation, and I will allow no one to place a dagger at the throat of democracy. We will make sure the will of the people is heard. That the ballot prevails, not violence. That authority of this nation will always be peacefully transferred. I believe the power of the presidency and the purpose is to unite this nation, not divide it.

    To lift us up. Not tear us apart. It's about us, not about me. Deep in the heart of America, burns a flame lit almost 250 years ago of liberty, freedom and equality. This is not the land of kings or dictators or autocrats.

    We're a nation of laws of order, not chaos, of peace, not violence. Here in America, the people rule, through the ballot. And their will prevails. So let's remember together, we're one nation under God, indivisible, that today, tomorrow and forever, at our best, we are the United States of America.
     

    .

    https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ct6MM2gkte4

    https://www.npr.org/2022/01/06/1070931178/jan-6-anniversary-biden-speech-transcript

    Replies: @Pericles, @songbird

    Wonder whether they will continue to reference the Founding Fathers with negative qualifiers or whether we are just in a period of transition, before they try to re-articulate the founding completely.

    I’ve recently been amazed by the fact that almost the entire American space industry can now be understood to operate under a naked ideology of getting black women to the Moon. And I’m not even joking, it is just a theme that one sees again and again. Like Sierra Nevada Corp has CGI footage of a Dream Chaser (not even a moon vehicle) landing which ends with a black woman gazing smilingly up at the Moon.

  322. @Aedib
    @Dmitry

    The fact that Pashinyan, a man who reached Armenia’s presidency riding a color revolution, had to announce that the CSTO will act in Kazakhstan to abort another color revolution is a delicious irony.
    By the way, he should have accepted Putin’s initial offer to deploy Russian peacekeepers along the perimeter of Nagorno-Karabaj. This way he would have saved the whole exclave.

    Replies: @Dmitry

    Recall that Pashinyan’s office was broken by protesters in 2020 and they stole his watch and perfume.

    Considering that CSTO’s priority seems to be to prevent against internal stability, rather than external enemies, perhaps it’s not really so ironic for Pashinyan. Who can say, he might need to call for the CSTO to protect his perfume next time.

    • Agree: Aedib
  323. @Pericles
    @Mikel


    In general, the aspiration to become like Scandinavians is incredibly widespread around the world. I remember Spanish politicians also promising to implement policies based on the Swedish model. For some reason, people in poorer countries seldom think about emulating Hong-Kong, Taiwan or Singapore in order to achieve higher levels of income. Redistributing wealth is much more popular than increasing it.

     

    Ironically enough, this redistributionist image of Sweden, at least, is built on the failed model of Olof Palme. Sweden had roughly a century of strong growth, from the 1850s -- when the country switched from fruitless wars to industrialization -- to the 1960s, where the taxes were low (20% of GDP) and the state worked to help Swedish companies industrialize and export. Then taxes skyrocketed (deliberately), the growth curve was broken and ...

    http://eh.net/encyclopedia-graphics/schon.sweden.figure1.png

    Swedish GDP per Capita in Relation to World GDP per Capita, 1870-2004
    (Nine year moving averages)

    The slow down in Swedish growth from the 1970s may be considered in this perspective. While in most other countries growth from the 1970s fell only in relation to growth rates in the golden post-war ages, Swedish growth fell clearly below the historical long run growth trend. It also fell to a very low level internationally. The 1970s certainly meant the end to a number of successful growth trajectories in the industrial society. At the same time new growth forces appeared with the electronic revolution, as well as with the advance of a more service based economy. It may be the case that this structural change hit the Swedish economy harder than most other economies, at least of the industrial capitalist economies. Sweden was forced into a transformation of its industrial economy and of its political economy in the 1970s and the 1980s that was more profound than in most other Western economies.

     

    https://eh.net/encyclopedia/sweden-economic-growth-and-structural-change-1800-2000/

    Note that Palme also encouraged a lot of strange ties to the third world, a contributing reason to why he's so respected there. But his socialistic experiment was basically what broke Sweden as an economic success story. There has been a lot of struggling to get out of that, and for whatever reason we haven't resumed the high growth path even today.

    Replies: @Thulean Friend, @silviosilver, @Mikel, @Emil Nikola Richard

    Your comment is an example of an old saying: most people’s economic preferences are ideological preferences. It is certainly true that growth in Sweden slowed down in the 1970s, but to draw a monocausal relationship to taxes is childish.

    It’s been some time since I read this history, but I recall that a major problem in the 1970s was that we used to have a significant shipping industry which was butchered by cheap Korean competition in the 1970s. Kockums still do decent high-end stuff, but not on the scale as they used to. Finland got battered badly as Nokia & their paper industry got hammered in the post-2008 crisis. Sometimes some countries get hit disproportionately since they are overexposed in some sectors.

    At any rate, the biggest crisis in modern Swedish history – even bigger than the 2008 crash – was the financial crisis of the early 1990s. That was driven by rampant neoliberalism and deregulation. Ironically, the initial steps were taken by the Social Democrats who nevertheless started to abandon their own legacy.

    FWIW, Denmark has among the highest tax-to-GDP ratio in the world, and higher than Sweden’s, yet is wealthier. It’s almost as if prosperity is driven by far more fundamental things than taxes. People shouldn’t confuse empiricism with personal preferences.

    • Replies: @Pericles
    @Thulean Friend

    You can see the financial crisis of the 90s in the provided graph too. Did you experience the days of 300%+ interest rates yourself?

    The Palme years, apart from shocking raises on tax rates, also introduced the diabolical "Löntagarfonder", where public companies had to pay an extra tax which then was used for these government funds buying shares in them. (I don't think this involved private companies too, but I'm not sure.) This would mean the owners would have to pay for their own companies being socialized. It was a pretty universally hated measure, didn't really and were soon wound down in the 1990s. Do you recall the famous written doggerel of the minister of finance when they were getting started?

    The 70s was also a period when entrepreneurs and elites were migrating out of the country en masse due to the aggression and greed of Skatteverket (IRS). IKEA is the most famous example, but you also have many companies that were started and owned from abroad, like Stenbeck's Kinnevik holding company. Many individuals moved to London, made their tax-free nut and (sometimes) returned, like Penser, Lundbäck and many others less famous. So in this respect, Palme and the Social-Democrats contributed to a globalized thinking in these classes. But not to Swedish welfare. As we know, Sweden has long had a problem with generating large companies.

    The Swedish ship building industry had gotten a tiny problem of soaring labor costs, due to those raised taxes. Difficult to match the low-cost Koreans then. But we took those experiences and told ourselves we would instead only work with ever higher levels of the value chain. This led to the half-digested ideas of "kunskapssamhället", the knowledge society, where we would outsource the lower parts of the value chain to India and China while reaping the high-level rewards ourselves. Didn't really work, unless you count as a success being an e-commerce middle man selling crap manufactured in the aforementioned two countries.

    Replies: @Thulean Friend

  324. @Emil Nikola Richard
    @AP


    There was no mass looting in Ukraine, it was more purely political in nature; there appears to be mass looting in Kazakhstan
     
    Maybe after the mass publicity of the BLM looters we have passed a milestone where all future domestic unrest anywhere anytime is going to have looting as a sideshow. It appeared to me that was new. It was widely mocked but people with authority were calling it mostly peaceful and House Speaker Pelosi was washing looters' feet and begging forgiveness. If there is any historical precedent for that I would be interested to learn it.

    Replies: @A123

    Maybe after the mass publicity of the BLM looters we have passed a milestone where all future domestic unrest anywhere anytime is going to have looting as a sideshow

    Looting & other types of misbehaviour are not unusual when law enforcement is unavailable or out matched. Look at the riots and car burnings experienced in “no-go” areas of France.

    The newness from recent U.S. events is local authorities *chosing* to intentionally allow the problems. Defund the Police, minimum \$1,000 to prosecute shoplifting, and other obvious malfeasance by George IslamoSoros’s hand picked DA’s.

    As long as the #NeverTrump crazies inflict damage on themselves and their communities, that is their choice. However, there has to be a solution that contains dystopian Leftoids. That solution is Chuck Norris Kyle Rittenhouse.

    PEACE 🤔 …. Through superior firepower 😇

  325. @songbird
    Did Chinese netizens nip Africanization in the bud, when they rejected the Three Squirrels advertisement with model Cai NiangNiang for having thick lips?

    (BTW, I agree with their rejection, as she has an ugly tattoo on her arm)

    https://www.globaltimes.cn/page/202112/1243536.shtml

    Replies: @Thulean Friend

    I thought the controversy centered around her thin eyes rather than her supposed thick lips?

    “I was born with eyes like that. They are even smaller in real life. Does that mean I should not be a model because I was born with small eyes?” the model involved posted on her Weibo account under the name Cainiangniang. “I am all for patriotism… but this is kind of morbid,” she added, calling on netizens to be reasonable.

    The image of “slanted eyes” and a “braid” comes from Western stereotypes of the Chinese in the 19th century, according to Zhu. It is not an objective description of the features of the Chinese people but a Western “label” for East Asians based on their sense of ideological superiority, Zhu said.

    Some voices from social media regard the advertisement as typical “orientalism,” with many artistic elements derived from Western stereotypes, which are based on the imagination of Westerners.

    “We do not blame the models themselves, we blame those companies which still insist on making promotions by using images that might offend Chinese to gain internet popularity or for catering to Western stereotypes about Asian people,” Zhu said, “A responsible brand should not do this.”

    It’s hard not to come away with the impression that Chinese people still carry an inferiority complex. As the model explained, she has even smaller eyes in real life than the ad portrayed it as. If a people is self-confident they wouldn’t obsess with how they are portrayed by Westerners, or try to shame innocent women for being born they way they are.

    It seems to be a problem in many other Asian countries. Korea is known for many women surgically making their eyes more oval and bigger, and changing their jaw lines. It’s sad.

    • Replies: @songbird
    @Thulean Friend


    I thought the controversy centered around her thin eyes rather than her supposed thick lips?
     
    Yes, I was being a bit facetious. I don't really get it, but wonder if it has something to do with American social contagion. ("stereotype") Many Chinese go to American universities - though they usually pursue technical tracks, and not the social sciences.

    With some luck, even some American cities will slowly start turning
     
    Within my local area, many millions have been spent re-engineering the streets, over the past few years, to make them more bicycle friendly. Don't know if it really makes a lot of sense. There's only so much you can do, and the secondary streets are basically too narrow for anything, short of the place being nuked.

    Another pretty big constraint is White Flight. Coming soon to Europe, I think.

    Replies: @silviosilver, @Dmitry

  326. @songbird
    TF's antagonism towards cars is very understandable, if one supposes that he comes from Mumbai.

    Replies: @Thulean Friend

    TF’s antagonism towards cars is very understandable, if one supposes that he comes from Mumbai.

    I do not understand the fetishism that so many Americans have towards cars. Perhaps it is because so many of your cities were designed around cars, so another world does not seem possible.

    Moreover, I think you underestimate the sentiment in Europe, which is moving in my direction and not in yours. With some luck, even some American cities will slowly start turning towards a more prosperous future.

    • Replies: @A123
    @Thulean Friend


    I do not understand the fetishism that so many Americans have towards cars.

     

    Americans do not understand the delusional, unearned faith in central government that leads to th European "public transit" fetish.

    Perhaps it is because so many of your cities were designed around $10+/gal gasoline. A world with individually owned trucks must seem unaffordable.

    With some luck, even some American cities will slowly start turning towards a more prosperous future.
     
    The first step towards prosperity is jettisoning absurd solar and wind for electricity scams. The next step is discarding "public transit" debacles, such as high speed rail in California.

     
    https://static01.nyt.com/images/2019/02/20/us/20dc-trumprail-hp-promo/20dc-trumprail-hp-promo-videoSixteenByNineJumbo1600.jpg
     

    A rail bridge to nowhere. Not unprecedented, but certainly af financial failure .
    ____

    The huge gains from " remote work" will move business and tax revenue from Blue downtowns to Red suburbs. Underfunded, debt laden "public transit" systems will crush cities that were foolish.

    PEACE 😇
    , @AP
    @Thulean Friend


    I do not understand the fetishism that so many Americans have towards cars. Perhaps it is because so many of your cities were designed around cars, so another world does not seem possible.
     
    Dense large cities are better without cars, but most Americans prefer not to live in dense large cities but want their own yards, houses, etc. In suburban or rural areas cars are much more convenient.
    , @Dmitry
    @Thulean Friend

    Sure, pedestrianization level is one of the main things which determines if a city is enjoyable, or unpleasant for the senses.

    A city can have beautiful architecture, but if full of cars, pollution and noise, it's not like many people can enjoy it.

    But you can't say this is a specifically American disaster, as most of the cities in Europe were raped by the automobile in the 20th century.

    Have you watched Jacques Tati's films?

    Tati is born in 1907, so Paris of his youth was still before the Paris we know which is flooded with cars.

    And just his sarcastic humor of when his city was flooded by cars in the 1950s/1960s.

    https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=7bTLoBpw0Eo


    underestimate the sentiment in Europe,

     

    Probably in the 2030s, the situation will be improving, and reclaiming the beauty of the European city again. More electric cars will hopefully help by reducing the noise pollution level, as ride sharing and creating no-car zones.

    Lockdowns of 2020 during coronavirus pandemic, were (although sad to say considering how many people were dying), when the cities became the most beautiful they have been for around a century.

    Suddenly, few cars, few people, no tourists, and it was walking through a utopian paradise compared to the normally polluted, noisy cities of Europe.

  327. The ongoing Kazakh crisis has become a new example of destabilizing efforts of particular global players in the region. In the previous years, the Kazakh leadership tried to provide a ‘balanced foreign policy’ including advances with the US-led globalist bloc as well as the allowance of work of various ‘humanitarian and business organizations’, including the Turkish ones, in the country. Even this slight shift towards the US-led ‘democratic world’ created enough conditions for the gloomy prospects of ‘foreign-sponsored democratic transition’ that we currently see in Kazakhstan. In this situation, the Russian-led CSTO and Russia itself are the only de-facto allies of the country that are interested and ready to act to help the Kazakh leadership to repel the ongoing terrorist aggression.

    https://southfront.org/blood-and-chaos-in-kazakhstan-pro-globalist-forces-once-again-show-their-real-face/

  328. @Thulean Friend
    @Pericles

    Your comment is an example of an old saying: most people's economic preferences are ideological preferences. It is certainly true that growth in Sweden slowed down in the 1970s, but to draw a monocausal relationship to taxes is childish.

    It's been some time since I read this history, but I recall that a major problem in the 1970s was that we used to have a significant shipping industry which was butchered by cheap Korean competition in the 1970s. Kockums still do decent high-end stuff, but not on the scale as they used to. Finland got battered badly as Nokia & their paper industry got hammered in the post-2008 crisis. Sometimes some countries get hit disproportionately since they are overexposed in some sectors.

    At any rate, the biggest crisis in modern Swedish history - even bigger than the 2008 crash - was the financial crisis of the early 1990s. That was driven by rampant neoliberalism and deregulation. Ironically, the initial steps were taken by the Social Democrats who nevertheless started to abandon their own legacy.

    FWIW, Denmark has among the highest tax-to-GDP ratio in the world, and higher than Sweden's, yet is wealthier. It's almost as if prosperity is driven by far more fundamental things than taxes. People shouldn't confuse empiricism with personal preferences.

    Replies: @Pericles

    You can see the financial crisis of the 90s in the provided graph too. Did you experience the days of 300%+ interest rates yourself?

    The Palme years, apart from shocking raises on tax rates, also introduced the diabolical “Löntagarfonder”, where public companies had to pay an extra tax which then was used for these government funds buying shares in them. (I don’t think this involved private companies too, but I’m not sure.) This would mean the owners would have to pay for their own companies being socialized. It was a pretty universally hated measure, didn’t really and were soon wound down in the 1990s. Do you recall the famous written doggerel of the minister of finance when they were getting started?

    The 70s was also a period when entrepreneurs and elites were migrating out of the country en masse due to the aggression and greed of Skatteverket (IRS). IKEA is the most famous example, but you also have many companies that were started and owned from abroad, like Stenbeck’s Kinnevik holding company. Many individuals moved to London, made their tax-free nut and (sometimes) returned, like Penser, Lundbäck and many others less famous. So in this respect, Palme and the Social-Democrats contributed to a globalized thinking in these classes. But not to Swedish welfare. As we know, Sweden has long had a problem with generating large companies.

    The Swedish ship building industry had gotten a tiny problem of soaring labor costs, due to those raised taxes. Difficult to match the low-cost Koreans then. But we took those experiences and told ourselves we would instead only work with ever higher levels of the value chain. This led to the half-digested ideas of “kunskapssamhället”, the knowledge society, where we would outsource the lower parts of the value chain to India and China while reaping the high-level rewards ourselves. Didn’t really work, unless you count as a success being an e-commerce middle man selling crap manufactured in the aforementioned two countries.

    • Replies: @Thulean Friend
    @Pericles


    The Palme years, apart from shocking raises on tax rates, also introduced the diabolical “Löntagarfonder”, where public companies had to pay an extra tax which then was used for these government funds buying shares in them. (I don’t think this involved private companies too, but I’m not sure.) This would mean the owners would have to pay for their own companies being socialized. It was a pretty universally hated measure, didn’t really and were soon wound down in the 1990s. Do you recall the famous written doggerel of the minister of finance when they were getting started?
     
    I remember reading about the debate of Löntagarfonder. They were withdrawn in the face of immense elite pressure. "Universally hated" is simply not accurate. The idea certainly had a base of support among the workers, but there was gigantic pressure to rescind them, including from the private media (which is owned by major corporations).

    The Social Democrats have often fielded right-leaning finance ministers. Göran Persson belong to the right flank of his party and he was FM before he was PM. The current PM was FM and she, too, has pursued a fiscally conservative policy. So given this long pattern, it isn't surprising to me that the FM at the time was hostile. That's part and parcel of the Social Democrats long history, they've always tried to mollify big business. Palme was a genuine socialist and paid for it with his life.


    The 70s was also a period when entrepreneurs and elites were migrating out of the country en masse due to the aggression and greed of Skatteverket (IRS)
     
    Translation: the offshore tax "industry" took off all over the world and Sweden was no exception. You are describing global phenomena as if they were uniquely Swedish when it was simply a global trend. IIRC, Italy's communist became the single largest party in their parliament during the early 1970s.

    I recall reading about "p5" or some similar-sounding group in a book about the Sicilian mafia. Major Italian industrialists formed secret societies which worked very hard to undermine communists. Andreotti played both sides. I wouldn't be surprised if similar groupings took off in Sweden.


    As we know, Sweden has long had a problem with generating large companies.
     
    This is a problem in Europe in general, look at Germany. I've had this debate before. Basically, it was possible to create global giants when the global economy only consisted of USA+Western Europe. The Anglo offshoots were too small, Eastern Europe didn't exist as independent countries for the most part and the East Asians weren't even in the game.

    Since the 1950s, the world has gotten bigger and the amount of rich countries far more numerous. Europe has failed to federalise, which has meant low returns to scale. This is also related to why there aren't many big tech companies in Europe. The domestic market is too fragmented, especially in services. This has nothing to do with taxes.


    The Swedish ship building industry had gotten a tiny problem of soaring labor costs, due to those raised taxes. Difficult to match the low-cost Koreans then. But we took those experiences and told ourselves we would instead only work with ever higher levels of the value chain.
     
    A lot of things to respond to here. First, the Swedish shipping industry got out-competed for structural reasons. Nothing to do with taxes. We have to remember that our country sailed through WWII virutally unscathed. If I recall correctly, we were among the richest five countries in the mid-1960s and that was never going to realistically last. Today, the richest countries tend to be entrepôts like Singapore, tax havens like Ireland/Switzerland or oil states like Qatar. A geographically large country like Sweden with a significant industrial base was never going to be a serious contender.

    Super-cheap competitors like Korea would have destroyed the Swedish shipping industry simply because a lot of it was still mass manufacturing, where Korean low labour costs could never have been countered by low Swedish taxes. We're talking about a five-fold or more difference in wages. You're living in la-la land if you think we had a shot. It was going to happen, regardless of taxation levels.

    Second, the 1970s was a period of stagnation for most of the world economy. Ask Americans and the word "staglation" comes up fast. The UK even went to the IMF (!!!), as their economic crisis was far worse than ours. The 1970s, then, was a global period of cooling off.

    The early 1990s crisis was homegrown, and it was due to neoliberalism and deregulation. An unforced error.


    This led to the half-digested ideas of “kunskapssamhället”, the knowledge society, where we would outsource the lower parts of the value chain to India and China while reaping the high-level rewards ourselves. Didn’t really work, unless you count as a success being an e-commerce middle man selling crap manufactured in the aforementioned two countries.
     
    Last I looked, Indian per capita GDP is ~25X lower than Sweden. I don't think you understand basic economics if you think our two countries are even competing in the same sphere. China's wages are closer to ~5X lower. I am skeptical they will ever reach our level of wealth.

    That said, I am somewhat sympathetic to the idea that premature and self-imposed de-industrialisation was an error that could have been avoided in the West. Ha-Joon chang writes a lot about this, given that the UK went the furthest in abandoning its industrial base in favour of a service economy. Germany did not, and reaped the rewards.

    Nevertheless, the idea that low-value add manufacturing can forever be produced in rich countries due to low taxes is, frankly, stupid. Countries don't get rich by doing that. Textile manufacturing - unless it is high-end exports like Prada - is never going to be viable. The same is true within industries like the aforementioned shipping industry. Why did the call centers move to India? Cheap labour costs. Low taxes has nothing to do with it, since the labour arbitrage differential is too extreme to be bridged, even if you put taxation at 0%.

    I think this idea that the West could have kept all the low-end manufacturing forever is a major fantasy that we see in the right-wing today, among Trumpers in the USA and republicans more generally. I wish more people read trade economists. At any rate, the most significant force in all of this is technology and that's a secular trend that no taxation level can overcome. That having been said, the fatalism of the UK isn't wise either. I tend to think highly of Germany, and they adapted to the new world by offshoring their low-end stuff to Eastern Europe while keeping the high value-add for themselves pretty successfully.

    In a way, for Germany, Eastern Europe was their China. You can read more here:

    https://voxeu.org/article/china-shock-why-germany-different

    As for "kunskapssamhället", I think a bigger problem has been the destruction of the Swedish school system. When I was growing up (late 90s and early 2000s), it wasn't uncommong to have teachers who didn't even have an education as such. I even had a literal bouncer (!) as a stand-in for several months. There was also a de-emphasis on grading and useless fluff like "self-learning". Ask any Swedish professor and they will tell you about the declining standards in things like basic math.

    I supported the recent educational reforms under Björklund, but it will be many years before we see the fruits of that. One should also keep in mind that the demographic mix has changed, so it becomes harder to keep comparisons with the past consistent. Low educational standards and poor immigration policies are the two main barriers to further Swedish success. Not taxation.

    Replies: @Yellowface Anon

  329. @Thulean Friend
    @songbird


    TF’s antagonism towards cars is very understandable, if one supposes that he comes from Mumbai.
     
    I do not understand the fetishism that so many Americans have towards cars. Perhaps it is because so many of your cities were designed around cars, so another world does not seem possible.

    https://i.imgur.com/4rfVkQb.jpg

    Moreover, I think you underestimate the sentiment in Europe, which is moving in my direction and not in yours. With some luck, even some American cities will slowly start turning towards a more prosperous future.

    https://twitter.com/johnbauters/status/1477734442009444354

    Replies: @A123, @AP, @Dmitry

    I do not understand the fetishism that so many Americans have towards cars.

    Americans do not understand the delusional, unearned faith in central government that leads to th European “public transit” fetish.

    Perhaps it is because so many of your cities were designed around \$10+/gal gasoline. A world with individually owned trucks must seem unaffordable.

    With some luck, even some American cities will slowly start turning towards a more prosperous future.

    The first step towards prosperity is jettisoning absurd solar and wind for electricity scams. The next step is discarding “public transit” debacles, such as high speed rail in California.

     

     

    A rail bridge to nowhere. Not unprecedented, but certainly af financial failure .
    ____

    The huge gains from ” remote work” will move business and tax revenue from Blue downtowns to Red suburbs. Underfunded, debt laden “public transit” systems will crush cities that were foolish.

    PEACE 😇

  330. @Thulean Friend
    @songbird


    TF’s antagonism towards cars is very understandable, if one supposes that he comes from Mumbai.
     
    I do not understand the fetishism that so many Americans have towards cars. Perhaps it is because so many of your cities were designed around cars, so another world does not seem possible.

    https://i.imgur.com/4rfVkQb.jpg

    Moreover, I think you underestimate the sentiment in Europe, which is moving in my direction and not in yours. With some luck, even some American cities will slowly start turning towards a more prosperous future.

    https://twitter.com/johnbauters/status/1477734442009444354

    Replies: @A123, @AP, @Dmitry

    I do not understand the fetishism that so many Americans have towards cars. Perhaps it is because so many of your cities were designed around cars, so another world does not seem possible.

    Dense large cities are better without cars, but most Americans prefer not to live in dense large cities but want their own yards, houses, etc. In suburban or rural areas cars are much more convenient.

  331. @Pericles
    @Mikel


    In general, the aspiration to become like Scandinavians is incredibly widespread around the world. I remember Spanish politicians also promising to implement policies based on the Swedish model. For some reason, people in poorer countries seldom think about emulating Hong-Kong, Taiwan or Singapore in order to achieve higher levels of income. Redistributing wealth is much more popular than increasing it.

     

    Ironically enough, this redistributionist image of Sweden, at least, is built on the failed model of Olof Palme. Sweden had roughly a century of strong growth, from the 1850s -- when the country switched from fruitless wars to industrialization -- to the 1960s, where the taxes were low (20% of GDP) and the state worked to help Swedish companies industrialize and export. Then taxes skyrocketed (deliberately), the growth curve was broken and ...

    http://eh.net/encyclopedia-graphics/schon.sweden.figure1.png

    Swedish GDP per Capita in Relation to World GDP per Capita, 1870-2004
    (Nine year moving averages)

    The slow down in Swedish growth from the 1970s may be considered in this perspective. While in most other countries growth from the 1970s fell only in relation to growth rates in the golden post-war ages, Swedish growth fell clearly below the historical long run growth trend. It also fell to a very low level internationally. The 1970s certainly meant the end to a number of successful growth trajectories in the industrial society. At the same time new growth forces appeared with the electronic revolution, as well as with the advance of a more service based economy. It may be the case that this structural change hit the Swedish economy harder than most other economies, at least of the industrial capitalist economies. Sweden was forced into a transformation of its industrial economy and of its political economy in the 1970s and the 1980s that was more profound than in most other Western economies.

     

    https://eh.net/encyclopedia/sweden-economic-growth-and-structural-change-1800-2000/

    Note that Palme also encouraged a lot of strange ties to the third world, a contributing reason to why he's so respected there. But his socialistic experiment was basically what broke Sweden as an economic success story. There has been a lot of struggling to get out of that, and for whatever reason we haven't resumed the high growth path even today.

    Replies: @Thulean Friend, @silviosilver, @Mikel, @Emil Nikola Richard

    Swedish GDP per Capita in Relation to World GDP per Capita, 1870-2004

    Although I agree with the overall point of the article, that is an absurdly tendentious metric. With the leading developing economies growing at breakneck speed, that graph would depict a “slowdown” even if Sweden had continued to grow at the same pace as the 50s and 60s. But it’s hard to see why China’s growth rate in its catch-up phase should have any bearing on Swedish policy decisions.

  332. @Pericles
    @Mikel


    In general, the aspiration to become like Scandinavians is incredibly widespread around the world. I remember Spanish politicians also promising to implement policies based on the Swedish model. For some reason, people in poorer countries seldom think about emulating Hong-Kong, Taiwan or Singapore in order to achieve higher levels of income. Redistributing wealth is much more popular than increasing it.

     

    Ironically enough, this redistributionist image of Sweden, at least, is built on the failed model of Olof Palme. Sweden had roughly a century of strong growth, from the 1850s -- when the country switched from fruitless wars to industrialization -- to the 1960s, where the taxes were low (20% of GDP) and the state worked to help Swedish companies industrialize and export. Then taxes skyrocketed (deliberately), the growth curve was broken and ...

    http://eh.net/encyclopedia-graphics/schon.sweden.figure1.png

    Swedish GDP per Capita in Relation to World GDP per Capita, 1870-2004
    (Nine year moving averages)

    The slow down in Swedish growth from the 1970s may be considered in this perspective. While in most other countries growth from the 1970s fell only in relation to growth rates in the golden post-war ages, Swedish growth fell clearly below the historical long run growth trend. It also fell to a very low level internationally. The 1970s certainly meant the end to a number of successful growth trajectories in the industrial society. At the same time new growth forces appeared with the electronic revolution, as well as with the advance of a more service based economy. It may be the case that this structural change hit the Swedish economy harder than most other economies, at least of the industrial capitalist economies. Sweden was forced into a transformation of its industrial economy and of its political economy in the 1970s and the 1980s that was more profound than in most other Western economies.

     

    https://eh.net/encyclopedia/sweden-economic-growth-and-structural-change-1800-2000/

    Note that Palme also encouraged a lot of strange ties to the third world, a contributing reason to why he's so respected there. But his socialistic experiment was basically what broke Sweden as an economic success story. There has been a lot of struggling to get out of that, and for whatever reason we haven't resumed the high growth path even today.

    Replies: @Thulean Friend, @silviosilver, @Mikel, @Emil Nikola Richard

    Yes, I remember the pro-market reforms in Sweden when the Scandinavian model showed signs of exhaustion in a liberalizing global economy. In the 90s I met a Swedish guy working in Scotland who told me about a 20%+ unemployment rate in his Gothenburg area.

    But you guys have managed to maintain some of the world’s highest per-capita incomes along with a generous welfare state and stable societies. It is little wonder that social-democrats of all countries look up to you.

    The EU open labor market, by the way, has disproportionately benefited eastern and southern European countries but it has also been an escape valve in times of distress for the wealthier northern ones, such as Germany during the reunification process and Sweden when unemployment increased, with the UK always bearing the brunt of the continental labor market dysfunctions. Little surprise that they eventually got tired of that role.

    • Replies: @mal
    @Mikel


    But you guys have managed to maintain some of the world’s highest per-capita incomes along with a generous welfare state and stable societies. It is little wonder that social-democrats of all countries look up to you.
     
    Both countries appear to operate substantial banking/financial cartels so it's no surprise.

    Sweden total debt to GDP ratio: 823%
    https://www.ceicdata.com/en/indicator/sweden/total-debt--of-gdp

    Denmark total debt to GDP ratio: 857%
    https://www.ceicdata.com/en/indicator/denmark/total-debt--of-gdp

    However, Denmark typically runs ~900% debt to GDP ratio and Sweden ~700% so higher GDP/capita in Denmark would be reasonable.

    Both countries have low and similar government debt, so that's not a factor. Both countries are entirely powered by neoliberalism - private sector credit, and that model is exhausted, hence no growth in either country since 2008 - the last year of neoliberlism.

    Private non-financial credit Sweden - 274% GDP
    https://fred.stlouisfed.org/series/QSEPAM770A

    Private non-financial credit Denmark - 237% GDP
    https://fred.stlouisfed.org/series/QDKPAM770A

    Something like 500% GDP is international banking activity and maybe corporate registrations, who knows. This is what drives high incomes in those countries. But they don't really own the banks so they suck.

    Sweden GDP 2008 - $518 billion USD nominal. Sweden GDP 2020 - $538 billion USD nominal.
    Denmark GDP 2008 - $353 billion USD nominal. Denmark GDP 2020 - $355 billion USD.

    And that's with private sector debt pushing 250% GDP! Those countries are dead as far as growth is concerned.

    For reference, another fairly neoliberal country, Russia, had to eat a nominal USD GDP decline from ~$1.66 trillion to about ~$1.5 trillion during the same time period of 2008-2020 due to commodity price decline, but they did it with private sector credit base of only 105% GDP and no international banking due to sanctions.
    https://fred.stlouisfed.org/series/QRUPAM770A

    For another reference, it looks like Zimbabwe private sector debt spiked at around 80% around 2003...
    https://tradingeconomics.com/zimbabwe/domestic-credit-to-private-sector-percent-of-gdp-wb-data.html

    Just when Cargill Corporation was printing fake currency.

    . (SBU) Repeatedly, we marvel at the private sector's
    ingenuity in coping with Zimbabwe's peculiar challenges -
    in this case, an economy sans banknotes. Thanks to its
    scrip, Cargill perseveres. In fact, execs quietly
    concede the firm is making a killing on the "float,"
    putting off actual payment until scrip is cashed in.
    With bank lines blocks long, few recipients go that
    route. When scrip finally does trickle in, Zimbabwe's
    365-percent inflation will have reduced its value - and
    Cargill's payout - precipitously. That makes monopoly
    money even better business than cotton in this oddball
    economy.

     

    https://www.scoop.co.nz/stories/WL0308/S00142/cablegate-cargill-makes-bootleg-currency.htm

    Same thing happened in Russia in the 1990's.

    Anyway, Zimbabwe debt to GDP is 71% for government, and like 120% GDP total.

    The $11 billion that Zimbabwe owes to foreign lenders amounts to about 71 percent of the country's GDP. Some $6.5 billion of the total is payments that are in arrears.
     
    https://www.france24.com/en/live-news/20210912-seeking-to-change-deadbeat-image-zimbabwe-pays-debt

    Compared to 250-900% Debt to GDP ratios for Scandinavia, that's nothing.

    This illustrates the amazing power of neoliberlism (private sector credit) to lift people out of poverty. But it also shows how dead that model has been since 2008. Just some food for thought.

    Anyway, i wish Sweden and Denmark best of luck in the future. Would be a shame if something happened to their banking sector.

    Replies: @Mikel

  333. @Thulean Friend
    @songbird

    I thought the controversy centered around her thin eyes rather than her supposed thick lips?


    "I was born with eyes like that. They are even smaller in real life. Does that mean I should not be a model because I was born with small eyes?" the model involved posted on her Weibo account under the name Cainiangniang. "I am all for patriotism… but this is kind of morbid," she added, calling on netizens to be reasonable.

    The image of "slanted eyes" and a "braid" comes from Western stereotypes of the Chinese in the 19th century, according to Zhu. It is not an objective description of the features of the Chinese people but a Western "label" for East Asians based on their sense of ideological superiority, Zhu said.

    Some voices from social media regard the advertisement as typical "orientalism," with many artistic elements derived from Western stereotypes, which are based on the imagination of Westerners.

    "We do not blame the models themselves, we blame those companies which still insist on making promotions by using images that might offend Chinese to gain internet popularity or for catering to Western stereotypes about Asian people," Zhu said, "A responsible brand should not do this."
     

    It's hard not to come away with the impression that Chinese people still carry an inferiority complex. As the model explained, she has even smaller eyes in real life than the ad portrayed it as. If a people is self-confident they wouldn't obsess with how they are portrayed by Westerners, or try to shame innocent women for being born they way they are.

    It seems to be a problem in many other Asian countries. Korea is known for many women surgically making their eyes more oval and bigger, and changing their jaw lines. It's sad.

    Replies: @songbird

    I thought the controversy centered around her thin eyes rather than her supposed thick lips?

    Yes, I was being a bit facetious. I don’t really get it, but wonder if it has something to do with American social contagion. (“stereotype”) Many Chinese go to American universities – though they usually pursue technical tracks, and not the social sciences.

    With some luck, even some American cities will slowly start turning

    Within my local area, many millions have been spent re-engineering the streets, over the past few years, to make them more bicycle friendly. Don’t know if it really makes a lot of sense. There’s only so much you can do, and the secondary streets are basically too narrow for anything, short of the place being nuked.

    Another pretty big constraint is White Flight. Coming soon to Europe, I think.

    • Replies: @silviosilver
    @songbird


    Many Chinese go to American universities – though they usually pursue technical tracks, and not the social sciences.
     
    They are not fools, they are a people on the make. Forking out $100k to have their heads filled with fake knowledge is not going to help them get ahead. That is the province of white libtards who can afford (or so they think) to indulge in luxury beliefs, and affirmative action negroids whose interests are directly advanced by it.

    Another pretty big constraint is White Flight. Coming soon to Europe, I think.
     
    That is thulean fag's blind spot. In America, public transportation and city living means sharing close quarters with sullen, intersectional, white-hating negroids, and plenty of them. So few whites find that prospect appealing that white flight can be seen from the moon.

    Replies: @songbird, @Dmitry, @Thulean Friend

    , @Dmitry
    @songbird


    White Flight. Coming soon to Europe
     
    In Europe, it's like the poor (non-elite) immigrants go to areas which are already not-fashionable.

    Although which areas are not-fashionable varies by country. In Spanish cities, it's often in the historical center, where housing is aesthetically beautiful, but not convenient.

    Whereas in France, it is banlieues outside of the city.

    In Russia, where the internal immigration is even larger than the external immigration, immigrants can flood into the same areas, as the internal immigrants. (For Russian readers, journalists complain about how multicultural the area of Moscow AK lives is becoming https://moskvichmag.ru/gorod/odin-den-v-lyublino-zhizn-s-cherkizonom/ )


    -

    Also there is a reverse "white flight" when areas become fashionable in Europe, then the immigrant populations can be displaced by the wealthy hipsters.

    For example, in the traditional Bangladesh immigrant area of London, the upper class English people are immigrating. If you look at this area, there are not really many people from Bangladesh now, but you can see the evidence of the wealthy hipster invasion (graffiti, electric bicycles)

    https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=bewC7HPqUnc

    Meanwhile, Wikipedia writes about the area
    https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Brick_Lane

    Replies: @Dmitry, @songbird

  334. @songbird
    @Thulean Friend


    I thought the controversy centered around her thin eyes rather than her supposed thick lips?
     
    Yes, I was being a bit facetious. I don't really get it, but wonder if it has something to do with American social contagion. ("stereotype") Many Chinese go to American universities - though they usually pursue technical tracks, and not the social sciences.

    With some luck, even some American cities will slowly start turning
     
    Within my local area, many millions have been spent re-engineering the streets, over the past few years, to make them more bicycle friendly. Don't know if it really makes a lot of sense. There's only so much you can do, and the secondary streets are basically too narrow for anything, short of the place being nuked.

    Another pretty big constraint is White Flight. Coming soon to Europe, I think.

    Replies: @silviosilver, @Dmitry

    Many Chinese go to American universities – though they usually pursue technical tracks, and not the social sciences.

    They are not fools, they are a people on the make. Forking out \$100k to have their heads filled with fake knowledge is not going to help them get ahead. That is the province of white libtards who can afford (or so they think) to indulge in luxury beliefs, and affirmative action negroids whose interests are directly advanced by it.

    Another pretty big constraint is White Flight. Coming soon to Europe, I think.

    That is thulean fag’s blind spot. In America, public transportation and city living means sharing close quarters with sullen, intersectional, white-hating negroids, and plenty of them. So few whites find that prospect appealing that white flight can be seen from the moon.

    • Agree: sher singh
    • Replies: @songbird
    @silviosilver

    Atlanta is definitely not a city that I would want to bicycle through.

    , @Dmitry
    @silviosilver


    not fools,
     
    There are different kinds of Chinese students though. You can see the hardworking immigrants and normal people, that study normal topics in university vs. children of China's political class that study more elite topics.

    Art and music schools in Western Europe, also flooded with more elite Chinese students. It's the same with postsoviet students, Nigerian students.

    But with the Chinese there are just also a flood of more socioeconomically normal students which are not from their political class. So you think Chinese students are more financially normal. Whereas postsoviet students don't have much of that component.


    province of white libtards who can afford (or so they think) to indulge in luxury beliefs

     

    Lol there is the reality of "social mobility" and "meritocracy" among the youth in certain bourgeois democracies. Of course, going to study gender theory in $100k universities, because in many of their cases, fees are like a small token, and they don't need technically skilled professions after they complete an education.

    A couple years ago in Europe, I remember looking at bicycle shops. Instead of a normal working man's shop, I looked at a student hipster bicycle shop.

    Bicycles in the hipster shop look like something old women use in the early 20th century. But prices were in a range of an annual doctor's salary in an medium income country.
    Bicycle seats (just the seat on the top of the bicycle) in the hipster shop, can cost a factory workers' weekly salary.

    -

    Looking now at those bicycle seats online, it's not like they are expensive for leather products (hipsters' leather bags can cost many times more than their bicycle seats). The culture shock, is just that the hipsters are buying leather bicycle seat.

    Did you ever think about the kind of vegetable tanned leather you want in your bicycle seat? What was wrong with the plastic one.
    https://i.imgur.com/5OZBLsW.jpg

    https://www.brooksengland.com/en_us/b17-special-titanium.html

    Replies: @Dmitry

    , @Thulean Friend
    @silviosilver


    In America, public transportation and city living means sharing close quarters with sullen, intersectional, white-hating negroids, and plenty of them. So few whites find that prospect appealing that white flight can be seen from the moon.
     
    Yet D.C. has gentrified and become much less black than in the 1970s. Cities like Atlanta have also become more white in recent years. Maybe whites in the US aren't as big pussies as you? :)

    As I noted, I recently moved to an immigrant-heavy neighbourhood that's seen as semi-rough (cars were burned here as late as a few years ago). Most of my neighbours are of non-European origin, however this is changing fast. I am probably part of a gentrification wave, but I never planned it. I picked this area because it was cheap for someone my age, I could get a big apartment while being decently close to the city center. Finally, I was tired of living in my parent's house in a middle-class area, where I'd be surrounded by carbon copies of myself.

    All of which is to say, many white people don't fear diversity. Crime levels have risen in Stockholm in recent years, in part due to failed past immigration policies, but that hasn't led to a major exodus. Some young are leaving as they get children due to expensive housing costs, but that's a separate debate. Housing costs are crazy all over the world, so it isn't a Swedish-exclusive issue. Just live with a partner who likes big cities, as I do, and the issue will resolve itself.

    It's time to stop hiding behind "diversity" as an excuse to continue destroying Western cities due to cancerous car-centric urban policies.

    Replies: @A123, @Dmitry, @silviosilver

  335. @silviosilver
    @songbird


    Many Chinese go to American universities – though they usually pursue technical tracks, and not the social sciences.
     
    They are not fools, they are a people on the make. Forking out $100k to have their heads filled with fake knowledge is not going to help them get ahead. That is the province of white libtards who can afford (or so they think) to indulge in luxury beliefs, and affirmative action negroids whose interests are directly advanced by it.

    Another pretty big constraint is White Flight. Coming soon to Europe, I think.
     
    That is thulean fag's blind spot. In America, public transportation and city living means sharing close quarters with sullen, intersectional, white-hating negroids, and plenty of them. So few whites find that prospect appealing that white flight can be seen from the moon.

    Replies: @songbird, @Dmitry, @Thulean Friend

    Atlanta is definitely not a city that I would want to bicycle through.

  336. @Pericles
    @Mikel


    In general, the aspiration to become like Scandinavians is incredibly widespread around the world. I remember Spanish politicians also promising to implement policies based on the Swedish model. For some reason, people in poorer countries seldom think about emulating Hong-Kong, Taiwan or Singapore in order to achieve higher levels of income. Redistributing wealth is much more popular than increasing it.

     

    Ironically enough, this redistributionist image of Sweden, at least, is built on the failed model of Olof Palme. Sweden had roughly a century of strong growth, from the 1850s -- when the country switched from fruitless wars to industrialization -- to the 1960s, where the taxes were low (20% of GDP) and the state worked to help Swedish companies industrialize and export. Then taxes skyrocketed (deliberately), the growth curve was broken and ...

    http://eh.net/encyclopedia-graphics/schon.sweden.figure1.png

    Swedish GDP per Capita in Relation to World GDP per Capita, 1870-2004
    (Nine year moving averages)

    The slow down in Swedish growth from the 1970s may be considered in this perspective. While in most other countries growth from the 1970s fell only in relation to growth rates in the golden post-war ages, Swedish growth fell clearly below the historical long run growth trend. It also fell to a very low level internationally. The 1970s certainly meant the end to a number of successful growth trajectories in the industrial society. At the same time new growth forces appeared with the electronic revolution, as well as with the advance of a more service based economy. It may be the case that this structural change hit the Swedish economy harder than most other economies, at least of the industrial capitalist economies. Sweden was forced into a transformation of its industrial economy and of its political economy in the 1970s and the 1980s that was more profound than in most other Western economies.

     

    https://eh.net/encyclopedia/sweden-economic-growth-and-structural-change-1800-2000/

    Note that Palme also encouraged a lot of strange ties to the third world, a contributing reason to why he's so respected there. But his socialistic experiment was basically what broke Sweden as an economic success story. There has been a lot of struggling to get out of that, and for whatever reason we haven't resumed the high growth path even today.

    Replies: @Thulean Friend, @silviosilver, @Mikel, @Emil Nikola Richard

    Palme was also murdered (unsolved as near as I can tell). In one of the George Knapp interviews of Tom Delonge, George got the confused Tom to say (it’s been awhile since I heard this so it is not verbatim but I will use quotation marks anyway):

    “if the CIA assassinated John Kennedy I’m sure they had a good reason.”

    Were there a lot of Swedes who had to fake their mourning ritual for Palme?

  337. @Thulean Friend
    @songbird


    TF’s antagonism towards cars is very understandable, if one supposes that he comes from Mumbai.
     
    I do not understand the fetishism that so many Americans have towards cars. Perhaps it is because so many of your cities were designed around cars, so another world does not seem possible.

    https://i.imgur.com/4rfVkQb.jpg

    Moreover, I think you underestimate the sentiment in Europe, which is moving in my direction and not in yours. With some luck, even some American cities will slowly start turning towards a more prosperous future.

    https://twitter.com/johnbauters/status/1477734442009444354

    Replies: @A123, @AP, @Dmitry

    Sure, pedestrianization level is one of the main things which determines if a city is enjoyable, or unpleasant for the senses.

    A city can have beautiful architecture, but if full of cars, pollution and noise, it’s not like many people can enjoy it.

    But you can’t say this is a specifically American disaster, as most of the cities in Europe were raped by the automobile in the 20th century.

    Have you watched Jacques Tati’s films?

    Tati is born in 1907, so Paris of his youth was still before the Paris we know which is flooded with cars.

    And just his sarcastic humor of when his city was flooded by cars in the 1950s/1960s.

    underestimate the sentiment in Europe,

    Probably in the 2030s, the situation will be improving, and reclaiming the beauty of the European city again. More electric cars will hopefully help by reducing the noise pollution level, as ride sharing and creating no-car zones.

    Lockdowns of 2020 during coronavirus pandemic, were (although sad to say considering how many people were dying), when the cities became the most beautiful they have been for around a century.

    Suddenly, few cars, few people, no tourists, and it was walking through a utopian paradise compared to the normally polluted, noisy cities of Europe.

  338. @Mikel
    @Pericles

    Yes, I remember the pro-market reforms in Sweden when the Scandinavian model showed signs of exhaustion in a liberalizing global economy. In the 90s I met a Swedish guy working in Scotland who told me about a 20%+ unemployment rate in his Gothenburg area.

    But you guys have managed to maintain some of the world's highest per-capita incomes along with a generous welfare state and stable societies. It is little wonder that social-democrats of all countries look up to you.

    The EU open labor market, by the way, has disproportionately benefited eastern and southern European countries but it has also been an escape valve in times of distress for the wealthier northern ones, such as Germany during the reunification process and Sweden when unemployment increased, with the UK always bearing the brunt of the continental labor market dysfunctions. Little surprise that they eventually got tired of that role.

    Replies: @mal

    But you guys have managed to maintain some of the world’s highest per-capita incomes along with a generous welfare state and stable societies. It is little wonder that social-democrats of all countries look up to you.

    Both countries appear to operate substantial banking/financial cartels so it’s no surprise.

    Sweden total debt to GDP ratio: 823%
    https://www.ceicdata.com/en/indicator/sweden/total-debt--of-gdp

    Denmark total debt to GDP ratio: 857%
    https://www.ceicdata.com/en/indicator/denmark/total-debt--of-gdp

    However, Denmark typically runs ~900% debt to GDP ratio and Sweden ~700% so higher GDP/capita in Denmark would be reasonable.

    Both countries have low and similar government debt, so that’s not a factor. Both countries are entirely powered by neoliberalism – private sector credit, and that model is exhausted, hence no growth in either country since 2008 – the last year of neoliberlism.

    Private non-financial credit Sweden – 274% GDP
    https://fred.stlouisfed.org/series/QSEPAM770A

    Private non-financial credit Denmark – 237% GDP
    https://fred.stlouisfed.org/series/QDKPAM770A

    Something like 500% GDP is international banking activity and maybe corporate registrations, who knows. This is what drives high incomes in those countries. But they don’t really own the banks so they suck.

    Sweden GDP 2008 – \$518 billion USD nominal. Sweden GDP 2020 – \$538 billion USD nominal.
    Denmark GDP 2008 – \$353 billion USD nominal. Denmark GDP 2020 – \$355 billion USD.

    And that’s with private sector debt pushing 250% GDP! Those countries are dead as far as growth is concerned.

    For reference, another fairly neoliberal country, Russia, had to eat a nominal USD GDP decline from ~\$1.66 trillion to about ~\$1.5 trillion during the same time period of 2008-2020 due to commodity price decline, but they did it with private sector credit base of only 105% GDP and no international banking due to sanctions.
    https://fred.stlouisfed.org/series/QRUPAM770A

    For another reference, it looks like Zimbabwe private sector debt spiked at around 80% around 2003…
    https://tradingeconomics.com/zimbabwe/domestic-credit-to-private-sector-percent-of-gdp-wb-data.html

    Just when Cargill Corporation was printing fake currency.

    . (SBU) Repeatedly, we marvel at the private sector’s
    ingenuity in coping with Zimbabwe’s peculiar challenges –
    in this case, an economy sans banknotes. Thanks to its
    scrip, Cargill perseveres. In fact, execs quietly
    concede the firm is making a killing on the “float,”
    putting off actual payment until scrip is cashed in.
    With bank lines blocks long, few recipients go that
    route. When scrip finally does trickle in, Zimbabwe’s
    365-percent inflation will have reduced its value – and
    Cargill’s payout – precipitously. That makes monopoly
    money even better business than cotton in this oddball
    economy.

    https://www.scoop.co.nz/stories/WL0308/S00142/cablegate-cargill-makes-bootleg-currency.htm

    Same thing happened in Russia in the 1990’s.

    Anyway, Zimbabwe debt to GDP is 71% for government, and like 120% GDP total.

    The \$11 billion that Zimbabwe owes to foreign lenders amounts to about 71 percent of the country’s GDP. Some \$6.5 billion of the total is payments that are in arrears.

    https://www.france24.com/en/live-news/20210912-seeking-to-change-deadbeat-image-zimbabwe-pays-debt

    Compared to 250-900% Debt to GDP ratios for Scandinavia, that’s nothing.

    This illustrates the amazing power of neoliberlism (private sector credit) to lift people out of poverty. But it also shows how dead that model has been since 2008. Just some food for thought.

    Anyway, i wish Sweden and Denmark best of luck in the future. Would be a shame if something happened to their banking sector.

    • Troll: Yevardian
    • Replies: @Mikel
    @mal

    Oh yes, your old magical recipes to make countries rich. Sadly, no one is telling your good news to poor countries in Africa and Latin America, that all they have to do to become like Scandinavia is accumulate massive debts and print unlimited amounts of money. Well, in Argentina they heard of that strategy a very long time ago but somehow it didn't work very well.

    Btw, I hope you are enjoying our finally reasonable inflation levels. Who doesn't like seeing his income reduced a 6% annually while his bank deposits are rewarded a -6% interest rate?

    Replies: @mal

  339. @songbird
    @Thulean Friend


    I thought the controversy centered around her thin eyes rather than her supposed thick lips?
     
    Yes, I was being a bit facetious. I don't really get it, but wonder if it has something to do with American social contagion. ("stereotype") Many Chinese go to American universities - though they usually pursue technical tracks, and not the social sciences.

    With some luck, even some American cities will slowly start turning
     
    Within my local area, many millions have been spent re-engineering the streets, over the past few years, to make them more bicycle friendly. Don't know if it really makes a lot of sense. There's only so much you can do, and the secondary streets are basically too narrow for anything, short of the place being nuked.

    Another pretty big constraint is White Flight. Coming soon to Europe, I think.

    Replies: @silviosilver, @Dmitry

    White Flight. Coming soon to Europe

    In Europe, it’s like the poor (non-elite) immigrants go to areas which are already not-fashionable.

    Although which areas are not-fashionable varies by country. In Spanish cities, it’s often in the historical center, where housing is aesthetically beautiful, but not convenient.

    Whereas in France, it is banlieues outside of the city.

    In Russia, where the internal immigration is even larger than the external immigration, immigrants can flood into the same areas, as the internal immigrants. (For Russian readers, journalists complain about how multicultural the area of Moscow AK lives is becoming https://moskvichmag.ru/gorod/odin-den-v-lyublino-zhizn-s-cherkizonom/ )

    Also there is a reverse “white flight” when areas become fashionable in Europe, then the immigrant populations can be displaced by the wealthy hipsters.

    For example, in the traditional Bangladesh immigrant area of London, the upper class English people are immigrating. If you look at this area, there are not really many people from Bangladesh now, but you can see the evidence of the wealthy hipster invasion (graffiti, electric bicycles)

    Meanwhile, Wikipedia writes about the area
    https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Brick_Lane

    • Replies: @Dmitry
    @Dmitry


    Meanwhile, Wikipedia writes about the area
    https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Brick_Lane
     
    BBC headline like there is a nationality specific genocide, although the BBC report it is more a process which removed the proletariat from other areas of London (something about an end of charity housing) than any specific "reverse white flight". Poor people of all colors will be eventually stripped from central places of the city.

    https://twitter.com/bbclondonnews/status/602374587825946624

    , @songbird
    @Dmitry


    Also there is a reverse “white flight” when areas become fashionable in Europe, then the immigrant populations can be displaced by the wealthy hipsters.
     
    Should still be considered as a demographic loss, as the people who move out (originally) are more likely to have families than the ones that move in.

    It is funny how this is portrayed in America, as whites conquering areas, when they were originally white to start with, only a few decades ago. I think in Europe they have tried to walk the line where they avoid giving it a racial angle, as it would be too grating.

    It is amazing to consider how impactful the Great Migration was on American society, but to realize that, if only in a technical sense, it was very geographically constrained. I consider pre-2000 migration into Europe a rough analogy - if not exactly the same, due to population differences.

    But looking around America now, I really get the sense that we are running out of space. The white areas today, would not have been considered white, by the old standards. With open borders, you just run out of room to manage and shuffle people, and I think that is also happening now in Europe.
  340. @Dmitry
    @songbird


    White Flight. Coming soon to Europe
     
    In Europe, it's like the poor (non-elite) immigrants go to areas which are already not-fashionable.

    Although which areas are not-fashionable varies by country. In Spanish cities, it's often in the historical center, where housing is aesthetically beautiful, but not convenient.

    Whereas in France, it is banlieues outside of the city.

    In Russia, where the internal immigration is even larger than the external immigration, immigrants can flood into the same areas, as the internal immigrants. (For Russian readers, journalists complain about how multicultural the area of Moscow AK lives is becoming https://moskvichmag.ru/gorod/odin-den-v-lyublino-zhizn-s-cherkizonom/ )


    -

    Also there is a reverse "white flight" when areas become fashionable in Europe, then the immigrant populations can be displaced by the wealthy hipsters.

    For example, in the traditional Bangladesh immigrant area of London, the upper class English people are immigrating. If you look at this area, there are not really many people from Bangladesh now, but you can see the evidence of the wealthy hipster invasion (graffiti, electric bicycles)

    https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=bewC7HPqUnc

    Meanwhile, Wikipedia writes about the area
    https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Brick_Lane

    Replies: @Dmitry, @songbird

    Meanwhile, Wikipedia writes about the area
    https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Brick_Lane

    BBC headline like there is a nationality specific genocide, although the BBC report it is more a process which removed the proletariat from other areas of London (something about an end of charity housing) than any specific “reverse white flight”. Poor people of all colors will be eventually stripped from central places of the city.

  341. @mal
    @Mikel


    But you guys have managed to maintain some of the world’s highest per-capita incomes along with a generous welfare state and stable societies. It is little wonder that social-democrats of all countries look up to you.
     
    Both countries appear to operate substantial banking/financial cartels so it's no surprise.

    Sweden total debt to GDP ratio: 823%
    https://www.ceicdata.com/en/indicator/sweden/total-debt--of-gdp

    Denmark total debt to GDP ratio: 857%
    https://www.ceicdata.com/en/indicator/denmark/total-debt--of-gdp

    However, Denmark typically runs ~900% debt to GDP ratio and Sweden ~700% so higher GDP/capita in Denmark would be reasonable.

    Both countries have low and similar government debt, so that's not a factor. Both countries are entirely powered by neoliberalism - private sector credit, and that model is exhausted, hence no growth in either country since 2008 - the last year of neoliberlism.

    Private non-financial credit Sweden - 274% GDP
    https://fred.stlouisfed.org/series/QSEPAM770A

    Private non-financial credit Denmark - 237% GDP
    https://fred.stlouisfed.org/series/QDKPAM770A

    Something like 500% GDP is international banking activity and maybe corporate registrations, who knows. This is what drives high incomes in those countries. But they don't really own the banks so they suck.

    Sweden GDP 2008 - $518 billion USD nominal. Sweden GDP 2020 - $538 billion USD nominal.
    Denmark GDP 2008 - $353 billion USD nominal. Denmark GDP 2020 - $355 billion USD.

    And that's with private sector debt pushing 250% GDP! Those countries are dead as far as growth is concerned.

    For reference, another fairly neoliberal country, Russia, had to eat a nominal USD GDP decline from ~$1.66 trillion to about ~$1.5 trillion during the same time period of 2008-2020 due to commodity price decline, but they did it with private sector credit base of only 105% GDP and no international banking due to sanctions.
    https://fred.stlouisfed.org/series/QRUPAM770A

    For another reference, it looks like Zimbabwe private sector debt spiked at around 80% around 2003...
    https://tradingeconomics.com/zimbabwe/domestic-credit-to-private-sector-percent-of-gdp-wb-data.html

    Just when Cargill Corporation was printing fake currency.

    . (SBU) Repeatedly, we marvel at the private sector's
    ingenuity in coping with Zimbabwe's peculiar challenges -
    in this case, an economy sans banknotes. Thanks to its
    scrip, Cargill perseveres. In fact, execs quietly
    concede the firm is making a killing on the "float,"
    putting off actual payment until scrip is cashed in.
    With bank lines blocks long, few recipients go that
    route. When scrip finally does trickle in, Zimbabwe's
    365-percent inflation will have reduced its value - and
    Cargill's payout - precipitously. That makes monopoly
    money even better business than cotton in this oddball
    economy.

     

    https://www.scoop.co.nz/stories/WL0308/S00142/cablegate-cargill-makes-bootleg-currency.htm

    Same thing happened in Russia in the 1990's.

    Anyway, Zimbabwe debt to GDP is 71% for government, and like 120% GDP total.

    The $11 billion that Zimbabwe owes to foreign lenders amounts to about 71 percent of the country's GDP. Some $6.5 billion of the total is payments that are in arrears.
     
    https://www.france24.com/en/live-news/20210912-seeking-to-change-deadbeat-image-zimbabwe-pays-debt

    Compared to 250-900% Debt to GDP ratios for Scandinavia, that's nothing.

    This illustrates the amazing power of neoliberlism (private sector credit) to lift people out of poverty. But it also shows how dead that model has been since 2008. Just some food for thought.

    Anyway, i wish Sweden and Denmark best of luck in the future. Would be a shame if something happened to their banking sector.

    Replies: @Mikel

    Oh yes, your old magical recipes to make countries rich. Sadly, no one is telling your good news to poor countries in Africa and Latin America, that all they have to do to become like Scandinavia is accumulate massive debts and print unlimited amounts of money. Well, in Argentina they heard of that strategy a very long time ago but somehow it didn’t work very well.

    Btw, I hope you are enjoying our finally reasonable inflation levels. Who doesn’t like seeing his income reduced a 6% annually while his bank deposits are rewarded a -6% interest rate?

    • Replies: @mal
    @Mikel


    Well, in Argentina they heard of that strategy a very long time ago but somehow it didn’t work very well.
     
    Argentina private sector debt to GDP - 25%.

    https://fred.stlouisfed.org/series/QARPAM770A

    I don't know what they heard, but they clearly haven't tried it. Their private sector debt is 10 times lower than Sweden/Denmark, which is why Argentina is poor and Sweden/Denmark are not.

    Btw, I hope you are enjoying our finally reasonable inflation levels. Who doesn’t like seeing his income reduced a 6% annually while his bank deposits are rewarded a -6% interest rate?
     
    Majority of people in the US don't have savings to speak of, so bank deposits are completely irrelevant to them. Low debt payments thanks to low interest rates are vastly more important.

    I love inflation because I would much rather inflate the debt away than have my taxes and loan rates go up 6% every year to pay off insane total debts.

    So i'm loving this inflation and so does any other sane person who sees the immense amount of debt due. Compared to that, income considerations are very much secondary.

    Replies: @Yevardian

  342. @Mikel
    @mal

    Oh yes, your old magical recipes to make countries rich. Sadly, no one is telling your good news to poor countries in Africa and Latin America, that all they have to do to become like Scandinavia is accumulate massive debts and print unlimited amounts of money. Well, in Argentina they heard of that strategy a very long time ago but somehow it didn't work very well.

    Btw, I hope you are enjoying our finally reasonable inflation levels. Who doesn't like seeing his income reduced a 6% annually while his bank deposits are rewarded a -6% interest rate?

    Replies: @mal

    Well, in Argentina they heard of that strategy a very long time ago but somehow it didn’t work very well.

    Argentina private sector debt to GDP – 25%.

    https://fred.stlouisfed.org/series/QARPAM770A

    I don’t know what they heard, but they clearly haven’t tried it. Their private sector debt is 10 times lower than Sweden/Denmark, which is why Argentina is poor and Sweden/Denmark are not.

    Btw, I hope you are enjoying our finally reasonable inflation levels. Who doesn’t like seeing his income reduced a 6% annually while his bank deposits are rewarded a -6% interest rate?

    Majority of people in the US don’t have savings to speak of, so bank deposits are completely irrelevant to them. Low debt payments thanks to low interest rates are vastly more important.

    I love inflation because I would much rather inflate the debt away than have my taxes and loan rates go up 6% every year to pay off insane total debts.

    So i’m loving this inflation and so does any other sane person who sees the immense amount of debt due. Compared to that, income considerations are very much secondary.

    • Replies: @Yevardian
    @mal


    I don’t know what they heard, but they clearly haven’t tried it. Their private sector debt is 10 times lower than Sweden/Denmark, which is why Argentina is poor and Sweden/Denmark are not.
     
    You're just a gullible brainwashed idiot.
    In countries like Romania, Armenia or Argentina (or frankly, most of the world), ordinary people often simply have no choice but to go steeply steeply into debt in order to survive (I'm talking about rent/food costs here) during a global market downturn. Governments are given similar choices, when the alternative option is mass unemployment or permanent loss of complex industries. This even happens in the US as well. It's not about 'consumer responsibility' 'tightening belts' and other such nonsense buzzwords.
    Many if not most of the world's poorer nations regularly go into debt simply because their export earnings are overwhelmingly dominated by a few or even a single commodity. Diversification of such economies is in practice impossible without taking upon enormous loans, which can quickly go bad when (say) the price of copper, beef or other primary commodities crashes on the global market.

    I love inflation because I would much rather inflate the debt away than have my taxes and loan rates go up 6% every year to pay off insane total debts.
     
    You're quite welcome to try living in a country that with such a mentality, which isn't also a global superpower commanding the world's reserve currency.

    Replies: @mal

  343. @silviosilver
    @songbird


    Many Chinese go to American universities – though they usually pursue technical tracks, and not the social sciences.
     
    They are not fools, they are a people on the make. Forking out $100k to have their heads filled with fake knowledge is not going to help them get ahead. That is the province of white libtards who can afford (or so they think) to indulge in luxury beliefs, and affirmative action negroids whose interests are directly advanced by it.

    Another pretty big constraint is White Flight. Coming soon to Europe, I think.
     
    That is thulean fag's blind spot. In America, public transportation and city living means sharing close quarters with sullen, intersectional, white-hating negroids, and plenty of them. So few whites find that prospect appealing that white flight can be seen from the moon.

    Replies: @songbird, @Dmitry, @Thulean Friend

    not fools,

    There are different kinds of Chinese students though. You can see the hardworking immigrants and normal people, that study normal topics in university vs. children of China’s political class that study more elite topics.

    Art and music schools in Western Europe, also flooded with more elite Chinese students. It’s the same with postsoviet students, Nigerian students.

    But with the Chinese there are just also a flood of more socioeconomically normal students which are not from their political class. So you think Chinese students are more financially normal. Whereas postsoviet students don’t have much of that component.

    province of white libtards who can afford (or so they think) to indulge in luxury beliefs

    Lol there is the reality of “social mobility” and “meritocracy” among the youth in certain bourgeois democracies. Of course, going to study gender theory in \$100k universities, because in many of their cases, fees are like a small token, and they don’t need technically skilled professions after they complete an education.

    A couple years ago in Europe, I remember looking at bicycle shops. Instead of a normal working man’s shop, I looked at a student hipster bicycle shop.

    Bicycles in the hipster shop look like something old women use in the early 20th century. But prices were in a range of an annual doctor’s salary in an medium income country.
    Bicycle seats (just the seat on the top of the bicycle) in the hipster shop, can cost a factory workers’ weekly salary.

    Looking now at those bicycle seats online, it’s not like they are expensive for leather products (hipsters’ leather bags can cost many times more than their bicycle seats). The culture shock, is just that the hipsters are buying leather bicycle seat.

    Did you ever think about the kind of vegetable tanned leather you want in your bicycle seat? What was wrong with the plastic one.
    https://www.brooksengland.com/en_us/b17-special-titanium.html

    • Replies: @Dmitry
    @Dmitry


    they don’t need technically skilled professions after they complete an education.
     
    An interesting aspect of 21st century economically elite youth (hipsters), is that their professions can often seem less abstract, less cognitive, and more physical, than the skilled middle class (middle class slaves like computer scientists/engineers, accountants, lawyers).

    So, their stereotypical professions commonly sounds like, renovating their friends apartments, installing rare houseplants, sewing of cashmere dresses, making globes.*

    Of course studying in art, fashion or film school, is a lot less abstract than the lower class students studying computer science or actuarial science.

    Art students (which are the most expensive students in the USA https://www.washingtonpost.com/news/rampage/wp/2014/03/28/the-most-expensive-colleges-in-the-country-are-art-schools-not-ivies/) are even using their hands, as if in parody of the proletariat in the factory.

    Here is reminding a lot of Marx's belief that in communist society, we will be working as fishermen. Just that in our late capitalism mostly it is the children of the bourgeoisie, who more often will have enough finances to enter physical nonalienated labor.

    Art students can use their hands according to their own direction, while the factory worker's movements are meaninglessly predetermined by the machinery.

    -

    * Making of handmade globes looks like a very cool, kind of nonalienated labor. But those with venture capital to start such professions? It is probably predictable, that they are such hipster looking workers.

    https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ycHal9Pv0J4

  344. @Dmitry
    @silviosilver


    not fools,
     
    There are different kinds of Chinese students though. You can see the hardworking immigrants and normal people, that study normal topics in university vs. children of China's political class that study more elite topics.

    Art and music schools in Western Europe, also flooded with more elite Chinese students. It's the same with postsoviet students, Nigerian students.

    But with the Chinese there are just also a flood of more socioeconomically normal students which are not from their political class. So you think Chinese students are more financially normal. Whereas postsoviet students don't have much of that component.


    province of white libtards who can afford (or so they think) to indulge in luxury beliefs

     

    Lol there is the reality of "social mobility" and "meritocracy" among the youth in certain bourgeois democracies. Of course, going to study gender theory in $100k universities, because in many of their cases, fees are like a small token, and they don't need technically skilled professions after they complete an education.

    A couple years ago in Europe, I remember looking at bicycle shops. Instead of a normal working man's shop, I looked at a student hipster bicycle shop.

    Bicycles in the hipster shop look like something old women use in the early 20th century. But prices were in a range of an annual doctor's salary in an medium income country.
    Bicycle seats (just the seat on the top of the bicycle) in the hipster shop, can cost a factory workers' weekly salary.

    -

    Looking now at those bicycle seats online, it's not like they are expensive for leather products (hipsters' leather bags can cost many times more than their bicycle seats). The culture shock, is just that the hipsters are buying leather bicycle seat.

    Did you ever think about the kind of vegetable tanned leather you want in your bicycle seat? What was wrong with the plastic one.
    https://i.imgur.com/5OZBLsW.jpg

    https://www.brooksengland.com/en_us/b17-special-titanium.html

    Replies: @Dmitry

    they don’t need technically skilled professions after they complete an education.

    An interesting aspect of 21st century economically elite youth (hipsters), is that their professions can often seem less abstract, less cognitive, and more physical, than the skilled middle class (middle class slaves like computer scientists/engineers, accountants, lawyers).

    So, their stereotypical professions commonly sounds like, renovating their friends apartments, installing rare houseplants, sewing of cashmere dresses, making globes.*

    Of course studying in art, fashion or film school, is a lot less abstract than the lower class students studying computer science or actuarial science.

    Art students (which are the most expensive students in the USA https://www.washingtonpost.com/news/rampage/wp/2014/03/28/the-most-expensive-colleges-in-the-country-are-art-schools-not-ivies/) are even using their hands, as if in parody of the proletariat in the factory.

    Here is reminding a lot of Marx’s belief that in communist society, we will be working as fishermen. Just that in our late capitalism mostly it is the children of the bourgeoisie, who more often will have enough finances to enter physical nonalienated labor.

    Art students can use their hands according to their own direction, while the factory worker’s movements are meaninglessly predetermined by the machinery.

    * Making of handmade globes looks like a very cool, kind of nonalienated labor. But those with venture capital to start such professions? It is probably predictable, that they are such hipster looking workers.

    • Thanks: Yellowface Anon
  345. … And to continue on the subject of monetary policy. Bitcoin dogs coin etc. – I admit i have no expertise there, but i find it curious that the first Silk Road guy got a life in prison (Ross Ulbicht??), and the Silk Road 2.0 guy who was a SpaceX employee got a slap on the wrist…

    You don’t get into SpaceX without military vetting.

    There’s nothing wrong with Bitcoin – it trades as a risk asset like NASDAQ stock and so it’s subject to interest rate fluctuations which makes it no different from US government bonds. It’s all good and Bitcoin will have a bright future. We have no choice but to support risk assets via liquidity injections.

    But on a philosophical level, Silk Road made Bitcoin money. As in, currency to exchange goods and services for. Now, Bitcoin is just a speculative token at the mercy of Central Bank liquidity. So i wonder why 1.0 and 2.0 guys got different treatment.

    Not saying that there’s anything wrong with Bitcoin. Just saying that anybody who thinks it’s independent of government will be disappointed. Then again, i could be wrong 🙂

  346. @Pericles
    @Thulean Friend

    You can see the financial crisis of the 90s in the provided graph too. Did you experience the days of 300%+ interest rates yourself?

    The Palme years, apart from shocking raises on tax rates, also introduced the diabolical "Löntagarfonder", where public companies had to pay an extra tax which then was used for these government funds buying shares in them. (I don't think this involved private companies too, but I'm not sure.) This would mean the owners would have to pay for their own companies being socialized. It was a pretty universally hated measure, didn't really and were soon wound down in the 1990s. Do you recall the famous written doggerel of the minister of finance when they were getting started?

    The 70s was also a period when entrepreneurs and elites were migrating out of the country en masse due to the aggression and greed of Skatteverket (IRS). IKEA is the most famous example, but you also have many companies that were started and owned from abroad, like Stenbeck's Kinnevik holding company. Many individuals moved to London, made their tax-free nut and (sometimes) returned, like Penser, Lundbäck and many others less famous. So in this respect, Palme and the Social-Democrats contributed to a globalized thinking in these classes. But not to Swedish welfare. As we know, Sweden has long had a problem with generating large companies.

    The Swedish ship building industry had gotten a tiny problem of soaring labor costs, due to those raised taxes. Difficult to match the low-cost Koreans then. But we took those experiences and told ourselves we would instead only work with ever higher levels of the value chain. This led to the half-digested ideas of "kunskapssamhället", the knowledge society, where we would outsource the lower parts of the value chain to India and China while reaping the high-level rewards ourselves. Didn't really work, unless you count as a success being an e-commerce middle man selling crap manufactured in the aforementioned two countries.

    Replies: @Thulean Friend

    The Palme years, apart from shocking raises on tax rates, also introduced the diabolical “Löntagarfonder”, where public companies had to pay an extra tax which then was used for these government funds buying shares in them. (I don’t think this involved private companies too, but I’m not sure.) This would mean the owners would have to pay for their own companies being socialized. It was a pretty universally hated measure, didn’t really and were soon wound down in the 1990s. Do you recall the famous written doggerel of the minister of finance when they were getting started?

    I remember reading about the debate of Löntagarfonder. They were withdrawn in the face of immense elite pressure. “Universally hated” is simply not accurate. The idea certainly had a base of support among the workers, but there was gigantic pressure to rescind them, including from the private media (which is owned by major corporations).

    The Social Democrats have often fielded right-leaning finance ministers. Göran Persson belong to the right flank of his party and he was FM before he was PM. The current PM was FM and she, too, has pursued a fiscally conservative policy. So given this long pattern, it isn’t surprising to me that the FM at the time was hostile. That’s part and parcel of the Social Democrats long history, they’ve always tried to mollify big business. Palme was a genuine socialist and paid for it with his life.

    The 70s was also a period when entrepreneurs and elites were migrating out of the country en masse due to the aggression and greed of Skatteverket (IRS)

    Translation: the offshore tax “industry” took off all over the world and Sweden was no exception. You are describing global phenomena as if they were uniquely Swedish when it was simply a global trend. IIRC, Italy’s communist became the single largest party in their parliament during the early 1970s.

    I recall reading about “p5” or some similar-sounding group in a book about the Sicilian mafia. Major Italian industrialists formed secret societies which worked very hard to undermine communists. Andreotti played both sides. I wouldn’t be surprised if similar groupings took off in Sweden.

    As we know, Sweden has long had a problem with generating large companies.

    This is a problem in Europe in general, look at Germany. I’ve had this debate before. Basically, it was possible to create global giants when the global economy only consisted of USA+Western Europe. The Anglo offshoots were too small, Eastern Europe didn’t exist as independent countries for the most part and the East Asians weren’t even in the game.

    Since the 1950s, the world has gotten bigger and the amount of rich countries far more numerous. Europe has failed to federalise, which has meant low returns to scale. This is also related to why there aren’t many big tech companies in Europe. The domestic market is too fragmented, especially in services. This has nothing to do with taxes.

    The Swedish ship building industry had gotten a tiny problem of soaring labor costs, due to those raised taxes. Difficult to match the low-cost Koreans then. But we took those experiences and told ourselves we would instead only work with ever higher levels of the value chain.

    A lot of things to respond to here. First, the Swedish shipping industry got out-competed for structural reasons. Nothing to do with taxes. We have to remember that our country sailed through WWII virutally unscathed. If I recall correctly, we were among the richest five countries in the mid-1960s and that was never going to realistically last. Today, the richest countries tend to be entrepôts like Singapore, tax havens like Ireland/Switzerland or oil states like Qatar. A geographically large country like Sweden with a significant industrial base was never going to be a serious contender.

    Super-cheap competitors like Korea would have destroyed the Swedish shipping industry simply because a lot of it was still mass manufacturing, where Korean low labour costs could never have been countered by low Swedish taxes. We’re talking about a five-fold or more difference in wages. You’re living in la-la land if you think we had a shot. It was going to happen, regardless of taxation levels.

    Second, the 1970s was a period of stagnation for most of the world economy. Ask Americans and the word “staglation” comes up fast. The UK even went to the IMF (!!!), as their economic crisis was far worse than ours. The 1970s, then, was a global period of cooling off.

    The early 1990s crisis was homegrown, and it was due to neoliberalism and deregulation. An unforced error.

    This led to the half-digested ideas of “kunskapssamhället”, the knowledge society, where we would outsource the lower parts of the value chain to India and China while reaping the high-level rewards ourselves. Didn’t really work, unless you count as a success being an e-commerce middle man selling crap manufactured in the aforementioned two countries.

    Last I looked, Indian per capita GDP is ~25X lower than Sweden. I don’t think you understand basic economics if you think our two countries are even competing in the same sphere. China’s wages are closer to ~5X lower. I am skeptical they will ever reach our level of wealth.

    That said, I am somewhat sympathetic to the idea that premature and self-imposed de-industrialisation was an error that could have been avoided in the West. Ha-Joon chang writes a lot about this, given that the UK went the furthest in abandoning its industrial base in favour of a service economy. Germany did not, and reaped the rewards.

    Nevertheless, the idea that low-value add manufacturing can forever be produced in rich countries due to low taxes is, frankly, stupid. Countries don’t get rich by doing that. Textile manufacturing – unless it is high-end exports like Prada – is never going to be viable. The same is true within industries like the aforementioned shipping industry. Why did the call centers move to India? Cheap labour costs. Low taxes has nothing to do with it, since the labour arbitrage differential is too extreme to be bridged, even if you put taxation at 0%.

    I think this idea that the West could have kept all the low-end manufacturing forever is a major fantasy that we see in the right-wing today, among Trumpers in the USA and republicans more generally. I wish more people read trade economists. At any rate, the most significant force in all of this is technology and that’s a secular trend that no taxation level can overcome. That having been said, the fatalism of the UK isn’t wise either. I tend to think highly of Germany, and they adapted to the new world by offshoring their low-end stuff to Eastern Europe while keeping the high value-add for themselves pretty successfully.

    In a way, for Germany, Eastern Europe was their China. You can read more here:

    https://voxeu.org/article/china-shock-why-germany-different

    As for “kunskapssamhället”, I think a bigger problem has been the destruction of the Swedish school system. When I was growing up (late 90s and early 2000s), it wasn’t uncommong to have teachers who didn’t even have an education as such. I even had a literal bouncer (!) as a stand-in for several months. There was also a de-emphasis on grading and useless fluff like “self-learning”. Ask any Swedish professor and they will tell you about the declining standards in things like basic math.

    I supported the recent educational reforms under Björklund, but it will be many years before we see the fruits of that. One should also keep in mind that the demographic mix has changed, so it becomes harder to keep comparisons with the past consistent. Low educational standards and poor immigration policies are the two main barriers to further Swedish success. Not taxation.

    • Replies: @Yellowface Anon
    @Thulean Friend


    Italy’s communist became the single largest party in their parliament during the early 1970s.
     
    Why didn't they align themselves with the Eastern Bloc like Czechoslovakia did after elections, back in 1945? Is it because of NATO & EEC membership?

    I think this idea that the West could have kept all the low-end manufacturing forever is a major fantasy that we see in the right-wing today, among Trumpers in the USA and republicans more generally.
     
    It is never about economics, and they know those are anti-economical (if being economical means being efficient). The Soviets knew it too and had a full industrial ecology where most sectors are inefficient, but strategic and subsidized. China somewhat knows it too despite some degree of premature deindustrialization. The GOP aren't liberals but nationalists at least.

    Replies: @German_reader

  347. @silviosilver
    @songbird


    Many Chinese go to American universities – though they usually pursue technical tracks, and not the social sciences.
     
    They are not fools, they are a people on the make. Forking out $100k to have their heads filled with fake knowledge is not going to help them get ahead. That is the province of white libtards who can afford (or so they think) to indulge in luxury beliefs, and affirmative action negroids whose interests are directly advanced by it.

    Another pretty big constraint is White Flight. Coming soon to Europe, I think.
     
    That is thulean fag's blind spot. In America, public transportation and city living means sharing close quarters with sullen, intersectional, white-hating negroids, and plenty of them. So few whites find that prospect appealing that white flight can be seen from the moon.

    Replies: @songbird, @Dmitry, @Thulean Friend

    In America, public transportation and city living means sharing close quarters with sullen, intersectional, white-hating negroids, and plenty of them. So few whites find that prospect appealing that white flight can be seen from the moon.

    Yet D.C. has gentrified and become much less black than in the 1970s. Cities like Atlanta have also become more white in recent years. Maybe whites in the US aren’t as big pussies as you? 🙂

    As I noted, I recently moved to an immigrant-heavy neighbourhood that’s seen as semi-rough (cars were burned here as late as a few years ago). Most of my neighbours are of non-European origin, however this is changing fast. I am probably part of a gentrification wave, but I never planned it. I picked this area because it was cheap for someone my age, I could get a big apartment while being decently close to the city center. Finally, I was tired of living in my parent’s house in a middle-class area, where I’d be surrounded by carbon copies of myself.

    All of which is to say, many white people don’t fear diversity. Crime levels have risen in Stockholm in recent years, in part due to failed past immigration policies, but that hasn’t led to a major exodus. Some young are leaving as they get children due to expensive housing costs, but that’s a separate debate. Housing costs are crazy all over the world, so it isn’t a Swedish-exclusive issue. Just live with a partner who likes big cities, as I do, and the issue will resolve itself.

    It’s time to stop hiding behind “diversity” as an excuse to continue destroying Western cities due to cancerous car-centric urban policies.

    • Agree: Yellowface Anon
    • Disagree: A123
    • Replies: @A123
    @Thulean Friend


    Atlanta have also become more white in recent years
     
    I do not believe this is accurate. Do you have a citation for your assertion about Atlanta demographics?

    Atlanta is about to become less white and much poorer due to the Buckhead succession. (1)

    File this under “Thanks, Democrats.”

    Due to an explosion of violent crime in Atlanta, Georgia that has encroached into one of the city’s most prosperous districts, residents are now seeking sucession—yes succession—as well as their own police force.

    So much for “social justice.”

    Newswars reports that crime in the stylish Buckhead neighborhood has gotten so bad, officials are exploring how they might be able to separate from Atlanta after the force lost almost 200 officers in 2020 alone.

    Residents of Buckhead profess to be “genuinely concerned for their safety” as violent attacks have spiked. One horrific example was the shooting death of a seven-year-old girl who was Christmas shopping with her family in December.
     
    ______

    It’s time to stop hiding behind “diversity” as an excuse to continue destroying Western cities due to cancerous car-centric urban policies
     
    Let me Fix That For You:

    It’s time to stop hiding behind “cars” as an excuse to continue destroying Western culture with cancerous urban-centric policies.

    The horror of long distance daily commuting to urban centers is just as soul crushing on buses & trains. The close proximity of individuals on public transit helps accelerate the spread of diseases like WUHAN-19. And, there are safety concerns. (2)

    Surveillance footage showed Fiston Ngoy, 35, who has been charged with rape in Wednesday’s sickening attack aboard a Southeastern Pennsylvania Transportation Authority train, spent nearly 45 minutes harassing the woman and touched her breast at one point, according to an arrest affidavit obtained by the Philadelphia Inquirer.

    Police said the rape lasted about six minutes as other passengers looked on while holding their cellphones, but didn’t use the devices to call 911, SEPTA’s police chief said Monday.
     
    Urban culture is at work among those who recorded the event for personal viewing pleasure. Why did no one intervene? Could it be fear of urban culture lawsuits?

    This is not a new problem. Public transit has been undermining Western values, like the right to self-defense, for decades. Remember the Bernhard Goetz trial from 1984.

     
    http://1.bp.blogspot.com/-xskVp2aQnhg/TsNURZtuHvI/AAAAAAAAAvk/axZhBlPxen0/s1600/GoetzTimeApr81985.jpg
     

    De-Urbanization Is The Answer

    Moving work out of urban centers ends the need for hours of daily commuting. Many white collar jobs allow "work from home" arrangements. For occupations where gathering is required, accumulating in car friendly suburbs is much less taxing than travel to dehumanizing, violent urban centers.

    PEACE 😇
    ___________

    (1) https://rightcountry.com/the-wealthy-atlanta-district-that-wants-to-succeed-amid-violent-crime-surge/

    (2) https://nypost.com/2021/10/19/passengers-held-up-phones-during-philadelphia-septa-rape/

    Replies: @German_reader, @Emil Nikola Richard

    , @Dmitry
    @Thulean Friend


    Crime levels have risen
     
    Who knows with our multinational discussion though, as we are from radically different national origins.

    Songbird is from the USA, where in many areas crime is much higher than anywhere in Western Europe. Where is Silviosilver from (Latin America?).

    Levels of personal safety related to nationality could really be a problem for them. I remember AaronB writing that he was beaten by black people as a teenager in 1990s New York. Although he says he feels safe in New York nowadays.

    You are from Sweden, which is of course one of the world's safer countries in terms of crime.


    . Crime levels have risen in Stockholm in recent years,

     

    Unfiltered immigrants can be rising the level, but as it's known from a low base.

    Playing with World Bank's site again, can you see a possible indication of Germany's immigration policy, on the homicide rate?

    For myself, actually I was a youth in cities with double the homicide rate of Russia. I didn't feel very gangster. It still wasn't very dangerous on average for any normal people.

    Still I understand from my youth, why I will not notice so much "dangerous" in Western Europe, even their media reports.

    https://i.imgur.com/KqofdYZ.jpg

    But if you zoomed in enough on the chart, then maybe there was around 40% increase in the figures Germany reported for intentional homicide 2016 compared to 2015.

    With proviso, this kind of data is an area you really need professionals in crime statistics to analyze this data, rather than untrained amateurs. It's still interesting to read those charts.

    Replies: @silviosilver

    , @silviosilver
    @Thulean Friend


    Yet D.C. has gentrified and become much less black than in the 1970s. Cities like Atlanta have also become more white in recent years.
     
    I concede that numerous cities have undergone a gentrifying influx of whites over the last twenty years. This site used to be a handy reference that allowed you to zoom down to city block level and get data on racial demographic changes from 2000 to 2010, before that feature was unfortunately removed. Jared Taylor used to troll libtards with the question "can you name just one majority-black neighborhood you'd like to move to?" That's still useful rhetoric, but libtards unfortunately can now answer forthrightly that yes, they can.

    This hardly disconfirms the broad trend, however. That a relatively small number of shitlibs can manage to practice what they preach cannot put a dent in the reality that when the race changes, everything else changes too. In fact, in their own way, shitlib gentrifiers confirm the truth of that dictum. And needless to say, many of them only get into the gentrification game because they hope to profit financially and socially from other whites following in their footsteps.

    All of which is to say, many white people don’t fear diversity
     
    Neither do I. If you'll pardon me for tooting my own horn for a moment, I have zero doubt that I have vastly more experience with it than you. If you had told me as recently as fifteen years ago that I'd some day be talking about race as I now do, I'd have thought you utterly insane. It's entirely fairly to say I was a good little diversity-celebrating anti-racist way before it was cool. It's not out of "fear" that I now eschew it (except when it comes to negroids, and even then it's only a "statistical" fear, based on their numbers, rather than fear of any particular individuals; too many blacks is always bad news). It's that I'm unable to experience a shared sense of identity with people who are too culturally or racially different to me, and that I have belatedly recognized the importance of this.

    Just consider. If my favorite bar turns from whatever it is today - 70%, 80%, 90% white? I'm not exactly counting - to 90% black or asian or indian, wtf would I bother going there for anymore? They may be perfectly nice people (unless they're black, which experience teaches me far too many of them won't be), but I find the idea of socializing with them a monumental waste of time. Life is short. Why shouldn't I want to spend it around people I actually enjoy interacting with, rather than spend it around people whose presence I merely tolerate? This example of a local bar can be extended to every other area of life.
  348. @mal
    @Mikel


    Well, in Argentina they heard of that strategy a very long time ago but somehow it didn’t work very well.
     
    Argentina private sector debt to GDP - 25%.

    https://fred.stlouisfed.org/series/QARPAM770A

    I don't know what they heard, but they clearly haven't tried it. Their private sector debt is 10 times lower than Sweden/Denmark, which is why Argentina is poor and Sweden/Denmark are not.

    Btw, I hope you are enjoying our finally reasonable inflation levels. Who doesn’t like seeing his income reduced a 6% annually while his bank deposits are rewarded a -6% interest rate?
     
    Majority of people in the US don't have savings to speak of, so bank deposits are completely irrelevant to them. Low debt payments thanks to low interest rates are vastly more important.

    I love inflation because I would much rather inflate the debt away than have my taxes and loan rates go up 6% every year to pay off insane total debts.

    So i'm loving this inflation and so does any other sane person who sees the immense amount of debt due. Compared to that, income considerations are very much secondary.

    Replies: @Yevardian

    I don’t know what they heard, but they clearly haven’t tried it. Their private sector debt is 10 times lower than Sweden/Denmark, which is why Argentina is poor and Sweden/Denmark are not.

    You’re just a gullible brainwashed idiot.
    In countries like Romania, Armenia or Argentina (or frankly, most of the world), ordinary people often simply have no choice but to go steeply steeply into debt in order to survive (I’m talking about rent/food costs here) during a global market downturn. Governments are given similar choices, when the alternative option is mass unemployment or permanent loss of complex industries. This even happens in the US as well. It’s not about ‘consumer responsibility’ ‘tightening belts’ and other such nonsense buzzwords.
    Many if not most of the world’s poorer nations regularly go into debt simply because their export earnings are overwhelmingly dominated by a few or even a single commodity. Diversification of such economies is in practice impossible without taking upon enormous loans, which can quickly go bad when (say) the price of copper, beef or other primary commodities crashes on the global market.

    I love inflation because I would much rather inflate the debt away than have my taxes and loan rates go up 6% every year to pay off insane total debts.

    You’re quite welcome to try living in a country that with such a mentality, which isn’t also a global superpower commanding the world’s reserve currency.

    • Replies: @mal
    @Yevardian


    You’re just a gullible brainwashed idiot.
     
    Perhaps, but i follow the numbers and numbers don't lie.

    You’re quite welcome to try living in a country that with such a mentality, which isn’t also a global superpower commanding the world’s reserve currency.
     
    I grew up in the 1980's -1990's Russia and weighted 130 lbs before coming to US because we couldn't afford food in 1998, so trust me, i have experienced all sorts of conditions. But that's irrelevant to macroeconomic calculations. US does have advantages, but the arithmetic i'm describing is universal - we live in a fiat currency world, so somebody has to buck up and print the currency. We are merely arguing about the distribution. There's nothing magical about US dollar - debt mechanics work the same in US as they do everywhere else if managed properly.

    Governments are given similar choices, when the alternative option is mass unemployment or permanent loss of complex industries. This even happens in the US as well. It’s not about ‘consumer responsibility’ ‘tightening belts’ and other such nonsense buzzwords.
     
    Credit is supposed to supply production growth. Granted, this doesn't always happen, nor is it the growth driver in the modern world, but at least that's the textbook theory. I agree that pumping credit into a commodity price downturn can get commodity dependent countries into trouble (see Russia in 2014).

    That said, to create diversified industries, you must have credit. Example - China. Their debt is like 300% GDP. That investment created the industries they needed to escape commodity trap. This is the only way. Sorry to say.

    Replies: @Yellowface Anon

  349. @Philip Owen
    Just commented on Kazakhstan on Kevin Barrets's Thread. Seemed more appropriate than here.

    Putin is now surrounded on three sides.

    Replies: @Yevardian

    Is Kevin Barret really all the only person on this site who’s writing on this Kazakhstan mess, other than Andrew Anglin? Karlin really did choose an inaspaucious time to virtually quit blogging to chase the crypto-‘currency’-dragon…

    • Replies: @Dmitry
    @Yevardian

    Why would you need their opinion? I'm confident you can write something better yourself.

    At least, you sound like someone who likes reading books, literature, etc. And you're from Armenia, so you already know most of what is happening in Kazakhstan by generalization from the local situation. On the other hand, for that reason, maybe it's more of a waste of time and cause of depression, as those of us from the region already know the much of this screenplay, and there is a limit to how many times to see it.

    , @Philip Owen
    @Yevardian

    The rest have now caught up. I still can't see what is really happening. I am astonished at the amount of British involvement. There is even a Prince Andrew story from Kazakhstan. Apparently while acting as front man for a British trade delgation, he made a negative remark about the French at a dinner. An American diplomat heard and reported it (revealed in Cablegote so a long time ago now). The British Royals have been making negative remarks about the French since 1066 so I don't know why this was remarkable.

    Anyway.
    Blair paid many millions by Nazerbayev.
    The Kazak officer corps trained in the UK.
    Prince Andrew promoting trade.

    The UK seems to have big interests there. I'd like to know what exactly. Backing Nazerbayev was never very bright. Dictators collapse eventually.

    Replies: @mal

    , @LondonBob
    @Yevardian

    What will get to $2000 first, bitcoin or gold?

    Replies: @Yellowface Anon

  350. @Yevardian
    @mal


    I don’t know what they heard, but they clearly haven’t tried it. Their private sector debt is 10 times lower than Sweden/Denmark, which is why Argentina is poor and Sweden/Denmark are not.
     
    You're just a gullible brainwashed idiot.
    In countries like Romania, Armenia or Argentina (or frankly, most of the world), ordinary people often simply have no choice but to go steeply steeply into debt in order to survive (I'm talking about rent/food costs here) during a global market downturn. Governments are given similar choices, when the alternative option is mass unemployment or permanent loss of complex industries. This even happens in the US as well. It's not about 'consumer responsibility' 'tightening belts' and other such nonsense buzzwords.
    Many if not most of the world's poorer nations regularly go into debt simply because their export earnings are overwhelmingly dominated by a few or even a single commodity. Diversification of such economies is in practice impossible without taking upon enormous loans, which can quickly go bad when (say) the price of copper, beef or other primary commodities crashes on the global market.

    I love inflation because I would much rather inflate the debt away than have my taxes and loan rates go up 6% every year to pay off insane total debts.
     
    You're quite welcome to try living in a country that with such a mentality, which isn't also a global superpower commanding the world's reserve currency.

    Replies: @mal

    You’re just a gullible brainwashed idiot.

    Perhaps, but i follow the numbers and numbers don’t lie.

    You’re quite welcome to try living in a country that with such a mentality, which isn’t also a global superpower commanding the world’s reserve currency.

    I grew up in the 1980’s -1990’s Russia and weighted 130 lbs before coming to US because we couldn’t afford food in 1998, so trust me, i have experienced all sorts of conditions. But that’s irrelevant to macroeconomic calculations. US does have advantages, but the arithmetic i’m describing is universal – we live in a fiat currency world, so somebody has to buck up and print the currency. We are merely arguing about the distribution. There’s nothing magical about US dollar – debt mechanics work the same in US as they do everywhere else if managed properly.

    Governments are given similar choices, when the alternative option is mass unemployment or permanent loss of complex industries. This even happens in the US as well. It’s not about ‘consumer responsibility’ ‘tightening belts’ and other such nonsense buzzwords.

    Credit is supposed to supply production growth. Granted, this doesn’t always happen, nor is it the growth driver in the modern world, but at least that’s the textbook theory. I agree that pumping credit into a commodity price downturn can get commodity dependent countries into trouble (see Russia in 2014).

    That said, to create diversified industries, you must have credit. Example – China. Their debt is like 300% GDP. That investment created the industries they needed to escape commodity trap. This is the only way. Sorry to say.

    • Replies: @Yellowface Anon
    @mal

    I've come to realize the real nature of Austrian "sound money" - a inter-temporally trustworthy money. If you have stable institutions and you do fiat, you can work almost as well as gold. All the hyperinflationary episodes are because people are losing trust in the underlying institutions of the economies.

    Replies: @Beckow

  351. Let’s say a Trumpist government in 2024 declares UN to be an illegitimate institution, confiscates the land where the UN headquarter is, and then using it & deep-Blue Manhattan (after evacuating registered Republicans) as missile practice targets. WWIII ensues when Russia and China proclaim themselves as defenders of the UN-based international order and strives to contain the US. Zemmour, after an initial honeymoon with “Trump”, realizes France’s existence is at stake from Anglo-American aggression and joins on Russia’s side. England (Scotland has left the UK and joined the hollowed-out EU) is strong-armed into America’s side. 1984 comes 40 years late.

    I’m not a novelist and someone can do justice to this idea. If A123 doesn’t oppose any of the above, then it will happen. (And Putin won’t wish Trump good luck, because this is totally reckless and he’ll know he’s next)

    • Replies: @A123
    @Yellowface Anon

    The UN is an illegitimate institution. This has nothing to do with MAGA. It is driven by corrupt agencies like UNHRC and UNRWA. The associated vile NGO's, funded by George IslamoSoros, compound & magnify UN/NWO anti-Semitic culture.

    I believe that the land at Turtle Bay will revert to NYC ownership when the UN is abolished. This was popularized in the film/comic Heavy Metal, with the buildings repurposed as low income housing.

    The rest of your suggestions are too implausible for serious drama. Perhaps, they could be used in a Mel Brooks style light comedy? The UN and associated Leftoid, anti-American institutions provide ample targets for parody.
    ___

    For a serious novel -- Brussels EU HQ is nuked. The people of Europe celebrate their liberation. France rises, under Zemmour, driven by Champagne consumption. Muslims evacuate the country fleeing the robust, alcohol driven economy. This lack of an underclass, accelerates Paris as a center of American/European Judeo-Christian culture. A new golden age!

    I do not know if it would be marketable, as today's novels are quite grim. A positive future for French Christians would have difficulty getting published.

    PEACE 😇

  352. @mal
    @Yevardian


    You’re just a gullible brainwashed idiot.
     
    Perhaps, but i follow the numbers and numbers don't lie.

    You’re quite welcome to try living in a country that with such a mentality, which isn’t also a global superpower commanding the world’s reserve currency.
     
    I grew up in the 1980's -1990's Russia and weighted 130 lbs before coming to US because we couldn't afford food in 1998, so trust me, i have experienced all sorts of conditions. But that's irrelevant to macroeconomic calculations. US does have advantages, but the arithmetic i'm describing is universal - we live in a fiat currency world, so somebody has to buck up and print the currency. We are merely arguing about the distribution. There's nothing magical about US dollar - debt mechanics work the same in US as they do everywhere else if managed properly.

    Governments are given similar choices, when the alternative option is mass unemployment or permanent loss of complex industries. This even happens in the US as well. It’s not about ‘consumer responsibility’ ‘tightening belts’ and other such nonsense buzzwords.
     
    Credit is supposed to supply production growth. Granted, this doesn't always happen, nor is it the growth driver in the modern world, but at least that's the textbook theory. I agree that pumping credit into a commodity price downturn can get commodity dependent countries into trouble (see Russia in 2014).

    That said, to create diversified industries, you must have credit. Example - China. Their debt is like 300% GDP. That investment created the industries they needed to escape commodity trap. This is the only way. Sorry to say.

    Replies: @Yellowface Anon

    I’ve come to realize the real nature of Austrian “sound money” – a inter-temporally trustworthy money. If you have stable institutions and you do fiat, you can work almost as well as gold. All the hyperinflationary episodes are because people are losing trust in the underlying institutions of the economies.

    • Replies: @Beckow
    @Yellowface Anon


    ....Austrian “sound money”: ...If you have stable institutions and you do fiat, you can work almost as well as gold.
     
    At the beginning it works better than gold, gold is more messy. But how far can you go? A trusted institution that can issue (in effect: guarantee) a few trillion in fiat money, may look wobbly if it reaches 100 trillion.

    Numbers and ratios matter, we are at a point when the numbers simply don't add up. Money is a representation of wealth, and wealth is a summa summarum of what we manage to consume while alive. Each "debt" represents two or more owners of the same asset. The only clean way that debt can be managed is if it is paid back and the asset ownership becomes singular again.

    That is clearly not going to happen with today's debts - they are too large in comparison to the actual economic activity in the West (servants and soldiers don't count for much). That leaves inflation to devalue the debts, repossessing the assets, or possibly a financial collapse. Those are the choices and no amount of "trust in institutions" can change that.

  353. @Thulean Friend
    @Pericles


    The Palme years, apart from shocking raises on tax rates, also introduced the diabolical “Löntagarfonder”, where public companies had to pay an extra tax which then was used for these government funds buying shares in them. (I don’t think this involved private companies too, but I’m not sure.) This would mean the owners would have to pay for their own companies being socialized. It was a pretty universally hated measure, didn’t really and were soon wound down in the 1990s. Do you recall the famous written doggerel of the minister of finance when they were getting started?
     
    I remember reading about the debate of Löntagarfonder. They were withdrawn in the face of immense elite pressure. "Universally hated" is simply not accurate. The idea certainly had a base of support among the workers, but there was gigantic pressure to rescind them, including from the private media (which is owned by major corporations).

    The Social Democrats have often fielded right-leaning finance ministers. Göran Persson belong to the right flank of his party and he was FM before he was PM. The current PM was FM and she, too, has pursued a fiscally conservative policy. So given this long pattern, it isn't surprising to me that the FM at the time was hostile. That's part and parcel of the Social Democrats long history, they've always tried to mollify big business. Palme was a genuine socialist and paid for it with his life.


    The 70s was also a period when entrepreneurs and elites were migrating out of the country en masse due to the aggression and greed of Skatteverket (IRS)
     
    Translation: the offshore tax "industry" took off all over the world and Sweden was no exception. You are describing global phenomena as if they were uniquely Swedish when it was simply a global trend. IIRC, Italy's communist became the single largest party in their parliament during the early 1970s.

    I recall reading about "p5" or some similar-sounding group in a book about the Sicilian mafia. Major Italian industrialists formed secret societies which worked very hard to undermine communists. Andreotti played both sides. I wouldn't be surprised if similar groupings took off in Sweden.


    As we know, Sweden has long had a problem with generating large companies.
     
    This is a problem in Europe in general, look at Germany. I've had this debate before. Basically, it was possible to create global giants when the global economy only consisted of USA+Western Europe. The Anglo offshoots were too small, Eastern Europe didn't exist as independent countries for the most part and the East Asians weren't even in the game.

    Since the 1950s, the world has gotten bigger and the amount of rich countries far more numerous. Europe has failed to federalise, which has meant low returns to scale. This is also related to why there aren't many big tech companies in Europe. The domestic market is too fragmented, especially in services. This has nothing to do with taxes.


    The Swedish ship building industry had gotten a tiny problem of soaring labor costs, due to those raised taxes. Difficult to match the low-cost Koreans then. But we took those experiences and told ourselves we would instead only work with ever higher levels of the value chain.
     
    A lot of things to respond to here. First, the Swedish shipping industry got out-competed for structural reasons. Nothing to do with taxes. We have to remember that our country sailed through WWII virutally unscathed. If I recall correctly, we were among the richest five countries in the mid-1960s and that was never going to realistically last. Today, the richest countries tend to be entrepôts like Singapore, tax havens like Ireland/Switzerland or oil states like Qatar. A geographically large country like Sweden with a significant industrial base was never going to be a serious contender.

    Super-cheap competitors like Korea would have destroyed the Swedish shipping industry simply because a lot of it was still mass manufacturing, where Korean low labour costs could never have been countered by low Swedish taxes. We're talking about a five-fold or more difference in wages. You're living in la-la land if you think we had a shot. It was going to happen, regardless of taxation levels.

    Second, the 1970s was a period of stagnation for most of the world economy. Ask Americans and the word "staglation" comes up fast. The UK even went to the IMF (!!!), as their economic crisis was far worse than ours. The 1970s, then, was a global period of cooling off.

    The early 1990s crisis was homegrown, and it was due to neoliberalism and deregulation. An unforced error.


    This led to the half-digested ideas of “kunskapssamhället”, the knowledge society, where we would outsource the lower parts of the value chain to India and China while reaping the high-level rewards ourselves. Didn’t really work, unless you count as a success being an e-commerce middle man selling crap manufactured in the aforementioned two countries.
     
    Last I looked, Indian per capita GDP is ~25X lower than Sweden. I don't think you understand basic economics if you think our two countries are even competing in the same sphere. China's wages are closer to ~5X lower. I am skeptical they will ever reach our level of wealth.

    That said, I am somewhat sympathetic to the idea that premature and self-imposed de-industrialisation was an error that could have been avoided in the West. Ha-Joon chang writes a lot about this, given that the UK went the furthest in abandoning its industrial base in favour of a service economy. Germany did not, and reaped the rewards.

    Nevertheless, the idea that low-value add manufacturing can forever be produced in rich countries due to low taxes is, frankly, stupid. Countries don't get rich by doing that. Textile manufacturing - unless it is high-end exports like Prada - is never going to be viable. The same is true within industries like the aforementioned shipping industry. Why did the call centers move to India? Cheap labour costs. Low taxes has nothing to do with it, since the labour arbitrage differential is too extreme to be bridged, even if you put taxation at 0%.

    I think this idea that the West could have kept all the low-end manufacturing forever is a major fantasy that we see in the right-wing today, among Trumpers in the USA and republicans more generally. I wish more people read trade economists. At any rate, the most significant force in all of this is technology and that's a secular trend that no taxation level can overcome. That having been said, the fatalism of the UK isn't wise either. I tend to think highly of Germany, and they adapted to the new world by offshoring their low-end stuff to Eastern Europe while keeping the high value-add for themselves pretty successfully.

    In a way, for Germany, Eastern Europe was their China. You can read more here:

    https://voxeu.org/article/china-shock-why-germany-different

    As for "kunskapssamhället", I think a bigger problem has been the destruction of the Swedish school system. When I was growing up (late 90s and early 2000s), it wasn't uncommong to have teachers who didn't even have an education as such. I even had a literal bouncer (!) as a stand-in for several months. There was also a de-emphasis on grading and useless fluff like "self-learning". Ask any Swedish professor and they will tell you about the declining standards in things like basic math.

    I supported the recent educational reforms under Björklund, but it will be many years before we see the fruits of that. One should also keep in mind that the demographic mix has changed, so it becomes harder to keep comparisons with the past consistent. Low educational standards and poor immigration policies are the two main barriers to further Swedish success. Not taxation.

    Replies: @Yellowface Anon

    Italy’s communist became the single largest party in their parliament during the early 1970s.

    Why didn’t they align themselves with the Eastern Bloc like Czechoslovakia did after elections, back in 1945? Is it because of NATO & EEC membership?

    I think this idea that the West could have kept all the low-end manufacturing forever is a major fantasy that we see in the right-wing today, among Trumpers in the USA and republicans more generally.

    It is never about economics, and they know those are anti-economical (if being economical means being efficient). The Soviets knew it too and had a full industrial ecology where most sectors are inefficient, but strategic and subsidized. China somewhat knows it too despite some degree of premature deindustrialization. The GOP aren’t liberals but nationalists at least.

    • Replies: @German_reader
    @Yellowface Anon


    Why didn’t they align themselves with the Eastern Bloc like Czechoslovakia did after elections, back in 1945?
     
    Because they were kept out of government (iirc Aldo Moro thought of an alliance with the communists, but of course he was killed by the Red Brigades, and iirc there are various theories that the Christian Democrat establishment let him die out of opposition to this policy). And while the PCI did get substantial funds from the Soviet Union right until the late 1980s, by the 1970s they had adopted a somewhat more distanced position towards the Soviets ("Eurocommunism"). The Soviet Union had lost much of its attraction to the West European left by that time compared to the immediate post-war era.
  354. @Thulean Friend
    @silviosilver


    In America, public transportation and city living means sharing close quarters with sullen, intersectional, white-hating negroids, and plenty of them. So few whites find that prospect appealing that white flight can be seen from the moon.
     
    Yet D.C. has gentrified and become much less black than in the 1970s. Cities like Atlanta have also become more white in recent years. Maybe whites in the US aren't as big pussies as you? :)

    As I noted, I recently moved to an immigrant-heavy neighbourhood that's seen as semi-rough (cars were burned here as late as a few years ago). Most of my neighbours are of non-European origin, however this is changing fast. I am probably part of a gentrification wave, but I never planned it. I picked this area because it was cheap for someone my age, I could get a big apartment while being decently close to the city center. Finally, I was tired of living in my parent's house in a middle-class area, where I'd be surrounded by carbon copies of myself.

    All of which is to say, many white people don't fear diversity. Crime levels have risen in Stockholm in recent years, in part due to failed past immigration policies, but that hasn't led to a major exodus. Some young are leaving as they get children due to expensive housing costs, but that's a separate debate. Housing costs are crazy all over the world, so it isn't a Swedish-exclusive issue. Just live with a partner who likes big cities, as I do, and the issue will resolve itself.

    It's time to stop hiding behind "diversity" as an excuse to continue destroying Western cities due to cancerous car-centric urban policies.

    Replies: @A123, @Dmitry, @silviosilver

    Atlanta have also become more white in recent years

    I do not believe this is accurate. Do you have a citation for your assertion about Atlanta demographics?

    Atlanta is about to become less white and much poorer due to the Buckhead succession. (1)

    File this under “Thanks, Democrats.”

    Due to an explosion of violent crime in Atlanta, Georgia that has encroached into one of the city’s most prosperous districts, residents are now seeking sucession—yes succession—as well as their own police force.

    So much for “social justice.”

    Newswars reports that crime in the stylish Buckhead neighborhood has gotten so bad, officials are exploring how they might be able to separate from Atlanta after the force lost almost 200 officers in 2020 alone.

    Residents of Buckhead profess to be “genuinely concerned for their safety” as violent attacks have spiked. One horrific example was the shooting death of a seven-year-old girl who was Christmas shopping with her family in December.

    ______

    It’s time to stop hiding behind “diversity” as an excuse to continue destroying Western cities due to cancerous car-centric urban policies

    Let me Fix That For You:

    It’s time to stop hiding behind “cars” as an excuse to continue destroying Western culture with cancerous urban-centric policies.

    The horror of long distance daily commuting to urban centers is just as soul crushing on buses & trains. The close proximity of individuals on public transit helps accelerate the spread of diseases like WUHAN-19. And, there are safety concerns. (2)

    Surveillance footage showed Fiston Ngoy, 35, who has been charged with rape in Wednesday’s sickening attack aboard a Southeastern Pennsylvania Transportation Authority train, spent nearly 45 minutes harassing the woman and touched her breast at one point, according to an arrest affidavit obtained by the Philadelphia Inquirer.

    Police said the rape lasted about six minutes as other passengers looked on while holding their cellphones, but didn’t use the devices to call 911, SEPTA’s police chief said Monday.

    Urban culture is at work among those who recorded the event for personal viewing pleasure. Why did no one intervene? Could it be fear of urban culture lawsuits?

    This is not a new problem. Public transit has been undermining Western values, like the right to self-defense, for decades. Remember the Bernhard Goetz trial from 1984.

     

     

    De-Urbanization Is The Answer

    Moving work out of urban centers ends the need for hours of daily commuting. Many white collar jobs allow “work from home” arrangements. For occupations where gathering is required, accumulating in car friendly suburbs is much less taxing than travel to dehumanizing, violent urban centers.

    PEACE 😇
    ___________

    (1) https://rightcountry.com/the-wealthy-atlanta-district-that-wants-to-succeed-amid-violent-crime-surge/

    (2) https://nypost.com/2021/10/19/passengers-held-up-phones-during-philadelphia-septa-rape/

    • Replies: @German_reader
    @A123


    Public transit has been undermining Western values, like the right to self-defense, for decades.
     
    Don't be such a cuck. The problem is dysfunctional American blacks and the excessive sympathy towards them which many whites have adopted. Public transit by itself is a mark of civilization and works perfectly well, if trouble-making demographics are kept out or harshly disciplined.

    Replies: @A123, @Dmitry

    , @Emil Nikola Richard
    @A123


    I do not believe this is accurate. Do you have a citation for your assertion about Atlanta demographics?
     
    Yeah I think the only sensible thing for white Atlanteans is to Get the Flux Out. Outside the city limits ain't far enough. Start with outside the 285 loop. Any real estate developers putting big skyscrapers on the plans for central Atlanta?

    Replies: @A123

  355. @Yellowface Anon
    Let's say a Trumpist government in 2024 declares UN to be an illegitimate institution, confiscates the land where the UN headquarter is, and then using it & deep-Blue Manhattan (after evacuating registered Republicans) as missile practice targets. WWIII ensues when Russia and China proclaim themselves as defenders of the UN-based international order and strives to contain the US. Zemmour, after an initial honeymoon with "Trump", realizes France's existence is at stake from Anglo-American aggression and joins on Russia's side. England (Scotland has left the UK and joined the hollowed-out EU) is strong-armed into America's side. 1984 comes 40 years late.

    I'm not a novelist and someone can do justice to this idea. If A123 doesn't oppose any of the above, then it will happen. (And Putin won't wish Trump good luck, because this is totally reckless and he'll know he's next)

    Replies: @A123

    The UN is an illegitimate institution. This has nothing to do with MAGA. It is driven by corrupt agencies like UNHRC and UNRWA. The associated vile NGO’s, funded by George IslamoSoros, compound & magnify UN/NWO anti-Semitic culture.

    I believe that the land at Turtle Bay will revert to NYC ownership when the UN is abolished. This was popularized in the film/comic Heavy Metal, with the buildings repurposed as low income housing.

    The rest of your suggestions are too implausible for serious drama. Perhaps, they could be used in a Mel Brooks style light comedy? The UN and associated Leftoid, anti-American institutions provide ample targets for parody.
    ___

    For a serious novel — Brussels EU HQ is nuked. The people of Europe celebrate their liberation. France rises, under Zemmour, driven by Champagne consumption. Muslims evacuate the country fleeing the robust, alcohol driven economy. This lack of an underclass, accelerates Paris as a center of American/European Judeo-Christian culture. A new golden age!

    I do not know if it would be marketable, as today’s novels are quite grim. A positive future for French Christians would have difficulty getting published.

    PEACE 😇

  356. @Dmitry
    @Emil Nikola Richard

    This is just a popular Australian blended red wine in the supermarkets in Europe. They signed some sponsorship with Snoop I guess.

    This wine usually markets by posting stories about Australian criminals on the bottle. I assume their marketing strategy is to seem "gangster" to attract slightly younger wine buyers, but also to represent the Australian heritage of the wine.

    It normally has some photos of impressive looking Australian gangsters and criminals on their bottle.

    I'm kind of a fan of some of Snoop Dogg's early songs so would be their target demographic. I.e. people that buy cheap red wine in the supermarket and are fans of 1990s hip hop. But even I'm not gullible enough for such incoherent marketing to buy an Australian blended wine, because of an Californian rapper. At least Snoop should be on a Californian wine label.

    Have to appreciate, the graphic designers who made that bottle have some professional skill though.

    Replies: @Emil Nikola Richard

    Today on my morning walk I passed an old lady with two beagles on leashes. I cheerfully said “snoopy dogs!”

    She harrrumffd at me. : (

  357. German_reader says:
    @Yellowface Anon
    @Thulean Friend


    Italy’s communist became the single largest party in their parliament during the early 1970s.
     
    Why didn't they align themselves with the Eastern Bloc like Czechoslovakia did after elections, back in 1945? Is it because of NATO & EEC membership?

    I think this idea that the West could have kept all the low-end manufacturing forever is a major fantasy that we see in the right-wing today, among Trumpers in the USA and republicans more generally.
     
    It is never about economics, and they know those are anti-economical (if being economical means being efficient). The Soviets knew it too and had a full industrial ecology where most sectors are inefficient, but strategic and subsidized. China somewhat knows it too despite some degree of premature deindustrialization. The GOP aren't liberals but nationalists at least.

    Replies: @German_reader

    Why didn’t they align themselves with the Eastern Bloc like Czechoslovakia did after elections, back in 1945?

    Because they were kept out of government (iirc Aldo Moro thought of an alliance with the communists, but of course he was killed by the Red Brigades, and iirc there are various theories that the Christian Democrat establishment let him die out of opposition to this policy). And while the PCI did get substantial funds from the Soviet Union right until the late 1980s, by the 1970s they had adopted a somewhat more distanced position towards the Soviets (“Eurocommunism”). The Soviet Union had lost much of its attraction to the West European left by that time compared to the immediate post-war era.

  358. German_reader says:
    @A123
    @Thulean Friend


    Atlanta have also become more white in recent years
     
    I do not believe this is accurate. Do you have a citation for your assertion about Atlanta demographics?

    Atlanta is about to become less white and much poorer due to the Buckhead succession. (1)

    File this under “Thanks, Democrats.”

    Due to an explosion of violent crime in Atlanta, Georgia that has encroached into one of the city’s most prosperous districts, residents are now seeking sucession—yes succession—as well as their own police force.

    So much for “social justice.”

    Newswars reports that crime in the stylish Buckhead neighborhood has gotten so bad, officials are exploring how they might be able to separate from Atlanta after the force lost almost 200 officers in 2020 alone.

    Residents of Buckhead profess to be “genuinely concerned for their safety” as violent attacks have spiked. One horrific example was the shooting death of a seven-year-old girl who was Christmas shopping with her family in December.
     
    ______

    It’s time to stop hiding behind “diversity” as an excuse to continue destroying Western cities due to cancerous car-centric urban policies
     
    Let me Fix That For You:

    It’s time to stop hiding behind “cars” as an excuse to continue destroying Western culture with cancerous urban-centric policies.

    The horror of long distance daily commuting to urban centers is just as soul crushing on buses & trains. The close proximity of individuals on public transit helps accelerate the spread of diseases like WUHAN-19. And, there are safety concerns. (2)

    Surveillance footage showed Fiston Ngoy, 35, who has been charged with rape in Wednesday’s sickening attack aboard a Southeastern Pennsylvania Transportation Authority train, spent nearly 45 minutes harassing the woman and touched her breast at one point, according to an arrest affidavit obtained by the Philadelphia Inquirer.

    Police said the rape lasted about six minutes as other passengers looked on while holding their cellphones, but didn’t use the devices to call 911, SEPTA’s police chief said Monday.
     
    Urban culture is at work among those who recorded the event for personal viewing pleasure. Why did no one intervene? Could it be fear of urban culture lawsuits?

    This is not a new problem. Public transit has been undermining Western values, like the right to self-defense, for decades. Remember the Bernhard Goetz trial from 1984.

     
    http://1.bp.blogspot.com/-xskVp2aQnhg/TsNURZtuHvI/AAAAAAAAAvk/axZhBlPxen0/s1600/GoetzTimeApr81985.jpg
     

    De-Urbanization Is The Answer

    Moving work out of urban centers ends the need for hours of daily commuting. Many white collar jobs allow "work from home" arrangements. For occupations where gathering is required, accumulating in car friendly suburbs is much less taxing than travel to dehumanizing, violent urban centers.

    PEACE 😇
    ___________

    (1) https://rightcountry.com/the-wealthy-atlanta-district-that-wants-to-succeed-amid-violent-crime-surge/

    (2) https://nypost.com/2021/10/19/passengers-held-up-phones-during-philadelphia-septa-rape/

    Replies: @German_reader, @Emil Nikola Richard

    Public transit has been undermining Western values, like the right to self-defense, for decades.

    Don’t be such a cuck. The problem is dysfunctional American blacks and the excessive sympathy towards them which many whites have adopted. Public transit by itself is a mark of civilization and works perfectly well, if trouble-making demographics are kept out or harshly disciplined.

    • Replies: @A123
    @German_reader


    Don’t be such a cuck
     
    Is there some why you are regressing back to negativity?

    I understand your emotional rage at Germany's rapid decline and failing government. You live in a cuck-tastrophe created by Open Muslim Borders. However lashing out at Christians, such as myself, is badly misplaced anger.

    The problem is dysfunctional American blacks and the excessive sympathy towards them which many whites have adopted. Public transit by itself is a mark of civilization and works perfectly well, if trouble-making demographics are kept out or harshly disciplined.
     
    All fauna become more aggressive when they experience overcrowding. Humans are no different. The population density associated with public transit is inherently destructive.

    Law enforcement and demographic control can mitigate the worst of the problems. However, limiting human density reduces (or eliminates) many issues before they begin. All of these methods can work together to maintain civilization.

    PEACE 😇
    , @Dmitry
    @German_reader


    if trouble-making demographics are kept out or harshly disciplined.

     

    Homeless people that piss on the public transit in the USA, are still multinational. African-Americans seem disproportionately high among the homeless drug addicts, but you can't say they are the only ones. Trying to say it's only their responsible does not seem very accurate.

    Also the public transport in the USA like buses are good value for money, but they operate a very irregular service. My experience of sitting in the American bus, is that you can feel like many of your fellow travelers are meth addicts making unpredictable movements.

    You also feel like you know some of the other passengers well, because you were sitting near them at the bus stop waiting for interminable minutes for the late bus to arrive. Buses sometimes arriving only once per hour.

    Otherwise I think I remember there seems to be mostly sober, hardworking looking people who use the bus, and indeed it seemed like more often they are Latino and African-American people.

    And then I enjoyed using the Amtrak train in California (actually a good service). But I think I remember other passengers looked like mostly Latino-Americans. Passengers loudly speaking Spanish in the trains.

    Replies: @German_reader, @A123

  359. @Thulean Friend
    @silviosilver


    In America, public transportation and city living means sharing close quarters with sullen, intersectional, white-hating negroids, and plenty of them. So few whites find that prospect appealing that white flight can be seen from the moon.
     
    Yet D.C. has gentrified and become much less black than in the 1970s. Cities like Atlanta have also become more white in recent years. Maybe whites in the US aren't as big pussies as you? :)

    As I noted, I recently moved to an immigrant-heavy neighbourhood that's seen as semi-rough (cars were burned here as late as a few years ago). Most of my neighbours are of non-European origin, however this is changing fast. I am probably part of a gentrification wave, but I never planned it. I picked this area because it was cheap for someone my age, I could get a big apartment while being decently close to the city center. Finally, I was tired of living in my parent's house in a middle-class area, where I'd be surrounded by carbon copies of myself.

    All of which is to say, many white people don't fear diversity. Crime levels have risen in Stockholm in recent years, in part due to failed past immigration policies, but that hasn't led to a major exodus. Some young are leaving as they get children due to expensive housing costs, but that's a separate debate. Housing costs are crazy all over the world, so it isn't a Swedish-exclusive issue. Just live with a partner who likes big cities, as I do, and the issue will resolve itself.

    It's time to stop hiding behind "diversity" as an excuse to continue destroying Western cities due to cancerous car-centric urban policies.

    Replies: @A123, @Dmitry, @silviosilver

    Crime levels have risen

    Who knows with our multinational discussion though, as we are from radically different national origins.

    Songbird is from the USA, where in many areas crime is much higher than anywhere in Western Europe. Where is Silviosilver from (Latin America?).

    Levels of personal safety related to nationality could really be a problem for them. I remember AaronB writing that he was beaten by black people as a teenager in 1990s New York. Although he says he feels safe in New York nowadays.

    You are from Sweden, which is of course one of the world’s safer countries in terms of crime.

    . Crime levels have risen in Stockholm in recent years,

    Unfiltered immigrants can be rising the level, but as it’s known from a low base.

    Playing with World Bank’s site again, can you see a possible indication of Germany’s immigration policy, on the homicide rate?

    For myself, actually I was a youth in cities with double the homicide rate of Russia. I didn’t feel very gangster. It still wasn’t very dangerous on average for any normal people.

    Still I understand from my youth, why I will not notice so much “dangerous” in Western Europe, even their media reports.

    But if you zoomed in enough on the chart, then maybe there was around 40% increase in the figures Germany reported for intentional homicide 2016 compared to 2015.

    With proviso, this kind of data is an area you really need professionals in crime statistics to analyze this data, rather than untrained amateurs. It’s still interesting to read those charts.

    • Replies: @silviosilver
    @Dmitry


    Songbird is from the USA, where in many areas crime is much higher than anywhere in Western Europe. Where is Silviosilver from (Latin America?).
     
    Australia, but I have lived in America.
  360. More nonsense from integralist Adrian Vermeule (who’s now whinging about neo-colonialism, because 1 billion Nigerians is such a great prospect):
    https://twitter.com/Vermeullarmine/status/1479743364924858372

    • Replies: @Barbarossa
    @German_reader

    There is a very valid critique of America's imperial style contained there.

    America requires that you buy into an alien ideological framework in exchange for aid. The Chinese just seek a profitable economic investment. The Chinese method of exerting influence seems far less detrimental to the nations becoming clients, as well as a far more secure and durable arrangement for the Chinese, since the quid pro quo is fairly transparent, rather than all the American froth about "supporting Democracy" and "supporting the rights of the Trans Somali Pirate community" or what have you.

    Replies: @German_reader

  361. @Yevardian
    @Philip Owen

    Is Kevin Barret really all the only person on this site who's writing on this Kazakhstan mess, other than Andrew Anglin? Karlin really did choose an inaspaucious time to virtually quit blogging to chase the crypto-'currency'-dragon...

    Replies: @Dmitry, @Philip Owen, @LondonBob

    Why would you need their opinion? I’m confident you can write something better yourself.

    At least, you sound like someone who likes reading books, literature, etc. And you’re from Armenia, so you already know most of what is happening in Kazakhstan by generalization from the local situation. On the other hand, for that reason, maybe it’s more of a waste of time and cause of depression, as those of us from the region already know the much of this screenplay, and there is a limit to how many times to see it.

  362. @German_reader
    @A123


    Public transit has been undermining Western values, like the right to self-defense, for decades.
     
    Don't be such a cuck. The problem is dysfunctional American blacks and the excessive sympathy towards them which many whites have adopted. Public transit by itself is a mark of civilization and works perfectly well, if trouble-making demographics are kept out or harshly disciplined.

    Replies: @A123, @Dmitry

    Don’t be such a cuck

    Is there some why you are regressing back to negativity?

    I understand your emotional rage at Germany’s rapid decline and failing government. You live in a cuck-tastrophe created by Open Muslim Borders. However lashing out at Christians, such as myself, is badly misplaced anger.

    The problem is dysfunctional American blacks and the excessive sympathy towards them which many whites have adopted. Public transit by itself is a mark of civilization and works perfectly well, if trouble-making demographics are kept out or harshly disciplined.

    All fauna become more aggressive when they experience overcrowding. Humans are no different. The population density associated with public transit is inherently destructive.

    Law enforcement and demographic control can mitigate the worst of the problems. However, limiting human density reduces (or eliminates) many issues before they begin. All of these methods can work together to maintain civilization.

    PEACE 😇

  363. @German_reader
    @A123


    Public transit has been undermining Western values, like the right to self-defense, for decades.
     
    Don't be such a cuck. The problem is dysfunctional American blacks and the excessive sympathy towards them which many whites have adopted. Public transit by itself is a mark of civilization and works perfectly well, if trouble-making demographics are kept out or harshly disciplined.

    Replies: @A123, @Dmitry

    if trouble-making demographics are kept out or harshly disciplined.

    Homeless people that piss on the public transit in the USA, are still multinational. African-Americans seem disproportionately high among the homeless drug addicts, but you can’t say they are the only ones. Trying to say it’s only their responsible does not seem very accurate.

    Also the public transport in the USA like buses are good value for money, but they operate a very irregular service. My experience of sitting in the American bus, is that you can feel like many of your fellow travelers are meth addicts making unpredictable movements.

    You also feel like you know some of the other passengers well, because you were sitting near them at the bus stop waiting for interminable minutes for the late bus to arrive. Buses sometimes arriving only once per hour.

    Otherwise I think I remember there seems to be mostly sober, hardworking looking people who use the bus, and indeed it seemed like more often they are Latino and African-American people.

    And then I enjoyed using the Amtrak train in California (actually a good service). But I think I remember other passengers looked like mostly Latino-Americans. Passengers loudly speaking Spanish in the trains.

    • Agree: A123
    • Replies: @German_reader
    @Dmitry

    In the Bernie Goetz case A123 was referencing it was black muggers (who then pretended to be victims of an unjustified racist attack), and I'd be rather surprised if that kind of crime on New York public transit in the 1970s and 1980s hadn't been something committed mostly by black perpetrators.
    imo it's absurd to pretend that public transit itself is necessarily a cause of violence as A123 does. There apparently were some stabbing attacks on the Tokyo metro in recent years, but in general the system there seems to work fine, with little violent crime, so mass transit itself isn't the issue imo. It's specific groups that can turn public transit into a terrible experience.

    Replies: @AP, @A123, @Dmitry

    , @A123
    @Dmitry


    Homeless people that piss on the public transit in the USA, are still multinational. African-Americans seem disproportionately high among the homeless drug addicts, but you can’t say they are the only ones. Trying to say it’s only their responsible does not seem very accurate.
    ...
    My experience of sitting in the American bus, is that you can feel like many of your fellow travelers are meth addicts making unpredictable movements.
     
    GR seems determined to misrepresent my position.

    Your depiction of the situation is more accurate. Public transit in the U S. is cheap, often highly government subsidized. In terms of timing, it is not particularly reliable. Sometimes the bus never comes. And, the ridership is mostly lower class, some good while others are troubled.

    You would get where you are going more reliably and have fewer interactions with undesirables in a car. However, you would also schedule your transit to avoid urban density, especially downtown rush hour traffic.

    There is nothing virtuous about public transit that makes it a necessary symbol of "civilization". In the U.S. it is more a burden and often the choice of last resort. There are of course exceptions to this. The Amtrak corridor in the East Coast goes head to head with airlines. Ticket prices are high enough to eliminate derelicts. Timing is pretty reliable. Everything is kept reasonably clean.

    Where GR willfully attempts to derail the conversation is, dishonestly holding up the few exceptions while ignoring the 99%+ that most accurately represents the situation.

    PEACE 😇

  364. German_reader says:
    @Dmitry
    @German_reader


    if trouble-making demographics are kept out or harshly disciplined.

     

    Homeless people that piss on the public transit in the USA, are still multinational. African-Americans seem disproportionately high among the homeless drug addicts, but you can't say they are the only ones. Trying to say it's only their responsible does not seem very accurate.

    Also the public transport in the USA like buses are good value for money, but they operate a very irregular service. My experience of sitting in the American bus, is that you can feel like many of your fellow travelers are meth addicts making unpredictable movements.

    You also feel like you know some of the other passengers well, because you were sitting near them at the bus stop waiting for interminable minutes for the late bus to arrive. Buses sometimes arriving only once per hour.

    Otherwise I think I remember there seems to be mostly sober, hardworking looking people who use the bus, and indeed it seemed like more often they are Latino and African-American people.

    And then I enjoyed using the Amtrak train in California (actually a good service). But I think I remember other passengers looked like mostly Latino-Americans. Passengers loudly speaking Spanish in the trains.

    Replies: @German_reader, @A123

    In the Bernie Goetz case A123 was referencing it was black muggers (who then pretended to be victims of an unjustified racist attack), and I’d be rather surprised if that kind of crime on New York public transit in the 1970s and 1980s hadn’t been something committed mostly by black perpetrators.
    imo it’s absurd to pretend that public transit itself is necessarily a cause of violence as A123 does. There apparently were some stabbing attacks on the Tokyo metro in recent years, but in general the system there seems to work fine, with little violent crime, so mass transit itself isn’t the issue imo. It’s specific groups that can turn public transit into a terrible experience.

    • Replies: @AP
    @German_reader


    imo it’s absurd to pretend that public transit itself is necessarily a cause of violence as A123 does.
     
    Correct. Public transit seems fine in a place like Boston. I remember taking a late subway from Manhattan to Brooklyn, sometime after midnight, during Bloomberg's last years of rule (2011 or so) and it was totally safe. Basically a bunch of friendly and tipsy partiers. I'm not sure I would risk that now.

    Public transit doesn't cause problems. Rather, if problems exist, public transport enables them to spread to places where they would not otherwise be. Public transport is like elimination of mask mandates. Good if no one is infected, bad during a period of sickness.

    Replies: @Dmitry, @songbird

    , @A123
    @German_reader


    it’s absurd to pretend that public transit itself is necessarily a cause of violence as A123 does
     
    To clarify, I believe that high population density is the problem.

    Public transit is an exacerbating factor, not the direct cause.


    There apparently were some stabbing attacks on the Tokyo metro in recent years, but in general the system there seems to work fine, with little violent crime
     
    Japanese society is not just a monoculture. It is also a uniquely repressive & conformist one. Reproducing Japanese behaviour with a different population is unlikely to be successful.
    _____

    As a thought experiment -- What do you think would happen if you collected WN's and compacted them into Tokyo level density as "Stormfront-landia"? Do you believe that public transit would be a hallmark of Stormfront civilization?

    Despite the WN monoculture, I would expect public transit there to be unpleasant and probably dangerous.

    PEACE 😇

    , @Dmitry
    @German_reader

    Yes to claim that public transit causes violence seems pretty absurd.

    But in America, public transport is not usually like some middle class system. New York is a bit different, but in other areas it's mostly already poor people who are using public transit.

    So, in California, the main customers of the public transit seem like Latino-Americans and African-Americans.

    AP was even claiming to me a couple years ago, that he believed probably much of the upper class in Los Angeles might have never even used the bus system in their life. I don't know how true this is.

    Still, I don't think you can say like African-Americans are maliciously ruining the system for the other nationalities. It feels more like a system for the poor people there, which therefore has a high proportion of African-Americans (as they are more overrepresented in the proletariat).

    It's also possible a lot of problems in the public transit (pissing on seats, etc) are from the drug addicts, who are a group which has a high ratio of African Americans, but also many of the other nationalities as well.*


    Tokyo metro in recent years, but in general the system there seems to work fine, with little violent crime

     

    Japan as a country is so radically different than America, not just in this topic, but in most other ways.

    Public transport is like the mainstream path in Japan's culture, whereas in America (since at least the 1950s) it's more of a niche. Within this niche, it's indeed more of the African-Americans and Latinos who are the main customers of the public transport.

    I haven't read any history books about this, but you can see in the 1940s how it was still normal for American people to go to work by train. Many of these trains rapidly removed in early postwar times.

    Japanese indeed also seem to make the public transport civilized to an extent that is a result of their cultural training. Passengers behaving like nerdy, introverted kids, are sitting in the school library.

    Notice also with the coronavirus rates there, how disciplined the people in Japan must be behaving in terms of hygiene in crowded spaces. You can see walking videos in Japan and 99% of the Japanese people wear masks even walking outside.


    -

    *It's like the Zombies of Philadelphia can appear more multiethnic than most of American society.
    https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Bi1Kf-1qd6Y

    Replies: @German_reader

  365. @German_reader
    @Dmitry

    In the Bernie Goetz case A123 was referencing it was black muggers (who then pretended to be victims of an unjustified racist attack), and I'd be rather surprised if that kind of crime on New York public transit in the 1970s and 1980s hadn't been something committed mostly by black perpetrators.
    imo it's absurd to pretend that public transit itself is necessarily a cause of violence as A123 does. There apparently were some stabbing attacks on the Tokyo metro in recent years, but in general the system there seems to work fine, with little violent crime, so mass transit itself isn't the issue imo. It's specific groups that can turn public transit into a terrible experience.

    Replies: @AP, @A123, @Dmitry

    imo it’s absurd to pretend that public transit itself is necessarily a cause of violence as A123 does.

    Correct. Public transit seems fine in a place like Boston. I remember taking a late subway from Manhattan to Brooklyn, sometime after midnight, during Bloomberg’s last years of rule (2011 or so) and it was totally safe. Basically a bunch of friendly and tipsy partiers. I’m not sure I would risk that now.

    Public transit doesn’t cause problems. Rather, if problems exist, public transport enables them to spread to places where they would not otherwise be. Public transport is like elimination of mask mandates. Good if no one is infected, bad during a period of sickness.

    • Replies: @Dmitry
    @AP

    There are also countries like UK and Ireland, where people seem to behave well in public transit, but the system is still very bad for other reasons. It's just badly organized, slow, systems there, where trains move sometimes for a long time at walking speed, or stop in a field for an hour during your journey. And yet the ticket prices are crazy high.

    On the other hand, public transit seems so good in Japan (excluding the high prices), not just because of people behaving well. It must be also excellent design of their systems, the vast investment, engineering and organizational ability.

    Replies: @German_reader

    , @songbird
    @AP


    Public transit seems fine in a place like Boston.
     
    On a US-relative scale. Due largely to scale (NYC has a massive system that runs 24/7, Boston doesn't), and the fact that Boston has a large college population, which acts as a counterbalance to resident demographics. But, nevertheless, I would not advise you to get out at certain stations, at night. (not places you would be going to anyway, unless by some mistake).

    Where it really hurts more, IMO, is in the way things are run. Massive levels of corruption, incompetence, and malfeasance. I don't know if you have ever been in a broken down train after midnight, but it is an unpleasant experience. The trains and stations are really dirty. There is not good access to public bathrooms. I think it falls short of anything that one would see as ideal. It compares unfavorably to experience in certain German cities.

    I don't want to blame a single ethnic group. I think diversity increases corruption in a general way, but it should be noted that it is basically a jobs program for blacks. Some of them are surly and unpleasant. A few are quite congenial, but unable to do the most basic math, or advise you on routes.

    My ideal conception of mass transit, would be something that is well-run, clean, with public bathrooms, and not a jobs program (automation, where possible.) It seems amazing to me how badly run it is in many cities, when one considers that there are so many world examples, and so much history that one would think it would be possible to refine it to a science, publish data, and adapt best practices, at best cost. And I think that is a really significant observation, which demolishes this Pinkerian argument that we are all headed towards best practices.

    Replies: @AP

  366. @German_reader
    @Dmitry

    In the Bernie Goetz case A123 was referencing it was black muggers (who then pretended to be victims of an unjustified racist attack), and I'd be rather surprised if that kind of crime on New York public transit in the 1970s and 1980s hadn't been something committed mostly by black perpetrators.
    imo it's absurd to pretend that public transit itself is necessarily a cause of violence as A123 does. There apparently were some stabbing attacks on the Tokyo metro in recent years, but in general the system there seems to work fine, with little violent crime, so mass transit itself isn't the issue imo. It's specific groups that can turn public transit into a terrible experience.

    Replies: @AP, @A123, @Dmitry

    it’s absurd to pretend that public transit itself is necessarily a cause of violence as A123 does

    To clarify, I believe that high population density is the problem.

    Public transit is an exacerbating factor, not the direct cause.

    There apparently were some stabbing attacks on the Tokyo metro in recent years, but in general the system there seems to work fine, with little violent crime

    Japanese society is not just a monoculture. It is also a uniquely repressive & conformist one. Reproducing Japanese behaviour with a different population is unlikely to be successful.
    _____

    As a thought experiment — What do you think would happen if you collected WN’s and compacted them into Tokyo level density as “Stormfront-landia”? Do you believe that public transit would be a hallmark of Stormfront civilization?

    Despite the WN monoculture, I would expect public transit there to be unpleasant and probably dangerous.

    PEACE 😇

  367. @German_reader
    @Dmitry

    In the Bernie Goetz case A123 was referencing it was black muggers (who then pretended to be victims of an unjustified racist attack), and I'd be rather surprised if that kind of crime on New York public transit in the 1970s and 1980s hadn't been something committed mostly by black perpetrators.
    imo it's absurd to pretend that public transit itself is necessarily a cause of violence as A123 does. There apparently were some stabbing attacks on the Tokyo metro in recent years, but in general the system there seems to work fine, with little violent crime, so mass transit itself isn't the issue imo. It's specific groups that can turn public transit into a terrible experience.

    Replies: @AP, @A123, @Dmitry

    Yes to claim that public transit causes violence seems pretty absurd.

    But in America, public transport is not usually like some middle class system. New York is a bit different, but in other areas it’s mostly already poor people who are using public transit.

    So, in California, the main customers of the public transit seem like Latino-Americans and African-Americans.

    AP was even claiming to me a couple years ago, that he believed probably much of the upper class in Los Angeles might have never even used the bus system in their life. I don’t know how true this is.

    Still, I don’t think you can say like African-Americans are maliciously ruining the system for the other nationalities. It feels more like a system for the poor people there, which therefore has a high proportion of African-Americans (as they are more overrepresented in the proletariat).

    It’s also possible a lot of problems in the public transit (pissing on seats, etc) are from the drug addicts, who are a group which has a high ratio of African Americans, but also many of the other nationalities as well.*

    Tokyo metro in recent years, but in general the system there seems to work fine, with little violent crime

    Japan as a country is so radically different than America, not just in this topic, but in most other ways.

    Public transport is like the mainstream path in Japan’s culture, whereas in America (since at least the 1950s) it’s more of a niche. Within this niche, it’s indeed more of the African-Americans and Latinos who are the main customers of the public transport.

    I haven’t read any history books about this, but you can see in the 1940s how it was still normal for American people to go to work by train. Many of these trains rapidly removed in early postwar times.

    Japanese indeed also seem to make the public transport civilized to an extent that is a result of their cultural training. Passengers behaving like nerdy, introverted kids, are sitting in the school library.

    Notice also with the coronavirus rates there, how disciplined the people in Japan must be behaving in terms of hygiene in crowded spaces. You can see walking videos in Japan and 99% of the Japanese people wear masks even walking outside.

    *It’s like the Zombies of Philadelphia can appear more multiethnic than most of American society.

    • Replies: @German_reader
    @Dmitry


    Still, I don’t think you can say like African-Americans are maliciously ruining the system for the other nationalities.
     
    I suppose my original comment could be interpreted as overly harsh, as if I had suggested American blacks in general ought to be banned from public transit. That wasn't my intention. But I don't think we need to be overly pc here either, young black underclass men in America are a disproportionately crime-prone group, whatever reason you may attribute that to.

    But in America, public transport is not usually like some middle class system. New York is a bit different, but in other areas it’s mostly already poor people who are using public transit.
     
    Yes, but you could say that this is a manifestation of America's racial and class divisions, and its fairly high levels of violent crime by developed world standards. Now this isn't a pleasant subject, and maybe I should have kept quiet about it, but it just seems absurd to me how A123 tiptoes around those issues (like many American right-wingers do) and instead pretends that public transit itself is the problem. I suppose admitting the reality would be too painful.

    Replies: @A123

  368. @AP
    @German_reader


    imo it’s absurd to pretend that public transit itself is necessarily a cause of violence as A123 does.
     
    Correct. Public transit seems fine in a place like Boston. I remember taking a late subway from Manhattan to Brooklyn, sometime after midnight, during Bloomberg's last years of rule (2011 or so) and it was totally safe. Basically a bunch of friendly and tipsy partiers. I'm not sure I would risk that now.

    Public transit doesn't cause problems. Rather, if problems exist, public transport enables them to spread to places where they would not otherwise be. Public transport is like elimination of mask mandates. Good if no one is infected, bad during a period of sickness.

    Replies: @Dmitry, @songbird

    There are also countries like UK and Ireland, where people seem to behave well in public transit, but the system is still very bad for other reasons. It’s just badly organized, slow, systems there, where trains move sometimes for a long time at walking speed, or stop in a field for an hour during your journey. And yet the ticket prices are crazy high.

    On the other hand, public transit seems so good in Japan (excluding the high prices), not just because of people behaving well. It must be also excellent design of their systems, the vast investment, engineering and organizational ability.

    • Replies: @German_reader
    @Dmitry

    The decrepit state of the railway system in Britain is usually attributed to the botched privatization in the 1990s. But Japan's former state railway system was apparently also privatized in the late 1980s, yet still seems to work quite well. Would be interesting to know what explains the contrast.

    Replies: @Dmitry

  369. @Yellowface Anon
    @mal

    I've come to realize the real nature of Austrian "sound money" - a inter-temporally trustworthy money. If you have stable institutions and you do fiat, you can work almost as well as gold. All the hyperinflationary episodes are because people are losing trust in the underlying institutions of the economies.

    Replies: @Beckow

    ….Austrian “sound money”: …If you have stable institutions and you do fiat, you can work almost as well as gold.

    At the beginning it works better than gold, gold is more messy. But how far can you go? A trusted institution that can issue (in effect: guarantee) a few trillion in fiat money, may look wobbly if it reaches 100 trillion.

    Numbers and ratios matter, we are at a point when the numbers simply don’t add up. Money is a representation of wealth, and wealth is a summa summarum of what we manage to consume while alive. Each “debt” represents two or more owners of the same asset. The only clean way that debt can be managed is if it is paid back and the asset ownership becomes singular again.

    That is clearly not going to happen with today’s debts – they are too large in comparison to the actual economic activity in the West (servants and soldiers don’t count for much). That leaves inflation to devalue the debts, repossessing the assets, or possibly a financial collapse. Those are the choices and no amount of “trust in institutions” can change that.

    • Agree: mal
  370. German_reader says:
    @Dmitry
    @German_reader

    Yes to claim that public transit causes violence seems pretty absurd.

    But in America, public transport is not usually like some middle class system. New York is a bit different, but in other areas it's mostly already poor people who are using public transit.

    So, in California, the main customers of the public transit seem like Latino-Americans and African-Americans.

    AP was even claiming to me a couple years ago, that he believed probably much of the upper class in Los Angeles might have never even used the bus system in their life. I don't know how true this is.

    Still, I don't think you can say like African-Americans are maliciously ruining the system for the other nationalities. It feels more like a system for the poor people there, which therefore has a high proportion of African-Americans (as they are more overrepresented in the proletariat).

    It's also possible a lot of problems in the public transit (pissing on seats, etc) are from the drug addicts, who are a group which has a high ratio of African Americans, but also many of the other nationalities as well.*


    Tokyo metro in recent years, but in general the system there seems to work fine, with little violent crime

     

    Japan as a country is so radically different than America, not just in this topic, but in most other ways.

    Public transport is like the mainstream path in Japan's culture, whereas in America (since at least the 1950s) it's more of a niche. Within this niche, it's indeed more of the African-Americans and Latinos who are the main customers of the public transport.

    I haven't read any history books about this, but you can see in the 1940s how it was still normal for American people to go to work by train. Many of these trains rapidly removed in early postwar times.

    Japanese indeed also seem to make the public transport civilized to an extent that is a result of their cultural training. Passengers behaving like nerdy, introverted kids, are sitting in the school library.

    Notice also with the coronavirus rates there, how disciplined the people in Japan must be behaving in terms of hygiene in crowded spaces. You can see walking videos in Japan and 99% of the Japanese people wear masks even walking outside.


    -

    *It's like the Zombies of Philadelphia can appear more multiethnic than most of American society.
    https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Bi1Kf-1qd6Y

    Replies: @German_reader

    Still, I don’t think you can say like African-Americans are maliciously ruining the system for the other nationalities.

    I suppose my original comment could be interpreted as overly harsh, as if I had suggested American blacks in general ought to be banned from public transit. That wasn’t my intention. But I don’t think we need to be overly pc here either, young black underclass men in America are a disproportionately crime-prone group, whatever reason you may attribute that to.

    But in America, public transport is not usually like some middle class system. New York is a bit different, but in other areas it’s mostly already poor people who are using public transit.

    Yes, but you could say that this is a manifestation of America’s racial and class divisions, and its fairly high levels of violent crime by developed world standards. Now this isn’t a pleasant subject, and maybe I should have kept quiet about it, but it just seems absurd to me how A123 tiptoes around those issues (like many American right-wingers do) and instead pretends that public transit itself is the problem. I suppose admitting the reality would be too painful.

    • Replies: @A123
    @German_reader


    A123 tiptoes around those issues (like many American right-wingers do) and instead pretends that public transit itself is the problem
     
    The problem is that you do not grasp U.S. politics and are thus combining things in a manner that is inapplicable to the American situation.

    In the U.S., mass transit is wielded by the Elite as a weapon of decarbonization, much like wind & solar power. It obtains huge government expenditures that would be better deployed elsewhere. And, given that people live in disbursed suburbs, these boondoggles never deliver the results that Elites claim they will deliver.

    Even in places where race is not an issue, public transit fails to deliver. Most public transit in the U.S. is politically funded and highly undesirable.

    As a government service, it could also be used as an instrument of authoritarian control. Imagine a WUHAN-19 passport scanner needed to board a train or bus. The Elites cannot impose that type of Orwellian restriction on individually owned cars.

    No matter how much you duck, you cannot escape the truth. The more you twist what I say, the more you concede the accuracy of my stance. Using silly accusations like "cuck" also makes my position stronger.

    PEACE 😇

    Replies: @German_reader

  371. @Dmitry
    @German_reader


    if trouble-making demographics are kept out or harshly disciplined.

     

    Homeless people that piss on the public transit in the USA, are still multinational. African-Americans seem disproportionately high among the homeless drug addicts, but you can't say they are the only ones. Trying to say it's only their responsible does not seem very accurate.

    Also the public transport in the USA like buses are good value for money, but they operate a very irregular service. My experience of sitting in the American bus, is that you can feel like many of your fellow travelers are meth addicts making unpredictable movements.

    You also feel like you know some of the other passengers well, because you were sitting near them at the bus stop waiting for interminable minutes for the late bus to arrive. Buses sometimes arriving only once per hour.

    Otherwise I think I remember there seems to be mostly sober, hardworking looking people who use the bus, and indeed it seemed like more often they are Latino and African-American people.

    And then I enjoyed using the Amtrak train in California (actually a good service). But I think I remember other passengers looked like mostly Latino-Americans. Passengers loudly speaking Spanish in the trains.

    Replies: @German_reader, @A123

    Homeless people that piss on the public transit in the USA, are still multinational. African-Americans seem disproportionately high among the homeless drug addicts, but you can’t say they are the only ones. Trying to say it’s only their responsible does not seem very accurate.

    My experience of sitting in the American bus, is that you can feel like many of your fellow travelers are meth addicts making unpredictable movements.

    GR seems determined to misrepresent my position.

    Your depiction of the situation is more accurate. Public transit in the U S. is cheap, often highly government subsidized. In terms of timing, it is not particularly reliable. Sometimes the bus never comes. And, the ridership is mostly lower class, some good while others are troubled.

    You would get where you are going more reliably and have fewer interactions with undesirables in a car. However, you would also schedule your transit to avoid urban density, especially downtown rush hour traffic.

    There is nothing virtuous about public transit that makes it a necessary symbol of “civilization”. In the U.S. it is more a burden and often the choice of last resort. There are of course exceptions to this. The Amtrak corridor in the East Coast goes head to head with airlines. Ticket prices are high enough to eliminate derelicts. Timing is pretty reliable. Everything is kept reasonably clean.

    Where GR willfully attempts to derail the conversation is, dishonestly holding up the few exceptions while ignoring the 99%+ that most accurately represents the situation.

    PEACE 😇

  372. @Dmitry
    @AP

    There are also countries like UK and Ireland, where people seem to behave well in public transit, but the system is still very bad for other reasons. It's just badly organized, slow, systems there, where trains move sometimes for a long time at walking speed, or stop in a field for an hour during your journey. And yet the ticket prices are crazy high.

    On the other hand, public transit seems so good in Japan (excluding the high prices), not just because of people behaving well. It must be also excellent design of their systems, the vast investment, engineering and organizational ability.

    Replies: @German_reader

    The decrepit state of the railway system in Britain is usually attributed to the botched privatization in the 1990s. But Japan’s former state railway system was apparently also privatized in the late 1980s, yet still seems to work quite well. Would be interesting to know what explains the contrast.

    • Replies: @Dmitry
    @German_reader

    Some years ago, I was in the UK, and I had to a use a train journey a few times between two cities.

    The first time I tried this journey I was just surprised how slow it travels. Often the train moving at walking speed, other times it might accelerate to the speed of a bus.

    After a couple of journeys, I was somehow habituated and just atmospheric, how slow we travel across the attractive English landscapes, how much time there is to read a book.

    Then I remember a final journey, this same train stops for two hours in the night.

    Announcement from the driver "Sorry we are empty of fuel and we are waiting a fuel train to be sent to refill our diesel". Then half an hour later "Don't worry I was speaking to the station and they said there is a fuel train available to send to you soon".

    When the train is finally refilled with the fuel, then the driver said we can apply for a refund if we write an application letter to their company's email. Obviously it's too much work to write special letters to the train company.

    So, that's the English trains. They don't calculate how much fuel they will need to complete the journey.


    Britain is usually attributed to the botched privatization in the 1990s.

     

    The irony is that some British railway companies are owned by partnerships including Japanese rail.
    https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/West_Midlands_Trains

    -

    But trains in Republic of Ireland are also very expensive tickets and slow, but they are not privatized.

    Perhaps British trains had been already bad, before privatization. Maybe privatization was some response to pre-existing problems, which made a bad situation become worse. I guess Philip Owen might have some knowledge.


    Japan’s former state railway system was apparently also privatized in the late 1980s, yet still seems to work quite well.

     

    Japanese trains are the "crème de la crème" of the world (with predictable prices).

    But many countries can at least run basically working trains, not just in EU, but even in postsoviet countries we have trains which are electric and regular, moving at least usually faster than walking speed. Even Israel organizes normal working trains which are comfortable and cheap, and they have a land border with Africa.

    Probably, there are African countries, which remember to refill their trains with adequate fuel. Perhaps there is some masonic conspiracy that England pretends it installed the train system in India, but it was actually the other way around.

    Replies: @German_reader, @Philip Owen

  373. @AP
    @German_reader


    imo it’s absurd to pretend that public transit itself is necessarily a cause of violence as A123 does.
     
    Correct. Public transit seems fine in a place like Boston. I remember taking a late subway from Manhattan to Brooklyn, sometime after midnight, during Bloomberg's last years of rule (2011 or so) and it was totally safe. Basically a bunch of friendly and tipsy partiers. I'm not sure I would risk that now.

    Public transit doesn't cause problems. Rather, if problems exist, public transport enables them to spread to places where they would not otherwise be. Public transport is like elimination of mask mandates. Good if no one is infected, bad during a period of sickness.

    Replies: @Dmitry, @songbird

    Public transit seems fine in a place like Boston.

    On a US-relative scale. Due largely to scale (NYC has a massive system that runs 24/7, Boston doesn’t), and the fact that Boston has a large college population, which acts as a counterbalance to resident demographics. But, nevertheless, I would not advise you to get out at certain stations, at night. (not places you would be going to anyway, unless by some mistake).

    Where it really hurts more, IMO, is in the way things are run. Massive levels of corruption, incompetence, and malfeasance. I don’t know if you have ever been in a broken down train after midnight, but it is an unpleasant experience. The trains and stations are really dirty. There is not good access to public bathrooms. I think it falls short of anything that one would see as ideal. It compares unfavorably to experience in certain German cities.

    I don’t want to blame a single ethnic group. I think diversity increases corruption in a general way, but it should be noted that it is basically a jobs program for blacks. Some of them are surly and unpleasant. A few are quite congenial, but unable to do the most basic math, or advise you on routes.

    My ideal conception of mass transit, would be something that is well-run, clean, with public bathrooms, and not a jobs program (automation, where possible.) It seems amazing to me how badly run it is in many cities, when one considers that there are so many world examples, and so much history that one would think it would be possible to refine it to a science, publish data, and adapt best practices, at best cost. And I think that is a really significant observation, which demolishes this Pinkerian argument that we are all headed towards best practices.

    • Replies: @AP
    @songbird


    Where it really hurts more, IMO, is in the way things are run. Massive levels of corruption, incompetence, and malfeasance. I don’t know if you have ever been in a broken down train after midnight, but it is an unpleasant experience.
     
    I've rarely taken the NYC subway; more often, I've taken Metro North into Grand Central Station. Those trains are fine and the station is beautiful. Until 2014, Metro North commuter trains even had a bar car for middle class people to unwind after work with a few drinks!

    https://static01.nyt.com/images/2014/05/10/nyregion/20140510BARCARss-slide-8I1Z/20140510BARCARss-slide-8I1Z-superJumbo.jpg

    https://s.hdnux.com/photos/62/75/15/13357939/3/ratio3x2_400.jpg

    https://static01.nyt.com/images/2014/05/10/nyregion/20140510BARCARss-slide-SNEI/20140510BARCARss-slide-SNEI-jumbo.jpg

    https://m.wsj.net/video/20140510/051014barcar1/051014barcar1_960x540.jpg


    The state of public transportation depends on the nature of the public using them.

    Replies: @Dmitry

  374. @German_reader
    @Dmitry


    Still, I don’t think you can say like African-Americans are maliciously ruining the system for the other nationalities.
     
    I suppose my original comment could be interpreted as overly harsh, as if I had suggested American blacks in general ought to be banned from public transit. That wasn't my intention. But I don't think we need to be overly pc here either, young black underclass men in America are a disproportionately crime-prone group, whatever reason you may attribute that to.

    But in America, public transport is not usually like some middle class system. New York is a bit different, but in other areas it’s mostly already poor people who are using public transit.
     
    Yes, but you could say that this is a manifestation of America's racial and class divisions, and its fairly high levels of violent crime by developed world standards. Now this isn't a pleasant subject, and maybe I should have kept quiet about it, but it just seems absurd to me how A123 tiptoes around those issues (like many American right-wingers do) and instead pretends that public transit itself is the problem. I suppose admitting the reality would be too painful.

    Replies: @A123

    A123 tiptoes around those issues (like many American right-wingers do) and instead pretends that public transit itself is the problem

    The problem is that you do not grasp U.S. politics and are thus combining things in a manner that is inapplicable to the American situation.

    In the U.S., mass transit is wielded by the Elite as a weapon of decarbonization, much like wind & solar power. It obtains huge government expenditures that would be better deployed elsewhere. And, given that people live in disbursed suburbs, these boondoggles never deliver the results that Elites claim they will deliver.

    Even in places where race is not an issue, public transit fails to deliver. Most public transit in the U.S. is politically funded and highly undesirable.

    As a government service, it could also be used as an instrument of authoritarian control. Imagine a WUHAN-19 passport scanner needed to board a train or bus. The Elites cannot impose that type of Orwellian restriction on individually owned cars.

    No matter how much you duck, you cannot escape the truth. The more you twist what I say, the more you concede the accuracy of my stance. Using silly accusations like “cuck” also makes my position stronger.

    PEACE 😇

    • Replies: @German_reader
    @A123


    The Elites cannot impose that type of Orwellian restriction on individually owned cars.
     
    They could just ban certain types of cars or make gas prices too high for most consumers. If there's a will to create a tyranny, your SUV won't save you.
    However, I will admit that in a polarized society like the US is today it may make sense to oppose funding for public transport from your point of view, since it's likely to be only beneficial for mostly left-leaning urbanites.

    Replies: @A123

  375. @Dmitry
    @songbird


    White Flight. Coming soon to Europe
     
    In Europe, it's like the poor (non-elite) immigrants go to areas which are already not-fashionable.

    Although which areas are not-fashionable varies by country. In Spanish cities, it's often in the historical center, where housing is aesthetically beautiful, but not convenient.

    Whereas in France, it is banlieues outside of the city.

    In Russia, where the internal immigration is even larger than the external immigration, immigrants can flood into the same areas, as the internal immigrants. (For Russian readers, journalists complain about how multicultural the area of Moscow AK lives is becoming https://moskvichmag.ru/gorod/odin-den-v-lyublino-zhizn-s-cherkizonom/ )


    -

    Also there is a reverse "white flight" when areas become fashionable in Europe, then the immigrant populations can be displaced by the wealthy hipsters.

    For example, in the traditional Bangladesh immigrant area of London, the upper class English people are immigrating. If you look at this area, there are not really many people from Bangladesh now, but you can see the evidence of the wealthy hipster invasion (graffiti, electric bicycles)

    https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=bewC7HPqUnc

    Meanwhile, Wikipedia writes about the area
    https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Brick_Lane

    Replies: @Dmitry, @songbird

    Also there is a reverse “white flight” when areas become fashionable in Europe, then the immigrant populations can be displaced by the wealthy hipsters.

    Should still be considered as a demographic loss, as the people who move out (originally) are more likely to have families than the ones that move in.

    It is funny how this is portrayed in America, as whites conquering areas, when they were originally white to start with, only a few decades ago. I think in Europe they have tried to walk the line where they avoid giving it a racial angle, as it would be too grating.

    It is amazing to consider how impactful the Great Migration was on American society, but to realize that, if only in a technical sense, it was very geographically constrained. I consider pre-2000 migration into Europe a rough analogy – if not exactly the same, due to population differences.

    But looking around America now, I really get the sense that we are running out of space. The white areas today, would not have been considered white, by the old standards. With open borders, you just run out of room to manage and shuffle people, and I think that is also happening now in Europe.

  376. German_reader says:
    @A123
    @German_reader


    A123 tiptoes around those issues (like many American right-wingers do) and instead pretends that public transit itself is the problem
     
    The problem is that you do not grasp U.S. politics and are thus combining things in a manner that is inapplicable to the American situation.

    In the U.S., mass transit is wielded by the Elite as a weapon of decarbonization, much like wind & solar power. It obtains huge government expenditures that would be better deployed elsewhere. And, given that people live in disbursed suburbs, these boondoggles never deliver the results that Elites claim they will deliver.

    Even in places where race is not an issue, public transit fails to deliver. Most public transit in the U.S. is politically funded and highly undesirable.

    As a government service, it could also be used as an instrument of authoritarian control. Imagine a WUHAN-19 passport scanner needed to board a train or bus. The Elites cannot impose that type of Orwellian restriction on individually owned cars.

    No matter how much you duck, you cannot escape the truth. The more you twist what I say, the more you concede the accuracy of my stance. Using silly accusations like "cuck" also makes my position stronger.

    PEACE 😇

    Replies: @German_reader

    The Elites cannot impose that type of Orwellian restriction on individually owned cars.

    They could just ban certain types of cars or make gas prices too high for most consumers. If there’s a will to create a tyranny, your SUV won’t save you.
    However, I will admit that in a polarized society like the US is today it may make sense to oppose funding for public transport from your point of view, since it’s likely to be only beneficial for mostly left-leaning urbanites.

    • Replies: @A123
    @German_reader


    They could just ban certain types of cars or make gas prices too high for most consumers. If there’s a will to create a tyranny, your SUV won’t save you.
     
    The tyranny is already lurking. I wanted an F-250. When faced with the outrageous cost premium mark up on Utes, I settled for a car.

    in a polarized society like the US is today it may make sense to oppose funding for public transport from your point of view, since it’s likely to be only beneficial for mostly left-leaning urbanites.
     
    The folly of public transit does not even benefit left urbanites. As AP has pointed out, the wealthy left in Los Angeles abjures buses. Stepping foot on a train, outside of staged PR, would be unthinkable.

    -- How many Hollywood Elites arrived at the Oscar Awards on public transit?
    -- How many arrived in displays of conspicuous hydrocarbon consumption?

    I seem to remember a rapper complete with entourage showing up to the Academy Awards on the back of a tricked out, flat bed semi.

    Public transit in the U.S. is about transferring wealth from workers to Globalist Elites.
    ___

    Perhaps Europe is different, but I suspect graft is also ubiquitous.

    Public transit does work in Japan. However, that does not translate elsewhere.

    PEACE 😇

    Replies: @Barbarossa

  377. @German_reader
    @Dmitry

    The decrepit state of the railway system in Britain is usually attributed to the botched privatization in the 1990s. But Japan's former state railway system was apparently also privatized in the late 1980s, yet still seems to work quite well. Would be interesting to know what explains the contrast.

    Replies: @Dmitry

    Some years ago, I was in the UK, and I had to a use a train journey a few times between two cities.

    The first time I tried this journey I was just surprised how slow it travels. Often the train moving at walking speed, other times it might accelerate to the speed of a bus.

    After a couple of journeys, I was somehow habituated and just atmospheric, how slow we travel across the attractive English landscapes, how much time there is to read a book.

    Then I remember a final journey, this same train stops for two hours in the night.

    Announcement from the driver “Sorry we are empty of fuel and we are waiting a fuel train to be sent to refill our diesel”. Then half an hour later “Don’t worry I was speaking to the station and they said there is a fuel train available to send to you soon”.

    When the train is finally refilled with the fuel, then the driver said we can apply for a refund if we write an application letter to their company’s email. Obviously it’s too much work to write special letters to the train company.

    So, that’s the English trains. They don’t calculate how much fuel they will need to complete the journey.

    Britain is usually attributed to the botched privatization in the 1990s.

    The irony is that some British railway companies are owned by partnerships including Japanese rail.
    https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/West_Midlands_Trains

    But trains in Republic of Ireland are also very expensive tickets and slow, but they are not privatized.

    Perhaps British trains had been already bad, before privatization. Maybe privatization was some response to pre-existing problems, which made a bad situation become worse. I guess Philip Owen might have some knowledge.

    Japan’s former state railway system was apparently also privatized in the late 1980s, yet still seems to work quite well.

    Japanese trains are the “crème de la crème” of the world (with predictable prices).

    But many countries can at least run basically working trains, not just in EU, but even in postsoviet countries we have trains which are electric and regular, moving at least usually faster than walking speed. Even Israel organizes normal working trains which are comfortable and cheap, and they have a land border with Africa.

    Probably, there are African countries, which remember to refill their trains with adequate fuel. Perhaps there is some masonic conspiracy that England pretends it installed the train system in India, but it was actually the other way around.

    • Replies: @German_reader
    @Dmitry


    Perhaps British trains had been already bad, before privatization.
     
    I think there was a marked deterioriation after privatization, because not enough was invested in maintenance of the railway network. There are similar issues in Germany (a sort of semi-privatized system), so trains often have to slow down on certain sections and you can never rely on trains arriving on time. The new government will probably make things even worse, total mockery of their supposed support for public transport.
    I wonder how the Japanese did it, but of course one can't expect incompetent European governments to actually learn something from them.

    Replies: @Dmitry, @Vishnugupta

    , @Philip Owen
    @Dmitry

    Well you did ask.

    In the display case in my living room there are three silver plated cups awarded to my grandfather (a permanent way inspector) for having the best maintained section of railway line in British Rail in the late 1950's. They stopped him competing after the 3rd year. I spent happy hours as a child walking the tracks with him looking for defects.

    The railways had received almost no new investment since 1913. There was war, recession, war. As a younger man he was the Ganger (foreman) building the last new piece of railway line in the UK. It was a bypass for Bristol. All the best young men were put to work on it so the railways could remember how to build new track. The railway companies were nationalised in 1947. Post war the government spent its money on atom bombs, missiles, aircraft carriers and especially aircraft. Nationalised firms like rail, steel and coal had not access to capital. Things improved by the late 1950s.
    One of the two lines on his patch was scheduled to be upgraded. It took industrial raw materials from the port in Swansea to Northern England. The wooden sleepers for the 2nd tract were actually being delivered. Then there was a total reversal of policy. Instead of upgrading, the Government's special consultant, Dr Beeching, an research scientist and efficiency speciaist from the chemical firm ICI. Beeching decided on wholesale closures of little used lines on a purely commercial basis. So there was no regard for keeping open small sections of unprofitable line that provided connections that gave the network efficiency and connected larger traffic flows. The tracks were ripped up for scrap. My grandfather spent his last year or so organizing the return of land to the previous landowners (most having been purchased by compulsion). In urban areas that land was quickly built on. Rural railines and interregional expresses disappeared and have still not really come back. Such routes are still a start-stop experience. The railway became a commuter service for London and in a much weaker form for a few other big cities. Commuter services have always made a profit but destinations and line capacity largely remain pre 1913. There was a big success. Express trains to London and the few surviving interregional expresses were rebranded "Intercity". It was originally based on the newly electrified route to the Midlands put in place from 1966 onwards. (Electrification of the UK system is still not complete).

    British Rail built no new track nor important extra capacity. It did invest modestly in electrification. It also set out to design a new locomotive for Intercity electric routes. This was the APT which was designed to cope with the sharp curves of the Victorian railway by tilting. It was to be faster than the French Train grand Vitesse (TGV). British Rail deliberately excluded existing locomotive designers from the team. Most of the engineers were from the aeronautical and automotive industries. It was a disaster. The passengers didn't like the tilting. The system was unreliable. The trains often broke down (three were built).

    Meanwhile what was left of the experienced locomotive design team had been asked to design a design a diesel locomotive for the (few it was thought) lines not to be electrified. The trainset they designed, the High Speed Train (HST), was outstanding if not quite as fast as the TGV. 125 miles per hour was still good. These started operation in 1976 and are still running although now being withdrawn. Their success meant that plans for electrification were cut (it was the 1970's and government budgets were tight). Investment in capacity, stations (for example no new car parks), most signalling stagnated. Commuter trains were not replaced. Goods services used a mixture of hand-me-down passenger locomotives. The Thatcher government continued the squeeze. Passenger numbers and freight volumes continued to decline.

    Then the railways were privatised in 1994 by the Major government. Privatisation has been an outstanding success for the system. instead of decades of decline, passenger numbers have more than doubled (!) as train operators have run trains tailored to passenger demand. Stations have been upgraded. The US firm Wisconsin Central bought all the main freight operators and took then into profit by replacing all the locomotives with one standard type, hugly cutting maintenance costs. Deutsche Bahn bought the company, by then called EWS in 2007. Recently, the closure of UK coal fired power stations and reduction in steel production has resulted in losses although the long distance cargo business is still growing partly due to locomotives that can run through the channel tunnel as far as Poland. But again, Ford who were a large user of the service have closed down UK manufacturing, for example the engine plant in Bridgend. Brexit looms.

    The privatisation of the permanent way was less succesful. There had been no investment in track capacity or even refurbishment for decades bar extending the electrified lines to Scotland. The private owners of Network Rail planned new capacity, even signalling and focussed on cost cutting. Meanwhile locomotive owners were doing the same thing. Track condition became dangerous. My grandfather must have turned in his grave many times. There were two major accidents (one a rail failure the other a signalling issue) and Network Rail was renationalized. Since then money has been found for new capacity: HS1, Crossrail, now HS2' station modernisation, electrification of the railway west of London. However, this is still not directed at the regional and rural routes or the commuter lines for cities outside London. The North or Wales get refurbished trains from London, even converted tube trains. Wales and Scotland did get access to EU funds to add new capacity. Such schemes all exceeded predicted passenger numbers quickly and by large margins. The English regions have not been so lucky.

    The railway does not lack demand. It lacks capacity, stations in expanded towns and modern destinations.

    I guess you were trying to travel between English destinations that did not include London. Those lines are still configured for 1913. The expresses get priority if access to a mainline is required. As signalling is basic on branch lines, this can mean long delays. The longest delay I ever suffered was due to leaves on the line. I am horrified by the train running out of fuel though.

    Replies: @LondonBob

  378. @sudden death
    @Dmitry

    https://pbs.twimg.com/media/FIXorwXXoAAtot0?format=jpg&name=900x900

    Replies: @sudden death

  379. German_reader says:
    @Dmitry
    @German_reader

    Some years ago, I was in the UK, and I had to a use a train journey a few times between two cities.

    The first time I tried this journey I was just surprised how slow it travels. Often the train moving at walking speed, other times it might accelerate to the speed of a bus.

    After a couple of journeys, I was somehow habituated and just atmospheric, how slow we travel across the attractive English landscapes, how much time there is to read a book.

    Then I remember a final journey, this same train stops for two hours in the night.

    Announcement from the driver "Sorry we are empty of fuel and we are waiting a fuel train to be sent to refill our diesel". Then half an hour later "Don't worry I was speaking to the station and they said there is a fuel train available to send to you soon".

    When the train is finally refilled with the fuel, then the driver said we can apply for a refund if we write an application letter to their company's email. Obviously it's too much work to write special letters to the train company.

    So, that's the English trains. They don't calculate how much fuel they will need to complete the journey.


    Britain is usually attributed to the botched privatization in the 1990s.

     

    The irony is that some British railway companies are owned by partnerships including Japanese rail.
    https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/West_Midlands_Trains

    -

    But trains in Republic of Ireland are also very expensive tickets and slow, but they are not privatized.

    Perhaps British trains had been already bad, before privatization. Maybe privatization was some response to pre-existing problems, which made a bad situation become worse. I guess Philip Owen might have some knowledge.


    Japan’s former state railway system was apparently also privatized in the late 1980s, yet still seems to work quite well.

     

    Japanese trains are the "crème de la crème" of the world (with predictable prices).

    But many countries can at least run basically working trains, not just in EU, but even in postsoviet countries we have trains which are electric and regular, moving at least usually faster than walking speed. Even Israel organizes normal working trains which are comfortable and cheap, and they have a land border with Africa.

    Probably, there are African countries, which remember to refill their trains with adequate fuel. Perhaps there is some masonic conspiracy that England pretends it installed the train system in India, but it was actually the other way around.

    Replies: @German_reader, @Philip Owen

    Perhaps British trains had been already bad, before privatization.

    I think there was a marked deterioriation after privatization, because not enough was invested in maintenance of the railway network. There are similar issues in Germany (a sort of semi-privatized system), so trains often have to slow down on certain sections and you can never rely on trains arriving on time. The new government will probably make things even worse, total mockery of their supposed support for public transport.
    I wonder how the Japanese did it, but of course one can’t expect incompetent European governments to actually learn something from them.

    • Replies: @Dmitry
    @German_reader


    incompetent European governments to actually learn something from them.

     

    Perhaps European countries might eventually try to learn from them in some areas.

    We saw with the coronavirus pandemic, that Japan installed tens of thousands of air filtering systems into their buildings in 2020, while for months Western countries could not even talk about masks. But perhaps after the crisis, epidemiologists will report about why Japan had better anti-pandemic policies.

    I was looking recently at an old book (pre-2011) by a European author which included text about how incompetent and corrupt it must be in Japan because they build concrete walls on the beaches, damaging the aesthetics of the beaches.

    If I recall, it was using Japan as an example of state capture. That is, that Japan is building concrete walls on the beaches, because of state capture by the construction industry. That this is a tragedy because the concrete walls damage the beach ecosystem, but it shows a pure, meaningless payment to the lobby of the construction industry or concrete industry.

    Of course, these concrete walls on beaches are intended to be "tsunami walls". In 2011, it was shown that rather than too little tsunami walls, there was not enough tsunami walls. Almost 20,000 people were killed by a tsunami in March 2011 and maybe it could be that more could be killed if there were not any walls.

    Replies: @German_reader

    , @Vishnugupta
    @German_reader

    My limited understanding of this issue is that UK privatization was a short term asset stripping venture in which massive amounts of real estate owned by the railways was sold to private firms for one time payment and the money was never reinvested back in upgrading the track infrastructure etc and the railways no longer had sufficient revenues to cover O&M expenses which led to a massive increase in ticket prices with no corresponding improvement in services for the average commuter though if you can afford it some trains like Virgin Pendolino etc are a very significant improvement over what was previously available.

    JR privatization was much better thought out with the government leasing the land while retaining ownership and carefully reinvesting the new revenue stream in system wide upgrades.

  380. @songbird
    @AP


    Public transit seems fine in a place like Boston.
     
    On a US-relative scale. Due largely to scale (NYC has a massive system that runs 24/7, Boston doesn't), and the fact that Boston has a large college population, which acts as a counterbalance to resident demographics. But, nevertheless, I would not advise you to get out at certain stations, at night. (not places you would be going to anyway, unless by some mistake).

    Where it really hurts more, IMO, is in the way things are run. Massive levels of corruption, incompetence, and malfeasance. I don't know if you have ever been in a broken down train after midnight, but it is an unpleasant experience. The trains and stations are really dirty. There is not good access to public bathrooms. I think it falls short of anything that one would see as ideal. It compares unfavorably to experience in certain German cities.

    I don't want to blame a single ethnic group. I think diversity increases corruption in a general way, but it should be noted that it is basically a jobs program for blacks. Some of them are surly and unpleasant. A few are quite congenial, but unable to do the most basic math, or advise you on routes.

    My ideal conception of mass transit, would be something that is well-run, clean, with public bathrooms, and not a jobs program (automation, where possible.) It seems amazing to me how badly run it is in many cities, when one considers that there are so many world examples, and so much history that one would think it would be possible to refine it to a science, publish data, and adapt best practices, at best cost. And I think that is a really significant observation, which demolishes this Pinkerian argument that we are all headed towards best practices.

    Replies: @AP

    Where it really hurts more, IMO, is in the way things are run. Massive levels of corruption, incompetence, and malfeasance. I don’t know if you have ever been in a broken down train after midnight, but it is an unpleasant experience.

    I’ve rarely taken the NYC subway; more often, I’ve taken Metro North into Grand Central Station. Those trains are fine and the station is beautiful. Until 2014, Metro North commuter trains even had a bar car for middle class people to unwind after work with a few drinks!

    The state of public transportation depends on the nature of the public using them.

    • Thanks: songbird
    • Replies: @Dmitry
    @AP

    These in the train look like Wall Street workers? I imagine they are low level Wall Street workers or financial professionals. My first impression of the photos, is that it is a working class of Wall Street who drink beer after their stressful day.


    It's funny you can guess from expression of peoples' faces in the photos that they are not upper management people - they look too happy to be escaping the office.

    Replies: @AP, @utu

  381. @German_reader
    @A123


    The Elites cannot impose that type of Orwellian restriction on individually owned cars.
     
    They could just ban certain types of cars or make gas prices too high for most consumers. If there's a will to create a tyranny, your SUV won't save you.
    However, I will admit that in a polarized society like the US is today it may make sense to oppose funding for public transport from your point of view, since it's likely to be only beneficial for mostly left-leaning urbanites.

    Replies: @A123

    They could just ban certain types of cars or make gas prices too high for most consumers. If there’s a will to create a tyranny, your SUV won’t save you.

    The tyranny is already lurking. I wanted an F-250. When faced with the outrageous cost premium mark up on Utes, I settled for a car.

    in a polarized society like the US is today it may make sense to oppose funding for public transport from your point of view, since it’s likely to be only beneficial for mostly left-leaning urbanites.

    The folly of public transit does not even benefit left urbanites. As AP has pointed out, the wealthy left in Los Angeles abjures buses. Stepping foot on a train, outside of staged PR, would be unthinkable.

    — How many Hollywood Elites arrived at the Oscar Awards on public transit?
    — How many arrived in displays of conspicuous hydrocarbon consumption?

    I seem to remember a rapper complete with entourage showing up to the Academy Awards on the back of a tricked out, flat bed semi.

    Public transit in the U.S. is about transferring wealth from workers to Globalist Elites.
    ___

    Perhaps Europe is different, but I suspect graft is also ubiquitous.

    Public transit does work in Japan. However, that does not translate elsewhere.

    PEACE 😇

    • Replies: @Barbarossa
    @A123


    I wanted an F-250. When faced with the outrageous cost premium mark up on Utes, I settled for a car.
     
    I'm running three trucks with my business and there is a reason that the newest one is a 2000 F250. I can't even believe the stupid prices for pickup trucks. Even before the current price inflation, I couldn't stomach paying 70k for a stupid truck.

    Plus I would rather pay my in-house maintenance guy to keep everything running than to send my money far away to some car company. It seems more pro-social to provide a job.

    Also, running older equipment can have important environmental benefits since a massive amount of a vehicle's total energy footprint is in manufacturing. I once read that it's nearly an even split with the lifetime fuel consumption being around 50% of total embodied energy consumption.

    Naturally, there is a point where environmental returns diminish by running older equipment. If one's daily driver is a 53 Chevy Bel Air, it may be good to upgrade!
  382. @A123
    @Thulean Friend


    Atlanta have also become more white in recent years
     
    I do not believe this is accurate. Do you have a citation for your assertion about Atlanta demographics?

    Atlanta is about to become less white and much poorer due to the Buckhead succession. (1)

    File this under “Thanks, Democrats.”

    Due to an explosion of violent crime in Atlanta, Georgia that has encroached into one of the city’s most prosperous districts, residents are now seeking sucession—yes succession—as well as their own police force.

    So much for “social justice.”

    Newswars reports that crime in the stylish Buckhead neighborhood has gotten so bad, officials are exploring how they might be able to separate from Atlanta after the force lost almost 200 officers in 2020 alone.

    Residents of Buckhead profess to be “genuinely concerned for their safety” as violent attacks have spiked. One horrific example was the shooting death of a seven-year-old girl who was Christmas shopping with her family in December.
     
    ______

    It’s time to stop hiding behind “diversity” as an excuse to continue destroying Western cities due to cancerous car-centric urban policies
     
    Let me Fix That For You:

    It’s time to stop hiding behind “cars” as an excuse to continue destroying Western culture with cancerous urban-centric policies.

    The horror of long distance daily commuting to urban centers is just as soul crushing on buses & trains. The close proximity of individuals on public transit helps accelerate the spread of diseases like WUHAN-19. And, there are safety concerns. (2)

    Surveillance footage showed Fiston Ngoy, 35, who has been charged with rape in Wednesday’s sickening attack aboard a Southeastern Pennsylvania Transportation Authority train, spent nearly 45 minutes harassing the woman and touched her breast at one point, according to an arrest affidavit obtained by the Philadelphia Inquirer.

    Police said the rape lasted about six minutes as other passengers looked on while holding their cellphones, but didn’t use the devices to call 911, SEPTA’s police chief said Monday.
     
    Urban culture is at work among those who recorded the event for personal viewing pleasure. Why did no one intervene? Could it be fear of urban culture lawsuits?

    This is not a new problem. Public transit has been undermining Western values, like the right to self-defense, for decades. Remember the Bernhard Goetz trial from 1984.

     
    http://1.bp.blogspot.com/-xskVp2aQnhg/TsNURZtuHvI/AAAAAAAAAvk/axZhBlPxen0/s1600/GoetzTimeApr81985.jpg
     

    De-Urbanization Is The Answer

    Moving work out of urban centers ends the need for hours of daily commuting. Many white collar jobs allow "work from home" arrangements. For occupations where gathering is required, accumulating in car friendly suburbs is much less taxing than travel to dehumanizing, violent urban centers.

    PEACE 😇
    ___________

    (1) https://rightcountry.com/the-wealthy-atlanta-district-that-wants-to-succeed-amid-violent-crime-surge/

    (2) https://nypost.com/2021/10/19/passengers-held-up-phones-during-philadelphia-septa-rape/

    Replies: @German_reader, @Emil Nikola Richard

    I do not believe this is accurate. Do you have a citation for your assertion about Atlanta demographics?

    Yeah I think the only sensible thing for white Atlanteans is to Get the Flux Out. Outside the city limits ain’t far enough. Start with outside the 285 loop. Any real estate developers putting big skyscrapers on the plans for central Atlanta?

    • Replies: @A123
    @Emil Nikola Richard



    I do not believe this is accurate. Do you have a citation for your assertion about Atlanta demographics?
     
    Yeah I think the only sensible thing for white Atlanteans is to Get the Flux Out. Outside the city limits ain’t far enough. Start with outside the 285 loop. Any real estate developers putting big skyscrapers on the plans for central Atlanta?
     
    I am curious about TF's source. Large % Hispanic population means that it would be plausible for Atlanta to simultaneously become less Black & less White. The actual numbers would be interesting.
    ___

    I don't think that there are many skyscrapers going up in the U.S. Existing large buildings are under occupied. The CCP's coronavirus + subsequent mutations are keeping employees at home or smaller sites. Why build tower that will simply remain vacant.
    ___

    I find it perplexing that people claim WUHAN-19 was a "bioweapon". The key characteristic of a weapon is the ability to target the enemy without hitting friendlies. It is hard to see any plausible weapons development plan choosing coronavirus. High spread rate guarantees everyone will be hit friend & foe alike. Trying mass immunization immediately before a release gives away the source of the WMD. Plus, rapid mutation means that any countermeasure could fail by surprise.

    There is a silver lining to all of this. The CCP has accidentally undermined the scourge of civilization -- overcrowding. Without the *cause* (overcrowding), the *#1 symbol* (mass transit) of uncivilized existence is taking a justified hit.

    PEACE 😇

  383. Fugitive banker Ablyazov would have been Vicky Nuland’s “our man” if the failed Kazakh Maidan have triumphed. Some sentences by him.

    “If [the West does] not [act] then Kazakhstan will turn into Belarus and [Russian President Vladimir] Putin will methodically impose his programme: the recreation of a structure like the Soviet Union,”

    “I am urging people to organize strikes and block roads to protest their [Russian and other foreign troops] presence in the country,” he was also cited as saying, adding: “The more Putin intervenes, the more Kazakhstan will become like Ukraine—an enemy state for Russia.”

    More
    https://www.intellinews.com/fugitive-banker-ablyazov-lays-claim-to-filling-opposition-vacuum-in-kazakhstan-as-president-says-forces-will-shoot-to-kill-231151/?source=armenia

    More evidence start to surface.

    • Replies: @Dmitry
    @Aedib

    Kazakhstan's government has been pro-Western. They also prefer to give contracts for resource extraction mainly to Western companies. Lukoil just has a small share of Karachaganak.

    For examples. Tengiz - Chevron, ExxonMobil, Shell. Karachaganak - ExxonMobil, Lukoil (18%), Shell. Kashagan - Eni, Shell, Total, ExxonMobil.

    So, it's not too surprising that some Western external ministries will be panicking if Russia increases influence in Kazakhstan, but this is in a reactionary way as they might lose some of their influence. This is if support from Russia during protests encourage Tokaev to begin less pro-Western policy than predecessor Nazarbaev.

    My writing all sounds very cynical though. Of course, whether their protests would improve anything or not (probably not), all sympathies for the working class of Kazakhstan, whose resources of their country more often stolen by a narrow elite, than re-invested into improving their future.

    Replies: @melanf

  384. @Yevardian
    @Philip Owen

    Is Kevin Barret really all the only person on this site who's writing on this Kazakhstan mess, other than Andrew Anglin? Karlin really did choose an inaspaucious time to virtually quit blogging to chase the crypto-'currency'-dragon...

    Replies: @Dmitry, @Philip Owen, @LondonBob

    The rest have now caught up. I still can’t see what is really happening. I am astonished at the amount of British involvement. There is even a Prince Andrew story from Kazakhstan. Apparently while acting as front man for a British trade delgation, he made a negative remark about the French at a dinner. An American diplomat heard and reported it (revealed in Cablegote so a long time ago now). The British Royals have been making negative remarks about the French since 1066 so I don’t know why this was remarkable.

    Anyway.
    Blair paid many millions by Nazerbayev.
    The Kazak officer corps trained in the UK.
    Prince Andrew promoting trade.

    The UK seems to have big interests there. I’d like to know what exactly. Backing Nazerbayev was never very bright. Dictators collapse eventually.

    • Agree: LondonBob
    • Replies: @mal
    @Philip Owen


    The UK seems to have big interests there. I’d like to know what exactly. Backing Nazerbayev was never very bright. Dictators collapse eventually
     
    .

    Well 40% of uranium comes from there and like half of Kazakhstan is owned by Canada (including Russian operations like Rosatom Canada/Uranium One or whatever).

    That's the big interest. Why now though? I thought nuclear power was bad, and the West was phasing it out and shutting down nuclear power plants? Germans are closing nuke plants down etc. So why does it matter who controls uranium if you aren't going to use it anyway?

    Or did the view change recently? If nuclear power became a viable option as part of energy policy all of a sudden, then yeah, who runs Kazakhstan suddenly becomes important.
  385. @Dmitry
    @silviosilver


    Historians are as subject to biases
     
    Sure perhaps even more biased than most normal people, but if you look at a history book, in the European tradition, since at least the 18th century (actually even in Herodotus and Thucydides), they look at hundreds of variables. Perhaps even thousands, depending how you define them.

    The idea of this historical tradition, has been not to reduce details too much, but rather to overload details and particularities.

    This tradition of history has been useful because they are just talking about human reality, where the details are really more interesting and important, than our opinions or theories that can be added as a conclusion (not that models like Marxism have not been inspiring for historians). You can read history books where you disagree with the conclusion, but can be very interested in the details.


    as good as anything that a historian might come up with.
     
    And if you are writing about Yugoslavia history, you can add this opinion. And someone else can add fifty counter-examples. And if we are professional historians like German Reader, we might be able to get a university to pay for it, and call this the "historical conference".

    But then in the discussion we would likely become more interested in the examples and counter-examples. Because that is the actually interesting thing we find in history - examples and details from the more complex reality, which we don't necessarily understand too well.

    Replies: @silviosilver

    This tradition of history has been useful because they are just talking about human reality, where the details are really more interesting and important, than our opinions or theories that can be added as a conclusion

    Whether one finds the details more interesting is a matter of individual taste and not something worth arguing about. But the study of the past is socially important because it helps us to understand the present, and to plot a course for the future, so I cannot see how the details – the ‘raw facts’ (in as much as there can be such a thing) – could possibly be more important than our interpretation of them.

    If hereditary factors are important part of our human reality and historians choose ignore them, then historians are doing us a disservice and handicapping our ability to understand both past and present. Imagine some race-denying libtard sack of shit writing a history of the BLM riots in 2020. His ‘explanation’ will make no mention of blacks’ lower average intelligence and greater impulsivity and criminality. Such a history would be fit for little besides wiping your butt with. So sometimes we have no choice but to ignore the blathering of historians and rely upon understandings drawn from other fields in order to understand various historical phenomena.

    • Replies: @Dmitry
    @silviosilver

    If you look at history books, they often add some speculations about ancestry.

    Thucydides describes barbarians' (Thracians) as inherently violent, which has explained certain massacres. He viewed a hereditary violence of the barbarians, as one of the influences or causes of events.

    But the explanation of the events (which is not determined by the events), is far less interesting to read than the detail of the events themselves. This is even with Thucydides, whose speculations will be more intelligent than those of all of us.

    Replies: @silviosilver

  386. @Aedib
    Fugitive banker Ablyazov would have been Vicky Nuland’s “our man” if the failed Kazakh Maidan have triumphed. Some sentences by him.

    "If [the West does] not [act] then Kazakhstan will turn into Belarus and [Russian President Vladimir] Putin will methodically impose his programme: the recreation of a structure like the Soviet Union,"

     


    "I am urging people to organize strikes and block roads to protest their [Russian and other foreign troops] presence in the country," he was also cited as saying, adding: "The more Putin intervenes, the more Kazakhstan will become like Ukraine—an enemy state for Russia."

     

    More
    https://www.intellinews.com/fugitive-banker-ablyazov-lays-claim-to-filling-opposition-vacuum-in-kazakhstan-as-president-says-forces-will-shoot-to-kill-231151/?source=armenia

    More evidence start to surface.

    Replies: @Dmitry

    Kazakhstan’s government has been pro-Western. They also prefer to give contracts for resource extraction mainly to Western companies. Lukoil just has a small share of Karachaganak.

    For examples. Tengiz – Chevron, ExxonMobil, Shell. Karachaganak – ExxonMobil, Lukoil (18%), Shell. Kashagan – Eni, Shell, Total, ExxonMobil.

    So, it’s not too surprising that some Western external ministries will be panicking if Russia increases influence in Kazakhstan, but this is in a reactionary way as they might lose some of their influence. This is if support from Russia during protests encourage Tokaev to begin less pro-Western policy than predecessor Nazarbaev.

    My writing all sounds very cynical though. Of course, whether their protests would improve anything or not (probably not), all sympathies for the working class of Kazakhstan, whose resources of their country more often stolen by a narrow elite, than re-invested into improving their future.

    • Replies: @melanf
    @Dmitry


    whose resources of their country more often stolen by a narrow elite, than re-invested into improving their future.
     
    It makes sense to compare Kazakhstan's elites with what kind of elite Kazakhstan could potentially have at all.Undoubtedly, the elites work better in the elf kingdom, but if compared with other Central Asian countries, Kazakhstan has a very decent management

    Of course, whether their protests would improve anything or not (probably not), all sympathies for the working class
     
    This "working class" is the mambets, that is, the lumpens - a complete analogue of the American looters. When "protests" turn into general looting, it is better to exterminate such protesters (who rob hospitals in search of drugs) because this is human filth
  387. @Thulean Friend
    @silviosilver


    In America, public transportation and city living means sharing close quarters with sullen, intersectional, white-hating negroids, and plenty of them. So few whites find that prospect appealing that white flight can be seen from the moon.
     
    Yet D.C. has gentrified and become much less black than in the 1970s. Cities like Atlanta have also become more white in recent years. Maybe whites in the US aren't as big pussies as you? :)

    As I noted, I recently moved to an immigrant-heavy neighbourhood that's seen as semi-rough (cars were burned here as late as a few years ago). Most of my neighbours are of non-European origin, however this is changing fast. I am probably part of a gentrification wave, but I never planned it. I picked this area because it was cheap for someone my age, I could get a big apartment while being decently close to the city center. Finally, I was tired of living in my parent's house in a middle-class area, where I'd be surrounded by carbon copies of myself.

    All of which is to say, many white people don't fear diversity. Crime levels have risen in Stockholm in recent years, in part due to failed past immigration policies, but that hasn't led to a major exodus. Some young are leaving as they get children due to expensive housing costs, but that's a separate debate. Housing costs are crazy all over the world, so it isn't a Swedish-exclusive issue. Just live with a partner who likes big cities, as I do, and the issue will resolve itself.

    It's time to stop hiding behind "diversity" as an excuse to continue destroying Western cities due to cancerous car-centric urban policies.

    Replies: @A123, @Dmitry, @silviosilver

    Yet D.C. has gentrified and become much less black than in the 1970s. Cities like Atlanta have also become more white in recent years.

    I concede that numerous cities have undergone a gentrifying influx of whites over the last twenty years. This site used to be a handy reference that allowed you to zoom down to city block level and get data on racial demographic changes from 2000 to 2010, before that feature was unfortunately removed. Jared Taylor used to troll libtards with the question “can you name just one majority-black neighborhood you’d like to move to?” That’s still useful rhetoric, but libtards unfortunately can now answer forthrightly that yes, they can.

    This hardly disconfirms the broad trend, however. That a relatively small number of shitlibs can manage to practice what they preach cannot put a dent in the reality that when the race changes, everything else changes too. In fact, in their own way, shitlib gentrifiers confirm the truth of that dictum. And needless to say, many of them only get into the gentrification game because they hope to profit financially and socially from other whites following in their footsteps.

    All of which is to say, many white people don’t fear diversity

    Neither do I. If you’ll pardon me for tooting my own horn for a moment, I have zero doubt that I have vastly more experience with it than you. If you had told me as recently as fifteen years ago that I’d some day be talking about race as I now do, I’d have thought you utterly insane. It’s entirely fairly to say I was a good little diversity-celebrating anti-racist way before it was cool. It’s not out of “fear” that I now eschew it (except when it comes to negroids, and even then it’s only a “statistical” fear, based on their numbers, rather than fear of any particular individuals; too many blacks is always bad news). It’s that I’m unable to experience a shared sense of identity with people who are too culturally or racially different to me, and that I have belatedly recognized the importance of this.

    Just consider. If my favorite bar turns from whatever it is today – 70%, 80%, 90% white? I’m not exactly counting – to 90% black or asian or indian, wtf would I bother going there for anymore? They may be perfectly nice people (unless they’re black, which experience teaches me far too many of them won’t be), but I find the idea of socializing with them a monumental waste of time. Life is short. Why shouldn’t I want to spend it around people I actually enjoy interacting with, rather than spend it around people whose presence I merely tolerate? This example of a local bar can be extended to every other area of life.

    • Agree: sher singh
  388. @Dmitry
    @Thulean Friend


    Crime levels have risen
     
    Who knows with our multinational discussion though, as we are from radically different national origins.

    Songbird is from the USA, where in many areas crime is much higher than anywhere in Western Europe. Where is Silviosilver from (Latin America?).

    Levels of personal safety related to nationality could really be a problem for them. I remember AaronB writing that he was beaten by black people as a teenager in 1990s New York. Although he says he feels safe in New York nowadays.

    You are from Sweden, which is of course one of the world's safer countries in terms of crime.


    . Crime levels have risen in Stockholm in recent years,

     

    Unfiltered immigrants can be rising the level, but as it's known from a low base.

    Playing with World Bank's site again, can you see a possible indication of Germany's immigration policy, on the homicide rate?

    For myself, actually I was a youth in cities with double the homicide rate of Russia. I didn't feel very gangster. It still wasn't very dangerous on average for any normal people.

    Still I understand from my youth, why I will not notice so much "dangerous" in Western Europe, even their media reports.

    https://i.imgur.com/KqofdYZ.jpg

    But if you zoomed in enough on the chart, then maybe there was around 40% increase in the figures Germany reported for intentional homicide 2016 compared to 2015.

    With proviso, this kind of data is an area you really need professionals in crime statistics to analyze this data, rather than untrained amateurs. It's still interesting to read those charts.

    Replies: @silviosilver

    Songbird is from the USA, where in many areas crime is much higher than anywhere in Western Europe. Where is Silviosilver from (Latin America?).

    Australia, but I have lived in America.

  389. @German_reader
    @Dmitry


    Perhaps British trains had been already bad, before privatization.
     
    I think there was a marked deterioriation after privatization, because not enough was invested in maintenance of the railway network. There are similar issues in Germany (a sort of semi-privatized system), so trains often have to slow down on certain sections and you can never rely on trains arriving on time. The new government will probably make things even worse, total mockery of their supposed support for public transport.
    I wonder how the Japanese did it, but of course one can't expect incompetent European governments to actually learn something from them.

    Replies: @Dmitry, @Vishnugupta

    incompetent European governments to actually learn something from them.

    Perhaps European countries might eventually try to learn from them in some areas.

    We saw with the coronavirus pandemic, that Japan installed tens of thousands of air filtering systems into their buildings in 2020, while for months Western countries could not even talk about masks. But perhaps after the crisis, epidemiologists will report about why Japan had better anti-pandemic policies.

    I was looking recently at an old book (pre-2011) by a European author which included text about how incompetent and corrupt it must be in Japan because they build concrete walls on the beaches, damaging the aesthetics of the beaches.

    If I recall, it was using Japan as an example of state capture. That is, that Japan is building concrete walls on the beaches, because of state capture by the construction industry. That this is a tragedy because the concrete walls damage the beach ecosystem, but it shows a pure, meaningless payment to the lobby of the construction industry or concrete industry.

    Of course, these concrete walls on beaches are intended to be “tsunami walls”. In 2011, it was shown that rather than too little tsunami walls, there was not enough tsunami walls. Almost 20,000 people were killed by a tsunami in March 2011 and maybe it could be that more could be killed if there were not any walls.

    • Replies: @German_reader
    @Dmitry


    We saw with the coronavirus pandemic
     
    tbh I don't understand at all what's going on with Corona in Japan, it doesn't seem to be much of an issue there. Official number of deaths according to Worldometer isn't even 20 000, and I haven't seen any claims that the Japanese are falsifying the numbers on a massive scale.
    In Germany a lot of people in the "educated" classes (younger women especially) have really become rather unhinged imo...triple-vaxxed, and yet still hysterical about how they feel endangered by the unvaccinated (who must be "punished"). And of course the government is stoking that kind of sentiment with its plans for general mandatory vaccination.

    I was looking recently at an old book (pre-2011) by a European author which included text about how incompetent and corrupt it must be in Japan because they build concrete walls on the beaches
     
    That sounds really stupid, given the well-known risks of earthquakes and tsunamis to Japan, it's one of the fundamental facts about the country.

    Replies: @Dmitry, @Yevardian

  390. German_reader says:
    @Dmitry
    @German_reader


    incompetent European governments to actually learn something from them.

     

    Perhaps European countries might eventually try to learn from them in some areas.

    We saw with the coronavirus pandemic, that Japan installed tens of thousands of air filtering systems into their buildings in 2020, while for months Western countries could not even talk about masks. But perhaps after the crisis, epidemiologists will report about why Japan had better anti-pandemic policies.

    I was looking recently at an old book (pre-2011) by a European author which included text about how incompetent and corrupt it must be in Japan because they build concrete walls on the beaches, damaging the aesthetics of the beaches.

    If I recall, it was using Japan as an example of state capture. That is, that Japan is building concrete walls on the beaches, because of state capture by the construction industry. That this is a tragedy because the concrete walls damage the beach ecosystem, but it shows a pure, meaningless payment to the lobby of the construction industry or concrete industry.

    Of course, these concrete walls on beaches are intended to be "tsunami walls". In 2011, it was shown that rather than too little tsunami walls, there was not enough tsunami walls. Almost 20,000 people were killed by a tsunami in March 2011 and maybe it could be that more could be killed if there were not any walls.

    Replies: @German_reader

    We saw with the coronavirus pandemic

    tbh I don’t understand at all what’s going on with Corona in Japan, it doesn’t seem to be much of an issue there. Official number of deaths according to Worldometer isn’t even 20 000, and I haven’t seen any claims that the Japanese are falsifying the numbers on a massive scale.
    In Germany a lot of people in the “educated” classes (younger women especially) have really become rather unhinged imo…triple-vaxxed, and yet still hysterical about how they feel endangered by the unvaccinated (who must be “punished”). And of course the government is stoking that kind of sentiment with its plans for general mandatory vaccination.

    I was looking recently at an old book (pre-2011) by a European author which included text about how incompetent and corrupt it must be in Japan because they build concrete walls on the beaches

    That sounds really stupid, given the well-known risks of earthquakes and tsunamis to Japan, it’s one of the fundamental facts about the country.

    • Agree: sher singh
    • Replies: @Dmitry
    @German_reader


    Official number of deaths according to Worldometer isn’t even 20 000

     

    And recall Worldometer is just looking at officially reported deaths. For example, in Russia, more than a million citizens have been killed by coronavirus, but less than a third of the real reality have been officially reported. https://github.com/dkobak/excess-mortality

    On the opposite hand, in Japan, there have been negative excess deaths. So, the coronavirus pandemic, has resulted in less people dying, than would be in a normal, non-pandemic year.


    doesn’t seem to be much of an issue there
     
    I wrote a post last year when I was wondering about it and will just copy-paste from that.

    Japan apparently didn't have strict lockdowns in a European sense, because the government does not have legal power to impose them.

    It seems perhaps as a result of the inability of the government to have real lockdowns, they had to focus more on "engineering solutions" to reduce spread of the virus. These policies were probably more sensible overall and less expensive.

    If you watch walking videos on YouTube, you can see they ventilated spaces by removing the front windows of their shops even in winter. (You can see how almost every shop has an open door or removed front window https://youtu.be/3PeHnWIJLNI?t=156.)

    They installed tens of thousands of HVAC systems into the buildings. Japan introduced in April 2020, 10 million yen subsidy ($92000) to each business to install ventilation systems.

    In the trains, they have high enough levels air-changes per hour, that infection risk should be small anyway.

    At 0:40 in the video it explains, Shinkensen has 8,6 air changes per hour. https://youtu.be/SHkwEr-mOn4?t=37.

    In the regulation for airborne infection isolation rooms in hospitals in the USA, it is 6 air changes per hour. Japanese trains should transmit less airborne disease than specialist, airborne infection isolation rooms in US hospitals.

    This is sensible policy anyway. as a lot of working hours are lost from colds and flu. If you can change air more often in public transport, then you should reduce amount of illness days for the workers.


    That sounds really stupid, given the well-known risks of earthquakes and tsunamis to Japan, it’s one of the fundamental facts about the country.

     

    I guess before 2011, it could appear shocking. A whole country replacing their beaches with concrete wall. My conspiracist thoughts if it was Russia, would be state capture, and saying "wow the concrete oligarchs have a lot of influence".

    But after seeing that the walls were only too short in 2011 (and people became too confident about the sea), it seems incredibly stupid to use as an example of state capture.

    , @Yevardian
    @German_reader


    tbh I don’t understand at all what’s going on with Corona in Japan, it doesn’t seem to be much of an issue there. Official number of deaths according to Worldometer isn’t even 20 000, and I haven’t seen any claims that the Japanese are falsifying the numbers on a massive scale.
     
    Lol, have you compared to Australia or NZ? It's currently still under 2.500 casualties, but you would never have guessed from the hysterical local media reporting of the pandemic. The international borders (in & out, as in, it has been illegal to even leave the country for most) have been shut during almost the entire pandemic.
    Despite the government having handled things overall quite well, the general fear-mongering has been as bad as anywhere in Europe, and now with a preparation to 're-open' internationally, the tone has now gone into overdrive.
    Honestly though, I don't really care about the issue, it's just been personal inconvenience. I waited a while to see how the vaccination drive went, didn't see any real any real evidence against the jab (despite millions of words of rants), at this stage it appears its just nutcases ranting to each other remaining (see Godfree Roberts, lol).

    From the Japanese (or Korean) perspective, I wonder if there's even a strong incentive to change things as they are now. Their people naturally follow the 'rules', and it's not as if their politics have long since totally reorientated around immigration, as they have in the Greater Europe/'The West'.

    Replies: @Dmitry, @German_reader

  391. @silviosilver
    @Dmitry


    This tradition of history has been useful because they are just talking about human reality, where the details are really more interesting and important, than our opinions or theories that can be added as a conclusion
     
    Whether one finds the details more interesting is a matter of individual taste and not something worth arguing about. But the study of the past is socially important because it helps us to understand the present, and to plot a course for the future, so I cannot see how the details - the 'raw facts' (in as much as there can be such a thing) - could possibly be more important than our interpretation of them.

    If hereditary factors are important part of our human reality and historians choose ignore them, then historians are doing us a disservice and handicapping our ability to understand both past and present. Imagine some race-denying libtard sack of shit writing a history of the BLM riots in 2020. His 'explanation' will make no mention of blacks' lower average intelligence and greater impulsivity and criminality. Such a history would be fit for little besides wiping your butt with. So sometimes we have no choice but to ignore the blathering of historians and rely upon understandings drawn from other fields in order to understand various historical phenomena.

    Replies: @Dmitry

    If you look at history books, they often add some speculations about ancestry.

    Thucydides describes barbarians’ (Thracians) as inherently violent, which has explained certain massacres. He viewed a hereditary violence of the barbarians, as one of the influences or causes of events.

    But the explanation of the events (which is not determined by the events), is far less interesting to read than the detail of the events themselves. This is even with Thucydides, whose speculations will be more intelligent than those of all of us.

    • Replies: @silviosilver
    @Dmitry


    But the explanation of the events (which is not determined by the events), is far less interesting to read than the detail of the events themselves.
     
    It mystifies me how you can make an absolute statement like this. If you find the details of events more interesting than interpretations of their significance, great, I'm happy for you. But you have no right to insist that everybody else does too. Speaking for myself, I often find the details a dreadful bore.
  392. @German_reader
    @Dmitry


    We saw with the coronavirus pandemic
     
    tbh I don't understand at all what's going on with Corona in Japan, it doesn't seem to be much of an issue there. Official number of deaths according to Worldometer isn't even 20 000, and I haven't seen any claims that the Japanese are falsifying the numbers on a massive scale.
    In Germany a lot of people in the "educated" classes (younger women especially) have really become rather unhinged imo...triple-vaxxed, and yet still hysterical about how they feel endangered by the unvaccinated (who must be "punished"). And of course the government is stoking that kind of sentiment with its plans for general mandatory vaccination.

    I was looking recently at an old book (pre-2011) by a European author which included text about how incompetent and corrupt it must be in Japan because they build concrete walls on the beaches
     
    That sounds really stupid, given the well-known risks of earthquakes and tsunamis to Japan, it's one of the fundamental facts about the country.

    Replies: @Dmitry, @Yevardian

    Official number of deaths according to Worldometer isn’t even 20 000

    And recall Worldometer is just looking at officially reported deaths. For example, in Russia, more than a million citizens have been killed by coronavirus, but less than a third of the real reality have been officially reported. https://github.com/dkobak/excess-mortality

    On the opposite hand, in Japan, there have been negative excess deaths. So, the coronavirus pandemic, has resulted in less people dying, than would be in a normal, non-pandemic year.

    doesn’t seem to be much of an issue there

    I wrote a post last year when I was wondering about it and will just copy-paste from that.

    Japan apparently didn’t have strict lockdowns in a European sense, because the government does not have legal power to impose them.

    It seems perhaps as a result of the inability of the government to have real lockdowns, they had to focus more on “engineering solutions” to reduce spread of the virus. These policies were probably more sensible overall and less expensive.

    If you watch walking videos on YouTube, you can see they ventilated spaces by removing the front windows of their shops even in winter. (You can see how almost every shop has an open door or removed front window https://youtu.be/3PeHnWIJLNI?t=156.)

    They installed tens of thousands of HVAC systems into the buildings. Japan introduced in April 2020, 10 million yen subsidy (\$92000) to each business to install ventilation systems.

    In the trains, they have high enough levels air-changes per hour, that infection risk should be small anyway.

    At 0:40 in the video it explains, Shinkensen has 8,6 air changes per hour. https://youtu.be/SHkwEr-mOn4?t=37.

    In the regulation for airborne infection isolation rooms in hospitals in the USA, it is 6 air changes per hour. Japanese trains should transmit less airborne disease than specialist, airborne infection isolation rooms in US hospitals.

    This is sensible policy anyway. as a lot of working hours are lost from colds and flu. If you can change air more often in public transport, then you should reduce amount of illness days for the workers.

    That sounds really stupid, given the well-known risks of earthquakes and tsunamis to Japan, it’s one of the fundamental facts about the country.

    I guess before 2011, it could appear shocking. A whole country replacing their beaches with concrete wall. My conspiracist thoughts if it was Russia, would be state capture, and saying “wow the concrete oligarchs have a lot of influence”.

    But after seeing that the walls were only too short in 2011 (and people became too confident about the sea), it seems incredibly stupid to use as an example of state capture.

    • Thanks: German_reader
  393. On Japanese public transportation. I’ve talked to people who lived in Tokyo and they have lamented that the system is a mess, since there are numerous private operators and you need a different card for each one instead of a unified one. For a newcomer, there can also be bewildering moments as it isn’t always clear when to exit the metro and enter a new train since some operators mostly just service light rail.

    Still, Japan being Japan means that the system is probably far more efficient than it would have been elsewhere, but that doesn’t mean the system design is good. How it is outside of Tokyo, I don’t know. Maybe it’s much better.

    Housing prices are now increasing faster than before the 2008 GFC.

    I repeat my calls for making cheap housing a civilisational mission, as often the most interesting people are rarely the richest. A housing market tilted in favour of the well-off will lead to lower cultural dynamism. And yes, I am aware of my own role as a gentrifier. But what choice do I have in the current system? This should be a collective effort. Housing, like transportation or health, should be a public undertaking. Cheap housing is by nature not very profitable, which is why private firms aren’t willing to invest. It’s not about regulations, it’s about profit margins.

    Another aspect is the “infinity QE” policies of central banks. They have pushed asset prices to record highs all over the world. We’ve seen it in the stock market, as it has gone completely parabolic and decoupled from the real economy. Clearly, there must be spillovers into the housing market also.

    Having come back from London and ruminated on my visit, I’ve noticed another difference. I saw a *lot* more women in niqabs or burqas there. London is a much more popular tourist destination than Stockholm is for rich Gulf Arabs, who tend to be very socially conservative, so it is hard to disentangle who is a native and who is not. Nevertheless, even I took the train to the center from my residential area, I noticed women in such attire on several train stations along the way, suggesting it wasn’t an entirely imported theme.

    You can find some of these women in the worst ghettos of Stockholm, but even in Rinkeby or Akalla, it is typically hijab which predominates. My impression is that Sweden has as many moslems, and possibly even more, than the UK has as a percentage of the population. Why would UK moslems be more radical? If they are. Seems like a puzzle worth pondering over.

    Here in Stockholm, I often see scenes of an older woman in a hijab with younger daughters with free-flowing hair and sometimes even skirts. Many of these girls are often late teens and early 20s, so long past the age when hijab is seen as “appropriate”.

    • Replies: @Yellowface Anon
    @Thulean Friend

    Because British Muslims are often Pakistanis who have Political Islam, instead of slightly more moderate Iraqis in Sweden?

    , @Dmitry
    @Thulean Friend


    Tokyo system is a mess
     
    If you mean the metro in Tokyo? I've been in Tokyo twice (wish I go again soon), but not recently. I remember buying the tickets separately for each journey in a machine. Otherwise, it seemed to be an easy to use metro and not too expensive. That's how you make a comfortable city.

    ow it is outside of Tokyo, I don’t know.
     
    Probably you have to buy another ticket for each journey. When I was there for vacation we had a Japan rail pass.

    I think Japanese people not be able to buy this rail pass. Maybe it is only for tourists.

    But with the rail pass, this is the best transport system in the world. You can go anywhere in Japan you want, just choose from the map. It's all super fast and not that expensive (with the rail pass).

    You'll fall in love with those trains (when you don't have to pay for the tickets).

    Although I think they said for Japanese citizens without the rail pass, Shinkansen is crazy expensive.


    Gulf Arabs, who tend to be very socially conservative
     
    Although I think in London, wealthy Arabs are often going to be live more socially liberal. They have socially conservative home countries. When they go to London in their summer homes, it's obviously partly so they can relax together, in a more liberal culture.

    I would believe Islamist sin London, are more often from poor immigrants, than the wealthy tourists.

    Note there is a lot of social divergence between the tourist Muslims and the local Muslims. The wealthy Arabs in London, are some of the most rich people anywhere in the world.

    But the local Muslim population, are the poorest religious group in London.


    -

    Wealthy Arabs who fill London streets with hundreds (thousands?) of the most rare Ferraris and Lamborghinis each summer, cannot have so much socioeconomic compatibility with the city's local Muslim population.

    For example, it seems like London's local Muslim population have the most economically difficulties or underprivilege of the London religious groups.
    https://i.imgur.com/b1mpZvI.png

    https://www.trustforlondon.org.uk/news/inequalities-and-disadvantage-london-focus-religion-and-belief/

    Replies: @songbird

    , @LondonBob
    @Thulean Friend

    Arabs used to go to Lebanon, they don't anymore because of their inferiority complex towards Hezbollah, Cameron also lowered the standards for giving them short term visas. Very noticeable the number holidaying in London for a few months since around 2011.

    Replies: @A123, @Yahya, @Dmitry

  394. @German_reader
    @Dmitry


    Perhaps British trains had been already bad, before privatization.
     
    I think there was a marked deterioriation after privatization, because not enough was invested in maintenance of the railway network. There are similar issues in Germany (a sort of semi-privatized system), so trains often have to slow down on certain sections and you can never rely on trains arriving on time. The new government will probably make things even worse, total mockery of their supposed support for public transport.
    I wonder how the Japanese did it, but of course one can't expect incompetent European governments to actually learn something from them.

    Replies: @Dmitry, @Vishnugupta

    My limited understanding of this issue is that UK privatization was a short term asset stripping venture in which massive amounts of real estate owned by the railways was sold to private firms for one time payment and the money was never reinvested back in upgrading the track infrastructure etc and the railways no longer had sufficient revenues to cover O&M expenses which led to a massive increase in ticket prices with no corresponding improvement in services for the average commuter though if you can afford it some trains like Virgin Pendolino etc are a very significant improvement over what was previously available.

    JR privatization was much better thought out with the government leasing the land while retaining ownership and carefully reinvesting the new revenue stream in system wide upgrades.

    • Thanks: German_reader
  395. @Dmitry
    @silviosilver

    If you look at history books, they often add some speculations about ancestry.

    Thucydides describes barbarians' (Thracians) as inherently violent, which has explained certain massacres. He viewed a hereditary violence of the barbarians, as one of the influences or causes of events.

    But the explanation of the events (which is not determined by the events), is far less interesting to read than the detail of the events themselves. This is even with Thucydides, whose speculations will be more intelligent than those of all of us.

    Replies: @silviosilver

    But the explanation of the events (which is not determined by the events), is far less interesting to read than the detail of the events themselves.

    It mystifies me how you can make an absolute statement like this. If you find the details of events more interesting than interpretations of their significance, great, I’m happy for you. But you have no right to insist that everybody else does too. Speaking for myself, I often find the details a dreadful bore.

  396. It looks to me that the Bandurist Christmas album I presented in comment #315 didn’t attract many listeners. Perhaps this video clip of the Ukrainian Symphonic Orchestra’s rendition of Skoryk and Nebesnys rendition of Ukrainian Christmas Carols renders more appreciation.

    Christmas is celebrated officially for three days in the Orthodox world, so for the last time “Merry Christmas” to all.

    • Thanks: AP
    • Replies: @Yahya
    @Mr. Hack


    It looks to me that the Bandurist Christmas album I presented in comment #315 didn’t attract many listeners. Perhaps this video clip of the Ukrainian Symphonic Orchestra’s rendition of Skoryk and Nebesnys rendition of Ukrainian Christmas Carols renders more appreciation.

     

    Thanks for the music. Excellent melody and harmony. Ukrainians seem to be a musically gifted people. I recently found out Carol of the Bells, which is perhaps one of the best Christmas songs, was composed by one Ukrainian Mykola Dmytrovych Leontovych. Here's an Arabic rendition by the Greek Orthodox community in Lebanon:

    https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=TQBusPo3Rxc&ab_channel=HibaTawaji

    Replies: @Mr. Hack

  397. @Thulean Friend
    On Japanese public transportation. I've talked to people who lived in Tokyo and they have lamented that the system is a mess, since there are numerous private operators and you need a different card for each one instead of a unified one. For a newcomer, there can also be bewildering moments as it isn't always clear when to exit the metro and enter a new train since some operators mostly just service light rail.

    Still, Japan being Japan means that the system is probably far more efficient than it would have been elsewhere, but that doesn't mean the system design is good. How it is outside of Tokyo, I don't know. Maybe it's much better.

    ---

    Housing prices are now increasing faster than before the 2008 GFC.

    https://i.imgur.com/L3Y62Vw.png

    I repeat my calls for making cheap housing a civilisational mission, as often the most interesting people are rarely the richest. A housing market tilted in favour of the well-off will lead to lower cultural dynamism. And yes, I am aware of my own role as a gentrifier. But what choice do I have in the current system? This should be a collective effort. Housing, like transportation or health, should be a public undertaking. Cheap housing is by nature not very profitable, which is why private firms aren't willing to invest. It's not about regulations, it's about profit margins.

    Another aspect is the "infinity QE" policies of central banks. They have pushed asset prices to record highs all over the world. We've seen it in the stock market, as it has gone completely parabolic and decoupled from the real economy. Clearly, there must be spillovers into the housing market also.

    ---

    Having come back from London and ruminated on my visit, I've noticed another difference. I saw a *lot* more women in niqabs or burqas there. London is a much more popular tourist destination than Stockholm is for rich Gulf Arabs, who tend to be very socially conservative, so it is hard to disentangle who is a native and who is not. Nevertheless, even I took the train to the center from my residential area, I noticed women in such attire on several train stations along the way, suggesting it wasn't an entirely imported theme.

    You can find some of these women in the worst ghettos of Stockholm, but even in Rinkeby or Akalla, it is typically hijab which predominates. My impression is that Sweden has as many moslems, and possibly even more, than the UK has as a percentage of the population. Why would UK moslems be more radical? If they are. Seems like a puzzle worth pondering over.

    Here in Stockholm, I often see scenes of an older woman in a hijab with younger daughters with free-flowing hair and sometimes even skirts. Many of these girls are often late teens and early 20s, so long past the age when hijab is seen as "appropriate".

    Replies: @Yellowface Anon, @Dmitry, @LondonBob

    Because British Muslims are often Pakistanis who have Political Islam, instead of slightly more moderate Iraqis in Sweden?

  398. @Emil Nikola Richard
    @A123


    I do not believe this is accurate. Do you have a citation for your assertion about Atlanta demographics?
     
    Yeah I think the only sensible thing for white Atlanteans is to Get the Flux Out. Outside the city limits ain't far enough. Start with outside the 285 loop. Any real estate developers putting big skyscrapers on the plans for central Atlanta?

    Replies: @A123

    I do not believe this is accurate. Do you have a citation for your assertion about Atlanta demographics?

    Yeah I think the only sensible thing for white Atlanteans is to Get the Flux Out. Outside the city limits ain’t far enough. Start with outside the 285 loop. Any real estate developers putting big skyscrapers on the plans for central Atlanta?

    I am curious about TF’s source. Large % Hispanic population means that it would be plausible for Atlanta to simultaneously become less Black & less White. The actual numbers would be interesting.
    ___

    I don’t think that there are many skyscrapers going up in the U.S. Existing large buildings are under occupied. The CCP’s coronavirus + subsequent mutations are keeping employees at home or smaller sites. Why build tower that will simply remain vacant.
    ___

    I find it perplexing that people claim WUHAN-19 was a “bioweapon”. The key characteristic of a weapon is the ability to target the enemy without hitting friendlies. It is hard to see any plausible weapons development plan choosing coronavirus. High spread rate guarantees everyone will be hit friend & foe alike. Trying mass immunization immediately before a release gives away the source of the WMD. Plus, rapid mutation means that any countermeasure could fail by surprise.

    There is a silver lining to all of this. The CCP has accidentally undermined the scourge of civilization — overcrowding. Without the *cause* (overcrowding), the *#1 symbol* (mass transit) of uncivilized existence is taking a justified hit.

    PEACE 😇

  399. @Philip Owen
    @Yevardian

    The rest have now caught up. I still can't see what is really happening. I am astonished at the amount of British involvement. There is even a Prince Andrew story from Kazakhstan. Apparently while acting as front man for a British trade delgation, he made a negative remark about the French at a dinner. An American diplomat heard and reported it (revealed in Cablegote so a long time ago now). The British Royals have been making negative remarks about the French since 1066 so I don't know why this was remarkable.

    Anyway.
    Blair paid many millions by Nazerbayev.
    The Kazak officer corps trained in the UK.
    Prince Andrew promoting trade.

    The UK seems to have big interests there. I'd like to know what exactly. Backing Nazerbayev was never very bright. Dictators collapse eventually.

    Replies: @mal

    The UK seems to have big interests there. I’d like to know what exactly. Backing Nazerbayev was never very bright. Dictators collapse eventually

    .

    Well 40% of uranium comes from there and like half of Kazakhstan is owned by Canada (including Russian operations like Rosatom Canada/Uranium One or whatever).

    That’s the big interest. Why now though? I thought nuclear power was bad, and the West was phasing it out and shutting down nuclear power plants? Germans are closing nuke plants down etc. So why does it matter who controls uranium if you aren’t going to use it anyway?

    Or did the view change recently? If nuclear power became a viable option as part of energy policy all of a sudden, then yeah, who runs Kazakhstan suddenly becomes important.

  400. @Dmitry
    @German_reader

    Some years ago, I was in the UK, and I had to a use a train journey a few times between two cities.

    The first time I tried this journey I was just surprised how slow it travels. Often the train moving at walking speed, other times it might accelerate to the speed of a bus.

    After a couple of journeys, I was somehow habituated and just atmospheric, how slow we travel across the attractive English landscapes, how much time there is to read a book.

    Then I remember a final journey, this same train stops for two hours in the night.

    Announcement from the driver "Sorry we are empty of fuel and we are waiting a fuel train to be sent to refill our diesel". Then half an hour later "Don't worry I was speaking to the station and they said there is a fuel train available to send to you soon".

    When the train is finally refilled with the fuel, then the driver said we can apply for a refund if we write an application letter to their company's email. Obviously it's too much work to write special letters to the train company.

    So, that's the English trains. They don't calculate how much fuel they will need to complete the journey.


    Britain is usually attributed to the botched privatization in the 1990s.

     

    The irony is that some British railway companies are owned by partnerships including Japanese rail.
    https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/West_Midlands_Trains

    -

    But trains in Republic of Ireland are also very expensive tickets and slow, but they are not privatized.

    Perhaps British trains had been already bad, before privatization. Maybe privatization was some response to pre-existing problems, which made a bad situation become worse. I guess Philip Owen might have some knowledge.


    Japan’s former state railway system was apparently also privatized in the late 1980s, yet still seems to work quite well.

     

    Japanese trains are the "crème de la crème" of the world (with predictable prices).

    But many countries can at least run basically working trains, not just in EU, but even in postsoviet countries we have trains which are electric and regular, moving at least usually faster than walking speed. Even Israel organizes normal working trains which are comfortable and cheap, and they have a land border with Africa.

    Probably, there are African countries, which remember to refill their trains with adequate fuel. Perhaps there is some masonic conspiracy that England pretends it installed the train system in India, but it was actually the other way around.

    Replies: @German_reader, @Philip Owen

    Well you did ask.

    In the display case in my living room there are three silver plated cups awarded to my grandfather (a permanent way inspector) for having the best maintained section of railway line in British Rail in the late 1950’s. They stopped him competing after the 3rd year. I spent happy hours as a child walking the tracks with him looking for defects.

    The railways had received almost no new investment since 1913. There was war, recession, war. As a younger man he was the Ganger (foreman) building the last new piece of railway line in the UK. It was a bypass for Bristol. All the best young men were put to work on it so the railways could remember how to build new track. The railway companies were nationalised in 1947. Post war the government spent its money on atom bombs, missiles, aircraft carriers and especially aircraft. Nationalised firms like rail, steel and coal had not access to capital. Things improved by the late 1950s.
    One of the two lines on his patch was scheduled to be upgraded. It took industrial raw materials from the port in Swansea to Northern England. The wooden sleepers for the 2nd tract were actually being delivered. Then there was a total reversal of policy. Instead of upgrading, the Government’s special consultant, Dr Beeching, an research scientist and efficiency speciaist from the chemical firm ICI. Beeching decided on wholesale closures of little used lines on a purely commercial basis. So there was no regard for keeping open small sections of unprofitable line that provided connections that gave the network efficiency and connected larger traffic flows. The tracks were ripped up for scrap. My grandfather spent his last year or so organizing the return of land to the previous landowners (most having been purchased by compulsion). In urban areas that land was quickly built on. Rural railines and interregional expresses disappeared and have still not really come back. Such routes are still a start-stop experience. The railway became a commuter service for London and in a much weaker form for a few other big cities. Commuter services have always made a profit but destinations and line capacity largely remain pre 1913. There was a big success. Express trains to London and the few surviving interregional expresses were rebranded “Intercity”. It was originally based on the newly electrified route to the Midlands put in place from 1966 onwards. (Electrification of the UK system is still not complete).

    British Rail built no new track nor important extra capacity. It did invest modestly in electrification. It also set out to design a new locomotive for Intercity electric routes. This was the APT which was designed to cope with the sharp curves of the Victorian railway by tilting. It was to be faster than the French Train grand Vitesse (TGV). British Rail deliberately excluded existing locomotive designers from the team. Most of the engineers were from the aeronautical and automotive industries. It was a disaster. The passengers didn’t like the tilting. The system was unreliable. The trains often broke down (three were built).

    Meanwhile what was left of the experienced locomotive design team had been asked to design a design a diesel locomotive for the (few it was thought) lines not to be electrified. The trainset they designed, the High Speed Train (HST), was outstanding if not quite as fast as the TGV. 125 miles per hour was still good. These started operation in 1976 and are still running although now being withdrawn. Their success meant that plans for electrification were cut (it was the 1970’s and government budgets were tight). Investment in capacity, stations (for example no new car parks), most signalling stagnated. Commuter trains were not replaced. Goods services used a mixture of hand-me-down passenger locomotives. The Thatcher government continued the squeeze. Passenger numbers and freight volumes continued to decline.

    Then the railways were privatised in 1994 by the Major government. Privatisation has been an outstanding success for the system. instead of decades of decline, passenger numbers have more than doubled (!) as train operators have run trains tailored to passenger demand. Stations have been upgraded. The US firm Wisconsin Central bought all the main freight operators and took then into profit by replacing all the locomotives with one standard type, hugly cutting maintenance costs. Deutsche Bahn bought the company, by then called EWS in 2007. Recently, the closure of UK coal fired power stations and reduction in steel production has resulted in losses although the long distance cargo business is still growing partly due to locomotives that can run through the channel tunnel as far as Poland. But again, Ford who were a large user of the service have closed down UK manufacturing, for example the engine plant in Bridgend. Brexit looms.

    The privatisation of the permanent way was less succesful. There had been no investment in track capacity or even refurbishment for decades bar extending the electrified lines to Scotland. The private owners of Network Rail planned new capacity, even signalling and focussed on cost cutting. Meanwhile locomotive owners were doing the same thing. Track condition became dangerous. My grandfather must have turned in his grave many times. There were two major accidents (one a rail failure the other a signalling issue) and Network Rail was renationalized. Since then money has been found for new capacity: HS1, Crossrail, now HS2′ station modernisation, electrification of the railway west of London. However, this is still not directed at the regional and rural routes or the commuter lines for cities outside London. The North or Wales get refurbished trains from London, even converted tube trains. Wales and Scotland did get access to EU funds to add new capacity. Such schemes all exceeded predicted passenger numbers quickly and by large margins. The English regions have not been so lucky.

    The railway does not lack demand. It lacks capacity, stations in expanded towns and modern destinations.

    I guess you were trying to travel between English destinations that did not include London. Those lines are still configured for 1913. The expresses get priority if access to a mainline is required. As signalling is basic on branch lines, this can mean long delays. The longest delay I ever suffered was due to leaves on the line. I am horrified by the train running out of fuel though.

    • Thanks: German_reader, Dmitry, Barbarossa
    • Replies: @LondonBob
    @Philip Owen

    I think the surge in passengers played the biggest role, overcrowding on the roads, privatisation making no real difference. Unlike Spain we didn't get EU funds, and despite being the oldest rail system it compares favourably with the likes of Germany and Sweden.

  401. Important science in the debate between Manda-Vaxxers versus Vaxx-Realists: (1)

    Oddly, the mainstream media didn’t cover this at all. I just can’t figure out why.

    In short, these vaccines have more adverse reactions than all vaccines combined in the 30 year history of VAERS (over 70 vaccines). They are the most deadly vaccines ever created and have likely killed over 150,000 Americans.

    In the past 30 years, the experimental WUHAN-19 jab is more lethal than all other vaccines combined. The are rational, science based reasons to be concerned about the new mRNA technique. And, good grounds to refuse vaccination of children who are at little to no risk from WUHAN-19.

    PEACE 😇
    __________

    (1) https://stevekirsch.substack.com/p/milestone-over-1m-adverse-event-reports

     

  402. @Mr. Hack
    It looks to me that the Bandurist Christmas album I presented in comment #315 didn't attract many listeners. Perhaps this video clip of the Ukrainian Symphonic Orchestra's rendition of Skoryk and Nebesnys rendition of Ukrainian Christmas Carols renders more appreciation.

    https://youtu.be/ftWOht0b_dA

    Christmas is celebrated officially for three days in the Orthodox world, so for the last time "Merry Christmas" to all.

    Replies: @Yahya

    It looks to me that the Bandurist Christmas album I presented in comment #315 didn’t attract many listeners. Perhaps this video clip of the Ukrainian Symphonic Orchestra’s rendition of Skoryk and Nebesnys rendition of Ukrainian Christmas Carols renders more appreciation.

    Thanks for the music. Excellent melody and harmony. Ukrainians seem to be a musically gifted people. I recently found out Carol of the Bells, which is perhaps one of the best Christmas songs, was composed by one Ukrainian Mykola Dmytrovych Leontovych. Here’s an Arabic rendition by the Greek Orthodox community in Lebanon:

    • Replies: @Mr. Hack
    @Yahya

    "Carol of the Bells" is technically not a Ukrainian Christmas carol, but a song/greeting sung to commemorate the New Year. There are many such "schedryks" included within the video clip in #402. It's great to see that different holiday songs are shared around the world, including Lebanon. Yesterday, I watched another concert of Ukrainian carols held in Calgary where a Marionite Catholic choir also took part, singing some of their native song too. Christ was often hailed as the "Prince of Peace" sent to unite the world in a peacful movement.

  403. Question for Mikel, or anyone else who happens to speak Spanish. Are there any Spanish blogs or newssites that you could recommend as interesting, or simply giving a perspective lacking in the Anglophone media?
    In Russian that sort of thing is pretty easy to come by (obviously, the default media narrative is still considerably different), but so far every Spanish news outlet I’ve encountered simply just gives practically verbatim-translated boilerplate annalistic accounts, and/or generic opinions that you could find in any MSM English reporting. It reminds me why I never had any interest in learning German, even if many past classic histories or linguistics papers were written in it (although admittedly I never found it very euphonious either).

    • Replies: @songbird
    @Yevardian


    (although admittedly I never found it very euphonious either).
     
    Beautiful girls speaking German is very pleasing to the ear.

    Though not so pleasing as beautiful girls singing traditional songs in Irish.
    , @Mikel
    @Yevardian

    I don't think I'll be able to help much. My browsing these days is essentially on the English speaking internet, except for some very niche sites in Spanish unlikely to be of your interest and some Russian ones since 2014.

    Major Spanish news sites are indeed an ideological carbon copy of what you can find elsewhere, although El Pais used to have some good cultural and literature sections. If you convince them that you're browsing from the Americas they will also treat you to plenty of Latin American content but maybe you're better off reading Latin American sources for that content rather than El Pais' leftist/neocon angle.

    Perhaps you could try www.libertaddigital.com. I used to read it regularly in the past, before they became too Spanish nationalist while I was becoming too Basque independentist. They are a "liberal" publication in the Spanish sense of the term, which is almost the opposite of the English one. Liberalism (liberalismo) in Spain is an old political movement with its roots in the 19th century and is associated with the defense of political and economic freedoms. Today this translates to anything from Libertarianism to neocon/conservatism and that is what you will find in their treatment of the news and their opinion pieces.

  404. @German_reader
    @Dmitry


    We saw with the coronavirus pandemic
     
    tbh I don't understand at all what's going on with Corona in Japan, it doesn't seem to be much of an issue there. Official number of deaths according to Worldometer isn't even 20 000, and I haven't seen any claims that the Japanese are falsifying the numbers on a massive scale.
    In Germany a lot of people in the "educated" classes (younger women especially) have really become rather unhinged imo...triple-vaxxed, and yet still hysterical about how they feel endangered by the unvaccinated (who must be "punished"). And of course the government is stoking that kind of sentiment with its plans for general mandatory vaccination.

    I was looking recently at an old book (pre-2011) by a European author which included text about how incompetent and corrupt it must be in Japan because they build concrete walls on the beaches
     
    That sounds really stupid, given the well-known risks of earthquakes and tsunamis to Japan, it's one of the fundamental facts about the country.

    Replies: @Dmitry, @Yevardian

    tbh I don’t understand at all what’s going on with Corona in Japan, it doesn’t seem to be much of an issue there. Official number of deaths according to Worldometer isn’t even 20 000, and I haven’t seen any claims that the Japanese are falsifying the numbers on a massive scale.

    Lol, have you compared to Australia or NZ? It’s currently still under 2.500 casualties, but you would never have guessed from the hysterical local media reporting of the pandemic. The international borders (in & out, as in, it has been illegal to even leave the country for most) have been shut during almost the entire pandemic.
    Despite the government having handled things overall quite well, the general fear-mongering has been as bad as anywhere in Europe, and now with a preparation to ‘re-open’ internationally, the tone has now gone into overdrive.
    Honestly though, I don’t really care about the issue, it’s just been personal inconvenience. I waited a while to see how the vaccination drive went, didn’t see any real any real evidence against the jab (despite millions of words of rants), at this stage it appears its just nutcases ranting to each other remaining (see Godfree Roberts, lol).

    From the Japanese (or Korean) perspective, I wonder if there’s even a strong incentive to change things as they are now. Their people naturally follow the ‘rules’, and it’s not as if their politics have long since totally reorientated around immigration, as they have in the Greater Europe/’The West’.

    • Replies: @Dmitry
    @Yevardian

    Yes Australia and New Zealand are other very successful countries (together with countries like South Korea, Taiwan, Norway, etc).

    You can see which are the most competent countries during pandemics.

    Although Australia/New Zealand/Taiwan were much more strict than Japan with lockdowns and travel bans before vaccination. Whereas in Japan the virus was not able to spread much 2020-2021, even without much of lockdowns or travel bans, and Tokyo full of people living normal life.

    So, in my opinion, Japan is probably one of the most interesting successes. The virus never spread very much, even without such strong lockdowns and travel bans.

    On the opposite side of the spectrum, Bulgaria, Russia and Serbia are the countries with the most deaths from coronavirus relative to population. In Russia, is one of the only places where the apocalyptical predictions have come. Coronavirus has killed over a million Russian citizens, resulted in a fall in life expectancy in the country back to the same level as 1970.

    https://raw.githubusercontent.com/dkobak/excess-mortality/main/img/all-countries-per1000.png

    , @German_reader
    @Yevardian


    Lol, have you compared to Australia or NZ?
     
    Sure, but Japan is a really massive country (more than 120 million people), and I don't think they've had travel restrictions/mandatory quarantine for travellers quite as strict as Australia and NZ, so imo it's pretty remarkable that they've only got 20 000 official Corona deaths (EDIT: checked, apparently they also have a sort of 14-day quarantine for travellers coming from abroad, that might be an important factor). This is something I'd like to see explained, but Western mainstram media don't seem to pay much attention to it (Dmitry's comment here is the best explanation I've seen so far, so thanks to him for doing the job journalists should do).

    Honestly though, I don’t really care about the issue
     
    I'm not absorbed by it, but I can't ignore it either, both because I'm still somewhat worried about the virus (more regarding my father than myself), and increasingly because the entire debate in Germany has gotten totally unhinged. I've probably got somewhat authoritarian inclinations myself, but apparently still less so than many of my countrymen who seem to enjoy living in an endless "We need more restrictions! The unvaccinated must be punished" hysteria.

    Replies: @utu

  405. Lol, have you compared to Australia or NZ? It’s currently still under 2.500 casualties

    Sorry, realised I kept that figure in my head for ages, since cases had flatlined for some time. Just re-checked since a few months ago (shows how little interest I’ve had in it, I suppose), it’s *now* up to nearly a million at this point. It was static for quite some time, but the increase has been almost entirely in the 2 months or so, since internal borders re-opened, and the new variant blabla.

  406. @Yevardian
    @German_reader


    tbh I don’t understand at all what’s going on with Corona in Japan, it doesn’t seem to be much of an issue there. Official number of deaths according to Worldometer isn’t even 20 000, and I haven’t seen any claims that the Japanese are falsifying the numbers on a massive scale.
     
    Lol, have you compared to Australia or NZ? It's currently still under 2.500 casualties, but you would never have guessed from the hysterical local media reporting of the pandemic. The international borders (in & out, as in, it has been illegal to even leave the country for most) have been shut during almost the entire pandemic.
    Despite the government having handled things overall quite well, the general fear-mongering has been as bad as anywhere in Europe, and now with a preparation to 're-open' internationally, the tone has now gone into overdrive.
    Honestly though, I don't really care about the issue, it's just been personal inconvenience. I waited a while to see how the vaccination drive went, didn't see any real any real evidence against the jab (despite millions of words of rants), at this stage it appears its just nutcases ranting to each other remaining (see Godfree Roberts, lol).

    From the Japanese (or Korean) perspective, I wonder if there's even a strong incentive to change things as they are now. Their people naturally follow the 'rules', and it's not as if their politics have long since totally reorientated around immigration, as they have in the Greater Europe/'The West'.

    Replies: @Dmitry, @German_reader

    Yes Australia and New Zealand are other very successful countries (together with countries like South Korea, Taiwan, Norway, etc).

    You can see which are the most competent countries during pandemics.

    Although Australia/New Zealand/Taiwan were much more strict than Japan with lockdowns and travel bans before vaccination. Whereas in Japan the virus was not able to spread much 2020-2021, even without much of lockdowns or travel bans, and Tokyo full of people living normal life.

    So, in my opinion, Japan is probably one of the most interesting successes. The virus never spread very much, even without such strong lockdowns and travel bans.

    On the opposite side of the spectrum, Bulgaria, Russia and Serbia are the countries with the most deaths from coronavirus relative to population. In Russia, is one of the only places where the apocalyptical predictions have come. Coronavirus has killed over a million Russian citizens, resulted in a fall in life expectancy in the country back to the same level as 1970.

  407. @Thulean Friend
    On Japanese public transportation. I've talked to people who lived in Tokyo and they have lamented that the system is a mess, since there are numerous private operators and you need a different card for each one instead of a unified one. For a newcomer, there can also be bewildering moments as it isn't always clear when to exit the metro and enter a new train since some operators mostly just service light rail.

    Still, Japan being Japan means that the system is probably far more efficient than it would have been elsewhere, but that doesn't mean the system design is good. How it is outside of Tokyo, I don't know. Maybe it's much better.

    ---

    Housing prices are now increasing faster than before the 2008 GFC.

    https://i.imgur.com/L3Y62Vw.png

    I repeat my calls for making cheap housing a civilisational mission, as often the most interesting people are rarely the richest. A housing market tilted in favour of the well-off will lead to lower cultural dynamism. And yes, I am aware of my own role as a gentrifier. But what choice do I have in the current system? This should be a collective effort. Housing, like transportation or health, should be a public undertaking. Cheap housing is by nature not very profitable, which is why private firms aren't willing to invest. It's not about regulations, it's about profit margins.

    Another aspect is the "infinity QE" policies of central banks. They have pushed asset prices to record highs all over the world. We've seen it in the stock market, as it has gone completely parabolic and decoupled from the real economy. Clearly, there must be spillovers into the housing market also.

    ---

    Having come back from London and ruminated on my visit, I've noticed another difference. I saw a *lot* more women in niqabs or burqas there. London is a much more popular tourist destination than Stockholm is for rich Gulf Arabs, who tend to be very socially conservative, so it is hard to disentangle who is a native and who is not. Nevertheless, even I took the train to the center from my residential area, I noticed women in such attire on several train stations along the way, suggesting it wasn't an entirely imported theme.

    You can find some of these women in the worst ghettos of Stockholm, but even in Rinkeby or Akalla, it is typically hijab which predominates. My impression is that Sweden has as many moslems, and possibly even more, than the UK has as a percentage of the population. Why would UK moslems be more radical? If they are. Seems like a puzzle worth pondering over.

    Here in Stockholm, I often see scenes of an older woman in a hijab with younger daughters with free-flowing hair and sometimes even skirts. Many of these girls are often late teens and early 20s, so long past the age when hijab is seen as "appropriate".

    Replies: @Yellowface Anon, @Dmitry, @LondonBob

    Tokyo system is a mess

    If you mean the metro in Tokyo? I’ve been in Tokyo twice (wish I go again soon), but not recently. I remember buying the tickets separately for each journey in a machine. Otherwise, it seemed to be an easy to use metro and not too expensive. That’s how you make a comfortable city.

    ow it is outside of Tokyo, I don’t know.

    Probably you have to buy another ticket for each journey. When I was there for vacation we had a Japan rail pass.

    I think Japanese people not be able to buy this rail pass. Maybe it is only for tourists.

    But with the rail pass, this is the best transport system in the world. You can go anywhere in Japan you want, just choose from the map. It’s all super fast and not that expensive (with the rail pass).

    You’ll fall in love with those trains (when you don’t have to pay for the tickets).

    Although I think they said for Japanese citizens without the rail pass, Shinkansen is crazy expensive.

    Gulf Arabs, who tend to be very socially conservative

    Although I think in London, wealthy Arabs are often going to be live more socially liberal. They have socially conservative home countries. When they go to London in their summer homes, it’s obviously partly so they can relax together, in a more liberal culture.

    I would believe Islamist sin London, are more often from poor immigrants, than the wealthy tourists.

    Note there is a lot of social divergence between the tourist Muslims and the local Muslims. The wealthy Arabs in London, are some of the most rich people anywhere in the world.

    But the local Muslim population, are the poorest religious group in London.

    Wealthy Arabs who fill London streets with hundreds (thousands?) of the most rare Ferraris and Lamborghinis each summer, cannot have so much socioeconomic compatibility with the city’s local Muslim population.

    For example, it seems like London’s local Muslim population have the most economically difficulties or underprivilege of the London religious groups.
    https://www.trustforlondon.org.uk/news/inequalities-and-disadvantage-london-focus-religion-and-belief/

    • Replies: @songbird
    @Dmitry

    Air China advises that travelers to London be wary of areas populated mostly by blacks, Pakis, and Indians. By the last, I assume they are referring to Muslim Indians.

    Sensible advice, no doubt.

    Replies: @songbird

  408. @AP
    @songbird


    Where it really hurts more, IMO, is in the way things are run. Massive levels of corruption, incompetence, and malfeasance. I don’t know if you have ever been in a broken down train after midnight, but it is an unpleasant experience.
     
    I've rarely taken the NYC subway; more often, I've taken Metro North into Grand Central Station. Those trains are fine and the station is beautiful. Until 2014, Metro North commuter trains even had a bar car for middle class people to unwind after work with a few drinks!

    https://static01.nyt.com/images/2014/05/10/nyregion/20140510BARCARss-slide-8I1Z/20140510BARCARss-slide-8I1Z-superJumbo.jpg

    https://s.hdnux.com/photos/62/75/15/13357939/3/ratio3x2_400.jpg

    https://static01.nyt.com/images/2014/05/10/nyregion/20140510BARCARss-slide-SNEI/20140510BARCARss-slide-SNEI-jumbo.jpg

    https://m.wsj.net/video/20140510/051014barcar1/051014barcar1_960x540.jpg


    The state of public transportation depends on the nature of the public using them.

    Replies: @Dmitry

    These in the train look like Wall Street workers? I imagine they are low level Wall Street workers or financial professionals. My first impression of the photos, is that it is a working class of Wall Street who drink beer after their stressful day.

    It’s funny you can guess from expression of peoples’ faces in the photos that they are not upper management people – they look too happy to be escaping the office.

    • Replies: @AP
    @Dmitry

    Most of them don't appear to be "working class." The train has stops in some of the richest towns in America:

    https://www.theguardian.com/world/2013/feb/15/connecticut-gold-coast-life-afford

    Replies: @Dmitry

    , @utu
    @Dmitry

    These in the train look like Wall Street workers? - You mean that they do not look Jewish? Perhaps this is your complex speaking as a wannabe Jew with a Russian muzhik mug.

    Replies: @Dmitry

  409. @Yahya
    @Mr. Hack


    It looks to me that the Bandurist Christmas album I presented in comment #315 didn’t attract many listeners. Perhaps this video clip of the Ukrainian Symphonic Orchestra’s rendition of Skoryk and Nebesnys rendition of Ukrainian Christmas Carols renders more appreciation.

     

    Thanks for the music. Excellent melody and harmony. Ukrainians seem to be a musically gifted people. I recently found out Carol of the Bells, which is perhaps one of the best Christmas songs, was composed by one Ukrainian Mykola Dmytrovych Leontovych. Here's an Arabic rendition by the Greek Orthodox community in Lebanon:

    https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=TQBusPo3Rxc&ab_channel=HibaTawaji

    Replies: @Mr. Hack

    “Carol of the Bells” is technically not a Ukrainian Christmas carol, but a song/greeting sung to commemorate the New Year. There are many such “schedryks” included within the video clip in #402. It’s great to see that different holiday songs are shared around the world, including Lebanon. Yesterday, I watched another concert of Ukrainian carols held in Calgary where a Marionite Catholic choir also took part, singing some of their native song too. Christ was often hailed as the “Prince of Peace” sent to unite the world in a peacful movement.

    • LOL: sher singh
  410. @Dmitry
    @AP

    These in the train look like Wall Street workers? I imagine they are low level Wall Street workers or financial professionals. My first impression of the photos, is that it is a working class of Wall Street who drink beer after their stressful day.


    It's funny you can guess from expression of peoples' faces in the photos that they are not upper management people - they look too happy to be escaping the office.

    Replies: @AP, @utu

    Most of them don’t appear to be “working class.” The train has stops in some of the richest towns in America:

    https://www.theguardian.com/world/2013/feb/15/connecticut-gold-coast-life-afford

    • Replies: @Dmitry
    @AP

    In the photos, they look like how imagine the "working class of Wall Street". They're drinking beer, watch some baseball. They are way too happy they escape the office at the end of the day, to be the managers.

    I'm myself in the "working class" of the Western tech industry. So you can let me imagine that I have intuition for seeing other "working classes" of the economically overhyped sectors. Every month it feels like I saw another person who has bought a Porsche Taycan. Meanwhile I'm carefully applying for the travel expense refund for my bus ticket.


    https://www.theguardian.com/world/2013/feb/15/connecticut-gold-coast-life-afford
     
    Well, surely, New York/Wall Street salary is still not that bad, even for the normal workers there. "The average 2018 salary, including bonuses, for New York City's securities industry employees was $398,600. That was down from $422,500 in 2017," https://www.nbcnews.com/business/business-news/average-wall-street-salary-dropped-399-000-last-year-n1072101

    Replies: @Emil Nikola Richard, @PedroAstra

  411. @Dmitry
    @Thulean Friend


    Tokyo system is a mess
     
    If you mean the metro in Tokyo? I've been in Tokyo twice (wish I go again soon), but not recently. I remember buying the tickets separately for each journey in a machine. Otherwise, it seemed to be an easy to use metro and not too expensive. That's how you make a comfortable city.

    ow it is outside of Tokyo, I don’t know.
     
    Probably you have to buy another ticket for each journey. When I was there for vacation we had a Japan rail pass.

    I think Japanese people not be able to buy this rail pass. Maybe it is only for tourists.

    But with the rail pass, this is the best transport system in the world. You can go anywhere in Japan you want, just choose from the map. It's all super fast and not that expensive (with the rail pass).

    You'll fall in love with those trains (when you don't have to pay for the tickets).

    Although I think they said for Japanese citizens without the rail pass, Shinkansen is crazy expensive.


    Gulf Arabs, who tend to be very socially conservative
     
    Although I think in London, wealthy Arabs are often going to be live more socially liberal. They have socially conservative home countries. When they go to London in their summer homes, it's obviously partly so they can relax together, in a more liberal culture.

    I would believe Islamist sin London, are more often from poor immigrants, than the wealthy tourists.

    Note there is a lot of social divergence between the tourist Muslims and the local Muslims. The wealthy Arabs in London, are some of the most rich people anywhere in the world.

    But the local Muslim population, are the poorest religious group in London.


    -

    Wealthy Arabs who fill London streets with hundreds (thousands?) of the most rare Ferraris and Lamborghinis each summer, cannot have so much socioeconomic compatibility with the city's local Muslim population.

    For example, it seems like London's local Muslim population have the most economically difficulties or underprivilege of the London religious groups.
    https://i.imgur.com/b1mpZvI.png

    https://www.trustforlondon.org.uk/news/inequalities-and-disadvantage-london-focus-religion-and-belief/

    Replies: @songbird

    Air China advises that travelers to London be wary of areas populated mostly by blacks, Pakis, and Indians. By the last, I assume they are referring to Muslim Indians.

    Sensible advice, no doubt.

    • Replies: @songbird
    @songbird

    Incidentally, I wonder if Air China would be interested in some sort of contract to aid in the deportation process.

    Not only would they potentially make a big profit, but it would likely increase future tourism.

  412. @Yevardian
    Question for Mikel, or anyone else who happens to speak Spanish. Are there any Spanish blogs or newssites that you could recommend as interesting, or simply giving a perspective lacking in the Anglophone media?
    In Russian that sort of thing is pretty easy to come by (obviously, the default media narrative is still considerably different), but so far every Spanish news outlet I've encountered simply just gives practically verbatim-translated boilerplate annalistic accounts, and/or generic opinions that you could find in any MSM English reporting. It reminds me why I never had any interest in learning German, even if many past classic histories or linguistics papers were written in it (although admittedly I never found it very euphonious either).

    Replies: @songbird, @Mikel

    (although admittedly I never found it very euphonious either).

    Beautiful girls speaking German is very pleasing to the ear.

    Though not so pleasing as beautiful girls singing traditional songs in Irish.

  413. German_reader says:
    @Yevardian
    @German_reader


    tbh I don’t understand at all what’s going on with Corona in Japan, it doesn’t seem to be much of an issue there. Official number of deaths according to Worldometer isn’t even 20 000, and I haven’t seen any claims that the Japanese are falsifying the numbers on a massive scale.
     
    Lol, have you compared to Australia or NZ? It's currently still under 2.500 casualties, but you would never have guessed from the hysterical local media reporting of the pandemic. The international borders (in & out, as in, it has been illegal to even leave the country for most) have been shut during almost the entire pandemic.
    Despite the government having handled things overall quite well, the general fear-mongering has been as bad as anywhere in Europe, and now with a preparation to 're-open' internationally, the tone has now gone into overdrive.
    Honestly though, I don't really care about the issue, it's just been personal inconvenience. I waited a while to see how the vaccination drive went, didn't see any real any real evidence against the jab (despite millions of words of rants), at this stage it appears its just nutcases ranting to each other remaining (see Godfree Roberts, lol).

    From the Japanese (or Korean) perspective, I wonder if there's even a strong incentive to change things as they are now. Their people naturally follow the 'rules', and it's not as if their politics have long since totally reorientated around immigration, as they have in the Greater Europe/'The West'.

    Replies: @Dmitry, @German_reader

    Lol, have you compared to Australia or NZ?

    Sure, but Japan is a really massive country (more than 120 million people), and I don’t think they’ve had travel restrictions/mandatory quarantine for travellers quite as strict as Australia and NZ, so imo it’s pretty remarkable that they’ve only got 20 000 official Corona deaths (EDIT: checked, apparently they also have a sort of 14-day quarantine for travellers coming from abroad, that might be an important factor). This is something I’d like to see explained, but Western mainstram media don’t seem to pay much attention to it (Dmitry’s comment here is the best explanation I’ve seen so far, so thanks to him for doing the job journalists should do).

    Honestly though, I don’t really care about the issue

    I’m not absorbed by it, but I can’t ignore it either, both because I’m still somewhat worried about the virus (more regarding my father than myself), and increasingly because the entire debate in Germany has gotten totally unhinged. I’ve probably got somewhat authoritarian inclinations myself, but apparently still less so than many of my countrymen who seem to enjoy living in an endless “We need more restrictions! The unvaccinated must be punished” hysteria.

    • Replies: @utu
    @German_reader


    INTRODUCED RETROSPECTIVE CLUSTER-BASED APPROACH TO LOCATE TRANSMISSION

    On February 25, the Ministry of Health, Labor, and Social Affairs, with the Government's aid, announced the Basic Policies for Novel Coronavirus Disease Control and set up a cluster response team along with 536 consultative centers [7]. The country used retrospective monitoring methods to find closer links to an infected person, while other countries employed the prospective approach to identify a major infection source. Japan's retrospective method was claimed to more reliably identify the initial source of infection and thus tracked all close contacts of sources of infection. The basic policy of the authority was to early detect the source of an infected individual through symptoms, follow all the people in the cluster who are highly transmissible, test and isolate them immediately and treat them as symptoms rather than general testing of the country's entire population [8]. The authorities succeeded in the cluster control approach in the earliest phase of the pandemic.

    Japan's mild lockdowns seem to have had a real lockdown effect. While people were not forced to remain at home, they did in general.

    Furthermore, the exchange of greetings between Japan and the rest of the world varies. In greeting, the Japanese tend to bow rather than shake, embrace, or kiss. Japanese people were believed to have droplets smaller than others; it was shown that approximately 80% of patients did not transmit this virus to others. Also, an established culture of masks, especially in the winter grip season, maybe an important reason for the low infection. Furthermore, in Japan, which is practiced widely in educational institutions from a very young age, a tradition of handwashing is higher.

    https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC7688188/
     

    Replies: @German_reader, @Dmitry

  414. @Thulean Friend
    On Japanese public transportation. I've talked to people who lived in Tokyo and they have lamented that the system is a mess, since there are numerous private operators and you need a different card for each one instead of a unified one. For a newcomer, there can also be bewildering moments as it isn't always clear when to exit the metro and enter a new train since some operators mostly just service light rail.

    Still, Japan being Japan means that the system is probably far more efficient than it would have been elsewhere, but that doesn't mean the system design is good. How it is outside of Tokyo, I don't know. Maybe it's much better.

    ---

    Housing prices are now increasing faster than before the 2008 GFC.

    https://i.imgur.com/L3Y62Vw.png

    I repeat my calls for making cheap housing a civilisational mission, as often the most interesting people are rarely the richest. A housing market tilted in favour of the well-off will lead to lower cultural dynamism. And yes, I am aware of my own role as a gentrifier. But what choice do I have in the current system? This should be a collective effort. Housing, like transportation or health, should be a public undertaking. Cheap housing is by nature not very profitable, which is why private firms aren't willing to invest. It's not about regulations, it's about profit margins.

    Another aspect is the "infinity QE" policies of central banks. They have pushed asset prices to record highs all over the world. We've seen it in the stock market, as it has gone completely parabolic and decoupled from the real economy. Clearly, there must be spillovers into the housing market also.

    ---

    Having come back from London and ruminated on my visit, I've noticed another difference. I saw a *lot* more women in niqabs or burqas there. London is a much more popular tourist destination than Stockholm is for rich Gulf Arabs, who tend to be very socially conservative, so it is hard to disentangle who is a native and who is not. Nevertheless, even I took the train to the center from my residential area, I noticed women in such attire on several train stations along the way, suggesting it wasn't an entirely imported theme.

    You can find some of these women in the worst ghettos of Stockholm, but even in Rinkeby or Akalla, it is typically hijab which predominates. My impression is that Sweden has as many moslems, and possibly even more, than the UK has as a percentage of the population. Why would UK moslems be more radical? If they are. Seems like a puzzle worth pondering over.

    Here in Stockholm, I often see scenes of an older woman in a hijab with younger daughters with free-flowing hair and sometimes even skirts. Many of these girls are often late teens and early 20s, so long past the age when hijab is seen as "appropriate".

    Replies: @Yellowface Anon, @Dmitry, @LondonBob

    Arabs used to go to Lebanon, they don’t anymore because of their inferiority complex towards Hezbollah, Cameron also lowered the standards for giving them short term visas. Very noticeable the number holidaying in London for a few months since around 2011.

    • LOL: A123
    • Replies: @A123
    @LondonBob

    Iranian Hezbollah has spent several decades turning Lebanon into a failed state. The Nasrallah-shima port blast killed hundreds, injured thousands, and plunged the Lebanese economy into collapse. It is not just Arabs, almost everyone avoids Hezbollah contamination by going elsewhere.

    The only hope for Lebanese revival is the expulsion of Iran, including their proxies Hezbollah and Hamas. The future will almost certainly bring a partition establishing a Christian Lebanon free from Iranian corruption & violence.

    PEACE 😇

    , @Yahya
    @LondonBob


    Arabs used to go to Lebanon
     
    True. My Saudi grandfather would regularly make excursions to Lebanon ("Switzerland of the Middle East") with his friends back in 50s-70s (he also had a second home in Egypt). That pretty much stopped when the civil war erupted and the economy went down the drain (Lebanon is now the Venezuela of the Middle East). Hasn't returned since. It's a shame; Lebanon has some beautiful scenery.

    They don’t anymore because of their inferiority complex towards Hezbollah,
     
    Not true. I don't think it's possible for Gulf Arabs to have an inferiority complex to anyone really; so long as the oil flows. As Dmitry mentioned, they are not only the wealthiest of the MENA region, but one of the wealthiest people in the entire planet. If anything, Gulf Arabs are known for their toxic sense of arrogance and superiority.

    I would believe Islamist sin London, are more often from poor immigrants, than the wealthy tourists. Note there is a lot of social divergence between the tourist Muslims and the local Muslims. The wealthy Arabs in London, are some of the most rich people anywhere in the world. But the local Muslim population, are the poorest religious group in London.
     
    Muslims in London are predominantly of working-class Indian, Pakistani and Bengali origin. Not only are they poorer than Gulf Arabs, but they are of a different race (for the most part; some Pakistanis/North Indians can pass for Gulf Arab). It'd be a mistake to think they are part of the same group just because they are "Muslims". Gulf Arabs are known to be racist towards South Asians. On the other hand, Gulf Arabs are also acquainted with South Asian migrant workers in Saudi Arabia; who mostly come from the same backgrounds as British-Muslims; so they are not as alien to each other as you might expect.

    British Muslims, like most other poor Muslims around the globe, have mixed feelings towards Gulf Arabs. On the one hand, they have a deep disdain for the opulent, ostentatious and what they view as decadent lifestyle of the rich Arabs of the Gulf. On the other hand, they have an ingrained, reluctant respect for Arabs because, as Razib Khan once put it, Arabs are the herrenvolk of Islam. God speaks their language. The Prophet was of their stock. British Muslims can trash-talk Gulf Arabs for days on end behind the walls of their homes, but if an Arab walks through their mosque, they will reflexively tip their hats in respect. The situation is not unlike the relationship between working-class Britons and the aristocracy of old.

    Replies: @AP, @LondonBob

    , @Dmitry
    @LondonBob

    Arabs were going to Lebanon because the banks in Lebanon were giving up to 10% interest rates.

    In 2019, Lebanese banks almost collapsed and locked their deposits.

    It would have been always gambling to invest in Lebanon, but if a historically prestigious (in the Arab world) bank promises you 10% interest rates? It's a difficult offer to resist.


    Very noticeable the number holidaying in London
     
    It's because Arabs are one of the largest groups which own the property of London. They could own almost as much London property as Russia's political class, Perhaps China's position in London will become similar as well.

    In the summer, Gulf Arabs' political class come to London and often transport their unusual supercars. This is social life, as they arrive in large groups from the different countries. So you can imagine the Saudis, can be friends or rivals with Qataris, or Emiratis.

    For people from the Gulf, London in summer would also be considered probably a pleasant, refreshing climate. So they can probably escape summer heat in London. Also the elites of the other nationalities (like Russians) are often less in London during the summer, so perhaps Arabs can feel like they have more of the elite spaces in London during summer season.

    It's similar how the political class of the postsoviet countries are in the summer Monaco, Riviera, Marbella, Florida, depending on time of year. In another season, Russian and Ukrainian elite have amnesty in Courchevel. New Year, politicians' families are often in Monaco. Or they host rival events in Monaco during the summer vacation.

    Bozhena Rynska used to always publicize about this funny social life, until she received some kin of complaining and stopped reporting it about 5 years ago. Postsoviet political classes are moving together during the summer as kind of herd, grazing in different territories at the same times. It's because "networking" is a kind of part-time at least kind of work. Even friendship between wives, is some useful thing in the business deals in postsoviet billionaires' culture.

  415. @Philip Owen
    @Dmitry

    Well you did ask.

    In the display case in my living room there are three silver plated cups awarded to my grandfather (a permanent way inspector) for having the best maintained section of railway line in British Rail in the late 1950's. They stopped him competing after the 3rd year. I spent happy hours as a child walking the tracks with him looking for defects.

    The railways had received almost no new investment since 1913. There was war, recession, war. As a younger man he was the Ganger (foreman) building the last new piece of railway line in the UK. It was a bypass for Bristol. All the best young men were put to work on it so the railways could remember how to build new track. The railway companies were nationalised in 1947. Post war the government spent its money on atom bombs, missiles, aircraft carriers and especially aircraft. Nationalised firms like rail, steel and coal had not access to capital. Things improved by the late 1950s.
    One of the two lines on his patch was scheduled to be upgraded. It took industrial raw materials from the port in Swansea to Northern England. The wooden sleepers for the 2nd tract were actually being delivered. Then there was a total reversal of policy. Instead of upgrading, the Government's special consultant, Dr Beeching, an research scientist and efficiency speciaist from the chemical firm ICI. Beeching decided on wholesale closures of little used lines on a purely commercial basis. So there was no regard for keeping open small sections of unprofitable line that provided connections that gave the network efficiency and connected larger traffic flows. The tracks were ripped up for scrap. My grandfather spent his last year or so organizing the return of land to the previous landowners (most having been purchased by compulsion). In urban areas that land was quickly built on. Rural railines and interregional expresses disappeared and have still not really come back. Such routes are still a start-stop experience. The railway became a commuter service for London and in a much weaker form for a few other big cities. Commuter services have always made a profit but destinations and line capacity largely remain pre 1913. There was a big success. Express trains to London and the few surviving interregional expresses were rebranded "Intercity". It was originally based on the newly electrified route to the Midlands put in place from 1966 onwards. (Electrification of the UK system is still not complete).

    British Rail built no new track nor important extra capacity. It did invest modestly in electrification. It also set out to design a new locomotive for Intercity electric routes. This was the APT which was designed to cope with the sharp curves of the Victorian railway by tilting. It was to be faster than the French Train grand Vitesse (TGV). British Rail deliberately excluded existing locomotive designers from the team. Most of the engineers were from the aeronautical and automotive industries. It was a disaster. The passengers didn't like the tilting. The system was unreliable. The trains often broke down (three were built).

    Meanwhile what was left of the experienced locomotive design team had been asked to design a design a diesel locomotive for the (few it was thought) lines not to be electrified. The trainset they designed, the High Speed Train (HST), was outstanding if not quite as fast as the TGV. 125 miles per hour was still good. These started operation in 1976 and are still running although now being withdrawn. Their success meant that plans for electrification were cut (it was the 1970's and government budgets were tight). Investment in capacity, stations (for example no new car parks), most signalling stagnated. Commuter trains were not replaced. Goods services used a mixture of hand-me-down passenger locomotives. The Thatcher government continued the squeeze. Passenger numbers and freight volumes continued to decline.

    Then the railways were privatised in 1994 by the Major government. Privatisation has been an outstanding success for the system. instead of decades of decline, passenger numbers have more than doubled (!) as train operators have run trains tailored to passenger demand. Stations have been upgraded. The US firm Wisconsin Central bought all the main freight operators and took then into profit by replacing all the locomotives with one standard type, hugly cutting maintenance costs. Deutsche Bahn bought the company, by then called EWS in 2007. Recently, the closure of UK coal fired power stations and reduction in steel production has resulted in losses although the long distance cargo business is still growing partly due to locomotives that can run through the channel tunnel as far as Poland. But again, Ford who were a large user of the service have closed down UK manufacturing, for example the engine plant in Bridgend. Brexit looms.

    The privatisation of the permanent way was less succesful. There had been no investment in track capacity or even refurbishment for decades bar extending the electrified lines to Scotland. The private owners of Network Rail planned new capacity, even signalling and focussed on cost cutting. Meanwhile locomotive owners were doing the same thing. Track condition became dangerous. My grandfather must have turned in his grave many times. There were two major accidents (one a rail failure the other a signalling issue) and Network Rail was renationalized. Since then money has been found for new capacity: HS1, Crossrail, now HS2' station modernisation, electrification of the railway west of London. However, this is still not directed at the regional and rural routes or the commuter lines for cities outside London. The North or Wales get refurbished trains from London, even converted tube trains. Wales and Scotland did get access to EU funds to add new capacity. Such schemes all exceeded predicted passenger numbers quickly and by large margins. The English regions have not been so lucky.

    The railway does not lack demand. It lacks capacity, stations in expanded towns and modern destinations.

    I guess you were trying to travel between English destinations that did not include London. Those lines are still configured for 1913. The expresses get priority if access to a mainline is required. As signalling is basic on branch lines, this can mean long delays. The longest delay I ever suffered was due to leaves on the line. I am horrified by the train running out of fuel though.

    Replies: @LondonBob

    I think the surge in passengers played the biggest role, overcrowding on the roads, privatisation making no real difference. Unlike Spain we didn’t get EU funds, and despite being the oldest rail system it compares favourably with the likes of Germany and Sweden.

  416. @Yevardian
    @Philip Owen

    Is Kevin Barret really all the only person on this site who's writing on this Kazakhstan mess, other than Andrew Anglin? Karlin really did choose an inaspaucious time to virtually quit blogging to chase the crypto-'currency'-dragon...

    Replies: @Dmitry, @Philip Owen, @LondonBob

    What will get to \$2000 first, bitcoin or gold?

    • Replies: @Yellowface Anon
    @LondonBob

    Have you been living under a rock for the last 4-5 years?

    Replies: @LondonBob

  417. @LondonBob
    @Thulean Friend

    Arabs used to go to Lebanon, they don't anymore because of their inferiority complex towards Hezbollah, Cameron also lowered the standards for giving them short term visas. Very noticeable the number holidaying in London for a few months since around 2011.

    Replies: @A123, @Yahya, @Dmitry

    Iranian Hezbollah has spent several decades turning Lebanon into a failed state. The Nasrallah-shima port blast killed hundreds, injured thousands, and plunged the Lebanese economy into collapse. It is not just Arabs, almost everyone avoids Hezbollah contamination by going elsewhere.

    The only hope for Lebanese revival is the expulsion of Iran, including their proxies Hezbollah and Hamas. The future will almost certainly bring a partition establishing a Christian Lebanon free from Iranian corruption & violence.

    PEACE 😇

  418. @LondonBob
    @Thulean Friend

    Arabs used to go to Lebanon, they don't anymore because of their inferiority complex towards Hezbollah, Cameron also lowered the standards for giving them short term visas. Very noticeable the number holidaying in London for a few months since around 2011.

    Replies: @A123, @Yahya, @Dmitry

    Arabs used to go to Lebanon

    True. My Saudi grandfather would regularly make excursions to Lebanon (“Switzerland of the Middle East”) with his friends back in 50s-70s (he also had a second home in Egypt). That pretty much stopped when the civil war erupted and the economy went down the drain (Lebanon is now the Venezuela of the Middle East). Hasn’t returned since. It’s a shame; Lebanon has some beautiful scenery.

    They don’t anymore because of their inferiority complex towards Hezbollah,

    Not true. I don’t think it’s possible for Gulf Arabs to have an inferiority complex to anyone really; so long as the oil flows. As Dmitry mentioned, they are not only the wealthiest of the MENA region, but one of the wealthiest people in the entire planet. If anything, Gulf Arabs are known for their toxic sense of arrogance and superiority.

    I would believe Islamist sin London, are more often from poor immigrants, than the wealthy tourists. Note there is a lot of social divergence between the tourist Muslims and the local Muslims. The wealthy Arabs in London, are some of the most rich people anywhere in the world. But the local Muslim population, are the poorest religious group in London.

    Muslims in London are predominantly of working-class Indian, Pakistani and Bengali origin. Not only are they poorer than Gulf Arabs, but they are of a different race (for the most part; some Pakistanis/North Indians can pass for Gulf Arab). It’d be a mistake to think they are part of the same group just because they are “Muslims”. Gulf Arabs are known to be racist towards South Asians. On the other hand, Gulf Arabs are also acquainted with South Asian migrant workers in Saudi Arabia; who mostly come from the same backgrounds as British-Muslims; so they are not as alien to each other as you might expect.

    British Muslims, like most other poor Muslims around the globe, have mixed feelings towards Gulf Arabs. On the one hand, they have a deep disdain for the opulent, ostentatious and what they view as decadent lifestyle of the rich Arabs of the Gulf. On the other hand, they have an ingrained, reluctant respect for Arabs because, as Razib Khan once put it, Arabs are the herrenvolk of Islam. God speaks their language. The Prophet was of their stock. British Muslims can trash-talk Gulf Arabs for days on end behind the walls of their homes, but if an Arab walks through their mosque, they will reflexively tip their hats in respect. The situation is not unlike the relationship between working-class Britons and the aristocracy of old.

    • Thanks: AP
    • Replies: @AP
    @Yahya


    British Muslims, like most other poor Muslims around the globe, have mixed feelings towards Gulf Arabs. On the one hand, they have a deep disdain for the opulent, ostentatious and what they view as decadent lifestyle of the rich Arabs of the Gulf. On the other hand, they have an ingrained, reluctant respect for Arabs because, as Razib Khan once put it, Arabs are the herrenvolk of Islam. God speaks their language. The Prophet was of their stock. British Muslims can trash-talk Gulf Arabs for days on end behind the walls of their homes, but if an Arab walks through their mosque, they will reflexively tip their hats in respect. The situation is not unlike the relationship between working-class Britons and the aristocracy of old.
     
    Interesting observation. Persians, Chaldeans and Lebanese Christians often express haughty disdain for Muslim Arabs in general - does this extend towards the rich Gulf Arabs?

    Replies: @Yahya

    , @LondonBob
    @Yahya

    Somewhat tongue in cheek, of course much more had to do with the Sunni Shia rift sparked by the Syrian War.

    When I was in Istanbul in around 2015 or so the Turkish taxi driver was also fed up with Gulf Arabs who had also started coming to Istanbul, much to do with the rich Arab mentality.

    Pakistan has nuclear weapons and the Arab states rent out their far more competent military, of course Pakistan does not have oil.

  419. @Yahya
    @LondonBob


    Arabs used to go to Lebanon
     
    True. My Saudi grandfather would regularly make excursions to Lebanon ("Switzerland of the Middle East") with his friends back in 50s-70s (he also had a second home in Egypt). That pretty much stopped when the civil war erupted and the economy went down the drain (Lebanon is now the Venezuela of the Middle East). Hasn't returned since. It's a shame; Lebanon has some beautiful scenery.

    They don’t anymore because of their inferiority complex towards Hezbollah,
     
    Not true. I don't think it's possible for Gulf Arabs to have an inferiority complex to anyone really; so long as the oil flows. As Dmitry mentioned, they are not only the wealthiest of the MENA region, but one of the wealthiest people in the entire planet. If anything, Gulf Arabs are known for their toxic sense of arrogance and superiority.

    I would believe Islamist sin London, are more often from poor immigrants, than the wealthy tourists. Note there is a lot of social divergence between the tourist Muslims and the local Muslims. The wealthy Arabs in London, are some of the most rich people anywhere in the world. But the local Muslim population, are the poorest religious group in London.
     
    Muslims in London are predominantly of working-class Indian, Pakistani and Bengali origin. Not only are they poorer than Gulf Arabs, but they are of a different race (for the most part; some Pakistanis/North Indians can pass for Gulf Arab). It'd be a mistake to think they are part of the same group just because they are "Muslims". Gulf Arabs are known to be racist towards South Asians. On the other hand, Gulf Arabs are also acquainted with South Asian migrant workers in Saudi Arabia; who mostly come from the same backgrounds as British-Muslims; so they are not as alien to each other as you might expect.

    British Muslims, like most other poor Muslims around the globe, have mixed feelings towards Gulf Arabs. On the one hand, they have a deep disdain for the opulent, ostentatious and what they view as decadent lifestyle of the rich Arabs of the Gulf. On the other hand, they have an ingrained, reluctant respect for Arabs because, as Razib Khan once put it, Arabs are the herrenvolk of Islam. God speaks their language. The Prophet was of their stock. British Muslims can trash-talk Gulf Arabs for days on end behind the walls of their homes, but if an Arab walks through their mosque, they will reflexively tip their hats in respect. The situation is not unlike the relationship between working-class Britons and the aristocracy of old.

    Replies: @AP, @LondonBob

    British Muslims, like most other poor Muslims around the globe, have mixed feelings towards Gulf Arabs. On the one hand, they have a deep disdain for the opulent, ostentatious and what they view as decadent lifestyle of the rich Arabs of the Gulf. On the other hand, they have an ingrained, reluctant respect for Arabs because, as Razib Khan once put it, Arabs are the herrenvolk of Islam. God speaks their language. The Prophet was of their stock. British Muslims can trash-talk Gulf Arabs for days on end behind the walls of their homes, but if an Arab walks through their mosque, they will reflexively tip their hats in respect. The situation is not unlike the relationship between working-class Britons and the aristocracy of old.

    Interesting observation. Persians, Chaldeans and Lebanese Christians often express haughty disdain for Muslim Arabs in general – does this extend towards the rich Gulf Arabs?

    • Replies: @Yahya
    @AP


    Interesting observation. Persians, Chaldeans and Lebanese Christians often express haughty disdain for Muslim Arabs in general
     
    Like any topic related to ethnicity/religion in the Middle East - it's complicated. Before I begin, i'd like to mention that most of my observations are impressionistic; as the nature of the topic does not lend itself to rigorous scientific investigation. As such, the accuracy of my observations are constrained by my personal experiences - which by their nature are inherently limited.

    Since I'm Egyptian (of Muslim background, though secular in outlook), my first-hand experiences with Middle East Christians consists of a few childhood friendships/acquaintances with Coptic Christians; and some familiarity with Lebanese/Syrian Christians, since they are in the same cultural-linguistic sphere as Egypt. I grew up with and know intimately two Coptic Egyptians and one Coptic-Maronite (Father is Egyptian, Mother is Lebanese). Most of us got along well with each other, though because we attended an elite-type school, our amicable relations may not be representative of Muslim-Christian relations in Egypt or the Arab world at large.

    I haven't personally seen or experienced any form of disdain from Copts towards Muslims; but I'm aware that some Copts hate Muslims and see them as invaders who took over the country. This is of course incorrect, as Muslim Egyptians are descended from Coptic converts to Islam, rather than Arabs from Arabia (see my post on Egyptian genetics here: https://www.unz.com/akarlin/open-thread-170/#comment-5057453).

    As for Lebanese Christians; well they famously like to dissociate themselves from Arabs, though my impression is that this does not extend to Lebanese Muslims, to whom they have an affinity to. According to Pew, 82% of Lebanese Christians had a favorable view of Lebanese Muslims (and vice-versa):

    Despite widespread sectarian violence during their country’s 1975-1990 civil war, today Lebanese Muslims and Christians generally have positive attitudes toward one another. Fully 86% of Muslims have a favorable opinion of Christians, by far the highest rating of Christians by any Muslim public. At the same time, 82% of Christians have a positive view of Muslims.

    Attitudes toward Jews, however, are quite another matter. Even before the current conflict, negative sentiments about Jews and Israel were widespread in Lebanon, and they were not confined to the Muslim community. Indeed, no one in our Lebanese sample, Muslim, Christian, Druze, or otherwise, said they had a favorable view of Jews. Of course, negative attitudes towards Jews are not uncommon in the region — in neighboring Jordan, zero respondents had a favorable view of Jews, and Morocco and Pakistan also posted favorable ratings for Jews in the single digits.

     

    https://www.pewresearch.org/2006/07/26/lebanons-muslims-relatively-secular-and-prochristian/

    – does this extend towards the rich Gulf Arabs?
     
    High-caste Persians, Armenians, Chaldeans, Copts, Lebanese Christians, Ionian Turks etc. are what you might call the "sophisticated people" of the Middle East. They are the descendants of the people who created the glorious civilizations of Antiquity (Ancient Egypt, Persia, Phoenicia, Babylon, Byzantium etc.). They are intelligent (~100 average IQ), good-looking, well-educated, cultured and sophisticated. They are certainly far more intelligent and better looking than Gulf Arabs; who are known to be the hicks of the Arab world - even among Muslim Arabs. But, as sophisticated as they may be - Gulf Arabs are still wealthier than they are, on average, and therein lies the complication.

    While nerds like us may put emphasis on intellect, knowledge and IQ when according status-points to others; most people around the world do not. Wealth, not IQ, is the chief determinant of status. It's tough to feel contempt for people who are wealthier than you - it's not given to human psychology. As such, when a sophisticated person feels disdain towards a person wealthier than he is, it takes on the form of envy, not contempt. Contempt being the feeling of disdain you have for people of lower status; envy the feeling of disdain towards people of higher status.

    While Persians, Armenians, Chaldeans, Copts, Lebanese Christians, Ionian Turks (i.e. the sophisticated people) can feel contempt for poor Muslim Arabs in places like Iraq, Egypt or Syria; it's well-nigh impossible for them to do so with Gulf Arabs. If any disdain is targeted towards Gulf Arabs, it takes on the form of envy. The situation is not unlike French attitudes towards Americans. While the sophisticated French people may fancy themselves culturally superior to the backward American hillbilly hicks; even the most redneck districts in the American South are still richer than much of France. The French can't stand the fact that these hillbilly upstarts are wealthier than they are. Same can be said of the sophisticated people of the Middle East vis-a-vis Gulf Arabs.

    Replies: @Thulean Friend, @Dmitry, @Mikel, @Yevardian, @silviosilver

  420. @LondonBob
    @Yevardian

    What will get to $2000 first, bitcoin or gold?

    Replies: @Yellowface Anon

    Have you been living under a rock for the last 4-5 years?

    • Replies: @LondonBob
    @Yellowface Anon

    Bitcoin might skip $2000 altogether and go straight to zero.

    Replies: @Dmitry

  421. Started reading Thomas Mann’s Reflections of a Nonpolitical Man while on Covid quarantine. It is full of powerful takes. “..A world democracy would leave nothing of the German character: the world democracy, the imperium of civilization, the “society of mankind,”could have a character that is more Latin or more Anglo-Saxon – the German spirit would dissolve and disappear in it…Richard Wagner once declared that civilization disappears before music like mist before the sun. He never dreamed that one day, for its part, music would disappear before civilization, before democracy, like mist before the sun.”

    • Replies: @A123
    @AP


    A world democracy would leave nothing of the German character
     
    How is "German Character" defined?

    The people of Germany backed Merkel's SJW Globalist democracy for almost two decades. Now they are backing the Scholz and his UN/NWO ideals. This leaves only two possibilities:

    1) Merkel, Scholz, and those who overwhelmingly elected those world democracy policies do not have "German Character". Or,

    2) Thomas Mann is badly out-of-date. Modern "German Character" is indistinguishable from UN/NWO world democracy.

    It's rather suspect it is #2. It is hard to see the German dominated EU and WEF as anything other than near perfect forms of German world democratic character.
    ____

    Perhaps Mann is talking about a historical "German Character" that is now extinct?

    PEACE 😇

    Replies: @AP

    , @songbird
    @AP

    That is quite curious. I've never read Mann as my impression was that he was very pozzed. (once heard him promoted in his native town, so that made me suspicious of him). But here he is seemingly expressing a more essentialist vision than Goethe, who lived a hundred years before.

    I wonder if it had something to do with the national school system or the war.

    Shortly before WWI, I seem to recall a lot of Europe had passport-free travel.

    Replies: @AP

    , @German_reader
    @AP

    But as you write yourself, he changed later, became a supporter of the Weimar republic. And for personal reasons, the Nazis couldn't have been that attractive to him anyway (his wife came from a Jewish family, and Mann's own mother was Brazilian).
    I have to admit I haven't read that much of Mann's work, only the Magic mountain, and iirc also The holy sinner and Mario and the magician (I've probably become sort of a philistine, don't really read novels anymore). Magic mountain was published in 1924, and as far as I can remember there's a clear sense of nostalgia for the pre-1914 world. Two prominent characters are Settembrini, a 19th century liberal, and Naphta, a Jesuit of Jewish origin who has a sort of Bolshevik mentality and stands for the coming age. Settembrini is clearly the more sympathetic character. So already by the early 1920s Mann was somewhat of a liberal.


    In overthrowing the power and authority of the Churches and the aristocracy, nationalists opened the door to the democracy and Nazism that both destroyed Germany.
     
    The Weimar republic wasn't that bad (certainly much better than today's Germany, which is really more and more of an "antifascist", highly ideological state), and its failure probably wasn't inevitable.
    And your assessment of the aristocracy is too rosy imo. It's true that there was a populist, petty bourgeois character to Nazism, but the (former) aristocracy as a class wasn't anti-Nazi, indeed in many cases rather the opposite.

    Replies: @German_reader, @AP

  422. @AP
    Started reading Thomas Mann’s Reflections of a Nonpolitical Man while on Covid quarantine. It is full of powerful takes. “..A world democracy would leave nothing of the German character: the world democracy, the imperium of civilization, the “society of mankind,”could have a character that is more Latin or more Anglo-Saxon - the German spirit would dissolve and disappear in it…Richard Wagner once declared that civilization disappears before music like mist before the sun. He never dreamed that one day, for its part, music would disappear before civilization, before democracy, like mist before the sun.”

    Replies: @A123, @songbird, @German_reader

    A world democracy would leave nothing of the German character

    How is “German Character” defined?

    The people of Germany backed Merkel’s SJW Globalist democracy for almost two decades. Now they are backing the Scholz and his UN/NWO ideals. This leaves only two possibilities:

    1) Merkel, Scholz, and those who overwhelmingly elected those world democracy policies do not have “German Character”. Or,

    2) Thomas Mann is badly out-of-date. Modern “German Character” is indistinguishable from UN/NWO world democracy.

    It’s rather suspect it is #2. It is hard to see the German dominated EU and WEF as anything other than near perfect forms of German world democratic character.
    ____

    Perhaps Mann is talking about a historical “German Character” that is now extinct?

    PEACE 😇

    • Replies: @AP
    @A123

    This was written right after World War I.

    Replies: @A123

  423. @A123
    @AP


    A world democracy would leave nothing of the German character
     
    How is "German Character" defined?

    The people of Germany backed Merkel's SJW Globalist democracy for almost two decades. Now they are backing the Scholz and his UN/NWO ideals. This leaves only two possibilities:

    1) Merkel, Scholz, and those who overwhelmingly elected those world democracy policies do not have "German Character". Or,

    2) Thomas Mann is badly out-of-date. Modern "German Character" is indistinguishable from UN/NWO world democracy.

    It's rather suspect it is #2. It is hard to see the German dominated EU and WEF as anything other than near perfect forms of German world democratic character.
    ____

    Perhaps Mann is talking about a historical "German Character" that is now extinct?

    PEACE 😇

    Replies: @AP

    This was written right after World War I.

    • Replies: @A123
    @AP


    This was written right after World War I.
     
    OK. That makes sense as a timeline..

    Modern (Merkel/Scholz) German Character steamrollers anything resembling traditional values. If Mann was available today, presumably he would identify Merkel & Scholz as existential threats to Classical German Character.

    Thanks.

    PEACE 😇

    Replies: @AP

  424. @AP
    @A123

    This was written right after World War I.

    Replies: @A123

    This was written right after World War I.

    OK. That makes sense as a timeline..

    Modern (Merkel/Scholz) German Character steamrollers anything resembling traditional values. If Mann was available today, presumably he would identify Merkel & Scholz as existential threats to Classical German Character.

    Thanks.

    PEACE 😇

    • Replies: @AP
    @A123

    Yes. 1918 Thomas Mann would probably let SATs that in 2022 Germany is completely dead and gone.

    :::::::

    I don’t know enough about Mann to know how much of a nationalist he was. In overthrowing the power and authority of the Churches and the aristocracy, nationalists opened the door to the democracy and Nazism that both destroyed Germany.

  425. @AP
    @Yahya


    British Muslims, like most other poor Muslims around the globe, have mixed feelings towards Gulf Arabs. On the one hand, they have a deep disdain for the opulent, ostentatious and what they view as decadent lifestyle of the rich Arabs of the Gulf. On the other hand, they have an ingrained, reluctant respect for Arabs because, as Razib Khan once put it, Arabs are the herrenvolk of Islam. God speaks their language. The Prophet was of their stock. British Muslims can trash-talk Gulf Arabs for days on end behind the walls of their homes, but if an Arab walks through their mosque, they will reflexively tip their hats in respect. The situation is not unlike the relationship between working-class Britons and the aristocracy of old.
     
    Interesting observation. Persians, Chaldeans and Lebanese Christians often express haughty disdain for Muslim Arabs in general - does this extend towards the rich Gulf Arabs?

    Replies: @Yahya

    Interesting observation. Persians, Chaldeans and Lebanese Christians often express haughty disdain for Muslim Arabs in general

    Like any topic related to ethnicity/religion in the Middle East – it’s complicated. Before I begin, i’d like to mention that most of my observations are impressionistic; as the nature of the topic does not lend itself to rigorous scientific investigation. As such, the accuracy of my observations are constrained by my personal experiences – which by their nature are inherently limited.

    Since I’m Egyptian (of Muslim background, though secular in outlook), my first-hand experiences with Middle East Christians consists of a few childhood friendships/acquaintances with Coptic Christians; and some familiarity with Lebanese/Syrian Christians, since they are in the same cultural-linguistic sphere as Egypt. I grew up with and know intimately two Coptic Egyptians and one Coptic-Maronite (Father is Egyptian, Mother is Lebanese). Most of us got along well with each other, though because we attended an elite-type school, our amicable relations may not be representative of Muslim-Christian relations in Egypt or the Arab world at large.

    I haven’t personally seen or experienced any form of disdain from Copts towards Muslims; but I’m aware that some Copts hate Muslims and see them as invaders who took over the country. This is of course incorrect, as Muslim Egyptians are descended from Coptic converts to Islam, rather than Arabs from Arabia (see my post on Egyptian genetics here: https://www.unz.com/akarlin/open-thread-170/#comment-5057453).

    As for Lebanese Christians; well they famously like to dissociate themselves from Arabs, though my impression is that this does not extend to Lebanese Muslims, to whom they have an affinity to. According to Pew, 82% of Lebanese Christians had a favorable view of Lebanese Muslims (and vice-versa):

    Despite widespread sectarian violence during their country’s 1975-1990 civil war, today Lebanese Muslims and Christians generally have positive attitudes toward one another. Fully 86% of Muslims have a favorable opinion of Christians, by far the highest rating of Christians by any Muslim public. At the same time, 82% of Christians have a positive view of Muslims.

    Attitudes toward Jews, however, are quite another matter. Even before the current conflict, negative sentiments about Jews and Israel were widespread in Lebanon, and they were not confined to the Muslim community. Indeed, no one in our Lebanese sample, Muslim, Christian, Druze, or otherwise, said they had a favorable view of Jews. Of course, negative attitudes towards Jews are not uncommon in the region — in neighboring Jordan, zero respondents had a favorable view of Jews, and Morocco and Pakistan also posted favorable ratings for Jews in the single digits.

    https://www.pewresearch.org/2006/07/26/lebanons-muslims-relatively-secular-and-prochristian/

    – does this extend towards the rich Gulf Arabs?

    High-caste Persians, Armenians, Chaldeans, Copts, Lebanese Christians, Ionian Turks etc. are what you might call the “sophisticated people” of the Middle East. They are the descendants of the people who created the glorious civilizations of Antiquity (Ancient Egypt, Persia, Phoenicia, Babylon, Byzantium etc.). They are intelligent (~100 average IQ), good-looking, well-educated, cultured and sophisticated. They are certainly far more intelligent and better looking than Gulf Arabs; who are known to be the hicks of the Arab world – even among Muslim Arabs. But, as sophisticated as they may be – Gulf Arabs are still wealthier than they are, on average, and therein lies the complication.

    While nerds like us may put emphasis on intellect, knowledge and IQ when according status-points to others; most people around the world do not. Wealth, not IQ, is the chief determinant of status. It’s tough to feel contempt for people who are wealthier than you – it’s not given to human psychology. As such, when a sophisticated person feels disdain towards a person wealthier than he is, it takes on the form of envy, not contempt. Contempt being the feeling of disdain you have for people of lower status; envy the feeling of disdain towards people of higher status.

    While Persians, Armenians, Chaldeans, Copts, Lebanese Christians, Ionian Turks (i.e. the sophisticated people) can feel contempt for poor Muslim Arabs in places like Iraq, Egypt or Syria; it’s well-nigh impossible for them to do so with Gulf Arabs. If any disdain is targeted towards Gulf Arabs, it takes on the form of envy. The situation is not unlike French attitudes towards Americans. While the sophisticated French people may fancy themselves culturally superior to the backward American hillbilly hicks; even the most redneck districts in the American South are still richer than much of France. The French can’t stand the fact that these hillbilly upstarts are wealthier than they are. Same can be said of the sophisticated people of the Middle East vis-a-vis Gulf Arabs.

    • Thanks: AP, Mikel
    • LOL: sher singh
    • Replies: @Thulean Friend
    @Yahya

    Thanks for a comprehensive comment. I both agree and disagree.


    High-caste Persians, Armenians, Chaldeans, Copts, Lebanese Christians, Ionian Turks etc. are what you might call the “sophisticated people” of the Middle East.
     
    I don't know which religious group Lebanon's former foreign minister belongs to, but he certainly seems to view his people as culturally superior to Saudis.

    Charbel Wehbe said in a televised debate on Monday that the Islamic State group's rise in the region had been engineered by Gulf states, prompting Lebanese ambassadors in several countries to be summoned.


    The Gulf's relations with Lebanon have become frostier over the rising political influence of the Shiite group Hezbollah but Beirut is seeking fresh financial support from its former allies.


    After his altercation with a Saudi guest on Al-Hurra TV on Monday, Wehbe stormed off the set saying he would not be "insulted by a Bedouin".
     

    You then wrote:

    While Persians, Armenians, Chaldeans, Copts, Lebanese Christians, Ionian Turks (i.e. the sophisticated people)
     
    Having some experience with Armenians, I can't say they came across as too sophisticated nor as especially intelligent. As for Chaldeans, I think you mean Assyrians? I have personal experience with multiple people of that ancestry and they never appeared as too different in their behaviour or attitudes, let alone intellectual capacity, from moslem of the same region. They were more ingratiating, though, possibly a sign of a different survival strategy.

    I would agree with Persians, we certainly imported a substantial fraction of Iran's elite in the 70s, 80 and early 90s. My impression is that their socio-economic outcomes are above that of the median Swede's and they lack any ethnic or religious hostility (which can sometimes co-exist with economic success among some minorities).


    They are the descendants of the people who created the glorious civilizations of Antiquity (Ancient Egypt, Persia, Phoenicia, Babylon, Byzantium etc.). They are intelligent (~100 average IQ), good-looking, well-educated, cultured and sophisticated.
     
    I'm not as hostile to HBD as Dmitry is, but I am somewhat vary of these generalisations. I think many of these peoples are essentially minorities in their countries (Chaldeans, Copts) or they are surrounded by all sides (Persians). When people live in such a tenous environment, they tend to overperform in educational metrics simply as a matter of necessity; minorities have to study more powerful people than them in order to survive in a brutal surrounding. For e.g. Sunni Egyptians, no such pressure exists, therefore the impulse to education becomes less driven by necessity than by curiosity, and hence overall educational levels fall.

    You can see this in most minority groups. This is not always true in the West, since many of the offspring of dominant majorities become minorities here, and thus their attitudes don't really change in a generation or two. It might further down the line. Conversely, the relatively lax attitudes of white natives towards education and self-improvement should be seen in this light.

    Replies: @Dmitry

    , @Dmitry
    @Yahya


    disdain is targeted towards Gulf Arab
     
    Gulf Arab countries might have some of the more stereotypical "religious redneck" population, at least for their income levels.

    Gulf Arabs are the world's greatest addicts of American fast food, and have "food deserts" similar to Southern states in the USA. They have some of the world's highest obesity rate.

    They also operate a more multinational version of a slave labor system, reminding of antebellum Southern USA States, relying on the gastarbaiters from across the world (engineers from Germany, accountants from England, prostitutes from Russia/Ukraine, construction workers from India, cleaners from Phillipines).

    These are countries with a youth on YouTube, driving dune buggies, or destroying their cars by idiotically drifting in circles.

    But these Arab monarchies are also surprising competent in many ways, despite population which should create an idiocracy. For example, compare propaganda skills of Al Jazeera with Russia Today. Latter is only competent for stealing money from budget, whereas Al Jazeera is actually very effective propaganda, that influences Western views.

    Similarly, look at how aristocratic Arab monarchies manage coronavirus. Or how they manage multi-vector diplomacy.

    By comparison, secular Arab dictators, have almost always all destroyed Arab countries. Maybe el-Sisi can be some kind of exception, for now (but it's still early years to assess his position).


    sophisticated as they may be – Gulf Arabs are still wealthier than they are, on average
     
    Sophistication is mostly just a lagging indicator of wealth.

    When there is mismatch of sophistication and wealth, it's where there is a historical crossovers between current and previous wealth levels.

    Due to oil, Gulf countries have world's most recent and rapid ascent from Bedouin tribes, to the international super wealthy. So there is a crossover, where wealth is higher than sophistication. .

    Lebanon was wealthier than Gulf countries until around 1960s, which is within the memory of the "Arab boomers". So there is the crossover where sophistication is higher than wealth.

    Some places like Buenos Aires can even maintain their sophistication for many decades after their wealth has fallen.

    -

    Psychologically, I wonder how must be feeling the "Arab boomers", who can remember life in the1960s?

    Arab boomers, would imagine that Egypt should be centre of Arab power and culture, while Lebanon is the centre of Arab wealth and banking? Gulf Arab countries should be still Bedouin deserts with some potential oil prospect.

    Emotionally, Arab boomers might be still questioning if they need to choose between an alliance with the USA or the Soviet Union, which is perhaps a bit seen in multi-vector policy of Arab countries between USA and Russia.

    Replies: @Yellowface Anon, @Yahya, @Yahya

    , @Mikel
    @Yahya

    Thanks for those insights.

    I lived in Chile for some time and people of Christian Arab descent, generally Palestinians and Syrians, were definitely one of the most economically successful communities. They also tend to look more Caucasian than the general population there.

    If you don't mind my asking, why do so many Muslims try to emigrate to Europe or other Western countries instead of the rich countries of the Arabian peninsula, which look more culturally similar? Is it that these countries are not viewed so desirable for living or is it that they have more strict immigration policies?

    Replies: @Yevardian, @Yahya

    , @Yevardian
    @Yahya


    High-caste Persians, Armenians, Chaldeans, Copts, Lebanese Christians, Ionian Turks etc. are what you might call the “sophisticated people” of the Middle East. They are the descendants of the people who created the glorious civilizations of Antiquity (Ancient Egypt, Persia, Phoenicia, Babylon, Byzantium etc.). They are intelligent (~100 average IQ), good-looking, well-educated, cultured and sophisticated.
     
    Thank you sir.

    While nerds like us may put emphasis on intellect, knowledge and IQ when according status-points to others; most people around the world do not. Wealth, not IQ, is the chief determinant of status. It’s tough to feel contempt for people who are wealthier than you – it’s not given to human psychology.
     
    I think the shift in this thinking was probably completed with the destruction of the old aristocracy, with wealth generally being both mostly inherited or obtained through marriage, aspects like bloodline (which really, is just the Ancients' version of an HBD/genetics-based worldview) and, honour, and personal charm were of foremost importance.

    The situation is not unlike French attitudes towards Americans. While the sophisticated French people may fancy themselves culturally superior to the backward American hillbilly hicks; even the most redneck districts in the American South are still richer than much of France. The French can’t stand the fact that these hillbilly upstarts are wealthier than they are. Same can be said of the sophisticated people of the Middle East vis-a-vis Gulf Arabs.
     
    That seems extremely doubtful to me, in fact it left me practically incredulous. It's not the 1950s anymore.
    There's absolutely no place in France (if we exclude Paris or Lyon Banlieues, which are isolated pockets, not regions) that can remotely compare with vast areas of the US characterised by mass-illiteracy, cultural desert, tent-cities, gang violence or 3rd-world infrastructure, e.g. the Mississippi Delta, Detroit, Saint-Louis, West Virginia, rural Michican, or any Indian Reservation.
    Even the 'bleakest' French departments like Britanny, Normandy or south-central still have very much 1st-world problems, you couldn't mistake yourself having woken up in El Salvador or Kosovo, as in the US.

    @Dmitri


    Arab boomers, would imagine that Egypt should be centre of Arab power and culture, while Lebanon is the centre of Arab wealth and banking? Gulf Arab countries should be still Bedouin deserts with some potential oil prospect.
     
    Egypt very much still is considered the centre of Arab culture, if not power, it hardly could be otherwise given its enormous population. But Lebanon has certainly lost practically any allure it once had, financial or otherwise.

    Emotionally, Arab boomers might be still questioning if they need to choose between an alliance with the USA or the Soviet Union, which is perhaps a bit seen in multi-vector policy of Arab countries between USA and Russia.
     
    I think that's rather a red herring.
    Much more relevant is how the US and Israel left countries like Lebanon, Iraq and Syria as smouldering craters (even if their native regimes were highly disliked by other Arabs), now exporting nothing but waves of refugees and terrorism.
    I really don't think this can be overstated. Taking a random example, Shimon Peres, in an attempt to appear 'tough' to his doubting electorate, gave the go ahead to "Operation Grapes of Wrath", the purpose of which was to create an uncontrollable refugee crisis both the Lebanese state and neighboring Syria, by shelling southern Lebanon to ash.
    Or of course the Lavon Affair, where the Mossad bombed civilian targets and American buildings in Egypt, in a (failed) attempt to blame the attacks on native Arabs, in order to alienate the US from them. And so on. Yes, the Gulf States have become increasingly open about their crypto-alliance with Israel, but ordinary people of those countries nonetheless despise them for that.

    Going back to the USSR/Russia, probably something else that's noticed is they understand loyalty. Russia scarcely ever abandons leaders its pledged to support (arguably to the detriment of their own interests), the Assads are the last secular dynasty to remain from 70s era, and Russia also backed Gadaffi until the end, though Putin had to override Medvedev on that point (probably the key moment in the collapse of the 'tandem').

    Russia has played its card extraordinarily well in the Middle-East over the past decade, Russia somehow managed to successfully present itself as a fair and effective power-broker in the region. Though unfortunately the same can't be said of Putin's moves in Europe, perhaps rather the opposite.

    Replies: @AP, @LondonBob

    , @silviosilver
    @Yahya


    It’s tough to feel contempt for people who are wealthier than you – it’s not given to human psychology.
     
    It may not come easily, especially for the masses and especially in a media age where the trappings of wealth are flaunted every which way you look, but it's far from true to say it cannot come at all.

    Looking inward, I can definitely state that I am contemptuous of any number of people far wealthier than me. Yes they are wealthy and yes they've achieved that wealth via honorable means, but who are they are as people, what are their values, how do they generally conduct themselves? When I answer these questions, I can't help feeling contempt towards them. So I find the idea that a cultured but penniless Frenchman could be contemptuous of a rich hillbilly perfectly plausible.

    And anyway, I can't see any reason that contempt is incompatible with envy. So even if I "really" am envious (despite what I might think), it seems to me I can be simultaneously contemptuous.

    Replies: @sher singh

  426. @Yahya
    @AP


    Interesting observation. Persians, Chaldeans and Lebanese Christians often express haughty disdain for Muslim Arabs in general
     
    Like any topic related to ethnicity/religion in the Middle East - it's complicated. Before I begin, i'd like to mention that most of my observations are impressionistic; as the nature of the topic does not lend itself to rigorous scientific investigation. As such, the accuracy of my observations are constrained by my personal experiences - which by their nature are inherently limited.

    Since I'm Egyptian (of Muslim background, though secular in outlook), my first-hand experiences with Middle East Christians consists of a few childhood friendships/acquaintances with Coptic Christians; and some familiarity with Lebanese/Syrian Christians, since they are in the same cultural-linguistic sphere as Egypt. I grew up with and know intimately two Coptic Egyptians and one Coptic-Maronite (Father is Egyptian, Mother is Lebanese). Most of us got along well with each other, though because we attended an elite-type school, our amicable relations may not be representative of Muslim-Christian relations in Egypt or the Arab world at large.

    I haven't personally seen or experienced any form of disdain from Copts towards Muslims; but I'm aware that some Copts hate Muslims and see them as invaders who took over the country. This is of course incorrect, as Muslim Egyptians are descended from Coptic converts to Islam, rather than Arabs from Arabia (see my post on Egyptian genetics here: https://www.unz.com/akarlin/open-thread-170/#comment-5057453).

    As for Lebanese Christians; well they famously like to dissociate themselves from Arabs, though my impression is that this does not extend to Lebanese Muslims, to whom they have an affinity to. According to Pew, 82% of Lebanese Christians had a favorable view of Lebanese Muslims (and vice-versa):

    Despite widespread sectarian violence during their country’s 1975-1990 civil war, today Lebanese Muslims and Christians generally have positive attitudes toward one another. Fully 86% of Muslims have a favorable opinion of Christians, by far the highest rating of Christians by any Muslim public. At the same time, 82% of Christians have a positive view of Muslims.

    Attitudes toward Jews, however, are quite another matter. Even before the current conflict, negative sentiments about Jews and Israel were widespread in Lebanon, and they were not confined to the Muslim community. Indeed, no one in our Lebanese sample, Muslim, Christian, Druze, or otherwise, said they had a favorable view of Jews. Of course, negative attitudes towards Jews are not uncommon in the region — in neighboring Jordan, zero respondents had a favorable view of Jews, and Morocco and Pakistan also posted favorable ratings for Jews in the single digits.

     

    https://www.pewresearch.org/2006/07/26/lebanons-muslims-relatively-secular-and-prochristian/

    – does this extend towards the rich Gulf Arabs?
     
    High-caste Persians, Armenians, Chaldeans, Copts, Lebanese Christians, Ionian Turks etc. are what you might call the "sophisticated people" of the Middle East. They are the descendants of the people who created the glorious civilizations of Antiquity (Ancient Egypt, Persia, Phoenicia, Babylon, Byzantium etc.). They are intelligent (~100 average IQ), good-looking, well-educated, cultured and sophisticated. They are certainly far more intelligent and better looking than Gulf Arabs; who are known to be the hicks of the Arab world - even among Muslim Arabs. But, as sophisticated as they may be - Gulf Arabs are still wealthier than they are, on average, and therein lies the complication.

    While nerds like us may put emphasis on intellect, knowledge and IQ when according status-points to others; most people around the world do not. Wealth, not IQ, is the chief determinant of status. It's tough to feel contempt for people who are wealthier than you - it's not given to human psychology. As such, when a sophisticated person feels disdain towards a person wealthier than he is, it takes on the form of envy, not contempt. Contempt being the feeling of disdain you have for people of lower status; envy the feeling of disdain towards people of higher status.

    While Persians, Armenians, Chaldeans, Copts, Lebanese Christians, Ionian Turks (i.e. the sophisticated people) can feel contempt for poor Muslim Arabs in places like Iraq, Egypt or Syria; it's well-nigh impossible for them to do so with Gulf Arabs. If any disdain is targeted towards Gulf Arabs, it takes on the form of envy. The situation is not unlike French attitudes towards Americans. While the sophisticated French people may fancy themselves culturally superior to the backward American hillbilly hicks; even the most redneck districts in the American South are still richer than much of France. The French can't stand the fact that these hillbilly upstarts are wealthier than they are. Same can be said of the sophisticated people of the Middle East vis-a-vis Gulf Arabs.

    Replies: @Thulean Friend, @Dmitry, @Mikel, @Yevardian, @silviosilver

    Thanks for a comprehensive comment. I both agree and disagree.

    High-caste Persians, Armenians, Chaldeans, Copts, Lebanese Christians, Ionian Turks etc. are what you might call the “sophisticated people” of the Middle East.

    I don’t know which religious group Lebanon’s former foreign minister belongs to, but he certainly seems to view his people as culturally superior to Saudis.

    Charbel Wehbe said in a televised debate on Monday that the Islamic State group’s rise in the region had been engineered by Gulf states, prompting Lebanese ambassadors in several countries to be summoned.

    The Gulf’s relations with Lebanon have become frostier over the rising political influence of the Shiite group Hezbollah but Beirut is seeking fresh financial support from its former allies.

    After his altercation with a Saudi guest on Al-Hurra TV on Monday, Wehbe stormed off the set saying he would not be “insulted by a Bedouin”.

    You then wrote:

    While Persians, Armenians, Chaldeans, Copts, Lebanese Christians, Ionian Turks (i.e. the sophisticated people)

    Having some experience with Armenians, I can’t say they came across as too sophisticated nor as especially intelligent. As for Chaldeans, I think you mean Assyrians? I have personal experience with multiple people of that ancestry and they never appeared as too different in their behaviour or attitudes, let alone intellectual capacity, from moslem of the same region. They were more ingratiating, though, possibly a sign of a different survival strategy.

    I would agree with Persians, we certainly imported a substantial fraction of Iran’s elite in the 70s, 80 and early 90s. My impression is that their socio-economic outcomes are above that of the median Swede’s and they lack any ethnic or religious hostility (which can sometimes co-exist with economic success among some minorities).

    They are the descendants of the people who created the glorious civilizations of Antiquity (Ancient Egypt, Persia, Phoenicia, Babylon, Byzantium etc.). They are intelligent (~100 average IQ), good-looking, well-educated, cultured and sophisticated.

    I’m not as hostile to HBD as Dmitry is, but I am somewhat vary of these generalisations. I think many of these peoples are essentially minorities in their countries (Chaldeans, Copts) or they are surrounded by all sides (Persians). When people live in such a tenous environment, they tend to overperform in educational metrics simply as a matter of necessity; minorities have to study more powerful people than them in order to survive in a brutal surrounding. For e.g. Sunni Egyptians, no such pressure exists, therefore the impulse to education becomes less driven by necessity than by curiosity, and hence overall educational levels fall.

    You can see this in most minority groups. This is not always true in the West, since many of the offspring of dominant majorities become minorities here, and thus their attitudes don’t really change in a generation or two. It might further down the line. Conversely, the relatively lax attitudes of white natives towards education and self-improvement should be seen in this light.

    • Replies: @Dmitry
    @Thulean Friend


    minorities .. overperform in educational

     

    It's mostly because in Empires, you often use a minority to cover administrative functions.

    In Lebanon, the traditional upper class are Sunni Muslims, as this is how the Ottoman Empire was ruling there.

    France used Alawites as the administrative class or even upper class in Syria.

    In Algeria or Morocco, France used a lot of Arab Jews as the educated middle class for administration.

    In Zimbabwe, British used Indian Hindus to manage as a bureaucracy class.

    In Soviet times, in Central Asia, Russians and Jews are going often manage engineering or industrial projects.

    -

    In the Middle East, there is a difference in terms of religious regulations for business (for example, banking) or areas like alcohol. So sometimes only Christians and Jews, are able to manage things like banking or alcohol.

    There are also just regional and radical lifestyle differences which create these differences. Berbers in North Africa, or Druze in Levant, can be living in the mountain hinterland for safety, where there is not much economic activity.

    Whereas Bedouins are living in a very ancient tribal way in the desert itself, which of course will not create or prioritize any modern educational or cultural achievements. They are a kind of animal herder not changed much since ancient times.

  427. @AP
    Started reading Thomas Mann’s Reflections of a Nonpolitical Man while on Covid quarantine. It is full of powerful takes. “..A world democracy would leave nothing of the German character: the world democracy, the imperium of civilization, the “society of mankind,”could have a character that is more Latin or more Anglo-Saxon - the German spirit would dissolve and disappear in it…Richard Wagner once declared that civilization disappears before music like mist before the sun. He never dreamed that one day, for its part, music would disappear before civilization, before democracy, like mist before the sun.”

    Replies: @A123, @songbird, @German_reader

    That is quite curious. I’ve never read Mann as my impression was that he was very pozzed. (once heard him promoted in his native town, so that made me suspicious of him). But here he is seemingly expressing a more essentialist vision than Goethe, who lived a hundred years before.

    I wonder if it had something to do with the national school system or the war.

    Shortly before WWI, I seem to recall a lot of Europe had passport-free travel.

    • Replies: @AP
    @songbird

    He changed a lot later in life. He was very based in this work, when he was still in his thirties (?).

  428. @LondonBob
    @Thulean Friend

    Arabs used to go to Lebanon, they don't anymore because of their inferiority complex towards Hezbollah, Cameron also lowered the standards for giving them short term visas. Very noticeable the number holidaying in London for a few months since around 2011.

    Replies: @A123, @Yahya, @Dmitry

    Arabs were going to Lebanon because the banks in Lebanon were giving up to 10% interest rates.

    In 2019, Lebanese banks almost collapsed and locked their deposits.

    It would have been always gambling to invest in Lebanon, but if a historically prestigious (in the Arab world) bank promises you 10% interest rates? It’s a difficult offer to resist.

    Very noticeable the number holidaying in London

    It’s because Arabs are one of the largest groups which own the property of London. They could own almost as much London property as Russia’s political class, Perhaps China’s position in London will become similar as well.

    In the summer, Gulf Arabs’ political class come to London and often transport their unusual supercars. This is social life, as they arrive in large groups from the different countries. So you can imagine the Saudis, can be friends or rivals with Qataris, or Emiratis.

    For people from the Gulf, London in summer would also be considered probably a pleasant, refreshing climate. So they can probably escape summer heat in London. Also the elites of the other nationalities (like Russians) are often less in London during the summer, so perhaps Arabs can feel like they have more of the elite spaces in London during summer season.

    It’s similar how the political class of the postsoviet countries are in the summer Monaco, Riviera, Marbella, Florida, depending on time of year. In another season, Russian and Ukrainian elite have amnesty in Courchevel. New Year, politicians’ families are often in Monaco. Or they host rival events in Monaco during the summer vacation.

    Bozhena Rynska used to always publicize about this funny social life, until she received some kin of complaining and stopped reporting it about 5 years ago. Postsoviet political classes are moving together during the summer as kind of herd, grazing in different territories at the same times. It’s because “networking” is a kind of part-time at least kind of work. Even friendship between wives, is some useful thing in the business deals in postsoviet billionaires’ culture.

  429. @Yellowface Anon
    @LondonBob

    Have you been living under a rock for the last 4-5 years?

    Replies: @LondonBob

    Bitcoin might skip \$2000 altogether and go straight to zero.

    • Replies: @Dmitry
    @LondonBob

    Bitcoin can perhaps go to zero, or it can perhaps go $100,000. Or it can do both, in either order. Probably it will just make a up and down pattern, although the up and down pattern will eventually arrive likely at lower price levels than nowadays.

    A number of future cycles with extreme movement for cryptocurrency should be limited, because the high prices at the moment is mostly fresh money arriving from gullible amateur investors who do not have thinking skills, and don't understand the real value of the product is very low.

    "Cryptocurrency" is currently mostly unregulated area, with a marketing system that relies on fresh money from gullible people who don't understand technology, or look at the product - i.e. cryptocurrency doesn't have anything interesting technologically or economically, but only legally and psychologically.

    "Cryptocurrency" temporary high prices, will be as high as the psychological moods of these gullible "get rich fast while lazy" amateur investors can be. But after a few cycles, this audience will exit for some other "get rich fast while lazy" trend.

    Then you will have remaining money, which can use the product as a volatile money laundering system or for gambling between each other for zero-sum profits from its price changes.

    Neither money laundering or gambling are small industries, so perhaps even the long-term value of cryptocurrency should never go to zero (unless there is some serious regulation against it, which could be in another decade or so after digital currencies are introduced by central banks).

  430. @Yahya
    @AP


    Interesting observation. Persians, Chaldeans and Lebanese Christians often express haughty disdain for Muslim Arabs in general
     
    Like any topic related to ethnicity/religion in the Middle East - it's complicated. Before I begin, i'd like to mention that most of my observations are impressionistic; as the nature of the topic does not lend itself to rigorous scientific investigation. As such, the accuracy of my observations are constrained by my personal experiences - which by their nature are inherently limited.

    Since I'm Egyptian (of Muslim background, though secular in outlook), my first-hand experiences with Middle East Christians consists of a few childhood friendships/acquaintances with Coptic Christians; and some familiarity with Lebanese/Syrian Christians, since they are in the same cultural-linguistic sphere as Egypt. I grew up with and know intimately two Coptic Egyptians and one Coptic-Maronite (Father is Egyptian, Mother is Lebanese). Most of us got along well with each other, though because we attended an elite-type school, our amicable relations may not be representative of Muslim-Christian relations in Egypt or the Arab world at large.

    I haven't personally seen or experienced any form of disdain from Copts towards Muslims; but I'm aware that some Copts hate Muslims and see them as invaders who took over the country. This is of course incorrect, as Muslim Egyptians are descended from Coptic converts to Islam, rather than Arabs from Arabia (see my post on Egyptian genetics here: https://www.unz.com/akarlin/open-thread-170/#comment-5057453).

    As for Lebanese Christians; well they famously like to dissociate themselves from Arabs, though my impression is that this does not extend to Lebanese Muslims, to whom they have an affinity to. According to Pew, 82% of Lebanese Christians had a favorable view of Lebanese Muslims (and vice-versa):

    Despite widespread sectarian violence during their country’s 1975-1990 civil war, today Lebanese Muslims and Christians generally have positive attitudes toward one another. Fully 86% of Muslims have a favorable opinion of Christians, by far the highest rating of Christians by any Muslim public. At the same time, 82% of Christians have a positive view of Muslims.

    Attitudes toward Jews, however, are quite another matter. Even before the current conflict, negative sentiments about Jews and Israel were widespread in Lebanon, and they were not confined to the Muslim community. Indeed, no one in our Lebanese sample, Muslim, Christian, Druze, or otherwise, said they had a favorable view of Jews. Of course, negative attitudes towards Jews are not uncommon in the region — in neighboring Jordan, zero respondents had a favorable view of Jews, and Morocco and Pakistan also posted favorable ratings for Jews in the single digits.

     

    https://www.pewresearch.org/2006/07/26/lebanons-muslims-relatively-secular-and-prochristian/

    – does this extend towards the rich Gulf Arabs?
     
    High-caste Persians, Armenians, Chaldeans, Copts, Lebanese Christians, Ionian Turks etc. are what you might call the "sophisticated people" of the Middle East. They are the descendants of the people who created the glorious civilizations of Antiquity (Ancient Egypt, Persia, Phoenicia, Babylon, Byzantium etc.). They are intelligent (~100 average IQ), good-looking, well-educated, cultured and sophisticated. They are certainly far more intelligent and better looking than Gulf Arabs; who are known to be the hicks of the Arab world - even among Muslim Arabs. But, as sophisticated as they may be - Gulf Arabs are still wealthier than they are, on average, and therein lies the complication.

    While nerds like us may put emphasis on intellect, knowledge and IQ when according status-points to others; most people around the world do not. Wealth, not IQ, is the chief determinant of status. It's tough to feel contempt for people who are wealthier than you - it's not given to human psychology. As such, when a sophisticated person feels disdain towards a person wealthier than he is, it takes on the form of envy, not contempt. Contempt being the feeling of disdain you have for people of lower status; envy the feeling of disdain towards people of higher status.

    While Persians, Armenians, Chaldeans, Copts, Lebanese Christians, Ionian Turks (i.e. the sophisticated people) can feel contempt for poor Muslim Arabs in places like Iraq, Egypt or Syria; it's well-nigh impossible for them to do so with Gulf Arabs. If any disdain is targeted towards Gulf Arabs, it takes on the form of envy. The situation is not unlike French attitudes towards Americans. While the sophisticated French people may fancy themselves culturally superior to the backward American hillbilly hicks; even the most redneck districts in the American South are still richer than much of France. The French can't stand the fact that these hillbilly upstarts are wealthier than they are. Same can be said of the sophisticated people of the Middle East vis-a-vis Gulf Arabs.

    Replies: @Thulean Friend, @Dmitry, @Mikel, @Yevardian, @silviosilver

    disdain is targeted towards Gulf Arab

    Gulf Arab countries might have some of the more stereotypical “religious redneck” population, at least for their income levels.

    Gulf Arabs are the world’s greatest addicts of American fast food, and have “food deserts” similar to Southern states in the USA. They have some of the world’s highest obesity rate.

    They also operate a more multinational version of a slave labor system, reminding of antebellum Southern USA States, relying on the gastarbaiters from across the world (engineers from Germany, accountants from England, prostitutes from Russia/Ukraine, construction workers from India, cleaners from Phillipines).

    These are countries with a youth on YouTube, driving dune buggies, or destroying their cars by idiotically drifting in circles.

    But these Arab monarchies are also surprising competent in many ways, despite population which should create an idiocracy. For example, compare propaganda skills of Al Jazeera with Russia Today. Latter is only competent for stealing money from budget, whereas Al Jazeera is actually very effective propaganda, that influences Western views.

    Similarly, look at how aristocratic Arab monarchies manage coronavirus. Or how they manage multi-vector diplomacy.

    By comparison, secular Arab dictators, have almost always all destroyed Arab countries. Maybe el-Sisi can be some kind of exception, for now (but it’s still early years to assess his position).

    sophisticated as they may be – Gulf Arabs are still wealthier than they are, on average

    Sophistication is mostly just a lagging indicator of wealth.

    When there is mismatch of sophistication and wealth, it’s where there is a historical crossovers between current and previous wealth levels.

    Due to oil, Gulf countries have world’s most recent and rapid ascent from Bedouin tribes, to the international super wealthy. So there is a crossover, where wealth is higher than sophistication. .

    Lebanon was wealthier than Gulf countries until around 1960s, which is within the memory of the “Arab boomers”. So there is the crossover where sophistication is higher than wealth.

    Some places like Buenos Aires can even maintain their sophistication for many decades after their wealth has fallen.

    Psychologically, I wonder how must be feeling the “Arab boomers”, who can remember life in the1960s?

    Arab boomers, would imagine that Egypt should be centre of Arab power and culture, while Lebanon is the centre of Arab wealth and banking? Gulf Arab countries should be still Bedouin deserts with some potential oil prospect.

    Emotionally, Arab boomers might be still questioning if they need to choose between an alliance with the USA or the Soviet Union, which is perhaps a bit seen in multi-vector policy of Arab countries between USA and Russia.

    • Replies: @Yellowface Anon
    @Dmitry

    Arab boomers' mental map of the Middle East is closer to the 16th or 19th centuries than the modern day, except all those Ottoman possessions were replaced by postcolonial states.

    , @Yahya
    @Dmitry


    Gulf Arab countries might have some of the more stereotypical “religious redneck” population, at least for their income levels.
     
    Gulf Arabs are rednecks on steroids.

    They also operate a more multinational version of a slave labor system, reminding of antebellum Southern USA States, relying on the gastarbaiters from across the world (engineers from Germany, accountants from England, prostitutes from Russia/Ukraine, construction workers from India, cleaners from Phillipines).
     
    This is a perceptive observation. The current model of many Gulf Arab states is certainly very interesting and unique - not many places like it. I would define the Gulf model as “redneck cosmopolitanism”; they are a deeply conservative and traditional places in many ways, but surprisingly cosmopolitan (Saudi Arabia’s foreign population is 38% - more than the UK, US, Germany or France. Kuwait and UAE are somewhere around the 80s - no-one can beat them in cosmopolitanism).

    But these Arab monarchies are also surprising competent in many ways, despite population which should create an idiocracy. For example, compare propaganda skills of Al Jazeera with Russia Today. Latter is only competent for stealing money from budget, whereas Al Jazeera is actually very effective propaganda, that influences Western views. Similarly, look at how aristocratic Arab monarchies manage coronavirus. Or how they manage multi-vector diplomacy.

     

    The competency of Arab monarchies is indeed notable given the competence of the general population is fairly low. Likewise, one can also say Germany, for instance, which obviously has a highly functional population, has surprisingly incompetent leaders. The average intelligence of a population doesn’t necessarily correlate with competence in government.

    Of course the word “competent” is itself multi-faceted and requires an a-priori agreement on what it means. I would define a competent leader as someone who successfully advances the long-term interests of his/her people. “Competence” is not synonymous with “Intelligence” or “IQ”, since highly intelligent leaders like Angela Merkel or Mao Zedong can fail spectacularly in advancing the interests of their people; while less intelligent leaders like Sultan Qaboos or Mohammad bin Rashid can do a good job with the cards they are dealt.

    What is more important than IQ, in my view, is (a) the desire to advance the interests of your people, (b) the ability to select competent ministers to execute on your intentions, and (c) a minimum level of sanity and personal morality to prevent any Cultural Revolution-type or Woke-style immigration madness. A competent leader also need not necessarily be the most moral leader (i.e. Cardinal Richelieu, Deng Xiaoping, Pyotr Stolypin, Muhammad Ali Pasha etc). He need only accurately discern what is needed to ensure the prosperity of his people over the long-run, and pursue these objectives adroitly and successfully.

    Germany, like almost every other Western country, is patently failing at selecting leaders who can advance the long-term interests of their people. This is probably cultural rather than genetic. Germans and other childless Western Europeans don’t seem to much care about their posterity - and this is being reflected in governmental policy.

    Replies: @Dmitry

    , @Yahya
    @Dmitry


    Lebanon was wealthier than Gulf countries until around 1960s, which is within the memory of the “Arab boomers”. So there is the crossover where sophistication is higher than wealth.
     
    Gulf Arab elites are getting noticeably more sophisticated as education has improved considerably over the previous few decades. Sultan Qaboos inaugurated a world-class opera house in Oman a decade ago, for instance. Saudi Arabia is producing some sophisticated musicians like Muhammad Abdu, Abdul Majeed Abdullah and Talal Maddah. Though Gulf Arab elites are still nowhere near elite Egyptians, Syrians, Lebanese, Palestinians, Iraqis, Maghrebis etc. in cultural production; whether it is in movies, music, or literature.

    Arab cinema, for example, was pioneered in Egypt, which today still produces the highest number of films at 2,500 feature films. During the 1950s and 1960s Lebanon produced 180 feature films. Syria produced around 150 films, Tunisia approximately 130, 100 films produced from each of Algeria and Iraq, Morocco almost 70, and Jordan’s productions were less than 12. While Kuwait only produced 2, and Bahrain only 1 (https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Arab_cinema).

    Likewise, most “high” Arabic music was and continues to be composed by Egyptians, Lebanese, Syrians, Palestinians etc. like Muhammad Abdelwahab (Egyptian Muslim), Baligh Hamdi (Egyptian Muslim), Rahbanni Brothers (Lebanese Christians) etc. and of course the Maghreb has a deep repertoire of Classical Andalusian Music.

    Some of the best Arab singers include: Umm Kulthum (Egyptian Muslim), Fairouz (Lebanese Christian), Julia Boutros (Lebanese-Palestinian-Armenian Christian), Sabah Fakhry (Syrian Muslim), Amal Murkus (Palestinian Christian), Faia Younan (Assyrian Christian), Nai Barghouti (Palestinian Muslim), Dalal Abu-Amneh (Palestinian Muslim), Nidal Ibourk (Moroccan Muslim), Amal Maher (Egyptian Muslim), Ghada Becheir (Syriac Christian), Muhammad Abdu (Saudi Muslim), Angham (Egyptian Muslim) Majda Al-Roumi (Lebanese Christian), Asmahan (Syrian Druze), Mai Farouk (Coptic Egyptian) etc.

    (For more on Arabic music, see my post here: https://www.unz.com/akarlin/mental-populations/#comment-4623097)

    As you can see, most of them are from the traditional civilizational centers of the Arab world. In addition, the sciences are also dominated by people from the same regions of the Arab world. Though the Arab world is an inhospitable environment for the sciences; many diaspora Arabs have made contributions to STEM fields, particularly in the US and France.

    Egypt
    *Ahmed Zewail, Egyptian-American chemist, 1999 Nobel Prize laureate
    *Hassan K. Khalil, Egyptian-American scientist and a University Distinguished Professor at the Department of Electrical & Computer Engineering (ECE) of Michigan State University.
    *Abbas El Gamal, Egyptian electrical engineer, information theorist and the 2012 recipient of Claude E. Shannon Award.
    *Ali Moustafa Mosharafa, Egyptian theoretical physicist and professor of applied mathematics.
    *Mohamed Atalla, Egyptian engineer and physical chemist, inventor of the MOSFET (MOS transistor), and National Inventors Hall of Fame laureate.[33]
    *Mourad Ismail, Egyptian mathematician, known for Rogers–Askey–Ismail polynomials, Al-Salam–Ismail polynomials and Chihara–Ismail polynomials[36]

    Lebanon
    *Elias James Corey, Lebanese-American organic chemist. The recipient of 1990 Nobel Prize in Chemistry.[16]
    *Huda Zoghbi, Lebanese geneticist and medical researcher, the recipient of 2016 Shaw Prize in medicine.[23]
    *M. Amin Arnaout, Lebanese physician-scientist and nephrologist, Professor of Medicine at Harvard Medical School.
    *Ali Chamseddine, Lebanese physicist known for his contributions to particle physics, general relativity and mathematical physics.
    *Amin J. Barakat, Lebanese-American physician, known for the diagnosis of Barakat syndrome.
    *Charles Elachi, Lebanese-American professor of electrical engineering and planetary science at the California Institute of Technology. Former Center Director of NASA.[12]
    *Michael Atiyah, Lebanese-British leading mathematician of the 20 century. Recipient of both Fields Medal and Abel Prize.[38]

    Syria-Palestine
    *Dina Katabi, Syrian-American Professor of Electrical Engineering and Computer Science at MIT.[13]
    *Hunein Maassab, Syrian-American professor of Epidemiology, inventor of Live attenuated influenza vaccine[21]
    *Huda Akil, Syrian neuroscientist and a Professor at the University of Michigan Medical School.[24]
    *Nadia Awni Sakati, Syrian pediatrician known for Sakati–Nyhan–Tisdale syndrome, Sanjad-Sakati syndrome and Woodhouse-Sakati syndrome.[40]
    *Ali H. Nayfeh, Palestinian-Jordanian-American mechanical engineer and the inaugural winner of the Thomas K. Caughey Dynamics Award.
    *Munir Nayfeh, Palestinian-American particle physicist, renowned for his pioneering work in nanotechnology.[31]
    *Omar M. Yaghi, world-known Jordanian-American chemist, the recipient of the 2018 Wolf Prize in Chemistry.[42]

    Iraq & Maghreb
    *Waleed Al-Salam, Iraqi mathematician who introduced Al-Salam–Chihara polynomials, Al-Salam–Carlitz polynomials, q-Konhauser polynomials, and Al-Salam–Ismail polynomials.[54]
    *Abdul Jerri, Iraqi American mathematician.
    *Omar Fakhri, Iraqi medical scientist.
    *Kamal Benslama, Moroccan-Swiss Experimental Particle Physicist. He is known for his contributions to the ATLAS Experiment at CERN. In 2020, he received the award "Person of Extra-Ordinary Ability in Science" from the US Government.
    *Rachid Yazami, Moroccan engineer and scientist, and co-inventor of the lithium-ion battery.[45]
    *Zoghman Mebkhout, French-Algerian mathematician known for his work in algebraic analysis, geometry, and representation theory.[58]

    Gulf States
    *Adah Almutairi, Saudi chemist and inventor, Professor of Pharmaceutical Chemistry at University of California.

    https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_modern_Arab_scientists_and_engineers)

    Replies: @sher singh, @sher singh

  431. @Yahya
    @LondonBob


    Arabs used to go to Lebanon
     
    True. My Saudi grandfather would regularly make excursions to Lebanon ("Switzerland of the Middle East") with his friends back in 50s-70s (he also had a second home in Egypt). That pretty much stopped when the civil war erupted and the economy went down the drain (Lebanon is now the Venezuela of the Middle East). Hasn't returned since. It's a shame; Lebanon has some beautiful scenery.

    They don’t anymore because of their inferiority complex towards Hezbollah,
     
    Not true. I don't think it's possible for Gulf Arabs to have an inferiority complex to anyone really; so long as the oil flows. As Dmitry mentioned, they are not only the wealthiest of the MENA region, but one of the wealthiest people in the entire planet. If anything, Gulf Arabs are known for their toxic sense of arrogance and superiority.

    I would believe Islamist sin London, are more often from poor immigrants, than the wealthy tourists. Note there is a lot of social divergence between the tourist Muslims and the local Muslims. The wealthy Arabs in London, are some of the most rich people anywhere in the world. But the local Muslim population, are the poorest religious group in London.
     
    Muslims in London are predominantly of working-class Indian, Pakistani and Bengali origin. Not only are they poorer than Gulf Arabs, but they are of a different race (for the most part; some Pakistanis/North Indians can pass for Gulf Arab). It'd be a mistake to think they are part of the same group just because they are "Muslims". Gulf Arabs are known to be racist towards South Asians. On the other hand, Gulf Arabs are also acquainted with South Asian migrant workers in Saudi Arabia; who mostly come from the same backgrounds as British-Muslims; so they are not as alien to each other as you might expect.

    British Muslims, like most other poor Muslims around the globe, have mixed feelings towards Gulf Arabs. On the one hand, they have a deep disdain for the opulent, ostentatious and what they view as decadent lifestyle of the rich Arabs of the Gulf. On the other hand, they have an ingrained, reluctant respect for Arabs because, as Razib Khan once put it, Arabs are the herrenvolk of Islam. God speaks their language. The Prophet was of their stock. British Muslims can trash-talk Gulf Arabs for days on end behind the walls of their homes, but if an Arab walks through their mosque, they will reflexively tip their hats in respect. The situation is not unlike the relationship between working-class Britons and the aristocracy of old.

    Replies: @AP, @LondonBob

    Somewhat tongue in cheek, of course much more had to do with the Sunni Shia rift sparked by the Syrian War.

    When I was in Istanbul in around 2015 or so the Turkish taxi driver was also fed up with Gulf Arabs who had also started coming to Istanbul, much to do with the rich Arab mentality.

    Pakistan has nuclear weapons and the Arab states rent out their far more competent military, of course Pakistan does not have oil.

  432. @LondonBob
    @Yellowface Anon

    Bitcoin might skip $2000 altogether and go straight to zero.

    Replies: @Dmitry

    Bitcoin can perhaps go to zero, or it can perhaps go \$100,000. Or it can do both, in either order. Probably it will just make a up and down pattern, although the up and down pattern will eventually arrive likely at lower price levels than nowadays.

    A number of future cycles with extreme movement for cryptocurrency should be limited, because the high prices at the moment is mostly fresh money arriving from gullible amateur investors who do not have thinking skills, and don’t understand the real value of the product is very low.

    “Cryptocurrency” is currently mostly unregulated area, with a marketing system that relies on fresh money from gullible people who don’t understand technology, or look at the product – i.e. cryptocurrency doesn’t have anything interesting technologically or economically, but only legally and psychologically.

    “Cryptocurrency” temporary high prices, will be as high as the psychological moods of these gullible “get rich fast while lazy” amateur investors can be. But after a few cycles, this audience will exit for some other “get rich fast while lazy” trend.

    Then you will have remaining money, which can use the product as a volatile money laundering system or for gambling between each other for zero-sum profits from its price changes.

    Neither money laundering or gambling are small industries, so perhaps even the long-term value of cryptocurrency should never go to zero (unless there is some serious regulation against it, which could be in another decade or so after digital currencies are introduced by central banks).

  433. @songbird
    @AP

    That is quite curious. I've never read Mann as my impression was that he was very pozzed. (once heard him promoted in his native town, so that made me suspicious of him). But here he is seemingly expressing a more essentialist vision than Goethe, who lived a hundred years before.

    I wonder if it had something to do with the national school system or the war.

    Shortly before WWI, I seem to recall a lot of Europe had passport-free travel.

    Replies: @AP

    He changed a lot later in life. He was very based in this work, when he was still in his thirties (?).

  434. @Thulean Friend
    @Yahya

    Thanks for a comprehensive comment. I both agree and disagree.


    High-caste Persians, Armenians, Chaldeans, Copts, Lebanese Christians, Ionian Turks etc. are what you might call the “sophisticated people” of the Middle East.
     
    I don't know which religious group Lebanon's former foreign minister belongs to, but he certainly seems to view his people as culturally superior to Saudis.

    Charbel Wehbe said in a televised debate on Monday that the Islamic State group's rise in the region had been engineered by Gulf states, prompting Lebanese ambassadors in several countries to be summoned.


    The Gulf's relations with Lebanon have become frostier over the rising political influence of the Shiite group Hezbollah but Beirut is seeking fresh financial support from its former allies.


    After his altercation with a Saudi guest on Al-Hurra TV on Monday, Wehbe stormed off the set saying he would not be "insulted by a Bedouin".
     

    You then wrote:

    While Persians, Armenians, Chaldeans, Copts, Lebanese Christians, Ionian Turks (i.e. the sophisticated people)
     
    Having some experience with Armenians, I can't say they came across as too sophisticated nor as especially intelligent. As for Chaldeans, I think you mean Assyrians? I have personal experience with multiple people of that ancestry and they never appeared as too different in their behaviour or attitudes, let alone intellectual capacity, from moslem of the same region. They were more ingratiating, though, possibly a sign of a different survival strategy.

    I would agree with Persians, we certainly imported a substantial fraction of Iran's elite in the 70s, 80 and early 90s. My impression is that their socio-economic outcomes are above that of the median Swede's and they lack any ethnic or religious hostility (which can sometimes co-exist with economic success among some minorities).


    They are the descendants of the people who created the glorious civilizations of Antiquity (Ancient Egypt, Persia, Phoenicia, Babylon, Byzantium etc.). They are intelligent (~100 average IQ), good-looking, well-educated, cultured and sophisticated.
     
    I'm not as hostile to HBD as Dmitry is, but I am somewhat vary of these generalisations. I think many of these peoples are essentially minorities in their countries (Chaldeans, Copts) or they are surrounded by all sides (Persians). When people live in such a tenous environment, they tend to overperform in educational metrics simply as a matter of necessity; minorities have to study more powerful people than them in order to survive in a brutal surrounding. For e.g. Sunni Egyptians, no such pressure exists, therefore the impulse to education becomes less driven by necessity than by curiosity, and hence overall educational levels fall.

    You can see this in most minority groups. This is not always true in the West, since many of the offspring of dominant majorities become minorities here, and thus their attitudes don't really change in a generation or two. It might further down the line. Conversely, the relatively lax attitudes of white natives towards education and self-improvement should be seen in this light.

    Replies: @Dmitry

    minorities .. overperform in educational

    It’s mostly because in Empires, you often use a minority to cover administrative functions.

    In Lebanon, the traditional upper class are Sunni Muslims, as this is how the Ottoman Empire was ruling there.

    France used Alawites as the administrative class or even upper class in Syria.

    In Algeria or Morocco, France used a lot of Arab Jews as the educated middle class for administration.

    In Zimbabwe, British used Indian Hindus to manage as a bureaucracy class.

    In Soviet times, in Central Asia, Russians and Jews are going often manage engineering or industrial projects.

    In the Middle East, there is a difference in terms of religious regulations for business (for example, banking) or areas like alcohol. So sometimes only Christians and Jews, are able to manage things like banking or alcohol.

    There are also just regional and radical lifestyle differences which create these differences. Berbers in North Africa, or Druze in Levant, can be living in the mountain hinterland for safety, where there is not much economic activity.

    Whereas Bedouins are living in a very ancient tribal way in the desert itself, which of course will not create or prioritize any modern educational or cultural achievements. They are a kind of animal herder not changed much since ancient times.

  435. @A123
    @AP


    This was written right after World War I.
     
    OK. That makes sense as a timeline..

    Modern (Merkel/Scholz) German Character steamrollers anything resembling traditional values. If Mann was available today, presumably he would identify Merkel & Scholz as existential threats to Classical German Character.

    Thanks.

    PEACE 😇

    Replies: @AP

    Yes. 1918 Thomas Mann would probably let SATs that in 2022 Germany is completely dead and gone.

    :::::::

    I don’t know enough about Mann to know how much of a nationalist he was. In overthrowing the power and authority of the Churches and the aristocracy, nationalists opened the door to the democracy and Nazism that both destroyed Germany.

  436. German_reader says:
    @AP
    Started reading Thomas Mann’s Reflections of a Nonpolitical Man while on Covid quarantine. It is full of powerful takes. “..A world democracy would leave nothing of the German character: the world democracy, the imperium of civilization, the “society of mankind,”could have a character that is more Latin or more Anglo-Saxon - the German spirit would dissolve and disappear in it…Richard Wagner once declared that civilization disappears before music like mist before the sun. He never dreamed that one day, for its part, music would disappear before civilization, before democracy, like mist before the sun.”

    Replies: @A123, @songbird, @German_reader

    But as you write yourself, he changed later, became a supporter of the Weimar republic. And for personal reasons, the Nazis couldn’t have been that attractive to him anyway (his wife came from a Jewish family, and Mann’s own mother was Brazilian).
    I have to admit I haven’t read that much of Mann’s work, only the Magic mountain, and iirc also The holy sinner and Mario and the magician (I’ve probably become sort of a philistine, don’t really read novels anymore). Magic mountain was published in 1924, and as far as I can remember there’s a clear sense of nostalgia for the pre-1914 world. Two prominent characters are Settembrini, a 19th century liberal, and Naphta, a Jesuit of Jewish origin who has a sort of Bolshevik mentality and stands for the coming age. Settembrini is clearly the more sympathetic character. So already by the early 1920s Mann was somewhat of a liberal.

    In overthrowing the power and authority of the Churches and the aristocracy, nationalists opened the door to the democracy and Nazism that both destroyed Germany.

    The Weimar republic wasn’t that bad (certainly much better than today’s Germany, which is really more and more of an “antifascist”, highly ideological state), and its failure probably wasn’t inevitable.
    And your assessment of the aristocracy is too rosy imo. It’s true that there was a populist, petty bourgeois character to Nazism, but the (former) aristocracy as a class wasn’t anti-Nazi, indeed in many cases rather the opposite.

    • Replies: @German_reader
    @German_reader


    And for personal reasons, the Nazis couldn’t have been that attractive to him anyway
     
    More to the point, Mann didn't belong to the non-Nazi right during the Weimar republic either (e.g. men like Edgar Julius Jung, who was killed by the Nazis in the night of the long knives, which wasn't just directed against the SA, but also against conservative right-wingers). He supported the DDP, a left-liberal party.
    Btw, one of Mann's grandsons has written a book about defending democracy (presumably against right-wing populism):
    https://www.amazon.de/Democracy-Bekenntnisse-Weltb%C3%BCrgers-grundlegende-Bedeutung/dp/3806243980
    The subtitle (Confessions of a cosmopolitan) is probably an allusion to his grandfather's book.

    Replies: @songbird

    , @AP
    @German_reader


    The Weimar republic wasn’t that bad (certainly much better than today’s Germany, which is really more and more of an “antifascist”, highly ideological state) and its failure probably wasn’t inevitable.
     
    Correct, but it's existence opened the door to the Nazi state.

    And your assessment of the aristocracy is too rosy imo. It’s true that there was a populist, petty bourgeois character to Nazism, but the (former) aristocracy as a class wasn’t anti-Nazi, indeed in many cases rather the opposite.
     
    Both groups disliked democracy, and there were numerous Nazi supporters among the nobility of course, but more so than among the general German population? Stauffenberg and his circle were obvious examples of dislike for Nazism which was essentially a populist, egalitarian, modernist movement.

    Replies: @German_reader

  437. German_reader says:
    @German_reader
    @AP

    But as you write yourself, he changed later, became a supporter of the Weimar republic. And for personal reasons, the Nazis couldn't have been that attractive to him anyway (his wife came from a Jewish family, and Mann's own mother was Brazilian).
    I have to admit I haven't read that much of Mann's work, only the Magic mountain, and iirc also The holy sinner and Mario and the magician (I've probably become sort of a philistine, don't really read novels anymore). Magic mountain was published in 1924, and as far as I can remember there's a clear sense of nostalgia for the pre-1914 world. Two prominent characters are Settembrini, a 19th century liberal, and Naphta, a Jesuit of Jewish origin who has a sort of Bolshevik mentality and stands for the coming age. Settembrini is clearly the more sympathetic character. So already by the early 1920s Mann was somewhat of a liberal.


    In overthrowing the power and authority of the Churches and the aristocracy, nationalists opened the door to the democracy and Nazism that both destroyed Germany.
     
    The Weimar republic wasn't that bad (certainly much better than today's Germany, which is really more and more of an "antifascist", highly ideological state), and its failure probably wasn't inevitable.
    And your assessment of the aristocracy is too rosy imo. It's true that there was a populist, petty bourgeois character to Nazism, but the (former) aristocracy as a class wasn't anti-Nazi, indeed in many cases rather the opposite.

    Replies: @German_reader, @AP

    And for personal reasons, the Nazis couldn’t have been that attractive to him anyway

    More to the point, Mann didn’t belong to the non-Nazi right during the Weimar republic either (e.g. men like Edgar Julius Jung, who was killed by the Nazis in the night of the long knives, which wasn’t just directed against the SA, but also against conservative right-wingers). He supported the DDP, a left-liberal party.
    Btw, one of Mann’s grandsons has written a book about defending democracy (presumably against right-wing populism):

    The subtitle (Confessions of a cosmopolitan) is probably an allusion to his grandfather’s book.

    • Replies: @songbird
    @German_reader

    In 2018, the German government bought Mann's house of exile in LA for $13 million (not including $5 million spent on renovations.) He only lived in it for ten years.

    https://www.dw.com/en/german-president-opens-thomas-mann-house-in-la/a-44274404

    To be fair, it is an interesting-looking house. But I don't quite understand why Germany needs two author-houses in L.A., to serve as residences for woke artists and intellectuals. Couldn't they do the same, for cheaper, with a single barracks-style building in one of the slums of Lagos?


    I’ve probably become sort of a philistine, don’t really read novels anymore
     
    I'm convinced that the big name novels are only so for their signaling value.

    That said, I do think that storytelling is an art that has always had a strong cultural value. It seems nearly impossible to find anything modern that isn't woke or trash, but, at the same time, books remove a lot of the layers of complexity of production that afflict other cultural products. And, so if there is any hope for a cultural turnaround, it might come from novels, at least in theory.

    Replies: @German_reader

  438. @German_reader
    @German_reader


    And for personal reasons, the Nazis couldn’t have been that attractive to him anyway
     
    More to the point, Mann didn't belong to the non-Nazi right during the Weimar republic either (e.g. men like Edgar Julius Jung, who was killed by the Nazis in the night of the long knives, which wasn't just directed against the SA, but also against conservative right-wingers). He supported the DDP, a left-liberal party.
    Btw, one of Mann's grandsons has written a book about defending democracy (presumably against right-wing populism):
    https://www.amazon.de/Democracy-Bekenntnisse-Weltb%C3%BCrgers-grundlegende-Bedeutung/dp/3806243980
    The subtitle (Confessions of a cosmopolitan) is probably an allusion to his grandfather's book.

    Replies: @songbird

    In 2018, the German government bought Mann’s house of exile in LA for \$13 million (not including \$5 million spent on renovations.) He only lived in it for ten years.

    https://www.dw.com/en/german-president-opens-thomas-mann-house-in-la/a-44274404

    To be fair, it is an interesting-looking house. But I don’t quite understand why Germany needs two author-houses in L.A., to serve as residences for woke artists and intellectuals. Couldn’t they do the same, for cheaper, with a single barracks-style building in one of the slums of Lagos?

    I’ve probably become sort of a philistine, don’t really read novels anymore

    I’m convinced that the big name novels are only so for their signaling value.

    That said, I do think that storytelling is an art that has always had a strong cultural value. It seems nearly impossible to find anything modern that isn’t woke or trash, but, at the same time, books remove a lot of the layers of complexity of production that afflict other cultural products. And, so if there is any hope for a cultural turnaround, it might come from novels, at least in theory.

    • Replies: @German_reader
    @songbird


    But I don’t quite understand why Germany needs two author-houses in L.A., to serve as residences for woke artists and intellectuals.
     
    Because Germany's woke elites deserve such perks, don't you know? I could write more about the kind of people invited to this Thomas Mann house (if you want some especially egregious examples google Max Czollek and Mohamed Amjahid), but then I'd risk having to vomit all over my keyboard.

    And, so if there is any hope for a cultural turnaround, it might come from novels, at least in theory.
     
    The only contemporary author I can think of who might give some support to this idea is Houllebecq (whom I haven't read myself). But apart from that contemporary novels seem utterly irrelevant to me tbh.
  439. @Yevardian
    Question for Mikel, or anyone else who happens to speak Spanish. Are there any Spanish blogs or newssites that you could recommend as interesting, or simply giving a perspective lacking in the Anglophone media?
    In Russian that sort of thing is pretty easy to come by (obviously, the default media narrative is still considerably different), but so far every Spanish news outlet I've encountered simply just gives practically verbatim-translated boilerplate annalistic accounts, and/or generic opinions that you could find in any MSM English reporting. It reminds me why I never had any interest in learning German, even if many past classic histories or linguistics papers were written in it (although admittedly I never found it very euphonious either).

    Replies: @songbird, @Mikel

    I don’t think I’ll be able to help much. My browsing these days is essentially on the English speaking internet, except for some very niche sites in Spanish unlikely to be of your interest and some Russian ones since 2014.

    Major Spanish news sites are indeed an ideological carbon copy of what you can find elsewhere, although El Pais used to have some good cultural and literature sections. If you convince them that you’re browsing from the Americas they will also treat you to plenty of Latin American content but maybe you’re better off reading Latin American sources for that content rather than El Pais’ leftist/neocon angle.

    Perhaps you could try http://www.libertaddigital.com. I used to read it regularly in the past, before they became too Spanish nationalist while I was becoming too Basque independentist. They are a “liberal” publication in the Spanish sense of the term, which is almost the opposite of the English one. Liberalism (liberalismo) in Spain is an old political movement with its roots in the 19th century and is associated with the defense of political and economic freedoms. Today this translates to anything from Libertarianism to neocon/conservatism and that is what you will find in their treatment of the news and their opinion pieces.

  440. @German_reader
    @AP

    But as you write yourself, he changed later, became a supporter of the Weimar republic. And for personal reasons, the Nazis couldn't have been that attractive to him anyway (his wife came from a Jewish family, and Mann's own mother was Brazilian).
    I have to admit I haven't read that much of Mann's work, only the Magic mountain, and iirc also The holy sinner and Mario and the magician (I've probably become sort of a philistine, don't really read novels anymore). Magic mountain was published in 1924, and as far as I can remember there's a clear sense of nostalgia for the pre-1914 world. Two prominent characters are Settembrini, a 19th century liberal, and Naphta, a Jesuit of Jewish origin who has a sort of Bolshevik mentality and stands for the coming age. Settembrini is clearly the more sympathetic character. So already by the early 1920s Mann was somewhat of a liberal.


    In overthrowing the power and authority of the Churches and the aristocracy, nationalists opened the door to the democracy and Nazism that both destroyed Germany.
     
    The Weimar republic wasn't that bad (certainly much better than today's Germany, which is really more and more of an "antifascist", highly ideological state), and its failure probably wasn't inevitable.
    And your assessment of the aristocracy is too rosy imo. It's true that there was a populist, petty bourgeois character to Nazism, but the (former) aristocracy as a class wasn't anti-Nazi, indeed in many cases rather the opposite.

    Replies: @German_reader, @AP

    The Weimar republic wasn’t that bad (certainly much better than today’s Germany, which is really more and more of an “antifascist”, highly ideological state) and its failure probably wasn’t inevitable.

    Correct, but it’s existence opened the door to the Nazi state.

    And your assessment of the aristocracy is too rosy imo. It’s true that there was a populist, petty bourgeois character to Nazism, but the (former) aristocracy as a class wasn’t anti-Nazi, indeed in many cases rather the opposite.

    Both groups disliked democracy, and there were numerous Nazi supporters among the nobility of course, but more so than among the general German population? Stauffenberg and his circle were obvious examples of dislike for Nazism which was essentially a populist, egalitarian, modernist movement.

    • Replies: @German_reader
    @AP


    but more so than among the general German population?
     
    Probably not, but I also doubt it was significantly less.
    But you do have a point about the general character of Nazism, which certainly didn't have recreating the pre-1914 world as its goal. Not sure though I would call it egalitarian (there was a pronounced emphasis on "natural" hierarchies after all), more like there was an ideal of meritocracy transcending class divisions within the racially defined community.
  441. German_reader says:
    @songbird
    @German_reader

    In 2018, the German government bought Mann's house of exile in LA for $13 million (not including $5 million spent on renovations.) He only lived in it for ten years.

    https://www.dw.com/en/german-president-opens-thomas-mann-house-in-la/a-44274404

    To be fair, it is an interesting-looking house. But I don't quite understand why Germany needs two author-houses in L.A., to serve as residences for woke artists and intellectuals. Couldn't they do the same, for cheaper, with a single barracks-style building in one of the slums of Lagos?


    I’ve probably become sort of a philistine, don’t really read novels anymore
     
    I'm convinced that the big name novels are only so for their signaling value.

    That said, I do think that storytelling is an art that has always had a strong cultural value. It seems nearly impossible to find anything modern that isn't woke or trash, but, at the same time, books remove a lot of the layers of complexity of production that afflict other cultural products. And, so if there is any hope for a cultural turnaround, it might come from novels, at least in theory.

    Replies: @German_reader

    But I don’t quite understand why Germany needs two author-houses in L.A., to serve as residences for woke artists and intellectuals.

    Because Germany’s woke elites deserve such perks, don’t you know? I could write more about the kind of people invited to this Thomas Mann house (if you want some especially egregious examples google Max Czollek and Mohamed Amjahid), but then I’d risk having to vomit all over my keyboard.

    And, so if there is any hope for a cultural turnaround, it might come from novels, at least in theory.

    The only contemporary author I can think of who might give some support to this idea is Houllebecq (whom I haven’t read myself). But apart from that contemporary novels seem utterly irrelevant to me tbh.

    • Thanks: songbird
  442. @Yahya
    @AP


    Interesting observation. Persians, Chaldeans and Lebanese Christians often express haughty disdain for Muslim Arabs in general
     
    Like any topic related to ethnicity/religion in the Middle East - it's complicated. Before I begin, i'd like to mention that most of my observations are impressionistic; as the nature of the topic does not lend itself to rigorous scientific investigation. As such, the accuracy of my observations are constrained by my personal experiences - which by their nature are inherently limited.

    Since I'm Egyptian (of Muslim background, though secular in outlook), my first-hand experiences with Middle East Christians consists of a few childhood friendships/acquaintances with Coptic Christians; and some familiarity with Lebanese/Syrian Christians, since they are in the same cultural-linguistic sphere as Egypt. I grew up with and know intimately two Coptic Egyptians and one Coptic-Maronite (Father is Egyptian, Mother is Lebanese). Most of us got along well with each other, though because we attended an elite-type school, our amicable relations may not be representative of Muslim-Christian relations in Egypt or the Arab world at large.

    I haven't personally seen or experienced any form of disdain from Copts towards Muslims; but I'm aware that some Copts hate Muslims and see them as invaders who took over the country. This is of course incorrect, as Muslim Egyptians are descended from Coptic converts to Islam, rather than Arabs from Arabia (see my post on Egyptian genetics here: https://www.unz.com/akarlin/open-thread-170/#comment-5057453).

    As for Lebanese Christians; well they famously like to dissociate themselves from Arabs, though my impression is that this does not extend to Lebanese Muslims, to whom they have an affinity to. According to Pew, 82% of Lebanese Christians had a favorable view of Lebanese Muslims (and vice-versa):

    Despite widespread sectarian violence during their country’s 1975-1990 civil war, today Lebanese Muslims and Christians generally have positive attitudes toward one another. Fully 86% of Muslims have a favorable opinion of Christians, by far the highest rating of Christians by any Muslim public. At the same time, 82% of Christians have a positive view of Muslims.

    Attitudes toward Jews, however, are quite another matter. Even before the current conflict, negative sentiments about Jews and Israel were widespread in Lebanon, and they were not confined to the Muslim community. Indeed, no one in our Lebanese sample, Muslim, Christian, Druze, or otherwise, said they had a favorable view of Jews. Of course, negative attitudes towards Jews are not uncommon in the region — in neighboring Jordan, zero respondents had a favorable view of Jews, and Morocco and Pakistan also posted favorable ratings for Jews in the single digits.

     

    https://www.pewresearch.org/2006/07/26/lebanons-muslims-relatively-secular-and-prochristian/

    – does this extend towards the rich Gulf Arabs?
     
    High-caste Persians, Armenians, Chaldeans, Copts, Lebanese Christians, Ionian Turks etc. are what you might call the "sophisticated people" of the Middle East. They are the descendants of the people who created the glorious civilizations of Antiquity (Ancient Egypt, Persia, Phoenicia, Babylon, Byzantium etc.). They are intelligent (~100 average IQ), good-looking, well-educated, cultured and sophisticated. They are certainly far more intelligent and better looking than Gulf Arabs; who are known to be the hicks of the Arab world - even among Muslim Arabs. But, as sophisticated as they may be - Gulf Arabs are still wealthier than they are, on average, and therein lies the complication.

    While nerds like us may put emphasis on intellect, knowledge and IQ when according status-points to others; most people around the world do not. Wealth, not IQ, is the chief determinant of status. It's tough to feel contempt for people who are wealthier than you - it's not given to human psychology. As such, when a sophisticated person feels disdain towards a person wealthier than he is, it takes on the form of envy, not contempt. Contempt being the feeling of disdain you have for people of lower status; envy the feeling of disdain towards people of higher status.

    While Persians, Armenians, Chaldeans, Copts, Lebanese Christians, Ionian Turks (i.e. the sophisticated people) can feel contempt for poor Muslim Arabs in places like Iraq, Egypt or Syria; it's well-nigh impossible for them to do so with Gulf Arabs. If any disdain is targeted towards Gulf Arabs, it takes on the form of envy. The situation is not unlike French attitudes towards Americans. While the sophisticated French people may fancy themselves culturally superior to the backward American hillbilly hicks; even the most redneck districts in the American South are still richer than much of France. The French can't stand the fact that these hillbilly upstarts are wealthier than they are. Same can be said of the sophisticated people of the Middle East vis-a-vis Gulf Arabs.

    Replies: @Thulean Friend, @Dmitry, @Mikel, @Yevardian, @silviosilver

    Thanks for those insights.

    I lived in Chile for some time and people of Christian Arab descent, generally Palestinians and Syrians, were definitely one of the most economically successful communities. They also tend to look more Caucasian than the general population there.

    If you don’t mind my asking, why do so many Muslims try to emigrate to Europe or other Western countries instead of the rich countries of the Arabian peninsula, which look more culturally similar? Is it that these countries are not viewed so desirable for living or is it that they have more strict immigration policies?

    • Replies: @Yevardian
    @Mikel


    I lived in Chile for some time and people of Christian Arab descent, generally Palestinians and Syrians, were definitely one of the most economically successful communities. They also tend to look more Caucasian than the general population there.
     
    Yes, many Iraqi Christians (and Jews) actually appear paler than average southern Europeans. The difference in appearance from the general surrounding Arab population can be so starkly obvious, it does force you to seriously doubt claims of pre-Islamic cultural/genetic continuity and the like.

    If you don’t mind my asking, why do so many Muslims try to emigrate to Europe or other Western countries instead of the rich countries of the Arabian peninsula, which look more culturally similar? Is it that these countries are not viewed so desirable for living or is it that they have more strict immigration policies?
     
    Other than the simple answer of the extremely tight immigration/citizenship policies of the Oil-States themselves, there is another major factor that should be personally familiar to you, as someone who's been to Latin America.
    Arab cultures are extremely status-conscious and hierarchical, whether someone lower in the employment chain is a 'fellow Arab' makes very little difference, in practice any penurious Palestinian or Syrian will be treated as abominably and inhumanly as any Pajeet or Bangladeshi, though being natively Arabic does give the former some agency denied to the latter.

    Actually, for many Saudis and the like, behaving towards migrant workers with any sort of humanity, or engaging in fraternisation, can adversely impact their own social standing. So even an otherwise normal man feels compelled to lord over and degrade others below a certain social strata, in order to preserve his own 'honour' and avoid any potential 'shame' that could tar him by association.
    For instance, even outside of the Gulf, there remains a strong stigma against any sort of manual labour, even skilled, as personal engagment in such things is seen as 'dishonourable'. Again, you can see similar attitudes in tradional Spain, albeit to a much lesser degree.

    Incidentally, before Europe opened up to 'guest-workers' and non-European migration in general, Saudi Arabia in particular hosted vast numbers of temporary Egyptian workers. When Nasser got involved in his Yemen adventure, they were either expelled or treated even worse than they already were. Word gets around about this sort of thing quickly, Arabs from poor countries prefer not to work in rich Arab countries if they can at all help it. This is course means that nowadays, only the poorest and most disadvantaged Arabs choose to work in places like the UAE or Saudi.
    Obtaining citizenship on the Peninsula is also almost impossible for the non-rich, Kuwait being a (very) partial exception, although iirc they did slightly relax conditions for their enormous Palestinian migrant population, due to pressure from Saddam Hussein.

    Anyway, I could go on, but I think you get the picture.

    Replies: @Yahya

    , @Yahya
    @Mikel


    I lived in Chile for some time and people of Christian Arab descent, generally Palestinians and Syrians, were definitely one of the most economically successful communities.
     
    Christian Arabs succeed wherever they go. In places like the US, they are overrepresented in almost all prestigious occupations (medicine, academia, government, banking etc.); and in Israel, Christian schools outscore Jewish ones on standardized tests. As I wrote in a post a few months ago:

    Arab-American (63% of whom are Christians) median household income is roughly 10% higher than the American average. 40% of Arab-Americans have a college degree, compared to 24% for Americans at large. Some prominent Arab Christians in the US include Nicolas Nassim Taleb (author/intellctual), Edward Said (author/intellectual), Mitch Daniels (governor, author), Elias Chorey (Nobel Prize chemist), Micheal DeBakey (eminent surgeon), Joe Jumail (billionaire lawyer), George Joseph (billionaire entrepreneur), Joseph Mack (CEO of Morgan Stanley) etc. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_Arab_Americans

     

    In certain metrics such as physicians per capita, they are even more over-represented than the mighty Ashkenazim:

    https://i1.wp.com/copticvoiceus.com/wp-content/uploads/2020/06/image-2.png?fit=512%2C400

    They definitely rank up there as the one of the smartest ethnicities in the world. This shouldn't be surprising given they are the most direct descendants of the people who invented the world's first and most advanced civilization for ~4,000 years (approx 3300BC-1300AD); as well as the major Abrahamic religions which have effectively colonized the planet.

    https://image.pbs.org/poster_images/assets/sj14-int-religmap.jpg

    They also don’t have the SSA admixture, cousin marriage practices, malnutrition & poverty, or the inhibiting cultural values of Arab Muslims.

    If I were to rank the top 5 smartest ethnicities; I'd say it would be the following, in order:
    (1) Ashkenazi Jews
    (2) Christian Arabs
    (3) Tamil Brahmins
    (4) UMC WASPs
    (5) Diaspora Chinese

    In terms of IQ, the Ashkenazi are up there on a class of their own. The other 4 are roughly equal; though Christian Arabs and Tamil Brahmins have more "creativity" and "gumption"; UMC WASPs in the middle; and Diaspora Chinese at the bottom.


    They also tend to look more Caucasian than the general population there.
     
    Arabs are Caucasians; scientifically speaking. So it's no surprise they look more Caucasian than the general mestizo population in Latin America. Levantine Arabs in particular don’t look too different than Iberians; most people who are unfamiliar with Iberians & Levantines would not be able to spot the difference. Though of course a familiar and discerning eye could differentiate between them.

    One of my favorite hobbies is to browse the r/phenotypes subreddit; where people post pictures of themselves, and redditors would try to guess their national origin. Occasionally you'd come across a Palestinian who'd post a picture of him/herself; and almost invariably someone would guess Spain, Portugal or Italy (and occasionally France or Romania). For example:

    https://www.reddit.com/r/phenotypes/comments/rgjq9j/can_you_guess_where_im_from/

    Another interesting post on reddit was this blonde, blue-eyed Palestinian immigrant to Chile; who kindly shared her 23andme results:

    https://www.reddit.com/r/23andme/comments/ffmovm/palestinian_from_chile_my_results/

    Somewhat interestingly, 23andME pegged this Palestinian lady as 99.4% West Asian/North African; even though she looks like she could've been born in Warsaw or Budapest. Of course blonde hair or blue eyes are not uncommon in the Levant; a legacy of the Greco-Roman, Crusader and Ottoman periods. But very rarely do they pop up in one go. Another Northern-European-looking Palestinian is Nazerene folk singer Dalal Abu-Amneh:

    https://i1.sndcdn.com/artworks-000144264801-0zwi4q-t500x500.jpg


    If you don’t mind my asking, why do so many Muslims try to emigrate to Europe or other Western countries instead of the rich countries of the Arabian peninsula, which look more culturally similar? Is it that these countries are not viewed so desirable for living or is it that they have more strict immigration policies?
     
    Citizenship in many Arab countries - poor and rich alike - is only obtainable by having a father from said Arab country (i.e. only those born to a Saudi father can obtain Saudi citizenship; only those with a Syrian father are given Syrian citizenship etc). Though many Arab countries have recently allowed citizenship through maternal lineage; it's well-nigh impossible to obtain citizenship in any Arab country without at least one Arab parent.

    Replies: @AP, @Dmitry, @silviosilver

  443. German_reader says:
    @AP
    @German_reader


    The Weimar republic wasn’t that bad (certainly much better than today’s Germany, which is really more and more of an “antifascist”, highly ideological state) and its failure probably wasn’t inevitable.
     
    Correct, but it's existence opened the door to the Nazi state.

    And your assessment of the aristocracy is too rosy imo. It’s true that there was a populist, petty bourgeois character to Nazism, but the (former) aristocracy as a class wasn’t anti-Nazi, indeed in many cases rather the opposite.
     
    Both groups disliked democracy, and there were numerous Nazi supporters among the nobility of course, but more so than among the general German population? Stauffenberg and his circle were obvious examples of dislike for Nazism which was essentially a populist, egalitarian, modernist movement.

    Replies: @German_reader

    but more so than among the general German population?

    Probably not, but I also doubt it was significantly less.
    But you do have a point about the general character of Nazism, which certainly didn’t have recreating the pre-1914 world as its goal. Not sure though I would call it egalitarian (there was a pronounced emphasis on “natural” hierarchies after all), more like there was an ideal of meritocracy transcending class divisions within the racially defined community.

  444. @Dmitry
    @Yahya


    disdain is targeted towards Gulf Arab
     
    Gulf Arab countries might have some of the more stereotypical "religious redneck" population, at least for their income levels.

    Gulf Arabs are the world's greatest addicts of American fast food, and have "food deserts" similar to Southern states in the USA. They have some of the world's highest obesity rate.

    They also operate a more multinational version of a slave labor system, reminding of antebellum Southern USA States, relying on the gastarbaiters from across the world (engineers from Germany, accountants from England, prostitutes from Russia/Ukraine, construction workers from India, cleaners from Phillipines).

    These are countries with a youth on YouTube, driving dune buggies, or destroying their cars by idiotically drifting in circles.

    But these Arab monarchies are also surprising competent in many ways, despite population which should create an idiocracy. For example, compare propaganda skills of Al Jazeera with Russia Today. Latter is only competent for stealing money from budget, whereas Al Jazeera is actually very effective propaganda, that influences Western views.

    Similarly, look at how aristocratic Arab monarchies manage coronavirus. Or how they manage multi-vector diplomacy.

    By comparison, secular Arab dictators, have almost always all destroyed Arab countries. Maybe el-Sisi can be some kind of exception, for now (but it's still early years to assess his position).


    sophisticated as they may be – Gulf Arabs are still wealthier than they are, on average
     
    Sophistication is mostly just a lagging indicator of wealth.

    When there is mismatch of sophistication and wealth, it's where there is a historical crossovers between current and previous wealth levels.

    Due to oil, Gulf countries have world's most recent and rapid ascent from Bedouin tribes, to the international super wealthy. So there is a crossover, where wealth is higher than sophistication. .

    Lebanon was wealthier than Gulf countries until around 1960s, which is within the memory of the "Arab boomers". So there is the crossover where sophistication is higher than wealth.

    Some places like Buenos Aires can even maintain their sophistication for many decades after their wealth has fallen.

    -

    Psychologically, I wonder how must be feeling the "Arab boomers", who can remember life in the1960s?

    Arab boomers, would imagine that Egypt should be centre of Arab power and culture, while Lebanon is the centre of Arab wealth and banking? Gulf Arab countries should be still Bedouin deserts with some potential oil prospect.

    Emotionally, Arab boomers might be still questioning if they need to choose between an alliance with the USA or the Soviet Union, which is perhaps a bit seen in multi-vector policy of Arab countries between USA and Russia.

    Replies: @Yellowface Anon, @Yahya, @Yahya

    Arab boomers’ mental map of the Middle East is closer to the 16th or 19th centuries than the modern day, except all those Ottoman possessions were replaced by postcolonial states.

  445. @Dmitry
    @Yahya


    disdain is targeted towards Gulf Arab
     
    Gulf Arab countries might have some of the more stereotypical "religious redneck" population, at least for their income levels.

    Gulf Arabs are the world's greatest addicts of American fast food, and have "food deserts" similar to Southern states in the USA. They have some of the world's highest obesity rate.

    They also operate a more multinational version of a slave labor system, reminding of antebellum Southern USA States, relying on the gastarbaiters from across the world (engineers from Germany, accountants from England, prostitutes from Russia/Ukraine, construction workers from India, cleaners from Phillipines).

    These are countries with a youth on YouTube, driving dune buggies, or destroying their cars by idiotically drifting in circles.

    But these Arab monarchies are also surprising competent in many ways, despite population which should create an idiocracy. For example, compare propaganda skills of Al Jazeera with Russia Today. Latter is only competent for stealing money from budget, whereas Al Jazeera is actually very effective propaganda, that influences Western views.

    Similarly, look at how aristocratic Arab monarchies manage coronavirus. Or how they manage multi-vector diplomacy.

    By comparison, secular Arab dictators, have almost always all destroyed Arab countries. Maybe el-Sisi can be some kind of exception, for now (but it's still early years to assess his position).


    sophisticated as they may be – Gulf Arabs are still wealthier than they are, on average
     
    Sophistication is mostly just a lagging indicator of wealth.

    When there is mismatch of sophistication and wealth, it's where there is a historical crossovers between current and previous wealth levels.

    Due to oil, Gulf countries have world's most recent and rapid ascent from Bedouin tribes, to the international super wealthy. So there is a crossover, where wealth is higher than sophistication. .

    Lebanon was wealthier than Gulf countries until around 1960s, which is within the memory of the "Arab boomers". So there is the crossover where sophistication is higher than wealth.

    Some places like Buenos Aires can even maintain their sophistication for many decades after their wealth has fallen.

    -

    Psychologically, I wonder how must be feeling the "Arab boomers", who can remember life in the1960s?

    Arab boomers, would imagine that Egypt should be centre of Arab power and culture, while Lebanon is the centre of Arab wealth and banking? Gulf Arab countries should be still Bedouin deserts with some potential oil prospect.

    Emotionally, Arab boomers might be still questioning if they need to choose between an alliance with the USA or the Soviet Union, which is perhaps a bit seen in multi-vector policy of Arab countries between USA and Russia.

    Replies: @Yellowface Anon, @Yahya, @Yahya

    Gulf Arab countries might have some of the more stereotypical “religious redneck” population, at least for their income levels.

    Gulf Arabs are rednecks on steroids.

    They also operate a more multinational version of a slave labor system, reminding of antebellum Southern USA States, relying on the gastarbaiters from across the world (engineers from Germany, accountants from England, prostitutes from Russia/Ukraine, construction workers from India, cleaners from Phillipines).

    This is a perceptive observation. The current model of many Gulf Arab states is certainly very interesting and unique – not many places like it. I would define the Gulf model as “redneck cosmopolitanism”; they are a deeply conservative and traditional places in many ways, but surprisingly cosmopolitan (Saudi Arabia’s foreign population is 38% – more than the UK, US, Germany or France. Kuwait and UAE are somewhere around the 80s – no-one can beat them in cosmopolitanism).

    But these Arab monarchies are also surprising competent in many ways, despite population which should create an idiocracy. For example, compare propaganda skills of Al Jazeera with Russia Today. Latter is only competent for stealing money from budget, whereas Al Jazeera is actually very effective propaganda, that influences Western views. Similarly, look at how aristocratic Arab monarchies manage coronavirus. Or how they manage multi-vector diplomacy.

    The competency of Arab monarchies is indeed notable given the competence of the general population is fairly low. Likewise, one can also say Germany, for instance, which obviously has a highly functional population, has surprisingly incompetent leaders. The average intelligence of a population doesn’t necessarily correlate with competence in government.

    Of course the word “competent” is itself multi-faceted and requires an a-priori agreement on what it means. I would define a competent leader as someone who successfully advances the long-term interests of his/her people. “Competence” is not synonymous with “Intelligence” or “IQ”, since highly intelligent leaders like Angela Merkel or Mao Zedong can fail spectacularly in advancing the interests of their people; while less intelligent leaders like Sultan Qaboos or Mohammad bin Rashid can do a good job with the cards they are dealt.

    What is more important than IQ, in my view, is (a) the desire to advance the interests of your people, (b) the ability to select competent ministers to execute on your intentions, and (c) a minimum level of sanity and personal morality to prevent any Cultural Revolution-type or Woke-style immigration madness. A competent leader also need not necessarily be the most moral leader (i.e. Cardinal Richelieu, Deng Xiaoping, Pyotr Stolypin, Muhammad Ali Pasha etc). He need only accurately discern what is needed to ensure the prosperity of his people over the long-run, and pursue these objectives adroitly and successfully.

    Germany, like almost every other Western country, is patently failing at selecting leaders who can advance the long-term interests of their people. This is probably cultural rather than genetic. Germans and other childless Western Europeans don’t seem to much care about their posterity – and this is being reflected in governmental policy.

    • Agree: sher singh
    • Replies: @Dmitry
    @Yahya


    Gulf Arabs are rednecks on steroids.

     

    Lol yes

    You have to feel jealous they apparently can be living, like we dreamed when we were 12 years old.

    https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=jRVPw-CBYQU

    Also something being a wealthy Arab redneck - children and women are not allowed near your toys.

    https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=EzYxl7c8OyA


    Kuwait and UAE are somewhere around the 80s – no-one can beat them in cosmopolitanism
     
    It reminds a bit of a more brutal, slavery, version of gastarbaiters in Switzerland, Singapore.

    Although even poorer Arab countries seem can be like this. For example, Kafala system in Lebanon.


    competency of Arab monarchies is indeed notable given the competence of the general population is fairly low

     

    I wondering monarchies' strength, is partly related to experience level? Monarchies can have multi-generations of managing their tribal alliances, and over time they should learn some moderation and balance in their external and internal policies.

    But the secular Arab dictators also develop experience across decades, and yet they always historically collapse in civil war.

    It was probably worse in the long run that Syria's monarchy was removed by France https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Arab_Kingdom_of_Syria
    And Egypt lost its monarchy with military coup d'etat 1952
    https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Egyptian_revolution_of_1952


    Germany, like almost every other Western
     
    Although in wider perspective, Germany's government is still more competent than most governments in the world.

    Would you prefer to live with governments of Latin America, Africa, or the postsoviet space?

    Much of the world's governments are mainly focused on "harvesting" their population, and moving assets to Monaco.

    Of course, Germany has some of this. Their response to demographic problems, by importing gastarbaiters from Turkey and Poland. Their virtue signaling policies for immigration. Their transfers of loans to Southern Europe used as recycled tax money for supporting German private industrialists. Etc.


    Germans and other childless Western European
     
    Although Western Europe has more children, than Eastern Europe, East Asia, Singapore, etc.

    Of those, Singapore has one of the world's most competent governments (for example, look at Singapore's solution for housing problems), while having the world's lowest fertility rate.

  446. @Yahya
    @AP


    Interesting observation. Persians, Chaldeans and Lebanese Christians often express haughty disdain for Muslim Arabs in general
     
    Like any topic related to ethnicity/religion in the Middle East - it's complicated. Before I begin, i'd like to mention that most of my observations are impressionistic; as the nature of the topic does not lend itself to rigorous scientific investigation. As such, the accuracy of my observations are constrained by my personal experiences - which by their nature are inherently limited.

    Since I'm Egyptian (of Muslim background, though secular in outlook), my first-hand experiences with Middle East Christians consists of a few childhood friendships/acquaintances with Coptic Christians; and some familiarity with Lebanese/Syrian Christians, since they are in the same cultural-linguistic sphere as Egypt. I grew up with and know intimately two Coptic Egyptians and one Coptic-Maronite (Father is Egyptian, Mother is Lebanese). Most of us got along well with each other, though because we attended an elite-type school, our amicable relations may not be representative of Muslim-Christian relations in Egypt or the Arab world at large.

    I haven't personally seen or experienced any form of disdain from Copts towards Muslims; but I'm aware that some Copts hate Muslims and see them as invaders who took over the country. This is of course incorrect, as Muslim Egyptians are descended from Coptic converts to Islam, rather than Arabs from Arabia (see my post on Egyptian genetics here: https://www.unz.com/akarlin/open-thread-170/#comment-5057453).

    As for Lebanese Christians; well they famously like to dissociate themselves from Arabs, though my impression is that this does not extend to Lebanese Muslims, to whom they have an affinity to. According to Pew, 82% of Lebanese Christians had a favorable view of Lebanese Muslims (and vice-versa):

    Despite widespread sectarian violence during their country’s 1975-1990 civil war, today Lebanese Muslims and Christians generally have positive attitudes toward one another. Fully 86% of Muslims have a favorable opinion of Christians, by far the highest rating of Christians by any Muslim public. At the same time, 82% of Christians have a positive view of Muslims.

    Attitudes toward Jews, however, are quite another matter. Even before the current conflict, negative sentiments about Jews and Israel were widespread in Lebanon, and they were not confined to the Muslim community. Indeed, no one in our Lebanese sample, Muslim, Christian, Druze, or otherwise, said they had a favorable view of Jews. Of course, negative attitudes towards Jews are not uncommon in the region — in neighboring Jordan, zero respondents had a favorable view of Jews, and Morocco and Pakistan also posted favorable ratings for Jews in the single digits.

     

    https://www.pewresearch.org/2006/07/26/lebanons-muslims-relatively-secular-and-prochristian/

    – does this extend towards the rich Gulf Arabs?
     
    High-caste Persians, Armenians, Chaldeans, Copts, Lebanese Christians, Ionian Turks etc. are what you might call the "sophisticated people" of the Middle East. They are the descendants of the people who created the glorious civilizations of Antiquity (Ancient Egypt, Persia, Phoenicia, Babylon, Byzantium etc.). They are intelligent (~100 average IQ), good-looking, well-educated, cultured and sophisticated. They are certainly far more intelligent and better looking than Gulf Arabs; who are known to be the hicks of the Arab world - even among Muslim Arabs. But, as sophisticated as they may be - Gulf Arabs are still wealthier than they are, on average, and therein lies the complication.

    While nerds like us may put emphasis on intellect, knowledge and IQ when according status-points to others; most people around the world do not. Wealth, not IQ, is the chief determinant of status. It's tough to feel contempt for people who are wealthier than you - it's not given to human psychology. As such, when a sophisticated person feels disdain towards a person wealthier than he is, it takes on the form of envy, not contempt. Contempt being the feeling of disdain you have for people of lower status; envy the feeling of disdain towards people of higher status.

    While Persians, Armenians, Chaldeans, Copts, Lebanese Christians, Ionian Turks (i.e. the sophisticated people) can feel contempt for poor Muslim Arabs in places like Iraq, Egypt or Syria; it's well-nigh impossible for them to do so with Gulf Arabs. If any disdain is targeted towards Gulf Arabs, it takes on the form of envy. The situation is not unlike French attitudes towards Americans. While the sophisticated French people may fancy themselves culturally superior to the backward American hillbilly hicks; even the most redneck districts in the American South are still richer than much of France. The French can't stand the fact that these hillbilly upstarts are wealthier than they are. Same can be said of the sophisticated people of the Middle East vis-a-vis Gulf Arabs.

    Replies: @Thulean Friend, @Dmitry, @Mikel, @Yevardian, @silviosilver

    High-caste Persians, Armenians, Chaldeans, Copts, Lebanese Christians, Ionian Turks etc. are what you might call the “sophisticated people” of the Middle East. They are the descendants of the people who created the glorious civilizations of Antiquity (Ancient Egypt, Persia, Phoenicia, Babylon, Byzantium etc.). They are intelligent (~100 average IQ), good-looking, well-educated, cultured and sophisticated.

    Thank you sir.

    While nerds like us may put emphasis on intellect, knowledge and IQ when according status-points to others; most people around the world do not. Wealth, not IQ, is the chief determinant of status. It’s tough to feel contempt for people who are wealthier than you – it’s not given to human psychology.

    I think the shift in this thinking was probably completed with the destruction of the old aristocracy, with wealth generally being both mostly inherited or obtained through marriage, aspects like bloodline (which really, is just the Ancients’ version of an HBD/genetics-based worldview) and, honour, and personal charm were of foremost importance.

    The situation is not unlike French attitudes towards Americans. While the sophisticated French people may fancy themselves culturally superior to the backward American hillbilly hicks; even the most redneck districts in the American South are still richer than much of France. The French can’t stand the fact that these hillbilly upstarts are wealthier than they are. Same can be said of the sophisticated people of the Middle East vis-a-vis Gulf Arabs.

    That seems extremely doubtful to me, in fact it left me practically incredulous. It’s not the 1950s anymore.
    There’s absolutely no place in France (if we exclude Paris or Lyon Banlieues, which are isolated pockets, not regions) that can remotely compare with vast areas of the US characterised by mass-illiteracy, cultural desert, tent-cities, gang violence or 3rd-world infrastructure, e.g. the Mississippi Delta, Detroit, Saint-Louis, West Virginia, rural Michican, or any Indian Reservation.
    Even the ‘bleakest’ French departments like Britanny, Normandy or south-central still have very much 1st-world problems, you couldn’t mistake yourself having woken up in El Salvador or Kosovo, as in the US.

    @Dmitri

    Arab boomers, would imagine that Egypt should be centre of Arab power and culture, while Lebanon is the centre of Arab wealth and banking? Gulf Arab countries should be still Bedouin deserts with some potential oil prospect.

    Egypt very much still is considered the centre of Arab culture, if not power, it hardly could be otherwise given its enormous population. But Lebanon has certainly lost practically any allure it once had, financial or otherwise.

    Emotionally, Arab boomers might be still questioning if they need to choose between an alliance with the USA or the Soviet Union, which is perhaps a bit seen in multi-vector policy of Arab countries between USA and Russia.

    I think that’s rather a red herring.
    Much more relevant is how the US and Israel left countries like Lebanon, Iraq and Syria as smouldering craters (even if their native regimes were highly disliked by other Arabs), now exporting nothing but waves of refugees and terrorism.
    I really don’t think this can be overstated. Taking a random example, Shimon Peres, in an attempt to appear ‘tough’ to his doubting electorate, gave the go ahead to “Operation Grapes of Wrath”, the purpose of which was to create an uncontrollable refugee crisis both the Lebanese state and neighboring Syria, by shelling southern Lebanon to ash.
    Or of course the Lavon Affair, where the Mossad bombed civilian targets and American buildings in Egypt, in a (failed) attempt to blame the attacks on native Arabs, in order to alienate the US from them. And so on. Yes, the Gulf States have become increasingly open about their crypto-alliance with Israel, but ordinary people of those countries nonetheless despise them for that.

    Going back to the USSR/Russia, probably something else that’s noticed is they understand loyalty. Russia scarcely ever abandons leaders its pledged to support (arguably to the detriment of their own interests), the Assads are the last secular dynasty to remain from 70s era, and Russia also backed Gadaffi until the end, though Putin had to override Medvedev on that point (probably the key moment in the collapse of the ‘tandem’).

    Russia has played its card extraordinarily well in the Middle-East over the past decade, Russia somehow managed to successfully present itself as a fair and effective power-broker in the region. Though unfortunately the same can’t be said of Putin’s moves in Europe, perhaps rather the opposite.

    • Replies: @AP
    @Yevardian


    There’s absolutely no place in France (if we exclude Paris or Lyon Banlieues, which are isolated pockets, not regions) that can remotely compare with vast areas of the US characterised by mass-illiteracy, cultural desert, tent-cities, gang violence or 3rd-world infrastructure, e.g. the Mississippi Delta, Detroit, Saint-Louis, West Virginia, rural Michican, or any Indian Reservation.
     
    Maybe, but only three US states are poorer than France: West Virginia, Arkansas, and Mississippi.

    https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_U.S._states_and_territories_by_GDP_per_capita

    Several American states have almost double France's per capita GDP of $45,000.

    France has only about 80% of Michigan's GDP per capita.

    France has inherited wonderful architecture and its people are educated and cultured, but it is a lot poorer than the USA.

    Replies: @Vishnugupta

    , @LondonBob
    @Yevardian

    The EU wanted the Ukraine and Belarus, Russia cannot be a fair and effective power broker, and their mistake in the Ukraine (and Libya)(and perhaps Syria) was trying to be so, the Kremlin does seem to have learnt that lesson now with Belarus and Kazakhstan, as well as with natural gas.

    Replies: @A123

  447. @Mikel
    @Yahya

    Thanks for those insights.

    I lived in Chile for some time and people of Christian Arab descent, generally Palestinians and Syrians, were definitely one of the most economically successful communities. They also tend to look more Caucasian than the general population there.

    If you don't mind my asking, why do so many Muslims try to emigrate to Europe or other Western countries instead of the rich countries of the Arabian peninsula, which look more culturally similar? Is it that these countries are not viewed so desirable for living or is it that they have more strict immigration policies?

    Replies: @Yevardian, @Yahya

    I lived in Chile for some time and people of Christian Arab descent, generally Palestinians and Syrians, were definitely one of the most economically successful communities. They also tend to look more Caucasian than the general population there.

    Yes, many Iraqi Christians (and Jews) actually appear paler than average southern Europeans. The difference in appearance from the general surrounding Arab population can be so starkly obvious, it does force you to seriously doubt claims of pre-Islamic cultural/genetic continuity and the like.

    If you don’t mind my asking, why do so many Muslims try to emigrate to Europe or other Western countries instead of the rich countries of the Arabian peninsula, which look more culturally similar? Is it that these countries are not viewed so desirable for living or is it that they have more strict immigration policies?

    Other than the simple answer of the extremely tight immigration/citizenship policies of the Oil-States themselves, there is another major factor that should be personally familiar to you, as someone who’s been to Latin America.
    Arab cultures are extremely status-conscious and hierarchical, whether someone lower in the employment chain is a ‘fellow Arab’ makes very little difference, in practice any penurious Palestinian or Syrian will be treated as abominably and inhumanly as any Pajeet or Bangladeshi, though being natively Arabic does give the former some agency denied to the latter.

    Actually, for many Saudis and the like, behaving towards migrant workers with any sort of humanity, or engaging in fraternisation, can adversely impact their own social standing. So even an otherwise normal man feels compelled to lord over and degrade others below a certain social strata, in order to preserve his own ‘honour’ and avoid any potential ‘shame’ that could tar him by association.
    For instance, even outside of the Gulf, there remains a strong stigma against any sort of manual labour, even skilled, as personal engagment in such things is seen as ‘dishonourable’. Again, you can see similar attitudes in tradional Spain, albeit to a much lesser degree.

    Incidentally, before Europe opened up to ‘guest-workers’ and non-European migration in general, Saudi Arabia in particular hosted vast numbers of temporary Egyptian workers. When Nasser got involved in his Yemen adventure, they were either expelled or treated even worse than they already were. Word gets around about this sort of thing quickly, Arabs from poor countries prefer not to work in rich Arab countries if they can at all help it. This is course means that nowadays, only the poorest and most disadvantaged Arabs choose to work in places like the UAE or Saudi.
    Obtaining citizenship on the Peninsula is also almost impossible for the non-rich, Kuwait being a (very) partial exception, although iirc they did slightly relax conditions for their enormous Palestinian migrant population, due to pressure from Saddam Hussein.

    Anyway, I could go on, but I think you get the picture.

    • Replies: @Yahya
    @Yevardian


    Yes, many Iraqi Christians (and Jews) actually appear paler than average southern Europeans. The difference in appearance from the general surrounding Arab population can be so starkly obvious, it does force you to seriously doubt claims of pre-Islamic cultural/genetic continuity and the like.

     

    Personal observations of phenotypes, and the availability biases inherent in them, are no substitute for genetic studies.

    Razib Khan:


    This seems to establish basic continuity between the Bronze Age and the modern period. Totally unsurprising. Remember that Italy exhibits deep population structure that dates back to at least 2,000 years ago, and probably earlier. It is likely that much of the same applies to the Near East. Though looking at Muslim populations one can see minor and non-trivial contributions of populations which moved in after Islam (Sub-Saharan and East Asia segments are clear signs of slavery impacting Muslims that would not apply to ethno-religious minorities), most of the ancestry broadly is deeply rooted back to antiquity.
    https://www.gnxp.com/WordPress/2017/05/26/the-canaanites-walk-among-us/
     

    Even though the majority of the population of the core Middle Eastern nation is descended from the peoples of antiquity, they now consider themselves by and large Arab. The Arabs were also present in antiquity, and are mentioned early on as a group on the margins of the ancient world (and sometimes at the center). But it seems implausible that the antique Arabs had the demographic heft to overrun so many peoples across the Fertile Crescent, let alone Egypt.
    https://www.gnxp.com/WordPress/2011/01/17/the-assyrians-and-jews-3000-years-of-common-history/

     


    but the overall point is that “indo-european” is as much of a race as “arab” is, it isn’t. arabs aren’t united by a racial affinity, as the arab language spread mostly via cultural diffusion, not the migrations of tribes out of the arabian peninsula. the latter did occur, but they do not explain the preponderance of the arab language in egypt, the maghreb or the levant. there is little genetic difference between christian egyptians and muslims that can not be explained by geography (copts are concentrated to a greater extent in upper egypt). same with the christians and muslims in the levant (though there might be some more exogenous ancestry in the muslims [desert arab, caucasian, turk and black], it is not dominant in any way).

    https://www.unz.com/gnxp/norwegian-y-chromosomal-profile/#comment-634873
     

    As Razib mentioned, there is little difference between Muslim and Christians that can't be explained by geography (Christians are concentrated in specific areas). Moreover, though Muslim Arabs in the Fertile Crescent (Egypt to Iraq) did receive 10-20% exogenous ancestry (Arabian, Caucasian, Turkish, SSA) which is not present in ethno-religious minorities; the "foreign" admixture is not dominant in anyway. Muslims in the Fertile Crescent still cluster closer to their Christian counterparts than they do to desert Arabs. More importantly, they are still 80-85%+ descended from their ancient ancestors, which by any reasonable definition constitutes continuity.


    https://i0.wp.com/www.gnxp.com/WordPress/wp-content/uploads/2020/10/mideast1.jpg?w=780&ssl=1

    As for phenotypes; I can easily bring up several examples of Muslim Arabs being lighter than Southern Europeans and their Christian Arab counterparts.

    Palestinian Christian:

    https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=cTeRiAeKJVs&ab_channel=ComunidadPalestinadeChile


    Palestinian Muslim:


    https://64.media.tumblr.com/947e1ca50ca51d038fcd1e006ee4352d/99c88f2fe4741b9c-04/s500x750/79c3d0e1d3667af306882aee51739adbdc9103a8.jpg


    Carmen Suleiman (Coptic Egyptian):


    https://i.pinimg.com/originals/5b/c1/bf/5bc1bff1129e93a9f45da1757979b297.jpg


    Donia Samir Ghanim (Muslim Egyptian):


    https://www.sayidaty.net/sites/default/files/styles/1375_scale/public/2021-09/995_0.jpeg?itok=E5bGc8nU


    Julia Boutros (Lebanese Christian):


    https://i.pinimg.com/originals/4c/21/87/4c2187e18c79451946a6aa674bc28d36.jpg


    Amal Clooney (Lebanese Muslim):


    https://cfj.org/wp-content/uploads/2021/04/Amal-Clooney-scaled-e1618943441850.jpg

  448. @Yahya
    @Dmitry


    Gulf Arab countries might have some of the more stereotypical “religious redneck” population, at least for their income levels.
     
    Gulf Arabs are rednecks on steroids.

    They also operate a more multinational version of a slave labor system, reminding of antebellum Southern USA States, relying on the gastarbaiters from across the world (engineers from Germany, accountants from England, prostitutes from Russia/Ukraine, construction workers from India, cleaners from Phillipines).
     
    This is a perceptive observation. The current model of many Gulf Arab states is certainly very interesting and unique - not many places like it. I would define the Gulf model as “redneck cosmopolitanism”; they are a deeply conservative and traditional places in many ways, but surprisingly cosmopolitan (Saudi Arabia’s foreign population is 38% - more than the UK, US, Germany or France. Kuwait and UAE are somewhere around the 80s - no-one can beat them in cosmopolitanism).

    But these Arab monarchies are also surprising competent in many ways, despite population which should create an idiocracy. For example, compare propaganda skills of Al Jazeera with Russia Today. Latter is only competent for stealing money from budget, whereas Al Jazeera is actually very effective propaganda, that influences Western views. Similarly, look at how aristocratic Arab monarchies manage coronavirus. Or how they manage multi-vector diplomacy.

     

    The competency of Arab monarchies is indeed notable given the competence of the general population is fairly low. Likewise, one can also say Germany, for instance, which obviously has a highly functional population, has surprisingly incompetent leaders. The average intelligence of a population doesn’t necessarily correlate with competence in government.

    Of course the word “competent” is itself multi-faceted and requires an a-priori agreement on what it means. I would define a competent leader as someone who successfully advances the long-term interests of his/her people. “Competence” is not synonymous with “Intelligence” or “IQ”, since highly intelligent leaders like Angela Merkel or Mao Zedong can fail spectacularly in advancing the interests of their people; while less intelligent leaders like Sultan Qaboos or Mohammad bin Rashid can do a good job with the cards they are dealt.

    What is more important than IQ, in my view, is (a) the desire to advance the interests of your people, (b) the ability to select competent ministers to execute on your intentions, and (c) a minimum level of sanity and personal morality to prevent any Cultural Revolution-type or Woke-style immigration madness. A competent leader also need not necessarily be the most moral leader (i.e. Cardinal Richelieu, Deng Xiaoping, Pyotr Stolypin, Muhammad Ali Pasha etc). He need only accurately discern what is needed to ensure the prosperity of his people over the long-run, and pursue these objectives adroitly and successfully.

    Germany, like almost every other Western country, is patently failing at selecting leaders who can advance the long-term interests of their people. This is probably cultural rather than genetic. Germans and other childless Western Europeans don’t seem to much care about their posterity - and this is being reflected in governmental policy.

    Replies: @Dmitry

    Gulf Arabs are rednecks on steroids.

    Lol yes

    You have to feel jealous they apparently can be living, like we dreamed when we were 12 years old.

    Also something being a wealthy Arab redneck – children and women are not allowed near your toys.

    Kuwait and UAE are somewhere around the 80s – no-one can beat them in cosmopolitanism

    It reminds a bit of a more brutal, slavery, version of gastarbaiters in Switzerland, Singapore.

    Although even poorer Arab countries seem can be like this. For example, Kafala system in Lebanon.

    competency of Arab monarchies is indeed notable given the competence of the general population is fairly low

    I wondering monarchies’ strength, is partly related to experience level? Monarchies can have multi-generations of managing their tribal alliances, and over time they should learn some moderation and balance in their external and internal policies.

    But the secular Arab dictators also develop experience across decades, and yet they always historically collapse in civil war.

    It was probably worse in the long run that Syria’s monarchy was removed by France https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Arab_Kingdom_of_Syria
    And Egypt lost its monarchy with military coup d’etat 1952
    https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Egyptian_revolution_of_1952

    Germany, like almost every other Western

    Although in wider perspective, Germany’s government is still more competent than most governments in the world.

    Would you prefer to live with governments of Latin America, Africa, or the postsoviet space?

    Much of the world’s governments are mainly focused on “harvesting” their population, and moving assets to Monaco.

    Of course, Germany has some of this. Their response to demographic problems, by importing gastarbaiters from Turkey and Poland. Their virtue signaling policies for immigration. Their transfers of loans to Southern Europe used as recycled tax money for supporting German private industrialists. Etc.

    Germans and other childless Western European

    Although Western Europe has more children, than Eastern Europe, East Asia, Singapore, etc.

    Of those, Singapore has one of the world’s most competent governments (for example, look at Singapore’s solution for housing problems), while having the world’s lowest fertility rate.

  449. @Dmitry
    @Yahya


    disdain is targeted towards Gulf Arab
     
    Gulf Arab countries might have some of the more stereotypical "religious redneck" population, at least for their income levels.

    Gulf Arabs are the world's greatest addicts of American fast food, and have "food deserts" similar to Southern states in the USA. They have some of the world's highest obesity rate.

    They also operate a more multinational version of a slave labor system, reminding of antebellum Southern USA States, relying on the gastarbaiters from across the world (engineers from Germany, accountants from England, prostitutes from Russia/Ukraine, construction workers from India, cleaners from Phillipines).

    These are countries with a youth on YouTube, driving dune buggies, or destroying their cars by idiotically drifting in circles.

    But these Arab monarchies are also surprising competent in many ways, despite population which should create an idiocracy. For example, compare propaganda skills of Al Jazeera with Russia Today. Latter is only competent for stealing money from budget, whereas Al Jazeera is actually very effective propaganda, that influences Western views.

    Similarly, look at how aristocratic Arab monarchies manage coronavirus. Or how they manage multi-vector diplomacy.

    By comparison, secular Arab dictators, have almost always all destroyed Arab countries. Maybe el-Sisi can be some kind of exception, for now (but it's still early years to assess his position).


    sophisticated as they may be – Gulf Arabs are still wealthier than they are, on average
     
    Sophistication is mostly just a lagging indicator of wealth.

    When there is mismatch of sophistication and wealth, it's where there is a historical crossovers between current and previous wealth levels.

    Due to oil, Gulf countries have world's most recent and rapid ascent from Bedouin tribes, to the international super wealthy. So there is a crossover, where wealth is higher than sophistication. .

    Lebanon was wealthier than Gulf countries until around 1960s, which is within the memory of the "Arab boomers". So there is the crossover where sophistication is higher than wealth.

    Some places like Buenos Aires can even maintain their sophistication for many decades after their wealth has fallen.

    -

    Psychologically, I wonder how must be feeling the "Arab boomers", who can remember life in the1960s?

    Arab boomers, would imagine that Egypt should be centre of Arab power and culture, while Lebanon is the centre of Arab wealth and banking? Gulf Arab countries should be still Bedouin deserts with some potential oil prospect.

    Emotionally, Arab boomers might be still questioning if they need to choose between an alliance with the USA or the Soviet Union, which is perhaps a bit seen in multi-vector policy of Arab countries between USA and Russia.

    Replies: @Yellowface Anon, @Yahya, @Yahya

    Lebanon was wealthier than Gulf countries until around 1960s, which is within the memory of the “Arab boomers”. So there is the crossover where sophistication is higher than wealth.

    Gulf Arab elites are getting noticeably more sophisticated as education has improved considerably over the previous few decades. Sultan Qaboos inaugurated a world-class opera house in Oman a decade ago, for instance. Saudi Arabia is producing some sophisticated musicians like Muhammad Abdu, Abdul Majeed Abdullah and Talal Maddah. Though Gulf Arab elites are still nowhere near elite Egyptians, Syrians, Lebanese, Palestinians, Iraqis, Maghrebis etc. in cultural production; whether it is in movies, music, or literature.

    Arab cinema, for example, was pioneered in Egypt, which today still produces the highest number of films at 2,500 feature films. During the 1950s and 1960s Lebanon produced 180 feature films. Syria produced around 150 films, Tunisia approximately 130, 100 films produced from each of Algeria and Iraq, Morocco almost 70, and Jordan’s productions were less than 12. While Kuwait only produced 2, and Bahrain only 1 (https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Arab_cinema).

    Likewise, most “high” Arabic music was and continues to be composed by Egyptians, Lebanese, Syrians, Palestinians etc. like Muhammad Abdelwahab (Egyptian Muslim), Baligh Hamdi (Egyptian Muslim), Rahbanni Brothers (Lebanese Christians) etc. and of course the Maghreb has a deep repertoire of Classical Andalusian Music.

    Some of the best Arab singers include: Umm Kulthum (Egyptian Muslim), Fairouz (Lebanese Christian), Julia Boutros (Lebanese-Palestinian-Armenian Christian), Sabah Fakhry (Syrian Muslim), Amal Murkus (Palestinian Christian), Faia Younan (Assyrian Christian), Nai Barghouti (Palestinian Muslim), Dalal Abu-Amneh (Palestinian Muslim), Nidal Ibourk (Moroccan Muslim), Amal Maher (Egyptian Muslim), Ghada Becheir (Syriac Christian), Muhammad Abdu (Saudi Muslim), Angham (Egyptian Muslim) Majda Al-Roumi (Lebanese Christian), Asmahan (Syrian Druze), Mai Farouk (Coptic Egyptian) etc.

    (For more on Arabic music, see my post here: https://www.unz.com/akarlin/mental-populations/#comment-4623097)

    As you can see, most of them are from the traditional civilizational centers of the Arab world. In addition, the sciences are also dominated by people from the same regions of the Arab world. Though the Arab world is an inhospitable environment for the sciences; many diaspora Arabs have made contributions to STEM fields, particularly in the US and France.

    [MORE]

    Egypt
    *Ahmed Zewail, Egyptian-American chemist, 1999 Nobel Prize laureate
    *Hassan K. Khalil, Egyptian-American scientist and a University Distinguished Professor at the Department of Electrical & Computer Engineering (ECE) of Michigan State University.
    *Abbas El Gamal, Egyptian electrical engineer, information theorist and the 2012 recipient of Claude E. Shannon Award.
    *Ali Moustafa Mosharafa, Egyptian theoretical physicist and professor of applied mathematics.
    *Mohamed Atalla, Egyptian engineer and physical chemist, inventor of the MOSFET (MOS transistor), and National Inventors Hall of Fame laureate.[33]
    *Mourad Ismail, Egyptian mathematician, known for Rogers–Askey–Ismail polynomials, Al-Salam–Ismail polynomials and Chihara–Ismail polynomials[36]

    Lebanon
    *Elias James Corey, Lebanese-American organic chemist. The recipient of 1990 Nobel Prize in Chemistry.[16]
    *Huda Zoghbi, Lebanese geneticist and medical researcher, the recipient of 2016 Shaw Prize in medicine.[23]
    *M. Amin Arnaout, Lebanese physician-scientist and nephrologist, Professor of Medicine at Harvard Medical School.
    *Ali Chamseddine, Lebanese physicist known for his contributions to particle physics, general relativity and mathematical physics.
    *Amin J. Barakat, Lebanese-American physician, known for the diagnosis of Barakat syndrome.
    *Charles Elachi, Lebanese-American professor of electrical engineering and planetary science at the California Institute of Technology. Former Center Director of NASA.[12]
    *Michael Atiyah, Lebanese-British leading mathematician of the 20 century. Recipient of both Fields Medal and Abel Prize.[38]

    Syria-Palestine
    *Dina Katabi, Syrian-American Professor of Electrical Engineering and Computer Science at MIT.[13]
    *Hunein Maassab, Syrian-American professor of Epidemiology, inventor of Live attenuated influenza vaccine[21]
    *Huda Akil, Syrian neuroscientist and a Professor at the University of Michigan Medical School.[24]
    *Nadia Awni Sakati, Syrian pediatrician known for Sakati–Nyhan–Tisdale syndrome, Sanjad-Sakati syndrome and Woodhouse-Sakati syndrome.[40]
    *Ali H. Nayfeh, Palestinian-Jordanian-American mechanical engineer and the inaugural winner of the Thomas K. Caughey Dynamics Award.
    *Munir Nayfeh, Palestinian-American particle physicist, renowned for his pioneering work in nanotechnology.[31]
    *Omar M. Yaghi, world-known Jordanian-American chemist, the recipient of the 2018 Wolf Prize in Chemistry.[42]

    Iraq & Maghreb
    *Waleed Al-Salam, Iraqi mathematician who introduced Al-Salam–Chihara polynomials, Al-Salam–Carlitz polynomials, q-Konhauser polynomials, and Al-Salam–Ismail polynomials.[54]
    *Abdul Jerri, Iraqi American mathematician.
    *Omar Fakhri, Iraqi medical scientist.
    *Kamal Benslama, Moroccan-Swiss Experimental Particle Physicist. He is known for his contributions to the ATLAS Experiment at CERN. In 2020, he received the award “Person of Extra-Ordinary Ability in Science” from the US Government.
    *Rachid Yazami, Moroccan engineer and scientist, and co-inventor of the lithium-ion battery.[45]
    *Zoghman Mebkhout, French-Algerian mathematician known for his work in algebraic analysis, geometry, and representation theory.[58]

    Gulf States
    *Adah Almutairi, Saudi chemist and inventor, Professor of Pharmaceutical Chemistry at University of California.

    https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_modern_Arab_scientists_and_engineers)

    • Replies: @sher singh
    @Yahya

    https://twitter.com/hemantsarin/status/1332416927503794176

    , @sher singh
    @Yahya

    Your entire rant on Arab music in the other thread was posting a disproportionate amount of Christians playing European Classical music.

    You're gay, if you haven't noticed Europeans worship the homo now but I guess you're far ahead of them in that aspect with Gelmen & the like.

    You admit you're a nerd though, so I'll give you that.

    Please continue posting as you're honest about it, and out of respect for Hera & the words of the prophet ie the meat is poison and the milk is medicine, don't eat beef and you can be human||

    ਵਾਹਿਗੁਰੂਜੀਕਾਖਾਲਸਾਵਾਹਿਗੁਰੂਜੀਕੀਫਤਿਹ

  450. @AP
    @Dmitry

    Most of them don't appear to be "working class." The train has stops in some of the richest towns in America:

    https://www.theguardian.com/world/2013/feb/15/connecticut-gold-coast-life-afford

    Replies: @Dmitry

    In the photos, they look like how imagine the “working class of Wall Street”. They’re drinking beer, watch some baseball. They are way too happy they escape the office at the end of the day, to be the managers.

    I’m myself in the “working class” of the Western tech industry. So you can let me imagine that I have intuition for seeing other “working classes” of the economically overhyped sectors. Every month it feels like I saw another person who has bought a Porsche Taycan. Meanwhile I’m carefully applying for the travel expense refund for my bus ticket.

    https://www.theguardian.com/world/2013/feb/15/connecticut-gold-coast-life-afford

    Well, surely, New York/Wall Street salary is still not that bad, even for the normal workers there. “The average 2018 salary, including bonuses, for New York City’s securities industry employees was \$398,600. That was down from \$422,500 in 2017,” https://www.nbcnews.com/business/business-news/average-wall-street-salary-dropped-399-000-last-year-n1072101

    • Replies: @Emil Nikola Richard
    @Dmitry


    Every month it feels like I saw another person who has bought a Porsche Taycan.
     
    Way over 50% of new upscale cars are leased not purchased and way over 50% of your colleagues with new upscale cars are sucking on debt.

    Look at the lease payments on google and your envy quotient may drop to 0 degrees kelvin or whatever the units for that are.

    Replies: @Dmitry

    , @PedroAstra
    @Dmitry

    Isn't the tech industry on fire this year? From what I've seen, compensation packages are getting to be hilariously inflated with new grads getting 250k offers.

    Replies: @Dmitry

  451. @Yahya
    @Dmitry


    Lebanon was wealthier than Gulf countries until around 1960s, which is within the memory of the “Arab boomers”. So there is the crossover where sophistication is higher than wealth.
     
    Gulf Arab elites are getting noticeably more sophisticated as education has improved considerably over the previous few decades. Sultan Qaboos inaugurated a world-class opera house in Oman a decade ago, for instance. Saudi Arabia is producing some sophisticated musicians like Muhammad Abdu, Abdul Majeed Abdullah and Talal Maddah. Though Gulf Arab elites are still nowhere near elite Egyptians, Syrians, Lebanese, Palestinians, Iraqis, Maghrebis etc. in cultural production; whether it is in movies, music, or literature.

    Arab cinema, for example, was pioneered in Egypt, which today still produces the highest number of films at 2,500 feature films. During the 1950s and 1960s Lebanon produced 180 feature films. Syria produced around 150 films, Tunisia approximately 130, 100 films produced from each of Algeria and Iraq, Morocco almost 70, and Jordan’s productions were less than 12. While Kuwait only produced 2, and Bahrain only 1 (https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Arab_cinema).

    Likewise, most “high” Arabic music was and continues to be composed by Egyptians, Lebanese, Syrians, Palestinians etc. like Muhammad Abdelwahab (Egyptian Muslim), Baligh Hamdi (Egyptian Muslim), Rahbanni Brothers (Lebanese Christians) etc. and of course the Maghreb has a deep repertoire of Classical Andalusian Music.

    Some of the best Arab singers include: Umm Kulthum (Egyptian Muslim), Fairouz (Lebanese Christian), Julia Boutros (Lebanese-Palestinian-Armenian Christian), Sabah Fakhry (Syrian Muslim), Amal Murkus (Palestinian Christian), Faia Younan (Assyrian Christian), Nai Barghouti (Palestinian Muslim), Dalal Abu-Amneh (Palestinian Muslim), Nidal Ibourk (Moroccan Muslim), Amal Maher (Egyptian Muslim), Ghada Becheir (Syriac Christian), Muhammad Abdu (Saudi Muslim), Angham (Egyptian Muslim) Majda Al-Roumi (Lebanese Christian), Asmahan (Syrian Druze), Mai Farouk (Coptic Egyptian) etc.

    (For more on Arabic music, see my post here: https://www.unz.com/akarlin/mental-populations/#comment-4623097)

    As you can see, most of them are from the traditional civilizational centers of the Arab world. In addition, the sciences are also dominated by people from the same regions of the Arab world. Though the Arab world is an inhospitable environment for the sciences; many diaspora Arabs have made contributions to STEM fields, particularly in the US and France.

    Egypt
    *Ahmed Zewail, Egyptian-American chemist, 1999 Nobel Prize laureate
    *Hassan K. Khalil, Egyptian-American scientist and a University Distinguished Professor at the Department of Electrical & Computer Engineering (ECE) of Michigan State University.
    *Abbas El Gamal, Egyptian electrical engineer, information theorist and the 2012 recipient of Claude E. Shannon Award.
    *Ali Moustafa Mosharafa, Egyptian theoretical physicist and professor of applied mathematics.
    *Mohamed Atalla, Egyptian engineer and physical chemist, inventor of the MOSFET (MOS transistor), and National Inventors Hall of Fame laureate.[33]
    *Mourad Ismail, Egyptian mathematician, known for Rogers–Askey–Ismail polynomials, Al-Salam–Ismail polynomials and Chihara–Ismail polynomials[36]

    Lebanon
    *Elias James Corey, Lebanese-American organic chemist. The recipient of 1990 Nobel Prize in Chemistry.[16]
    *Huda Zoghbi, Lebanese geneticist and medical researcher, the recipient of 2016 Shaw Prize in medicine.[23]
    *M. Amin Arnaout, Lebanese physician-scientist and nephrologist, Professor of Medicine at Harvard Medical School.
    *Ali Chamseddine, Lebanese physicist known for his contributions to particle physics, general relativity and mathematical physics.
    *Amin J. Barakat, Lebanese-American physician, known for the diagnosis of Barakat syndrome.
    *Charles Elachi, Lebanese-American professor of electrical engineering and planetary science at the California Institute of Technology. Former Center Director of NASA.[12]
    *Michael Atiyah, Lebanese-British leading mathematician of the 20 century. Recipient of both Fields Medal and Abel Prize.[38]

    Syria-Palestine
    *Dina Katabi, Syrian-American Professor of Electrical Engineering and Computer Science at MIT.[13]
    *Hunein Maassab, Syrian-American professor of Epidemiology, inventor of Live attenuated influenza vaccine[21]
    *Huda Akil, Syrian neuroscientist and a Professor at the University of Michigan Medical School.[24]
    *Nadia Awni Sakati, Syrian pediatrician known for Sakati–Nyhan–Tisdale syndrome, Sanjad-Sakati syndrome and Woodhouse-Sakati syndrome.[40]
    *Ali H. Nayfeh, Palestinian-Jordanian-American mechanical engineer and the inaugural winner of the Thomas K. Caughey Dynamics Award.
    *Munir Nayfeh, Palestinian-American particle physicist, renowned for his pioneering work in nanotechnology.[31]
    *Omar M. Yaghi, world-known Jordanian-American chemist, the recipient of the 2018 Wolf Prize in Chemistry.[42]

    Iraq & Maghreb
    *Waleed Al-Salam, Iraqi mathematician who introduced Al-Salam–Chihara polynomials, Al-Salam–Carlitz polynomials, q-Konhauser polynomials, and Al-Salam–Ismail polynomials.[54]
    *Abdul Jerri, Iraqi American mathematician.
    *Omar Fakhri, Iraqi medical scientist.
    *Kamal Benslama, Moroccan-Swiss Experimental Particle Physicist. He is known for his contributions to the ATLAS Experiment at CERN. In 2020, he received the award "Person of Extra-Ordinary Ability in Science" from the US Government.
    *Rachid Yazami, Moroccan engineer and scientist, and co-inventor of the lithium-ion battery.[45]
    *Zoghman Mebkhout, French-Algerian mathematician known for his work in algebraic analysis, geometry, and representation theory.[58]

    Gulf States
    *Adah Almutairi, Saudi chemist and inventor, Professor of Pharmaceutical Chemistry at University of California.

    https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_modern_Arab_scientists_and_engineers)

    Replies: @sher singh, @sher singh

  452. @Yevardian
    @Yahya


    High-caste Persians, Armenians, Chaldeans, Copts, Lebanese Christians, Ionian Turks etc. are what you might call the “sophisticated people” of the Middle East. They are the descendants of the people who created the glorious civilizations of Antiquity (Ancient Egypt, Persia, Phoenicia, Babylon, Byzantium etc.). They are intelligent (~100 average IQ), good-looking, well-educated, cultured and sophisticated.
     
    Thank you sir.

    While nerds like us may put emphasis on intellect, knowledge and IQ when according status-points to others; most people around the world do not. Wealth, not IQ, is the chief determinant of status. It’s tough to feel contempt for people who are wealthier than you – it’s not given to human psychology.
     
    I think the shift in this thinking was probably completed with the destruction of the old aristocracy, with wealth generally being both mostly inherited or obtained through marriage, aspects like bloodline (which really, is just the Ancients' version of an HBD/genetics-based worldview) and, honour, and personal charm were of foremost importance.

    The situation is not unlike French attitudes towards Americans. While the sophisticated French people may fancy themselves culturally superior to the backward American hillbilly hicks; even the most redneck districts in the American South are still richer than much of France. The French can’t stand the fact that these hillbilly upstarts are wealthier than they are. Same can be said of the sophisticated people of the Middle East vis-a-vis Gulf Arabs.
     
    That seems extremely doubtful to me, in fact it left me practically incredulous. It's not the 1950s anymore.
    There's absolutely no place in France (if we exclude Paris or Lyon Banlieues, which are isolated pockets, not regions) that can remotely compare with vast areas of the US characterised by mass-illiteracy, cultural desert, tent-cities, gang violence or 3rd-world infrastructure, e.g. the Mississippi Delta, Detroit, Saint-Louis, West Virginia, rural Michican, or any Indian Reservation.
    Even the 'bleakest' French departments like Britanny, Normandy or south-central still have very much 1st-world problems, you couldn't mistake yourself having woken up in El Salvador or Kosovo, as in the US.

    @Dmitri


    Arab boomers, would imagine that Egypt should be centre of Arab power and culture, while Lebanon is the centre of Arab wealth and banking? Gulf Arab countries should be still Bedouin deserts with some potential oil prospect.
     
    Egypt very much still is considered the centre of Arab culture, if not power, it hardly could be otherwise given its enormous population. But Lebanon has certainly lost practically any allure it once had, financial or otherwise.

    Emotionally, Arab boomers might be still questioning if they need to choose between an alliance with the USA or the Soviet Union, which is perhaps a bit seen in multi-vector policy of Arab countries between USA and Russia.
     
    I think that's rather a red herring.
    Much more relevant is how the US and Israel left countries like Lebanon, Iraq and Syria as smouldering craters (even if their native regimes were highly disliked by other Arabs), now exporting nothing but waves of refugees and terrorism.
    I really don't think this can be overstated. Taking a random example, Shimon Peres, in an attempt to appear 'tough' to his doubting electorate, gave the go ahead to "Operation Grapes of Wrath", the purpose of which was to create an uncontrollable refugee crisis both the Lebanese state and neighboring Syria, by shelling southern Lebanon to ash.
    Or of course the Lavon Affair, where the Mossad bombed civilian targets and American buildings in Egypt, in a (failed) attempt to blame the attacks on native Arabs, in order to alienate the US from them. And so on. Yes, the Gulf States have become increasingly open about their crypto-alliance with Israel, but ordinary people of those countries nonetheless despise them for that.

    Going back to the USSR/Russia, probably something else that's noticed is they understand loyalty. Russia scarcely ever abandons leaders its pledged to support (arguably to the detriment of their own interests), the Assads are the last secular dynasty to remain from 70s era, and Russia also backed Gadaffi until the end, though Putin had to override Medvedev on that point (probably the key moment in the collapse of the 'tandem').

    Russia has played its card extraordinarily well in the Middle-East over the past decade, Russia somehow managed to successfully present itself as a fair and effective power-broker in the region. Though unfortunately the same can't be said of Putin's moves in Europe, perhaps rather the opposite.

    Replies: @AP, @LondonBob

    There’s absolutely no place in France (if we exclude Paris or Lyon Banlieues, which are isolated pockets, not regions) that can remotely compare with vast areas of the US characterised by mass-illiteracy, cultural desert, tent-cities, gang violence or 3rd-world infrastructure, e.g. the Mississippi Delta, Detroit, Saint-Louis, West Virginia, rural Michican, or any Indian Reservation.

    Maybe, but only three US states are poorer than France: West Virginia, Arkansas, and Mississippi.

    https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_U.S._states_and_territories_by_GDP_per_capita

    Several American states have almost double France’s per capita GDP of \$45,000.

    France has only about 80% of Michigan’s GDP per capita.

    France has inherited wonderful architecture and its people are educated and cultured, but it is a lot poorer than the USA.

    • Replies: @Vishnugupta
    @AP

    French per capita income when adjusted for hours worked is almost equal.

    Also the way nominal GDP is calculated distorted in a way that inflates US figures.

    French on average enjoy better medical care with measurably superior outcomes than Americans.You are allowed a consultation for even a third opinion at state expense. But because it is more efficiently run around 10% of French GDP is spent on healthcare compared to about 20% in the case of the US. This is obviously a good thing.

    But in terms of nominal GDP calculations this state of affairs penalizes France relative the US.

    Same is true for public school education where French teachers are better qualified but paid lesser than their US counterparts.

    US is in terms of material standard of living the best industrialized country to live in if you are in the top 15-20% of the income distribution, for the bottom 80% there are many others that are arguably better.

    Replies: @AP

  453. @Yahya
    @AP


    Interesting observation. Persians, Chaldeans and Lebanese Christians often express haughty disdain for Muslim Arabs in general
     
    Like any topic related to ethnicity/religion in the Middle East - it's complicated. Before I begin, i'd like to mention that most of my observations are impressionistic; as the nature of the topic does not lend itself to rigorous scientific investigation. As such, the accuracy of my observations are constrained by my personal experiences - which by their nature are inherently limited.

    Since I'm Egyptian (of Muslim background, though secular in outlook), my first-hand experiences with Middle East Christians consists of a few childhood friendships/acquaintances with Coptic Christians; and some familiarity with Lebanese/Syrian Christians, since they are in the same cultural-linguistic sphere as Egypt. I grew up with and know intimately two Coptic Egyptians and one Coptic-Maronite (Father is Egyptian, Mother is Lebanese). Most of us got along well with each other, though because we attended an elite-type school, our amicable relations may not be representative of Muslim-Christian relations in Egypt or the Arab world at large.

    I haven't personally seen or experienced any form of disdain from Copts towards Muslims; but I'm aware that some Copts hate Muslims and see them as invaders who took over the country. This is of course incorrect, as Muslim Egyptians are descended from Coptic converts to Islam, rather than Arabs from Arabia (see my post on Egyptian genetics here: https://www.unz.com/akarlin/open-thread-170/#comment-5057453).

    As for Lebanese Christians; well they famously like to dissociate themselves from Arabs, though my impression is that this does not extend to Lebanese Muslims, to whom they have an affinity to. According to Pew, 82% of Lebanese Christians had a favorable view of Lebanese Muslims (and vice-versa):

    Despite widespread sectarian violence during their country’s 1975-1990 civil war, today Lebanese Muslims and Christians generally have positive attitudes toward one another. Fully 86% of Muslims have a favorable opinion of Christians, by far the highest rating of Christians by any Muslim public. At the same time, 82% of Christians have a positive view of Muslims.

    Attitudes toward Jews, however, are quite another matter. Even before the current conflict, negative sentiments about Jews and Israel were widespread in Lebanon, and they were not confined to the Muslim community. Indeed, no one in our Lebanese sample, Muslim, Christian, Druze, or otherwise, said they had a favorable view of Jews. Of course, negative attitudes towards Jews are not uncommon in the region — in neighboring Jordan, zero respondents had a favorable view of Jews, and Morocco and Pakistan also posted favorable ratings for Jews in the single digits.

     

    https://www.pewresearch.org/2006/07/26/lebanons-muslims-relatively-secular-and-prochristian/

    – does this extend towards the rich Gulf Arabs?
     
    High-caste Persians, Armenians, Chaldeans, Copts, Lebanese Christians, Ionian Turks etc. are what you might call the "sophisticated people" of the Middle East. They are the descendants of the people who created the glorious civilizations of Antiquity (Ancient Egypt, Persia, Phoenicia, Babylon, Byzantium etc.). They are intelligent (~100 average IQ), good-looking, well-educated, cultured and sophisticated. They are certainly far more intelligent and better looking than Gulf Arabs; who are known to be the hicks of the Arab world - even among Muslim Arabs. But, as sophisticated as they may be - Gulf Arabs are still wealthier than they are, on average, and therein lies the complication.

    While nerds like us may put emphasis on intellect, knowledge and IQ when according status-points to others; most people around the world do not. Wealth, not IQ, is the chief determinant of status. It's tough to feel contempt for people who are wealthier than you - it's not given to human psychology. As such, when a sophisticated person feels disdain towards a person wealthier than he is, it takes on the form of envy, not contempt. Contempt being the feeling of disdain you have for people of lower status; envy the feeling of disdain towards people of higher status.

    While Persians, Armenians, Chaldeans, Copts, Lebanese Christians, Ionian Turks (i.e. the sophisticated people) can feel contempt for poor Muslim Arabs in places like Iraq, Egypt or Syria; it's well-nigh impossible for them to do so with Gulf Arabs. If any disdain is targeted towards Gulf Arabs, it takes on the form of envy. The situation is not unlike French attitudes towards Americans. While the sophisticated French people may fancy themselves culturally superior to the backward American hillbilly hicks; even the most redneck districts in the American South are still richer than much of France. The French can't stand the fact that these hillbilly upstarts are wealthier than they are. Same can be said of the sophisticated people of the Middle East vis-a-vis Gulf Arabs.

    Replies: @Thulean Friend, @Dmitry, @Mikel, @Yevardian, @silviosilver

    It’s tough to feel contempt for people who are wealthier than you – it’s not given to human psychology.

    It may not come easily, especially for the masses and especially in a media age where the trappings of wealth are flaunted every which way you look, but it’s far from true to say it cannot come at all.

    Looking inward, I can definitely state that I am contemptuous of any number of people far wealthier than me. Yes they are wealthy and yes they’ve achieved that wealth via honorable means, but who are they are as people, what are their values, how do they generally conduct themselves? When I answer these questions, I can’t help feeling contempt towards them. So I find the idea that a cultured but penniless Frenchman could be contemptuous of a rich hillbilly perfectly plausible.

    And anyway, I can’t see any reason that contempt is incompatible with envy. So even if I “really” am envious (despite what I might think), it seems to me I can be simultaneously contemptuous.

    • Replies: @sher singh
    @silviosilver

    Ambani can't carry a Sword, a Singh can.
    What's there to envy? :shrug:

  454. @AP
    @Yevardian


    There’s absolutely no place in France (if we exclude Paris or Lyon Banlieues, which are isolated pockets, not regions) that can remotely compare with vast areas of the US characterised by mass-illiteracy, cultural desert, tent-cities, gang violence or 3rd-world infrastructure, e.g. the Mississippi Delta, Detroit, Saint-Louis, West Virginia, rural Michican, or any Indian Reservation.
     
    Maybe, but only three US states are poorer than France: West Virginia, Arkansas, and Mississippi.

    https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_U.S._states_and_territories_by_GDP_per_capita

    Several American states have almost double France's per capita GDP of $45,000.

    France has only about 80% of Michigan's GDP per capita.

    France has inherited wonderful architecture and its people are educated and cultured, but it is a lot poorer than the USA.

    Replies: @Vishnugupta

    French per capita income when adjusted for hours worked is almost equal.

    Also the way nominal GDP is calculated distorted in a way that inflates US figures.

    French on average enjoy better medical care with measurably superior outcomes than Americans.You are allowed a consultation for even a third opinion at state expense. But because it is more efficiently run around 10% of French GDP is spent on healthcare compared to about 20% in the case of the US. This is obviously a good thing.

    But in terms of nominal GDP calculations this state of affairs penalizes France relative the US.

    Same is true for public school education where French teachers are better qualified but paid lesser than their US counterparts.

    US is in terms of material standard of living the best industrialized country to live in if you are in the top 15-20% of the income distribution, for the bottom 80% there are many others that are arguably better.

    • Agree: sher singh
    • Replies: @AP
    @Vishnugupta


    French on average enjoy better medical care with measurably superior outcomes than Americans
     
    1. Outcome measures don’t match exactly because in France (as in most of Europe) stricter cost-benefit limits mean that expensive medical procedures are done less often on people with a lower chance of success than in the USA.

    2. Due to poor lifestyle choices Americans are much more obese and unhealthy than the French.

    :::::::::::::

    I don’t have time to look it up now but I suspect measures such as number and cost of automobiles per household, size and quality of housing, various other consumer indicators would reflect that Americans on average are a lot wealthier materially than are the French.

    Generally speaking, materially the top 20% live much better in the USA, the bottom 10% live better in France, the middle have trade offs with things being better the lower you go. USA is still better materially for someone in the 50th percentile.
  455. @Dmitry
    @Mikhail


    Middle East typically look more Syrian
     
    Yes you can see in Israel, the population is a mix of many races, although to be fair to Israel unlike in some claims the majority of people are (Jews and Muslims) immigrants directly from nearby regions of the Middle East, and this is evident in the appearance of the population.

    For genetics of European Jews, there would be surely pre-existing desire to discover their origin as native to the Middle East, as this would both match the secular political state-building, as well as religious narratives.

    So it's understandable that conspiracy theorists can be questioning about genetic studies of European Jews, when the topic has a politically desired answer. But who knows? I'd like to believe scientists will try to be objective.

    -


    In terms of the Russian DNA, it's possible these commercial tests are discovering non-slavic ancestry, because the population of Russia which preceded the slavic tribes' invasion/colonization in Russia.

    This is just my superficial, amateur speculation.

    But slavic tribes immigrated to Russia in the 8th-9th century. But when the slavic population flooded into the territory as described in the chronicles, there were many native tribes in Russia who are perhaps only displaced culturally, rather than genetically.

    These nationalities which existed before the slavic tribes flood into Russia, like the Ves, Chud Zavolochskaya. These became mostly extinct in the cultural sense, but surely not in the genetic one. Perhaps this is one reason for the confusion of commercial genetic tests are saying many Russian people are not having slavic ancestry.

    When you look at pre-slavic populations of Russia like Vepsy today, it's not like we could visually distinguish them from the slavic (or slavicized) population.

    https://lenobl.ru/media/cache/21/6e/216eca8e43a15021eb33960751fa4471.png

    http://администрация-алеховщина.рф/wp-content/uploads/2019/02/24aaf3447d4fdbcc8ae16c6370d8510f.jpg

    Replies: @Mr. Hack, @melanf, @melanf

    When you look at pre-slavic populations of Russia like Vepsy today, it’s not like we could visually distinguish them from the slavic (or slavicized) population.

    At the level of individual people, it is impossible to know nationality by face. Bashir Assad’s family will easily fit into any European nation up to the southern shore of the Baltic Sea, although the Asads are definitely not Europeans

    But slavic tribes immigrated to Russia in the 8th-9th century.

    Where native speakers of the Slavic language lived before the 6th century is a riddle of riddles (perhaps somewhere in the territory of European Russia). But in any case, they appeared on the territory of Russia earlier than the 8th century

  456. @Dmitry
    @Mikhail


    Middle East typically look more Syrian
     
    Yes you can see in Israel, the population is a mix of many races, although to be fair to Israel unlike in some claims the majority of people are (Jews and Muslims) immigrants directly from nearby regions of the Middle East, and this is evident in the appearance of the population.

    For genetics of European Jews, there would be surely pre-existing desire to discover their origin as native to the Middle East, as this would both match the secular political state-building, as well as religious narratives.

    So it's understandable that conspiracy theorists can be questioning about genetic studies of European Jews, when the topic has a politically desired answer. But who knows? I'd like to believe scientists will try to be objective.

    -


    In terms of the Russian DNA, it's possible these commercial tests are discovering non-slavic ancestry, because the population of Russia which preceded the slavic tribes' invasion/colonization in Russia.

    This is just my superficial, amateur speculation.

    But slavic tribes immigrated to Russia in the 8th-9th century. But when the slavic population flooded into the territory as described in the chronicles, there were many native tribes in Russia who are perhaps only displaced culturally, rather than genetically.

    These nationalities which existed before the slavic tribes flood into Russia, like the Ves, Chud Zavolochskaya. These became mostly extinct in the cultural sense, but surely not in the genetic one. Perhaps this is one reason for the confusion of commercial genetic tests are saying many Russian people are not having slavic ancestry.

    When you look at pre-slavic populations of Russia like Vepsy today, it's not like we could visually distinguish them from the slavic (or slavicized) population.

    https://lenobl.ru/media/cache/21/6e/216eca8e43a15021eb33960751fa4471.png

    http://администрация-алеховщина.рф/wp-content/uploads/2019/02/24aaf3447d4fdbcc8ae16c6370d8510f.jpg

    Replies: @Mr. Hack, @melanf, @melanf

    If you remove the national costume – an ordinary Northern European face

  457. Power packed, If not already up, the audio will be available shortly:

    https://twitter.com/frankmorano/status/1480772268754194432/photo/1

  458. @silviosilver
    @Yahya


    It’s tough to feel contempt for people who are wealthier than you – it’s not given to human psychology.
     
    It may not come easily, especially for the masses and especially in a media age where the trappings of wealth are flaunted every which way you look, but it's far from true to say it cannot come at all.

    Looking inward, I can definitely state that I am contemptuous of any number of people far wealthier than me. Yes they are wealthy and yes they've achieved that wealth via honorable means, but who are they are as people, what are their values, how do they generally conduct themselves? When I answer these questions, I can't help feeling contempt towards them. So I find the idea that a cultured but penniless Frenchman could be contemptuous of a rich hillbilly perfectly plausible.

    And anyway, I can't see any reason that contempt is incompatible with envy. So even if I "really" am envious (despite what I might think), it seems to me I can be simultaneously contemptuous.

    Replies: @sher singh

    Ambani can’t carry a Sword, a Singh can.
    What’s there to envy? :shrug:

  459. sher singh says:
    @Yahya
    @Dmitry


    Lebanon was wealthier than Gulf countries until around 1960s, which is within the memory of the “Arab boomers”. So there is the crossover where sophistication is higher than wealth.
     
    Gulf Arab elites are getting noticeably more sophisticated as education has improved considerably over the previous few decades. Sultan Qaboos inaugurated a world-class opera house in Oman a decade ago, for instance. Saudi Arabia is producing some sophisticated musicians like Muhammad Abdu, Abdul Majeed Abdullah and Talal Maddah. Though Gulf Arab elites are still nowhere near elite Egyptians, Syrians, Lebanese, Palestinians, Iraqis, Maghrebis etc. in cultural production; whether it is in movies, music, or literature.

    Arab cinema, for example, was pioneered in Egypt, which today still produces the highest number of films at 2,500 feature films. During the 1950s and 1960s Lebanon produced 180 feature films. Syria produced around 150 films, Tunisia approximately 130, 100 films produced from each of Algeria and Iraq, Morocco almost 70, and Jordan’s productions were less than 12. While Kuwait only produced 2, and Bahrain only 1 (https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Arab_cinema).

    Likewise, most “high” Arabic music was and continues to be composed by Egyptians, Lebanese, Syrians, Palestinians etc. like Muhammad Abdelwahab (Egyptian Muslim), Baligh Hamdi (Egyptian Muslim), Rahbanni Brothers (Lebanese Christians) etc. and of course the Maghreb has a deep repertoire of Classical Andalusian Music.

    Some of the best Arab singers include: Umm Kulthum (Egyptian Muslim), Fairouz (Lebanese Christian), Julia Boutros (Lebanese-Palestinian-Armenian Christian), Sabah Fakhry (Syrian Muslim), Amal Murkus (Palestinian Christian), Faia Younan (Assyrian Christian), Nai Barghouti (Palestinian Muslim), Dalal Abu-Amneh (Palestinian Muslim), Nidal Ibourk (Moroccan Muslim), Amal Maher (Egyptian Muslim), Ghada Becheir (Syriac Christian), Muhammad Abdu (Saudi Muslim), Angham (Egyptian Muslim) Majda Al-Roumi (Lebanese Christian), Asmahan (Syrian Druze), Mai Farouk (Coptic Egyptian) etc.

    (For more on Arabic music, see my post here: https://www.unz.com/akarlin/mental-populations/#comment-4623097)

    As you can see, most of them are from the traditional civilizational centers of the Arab world. In addition, the sciences are also dominated by people from the same regions of the Arab world. Though the Arab world is an inhospitable environment for the sciences; many diaspora Arabs have made contributions to STEM fields, particularly in the US and France.

    Egypt
    *Ahmed Zewail, Egyptian-American chemist, 1999 Nobel Prize laureate
    *Hassan K. Khalil, Egyptian-American scientist and a University Distinguished Professor at the Department of Electrical & Computer Engineering (ECE) of Michigan State University.
    *Abbas El Gamal, Egyptian electrical engineer, information theorist and the 2012 recipient of Claude E. Shannon Award.
    *Ali Moustafa Mosharafa, Egyptian theoretical physicist and professor of applied mathematics.
    *Mohamed Atalla, Egyptian engineer and physical chemist, inventor of the MOSFET (MOS transistor), and National Inventors Hall of Fame laureate.[33]
    *Mourad Ismail, Egyptian mathematician, known for Rogers–Askey–Ismail polynomials, Al-Salam–Ismail polynomials and Chihara–Ismail polynomials[36]

    Lebanon
    *Elias James Corey, Lebanese-American organic chemist. The recipient of 1990 Nobel Prize in Chemistry.[16]
    *Huda Zoghbi, Lebanese geneticist and medical researcher, the recipient of 2016 Shaw Prize in medicine.[23]
    *M. Amin Arnaout, Lebanese physician-scientist and nephrologist, Professor of Medicine at Harvard Medical School.
    *Ali Chamseddine, Lebanese physicist known for his contributions to particle physics, general relativity and mathematical physics.
    *Amin J. Barakat, Lebanese-American physician, known for the diagnosis of Barakat syndrome.
    *Charles Elachi, Lebanese-American professor of electrical engineering and planetary science at the California Institute of Technology. Former Center Director of NASA.[12]
    *Michael Atiyah, Lebanese-British leading mathematician of the 20 century. Recipient of both Fields Medal and Abel Prize.[38]

    Syria-Palestine
    *Dina Katabi, Syrian-American Professor of Electrical Engineering and Computer Science at MIT.[13]
    *Hunein Maassab, Syrian-American professor of Epidemiology, inventor of Live attenuated influenza vaccine[21]
    *Huda Akil, Syrian neuroscientist and a Professor at the University of Michigan Medical School.[24]
    *Nadia Awni Sakati, Syrian pediatrician known for Sakati–Nyhan–Tisdale syndrome, Sanjad-Sakati syndrome and Woodhouse-Sakati syndrome.[40]
    *Ali H. Nayfeh, Palestinian-Jordanian-American mechanical engineer and the inaugural winner of the Thomas K. Caughey Dynamics Award.
    *Munir Nayfeh, Palestinian-American particle physicist, renowned for his pioneering work in nanotechnology.[31]
    *Omar M. Yaghi, world-known Jordanian-American chemist, the recipient of the 2018 Wolf Prize in Chemistry.[42]

    Iraq & Maghreb
    *Waleed Al-Salam, Iraqi mathematician who introduced Al-Salam–Chihara polynomials, Al-Salam–Carlitz polynomials, q-Konhauser polynomials, and Al-Salam–Ismail polynomials.[54]
    *Abdul Jerri, Iraqi American mathematician.
    *Omar Fakhri, Iraqi medical scientist.
    *Kamal Benslama, Moroccan-Swiss Experimental Particle Physicist. He is known for his contributions to the ATLAS Experiment at CERN. In 2020, he received the award "Person of Extra-Ordinary Ability in Science" from the US Government.
    *Rachid Yazami, Moroccan engineer and scientist, and co-inventor of the lithium-ion battery.[45]
    *Zoghman Mebkhout, French-Algerian mathematician known for his work in algebraic analysis, geometry, and representation theory.[58]

    Gulf States
    *Adah Almutairi, Saudi chemist and inventor, Professor of Pharmaceutical Chemistry at University of California.

    https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_modern_Arab_scientists_and_engineers)

    Replies: @sher singh, @sher singh

    Your entire rant on Arab music in the other thread was posting a disproportionate amount of Christians playing European Classical music.

    You’re gay, if you haven’t noticed Europeans worship the homo now but I guess you’re far ahead of them in that aspect with Gelmen & the like.

    You admit you’re a nerd though, so I’ll give you that.

    Please continue posting as you’re honest about it, and out of respect for Hera & the words of the prophet ie the meat is poison and the milk is medicine, don’t eat beef and you can be human||

    ਵਾਹਿਗੁਰੂਜੀਕਾਖਾਲਸਾਵਾਹਿਗੁਰੂਜੀਕੀਫਤਿਹ

  460. @Yevardian
    @Yahya


    High-caste Persians, Armenians, Chaldeans, Copts, Lebanese Christians, Ionian Turks etc. are what you might call the “sophisticated people” of the Middle East. They are the descendants of the people who created the glorious civilizations of Antiquity (Ancient Egypt, Persia, Phoenicia, Babylon, Byzantium etc.). They are intelligent (~100 average IQ), good-looking, well-educated, cultured and sophisticated.
     
    Thank you sir.

    While nerds like us may put emphasis on intellect, knowledge and IQ when according status-points to others; most people around the world do not. Wealth, not IQ, is the chief determinant of status. It’s tough to feel contempt for people who are wealthier than you – it’s not given to human psychology.
     
    I think the shift in this thinking was probably completed with the destruction of the old aristocracy, with wealth generally being both mostly inherited or obtained through marriage, aspects like bloodline (which really, is just the Ancients' version of an HBD/genetics-based worldview) and, honour, and personal charm were of foremost importance.

    The situation is not unlike French attitudes towards Americans. While the sophisticated French people may fancy themselves culturally superior to the backward American hillbilly hicks; even the most redneck districts in the American South are still richer than much of France. The French can’t stand the fact that these hillbilly upstarts are wealthier than they are. Same can be said of the sophisticated people of the Middle East vis-a-vis Gulf Arabs.
     
    That seems extremely doubtful to me, in fact it left me practically incredulous. It's not the 1950s anymore.
    There's absolutely no place in France (if we exclude Paris or Lyon Banlieues, which are isolated pockets, not regions) that can remotely compare with vast areas of the US characterised by mass-illiteracy, cultural desert, tent-cities, gang violence or 3rd-world infrastructure, e.g. the Mississippi Delta, Detroit, Saint-Louis, West Virginia, rural Michican, or any Indian Reservation.
    Even the 'bleakest' French departments like Britanny, Normandy or south-central still have very much 1st-world problems, you couldn't mistake yourself having woken up in El Salvador or Kosovo, as in the US.

    @Dmitri


    Arab boomers, would imagine that Egypt should be centre of Arab power and culture, while Lebanon is the centre of Arab wealth and banking? Gulf Arab countries should be still Bedouin deserts with some potential oil prospect.
     
    Egypt very much still is considered the centre of Arab culture, if not power, it hardly could be otherwise given its enormous population. But Lebanon has certainly lost practically any allure it once had, financial or otherwise.

    Emotionally, Arab boomers might be still questioning if they need to choose between an alliance with the USA or the Soviet Union, which is perhaps a bit seen in multi-vector policy of Arab countries between USA and Russia.
     
    I think that's rather a red herring.
    Much more relevant is how the US and Israel left countries like Lebanon, Iraq and Syria as smouldering craters (even if their native regimes were highly disliked by other Arabs), now exporting nothing but waves of refugees and terrorism.
    I really don't think this can be overstated. Taking a random example, Shimon Peres, in an attempt to appear 'tough' to his doubting electorate, gave the go ahead to "Operation Grapes of Wrath", the purpose of which was to create an uncontrollable refugee crisis both the Lebanese state and neighboring Syria, by shelling southern Lebanon to ash.
    Or of course the Lavon Affair, where the Mossad bombed civilian targets and American buildings in Egypt, in a (failed) attempt to blame the attacks on native Arabs, in order to alienate the US from them. And so on. Yes, the Gulf States have become increasingly open about their crypto-alliance with Israel, but ordinary people of those countries nonetheless despise them for that.

    Going back to the USSR/Russia, probably something else that's noticed is they understand loyalty. Russia scarcely ever abandons leaders its pledged to support (arguably to the detriment of their own interests), the Assads are the last secular dynasty to remain from 70s era, and Russia also backed Gadaffi until the end, though Putin had to override Medvedev on that point (probably the key moment in the collapse of the 'tandem').

    Russia has played its card extraordinarily well in the Middle-East over the past decade, Russia somehow managed to successfully present itself as a fair and effective power-broker in the region. Though unfortunately the same can't be said of Putin's moves in Europe, perhaps rather the opposite.

    Replies: @AP, @LondonBob

    The EU wanted the Ukraine and Belarus, Russia cannot be a fair and effective power broker, and their mistake in the Ukraine (and Libya)(and perhaps Syria) was trying to be so, the Kremlin does seem to have learnt that lesson now with Belarus and Kazakhstan, as well as with natural gas.

    • Replies: @A123
    @LondonBob


    The EU wanted the Ukraine and Belarus
     
    The EU also "said" it wanted Turkey. Does anyone believe that they actually do?

    Realistically, EU expansion is over. The system is stagnant and beset by internal conflicts. Adding more members with veto powers is extraordinarily improbable.

    the Kremlin does seem to have learnt that lesson now with Belarus and Kazakhstan, as well as with natural gas.
     
    Belarus and Kazakhstan are in the Russian sphere of influence. Prioritizing them is not huge "lesson".

    Attempting to blackmail Europe by being an unreliable gas supplier has backfired badly. The chances of NS2 starting are decreasing by the month. The race to establish reliable suppliers and supporting pipelines is on. EastMed will provide large amounts of gas from Cypriot and Israeli fields. Possibly Egyptian fields as well, depending on exploration & development.

    The big lesson that Russian needs to absorb is that dealing with Iran inevitably backfires. There is no way to get Turkey (and its proxies) out of Syria as long as Iran (and its proxies, such as Hezbollah) remain.

    PEACE 😇
  461. @Vishnugupta
    @AP

    French per capita income when adjusted for hours worked is almost equal.

    Also the way nominal GDP is calculated distorted in a way that inflates US figures.

    French on average enjoy better medical care with measurably superior outcomes than Americans.You are allowed a consultation for even a third opinion at state expense. But because it is more efficiently run around 10% of French GDP is spent on healthcare compared to about 20% in the case of the US. This is obviously a good thing.

    But in terms of nominal GDP calculations this state of affairs penalizes France relative the US.

    Same is true for public school education where French teachers are better qualified but paid lesser than their US counterparts.

    US is in terms of material standard of living the best industrialized country to live in if you are in the top 15-20% of the income distribution, for the bottom 80% there are many others that are arguably better.

    Replies: @AP

    French on average enjoy better medical care with measurably superior outcomes than Americans

    1. Outcome measures don’t match exactly because in France (as in most of Europe) stricter cost-benefit limits mean that expensive medical procedures are done less often on people with a lower chance of success than in the USA.

    2. Due to poor lifestyle choices Americans are much more obese and unhealthy than the French.

    :::::::::::::

    I don’t have time to look it up now but I suspect measures such as number and cost of automobiles per household, size and quality of housing, various other consumer indicators would reflect that Americans on average are a lot wealthier materially than are the French.

    Generally speaking, materially the top 20% live much better in the USA, the bottom 10% live better in France, the middle have trade offs with things being better the lower you go. USA is still better materially for someone in the 50th percentile.

  462. @Yevardian
    @Mikel


    I lived in Chile for some time and people of Christian Arab descent, generally Palestinians and Syrians, were definitely one of the most economically successful communities. They also tend to look more Caucasian than the general population there.
     
    Yes, many Iraqi Christians (and Jews) actually appear paler than average southern Europeans. The difference in appearance from the general surrounding Arab population can be so starkly obvious, it does force you to seriously doubt claims of pre-Islamic cultural/genetic continuity and the like.

    If you don’t mind my asking, why do so many Muslims try to emigrate to Europe or other Western countries instead of the rich countries of the Arabian peninsula, which look more culturally similar? Is it that these countries are not viewed so desirable for living or is it that they have more strict immigration policies?
     
    Other than the simple answer of the extremely tight immigration/citizenship policies of the Oil-States themselves, there is another major factor that should be personally familiar to you, as someone who's been to Latin America.
    Arab cultures are extremely status-conscious and hierarchical, whether someone lower in the employment chain is a 'fellow Arab' makes very little difference, in practice any penurious Palestinian or Syrian will be treated as abominably and inhumanly as any Pajeet or Bangladeshi, though being natively Arabic does give the former some agency denied to the latter.

    Actually, for many Saudis and the like, behaving towards migrant workers with any sort of humanity, or engaging in fraternisation, can adversely impact their own social standing. So even an otherwise normal man feels compelled to lord over and degrade others below a certain social strata, in order to preserve his own 'honour' and avoid any potential 'shame' that could tar him by association.
    For instance, even outside of the Gulf, there remains a strong stigma against any sort of manual labour, even skilled, as personal engagment in such things is seen as 'dishonourable'. Again, you can see similar attitudes in tradional Spain, albeit to a much lesser degree.

    Incidentally, before Europe opened up to 'guest-workers' and non-European migration in general, Saudi Arabia in particular hosted vast numbers of temporary Egyptian workers. When Nasser got involved in his Yemen adventure, they were either expelled or treated even worse than they already were. Word gets around about this sort of thing quickly, Arabs from poor countries prefer not to work in rich Arab countries if they can at all help it. This is course means that nowadays, only the poorest and most disadvantaged Arabs choose to work in places like the UAE or Saudi.
    Obtaining citizenship on the Peninsula is also almost impossible for the non-rich, Kuwait being a (very) partial exception, although iirc they did slightly relax conditions for their enormous Palestinian migrant population, due to pressure from Saddam Hussein.

    Anyway, I could go on, but I think you get the picture.

    Replies: @Yahya

    Yes, many Iraqi Christians (and Jews) actually appear paler than average southern Europeans. The difference in appearance from the general surrounding Arab population can be so starkly obvious, it does force you to seriously doubt claims of pre-Islamic cultural/genetic continuity and the like.

    Personal observations of phenotypes, and the availability biases inherent in them, are no substitute for genetic studies.

    Razib Khan:

    This seems to establish basic continuity between the Bronze Age and the modern period. Totally unsurprising. Remember that Italy exhibits deep population structure that dates back to at least 2,000 years ago, and probably earlier. It is likely that much of the same applies to the Near East. Though looking at Muslim populations one can see minor and non-trivial contributions of populations which moved in after Islam (Sub-Saharan and East Asia segments are clear signs of slavery impacting Muslims that would not apply to ethno-religious minorities), most of the ancestry broadly is deeply rooted back to antiquity.
    https://www.gnxp.com/WordPress/2017/05/26/the-canaanites-walk-among-us/

    Even though the majority of the population of the core Middle Eastern nation is descended from the peoples of antiquity, they now consider themselves by and large Arab. The Arabs were also present in antiquity, and are mentioned early on as a group on the margins of the ancient world (and sometimes at the center). But it seems implausible that the antique Arabs had the demographic heft to overrun so many peoples across the Fertile Crescent, let alone Egypt.
    https://www.gnxp.com/WordPress/2011/01/17/the-assyrians-and-jews-3000-years-of-common-history/

    but the overall point is that “indo-european” is as much of a race as “arab” is, it isn’t. arabs aren’t united by a racial affinity, as the arab language spread mostly via cultural diffusion, not the migrations of tribes out of the arabian peninsula. the latter did occur, but they do not explain the preponderance of the arab language in egypt, the maghreb or the levant. there is little genetic difference between christian egyptians and muslims that can not be explained by geography (copts are concentrated to a greater extent in upper egypt). same with the christians and muslims in the levant (though there might be some more exogenous ancestry in the muslims [desert arab, caucasian, turk and black], it is not dominant in any way).

    https://www.unz.com/gnxp/norwegian-y-chromosomal-profile/#comment-634873

    As Razib mentioned, there is little difference between Muslim and Christians that can’t be explained by geography (Christians are concentrated in specific areas). Moreover, though Muslim Arabs in the Fertile Crescent (Egypt to Iraq) did receive 10-20% exogenous ancestry (Arabian, Caucasian, Turkish, SSA) which is not present in ethno-religious minorities; the “foreign” admixture is not dominant in anyway. Muslims in the Fertile Crescent still cluster closer to their Christian counterparts than they do to desert Arabs. More importantly, they are still 80-85%+ descended from their ancient ancestors, which by any reasonable definition constitutes continuity.


    [MORE]

    As for phenotypes; I can easily bring up several examples of Muslim Arabs being lighter than Southern Europeans and their Christian Arab counterparts.

    Palestinian Christian:

    Palestinian Muslim:

    Carmen Suleiman (Coptic Egyptian):

    Donia Samir Ghanim (Muslim Egyptian):

    Julia Boutros (Lebanese Christian):

    Amal Clooney (Lebanese Muslim):

  463. @Dmitry
    @AP

    In the photos, they look like how imagine the "working class of Wall Street". They're drinking beer, watch some baseball. They are way too happy they escape the office at the end of the day, to be the managers.

    I'm myself in the "working class" of the Western tech industry. So you can let me imagine that I have intuition for seeing other "working classes" of the economically overhyped sectors. Every month it feels like I saw another person who has bought a Porsche Taycan. Meanwhile I'm carefully applying for the travel expense refund for my bus ticket.


    https://www.theguardian.com/world/2013/feb/15/connecticut-gold-coast-life-afford
     
    Well, surely, New York/Wall Street salary is still not that bad, even for the normal workers there. "The average 2018 salary, including bonuses, for New York City's securities industry employees was $398,600. That was down from $422,500 in 2017," https://www.nbcnews.com/business/business-news/average-wall-street-salary-dropped-399-000-last-year-n1072101

    Replies: @Emil Nikola Richard, @PedroAstra

    Every month it feels like I saw another person who has bought a Porsche Taycan.

    Way over 50% of new upscale cars are leased not purchased and way over 50% of your colleagues with new upscale cars are sucking on debt.

    Look at the lease payments on google and your envy quotient may drop to 0 degrees kelvin or whatever the units for that are.

    • Agree: Barbarossa
    • Replies: @Dmitry
    @Emil Nikola Richard

    Maybe leasing is becoming more common.

    But one of the reasons Porsche Taycans (and Teslas) flood into the carparks at the technology parks, is because there is a slightly democratic ownership structure in many startups.

    As they exit, then often nothing changes for employees, although with a new layer of managers above them. But the employees' part of the ownership is bought, often for incredibly inflated values.

    This is one of the times when employees' carpark is turning into Porsche Taycans, after there is an exit, previous employees' bank accounts are flooded.

    Of course, there are also a lot of people in large companies with high salaries, managers, etc, which like to buy such cars. But buying of expensive cars is emotionally often what people are doing when they have sudden crazy money dropped on them, which has been characteristic of this overhyped industry.

    Replies: @Emil Nikola Richard

  464. @Dmitry
    @AP

    In the photos, they look like how imagine the "working class of Wall Street". They're drinking beer, watch some baseball. They are way too happy they escape the office at the end of the day, to be the managers.

    I'm myself in the "working class" of the Western tech industry. So you can let me imagine that I have intuition for seeing other "working classes" of the economically overhyped sectors. Every month it feels like I saw another person who has bought a Porsche Taycan. Meanwhile I'm carefully applying for the travel expense refund for my bus ticket.


    https://www.theguardian.com/world/2013/feb/15/connecticut-gold-coast-life-afford
     
    Well, surely, New York/Wall Street salary is still not that bad, even for the normal workers there. "The average 2018 salary, including bonuses, for New York City's securities industry employees was $398,600. That was down from $422,500 in 2017," https://www.nbcnews.com/business/business-news/average-wall-street-salary-dropped-399-000-last-year-n1072101

    Replies: @Emil Nikola Richard, @PedroAstra

    Isn’t the tech industry on fire this year? From what I’ve seen, compensation packages are getting to be hilariously inflated with new grads getting 250k offers.

    • Replies: @Dmitry
    @PedroAstra

    Yes and there was also last year hundreds of billions of dollars of venture capital (i.e. gambling money) thrown to the industry.

    It shows about how much spare money there is in the world today, when they can drop so much money, often throwing gambling money on clever but not essential industry.

  465. @LondonBob
    @Yevardian

    The EU wanted the Ukraine and Belarus, Russia cannot be a fair and effective power broker, and their mistake in the Ukraine (and Libya)(and perhaps Syria) was trying to be so, the Kremlin does seem to have learnt that lesson now with Belarus and Kazakhstan, as well as with natural gas.

    Replies: @A123

    The EU wanted the Ukraine and Belarus

    The EU also “said” it wanted Turkey. Does anyone believe that they actually do?

    Realistically, EU expansion is over. The system is stagnant and beset by internal conflicts. Adding more members with veto powers is extraordinarily improbable.

    the Kremlin does seem to have learnt that lesson now with Belarus and Kazakhstan, as well as with natural gas.

    Belarus and Kazakhstan are in the Russian sphere of influence. Prioritizing them is not huge “lesson”.

    Attempting to blackmail Europe by being an unreliable gas supplier has backfired badly. The chances of NS2 starting are decreasing by the month. The race to establish reliable suppliers and supporting pipelines is on. EastMed will provide large amounts of gas from Cypriot and Israeli fields. Possibly Egyptian fields as well, depending on exploration & development.

    The big lesson that Russian needs to absorb is that dealing with Iran inevitably backfires. There is no way to get Turkey (and its proxies) out of Syria as long as Iran (and its proxies, such as Hezbollah) remain.

    PEACE 😇

  466. @German_reader
    More nonsense from integralist Adrian Vermeule (who's now whinging about neo-colonialism, because 1 billion Nigerians is such a great prospect):
    https://twitter.com/Vermeullarmine/status/1479743364924858372

    Replies: @Barbarossa

    There is a very valid critique of America’s imperial style contained there.

    America requires that you buy into an alien ideological framework in exchange for aid. The Chinese just seek a profitable economic investment. The Chinese method of exerting influence seems far less detrimental to the nations becoming clients, as well as a far more secure and durable arrangement for the Chinese, since the quid pro quo is fairly transparent, rather than all the American froth about “supporting Democracy” and “supporting the rights of the Trans Somali Pirate community” or what have you.

    • Replies: @German_reader
    @Barbarossa

    That's true, and after I had published the comment, I thought about it and came to the conclusion that indeed it would be morally problematic if aid was tied to the legalization, let alone promotion, of abortion.
    However, tbh I have no such compunctions at all about contraceptives or other forms of family planning. Frankly, I think the prospect of 1 billion Nigerians is horrifying, since undoubtedly many of them will seek to immigrate to Europe. And apart from some abstract collective genetic level, this population growth won't even have positive results for many Nigerians, quite the opposite.
    More generally, I think it's pretty absurd to claim that the primary problem of African countries today is a "neocolonialism" seeking to restrict African population growth. imo Vermeule is a total nutcase, and not even in an especially interesting way.

  467. @A123
    @German_reader


    They could just ban certain types of cars or make gas prices too high for most consumers. If there’s a will to create a tyranny, your SUV won’t save you.
     
    The tyranny is already lurking. I wanted an F-250. When faced with the outrageous cost premium mark up on Utes, I settled for a car.

    in a polarized society like the US is today it may make sense to oppose funding for public transport from your point of view, since it’s likely to be only beneficial for mostly left-leaning urbanites.
     
    The folly of public transit does not even benefit left urbanites. As AP has pointed out, the wealthy left in Los Angeles abjures buses. Stepping foot on a train, outside of staged PR, would be unthinkable.

    -- How many Hollywood Elites arrived at the Oscar Awards on public transit?
    -- How many arrived in displays of conspicuous hydrocarbon consumption?

    I seem to remember a rapper complete with entourage showing up to the Academy Awards on the back of a tricked out, flat bed semi.

    Public transit in the U.S. is about transferring wealth from workers to Globalist Elites.
    ___

    Perhaps Europe is different, but I suspect graft is also ubiquitous.

    Public transit does work in Japan. However, that does not translate elsewhere.

    PEACE 😇

    Replies: @Barbarossa

    I wanted an F-250. When faced with the outrageous cost premium mark up on Utes, I settled for a car.

    I’m running three trucks with my business and there is a reason that the newest one is a 2000 F250. I can’t even believe the stupid prices for pickup trucks. Even before the current price inflation, I couldn’t stomach paying 70k for a stupid truck.

    Plus I would rather pay my in-house maintenance guy to keep everything running than to send my money far away to some car company. It seems more pro-social to provide a job.

    Also, running older equipment can have important environmental benefits since a massive amount of a vehicle’s total energy footprint is in manufacturing. I once read that it’s nearly an even split with the lifetime fuel consumption being around 50% of total embodied energy consumption.

    Naturally, there is a point where environmental returns diminish by running older equipment. If one’s daily driver is a 53 Chevy Bel Air, it may be good to upgrade!

  468. German_reader says:
    @Barbarossa
    @German_reader

    There is a very valid critique of America's imperial style contained there.

    America requires that you buy into an alien ideological framework in exchange for aid. The Chinese just seek a profitable economic investment. The Chinese method of exerting influence seems far less detrimental to the nations becoming clients, as well as a far more secure and durable arrangement for the Chinese, since the quid pro quo is fairly transparent, rather than all the American froth about "supporting Democracy" and "supporting the rights of the Trans Somali Pirate community" or what have you.

    Replies: @German_reader

    That’s true, and after I had published the comment, I thought about it and came to the conclusion that indeed it would be morally problematic if aid was tied to the legalization, let alone promotion, of abortion.
    However, tbh I have no such compunctions at all about contraceptives or other forms of family planning. Frankly, I think the prospect of 1 billion Nigerians is horrifying, since undoubtedly many of them will seek to immigrate to Europe. And apart from some abstract collective genetic level, this population growth won’t even have positive results for many Nigerians, quite the opposite.
    More generally, I think it’s pretty absurd to claim that the primary problem of African countries today is a “neocolonialism” seeking to restrict African population growth. imo Vermeule is a total nutcase, and not even in an especially interesting way.


  469. I’ve remarked previously that conservatives bragging about higher fertility (“we will outbreed the liberals!”) shows their usual stupidity as they do not understand the importance of controlling cultural institutions.

    An ex of mine used to complain about she called “trend bi’s”. What she meant was girls who will claim to be bi but mostly just kiss other girls at parties. Their serious relationships were typically exclusive with men. (This ex swore she was a real bi, yet her dating history told you otherwise 😉 ).

    I don’t think this girl, given her young age, is honest about her sexuality. It’s more a reflection of which cultural values are dominant and her adjusting accordingly.

    • Replies: @German_reader
    @Thulean Friend

    bisexual is pretty harmless given today's cultural climate, would be really bad if she had announced she's trans and wants to get mastectomies.
    And Ted Cruz deserves to be trolled anyway, terrible person (though more so for his foreign policy activism than anything else).

    Replies: @A123

    , @Emil Nikola Richard
    @Thulean Friend

    The latest Tim Dillon interview of Joe Rogan is hilarious. He ridicules the entire generation behind him of gay and bi and trans people.

    They spend their entire life on line. None of them have even ever had sex!

    Replies: @Thulean Friend

    , @silviosilver
    @Thulean Friend


    I’ve remarked previously that conservatives bragging about higher fertility (“we will outbreed the liberals!”) shows their usual stupidity as they do not understand the importance of controlling cultural institutions.
     
    Conservatives outbreeding liberals doesn't imply that all the offspring of conservatives will be conservative. Thinking that the example of Ted Cruz's daughter somehow disproves the concept simply betrays typical liberal ignorance of heredity (deliberate ignorance, too - it's bad news, and they imagine that if they just don't think about it, it will go away).

    Institutions are important,but that importance can be overstated. Remember, America and the entire western world was once very, very conservative, with conservatives in charge of everything. That in itself wasn't enough to prevent the liberal revolution. If those populations had been more genetically inclined towards "conservatism" (whatever you care to imply by that term), it's plausible that liberalism would never have attained a critical mass; and if it managed to insinuate itself into the institutions despite this, perhaps it would have been easier to dislodge it.

    Replies: @A123, @Yellowface Anon

    , @Coconuts
    @Thulean Friend

    There is some truth in what you say but at the moment it would be more surprising if there are any teenage daughters of prominent Republican politicians who haven't come out as bisexual, non-binary etc.

    If she had posted a video of herself exercising with Indian clubs, throwing a javelin and power running through the surf, with a caption about wanting to maintain peak physical health for motherhood and childbirth, that would be noteworthy.

  470. @Thulean Friend
    https://i.imgur.com/Y7DRVRe.png

    I've remarked previously that conservatives bragging about higher fertility ("we will outbreed the liberals!") shows their usual stupidity as they do not understand the importance of controlling cultural institutions.

    An ex of mine used to complain about she called "trend bi's". What she meant was girls who will claim to be bi but mostly just kiss other girls at parties. Their serious relationships were typically exclusive with men. (This ex swore she was a real bi, yet her dating history told you otherwise ;) ).

    I don't think this girl, given her young age, is honest about her sexuality. It's more a reflection of which cultural values are dominant and her adjusting accordingly.

    Replies: @German_reader, @Emil Nikola Richard, @silviosilver, @Coconuts

    bisexual is pretty harmless given today’s cultural climate, would be really bad if she had announced she’s trans and wants to get mastectomies.
    And Ted Cruz deserves to be trolled anyway, terrible person (though more so for his foreign policy activism than anything else).

    • Replies: @A123
    @German_reader


    bisexual is pretty harmless given today’s cultural climate, would be really bad if she had announced she’s trans and wants to get mastectomies.
     
    I concur.

    She is still a "she", and she could still get married and have kids. Not much of an issue.

    And Ted Cruz deserves to be trolled anyway, terrible person (though more so for his foreign policy activism than anything else).
     
    Cruz has made some severe gaffes on the domestic front. For example, calling January 6 peaceful protesters "terrorists". His attempt to walk that back is not going well. (1)

    He is still popular in Texas, and that is a must win "Red" state. That lets him wander further astray than some other individuals. I would use the term maverick, except it has been tainted by association to a specific, former Senator.

    PEACE 😇
    __________

    (1) https://theconservativetreehouse.com/blog/2022/01/06/self-imolated-cruz-appears-with-tucker-carlson-in-attempt-to-regain-credibility-fails-miserably/
  471. On Hindu Twitter, there have been ongoing fights between ‘Trads’ and ‘Raitas’ . To use a Westernised lexicon, the difference between Alt-Right ideological die-hards and MAGA Trumpers who “trust the plan”.

    This has now been picked up by the left-leaning media. Obviously a lot of these self-styled “Trads” are disgusting misogynists and many are open casteists.

    Yet, them of them have an interesting critique. They correctly view India’s embrace of the US as far more dangerous than anything China does, if you’re a conservative. They look at the personality cult surrounding Modi as toxic, and reject all claims to support the BJP blindly. If you’re curious of some of their critiques/takes, there’s a good telegram account to follow.

    https://t.me/s/frontier_indica

    Raitas by comparison are pragmatists, who view an embrace of the US as necessity but for strategic reasons (China) as well for economic ones (FDI, tech, trade). I’ve noted before that Hindutva has surprisingly liberal elements. Modi is an OBC caste, which is a far cry from what BJP used to be (an UC party mostly dominated by people from the Gangetic plain). Dalits are more welcome in the BJP than ever. Women empowerment isn’t as vigorously pursued as by the Congress party but with far more gusto than it used to.

    As BJP has been in power for almost 8 years and its dominance looks set to continue, it seems obvious that these fissures had to come up sooner rather than later.

    India’s elites are very Westernised. Even young right-wingers often borrow heavily from Western lingo. Can’t count the amount of times I’ve seen dudes in the late teens and early twenties with IIT/NIT in their bios on Twitter and using known memes from 4chan and Western internet culture but with Indian adaptations. Yet it is precisely because of this Westernisation that many of them understand how toxic a tight embrace with the US is. America, after all, is the primary exporter of Woke culture.

    FWIW, I think they will fail. India’s embrace with the US will continue. It’s underlying culture will shift accordingly. BJP will remain politically dominant just as the GOP controlled the WH during the entire 1980s and early 1990s yet failed to change the cultural direction. Raita’s pragmatism also has an example across the border (Pakistan) where the local trads won and now its economy is in tatters with bearded terrorists (TTP) running amok in the streets.

    • Thanks: Yellowface Anon
  472. @Thulean Friend
    https://i.imgur.com/Y7DRVRe.png

    I've remarked previously that conservatives bragging about higher fertility ("we will outbreed the liberals!") shows their usual stupidity as they do not understand the importance of controlling cultural institutions.

    An ex of mine used to complain about she called "trend bi's". What she meant was girls who will claim to be bi but mostly just kiss other girls at parties. Their serious relationships were typically exclusive with men. (This ex swore she was a real bi, yet her dating history told you otherwise ;) ).

    I don't think this girl, given her young age, is honest about her sexuality. It's more a reflection of which cultural values are dominant and her adjusting accordingly.

    Replies: @German_reader, @Emil Nikola Richard, @silviosilver, @Coconuts

    The latest Tim Dillon interview of Joe Rogan is hilarious. He ridicules the entire generation behind him of gay and bi and trans people.

    They spend their entire life on line. None of them have even ever had sex!

    • Replies: @Thulean Friend
    @Emil Nikola Richard

    My impression is that gay people have tons and tons of sex. Certainly men do. It may be politically incorrect to say this now, but isn't that how the AIDS epidemic started?

    Lesbians are a different breed. Women in general tend to have much lower sex drives than men, and I doubt if that's new or culturally contingent. Seems to be a stable pattern, suggesting it has genetic underpinnings.

    Sailer was writing about 'Lesbian bed death' way back in the Aughts. He was lamenting how the term itself was used in the 1990s before it became impolite to use it. I read one of his old columns by chance a few days ago. I'm too lazy and insufficiently autistic to look it up, but I wouldn't be surprised if the terminology had a lot of congruity with reality. I'm sure some researchers did some studies on this years ago.

    FWIW, I don't care how much sex people have. I think it's a silly status symbol, and not a healthy sign for our society. I care more about people being in meaningful relationships that last for long.

  473. America may be woke, but at least it’s rich. Being poor but copying American cultural values into government policy is the worst of both worlds.

    • LOL: silviosilver
  474. @Emil Nikola Richard
    @Thulean Friend

    The latest Tim Dillon interview of Joe Rogan is hilarious. He ridicules the entire generation behind him of gay and bi and trans people.

    They spend their entire life on line. None of them have even ever had sex!

    Replies: @Thulean Friend

    My impression is that gay people have tons and tons of sex. Certainly men do. It may be politically incorrect to say this now, but isn’t that how the AIDS epidemic started?

    Lesbians are a different breed. Women in general tend to have much lower sex drives than men, and I doubt if that’s new or culturally contingent. Seems to be a stable pattern, suggesting it has genetic underpinnings.

    Sailer was writing about ‘Lesbian bed death’ way back in the Aughts. He was lamenting how the term itself was used in the 1990s before it became impolite to use it. I read one of his old columns by chance a few days ago. I’m too lazy and insufficiently autistic to look it up, but I wouldn’t be surprised if the terminology had a lot of congruity with reality. I’m sure some researchers did some studies on this years ago.

    FWIW, I don’t care how much sex people have. I think it’s a silly status symbol, and not a healthy sign for our society. I care more about people being in meaningful relationships that last for long.

  475. @German_reader
    @Thulean Friend

    bisexual is pretty harmless given today's cultural climate, would be really bad if she had announced she's trans and wants to get mastectomies.
    And Ted Cruz deserves to be trolled anyway, terrible person (though more so for his foreign policy activism than anything else).

    Replies: @A123

    bisexual is pretty harmless given today’s cultural climate, would be really bad if she had announced she’s trans and wants to get mastectomies.

    I concur.

    She is still a “she”, and she could still get married and have kids. Not much of an issue.

    And Ted Cruz deserves to be trolled anyway, terrible person (though more so for his foreign policy activism than anything else).

    Cruz has made some severe gaffes on the domestic front. For example, calling January 6 peaceful protesters “terrorists”. His attempt to walk that back is not going well. (1)

    He is still popular in Texas, and that is a must win “Red” state. That lets him wander further astray than some other individuals. I would use the term maverick, except it has been tainted by association to a specific, former Senator.

    PEACE 😇
    __________

    (1) https://theconservativetreehouse.com/blog/2022/01/06/self-imolated-cruz-appears-with-tucker-carlson-in-attempt-to-regain-credibility-fails-miserably/

  476. @Mikel
    @Yahya

    Thanks for those insights.

    I lived in Chile for some time and people of Christian Arab descent, generally Palestinians and Syrians, were definitely one of the most economically successful communities. They also tend to look more Caucasian than the general population there.

    If you don't mind my asking, why do so many Muslims try to emigrate to Europe or other Western countries instead of the rich countries of the Arabian peninsula, which look more culturally similar? Is it that these countries are not viewed so desirable for living or is it that they have more strict immigration policies?

    Replies: @Yevardian, @Yahya

    I lived in Chile for some time and people of Christian Arab descent, generally Palestinians and Syrians, were definitely one of the most economically successful communities.

    Christian Arabs succeed wherever they go. In places like the US, they are overrepresented in almost all prestigious occupations (medicine, academia, government, banking etc.); and in Israel, Christian schools outscore Jewish ones on standardized tests. As I wrote in a post a few months ago:

    Arab-American (63% of whom are Christians) median household income is roughly 10% higher than the American average. 40% of Arab-Americans have a college degree, compared to 24% for Americans at large. Some prominent Arab Christians in the US include Nicolas Nassim Taleb (author/intellctual), Edward Said (author/intellectual), Mitch Daniels (governor, author), Elias Chorey (Nobel Prize chemist), Micheal DeBakey (eminent surgeon), Joe Jumail (billionaire lawyer), George Joseph (billionaire entrepreneur), Joseph Mack (CEO of Morgan Stanley) etc. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_Arab_Americans

    In certain metrics such as physicians per capita, they are even more over-represented than the mighty Ashkenazim:

    https://i1.wp.com/copticvoiceus.com/wp-content/uploads/2020/06/image-2.png?fit=512%2C400

    They definitely rank up there as the one of the smartest ethnicities in the world. This shouldn’t be surprising given they are the most direct descendants of the people who invented the world’s first and most advanced civilization for ~4,000 years (approx 3300BC-1300AD); as well as the major Abrahamic religions which have effectively colonized the planet.

    They also don’t have the SSA admixture, cousin marriage practices, malnutrition & poverty, or the inhibiting cultural values of Arab Muslims.

    If I were to rank the top 5 smartest ethnicities; I’d say it would be the following, in order:
    (1) Ashkenazi Jews
    (2) Christian Arabs
    (3) Tamil Brahmins
    (4) UMC WASPs
    (5) Diaspora Chinese

    In terms of IQ, the Ashkenazi are up there on a class of their own. The other 4 are roughly equal; though Christian Arabs and Tamil Brahmins have more “creativity” and “gumption”; UMC WASPs in the middle; and Diaspora Chinese at the bottom.

    They also tend to look more Caucasian than the general population there.

    Arabs are Caucasians; scientifically speaking. So it’s no surprise they look more Caucasian than the general mestizo population in Latin America. Levantine Arabs in particular don’t look too different than Iberians; most people who are unfamiliar with Iberians & Levantines would not be able to spot the difference. Though of course a familiar and discerning eye could differentiate between them.

    One of my favorite hobbies is to browse the r/phenotypes subreddit; where people post pictures of themselves, and redditors would try to guess their national origin. Occasionally you’d come across a Palestinian who’d post a picture of him/herself; and almost invariably someone would guess Spain, Portugal or Italy (and occasionally France or Romania). For example:

    Can you guess where i’m from? from phenotypes

    Another interesting post on reddit was this blonde, blue-eyed Palestinian immigrant to Chile; who kindly shared her 23andme results:

    Palestinian from Chile — My results from 23andme

    Somewhat interestingly, 23andME pegged this Palestinian lady as 99.4% West Asian/North African; even though she looks like she could’ve been born in Warsaw or Budapest. Of course blonde hair or blue eyes are not uncommon in the Levant; a legacy of the Greco-Roman, Crusader and Ottoman periods. But very rarely do they pop up in one go. Another Northern-European-looking Palestinian is Nazerene folk singer Dalal Abu-Amneh:

    If you don’t mind my asking, why do so many Muslims try to emigrate to Europe or other Western countries instead of the rich countries of the Arabian peninsula, which look more culturally similar? Is it that these countries are not viewed so desirable for living or is it that they have more strict immigration policies?

    Citizenship in many Arab countries – poor and rich alike – is only obtainable by having a father from said Arab country (i.e. only those born to a Saudi father can obtain Saudi citizenship; only those with a Syrian father are given Syrian citizenship etc). Though many Arab countries have recently allowed citizenship through maternal lineage; it’s well-nigh impossible to obtain citizenship in any Arab country without at least one Arab parent.

    • Replies: @AP
    @Yahya


    Arab-American (63% of whom are Christians) median household income is roughly 10% higher than the American average. 40% of Arab-Americans have a college degree, compared to 24% for Americans at large.
     
    These figures would be even more substantial if only the Christians were considered.

    Some prominent Arab Christians in the US include Nicolas Nassim Taleb (author/intellctual), Edward Said (author/intellectual), Mitch Daniels (governor, author), Elias Chorey (Nobel Prize chemist), Micheal DeBakey (eminent surgeon), Joe Jumail (billionaire lawyer), George Joseph (billionaire entrepreneur), Joseph Mack (CEO of Morgan Stanley) etc. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_Arab_Americans
     
    Don't forget Terrence Malick, perhaps the best movie director.

    Somewhat interestingly, 23andME pegged this Palestinian lady as 99.4% West Asian/North African; even though she looks like she could’ve been born in Warsaw or Budapest
     
    Her face looks more Jewish than Slavic.
    , @Dmitry
    @Yahya


    terms of IQ
     
    Do you mean in colloquial way, or pseudoscientific way? IQ tests are like astrology readings. Just it is based on some early 20th century English parlour games they play before dinner, whereas astrology is based on games they used to played after dinner.

    I agree that different national populations could different distrisbutions of talents though on average. First you would need a representative sample though, and then that sample will depend a lot on historical conditions.

    Arabs in Western countries have a representation in medical professions for example. Russians are lifting more in the hi-tech sector. A lot is related to the immigration regime, combined with educational opportunity of the origin country.

    In the postsoviet countries, there is a former superpower level of the technical education for ambitious nerds. Whereas people from former Ottoman countries, do not have much access to superpower technical education. So you see a lot of medical professsionals instead in the immigrants.


    smartest ethnicities in the world.
     
    I think this is more how you sample them, rather than the base population.

    For example, Russians in Europe are in two classes. Elite/political class of Russia, who are moving money. And loser computer scientists/software engineers, nerds, etc, who are working for Western companies as a kind of middle class of exploited, slave labor.

    By comparison, Poles in Western Europe, are open border immigration, and often work in retail, bus driving, waitress, etc.

    If you just saw slavic nationalities in the West, you will be saying "Poles are hardworking shop assistants". "Russians are the world's most intellectual, nerdy people, or the world's most wealthy".

    It would be surprising when you go to Russia, and saw a representative sample of the public, which matches more to Poles, than to the ultra-wealthy, and ultra-nerds, in London. It's because the immigration filter for Russians is strict, for Poles open borders.


    Levantine Arabs in particular don’t

     

    In Israel, I think Arabs (and much of Jews, who are Arab Jews) are definitely as dark in melanin or Middle Eastern appearance, as you expect for the latitude.

    This is also true of Spain of course, a significant part of the population in Spain look more Middle Eastern, which matches their latitude.

    Culturally, there is quite a lot of modernization though in the Middle East.


    avorite hobbies is to browse the r/phenotypes subreddit
     
    You can't see such a good sample from this kind of photo though, and depends a lot on lighting also. Selfies are not that representative of the people, and the people themselves might not be that representative of the country.

    I think with video, you can see a lot on the internet nowadays. YouTube is very good.

    Maybe you can see with school graduation or walking videos, where there are large number of younger people.

    -

    I searched for the scouts in Yafo, which is a multinational city in Israel with Christians and Muslims.

    For Yafo, from this method, it does look like Palestinians Christians look on average more light compared to Palestinian Muslims.

    In the first video, parade of the Palestinian Christian scouts in Yafo. Mostly they have a Middle Eastern appearance, but perhaps matching to this latitude.
    https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=jTM5pthnPNE

    In the second video, a parade of Palestinian Muslim (Arab Israeli youth) scouts in Yafo.

    I guess you could imagine from appearance the Muslim population of Yafo has more Bedouin influence, from the deserts in the South. So perhaps the latitude origin of the population can show some difference?

    However, it can also be related to time of year.
    https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=dev0SpqmGvQ

    Interesting Muslim scouts' march in Yafo have an Israel flag, so their self-identify is not necessarily so Palestinian nowadays.

    Replies: @silviosilver

    , @silviosilver
    @Yahya


    Arab-American (63% of whom are Christians) median household income is roughly 10% higher than the American average.
     
    For the purposes of this discussion, the appropriate comparison is with white Americans, not with all Americans - the latter whose average is dragged down by blacks and hispanics.

    I'm not suggesting they don't come out ahead vs white Americans as well - I don't know and cbf checking to see.

    Levantine Arabs in particular don’t look too different than Iberians; most people who are unfamiliar with Iberians & Levantines would not be able to spot the difference.
     
    That is an extreme exaggeration. I have considerable personal experience with Lebanese, both Christian and Muslim. I don't doubt there are some very European looking ones, but they're only a small minority. The vast majority look nothing like Iberians (whose non-whiteness is absurdly exaggerated on race forums). Interestingly, both very light and very dark can occur within the same family.

    One of my best friends was a rather dark, frizzy haired Lebanese whom nobody has ever mistaken for European, while his sister was a model-hot natural dirty-blonde. Unsurprisingly, they had rather different experiences of growing up in a very Anglo part of Australia. My friend developed very bitter anti-WASP racial and cultural hostility, while his sister was accepted into and moved exclusively among Anglo circles. It's the sort of thing that make liberals rend their garments in despair that race (or racial perception) should matter so much, and motivates them to attempt to eliminate its significance. (A fool's errand, of course.)

    And that's just the Lebanese. Most Palestinians, and a great proportion of Syrians, for whatever reason, are much darker and more 'araby'. Just watch any video of Palestinian protesters. The number of people you see who could realistically pass even in southern Europe is minuscule.

    Whether one group "looks like" another or not is inescapably subjective, and usually highly contextual. In the overwhelmingly ("pristinely" or "oppressively", depending on your perspective, heh) Anglo part of Australia I grew up, a "greasy dago" like me stuck out like a sore thumb. Against the backdrop of a bazillion niggers, however, I find myself transformed into a "fellow white man," lol.

    Observations like this stun and appall white libtards. "Bu..bu..but you're not supposed to care about race... you're a, well, you're umm... "- what they can't quite bring themselves to say is that I'm too non-white to be a racist, that "racism" is something only people as white as themselves are capable of. The rest of us are supposed to do nothing more than play our assigned role, which is to agitate for and content ourselves with acceptance by white/whiter/WASP-y libtards. The notion that other people may have racial preferences of their own baffles them, and upsets them by threatening to undo (or render irrelevant) all their "anti-racism" work.

    Replies: @AP, @sb, @Yahya

  477. @Yahya
    @Mikel


    I lived in Chile for some time and people of Christian Arab descent, generally Palestinians and Syrians, were definitely one of the most economically successful communities.
     
    Christian Arabs succeed wherever they go. In places like the US, they are overrepresented in almost all prestigious occupations (medicine, academia, government, banking etc.); and in Israel, Christian schools outscore Jewish ones on standardized tests. As I wrote in a post a few months ago:

    Arab-American (63% of whom are Christians) median household income is roughly 10% higher than the American average. 40% of Arab-Americans have a college degree, compared to 24% for Americans at large. Some prominent Arab Christians in the US include Nicolas Nassim Taleb (author/intellctual), Edward Said (author/intellectual), Mitch Daniels (governor, author), Elias Chorey (Nobel Prize chemist), Micheal DeBakey (eminent surgeon), Joe Jumail (billionaire lawyer), George Joseph (billionaire entrepreneur), Joseph Mack (CEO of Morgan Stanley) etc. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_Arab_Americans

     

    In certain metrics such as physicians per capita, they are even more over-represented than the mighty Ashkenazim:

    https://i1.wp.com/copticvoiceus.com/wp-content/uploads/2020/06/image-2.png?fit=512%2C400

    They definitely rank up there as the one of the smartest ethnicities in the world. This shouldn't be surprising given they are the most direct descendants of the people who invented the world's first and most advanced civilization for ~4,000 years (approx 3300BC-1300AD); as well as the major Abrahamic religions which have effectively colonized the planet.

    https://image.pbs.org/poster_images/assets/sj14-int-religmap.jpg

    They also don’t have the SSA admixture, cousin marriage practices, malnutrition & poverty, or the inhibiting cultural values of Arab Muslims.

    If I were to rank the top 5 smartest ethnicities; I'd say it would be the following, in order:
    (1) Ashkenazi Jews
    (2) Christian Arabs
    (3) Tamil Brahmins
    (4) UMC WASPs
    (5) Diaspora Chinese

    In terms of IQ, the Ashkenazi are up there on a class of their own. The other 4 are roughly equal; though Christian Arabs and Tamil Brahmins have more "creativity" and "gumption"; UMC WASPs in the middle; and Diaspora Chinese at the bottom.


    They also tend to look more Caucasian than the general population there.
     
    Arabs are Caucasians; scientifically speaking. So it's no surprise they look more Caucasian than the general mestizo population in Latin America. Levantine Arabs in particular don’t look too different than Iberians; most people who are unfamiliar with Iberians & Levantines would not be able to spot the difference. Though of course a familiar and discerning eye could differentiate between them.

    One of my favorite hobbies is to browse the r/phenotypes subreddit; where people post pictures of themselves, and redditors would try to guess their national origin. Occasionally you'd come across a Palestinian who'd post a picture of him/herself; and almost invariably someone would guess Spain, Portugal or Italy (and occasionally France or Romania). For example:

    https://www.reddit.com/r/phenotypes/comments/rgjq9j/can_you_guess_where_im_from/

    Another interesting post on reddit was this blonde, blue-eyed Palestinian immigrant to Chile; who kindly shared her 23andme results:

    https://www.reddit.com/r/23andme/comments/ffmovm/palestinian_from_chile_my_results/

    Somewhat interestingly, 23andME pegged this Palestinian lady as 99.4% West Asian/North African; even though she looks like she could've been born in Warsaw or Budapest. Of course blonde hair or blue eyes are not uncommon in the Levant; a legacy of the Greco-Roman, Crusader and Ottoman periods. But very rarely do they pop up in one go. Another Northern-European-looking Palestinian is Nazerene folk singer Dalal Abu-Amneh:

    https://i1.sndcdn.com/artworks-000144264801-0zwi4q-t500x500.jpg


    If you don’t mind my asking, why do so many Muslims try to emigrate to Europe or other Western countries instead of the rich countries of the Arabian peninsula, which look more culturally similar? Is it that these countries are not viewed so desirable for living or is it that they have more strict immigration policies?
     
    Citizenship in many Arab countries - poor and rich alike - is only obtainable by having a father from said Arab country (i.e. only those born to a Saudi father can obtain Saudi citizenship; only those with a Syrian father are given Syrian citizenship etc). Though many Arab countries have recently allowed citizenship through maternal lineage; it's well-nigh impossible to obtain citizenship in any Arab country without at least one Arab parent.

    Replies: @AP, @Dmitry, @silviosilver

    Arab-American (63% of whom are Christians) median household income is roughly 10% higher than the American average. 40% of Arab-Americans have a college degree, compared to 24% for Americans at large.

    These figures would be even more substantial if only the Christians were considered.

    Some prominent Arab Christians in the US include Nicolas Nassim Taleb (author/intellctual), Edward Said (author/intellectual), Mitch Daniels (governor, author), Elias Chorey (Nobel Prize chemist), Micheal DeBakey (eminent surgeon), Joe Jumail (billionaire lawyer), George Joseph (billionaire entrepreneur), Joseph Mack (CEO of Morgan Stanley) etc. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_Arab_Americans

    Don’t forget Terrence Malick, perhaps the best movie director.

    Somewhat interestingly, 23andME pegged this Palestinian lady as 99.4% West Asian/North African; even though she looks like she could’ve been born in Warsaw or Budapest

    Her face looks more Jewish than Slavic.

  478. @Thulean Friend
    https://i.imgur.com/Y7DRVRe.png

    I've remarked previously that conservatives bragging about higher fertility ("we will outbreed the liberals!") shows their usual stupidity as they do not understand the importance of controlling cultural institutions.

    An ex of mine used to complain about she called "trend bi's". What she meant was girls who will claim to be bi but mostly just kiss other girls at parties. Their serious relationships were typically exclusive with men. (This ex swore she was a real bi, yet her dating history told you otherwise ;) ).

    I don't think this girl, given her young age, is honest about her sexuality. It's more a reflection of which cultural values are dominant and her adjusting accordingly.

    Replies: @German_reader, @Emil Nikola Richard, @silviosilver, @Coconuts

    I’ve remarked previously that conservatives bragging about higher fertility (“we will outbreed the liberals!”) shows their usual stupidity as they do not understand the importance of controlling cultural institutions.

    Conservatives outbreeding liberals doesn’t imply that all the offspring of conservatives will be conservative. Thinking that the example of Ted Cruz’s daughter somehow disproves the concept simply betrays typical liberal ignorance of heredity (deliberate ignorance, too – it’s bad news, and they imagine that if they just don’t think about it, it will go away).

    Institutions are important,but that importance can be overstated. Remember, America and the entire western world was once very, very conservative, with conservatives in charge of everything. That in itself wasn’t enough to prevent the liberal revolution. If those populations had been more genetically inclined towards “conservatism” (whatever you care to imply by that term), it’s plausible that liberalism would never have attained a critical mass; and if it managed to insinuate itself into the institutions despite this, perhaps it would have been easier to dislodge it.

    • Replies: @A123
    @silviosilver


    Conservatives outbreeding liberals doesn’t imply that all the offspring of conservatives will be conservative
     
    The concept of "Conservative" is obsolete in U.S. politics.

    The question is -- Through breeding or conversion will pro-worker MAGA Populists be able to out gain anti-worker DNC Globalists?

    Pro-worker Populism is appealing to employed Hispanics alienated by the SJW/DNC. There is every reason to believe that youth voters are available to MAGA Populism.

    PEACE 😇

    Replies: @silviosilver

    , @Yellowface Anon
    @silviosilver

    Neoreactionary world, Amish world, Duginist world, Islamist world, Hindutva world. Haven't found a large enough reactionary sect in the Sinosphere yet.

    Replies: @melanf

  479. @German_reader
    @Yevardian


    Lol, have you compared to Australia or NZ?
     
    Sure, but Japan is a really massive country (more than 120 million people), and I don't think they've had travel restrictions/mandatory quarantine for travellers quite as strict as Australia and NZ, so imo it's pretty remarkable that they've only got 20 000 official Corona deaths (EDIT: checked, apparently they also have a sort of 14-day quarantine for travellers coming from abroad, that might be an important factor). This is something I'd like to see explained, but Western mainstram media don't seem to pay much attention to it (Dmitry's comment here is the best explanation I've seen so far, so thanks to him for doing the job journalists should do).

    Honestly though, I don’t really care about the issue
     
    I'm not absorbed by it, but I can't ignore it either, both because I'm still somewhat worried about the virus (more regarding my father than myself), and increasingly because the entire debate in Germany has gotten totally unhinged. I've probably got somewhat authoritarian inclinations myself, but apparently still less so than many of my countrymen who seem to enjoy living in an endless "We need more restrictions! The unvaccinated must be punished" hysteria.

    Replies: @utu

    INTRODUCED RETROSPECTIVE CLUSTER-BASED APPROACH TO LOCATE TRANSMISSION

    On February 25, the Ministry of Health, Labor, and Social Affairs, with the Government’s aid, announced the Basic Policies for Novel Coronavirus Disease Control and set up a cluster response team along with 536 consultative centers [7]. The country used retrospective monitoring methods to find closer links to an infected person, while other countries employed the prospective approach to identify a major infection source. Japan’s retrospective method was claimed to more reliably identify the initial source of infection and thus tracked all close contacts of sources of infection. The basic policy of the authority was to early detect the source of an infected individual through symptoms, follow all the people in the cluster who are highly transmissible, test and isolate them immediately and treat them as symptoms rather than general testing of the country’s entire population [8]. The authorities succeeded in the cluster control approach in the earliest phase of the pandemic.

    Japan’s mild lockdowns seem to have had a real lockdown effect. While people were not forced to remain at home, they did in general.

    Furthermore, the exchange of greetings between Japan and the rest of the world varies. In greeting, the Japanese tend to bow rather than shake, embrace, or kiss. Japanese people were believed to have droplets smaller than others; it was shown that approximately 80% of patients did not transmit this virus to others. Also, an established culture of masks, especially in the winter grip season, maybe an important reason for the low infection. Furthermore, in Japan, which is practiced widely in educational institutions from a very young age, a tradition of handwashing is higher.

    https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC7688188/

    • Replies: @German_reader
    @utu

    Thanks, interesting.
    However, I wonder about this sentence:


    Japanese people were believed to have droplets smaller than others
     
    As far as I can see, they don't provide an explanation for why this would be so.

    Replies: @utu, @songbird

    , @Dmitry
    @utu


    masks, especially in the winter grip season, maybe an important reason for the low infection
     
    It doesn't discuss ventilation?

    In Japan it's mostly wearing cloth masks, which significantly reduce the droplet transmission, but not necessarily so much the building of aerosol concentration.

    Japan reduced the issue of aerosol transmission, by focusing on ventilation in 2020. Including instant government expenditure (in early 2020) to subsidize installing ventilation systems in buildings and introduction of norms to remove front windows from shops.

    They already had installed from previous years air changes in public transport, which are faster than airborne illness isolation room regulation for US hospitals. This is probably to reduce public illness in general.

    They at least seem to have a culture of viewing reduction of airborne disease transmission by improving air quality, as Europe has once led with reduction of waterborne disease by providing modern sanitation systems.

    In YouTube, in April 2020, they were publishing videos in English to promote this information in the rest of the world. Unlike some countries' government channels which were publishing unhelpful propaganda in this time, Japanese government media was trying to spread useful information.


    https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=hau4J2DfTK8

    It's something around 3-4 months before there would be New York Times articles speculating about aerosol transmission. A year before public discourse in the West like BBC would begin to promote these policies if I recall correctly. More than 2 years later, and still not so much action to install technology to improve ventilation in Western countries indoors during winters.

  480. @silviosilver
    @Thulean Friend


    I’ve remarked previously that conservatives bragging about higher fertility (“we will outbreed the liberals!”) shows their usual stupidity as they do not understand the importance of controlling cultural institutions.
     
    Conservatives outbreeding liberals doesn't imply that all the offspring of conservatives will be conservative. Thinking that the example of Ted Cruz's daughter somehow disproves the concept simply betrays typical liberal ignorance of heredity (deliberate ignorance, too - it's bad news, and they imagine that if they just don't think about it, it will go away).

    Institutions are important,but that importance can be overstated. Remember, America and the entire western world was once very, very conservative, with conservatives in charge of everything. That in itself wasn't enough to prevent the liberal revolution. If those populations had been more genetically inclined towards "conservatism" (whatever you care to imply by that term), it's plausible that liberalism would never have attained a critical mass; and if it managed to insinuate itself into the institutions despite this, perhaps it would have been easier to dislodge it.

    Replies: @A123, @Yellowface Anon

    Conservatives outbreeding liberals doesn’t imply that all the offspring of conservatives will be conservative

    The concept of “Conservative” is obsolete in U.S. politics.

    The question is — Through breeding or conversion will pro-worker MAGA Populists be able to out gain anti-worker DNC Globalists?

    Pro-worker Populism is appealing to employed Hispanics alienated by the SJW/DNC. There is every reason to believe that youth voters are available to MAGA Populism.

    PEACE 😇

    • Replies: @silviosilver
    @A123


    The concept of “Conservative” is obsolete in U.S. politics.
     
    As a political brand, maybe. As a social attitude characterized chiefly by a fondness for traditions and established ways and a wariness of change, it's as relevant as ever. (And if the hereditary aspect holds water, in time, perhaps more relevant than ever.)

    To answer your question, yes, I agree there is great potential in that appeal. If I were a praying man, I would be praying that the Dems are unable to rein in their ascendant lunatic left faction. Perhaps the next step in political evolution will be a mutual recognition that there is no good reason to force people with such vastly differing values to coexist in the same community. Let libtards live among and be ruled by their own people, and conservatives/populists/nationalists (call them what you will) be ruled by theirs.

    Replies: @A123

  481. @Dmitry
    @AP

    These in the train look like Wall Street workers? I imagine they are low level Wall Street workers or financial professionals. My first impression of the photos, is that it is a working class of Wall Street who drink beer after their stressful day.


    It's funny you can guess from expression of peoples' faces in the photos that they are not upper management people - they look too happy to be escaping the office.

    Replies: @AP, @utu

    These in the train look like Wall Street workers? – You mean that they do not look Jewish? Perhaps this is your complex speaking as a wannabe Jew with a Russian muzhik mug.

    • Replies: @Dmitry
    @utu

    Sure, I feel like I should be able to recognize the other office slaves of my class, some might even share my peasant origin. There is likely no Crockett & Jones shoes on their feet (perhaps only Allen Edmonds), and a lack of the "Park East Synagogue" membership card in their wallet.


    -

    But what about our romantic Hollywood images of the Wall Street managers? Are there no Yale "Skull and Bone" managers there, who want to perform sinister "nature vs nurture" experiments against persecuted but very witty African Africans?

    https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=CLxU95cMVps

    Replies: @utu

  482. @Yahya
    @Mikel


    I lived in Chile for some time and people of Christian Arab descent, generally Palestinians and Syrians, were definitely one of the most economically successful communities.
     
    Christian Arabs succeed wherever they go. In places like the US, they are overrepresented in almost all prestigious occupations (medicine, academia, government, banking etc.); and in Israel, Christian schools outscore Jewish ones on standardized tests. As I wrote in a post a few months ago:

    Arab-American (63% of whom are Christians) median household income is roughly 10% higher than the American average. 40% of Arab-Americans have a college degree, compared to 24% for Americans at large. Some prominent Arab Christians in the US include Nicolas Nassim Taleb (author/intellctual), Edward Said (author/intellectual), Mitch Daniels (governor, author), Elias Chorey (Nobel Prize chemist), Micheal DeBakey (eminent surgeon), Joe Jumail (billionaire lawyer), George Joseph (billionaire entrepreneur), Joseph Mack (CEO of Morgan Stanley) etc. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_Arab_Americans

     

    In certain metrics such as physicians per capita, they are even more over-represented than the mighty Ashkenazim:

    https://i1.wp.com/copticvoiceus.com/wp-content/uploads/2020/06/image-2.png?fit=512%2C400

    They definitely rank up there as the one of the smartest ethnicities in the world. This shouldn't be surprising given they are the most direct descendants of the people who invented the world's first and most advanced civilization for ~4,000 years (approx 3300BC-1300AD); as well as the major Abrahamic religions which have effectively colonized the planet.

    https://image.pbs.org/poster_images/assets/sj14-int-religmap.jpg

    They also don’t have the SSA admixture, cousin marriage practices, malnutrition & poverty, or the inhibiting cultural values of Arab Muslims.

    If I were to rank the top 5 smartest ethnicities; I'd say it would be the following, in order:
    (1) Ashkenazi Jews
    (2) Christian Arabs
    (3) Tamil Brahmins
    (4) UMC WASPs
    (5) Diaspora Chinese

    In terms of IQ, the Ashkenazi are up there on a class of their own. The other 4 are roughly equal; though Christian Arabs and Tamil Brahmins have more "creativity" and "gumption"; UMC WASPs in the middle; and Diaspora Chinese at the bottom.


    They also tend to look more Caucasian than the general population there.
     
    Arabs are Caucasians; scientifically speaking. So it's no surprise they look more Caucasian than the general mestizo population in Latin America. Levantine Arabs in particular don’t look too different than Iberians; most people who are unfamiliar with Iberians & Levantines would not be able to spot the difference. Though of course a familiar and discerning eye could differentiate between them.

    One of my favorite hobbies is to browse the r/phenotypes subreddit; where people post pictures of themselves, and redditors would try to guess their national origin. Occasionally you'd come across a Palestinian who'd post a picture of him/herself; and almost invariably someone would guess Spain, Portugal or Italy (and occasionally France or Romania). For example:

    https://www.reddit.com/r/phenotypes/comments/rgjq9j/can_you_guess_where_im_from/

    Another interesting post on reddit was this blonde, blue-eyed Palestinian immigrant to Chile; who kindly shared her 23andme results:

    https://www.reddit.com/r/23andme/comments/ffmovm/palestinian_from_chile_my_results/

    Somewhat interestingly, 23andME pegged this Palestinian lady as 99.4% West Asian/North African; even though she looks like she could've been born in Warsaw or Budapest. Of course blonde hair or blue eyes are not uncommon in the Levant; a legacy of the Greco-Roman, Crusader and Ottoman periods. But very rarely do they pop up in one go. Another Northern-European-looking Palestinian is Nazerene folk singer Dalal Abu-Amneh:

    https://i1.sndcdn.com/artworks-000144264801-0zwi4q-t500x500.jpg


    If you don’t mind my asking, why do so many Muslims try to emigrate to Europe or other Western countries instead of the rich countries of the Arabian peninsula, which look more culturally similar? Is it that these countries are not viewed so desirable for living or is it that they have more strict immigration policies?
     
    Citizenship in many Arab countries - poor and rich alike - is only obtainable by having a father from said Arab country (i.e. only those born to a Saudi father can obtain Saudi citizenship; only those with a Syrian father are given Syrian citizenship etc). Though many Arab countries have recently allowed citizenship through maternal lineage; it's well-nigh impossible to obtain citizenship in any Arab country without at least one Arab parent.

    Replies: @AP, @Dmitry, @silviosilver

    terms of IQ

    Do you mean in colloquial way, or pseudoscientific way? IQ tests are like astrology readings. Just it is based on some early 20th century English parlour games they play before dinner, whereas astrology is based on games they used to played after dinner.

    I agree that different national populations could different distrisbutions of talents though on average. First you would need a representative sample though, and then that sample will depend a lot on historical conditions.

    Arabs in Western countries have a representation in medical professions for example. Russians are lifting more in the hi-tech sector. A lot is related to the immigration regime, combined with educational opportunity of the origin country.

    In the postsoviet countries, there is a former superpower level of the technical education for ambitious nerds. Whereas people from former Ottoman countries, do not have much access to superpower technical education. So you see a lot of medical professsionals instead in the immigrants.

    smartest ethnicities in the world.

    I think this is more how you sample them, rather than the base population.

    For example, Russians in Europe are in two classes. Elite/political class of Russia, who are moving money. And loser computer scientists/software engineers, nerds, etc, who are working for Western companies as a kind of middle class of exploited, slave labor.

    By comparison, Poles in Western Europe, are open border immigration, and often work in retail, bus driving, waitress, etc.

    If you just saw slavic nationalities in the West, you will be saying “Poles are hardworking shop assistants”. “Russians are the world’s most intellectual, nerdy people, or the world’s most wealthy”.

    It would be surprising when you go to Russia, and saw a representative sample of the public, which matches more to Poles, than to the ultra-wealthy, and ultra-nerds, in London. It’s because the immigration filter for Russians is strict, for Poles open borders.

    Levantine Arabs in particular don’t

    In Israel, I think Arabs (and much of Jews, who are Arab Jews) are definitely as dark in melanin or Middle Eastern appearance, as you expect for the latitude.

    This is also true of Spain of course, a significant part of the population in Spain look more Middle Eastern, which matches their latitude.

    Culturally, there is quite a lot of modernization though in the Middle East.

    avorite hobbies is to browse the r/phenotypes subreddit

    You can’t see such a good sample from this kind of photo though, and depends a lot on lighting also. Selfies are not that representative of the people, and the people themselves might not be that representative of the country.

    I think with video, you can see a lot on the internet nowadays. YouTube is very good.

    Maybe you can see with school graduation or walking videos, where there are large number of younger people.

    I searched for the scouts in Yafo, which is a multinational city in Israel with Christians and Muslims.

    For Yafo, from this method, it does look like Palestinians Christians look on average more light compared to Palestinian Muslims.

    In the first video, parade of the Palestinian Christian scouts in Yafo. Mostly they have a Middle Eastern appearance, but perhaps matching to this latitude.

    In the second video, a parade of Palestinian Muslim (Arab Israeli youth) scouts in Yafo.

    I guess you could imagine from appearance the Muslim population of Yafo has more Bedouin influence, from the deserts in the South. So perhaps the latitude origin of the population can show some difference?

    However, it can also be related to time of year.

    Interesting Muslim scouts’ march in Yafo have an Israel flag, so their self-identify is not necessarily so Palestinian nowadays.

    • Replies: @silviosilver
    @Dmitry


    Do you mean in colloquial way, or pseudoscientific way? IQ tests are like astrology readings. Just it is based on some early 20th century English parlour games they play before dinner, whereas astrology is based on games they used to played after dinner.
     
    Cute the way you console yourself, lol.

    Too bad for you, though, that IQ is scarily predictive of life outcomes while astrology is no better than random guessing.

    Replies: @Yellowface Anon, @Dmitry

  483. @utu
    @German_reader


    INTRODUCED RETROSPECTIVE CLUSTER-BASED APPROACH TO LOCATE TRANSMISSION

    On February 25, the Ministry of Health, Labor, and Social Affairs, with the Government's aid, announced the Basic Policies for Novel Coronavirus Disease Control and set up a cluster response team along with 536 consultative centers [7]. The country used retrospective monitoring methods to find closer links to an infected person, while other countries employed the prospective approach to identify a major infection source. Japan's retrospective method was claimed to more reliably identify the initial source of infection and thus tracked all close contacts of sources of infection. The basic policy of the authority was to early detect the source of an infected individual through symptoms, follow all the people in the cluster who are highly transmissible, test and isolate them immediately and treat them as symptoms rather than general testing of the country's entire population [8]. The authorities succeeded in the cluster control approach in the earliest phase of the pandemic.

    Japan's mild lockdowns seem to have had a real lockdown effect. While people were not forced to remain at home, they did in general.

    Furthermore, the exchange of greetings between Japan and the rest of the world varies. In greeting, the Japanese tend to bow rather than shake, embrace, or kiss. Japanese people were believed to have droplets smaller than others; it was shown that approximately 80% of patients did not transmit this virus to others. Also, an established culture of masks, especially in the winter grip season, maybe an important reason for the low infection. Furthermore, in Japan, which is practiced widely in educational institutions from a very young age, a tradition of handwashing is higher.

    https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC7688188/
     

    Replies: @German_reader, @Dmitry

    Thanks, interesting.
    However, I wonder about this sentence:

    Japanese people were believed to have droplets smaller than others

    As far as I can see, they don’t provide an explanation for why this would be so.

    • Replies: @utu
    @German_reader

    Yes, it does not make sense. Must be language problem.

    , @songbird
    @German_reader

    The geometry of both the nostrils and the nasal cavity differ markedly according to race, so much so that there is specialized vocabulary to designate anatomical forms.

    And the Japanese are shorter than both Chinese and Koreans. (And so likely have less aerobic capacity.)

    Seems quite possible to me that they would create smaller droplets when they sneeze and this would have multiple consequences.

    Don't know quite how they do it, but AFAIK, a lot of math goes into formulating inhalers to create different-sized droplets for the delivery of different drugs. There is probably an analogy in racial anatomy.

    Replies: @utu

  484. @Emil Nikola Richard
    @Dmitry


    Every month it feels like I saw another person who has bought a Porsche Taycan.
     
    Way over 50% of new upscale cars are leased not purchased and way over 50% of your colleagues with new upscale cars are sucking on debt.

    Look at the lease payments on google and your envy quotient may drop to 0 degrees kelvin or whatever the units for that are.

    Replies: @Dmitry

    Maybe leasing is becoming more common.

    But one of the reasons Porsche Taycans (and Teslas) flood into the carparks at the technology parks, is because there is a slightly democratic ownership structure in many startups.

    As they exit, then often nothing changes for employees, although with a new layer of managers above them. But the employees’ part of the ownership is bought, often for incredibly inflated values.

    This is one of the times when employees’ carpark is turning into Porsche Taycans, after there is an exit, previous employees’ bank accounts are flooded.

    Of course, there are also a lot of people in large companies with high salaries, managers, etc, which like to buy such cars. But buying of expensive cars is emotionally often what people are doing when they have sudden crazy money dropped on them, which has been characteristic of this overhyped industry.

    • Replies: @Emil Nikola Richard
    @Dmitry

    Impressive. I am being serious here; the following is an attempt at _humor_.

    Anatoly Karlin has dumped me as internet wing-man. Do you look good with your shirt off? Karlin's old spot is up for grabs here.

  485. Heard that the Dutch used to drink water out of canals. Makes me wonder whether geo-engineering may have changed their DNA, or whether they haven’t been at the game long enough.

  486. @PedroAstra
    @Dmitry

    Isn't the tech industry on fire this year? From what I've seen, compensation packages are getting to be hilariously inflated with new grads getting 250k offers.

    Replies: @Dmitry

    Yes and there was also last year hundreds of billions of dollars of venture capital (i.e. gambling money) thrown to the industry.

    It shows about how much spare money there is in the world today, when they can drop so much money, often throwing gambling money on clever but not essential industry.

  487. @Yahya
    @Mikel


    I lived in Chile for some time and people of Christian Arab descent, generally Palestinians and Syrians, were definitely one of the most economically successful communities.
     
    Christian Arabs succeed wherever they go. In places like the US, they are overrepresented in almost all prestigious occupations (medicine, academia, government, banking etc.); and in Israel, Christian schools outscore Jewish ones on standardized tests. As I wrote in a post a few months ago:

    Arab-American (63% of whom are Christians) median household income is roughly 10% higher than the American average. 40% of Arab-Americans have a college degree, compared to 24% for Americans at large. Some prominent Arab Christians in the US include Nicolas Nassim Taleb (author/intellctual), Edward Said (author/intellectual), Mitch Daniels (governor, author), Elias Chorey (Nobel Prize chemist), Micheal DeBakey (eminent surgeon), Joe Jumail (billionaire lawyer), George Joseph (billionaire entrepreneur), Joseph Mack (CEO of Morgan Stanley) etc. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_Arab_Americans

     

    In certain metrics such as physicians per capita, they are even more over-represented than the mighty Ashkenazim:

    https://i1.wp.com/copticvoiceus.com/wp-content/uploads/2020/06/image-2.png?fit=512%2C400

    They definitely rank up there as the one of the smartest ethnicities in the world. This shouldn't be surprising given they are the most direct descendants of the people who invented the world's first and most advanced civilization for ~4,000 years (approx 3300BC-1300AD); as well as the major Abrahamic religions which have effectively colonized the planet.

    https://image.pbs.org/poster_images/assets/sj14-int-religmap.jpg

    They also don’t have the SSA admixture, cousin marriage practices, malnutrition & poverty, or the inhibiting cultural values of Arab Muslims.

    If I were to rank the top 5 smartest ethnicities; I'd say it would be the following, in order:
    (1) Ashkenazi Jews
    (2) Christian Arabs
    (3) Tamil Brahmins
    (4) UMC WASPs
    (5) Diaspora Chinese

    In terms of IQ, the Ashkenazi are up there on a class of their own. The other 4 are roughly equal; though Christian Arabs and Tamil Brahmins have more "creativity" and "gumption"; UMC WASPs in the middle; and Diaspora Chinese at the bottom.


    They also tend to look more Caucasian than the general population there.
     
    Arabs are Caucasians; scientifically speaking. So it's no surprise they look more Caucasian than the general mestizo population in Latin America. Levantine Arabs in particular don’t look too different than Iberians; most people who are unfamiliar with Iberians & Levantines would not be able to spot the difference. Though of course a familiar and discerning eye could differentiate between them.

    One of my favorite hobbies is to browse the r/phenotypes subreddit; where people post pictures of themselves, and redditors would try to guess their national origin. Occasionally you'd come across a Palestinian who'd post a picture of him/herself; and almost invariably someone would guess Spain, Portugal or Italy (and occasionally France or Romania). For example:

    https://www.reddit.com/r/phenotypes/comments/rgjq9j/can_you_guess_where_im_from/

    Another interesting post on reddit was this blonde, blue-eyed Palestinian immigrant to Chile; who kindly shared her 23andme results:

    https://www.reddit.com/r/23andme/comments/ffmovm/palestinian_from_chile_my_results/

    Somewhat interestingly, 23andME pegged this Palestinian lady as 99.4% West Asian/North African; even though she looks like she could've been born in Warsaw or Budapest. Of course blonde hair or blue eyes are not uncommon in the Levant; a legacy of the Greco-Roman, Crusader and Ottoman periods. But very rarely do they pop up in one go. Another Northern-European-looking Palestinian is Nazerene folk singer Dalal Abu-Amneh:

    https://i1.sndcdn.com/artworks-000144264801-0zwi4q-t500x500.jpg


    If you don’t mind my asking, why do so many Muslims try to emigrate to Europe or other Western countries instead of the rich countries of the Arabian peninsula, which look more culturally similar? Is it that these countries are not viewed so desirable for living or is it that they have more strict immigration policies?
     
    Citizenship in many Arab countries - poor and rich alike - is only obtainable by having a father from said Arab country (i.e. only those born to a Saudi father can obtain Saudi citizenship; only those with a Syrian father are given Syrian citizenship etc). Though many Arab countries have recently allowed citizenship through maternal lineage; it's well-nigh impossible to obtain citizenship in any Arab country without at least one Arab parent.

    Replies: @AP, @Dmitry, @silviosilver

    Arab-American (63% of whom are Christians) median household income is roughly 10% higher than the American average.

    For the purposes of this discussion, the appropriate comparison is with white Americans, not with all Americans – the latter whose average is dragged down by blacks and hispanics.

    I’m not suggesting they don’t come out ahead vs white Americans as well – I don’t know and cbf checking to see.

    Levantine Arabs in particular don’t look too different than Iberians; most people who are unfamiliar with Iberians & Levantines would not be able to spot the difference.

    That is an extreme exaggeration. I have considerable personal experience with Lebanese, both Christian and Muslim. I don’t doubt there are some very European looking ones, but they’re only a small minority. The vast majority look nothing like Iberians (whose non-whiteness is absurdly exaggerated on race forums). Interestingly, both very light and very dark can occur within the same family.

    One of my best friends was a rather dark, frizzy haired Lebanese whom nobody has ever mistaken for European, while his sister was a model-hot natural dirty-blonde. Unsurprisingly, they had rather different experiences of growing up in a very Anglo part of Australia. My friend developed very bitter anti-WASP racial and cultural hostility, while his sister was accepted into and moved exclusively among Anglo circles. It’s the sort of thing that make liberals rend their garments in despair that race (or racial perception) should matter so much, and motivates them to attempt to eliminate its significance. (A fool’s errand, of course.)

    And that’s just the Lebanese. Most Palestinians, and a great proportion of Syrians, for whatever reason, are much darker and more ‘araby’. Just watch any video of Palestinian protesters. The number of people you see who could realistically pass even in southern Europe is minuscule.

    Whether one group “looks like” another or not is inescapably subjective, and usually highly contextual. In the overwhelmingly (“pristinely” or “oppressively”, depending on your perspective, heh) Anglo part of Australia I grew up, a “greasy dago” like me stuck out like a sore thumb. Against the backdrop of a bazillion niggers, however, I find myself transformed into a “fellow white man,” lol.

    Observations like this stun and appall white libtards. “Bu..bu..but you’re not supposed to care about race… you’re a, well, you’re umm… “- what they can’t quite bring themselves to say is that I’m too non-white to be a racist, that “racism” is something only people as white as themselves are capable of. The rest of us are supposed to do nothing more than play our assigned role, which is to agitate for and content ourselves with acceptance by white/whiter/WASP-y libtards. The notion that other people may have racial preferences of their own baffles them, and upsets them by threatening to undo (or render irrelevant) all their “anti-racism” work.

    • Agree: sher singh
    • Replies: @AP
    @silviosilver


    For the purposes of this discussion, the appropriate comparison is with white Americans, not with all Americans
     
    Chaldenas (Iraqi Christians, who state that they are Chaldeans rather than Arabs and think of themselves as the indigenous descendants of the Babylonians while their Muslim neighbors are a horde of inferior invaders) are rather rich:

    https://www.chaldeannews.com/advertise

    Facts about Chaldeans:
    Have an average household income of $138,888

    Have a median household income of $96,100 – more than twice the U.S. national average

    Have a median housing value of $339,100 – nearly twice the U.S. national average

    Have an average household size of four people

    Are entrepreneurial, with 57% of households owning at least one business, and 20% owning two

    :::::::

    Some impassioned responses when someone asked Chaldeans if they are Arabs:

    https://www.quora.com/Why-dont-Chaldeans-like-being-called-Arabs

    :::::::

    Their taste tends to be a bit vulgar and flashy IMO, and they seem to be rather materialistic - a friend dated a Chaldean girl who lived with her parents so that she could afford an expensive model Mercedes. But they seem to be more virtuous and conservative in their behavior than the Jersey Shore Italians or some post-Soviets who can have a similarly garish aesthetic.

    , @sb
    @silviosilver

    Interesting observations
    Although it does occur to me that not many people would be comfortable saying that their moving from Australia to the US has made both countries whiter

    Replies: @silviosilver

    , @Yahya
    @silviosilver


    For the purposes of this discussion, the appropriate comparison is with white Americans, not with all Americans

     

    I think AP covered that one well.

    – the latter whose average is dragged down by blacks and hispanics.
     
    (Non-Hispanic) White-American median household income was $74,912 in 2020.

    Lebanese-Americans were at $87,099.

    The overall American figure was $67,521.

    https://www.statista.com/statistics/233324/median-household-income-in-the-united-states-by-race-or-ethnic-group/


    Interestingly, both very light and very dark can occur within the same family.

     

    Yes, in the Middle East, a strange duality exists where people of the same race, religion, region, nationality and even family can exhibit vastly different phenotypes. Some will look quasi-European ("white"); and others will look quasi-Hispanic ("brown"). The proportion of white-to-brown differs by class and region.

    In almost any Arab society; the higher classes will have more whites than browns; and the lower classes more browns than whites. In the Levant; the majority (70-80%+) in the upper classes will be white; somewhat less white in the middle class (maybe 60%), whereas the lower classes will be somewhat more brown (perhaps 65%). Nevertheless, the quasi-European types can still be found among the rabble (heh); so it's not a situation like in Latin America where the upper class is uniformly white; and the lower classes predominantly indigos and mestizos.


    The vast majority look nothing like Iberians (whose non-whiteness is absurdly exaggerated on race forums).

     

    I don't think it was an "extreme exaggeration" to say Levantines look similar to Southern Europeans. This similarity has been noticed by many, not just me; and for good reason. Even in Ancient times, the Greeks; who were keen observers of physical differences between themselves and others (Ethiopians, Indians, Northern Europeans etc.) didn’t make any note of differences between themselves and Levantines, since presumably they were similar enough (i.e. Mediterranean Caucasians). Or perhaps they didn’t care to note down any differences.

    Anyway, back to the modern world. An Unz commentor once perceptively noted that the average Greek looks far more "Arab than Aryan"; which I think is a succinct summary of the phenotypic similarities between Arabs and Southern Europeans; which is probably greater than with Northern Europeans:


    AndrewR says:
    @Je Suis Charlie Martel
    Is it not obvious? The average Greek looks far more Arab than Aryan. That’s why I laugh so hard when I see Greeks LARPing as nazis bemoaning all the “nonwhite” Arabs into “white” countries like Germany.

    I mean… I’m not saying Greeks shouldn’t oppose the immivasion. But to pretend they’re more like the Germans than the Syrians is the height of fantasy.

    • Replies: @ReaderfromGreece
     
    And people pointing out that Southern Europeans look similar to Middle Easterners is not exclusively done by WN-types either. In Reddit, for example, an anonymous poll was conducted asking if Greeks looked more similar to Omanis or Norwegians:

    https://www.reddit.com/r/phenotypes/comments/rjor4z/do_greeks_pass_better_as_omani_or_as_norwegian/

    Somewhat humorously, Omanis won out by a large margin, even though Omanis are darker than most other Arabs. I can only imagine what the results would have been like had Levantines been in place of Omanis. Another poll asked if Spaniards and Portuguese look closer to the Lebanese or Irish; the former won out:

    https://www.reddit.com/r/phenotypes/comments/q0m16p/spaniards_and_portuguese_look_closer_to_which_of/


    That is an extreme exaggeration. I have considerable personal experience with Lebanese, both Christian and Muslim. I don’t doubt there are some very European looking ones, but they’re only a small minority.

     

    The "extreme exaggeration" is on your part. The proportion of Levantines who can pass for Southern European is not "minuscule" - that would be Pashtuns, of whom there is a small white-looking contingent; but you'd have to put in some effort to find them. For Levantines, by contrast, one could easily bring up thousands of examples of quasi-European phenotypes without breaking a sweat. Take a look at this school choir in Syria, for example:

    https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=T-9MDK4xecQ&ab_channel=iyadhanna

    I'd say about ~70-80% of them, if they were put up on reddit for commenters to guess their national origin, would get a fair number of "Spain", "Portugal", "Greece", or "Italy". Again; a familiar eye can discern between them; but most people would not.


    In the overwhelmingly (“pristinely” or “oppressively”, depending on your perspective, heh) Anglo part of Australia I grew up, a “greasy dago” like me stuck out like a sore thumb.

     

    When I first went to the US for university; I thought, given my white skin (similar to the median Southern European, or even a tanned Germanic-type) and quasi-European appearance; I would be considered white. For the most part that was true - unless people obtained knowledge of my Muslim name, or heard my foreign accent. Then I would suddenly become a "person of color", almost in an instant. At first I was bothered by this, since I thought it was non-sensical that someone who is closer to the Italian-American phenotype, like myself, would be lumped in with blacks and Hispanics. But over time I started enjoying my PoC status, since in my ultra-woke university environment, PoC were of higher status than whites. :)

    Since I've returned to Egypt, none of this is applicable anymore.


    what they can’t quite bring themselves to say is that I’m too non-white to be a racist, that “racism” is something only people as white as themselves are capable of

     

    If what you say about yourself is true, then you, like many other Southern Euros, are probably closer in appearance to Levantine Arabs, than to your pasty-white Anglo "co-racials". In which case; it's understandable why you would be considered too "non-white" to be racist.

    Against the backdrop of a bazillion niggers, however, I find myself transformed into a “fellow white man,” lol.

     

    From what I gather, even Nordicist WN-types are coming around to accepting Southern Europeans as "fellow white people". I assume this is partly because of the avalanche of evidence pointing to Greeks and Romans being swarthy Southern Europeans - not unlike their Central Italian and mainland Greek descendants today. Previously, Nordicists were desperate to claim the accomplishments of these two peoples, since obviously Germanics/Nordics/Celts were mostly primitive people for 85% of recorded history. But WN-types can no longer plausibly claim a connection to the glories of Ancient Greece and Rome; except by this new tenuous racial connection.

    Replies: @German_reader, @Mikel, @silviosilver, @silviosilver

  488. @Dmitry
    @Yahya


    terms of IQ
     
    Do you mean in colloquial way, or pseudoscientific way? IQ tests are like astrology readings. Just it is based on some early 20th century English parlour games they play before dinner, whereas astrology is based on games they used to played after dinner.

    I agree that different national populations could different distrisbutions of talents though on average. First you would need a representative sample though, and then that sample will depend a lot on historical conditions.

    Arabs in Western countries have a representation in medical professions for example. Russians are lifting more in the hi-tech sector. A lot is related to the immigration regime, combined with educational opportunity of the origin country.

    In the postsoviet countries, there is a former superpower level of the technical education for ambitious nerds. Whereas people from former Ottoman countries, do not have much access to superpower technical education. So you see a lot of medical professsionals instead in the immigrants.


    smartest ethnicities in the world.
     
    I think this is more how you sample them, rather than the base population.

    For example, Russians in Europe are in two classes. Elite/political class of Russia, who are moving money. And loser computer scientists/software engineers, nerds, etc, who are working for Western companies as a kind of middle class of exploited, slave labor.

    By comparison, Poles in Western Europe, are open border immigration, and often work in retail, bus driving, waitress, etc.

    If you just saw slavic nationalities in the West, you will be saying "Poles are hardworking shop assistants". "Russians are the world's most intellectual, nerdy people, or the world's most wealthy".

    It would be surprising when you go to Russia, and saw a representative sample of the public, which matches more to Poles, than to the ultra-wealthy, and ultra-nerds, in London. It's because the immigration filter for Russians is strict, for Poles open borders.


    Levantine Arabs in particular don’t

     

    In Israel, I think Arabs (and much of Jews, who are Arab Jews) are definitely as dark in melanin or Middle Eastern appearance, as you expect for the latitude.

    This is also true of Spain of course, a significant part of the population in Spain look more Middle Eastern, which matches their latitude.

    Culturally, there is quite a lot of modernization though in the Middle East.


    avorite hobbies is to browse the r/phenotypes subreddit
     
    You can't see such a good sample from this kind of photo though, and depends a lot on lighting also. Selfies are not that representative of the people, and the people themselves might not be that representative of the country.

    I think with video, you can see a lot on the internet nowadays. YouTube is very good.

    Maybe you can see with school graduation or walking videos, where there are large number of younger people.

    -

    I searched for the scouts in Yafo, which is a multinational city in Israel with Christians and Muslims.

    For Yafo, from this method, it does look like Palestinians Christians look on average more light compared to Palestinian Muslims.

    In the first video, parade of the Palestinian Christian scouts in Yafo. Mostly they have a Middle Eastern appearance, but perhaps matching to this latitude.
    https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=jTM5pthnPNE

    In the second video, a parade of Palestinian Muslim (Arab Israeli youth) scouts in Yafo.

    I guess you could imagine from appearance the Muslim population of Yafo has more Bedouin influence, from the deserts in the South. So perhaps the latitude origin of the population can show some difference?

    However, it can also be related to time of year.
    https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=dev0SpqmGvQ

    Interesting Muslim scouts' march in Yafo have an Israel flag, so their self-identify is not necessarily so Palestinian nowadays.

    Replies: @silviosilver

    Do you mean in colloquial way, or pseudoscientific way? IQ tests are like astrology readings. Just it is based on some early 20th century English parlour games they play before dinner, whereas astrology is based on games they used to played after dinner.

    Cute the way you console yourself, lol.

    Too bad for you, though, that IQ is scarily predictive of life outcomes while astrology is no better than random guessing.

    • Replies: @Yellowface Anon
    @silviosilver

    How does anyone here think of Martin Armstrong? He predicted a third party president (Trump is outside the GOPe norm) back in 1985 and saw the COVID Agenda coming, saying that the collapse of the West starts in 2020, and bottoms out by 2028-32.

    , @Dmitry
    @silviosilver

    You can just look at "IQ tests". They are mostly appearing to be early 20th century, puzzle games that were arbitrarily selected from parlour. Puzzle games, are then scored according to a distribution, and presented as a number.

    Because stupid people like to mystify whenever they see a number, many have have apparently reified these numbers as if they are a technical specification, rather than scores on the puzzle games (many which could have been designed for entertaining people before the invention of television).

    Almost everything has a use. You could use these puzzles to filter if people were literate or can understand instructions. It could filter people with neurological or cultural problems.

    They also could generalize to some kinds of thinking or culture, where puzzles are important. They require a certain logic, so they could be used to see if people are suitable for tasks where you have to learn this kind of thinking.

    However, the "IQ test" questions themselves usually do not have true or false answer. So it's at best limited to people within a specific cultural conformity.

    For example "raven's progressive matrices" is an example inspired from old puzzle books, where a creative person should choose completely different answers. There is no correct answer for "raven's progressive matrices". But if you have experience with them, then you could learn what is the culturally expected answer.

    Still I would expect a mentally creative or non-conformist person should choose unpredictable results in this puzzle.


    IQ is scarily predictive of life
     
    What do you mean by "IQ"? In colloquial sense, then some people are more intelligent and talented in different ways than other people.

    An "IQ test" that requires literacy (for example, vocabulary list), will correlate with education level, will correlate with income (in economy where these match).


    -

    As you know in this forum, though, they start talking about national "IQ" and its relation to income level in an economy (although data not based on "IQ tests", but inferred from OECD education tests, which are designed for something completely different - e.g. objectives like flexibility of teaching).

    In these claims, we saw often almost inverse of prediction. For example, China has one of the highest claimed scores in these OECD education tests today. But for the past 4 centuries, China has been economically very unsuccessful.

    So how goes the backtesting of these scores predictive across the last many centuries? It will be failure, even if you assumed the test scores do not change.

    That's not to say, the OECD tests themselves are not interesting ones. I think they could be used as an indicator, where a rapid rise could be a very positive signal. Before China is industrializing, modernizing, creating mass education, modern administration, etc, there was likely a rapid rise in their OECD test results (if they had existed in the past).

    Replies: @silviosilver

  489. @utu
    @Dmitry

    These in the train look like Wall Street workers? - You mean that they do not look Jewish? Perhaps this is your complex speaking as a wannabe Jew with a Russian muzhik mug.

    Replies: @Dmitry

    Sure, I feel like I should be able to recognize the other office slaves of my class, some might even share my peasant origin. There is likely no Crockett & Jones shoes on their feet (perhaps only Allen Edmonds), and a lack of the “Park East Synagogue” membership card in their wallet.

    But what about our romantic Hollywood images of the Wall Street managers? Are there no Yale “Skull and Bone” managers there, who want to perform sinister “nature vs nurture” experiments against persecuted but very witty African Africans?

    • Replies: @utu
    @Dmitry

    " shoes on their feet " - You can't see shoes they wear. Your elitisms is based on physiognomy. You haven't found enough Semitic features in the faces on the commuter trains. Be honest or keep earning the reputation for the greatest windbag on Karlin's blog.

    Replies: @Dmitry

  490. @German_reader
    @utu

    Thanks, interesting.
    However, I wonder about this sentence:


    Japanese people were believed to have droplets smaller than others
     
    As far as I can see, they don't provide an explanation for why this would be so.

    Replies: @utu, @songbird

    Yes, it does not make sense. Must be language problem.

  491. Perhaps, the reason that gays have become so powerful is that women like homoerotic themes.

    • Replies: @Yevardian
    @songbird

    Congratulations for coming up with this uniquely retarded take on a site already replete with them. It got me a chuckle, anyway.

    Although there are many quite external reasons for the contemporary rise of sexual perverts, but there's one immediate commonsense answer that comes to mind: they overwhelmingly have no distractions of, or desire for, family life.
    Most conventional personal blackmail also becomes rather difficult when you and your nominal 'partner' already openly live the bathhouse lifestyle.

    Replies: @songbird

  492. @silviosilver
    @Yahya


    Arab-American (63% of whom are Christians) median household income is roughly 10% higher than the American average.
     
    For the purposes of this discussion, the appropriate comparison is with white Americans, not with all Americans - the latter whose average is dragged down by blacks and hispanics.

    I'm not suggesting they don't come out ahead vs white Americans as well - I don't know and cbf checking to see.

    Levantine Arabs in particular don’t look too different than Iberians; most people who are unfamiliar with Iberians & Levantines would not be able to spot the difference.
     
    That is an extreme exaggeration. I have considerable personal experience with Lebanese, both Christian and Muslim. I don't doubt there are some very European looking ones, but they're only a small minority. The vast majority look nothing like Iberians (whose non-whiteness is absurdly exaggerated on race forums). Interestingly, both very light and very dark can occur within the same family.

    One of my best friends was a rather dark, frizzy haired Lebanese whom nobody has ever mistaken for European, while his sister was a model-hot natural dirty-blonde. Unsurprisingly, they had rather different experiences of growing up in a very Anglo part of Australia. My friend developed very bitter anti-WASP racial and cultural hostility, while his sister was accepted into and moved exclusively among Anglo circles. It's the sort of thing that make liberals rend their garments in despair that race (or racial perception) should matter so much, and motivates them to attempt to eliminate its significance. (A fool's errand, of course.)

    And that's just the Lebanese. Most Palestinians, and a great proportion of Syrians, for whatever reason, are much darker and more 'araby'. Just watch any video of Palestinian protesters. The number of people you see who could realistically pass even in southern Europe is minuscule.

    Whether one group "looks like" another or not is inescapably subjective, and usually highly contextual. In the overwhelmingly ("pristinely" or "oppressively", depending on your perspective, heh) Anglo part of Australia I grew up, a "greasy dago" like me stuck out like a sore thumb. Against the backdrop of a bazillion niggers, however, I find myself transformed into a "fellow white man," lol.

    Observations like this stun and appall white libtards. "Bu..bu..but you're not supposed to care about race... you're a, well, you're umm... "- what they can't quite bring themselves to say is that I'm too non-white to be a racist, that "racism" is something only people as white as themselves are capable of. The rest of us are supposed to do nothing more than play our assigned role, which is to agitate for and content ourselves with acceptance by white/whiter/WASP-y libtards. The notion that other people may have racial preferences of their own baffles them, and upsets them by threatening to undo (or render irrelevant) all their "anti-racism" work.

    Replies: @AP, @sb, @Yahya

    For the purposes of this discussion, the appropriate comparison is with white Americans, not with all Americans

    Chaldenas (Iraqi Christians, who state that they are Chaldeans rather than Arabs and think of themselves as the indigenous descendants of the Babylonians while their Muslim neighbors are a horde of inferior invaders) are rather rich:

    https://www.chaldeannews.com/advertise

    Facts about Chaldeans:
    Have an average household income of \$138,888

    Have a median household income of \$96,100 – more than twice the U.S. national average

    Have a median housing value of \$339,100 – nearly twice the U.S. national average

    Have an average household size of four people

    Are entrepreneurial, with 57% of households owning at least one business, and 20% owning two

    :::::::

    Some impassioned responses when someone asked Chaldeans if they are Arabs:

    https://www.quora.com/Why-dont-Chaldeans-like-being-called-Arabs

    :::::::

    Their taste tends to be a bit vulgar and flashy IMO, and they seem to be rather materialistic – a friend dated a Chaldean girl who lived with her parents so that she could afford an expensive model Mercedes. But they seem to be more virtuous and conservative in their behavior than the Jersey Shore Italians or some post-Soviets who can have a similarly garish aesthetic.

  493. @German_reader
    @utu

    Thanks, interesting.
    However, I wonder about this sentence:


    Japanese people were believed to have droplets smaller than others
     
    As far as I can see, they don't provide an explanation for why this would be so.

    Replies: @utu, @songbird

    The geometry of both the nostrils and the nasal cavity differ markedly according to race, so much so that there is specialized vocabulary to designate anatomical forms.

    And the Japanese are shorter than both Chinese and Koreans. (And so likely have less aerobic capacity.)

    Seems quite possible to me that they would create smaller droplets when they sneeze and this would have multiple consequences.

    Don’t know quite how they do it, but AFAIK, a lot of math goes into formulating inhalers to create different-sized droplets for the delivery of different drugs. There is probably an analogy in racial anatomy.

    • LOL: Yevardian
    • Replies: @utu
    @songbird

    You are at the extreme end of the racialist spectrum where only idiots go.

    Replies: @songbird

  494. @Dmitry
    @utu

    Sure, I feel like I should be able to recognize the other office slaves of my class, some might even share my peasant origin. There is likely no Crockett & Jones shoes on their feet (perhaps only Allen Edmonds), and a lack of the "Park East Synagogue" membership card in their wallet.


    -

    But what about our romantic Hollywood images of the Wall Street managers? Are there no Yale "Skull and Bone" managers there, who want to perform sinister "nature vs nurture" experiments against persecuted but very witty African Africans?

    https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=CLxU95cMVps

    Replies: @utu

    ” shoes on their feet ” – You can’t see shoes they wear. Your elitisms is based on physiognomy. You haven’t found enough Semitic features in the faces on the commuter trains. Be honest or keep earning the reputation for the greatest windbag on Karlin’s blog.

    • Replies: @Dmitry
    @utu

    You must be always thinking about Jews, as you want to talk about them on unrelated posts. But I am your loyal unrequited fan and always enjoy posting response to you.

    Physically they can look Jewish to me. I saw more Jews than probably anyone here, considering months of my life I have been in Israel.

    In first photos, physically looks like he could be a brother of Israeli Defense Minster Benny Gantz.

    He looks like "working class of Wall Street", as drinking budweiser can, reading tabloid newspaper, and with clothes which you do not buy in Brookes Brothers.

    https://static01.nyt.com/images/2014/05/10/nyregion/20140510BARCARss-slide-8I1Z/20140510BARCARss-slide-8I1Z-superJumbo.jpg


    In second photo, looks physically like a stereotype of a Haredi rabbi. This also looks like Paul Krugman.

    He looks like how I imagine "working class of Wall Street", because too nonprofessional appearing to be stereotype of manager. My experience of managers, usually they are addicted enough to their persona to maintain persona outside of office.

    https://s.hdnux.com/photos/62/75/15/13357939/3/ratio3x2_400.jpg

    In last photos. In my experience, we don't see managers like this too soon after work. Also in most companies, managers supposed to wear more professional clothes in business context. This is surely working class of Wall Street. But who knows (perhaps Wall Street managers really look like this)

    https://m.wsj.net/video/20140510/051014barcar1/051014barcar1_960x540.jpg

    As for physically, I think only one of those people would look strange in Israel. This is one of the faces in the background, face above beer cans towards the right is someone who I guess looks like only people from Western Europe.

    Replies: @Thulean Friend, @AP

  495. @songbird
    @German_reader

    The geometry of both the nostrils and the nasal cavity differ markedly according to race, so much so that there is specialized vocabulary to designate anatomical forms.

    And the Japanese are shorter than both Chinese and Koreans. (And so likely have less aerobic capacity.)

    Seems quite possible to me that they would create smaller droplets when they sneeze and this would have multiple consequences.

    Don't know quite how they do it, but AFAIK, a lot of math goes into formulating inhalers to create different-sized droplets for the delivery of different drugs. There is probably an analogy in racial anatomy.

    Replies: @utu

    You are at the extreme end of the racialist spectrum where only idiots go.

    • Replies: @songbird
    @utu

    There are sprayers that screw on the end of garden hoses. They have different sized holes, and change the size of the droplets that come out

    (You think nobody in the medical field is aware of this radically different anatomy, enough to posit a difference? I am not saying whether it actually is so.)

    But why try to explain it to you, when you are a reflexive Lysenkoist? You would probably say it is culture makes East Asians have longer intestines to the point where doctors we're often running out of cable, using equipment designed for Westerners.

    Replies: @German_reader

  496. @silviosilver
    @Dmitry


    Do you mean in colloquial way, or pseudoscientific way? IQ tests are like astrology readings. Just it is based on some early 20th century English parlour games they play before dinner, whereas astrology is based on games they used to played after dinner.
     
    Cute the way you console yourself, lol.

    Too bad for you, though, that IQ is scarily predictive of life outcomes while astrology is no better than random guessing.

    Replies: @Yellowface Anon, @Dmitry

    How does anyone here think of Martin Armstrong? He predicted a third party president (Trump is outside the GOPe norm) back in 1985 and saw the COVID Agenda coming, saying that the collapse of the West starts in 2020, and bottoms out by 2028-32.

  497. @silviosilver
    @Thulean Friend


    I’ve remarked previously that conservatives bragging about higher fertility (“we will outbreed the liberals!”) shows their usual stupidity as they do not understand the importance of controlling cultural institutions.
     
    Conservatives outbreeding liberals doesn't imply that all the offspring of conservatives will be conservative. Thinking that the example of Ted Cruz's daughter somehow disproves the concept simply betrays typical liberal ignorance of heredity (deliberate ignorance, too - it's bad news, and they imagine that if they just don't think about it, it will go away).

    Institutions are important,but that importance can be overstated. Remember, America and the entire western world was once very, very conservative, with conservatives in charge of everything. That in itself wasn't enough to prevent the liberal revolution. If those populations had been more genetically inclined towards "conservatism" (whatever you care to imply by that term), it's plausible that liberalism would never have attained a critical mass; and if it managed to insinuate itself into the institutions despite this, perhaps it would have been easier to dislodge it.

    Replies: @A123, @Yellowface Anon

    Neoreactionary world, Amish world, Duginist world, Islamist world, Hindutva world. Haven’t found a large enough reactionary sect in the Sinosphere yet.

    • Replies: @melanf
    @Yellowface Anon


    Duginist world
     
    This is a non-existent phenomenon

    Replies: @Yellowface Anon

  498. @Yellowface Anon
    @silviosilver

    Neoreactionary world, Amish world, Duginist world, Islamist world, Hindutva world. Haven't found a large enough reactionary sect in the Sinosphere yet.

    Replies: @melanf

    Duginist world

    This is a non-existent phenomenon

    • Replies: @Yellowface Anon
    @melanf

    Yes, not gonna happen with Putin & his successors.

    To rate their distance from centers of power, Islamists & Hindutva are in power in their respective countries, Neoreactionaries are set to take over the US riding on the back of radicalizing Trumpists, and the Amish are quietly breeding themselves to demographic dominance. Dugin? Still babbling in think tanks.

    Anyone mind to suggest me a genuinely Chinese reactionary movement anywhere? Neither nationalists in China or the Nationalists in Taiwan are genuinely reactionary, LKY is at most a clever paleoconservative, and everyone else is a joke.

  499. @melanf
    @Yellowface Anon


    Duginist world
     
    This is a non-existent phenomenon

    Replies: @Yellowface Anon

    Yes, not gonna happen with Putin & his successors.

    To rate their distance from centers of power, Islamists & Hindutva are in power in their respective countries, Neoreactionaries are set to take over the US riding on the back of radicalizing Trumpists, and the Amish are quietly breeding themselves to demographic dominance. Dugin? Still babbling in think tanks.

    Anyone mind to suggest me a genuinely Chinese reactionary movement anywhere? Neither nationalists in China or the Nationalists in Taiwan are genuinely reactionary, LKY is at most a clever paleoconservative, and everyone else is a joke.

  500. @Thulean Friend
    https://i.imgur.com/Y7DRVRe.png

    I've remarked previously that conservatives bragging about higher fertility ("we will outbreed the liberals!") shows their usual stupidity as they do not understand the importance of controlling cultural institutions.

    An ex of mine used to complain about she called "trend bi's". What she meant was girls who will claim to be bi but mostly just kiss other girls at parties. Their serious relationships were typically exclusive with men. (This ex swore she was a real bi, yet her dating history told you otherwise ;) ).

    I don't think this girl, given her young age, is honest about her sexuality. It's more a reflection of which cultural values are dominant and her adjusting accordingly.

    Replies: @German_reader, @Emil Nikola Richard, @silviosilver, @Coconuts

    There is some truth in what you say but at the moment it would be more surprising if there are any teenage daughters of prominent Republican politicians who haven’t come out as bisexual, non-binary etc.

    If she had posted a video of herself exercising with Indian clubs, throwing a javelin and power running through the surf, with a caption about wanting to maintain peak physical health for motherhood and childbirth, that would be noteworthy.

  501. @songbird
    Perhaps, the reason that gays have become so powerful is that women like homoerotic themes.

    Replies: @Yevardian

    Congratulations for coming up with this uniquely retarded take on a site already replete with them. It got me a chuckle, anyway.

    Although there are many quite external reasons for the contemporary rise of sexual perverts, but there’s one immediate commonsense answer that comes to mind: they overwhelmingly have no distractions of, or desire for, family life.
    Most conventional personal blackmail also becomes rather difficult when you and your nominal ‘partner’ already openly live the bathhouse lifestyle.

    • LOL: Yahya
    • Replies: @songbird
    @Yevardian

    Originally meant it as a joke, but your crass dismissal of it, circular logic, and tacked on explanation for why diplomatic missions in former communist countries no longer screen for gays, has made me consider it more seriously:

    In Japan, there are two separate genres of manga, one featuring lesbians (yuri), and one featuring gays (yaio), that were both designed to cater to women's fantasies. A spectrum from the romantic to the obscene. Since their inception in the 1970s, they have spread into neighboring countries, not without controversy, even in Japan itself, where they seem to be tied to political issues, like censorship in libraries or workplace discrimination.

    In China, yaio is known as danmei. There have been arrests of the female authors of such works (probably obscene) with long prison sentences because the Chinese perceive it (I believe correctly) as a social threat.

    These fantasies may appear niche, but actually they have entered deep into the mainstream, in both minor and major themes in other media. One such way of mainstreaming it is to sanitize it by making the story about a girl posing as one of the guys. Just a few off the top of my head: Hollywood film Just One of the Guys, 1985; K-drama Coffee Prince, Japanese anime Ouran High School Host Club. Obviously, catering to women's taste (big market) has done a lot to mainstream gays (minor market) and gender-bending, in the public eye.

    One of the dark reasons that Harry Potter is so influential is slash fiction written by women.

    The normal male reflex with gays is disgust. It was so when society was patriarchal. But now it is matriarchal, and women do not have the disgust. Their evolutionary psychology isn't the same, and their political and economic power have been leveraged to give gays a leg up. Just as it has been leveraged to facilitate the large scale invasion by military age alien men, or the dole for single mothers.

    Replies: @Barbarossa

  502. @A123
    @silviosilver


    Conservatives outbreeding liberals doesn’t imply that all the offspring of conservatives will be conservative
     
    The concept of "Conservative" is obsolete in U.S. politics.

    The question is -- Through breeding or conversion will pro-worker MAGA Populists be able to out gain anti-worker DNC Globalists?

    Pro-worker Populism is appealing to employed Hispanics alienated by the SJW/DNC. There is every reason to believe that youth voters are available to MAGA Populism.

    PEACE 😇

    Replies: @silviosilver

    The concept of “Conservative” is obsolete in U.S. politics.

    As a political brand, maybe. As a social attitude characterized chiefly by a fondness for traditions and established ways and a wariness of change, it’s as relevant as ever. (And if the hereditary aspect holds water, in time, perhaps more relevant than ever.)

    To answer your question, yes, I agree there is great potential in that appeal. If I were a praying man, I would be praying that the Dems are unable to rein in their ascendant lunatic left faction. Perhaps the next step in political evolution will be a mutual recognition that there is no good reason to force people with such vastly differing values to coexist in the same community. Let libtards live among and be ruled by their own people, and conservatives/populists/nationalists (call them what you will) be ruled by theirs.

    • Replies: @A123
    @silviosilver


    Let libtards live among and be ruled by their own people, and conservatives/populists/nationalists (call them what you will) be ruled by theirs.
     
    A small country, such as Lebanon, could successfully partition. The factions are explicit and unchanging. Any mandatory migration to establish viable borders would be a one time event that could be managed and fairly compensated.

    I do not see how this can work in the U.S. -- The map would be a red country with blue patches strewn haphazardly about. Worse yet, there is a great deal of "purple" where individuals do not cleanly factionalize. Inevitably, the two sides would have critical dependencies on each other. Instead of a clean break, it would likely be a prelude to war.


    praying that the Dems are unable to rein in their ascendant lunatic left faction.
     
    Do you mean AOC?

    PEACE 😇

     
    https://i.imgur.com/4nfYrnS.jpg

  503. @silviosilver
    @Yahya


    Arab-American (63% of whom are Christians) median household income is roughly 10% higher than the American average.
     
    For the purposes of this discussion, the appropriate comparison is with white Americans, not with all Americans - the latter whose average is dragged down by blacks and hispanics.

    I'm not suggesting they don't come out ahead vs white Americans as well - I don't know and cbf checking to see.

    Levantine Arabs in particular don’t look too different than Iberians; most people who are unfamiliar with Iberians & Levantines would not be able to spot the difference.
     
    That is an extreme exaggeration. I have considerable personal experience with Lebanese, both Christian and Muslim. I don't doubt there are some very European looking ones, but they're only a small minority. The vast majority look nothing like Iberians (whose non-whiteness is absurdly exaggerated on race forums). Interestingly, both very light and very dark can occur within the same family.

    One of my best friends was a rather dark, frizzy haired Lebanese whom nobody has ever mistaken for European, while his sister was a model-hot natural dirty-blonde. Unsurprisingly, they had rather different experiences of growing up in a very Anglo part of Australia. My friend developed very bitter anti-WASP racial and cultural hostility, while his sister was accepted into and moved exclusively among Anglo circles. It's the sort of thing that make liberals rend their garments in despair that race (or racial perception) should matter so much, and motivates them to attempt to eliminate its significance. (A fool's errand, of course.)

    And that's just the Lebanese. Most Palestinians, and a great proportion of Syrians, for whatever reason, are much darker and more 'araby'. Just watch any video of Palestinian protesters. The number of people you see who could realistically pass even in southern Europe is minuscule.

    Whether one group "looks like" another or not is inescapably subjective, and usually highly contextual. In the overwhelmingly ("pristinely" or "oppressively", depending on your perspective, heh) Anglo part of Australia I grew up, a "greasy dago" like me stuck out like a sore thumb. Against the backdrop of a bazillion niggers, however, I find myself transformed into a "fellow white man," lol.

    Observations like this stun and appall white libtards. "Bu..bu..but you're not supposed to care about race... you're a, well, you're umm... "- what they can't quite bring themselves to say is that I'm too non-white to be a racist, that "racism" is something only people as white as themselves are capable of. The rest of us are supposed to do nothing more than play our assigned role, which is to agitate for and content ourselves with acceptance by white/whiter/WASP-y libtards. The notion that other people may have racial preferences of their own baffles them, and upsets them by threatening to undo (or render irrelevant) all their "anti-racism" work.

    Replies: @AP, @sb, @Yahya

    Interesting observations
    Although it does occur to me that not many people would be comfortable saying that their moving from Australia to the US has made both countries whiter

    • Replies: @silviosilver
    @sb

    Hehe, touche.

    What can I say? I am a battle-hardened keyboard warrior, immune to taking any personal or racial online offense (all comers are welcome to try) and in my haste to get to the point, I often forget how uncomfortable many others are with such direct language. (Or even how uncomfortable I once, long ago, was.)

    In any case, the issue is too important to allow it to be held hostage to insecurities. I'm aware of how corny this will sound, yet it's truly no stretch to say that the very fate of the civilized world depends on decisions taken (or not taken) in the region of the next twenty to fifty years.

    Based on what is today known about race, if the four billion Africans-to-be by century's end are permitted to spread negrofuxation across the globe - and we can be certain they shall want to - the direst consequences for civilization must be presumed. Millions of years of creative, ameliorative evolution, of "idealization away from the ape", will be brought to a crashing halt.

    Is it tolerable that our world should thus end - not with a bang, but with a nigger?

  504. @utu
    @songbird

    You are at the extreme end of the racialist spectrum where only idiots go.

    Replies: @songbird

    There are sprayers that screw on the end of garden hoses. They have different sized holes, and change the size of the droplets that come out

    (You think nobody in the medical field is aware of this radically different anatomy, enough to posit a difference? I am not saying whether it actually is so.)

    But why try to explain it to you, when you are a reflexive Lysenkoist? You would probably say it is culture makes East Asians have longer intestines to the point where doctors we’re often running out of cable, using equipment designed for Westerners.

    • Replies: @German_reader
    @songbird

    I'm not dismissing the idea that there might be relevant anatomical differences, but if the Japanese really had such an inherent advantage (which presumably would affect the transmission of all manner of diseases), that would have extremely far-reaching implications. It's pretty weird to just casually state something like this without explaining it or backing it up at all with evidence (if the authors of the paper even meant to imply something biological, maybe it's just a reference to cultural norms, like the forms of greetings they reference).

    Replies: @songbird

  505. German_reader says:
    @songbird
    @utu

    There are sprayers that screw on the end of garden hoses. They have different sized holes, and change the size of the droplets that come out

    (You think nobody in the medical field is aware of this radically different anatomy, enough to posit a difference? I am not saying whether it actually is so.)

    But why try to explain it to you, when you are a reflexive Lysenkoist? You would probably say it is culture makes East Asians have longer intestines to the point where doctors we're often running out of cable, using equipment designed for Westerners.

    Replies: @German_reader

    I’m not dismissing the idea that there might be relevant anatomical differences, but if the Japanese really had such an inherent advantage (which presumably would affect the transmission of all manner of diseases), that would have extremely far-reaching implications. It’s pretty weird to just casually state something like this without explaining it or backing it up at all with evidence (if the authors of the paper even meant to imply something biological, maybe it’s just a reference to cultural norms, like the forms of greetings they reference).

    • Replies: @songbird
    @German_reader


    It’s pretty weird to just casually state something like this without explaining it or backing it up at all with evidence
     
    TBH, I haven't scrutinized the paper in question, I am just observing that they seem to have put it on a laundry list, and giving a theory why they may have done so.

    Not your bailiwick, but if you ever want to be seriously blackpilled, spend hours on Pubmed looking at studies. the vast majority of them are ill-conceived and shoddily written. Most doctors and researchers, including the ones that we give billions of dollars to, aren't "smart." Though we do give them a lot of esteem and resources.

    but if the Japanese really had such an inherent advantage (which presumably would affect the transmission of all manner of diseases)
     
    As I say, I'm an agnostic on the issue of droplet size, and just trying to imagine a semi-plausible contextualization, which might be that among civilized countries where it is possible to study questions of race, the Japanese might have the smallest (small difference) droplet size on average. (I rather doubt it would be global)

    Though, I have zero doubt that spray patterns differ based on age, sex and race.

    If we were to posit a small difference of say 5% diameter, that would enter into many permutations. Maybe, having no effect on many diseases, while very slightly increasing/decreasing the risk of others. It's enough to put it on a laundry list, but not to explain the full trend.
  506. @sb
    @silviosilver

    Interesting observations
    Although it does occur to me that not many people would be comfortable saying that their moving from Australia to the US has made both countries whiter

    Replies: @silviosilver

    Hehe, touche.

    What can I say? I am a battle-hardened keyboard warrior, immune to taking any personal or racial online offense (all comers are welcome to try) and in my haste to get to the point, I often forget how uncomfortable many others are with such direct language. (Or even how uncomfortable I once, long ago, was.)

    In any case, the issue is too important to allow it to be held hostage to insecurities. I’m aware of how corny this will sound, yet it’s truly no stretch to say that the very fate of the civilized world depends on decisions taken (or not taken) in the region of the next twenty to fifty years.

    Based on what is today known about race, if the four billion Africans-to-be by century’s end are permitted to spread negrofuxation across the globe – and we can be certain they shall want to – the direst consequences for civilization must be presumed. Millions of years of creative, ameliorative evolution, of “idealization away from the ape”, will be brought to a crashing halt.

    Is it tolerable that our world should thus end – not with a bang, but with a nigger?

  507. Had a dream last night. In my dream, nations were racing cars shooting over the abyss of modernity, landing on a sharp slope on the other side and sliding backwards.

    Only way to make it over the slope is to gun it, to go all-in on increasing TFR.
    _____
    It is amazing to think that a lot of stories that feature cousins are basically broken in some countries with TFR too low for many people to have them, let alone any relationship to them

  508. @silviosilver
    @A123


    The concept of “Conservative” is obsolete in U.S. politics.
     
    As a political brand, maybe. As a social attitude characterized chiefly by a fondness for traditions and established ways and a wariness of change, it's as relevant as ever. (And if the hereditary aspect holds water, in time, perhaps more relevant than ever.)

    To answer your question, yes, I agree there is great potential in that appeal. If I were a praying man, I would be praying that the Dems are unable to rein in their ascendant lunatic left faction. Perhaps the next step in political evolution will be a mutual recognition that there is no good reason to force people with such vastly differing values to coexist in the same community. Let libtards live among and be ruled by their own people, and conservatives/populists/nationalists (call them what you will) be ruled by theirs.

    Replies: @A123

    Let libtards live among and be ruled by their own people, and conservatives/populists/nationalists (call them what you will) be ruled by theirs.

    A small country, such as Lebanon, could successfully partition. The factions are explicit and unchanging. Any mandatory migration to establish viable borders would be a one time event that could be managed and fairly compensated.

    I do not see how this can work in the U.S. — The map would be a red country with blue patches strewn haphazardly about. Worse yet, there is a great deal of “purple” where individuals do not cleanly factionalize. Inevitably, the two sides would have critical dependencies on each other. Instead of a clean break, it would likely be a prelude to war.

    praying that the Dems are unable to rein in their ascendant lunatic left faction.

    Do you mean AOC?

    PEACE 😇

     

  509. @Dmitry
    @Emil Nikola Richard

    Maybe leasing is becoming more common.

    But one of the reasons Porsche Taycans (and Teslas) flood into the carparks at the technology parks, is because there is a slightly democratic ownership structure in many startups.

    As they exit, then often nothing changes for employees, although with a new layer of managers above them. But the employees' part of the ownership is bought, often for incredibly inflated values.

    This is one of the times when employees' carpark is turning into Porsche Taycans, after there is an exit, previous employees' bank accounts are flooded.

    Of course, there are also a lot of people in large companies with high salaries, managers, etc, which like to buy such cars. But buying of expensive cars is emotionally often what people are doing when they have sudden crazy money dropped on them, which has been characteristic of this overhyped industry.

    Replies: @Emil Nikola Richard

    Impressive. I am being serious here; the following is an attempt at _humor_.

    Anatoly Karlin has dumped me as internet wing-man. Do you look good with your shirt off? Karlin’s old spot is up for grabs here.

  510. @utu
    @Dmitry

    " shoes on their feet " - You can't see shoes they wear. Your elitisms is based on physiognomy. You haven't found enough Semitic features in the faces on the commuter trains. Be honest or keep earning the reputation for the greatest windbag on Karlin's blog.

    Replies: @Dmitry

    You must be always thinking about Jews, as you want to talk about them on unrelated posts. But I am your loyal unrequited fan and always enjoy posting response to you.

    Physically they can look Jewish to me. I saw more Jews than probably anyone here, considering months of my life I have been in Israel.

    In first photos, physically looks like he could be a brother of Israeli Defense Minster Benny Gantz.

    He looks like “working class of Wall Street”, as drinking budweiser can, reading tabloid newspaper, and with clothes which you do not buy in Brookes Brothers.

    In second photo, looks physically like a stereotype of a Haredi rabbi. This also looks like Paul Krugman.

    He looks like how I imagine “working class of Wall Street”, because too nonprofessional appearing to be stereotype of manager. My experience of managers, usually they are addicted enough to their persona to maintain persona outside of office.

    In last photos. In my experience, we don’t see managers like this too soon after work. Also in most companies, managers supposed to wear more professional clothes in business context. This is surely working class of Wall Street. But who knows (perhaps Wall Street managers really look like this)


    As for physically, I think only one of those people would look strange in Israel. This is one of the faces in the background, face above beer cans towards the right is someone who I guess looks like only people from Western Europe.

    • Replies: @Thulean Friend
    @Dmitry

    The Levant can be a puzzling place. This Palestinian-Chilean woman is almost entirely North African by ancestry, yet looks like she flew straight out of Scandinavia.

    https://i.imgur.com/6WflwuN.jpg

    , @AP
    @Dmitry

    Unrelated to this specific discussion, but here is an article with videos of Ukrainian-made personal anti-tank missiles taking out rebel vehicles (you seem to have been interested in drone footage in the Armenian war):

    https://www.forbes.com/sites/davidaxe/2022/01/11/ukraines-homemade-anti-tank-missile-has-been-blasting-more-and-more-rebel-vehicles/

    Replies: @Dmitry

  511. @silviosilver
    @Dmitry


    Do you mean in colloquial way, or pseudoscientific way? IQ tests are like astrology readings. Just it is based on some early 20th century English parlour games they play before dinner, whereas astrology is based on games they used to played after dinner.
     
    Cute the way you console yourself, lol.

    Too bad for you, though, that IQ is scarily predictive of life outcomes while astrology is no better than random guessing.

    Replies: @Yellowface Anon, @Dmitry

    You can just look at “IQ tests”. They are mostly appearing to be early 20th century, puzzle games that were arbitrarily selected from parlour. Puzzle games, are then scored according to a distribution, and presented as a number.

    Because stupid people like to mystify whenever they see a number, many have have apparently reified these numbers as if they are a technical specification, rather than scores on the puzzle games (many which could have been designed for entertaining people before the invention of television).

    Almost everything has a use. You could use these puzzles to filter if people were literate or can understand instructions. It could filter people with neurological or cultural problems.

    They also could generalize to some kinds of thinking or culture, where puzzles are important. They require a certain logic, so they could be used to see if people are suitable for tasks where you have to learn this kind of thinking.

    However, the “IQ test” questions themselves usually do not have true or false answer. So it’s at best limited to people within a specific cultural conformity.

    For example “raven’s progressive matrices” is an example inspired from old puzzle books, where a creative person should choose completely different answers. There is no correct answer for “raven’s progressive matrices”. But if you have experience with them, then you could learn what is the culturally expected answer.

    Still I would expect a mentally creative or non-conformist person should choose unpredictable results in this puzzle.

    IQ is scarily predictive of life

    What do you mean by “IQ”? In colloquial sense, then some people are more intelligent and talented in different ways than other people.

    An “IQ test” that requires literacy (for example, vocabulary list), will correlate with education level, will correlate with income (in economy where these match).

    As you know in this forum, though, they start talking about national “IQ” and its relation to income level in an economy (although data not based on “IQ tests”, but inferred from OECD education tests, which are designed for something completely different – e.g. objectives like flexibility of teaching).

    In these claims, we saw often almost inverse of prediction. For example, China has one of the highest claimed scores in these OECD education tests today. But for the past 4 centuries, China has been economically very unsuccessful.

    So how goes the backtesting of these scores predictive across the last many centuries? It will be failure, even if you assumed the test scores do not change.

    That’s not to say, the OECD tests themselves are not interesting ones. I think they could be used as an indicator, where a rapid rise could be a very positive signal. Before China is industrializing, modernizing, creating mass education, modern administration, etc, there was likely a rapid rise in their OECD test results (if they had existed in the past).

    • Replies: @silviosilver
    @Dmitry

    Oh please. Adoption and twins studies unambiguously demonstrate that intelligence is largely heritable; IQ tests do a perfectly serviceable job of measuring it; and IQ scores predict academic and economic success. If you're unaware of this, then you're too uninformed to even be debating the issue. I cbf discuss such obvious basics (for a forum like this) any further.

    Replies: @Dmitry

  512. @silviosilver
    @Yahya


    Arab-American (63% of whom are Christians) median household income is roughly 10% higher than the American average.
     
    For the purposes of this discussion, the appropriate comparison is with white Americans, not with all Americans - the latter whose average is dragged down by blacks and hispanics.

    I'm not suggesting they don't come out ahead vs white Americans as well - I don't know and cbf checking to see.

    Levantine Arabs in particular don’t look too different than Iberians; most people who are unfamiliar with Iberians & Levantines would not be able to spot the difference.
     
    That is an extreme exaggeration. I have considerable personal experience with Lebanese, both Christian and Muslim. I don't doubt there are some very European looking ones, but they're only a small minority. The vast majority look nothing like Iberians (whose non-whiteness is absurdly exaggerated on race forums). Interestingly, both very light and very dark can occur within the same family.

    One of my best friends was a rather dark, frizzy haired Lebanese whom nobody has ever mistaken for European, while his sister was a model-hot natural dirty-blonde. Unsurprisingly, they had rather different experiences of growing up in a very Anglo part of Australia. My friend developed very bitter anti-WASP racial and cultural hostility, while his sister was accepted into and moved exclusively among Anglo circles. It's the sort of thing that make liberals rend their garments in despair that race (or racial perception) should matter so much, and motivates them to attempt to eliminate its significance. (A fool's errand, of course.)

    And that's just the Lebanese. Most Palestinians, and a great proportion of Syrians, for whatever reason, are much darker and more 'araby'. Just watch any video of Palestinian protesters. The number of people you see who could realistically pass even in southern Europe is minuscule.

    Whether one group "looks like" another or not is inescapably subjective, and usually highly contextual. In the overwhelmingly ("pristinely" or "oppressively", depending on your perspective, heh) Anglo part of Australia I grew up, a "greasy dago" like me stuck out like a sore thumb. Against the backdrop of a bazillion niggers, however, I find myself transformed into a "fellow white man," lol.

    Observations like this stun and appall white libtards. "Bu..bu..but you're not supposed to care about race... you're a, well, you're umm... "- what they can't quite bring themselves to say is that I'm too non-white to be a racist, that "racism" is something only people as white as themselves are capable of. The rest of us are supposed to do nothing more than play our assigned role, which is to agitate for and content ourselves with acceptance by white/whiter/WASP-y libtards. The notion that other people may have racial preferences of their own baffles them, and upsets them by threatening to undo (or render irrelevant) all their "anti-racism" work.

    Replies: @AP, @sb, @Yahya

    For the purposes of this discussion, the appropriate comparison is with white Americans, not with all Americans

    I think AP covered that one well.

    – the latter whose average is dragged down by blacks and hispanics.

    (Non-Hispanic) White-American median household income was \$74,912 in 2020.

    Lebanese-Americans were at \$87,099.

    The overall American figure was \$67,521.

    https://www.statista.com/statistics/233324/median-household-income-in-the-united-states-by-race-or-ethnic-group/

    Interestingly, both very light and very dark can occur within the same family.

    Yes, in the Middle East, a strange duality exists where people of the same race, religion, region, nationality and even family can exhibit vastly different phenotypes. Some will look quasi-European (“white”); and others will look quasi-Hispanic (“brown”). The proportion of white-to-brown differs by class and region.

    In almost any Arab society; the higher classes will have more whites than browns; and the lower classes more browns than whites. In the Levant; the majority (70-80%+) in the upper classes will be white; somewhat less white in the middle class (maybe 60%), whereas the lower classes will be somewhat more brown (perhaps 65%). Nevertheless, the quasi-European types can still be found among the rabble (heh); so it’s not a situation like in Latin America where the upper class is uniformly white; and the lower classes predominantly indigos and mestizos.

    The vast majority look nothing like Iberians (whose non-whiteness is absurdly exaggerated on race forums).

    I don’t think it was an “extreme exaggeration” to say Levantines look similar to Southern Europeans. This similarity has been noticed by many, not just me; and for good reason. Even in Ancient times, the Greeks; who were keen observers of physical differences between themselves and others (Ethiopians, Indians, Northern Europeans etc.) didn’t make any note of differences between themselves and Levantines, since presumably they were similar enough (i.e. Mediterranean Caucasians). Or perhaps they didn’t care to note down any differences.

    Anyway, back to the modern world. An Unz commentor once perceptively noted that the average Greek looks far more “Arab than Aryan”; which I think is a succinct summary of the phenotypic similarities between Arabs and Southern Europeans; which is probably greater than with Northern Europeans:

    AndrewR says:
    @Je Suis Charlie Martel
    Is it not obvious? The average Greek looks far more Arab than Aryan. That’s why I laugh so hard when I see Greeks LARPing as nazis bemoaning all the “nonwhite” Arabs into “white” countries like Germany.

    I mean… I’m not saying Greeks shouldn’t oppose the immivasion. But to pretend they’re more like the Germans than the Syrians is the height of fantasy.

    • Replies: @ReaderfromGreece

    And people pointing out that Southern Europeans look similar to Middle Easterners is not exclusively done by WN-types either. In Reddit, for example, an anonymous poll was conducted asking if Greeks looked more similar to Omanis or Norwegians:

    Do Greeks pass better as Omani or as Norwegian? from phenotypes

    Somewhat humorously, Omanis won out by a large margin, even though Omanis are darker than most other Arabs. I can only imagine what the results would have been like had Levantines been in place of Omanis. Another poll asked if Spaniards and Portuguese look closer to the Lebanese or Irish; the former won out:

    Spaniards and Portuguese look closer to which of these: from phenotypes

    That is an extreme exaggeration. I have considerable personal experience with Lebanese, both Christian and Muslim. I don’t doubt there are some very European looking ones, but they’re only a small minority.

    The “extreme exaggeration” is on your part. The proportion of Levantines who can pass for Southern European is not “minuscule” – that would be Pashtuns, of whom there is a small white-looking contingent; but you’d have to put in some effort to find them. For Levantines, by contrast, one could easily bring up thousands of examples of quasi-European phenotypes without breaking a sweat. Take a look at this school choir in Syria, for example:

    I’d say about ~70-80% of them, if they were put up on reddit for commenters to guess their national origin, would get a fair number of “Spain”, “Portugal”, “Greece”, or “Italy”. Again; a familiar eye can discern between them; but most people would not.

    In the overwhelmingly (“pristinely” or “oppressively”, depending on your perspective, heh) Anglo part of Australia I grew up, a “greasy dago” like me stuck out like a sore thumb.

    When I first went to the US for university; I thought, given my white skin (similar to the median Southern European, or even a tanned Germanic-type) and quasi-European appearance; I would be considered white. For the most part that was true – unless people obtained knowledge of my Muslim name, or heard my foreign accent. Then I would suddenly become a “person of color”, almost in an instant. At first I was bothered by this, since I thought it was non-sensical that someone who is closer to the Italian-American phenotype, like myself, would be lumped in with blacks and Hispanics. But over time I started enjoying my PoC status, since in my ultra-woke university environment, PoC were of higher status than whites. 🙂

    Since I’ve returned to Egypt, none of this is applicable anymore.

    what they can’t quite bring themselves to say is that I’m too non-white to be a racist, that “racism” is something only people as white as themselves are capable of

    If what you say about yourself is true, then you, like many other Southern Euros, are probably closer in appearance to Levantine Arabs, than to your pasty-white Anglo “co-racials”. In which case; it’s understandable why you would be considered too “non-white” to be racist.

    Against the backdrop of a bazillion niggers, however, I find myself transformed into a “fellow white man,” lol.

    From what I gather, even Nordicist WN-types are coming around to accepting Southern Europeans as “fellow white people”. I assume this is partly because of the avalanche of evidence pointing to Greeks and Romans being swarthy Southern Europeans – not unlike their Central Italian and mainland Greek descendants today. Previously, Nordicists were desperate to claim the accomplishments of these two peoples, since obviously Germanics/Nordics/Celts were mostly primitive people for 85% of recorded history. But WN-types can no longer plausibly claim a connection to the glories of Ancient Greece and Rome; except by this new tenuous racial connection.

    • LOL: sher singh
    • Replies: @German_reader
    @Yahya


    I assume this is partly because of the avalanche of evidence pointing to Greeks and Romans being swarthy Southern Europeans – not unlike their Central Italian and mainland Greek descendants today.
     
    Some WN-like commenters actually feel confirmed in their views about that (at least regarding Italy, I suppose Greece is somewhat different) by recent DNA studies which do seem to indicate there was drastic population change in the early imperial period (and then again in late antiquity/early middle ages):
    https://twitter.com/DBlossius/status/1465830531514486784
    (note, I take no position on the issue, and am not overly keen on this kind of discussion myself).

    Replies: @songbird, @sudden death

    , @Mikel
    @Yahya


    people pointing out that Southern Europeans look similar to Middle Easterners is not exclusively done by WN-types
     
    The only WN website I am familiar with is Stormfront, though I haven't visited it in a long while, but I think it used to be the one with most traffic and they have been hosting sub-forums for all sorts of European nationalities since I discovered them, well over a decade ago. They didn't seem to promote Nordicism much.

    In earlier times I saw an Aryan Nations website of American racialists who did exclude Southern Europeans (although they included Basques and North Italians in their "Aryan" club) but I'm not even sure that this group exists or has much relevance these days.

    If the US returned to the demographic composition of the 50s, there is little doubt that the old intra-White rivalries and prejudices would return, it's just human nature. But the melting pot has continued to melt and pure WASPs are nowadays a minority. I don't think there is much scope left for a WASP-only movement in the present circumstances and even in the old times WASP-adjacent groups were generally accepted with religion playing probably more importance than any racial pedigree.

    With that said, I think you're right that some Southern European individuals are difficult to distinguish from Middle Easterners but my guess is that few people would fail to distinguish the Italian soccer squad from say, the Iraqi one.
    , @silviosilver
    @Yahya


    The proportion of Levantines who can pass for Southern European is not “minuscule”
     
    Firstly, you were referring to Iberia, specifically, not southern Europe in general. I can assure you I'm not trying to defend the "Aryan honor" of Iberia or anything like that. Unlike what you might think, I was actually rather disappointed when I first realized how northern European many Iberians were. It made me wary of regarding Spaniards and Portuguese (as groups, as ethnicities) as people similar to me. On the one hand, personal experiences had clearly established some basis for thinking that the sentiment was shared, but I also realized that I must have been "not seeing" many of them because they were largely indistinguishable from N. Europeans.

    I think I can cut this 'dispute' quite short by stating that I wish you were right. I'm a 'racist' sure, but I'm an inclusionary, ballpark - close enough is good enough - kind of racist; not an exclusionary, purist kind of racist. So even though my own rather extensive investigations into this issue yielded somewhat disappointing results, I'd be quite happy to learn that I'm wrong.

    If what you say about yourself is true, then you, like many other Southern Euros, are probably closer in appearance to Levantine Arabs, than to your pasty-white Anglo “co-racials”.
     
    Well that's just obvious, and I've never thought otherwise.

    You may have thought differently because I'm always talking about white this and white that. That's because I have come to support the WN cause, not because I'm a WN or go around identifying as white myself. (Although I certainly culturally identify as European - what else would I?)

    It's not just from the goodness of my heart that I support WNs, of course. A selfish, calculating Mammonite like me wouldn't dream of supporting a cause were it not in my interests. If it is a binary choice (and in practice, I think, it always will be) of being anti-white/pro-black or anti-black/pro-white, I am going to pick the latter, and I think it would be best if everybody did.

    Pro-white means being pro-identity, pro-standards, pro-responsibility, pro-reality, pro-intelligence, pro-beauty, pro-punishing the guilty.

    Pro-black means the opposite: abolishing identity, abandoning standards, making excuses, denying reality, neglecting intelligence, promoting ugliness and punishing the innocent.

    Shouldn't be a hard choice.

    Replies: @Yahya

    , @silviosilver
    @Yahya


    From what I gather, even Nordicist WN-types are coming around to accepting Southern Europeans as “fellow white people”. I assume this is partly because of the avalanche of evidence pointing to Greeks and Romans being swarthy Southern Europeans
     
    I think it has more to do with expediency - it's a way to increase numbers and to get around the mixed heritage/mixed family issue (while remaining racially viable).

    But there's no real feeling in it, and they're probably not serious about it anyway, figuring that it's more important to get the ball rolling, and hoping they'll be able to weed out the undesirables later. If there were any truly pan-European WN conference held, most of the N. European attendees would probably look around the room and think to themselves that if this what they're fighting to preserve, then the war is already lost.

    The problem for WN is that whiteness doesn't just exist in degrees, but in degrees of 'quality' - no one wants to be low man on the racial totem pole, but someone must be. So those who feel secure enough in their position generally try to exclude 'inferiors' as 'non-white', while those who feel insufficiently secure argue for the inclusion of types even less white than they are, to improve their own relative standing. The issue can't really be resolved until a WN regime comes into power and lays down Nuremberg-style decrees, but coming into power requires support, which in turn requires creating the perception that it has been resolved.

    Replies: @sher singh

  513. @German_reader
    @songbird

    I'm not dismissing the idea that there might be relevant anatomical differences, but if the Japanese really had such an inherent advantage (which presumably would affect the transmission of all manner of diseases), that would have extremely far-reaching implications. It's pretty weird to just casually state something like this without explaining it or backing it up at all with evidence (if the authors of the paper even meant to imply something biological, maybe it's just a reference to cultural norms, like the forms of greetings they reference).

    Replies: @songbird

    It’s pretty weird to just casually state something like this without explaining it or backing it up at all with evidence

    TBH, I haven’t scrutinized the paper in question, I am just observing that they seem to have put it on a laundry list, and giving a theory why they may have done so.

    Not your bailiwick, but if you ever want to be seriously blackpilled, spend hours on Pubmed looking at studies. the vast majority of them are ill-conceived and shoddily written. Most doctors and researchers, including the ones that we give billions of dollars to, aren’t “smart.” Though we do give them a lot of esteem and resources.

    but if the Japanese really had such an inherent advantage (which presumably would affect the transmission of all manner of diseases)

    As I say, I’m an agnostic on the issue of droplet size, and just trying to imagine a semi-plausible contextualization, which might be that among civilized countries where it is possible to study questions of race, the Japanese might have the smallest (small difference) droplet size on average. (I rather doubt it would be global)

    Though, I have zero doubt that spray patterns differ based on age, sex and race.

    If we were to posit a small difference of say 5% diameter, that would enter into many permutations. Maybe, having no effect on many diseases, while very slightly increasing/decreasing the risk of others. It’s enough to put it on a laundry list, but not to explain the full trend.

  514. @Dmitry
    @utu

    You must be always thinking about Jews, as you want to talk about them on unrelated posts. But I am your loyal unrequited fan and always enjoy posting response to you.

    Physically they can look Jewish to me. I saw more Jews than probably anyone here, considering months of my life I have been in Israel.

    In first photos, physically looks like he could be a brother of Israeli Defense Minster Benny Gantz.

    He looks like "working class of Wall Street", as drinking budweiser can, reading tabloid newspaper, and with clothes which you do not buy in Brookes Brothers.

    https://static01.nyt.com/images/2014/05/10/nyregion/20140510BARCARss-slide-8I1Z/20140510BARCARss-slide-8I1Z-superJumbo.jpg


    In second photo, looks physically like a stereotype of a Haredi rabbi. This also looks like Paul Krugman.

    He looks like how I imagine "working class of Wall Street", because too nonprofessional appearing to be stereotype of manager. My experience of managers, usually they are addicted enough to their persona to maintain persona outside of office.

    https://s.hdnux.com/photos/62/75/15/13357939/3/ratio3x2_400.jpg

    In last photos. In my experience, we don't see managers like this too soon after work. Also in most companies, managers supposed to wear more professional clothes in business context. This is surely working class of Wall Street. But who knows (perhaps Wall Street managers really look like this)

    https://m.wsj.net/video/20140510/051014barcar1/051014barcar1_960x540.jpg

    As for physically, I think only one of those people would look strange in Israel. This is one of the faces in the background, face above beer cans towards the right is someone who I guess looks like only people from Western Europe.

    Replies: @Thulean Friend, @AP

    The Levant can be a puzzling place. This Palestinian-Chilean woman is almost entirely North African by ancestry, yet looks like she flew straight out of Scandinavia.

  515. @Dmitry
    @utu

    You must be always thinking about Jews, as you want to talk about them on unrelated posts. But I am your loyal unrequited fan and always enjoy posting response to you.

    Physically they can look Jewish to me. I saw more Jews than probably anyone here, considering months of my life I have been in Israel.

    In first photos, physically looks like he could be a brother of Israeli Defense Minster Benny Gantz.

    He looks like "working class of Wall Street", as drinking budweiser can, reading tabloid newspaper, and with clothes which you do not buy in Brookes Brothers.

    https://static01.nyt.com/images/2014/05/10/nyregion/20140510BARCARss-slide-8I1Z/20140510BARCARss-slide-8I1Z-superJumbo.jpg


    In second photo, looks physically like a stereotype of a Haredi rabbi. This also looks like Paul Krugman.

    He looks like how I imagine "working class of Wall Street", because too nonprofessional appearing to be stereotype of manager. My experience of managers, usually they are addicted enough to their persona to maintain persona outside of office.

    https://s.hdnux.com/photos/62/75/15/13357939/3/ratio3x2_400.jpg

    In last photos. In my experience, we don't see managers like this too soon after work. Also in most companies, managers supposed to wear more professional clothes in business context. This is surely working class of Wall Street. But who knows (perhaps Wall Street managers really look like this)

    https://m.wsj.net/video/20140510/051014barcar1/051014barcar1_960x540.jpg

    As for physically, I think only one of those people would look strange in Israel. This is one of the faces in the background, face above beer cans towards the right is someone who I guess looks like only people from Western Europe.

    Replies: @Thulean Friend, @AP

    Unrelated to this specific discussion, but here is an article with videos of Ukrainian-made personal anti-tank missiles taking out rebel vehicles (you seem to have been interested in drone footage in the Armenian war):

    https://www.forbes.com/sites/davidaxe/2022/01/11/ukraines-homemade-anti-tank-missile-has-been-blasting-more-and-more-rebel-vehicles/

    • Replies: @Dmitry
    @AP

    It seems like Axe in Forbes website is the expert about this, at least in internet journalism. https://www.forbes.com/sites/davidaxe

    Hopefully he is just exaggerating with this war hype. It's worse this year than previous years, if you read from Western media. But in Russian media and television this week there does not seem much more than usual war hype (like background levels to distract from domestic issues), and it's mainly more of complaining about Ukrainian and Western media war hype.

  516. As an aside, I find bragging about a diaspora to be surefire sign of a third world nation. People should be judged by the societies they build themselves, not how well they prosper in places others built. At any rate, if some of your brightest contribute to the success of another nation isn’t that a form of group cuckholdry?

    German-American is the most common ancestry for Whites in the US, not Anglos as you’d expect. Yet German-American culture has virtually disappeared. Who was stronger in the end? And while Werner von Braun’s achievements were spectacular, the fruits of his labour fell to the USA and not of his native country. We all understand the historical context for that, but the fact remains the same.

    So bragging about this or that diaspora group doing well in the West or elsewhere is sort pathetic in my humble view. If you export your elite, that’s something you should be ashamed of, as it shows your own people didn’t have it in them to prosper to the fullest extent back home. Germany bounced back quickly after the war and most of its elites are now contributing to their country of birth. They don’t need to emigrate.

    German-American incomes may be mediocre, but it doesn’t matter, because the German homeland isn’t. That’s a sign of a successful nation. Perennial diasporas are not. I don’t care what their income levels are.

    • Agree: songbird
    • Replies: @Shortsword
    @Thulean Friend


    German-American is the most common ancestry for Whites in the US, not Anglos as you’d expect.
     
    I assume this you're talking about the official census numbers. In that case this is only because people have stopped self identifying as having English or British ancestry (The number who claim English ancestry have decreased by almost 60% since 1980). People have stopped identifying as German-American too but to a lesser extent. The result is that there supposedly are more German-Americans than British-American today when it was the opposite a couple of decades ago.
  517. German_reader says:
    @Yahya
    @silviosilver


    For the purposes of this discussion, the appropriate comparison is with white Americans, not with all Americans

     

    I think AP covered that one well.

    – the latter whose average is dragged down by blacks and hispanics.
     
    (Non-Hispanic) White-American median household income was $74,912 in 2020.

    Lebanese-Americans were at $87,099.

    The overall American figure was $67,521.

    https://www.statista.com/statistics/233324/median-household-income-in-the-united-states-by-race-or-ethnic-group/


    Interestingly, both very light and very dark can occur within the same family.

     

    Yes, in the Middle East, a strange duality exists where people of the same race, religion, region, nationality and even family can exhibit vastly different phenotypes. Some will look quasi-European ("white"); and others will look quasi-Hispanic ("brown"). The proportion of white-to-brown differs by class and region.

    In almost any Arab society; the higher classes will have more whites than browns; and the lower classes more browns than whites. In the Levant; the majority (70-80%+) in the upper classes will be white; somewhat less white in the middle class (maybe 60%), whereas the lower classes will be somewhat more brown (perhaps 65%). Nevertheless, the quasi-European types can still be found among the rabble (heh); so it's not a situation like in Latin America where the upper class is uniformly white; and the lower classes predominantly indigos and mestizos.


    The vast majority look nothing like Iberians (whose non-whiteness is absurdly exaggerated on race forums).

     

    I don't think it was an "extreme exaggeration" to say Levantines look similar to Southern Europeans. This similarity has been noticed by many, not just me; and for good reason. Even in Ancient times, the Greeks; who were keen observers of physical differences between themselves and others (Ethiopians, Indians, Northern Europeans etc.) didn’t make any note of differences between themselves and Levantines, since presumably they were similar enough (i.e. Mediterranean Caucasians). Or perhaps they didn’t care to note down any differences.

    Anyway, back to the modern world. An Unz commentor once perceptively noted that the average Greek looks far more "Arab than Aryan"; which I think is a succinct summary of the phenotypic similarities between Arabs and Southern Europeans; which is probably greater than with Northern Europeans:


    AndrewR says:
    @Je Suis Charlie Martel
    Is it not obvious? The average Greek looks far more Arab than Aryan. That’s why I laugh so hard when I see Greeks LARPing as nazis bemoaning all the “nonwhite” Arabs into “white” countries like Germany.

    I mean… I’m not saying Greeks shouldn’t oppose the immivasion. But to pretend they’re more like the Germans than the Syrians is the height of fantasy.

    • Replies: @ReaderfromGreece
     
    And people pointing out that Southern Europeans look similar to Middle Easterners is not exclusively done by WN-types either. In Reddit, for example, an anonymous poll was conducted asking if Greeks looked more similar to Omanis or Norwegians:

    https://www.reddit.com/r/phenotypes/comments/rjor4z/do_greeks_pass_better_as_omani_or_as_norwegian/

    Somewhat humorously, Omanis won out by a large margin, even though Omanis are darker than most other Arabs. I can only imagine what the results would have been like had Levantines been in place of Omanis. Another poll asked if Spaniards and Portuguese look closer to the Lebanese or Irish; the former won out:

    https://www.reddit.com/r/phenotypes/comments/q0m16p/spaniards_and_portuguese_look_closer_to_which_of/


    That is an extreme exaggeration. I have considerable personal experience with Lebanese, both Christian and Muslim. I don’t doubt there are some very European looking ones, but they’re only a small minority.

     

    The "extreme exaggeration" is on your part. The proportion of Levantines who can pass for Southern European is not "minuscule" - that would be Pashtuns, of whom there is a small white-looking contingent; but you'd have to put in some effort to find them. For Levantines, by contrast, one could easily bring up thousands of examples of quasi-European phenotypes without breaking a sweat. Take a look at this school choir in Syria, for example:

    https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=T-9MDK4xecQ&ab_channel=iyadhanna

    I'd say about ~70-80% of them, if they were put up on reddit for commenters to guess their national origin, would get a fair number of "Spain", "Portugal", "Greece", or "Italy". Again; a familiar eye can discern between them; but most people would not.


    In the overwhelmingly (“pristinely” or “oppressively”, depending on your perspective, heh) Anglo part of Australia I grew up, a “greasy dago” like me stuck out like a sore thumb.

     

    When I first went to the US for university; I thought, given my white skin (similar to the median Southern European, or even a tanned Germanic-type) and quasi-European appearance; I would be considered white. For the most part that was true - unless people obtained knowledge of my Muslim name, or heard my foreign accent. Then I would suddenly become a "person of color", almost in an instant. At first I was bothered by this, since I thought it was non-sensical that someone who is closer to the Italian-American phenotype, like myself, would be lumped in with blacks and Hispanics. But over time I started enjoying my PoC status, since in my ultra-woke university environment, PoC were of higher status than whites. :)

    Since I've returned to Egypt, none of this is applicable anymore.


    what they can’t quite bring themselves to say is that I’m too non-white to be a racist, that “racism” is something only people as white as themselves are capable of

     

    If what you say about yourself is true, then you, like many other Southern Euros, are probably closer in appearance to Levantine Arabs, than to your pasty-white Anglo "co-racials". In which case; it's understandable why you would be considered too "non-white" to be racist.

    Against the backdrop of a bazillion niggers, however, I find myself transformed into a “fellow white man,” lol.

     

    From what I gather, even Nordicist WN-types are coming around to accepting Southern Europeans as "fellow white people". I assume this is partly because of the avalanche of evidence pointing to Greeks and Romans being swarthy Southern Europeans - not unlike their Central Italian and mainland Greek descendants today. Previously, Nordicists were desperate to claim the accomplishments of these two peoples, since obviously Germanics/Nordics/Celts were mostly primitive people for 85% of recorded history. But WN-types can no longer plausibly claim a connection to the glories of Ancient Greece and Rome; except by this new tenuous racial connection.

    Replies: @German_reader, @Mikel, @silviosilver, @silviosilver

    I assume this is partly because of the avalanche of evidence pointing to Greeks and Romans being swarthy Southern Europeans – not unlike their Central Italian and mainland Greek descendants today.

    Some WN-like commenters actually feel confirmed in their views about that (at least regarding Italy, I suppose Greece is somewhat different) by recent DNA studies which do seem to indicate there was drastic population change in the early imperial period (and then again in late antiquity/early middle ages):


    (note, I take no position on the issue, and am not overly keen on this kind of discussion myself).

    • Replies: @songbird
    @German_reader

    IMO, it is sufficient to ask the Arabs where their Cologne Cathedral is. (or to go back further, there is Aachen).

    Replies: @German_reader

    , @sudden death
    @German_reader

    imho, it should not be some unclear muddy issue, as you can see the phenotype changes even at elite level visually documented quite well thanx to the realistic mastery of ancient sculptors, e.g. Gaius Marius looks quite typical in Republican period were not "southern swarthy" at all compared with later post expansionist imperial age ruler like Caracalla:

    https://upload.wikimedia.org/wikipedia/commons/e/e9/Marius_Glyptothek_Munich_319.jpg

    https://upload.wikimedia.org/wikipedia/commons/5/5a/Caracalla_MAN_Napoli_Inv6033_n01.jpg

    Replies: @German_reader, @Dmitry

  518. @Yevardian
    @songbird

    Congratulations for coming up with this uniquely retarded take on a site already replete with them. It got me a chuckle, anyway.

    Although there are many quite external reasons for the contemporary rise of sexual perverts, but there's one immediate commonsense answer that comes to mind: they overwhelmingly have no distractions of, or desire for, family life.
    Most conventional personal blackmail also becomes rather difficult when you and your nominal 'partner' already openly live the bathhouse lifestyle.

    Replies: @songbird

    Originally meant it as a joke, but your crass dismissal of it, circular logic, and tacked on explanation for why diplomatic missions in former communist countries no longer screen for gays, has made me consider it more seriously:

    In Japan, there are two separate genres of manga, one featuring lesbians (yuri), and one featuring gays (yaio), that were both designed to cater to women’s fantasies. A spectrum from the romantic to the obscene. Since their inception in the 1970s, they have spread into neighboring countries, not without controversy, even in Japan itself, where they seem to be tied to political issues, like censorship in libraries or workplace discrimination.

    In China, yaio is known as danmei. There have been arrests of the female authors of such works (probably obscene) with long prison sentences because the Chinese perceive it (I believe correctly) as a social threat.

    These fantasies may appear niche, but actually they have entered deep into the mainstream, in both minor and major themes in other media. One such way of mainstreaming it is to sanitize it by making the story about a girl posing as one of the guys. Just a few off the top of my head: Hollywood film Just One of the Guys, 1985; K-drama Coffee Prince, Japanese anime Ouran High School Host Club. Obviously, catering to women’s taste (big market) has done a lot to mainstream gays (minor market) and gender-bending, in the public eye.

    One of the dark reasons that Harry Potter is so influential is slash fiction written by women.

    The normal male reflex with gays is disgust. It was so when society was patriarchal. But now it is matriarchal, and women do not have the disgust. Their evolutionary psychology isn’t the same, and their political and economic power have been leveraged to give gays a leg up. Just as it has been leveraged to facilitate the large scale invasion by military age alien men, or the dole for single mothers.

    • Replies: @Barbarossa
    @songbird


    The normal male reflex with gays is disgust.
     
    Yes, I would say that the mechanics of gay sex provokes a far stronger disgust response in heterosexual men than lesbianism and that neither gay or lesbian relations generally elicit nearly as strong a response in most women. Many men today will doubtless try to deny that they feel a strong repulsion to gay sex, since it is not a politically correct thought, but do nonetheless.

    I was actually just discussing this with my wife and she thought it was probably pretty accurate.

    It seems to me that one could attribute a fair bit of the acceptance and prevalence of homosexuals presence in entertainment can be attributed to the rise of women as cultural taste makers, consumers, and creators because of their far higher tolerance for homosexual men.

    Replies: @songbird

  519. @German_reader
    @Yahya


    I assume this is partly because of the avalanche of evidence pointing to Greeks and Romans being swarthy Southern Europeans – not unlike their Central Italian and mainland Greek descendants today.
     
    Some WN-like commenters actually feel confirmed in their views about that (at least regarding Italy, I suppose Greece is somewhat different) by recent DNA studies which do seem to indicate there was drastic population change in the early imperial period (and then again in late antiquity/early middle ages):
    https://twitter.com/DBlossius/status/1465830531514486784
    (note, I take no position on the issue, and am not overly keen on this kind of discussion myself).

    Replies: @songbird, @sudden death

    IMO, it is sufficient to ask the Arabs where their Cologne Cathedral is. (or to go back further, there is Aachen).

    • Replies: @German_reader
    @songbird

    There are probably all manner of architectonically impressive mosques (e.g. is al-Azhar in Kairo inferior to Aachen? I doubt it tbh). And while I generally dislike the "northern barbarians" trope which seems to be dear to a lot of Mediterraneans, it's of course true that the Mideast was one of the earliest centers of civilization and remained so for a long time.
    Of course most of the Islamic world has been intellectually stagnant for centuries and arguably wasted any potential it had, so we're talking mostly about past glories (but I'm not sure "Western" culture is really vital today either, it seems to have morphed into something very strange).

    Replies: @songbird, @Yahya

  520. Would give a billion dollars in aid to Niger, if they would add another “g” to their name.

    • Replies: @Emil Nikola Richard
    @songbird

    I wonder if anybody has read Mungo Park's story of his Niger explorations in the 1790's. It's free on archive. I'm sure T. C. Boyle has read it. His first novel Water Music has Park as a central character. 1981 and politically incorrect even then. It is laugh out loud funny in around 40 or 50 spots.

    You can still get it!

    https://www.amazon.com/Water-Music-T-Coraghessan-Boyle/dp/1862071551/

    Park's book:

    https://ia802609.us.archive.org/18/items/travelsininterio01park/travelsininterio01park.pdf

    Replies: @songbird

  521. German_reader says:
    @songbird
    @German_reader

    IMO, it is sufficient to ask the Arabs where their Cologne Cathedral is. (or to go back further, there is Aachen).

    Replies: @German_reader

    There are probably all manner of architectonically impressive mosques (e.g. is al-Azhar in Kairo inferior to Aachen? I doubt it tbh). And while I generally dislike the “northern barbarians” trope which seems to be dear to a lot of Mediterraneans, it’s of course true that the Mideast was one of the earliest centers of civilization and remained so for a long time.
    Of course most of the Islamic world has been intellectually stagnant for centuries and arguably wasted any potential it had, so we’re talking mostly about past glories (but I’m not sure “Western” culture is really vital today either, it seems to have morphed into something very strange).

    • Replies: @songbird
    @German_reader


    There are probably all manner of architectonically impressive mosques
     
    Strictly speaking, I wasn't referring to Muslims, but Arabs and in a very insular sense - Arabia. (Yahya is half-Saudi and presumably on the oil dole?) In the case of al-Azhar, I would say 1.) Egyptians, and 2.) there were hundreds of thousands of Greeks in Egypt into the the 20th century (and probably more in the 10th century).

    But I don't want to get to much into the weeds of it. I was mainly answering with the Northern barbarians trope in mind. And though Arabs did sit on central trade routes, they may have had in-built disadvantages. No navigable year-round rivers in Saudi. A lot of mud on the Tigris-Euphrates plain.

    I'll stick with this assertion though: Northern Euros have been somewhere in the top tier class of civilizations for hundreds of years before modern times (which they invented), even before the Colombian exchange.


    but I’m not sure “Western” culture is really vital today either, it seems to have morphed into something very strange)
     
    Cogent criticism. I have often made the point that I believe there is no assertive, awe-inspiring European culture today, Euros even cowardly fear to assert their identity cohesively, and I don't see much sign of them reclaiming it, or even demonstrating the spirit that would be required to do so.

    Many people thumb their noses at modern Chinese cinema, but at least they are asserting an identity.

    Replies: @German_reader

    , @Yahya
    @German_reader


    There are probably all manner of architectonically impressive mosques (e.g. is al-Azhar in Kairo inferior to Aachen? I doubt it tbh).

     

    The Gothic Cathedrals of Medieval Europe stand as impressive achievements; and demonstrate that Northern Europeans stopped being primitive somewhere around the early 1000s, rather than 1600AD as most people assume. The Lincoln Cathedral in particular, which ended the Great Pyramid’s 3,800 year reign as the tallest man-made structure in the world, demonstrated that Northern Europe caught up with the Near East/Mediterranean somewhere around 1300AD, at least architecturally - it would take some years before science and technology would kick off in the North. That the Lincoln Cathedral retained its status as the tallest man-made structure until 1884 (if you include the central spire), when it was displaced by the Egypt-inspired Washington Monument, also demonstrates its architectural impressiveness.

    Mideast was one of the earliest centers of civilization and remained so for a long time.

     

    The Middle East was of course the place where civilization was first invented; and it remained at, or near, the height of human civilization for ~5,000 years (3,500BC to 1500AD), after which it started a gradual decline to it’s present wretched state. The cause of this decline is multi-faceted and complex to say the least; many scholars continue to debate its causation. Some theories include:

    (A) Mongol Invasions - this is commonly put forth as the paramount explanation for the destruction of classical Islamic civilization, and even for all its economic, social, cultural and political failings ever since. But now scholars are re-examining this explanation, and the consensus has greatly softened on its impact; which is neither as extensive, great or lasting as once thought. Rather, the Mongol impact did devastate, destroy, and depopulate (15-30%) some major Islamic centers in the East (Iran and Iraq), but it did not reach Egypt, where the Mamluks achieved a rare victory over the mighty Mongols. Egypt then became, and has remained ever since, the center of Arab-Islamic culture. As for Iran, though the Mongols did a good number on Persia, some areas in the South (Persis, Shiraz, Persepolis etc) voluntarily submitted to the Mongols, and were thus spared of devastation. Southern Iran continued to flourish as demonstrated by the poets Sad (1184-1291) and Hafiz (c. 1320-1389), the astronomer Qutb al-Dn (d. 1310), and the architect Qawm al-Dn (d. 1439), the builder of the Gawhar Shd Mosque in Mashhad, which many regard as the greatest achievement of Iranian architecture. And in many ways, the devastation of the Mongol conquests was counterbalanced by the increase of trade and contact between the Middle East and the Far East brought about by Mongol hegemony. The Mongol invasions did turn Iraq into toast though.

    (B) Al-Ghazali - another posited cause of decline of science in the Islamic world after its golden age is al-Ghazali's (1058-1111) attack on philosophers, which was culminated in his famous book Tahafut al-Falasifah (The Incoherence of Philosophers). Critics of al-Ghazali argue his attack on philosophers on the grounds that they could not lay down rational explanations for metaphysical arguments discouraged critical thinking in the Islamic world. During the period of 800AD-1100AD, Neo-Platonism was dominant in the Islamic Caliphates. Thinkers like al-Farabi supported and promoted it. Conversely in the 1100s, al-Ghazali lead a counter-movement called Occasionalism, which basically held that science and maths are attempts to remove God from the world and understanding it. This would make science and maths effectively into blasphemies. His work fundamentally changed the landscape and Neo-Platonism was effectively defeated in the Islamic World. Ibn Rushd tried to resuscitate it, but by his time, it was too late, so the theory goes. But Arab Christian scholar George Saliba, based on his life-long research in the area, concludes that advances in Islamic astronomy continued well after Ghazali, and was in fact in its most fruitful phase from the 13th to the 16th century. The importance of the discoveries made by Nasir al-Din al-Tusi (1201-1274) and Ibn al-Shatir (1304-1375), is shown by their influence on the subsequent European Renaissance (i.e. Copernicus' astronomical theorems were identical to Ibn Al-Shatir's).

    (C) Overtaken - Some scholars dismiss the whole idea of decline. Rather, they posit that the Islamic world was simply overtaken by Western Europe, rather than declined in an absolute sense. Another argument put forth is that Islamic world only declined in the cultural and scientific realms. The Ottoman Empire continued on as a major military power well into the 17th century; and produced some great architecture during the time period; though not much in the way of science or literature. At any rate, it can be seriously said that the Middle East lost its pre-eminent spot as an advanced center of civilization in 1683AD, when Western European dominance became transparent and total. Though the Ottomans were defeated at Vienna before, the first attempt in 1529 was what can be termed as a "minor loss", in which nothing major changed in the balance of power between Europe and the Ottoman Empire. The second loss, however, was followed by the treaty of Carlowitz, in which the European victors were able to impose conditions on their defeated enemy on their terms. The treaty inaugurated a long period of almost unrelieved retreat of Muslims before European power - culminating in outright colonization of the MENA region by Great Britain and France in the 19th-20th century.


    I generally dislike the “northern barbarians” trope

     

    If you don't like the "Northern Barbarian" trope, you should see some of the stuff said here (including by you, btw) vis-a-vis Middle Easterners/Arabs. My main intention was not to denigrate Northern Europeans, most of whom that i've met I rather like (except for that obnoxious sack of sh*t 'songbird'), and who for the most part I hold in high regard. Many historical figures I admire a great deal are from Northern Europe: Samuel Johnson (England), Kurt von Hammerstein (Germany), Charlie Munger (Anglo-American), Benjamin Franklin (Anglo-American), Walter Bagehot (England), Charles Booth (England) etc. That said, northern Europeans were responsible for colonizing my homeland not too long ago (my grandmother was born in British Egypt); and what is worse, belittling Arabs as nothing more than savages and terrorists in their book, movies, media etc. In that case, it's only fair that I point out that Arabs (in the broad and loose sense) invented and lead civilization for thousands of years while Northern European savages will still figuring out how to stack a pile of rocks. This isn't to belittle the great achievements of Northern Europeans post-1000 AD, just to defend Arabs from unfair disparagement by racist nutcases like 'songbird', who comically think that only 'Europeans' like Greeks (if you call even call them that) can build impressive architecture like the Al-Azhar mosque.

    but I’m not sure “Western” culture is really vital today either, it seems to have morphed into something very strange).

     

    Western culture is decadent and depraved in many ways, but is still economically, and more importantly, scientifically vital in many ways. I'm reminded of this when I look at a list of Nobel laureates in the sciences, or examine GDP figures for individual states in the US, who manage to outproduce nations multiple times their size and population.

    Replies: @German_reader

  522. @German_reader
    @songbird

    There are probably all manner of architectonically impressive mosques (e.g. is al-Azhar in Kairo inferior to Aachen? I doubt it tbh). And while I generally dislike the "northern barbarians" trope which seems to be dear to a lot of Mediterraneans, it's of course true that the Mideast was one of the earliest centers of civilization and remained so for a long time.
    Of course most of the Islamic world has been intellectually stagnant for centuries and arguably wasted any potential it had, so we're talking mostly about past glories (but I'm not sure "Western" culture is really vital today either, it seems to have morphed into something very strange).

    Replies: @songbird, @Yahya

    There are probably all manner of architectonically impressive mosques

    Strictly speaking, I wasn’t referring to Muslims, but Arabs and in a very insular sense – Arabia. (Yahya is half-Saudi and presumably on the oil dole?) In the case of al-Azhar, I would say 1.) Egyptians, and 2.) there were hundreds of thousands of Greeks in Egypt into the the 20th century (and probably more in the 10th century).

    But I don’t want to get to much into the weeds of it. I was mainly answering with the Northern barbarians trope in mind. And though Arabs did sit on central trade routes, they may have had in-built disadvantages. No navigable year-round rivers in Saudi. A lot of mud on the Tigris-Euphrates plain.

    I’ll stick with this assertion though: Northern Euros have been somewhere in the top tier class of civilizations for hundreds of years before modern times (which they invented), even before the Colombian exchange.

    but I’m not sure “Western” culture is really vital today either, it seems to have morphed into something very strange)

    Cogent criticism. I have often made the point that I believe there is no assertive, awe-inspiring European culture today, Euros even cowardly fear to assert their identity cohesively, and I don’t see much sign of them reclaiming it, or even demonstrating the spirit that would be required to do so.

    Many people thumb their noses at modern Chinese cinema, but at least they are asserting an identity.

    • Replies: @German_reader
    @songbird


    I’ll stick with this assertion though: Northern Euros have been somewhere in the top tier class of civilizations for hundreds of years before modern times (which they invented)
     
    I certainly agree with that, it annoys me when early or even high medieval Europe is denigrated and contrasted with the supposedly advanced Islamic world. Also very strange, given all the current focus on patriarchy, slavery and colonialism, that some aspects are usually ignored in such judgements, like the topic of this article:
    https://brill.com/view/journals/jgs/4/2/article-p196_4.xml
  523. @songbird
    Would give a billion dollars in aid to Niger, if they would add another "g" to their name.

    Replies: @Emil Nikola Richard

    I wonder if anybody has read Mungo Park’s story of his Niger explorations in the 1790’s. It’s free on archive. I’m sure T. C. Boyle has read it. His first novel Water Music has Park as a central character. 1981 and politically incorrect even then. It is laugh out loud funny in around 40 or 50 spots.

    You can still get it!

    Park’s book:

    https://ia802609.us.archive.org/18/items/travelsininterio01park/travelsininterio01park.pdf

    • Thanks: songbird, Mr. Hack
    • Replies: @songbird
    @Emil Nikola Richard

    Thanks, I've actually already read it, years ago.

    Thought it was fascinating. Highly recommended, from me as well. Would also recommend it to blacks.

    Replies: @songbird

  524. German_reader says:
    @songbird
    @German_reader


    There are probably all manner of architectonically impressive mosques
     
    Strictly speaking, I wasn't referring to Muslims, but Arabs and in a very insular sense - Arabia. (Yahya is half-Saudi and presumably on the oil dole?) In the case of al-Azhar, I would say 1.) Egyptians, and 2.) there were hundreds of thousands of Greeks in Egypt into the the 20th century (and probably more in the 10th century).

    But I don't want to get to much into the weeds of it. I was mainly answering with the Northern barbarians trope in mind. And though Arabs did sit on central trade routes, they may have had in-built disadvantages. No navigable year-round rivers in Saudi. A lot of mud on the Tigris-Euphrates plain.

    I'll stick with this assertion though: Northern Euros have been somewhere in the top tier class of civilizations for hundreds of years before modern times (which they invented), even before the Colombian exchange.


    but I’m not sure “Western” culture is really vital today either, it seems to have morphed into something very strange)
     
    Cogent criticism. I have often made the point that I believe there is no assertive, awe-inspiring European culture today, Euros even cowardly fear to assert their identity cohesively, and I don't see much sign of them reclaiming it, or even demonstrating the spirit that would be required to do so.

    Many people thumb their noses at modern Chinese cinema, but at least they are asserting an identity.

    Replies: @German_reader

    I’ll stick with this assertion though: Northern Euros have been somewhere in the top tier class of civilizations for hundreds of years before modern times (which they invented)

    I certainly agree with that, it annoys me when early or even high medieval Europe is denigrated and contrasted with the supposedly advanced Islamic world. Also very strange, given all the current focus on patriarchy, slavery and colonialism, that some aspects are usually ignored in such judgements, like the topic of this article:
    https://brill.com/view/journals/jgs/4/2/article-p196_4.xml

    • Thanks: songbird
  525. @Emil Nikola Richard
    @songbird

    I wonder if anybody has read Mungo Park's story of his Niger explorations in the 1790's. It's free on archive. I'm sure T. C. Boyle has read it. His first novel Water Music has Park as a central character. 1981 and politically incorrect even then. It is laugh out loud funny in around 40 or 50 spots.

    You can still get it!

    https://www.amazon.com/Water-Music-T-Coraghessan-Boyle/dp/1862071551/

    Park's book:

    https://ia802609.us.archive.org/18/items/travelsininterio01park/travelsininterio01park.pdf

    Replies: @songbird

    Thanks, I’ve actually already read it, years ago.

    Thought it was fascinating. Highly recommended, from me as well. Would also recommend it to blacks.

    • Replies: @songbird
    @songbird

    To clarify, I was talking about Park's book. But Boyle's sounds interesting - politically incorrect historical novels can be fun.

    Replies: @Emil Nikola Richard

  526. @songbird
    @Emil Nikola Richard

    Thanks, I've actually already read it, years ago.

    Thought it was fascinating. Highly recommended, from me as well. Would also recommend it to blacks.

    Replies: @songbird

    To clarify, I was talking about Park’s book. But Boyle’s sounds interesting – politically incorrect historical novels can be fun.

    • Agree: Mr. Hack
    • Replies: @Emil Nikola Richard
    @songbird

    I have Park's book on my disk and have not gotten to it yet. It's been more than 20 years since I read Boyle's book and I don't remember much about it except that I had a bunch of fun reading it. I do remember the center of the plot was Park's travels on the Niger River. Probably Boyle made nearly everything up.

    Replies: @songbird

  527. @songbird
    @Dmitry

    Air China advises that travelers to London be wary of areas populated mostly by blacks, Pakis, and Indians. By the last, I assume they are referring to Muslim Indians.

    Sensible advice, no doubt.

    Replies: @songbird

    Incidentally, I wonder if Air China would be interested in some sort of contract to aid in the deportation process.

    Not only would they potentially make a big profit, but it would likely increase future tourism.

  528. German_reader says:

    This is already over a year old, but goes into the question why Japan has done so well, so I thought I’d link it (seems to confirm the idea that it’s about cultural norms, better ventilation, international travel restrictions+14 day quarantine…and people being not that fat compared with many other developed countries):

    [MORE]

    I can only feel envy, when I compare this with the absurd clown show in Germany, where they had almost no restrictions on international travel for much of the pandemic, but now focus on mandatory vaccination for everybody as the solution.

  529. @German_reader
    @Yahya


    I assume this is partly because of the avalanche of evidence pointing to Greeks and Romans being swarthy Southern Europeans – not unlike their Central Italian and mainland Greek descendants today.
     
    Some WN-like commenters actually feel confirmed in their views about that (at least regarding Italy, I suppose Greece is somewhat different) by recent DNA studies which do seem to indicate there was drastic population change in the early imperial period (and then again in late antiquity/early middle ages):
    https://twitter.com/DBlossius/status/1465830531514486784
    (note, I take no position on the issue, and am not overly keen on this kind of discussion myself).

    Replies: @songbird, @sudden death

    imho, it should not be some unclear muddy issue, as you can see the phenotype changes even at elite level visually documented quite well thanx to the realistic mastery of ancient sculptors, e.g. Gaius Marius looks quite typical in Republican period were not “southern swarthy” at all compared with later post expansionist imperial age ruler like Caracalla:

    • Replies: @German_reader
    @sudden death

    Well, Caracalla was a North African-Syrian mix iirc, so not surprising (though his bust hardly looks "Semitic" or "negroid" imo). The real question is how much change there was at the general population level in Italy. Some of the more recent DNA papers seem to indicate it was a lot, and relatively sudden, in the early imperial period. But of course it's not totally clear how representative the samples in those studies are, and there are claims that this "diverse" population was concentrated in the cities (and therefore had low fertility), whereas the countryside supposedly retained more of an old Italic character. I can't say I have any firm opinion on the matter myself.

    Replies: @songbird, @LatW

    , @Dmitry
    @sudden death

    There was probably natural diversity in the Roman population, as there is in many Mediterranean nationalities today.

    But all this range of native Mediterranean nationalities must have appeared relatively normal to Greeks and Romans, as they don't seem to write about endogenous appearance of other Mediterranean people. They don't write about even appearance of Carthaginians. They don't write about a difference between Greeks and Roman appearance.

    By comparison, in "Germania" (Tacitus), writes famously about the strange and exotic appearance of Germans, and their large size, etc.

    So, you receive the impression, Northern European nationalities seemed more visually exotic, or foreign, in the Roman text. Mediterranean nationalities must have seem not too unusual to them for discussion.


    elite level visually documented quite well thanx to the realistic mastery of ancient sculptors,
     
    There is also change in the aesthetics expressed by the sculptors in the Roman Empire. Notice they start to add more lines above the eyes in so many sculptors.

    Replies: @LatW

  530. German_reader says:
    @sudden death
    @German_reader

    imho, it should not be some unclear muddy issue, as you can see the phenotype changes even at elite level visually documented quite well thanx to the realistic mastery of ancient sculptors, e.g. Gaius Marius looks quite typical in Republican period were not "southern swarthy" at all compared with later post expansionist imperial age ruler like Caracalla:

    https://upload.wikimedia.org/wikipedia/commons/e/e9/Marius_Glyptothek_Munich_319.jpg

    https://upload.wikimedia.org/wikipedia/commons/5/5a/Caracalla_MAN_Napoli_Inv6033_n01.jpg

    Replies: @German_reader, @Dmitry

    Well, Caracalla was a North African-Syrian mix iirc, so not surprising (though his bust hardly looks “Semitic” or “negroid” imo). The real question is how much change there was at the general population level in Italy. Some of the more recent DNA papers seem to indicate it was a lot, and relatively sudden, in the early imperial period. But of course it’s not totally clear how representative the samples in those studies are, and there are claims that this “diverse” population was concentrated in the cities (and therefore had low fertility), whereas the countryside supposedly retained more of an old Italic character. I can’t say I have any firm opinion on the matter myself.

    • Replies: @songbird
    @German_reader

    Wonder if Rome importing grain, on the scale it did, was unique in the ancient world.

    Of course, China had the Grand Canal, but it is hard to imagine that it brought the same volume of food as the Med. And supposedly Southern China had a lower population density, before the Northern Han migrated into it, effectively lowering the genetic distance quite a bit.

    Some people think that the real key to the barbarian invasions in prehistory was that the women and children were able to walk their food (cattle) into enemy territory, while the men remained vigilant. I'd speculate that a radical movement of grain, facilitated by a strong central authority in the Med may have led to similar disruptive population movements. (people following the food, in peace)

    Personally speaking, while I think the monumental building of Romans is extraordinarily impressive (they built the longest bridge, the tallest damn, etc, etc..., a lot of the buildings that survive are relatively small compared to what was lost), I think the real mind-bending thing is to see recreations of the ancient tenements (limited in height by decree) and marvel at the size of the population that fit into Roman cities.

    It is really humbling to think of how the wheels came off, and they just didn't have the resources to maintain a lot of things, or copy many books. And that Rome went from the world's greatest city to the world's largest quarry.

    It is fun to speculate whether the Carthaginians would have gone into universalism had they prevailed. (IIRC, they had a special holiday when no foreigners were allowed into the city. And probably more human sacrifice than the Romans. But had a lot of foreign allies, and I think mixed) But I suppose KMac would probably say not. Maybe, harder with the geography and the fact that they were a more recent settlement.

    , @LatW
    @German_reader


    Well, Caracalla was a North African-Syrian mix iirc, so not surprising (though his bust hardly looks “Semitic” or “negroid” imo).
     
    Frankly, the bust looks kind of Celtic. The facial features are definitely not Middle Eastern (this look is quite common in Western Europe and the British Isles), and some Celts have thick kinky hair (it's just typically red / auburn). He was born in Gaul.

    Replies: @sudden death

  531. …there are claims that this “diverse” population was concentrated in the cities (and therefore had low fertility), whereas the countryside supposedly retained more of an old Italic character.

    As history tends to reapeat or rhyme at least, we can look at what is happening right now before our eyes in post imperial expansion stage state as GB but still de facto having the border situation as if it was still worldwide overseas open empire – elites are becoming full of darker skinned former conquered colonial people from Indian subcontinent of all religions, but it is just reflection of their main cities with lower classes becoming darker too, but dying(?) silent majority of countryside still having more traditional native stock.

  532. @German_reader
    @sudden death

    Well, Caracalla was a North African-Syrian mix iirc, so not surprising (though his bust hardly looks "Semitic" or "negroid" imo). The real question is how much change there was at the general population level in Italy. Some of the more recent DNA papers seem to indicate it was a lot, and relatively sudden, in the early imperial period. But of course it's not totally clear how representative the samples in those studies are, and there are claims that this "diverse" population was concentrated in the cities (and therefore had low fertility), whereas the countryside supposedly retained more of an old Italic character. I can't say I have any firm opinion on the matter myself.

    Replies: @songbird, @LatW

    Wonder if Rome importing grain, on the scale it did, was unique in the ancient world.

    Of course, China had the Grand Canal, but it is hard to imagine that it brought the same volume of food as the Med. And supposedly Southern China had a lower population density, before the Northern Han migrated into it, effectively lowering the genetic distance quite a bit.

    Some people think that the real key to the barbarian invasions in prehistory was that the women and children were able to walk their food (cattle) into enemy territory, while the men remained vigilant. I’d speculate that a radical movement of grain, facilitated by a strong central authority in the Med may have led to similar disruptive population movements.

    [MORE]
    (people following the food, in peace)

    Personally speaking, while I think the monumental building of Romans is extraordinarily impressive (they built the longest bridge, the tallest damn, etc, etc…, a lot of the buildings that survive are relatively small compared to what was lost), I think the real mind-bending thing is to see recreations of the ancient tenements (limited in height by decree) and marvel at the size of the population that fit into Roman cities.

    It is really humbling to think of how the wheels came off, and they just didn’t have the resources to maintain a lot of things, or copy many books. And that Rome went from the world’s greatest city to the world’s largest quarry.

    It is fun to speculate whether the Carthaginians would have gone into universalism had they prevailed. (IIRC, they had a special holiday when no foreigners were allowed into the city. And probably more human sacrifice than the Romans. But had a lot of foreign allies, and I think mixed) But I suppose KMac would probably say not. Maybe, harder with the geography and the fact that they were a more recent settlement.

  533. @sudden death
    @German_reader

    imho, it should not be some unclear muddy issue, as you can see the phenotype changes even at elite level visually documented quite well thanx to the realistic mastery of ancient sculptors, e.g. Gaius Marius looks quite typical in Republican period were not "southern swarthy" at all compared with later post expansionist imperial age ruler like Caracalla:

    https://upload.wikimedia.org/wikipedia/commons/e/e9/Marius_Glyptothek_Munich_319.jpg

    https://upload.wikimedia.org/wikipedia/commons/5/5a/Caracalla_MAN_Napoli_Inv6033_n01.jpg

    Replies: @German_reader, @Dmitry

    There was probably natural diversity in the Roman population, as there is in many Mediterranean nationalities today.

    But all this range of native Mediterranean nationalities must have appeared relatively normal to Greeks and Romans, as they don’t seem to write about endogenous appearance of other Mediterranean people. They don’t write about even appearance of Carthaginians. They don’t write about a difference between Greeks and Roman appearance.

    By comparison, in “Germania” (Tacitus), writes famously about the strange and exotic appearance of Germans, and their large size, etc.

    So, you receive the impression, Northern European nationalities seemed more visually exotic, or foreign, in the Roman text. Mediterranean nationalities must have seem not too unusual to them for discussion.

    elite level visually documented quite well thanx to the realistic mastery of ancient sculptors,

    There is also change in the aesthetics expressed by the sculptors in the Roman Empire. Notice they start to add more lines above the eyes in so many sculptors.

    • Replies: @LatW
    @Dmitry


    By comparison, in “Germania” (Tacitus), writes famously about the strange and exotic appearance of Germans, and their large size, etc.
     
    The descriptions of the Varian Disaster are quite captivating in this regard, the Romans were of smaller stature but carried all the superior artifacts of the Roman civilization as they marched through the forest, imagine Varus riding slowly on his horse, wearing his intimidating steel mask and carrying the majestic imperial eagle standard. And yet they were smaller in size. Although the Roman legionaries were hand picked and typically taller and more robust than the average Roman citizen.

    Arminius (Hermann), a true embodiment of the ancient hero Sigurd, was often portrayed with long wavy hair and an elongated face. Obviously very freedom loving, since he was willing to give up his Roman military career to protect his people.

    Replies: @melanf

  534. It is really humbling to think of how the wheels came off, and they just didn’t have the resources to maintain a lot of things, or copy many books. And that Rome went from the world’s greatest city to the world’s largest quarry.

    tbh, while not being some Roman history buff, but just from general reading got the impression that the wheels really came off quite late, way later than demographic shift happened – only after devastating protracted more than decade long Gothic war in 540’s, when Eastern Romans of Iustinian (“Greeks”) won over ruling Ostrogoths (“Scandinavians”) in Italy while in process all the competent literate population and relevant infrastructure like aqueduct system needed for big city maintenance got destroyed, then being unable to rebuild and themselves being quickly expelled by invading barbarian Lombards.

    • Replies: @songbird
    @sudden death


    that the wheels really came off quite late, way later than demographic shift happened
     
    Yes, I would agree that the total collapse of the Western Empire was late.

    But I think Rome at the height of its power was something delicate. Something totally unique in world history. That began to wilt, long before the collapse. For ex. debasement of currency. They stopped building great things, and their art declined.

    Believe I heard they spent an estimated 70% of their taxes on the military (of course that did include public works), at peak. Is that normal, in the ancient world? I don't know, but I think the volume of wealth and its centralization may have made the military might (including the necessary garrisons) unique. And I believe there came a time, when it was impossible to maintain the same force and quality of troops because they didn't have the economy necessary to support it all.

    Replies: @sudden death

  535. @AP
    @Dmitry

    Unrelated to this specific discussion, but here is an article with videos of Ukrainian-made personal anti-tank missiles taking out rebel vehicles (you seem to have been interested in drone footage in the Armenian war):

    https://www.forbes.com/sites/davidaxe/2022/01/11/ukraines-homemade-anti-tank-missile-has-been-blasting-more-and-more-rebel-vehicles/

    Replies: @Dmitry

    It seems like Axe in Forbes website is the expert about this, at least in internet journalism. https://www.forbes.com/sites/davidaxe

    Hopefully he is just exaggerating with this war hype. It’s worse this year than previous years, if you read from Western media. But in Russian media and television this week there does not seem much more than usual war hype (like background levels to distract from domestic issues), and it’s mainly more of complaining about Ukrainian and Western media war hype.

  536. @sudden death

    It is really humbling to think of how the wheels came off, and they just didn’t have the resources to maintain a lot of things, or copy many books. And that Rome went from the world’s greatest city to the world’s largest quarry.
     
    tbh, while not being some Roman history buff, but just from general reading got the impression that the wheels really came off quite late, way later than demographic shift happened - only after devastating protracted more than decade long Gothic war in 540's, when Eastern Romans of Iustinian ("Greeks") won over ruling Ostrogoths ("Scandinavians") in Italy while in process all the competent literate population and relevant infrastructure like aqueduct system needed for big city maintenance got destroyed, then being unable to rebuild and themselves being quickly expelled by invading barbarian Lombards.

    Replies: @songbird

    that the wheels really came off quite late, way later than demographic shift happened

    Yes, I would agree that the total collapse of the Western Empire was late.

    But I think Rome at the height of its power was something delicate. Something totally unique in world history. That began to wilt, long before the collapse. For ex. debasement of currency. They stopped building great things, and their art declined.

    Believe I heard they spent an estimated 70% of their taxes on the military (of course that did include public works), at peak. Is that normal, in the ancient world? I don’t know, but I think the volume of wealth and its centralization may have made the military might (including the necessary garrisons) unique. And I believe there came a time, when it was impossible to maintain the same force and quality of troops because they didn’t have the economy necessary to support it all.

    • Replies: @sudden death
    @songbird


    ...and their art declined
     
    Wonder if it was decline of intelectual creative ability and/or learning continuity loss or maybe just conscious change of style like rejection of traditional realism?

    I mean if without any prior knowledge you look at Picasso early self portraits at age of 15/18 and then at age 24/25, you might think the man suffered major brain trauma and lost all the previous abilities as a painter:


    https://mymodernmet.com/pablo-picasso-self-portraits/

    Replies: @sudden death, @songbird, @Dmitry, @LatW

  537. @songbird
    @Yevardian

    Originally meant it as a joke, but your crass dismissal of it, circular logic, and tacked on explanation for why diplomatic missions in former communist countries no longer screen for gays, has made me consider it more seriously:

    In Japan, there are two separate genres of manga, one featuring lesbians (yuri), and one featuring gays (yaio), that were both designed to cater to women's fantasies. A spectrum from the romantic to the obscene. Since their inception in the 1970s, they have spread into neighboring countries, not without controversy, even in Japan itself, where they seem to be tied to political issues, like censorship in libraries or workplace discrimination.

    In China, yaio is known as danmei. There have been arrests of the female authors of such works (probably obscene) with long prison sentences because the Chinese perceive it (I believe correctly) as a social threat.

    These fantasies may appear niche, but actually they have entered deep into the mainstream, in both minor and major themes in other media. One such way of mainstreaming it is to sanitize it by making the story about a girl posing as one of the guys. Just a few off the top of my head: Hollywood film Just One of the Guys, 1985; K-drama Coffee Prince, Japanese anime Ouran High School Host Club. Obviously, catering to women's taste (big market) has done a lot to mainstream gays (minor market) and gender-bending, in the public eye.

    One of the dark reasons that Harry Potter is so influential is slash fiction written by women.

    The normal male reflex with gays is disgust. It was so when society was patriarchal. But now it is matriarchal, and women do not have the disgust. Their evolutionary psychology isn't the same, and their political and economic power have been leveraged to give gays a leg up. Just as it has been leveraged to facilitate the large scale invasion by military age alien men, or the dole for single mothers.

    Replies: @Barbarossa

    The normal male reflex with gays is disgust.

    Yes, I would say that the mechanics of gay sex provokes a far stronger disgust response in heterosexual men than lesbianism and that neither gay or lesbian relations generally elicit nearly as strong a response in most women. Many men today will doubtless try to deny that they feel a strong repulsion to gay sex, since it is not a politically correct thought, but do nonetheless.

    I was actually just discussing this with my wife and she thought it was probably pretty accurate.

    It seems to me that one could attribute a fair bit of the acceptance and prevalence of homosexuals presence in entertainment can be attributed to the rise of women as cultural taste makers, consumers, and creators because of their far higher tolerance for homosexual men.

    • Agree: songbird
    • Replies: @songbird
    @Barbarossa


    It seems to me that one could attribute a fair bit of the acceptance and prevalence of homosexuals presence in entertainment can be attributed to the rise of women as cultural taste makers, consumers, and creators because of their far higher tolerance for homosexual men.
     
    Yes, I think of fashion - from what I've seen of pre-code films, this was already a problem in the '30s. As a guy, I don't care about fashion, and certainly wouldn't let some gay choose my look. Seems like for some strange reason, gay writers have also made a lot of bank writing for female characters in female shows.

    Maybe, it would be interesting to study Weimar Berlin through this lens. (How many women were living alone? And thus more susceptible to supporting gays in some way)

    Much rarer, but I thought of another weird romantic sub genre that is probably designed to appeal especially to women: opposite sex body-swap. Anime movie Your Name 2016 was pretty well-received. I also recall some terrible Hollywood movie, with amusingly gay dialogue, where the guy in the girl's body threatened that he would lose the girl's virginity to some random guy.

  538. @Yahya
    @silviosilver


    For the purposes of this discussion, the appropriate comparison is with white Americans, not with all Americans

     

    I think AP covered that one well.

    – the latter whose average is dragged down by blacks and hispanics.
     
    (Non-Hispanic) White-American median household income was $74,912 in 2020.

    Lebanese-Americans were at $87,099.

    The overall American figure was $67,521.

    https://www.statista.com/statistics/233324/median-household-income-in-the-united-states-by-race-or-ethnic-group/


    Interestingly, both very light and very dark can occur within the same family.

     

    Yes, in the Middle East, a strange duality exists where people of the same race, religion, region, nationality and even family can exhibit vastly different phenotypes. Some will look quasi-European ("white"); and others will look quasi-Hispanic ("brown"). The proportion of white-to-brown differs by class and region.

    In almost any Arab society; the higher classes will have more whites than browns; and the lower classes more browns than whites. In the Levant; the majority (70-80%+) in the upper classes will be white; somewhat less white in the middle class (maybe 60%), whereas the lower classes will be somewhat more brown (perhaps 65%). Nevertheless, the quasi-European types can still be found among the rabble (heh); so it's not a situation like in Latin America where the upper class is uniformly white; and the lower classes predominantly indigos and mestizos.


    The vast majority look nothing like Iberians (whose non-whiteness is absurdly exaggerated on race forums).

     

    I don't think it was an "extreme exaggeration" to say Levantines look similar to Southern Europeans. This similarity has been noticed by many, not just me; and for good reason. Even in Ancient times, the Greeks; who were keen observers of physical differences between themselves and others (Ethiopians, Indians, Northern Europeans etc.) didn’t make any note of differences between themselves and Levantines, since presumably they were similar enough (i.e. Mediterranean Caucasians). Or perhaps they didn’t care to note down any differences.

    Anyway, back to the modern world. An Unz commentor once perceptively noted that the average Greek looks far more "Arab than Aryan"; which I think is a succinct summary of the phenotypic similarities between Arabs and Southern Europeans; which is probably greater than with Northern Europeans:


    AndrewR says:
    @Je Suis Charlie Martel
    Is it not obvious? The average Greek looks far more Arab than Aryan. That’s why I laugh so hard when I see Greeks LARPing as nazis bemoaning all the “nonwhite” Arabs into “white” countries like Germany.

    I mean… I’m not saying Greeks shouldn’t oppose the immivasion. But to pretend they’re more like the Germans than the Syrians is the height of fantasy.

    • Replies: @ReaderfromGreece
     
    And people pointing out that Southern Europeans look similar to Middle Easterners is not exclusively done by WN-types either. In Reddit, for example, an anonymous poll was conducted asking if Greeks looked more similar to Omanis or Norwegians:

    https://www.reddit.com/r/phenotypes/comments/rjor4z/do_greeks_pass_better_as_omani_or_as_norwegian/

    Somewhat humorously, Omanis won out by a large margin, even though Omanis are darker than most other Arabs. I can only imagine what the results would have been like had Levantines been in place of Omanis. Another poll asked if Spaniards and Portuguese look closer to the Lebanese or Irish; the former won out:

    https://www.reddit.com/r/phenotypes/comments/q0m16p/spaniards_and_portuguese_look_closer_to_which_of/


    That is an extreme exaggeration. I have considerable personal experience with Lebanese, both Christian and Muslim. I don’t doubt there are some very European looking ones, but they’re only a small minority.

     

    The "extreme exaggeration" is on your part. The proportion of Levantines who can pass for Southern European is not "minuscule" - that would be Pashtuns, of whom there is a small white-looking contingent; but you'd have to put in some effort to find them. For Levantines, by contrast, one could easily bring up thousands of examples of quasi-European phenotypes without breaking a sweat. Take a look at this school choir in Syria, for example:

    https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=T-9MDK4xecQ&ab_channel=iyadhanna

    I'd say about ~70-80% of them, if they were put up on reddit for commenters to guess their national origin, would get a fair number of "Spain", "Portugal", "Greece", or "Italy". Again; a familiar eye can discern between them; but most people would not.


    In the overwhelmingly (“pristinely” or “oppressively”, depending on your perspective, heh) Anglo part of Australia I grew up, a “greasy dago” like me stuck out like a sore thumb.

     

    When I first went to the US for university; I thought, given my white skin (similar to the median Southern European, or even a tanned Germanic-type) and quasi-European appearance; I would be considered white. For the most part that was true - unless people obtained knowledge of my Muslim name, or heard my foreign accent. Then I would suddenly become a "person of color", almost in an instant. At first I was bothered by this, since I thought it was non-sensical that someone who is closer to the Italian-American phenotype, like myself, would be lumped in with blacks and Hispanics. But over time I started enjoying my PoC status, since in my ultra-woke university environment, PoC were of higher status than whites. :)

    Since I've returned to Egypt, none of this is applicable anymore.


    what they can’t quite bring themselves to say is that I’m too non-white to be a racist, that “racism” is something only people as white as themselves are capable of

     

    If what you say about yourself is true, then you, like many other Southern Euros, are probably closer in appearance to Levantine Arabs, than to your pasty-white Anglo "co-racials". In which case; it's understandable why you would be considered too "non-white" to be racist.

    Against the backdrop of a bazillion niggers, however, I find myself transformed into a “fellow white man,” lol.

     

    From what I gather, even Nordicist WN-types are coming around to accepting Southern Europeans as "fellow white people". I assume this is partly because of the avalanche of evidence pointing to Greeks and Romans being swarthy Southern Europeans - not unlike their Central Italian and mainland Greek descendants today. Previously, Nordicists were desperate to claim the accomplishments of these two peoples, since obviously Germanics/Nordics/Celts were mostly primitive people for 85% of recorded history. But WN-types can no longer plausibly claim a connection to the glories of Ancient Greece and Rome; except by this new tenuous racial connection.

    Replies: @German_reader, @Mikel, @silviosilver, @silviosilver

    people pointing out that Southern Europeans look similar to Middle Easterners is not exclusively done by WN-types

    The only WN website I am familiar with is Stormfront, though I haven’t visited it in a long while, but I think it used to be the one with most traffic and they have been hosting sub-forums for all sorts of European nationalities since I discovered them, well over a decade ago. They didn’t seem to promote Nordicism much.

    In earlier times I saw an Aryan Nations website of American racialists who did exclude Southern Europeans (although they included Basques and North Italians in their “Aryan” club) but I’m not even sure that this group exists or has much relevance these days.

    If the US returned to the demographic composition of the 50s, there is little doubt that the old intra-White rivalries and prejudices would return, it’s just human nature. But the melting pot has continued to melt and pure WASPs are nowadays a minority. I don’t think there is much scope left for a WASP-only movement in the present circumstances and even in the old times WASP-adjacent groups were generally accepted with religion playing probably more importance than any racial pedigree.

    With that said, I think you’re right that some Southern European individuals are difficult to distinguish from Middle Easterners but my guess is that few people would fail to distinguish the Italian soccer squad from say, the Iraqi one.

  539. @songbird
    @sudden death


    that the wheels really came off quite late, way later than demographic shift happened
     
    Yes, I would agree that the total collapse of the Western Empire was late.

    But I think Rome at the height of its power was something delicate. Something totally unique in world history. That began to wilt, long before the collapse. For ex. debasement of currency. They stopped building great things, and their art declined.

    Believe I heard they spent an estimated 70% of their taxes on the military (of course that did include public works), at peak. Is that normal, in the ancient world? I don't know, but I think the volume of wealth and its centralization may have made the military might (including the necessary garrisons) unique. And I believe there came a time, when it was impossible to maintain the same force and quality of troops because they didn't have the economy necessary to support it all.

    Replies: @sudden death

    …and their art declined

    Wonder if it was decline of intelectual creative ability and/or learning continuity loss or maybe just conscious change of style like rejection of traditional realism?

    I mean if without any prior knowledge you look at Picasso early self portraits at age of 15/18 and then at age 24/25, you might think the man suffered major brain trauma and lost all the previous abilities as a painter:

    https://mymodernmet.com/pablo-picasso-self-portraits/

    • Replies: @sudden death
    @sudden death

    Anime like eye enlargement and skin without wrinkles of Constantine - loss of realistic ability or conscious stylistical change? imho, it is more likely the latter:

    https://upload.wikimedia.org/wikipedia/commons/c/ce/Rome-Capitole-StatueConstantin.jpg

    Replies: @songbird

    , @songbird
    @sudden death

    I know that the Republican period had some changing periods of fashion - they can be seen in the surviving frescoes of Pompeii. But none of it appears abstract, or obviously inferior.

    Furthermore, I think we can speculate that a lot of the best Roman art was a fashion driven by the conquest and looting of Greece. (although the Greeks had different ideas about buildings) But did it ever go out of fashion? I feel like even if private tastes changed, the state would not have made coins with obviously inferior engravings. So, would guess it was more lack of capacity than fashion. Can't a similar decline be seen in Egypt, earlier, along with loss of monumental architecture? And even some significant improvement with Greek influence and conquest?

    I agree that Picasso had a lot of skill, and so it is hard to understand why he was driven to create distorted abstractions. Most of what he did seems like some form of mental illness ("Blue Period") , but nowhere near as compelling as van Gogh. Personally speaking, I hate about 99.99% of modern abstract art.

    One exception being the "Cloud Gate" in Chicago. Mostly, because I think it seems to be an impressive display of material science, which inspires one to think about engineering strange but useful things. Probably, would rather see a nuclear sub, or a rocket, though.

    Replies: @Mr. Hack

    , @Dmitry
    @sudden death

    It's only if someone doesn't know about the invention and diffusion of photography, invention of moving images. But it's all described well even in basic texts and future historians will mainly understand the 20th century culture in terms of the introduction of new technologies.

    Manual painting's previous primary function was representative, but this was rapidly or totally (by early 20th century) displaced by photography and cinema. Genius painters like Picasso trying to work with new primary functions for painting, as representation of multiple perspective, commentary on artistic tradition, painting of concepts more than objects.

    At the same time, criteria for judgement becomes increasingly difficult, and there is a loss of uneducated or mass public interest in art.

    , @LatW
    @sudden death


    I mean if without any prior knowledge you look at Picasso early self portraits at age of 15/18 and then at age 24/25, you might think the man suffered major brain trauma and lost all the previous abilities as a painter:

    https://mymodernmet.com/pablo-picasso-self-portraits/

     

    When you look at those portraits, you can see that things really start looking bad around 1906 (a beginning of rather tumultuous time in Europe). There was a transition in art during that period, from more romantic and "clean" art such as Impressionism and Symbolism (which while already quite decadent, still had many pleasing examples), to more modern types of art (Cubism, Surrealism, stream of consciousness).

    By the way, an example of this transition is visible in architecture as well, when you look at Art Nouveau (an epitome of architectural beauty), then transitioning into Art Deco (which is still bearable but shows very clear signs of modern architecture), and then modern architecture itself which is something completely different (largely an abandonment of traditional beauty).

    Picasso acquired Jewish patrons relatively early when he was still a nobody and was very poor (the likes of Gertrud Stein and especially the one Daniel-Henry Kahnweiler, an art dealer who particularly supported unusual, overlooked artists...). So it's not all about "reckless abandon" and freedom from the chains of the middle class but also about basic money issues, survival and promotion even for these highly cultivated types. The one who pays, orders the music (in this case, paintings), so to speak... I don't want to be too harsh, but this cannot be overlooked.

    Kahnweiler especially promoted the painting Les Demoiselles d'Avignon. Painted in 1907, it is a horrifying example of degenerate art. My opinion is that if one is going to do avant-garde, the potential ugliness, awkwardness or psychological chaos really has to be worth it, as in, it really has to carry a strong, radical message that brings forward something valuable, creates a powerful insight or creates a very special atmosphere. Ugliness, of course, is an aesthetic category of its own that can communicate certain deep messages and often it's a display of the reality of human existence, however, it shouldn't be ugliness for its own sake ("filth for filth's sake"). Well, in this case it might have served as a harkening of a new, disruptive age.

    And I do agree with you that there are better "stream of consciousness" artists, in literature, such as Kafka who, while heavy from the psychological point of view, still presents great value, not to mention the likes of James Joyce.

    Replies: @Dmitry

  540. @songbird
    @songbird

    To clarify, I was talking about Park's book. But Boyle's sounds interesting - politically incorrect historical novels can be fun.

    Replies: @Emil Nikola Richard

    I have Park’s book on my disk and have not gotten to it yet. It’s been more than 20 years since I read Boyle’s book and I don’t remember much about it except that I had a bunch of fun reading it. I do remember the center of the plot was Park’s travels on the Niger River. Probably Boyle made nearly everything up.

    • Replies: @songbird
    @Emil Nikola Richard

    Foremost, I value it as being a good demonstration of how difficult it was for Europeans to enter into the interior of Africa, as well as a good account about the native practices around slavery. But the story itself is an interesting tale of youthful naivety. Don't want to spoil it too much, but there are human elements to it, as well as cruelty. I think it paints a balanced picture. From reading the book, I was surprised to recognize certain customs of local West African immigrants, like shea butter.

    Only true disappointment is that there is no sequel, where Park returns and then suddenly stops writing because he's ambushed by warring blacks. Speculations about his death are kind of vague, and I don't think there was ever a direct first-hand witness.


    Probably Boyle made nearly everything up.
     
    I've enjoyed reading I, Claudius and books by George MacDonald Fraser, but I think Fraser had his mind a little too much in the gutter for my tastes, to the point where it can become tiresome, even though I would consider him something of a genius otherwise.

    Replies: @Mr. Hack

  541. @sudden death
    @songbird


    ...and their art declined
     
    Wonder if it was decline of intelectual creative ability and/or learning continuity loss or maybe just conscious change of style like rejection of traditional realism?

    I mean if without any prior knowledge you look at Picasso early self portraits at age of 15/18 and then at age 24/25, you might think the man suffered major brain trauma and lost all the previous abilities as a painter:


    https://mymodernmet.com/pablo-picasso-self-portraits/

    Replies: @sudden death, @songbird, @Dmitry, @LatW

    Anime like eye enlargement and skin without wrinkles of Constantine – loss of realistic ability or conscious stylistical change? imho, it is more likely the latter:

    • Replies: @songbird
    @sudden death

    With stone, I think it was common to change the proportions to make it easier to carve. (probably a lot easier to do bronze) Even in the very best work, I perceive some level of stylization in the hair and beard. I even wonder glancingly whether it might have been the head of a full statue, rather than a bust.

    If you look at Michelangelo's David it is very impressive or very grotesque (big, big hands) depending on how you look at it.

  542. @sudden death
    @songbird


    ...and their art declined
     
    Wonder if it was decline of intelectual creative ability and/or learning continuity loss or maybe just conscious change of style like rejection of traditional realism?

    I mean if without any prior knowledge you look at Picasso early self portraits at age of 15/18 and then at age 24/25, you might think the man suffered major brain trauma and lost all the previous abilities as a painter:


    https://mymodernmet.com/pablo-picasso-self-portraits/

    Replies: @sudden death, @songbird, @Dmitry, @LatW

    I know that the Republican period had some changing periods of fashion – they can be seen in the surviving frescoes of Pompeii. But none of it appears abstract, or obviously inferior.

    Furthermore, I think we can speculate that a lot of the best Roman art was a fashion driven by the conquest and looting of Greece. (although the Greeks had different ideas about buildings) But did it ever go out of fashion? I feel like even if private tastes changed, the state would not have made coins with obviously inferior engravings. So, would guess it was more lack of capacity than fashion. Can’t a similar decline be seen in Egypt, earlier, along with loss of monumental architecture? And even some significant improvement with Greek influence and conquest?

    I agree that Picasso had a lot of skill, and so it is hard to understand why he was driven to create distorted abstractions. Most of what he did seems like some form of mental illness (“Blue Period”) , but nowhere near as compelling as van Gogh. Personally speaking, I hate about 99.99% of modern abstract art.

    One exception being the “Cloud Gate” in Chicago. Mostly, because I think it seems to be an impressive display of material science, which inspires one to think about engineering strange but useful things. Probably, would rather see a nuclear sub, or a rocket, though.

    • Replies: @Mr. Hack
    @songbird


    I agree that Picasso had a lot of skill, and so it is hard to understand why he was driven to create distorted abstractions. Most of what he did seems like some form of mental illness (“Blue Period”) , but nowhere near as compelling as van Gogh. Personally speaking, I hate about 99.99% of modern abstract art.
     
    Every period of art history had its own style and manner of representation. Medieval art saw the advent (towards the end) of adding perspective to the representations, something totally new. Renaisance art had its own lexicon often based on ancient motifs, but presented in a totally new manner. And so it was with the pioneers of modern and abstract art. The way that I view it, these artists were moving away and getting bored with a realistic representati0n of the world, and searching to express themselves in new ways. They were trying to express more how they felt towards the subject matter, and less with representing things in a photographic manner.

    I think of it as recalling a dream, where you may have very vivid images, yet the images don't include sharp clear boundaries. Have you ever had a dream where a person changes into somebody else than what he originally appeared to be? A very interesting experience, that may be more interesting than what one encounters in ones day to day experiences. How about dreams in which you can fly?Chagall, the great Russian painter, expressed this motif quite well in at least one of his works that I'm aware of:

    https://baltic-amber.biz/image/cache/Products/Nastya/Paintings3.10.2020/31020481585-600x600.jpg

    Replies: @melanf, @sudden death

  543. With AE no longer around… I guess I get to share Quinnipiac polling here. (1)
    __________________________

    Approve / Disapprove of Biden’s performance (by race):
    — White — 32 / 57
    — Hispanic — 28 / 51

    Biden/DNC numbers among Hispanic citizens are converging towards the White results. This generates real shifts towards MAGA voting.
    __________________________

    Also notable is the slide in Democrat support:
    — Nov 2021 — 87%
    — Jan 2022 — 75%

    While (obviously) still positive, the decline points at internal rifts. If this trend continues, it suggests low commitment/turnout in the upcoming midterms.

    PEACE 😇
    __________
    (1)
    Full results PDF — https://poll.qu.edu/images/polling/us/us01122022_ubjw88.pdf
    Webpage — https://poll.qu.edu/poll-release?releaseid=3831

  544. @Emil Nikola Richard
    @songbird

    I have Park's book on my disk and have not gotten to it yet. It's been more than 20 years since I read Boyle's book and I don't remember much about it except that I had a bunch of fun reading it. I do remember the center of the plot was Park's travels on the Niger River. Probably Boyle made nearly everything up.

    Replies: @songbird

    Foremost, I value it as being a good demonstration of how difficult it was for Europeans to enter into the interior of Africa, as well as a good account about the native practices around slavery. But the story itself is an interesting tale of youthful naivety. Don’t want to spoil it too much, but there are human elements to it, as well as cruelty. I think it paints a balanced picture. From reading the book, I was surprised to recognize certain customs of local West African immigrants, like shea butter.

    Only true disappointment is that there is no sequel, where Park returns and then suddenly stops writing because he’s ambushed by warring blacks. Speculations about his death are kind of vague, and I don’t think there was ever a direct first-hand witness.

    Probably Boyle made nearly everything up.

    I’ve enjoyed reading I, Claudius and books by George MacDonald Fraser, but I think Fraser had his mind a little too much in the gutter for my tastes, to the point where it can become tiresome, even though I would consider him something of a genius otherwise.

    • Replies: @Mr. Hack
    @songbird

    Did you ever view the BBC film version "I Claudius" based on Graves two novels? A couple of the scenes were just too garish and were cut out of the original filming, but other than that, I thought that it was drama of the highest order.

    https://ichef.bbci.co.uk/news/976/cpsprodpb/9A7D/production/_85294593_i-claudius.jpg

    Claudius, Caligula and Tiberius - all in the family...

    Replies: @songbird

  545. @songbird
    @Emil Nikola Richard

    Foremost, I value it as being a good demonstration of how difficult it was for Europeans to enter into the interior of Africa, as well as a good account about the native practices around slavery. But the story itself is an interesting tale of youthful naivety. Don't want to spoil it too much, but there are human elements to it, as well as cruelty. I think it paints a balanced picture. From reading the book, I was surprised to recognize certain customs of local West African immigrants, like shea butter.

    Only true disappointment is that there is no sequel, where Park returns and then suddenly stops writing because he's ambushed by warring blacks. Speculations about his death are kind of vague, and I don't think there was ever a direct first-hand witness.


    Probably Boyle made nearly everything up.
     
    I've enjoyed reading I, Claudius and books by George MacDonald Fraser, but I think Fraser had his mind a little too much in the gutter for my tastes, to the point where it can become tiresome, even though I would consider him something of a genius otherwise.

    Replies: @Mr. Hack

    Did you ever view the BBC film version “I Claudius” based on Graves two novels? A couple of the scenes were just too garish and were cut out of the original filming, but other than that, I thought that it was drama of the highest order.

    Claudius, Caligula and Tiberius – all in the family…

    • Agree: Mikhail
    • Replies: @songbird
    @Mr. Hack


    Did you ever view the BBC film version “I Claudius” based on Graves two novels?
     
    Never saw it, but heard it recommended. I'm a bit wary, as - American in me speaking, not Irishman - I'm not especially fond of British television. (though I can think of exceptions, and I suppose I am not fond of American TV either, in a general sense) Though it can be interesting to watch old stuff. One thing I enjoy doing is trying to see if I can pick up on anything political that the writers added and to see what form it takes.

    Oddly enough, I didn't like the sequel. (think he got too far from the source material) Kind of a similar to TH White's The Witch in the Wood, as a separate, expanded book.

    Have you ever had a dream where a person changes into somebody else than what he originally appeared to be? A very interesting experience, that may be more interesting than what one encounters in ones day to day experiences. How about dreams in which you can fly?
     
    No morphing people that I can recall. Not sure about flying. When I was a boy, I broke my leg and remember having a dream where I was either running or flying close to the ground, in an upright position. Can also remember having one of those falling dreams when I was really young - this is one that was surreal enough that if I was a better artist, I would think of trying to stylize and depict.

    I'm kind of afraid of heights. Not in the sense of an irrational fear. (I can get on a ladder or look out a skyscraper) But I wouldn't want to be an Indian steel worker, or using a chainsaw on a ladder. When I am on a roof, I'm very careful. I don't know if this explains my lack of remembering flying high.

    I only rarely remember my dreams. One of the weirdest things that I ever remember is falling asleep, or I don't know whether it was half-asleep. But my thoughts became really flowy and abstract and I had this weird stream of consciousness where I was associating words in an almost random way. I remember thinking "palm tree" somehow, even though I don't like the tropics. And I don't think that I was necessarily at the stage where I could see any of it in images, just thoughts. And I was aware enough to know that I was dreaming.

    Occasionally, I'll come up with what I think are brilliant ideas when I'm asleep, and when I am awake, they don't seem so inspired, but I also wonder, if I just can't remember the idea fully.

    Replies: @Mr. Hack

  546. @songbird
    @sudden death

    I know that the Republican period had some changing periods of fashion - they can be seen in the surviving frescoes of Pompeii. But none of it appears abstract, or obviously inferior.

    Furthermore, I think we can speculate that a lot of the best Roman art was a fashion driven by the conquest and looting of Greece. (although the Greeks had different ideas about buildings) But did it ever go out of fashion? I feel like even if private tastes changed, the state would not have made coins with obviously inferior engravings. So, would guess it was more lack of capacity than fashion. Can't a similar decline be seen in Egypt, earlier, along with loss of monumental architecture? And even some significant improvement with Greek influence and conquest?

    I agree that Picasso had a lot of skill, and so it is hard to understand why he was driven to create distorted abstractions. Most of what he did seems like some form of mental illness ("Blue Period") , but nowhere near as compelling as van Gogh. Personally speaking, I hate about 99.99% of modern abstract art.

    One exception being the "Cloud Gate" in Chicago. Mostly, because I think it seems to be an impressive display of material science, which inspires one to think about engineering strange but useful things. Probably, would rather see a nuclear sub, or a rocket, though.

    Replies: @Mr. Hack

    I agree that Picasso had a lot of skill, and so it is hard to understand why he was driven to create distorted abstractions. Most of what he did seems like some form of mental illness (“Blue Period”) , but nowhere near as compelling as van Gogh. Personally speaking, I hate about 99.99% of modern abstract art.

    Every period of art history had its own style and manner of representation. Medieval art saw the advent (towards the end) of adding perspective to the representations, something totally new. Renaisance art had its own lexicon often based on ancient motifs, but presented in a totally new manner. And so it was with the pioneers of modern and abstract art. The way that I view it, these artists were moving away and getting bored with a realistic representati0n of the world, and searching to express themselves in new ways. They were trying to express more how they felt towards the subject matter, and less with representing things in a photographic manner.

    I think of it as recalling a dream, where you may have very vivid images, yet the images don’t include sharp clear boundaries. Have you ever had a dream where a person changes into somebody else than what he originally appeared to be? A very interesting experience, that may be more interesting than what one encounters in ones day to day experiences. How about dreams in which you can fly?Chagall, the great Russian painter, expressed this motif quite well in at least one of his works that I’m aware of:

    • Replies: @melanf
    @Mr. Hack


    the great Russian painter, expressed this motif quite well in at least one of his works that I’m aware of:
     
    Funny joke. The Jew Marc Chagall with his children's drawings turned into a "great artist". Then I'm probably a great artist too

    https://i.redd.it/3zfuw7h3xfu71.png

    Replies: @Dmitry

    , @sudden death
    @Mr. Hack


    They were trying to express more how they felt towards the subject matter, and less with representing things in a photographic manner.

    I think of it as recalling a dream, where you may have very vivid images, yet the images don’t include sharp clear boundaries..
     

    It is kinda matter of taste ofc, but I got way more pleasure from those artists, like Dali or Kafka, whom very sucessfully managed to represent absolutely dreamy or even nightmarish matter (in their respective fields of art - painting/literature) in nearly photographic manner though.

    Replies: @Mr. Hack

  547. @Mr. Hack
    @songbird


    I agree that Picasso had a lot of skill, and so it is hard to understand why he was driven to create distorted abstractions. Most of what he did seems like some form of mental illness (“Blue Period”) , but nowhere near as compelling as van Gogh. Personally speaking, I hate about 99.99% of modern abstract art.
     
    Every period of art history had its own style and manner of representation. Medieval art saw the advent (towards the end) of adding perspective to the representations, something totally new. Renaisance art had its own lexicon often based on ancient motifs, but presented in a totally new manner. And so it was with the pioneers of modern and abstract art. The way that I view it, these artists were moving away and getting bored with a realistic representati0n of the world, and searching to express themselves in new ways. They were trying to express more how they felt towards the subject matter, and less with representing things in a photographic manner.

    I think of it as recalling a dream, where you may have very vivid images, yet the images don't include sharp clear boundaries. Have you ever had a dream where a person changes into somebody else than what he originally appeared to be? A very interesting experience, that may be more interesting than what one encounters in ones day to day experiences. How about dreams in which you can fly?Chagall, the great Russian painter, expressed this motif quite well in at least one of his works that I'm aware of:

    https://baltic-amber.biz/image/cache/Products/Nastya/Paintings3.10.2020/31020481585-600x600.jpg

    Replies: @melanf, @sudden death

    the great Russian painter, expressed this motif quite well in at least one of his works that I’m aware of:

    Funny joke. The Jew Marc Chagall with his children’s drawings turned into a “great artist”. Then I’m probably a great artist too

    • LOL: Mr. Hack
    • Replies: @Dmitry
    @melanf

    This is a great work, if you conceived this originally? Maybe I misunderstand you, but you invent this concept yourself? I can see you should become a wealthy concept artist if you can invent things like this regularly, secure some venture funding.

    Although sell your products on Etsy, don't give your artistic invention for free on the internet forums.

    I can now print this and post it above my desk without paying. If I had less ethics, I can put this in my office and tell people I made it, everyone would think I am a creative person lol.

    Replies: @melanf

  548. @Mr. Hack
    @songbird


    I agree that Picasso had a lot of skill, and so it is hard to understand why he was driven to create distorted abstractions. Most of what he did seems like some form of mental illness (“Blue Period”) , but nowhere near as compelling as van Gogh. Personally speaking, I hate about 99.99% of modern abstract art.
     
    Every period of art history had its own style and manner of representation. Medieval art saw the advent (towards the end) of adding perspective to the representations, something totally new. Renaisance art had its own lexicon often based on ancient motifs, but presented in a totally new manner. And so it was with the pioneers of modern and abstract art. The way that I view it, these artists were moving away and getting bored with a realistic representati0n of the world, and searching to express themselves in new ways. They were trying to express more how they felt towards the subject matter, and less with representing things in a photographic manner.

    I think of it as recalling a dream, where you may have very vivid images, yet the images don't include sharp clear boundaries. Have you ever had a dream where a person changes into somebody else than what he originally appeared to be? A very interesting experience, that may be more interesting than what one encounters in ones day to day experiences. How about dreams in which you can fly?Chagall, the great Russian painter, expressed this motif quite well in at least one of his works that I'm aware of:

    https://baltic-amber.biz/image/cache/Products/Nastya/Paintings3.10.2020/31020481585-600x600.jpg

    Replies: @melanf, @sudden death

    They were trying to express more how they felt towards the subject matter, and less with representing things in a photographic manner.

    I think of it as recalling a dream, where you may have very vivid images, yet the images don’t include sharp clear boundaries..

    It is kinda matter of taste ofc, but I got way more pleasure from those artists, like Dali or Kafka, whom very sucessfully managed to represent absolutely dreamy or even nightmarish matter (in their respective fields of art – painting/literature) in nearly photographic manner though.

    • Replies: @Mr. Hack
    @sudden death

    I agree with you, and would add Rene Magritte and possibly Yves Tanguy into this category too. It's one of the great features of modern art, that the actual styles and approaches to creating art includes an attitude of generosity in allowing the artist to find his own means of expression. It certainly doesn't promote a "one size fits all" rigidity to the genre, or even to the oeuvre of one artist. Even realism has its proponents among modern artists, Chuck Close became popular in the 1970's whose style encompassed a photo realistic aspect and often included very large works. Seeing his works in print does little justice to the realism that he tried to capture:

    https://static01.nyt.com/images/2018/10/19/obituaries/00CLOSE1/merlin_145539414_c347ea6b-48b4-4e65-a2dc-b809b6e5f1ae-superJumbo.jpg?quality=75&auto=webp

    "Self Portrait", Chuck Close. I've seen this work up close and it towers at perhaps over 20 feet..

  549. @Thulean Friend
    Jeff Bezos lost $40 billion in a divorce but he looks happier than ever.

    https://i.imgur.com/FztuUAS.jpg

    He also made the correct move of shaving his hair instead of trying to latch onto a fake toupé like Musk when he started to bald.

    Replies: @Yevardian, @Barbarossa, @Pericles, @Philip Owen, @melanf

    Either a bad photo, or Bezos is wasting his money badly. With his wealth, he could buy himself a concubine at the sight of which the men would be dumb with delight and envy, and not this lady with the face of a bitch

    • Replies: @Barbarossa
    @melanf

    It's not an unfairly bad photo. Her face looks less bad in that shot than most other pictures I've seen.
    Sad. Yet somehow fitting.

  550. The de-centralisation of SV, if it is indicative of a wider global trend, is probably best for poor regions with a considerable concentration of tech talent, such as Eastern Europe. Emigration will no longer be such a massive pressure as geographic proximity will be optional rather than necessary.

    • Replies: @Yellowface Anon
    @Thulean Friend

    How would this phenomenon be accounted for in national accounting i.e. GNI calculation? Is it counted according to your citizenship or residency?

  551. Went to twitter and found out the #TwitterBan hashtag is trending as the result of official algorithm rigging. Turns out it is about a Nigerian governor defying the federal ban on Twitter. How would DeSantis think of this? What a clown world.

    (also #東京3000人 – tells a lot about the containment strategy East Asia is trying to hold up.)

  552. @Thulean Friend
    https://twitter.com/patrickc/status/1480647701221896195

    https://twitter.com/brian_armstrong/status/1481129589761998857

    The de-centralisation of SV, if it is indicative of a wider global trend, is probably best for poor regions with a considerable concentration of tech talent, such as Eastern Europe. Emigration will no longer be such a massive pressure as geographic proximity will be optional rather than necessary.

    Replies: @Yellowface Anon

    How would this phenomenon be accounted for in national accounting i.e. GNI calculation? Is it counted according to your citizenship or residency?

  553. @Thulean Friend
    As an aside, I find bragging about a diaspora to be surefire sign of a third world nation. People should be judged by the societies they build themselves, not how well they prosper in places others built. At any rate, if some of your brightest contribute to the success of another nation isn't that a form of group cuckholdry?

    German-American is the most common ancestry for Whites in the US, not Anglos as you'd expect. Yet German-American culture has virtually disappeared. Who was stronger in the end? And while Werner von Braun's achievements were spectacular, the fruits of his labour fell to the USA and not of his native country. We all understand the historical context for that, but the fact remains the same.

    So bragging about this or that diaspora group doing well in the West or elsewhere is sort pathetic in my humble view. If you export your elite, that's something you should be ashamed of, as it shows your own people didn't have it in them to prosper to the fullest extent back home. Germany bounced back quickly after the war and most of its elites are now contributing to their country of birth. They don't need to emigrate.

    German-American incomes may be mediocre, but it doesn't matter, because the German homeland isn't. That's a sign of a successful nation. Perennial diasporas are not. I don't care what their income levels are.

    Replies: @Shortsword

    German-American is the most common ancestry for Whites in the US, not Anglos as you’d expect.

    I assume this you’re talking about the official census numbers. In that case this is only because people have stopped self identifying as having English or British ancestry (The number who claim English ancestry have decreased by almost 60% since 1980). People have stopped identifying as German-American too but to a lesser extent. The result is that there supposedly are more German-Americans than British-American today when it was the opposite a couple of decades ago.

  554. @sudden death
    @Mr. Hack


    They were trying to express more how they felt towards the subject matter, and less with representing things in a photographic manner.

    I think of it as recalling a dream, where you may have very vivid images, yet the images don’t include sharp clear boundaries..
     

    It is kinda matter of taste ofc, but I got way more pleasure from those artists, like Dali or Kafka, whom very sucessfully managed to represent absolutely dreamy or even nightmarish matter (in their respective fields of art - painting/literature) in nearly photographic manner though.

    Replies: @Mr. Hack

    I agree with you, and would add Rene Magritte and possibly Yves Tanguy into this category too. It’s one of the great features of modern art, that the actual styles and approaches to creating art includes an attitude of generosity in allowing the artist to find his own means of expression. It certainly doesn’t promote a “one size fits all” rigidity to the genre, or even to the oeuvre of one artist. Even realism has its proponents among modern artists, Chuck Close became popular in the 1970’s whose style encompassed a photo realistic aspect and often included very large works. Seeing his works in print does little justice to the realism that he tried to capture:

    “Self Portrait”, Chuck Close. I’ve seen this work up close and it towers at perhaps over 20 feet..

    • Thanks: sudden death
  555. @melanf
    @Thulean Friend

    Either a bad photo, or Bezos is wasting his money badly. With his wealth, he could buy himself a concubine at the sight of which the men would be dumb with delight and envy, and not this lady with the face of a bitch

    Replies: @Barbarossa

    It’s not an unfairly bad photo. Her face looks less bad in that shot than most other pictures I’ve seen.
    Sad. Yet somehow fitting.

  556. Just when you though that the helpless Iranian Theocracy could not become less lucid: (1)

    Hamas accuses Israel of deploying ‘killer Zionist dolphins’ near Gaza

    [Iranian proxy] Hamas suspects Israeli dolphins are up to something fishy.

    The militant Islamist group claimed in a video posted by its military wing, the Al-Qassam Brigades, to have captured a heavily armed Israeli dolphin off the coast of Gaza, according to i24 News.

    “Killer Zionist dolphins exist, according to a Hamas publication,” tweeted Joe Truzman, a researcher for Long War Journal and the Foundation for Defense of Democracies think tank.

    “Abu Hamza explains that a member of Hamas’ Frogman unit who was killed by Israel during the May conflict found the killer dolphin.

    It is not surprising that Israel and Arab Nations are cooperating. The irrational behaviour of Iran and their proxies (including Hamas & Hezbollah) is deeply concerning to everyone in the MENA region.

    PEACE 😇
    ___________

    (1) https://nypost.com/2022/01/12/hamas-says-israel-deployed-killer-zionist-dolphins-near-gaza/

     

    • Replies: @Mr. Hack
    @A123


    https://is5-ssl.mzstatic.com/image/thumb/Music124/v4/eb/05/46/eb0546bb-7e3b-3e98-19ae-557af4705afc/Dolphin-Smiles-FINAL_COVER.jpg/1200x1200bf-60.jpg

    "Let My People Go" :-)

  557. @Thulean Friend
    @Pericles

    There's a center-right German intellectual who I like quite a bit, named Gunnar Heinsohn. His latest analysis is available online. He has strong attention to detail but weak artistic skills, hence his graphs and charts are pretty messy and incoherent (typical German). But his core numbers are persuasive and strongly argued.

    I think the most important table is probably this one:

    https://i.imgur.com/HLK3FOC.png

    (A full-sized image can be viewed here).

    A naïve extrapolation would indeed give a 40X difference in raw absolute math aces between China and the US, but this is unlikely. Chinese fertility is likely lower than reported. China also selects its best provinces while the weakest students (offspring of those without Hukou permits) are not tested. Nevertheless, if we put their per capita performance closer to Japan and adjust for lower fertility, you still get a 10 million number compared to barely 1 million for the US of top math aces.

    Mathematics is the queen of sciences, after all. The US position is stronger than the table indicates, given US being the net emigration destination for most of the world's talent, but I don't think they can bridge such a chasm.

    I counted all the European countries (ex Russia) and came out to 2.5 million people. America barely has 1 million math aces under the age of 15. This is the central Achilles' heel of Europe. The talent is there, in fact more than twice as many as in USA, but it divided among too many countries, thus missing the crucial network effects. On top of just plain lower wages, leading to persistent brain drain.

    So when I hear about China going to 700 million by the end of this century, I just roll my eyes. What matters is what proportion of the top talent in the world that you have and China will have, and already has, a very large fraction of them. The key problem in China has been putting all those brains to good use. That was missing for most of the 20th and 19th centuries. It isn't a problem now.

    Replies: @Pericles, @Oscar C.

    Oh yes, Gunnar Heinsohn. I first knew about him due to his book “Söhne und Weltmacht”, a demography-is-destiny kind of work, very interesting since it comes from a German, I find it hard to find Germans speaking out on these issues, it is almost everything coming from the English-speaking countries. I guess hate speech laws have a lot to do with it.

    David P. Goldman also talks a lot about the STEM gap between the US and China:

    https://www.breitbart.com/radio/2018/03/19/goldman-china-graduating-twice-many-doctorates-stem-fields-we-are/

  558. @A123
    Just when you though that the helpless Iranian Theocracy could not become less lucid: (1)

    Hamas accuses Israel of deploying ‘killer Zionist dolphins’ near Gaza

    [Iranian proxy] Hamas suspects Israeli dolphins are up to something fishy.

    The militant Islamist group claimed in a video posted by its military wing, the Al-Qassam Brigades, to have captured a heavily armed Israeli dolphin off the coast of Gaza, according to i24 News.

    “Killer Zionist dolphins exist, according to a Hamas publication,” tweeted Joe Truzman, a researcher for Long War Journal and the Foundation for Defense of Democracies think tank.

    “Abu Hamza explains that a member of Hamas’ Frogman unit who was killed by Israel during the May conflict found the killer dolphin.
     

    It is not surprising that Israel and Arab Nations are cooperating. The irrational behaviour of Iran and their proxies (including Hamas & Hezbollah) is deeply concerning to everyone in the MENA region.

    PEACE 😇
    ___________

    (1) https://nypost.com/2022/01/12/hamas-says-israel-deployed-killer-zionist-dolphins-near-gaza/

     
    http://3.bp.blogspot.com/-aep4d_3e4wI/VemvY4C4HQI/AAAAAAAArjk/QUg6-13WF0Y/s1600/freedolphin.jpg

    Replies: @Mr. Hack

    [MORE]

    “Let My People Go” 🙂

    • LOL: A123
  559. Has the French ministry responsible for citizenship (I have no idea, Interior?) actually followed up on Macron’s threat that the unvaccinated aren’t citizens, in revoking their citizenship status and making these people stateless? Will the German or the whole EU follow suit now that they have mandated the vaccines?

    A123 should see an opportunity here to accept White European refugees who have been exiled for their particular stance on an issue Trumpists have spoken in favor of personal autonomy. If they haven’t followed a particular route rightoids have feared happening to them, that is.

    • Replies: @Yellowface Anon
    @Yellowface Anon

    By the last sentence I mean those A123 have been labelling as "fascists" in European governments.

    Replies: @A123

    , @A123
    @Yellowface Anon


    A123 should see an opportunity here to accept White European refugees who have been exiled for their particular stance on an issue Trumpists have spoken in favor of personal autonomy
     
    Vaxx-Realists exhibit a desirable behaviour. They resist anti-science authoritarianism, such as mandatory jabs for children not at risk.

     
    https://i2.wp.com/www.powerlineblog.com/ed-assets/2022/01/Screen-Shot-2022-01-10-at-8.17.19-AM.png
     

    However, the minimum characteristics would also include:

    -- Judeo-Christian beliefs
    -- High English proficiency
    -- Useful skills, without undercutting wages of current U.S. citizens
    -- Young enough to not draw on public services

    Realistically, the U.S. needs to sharply limit inflows, and begin returning illegal & asylum undesirables. This will allow U.S. Citizens to obtain high quality jobs and associated personal/skills development.

    Even if French Vaxx-Realists are preferred, the number of migrants will not be particularly high. America does not have a mirror image policy to revoke citizenship and mass export Leftoids, which would open up large numbers of "slots" for new arrivals.
    ___

    As a side note -- I am not sure why you keep including "White" when mentioning my Judeo-Christian, MAGA Populist positions. There are White Nationalists who post here, but I am obviously not one of them. WN's despise the fact that Jews are welcome in the MAGA movement.

    PEACE 😇
  560. @Yellowface Anon
    Has the French ministry responsible for citizenship (I have no idea, Interior?) actually followed up on Macron's threat that the unvaccinated aren't citizens, in revoking their citizenship status and making these people stateless? Will the German or the whole EU follow suit now that they have mandated the vaccines?

    A123 should see an opportunity here to accept White European refugees who have been exiled for their particular stance on an issue Trumpists have spoken in favor of personal autonomy. If they haven't followed a particular route rightoids have feared happening to them, that is.

    Replies: @Yellowface Anon, @A123

    By the last sentence I mean those A123 have been labelling as “fascists” in European governments.

    • Replies: @A123
    @Yellowface Anon


    By the last sentence I mean those A123 have been labelling as “fascists” in European governments
     
    If my language is strong, it is a fight that European & American Leftoids started.

     
    https://i0.wp.com/www.powerlineblog.com/ed-assets/2022/01/Screen-Shot-2022-01-10-at-1.01.17-PM.png
     

    I am simply pushing back against the intolerance of WEF Globalist dogma -- SJW's, Political Correctness, Cancel Culture, etc.

    PEACE 😇

  561. @Mr. Hack
    @songbird

    Did you ever view the BBC film version "I Claudius" based on Graves two novels? A couple of the scenes were just too garish and were cut out of the original filming, but other than that, I thought that it was drama of the highest order.

    https://ichef.bbci.co.uk/news/976/cpsprodpb/9A7D/production/_85294593_i-claudius.jpg

    Claudius, Caligula and Tiberius - all in the family...

    Replies: @songbird

    Did you ever view the BBC film version “I Claudius” based on Graves two novels?

    Never saw it, but heard it recommended. I’m a bit wary, as – American in me speaking, not Irishman – I’m not especially fond of British television. (though I can think of exceptions, and I suppose I am not fond of American TV either, in a general sense) Though it can be interesting to watch old stuff. One thing I enjoy doing is trying to see if I can pick up on anything political that the writers added and to see what form it takes.

    Oddly enough, I didn’t like the sequel. (think he got too far from the source material)

    [MORE]
    Kind of a similar to TH White’s The Witch in the Wood, as a separate, expanded book.

    Have you ever had a dream where a person changes into somebody else than what he originally appeared to be? A very interesting experience, that may be more interesting than what one encounters in ones day to day experiences. How about dreams in which you can fly?

    No morphing people that I can recall. Not sure about flying. When I was a boy, I broke my leg and remember having a dream where I was either running or flying close to the ground, in an upright position. Can also remember having one of those falling dreams when I was really young – this is one that was surreal enough that if I was a better artist, I would think of trying to stylize and depict.

    I’m kind of afraid of heights. Not in the sense of an irrational fear. (I can get on a ladder or look out a skyscraper) But I wouldn’t want to be an Indian steel worker, or using a chainsaw on a ladder. When I am on a roof, I’m very careful. I don’t know if this explains my lack of remembering flying high.

    I only rarely remember my dreams. One of the weirdest things that I ever remember is falling asleep, or I don’t know whether it was half-asleep. But my thoughts became really flowy and abstract and I had this weird stream of consciousness where I was associating words in an almost random way. I remember thinking “palm tree” somehow, even though I don’t like the tropics. And I don’t think that I was necessarily at the stage where I could see any of it in images, just thoughts. And I was aware enough to know that I was dreaming.

    Occasionally, I’ll come up with what I think are brilliant ideas when I’m asleep, and when I am awake, they don’t seem so inspired, but I also wonder, if I just can’t remember the idea fully.

    • Replies: @Mr. Hack
    @songbird

    No need to fret, try viewing only one episode, see if you like it and then proceed to the rest. It's about a 10 episode extravaganza, each episode having its own DVD disc. I got the whole series at my local library for free. I'm quite sure that there are several ways you can view it today. Since several persons have already recommended it to you including myself, it might just be the ticket!

    The trick to remembering dreams is to do it right away after you wake up. Even still, you may not remember it all, but you should remember something and force your memory to reveal some more.I've been fortunat enough to have two types of "flying dreams:. The first variety are very reminiscent of the Chagal painting that I posted above. These dreams involve my ability to personally fly, as if I'm some sort of a human kite. I gather up some speed, then jump into the air and the wind takes me for a ride. I can hover quite high over different types of landscapes, but they're usually city ones. I do recall one where I actually jumped off of a roof of a building and luckily went for a ride. I vividly recall having to coordinate my efforts with the wind, and they're really quite fun.

    The other type, involves my role as an airplane pilot, although I have never acquired this skill in real life. I've flown all manner of aircraft from tiny two man planes to large passenger carriers. Once in a large plane, I spotted a hostile smaller craft to the side, and was forced to shoot it down. he craziest dream that I can remember had me commandeer a large passenger type plane to a low altitude ultimately flying it underneath a low bridge - we came out the other end unscathed! In one of the last dreams that I had of this sort, a large plane that I was flying ended up crashing, I'm not sure that I was inside of it as I was viewing the whole mishap from outside of the plane. It was a spectacular crash, very colorful as I recall. Needless to say, I woke up right after that one!

    Replies: @songbird, @LatW

  562. @sudden death
    @sudden death

    Anime like eye enlargement and skin without wrinkles of Constantine - loss of realistic ability or conscious stylistical change? imho, it is more likely the latter:

    https://upload.wikimedia.org/wikipedia/commons/c/ce/Rome-Capitole-StatueConstantin.jpg

    Replies: @songbird

    With stone, I think it was common to change the proportions to make it easier to carve. (probably a lot easier to do bronze) Even in the very best work, I perceive some level of stylization in the hair and beard. I even wonder glancingly whether it might have been the head of a full statue, rather than a bust.

    If you look at Michelangelo’s David it is very impressive or very grotesque (big, big hands) depending on how you look at it.

  563. @Barbarossa
    @songbird


    The normal male reflex with gays is disgust.
     
    Yes, I would say that the mechanics of gay sex provokes a far stronger disgust response in heterosexual men than lesbianism and that neither gay or lesbian relations generally elicit nearly as strong a response in most women. Many men today will doubtless try to deny that they feel a strong repulsion to gay sex, since it is not a politically correct thought, but do nonetheless.

    I was actually just discussing this with my wife and she thought it was probably pretty accurate.

    It seems to me that one could attribute a fair bit of the acceptance and prevalence of homosexuals presence in entertainment can be attributed to the rise of women as cultural taste makers, consumers, and creators because of their far higher tolerance for homosexual men.

    Replies: @songbird

    It seems to me that one could attribute a fair bit of the acceptance and prevalence of homosexuals presence in entertainment can be attributed to the rise of women as cultural taste makers, consumers, and creators because of their far higher tolerance for homosexual men.

    Yes, I think of fashion – from what I’ve seen of pre-code films, this was already a problem in the ’30s. As a guy, I don’t care about fashion, and certainly wouldn’t let some gay choose my look. Seems like for some strange reason, gay writers have also made a lot of bank writing for female characters in female shows.

    Maybe, it would be interesting to study Weimar Berlin through this lens. (How many women were living alone? And thus more susceptible to supporting gays in some way)

    Much rarer, but I thought of another weird romantic sub genre that is probably designed to appeal especially to women: opposite sex body-swap. Anime movie Your Name 2016 was pretty well-received. I also recall some terrible Hollywood movie, with amusingly gay dialogue, where the guy in the girl’s body threatened that he would lose the girl’s virginity to some random guy.

  564. @sudden death
    @songbird


    ...and their art declined
     
    Wonder if it was decline of intelectual creative ability and/or learning continuity loss or maybe just conscious change of style like rejection of traditional realism?

    I mean if without any prior knowledge you look at Picasso early self portraits at age of 15/18 and then at age 24/25, you might think the man suffered major brain trauma and lost all the previous abilities as a painter:


    https://mymodernmet.com/pablo-picasso-self-portraits/

    Replies: @sudden death, @songbird, @Dmitry, @LatW

    It’s only if someone doesn’t know about the invention and diffusion of photography, invention of moving images. But it’s all described well even in basic texts and future historians will mainly understand the 20th century culture in terms of the introduction of new technologies.

    Manual painting’s previous primary function was representative, but this was rapidly or totally (by early 20th century) displaced by photography and cinema. Genius painters like Picasso trying to work with new primary functions for painting, as representation of multiple perspective, commentary on artistic tradition, painting of concepts more than objects.

    At the same time, criteria for judgement becomes increasingly difficult, and there is a loss of uneducated or mass public interest in art.

    • Agree: Yellowface Anon
  565. @utu
    @German_reader


    INTRODUCED RETROSPECTIVE CLUSTER-BASED APPROACH TO LOCATE TRANSMISSION

    On February 25, the Ministry of Health, Labor, and Social Affairs, with the Government's aid, announced the Basic Policies for Novel Coronavirus Disease Control and set up a cluster response team along with 536 consultative centers [7]. The country used retrospective monitoring methods to find closer links to an infected person, while other countries employed the prospective approach to identify a major infection source. Japan's retrospective method was claimed to more reliably identify the initial source of infection and thus tracked all close contacts of sources of infection. The basic policy of the authority was to early detect the source of an infected individual through symptoms, follow all the people in the cluster who are highly transmissible, test and isolate them immediately and treat them as symptoms rather than general testing of the country's entire population [8]. The authorities succeeded in the cluster control approach in the earliest phase of the pandemic.

    Japan's mild lockdowns seem to have had a real lockdown effect. While people were not forced to remain at home, they did in general.

    Furthermore, the exchange of greetings between Japan and the rest of the world varies. In greeting, the Japanese tend to bow rather than shake, embrace, or kiss. Japanese people were believed to have droplets smaller than others; it was shown that approximately 80% of patients did not transmit this virus to others. Also, an established culture of masks, especially in the winter grip season, maybe an important reason for the low infection. Furthermore, in Japan, which is practiced widely in educational institutions from a very young age, a tradition of handwashing is higher.

    https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC7688188/
     

    Replies: @German_reader, @Dmitry

    masks, especially in the winter grip season, maybe an important reason for the low infection

    It doesn’t discuss ventilation?

    In Japan it’s mostly wearing cloth masks, which significantly reduce the droplet transmission, but not necessarily so much the building of aerosol concentration.

    Japan reduced the issue of aerosol transmission, by focusing on ventilation in 2020. Including instant government expenditure (in early 2020) to subsidize installing ventilation systems in buildings and introduction of norms to remove front windows from shops.

    They already had installed from previous years air changes in public transport, which are faster than airborne illness isolation room regulation for US hospitals. This is probably to reduce public illness in general.

    They at least seem to have a culture of viewing reduction of airborne disease transmission by improving air quality, as Europe has once led with reduction of waterborne disease by providing modern sanitation systems.

    In YouTube, in April 2020, they were publishing videos in English to promote this information in the rest of the world. Unlike some countries’ government channels which were publishing unhelpful propaganda in this time, Japanese government media was trying to spread useful information.

    It’s something around 3-4 months before there would be New York Times articles speculating about aerosol transmission. A year before public discourse in the West like BBC would begin to promote these policies if I recall correctly. More than 2 years later, and still not so much action to install technology to improve ventilation in Western countries indoors during winters.

    • Thanks: utu
  566. @melanf
    @Mr. Hack


    the great Russian painter, expressed this motif quite well in at least one of his works that I’m aware of:
     
    Funny joke. The Jew Marc Chagall with his children's drawings turned into a "great artist". Then I'm probably a great artist too

    https://i.redd.it/3zfuw7h3xfu71.png

    Replies: @Dmitry

    This is a great work, if you conceived this originally? Maybe I misunderstand you, but you invent this concept yourself? I can see you should become a wealthy concept artist if you can invent things like this regularly, secure some venture funding.

    Although sell your products on Etsy, don’t give your artistic invention for free on the internet forums.

    I can now print this and post it above my desk without paying. If I had less ethics, I can put this in my office and tell people I made it, everyone would think I am a creative person lol.

    • Replies: @melanf
    @Dmitry


    This is a masterwork, if you conceived this originally?
     
    I conceived the pictures myself, at the request of my wife for a homemade calendar. On reddit, this comic has collected 6 likes - an objective assessment of my artistic abilities.
    But Marc Chagall, without his bloated fame, collected even fewer likes on reddit with his pictures. But Velasquez or Rubens would easily collect tens of thousands of likes

    don’t give your artistic talent for free
     
    Well, my stupid drawings save me money - my wife gave this New Year's card to friends, so about a thousand rubles were saved (without postcards she would have had to buy souvenirs)

    https://c.radikal.ru/c15/2112/d9/aae886023732.jpg


    I can put this in my office and tell people I made it
     
    I don't mind. But technically, my signature is hidden in this pictures

    Replies: @Dmitry

  567. @Yellowface Anon
    Has the French ministry responsible for citizenship (I have no idea, Interior?) actually followed up on Macron's threat that the unvaccinated aren't citizens, in revoking their citizenship status and making these people stateless? Will the German or the whole EU follow suit now that they have mandated the vaccines?

    A123 should see an opportunity here to accept White European refugees who have been exiled for their particular stance on an issue Trumpists have spoken in favor of personal autonomy. If they haven't followed a particular route rightoids have feared happening to them, that is.

    Replies: @Yellowface Anon, @A123

    A123 should see an opportunity here to accept White European refugees who have been exiled for their particular stance on an issue Trumpists have spoken in favor of personal autonomy

    Vaxx-Realists exhibit a desirable behaviour. They resist anti-science authoritarianism, such as mandatory jabs for children not at risk.

     

     

    However, the minimum characteristics would also include:

    — Judeo-Christian beliefs
    — High English proficiency
    — Useful skills, without undercutting wages of current U.S. citizens
    — Young enough to not draw on public services

    Realistically, the U.S. needs to sharply limit inflows, and begin returning illegal & asylum undesirables. This will allow U.S. Citizens to obtain high quality jobs and associated personal/skills development.

    Even if French Vaxx-Realists are preferred, the number of migrants will not be particularly high. America does not have a mirror image policy to revoke citizenship and mass export Leftoids, which would open up large numbers of “slots” for new arrivals.
    ___

    As a side note — I am not sure why you keep including “White” when mentioning my Judeo-Christian, MAGA Populist positions. There are White Nationalists who post here, but I am obviously not one of them. WN’s despise the fact that Jews are welcome in the MAGA movement.

    PEACE 😇

  568. @Yellowface Anon
    @Yellowface Anon

    By the last sentence I mean those A123 have been labelling as "fascists" in European governments.

    Replies: @A123

    By the last sentence I mean those A123 have been labelling as “fascists” in European governments

    If my language is strong, it is a fight that European & American Leftoids started.

      

    I am simply pushing back against the intolerance of WEF Globalist dogma — SJW’s, Political Correctness, Cancel Culture, etc.

    PEACE 😇

  569. One way to possibly improve the travel experience would be to bring back fourth class (BTW, when did it go out?) and confine the undesirables to it.

    • Replies: @Thulean Friend
    @songbird

    The undesirables are the middle-class, more than any other class.

    Artistic brilliance was primarily achieved by aristocrats unconstrained by earthly pursuits but who leisurely indulged in their fanciest vanities. It is this reckless abandon that is the greatest creative force on this planet.

    Once in a moon, a brilliant soul from the deepest depths of depravity would shoot through and join them, precisely because a middle-class did not exist as a natural filter. Only the truly exceptional could rise through the ranks, because elite taste did not have to pander to the mediocre and insecure middle-class mobs.

    The domination of the middle-class of our society and aesthetics changed all this. Their economic precarity bred a middling and cautious mentality. Rules and constraints had to introduced; specialisation and credentialism are the ugliest twins. This merely served to extinguish creativity and re-inforce risk aversion and herd behaviour, the dominant mental features of the middle-class.

    With these new aesthetic values, can we be surprised by what followed? Artistic brilliance fell off the cliff and never recovered. Technological progress has been ongoing but Art didn't just stagnate; it regressed.

    Verily, the destruction of the middle-class cannot happen soon enough.

    Replies: @AP, @songbird, @A123, @German_reader, @Dmitry, @Yevardian

  570. @Dmitry
    @melanf

    This is a great work, if you conceived this originally? Maybe I misunderstand you, but you invent this concept yourself? I can see you should become a wealthy concept artist if you can invent things like this regularly, secure some venture funding.

    Although sell your products on Etsy, don't give your artistic invention for free on the internet forums.

    I can now print this and post it above my desk without paying. If I had less ethics, I can put this in my office and tell people I made it, everyone would think I am a creative person lol.

    Replies: @melanf

    This is a masterwork, if you conceived this originally?

    I conceived the pictures myself, at the request of my wife for a homemade calendar. On reddit, this comic has collected 6 likes – an objective assessment of my artistic abilities.
    But Marc Chagall, without his bloated fame, collected even fewer likes on reddit with his pictures. But Velasquez or Rubens would easily collect tens of thousands of likes

    don’t give your artistic talent for free

    Well, my stupid drawings save me money – my wife gave this New Year’s card to friends, so about a thousand rubles were saved (without postcards she would have had to buy souvenirs)

    I can put this in my office and tell people I made it

    I don’t mind. But technically, my signature is hidden in this pictures

    • Replies: @Dmitry
    @melanf


    conceived the pictures myself,
     
    Well you have creativity, not in terms of drawing, but invention and sense of humor. Some studies in a comic drawing class and you can change professions.

    comic has collected 6 likes – an objective assessment of my artistic abilities
     
    The important criteria would be what proportion of voters like vs dislike. If there are few votes, it just means that a post was not visible to many people. If you want something viral in Reddit, you can use bots to increase votes, as there is almost no security against this in Reddit's platform.

    I wouldn't want my ideas to become viral in Reddit before finalized, because if it becomes viral then a thousand art students or comics will copy it.

  571. @songbird
    One way to possibly improve the travel experience would be to bring back fourth class (BTW, when did it go out?) and confine the undesirables to it.

    Replies: @Thulean Friend

    The undesirables are the middle-class, more than any other class.

    Artistic brilliance was primarily achieved by aristocrats unconstrained by earthly pursuits but who leisurely indulged in their fanciest vanities. It is this reckless abandon that is the greatest creative force on this planet.

    Once in a moon, a brilliant soul from the deepest depths of depravity would shoot through and join them, precisely because a middle-class did not exist as a natural filter. Only the truly exceptional could rise through the ranks, because elite taste did not have to pander to the mediocre and insecure middle-class mobs.

    The domination of the middle-class of our society and aesthetics changed all this. Their economic precarity bred a middling and cautious mentality. Rules and constraints had to introduced; specialisation and credentialism are the ugliest twins. This merely served to extinguish creativity and re-inforce risk aversion and herd behaviour, the dominant mental features of the middle-class.

    With these new aesthetic values, can we be surprised by what followed? Artistic brilliance fell off the cliff and never recovered. Technological progress has been ongoing but Art didn’t just stagnate; it regressed.

    Verily, the destruction of the middle-class cannot happen soon enough.

    • LOL: sher singh
    • Replies: @AP
    @Thulean Friend

    Agree with all but the last paragraph (would have agreed with that too if I were young and more extreme).

    , @songbird
    @Thulean Friend


    The undesirables are the middle-class, more than any other class.
     
    This is part of the great debate. Is the middle class the bedrock of prosperity and freedom? And is it high and low vs. the middle? Or are the middle class the most extreme status seekers, who will cut your throat to advance their own status? While throwing up obstacles to all meritocracy?

    I confess I have no strong feelings on it. Though, when I see BLM signs, I get the impression that it is the ritzier houses that have them up. (very much would like to know their ethnicity) Not mansions, in any sense, but just places that nowadays would be basically unaffordable to anyone who doesn't have a very high level income or inherited money. I'd call them "rich", as a lot of the houses would go for around a million dollars or more.

    I was once visiting a family member who lives in a ritzy neighborhood where also lived a senatorial candidate favored by the establishment, and I was very amused and perplexed to go for a walk around the neighborhood and see the profusion of political signs endorsing her - there was something really bizarre about it. Like they had given her money, and wanted to be paid out.
    _______
    Going back to the theme of travel: it seems obvious that the aesthetics of travel have gotten worse, in a variety of ways. One big way is the profusion of advertising.
    , @A123
    @Thulean Friend


    Once in a moon, a brilliant soul from the deepest depths of depravity would shoot through and join them, precisely because a middle-class did not exist as a natural filter. Only the truly exceptional could rise through the ranks, because elite taste did not have to pander to the mediocre and insecure middle-class mobs.
     
    The large picture you "paint" is correct, but the corruption is not from the middle class.

    The Biden family is Aristocratic. Hunter Biden's artistic output is so bad that the term "art" is sullied by the association. Vast amount of money and acclaim is being heaped on Humter.

    -- The middle class has no money to buy this junk.
    -- The middle class is too busy working to even go see an exhibit.

    Art has been destroyed by a tasteless ultra wealthy Elites, political lobbyists, and a sycophantic semi-elite intelligentsia that are little better than lamprey eels or pilot fish.
    ____

    Odds are there are wealthy aficionados with taste sponsoring interesting art. However, the last thing they would do is share. What could they possibly hope to obtain from a degenerate aristocracy that views debauched political displays as artistic triumphs?

    PEACE 😇

    Replies: @AP

    , @German_reader
    @Thulean Friend


    Artistic brilliance was primarily achieved by aristocrats unconstrained by earthly pursuits but who leisurely indulged in their fanciest vanities.
     
    What's the basis for that claim? When I look at the most well-known names of European artists from the late medieval and early modern periods, most of them seem to have come from families of skilled craftsmen, prominent burghers, or maybe minor nobility at most (e.g. Giotto - son of a blacksmith, Leonardo da Vinci - son of a notary, Dürer - son of a goldsmith, Titian - from an urban family which included many notaries, Tintoretto - son of a dyer, Rembrandt - son of a miller, Vermeer - son of a silk weaver, El Greco - son of a merchant, Velázquez -maybe minor nobles). And of course the unknown craftsmen and artists who had built the medieval cathedrals weren't from the nobility either.
    You could argue that these artists could only create their works due to patronage by aristocrats (though that misses the role of urban elites whose source of wealth, at least originally, had been in banking, trading and similar unaristocratic pursuits). But they weren't aristocrats themselves.
    Of course modern mass society is intellectually and artistically quite sterile, but one should be able to criticize that without such strange panegyrics about the alleged merits of nobility.

    Replies: @AP, @songbird

    , @Dmitry
    @Thulean Friend


    destruction of the middle-class
     
    Well, isn't this an economic process we see in the last decade in America and postsoviet world including especially Russia. Our middle class is being eroded and becomes more like a working class. But a small minority of the middle class (e.g. in America, the more elite lawyers and doctors) access economic rents which place them almost in an upper class.

    In Western Europe and Japan, there is perhaps still some hope that the size and lifestyle of middle class will not begin eroding.

    As for creative professionals. In America, art schools are more expensive than Ivy League (https://www.washingtonpost.com/news/rampage/wp/2014/03/28/the-most-expensive-colleges-in-the-country-are-art-schools-not-ivies/), so it's likely that these professions become increasingly only for children of families with above average income. Similar prices for film school, fashion college and music conservatory.

    But still in America, it has seemed much of the creative professionals have been from middle class families. For example, most famous recent American films directors like Stanley Kubrick, Steven Spielberg, Spike Lee - it's children from very average income, middle class people, with parents who are teachers, engineers or doctors. .

    Also Martin Scorsese's family are from working class professions. Quentin Tarantino's parents' seems to have not profession, from what I can understand from reading his biography from Wikipedia.

    , @Yevardian
    @Thulean Friend

    You and AaronB should have a some greatly stimulating discussions, a la Ward No. 6, in the asylum together someday.

    Replies: @Thulean Friend, @German_reader

  572. @Thulean Friend
    @songbird

    The undesirables are the middle-class, more than any other class.

    Artistic brilliance was primarily achieved by aristocrats unconstrained by earthly pursuits but who leisurely indulged in their fanciest vanities. It is this reckless abandon that is the greatest creative force on this planet.

    Once in a moon, a brilliant soul from the deepest depths of depravity would shoot through and join them, precisely because a middle-class did not exist as a natural filter. Only the truly exceptional could rise through the ranks, because elite taste did not have to pander to the mediocre and insecure middle-class mobs.

    The domination of the middle-class of our society and aesthetics changed all this. Their economic precarity bred a middling and cautious mentality. Rules and constraints had to introduced; specialisation and credentialism are the ugliest twins. This merely served to extinguish creativity and re-inforce risk aversion and herd behaviour, the dominant mental features of the middle-class.

    With these new aesthetic values, can we be surprised by what followed? Artistic brilliance fell off the cliff and never recovered. Technological progress has been ongoing but Art didn't just stagnate; it regressed.

    Verily, the destruction of the middle-class cannot happen soon enough.

    Replies: @AP, @songbird, @A123, @German_reader, @Dmitry, @Yevardian

    Agree with all but the last paragraph (would have agreed with that too if I were young and more extreme).

  573. @Thulean Friend
    @songbird

    The undesirables are the middle-class, more than any other class.

    Artistic brilliance was primarily achieved by aristocrats unconstrained by earthly pursuits but who leisurely indulged in their fanciest vanities. It is this reckless abandon that is the greatest creative force on this planet.

    Once in a moon, a brilliant soul from the deepest depths of depravity would shoot through and join them, precisely because a middle-class did not exist as a natural filter. Only the truly exceptional could rise through the ranks, because elite taste did not have to pander to the mediocre and insecure middle-class mobs.

    The domination of the middle-class of our society and aesthetics changed all this. Their economic precarity bred a middling and cautious mentality. Rules and constraints had to introduced; specialisation and credentialism are the ugliest twins. This merely served to extinguish creativity and re-inforce risk aversion and herd behaviour, the dominant mental features of the middle-class.

    With these new aesthetic values, can we be surprised by what followed? Artistic brilliance fell off the cliff and never recovered. Technological progress has been ongoing but Art didn't just stagnate; it regressed.

    Verily, the destruction of the middle-class cannot happen soon enough.

    Replies: @AP, @songbird, @A123, @German_reader, @Dmitry, @Yevardian

    The undesirables are the middle-class, more than any other class.

    This is part of the great debate. Is the middle class the bedrock of prosperity and freedom? And is it high and low vs. the middle? Or are the middle class the most extreme status seekers, who will cut your throat to advance their own status? While throwing up obstacles to all meritocracy?

    I confess I have no strong feelings on it. Though, when I see BLM signs, I get the impression that it is the ritzier houses that have them up. (very much would like to know their ethnicity) Not mansions, in any sense, but just places that nowadays would be basically unaffordable to anyone who doesn’t have a very high level income or inherited money. I’d call them “rich”, as a lot of the houses would go for around a million dollars or more.

    I was once visiting a family member who lives in a ritzy neighborhood where also lived a senatorial candidate favored by the establishment, and I was very amused and perplexed to go for a walk around the neighborhood and see the profusion of political signs endorsing her – there was something really bizarre about it. Like they had given her money, and wanted to be paid out.
    _______
    Going back to the theme of travel: it seems obvious that the aesthetics of travel have gotten worse, in a variety of ways. One big way is the profusion of advertising.

  574. @Thulean Friend
    @songbird

    The undesirables are the middle-class, more than any other class.

    Artistic brilliance was primarily achieved by aristocrats unconstrained by earthly pursuits but who leisurely indulged in their fanciest vanities. It is this reckless abandon that is the greatest creative force on this planet.

    Once in a moon, a brilliant soul from the deepest depths of depravity would shoot through and join them, precisely because a middle-class did not exist as a natural filter. Only the truly exceptional could rise through the ranks, because elite taste did not have to pander to the mediocre and insecure middle-class mobs.

    The domination of the middle-class of our society and aesthetics changed all this. Their economic precarity bred a middling and cautious mentality. Rules and constraints had to introduced; specialisation and credentialism are the ugliest twins. This merely served to extinguish creativity and re-inforce risk aversion and herd behaviour, the dominant mental features of the middle-class.

    With these new aesthetic values, can we be surprised by what followed? Artistic brilliance fell off the cliff and never recovered. Technological progress has been ongoing but Art didn't just stagnate; it regressed.

    Verily, the destruction of the middle-class cannot happen soon enough.

    Replies: @AP, @songbird, @A123, @German_reader, @Dmitry, @Yevardian

    Once in a moon, a brilliant soul from the deepest depths of depravity would shoot through and join them, precisely because a middle-class did not exist as a natural filter. Only the truly exceptional could rise through the ranks, because elite taste did not have to pander to the mediocre and insecure middle-class mobs.

    The large picture you “paint” is correct, but the corruption is not from the middle class.

    The Biden family is Aristocratic. Hunter Biden’s artistic output is so bad that the term “art” is sullied by the association. Vast amount of money and acclaim is being heaped on Humter.

    — The middle class has no money to buy this junk.
    — The middle class is too busy working to even go see an exhibit.

    Art has been destroyed by a tasteless ultra wealthy Elites, political lobbyists, and a sycophantic semi-elite intelligentsia that are little better than lamprey eels or pilot fish.
    ____

    Odds are there are wealthy aficionados with taste sponsoring interesting art. However, the last thing they would do is share. What could they possibly hope to obtain from a degenerate aristocracy that views debauched political displays as artistic triumphs?

    PEACE 😇

    • Replies: @AP
    @A123

    Biden’s father was a car salesman. America doesn’t have much of a real aristocracy (perhaps some planters such as George Washington count), it started as a rebellion against that.

    Replies: @A123

  575. Think I heard Martin Sellner say that Vienna is 75% non-Euro in the 0-4 age bracket.

    • Replies: @AP
    @songbird

    I don’t know about that. I visited in 2019, it looked about as European as Moscow (around 90%) all over the city center. A caveat - there were Balkan people, and secular Bosnians or Albanians are not as obviously noticeable as Central Asians or Azeris.

    Replies: @songbird

  576. German_reader says:
    @Thulean Friend
    @songbird

    The undesirables are the middle-class, more than any other class.

    Artistic brilliance was primarily achieved by aristocrats unconstrained by earthly pursuits but who leisurely indulged in their fanciest vanities. It is this reckless abandon that is the greatest creative force on this planet.

    Once in a moon, a brilliant soul from the deepest depths of depravity would shoot through and join them, precisely because a middle-class did not exist as a natural filter. Only the truly exceptional could rise through the ranks, because elite taste did not have to pander to the mediocre and insecure middle-class mobs.

    The domination of the middle-class of our society and aesthetics changed all this. Their economic precarity bred a middling and cautious mentality. Rules and constraints had to introduced; specialisation and credentialism are the ugliest twins. This merely served to extinguish creativity and re-inforce risk aversion and herd behaviour, the dominant mental features of the middle-class.

    With these new aesthetic values, can we be surprised by what followed? Artistic brilliance fell off the cliff and never recovered. Technological progress has been ongoing but Art didn't just stagnate; it regressed.

    Verily, the destruction of the middle-class cannot happen soon enough.

    Replies: @AP, @songbird, @A123, @German_reader, @Dmitry, @Yevardian

    Artistic brilliance was primarily achieved by aristocrats unconstrained by earthly pursuits but who leisurely indulged in their fanciest vanities.

    What’s the basis for that claim? When I look at the most well-known names of European artists from the late medieval and early modern periods, most of them seem to have come from families of skilled craftsmen, prominent burghers, or maybe minor nobility at most (e.g. Giotto – son of a blacksmith, Leonardo da Vinci – son of a notary, Dürer – son of a goldsmith, Titian – from an urban family which included many notaries, Tintoretto – son of a dyer, Rembrandt – son of a miller, Vermeer – son of a silk weaver, El Greco – son of a merchant, Velázquez -maybe minor nobles). And of course the unknown craftsmen and artists who had built the medieval cathedrals weren’t from the nobility either.
    You could argue that these artists could only create their works due to patronage by aristocrats (though that misses the role of urban elites whose source of wealth, at least originally, had been in banking, trading and similar unaristocratic pursuits). But they weren’t aristocrats themselves.
    Of course modern mass society is intellectually and artistically quite sterile, but one should be able to criticize that without such strange panegyrics about the alleged merits of nobility.

    • Agree: Yahya
    • Replies: @AP
    @German_reader

    You are correct about the biographical details but at the time the aristocrats set the tone and paid for everything. That is, everything wasn’t focused on catering to and reflecting the middle classes. The talented produced masterpieces reflecting refined tastes both of their sponsors and of their drive to transcend rather than to lower oneself or to be sideways. Meanwhile, the peasants participated in beautiful and ancient folk culture.

    OTOH the bourgeoisification of the world has brought incredible material progress and widespread technical innovation.

    Replies: @Dmitry

    , @songbird
    @German_reader

    IMO, there were too many nobles in Germany, to the point where the idea of nobility depreciated.

  577. @A123
    @Thulean Friend


    Once in a moon, a brilliant soul from the deepest depths of depravity would shoot through and join them, precisely because a middle-class did not exist as a natural filter. Only the truly exceptional could rise through the ranks, because elite taste did not have to pander to the mediocre and insecure middle-class mobs.
     
    The large picture you "paint" is correct, but the corruption is not from the middle class.

    The Biden family is Aristocratic. Hunter Biden's artistic output is so bad that the term "art" is sullied by the association. Vast amount of money and acclaim is being heaped on Humter.

    -- The middle class has no money to buy this junk.
    -- The middle class is too busy working to even go see an exhibit.

    Art has been destroyed by a tasteless ultra wealthy Elites, political lobbyists, and a sycophantic semi-elite intelligentsia that are little better than lamprey eels or pilot fish.
    ____

    Odds are there are wealthy aficionados with taste sponsoring interesting art. However, the last thing they would do is share. What could they possibly hope to obtain from a degenerate aristocracy that views debauched political displays as artistic triumphs?

    PEACE 😇

    Replies: @AP

    Biden’s father was a car salesman. America doesn’t have much of a real aristocracy (perhaps some planters such as George Washington count), it started as a rebellion against that.

    • LOL: LondonBob
    • Replies: @A123
    @AP

    Hmmmm.... We might be having a terminology problem rather than an actual disagreement.
    ______

    America does not have a "caste" system, so the composition of the aristocracy is much more fluid than other countries.

    Here is an easy test -- What "class" is Hunter Biden?

    -- If Hunter was "middle class" he would be in prison or dead.
    -- Because Hunter is "upper class", though nouveau riche, he walks.

    Hunter obtained his sinecure on Burisma's board because his family is part of shallow, bribe taking, corrupt aristocracy.
    _______

    Here is another defining question -- Maxine Waters is officially only worth ~$3MM. Unofficially, it almost certainly $20-30MM.

    Is she " lower class", "middle class", or an aristocrat?

    PEACE 😇

    Replies: @German_reader, @songbird, @AP

  578. @German_reader
    @Thulean Friend


    Artistic brilliance was primarily achieved by aristocrats unconstrained by earthly pursuits but who leisurely indulged in their fanciest vanities.
     
    What's the basis for that claim? When I look at the most well-known names of European artists from the late medieval and early modern periods, most of them seem to have come from families of skilled craftsmen, prominent burghers, or maybe minor nobility at most (e.g. Giotto - son of a blacksmith, Leonardo da Vinci - son of a notary, Dürer - son of a goldsmith, Titian - from an urban family which included many notaries, Tintoretto - son of a dyer, Rembrandt - son of a miller, Vermeer - son of a silk weaver, El Greco - son of a merchant, Velázquez -maybe minor nobles). And of course the unknown craftsmen and artists who had built the medieval cathedrals weren't from the nobility either.
    You could argue that these artists could only create their works due to patronage by aristocrats (though that misses the role of urban elites whose source of wealth, at least originally, had been in banking, trading and similar unaristocratic pursuits). But they weren't aristocrats themselves.
    Of course modern mass society is intellectually and artistically quite sterile, but one should be able to criticize that without such strange panegyrics about the alleged merits of nobility.

    Replies: @AP, @songbird

    You are correct about the biographical details but at the time the aristocrats set the tone and paid for everything. That is, everything wasn’t focused on catering to and reflecting the middle classes. The talented produced masterpieces reflecting refined tastes both of their sponsors and of their drive to transcend rather than to lower oneself or to be sideways. Meanwhile, the peasants participated in beautiful and ancient folk culture.

    OTOH the bourgeoisification of the world has brought incredible material progress and widespread technical innovation.

    • Replies: @Dmitry
    @AP

    Bourgeoisie refers to owners of means of production (i.e. capital goods) in a capitalist economy. This is the upper class after industrialization.

    Aristocracy in the agrarian economy before, were usually determined as the owners of lands (which was the most important means of production in pre-industrial economy).

    Although if I recall from a history book, most of the pre-industrial upper class in Europe had climbed from merchant families, while a smaller proportion from military families.


    aristocrats set the tone and paid for everything
     
    Obviously in e.g. 15th century Italy, most of the money was with still owners of land, as the means of production was still in agrarian economy (as in still it is in countries like India today). Although the economy in Italy was developing ahead of the historical average, and the wealth of Medici family who were largest patrons of the Renaissance, was already from banking.

    In the 19th century, most of the funding for art, would be from owners of the capital goods (e.g. bourgeoisie), as this became the centre of the economy. Bourgeoisie become absurdly wealthy as a class in industrial economies after the industrial revolution.

    In 21st century, the money will be increasingly with hi-tech sector, as this is becoming one of the main means of production. We are a kind of historical witness already seeing this crazy transition of money to hi-tech industry.

    This crazy flood of money in hi-tech sector now, must be like watching when the wealth was flooding to owners of capital goods during the industrial revolution. But it likely now that hi-tech sector will become the new upper class as the century continues.

    Replies: @AP

  579. @German_reader
    @Thulean Friend


    Artistic brilliance was primarily achieved by aristocrats unconstrained by earthly pursuits but who leisurely indulged in their fanciest vanities.
     
    What's the basis for that claim? When I look at the most well-known names of European artists from the late medieval and early modern periods, most of them seem to have come from families of skilled craftsmen, prominent burghers, or maybe minor nobility at most (e.g. Giotto - son of a blacksmith, Leonardo da Vinci - son of a notary, Dürer - son of a goldsmith, Titian - from an urban family which included many notaries, Tintoretto - son of a dyer, Rembrandt - son of a miller, Vermeer - son of a silk weaver, El Greco - son of a merchant, Velázquez -maybe minor nobles). And of course the unknown craftsmen and artists who had built the medieval cathedrals weren't from the nobility either.
    You could argue that these artists could only create their works due to patronage by aristocrats (though that misses the role of urban elites whose source of wealth, at least originally, had been in banking, trading and similar unaristocratic pursuits). But they weren't aristocrats themselves.
    Of course modern mass society is intellectually and artistically quite sterile, but one should be able to criticize that without such strange panegyrics about the alleged merits of nobility.

    Replies: @AP, @songbird

    IMO, there were too many nobles in Germany, to the point where the idea of nobility depreciated.

  580. @songbird
    Think I heard Martin Sellner say that Vienna is 75% non-Euro in the 0-4 age bracket.

    Replies: @AP

    I don’t know about that. I visited in 2019, it looked about as European as Moscow (around 90%) all over the city center. A caveat – there were Balkan people, and secular Bosnians or Albanians are not as obviously noticeable as Central Asians or Azeris.

    • Replies: @songbird
    @AP

    Term he used was "migrant background." I interpreted to mean "non-Euro." But, maybe, he may have meant "non-Austrian?"

    Anyway, his reference to 75% in the 0-4 age bracket is interesting. (he mentioned >50% for Vienna's general pop)

    Seems obvious that the most famous German culture, like Mozart's music came out of German cities. (Mozart moved to Vienna, when he was 25). But now seems likely that the percentage of Euro babies in the major cities is dropping off sharply. Perhaps, partly due to white flight.

    But whatever the interpretation, some of the same questions arise: where are Euros to get their natalist culture? Cities seem like a pretty unlikely place, when you consider most of the babies there are non-Euros, and yet they are the political, economic, and cultural centers.

    At any point, will it become obviously absurd to Europeans and other civilized people? Or will they just ignore it, as they seem to have done in America. Where people might look at white commuters, white college students, white young adults with no children, and white rich people who send their kids to private school with body guards and don't seem to perceive the way that the cities were completely lost.

    I maintain that no broad spectrum political solution is possible. If there is a political solution it has to be to the specific question: how can we increase the number of Euro babies? Nothing else will work. Not trying to breed more Arabs or blacks. And it does not seem likely that the existing regime will even be willing to contemplate the question.

    This contrasts with the Chinese, who can both ask the question and probably eventually solve it, on a political level.

    Replies: @German_reader, @AP, @Thulean Friend

  581. @AP
    @A123

    Biden’s father was a car salesman. America doesn’t have much of a real aristocracy (perhaps some planters such as George Washington count), it started as a rebellion against that.

    Replies: @A123

    Hmmmm…. We might be having a terminology problem rather than an actual disagreement.
    ______

    America does not have a “caste” system, so the composition of the aristocracy is much more fluid than other countries.

    Here is an easy test — What “class” is Hunter Biden?

    — If Hunter was “middle class” he would be in prison or dead.
    — Because Hunter is “upper class”, though nouveau riche, he walks.

    Hunter obtained his sinecure on Burisma’s board because his family is part of shallow, bribe taking, corrupt aristocracy.
    _______

    Here is another defining question — Maxine Waters is officially only worth ~\$3MM. Unofficially, it almost certainly \$20-30MM.

    Is she ” lower class”, “middle class”, or an aristocrat?

    PEACE 😇

    • Replies: @German_reader
    @A123

    I think AP is referring to aristocracy in an Old European sense (before WW1 or even before 1789), that is titled nobility with a strong military ethos, dominating certain localities through their landholding and having a paternalistic (or exploitative, depending on one's perspective) relationship with dependent peasantry, also closely connected to the Church (through their donations and foundations, and younger sons in the clergy) and ideally embodying Christian virtues.
    Obviously such a thing doesn't exist in America (nor really anywhere else today). Hunter Biden is just a vulgar rich asshole whose life seems to revolve around taking drugs and whoring around, and his dad is a crooked politician in a media-dominated mass democracy (or what passes as democracy). Nobody would mistake them for Christian knights.

    Replies: @A123

    , @songbird
    @A123


    Maxine Waters is officially only worth ~$3MM.
     
    Is that a Spanish abbreviation? Such as EE.UU? (Estados Unidos)

    Replies: @A123

    , @AP
    @A123


    America does not have a “caste” system, so the composition of the aristocracy is much more fluid than other countries.
     
    America never really had an aristocracy, except perhaps for the southern planters which were a sideshow. But those guys lacked a peasantry with whom they could enjoy a natural harmony and instead imported African slaves, which was a shameful and debasing practice. Still, it's no coincidence that the South was overrepresented in American cultural production.

    America's core has been middle class, which has been both good and bad.
  582. @AP
    @songbird

    I don’t know about that. I visited in 2019, it looked about as European as Moscow (around 90%) all over the city center. A caveat - there were Balkan people, and secular Bosnians or Albanians are not as obviously noticeable as Central Asians or Azeris.

    Replies: @songbird

    Term he used was “migrant background.” I interpreted to mean “non-Euro.” But, maybe, he may have meant “non-Austrian?”

    Anyway, his reference to 75% in the 0-4 age bracket is interesting. (he mentioned >50% for Vienna’s general pop)

    Seems obvious that the most famous German culture, like Mozart’s music came out of German cities. (Mozart moved to Vienna, when he was 25). But now seems likely that the percentage of Euro babies in the major cities is dropping off sharply. Perhaps, partly due to white flight.

    But whatever the interpretation, some of the same questions arise: where are Euros to get their natalist culture? Cities seem like a pretty unlikely place, when you consider most of the babies there are non-Euros, and yet they are the political, economic, and cultural centers.

    [MORE]

    At any point, will it become obviously absurd to Europeans and other civilized people? Or will they just ignore it, as they seem to have done in America. Where people might look at white commuters, white college students, white young adults with no children, and white rich people who send their kids to private school with body guards and don’t seem to perceive the way that the cities were completely lost.

    I maintain that no broad spectrum political solution is possible. If there is a political solution it has to be to the specific question: how can we increase the number of Euro babies? Nothing else will work. Not trying to breed more Arabs or blacks. And it does not seem likely that the existing regime will even be willing to contemplate the question.

    This contrasts with the Chinese, who can both ask the question and probably eventually solve it, on a political level.

    • Replies: @German_reader
    @songbird

    I think AP is at least partially correct, Vienna has a lot of immigrants from the Balkans. But of course that isn't all that much consolation, the overall trend is disastrous.


    where are Euros to get their natalist culture?

     

    At least in Germany there isn't even any real debate about this, and any attempts at opening it are shut down with references to the pro-natalist policies of the Nazis. A few years ago I had some discussions on the net with a young CDU cuck, and he was whingeing about how AfD was in favour of an "active population policy" (that is a pro-natalist policy for the native population), without being able to come up with more than this was somehow icky, illiberal and reminiscent of the Nazis. Of course his own party was pursuing a population policy of its own at the time (which is still in effect), that is de facto open borders immigration for any Arab or African making it to Germany and uttering the magic word "asylum".

    Replies: @songbird

    , @AP
    @songbird


    Term he used was “migrant background.” I interpreted to mean “non-Euro.” But, maybe, he may have meant “non-Austrian?”
     
    Here are Vienna's foreigners in 2021:

    https://www.wien.gv.at/english/social/integration/facts-figures/population-migration.html

    About 42% of the population of the city are non-natives.

    Largest source was Serbia (Kosovo Albanians?), then Turkey, then Germany, then Poland, then Romania. I noticed a lot of Serbs and Croats in shops and working as waitresses in Austria.

    Vienna was of course a melting pot of Austria-Hungary so lots of native Viennese have Czech, Polish, Hungarian, etc. ancestry.

    Overall, the population appeared to be about 90% European, same as Moscow. Vienna's non-Europeans were Middle Eastern Muslims and Africans, whereas in Russia they were Central Asians and Caucasians.

    Of course, many of those European faces in Vienna I saw were not natives but migrants from Poland, Serbia, Croatia, etc. When I visited in 2019, the huge number of Russian tourists maybe also made the city seem more European than it is.

    Replies: @songbird, @German_reader

    , @Thulean Friend
    @songbird


    where are Euros to get their natalist culture?
     
    As is often the case, this blog has too much of a eurocentric bias. The fertility collapse has been ongoing everywhere, and accelerated with Covid.

    Here's Mexico:

    https://i.imgur.com/kcjULJm.jpg

    The numbers for 2021 are thus far even worse than for 2020, meaning Mexican fertility is now below much of Scandinavia, France, Ireland and possibly even Germany.

    The double-whammy is poor economic prospects:

    https://i.imgur.com/qElJiLj.png

    I don't see how this won't end in more emigration in the short-to-medium run. We've seen from the Balkans and Ukraine that just because your population is declining, it doesn't mean there won't be emigration flows.

    But in the long run, this will constrain emigration flows to the US, if these trends hold. We've seen a similar fertility collapse all across Latinx America. That has negative consequences for the US, as it dries up a source of cheap manual labour. It's also negative for the developing world, as good demographics was one of the few aces they had, which now seems to be evaporating.

    Replies: @songbird

  583. German_reader says:
    @A123
    @AP

    Hmmmm.... We might be having a terminology problem rather than an actual disagreement.
    ______

    America does not have a "caste" system, so the composition of the aristocracy is much more fluid than other countries.

    Here is an easy test -- What "class" is Hunter Biden?

    -- If Hunter was "middle class" he would be in prison or dead.
    -- Because Hunter is "upper class", though nouveau riche, he walks.

    Hunter obtained his sinecure on Burisma's board because his family is part of shallow, bribe taking, corrupt aristocracy.
    _______

    Here is another defining question -- Maxine Waters is officially only worth ~$3MM. Unofficially, it almost certainly $20-30MM.

    Is she " lower class", "middle class", or an aristocrat?

    PEACE 😇

    Replies: @German_reader, @songbird, @AP

    I think AP is referring to aristocracy in an Old European sense (before WW1 or even before 1789), that is titled nobility with a strong military ethos, dominating certain localities through their landholding and having a paternalistic (or exploitative, depending on one’s perspective) relationship with dependent peasantry, also closely connected to the Church (through their donations and foundations, and younger sons in the clergy) and ideally embodying Christian virtues.
    Obviously such a thing doesn’t exist in America (nor really anywhere else today). Hunter Biden is just a vulgar rich asshole whose life seems to revolve around taking drugs and whoring around, and his dad is a crooked politician in a media-dominated mass democracy (or what passes as democracy). Nobody would mistake them for Christian knights.

    • Agree: AP
    • Replies: @A123
    @German_reader


    I think AP is referring to aristocracy in an Old European sense (before WW1 or even before 1789), that is titled nobility

    Obviously such a thing doesn’t exist in America. Nobody would mistake [The Bidens] for Christian knights
     
    I concur... That was the point I was driving at.

    Joe & Hunter Biden are loaded with cash & political influence. The are not even vaguely "middle class". They exist to push Elite European WEF dogma. The phrase "non-Aristocratic, Upper Class" is an excellent description of EuroDavos puppet Joe Biden & his progeny.

    PEACE 😇
  584. German_reader says:
    @songbird
    @AP

    Term he used was "migrant background." I interpreted to mean "non-Euro." But, maybe, he may have meant "non-Austrian?"

    Anyway, his reference to 75% in the 0-4 age bracket is interesting. (he mentioned >50% for Vienna's general pop)

    Seems obvious that the most famous German culture, like Mozart's music came out of German cities. (Mozart moved to Vienna, when he was 25). But now seems likely that the percentage of Euro babies in the major cities is dropping off sharply. Perhaps, partly due to white flight.

    But whatever the interpretation, some of the same questions arise: where are Euros to get their natalist culture? Cities seem like a pretty unlikely place, when you consider most of the babies there are non-Euros, and yet they are the political, economic, and cultural centers.

    At any point, will it become obviously absurd to Europeans and other civilized people? Or will they just ignore it, as they seem to have done in America. Where people might look at white commuters, white college students, white young adults with no children, and white rich people who send their kids to private school with body guards and don't seem to perceive the way that the cities were completely lost.

    I maintain that no broad spectrum political solution is possible. If there is a political solution it has to be to the specific question: how can we increase the number of Euro babies? Nothing else will work. Not trying to breed more Arabs or blacks. And it does not seem likely that the existing regime will even be willing to contemplate the question.

    This contrasts with the Chinese, who can both ask the question and probably eventually solve it, on a political level.

    Replies: @German_reader, @AP, @Thulean Friend

    I think AP is at least partially correct, Vienna has a lot of immigrants from the Balkans. But of course that isn’t all that much consolation, the overall trend is disastrous.

    where are Euros to get their natalist culture?

    At least in Germany there isn’t even any real debate about this, and any attempts at opening it are shut down with references to the pro-natalist policies of the Nazis. A few years ago I had some discussions on the net with a young CDU cuck, and he was whingeing about how AfD was in favour of an “active population policy” (that is a pro-natalist policy for the native population), without being able to come up with more than this was somehow icky, illiberal and reminiscent of the Nazis. Of course his own party was pursuing a population policy of its own at the time (which is still in effect), that is de facto open borders immigration for any Arab or African making it to Germany and uttering the magic word “asylum”.

    • Replies: @songbird
    @German_reader

    Caught a few minutes of the interview today between Dutton and Sellner.

    Dutton, who is something of a scamp, cited a few incidents where he used the word "Nazi" as a sort of magic word, equivalent to "open sesame" or "abracadabra" when dealing with irascible people in Germany. It instantly ended the yelling or debate, and led to an apology or a backing down. Made me think that it would be fertile ground for parody.

    Replies: @Mikel

  585. @A123
    @AP

    Hmmmm.... We might be having a terminology problem rather than an actual disagreement.
    ______

    America does not have a "caste" system, so the composition of the aristocracy is much more fluid than other countries.

    Here is an easy test -- What "class" is Hunter Biden?

    -- If Hunter was "middle class" he would be in prison or dead.
    -- Because Hunter is "upper class", though nouveau riche, he walks.

    Hunter obtained his sinecure on Burisma's board because his family is part of shallow, bribe taking, corrupt aristocracy.
    _______

    Here is another defining question -- Maxine Waters is officially only worth ~$3MM. Unofficially, it almost certainly $20-30MM.

    Is she " lower class", "middle class", or an aristocrat?

    PEACE 😇

    Replies: @German_reader, @songbird, @AP

    Maxine Waters is officially only worth ~\$3MM.

    Is that a Spanish abbreviation? Such as EE.UU? (Estados Unidos)

    • Replies: @A123
    @songbird



    Maxine Waters is officially only worth ~$3MM.
     
    Is that a Spanish abbreviation? Such as EE.UU? (Estados Unidos
     
    It standard Roman (and thus UK) pre-metric nomenclature.

    M = 1,000
    MM = 1,000 × 1,000 = 1,000,000

    A huge advantage is that "MM" is unique while "M" is ambiguous.

    PEACE 😇
  586. @German_reader
    @songbird

    There are probably all manner of architectonically impressive mosques (e.g. is al-Azhar in Kairo inferior to Aachen? I doubt it tbh). And while I generally dislike the "northern barbarians" trope which seems to be dear to a lot of Mediterraneans, it's of course true that the Mideast was one of the earliest centers of civilization and remained so for a long time.
    Of course most of the Islamic world has been intellectually stagnant for centuries and arguably wasted any potential it had, so we're talking mostly about past glories (but I'm not sure "Western" culture is really vital today either, it seems to have morphed into something very strange).

    Replies: @songbird, @Yahya

    There are probably all manner of architectonically impressive mosques (e.g. is al-Azhar in Kairo inferior to Aachen? I doubt it tbh).

    The Gothic Cathedrals of Medieval Europe stand as impressive achievements; and demonstrate that Northern Europeans stopped being primitive somewhere around the early 1000s, rather than 1600AD as most people assume. The Lincoln Cathedral in particular, which ended the Great Pyramid’s 3,800 year reign as the tallest man-made structure in the world, demonstrated that Northern Europe caught up with the Near East/Mediterranean somewhere around 1300AD, at least architecturally – it would take some years before science and technology would kick off in the North. That the Lincoln Cathedral retained its status as the tallest man-made structure until 1884 (if you include the central spire), when it was displaced by the Egypt-inspired Washington Monument, also demonstrates its architectural impressiveness.

    Mideast was one of the earliest centers of civilization and remained so for a long time.

    The Middle East was of course the place where civilization was first invented; and it remained at, or near, the height of human civilization for ~5,000 years (3,500BC to 1500AD), after which it started a gradual decline to it’s present wretched state. The cause of this decline is multi-faceted and complex to say the least; many scholars continue to debate its causation. Some theories include:

    (A) Mongol Invasions – this is commonly put forth as the paramount explanation for the destruction of classical Islamic civilization, and even for all its economic, social, cultural and political failings ever since. But now scholars are re-examining this explanation, and the consensus has greatly softened on its impact; which is neither as extensive, great or lasting as once thought. Rather, the Mongol impact did devastate, destroy, and depopulate (15-30%) some major Islamic centers in the East (Iran and Iraq), but it did not reach Egypt, where the Mamluks achieved a rare victory over the mighty Mongols. Egypt then became, and has remained ever since, the center of Arab-Islamic culture. As for Iran, though the Mongols did a good number on Persia, some areas in the South (Persis, Shiraz, Persepolis etc) voluntarily submitted to the Mongols, and were thus spared of devastation. Southern Iran continued to flourish as demonstrated by the poets Sad (1184-1291) and Hafiz (c. 1320-1389), the astronomer Qutb al-Dn (d. 1310), and the architect Qawm al-Dn (d. 1439), the builder of the Gawhar Shd Mosque in Mashhad, which many regard as the greatest achievement of Iranian architecture. And in many ways, the devastation of the Mongol conquests was counterbalanced by the increase of trade and contact between the Middle East and the Far East brought about by Mongol hegemony. The Mongol invasions did turn Iraq into toast though.

    (B) Al-Ghazali – another posited cause of decline of science in the Islamic world after its golden age is al-Ghazali’s (1058-1111) attack on philosophers, which was culminated in his famous book Tahafut al-Falasifah (The Incoherence of Philosophers). Critics of al-Ghazali argue his attack on philosophers on the grounds that they could not lay down rational explanations for metaphysical arguments discouraged critical thinking in the Islamic world. During the period of 800AD-1100AD, Neo-Platonism was dominant in the Islamic Caliphates. Thinkers like al-Farabi supported and promoted it. Conversely in the 1100s, al-Ghazali lead a counter-movement called Occasionalism, which basically held that science and maths are attempts to remove God from the world and understanding it. This would make science and maths effectively into blasphemies. His work fundamentally changed the landscape and Neo-Platonism was effectively defeated in the Islamic World. Ibn Rushd tried to resuscitate it, but by his time, it was too late, so the theory goes. But Arab Christian scholar George Saliba, based on his life-long research in the area, concludes that advances in Islamic astronomy continued well after Ghazali, and was in fact in its most fruitful phase from the 13th to the 16th century. The importance of the discoveries made by Nasir al-Din al-Tusi (1201-1274) and Ibn al-Shatir (1304-1375), is shown by their influence on the subsequent European Renaissance (i.e. Copernicus’ astronomical theorems were identical to Ibn Al-Shatir’s).

    (C) Overtaken – Some scholars dismiss the whole idea of decline. Rather, they posit that the Islamic world was simply overtaken by Western Europe, rather than declined in an absolute sense. Another argument put forth is that Islamic world only declined in the cultural and scientific realms. The Ottoman Empire continued on as a major military power well into the 17th century; and produced some great architecture during the time period; though not much in the way of science or literature. At any rate, it can be seriously said that the Middle East lost its pre-eminent spot as an advanced center of civilization in 1683AD, when Western European dominance became transparent and total. Though the Ottomans were defeated at Vienna before, the first attempt in 1529 was what can be termed as a “minor loss”, in which nothing major changed in the balance of power between Europe and the Ottoman Empire. The second loss, however, was followed by the treaty of Carlowitz, in which the European victors were able to impose conditions on their defeated enemy on their terms. The treaty inaugurated a long period of almost unrelieved retreat of Muslims before European power – culminating in outright colonization of the MENA region by Great Britain and France in the 19th-20th century.

    I generally dislike the “northern barbarians” trope

    If you don’t like the “Northern Barbarian” trope, you should see some of the stuff said here (including by you, btw) vis-a-vis Middle Easterners/Arabs. My main intention was not to denigrate Northern Europeans, most of whom that i’ve met I rather like (except for that obnoxious sack of sh*t ‘songbird’), and who for the most part I hold in high regard. Many historical figures I admire a great deal are from Northern Europe: Samuel Johnson (England), Kurt von Hammerstein (Germany), Charlie Munger (Anglo-American), Benjamin Franklin (Anglo-American), Walter Bagehot (England), Charles Booth (England) etc. That said, northern Europeans were responsible for colonizing my homeland not too long ago (my grandmother was born in British Egypt); and what is worse, belittling Arabs as nothing more than savages and terrorists in their book, movies, media etc. In that case, it’s only fair that I point out that Arabs (in the broad and loose sense) invented and lead civilization for thousands of years while Northern European savages will still figuring out how to stack a pile of rocks. This isn’t to belittle the great achievements of Northern Europeans post-1000 AD, just to defend Arabs from unfair disparagement by racist nutcases like ‘songbird’, who comically think that only ‘Europeans’ like Greeks (if you call even call them that) can build impressive architecture like the Al-Azhar mosque.

    but I’m not sure “Western” culture is really vital today either, it seems to have morphed into something very strange).

    Western culture is decadent and depraved in many ways, but is still economically, and more importantly, scientifically vital in many ways. I’m reminded of this when I look at a list of Nobel laureates in the sciences, or examine GDP figures for individual states in the US, who manage to outproduce nations multiple times their size and population.

    • Agree: utu
    • Replies: @German_reader
    @Yahya


    His work fundamentally changed the landscape and Neo-Platonism was effectively defeated in the Islamic World.
     
    I've heard of the supposedly baleful effects of al-Ghazali (also that supposedly Greek philosophy wasn't rejected to the same degree among the Shia, so that Khomeini is alleged to have referred to Plato's Republic as one source of inspiration). Obviously I'm not qualified at all to comment on any of this in depth.

    At any rate, it can be seriously said that the Middle East lost its pre-eminent spot as an advanced center of civilization in 1683AD, when Western European dominance became transparent and total.
     
    Seems much too late to me tbh. For whatever reason the Ottoman empire didn't even adopt printing on a large scale, so its intellectual culture was already backwards by that time (arguably with extremely negative consequences for the Balkans countries which were cut off from mainstream European developments for centuries). And I don't have any sympathy for the political system of the Ottoman empire at all, a semi-efficient despotism (with bizarre mechanisms for the succession to the sultanate) at best.

    If you don’t like the “Northern Barbarian” trope, you should see some of the stuff said here (including by you, btw) vis-a-vis Middle Easterners/Arabs.
     
    Sure, a lot of UR comments are pretty crass (however this isn't limited to anti-black or anti-Arab racism, there have also been many Germanophobes, Russians hating Poles and viceversa, and Serbs hating all their neighbours etc. over the years here). Personally I'm also not the biggest fan of Americans going on and on about evil Arabs, while either being oblivious to the pernicious effects of American foreign policy in the Mideast or even being enthusiastically in favour of it. However, I'm not going to pretend that on the whole I have a favourable impression of Arabs, or even Muslims in general, because from my perspective their presence in my country, apart maybe from the occasional physician, has overwhelmingly negative consequences. Maybe that's due to the bad filtering of immigrants Dmitry always goes on about, but it is what it is. I also live in a country where the establishment has adopted bizarrely Islamophile positions and tries to shove them down the throat of everybody, whereas people like me have zero institutional power. So sorry, but since writing occasional racist and mean comments on UR is the only outlet I have, I don't really intend to stop.
    I will admit however that you have a point about the impact of Western powers on the Mideast in the last century or so, whose effects have been rather pernicious.

    Replies: @Yahya

  587. @German_reader
    @songbird

    I think AP is at least partially correct, Vienna has a lot of immigrants from the Balkans. But of course that isn't all that much consolation, the overall trend is disastrous.


    where are Euros to get their natalist culture?

     

    At least in Germany there isn't even any real debate about this, and any attempts at opening it are shut down with references to the pro-natalist policies of the Nazis. A few years ago I had some discussions on the net with a young CDU cuck, and he was whingeing about how AfD was in favour of an "active population policy" (that is a pro-natalist policy for the native population), without being able to come up with more than this was somehow icky, illiberal and reminiscent of the Nazis. Of course his own party was pursuing a population policy of its own at the time (which is still in effect), that is de facto open borders immigration for any Arab or African making it to Germany and uttering the magic word "asylum".

    Replies: @songbird

    Caught a few minutes of the interview today between Dutton and Sellner.

    Dutton, who is something of a scamp, cited a few incidents where he used the word “Nazi” as a sort of magic word, equivalent to “open sesame” or “abracadabra” when dealing with irascible people in Germany. It instantly ended the yelling or debate, and led to an apology or a backing down. Made me think that it would be fertile ground for parody.

    • Replies: @Mikel
    @songbird

    The short temper of Germans compared to other nationalities in Europe (only surpassed by their Austrian cousins and sometimes the French) is a well known phenomenon in European multinational settings. You basically hear it from everybody.

    I've never tested the "Nazi" tactic but one approach that definitely mellows them is to make them speak English, even if you can maintain a conversation in German. They're usually not as fluid in English as the Dutch or the Scandinavians so they need to slow down and, frankly, it works wonders. I'm not sure if any other psychological mechanism, apart from fluency, is at play. An English guy gave me the trick, btw.

    Replies: @songbird

  588. German_reader says:
    @Yahya
    @German_reader


    There are probably all manner of architectonically impressive mosques (e.g. is al-Azhar in Kairo inferior to Aachen? I doubt it tbh).

     

    The Gothic Cathedrals of Medieval Europe stand as impressive achievements; and demonstrate that Northern Europeans stopped being primitive somewhere around the early 1000s, rather than 1600AD as most people assume. The Lincoln Cathedral in particular, which ended the Great Pyramid’s 3,800 year reign as the tallest man-made structure in the world, demonstrated that Northern Europe caught up with the Near East/Mediterranean somewhere around 1300AD, at least architecturally - it would take some years before science and technology would kick off in the North. That the Lincoln Cathedral retained its status as the tallest man-made structure until 1884 (if you include the central spire), when it was displaced by the Egypt-inspired Washington Monument, also demonstrates its architectural impressiveness.

    Mideast was one of the earliest centers of civilization and remained so for a long time.

     

    The Middle East was of course the place where civilization was first invented; and it remained at, or near, the height of human civilization for ~5,000 years (3,500BC to 1500AD), after which it started a gradual decline to it’s present wretched state. The cause of this decline is multi-faceted and complex to say the least; many scholars continue to debate its causation. Some theories include:

    (A) Mongol Invasions - this is commonly put forth as the paramount explanation for the destruction of classical Islamic civilization, and even for all its economic, social, cultural and political failings ever since. But now scholars are re-examining this explanation, and the consensus has greatly softened on its impact; which is neither as extensive, great or lasting as once thought. Rather, the Mongol impact did devastate, destroy, and depopulate (15-30%) some major Islamic centers in the East (Iran and Iraq), but it did not reach Egypt, where the Mamluks achieved a rare victory over the mighty Mongols. Egypt then became, and has remained ever since, the center of Arab-Islamic culture. As for Iran, though the Mongols did a good number on Persia, some areas in the South (Persis, Shiraz, Persepolis etc) voluntarily submitted to the Mongols, and were thus spared of devastation. Southern Iran continued to flourish as demonstrated by the poets Sad (1184-1291) and Hafiz (c. 1320-1389), the astronomer Qutb al-Dn (d. 1310), and the architect Qawm al-Dn (d. 1439), the builder of the Gawhar Shd Mosque in Mashhad, which many regard as the greatest achievement of Iranian architecture. And in many ways, the devastation of the Mongol conquests was counterbalanced by the increase of trade and contact between the Middle East and the Far East brought about by Mongol hegemony. The Mongol invasions did turn Iraq into toast though.

    (B) Al-Ghazali - another posited cause of decline of science in the Islamic world after its golden age is al-Ghazali's (1058-1111) attack on philosophers, which was culminated in his famous book Tahafut al-Falasifah (The Incoherence of Philosophers). Critics of al-Ghazali argue his attack on philosophers on the grounds that they could not lay down rational explanations for metaphysical arguments discouraged critical thinking in the Islamic world. During the period of 800AD-1100AD, Neo-Platonism was dominant in the Islamic Caliphates. Thinkers like al-Farabi supported and promoted it. Conversely in the 1100s, al-Ghazali lead a counter-movement called Occasionalism, which basically held that science and maths are attempts to remove God from the world and understanding it. This would make science and maths effectively into blasphemies. His work fundamentally changed the landscape and Neo-Platonism was effectively defeated in the Islamic World. Ibn Rushd tried to resuscitate it, but by his time, it was too late, so the theory goes. But Arab Christian scholar George Saliba, based on his life-long research in the area, concludes that advances in Islamic astronomy continued well after Ghazali, and was in fact in its most fruitful phase from the 13th to the 16th century. The importance of the discoveries made by Nasir al-Din al-Tusi (1201-1274) and Ibn al-Shatir (1304-1375), is shown by their influence on the subsequent European Renaissance (i.e. Copernicus' astronomical theorems were identical to Ibn Al-Shatir's).

    (C) Overtaken - Some scholars dismiss the whole idea of decline. Rather, they posit that the Islamic world was simply overtaken by Western Europe, rather than declined in an absolute sense. Another argument put forth is that Islamic world only declined in the cultural and scientific realms. The Ottoman Empire continued on as a major military power well into the 17th century; and produced some great architecture during the time period; though not much in the way of science or literature. At any rate, it can be seriously said that the Middle East lost its pre-eminent spot as an advanced center of civilization in 1683AD, when Western European dominance became transparent and total. Though the Ottomans were defeated at Vienna before, the first attempt in 1529 was what can be termed as a "minor loss", in which nothing major changed in the balance of power between Europe and the Ottoman Empire. The second loss, however, was followed by the treaty of Carlowitz, in which the European victors were able to impose conditions on their defeated enemy on their terms. The treaty inaugurated a long period of almost unrelieved retreat of Muslims before European power - culminating in outright colonization of the MENA region by Great Britain and France in the 19th-20th century.


    I generally dislike the “northern barbarians” trope

     

    If you don't like the "Northern Barbarian" trope, you should see some of the stuff said here (including by you, btw) vis-a-vis Middle Easterners/Arabs. My main intention was not to denigrate Northern Europeans, most of whom that i've met I rather like (except for that obnoxious sack of sh*t 'songbird'), and who for the most part I hold in high regard. Many historical figures I admire a great deal are from Northern Europe: Samuel Johnson (England), Kurt von Hammerstein (Germany), Charlie Munger (Anglo-American), Benjamin Franklin (Anglo-American), Walter Bagehot (England), Charles Booth (England) etc. That said, northern Europeans were responsible for colonizing my homeland not too long ago (my grandmother was born in British Egypt); and what is worse, belittling Arabs as nothing more than savages and terrorists in their book, movies, media etc. In that case, it's only fair that I point out that Arabs (in the broad and loose sense) invented and lead civilization for thousands of years while Northern European savages will still figuring out how to stack a pile of rocks. This isn't to belittle the great achievements of Northern Europeans post-1000 AD, just to defend Arabs from unfair disparagement by racist nutcases like 'songbird', who comically think that only 'Europeans' like Greeks (if you call even call them that) can build impressive architecture like the Al-Azhar mosque.

    but I’m not sure “Western” culture is really vital today either, it seems to have morphed into something very strange).

     

    Western culture is decadent and depraved in many ways, but is still economically, and more importantly, scientifically vital in many ways. I'm reminded of this when I look at a list of Nobel laureates in the sciences, or examine GDP figures for individual states in the US, who manage to outproduce nations multiple times their size and population.

    Replies: @German_reader

    His work fundamentally changed the landscape and Neo-Platonism was effectively defeated in the Islamic World.

    I’ve heard of the supposedly baleful effects of al-Ghazali (also that supposedly Greek philosophy wasn’t rejected to the same degree among the Shia, so that Khomeini is alleged to have referred to Plato’s Republic as one source of inspiration). Obviously I’m not qualified at all to comment on any of this in depth.

    At any rate, it can be seriously said that the Middle East lost its pre-eminent spot as an advanced center of civilization in 1683AD, when Western European dominance became transparent and total.

    Seems much too late to me tbh. For whatever reason the Ottoman empire didn’t even adopt printing on a large scale, so its intellectual culture was already backwards by that time (arguably with extremely negative consequences for the Balkans countries which were cut off from mainstream European developments for centuries). And I don’t have any sympathy for the political system of the Ottoman empire at all, a semi-efficient despotism (with bizarre mechanisms for the succession to the sultanate) at best.

    If you don’t like the “Northern Barbarian” trope, you should see some of the stuff said here (including by you, btw) vis-a-vis Middle Easterners/Arabs.

    Sure, a lot of UR comments are pretty crass (however this isn’t limited to anti-black or anti-Arab racism, there have also been many Germanophobes, Russians hating Poles and viceversa, and Serbs hating all their neighbours etc. over the years here). Personally I’m also not the biggest fan of Americans going on and on about evil Arabs, while either being oblivious to the pernicious effects of American foreign policy in the Mideast or even being enthusiastically in favour of it. However, I’m not going to pretend that on the whole I have a favourable impression of Arabs, or even Muslims in general, because from my perspective their presence in my country, apart maybe from the occasional physician, has overwhelmingly negative consequences. Maybe that’s due to the bad filtering of immigrants Dmitry always goes on about, but it is what it is. I also live in a country where the establishment has adopted bizarrely Islamophile positions and tries to shove them down the throat of everybody, whereas people like me have zero institutional power. So sorry, but since writing occasional racist and mean comments on UR is the only outlet I have, I don’t really intend to stop.
    I will admit however that you have a point about the impact of Western powers on the Mideast in the last century or so, whose effects have been rather pernicious.

    • Replies: @Yahya
    @German_reader


    For whatever reason the Ottoman empire didn’t even adopt printing on a large scale, so its intellectual culture was already backwards by that time

     

    The Ottoman Empire was intellectually and culturally sterile, but was still powerful and militarily advanced up to the 17th century. Though one could argue it’s military might was in large part a product of European technology and weaponry. Ottoman architecture was as impressive as any during the time period:


    http://media.islamicity.org/wp-content/uploads/2017/03/AdobeStock_126013644-1.jpeg


    Maybe that’s due to the bad filtering of immigrants Dmitry always goes on about,

     

    It almost certainly is. Compare the income levels of Arabs in America vs Arabs in Europe.

    And I don’t have any sympathy for the political system of the Ottoman Empire at all, a semi-efficient despotism (with bizarre mechanisms for the succession to the sultanate) at best.

     

    Well, like any other system, the Ottoman model has its pros and cons. I agree it was somewhat bizarre and depraved by the standards of the Current Year, but probably not so much on a historical curve. One obvious strength of the model is its stability and longevity - the same dynasty ruled the Empire for 600 years. It’s reliance on enslavement and oppression of Balkanoids was of course deplorable.

    however this isn’t limited to anti-black or anti-Arab racism, there have also been many Germanophobes, Russians hating Poles and viceversa, and Serbs hating all their neighbours etc. over the years here).

     

    I’d certainly agree with that. And I’ll add that anti-German sentiments seem to be surprisingly more common than anti-Arab sentiments, at least on Karlin’s blog (probably because of its Slavic demographic tilt). Anti-Arab sentiment on Unz is also somewhat counter-balanced by pro-Arab sentiment, since Arabs are perceived to be the enemies of Jews, and the “enemy of my enemy is my friend” for the anti-semites around here.

    And I’ll add that I agree with much of your anti-immigrant sentiments, even when related to Arabs in Germany. I have plenty of experience with living around the Arab rabble so to speak; so I’m not unfamiliar with their faults and deficiencies. I also sympathize with the fact that it’s impossible for you to express these sentiments off-line, without moral censure or social consequence. That said, there’s not much reason for anyone to express crude, mean-spirited racist remarks (not that I’m accusing you of doing that). It doesn’t help your political cause in any way. There are ways to express anti-immigrant views without being a racist (i.e. don’t directly refer to the race of the immigrant, don’t make blanket generalizations, don't use distasteful language etc.) Frankly, I think a lot of the crude remarks thrown around here have more to do with the character (or lack thereof) of the commenters themselves, rather than politics or anything else.

    Take the stereotypical lunatic Unz commentor (‘songbird’) on this blog, for instance. If you are familiar with his comments, you’d know he has a perverse obsession with blacks, and frequently makes crude, distasteful comments belittling them, for no apparent reason. One example is this comment here, which incidentally was in reply to you a few years ago:


    songbird says:
    @German_reader
    Let’s suppose, you merely took Europeans and set them down in America. Would they not say they loved diversity, once some negro accosted them in the airport with the question?

    Once, I was accosted with some formulation like “Sir, you don’t look racist, can I interview you as part of my college project about diversity?” Did I tell him that he was ape accosting me mere feet from where one of my ancestors died building the city that gorillas like him had invaded and defiled. That only 10% of blacks should be educated past the 6th grade? That they should all be sent back to Africa? No, I politely told him that I did not have the time, which was true enough, though I would I have told him that even if I were an old pensioner.

    https://www.unz.com/akarlin/open-thread-74/#comment-3178985
     

    What can possibly possess someone to make such a gratuitous and obnoxious comment such as this one? It seems obvious that deranged racists are loser-type failures who belittle other races as a vicarious way of obtaining a sense of superiority and self-esteem, and to deflect from feelings of inadequacy in one’s personal life. In the specific case of this ‘songbird’ freak, well he admitted before he was beaten by blacks as a teenager, so we can add deep-seated resentment as another explanation for why he is an inherently deranged personality.

    Personally I’m also not the biggest fan of Americans going on and on about evil Arabs, while either being oblivious to the pernicious effects of American foreign policy in the Mideast or even being enthusiastically in favour of it.

     

    Yes, every rant about Arab immigration to the West needs to start with a preface on the role Westerners played in bringing it about (colonization, invasion, meddling etc.) This isn't to say it’s entirely the West's fault; or that Arabs have no agency in the process. But to pretend as if the streams of refugees are "invaders"; while Westerners are innocent victims who are being taken advantage of by "ungrateful parasites"; is to ignore the obvious American/Western role in displacing these refugees in the first place.

    Replies: @sudden death, @German_reader, @utu

  589. @songbird
    @AP

    Term he used was "migrant background." I interpreted to mean "non-Euro." But, maybe, he may have meant "non-Austrian?"

    Anyway, his reference to 75% in the 0-4 age bracket is interesting. (he mentioned >50% for Vienna's general pop)

    Seems obvious that the most famous German culture, like Mozart's music came out of German cities. (Mozart moved to Vienna, when he was 25). But now seems likely that the percentage of Euro babies in the major cities is dropping off sharply. Perhaps, partly due to white flight.

    But whatever the interpretation, some of the same questions arise: where are Euros to get their natalist culture? Cities seem like a pretty unlikely place, when you consider most of the babies there are non-Euros, and yet they are the political, economic, and cultural centers.

    At any point, will it become obviously absurd to Europeans and other civilized people? Or will they just ignore it, as they seem to have done in America. Where people might look at white commuters, white college students, white young adults with no children, and white rich people who send their kids to private school with body guards and don't seem to perceive the way that the cities were completely lost.

    I maintain that no broad spectrum political solution is possible. If there is a political solution it has to be to the specific question: how can we increase the number of Euro babies? Nothing else will work. Not trying to breed more Arabs or blacks. And it does not seem likely that the existing regime will even be willing to contemplate the question.

    This contrasts with the Chinese, who can both ask the question and probably eventually solve it, on a political level.

    Replies: @German_reader, @AP, @Thulean Friend

    Term he used was “migrant background.” I interpreted to mean “non-Euro.” But, maybe, he may have meant “non-Austrian?”

    Here are Vienna’s foreigners in 2021:

    https://www.wien.gv.at/english/social/integration/facts-figures/population-migration.html

    About 42% of the population of the city are non-natives.

    Largest source was Serbia (Kosovo Albanians?), then Turkey, then Germany, then Poland, then Romania. I noticed a lot of Serbs and Croats in shops and working as waitresses in Austria.

    Vienna was of course a melting pot of Austria-Hungary so lots of native Viennese have Czech, Polish, Hungarian, etc. ancestry.

    Overall, the population appeared to be about 90% European, same as Moscow. Vienna’s non-Europeans were Middle Eastern Muslims and Africans, whereas in Russia they were Central Asians and Caucasians.

    Of course, many of those European faces in Vienna I saw were not natives but migrants from Poland, Serbia, Croatia, etc. When I visited in 2019, the huge number of Russian tourists maybe also made the city seem more European than it is.

    • Thanks: songbird
    • Replies: @songbird
    @AP

    University of Vienna is apparently really large too.

    91,715 students in 2016.

    , @German_reader
    @AP

    I might try to find out more, but here's some interesting data (from 2016/17, so maybe already out of date given developments since 2015):
    https://www.stadt-wien.at/bildung/kulturkampf-in-wiener-schulen.html

    Key points:
    - Somewhat over 50% (52,5% according to another site) of all pupils in Vienna is speaking a language other than German at home/in their private environment.
    In public elementary schools only 37% of all children speak German at home. 15% speak Turkish, and another 15% Bosnian/Croatian/Serbian. 33% speak some other language.
    - There seems to be significant segregation in the education system (tiered along similar lines as in Germany). Basically migrant proles dominate the "lower" school forms; there it's about 75% who speak another language than German at home. Whereas in Gymnasien it's only 43%, and in private elementary schools 68% of children speak German at home.
    - In 2017/18 there were 35 000 children from Islamic families in the Vienna school system. In elementary schools their numbers had almost doubled since 2005/06.
    There seems to have been some public debate a few years ago, when a left-wing teacher spoke out against what she described as increasing influence of radical Islamic ideas among her pupils (so maybe a similar dynamic, though at a lower level, as in France).

    Replies: @AP

  590. @AP
    @songbird


    Term he used was “migrant background.” I interpreted to mean “non-Euro.” But, maybe, he may have meant “non-Austrian?”
     
    Here are Vienna's foreigners in 2021:

    https://www.wien.gv.at/english/social/integration/facts-figures/population-migration.html

    About 42% of the population of the city are non-natives.

    Largest source was Serbia (Kosovo Albanians?), then Turkey, then Germany, then Poland, then Romania. I noticed a lot of Serbs and Croats in shops and working as waitresses in Austria.

    Vienna was of course a melting pot of Austria-Hungary so lots of native Viennese have Czech, Polish, Hungarian, etc. ancestry.

    Overall, the population appeared to be about 90% European, same as Moscow. Vienna's non-Europeans were Middle Eastern Muslims and Africans, whereas in Russia they were Central Asians and Caucasians.

    Of course, many of those European faces in Vienna I saw were not natives but migrants from Poland, Serbia, Croatia, etc. When I visited in 2019, the huge number of Russian tourists maybe also made the city seem more European than it is.

    Replies: @songbird, @German_reader

    University of Vienna is apparently really large too.

    91,715 students in 2016.

  591. @songbird
    @German_reader

    Caught a few minutes of the interview today between Dutton and Sellner.

    Dutton, who is something of a scamp, cited a few incidents where he used the word "Nazi" as a sort of magic word, equivalent to "open sesame" or "abracadabra" when dealing with irascible people in Germany. It instantly ended the yelling or debate, and led to an apology or a backing down. Made me think that it would be fertile ground for parody.

    Replies: @Mikel

    The short temper of Germans compared to other nationalities in Europe (only surpassed by their Austrian cousins and sometimes the French) is a well known phenomenon in European multinational settings. You basically hear it from everybody.

    I’ve never tested the “Nazi” tactic but one approach that definitely mellows them is to make them speak English, even if you can maintain a conversation in German. They’re usually not as fluid in English as the Dutch or the Scandinavians so they need to slow down and, frankly, it works wonders. I’m not sure if any other psychological mechanism, apart from fluency, is at play. An English guy gave me the trick, btw.

    • Thanks: songbird
    • Replies: @songbird
    @Mikel

    Speaking of national stereotypes, I thought it was interesting recently when the media seemed to pick up on Macron using an impolite word. (And not as much on the broader political context his comments)

    Here I must admit my insularity: I have never been to France, only to Quebec. But I was wondering if anyone had any thoughts on the stereotype "dirty as a Frenchman." (as I have heard in America)

    I'm a bit puzzled by it, but my interpretation is that the French are the most obscene Europeans, at least when it comes to language. Can anyone back that up or clarify the true case?

    From my perspective, Euros in general (including Germans) are traditionally more obscene than Americans or Anglo Canadians, though possibly that could be changing, as the demographic inputs alter things.

    I'll also add that from my perspective, NE Asian cultures (Japan, Korea, China) are all more obscene than traditional American culture. Though the issue may be obfuscated somewhat by Hollywood being more obscene than traditional America.

    Replies: @Mikel

  592. German_reader says:
    @AP
    @songbird


    Term he used was “migrant background.” I interpreted to mean “non-Euro.” But, maybe, he may have meant “non-Austrian?”
     
    Here are Vienna's foreigners in 2021:

    https://www.wien.gv.at/english/social/integration/facts-figures/population-migration.html

    About 42% of the population of the city are non-natives.

    Largest source was Serbia (Kosovo Albanians?), then Turkey, then Germany, then Poland, then Romania. I noticed a lot of Serbs and Croats in shops and working as waitresses in Austria.

    Vienna was of course a melting pot of Austria-Hungary so lots of native Viennese have Czech, Polish, Hungarian, etc. ancestry.

    Overall, the population appeared to be about 90% European, same as Moscow. Vienna's non-Europeans were Middle Eastern Muslims and Africans, whereas in Russia they were Central Asians and Caucasians.

    Of course, many of those European faces in Vienna I saw were not natives but migrants from Poland, Serbia, Croatia, etc. When I visited in 2019, the huge number of Russian tourists maybe also made the city seem more European than it is.

    Replies: @songbird, @German_reader

    I might try to find out more, but here’s some interesting data (from 2016/17, so maybe already out of date given developments since 2015):
    https://www.stadt-wien.at/bildung/kulturkampf-in-wiener-schulen.html

    Key points:
    – Somewhat over 50% (52,5% according to another site) of all pupils in Vienna is speaking a language other than German at home/in their private environment.
    In public elementary schools only 37% of all children speak German at home. 15% speak Turkish, and another 15% Bosnian/Croatian/Serbian. 33% speak some other language.
    – There seems to be significant segregation in the education system (tiered along similar lines as in Germany). Basically migrant proles dominate the “lower” school forms; there it’s about 75% who speak another language than German at home. Whereas in Gymnasien it’s only 43%, and in private elementary schools 68% of children speak German at home.
    – In 2017/18 there were 35 000 children from Islamic families in the Vienna school system. In elementary schools their numbers had almost doubled since 2005/06.
    There seems to have been some public debate a few years ago, when a left-wing teacher spoke out against what she described as increasing influence of radical Islamic ideas among her pupils (so maybe a similar dynamic, though at a lower level, as in France).

    • Thanks: songbird, AP
    • Replies: @AP
    @German_reader

    A very large percentage of kids in Vienna go to private schools (something like 40% in kindergarten). I wonder if these are native parents segregating their kids from "undesirable" migrant children.

    Replies: @German_reader

  593. @German_reader
    @A123

    I think AP is referring to aristocracy in an Old European sense (before WW1 or even before 1789), that is titled nobility with a strong military ethos, dominating certain localities through their landholding and having a paternalistic (or exploitative, depending on one's perspective) relationship with dependent peasantry, also closely connected to the Church (through their donations and foundations, and younger sons in the clergy) and ideally embodying Christian virtues.
    Obviously such a thing doesn't exist in America (nor really anywhere else today). Hunter Biden is just a vulgar rich asshole whose life seems to revolve around taking drugs and whoring around, and his dad is a crooked politician in a media-dominated mass democracy (or what passes as democracy). Nobody would mistake them for Christian knights.

    Replies: @A123

    I think AP is referring to aristocracy in an Old European sense (before WW1 or even before 1789), that is titled nobility

    Obviously such a thing doesn’t exist in America. Nobody would mistake [The Bidens] for Christian knights

    I concur… That was the point I was driving at.

    Joe & Hunter Biden are loaded with cash & political influence. The are not even vaguely “middle class”. They exist to push Elite European WEF dogma. The phrase “non-Aristocratic, Upper Class” is an excellent description of EuroDavos puppet Joe Biden & his progeny.

    PEACE 😇

  594. @Mikel
    @songbird

    The short temper of Germans compared to other nationalities in Europe (only surpassed by their Austrian cousins and sometimes the French) is a well known phenomenon in European multinational settings. You basically hear it from everybody.

    I've never tested the "Nazi" tactic but one approach that definitely mellows them is to make them speak English, even if you can maintain a conversation in German. They're usually not as fluid in English as the Dutch or the Scandinavians so they need to slow down and, frankly, it works wonders. I'm not sure if any other psychological mechanism, apart from fluency, is at play. An English guy gave me the trick, btw.

    Replies: @songbird

    Speaking of national stereotypes, I thought it was interesting recently when the media seemed to pick up on Macron using an impolite word. (And not as much on the broader political context his comments)

    Here I must admit my insularity: I have never been to France, only to Quebec. But I was wondering if anyone had any thoughts on the stereotype “dirty as a Frenchman.” (as I have heard in America)

    I’m a bit puzzled by it, but my interpretation is that the French are the most obscene Europeans, at least when it comes to language. Can anyone back that up or clarify the true case?

    From my perspective, Euros in general (including Germans) are traditionally more obscene than Americans or Anglo Canadians, though possibly that could be changing, as the demographic inputs alter things.

    I’ll also add that from my perspective, NE Asian cultures (Japan, Korea, China) are all more obscene than traditional American culture. Though the issue may be obfuscated somewhat by Hollywood being more obscene than traditional America.

    • Replies: @Mikel
    @songbird

    I don't think that stereotype about French dirtiness is accurate or fair. But they used to have plenty of squatting toilets in public places, which didn't help their reputation.

    As for being the most obscene in Europe, that is a very tough competition and I honestly don't know who to give the prize to. Irish, Poles and Spaniards should be at the top of the list but who knows how obscene people of places I've never been to are. We all put Americans to shame, in a figurative and literal sense, that's for sure.


    Though the issue may be obfuscated somewhat by Hollywood being more obscene than traditional America.
     
    Hollywood not only obfuscates foreigners in that respect but also teaches them a wide array of swear words in English that many then incorporate to their lexicon. I've been witness to some funny episodes when they start speaking to Americans in their colorful English thinking that that is the way they speak too :-)
  595. @songbird
    @A123


    Maxine Waters is officially only worth ~$3MM.
     
    Is that a Spanish abbreviation? Such as EE.UU? (Estados Unidos)

    Replies: @A123

    Maxine Waters is officially only worth ~\$3MM.

    Is that a Spanish abbreviation? Such as EE.UU? (Estados Unidos

    It standard Roman (and thus UK) pre-metric nomenclature.

    M = 1,000
    MM = 1,000 × 1,000 = 1,000,000

    A huge advantage is that “MM” is unique while “M” is ambiguous.

    PEACE 😇

    • Thanks: songbird
  596. • Replies: @Mikhail
    @German_reader


    Anatol Lieven on the recent US-Russia talks (though rather more about general issues):
    https://responsiblestatecraft.org/2022/01/13/did-this-weeks-us-nato-russia-meetings-push-us-closer-to-war/

    This article seems quite delusional to me:
    https://www.defenseone.com/ideas/2022/01/us-must-prepare-war-against-russia-over-ukraine/360639/

     

    Defense One is affiliated with the neocon/neolib leaning Atlantic. The second part of this article delves into the lying antics of Evelyn Farkas:

    https://original.antiwar.com/Michael_Averko/2021/12/17/ongoing-smear-campaign-against-the-strategic-culture-foundation/

    Up until about August 2020, she stated at the top of her Twitter handle, that "she sounded the alarm on Trump-Russia."

    Concerning, Russia, Ukraine, Kazakhstan and neocon/neolib leaning foreign policy elites, here's a punchy 20 minute discussion:

    https://wabcradio.com/episode/mark-averko-1-11-22/

    When compared to US foreign policy elites Lieven is good. IMO and that of some others, he periodically says things that serve to better maintain himself within US foreign policy establishment circles. The above linked WABC discussion has no such filter.
  597. @songbird
    @Mikel

    Speaking of national stereotypes, I thought it was interesting recently when the media seemed to pick up on Macron using an impolite word. (And not as much on the broader political context his comments)

    Here I must admit my insularity: I have never been to France, only to Quebec. But I was wondering if anyone had any thoughts on the stereotype "dirty as a Frenchman." (as I have heard in America)

    I'm a bit puzzled by it, but my interpretation is that the French are the most obscene Europeans, at least when it comes to language. Can anyone back that up or clarify the true case?

    From my perspective, Euros in general (including Germans) are traditionally more obscene than Americans or Anglo Canadians, though possibly that could be changing, as the demographic inputs alter things.

    I'll also add that from my perspective, NE Asian cultures (Japan, Korea, China) are all more obscene than traditional American culture. Though the issue may be obfuscated somewhat by Hollywood being more obscene than traditional America.

    Replies: @Mikel

    I don’t think that stereotype about French dirtiness is accurate or fair. But they used to have plenty of squatting toilets in public places, which didn’t help their reputation.

    As for being the most obscene in Europe, that is a very tough competition and I honestly don’t know who to give the prize to. Irish, Poles and Spaniards should be at the top of the list but who knows how obscene people of places I’ve never been to are. We all put Americans to shame, in a figurative and literal sense, that’s for sure.

    Though the issue may be obfuscated somewhat by Hollywood being more obscene than traditional America.

    Hollywood not only obfuscates foreigners in that respect but also teaches them a wide array of swear words in English that many then incorporate to their lexicon. I’ve been witness to some funny episodes when they start speaking to Americans in their colorful English thinking that that is the way they speak too 🙂

    • Thanks: songbird
  598. @German_reader
    @Yahya


    His work fundamentally changed the landscape and Neo-Platonism was effectively defeated in the Islamic World.
     
    I've heard of the supposedly baleful effects of al-Ghazali (also that supposedly Greek philosophy wasn't rejected to the same degree among the Shia, so that Khomeini is alleged to have referred to Plato's Republic as one source of inspiration). Obviously I'm not qualified at all to comment on any of this in depth.

    At any rate, it can be seriously said that the Middle East lost its pre-eminent spot as an advanced center of civilization in 1683AD, when Western European dominance became transparent and total.
     
    Seems much too late to me tbh. For whatever reason the Ottoman empire didn't even adopt printing on a large scale, so its intellectual culture was already backwards by that time (arguably with extremely negative consequences for the Balkans countries which were cut off from mainstream European developments for centuries). And I don't have any sympathy for the political system of the Ottoman empire at all, a semi-efficient despotism (with bizarre mechanisms for the succession to the sultanate) at best.

    If you don’t like the “Northern Barbarian” trope, you should see some of the stuff said here (including by you, btw) vis-a-vis Middle Easterners/Arabs.
     
    Sure, a lot of UR comments are pretty crass (however this isn't limited to anti-black or anti-Arab racism, there have also been many Germanophobes, Russians hating Poles and viceversa, and Serbs hating all their neighbours etc. over the years here). Personally I'm also not the biggest fan of Americans going on and on about evil Arabs, while either being oblivious to the pernicious effects of American foreign policy in the Mideast or even being enthusiastically in favour of it. However, I'm not going to pretend that on the whole I have a favourable impression of Arabs, or even Muslims in general, because from my perspective their presence in my country, apart maybe from the occasional physician, has overwhelmingly negative consequences. Maybe that's due to the bad filtering of immigrants Dmitry always goes on about, but it is what it is. I also live in a country where the establishment has adopted bizarrely Islamophile positions and tries to shove them down the throat of everybody, whereas people like me have zero institutional power. So sorry, but since writing occasional racist and mean comments on UR is the only outlet I have, I don't really intend to stop.
    I will admit however that you have a point about the impact of Western powers on the Mideast in the last century or so, whose effects have been rather pernicious.

    Replies: @Yahya

    For whatever reason the Ottoman empire didn’t even adopt printing on a large scale, so its intellectual culture was already backwards by that time

    The Ottoman Empire was intellectually and culturally sterile, but was still powerful and militarily advanced up to the 17th century. Though one could argue it’s military might was in large part a product of European technology and weaponry. Ottoman architecture was as impressive as any during the time period:

    Maybe that’s due to the bad filtering of immigrants Dmitry always goes on about,

    It almost certainly is. Compare the income levels of Arabs in America vs Arabs in Europe.

    And I don’t have any sympathy for the political system of the Ottoman Empire at all, a semi-efficient despotism (with bizarre mechanisms for the succession to the sultanate) at best.

    Well, like any other system, the Ottoman model has its pros and cons. I agree it was somewhat bizarre and depraved by the standards of the Current Year, but probably not so much on a historical curve. One obvious strength of the model is its stability and longevity – the same dynasty ruled the Empire for 600 years. It’s reliance on enslavement and oppression of Balkanoids was of course deplorable.

    however this isn’t limited to anti-black or anti-Arab racism, there have also been many Germanophobes, Russians hating Poles and viceversa, and Serbs hating all their neighbours etc. over the years here).

    I’d certainly agree with that. And I’ll add that anti-German sentiments seem to be surprisingly more common than anti-Arab sentiments, at least on Karlin’s blog (probably because of its Slavic demographic tilt). Anti-Arab sentiment on Unz is also somewhat counter-balanced by pro-Arab sentiment, since Arabs are perceived to be the enemies of Jews, and the “enemy of my enemy is my friend” for the anti-semites around here.

    And I’ll add that I agree with much of your anti-immigrant sentiments, even when related to Arabs in Germany. I have plenty of experience with living around the Arab rabble so to speak; so I’m not unfamiliar with their faults and deficiencies. I also sympathize with the fact that it’s impossible for you to express these sentiments off-line, without moral censure or social consequence. That said, there’s not much reason for anyone to express crude, mean-spirited racist remarks (not that I’m accusing you of doing that). It doesn’t help your political cause in any way. There are ways to express anti-immigrant views without being a racist (i.e. don’t directly refer to the race of the immigrant, don’t make blanket generalizations, don’t use distasteful language etc.) Frankly, I think a lot of the crude remarks thrown around here have more to do with the character (or lack thereof) of the commenters themselves, rather than politics or anything else.

    Take the stereotypical lunatic Unz commentor (‘songbird’) on this blog, for instance. If you are familiar with his comments, you’d know he has a perverse obsession with blacks, and frequently makes crude, distasteful comments belittling them, for no apparent reason. One example is this comment here, which incidentally was in reply to you a few years ago:

    songbird says:

    Let’s suppose, you merely took Europeans and set them down in America. Would they not say they loved diversity, once some negro accosted them in the airport with the question?

    Once, I was accosted with some formulation like “Sir, you don’t look racist, can I interview you as part of my college project about diversity?” Did I tell him that he was ape accosting me mere feet from where one of my ancestors died building the city that gorillas like him had invaded and defiled. That only 10% of blacks should be educated past the 6th grade? That they should all be sent back to Africa? No, I politely told him that I did not have the time, which was true enough, though I would I have told him that even if I were an old pensioner.

    https://www.unz.com/akarlin/open-thread-74/#comment-3178985

    What can possibly possess someone to make such a gratuitous and obnoxious comment such as this one? It seems obvious that deranged racists are loser-type failures who belittle other races as a vicarious way of obtaining a sense of superiority and self-esteem, and to deflect from feelings of inadequacy in one’s personal life. In the specific case of this ‘songbird’ freak, well he admitted before he was beaten by blacks as a teenager, so we can add deep-seated resentment as another explanation for why he is an inherently deranged personality.

    Personally I’m also not the biggest fan of Americans going on and on about evil Arabs, while either being oblivious to the pernicious effects of American foreign policy in the Mideast or even being enthusiastically in favour of it.

    Yes, every rant about Arab immigration to the West needs to start with a preface on the role Westerners played in bringing it about (colonization, invasion, meddling etc.) This isn’t to say it’s entirely the West’s fault; or that Arabs have no agency in the process. But to pretend as if the streams of refugees are “invaders”; while Westerners are innocent victims who are being taken advantage of by “ungrateful parasites”; is to ignore the obvious American/Western role in displacing these refugees in the first place.

    • LOL: sher singh
    • Replies: @sudden death
    @Yahya


    But to pretend as if the streams of refugees are “invaders”; while Westerners are innocent victims who are being taken advantage of by “ungrateful parasites”; is to ignore the obvious American/Western role in displacing these refugees in the first place.
     
    Guess that at least in case of Germany current "refugism" might not be the root of the "invader"" problem, as nobody ever displaced those millions of muslim Turks or Kurds from Turkey now living there since second half of XX century.

    btw, Yahya seems to be the first Arab/Muslim commenter out there, at least in (former) Karlin blog?
    , @German_reader
    @Yahya


    It’s reliance on enslavement and oppression of Balkanoids was of course deplorable.
     

    My impression is it was pretty despotic to its other subjects as well. Last year I read a general survey of the 17th century (Geoffrey Parker, Global Crisis. War, Climate Change and Catastrophe in the Seventeenth Century), and a lot of the details about the Ottoman empire were really hair-raising...like more or less mad sultans being egged on by fanatical Islamic scholars to persecute and execute men for smoking tobacco or visiting coffee-houses. Now it would probably be unfair to single out the Ottoman empire as especially bad, either for its bouts of religious fanaticism (at a time when there was the 30-years war in Germany and Puritans in England banned Christmas and theatre performances), or for its aggressive wars and importation and consumption of slaves (after all Christian powers did similar things too). But I don't see much reason to overly romanticize it either, as is often the case today in multiculturalist Western discourse.

    I have plenty of experience with living around the Arab rabble so to speak
     
    I can imagine. I don't want to draw you in a discussion about Egyptian affairs (iirc you once stated that it could have negative consequences for you), but I really wonder about all those ill-educated masses in Egypt and other Arab countries who have little to hope for and who might follow some demagogue, whether of an Islamic nature, or of some other kind which can't be foreseen right now. I suppose falling birth rates might eventually defuse this danger somewhat, but to me it seems like a really grave problem for which there doesn't seem to be a good solution.

    There are ways to express anti-immigrant views without being a racist (i.e. don’t directly refer to the race of the immigrant, don’t make blanket generalizations etc.)
     
    The kind of sentiments expressed on UR (open reference to race, arguments about genetically determined IQ and behaviour profiles of different ethnic groups) aren't openly aired by Western anti-immigration politicians anyway, at most they're implicitly hinted at. But the reality is you can't really criticize immigration for any reason in Western societies today (apart maybe from minor exceptions like Denmark), not for reasons of national cohesion, or because of the cultural and religious beliefs of immigrants (that is racism without races), but also not for economic and environmental reasons either, which is often suggested as a supposedly viable way to criticize immigration. Left-wingers in Germany have even invented a term Nützlichkeitsrassismus (racism of utility, that is judging immigrants according to their supposed value for the labour market) to explicitly reject economic arguments for immigration restriction.
    I suppose there are some good arguments against the more extreme sort of racist comments on UR (after all it's probably not really constructive to get in the mindset for some purifying race war), but imo "You're damaging anti-immigration arguments with that" isn't one, because any calls for immigration restriction will be seen as an attack on their fundamental values by much of the present establishment anyway.

    Take the stereotypical lunatic Unz commentor (‘songbird’) on this blog, for instance. If you are familiar with his comments, you’d know he has a perverse obsession with blacks,
     
    Well, I suppose songbird can defend himself, if he wants to, and I don't really want to write that much about it. Certainly his anti-black statements could be considered as uncharitable. But imo you're making the same mistake as utu and are ignoring the larger context. songbird would probably face severe social ostracism or even persecution by the state if he made such comments in public. Whereas the ethnocentrism, and I think at least in some cases quite blatant anti-white racism, of American blacks seems to be quite deliberately stoked by the establishment. It may seem hyperbolic now, but I think something like CRT could develop into a more or less genocidal ideology (and arguably there has long been a genocidal strain among some of the more extreme sections of America's blacks, e.g. look up something like the Zebra murders in the 1970s...so why possibly encourage that kind of thinking?). And that stuff is seeping over into Europe too and is being promoted with establishment support here as well (except maybe in France, where it has apparently been identified as a threat to republican values). So I think just focusing on songbird's anti-black statements, without taking into account what is actually happening in the larger society, is one-sided.

    But to pretend as if the streams of refugees are “invaders”; while Westerners are innocent victims who are being taken advantage of by “ungrateful parasites”; is to ignore the obvious American/Western role in displacing these refugees in the first place.
     
    Sure, to a considerable extent I agree with that. However you have to take my specifically German perspective into account. Germany may not be totally innocent (which country is?), but it didn't participate (at least not directly) in the Iraq and Libyan wars, and its role in Syria seems comparatively minor to me as well. There's also not that much Germany or other European countries can do against American sanctions regimes (though I certainly would wish for a more independent European approach in these matters). So on some level I feel like my country has to foot the bill for developments we haven't had much agency over.

    Replies: @songbird, @Yahya

    , @utu
    @Yahya

    How Europeans who are against immigration from ME and Africa should talk and make their case that would not hurt your feelings somewhere there in Egypt? But the case must be made that Europe should no longer accept ME and African immigrants. I am writing this believing that you too want to stop emigrations of your countrymen. Let's make a deal: you stop coming and we promise you won't hear a single bad word about Arabs and Muslims from us.

    Replies: @Yahya, @Dmitry, @Svidomyatheart

  599. @Yahya
    @German_reader


    For whatever reason the Ottoman empire didn’t even adopt printing on a large scale, so its intellectual culture was already backwards by that time

     

    The Ottoman Empire was intellectually and culturally sterile, but was still powerful and militarily advanced up to the 17th century. Though one could argue it’s military might was in large part a product of European technology and weaponry. Ottoman architecture was as impressive as any during the time period:


    http://media.islamicity.org/wp-content/uploads/2017/03/AdobeStock_126013644-1.jpeg


    Maybe that’s due to the bad filtering of immigrants Dmitry always goes on about,

     

    It almost certainly is. Compare the income levels of Arabs in America vs Arabs in Europe.

    And I don’t have any sympathy for the political system of the Ottoman Empire at all, a semi-efficient despotism (with bizarre mechanisms for the succession to the sultanate) at best.

     

    Well, like any other system, the Ottoman model has its pros and cons. I agree it was somewhat bizarre and depraved by the standards of the Current Year, but probably not so much on a historical curve. One obvious strength of the model is its stability and longevity - the same dynasty ruled the Empire for 600 years. It’s reliance on enslavement and oppression of Balkanoids was of course deplorable.

    however this isn’t limited to anti-black or anti-Arab racism, there have also been many Germanophobes, Russians hating Poles and viceversa, and Serbs hating all their neighbours etc. over the years here).

     

    I’d certainly agree with that. And I’ll add that anti-German sentiments seem to be surprisingly more common than anti-Arab sentiments, at least on Karlin’s blog (probably because of its Slavic demographic tilt). Anti-Arab sentiment on Unz is also somewhat counter-balanced by pro-Arab sentiment, since Arabs are perceived to be the enemies of Jews, and the “enemy of my enemy is my friend” for the anti-semites around here.

    And I’ll add that I agree with much of your anti-immigrant sentiments, even when related to Arabs in Germany. I have plenty of experience with living around the Arab rabble so to speak; so I’m not unfamiliar with their faults and deficiencies. I also sympathize with the fact that it’s impossible for you to express these sentiments off-line, without moral censure or social consequence. That said, there’s not much reason for anyone to express crude, mean-spirited racist remarks (not that I’m accusing you of doing that). It doesn’t help your political cause in any way. There are ways to express anti-immigrant views without being a racist (i.e. don’t directly refer to the race of the immigrant, don’t make blanket generalizations, don't use distasteful language etc.) Frankly, I think a lot of the crude remarks thrown around here have more to do with the character (or lack thereof) of the commenters themselves, rather than politics or anything else.

    Take the stereotypical lunatic Unz commentor (‘songbird’) on this blog, for instance. If you are familiar with his comments, you’d know he has a perverse obsession with blacks, and frequently makes crude, distasteful comments belittling them, for no apparent reason. One example is this comment here, which incidentally was in reply to you a few years ago:


    songbird says:
    @German_reader
    Let’s suppose, you merely took Europeans and set them down in America. Would they not say they loved diversity, once some negro accosted them in the airport with the question?

    Once, I was accosted with some formulation like “Sir, you don’t look racist, can I interview you as part of my college project about diversity?” Did I tell him that he was ape accosting me mere feet from where one of my ancestors died building the city that gorillas like him had invaded and defiled. That only 10% of blacks should be educated past the 6th grade? That they should all be sent back to Africa? No, I politely told him that I did not have the time, which was true enough, though I would I have told him that even if I were an old pensioner.

    https://www.unz.com/akarlin/open-thread-74/#comment-3178985
     

    What can possibly possess someone to make such a gratuitous and obnoxious comment such as this one? It seems obvious that deranged racists are loser-type failures who belittle other races as a vicarious way of obtaining a sense of superiority and self-esteem, and to deflect from feelings of inadequacy in one’s personal life. In the specific case of this ‘songbird’ freak, well he admitted before he was beaten by blacks as a teenager, so we can add deep-seated resentment as another explanation for why he is an inherently deranged personality.

    Personally I’m also not the biggest fan of Americans going on and on about evil Arabs, while either being oblivious to the pernicious effects of American foreign policy in the Mideast or even being enthusiastically in favour of it.

     

    Yes, every rant about Arab immigration to the West needs to start with a preface on the role Westerners played in bringing it about (colonization, invasion, meddling etc.) This isn't to say it’s entirely the West's fault; or that Arabs have no agency in the process. But to pretend as if the streams of refugees are "invaders"; while Westerners are innocent victims who are being taken advantage of by "ungrateful parasites"; is to ignore the obvious American/Western role in displacing these refugees in the first place.

    Replies: @sudden death, @German_reader, @utu

    But to pretend as if the streams of refugees are “invaders”; while Westerners are innocent victims who are being taken advantage of by “ungrateful parasites”; is to ignore the obvious American/Western role in displacing these refugees in the first place.

    Guess that at least in case of Germany current “refugism” might not be the root of the “invader”” problem, as nobody ever displaced those millions of muslim Turks or Kurds from Turkey now living there since second half of XX century.

    btw, Yahya seems to be the first Arab/Muslim commenter out there, at least in (former) Karlin blog?

  600. @AP
    @German_reader

    You are correct about the biographical details but at the time the aristocrats set the tone and paid for everything. That is, everything wasn’t focused on catering to and reflecting the middle classes. The talented produced masterpieces reflecting refined tastes both of their sponsors and of their drive to transcend rather than to lower oneself or to be sideways. Meanwhile, the peasants participated in beautiful and ancient folk culture.

    OTOH the bourgeoisification of the world has brought incredible material progress and widespread technical innovation.

    Replies: @Dmitry

    Bourgeoisie refers to owners of means of production (i.e. capital goods) in a capitalist economy. This is the upper class after industrialization.

    Aristocracy in the agrarian economy before, were usually determined as the owners of lands (which was the most important means of production in pre-industrial economy).

    Although if I recall from a history book, most of the pre-industrial upper class in Europe had climbed from merchant families, while a smaller proportion from military families.

    aristocrats set the tone and paid for everything

    Obviously in e.g. 15th century Italy, most of the money was with still owners of land, as the means of production was still in agrarian economy (as in still it is in countries like India today). Although the economy in Italy was developing ahead of the historical average, and the wealth of Medici family who were largest patrons of the Renaissance, was already from banking.

    In the 19th century, most of the funding for art, would be from owners of the capital goods (e.g. bourgeoisie), as this became the centre of the economy. Bourgeoisie become absurdly wealthy as a class in industrial economies after the industrial revolution.

    In 21st century, the money will be increasingly with hi-tech sector, as this is becoming one of the main means of production. We are a kind of historical witness already seeing this crazy transition of money to hi-tech industry.

    This crazy flood of money in hi-tech sector now, must be like watching when the wealth was flooding to owners of capital goods during the industrial revolution. But it likely now that hi-tech sector will become the new upper class as the century continues.

    • Replies: @AP
    @Dmitry


    Bourgeoisie refers to owners of means of production (i.e. capital goods) in a capitalist economy
     
    That is the Marxist term. I think of it as middle class, and includes many lawyers for example.

    Although if I recall from a history book, most of the pre-industrial upper class in Europe had climbed from merchant families, while a smaller proportion from military families.
     
    In eastern Europe the roots seem to have been from soldiers or pre-agricultural tribal elders (boyars).

    In the 19th century, most of the funding for art, would be from owners of the capital goods (e.g. bourgeoisie), as this became the centre of the economy.
     
    They hadn't completely taken over society yet (at least not psychologically) and still aspired upwards. Musil had some funny observations of actual aristocratic homes being run down while those of new rich being far more perfect approximations. But the result was that beauty was still being sponsored and produced. Eventually the trend became downward.

    Replies: @melanf, @Dmitry

  601. @Thulean Friend
    @songbird

    The undesirables are the middle-class, more than any other class.

    Artistic brilliance was primarily achieved by aristocrats unconstrained by earthly pursuits but who leisurely indulged in their fanciest vanities. It is this reckless abandon that is the greatest creative force on this planet.

    Once in a moon, a brilliant soul from the deepest depths of depravity would shoot through and join them, precisely because a middle-class did not exist as a natural filter. Only the truly exceptional could rise through the ranks, because elite taste did not have to pander to the mediocre and insecure middle-class mobs.

    The domination of the middle-class of our society and aesthetics changed all this. Their economic precarity bred a middling and cautious mentality. Rules and constraints had to introduced; specialisation and credentialism are the ugliest twins. This merely served to extinguish creativity and re-inforce risk aversion and herd behaviour, the dominant mental features of the middle-class.

    With these new aesthetic values, can we be surprised by what followed? Artistic brilliance fell off the cliff and never recovered. Technological progress has been ongoing but Art didn't just stagnate; it regressed.

    Verily, the destruction of the middle-class cannot happen soon enough.

    Replies: @AP, @songbird, @A123, @German_reader, @Dmitry, @Yevardian

    destruction of the middle-class

    Well, isn’t this an economic process we see in the last decade in America and postsoviet world including especially Russia. Our middle class is being eroded and becomes more like a working class. But a small minority of the middle class (e.g. in America, the more elite lawyers and doctors) access economic rents which place them almost in an upper class.

    In Western Europe and Japan, there is perhaps still some hope that the size and lifestyle of middle class will not begin eroding.

    As for creative professionals. In America, art schools are more expensive than Ivy League (https://www.washingtonpost.com/news/rampage/wp/2014/03/28/the-most-expensive-colleges-in-the-country-are-art-schools-not-ivies/), so it’s likely that these professions become increasingly only for children of families with above average income. Similar prices for film school, fashion college and music conservatory.

    But still in America, it has seemed much of the creative professionals have been from middle class families. For example, most famous recent American films directors like Stanley Kubrick, Steven Spielberg, Spike Lee – it’s children from very average income, middle class people, with parents who are teachers, engineers or doctors. .

    Also Martin Scorsese’s family are from working class professions. Quentin Tarantino’s parents’ seems to have not profession, from what I can understand from reading his biography from Wikipedia.

  602. German_reader says:
    @Yahya
    @German_reader


    For whatever reason the Ottoman empire didn’t even adopt printing on a large scale, so its intellectual culture was already backwards by that time

     

    The Ottoman Empire was intellectually and culturally sterile, but was still powerful and militarily advanced up to the 17th century. Though one could argue it’s military might was in large part a product of European technology and weaponry. Ottoman architecture was as impressive as any during the time period:


    http://media.islamicity.org/wp-content/uploads/2017/03/AdobeStock_126013644-1.jpeg


    Maybe that’s due to the bad filtering of immigrants Dmitry always goes on about,

     

    It almost certainly is. Compare the income levels of Arabs in America vs Arabs in Europe.

    And I don’t have any sympathy for the political system of the Ottoman Empire at all, a semi-efficient despotism (with bizarre mechanisms for the succession to the sultanate) at best.

     

    Well, like any other system, the Ottoman model has its pros and cons. I agree it was somewhat bizarre and depraved by the standards of the Current Year, but probably not so much on a historical curve. One obvious strength of the model is its stability and longevity - the same dynasty ruled the Empire for 600 years. It’s reliance on enslavement and oppression of Balkanoids was of course deplorable.

    however this isn’t limited to anti-black or anti-Arab racism, there have also been many Germanophobes, Russians hating Poles and viceversa, and Serbs hating all their neighbours etc. over the years here).

     

    I’d certainly agree with that. And I’ll add that anti-German sentiments seem to be surprisingly more common than anti-Arab sentiments, at least on Karlin’s blog (probably because of its Slavic demographic tilt). Anti-Arab sentiment on Unz is also somewhat counter-balanced by pro-Arab sentiment, since Arabs are perceived to be the enemies of Jews, and the “enemy of my enemy is my friend” for the anti-semites around here.

    And I’ll add that I agree with much of your anti-immigrant sentiments, even when related to Arabs in Germany. I have plenty of experience with living around the Arab rabble so to speak; so I’m not unfamiliar with their faults and deficiencies. I also sympathize with the fact that it’s impossible for you to express these sentiments off-line, without moral censure or social consequence. That said, there’s not much reason for anyone to express crude, mean-spirited racist remarks (not that I’m accusing you of doing that). It doesn’t help your political cause in any way. There are ways to express anti-immigrant views without being a racist (i.e. don’t directly refer to the race of the immigrant, don’t make blanket generalizations, don't use distasteful language etc.) Frankly, I think a lot of the crude remarks thrown around here have more to do with the character (or lack thereof) of the commenters themselves, rather than politics or anything else.

    Take the stereotypical lunatic Unz commentor (‘songbird’) on this blog, for instance. If you are familiar with his comments, you’d know he has a perverse obsession with blacks, and frequently makes crude, distasteful comments belittling them, for no apparent reason. One example is this comment here, which incidentally was in reply to you a few years ago:


    songbird says:
    @German_reader
    Let’s suppose, you merely took Europeans and set them down in America. Would they not say they loved diversity, once some negro accosted them in the airport with the question?

    Once, I was accosted with some formulation like “Sir, you don’t look racist, can I interview you as part of my college project about diversity?” Did I tell him that he was ape accosting me mere feet from where one of my ancestors died building the city that gorillas like him had invaded and defiled. That only 10% of blacks should be educated past the 6th grade? That they should all be sent back to Africa? No, I politely told him that I did not have the time, which was true enough, though I would I have told him that even if I were an old pensioner.

    https://www.unz.com/akarlin/open-thread-74/#comment-3178985
     

    What can possibly possess someone to make such a gratuitous and obnoxious comment such as this one? It seems obvious that deranged racists are loser-type failures who belittle other races as a vicarious way of obtaining a sense of superiority and self-esteem, and to deflect from feelings of inadequacy in one’s personal life. In the specific case of this ‘songbird’ freak, well he admitted before he was beaten by blacks as a teenager, so we can add deep-seated resentment as another explanation for why he is an inherently deranged personality.

    Personally I’m also not the biggest fan of Americans going on and on about evil Arabs, while either being oblivious to the pernicious effects of American foreign policy in the Mideast or even being enthusiastically in favour of it.

     

    Yes, every rant about Arab immigration to the West needs to start with a preface on the role Westerners played in bringing it about (colonization, invasion, meddling etc.) This isn't to say it’s entirely the West's fault; or that Arabs have no agency in the process. But to pretend as if the streams of refugees are "invaders"; while Westerners are innocent victims who are being taken advantage of by "ungrateful parasites"; is to ignore the obvious American/Western role in displacing these refugees in the first place.

    Replies: @sudden death, @German_reader, @utu

    It’s reliance on enslavement and oppression of Balkanoids was of course deplorable.

    [MORE]

    My impression is it was pretty despotic to its other subjects as well. Last year I read a general survey of the 17th century (Geoffrey Parker, Global Crisis. War, Climate Change and Catastrophe in the Seventeenth Century), and a lot of the details about the Ottoman empire were really hair-raising…like more or less mad sultans being egged on by fanatical Islamic scholars to persecute and execute men for smoking tobacco or visiting coffee-houses. Now it would probably be unfair to single out the Ottoman empire as especially bad, either for its bouts of religious fanaticism (at a time when there was the 30-years war in Germany and Puritans in England banned Christmas and theatre performances), or for its aggressive wars and importation and consumption of slaves (after all Christian powers did similar things too). But I don’t see much reason to overly romanticize it either, as is often the case today in multiculturalist Western discourse.

    I have plenty of experience with living around the Arab rabble so to speak

    I can imagine. I don’t want to draw you in a discussion about Egyptian affairs (iirc you once stated that it could have negative consequences for you), but I really wonder about all those ill-educated masses in Egypt and other Arab countries who have little to hope for and who might follow some demagogue, whether of an Islamic nature, or of some other kind which can’t be foreseen right now. I suppose falling birth rates might eventually defuse this danger somewhat, but to me it seems like a really grave problem for which there doesn’t seem to be a good solution.

    There are ways to express anti-immigrant views without being a racist (i.e. don’t directly refer to the race of the immigrant, don’t make blanket generalizations etc.)

    The kind of sentiments expressed on UR (open reference to race, arguments about genetically determined IQ and behaviour profiles of different ethnic groups) aren’t openly aired by Western anti-immigration politicians anyway, at most they’re implicitly hinted at. But the reality is you can’t really criticize immigration for any reason in Western societies today (apart maybe from minor exceptions like Denmark), not for reasons of national cohesion, or because of the cultural and religious beliefs of immigrants (that is racism without races), but also not for economic and environmental reasons either, which is often suggested as a supposedly viable way to criticize immigration. Left-wingers in Germany have even invented a term Nützlichkeitsrassismus (racism of utility, that is judging immigrants according to their supposed value for the labour market) to explicitly reject economic arguments for immigration restriction.
    I suppose there are some good arguments against the more extreme sort of racist comments on UR (after all it’s probably not really constructive to get in the mindset for some purifying race war), but imo “You’re damaging anti-immigration arguments with that” isn’t one, because any calls for immigration restriction will be seen as an attack on their fundamental values by much of the present establishment anyway.

    Take the stereotypical lunatic Unz commentor (‘songbird’) on this blog, for instance. If you are familiar with his comments, you’d know he has a perverse obsession with blacks,

    Well, I suppose songbird can defend himself, if he wants to, and I don’t really want to write that much about it. Certainly his anti-black statements could be considered as uncharitable. But imo you’re making the same mistake as utu and are ignoring the larger context. songbird would probably face severe social ostracism or even persecution by the state if he made such comments in public. Whereas the ethnocentrism, and I think at least in some cases quite blatant anti-white racism, of American blacks seems to be quite deliberately stoked by the establishment. It may seem hyperbolic now, but I think something like CRT could develop into a more or less genocidal ideology (and arguably there has long been a genocidal strain among some of the more extreme sections of America’s blacks, e.g. look up something like the Zebra murders in the 1970s…so why possibly encourage that kind of thinking?). And that stuff is seeping over into Europe too and is being promoted with establishment support here as well (except maybe in France, where it has apparently been identified as a threat to republican values). So I think just focusing on songbird’s anti-black statements, without taking into account what is actually happening in the larger society, is one-sided.

    But to pretend as if the streams of refugees are “invaders”; while Westerners are innocent victims who are being taken advantage of by “ungrateful parasites”; is to ignore the obvious American/Western role in displacing these refugees in the first place.

    Sure, to a considerable extent I agree with that. However you have to take my specifically German perspective into account. Germany may not be totally innocent (which country is?), but it didn’t participate (at least not directly) in the Iraq and Libyan wars, and its role in Syria seems comparatively minor to me as well. There’s also not that much Germany or other European countries can do against American sanctions regimes (though I certainly would wish for a more independent European approach in these matters). So on some level I feel like my country has to foot the bill for developments we haven’t had much agency over.

    • Thanks: sher singh
    • Replies: @songbird
    @German_reader


    Well, I suppose songbird can defend himself, if he wants to
     
    I'll confine myself to this sentiment, which I think is the most charitable: I wish Aaron B were here to teach Yahya about the benefits of Dhao.

    He need not feel endless resentment towards Euros for their accomplishments, only invent a more non-synchronous version of history than that which he was already invented. It is easy. For instance, what if Alexander did not conquer Egypt, but rather had his heart conquered by the magnificence of Egyptians?

    Nor need he claim that Hungary is the Fourth Reich and must be crushed before it threatens world peace. But only that Arabs invented the internal combustion engine and synthetic chemistry.

    Putting aside his Thomm-like assertions, from the pictures I have seen of that neighborhood, combined with his strange attitude, and the fact that his father married down a few rungs in the socio-economic ladder, I judge that it would also benefit him to adopt some of the more benign elements of Afrocentrism.

    Replies: @Emil Nikola Richard, @Yahya

    , @Yahya
    @German_reader


    I suppose falling birth rates might eventually defuse this danger somewhat

     

    Birth rates in Egypt, as with the rest of the Arab world, have indeed steeply declined (by roughly 50%) from ~5-6 TFR to ~2-3 TFR over the previous few decades. Last I checked Egypt’s estimated TFR stood at 2.61 by the end of 2021, lower than in 2020 (2.93), 2015 (3.68), and 2010 (3.37). I'd predict it would reach replacement levels in 20-or-years. Incidentally, Egypt’s current TFR would put it below Israel at 2.99, which means almost every Arab country is now below Israel in fertility. A humorous turn of events. Also demonstrates that Israel is the real model for any first world country seeking to increase their TFR.

    https://www.unz.com/wp-content/uploads/2020/06/global-baby-bust-2020.png

    I have somewhat mixed feelings regarding Egypt’s rapid population expansion in the 20th century. On one level, the population increase had very real tangible negative consequences on the environment and physical surroundings. I’m reminded of this every time I drive through downtown Cairo; and see the mass of people living in make-shift brick-houses which were quickly built in the 70s-90s to accommodate the incoming mass of migrants from the countryside. Older people in Egypt are quick to point out that Cairo in the 50s and 60s looked more like Paris than the Sao Paolo it is today.

    And of course the population size has made it all but impossible for Egypt to be self-sufficient agriculturally; the Nile couldn’t keep up with the population explosion. Whereas in antiquity Egypt had been a breadbasket of the Roman Empire; and its wealthiest and most economically vital province; the country is sadly now a net food importer. Net imports might account for about 20% of domestic consumption. The Malthusian dynamics also made it difficult for Egypt to make substantial gains in per capita GDP in the 20th century; though this is starting to change (more on this below).

    But, as this blog's host once perceptively noted: population is power. Egypt's population gives it more power and importance; and more importantly, the potential for cultural renaissance should contingent factors come into alignment at a point in time. Population is a very much understated and overlooked factor in explaining why some civilizations rise and fall. A look at 1900 demographics would demonstrate how that is:

    https://i.imgur.com/we6EIjI.png

    https://brilliantmaps.com/worlds-population-in-1900/

    Here's a quick list of figures for various European/Western nations:
    US = 76M
    Russia = 68M
    German Empire = 56M
    Japan = 42M
    France = 38M
    UK = 38M
    Italy = 32M

    A now here's a list of MENA countries/entities:
    Ottoman Empire = 30M
    Egypt = 8M
    Morocco = 8M
    Persia = 7M
    Arabia = 4M
    Algeria = 4M
    Tunisia = 1.9M
    Libya = 0.4M

    When comparatively tiny France (38M) has a bigger population than the entirety of North Africa (23M) from Egypt to Morocco; does it not become obvious why France was able to dominate the region during the 20th century? When Britain's population likewise exceeds the entirety of the Ottoman Middle East; even excluding it's subjects in India or the Far East; does it not become obvious why Britain was able to control and bully the previously powerful Ottoman Empire?

    And couldn't the Western European ascendancy and intellectual flourishing, which far outstripped that of any previous civilization, be in large part explained by their demographic heft? This isn’t to say population is everything; 2021 Bangladesh (164M) is no more powerful or culturally vital than Russia (144M). Moreover, population increases can be harmful if they only occur at the bottom. Thankfully, in Egypt, the educated class were and are only slightly less fertile than the masses; so the absolute number of educated Egyptians has increased alongside the peasantry. In the upper class; there is no good data, but I counted the family sizes of my schoolmates; and they came to an average of 6 (2 parents, and 4 kids); which incidentally means the Egyptian upper class may be more fertile than the middle (though less than the lower). At any rate, population size in an absolute sense is certainly a vital factor that ought to be on the mind of every long-term thinking strategist.

    As for Egypt; the population is currently at around 100M and is projected to reach 143M by 2050, according to the Population Reference Bureau (PRB) data sheet. As population increases, the absolute number of cognitive elites (>130IQ) increases; no matter how small a fraction they are as a percentage of population. In the case of Egypt; there is no reliable data on average IQ (the Lynn study was comical; it only had a few hundred samples for Egypt); and is at any rate severely depressed due to a variety of environmental factors; (a) mass illiteracy (30% for over 15s), (b) malnutrition (see this UN report: https://www.unicef.org/egypt/nutrition), (c) cousin marriage (30-40% in certain areas), (d) cultural values (fatalism) etc. The best proxy we have for Arab genotypic IQ is Israel; which is at least developed so removes the environmental depressors to a large extent (though not entirely). Arabs there score around 92-94 in proxy tests; which I think is about right (I would appreciate if you can alert me of any IQ studies done on Arabs in Germany should they appear).

    If we assume average genotypic IQ in Egypt is 93, and SD a typical 15; a quick calculation of z-scores on excel provides the absolute number of cognitive elites (130IQ+) for a population of 100M:

    Average IQ = 93
    Standard Deviation = 15
    Population = 100M

    There are 668,886 Egyptians with IQ's of 130 and above. By 2050, should the population reach 143M, Egypt's cognitive elite would increase in size to 975,097. A very ample number for cultural production. Put in perspective, a country like Ireland, with a population of 5.5M and average IQ of 100; has 147,126 IQ130+ individuals; roughly 4.5 times less cognitive elites than 2021 Egypt; and 6.6 times less than 2050 Egypt. Greece (10M) has 227,501 cognitive elites. The Arab world at large, with a population of 380M people, has roughly 2.6M IQ130+ individuals. Germany, with a population of 80M and average IQ of 100, has 1.8M cognitive elites.

    As you can see, whereas in 1900, the German Empire had more people than the entirety of MENA; today there are 5 times more Arabs than Germans; and there are more smart Arabs than there are smart Germans. And there is the story of the rise and fall of the German Empire.


    but I really wonder about all those ill-educated masses in Egypt and other Arab countries who have little to hope

     

    The first thing to understand is that Egypt is not as poor as you’d expect. People, not entirely unreasonably, generally perceive Egypt to be a poverty-ridden basket case, in part because it’s in Africa, and the associations of poverty associated with that continent. In addition, they are vaguely aware of the foreign aid the US provides to Egypt, and so assume Egyptians are only able to feed themselves on behalf of their generous donors. All of the above is exaggerated at best, and flat out wrong at worst. Egypt is not a “poor country”, but can more appropriately be termed a “middle income country”, which incidentally is the designation given to it by multiple world agencies. A look at per capita GDP (PPP) for a variety of countries would demonstrate how that is:

    Brazil: $15,643
    Ukraine: $13,943
    Egypt: $13,083
    Vietnam: $11,677
    Pakistan: $5,224
    Nigeria: $5,280

    Egypt is more along the level of Ukraine and Brazil, than Nigeria or Pakistan. As for foreign aid; almost all of it comes from the US in the form of military equipment, not food or developmental initiatives. And foreign “aid” only constitutes a minuscule proportion of GDP - 1% of gross national income. So in summary, Egypt isn’t really that poor, nor does it rely on donors for food or sustenance. As for it’s future prospects; things are looking good as of present. The economy grew at a solid clip over the previous decade (4-6%); and should continue to grow as Egypt escapes its Malthusian trap and makes improvements in literacy and education. According to the Maddison project; in 1950 Egypt's GDP per capita was roughly 13% of the United Kingdoms in 1970 the ratio went down to 11% - no doubt due to Nasser's disastrous Socialist policies. In 1980 it improved to 16% as Sadat took measures to liberalize the economy; though the ratio stalled throughout the 80s. By 1990 Egypt reached 20% of the UK's per capita GDP; and has been gaining on the West ever since. Today the ratio stands at 31%.


    might follow some demagogue, whether of an Islamic nature, or of some other kind which can’t be foreseen right now

     

    It's within the realm of possibility that Egypt collapses into a state of Islamist morass; or even secular demagoguery. It would be less likely if the West stopped insisting on "democracy" at every turn, which is more likely to encourage demagoguery than discourage it. I don't know what the future holds; but for me personally, I don’t have any intention of departing Egypt for richer countries like Saudi Arabia (where I have citizenship) or the West (where I could easily get one).

    The reasons are manifold. But the one most relevant for you is this: it's not at all bad to live in a "poor" country like Egypt - especially if you are somewhat well off. There are advantages after all which are not obtainable in richer countries - affordable drivers and maids, cheap food and other essential goods etc. And educated people abandoning a poor country for richer ones is just despicable in my opinion. I can see why the poor people would want to immigrate, but there's not much reason for the affluent - life is just as good here (I've had experience in both). Anyway, the way this is relevant to you is that Germany may not become an "inhospitable" third-world hellhole for your progeny, even if demographics change. If your children are intelligent and hard-working; and armed with a practical education (i.e. not gender studies) they can have as good a standard of living in post-German Germany as they could in the Fatherland. This is isn't to say you shouldn’t oppose immigration on ethnic and cultural grounds; but don't worry too much about economics.


    But imo you’re making the same mistake as utu and are ignoring the larger context. songbird would probably face severe social ostracism or even persecution by the state if he made such comments in public. Whereas the ethnocentrism, and I think at least in some cases quite blatant anti-white racism, of American blacks seems to be quite deliberately stoked by the establishment.
     
    Engaging in whataboutism ("blacks are racists too!"), or weak argumentation ("he's only an obnoxious racist online because he's too cowardly to be offline!") is not typical of your otherwise logical and level-headed comments.

    So on some level I feel like my country has to foot the bill for developments we haven’t had much agency over.

     

    Welcome to the club.

    Replies: @German_reader, @Shortsword

  603. @melanf
    @Dmitry


    This is a masterwork, if you conceived this originally?
     
    I conceived the pictures myself, at the request of my wife for a homemade calendar. On reddit, this comic has collected 6 likes - an objective assessment of my artistic abilities.
    But Marc Chagall, without his bloated fame, collected even fewer likes on reddit with his pictures. But Velasquez or Rubens would easily collect tens of thousands of likes

    don’t give your artistic talent for free
     
    Well, my stupid drawings save me money - my wife gave this New Year's card to friends, so about a thousand rubles were saved (without postcards she would have had to buy souvenirs)

    https://c.radikal.ru/c15/2112/d9/aae886023732.jpg


    I can put this in my office and tell people I made it
     
    I don't mind. But technically, my signature is hidden in this pictures

    Replies: @Dmitry

    conceived the pictures myself,

    Well you have creativity, not in terms of drawing, but invention and sense of humor. Some studies in a comic drawing class and you can change professions.

    comic has collected 6 likes – an objective assessment of my artistic abilities

    The important criteria would be what proportion of voters like vs dislike. If there are few votes, it just means that a post was not visible to many people. If you want something viral in Reddit, you can use bots to increase votes, as there is almost no security against this in Reddit’s platform.

    I wouldn’t want my ideas to become viral in Reddit before finalized, because if it becomes viral then a thousand art students or comics will copy it.

  604. Has anyone seen Munro’s emotional speech about America’s automobile industry and how he believes it will decline due to lack of adaptation to EVs?

    I recommend watching his speech on 2x speech as he speaks sometimes slowly.

    He can be perhaps too optimistic for China’s automobile industry, as he doesn’t think about the poor investment climate in China, or that human resources will often try to exit there.

    He doesn’t talk about the expiry of LPF patents, which will allow expansion of battery production outside China.

    He also seems pessimistic for American automobile, in relation to some of this other videos. For example, he was so happy when describing Ford’s new electric motor.
    https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=g3qWBmz-j2k.

  605. @German_reader
    @AP

    I might try to find out more, but here's some interesting data (from 2016/17, so maybe already out of date given developments since 2015):
    https://www.stadt-wien.at/bildung/kulturkampf-in-wiener-schulen.html

    Key points:
    - Somewhat over 50% (52,5% according to another site) of all pupils in Vienna is speaking a language other than German at home/in their private environment.
    In public elementary schools only 37% of all children speak German at home. 15% speak Turkish, and another 15% Bosnian/Croatian/Serbian. 33% speak some other language.
    - There seems to be significant segregation in the education system (tiered along similar lines as in Germany). Basically migrant proles dominate the "lower" school forms; there it's about 75% who speak another language than German at home. Whereas in Gymnasien it's only 43%, and in private elementary schools 68% of children speak German at home.
    - In 2017/18 there were 35 000 children from Islamic families in the Vienna school system. In elementary schools their numbers had almost doubled since 2005/06.
    There seems to have been some public debate a few years ago, when a left-wing teacher spoke out against what she described as increasing influence of radical Islamic ideas among her pupils (so maybe a similar dynamic, though at a lower level, as in France).

    Replies: @AP

    A very large percentage of kids in Vienna go to private schools (something like 40% in kindergarten). I wonder if these are native parents segregating their kids from “undesirable” migrant children.

    • Replies: @German_reader
    @AP


    I wonder if these are native parents segregating their kids from “undesirable” migrant children.
     
    You can bet that's a large factor. Private school attendance is also on the rise in Germany. Confessional schools are popular, and I don't believe it's because parents are suddenly so keen on a Catholic education for their children. It's a way of isolating one's children from children who come from the dysfunctional underclass, often of migrant background. And tbh, while I don't like the hypocrisy involved in such choices, it's an understandable and to some extent legitimate desire imo.

    Replies: @LatW

  606. @Dmitry
    @AP

    Bourgeoisie refers to owners of means of production (i.e. capital goods) in a capitalist economy. This is the upper class after industrialization.

    Aristocracy in the agrarian economy before, were usually determined as the owners of lands (which was the most important means of production in pre-industrial economy).

    Although if I recall from a history book, most of the pre-industrial upper class in Europe had climbed from merchant families, while a smaller proportion from military families.


    aristocrats set the tone and paid for everything
     
    Obviously in e.g. 15th century Italy, most of the money was with still owners of land, as the means of production was still in agrarian economy (as in still it is in countries like India today). Although the economy in Italy was developing ahead of the historical average, and the wealth of Medici family who were largest patrons of the Renaissance, was already from banking.

    In the 19th century, most of the funding for art, would be from owners of the capital goods (e.g. bourgeoisie), as this became the centre of the economy. Bourgeoisie become absurdly wealthy as a class in industrial economies after the industrial revolution.

    In 21st century, the money will be increasingly with hi-tech sector, as this is becoming one of the main means of production. We are a kind of historical witness already seeing this crazy transition of money to hi-tech industry.

    This crazy flood of money in hi-tech sector now, must be like watching when the wealth was flooding to owners of capital goods during the industrial revolution. But it likely now that hi-tech sector will become the new upper class as the century continues.

    Replies: @AP

    Bourgeoisie refers to owners of means of production (i.e. capital goods) in a capitalist economy

    That is the Marxist term. I think of it as middle class, and includes many lawyers for example.

    Although if I recall from a history book, most of the pre-industrial upper class in Europe had climbed from merchant families, while a smaller proportion from military families.

    In eastern Europe the roots seem to have been from soldiers or pre-agricultural tribal elders (boyars).

    In the 19th century, most of the funding for art, would be from owners of the capital goods (e.g. bourgeoisie), as this became the centre of the economy.

    They hadn’t completely taken over society yet (at least not psychologically) and still aspired upwards. Musil had some funny observations of actual aristocratic homes being run down while those of new rich being far more perfect approximations. But the result was that beauty was still being sponsored and produced. Eventually the trend became downward.

    • Replies: @melanf
    @AP


    In eastern Europe .... pre-agricultural tribal elders (boyars).
     
    ?????
    Agriculture in eastern Europe has dominated over any other types of activity for at least 5,000 years. Boyars when they appear in written sources are definitely the aristocracy of agricultural society

    Replies: @AP

    , @Dmitry
    @AP


    Marxist term. I think of it as middle class,
     
    Before the industrial revolution, burghers are wealthy citizens with voting rights within the cities.

    They would often include professions like merchants, bankers and lawyers, who would later begin to acquire capital goods (factories, ships, means of production).

    As a proportion of the population, they don't exactly correspond to middle class in a modern sense though, as even in pre-industrial economy they are still not far from a "top 1%" (which medieval Bernie Sanders would be concerned with).

    I assume that a lot of the Italian Renaissance was funded by the equivalent of burghers, within their city-states. But haven't read a book about this, so I guess we should ask German Reader.


    roots seem to have been from soldiers or pre-agricultural tribal elders
     
    For some of the most powerful families. But many times merchants became wealthy or influential enough to purchase land, and then would annex into a landowning aristocracy.

    Musil had some funny observations of actual aristocratic homes being run down while those of new rich being far more perfect approximations

     

    Because there was a strong economic transition, where agriculture becomes less profitable, compared to manufacturing.

    Just as today, we see rotation away from manufacturing, and the development of "rust belt" in areas which had once been produced vast wealth.

    Although the landowning families would still be in the political and military class, and anyone related to the political class can usually secure not the worst of incomes, especially with the high corruption that was tolerated in the past even in Western Europe.

    In countries like England, this is today that the country's most influential woman of the late 20th century, Princess Diana (from Spencer family, one of the most famous and prestigious families in England, which is the family also of Winston Churchill), can be buried in land, her family has owned since 1508. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Althorp

    "It has been held by the prominent aristocratic Spencer family for more than 500 years, and has been owned by Charles Spencer, 9th Earl Spencer since 1992.

    Althorp is mentioned as a small hamlet in the Domesday Book as "Olletorp", and by 1377 it had become a village with a population of more than fifty people. By 1505 there were no longer any tenants living there, and in 1508, John Spencer purchased Althorp estate with the funds generated from his family's sheep-rearing business."

    Replies: @AP

  607. @A123
    @AP

    Hmmmm.... We might be having a terminology problem rather than an actual disagreement.
    ______

    America does not have a "caste" system, so the composition of the aristocracy is much more fluid than other countries.

    Here is an easy test -- What "class" is Hunter Biden?

    -- If Hunter was "middle class" he would be in prison or dead.
    -- Because Hunter is "upper class", though nouveau riche, he walks.

    Hunter obtained his sinecure on Burisma's board because his family is part of shallow, bribe taking, corrupt aristocracy.
    _______

    Here is another defining question -- Maxine Waters is officially only worth ~$3MM. Unofficially, it almost certainly $20-30MM.

    Is she " lower class", "middle class", or an aristocrat?

    PEACE 😇

    Replies: @German_reader, @songbird, @AP

    America does not have a “caste” system, so the composition of the aristocracy is much more fluid than other countries.

    America never really had an aristocracy, except perhaps for the southern planters which were a sideshow. But those guys lacked a peasantry with whom they could enjoy a natural harmony and instead imported African slaves, which was a shameful and debasing practice. Still, it’s no coincidence that the South was overrepresented in American cultural production.

    America’s core has been middle class, which has been both good and bad.

  608. @German_reader
    @sudden death

    Well, Caracalla was a North African-Syrian mix iirc, so not surprising (though his bust hardly looks "Semitic" or "negroid" imo). The real question is how much change there was at the general population level in Italy. Some of the more recent DNA papers seem to indicate it was a lot, and relatively sudden, in the early imperial period. But of course it's not totally clear how representative the samples in those studies are, and there are claims that this "diverse" population was concentrated in the cities (and therefore had low fertility), whereas the countryside supposedly retained more of an old Italic character. I can't say I have any firm opinion on the matter myself.

    Replies: @songbird, @LatW

    Well, Caracalla was a North African-Syrian mix iirc, so not surprising (though his bust hardly looks “Semitic” or “negroid” imo).

    Frankly, the bust looks kind of Celtic. The facial features are definitely not Middle Eastern (this look is quite common in Western Europe and the British Isles), and some Celts have thick kinky hair (it’s just typically red / auburn). He was born in Gaul.

    • Replies: @sudden death
    @LatW

    There might be some facial resemblance, but the hair type/texture of dying Gaul seems to be quite different imho:

    https://upload.wikimedia.org/wikipedia/commons/6/6f/Dying_GaulDSCF6738.jpg

    Replies: @songbird

  609. @Yahya
    @German_reader


    For whatever reason the Ottoman empire didn’t even adopt printing on a large scale, so its intellectual culture was already backwards by that time

     

    The Ottoman Empire was intellectually and culturally sterile, but was still powerful and militarily advanced up to the 17th century. Though one could argue it’s military might was in large part a product of European technology and weaponry. Ottoman architecture was as impressive as any during the time period:


    http://media.islamicity.org/wp-content/uploads/2017/03/AdobeStock_126013644-1.jpeg


    Maybe that’s due to the bad filtering of immigrants Dmitry always goes on about,

     

    It almost certainly is. Compare the income levels of Arabs in America vs Arabs in Europe.

    And I don’t have any sympathy for the political system of the Ottoman Empire at all, a semi-efficient despotism (with bizarre mechanisms for the succession to the sultanate) at best.

     

    Well, like any other system, the Ottoman model has its pros and cons. I agree it was somewhat bizarre and depraved by the standards of the Current Year, but probably not so much on a historical curve. One obvious strength of the model is its stability and longevity - the same dynasty ruled the Empire for 600 years. It’s reliance on enslavement and oppression of Balkanoids was of course deplorable.

    however this isn’t limited to anti-black or anti-Arab racism, there have also been many Germanophobes, Russians hating Poles and viceversa, and Serbs hating all their neighbours etc. over the years here).

     

    I’d certainly agree with that. And I’ll add that anti-German sentiments seem to be surprisingly more common than anti-Arab sentiments, at least on Karlin’s blog (probably because of its Slavic demographic tilt). Anti-Arab sentiment on Unz is also somewhat counter-balanced by pro-Arab sentiment, since Arabs are perceived to be the enemies of Jews, and the “enemy of my enemy is my friend” for the anti-semites around here.

    And I’ll add that I agree with much of your anti-immigrant sentiments, even when related to Arabs in Germany. I have plenty of experience with living around the Arab rabble so to speak; so I’m not unfamiliar with their faults and deficiencies. I also sympathize with the fact that it’s impossible for you to express these sentiments off-line, without moral censure or social consequence. That said, there’s not much reason for anyone to express crude, mean-spirited racist remarks (not that I’m accusing you of doing that). It doesn’t help your political cause in any way. There are ways to express anti-immigrant views without being a racist (i.e. don’t directly refer to the race of the immigrant, don’t make blanket generalizations, don't use distasteful language etc.) Frankly, I think a lot of the crude remarks thrown around here have more to do with the character (or lack thereof) of the commenters themselves, rather than politics or anything else.

    Take the stereotypical lunatic Unz commentor (‘songbird’) on this blog, for instance. If you are familiar with his comments, you’d know he has a perverse obsession with blacks, and frequently makes crude, distasteful comments belittling them, for no apparent reason. One example is this comment here, which incidentally was in reply to you a few years ago:


    songbird says:
    @German_reader
    Let’s suppose, you merely took Europeans and set them down in America. Would they not say they loved diversity, once some negro accosted them in the airport with the question?

    Once, I was accosted with some formulation like “Sir, you don’t look racist, can I interview you as part of my college project about diversity?” Did I tell him that he was ape accosting me mere feet from where one of my ancestors died building the city that gorillas like him had invaded and defiled. That only 10% of blacks should be educated past the 6th grade? That they should all be sent back to Africa? No, I politely told him that I did not have the time, which was true enough, though I would I have told him that even if I were an old pensioner.

    https://www.unz.com/akarlin/open-thread-74/#comment-3178985
     

    What can possibly possess someone to make such a gratuitous and obnoxious comment such as this one? It seems obvious that deranged racists are loser-type failures who belittle other races as a vicarious way of obtaining a sense of superiority and self-esteem, and to deflect from feelings of inadequacy in one’s personal life. In the specific case of this ‘songbird’ freak, well he admitted before he was beaten by blacks as a teenager, so we can add deep-seated resentment as another explanation for why he is an inherently deranged personality.

    Personally I’m also not the biggest fan of Americans going on and on about evil Arabs, while either being oblivious to the pernicious effects of American foreign policy in the Mideast or even being enthusiastically in favour of it.

     

    Yes, every rant about Arab immigration to the West needs to start with a preface on the role Westerners played in bringing it about (colonization, invasion, meddling etc.) This isn't to say it’s entirely the West's fault; or that Arabs have no agency in the process. But to pretend as if the streams of refugees are "invaders"; while Westerners are innocent victims who are being taken advantage of by "ungrateful parasites"; is to ignore the obvious American/Western role in displacing these refugees in the first place.

    Replies: @sudden death, @German_reader, @utu

    How Europeans who are against immigration from ME and Africa should talk and make their case that would not hurt your feelings somewhere there in Egypt? But the case must be made that Europe should no longer accept ME and African immigrants. I am writing this believing that you too want to stop emigrations of your countrymen. Let’s make a deal: you stop coming and we promise you won’t hear a single bad word about Arabs and Muslims from us.

    • Replies: @Yahya
    @utu

    If you are going to insert yourself into the conversation GR and I were having, you could have at least made some arguments of substance; or at the very least been coherent.


    stop emigrations of your countrymen.
     
    My countrymen are not immigrating.

    That would be Syrians; whose country you are actively destroying with your demented sanctions.

    Let’s make a deal: you stop coming and
     
    Maybe, if you stop the bombings; the invasions; the sanctions; the meddling; and the rabid support for Israel.

    Tough order, I know.

    we promise
     
    Who made you the spokesman Westerners or Europeans?

    you won’t hear a single bad word about Arabs and Muslims from us.
     
    Doubt it.
    , @Dmitry
    @utu

    Yevardian is angry with Thulean, because Thulean said something racist against Armenians, after alts had said something positive about Armenians.

    Ironically, AaronB (who is usually very relaxed) was angry with Yevardian , because he said something antisemitic about Jews. Even though Armenians and Jews are supposed to have a natural affinity, and AaronB was praising Armenians as elite and cosmopolitan against "jealous peasant Russians"*. https://www.unz.com/akarlin/russias-options-in-artsakh-war/#comment-4193469

    Daniel Chieh was always seeming angry with anyone who didn't praise China.

    Karlin is a Middle Eastern looking dude that must experience xenophobia when he was in America or England, but he wrote anti-African-American comments according to Thulean https://www.unz.com/akarlin/open-thread-170/#comment-5036670

    And he was definitely promoting in Caucasian style, of anti-Ukraine sentiment. https://www.unz.com/akarlin/ukraine-returns-to-tradition

    This blog used to be flooded with people from Balkans, who were breaking down like badly programmed robots when they found another Balkan person from a different nationality.

    Where are the Balkans people now, with arguments about which nationality has a stronger dog?

    People like to insult the other nationality, but then feel irrationally sensitive when the concept they identified with is insulted. There is the asymmetry, where users are easy to give insult, but very difficult to accept insult. Some Buddhist lessons here.


    am writing this believing that you too want to stop emigrations of your countrymen. Let’s make a deal: you stop coming and we promise you won’t hear a single bad word about Arabs and Muslims from us.
     
    I'm sure, we are filtered to be some of the world's least influential people here. Where is this illusion we have any control lol?

    -

    * I like how you and Aaronb recently implying the same association of Russians and peasants. But I was growing vegetables in coronavirus lockdown. The inescapable conclusions of my failed efforts that vegetable growing requires more intelligence and skill, than at least modern office plankton are able to provide.

    Replies: @Mr. Hack, @utu

    , @Svidomyatheart
    @utu

    You are lashing out at rank and file muslims meanwhile, the elephant in the room is this:

    In just the last 2 weeks since 2022 you have 2 cases of Europe massively supporting Muslims once again

    case 1

    https://www.rferl.org/a/eu-balkans-bosnia-serbs-dodik-/31648435.html

    Case 2

    https://www.euractiv.com/section/energy/news/greece-fumes-as-washington-loses-interest-in-eastmed-gas-pipeline/

    Something must be very serious if Israel's needs were overridden. Or maybe US and Israel working together on something secret who knows....the bottom line remains is that Europe is saving the Turks for the 1000th time.

    Replies: @utu, @A123

  610. @Thulean Friend
    @songbird

    The undesirables are the middle-class, more than any other class.

    Artistic brilliance was primarily achieved by aristocrats unconstrained by earthly pursuits but who leisurely indulged in their fanciest vanities. It is this reckless abandon that is the greatest creative force on this planet.

    Once in a moon, a brilliant soul from the deepest depths of depravity would shoot through and join them, precisely because a middle-class did not exist as a natural filter. Only the truly exceptional could rise through the ranks, because elite taste did not have to pander to the mediocre and insecure middle-class mobs.

    The domination of the middle-class of our society and aesthetics changed all this. Their economic precarity bred a middling and cautious mentality. Rules and constraints had to introduced; specialisation and credentialism are the ugliest twins. This merely served to extinguish creativity and re-inforce risk aversion and herd behaviour, the dominant mental features of the middle-class.

    With these new aesthetic values, can we be surprised by what followed? Artistic brilliance fell off the cliff and never recovered. Technological progress has been ongoing but Art didn't just stagnate; it regressed.

    Verily, the destruction of the middle-class cannot happen soon enough.

    Replies: @AP, @songbird, @A123, @German_reader, @Dmitry, @Yevardian

    You and AaronB should have a some greatly stimulating discussions, a la Ward No. 6, in the asylum together someday.

    • Replies: @Thulean Friend
    @Yevardian

    What would a caucasoid like you know about any of this? The achievements of your "people" can be summed up on the back of a postage stamp.

    Replies: @silviosilver

    , @German_reader
    @Yevardian

    You can say a lot about AaronB, but at least he never came up with such insane trolling as TF's "let's cull 80% of manoids" (also interesting that TF so readily resorts to collective denigration of Armenians in response to your comment, pretty telling).
    I hope AaronB didn't get eaten by bears on his trip to Wyoming or wherever he intended to go over Christmas, among all the spiritual tosh he wrote some of his comments were actually interesting imo and I'd like to see him back here.

    Replies: @Yellowface Anon

  611. @AP
    @Dmitry


    Bourgeoisie refers to owners of means of production (i.e. capital goods) in a capitalist economy
     
    That is the Marxist term. I think of it as middle class, and includes many lawyers for example.

    Although if I recall from a history book, most of the pre-industrial upper class in Europe had climbed from merchant families, while a smaller proportion from military families.
     
    In eastern Europe the roots seem to have been from soldiers or pre-agricultural tribal elders (boyars).

    In the 19th century, most of the funding for art, would be from owners of the capital goods (e.g. bourgeoisie), as this became the centre of the economy.
     
    They hadn't completely taken over society yet (at least not psychologically) and still aspired upwards. Musil had some funny observations of actual aristocratic homes being run down while those of new rich being far more perfect approximations. But the result was that beauty was still being sponsored and produced. Eventually the trend became downward.

    Replies: @melanf, @Dmitry

    In eastern Europe …. pre-agricultural tribal elders (boyars).

    ?????
    Agriculture in eastern Europe has dominated over any other types of activity for at least 5,000 years. Boyars when they appear in written sources are definitely the aristocracy of agricultural society

    • Replies: @AP
    @melanf

    You are correct and I was mistaken. I was thinking of the Slavs in their ancient homeland in the swamps and forests where in addition to raising crops, fishing and hunting and cattle breeding were also important activities but it would be wrong not to classify these as agricultural societies. Their skill at agriculture contributed to their population expansion.

  612. @Dmitry
    @sudden death

    There was probably natural diversity in the Roman population, as there is in many Mediterranean nationalities today.

    But all this range of native Mediterranean nationalities must have appeared relatively normal to Greeks and Romans, as they don't seem to write about endogenous appearance of other Mediterranean people. They don't write about even appearance of Carthaginians. They don't write about a difference between Greeks and Roman appearance.

    By comparison, in "Germania" (Tacitus), writes famously about the strange and exotic appearance of Germans, and their large size, etc.

    So, you receive the impression, Northern European nationalities seemed more visually exotic, or foreign, in the Roman text. Mediterranean nationalities must have seem not too unusual to them for discussion.


    elite level visually documented quite well thanx to the realistic mastery of ancient sculptors,
     
    There is also change in the aesthetics expressed by the sculptors in the Roman Empire. Notice they start to add more lines above the eyes in so many sculptors.

    Replies: @LatW

    By comparison, in “Germania” (Tacitus), writes famously about the strange and exotic appearance of Germans, and their large size, etc.

    The descriptions of the Varian Disaster are quite captivating in this regard, the Romans were of smaller stature but carried all the superior artifacts of the Roman civilization as they marched through the forest, imagine Varus riding slowly on his horse, wearing his intimidating steel mask and carrying the majestic imperial eagle standard. And yet they were smaller in size. Although the Roman legionaries were hand picked and typically taller and more robust than the average Roman citizen.

    Arminius (Hermann), a true embodiment of the ancient hero Sigurd, was often portrayed with long wavy hair and an elongated face. Obviously very freedom loving, since he was willing to give up his Roman military career to protect his people.

    • Replies: @melanf
    @LatW


    Arminius (Hermann), a true embodiment of the ancient hero Sigurd,
     
    As far as I know, philologists claim that "Arminius" could not be a distortion of the name Herman (i.e. Arminius was not called Herman - his Germanic name is unknown). To assert (based on the presence of some songs about Arminius mentioned by Tacitus) that Arminius is Sigurd's prototype is a very dubious assumption

    Obviously very freedom loving, since he was willing to give up his Roman military career to protect his people.
     
    These people eventually killed Arminius out of love for freedom, as Arminius sought to restrict this very freedom in favor of his own power.
    We will never know Arminius' motives - it could equally well have been a "patriot" dreaming of freedom from the Romans, or an unprincipled ambitious man who believed that it was better to be first in the village than second in Rome.

    Replies: @LatW

  613. @LatW
    @German_reader


    Well, Caracalla was a North African-Syrian mix iirc, so not surprising (though his bust hardly looks “Semitic” or “negroid” imo).
     
    Frankly, the bust looks kind of Celtic. The facial features are definitely not Middle Eastern (this look is quite common in Western Europe and the British Isles), and some Celts have thick kinky hair (it's just typically red / auburn). He was born in Gaul.

    Replies: @sudden death

    There might be some facial resemblance, but the hair type/texture of dying Gaul seems to be quite different imho:

    • Replies: @songbird
    @sudden death

    The spiked hair is thought to represent lime-water that the Celts used to style their hair with. Some believe that the Irish epic the Táin Bó Cúailnge has a reference to it, as the hero hulks out, while fighting an army single-handedly:


    The first warp-spasm seized Cúchulainn, and made him into a monstrous thing, hideous and shapeless, unheard of. His shanks and his joints, every knuckle and angle and organ from head to foot, shook like a tree in the flood or a reed in the stream. His body made a furious twist inside his skin, so that his feet and shins switched to the rear and his heels and calves switched to the front... On his head the temple-sinews stretched to the nape of his neck, each mighty, immense, measureless knob as big as the head of a month-old child... he sucked one eye so deep into his head that a wild crane couldn't probe it onto his cheek out of the depths of his skull; the other eye fell out along his cheek. His mouth weirdly distorted: his cheek peeled back from his jaws until the gullet appeared, his lungs and his liver flapped in his mouth and throat, his lower jaw struck the upper a lion-killing blow, and fiery flakes large as a ram's fleece reached his mouth from his throat... The hair of his head twisted like the tangle of a red thornbush stuck in a gap; if a royal apple tree with all its kingly fruit were shaken above him, scarce an apple would reach the ground but each would be spiked on a bristle of his hair as it stood up on his scalp with rage.
     
    By some traditions Cúchulainn had blond hair, which might accord with the use of lime. Though, today, there are many Irish who are naturally blond. And though some say that it was meant to set him apart, to show his nature as a demi-god.
  614. @LatW
    @Dmitry


    By comparison, in “Germania” (Tacitus), writes famously about the strange and exotic appearance of Germans, and their large size, etc.
     
    The descriptions of the Varian Disaster are quite captivating in this regard, the Romans were of smaller stature but carried all the superior artifacts of the Roman civilization as they marched through the forest, imagine Varus riding slowly on his horse, wearing his intimidating steel mask and carrying the majestic imperial eagle standard. And yet they were smaller in size. Although the Roman legionaries were hand picked and typically taller and more robust than the average Roman citizen.

    Arminius (Hermann), a true embodiment of the ancient hero Sigurd, was often portrayed with long wavy hair and an elongated face. Obviously very freedom loving, since he was willing to give up his Roman military career to protect his people.

    Replies: @melanf

    Arminius (Hermann), a true embodiment of the ancient hero Sigurd,

    As far as I know, philologists claim that “Arminius” could not be a distortion of the name Herman (i.e. Arminius was not called Herman – his Germanic name is unknown). To assert (based on the presence of some songs about Arminius mentioned by Tacitus) that Arminius is Sigurd’s prototype is a very dubious assumption

    Obviously very freedom loving, since he was willing to give up his Roman military career to protect his people.

    These people eventually killed Arminius out of love for freedom, as Arminius sought to restrict this very freedom in favor of his own power.
    We will never know Arminius’ motives – it could equally well have been a “patriot” dreaming of freedom from the Romans, or an unprincipled ambitious man who believed that it was better to be first in the village than second in Rome.

    • Replies: @LatW
    @melanf


    that Arminius is Sigurd’s prototype is a very dubious assumption
     
    Haha, not for us, romantic types. :) There's a spiritual connection between them.


    These people eventually killed Arminius out of love for freedom, as Arminius sought to restrict this very freedom in favor of his own power.
     
    That's understandable, that means he was strong. That kind of strife was very normal at that time. Btw, they also robbed him of his wife and child, very tragic.

    We will never know Arminius’ motives – it could equally well have been a “patriot” dreaming of freedom from the Romans, or an unprincipled ambitious man who believed that it was better to be first in the village than second in Rome.
     
    If he had been an "unprincipled ambitious man", wouldn't it have made more sense to stay in Rome? Didn't it have higher status and more opportunities back then? Nothing wrong with "ambitious", btw, in either of these scenarios.

    Of course, I'm idealizing a bit, but there is a similar case in the Baltic history, during a much much later period, there was a man in Old Prussia, called Herkus Mantas, who as a child had been taken to Germany and educated and "civilized" there, but came back to lead the Prussian uprising against the Crusaders. He died a true heroic death. But of course there would have been nothing wrong there if he had returned purely out of some selfish ambition (as that, too, would have benefited the Prussians). He really reminds me of Arminius, so I think there's definitely something to it in terms of freedom and patriotism. Of course, during the times of Arminius, it's very hard to think of any concept of "patria" in the German lands, but I'm sure there were deeper bonds. Btw, I'm sure you are aware of all the speculations about how these events separated Central Europe from Rome and led to the eventual events in Germany and all of Europe.

    Replies: @melanf

  615. @Yevardian
    @Thulean Friend

    You and AaronB should have a some greatly stimulating discussions, a la Ward No. 6, in the asylum together someday.

    Replies: @Thulean Friend, @German_reader

    What would a caucasoid like you know about any of this? The achievements of your “people” can be summed up on the back of a postage stamp.

    • Replies: @silviosilver
    @Thulean Friend

    I understand that you were just trying to insult him rather than develop an argument, but it's not even a good insult. Anyone hearing that couldn't help but think that at least part of you feels that a person's ancestry limits what he is permitted to form an opinion about, which is not a good look for you.

    Not all of us can descend from intellectual aristocrats (like AP, "several" of whose in-laws are not only professors, but specifically professors of medicine - others in that distinguished lineage supposedly having branched out into professorships in other fields). Are we supposed to cry about it? Personally, I think it's easier - and a lot more fun - to laugh about it.

    I think I realized by around the age of fifteen that if my own people had never existed, the history of the world would scarcely have been altered. Whenever I encountered anyone doing the local version of the "we wuz kangz" routine, it would astonish me that they couldn't see how silly they sound. One of the best things about leftism is that it made it permissible to admit that "I ain't shit, and that's okay," rather than to have to desperately put on airs in order to feel acceptable.

  616. @songbird
    @AP

    Term he used was "migrant background." I interpreted to mean "non-Euro." But, maybe, he may have meant "non-Austrian?"

    Anyway, his reference to 75% in the 0-4 age bracket is interesting. (he mentioned >50% for Vienna's general pop)

    Seems obvious that the most famous German culture, like Mozart's music came out of German cities. (Mozart moved to Vienna, when he was 25). But now seems likely that the percentage of Euro babies in the major cities is dropping off sharply. Perhaps, partly due to white flight.

    But whatever the interpretation, some of the same questions arise: where are Euros to get their natalist culture? Cities seem like a pretty unlikely place, when you consider most of the babies there are non-Euros, and yet they are the political, economic, and cultural centers.

    At any point, will it become obviously absurd to Europeans and other civilized people? Or will they just ignore it, as they seem to have done in America. Where people might look at white commuters, white college students, white young adults with no children, and white rich people who send their kids to private school with body guards and don't seem to perceive the way that the cities were completely lost.

    I maintain that no broad spectrum political solution is possible. If there is a political solution it has to be to the specific question: how can we increase the number of Euro babies? Nothing else will work. Not trying to breed more Arabs or blacks. And it does not seem likely that the existing regime will even be willing to contemplate the question.

    This contrasts with the Chinese, who can both ask the question and probably eventually solve it, on a political level.

    Replies: @German_reader, @AP, @Thulean Friend

    where are Euros to get their natalist culture?

    As is often the case, this blog has too much of a eurocentric bias. The fertility collapse has been ongoing everywhere, and accelerated with Covid.

    Here’s Mexico:

    The numbers for 2021 are thus far even worse than for 2020, meaning Mexican fertility is now below much of Scandinavia, France, Ireland and possibly even Germany.

    The double-whammy is poor economic prospects:

    I don’t see how this won’t end in more emigration in the short-to-medium run. We’ve seen from the Balkans and Ukraine that just because your population is declining, it doesn’t mean there won’t be emigration flows.

    But in the long run, this will constrain emigration flows to the US, if these trends hold. We’ve seen a similar fertility collapse all across Latinx America. That has negative consequences for the US, as it dries up a source of cheap manual labour. It’s also negative for the developing world, as good demographics was one of the few aces they had, which now seems to be evaporating.

    • Replies: @songbird
    @Thulean Friend


    where are Euros to get their natalist culture?

    As is often the case, this blog has too much of a eurocentric bias.
     
    Well, though, it seems to almost be a worldwide phenomenon (parts of sub Sahara aside), I think it is natural for me to be concerned most about my people, who also seem to be in the most trouble, when you sum up all their problems. I'll set certain small groups like the Parsis aside - almost everyone else seems to have more wiggle room. (Though, I will say that I think it will potentially vanish quickly, and that is foolish for some to be celebrating their own declining numbers, as if it will improve their standard of living.)

    One possibility that I'll allow is that Euros could adopt a pro-natalist culture from a foreign source. (Let's say, that the Chinese start cranking out movies where everyone has ten kids.) But I think that lack of state support for their specific problems is a major shortfall.
  617. @sudden death
    @songbird


    ...and their art declined
     
    Wonder if it was decline of intelectual creative ability and/or learning continuity loss or maybe just conscious change of style like rejection of traditional realism?

    I mean if without any prior knowledge you look at Picasso early self portraits at age of 15/18 and then at age 24/25, you might think the man suffered major brain trauma and lost all the previous abilities as a painter:


    https://mymodernmet.com/pablo-picasso-self-portraits/

    Replies: @sudden death, @songbird, @Dmitry, @LatW

    I mean if without any prior knowledge you look at Picasso early self portraits at age of 15/18 and then at age 24/25, you might think the man suffered major brain trauma and lost all the previous abilities as a painter:

    https://mymodernmet.com/pablo-picasso-self-portraits/

    When you look at those portraits, you can see that things really start looking bad around 1906 (a beginning of rather tumultuous time in Europe). There was a transition in art during that period, from more romantic and “clean” art such as Impressionism and Symbolism (which while already quite decadent, still had many pleasing examples), to more modern types of art (Cubism, Surrealism, stream of consciousness).

    By the way, an example of this transition is visible in architecture as well, when you look at Art Nouveau (an epitome of architectural beauty), then transitioning into Art Deco (which is still bearable but shows very clear signs of modern architecture), and then modern architecture itself which is something completely different (largely an abandonment of traditional beauty).

    Picasso acquired Jewish patrons relatively early when he was still a nobody and was very poor (the likes of Gertrud Stein and especially the one Daniel-Henry Kahnweiler, an art dealer who particularly supported unusual, overlooked artists…). So it’s not all about “reckless abandon” and freedom from the chains of the middle class but also about basic money issues, survival and promotion even for these highly cultivated types. The one who pays, orders the music (in this case, paintings), so to speak… I don’t want to be too harsh, but this cannot be overlooked.

    Kahnweiler especially promoted the painting Les Demoiselles d’Avignon. Painted in 1907, it is a horrifying example of degenerate art. My opinion is that if one is going to do avant-garde, the potential ugliness, awkwardness or psychological chaos really has to be worth it, as in, it really has to carry a strong, radical message that brings forward something valuable, creates a powerful insight or creates a very special atmosphere. Ugliness, of course, is an aesthetic category of its own that can communicate certain deep messages and often it’s a display of the reality of human existence, however, it shouldn’t be ugliness for its own sake (“filth for filth’s sake”). Well, in this case it might have served as a harkening of a new, disruptive age.

    And I do agree with you that there are better “stream of consciousness” artists, in literature, such as Kafka who, while heavy from the psychological point of view, still presents great value, not to mention the likes of James Joyce.

    • Replies: @Dmitry
    @LatW


    Les Demoiselles d’Avignon. Painted in 1907, it is a horrifying example of degenerate art
     
    This is a great masterwork of early 20th century painting. If you don't like Picasso, I recommend to read some essays about him, and you can start to see the interesting concepts he uses, as well as commentary on art tradition.

    It might look ugly, but it's not nearly as ugly as painting by some other great Spanish artists like Goya (https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Black_Paintings ).

    Spain's great artistic tradition has been counter-balance, or shadow side, of Italy's in this question. Italian art tradition has had a weakness of too much beautification and "kawaii".

    Spain's art tradition has often counter-balanced and you see this in the art gallery, when you walk into the Spanish room, your mood becomes more shaded and you engage with more sinister themes.

    This continues today with films, where the Spanish directors (as well as Japanese) are making the best horror films of the early 21st century.


    Kahnweiler especially promoted the painting
     
    Maybe there are some scary "Jewish banking gangsters" becoming unfairly rich from Picasso, and the billions of dollars his painting are now worth. It doesn't reduce from his position as the greatest 20th century painter. Just as "Italian banking gangsters" of the Medici, has hardly reduced from legacy of Michelangelo.

    Replies: @Mr. Hack, @LatW, @sudden death

  618. @melanf
    @LatW


    Arminius (Hermann), a true embodiment of the ancient hero Sigurd,
     
    As far as I know, philologists claim that "Arminius" could not be a distortion of the name Herman (i.e. Arminius was not called Herman - his Germanic name is unknown). To assert (based on the presence of some songs about Arminius mentioned by Tacitus) that Arminius is Sigurd's prototype is a very dubious assumption

    Obviously very freedom loving, since he was willing to give up his Roman military career to protect his people.
     
    These people eventually killed Arminius out of love for freedom, as Arminius sought to restrict this very freedom in favor of his own power.
    We will never know Arminius' motives - it could equally well have been a "patriot" dreaming of freedom from the Romans, or an unprincipled ambitious man who believed that it was better to be first in the village than second in Rome.

    Replies: @LatW

    that Arminius is Sigurd’s prototype is a very dubious assumption

    Haha, not for us, romantic types. 🙂 There’s a spiritual connection between them.

    These people eventually killed Arminius out of love for freedom, as Arminius sought to restrict this very freedom in favor of his own power.

    That’s understandable, that means he was strong. That kind of strife was very normal at that time. Btw, they also robbed him of his wife and child, very tragic.

    We will never know Arminius’ motives – it could equally well have been a “patriot” dreaming of freedom from the Romans, or an unprincipled ambitious man who believed that it was better to be first in the village than second in Rome.

    If he had been an “unprincipled ambitious man”, wouldn’t it have made more sense to stay in Rome? Didn’t it have higher status and more opportunities back then? Nothing wrong with “ambitious”, btw, in either of these scenarios.

    Of course, I’m idealizing a bit, but there is a similar case in the Baltic history, during a much much later period, there was a man in Old Prussia, called Herkus Mantas, who as a child had been taken to Germany and educated and “civilized” there, but came back to lead the Prussian uprising against the Crusaders. He died a true heroic death. But of course there would have been nothing wrong there if he had returned purely out of some selfish ambition (as that, too, would have benefited the Prussians). He really reminds me of Arminius, so I think there’s definitely something to it in terms of freedom and patriotism. Of course, during the times of Arminius, it’s very hard to think of any concept of “patria” in the German lands, but I’m sure there were deeper bonds. Btw, I’m sure you are aware of all the speculations about how these events separated Central Europe from Rome and led to the eventual events in Germany and all of Europe.

    • Replies: @melanf
    @LatW


    If he had been an “unprincipled ambitious man”, wouldn’t it have made more sense to stay in Rome?
     
    To raise an uprising to create your own kingdom, instead of the careless life of a Roman servant, is an absolutely logical course of action for an ancient ambitious man like Alcibiades or the same Caesar. It is quite possible that Arminius was of the same material

    Replies: @Yevardian, @LatW

  619. At the rate things are going there will be atrocities that render Pol Pot amateur in comparison and dying the Atlantic and Pacific red.

    • Replies: @songbird
    @Yellowface Anon

    Wonder how many states are quietly moving their government to a more secure location (Egypt, Indonesia...) (Do I misremember or is India consolidating a lot of its government offices into one complex?) with excuses about traffic or overcrowding , or already did so decades ago (Brazil, Myanmar, Nigeria, Kazakhstan, Pakistan, Tanzania, ....).

    Seem to be putting up a concrete wall in front of the White House. In another decade or two, I can imagine them putting a fence around DC.

  620. WWII in Europe was certainly started by a false flag (Gleiwitz incident) and the Pacific War was started by the US strongarming Japan into attacking Pearl Harbor and Roosevelt letting it happen.

    WWIII would likely start the same way – a false flag from Ukraine and China being strongarmed by the US into attacking Taiwan.

    Was the assassination of Archduke Franz Ferdinand also a false flag involving someone other than Gavrilo Princip, like what the CIA did with JFK?

  621. @LatW
    @melanf


    that Arminius is Sigurd’s prototype is a very dubious assumption
     
    Haha, not for us, romantic types. :) There's a spiritual connection between them.


    These people eventually killed Arminius out of love for freedom, as Arminius sought to restrict this very freedom in favor of his own power.
     
    That's understandable, that means he was strong. That kind of strife was very normal at that time. Btw, they also robbed him of his wife and child, very tragic.

    We will never know Arminius’ motives – it could equally well have been a “patriot” dreaming of freedom from the Romans, or an unprincipled ambitious man who believed that it was better to be first in the village than second in Rome.
     
    If he had been an "unprincipled ambitious man", wouldn't it have made more sense to stay in Rome? Didn't it have higher status and more opportunities back then? Nothing wrong with "ambitious", btw, in either of these scenarios.

    Of course, I'm idealizing a bit, but there is a similar case in the Baltic history, during a much much later period, there was a man in Old Prussia, called Herkus Mantas, who as a child had been taken to Germany and educated and "civilized" there, but came back to lead the Prussian uprising against the Crusaders. He died a true heroic death. But of course there would have been nothing wrong there if he had returned purely out of some selfish ambition (as that, too, would have benefited the Prussians). He really reminds me of Arminius, so I think there's definitely something to it in terms of freedom and patriotism. Of course, during the times of Arminius, it's very hard to think of any concept of "patria" in the German lands, but I'm sure there were deeper bonds. Btw, I'm sure you are aware of all the speculations about how these events separated Central Europe from Rome and led to the eventual events in Germany and all of Europe.

    Replies: @melanf

    If he had been an “unprincipled ambitious man”, wouldn’t it have made more sense to stay in Rome?

    To raise an uprising to create your own kingdom, instead of the careless life of a Roman servant, is an absolutely logical course of action for an ancient ambitious man like Alcibiades or the same Caesar. It is quite possible that Arminius was of the same material

    • Replies: @Yevardian
    @melanf

    Quite unfair to compare a rank opportunist like Alcibiades to a great visionary like Caesar.

    Replies: @melanf

    , @LatW
    @melanf


    To raise an uprising to create your own kingdom, instead of the careless life of a Roman servant, is an absolutely logical course of action for an ancient ambitious man like Alcibiades or the same Caesar. It is quite possible that Arminius was of the same material
     
    You have a point, of course. However, Arminius technically led the Romans into his ancestral lands. If the Romans had succeeded in colonizing the German lands (they had already taken over some parts of Central Europe), Arminius could be put in charge of those lands (as legatus or praetor or something like that). Maybe his father in law suspected that and that's why he tried to get rid of him by trying to tell on him to the Romans.
  622. @melanf
    @LatW


    If he had been an “unprincipled ambitious man”, wouldn’t it have made more sense to stay in Rome?
     
    To raise an uprising to create your own kingdom, instead of the careless life of a Roman servant, is an absolutely logical course of action for an ancient ambitious man like Alcibiades or the same Caesar. It is quite possible that Arminius was of the same material

    Replies: @Yevardian, @LatW

    Quite unfair to compare a rank opportunist like Alcibiades to a great visionary like Caesar.

    • Replies: @melanf
    @Yevardian

    Both were talented ambitious people, ready to achieve their goals by any means. It is possible that Caesar was not capable of treason, unlike Alcibiades, but nevertheless they had a certain psychological similarity

  623. @Yevardian
    @melanf

    Quite unfair to compare a rank opportunist like Alcibiades to a great visionary like Caesar.

    Replies: @melanf

    Both were talented ambitious people, ready to achieve their goals by any means. It is possible that Caesar was not capable of treason, unlike Alcibiades, but nevertheless they had a certain psychological similarity

  624. @German_reader
    @Yahya


    It’s reliance on enslavement and oppression of Balkanoids was of course deplorable.
     

    My impression is it was pretty despotic to its other subjects as well. Last year I read a general survey of the 17th century (Geoffrey Parker, Global Crisis. War, Climate Change and Catastrophe in the Seventeenth Century), and a lot of the details about the Ottoman empire were really hair-raising...like more or less mad sultans being egged on by fanatical Islamic scholars to persecute and execute men for smoking tobacco or visiting coffee-houses. Now it would probably be unfair to single out the Ottoman empire as especially bad, either for its bouts of religious fanaticism (at a time when there was the 30-years war in Germany and Puritans in England banned Christmas and theatre performances), or for its aggressive wars and importation and consumption of slaves (after all Christian powers did similar things too). But I don't see much reason to overly romanticize it either, as is often the case today in multiculturalist Western discourse.

    I have plenty of experience with living around the Arab rabble so to speak
     
    I can imagine. I don't want to draw you in a discussion about Egyptian affairs (iirc you once stated that it could have negative consequences for you), but I really wonder about all those ill-educated masses in Egypt and other Arab countries who have little to hope for and who might follow some demagogue, whether of an Islamic nature, or of some other kind which can't be foreseen right now. I suppose falling birth rates might eventually defuse this danger somewhat, but to me it seems like a really grave problem for which there doesn't seem to be a good solution.

    There are ways to express anti-immigrant views without being a racist (i.e. don’t directly refer to the race of the immigrant, don’t make blanket generalizations etc.)
     
    The kind of sentiments expressed on UR (open reference to race, arguments about genetically determined IQ and behaviour profiles of different ethnic groups) aren't openly aired by Western anti-immigration politicians anyway, at most they're implicitly hinted at. But the reality is you can't really criticize immigration for any reason in Western societies today (apart maybe from minor exceptions like Denmark), not for reasons of national cohesion, or because of the cultural and religious beliefs of immigrants (that is racism without races), but also not for economic and environmental reasons either, which is often suggested as a supposedly viable way to criticize immigration. Left-wingers in Germany have even invented a term Nützlichkeitsrassismus (racism of utility, that is judging immigrants according to their supposed value for the labour market) to explicitly reject economic arguments for immigration restriction.
    I suppose there are some good arguments against the more extreme sort of racist comments on UR (after all it's probably not really constructive to get in the mindset for some purifying race war), but imo "You're damaging anti-immigration arguments with that" isn't one, because any calls for immigration restriction will be seen as an attack on their fundamental values by much of the present establishment anyway.

    Take the stereotypical lunatic Unz commentor (‘songbird’) on this blog, for instance. If you are familiar with his comments, you’d know he has a perverse obsession with blacks,
     
    Well, I suppose songbird can defend himself, if he wants to, and I don't really want to write that much about it. Certainly his anti-black statements could be considered as uncharitable. But imo you're making the same mistake as utu and are ignoring the larger context. songbird would probably face severe social ostracism or even persecution by the state if he made such comments in public. Whereas the ethnocentrism, and I think at least in some cases quite blatant anti-white racism, of American blacks seems to be quite deliberately stoked by the establishment. It may seem hyperbolic now, but I think something like CRT could develop into a more or less genocidal ideology (and arguably there has long been a genocidal strain among some of the more extreme sections of America's blacks, e.g. look up something like the Zebra murders in the 1970s...so why possibly encourage that kind of thinking?). And that stuff is seeping over into Europe too and is being promoted with establishment support here as well (except maybe in France, where it has apparently been identified as a threat to republican values). So I think just focusing on songbird's anti-black statements, without taking into account what is actually happening in the larger society, is one-sided.

    But to pretend as if the streams of refugees are “invaders”; while Westerners are innocent victims who are being taken advantage of by “ungrateful parasites”; is to ignore the obvious American/Western role in displacing these refugees in the first place.
     
    Sure, to a considerable extent I agree with that. However you have to take my specifically German perspective into account. Germany may not be totally innocent (which country is?), but it didn't participate (at least not directly) in the Iraq and Libyan wars, and its role in Syria seems comparatively minor to me as well. There's also not that much Germany or other European countries can do against American sanctions regimes (though I certainly would wish for a more independent European approach in these matters). So on some level I feel like my country has to foot the bill for developments we haven't had much agency over.

    Replies: @songbird, @Yahya

    Well, I suppose songbird can defend himself, if he wants to

    I’ll confine myself to this sentiment, which I think is the most charitable: I wish Aaron B were here to teach Yahya about the benefits of Dhao.

    He need not feel endless resentment towards Euros for their accomplishments, only invent a more non-synchronous version of history than that which he was already invented. It is easy. For instance, what if Alexander did not conquer Egypt, but rather had his heart conquered by the magnificence of Egyptians?

    Nor need he claim that Hungary is the Fourth Reich and must be crushed before it threatens world peace. But only that Arabs invented the internal combustion engine and synthetic chemistry.

    Putting aside his Thomm-like assertions, from the pictures I have seen of that neighborhood, combined with his strange attitude, and the fact that his father married down a few rungs in the socio-economic ladder, I judge that it would also benefit him to adopt some of the more benign elements of Afrocentrism.

    • LOL: sher singh
    • Replies: @Emil Nikola Richard
    @songbird


    For instance, what if Alexander did not conquer Egypt, but rather had his heart conquered by the magnificence of Egyptians?
     
    1. LOL
    2. There are some writers like Jorjani who claim that exactly what happened (maybe he has god powers or something) is that Alexander did have his heart conquered by the magnificence of Persians!

    Replies: @songbird

    , @Yahya
    @songbird

    Alright, you Celtic sack of sh*t. Get this through your thick head: there is more accomplishment in the tiny plot of sand surrounding the Great Pyramid of Giza than there is in the entire landmass of Ireland. Your people are a historical non-entity. For 85% of recorded history, nothing but a bunch of primitive savages - only a smidge more advanced than the black African. Insofar as you've made any advancements, it's on the back of your Anglo masters. I know this is tough for you to understand - after all, that beating the blacks gave you probably did a good number on your already minimal brain cells. But do try to read some history and gain some perspective on how insignificant your ancestors were.

    I hesitate to trash on the Irish in such a manner; some of my favorite childhood teachers were Irish. But unfortunately for the Irish, your obnoxious, imbecilic person was sadly spawned out of Celtic stock, so they will have to receive a thrashing on your behalf.


    Euros for their accomplishments,
     
    Tallest man-made structure for 3,800 years:


    https://i.natgeofe.com/n/535f3cba-f8bb-4df2-b0c5-aaca16e9ff31/giza-plateau-pyramids_16x9.jpg


    A pile of rocks surrounding a small heap of earth:


    https://images.squarespace-cdn.com/content/v1/5bdc2b4c4cde7a7610149c8f/1575670355198-7WTY4OFB6UNMIUUFTATC/newgrange.jpg


    Most historically consequential group of people (Middle Eastern Semites):


    http://blog.adw.org/wp-content/uploads/2013/05/Feature-052713.jpg


    Least historically consequential group of people (Celtic Drunkards):


    https://img.rasset.ie/0013dd66-1600.jpg


    I suppose that's why the Medieval Irish - like the Afrocentrists of today - tried to write Egypt into their genealogy ("we wuz kangz!"). After all, unaccomplished people almost always try to appropriate other people's histories.


    Alexander
     
    Ancient Greeks were an Eastern Mediterranean people - part of the Greco-Egyptian-Levantine cultural and economic oikumene of the times. They were also genetically composed mostly of Fertile Crescent Farmers - thus physically resembled their Middle Eastern co-racials moreso than say, the Celtic barbarians up North. In other words, they were not part of the same group as your savage ancestors up in Ireland.

    Replies: @Yevardian, @songbird

  625. @German_reader
    @Yahya


    It’s reliance on enslavement and oppression of Balkanoids was of course deplorable.
     

    My impression is it was pretty despotic to its other subjects as well. Last year I read a general survey of the 17th century (Geoffrey Parker, Global Crisis. War, Climate Change and Catastrophe in the Seventeenth Century), and a lot of the details about the Ottoman empire were really hair-raising...like more or less mad sultans being egged on by fanatical Islamic scholars to persecute and execute men for smoking tobacco or visiting coffee-houses. Now it would probably be unfair to single out the Ottoman empire as especially bad, either for its bouts of religious fanaticism (at a time when there was the 30-years war in Germany and Puritans in England banned Christmas and theatre performances), or for its aggressive wars and importation and consumption of slaves (after all Christian powers did similar things too). But I don't see much reason to overly romanticize it either, as is often the case today in multiculturalist Western discourse.

    I have plenty of experience with living around the Arab rabble so to speak
     
    I can imagine. I don't want to draw you in a discussion about Egyptian affairs (iirc you once stated that it could have negative consequences for you), but I really wonder about all those ill-educated masses in Egypt and other Arab countries who have little to hope for and who might follow some demagogue, whether of an Islamic nature, or of some other kind which can't be foreseen right now. I suppose falling birth rates might eventually defuse this danger somewhat, but to me it seems like a really grave problem for which there doesn't seem to be a good solution.

    There are ways to express anti-immigrant views without being a racist (i.e. don’t directly refer to the race of the immigrant, don’t make blanket generalizations etc.)
     
    The kind of sentiments expressed on UR (open reference to race, arguments about genetically determined IQ and behaviour profiles of different ethnic groups) aren't openly aired by Western anti-immigration politicians anyway, at most they're implicitly hinted at. But the reality is you can't really criticize immigration for any reason in Western societies today (apart maybe from minor exceptions like Denmark), not for reasons of national cohesion, or because of the cultural and religious beliefs of immigrants (that is racism without races), but also not for economic and environmental reasons either, which is often suggested as a supposedly viable way to criticize immigration. Left-wingers in Germany have even invented a term Nützlichkeitsrassismus (racism of utility, that is judging immigrants according to their supposed value for the labour market) to explicitly reject economic arguments for immigration restriction.
    I suppose there are some good arguments against the more extreme sort of racist comments on UR (after all it's probably not really constructive to get in the mindset for some purifying race war), but imo "You're damaging anti-immigration arguments with that" isn't one, because any calls for immigration restriction will be seen as an attack on their fundamental values by much of the present establishment anyway.

    Take the stereotypical lunatic Unz commentor (‘songbird’) on this blog, for instance. If you are familiar with his comments, you’d know he has a perverse obsession with blacks,
     
    Well, I suppose songbird can defend himself, if he wants to, and I don't really want to write that much about it. Certainly his anti-black statements could be considered as uncharitable. But imo you're making the same mistake as utu and are ignoring the larger context. songbird would probably face severe social ostracism or even persecution by the state if he made such comments in public. Whereas the ethnocentrism, and I think at least in some cases quite blatant anti-white racism, of American blacks seems to be quite deliberately stoked by the establishment. It may seem hyperbolic now, but I think something like CRT could develop into a more or less genocidal ideology (and arguably there has long been a genocidal strain among some of the more extreme sections of America's blacks, e.g. look up something like the Zebra murders in the 1970s...so why possibly encourage that kind of thinking?). And that stuff is seeping over into Europe too and is being promoted with establishment support here as well (except maybe in France, where it has apparently been identified as a threat to republican values). So I think just focusing on songbird's anti-black statements, without taking into account what is actually happening in the larger society, is one-sided.

    But to pretend as if the streams of refugees are “invaders”; while Westerners are innocent victims who are being taken advantage of by “ungrateful parasites”; is to ignore the obvious American/Western role in displacing these refugees in the first place.
     
    Sure, to a considerable extent I agree with that. However you have to take my specifically German perspective into account. Germany may not be totally innocent (which country is?), but it didn't participate (at least not directly) in the Iraq and Libyan wars, and its role in Syria seems comparatively minor to me as well. There's also not that much Germany or other European countries can do against American sanctions regimes (though I certainly would wish for a more independent European approach in these matters). So on some level I feel like my country has to foot the bill for developments we haven't had much agency over.

    Replies: @songbird, @Yahya

    I suppose falling birth rates might eventually defuse this danger somewhat

    Birth rates in Egypt, as with the rest of the Arab world, have indeed steeply declined (by roughly 50%) from ~5-6 TFR to ~2-3 TFR over the previous few decades. Last I checked Egypt’s estimated TFR stood at 2.61 by the end of 2021, lower than in 2020 (2.93), 2015 (3.68), and 2010 (3.37). I’d predict it would reach replacement levels in 20-or-years. Incidentally, Egypt’s current TFR would put it below Israel at 2.99, which means almost every Arab country is now below Israel in fertility. A humorous turn of events. Also demonstrates that Israel is the real model for any first world country seeking to increase their TFR.

    [MORE]

    I have somewhat mixed feelings regarding Egypt’s rapid population expansion in the 20th century. On one level, the population increase had very real tangible negative consequences on the environment and physical surroundings. I’m reminded of this every time I drive through downtown Cairo; and see the mass of people living in make-shift brick-houses which were quickly built in the 70s-90s to accommodate the incoming mass of migrants from the countryside. Older people in Egypt are quick to point out that Cairo in the 50s and 60s looked more like Paris than the Sao Paolo it is today.

    And of course the population size has made it all but impossible for Egypt to be self-sufficient agriculturally; the Nile couldn’t keep up with the population explosion. Whereas in antiquity Egypt had been a breadbasket of the Roman Empire; and its wealthiest and most economically vital province; the country is sadly now a net food importer. Net imports might account for about 20% of domestic consumption. The Malthusian dynamics also made it difficult for Egypt to make substantial gains in per capita GDP in the 20th century; though this is starting to change (more on this below).

    But, as this blog’s host once perceptively noted: population is power. Egypt’s population gives it more power and importance; and more importantly, the potential for cultural renaissance should contingent factors come into alignment at a point in time. Population is a very much understated and overlooked factor in explaining why some civilizations rise and fall. A look at 1900 demographics would demonstrate how that is:

    https://brilliantmaps.com/worlds-population-in-1900/

    Here’s a quick list of figures for various European/Western nations:
    US = 76M
    Russia = 68M
    German Empire = 56M
    Japan = 42M
    France = 38M
    UK = 38M
    Italy = 32M

    A now here’s a list of MENA countries/entities:
    Ottoman Empire = 30M
    Egypt = 8M
    Morocco = 8M
    Persia = 7M
    Arabia = 4M
    Algeria = 4M
    Tunisia = 1.9M
    Libya = 0.4M

    When comparatively tiny France (38M) has a bigger population than the entirety of North Africa (23M) from Egypt to Morocco; does it not become obvious why France was able to dominate the region during the 20th century? When Britain’s population likewise exceeds the entirety of the Ottoman Middle East; even excluding it’s subjects in India or the Far East; does it not become obvious why Britain was able to control and bully the previously powerful Ottoman Empire?

    And couldn’t the Western European ascendancy and intellectual flourishing, which far outstripped that of any previous civilization, be in large part explained by their demographic heft? This isn’t to say population is everything; 2021 Bangladesh (164M) is no more powerful or culturally vital than Russia (144M). Moreover, population increases can be harmful if they only occur at the bottom. Thankfully, in Egypt, the educated class were and are only slightly less fertile than the masses; so the absolute number of educated Egyptians has increased alongside the peasantry. In the upper class; there is no good data, but I counted the family sizes of my schoolmates; and they came to an average of 6 (2 parents, and 4 kids); which incidentally means the Egyptian upper class may be more fertile than the middle (though less than the lower). At any rate, population size in an absolute sense is certainly a vital factor that ought to be on the mind of every long-term thinking strategist.

    As for Egypt; the population is currently at around 100M and is projected to reach 143M by 2050, according to the Population Reference Bureau (PRB) data sheet. As population increases, the absolute number of cognitive elites (>130IQ) increases; no matter how small a fraction they are as a percentage of population. In the case of Egypt; there is no reliable data on average IQ (the Lynn study was comical; it only had a few hundred samples for Egypt); and is at any rate severely depressed due to a variety of environmental factors; (a) mass illiteracy (30% for over 15s), (b) malnutrition (see this UN report: https://www.unicef.org/egypt/nutrition), (c) cousin marriage (30-40% in certain areas), (d) cultural values (fatalism) etc. The best proxy we have for Arab genotypic IQ is Israel; which is at least developed so removes the environmental depressors to a large extent (though not entirely). Arabs there score around 92-94 in proxy tests; which I think is about right (I would appreciate if you can alert me of any IQ studies done on Arabs in Germany should they appear).

    If we assume average genotypic IQ in Egypt is 93, and SD a typical 15; a quick calculation of z-scores on excel provides the absolute number of cognitive elites (130IQ+) for a population of 100M:

    Average IQ = 93
    Standard Deviation = 15
    Population = 100M

    There are 668,886 Egyptians with IQ’s of 130 and above. By 2050, should the population reach 143M, Egypt’s cognitive elite would increase in size to 975,097. A very ample number for cultural production. Put in perspective, a country like Ireland, with a population of 5.5M and average IQ of 100; has 147,126 IQ130+ individuals; roughly 4.5 times less cognitive elites than 2021 Egypt; and 6.6 times less than 2050 Egypt. Greece (10M) has 227,501 cognitive elites. The Arab world at large, with a population of 380M people, has roughly 2.6M IQ130+ individuals. Germany, with a population of 80M and average IQ of 100, has 1.8M cognitive elites.

    As you can see, whereas in 1900, the German Empire had more people than the entirety of MENA; today there are 5 times more Arabs than Germans; and there are more smart Arabs than there are smart Germans. And there is the story of the rise and fall of the German Empire.

    but I really wonder about all those ill-educated masses in Egypt and other Arab countries who have little to hope

    The first thing to understand is that Egypt is not as poor as you’d expect. People, not entirely unreasonably, generally perceive Egypt to be a poverty-ridden basket case, in part because it’s in Africa, and the associations of poverty associated with that continent. In addition, they are vaguely aware of the foreign aid the US provides to Egypt, and so assume Egyptians are only able to feed themselves on behalf of their generous donors. All of the above is exaggerated at best, and flat out wrong at worst. Egypt is not a “poor country”, but can more appropriately be termed a “middle income country”, which incidentally is the designation given to it by multiple world agencies. A look at per capita GDP (PPP) for a variety of countries would demonstrate how that is:

    Brazil: \$15,643
    Ukraine: \$13,943
    Egypt: \$13,083
    Vietnam: \$11,677
    Pakistan: \$5,224
    Nigeria: \$5,280

    Egypt is more along the level of Ukraine and Brazil, than Nigeria or Pakistan. As for foreign aid; almost all of it comes from the US in the form of military equipment, not food or developmental initiatives. And foreign “aid” only constitutes a minuscule proportion of GDP – 1% of gross national income. So in summary, Egypt isn’t really that poor, nor does it rely on donors for food or sustenance. As for it’s future prospects; things are looking good as of present. The economy grew at a solid clip over the previous decade (4-6%); and should continue to grow as Egypt escapes its Malthusian trap and makes improvements in literacy and education. According to the Maddison project; in 1950 Egypt’s GDP per capita was roughly 13% of the United Kingdoms in 1970 the ratio went down to 11% – no doubt due to Nasser’s disastrous Socialist policies. In 1980 it improved to 16% as Sadat took measures to liberalize the economy; though the ratio stalled throughout the 80s. By 1990 Egypt reached 20% of the UK’s per capita GDP; and has been gaining on the West ever since. Today the ratio stands at 31%.

    might follow some demagogue, whether of an Islamic nature, or of some other kind which can’t be foreseen right now

    It’s within the realm of possibility that Egypt collapses into a state of Islamist morass; or even secular demagoguery. It would be less likely if the West stopped insisting on “democracy” at every turn, which is more likely to encourage demagoguery than discourage it. I don’t know what the future holds; but for me personally, I don’t have any intention of departing Egypt for richer countries like Saudi Arabia (where I have citizenship) or the West (where I could easily get one).

    The reasons are manifold. But the one most relevant for you is this: it’s not at all bad to live in a “poor” country like Egypt – especially if you are somewhat well off. There are advantages after all which are not obtainable in richer countries – affordable drivers and maids, cheap food and other essential goods etc. And educated people abandoning a poor country for richer ones is just despicable in my opinion. I can see why the poor people would want to immigrate, but there’s not much reason for the affluent – life is just as good here (I’ve had experience in both). Anyway, the way this is relevant to you is that Germany may not become an “inhospitable” third-world hellhole for your progeny, even if demographics change. If your children are intelligent and hard-working; and armed with a practical education (i.e. not gender studies) they can have as good a standard of living in post-German Germany as they could in the Fatherland. This is isn’t to say you shouldn’t oppose immigration on ethnic and cultural grounds; but don’t worry too much about economics.

    But imo you’re making the same mistake as utu and are ignoring the larger context. songbird would probably face severe social ostracism or even persecution by the state if he made such comments in public. Whereas the ethnocentrism, and I think at least in some cases quite blatant anti-white racism, of American blacks seems to be quite deliberately stoked by the establishment.

    Engaging in whataboutism (“blacks are racists too!”), or weak argumentation (“he’s only an obnoxious racist online because he’s too cowardly to be offline!”) is not typical of your otherwise logical and level-headed comments.

    So on some level I feel like my country has to foot the bill for developments we haven’t had much agency over.

    Welcome to the club.

    • Thanks: German_reader, Shortsword
    • Replies: @German_reader
    @Yahya


    Thankfully, in Egypt, the educated class were and are only slightly less fertile than the masses
     
    Educated people without good career prospects can be very dangerous and become the leaders of militant movements seeking revolutionary change. So I think a lot will depend on whether Egypt can provide such opportunities for educated classes, also whether there's at least some social mobility for those rising from below. I'm far from convinced 140 million Egyptians will be such a boon as you assume, maybe they'll rather be the precondition for a terrible internecine slaughter. But we'll see.

    The first thing to understand is that Egypt is not as poor as you’d expect.

     

    But there's substantial social inequality. When I google "inequality Egypt", I get results like this, where it's claimed that 60% of the population are "poor or vulnerable" (however that's defined):
    https://blogs.lse.ac.uk/mec/2020/04/08/coronavirus-exposes-the-extreme-disparity-between-rich-and-poor-in-egypt/
    My impression was largely based on the events of the early 2010s, to me it seemed like the temporary rise of the Muslim brothers was fueled not least by the resentment the poor and uneducated lower classes felt against the elites.
    But it's certainly not my place to lecture you about the realities of your country, about which I don't know that much. Thanks for your interesting comment.
    , @Shortsword
    @Yahya


    Birth rates in Egypt, as with the rest of the Arab world, have indeed steeply declined (by roughly 50%) from ~5-6 TFR to ~2-3 TFR over the previous few decades. Last I checked Egypt’s estimated TFR stood at 2.61 by the end of 2021, lower than in 2020 (2.93), 2015 (3.68), and 2010 (3.37).
     
    I've read that Sisi has urged people to not have more than two children. Is this only something he's said or does Egypt have any policies in place for this?
  626. @Thulean Friend
    @songbird


    where are Euros to get their natalist culture?
     
    As is often the case, this blog has too much of a eurocentric bias. The fertility collapse has been ongoing everywhere, and accelerated with Covid.

    Here's Mexico:

    https://i.imgur.com/kcjULJm.jpg

    The numbers for 2021 are thus far even worse than for 2020, meaning Mexican fertility is now below much of Scandinavia, France, Ireland and possibly even Germany.

    The double-whammy is poor economic prospects:

    https://i.imgur.com/qElJiLj.png

    I don't see how this won't end in more emigration in the short-to-medium run. We've seen from the Balkans and Ukraine that just because your population is declining, it doesn't mean there won't be emigration flows.

    But in the long run, this will constrain emigration flows to the US, if these trends hold. We've seen a similar fertility collapse all across Latinx America. That has negative consequences for the US, as it dries up a source of cheap manual labour. It's also negative for the developing world, as good demographics was one of the few aces they had, which now seems to be evaporating.

    Replies: @songbird

    where are Euros to get their natalist culture?

    As is often the case, this blog has too much of a eurocentric bias.

    Well, though, it seems to almost be a worldwide phenomenon (parts of sub Sahara aside), I think it is natural for me to be concerned most about my people, who also seem to be in the most trouble, when you sum up all their problems. I’ll set certain small groups like the Parsis aside – almost everyone else seems to have more wiggle room. (Though, I will say that I think it will potentially vanish quickly, and that is foolish for some to be celebrating their own declining numbers, as if it will improve their standard of living.)

    One possibility that I’ll allow is that Euros could adopt a pro-natalist culture from a foreign source. (Let’s say, that the Chinese start cranking out movies where everyone has ten kids.) But I think that lack of state support for their specific problems is a major shortfall.

  627. @melanf
    @AP


    In eastern Europe .... pre-agricultural tribal elders (boyars).
     
    ?????
    Agriculture in eastern Europe has dominated over any other types of activity for at least 5,000 years. Boyars when they appear in written sources are definitely the aristocracy of agricultural society

    Replies: @AP

    You are correct and I was mistaken. I was thinking of the Slavs in their ancient homeland in the swamps and forests where in addition to raising crops, fishing and hunting and cattle breeding were also important activities but it would be wrong not to classify these as agricultural societies. Their skill at agriculture contributed to their population expansion.

  628. @utu
    @Yahya

    How Europeans who are against immigration from ME and Africa should talk and make their case that would not hurt your feelings somewhere there in Egypt? But the case must be made that Europe should no longer accept ME and African immigrants. I am writing this believing that you too want to stop emigrations of your countrymen. Let's make a deal: you stop coming and we promise you won't hear a single bad word about Arabs and Muslims from us.

    Replies: @Yahya, @Dmitry, @Svidomyatheart

    If you are going to insert yourself into the conversation GR and I were having, you could have at least made some arguments of substance; or at the very least been coherent.

    stop emigrations of your countrymen.

    My countrymen are not immigrating.

    That would be Syrians; whose country you are actively destroying with your demented sanctions.

    Let’s make a deal: you stop coming and

    Maybe, if you stop the bombings; the invasions; the sanctions; the meddling; and the rabid support for Israel.

    Tough order, I know.

    we promise

    Who made you the spokesman Westerners or Europeans?

    you won’t hear a single bad word about Arabs and Muslims from us.

    Doubt it.

    • LOL: A123, songbird
  629. It looks like Skynet is coming for Yellowface Anon: (1)

    The Chinese government has developed the AI system 206, an artificial intelligence prosecutor designed to alleviate the workload of prosecutors in China. The system is allegedly capable of prosecuting “Shanghai’s eight most common crimes.” The AI was ‘trained’ using “17,000 real-life cases from 2015 to 2020.” Fears abound that the technology could be weaponized by the state, potentially charging citizens for political dissent.

    The crimes that the AI can prosecute “include ‘provoking trouble’ —a term used to stifle dissent in China, credit card fraud, gambling crimes, dangerous driving, theft, fraud, intentional injury, and obstructing official duties.”

    According to NotTheBee, some cities in China have used AI “to monitor government employees’ social circles and activities to detect corruption.”

    The CCP and George IslamoSoros will probably launch a joint venture to sell a ‘custom’ version in the U.S.

    PEACE 😇
    __________

    (1) https://ninetymilesfromtyranny.blogspot.com/2022/01/ai-system-206-replacing-human.html

  630. Kasparov is claiming that the Russians have left Kazakhstan quickly, rather stuck around, on orders from the Chinese masters. Any truth to that?

  631. @Yellowface Anon
    At the rate things are going there will be atrocities that render Pol Pot amateur in comparison and dying the Atlantic and Pacific red.

    Replies: @songbird

    Wonder how many states are quietly moving their government to a more secure location (Egypt, Indonesia…) (Do I misremember or is India consolidating a lot of its government offices into one complex?) with excuses about traffic or overcrowding , or already did so decades ago (Brazil, Myanmar, Nigeria, Kazakhstan, Pakistan, Tanzania, ….).

    Seem to be putting up a concrete wall in front of the White House. In another decade or two, I can imagine them putting a fence around DC.

  632. @sudden death
    @LatW

    There might be some facial resemblance, but the hair type/texture of dying Gaul seems to be quite different imho:

    https://upload.wikimedia.org/wikipedia/commons/6/6f/Dying_GaulDSCF6738.jpg

    Replies: @songbird

    The spiked hair is thought to represent lime-water that the Celts used to style their hair with. Some believe that the Irish epic the Táin Bó Cúailnge has a reference to it, as the hero hulks out, while fighting an army single-handedly:

    The first warp-spasm seized Cúchulainn, and made him into a monstrous thing, hideous and shapeless, unheard of. His shanks and his joints, every knuckle and angle and organ from head to foot, shook like a tree in the flood or a reed in the stream. His body made a furious twist inside his skin, so that his feet and shins switched to the rear and his heels and calves switched to the front… On his head the temple-sinews stretched to the nape of his neck, each mighty, immense, measureless knob as big as the head of a month-old child… he sucked one eye so deep into his head that a wild crane couldn’t probe it onto his cheek out of the depths of his skull; the other eye fell out along his cheek. His mouth weirdly distorted: his cheek peeled back from his jaws until the gullet appeared, his lungs and his liver flapped in his mouth and throat, his lower jaw struck the upper a lion-killing blow, and fiery flakes large as a ram’s fleece reached his mouth from his throat… The hair of his head twisted like the tangle of a red thornbush stuck in a gap; if a royal apple tree with all its kingly fruit were shaken above him, scarce an apple would reach the ground but each would be spiked on a bristle of his hair as it stood up on his scalp with rage.

    By some traditions Cúchulainn had blond hair, which might accord with the use of lime. Though, today, there are many Irish who are naturally blond. And though some say that it was meant to set him apart, to show his nature as a demi-god.

  633. One of the really fascinating corners of youtube from an anthropological viewpoint is the people who are reptile enthusiasts.

    In particular, many seem to be aficionados of American crocodiles. I once saw one of these (smallish) that was caught in a New Hampshire creek, after having been abandoned as someone’s pet. (I have used this to tease someone I know who swims in a nearby one.)

    Seems to me that they range in a spectrum of craziness. From men who have gators as emotional support animals. Or the woman who calls a ball python infested with a hundred ticks “Poor baby!” To the woman who will walk their croc on a leash at Petco, have it pick out a toy by hissing at it, while inserting thought bubbles into its hisses, but who will recommend against other people getting one. To the guy who will train crocs and get in the water with them and let them circle behind him, or nudge his face, but is under no illusions that they love him, or wouldn’t pounce on him if he tripped or had a seizure.

    Anyway, it has given me endless room for speculation about why people are so crazy. Is it because the mother-instinct in women can be hacked so easily (maybe, something to do with the pill?) Do people descended from herders have some special susceptibility to loving animals? Is it the hunting instinct in men gone awry? Or is it the result of co-evolution with dogs – dogs having hacked our brains, so that we are susceptible to gators, when they are not around?

    • Replies: @Emil Nikola Richard
    @songbird

    I once attended a company presention by a man, who proudly went by the nickname snake-man, whose job was to remove snakes from property in suburban Houston. He brought in glass cages a rattlesnake, a copperhead, a cotton-mouth, and a coral. He also brought a ball python in a burlap sack. He told an anecdote about a friend of his who had a nasty interaction with friend's pet rattlesnake. Rattlesnake bit his hand. Hand swelled to size of cantaloupe in the aftermath.

    Snake-man seemed like an otherwise perfectly normal professional guy. What surprised me was how dinky the coral snake was. It was only 12-15 inches in length and less than a half-inch in cross section at the thickest spot. When I have seen a rattlesnake in the wild I have never hesitated to turn around and go the other way.

    What really got the audience's attention was when he told them that half of them have a rat-snake living in their attic. About a third of them audibly gasped. He showed a powerpoint slide that resembled this:

    https://www.gannett-cdn.com/-mm-/06756bca6c979c173ae23c1ba44f60a8fd2bcbee/c=0-0-3024-4032/local/-/media/2020/09/10/Austin/ghows-TX-200629148-2b21138b.jpg

    Replies: @songbird

    , @German_reader
    @songbird

    One of my father's English friends knows a couple who own some kind of python, and took it with them into their bed, to "cuddle" with it. The snake then manifested some sort of behaviour (unfortunately don't know the details anymore) which they interpreted as a sign of affection.
    A veterinarian later told them it actually was behaviour typical for that kind of snake when it thinks it has recognized potential prey.
    I don't get such people either, imo it might be another sign of civilizational sickness (and one sometimes marvels at the stupidity...a few years ago there was a case in Germany where a guy kept a highly venomous monocled cobra in a shoe box...from which predictably enough it escaped, leading to the evacuation of the entire building for weeks).

    Replies: @songbird

  634. @songbird
    @German_reader


    Well, I suppose songbird can defend himself, if he wants to
     
    I'll confine myself to this sentiment, which I think is the most charitable: I wish Aaron B were here to teach Yahya about the benefits of Dhao.

    He need not feel endless resentment towards Euros for their accomplishments, only invent a more non-synchronous version of history than that which he was already invented. It is easy. For instance, what if Alexander did not conquer Egypt, but rather had his heart conquered by the magnificence of Egyptians?

    Nor need he claim that Hungary is the Fourth Reich and must be crushed before it threatens world peace. But only that Arabs invented the internal combustion engine and synthetic chemistry.

    Putting aside his Thomm-like assertions, from the pictures I have seen of that neighborhood, combined with his strange attitude, and the fact that his father married down a few rungs in the socio-economic ladder, I judge that it would also benefit him to adopt some of the more benign elements of Afrocentrism.

    Replies: @Emil Nikola Richard, @Yahya

    For instance, what if Alexander did not conquer Egypt, but rather had his heart conquered by the magnificence of Egyptians?

    1. LOL
    2. There are some writers like Jorjani who claim that exactly what happened (maybe he has god powers or something) is that Alexander did have his heart conquered by the magnificence of Persians!

    • Replies: @songbird
    @Emil Nikola Richard

    A pity he did not make Persepolis his base, and just dress it up a little.

    Don't know whether it is apocryphal or not, but I think this is interesting history:


    Diodorus Siculus writes that on his way to the city, Alexander and his army were met by 800 Greek artisans who had been captured by the Persians. Most were elderly and suffered some form of mutilation, such as a missing hand or foot. They explained to Alexander the Persians wanted to take advantage of their skills in the city but handicapped them so they could not easily escape. Alexander and his staff were disturbed by the story and provided the artisans with clothing and provisions before continuing on to the Persepolis. Diodorus does not cite this as a reason for the destruction of Persepolis, but it is possible Alexander started to see the city in a negative light after the encounter.
     
  635. @songbird
    @Mr. Hack


    Did you ever view the BBC film version “I Claudius” based on Graves two novels?
     
    Never saw it, but heard it recommended. I'm a bit wary, as - American in me speaking, not Irishman - I'm not especially fond of British television. (though I can think of exceptions, and I suppose I am not fond of American TV either, in a general sense) Though it can be interesting to watch old stuff. One thing I enjoy doing is trying to see if I can pick up on anything political that the writers added and to see what form it takes.

    Oddly enough, I didn't like the sequel. (think he got too far from the source material) Kind of a similar to TH White's The Witch in the Wood, as a separate, expanded book.

    Have you ever had a dream where a person changes into somebody else than what he originally appeared to be? A very interesting experience, that may be more interesting than what one encounters in ones day to day experiences. How about dreams in which you can fly?
     
    No morphing people that I can recall. Not sure about flying. When I was a boy, I broke my leg and remember having a dream where I was either running or flying close to the ground, in an upright position. Can also remember having one of those falling dreams when I was really young - this is one that was surreal enough that if I was a better artist, I would think of trying to stylize and depict.

    I'm kind of afraid of heights. Not in the sense of an irrational fear. (I can get on a ladder or look out a skyscraper) But I wouldn't want to be an Indian steel worker, or using a chainsaw on a ladder. When I am on a roof, I'm very careful. I don't know if this explains my lack of remembering flying high.

    I only rarely remember my dreams. One of the weirdest things that I ever remember is falling asleep, or I don't know whether it was half-asleep. But my thoughts became really flowy and abstract and I had this weird stream of consciousness where I was associating words in an almost random way. I remember thinking "palm tree" somehow, even though I don't like the tropics. And I don't think that I was necessarily at the stage where I could see any of it in images, just thoughts. And I was aware enough to know that I was dreaming.

    Occasionally, I'll come up with what I think are brilliant ideas when I'm asleep, and when I am awake, they don't seem so inspired, but I also wonder, if I just can't remember the idea fully.

    Replies: @Mr. Hack

    No need to fret, try viewing only one episode, see if you like it and then proceed to the rest. It’s about a 10 episode extravaganza, each episode having its own DVD disc. I got the whole series at my local library for free. I’m quite sure that there are several ways you can view it today. Since several persons have already recommended it to you including myself, it might just be the ticket!

    The trick to remembering dreams is to do it right away after you wake up. Even still, you may not remember it all, but you should remember something and force your memory to reveal some more.I’ve been fortunat enough to have two types of “flying dreams:. The first variety are very reminiscent of the Chagal painting that I posted above. These dreams involve my ability to personally fly, as if I’m some sort of a human kite. I gather up some speed, then jump into the air and the wind takes me for a ride. I can hover quite high over different types of landscapes, but they’re usually city ones. I do recall one where I actually jumped off of a roof of a building and luckily went for a ride. I vividly recall having to coordinate my efforts with the wind, and they’re really quite fun.

    The other type, involves my role as an airplane pilot, although I have never acquired this skill in real life. I’ve flown all manner of aircraft from tiny two man planes to large passenger carriers. Once in a large plane, I spotted a hostile smaller craft to the side, and was forced to shoot it down. he craziest dream that I can remember had me commandeer a large passenger type plane to a low altitude ultimately flying it underneath a low bridge – we came out the other end unscathed! In one of the last dreams that I had of this sort, a large plane that I was flying ended up crashing, I’m not sure that I was inside of it as I was viewing the whole mishap from outside of the plane. It was a spectacular crash, very colorful as I recall. Needless to say, I woke up right after that one!

    • Replies: @songbird
    @Mr. Hack


    got the whole series at my local library for free.
     
    Have recently acquired a copy myself, so I guess that removes the biggest energy barrier. May give the first hour a whirl tomorrow, as it is supposed to be one of those polar vortex type days, that I think only a Russian or a Yakut could enjoy.

    The trick to remembering dreams is to do it right away after you wake up.
     
    Heard somewhere that it is hard for someone on drugs to remember what they did when they are in a period of sobriety because it is a different state of the brain. The drug state has a way of splitting up, storing, and putting back together drug-memories, in order to recall them, that cannot be duplicated with a sober brain.

    But maybe, keeping this in mind has hampered my efforts to recall. I sometimes feel like I need to come out of sleep at a certain amplitude of the brainwave to remember things. Seems more common that I remember when I wake up in the middle of the night, than in the morning. But I like your suggestion of plasticity and repeated effort. Maybe, I have been limiting myself by trying to put everything in constrained scientific terms.

    Too bad Daniel is not around, perhaps, he would have interesting insights here, as he's into using feedback.

    I gather up some speed, then jump into the air and the wind takes me for a ride. I can hover quite high over different types of landscapes, but they’re usually city ones
     
    Do you need to know it is a dream, in order to fly?

    Often I only seem to suspect it is a dream. On the rare occasions when I have had a sharp willfulness, I find my actions are always limited. Once I went for a walk at night in my dream, thinking it would be super cool, but ended up just taking a leisurely stroll to nowhere in particular. Another time, (very rough analogy) it was kind of like how in a video game, you are constrained by obvious barriers.

    BTW, reminds me of the beginning of a Sherlock Holmes story. Perhaps, it was inspired by a dream? Now that I think of it, I feel certain it was.

    I can remember had me commandeer a large passenger type plane to a low altitude ultimately flying it underneath a low bridge – we came out the other end unscathed!
     
    Perhaps, after seeing the movie Lost Horizon?

    BTW, have you any thoughts about the people who appear in your dreams? Do you think they are mostly all people whose faces you have seen? Or are they made-up people and you are imagining their faces? (This is a really interesting question to me, as the face is such a complicated thing.) Have you ever read in a dream? (I vaguely think I have, but am unsure.)

    One of the weirdest ideas I have ever come across is the assertion (which I think some people said only in the '30s or '40s, that people can only dream in black and white.) I never recall having a dream like this, though I do remember nighttime dreams.

    The absolute craziest dream that I can ever remember was being shot at with laser guns by giant robots (like thirty or forty feet tall). Let's hope it was not a vision of the future.

    Replies: @Mr. Hack

    , @LatW
    @Mr. Hack


    I’ve been fortunate enough to have two types of “flying dreams"
     
    This is very interesting because I, too, have two sorts of recurring "flying dreams"...



    One is where my soul is flying in between snow clad mountain ranges. There is very even, gliding movement, there is this very pleasant peacefully exhilarating feeling with a little bit of scariness on the way downwards. I started having this recurring dream after my trips to the mountains in Norway.

    The second one is also somewhere in the north, but in an even more Arctic kind of place. It is very beautiful, great ambience, but a bit thrilling, a bit scary. It is much darker than the mountain one. At times, the vision would be from above, kind of like at the top of the world, and you see some kind of a map with many seas and small islands or countries and there is a sense of order and interconnection in this space. Within this dream I would submerge into the ocean and continue flying/floating inside the dark water, with a large whale nearby. It gets a little scary at that point so the dream often stops there but there is also a feeling of love, strangely enough.

    Have you tried practicing the Lucid dreaming technique? I haven't much, but what you do you really focus on the kind of visuals you want to see right before bedtime. I've had some dreams where it's almost like my thoughts direct what is going to further happen in the dream. It's kind of like walking through the dream and simultaneously knowing what will happen next as it's happening. And, ofc, the kind of dream that you mentioned above, where people or objects merge from one into another, I've had. The other night, in fact, I had an anxiety dream where one of my female relatives was turning into a friend of hers. Again, this dream had an element of anxiety in it, but also feelings of great love simultaneously.

    Btw, you asked me in the other thread if I have more wine recommendations. Actually, I wanted to recommend another beverage I've been drinking lately -- fireweed tea. Another name for it is Ivan Chai, it grows in Russia and Ukraine, probably in America, too. It is an immunity booster and good for cardio vascular health. Very pleasant, almost sweet taste. Apparently it used to be a big export for the Russian Empire. But it's common in Ukraine, too, from what I understand. I've been mostly raised on chamomile and linden teas, so it was a pleasant discovery.

    Replies: @songbird, @AP, @Mr. Hack

  636. @utu
    @Yahya

    How Europeans who are against immigration from ME and Africa should talk and make their case that would not hurt your feelings somewhere there in Egypt? But the case must be made that Europe should no longer accept ME and African immigrants. I am writing this believing that you too want to stop emigrations of your countrymen. Let's make a deal: you stop coming and we promise you won't hear a single bad word about Arabs and Muslims from us.

    Replies: @Yahya, @Dmitry, @Svidomyatheart

    Yevardian is angry with Thulean, because Thulean said something racist against Armenians, after alts had said something positive about Armenians.

    Ironically, AaronB (who is usually very relaxed) was angry with Yevardian , because he said something antisemitic about Jews. Even though Armenians and Jews are supposed to have a natural affinity, and AaronB was praising Armenians as elite and cosmopolitan against “jealous peasant Russians”*. https://www.unz.com/akarlin/russias-options-in-artsakh-war/#comment-4193469

    Daniel Chieh was always seeming angry with anyone who didn’t praise China.

    Karlin is a Middle Eastern looking dude that must experience xenophobia when he was in America or England, but he wrote anti-African-American comments according to Thulean https://www.unz.com/akarlin/open-thread-170/#comment-5036670

    And he was definitely promoting in Caucasian style, of anti-Ukraine sentiment. https://www.unz.com/akarlin/ukraine-returns-to-tradition

    This blog used to be flooded with people from Balkans, who were breaking down like badly programmed robots when they found another Balkan person from a different nationality.

    Where are the Balkans people now, with arguments about which nationality has a stronger dog?

    People like to insult the other nationality, but then feel irrationally sensitive when the concept they identified with is insulted. There is the asymmetry, where users are easy to give insult, but very difficult to accept insult. Some Buddhist lessons here.

    am writing this believing that you too want to stop emigrations of your countrymen. Let’s make a deal: you stop coming and we promise you won’t hear a single bad word about Arabs and Muslims from us.

    I’m sure, we are filtered to be some of the world’s least influential people here. Where is this illusion we have any control lol?

    * I like how you and Aaronb recently implying the same association of Russians and peasants. But I was growing vegetables in coronavirus lockdown. The inescapable conclusions of my failed efforts that vegetable growing requires more intelligence and skill, than at least modern office plankton are able to provide.

    • Replies: @Mr. Hack
    @Dmitry


    The inescapable conclusions of my failed efforts that vegetable growing requires more intelligence and skill, than at least modern office plankton are able to provide.
     
    What went wrong? With my repository of office plankton gardening knowledge, maybe I can help you?

    Replies: @Dmitry

    , @utu
    @Dmitry


    The inescapable conclusions of my failed efforts that vegetable growing requires more intelligence and skill, than at least modern office plankton are able to provide.
     
    There is some truth to it. But there are some places where you just have to put it in the soil and it will grow by itself.

    Replies: @Barbarossa

  637. @songbird
    One of the really fascinating corners of youtube from an anthropological viewpoint is the people who are reptile enthusiasts.

    In particular, many seem to be aficionados of American crocodiles. I once saw one of these (smallish) that was caught in a New Hampshire creek, after having been abandoned as someone's pet. (I have used this to tease someone I know who swims in a nearby one.)

    Seems to me that they range in a spectrum of craziness. From men who have gators as emotional support animals. Or the woman who calls a ball python infested with a hundred ticks "Poor baby!" To the woman who will walk their croc on a leash at Petco, have it pick out a toy by hissing at it, while inserting thought bubbles into its hisses, but who will recommend against other people getting one. To the guy who will train crocs and get in the water with them and let them circle behind him, or nudge his face, but is under no illusions that they love him, or wouldn't pounce on him if he tripped or had a seizure.

    Anyway, it has given me endless room for speculation about why people are so crazy. Is it because the mother-instinct in women can be hacked so easily (maybe, something to do with the pill?) Do people descended from herders have some special susceptibility to loving animals? Is it the hunting instinct in men gone awry? Or is it the result of co-evolution with dogs - dogs having hacked our brains, so that we are susceptible to gators, when they are not around?

    Replies: @Emil Nikola Richard, @German_reader

    I once attended a company presention by a man, who proudly went by the nickname snake-man, whose job was to remove snakes from property in suburban Houston. He brought in glass cages a rattlesnake, a copperhead, a cotton-mouth, and a coral. He also brought a ball python in a burlap sack. He told an anecdote about a friend of his who had a nasty interaction with friend’s pet rattlesnake. Rattlesnake bit his hand. Hand swelled to size of cantaloupe in the aftermath.

    Snake-man seemed like an otherwise perfectly normal professional guy. What surprised me was how dinky the coral snake was. It was only 12-15 inches in length and less than a half-inch in cross section at the thickest spot. When I have seen a rattlesnake in the wild I have never hesitated to turn around and go the other way.

    What really got the audience’s attention was when he told them that half of them have a rat-snake living in their attic. About a third of them audibly gasped. He showed a powerpoint slide that resembled this:

    • Replies: @songbird
    @Emil Nikola Richard


    When I have seen a rattlesnake in the wild
     
    I'll sound like one of these snake freaks, but I envy you. Last three I saw in the wild were brown, garter, and grass (all small). Been years and years since I've seen anything that might stir a bit of fear in a normal person. And I've never seen a poisonous snake in the wild.

    Biggest poisonous animal in the wild I've ever seen is a shrew. Interesting in its way (they fight to the death to defend territory and I've seen it), but not something anyone would put on a flag.

    I was shocked some years ago, when a wild population of Eastern rattlers was discovered in NH. They are so rare that their exact location is hidden from the public. There was some discussion about trying to seed Eastern rattlers on a island in the Quabbin (big artificial reservoir in Western MA that feeds into Boston), but people were worried about it because the snakes can swim. There is still an island in Lake Winnipesaukee (biggest lake in NH) called "Rattlesnake Island", but some assert that it is only called so because of its shape.

    Not sure whether to believe him, but according to my father, Eastern rattlers were still common in his youth.

    Replies: @Emil Nikola Richard

  638. @LatW
    @sudden death


    I mean if without any prior knowledge you look at Picasso early self portraits at age of 15/18 and then at age 24/25, you might think the man suffered major brain trauma and lost all the previous abilities as a painter:

    https://mymodernmet.com/pablo-picasso-self-portraits/

     

    When you look at those portraits, you can see that things really start looking bad around 1906 (a beginning of rather tumultuous time in Europe). There was a transition in art during that period, from more romantic and "clean" art such as Impressionism and Symbolism (which while already quite decadent, still had many pleasing examples), to more modern types of art (Cubism, Surrealism, stream of consciousness).

    By the way, an example of this transition is visible in architecture as well, when you look at Art Nouveau (an epitome of architectural beauty), then transitioning into Art Deco (which is still bearable but shows very clear signs of modern architecture), and then modern architecture itself which is something completely different (largely an abandonment of traditional beauty).

    Picasso acquired Jewish patrons relatively early when he was still a nobody and was very poor (the likes of Gertrud Stein and especially the one Daniel-Henry Kahnweiler, an art dealer who particularly supported unusual, overlooked artists...). So it's not all about "reckless abandon" and freedom from the chains of the middle class but also about basic money issues, survival and promotion even for these highly cultivated types. The one who pays, orders the music (in this case, paintings), so to speak... I don't want to be too harsh, but this cannot be overlooked.

    Kahnweiler especially promoted the painting Les Demoiselles d'Avignon. Painted in 1907, it is a horrifying example of degenerate art. My opinion is that if one is going to do avant-garde, the potential ugliness, awkwardness or psychological chaos really has to be worth it, as in, it really has to carry a strong, radical message that brings forward something valuable, creates a powerful insight or creates a very special atmosphere. Ugliness, of course, is an aesthetic category of its own that can communicate certain deep messages and often it's a display of the reality of human existence, however, it shouldn't be ugliness for its own sake ("filth for filth's sake"). Well, in this case it might have served as a harkening of a new, disruptive age.

    And I do agree with you that there are better "stream of consciousness" artists, in literature, such as Kafka who, while heavy from the psychological point of view, still presents great value, not to mention the likes of James Joyce.

    Replies: @Dmitry

    Les Demoiselles d’Avignon. Painted in 1907, it is a horrifying example of degenerate art

    This is a great masterwork of early 20th century painting. If you don’t like Picasso, I recommend to read some essays about him, and you can start to see the interesting concepts he uses, as well as commentary on art tradition.

    It might look ugly, but it’s not nearly as ugly as painting by some other great Spanish artists like Goya (https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Black_Paintings ).

    Spain’s great artistic tradition has been counter-balance, or shadow side, of Italy’s in this question. Italian art tradition has had a weakness of too much beautification and “kawaii”.

    Spain’s art tradition has often counter-balanced and you see this in the art gallery, when you walk into the Spanish room, your mood becomes more shaded and you engage with more sinister themes.

    This continues today with films, where the Spanish directors (as well as Japanese) are making the best horror films of the early 21st century.

    Kahnweiler especially promoted the painting

    Maybe there are some scary “Jewish banking gangsters” becoming unfairly rich from Picasso, and the billions of dollars his painting are now worth. It doesn’t reduce from his position as the greatest 20th century painter. Just as “Italian banking gangsters” of the Medici, has hardly reduced from legacy of Michelangelo.

    • Replies: @Mr. Hack
    @Dmitry

    So, Picasso's stature as the greatest 20th century painter was all just a result of a Jewish conspiracy devised to help enrich the bankrolls of the conspirators? They probably helped promote the legacies of other degenerates too (all just to make a fast buck) ? :-)

    I've noticed that you've paid some deference to Karlin's supposed "Middle-Eastern" looks as of late. What's up with that? Are you just trying to troll him back into responding, or is there more behind this latest "assault" on his ethnic Russian purity? :-)

    Replies: @Dmitry

    , @LatW
    @Dmitry


    This is a great masterwork of early 20th century painting. If you don’t like Picasso, I recommend to read some essays about him, and you can start to see the interesting concepts he uses, as well as commentary on art tradition.
     
    It's not about me not liking him (of course, I see that he has some interesting concepts and that particular painting, while gross, is actually very contemporary, it employs ancient tribal masks to portrays a timely message (possibly the rise of feminism), the painting is very forceful, you see, when you're the first one to come out with these radical, forceful concepts you will get the most attention), and I already admitted that "the ugly" is a useful aesthetic category employed through out the ages. And then there is a difference between simply "ugly" and a portrayal of borderline mental illness. As I said, it is all part of the human existence and the artist's job is to reflect that, but why elevate it?

    But it's really about setting aesthetic standards that have far reaching repercussions. What some infantile artist does in his studio is one thing, but to expect the public to worship it is something different. The issue I have with this is mostly the relativization of art, there can be several such bright artists that actually do deliver something valuable with their radical ideas, but what it does is it creates a whole legion of others who will become so pretentious that they will not only expect the public to worship their "abstract" mediocrity but for the state to finance it. The next thing that happens is they start attacking traditional symbols, European ethnic symbols, motherhood, etc. Don't get me wrong, I enjoy avant-garde occasionally, but some of it should be kept away from public, frankly. And what I do find pretty shocking is how much influence these patrons actually had with promoting these new types of art. To be fair though, the artists themselves form these groups where they try to outcompete each other with "shock value" sometimes. Which is ok and interesting as long as it is treated as an artistic experiment and doesn't have a pretention of changing society.

    Replies: @Dmitry

    , @sudden death
    @Dmitry


    This is a great masterwork of early 20th century painting. If you don’t like Picasso, I recommend to read some essays about him, and you can start to see the interesting concepts he uses, as well as commentary on art tradition.

    It might look ugly, but it’s not nearly as ugly as painting by some other great Spanish artists like Goya.
     

    Once again might but just a matter of personal taste, but regarding such intentionaly grotesque-primitivist style of human face/figure painting, imho Picasso is not even at the top of the game though, as some Otto Dix works seem to be way better at this kind of style, e.g. his painting about horribly mutilated WWI veterans with some ragtag looking artificial body parts, seems absolutely fitting, as in reality modern explosives&artilery can make a walking living grotesque out of real people.

    Paradoxically, such depictions using naturalist realist style could be even more bleak than groteque painting, so using some inverse meaning it can be even said that primitivist workstyle kinda makes this view even more attractive aesthetically.

    https://www.wikiart.org/en/otto-dix/the-skat-players-1920

    Replies: @LatW

  639. @Dmitry
    @utu

    Yevardian is angry with Thulean, because Thulean said something racist against Armenians, after alts had said something positive about Armenians.

    Ironically, AaronB (who is usually very relaxed) was angry with Yevardian , because he said something antisemitic about Jews. Even though Armenians and Jews are supposed to have a natural affinity, and AaronB was praising Armenians as elite and cosmopolitan against "jealous peasant Russians"*. https://www.unz.com/akarlin/russias-options-in-artsakh-war/#comment-4193469

    Daniel Chieh was always seeming angry with anyone who didn't praise China.

    Karlin is a Middle Eastern looking dude that must experience xenophobia when he was in America or England, but he wrote anti-African-American comments according to Thulean https://www.unz.com/akarlin/open-thread-170/#comment-5036670

    And he was definitely promoting in Caucasian style, of anti-Ukraine sentiment. https://www.unz.com/akarlin/ukraine-returns-to-tradition

    This blog used to be flooded with people from Balkans, who were breaking down like badly programmed robots when they found another Balkan person from a different nationality.

    Where are the Balkans people now, with arguments about which nationality has a stronger dog?

    People like to insult the other nationality, but then feel irrationally sensitive when the concept they identified with is insulted. There is the asymmetry, where users are easy to give insult, but very difficult to accept insult. Some Buddhist lessons here.


    am writing this believing that you too want to stop emigrations of your countrymen. Let’s make a deal: you stop coming and we promise you won’t hear a single bad word about Arabs and Muslims from us.
     
    I'm sure, we are filtered to be some of the world's least influential people here. Where is this illusion we have any control lol?

    -

    * I like how you and Aaronb recently implying the same association of Russians and peasants. But I was growing vegetables in coronavirus lockdown. The inescapable conclusions of my failed efforts that vegetable growing requires more intelligence and skill, than at least modern office plankton are able to provide.

    Replies: @Mr. Hack, @utu

    The inescapable conclusions of my failed efforts that vegetable growing requires more intelligence and skill, than at least modern office plankton are able to provide.

    What went wrong? With my repository of office plankton gardening knowledge, maybe I can help you?

    • Replies: @Dmitry
    @Mr. Hack

    Most of pots we bought were too small for the eventual plants, so we have to water them too often. We were adding baby plants outside the window too early, so much of the first ones were killed by the cold weather. Also we adding water from above (which causes fungus on the leaves of zucchini plant). There are dozens of mistakes like this, sometimes obvious, but sometimes subtle.

    Then of course, many of the successful plants, are being eaten by mysterious animals when you are not present. Even large eggplants (what kind of animal wants to eat an eggplant?) can disappear in the night.

    It's a good way to understand that being a successful peasant, is not so far from being a chess grandmaster. Especially when you consider that real peasants, often have limited quotas of things like water, seeds and fertile soil, and have to sustain agriculture with these limited materials across years.

    Whereas modern hipsters are going to a gardening shop, and considering themselves geniuses if professionally produced seeds they bought will germinate, and can buy new seeds and soil when they experience any failures. And can go to the supermarket to buy food when they understand they can only produce enough from agriculture in a year, for a couple of plates of food.

  640. @AP
    @Dmitry


    Bourgeoisie refers to owners of means of production (i.e. capital goods) in a capitalist economy
     
    That is the Marxist term. I think of it as middle class, and includes many lawyers for example.

    Although if I recall from a history book, most of the pre-industrial upper class in Europe had climbed from merchant families, while a smaller proportion from military families.
     
    In eastern Europe the roots seem to have been from soldiers or pre-agricultural tribal elders (boyars).

    In the 19th century, most of the funding for art, would be from owners of the capital goods (e.g. bourgeoisie), as this became the centre of the economy.
     
    They hadn't completely taken over society yet (at least not psychologically) and still aspired upwards. Musil had some funny observations of actual aristocratic homes being run down while those of new rich being far more perfect approximations. But the result was that beauty was still being sponsored and produced. Eventually the trend became downward.

    Replies: @melanf, @Dmitry

    Marxist term. I think of it as middle class,

    Before the industrial revolution, burghers are wealthy citizens with voting rights within the cities.

    They would often include professions like merchants, bankers and lawyers, who would later begin to acquire capital goods (factories, ships, means of production).

    As a proportion of the population, they don’t exactly correspond to middle class in a modern sense though, as even in pre-industrial economy they are still not far from a “top 1%” (which medieval Bernie Sanders would be concerned with).

    I assume that a lot of the Italian Renaissance was funded by the equivalent of burghers, within their city-states. But haven’t read a book about this, so I guess we should ask German Reader.

    roots seem to have been from soldiers or pre-agricultural tribal elders

    For some of the most powerful families. But many times merchants became wealthy or influential enough to purchase land, and then would annex into a landowning aristocracy.

    Musil had some funny observations of actual aristocratic homes being run down while those of new rich being far more perfect approximations

    Because there was a strong economic transition, where agriculture becomes less profitable, compared to manufacturing.

    Just as today, we see rotation away from manufacturing, and the development of “rust belt” in areas which had once been produced vast wealth.

    Although the landowning families would still be in the political and military class, and anyone related to the political class can usually secure not the worst of incomes, especially with the high corruption that was tolerated in the past even in Western Europe.

    In countries like England, this is today that the country’s most influential woman of the late 20th century, Princess Diana (from Spencer family, one of the most famous and prestigious families in England, which is the family also of Winston Churchill), can be buried in land, her family has owned since 1508. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Althorp

    “It has been held by the prominent aristocratic Spencer family for more than 500 years, and has been owned by Charles Spencer, 9th Earl Spencer since 1992.

    Althorp is mentioned as a small hamlet in the Domesday Book as “Olletorp”, and by 1377 it had become a village with a population of more than fifty people. By 1505 there were no longer any tenants living there, and in 1508, John Spencer purchased Althorp estate with the funds generated from his family’s sheep-rearing business.

    • Replies: @AP
    @Dmitry


    Marxist term. I think of it as middle class,

    Before the industrial revolution, burghers are wealthy citizens with voting rights within the cities.

    They would often include professions like merchants, bankers and lawyers, who would later begin to acquire capital goods (factories, ships, means of production).
     
    Sure, a segment of the old burghers became masters of Capital. But bourgeoisie are simply middle class, with middle class values. There are positive and negatives about that but it isn't good for culture when it takes everything over.

    "Musil had some funny observations of actual aristocratic homes being run down while those of new rich being far more perfect approximations"

    Because there was a strong economic transition, where agriculture becomes less profitable, compared to manufacturing
     
    .

    No, it wasn't because the aristocrats were too poor to afford to clean or make everything proper, it was because they didn't care to do these things. A feature of the middle-class (even when they become rich) is that they are strivers, who want everything to be proper. The aristocrats didn't care. They would tell dirty jokes and got along better with earthy peasants or the urban underclass who just arrived in the city from the countryside, than did the middle class rich.

    American Yankees were in essence bourgeoisie. Puritanism is very much such a phenomenon, as is its offspring wokism. Things must be proper, not obscene. There are pluses. Things are proper, there is a work ethic, tools for striving and advancement such as education are developed to a high level, there is prosperity and efficiency. For all its Junkers, Germany had a stronger bourgeois spirit than Austria whom it eclipsed. But Austria is much more pleasant and beautiful.

    Althorp is mentioned as a small hamlet in the Domesday Book as “Olletorp”, and by 1377 it had become a village with a population of more than fifty people. By 1505 there were no longer any tenants living there, and in 1508, John Spencer purchased Althorp estate with the funds generated from his family’s sheep-rearing business.”
     
    So the family made their initial fortune as a type of kulak. They had a rural background.

    Replies: @Dmitry, @Dmitry

  641. @Dmitry
    @LatW


    Les Demoiselles d’Avignon. Painted in 1907, it is a horrifying example of degenerate art
     
    This is a great masterwork of early 20th century painting. If you don't like Picasso, I recommend to read some essays about him, and you can start to see the interesting concepts he uses, as well as commentary on art tradition.

    It might look ugly, but it's not nearly as ugly as painting by some other great Spanish artists like Goya (https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Black_Paintings ).

    Spain's great artistic tradition has been counter-balance, or shadow side, of Italy's in this question. Italian art tradition has had a weakness of too much beautification and "kawaii".

    Spain's art tradition has often counter-balanced and you see this in the art gallery, when you walk into the Spanish room, your mood becomes more shaded and you engage with more sinister themes.

    This continues today with films, where the Spanish directors (as well as Japanese) are making the best horror films of the early 21st century.


    Kahnweiler especially promoted the painting
     
    Maybe there are some scary "Jewish banking gangsters" becoming unfairly rich from Picasso, and the billions of dollars his painting are now worth. It doesn't reduce from his position as the greatest 20th century painter. Just as "Italian banking gangsters" of the Medici, has hardly reduced from legacy of Michelangelo.

    Replies: @Mr. Hack, @LatW, @sudden death

    So, Picasso’s stature as the greatest 20th century painter was all just a result of a Jewish conspiracy devised to help enrich the bankrolls of the conspirators? They probably helped promote the legacies of other degenerates too (all just to make a fast buck) ? 🙂

    I’ve noticed that you’ve paid some deference to Karlin’s supposed “Middle-Eastern” looks as of late. What’s up with that? Are you just trying to troll him back into responding, or is there more behind this latest “assault” on his ethnic Russian purity? 🙂

    • Replies: @Dmitry
    @Mr. Hack

    I don't know Karlin in real life, so I can't say how dry his sense of humor is. So my guess is not better than your one.

    He seems a kind of internet "performance art", by calling himself a Russian nationalist.

    Like "Black Klansman" , and I tried to ask a few times about it on this forum discussion (when he was arguing with Bashibuzuk), and he never responded.

    Sometimes he seems like he thinks he a Russian nationalist, while promoting Russian imperialism to Westerners who disagree with it.

    But then in his "Russia's Nationalist Turn" article he is openly joking about the collapsed reality of Russian nationalism, as Putin stands over its dead body.

    I assumed he somewhere very ambiguous, almost avant-garde; half-joking, half-serious. But explaining the joke, is ruining its comic tension, so until now I was able to avoid commenting about it.

    Replies: @Mr. Hack

  642. @Mr. Hack
    @Dmitry


    The inescapable conclusions of my failed efforts that vegetable growing requires more intelligence and skill, than at least modern office plankton are able to provide.
     
    What went wrong? With my repository of office plankton gardening knowledge, maybe I can help you?

    Replies: @Dmitry

    Most of pots we bought were too small for the eventual plants, so we have to water them too often. We were adding baby plants outside the window too early, so much of the first ones were killed by the cold weather. Also we adding water from above (which causes fungus on the leaves of zucchini plant). There are dozens of mistakes like this, sometimes obvious, but sometimes subtle.

    Then of course, many of the successful plants, are being eaten by mysterious animals when you are not present. Even large eggplants (what kind of animal wants to eat an eggplant?) can disappear in the night.

    It’s a good way to understand that being a successful peasant, is not so far from being a chess grandmaster. Especially when you consider that real peasants, often have limited quotas of things like water, seeds and fertile soil, and have to sustain agriculture with these limited materials across years.

    Whereas modern hipsters are going to a gardening shop, and considering themselves geniuses if professionally produced seeds they bought will germinate, and can buy new seeds and soil when they experience any failures. And can go to the supermarket to buy food when they understand they can only produce enough from agriculture in a year, for a couple of plates of food.

  643. German_reader says:
    @AP
    @German_reader

    A very large percentage of kids in Vienna go to private schools (something like 40% in kindergarten). I wonder if these are native parents segregating their kids from "undesirable" migrant children.

    Replies: @German_reader

    I wonder if these are native parents segregating their kids from “undesirable” migrant children.

    You can bet that’s a large factor. Private school attendance is also on the rise in Germany. Confessional schools are popular, and I don’t believe it’s because parents are suddenly so keen on a Catholic education for their children. It’s a way of isolating one’s children from children who come from the dysfunctional underclass, often of migrant background. And tbh, while I don’t like the hypocrisy involved in such choices, it’s an understandable and to some extent legitimate desire imo.

    • Replies: @LatW
    @German_reader


    parents are suddenly so keen on a Catholic education for their children
     
    I heard Catholic schools are on the rise in Norway, too.
  644. German_reader says:
    @Yevardian
    @Thulean Friend

    You and AaronB should have a some greatly stimulating discussions, a la Ward No. 6, in the asylum together someday.

    Replies: @Thulean Friend, @German_reader

    You can say a lot about AaronB, but at least he never came up with such insane trolling as TF’s “let’s cull 80% of manoids” (also interesting that TF so readily resorts to collective denigration of Armenians in response to your comment, pretty telling).
    I hope AaronB didn’t get eaten by bears on his trip to Wyoming or wherever he intended to go over Christmas, among all the spiritual tosh he wrote some of his comments were actually interesting imo and I’d like to see him back here.

    • Agree: Mr. Hack
    • Replies: @Yellowface Anon
    @German_reader

    I secretly have a lot of personal tastes that Unz rightoids totally hate but some 4chan anons will love. Guess which boards.

  645. It’s a good way to understand that being a successful peasant, is not so far from being a chess grandmaster. Especially when you consider that real peasants, often have limited quotas of things like water, seeds and fertile soil, and have to sustain agriculture with these limited materials across years.

    I like your espirit de corps, betraying respect for the common man who grows his own food whether out of preference or need. I didn’t know that real modern hipsters were up to the task of getting their fingernails a bit soiled and grew their own food. Do you think that this is commonplace amongst these folks? Now hydroponically grown weed is another story. 🙂

    When I was younger I helped my mother out with her garden and later on even had a few of my own. It’s hard, backbreaking work, no longer suitable for this older “office plankton”. I do have the nicest collection of roses in my neighborhood though.

    • Replies: @Dmitry
    @Mr. Hack


    think that this is commonplace amongst these folks
     
    Yes it's common in Western Europe, not even as cover for growing of weed.

    I think we have been influenced by them in a herdlike way. In 2020, we oftentime saw in the shop, these young students or hipsters buying the potato seeds and gardening pots.

    I have vegetable growing experience from childhood and youth. I also have believed I have ancestral peasant genius in my blood and that plants respond kindly to me.

    But my recent experience is more a sign that I would rapidly starve and die in peasant times.


    her garden and later on even had a few of my own. It’s hard, backbreaking work, no longer suitable for this older “office plankton”
     
    Although really success with the vegetables requires more mental ability and intelligence, than physical difficulties. As mostly you have to wait doing nothing. But all your plans are lost if a bird or squirrel has a different idea.

    Now, I recommend to grow easy things like some wild strawberries in a pot. This is something even idiots will be able to do :)

    Replies: @Emil Nikola Richard, @Philip Owen

  646. @Mr. Hack
    @Dmitry

    So, Picasso's stature as the greatest 20th century painter was all just a result of a Jewish conspiracy devised to help enrich the bankrolls of the conspirators? They probably helped promote the legacies of other degenerates too (all just to make a fast buck) ? :-)

    I've noticed that you've paid some deference to Karlin's supposed "Middle-Eastern" looks as of late. What's up with that? Are you just trying to troll him back into responding, or is there more behind this latest "assault" on his ethnic Russian purity? :-)

    Replies: @Dmitry

    I don’t know Karlin in real life, so I can’t say how dry his sense of humor is. So my guess is not better than your one.

    He seems a kind of internet “performance art”, by calling himself a Russian nationalist.

    Like “Black Klansman” , and I tried to ask a few times about it on this forum discussion (when he was arguing with Bashibuzuk), and he never responded.

    Sometimes he seems like he thinks he a Russian nationalist, while promoting Russian imperialism to Westerners who disagree with it.

    But then in his “Russia’s Nationalist Turn” article he is openly joking about the collapsed reality of Russian nationalism, as Putin stands over its dead body.

    I assumed he somewhere very ambiguous, almost avant-garde; half-joking, half-serious. But explaining the joke, is ruining its comic tension, so until now I was able to avoid commenting about it.

    • Agree: Yevardian
    • Replies: @Mr. Hack
    @Dmitry

    Well, a dry sense of humor is only really relevant to the one that understands it.

    Last that I checked Substack, it still hadn't budged much, about three threads starting in October?...Either Karlin is busy with other projects, or he's taking full advantage of his new found freedom to sleep in late and join the ranks of Moscow's hipster elite....

    BTW, AP seems to have met Karlin a few times, and probably still is in touch with him, perhaps he can weigh in on the mysterious Russophilia of the man, and what he's been up to lately?.....

    When all is done and said about Karlin, looking back, I can unequivocally state that he always treated me with respect and deference.

    Replies: @Dmitry, @AP, @Philip Owen

  647. @Dmitry
    @LatW


    Les Demoiselles d’Avignon. Painted in 1907, it is a horrifying example of degenerate art
     
    This is a great masterwork of early 20th century painting. If you don't like Picasso, I recommend to read some essays about him, and you can start to see the interesting concepts he uses, as well as commentary on art tradition.

    It might look ugly, but it's not nearly as ugly as painting by some other great Spanish artists like Goya (https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Black_Paintings ).

    Spain's great artistic tradition has been counter-balance, or shadow side, of Italy's in this question. Italian art tradition has had a weakness of too much beautification and "kawaii".

    Spain's art tradition has often counter-balanced and you see this in the art gallery, when you walk into the Spanish room, your mood becomes more shaded and you engage with more sinister themes.

    This continues today with films, where the Spanish directors (as well as Japanese) are making the best horror films of the early 21st century.


    Kahnweiler especially promoted the painting
     
    Maybe there are some scary "Jewish banking gangsters" becoming unfairly rich from Picasso, and the billions of dollars his painting are now worth. It doesn't reduce from his position as the greatest 20th century painter. Just as "Italian banking gangsters" of the Medici, has hardly reduced from legacy of Michelangelo.

    Replies: @Mr. Hack, @LatW, @sudden death

    This is a great masterwork of early 20th century painting. If you don’t like Picasso, I recommend to read some essays about him, and you can start to see the interesting concepts he uses, as well as commentary on art tradition.

    It’s not about me not liking him (of course, I see that he has some interesting concepts and that particular painting, while gross, is actually very contemporary, it employs ancient tribal masks to portrays a timely message (possibly the rise of feminism), the painting is very forceful, you see, when you’re the first one to come out with these radical, forceful concepts you will get the most attention), and I already admitted that “the ugly” is a useful aesthetic category employed through out the ages. And then there is a difference between simply “ugly” and a portrayal of borderline mental illness. As I said, it is all part of the human existence and the artist’s job is to reflect that, but why elevate it?

    But it’s really about setting aesthetic standards that have far reaching repercussions. What some infantile artist does in his studio is one thing, but to expect the public to worship it is something different. The issue I have with this is mostly the relativization of art, there can be several such bright artists that actually do deliver something valuable with their radical ideas, but what it does is it creates a whole legion of others who will become so pretentious that they will not only expect the public to worship their “abstract” mediocrity but for the state to finance it. The next thing that happens is they start attacking traditional symbols, European ethnic symbols, motherhood, etc. Don’t get me wrong, I enjoy avant-garde occasionally, but some of it should be kept away from public, frankly. And what I do find pretty shocking is how much influence these patrons actually had with promoting these new types of art. To be fair though, the artists themselves form these groups where they try to outcompete each other with “shock value” sometimes. Which is ok and interesting as long as it is treated as an artistic experiment and doesn’t have a pretention of changing society.

    • Replies: @Dmitry
    @LatW

    I agree that a lot of art is in a bad situation, and it's possible it could be nondistinguishable from money laundering, where oligarchs buy "concept art" to move money across borders.

    Mass public has abandoned interest in art more than a century ago, for other kinds of visual culture like cinema, fashion magazines and advertising images.

    If you go to a bookshop, and find a book "essays on Picasso's portraiture", I could imagine probably only the 5 most nerdy people in the city would read it, and it will cost $50.

    But this doesn't mean Picasso is not an interesting or great artist. If you have some time to read or learn about him, you will likely start to understand more of the pictures.

    I'm not claiming to be an expert about art. But I mean, I found Picasso exhibitions to be worth the ticket price.


    avant-garde occasionally, but some of it should be kept away from public, frankly.

     

    But have you been recently to an art exhibition? Often very few people will be there, and many of them could be over 70 years old.

    Modern artists, have surely very loyal, cult fans. But their fans, are small numbers of cognoscenti.

    I'm sure there are young people who love modern art, and sit in the gallery, and maybe will even read "critical essays on Picasso", or go to watch lectures about Munch on YouTube. But you know it is small numbers of nerds or art student.

    Isn't it more sad in the other direction? That much of this interesting culture of 20th century, which expressed century's spiritual or emotional experiences, is being locked. It requires too much preparation before people will appreciate those genres.

    Standards of judgement in painted art had become too unclear by end of century, and eventually there is money laundering for oligarchs of almost meaningless publicity like Damien Hirst's skull with diamonds.

    Perhaps amateurs selling on Etsy will save the popularity of painting.

    Replies: @LatW

  648. @German_reader
    @AP


    I wonder if these are native parents segregating their kids from “undesirable” migrant children.
     
    You can bet that's a large factor. Private school attendance is also on the rise in Germany. Confessional schools are popular, and I don't believe it's because parents are suddenly so keen on a Catholic education for their children. It's a way of isolating one's children from children who come from the dysfunctional underclass, often of migrant background. And tbh, while I don't like the hypocrisy involved in such choices, it's an understandable and to some extent legitimate desire imo.

    Replies: @LatW

    parents are suddenly so keen on a Catholic education for their children

    I heard Catholic schools are on the rise in Norway, too.

    • Thanks: German_reader
  649. @melanf
    @LatW


    If he had been an “unprincipled ambitious man”, wouldn’t it have made more sense to stay in Rome?
     
    To raise an uprising to create your own kingdom, instead of the careless life of a Roman servant, is an absolutely logical course of action for an ancient ambitious man like Alcibiades or the same Caesar. It is quite possible that Arminius was of the same material

    Replies: @Yevardian, @LatW

    To raise an uprising to create your own kingdom, instead of the careless life of a Roman servant, is an absolutely logical course of action for an ancient ambitious man like Alcibiades or the same Caesar. It is quite possible that Arminius was of the same material

    You have a point, of course. However, Arminius technically led the Romans into his ancestral lands. If the Romans had succeeded in colonizing the German lands (they had already taken over some parts of Central Europe), Arminius could be put in charge of those lands (as legatus or praetor or something like that). Maybe his father in law suspected that and that’s why he tried to get rid of him by trying to tell on him to the Romans.

  650. German_reader says:
    @Yahya
    @German_reader


    I suppose falling birth rates might eventually defuse this danger somewhat

     

    Birth rates in Egypt, as with the rest of the Arab world, have indeed steeply declined (by roughly 50%) from ~5-6 TFR to ~2-3 TFR over the previous few decades. Last I checked Egypt’s estimated TFR stood at 2.61 by the end of 2021, lower than in 2020 (2.93), 2015 (3.68), and 2010 (3.37). I'd predict it would reach replacement levels in 20-or-years. Incidentally, Egypt’s current TFR would put it below Israel at 2.99, which means almost every Arab country is now below Israel in fertility. A humorous turn of events. Also demonstrates that Israel is the real model for any first world country seeking to increase their TFR.

    https://www.unz.com/wp-content/uploads/2020/06/global-baby-bust-2020.png

    I have somewhat mixed feelings regarding Egypt’s rapid population expansion in the 20th century. On one level, the population increase had very real tangible negative consequences on the environment and physical surroundings. I’m reminded of this every time I drive through downtown Cairo; and see the mass of people living in make-shift brick-houses which were quickly built in the 70s-90s to accommodate the incoming mass of migrants from the countryside. Older people in Egypt are quick to point out that Cairo in the 50s and 60s looked more like Paris than the Sao Paolo it is today.

    And of course the population size has made it all but impossible for Egypt to be self-sufficient agriculturally; the Nile couldn’t keep up with the population explosion. Whereas in antiquity Egypt had been a breadbasket of the Roman Empire; and its wealthiest and most economically vital province; the country is sadly now a net food importer. Net imports might account for about 20% of domestic consumption. The Malthusian dynamics also made it difficult for Egypt to make substantial gains in per capita GDP in the 20th century; though this is starting to change (more on this below).

    But, as this blog's host once perceptively noted: population is power. Egypt's population gives it more power and importance; and more importantly, the potential for cultural renaissance should contingent factors come into alignment at a point in time. Population is a very much understated and overlooked factor in explaining why some civilizations rise and fall. A look at 1900 demographics would demonstrate how that is:

    https://i.imgur.com/we6EIjI.png

    https://brilliantmaps.com/worlds-population-in-1900/

    Here's a quick list of figures for various European/Western nations:
    US = 76M
    Russia = 68M
    German Empire = 56M
    Japan = 42M
    France = 38M
    UK = 38M
    Italy = 32M

    A now here's a list of MENA countries/entities:
    Ottoman Empire = 30M
    Egypt = 8M
    Morocco = 8M
    Persia = 7M
    Arabia = 4M
    Algeria = 4M
    Tunisia = 1.9M
    Libya = 0.4M

    When comparatively tiny France (38M) has a bigger population than the entirety of North Africa (23M) from Egypt to Morocco; does it not become obvious why France was able to dominate the region during the 20th century? When Britain's population likewise exceeds the entirety of the Ottoman Middle East; even excluding it's subjects in India or the Far East; does it not become obvious why Britain was able to control and bully the previously powerful Ottoman Empire?

    And couldn't the Western European ascendancy and intellectual flourishing, which far outstripped that of any previous civilization, be in large part explained by their demographic heft? This isn’t to say population is everything; 2021 Bangladesh (164M) is no more powerful or culturally vital than Russia (144M). Moreover, population increases can be harmful if they only occur at the bottom. Thankfully, in Egypt, the educated class were and are only slightly less fertile than the masses; so the absolute number of educated Egyptians has increased alongside the peasantry. In the upper class; there is no good data, but I counted the family sizes of my schoolmates; and they came to an average of 6 (2 parents, and 4 kids); which incidentally means the Egyptian upper class may be more fertile than the middle (though less than the lower). At any rate, population size in an absolute sense is certainly a vital factor that ought to be on the mind of every long-term thinking strategist.

    As for Egypt; the population is currently at around 100M and is projected to reach 143M by 2050, according to the Population Reference Bureau (PRB) data sheet. As population increases, the absolute number of cognitive elites (>130IQ) increases; no matter how small a fraction they are as a percentage of population. In the case of Egypt; there is no reliable data on average IQ (the Lynn study was comical; it only had a few hundred samples for Egypt); and is at any rate severely depressed due to a variety of environmental factors; (a) mass illiteracy (30% for over 15s), (b) malnutrition (see this UN report: https://www.unicef.org/egypt/nutrition), (c) cousin marriage (30-40% in certain areas), (d) cultural values (fatalism) etc. The best proxy we have for Arab genotypic IQ is Israel; which is at least developed so removes the environmental depressors to a large extent (though not entirely). Arabs there score around 92-94 in proxy tests; which I think is about right (I would appreciate if you can alert me of any IQ studies done on Arabs in Germany should they appear).

    If we assume average genotypic IQ in Egypt is 93, and SD a typical 15; a quick calculation of z-scores on excel provides the absolute number of cognitive elites (130IQ+) for a population of 100M:

    Average IQ = 93
    Standard Deviation = 15
    Population = 100M

    There are 668,886 Egyptians with IQ's of 130 and above. By 2050, should the population reach 143M, Egypt's cognitive elite would increase in size to 975,097. A very ample number for cultural production. Put in perspective, a country like Ireland, with a population of 5.5M and average IQ of 100; has 147,126 IQ130+ individuals; roughly 4.5 times less cognitive elites than 2021 Egypt; and 6.6 times less than 2050 Egypt. Greece (10M) has 227,501 cognitive elites. The Arab world at large, with a population of 380M people, has roughly 2.6M IQ130+ individuals. Germany, with a population of 80M and average IQ of 100, has 1.8M cognitive elites.

    As you can see, whereas in 1900, the German Empire had more people than the entirety of MENA; today there are 5 times more Arabs than Germans; and there are more smart Arabs than there are smart Germans. And there is the story of the rise and fall of the German Empire.


    but I really wonder about all those ill-educated masses in Egypt and other Arab countries who have little to hope

     

    The first thing to understand is that Egypt is not as poor as you’d expect. People, not entirely unreasonably, generally perceive Egypt to be a poverty-ridden basket case, in part because it’s in Africa, and the associations of poverty associated with that continent. In addition, they are vaguely aware of the foreign aid the US provides to Egypt, and so assume Egyptians are only able to feed themselves on behalf of their generous donors. All of the above is exaggerated at best, and flat out wrong at worst. Egypt is not a “poor country”, but can more appropriately be termed a “middle income country”, which incidentally is the designation given to it by multiple world agencies. A look at per capita GDP (PPP) for a variety of countries would demonstrate how that is:

    Brazil: $15,643
    Ukraine: $13,943
    Egypt: $13,083
    Vietnam: $11,677
    Pakistan: $5,224
    Nigeria: $5,280

    Egypt is more along the level of Ukraine and Brazil, than Nigeria or Pakistan. As for foreign aid; almost all of it comes from the US in the form of military equipment, not food or developmental initiatives. And foreign “aid” only constitutes a minuscule proportion of GDP - 1% of gross national income. So in summary, Egypt isn’t really that poor, nor does it rely on donors for food or sustenance. As for it’s future prospects; things are looking good as of present. The economy grew at a solid clip over the previous decade (4-6%); and should continue to grow as Egypt escapes its Malthusian trap and makes improvements in literacy and education. According to the Maddison project; in 1950 Egypt's GDP per capita was roughly 13% of the United Kingdoms in 1970 the ratio went down to 11% - no doubt due to Nasser's disastrous Socialist policies. In 1980 it improved to 16% as Sadat took measures to liberalize the economy; though the ratio stalled throughout the 80s. By 1990 Egypt reached 20% of the UK's per capita GDP; and has been gaining on the West ever since. Today the ratio stands at 31%.


    might follow some demagogue, whether of an Islamic nature, or of some other kind which can’t be foreseen right now

     

    It's within the realm of possibility that Egypt collapses into a state of Islamist morass; or even secular demagoguery. It would be less likely if the West stopped insisting on "democracy" at every turn, which is more likely to encourage demagoguery than discourage it. I don't know what the future holds; but for me personally, I don’t have any intention of departing Egypt for richer countries like Saudi Arabia (where I have citizenship) or the West (where I could easily get one).

    The reasons are manifold. But the one most relevant for you is this: it's not at all bad to live in a "poor" country like Egypt - especially if you are somewhat well off. There are advantages after all which are not obtainable in richer countries - affordable drivers and maids, cheap food and other essential goods etc. And educated people abandoning a poor country for richer ones is just despicable in my opinion. I can see why the poor people would want to immigrate, but there's not much reason for the affluent - life is just as good here (I've had experience in both). Anyway, the way this is relevant to you is that Germany may not become an "inhospitable" third-world hellhole for your progeny, even if demographics change. If your children are intelligent and hard-working; and armed with a practical education (i.e. not gender studies) they can have as good a standard of living in post-German Germany as they could in the Fatherland. This is isn't to say you shouldn’t oppose immigration on ethnic and cultural grounds; but don't worry too much about economics.


    But imo you’re making the same mistake as utu and are ignoring the larger context. songbird would probably face severe social ostracism or even persecution by the state if he made such comments in public. Whereas the ethnocentrism, and I think at least in some cases quite blatant anti-white racism, of American blacks seems to be quite deliberately stoked by the establishment.
     
    Engaging in whataboutism ("blacks are racists too!"), or weak argumentation ("he's only an obnoxious racist online because he's too cowardly to be offline!") is not typical of your otherwise logical and level-headed comments.

    So on some level I feel like my country has to foot the bill for developments we haven’t had much agency over.

     

    Welcome to the club.

    Replies: @German_reader, @Shortsword

    Thankfully, in Egypt, the educated class were and are only slightly less fertile than the masses

    Educated people without good career prospects can be very dangerous and become the leaders of militant movements seeking revolutionary change. So I think a lot will depend on whether Egypt can provide such opportunities for educated classes, also whether there’s at least some social mobility for those rising from below. I’m far from convinced 140 million Egyptians will be such a boon as you assume, maybe they’ll rather be the precondition for a terrible internecine slaughter. But we’ll see.

    The first thing to understand is that Egypt is not as poor as you’d expect.

    But there’s substantial social inequality. When I google “inequality Egypt”, I get results like this, where it’s claimed that 60% of the population are “poor or vulnerable” (however that’s defined):
    https://blogs.lse.ac.uk/mec/2020/04/08/coronavirus-exposes-the-extreme-disparity-between-rich-and-poor-in-egypt/
    My impression was largely based on the events of the early 2010s, to me it seemed like the temporary rise of the Muslim brothers was fueled not least by the resentment the poor and uneducated lower classes felt against the elites.
    But it’s certainly not my place to lecture you about the realities of your country, about which I don’t know that much. Thanks for your interesting comment.

  651. @Mr. Hack

    It’s a good way to understand that being a successful peasant, is not so far from being a chess grandmaster. Especially when you consider that real peasants, often have limited quotas of things like water, seeds and fertile soil, and have to sustain agriculture with these limited materials across years.
     
    I like your espirit de corps, betraying respect for the common man who grows his own food whether out of preference or need. I didn't know that real modern hipsters were up to the task of getting their fingernails a bit soiled and grew their own food. Do you think that this is commonplace amongst these folks? Now hydroponically grown weed is another story. :-)

    When I was younger I helped my mother out with her garden and later on even had a few of my own. It's hard, backbreaking work, no longer suitable for this older "office plankton". I do have the nicest collection of roses in my neighborhood though.

    Replies: @Dmitry

    think that this is commonplace amongst these folks

    Yes it’s common in Western Europe, not even as cover for growing of weed.

    I think we have been influenced by them in a herdlike way. In 2020, we oftentime saw in the shop, these young students or hipsters buying the potato seeds and gardening pots.

    I have vegetable growing experience from childhood and youth. I also have believed I have ancestral peasant genius in my blood and that plants respond kindly to me.

    But my recent experience is more a sign that I would rapidly starve and die in peasant times.

    her garden and later on even had a few of my own. It’s hard, backbreaking work, no longer suitable for this older “office plankton”

    Although really success with the vegetables requires more mental ability and intelligence, than physical difficulties. As mostly you have to wait doing nothing. But all your plans are lost if a bird or squirrel has a different idea.

    Now, I recommend to grow easy things like some wild strawberries in a pot. This is something even idiots will be able to do 🙂

    • Replies: @Emil Nikola Richard
    @Dmitry


    As mostly you have to wait doing nothing.
     
    My neighbor three doors down growing up had a vegetable garden with a large yield. He was out there working on it everyday from when he got home from work until the sun went down and several hours on Saturday. I have no idea what he was doing that took so much work but every time I saw him out there he looked busy as hell.

    His parents were part of the post 1918 Italian influx to America.
    , @Philip Owen
    @Dmitry

    I am sure that as a child in a rural community, I had much more success growing vegetables than I do now. Pests eat my plants now.

  652. @Dmitry
    @Mr. Hack

    I don't know Karlin in real life, so I can't say how dry his sense of humor is. So my guess is not better than your one.

    He seems a kind of internet "performance art", by calling himself a Russian nationalist.

    Like "Black Klansman" , and I tried to ask a few times about it on this forum discussion (when he was arguing with Bashibuzuk), and he never responded.

    Sometimes he seems like he thinks he a Russian nationalist, while promoting Russian imperialism to Westerners who disagree with it.

    But then in his "Russia's Nationalist Turn" article he is openly joking about the collapsed reality of Russian nationalism, as Putin stands over its dead body.

    I assumed he somewhere very ambiguous, almost avant-garde; half-joking, half-serious. But explaining the joke, is ruining its comic tension, so until now I was able to avoid commenting about it.

    Replies: @Mr. Hack

    Well, a dry sense of humor is only really relevant to the one that understands it.

    Last that I checked Substack, it still hadn’t budged much, about three threads starting in October?…Either Karlin is busy with other projects, or he’s taking full advantage of his new found freedom to sleep in late and join the ranks of Moscow’s hipster elite….

    BTW, AP seems to have met Karlin a few times, and probably still is in touch with him, perhaps he can weigh in on the mysterious Russophilia of the man, and what he’s been up to lately?…..

    When all is done and said about Karlin, looking back, I can unequivocally state that he always treated me with respect and deference.

    • Replies: @Dmitry
    @Mr. Hack

    Yes Karlin was nice. I missed when even sometimes he would quote our posts on the top of the page if we said something interesting.

    Unz seems very kind to us, which I wasn't expecting he would continue to support the forum.

    Replies: @A123

    , @AP
    @Mr. Hack

    I met him once in Moscow, he was very nice and personable. He is sincere AFAIK, expressing the same ideas in person as online. An honest and decent guy, though we disagree on some things and strongly so if he cheers on a Russian invasion of Ukraine as I suspect he might.

    Replies: @Mr. Hack, @sher singh

    , @Philip Owen
    @Mr. Hack

    I met Anatoly in real-life once. I was surprised by how Russian his accent was. At the time he had spent most of his life in the UK and California. I suspect that his parents regretted leaving Russia andmtried hard to retain their identity. Within my own tribe, Welsh, I often see married couples preserving their accent but even amongst Welsh speakers transferrIng accents is remarkable.

    Replies: @Yevardian

  653. @Emil Nikola Richard
    @songbird

    I once attended a company presention by a man, who proudly went by the nickname snake-man, whose job was to remove snakes from property in suburban Houston. He brought in glass cages a rattlesnake, a copperhead, a cotton-mouth, and a coral. He also brought a ball python in a burlap sack. He told an anecdote about a friend of his who had a nasty interaction with friend's pet rattlesnake. Rattlesnake bit his hand. Hand swelled to size of cantaloupe in the aftermath.

    Snake-man seemed like an otherwise perfectly normal professional guy. What surprised me was how dinky the coral snake was. It was only 12-15 inches in length and less than a half-inch in cross section at the thickest spot. When I have seen a rattlesnake in the wild I have never hesitated to turn around and go the other way.

    What really got the audience's attention was when he told them that half of them have a rat-snake living in their attic. About a third of them audibly gasped. He showed a powerpoint slide that resembled this:

    https://www.gannett-cdn.com/-mm-/06756bca6c979c173ae23c1ba44f60a8fd2bcbee/c=0-0-3024-4032/local/-/media/2020/09/10/Austin/ghows-TX-200629148-2b21138b.jpg

    Replies: @songbird

    When I have seen a rattlesnake in the wild

    I’ll sound like one of these snake freaks, but I envy you. Last three I saw in the wild were brown, garter, and grass (all small). Been years and years since I’ve seen anything that might stir a bit of fear in a normal person. And I’ve never seen a poisonous snake in the wild.

    Biggest poisonous animal in the wild I’ve ever seen is a shrew. Interesting in its way (they fight to the death to defend territory and I’ve seen it), but not something anyone would put on a flag.

    I was shocked some years ago, when a wild population of Eastern rattlers was discovered in NH. They are so rare that their exact location is hidden from the public. There was some discussion about trying to seed Eastern rattlers on a island in the Quabbin (big artificial reservoir in Western MA that feeds into Boston), but people were worried about it because the snakes can swim. There is still an island in Lake Winnipesaukee (biggest lake in NH) called “Rattlesnake Island”, but some assert that it is only called so because of its shape.

    Not sure whether to believe him, but according to my father, Eastern rattlers were still common in his youth.

    • Replies: @Emil Nikola Richard
    @songbird

    I forgot to mention the other great slide that he showed (prefacing with you might not want to see this) was his friend's post-rattlesnake-bite-cantaloupe-size-hand. Google image search fails to find an approximation. It was all black and blue and oozing puss.

    He got his full use of the hand back in around 6 months.

  654. German_reader says:
    @songbird
    One of the really fascinating corners of youtube from an anthropological viewpoint is the people who are reptile enthusiasts.

    In particular, many seem to be aficionados of American crocodiles. I once saw one of these (smallish) that was caught in a New Hampshire creek, after having been abandoned as someone's pet. (I have used this to tease someone I know who swims in a nearby one.)

    Seems to me that they range in a spectrum of craziness. From men who have gators as emotional support animals. Or the woman who calls a ball python infested with a hundred ticks "Poor baby!" To the woman who will walk their croc on a leash at Petco, have it pick out a toy by hissing at it, while inserting thought bubbles into its hisses, but who will recommend against other people getting one. To the guy who will train crocs and get in the water with them and let them circle behind him, or nudge his face, but is under no illusions that they love him, or wouldn't pounce on him if he tripped or had a seizure.

    Anyway, it has given me endless room for speculation about why people are so crazy. Is it because the mother-instinct in women can be hacked so easily (maybe, something to do with the pill?) Do people descended from herders have some special susceptibility to loving animals? Is it the hunting instinct in men gone awry? Or is it the result of co-evolution with dogs - dogs having hacked our brains, so that we are susceptible to gators, when they are not around?

    Replies: @Emil Nikola Richard, @German_reader

    One of my father’s English friends knows a couple who own some kind of python, and took it with them into their bed, to “cuddle” with it. The snake then manifested some sort of behaviour (unfortunately don’t know the details anymore) which they interpreted as a sign of affection.
    A veterinarian later told them it actually was behaviour typical for that kind of snake when it thinks it has recognized potential prey.
    I don’t get such people either, imo it might be another sign of civilizational sickness (and one sometimes marvels at the stupidity…a few years ago there was a case in Germany where a guy kept a highly venomous monocled cobra in a shoe box…from which predictably enough it escaped, leading to the evacuation of the entire building for weeks).

    • Replies: @songbird
    @German_reader


    few years ago there was a case in Germany where a guy kept a highly venomous monocled cobra in a shoe box…from which predictably enough it escaped, leading to the evacuation of the entire building for weeks
     
    Heard a story that someone in Germany had a pet snapping-turtle (quite a common animal around here, but very formidable and almost prehistoric-looking compared to other turtles). They let it go in the wild in some pond or lake, and it was terrorizing Germans. I think in part because they did not have the healthy respect for such an animal that we would have over here, knowing its vicious nature and power. (Supposedly, they can snap a broomstick in half). IIRC, it bit through a swimmer's Achilles tendon or something.

    Once heard a radio play about a poisonous snake escaping on a passenger ship. The people were helpless, and it killed several. To my mind, the ending was absolutely brilliant. Killed by a cat protecting its kittens.

    Replies: @Mr. Hack

  655. @LatW
    @Dmitry


    This is a great masterwork of early 20th century painting. If you don’t like Picasso, I recommend to read some essays about him, and you can start to see the interesting concepts he uses, as well as commentary on art tradition.
     
    It's not about me not liking him (of course, I see that he has some interesting concepts and that particular painting, while gross, is actually very contemporary, it employs ancient tribal masks to portrays a timely message (possibly the rise of feminism), the painting is very forceful, you see, when you're the first one to come out with these radical, forceful concepts you will get the most attention), and I already admitted that "the ugly" is a useful aesthetic category employed through out the ages. And then there is a difference between simply "ugly" and a portrayal of borderline mental illness. As I said, it is all part of the human existence and the artist's job is to reflect that, but why elevate it?

    But it's really about setting aesthetic standards that have far reaching repercussions. What some infantile artist does in his studio is one thing, but to expect the public to worship it is something different. The issue I have with this is mostly the relativization of art, there can be several such bright artists that actually do deliver something valuable with their radical ideas, but what it does is it creates a whole legion of others who will become so pretentious that they will not only expect the public to worship their "abstract" mediocrity but for the state to finance it. The next thing that happens is they start attacking traditional symbols, European ethnic symbols, motherhood, etc. Don't get me wrong, I enjoy avant-garde occasionally, but some of it should be kept away from public, frankly. And what I do find pretty shocking is how much influence these patrons actually had with promoting these new types of art. To be fair though, the artists themselves form these groups where they try to outcompete each other with "shock value" sometimes. Which is ok and interesting as long as it is treated as an artistic experiment and doesn't have a pretention of changing society.

    Replies: @Dmitry

    I agree that a lot of art is in a bad situation, and it’s possible it could be nondistinguishable from money laundering, where oligarchs buy “concept art” to move money across borders.

    Mass public has abandoned interest in art more than a century ago, for other kinds of visual culture like cinema, fashion magazines and advertising images.

    If you go to a bookshop, and find a book “essays on Picasso’s portraiture”, I could imagine probably only the 5 most nerdy people in the city would read it, and it will cost \$50.

    But this doesn’t mean Picasso is not an interesting or great artist. If you have some time to read or learn about him, you will likely start to understand more of the pictures.

    I’m not claiming to be an expert about art. But I mean, I found Picasso exhibitions to be worth the ticket price.

    avant-garde occasionally, but some of it should be kept away from public, frankly.

    But have you been recently to an art exhibition? Often very few people will be there, and many of them could be over 70 years old.

    Modern artists, have surely very loyal, cult fans. But their fans, are small numbers of cognoscenti.

    I’m sure there are young people who love modern art, and sit in the gallery, and maybe will even read “critical essays on Picasso”, or go to watch lectures about Munch on YouTube. But you know it is small numbers of nerds or art student.

    Isn’t it more sad in the other direction? That much of this interesting culture of 20th century, which expressed century’s spiritual or emotional experiences, is being locked. It requires too much preparation before people will appreciate those genres.

    Standards of judgement in painted art had become too unclear by end of century, and eventually there is money laundering for oligarchs of almost meaningless publicity like Damien Hirst’s skull with diamonds.

    Perhaps amateurs selling on Etsy will save the popularity of painting.

    • Replies: @LatW
    @Dmitry


    I agree that a lot of art is in a bad situation, and it’s possible it could undistinguishable from money laundering, where oligarchs buy “concept art” to move money across borders.
     
    In this context, have you thought about Russian art? It's apparently underrated. I've heard Peter Aven talk about this (and we already talked about how he owns the biggest Silver Age art collection out there). He was saying that Russian art is underrated, it really bothered me, the Russians should be more careful and protective of their art.


    But this doesn’t mean Picasso is not an interesting or great artist. If you have some time to read or learn about him, you will likely start to understand more of the pictures.
     
    You're doing your usual pretending not to hear what I said. :) I understand quite well what he has tried to say, as far it can be understood. I love bold ideas. However, I wasn't talking about my personal taste or understanding, but the changing of aesthetic standards. Do you follow me?

    The crisis of WW1 and its aftermath actually generated all kinds of unusual things such as the Surrealist Manifesto, for instance. Maybe it was a way for Europeans to process what had happened...?

    But have you been recently to an art exhibition?
     
    Not recently, as I've been busy, but in my youth I was attending museums or concerts almost every weekend (I still do on and off). I've been to interesting exhibits in Berlin, the Van Gogh / Gauguin in Amsterdam, art museums in DC. As I mentioned, I love Art Nouveau and romantic art. So, of course, I've visited the Secession Museum in Vienna (it's quite small).

    Often very few people will be there, and many of them could be over 70 years old.
     
    Not in my experience. In my youth I hung out with some humanities students who were very knowledgable in art and art history. One or two of them were actual artists. They were all in their 20s. One of them is now a curator, one is an academic (anthropology). However, I did not fit in that group fully because they were better educated than I and quite snobbish, I couldn't pull their level, plus they were a bit peeved by my political views (way too constraining and aggressive for them).

    Perhaps amateurs selling on Etsy will save the popularity of painting.
     
    Maybe there are some interesting, original NFTs out there?

    Replies: @AP, @Dmitry

  656. @Mr. Hack
    @Dmitry

    Well, a dry sense of humor is only really relevant to the one that understands it.

    Last that I checked Substack, it still hadn't budged much, about three threads starting in October?...Either Karlin is busy with other projects, or he's taking full advantage of his new found freedom to sleep in late and join the ranks of Moscow's hipster elite....

    BTW, AP seems to have met Karlin a few times, and probably still is in touch with him, perhaps he can weigh in on the mysterious Russophilia of the man, and what he's been up to lately?.....

    When all is done and said about Karlin, looking back, I can unequivocally state that he always treated me with respect and deference.

    Replies: @Dmitry, @AP, @Philip Owen

    Yes Karlin was nice. I missed when even sometimes he would quote our posts on the top of the page if we said something interesting.

    Unz seems very kind to us, which I wasn’t expecting he would continue to support the forum.

    • Replies: @A123
    @Dmitry


    Unz seems very kind to us, which I wasn’t expecting he would continue to support the forum.
     
    Kind, but also enlightened self interest. By starting new unmoderated threads here, we are not backing up queues for mandatory review elsewhere.

    Mr. Unz did add support for vector graphics ".SVG" and Rumble video embedding after I suggested those improvements.

    Yes Karlin was nice. I missed when even sometimes he would quote our posts on the top of the page if we said something interesting.
     
    AK certainly disagreed with me on a number of issues, but did not quash my posts. I would like him to return. The substack venture appears to be deceased.
    _____

    P.S. You marked up the relationships between various posters in an earlier comment. But, left me out......

    Does that mean, I am beloved by all?
    Or better yet, revered?   ;-P

    PEACE 😇
  657. @Mr. Hack
    @songbird

    No need to fret, try viewing only one episode, see if you like it and then proceed to the rest. It's about a 10 episode extravaganza, each episode having its own DVD disc. I got the whole series at my local library for free. I'm quite sure that there are several ways you can view it today. Since several persons have already recommended it to you including myself, it might just be the ticket!

    The trick to remembering dreams is to do it right away after you wake up. Even still, you may not remember it all, but you should remember something and force your memory to reveal some more.I've been fortunat enough to have two types of "flying dreams:. The first variety are very reminiscent of the Chagal painting that I posted above. These dreams involve my ability to personally fly, as if I'm some sort of a human kite. I gather up some speed, then jump into the air and the wind takes me for a ride. I can hover quite high over different types of landscapes, but they're usually city ones. I do recall one where I actually jumped off of a roof of a building and luckily went for a ride. I vividly recall having to coordinate my efforts with the wind, and they're really quite fun.

    The other type, involves my role as an airplane pilot, although I have never acquired this skill in real life. I've flown all manner of aircraft from tiny two man planes to large passenger carriers. Once in a large plane, I spotted a hostile smaller craft to the side, and was forced to shoot it down. he craziest dream that I can remember had me commandeer a large passenger type plane to a low altitude ultimately flying it underneath a low bridge - we came out the other end unscathed! In one of the last dreams that I had of this sort, a large plane that I was flying ended up crashing, I'm not sure that I was inside of it as I was viewing the whole mishap from outside of the plane. It was a spectacular crash, very colorful as I recall. Needless to say, I woke up right after that one!

    Replies: @songbird, @LatW

    got the whole series at my local library for free.

    Have recently acquired a copy myself, so I guess that removes the biggest energy barrier. May give the first hour a whirl tomorrow, as it is supposed to be one of those polar vortex type days, that I think only a Russian or a Yakut could enjoy.

    The trick to remembering dreams is to do it right away after you wake up.

    Heard somewhere that it is hard for someone on drugs to remember what they did when they are in a period of sobriety because it is a different state of the brain. The drug state has a way of splitting up, storing, and putting back together drug-memories, in order to recall them, that cannot be duplicated with a sober brain.

    [MORE]

    But maybe, keeping this in mind has hampered my efforts to recall. I sometimes feel like I need to come out of sleep at a certain amplitude of the brainwave to remember things. Seems more common that I remember when I wake up in the middle of the night, than in the morning. But I like your suggestion of plasticity and repeated effort. Maybe, I have been limiting myself by trying to put everything in constrained scientific terms.

    Too bad Daniel is not around, perhaps, he would have interesting insights here, as he’s into using feedback.

    I gather up some speed, then jump into the air and the wind takes me for a ride. I can hover quite high over different types of landscapes, but they’re usually city ones

    Do you need to know it is a dream, in order to fly?

    Often I only seem to suspect it is a dream. On the rare occasions when I have had a sharp willfulness, I find my actions are always limited. Once I went for a walk at night in my dream, thinking it would be super cool, but ended up just taking a leisurely stroll to nowhere in particular. Another time, (very rough analogy) it was kind of like how in a video game, you are constrained by obvious barriers.

    BTW, reminds me of the beginning of a Sherlock Holmes story. Perhaps, it was inspired by a dream? Now that I think of it, I feel certain it was.

    I can remember had me commandeer a large passenger type plane to a low altitude ultimately flying it underneath a low bridge – we came out the other end unscathed!

    Perhaps, after seeing the movie Lost Horizon?

    BTW, have you any thoughts about the people who appear in your dreams? Do you think they are mostly all people whose faces you have seen? Or are they made-up people and you are imagining their faces? (This is a really interesting question to me, as the face is such a complicated thing.) Have you ever read in a dream? (I vaguely think I have, but am unsure.)

    One of the weirdest ideas I have ever come across is the assertion (which I think some people said only in the ’30s or ’40s, that people can only dream in black and white.) I never recall having a dream like this, though I do remember nighttime dreams.

    The absolute craziest dream that I can ever remember was being shot at with laser guns by giant robots (like thirty or forty feet tall). Let’s hope it was not a vision of the future.

    • Replies: @Mr. Hack
    @songbird

    Daniel Chieh related to me that he would sometimes use some kind of a meditation device that would help him enter into some kind of a trance state of mind very similar to dreaming where he would have some incredible visions. As far as I can remember right now, I do not need to know that I'm dreaming while I'm dreaming in order to fly. I do, however, have dreams where I am aware at some point that I'm within a dream.


    Once I went for a walk at night in my dream, thinking it would be super cool, but ended up just taking a leisurely stroll to nowhere in particular.
     
    Perhaps, you really did go for a walk? Sleep walking is very real for some individuals. My grandmother used to sleep walk and it usually occurred during the time of a full moon.

    Perhaps, the film "Lost Horizons" did have some influence on my last dream that I mentioned, where the large plane crashed, but not on the one where I successfully commandeered the plane underneath a bridge? :-)


    BTW, have you any thoughts about the people who appear in your dreams? Do you think they are mostly all people whose faces you have seen? Or are they made-up people and you are imagining their faces? (This is a really interesting question to me, as the face is such a complicated thing.) Have you ever read in a dream? (I vaguely think I have, but am unsure.)

     

    I've had both types of encounters within my dreams. Certainly ones where the other actors in my dream are know entities, and therefore I know their faces, and others where the faces are largely unknown to me. The characters that end up displaying different known personalities to me are quite interesting to me. When I review the dream sequence once awake I'm often scratching my head thinking "what the h...?" I once had a dream that I related to AP on this website where he came to visit me in Mpls (I've never seen AP in my life) and we ended up going to a very artsy and ritzy part of town and went into the basement of a large mansion where his father was the curator of a large art gallery. We were looking at a lot of very bizarre and surrealistic types of artwork, not all for sale?.....I dream in both black and white and in color.

    Lastly, your "large robot" dream reminds me of one that I had after watching the film "War of the Worlds" starring Tom Cruise, or was it "Sky Captain and the World of Tomorrow", both really fun movies to watch. :-)

    Replies: @songbird

  658. @German_reader
    @songbird

    One of my father's English friends knows a couple who own some kind of python, and took it with them into their bed, to "cuddle" with it. The snake then manifested some sort of behaviour (unfortunately don't know the details anymore) which they interpreted as a sign of affection.
    A veterinarian later told them it actually was behaviour typical for that kind of snake when it thinks it has recognized potential prey.
    I don't get such people either, imo it might be another sign of civilizational sickness (and one sometimes marvels at the stupidity...a few years ago there was a case in Germany where a guy kept a highly venomous monocled cobra in a shoe box...from which predictably enough it escaped, leading to the evacuation of the entire building for weeks).

    Replies: @songbird

    few years ago there was a case in Germany where a guy kept a highly venomous monocled cobra in a shoe box…from which predictably enough it escaped, leading to the evacuation of the entire building for weeks

    Heard a story that someone in Germany had a pet snapping-turtle (quite a common animal around here, but very formidable and almost prehistoric-looking compared to other turtles). They let it go in the wild in some pond or lake, and it was terrorizing Germans. I think in part because they did not have the healthy respect for such an animal that we would have over here, knowing its vicious nature and power. (Supposedly, they can snap a broomstick in half). IIRC, it bit through a swimmer’s Achilles tendon or something.

    Once heard a radio play about a poisonous snake escaping on a passenger ship. The people were helpless, and it killed several. To my mind, the ending was absolutely brilliant.

    [MORE]
    Killed by a cat protecting its kittens.

    • Replies: @Mr. Hack
    @songbird

    Not as unusual as you might think, denizens of the Sonoran desert in Arizona occasionally have taken to keeping large tortoises on their properties. I first found out about this from a co-worker of mine that admitted to having one for at least 10years. These are the ones that as a kid you may have encountered at the local zoo and even sat on. He told me that he usually fed the creature lettuce and some other vegetable, and that they burrowed tunnels underneath the ground and sometimes stay down below for several days before they come up "for air". He said that his was quite friendly and didn't require a lot of supervision. Nothing really wrong with it, and you can almost be certain that it will outlive you, for they tend to live upwards of 100 years, something that you can't say about cats or dogs. The local zoo and animal shelters even affords people opportunities to "adopt a tortoise". :-)

    https://www.desertmuseum.org/images/tort_burrow2.jpg

  659. @Dmitry
    @Mr. Hack

    Yes Karlin was nice. I missed when even sometimes he would quote our posts on the top of the page if we said something interesting.

    Unz seems very kind to us, which I wasn't expecting he would continue to support the forum.

    Replies: @A123

    Unz seems very kind to us, which I wasn’t expecting he would continue to support the forum.

    Kind, but also enlightened self interest. By starting new unmoderated threads here, we are not backing up queues for mandatory review elsewhere.

    Mr. Unz did add support for vector graphics “.SVG” and Rumble video embedding after I suggested those improvements.

    Yes Karlin was nice. I missed when even sometimes he would quote our posts on the top of the page if we said something interesting.

    AK certainly disagreed with me on a number of issues, but did not quash my posts. I would like him to return. The substack venture appears to be deceased.
    _____

    P.S. You marked up the relationships between various posters in an earlier comment. But, left me out……

    Does that mean, I am beloved by all?
    Or better yet, revered?   ;-P

    PEACE 😇

  660. @German_reader
    @Yevardian

    You can say a lot about AaronB, but at least he never came up with such insane trolling as TF's "let's cull 80% of manoids" (also interesting that TF so readily resorts to collective denigration of Armenians in response to your comment, pretty telling).
    I hope AaronB didn't get eaten by bears on his trip to Wyoming or wherever he intended to go over Christmas, among all the spiritual tosh he wrote some of his comments were actually interesting imo and I'd like to see him back here.

    Replies: @Yellowface Anon

    I secretly have a lot of personal tastes that Unz rightoids totally hate but some 4chan anons will love. Guess which boards.

  661. @Dmitry
    @LatW

    I agree that a lot of art is in a bad situation, and it's possible it could be nondistinguishable from money laundering, where oligarchs buy "concept art" to move money across borders.

    Mass public has abandoned interest in art more than a century ago, for other kinds of visual culture like cinema, fashion magazines and advertising images.

    If you go to a bookshop, and find a book "essays on Picasso's portraiture", I could imagine probably only the 5 most nerdy people in the city would read it, and it will cost $50.

    But this doesn't mean Picasso is not an interesting or great artist. If you have some time to read or learn about him, you will likely start to understand more of the pictures.

    I'm not claiming to be an expert about art. But I mean, I found Picasso exhibitions to be worth the ticket price.


    avant-garde occasionally, but some of it should be kept away from public, frankly.

     

    But have you been recently to an art exhibition? Often very few people will be there, and many of them could be over 70 years old.

    Modern artists, have surely very loyal, cult fans. But their fans, are small numbers of cognoscenti.

    I'm sure there are young people who love modern art, and sit in the gallery, and maybe will even read "critical essays on Picasso", or go to watch lectures about Munch on YouTube. But you know it is small numbers of nerds or art student.

    Isn't it more sad in the other direction? That much of this interesting culture of 20th century, which expressed century's spiritual or emotional experiences, is being locked. It requires too much preparation before people will appreciate those genres.

    Standards of judgement in painted art had become too unclear by end of century, and eventually there is money laundering for oligarchs of almost meaningless publicity like Damien Hirst's skull with diamonds.

    Perhaps amateurs selling on Etsy will save the popularity of painting.

    Replies: @LatW

    I agree that a lot of art is in a bad situation, and it’s possible it could undistinguishable from money laundering, where oligarchs buy “concept art” to move money across borders.

    In this context, have you thought about Russian art? It’s apparently underrated. I’ve heard Peter Aven talk about this (and we already talked about how he owns the biggest Silver Age art collection out there). He was saying that Russian art is underrated, it really bothered me, the Russians should be more careful and protective of their art.

    [MORE]

    But this doesn’t mean Picasso is not an interesting or great artist. If you have some time to read or learn about him, you will likely start to understand more of the pictures.

    You’re doing your usual pretending not to hear what I said. 🙂 I understand quite well what he has tried to say, as far it can be understood. I love bold ideas. However, I wasn’t talking about my personal taste or understanding, but the changing of aesthetic standards. Do you follow me?

    The crisis of WW1 and its aftermath actually generated all kinds of unusual things such as the Surrealist Manifesto, for instance. Maybe it was a way for Europeans to process what had happened…?

    But have you been recently to an art exhibition?

    Not recently, as I’ve been busy, but in my youth I was attending museums or concerts almost every weekend (I still do on and off). I’ve been to interesting exhibits in Berlin, the Van Gogh / Gauguin in Amsterdam, art museums in DC. As I mentioned, I love Art Nouveau and romantic art. So, of course, I’ve visited the Secession Museum in Vienna (it’s quite small).

    Often very few people will be there, and many of them could be over 70 years old.

    Not in my experience. In my youth I hung out with some humanities students who were very knowledgable in art and art history. One or two of them were actual artists. They were all in their 20s. One of them is now a curator, one is an academic (anthropology). However, I did not fit in that group fully because they were better educated than I and quite snobbish, I couldn’t pull their level, plus they were a bit peeved by my political views (way too constraining and aggressive for them).

    Perhaps amateurs selling on Etsy will save the popularity of painting.

    Maybe there are some interesting, original NFTs out there?

    • Replies: @AP
    @LatW

    Russian art is certainly underrated internationally. The two Tretyov galleries are some of my favorite museums in the world.

    Replies: @LatW

    , @Dmitry
    @LatW


    Russian art is underrated, it really bothered me, the Russians
     
    I would not agree with Aven, because of people like him, there are Russian art days in auctions in New York, London, Paris.

    I feel like there is almost more money flowing in Russian art, than relative to its importance in the art history.
    https://www.sothebys.com/en/series/russian-art-in-london

    Because the Russian elite is expending more money on art, than almost any nationality in the world.

    There are a lot of very good paintings from Russian artists in the 19th century. It's a little like how Japanese lager beer, can taste more delicious than the German original one.

    Before the 20th century, the art styles come to Russia always later, more imported and less original, then on the other side it can be also more refined, and "standing on shoulders" of the more pioneering art traditions in France, Italy, Spain, etc.


    However, I wasn’t talking about my personal taste or understanding, but the changing of aesthetic standards. Do you follow me?

     

    I wasn't criticizing your taste or to saying you don't like bold ideas. Obviously, you have their own interesting view. I'm just writing my own view.

    Picasso was a great artist. Spain does not have a better expression of the bombing of Guernica than his painting "Guernica". But all these symbols are not only about Spain, but also have very personal meaning his career, including the bull and the horse.

    You can see why nerds enjoy Picasso, because it's an artist where the more you read, the more interesting his works can be.

    In "Guernica", it's like his own inner mythological world was being destroyed, not just about the military event, as he portrays the same symbols across thousands of painting, and many different styles. https://www.apollo-magazine.com/what-the-minotaur-can-tell-us-about-picasso/


    in my experience. In my youth I hung out with some humanities students who were very knowledgable in art and art history. One or two of them were actual artists. They were all in their 20s.
     
    Yes there are young people, but they are nerdy people. It's not mass culture at all. It's not Harry Potter or Justin Bieber.

    So, the idea that Picasso is going to damage society's innocent masses, is a little implausible, since only the most cultured and interesting youth are interested in Picasso.

    Maybe, even Picasso, was a difficult person in his life, and especially to his thousands of girlfriends. But his art is a wonderful, benevolent gift for those few nerdy people who still enjoy it (as well as for the wealthy oligarchs who have enough money to own it).

    Replies: @LatW

  662. @Mr. Hack
    @Dmitry

    Well, a dry sense of humor is only really relevant to the one that understands it.

    Last that I checked Substack, it still hadn't budged much, about three threads starting in October?...Either Karlin is busy with other projects, or he's taking full advantage of his new found freedom to sleep in late and join the ranks of Moscow's hipster elite....

    BTW, AP seems to have met Karlin a few times, and probably still is in touch with him, perhaps he can weigh in on the mysterious Russophilia of the man, and what he's been up to lately?.....

    When all is done and said about Karlin, looking back, I can unequivocally state that he always treated me with respect and deference.

    Replies: @Dmitry, @AP, @Philip Owen

    I met him once in Moscow, he was very nice and personable. He is sincere AFAIK, expressing the same ideas in person as online. An honest and decent guy, though we disagree on some things and strongly so if he cheers on a Russian invasion of Ukraine as I suspect he might.

    • Replies: @Mr. Hack
    @AP


    though we disagree on some things and strongly so if he cheers on a Russian invasion of Ukraine as I suspect he might.
     
    Yeah, I remember recently reading one of his tweets, where he seemed to relish the idea of a Russian invasion of Ukraine, naming a couple of Russian oligarchs that would support such a move. Even though I don't think that Ukraine's place under the sun should be closely related to Russia's, I'm not at all opposed to Ukrainians and Russians forming these ideas, even politically. These ideas go back centuries now, and deserve some attention, but forcing them on Ukrainians by force is just plain wrong.
    , @sher singh
    @AP

    Can I carry a Sabre in Moscow?

    Replies: @AP

  663. @LatW
    @Dmitry


    I agree that a lot of art is in a bad situation, and it’s possible it could undistinguishable from money laundering, where oligarchs buy “concept art” to move money across borders.
     
    In this context, have you thought about Russian art? It's apparently underrated. I've heard Peter Aven talk about this (and we already talked about how he owns the biggest Silver Age art collection out there). He was saying that Russian art is underrated, it really bothered me, the Russians should be more careful and protective of their art.


    But this doesn’t mean Picasso is not an interesting or great artist. If you have some time to read or learn about him, you will likely start to understand more of the pictures.
     
    You're doing your usual pretending not to hear what I said. :) I understand quite well what he has tried to say, as far it can be understood. I love bold ideas. However, I wasn't talking about my personal taste or understanding, but the changing of aesthetic standards. Do you follow me?

    The crisis of WW1 and its aftermath actually generated all kinds of unusual things such as the Surrealist Manifesto, for instance. Maybe it was a way for Europeans to process what had happened...?

    But have you been recently to an art exhibition?
     
    Not recently, as I've been busy, but in my youth I was attending museums or concerts almost every weekend (I still do on and off). I've been to interesting exhibits in Berlin, the Van Gogh / Gauguin in Amsterdam, art museums in DC. As I mentioned, I love Art Nouveau and romantic art. So, of course, I've visited the Secession Museum in Vienna (it's quite small).

    Often very few people will be there, and many of them could be over 70 years old.
     
    Not in my experience. In my youth I hung out with some humanities students who were very knowledgable in art and art history. One or two of them were actual artists. They were all in their 20s. One of them is now a curator, one is an academic (anthropology). However, I did not fit in that group fully because they were better educated than I and quite snobbish, I couldn't pull their level, plus they were a bit peeved by my political views (way too constraining and aggressive for them).

    Perhaps amateurs selling on Etsy will save the popularity of painting.
     
    Maybe there are some interesting, original NFTs out there?

    Replies: @AP, @Dmitry

    Russian art is certainly underrated internationally. The two Tretyov galleries are some of my favorite museums in the world.

    • Replies: @LatW
    @AP


    Russian art is certainly underrated internationally
     
    I'm worried about Russian art because given its current internationally underrated status, it could get undersold and scattered across the world. Maybe I'm too pessimistic, but it's a worry I have.
  664. @Mr. Hack
    @songbird

    No need to fret, try viewing only one episode, see if you like it and then proceed to the rest. It's about a 10 episode extravaganza, each episode having its own DVD disc. I got the whole series at my local library for free. I'm quite sure that there are several ways you can view it today. Since several persons have already recommended it to you including myself, it might just be the ticket!

    The trick to remembering dreams is to do it right away after you wake up. Even still, you may not remember it all, but you should remember something and force your memory to reveal some more.I've been fortunat enough to have two types of "flying dreams:. The first variety are very reminiscent of the Chagal painting that I posted above. These dreams involve my ability to personally fly, as if I'm some sort of a human kite. I gather up some speed, then jump into the air and the wind takes me for a ride. I can hover quite high over different types of landscapes, but they're usually city ones. I do recall one where I actually jumped off of a roof of a building and luckily went for a ride. I vividly recall having to coordinate my efforts with the wind, and they're really quite fun.

    The other type, involves my role as an airplane pilot, although I have never acquired this skill in real life. I've flown all manner of aircraft from tiny two man planes to large passenger carriers. Once in a large plane, I spotted a hostile smaller craft to the side, and was forced to shoot it down. he craziest dream that I can remember had me commandeer a large passenger type plane to a low altitude ultimately flying it underneath a low bridge - we came out the other end unscathed! In one of the last dreams that I had of this sort, a large plane that I was flying ended up crashing, I'm not sure that I was inside of it as I was viewing the whole mishap from outside of the plane. It was a spectacular crash, very colorful as I recall. Needless to say, I woke up right after that one!

    Replies: @songbird, @LatW

    I’ve been fortunate enough to have two types of “flying dreams”

    This is very interesting because I, too, have two sorts of recurring “flying dreams”…

    [MORE]

    One is where my soul is flying in between snow clad mountain ranges. There is very even, gliding movement, there is this very pleasant peacefully exhilarating feeling with a little bit of scariness on the way downwards. I started having this recurring dream after my trips to the mountains in Norway.

    The second one is also somewhere in the north, but in an even more Arctic kind of place. It is very beautiful, great ambience, but a bit thrilling, a bit scary. It is much darker than the mountain one. At times, the vision would be from above, kind of like at the top of the world, and you see some kind of a map with many seas and small islands or countries and there is a sense of order and interconnection in this space. Within this dream I would submerge into the ocean and continue flying/floating inside the dark water, with a large whale nearby. It gets a little scary at that point so the dream often stops there but there is also a feeling of love, strangely enough.

    Have you tried practicing the Lucid dreaming technique? I haven’t much, but what you do you really focus on the kind of visuals you want to see right before bedtime. I’ve had some dreams where it’s almost like my thoughts direct what is going to further happen in the dream. It’s kind of like walking through the dream and simultaneously knowing what will happen next as it’s happening. And, ofc, the kind of dream that you mentioned above, where people or objects merge from one into another, I’ve had. The other night, in fact, I had an anxiety dream where one of my female relatives was turning into a friend of hers. Again, this dream had an element of anxiety in it, but also feelings of great love simultaneously.

    Btw, you asked me in the other thread if I have more wine recommendations. Actually, I wanted to recommend another beverage I’ve been drinking lately — fireweed tea. Another name for it is Ivan Chai, it grows in Russia and Ukraine, probably in America, too. It is an immunity booster and good for cardio vascular health. Very pleasant, almost sweet taste. Apparently it used to be a big export for the Russian Empire. But it’s common in Ukraine, too, from what I understand. I’ve been mostly raised on chamomile and linden teas, so it was a pleasant discovery.

    • Replies: @songbird
    @LatW

    Really feel like you and Mr. Hack are chumming the waters for Aaron B, and he is missing out on a metaphysical feast. Am not given to such Eastern fancies, but I had the briefest of thoughts that you and Mr. Hack were reincarnated and having memories of past lives.

    I swear - if another person mentions their dreams, it will immediately call up Aaron B, even if he is buried under an avalanche, he will dematerialize from his snowy tomb and rematerialize before a keyboard. Or, if I am greatly mistaken about his power levels, it bring the keyboard to him, through the packed snow, and at least let him ask for help. Or put the rescue dogs on his scent.

    Replies: @Mr. Hack

    , @AP
    @LatW

    Almost all of my dreams are lucid ones, I inevitably discover during the dream that it is a dream.



    Control is not complete however - for example sometimes when I decide to fly I don't soar and can't get more than a few feet into the air.

    , @Mr. Hack
    @LatW

    Your dreams appear to be very interesting to me. Your "top of the world" dreams remind me of ones that I have, where I visit some really incredible landscapes somewhere in Canada, mountains and all. These dreams start out for me visiting the North Shore of MN including the BWCA (Boundary Water Canoe Area). This is a really beautiful area with streams, lakes and even a few waterfalls. I end up travelling further north into Canada and visit large swaths of land, although I don't recall what mode of transportation I use to get around. Some really great sightseeing!

    Thanks for the information about "Ivan chai", I'll definitely keep it in mind. I drink a lot of different types of teas. Do you make your own kambucha tea? Very popular in your part of the world. My question, however, had to do with your experiences with the wines of the winery that you had recommended. They all were in the $65 per bottle range or higher, except for their cabernet sauvignon. Chateau ...? from Washington state?

    Replies: @LatW

  665. @AP
    @LatW

    Russian art is certainly underrated internationally. The two Tretyov galleries are some of my favorite museums in the world.

    Replies: @LatW

    Russian art is certainly underrated internationally

    I’m worried about Russian art because given its current internationally underrated status, it could get undersold and scattered across the world. Maybe I’m too pessimistic, but it’s a worry I have.

  666. @Emil Nikola Richard
    @songbird


    For instance, what if Alexander did not conquer Egypt, but rather had his heart conquered by the magnificence of Egyptians?
     
    1. LOL
    2. There are some writers like Jorjani who claim that exactly what happened (maybe he has god powers or something) is that Alexander did have his heart conquered by the magnificence of Persians!

    Replies: @songbird

    A pity he did not make Persepolis his base, and just dress it up a little.

    Don’t know whether it is apocryphal or not, but I think this is interesting history:

    Diodorus Siculus writes that on his way to the city, Alexander and his army were met by 800 Greek artisans who had been captured by the Persians. Most were elderly and suffered some form of mutilation, such as a missing hand or foot. They explained to Alexander the Persians wanted to take advantage of their skills in the city but handicapped them so they could not easily escape. Alexander and his staff were disturbed by the story and provided the artisans with clothing and provisions before continuing on to the Persepolis. Diodorus does not cite this as a reason for the destruction of Persepolis, but it is possible Alexander started to see the city in a negative light after the encounter.

  667. @songbird
    @German_reader


    few years ago there was a case in Germany where a guy kept a highly venomous monocled cobra in a shoe box…from which predictably enough it escaped, leading to the evacuation of the entire building for weeks
     
    Heard a story that someone in Germany had a pet snapping-turtle (quite a common animal around here, but very formidable and almost prehistoric-looking compared to other turtles). They let it go in the wild in some pond or lake, and it was terrorizing Germans. I think in part because they did not have the healthy respect for such an animal that we would have over here, knowing its vicious nature and power. (Supposedly, they can snap a broomstick in half). IIRC, it bit through a swimmer's Achilles tendon or something.

    Once heard a radio play about a poisonous snake escaping on a passenger ship. The people were helpless, and it killed several. To my mind, the ending was absolutely brilliant. Killed by a cat protecting its kittens.

    Replies: @Mr. Hack

    Not as unusual as you might think, denizens of the Sonoran desert in Arizona occasionally have taken to keeping large tortoises on their properties. I first found out about this from a co-worker of mine that admitted to having one for at least 10years. These are the ones that as a kid you may have encountered at the local zoo and even sat on. He told me that he usually fed the creature lettuce and some other vegetable, and that they burrowed tunnels underneath the ground and sometimes stay down below for several days before they come up “for air”. He said that his was quite friendly and didn’t require a lot of supervision. Nothing really wrong with it, and you can almost be certain that it will outlive you, for they tend to live upwards of 100 years, something that you can’t say about cats or dogs. The local zoo and animal shelters even affords people opportunities to “adopt a tortoise”. 🙂

    • Thanks: songbird
  668. @Dmitry
    @Mr. Hack


    think that this is commonplace amongst these folks
     
    Yes it's common in Western Europe, not even as cover for growing of weed.

    I think we have been influenced by them in a herdlike way. In 2020, we oftentime saw in the shop, these young students or hipsters buying the potato seeds and gardening pots.

    I have vegetable growing experience from childhood and youth. I also have believed I have ancestral peasant genius in my blood and that plants respond kindly to me.

    But my recent experience is more a sign that I would rapidly starve and die in peasant times.


    her garden and later on even had a few of my own. It’s hard, backbreaking work, no longer suitable for this older “office plankton”
     
    Although really success with the vegetables requires more mental ability and intelligence, than physical difficulties. As mostly you have to wait doing nothing. But all your plans are lost if a bird or squirrel has a different idea.

    Now, I recommend to grow easy things like some wild strawberries in a pot. This is something even idiots will be able to do :)

    Replies: @Emil Nikola Richard, @Philip Owen

    As mostly you have to wait doing nothing.

    My neighbor three doors down growing up had a vegetable garden with a large yield. He was out there working on it everyday from when he got home from work until the sun went down and several hours on Saturday. I have no idea what he was doing that took so much work but every time I saw him out there he looked busy as hell.

    His parents were part of the post 1918 Italian influx to America.

  669. @LatW
    @Mr. Hack


    I’ve been fortunate enough to have two types of “flying dreams"
     
    This is very interesting because I, too, have two sorts of recurring "flying dreams"...



    One is where my soul is flying in between snow clad mountain ranges. There is very even, gliding movement, there is this very pleasant peacefully exhilarating feeling with a little bit of scariness on the way downwards. I started having this recurring dream after my trips to the mountains in Norway.

    The second one is also somewhere in the north, but in an even more Arctic kind of place. It is very beautiful, great ambience, but a bit thrilling, a bit scary. It is much darker than the mountain one. At times, the vision would be from above, kind of like at the top of the world, and you see some kind of a map with many seas and small islands or countries and there is a sense of order and interconnection in this space. Within this dream I would submerge into the ocean and continue flying/floating inside the dark water, with a large whale nearby. It gets a little scary at that point so the dream often stops there but there is also a feeling of love, strangely enough.

    Have you tried practicing the Lucid dreaming technique? I haven't much, but what you do you really focus on the kind of visuals you want to see right before bedtime. I've had some dreams where it's almost like my thoughts direct what is going to further happen in the dream. It's kind of like walking through the dream and simultaneously knowing what will happen next as it's happening. And, ofc, the kind of dream that you mentioned above, where people or objects merge from one into another, I've had. The other night, in fact, I had an anxiety dream where one of my female relatives was turning into a friend of hers. Again, this dream had an element of anxiety in it, but also feelings of great love simultaneously.

    Btw, you asked me in the other thread if I have more wine recommendations. Actually, I wanted to recommend another beverage I've been drinking lately -- fireweed tea. Another name for it is Ivan Chai, it grows in Russia and Ukraine, probably in America, too. It is an immunity booster and good for cardio vascular health. Very pleasant, almost sweet taste. Apparently it used to be a big export for the Russian Empire. But it's common in Ukraine, too, from what I understand. I've been mostly raised on chamomile and linden teas, so it was a pleasant discovery.

    Replies: @songbird, @AP, @Mr. Hack

    Really feel like you and Mr. Hack are chumming the waters for Aaron B, and he is missing out on a metaphysical feast. Am not given to such Eastern fancies, but I had the briefest of thoughts that you and Mr. Hack were reincarnated and having memories of past lives.

    I swear – if another person mentions their dreams, it will immediately call up Aaron B, even if he is buried under an avalanche, he will dematerialize from his snowy tomb and rematerialize before a keyboard. Or, if I am greatly mistaken about his power levels, it bring the keyboard to him, through the packed snow, and at least let him ask for help. Or put the rescue dogs on his scent.

    • Replies: @Mr. Hack
    @songbird

    Let's just all have a séance together and try to bring back the ghosts of Karlin, Thorfinnsson, AaronB, Daniel Chieh, Reiner Tor and others that added so much quality bantering here at this blog...

    I'll try and get back to your last comments regarding dreams, as well as LatW's by tomorrow. Housework needs to be done, including dinner tonight......

    https://images2.minutemediacdn.com/image/upload/c_fit,f_auto,fl_lossy,q_auto,w_728/v1635178308/shape/mentalfloss/647975-gettyimages-77559210.jpg?itok=8WYy3Alr

  670. @AP
    @Mr. Hack

    I met him once in Moscow, he was very nice and personable. He is sincere AFAIK, expressing the same ideas in person as online. An honest and decent guy, though we disagree on some things and strongly so if he cheers on a Russian invasion of Ukraine as I suspect he might.

    Replies: @Mr. Hack, @sher singh

    though we disagree on some things and strongly so if he cheers on a Russian invasion of Ukraine as I suspect he might.

    Yeah, I remember recently reading one of his tweets, where he seemed to relish the idea of a Russian invasion of Ukraine, naming a couple of Russian oligarchs that would support such a move. Even though I don’t think that Ukraine’s place under the sun should be closely related to Russia’s, I’m not at all opposed to Ukrainians and Russians forming these ideas, even politically. These ideas go back centuries now, and deserve some attention, but forcing them on Ukrainians by force is just plain wrong.

  671. @songbird
    @LatW

    Really feel like you and Mr. Hack are chumming the waters for Aaron B, and he is missing out on a metaphysical feast. Am not given to such Eastern fancies, but I had the briefest of thoughts that you and Mr. Hack were reincarnated and having memories of past lives.

    I swear - if another person mentions their dreams, it will immediately call up Aaron B, even if he is buried under an avalanche, he will dematerialize from his snowy tomb and rematerialize before a keyboard. Or, if I am greatly mistaken about his power levels, it bring the keyboard to him, through the packed snow, and at least let him ask for help. Or put the rescue dogs on his scent.

    Replies: @Mr. Hack

    Let’s just all have a séance together and try to bring back the ghosts of Karlin, Thorfinnsson, AaronB, Daniel Chieh, Reiner Tor and others that added so much quality bantering here at this blog…

    I’ll try and get back to your last comments regarding dreams, as well as LatW’s by tomorrow. Housework needs to be done, including dinner tonight……

    • LOL: songbird
  672. @Dmitry
    @AP


    educated Russians over 45 are well read

     

    I remember he was saying he doesn't like Solzhenitsyn, because Solzhenitsyn is copying of all these other 20th century writers in different ways. I don't think I know anyone who has read Solzhenitsyn books, and definitely not all the authors who Solzhenitsyn had copied.

    He definitely knows far more of 20th century literature, than any normal people. This is not typical. He's a kind of 20th century literature connoisseur. Unfortunately, I haven't read enough 20th century literature to write anything on those threads, when he had suddenly seemed interesting (i.e. when he was not boasting excitedly about who has the largest missile).


    Martyanov is just a Russian guy over 45
     
    He is nothing typical for Russian, except I guess he was an ordinary dude.

    He looks around 70 or 75 years old, so he perhaps moved to the USA because of his children have dragged him there, and this could explain why he seems to hate the USA.

    His idealization of Russian politicians is only really possible for rational people, if you weren't living in Russia for the last decades or something.

    It's probably some kind of brutal geographic dislocation in the biography, which created his political views, not that they are interesting.

    He's probably a person who is interesting to listen to on a thousand different topics. But of course, politics is not one, as he seemed to be very unclose to anything happens in Russia. It's often that political views are the least interesting aspect of a person.

    Replies: @siberiancat, @AP

    Martyanov does not hate the USA. He loves the country but despises her elites.
    You don’t have to read his mind, he explicitly writes about that.

  673. @Dmitry
    @AP


    educated Russians over 45 are well read

     

    I remember he was saying he doesn't like Solzhenitsyn, because Solzhenitsyn is copying of all these other 20th century writers in different ways. I don't think I know anyone who has read Solzhenitsyn books, and definitely not all the authors who Solzhenitsyn had copied.

    He definitely knows far more of 20th century literature, than any normal people. This is not typical. He's a kind of 20th century literature connoisseur. Unfortunately, I haven't read enough 20th century literature to write anything on those threads, when he had suddenly seemed interesting (i.e. when he was not boasting excitedly about who has the largest missile).


    Martyanov is just a Russian guy over 45
     
    He is nothing typical for Russian, except I guess he was an ordinary dude.

    He looks around 70 or 75 years old, so he perhaps moved to the USA because of his children have dragged him there, and this could explain why he seems to hate the USA.

    His idealization of Russian politicians is only really possible for rational people, if you weren't living in Russia for the last decades or something.

    It's probably some kind of brutal geographic dislocation in the biography, which created his political views, not that they are interesting.

    He's probably a person who is interesting to listen to on a thousand different topics. But of course, politics is not one, as he seemed to be very unclose to anything happens in Russia. It's often that political views are the least interesting aspect of a person.

    Replies: @siberiancat, @AP

    I found this post thanks to the response.

    He definitely knows far more of 20th century literature, than any normal people. This is not typical.

    I know lots of educated Russian people over 45 (perhaps the cutoff is 48 or so) and they are as well-read as he is (and far more than I, raised in the USA, am). I’m not sure why you found him to be more well-read than typical educated Russians his age. Perhaps you don’t spend much time with educated older Russians. There is a dramatic cutoff after which Russians started to read much less, perhaps because they were too busy surviving. And after that, the next batch of Russians were more like non-reading Westerners, distracted by other things that they can enjoy with the wealth that previous Russian generations didn’t have.

    He looks around 70 or 75 years old, so he perhaps moved to the USA because of his children have dragged him there, and this could explain why he seems to hate the USA.

    IIRC he left the USSR right when he was young, in the beginning of the 90s, after having graduated from a naval academy with an engineering background and having been a low ranking naval officer for a few years. So he is probably around 60.

    Someone like that should have had a successful career in technology in the 1990s. Instead, it seems that he just tutored kids at private schools, the sort of job an educated pensioner would do, not a man in the prime of his life. So something went wrong in his life, this could explain his bitterness towards the USA. And sadly for him, by the time Russia got back on its feet he was too old to go back. Or he might be from another republic, not even a Russian citizen, so he is an orphan with nothing to come back to. He can only admire and idealize Russia from a distance and feel good about Russia being stronger or more wily than the West – living vicariously through Russia like a Balkanoid.

    • Replies: @melanf
    @AP


    I know lots of educated Russian people over 45 (perhaps the cutoff is 48 or so) and they are as well-read as he is (and far more than I, raised in the USA, am). I’m not sure why you found him to be more well-read than typical educated Russians his age. Perhaps you don’t spend much time with educated older Russians.
     
    There is absolutely nothing good about it. All this is a bad parody of the officials of old China, when a person is evaluated not by his professional qualities, but by knowledge of the "classics". Here, too, a for example doctor among the Russian "intelligentsia" is evaluated by how well he knows Chekhov and Pasternak, but how many patients will leave after treatment to the morgue is the tenth thing in comparison with Chekhov

    All this led to an ugly distortion in education, the appearance of a large number of parasites engaged in "Russian language and literature", etc., etc.

    Replies: @Yellowface Anon

    , @Dmitry
    @AP


    more well-read than typical educated
     
    I'm not going to look at his posts again, but he was sounding as a "literature connoisseur". I.e. reading all kinds of obscure 20th century, books that no normal people read.

    It's not just reading of Russian classics or normal books.

    I'm not saying this is a good thing exactly. Rather, it makes him an interesting forum writer. He knows all these 20th century writers, that we do not know.


    he is probably around 60.

     

    In the video, he looks like he is 70 or 75. My grandfather looked younger when he was still 75.

    But I guess perhaps, he could just have some health issues, which cause an older look.


    have had a successful career in technology in the 1990s.
     
    In Western hi-tech companies, I've never met old military navy workers.

    Maybe it can vary a lot by company. But for a graduate program in a large corporation, you want young people with a recent computer science education. Maybe it would be funny to add military people to somewhere in human resources. But they would not want old people from foreign military.


    just tutored kids at private schools, the sort of job an educated pensioner
     
    I think a teacher is a very important job, if that is what he is doing. Maybe he has the sins of spamming the internet with fantasy politics. But if he is a teacher, then he is doing better for the real world, than most of us.

    bitterness towards the USA. And sadly for him, by the time Russia got back on its feet he was too old to go back.

     

    His political views were crazy, not connected to reality, and also extremely ungrateful for the country where has emigrated.

    Still, I would not judge his posting only from his crazy politics. Interesting person, if you can make him post about a different topic. For example, if he stops boasting about who has a bigger missile, and starts writing about the obscure literature he knows.

    Replies: @LatW

  674. @LatW
    @Mr. Hack


    I’ve been fortunate enough to have two types of “flying dreams"
     
    This is very interesting because I, too, have two sorts of recurring "flying dreams"...



    One is where my soul is flying in between snow clad mountain ranges. There is very even, gliding movement, there is this very pleasant peacefully exhilarating feeling with a little bit of scariness on the way downwards. I started having this recurring dream after my trips to the mountains in Norway.

    The second one is also somewhere in the north, but in an even more Arctic kind of place. It is very beautiful, great ambience, but a bit thrilling, a bit scary. It is much darker than the mountain one. At times, the vision would be from above, kind of like at the top of the world, and you see some kind of a map with many seas and small islands or countries and there is a sense of order and interconnection in this space. Within this dream I would submerge into the ocean and continue flying/floating inside the dark water, with a large whale nearby. It gets a little scary at that point so the dream often stops there but there is also a feeling of love, strangely enough.

    Have you tried practicing the Lucid dreaming technique? I haven't much, but what you do you really focus on the kind of visuals you want to see right before bedtime. I've had some dreams where it's almost like my thoughts direct what is going to further happen in the dream. It's kind of like walking through the dream and simultaneously knowing what will happen next as it's happening. And, ofc, the kind of dream that you mentioned above, where people or objects merge from one into another, I've had. The other night, in fact, I had an anxiety dream where one of my female relatives was turning into a friend of hers. Again, this dream had an element of anxiety in it, but also feelings of great love simultaneously.

    Btw, you asked me in the other thread if I have more wine recommendations. Actually, I wanted to recommend another beverage I've been drinking lately -- fireweed tea. Another name for it is Ivan Chai, it grows in Russia and Ukraine, probably in America, too. It is an immunity booster and good for cardio vascular health. Very pleasant, almost sweet taste. Apparently it used to be a big export for the Russian Empire. But it's common in Ukraine, too, from what I understand. I've been mostly raised on chamomile and linden teas, so it was a pleasant discovery.

    Replies: @songbird, @AP, @Mr. Hack

    Almost all of my dreams are lucid ones, I inevitably discover during the dream that it is a dream.

    [MORE]

    Control is not complete however – for example sometimes when I decide to fly I don’t soar and can’t get more than a few feet into the air.

  675. @AP
    @Mr. Hack

    I met him once in Moscow, he was very nice and personable. He is sincere AFAIK, expressing the same ideas in person as online. An honest and decent guy, though we disagree on some things and strongly so if he cheers on a Russian invasion of Ukraine as I suspect he might.

    Replies: @Mr. Hack, @sher singh

    Can I carry a Sabre in Moscow?

    • Replies: @AP
    @sher singh

    I don’t know, but I once saw a girl in full riding gear riding a horse down Tverskaya in the center of Moscow late at night.

  676. @Dmitry
    @AP


    Marxist term. I think of it as middle class,
     
    Before the industrial revolution, burghers are wealthy citizens with voting rights within the cities.

    They would often include professions like merchants, bankers and lawyers, who would later begin to acquire capital goods (factories, ships, means of production).

    As a proportion of the population, they don't exactly correspond to middle class in a modern sense though, as even in pre-industrial economy they are still not far from a "top 1%" (which medieval Bernie Sanders would be concerned with).

    I assume that a lot of the Italian Renaissance was funded by the equivalent of burghers, within their city-states. But haven't read a book about this, so I guess we should ask German Reader.


    roots seem to have been from soldiers or pre-agricultural tribal elders
     
    For some of the most powerful families. But many times merchants became wealthy or influential enough to purchase land, and then would annex into a landowning aristocracy.

    Musil had some funny observations of actual aristocratic homes being run down while those of new rich being far more perfect approximations

     

    Because there was a strong economic transition, where agriculture becomes less profitable, compared to manufacturing.

    Just as today, we see rotation away from manufacturing, and the development of "rust belt" in areas which had once been produced vast wealth.

    Although the landowning families would still be in the political and military class, and anyone related to the political class can usually secure not the worst of incomes, especially with the high corruption that was tolerated in the past even in Western Europe.

    In countries like England, this is today that the country's most influential woman of the late 20th century, Princess Diana (from Spencer family, one of the most famous and prestigious families in England, which is the family also of Winston Churchill), can be buried in land, her family has owned since 1508. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Althorp

    "It has been held by the prominent aristocratic Spencer family for more than 500 years, and has been owned by Charles Spencer, 9th Earl Spencer since 1992.

    Althorp is mentioned as a small hamlet in the Domesday Book as "Olletorp", and by 1377 it had become a village with a population of more than fifty people. By 1505 there were no longer any tenants living there, and in 1508, John Spencer purchased Althorp estate with the funds generated from his family's sheep-rearing business."

    Replies: @AP

    Marxist term. I think of it as middle class,

    Before the industrial revolution, burghers are wealthy citizens with voting rights within the cities.

    They would often include professions like merchants, bankers and lawyers, who would later begin to acquire capital goods (factories, ships, means of production).

    Sure, a segment of the old burghers became masters of Capital. But bourgeoisie are simply middle class, with middle class values. There are positive and negatives about that but it isn’t good for culture when it takes everything over.

    “Musil had some funny observations of actual aristocratic homes being run down while those of new rich being far more perfect approximations”

    Because there was a strong economic transition, where agriculture becomes less profitable, compared to manufacturing

    .

    No, it wasn’t because the aristocrats were too poor to afford to clean or make everything proper, it was because they didn’t care to do these things. A feature of the middle-class (even when they become rich) is that they are strivers, who want everything to be proper. The aristocrats didn’t care. They would tell dirty jokes and got along better with earthy peasants or the urban underclass who just arrived in the city from the countryside, than did the middle class rich.

    American Yankees were in essence bourgeoisie. Puritanism is very much such a phenomenon, as is its offspring wokism. Things must be proper, not obscene. There are pluses. Things are proper, there is a work ethic, tools for striving and advancement such as education are developed to a high level, there is prosperity and efficiency. For all its Junkers, Germany had a stronger bourgeois spirit than Austria whom it eclipsed. But Austria is much more pleasant and beautiful.

    Althorp is mentioned as a small hamlet in the Domesday Book as “Olletorp”, and by 1377 it had become a village with a population of more than fifty people. By 1505 there were no longer any tenants living there, and in 1508, John Spencer purchased Althorp estate with the funds generated from his family’s sheep-rearing business.”

    So the family made their initial fortune as a type of kulak. They had a rural background.

    • Replies: @Dmitry
    @AP


    bourgeoisie are simply middle class,
     
    Only within the agricultural, pre-industrial economy, were they. As there is industrialization, burghers became the upper class, while the former elites of the agricultural economy, were becoming a middle class, unable to pay for their previous lifestyle. When there is such a historical "sector rotation" in the economy, one class displaces another, and the former class become owners of a kind of "rust belt" that doesn't generate so much money anymore.

    This transition was slower or faster in different countries, and historical boundaries are overlapping.

    If you on a tour in London, they will show you about when the landowning elites started to build the largest houses inside the city in the 18th century already, to network with the burghers . By the 19th century, they start to send their children to educational institutes created by the bourgeoisie, who now have the largest houses.

    In the late 19th century, the lawndowning aristocracy are desperately marrying their children to the bourgeoisie's children, often with direct intention to try to save their finances and not lose their properties. Although most of the landowners houses in London, were sold by the families who had constructed them, and by the late 19th century do not have money to live in them.


    positive and negatives about that but it isn’t good for culture when it takes everything over.

     

    I haven't books about this topics, but from my tourist knowledge I believe the Italian Renaissance was mainly funded by the burghers. These were the urban citizens of the city states.

    Italy was centuries more advanced than many economies, and Medicis themselves were from an agriculture industry family, but they develop their power as pioneers in the banking industry. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Medici_Bank


    because the aristocrats were too poor to afford to clean or make everything proper, it was because they didn’t care to do these things. A feature of the middle-class

     

    It was exactly because they were becoming too poor. This is why half of Europe's aristocracy in the 19th century, were trying to marry Barings or Rothschilds and other bourgeois families. While the bourgeois families attain in exchange the status and palaces of the former elite.

    Without these marriages, they were selling their houses. A large proportion of former landowning families, lost their glamorous life, lost their property, dissolved to the middle class.

    An example where they were able to save their status, is Winston Churchill. His father even has been able to marry a daughter of American stockbroker, so they can still be part of an upper class, and don't have to sell their palace. Even after this marriage, they were only on a lower border of the upper class. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Early_life_of_Winston_Churchill

    This is the same for all of the Spencer Family. They were the one of the most wealthy and elite family in Early Modern history of England.

    However, they could only survive in upper class, through strategic marriage to the new economic elites. So, Princess Diana's greatgrandfather could still finance an upper class life, by marrying to Baring Bank family (famous London burghers).
    https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Albert_Spencer,_7th_Earl_Spencer#Early_life


    middle-class (even when they become rich) is that they are strivers, who want everything to be proper. The aristocrats didn’t care. They would tell dirty jokes
     
    Perhaps among very disciplined, religious elites, like Puritans in America.

    But in most of the world, the upper class will become playboys in a single generation. This is also in America. Donald Trump or John Kennedy were crazy playboys, after one generation of wealth. They are only second-generation wealthy people.

    If Trump or Kennedy father was like Henry VII of England. Trump and Kennedy are already acting like Henry VIII. Human nature does not change.

    Although I am doubting Ivanka Trump will become like Elizabeth I.

    Replies: @AP, @Philip Owen

    , @Dmitry
    @AP


    kulak. They had a rural background.
     
    They were apparently very successful managers of land, when England was still an economy where agricultural sector was the most important industry. As a result, they were always one of the most wealthy and powerful families of the Kingdom (and pre-Kingdom).

    I can't remember which YouTube video exactly explains this. But if you watch some of the YouTube documentaries about Princess Diana, they talk a lot about this topic.

    For Diana's family, they considered the Windsor family to be lower than themselves, in terms of the social status.

    So, Diana's family were so snobby and believe they are higher than the Queen of England's family, and thought they are some "small German princes".

    At the same time, Diana's family has for generations a very bad financial situation and is trying to stay in the upper class through marriage to wealthy people, and to not to lose their elite property.

    -

    With Winston Churchill, Spencer family are able to maintain at the top of world political elite.

    But even Churchill's family could not lose their house, as a result of marriage to the Vanderbilt (train building) family of the USA in 1896.

    "In November 1896 he coldly and openly without love married the American railroad heiress Consuelo Vanderbilt. The marriage was celebrated following lengthy negotiations with her divorced parents: her mother, Alva Vanderbilt, was desperate to see her daughter a duchess, and the bride's father, William Vanderbilt, paid for the privilege. "

    https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Blenheim_Palace#Failing_fortunes

  677. @songbird
    @Emil Nikola Richard


    When I have seen a rattlesnake in the wild
     
    I'll sound like one of these snake freaks, but I envy you. Last three I saw in the wild were brown, garter, and grass (all small). Been years and years since I've seen anything that might stir a bit of fear in a normal person. And I've never seen a poisonous snake in the wild.

    Biggest poisonous animal in the wild I've ever seen is a shrew. Interesting in its way (they fight to the death to defend territory and I've seen it), but not something anyone would put on a flag.

    I was shocked some years ago, when a wild population of Eastern rattlers was discovered in NH. They are so rare that their exact location is hidden from the public. There was some discussion about trying to seed Eastern rattlers on a island in the Quabbin (big artificial reservoir in Western MA that feeds into Boston), but people were worried about it because the snakes can swim. There is still an island in Lake Winnipesaukee (biggest lake in NH) called "Rattlesnake Island", but some assert that it is only called so because of its shape.

    Not sure whether to believe him, but according to my father, Eastern rattlers were still common in his youth.

    Replies: @Emil Nikola Richard

    I forgot to mention the other great slide that he showed (prefacing with you might not want to see this) was his friend’s post-rattlesnake-bite-cantaloupe-size-hand. Google image search fails to find an approximation. It was all black and blue and oozing puss.

    He got his full use of the hand back in around 6 months.

    • LOL: songbird
  678. First major “on track” race of the year — 24 Hours of Dubai

    For non-track racing the Dakar Rally has run.

    The new WRC hybrid cars debut next week in Monte-Carlo. Craig Breen managed to crash his Ford Puma during testing.

     

     

    PEACE 😇

    • Thanks: sher singh
  679. @Dmitry
    @LatW


    Les Demoiselles d’Avignon. Painted in 1907, it is a horrifying example of degenerate art
     
    This is a great masterwork of early 20th century painting. If you don't like Picasso, I recommend to read some essays about him, and you can start to see the interesting concepts he uses, as well as commentary on art tradition.

    It might look ugly, but it's not nearly as ugly as painting by some other great Spanish artists like Goya (https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Black_Paintings ).

    Spain's great artistic tradition has been counter-balance, or shadow side, of Italy's in this question. Italian art tradition has had a weakness of too much beautification and "kawaii".

    Spain's art tradition has often counter-balanced and you see this in the art gallery, when you walk into the Spanish room, your mood becomes more shaded and you engage with more sinister themes.

    This continues today with films, where the Spanish directors (as well as Japanese) are making the best horror films of the early 21st century.


    Kahnweiler especially promoted the painting
     
    Maybe there are some scary "Jewish banking gangsters" becoming unfairly rich from Picasso, and the billions of dollars his painting are now worth. It doesn't reduce from his position as the greatest 20th century painter. Just as "Italian banking gangsters" of the Medici, has hardly reduced from legacy of Michelangelo.

    Replies: @Mr. Hack, @LatW, @sudden death

    This is a great masterwork of early 20th century painting. If you don’t like Picasso, I recommend to read some essays about him, and you can start to see the interesting concepts he uses, as well as commentary on art tradition.

    It might look ugly, but it’s not nearly as ugly as painting by some other great Spanish artists like Goya.

    Once again might but just a matter of personal taste, but regarding such intentionaly grotesque-primitivist style of human face/figure painting, imho Picasso is not even at the top of the game though, as some Otto Dix works seem to be way better at this kind of style, e.g. his painting about horribly mutilated WWI veterans with some ragtag looking artificial body parts, seems absolutely fitting, as in reality modern explosives&artilery can make a walking living grotesque out of real people.

    Paradoxically, such depictions using naturalist realist style could be even more bleak than groteque painting, so using some inverse meaning it can be even said that primitivist workstyle kinda makes this view even more attractive aesthetically.

    https://www.wikiart.org/en/otto-dix/the-skat-players-1920

    • Replies: @LatW
    @sudden death


    some Otto Dix works seem to be way better at this kind of style, e.g. his painting about horribly mutilated WWI veterans with some ragtag looking artificial body parts, seems absolutely fitting
     
    But we reach a critical point here where one really has to be clear about what he was trying to portray -- the horror of the war, some faults in the German military, German attitudes & ideas? IMO, he takes it way too far and it turns into a mockery of the regular German soldier. Veterans deserve to be treated with dignity (if not gratitude), especially wounded veterans. There are some things where you should think twice before you turn it into a caricature (children, motherhood, wounded veterans, religious symbols, etc). He made them look caricature like, soulless, mechanical. Those were people, somebody's sons who were maimed. As if the war had been their fault. He himself had been at the war too and it probably messed up his head (given how unexpectedly horrifying this event was).

    So when it comes to the pure technicality of the genre, yes, it is well done, as you say. But it goes too far when it comes to its internal message. It is anti-German and borderline misanthropic. It was burned and rightfully so.
  680. @Dmitry
    @utu

    Yevardian is angry with Thulean, because Thulean said something racist against Armenians, after alts had said something positive about Armenians.

    Ironically, AaronB (who is usually very relaxed) was angry with Yevardian , because he said something antisemitic about Jews. Even though Armenians and Jews are supposed to have a natural affinity, and AaronB was praising Armenians as elite and cosmopolitan against "jealous peasant Russians"*. https://www.unz.com/akarlin/russias-options-in-artsakh-war/#comment-4193469

    Daniel Chieh was always seeming angry with anyone who didn't praise China.

    Karlin is a Middle Eastern looking dude that must experience xenophobia when he was in America or England, but he wrote anti-African-American comments according to Thulean https://www.unz.com/akarlin/open-thread-170/#comment-5036670

    And he was definitely promoting in Caucasian style, of anti-Ukraine sentiment. https://www.unz.com/akarlin/ukraine-returns-to-tradition

    This blog used to be flooded with people from Balkans, who were breaking down like badly programmed robots when they found another Balkan person from a different nationality.

    Where are the Balkans people now, with arguments about which nationality has a stronger dog?

    People like to insult the other nationality, but then feel irrationally sensitive when the concept they identified with is insulted. There is the asymmetry, where users are easy to give insult, but very difficult to accept insult. Some Buddhist lessons here.


    am writing this believing that you too want to stop emigrations of your countrymen. Let’s make a deal: you stop coming and we promise you won’t hear a single bad word about Arabs and Muslims from us.
     
    I'm sure, we are filtered to be some of the world's least influential people here. Where is this illusion we have any control lol?

    -

    * I like how you and Aaronb recently implying the same association of Russians and peasants. But I was growing vegetables in coronavirus lockdown. The inescapable conclusions of my failed efforts that vegetable growing requires more intelligence and skill, than at least modern office plankton are able to provide.

    Replies: @Mr. Hack, @utu

    The inescapable conclusions of my failed efforts that vegetable growing requires more intelligence and skill, than at least modern office plankton are able to provide.

    There is some truth to it. But there are some places where you just have to put it in the soil and it will grow by itself.

    • Replies: @Barbarossa
    @utu

    Especially if you have a pile of well rotted manure and pumpkin seeds....We got some really big ones this year that way.

  681. @utu
    @Dmitry


    The inescapable conclusions of my failed efforts that vegetable growing requires more intelligence and skill, than at least modern office plankton are able to provide.
     
    There is some truth to it. But there are some places where you just have to put it in the soil and it will grow by itself.

    Replies: @Barbarossa

    Especially if you have a pile of well rotted manure and pumpkin seeds….We got some really big ones this year that way.

  682. I know Rus ‘allows’ Caucasian nationalities to wear weapons in national costume.
    50-50 whether the average cop has watched enough bollywood to take pictures with vs handcuff me.

    Lot of places between Kabul & Kiev that would be interesting to visit||

    ਵਾਹਿਗੁਰੂਜੀਕਾਖਾਲਸਾਵਾਹਿਗੁਰੂਜੀਕੀਫਤਿਹ

  683. @AP
    @Dmitry

    I found this post thanks to the response.


    He definitely knows far more of 20th century literature, than any normal people. This is not typical.
     
    I know lots of educated Russian people over 45 (perhaps the cutoff is 48 or so) and they are as well-read as he is (and far more than I, raised in the USA, am). I'm not sure why you found him to be more well-read than typical educated Russians his age. Perhaps you don't spend much time with educated older Russians. There is a dramatic cutoff after which Russians started to read much less, perhaps because they were too busy surviving. And after that, the next batch of Russians were more like non-reading Westerners, distracted by other things that they can enjoy with the wealth that previous Russian generations didn't have.

    He looks around 70 or 75 years old, so he perhaps moved to the USA because of his children have dragged him there, and this could explain why he seems to hate the USA.
     
    IIRC he left the USSR right when he was young, in the beginning of the 90s, after having graduated from a naval academy with an engineering background and having been a low ranking naval officer for a few years. So he is probably around 60.

    Someone like that should have had a successful career in technology in the 1990s. Instead, it seems that he just tutored kids at private schools, the sort of job an educated pensioner would do, not a man in the prime of his life. So something went wrong in his life, this could explain his bitterness towards the USA. And sadly for him, by the time Russia got back on its feet he was too old to go back. Or he might be from another republic, not even a Russian citizen, so he is an orphan with nothing to come back to. He can only admire and idealize Russia from a distance and feel good about Russia being stronger or more wily than the West - living vicariously through Russia like a Balkanoid.

    Replies: @melanf, @Dmitry

    I know lots of educated Russian people over 45 (perhaps the cutoff is 48 or so) and they are as well-read as he is (and far more than I, raised in the USA, am). I’m not sure why you found him to be more well-read than typical educated Russians his age. Perhaps you don’t spend much time with educated older Russians.

    There is absolutely nothing good about it. All this is a bad parody of the officials of old China, when a person is evaluated not by his professional qualities, but by knowledge of the “classics”. Here, too, a for example doctor among the Russian “intelligentsia” is evaluated by how well he knows Chekhov and Pasternak, but how many patients will leave after treatment to the morgue is the tenth thing in comparison with Chekhov

    All this led to an ugly distortion in education, the appearance of a large number of parasites engaged in “Russian language and literature”, etc., etc.

    • Disagree: Yevardian
    • Replies: @Yellowface Anon
    @melanf

    Because success isn't judged by economic, but cultural criteria.

    Replies: @melanf

  684. @melanf
    @AP


    I know lots of educated Russian people over 45 (perhaps the cutoff is 48 or so) and they are as well-read as he is (and far more than I, raised in the USA, am). I’m not sure why you found him to be more well-read than typical educated Russians his age. Perhaps you don’t spend much time with educated older Russians.
     
    There is absolutely nothing good about it. All this is a bad parody of the officials of old China, when a person is evaluated not by his professional qualities, but by knowledge of the "classics". Here, too, a for example doctor among the Russian "intelligentsia" is evaluated by how well he knows Chekhov and Pasternak, but how many patients will leave after treatment to the morgue is the tenth thing in comparison with Chekhov

    All this led to an ugly distortion in education, the appearance of a large number of parasites engaged in "Russian language and literature", etc., etc.

    Replies: @Yellowface Anon

    Because success isn’t judged by economic, but cultural criteria.

    • Replies: @melanf
    @Yellowface Anon


    Because success isn’t judged by economic, but cultural criteria.
     
    When people in a pandemic do not want to be vaccinated, because instead of biology they studied Leo tolstoy: is this a success?

    Replies: @Yellowface Anon, @AP

  685. @Dmitry
    @Aedib

    Kazakhstan's government has been pro-Western. They also prefer to give contracts for resource extraction mainly to Western companies. Lukoil just has a small share of Karachaganak.

    For examples. Tengiz - Chevron, ExxonMobil, Shell. Karachaganak - ExxonMobil, Lukoil (18%), Shell. Kashagan - Eni, Shell, Total, ExxonMobil.

    So, it's not too surprising that some Western external ministries will be panicking if Russia increases influence in Kazakhstan, but this is in a reactionary way as they might lose some of their influence. This is if support from Russia during protests encourage Tokaev to begin less pro-Western policy than predecessor Nazarbaev.

    My writing all sounds very cynical though. Of course, whether their protests would improve anything or not (probably not), all sympathies for the working class of Kazakhstan, whose resources of their country more often stolen by a narrow elite, than re-invested into improving their future.

    Replies: @melanf

    whose resources of their country more often stolen by a narrow elite, than re-invested into improving their future.

    It makes sense to compare Kazakhstan’s elites with what kind of elite Kazakhstan could potentially have at all.Undoubtedly, the elites work better in the elf kingdom, but if compared with other Central Asian countries, Kazakhstan has a very decent management

    Of course, whether their protests would improve anything or not (probably not), all sympathies for the working class

    This “working class” is the mambets, that is, the lumpens – a complete analogue of the American looters. When “protests” turn into general looting, it is better to exterminate such protesters (who rob hospitals in search of drugs) because this is human filth

  686. @Yellowface Anon
    @melanf

    Because success isn't judged by economic, but cultural criteria.

    Replies: @melanf

    Because success isn’t judged by economic, but cultural criteria.

    When people in a pandemic do not want to be vaccinated, because instead of biology they studied Leo tolstoy: is this a success?

    • Replies: @Yellowface Anon
    @melanf

    Because those people don't live in a world where new biotech is employed in vaccination regardless of its maturity, or Big Pharma are rent-seeking, but a world where a different order exist. Different civilizational outlooks. Instead of universals, particulars are resurging. Instead of a single world and humanity there are multiple civilizational spheres. And even in a civilization there are diverging tendencies in ideology.

    This explains the Red-Blue divide and why it will ultimately lead to secession.

    Replies: @PedroAstra

    , @AP
    @melanf

    Soviet-era physicians were not only far more competent than modern ones (in part because 90s corruption destroyed a lot and forced a lot of potential teachers to emigrate, and in part because they were forced to due to primitive conditions) but also much better read. Your celebration of philistinism is unfounded.

    So in addition to studying biology and physics on a higher level, they also read Tolstoy or Borges, rather than play video games or “read” manga. And in this way Martyanov , a mediocre but educated military officer, comes across as being very well read.

    Replies: @melanf

  687. @melanf
    @Yellowface Anon


    Because success isn’t judged by economic, but cultural criteria.
     
    When people in a pandemic do not want to be vaccinated, because instead of biology they studied Leo tolstoy: is this a success?

    Replies: @Yellowface Anon, @AP

    Because those people don’t live in a world where new biotech is employed in vaccination regardless of its maturity, or Big Pharma are rent-seeking, but a world where a different order exist. Different civilizational outlooks. Instead of universals, particulars are resurging. Instead of a single world and humanity there are multiple civilizational spheres. And even in a civilization there are diverging tendencies in ideology.

    This explains the Red-Blue divide and why it will ultimately lead to secession.

    • Replies: @PedroAstra
    @Yellowface Anon

    I don't think the Red-Blue divide in in US will not lead to a secession or a second civil war. Ultimately there is only one weltanschauung in play - the outer party (Rs) still exist in the same framework and have the same "secular religion" as the inner party (Ds). Where they differ is in the small details.

    But besides that, looking at it strictly from a materialistic standpoint, the conditions leading up to the Civil War are not comparable. There were two competing elite power structures with differing visions of the Union back then, Northern industrialists and Southern planters. Nowadays the only game in town is finance capital and again here the Rs and Ds only really differ here in the small details - Big Oil vs Big Tech, but really, these two are complementary. Demographically, Americans are too fat and too old to be doing any sort of serious fighting. The most you get is exactly what we saw during the Summer of Floyd, a few street scuffles that ended in a big fat nothingburger.

    Replies: @Yellowface Anon, @A123

  688. @melanf
    @Yellowface Anon


    Because success isn’t judged by economic, but cultural criteria.
     
    When people in a pandemic do not want to be vaccinated, because instead of biology they studied Leo tolstoy: is this a success?

    Replies: @Yellowface Anon, @AP

    Soviet-era physicians were not only far more competent than modern ones (in part because 90s corruption destroyed a lot and forced a lot of potential teachers to emigrate, and in part because they were forced to due to primitive conditions) but also much better read. Your celebration of philistinism is unfounded.

    So in addition to studying biology and physics on a higher level, they also read Tolstoy or Borges, rather than play video games or “read” manga. And in this way Martyanov , a mediocre but educated military officer, comes across as being very well read.

    • Replies: @melanf
    @AP


    Soviet-era physicians were not only far more competent than modern ones
     
    There is absolutely no evidence for this claim

    but also much better read
     
    Is that why there are many anti-vaxxers among them?

    So in addition to studying biology and physics on a higher level, they also read Tolstoy
     
    Not in addition, but instead

    Replies: @AP

  689. @AP
    @melanf

    Soviet-era physicians were not only far more competent than modern ones (in part because 90s corruption destroyed a lot and forced a lot of potential teachers to emigrate, and in part because they were forced to due to primitive conditions) but also much better read. Your celebration of philistinism is unfounded.

    So in addition to studying biology and physics on a higher level, they also read Tolstoy or Borges, rather than play video games or “read” manga. And in this way Martyanov , a mediocre but educated military officer, comes across as being very well read.

    Replies: @melanf

    Soviet-era physicians were not only far more competent than modern ones

    There is absolutely no evidence for this claim

    but also much better read

    Is that why there are many anti-vaxxers among them?

    So in addition to studying biology and physics on a higher level, they also read Tolstoy

    Not in addition, but instead

    • Replies: @AP
    @melanf


    Soviet-era physicians were not only far more competent than modern ones

    There is absolutely no evidence for this claim
     
    The well read Soviet physicians who moved out of the USSR right after the USSR collapsed got great careers in the USA and Israel and other places where they moved to. They compare very well to their Western peers. Generally speaking they are more skilled. Recent graduates in Russia do not have such a great reputation on the other hand when they move West. Several of my in-laws are professors at medical institutes on Moscow, one is member of the Academy of Sciences; they complain how much lower the quality is with each year and are sad for the country. Many of their colleagues left, in-laws didn't out of patriotism but that was rare. Who wanted to make $200 per month in the 90s when they could live very well in the West? Or simply change fields. I know a brilliant young specialist in Moscow who in the 90s got into selling high end electronic equipment to oligarchs, he is very wealthy now but his skills are lost to his field. But the people whose second homes in Switzerland have perfect acoustics thanks to his work there appreciate his high degree of intelligence and craft. It is true of most of Russian higher education, though there are exceptions (Mekhmat where my nephew studies, and Phystek are still very good). The brain drain was significant, not many were left to teach the next generation. Educational "reforms" further degraded the quality of the students. There was a lot of corruption with the arrival of Armenians and others. The decline has been remarkable. So yes, Soviet physicians read literature and also understood biology better than do modern Russian physicians (recent graduates). There are still some good young physicians, but I would be careful about seeing a Russian physician under a certain age.

    Such reforms are good for the purpose of producing a less educated, more narrowly focused generation who can be more compliant and manipulated. Americanization.

    USSR was disgusting in many ways but it did at least produce some people who could appreciate many things. So people who moved to the West in the early 90s have equaled their Western-educated colleagues professionally but at the same time complain they they can't discuss literature or share in classical music or whatever with their Western peers.

    but also much better read

    Is that why there are many anti-vaxxers among them?
     
    Anti-vaxxing is a function of paranoia and lack of trust in authorities, not education. Soviets learned not to trust authorities. So did blacks in America, and poor American whites. All three groups tend to be anti-vaxxers. But actually none of the older physicians I know in Russia are anti-vaxxers, they have all been vaccinated.

    So in addition to studying biology and physics on a higher level, they also read Tolstoy

    Not in addition, but instead
     
    You are saying Russian science students or medical students (with some exceptions) today are better educated in physics or biology than, say, in 1985? LOL.

    Replies: @Dmitry, @Chairman Meow

  690. @sher singh
    @AP

    Can I carry a Sabre in Moscow?

    Replies: @AP

    I don’t know, but I once saw a girl in full riding gear riding a horse down Tverskaya in the center of Moscow late at night.

    • Thanks: sher singh
  691. @songbird
    @Mr. Hack


    got the whole series at my local library for free.
     
    Have recently acquired a copy myself, so I guess that removes the biggest energy barrier. May give the first hour a whirl tomorrow, as it is supposed to be one of those polar vortex type days, that I think only a Russian or a Yakut could enjoy.

    The trick to remembering dreams is to do it right away after you wake up.
     
    Heard somewhere that it is hard for someone on drugs to remember what they did when they are in a period of sobriety because it is a different state of the brain. The drug state has a way of splitting up, storing, and putting back together drug-memories, in order to recall them, that cannot be duplicated with a sober brain.

    But maybe, keeping this in mind has hampered my efforts to recall. I sometimes feel like I need to come out of sleep at a certain amplitude of the brainwave to remember things. Seems more common that I remember when I wake up in the middle of the night, than in the morning. But I like your suggestion of plasticity and repeated effort. Maybe, I have been limiting myself by trying to put everything in constrained scientific terms.

    Too bad Daniel is not around, perhaps, he would have interesting insights here, as he's into using feedback.

    I gather up some speed, then jump into the air and the wind takes me for a ride. I can hover quite high over different types of landscapes, but they’re usually city ones
     
    Do you need to know it is a dream, in order to fly?

    Often I only seem to suspect it is a dream. On the rare occasions when I have had a sharp willfulness, I find my actions are always limited. Once I went for a walk at night in my dream, thinking it would be super cool, but ended up just taking a leisurely stroll to nowhere in particular. Another time, (very rough analogy) it was kind of like how in a video game, you are constrained by obvious barriers.

    BTW, reminds me of the beginning of a Sherlock Holmes story. Perhaps, it was inspired by a dream? Now that I think of it, I feel certain it was.

    I can remember had me commandeer a large passenger type plane to a low altitude ultimately flying it underneath a low bridge – we came out the other end unscathed!
     
    Perhaps, after seeing the movie Lost Horizon?

    BTW, have you any thoughts about the people who appear in your dreams? Do you think they are mostly all people whose faces you have seen? Or are they made-up people and you are imagining their faces? (This is a really interesting question to me, as the face is such a complicated thing.) Have you ever read in a dream? (I vaguely think I have, but am unsure.)

    One of the weirdest ideas I have ever come across is the assertion (which I think some people said only in the '30s or '40s, that people can only dream in black and white.) I never recall having a dream like this, though I do remember nighttime dreams.

    The absolute craziest dream that I can ever remember was being shot at with laser guns by giant robots (like thirty or forty feet tall). Let's hope it was not a vision of the future.

    Replies: @Mr. Hack

    Daniel Chieh related to me that he would sometimes use some kind of a meditation device that would help him enter into some kind of a trance state of mind very similar to dreaming where he would have some incredible visions. As far as I can remember right now, I do not need to know that I’m dreaming while I’m dreaming in order to fly. I do, however, have dreams where I am aware at some point that I’m within a dream.

    Once I went for a walk at night in my dream, thinking it would be super cool, but ended up just taking a leisurely stroll to nowhere in particular.

    Perhaps, you really did go for a walk? Sleep walking is very real for some individuals. My grandmother used to sleep walk and it usually occurred during the time of a full moon.

    Perhaps, the film “Lost Horizons” did have some influence on my last dream that I mentioned, where the large plane crashed, but not on the one where I successfully commandeered the plane underneath a bridge? 🙂

    BTW, have you any thoughts about the people who appear in your dreams? Do you think they are mostly all people whose faces you have seen? Or are they made-up people and you are imagining their faces? (This is a really interesting question to me, as the face is such a complicated thing.) Have you ever read in a dream? (I vaguely think I have, but am unsure.)

    I’ve had both types of encounters within my dreams. Certainly ones where the other actors in my dream are know entities, and therefore I know their faces, and others where the faces are largely unknown to me. The characters that end up displaying different known personalities to me are quite interesting to me. When I review the dream sequence once awake I’m often scratching my head thinking “what the h…?” I once had a dream that I related to AP on this website where he came to visit me in Mpls (I’ve never seen AP in my life) and we ended up going to a very artsy and ritzy part of town and went into the basement of a large mansion where his father was the curator of a large art gallery. We were looking at a lot of very bizarre and surrealistic types of artwork, not all for sale?…..I dream in both black and white and in color.

    Lastly, your “large robot” dream reminds me of one that I had after watching the film “War of the Worlds” starring Tom Cruise, or was it “Sky Captain and the World of Tomorrow”, both really fun movies to watch. 🙂

    • Replies: @songbird
    @Mr. Hack


    My grandmother used to sleep walk and it usually occurred during the time of a full moon.
     
    This reminds me of one of the most curious dreams I ever had. Ever seen the movie Inception? Well, I had a similar experience...

    Once, when I was camping on a lonely wooded hill in Northern New England, under the light of a full moon, someone, using the power of this moon, entered into my dream from the outside. Someone who, in olden times, was feared by both Indians and colonists (surely some of the toughest, and most hard-nosed peoples who ever lived. ) Someone recognized by both, immortalized in their folklore, as a harbinger of death, a stealer of souls.

    Deep in my dream, I did not hear his light footsteps in the night, his flittering, as he came hunting for nourishment.

    It was a sunny day in my dream, where I was walking from point A to point B outside, on a paved path, across a cultivated park. Fool that I was, I did not realize I was dreaming, alone and helpless in the country. I did not even grow alarmed, when first I detected him.

    I did not even question his strange presence, until I entered into a peak of rationality. And said to myself, "What is a child of the night doing here? Shouldn't you be hiding now, in the dark shadows, away from the sun?"

    As if hearing my thoughts, he sang a joyous, mocking song. Immediately, I remembered it was a full moon in the real world. And I, as if hit by magic, thought it was wonderful. Now, deep under his spell, I did not bother waking up, for suddenly, it seemed like such a waste of effort. But continued to hear him sing couplet after couplet, and began to appreciate it more and more, knowing full well that my prone body was unprotected in the real world - the night in which he hunted. Exposed to all manner of bloodsucking.

    He was - a whip-poor-will (and the mosquitoes were the bloodsuckers)

    Lastly, your “large robot” dream reminds me of one that I had after watching the film
     
    If I had to cite a reference, it would be a certain Saturday morning cartoon. But it hit me out of leftfield as I hadn't seen it in ages, and I believe hadn't seen a movie with big robots in it. Think it may have been my most effects-laden dream ever - biggest budget. (incidentally, I wonder if these fantastic dreams debunk this idea that we are a simulation, as that would take a lot of unnecessary GPU cycles)

    Also had one where I was fluently speaking some foreign language that I don't know a word of in real life.

    Perhaps, you really did go for a walk? Sleep walking is very real for some individuals.
     
    I've known one or two, and think that I am not one, for nobody ever told me, and, in contrast to them, I seem generally to be a light sleeper.

    Once, I was sharing a tent with one - obnoxious snorer - and, after a few nights of it, I took his headphones out and put them on his ears and cranked the volume up. And he did not even wake up!

    Used to joke that I am descended from all the men who were awakened by the cave lion trying to sneak past the barrier, or the night raiders trying to slit everyone's throats. Men who outlived the night attack to have sons.

    Replies: @Mr. Hack

  692. Yesterday Karlin write on Twitter:

    I will resume blogging imminently, posts lined up on Ukraine, on Chinese TFR (reply to Hanania), an obituary. And since Substack isn’t great for free-running commenting, will soon unveil a solution for that too.
    2:40 AM · Jan 14, 2022

  693. @LatW
    @Mr. Hack


    I’ve been fortunate enough to have two types of “flying dreams"
     
    This is very interesting because I, too, have two sorts of recurring "flying dreams"...



    One is where my soul is flying in between snow clad mountain ranges. There is very even, gliding movement, there is this very pleasant peacefully exhilarating feeling with a little bit of scariness on the way downwards. I started having this recurring dream after my trips to the mountains in Norway.

    The second one is also somewhere in the north, but in an even more Arctic kind of place. It is very beautiful, great ambience, but a bit thrilling, a bit scary. It is much darker than the mountain one. At times, the vision would be from above, kind of like at the top of the world, and you see some kind of a map with many seas and small islands or countries and there is a sense of order and interconnection in this space. Within this dream I would submerge into the ocean and continue flying/floating inside the dark water, with a large whale nearby. It gets a little scary at that point so the dream often stops there but there is also a feeling of love, strangely enough.

    Have you tried practicing the Lucid dreaming technique? I haven't much, but what you do you really focus on the kind of visuals you want to see right before bedtime. I've had some dreams where it's almost like my thoughts direct what is going to further happen in the dream. It's kind of like walking through the dream and simultaneously knowing what will happen next as it's happening. And, ofc, the kind of dream that you mentioned above, where people or objects merge from one into another, I've had. The other night, in fact, I had an anxiety dream where one of my female relatives was turning into a friend of hers. Again, this dream had an element of anxiety in it, but also feelings of great love simultaneously.

    Btw, you asked me in the other thread if I have more wine recommendations. Actually, I wanted to recommend another beverage I've been drinking lately -- fireweed tea. Another name for it is Ivan Chai, it grows in Russia and Ukraine, probably in America, too. It is an immunity booster and good for cardio vascular health. Very pleasant, almost sweet taste. Apparently it used to be a big export for the Russian Empire. But it's common in Ukraine, too, from what I understand. I've been mostly raised on chamomile and linden teas, so it was a pleasant discovery.

    Replies: @songbird, @AP, @Mr. Hack

    Your dreams appear to be very interesting to me. Your “top of the world” dreams remind me of ones that I have, where I visit some really incredible landscapes somewhere in Canada, mountains and all. These dreams start out for me visiting the North Shore of MN including the BWCA (Boundary Water Canoe Area). This is a really beautiful area with streams, lakes and even a few waterfalls. I end up travelling further north into Canada and visit large swaths of land, although I don’t recall what mode of transportation I use to get around. Some really great sightseeing!

    Thanks for the information about “Ivan chai”, I’ll definitely keep it in mind. I drink a lot of different types of teas. Do you make your own kambucha tea? Very popular in your part of the world. My question, however, had to do with your experiences with the wines of the winery that you had recommended. They all were in the \$65 per bottle range or higher, except for their cabernet sauvignon. Chateau …? from Washington state?

    • Replies: @LatW
    @Mr. Hack


    Your dreams appear to be very interesting to me.
     
    Yes, these dreams are fantastic, I wish they would happen more often.

    The one with the flying through snow clad mountains is really amazing, it feels so good, almost like a high. When I'm about to fall, my mind sort of kicks in and pushes me up a little and I get to fly a little more. There is a lot of light coming from the sky and the mountains but I can see these very intricate and clear patterns made out of rocks and moss that contrast with the pristine white snow.

    The map dream is more mysterious, darker, but it is very pleasant, it is in some kind of a hyperborean environment where there is no sunlight, it's all dimmed, it is our planet but it feels like it is laid out differently. The above view feels very satisfying, all the little islands and their boundaries sort of come together in a perfect arrangement and there is a sense of discovery. Trips to Iceland, Norway may have inspired it but I wonder where it all comes from.. because it's slightly different than those landscapes. It's magical. Btw, there is a boat tour that runs from Alaska all the way to Kamchatka and then on to Hokkaido. Not sure if I could ever pull that one, but would be awesome.

    Boundary Water Canoe Area seems really nice, you know in the Baltic mythology a boat or a horse symbolizes a journey. If you dream about that, there is some kind of a trip, journey or a life transition approaching. So maybe a canoe could be a symbol for that as well.


    Do you make your own kambucha tea?
     
    I haven't, but I know of something called "the tea mushroom". A few years back it became very popular with hipsters. Buttermilk / kefir is more traditional and wider known.

    My question, however, had to do with your experiences with the wines of the winery that you had recommended. They all were in the $65 per bottle range or higher, except for their cabernet sauvignon. Chateau …?
     
    Yes, it's Chateau St Michelle. Frankly, there are wineries like that scattered all over the West Coast, so it may not be that "special" but I really liked it and I haven't travelled to the Napa Valley so I can't compare. My sister has been to both, so I should ask her how it compares. This is a much smaller venue, of course, than the ones in CA. Yes, the bottles at Chateau St Michelle are pricey, however, there is a very cheap Chardonnay from the Columbia Valley (but I guess you only drink red), where the grapes are grown in volcanic soil, it's very warm there. I was there for a wine tasting so I tried several reds. The ones that were called the Artist Collection. There is one there that I really want to try called Impetus, but I'm waiting for a special occasion. Btw, there used to be a red called Ravage CabSav around $10, I really liked the logo because it had a really cool picture of a medieval knight on it.

    Btw, have you been following the negotiations re: Ukraine (and Russia/US in general)? It looks like the West pushed back (although there might be conversations going on, I don't trust Sullivan or even Biden) I wonder what Russia's going to do next.

    Replies: @Mr. Hack, @Mr. Hack

  694. “Undocumented Shopping” is not limited to stores.

    To relieve strain on local distribution, mostly peaceful Los Angeles youths are now taking product directly from box cars: (1)

    “Keep hearing of train burglaries in LA on the scanner so went to #LincolnHeights to see it all,” Schreiber wrote. “And…there’s looted packages as far as the eye can see. Amazon packages, @UPS boxes, unused Covid tests, fishing lures, epi pens. Cargo containers left busted open on trains. @CBSLA.”


     

    Similar problems are plaguing Chicago, see tweet below.

    PEACE 😇
    __________

    (1) https://dailycaller.com/2022/01/14/los-angeles-cbs-la-lincoln-heights-stolen-packages-train-tracks-supply-chain/

    • Replies: @Mikel
    @A123

    Maybe this is why Best Buy informed us the other day that they weren't able to deliver the dishwasher we had ordered several weeks ago.

    But well, from the undocumented shoppers' perspective it makes perfect sense. Why wait for goods to be delivered to stores in the middle of cities with lots of cameras and (some semblance of) police presence? Just grab them in bulk while they are in transit. It's a logical development.

    They won't be able to escalate and loot the factories though. They are all in China.

    It's quite amazing, how much the people who have enabled this and allow it to continue happening must hate this country.

    Replies: @A123

  695. @AP
    @Dmitry


    Marxist term. I think of it as middle class,

    Before the industrial revolution, burghers are wealthy citizens with voting rights within the cities.

    They would often include professions like merchants, bankers and lawyers, who would later begin to acquire capital goods (factories, ships, means of production).
     
    Sure, a segment of the old burghers became masters of Capital. But bourgeoisie are simply middle class, with middle class values. There are positive and negatives about that but it isn't good for culture when it takes everything over.

    "Musil had some funny observations of actual aristocratic homes being run down while those of new rich being far more perfect approximations"

    Because there was a strong economic transition, where agriculture becomes less profitable, compared to manufacturing
     
    .

    No, it wasn't because the aristocrats were too poor to afford to clean or make everything proper, it was because they didn't care to do these things. A feature of the middle-class (even when they become rich) is that they are strivers, who want everything to be proper. The aristocrats didn't care. They would tell dirty jokes and got along better with earthy peasants or the urban underclass who just arrived in the city from the countryside, than did the middle class rich.

    American Yankees were in essence bourgeoisie. Puritanism is very much such a phenomenon, as is its offspring wokism. Things must be proper, not obscene. There are pluses. Things are proper, there is a work ethic, tools for striving and advancement such as education are developed to a high level, there is prosperity and efficiency. For all its Junkers, Germany had a stronger bourgeois spirit than Austria whom it eclipsed. But Austria is much more pleasant and beautiful.

    Althorp is mentioned as a small hamlet in the Domesday Book as “Olletorp”, and by 1377 it had become a village with a population of more than fifty people. By 1505 there were no longer any tenants living there, and in 1508, John Spencer purchased Althorp estate with the funds generated from his family’s sheep-rearing business.”
     
    So the family made their initial fortune as a type of kulak. They had a rural background.

    Replies: @Dmitry, @Dmitry

    bourgeoisie are simply middle class,

    Only within the agricultural, pre-industrial economy, were they. As there is industrialization, burghers became the upper class, while the former elites of the agricultural economy, were becoming a middle class, unable to pay for their previous lifestyle. When there is such a historical “sector rotation” in the economy, one class displaces another, and the former class become owners of a kind of “rust belt” that doesn’t generate so much money anymore.

    This transition was slower or faster in different countries, and historical boundaries are overlapping.

    If you on a tour in London, they will show you about when the landowning elites started to build the largest houses inside the city in the 18th century already, to network with the burghers . By the 19th century, they start to send their children to educational institutes created by the bourgeoisie, who now have the largest houses.

    In the late 19th century, the lawndowning aristocracy are desperately marrying their children to the bourgeoisie’s children, often with direct intention to try to save their finances and not lose their properties. Although most of the landowners houses in London, were sold by the families who had constructed them, and by the late 19th century do not have money to live in them.

    positive and negatives about that but it isn’t good for culture when it takes everything over.

    I haven’t books about this topics, but from my tourist knowledge I believe the Italian Renaissance was mainly funded by the burghers. These were the urban citizens of the city states.

    Italy was centuries more advanced than many economies, and Medicis themselves were from an agriculture industry family, but they develop their power as pioneers in the banking industry. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Medici_Bank

    because the aristocrats were too poor to afford to clean or make everything proper, it was because they didn’t care to do these things. A feature of the middle-class

    It was exactly because they were becoming too poor. This is why half of Europe’s aristocracy in the 19th century, were trying to marry Barings or Rothschilds and other bourgeois families. While the bourgeois families attain in exchange the status and palaces of the former elite.

    Without these marriages, they were selling their houses. A large proportion of former landowning families, lost their glamorous life, lost their property, dissolved to the middle class.

    An example where they were able to save their status, is Winston Churchill. His father even has been able to marry a daughter of American stockbroker, so they can still be part of an upper class, and don’t have to sell their palace. Even after this marriage, they were only on a lower border of the upper class. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Early_life_of_Winston_Churchill

    This is the same for all of the Spencer Family. They were the one of the most wealthy and elite family in Early Modern history of England.

    However, they could only survive in upper class, through strategic marriage to the new economic elites. So, Princess Diana’s greatgrandfather could still finance an upper class life, by marrying to Baring Bank family (famous London burghers).
    https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Albert_Spencer,_7th_Earl_Spencer#Early_life

    middle-class (even when they become rich) is that they are strivers, who want everything to be proper. The aristocrats didn’t care. They would tell dirty jokes

    Perhaps among very disciplined, religious elites, like Puritans in America.

    But in most of the world, the upper class will become playboys in a single generation. This is also in America. Donald Trump or John Kennedy were crazy playboys, after one generation of wealth. They are only second-generation wealthy people.

    If Trump or Kennedy father was like Henry VII of England. Trump and Kennedy are already acting like Henry VIII. Human nature does not change.

    Although I am doubting Ivanka Trump will become like Elizabeth I.

    • Replies: @AP
    @Dmitry


    bourgeoisie are simply middle class,

    Only within the agricultural, pre-industrial economy, were they. As there is industrialization, burghers became the upper class
     
    " the social class between the aristocracy or very wealthy and the working class, or proletariat; middle class"

    That is, the average modern Westerner. You are using the Marxist meaning of the word:

    the class that, in contrast to the proletariat or wage-earning class, is primarily concerned with property values

    ::::::

    So according to Marxism, well off pharmacists or physicians are not bourgeoisie because they are wage earners.

    If you on a tour in London, they will show you about when the landowning elites started to build the largest houses inside the city in the 18th century already, to network with the burghers . By the 19th century, they start to send their children to educational institutes created by the bourgeoisie, who now have the largest houses.

    In the late 19th century, the lawndowning aristocracy are desperately marrying their children to the bourgeoisie’s children, often with direct intention to try to save their finances and not lose their properties. Although most of the landowners houses in London, were sold by the families who had constructed them, and by the late 19th century do not have money to live in them.
     
    Yes, but I was discussing Vienna. In Central and Eastern Europe the landed aristocracy did not lose complete control over their countries and the legal and economic environment made it less likely that they would be dispossessed of their wealth (they did not let the governments get out of their hands and accordingly policies such as tariffs on agricultural products were in place to keep them wealthy). It could happen if someone gambled or drank too much or made some other stupid decision but it was not typical. The Prussian, Russian, Austrian nobles experienced new rich joining their economic ranks and even eclipsing them, but did not experience the widescale hardship and desperation as their English peers until after World War I. As a result they were better able to segregate themselves socially. It wasn't as common for rich middle class people to marry into older families as in England, and if they did, they were typically relegated to secondary rank of the incomer rather than the first rank.

    because the aristocrats were too poor to afford to clean or make everything proper, it was because they didn’t care to do these things. A feature of the middle-class

    It was exactly because they were becoming too poor.
     
    Again, I was discussing Austria and not England. The reason was that they did not care about such things unlike the middle class for whom being proper was very important. For similar reasons those old landed families, in addition to not minding shabby furniture, also enjoyed telling dirty jokes that would have scandalized the proper new rich middle class people. But unlike in England they did not as a group sink into poverty at all. In fact, in places where the Communists did not steal everything such as Austria, these families have continued to own huge tracts of lands and castles:

    http://www.tourmycountry.com/austria/real-estate-austria.htm

    But who owns the forests of Austria today? The following ranking was published by the daily paper "Die Presse", and reveals some rather interesting details on where wealth and power rest in my little country…



    1.) The public is the biggest landowner as far as forests are concerned: 10 percent of the Austrian nation and 70 percent of all lakes belong to the „Bundesforste", a company owned by the public.

    2.) The wealthiest private owner of forests is the Styrian industrialist and offspring of a noble family Franz Mayr-Melnhof Saurau. [19th century industrialists - AP]

    3.) More nobility: The former Princes of Esterházy, though princes no more, still own 22,500 hectares of forest in Austria, only - much of their possessions are in Hungary, though. Nicely supplemented with several castles in the Burgenland.

    4.) Even more nobility: As of 2008, Prince Karl of Schwarzenberg is the Czech minister for foreign affairs - although raised in Vienna, where his family has had a palace for many centuries.

    5.) The Benedictine monastery of Admont in Styria is a key-attraction due to its Baroque splendour - and owns almost 17,000 hectares of forest.

    6.) And even more nobility here: The Prince of Liechtenstein, Hans-Adam II, owns a fair chunk of Austria, including 16,500 hectares of forest in Styria.

    7.) Another monastery: The Cistercian abbey of Lilienfeld owns 11,200 hectares of forest

    8.) Finally, a „real" company: The „Alwa AG" is a daughter firm of the BA-CA, one of Austria′s biggest banks - and owns 9,388 hectares of forest.

    9.) Back to nobility again: The Salzburg relatives of the Styrian Mayr-Melnhof own - alongside with three castles - 9,000 hectares of forest in Salzburg and Upper Austria.

    10.) Finally, back to monasteries: The Salvatorian monks of Gurk in Carinthia own and manage 8,508 hectares of forest, alongside with the cathedral of Gurk.

    :::::::::::

    Lots of huge plots are owned by other old families in Austria.

    Replies: @Dmitry

    , @Philip Owen
    @Dmitry

    In the UK, the Liberals had invented Death Duties as a way of increasing taxes after WW1. They thought it would be painless. However, so many young aristocratic men died that there was a glut of land sales in the early 1920's. Land prices plummeted (so even more land was sold to meet the tax). A considerable number of competent farmers became owners rather than renters too. (It is part of the back story of the Archers versus the Grundys for Radio 4 followers). Dan Archer's father beat Jo Grundy's father to raising the money to buy Brookfield. The new owners tended to invest more and out competed the aristocracy who mostly spent the rents rather than improve the estate.

    It happened in Ireland but the Civil War was an even better factor in removing the aristocracy.

    Not qite the Russian Revolution but going that way. Not so much change in German speaking Europe. I don't know about Italy and the East.

    Replies: @Coconuts

  696. Here are some of the better political cartoons that I’ve come acrross lately:

    We need to place a sign at Arizona’s border pronto. “WOKE PEOPLE AND ILLEGALS NOT WELCOMED!”

    Supreme Court Justice Sonia Sotomayor just stretched the truth a weeeee bit during oral arguments on the Constitutionality of Biden’s Executive Order forcing companies with 100 or more employees to be fully vaccinated. Her claim that 100,000 children are now hospitalized with COVID is just a taaaaad off. It’s really close to 3,000! But what the heck, it’s highly excusable for such an unabashed Progressive!

    • Replies: @Mr. Hack
    @Mr. Hack

    https://mediacloud.theweek.com/image/upload/f_auto,t_single-media-image-desktop@1/v1641320057/gv010422dAPR.jpg

    Senate Democrat Majority Leader, Chuck Schumer, needs to eliminate the filibuster rule in order to pass the “Freedom to Vote Act”. When the wicked warlock of the East needs to eliminate the very filibuster rule that he used 327 times in 2020 when Trump was President but now finds it “undemocratic” and “racist”, you know the “Freedom to Vote Act” is in deep do-do. It is a must for nearly all Democrats because …….

    https://cdn3.creativecirclemedia.com/sumter/original/20220111-162622-aria_c220110.jpg

    Ukraine should never have given up its nuclear weaponry. At least it should have negotiated for bear repellent!

    , @A123
    @Mr. Hack

    😁 OPEN THREAD HUMOR 😂

    Mix of political & simply funny items. Open [MORE] to see the rest.

    PEACE 😇
    __________

     
    https://i.imgur.com/xOtQC8P.png

     
    https://i2.wp.com/www.powerlineblog.com/ed-assets/2022/01/Screen-Shot-2022-01-05-at-8.18.39-PM.png

     
    https://i2.wp.com/www.powerlineblog.com/ed-assets/2022/01/2021-come-to-an-end-2022-moon-looks-weird-death-star.jpg



     
    https://cdn.acidcow.com/pics/20211209/1639059567_vs94r6u4qz.jpg

     
    https://cdn.acidcow.com/pics/20220114/gifs_11.gif

     
    https://cdn.acidcow.com/pics/20220114/gifs_17.gif

     
    https://cdn.acidcow.com/pics/20220114/bkfbds_122.jpg

     
    https://i.imgur.com/mWA7GKK.jpg

     
    https://i0.wp.com/www.powerlineblog.com/ed-assets/2022/01/image011.png

     
    https://i2.wp.com/www.powerlineblog.com/ed-assets/2021/12/Screen-Shot-2021-12-19-at-11.49.52-AM.png

     
    https://i1.wp.com/www.powerlineblog.com/ed-assets/2021/12/Screen-Shot-2021-12-22-at-7.20.39-PM.png

     
    http://ace.mu.nu/archives/meme%2020211220%2004.jpg

  697. @AP
    @Dmitry


    Marxist term. I think of it as middle class,

    Before the industrial revolution, burghers are wealthy citizens with voting rights within the cities.

    They would often include professions like merchants, bankers and lawyers, who would later begin to acquire capital goods (factories, ships, means of production).
     
    Sure, a segment of the old burghers became masters of Capital. But bourgeoisie are simply middle class, with middle class values. There are positive and negatives about that but it isn't good for culture when it takes everything over.

    "Musil had some funny observations of actual aristocratic homes being run down while those of new rich being far more perfect approximations"

    Because there was a strong economic transition, where agriculture becomes less profitable, compared to manufacturing
     
    .

    No, it wasn't because the aristocrats were too poor to afford to clean or make everything proper, it was because they didn't care to do these things. A feature of the middle-class (even when they become rich) is that they are strivers, who want everything to be proper. The aristocrats didn't care. They would tell dirty jokes and got along better with earthy peasants or the urban underclass who just arrived in the city from the countryside, than did the middle class rich.

    American Yankees were in essence bourgeoisie. Puritanism is very much such a phenomenon, as is its offspring wokism. Things must be proper, not obscene. There are pluses. Things are proper, there is a work ethic, tools for striving and advancement such as education are developed to a high level, there is prosperity and efficiency. For all its Junkers, Germany had a stronger bourgeois spirit than Austria whom it eclipsed. But Austria is much more pleasant and beautiful.

    Althorp is mentioned as a small hamlet in the Domesday Book as “Olletorp”, and by 1377 it had become a village with a population of more than fifty people. By 1505 there were no longer any tenants living there, and in 1508, John Spencer purchased Althorp estate with the funds generated from his family’s sheep-rearing business.”
     
    So the family made their initial fortune as a type of kulak. They had a rural background.

    Replies: @Dmitry, @Dmitry

    kulak. They had a rural background.

    They were apparently very successful managers of land, when England was still an economy where agricultural sector was the most important industry. As a result, they were always one of the most wealthy and powerful families of the Kingdom (and pre-Kingdom).

    I can’t remember which YouTube video exactly explains this. But if you watch some of the YouTube documentaries about Princess Diana, they talk a lot about this topic.

    For Diana’s family, they considered the Windsor family to be lower than themselves, in terms of the social status.

    So, Diana’s family were so snobby and believe they are higher than the Queen of England’s family, and thought they are some “small German princes”.

    At the same time, Diana’s family has for generations a very bad financial situation and is trying to stay in the upper class through marriage to wealthy people, and to not to lose their elite property.

    With Winston Churchill, Spencer family are able to maintain at the top of world political elite.

    But even Churchill’s family could not lose their house, as a result of marriage to the Vanderbilt (train building) family of the USA in 1896.

    “In November 1896 he coldly and openly without love married the American railroad heiress Consuelo Vanderbilt. The marriage was celebrated following lengthy negotiations with her divorced parents: her mother, Alva Vanderbilt, was desperate to see her daughter a duchess, and the bride’s father, William Vanderbilt, paid for the privilege. ”

    https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Blenheim_Palace#Failing_fortunes

  698. @A123
    "Undocumented Shopping" is not limited to stores.

    To relieve strain on local distribution, mostly peaceful Los Angeles youths are now taking product directly from box cars: (1)

    “Keep hearing of train burglaries in LA on the scanner so went to #LincolnHeights to see it all,” Schreiber wrote. “And…there’s looted packages as far as the eye can see. Amazon packages, @UPS boxes, unused Covid tests, fishing lures, epi pens. Cargo containers left busted open on trains. @CBSLA.”
     
    https://cdn01.dailycaller.com/wp-content/uploads/2022/01/train_tracks_packages-scaled-e1642174740445.jpg
     

    Similar problems are plaguing Chicago, see tweet below.

    PEACE 😇
    __________

    (1) https://dailycaller.com/2022/01/14/los-angeles-cbs-la-lincoln-heights-stolen-packages-train-tracks-supply-chain/

    https://twitter.com/RonMilnerBoodle/status/1481777403252944896?s=20

    Replies: @Mikel

    Maybe this is why Best Buy informed us the other day that they weren’t able to deliver the dishwasher we had ordered several weeks ago.

    But well, from the undocumented shoppers’ perspective it makes perfect sense. Why wait for goods to be delivered to stores in the middle of cities with lots of cameras and (some semblance of) police presence? Just grab them in bulk while they are in transit. It’s a logical development.

    They won’t be able to escalate and loot the factories though. They are all in China.

    It’s quite amazing, how much the people who have enabled this and allow it to continue happening must hate this country.

    • Agree: AP
    • Replies: @A123
    @Mikel

    The great Los Angeles train robbery issue gets worse. Union Pacific is openly discussing exiting the city: (1)


    Adrian Guerrero, Union Pacific's director of public affairs, wrote a letter to LA County District Attorney George Gascón, denouncing the local government's relaxed criminal policies, or rather "well-intentioned social justice goals," as a catalyst for a wave of rail car thefts.

    "We find ourselves coming back to the same results with the Los Angeles County criminal justice system. Criminals are caught and arrested, turned over to local authorities for booking, arraigned before local courts, charges are reduced to a misdemeanor or petty offense, and the criminal is released after paying a nominal fine," wrote Guerrero.

     

    ...
    Guerrero said the thefts are so severe and costing the company millions of dollars that it has been "contemplating serious changes to our operating plans to avoid Los Angeles County."

    Los Angeles is in a state of lawlessness, and there's no turning back. Far-left progressive policies transform the metro area into America's new wild west. What the city needs is a regime change. Otherwise, businesses like Union Pacific will leave if criminals aren't held accountable for their actions.

     

    How far will goods have to travel in trucks from LA and Long Beach ports to reach the first available train depot?

    Not-The-President Biden and "I am on Paternity Leave" Buttigieg have been spectacularly ineffective at clearing supply chain problems. This will make things worse.

    The door is firmly closed on any possible solution. To fix the problem the White House would have openly oppose George IslamoSoros and his Leftoid, corrupt DA's. That simply is not going to happen.

    PEACE 😇
    __________

    (1) https://www.zerohedge.com/political/union-pacific-bashes-las-social-justice-reform-threatens-leave-city-soaring-train-thefts

  699. @Mr. Hack
    Here are some of the better political cartoons that I've come acrross lately:

    https://media.townhall.com/Townhall/Car/b/MC-LeavingCali_web20220107011915.jpg

    We need to place a sign at Arizona’s border pronto. “WOKE PEOPLE AND ILLEGALS NOT WELCOMED!”

    https://www.enterprise-journal.com/sites/default/files/field/image/317811_image.jpg

    Supreme Court Justice Sonia Sotomayor just stretched the truth a weeeee bit during oral arguments on the Constitutionality of Biden’s Executive Order forcing companies with 100 or more employees to be fully vaccinated. Her claim that 100,000 children are now hospitalized with COVID is just a taaaaad off. It’s really close to 3,000! But what the heck, it’s highly excusable for such an unabashed Progressive!

    Replies: @Mr. Hack, @A123

    Senate Democrat Majority Leader, Chuck Schumer, needs to eliminate the filibuster rule in order to pass the “Freedom to Vote Act”. When the wicked warlock of the East needs to eliminate the very filibuster rule that he used 327 times in 2020 when Trump was President but now finds it “undemocratic” and “racist”, you know the “Freedom to Vote Act” is in deep do-do. It is a must for nearly all Democrats because …….

    Ukraine should never have given up its nuclear weaponry. At least it should have negotiated for bear repellent!

  700. @AP
    @Dmitry

    I found this post thanks to the response.


    He definitely knows far more of 20th century literature, than any normal people. This is not typical.
     
    I know lots of educated Russian people over 45 (perhaps the cutoff is 48 or so) and they are as well-read as he is (and far more than I, raised in the USA, am). I'm not sure why you found him to be more well-read than typical educated Russians his age. Perhaps you don't spend much time with educated older Russians. There is a dramatic cutoff after which Russians started to read much less, perhaps because they were too busy surviving. And after that, the next batch of Russians were more like non-reading Westerners, distracted by other things that they can enjoy with the wealth that previous Russian generations didn't have.

    He looks around 70 or 75 years old, so he perhaps moved to the USA because of his children have dragged him there, and this could explain why he seems to hate the USA.
     
    IIRC he left the USSR right when he was young, in the beginning of the 90s, after having graduated from a naval academy with an engineering background and having been a low ranking naval officer for a few years. So he is probably around 60.

    Someone like that should have had a successful career in technology in the 1990s. Instead, it seems that he just tutored kids at private schools, the sort of job an educated pensioner would do, not a man in the prime of his life. So something went wrong in his life, this could explain his bitterness towards the USA. And sadly for him, by the time Russia got back on its feet he was too old to go back. Or he might be from another republic, not even a Russian citizen, so he is an orphan with nothing to come back to. He can only admire and idealize Russia from a distance and feel good about Russia being stronger or more wily than the West - living vicariously through Russia like a Balkanoid.

    Replies: @melanf, @Dmitry

    more well-read than typical educated

    I’m not going to look at his posts again, but he was sounding as a “literature connoisseur”. I.e. reading all kinds of obscure 20th century, books that no normal people read.

    It’s not just reading of Russian classics or normal books.

    I’m not saying this is a good thing exactly. Rather, it makes him an interesting forum writer. He knows all these 20th century writers, that we do not know.

    he is probably around 60.

    In the video, he looks like he is 70 or 75. My grandfather looked younger when he was still 75.

    But I guess perhaps, he could just have some health issues, which cause an older look.

    have had a successful career in technology in the 1990s.

    In Western hi-tech companies, I’ve never met old military navy workers.

    Maybe it can vary a lot by company. But for a graduate program in a large corporation, you want young people with a recent computer science education. Maybe it would be funny to add military people to somewhere in human resources. But they would not want old people from foreign military.

    just tutored kids at private schools, the sort of job an educated pensioner

    I think a teacher is a very important job, if that is what he is doing. Maybe he has the sins of spamming the internet with fantasy politics. But if he is a teacher, then he is doing better for the real world, than most of us.

    bitterness towards the USA. And sadly for him, by the time Russia got back on its feet he was too old to go back.

    His political views were crazy, not connected to reality, and also extremely ungrateful for the country where has emigrated.

    Still, I would not judge his posting only from his crazy politics. Interesting person, if you can make him post about a different topic. For example, if he stops boasting about who has a bigger missile, and starts writing about the obscure literature he knows.

    • Replies: @LatW
    @Dmitry


    but he was sounding as a “literature connoisseur”. I.e. reading all kinds of obscure 20th century, books that no normal people read.

    It’s not just reading of Russian classics or normal books.
     

    Could it be that he was reading all those Russian sci-fi books? Such as the Strugatsky brothers. I haven't read those but Bashi and AnonTN where discussing them. And Oleksiy Arestovych recently had a long blog discussion about them. I didn't listen to it (I'm only interested in his geopolitical and military related rants). But it seems that this is something that 40+ Russian dudes really like. Those are not Russian classics, but sci fi pop literature it seems. One of my friends way back in the early 2000s was reading all these Russian fantasy books, he typically would read books such as Silmarillion, but then he really got into Nik Perumov (he just read and read him for days).

    No, he doesn't look 70-75, he looks somewhere around his 60s. You're just too young to see those nuances. :)

    Replies: @songbird

  701. @sudden death
    @Dmitry


    This is a great masterwork of early 20th century painting. If you don’t like Picasso, I recommend to read some essays about him, and you can start to see the interesting concepts he uses, as well as commentary on art tradition.

    It might look ugly, but it’s not nearly as ugly as painting by some other great Spanish artists like Goya.
     

    Once again might but just a matter of personal taste, but regarding such intentionaly grotesque-primitivist style of human face/figure painting, imho Picasso is not even at the top of the game though, as some Otto Dix works seem to be way better at this kind of style, e.g. his painting about horribly mutilated WWI veterans with some ragtag looking artificial body parts, seems absolutely fitting, as in reality modern explosives&artilery can make a walking living grotesque out of real people.

    Paradoxically, such depictions using naturalist realist style could be even more bleak than groteque painting, so using some inverse meaning it can be even said that primitivist workstyle kinda makes this view even more attractive aesthetically.

    https://www.wikiart.org/en/otto-dix/the-skat-players-1920

    Replies: @LatW

    some Otto Dix works seem to be way better at this kind of style, e.g. his painting about horribly mutilated WWI veterans with some ragtag looking artificial body parts, seems absolutely fitting

    But we reach a critical point here where one really has to be clear about what he was trying to portray — the horror of the war, some faults in the German military, German attitudes & ideas? IMO, he takes it way too far and it turns into a mockery of the regular German soldier. Veterans deserve to be treated with dignity (if not gratitude), especially wounded veterans. There are some things where you should think twice before you turn it into a caricature (children, motherhood, wounded veterans, religious symbols, etc). He made them look caricature like, soulless, mechanical. Those were people, somebody’s sons who were maimed. As if the war had been their fault. He himself had been at the war too and it probably messed up his head (given how unexpectedly horrifying this event was).

    So when it comes to the pure technicality of the genre, yes, it is well done, as you say. But it goes too far when it comes to its internal message. It is anti-German and borderline misanthropic. It was burned and rightfully so.

  702. @LatW
    @Dmitry


    I agree that a lot of art is in a bad situation, and it’s possible it could undistinguishable from money laundering, where oligarchs buy “concept art” to move money across borders.
     
    In this context, have you thought about Russian art? It's apparently underrated. I've heard Peter Aven talk about this (and we already talked about how he owns the biggest Silver Age art collection out there). He was saying that Russian art is underrated, it really bothered me, the Russians should be more careful and protective of their art.


    But this doesn’t mean Picasso is not an interesting or great artist. If you have some time to read or learn about him, you will likely start to understand more of the pictures.
     
    You're doing your usual pretending not to hear what I said. :) I understand quite well what he has tried to say, as far it can be understood. I love bold ideas. However, I wasn't talking about my personal taste or understanding, but the changing of aesthetic standards. Do you follow me?

    The crisis of WW1 and its aftermath actually generated all kinds of unusual things such as the Surrealist Manifesto, for instance. Maybe it was a way for Europeans to process what had happened...?

    But have you been recently to an art exhibition?
     
    Not recently, as I've been busy, but in my youth I was attending museums or concerts almost every weekend (I still do on and off). I've been to interesting exhibits in Berlin, the Van Gogh / Gauguin in Amsterdam, art museums in DC. As I mentioned, I love Art Nouveau and romantic art. So, of course, I've visited the Secession Museum in Vienna (it's quite small).

    Often very few people will be there, and many of them could be over 70 years old.
     
    Not in my experience. In my youth I hung out with some humanities students who were very knowledgable in art and art history. One or two of them were actual artists. They were all in their 20s. One of them is now a curator, one is an academic (anthropology). However, I did not fit in that group fully because they were better educated than I and quite snobbish, I couldn't pull their level, plus they were a bit peeved by my political views (way too constraining and aggressive for them).

    Perhaps amateurs selling on Etsy will save the popularity of painting.
     
    Maybe there are some interesting, original NFTs out there?

    Replies: @AP, @Dmitry

    Russian art is underrated, it really bothered me, the Russians

    I would not agree with Aven, because of people like him, there are Russian art days in auctions in New York, London, Paris.

    I feel like there is almost more money flowing in Russian art, than relative to its importance in the art history.
    https://www.sothebys.com/en/series/russian-art-in-london

    Because the Russian elite is expending more money on art, than almost any nationality in the world.

    There are a lot of very good paintings from Russian artists in the 19th century. It’s a little like how Japanese lager beer, can taste more delicious than the German original one.

    Before the 20th century, the art styles come to Russia always later, more imported and less original, then on the other side it can be also more refined, and “standing on shoulders” of the more pioneering art traditions in France, Italy, Spain, etc.

    However, I wasn’t talking about my personal taste or understanding, but the changing of aesthetic standards. Do you follow me?

    I wasn’t criticizing your taste or to saying you don’t like bold ideas. Obviously, you have their own interesting view. I’m just writing my own view.

    Picasso was a great artist. Spain does not have a better expression of the bombing of Guernica than his painting “Guernica”. But all these symbols are not only about Spain, but also have very personal meaning his career, including the bull and the horse.

    You can see why nerds enjoy Picasso, because it’s an artist where the more you read, the more interesting his works can be.

    In “Guernica”, it’s like his own inner mythological world was being destroyed, not just about the military event, as he portrays the same symbols across thousands of painting, and many different styles. https://www.apollo-magazine.com/what-the-minotaur-can-tell-us-about-picasso/

    in my experience. In my youth I hung out with some humanities students who were very knowledgable in art and art history. One or two of them were actual artists. They were all in their 20s.

    Yes there are young people, but they are nerdy people. It’s not mass culture at all. It’s not Harry Potter or Justin Bieber.

    So, the idea that Picasso is going to damage society’s innocent masses, is a little implausible, since only the most cultured and interesting youth are interested in Picasso.

    Maybe, even Picasso, was a difficult person in his life, and especially to his thousands of girlfriends. But his art is a wonderful, benevolent gift for those few nerdy people who still enjoy it (as well as for the wealthy oligarchs who have enough money to own it).

    • Replies: @LatW
    @Dmitry


    I would not agree with Aven, because of people like him, there are Russian art days in auctions in New York, London, Paris.
     
    Yes, I agree that at least that part is positive. But why is it only he that's gets to keep it? Frankly, that's a huge privilege. I'm not saying this because I'm envious in any way... let's be honest, he is keeping it not just because he loves art, but because it will appreciate in value. But on the other hand, it's a great thing, I agree. You can't give everything to the state either (?). He's currently working on this idea of building a Russian / Latvian art museum in Latvia which is fantastic. From what I understand the Russian paintings are traveling as you said, but it would be nice to find a semi-permanent home for them in Latvia, after all it was one of the industrial - cultural centers of the Russian Empire. And it's true that it's hard to do this without patrons. Btw, Mikhail Baryshnikov has recently been thinking about his home town of Riga as well, his Italian patroness has agreed to renovate the house in which he grew up. The building is nothing spectacular but it could be made to look very nice (a very talented Latvian architect will be involved).


    Spain does not have a better expression of the bombing of Guernica than his painting “Guernica”. But all these symbols are not only about Spain
     
    Well, of course, I agree that Guernica is not only about Spain, as it carries a universal meaning. Because Guernica is tied to very particular political events, I would leave it up to the Spanish (and the Basque) themselves to judge it. I haven't had a chance to inquire what the Spanish nationalists think about it, and it's not my place to judge. The painting, of course, is very powerful and maybe in this case, because it's a work of Cubism, the genre really accentuates the message -- the representation of chaos, destruction, disassembly and pain is very direct and has a great effect. There is a fragment of a mother with her dead child which, while disturbing, is very powerful and the geometrical composition of that fragment is very well done.

    the idea that Picasso is going to damage society’s innocent masses, is a little implausible
     
    I wouldn't be so worried about the "masses", so to speak. What bothers me is that this kind of art opened the door for other artists to take bold steps without the accompanying levels of responsibility. I've encountered some younger artists who feel very emboldened to mock things such as the military, national memory and symbols, in many cases the female body, etc, etc, with what looks like a hubris or a sense of being able to get away with anything and even contempt for society. It is very obvious that they are doing this deliberately, knowing full well what emotions this would inspire. It can be likened to the gay "pride" (but in my eyes it's even worse).

    I don't want to blame Picasso for this, but art is a public profession and responsibility should be at the top of requirements for artists. If not, keep it in private studios, dungeons, or wherever. But of course avant-garde art typically cannot be analyzed or reflected upon based on the traditional aesthetic standards. But what about ethical standards? At the same time, you don't want to squish the interesting, innovative and inspiring parts about it...

    Replies: @Dmitry

  703. @Dmitry
    @AP


    more well-read than typical educated
     
    I'm not going to look at his posts again, but he was sounding as a "literature connoisseur". I.e. reading all kinds of obscure 20th century, books that no normal people read.

    It's not just reading of Russian classics or normal books.

    I'm not saying this is a good thing exactly. Rather, it makes him an interesting forum writer. He knows all these 20th century writers, that we do not know.


    he is probably around 60.

     

    In the video, he looks like he is 70 or 75. My grandfather looked younger when he was still 75.

    But I guess perhaps, he could just have some health issues, which cause an older look.


    have had a successful career in technology in the 1990s.
     
    In Western hi-tech companies, I've never met old military navy workers.

    Maybe it can vary a lot by company. But for a graduate program in a large corporation, you want young people with a recent computer science education. Maybe it would be funny to add military people to somewhere in human resources. But they would not want old people from foreign military.


    just tutored kids at private schools, the sort of job an educated pensioner
     
    I think a teacher is a very important job, if that is what he is doing. Maybe he has the sins of spamming the internet with fantasy politics. But if he is a teacher, then he is doing better for the real world, than most of us.

    bitterness towards the USA. And sadly for him, by the time Russia got back on its feet he was too old to go back.

     

    His political views were crazy, not connected to reality, and also extremely ungrateful for the country where has emigrated.

    Still, I would not judge his posting only from his crazy politics. Interesting person, if you can make him post about a different topic. For example, if he stops boasting about who has a bigger missile, and starts writing about the obscure literature he knows.

    Replies: @LatW

    but he was sounding as a “literature connoisseur”. I.e. reading all kinds of obscure 20th century, books that no normal people read.

    It’s not just reading of Russian classics or normal books.

    Could it be that he was reading all those Russian sci-fi books? Such as the Strugatsky brothers. I haven’t read those but Bashi and AnonTN where discussing them. And Oleksiy Arestovych recently had a long blog discussion about them. I didn’t listen to it (I’m only interested in his geopolitical and military related rants). But it seems that this is something that 40+ Russian dudes really like. Those are not Russian classics, but sci fi pop literature it seems. One of my friends way back in the early 2000s was reading all these Russian fantasy books, he typically would read books such as Silmarillion, but then he really got into Nik Perumov (he just read and read him for days).

    No, he doesn’t look 70-75, he looks somewhere around his 60s. You’re just too young to see those nuances. 🙂

    • Replies: @songbird
    @LatW


    he typically would read books such as Silmarillion
     
    Would cause someone to drop the habit, rather than pick it up.

    Replies: @LatW

  704. @Mr. Hack
    @LatW

    Your dreams appear to be very interesting to me. Your "top of the world" dreams remind me of ones that I have, where I visit some really incredible landscapes somewhere in Canada, mountains and all. These dreams start out for me visiting the North Shore of MN including the BWCA (Boundary Water Canoe Area). This is a really beautiful area with streams, lakes and even a few waterfalls. I end up travelling further north into Canada and visit large swaths of land, although I don't recall what mode of transportation I use to get around. Some really great sightseeing!

    Thanks for the information about "Ivan chai", I'll definitely keep it in mind. I drink a lot of different types of teas. Do you make your own kambucha tea? Very popular in your part of the world. My question, however, had to do with your experiences with the wines of the winery that you had recommended. They all were in the $65 per bottle range or higher, except for their cabernet sauvignon. Chateau ...? from Washington state?

    Replies: @LatW

    Your dreams appear to be very interesting to me.

    Yes, these dreams are fantastic, I wish they would happen more often.

    [MORE]

    The one with the flying through snow clad mountains is really amazing, it feels so good, almost like a high. When I’m about to fall, my mind sort of kicks in and pushes me up a little and I get to fly a little more. There is a lot of light coming from the sky and the mountains but I can see these very intricate and clear patterns made out of rocks and moss that contrast with the pristine white snow.

    The map dream is more mysterious, darker, but it is very pleasant, it is in some kind of a hyperborean environment where there is no sunlight, it’s all dimmed, it is our planet but it feels like it is laid out differently. The above view feels very satisfying, all the little islands and their boundaries sort of come together in a perfect arrangement and there is a sense of discovery. Trips to Iceland, Norway may have inspired it but I wonder where it all comes from.. because it’s slightly different than those landscapes. It’s magical. Btw, there is a boat tour that runs from Alaska all the way to Kamchatka and then on to Hokkaido. Not sure if I could ever pull that one, but would be awesome.

    Boundary Water Canoe Area seems really nice, you know in the Baltic mythology a boat or a horse symbolizes a journey. If you dream about that, there is some kind of a trip, journey or a life transition approaching. So maybe a canoe could be a symbol for that as well.

    Do you make your own kambucha tea?

    I haven’t, but I know of something called “the tea mushroom”. A few years back it became very popular with hipsters. Buttermilk / kefir is more traditional and wider known.

    My question, however, had to do with your experiences with the wines of the winery that you had recommended. They all were in the \$65 per bottle range or higher, except for their cabernet sauvignon. Chateau …?

    Yes, it’s Chateau St Michelle. Frankly, there are wineries like that scattered all over the West Coast, so it may not be that “special” but I really liked it and I haven’t travelled to the Napa Valley so I can’t compare. My sister has been to both, so I should ask her how it compares. This is a much smaller venue, of course, than the ones in CA. Yes, the bottles at Chateau St Michelle are pricey, however, there is a very cheap Chardonnay from the Columbia Valley (but I guess you only drink red), where the grapes are grown in volcanic soil, it’s very warm there. I was there for a wine tasting so I tried several reds. The ones that were called the Artist Collection. There is one there that I really want to try called Impetus, but I’m waiting for a special occasion. Btw, there used to be a red called Ravage CabSav around \$10, I really liked the logo because it had a really cool picture of a medieval knight on it.

    Btw, have you been following the negotiations re: Ukraine (and Russia/US in general)? It looks like the West pushed back (although there might be conversations going on, I don’t trust Sullivan or even Biden) I wonder what Russia’s going to do next.

    • Replies: @Mr. Hack
    @LatW

    I've only traversed the BWCA once, and I was in my early twenties then (quite a long time ago. :-( ) and a "fine specimen of a man" as they say. Anyway, I got to traverse the path with a canoe on my back, little knowing that we would encounter the very longest portage of all within the BWCA! It was quite long and put quite a strain on my back, all I remember is the incredible twitching of my nerve synapses throughout my back. I made it though and can still tell the tale!

    Here's a map of the East Bearskin lake trail that we took encountering the lovely Johnson falls along the way:

    https://clearwateroutfitters.com/wp-content/uploads/2017/07/map-1-copy-1024x551.jpg

    https://www.gunflintcanoeing.com/_wp2015/wp-content/uploads/2020/09/Johnson-Falls-Photo.jpg

    I wish you luck in your future dreaming adventures and look forward to trying some of your wine choices.

    , @Mr. Hack
    @LatW


    Btw, have you been following the negotiations re: Ukraine (and Russia/US in general)? It looks like the West pushed back (although there might be conversations going on, I don’t trust Sullivan or even Biden) I wonder what Russia’s going to do next.
     
    Sorry, I didn't reply to this sooner. I don't really know what to make of it all? Putler's been rattling his sabre for a few months now, and seems to be making all kinds of threatening noises. Maybe his ratings are down, as before when he invaded Crimea? I do watch the Ukrainian news shows, and know that the provocations are at the top of the list of talk shows there etc; Needless to say, Putler is not gaining in popularity throughout Ukraine. Enough is enough. If he decides to sick his dogs on Ukraine though, I think that he'll be in for a big surprise, this time around.

    Replies: @German_reader, @LatW

  705. @LatW
    @Mr. Hack


    Your dreams appear to be very interesting to me.
     
    Yes, these dreams are fantastic, I wish they would happen more often.

    The one with the flying through snow clad mountains is really amazing, it feels so good, almost like a high. When I'm about to fall, my mind sort of kicks in and pushes me up a little and I get to fly a little more. There is a lot of light coming from the sky and the mountains but I can see these very intricate and clear patterns made out of rocks and moss that contrast with the pristine white snow.

    The map dream is more mysterious, darker, but it is very pleasant, it is in some kind of a hyperborean environment where there is no sunlight, it's all dimmed, it is our planet but it feels like it is laid out differently. The above view feels very satisfying, all the little islands and their boundaries sort of come together in a perfect arrangement and there is a sense of discovery. Trips to Iceland, Norway may have inspired it but I wonder where it all comes from.. because it's slightly different than those landscapes. It's magical. Btw, there is a boat tour that runs from Alaska all the way to Kamchatka and then on to Hokkaido. Not sure if I could ever pull that one, but would be awesome.

    Boundary Water Canoe Area seems really nice, you know in the Baltic mythology a boat or a horse symbolizes a journey. If you dream about that, there is some kind of a trip, journey or a life transition approaching. So maybe a canoe could be a symbol for that as well.


    Do you make your own kambucha tea?
     
    I haven't, but I know of something called "the tea mushroom". A few years back it became very popular with hipsters. Buttermilk / kefir is more traditional and wider known.

    My question, however, had to do with your experiences with the wines of the winery that you had recommended. They all were in the $65 per bottle range or higher, except for their cabernet sauvignon. Chateau …?
     
    Yes, it's Chateau St Michelle. Frankly, there are wineries like that scattered all over the West Coast, so it may not be that "special" but I really liked it and I haven't travelled to the Napa Valley so I can't compare. My sister has been to both, so I should ask her how it compares. This is a much smaller venue, of course, than the ones in CA. Yes, the bottles at Chateau St Michelle are pricey, however, there is a very cheap Chardonnay from the Columbia Valley (but I guess you only drink red), where the grapes are grown in volcanic soil, it's very warm there. I was there for a wine tasting so I tried several reds. The ones that were called the Artist Collection. There is one there that I really want to try called Impetus, but I'm waiting for a special occasion. Btw, there used to be a red called Ravage CabSav around $10, I really liked the logo because it had a really cool picture of a medieval knight on it.

    Btw, have you been following the negotiations re: Ukraine (and Russia/US in general)? It looks like the West pushed back (although there might be conversations going on, I don't trust Sullivan or even Biden) I wonder what Russia's going to do next.

    Replies: @Mr. Hack, @Mr. Hack

    I’ve only traversed the BWCA once, and I was in my early twenties then (quite a long time ago. 🙁 ) and a “fine specimen of a man” as they say. Anyway, I got to traverse the path with a canoe on my back, little knowing that we would encounter the very longest portage of all within the BWCA! It was quite long and put quite a strain on my back, all I remember is the incredible twitching of my nerve synapses throughout my back. I made it though and can still tell the tale!

    Here’s a map of the East Bearskin lake trail that we took encountering the lovely Johnson falls along the way:


    I wish you luck in your future dreaming adventures and look forward to trying some of your wine choices.

  706. @melanf
    @AP


    Soviet-era physicians were not only far more competent than modern ones
     
    There is absolutely no evidence for this claim

    but also much better read
     
    Is that why there are many anti-vaxxers among them?

    So in addition to studying biology and physics on a higher level, they also read Tolstoy
     
    Not in addition, but instead

    Replies: @AP

    Soviet-era physicians were not only far more competent than modern ones

    There is absolutely no evidence for this claim

    The well read Soviet physicians who moved out of the USSR right after the USSR collapsed got great careers in the USA and Israel and other places where they moved to. They compare very well to their Western peers. Generally speaking they are more skilled. Recent graduates in Russia do not have such a great reputation on the other hand when they move West. Several of my in-laws are professors at medical institutes on Moscow, one is member of the Academy of Sciences; they complain how much lower the quality is with each year and are sad for the country. Many of their colleagues left, in-laws didn’t out of patriotism but that was rare. Who wanted to make \$200 per month in the 90s when they could live very well in the West? Or simply change fields. I know a brilliant young specialist in Moscow who in the 90s got into selling high end electronic equipment to oligarchs, he is very wealthy now but his skills are lost to his field. But the people whose second homes in Switzerland have perfect acoustics thanks to his work there appreciate his high degree of intelligence and craft. It is true of most of Russian higher education, though there are exceptions (Mekhmat where my nephew studies, and Phystek are still very good). The brain drain was significant, not many were left to teach the next generation. Educational “reforms” further degraded the quality of the students. There was a lot of corruption with the arrival of Armenians and others. The decline has been remarkable. So yes, Soviet physicians read literature and also understood biology better than do modern Russian physicians (recent graduates). There are still some good young physicians, but I would be careful about seeing a Russian physician under a certain age.

    Such reforms are good for the purpose of producing a less educated, more narrowly focused generation who can be more compliant and manipulated. Americanization.

    USSR was disgusting in many ways but it did at least produce some people who could appreciate many things. So people who moved to the West in the early 90s have equaled their Western-educated colleagues professionally but at the same time complain they they can’t discuss literature or share in classical music or whatever with their Western peers.

    but also much better read

    Is that why there are many anti-vaxxers among them?

    Anti-vaxxing is a function of paranoia and lack of trust in authorities, not education. Soviets learned not to trust authorities. So did blacks in America, and poor American whites. All three groups tend to be anti-vaxxers. But actually none of the older physicians I know in Russia are anti-vaxxers, they have all been vaccinated.

    So in addition to studying biology and physics on a higher level, they also read Tolstoy

    Not in addition, but instead

    You are saying Russian science students or medical students (with some exceptions) today are better educated in physics or biology than, say, in 1985? LOL.

    • Agree: Yevardian
    • Replies: @Dmitry
    @AP


    Russian higher education,
     
    There are some good or well designed courses (in some universities, if you are lucky), in which there can be kind of a strong preparation to work even in internally competitive industry.

    There are some good teachers (some bad). At the same time, overall university has converted into a business, with an atmosphere of ​contempt for students, which you can understand intuitively from the first day from the facial expression to you of certain unfriendly old women administrative staff.

    In difficult courses, there is requirement for students to organize themselves and use personal initiative and teamwork, to succeed, especially where you have a bad teacher. I think this is a positive preparation and skill for the young people to learn.

    Especially the self-organization into teams, is a very valuable skill in the university, and which would a be a desirable thing to try to find from new employees.

    Maybe incompetence, shabby buildings, stress, and inhuman conditions at the university, is also not the worst thing for a young person, compared to the ultra-luxury of a Western university.

    You know the concept of "hormesis" in medicine?

    On the other hand, it might have negative consequences for students with a more vulnerable psychology, could throw them into lowered motivation from the first couple days of non-luxury education. Perhaps the comfort of a Western university will be more successful for emotionally vulnerable students. Still if students can pass certain courses in badly organized Russian universities, working together, staying awake for nights of stress, this is in my opinion a good preparation for the future career.


    complain they they can’t discuss literature or share in classical music or whatever with their Western

     

    Soviet authorities had a concept that there should be some extent of accessibility of culture to a wider public and this is often successful, and you can see even today a larger public in the museum compared to Western Europe.

    However, in Western Europe you can also hear in the street teenager girls saying "I finished the translation for Seneca's speech last night", which I never heard when I was in Russia. There is a still strong nerd culture in Western Europe, in narrow, elite circles.

    I guess much of this elite culture became restricted to people who can pay very high fees for elite schools. I recall the recent YouTube videos of Prime Minister of the Kingdom, singing Ancient Greek, scaring with sense of inferiority English people who do not have time to learn such non-practical knowledge.

    , @Chairman Meow
    @AP


    USSR was disgusting in many ways
     
    Not really. Modern America does much worse things as did the other nations of the time. You just dont hear much about it and instead get memes about how 'bad' the USSR was

    The claim of USSR being 'disgusting' is a strawman claim made by uneducated bufoons who bought into western anti-communist propaganda imo


    but it did at least produce some people who could appreciate many things.
     
    This was the case with basically all of Soviet science and industry. It was pretty great in general, unlike modern capitalist RF which can't produce much of anything.

    The problem with education is capitalism, like with everything capitalism tends to degrade the quality of products over time as it consolidates in society and industry. In America we see this with education, the video game industry and the poor state of medicine (as a few examples). In Russia/Ukraine this is evident in just about every field, as capitalism has not led to any signficant innovation, but rather degradation of existing industry/science/education/arts in order to maximize short term profits and has resulted in the turn of Russia into a giant gas station with an economy smaller than Texas and Ukraine into exporting prostitutes and surrogates.

    In both countries, the capitalist oligarch class is not interested in developing well rounded individuals and would rather generate consumers while relying on the export of raw resources to first world western countries (in the case of Russia). If I recall correctly, there was some education "reform" conducted in 2004 that said something along the lines of Russia not needing a well educated class but rather that it needs "consumers" and so the education system was based around this concept.

    Both Russia and Ukraine are cargo cults of America and try to imitate America in everything (from the education system to political system to culture). Neither government is interested in halting this process leading to a loss of identity for both these countries eventually.

    Replies: @LondonBob, @AP

  707. The well read Soviet physicians who moved out of the USSR right after the USSR collapsed got great careers in the USA and Israel and other places where they moved to. They compare very well to their Western peers. Generally speaking they are more skilled.

    Well of course, you can see the same phenomena in virtually every professional field since the collapse of Communism, across all of Eastern Europe. I would say it’s almost universally conceded, even by its contemporary critics, that one thing the Communist regimes did effectively was education. And unlike in the West (until recently, perhaps) the propoganda integrated into that education was jarringly obvious as propoganda, it was completely uneffective, except insofar as people might be grateful for the system having provided such a high-quality and well-rounded education.

    You still see it all the time, amongst older and middle-aged people, whose personalities generally don’t dispose them to high culture, being able to discuss them with pleasure, or at least knowing and respecting the difference between real art and trash.

    Many of their colleagues left, in-laws didn’t out of patriotism but that was rare. Who wanted to make \$200 per month in the 90s when they could live very well in the West? Or simply change fields. I know a brilliant young specialist in Moscow who in the 90s got into selling high end electronic equipment to oligarchs, he is very wealthy now but his skills are lost to his field.

    Yeah, I recall a friend of mine having a friend continuing to work as a doctor around Sochi, repeatedly urging him to emigrate, good-naturedly calling him ‘an idealistic idiot’, because he refused to leave his Russian practice to earn easily triple his salary aborad. But such people are always in the minority.

    So in addition to studying biology and physics on a higher level, they also read Tolstoy

    Not in addition, but instead

    Oh come on, this is an idiotic strawman, you surely know this. Everybody has at least some leisuretime, and how people choose to practice this period tells a huge amount about them and how they were raised.
    This sort of utilitarian hyper-specialisation is how you get heart surgeons whose personal interests scarely expand beyond “Rick & Morty”, narcissistic culture of instagram ‘influencers’, Harry Potter and Marvel movies. But it has real-world effects too, as our Benevolent Overlord has discussed, tech-moguls who rise to great wealth and power in their field are usually totally naive and impressionable about real world politics. Or look at trashy lives of ‘New Russians’ Dmitri regularly posts, it’s now practically as bad as the West, what sort of role models are these for society?

    Culture is just as important as technology for sustaining any civilisation in the longterm. It seems China has belatedly started to recognise this, although I don’t follow Asia at all closely and couldn’t say that’s more than vague impressions (I think anime, or rather its European fanbase, permanently turned me off Asia, lol).

    • Agree: AP, Yahya
    • Replies: @Dmitry
    @Yevardian


    heart surgeons whose personal interests
     
    Do you want your cardiologist, to be reading too much about Cicero and Aristotle, when they should be fixing your heart?

    I'm not sure. I feel like I prefer if they specialize their concentration and were passionately only about scientific texts.

    Because the reason I like to not work as a cardiologist, is that I can waste a lot of time, aside from some few hours of concentration. I know I am a lazy office cattle, without responsibility for peoples' hearts. And this is partly why I can waste time in the bookshop.

    -

    On the other hand, I wonder sometimes if there is a problem on the mass level, when we live in a society where there is beginning to be insufficient study of high quality texts, by the more serious writers like Aristotle, Plato, Shakespeare, Kant, etc.

    Perhaps young people who do not feed themselves with more complex, multi-level texts, are not learning to assess different points of view. They are not developing critical functions?

    I was shocked to see some very gullible people in this forum, who seem to read blog posts on this website, and to believe them, as if they were factual texts - rather than comic entertainment. It's always seemed obvious to me that all these internet blog texts are is a kind of trash comedy material

    I just wonder if this is because some people have not read high quality texts in their life. So now when they read these low quality, comedy texts by propagandists in the internet, they don't have a disclaimer "this is low quality junk food".

    Who knows though? I would like that the population was given diet with more ambiguous, complex texts like Shakespeare and Goethe. I'm not sure I promise too much practical benefits for our cardiologists, etc.

  708. @LatW
    @Mr. Hack


    Your dreams appear to be very interesting to me.
     
    Yes, these dreams are fantastic, I wish they would happen more often.

    The one with the flying through snow clad mountains is really amazing, it feels so good, almost like a high. When I'm about to fall, my mind sort of kicks in and pushes me up a little and I get to fly a little more. There is a lot of light coming from the sky and the mountains but I can see these very intricate and clear patterns made out of rocks and moss that contrast with the pristine white snow.

    The map dream is more mysterious, darker, but it is very pleasant, it is in some kind of a hyperborean environment where there is no sunlight, it's all dimmed, it is our planet but it feels like it is laid out differently. The above view feels very satisfying, all the little islands and their boundaries sort of come together in a perfect arrangement and there is a sense of discovery. Trips to Iceland, Norway may have inspired it but I wonder where it all comes from.. because it's slightly different than those landscapes. It's magical. Btw, there is a boat tour that runs from Alaska all the way to Kamchatka and then on to Hokkaido. Not sure if I could ever pull that one, but would be awesome.

    Boundary Water Canoe Area seems really nice, you know in the Baltic mythology a boat or a horse symbolizes a journey. If you dream about that, there is some kind of a trip, journey or a life transition approaching. So maybe a canoe could be a symbol for that as well.


    Do you make your own kambucha tea?
     
    I haven't, but I know of something called "the tea mushroom". A few years back it became very popular with hipsters. Buttermilk / kefir is more traditional and wider known.

    My question, however, had to do with your experiences with the wines of the winery that you had recommended. They all were in the $65 per bottle range or higher, except for their cabernet sauvignon. Chateau …?
     
    Yes, it's Chateau St Michelle. Frankly, there are wineries like that scattered all over the West Coast, so it may not be that "special" but I really liked it and I haven't travelled to the Napa Valley so I can't compare. My sister has been to both, so I should ask her how it compares. This is a much smaller venue, of course, than the ones in CA. Yes, the bottles at Chateau St Michelle are pricey, however, there is a very cheap Chardonnay from the Columbia Valley (but I guess you only drink red), where the grapes are grown in volcanic soil, it's very warm there. I was there for a wine tasting so I tried several reds. The ones that were called the Artist Collection. There is one there that I really want to try called Impetus, but I'm waiting for a special occasion. Btw, there used to be a red called Ravage CabSav around $10, I really liked the logo because it had a really cool picture of a medieval knight on it.

    Btw, have you been following the negotiations re: Ukraine (and Russia/US in general)? It looks like the West pushed back (although there might be conversations going on, I don't trust Sullivan or even Biden) I wonder what Russia's going to do next.

    Replies: @Mr. Hack, @Mr. Hack

    Btw, have you been following the negotiations re: Ukraine (and Russia/US in general)? It looks like the West pushed back (although there might be conversations going on, I don’t trust Sullivan or even Biden) I wonder what Russia’s going to do next.

    Sorry, I didn’t reply to this sooner. I don’t really know what to make of it all? Putler’s been rattling his sabre for a few months now, and seems to be making all kinds of threatening noises. Maybe his ratings are down, as before when he invaded Crimea? I do watch the Ukrainian news shows, and know that the provocations are at the top of the list of talk shows there etc; Needless to say, Putler is not gaining in popularity throughout Ukraine. Enough is enough. If he decides to sick his dogs on Ukraine though, I think that he’ll be in for a big surprise, this time around.

    • Replies: @German_reader
    @Mr. Hack


    I think that he’ll be in for a big surprise, this time around.
     
    It would probably be costly for Russia, but is there any reason to believe that Russia wouldn't still prevail in the end and be able to occupy a large part of Ukraine?
    I don't have any sympathy for "Ukraine is a fake country" triune imperialism, but it seems to me all this talk about eventual NATO integration for Ukraine could backfire pretty badly, it's detached from reality and almost like daring Russia to invade, just to show it can.

    Replies: @Mr. Hack

    , @LatW
    @Mr. Hack


    Putler’s been rattling his sabre for a few months now, and seems to be making all kinds of threatening noises. Maybe his ratings are down, as before when he invaded Crimea?
     
    His ratings are down, but this is bigger than the ratings. It's about a long term resolution. There is a lot of talk about a Gleiwitz. In the beginning the "ultimatum" itself almost looked like a Gleiwitz of some sort - as in "Either you accept our proposal, or we'll be forced to defend ourselves". And they knew very well that this would be unacceptable. So it's interesting what they'll do.

    Some believe that in Washington over the last several months there has been a struggle between the pro-Russian (Sullivan) and anti-Russian (Blinken and Austin) factions. The Blinken faction apparently won. But who knows if this is true.

    Are you watching espresso tv and The Great Lviv Speaks?


    If he decides to sick his dogs on Ukraine though, I think that he’ll be in for a big surprise, this time around.
     
    Arestovych believes that this would create a crack in their political system. Even hurt their military in a way that would compromise their security. Of course, they would do a lot of damage but it would be very tough for them. Ofc, I'm not an expert, but did you know that, hypothetically, they cannot employ troops across their whole border in all directions at once (without some kind of a very serious mobilization). So hypothetically if they are busy in the south, they cannot fully engage elsewhere. This is why their military doctrine says that they should have enough troops to deploy in a few limited theaters but to protect the rest of the territory simultaneously they use the tactical nuclear strike. It's a huge qualitative step that they will not take, unless they are attacked by the US (let's say, in the north), their own territory is massively attacked or something like that (unrealistic scenario).


    Perhaps everything short of full [NATO] membership?
     
    Right, but under what political conditions? Should $200M - a very small sum (of course, thanks to the US either way), apparently what the US spent in Afghanistan in one day -- enough to entangle oneself in a potentially subordinate relationship? No, of course. The solution is to continue cooperation with the West (and other actors) without serious strings attached. Strings and obligations should only come with real commitment (if such is even possible). What are the options with air defense, because frankly, that's where Russia would start it (in the worst case physical scenario).

    It is very clear that the growing armament of Ukraine (both the home grown and assistance from the West) really bothers Putin (and probably the Russian generals). He probably knows that within 10 more years Ukraine could get stronger. More serious missiles could come online. The biggest question is -- would Russia still object to Ukraine's armament if the US stayed out of it? Would they be less worried if Ukraine kept building its own military industry but were more neutral? Russia also objects to the ideology and that's not going away.

    I’ve been pretty consistent in my views that Ukraine should seek its own formula of Finlandization.
     

    The problem with Finlandization is that for that you need Finns. You need unity of steel (or should I say, hardness of ice, lol), a linear type of thinking that permeates the political system, you need sisu (perseverance) and you need money combined with, ideally, a local military industry.

    Does the Ukrainian nation possess qualities that could substitute for this? I believe, yes - the ability to mobilize the non-government and volunteer sector (taken across the whole country with the millions living abroad, this would be massive), the ability to create a grassroots militia which is already being worked on, advancing the local military industry. Finland is producing its own armored vehicles and they are making a huge purchase of 60 F35 fighters (you don't hear Russia objecting to that one, now do you, I guess because those are not long range missiles but still..). They also have conscription and a huge reserve with the participation of almost the whole nation (with perhaps the exception of babies and grandmas). A Ukrainian equivalent of that would be in tens of millions. It would be formidable but it's hard to build. In order to create all this, you need the Finnish character. Also, no jumping into Russia's face needlessly. Which for Ukraine is much much harder than Finland because Finland is not being bullied, physically threatened and occupied by Russia right now, was never in the USSR, is not Orthodox, is more homogenous, Russians view Finns very differently than Ukrainians, Finns can get away with things that former-USSR can't. One has to earn Russia's respect somehow. It can be only done through acquiring strength. Maybe in combination with some kind of cunning.

    Btw, it's possible that Finlandization today would be different than that of the 1950s or 1980s. It would carry much fewer negative factors, as Russia is now way more open (and weaker than the USSR). I believe Finlandization could be an option if there is no other way to integrate into the Western system or if the Western system collapses, so it should be left as the last resort. In the meanwhile, Ukraine should really look out only for itself and not entangle itself into any promises that compromise its interests. Then again, if Ukraine is coming with us mentally, politically, economically, then some kind of a security solution is also direly needed. It would be fair from the moral POV, otherwise, Ukraine risks being exploited.


    Putin’s growing megalomaniac propensity for some sort of recognition as a ‘wise gatherer of Rus lands”
     
    That's another question. Are the Russian ambitions just their usual / historical imperialism or Putin's willingness to reverse the mistakes created during the moments of Russia's weakness (the 1990s) and a willingness to leave a historical legacy? He's definitely in the "legacy age" and there is not all that much time left. In that case, just accept it and fight back. Or... are they truly concerned about their security. If so, it might be worth talking to them (of course, without giving in, because you can't trust them, you have to find some kind of a regional balance of strength) as there are many somewhat decent Russians out there and it would be a pity to lose them. If it is both of these things... which it looks like it is, then it's very complicated.

    Replies: @Mikhail, @Mr. Hack

  709. German_reader says:
    @Mr. Hack
    @LatW


    Btw, have you been following the negotiations re: Ukraine (and Russia/US in general)? It looks like the West pushed back (although there might be conversations going on, I don’t trust Sullivan or even Biden) I wonder what Russia’s going to do next.
     
    Sorry, I didn't reply to this sooner. I don't really know what to make of it all? Putler's been rattling his sabre for a few months now, and seems to be making all kinds of threatening noises. Maybe his ratings are down, as before when he invaded Crimea? I do watch the Ukrainian news shows, and know that the provocations are at the top of the list of talk shows there etc; Needless to say, Putler is not gaining in popularity throughout Ukraine. Enough is enough. If he decides to sick his dogs on Ukraine though, I think that he'll be in for a big surprise, this time around.

    Replies: @German_reader, @LatW

    I think that he’ll be in for a big surprise, this time around.

    It would probably be costly for Russia, but is there any reason to believe that Russia wouldn’t still prevail in the end and be able to occupy a large part of Ukraine?
    I don’t have any sympathy for “Ukraine is a fake country” triune imperialism, but it seems to me all this talk about eventual NATO integration for Ukraine could backfire pretty badly, it’s detached from reality and almost like daring Russia to invade, just to show it can.

    • Replies: @Mr. Hack
    @German_reader


    It would probably be costly for Russia, but is there any reason to believe that Russia wouldn’t still prevail in the end and be able to occupy a large part of Ukraine?
     
    Sure, I think that it's possible for Russia to blitzkrieg into Ukraine and initially subdue a large part of it. But then what? History shows that large parts of Ukraine have already been under the domineering thumb of Moscow, but nevertheless have always shown a propensity to seek their own independent course. I asked the Harvard trained Ukrainian historian Orest Subtelny back in the 1970's a similar question, off the cuff, just between the two of us, to which he replied that it was too late to turn the clock back and make Ukraine into some sort of a Russian provincial area. That was almost 50 years ago. I think that this is even more true today, now that it has the trappings of its own, independent statehood, not as it did back then.

    As far as NATO integration for Ukraine is concerned, it would be good for Ukraine, but could be awfully costly to anger the Big Bear. Perhaps everything short of full membership? I've been pretty consistent in my views that Ukraine should seek its own formula of Finlandization.

    Replies: @German_reader

  710. @Mr. Hack
    Here are some of the better political cartoons that I've come acrross lately:

    https://media.townhall.com/Townhall/Car/b/MC-LeavingCali_web20220107011915.jpg

    We need to place a sign at Arizona’s border pronto. “WOKE PEOPLE AND ILLEGALS NOT WELCOMED!”

    https://www.enterprise-journal.com/sites/default/files/field/image/317811_image.jpg

    Supreme Court Justice Sonia Sotomayor just stretched the truth a weeeee bit during oral arguments on the Constitutionality of Biden’s Executive Order forcing companies with 100 or more employees to be fully vaccinated. Her claim that 100,000 children are now hospitalized with COVID is just a taaaaad off. It’s really close to 3,000! But what the heck, it’s highly excusable for such an unabashed Progressive!

    Replies: @Mr. Hack, @A123

    😁 OPEN THREAD HUMOR 😂

    Mix of political & simply funny items. Open [MORE] to see the rest.

    PEACE 😇
    __________

     

     

     

    [MORE]

     

     

     

     

     

     

     

     

     

    • Thanks: Mr. Hack
  711. @German_reader
    @Mr. Hack


    I think that he’ll be in for a big surprise, this time around.
     
    It would probably be costly for Russia, but is there any reason to believe that Russia wouldn't still prevail in the end and be able to occupy a large part of Ukraine?
    I don't have any sympathy for "Ukraine is a fake country" triune imperialism, but it seems to me all this talk about eventual NATO integration for Ukraine could backfire pretty badly, it's detached from reality and almost like daring Russia to invade, just to show it can.

    Replies: @Mr. Hack

    It would probably be costly for Russia, but is there any reason to believe that Russia wouldn’t still prevail in the end and be able to occupy a large part of Ukraine?

    Sure, I think that it’s possible for Russia to blitzkrieg into Ukraine and initially subdue a large part of it. But then what? History shows that large parts of Ukraine have already been under the domineering thumb of Moscow, but nevertheless have always shown a propensity to seek their own independent course. I asked the Harvard trained Ukrainian historian Orest Subtelny back in the 1970’s a similar question, off the cuff, just between the two of us, to which he replied that it was too late to turn the clock back and make Ukraine into some sort of a Russian provincial area. That was almost 50 years ago. I think that this is even more true today, now that it has the trappings of its own, independent statehood, not as it did back then.

    As far as NATO integration for Ukraine is concerned, it would be good for Ukraine, but could be awfully costly to anger the Big Bear. Perhaps everything short of full membership? I’ve been pretty consistent in my views that Ukraine should seek its own formula of Finlandization.

    • Replies: @German_reader
    @Mr. Hack


    As far as NATO integration for Ukraine is concerned, it would be good for Ukraine
     
    Do you really think NATO would be willing to go to war with Russia for the sake of Ukraine? There's certainly zero appetite for something like that among the major Western European members (and even if there were, they don't have the military capabilities, and that applies not just to Germany, but also to more "serious" members like Britain), and I think if most Americans were asked, they wouldn't be thrilled about it either. NATO membership would be nothing but a gigantic bluff, it would be like daring Russia to call it and show up NATO's impotence. So it's not clear to me at all it would provide added deterrence for Ukraine, it might do just the opposite.

    Perhaps everything short of full membership?
     
    I think Russian recent statements indicate that this would also be seen as unacceptable.
    Don't get me wrong, I don't know what the correct course in this would be either, certainly there is a very legitimate Ukrainian desire to not be a puppet state under Russia's thumb (I agree Finlandization might be a good goal). But I'm afraid present trends might lead to something pretty disastrous.

    Replies: @A123, @AP, @Mr. Hack, @utu

  712. German_reader says:
    @Mr. Hack
    @German_reader


    It would probably be costly for Russia, but is there any reason to believe that Russia wouldn’t still prevail in the end and be able to occupy a large part of Ukraine?
     
    Sure, I think that it's possible for Russia to blitzkrieg into Ukraine and initially subdue a large part of it. But then what? History shows that large parts of Ukraine have already been under the domineering thumb of Moscow, but nevertheless have always shown a propensity to seek their own independent course. I asked the Harvard trained Ukrainian historian Orest Subtelny back in the 1970's a similar question, off the cuff, just between the two of us, to which he replied that it was too late to turn the clock back and make Ukraine into some sort of a Russian provincial area. That was almost 50 years ago. I think that this is even more true today, now that it has the trappings of its own, independent statehood, not as it did back then.

    As far as NATO integration for Ukraine is concerned, it would be good for Ukraine, but could be awfully costly to anger the Big Bear. Perhaps everything short of full membership? I've been pretty consistent in my views that Ukraine should seek its own formula of Finlandization.

    Replies: @German_reader

    As far as NATO integration for Ukraine is concerned, it would be good for Ukraine

    Do you really think NATO would be willing to go to war with Russia for the sake of Ukraine? There’s certainly zero appetite for something like that among the major Western European members (and even if there were, they don’t have the military capabilities, and that applies not just to Germany, but also to more “serious” members like Britain), and I think if most Americans were asked, they wouldn’t be thrilled about it either. NATO membership would be nothing but a gigantic bluff, it would be like daring Russia to call it and show up NATO’s impotence. So it’s not clear to me at all it would provide added deterrence for Ukraine, it might do just the opposite.

    Perhaps everything short of full membership?

    I think Russian recent statements indicate that this would also be seen as unacceptable.
    Don’t get me wrong, I don’t know what the correct course in this would be either, certainly there is a very legitimate Ukrainian desire to not be a puppet state under Russia’s thumb (I agree Finlandization might be a good goal). But I’m afraid present trends might lead to something pretty disastrous.

    • Replies: @A123
    @German_reader


    Do you really think NATO would be willing to go to war with Russia for the sake of Ukraine?
    ...
    even if there were, they don’t have the military capabilities
     
    On paper, there is a huge theoretical NATO troop count in Turkey. In practice, one doubts that it is available. Erdogan's "Southern Front" operations in Syria are not delivering victories for the new Ottoman Empire. And, Turkey has deliberately snubbed NATO with the S-400 purchase.

    However, the Kremlin is wielding rhetorical over reach:
    -- Would the USSR have accepted a NATO veto over Warsaw Pact expansion? No.
    -- Will NATO give the Soviet successor a Russian veto over expansion? No.

    Hopefully this is a Trump like, 3-D Chess negotiating ploy by Putin. The goal is changing the mental & conceptual framework of the discussion. Mind Space -vs- Physical Real Estate.
    ____

    It would he entertaining if the next MAGA President offered Russia NATO membership.

    They would be a much more useful partner than Turkey. And, we could watch Ted Cruz's head perform "The Exorcist" spin.

    PEACE 😇
    , @AP
    @German_reader

    Everyone knows that Ukraine was not going to join NATO anytime soon, and Russia's outrageous conditions to avoid war such as having all western NATO forces leave the territory of the former Warsaw Pact indicate that it wasn't serious about avoiding war. This has nothing to do about what the West or Ukraine want or don't want but about what Russia is planning to do.

    I think the current troop numbers ae insufficient for a full-scale invasion of Ukraine or of the eastern half of Ukraine. Accordingly, some realistic possibilities:

    1. Do nothing, and get cheap concessions from the weak Biden administration.

    2. Formally annex Donbas, plus maybe extend their borders either to the oblast boundaries or even across southern Ukraine into Crimea, creating a land bridge and opening up the Dnipro canal through which Crimea gets water. In the process, hit targets important for Ukrainian military industrial complex such as tank and missile plants beyond Donbas such as in Kharkiv, Dnipropetrovsk and Kiev. This would be a bit analogous to the Georgian war, but on a much larger scale. Russian troops there are sufficient for such a limited operation and to prevent any Ukrainian counterstrikes into Russian soil. It would trigger all sorts of economic sanctions but in the larger historical context when would economic problems be more important than land expansion? Sanctions would go away in a decade or three, but the land will remain forever.

    As I wrote, there aren't nearly enough forces to conquer half (much less all) the country and to impose a Russian puppet. There probably aren't even enough to capture and hold large cities like Kharkiv, with 1.5 million people or move deeper into Ukrainian territory. Ukraine's military has 250,000 personnel, there are another 400,000s reserve of whom 200,000 have military experience, plenty of rockets and missiles, etc. Russia would have to commit at least 500,000 soldiers for a largescale military operation.

    ::::::::::::::

    Ukraine isn't even asking for NATO to go to war for her. It wants weapons with which to defend itself. Let Putin pay as much as possible for his nasty game, if invasion is what he will do. It is shameful that Merkel had been so active in blocking this.

    Replies: @German_reader, @A123, @LondonBob

    , @Mr. Hack
    @German_reader

    Of course, nobody is crazy about the idea of a full scale war with Russia over Ukraine. I would think that more rational minds in Russia aren't very interested in such a full scale disaster either. I suspect that this whole affair is related to Putin's growing megalomaniac propensity for some sort of recognition as a 'wise gatherer of Rus lands", however, the time for this sort of nonsense is long over. I wouldn't at all be surprised if there isn't a movement afoot to remover this crazy leader and replace him with somebody that isn't so hellbent on creating a terrible world crises, that could be so easily avoided. It's time for Putin to go!

    , @utu
    @German_reader

    One good thing form the attack on Ukraine by Putin would be zero tolerance for defeatists, appeasers and Putin puppets. You would have to shut up, German_reader.

    Replies: @sudden death, @German_reader

  713. @Dmitry
    @AP


    bourgeoisie are simply middle class,
     
    Only within the agricultural, pre-industrial economy, were they. As there is industrialization, burghers became the upper class, while the former elites of the agricultural economy, were becoming a middle class, unable to pay for their previous lifestyle. When there is such a historical "sector rotation" in the economy, one class displaces another, and the former class become owners of a kind of "rust belt" that doesn't generate so much money anymore.

    This transition was slower or faster in different countries, and historical boundaries are overlapping.

    If you on a tour in London, they will show you about when the landowning elites started to build the largest houses inside the city in the 18th century already, to network with the burghers . By the 19th century, they start to send their children to educational institutes created by the bourgeoisie, who now have the largest houses.

    In the late 19th century, the lawndowning aristocracy are desperately marrying their children to the bourgeoisie's children, often with direct intention to try to save their finances and not lose their properties. Although most of the landowners houses in London, were sold by the families who had constructed them, and by the late 19th century do not have money to live in them.


    positive and negatives about that but it isn’t good for culture when it takes everything over.

     

    I haven't books about this topics, but from my tourist knowledge I believe the Italian Renaissance was mainly funded by the burghers. These were the urban citizens of the city states.

    Italy was centuries more advanced than many economies, and Medicis themselves were from an agriculture industry family, but they develop their power as pioneers in the banking industry. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Medici_Bank


    because the aristocrats were too poor to afford to clean or make everything proper, it was because they didn’t care to do these things. A feature of the middle-class

     

    It was exactly because they were becoming too poor. This is why half of Europe's aristocracy in the 19th century, were trying to marry Barings or Rothschilds and other bourgeois families. While the bourgeois families attain in exchange the status and palaces of the former elite.

    Without these marriages, they were selling their houses. A large proportion of former landowning families, lost their glamorous life, lost their property, dissolved to the middle class.

    An example where they were able to save their status, is Winston Churchill. His father even has been able to marry a daughter of American stockbroker, so they can still be part of an upper class, and don't have to sell their palace. Even after this marriage, they were only on a lower border of the upper class. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Early_life_of_Winston_Churchill

    This is the same for all of the Spencer Family. They were the one of the most wealthy and elite family in Early Modern history of England.

    However, they could only survive in upper class, through strategic marriage to the new economic elites. So, Princess Diana's greatgrandfather could still finance an upper class life, by marrying to Baring Bank family (famous London burghers).
    https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Albert_Spencer,_7th_Earl_Spencer#Early_life


    middle-class (even when they become rich) is that they are strivers, who want everything to be proper. The aristocrats didn’t care. They would tell dirty jokes
     
    Perhaps among very disciplined, religious elites, like Puritans in America.

    But in most of the world, the upper class will become playboys in a single generation. This is also in America. Donald Trump or John Kennedy were crazy playboys, after one generation of wealth. They are only second-generation wealthy people.

    If Trump or Kennedy father was like Henry VII of England. Trump and Kennedy are already acting like Henry VIII. Human nature does not change.

    Although I am doubting Ivanka Trump will become like Elizabeth I.

    Replies: @AP, @Philip Owen

    bourgeoisie are simply middle class,

    Only within the agricultural, pre-industrial economy, were they. As there is industrialization, burghers became the upper class

    ” the social class between the aristocracy or very wealthy and the working class, or proletariat; middle class”

    That is, the average modern Westerner. You are using the Marxist meaning of the word:

    the class that, in contrast to the proletariat or wage-earning class, is primarily concerned with property values

    ::::::

    So according to Marxism, well off pharmacists or physicians are not bourgeoisie because they are wage earners.

    If you on a tour in London, they will show you about when the landowning elites started to build the largest houses inside the city in the 18th century already, to network with the burghers . By the 19th century, they start to send their children to educational institutes created by the bourgeoisie, who now have the largest houses.

    In the late 19th century, the lawndowning aristocracy are desperately marrying their children to the bourgeoisie’s children, often with direct intention to try to save their finances and not lose their properties. Although most of the landowners houses in London, were sold by the families who had constructed them, and by the late 19th century do not have money to live in them.

    Yes, but I was discussing Vienna. In Central and Eastern Europe the landed aristocracy did not lose complete control over their countries and the legal and economic environment made it less likely that they would be dispossessed of their wealth (they did not let the governments get out of their hands and accordingly policies such as tariffs on agricultural products were in place to keep them wealthy). It could happen if someone gambled or drank too much or made some other stupid decision but it was not typical. The Prussian, Russian, Austrian nobles experienced new rich joining their economic ranks and even eclipsing them, but did not experience the widescale hardship and desperation as their English peers until after World War I. As a result they were better able to segregate themselves socially. It wasn’t as common for rich middle class people to marry into older families as in England, and if they did, they were typically relegated to secondary rank of the incomer rather than the first rank.

    because the aristocrats were too poor to afford to clean or make everything proper, it was because they didn’t care to do these things. A feature of the middle-class

    It was exactly because they were becoming too poor.

    Again, I was discussing Austria and not England. The reason was that they did not care about such things unlike the middle class for whom being proper was very important. For similar reasons those old landed families, in addition to not minding shabby furniture, also enjoyed telling dirty jokes that would have scandalized the proper new rich middle class people. But unlike in England they did not as a group sink into poverty at all. In fact, in places where the Communists did not steal everything such as Austria, these families have continued to own huge tracts of lands and castles:

    http://www.tourmycountry.com/austria/real-estate-austria.htm

    But who owns the forests of Austria today? The following ranking was published by the daily paper “Die Presse”, and reveals some rather interesting details on where wealth and power rest in my little country…

    [MORE]

    1.) The public is the biggest landowner as far as forests are concerned: 10 percent of the Austrian nation and 70 percent of all lakes belong to the „Bundesforste”, a company owned by the public.

    2.) The wealthiest private owner of forests is the Styrian industrialist and offspring of a noble family Franz Mayr-Melnhof Saurau. [19th century industrialists – AP]

    3.) More nobility: The former Princes of Esterházy, though princes no more, still own 22,500 hectares of forest in Austria, only – much of their possessions are in Hungary, though. Nicely supplemented with several castles in the Burgenland.

    4.) Even more nobility: As of 2008, Prince Karl of Schwarzenberg is the Czech minister for foreign affairs – although raised in Vienna, where his family has had a palace for many centuries.

    5.) The Benedictine monastery of Admont in Styria is a key-attraction due to its Baroque splendour – and owns almost 17,000 hectares of forest.

    6.) And even more nobility here: The Prince of Liechtenstein, Hans-Adam II, owns a fair chunk of Austria, including 16,500 hectares of forest in Styria.

    7.) Another monastery: The Cistercian abbey of Lilienfeld owns 11,200 hectares of forest

    8.) Finally, a „real” company: The „Alwa AG” is a daughter firm of the BA-CA, one of Austria′s biggest banks – and owns 9,388 hectares of forest.

    9.) Back to nobility again: The Salzburg relatives of the Styrian Mayr-Melnhof own – alongside with three castles – 9,000 hectares of forest in Salzburg and Upper Austria.

    10.) Finally, back to monasteries: The Salvatorian monks of Gurk in Carinthia own and manage 8,508 hectares of forest, alongside with the cathedral of Gurk.

    :::::::::::

    Lots of huge plots are owned by other old families in Austria.

    • Replies: @Dmitry
    @AP


    who owns the forests of Austria today

     

    Owning forest land in Austria, should include older, pre-industrial landowners. It's presumably protected land and not useful financially.

    However, there are only 3 families from 10 in this list which are likely from the older pre-industrial landowner. This is "Princes of Esterházy", "Prince Karl of Schwarzenberg" and "Prince of Liechtenstein". All three are part of the pan-European royal family.

    Meanwhile in the list of wealthy Austrians, there are none even from royal families. So Austria doesn't look so different. Big money in that country was once from the agriculture land owning, but it will not have now been since the industrial revolution. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_Austrians_by_net_worth


    Back to nobility again: The Salzburg relatives of the Styrian Mayr-Melnhof
     
    These are bourgeois families, which are given titles, as previously were given to landowners in the pre-industrial economy. https://second.wiki/wiki/mayr-melnhof_familie

    Austrian Hungarian are giving the titles for longer than in England, so Austrian nobility includes a larger part of bourgeoisie.

    In the 19th century, it was perhaps seen as prestigious for rich people to buy forest land? Whereas today, presumably the rich Austrians are not buying this land, or there is some administrative reason to not.

  714. @German_reader
    @Mr. Hack


    As far as NATO integration for Ukraine is concerned, it would be good for Ukraine
     
    Do you really think NATO would be willing to go to war with Russia for the sake of Ukraine? There's certainly zero appetite for something like that among the major Western European members (and even if there were, they don't have the military capabilities, and that applies not just to Germany, but also to more "serious" members like Britain), and I think if most Americans were asked, they wouldn't be thrilled about it either. NATO membership would be nothing but a gigantic bluff, it would be like daring Russia to call it and show up NATO's impotence. So it's not clear to me at all it would provide added deterrence for Ukraine, it might do just the opposite.

    Perhaps everything short of full membership?
     
    I think Russian recent statements indicate that this would also be seen as unacceptable.
    Don't get me wrong, I don't know what the correct course in this would be either, certainly there is a very legitimate Ukrainian desire to not be a puppet state under Russia's thumb (I agree Finlandization might be a good goal). But I'm afraid present trends might lead to something pretty disastrous.

    Replies: @A123, @AP, @Mr. Hack, @utu

    Do you really think NATO would be willing to go to war with Russia for the sake of Ukraine?

    even if there were, they don’t have the military capabilities

    On paper, there is a huge theoretical NATO troop count in Turkey. In practice, one doubts that it is available. Erdogan’s “Southern Front” operations in Syria are not delivering victories for the new Ottoman Empire. And, Turkey has deliberately snubbed NATO with the S-400 purchase.

    However, the Kremlin is wielding rhetorical over reach:
    — Would the USSR have accepted a NATO veto over Warsaw Pact expansion? No.
    — Will NATO give the Soviet successor a Russian veto over expansion? No.

    Hopefully this is a Trump like, 3-D Chess negotiating ploy by Putin. The goal is changing the mental & conceptual framework of the discussion. Mind Space -vs- Physical Real Estate.
    ____

    It would he entertaining if the next MAGA President offered Russia NATO membership.

    They would be a much more useful partner than Turkey. And, we could watch Ted Cruz’s head perform “The Exorcist” spin.

    PEACE 😇

  715. @German_reader
    @Mr. Hack


    As far as NATO integration for Ukraine is concerned, it would be good for Ukraine
     
    Do you really think NATO would be willing to go to war with Russia for the sake of Ukraine? There's certainly zero appetite for something like that among the major Western European members (and even if there were, they don't have the military capabilities, and that applies not just to Germany, but also to more "serious" members like Britain), and I think if most Americans were asked, they wouldn't be thrilled about it either. NATO membership would be nothing but a gigantic bluff, it would be like daring Russia to call it and show up NATO's impotence. So it's not clear to me at all it would provide added deterrence for Ukraine, it might do just the opposite.

    Perhaps everything short of full membership?
     
    I think Russian recent statements indicate that this would also be seen as unacceptable.
    Don't get me wrong, I don't know what the correct course in this would be either, certainly there is a very legitimate Ukrainian desire to not be a puppet state under Russia's thumb (I agree Finlandization might be a good goal). But I'm afraid present trends might lead to something pretty disastrous.

    Replies: @A123, @AP, @Mr. Hack, @utu

    Everyone knows that Ukraine was not going to join NATO anytime soon, and Russia’s outrageous conditions to avoid war such as having all western NATO forces leave the territory of the former Warsaw Pact indicate that it wasn’t serious about avoiding war. This has nothing to do about what the West or Ukraine want or don’t want but about what Russia is planning to do.

    I think the current troop numbers ae insufficient for a full-scale invasion of Ukraine or of the eastern half of Ukraine. Accordingly, some realistic possibilities:

    1. Do nothing, and get cheap concessions from the weak Biden administration.

    2. Formally annex Donbas, plus maybe extend their borders either to the oblast boundaries or even across southern Ukraine into Crimea, creating a land bridge and opening up the Dnipro canal through which Crimea gets water. In the process, hit targets important for Ukrainian military industrial complex such as tank and missile plants beyond Donbas such as in Kharkiv, Dnipropetrovsk and Kiev. This would be a bit analogous to the Georgian war, but on a much larger scale. Russian troops there are sufficient for such a limited operation and to prevent any Ukrainian counterstrikes into Russian soil. It would trigger all sorts of economic sanctions but in the larger historical context when would economic problems be more important than land expansion? Sanctions would go away in a decade or three, but the land will remain forever.

    As I wrote, there aren’t nearly enough forces to conquer half (much less all) the country and to impose a Russian puppet. There probably aren’t even enough to capture and hold large cities like Kharkiv, with 1.5 million people or move deeper into Ukrainian territory. Ukraine’s military has 250,000 personnel, there are another 400,000s reserve of whom 200,000 have military experience, plenty of rockets and missiles, etc. Russia would have to commit at least 500,000 soldiers for a largescale military operation.

    ::::::::::::::

    Ukraine isn’t even asking for NATO to go to war for her. It wants weapons with which to defend itself. Let Putin pay as much as possible for his nasty game, if invasion is what he will do. It is shameful that Merkel had been so active in blocking this.

    • Replies: @German_reader
    @AP


    and Russia’s outrageous conditions to avoid war such as having all western NATO forces leave the territory of the former Warsaw Pact indicate that it wasn’t serious about avoiding war.
     
    Of course that's an unacceptable demand, but maybe it could also be seen as merely an opening move for negotiations, that would then be whittled down to what Russia really regards as core interests. But I'm not going to pretend I have any insight into Russian calculcations, maybe Putin and his circle would decide on an invasion anyway.

    Ukraine isn’t even asking for NATO to go to war for her.
     
    The Ukrainian ambassador to Germany is definitely quite vocal in calling for NATO membership for Ukraine, and since NATO is a military alliance, I don't think one can draw such a neat distinction, all the more so since there are already American military advisors in Ukraine.

    Replies: @AP

    , @A123
    @AP


    Ukraine isn’t even asking for NATO to go to war for her. It wants weapons with which to defend itself. Let Putin pay as much as possible for his nasty game, if invasion is what he will do. It is shameful that Merkel had been so active in blocking this.
     
    This situation revisits a point I raised about the recent Israel-Poland-U.S kerfuffle. Politicians need to say things for "local consumption" that satisfy their constituents. There is often a gaping chasm between public speeches and actual policy/actions.

    Donbass (like Belarus) is poorer than the Russian core. Putin actually pays attention to budget & expenditures. Regardless of how "aggressive" the Russians and Ukrainians sound, there is no "national interest" served by invading Ukraine. GW's Iraq debacle showed the folly of volunteering to fund reconstruction. It is only in the military contingency plan book as a "last resort".

    -- "To jaw-jaw is always better than to war-war." -- Winston Churchill --

    I am not the only one making this observation: (1)

    American politicians and foreign policy observers like to play at being Winston Churchill, who is rightly applauded for warning about Nazi Germany’s threat to Europe and the world. The would-be Churchills, however, sometimes forget that after the war in a December 14, 1950, speech in the House of Commons, Churchill stated that “Appeasement may be good or bad according to the circumstances. Appeasement from weakness and fear is futile and fatal. Appeasement from strength is magnanimous and noble, and might be the surest and only path to world peace.” And later, in 1954, Churchill remarked that “jaw-jaw is better than war-war.”
     
    Unlike the Israel-Poland-U.S kerfuffle, there is a risk. Hunter Biden took Ukrainian bribes via Burisma and may be a target for blackmail. His father has already lost one son. These factors, combined with Not-The-President Biden's diminished mental capability, could lead to a wholly irrational course of action.

    I would like to think there are enough professionals around to head off anything that could be construed as escalation between H-Bomb armed powers. Hopefully, that is not unwarranted optimism on my part.

    PEACE 😇
    __________

    (1) https://spectator.org/russia-ukraine-putin-biden/
    , @LondonBob
    @AP

    The Ukraine is attacking the Donbass, so no new weapons. Most Russia will ever do is strikes on offensive NATO installations in the Ukraine.

    What Russia wants is the US to stop flooding Europe with nuclear weapons, problem is Europe as a whole has to stand up to the US, unfortunately more likely US economic collapse will happen sooner.

  716. German_reader says:
    @AP
    @German_reader

    Everyone knows that Ukraine was not going to join NATO anytime soon, and Russia's outrageous conditions to avoid war such as having all western NATO forces leave the territory of the former Warsaw Pact indicate that it wasn't serious about avoiding war. This has nothing to do about what the West or Ukraine want or don't want but about what Russia is planning to do.

    I think the current troop numbers ae insufficient for a full-scale invasion of Ukraine or of the eastern half of Ukraine. Accordingly, some realistic possibilities:

    1. Do nothing, and get cheap concessions from the weak Biden administration.

    2. Formally annex Donbas, plus maybe extend their borders either to the oblast boundaries or even across southern Ukraine into Crimea, creating a land bridge and opening up the Dnipro canal through which Crimea gets water. In the process, hit targets important for Ukrainian military industrial complex such as tank and missile plants beyond Donbas such as in Kharkiv, Dnipropetrovsk and Kiev. This would be a bit analogous to the Georgian war, but on a much larger scale. Russian troops there are sufficient for such a limited operation and to prevent any Ukrainian counterstrikes into Russian soil. It would trigger all sorts of economic sanctions but in the larger historical context when would economic problems be more important than land expansion? Sanctions would go away in a decade or three, but the land will remain forever.

    As I wrote, there aren't nearly enough forces to conquer half (much less all) the country and to impose a Russian puppet. There probably aren't even enough to capture and hold large cities like Kharkiv, with 1.5 million people or move deeper into Ukrainian territory. Ukraine's military has 250,000 personnel, there are another 400,000s reserve of whom 200,000 have military experience, plenty of rockets and missiles, etc. Russia would have to commit at least 500,000 soldiers for a largescale military operation.

    ::::::::::::::

    Ukraine isn't even asking for NATO to go to war for her. It wants weapons with which to defend itself. Let Putin pay as much as possible for his nasty game, if invasion is what he will do. It is shameful that Merkel had been so active in blocking this.

    Replies: @German_reader, @A123, @LondonBob

    and Russia’s outrageous conditions to avoid war such as having all western NATO forces leave the territory of the former Warsaw Pact indicate that it wasn’t serious about avoiding war.

    Of course that’s an unacceptable demand, but maybe it could also be seen as merely an opening move for negotiations, that would then be whittled down to what Russia really regards as core interests. But I’m not going to pretend I have any insight into Russian calculcations, maybe Putin and his circle would decide on an invasion anyway.

    Ukraine isn’t even asking for NATO to go to war for her.

    The Ukrainian ambassador to Germany is definitely quite vocal in calling for NATO membership for Ukraine, and since NATO is a military alliance, I don’t think one can draw such a neat distinction, all the more so since there are already American military advisors in Ukraine.

    • Replies: @AP
    @German_reader


    "Ukraine isn’t even asking for NATO to go to war for her."

    The Ukrainian ambassador to Germany is definitely quite vocal in calling for NATO membership for Ukraine, and since NATO is a military alliance, I don’t think one can draw such a neat distinction, all the more so since there are already American military advisors in Ukraine.
     
    Correct, but that would not be the case in this conflict. NATO membership down the road would hopefully prevent future military conflicts. A condition for NATO membership might be formal resolution of Crimea and Donbas.

    Replies: @German_reader

  717. @German_reader
    @AP


    and Russia’s outrageous conditions to avoid war such as having all western NATO forces leave the territory of the former Warsaw Pact indicate that it wasn’t serious about avoiding war.
     
    Of course that's an unacceptable demand, but maybe it could also be seen as merely an opening move for negotiations, that would then be whittled down to what Russia really regards as core interests. But I'm not going to pretend I have any insight into Russian calculcations, maybe Putin and his circle would decide on an invasion anyway.

    Ukraine isn’t even asking for NATO to go to war for her.
     
    The Ukrainian ambassador to Germany is definitely quite vocal in calling for NATO membership for Ukraine, and since NATO is a military alliance, I don't think one can draw such a neat distinction, all the more so since there are already American military advisors in Ukraine.

    Replies: @AP

    “Ukraine isn’t even asking for NATO to go to war for her.”

    The Ukrainian ambassador to Germany is definitely quite vocal in calling for NATO membership for Ukraine, and since NATO is a military alliance, I don’t think one can draw such a neat distinction, all the more so since there are already American military advisors in Ukraine.

    Correct, but that would not be the case in this conflict. NATO membership down the road would hopefully prevent future military conflicts. A condition for NATO membership might be formal resolution of Crimea and Donbas.

    • Replies: @German_reader
    @AP


    NATO membership down the road would hopefully prevent future military conflicts.
     
    I can't imagine Russia would ever accept Ukraine in NATO, under any conditions (and yes, I know, in theory Ukraine should be free to choose her own alliances, but in reality it won't work like that). imo this idea is completely detached from reality.
    That being said, I freely admit I don't know what the correct choice in the present crisis would be, whether there should be at least increased arms shipments to Ukraine or not. Maybe it would add deterrence, but on the other hand it could also increase expectations that NATO would intervene directly in a war, and that would either be empty bluff or a disastrous mistake.
  718. German_reader says:
    @AP
    @German_reader


    "Ukraine isn’t even asking for NATO to go to war for her."

    The Ukrainian ambassador to Germany is definitely quite vocal in calling for NATO membership for Ukraine, and since NATO is a military alliance, I don’t think one can draw such a neat distinction, all the more so since there are already American military advisors in Ukraine.
     
    Correct, but that would not be the case in this conflict. NATO membership down the road would hopefully prevent future military conflicts. A condition for NATO membership might be formal resolution of Crimea and Donbas.

    Replies: @German_reader

    NATO membership down the road would hopefully prevent future military conflicts.

    I can’t imagine Russia would ever accept Ukraine in NATO, under any conditions (and yes, I know, in theory Ukraine should be free to choose her own alliances, but in reality it won’t work like that). imo this idea is completely detached from reality.
    That being said, I freely admit I don’t know what the correct choice in the present crisis would be, whether there should be at least increased arms shipments to Ukraine or not. Maybe it would add deterrence, but on the other hand it could also increase expectations that NATO would intervene directly in a war, and that would either be empty bluff or a disastrous mistake.

  719. @German_reader
    @Mr. Hack


    As far as NATO integration for Ukraine is concerned, it would be good for Ukraine
     
    Do you really think NATO would be willing to go to war with Russia for the sake of Ukraine? There's certainly zero appetite for something like that among the major Western European members (and even if there were, they don't have the military capabilities, and that applies not just to Germany, but also to more "serious" members like Britain), and I think if most Americans were asked, they wouldn't be thrilled about it either. NATO membership would be nothing but a gigantic bluff, it would be like daring Russia to call it and show up NATO's impotence. So it's not clear to me at all it would provide added deterrence for Ukraine, it might do just the opposite.

    Perhaps everything short of full membership?
     
    I think Russian recent statements indicate that this would also be seen as unacceptable.
    Don't get me wrong, I don't know what the correct course in this would be either, certainly there is a very legitimate Ukrainian desire to not be a puppet state under Russia's thumb (I agree Finlandization might be a good goal). But I'm afraid present trends might lead to something pretty disastrous.

    Replies: @A123, @AP, @Mr. Hack, @utu

    Of course, nobody is crazy about the idea of a full scale war with Russia over Ukraine. I would think that more rational minds in Russia aren’t very interested in such a full scale disaster either. I suspect that this whole affair is related to Putin’s growing megalomaniac propensity for some sort of recognition as a ‘wise gatherer of Rus lands”, however, the time for this sort of nonsense is long over. I wouldn’t at all be surprised if there isn’t a movement afoot to remover this crazy leader and replace him with somebody that isn’t so hellbent on creating a terrible world crises, that could be so easily avoided. It’s time for Putin to go!

    • LOL: Mikhail
  720. @AP
    @German_reader

    Everyone knows that Ukraine was not going to join NATO anytime soon, and Russia's outrageous conditions to avoid war such as having all western NATO forces leave the territory of the former Warsaw Pact indicate that it wasn't serious about avoiding war. This has nothing to do about what the West or Ukraine want or don't want but about what Russia is planning to do.

    I think the current troop numbers ae insufficient for a full-scale invasion of Ukraine or of the eastern half of Ukraine. Accordingly, some realistic possibilities:

    1. Do nothing, and get cheap concessions from the weak Biden administration.

    2. Formally annex Donbas, plus maybe extend their borders either to the oblast boundaries or even across southern Ukraine into Crimea, creating a land bridge and opening up the Dnipro canal through which Crimea gets water. In the process, hit targets important for Ukrainian military industrial complex such as tank and missile plants beyond Donbas such as in Kharkiv, Dnipropetrovsk and Kiev. This would be a bit analogous to the Georgian war, but on a much larger scale. Russian troops there are sufficient for such a limited operation and to prevent any Ukrainian counterstrikes into Russian soil. It would trigger all sorts of economic sanctions but in the larger historical context when would economic problems be more important than land expansion? Sanctions would go away in a decade or three, but the land will remain forever.

    As I wrote, there aren't nearly enough forces to conquer half (much less all) the country and to impose a Russian puppet. There probably aren't even enough to capture and hold large cities like Kharkiv, with 1.5 million people or move deeper into Ukrainian territory. Ukraine's military has 250,000 personnel, there are another 400,000s reserve of whom 200,000 have military experience, plenty of rockets and missiles, etc. Russia would have to commit at least 500,000 soldiers for a largescale military operation.

    ::::::::::::::

    Ukraine isn't even asking for NATO to go to war for her. It wants weapons with which to defend itself. Let Putin pay as much as possible for his nasty game, if invasion is what he will do. It is shameful that Merkel had been so active in blocking this.

    Replies: @German_reader, @A123, @LondonBob

    Ukraine isn’t even asking for NATO to go to war for her. It wants weapons with which to defend itself. Let Putin pay as much as possible for his nasty game, if invasion is what he will do. It is shameful that Merkel had been so active in blocking this.

    This situation revisits a point I raised about the recent Israel-Poland-U.S kerfuffle. Politicians need to say things for “local consumption” that satisfy their constituents. There is often a gaping chasm between public speeches and actual policy/actions.

    Donbass (like Belarus) is poorer than the Russian core. Putin actually pays attention to budget & expenditures. Regardless of how “aggressive” the Russians and Ukrainians sound, there is no “national interest” served by invading Ukraine. GW’s Iraq debacle showed the folly of volunteering to fund reconstruction. It is only in the military contingency plan book as a “last resort”.

    “To jaw-jaw is always better than to war-war.” — Winston Churchill

    I am not the only one making this observation: (1)

    American politicians and foreign policy observers like to play at being Winston Churchill, who is rightly applauded for warning about Nazi Germany’s threat to Europe and the world. The would-be Churchills, however, sometimes forget that after the war in a December 14, 1950, speech in the House of Commons, Churchill stated that “Appeasement may be good or bad according to the circumstances. Appeasement from weakness and fear is futile and fatal. Appeasement from strength is magnanimous and noble, and might be the surest and only path to world peace.” And later, in 1954, Churchill remarked that “jaw-jaw is better than war-war.”

    Unlike the Israel-Poland-U.S kerfuffle, there is a risk. Hunter Biden took Ukrainian bribes via Burisma and may be a target for blackmail. His father has already lost one son. These factors, combined with Not-The-President Biden’s diminished mental capability, could lead to a wholly irrational course of action.

    I would like to think there are enough professionals around to head off anything that could be construed as escalation between H-Bomb armed powers. Hopefully, that is not unwarranted optimism on my part.

    PEACE 😇
    __________

    (1) https://spectator.org/russia-ukraine-putin-biden/

  721. @Dmitry
    @LatW


    Russian art is underrated, it really bothered me, the Russians
     
    I would not agree with Aven, because of people like him, there are Russian art days in auctions in New York, London, Paris.

    I feel like there is almost more money flowing in Russian art, than relative to its importance in the art history.
    https://www.sothebys.com/en/series/russian-art-in-london

    Because the Russian elite is expending more money on art, than almost any nationality in the world.

    There are a lot of very good paintings from Russian artists in the 19th century. It's a little like how Japanese lager beer, can taste more delicious than the German original one.

    Before the 20th century, the art styles come to Russia always later, more imported and less original, then on the other side it can be also more refined, and "standing on shoulders" of the more pioneering art traditions in France, Italy, Spain, etc.


    However, I wasn’t talking about my personal taste or understanding, but the changing of aesthetic standards. Do you follow me?

     

    I wasn't criticizing your taste or to saying you don't like bold ideas. Obviously, you have their own interesting view. I'm just writing my own view.

    Picasso was a great artist. Spain does not have a better expression of the bombing of Guernica than his painting "Guernica". But all these symbols are not only about Spain, but also have very personal meaning his career, including the bull and the horse.

    You can see why nerds enjoy Picasso, because it's an artist where the more you read, the more interesting his works can be.

    In "Guernica", it's like his own inner mythological world was being destroyed, not just about the military event, as he portrays the same symbols across thousands of painting, and many different styles. https://www.apollo-magazine.com/what-the-minotaur-can-tell-us-about-picasso/


    in my experience. In my youth I hung out with some humanities students who were very knowledgable in art and art history. One or two of them were actual artists. They were all in their 20s.
     
    Yes there are young people, but they are nerdy people. It's not mass culture at all. It's not Harry Potter or Justin Bieber.

    So, the idea that Picasso is going to damage society's innocent masses, is a little implausible, since only the most cultured and interesting youth are interested in Picasso.

    Maybe, even Picasso, was a difficult person in his life, and especially to his thousands of girlfriends. But his art is a wonderful, benevolent gift for those few nerdy people who still enjoy it (as well as for the wealthy oligarchs who have enough money to own it).

    Replies: @LatW

    I would not agree with Aven, because of people like him, there are Russian art days in auctions in New York, London, Paris.

    Yes, I agree that at least that part is positive. But why is it only he that’s gets to keep it? Frankly, that’s a huge privilege. I’m not saying this because I’m envious in any way… let’s be honest, he is keeping it not just because he loves art, but because it will appreciate in value. But on the other hand, it’s a great thing, I agree. You can’t give everything to the state either (?). He’s currently working on this idea of building a Russian / Latvian art museum in Latvia which is fantastic. From what I understand the Russian paintings are traveling as you said, but it would be nice to find a semi-permanent home for them in Latvia, after all it was one of the industrial – cultural centers of the Russian Empire. And it’s true that it’s hard to do this without patrons. Btw, Mikhail Baryshnikov has recently been thinking about his home town of Riga as well, his Italian patroness has agreed to renovate the house in which he grew up. The building is nothing spectacular but it could be made to look very nice (a very talented Latvian architect will be involved).

    [MORE]

    Spain does not have a better expression of the bombing of Guernica than his painting “Guernica”. But all these symbols are not only about Spain

    Well, of course, I agree that Guernica is not only about Spain, as it carries a universal meaning. Because Guernica is tied to very particular political events, I would leave it up to the Spanish (and the Basque) themselves to judge it. I haven’t had a chance to inquire what the Spanish nationalists think about it, and it’s not my place to judge. The painting, of course, is very powerful and maybe in this case, because it’s a work of Cubism, the genre really accentuates the message — the representation of chaos, destruction, disassembly and pain is very direct and has a great effect. There is a fragment of a mother with her dead child which, while disturbing, is very powerful and the geometrical composition of that fragment is very well done.

    the idea that Picasso is going to damage society’s innocent masses, is a little implausible

    I wouldn’t be so worried about the “masses”, so to speak. What bothers me is that this kind of art opened the door for other artists to take bold steps without the accompanying levels of responsibility. I’ve encountered some younger artists who feel very emboldened to mock things such as the military, national memory and symbols, in many cases the female body, etc, etc, with what looks like a hubris or a sense of being able to get away with anything and even contempt for society. It is very obvious that they are doing this deliberately, knowing full well what emotions this would inspire. It can be likened to the gay “pride” (but in my eyes it’s even worse).

    I don’t want to blame Picasso for this, but art is a public profession and responsibility should be at the top of requirements for artists. If not, keep it in private studios, dungeons, or wherever. But of course avant-garde art typically cannot be analyzed or reflected upon based on the traditional aesthetic standards. But what about ethical standards? At the same time, you don’t want to squish the interesting, innovative and inspiring parts about it…

    • Replies: @Dmitry
    @LatW


    permanent home for them in Latvia, after all it was one of the industrial – cultural centers of the Russian Empire

     

    There is a small positive for Aven, that he is giving the accessibility of the art to the public. Latvia would be a good place for a museum, as it will be accessible for tourists from postsoviet countries, as well as from EU countries.

    But in general, you can see that Russian art is one of the largest businesses that exists in international art world (London, New York, Paris), because Russia has one of the world's wealthiest upper classes, and they are moving the money out and in of Russia.

    So you can see they have developed Russian Art departments inside the auction companies. Think how much money they are constantly washing for our political class. On the other hand, it's a very civilized thing to be using for moving money, and it is good for the region that its culture is being somehow valued so highly.

    https://www.christies.com/departments/russian-art-46-1.aspx

    https://www.bonhams.com/department/PIC-RUS/russian-paintings-and-works-of-art/


    mock things such as the military, national memory
     
    Well, what about Goya's "Disasters of War".

    I'm sure it's problematic for the authorities who want to beautify war and symbols of power. It could only be released 35 years after he has died, because of its political content.
    https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/The_Disasters_of_War

    But we can judge today if we think it is a truthful or interesting, or not.

    Today, most of us will be more grateful for "Disasters of War", at least in comparison to less realistic propaganda presented about the "beautiful war" by many governments.


    n many cases the female body, etc, etc, with what looks like a hubris or a sense of being able to get away with anything
     
    Picasso's paintings are violent to the female body; this is how he was probably experiencing the female body. It's question whether you think this damages his art or not, will be based in individual emotions - but whether a government should censor or not?

    Generally, if you look today, third and second world countries, are censoring. Nowadays, it seems to correlate with weak countries, with dictatorships, with also weaker levels of creative production. Although there is an old discussion in philosophy, where somewhere so prestigious like Plato's "The Republic", the Socrates character is arguing to censor or ban all music. Music excites the wrong emotions, in view of Plato. There is a strong position from the 2500 years old debate. If Plato was listened to, not just Abba or Beatles, but even Beethoven or Bach should be illegal, like cocaine and heroin today.

    Replies: @LatW, @LatW

  722. @AP
    @Dmitry


    bourgeoisie are simply middle class,

    Only within the agricultural, pre-industrial economy, were they. As there is industrialization, burghers became the upper class
     
    " the social class between the aristocracy or very wealthy and the working class, or proletariat; middle class"

    That is, the average modern Westerner. You are using the Marxist meaning of the word:

    the class that, in contrast to the proletariat or wage-earning class, is primarily concerned with property values

    ::::::

    So according to Marxism, well off pharmacists or physicians are not bourgeoisie because they are wage earners.

    If you on a tour in London, they will show you about when the landowning elites started to build the largest houses inside the city in the 18th century already, to network with the burghers . By the 19th century, they start to send their children to educational institutes created by the bourgeoisie, who now have the largest houses.

    In the late 19th century, the lawndowning aristocracy are desperately marrying their children to the bourgeoisie’s children, often with direct intention to try to save their finances and not lose their properties. Although most of the landowners houses in London, were sold by the families who had constructed them, and by the late 19th century do not have money to live in them.
     
    Yes, but I was discussing Vienna. In Central and Eastern Europe the landed aristocracy did not lose complete control over their countries and the legal and economic environment made it less likely that they would be dispossessed of their wealth (they did not let the governments get out of their hands and accordingly policies such as tariffs on agricultural products were in place to keep them wealthy). It could happen if someone gambled or drank too much or made some other stupid decision but it was not typical. The Prussian, Russian, Austrian nobles experienced new rich joining their economic ranks and even eclipsing them, but did not experience the widescale hardship and desperation as their English peers until after World War I. As a result they were better able to segregate themselves socially. It wasn't as common for rich middle class people to marry into older families as in England, and if they did, they were typically relegated to secondary rank of the incomer rather than the first rank.

    because the aristocrats were too poor to afford to clean or make everything proper, it was because they didn’t care to do these things. A feature of the middle-class

    It was exactly because they were becoming too poor.
     
    Again, I was discussing Austria and not England. The reason was that they did not care about such things unlike the middle class for whom being proper was very important. For similar reasons those old landed families, in addition to not minding shabby furniture, also enjoyed telling dirty jokes that would have scandalized the proper new rich middle class people. But unlike in England they did not as a group sink into poverty at all. In fact, in places where the Communists did not steal everything such as Austria, these families have continued to own huge tracts of lands and castles:

    http://www.tourmycountry.com/austria/real-estate-austria.htm

    But who owns the forests of Austria today? The following ranking was published by the daily paper "Die Presse", and reveals some rather interesting details on where wealth and power rest in my little country…



    1.) The public is the biggest landowner as far as forests are concerned: 10 percent of the Austrian nation and 70 percent of all lakes belong to the „Bundesforste", a company owned by the public.

    2.) The wealthiest private owner of forests is the Styrian industrialist and offspring of a noble family Franz Mayr-Melnhof Saurau. [19th century industrialists - AP]

    3.) More nobility: The former Princes of Esterházy, though princes no more, still own 22,500 hectares of forest in Austria, only - much of their possessions are in Hungary, though. Nicely supplemented with several castles in the Burgenland.

    4.) Even more nobility: As of 2008, Prince Karl of Schwarzenberg is the Czech minister for foreign affairs - although raised in Vienna, where his family has had a palace for many centuries.

    5.) The Benedictine monastery of Admont in Styria is a key-attraction due to its Baroque splendour - and owns almost 17,000 hectares of forest.

    6.) And even more nobility here: The Prince of Liechtenstein, Hans-Adam II, owns a fair chunk of Austria, including 16,500 hectares of forest in Styria.

    7.) Another monastery: The Cistercian abbey of Lilienfeld owns 11,200 hectares of forest

    8.) Finally, a „real" company: The „Alwa AG" is a daughter firm of the BA-CA, one of Austria′s biggest banks - and owns 9,388 hectares of forest.

    9.) Back to nobility again: The Salzburg relatives of the Styrian Mayr-Melnhof own - alongside with three castles - 9,000 hectares of forest in Salzburg and Upper Austria.

    10.) Finally, back to monasteries: The Salvatorian monks of Gurk in Carinthia own and manage 8,508 hectares of forest, alongside with the cathedral of Gurk.

    :::::::::::

    Lots of huge plots are owned by other old families in Austria.

    Replies: @Dmitry

    who owns the forests of Austria today

    Owning forest land in Austria, should include older, pre-industrial landowners. It’s presumably protected land and not useful financially.

    However, there are only 3 families from 10 in this list which are likely from the older pre-industrial landowner. This is “Princes of Esterházy”, “Prince Karl of Schwarzenberg” and “Prince of Liechtenstein”. All three are part of the pan-European royal family.

    Meanwhile in the list of wealthy Austrians, there are none even from royal families. So Austria doesn’t look so different. Big money in that country was once from the agriculture land owning, but it will not have now been since the industrial revolution. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_Austrians_by_net_worth

    Back to nobility again: The Salzburg relatives of the Styrian Mayr-Melnhof

    These are bourgeois families, which are given titles, as previously were given to landowners in the pre-industrial economy. https://second.wiki/wiki/mayr-melnhof_familie

    Austrian Hungarian are giving the titles for longer than in England, so Austrian nobility includes a larger part of bourgeoisie.

    In the 19th century, it was perhaps seen as prestigious for rich people to buy forest land? Whereas today, presumably the rich Austrians are not buying this land, or there is some administrative reason to not.

  723. @LatW
    @Dmitry


    I would not agree with Aven, because of people like him, there are Russian art days in auctions in New York, London, Paris.
     
    Yes, I agree that at least that part is positive. But why is it only he that's gets to keep it? Frankly, that's a huge privilege. I'm not saying this because I'm envious in any way... let's be honest, he is keeping it not just because he loves art, but because it will appreciate in value. But on the other hand, it's a great thing, I agree. You can't give everything to the state either (?). He's currently working on this idea of building a Russian / Latvian art museum in Latvia which is fantastic. From what I understand the Russian paintings are traveling as you said, but it would be nice to find a semi-permanent home for them in Latvia, after all it was one of the industrial - cultural centers of the Russian Empire. And it's true that it's hard to do this without patrons. Btw, Mikhail Baryshnikov has recently been thinking about his home town of Riga as well, his Italian patroness has agreed to renovate the house in which he grew up. The building is nothing spectacular but it could be made to look very nice (a very talented Latvian architect will be involved).


    Spain does not have a better expression of the bombing of Guernica than his painting “Guernica”. But all these symbols are not only about Spain
     
    Well, of course, I agree that Guernica is not only about Spain, as it carries a universal meaning. Because Guernica is tied to very particular political events, I would leave it up to the Spanish (and the Basque) themselves to judge it. I haven't had a chance to inquire what the Spanish nationalists think about it, and it's not my place to judge. The painting, of course, is very powerful and maybe in this case, because it's a work of Cubism, the genre really accentuates the message -- the representation of chaos, destruction, disassembly and pain is very direct and has a great effect. There is a fragment of a mother with her dead child which, while disturbing, is very powerful and the geometrical composition of that fragment is very well done.

    the idea that Picasso is going to damage society’s innocent masses, is a little implausible
     
    I wouldn't be so worried about the "masses", so to speak. What bothers me is that this kind of art opened the door for other artists to take bold steps without the accompanying levels of responsibility. I've encountered some younger artists who feel very emboldened to mock things such as the military, national memory and symbols, in many cases the female body, etc, etc, with what looks like a hubris or a sense of being able to get away with anything and even contempt for society. It is very obvious that they are doing this deliberately, knowing full well what emotions this would inspire. It can be likened to the gay "pride" (but in my eyes it's even worse).

    I don't want to blame Picasso for this, but art is a public profession and responsibility should be at the top of requirements for artists. If not, keep it in private studios, dungeons, or wherever. But of course avant-garde art typically cannot be analyzed or reflected upon based on the traditional aesthetic standards. But what about ethical standards? At the same time, you don't want to squish the interesting, innovative and inspiring parts about it...

    Replies: @Dmitry

    permanent home for them in Latvia, after all it was one of the industrial – cultural centers of the Russian Empire

    There is a small positive for Aven, that he is giving the accessibility of the art to the public. Latvia would be a good place for a museum, as it will be accessible for tourists from postsoviet countries, as well as from EU countries.

    But in general, you can see that Russian art is one of the largest businesses that exists in international art world (London, New York, Paris), because Russia has one of the world’s wealthiest upper classes, and they are moving the money out and in of Russia.

    So you can see they have developed Russian Art departments inside the auction companies. Think how much money they are constantly washing for our political class. On the other hand, it’s a very civilized thing to be using for moving money, and it is good for the region that its culture is being somehow valued so highly.

    https://www.christies.com/departments/russian-art-46-1.aspx

    https://www.bonhams.com/department/PIC-RUS/russian-paintings-and-works-of-art/

    mock things such as the military, national memory

    Well, what about Goya’s “Disasters of War”.

    I’m sure it’s problematic for the authorities who want to beautify war and symbols of power. It could only be released 35 years after he has died, because of its political content.
    https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/The_Disasters_of_War

    But we can judge today if we think it is a truthful or interesting, or not.

    Today, most of us will be more grateful for “Disasters of War”, at least in comparison to less realistic propaganda presented about the “beautiful war” by many governments.

    n many cases the female body, etc, etc, with what looks like a hubris or a sense of being able to get away with anything

    Picasso’s paintings are violent to the female body; this is how he was probably experiencing the female body. It’s question whether you think this damages his art or not, will be based in individual emotions – but whether a government should censor or not?

    Generally, if you look today, third and second world countries, are censoring. Nowadays, it seems to correlate with weak countries, with dictatorships, with also weaker levels of creative production. Although there is an old discussion in philosophy, where somewhere so prestigious like Plato’s “The Republic”, the Socrates character is arguing to censor or ban all music. Music excites the wrong emotions, in view of Plato. There is a strong position from the 2500 years old debate. If Plato was listened to, not just Abba or Beatles, but even Beethoven or Bach should be illegal, like cocaine and heroin today.

    • Replies: @LatW
    @Dmitry


    There is a small positive for Aven, that he is giving the accessibility of the art to the public.
     
    Well, prominent Silver Age art should be accessible to everyone by default. I have only seen one or two of the paintings in his collection, so I'm not even entirely sure what he has there. I know he owns a very exquisite collection of Latvian porcelain and it's been displayed (beautiful china that was created mostly during the 1920s and 30s, but from factories that were started during the times of the Empire, the ones from the 20s are painted in Art Deco style and some have national romantic illustrations).

    In his favor, I must stay that he has a good taste and an appreciation for classical values. Although when it comes to porcelain, I really like modern designs too. I guess with cups you can do less crazy and awkward stuff than with painting and film, lol.

    Btw, Aven has been awarded for his efforts and has been treated almost like a dignitary. Not because of his wealth but mostly because of these museums, scholarships and a music festival that he's created. He started a naturalization process, but I don't now where that went.


    Latvia would be a good place for a museum, as it will be accessible for tourists from postsoviet countries, as well as from EU countries.
     
    More than that -- at least before Covid there were many tourists from China who were very eager to soak up European culture. There are occasional American tourists, too. Riga is big for Art Nouveau so it'd be great to have exhibits of Russian Art Nouveau collectibles there as well.
    , @LatW
    @Dmitry


    Well, what about Goya’s “Disasters of War”.
     
    That one's very different because that one doesn't mock or display in a soulless manner. That particular series is very disturbing and hard to look at but it's not questionable from the point of view of ethics - it just displays, it doesn't make a judgement (or rather, the judgement is subtle). Of course, there is a political history behind it, but you can see that the form itself or the artistic technique is keeping things within bounds. Also, that series is painted late in his life so he himself may have been in pain or overcome by an illness, when one is in physical pain one is more angry and restless (more prone to lashing out).

    It's a romantic painter from a previous era (that's the era that I really enjoy, right before the "crazy"). A completely different tradition. Symbolism and romantic art does have its dose of decadence, and, while occasionally intense (such as in Goya's case), it's still kept within the bounds of dignity and ethical normalcy (for the lack of a better term).


    Picasso’s paintings are violent to the female body; this is how he was probably experiencing the female body.
     
    I can't judge his internal perceptions, but I'm sure that he experienced the female body the usual way, the way 99% males do, namely through receiving comfort, love and pleasure. Starting from mother to wife and lover (s). Unless something really bad happened to him. That's why it's strange that he decided to portray women in not such a flattering way. Although for him, everyone is "cubical" and in disarray, lol, men, animals. He just displays a certain dose of infantilism. And as I said, the woman with the child in Guernica is very well done.

    Btw, do you have any ideas about the bull? I noticed you really liked Spain, so maybe you do have ideas about that. A lot has been written about it and what it symbolizes (in each painting it's different). Is it related to the abduction of Europa by Zeus? And the minotaur that lives in the South?

    Typically they say the bull is the symbol of Spain, symbol of masculinity, symbol of war in his paintings. From what I know, he has not spoken about what it means. It'd be ridiculous to ask him about that, he is right - "A bull is a bull, a horse is a horse".

    It’s question whether you think this damages his art or not, will be based in individual emotions – but whether a government should censor or not?
     
    Whether that "damages his art or not" is really not the most important question here, that's a question for the subjective viewer. The bigger question is whether that kind of a representation doesn't open the door to other forms of representation that are, frankly, harmful. That's really the question. What we do in our private headspace or private studios is one thing, but when you start setting the tone for the public as a whole... the Western society has gone very far in how it's portrayed the female body and even what is considered acceptable to do to a female body.

    Who should censor it is another issue... government censorship, while some of it could be needed, can be problematic. Ideally, it should be the artist's own responsibility. You can always do a ton of private sketches and then choose which ones to even continue. But it is also known that artists can have big egos... or simply not be fully aware of the outside society as they live in their own world. So this question remains open... as you can see. The viewers themselves have various degrees of what is or isn't acceptable... it becomes just a big battle among the viewers with the artist totally oblivious to it, lol. I don't know some kind of ideas of "common good"... Oh, but wait that's retrograde and archaic.

    Replies: @Dmitry, @Yevardian

  724. @Mr. Hack
    @LatW


    Btw, have you been following the negotiations re: Ukraine (and Russia/US in general)? It looks like the West pushed back (although there might be conversations going on, I don’t trust Sullivan or even Biden) I wonder what Russia’s going to do next.
     
    Sorry, I didn't reply to this sooner. I don't really know what to make of it all? Putler's been rattling his sabre for a few months now, and seems to be making all kinds of threatening noises. Maybe his ratings are down, as before when he invaded Crimea? I do watch the Ukrainian news shows, and know that the provocations are at the top of the list of talk shows there etc; Needless to say, Putler is not gaining in popularity throughout Ukraine. Enough is enough. If he decides to sick his dogs on Ukraine though, I think that he'll be in for a big surprise, this time around.

    Replies: @German_reader, @LatW

    Putler’s been rattling his sabre for a few months now, and seems to be making all kinds of threatening noises. Maybe his ratings are down, as before when he invaded Crimea?

    His ratings are down, but this is bigger than the ratings. It’s about a long term resolution. There is a lot of talk about a Gleiwitz. In the beginning the “ultimatum” itself almost looked like a Gleiwitz of some sort – as in “Either you accept our proposal, or we’ll be forced to defend ourselves”. And they knew very well that this would be unacceptable. So it’s interesting what they’ll do.

    Some believe that in Washington over the last several months there has been a struggle between the pro-Russian (Sullivan) and anti-Russian (Blinken and Austin) factions. The Blinken faction apparently won. But who knows if this is true.

    Are you watching espresso tv and The Great Lviv Speaks?

    If he decides to sick his dogs on Ukraine though, I think that he’ll be in for a big surprise, this time around.

    Arestovych believes that this would create a crack in their political system. Even hurt their military in a way that would compromise their security. Of course, they would do a lot of damage but it would be very tough for them. Ofc, I’m not an expert, but did you know that, hypothetically, they cannot employ troops across their whole border in all directions at once (without some kind of a very serious mobilization). So hypothetically if they are busy in the south, they cannot fully engage elsewhere. This is why their military doctrine says that they should have enough troops to deploy in a few limited theaters but to protect the rest of the territory simultaneously they use the tactical nuclear strike. It’s a huge qualitative step that they will not take, unless they are attacked by the US (let’s say, in the north), their own territory is massively attacked or something like that (unrealistic scenario).

    [MORE]

    Perhaps everything short of full [NATO] membership?

    Right, but under what political conditions? Should \$200M – a very small sum (of course, thanks to the US either way), apparently what the US spent in Afghanistan in one day — enough to entangle oneself in a potentially subordinate relationship? No, of course. The solution is to continue cooperation with the West (and other actors) without serious strings attached. Strings and obligations should only come with real commitment (if such is even possible). What are the options with air defense, because frankly, that’s where Russia would start it (in the worst case physical scenario).

    It is very clear that the growing armament of Ukraine (both the home grown and assistance from the West) really bothers Putin (and probably the Russian generals). He probably knows that within 10 more years Ukraine could get stronger. More serious missiles could come online. The biggest question is — would Russia still object to Ukraine’s armament if the US stayed out of it? Would they be less worried if Ukraine kept building its own military industry but were more neutral? Russia also objects to the ideology and that’s not going away.

    I’ve been pretty consistent in my views that Ukraine should seek its own formula of Finlandization.

    The problem with Finlandization is that for that you need Finns. You need unity of steel (or should I say, hardness of ice, lol), a linear type of thinking that permeates the political system, you need sisu (perseverance) and you need money combined with, ideally, a local military industry.

    Does the Ukrainian nation possess qualities that could substitute for this? I believe, yes – the ability to mobilize the non-government and volunteer sector (taken across the whole country with the millions living abroad, this would be massive), the ability to create a grassroots militia which is already being worked on, advancing the local military industry. Finland is producing its own armored vehicles and they are making a huge purchase of 60 F35 fighters (you don’t hear Russia objecting to that one, now do you, I guess because those are not long range missiles but still..). They also have conscription and a huge reserve with the participation of almost the whole nation (with perhaps the exception of babies and grandmas). A Ukrainian equivalent of that would be in tens of millions. It would be formidable but it’s hard to build. In order to create all this, you need the Finnish character. Also, no jumping into Russia’s face needlessly. Which for Ukraine is much much harder than Finland because Finland is not being bullied, physically threatened and occupied by Russia right now, was never in the USSR, is not Orthodox, is more homogenous, Russians view Finns very differently than Ukrainians, Finns can get away with things that former-USSR can’t. One has to earn Russia’s respect somehow. It can be only done through acquiring strength. Maybe in combination with some kind of cunning.

    Btw, it’s possible that Finlandization today would be different than that of the 1950s or 1980s. It would carry much fewer negative factors, as Russia is now way more open (and weaker than the USSR). I believe Finlandization could be an option if there is no other way to integrate into the Western system or if the Western system collapses, so it should be left as the last resort. In the meanwhile, Ukraine should really look out only for itself and not entangle itself into any promises that compromise its interests. Then again, if Ukraine is coming with us mentally, politically, economically, then some kind of a security solution is also direly needed. It would be fair from the moral POV, otherwise, Ukraine risks being exploited.

    Putin’s growing megalomaniac propensity for some sort of recognition as a ‘wise gatherer of Rus lands”

    That’s another question. Are the Russian ambitions just their usual / historical imperialism or Putin’s willingness to reverse the mistakes created during the moments of Russia’s weakness (the 1990s) and a willingness to leave a historical legacy? He’s definitely in the “legacy age” and there is not all that much time left. In that case, just accept it and fight back. Or… are they truly concerned about their security. If so, it might be worth talking to them (of course, without giving in, because you can’t trust them, you have to find some kind of a regional balance of strength) as there are many somewhat decent Russians out there and it would be a pity to lose them. If it is both of these things… which it looks like it is, then it’s very complicated.

    • Replies: @Mikhail
    @LatW


    @Mr. Hack

    Putler’s been rattling his sabre for a few months now, and seems to be making all kinds of threatening noises. Maybe his ratings are down, as before when he invaded Crimea?

    His ratings are down, but this is bigger than the ratings. It’s about a long term resolution. There is a lot of talk about a Gleiwitz. In the beginning the “ultimatum” itself almost looked like a Gleiwitz of some sort – as in “Either you accept our proposal, or we’ll be forced to defend ourselves”. And they knew very well that this would be unacceptable. So it’s interesting what they’ll do.

    Some believe that in Washington over the last several months there has been a struggle between the pro-Russian (Sullivan) and anti-Russian (Blinken and Austin) factions. The Blinken faction apparently won. But who knows if this is true.
     
    Sullivan isn't pro-Russian. If anything, Biden and Zelensky have hyped a conflict for the purpose of diverting attention away from the reasons behind their low poll numbers in their respective nation.

    Putin's poll numbers are noticeably higher. Related:

    https://www.eurasiareview.com/09122021-russian-ukraine-coverage-continues-to-lack-insight-oped/

    https://www.strategic-culture.org/news/2021/12/10/russia-ukraine-coverage-continues-to-lack-insight/

    Replies: @Mr. Hack, @LatW

    , @Mr. Hack
    @LatW


    If so, it might be worth talking to them (of course, without giving in, because you can’t trust them, you have to find some kind of a regional balance of strength) as there are many somewhat decent Russians out there and it would be a pity to lose them. If it is both of these things… which it looks like it is, then it’s very complicated.
     
    You bring up so many interesting issues it would take me at least an hour to reply back and offer something possibly of any value. It is complicated, and only serves to underscore how things really changed between Russia and Ukraine after 2014. Sure, the country was slightly tilting more towards a Western solution to its alignment process, but it wasn't an overwhelming sort of tilt. Russia was still seen as a worthwhile and important partner, at least in the economic sense, but look at their relationship today? Ukraine is as about a far away from Russia as its ever been, and regardless of what loudmouth Averko blurts out, I see it being so as a result of Russia's thuggish and brute blunders in dealing with Ukraine. How much more influential do you think Russia would be today in Ukraine if it had never decided to visit its neighbor to the south along with the use of military force in such a strikingly garish manner? Putin's inabilities to deal with Ukraine in an intelligent and sophisticated manner will forever mar his image as a great leader.

    Replies: @AP

  725. @AP
    @melanf


    Soviet-era physicians were not only far more competent than modern ones

    There is absolutely no evidence for this claim
     
    The well read Soviet physicians who moved out of the USSR right after the USSR collapsed got great careers in the USA and Israel and other places where they moved to. They compare very well to their Western peers. Generally speaking they are more skilled. Recent graduates in Russia do not have such a great reputation on the other hand when they move West. Several of my in-laws are professors at medical institutes on Moscow, one is member of the Academy of Sciences; they complain how much lower the quality is with each year and are sad for the country. Many of their colleagues left, in-laws didn't out of patriotism but that was rare. Who wanted to make $200 per month in the 90s when they could live very well in the West? Or simply change fields. I know a brilliant young specialist in Moscow who in the 90s got into selling high end electronic equipment to oligarchs, he is very wealthy now but his skills are lost to his field. But the people whose second homes in Switzerland have perfect acoustics thanks to his work there appreciate his high degree of intelligence and craft. It is true of most of Russian higher education, though there are exceptions (Mekhmat where my nephew studies, and Phystek are still very good). The brain drain was significant, not many were left to teach the next generation. Educational "reforms" further degraded the quality of the students. There was a lot of corruption with the arrival of Armenians and others. The decline has been remarkable. So yes, Soviet physicians read literature and also understood biology better than do modern Russian physicians (recent graduates). There are still some good young physicians, but I would be careful about seeing a Russian physician under a certain age.

    Such reforms are good for the purpose of producing a less educated, more narrowly focused generation who can be more compliant and manipulated. Americanization.

    USSR was disgusting in many ways but it did at least produce some people who could appreciate many things. So people who moved to the West in the early 90s have equaled their Western-educated colleagues professionally but at the same time complain they they can't discuss literature or share in classical music or whatever with their Western peers.

    but also much better read

    Is that why there are many anti-vaxxers among them?
     
    Anti-vaxxing is a function of paranoia and lack of trust in authorities, not education. Soviets learned not to trust authorities. So did blacks in America, and poor American whites. All three groups tend to be anti-vaxxers. But actually none of the older physicians I know in Russia are anti-vaxxers, they have all been vaccinated.

    So in addition to studying biology and physics on a higher level, they also read Tolstoy

    Not in addition, but instead
     
    You are saying Russian science students or medical students (with some exceptions) today are better educated in physics or biology than, say, in 1985? LOL.

    Replies: @Dmitry, @Chairman Meow

    Russian higher education,

    There are some good or well designed courses (in some universities, if you are lucky), in which there can be kind of a strong preparation to work even in internally competitive industry.

    There are some good teachers (some bad). At the same time, overall university has converted into a business, with an atmosphere of ​contempt for students, which you can understand intuitively from the first day from the facial expression to you of certain unfriendly old women administrative staff.

    In difficult courses, there is requirement for students to organize themselves and use personal initiative and teamwork, to succeed, especially where you have a bad teacher. I think this is a positive preparation and skill for the young people to learn.

    Especially the self-organization into teams, is a very valuable skill in the university, and which would a be a desirable thing to try to find from new employees.

    Maybe incompetence, shabby buildings, stress, and inhuman conditions at the university, is also not the worst thing for a young person, compared to the ultra-luxury of a Western university.

    You know the concept of “hormesis” in medicine?

    On the other hand, it might have negative consequences for students with a more vulnerable psychology, could throw them into lowered motivation from the first couple days of non-luxury education. Perhaps the comfort of a Western university will be more successful for emotionally vulnerable students. Still if students can pass certain courses in badly organized Russian universities, working together, staying awake for nights of stress, this is in my opinion a good preparation for the future career.

    complain they they can’t discuss literature or share in classical music or whatever with their Western

    Soviet authorities had a concept that there should be some extent of accessibility of culture to a wider public and this is often successful, and you can see even today a larger public in the museum compared to Western Europe.

    However, in Western Europe you can also hear in the street teenager girls saying “I finished the translation for Seneca’s speech last night”, which I never heard when I was in Russia. There is a still strong nerd culture in Western Europe, in narrow, elite circles.

    I guess much of this elite culture became restricted to people who can pay very high fees for elite schools. I recall the recent YouTube videos of Prime Minister of the Kingdom, singing Ancient Greek, scaring with sense of inferiority English people who do not have time to learn such non-practical knowledge.

  726. America is a fascinating country. You have scenes ripped straight out of the 3rd world co-existing with splendor that is almost unimaingable elsewhere.

    “There is great ruin within a nation” – Smith.

    Croatia Loses Nearly 10% of People in Past Decade – Census

    After Bulgaria’s shocker last week, it’s time for Croatia. Both countries are now running ahead of their already pessimistic population projections.

    Meanwhile, Germany’s workforce is falling 300K workers a year due to poor demographics and it’s set to get worse. Germany has been strip-mining Eastern Europe but these countries cannot provide labour forever due to rapidly shrinking populations.

    Sooner or later, Germany will have to massively open up to non-European labour and the government is rightly moving in this direction. Germany is rich and prosperous enough to be attractive for even decent middle-income countries. For countries like Bulgaria, Romania or Croatia, it’s much less rosy. Their picks will be constrained to the lowest tiers of SSA/MENA and possibly Central Asia.

    One thing is for sure, Eastern Europe will have to make up its mind about labour migration sooner rather than later, or else most of it will end up with worse demographics than Japan (gypsies) but with 1/4th the income.

    • Replies: @sudden death
    @Thulean Friend


    Meanwhile, Germany’s workforce is falling 300K workers a year due to poor demographics and it’s set to get worse.
     
    Writing this as if it is somehow a problem in the age of increasing automation of all kinds... It is nothing, but a golden opportunity without adding any additional social problems as increased joblessness rates and hordes of needless invaders.

    Replies: @sudden death

    , @A123
    @Thulean Friend


    Croatia Loses Nearly 10% of People in Past Decade – Census
    ...
    Meanwhile, Germany’s workforce is falling 300K workers a year due to poor demographics and it’s set to get worse. Germany has been strip-mining Eastern Europe
     
    This is one of the reasons why the anti-worker EU is headed towards collapse. Corporations love labour mobility as it undercuts the wage potential for local hires. And, it creates a "brain drain" in the source countries. This is long-term negative for both the donor & recipient nations.

    Sooner or later, Germany will have to massively open up to non-European labour and the government is rightly moving in this direction. Germany is rich and prosperous enough to be attractive
     
    Recent history shows that Merkel's "Open Muslim Borders" for non-Europeans have attracted huge numbers of rape-ugees and very few viable workers. How are increased violence and refusal to assimilate moving in the right direction?

    Most European nations want their native cultures to survive. Both France and Italy are headed away from Merkel's Open Muslim Borders policies, towards much more restrictive immigration based on assimilation. If Germany's goal is to become "non-European" via population transfer, then it needs to leave the EU sooner rather than later.

    PEACE 😇

    , @Chairman Meow
    @Thulean Friend


    rightly moving in this direction.
     
    Lol mass immigration is not the right direction.

    The solution is pro-natalist propaganda, banning of instagram/youtube and forcing national television to promote large families. This will stimulate young women to be more interested in having kids.

    Also, introduce more socialist policies and provide free housing/food/childcare needs to couples with more than two kids preferably while dismantling both capitalism and democracy, only then can they solve the demographic crises.
  727. @Thulean Friend
    America is a fascinating country. You have scenes ripped straight out of the 3rd world co-existing with splendor that is almost unimaingable elsewhere.

    https://twitter.com/johnschreiber/status/1481770722271760384

    "There is great ruin within a nation" - Smith.

    ---

    Croatia Loses Nearly 10% of People in Past Decade - Census

    After Bulgaria's shocker last week, it's time for Croatia. Both countries are now running ahead of their already pessimistic population projections.

    Meanwhile, Germany's workforce is falling 300K workers a year due to poor demographics and it's set to get worse. Germany has been strip-mining Eastern Europe but these countries cannot provide labour forever due to rapidly shrinking populations.

    Sooner or later, Germany will have to massively open up to non-European labour and the government is rightly moving in this direction. Germany is rich and prosperous enough to be attractive for even decent middle-income countries. For countries like Bulgaria, Romania or Croatia, it's much less rosy. Their picks will be constrained to the lowest tiers of SSA/MENA and possibly Central Asia.

    One thing is for sure, Eastern Europe will have to make up its mind about labour migration sooner rather than later, or else most of it will end up with worse demographics than Japan (gypsies) but with 1/4th the income.

    Replies: @sudden death, @A123, @Chairman Meow

    Meanwhile, Germany’s workforce is falling 300K workers a year due to poor demographics and it’s set to get worse.

    Writing this as if it is somehow a problem in the age of increasing automation of all kinds… It is nothing, but a golden opportunity without adding any additional social problems as increased joblessness rates and hordes of needless invaders.

    • Replies: @sudden death
    @sudden death

    Who really needs an endless stream of immigration when such solutions are becoming available?:


    A Chinese restaurant chain in the north west of England has been forced to make use of robotic waiters, after struggling for staff during the Covid pandemic.

    Directors at The Chinese Buffet unleashed one BellaBot in each of four restaurants in Liverpool, St Helens, Bolton and Wigan, to serve food to diners.

    When the buffet re-opened after the last lockdown, its owners decided to serve food to people at the table, ordered via an app, rather than allow them to serve themselves.

    This added an extra strain on the already short waiting staff, according to owners Paolo Hu and Peter Wu, who said the BellaBots had already proved popular with diners.

    The guide price for the friendly-faced robots is $20,000 (£14,500), which is less than the cost of employing a waiter at minimum wage for 40 hours per week.

    Quirky footage shows Bella, who features a wide-eyed feline face, sweeping across the restaurant floor dishing out delicacies to delighted customers.
     
    https://www.dailymail.co.uk/sciencetech/article-10402701/Chinese-restaurant-chain-forced-use-ROBOT-waiters-Covid-pandemic.html

    Replies: @LatW

  728. One of my more memorable dreams is of a group of orcs dancing around a fire with spiked clubs.
    As a young boy I sat there watching them. Same dream as a man it was a fight.

    Often have flown, fought or played sports in dreams, often waking up throwing a punch or something.

    https://neociceroniantimes.wordpress.com/2022/01/14/localism-and-collapse/

    ਵਾਹਿਗੁਰੂਜੀਕਾਖਾਲਸਾਵਾਹਿਗੁਰੂਜੀਕੀਫਤਿਹ

    • LOL: LatW
  729. Their picks will be constrained to the lowest tiers of SSA/MENA and possibly Central Asia.

    If these lower income EU states don’t create generous welfare systems (most likely not very soon), then they will be importing only those who do actually work (bring value). This will be driven purely by business needs, not “humanitarian” assumptions or ideology. AFAIK, a large percentage of the SSA / MENA populations in richer countries are not actually employed. You can cross those out for lower income EU states as the infrastructure to support those non-working aliens simply will not be there. This will most likely not be the way it’s been in the Nordic countries and the UK where you are more lenient about entry. It will most likely take the form of some kind of a contracting for various industries that lack workforce.

    They could try living off of their relatives, but it will be harder than in wealthier countries. Things such as housing and food are getting more expensive even in the EE. As to Central Asia, it seems that their work ethic is much better than the SSA/MENA (although not entirely sure, Russians would know better about this, I’m wondering about the quality of construction with Central Asians, don’t want to make any negative & condescending presumptions, maybe with the right management it might be ok but who knows).

    Also, remember that not all the lower income states have fully opened up to East Slavic labor. I don’t know about countries in southern Europe, but, for instance, Estonia has kept the quotas for imported labor rather limited. They fill up very quickly. If the government chose to increase the quotas, it could possibly source some more people from the East Slavic countries. But, in general, yea, you’re run, soon we’ll be running out of Ukrainians…

    Of course, this is small consolation and none of this matters in the big picture as the problem is real and even small numbers are not that great. What is even more problematic for these states is the ability to source high level professionals (as you have noted before).

    And you mentioned something very important in one of your posts above: it’s a truly raw deal to have to accept the woke values of the West without having not only the wealth, but the humane values and the social support infrastructures that the Western societies have (that they had been building for 50 years or more). This is a danger for the EE and should be spelled out as a caution in every office of the government.

    In the US, the older generation retired very quickly after 2020. Many reconsidered priorities (The Great Resignation), interesting phrases such as “re-evaluating the need for work in one’s life” are popping up. 🙂 Moms are staying at home out of necessity and something like one million lower skilled immigrants are missing (not missing in literal sense, just haven’t arrived as in previous years). So altogether, something like 2-3 million could be missing from the labor force. Also, assuming Covid becomes endemic soon and is controlled, what will happen with the US immigration numbers? Will they be just as big as before given what’s happened recently?

    As to the scene with the train in the US, this is relatively new and it follows the crisis of 2020 and the “woke” revolution. It’s a tragedy, of course, any place on this planet that’s decent that goes to sh*t is a loss.

    • Replies: @LatW
    @LatW

    Sorry, this was meant for TF.

    , @Yellowface Anon
    @LatW

    Mexican TFR dropped sharply because of what's done with COVID and they'll stay lower than the '10s.

    Some Balkan states have their population revised downwards after censuses which lead to a corresponding increase in TFR even if birth numbers remain the same.

    I got both of those info from @birthgauge, not sure if those are useful.

    , @Thulean Friend
    @LatW


    Also, assuming Covid becomes endemic soon and is controlled, what will happen with the US immigration numbers? Will they be just as big as before given what’s happened recently?
     
    This is the big question. My presumption is the US elite would prefer higher inflows going forward, but this might radicalise the ever-shrinking white voter population. Assuming just 10% of US whites become far-right in a militant sense, that's still a very large number in absolute terms. Small but highly radicalised political minorities can cause huge carnage and instability.

    The US is at a sensitive juncture. It's not as white as to lull the population into complacency but it isn't non-white enough to be able to overwhelm any resistance. It's absolutely in America's interest to ramp up immigration, especially of highly skilled migrants, but increasingly even proles. Yglesias' "One Billion Americans" is not a bad blueprint, but its political feasibility in the coming years is another matter. I think post-2030 and certainly post-2040, these political constraints will ease up considerably.

    Replies: @LatW

    , @Chairman Meow
    @LatW

    Welfare doesn't work. The better solution is "welfare jobs" this pushes the unproductive elements of society into the workforce so they can make a government mandated and monitored living wage while at the same time having self respect and contributing to society. This will help curb immigration as well, as new immigrants don't want to go to places without alot of free money.

    , @Dmitry
    @LatW


    quality of construction with Central Asians
     
    As you know, the answer to this question, and also that it is not because of the nationality of the workers (Central Asian workers who produce President Tokaev's house, probably are building it as carefully as a Swiss watch), except as a symptom . These workers are hired to reduce labor cost. The idea is to produce cheaply.

    It seems predictable what the results will be, when you build low cost, mass housing, in a not too well regulated context.


    https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=MsD5LvkSaxw


    , don’t want to make any negative & condescending presumptions, maybe with the right management it might be ok but who knows).
     
    Not so much local management, but lower regulation and law at the government level, in context of a low income country.

    So, people can complain online about their local context, where e.g. powerful Armenian developers build inhuman housing in Krasnodar. But (even not knowing Krasnodar personally), we all know it is not true that non-Armenian developers are producing well in another city.

    It's not the nationality of developers or builders that causes this situation. It is a predictable result of the lack of regulation combined in the government, combining with low income of the buyers. Results in cheap materials, lack of infrastructure. This is "cowboy capitalism" in a low income country. On the other hand, there is affordable (although still slightly expensive relative to income) housing supply in Russia, which is a better situation than in many countries.

    It's like "there's no free lunch". They build low quality housing, in unregulated, cowboy capitalist ways, but the result is at least a large supply of this housing, at the price median income people can pay.

    Replies: @A123

  730. @German_reader
    @Mr. Hack


    As far as NATO integration for Ukraine is concerned, it would be good for Ukraine
     
    Do you really think NATO would be willing to go to war with Russia for the sake of Ukraine? There's certainly zero appetite for something like that among the major Western European members (and even if there were, they don't have the military capabilities, and that applies not just to Germany, but also to more "serious" members like Britain), and I think if most Americans were asked, they wouldn't be thrilled about it either. NATO membership would be nothing but a gigantic bluff, it would be like daring Russia to call it and show up NATO's impotence. So it's not clear to me at all it would provide added deterrence for Ukraine, it might do just the opposite.

    Perhaps everything short of full membership?
     
    I think Russian recent statements indicate that this would also be seen as unacceptable.
    Don't get me wrong, I don't know what the correct course in this would be either, certainly there is a very legitimate Ukrainian desire to not be a puppet state under Russia's thumb (I agree Finlandization might be a good goal). But I'm afraid present trends might lead to something pretty disastrous.

    Replies: @A123, @AP, @Mr. Hack, @utu

    One good thing form the attack on Ukraine by Putin would be zero tolerance for defeatists, appeasers and Putin puppets. You would have to shut up, German_reader.

    • Replies: @sudden death
    @utu

    Have to object there, if majority of Germans would be even half as reasonable like German_reader, we would have way less problems with Putin now, e.g. various gas streams would be less potentially damaging with still existing nuclear energy capabilities there.

    , @German_reader
    @utu

    Then tell me what exactly should be done in your opinion.
    Did you read the pieces by Anatol Lieven I linked to in this thread? He argues that NATO probably wouldn't be able to stop a Russian invasion of Ukraine by conventional means, so it could end in a humiliating defeat. And obviously there's the risk of escalation to a nuclear level.
    Sloganeering about defeatism and appeasement is easy. Maybe I've got wishful thinking of my own in hoping for a diplomatic solution, but it seems to me you're ignoring some rather unpalatable realities.

    Replies: @AP

  731. @sudden death
    @Thulean Friend


    Meanwhile, Germany’s workforce is falling 300K workers a year due to poor demographics and it’s set to get worse.
     
    Writing this as if it is somehow a problem in the age of increasing automation of all kinds... It is nothing, but a golden opportunity without adding any additional social problems as increased joblessness rates and hordes of needless invaders.

    Replies: @sudden death

    Who really needs an endless stream of immigration when such solutions are becoming available?:

    A Chinese restaurant chain in the north west of England has been forced to make use of robotic waiters, after struggling for staff during the Covid pandemic.

    Directors at The Chinese Buffet unleashed one BellaBot in each of four restaurants in Liverpool, St Helens, Bolton and Wigan, to serve food to diners.

    When the buffet re-opened after the last lockdown, its owners decided to serve food to people at the table, ordered via an app, rather than allow them to serve themselves.

    This added an extra strain on the already short waiting staff, according to owners Paolo Hu and Peter Wu, who said the BellaBots had already proved popular with diners.

    The guide price for the friendly-faced robots is \$20,000 (£14,500), which is less than the cost of employing a waiter at minimum wage for 40 hours per week.

    Quirky footage shows Bella, who features a wide-eyed feline face, sweeping across the restaurant floor dishing out delicacies to delighted customers.

    https://www.dailymail.co.uk/sciencetech/article-10402701/Chinese-restaurant-chain-forced-use-ROBOT-waiters-Covid-pandemic.html

    • Replies: @LatW
    @sudden death

    In the US, there is something called Flippy - a robot that flips burgers. :)

  732. @sudden death
    @sudden death

    Who really needs an endless stream of immigration when such solutions are becoming available?:


    A Chinese restaurant chain in the north west of England has been forced to make use of robotic waiters, after struggling for staff during the Covid pandemic.

    Directors at The Chinese Buffet unleashed one BellaBot in each of four restaurants in Liverpool, St Helens, Bolton and Wigan, to serve food to diners.

    When the buffet re-opened after the last lockdown, its owners decided to serve food to people at the table, ordered via an app, rather than allow them to serve themselves.

    This added an extra strain on the already short waiting staff, according to owners Paolo Hu and Peter Wu, who said the BellaBots had already proved popular with diners.

    The guide price for the friendly-faced robots is $20,000 (£14,500), which is less than the cost of employing a waiter at minimum wage for 40 hours per week.

    Quirky footage shows Bella, who features a wide-eyed feline face, sweeping across the restaurant floor dishing out delicacies to delighted customers.
     
    https://www.dailymail.co.uk/sciencetech/article-10402701/Chinese-restaurant-chain-forced-use-ROBOT-waiters-Covid-pandemic.html

    Replies: @LatW

    In the US, there is something called Flippy – a robot that flips burgers. 🙂

  733. @utu
    @German_reader

    One good thing form the attack on Ukraine by Putin would be zero tolerance for defeatists, appeasers and Putin puppets. You would have to shut up, German_reader.

    Replies: @sudden death, @German_reader

    Have to object there, if majority of Germans would be even half as reasonable like German_reader, we would have way less problems with Putin now, e.g. various gas streams would be less potentially damaging with still existing nuclear energy capabilities there.

  734. @LatW

    Their picks will be constrained to the lowest tiers of SSA/MENA and possibly Central Asia.
     
    If these lower income EU states don't create generous welfare systems (most likely not very soon), then they will be importing only those who do actually work (bring value). This will be driven purely by business needs, not "humanitarian" assumptions or ideology. AFAIK, a large percentage of the SSA / MENA populations in richer countries are not actually employed. You can cross those out for lower income EU states as the infrastructure to support those non-working aliens simply will not be there. This will most likely not be the way it's been in the Nordic countries and the UK where you are more lenient about entry. It will most likely take the form of some kind of a contracting for various industries that lack workforce.

    They could try living off of their relatives, but it will be harder than in wealthier countries. Things such as housing and food are getting more expensive even in the EE. As to Central Asia, it seems that their work ethic is much better than the SSA/MENA (although not entirely sure, Russians would know better about this, I'm wondering about the quality of construction with Central Asians, don't want to make any negative & condescending presumptions, maybe with the right management it might be ok but who knows).

    Also, remember that not all the lower income states have fully opened up to East Slavic labor. I don't know about countries in southern Europe, but, for instance, Estonia has kept the quotas for imported labor rather limited. They fill up very quickly. If the government chose to increase the quotas, it could possibly source some more people from the East Slavic countries. But, in general, yea, you're run, soon we'll be running out of Ukrainians...

    Of course, this is small consolation and none of this matters in the big picture as the problem is real and even small numbers are not that great. What is even more problematic for these states is the ability to source high level professionals (as you have noted before).

    And you mentioned something very important in one of your posts above: it's a truly raw deal to have to accept the woke values of the West without having not only the wealth, but the humane values and the social support infrastructures that the Western societies have (that they had been building for 50 years or more). This is a danger for the EE and should be spelled out as a caution in every office of the government.

    In the US, the older generation retired very quickly after 2020. Many reconsidered priorities (The Great Resignation), interesting phrases such as "re-evaluating the need for work in one's life" are popping up. :) Moms are staying at home out of necessity and something like one million lower skilled immigrants are missing (not missing in literal sense, just haven't arrived as in previous years). So altogether, something like 2-3 million could be missing from the labor force. Also, assuming Covid becomes endemic soon and is controlled, what will happen with the US immigration numbers? Will they be just as big as before given what's happened recently?

    As to the scene with the train in the US, this is relatively new and it follows the crisis of 2020 and the "woke" revolution. It's a tragedy, of course, any place on this planet that's decent that goes to sh*t is a loss.

    Replies: @LatW, @Yellowface Anon, @Thulean Friend, @Chairman Meow, @Dmitry

    Sorry, this was meant for TF.

  735. @Yellowface Anon
    @melanf

    Because those people don't live in a world where new biotech is employed in vaccination regardless of its maturity, or Big Pharma are rent-seeking, but a world where a different order exist. Different civilizational outlooks. Instead of universals, particulars are resurging. Instead of a single world and humanity there are multiple civilizational spheres. And even in a civilization there are diverging tendencies in ideology.

    This explains the Red-Blue divide and why it will ultimately lead to secession.

    Replies: @PedroAstra

    I don’t think the Red-Blue divide in in US will not lead to a secession or a second civil war. Ultimately there is only one weltanschauung in play – the outer party (Rs) still exist in the same framework and have the same “secular religion” as the inner party (Ds). Where they differ is in the small details.

    But besides that, looking at it strictly from a materialistic standpoint, the conditions leading up to the Civil War are not comparable. There were two competing elite power structures with differing visions of the Union back then, Northern industrialists and Southern planters. Nowadays the only game in town is finance capital and again here the Rs and Ds only really differ here in the small details – Big Oil vs Big Tech, but really, these two are complementary. Demographically, Americans are too fat and too old to be doing any sort of serious fighting. The most you get is exactly what we saw during the Summer of Floyd, a few street scuffles that ended in a big fat nothingburger.

    • Replies: @Yellowface Anon
    @PedroAstra

    I think this was only true before 1/6 and after that, exitism will create local power bases, based on more decentralized and autonomous organization, to challenge such a dichotomy. Something that will outgrow the clueless Trumpists who have served as an incubator.

    , @A123
    @PedroAstra

    The new MAGA GOP is quite different from the old Establishment GOP. However, it will take years to finish this change process. The fact that GOP(e) swamp creatures like McConnell and Thune still identify as Republicans, highlights that further change is required.

    The key factor impeding any partition of the U.S. is the lack of viable borders. There is no Mason-Dixon line separating Blue from Grey. The Red/Blue distribution looks something like this.

     
    https://www.toddstarnes.com/wp-content/uploads/2021/04/US-census-2020.jpg
     

    Creating blue Bantustans that have to live with the consequences of their unrealistic policies is very tempting. However, it is hard to see how such a plan could be carried off.

    PEACE 😇

    Replies: @Mr. Hack, @silviosilver

  736. That is the only long term way as it makes zero sense to give money to RF, which then uses it for various gun making directed also against Poland etc:

    Saudi Aramco’s agreement to supply almost half of Poland’s oil will give the world’s biggest crude exporter a stronger foothold in a region that Russian producers have long dominated.

    Aramco, the world’s largest oil company, will buy 30% of a refinery on the Baltic coast, as well as a wholesale fuel unit. It also signed a long-term delivery deal with Polish refiner PKN Orlen SA.

    The Saudi-government-owned oil giant will be ramping up oil sales in Russia’s energy backyard just as the two nations, who are joint leaders of the OPEC+ producer alliance, work to wind down nearly two years of production cuts they implemented with the onset of the pandemic.

    The deal could have implications beyond Poland, as Orlen may use the crude in refineries in Lithuania and the Czech Republic. Many Eastern European plants were designed to run on Russia’s Urals grade and some may require technical adjustment to use different barrels. Crude from Saudi Arabia and Iraq regularly competes with Russian barrels for customers.

    Aramco’s purchase will “expand the company’s presence in Europe’s refining system with a stake in a recently upgraded refinery,” Bloomberg Intelligence analysts Salih Yilmaz and Rob Barnett wrote in a research note. It will also help Aramco “strengthen its position in a region traditionally dominated by Russian crude.”

    https://www.aljazeera.com/economy/2022/1/12/aramco-gains-footing-in-russias-back-yard-with-polish-oil-deal

  737. @PedroAstra
    @Yellowface Anon

    I don't think the Red-Blue divide in in US will not lead to a secession or a second civil war. Ultimately there is only one weltanschauung in play - the outer party (Rs) still exist in the same framework and have the same "secular religion" as the inner party (Ds). Where they differ is in the small details.

    But besides that, looking at it strictly from a materialistic standpoint, the conditions leading up to the Civil War are not comparable. There were two competing elite power structures with differing visions of the Union back then, Northern industrialists and Southern planters. Nowadays the only game in town is finance capital and again here the Rs and Ds only really differ here in the small details - Big Oil vs Big Tech, but really, these two are complementary. Demographically, Americans are too fat and too old to be doing any sort of serious fighting. The most you get is exactly what we saw during the Summer of Floyd, a few street scuffles that ended in a big fat nothingburger.

    Replies: @Yellowface Anon, @A123

    I think this was only true before 1/6 and after that, exitism will create local power bases, based on more decentralized and autonomous organization, to challenge such a dichotomy. Something that will outgrow the clueless Trumpists who have served as an incubator.

  738. @LatW

    Their picks will be constrained to the lowest tiers of SSA/MENA and possibly Central Asia.
     
    If these lower income EU states don't create generous welfare systems (most likely not very soon), then they will be importing only those who do actually work (bring value). This will be driven purely by business needs, not "humanitarian" assumptions or ideology. AFAIK, a large percentage of the SSA / MENA populations in richer countries are not actually employed. You can cross those out for lower income EU states as the infrastructure to support those non-working aliens simply will not be there. This will most likely not be the way it's been in the Nordic countries and the UK where you are more lenient about entry. It will most likely take the form of some kind of a contracting for various industries that lack workforce.

    They could try living off of their relatives, but it will be harder than in wealthier countries. Things such as housing and food are getting more expensive even in the EE. As to Central Asia, it seems that their work ethic is much better than the SSA/MENA (although not entirely sure, Russians would know better about this, I'm wondering about the quality of construction with Central Asians, don't want to make any negative & condescending presumptions, maybe with the right management it might be ok but who knows).

    Also, remember that not all the lower income states have fully opened up to East Slavic labor. I don't know about countries in southern Europe, but, for instance, Estonia has kept the quotas for imported labor rather limited. They fill up very quickly. If the government chose to increase the quotas, it could possibly source some more people from the East Slavic countries. But, in general, yea, you're run, soon we'll be running out of Ukrainians...

    Of course, this is small consolation and none of this matters in the big picture as the problem is real and even small numbers are not that great. What is even more problematic for these states is the ability to source high level professionals (as you have noted before).

    And you mentioned something very important in one of your posts above: it's a truly raw deal to have to accept the woke values of the West without having not only the wealth, but the humane values and the social support infrastructures that the Western societies have (that they had been building for 50 years or more). This is a danger for the EE and should be spelled out as a caution in every office of the government.

    In the US, the older generation retired very quickly after 2020. Many reconsidered priorities (The Great Resignation), interesting phrases such as "re-evaluating the need for work in one's life" are popping up. :) Moms are staying at home out of necessity and something like one million lower skilled immigrants are missing (not missing in literal sense, just haven't arrived as in previous years). So altogether, something like 2-3 million could be missing from the labor force. Also, assuming Covid becomes endemic soon and is controlled, what will happen with the US immigration numbers? Will they be just as big as before given what's happened recently?

    As to the scene with the train in the US, this is relatively new and it follows the crisis of 2020 and the "woke" revolution. It's a tragedy, of course, any place on this planet that's decent that goes to sh*t is a loss.

    Replies: @LatW, @Yellowface Anon, @Thulean Friend, @Chairman Meow, @Dmitry

    Mexican TFR dropped sharply because of what’s done with COVID and they’ll stay lower than the ’10s.

    Some Balkan states have their population revised downwards after censuses which lead to a corresponding increase in TFR even if birth numbers remain the same.

    I got both of those info from @birthgauge, not sure if those are useful.

  739. @German_reader
    Anatol Lieven on the recent US-Russia talks (though rather more about general issues):
    https://responsiblestatecraft.org/2022/01/13/did-this-weeks-us-nato-russia-meetings-push-us-closer-to-war/

    This article seems quite delusional to me:
    https://www.defenseone.com/ideas/2022/01/us-must-prepare-war-against-russia-over-ukraine/360639/

    Replies: @Mikhail

    Anatol Lieven on the recent US-Russia talks (though rather more about general issues):
    https://responsiblestatecraft.org/2022/01/13/did-this-weeks-us-nato-russia-meetings-push-us-closer-to-war/

    This article seems quite delusional to me:
    https://www.defenseone.com/ideas/2022/01/us-must-prepare-war-against-russia-over-ukraine/360639/

    Defense One is affiliated with the neocon/neolib leaning Atlantic. The second part of this article delves into the lying antics of Evelyn Farkas:

    https://original.antiwar.com/Michael_Averko/2021/12/17/ongoing-smear-campaign-against-the-strategic-culture-foundation/

    Up until about August 2020, she stated at the top of her Twitter handle, that “she sounded the alarm on Trump-Russia.”

    Concerning, Russia, Ukraine, Kazakhstan and neocon/neolib leaning foreign policy elites, here’s a punchy 20 minute discussion:

    https://wabcradio.com/episode/mark-averko-1-11-22/

    When compared to US foreign policy elites Lieven is good. IMO and that of some others, he periodically says things that serve to better maintain himself within US foreign policy establishment circles. The above linked WABC discussion has no such filter.

  740. @LatW
    @Mr. Hack


    Putler’s been rattling his sabre for a few months now, and seems to be making all kinds of threatening noises. Maybe his ratings are down, as before when he invaded Crimea?
     
    His ratings are down, but this is bigger than the ratings. It's about a long term resolution. There is a lot of talk about a Gleiwitz. In the beginning the "ultimatum" itself almost looked like a Gleiwitz of some sort - as in "Either you accept our proposal, or we'll be forced to defend ourselves". And they knew very well that this would be unacceptable. So it's interesting what they'll do.

    Some believe that in Washington over the last several months there has been a struggle between the pro-Russian (Sullivan) and anti-Russian (Blinken and Austin) factions. The Blinken faction apparently won. But who knows if this is true.

    Are you watching espresso tv and The Great Lviv Speaks?


    If he decides to sick his dogs on Ukraine though, I think that he’ll be in for a big surprise, this time around.
     
    Arestovych believes that this would create a crack in their political system. Even hurt their military in a way that would compromise their security. Of course, they would do a lot of damage but it would be very tough for them. Ofc, I'm not an expert, but did you know that, hypothetically, they cannot employ troops across their whole border in all directions at once (without some kind of a very serious mobilization). So hypothetically if they are busy in the south, they cannot fully engage elsewhere. This is why their military doctrine says that they should have enough troops to deploy in a few limited theaters but to protect the rest of the territory simultaneously they use the tactical nuclear strike. It's a huge qualitative step that they will not take, unless they are attacked by the US (let's say, in the north), their own territory is massively attacked or something like that (unrealistic scenario).


    Perhaps everything short of full [NATO] membership?
     
    Right, but under what political conditions? Should $200M - a very small sum (of course, thanks to the US either way), apparently what the US spent in Afghanistan in one day -- enough to entangle oneself in a potentially subordinate relationship? No, of course. The solution is to continue cooperation with the West (and other actors) without serious strings attached. Strings and obligations should only come with real commitment (if such is even possible). What are the options with air defense, because frankly, that's where Russia would start it (in the worst case physical scenario).

    It is very clear that the growing armament of Ukraine (both the home grown and assistance from the West) really bothers Putin (and probably the Russian generals). He probably knows that within 10 more years Ukraine could get stronger. More serious missiles could come online. The biggest question is -- would Russia still object to Ukraine's armament if the US stayed out of it? Would they be less worried if Ukraine kept building its own military industry but were more neutral? Russia also objects to the ideology and that's not going away.

    I’ve been pretty consistent in my views that Ukraine should seek its own formula of Finlandization.
     

    The problem with Finlandization is that for that you need Finns. You need unity of steel (or should I say, hardness of ice, lol), a linear type of thinking that permeates the political system, you need sisu (perseverance) and you need money combined with, ideally, a local military industry.

    Does the Ukrainian nation possess qualities that could substitute for this? I believe, yes - the ability to mobilize the non-government and volunteer sector (taken across the whole country with the millions living abroad, this would be massive), the ability to create a grassroots militia which is already being worked on, advancing the local military industry. Finland is producing its own armored vehicles and they are making a huge purchase of 60 F35 fighters (you don't hear Russia objecting to that one, now do you, I guess because those are not long range missiles but still..). They also have conscription and a huge reserve with the participation of almost the whole nation (with perhaps the exception of babies and grandmas). A Ukrainian equivalent of that would be in tens of millions. It would be formidable but it's hard to build. In order to create all this, you need the Finnish character. Also, no jumping into Russia's face needlessly. Which for Ukraine is much much harder than Finland because Finland is not being bullied, physically threatened and occupied by Russia right now, was never in the USSR, is not Orthodox, is more homogenous, Russians view Finns very differently than Ukrainians, Finns can get away with things that former-USSR can't. One has to earn Russia's respect somehow. It can be only done through acquiring strength. Maybe in combination with some kind of cunning.

    Btw, it's possible that Finlandization today would be different than that of the 1950s or 1980s. It would carry much fewer negative factors, as Russia is now way more open (and weaker than the USSR). I believe Finlandization could be an option if there is no other way to integrate into the Western system or if the Western system collapses, so it should be left as the last resort. In the meanwhile, Ukraine should really look out only for itself and not entangle itself into any promises that compromise its interests. Then again, if Ukraine is coming with us mentally, politically, economically, then some kind of a security solution is also direly needed. It would be fair from the moral POV, otherwise, Ukraine risks being exploited.


    Putin’s growing megalomaniac propensity for some sort of recognition as a ‘wise gatherer of Rus lands”
     
    That's another question. Are the Russian ambitions just their usual / historical imperialism or Putin's willingness to reverse the mistakes created during the moments of Russia's weakness (the 1990s) and a willingness to leave a historical legacy? He's definitely in the "legacy age" and there is not all that much time left. In that case, just accept it and fight back. Or... are they truly concerned about their security. If so, it might be worth talking to them (of course, without giving in, because you can't trust them, you have to find some kind of a regional balance of strength) as there are many somewhat decent Russians out there and it would be a pity to lose them. If it is both of these things... which it looks like it is, then it's very complicated.

    Replies: @Mikhail, @Mr. Hack

    Putler’s been rattling his sabre for a few months now, and seems to be making all kinds of threatening noises. Maybe his ratings are down, as before when he invaded Crimea?

    His ratings are down, but this is bigger than the ratings. It’s about a long term resolution. There is a lot of talk about a Gleiwitz. In the beginning the “ultimatum” itself almost looked like a Gleiwitz of some sort – as in “Either you accept our proposal, or we’ll be forced to defend ourselves”. And they knew very well that this would be unacceptable. So it’s interesting what they’ll do.

    Some believe that in Washington over the last several months there has been a struggle between the pro-Russian (Sullivan) and anti-Russian (Blinken and Austin) factions. The Blinken faction apparently won. But who knows if this is true.

    Sullivan isn’t pro-Russian. If anything, Biden and Zelensky have hyped a conflict for the purpose of diverting attention away from the reasons behind their low poll numbers in their respective nation.

    Putin’s poll numbers are noticeably higher. Related:

    https://www.eurasiareview.com/09122021-russian-ukraine-coverage-continues-to-lack-insight-oped/

    https://www.strategic-culture.org/news/2021/12/10/russia-ukraine-coverage-continues-to-lack-insight/

    • Replies: @Mr. Hack
    @Mikhail


    If anything, Biden and Zelensky have hyped a conflict for the purpose of diverting attention away from the reasons behind their low poll numbers in their respective nation.
     
    And Putler amassing 100,000 or more troops close to Ukraine's border and recent telephone conversations regarding Ukraine between Biden/Putler and Biden/Zelensky were custom made props for Biden's and Zelensky's benefits to prop up their popularity? You've got quite the imagination Mickey, and it always seems to work in favor of whitewashing Putler's motives and actions?...

    https://cdn3.creativecirclemedia.com/sumter/original/20220111-162622-aria_c220110.jpg

    Replies: @Mikhail

    , @LatW
    @Mikhail


    Sullivan isn’t pro-Russian.
     
    Sorry, of course, he's not pro-Russian, they're all pro-American establishment, but some analysts believe that Sullivan is more inclined towards a compromise with Russia, whereas Blinken is more "neo-con'y" and non-compromising.

    Biden and Zelensky have hyped a conflict for the purpose of diverting attention away from the reasons behind their low poll numbers in their respective nation.
     
    Er... no, there's an objective security problem. Yes, Zelensky's rating is not high at all, but as I said, this isn't about ratings anymore. Especially for Putin, because there is very little space left for a "small, victorious" endeavor, the next step has to be significant. The next step would not be small at all and there is no 80-100% guarantee it would be victorious.

    Putin’s poll numbers are noticeably higher.
     
    They are higher than those other leaders' but they are lower than what they used to be. Pluralism has been developing in Russia for the past few years. Or rather, this pluralism existed already but it is becoming more defined (across the whole political spectrum). Thus the so called zakruchevanya gaek - tightening of screws.

    Replies: @Mikhail

  741. Russo-Kazakh Relations – Alleged Russian False Flag Operation – Svidos

    Re: https://www.rt.com/russia/546088-russophobe-kazakh-minister-baikonur-cosmodrome/

    It’s within reason to see some Russians taking aim at anti-Russian comments. It has been suggested that the Kazakh minister at issue was appointed to appease the Kazakh nationalist wing. Let’s see how he carries on in his new role.

    The US government’s claimed Russian false flag operation concerning Ukraine appears like a (put mildly) possible false flag operation, as no conclusive proof is given. Reminded of when Adam Schiff said he had proof of Trump-Russia collusion. Schiff continues to make dubious claims without any critical follow-up of him at MSNBC and CNN.

    Quite revealing:

    https://twitter.com/MarkSleboda1/status/1482637620647804930

  742. @LatW

    Their picks will be constrained to the lowest tiers of SSA/MENA and possibly Central Asia.
     
    If these lower income EU states don't create generous welfare systems (most likely not very soon), then they will be importing only those who do actually work (bring value). This will be driven purely by business needs, not "humanitarian" assumptions or ideology. AFAIK, a large percentage of the SSA / MENA populations in richer countries are not actually employed. You can cross those out for lower income EU states as the infrastructure to support those non-working aliens simply will not be there. This will most likely not be the way it's been in the Nordic countries and the UK where you are more lenient about entry. It will most likely take the form of some kind of a contracting for various industries that lack workforce.

    They could try living off of their relatives, but it will be harder than in wealthier countries. Things such as housing and food are getting more expensive even in the EE. As to Central Asia, it seems that their work ethic is much better than the SSA/MENA (although not entirely sure, Russians would know better about this, I'm wondering about the quality of construction with Central Asians, don't want to make any negative & condescending presumptions, maybe with the right management it might be ok but who knows).

    Also, remember that not all the lower income states have fully opened up to East Slavic labor. I don't know about countries in southern Europe, but, for instance, Estonia has kept the quotas for imported labor rather limited. They fill up very quickly. If the government chose to increase the quotas, it could possibly source some more people from the East Slavic countries. But, in general, yea, you're run, soon we'll be running out of Ukrainians...

    Of course, this is small consolation and none of this matters in the big picture as the problem is real and even small numbers are not that great. What is even more problematic for these states is the ability to source high level professionals (as you have noted before).

    And you mentioned something very important in one of your posts above: it's a truly raw deal to have to accept the woke values of the West without having not only the wealth, but the humane values and the social support infrastructures that the Western societies have (that they had been building for 50 years or more). This is a danger for the EE and should be spelled out as a caution in every office of the government.

    In the US, the older generation retired very quickly after 2020. Many reconsidered priorities (The Great Resignation), interesting phrases such as "re-evaluating the need for work in one's life" are popping up. :) Moms are staying at home out of necessity and something like one million lower skilled immigrants are missing (not missing in literal sense, just haven't arrived as in previous years). So altogether, something like 2-3 million could be missing from the labor force. Also, assuming Covid becomes endemic soon and is controlled, what will happen with the US immigration numbers? Will they be just as big as before given what's happened recently?

    As to the scene with the train in the US, this is relatively new and it follows the crisis of 2020 and the "woke" revolution. It's a tragedy, of course, any place on this planet that's decent that goes to sh*t is a loss.

    Replies: @LatW, @Yellowface Anon, @Thulean Friend, @Chairman Meow, @Dmitry

    Also, assuming Covid becomes endemic soon and is controlled, what will happen with the US immigration numbers? Will they be just as big as before given what’s happened recently?

    This is the big question. My presumption is the US elite would prefer higher inflows going forward, but this might radicalise the ever-shrinking white voter population. Assuming just 10% of US whites become far-right in a militant sense, that’s still a very large number in absolute terms. Small but highly radicalised political minorities can cause huge carnage and instability.

    The US is at a sensitive juncture. It’s not as white as to lull the population into complacency but it isn’t non-white enough to be able to overwhelm any resistance. It’s absolutely in America’s interest to ramp up immigration, especially of highly skilled migrants, but increasingly even proles. Yglesias’ “One Billion Americans” is not a bad blueprint, but its political feasibility in the coming years is another matter. I think post-2030 and certainly post-2040, these political constraints will ease up considerably.

    • Troll: Yevardian
    • Replies: @LatW
    @Thulean Friend


    My presumption is the US elite would prefer higher inflows going forward,
     
    They've been assuming that the inflows will always be high. My question was not even about the "racial reckoning" but the bureaucratic capacity to absorb more people as things have become more cumbersome and slow (both for the immigration agencies, IRS, etc). Same thing with overall security and housing issues. Yes, there are peeps that would be ok living in a tent as long as they are physically in the US and allowed to stay (sad, actually) but most immigrants strive for a higher living standard than in their home country and are willing to sacrifice maybe the first year for the hardship but then they want to start living well. It's more of a question about where a "working wage" can take them. Immigrants such as Ukrainians can pick up and do well very quickly but as I said, how many Ukrainians are left? May not be that many if you look at the perspective of the next 20-50 years.

    Assuming just 10% of US whites become far-right in a militant sense, that’s still a very large number in absolute terms. Small but highly radicalised political minorities can cause huge carnage and instability.
     

    Those types are very heavily persecuted. However, you are right that altogether the US whites are like one big Euro country and this number of more active ones would be high. The right leaning US whites do not typically have a tendency towards "carnage and instability", quite the opposite, they're very inclined towards stability and their behavior is more geared towards defense and separation. Some of them have migrated inland. But in a more radicalized scenario that you describe, they could potentially stall immigration into their separate areas.

    One Billion Americans
     
    Not to get into a discussion about this topic, but just one quick reason why this may not be a great idea - conservationist efforts. America has fantastic national parks that are well maintained, people will swarm those parks, especially post-Covid many will consider parks over cities. Not to say that more people shouldn't be allowed access, but it probably isn't so great for these parks to be stomped out by large masses of people. Btw, when I say "park", in the US it means a piece of well maintained wilderness with rivers, mountains, etc, not a park in the middle of a city as in Europe.

    Replies: @Thulean Friend

  743. German_reader says:
    @utu
    @German_reader

    One good thing form the attack on Ukraine by Putin would be zero tolerance for defeatists, appeasers and Putin puppets. You would have to shut up, German_reader.

    Replies: @sudden death, @German_reader

    Then tell me what exactly should be done in your opinion.
    Did you read the pieces by Anatol Lieven I linked to in this thread? He argues that NATO probably wouldn’t be able to stop a Russian invasion of Ukraine by conventional means, so it could end in a humiliating defeat. And obviously there’s the risk of escalation to a nuclear level.
    Sloganeering about defeatism and appeasement is easy. Maybe I’ve got wishful thinking of my own in hoping for a diplomatic solution, but it seems to me you’re ignoring some rather unpalatable realities.

    • Replies: @AP
    @German_reader

    The best way to prevent war is to make war as unpalatable as possible for the aggressor (MAD is the obvious example of this).

    It may be too late, NATO could have made a Russian invasion of Ukraine extremely expensive by arming Ukraine to the teeth, as it has not done, due in large part to vetoes by the Merkel government and by making economic consequences obvious and extreme, by not eliminating its own nuclear power and by not allowing the gas pipes to bypass Ukraine (also the work of Germany). For whatever reason, Germany's elites have done all they could to build up Russian power and to damage Europe, even at the expense of their own people's well-being.

    Replies: @German_reader

  744. Paging Blinken, Bolton & Amanpour

    Re: https://tass.com/defense/1388731

    Are you a government faced with a violent insurrection? Call 1 800 CSTO. Upon request, CSTO will promptly send a rapid deployment force to assist in your effort to return normalcy. Upon completion, CSTO will leave as opposed to another power which is in Syria uninvited and remains in Iraq, despite that country’s parliament asking for a withdrawal.

  745. https://twitter.com/SJha1618/status/1482252429051953156?s=20

    hmm

    ਵਾਹਿਗੁਰੂਜੀਕਾਖਾਲਸਾਵਾਹਿਗੁਰੂਜੀਕੀਫਤਿਹ

  746. @Mikhail
    @LatW


    @Mr. Hack

    Putler’s been rattling his sabre for a few months now, and seems to be making all kinds of threatening noises. Maybe his ratings are down, as before when he invaded Crimea?

    His ratings are down, but this is bigger than the ratings. It’s about a long term resolution. There is a lot of talk about a Gleiwitz. In the beginning the “ultimatum” itself almost looked like a Gleiwitz of some sort – as in “Either you accept our proposal, or we’ll be forced to defend ourselves”. And they knew very well that this would be unacceptable. So it’s interesting what they’ll do.

    Some believe that in Washington over the last several months there has been a struggle between the pro-Russian (Sullivan) and anti-Russian (Blinken and Austin) factions. The Blinken faction apparently won. But who knows if this is true.
     
    Sullivan isn't pro-Russian. If anything, Biden and Zelensky have hyped a conflict for the purpose of diverting attention away from the reasons behind their low poll numbers in their respective nation.

    Putin's poll numbers are noticeably higher. Related:

    https://www.eurasiareview.com/09122021-russian-ukraine-coverage-continues-to-lack-insight-oped/

    https://www.strategic-culture.org/news/2021/12/10/russia-ukraine-coverage-continues-to-lack-insight/

    Replies: @Mr. Hack, @LatW

    If anything, Biden and Zelensky have hyped a conflict for the purpose of diverting attention away from the reasons behind their low poll numbers in their respective nation.

    And Putler amassing 100,000 or more troops close to Ukraine’s border and recent telephone conversations regarding Ukraine between Biden/Putler and Biden/Zelensky were custom made props for Biden’s and Zelensky’s benefits to prop up their popularity? You’ve got quite the imagination Mickey, and it always seems to work in favor of whitewashing Putler’s motives and actions?…

    • LOL: Mikhail
    • Replies: @Mikhail
    @Mr. Hack


    And Putler amassing 100,000 or more troops close to Ukraine’s border and recent telephone conversations regarding Ukraine between Biden/Putler and Biden/Zelensky were custom made props for Biden’s and Zelensky’s benefits to prop up their popularity? You’ve got quite the imagination Mickey, and it always seems to work in favor of whitewashing Putler’s motives and actions?…
     
    Since 2014, the Russian troop deployment along the Ukrainian border has been quoted in the 90,000 range and up. Hence, Biden and the Kiev regime are over-hyping. BTW, it's not like the Kiev regime doesn't have a considerable number of troops on the Russian border.

    Last spring, the Kiev regime increased its deployment near Donbass, before the much hyped Russian increase thereafter. An increase which went down in accordance with periodic training drills. Related:

    https://www.strategic-culture.org/news/2021/07/18/getting-putin-intentions-wrong-again-on-russia-ukraine/

    As has been noted at this thread, 100,000 isn't enough for a full scale invasion.

    Replies: @Mr. Hack, @Chairman Meow

  747. @Mr. Hack
    @Mikhail


    If anything, Biden and Zelensky have hyped a conflict for the purpose of diverting attention away from the reasons behind their low poll numbers in their respective nation.
     
    And Putler amassing 100,000 or more troops close to Ukraine's border and recent telephone conversations regarding Ukraine between Biden/Putler and Biden/Zelensky were custom made props for Biden's and Zelensky's benefits to prop up their popularity? You've got quite the imagination Mickey, and it always seems to work in favor of whitewashing Putler's motives and actions?...

    https://cdn3.creativecirclemedia.com/sumter/original/20220111-162622-aria_c220110.jpg

    Replies: @Mikhail

    And Putler amassing 100,000 or more troops close to Ukraine’s border and recent telephone conversations regarding Ukraine between Biden/Putler and Biden/Zelensky were custom made props for Biden’s and Zelensky’s benefits to prop up their popularity? You’ve got quite the imagination Mickey, and it always seems to work in favor of whitewashing Putler’s motives and actions?…

    Since 2014, the Russian troop deployment along the Ukrainian border has been quoted in the 90,000 range and up. Hence, Biden and the Kiev regime are over-hyping. BTW, it’s not like the Kiev regime doesn’t have a considerable number of troops on the Russian border.

    Last spring, the Kiev regime increased its deployment near Donbass, before the much hyped Russian increase thereafter. An increase which went down in accordance with periodic training drills. Related:

    https://www.strategic-culture.org/news/2021/07/18/getting-putin-intentions-wrong-again-on-russia-ukraine/

    As has been noted at this thread, 100,000 isn’t enough for a full scale invasion.

    • Replies: @Mr. Hack
    @Mikhail

    How many of Putler's "little green men" invaded and set-up the anschluss of Crimea? A questionable "plebiscite" within three weeks of a Russian invasion should seem a little bit suspect even to Putler's chief samovar polisher?

    Replies: @Mikhail

    , @Chairman Meow
    @Mikhail

    Okraina like usual is overhyping Russian intention in order to gain siginficance on the international stage (as everyone was losing interest in Okraina).

    Russia won't invade Okraina, its too late to do so as the situation is no longer favorable for an invasion and military actions depend on timing as much as anything else. Putin got too scared and backed down in 2014, now he's lost the opportunity for ever

  748. @Mikhail
    @Mr. Hack


    And Putler amassing 100,000 or more troops close to Ukraine’s border and recent telephone conversations regarding Ukraine between Biden/Putler and Biden/Zelensky were custom made props for Biden’s and Zelensky’s benefits to prop up their popularity? You’ve got quite the imagination Mickey, and it always seems to work in favor of whitewashing Putler’s motives and actions?…
     
    Since 2014, the Russian troop deployment along the Ukrainian border has been quoted in the 90,000 range and up. Hence, Biden and the Kiev regime are over-hyping. BTW, it's not like the Kiev regime doesn't have a considerable number of troops on the Russian border.

    Last spring, the Kiev regime increased its deployment near Donbass, before the much hyped Russian increase thereafter. An increase which went down in accordance with periodic training drills. Related:

    https://www.strategic-culture.org/news/2021/07/18/getting-putin-intentions-wrong-again-on-russia-ukraine/

    As has been noted at this thread, 100,000 isn't enough for a full scale invasion.

    Replies: @Mr. Hack, @Chairman Meow

    How many of Putler’s “little green men” invaded and set-up the anschluss of Crimea? A questionable “plebiscite” within three weeks of a Russian invasion should seem a little bit suspect even to Putler’s chief samovar polisher?

    • Replies: @Mikhail
    @Mr. Hack


    How many of Putler’s “little green men” invaded and set-up the anschluss of Crimea? A questionable “plebiscite” within three weeks of a Russian invasion should seem a little bit suspect even to Putler’s chief samovar polisher?
     
    You suddenly change the topic as a way of diverting attention away from your wrongness.

    Crimea already had a Russian military presence. Crimea's reunification with Russia was an appropriate response which came after (not before) the anti-Russian coup in Kiev against a democratically elected president, just after he signed an internationally brokered power sharing agreement.

    It's crystal clear that well over 2/3 of Crimea's population (including the majority of ethnic Ukrainians there) support reunifying with Russia. Related:

    https://www.academia.edu/37358188/Michael_Averko_Consistency_and_Reality_Lacking_on_Crimea

    Replies: @sudden death

  749. @Thulean Friend
    America is a fascinating country. You have scenes ripped straight out of the 3rd world co-existing with splendor that is almost unimaingable elsewhere.

    https://twitter.com/johnschreiber/status/1481770722271760384

    "There is great ruin within a nation" - Smith.

    ---

    Croatia Loses Nearly 10% of People in Past Decade - Census

    After Bulgaria's shocker last week, it's time for Croatia. Both countries are now running ahead of their already pessimistic population projections.

    Meanwhile, Germany's workforce is falling 300K workers a year due to poor demographics and it's set to get worse. Germany has been strip-mining Eastern Europe but these countries cannot provide labour forever due to rapidly shrinking populations.

    Sooner or later, Germany will have to massively open up to non-European labour and the government is rightly moving in this direction. Germany is rich and prosperous enough to be attractive for even decent middle-income countries. For countries like Bulgaria, Romania or Croatia, it's much less rosy. Their picks will be constrained to the lowest tiers of SSA/MENA and possibly Central Asia.

    One thing is for sure, Eastern Europe will have to make up its mind about labour migration sooner rather than later, or else most of it will end up with worse demographics than Japan (gypsies) but with 1/4th the income.

    Replies: @sudden death, @A123, @Chairman Meow

    Croatia Loses Nearly 10% of People in Past Decade – Census

    Meanwhile, Germany’s workforce is falling 300K workers a year due to poor demographics and it’s set to get worse. Germany has been strip-mining Eastern Europe

    This is one of the reasons why the anti-worker EU is headed towards collapse. Corporations love labour mobility as it undercuts the wage potential for local hires. And, it creates a “brain drain” in the source countries. This is long-term negative for both the donor & recipient nations.

    Sooner or later, Germany will have to massively open up to non-European labour and the government is rightly moving in this direction. Germany is rich and prosperous enough to be attractive

    Recent history shows that Merkel’s “Open Muslim Borders” for non-Europeans have attracted huge numbers of rape-ugees and very few viable workers. How are increased violence and refusal to assimilate moving in the right direction?

    Most European nations want their native cultures to survive. Both France and Italy are headed away from Merkel’s Open Muslim Borders policies, towards much more restrictive immigration based on assimilation. If Germany’s goal is to become “non-European” via population transfer, then it needs to leave the EU sooner rather than later.

    PEACE 😇

  750. @PedroAstra
    @Yellowface Anon

    I don't think the Red-Blue divide in in US will not lead to a secession or a second civil war. Ultimately there is only one weltanschauung in play - the outer party (Rs) still exist in the same framework and have the same "secular religion" as the inner party (Ds). Where they differ is in the small details.

    But besides that, looking at it strictly from a materialistic standpoint, the conditions leading up to the Civil War are not comparable. There were two competing elite power structures with differing visions of the Union back then, Northern industrialists and Southern planters. Nowadays the only game in town is finance capital and again here the Rs and Ds only really differ here in the small details - Big Oil vs Big Tech, but really, these two are complementary. Demographically, Americans are too fat and too old to be doing any sort of serious fighting. The most you get is exactly what we saw during the Summer of Floyd, a few street scuffles that ended in a big fat nothingburger.

    Replies: @Yellowface Anon, @A123

    The new MAGA GOP is quite different from the old Establishment GOP. However, it will take years to finish this change process. The fact that GOP(e) swamp creatures like McConnell and Thune still identify as Republicans, highlights that further change is required.

    The key factor impeding any partition of the U.S. is the lack of viable borders. There is no Mason-Dixon line separating Blue from Grey. The Red/Blue distribution looks something like this.

      

    Creating blue Bantustans that have to live with the consequences of their unrealistic policies is very tempting. However, it is hard to see how such a plan could be carried off.

    PEACE 😇

    • Replies: @Mr. Hack
    @A123

    The red area that cuts through Minnesota seems to include the Twin Cities that is quite population dense. Looks like there's an opening there to make the whole state red, where most small town people tend to vote conservative?

    Replies: @A123

    , @silviosilver
    @A123


    Creating blue Bantustans that have to live with the consequences of their unrealistic policies is very tempting. However, it is hard to see how such a plan could be carried off.
     
    I don't know how it could proceed either.

    Just understand this: it starts with a dream.

  751. @A123
    @PedroAstra

    The new MAGA GOP is quite different from the old Establishment GOP. However, it will take years to finish this change process. The fact that GOP(e) swamp creatures like McConnell and Thune still identify as Republicans, highlights that further change is required.

    The key factor impeding any partition of the U.S. is the lack of viable borders. There is no Mason-Dixon line separating Blue from Grey. The Red/Blue distribution looks something like this.

     
    https://www.toddstarnes.com/wp-content/uploads/2021/04/US-census-2020.jpg
     

    Creating blue Bantustans that have to live with the consequences of their unrealistic policies is very tempting. However, it is hard to see how such a plan could be carried off.

    PEACE 😇

    Replies: @Mr. Hack, @silviosilver

    The red area that cuts through Minnesota seems to include the Twin Cities that is quite population dense. Looks like there’s an opening there to make the whole state red, where most small town people tend to vote conservative?

    • Replies: @A123
    @Mr. Hack

    Hmmmmmm..... Good eye. I picked up that map based on a web search and now that you question it..... There is something amiss. THANKS.

    Let me try again. I believe these are the 2020 US House results:

     
    https://www.realclearpolitics.com/elections/live_results/2020/live_map_house.png
     


    The red area that cuts through Minnesota seems to include the Twin Cities
     
    There is a geographically compact blue area for Minneapolis & St Paul. I believe this is the split before the 2020 elections.

     
    https://i1.wp.com/electionarium.com/wp-content/uploads/2020/05/2020-Minnesota-House-Races-pre-election-map.png
     

    I doubt that the Minnesota can be 100% flipped as you suggest. Ilhan Omar is from the state and her district is not salvageable.

    However, your question does provide insight to another partition issue. Any 'snapshot' in time will have outliers from national norms. Sometimes local issues manage to supersede the truism of current U.S. politics, All Elections are National.

    PEACE 😇

    Replies: @AP

  752. @Mr. Hack
    @A123

    The red area that cuts through Minnesota seems to include the Twin Cities that is quite population dense. Looks like there's an opening there to make the whole state red, where most small town people tend to vote conservative?

    Replies: @A123

    Hmmmmmm….. Good eye. I picked up that map based on a web search and now that you question it….. There is something amiss. THANKS.

    Let me try again. I believe these are the 2020 US House results:

      

    The red area that cuts through Minnesota seems to include the Twin Cities

    There is a geographically compact blue area for Minneapolis & St Paul. I believe this is the split before the 2020 elections.

      

    I doubt that the Minnesota can be 100% flipped as you suggest. Ilhan Omar is from the state and her district is not salvageable.

    However, your question does provide insight to another partition issue. Any ‘snapshot’ in time will have outliers from national norms. Sometimes local issues manage to supersede the truism of current U.S. politics, All Elections are National.

    PEACE 😇

    • Replies: @AP
    @A123

    The two sides have not moved fare apart to warrant a split (yet). But it can be done relatively well, geographically.

    https://www.realclearpolitics.com/elections/live_results/2020/live_map_house.png

    New England, coastal Washington, eastern and southern New York State and New Jersey could be annexed by Canada and be a prosperous, culturally weird, mostly European-Asian progressive "paradise" - North America's Scandinavia. If all that would be too much for Canada to swallow, metro-New York and NJ might be its own type of Singapore, the New World's financial hub (anyways New England fits culturally better into Canada than NY with its different demographics).

    California, southern Nevada and Arizona, could be an independent Latin American-style country with huge income and wealth disparity as in Latin America but still fairly prosperous due to the partial legacy of Silicon Valley (much of it but not all of it will move to TX) and Hollywood. It would still have a largely Anglo elite and would offer an amazing lifestyle for the rich in their gated communities along the coast, produce a lot of agriculture, etc.

    This would take care of much of the split.

    As for those caught on the wrong side of the new border - the red island in the California interior might disappear when the new government grants citizenship to all the migrant workers there. There would be blue islands in places like Chicago, Detroit, Minneapolis, and the Carolinas. I imagine there would be some voluntary population transfers; the super-progressives of Minnesota would move to Winnipeg and the ones in Chicago would move to New York. Those really desperate not to live in a solidly forever-blue California would move even faster to TX (whose laws would now be so solidly Red that the type of people who would turn the state Blue wouldn't dare to enter) and vice versa.

    I wonder if, after the split, Washington DC would be abandoned and allowed to die as the center of the economic and demographics of Red America shifts to Texas. Chicago would be the largest single metro area but Dallas and Houston are catching up rapidly (each one may overtake Chicago by 2030) and combined they already dwarf Chicago.

    Replies: @Mr. Hack, @A123, @Yellowface Anon

  753. Thinking of reading this one next.

    Anyone read it? I haven’t gotten into a decent intellectual history book in quite some time, and always felt the Enlightenment was too narrowly focused on UK and earlier Italy. The author being Anglo also gives distance required to guard against excessive patriotism. The book was released in 2010, which is modern enough to incorporate newer scholarly research without being engulfed in the post-2014 woke madness.

    • Replies: @German_reader
    @Thulean Friend

    German Genius sounds like an oxymoron to me. But please read it and post a review here. I'm currently reading that strange book by Ariel Toaff about ritual murders and intend to post my impressions of it here, as I promised last year. The occasional book review wouldn't hurt this comments section.

    Replies: @songbird

    , @Vishnugupta
    @Thulean Friend

    Have read it.

    Good stuff.But then this is the only book on this topic I have ever read so not really in a position to compare with any other.

    The print in the paperback version is a bit too small for my liking so I returned it and bought the Kindle version instead.

    Replies: @Emil Nikola Richard

  754. German_reader says:
    @Thulean Friend
    Thinking of reading this one next.

    https://i.imgur.com/BSxT7vx.jpg

    Anyone read it? I haven't gotten into a decent intellectual history book in quite some time, and always felt the Enlightenment was too narrowly focused on UK and earlier Italy. The author being Anglo also gives distance required to guard against excessive patriotism. The book was released in 2010, which is modern enough to incorporate newer scholarly research without being engulfed in the post-2014 woke madness.

    Replies: @German_reader, @Vishnugupta

    German Genius sounds like an oxymoron to me. But please read it and post a review here. I’m currently reading that strange book by Ariel Toaff about ritual murders and intend to post my impressions of it here, as I promised last year. The occasional book review wouldn’t hurt this comments section.

    • Replies: @songbird
    @German_reader

    Recently, came across a woke revisionist history of Brunhild and Fredegund. Didn't have the time or inclination to spend more than a minute or two flipping through it. But it was amusing in a low sort of way.

    Apparently, Brunhild faced quite a challenge from medieval misogynists, something akin to "walking backwards in high heels." At a guess, when she was dealing with these problems, she was probably only 5'4", that being the average height of women back then. But, though it doesn't even things out, there were a lot of fancy, plush rugs and curtains. And, before he died (she did not need him anyway), Sigebert I was a real stud, king of some multicult empire that included both Jews AND pagan Alemanns. And they called her a witch, which maybe means she was also a wise pagan.

    Unfortunately, her great history and accomplishments were effaced by the vile patriarchy (they tore up her rugs and curtains and burned them), so we may never know their full extent. Ditto, Fredegund.

  755. @Thulean Friend
    Thinking of reading this one next.

    https://i.imgur.com/BSxT7vx.jpg

    Anyone read it? I haven't gotten into a decent intellectual history book in quite some time, and always felt the Enlightenment was too narrowly focused on UK and earlier Italy. The author being Anglo also gives distance required to guard against excessive patriotism. The book was released in 2010, which is modern enough to incorporate newer scholarly research without being engulfed in the post-2014 woke madness.

    Replies: @German_reader, @Vishnugupta

    Have read it.

    Good stuff.But then this is the only book on this topic I have ever read so not really in a position to compare with any other.

    The print in the paperback version is a bit too small for my liking so I returned it and bought the Kindle version instead.

    • Replies: @Emil Nikola Richard
    @Vishnugupta

    I have not read it. I have read this one and cross-correlation of contents of the two books might be informing.

    https://www.amazon.com/Jewish-Century-New-Yuri-Slezkine/dp/0691192820

    Replies: @songbird

  756. @Vishnugupta
    @Thulean Friend

    Have read it.

    Good stuff.But then this is the only book on this topic I have ever read so not really in a position to compare with any other.

    The print in the paperback version is a bit too small for my liking so I returned it and bought the Kindle version instead.

    Replies: @Emil Nikola Richard

    I have not read it. I have read this one and cross-correlation of contents of the two books might be informing.

    • Replies: @songbird
    @Emil Nikola Richard

    Another interesting thing to do would be to tally those with biographical movies like Dr. Ehrlich's Magic Bullet

  757. @Mr. Hack
    @Mikhail

    How many of Putler's "little green men" invaded and set-up the anschluss of Crimea? A questionable "plebiscite" within three weeks of a Russian invasion should seem a little bit suspect even to Putler's chief samovar polisher?

    Replies: @Mikhail

    How many of Putler’s “little green men” invaded and set-up the anschluss of Crimea? A questionable “plebiscite” within three weeks of a Russian invasion should seem a little bit suspect even to Putler’s chief samovar polisher?

    You suddenly change the topic as a way of diverting attention away from your wrongness.

    Crimea already had a Russian military presence. Crimea’s reunification with Russia was an appropriate response which came after (not before) the anti-Russian coup in Kiev against a democratically elected president, just after he signed an internationally brokered power sharing agreement.

    It’s crystal clear that well over 2/3 of Crimea’s population (including the majority of ethnic Ukrainians there) support reunifying with Russia. Related:

    https://www.academia.edu/37358188/Michael_Averko_Consistency_and_Reality_Lacking_on_Crimea

    • Replies: @sudden death
    @Mikhail


    ... just after he signed an internationally brokered power sharing agreement.
     
    Which at the time even was refused to be acknowledged as mandatory and not signed by RF itself, which somehow started to making most fuss about it, while not being a supporter or official participator ;)

    Replies: @Mikhail

  758. @Mikhail
    @LatW


    @Mr. Hack

    Putler’s been rattling his sabre for a few months now, and seems to be making all kinds of threatening noises. Maybe his ratings are down, as before when he invaded Crimea?

    His ratings are down, but this is bigger than the ratings. It’s about a long term resolution. There is a lot of talk about a Gleiwitz. In the beginning the “ultimatum” itself almost looked like a Gleiwitz of some sort – as in “Either you accept our proposal, or we’ll be forced to defend ourselves”. And they knew very well that this would be unacceptable. So it’s interesting what they’ll do.

    Some believe that in Washington over the last several months there has been a struggle between the pro-Russian (Sullivan) and anti-Russian (Blinken and Austin) factions. The Blinken faction apparently won. But who knows if this is true.
     
    Sullivan isn't pro-Russian. If anything, Biden and Zelensky have hyped a conflict for the purpose of diverting attention away from the reasons behind their low poll numbers in their respective nation.

    Putin's poll numbers are noticeably higher. Related:

    https://www.eurasiareview.com/09122021-russian-ukraine-coverage-continues-to-lack-insight-oped/

    https://www.strategic-culture.org/news/2021/12/10/russia-ukraine-coverage-continues-to-lack-insight/

    Replies: @Mr. Hack, @LatW

    Sullivan isn’t pro-Russian.

    Sorry, of course, he’s not pro-Russian, they’re all pro-American establishment, but some analysts believe that Sullivan is more inclined towards a compromise with Russia, whereas Blinken is more “neo-con’y” and non-compromising.

    Biden and Zelensky have hyped a conflict for the purpose of diverting attention away from the reasons behind their low poll numbers in their respective nation.

    Er… no, there’s an objective security problem. Yes, Zelensky’s rating is not high at all, but as I said, this isn’t about ratings anymore. Especially for Putin, because there is very little space left for a “small, victorious” endeavor, the next step has to be significant. The next step would not be small at all and there is no 80-100% guarantee it would be victorious.

    Putin’s poll numbers are noticeably higher.

    They are higher than those other leaders’ but they are lower than what they used to be. Pluralism has been developing in Russia for the past few years. Or rather, this pluralism existed already but it is becoming more defined (across the whole political spectrum). Thus the so called zakruchevanya gaek – tightening of screws.

    • Replies: @Mikhail
    @LatW


    Sorry, of course, he’s not pro-Russian, they’re all pro-American establishment, but some analysts believe that Sullivan is more inclined towards a compromise with Russia, whereas Blinken is more “neo-con’y” and non-compromising.
     
    They're not so distant from each other regarding Russia.

    "Biden and Zelensky have hyped a conflict for the purpose of diverting attention away from the reasons behind their low poll numbers in their respective nation."

    Er… no, there’s an objective security problem. Yes, Zelensky’s rating is not high at all, but as I said, this isn’t about ratings anymore. Especially for Putin, because there is very little space left for a “small, victorious” endeavor, the next step has to be significant. The next step would not be small at all and there is no 80-100% guarantee it would be victorious.

     

    I was replying to the suggestion that Putin was hyping a conflict to divert attention away from other problems. He doesn't need to do that like Zelensky and Biden, given that the latter two have the considerably lower poll numbers. I'll add that Biden and Zelensky seek to end the NS 2 pipeline. Russia bashing serves that purpose.

    Putin's poll numbers haven't significantly dwindled, in relation to further polling which show that he's way ahead of the most preferred replacements for him.

  759. Muslim Terrorism in Texas, plus the highly predictable Fake Stream Media cover-up: (1)

    Muslim Hostage Crisis at Synagogue Parallels Hamas-Linked CAIR Campaign for ‘Lady Al Qaeda’

    The Muslim terrorist hostage crisis at a Fort Worth Reform synagogue dedicated to social justice is over. It’s a Texas happy ending with the terrorist dead and the hostages freed.

    And ‘Lady Al Qaeda’ aka Aafia Sddiqui, whom the terrorist wanted set free, is still locked up.

    The media is rushing to spin Muslims as the real victims while hyping Islamophobia.

    There was a reason event involving CAIR and MPower Change, along with Sarsour, pushing for the release of Lady Al Qaeda. This was also the cause that the terrorist had embarked on.

    Considering the nature of the synagogue and its clergy, I expect that they will emerge warning about the threat of Islamophobia, but it’s a reminder that Islamic terrorism is real and that its political and military arms aim at the same ends.

    Everyone serious realizes that major media has been capture by Islam. However, this shoews true chutzpah in action. Their attempt to spin a Muslim terrorist attack intended to free a Jihad war criminal is ludicrous, but they tried it anyway.

    The White House also squirmed to avoid the obvious issue: (2)

    “This was an act of terror. This was an act of terror,” Biden stated upon entering the Philabundance food bank. “I wanted to make sure that we got the word out to synagogues and *other places of worship* that we’re not going to tolerate this.”

    Biden declined to elaborate when pressed by reporters for a motive behind the terror act because he doesn’t “have all the facts” but said he would go into further detail at his press conference on Wednesday.

    Here is a handy translation guide:

    Other places of worship — A diversion from the fact that Jews were the only target.

    Declined to elaborate when pressed for a motive — An attempt to avoid naming Islam as the problem.

    Not-The-President Biden’s regime will not even look at simple steps to protect the American people. For example, listing Iranian funded CAIR as a terrorist front organization.

    PEACE 😇
    __________

    (1) https://www.jihadwatch.org/2022/01/muslim-hostage-crisis-at-synagogue-parallels-hamas-linked-cair-campaign-for-lady-al-qaeda

    (2) https://www.washingtonexaminer.com/politics/biden-texas-synagogue-attack-was-an-act-of-terror

  760. @Thulean Friend
    @LatW


    Also, assuming Covid becomes endemic soon and is controlled, what will happen with the US immigration numbers? Will they be just as big as before given what’s happened recently?
     
    This is the big question. My presumption is the US elite would prefer higher inflows going forward, but this might radicalise the ever-shrinking white voter population. Assuming just 10% of US whites become far-right in a militant sense, that's still a very large number in absolute terms. Small but highly radicalised political minorities can cause huge carnage and instability.

    The US is at a sensitive juncture. It's not as white as to lull the population into complacency but it isn't non-white enough to be able to overwhelm any resistance. It's absolutely in America's interest to ramp up immigration, especially of highly skilled migrants, but increasingly even proles. Yglesias' "One Billion Americans" is not a bad blueprint, but its political feasibility in the coming years is another matter. I think post-2030 and certainly post-2040, these political constraints will ease up considerably.

    Replies: @LatW

    My presumption is the US elite would prefer higher inflows going forward,

    They’ve been assuming that the inflows will always be high. My question was not even about the “racial reckoning” but the bureaucratic capacity to absorb more people as things have become more cumbersome and slow (both for the immigration agencies, IRS, etc). Same thing with overall security and housing issues. Yes, there are peeps that would be ok living in a tent as long as they are physically in the US and allowed to stay (sad, actually) but most immigrants strive for a higher living standard than in their home country and are willing to sacrifice maybe the first year for the hardship but then they want to start living well. It’s more of a question about where a “working wage” can take them. Immigrants such as Ukrainians can pick up and do well very quickly but as I said, how many Ukrainians are left? May not be that many if you look at the perspective of the next 20-50 years.

    Assuming just 10% of US whites become far-right in a militant sense, that’s still a very large number in absolute terms. Small but highly radicalised political minorities can cause huge carnage and instability.

    Those types are very heavily persecuted. However, you are right that altogether the US whites are like one big Euro country and this number of more active ones would be high. The right leaning US whites do not typically have a tendency towards “carnage and instability”, quite the opposite, they’re very inclined towards stability and their behavior is more geared towards defense and separation. Some of them have migrated inland. But in a more radicalized scenario that you describe, they could potentially stall immigration into their separate areas.

    One Billion Americans

    Not to get into a discussion about this topic, but just one quick reason why this may not be a great idea – conservationist efforts. America has fantastic national parks that are well maintained, people will swarm those parks, especially post-Covid many will consider parks over cities. Not to say that more people shouldn’t be allowed access, but it probably isn’t so great for these parks to be stomped out by large masses of people. Btw, when I say “park”, in the US it means a piece of well maintained wilderness with rivers, mountains, etc, not a park in the middle of a city as in Europe.

    • Replies: @Thulean Friend
    @LatW


    My question was not even about the “racial reckoning” but the bureaucratic capacity to absorb more people
     
    I think the main constraint, once this Covid scare passes, is cultural backlash rather than bureaucratic capacity.

    Yes, there are peeps that would be ok living in a tent as long as they are physically in the US and allowed to stay (sad, actually) but most immigrants strive for a higher living standard than in their home country and are willing to sacrifice maybe the first year for the hardship but then they want to start living well.
     
    America still has a comparatively competitive housing market, especially outside the most attractive metros. It's richer than Canada yet it is much cheaper to live there, an unbeatable combination.

    https://i.imgur.com/XkuZm2c.png

    The question comes down to, are you willing to live in a relatively sleepy midwestern city, say, like Kansas City over your own homeland? My presumption is, yes, the vast majority of third worlders and even 2nd worlders would do so given the chance. The problem is that there are high barriers in place to emigrate to the USA. Right-wingers are not correct in their view that it's easy. It's hard, and has gotten harder with Covid.


    Immigrants such as Ukrainians can pick up and do well very quickly but as I said, how many Ukrainians are left? May not be that many if you look at the perspective of the next 20-50 years.
     
    That's an issue for Europe and not for the USA, which can select from a much wider range of people. As I've written about many times, even "low" caste Indians do quite well after the 2nd gen, as we see in Mauritius or Singapore (up until 1990s, most Tamils in Singapore were offspring of middle and lower castes, yet had 90% of Chinese incomes). India could alone provide at least 100 million people, if Americans were willing to live in a country that's one-third Indian. Once again, the main constraint is cultural backlash. My assumption is that most Americans would probably only be ok with 10% of that number, but the point is that the latent potential to ramp up is there. The only constraint is domestic.

    I posted Mexico's poor demographic trajectory in this thread, but the lesson from Eastern Europe is that even countries with low or declining population growth can lose tons of young people for many years. Even in a world of low fertility, the US can strip-mine many - perhaps most - other countries for the entire duration of this century.

    Replies: @sher singh, @songbird

  761. @Mikhail
    @Mr. Hack


    How many of Putler’s “little green men” invaded and set-up the anschluss of Crimea? A questionable “plebiscite” within three weeks of a Russian invasion should seem a little bit suspect even to Putler’s chief samovar polisher?
     
    You suddenly change the topic as a way of diverting attention away from your wrongness.

    Crimea already had a Russian military presence. Crimea's reunification with Russia was an appropriate response which came after (not before) the anti-Russian coup in Kiev against a democratically elected president, just after he signed an internationally brokered power sharing agreement.

    It's crystal clear that well over 2/3 of Crimea's population (including the majority of ethnic Ukrainians there) support reunifying with Russia. Related:

    https://www.academia.edu/37358188/Michael_Averko_Consistency_and_Reality_Lacking_on_Crimea

    Replies: @sudden death

    … just after he signed an internationally brokered power sharing agreement.

    Which at the time even was refused to be acknowledged as mandatory and not signed by RF itself, which somehow started to making most fuss about it, while not being a supporter or official participator 😉

    • Replies: @Mikhail
    @sudden death


    @Mikhail

    … just after he signed an internationally brokered power sharing agreement.

    Which at the time even was refused to be acknowledged as mandatory and not signed by RF itself, which somehow started to making most fuss about it, while not being a supporter or official participator
     

    The RF oversaw it, while not rejecting the agreement. Shortly after the signing, Sikorski lauded the Russian manner on it. Where do you get this "which at the time even was refused to be acknowledged as mandatory... "?

    Replies: @sudden death

  762. @Dmitry
    @LatW


    permanent home for them in Latvia, after all it was one of the industrial – cultural centers of the Russian Empire

     

    There is a small positive for Aven, that he is giving the accessibility of the art to the public. Latvia would be a good place for a museum, as it will be accessible for tourists from postsoviet countries, as well as from EU countries.

    But in general, you can see that Russian art is one of the largest businesses that exists in international art world (London, New York, Paris), because Russia has one of the world's wealthiest upper classes, and they are moving the money out and in of Russia.

    So you can see they have developed Russian Art departments inside the auction companies. Think how much money they are constantly washing for our political class. On the other hand, it's a very civilized thing to be using for moving money, and it is good for the region that its culture is being somehow valued so highly.

    https://www.christies.com/departments/russian-art-46-1.aspx

    https://www.bonhams.com/department/PIC-RUS/russian-paintings-and-works-of-art/


    mock things such as the military, national memory
     
    Well, what about Goya's "Disasters of War".

    I'm sure it's problematic for the authorities who want to beautify war and symbols of power. It could only be released 35 years after he has died, because of its political content.
    https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/The_Disasters_of_War

    But we can judge today if we think it is a truthful or interesting, or not.

    Today, most of us will be more grateful for "Disasters of War", at least in comparison to less realistic propaganda presented about the "beautiful war" by many governments.


    n many cases the female body, etc, etc, with what looks like a hubris or a sense of being able to get away with anything
     
    Picasso's paintings are violent to the female body; this is how he was probably experiencing the female body. It's question whether you think this damages his art or not, will be based in individual emotions - but whether a government should censor or not?

    Generally, if you look today, third and second world countries, are censoring. Nowadays, it seems to correlate with weak countries, with dictatorships, with also weaker levels of creative production. Although there is an old discussion in philosophy, where somewhere so prestigious like Plato's "The Republic", the Socrates character is arguing to censor or ban all music. Music excites the wrong emotions, in view of Plato. There is a strong position from the 2500 years old debate. If Plato was listened to, not just Abba or Beatles, but even Beethoven or Bach should be illegal, like cocaine and heroin today.

    Replies: @LatW, @LatW

    There is a small positive for Aven, that he is giving the accessibility of the art to the public.

    Well, prominent Silver Age art should be accessible to everyone by default. I have only seen one or two of the paintings in his collection, so I’m not even entirely sure what he has there. I know he owns a very exquisite collection of Latvian porcelain and it’s been displayed (beautiful china that was created mostly during the 1920s and 30s, but from factories that were started during the times of the Empire, the ones from the 20s are painted in Art Deco style and some have national romantic illustrations).

    In his favor, I must stay that he has a good taste and an appreciation for classical values. Although when it comes to porcelain, I really like modern designs too. I guess with cups you can do less crazy and awkward stuff than with painting and film, lol.

    Btw, Aven has been awarded for his efforts and has been treated almost like a dignitary. Not because of his wealth but mostly because of these museums, scholarships and a music festival that he’s created. He started a naturalization process, but I don’t now where that went.

    Latvia would be a good place for a museum, as it will be accessible for tourists from postsoviet countries, as well as from EU countries.

    More than that — at least before Covid there were many tourists from China who were very eager to soak up European culture. There are occasional American tourists, too. Riga is big for Art Nouveau so it’d be great to have exhibits of Russian Art Nouveau collectibles there as well.

  763. @Dmitry
    @Mr. Hack


    think that this is commonplace amongst these folks
     
    Yes it's common in Western Europe, not even as cover for growing of weed.

    I think we have been influenced by them in a herdlike way. In 2020, we oftentime saw in the shop, these young students or hipsters buying the potato seeds and gardening pots.

    I have vegetable growing experience from childhood and youth. I also have believed I have ancestral peasant genius in my blood and that plants respond kindly to me.

    But my recent experience is more a sign that I would rapidly starve and die in peasant times.


    her garden and later on even had a few of my own. It’s hard, backbreaking work, no longer suitable for this older “office plankton”
     
    Although really success with the vegetables requires more mental ability and intelligence, than physical difficulties. As mostly you have to wait doing nothing. But all your plans are lost if a bird or squirrel has a different idea.

    Now, I recommend to grow easy things like some wild strawberries in a pot. This is something even idiots will be able to do :)

    Replies: @Emil Nikola Richard, @Philip Owen

    I am sure that as a child in a rural community, I had much more success growing vegetables than I do now. Pests eat my plants now.

  764. @Mr. Hack
    @Dmitry

    Well, a dry sense of humor is only really relevant to the one that understands it.

    Last that I checked Substack, it still hadn't budged much, about three threads starting in October?...Either Karlin is busy with other projects, or he's taking full advantage of his new found freedom to sleep in late and join the ranks of Moscow's hipster elite....

    BTW, AP seems to have met Karlin a few times, and probably still is in touch with him, perhaps he can weigh in on the mysterious Russophilia of the man, and what he's been up to lately?.....

    When all is done and said about Karlin, looking back, I can unequivocally state that he always treated me with respect and deference.

    Replies: @Dmitry, @AP, @Philip Owen

    I met Anatoly in real-life once. I was surprised by how Russian his accent was. At the time he had spent most of his life in the UK and California. I suspect that his parents regretted leaving Russia andmtried hard to retain their identity. Within my own tribe, Welsh, I often see married couples preserving their accent but even amongst Welsh speakers transferrIng accents is remarkable.

    • Replies: @Yevardian
    @Philip Owen

    I saw his video that he uploaded to RT with Peter "Putin, do you know you're the world's most popular leader" Lavelle, yes, very thick Slavic accent, I was surprised, especially considering his written English is so fluent. Do you mean it's rare for those who marry Saxons to even retain their native accent, or the reverse?

    And mandatory question: dach chi'n gallu siarad gymraeg, neu orioed ddysgoch chi y laith gartre?

    Replies: @Philip Owen

  765. Not-The-President Biden is also doing badly with his Manda-Vaxx “Papers Please” extremism: (1)

     

     

    Science Denial is an obvious weak spot for the authoritarian SJW/DNC. This offers huge opportunities for MAGA Populism grounded in Science Realism.

    PEACE 😇
    __________

    (1) https://theconservativetreehouse.com/blog/2022/01/16/sunday-talks-cbs-outlines-collapsed-support-for-biden-regime-but-purposefully-ignore-one-central-component-of-their-own-poll/

  766. @Dmitry
    @LatW


    permanent home for them in Latvia, after all it was one of the industrial – cultural centers of the Russian Empire

     

    There is a small positive for Aven, that he is giving the accessibility of the art to the public. Latvia would be a good place for a museum, as it will be accessible for tourists from postsoviet countries, as well as from EU countries.

    But in general, you can see that Russian art is one of the largest businesses that exists in international art world (London, New York, Paris), because Russia has one of the world's wealthiest upper classes, and they are moving the money out and in of Russia.

    So you can see they have developed Russian Art departments inside the auction companies. Think how much money they are constantly washing for our political class. On the other hand, it's a very civilized thing to be using for moving money, and it is good for the region that its culture is being somehow valued so highly.

    https://www.christies.com/departments/russian-art-46-1.aspx

    https://www.bonhams.com/department/PIC-RUS/russian-paintings-and-works-of-art/


    mock things such as the military, national memory
     
    Well, what about Goya's "Disasters of War".

    I'm sure it's problematic for the authorities who want to beautify war and symbols of power. It could only be released 35 years after he has died, because of its political content.
    https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/The_Disasters_of_War

    But we can judge today if we think it is a truthful or interesting, or not.

    Today, most of us will be more grateful for "Disasters of War", at least in comparison to less realistic propaganda presented about the "beautiful war" by many governments.


    n many cases the female body, etc, etc, with what looks like a hubris or a sense of being able to get away with anything
     
    Picasso's paintings are violent to the female body; this is how he was probably experiencing the female body. It's question whether you think this damages his art or not, will be based in individual emotions - but whether a government should censor or not?

    Generally, if you look today, third and second world countries, are censoring. Nowadays, it seems to correlate with weak countries, with dictatorships, with also weaker levels of creative production. Although there is an old discussion in philosophy, where somewhere so prestigious like Plato's "The Republic", the Socrates character is arguing to censor or ban all music. Music excites the wrong emotions, in view of Plato. There is a strong position from the 2500 years old debate. If Plato was listened to, not just Abba or Beatles, but even Beethoven or Bach should be illegal, like cocaine and heroin today.

    Replies: @LatW, @LatW

    Well, what about Goya’s “Disasters of War”.

    That one’s very different because that one doesn’t mock or display in a soulless manner. That particular series is very disturbing and hard to look at but it’s not questionable from the point of view of ethics – it just displays, it doesn’t make a judgement (or rather, the judgement is subtle). Of course, there is a political history behind it, but you can see that the form itself or the artistic technique is keeping things within bounds. Also, that series is painted late in his life so he himself may have been in pain or overcome by an illness, when one is in physical pain one is more angry and restless (more prone to lashing out).

    It’s a romantic painter from a previous era (that’s the era that I really enjoy, right before the “crazy”). A completely different tradition. Symbolism and romantic art does have its dose of decadence, and, while occasionally intense (such as in Goya’s case), it’s still kept within the bounds of dignity and ethical normalcy (for the lack of a better term).

    [MORE]

    Picasso’s paintings are violent to the female body; this is how he was probably experiencing the female body.

    I can’t judge his internal perceptions, but I’m sure that he experienced the female body the usual way, the way 99% males do, namely through receiving comfort, love and pleasure. Starting from mother to wife and lover (s). Unless something really bad happened to him. That’s why it’s strange that he decided to portray women in not such a flattering way. Although for him, everyone is “cubical” and in disarray, lol, men, animals. He just displays a certain dose of infantilism. And as I said, the woman with the child in Guernica is very well done.

    Btw, do you have any ideas about the bull? I noticed you really liked Spain, so maybe you do have ideas about that. A lot has been written about it and what it symbolizes (in each painting it’s different). Is it related to the abduction of Europa by Zeus? And the minotaur that lives in the South?

    Typically they say the bull is the symbol of Spain, symbol of masculinity, symbol of war in his paintings. From what I know, he has not spoken about what it means. It’d be ridiculous to ask him about that, he is right – “A bull is a bull, a horse is a horse”.

    It’s question whether you think this damages his art or not, will be based in individual emotions – but whether a government should censor or not?

    Whether that “damages his art or not” is really not the most important question here, that’s a question for the subjective viewer. The bigger question is whether that kind of a representation doesn’t open the door to other forms of representation that are, frankly, harmful. That’s really the question. What we do in our private headspace or private studios is one thing, but when you start setting the tone for the public as a whole… the Western society has gone very far in how it’s portrayed the female body and even what is considered acceptable to do to a female body.

    Who should censor it is another issue… government censorship, while some of it could be needed, can be problematic. Ideally, it should be the artist’s own responsibility. You can always do a ton of private sketches and then choose which ones to even continue. But it is also known that artists can have big egos… or simply not be fully aware of the outside society as they live in their own world. So this question remains open… as you can see. The viewers themselves have various degrees of what is or isn’t acceptable… it becomes just a big battle among the viewers with the artist totally oblivious to it, lol. I don’t know some kind of ideas of “common good”… Oh, but wait that’s retrograde and archaic.

    • Replies: @Dmitry
    @LatW


    any ideas about the bull?

     

    Probably there are many books written on this topic.

    From some mid-point of his career, Picasso is inspired very deep by ancient Mediterranean symbols, classical world, and even older art (cave painting) where the bull is a central subject.

    He was influenced by cave painting of his region. E.g. in cave of Altamira in Spain, called the “The Sistine Chapel of the cave art”. These ancient paintings focus mainly on animals, especially bulls and horses (https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=qyIfPbn0RDs.)

    Lascaux cave painting of Southern France was only discovered a short time when Picasso was almost 70 years old, but many of those 17,000 year old painting even look like works of Picasso.

    As kind of stereotypical of Spanish (or Catalan) of his epoch, he was of course obsessed also with a theme of the embrace of death between bulls and matadors. You can see the famous poems of Spanish poet Federico García Lorca on this theme, which reminds of some Picasso paintings.
    https://www.theliteraryreview.org/poetry-2/lament-for-the-death-of-ignacio-sanchez-mejias/

    I guess it sounds a bit too much of the national stereotype
    Picasso was painting these matador scenes in many different styles. But he was painting bulls and horses in many other kind of context for decades. So I guess it has many different meanings across his career.


    namely through receiving comfort, love
     
    You know the style of writing you can read people write on the labels in the art gallery? "Aside from expressing aspirations of spirituality, paintings of female nudes can trigger desires, lust, and jealously - all these themes that European artistic tradition has explored for centuries."

    Conflicted way of perceiving female body, is not specific for Picasso, but part of the art tradition. Although Picasso is famous for being obsessed with this theme and I guess a lot of books are written about it. There are probably dozens of professors, who have a whole career writing about Picasso's difficult relation to women.

    Replies: @LatW, @melanf

    , @Yevardian
    @LatW


    I can’t judge his internal perceptions, but I’m sure that he experienced the female body the usual way, the way 99% males do, namely through receiving comfort, love and pleasure. Starting from mother to wife and lover (s). Unless something really bad happened to him. That’s why it’s strange that he decided to portray women in not such a flattering way. Although for him, everyone is “cubical” and in disarray, lol, men, animals. He just displays a certain dose of infantilism. And as I said, the woman with the child in Guernica is very well done.
     
    It is perhaps a legitimate question, artists, particularly great ones, often have unorthodox tastes and experiences in their private lives. Off the top of my head, Van Gough, Goethe, Gogol, Huysmans, Flaubert and many others had pretty dysfunctional or eccentric lives regarding women.
    I mean, the most infamous example is Picasso's contemporary, Salvador Dali, who if his autobiography is to be believed, enjoyed driving pretty women to insanity whilst proudly sticking only to onanism into his 30's, on meeting his future wife apparently his first impulse was 'to smash in her face' or something or the sort. But I'm just going on Orwell's old review of the book and read many years ago, which is well worth reading in itself.

    https://www.orwellfoundation.com/the-orwell-foundation/orwell/essays-and-other-works/benefit-of-clergy-some-notes-on-salvador-dali/

  767. @Mr. Hack
    @songbird

    Daniel Chieh related to me that he would sometimes use some kind of a meditation device that would help him enter into some kind of a trance state of mind very similar to dreaming where he would have some incredible visions. As far as I can remember right now, I do not need to know that I'm dreaming while I'm dreaming in order to fly. I do, however, have dreams where I am aware at some point that I'm within a dream.


    Once I went for a walk at night in my dream, thinking it would be super cool, but ended up just taking a leisurely stroll to nowhere in particular.
     
    Perhaps, you really did go for a walk? Sleep walking is very real for some individuals. My grandmother used to sleep walk and it usually occurred during the time of a full moon.

    Perhaps, the film "Lost Horizons" did have some influence on my last dream that I mentioned, where the large plane crashed, but not on the one where I successfully commandeered the plane underneath a bridge? :-)


    BTW, have you any thoughts about the people who appear in your dreams? Do you think they are mostly all people whose faces you have seen? Or are they made-up people and you are imagining their faces? (This is a really interesting question to me, as the face is such a complicated thing.) Have you ever read in a dream? (I vaguely think I have, but am unsure.)

     

    I've had both types of encounters within my dreams. Certainly ones where the other actors in my dream are know entities, and therefore I know their faces, and others where the faces are largely unknown to me. The characters that end up displaying different known personalities to me are quite interesting to me. When I review the dream sequence once awake I'm often scratching my head thinking "what the h...?" I once had a dream that I related to AP on this website where he came to visit me in Mpls (I've never seen AP in my life) and we ended up going to a very artsy and ritzy part of town and went into the basement of a large mansion where his father was the curator of a large art gallery. We were looking at a lot of very bizarre and surrealistic types of artwork, not all for sale?.....I dream in both black and white and in color.

    Lastly, your "large robot" dream reminds me of one that I had after watching the film "War of the Worlds" starring Tom Cruise, or was it "Sky Captain and the World of Tomorrow", both really fun movies to watch. :-)

    Replies: @songbird

    My grandmother used to sleep walk and it usually occurred during the time of a full moon.

    This reminds me of one of the most curious dreams I ever had. Ever seen the movie Inception? Well, I had a similar experience…

    Once, when I was camping on a lonely wooded hill in Northern New England, under the light of a full moon, someone, using the power of this moon, entered into my dream from the outside. Someone who, in olden times, was feared by both Indians and colonists (surely some of the toughest, and most hard-nosed peoples who ever lived. ) Someone recognized by both, immortalized in their folklore, as a harbinger of death, a stealer of souls.

    Deep in my dream, I did not hear his light footsteps in the night, his flittering, as he came hunting for nourishment.

    It was a sunny day in my dream, where I was walking from point A to point B outside, on a paved path, across a cultivated park. Fool that I was, I did not realize I was dreaming, alone and helpless in the country. I did not even grow alarmed, when first I detected him.

    I did not even question his strange presence, until I entered into a peak of rationality. And said to myself, “What is a child of the night doing here? Shouldn’t you be hiding now, in the dark shadows, away from the sun?”

    As if hearing my thoughts, he sang a joyous, mocking song. Immediately, I remembered it was a full moon in the real world. And I, as if hit by magic, thought it was wonderful. Now, deep under his spell, I did not bother waking up, for suddenly, it seemed like such a waste of effort. But continued to hear him sing couplet after couplet, and began to appreciate it more and more, knowing full well that my prone body was unprotected in the real world – the night in which he hunted. Exposed to all manner of bloodsucking.

    He was –

    [MORE]
    a whip-poor-will (and the mosquitoes were the bloodsuckers)

    Lastly, your “large robot” dream reminds me of one that I had after watching the film

    If I had to cite a reference, it would be a certain Saturday morning cartoon. But it hit me out of leftfield as I hadn’t seen it in ages, and I believe hadn’t seen a movie with big robots in it. Think it may have been my most effects-laden dream ever – biggest budget. (incidentally, I wonder if these fantastic dreams debunk this idea that we are a simulation, as that would take a lot of unnecessary GPU cycles)

    Also had one where I was fluently speaking some foreign language that I don’t know a word of in real life.

    Perhaps, you really did go for a walk? Sleep walking is very real for some individuals.

    I’ve known one or two, and think that I am not one, for nobody ever told me, and, in contrast to them, I seem generally to be a light sleeper.

    Once, I was sharing a tent with one – obnoxious snorer – and, after a few nights of it, I took his headphones out and put them on his ears and cranked the volume up. And he did not even wake up!

    Used to joke that I am descended from all the men who were awakened by the cave lion trying to sneak past the barrier, or the night raiders trying to slit everyone’s throats. Men who outlived the night attack to have sons.

    • Replies: @Mr. Hack
    @songbird

    So, you woke up in a sweat swatting a large engorged mosquito that had been filling up for the last half hour? :-)

    How many sons were you fortunate enough to sire?...

    Replies: @songbird

  768. @LatW
    @Mikhail


    Sullivan isn’t pro-Russian.
     
    Sorry, of course, he's not pro-Russian, they're all pro-American establishment, but some analysts believe that Sullivan is more inclined towards a compromise with Russia, whereas Blinken is more "neo-con'y" and non-compromising.

    Biden and Zelensky have hyped a conflict for the purpose of diverting attention away from the reasons behind their low poll numbers in their respective nation.
     
    Er... no, there's an objective security problem. Yes, Zelensky's rating is not high at all, but as I said, this isn't about ratings anymore. Especially for Putin, because there is very little space left for a "small, victorious" endeavor, the next step has to be significant. The next step would not be small at all and there is no 80-100% guarantee it would be victorious.

    Putin’s poll numbers are noticeably higher.
     
    They are higher than those other leaders' but they are lower than what they used to be. Pluralism has been developing in Russia for the past few years. Or rather, this pluralism existed already but it is becoming more defined (across the whole political spectrum). Thus the so called zakruchevanya gaek - tightening of screws.

    Replies: @Mikhail

    Sorry, of course, he’s not pro-Russian, they’re all pro-American establishment, but some analysts believe that Sullivan is more inclined towards a compromise with Russia, whereas Blinken is more “neo-con’y” and non-compromising.

    They’re not so distant from each other regarding Russia.

    “Biden and Zelensky have hyped a conflict for the purpose of diverting attention away from the reasons behind their low poll numbers in their respective nation.”

    Er… no, there’s an objective security problem. Yes, Zelensky’s rating is not high at all, but as I said, this isn’t about ratings anymore. Especially for Putin, because there is very little space left for a “small, victorious” endeavor, the next step has to be significant. The next step would not be small at all and there is no 80-100% guarantee it would be victorious.

    I was replying to the suggestion that Putin was hyping a conflict to divert attention away from other problems. He doesn’t need to do that like Zelensky and Biden, given that the latter two have the considerably lower poll numbers. I’ll add that Biden and Zelensky seek to end the NS 2 pipeline. Russia bashing serves that purpose.

    Putin’s poll numbers haven’t significantly dwindled, in relation to further polling which show that he’s way ahead of the most preferred replacements for him.

  769. @LatW
    @Dmitry


    but he was sounding as a “literature connoisseur”. I.e. reading all kinds of obscure 20th century, books that no normal people read.

    It’s not just reading of Russian classics or normal books.
     

    Could it be that he was reading all those Russian sci-fi books? Such as the Strugatsky brothers. I haven't read those but Bashi and AnonTN where discussing them. And Oleksiy Arestovych recently had a long blog discussion about them. I didn't listen to it (I'm only interested in his geopolitical and military related rants). But it seems that this is something that 40+ Russian dudes really like. Those are not Russian classics, but sci fi pop literature it seems. One of my friends way back in the early 2000s was reading all these Russian fantasy books, he typically would read books such as Silmarillion, but then he really got into Nik Perumov (he just read and read him for days).

    No, he doesn't look 70-75, he looks somewhere around his 60s. You're just too young to see those nuances. :)

    Replies: @songbird

    he typically would read books such as Silmarillion

    Would cause someone to drop the habit, rather than pick it up.

    • Replies: @LatW
    @songbird



    Silmarillion
     
    Would cause someone to drop the habit, rather than pick it up.
     
    Yea, I've heard someone say "I barely got through it, but I recommend". LOL
    I don't really care which elven king did what, but the language is really beautiful.

    Replies: @songbird

  770. @sudden death
    @Mikhail


    ... just after he signed an internationally brokered power sharing agreement.
     
    Which at the time even was refused to be acknowledged as mandatory and not signed by RF itself, which somehow started to making most fuss about it, while not being a supporter or official participator ;)

    Replies: @Mikhail

    … just after he signed an internationally brokered power sharing agreement.

    Which at the time even was refused to be acknowledged as mandatory and not signed by RF itself, which somehow started to making most fuss about it, while not being a supporter or official participator

    The RF oversaw it, while not rejecting the agreement. Shortly after the signing, Sikorski lauded the Russian manner on it. Where do you get this “which at the time even was refused to be acknowledged as mandatory… “?

    • Replies: @sudden death
    @Mikhail


    Where do you get this “which at the time even was refused to be acknowledged as mandatory… “?
     
    https://zn.ua/img/forall/u/0/-1/users/Feb2014/84317.jpg

    RF was the only side that officially refused to sign the agreement, and their own official envoy for that deal said quite clearly "...we decided we do not need to tie ourselves with formal agreements, mandatory signings..."

    Вот как конкретизировал мотивы неподписания Владимир Лукин. "Мы его не подписали. Мы решили, что не надо себя связывать какими-то формальными соглашениями, обязательствами и подписями, потому что были вопросы и проблемы, с каким субъектом переговоров мы будем иметь дело в ближайшее время, как будут развиваться события, кто будет отвечать за те решения, которые принимались, и кто за что отвечает вообще", - сказал российский омбудсмен.
     
    https://www.1tv.ru/news/2014-02-21/52462-vladimir_lukin_ne_podpisal_soglashenie_mezhdu_vlastyu_i_oppozitsiey_na_ukraine

    Replies: @Mikhail

  771. @German_reader
    @Thulean Friend

    German Genius sounds like an oxymoron to me. But please read it and post a review here. I'm currently reading that strange book by Ariel Toaff about ritual murders and intend to post my impressions of it here, as I promised last year. The occasional book review wouldn't hurt this comments section.

    Replies: @songbird

    Recently, came across a woke revisionist history of Brunhild and Fredegund. Didn’t have the time or inclination to spend more than a minute or two flipping through it. But it was amusing in a low sort of way.

    Apparently, Brunhild faced quite a challenge from medieval misogynists, something akin to “walking backwards in high heels.” At a guess, when she was dealing with these problems, she was probably only 5’4″, that being the average height of women back then. But, though it doesn’t even things out, there were a lot of fancy, plush rugs and curtains. And, before he died (she did not need him anyway), Sigebert I was a real stud, king of some multicult empire that included both Jews AND pagan Alemanns. And they called her a witch, which maybe means she was also a wise pagan.

    Unfortunately, her great history and accomplishments were effaced by the vile patriarchy (they tore up her rugs and curtains and burned them), so we may never know their full extent. Ditto, Fredegund.

  772. @Mikhail
    @Mr. Hack


    And Putler amassing 100,000 or more troops close to Ukraine’s border and recent telephone conversations regarding Ukraine between Biden/Putler and Biden/Zelensky were custom made props for Biden’s and Zelensky’s benefits to prop up their popularity? You’ve got quite the imagination Mickey, and it always seems to work in favor of whitewashing Putler’s motives and actions?…
     
    Since 2014, the Russian troop deployment along the Ukrainian border has been quoted in the 90,000 range and up. Hence, Biden and the Kiev regime are over-hyping. BTW, it's not like the Kiev regime doesn't have a considerable number of troops on the Russian border.

    Last spring, the Kiev regime increased its deployment near Donbass, before the much hyped Russian increase thereafter. An increase which went down in accordance with periodic training drills. Related:

    https://www.strategic-culture.org/news/2021/07/18/getting-putin-intentions-wrong-again-on-russia-ukraine/

    As has been noted at this thread, 100,000 isn't enough for a full scale invasion.

    Replies: @Mr. Hack, @Chairman Meow

    Okraina like usual is overhyping Russian intention in order to gain siginficance on the international stage (as everyone was losing interest in Okraina).

    Russia won’t invade Okraina, its too late to do so as the situation is no longer favorable for an invasion and military actions depend on timing as much as anything else. Putin got too scared and backed down in 2014, now he’s lost the opportunity for ever

  773. @Thulean Friend
    America is a fascinating country. You have scenes ripped straight out of the 3rd world co-existing with splendor that is almost unimaingable elsewhere.

    https://twitter.com/johnschreiber/status/1481770722271760384

    "There is great ruin within a nation" - Smith.

    ---

    Croatia Loses Nearly 10% of People in Past Decade - Census

    After Bulgaria's shocker last week, it's time for Croatia. Both countries are now running ahead of their already pessimistic population projections.

    Meanwhile, Germany's workforce is falling 300K workers a year due to poor demographics and it's set to get worse. Germany has been strip-mining Eastern Europe but these countries cannot provide labour forever due to rapidly shrinking populations.

    Sooner or later, Germany will have to massively open up to non-European labour and the government is rightly moving in this direction. Germany is rich and prosperous enough to be attractive for even decent middle-income countries. For countries like Bulgaria, Romania or Croatia, it's much less rosy. Their picks will be constrained to the lowest tiers of SSA/MENA and possibly Central Asia.

    One thing is for sure, Eastern Europe will have to make up its mind about labour migration sooner rather than later, or else most of it will end up with worse demographics than Japan (gypsies) but with 1/4th the income.

    Replies: @sudden death, @A123, @Chairman Meow

    rightly moving in this direction.

    Lol mass immigration is not the right direction.

    The solution is pro-natalist propaganda, banning of instagram/youtube and forcing national television to promote large families. This will stimulate young women to be more interested in having kids.

    Also, introduce more socialist policies and provide free housing/food/childcare needs to couples with more than two kids preferably while dismantling both capitalism and democracy, only then can they solve the demographic crises.

  774. @LatW

    Their picks will be constrained to the lowest tiers of SSA/MENA and possibly Central Asia.
     
    If these lower income EU states don't create generous welfare systems (most likely not very soon), then they will be importing only those who do actually work (bring value). This will be driven purely by business needs, not "humanitarian" assumptions or ideology. AFAIK, a large percentage of the SSA / MENA populations in richer countries are not actually employed. You can cross those out for lower income EU states as the infrastructure to support those non-working aliens simply will not be there. This will most likely not be the way it's been in the Nordic countries and the UK where you are more lenient about entry. It will most likely take the form of some kind of a contracting for various industries that lack workforce.

    They could try living off of their relatives, but it will be harder than in wealthier countries. Things such as housing and food are getting more expensive even in the EE. As to Central Asia, it seems that their work ethic is much better than the SSA/MENA (although not entirely sure, Russians would know better about this, I'm wondering about the quality of construction with Central Asians, don't want to make any negative & condescending presumptions, maybe with the right management it might be ok but who knows).

    Also, remember that not all the lower income states have fully opened up to East Slavic labor. I don't know about countries in southern Europe, but, for instance, Estonia has kept the quotas for imported labor rather limited. They fill up very quickly. If the government chose to increase the quotas, it could possibly source some more people from the East Slavic countries. But, in general, yea, you're run, soon we'll be running out of Ukrainians...

    Of course, this is small consolation and none of this matters in the big picture as the problem is real and even small numbers are not that great. What is even more problematic for these states is the ability to source high level professionals (as you have noted before).

    And you mentioned something very important in one of your posts above: it's a truly raw deal to have to accept the woke values of the West without having not only the wealth, but the humane values and the social support infrastructures that the Western societies have (that they had been building for 50 years or more). This is a danger for the EE and should be spelled out as a caution in every office of the government.

    In the US, the older generation retired very quickly after 2020. Many reconsidered priorities (The Great Resignation), interesting phrases such as "re-evaluating the need for work in one's life" are popping up. :) Moms are staying at home out of necessity and something like one million lower skilled immigrants are missing (not missing in literal sense, just haven't arrived as in previous years). So altogether, something like 2-3 million could be missing from the labor force. Also, assuming Covid becomes endemic soon and is controlled, what will happen with the US immigration numbers? Will they be just as big as before given what's happened recently?

    As to the scene with the train in the US, this is relatively new and it follows the crisis of 2020 and the "woke" revolution. It's a tragedy, of course, any place on this planet that's decent that goes to sh*t is a loss.

    Replies: @LatW, @Yellowface Anon, @Thulean Friend, @Chairman Meow, @Dmitry

    Welfare doesn’t work. The better solution is “welfare jobs” this pushes the unproductive elements of society into the workforce so they can make a government mandated and monitored living wage while at the same time having self respect and contributing to society. This will help curb immigration as well, as new immigrants don’t want to go to places without alot of free money.

  775. Someone call up the diplomatic corps of the Vatican and find out what the official word that they use for Germany is.

    Be wary! As many there speak Italian or know Latin, and we want the official term they use in documents.

  776. @Emil Nikola Richard
    @Vishnugupta

    I have not read it. I have read this one and cross-correlation of contents of the two books might be informing.

    https://www.amazon.com/Jewish-Century-New-Yuri-Slezkine/dp/0691192820

    Replies: @songbird

    Another interesting thing to do would be to tally those with biographical movies like Dr. Ehrlich’s Magic Bullet

  777. @AP
    @melanf


    Soviet-era physicians were not only far more competent than modern ones

    There is absolutely no evidence for this claim
     
    The well read Soviet physicians who moved out of the USSR right after the USSR collapsed got great careers in the USA and Israel and other places where they moved to. They compare very well to their Western peers. Generally speaking they are more skilled. Recent graduates in Russia do not have such a great reputation on the other hand when they move West. Several of my in-laws are professors at medical institutes on Moscow, one is member of the Academy of Sciences; they complain how much lower the quality is with each year and are sad for the country. Many of their colleagues left, in-laws didn't out of patriotism but that was rare. Who wanted to make $200 per month in the 90s when they could live very well in the West? Or simply change fields. I know a brilliant young specialist in Moscow who in the 90s got into selling high end electronic equipment to oligarchs, he is very wealthy now but his skills are lost to his field. But the people whose second homes in Switzerland have perfect acoustics thanks to his work there appreciate his high degree of intelligence and craft. It is true of most of Russian higher education, though there are exceptions (Mekhmat where my nephew studies, and Phystek are still very good). The brain drain was significant, not many were left to teach the next generation. Educational "reforms" further degraded the quality of the students. There was a lot of corruption with the arrival of Armenians and others. The decline has been remarkable. So yes, Soviet physicians read literature and also understood biology better than do modern Russian physicians (recent graduates). There are still some good young physicians, but I would be careful about seeing a Russian physician under a certain age.

    Such reforms are good for the purpose of producing a less educated, more narrowly focused generation who can be more compliant and manipulated. Americanization.

    USSR was disgusting in many ways but it did at least produce some people who could appreciate many things. So people who moved to the West in the early 90s have equaled their Western-educated colleagues professionally but at the same time complain they they can't discuss literature or share in classical music or whatever with their Western peers.

    but also much better read

    Is that why there are many anti-vaxxers among them?
     
    Anti-vaxxing is a function of paranoia and lack of trust in authorities, not education. Soviets learned not to trust authorities. So did blacks in America, and poor American whites. All three groups tend to be anti-vaxxers. But actually none of the older physicians I know in Russia are anti-vaxxers, they have all been vaccinated.

    So in addition to studying biology and physics on a higher level, they also read Tolstoy

    Not in addition, but instead
     
    You are saying Russian science students or medical students (with some exceptions) today are better educated in physics or biology than, say, in 1985? LOL.

    Replies: @Dmitry, @Chairman Meow

    USSR was disgusting in many ways

    Not really. Modern America does much worse things as did the other nations of the time. You just dont hear much about it and instead get memes about how ‘bad’ the USSR was

    The claim of USSR being ‘disgusting’ is a strawman claim made by uneducated bufoons who bought into western anti-communist propaganda imo

    but it did at least produce some people who could appreciate many things.

    This was the case with basically all of Soviet science and industry. It was pretty great in general, unlike modern capitalist RF which can’t produce much of anything.

    The problem with education is capitalism, like with everything capitalism tends to degrade the quality of products over time as it consolidates in society and industry. In America we see this with education, the video game industry and the poor state of medicine (as a few examples). In Russia/Ukraine this is evident in just about every field, as capitalism has not led to any signficant innovation, but rather degradation of existing industry/science/education/arts in order to maximize short term profits and has resulted in the turn of Russia into a giant gas station with an economy smaller than Texas and Ukraine into exporting prostitutes and surrogates.

    In both countries, the capitalist oligarch class is not interested in developing well rounded individuals and would rather generate consumers while relying on the export of raw resources to first world western countries (in the case of Russia). If I recall correctly, there was some education “reform” conducted in 2004 that said something along the lines of Russia not needing a well educated class but rather that it needs “consumers” and so the education system was based around this concept.

    Both Russia and Ukraine are cargo cults of America and try to imitate America in everything (from the education system to political system to culture). Neither government is interested in halting this process leading to a loss of identity for both these countries eventually.

    • Replies: @LondonBob
    @Chairman Meow

    https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=KzyKaudzf90

    , @AP
    @Chairman Meow


    USSR was disgusting in many ways

    Not really.
     
    Yes really. It sold out beauty and tradition in exchange for material prosperity and progress but ended up being squalid and poor relative to the capitalist peers who also sold out beauty and tradition but at least in exchange provided the greatest prosperity in human history. And in addition to this failure, the USSR provided a strong dose of mass murder.

    They did make nice children's cartoons, subway systems, and a literate and educated population (who lived in material conditions similar to those of dirt poor American blacks).

    like with everything capitalism tends to degrade the quality of products over time as it consolidates in society and industry
     
    Like a Ford or Toyota versus a Zhiguli? LOL.

    Replies: @Dmitry, @Chairman Meow

  778. Maybe, Chinese nationalists should be hoping for a low TFR. Because being global bottom in an authoritarian state with high human capital ought to elicit a strong pro-natalist response.

    • Replies: @Yellowface Anon
    @songbird

    You are contradicting yourself.

    Replies: @songbird

  779. @LatW
    @Dmitry


    Well, what about Goya’s “Disasters of War”.
     
    That one's very different because that one doesn't mock or display in a soulless manner. That particular series is very disturbing and hard to look at but it's not questionable from the point of view of ethics - it just displays, it doesn't make a judgement (or rather, the judgement is subtle). Of course, there is a political history behind it, but you can see that the form itself or the artistic technique is keeping things within bounds. Also, that series is painted late in his life so he himself may have been in pain or overcome by an illness, when one is in physical pain one is more angry and restless (more prone to lashing out).

    It's a romantic painter from a previous era (that's the era that I really enjoy, right before the "crazy"). A completely different tradition. Symbolism and romantic art does have its dose of decadence, and, while occasionally intense (such as in Goya's case), it's still kept within the bounds of dignity and ethical normalcy (for the lack of a better term).


    Picasso’s paintings are violent to the female body; this is how he was probably experiencing the female body.
     
    I can't judge his internal perceptions, but I'm sure that he experienced the female body the usual way, the way 99% males do, namely through receiving comfort, love and pleasure. Starting from mother to wife and lover (s). Unless something really bad happened to him. That's why it's strange that he decided to portray women in not such a flattering way. Although for him, everyone is "cubical" and in disarray, lol, men, animals. He just displays a certain dose of infantilism. And as I said, the woman with the child in Guernica is very well done.

    Btw, do you have any ideas about the bull? I noticed you really liked Spain, so maybe you do have ideas about that. A lot has been written about it and what it symbolizes (in each painting it's different). Is it related to the abduction of Europa by Zeus? And the minotaur that lives in the South?

    Typically they say the bull is the symbol of Spain, symbol of masculinity, symbol of war in his paintings. From what I know, he has not spoken about what it means. It'd be ridiculous to ask him about that, he is right - "A bull is a bull, a horse is a horse".

    It’s question whether you think this damages his art or not, will be based in individual emotions – but whether a government should censor or not?
     
    Whether that "damages his art or not" is really not the most important question here, that's a question for the subjective viewer. The bigger question is whether that kind of a representation doesn't open the door to other forms of representation that are, frankly, harmful. That's really the question. What we do in our private headspace or private studios is one thing, but when you start setting the tone for the public as a whole... the Western society has gone very far in how it's portrayed the female body and even what is considered acceptable to do to a female body.

    Who should censor it is another issue... government censorship, while some of it could be needed, can be problematic. Ideally, it should be the artist's own responsibility. You can always do a ton of private sketches and then choose which ones to even continue. But it is also known that artists can have big egos... or simply not be fully aware of the outside society as they live in their own world. So this question remains open... as you can see. The viewers themselves have various degrees of what is or isn't acceptable... it becomes just a big battle among the viewers with the artist totally oblivious to it, lol. I don't know some kind of ideas of "common good"... Oh, but wait that's retrograde and archaic.

    Replies: @Dmitry, @Yevardian

    any ideas about the bull?

    Probably there are many books written on this topic.

    From some mid-point of his career, Picasso is inspired very deep by ancient Mediterranean symbols, classical world, and even older art (cave painting) where the bull is a central subject.

    He was influenced by cave painting of his region. E.g. in cave of Altamira in Spain, called the “The Sistine Chapel of the cave art”. These ancient paintings focus mainly on animals, especially bulls and horses (https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=qyIfPbn0RDs.)

    Lascaux cave painting of Southern France was only discovered a short time when Picasso was almost 70 years old, but many of those 17,000 year old painting even look like works of Picasso.

    As kind of stereotypical of Spanish (or Catalan) of his epoch, he was of course obsessed also with a theme of the embrace of death between bulls and matadors. You can see the famous poems of Spanish poet Federico García Lorca on this theme, which reminds of some Picasso paintings.
    https://www.theliteraryreview.org/poetry-2/lament-for-the-death-of-ignacio-sanchez-mejias/

    I guess it sounds a bit too much of the national stereotype
    Picasso was painting these matador scenes in many different styles. But he was painting bulls and horses in many other kind of context for decades. So I guess it has many different meanings across his career.

    namely through receiving comfort, love

    You know the style of writing you can read people write on the labels in the art gallery? “Aside from expressing aspirations of spirituality, paintings of female nudes can trigger desires, lust, and jealously – all these themes that European artistic tradition has explored for centuries.”

    Conflicted way of perceiving female body, is not specific for Picasso, but part of the art tradition. Although Picasso is famous for being obsessed with this theme and I guess a lot of books are written about it. There are probably dozens of professors, who have a whole career writing about Picasso’s difficult relation to women.

    • Replies: @LatW
    @Dmitry


    Picasso is inspired very deep by ancient Mediterranean symbols
     
    I was under the impression that there was some connection with the myth of Ariadne and Theseus.

    Conflicted way of perceiving female body, is not specific for Picasso
     
    Of course, and he's not even the worst. To be fair, some of the paintings are actually quite female friendly - for instance, "The Girl before the Mirror", "Sleeping Girl" is quite lovely. The painting of the women in a brothel with tribal masks would be considered positive from the feminist perspective.
    , @melanf
    @Dmitry


    Probably there are many books written on this topic.
     
    Art should reach the viewer's heart by itself and not through books. To draw bulls and horses (as an artist), you need to have something that Pixasso did not have - the talent of an artist. Scandals, radical leftist views, etc. cannot replace talent

    https://2.bp.blogspot.com/-gWrBAVsRBBo/Uv_ZKpT_d2I/AAAAAAAAHTo/vnW8XxN2jnA/s1600/Fig.-4-Rider.jpg

    https://upload.wikimedia.org/wikipedia/commons/thumb/4/41/Europe_serov.jpg/1200px-Europe_serov.jpg

    Replies: @songbird, @Thulean Friend

  780. @LatW

    Their picks will be constrained to the lowest tiers of SSA/MENA and possibly Central Asia.
     
    If these lower income EU states don't create generous welfare systems (most likely not very soon), then they will be importing only those who do actually work (bring value). This will be driven purely by business needs, not "humanitarian" assumptions or ideology. AFAIK, a large percentage of the SSA / MENA populations in richer countries are not actually employed. You can cross those out for lower income EU states as the infrastructure to support those non-working aliens simply will not be there. This will most likely not be the way it's been in the Nordic countries and the UK where you are more lenient about entry. It will most likely take the form of some kind of a contracting for various industries that lack workforce.

    They could try living off of their relatives, but it will be harder than in wealthier countries. Things such as housing and food are getting more expensive even in the EE. As to Central Asia, it seems that their work ethic is much better than the SSA/MENA (although not entirely sure, Russians would know better about this, I'm wondering about the quality of construction with Central Asians, don't want to make any negative & condescending presumptions, maybe with the right management it might be ok but who knows).

    Also, remember that not all the lower income states have fully opened up to East Slavic labor. I don't know about countries in southern Europe, but, for instance, Estonia has kept the quotas for imported labor rather limited. They fill up very quickly. If the government chose to increase the quotas, it could possibly source some more people from the East Slavic countries. But, in general, yea, you're run, soon we'll be running out of Ukrainians...

    Of course, this is small consolation and none of this matters in the big picture as the problem is real and even small numbers are not that great. What is even more problematic for these states is the ability to source high level professionals (as you have noted before).

    And you mentioned something very important in one of your posts above: it's a truly raw deal to have to accept the woke values of the West without having not only the wealth, but the humane values and the social support infrastructures that the Western societies have (that they had been building for 50 years or more). This is a danger for the EE and should be spelled out as a caution in every office of the government.

    In the US, the older generation retired very quickly after 2020. Many reconsidered priorities (The Great Resignation), interesting phrases such as "re-evaluating the need for work in one's life" are popping up. :) Moms are staying at home out of necessity and something like one million lower skilled immigrants are missing (not missing in literal sense, just haven't arrived as in previous years). So altogether, something like 2-3 million could be missing from the labor force. Also, assuming Covid becomes endemic soon and is controlled, what will happen with the US immigration numbers? Will they be just as big as before given what's happened recently?

    As to the scene with the train in the US, this is relatively new and it follows the crisis of 2020 and the "woke" revolution. It's a tragedy, of course, any place on this planet that's decent that goes to sh*t is a loss.

    Replies: @LatW, @Yellowface Anon, @Thulean Friend, @Chairman Meow, @Dmitry

    quality of construction with Central Asians

    As you know, the answer to this question, and also that it is not because of the nationality of the workers (Central Asian workers who produce President Tokaev’s house, probably are building it as carefully as a Swiss watch), except as a symptom . These workers are hired to reduce labor cost. The idea is to produce cheaply.

    It seems predictable what the results will be, when you build low cost, mass housing, in a not too well regulated context.

    , don’t want to make any negative & condescending presumptions, maybe with the right management it might be ok but who knows).

    Not so much local management, but lower regulation and law at the government level, in context of a low income country.

    So, people can complain online about their local context, where e.g. powerful Armenian developers build inhuman housing in Krasnodar. But (even not knowing Krasnodar personally), we all know it is not true that non-Armenian developers are producing well in another city.

    It’s not the nationality of developers or builders that causes this situation. It is a predictable result of the lack of regulation combined in the government, combining with low income of the buyers. Results in cheap materials, lack of infrastructure. This is “cowboy capitalism” in a low income country. On the other hand, there is affordable (although still slightly expensive relative to income) housing supply in Russia, which is a better situation than in many countries.

    It’s like “there’s no free lunch”. They build low quality housing, in unregulated, cowboy capitalist ways, but the result is at least a large supply of this housing, at the price median income people can pay.

    • Replies: @A123
    @Dmitry

    China is routinely beset by low quality construction. To prevent additional unstable skyscrapers, New code is being rolled out (1)


    Last year, China banned skycrapers of more than 500 meters high, and put considerable restrictions on those more than 250 meters high.

    Now comes word that they’re banning buildings over 150 meters high as well.

    Larger cities will be limited to 250 metres — less than half the height of China’s tallest buildings.

    Now, special exemptions may still be given if a small city really needs a new skyscraper, but they absolutely, definitely cannot go above 250-metres.

    Likewise, a bigger city could go higher than that if it has a convincing case, but if it wants to go over 500-metres then forget it. No more Shanghai Towers or Ping An Finance Centers — and that’s final.

    There are even new rules to follow past the 100-metre mark. To go higher than that a building will need to meet certain seismic performance and fire safety requirements.
     
    Which sort of suggests that they didn’t have seismic performance and fire safety requirements before. Or maybe not adequate requirements.
     
    It appears that "state capitalism" is even shoddier than "cowboy capitalism".

    PEACE 😇
    __________

    (1) https://www.battleswarmblog.com/?p=50270
  781. @Yevardian

    The well read Soviet physicians who moved out of the USSR right after the USSR collapsed got great careers in the USA and Israel and other places where they moved to. They compare very well to their Western peers. Generally speaking they are more skilled.
     
    Well of course, you can see the same phenomena in virtually every professional field since the collapse of Communism, across all of Eastern Europe. I would say it's almost universally conceded, even by its contemporary critics, that one thing the Communist regimes did effectively was education. And unlike in the West (until recently, perhaps) the propoganda integrated into that education was jarringly obvious as propoganda, it was completely uneffective, except insofar as people might be grateful for the system having provided such a high-quality and well-rounded education.

    You still see it all the time, amongst older and middle-aged people, whose personalities generally don't dispose them to high culture, being able to discuss them with pleasure, or at least knowing and respecting the difference between real art and trash.


    Many of their colleagues left, in-laws didn’t out of patriotism but that was rare. Who wanted to make $200 per month in the 90s when they could live very well in the West? Or simply change fields. I know a brilliant young specialist in Moscow who in the 90s got into selling high end electronic equipment to oligarchs, he is very wealthy now but his skills are lost to his field.
     
    Yeah, I recall a friend of mine having a friend continuing to work as a doctor around Sochi, repeatedly urging him to emigrate, good-naturedly calling him 'an idealistic idiot', because he refused to leave his Russian practice to earn easily triple his salary aborad. But such people are always in the minority.

    @melanf


    So in addition to studying biology and physics on a higher level, they also read Tolstoy

    Not in addition, but instead

     

    Oh come on, this is an idiotic strawman, you surely know this. Everybody has at least some leisuretime, and how people choose to practice this period tells a huge amount about them and how they were raised.
    This sort of utilitarian hyper-specialisation is how you get heart surgeons whose personal interests scarely expand beyond "Rick & Morty", narcissistic culture of instagram 'influencers', Harry Potter and Marvel movies. But it has real-world effects too, as our Benevolent Overlord has discussed, tech-moguls who rise to great wealth and power in their field are usually totally naive and impressionable about real world politics. Or look at trashy lives of 'New Russians' Dmitri regularly posts, it's now practically as bad as the West, what sort of role models are these for society?

    Culture is just as important as technology for sustaining any civilisation in the longterm. It seems China has belatedly started to recognise this, although I don't follow Asia at all closely and couldn't say that's more than vague impressions (I think anime, or rather its European fanbase, permanently turned me off Asia, lol).

    Replies: @Dmitry

    heart surgeons whose personal interests

    Do you want your cardiologist, to be reading too much about Cicero and Aristotle, when they should be fixing your heart?

    I’m not sure. I feel like I prefer if they specialize their concentration and were passionately only about scientific texts.

    Because the reason I like to not work as a cardiologist, is that I can waste a lot of time, aside from some few hours of concentration. I know I am a lazy office cattle, without responsibility for peoples’ hearts. And this is partly why I can waste time in the bookshop.

    On the other hand, I wonder sometimes if there is a problem on the mass level, when we live in a society where there is beginning to be insufficient study of high quality texts, by the more serious writers like Aristotle, Plato, Shakespeare, Kant, etc.

    Perhaps young people who do not feed themselves with more complex, multi-level texts, are not learning to assess different points of view. They are not developing critical functions?

    I was shocked to see some very gullible people in this forum, who seem to read blog posts on this website, and to believe them, as if they were factual texts – rather than comic entertainment. It’s always seemed obvious to me that all these internet blog texts are is a kind of trash comedy material

    I just wonder if this is because some people have not read high quality texts in their life. So now when they read these low quality, comedy texts by propagandists in the internet, they don’t have a disclaimer “this is low quality junk food”.

    Who knows though? I would like that the population was given diet with more ambiguous, complex texts like Shakespeare and Goethe. I’m not sure I promise too much practical benefits for our cardiologists, etc.

  782. @songbird
    @LatW


    he typically would read books such as Silmarillion
     
    Would cause someone to drop the habit, rather than pick it up.

    Replies: @LatW

    Silmarillion

    Would cause someone to drop the habit, rather than pick it up.

    Yea, I’ve heard someone say “I barely got through it, but I recommend”. LOL
    I don’t really care which elven king did what, but the language is really beautiful.

    • Replies: @songbird
    @LatW

    Heard someone say that there is no 20th century romantic prose poet equal to GK Chesterton, as shown by The Ballad of the White Horse.

    Cannot verify myself.

    Once read a particular Father Brown story and thought, "Wow, this is great!" Read same one years later, again, and thought "Wow, this is awful!" Maybe, it was about expectations?

  783. @LatW
    @Thulean Friend


    My presumption is the US elite would prefer higher inflows going forward,
     
    They've been assuming that the inflows will always be high. My question was not even about the "racial reckoning" but the bureaucratic capacity to absorb more people as things have become more cumbersome and slow (both for the immigration agencies, IRS, etc). Same thing with overall security and housing issues. Yes, there are peeps that would be ok living in a tent as long as they are physically in the US and allowed to stay (sad, actually) but most immigrants strive for a higher living standard than in their home country and are willing to sacrifice maybe the first year for the hardship but then they want to start living well. It's more of a question about where a "working wage" can take them. Immigrants such as Ukrainians can pick up and do well very quickly but as I said, how many Ukrainians are left? May not be that many if you look at the perspective of the next 20-50 years.

    Assuming just 10% of US whites become far-right in a militant sense, that’s still a very large number in absolute terms. Small but highly radicalised political minorities can cause huge carnage and instability.
     

    Those types are very heavily persecuted. However, you are right that altogether the US whites are like one big Euro country and this number of more active ones would be high. The right leaning US whites do not typically have a tendency towards "carnage and instability", quite the opposite, they're very inclined towards stability and their behavior is more geared towards defense and separation. Some of them have migrated inland. But in a more radicalized scenario that you describe, they could potentially stall immigration into their separate areas.

    One Billion Americans
     
    Not to get into a discussion about this topic, but just one quick reason why this may not be a great idea - conservationist efforts. America has fantastic national parks that are well maintained, people will swarm those parks, especially post-Covid many will consider parks over cities. Not to say that more people shouldn't be allowed access, but it probably isn't so great for these parks to be stomped out by large masses of people. Btw, when I say "park", in the US it means a piece of well maintained wilderness with rivers, mountains, etc, not a park in the middle of a city as in Europe.

    Replies: @Thulean Friend

    My question was not even about the “racial reckoning” but the bureaucratic capacity to absorb more people

    I think the main constraint, once this Covid scare passes, is cultural backlash rather than bureaucratic capacity.

    Yes, there are peeps that would be ok living in a tent as long as they are physically in the US and allowed to stay (sad, actually) but most immigrants strive for a higher living standard than in their home country and are willing to sacrifice maybe the first year for the hardship but then they want to start living well.

    America still has a comparatively competitive housing market, especially outside the most attractive metros. It’s richer than Canada yet it is much cheaper to live there, an unbeatable combination.

    The question comes down to, are you willing to live in a relatively sleepy midwestern city, say, like Kansas City over your own homeland? My presumption is, yes, the vast majority of third worlders and even 2nd worlders would do so given the chance. The problem is that there are high barriers in place to emigrate to the USA. Right-wingers are not correct in their view that it’s easy. It’s hard, and has gotten harder with Covid.

    Immigrants such as Ukrainians can pick up and do well very quickly but as I said, how many Ukrainians are left? May not be that many if you look at the perspective of the next 20-50 years.

    That’s an issue for Europe and not for the USA, which can select from a much wider range of people. As I’ve written about many times, even “low” caste Indians do quite well after the 2nd gen, as we see in Mauritius or Singapore (up until 1990s, most Tamils in Singapore were offspring of middle and lower castes, yet had 90% of Chinese incomes). India could alone provide at least 100 million people, if Americans were willing to live in a country that’s one-third Indian. Once again, the main constraint is cultural backlash. My assumption is that most Americans would probably only be ok with 10% of that number, but the point is that the latent potential to ramp up is there. The only constraint is domestic.

    I posted Mexico’s poor demographic trajectory in this thread, but the lesson from Eastern Europe is that even countries with low or declining population growth can lose tons of young people for many years. Even in a world of low fertility, the US can strip-mine many – perhaps most – other countries for the entire duration of this century.

    • Replies: @sher singh
    @Thulean Friend

    You're correct in that the 1st wave of immigration was to major cities & their suburbs.
    The 2nd has been to places which were "off the radar" so to speak.

    Many of the racial hoaxes or issues we see are a repeat of NY or LA went through in the 70s.
    The underlying culture & systems are the same, as will be the result. Unfortunately, :shrug:

    ਵਾਹਿਗੁਰੂਜੀਕਾਖਾਲਸਾਵਾਹਿਗੁਰੂਜੀਕੀਫਤਿਹ

    , @songbird
    @Thulean Friend


    up until 1990s, most Tamils in Singapore were offspring of middle and lower castes, yet had 90% of Chinese incomes
     
    Given Singapore's desegregationist housing policy, I wonder if it could be explained by AA. Whatever the laws on the books, there seems to be a political modus to smooth over differences, as for example, can also be seen in health care.
  784. @Dmitry
    @LatW


    any ideas about the bull?

     

    Probably there are many books written on this topic.

    From some mid-point of his career, Picasso is inspired very deep by ancient Mediterranean symbols, classical world, and even older art (cave painting) where the bull is a central subject.

    He was influenced by cave painting of his region. E.g. in cave of Altamira in Spain, called the “The Sistine Chapel of the cave art”. These ancient paintings focus mainly on animals, especially bulls and horses (https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=qyIfPbn0RDs.)

    Lascaux cave painting of Southern France was only discovered a short time when Picasso was almost 70 years old, but many of those 17,000 year old painting even look like works of Picasso.

    As kind of stereotypical of Spanish (or Catalan) of his epoch, he was of course obsessed also with a theme of the embrace of death between bulls and matadors. You can see the famous poems of Spanish poet Federico García Lorca on this theme, which reminds of some Picasso paintings.
    https://www.theliteraryreview.org/poetry-2/lament-for-the-death-of-ignacio-sanchez-mejias/

    I guess it sounds a bit too much of the national stereotype
    Picasso was painting these matador scenes in many different styles. But he was painting bulls and horses in many other kind of context for decades. So I guess it has many different meanings across his career.


    namely through receiving comfort, love
     
    You know the style of writing you can read people write on the labels in the art gallery? "Aside from expressing aspirations of spirituality, paintings of female nudes can trigger desires, lust, and jealously - all these themes that European artistic tradition has explored for centuries."

    Conflicted way of perceiving female body, is not specific for Picasso, but part of the art tradition. Although Picasso is famous for being obsessed with this theme and I guess a lot of books are written about it. There are probably dozens of professors, who have a whole career writing about Picasso's difficult relation to women.

    Replies: @LatW, @melanf

    Picasso is inspired very deep by ancient Mediterranean symbols

    I was under the impression that there was some connection with the myth of Ariadne and Theseus.

    Conflicted way of perceiving female body, is not specific for Picasso

    Of course, and he’s not even the worst. To be fair, some of the paintings are actually quite female friendly – for instance, “The Girl before the Mirror”, “Sleeping Girl” is quite lovely. The painting of the women in a brothel with tribal masks would be considered positive from the feminist perspective.

  785. I think the main constraint, once this Covid scare passes, is cultural backlash rather than bureaucratic capacity.

    They say that because of Trump, immigration has subsided a little. That’s why it’s interesting how that, in combination with all the Covid induced problems, will affect immigration. The US population barely grew last year. Of course, a big part of it was Covid, but there might be some underlying trends as well.

    It’s richer than Canada yet it is much cheaper to live there, an unbeatable combination.

    Of course, the US is very rich and on average cheaper than Canada. It seems though that Canada has better protections for low wage workers.

    The problem is that there are high barriers in place to emigrate to the USA.

    It’s strict as it probably should be.

    That’s an issue for Europe and not for the USA, which can select from a much wider range of people.

    Well, America is quite open to the world, but hypothetically many Indians would want to live in Europe, too. It’s just Europeans may not be as accepting of them on average. Maybe even less than Americans.

  786. @Dmitry
    @LatW


    any ideas about the bull?

     

    Probably there are many books written on this topic.

    From some mid-point of his career, Picasso is inspired very deep by ancient Mediterranean symbols, classical world, and even older art (cave painting) where the bull is a central subject.

    He was influenced by cave painting of his region. E.g. in cave of Altamira in Spain, called the “The Sistine Chapel of the cave art”. These ancient paintings focus mainly on animals, especially bulls and horses (https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=qyIfPbn0RDs.)

    Lascaux cave painting of Southern France was only discovered a short time when Picasso was almost 70 years old, but many of those 17,000 year old painting even look like works of Picasso.

    As kind of stereotypical of Spanish (or Catalan) of his epoch, he was of course obsessed also with a theme of the embrace of death between bulls and matadors. You can see the famous poems of Spanish poet Federico García Lorca on this theme, which reminds of some Picasso paintings.
    https://www.theliteraryreview.org/poetry-2/lament-for-the-death-of-ignacio-sanchez-mejias/

    I guess it sounds a bit too much of the national stereotype
    Picasso was painting these matador scenes in many different styles. But he was painting bulls and horses in many other kind of context for decades. So I guess it has many different meanings across his career.


    namely through receiving comfort, love
     
    You know the style of writing you can read people write on the labels in the art gallery? "Aside from expressing aspirations of spirituality, paintings of female nudes can trigger desires, lust, and jealously - all these themes that European artistic tradition has explored for centuries."

    Conflicted way of perceiving female body, is not specific for Picasso, but part of the art tradition. Although Picasso is famous for being obsessed with this theme and I guess a lot of books are written about it. There are probably dozens of professors, who have a whole career writing about Picasso's difficult relation to women.

    Replies: @LatW, @melanf

    Probably there are many books written on this topic.

    Art should reach the viewer’s heart by itself and not through books. To draw bulls and horses (as an artist), you need to have something that Pixasso did not have – the talent of an artist. Scandals, radical leftist views, etc. cannot replace talent

    • Replies: @songbird
    @melanf

    Many creative types were evolved to work with patrons telling them what they want - and those mostly conservative aristocrats.

    They are plagued by excitatory impulses that help them create, and deeply lacking in inhibitory impulses that would allow them to self-censor. Or independently create something that is moral. More than that, many are even lacking in good ideas, and need an editor who knows them to pitch them something, which would be appropriate to their talents.

    In a way, society not giving them these things is society failing them, as much as it is failing itself.

    "Science and Charity" (1897), likely suggested to Picasso by his father, is quite good for a 15 y.o.

    , @Thulean Friend
    @melanf


    Art should reach the viewer’s heart by itself and not through books. To draw bulls and horses (as an artist), you need to have something that Picasso did not have – the talent of an artist. Scandals, radical leftist views, etc. cannot replace talent
     
    As songbird pointed out, he did paint pretty well by age 15.

    https://upload.wikimedia.org/wikipedia/en/d/d6/Science_and_Charity_by_Picasso.jpg

    Picasso's regression tracked closely to the art world in general. A younger female in my social circle bought this tasteless pillow to me as a joke:

    https://i.imgur.com/W43cpCW.jpg

    She clearly understands that it's low class, fit for a joke, even if the motif is a work by Picasso. (I haven't worked up the courage to throw/give it away since she would be upset if she noticed it missing).

    So here a clear regression from someone who was obviously talented. We cannot explain this by lack of talent. Was it an individual matter? No, because since Picasso's time, art has degenerated and outright regressed further:

    https://i.imgur.com/SEgFi1l.jpg


    It's a systematic shift. Once such a shift occurs in a society, it produces incentives to create trash. Artists are no less corruptible than any of us, despite pretensions suggesting otherwise.

    Replies: @melanf

  787. @AP
    @German_reader

    Everyone knows that Ukraine was not going to join NATO anytime soon, and Russia's outrageous conditions to avoid war such as having all western NATO forces leave the territory of the former Warsaw Pact indicate that it wasn't serious about avoiding war. This has nothing to do about what the West or Ukraine want or don't want but about what Russia is planning to do.

    I think the current troop numbers ae insufficient for a full-scale invasion of Ukraine or of the eastern half of Ukraine. Accordingly, some realistic possibilities:

    1. Do nothing, and get cheap concessions from the weak Biden administration.

    2. Formally annex Donbas, plus maybe extend their borders either to the oblast boundaries or even across southern Ukraine into Crimea, creating a land bridge and opening up the Dnipro canal through which Crimea gets water. In the process, hit targets important for Ukrainian military industrial complex such as tank and missile plants beyond Donbas such as in Kharkiv, Dnipropetrovsk and Kiev. This would be a bit analogous to the Georgian war, but on a much larger scale. Russian troops there are sufficient for such a limited operation and to prevent any Ukrainian counterstrikes into Russian soil. It would trigger all sorts of economic sanctions but in the larger historical context when would economic problems be more important than land expansion? Sanctions would go away in a decade or three, but the land will remain forever.

    As I wrote, there aren't nearly enough forces to conquer half (much less all) the country and to impose a Russian puppet. There probably aren't even enough to capture and hold large cities like Kharkiv, with 1.5 million people or move deeper into Ukrainian territory. Ukraine's military has 250,000 personnel, there are another 400,000s reserve of whom 200,000 have military experience, plenty of rockets and missiles, etc. Russia would have to commit at least 500,000 soldiers for a largescale military operation.

    ::::::::::::::

    Ukraine isn't even asking for NATO to go to war for her. It wants weapons with which to defend itself. Let Putin pay as much as possible for his nasty game, if invasion is what he will do. It is shameful that Merkel had been so active in blocking this.

    Replies: @German_reader, @A123, @LondonBob

    The Ukraine is attacking the Donbass, so no new weapons. Most Russia will ever do is strikes on offensive NATO installations in the Ukraine.

    What Russia wants is the US to stop flooding Europe with nuclear weapons, problem is Europe as a whole has to stand up to the US, unfortunately more likely US economic collapse will happen sooner.

  788. @Chairman Meow
    @AP


    USSR was disgusting in many ways
     
    Not really. Modern America does much worse things as did the other nations of the time. You just dont hear much about it and instead get memes about how 'bad' the USSR was

    The claim of USSR being 'disgusting' is a strawman claim made by uneducated bufoons who bought into western anti-communist propaganda imo


    but it did at least produce some people who could appreciate many things.
     
    This was the case with basically all of Soviet science and industry. It was pretty great in general, unlike modern capitalist RF which can't produce much of anything.

    The problem with education is capitalism, like with everything capitalism tends to degrade the quality of products over time as it consolidates in society and industry. In America we see this with education, the video game industry and the poor state of medicine (as a few examples). In Russia/Ukraine this is evident in just about every field, as capitalism has not led to any signficant innovation, but rather degradation of existing industry/science/education/arts in order to maximize short term profits and has resulted in the turn of Russia into a giant gas station with an economy smaller than Texas and Ukraine into exporting prostitutes and surrogates.

    In both countries, the capitalist oligarch class is not interested in developing well rounded individuals and would rather generate consumers while relying on the export of raw resources to first world western countries (in the case of Russia). If I recall correctly, there was some education "reform" conducted in 2004 that said something along the lines of Russia not needing a well educated class but rather that it needs "consumers" and so the education system was based around this concept.

    Both Russia and Ukraine are cargo cults of America and try to imitate America in everything (from the education system to political system to culture). Neither government is interested in halting this process leading to a loss of identity for both these countries eventually.

    Replies: @LondonBob, @AP

  789. sher singh says:
    @Thulean Friend
    @LatW


    My question was not even about the “racial reckoning” but the bureaucratic capacity to absorb more people
     
    I think the main constraint, once this Covid scare passes, is cultural backlash rather than bureaucratic capacity.

    Yes, there are peeps that would be ok living in a tent as long as they are physically in the US and allowed to stay (sad, actually) but most immigrants strive for a higher living standard than in their home country and are willing to sacrifice maybe the first year for the hardship but then they want to start living well.
     
    America still has a comparatively competitive housing market, especially outside the most attractive metros. It's richer than Canada yet it is much cheaper to live there, an unbeatable combination.

    https://i.imgur.com/XkuZm2c.png

    The question comes down to, are you willing to live in a relatively sleepy midwestern city, say, like Kansas City over your own homeland? My presumption is, yes, the vast majority of third worlders and even 2nd worlders would do so given the chance. The problem is that there are high barriers in place to emigrate to the USA. Right-wingers are not correct in their view that it's easy. It's hard, and has gotten harder with Covid.


    Immigrants such as Ukrainians can pick up and do well very quickly but as I said, how many Ukrainians are left? May not be that many if you look at the perspective of the next 20-50 years.
     
    That's an issue for Europe and not for the USA, which can select from a much wider range of people. As I've written about many times, even "low" caste Indians do quite well after the 2nd gen, as we see in Mauritius or Singapore (up until 1990s, most Tamils in Singapore were offspring of middle and lower castes, yet had 90% of Chinese incomes). India could alone provide at least 100 million people, if Americans were willing to live in a country that's one-third Indian. Once again, the main constraint is cultural backlash. My assumption is that most Americans would probably only be ok with 10% of that number, but the point is that the latent potential to ramp up is there. The only constraint is domestic.

    I posted Mexico's poor demographic trajectory in this thread, but the lesson from Eastern Europe is that even countries with low or declining population growth can lose tons of young people for many years. Even in a world of low fertility, the US can strip-mine many - perhaps most - other countries for the entire duration of this century.

    Replies: @sher singh, @songbird

    You’re correct in that the 1st wave of immigration was to major cities & their suburbs.
    The 2nd has been to places which were “off the radar” so to speak.

    Many of the racial hoaxes or issues we see are a repeat of NY or LA went through in the 70s.
    The underlying culture & systems are the same, as will be the result. Unfortunately, :shrug:

    ਵਾਹਿਗੁਰੂਜੀਕਾਖਾਲਸਾਵਾਹਿਗੁਰੂਜੀਕੀਫਤਿਹ

  790. @LatW
    @songbird



    Silmarillion
     
    Would cause someone to drop the habit, rather than pick it up.
     
    Yea, I've heard someone say "I barely got through it, but I recommend". LOL
    I don't really care which elven king did what, but the language is really beautiful.

    Replies: @songbird

    Heard someone say that there is no 20th century romantic prose poet equal to GK Chesterton, as shown by The Ballad of the White Horse.

    Cannot verify myself.

    Once read a particular Father Brown story and thought, “Wow, this is great!” Read same one years later, again, and thought “Wow, this is awful!” Maybe, it was about expectations?

  791. @A123
    @PedroAstra

    The new MAGA GOP is quite different from the old Establishment GOP. However, it will take years to finish this change process. The fact that GOP(e) swamp creatures like McConnell and Thune still identify as Republicans, highlights that further change is required.

    The key factor impeding any partition of the U.S. is the lack of viable borders. There is no Mason-Dixon line separating Blue from Grey. The Red/Blue distribution looks something like this.

     
    https://www.toddstarnes.com/wp-content/uploads/2021/04/US-census-2020.jpg
     

    Creating blue Bantustans that have to live with the consequences of their unrealistic policies is very tempting. However, it is hard to see how such a plan could be carried off.

    PEACE 😇

    Replies: @Mr. Hack, @silviosilver

    Creating blue Bantustans that have to live with the consequences of their unrealistic policies is very tempting. However, it is hard to see how such a plan could be carried off.

    I don’t know how it could proceed either.

    Just understand this: it starts with a dream.

    • Agree: songbird
  792. @German_reader
    @utu

    Then tell me what exactly should be done in your opinion.
    Did you read the pieces by Anatol Lieven I linked to in this thread? He argues that NATO probably wouldn't be able to stop a Russian invasion of Ukraine by conventional means, so it could end in a humiliating defeat. And obviously there's the risk of escalation to a nuclear level.
    Sloganeering about defeatism and appeasement is easy. Maybe I've got wishful thinking of my own in hoping for a diplomatic solution, but it seems to me you're ignoring some rather unpalatable realities.

    Replies: @AP

    The best way to prevent war is to make war as unpalatable as possible for the aggressor (MAD is the obvious example of this).

    It may be too late, NATO could have made a Russian invasion of Ukraine extremely expensive by arming Ukraine to the teeth, as it has not done, due in large part to vetoes by the Merkel government and by making economic consequences obvious and extreme, by not eliminating its own nuclear power and by not allowing the gas pipes to bypass Ukraine (also the work of Germany). For whatever reason, Germany’s elites have done all they could to build up Russian power and to damage Europe, even at the expense of their own people’s well-being.

    • Replies: @German_reader
    @AP


    The best way to prevent war is to make war as unpalatable as possible for the aggressor (MAD is the obvious example of this).
     
    I admit that's plausible, though there's also the argument that it's exactly the changing military balance and Ukraine's deepening ties with NATO that could trigger a Russian invasion. There's also the issue that one would have to ensure Ukraine doesn't use Western weapons for offensive actions in the Donbass which could serve as a pretext for Russian intervention. But on balance you may well be right, and arms shipments might be the least one can do for deterrence against a Russian invasion (which Russia doesn't have any moral right to, I want to emphasize that I agree it would be an unjustifiable act of aggression).
    I agree about Germany's energy policy, creating such a level of dependence on Russia was very foolish. Personally I also think the abolition of conscription was a mistake, as was the continuing erosion of military capabilities under Merkel (though Germany isn't alone in this, even the British army is now well under 100 000 active personnel). I would be against direct NATO intervention in Ukraine, but as it is it seems doubtful even that NATO forces could defend/recover the Baltic states against Russia. Obviously it's a problem when a miliary alliance might not even be able or willing to protect its existing members.

    Replies: @songbird, @LatW

  793. @Thulean Friend
    @LatW


    My question was not even about the “racial reckoning” but the bureaucratic capacity to absorb more people
     
    I think the main constraint, once this Covid scare passes, is cultural backlash rather than bureaucratic capacity.

    Yes, there are peeps that would be ok living in a tent as long as they are physically in the US and allowed to stay (sad, actually) but most immigrants strive for a higher living standard than in their home country and are willing to sacrifice maybe the first year for the hardship but then they want to start living well.
     
    America still has a comparatively competitive housing market, especially outside the most attractive metros. It's richer than Canada yet it is much cheaper to live there, an unbeatable combination.

    https://i.imgur.com/XkuZm2c.png

    The question comes down to, are you willing to live in a relatively sleepy midwestern city, say, like Kansas City over your own homeland? My presumption is, yes, the vast majority of third worlders and even 2nd worlders would do so given the chance. The problem is that there are high barriers in place to emigrate to the USA. Right-wingers are not correct in their view that it's easy. It's hard, and has gotten harder with Covid.


    Immigrants such as Ukrainians can pick up and do well very quickly but as I said, how many Ukrainians are left? May not be that many if you look at the perspective of the next 20-50 years.
     
    That's an issue for Europe and not for the USA, which can select from a much wider range of people. As I've written about many times, even "low" caste Indians do quite well after the 2nd gen, as we see in Mauritius or Singapore (up until 1990s, most Tamils in Singapore were offspring of middle and lower castes, yet had 90% of Chinese incomes). India could alone provide at least 100 million people, if Americans were willing to live in a country that's one-third Indian. Once again, the main constraint is cultural backlash. My assumption is that most Americans would probably only be ok with 10% of that number, but the point is that the latent potential to ramp up is there. The only constraint is domestic.

    I posted Mexico's poor demographic trajectory in this thread, but the lesson from Eastern Europe is that even countries with low or declining population growth can lose tons of young people for many years. Even in a world of low fertility, the US can strip-mine many - perhaps most - other countries for the entire duration of this century.

    Replies: @sher singh, @songbird

    up until 1990s, most Tamils in Singapore were offspring of middle and lower castes, yet had 90% of Chinese incomes

    Given Singapore’s desegregationist housing policy, I wonder if it could be explained by AA. Whatever the laws on the books, there seems to be a political modus to smooth over differences, as for example, can also be seen in health care.

  794. @Dmitry
    @silviosilver

    You can just look at "IQ tests". They are mostly appearing to be early 20th century, puzzle games that were arbitrarily selected from parlour. Puzzle games, are then scored according to a distribution, and presented as a number.

    Because stupid people like to mystify whenever they see a number, many have have apparently reified these numbers as if they are a technical specification, rather than scores on the puzzle games (many which could have been designed for entertaining people before the invention of television).

    Almost everything has a use. You could use these puzzles to filter if people were literate or can understand instructions. It could filter people with neurological or cultural problems.

    They also could generalize to some kinds of thinking or culture, where puzzles are important. They require a certain logic, so they could be used to see if people are suitable for tasks where you have to learn this kind of thinking.

    However, the "IQ test" questions themselves usually do not have true or false answer. So it's at best limited to people within a specific cultural conformity.

    For example "raven's progressive matrices" is an example inspired from old puzzle books, where a creative person should choose completely different answers. There is no correct answer for "raven's progressive matrices". But if you have experience with them, then you could learn what is the culturally expected answer.

    Still I would expect a mentally creative or non-conformist person should choose unpredictable results in this puzzle.


    IQ is scarily predictive of life
     
    What do you mean by "IQ"? In colloquial sense, then some people are more intelligent and talented in different ways than other people.

    An "IQ test" that requires literacy (for example, vocabulary list), will correlate with education level, will correlate with income (in economy where these match).


    -

    As you know in this forum, though, they start talking about national "IQ" and its relation to income level in an economy (although data not based on "IQ tests", but inferred from OECD education tests, which are designed for something completely different - e.g. objectives like flexibility of teaching).

    In these claims, we saw often almost inverse of prediction. For example, China has one of the highest claimed scores in these OECD education tests today. But for the past 4 centuries, China has been economically very unsuccessful.

    So how goes the backtesting of these scores predictive across the last many centuries? It will be failure, even if you assumed the test scores do not change.

    That's not to say, the OECD tests themselves are not interesting ones. I think they could be used as an indicator, where a rapid rise could be a very positive signal. Before China is industrializing, modernizing, creating mass education, modern administration, etc, there was likely a rapid rise in their OECD test results (if they had existed in the past).

    Replies: @silviosilver

    Oh please. Adoption and twins studies unambiguously demonstrate that intelligence is largely heritable; IQ tests do a perfectly serviceable job of measuring it; and IQ scores predict academic and economic success. If you’re unaware of this, then you’re too uninformed to even be debating the issue. I cbf discuss such obvious basics (for a forum like this) any further.

    • Replies: @Dmitry
    @silviosilver


    intelligence.. IQ tests do a perfectly serviceable job of measuring it
     
    You are writing circular statements.

    Adoption and twins studies unambiguously demonstrate that intelligence is largely heritable
     
    Where was I talking about heritability in my comments?


    -

    Whether doing these puzzles is heritable or not, who knows? Maybe, as a lot of things in life have a heritable influence. Our basic prejudice should be that it has heritable influence, as also with playing video games or whether you are interested in gardening.

    Although twin studies for the puzzlebooks which have been claimed to "measure" something they called "IQ", seemed to require forensic accountants to understand. https://www.newscientist.com/article/mg14719953-800-double-take-on-a-fake/

    If you begin with assembling puzzlebooks for children, and then try to impress colleagues that "this is not a comic activity, I am a scientist" by using a technical Latinate vocabulary, half-understanding of statistical concepts and the way you score these puzzles results in a measurable object called "IQ".

    Replies: @silviosilver

  795. @A123
    @Mr. Hack

    Hmmmmmm..... Good eye. I picked up that map based on a web search and now that you question it..... There is something amiss. THANKS.

    Let me try again. I believe these are the 2020 US House results:

     
    https://www.realclearpolitics.com/elections/live_results/2020/live_map_house.png
     


    The red area that cuts through Minnesota seems to include the Twin Cities
     
    There is a geographically compact blue area for Minneapolis & St Paul. I believe this is the split before the 2020 elections.

     
    https://i1.wp.com/electionarium.com/wp-content/uploads/2020/05/2020-Minnesota-House-Races-pre-election-map.png
     

    I doubt that the Minnesota can be 100% flipped as you suggest. Ilhan Omar is from the state and her district is not salvageable.

    However, your question does provide insight to another partition issue. Any 'snapshot' in time will have outliers from national norms. Sometimes local issues manage to supersede the truism of current U.S. politics, All Elections are National.

    PEACE 😇

    Replies: @AP

    The two sides have not moved fare apart to warrant a split (yet). But it can be done relatively well, geographically.

    New England, coastal Washington, eastern and southern New York State and New Jersey could be annexed by Canada and be a prosperous, culturally weird, mostly European-Asian progressive “paradise” – North America’s Scandinavia. If all that would be too much for Canada to swallow, metro-New York and NJ might be its own type of Singapore, the New World’s financial hub (anyways New England fits culturally better into Canada than NY with its different demographics).

    California, southern Nevada and Arizona, could be an independent Latin American-style country with huge income and wealth disparity as in Latin America but still fairly prosperous due to the partial legacy of Silicon Valley (much of it but not all of it will move to TX) and Hollywood. It would still have a largely Anglo elite and would offer an amazing lifestyle for the rich in their gated communities along the coast, produce a lot of agriculture, etc.

    This would take care of much of the split.

    As for those caught on the wrong side of the new border – the red island in the California interior might disappear when the new government grants citizenship to all the migrant workers there. There would be blue islands in places like Chicago, Detroit, Minneapolis, and the Carolinas. I imagine there would be some voluntary population transfers; the super-progressives of Minnesota would move to Winnipeg and the ones in Chicago would move to New York. Those really desperate not to live in a solidly forever-blue California would move even faster to TX (whose laws would now be so solidly Red that the type of people who would turn the state Blue wouldn’t dare to enter) and vice versa.

    I wonder if, after the split, Washington DC would be abandoned and allowed to die as the center of the economic and demographics of Red America shifts to Texas. Chicago would be the largest single metro area but Dallas and Houston are catching up rapidly (each one may overtake Chicago by 2030) and combined they already dwarf Chicago.

    • Thanks: Yellowface Anon
    • Troll: Mikhail
    • Replies: @Mr. Hack
    @AP


    California, southern Nevada and Arizona, could be an independent Latin American-style country with huge income and wealth disparity as in Latin America but still fairly prosperous due to the partial legacy of Silicon Valley (much of it but not all of it will move to TX) and Hollywood. It would still have a largely Anglo elite and would offer an amazing lifestyle for the rich in their gated communities along the coast, produce a lot of agriculture, etc.
     
    I take it that these prognostications are just the results of your fanciful imagination, and not something that you really see occurring? At least for your imaginary Latinastan, I see some serious impediments to such a development in the future. TX and CA share little in common and espouse very different political climates, as you point out. AZ, I think will soon revert back to its strong Republican heritage, as evidenced by the astute "maverick" posturings of Senator Kyrsten Sinema, that always seem to favor a Republican outcome in her voting patterns. She, very quickly has determined where the political winds are headed in the near future. Besides, what would Arizona gain from a closer relationship with California? Arizona's economy is really booming, especially in the high tech sector with many new and large companies relocating here. Things couldn't really look much better here into the future. You must have missed one of my latest cartoons that I reposted above, that pretty much encapsulates the feelings of most Arizonans ("Zonies") to California. Still a nice place to go when it's 110 here in the summer to cool of in the big blue sea!


    https://media.townhall.com/Townhall/Car/b/MC-LeavingCali_web20220107011915.jpg

    https://www.fox10phoenix.com/news/arizonas-economic-future-looks-rosy-as-companies-relocate-to-the-state

    https://www.bizjournals.com/phoenix/news/2021/04/22/arizona-among-top-states-ranked-economic-momentum.html

    https://azgovernor.gov/governor/news/2021/05/arizona-projected-add-nearly-550000-jobs-2029

    Replies: @AP, @A123

    , @A123
    @AP

    For a U.S. partition:


    I imagine there would be some voluntary population transfers
     
    Support for voluntary non-workers in MAGAmerica would be quite low. One would expect handout culture to expand in BLUEstania. The "voluntary" moves would be higher than you anticipate as large chunks of the working age unemployed and unemployable would have to move.

    I also suspect some involuntary relocation would be necessary. Aliens with criminal, suspicious, and/or unassimilable backgrounds would have to be sent home or exported to BLUEstania.
    _____

    You envision Oregon being part of MAGAmerica, which is better than most propositions. This does provide Pacific Ocean access, but there is not much currently there. Both military and commercial needs would push huge new rail and port connections to connect Red Oregon to the bulk of the MAGA nation. Even working flat out 24x7 it would take more than a decade to develop. Oregon's coast would immediately become the fastest growing part of MAGAmerica.

    PEACE 😇

    , @Yellowface Anon
    @AP

    You assumed there won't be large-scale mutual extermination like what happened during the India-Pakistan or Israel-Palestine split. But tbh it'll be a bit lopsided, rightoid-militia-massacring-the-traitors-and-undesirables incidents, or mass trials.

    Replies: @A123

  796. @LatW
    @Mr. Hack


    Putler’s been rattling his sabre for a few months now, and seems to be making all kinds of threatening noises. Maybe his ratings are down, as before when he invaded Crimea?
     
    His ratings are down, but this is bigger than the ratings. It's about a long term resolution. There is a lot of talk about a Gleiwitz. In the beginning the "ultimatum" itself almost looked like a Gleiwitz of some sort - as in "Either you accept our proposal, or we'll be forced to defend ourselves". And they knew very well that this would be unacceptable. So it's interesting what they'll do.

    Some believe that in Washington over the last several months there has been a struggle between the pro-Russian (Sullivan) and anti-Russian (Blinken and Austin) factions. The Blinken faction apparently won. But who knows if this is true.

    Are you watching espresso tv and The Great Lviv Speaks?


    If he decides to sick his dogs on Ukraine though, I think that he’ll be in for a big surprise, this time around.
     
    Arestovych believes that this would create a crack in their political system. Even hurt their military in a way that would compromise their security. Of course, they would do a lot of damage but it would be very tough for them. Ofc, I'm not an expert, but did you know that, hypothetically, they cannot employ troops across their whole border in all directions at once (without some kind of a very serious mobilization). So hypothetically if they are busy in the south, they cannot fully engage elsewhere. This is why their military doctrine says that they should have enough troops to deploy in a few limited theaters but to protect the rest of the territory simultaneously they use the tactical nuclear strike. It's a huge qualitative step that they will not take, unless they are attacked by the US (let's say, in the north), their own territory is massively attacked or something like that (unrealistic scenario).


    Perhaps everything short of full [NATO] membership?
     
    Right, but under what political conditions? Should $200M - a very small sum (of course, thanks to the US either way), apparently what the US spent in Afghanistan in one day -- enough to entangle oneself in a potentially subordinate relationship? No, of course. The solution is to continue cooperation with the West (and other actors) without serious strings attached. Strings and obligations should only come with real commitment (if such is even possible). What are the options with air defense, because frankly, that's where Russia would start it (in the worst case physical scenario).

    It is very clear that the growing armament of Ukraine (both the home grown and assistance from the West) really bothers Putin (and probably the Russian generals). He probably knows that within 10 more years Ukraine could get stronger. More serious missiles could come online. The biggest question is -- would Russia still object to Ukraine's armament if the US stayed out of it? Would they be less worried if Ukraine kept building its own military industry but were more neutral? Russia also objects to the ideology and that's not going away.

    I’ve been pretty consistent in my views that Ukraine should seek its own formula of Finlandization.
     

    The problem with Finlandization is that for that you need Finns. You need unity of steel (or should I say, hardness of ice, lol), a linear type of thinking that permeates the political system, you need sisu (perseverance) and you need money combined with, ideally, a local military industry.

    Does the Ukrainian nation possess qualities that could substitute for this? I believe, yes - the ability to mobilize the non-government and volunteer sector (taken across the whole country with the millions living abroad, this would be massive), the ability to create a grassroots militia which is already being worked on, advancing the local military industry. Finland is producing its own armored vehicles and they are making a huge purchase of 60 F35 fighters (you don't hear Russia objecting to that one, now do you, I guess because those are not long range missiles but still..). They also have conscription and a huge reserve with the participation of almost the whole nation (with perhaps the exception of babies and grandmas). A Ukrainian equivalent of that would be in tens of millions. It would be formidable but it's hard to build. In order to create all this, you need the Finnish character. Also, no jumping into Russia's face needlessly. Which for Ukraine is much much harder than Finland because Finland is not being bullied, physically threatened and occupied by Russia right now, was never in the USSR, is not Orthodox, is more homogenous, Russians view Finns very differently than Ukrainians, Finns can get away with things that former-USSR can't. One has to earn Russia's respect somehow. It can be only done through acquiring strength. Maybe in combination with some kind of cunning.

    Btw, it's possible that Finlandization today would be different than that of the 1950s or 1980s. It would carry much fewer negative factors, as Russia is now way more open (and weaker than the USSR). I believe Finlandization could be an option if there is no other way to integrate into the Western system or if the Western system collapses, so it should be left as the last resort. In the meanwhile, Ukraine should really look out only for itself and not entangle itself into any promises that compromise its interests. Then again, if Ukraine is coming with us mentally, politically, economically, then some kind of a security solution is also direly needed. It would be fair from the moral POV, otherwise, Ukraine risks being exploited.


    Putin’s growing megalomaniac propensity for some sort of recognition as a ‘wise gatherer of Rus lands”
     
    That's another question. Are the Russian ambitions just their usual / historical imperialism or Putin's willingness to reverse the mistakes created during the moments of Russia's weakness (the 1990s) and a willingness to leave a historical legacy? He's definitely in the "legacy age" and there is not all that much time left. In that case, just accept it and fight back. Or... are they truly concerned about their security. If so, it might be worth talking to them (of course, without giving in, because you can't trust them, you have to find some kind of a regional balance of strength) as there are many somewhat decent Russians out there and it would be a pity to lose them. If it is both of these things... which it looks like it is, then it's very complicated.

    Replies: @Mikhail, @Mr. Hack

    If so, it might be worth talking to them (of course, without giving in, because you can’t trust them, you have to find some kind of a regional balance of strength) as there are many somewhat decent Russians out there and it would be a pity to lose them. If it is both of these things… which it looks like it is, then it’s very complicated.

    You bring up so many interesting issues it would take me at least an hour to reply back and offer something possibly of any value. It is complicated, and only serves to underscore how things really changed between Russia and Ukraine after 2014. Sure, the country was slightly tilting more towards a Western solution to its alignment process, but it wasn’t an overwhelming sort of tilt. Russia was still seen as a worthwhile and important partner, at least in the economic sense, but look at their relationship today? Ukraine is as about a far away from Russia as its ever been, and regardless of what loudmouth Averko blurts out, I see it being so as a result of Russia’s thuggish and brute blunders in dealing with Ukraine. How much more influential do you think Russia would be today in Ukraine if it had never decided to visit its neighbor to the south along with the use of military force in such a strikingly garish manner? Putin’s inabilities to deal with Ukraine in an intelligent and sophisticated manner will forever mar his image as a great leader.

    • Thanks: Mikhail
    • Replies: @AP
    @Mr. Hack

    Prior to 2014, Ukraine was moving inexorably towards the West but it was not anti-Russian (in fact, anti-Russian sentiments seem to have been dropping). Even the complaints about Yanukovich in the Western parts of the country were focused on Donbas rather than on Russia itself; the majority of Western Ukrainians had a positive opinion of Russia in 2013, though it was by a smaller margin than in other regions in the country. If that Ukraine were to have joined the EU it would have been as a Russia-friendly country such as Bulgaria or Hungary rather than as a Russia-hostile country such as the Baltics.

    Putin chose to grab Crimea and Donbas at the price of turning the rest of Ukraine into another Baltics or Poland. Crimea is a great strategic asset, and if the rest of Ukraine was going to join the West anyways, maybe it doesn't matter if it was friendly or hostile towards Russia. I am not insisting that Putin's move was a blunder for Russia, it might have been worth the price.

    Replies: @Mr. Hack, @Mikhail

  797. @Chairman Meow
    @AP


    USSR was disgusting in many ways
     
    Not really. Modern America does much worse things as did the other nations of the time. You just dont hear much about it and instead get memes about how 'bad' the USSR was

    The claim of USSR being 'disgusting' is a strawman claim made by uneducated bufoons who bought into western anti-communist propaganda imo


    but it did at least produce some people who could appreciate many things.
     
    This was the case with basically all of Soviet science and industry. It was pretty great in general, unlike modern capitalist RF which can't produce much of anything.

    The problem with education is capitalism, like with everything capitalism tends to degrade the quality of products over time as it consolidates in society and industry. In America we see this with education, the video game industry and the poor state of medicine (as a few examples). In Russia/Ukraine this is evident in just about every field, as capitalism has not led to any signficant innovation, but rather degradation of existing industry/science/education/arts in order to maximize short term profits and has resulted in the turn of Russia into a giant gas station with an economy smaller than Texas and Ukraine into exporting prostitutes and surrogates.

    In both countries, the capitalist oligarch class is not interested in developing well rounded individuals and would rather generate consumers while relying on the export of raw resources to first world western countries (in the case of Russia). If I recall correctly, there was some education "reform" conducted in 2004 that said something along the lines of Russia not needing a well educated class but rather that it needs "consumers" and so the education system was based around this concept.

    Both Russia and Ukraine are cargo cults of America and try to imitate America in everything (from the education system to political system to culture). Neither government is interested in halting this process leading to a loss of identity for both these countries eventually.

    Replies: @LondonBob, @AP

    USSR was disgusting in many ways

    Not really.

    Yes really. It sold out beauty and tradition in exchange for material prosperity and progress but ended up being squalid and poor relative to the capitalist peers who also sold out beauty and tradition but at least in exchange provided the greatest prosperity in human history. And in addition to this failure, the USSR provided a strong dose of mass murder.

    They did make nice children’s cartoons, subway systems, and a literate and educated population (who lived in material conditions similar to those of dirt poor American blacks).

    like with everything capitalism tends to degrade the quality of products over time as it consolidates in society and industry

    Like a Ford or Toyota versus a Zhiguli? LOL.

    • Replies: @Dmitry
    @AP


    squalid and poor relative to the capitalist
     
    It's not such a simple discussion, like anything about the Soviet times. Soviet times were such a historical case study which mixed successes which exceed positive expectations, with failure which exceed negative expectations.

    For constituent countries, of the USSR, convergence in measures like GDP per capita and life expectancy,* was the closest to Western countries in the late 1960s (i.e. in Soviet times), than in any other time in modern history, before or after.

    So, of course, the Soviet system has not provided the wealth of Sweden or Switzerland. But compared to other times in the history of the constituent countries, it includes some years where it was the closest it has been to convergence with Western standards (excluding perhaps places like Estonia, which are converging now in capitalist times).

    -
    It's crazy to imagine, but male life expectancy during Khrushchev was for a short time the same health status in Ukraine, as France.

    https://i.imgur.com/hkxSnUA.jpg


    Like a Ford or Toyota versus a Zhiguli? LOL.

     

    Almost, but Ford should be on the other side sharing the disjunction with Zhiguli.

    "Like a Toyota versus a Ford or Zhiguli? LOL."

    Replies: @Dmitry, @AP

    , @Chairman Meow
    @AP


    It sold out beauty and tradition
     
    What beauty and tradition did it sell out? If anything the Soviets expanded on Tsarist era beauty and tradition, promoting Tsasrist authors like Chekhov, Tolstoy, Pushkin and building up Moscow and St Petes to be beautiful at their peak

    Soviets used the best building practices of their time to beautify Moscow as their new capital and by all contemporary accounts in the 30's, Moscow was stunning for example.


    ended up being squalid and poor
     
    By what measure? USSR had second economy in the world until the 1980's when it became third economy as it was surpassed by Japan.

    Keep in mind that despite world wars and massive sanctions the USSR was growing at 13.8% per year for almost 22 years straight.


    USSR provided a strong dose of mass murder.
     
    Mass murder? Are you for real? Shall we compare it to British policies in Bangladesh and India for comparison? Or how about Belgian policies in Africa? Or lets take American policies towards the Indians in America? The scale of "Mass murder" far surpassed anything the Soviets ever did

    (who lived in material conditions similar to those of dirt poor American blacks).
     
    Nonesense. Most of the world does not care for the same things that americans care about, so claiming that they lived in the same material conditions as blacks makes no sense.

    Like a Ford or Toyota versus a Zhiguli?

     

    Exactly. Zhiguli's have not developed under capitalism but where quite good cars in their time. In fact Soviet automaking was so good that many cars made during the period are still used and made to this day. For example the legendary UAZ-452 "Bukhanka" (https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/UAZ-452). Capitalist Russia was not able to innovate anything half as good. LOL

    Replies: @German_reader, @AP, @Dmitry

  798. @melanf
    @Dmitry


    Probably there are many books written on this topic.
     
    Art should reach the viewer's heart by itself and not through books. To draw bulls and horses (as an artist), you need to have something that Pixasso did not have - the talent of an artist. Scandals, radical leftist views, etc. cannot replace talent

    https://2.bp.blogspot.com/-gWrBAVsRBBo/Uv_ZKpT_d2I/AAAAAAAAHTo/vnW8XxN2jnA/s1600/Fig.-4-Rider.jpg

    https://upload.wikimedia.org/wikipedia/commons/thumb/4/41/Europe_serov.jpg/1200px-Europe_serov.jpg

    Replies: @songbird, @Thulean Friend

    Many creative types were evolved to work with patrons telling them what they want – and those mostly conservative aristocrats.

    They are plagued by excitatory impulses that help them create, and deeply lacking in inhibitory impulses that would allow them to self-censor. Or independently create something that is moral. More than that, many are even lacking in good ideas, and need an editor who knows them to pitch them something, which would be appropriate to their talents.

    In a way, society not giving them these things is society failing them, as much as it is failing itself.

    “Science and Charity” (1897), likely suggested to Picasso by his father, is quite good for a 15 y.o.

  799. @Mr. Hack
    @LatW


    If so, it might be worth talking to them (of course, without giving in, because you can’t trust them, you have to find some kind of a regional balance of strength) as there are many somewhat decent Russians out there and it would be a pity to lose them. If it is both of these things… which it looks like it is, then it’s very complicated.
     
    You bring up so many interesting issues it would take me at least an hour to reply back and offer something possibly of any value. It is complicated, and only serves to underscore how things really changed between Russia and Ukraine after 2014. Sure, the country was slightly tilting more towards a Western solution to its alignment process, but it wasn't an overwhelming sort of tilt. Russia was still seen as a worthwhile and important partner, at least in the economic sense, but look at their relationship today? Ukraine is as about a far away from Russia as its ever been, and regardless of what loudmouth Averko blurts out, I see it being so as a result of Russia's thuggish and brute blunders in dealing with Ukraine. How much more influential do you think Russia would be today in Ukraine if it had never decided to visit its neighbor to the south along with the use of military force in such a strikingly garish manner? Putin's inabilities to deal with Ukraine in an intelligent and sophisticated manner will forever mar his image as a great leader.

    Replies: @AP

    Prior to 2014, Ukraine was moving inexorably towards the West but it was not anti-Russian (in fact, anti-Russian sentiments seem to have been dropping). Even the complaints about Yanukovich in the Western parts of the country were focused on Donbas rather than on Russia itself; the majority of Western Ukrainians had a positive opinion of Russia in 2013, though it was by a smaller margin than in other regions in the country. If that Ukraine were to have joined the EU it would have been as a Russia-friendly country such as Bulgaria or Hungary rather than as a Russia-hostile country such as the Baltics.

    Putin chose to grab Crimea and Donbas at the price of turning the rest of Ukraine into another Baltics or Poland. Crimea is a great strategic asset, and if the rest of Ukraine was going to join the West anyways, maybe it doesn’t matter if it was friendly or hostile towards Russia. I am not insisting that Putin’s move was a blunder for Russia, it might have been worth the price.

    • LOL: Mikhail
    • Replies: @Mr. Hack
    @AP

    Russia was in no danger of losing its base in Crimea, at least for 50 years, and could have remained an influential and "beloved" neighbor in the rest of the country. Ukraine was only granted and associate status within the EU, and Russia could have used a lot of its soft power influence to lull Ukraine back "into the fold". And NATO was not up for any serious consideration then. And today? At least, this is the way that I see it.

    , @Mikhail
    @AP


    Putin chose to grab Crimea and Donbas at the price of turning the rest of Ukraine into another Baltics or Poland.
     
    Putin noted the obvious that Crimea could've still been part of Ukraine, were it not for the anti-Russian coup against a democratically elected president, in contradiction to an internationally brokered power sharing arrangement
  800. @silviosilver
    @Dmitry

    Oh please. Adoption and twins studies unambiguously demonstrate that intelligence is largely heritable; IQ tests do a perfectly serviceable job of measuring it; and IQ scores predict academic and economic success. If you're unaware of this, then you're too uninformed to even be debating the issue. I cbf discuss such obvious basics (for a forum like this) any further.

    Replies: @Dmitry

    intelligence.. IQ tests do a perfectly serviceable job of measuring it

    You are writing circular statements.

    Adoption and twins studies unambiguously demonstrate that intelligence is largely heritable

    Where was I talking about heritability in my comments?

    Whether doing these puzzles is heritable or not, who knows? Maybe, as a lot of things in life have a heritable influence. Our basic prejudice should be that it has heritable influence, as also with playing video games or whether you are interested in gardening.

    Although twin studies for the puzzlebooks which have been claimed to “measure” something they called “IQ”, seemed to require forensic accountants to understand. https://www.newscientist.com/article/mg14719953-800-double-take-on-a-fake/

    If you begin with assembling puzzlebooks for children, and then try to impress colleagues that “this is not a comic activity, I am a scientist” by using a technical Latinate vocabulary, half-understanding of statistical concepts and the way you score these puzzles results in a measurable object called “IQ”.

    • LOL: silviosilver
    • Replies: @silviosilver
    @Dmitry


    You are writing circular statements.
     
    If you actually knew what you were talking about, you'd be aware that IQ critics are very keen to claim that, even if a quality called "intelligence" exists, IQ tests do a poor job of measuring it. The two are not assumed to be the same thing.

    and the way you score these puzzles results in a measurable object called “IQ”.
     
    Not just measurable, but predictive as well as heritable. Therein lies the problem for egalitarians and IQ-deniers.
  801. @AP
    @A123

    The two sides have not moved fare apart to warrant a split (yet). But it can be done relatively well, geographically.

    https://www.realclearpolitics.com/elections/live_results/2020/live_map_house.png

    New England, coastal Washington, eastern and southern New York State and New Jersey could be annexed by Canada and be a prosperous, culturally weird, mostly European-Asian progressive "paradise" - North America's Scandinavia. If all that would be too much for Canada to swallow, metro-New York and NJ might be its own type of Singapore, the New World's financial hub (anyways New England fits culturally better into Canada than NY with its different demographics).

    California, southern Nevada and Arizona, could be an independent Latin American-style country with huge income and wealth disparity as in Latin America but still fairly prosperous due to the partial legacy of Silicon Valley (much of it but not all of it will move to TX) and Hollywood. It would still have a largely Anglo elite and would offer an amazing lifestyle for the rich in their gated communities along the coast, produce a lot of agriculture, etc.

    This would take care of much of the split.

    As for those caught on the wrong side of the new border - the red island in the California interior might disappear when the new government grants citizenship to all the migrant workers there. There would be blue islands in places like Chicago, Detroit, Minneapolis, and the Carolinas. I imagine there would be some voluntary population transfers; the super-progressives of Minnesota would move to Winnipeg and the ones in Chicago would move to New York. Those really desperate not to live in a solidly forever-blue California would move even faster to TX (whose laws would now be so solidly Red that the type of people who would turn the state Blue wouldn't dare to enter) and vice versa.

    I wonder if, after the split, Washington DC would be abandoned and allowed to die as the center of the economic and demographics of Red America shifts to Texas. Chicago would be the largest single metro area but Dallas and Houston are catching up rapidly (each one may overtake Chicago by 2030) and combined they already dwarf Chicago.

    Replies: @Mr. Hack, @A123, @Yellowface Anon

    California, southern Nevada and Arizona, could be an independent Latin American-style country with huge income and wealth disparity as in Latin America but still fairly prosperous due to the partial legacy of Silicon Valley (much of it but not all of it will move to TX) and Hollywood. It would still have a largely Anglo elite and would offer an amazing lifestyle for the rich in their gated communities along the coast, produce a lot of agriculture, etc.

    I take it that these prognostications are just the results of your fanciful imagination, and not something that you really see occurring? At least for your imaginary Latinastan, I see some serious impediments to such a development in the future. TX and CA share little in common and espouse very different political climates, as you point out. AZ, I think will soon revert back to its strong Republican heritage, as evidenced by the astute “maverick” posturings of Senator Kyrsten Sinema, that always seem to favor a Republican outcome in her voting patterns. She, very quickly has determined where the political winds are headed in the near future. Besides, what would Arizona gain from a closer relationship with California? Arizona’s economy is really booming, especially in the high tech sector with many new and large companies relocating here. Things couldn’t really look much better here into the future. You must have missed one of my latest cartoons that I reposted above, that pretty much encapsulates the feelings of most Arizonans (“Zonies”) to California. Still a nice place to go when it’s 110 here in the summer to cool of in the big blue sea!

    • Replies: @AP
    @Mr. Hack

    I was just going by all the blue on the map and the fact that Arizona has voted against Trump twice. But you know the place better than I do. California may indeed be alone as a Latin American-style nation.

    At any rate if there were to be a split we are still at least a generation away from that. By then Arizona's place would be clear.

    , @A123
    @Mr. Hack


    AZ, I think will soon revert back to its strong Republican heritage, as evidenced by the astute “maverick” posturings of Senator Kyrsten Sinema, that always seem to favor a Republican outcome in her voting patterns. She, very quickly has determined where the political winds
     
    The SJW/DNC is doing poorly with Hispanics. They do not use the term Latinx to describe themselves. So, the political winds are flowing the direction you suggest.

    The legacy of John McCain is GOP(e) swamp heritage, not MAGA heritage. I am not sure that "revert" is the correct description. How about "finally joins" team MAGA?
    ______

    The problem with dividing the U.S. is that people in locations like Arizona are neither Red nor Blue in terms of an irrevocable split. It is not just that millions would be on the "wrong side" of the line. Huge numbers have no strong affiliation to either side.

    Contrast this with Lebanon. A partition could work via easily identified groups with 100% affiliation -- Christian, Druze, and Muslim. While the division may be painful, it is clear what the sides are for almost all of the population. Exceptions would largely be one-offs, such as sending Collaborator Aoun to the Muslim side despite his theoretical religious affiliation.

    PEACE 😇

    Replies: @Mr. Hack

  802. @AP
    @Mr. Hack

    Prior to 2014, Ukraine was moving inexorably towards the West but it was not anti-Russian (in fact, anti-Russian sentiments seem to have been dropping). Even the complaints about Yanukovich in the Western parts of the country were focused on Donbas rather than on Russia itself; the majority of Western Ukrainians had a positive opinion of Russia in 2013, though it was by a smaller margin than in other regions in the country. If that Ukraine were to have joined the EU it would have been as a Russia-friendly country such as Bulgaria or Hungary rather than as a Russia-hostile country such as the Baltics.

    Putin chose to grab Crimea and Donbas at the price of turning the rest of Ukraine into another Baltics or Poland. Crimea is a great strategic asset, and if the rest of Ukraine was going to join the West anyways, maybe it doesn't matter if it was friendly or hostile towards Russia. I am not insisting that Putin's move was a blunder for Russia, it might have been worth the price.

    Replies: @Mr. Hack, @Mikhail

    Russia was in no danger of losing its base in Crimea, at least for 50 years, and could have remained an influential and “beloved” neighbor in the rest of the country. Ukraine was only granted and associate status within the EU, and Russia could have used a lot of its soft power influence to lull Ukraine back “into the fold”. And NATO was not up for any serious consideration then. And today? At least, this is the way that I see it.

    • LOL: Mikhail
  803. German_reader says:
    @AP
    @German_reader

    The best way to prevent war is to make war as unpalatable as possible for the aggressor (MAD is the obvious example of this).

    It may be too late, NATO could have made a Russian invasion of Ukraine extremely expensive by arming Ukraine to the teeth, as it has not done, due in large part to vetoes by the Merkel government and by making economic consequences obvious and extreme, by not eliminating its own nuclear power and by not allowing the gas pipes to bypass Ukraine (also the work of Germany). For whatever reason, Germany's elites have done all they could to build up Russian power and to damage Europe, even at the expense of their own people's well-being.

    Replies: @German_reader

    The best way to prevent war is to make war as unpalatable as possible for the aggressor (MAD is the obvious example of this).

    I admit that’s plausible, though there’s also the argument that it’s exactly the changing military balance and Ukraine’s deepening ties with NATO that could trigger a Russian invasion. There’s also the issue that one would have to ensure Ukraine doesn’t use Western weapons for offensive actions in the Donbass which could serve as a pretext for Russian intervention. But on balance you may well be right, and arms shipments might be the least one can do for deterrence against a Russian invasion (which Russia doesn’t have any moral right to, I want to emphasize that I agree it would be an unjustifiable act of aggression).
    I agree about Germany’s energy policy, creating such a level of dependence on Russia was very foolish. Personally I also think the abolition of conscription was a mistake, as was the continuing erosion of military capabilities under Merkel (though Germany isn’t alone in this, even the British army is now well under 100 000 active personnel). I would be against direct NATO intervention in Ukraine, but as it is it seems doubtful even that NATO forces could defend/recover the Baltic states against Russia. Obviously it’s a problem when a miliary alliance might not even be able or willing to protect its existing members.

    • Replies: @songbird
    @German_reader


    abolition of conscription was a mistake
     
    One interesting survivor is Mexico.

    One might suppose that the state capacity necessary to do a universal draft and the muscle harnessed through it might solve a lot of problems. But Mexico is still Mexico. A narco state.

    Replies: @German_reader

    , @LatW
    @German_reader



    AP: The best way to prevent war is to make war as unpalatable as possible for the aggressor
     

    I admit that’s plausible
     

     
    It's not just plausible, but possibly the only way to make sure one is left alone. The laws of Nature dictate that the weak are beaten, the strong are respected.

    though there’s also the argument that it’s exactly the changing military balance and Ukraine’s deepening ties with NATO that could trigger a Russian invasion.
     
    Two aspects here: the changing military balance driven by 1) Ukraine's increasing homegrown military capability and 2) the military support from the West (which in the big picture is small, political support is more encompassing). Which one of these "could trigger a Russian invasion", as you say? Or not necessarily an invasion but various forms of aggression. Which part does Russia dislike more? Let's assume that NATO / US steps away entirely. Will Russia calm down? Maybe a little but on principle no, because there is still a sense of cultural self-determination in Ukraine which Russia subjectively perceives as "fascism" and which at this point will never go away as well as military production.


    There’s also the issue that one would have to ensure Ukraine doesn’t use Western weapons for offensive actions in the Donbass which could serve as a pretext for Russian intervention
     
    What Western weapons are there to begin with? The Javelin was not even anywhere near the front lines all these years, it was only taken closer recently as the current crisis started. There aren't many of them to begin with and Ukraine has its own anti-tank missiles (and is working on more serious missiles). If they decided to enter the Donbas, the Javelin are not some deciding factor there (and it's a small weapon to begin with), they could easily leave the Javelin behind and use their own Stugna missiles (sure, they'd have to produce more). There's been some talks about giving them Stingers. They need air defense. The truth is that there is a very limited number of "Western weapons" in Ukraine to begin with. If I'm not mistaken, for many years, Germany has forbidden any kind of sale of any serious weaponry to Ukraine. The US has given way more to other actors than Ukraine. There are anecdotes floating around that some foreigners walk into stores in Kyiv and see all the locally made sniper rifles and are stunned by how such advanced rifles can be sold there. So this is ridiculous talk when both the Western skeptics and Russia bring it up, Ukraine has been hanging on mostly by its own strength.

    Personally I also think the abolition of conscription [in Germany] was a mistake
     
    If you look at the Nordic countries, some of them have (or have renewed) conscription, Germany could've just been a slightly bigger version of that. Although Bundeswehr is not all that small, right, something like 200K troops? Do you know what was the size of the troops in the Federative Republic of Germany during the Cold War? I have to look it up, probably a lot.

    I would be against direct NATO intervention in Ukraine
     
    Intervention, of course no, but if there was a real full on invasion of the left bank (even if that is not all that likely), the regional members should seriously consider any steps they can make to help at least the Western Ukraine feel more secure. That becomes kind of a dilemma, because while Western NATO members such as the Anglo countries and Germany, are not threatened by this, the regional NATO countries are (I don't want to overuse the term "eastern flang" because, while accurate, it rhetorically divides up NATO). Those who are not threatened should not be allowed to veto those who are. This is all hypothetical, of course, and the regional members need to first strengthen themselves before they can help Ukraine (if they have such a will).

    it seems doubtful even that NATO forces could defend/recover the Baltic states against Russia.
     
    Even if they could not recover the status quo ante, there are other things they could do to make Russia pay. Besides... Stoltenberg recently said that NATO would fight. This forum really puts down NATO at times, but I wouldn't downgrade NATO as yet, it might be stronger than it seems. That said, the Baltic States need to start thinking about how to defend themselves on their own. Or in unison with regional partners. The Baltic States have made some progress since 2014, but there are still things that can be done to improve capabilities, there are concepts nowadays, such as the mosaic warfare, that leave some space for exploration.

    Obviously it’s a problem when a military alliance might not even be able or willing to protect its existing members.
     
    It is, and it raises certain economic and political question for the Baltic States - did it make sense to allow the West access to our resources and allow the West to dictate politically and socially (Ok, they're not dictating fully, but they're certainly getting away with more than they should, although I would even speculate that the oppression of your people by the woke is much more severe than mine), if they don't have the will or the means to assist us against Russia? This could be resolved through raising the local military capabilities, and potentially seeking some amicability with Russia on certain levels (there is a lot of trade and some cultural exchange), but still retaining NATO as an umbrella.

    Replies: @German_reader

  804. @AP
    @Chairman Meow


    USSR was disgusting in many ways

    Not really.
     
    Yes really. It sold out beauty and tradition in exchange for material prosperity and progress but ended up being squalid and poor relative to the capitalist peers who also sold out beauty and tradition but at least in exchange provided the greatest prosperity in human history. And in addition to this failure, the USSR provided a strong dose of mass murder.

    They did make nice children's cartoons, subway systems, and a literate and educated population (who lived in material conditions similar to those of dirt poor American blacks).

    like with everything capitalism tends to degrade the quality of products over time as it consolidates in society and industry
     
    Like a Ford or Toyota versus a Zhiguli? LOL.

    Replies: @Dmitry, @Chairman Meow

    squalid and poor relative to the capitalist

    It’s not such a simple discussion, like anything about the Soviet times. Soviet times were such a historical case study which mixed successes which exceed positive expectations, with failure which exceed negative expectations.

    For constituent countries, of the USSR, convergence in measures like GDP per capita and life expectancy,* was the closest to Western countries in the late 1960s (i.e. in Soviet times), than in any other time in modern history, before or after.

    So, of course, the Soviet system has not provided the wealth of Sweden or Switzerland. But compared to other times in the history of the constituent countries, it includes some years where it was the closest it has been to convergence with Western standards (excluding perhaps places like Estonia, which are converging now in capitalist times).


    It’s crazy to imagine, but male life expectancy during Khrushchev was for a short time the same health status in Ukraine, as France.

    Like a Ford or Toyota versus a Zhiguli? LOL.

    Almost, but Ford should be on the other side sharing the disjunction with Zhiguli.

    “Like a Toyota versus a Ford or Zhiguli? LOL.”

    • Replies: @Dmitry
    @Dmitry


    than in any other time in modern history, before or after.
     
    Although many of the worst aspects of the Soviet system (like the emphasis on powerful organs for security) has also contributed to such multi-decade dystopian politics of the after times, replicating similar results in almost every country. Not recommended to repeat this "experiment".
    , @AP
    @Dmitry


    "squalid and poor relative to the capitalist.."

    "For constituent countries, of the USSR, convergence in measures like GDP per capita and life expectancy,* was the closest to Western countries in the late 1960s (i.e. in Soviet times), than in any other time in modern history, before or after."
     
    And by the 1980s (let's say, after only 15 years) they descended into relative poverty. Also, much of Soviet GDP was captured by military industry and wasn't reflected in day to day life.

    The relative gains into the late 1960s suggest that industrialization and modernization was bound to lead to some improvement but under a centrally planned socialist economy there was a ceiling that was reached in the 1970s, after which further improvement was very small. Free market capitalist countries on the other hand had no such ceiling and just saw ongoing vast improvement.

    However, you should also compare the USSR to countries of similar pre-Soviet development. It may be easier for very poor countries to catch up a little to much richer ones.

    So for example, Portugal and Greece only had about 2/3 of Russia's per capita GDP PPP in 1913. By 1973 Portugal had about 90% of the USSR's GDP PPP and Greece was richer than the USSR. All three of these countries had made relative gains to the rich Western countries, but the USSR's relative gains were smaller and it was falling behind these other poor European countries.

    This chart only goes back to 1987 for Ukraine and 1989 for Russia (so last 5 years of USSR for Ukraine and 3 for Russia), but we see countries that are already very poor, much poorer than France, and not improving at all:

    https://i.imgur.com/xJOSMoH.png

    They were so poor that even the steep relative decline of the 1990s doesn't look so steep compared to France because it is just a a series of very low numbers.

    Like a Ford or Toyota versus a Zhiguli? LOL.

    Almost, but Ford should be on the other side sharing the disjunction with Zhiguli.

    “Like a Toyota versus a Ford or Zhiguli? LOL.”
     
    Nonsense. Ford is much closer to Toyota than to a Lada, which is in the same category as Yugo (exported to the USA and the butt of jokes).

    The cheapest Ford in the USA:

    https://s38.wheelsage.org/format/picture/picture-preview-large/f/ford/escort_glx_4-door/ford_escort_glx_4-door.jpg

    Compare to Zhiguli:

    https://i.radiopachone.org/img/9ea84cbef8672e6ff26b9cad42eb79.jpg

    They were just in different categories. Zhiguli was pretty much 1960s technology, smaller, slower.

    An interesting review and comparison of Lada Samara (much improved over the Zhiguli):

    https://www.flickr.com/photos/triggerscarstuff/4475997889/in/photostream/

    The Samara approached the cheap Escort in some areas, and appears to have been slightly more fun to drive. But the quality was much lower and it was much less refined, such that the reviewer concluded that people who could afford an Escort would not buy a Samara. And moreover this was the worst and cheapest of the Fords.

    Replies: @Chairman Meow, @Dmitry, @Shortsword

  805. @songbird
    @Mr. Hack


    My grandmother used to sleep walk and it usually occurred during the time of a full moon.
     
    This reminds me of one of the most curious dreams I ever had. Ever seen the movie Inception? Well, I had a similar experience...

    Once, when I was camping on a lonely wooded hill in Northern New England, under the light of a full moon, someone, using the power of this moon, entered into my dream from the outside. Someone who, in olden times, was feared by both Indians and colonists (surely some of the toughest, and most hard-nosed peoples who ever lived. ) Someone recognized by both, immortalized in their folklore, as a harbinger of death, a stealer of souls.

    Deep in my dream, I did not hear his light footsteps in the night, his flittering, as he came hunting for nourishment.

    It was a sunny day in my dream, where I was walking from point A to point B outside, on a paved path, across a cultivated park. Fool that I was, I did not realize I was dreaming, alone and helpless in the country. I did not even grow alarmed, when first I detected him.

    I did not even question his strange presence, until I entered into a peak of rationality. And said to myself, "What is a child of the night doing here? Shouldn't you be hiding now, in the dark shadows, away from the sun?"

    As if hearing my thoughts, he sang a joyous, mocking song. Immediately, I remembered it was a full moon in the real world. And I, as if hit by magic, thought it was wonderful. Now, deep under his spell, I did not bother waking up, for suddenly, it seemed like such a waste of effort. But continued to hear him sing couplet after couplet, and began to appreciate it more and more, knowing full well that my prone body was unprotected in the real world - the night in which he hunted. Exposed to all manner of bloodsucking.

    He was - a whip-poor-will (and the mosquitoes were the bloodsuckers)

    Lastly, your “large robot” dream reminds me of one that I had after watching the film
     
    If I had to cite a reference, it would be a certain Saturday morning cartoon. But it hit me out of leftfield as I hadn't seen it in ages, and I believe hadn't seen a movie with big robots in it. Think it may have been my most effects-laden dream ever - biggest budget. (incidentally, I wonder if these fantastic dreams debunk this idea that we are a simulation, as that would take a lot of unnecessary GPU cycles)

    Also had one where I was fluently speaking some foreign language that I don't know a word of in real life.

    Perhaps, you really did go for a walk? Sleep walking is very real for some individuals.
     
    I've known one or two, and think that I am not one, for nobody ever told me, and, in contrast to them, I seem generally to be a light sleeper.

    Once, I was sharing a tent with one - obnoxious snorer - and, after a few nights of it, I took his headphones out and put them on his ears and cranked the volume up. And he did not even wake up!

    Used to joke that I am descended from all the men who were awakened by the cave lion trying to sneak past the barrier, or the night raiders trying to slit everyone's throats. Men who outlived the night attack to have sons.

    Replies: @Mr. Hack

    So, you woke up in a sweat swatting a large engorged mosquito that had been filling up for the last half hour? 🙂

    How many sons were you fortunate enough to sire?…

    • Replies: @songbird
    @Mr. Hack


    So, you woke up in a sweat swatting a large engorged mosquito that had been filling up for the last half hour?
     
    Sometimes, I have genuinely wondered if mosquitoes were designed to annoy people who are trying to get to sleep. Why else would they whine in your ear?

    But I do think that was an interesting dream. I have had sounds intrude on me before in my dreams - once I was talking to a person, when they starting meowing like a cat. Think I heard a kettle once. But it has always woken me up, except the whippoorwill.

    And another thing that was weird about it, I really did realize that it was a full moon in the real world, while in my dream. Can't ever remember being cognizant of some true signal of time or a true date or true astrological phenomenon in any other dream.

    How many sons were you fortunate enough to sire?…
     
    Somewhere behind Ramses II and Emperor Huizong of Song. They have beaten me for now...
  806. @AP
    @A123

    The two sides have not moved fare apart to warrant a split (yet). But it can be done relatively well, geographically.

    https://www.realclearpolitics.com/elections/live_results/2020/live_map_house.png

    New England, coastal Washington, eastern and southern New York State and New Jersey could be annexed by Canada and be a prosperous, culturally weird, mostly European-Asian progressive "paradise" - North America's Scandinavia. If all that would be too much for Canada to swallow, metro-New York and NJ might be its own type of Singapore, the New World's financial hub (anyways New England fits culturally better into Canada than NY with its different demographics).

    California, southern Nevada and Arizona, could be an independent Latin American-style country with huge income and wealth disparity as in Latin America but still fairly prosperous due to the partial legacy of Silicon Valley (much of it but not all of it will move to TX) and Hollywood. It would still have a largely Anglo elite and would offer an amazing lifestyle for the rich in their gated communities along the coast, produce a lot of agriculture, etc.

    This would take care of much of the split.

    As for those caught on the wrong side of the new border - the red island in the California interior might disappear when the new government grants citizenship to all the migrant workers there. There would be blue islands in places like Chicago, Detroit, Minneapolis, and the Carolinas. I imagine there would be some voluntary population transfers; the super-progressives of Minnesota would move to Winnipeg and the ones in Chicago would move to New York. Those really desperate not to live in a solidly forever-blue California would move even faster to TX (whose laws would now be so solidly Red that the type of people who would turn the state Blue wouldn't dare to enter) and vice versa.

    I wonder if, after the split, Washington DC would be abandoned and allowed to die as the center of the economic and demographics of Red America shifts to Texas. Chicago would be the largest single metro area but Dallas and Houston are catching up rapidly (each one may overtake Chicago by 2030) and combined they already dwarf Chicago.

    Replies: @Mr. Hack, @A123, @Yellowface Anon

    For a U.S. partition:

    I imagine there would be some voluntary population transfers

    Support for voluntary non-workers in MAGAmerica would be quite low. One would expect handout culture to expand in BLUEstania. The “voluntary” moves would be higher than you anticipate as large chunks of the working age unemployed and unemployable would have to move.

    I also suspect some involuntary relocation would be necessary. Aliens with criminal, suspicious, and/or unassimilable backgrounds would have to be sent home or exported to BLUEstania.
    _____

    You envision Oregon being part of MAGAmerica, which is better than most propositions. This does provide Pacific Ocean access, but there is not much currently there. Both military and commercial needs would push huge new rail and port connections to connect Red Oregon to the bulk of the MAGA nation. Even working flat out 24×7 it would take more than a decade to develop. Oregon’s coast would immediately become the fastest growing part of MAGAmerica.

    PEACE 😇

  807. @Yahya
    @silviosilver


    For the purposes of this discussion, the appropriate comparison is with white Americans, not with all Americans

     

    I think AP covered that one well.

    – the latter whose average is dragged down by blacks and hispanics.
     
    (Non-Hispanic) White-American median household income was $74,912 in 2020.

    Lebanese-Americans were at $87,099.

    The overall American figure was $67,521.

    https://www.statista.com/statistics/233324/median-household-income-in-the-united-states-by-race-or-ethnic-group/


    Interestingly, both very light and very dark can occur within the same family.

     

    Yes, in the Middle East, a strange duality exists where people of the same race, religion, region, nationality and even family can exhibit vastly different phenotypes. Some will look quasi-European ("white"); and others will look quasi-Hispanic ("brown"). The proportion of white-to-brown differs by class and region.

    In almost any Arab society; the higher classes will have more whites than browns; and the lower classes more browns than whites. In the Levant; the majority (70-80%+) in the upper classes will be white; somewhat less white in the middle class (maybe 60%), whereas the lower classes will be somewhat more brown (perhaps 65%). Nevertheless, the quasi-European types can still be found among the rabble (heh); so it's not a situation like in Latin America where the upper class is uniformly white; and the lower classes predominantly indigos and mestizos.


    The vast majority look nothing like Iberians (whose non-whiteness is absurdly exaggerated on race forums).

     

    I don't think it was an "extreme exaggeration" to say Levantines look similar to Southern Europeans. This similarity has been noticed by many, not just me; and for good reason. Even in Ancient times, the Greeks; who were keen observers of physical differences between themselves and others (Ethiopians, Indians, Northern Europeans etc.) didn’t make any note of differences between themselves and Levantines, since presumably they were similar enough (i.e. Mediterranean Caucasians). Or perhaps they didn’t care to note down any differences.

    Anyway, back to the modern world. An Unz commentor once perceptively noted that the average Greek looks far more "Arab than Aryan"; which I think is a succinct summary of the phenotypic similarities between Arabs and Southern Europeans; which is probably greater than with Northern Europeans:


    AndrewR says:
    @Je Suis Charlie Martel
    Is it not obvious? The average Greek looks far more Arab than Aryan. That’s why I laugh so hard when I see Greeks LARPing as nazis bemoaning all the “nonwhite” Arabs into “white” countries like Germany.

    I mean… I’m not saying Greeks shouldn’t oppose the immivasion. But to pretend they’re more like the Germans than the Syrians is the height of fantasy.

    • Replies: @ReaderfromGreece
     
    And people pointing out that Southern Europeans look similar to Middle Easterners is not exclusively done by WN-types either. In Reddit, for example, an anonymous poll was conducted asking if Greeks looked more similar to Omanis or Norwegians:

    https://www.reddit.com/r/phenotypes/comments/rjor4z/do_greeks_pass_better_as_omani_or_as_norwegian/

    Somewhat humorously, Omanis won out by a large margin, even though Omanis are darker than most other Arabs. I can only imagine what the results would have been like had Levantines been in place of Omanis. Another poll asked if Spaniards and Portuguese look closer to the Lebanese or Irish; the former won out:

    https://www.reddit.com/r/phenotypes/comments/q0m16p/spaniards_and_portuguese_look_closer_to_which_of/


    That is an extreme exaggeration. I have considerable personal experience with Lebanese, both Christian and Muslim. I don’t doubt there are some very European looking ones, but they’re only a small minority.

     

    The "extreme exaggeration" is on your part. The proportion of Levantines who can pass for Southern European is not "minuscule" - that would be Pashtuns, of whom there is a small white-looking contingent; but you'd have to put in some effort to find them. For Levantines, by contrast, one could easily bring up thousands of examples of quasi-European phenotypes without breaking a sweat. Take a look at this school choir in Syria, for example:

    https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=T-9MDK4xecQ&ab_channel=iyadhanna

    I'd say about ~70-80% of them, if they were put up on reddit for commenters to guess their national origin, would get a fair number of "Spain", "Portugal", "Greece", or "Italy". Again; a familiar eye can discern between them; but most people would not.


    In the overwhelmingly (“pristinely” or “oppressively”, depending on your perspective, heh) Anglo part of Australia I grew up, a “greasy dago” like me stuck out like a sore thumb.

     

    When I first went to the US for university; I thought, given my white skin (similar to the median Southern European, or even a tanned Germanic-type) and quasi-European appearance; I would be considered white. For the most part that was true - unless people obtained knowledge of my Muslim name, or heard my foreign accent. Then I would suddenly become a "person of color", almost in an instant. At first I was bothered by this, since I thought it was non-sensical that someone who is closer to the Italian-American phenotype, like myself, would be lumped in with blacks and Hispanics. But over time I started enjoying my PoC status, since in my ultra-woke university environment, PoC were of higher status than whites. :)

    Since I've returned to Egypt, none of this is applicable anymore.


    what they can’t quite bring themselves to say is that I’m too non-white to be a racist, that “racism” is something only people as white as themselves are capable of

     

    If what you say about yourself is true, then you, like many other Southern Euros, are probably closer in appearance to Levantine Arabs, than to your pasty-white Anglo "co-racials". In which case; it's understandable why you would be considered too "non-white" to be racist.

    Against the backdrop of a bazillion niggers, however, I find myself transformed into a “fellow white man,” lol.

     

    From what I gather, even Nordicist WN-types are coming around to accepting Southern Europeans as "fellow white people". I assume this is partly because of the avalanche of evidence pointing to Greeks and Romans being swarthy Southern Europeans - not unlike their Central Italian and mainland Greek descendants today. Previously, Nordicists were desperate to claim the accomplishments of these two peoples, since obviously Germanics/Nordics/Celts were mostly primitive people for 85% of recorded history. But WN-types can no longer plausibly claim a connection to the glories of Ancient Greece and Rome; except by this new tenuous racial connection.

    Replies: @German_reader, @Mikel, @silviosilver, @silviosilver

    The proportion of Levantines who can pass for Southern European is not “minuscule”

    Firstly, you were referring to Iberia, specifically, not southern Europe in general. I can assure you I’m not trying to defend the “Aryan honor” of Iberia or anything like that. Unlike what you might think, I was actually rather disappointed when I first realized how northern European many Iberians were. It made me wary of regarding Spaniards and Portuguese (as groups, as ethnicities) as people similar to me. On the one hand, personal experiences had clearly established some basis for thinking that the sentiment was shared, but I also realized that I must have been “not seeing” many of them because they were largely indistinguishable from N. Europeans.

    I think I can cut this ‘dispute’ quite short by stating that I wish you were right. I’m a ‘racist’ sure, but I’m an inclusionary, ballpark – close enough is good enough – kind of racist; not an exclusionary, purist kind of racist. So even though my own rather extensive investigations into this issue yielded somewhat disappointing results, I’d be quite happy to learn that I’m wrong.

    If what you say about yourself is true, then you, like many other Southern Euros, are probably closer in appearance to Levantine Arabs, than to your pasty-white Anglo “co-racials”.

    Well that’s just obvious, and I’ve never thought otherwise.

    You may have thought differently because I’m always talking about white this and white that. That’s because I have come to support the WN cause, not because I’m a WN or go around identifying as white myself. (Although I certainly culturally identify as European – what else would I?)

    It’s not just from the goodness of my heart that I support WNs, of course. A selfish, calculating Mammonite like me wouldn’t dream of supporting a cause were it not in my interests. If it is a binary choice (and in practice, I think, it always will be) of being anti-white/pro-black or anti-black/pro-white, I am going to pick the latter, and I think it would be best if everybody did.

    Pro-white means being pro-identity, pro-standards, pro-responsibility, pro-reality, pro-intelligence, pro-beauty, pro-punishing the guilty.

    Pro-black means the opposite: abolishing identity, abandoning standards, making excuses, denying reality, neglecting intelligence, promoting ugliness and punishing the innocent.

    Shouldn’t be a hard choice.

    • Replies: @Yahya
    @silviosilver


    Unlike what you might think, I was actually rather disappointed when I first realized how northern European many Iberians were.
     
    Here's the Syrian national football team:


    https://atalayar.com/sites/default/files/styles/foto_/public/noticias/Atalayar_Siria%20mundial%20%20%283%29.jpg?itok=5SQUiSvI


    Here's the Spanish football team:


    https://cdn.vox-cdn.com/thumbor/jp0slz3X9UP64MlFdwLCigorhSg=/0x0:4273x3010/1200x800/filters:focal(1796x1164:2478x1846)/cdn.vox-cdn.com/uploads/chorus_image/image/61384039/1031700340.jpg.0.jpg


    Here's the Swedish team:


    https://upload.wikimedia.org/wikipedia/commons/5/5a/Sweden_national_football_team_20120611.jpg


    Are Spaniards really closer to Swedes than Syrians?

    Lebanese-Mexican (Carlos Slim):


    https://api.time.com/wp-content/uploads/2015/12/carlos-slim.jpg


    Spanish-Mexican (Andrés Manuel López Obrador):

    https://www.globaltimes.cn/Portals/0/attachment/2021/2021-01-25/569b916f-a56a-45e2-bc8b-56a6cef11a6b.jpeg


    Anglo-American (Bill Gates):


    https://cdn.vanguardngr.com/wp-content/uploads/2020/05/Bill-Gates.jpg


    Who's closer in appearance to AMLO?

    Tough to say.

    Which pretty much demonstrates my point: Levantines don’t look too different from Iberians.


    Pro-white means being pro-identity, pro-standards, pro-responsibility, pro-reality, pro-intelligence, pro-beauty, pro-punishing the guilty.

     

    Hard to argue against that.

    Replies: @Yahya, @German_reader, @LatW

  808. @German_reader
    @AP


    The best way to prevent war is to make war as unpalatable as possible for the aggressor (MAD is the obvious example of this).
     
    I admit that's plausible, though there's also the argument that it's exactly the changing military balance and Ukraine's deepening ties with NATO that could trigger a Russian invasion. There's also the issue that one would have to ensure Ukraine doesn't use Western weapons for offensive actions in the Donbass which could serve as a pretext for Russian intervention. But on balance you may well be right, and arms shipments might be the least one can do for deterrence against a Russian invasion (which Russia doesn't have any moral right to, I want to emphasize that I agree it would be an unjustifiable act of aggression).
    I agree about Germany's energy policy, creating such a level of dependence on Russia was very foolish. Personally I also think the abolition of conscription was a mistake, as was the continuing erosion of military capabilities under Merkel (though Germany isn't alone in this, even the British army is now well under 100 000 active personnel). I would be against direct NATO intervention in Ukraine, but as it is it seems doubtful even that NATO forces could defend/recover the Baltic states against Russia. Obviously it's a problem when a miliary alliance might not even be able or willing to protect its existing members.

    Replies: @songbird, @LatW

    abolition of conscription was a mistake

    One interesting survivor is Mexico.

    One might suppose that the state capacity necessary to do a universal draft and the muscle harnessed through it might solve a lot of problems. But Mexico is still Mexico. A narco state.

    • Replies: @German_reader
    @songbird


    One interesting survivor is Mexico.
     
    I agree it's surprising, but I looked it up on Wikipedia, and it doesn't look like "real" military service to me (with recruits living in barracks, being subjected throughout to military discipline, going on days-long marches etc.), more like part-time paramility training, the like of which used to be given even to schoolchildren in many countries...or not even that:

    Those who draw a white ball must serve “framed” which means, they must start service immediately from 8am-1pm for one entire year until they receive the discharge card.
     

    “Framed” military service has been criticized because many feel that the activities done are not truly to support the military. As conscription units are owned by cities and municipalities, these cities have used conscripts as free laborers. Activities include exercise, gardening, picking up falling trees, agility drills, gun lift shows, classes about military doctrine and patriotism, saluting the flag, cleaning up parks and street, and painting.

    Some units do not learn marksmanship and/or hand-to-hand combat. In these units where combat is not taught, they are asked to practice small fighting during break/lunch.

     

    I suppose some future cartel members might at least get free firearms training though.

    Replies: @songbird

  809. @Dmitry
    @AP


    squalid and poor relative to the capitalist
     
    It's not such a simple discussion, like anything about the Soviet times. Soviet times were such a historical case study which mixed successes which exceed positive expectations, with failure which exceed negative expectations.

    For constituent countries, of the USSR, convergence in measures like GDP per capita and life expectancy,* was the closest to Western countries in the late 1960s (i.e. in Soviet times), than in any other time in modern history, before or after.

    So, of course, the Soviet system has not provided the wealth of Sweden or Switzerland. But compared to other times in the history of the constituent countries, it includes some years where it was the closest it has been to convergence with Western standards (excluding perhaps places like Estonia, which are converging now in capitalist times).

    -
    It's crazy to imagine, but male life expectancy during Khrushchev was for a short time the same health status in Ukraine, as France.

    https://i.imgur.com/hkxSnUA.jpg


    Like a Ford or Toyota versus a Zhiguli? LOL.

     

    Almost, but Ford should be on the other side sharing the disjunction with Zhiguli.

    "Like a Toyota versus a Ford or Zhiguli? LOL."

    Replies: @Dmitry, @AP

    than in any other time in modern history, before or after.

    Although many of the worst aspects of the Soviet system (like the emphasis on powerful organs for security) has also contributed to such multi-decade dystopian politics of the after times, replicating similar results in almost every country. Not recommended to repeat this “experiment”.

  810. @AP
    @Chairman Meow


    USSR was disgusting in many ways

    Not really.
     
    Yes really. It sold out beauty and tradition in exchange for material prosperity and progress but ended up being squalid and poor relative to the capitalist peers who also sold out beauty and tradition but at least in exchange provided the greatest prosperity in human history. And in addition to this failure, the USSR provided a strong dose of mass murder.

    They did make nice children's cartoons, subway systems, and a literate and educated population (who lived in material conditions similar to those of dirt poor American blacks).

    like with everything capitalism tends to degrade the quality of products over time as it consolidates in society and industry
     
    Like a Ford or Toyota versus a Zhiguli? LOL.

    Replies: @Dmitry, @Chairman Meow

    It sold out beauty and tradition

    What beauty and tradition did it sell out? If anything the Soviets expanded on Tsarist era beauty and tradition, promoting Tsasrist authors like Chekhov, Tolstoy, Pushkin and building up Moscow and St Petes to be beautiful at their peak

    Soviets used the best building practices of their time to beautify Moscow as their new capital and by all contemporary accounts in the 30’s, Moscow was stunning for example.

    ended up being squalid and poor

    By what measure? USSR had second economy in the world until the 1980’s when it became third economy as it was surpassed by Japan.

    Keep in mind that despite world wars and massive sanctions the USSR was growing at 13.8% per year for almost 22 years straight.

    USSR provided a strong dose of mass murder.

    Mass murder? Are you for real? Shall we compare it to British policies in Bangladesh and India for comparison? Or how about Belgian policies in Africa? Or lets take American policies towards the Indians in America? The scale of “Mass murder” far surpassed anything the Soviets ever did

    (who lived in material conditions similar to those of dirt poor American blacks).

    Nonesense. Most of the world does not care for the same things that americans care about, so claiming that they lived in the same material conditions as blacks makes no sense.

    Like a Ford or Toyota versus a Zhiguli?

    Exactly. Zhiguli’s have not developed under capitalism but where quite good cars in their time. In fact Soviet automaking was so good that many cars made during the period are still used and made to this day. For example the legendary UAZ-452 “Bukhanka” (https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/UAZ-452). Capitalist Russia was not able to innovate anything half as good. LOL

    • Replies: @German_reader
    @Chairman Meow


    Shall we compare it to British policies in Bangladesh and India for comparison? Or how about Belgian policies in Africa?
     
    British rule in India certainly had its dark side (like the famines in Bengal in the late 18th century which arguably were the result of EIC policies, or the harsh repression of the 1857 mutiny), but by the 1930s and 1940s there is no comparison at all with the Soviet system. Bengal famine of 1943 happened in wartime due to various factors (only some of which were the fault of the British), it wasn't a largely man-made disaster in peacetime as the Soviet famines of the 1930s were. Nor did the British execute hundreds of thousands in terror campaigns, as the Soviet state undoubtedly did.
    Belgium has really been quite unfairly slandered, they did a lot of good in Congo after the colony had been taken over by the Belgian state in 1908. It really was a tragedy that most of this was undone after independence (of course the Soviets supported such terrible movements as those Simba cannibals).

    Replies: @Chairman Meow

    , @AP
    @Chairman Meow


    What beauty and tradition did it sell out? If anything the Soviets expanded on Tsarist era beauty and tradition
     
    LOL.

    Soviet is characterized by ugliness combined with poverty.


    promoting Tsasrist authors like Chekhov, Tolstoy, Pushkin
     
    The killed the Silver Age of Russian literature but did keep Chekhov and Pushkin. So there is a minor point in their favor. I already mentioned that - that one of the few good things about the generally disgusting Soviet system was the it produced literate people.

    and building up Moscow and St Petes to be beautiful at their peak
     
    The most beautiful parts of these cities were built before the Revolution. In Moscow these would be the White City, Kitai Gorod, etc. While Stalin-era architecture is not bad, it is worse than the parts of the old city that were destroyed to make room for the Stalinist buildings. And what followed Stalin-era architecture was horrible.

    Modern capitalist architecture is also often ugly and horrible, but it as least is luxurious compared to Soviet garbage. Having a large ugly house is sure better than being cramped with three generations into a small ugly apartment with no elevator.


    USSR had second economy in the world until the 1980’s
     
    Per capita it was poorer than Greece. It was only 20% richer than Mexico by 1989. And much of its economy was tied up in the military, so the people were even poorer than the GDP would suggest.

    USSR provided a strong dose of mass murder.


    Mass murder? Are you for real? Shall we compare it to British policies in Bangladesh and India for comparison? Or how about Belgian policies in Africa?
     
    The Soviets treated their own citizens like the British treated the Bangladeshi people or Belgians treated Congolese. Excellent comparison.

    But you have to go back to the 19th century to compare how Europeans treated African or Asian colonial subjects, to how Soviets treated their own population in the 20th century.


    Or lets take American policies towards the Indians in America?
     
    Indeed. In the 19th century, Americans treated Indians like Soviets treated Soviet Chechen and Tatar citizens in the 20th.

    Replies: @Chairman Meow

    , @Dmitry
    @Chairman Meow


    Soviets expanded on Tsarist era beauty
     
    Russian Empire and Soviet Union, were similar, to say something very obvious about the same country. They mostly change the management, change some packaging. It is still the same country. I think foreigners sometimes are getting more obsessed by this.

    There was a lot of excitement about the "rebranding project" by the new government, which has exploited gullibility of kindly foreigners' hopes and aspirations. But there was sadly not a real socialist revolution that answers our millenarian dreams of happiness and world peace, just an exploitation of those hopes in rhetoric.

    Positive achievements of the Russian Empire were accelerated, like the elite culture, classical music training, railways and beginning of industrialization and science.

    Negative aspects of the Russian Empire were, also accelerated, like secret police, going to labor camp in Siberia, censorship and imperialism.

    I would agree that by the middle of the 20th century, the USSR seems like it is going to exceed the predicted trajectory, and really to defeat flaws of the Russian Empire, such as the vast inequality and low standards of living of the population, or disorganized military power.

    But look at the long term result. It's almost as if was never dreamed, and the situation of equality and normal peoples' rights in postsoviet sphere is probably showing less progress than even pessimistic people of the 19th century would predict.



    (who lived in material conditions similar to those of dirt poor American blacks).
     
    Nonesense. Most of the world does not care for the same things that americans care about, so claiming that they lived in the same material conditions as blacks makes no sense.
     
    Well, I don't understand this part of AP's argument. That's a bad indication for American society, if many African Americans are given housing which is equivalent of a much lower income, recently industrialized country.

    After these pre-fabricated houses constructed from Khrushchev's time, were one of the most successful aspects of Soviet history.

    Even if you don't like their visual appearance, they solved a severe housing crisis, and provided tens of millions of citizens with an unprecedented (for centuries) level of comfort. I mean I'm just writing what is a standard observations of historians or journalists.

    Replies: @AP

  811. German_reader says:
    @songbird
    @German_reader


    abolition of conscription was a mistake
     
    One interesting survivor is Mexico.

    One might suppose that the state capacity necessary to do a universal draft and the muscle harnessed through it might solve a lot of problems. But Mexico is still Mexico. A narco state.

    Replies: @German_reader

    One interesting survivor is Mexico.

    I agree it’s surprising, but I looked it up on Wikipedia, and it doesn’t look like “real” military service to me (with recruits living in barracks, being subjected throughout to military discipline, going on days-long marches etc.), more like part-time paramility training, the like of which used to be given even to schoolchildren in many countries…or not even that:

    Those who draw a white ball must serve “framed” which means, they must start service immediately from 8am-1pm for one entire year until they receive the discharge card.

    “Framed” military service has been criticized because many feel that the activities done are not truly to support the military. As conscription units are owned by cities and municipalities, these cities have used conscripts as free laborers. Activities include exercise, gardening, picking up falling trees, agility drills, gun lift shows, classes about military doctrine and patriotism, saluting the flag, cleaning up parks and street, and painting.

    Some units do not learn marksmanship and/or hand-to-hand combat. In these units where combat is not taught, they are asked to practice small fighting during break/lunch.

    I suppose some future cartel members might at least get free firearms training though.

    • LOL: songbird
    • Replies: @songbird
    @German_reader

    Maybe, it is deliberate, like in some countries in the ME?

    Mexico had a lot of generals that served as head of state. After the federales collapsed during the Mexican Revolution, former revolutionary generals did a lot to downsize the military.

  812. @Dmitry
    @silviosilver


    intelligence.. IQ tests do a perfectly serviceable job of measuring it
     
    You are writing circular statements.

    Adoption and twins studies unambiguously demonstrate that intelligence is largely heritable
     
    Where was I talking about heritability in my comments?


    -

    Whether doing these puzzles is heritable or not, who knows? Maybe, as a lot of things in life have a heritable influence. Our basic prejudice should be that it has heritable influence, as also with playing video games or whether you are interested in gardening.

    Although twin studies for the puzzlebooks which have been claimed to "measure" something they called "IQ", seemed to require forensic accountants to understand. https://www.newscientist.com/article/mg14719953-800-double-take-on-a-fake/

    If you begin with assembling puzzlebooks for children, and then try to impress colleagues that "this is not a comic activity, I am a scientist" by using a technical Latinate vocabulary, half-understanding of statistical concepts and the way you score these puzzles results in a measurable object called "IQ".

    Replies: @silviosilver

    You are writing circular statements.

    If you actually knew what you were talking about, you’d be aware that IQ critics are very keen to claim that, even if a quality called “intelligence” exists, IQ tests do a poor job of measuring it. The two are not assumed to be the same thing.

    and the way you score these puzzles results in a measurable object called “IQ”.

    Not just measurable, but predictive as well as heritable. Therein lies the problem for egalitarians and IQ-deniers.

  813. @Mr. Hack
    @songbird

    So, you woke up in a sweat swatting a large engorged mosquito that had been filling up for the last half hour? :-)

    How many sons were you fortunate enough to sire?...

    Replies: @songbird

    So, you woke up in a sweat swatting a large engorged mosquito that had been filling up for the last half hour?

    Sometimes, I have genuinely wondered if mosquitoes were designed to annoy people who are trying to get to sleep. Why else would they whine in your ear?

    [MORE]

    But I do think that was an interesting dream. I have had sounds intrude on me before in my dreams – once I was talking to a person, when they starting meowing like a cat. Think I heard a kettle once. But it has always woken me up, except the whippoorwill.

    And another thing that was weird about it, I really did realize that it was a full moon in the real world, while in my dream. Can’t ever remember being cognizant of some true signal of time or a true date or true astrological phenomenon in any other dream.

    How many sons were you fortunate enough to sire?…

    Somewhere behind Ramses II and Emperor Huizong of Song. They have beaten me for now…

  814. @Dmitry
    @LatW


    quality of construction with Central Asians
     
    As you know, the answer to this question, and also that it is not because of the nationality of the workers (Central Asian workers who produce President Tokaev's house, probably are building it as carefully as a Swiss watch), except as a symptom . These workers are hired to reduce labor cost. The idea is to produce cheaply.

    It seems predictable what the results will be, when you build low cost, mass housing, in a not too well regulated context.


    https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=MsD5LvkSaxw


    , don’t want to make any negative & condescending presumptions, maybe with the right management it might be ok but who knows).
     
    Not so much local management, but lower regulation and law at the government level, in context of a low income country.

    So, people can complain online about their local context, where e.g. powerful Armenian developers build inhuman housing in Krasnodar. But (even not knowing Krasnodar personally), we all know it is not true that non-Armenian developers are producing well in another city.

    It's not the nationality of developers or builders that causes this situation. It is a predictable result of the lack of regulation combined in the government, combining with low income of the buyers. Results in cheap materials, lack of infrastructure. This is "cowboy capitalism" in a low income country. On the other hand, there is affordable (although still slightly expensive relative to income) housing supply in Russia, which is a better situation than in many countries.

    It's like "there's no free lunch". They build low quality housing, in unregulated, cowboy capitalist ways, but the result is at least a large supply of this housing, at the price median income people can pay.

    Replies: @A123

    China is routinely beset by low quality construction. To prevent additional unstable skyscrapers, New code is being rolled out (1)

    Last year, China banned skycrapers of more than 500 meters high, and put considerable restrictions on those more than 250 meters high.

    Now comes word that they’re banning buildings over 150 meters high as well.

    Larger cities will be limited to 250 metres — less than half the height of China’s tallest buildings.

    Now, special exemptions may still be given if a small city really needs a new skyscraper, but they absolutely, definitely cannot go above 250-metres.

    Likewise, a bigger city could go higher than that if it has a convincing case, but if it wants to go over 500-metres then forget it. No more Shanghai Towers or Ping An Finance Centers — and that’s final.

    There are even new rules to follow past the 100-metre mark. To go higher than that a building will need to meet certain seismic performance and fire safety requirements.

    Which sort of suggests that they didn’t have seismic performance and fire safety requirements before. Or maybe not adequate requirements.

    It appears that “state capitalism” is even shoddier than “cowboy capitalism”.

    PEACE 😇
    __________

    (1) https://www.battleswarmblog.com/?p=50270

  815. German_reader says:
    @Chairman Meow
    @AP


    It sold out beauty and tradition
     
    What beauty and tradition did it sell out? If anything the Soviets expanded on Tsarist era beauty and tradition, promoting Tsasrist authors like Chekhov, Tolstoy, Pushkin and building up Moscow and St Petes to be beautiful at their peak

    Soviets used the best building practices of their time to beautify Moscow as their new capital and by all contemporary accounts in the 30's, Moscow was stunning for example.


    ended up being squalid and poor
     
    By what measure? USSR had second economy in the world until the 1980's when it became third economy as it was surpassed by Japan.

    Keep in mind that despite world wars and massive sanctions the USSR was growing at 13.8% per year for almost 22 years straight.


    USSR provided a strong dose of mass murder.
     
    Mass murder? Are you for real? Shall we compare it to British policies in Bangladesh and India for comparison? Or how about Belgian policies in Africa? Or lets take American policies towards the Indians in America? The scale of "Mass murder" far surpassed anything the Soviets ever did

    (who lived in material conditions similar to those of dirt poor American blacks).
     
    Nonesense. Most of the world does not care for the same things that americans care about, so claiming that they lived in the same material conditions as blacks makes no sense.

    Like a Ford or Toyota versus a Zhiguli?

     

    Exactly. Zhiguli's have not developed under capitalism but where quite good cars in their time. In fact Soviet automaking was so good that many cars made during the period are still used and made to this day. For example the legendary UAZ-452 "Bukhanka" (https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/UAZ-452). Capitalist Russia was not able to innovate anything half as good. LOL

    Replies: @German_reader, @AP, @Dmitry

    Shall we compare it to British policies in Bangladesh and India for comparison? Or how about Belgian policies in Africa?

    British rule in India certainly had its dark side (like the famines in Bengal in the late 18th century which arguably were the result of EIC policies, or the harsh repression of the 1857 mutiny), but by the 1930s and 1940s there is no comparison at all with the Soviet system. Bengal famine of 1943 happened in wartime due to various factors (only some of which were the fault of the British), it wasn’t a largely man-made disaster in peacetime as the Soviet famines of the 1930s were. Nor did the British execute hundreds of thousands in terror campaigns, as the Soviet state undoubtedly did.
    Belgium has really been quite unfairly slandered, they did a lot of good in Congo after the colony had been taken over by the Belgian state in 1908. It really was a tragedy that most of this was undone after independence (of course the Soviets supported such terrible movements as those Simba cannibals).

    • Replies: @Chairman Meow
    @German_reader


    but by the 1930s and 1940s there is no comparison at all with the Soviet system. Bengal famine of 1943 happened in wartime due to various factors
     
    Bengal famine wasn't manmade? Are you serious?

    "Historians usually characterise the famine as anthropogenic (man-made),[9] asserting that wartime colonial policies created and then exacerbated the crisis."

    https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Bengal_famine_of_1943

    The British denied any humanitarian aid for a long time to the region, they didn't really view the famine as a problem as they viewed the Bengali's as "inferior", they requisitioned too much grain even knowing that there were droughts happening amongst other things, they used scorched earth policies and intentionally destroyed crops.

    British policies in Bengladesh led to more deaths due to famines than Soviet land reforms and collectivization policies.


    it wasn’t a largely man-made disaster in peacetime as the Soviet famines of the 1930s were
     
    Neither where the Soviet famines. There was three years of worsening drought (plus Poland and surrounding territories where affected too), after years of high harvest. Soviet land reforms played a role, but starvation after newly implemented land reforms is quite common. However, the extent of the famines are greatly exaggerated and mostly based on the "work" of Robert Conquest who is about as trustworthy as Solzhenitsyn if not less considering he worked for the CIA.

    Nor did the British execute hundreds of thousands in terror campaigns
     
    Huh? Hundreds of thousands? You mean Gulags? Gulags were a holdover from Tsarist times. If you read your Dostoevsky you would remember that Raskolnikov gets sent to a labor camp for 25 years for his crimes. Lenin and Stalin also spent time in labor camps in the pre-revolution era. The Decemberists were also sent to labor camps, so gulags were not a Soviet invention but a Tsarist one.

    In Soviet times, the Gulags at their peak had a population of no more than 2 million (less than the 2.5 million in the modern US prison system) with a mortality rate of about 2.5%, which is also very similar to the US currently.

    they did a lot of good in Congo
     

    Alot of good like creating man made famines, genocide of the natives and torture of the natives for not working fast enough? Like also introducing syphilis to the region which would later result in the emergence of HIV?

    Replies: @Yellowface Anon, @German_reader, @songbird

  816. @Mr. Hack
    @AP


    California, southern Nevada and Arizona, could be an independent Latin American-style country with huge income and wealth disparity as in Latin America but still fairly prosperous due to the partial legacy of Silicon Valley (much of it but not all of it will move to TX) and Hollywood. It would still have a largely Anglo elite and would offer an amazing lifestyle for the rich in their gated communities along the coast, produce a lot of agriculture, etc.
     
    I take it that these prognostications are just the results of your fanciful imagination, and not something that you really see occurring? At least for your imaginary Latinastan, I see some serious impediments to such a development in the future. TX and CA share little in common and espouse very different political climates, as you point out. AZ, I think will soon revert back to its strong Republican heritage, as evidenced by the astute "maverick" posturings of Senator Kyrsten Sinema, that always seem to favor a Republican outcome in her voting patterns. She, very quickly has determined where the political winds are headed in the near future. Besides, what would Arizona gain from a closer relationship with California? Arizona's economy is really booming, especially in the high tech sector with many new and large companies relocating here. Things couldn't really look much better here into the future. You must have missed one of my latest cartoons that I reposted above, that pretty much encapsulates the feelings of most Arizonans ("Zonies") to California. Still a nice place to go when it's 110 here in the summer to cool of in the big blue sea!


    https://media.townhall.com/Townhall/Car/b/MC-LeavingCali_web20220107011915.jpg

    https://www.fox10phoenix.com/news/arizonas-economic-future-looks-rosy-as-companies-relocate-to-the-state

    https://www.bizjournals.com/phoenix/news/2021/04/22/arizona-among-top-states-ranked-economic-momentum.html

    https://azgovernor.gov/governor/news/2021/05/arizona-projected-add-nearly-550000-jobs-2029

    Replies: @AP, @A123

    I was just going by all the blue on the map and the fact that Arizona has voted against Trump twice. But you know the place better than I do. California may indeed be alone as a Latin American-style nation.

    At any rate if there were to be a split we are still at least a generation away from that. By then Arizona’s place would be clear.

  817. @songbird
    Maybe, Chinese nationalists should be hoping for a low TFR. Because being global bottom in an authoritarian state with high human capital ought to elicit a strong pro-natalist response.

    Replies: @Yellowface Anon

    You are contradicting yourself.

    • Replies: @songbird
    @Yellowface Anon

    Well, part of it is just accounting. With the probability being that the existing estimate is inflated.

  818. @German_reader
    @Chairman Meow


    Shall we compare it to British policies in Bangladesh and India for comparison? Or how about Belgian policies in Africa?
     
    British rule in India certainly had its dark side (like the famines in Bengal in the late 18th century which arguably were the result of EIC policies, or the harsh repression of the 1857 mutiny), but by the 1930s and 1940s there is no comparison at all with the Soviet system. Bengal famine of 1943 happened in wartime due to various factors (only some of which were the fault of the British), it wasn't a largely man-made disaster in peacetime as the Soviet famines of the 1930s were. Nor did the British execute hundreds of thousands in terror campaigns, as the Soviet state undoubtedly did.
    Belgium has really been quite unfairly slandered, they did a lot of good in Congo after the colony had been taken over by the Belgian state in 1908. It really was a tragedy that most of this was undone after independence (of course the Soviets supported such terrible movements as those Simba cannibals).

    Replies: @Chairman Meow

    but by the 1930s and 1940s there is no comparison at all with the Soviet system. Bengal famine of 1943 happened in wartime due to various factors

    Bengal famine wasn’t manmade? Are you serious?

    “Historians usually characterise the famine as anthropogenic (man-made),[9] asserting that wartime colonial policies created and then exacerbated the crisis.”

    https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Bengal_famine_of_1943

    The British denied any humanitarian aid for a long time to the region, they didn’t really view the famine as a problem as they viewed the Bengali’s as “inferior”, they requisitioned too much grain even knowing that there were droughts happening amongst other things, they used scorched earth policies and intentionally destroyed crops.

    British policies in Bengladesh led to more deaths due to famines than Soviet land reforms and collectivization policies.

    it wasn’t a largely man-made disaster in peacetime as the Soviet famines of the 1930s were

    Neither where the Soviet famines. There was three years of worsening drought (plus Poland and surrounding territories where affected too), after years of high harvest. Soviet land reforms played a role, but starvation after newly implemented land reforms is quite common. However, the extent of the famines are greatly exaggerated and mostly based on the “work” of Robert Conquest who is about as trustworthy as Solzhenitsyn if not less considering he worked for the CIA.

    Nor did the British execute hundreds of thousands in terror campaigns

    Huh? Hundreds of thousands? You mean Gulags? Gulags were a holdover from Tsarist times. If you read your Dostoevsky you would remember that Raskolnikov gets sent to a labor camp for 25 years for his crimes. Lenin and Stalin also spent time in labor camps in the pre-revolution era. The Decemberists were also sent to labor camps, so gulags were not a Soviet invention but a Tsarist one.

    In Soviet times, the Gulags at their peak had a population of no more than 2 million (less than the 2.5 million in the modern US prison system) with a mortality rate of about 2.5%, which is also very similar to the US currently.

    they did a lot of good in Congo

    Alot of good like creating man made famines, genocide of the natives and torture of the natives for not working fast enough? Like also introducing syphilis to the region which would later result in the emergence of HIV?

    • Replies: @Yellowface Anon
    @Chairman Meow


    plus Poland and surrounding territories where affected too
     
    Poland's population kept on growing while the Soviet territories' dropped for a year or two, like China during the Great Leap Forward.

    Replies: @Chairman Meow

    , @German_reader
    @Chairman Meow


    “Historians usually characterise the famine as anthropogenic (man-made),[9] asserting that wartime colonial policies created and then exacerbated the crisis.”
     
    I sometimes cite Wikipedia articles out of laziness as well, but still, Wikipedia is trash, you can't believe anything there about complex historical subjects.
    Some British policies facilitated the Bengal famine, e.g. iirc transportation had been negatively impacted due to measures taken because of a Japanese invasion scare. And colonial authorities could probably have done more to alleviate the famine (as could Bengali elites, Bengal had some measure of self-government by 1943 after all).
    But the famine definitely wasn't solely the fault of the British, and I'm unaware they did the sort of things the Soviets did in Ukraine, like actively preventing people from leaving famine areas.

    Huh? Hundreds of thousands? You mean Gulags?
     
    There were at least 700 000 executions just in 1937/38. Conquest may have exaggerated, but there is no doubt the Soviet Union employed terror measures in a way the British of the 1930s and 1940s definitely didn't.

    Alot of good like creating man made famines, genocide of the natives and torture of the natives for not working fast enough?
     
    The latter part refers to King Leopold's Free State, and even there genocide is a mis-nomer (otherwise you'd have to admit the Soviet Union committed genocide against Chechens and numerous other nationalities).


    Also introducing syphilis to the region which would later result in the emergence of HIV?
     
    Belgian vaccination campaigns may have played a role in the spread of HIV, but that couldn't be known at the time. And Belgians did a lot of good against other diseases like sleeping sickness.

    Replies: @Chairman Meow, @Coconuts

    , @songbird
    @Chairman Meow


    Like also introducing syphilis to the region which would later result in the emergence of HIV?
     
    Well, to be fair, Euros did accomplish the Colombian exchange, bringing syphilis to the Old World. And some speculate that HIV had its origin in infrastructure created by Euros, the cities and roads. Or else in the industrialized science that incentivized the capture of large numbers of chimps and monkeys.

    But ultimately Africans blaming STDs on Euros is pretty crazy. I mean, HIV is a heterosexual disease in South Africa. That says a lot about their natural capacity to whore.

    Replies: @Chairman Meow

  819. @AP
    @A123

    The two sides have not moved fare apart to warrant a split (yet). But it can be done relatively well, geographically.

    https://www.realclearpolitics.com/elections/live_results/2020/live_map_house.png

    New England, coastal Washington, eastern and southern New York State and New Jersey could be annexed by Canada and be a prosperous, culturally weird, mostly European-Asian progressive "paradise" - North America's Scandinavia. If all that would be too much for Canada to swallow, metro-New York and NJ might be its own type of Singapore, the New World's financial hub (anyways New England fits culturally better into Canada than NY with its different demographics).

    California, southern Nevada and Arizona, could be an independent Latin American-style country with huge income and wealth disparity as in Latin America but still fairly prosperous due to the partial legacy of Silicon Valley (much of it but not all of it will move to TX) and Hollywood. It would still have a largely Anglo elite and would offer an amazing lifestyle for the rich in their gated communities along the coast, produce a lot of agriculture, etc.

    This would take care of much of the split.

    As for those caught on the wrong side of the new border - the red island in the California interior might disappear when the new government grants citizenship to all the migrant workers there. There would be blue islands in places like Chicago, Detroit, Minneapolis, and the Carolinas. I imagine there would be some voluntary population transfers; the super-progressives of Minnesota would move to Winnipeg and the ones in Chicago would move to New York. Those really desperate not to live in a solidly forever-blue California would move even faster to TX (whose laws would now be so solidly Red that the type of people who would turn the state Blue wouldn't dare to enter) and vice versa.

    I wonder if, after the split, Washington DC would be abandoned and allowed to die as the center of the economic and demographics of Red America shifts to Texas. Chicago would be the largest single metro area but Dallas and Houston are catching up rapidly (each one may overtake Chicago by 2030) and combined they already dwarf Chicago.

    Replies: @Mr. Hack, @A123, @Yellowface Anon

    You assumed there won’t be large-scale mutual extermination like what happened during the India-Pakistan or Israel-Palestine split. But tbh it’ll be a bit lopsided, rightoid-militia-massacring-the-traitors-and-undesirables incidents, or mass trials.

    • Replies: @A123
    @Yellowface Anon


    it’ll be a bit lopsided, rightoid-militia-massacring-the-traitors-and-undesirables incidents, or mass trials
     
    I suspect it will be lopsided in a different direction.

    Violent extremists, such as BLM and The Fascist Stormtroopers of Antifa, define themselves via aggression. Once confined to BLUEstania, they will need prey on that side of the line. With MAGA gone, the only targets for violent Leftoids will be their fellow blue staters. Portland CHAZ could easily become the new normal in BLUEstania.

    PEACE 😇

  820. @Chairman Meow
    @German_reader


    but by the 1930s and 1940s there is no comparison at all with the Soviet system. Bengal famine of 1943 happened in wartime due to various factors
     
    Bengal famine wasn't manmade? Are you serious?

    "Historians usually characterise the famine as anthropogenic (man-made),[9] asserting that wartime colonial policies created and then exacerbated the crisis."

    https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Bengal_famine_of_1943

    The British denied any humanitarian aid for a long time to the region, they didn't really view the famine as a problem as they viewed the Bengali's as "inferior", they requisitioned too much grain even knowing that there were droughts happening amongst other things, they used scorched earth policies and intentionally destroyed crops.

    British policies in Bengladesh led to more deaths due to famines than Soviet land reforms and collectivization policies.


    it wasn’t a largely man-made disaster in peacetime as the Soviet famines of the 1930s were
     
    Neither where the Soviet famines. There was three years of worsening drought (plus Poland and surrounding territories where affected too), after years of high harvest. Soviet land reforms played a role, but starvation after newly implemented land reforms is quite common. However, the extent of the famines are greatly exaggerated and mostly based on the "work" of Robert Conquest who is about as trustworthy as Solzhenitsyn if not less considering he worked for the CIA.

    Nor did the British execute hundreds of thousands in terror campaigns
     
    Huh? Hundreds of thousands? You mean Gulags? Gulags were a holdover from Tsarist times. If you read your Dostoevsky you would remember that Raskolnikov gets sent to a labor camp for 25 years for his crimes. Lenin and Stalin also spent time in labor camps in the pre-revolution era. The Decemberists were also sent to labor camps, so gulags were not a Soviet invention but a Tsarist one.

    In Soviet times, the Gulags at their peak had a population of no more than 2 million (less than the 2.5 million in the modern US prison system) with a mortality rate of about 2.5%, which is also very similar to the US currently.

    they did a lot of good in Congo
     

    Alot of good like creating man made famines, genocide of the natives and torture of the natives for not working fast enough? Like also introducing syphilis to the region which would later result in the emergence of HIV?

    Replies: @Yellowface Anon, @German_reader, @songbird

    plus Poland and surrounding territories where affected too

    Poland’s population kept on growing while the Soviet territories’ dropped for a year or two, like China during the Great Leap Forward.

    • Replies: @Chairman Meow
    @Yellowface Anon

    The population of Ukraine in 1930 was 31,436,000; in 1933 it was 32,456,000

    I'm not the strongest in math, but this seems like an increase to me. There was no decreases in population between 1930 and 1933.

    Replies: @AP

  821. German_reader says:
    @Chairman Meow
    @German_reader


    but by the 1930s and 1940s there is no comparison at all with the Soviet system. Bengal famine of 1943 happened in wartime due to various factors
     
    Bengal famine wasn't manmade? Are you serious?

    "Historians usually characterise the famine as anthropogenic (man-made),[9] asserting that wartime colonial policies created and then exacerbated the crisis."

    https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Bengal_famine_of_1943

    The British denied any humanitarian aid for a long time to the region, they didn't really view the famine as a problem as they viewed the Bengali's as "inferior", they requisitioned too much grain even knowing that there were droughts happening amongst other things, they used scorched earth policies and intentionally destroyed crops.

    British policies in Bengladesh led to more deaths due to famines than Soviet land reforms and collectivization policies.


    it wasn’t a largely man-made disaster in peacetime as the Soviet famines of the 1930s were
     
    Neither where the Soviet famines. There was three years of worsening drought (plus Poland and surrounding territories where affected too), after years of high harvest. Soviet land reforms played a role, but starvation after newly implemented land reforms is quite common. However, the extent of the famines are greatly exaggerated and mostly based on the "work" of Robert Conquest who is about as trustworthy as Solzhenitsyn if not less considering he worked for the CIA.

    Nor did the British execute hundreds of thousands in terror campaigns
     
    Huh? Hundreds of thousands? You mean Gulags? Gulags were a holdover from Tsarist times. If you read your Dostoevsky you would remember that Raskolnikov gets sent to a labor camp for 25 years for his crimes. Lenin and Stalin also spent time in labor camps in the pre-revolution era. The Decemberists were also sent to labor camps, so gulags were not a Soviet invention but a Tsarist one.

    In Soviet times, the Gulags at their peak had a population of no more than 2 million (less than the 2.5 million in the modern US prison system) with a mortality rate of about 2.5%, which is also very similar to the US currently.

    they did a lot of good in Congo
     

    Alot of good like creating man made famines, genocide of the natives and torture of the natives for not working fast enough? Like also introducing syphilis to the region which would later result in the emergence of HIV?

    Replies: @Yellowface Anon, @German_reader, @songbird

    “Historians usually characterise the famine as anthropogenic (man-made),[9] asserting that wartime colonial policies created and then exacerbated the crisis.”

    I sometimes cite Wikipedia articles out of laziness as well, but still, Wikipedia is trash, you can’t believe anything there about complex historical subjects.
    Some British policies facilitated the Bengal famine, e.g. iirc transportation had been negatively impacted due to measures taken because of a Japanese invasion scare. And colonial authorities could probably have done more to alleviate the famine (as could Bengali elites, Bengal had some measure of self-government by 1943 after all).
    But the famine definitely wasn’t solely the fault of the British, and I’m unaware they did the sort of things the Soviets did in Ukraine, like actively preventing people from leaving famine areas.

    Huh? Hundreds of thousands? You mean Gulags?

    There were at least 700 000 executions just in 1937/38. Conquest may have exaggerated, but there is no doubt the Soviet Union employed terror measures in a way the British of the 1930s and 1940s definitely didn’t.

    Alot of good like creating man made famines, genocide of the natives and torture of the natives for not working fast enough?

    The latter part refers to King Leopold’s Free State, and even there genocide is a mis-nomer (otherwise you’d have to admit the Soviet Union committed genocide against Chechens and numerous other nationalities).

    Also introducing syphilis to the region which would later result in the emergence of HIV?

    Belgian vaccination campaigns may have played a role in the spread of HIV, but that couldn’t be known at the time. And Belgians did a lot of good against other diseases like sleeping sickness.

    • Replies: @Chairman Meow
    @German_reader


    I sometimes cite Wikipedia articles out of laziness as well, but still, Wikipedia is trash, you can’t believe anything there about complex historical subjects.
    Some British policies facilitated the Bengal famine, e.g. iirc transportation had been negatively impacted due to measures taken because of a Japanese invasion scare. And colonial authorities could probably have done more to alleviate the famine (as could Bengali elites, Bengal had some measure of self-government by 1943 after all).
    But the famine definitely wasn’t solely the fault of the British, and I’m unaware they did the sort of things the Soviets did in Ukraine, like actively preventing people from leaving famine areas.
     
    Britian actively denied peasants food by burning it, the Bengali government (controlled by Britain) denied any famine was occurring even though people where dying on the streets, and the British intentionally elevated prices of rice leading to the creation of a black market and hoarding.

    This was compounded by Japanese invasion scare and some natural disasters. But it was mostly the actions of the British government that led to this.

    There were at least 700 000 executions just in 1937/38.
     
    Executions over the entire period of the purges did not exceed 300,000 and even that is an exaggeration.

    there is no doubt the Soviet Union
     
    Actually there is much doubt. Due to the cold war and modern anti-communist policies, many "statistics" have been fabricated and are not very trustworthy as much effort has been put into trying to discredit the USSR.

    The latter part refers to King Leopold’s Free State, and even there genocide is a mis-nomer (otherwise you’d have to admit the Soviet Union committed genocide against Chechens and numerous other nationalities).
     
    What relation do Chechens and other nationalities have to the Congolese?

    The USSR never infected Chechens or other nationalities with disease or spread syphilis to those populations. Due to Chechens and Crimean Tatars working with the Germans they were deported and righfully so. For example, at the outbreak of the war there were 22, 000 Crimean Tatar men of military age. Of those 20, 000 fought on Germany's side and participated in the massacres of Russians and Ukranians. But beyond deportations there was no systematic attempts to destroy them or enslave them as the Belgians did in the Congo.

    Due to concessions granted to private corporations by King Leopold (aka capitalism) and no judicial oversight, private corporations began to enslave locals to collect rubber cheaply. Since it was cheaper to keep the enslaved Congolese in poor living conditions, many suffered from smallpox, swine influenza and amoebic dysentery, if we don't include African sleeping sickness in the mix.

    At the apogee of Belgian rule of the Congo, it was common for soldiers to cut off peoples hands and display them as trophies. The Soviets never did this. The "civilized Europeans" did.

    In 1901 alone 50,000 congolese died from African sleeping sickness.

    Replies: @German_reader

    , @Coconuts
    @German_reader


    I sometimes cite Wikipedia articles out of laziness as well, but still, Wikipedia is trash, you can’t believe anything there about complex historical subjects.
     
    I remember on the Congo- there was one famous book giving a figure of 10,000,000 dead, but counter claims were made that this figure is a fair bit larger than the whole population of the Congo at the time. There is a Belgian Phd thesis knocking around that examines the sources on Congo demographics in some detail, I was reading it but got the impression the author could come to no firm conclusions about population level given the data that was available.

    When the figures are based on demographic losses in turn based on vague data about original population levels there seems to be plenty of space for fashioning 'Black Legends'.

    Replies: @German_reader

  822. @Yellowface Anon
    @songbird

    You are contradicting yourself.

    Replies: @songbird

    Well, part of it is just accounting. With the probability being that the existing estimate is inflated.

  823. @Yahya
    @silviosilver


    For the purposes of this discussion, the appropriate comparison is with white Americans, not with all Americans

     

    I think AP covered that one well.

    – the latter whose average is dragged down by blacks and hispanics.
     
    (Non-Hispanic) White-American median household income was $74,912 in 2020.

    Lebanese-Americans were at $87,099.

    The overall American figure was $67,521.

    https://www.statista.com/statistics/233324/median-household-income-in-the-united-states-by-race-or-ethnic-group/


    Interestingly, both very light and very dark can occur within the same family.

     

    Yes, in the Middle East, a strange duality exists where people of the same race, religion, region, nationality and even family can exhibit vastly different phenotypes. Some will look quasi-European ("white"); and others will look quasi-Hispanic ("brown"). The proportion of white-to-brown differs by class and region.

    In almost any Arab society; the higher classes will have more whites than browns; and the lower classes more browns than whites. In the Levant; the majority (70-80%+) in the upper classes will be white; somewhat less white in the middle class (maybe 60%), whereas the lower classes will be somewhat more brown (perhaps 65%). Nevertheless, the quasi-European types can still be found among the rabble (heh); so it's not a situation like in Latin America where the upper class is uniformly white; and the lower classes predominantly indigos and mestizos.


    The vast majority look nothing like Iberians (whose non-whiteness is absurdly exaggerated on race forums).

     

    I don't think it was an "extreme exaggeration" to say Levantines look similar to Southern Europeans. This similarity has been noticed by many, not just me; and for good reason. Even in Ancient times, the Greeks; who were keen observers of physical differences between themselves and others (Ethiopians, Indians, Northern Europeans etc.) didn’t make any note of differences between themselves and Levantines, since presumably they were similar enough (i.e. Mediterranean Caucasians). Or perhaps they didn’t care to note down any differences.

    Anyway, back to the modern world. An Unz commentor once perceptively noted that the average Greek looks far more "Arab than Aryan"; which I think is a succinct summary of the phenotypic similarities between Arabs and Southern Europeans; which is probably greater than with Northern Europeans:


    AndrewR says:
    @Je Suis Charlie Martel
    Is it not obvious? The average Greek looks far more Arab than Aryan. That’s why I laugh so hard when I see Greeks LARPing as nazis bemoaning all the “nonwhite” Arabs into “white” countries like Germany.

    I mean… I’m not saying Greeks shouldn’t oppose the immivasion. But to pretend they’re more like the Germans than the Syrians is the height of fantasy.

    • Replies: @ReaderfromGreece
     
    And people pointing out that Southern Europeans look similar to Middle Easterners is not exclusively done by WN-types either. In Reddit, for example, an anonymous poll was conducted asking if Greeks looked more similar to Omanis or Norwegians:

    https://www.reddit.com/r/phenotypes/comments/rjor4z/do_greeks_pass_better_as_omani_or_as_norwegian/

    Somewhat humorously, Omanis won out by a large margin, even though Omanis are darker than most other Arabs. I can only imagine what the results would have been like had Levantines been in place of Omanis. Another poll asked if Spaniards and Portuguese look closer to the Lebanese or Irish; the former won out:

    https://www.reddit.com/r/phenotypes/comments/q0m16p/spaniards_and_portuguese_look_closer_to_which_of/


    That is an extreme exaggeration. I have considerable personal experience with Lebanese, both Christian and Muslim. I don’t doubt there are some very European looking ones, but they’re only a small minority.

     

    The "extreme exaggeration" is on your part. The proportion of Levantines who can pass for Southern European is not "minuscule" - that would be Pashtuns, of whom there is a small white-looking contingent; but you'd have to put in some effort to find them. For Levantines, by contrast, one could easily bring up thousands of examples of quasi-European phenotypes without breaking a sweat. Take a look at this school choir in Syria, for example:

    https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=T-9MDK4xecQ&ab_channel=iyadhanna

    I'd say about ~70-80% of them, if they were put up on reddit for commenters to guess their national origin, would get a fair number of "Spain", "Portugal", "Greece", or "Italy". Again; a familiar eye can discern between them; but most people would not.


    In the overwhelmingly (“pristinely” or “oppressively”, depending on your perspective, heh) Anglo part of Australia I grew up, a “greasy dago” like me stuck out like a sore thumb.

     

    When I first went to the US for university; I thought, given my white skin (similar to the median Southern European, or even a tanned Germanic-type) and quasi-European appearance; I would be considered white. For the most part that was true - unless people obtained knowledge of my Muslim name, or heard my foreign accent. Then I would suddenly become a "person of color", almost in an instant. At first I was bothered by this, since I thought it was non-sensical that someone who is closer to the Italian-American phenotype, like myself, would be lumped in with blacks and Hispanics. But over time I started enjoying my PoC status, since in my ultra-woke university environment, PoC were of higher status than whites. :)

    Since I've returned to Egypt, none of this is applicable anymore.


    what they can’t quite bring themselves to say is that I’m too non-white to be a racist, that “racism” is something only people as white as themselves are capable of

     

    If what you say about yourself is true, then you, like many other Southern Euros, are probably closer in appearance to Levantine Arabs, than to your pasty-white Anglo "co-racials". In which case; it's understandable why you would be considered too "non-white" to be racist.

    Against the backdrop of a bazillion niggers, however, I find myself transformed into a “fellow white man,” lol.

     

    From what I gather, even Nordicist WN-types are coming around to accepting Southern Europeans as "fellow white people". I assume this is partly because of the avalanche of evidence pointing to Greeks and Romans being swarthy Southern Europeans - not unlike their Central Italian and mainland Greek descendants today. Previously, Nordicists were desperate to claim the accomplishments of these two peoples, since obviously Germanics/Nordics/Celts were mostly primitive people for 85% of recorded history. But WN-types can no longer plausibly claim a connection to the glories of Ancient Greece and Rome; except by this new tenuous racial connection.

    Replies: @German_reader, @Mikel, @silviosilver, @silviosilver

    From what I gather, even Nordicist WN-types are coming around to accepting Southern Europeans as “fellow white people”. I assume this is partly because of the avalanche of evidence pointing to Greeks and Romans being swarthy Southern Europeans

    I think it has more to do with expediency – it’s a way to increase numbers and to get around the mixed heritage/mixed family issue (while remaining racially viable).

    But there’s no real feeling in it, and they’re probably not serious about it anyway, figuring that it’s more important to get the ball rolling, and hoping they’ll be able to weed out the undesirables later. If there were any truly pan-European WN conference held, most of the N. European attendees would probably look around the room and think to themselves that if this what they’re fighting to preserve, then the war is already lost.

    The problem for WN is that whiteness doesn’t just exist in degrees, but in degrees of ‘quality’ – no one wants to be low man on the racial totem pole, but someone must be. So those who feel secure enough in their position generally try to exclude ‘inferiors’ as ‘non-white’, while those who feel insufficiently secure argue for the inclusion of types even less white than they are, to improve their own relative standing. The issue can’t really be resolved until a WN regime comes into power and lays down Nuremberg-style decrees, but coming into power requires support, which in turn requires creating the perception that it has been resolved.

    • Replies: @sher singh
    @silviosilver

    Beyond just WN, Brett Stevens of Amerika.org says ethnic diversity leads to racial on same dynamic.

  824. @German_reader
    @songbird


    One interesting survivor is Mexico.
     
    I agree it's surprising, but I looked it up on Wikipedia, and it doesn't look like "real" military service to me (with recruits living in barracks, being subjected throughout to military discipline, going on days-long marches etc.), more like part-time paramility training, the like of which used to be given even to schoolchildren in many countries...or not even that:

    Those who draw a white ball must serve “framed” which means, they must start service immediately from 8am-1pm for one entire year until they receive the discharge card.
     

    “Framed” military service has been criticized because many feel that the activities done are not truly to support the military. As conscription units are owned by cities and municipalities, these cities have used conscripts as free laborers. Activities include exercise, gardening, picking up falling trees, agility drills, gun lift shows, classes about military doctrine and patriotism, saluting the flag, cleaning up parks and street, and painting.

    Some units do not learn marksmanship and/or hand-to-hand combat. In these units where combat is not taught, they are asked to practice small fighting during break/lunch.

     

    I suppose some future cartel members might at least get free firearms training though.

    Replies: @songbird

    Maybe, it is deliberate, like in some countries in the ME?

    Mexico had a lot of generals that served as head of state. After the federales collapsed during the Mexican Revolution, former revolutionary generals did a lot to downsize the military.

  825. @Yellowface Anon
    @Chairman Meow


    plus Poland and surrounding territories where affected too
     
    Poland's population kept on growing while the Soviet territories' dropped for a year or two, like China during the Great Leap Forward.

    Replies: @Chairman Meow

    The population of Ukraine in 1930 was 31,436,000; in 1933 it was 32,456,000

    I’m not the strongest in math, but this seems like an increase to me. There was no decreases in population between 1930 and 1933.

    • Replies: @AP
    @Chairman Meow


    The population of Ukraine in 1930 was 31,436,000; in 1933 it was 32,456,000

     

    Famine was in 1932-1933. There was strong growth in 1930 and 1931.

    In addition, urban growth rate in cities plus immigration compensated for death in the countryside. Overall, about 3 million people starved to death (and died of causes related to famine such as disease, etc.) in 1932-1933 in Ukraine. But the cities, that did not experience famine, saw natural population growth.

    There was three years of worsening drought (plus Poland and surrounding territories where affected too)
     
    About 30,000 people died of malnutrition and related causes in in Poland-controlled Ukraine during a bad drought n the 1930s. Compared to 3 million in Soviet Ukraine. I'm not sure what the figure was for the rest of Poland but it was under 100,000.
  826. @Chairman Meow
    @German_reader


    but by the 1930s and 1940s there is no comparison at all with the Soviet system. Bengal famine of 1943 happened in wartime due to various factors
     
    Bengal famine wasn't manmade? Are you serious?

    "Historians usually characterise the famine as anthropogenic (man-made),[9] asserting that wartime colonial policies created and then exacerbated the crisis."

    https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Bengal_famine_of_1943

    The British denied any humanitarian aid for a long time to the region, they didn't really view the famine as a problem as they viewed the Bengali's as "inferior", they requisitioned too much grain even knowing that there were droughts happening amongst other things, they used scorched earth policies and intentionally destroyed crops.

    British policies in Bengladesh led to more deaths due to famines than Soviet land reforms and collectivization policies.


    it wasn’t a largely man-made disaster in peacetime as the Soviet famines of the 1930s were
     
    Neither where the Soviet famines. There was three years of worsening drought (plus Poland and surrounding territories where affected too), after years of high harvest. Soviet land reforms played a role, but starvation after newly implemented land reforms is quite common. However, the extent of the famines are greatly exaggerated and mostly based on the "work" of Robert Conquest who is about as trustworthy as Solzhenitsyn if not less considering he worked for the CIA.

    Nor did the British execute hundreds of thousands in terror campaigns
     
    Huh? Hundreds of thousands? You mean Gulags? Gulags were a holdover from Tsarist times. If you read your Dostoevsky you would remember that Raskolnikov gets sent to a labor camp for 25 years for his crimes. Lenin and Stalin also spent time in labor camps in the pre-revolution era. The Decemberists were also sent to labor camps, so gulags were not a Soviet invention but a Tsarist one.

    In Soviet times, the Gulags at their peak had a population of no more than 2 million (less than the 2.5 million in the modern US prison system) with a mortality rate of about 2.5%, which is also very similar to the US currently.

    they did a lot of good in Congo
     

    Alot of good like creating man made famines, genocide of the natives and torture of the natives for not working fast enough? Like also introducing syphilis to the region which would later result in the emergence of HIV?

    Replies: @Yellowface Anon, @German_reader, @songbird

    Like also introducing syphilis to the region which would later result in the emergence of HIV?

    Well, to be fair, Euros did accomplish the Colombian exchange, bringing syphilis to the Old World. And some speculate that HIV had its origin in infrastructure created by Euros, the cities and roads. Or else in the industrialized science that incentivized the capture of large numbers of chimps and monkeys.

    But ultimately Africans blaming STDs on Euros is pretty crazy. I mean, HIV is a heterosexual disease in South Africa. That says a lot about their natural capacity to whore.

    • Replies: @Chairman Meow
    @songbird

    It is true that Euros did acquire Syphilis from the New World. However, it was then Euros who spread it worldwide to their colonies and in Africa and Asia.


    And some speculate that HIV had its origin in infrastructure created by Euros, the cities and roads
     
    It required multiple emergences of SIV (Simian Immunodeficiency Virus) in Africa before it took hold in the population to any significant extent.

    Even now, it is quite difficult to acquire HIV and requires open sores or abrasions to increase the likelihood of infection. It was even more difficult back then as SIV was not yet adapted to humans.

    It was European colonization with the creation of port towns, whorehouses consisting of African whores who would then transmit STDs to African migrant workers that caused the emergence of HIV. The main theory for HIV emergence is that Euros brought their whoring practices to Africa where they transmitted syphilis, HSV2 (Genital Herpes), Chlamydia/Gonorrhea to the African prositutes in port towns that they built. Since many migrant African workers came from small villages to port towns for work and where far from their wives, they began to visit prostitutes and became infected with the aforementioned STDs. Because there was little exposure in small african villages to these diseases, there was not much population tolerance built up to them and so they were especially severe in African populations leading to significant symptoms.

    It is thought that SIV was transmitted to humans through eating of bushmeat (poorly cooked monkey), it was then transmitted between prostitutes and workers due to the prevalence of these ulcer forming STDs (particularly HSV2 and syphilis).

    Had Euros never brought these ulcer forming STDs to Africa, it is highly doubtful that HIV would have obtained a hold in the population.
  827. @German_reader
    @Chairman Meow


    “Historians usually characterise the famine as anthropogenic (man-made),[9] asserting that wartime colonial policies created and then exacerbated the crisis.”
     
    I sometimes cite Wikipedia articles out of laziness as well, but still, Wikipedia is trash, you can't believe anything there about complex historical subjects.
    Some British policies facilitated the Bengal famine, e.g. iirc transportation had been negatively impacted due to measures taken because of a Japanese invasion scare. And colonial authorities could probably have done more to alleviate the famine (as could Bengali elites, Bengal had some measure of self-government by 1943 after all).
    But the famine definitely wasn't solely the fault of the British, and I'm unaware they did the sort of things the Soviets did in Ukraine, like actively preventing people from leaving famine areas.

    Huh? Hundreds of thousands? You mean Gulags?
     
    There were at least 700 000 executions just in 1937/38. Conquest may have exaggerated, but there is no doubt the Soviet Union employed terror measures in a way the British of the 1930s and 1940s definitely didn't.

    Alot of good like creating man made famines, genocide of the natives and torture of the natives for not working fast enough?
     
    The latter part refers to King Leopold's Free State, and even there genocide is a mis-nomer (otherwise you'd have to admit the Soviet Union committed genocide against Chechens and numerous other nationalities).


    Also introducing syphilis to the region which would later result in the emergence of HIV?
     
    Belgian vaccination campaigns may have played a role in the spread of HIV, but that couldn't be known at the time. And Belgians did a lot of good against other diseases like sleeping sickness.

    Replies: @Chairman Meow, @Coconuts

    I sometimes cite Wikipedia articles out of laziness as well, but still, Wikipedia is trash, you can’t believe anything there about complex historical subjects.
    Some British policies facilitated the Bengal famine, e.g. iirc transportation had been negatively impacted due to measures taken because of a Japanese invasion scare. And colonial authorities could probably have done more to alleviate the famine (as could Bengali elites, Bengal had some measure of self-government by 1943 after all).
    But the famine definitely wasn’t solely the fault of the British, and I’m unaware they did the sort of things the Soviets did in Ukraine, like actively preventing people from leaving famine areas.

    Britian actively denied peasants food by burning it, the Bengali government (controlled by Britain) denied any famine was occurring even though people where dying on the streets, and the British intentionally elevated prices of rice leading to the creation of a black market and hoarding.

    This was compounded by Japanese invasion scare and some natural disasters. But it was mostly the actions of the British government that led to this.

    There were at least 700 000 executions just in 1937/38.

    Executions over the entire period of the purges did not exceed 300,000 and even that is an exaggeration.

    there is no doubt the Soviet Union

    Actually there is much doubt. Due to the cold war and modern anti-communist policies, many “statistics” have been fabricated and are not very trustworthy as much effort has been put into trying to discredit the USSR.

    The latter part refers to King Leopold’s Free State, and even there genocide is a mis-nomer (otherwise you’d have to admit the Soviet Union committed genocide against Chechens and numerous other nationalities).

    What relation do Chechens and other nationalities have to the Congolese?

    The USSR never infected Chechens or other nationalities with disease or spread syphilis to those populations. Due to Chechens and Crimean Tatars working with the Germans they were deported and righfully so. For example, at the outbreak of the war there were 22, 000 Crimean Tatar men of military age. Of those 20, 000 fought on Germany’s side and participated in the massacres of Russians and Ukranians. But beyond deportations there was no systematic attempts to destroy them or enslave them as the Belgians did in the Congo.

    Due to concessions granted to private corporations by King Leopold (aka capitalism) and no judicial oversight, private corporations began to enslave locals to collect rubber cheaply. Since it was cheaper to keep the enslaved Congolese in poor living conditions, many suffered from smallpox, swine influenza and amoebic dysentery, if we don’t include African sleeping sickness in the mix.

    At the apogee of Belgian rule of the Congo, it was common for soldiers to cut off peoples hands and display them as trophies. The Soviets never did this. The “civilized Europeans” did.

    In 1901 alone 50,000 congolese died from African sleeping sickness.

    • Replies: @German_reader
    @Chairman Meow


    In 1901 alone 50,000 congolese died from African sleeping sickness.
     
    And then the Belgians put a stop to it.
    As for Chechens, it's estimated a quarter of them died due to the deportation between 1944-1948. Soviet aplogogists have no moral basis at all to condemn European colonialism, especially not its relatively humane mid-20th century form.
    Anyway, you are quite simply wrong about lots of issues and just engaging in the usual commie apologetics, not going to waste any time on that.

    Replies: @Chairman Meow, @Yevardian, @Chairman Meow

  828. @Dmitry
    @AP


    squalid and poor relative to the capitalist
     
    It's not such a simple discussion, like anything about the Soviet times. Soviet times were such a historical case study which mixed successes which exceed positive expectations, with failure which exceed negative expectations.

    For constituent countries, of the USSR, convergence in measures like GDP per capita and life expectancy,* was the closest to Western countries in the late 1960s (i.e. in Soviet times), than in any other time in modern history, before or after.

    So, of course, the Soviet system has not provided the wealth of Sweden or Switzerland. But compared to other times in the history of the constituent countries, it includes some years where it was the closest it has been to convergence with Western standards (excluding perhaps places like Estonia, which are converging now in capitalist times).

    -
    It's crazy to imagine, but male life expectancy during Khrushchev was for a short time the same health status in Ukraine, as France.

    https://i.imgur.com/hkxSnUA.jpg


    Like a Ford or Toyota versus a Zhiguli? LOL.

     

    Almost, but Ford should be on the other side sharing the disjunction with Zhiguli.

    "Like a Toyota versus a Ford or Zhiguli? LOL."

    Replies: @Dmitry, @AP

    “squalid and poor relative to the capitalist..”

    “For constituent countries, of the USSR, convergence in measures like GDP per capita and life expectancy,* was the closest to Western countries in the late 1960s (i.e. in Soviet times), than in any other time in modern history, before or after.”

    And by the 1980s (let’s say, after only 15 years) they descended into relative poverty. Also, much of Soviet GDP was captured by military industry and wasn’t reflected in day to day life.

    The relative gains into the late 1960s suggest that industrialization and modernization was bound to lead to some improvement but under a centrally planned socialist economy there was a ceiling that was reached in the 1970s, after which further improvement was very small. Free market capitalist countries on the other hand had no such ceiling and just saw ongoing vast improvement.

    However, you should also compare the USSR to countries of similar pre-Soviet development. It may be easier for very poor countries to catch up a little to much richer ones.

    So for example, Portugal and Greece only had about 2/3 of Russia’s per capita GDP PPP in 1913. By 1973 Portugal had about 90% of the USSR’s GDP PPP and Greece was richer than the USSR. All three of these countries had made relative gains to the rich Western countries, but the USSR’s relative gains were smaller and it was falling behind these other poor European countries.

    This chart only goes back to 1987 for Ukraine and 1989 for Russia (so last 5 years of USSR for Ukraine and 3 for Russia), but we see countries that are already very poor, much poorer than France, and not improving at all:

    They were so poor that even the steep relative decline of the 1990s doesn’t look so steep compared to France because it is just a a series of very low numbers.

    Like a Ford or Toyota versus a Zhiguli? LOL.

    Almost, but Ford should be on the other side sharing the disjunction with Zhiguli.

    “Like a Toyota versus a Ford or Zhiguli? LOL.”

    Nonsense. Ford is much closer to Toyota than to a Lada, which is in the same category as Yugo (exported to the USA and the butt of jokes).

    The cheapest Ford in the USA:

    Compare to Zhiguli:

    They were just in different categories. Zhiguli was pretty much 1960s technology, smaller, slower.

    An interesting review and comparison of Lada Samara (much improved over the Zhiguli):

    Ford Escort 1.3 L & Lada Samara 1300 SL Twin Road Test 1988 (5)

    The Samara approached the cheap Escort in some areas, and appears to have been slightly more fun to drive. But the quality was much lower and it was much less refined, such that the reviewer concluded that people who could afford an Escort would not buy a Samara. And moreover this was the worst and cheapest of the Fords.

    • Replies: @Chairman Meow
    @AP


    And by the 1980s (let’s say, after only 15 years) they descended into relative poverty.
     
    What is defined as "relative poverty"? According to this paper Soviet economy was growing at 2% per year in 1980 (https://apps.dtic.mil/sti/pdfs/ADA220336.pdf) which is considered the Soviet period of "Zastoi" which is about what the US had in 2019 before the pandemic.

    Also, much of Soviet GDP was captured by military industry and wasn’t reflected in day to day life.
     
    Also the Soviets calculated GNP not GDP which does not include a whole host of measures in their statistics (they seperated healthcare, law fees, etc from their total GNP) which means that their GNP (and other calculations based on it) is actually lower than its supposed to be

    If we look at the chart below, Soviet GPD PPP was acutally higher than most of Europe and it took 29 European countries added together to surpass it.

    https://imgur.com/a/zLIZEYK

    (How do you add images to posts?)


    They were so poor that even the steep relative decline of the 1990s doesn’t look so steep compared to France because it is just a a series of very low numbers

     

    If you look at the chart the numbers aren't indicative of the Soviet economy. For Russia it starts in 1990 after its economy had essentially collapsed. And if you look at the graph carefully you see that GDP is actually falling in 1990.

    Plus its incorrect to seperate Ukranian economy in 1987 from the Soviet economy as a whole. That would be like comparing the economy of Aquitaine to that of all of Germany.


    They were just in different categories. Zhiguli was pretty much 1960s technology, smaller, slower.

    An interesting review and comparison of Lada Samara (much improved over the Zhiguli):
     

    If you read the picture you provide, it says that the Samara was a "good first attempt" and that Ford had similar problems before it rectified them. Also, it says that Soviet engine engineering was good, it was that the car was deficient in design. This is 1988 when the Soviet economy was being dismantled. It is quite possible that had the USSR persisted, that its automotive quality would have increased. Cars and automotive development was never a priority in the country as public transit was well developed and most people did not have a need for a car, as did north americans or even europeans.

    Replies: @AP

    , @Dmitry
    @AP




    squalid and poor relative to the capitalist

     

    For constituent countries, of the USSR, convergence in measures like GDP per capita and life expectancy,* was the closest to Western countries in the late 1960s (i.e. in Soviet times), than in any other time in modern history, before or after.
     
    much of Soviet GDP was captured by military industry and wasn’t reflected in day to day life.
     
    This was sign of (if temporary) economic strength, that there was enough productive capacity to build and operate the world's most powerful army.

    Free market capitalist countries on the other hand had no such ceiling and just saw ongoing vast improvemen..
    They were so poor that even the steep relative decline of the 1990s doesn’t look so steep compared to France because it is just a a series of very low numbers.

     

    This is what 50 years of economic stagnation looks like. But as you can see, the "capitalism under dictatorship" does not regain the former level. Economic problems of this region, are a little deeper than whether you encourage nominally capitalism or not. Vast ongoing improvement are usually only in the capitalist countries with stable legal systems, etc.



    Like a Ford or Toyota versus a Zhiguli? LOL.
     
    Almost, but Ford should be on the other side sharing the disjunction with Zhiguli.
    “Like a Toyota versus a Ford or Zhiguli? LOL.”
     
    Nonsense. Ford is much closer to Toyota than to a Lada, which is in the same category as Yugo
     
    I'm aware a lot of Ford automobiles were (before 1980) very aesthetically cool, so you won't surprise me with photos. I wouldn't be complaining, if people added posters of classic American cars on my walls.

    Especially before the 1973 oil crisis, American cars in general have beautiful aesthetics.

    In terms of other aspects like reliability, we know how they were easily defeated by the Japanese automobiles, which will not sound so different in the history books, to Soviet automobiles being defeated by Japanese and European ones.

    If you have time to waste, I recommend listening on YouTube to Sandy Munro when he discusses this topic.

    -

    And it doesn't seem like Ford recovered so much in these areas, even 40 years later. Look in the latest article by Forbes. (Although it is strange to see German manufacturers, or Tesla, so low in their survey.)

    https://thumbor.forbes.com/thumbor/fit-in/960x/filters:format(jpg)/https://www.forbes.com/wheels/wp-content/uploads/2021/11/Consumer_Reports_2021_Auto_Reliability.png

    https://www.forbes.com/wheels/news/consumer-reports-reliability-study/

    Replies: @AP

    , @Shortsword
    @AP

    Constant nominal prices is basically useless for comparing countries. I mentioned this to you before and why. You don't seem to understand what the statistic means.

    I don't really disagree with your post otherwise though.

    Replies: @AP

  829. @Chairman Meow
    @German_reader


    I sometimes cite Wikipedia articles out of laziness as well, but still, Wikipedia is trash, you can’t believe anything there about complex historical subjects.
    Some British policies facilitated the Bengal famine, e.g. iirc transportation had been negatively impacted due to measures taken because of a Japanese invasion scare. And colonial authorities could probably have done more to alleviate the famine (as could Bengali elites, Bengal had some measure of self-government by 1943 after all).
    But the famine definitely wasn’t solely the fault of the British, and I’m unaware they did the sort of things the Soviets did in Ukraine, like actively preventing people from leaving famine areas.
     
    Britian actively denied peasants food by burning it, the Bengali government (controlled by Britain) denied any famine was occurring even though people where dying on the streets, and the British intentionally elevated prices of rice leading to the creation of a black market and hoarding.

    This was compounded by Japanese invasion scare and some natural disasters. But it was mostly the actions of the British government that led to this.

    There were at least 700 000 executions just in 1937/38.
     
    Executions over the entire period of the purges did not exceed 300,000 and even that is an exaggeration.

    there is no doubt the Soviet Union
     
    Actually there is much doubt. Due to the cold war and modern anti-communist policies, many "statistics" have been fabricated and are not very trustworthy as much effort has been put into trying to discredit the USSR.

    The latter part refers to King Leopold’s Free State, and even there genocide is a mis-nomer (otherwise you’d have to admit the Soviet Union committed genocide against Chechens and numerous other nationalities).
     
    What relation do Chechens and other nationalities have to the Congolese?

    The USSR never infected Chechens or other nationalities with disease or spread syphilis to those populations. Due to Chechens and Crimean Tatars working with the Germans they were deported and righfully so. For example, at the outbreak of the war there were 22, 000 Crimean Tatar men of military age. Of those 20, 000 fought on Germany's side and participated in the massacres of Russians and Ukranians. But beyond deportations there was no systematic attempts to destroy them or enslave them as the Belgians did in the Congo.

    Due to concessions granted to private corporations by King Leopold (aka capitalism) and no judicial oversight, private corporations began to enslave locals to collect rubber cheaply. Since it was cheaper to keep the enslaved Congolese in poor living conditions, many suffered from smallpox, swine influenza and amoebic dysentery, if we don't include African sleeping sickness in the mix.

    At the apogee of Belgian rule of the Congo, it was common for soldiers to cut off peoples hands and display them as trophies. The Soviets never did this. The "civilized Europeans" did.

    In 1901 alone 50,000 congolese died from African sleeping sickness.

    Replies: @German_reader

    In 1901 alone 50,000 congolese died from African sleeping sickness.

    And then the Belgians put a stop to it.
    As for Chechens, it’s estimated a quarter of them died due to the deportation between 1944-1948. Soviet aplogogists have no moral basis at all to condemn European colonialism, especially not its relatively humane mid-20th century form.
    Anyway, you are quite simply wrong about lots of issues and just engaging in the usual commie apologetics, not going to waste any time on that.

    • Replies: @Chairman Meow
    @German_reader


    And then the Belgians put a stop to it.
     
    Only after there was significant outrage from the world over their policies and pressure put on them to stop it.

    Anyway, you are quite simply wrong about lots of issues
     
    Like what?

    usual commie apologetics,
     
    I don't see much 'commie apologetics' going on here. I see everyone jerking off to the CIA narratives of the cold war. I wanted to bring some truth and discussion to the matter.

    not going to waste any time on that.
     
    Sounds like you'd rather buy into propaganda than have fruitful discourse on important historical topics.

    Replies: @German_reader

    , @Yevardian
    @German_reader


    As for Chechens, it’s estimated a quarter of them died due to the deportation between 1944-1948. Soviet aplogogists have no moral basis at all to condemn European colonialism, especially not its relatively humane mid-20th century form.
     
    I don't really think this is a fair comparison. This was in the context of the USSR being on the receiving end of a war of extermination, with the German lines having reached very, very near to the Caucasus, with Iran, Turkey and the Arab world all being cautiously sympathetic to Germany. They were all also allowed to return back under Krushchev, an act which he was not obliged to do.

    The USSR in its early years went to great efforts to teach native literacy in many obscure Caucasian and Turkic languages, quite a few of which may not have had any written corpus (or future statehood, though that was quite unintended) at all without the Soviet Union's 'Nationality Policy'.

    Nearly all those 'little nationalities' (with the possible exception of the Baltics, although, tellingly, their populations and complex native industries also mostly collapsed) did much better under the USSR than any previous time in their history. Yes, including Armenia, even if Stalin put Artsakh under the Azeri SSR in order to calm Turkey, after the planned post-WW2 reconquest of the Kars region was cancelled.

    @AP


    2. A lot of Spaniards probably have some Arabic descent. So one would expect overlap. People from northern Spanish regions such as Aragon (first picture) or Asturias (second one) don’t look very Arabic:
     
    I quite doubt that, unless you re-qualify that 'Arab' descent as Berber. The Arabs (confined to Umayyad political refugees and some adventurers) were only a numerically tiny elite amongst the population of North Africa. Moroccan Arabic (Darija) is still quite unintelligible to to the broader Arab-speaking world.

    Most of those 'Moriscos' and other Muslims were probably native Spanish 'converts', adapting to their new circumstances.

    , @Chairman Meow
    @German_reader


    especially not its relatively humane mid-20th century form.
     
    Humane Ethiopian massacres by Italy in 1935-36?

    Humane French massacres and mass rapes in 1947 in Vietnam?

    I think you need to read up on your history some

  830. @songbird
    @Chairman Meow


    Like also introducing syphilis to the region which would later result in the emergence of HIV?
     
    Well, to be fair, Euros did accomplish the Colombian exchange, bringing syphilis to the Old World. And some speculate that HIV had its origin in infrastructure created by Euros, the cities and roads. Or else in the industrialized science that incentivized the capture of large numbers of chimps and monkeys.

    But ultimately Africans blaming STDs on Euros is pretty crazy. I mean, HIV is a heterosexual disease in South Africa. That says a lot about their natural capacity to whore.

    Replies: @Chairman Meow

    It is true that Euros did acquire Syphilis from the New World. However, it was then Euros who spread it worldwide to their colonies and in Africa and Asia.

    And some speculate that HIV had its origin in infrastructure created by Euros, the cities and roads

    It required multiple emergences of SIV (Simian Immunodeficiency Virus) in Africa before it took hold in the population to any significant extent.

    Even now, it is quite difficult to acquire HIV and requires open sores or abrasions to increase the likelihood of infection. It was even more difficult back then as SIV was not yet adapted to humans.

    It was European colonization with the creation of port towns, whorehouses consisting of African whores who would then transmit STDs to African migrant workers that caused the emergence of HIV. The main theory for HIV emergence is that Euros brought their whoring practices to Africa where they transmitted syphilis, HSV2 (Genital Herpes), Chlamydia/Gonorrhea to the African prositutes in port towns that they built. Since many migrant African workers came from small villages to port towns for work and where far from their wives, they began to visit prostitutes and became infected with the aforementioned STDs. Because there was little exposure in small african villages to these diseases, there was not much population tolerance built up to them and so they were especially severe in African populations leading to significant symptoms.

    It is thought that SIV was transmitted to humans through eating of bushmeat (poorly cooked monkey), it was then transmitted between prostitutes and workers due to the prevalence of these ulcer forming STDs (particularly HSV2 and syphilis).

    Had Euros never brought these ulcer forming STDs to Africa, it is highly doubtful that HIV would have obtained a hold in the population.

  831. @Chairman Meow
    @Yellowface Anon

    The population of Ukraine in 1930 was 31,436,000; in 1933 it was 32,456,000

    I'm not the strongest in math, but this seems like an increase to me. There was no decreases in population between 1930 and 1933.

    Replies: @AP

    The population of Ukraine in 1930 was 31,436,000; in 1933 it was 32,456,000

    Famine was in 1932-1933. There was strong growth in 1930 and 1931.

    In addition, urban growth rate in cities plus immigration compensated for death in the countryside. Overall, about 3 million people starved to death (and died of causes related to famine such as disease, etc.) in 1932-1933 in Ukraine. But the cities, that did not experience famine, saw natural population growth.

    There was three years of worsening drought (plus Poland and surrounding territories where affected too)

    About 30,000 people died of malnutrition and related causes in in Poland-controlled Ukraine during a bad drought n the 1930s. Compared to 3 million in Soviet Ukraine. I’m not sure what the figure was for the rest of Poland but it was under 100,000.

  832. @melanf
    @Dmitry


    Probably there are many books written on this topic.
     
    Art should reach the viewer's heart by itself and not through books. To draw bulls and horses (as an artist), you need to have something that Pixasso did not have - the talent of an artist. Scandals, radical leftist views, etc. cannot replace talent

    https://2.bp.blogspot.com/-gWrBAVsRBBo/Uv_ZKpT_d2I/AAAAAAAAHTo/vnW8XxN2jnA/s1600/Fig.-4-Rider.jpg

    https://upload.wikimedia.org/wikipedia/commons/thumb/4/41/Europe_serov.jpg/1200px-Europe_serov.jpg

    Replies: @songbird, @Thulean Friend

    Art should reach the viewer’s heart by itself and not through books. To draw bulls and horses (as an artist), you need to have something that Picasso did not have – the talent of an artist. Scandals, radical leftist views, etc. cannot replace talent

    As songbird pointed out, he did paint pretty well by age 15.

    Picasso’s regression tracked closely to the art world in general. A younger female in my social circle bought this tasteless pillow to me as a joke:

    She clearly understands that it’s low class, fit for a joke, even if the motif is a work by Picasso. (I haven’t worked up the courage to throw/give it away since she would be upset if she noticed it missing).

    So here a clear regression from someone who was obviously talented. We cannot explain this by lack of talent. Was it an individual matter? No, because since Picasso’s time, art has degenerated and outright regressed further:

    It’s a systematic shift. Once such a shift occurs in a society, it produces incentives to create trash. Artists are no less corruptible than any of us, despite pretensions suggesting otherwise.

    • Replies: @melanf
    @Thulean Friend


    As songbird pointed out, he did paint pretty well by age 15.
     
    Of course, Piсasso knew the technique of painting. But in order to create something great, in addition to technology, you also need talent - but Picasso did not have talent. He was an ordinary child prodigy who learned very early to create very ordinary paintings - and this was probably his limit. But Picasso succeeded as a "modern artist" - that is, the world-famous bubble with emptiness, which creates a cryptocurrency for tikons. Picasso's paintings have as much artistic talent as Bitcoin
    The "salon" painters, like Alma-Tadema or Semiradsky, who were spat upon by criticism, as artists surpassed Picasso absolutely

    https://img4.goodfon.ru/original/1920x1408/5/ca/lawrence-alma-tadema-lourens-alma-tadema-provozglashenie-kla.jpg


    https://upload.wikimedia.org/wikipedia/commons/d/d2/Genrich_Ippolitovich_Semiradsky_-_Roma%2C_1882.jpg

    Replies: @utu

  833. @silviosilver
    @Yahya


    From what I gather, even Nordicist WN-types are coming around to accepting Southern Europeans as “fellow white people”. I assume this is partly because of the avalanche of evidence pointing to Greeks and Romans being swarthy Southern Europeans
     
    I think it has more to do with expediency - it's a way to increase numbers and to get around the mixed heritage/mixed family issue (while remaining racially viable).

    But there's no real feeling in it, and they're probably not serious about it anyway, figuring that it's more important to get the ball rolling, and hoping they'll be able to weed out the undesirables later. If there were any truly pan-European WN conference held, most of the N. European attendees would probably look around the room and think to themselves that if this what they're fighting to preserve, then the war is already lost.

    The problem for WN is that whiteness doesn't just exist in degrees, but in degrees of 'quality' - no one wants to be low man on the racial totem pole, but someone must be. So those who feel secure enough in their position generally try to exclude 'inferiors' as 'non-white', while those who feel insufficiently secure argue for the inclusion of types even less white than they are, to improve their own relative standing. The issue can't really be resolved until a WN regime comes into power and lays down Nuremberg-style decrees, but coming into power requires support, which in turn requires creating the perception that it has been resolved.

    Replies: @sher singh

    Beyond just WN, Brett Stevens of Amerika.org says ethnic diversity leads to racial on same dynamic.

  834. @Mr. Hack
    @AP


    California, southern Nevada and Arizona, could be an independent Latin American-style country with huge income and wealth disparity as in Latin America but still fairly prosperous due to the partial legacy of Silicon Valley (much of it but not all of it will move to TX) and Hollywood. It would still have a largely Anglo elite and would offer an amazing lifestyle for the rich in their gated communities along the coast, produce a lot of agriculture, etc.
     
    I take it that these prognostications are just the results of your fanciful imagination, and not something that you really see occurring? At least for your imaginary Latinastan, I see some serious impediments to such a development in the future. TX and CA share little in common and espouse very different political climates, as you point out. AZ, I think will soon revert back to its strong Republican heritage, as evidenced by the astute "maverick" posturings of Senator Kyrsten Sinema, that always seem to favor a Republican outcome in her voting patterns. She, very quickly has determined where the political winds are headed in the near future. Besides, what would Arizona gain from a closer relationship with California? Arizona's economy is really booming, especially in the high tech sector with many new and large companies relocating here. Things couldn't really look much better here into the future. You must have missed one of my latest cartoons that I reposted above, that pretty much encapsulates the feelings of most Arizonans ("Zonies") to California. Still a nice place to go when it's 110 here in the summer to cool of in the big blue sea!


    https://media.townhall.com/Townhall/Car/b/MC-LeavingCali_web20220107011915.jpg

    https://www.fox10phoenix.com/news/arizonas-economic-future-looks-rosy-as-companies-relocate-to-the-state

    https://www.bizjournals.com/phoenix/news/2021/04/22/arizona-among-top-states-ranked-economic-momentum.html

    https://azgovernor.gov/governor/news/2021/05/arizona-projected-add-nearly-550000-jobs-2029

    Replies: @AP, @A123

    AZ, I think will soon revert back to its strong Republican heritage, as evidenced by the astute “maverick” posturings of Senator Kyrsten Sinema, that always seem to favor a Republican outcome in her voting patterns. She, very quickly has determined where the political winds

    The SJW/DNC is doing poorly with Hispanics. They do not use the term Latinx to describe themselves. So, the political winds are flowing the direction you suggest.

    The legacy of John McCain is GOP(e) swamp heritage, not MAGA heritage. I am not sure that “revert” is the correct description. How about “finally joins” team MAGA?
    ______

    The problem with dividing the U.S. is that people in locations like Arizona are neither Red nor Blue in terms of an irrevocable split. It is not just that millions would be on the “wrong side” of the line. Huge numbers have no strong affiliation to either side.

    Contrast this with Lebanon. A partition could work via easily identified groups with 100% affiliation — Christian, Druze, and Muslim. While the division may be painful, it is clear what the sides are for almost all of the population. Exceptions would largely be one-offs, such as sending Collaborator Aoun to the Muslim side despite his theoretical religious affiliation.

    PEACE 😇

    • Replies: @Mr. Hack
    @A123


    The problem with dividing the U.S. is that people in locations like Arizona are neither Red nor Blue in terms of an irrevocable split. It is not just that millions would be on the “wrong side” of the line. Huge numbers have no strong affiliation to either side.
     
    AGREE.
  835. @silviosilver
    @Yahya


    The proportion of Levantines who can pass for Southern European is not “minuscule”
     
    Firstly, you were referring to Iberia, specifically, not southern Europe in general. I can assure you I'm not trying to defend the "Aryan honor" of Iberia or anything like that. Unlike what you might think, I was actually rather disappointed when I first realized how northern European many Iberians were. It made me wary of regarding Spaniards and Portuguese (as groups, as ethnicities) as people similar to me. On the one hand, personal experiences had clearly established some basis for thinking that the sentiment was shared, but I also realized that I must have been "not seeing" many of them because they were largely indistinguishable from N. Europeans.

    I think I can cut this 'dispute' quite short by stating that I wish you were right. I'm a 'racist' sure, but I'm an inclusionary, ballpark - close enough is good enough - kind of racist; not an exclusionary, purist kind of racist. So even though my own rather extensive investigations into this issue yielded somewhat disappointing results, I'd be quite happy to learn that I'm wrong.

    If what you say about yourself is true, then you, like many other Southern Euros, are probably closer in appearance to Levantine Arabs, than to your pasty-white Anglo “co-racials”.
     
    Well that's just obvious, and I've never thought otherwise.

    You may have thought differently because I'm always talking about white this and white that. That's because I have come to support the WN cause, not because I'm a WN or go around identifying as white myself. (Although I certainly culturally identify as European - what else would I?)

    It's not just from the goodness of my heart that I support WNs, of course. A selfish, calculating Mammonite like me wouldn't dream of supporting a cause were it not in my interests. If it is a binary choice (and in practice, I think, it always will be) of being anti-white/pro-black or anti-black/pro-white, I am going to pick the latter, and I think it would be best if everybody did.

    Pro-white means being pro-identity, pro-standards, pro-responsibility, pro-reality, pro-intelligence, pro-beauty, pro-punishing the guilty.

    Pro-black means the opposite: abolishing identity, abandoning standards, making excuses, denying reality, neglecting intelligence, promoting ugliness and punishing the innocent.

    Shouldn't be a hard choice.

    Replies: @Yahya

    Unlike what you might think, I was actually rather disappointed when I first realized how northern European many Iberians were.

    Here’s the Syrian national football team:

    Here’s the Spanish football team:

    Here’s the Swedish team:

    Are Spaniards really closer to Swedes than Syrians?

    [MORE]

    Lebanese-Mexican (Carlos Slim):

    Spanish-Mexican (Andrés Manuel López Obrador):

    Anglo-American (Bill Gates):

    Who’s closer in appearance to AMLO?

    Tough to say.

    Which pretty much demonstrates my point: Levantines don’t look too different from Iberians.

    Pro-white means being pro-identity, pro-standards, pro-responsibility, pro-reality, pro-intelligence, pro-beauty, pro-punishing the guilty.

    Hard to argue against that.

    • Replies: @Yahya
    @Yahya


    Levantines don’t look too different from Iberians.
     
    Some Levantines look more Spanish than Spaniards themselves.

    Palestinian:


    https://64.media.tumblr.com/947e1ca50ca51d038fcd1e006ee4352d/99c88f2fe4741b9c-04/s500x750/79c3d0e1d3667af306882aee51739adbdc9103a8.jpg


    Spaniard:


    https://imgwoman.elperiodico.com/f9/3d/cd/marian-hernandez-600.jpg


    Mariam Hernández

    Replies: @silviosilver

    , @German_reader
    @Yahya

    There's some superficial overlap between the Spanish team and the Syrian one, but imo they're clearly distinct on the whole. I actually looked up the entire Spanish team (at least as it was 2-3 years ago), and there were two or three guys who looked vaguely "Moorish" to me (also some with blue eyes and light hair, e.g. Marcos Llorente). But most of them are clearly more generically European in their appearance than Mideastern and wouldn't be mistaken for Arabs imo.

    Replies: @Yahya

    , @LatW
    @Yahya

    Re: Soccer teams photo.


    Are Spaniards really closer to Swedes than Syrians?
     
    The Spanish Nr4 and the goalie could actually pass for Swedes, mainly due to their facial features. The streets of Stockholm are full of slightly lighter versions of Nr4. And even the Swedes themselves can have pretty dark brunette hair (just look at Prince Daniel who has typically Swedish features but dark hair).

    The Spanish team just do not look Middle Eastern. I'd say, to be really picky, they look distinct, neither like the Swedes, nor the Syrians. What really sets them apart is the upper face, the eyes, and maybe even cheekbones a little. The Middle Eastern eyes are shaped in a very particular way, the eyebrows are thicker. This is not to say it can't be attractive as beauty is universal. But the Middle Easter upper face sets itself apart immediately.

    The Middle Eastern hair is more black, the Spanish hair, while dark, is more chestnut brown. Another example would be the Estevez family (the actors) -- who apparently stem from a Northern Spanish ancestry, none of them would pass for Middle Eastern.

    Similarly, Rafa Nadal, who is quite tan, would not pass for Middle Eastern. His facial features are too European. Wife, though, looks a bit ME.

    You posted a photo of a blonde woman somewhere above, thinking that she might pass for Swedish. She looked Litvak (a light Jewish person). While she could've passed for a Swede because of her overall look, she did not have the typical Swedish female features. She had a somewhat large nose, a typical Swedish nose is smaller and somewhat differently shaped.

    I'm quite fascinated by Georgian Kists (who are Chechen (Shishani) originally but live in Georgia). The very particular Caucasian facial features are very well known across the ex-USSR. But in the case of the Kists they are very subtly pronounced. They also have lighter hair, occasionally reddish. With some of them, from afar they can pass for European, only when you look closer, when you notice the distinct eye shape, more prominent eyebrows and the typical long Caucasian nose, only then you can see the difference. It's a fascinating mix of similar and exotic features, in a rather studly people.

    Replies: @Yahya, @Dmitry

  836. @Chairman Meow
    @AP


    It sold out beauty and tradition
     
    What beauty and tradition did it sell out? If anything the Soviets expanded on Tsarist era beauty and tradition, promoting Tsasrist authors like Chekhov, Tolstoy, Pushkin and building up Moscow and St Petes to be beautiful at their peak

    Soviets used the best building practices of their time to beautify Moscow as their new capital and by all contemporary accounts in the 30's, Moscow was stunning for example.


    ended up being squalid and poor
     
    By what measure? USSR had second economy in the world until the 1980's when it became third economy as it was surpassed by Japan.

    Keep in mind that despite world wars and massive sanctions the USSR was growing at 13.8% per year for almost 22 years straight.


    USSR provided a strong dose of mass murder.
     
    Mass murder? Are you for real? Shall we compare it to British policies in Bangladesh and India for comparison? Or how about Belgian policies in Africa? Or lets take American policies towards the Indians in America? The scale of "Mass murder" far surpassed anything the Soviets ever did

    (who lived in material conditions similar to those of dirt poor American blacks).
     
    Nonesense. Most of the world does not care for the same things that americans care about, so claiming that they lived in the same material conditions as blacks makes no sense.

    Like a Ford or Toyota versus a Zhiguli?

     

    Exactly. Zhiguli's have not developed under capitalism but where quite good cars in their time. In fact Soviet automaking was so good that many cars made during the period are still used and made to this day. For example the legendary UAZ-452 "Bukhanka" (https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/UAZ-452). Capitalist Russia was not able to innovate anything half as good. LOL

    Replies: @German_reader, @AP, @Dmitry

    What beauty and tradition did it sell out? If anything the Soviets expanded on Tsarist era beauty and tradition

    LOL.

    Soviet is characterized by ugliness combined with poverty.

    promoting Tsasrist authors like Chekhov, Tolstoy, Pushkin

    The killed the Silver Age of Russian literature but did keep Chekhov and Pushkin. So there is a minor point in their favor. I already mentioned that – that one of the few good things about the generally disgusting Soviet system was the it produced literate people.

    and building up Moscow and St Petes to be beautiful at their peak

    The most beautiful parts of these cities were built before the Revolution. In Moscow these would be the White City, Kitai Gorod, etc. While Stalin-era architecture is not bad, it is worse than the parts of the old city that were destroyed to make room for the Stalinist buildings. And what followed Stalin-era architecture was horrible.

    Modern capitalist architecture is also often ugly and horrible, but it as least is luxurious compared to Soviet garbage. Having a large ugly house is sure better than being cramped with three generations into a small ugly apartment with no elevator.

    USSR had second economy in the world until the 1980’s

    Per capita it was poorer than Greece. It was only 20% richer than Mexico by 1989. And much of its economy was tied up in the military, so the people were even poorer than the GDP would suggest.

    USSR provided a strong dose of mass murder.

    Mass murder? Are you for real? Shall we compare it to British policies in Bangladesh and India for comparison? Or how about Belgian policies in Africa?

    The Soviets treated their own citizens like the British treated the Bangladeshi people or Belgians treated Congolese. Excellent comparison.

    But you have to go back to the 19th century to compare how Europeans treated African or Asian colonial subjects, to how Soviets treated their own population in the 20th century.

    Or lets take American policies towards the Indians in America?

    Indeed. In the 19th century, Americans treated Indians like Soviets treated Soviet Chechen and Tatar citizens in the 20th.

    • Replies: @Chairman Meow
    @AP


    Soviet is characterized by ugliness combined with poverty.
     
    That's a subjective statement. I personally think it looks beautiful.

    https://i.redd.it/vr72us0c1be51.jpg

    https://preview.redd.it/uyl1wngl5ri51.jpg?width=960&crop=smart&auto=webp&s=fd211a6cde3e06de7bcb3f1a5d1dde3b28040302

    https://preview.redd.it/vm3gwbjl5ri51.jpg?width=640&crop=smart&auto=webp&s=3658375d0bdba5b287c575c9590b09d7d32bddf3

    https://preview.redd.it/3n8pbxol5ri51.jpg?width=960&crop=smart&auto=webp&s=b83348dc93e322565882af86bcb724d3da757405

    https://preview.redd.it/1dd766cm5ri51.jpg?width=1024&format=pjpg&auto=webp&s=a041388d1ca4794bc8cd8b77aecb83039d7e1089

    https://preview.redd.it/qi4sufem5ri51.jpg?width=1596&format=pjpg&auto=webp&s=483a80f335c30c7cc9a0243a61422ef9cd96f24c

    https://preview.redd.it/tzpm1phm5ri51.jpg?width=960&crop=smart&auto=webp&s=36b0d24c16178b0fd9408dc81ee07afd6e5a1ff9

    https://preview.redd.it/goc91ljm5ri51.jpg?width=960&crop=smart&auto=webp&s=39d3871f4998fef81ad25745bf4af813306016ee

    https://preview.redd.it/t0nef8om5ri51.jpg?width=640&crop=smart&auto=webp&s=f9e937692d5d51cc5b33de9caf311e71d37c6fec

    https://preview.redd.it/rh2ohjqm5ri51.jpg?width=640&crop=smart&auto=webp&s=a188d17a183981d170fcfd7189c938cd0bb48c6d

    https://preview.redd.it/vu9uxfum5ri51.jpg?width=640&crop=smart&auto=webp&s=92f985d2a18edaee01302a8553f7d14c9b585206

    https://preview.redd.it/3ttai5ym5ri51.jpg?width=640&crop=smart&auto=webp&s=dd93cbdf65a7ad5f6690822954cf62401d78c952

    https://preview.redd.it/g6vnaz1n5ri51.jpg?width=960&crop=smart&auto=webp&s=c95a7606127d0eba962d57333128fa77382f25f2

    https://preview.redd.it/dapel5al5ri51.jpg?width=960&crop=smart&auto=webp&s=1815f0dfc8edfc357e99e7dbbbe3ef982e0045ce

    https://preview.redd.it/jg1hfx6l5ri51.jpg?width=320&crop=smart&auto=webp&s=852ad8f69c516d6b4f36b106b76fcca07a8d1fa9

    In fact I think it looks more beautiful and interesting than soulless "housing" you see in America/Canada nowadays:

    Comparison:

    https://preview.redd.it/ho5b04wjww681.jpg?width=320&crop=smart&auto=webp&s=4cb6cdbc006ecb0b93209a89ec1b2e479fd3279f

    https://preview.redd.it/283qekxjww681.jpg?width=320&crop=smart&auto=webp&s=c8a112d00d549980af9c2d37edb34d1f3f2ac047

    https://preview.redd.it/xfveifwtuqs61.jpg?width=1024&auto=webp&s=48cdcf63502a747ecbc2caa2ee27ce77ca497fb9

    https://preview.redd.it/0mp8fyrv14c81.jpg?width=576&auto=webp&s=0c35fc45afc91f074f7f7337d18e38462e2b7ae5

    https://old.reddit.com/r/UrbanHell/comments/oq8sk6/roosevelt_boulevard_philadelphia_one_of_the_most/

    Before you say that the Soviets had ugly commie blocks, here is Seoul (known to be wealthy) for comparison

    https://preview.redd.it/a25l7n5ws3c81.jpg?width=494&auto=webp&s=617aaba9d629d8fd2d87400b72151656c97eb1bd

    Here is a suburban area that all looks the same:

    https://preview.redd.it/8ouio1uvs0651.jpg?width=960&crop=smart&auto=webp&s=16a8c5f193f5fede632d491404bdeb6ed9b6bee2

    All the buildings look the same. So this isn't solely a Soviet phenomenon.

    Besides, the Soviets also built grocery stores and schools and all the necessities within walking distance of their building complexes, so people would not need to go far and had no need of cars. This is much better than what is currently available where they just build a building and road (sometimes not even that) and you have to travel long distances to take your children to school or go to the grocery store.

    luxurious compared to Soviet garbage
     
    Is that so?

    Here are some apartments in New York City that people will pay thousands of dollars a month to rent:

    https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=kUMQ-bRxOjw

    Here's similar apartments in tokyo



    Soviet apartments where luxurious in comparison

    Per capita it was poorer than Greece. It was only 20% richer than Mexico by 1989. And much of its economy was tied up in the military, so the people were even poorer than the GDP would suggest.
     
    Official soviet statistics did not include many services in their GDP/capita calculations so it naturally seems deflated. This is difficult to caltulate nowadays due to the passage of time.

    USSR provided a strong dose of mass murder.
     
    What mass murder? The Euros mass murdered in their colonies far more than the Soviets ever did. If we look at mass murder by the Americans in Korea (where they mass murdered half the population of what became North Korea) then that far surpasses Soviet "mass murders".

    The Soviets treated their own citizens like the British treated the Bangladeshi people or Belgians treated Congolese. Excellent comparison.
     
    LOL. Stop trying to twist my words. The British objectively treated their own citizens worse (since Bangledesh was part of the British Empire).

    Replies: @Chairman Meow, @AP

  837. @Yahya
    @silviosilver


    Unlike what you might think, I was actually rather disappointed when I first realized how northern European many Iberians were.
     
    Here's the Syrian national football team:


    https://atalayar.com/sites/default/files/styles/foto_/public/noticias/Atalayar_Siria%20mundial%20%20%283%29.jpg?itok=5SQUiSvI


    Here's the Spanish football team:


    https://cdn.vox-cdn.com/thumbor/jp0slz3X9UP64MlFdwLCigorhSg=/0x0:4273x3010/1200x800/filters:focal(1796x1164:2478x1846)/cdn.vox-cdn.com/uploads/chorus_image/image/61384039/1031700340.jpg.0.jpg


    Here's the Swedish team:


    https://upload.wikimedia.org/wikipedia/commons/5/5a/Sweden_national_football_team_20120611.jpg


    Are Spaniards really closer to Swedes than Syrians?

    Lebanese-Mexican (Carlos Slim):


    https://api.time.com/wp-content/uploads/2015/12/carlos-slim.jpg


    Spanish-Mexican (Andrés Manuel López Obrador):

    https://www.globaltimes.cn/Portals/0/attachment/2021/2021-01-25/569b916f-a56a-45e2-bc8b-56a6cef11a6b.jpeg


    Anglo-American (Bill Gates):


    https://cdn.vanguardngr.com/wp-content/uploads/2020/05/Bill-Gates.jpg


    Who's closer in appearance to AMLO?

    Tough to say.

    Which pretty much demonstrates my point: Levantines don’t look too different from Iberians.


    Pro-white means being pro-identity, pro-standards, pro-responsibility, pro-reality, pro-intelligence, pro-beauty, pro-punishing the guilty.

     

    Hard to argue against that.

    Replies: @Yahya, @German_reader, @LatW

    Levantines don’t look too different from Iberians.

    Some Levantines look more Spanish than Spaniards themselves.

    Palestinian:

    Spaniard:

    Mariam Hernández

    • Replies: @silviosilver
    @Yahya


    Some Levantines look more Spanish than Spaniards themselves.
     
    That's the key term, isn't it: some. But what proportion is "some"? Do even 5% of Levantines actually look that white? And if not, don't you think it looks kinda sad/desperate/pathetic to try and argue for your point by posting a one-pic comparison? Couldn't an Afghan do the same thing? What could it possibly "prove"? Even if you "win" the internet argument (as by your own admission you're determined to do), if anyone convinced by it ever encounters a bunch of Levantines together at the same time, he will quickly have his opinion of "what they look like" reshaped by that experience, and all your effortposting will have been for nothing.

    Replies: @Yahya

  838. @Yellowface Anon
    @AP

    You assumed there won't be large-scale mutual extermination like what happened during the India-Pakistan or Israel-Palestine split. But tbh it'll be a bit lopsided, rightoid-militia-massacring-the-traitors-and-undesirables incidents, or mass trials.

    Replies: @A123

    it’ll be a bit lopsided, rightoid-militia-massacring-the-traitors-and-undesirables incidents, or mass trials

    I suspect it will be lopsided in a different direction.

    Violent extremists, such as BLM and The Fascist Stormtroopers of Antifa, define themselves via aggression. Once confined to BLUEstania, they will need prey on that side of the line. With MAGA gone, the only targets for violent Leftoids will be their fellow blue staters. Portland CHAZ could easily become the new normal in BLUEstania.

    PEACE 😇

    • LOL: sher singh
  839. @German_reader
    @Chairman Meow


    In 1901 alone 50,000 congolese died from African sleeping sickness.
     
    And then the Belgians put a stop to it.
    As for Chechens, it's estimated a quarter of them died due to the deportation between 1944-1948. Soviet aplogogists have no moral basis at all to condemn European colonialism, especially not its relatively humane mid-20th century form.
    Anyway, you are quite simply wrong about lots of issues and just engaging in the usual commie apologetics, not going to waste any time on that.

    Replies: @Chairman Meow, @Yevardian, @Chairman Meow

    And then the Belgians put a stop to it.

    Only after there was significant outrage from the world over their policies and pressure put on them to stop it.

    Anyway, you are quite simply wrong about lots of issues

    Like what?

    usual commie apologetics,

    I don’t see much ‘commie apologetics’ going on here. I see everyone jerking off to the CIA narratives of the cold war. I wanted to bring some truth and discussion to the matter.

    not going to waste any time on that.

    Sounds like you’d rather buy into propaganda than have fruitful discourse on important historical topics.

    • Replies: @German_reader
    @Chairman Meow


    Like what?
     
    Like claiming there were "only" 300 000 executions, when even the NKVD's own statistics mention about 680 000 for 1937/38.
    There have been many apologists of the Stalin-era Soviet Union on UR in the past btw (though admittedly not as many as Holocaust deniers), so these discussions aren't really new.
  840. German_reader says:
    @Yahya
    @silviosilver


    Unlike what you might think, I was actually rather disappointed when I first realized how northern European many Iberians were.
     
    Here's the Syrian national football team:


    https://atalayar.com/sites/default/files/styles/foto_/public/noticias/Atalayar_Siria%20mundial%20%20%283%29.jpg?itok=5SQUiSvI


    Here's the Spanish football team:


    https://cdn.vox-cdn.com/thumbor/jp0slz3X9UP64MlFdwLCigorhSg=/0x0:4273x3010/1200x800/filters:focal(1796x1164:2478x1846)/cdn.vox-cdn.com/uploads/chorus_image/image/61384039/1031700340.jpg.0.jpg


    Here's the Swedish team:


    https://upload.wikimedia.org/wikipedia/commons/5/5a/Sweden_national_football_team_20120611.jpg


    Are Spaniards really closer to Swedes than Syrians?

    Lebanese-Mexican (Carlos Slim):


    https://api.time.com/wp-content/uploads/2015/12/carlos-slim.jpg


    Spanish-Mexican (Andrés Manuel López Obrador):

    https://www.globaltimes.cn/Portals/0/attachment/2021/2021-01-25/569b916f-a56a-45e2-bc8b-56a6cef11a6b.jpeg


    Anglo-American (Bill Gates):


    https://cdn.vanguardngr.com/wp-content/uploads/2020/05/Bill-Gates.jpg


    Who's closer in appearance to AMLO?

    Tough to say.

    Which pretty much demonstrates my point: Levantines don’t look too different from Iberians.


    Pro-white means being pro-identity, pro-standards, pro-responsibility, pro-reality, pro-intelligence, pro-beauty, pro-punishing the guilty.

     

    Hard to argue against that.

    Replies: @Yahya, @German_reader, @LatW

    There’s some superficial overlap between the Spanish team and the Syrian one, but imo they’re clearly distinct on the whole. I actually looked up the entire Spanish team (at least as it was 2-3 years ago), and there were two or three guys who looked vaguely “Moorish” to me (also some with blue eyes and light hair, e.g. Marcos Llorente). But most of them are clearly more generically European in their appearance than Mideastern and wouldn’t be mistaken for Arabs imo.

    • Replies: @Yahya
    @German_reader


    There’s some superficial overlap between the Spanish team and the Syrian one, but imo they’re clearly distinct on the whole.

     

    I'm not disputing their distinctiveness. My point is that "Levantines don't look too different from Iberians", which I think is demonstrably true.

    wouldn’t be mistaken
     
    With hindsight, of course you can tell who is Spanish and who is Syrian. But what if their images were put up anonymously on reddit, would you have correctly identified their national origin?

    Most people (including myself) were not able to correctly discern this ladies' national origin:

    https://www.reddit.com/r/phenotypes/comments/rgjq9j/can_you_guess_where_im_from/?ref=share&ref_source=embed&utm_content=title&utm_medium=post_embed&utm_name=694e3cae8afa43cc9f550d015a2c8cb2&utm_source=embedly&utm_term=rgjq9j

    Or this one:

    https://www.reddit.com/r/phenotypes/comments/rkpqg3/where_is_this_woman_from/

    And these two:

    https://www.reddit.com/r/phenotypes/comments/rmj8dx/where_are_these_women_from/

    It's harder than it looks. I'll post 5 images below the "more" tag. Try to guess their geographic origin (MENA vs Southern Europe). I'll reveal their names and origin in a few hours.


    generically European
     
    How's it possible for there to be a "generic European" appearance when 99% of Swedes look completely different from 99% of Greeks; who in turn look different from even nearby Croatians, who might as well be aliens to Lithuanians?

    wouldn’t be mistaken for Arabs imo.
     
    Depends on the context. If a Spaniard were in Spain, sure, they wouldn't get mistaken for an Arab (why would they?). But they would if they came to Egypt for example. I recall an Unz commentor once complaining that he got mistaken for an Arab frequently when he was touring Egypt, though can't find his comment in the archives. My Egyptian mother (who looks even more European than I am) frequently got mistaken for a Spaniard last time we were visiting Spain (though no-one would mistake my Saudi father for an Iberian).

    Girl #1


    https://iv1.lisimg.com/image/8475709/726full-dorra-zarrouk.jpg


    Girl #2


    https://www.hola.com/imagenes/actualidad/20190721146178/alicia-sanz-william-levy-promesa-hollywood/0-703-497/alicia-sanz-getty-t.jpg


    Girl #3


    https://www.savoirflair.com/wp-content/uploads/2014/11/Razane-Jammals-Beauty-Routine.jpg?x88026


    Girl #4


    https://greekcitytimes.com/wp-content/uploads/2021/11/259994797_962752357651056_5831371210586394549_n-1-819x1024.jpg


    Girl #5


    https://see.news/wp-content/uploads/2020/08/1.png

    Replies: @German_reader, @AP, @Coconuts, @silviosilver

  841. Some neoreactionaries will see wokeness as a boon – the more people getting woke, the larger the labor camps; the woker the underclass, the more pliant the slaves will be. That’s why they are neoreactionaries – driven by the Will to Power.

  842. @Chairman Meow
    @German_reader


    And then the Belgians put a stop to it.
     
    Only after there was significant outrage from the world over their policies and pressure put on them to stop it.

    Anyway, you are quite simply wrong about lots of issues
     
    Like what?

    usual commie apologetics,
     
    I don't see much 'commie apologetics' going on here. I see everyone jerking off to the CIA narratives of the cold war. I wanted to bring some truth and discussion to the matter.

    not going to waste any time on that.
     
    Sounds like you'd rather buy into propaganda than have fruitful discourse on important historical topics.

    Replies: @German_reader

    Like what?

    Like claiming there were “only” 300 000 executions, when even the NKVD’s own statistics mention about 680 000 for 1937/38.
    There have been many apologists of the Stalin-era Soviet Union on UR in the past btw (though admittedly not as many as Holocaust deniers), so these discussions aren’t really new.

  843. @AP
    @Dmitry


    "squalid and poor relative to the capitalist.."

    "For constituent countries, of the USSR, convergence in measures like GDP per capita and life expectancy,* was the closest to Western countries in the late 1960s (i.e. in Soviet times), than in any other time in modern history, before or after."
     
    And by the 1980s (let's say, after only 15 years) they descended into relative poverty. Also, much of Soviet GDP was captured by military industry and wasn't reflected in day to day life.

    The relative gains into the late 1960s suggest that industrialization and modernization was bound to lead to some improvement but under a centrally planned socialist economy there was a ceiling that was reached in the 1970s, after which further improvement was very small. Free market capitalist countries on the other hand had no such ceiling and just saw ongoing vast improvement.

    However, you should also compare the USSR to countries of similar pre-Soviet development. It may be easier for very poor countries to catch up a little to much richer ones.

    So for example, Portugal and Greece only had about 2/3 of Russia's per capita GDP PPP in 1913. By 1973 Portugal had about 90% of the USSR's GDP PPP and Greece was richer than the USSR. All three of these countries had made relative gains to the rich Western countries, but the USSR's relative gains were smaller and it was falling behind these other poor European countries.

    This chart only goes back to 1987 for Ukraine and 1989 for Russia (so last 5 years of USSR for Ukraine and 3 for Russia), but we see countries that are already very poor, much poorer than France, and not improving at all:

    https://i.imgur.com/xJOSMoH.png

    They were so poor that even the steep relative decline of the 1990s doesn't look so steep compared to France because it is just a a series of very low numbers.

    Like a Ford or Toyota versus a Zhiguli? LOL.

    Almost, but Ford should be on the other side sharing the disjunction with Zhiguli.

    “Like a Toyota versus a Ford or Zhiguli? LOL.”
     
    Nonsense. Ford is much closer to Toyota than to a Lada, which is in the same category as Yugo (exported to the USA and the butt of jokes).

    The cheapest Ford in the USA:

    https://s38.wheelsage.org/format/picture/picture-preview-large/f/ford/escort_glx_4-door/ford_escort_glx_4-door.jpg

    Compare to Zhiguli:

    https://i.radiopachone.org/img/9ea84cbef8672e6ff26b9cad42eb79.jpg

    They were just in different categories. Zhiguli was pretty much 1960s technology, smaller, slower.

    An interesting review and comparison of Lada Samara (much improved over the Zhiguli):

    https://www.flickr.com/photos/triggerscarstuff/4475997889/in/photostream/

    The Samara approached the cheap Escort in some areas, and appears to have been slightly more fun to drive. But the quality was much lower and it was much less refined, such that the reviewer concluded that people who could afford an Escort would not buy a Samara. And moreover this was the worst and cheapest of the Fords.

    Replies: @Chairman Meow, @Dmitry, @Shortsword

    And by the 1980s (let’s say, after only 15 years) they descended into relative poverty.

    What is defined as “relative poverty”? According to this paper Soviet economy was growing at 2% per year in 1980 (https://apps.dtic.mil/sti/pdfs/ADA220336.pdf) which is considered the Soviet period of “Zastoi” which is about what the US had in 2019 before the pandemic.

    Also, much of Soviet GDP was captured by military industry and wasn’t reflected in day to day life.

    Also the Soviets calculated GNP not GDP which does not include a whole host of measures in their statistics (they seperated healthcare, law fees, etc from their total GNP) which means that their GNP (and other calculations based on it) is actually lower than its supposed to be

    If we look at the chart below, Soviet GPD PPP was acutally higher than most of Europe and it took 29 European countries added together to surpass it.

    View post on imgur.com

    (How do you add images to posts?)

    They were so poor that even the steep relative decline of the 1990s doesn’t look so steep compared to France because it is just a a series of very low numbers

    If you look at the chart the numbers aren’t indicative of the Soviet economy. For Russia it starts in 1990 after its economy had essentially collapsed. And if you look at the graph carefully you see that GDP is actually falling in 1990.

    Plus its incorrect to seperate Ukranian economy in 1987 from the Soviet economy as a whole. That would be like comparing the economy of Aquitaine to that of all of Germany.

    They were just in different categories. Zhiguli was pretty much 1960s technology, smaller, slower.

    An interesting review and comparison of Lada Samara (much improved over the Zhiguli):

    If you read the picture you provide, it says that the Samara was a “good first attempt” and that Ford had similar problems before it rectified them. Also, it says that Soviet engine engineering was good, it was that the car was deficient in design. This is 1988 when the Soviet economy was being dismantled. It is quite possible that had the USSR persisted, that its automotive quality would have increased. Cars and automotive development was never a priority in the country as public transit was well developed and most people did not have a need for a car, as did north americans or even europeans.

    • Replies: @AP
    @Chairman Meow


    What is defined as “relative poverty”? According to this paper Soviet economy was growing at 2% per year in 1980 (https://apps.dtic.mil/sti/pdfs/ADA220336.pdf) which is considered the Soviet period of “Zastoi” which is about what the US had in 2019 before the pandemic.
     
    The richest major country in the world growing at 2% is a lot different than a country almost as poor as Mexico growing at 2%.

    Also the Soviets calculated GNP not GDP which does not include a whole host of measures in their statistics (they seperated healthcare, law fees, etc from their total GNP) which means that their GNP (and other calculations based on it) is actually lower than its supposed to be
     
    My post included GDP not GNP.

    If we look at the chart below, Soviet GPD PPP was acutally higher than most of Europe and it took 29 European countries added together to surpass it.
     
    The chart doesn't show that. It shows Western Europe and USA ahead of the USSR by a huge margin. It shows Japan surpassing the USSR between 1950 and 1990. And Latin America being about the same as the USSR, and China rapidly catching up to the USSR by 1990.

    For Russia it starts in 1990 after its economy had essentially collapsed.
     
    For Russia it started in 1989.
  844. Dystopian.

    • Agree: songbird
  845. @Chairman Meow
    @AP


    And by the 1980s (let’s say, after only 15 years) they descended into relative poverty.
     
    What is defined as "relative poverty"? According to this paper Soviet economy was growing at 2% per year in 1980 (https://apps.dtic.mil/sti/pdfs/ADA220336.pdf) which is considered the Soviet period of "Zastoi" which is about what the US had in 2019 before the pandemic.

    Also, much of Soviet GDP was captured by military industry and wasn’t reflected in day to day life.
     
    Also the Soviets calculated GNP not GDP which does not include a whole host of measures in their statistics (they seperated healthcare, law fees, etc from their total GNP) which means that their GNP (and other calculations based on it) is actually lower than its supposed to be

    If we look at the chart below, Soviet GPD PPP was acutally higher than most of Europe and it took 29 European countries added together to surpass it.

    https://imgur.com/a/zLIZEYK

    (How do you add images to posts?)


    They were so poor that even the steep relative decline of the 1990s doesn’t look so steep compared to France because it is just a a series of very low numbers

     

    If you look at the chart the numbers aren't indicative of the Soviet economy. For Russia it starts in 1990 after its economy had essentially collapsed. And if you look at the graph carefully you see that GDP is actually falling in 1990.

    Plus its incorrect to seperate Ukranian economy in 1987 from the Soviet economy as a whole. That would be like comparing the economy of Aquitaine to that of all of Germany.


    They were just in different categories. Zhiguli was pretty much 1960s technology, smaller, slower.

    An interesting review and comparison of Lada Samara (much improved over the Zhiguli):
     

    If you read the picture you provide, it says that the Samara was a "good first attempt" and that Ford had similar problems before it rectified them. Also, it says that Soviet engine engineering was good, it was that the car was deficient in design. This is 1988 when the Soviet economy was being dismantled. It is quite possible that had the USSR persisted, that its automotive quality would have increased. Cars and automotive development was never a priority in the country as public transit was well developed and most people did not have a need for a car, as did north americans or even europeans.

    Replies: @AP

    What is defined as “relative poverty”? According to this paper Soviet economy was growing at 2% per year in 1980 (https://apps.dtic.mil/sti/pdfs/ADA220336.pdf) which is considered the Soviet period of “Zastoi” which is about what the US had in 2019 before the pandemic.

    The richest major country in the world growing at 2% is a lot different than a country almost as poor as Mexico growing at 2%.

    Also the Soviets calculated GNP not GDP which does not include a whole host of measures in their statistics (they seperated healthcare, law fees, etc from their total GNP) which means that their GNP (and other calculations based on it) is actually lower than its supposed to be

    My post included GDP not GNP.

    If we look at the chart below, Soviet GPD PPP was acutally higher than most of Europe and it took 29 European countries added together to surpass it.

    The chart doesn’t show that. It shows Western Europe and USA ahead of the USSR by a huge margin. It shows Japan surpassing the USSR between 1950 and 1990. And Latin America being about the same as the USSR, and China rapidly catching up to the USSR by 1990.

    For Russia it starts in 1990 after its economy had essentially collapsed.

    For Russia it started in 1989.

  846. @German_reader
    @Yahya

    There's some superficial overlap between the Spanish team and the Syrian one, but imo they're clearly distinct on the whole. I actually looked up the entire Spanish team (at least as it was 2-3 years ago), and there were two or three guys who looked vaguely "Moorish" to me (also some with blue eyes and light hair, e.g. Marcos Llorente). But most of them are clearly more generically European in their appearance than Mideastern and wouldn't be mistaken for Arabs imo.

    Replies: @Yahya

    There’s some superficial overlap between the Spanish team and the Syrian one, but imo they’re clearly distinct on the whole.

    I’m not disputing their distinctiveness. My point is that “Levantines don’t look too different from Iberians”, which I think is demonstrably true.

    wouldn’t be mistaken

    With hindsight, of course you can tell who is Spanish and who is Syrian. But what if their images were put up anonymously on reddit, would you have correctly identified their national origin?

    Most people (including myself) were not able to correctly discern this ladies’ national origin:

    Can you guess where i’m from? from phenotypes

    Or this one:

    Where is this woman from? from phenotypes

    And these two:

    Where are these women from? from phenotypes

    It’s harder than it looks. I’ll post 5 images below the “more” tag. Try to guess their geographic origin (MENA vs Southern Europe). I’ll reveal their names and origin in a few hours.

    generically European

    How’s it possible for there to be a “generic European” appearance when 99% of Swedes look completely different from 99% of Greeks; who in turn look different from even nearby Croatians, who might as well be aliens to Lithuanians?

    wouldn’t be mistaken for Arabs imo.

    Depends on the context. If a Spaniard were in Spain, sure, they wouldn’t get mistaken for an Arab (why would they?). But they would if they came to Egypt for example. I recall an Unz commentor once complaining that he got mistaken for an Arab frequently when he was touring Egypt, though can’t find his comment in the archives. My Egyptian mother (who looks even more European than I am) frequently got mistaken for a Spaniard last time we were visiting Spain (though no-one would mistake my Saudi father for an Iberian).

    [MORE]

    Girl #1

    Girl #2

    Girl #3

    Girl #4

    Girl #5

    • Replies: @German_reader
    @Yahya


    How’s it possible for there to be a “generic European” appearance when 99% of Swedes look completely different from 99% of Greeks
     
    Yes, I suppose I should have phrased that differently. What I meant to say is that imo most of the members of the Spanish team have a look that is typically Iberian. But they wouldn't be completely out of place in many other European countries. Probably not in Sweden, but in a broad stretch of countries from France over the Alpine regions to Hungary and the Balkans, imo you couldn't be certain that they might not be a native. I don't think you can say that for most Syrians, despite the undoubted overlap of phenotypes between different Mediterranean peoples.
    Anyway, I find this debate a bit weird in some ways. Intra-European racism certainly exists, but what people write on WN message boards might not be the best guide (I have no doubt that Silviosilver's family experienced some discrimination from Anglo-Australians, but on the other hand, his family presumably immigrated back when there was still a "white Australia" policy, so even then they weren't seen as non-white).

    Try to guess their geographic origin (MENA vs Southern Europe).
     
    Ok, I'm going to embarrass myself.

    1.) Southern Euro.
    2.) Mideast (Syria?).
    3.) Mideast (Lebanon?).
    4.) That girl is pretty dark. You wouldn't have picked her if she were from the Mideast, so I'd guess southern Spain or southern Italy.
    5.) She's got light eyes, so the reverse applies. I'd guess Turkey, but since you're Arab, I suppose she's Levantine.

    Replies: @Yahya, @silviosilver

    , @AP
    @Yahya

    Thank you for the very pleasant images. Some comments though:

    1. Make-up, hair coloring, etc. tends to alter appearance somewhat. A fair comparson would be to show all of these women without makeup, plucked eyebrows, etc.

    2. A lot of Spaniards probably have some Arabic descent. So one would expect overlap. People from northern Spanish regions such as Aragon (first picture) or Asturias (second one) don't look very Arabic:

    http://2.bp.blogspot.com/-LfVC4fbcG0A/U4f-aTPdPbI/AAAAAAAASEo/cDh_N2Cxtok/s1600/925e628059354644bee0fbc25ec8af40.jpg

    https://res.cloudinary.com/fleetnation/image/private/c_fit,w_1120/g_south,l_text:style_gothic2:%C2%A9%20robertharding,o_20,y_10/g_center,l_watermark4,o_25,y_50/v1505502953/fij3ejbysoy21au5wph3.jpg

    Replies: @Yahya

    , @Coconuts
    @Yahya


    I’m not disputing their distinctiveness. My point is that “Levantines don’t look too different from Iberians”, which I think is demonstrably true.
     
    Levantines do tend to look like Arabs though, and Spaniards tend on average not to look like Arabs. From what I have observed Arabs can be lighter than Spaniards, but often are physically taller, not as slight, have wider faces, more likely to have curving brows and wider foreheads, as well as differences in nose and chin.

    OTOH some Spaniards, especially in the South, have Moorish ancestry, and there are also Spaniards who have various kinds of Latin American ancestry which complicates things. Like there are Italians who have North African and Greek ancestry, and there are people in the Levant and North Africa who have European ancestry or are descended from people like the old Berbers.

    Replies: @Yahya

    , @silviosilver
    @Yahya


    My Egyptian mother (who looks even more European than I am) frequently got mistaken for a Spaniard last time we were visiting Spain
     
    How do you know she was mistaken for an ethnic Spaniard? Obviously it can't be just that she was addressed in Spanish by people, since it's natural for someone in Spain to be addressed in Spanish.

    Replies: @Yahya

  847. Like claiming there were “only” 300 000 executions, when even the NKVD’s own statistics mention about 680 000 for 1937/38.

    I haven’t seen these statistics and I’ve looked around. I’d be curious to see them.

  848. @Philip Owen
    @Mr. Hack

    I met Anatoly in real-life once. I was surprised by how Russian his accent was. At the time he had spent most of his life in the UK and California. I suspect that his parents regretted leaving Russia andmtried hard to retain their identity. Within my own tribe, Welsh, I often see married couples preserving their accent but even amongst Welsh speakers transferrIng accents is remarkable.

    Replies: @Yevardian

    I saw his video that he uploaded to RT with Peter “Putin, do you know you’re the world’s most popular leader” Lavelle, yes, very thick Slavic accent, I was surprised, especially considering his written English is so fluent. Do you mean it’s rare for those who marry Saxons to even retain their native accent, or the reverse?

    And mandatory question: dach chi’n gallu siarad gymraeg, neu orioed ddysgoch chi y laith gartre?

    • Replies: @Philip Owen
    @Yevardian

    Dydy i dim yn siarad yng Nghymraeg ond roeddwn i ddysgwr pryd roeddwn i weithio ym Mhontarddulais. My mother spoke some Welsh to me until I was 4 but it is lost to me. When my few Welsh (really a Southern dialect called Wenhwyseg) speaking relatives are around I can follow what they say. My grandmother said that her parents spoke to their (9) children in Welsh. The older ones, pre 1914, replied in Welsh, the younger ones in English. They were all well educated and literate. Prize winning poets, musical conductors and composers and engineers. My Great Grandfather had a well paid "aristocracy of labour" job.

    In my observation those who marry an English person or even don't marry lose their accents more readily than those married to another Welsh person.

  849. @LatW
    @Dmitry


    Well, what about Goya’s “Disasters of War”.
     
    That one's very different because that one doesn't mock or display in a soulless manner. That particular series is very disturbing and hard to look at but it's not questionable from the point of view of ethics - it just displays, it doesn't make a judgement (or rather, the judgement is subtle). Of course, there is a political history behind it, but you can see that the form itself or the artistic technique is keeping things within bounds. Also, that series is painted late in his life so he himself may have been in pain or overcome by an illness, when one is in physical pain one is more angry and restless (more prone to lashing out).

    It's a romantic painter from a previous era (that's the era that I really enjoy, right before the "crazy"). A completely different tradition. Symbolism and romantic art does have its dose of decadence, and, while occasionally intense (such as in Goya's case), it's still kept within the bounds of dignity and ethical normalcy (for the lack of a better term).


    Picasso’s paintings are violent to the female body; this is how he was probably experiencing the female body.
     
    I can't judge his internal perceptions, but I'm sure that he experienced the female body the usual way, the way 99% males do, namely through receiving comfort, love and pleasure. Starting from mother to wife and lover (s). Unless something really bad happened to him. That's why it's strange that he decided to portray women in not such a flattering way. Although for him, everyone is "cubical" and in disarray, lol, men, animals. He just displays a certain dose of infantilism. And as I said, the woman with the child in Guernica is very well done.

    Btw, do you have any ideas about the bull? I noticed you really liked Spain, so maybe you do have ideas about that. A lot has been written about it and what it symbolizes (in each painting it's different). Is it related to the abduction of Europa by Zeus? And the minotaur that lives in the South?

    Typically they say the bull is the symbol of Spain, symbol of masculinity, symbol of war in his paintings. From what I know, he has not spoken about what it means. It'd be ridiculous to ask him about that, he is right - "A bull is a bull, a horse is a horse".

    It’s question whether you think this damages his art or not, will be based in individual emotions – but whether a government should censor or not?
     
    Whether that "damages his art or not" is really not the most important question here, that's a question for the subjective viewer. The bigger question is whether that kind of a representation doesn't open the door to other forms of representation that are, frankly, harmful. That's really the question. What we do in our private headspace or private studios is one thing, but when you start setting the tone for the public as a whole... the Western society has gone very far in how it's portrayed the female body and even what is considered acceptable to do to a female body.

    Who should censor it is another issue... government censorship, while some of it could be needed, can be problematic. Ideally, it should be the artist's own responsibility. You can always do a ton of private sketches and then choose which ones to even continue. But it is also known that artists can have big egos... or simply not be fully aware of the outside society as they live in their own world. So this question remains open... as you can see. The viewers themselves have various degrees of what is or isn't acceptable... it becomes just a big battle among the viewers with the artist totally oblivious to it, lol. I don't know some kind of ideas of "common good"... Oh, but wait that's retrograde and archaic.

    Replies: @Dmitry, @Yevardian

    I can’t judge his internal perceptions, but I’m sure that he experienced the female body the usual way, the way 99% males do, namely through receiving comfort, love and pleasure. Starting from mother to wife and lover (s). Unless something really bad happened to him. That’s why it’s strange that he decided to portray women in not such a flattering way. Although for him, everyone is “cubical” and in disarray, lol, men, animals. He just displays a certain dose of infantilism. And as I said, the woman with the child in Guernica is very well done.

    It is perhaps a legitimate question, artists, particularly great ones, often have unorthodox tastes and experiences in their private lives. Off the top of my head, Van Gough, Goethe, Gogol, Huysmans, Flaubert and many others had pretty dysfunctional or eccentric lives regarding women.
    I mean, the most infamous example is Picasso’s contemporary, Salvador Dali, who if his autobiography is to be believed, enjoyed driving pretty women to insanity whilst proudly sticking only to onanism into his 30’s, on meeting his future wife apparently his first impulse was ‘to smash in her face’ or something or the sort. But I’m just going on Orwell’s old review of the book and read many years ago, which is well worth reading in itself.

    https://www.orwellfoundation.com/the-orwell-foundation/orwell/essays-and-other-works/benefit-of-clergy-some-notes-on-salvador-dali/

  850. German_reader says:
    @Yahya
    @German_reader


    There’s some superficial overlap between the Spanish team and the Syrian one, but imo they’re clearly distinct on the whole.

     

    I'm not disputing their distinctiveness. My point is that "Levantines don't look too different from Iberians", which I think is demonstrably true.

    wouldn’t be mistaken
     
    With hindsight, of course you can tell who is Spanish and who is Syrian. But what if their images were put up anonymously on reddit, would you have correctly identified their national origin?

    Most people (including myself) were not able to correctly discern this ladies' national origin:

    https://www.reddit.com/r/phenotypes/comments/rgjq9j/can_you_guess_where_im_from/?ref=share&ref_source=embed&utm_content=title&utm_medium=post_embed&utm_name=694e3cae8afa43cc9f550d015a2c8cb2&utm_source=embedly&utm_term=rgjq9j

    Or this one:

    https://www.reddit.com/r/phenotypes/comments/rkpqg3/where_is_this_woman_from/

    And these two:

    https://www.reddit.com/r/phenotypes/comments/rmj8dx/where_are_these_women_from/

    It's harder than it looks. I'll post 5 images below the "more" tag. Try to guess their geographic origin (MENA vs Southern Europe). I'll reveal their names and origin in a few hours.


    generically European
     
    How's it possible for there to be a "generic European" appearance when 99% of Swedes look completely different from 99% of Greeks; who in turn look different from even nearby Croatians, who might as well be aliens to Lithuanians?

    wouldn’t be mistaken for Arabs imo.
     
    Depends on the context. If a Spaniard were in Spain, sure, they wouldn't get mistaken for an Arab (why would they?). But they would if they came to Egypt for example. I recall an Unz commentor once complaining that he got mistaken for an Arab frequently when he was touring Egypt, though can't find his comment in the archives. My Egyptian mother (who looks even more European than I am) frequently got mistaken for a Spaniard last time we were visiting Spain (though no-one would mistake my Saudi father for an Iberian).

    Girl #1


    https://iv1.lisimg.com/image/8475709/726full-dorra-zarrouk.jpg


    Girl #2


    https://www.hola.com/imagenes/actualidad/20190721146178/alicia-sanz-william-levy-promesa-hollywood/0-703-497/alicia-sanz-getty-t.jpg


    Girl #3


    https://www.savoirflair.com/wp-content/uploads/2014/11/Razane-Jammals-Beauty-Routine.jpg?x88026


    Girl #4


    https://greekcitytimes.com/wp-content/uploads/2021/11/259994797_962752357651056_5831371210586394549_n-1-819x1024.jpg


    Girl #5


    https://see.news/wp-content/uploads/2020/08/1.png

    Replies: @German_reader, @AP, @Coconuts, @silviosilver

    How’s it possible for there to be a “generic European” appearance when 99% of Swedes look completely different from 99% of Greeks

    Yes, I suppose I should have phrased that differently. What I meant to say is that imo most of the members of the Spanish team have a look that is typically Iberian. But they wouldn’t be completely out of place in many other European countries. Probably not in Sweden, but in a broad stretch of countries from France over the Alpine regions to Hungary and the Balkans, imo you couldn’t be certain that they might not be a native. I don’t think you can say that for most Syrians, despite the undoubted overlap of phenotypes between different Mediterranean peoples.
    Anyway, I find this debate a bit weird in some ways. Intra-European racism certainly exists, but what people write on WN message boards might not be the best guide (I have no doubt that Silviosilver’s family experienced some discrimination from Anglo-Australians, but on the other hand, his family presumably immigrated back when there was still a “white Australia” policy, so even then they weren’t seen as non-white).

    Try to guess their geographic origin (MENA vs Southern Europe).

    Ok, I’m going to embarrass myself.

    1.) Southern Euro.
    2.) Mideast (Syria?).
    3.) Mideast (Lebanon?).
    4.) That girl is pretty dark. You wouldn’t have picked her if she were from the Mideast, so I’d guess southern Spain or southern Italy.
    5.) She’s got light eyes, so the reverse applies. I’d guess Turkey, but since you’re Arab, I suppose she’s Levantine.

    • Replies: @Yahya
    @German_reader


    1.) Southern Euro.
    2.) Mideast (Syria?).
    3.) Mideast (Lebanon?).
    4.) That girl is pretty dark. You wouldn’t have picked her if she were from the Mideast, so I’d guess southern Spain or southern Italy.
    5.) She’s got light eyes, so the reverse applies. I’d guess Turkey, but since you’re Arab, I suppose she’s Levantine.
     
    Answer sheet:
    1). Tunisian (Dorra Zarrouk)
    2). Spanish (Alicia Sanz)
    3). Lebanese (Razzane Jammal)
    4). Greek (Katerina Psychou)
    5). Egyptian (Heba Magdy)


    Your answers:
    1.) Southern Euro - Incorrect.
    2.) Syrian - Incorrect.
    3.) Lebanese - Correct.
    4.) Southern Euro - Correct.
    5.) Levantine - Close enough, correct.

    Your score: 3/5.
    , @silviosilver
    @German_reader


    (I have no doubt that Silviosilver’s family experienced some discrimination from Anglo-Australians, but on the other hand, his family presumably immigrated back when there was still a “white Australia” policy, so even then they weren’t seen as non-white).
     
    Oh of course. It's no great secret. It's possible that someone born after, say, 1995 might have no personal experience of it, although it's hard to imagine that their parents wouldn't have at least informally hinted at what it used to be like.

    The last time I experienced anything direct of that sort was about a decade ago. I was at one end of a table in a smoker's courtyard at this bar in a smaller regional city, one that had not really experienced much in the way of immigration. There were three kinda rednecky dudes at the other end of the table, deliberately speaking loud enough for me to hear them (or so I felt).

    First dude:"Whaddaya reckon this cunt here [me] is, Eye-talian?"

    Second dude:"Yeah, he looks like a bit of an Italian stallion."

    Third dude: "Mate I can't stand these cunts. They come here right, and they think they're better than ya..." [I'm pretty sure he was referring to that particular city with "they come here," not to Australia as a whole.]

    Mind you, I hadn't actually done anything to provoke that remark. I was just sitting there with a beer and a cigarette. Sometimes if you look good and are well dressed, it's enough to incite male envy even without the ethnic factor. But it's perfectly possible they'd had bad experiences with out-of-town people who look like me and my presence there presented them with a choice target for their derision. I didn't feel insulted by it, I actually thought it was quite funny. I have gotten many a laugh sharing that story with friends.

    Re the "white Australia" policy, that's partly true. I don't really know much about how it operated, but whiteness seems to have been determined by country of origin, not by appearance. There were more than a few not-even-close-to-white gypsies from Yugoslavia who made it in, even back in the 1950s. And the Lebanese got their foot in the door with it, though I think most of them arrived after their civil war started, by which point the white Australia policy had been abandoned.

    Replies: @songbird

  851. @AP
    @Chairman Meow


    What beauty and tradition did it sell out? If anything the Soviets expanded on Tsarist era beauty and tradition
     
    LOL.

    Soviet is characterized by ugliness combined with poverty.


    promoting Tsasrist authors like Chekhov, Tolstoy, Pushkin
     
    The killed the Silver Age of Russian literature but did keep Chekhov and Pushkin. So there is a minor point in their favor. I already mentioned that - that one of the few good things about the generally disgusting Soviet system was the it produced literate people.

    and building up Moscow and St Petes to be beautiful at their peak
     
    The most beautiful parts of these cities were built before the Revolution. In Moscow these would be the White City, Kitai Gorod, etc. While Stalin-era architecture is not bad, it is worse than the parts of the old city that were destroyed to make room for the Stalinist buildings. And what followed Stalin-era architecture was horrible.

    Modern capitalist architecture is also often ugly and horrible, but it as least is luxurious compared to Soviet garbage. Having a large ugly house is sure better than being cramped with three generations into a small ugly apartment with no elevator.


    USSR had second economy in the world until the 1980’s
     
    Per capita it was poorer than Greece. It was only 20% richer than Mexico by 1989. And much of its economy was tied up in the military, so the people were even poorer than the GDP would suggest.

    USSR provided a strong dose of mass murder.


    Mass murder? Are you for real? Shall we compare it to British policies in Bangladesh and India for comparison? Or how about Belgian policies in Africa?
     
    The Soviets treated their own citizens like the British treated the Bangladeshi people or Belgians treated Congolese. Excellent comparison.

    But you have to go back to the 19th century to compare how Europeans treated African or Asian colonial subjects, to how Soviets treated their own population in the 20th century.


    Or lets take American policies towards the Indians in America?
     
    Indeed. In the 19th century, Americans treated Indians like Soviets treated Soviet Chechen and Tatar citizens in the 20th.

    Replies: @Chairman Meow

    Soviet is characterized by ugliness combined with poverty.

    That’s a subjective statement. I personally think it looks beautiful.

    In fact I think it looks more beautiful and interesting than soulless “housing” you see in America/Canada nowadays:

    Comparison:

    https://old.reddit.com/r/UrbanHell/comments/oq8sk6/roosevelt_boulevard_philadelphia_one_of_the_most/

    Before you say that the Soviets had ugly commie blocks, here is Seoul (known to be wealthy) for comparison

    Here is a suburban area that all looks the same:

    All the buildings look the same. So this isn’t solely a Soviet phenomenon.

    Besides, the Soviets also built grocery stores and schools and all the necessities within walking distance of their building complexes, so people would not need to go far and had no need of cars. This is much better than what is currently available where they just build a building and road (sometimes not even that) and you have to travel long distances to take your children to school or go to the grocery store.

    luxurious compared to Soviet garbage

    Is that so?

    Here are some apartments in New York City that people will pay thousands of dollars a month to rent:

    Here’s similar apartments in tokyo

    Soviet apartments where luxurious in comparison

    Per capita it was poorer than Greece. It was only 20% richer than Mexico by 1989. And much of its economy was tied up in the military, so the people were even poorer than the GDP would suggest.

    Official soviet statistics did not include many services in their GDP/capita calculations so it naturally seems deflated. This is difficult to caltulate nowadays due to the passage of time.

    USSR provided a strong dose of mass murder.

    What mass murder? The Euros mass murdered in their colonies far more than the Soviets ever did. If we look at mass murder by the Americans in Korea (where they mass murdered half the population of what became North Korea) then that far surpasses Soviet “mass murders”.

    The Soviets treated their own citizens like the British treated the Bangladeshi people or Belgians treated Congolese. Excellent comparison.

    LOL. Stop trying to twist my words. The British objectively treated their own citizens worse (since Bangledesh was part of the British Empire).

    • Replies: @Chairman Meow
    @Chairman Meow

    Sorry. For some reason the videos with the Tokyo apartments didn't post. Here they are:

    https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=y-1Dwhh7dEc

    https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=TYVJbupG3Xg

    Replies: @Chairman Meow, @Dmitry

    , @AP
    @Chairman Meow

    Thank you for posting pictures of very ugly Soviet buildings to prove the point. Modern Western buildings have also been ugly, but at least they are luxurious and roomy in comparison. As I wrote, "Having a large ugly house is sure better than being cramped with three generations into a small ugly apartment with no elevator."

    Tokyo is a huge densely populated city. Soviets were crammed into crappy apartments even in small cities. In America only very poor black people live in places like the one below where Soviet "middle class" people such a schoolteachers would live:

    https://upload.wikimedia.org/wikipedia/commons/1/18/Khrushchovka_yard_Kazan.jpg

    American version:

    https://bloximages.chicago2.vip.townnews.com/fredericksburg.com/content/tncms/assets/v3/editorial/9/76/976acfd6-eb84-5ffc-a962-43c7d0a8a4f3/60ef669832a9e.image.jpg

    Also ugly and mass produced. But every family has a house with a bedroom for each person. Some people even have a private swimming pool. Meanwhile three generations of Soviet families would be crammed into a two room apartment.


    What mass murder? The Euros mass murdered in their colonies far more than the Soviets ever did.
     
    Stalin murdered and starved to death about 9 million of his own people. No Europeans did that to their own people in the 20th or 19th centuries (though Hitler surpassed Stalin in killing other Europeans). Congratulations on treating your own citizens like Europeans treated Africans at their worst.

    The British objectively treated their own citizens worse (since Bangledesh was part of the British Empire).
     
    LOL. As a defender of Communism you naturally don't know the difference between own citizens and colonial subjects. Because under the Soviets, the own citizens were treated as colonial subjects.

    Replies: @Chairman Meow, @Chairman Meow

  852. @Chairman Meow
    @AP


    Soviet is characterized by ugliness combined with poverty.
     
    That's a subjective statement. I personally think it looks beautiful.

    https://i.redd.it/vr72us0c1be51.jpg

    https://preview.redd.it/uyl1wngl5ri51.jpg?width=960&crop=smart&auto=webp&s=fd211a6cde3e06de7bcb3f1a5d1dde3b28040302

    https://preview.redd.it/vm3gwbjl5ri51.jpg?width=640&crop=smart&auto=webp&s=3658375d0bdba5b287c575c9590b09d7d32bddf3

    https://preview.redd.it/3n8pbxol5ri51.jpg?width=960&crop=smart&auto=webp&s=b83348dc93e322565882af86bcb724d3da757405

    https://preview.redd.it/1dd766cm5ri51.jpg?width=1024&format=pjpg&auto=webp&s=a041388d1ca4794bc8cd8b77aecb83039d7e1089

    https://preview.redd.it/qi4sufem5ri51.jpg?width=1596&format=pjpg&auto=webp&s=483a80f335c30c7cc9a0243a61422ef9cd96f24c

    https://preview.redd.it/tzpm1phm5ri51.jpg?width=960&crop=smart&auto=webp&s=36b0d24c16178b0fd9408dc81ee07afd6e5a1ff9

    https://preview.redd.it/goc91ljm5ri51.jpg?width=960&crop=smart&auto=webp&s=39d3871f4998fef81ad25745bf4af813306016ee

    https://preview.redd.it/t0nef8om5ri51.jpg?width=640&crop=smart&auto=webp&s=f9e937692d5d51cc5b33de9caf311e71d37c6fec

    https://preview.redd.it/rh2ohjqm5ri51.jpg?width=640&crop=smart&auto=webp&s=a188d17a183981d170fcfd7189c938cd0bb48c6d

    https://preview.redd.it/vu9uxfum5ri51.jpg?width=640&crop=smart&auto=webp&s=92f985d2a18edaee01302a8553f7d14c9b585206

    https://preview.redd.it/3ttai5ym5ri51.jpg?width=640&crop=smart&auto=webp&s=dd93cbdf65a7ad5f6690822954cf62401d78c952

    https://preview.redd.it/g6vnaz1n5ri51.jpg?width=960&crop=smart&auto=webp&s=c95a7606127d0eba962d57333128fa77382f25f2

    https://preview.redd.it/dapel5al5ri51.jpg?width=960&crop=smart&auto=webp&s=1815f0dfc8edfc357e99e7dbbbe3ef982e0045ce

    https://preview.redd.it/jg1hfx6l5ri51.jpg?width=320&crop=smart&auto=webp&s=852ad8f69c516d6b4f36b106b76fcca07a8d1fa9

    In fact I think it looks more beautiful and interesting than soulless "housing" you see in America/Canada nowadays:

    Comparison:

    https://preview.redd.it/ho5b04wjww681.jpg?width=320&crop=smart&auto=webp&s=4cb6cdbc006ecb0b93209a89ec1b2e479fd3279f

    https://preview.redd.it/283qekxjww681.jpg?width=320&crop=smart&auto=webp&s=c8a112d00d549980af9c2d37edb34d1f3f2ac047

    https://preview.redd.it/xfveifwtuqs61.jpg?width=1024&auto=webp&s=48cdcf63502a747ecbc2caa2ee27ce77ca497fb9

    https://preview.redd.it/0mp8fyrv14c81.jpg?width=576&auto=webp&s=0c35fc45afc91f074f7f7337d18e38462e2b7ae5

    https://old.reddit.com/r/UrbanHell/comments/oq8sk6/roosevelt_boulevard_philadelphia_one_of_the_most/

    Before you say that the Soviets had ugly commie blocks, here is Seoul (known to be wealthy) for comparison

    https://preview.redd.it/a25l7n5ws3c81.jpg?width=494&auto=webp&s=617aaba9d629d8fd2d87400b72151656c97eb1bd

    Here is a suburban area that all looks the same:

    https://preview.redd.it/8ouio1uvs0651.jpg?width=960&crop=smart&auto=webp&s=16a8c5f193f5fede632d491404bdeb6ed9b6bee2

    All the buildings look the same. So this isn't solely a Soviet phenomenon.

    Besides, the Soviets also built grocery stores and schools and all the necessities within walking distance of their building complexes, so people would not need to go far and had no need of cars. This is much better than what is currently available where they just build a building and road (sometimes not even that) and you have to travel long distances to take your children to school or go to the grocery store.

    luxurious compared to Soviet garbage
     
    Is that so?

    Here are some apartments in New York City that people will pay thousands of dollars a month to rent:

    https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=kUMQ-bRxOjw

    Here's similar apartments in tokyo



    Soviet apartments where luxurious in comparison

    Per capita it was poorer than Greece. It was only 20% richer than Mexico by 1989. And much of its economy was tied up in the military, so the people were even poorer than the GDP would suggest.
     
    Official soviet statistics did not include many services in their GDP/capita calculations so it naturally seems deflated. This is difficult to caltulate nowadays due to the passage of time.

    USSR provided a strong dose of mass murder.
     
    What mass murder? The Euros mass murdered in their colonies far more than the Soviets ever did. If we look at mass murder by the Americans in Korea (where they mass murdered half the population of what became North Korea) then that far surpasses Soviet "mass murders".

    The Soviets treated their own citizens like the British treated the Bangladeshi people or Belgians treated Congolese. Excellent comparison.
     
    LOL. Stop trying to twist my words. The British objectively treated their own citizens worse (since Bangledesh was part of the British Empire).

    Replies: @Chairman Meow, @AP

    Sorry. For some reason the videos with the Tokyo apartments didn’t post. Here they are:

    • Replies: @Chairman Meow
    @Chairman Meow

    Here are some more American suburbs for example:

    https://preview.redd.it/20d4p764qxv61.png?width=1024&auto=webp&s=a71410ab74395d1c3b57ebad1747b7d9a54149f4

    https://preview.redd.it/pe3toeqxx0k51.png?width=1024&auto=webp&s=a025fa8044038e364a59a088fae68b00259ebf7a

    I'd take Soviet commie blocks over this anyday and have amenities within walking distance.

    , @Dmitry
    @Chairman Meow


    https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=TYVJbupG3Xg
     
    This girl is cool. Shows if you are a clean and well organized person, you can live in a civilized way without too much space (although perhaps die in a terrible earthquake - she lives in central Tokyo).

    You are trying to compare this to life in Soviet era buildings in Russia though? It feels an atmosphere of utopianism. If you are less lucky with your income level, you can have neighbors in the corridor of your "classic Soviet house".
    https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=gf0LHVDLS1o

  853. @Yahya
    @German_reader


    There’s some superficial overlap between the Spanish team and the Syrian one, but imo they’re clearly distinct on the whole.

     

    I'm not disputing their distinctiveness. My point is that "Levantines don't look too different from Iberians", which I think is demonstrably true.

    wouldn’t be mistaken
     
    With hindsight, of course you can tell who is Spanish and who is Syrian. But what if their images were put up anonymously on reddit, would you have correctly identified their national origin?

    Most people (including myself) were not able to correctly discern this ladies' national origin:

    https://www.reddit.com/r/phenotypes/comments/rgjq9j/can_you_guess_where_im_from/?ref=share&ref_source=embed&utm_content=title&utm_medium=post_embed&utm_name=694e3cae8afa43cc9f550d015a2c8cb2&utm_source=embedly&utm_term=rgjq9j

    Or this one:

    https://www.reddit.com/r/phenotypes/comments/rkpqg3/where_is_this_woman_from/

    And these two:

    https://www.reddit.com/r/phenotypes/comments/rmj8dx/where_are_these_women_from/

    It's harder than it looks. I'll post 5 images below the "more" tag. Try to guess their geographic origin (MENA vs Southern Europe). I'll reveal their names and origin in a few hours.


    generically European
     
    How's it possible for there to be a "generic European" appearance when 99% of Swedes look completely different from 99% of Greeks; who in turn look different from even nearby Croatians, who might as well be aliens to Lithuanians?

    wouldn’t be mistaken for Arabs imo.
     
    Depends on the context. If a Spaniard were in Spain, sure, they wouldn't get mistaken for an Arab (why would they?). But they would if they came to Egypt for example. I recall an Unz commentor once complaining that he got mistaken for an Arab frequently when he was touring Egypt, though can't find his comment in the archives. My Egyptian mother (who looks even more European than I am) frequently got mistaken for a Spaniard last time we were visiting Spain (though no-one would mistake my Saudi father for an Iberian).

    Girl #1


    https://iv1.lisimg.com/image/8475709/726full-dorra-zarrouk.jpg


    Girl #2


    https://www.hola.com/imagenes/actualidad/20190721146178/alicia-sanz-william-levy-promesa-hollywood/0-703-497/alicia-sanz-getty-t.jpg


    Girl #3


    https://www.savoirflair.com/wp-content/uploads/2014/11/Razane-Jammals-Beauty-Routine.jpg?x88026


    Girl #4


    https://greekcitytimes.com/wp-content/uploads/2021/11/259994797_962752357651056_5831371210586394549_n-1-819x1024.jpg


    Girl #5


    https://see.news/wp-content/uploads/2020/08/1.png

    Replies: @German_reader, @AP, @Coconuts, @silviosilver

    Thank you for the very pleasant images. Some comments though:

    1. Make-up, hair coloring, etc. tends to alter appearance somewhat. A fair comparson would be to show all of these women without makeup, plucked eyebrows, etc.

    2. A lot of Spaniards probably have some Arabic descent. So one would expect overlap. People from northern Spanish regions such as Aragon (first picture) or Asturias (second one) don’t look very Arabic:

    • Replies: @Yahya
    @AP


    1. Make-up, hair coloring, etc. tends to alter appearance somewhat. A fair comparson would be to show all of these women without makeup, plucked eyebrows, etc.

     

    Images of women without makeup is tough to comeby. Though I've attached a new round of images below; give it a try (MENA vs Southern European).

    People from northern Spanish regions such as Aragon (first picture)

     

    Sure, the two in the first picture don't look Arab at all.

    Asturias (second one) don’t look very Arabic:
     
    Some of them do look Arabic, actually. The 3rd guy in the left-hand row is a bit brown and can easily pass for Arab. The others are white; but that doesn’t preclude them from looking Arab. There are many Arabs who are white after all.

    2. A lot of Spaniards probably have some Arabic descent.
     
    Genetic studies indicate Iberians are enriched for 10.6% North African ancestry and 19.8% Sephardic Jewish sources. That's not insignificant, but nowhere near enough to make a dent on phenotypes; especially if the two populations are close to each other, as is the case with Iberians and Maghrebis (i.e. both are Mediterranean Caucasians). Notice how African-Americans still look like West Africans, even though they've received 15-20% admixture from Northern Europeans.

    The North African admixture in Iberains is likely sourced from Berber Muslims living in Southern Iberia during the Medieval period. Tax and legal records show there was a substantial Muslim (i.e. mostly Berber) presence in the various Christian polities of Iberia, to the order of 20-30% of the population, even after Reconquista. Though in 1492, almost all Jews were expelled, and many Muslim elites fled to North Africa. However, some Berbers converted to Catholicism and were thus sparred of expulsion. In some areas of southern Spain, ex-Muslims were still the majority, Arabic was the local language, and conversion was nominal; therefore Islamic religion persisted for generations until 1600s when crypto-Muslims ("Morisocos") were expelled.

    Girl #1


    https://i.pinimg.com/originals/a7/0d/0d/a70d0d4ab3cd13e7d63dc7f4912ee5d6.jpg


    Girl #2


    http://2.bp.blogspot.com/-gzzcQneczOk/Tio0AlHzihI/AAAAAAAAGFY/l6bELe8_liM/s1600/Iliana+Papageorgiou+%252810%2529.jpg


    Girl #3


    https://iv1.lisimg.com/image/21977328/600full-caterina-murino.jpg


    Girls #4+5


    https://64.media.tumblr.com/fa271036db1593669e3555ab881ff6c4/tumblr_phhfasffsf1ucrrn0_540.jpg

  854. @German_reader
    @Chairman Meow


    In 1901 alone 50,000 congolese died from African sleeping sickness.
     
    And then the Belgians put a stop to it.
    As for Chechens, it's estimated a quarter of them died due to the deportation between 1944-1948. Soviet aplogogists have no moral basis at all to condemn European colonialism, especially not its relatively humane mid-20th century form.
    Anyway, you are quite simply wrong about lots of issues and just engaging in the usual commie apologetics, not going to waste any time on that.

    Replies: @Chairman Meow, @Yevardian, @Chairman Meow

    As for Chechens, it’s estimated a quarter of them died due to the deportation between 1944-1948. Soviet aplogogists have no moral basis at all to condemn European colonialism, especially not its relatively humane mid-20th century form.

    I don’t really think this is a fair comparison. This was in the context of the USSR being on the receiving end of a war of extermination, with the German lines having reached very, very near to the Caucasus, with Iran, Turkey and the Arab world all being cautiously sympathetic to Germany. They were all also allowed to return back under Krushchev, an act which he was not obliged to do.

    The USSR in its early years went to great efforts to teach native literacy in many obscure Caucasian and Turkic languages, quite a few of which may not have had any written corpus (or future statehood, though that was quite unintended) at all without the Soviet Union’s ‘Nationality Policy’.

    Nearly all those ‘little nationalities’ (with the possible exception of the Baltics, although, tellingly, their populations and complex native industries also mostly collapsed) did much better under the USSR than any previous time in their history. Yes, including Armenia, even if Stalin put Artsakh under the Azeri SSR in order to calm Turkey, after the planned post-WW2 reconquest of the Kars region was cancelled.

    2. A lot of Spaniards probably have some Arabic descent. So one would expect overlap. People from northern Spanish regions such as Aragon (first picture) or Asturias (second one) don’t look very Arabic:

    I quite doubt that, unless you re-qualify that ‘Arab’ descent as Berber. The Arabs (confined to Umayyad political refugees and some adventurers) were only a numerically tiny elite amongst the population of North Africa. Moroccan Arabic (Darija) is still quite unintelligible to to the broader Arab-speaking world.

    Most of those ‘Moriscos’ and other Muslims were probably native Spanish ‘converts’, adapting to their new circumstances.

  855. @A123
    @Mr. Hack


    AZ, I think will soon revert back to its strong Republican heritage, as evidenced by the astute “maverick” posturings of Senator Kyrsten Sinema, that always seem to favor a Republican outcome in her voting patterns. She, very quickly has determined where the political winds
     
    The SJW/DNC is doing poorly with Hispanics. They do not use the term Latinx to describe themselves. So, the political winds are flowing the direction you suggest.

    The legacy of John McCain is GOP(e) swamp heritage, not MAGA heritage. I am not sure that "revert" is the correct description. How about "finally joins" team MAGA?
    ______

    The problem with dividing the U.S. is that people in locations like Arizona are neither Red nor Blue in terms of an irrevocable split. It is not just that millions would be on the "wrong side" of the line. Huge numbers have no strong affiliation to either side.

    Contrast this with Lebanon. A partition could work via easily identified groups with 100% affiliation -- Christian, Druze, and Muslim. While the division may be painful, it is clear what the sides are for almost all of the population. Exceptions would largely be one-offs, such as sending Collaborator Aoun to the Muslim side despite his theoretical religious affiliation.

    PEACE 😇

    Replies: @Mr. Hack

    The problem with dividing the U.S. is that people in locations like Arizona are neither Red nor Blue in terms of an irrevocable split. It is not just that millions would be on the “wrong side” of the line. Huge numbers have no strong affiliation to either side.

    AGREE.

  856. German_reader says:

    This was in the context of the USSR being on the receiving end of a war of extermination, with the German lines having reached very, very near to the Caucasus, with Iran, Turkey and the Arab world all being cautiously sympathetic to Germany.

    The deportation happened in 1944, at a time when there was no risk of the Soviet Union losing the war, it can’t be justified by any security considerations at all. Frankly, if you want to use that type of argument, you could argue with more justifcation that the Young Turks in WW1 were justified in deporting your people to the Syrian desert, after all they were fighting a war against powers that clearly wanted to dismember the Ottoman empire, and Turks had already been on the receiving end of massacres and ethnic cleansing in the Balkans (as had Circassians in the Caucasus at the hands of Tsarist Russia).
    And the deportations of entire peoples during the WW2 era were merely a continuation of policies that had already begun pre-war, namely the national operations in 1937/38, when there were outright acts of mass murder targeting people based on nothing but their ethnicity.
    But frankly, I’m not in the mood for long discussions about this. It’s become clear to me long ago that all this pearl-clutching about historical atrocities is mostly fake anyway, it’s not like people have any consistent moral standards.

    • Replies: @Yevardian
    @German_reader


    The deportation happened in 1944, at a time when there was no risk of the Soviet Union losing the war, it can’t be justified by any security considerations at all.
     
    Yes, well fair enough. I just felt the circumstances were rather different to (say) that of the Bengal famine, the extermination of the Herrero in German Namibia, or Leopold's Congo (which were rather the exception rather than the rule in late European colonialism anyway).

    The deportation happened in 1944, at a time when there was no risk of the Soviet Union losing the war, it can’t be justified by any security considerations at all. Frankly, if you want to use that type of argument, you could argue with more justifcation that the Young Turks in WW1 were justified in deporting your people to the Syrian desert, after all they were fighting a war against powers that clearly wanted to dismember the Ottoman empire, and Turks had already been on the receiving end of massacres and ethnic cleansing in the Balkans (as had Circassians in the Caucasus at the hands of Tsarist Russia).

     

    Stalin was more than half-expecting The Allies to declare war on the USSR after they had finished with Germany and Japan, as they did seriously consider with "Operation Unthinkable", so the extreme paranoia about any proven 5th column was understandable. Not that a blame the Chechens either for any lack of 'loyalty' to Russian rule, given their history.
    In general, the Russian conquest to directly annex and rule the North Caucausus was a monumental mistake, buffered by the strongly the strongly pro-Russian Georgia and Armenia and split by the equally pro-Russian Ossetians it wasn't even really necessary.

    Don't want to make this into a 'my genocide vs your genocide' debate, but state-sponsored Turkish pogroms and massacres against the Armenians predate WWI by quite sometime, really starting with newly modernising/nationalist Sultan Abdul Hamid at the close of the 19th Century.
    Armenians sent in those deportations were fully intended to die, and most of them were killed on-route anyway. At least most Chechens actually survived the Kazakhstan ordeal.

    By the way, not apologising for it at all, I just don't think its a close comparison.

    Replies: @German_reader

  857. @Chairman Meow
    @AP


    Soviet is characterized by ugliness combined with poverty.
     
    That's a subjective statement. I personally think it looks beautiful.

    https://i.redd.it/vr72us0c1be51.jpg

    https://preview.redd.it/uyl1wngl5ri51.jpg?width=960&crop=smart&auto=webp&s=fd211a6cde3e06de7bcb3f1a5d1dde3b28040302

    https://preview.redd.it/vm3gwbjl5ri51.jpg?width=640&crop=smart&auto=webp&s=3658375d0bdba5b287c575c9590b09d7d32bddf3

    https://preview.redd.it/3n8pbxol5ri51.jpg?width=960&crop=smart&auto=webp&s=b83348dc93e322565882af86bcb724d3da757405

    https://preview.redd.it/1dd766cm5ri51.jpg?width=1024&format=pjpg&auto=webp&s=a041388d1ca4794bc8cd8b77aecb83039d7e1089

    https://preview.redd.it/qi4sufem5ri51.jpg?width=1596&format=pjpg&auto=webp&s=483a80f335c30c7cc9a0243a61422ef9cd96f24c

    https://preview.redd.it/tzpm1phm5ri51.jpg?width=960&crop=smart&auto=webp&s=36b0d24c16178b0fd9408dc81ee07afd6e5a1ff9

    https://preview.redd.it/goc91ljm5ri51.jpg?width=960&crop=smart&auto=webp&s=39d3871f4998fef81ad25745bf4af813306016ee

    https://preview.redd.it/t0nef8om5ri51.jpg?width=640&crop=smart&auto=webp&s=f9e937692d5d51cc5b33de9caf311e71d37c6fec

    https://preview.redd.it/rh2ohjqm5ri51.jpg?width=640&crop=smart&auto=webp&s=a188d17a183981d170fcfd7189c938cd0bb48c6d

    https://preview.redd.it/vu9uxfum5ri51.jpg?width=640&crop=smart&auto=webp&s=92f985d2a18edaee01302a8553f7d14c9b585206

    https://preview.redd.it/3ttai5ym5ri51.jpg?width=640&crop=smart&auto=webp&s=dd93cbdf65a7ad5f6690822954cf62401d78c952

    https://preview.redd.it/g6vnaz1n5ri51.jpg?width=960&crop=smart&auto=webp&s=c95a7606127d0eba962d57333128fa77382f25f2

    https://preview.redd.it/dapel5al5ri51.jpg?width=960&crop=smart&auto=webp&s=1815f0dfc8edfc357e99e7dbbbe3ef982e0045ce

    https://preview.redd.it/jg1hfx6l5ri51.jpg?width=320&crop=smart&auto=webp&s=852ad8f69c516d6b4f36b106b76fcca07a8d1fa9

    In fact I think it looks more beautiful and interesting than soulless "housing" you see in America/Canada nowadays:

    Comparison:

    https://preview.redd.it/ho5b04wjww681.jpg?width=320&crop=smart&auto=webp&s=4cb6cdbc006ecb0b93209a89ec1b2e479fd3279f

    https://preview.redd.it/283qekxjww681.jpg?width=320&crop=smart&auto=webp&s=c8a112d00d549980af9c2d37edb34d1f3f2ac047

    https://preview.redd.it/xfveifwtuqs61.jpg?width=1024&auto=webp&s=48cdcf63502a747ecbc2caa2ee27ce77ca497fb9

    https://preview.redd.it/0mp8fyrv14c81.jpg?width=576&auto=webp&s=0c35fc45afc91f074f7f7337d18e38462e2b7ae5

    https://old.reddit.com/r/UrbanHell/comments/oq8sk6/roosevelt_boulevard_philadelphia_one_of_the_most/

    Before you say that the Soviets had ugly commie blocks, here is Seoul (known to be wealthy) for comparison

    https://preview.redd.it/a25l7n5ws3c81.jpg?width=494&auto=webp&s=617aaba9d629d8fd2d87400b72151656c97eb1bd

    Here is a suburban area that all looks the same:

    https://preview.redd.it/8ouio1uvs0651.jpg?width=960&crop=smart&auto=webp&s=16a8c5f193f5fede632d491404bdeb6ed9b6bee2

    All the buildings look the same. So this isn't solely a Soviet phenomenon.

    Besides, the Soviets also built grocery stores and schools and all the necessities within walking distance of their building complexes, so people would not need to go far and had no need of cars. This is much better than what is currently available where they just build a building and road (sometimes not even that) and you have to travel long distances to take your children to school or go to the grocery store.

    luxurious compared to Soviet garbage
     
    Is that so?

    Here are some apartments in New York City that people will pay thousands of dollars a month to rent:

    https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=kUMQ-bRxOjw

    Here's similar apartments in tokyo



    Soviet apartments where luxurious in comparison

    Per capita it was poorer than Greece. It was only 20% richer than Mexico by 1989. And much of its economy was tied up in the military, so the people were even poorer than the GDP would suggest.
     
    Official soviet statistics did not include many services in their GDP/capita calculations so it naturally seems deflated. This is difficult to caltulate nowadays due to the passage of time.

    USSR provided a strong dose of mass murder.
     
    What mass murder? The Euros mass murdered in their colonies far more than the Soviets ever did. If we look at mass murder by the Americans in Korea (where they mass murdered half the population of what became North Korea) then that far surpasses Soviet "mass murders".

    The Soviets treated their own citizens like the British treated the Bangladeshi people or Belgians treated Congolese. Excellent comparison.
     
    LOL. Stop trying to twist my words. The British objectively treated their own citizens worse (since Bangledesh was part of the British Empire).

    Replies: @Chairman Meow, @AP

    Thank you for posting pictures of very ugly Soviet buildings to prove the point. Modern Western buildings have also been ugly, but at least they are luxurious and roomy in comparison. As I wrote, “Having a large ugly house is sure better than being cramped with three generations into a small ugly apartment with no elevator.”

    Tokyo is a huge densely populated city. Soviets were crammed into crappy apartments even in small cities. In America only very poor black people live in places like the one below where Soviet “middle class” people such a schoolteachers would live:

    American version:

    Also ugly and mass produced. But every family has a house with a bedroom for each person. Some people even have a private swimming pool. Meanwhile three generations of Soviet families would be crammed into a two room apartment.

    What mass murder? The Euros mass murdered in their colonies far more than the Soviets ever did.

    Stalin murdered and starved to death about 9 million of his own people. No Europeans did that to their own people in the 20th or 19th centuries (though Hitler surpassed Stalin in killing other Europeans). Congratulations on treating your own citizens like Europeans treated Africans at their worst.

    The British objectively treated their own citizens worse (since Bangledesh was part of the British Empire).

    LOL. As a defender of Communism you naturally don’t know the difference between own citizens and colonial subjects. Because under the Soviets, the own citizens were treated as colonial subjects.

    • Replies: @Chairman Meow
    @AP


    Thank you for posting pictures of very ugly Soviet buildings to prove the point.
     
    Most people with good taste would find the pictures that I posted rather beautiful. I got more too.

    but at least they are luxurious and roomy in comparison
     
    Did you miss the box apartments that most people live in nowadays in New York that can't even fit one person?

    Also here is Seoul:

    https://preview.redd.it/a25l7n5ws3c81.jpg?width=494&auto=webp&s=617aaba9d629d8fd2d87400b72151656c97eb1bd

    Or by your logic are people in Korea suddenly Soviets and living in commie blocks lol

    “Having a large ugly house is sure better than being cramped with three generations into a small ugly apartment with no elevator.”
     
    You mean like this?

    https://dts4h52y4acn7.cloudfront.net/1060700325701010B910A250D1624813f.png

    below where Soviet “middle class” people such a schoolteachers would live:
     
    Good job posting buildings that haven't been maintained for decades as "proof" of anything. I posted what they looked like above when they where new. Here's more:

    https://i.imgur.com/8JzUiRk.jpeg

    https://i.imgur.com/1NhQa6a.jpeg

    https://i.imgur.com/90Lul3M.jpeg

    https://i.imgur.com/1NhQa6a.jpeg

    Looks pretty European to me in fact.

    Here's America for comparison:

    https://preview.redd.it/pe3toeqxx0k51.png?width=1024&auto=webp&s=a025fa8044038e364a59a088fae68b00259ebf7a

    https://old.reddit.com/r/UrbanHell/comments/al3eyh/americas_contrast_or_no_contrast_really/

    Meanwhile three generations of Soviet families would be crammed into a two room apartment.
     
    Sounds like most of the world not just the Soviet union. Most countries aren't obsessed with Urban Sprawl and cars like America is. Ironically, this leads to increased obesity rates in the US vs everywhere else.

    Stalin murdered and starved to death about 9 million of his own people
     
    LOL. 9 million seems to little. Are you sure Stalin didn't personally shoot 100 million people in the back of the head? How long do you think it took him?

    /sarcasm

    No Europeans did that to their own people in the 20th or 19th centuries
     
    So mass murdering other people in other places is okay? Europe certainly did that in large quantities throughout the 20th century. They far surpassed "9 million" people.

    Besides "9 million" is a cold war CIA meme LOL. Can't believe you actually fell for it.
    , @Chairman Meow
    @AP


    Thank you for posting pictures of very ugly Soviet buildings to prove the point.
     
    Most people with good taste would find the pictures that I posted rather beautiful. I got more too.

    but at least they are luxurious and roomy in comparison
     
    Did you miss the box apartments that most people live in nowadays in New York that can't even fit one person?

    Also here is Seoul:

    https://preview.redd.it/a25l7n5ws3c81.jpg?width=494&auto=webp&s=617aaba9d629d8fd2d87400b72151656c97eb1bd

    Or by your logic are people in Korea suddenly Soviets and living in commie blocks lol

    “Having a large ugly house is sure better than being cramped with three generations into a small ugly apartment with no elevator.”
     
    You mean like this?

    https://dts4h52y4acn7.cloudfront.net/1060700325701010B910A250D1624813f.png

    below where Soviet “middle class” people such a schoolteachers would live:
     
    Good job posting buildings that haven't been maintained for decades as "proof" of anything. I posted what they looked like above when they where new. Here's more:

    https://i.imgur.com/8JzUiRk.jpeg

    https://i.imgur.com/1NhQa6a.jpeg

    https://i.imgur.com/90Lul3M.jpeg

    https://i.imgur.com/1NhQa6a.jpeg

    Looks pretty European to me in fact.

    Here's America for comparison:

    https://preview.redd.it/pe3toeqxx0k51.png?width=1024&auto=webp&s=a025fa8044038e364a59a088fae68b00259ebf7a

    https://old.reddit.com/r/UrbanHell/comments/al3eyh/americas_contrast_or_no_contrast_really/

    Meanwhile three generations of Soviet families would be crammed into a two room apartment.
     
    Sounds like most of the world not just the Soviet union. Most countries aren't obsessed with Urban Sprawl and cars like America is. Ironically, this leads to increased obesity rates in the US vs everywhere else.

    Stalin murdered and starved to death about 9 million of his own people
     
    LOL. 9 million seems to little. Are you sure Stalin didn't personally shoot 100 million people in the back of the head? How long do you think it took him?

    /sarcasm

    No Europeans did that to their own people in the 20th or 19th centuries
     
    So mass murdering other people in other places is okay? Europe certainly did that in large quantities throughout the 20th century. They far surpassed "9 million" people, that's even if we don't include the Germans.

    Besides "9 million" is a cold war CIA meme LOL. Can't believe you actually fell for it.

    Replies: @AP

  858. @Chairman Meow
    @Chairman Meow

    Sorry. For some reason the videos with the Tokyo apartments didn't post. Here they are:

    https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=y-1Dwhh7dEc

    https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=TYVJbupG3Xg

    Replies: @Chairman Meow, @Dmitry

    Here are some more American suburbs for example:

    I’d take Soviet commie blocks over this anyday and have amenities within walking distance.

  859. @Yahya
    @German_reader


    There’s some superficial overlap between the Spanish team and the Syrian one, but imo they’re clearly distinct on the whole.

     

    I'm not disputing their distinctiveness. My point is that "Levantines don't look too different from Iberians", which I think is demonstrably true.

    wouldn’t be mistaken
     
    With hindsight, of course you can tell who is Spanish and who is Syrian. But what if their images were put up anonymously on reddit, would you have correctly identified their national origin?

    Most people (including myself) were not able to correctly discern this ladies' national origin:

    https://www.reddit.com/r/phenotypes/comments/rgjq9j/can_you_guess_where_im_from/?ref=share&ref_source=embed&utm_content=title&utm_medium=post_embed&utm_name=694e3cae8afa43cc9f550d015a2c8cb2&utm_source=embedly&utm_term=rgjq9j

    Or this one:

    https://www.reddit.com/r/phenotypes/comments/rkpqg3/where_is_this_woman_from/

    And these two:

    https://www.reddit.com/r/phenotypes/comments/rmj8dx/where_are_these_women_from/

    It's harder than it looks. I'll post 5 images below the "more" tag. Try to guess their geographic origin (MENA vs Southern Europe). I'll reveal their names and origin in a few hours.


    generically European
     
    How's it possible for there to be a "generic European" appearance when 99% of Swedes look completely different from 99% of Greeks; who in turn look different from even nearby Croatians, who might as well be aliens to Lithuanians?

    wouldn’t be mistaken for Arabs imo.
     
    Depends on the context. If a Spaniard were in Spain, sure, they wouldn't get mistaken for an Arab (why would they?). But they would if they came to Egypt for example. I recall an Unz commentor once complaining that he got mistaken for an Arab frequently when he was touring Egypt, though can't find his comment in the archives. My Egyptian mother (who looks even more European than I am) frequently got mistaken for a Spaniard last time we were visiting Spain (though no-one would mistake my Saudi father for an Iberian).

    Girl #1


    https://iv1.lisimg.com/image/8475709/726full-dorra-zarrouk.jpg


    Girl #2


    https://www.hola.com/imagenes/actualidad/20190721146178/alicia-sanz-william-levy-promesa-hollywood/0-703-497/alicia-sanz-getty-t.jpg


    Girl #3


    https://www.savoirflair.com/wp-content/uploads/2014/11/Razane-Jammals-Beauty-Routine.jpg?x88026


    Girl #4


    https://greekcitytimes.com/wp-content/uploads/2021/11/259994797_962752357651056_5831371210586394549_n-1-819x1024.jpg


    Girl #5


    https://see.news/wp-content/uploads/2020/08/1.png

    Replies: @German_reader, @AP, @Coconuts, @silviosilver

    I’m not disputing their distinctiveness. My point is that “Levantines don’t look too different from Iberians”, which I think is demonstrably true.

    Levantines do tend to look like Arabs though, and Spaniards tend on average not to look like Arabs. From what I have observed Arabs can be lighter than Spaniards, but often are physically taller, not as slight, have wider faces, more likely to have curving brows and wider foreheads, as well as differences in nose and chin.

    OTOH some Spaniards, especially in the South, have Moorish ancestry, and there are also Spaniards who have various kinds of Latin American ancestry which complicates things. Like there are Italians who have North African and Greek ancestry, and there are people in the Levant and North Africa who have European ancestry or are descended from people like the old Berbers.

    • Replies: @Yahya
    @Coconuts


    From what I have observed Arabs can be lighter than Spaniards,
     
    Yes, there are many instances of Arabs being lighter than Southern Europeans.

    For example, here is Muslim Egyptian actress Samar Morsi:

    https://i.ibb.co/x74v72L/Samar-2.png


    And here is Albanian-Greek singer Eleni Foureira:

    https://history-biography.com/wp-content/uploads/2019/12/Cyprus_-_Eleni_Foureira_Blue_Carpet_Eurovision_2018_3.jpg

    Somewhat humorous that a Muslim from Africa can look whiter than a Christian from Europe. But there it is.

  860. Thank you for posting pictures of very ugly Soviet buildings to prove the point.

    Most people with good taste would find the pictures that I posted rather beautiful. I got more too.

    but at least they are luxurious and roomy in comparison

    Did you miss the box apartments that most people live in nowadays in New York that can’t even fit one person?

    Also here is Seoul:

    Or by your logic are people in Korea suddenly Soviets and living in commie blocks lol

    “Having a large ugly house is sure better than being cramped with three generations into a small ugly apartment with no elevator.”

    You mean like this?

    below where Soviet “middle class” people such a schoolteachers would live:

    Good job posting buildings that haven’t been maintained for decades as “proof” of anything. I posted what they looked like above when they where new. Here’s more:

    Looks pretty European to me in fact.

    Here’s America for comparison:

    https://old.reddit.com/r/UrbanHell/comments/al3eyh/americas_contrast_or_no_contrast_really/

    Meanwhile three generations of Soviet families would be crammed into a two room apartment.

    Sounds like most of the world not just the Soviet union. Most countries aren’t obsessed with Urban Sprawl and cars like America is. Ironically, this leads to increased obesity rates in the US vs everywhere else.

    Stalin murdered and starved to death about 9 million of his own people

    LOL. How long did it take him to personally shoot 9 million people in the back of the head?

    Or wait, was it 100 million?

    No Europeans did that to their own people in the 20th or 19th centuries

    So mass murdering other people in other places is okay? Europe certainly did that in large quantities throughout the 20th century. They far surpassed “9 million” people.

    Besides “9 million” is a cold war CIA meme LOL. Can’t believe you actually fell for it.

    • Replies: @Shortsword
    @Chairman Meow

    There is a big difference between Soviet Union and Korea. Korea is much smaller and most of the country is mountainous regions which is unsuitable to either live on or to grow food on. They simply don't have the space for low residential density. Soviet Union on the other hand...

  861. @AP
    @Chairman Meow

    Thank you for posting pictures of very ugly Soviet buildings to prove the point. Modern Western buildings have also been ugly, but at least they are luxurious and roomy in comparison. As I wrote, "Having a large ugly house is sure better than being cramped with three generations into a small ugly apartment with no elevator."

    Tokyo is a huge densely populated city. Soviets were crammed into crappy apartments even in small cities. In America only very poor black people live in places like the one below where Soviet "middle class" people such a schoolteachers would live:

    https://upload.wikimedia.org/wikipedia/commons/1/18/Khrushchovka_yard_Kazan.jpg

    American version:

    https://bloximages.chicago2.vip.townnews.com/fredericksburg.com/content/tncms/assets/v3/editorial/9/76/976acfd6-eb84-5ffc-a962-43c7d0a8a4f3/60ef669832a9e.image.jpg

    Also ugly and mass produced. But every family has a house with a bedroom for each person. Some people even have a private swimming pool. Meanwhile three generations of Soviet families would be crammed into a two room apartment.


    What mass murder? The Euros mass murdered in their colonies far more than the Soviets ever did.
     
    Stalin murdered and starved to death about 9 million of his own people. No Europeans did that to their own people in the 20th or 19th centuries (though Hitler surpassed Stalin in killing other Europeans). Congratulations on treating your own citizens like Europeans treated Africans at their worst.

    The British objectively treated their own citizens worse (since Bangledesh was part of the British Empire).
     
    LOL. As a defender of Communism you naturally don't know the difference between own citizens and colonial subjects. Because under the Soviets, the own citizens were treated as colonial subjects.

    Replies: @Chairman Meow, @Chairman Meow

    Thank you for posting pictures of very ugly Soviet buildings to prove the point.

    Most people with good taste would find the pictures that I posted rather beautiful. I got more too.

    but at least they are luxurious and roomy in comparison

    Did you miss the box apartments that most people live in nowadays in New York that can’t even fit one person?

    Also here is Seoul:

    Or by your logic are people in Korea suddenly Soviets and living in commie blocks lol

    “Having a large ugly house is sure better than being cramped with three generations into a small ugly apartment with no elevator.”

    You mean like this?

    below where Soviet “middle class” people such a schoolteachers would live:

    Good job posting buildings that haven’t been maintained for decades as “proof” of anything. I posted what they looked like above when they where new. Here’s more:

    Looks pretty European to me in fact.

    Here’s America for comparison:

    https://old.reddit.com/r/UrbanHell/comments/al3eyh/americas_contrast_or_no_contrast_really/

    Meanwhile three generations of Soviet families would be crammed into a two room apartment.

    Sounds like most of the world not just the Soviet union. Most countries aren’t obsessed with Urban Sprawl and cars like America is. Ironically, this leads to increased obesity rates in the US vs everywhere else.

    Stalin murdered and starved to death about 9 million of his own people

    LOL. 9 million seems to little. Are you sure Stalin didn’t personally shoot 100 million people in the back of the head? How long do you think it took him?

    /sarcasm

    No Europeans did that to their own people in the 20th or 19th centuries

    So mass murdering other people in other places is okay? Europe certainly did that in large quantities throughout the 20th century. They far surpassed “9 million” people.

    Besides “9 million” is a cold war CIA meme LOL. Can’t believe you actually fell for it.

  862. @AP
    @Chairman Meow

    Thank you for posting pictures of very ugly Soviet buildings to prove the point. Modern Western buildings have also been ugly, but at least they are luxurious and roomy in comparison. As I wrote, "Having a large ugly house is sure better than being cramped with three generations into a small ugly apartment with no elevator."

    Tokyo is a huge densely populated city. Soviets were crammed into crappy apartments even in small cities. In America only very poor black people live in places like the one below where Soviet "middle class" people such a schoolteachers would live:

    https://upload.wikimedia.org/wikipedia/commons/1/18/Khrushchovka_yard_Kazan.jpg

    American version:

    https://bloximages.chicago2.vip.townnews.com/fredericksburg.com/content/tncms/assets/v3/editorial/9/76/976acfd6-eb84-5ffc-a962-43c7d0a8a4f3/60ef669832a9e.image.jpg

    Also ugly and mass produced. But every family has a house with a bedroom for each person. Some people even have a private swimming pool. Meanwhile three generations of Soviet families would be crammed into a two room apartment.


    What mass murder? The Euros mass murdered in their colonies far more than the Soviets ever did.
     
    Stalin murdered and starved to death about 9 million of his own people. No Europeans did that to their own people in the 20th or 19th centuries (though Hitler surpassed Stalin in killing other Europeans). Congratulations on treating your own citizens like Europeans treated Africans at their worst.

    The British objectively treated their own citizens worse (since Bangledesh was part of the British Empire).
     
    LOL. As a defender of Communism you naturally don't know the difference between own citizens and colonial subjects. Because under the Soviets, the own citizens were treated as colonial subjects.

    Replies: @Chairman Meow, @Chairman Meow

    Thank you for posting pictures of very ugly Soviet buildings to prove the point.

    Most people with good taste would find the pictures that I posted rather beautiful. I got more too.

    but at least they are luxurious and roomy in comparison

    Did you miss the box apartments that most people live in nowadays in New York that can’t even fit one person?

    Also here is Seoul:

    Or by your logic are people in Korea suddenly Soviets and living in commie blocks lol

    “Having a large ugly house is sure better than being cramped with three generations into a small ugly apartment with no elevator.”

    You mean like this?

    below where Soviet “middle class” people such a schoolteachers would live:

    Good job posting buildings that haven’t been maintained for decades as “proof” of anything. I posted what they looked like above when they where new. Here’s more:

    Looks pretty European to me in fact.

    Here’s America for comparison:

    https://old.reddit.com/r/UrbanHell/comments/al3eyh/americas_contrast_or_no_contrast_really/

    Meanwhile three generations of Soviet families would be crammed into a two room apartment.

    Sounds like most of the world not just the Soviet union. Most countries aren’t obsessed with Urban Sprawl and cars like America is. Ironically, this leads to increased obesity rates in the US vs everywhere else.

    Stalin murdered and starved to death about 9 million of his own people

    LOL. 9 million seems to little. Are you sure Stalin didn’t personally shoot 100 million people in the back of the head? How long do you think it took him?

    /sarcasm

    No Europeans did that to their own people in the 20th or 19th centuries

    So mass murdering other people in other places is okay? Europe certainly did that in large quantities throughout the 20th century. They far surpassed “9 million” people, that’s even if we don’t include the Germans.

    Besides “9 million” is a cold war CIA meme LOL. Can’t believe you actually fell for it.

    • Replies: @AP
    @Chairman Meow


    Thank you for posting pictures of very ugly Soviet buildings to prove the point.

    Most people with good taste would find the pictures that I posted rather beautiful. I got more too.
     
    You have already established that you have poor taste, by posting pictures of very ugly buildings.

    but at least they are luxurious and roomy in comparison

    Did you miss the box apartments that most people live in nowadays in New York that can’t even fit one person?
     
    New York is a huge city. Soviets were crammed into tiny places even in small cities.

    Also here is Seoul:
     
    Seoul has nearly 10 million people.

    Pripyat, population 49,000 before the evacuation:

    https://cdn.vox-cdn.com/thumbor/hzCCbvLSHXB91oQIyIE_4HmcLL0=/0x0:2100x1242/1200x0/filters:focal(0x0:2100x1242):no_upscale()/cdn.vox-cdn.com/uploads/chorus_asset/file/16325854/CHER_102_051418_LD_00120_1_.jpg

    In such a small place, Americans would be living in their own houses, with rooms for everyone.

    You posted a photo of some homeless encampment. Congratulations, Soviet middle classes lived the dame (materially) as poor American blacks in housing projects, but not quite as bad as homeless junkies.

    Good job posting buildings that haven’t been maintained for decades as “proof” of anything.
     
    Too bad Soviets didn't maintain them for decades. They looked like that when I visited the USSR in 1990.

    Most countries aren’t obsessed with Urban Sprawl and cars like America is. Ironically, this leads to increased obesity rates in the US vs everywhere else.
     
    People with no homes in the jungle are probably also healthy. So?

    No Europeans did that to their own people in the 20th or 19th centuries

    So mass murdering other people in other places is okay?
     
    None said it was. Don't change the subject. Soviets treated their own people in the 20th century, like 19th century Europeans at their worst treated colonial subjects.


    Besides “9 million” is a cold war CIA meme LOL.
     
    No, it's perhaps a third of Cold War claims.

    Replies: @Chairman Meow, @LatW

  863. More great political satire that ha recently crossed my screen:
    Biden recently spoke about the Democrat election law bill stalled in the Senate. The bill would ban the use of voter ID cards in spite of over 80% of American voters supporting their use. Biden’s ramblings are depicted above.
    Had a taste for a steak the other day, while shopping at Winco. Ribeye’s now cost \$15.95/lb – yikes, back to hamburger hopefully for only a while? Biden responding to the rapid inflation of meat prices blamed the 4 major meat packing companies. Never mind that these companies have processing costs that are also affected by inflation; all as of a result of Biden’s monetary policy.

    • Replies: @A123
    @Mr. Hack

    It is quite amazing what the White House and Fake Stream Media are pushing.

     
    https://i.imgur.com/rEz0swY.jpg
     

    Fortunately, no one is believing the lies coming from Not-The-President Biden. Will he render the DNC into a permanent minority party?

     
    https://cdn.creators.com/209/318151/318151_image.jpg
     

    PEACE 😇

    Replies: @Mr. Hack, @Yellowface Anon

  864. @AP
    @Dmitry


    "squalid and poor relative to the capitalist.."

    "For constituent countries, of the USSR, convergence in measures like GDP per capita and life expectancy,* was the closest to Western countries in the late 1960s (i.e. in Soviet times), than in any other time in modern history, before or after."
     
    And by the 1980s (let's say, after only 15 years) they descended into relative poverty. Also, much of Soviet GDP was captured by military industry and wasn't reflected in day to day life.

    The relative gains into the late 1960s suggest that industrialization and modernization was bound to lead to some improvement but under a centrally planned socialist economy there was a ceiling that was reached in the 1970s, after which further improvement was very small. Free market capitalist countries on the other hand had no such ceiling and just saw ongoing vast improvement.

    However, you should also compare the USSR to countries of similar pre-Soviet development. It may be easier for very poor countries to catch up a little to much richer ones.

    So for example, Portugal and Greece only had about 2/3 of Russia's per capita GDP PPP in 1913. By 1973 Portugal had about 90% of the USSR's GDP PPP and Greece was richer than the USSR. All three of these countries had made relative gains to the rich Western countries, but the USSR's relative gains were smaller and it was falling behind these other poor European countries.

    This chart only goes back to 1987 for Ukraine and 1989 for Russia (so last 5 years of USSR for Ukraine and 3 for Russia), but we see countries that are already very poor, much poorer than France, and not improving at all:

    https://i.imgur.com/xJOSMoH.png

    They were so poor that even the steep relative decline of the 1990s doesn't look so steep compared to France because it is just a a series of very low numbers.

    Like a Ford or Toyota versus a Zhiguli? LOL.

    Almost, but Ford should be on the other side sharing the disjunction with Zhiguli.

    “Like a Toyota versus a Ford or Zhiguli? LOL.”
     
    Nonsense. Ford is much closer to Toyota than to a Lada, which is in the same category as Yugo (exported to the USA and the butt of jokes).

    The cheapest Ford in the USA:

    https://s38.wheelsage.org/format/picture/picture-preview-large/f/ford/escort_glx_4-door/ford_escort_glx_4-door.jpg

    Compare to Zhiguli:

    https://i.radiopachone.org/img/9ea84cbef8672e6ff26b9cad42eb79.jpg

    They were just in different categories. Zhiguli was pretty much 1960s technology, smaller, slower.

    An interesting review and comparison of Lada Samara (much improved over the Zhiguli):

    https://www.flickr.com/photos/triggerscarstuff/4475997889/in/photostream/

    The Samara approached the cheap Escort in some areas, and appears to have been slightly more fun to drive. But the quality was much lower and it was much less refined, such that the reviewer concluded that people who could afford an Escort would not buy a Samara. And moreover this was the worst and cheapest of the Fords.

    Replies: @Chairman Meow, @Dmitry, @Shortsword

    squalid and poor relative to the capitalist

    For constituent countries, of the USSR, convergence in measures like GDP per capita and life expectancy,* was the closest to Western countries in the late 1960s (i.e. in Soviet times), than in any other time in modern history, before or after.

    much of Soviet GDP was captured by military industry and wasn’t reflected in day to day life.

    This was sign of (if temporary) economic strength, that there was enough productive capacity to build and operate the world’s most powerful army.

    Free market capitalist countries on the other hand had no such ceiling and just saw ongoing vast improvemen..
    They were so poor that even the steep relative decline of the 1990s doesn’t look so steep compared to France because it is just a a series of very low numbers.

    This is what 50 years of economic stagnation looks like. But as you can see, the “capitalism under dictatorship” does not regain the former level. Economic problems of this region, are a little deeper than whether you encourage nominally capitalism or not. Vast ongoing improvement are usually only in the capitalist countries with stable legal systems, etc.

    Like a Ford or Toyota versus a Zhiguli? LOL.

    Almost, but Ford should be on the other side sharing the disjunction with Zhiguli.
    “Like a Toyota versus a Ford or Zhiguli? LOL.”

    Nonsense. Ford is much closer to Toyota than to a Lada, which is in the same category as Yugo

    I’m aware a lot of Ford automobiles were (before 1980) very aesthetically cool, so you won’t surprise me with photos. I wouldn’t be complaining, if people added posters of classic American cars on my walls.

    Especially before the 1973 oil crisis, American cars in general have beautiful aesthetics.

    In terms of other aspects like reliability, we know how they were easily defeated by the Japanese automobiles, which will not sound so different in the history books, to Soviet automobiles being defeated by Japanese and European ones.

    If you have time to waste, I recommend listening on YouTube to Sandy Munro when he discusses this topic.

    And it doesn’t seem like Ford recovered so much in these areas, even 40 years later. Look in the latest article by Forbes. (Although it is strange to see German manufacturers, or Tesla, so low in their survey.)

    https://www.forbes.com/wheels/news/consumer-reports-reliability-study/

    • Replies: @AP
    @Dmitry


    And it doesn’t seem like Ford recovered so much in these areas, even 40 years later. Look in the latest article by Forbes. (Although it is strange to see German manufacturers, or Tesla, so low in their survey.)
     
    German cars always had a reputation as being as bad as American ones from from the perspective of reliability, so there is nothing surprising about that. At least since the 1980s.

    German cars were more luxurious and/or fun to drive than American ones, but no more reliable. Japanese cars were more reliable than both American and German cars.

    Actual Soviet cars weren't sold in the USA, only Yugos were. Yugos were several levels worse (less reliable, more terrible, etc.) than American cars.
  865. @German_reader
    @Chairman Meow


    “Historians usually characterise the famine as anthropogenic (man-made),[9] asserting that wartime colonial policies created and then exacerbated the crisis.”
     
    I sometimes cite Wikipedia articles out of laziness as well, but still, Wikipedia is trash, you can't believe anything there about complex historical subjects.
    Some British policies facilitated the Bengal famine, e.g. iirc transportation had been negatively impacted due to measures taken because of a Japanese invasion scare. And colonial authorities could probably have done more to alleviate the famine (as could Bengali elites, Bengal had some measure of self-government by 1943 after all).
    But the famine definitely wasn't solely the fault of the British, and I'm unaware they did the sort of things the Soviets did in Ukraine, like actively preventing people from leaving famine areas.

    Huh? Hundreds of thousands? You mean Gulags?
     
    There were at least 700 000 executions just in 1937/38. Conquest may have exaggerated, but there is no doubt the Soviet Union employed terror measures in a way the British of the 1930s and 1940s definitely didn't.

    Alot of good like creating man made famines, genocide of the natives and torture of the natives for not working fast enough?
     
    The latter part refers to King Leopold's Free State, and even there genocide is a mis-nomer (otherwise you'd have to admit the Soviet Union committed genocide against Chechens and numerous other nationalities).


    Also introducing syphilis to the region which would later result in the emergence of HIV?
     
    Belgian vaccination campaigns may have played a role in the spread of HIV, but that couldn't be known at the time. And Belgians did a lot of good against other diseases like sleeping sickness.

    Replies: @Chairman Meow, @Coconuts

    I sometimes cite Wikipedia articles out of laziness as well, but still, Wikipedia is trash, you can’t believe anything there about complex historical subjects.

    I remember on the Congo- there was one famous book giving a figure of 10,000,000 dead, but counter claims were made that this figure is a fair bit larger than the whole population of the Congo at the time. There is a Belgian Phd thesis knocking around that examines the sources on Congo demographics in some detail, I was reading it but got the impression the author could come to no firm conclusions about population level given the data that was available.

    When the figures are based on demographic losses in turn based on vague data about original population levels there seems to be plenty of space for fashioning ‘Black Legends’.

    • Replies: @German_reader
    @Coconuts


    I remember on the Congo- there was one famous book giving a figure of 10,000,000 dead
     
    I suppose that's King Leopold's ghost by Adam Hochschild, which seems to have become some sort of standard text. But yes, I suspect it's pretty tendentious.
    I've only read Congo: Epic history of a people by David van Reybrouck, and while he doesn't deny severe atrocities happened in the Free State, he argues genocide is inappropriate as a term for it, that there is no real way to estimate numbers of victims, and that the higher estimates are almost certainly strongly exaggerated. Interestingly, he even claims the chopped off hands which have become such an iconic symbol of Lepold's Congo, usually weren't amputated from living people as a punishment, but were hacked off from corpses by the native Force Publique soldiers, as proof they hadn't wasted ammo on hunting game, but used it against "enemies" of the Free state.
    Obviously hard to evaluate if one doesn't have intensive experience with the relevant sources oneself, but as with so much else the popular image may well be distorted.

    Replies: @songbird

  866. @AP
    @Yahya

    Thank you for the very pleasant images. Some comments though:

    1. Make-up, hair coloring, etc. tends to alter appearance somewhat. A fair comparson would be to show all of these women without makeup, plucked eyebrows, etc.

    2. A lot of Spaniards probably have some Arabic descent. So one would expect overlap. People from northern Spanish regions such as Aragon (first picture) or Asturias (second one) don't look very Arabic:

    http://2.bp.blogspot.com/-LfVC4fbcG0A/U4f-aTPdPbI/AAAAAAAASEo/cDh_N2Cxtok/s1600/925e628059354644bee0fbc25ec8af40.jpg

    https://res.cloudinary.com/fleetnation/image/private/c_fit,w_1120/g_south,l_text:style_gothic2:%C2%A9%20robertharding,o_20,y_10/g_center,l_watermark4,o_25,y_50/v1505502953/fij3ejbysoy21au5wph3.jpg

    Replies: @Yahya

    1. Make-up, hair coloring, etc. tends to alter appearance somewhat. A fair comparson would be to show all of these women without makeup, plucked eyebrows, etc.

    Images of women without makeup is tough to comeby. Though I’ve attached a new round of images below; give it a try (MENA vs Southern European).

    People from northern Spanish regions such as Aragon (first picture)

    Sure, the two in the first picture don’t look Arab at all.

    Asturias (second one) don’t look very Arabic:

    Some of them do look Arabic, actually. The 3rd guy in the left-hand row is a bit brown and can easily pass for Arab. The others are white; but that doesn’t preclude them from looking Arab. There are many Arabs who are white after all.

    2. A lot of Spaniards probably have some Arabic descent.

    Genetic studies indicate Iberians are enriched for 10.6% North African ancestry and 19.8% Sephardic Jewish sources. That’s not insignificant, but nowhere near enough to make a dent on phenotypes; especially if the two populations are close to each other, as is the case with Iberians and Maghrebis (i.e. both are Mediterranean Caucasians). Notice how African-Americans still look like West Africans, even though they’ve received 15-20% admixture from Northern Europeans.

    The North African admixture in Iberains is likely sourced from Berber Muslims living in Southern Iberia during the Medieval period. Tax and legal records show there was a substantial Muslim (i.e. mostly Berber) presence in the various Christian polities of Iberia, to the order of 20-30% of the population, even after Reconquista. Though in 1492, almost all Jews were expelled, and many Muslim elites fled to North Africa. However, some Berbers converted to Catholicism and were thus sparred of expulsion. In some areas of southern Spain, ex-Muslims were still the majority, Arabic was the local language, and conversion was nominal; therefore Islamic religion persisted for generations until 1600s when crypto-Muslims (“Morisocos”) were expelled.

    [MORE]

    Girl #1

    Girl #2

    Girl #3

    Girls #4+5

  867. @Chairman Meow
    @AP


    It sold out beauty and tradition
     
    What beauty and tradition did it sell out? If anything the Soviets expanded on Tsarist era beauty and tradition, promoting Tsasrist authors like Chekhov, Tolstoy, Pushkin and building up Moscow and St Petes to be beautiful at their peak

    Soviets used the best building practices of their time to beautify Moscow as their new capital and by all contemporary accounts in the 30's, Moscow was stunning for example.


    ended up being squalid and poor
     
    By what measure? USSR had second economy in the world until the 1980's when it became third economy as it was surpassed by Japan.

    Keep in mind that despite world wars and massive sanctions the USSR was growing at 13.8% per year for almost 22 years straight.


    USSR provided a strong dose of mass murder.
     
    Mass murder? Are you for real? Shall we compare it to British policies in Bangladesh and India for comparison? Or how about Belgian policies in Africa? Or lets take American policies towards the Indians in America? The scale of "Mass murder" far surpassed anything the Soviets ever did

    (who lived in material conditions similar to those of dirt poor American blacks).
     
    Nonesense. Most of the world does not care for the same things that americans care about, so claiming that they lived in the same material conditions as blacks makes no sense.

    Like a Ford or Toyota versus a Zhiguli?

     

    Exactly. Zhiguli's have not developed under capitalism but where quite good cars in their time. In fact Soviet automaking was so good that many cars made during the period are still used and made to this day. For example the legendary UAZ-452 "Bukhanka" (https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/UAZ-452). Capitalist Russia was not able to innovate anything half as good. LOL

    Replies: @German_reader, @AP, @Dmitry

    Soviets expanded on Tsarist era beauty

    Russian Empire and Soviet Union, were similar, to say something very obvious about the same country. They mostly change the management, change some packaging. It is still the same country. I think foreigners sometimes are getting more obsessed by this.

    There was a lot of excitement about the “rebranding project” by the new government, which has exploited gullibility of kindly foreigners’ hopes and aspirations. But there was sadly not a real socialist revolution that answers our millenarian dreams of happiness and world peace, just an exploitation of those hopes in rhetoric.

    Positive achievements of the Russian Empire were accelerated, like the elite culture, classical music training, railways and beginning of industrialization and science.

    Negative aspects of the Russian Empire were, also accelerated, like secret police, going to labor camp in Siberia, censorship and imperialism.

    I would agree that by the middle of the 20th century, the USSR seems like it is going to exceed the predicted trajectory, and really to defeat flaws of the Russian Empire, such as the vast inequality and low standards of living of the population, or disorganized military power.

    But look at the long term result. It’s almost as if was never dreamed, and the situation of equality and normal peoples’ rights in postsoviet sphere is probably showing less progress than even pessimistic people of the 19th century would predict.

    (who lived in material conditions similar to those of dirt poor American blacks).

    Nonesense. Most of the world does not care for the same things that americans care about, so claiming that they lived in the same material conditions as blacks makes no sense.

    Well, I don’t understand this part of AP’s argument. That’s a bad indication for American society, if many African Americans are given housing which is equivalent of a much lower income, recently industrialized country.

    After these pre-fabricated houses constructed from Khrushchev’s time, were one of the most successful aspects of Soviet history.

    Even if you don’t like their visual appearance, they solved a severe housing crisis, and provided tens of millions of citizens with an unprecedented (for centuries) level of comfort. I mean I’m just writing what is a standard observations of historians or journalists.

    • Replies: @AP
    @Dmitry


    Well, I don’t understand this part of AP’s argument. That’s a bad indication for American society, if many African Americans are given housing which is equivalent of a much lower income, recently industrialized country.
     
    Most blacks in America don't live in housing projects but in normal houses that are far more luxurious than anything the Soviet middle class could dream of. But the poorest ones, given free housing by the government, enjoyed material conditions similar to that of the Soviet middle class.

    After these pre-fabricated houses constructed from Khrushchev’s time, were one of the most successful aspects of Soviet history.
     
    Well sure, before that many Soviets lived in communal apartments or even barracks(!!).

    Replies: @Chairman Meow

  868. German_reader says:
    @Coconuts
    @German_reader


    I sometimes cite Wikipedia articles out of laziness as well, but still, Wikipedia is trash, you can’t believe anything there about complex historical subjects.
     
    I remember on the Congo- there was one famous book giving a figure of 10,000,000 dead, but counter claims were made that this figure is a fair bit larger than the whole population of the Congo at the time. There is a Belgian Phd thesis knocking around that examines the sources on Congo demographics in some detail, I was reading it but got the impression the author could come to no firm conclusions about population level given the data that was available.

    When the figures are based on demographic losses in turn based on vague data about original population levels there seems to be plenty of space for fashioning 'Black Legends'.

    Replies: @German_reader

    I remember on the Congo- there was one famous book giving a figure of 10,000,000 dead

    I suppose that’s King Leopold’s ghost by Adam Hochschild, which seems to have become some sort of standard text. But yes, I suspect it’s pretty tendentious.
    I’ve only read Congo: Epic history of a people by David van Reybrouck, and while he doesn’t deny severe atrocities happened in the Free State, he argues genocide is inappropriate as a term for it, that there is no real way to estimate numbers of victims, and that the higher estimates are almost certainly strongly exaggerated. Interestingly, he even claims the chopped off hands which have become such an iconic symbol of Lepold’s Congo, usually weren’t amputated from living people as a punishment, but were hacked off from corpses by the native Force Publique soldiers, as proof they hadn’t wasted ammo on hunting game, but used it against “enemies” of the Free state.
    Obviously hard to evaluate if one doesn’t have intensive experience with the relevant sources oneself, but as with so much else the popular image may well be distorted.

    • Replies: @songbird
    @German_reader


    Congo: Epic history of a people by David van Reybrouck
     
    What people? Who exactly do they think they are kidding?

    It is a really diverse area, complete with low-level ethnic warfare, and not just between two groups. That is one of the reasons why I wanted to send undesirables who love color-signaling and the word "diversity" there, so they could act as intermediaries, promoting peace.

    Maybe, they suggested that the Belgians conjured up all the differences out of thin air? Stunted the pygmies by limiting their caloric intake? LOL.

    Replies: @German_reader

  869. @German_reader
    @Yahya


    How’s it possible for there to be a “generic European” appearance when 99% of Swedes look completely different from 99% of Greeks
     
    Yes, I suppose I should have phrased that differently. What I meant to say is that imo most of the members of the Spanish team have a look that is typically Iberian. But they wouldn't be completely out of place in many other European countries. Probably not in Sweden, but in a broad stretch of countries from France over the Alpine regions to Hungary and the Balkans, imo you couldn't be certain that they might not be a native. I don't think you can say that for most Syrians, despite the undoubted overlap of phenotypes between different Mediterranean peoples.
    Anyway, I find this debate a bit weird in some ways. Intra-European racism certainly exists, but what people write on WN message boards might not be the best guide (I have no doubt that Silviosilver's family experienced some discrimination from Anglo-Australians, but on the other hand, his family presumably immigrated back when there was still a "white Australia" policy, so even then they weren't seen as non-white).

    Try to guess their geographic origin (MENA vs Southern Europe).
     
    Ok, I'm going to embarrass myself.

    1.) Southern Euro.
    2.) Mideast (Syria?).
    3.) Mideast (Lebanon?).
    4.) That girl is pretty dark. You wouldn't have picked her if she were from the Mideast, so I'd guess southern Spain or southern Italy.
    5.) She's got light eyes, so the reverse applies. I'd guess Turkey, but since you're Arab, I suppose she's Levantine.

    Replies: @Yahya, @silviosilver

    1.) Southern Euro.
    2.) Mideast (Syria?).
    3.) Mideast (Lebanon?).
    4.) That girl is pretty dark. You wouldn’t have picked her if she were from the Mideast, so I’d guess southern Spain or southern Italy.
    5.) She’s got light eyes, so the reverse applies. I’d guess Turkey, but since you’re Arab, I suppose she’s Levantine.

    Answer sheet:
    1). Tunisian (Dorra Zarrouk)
    2). Spanish (Alicia Sanz)
    3). Lebanese (Razzane Jammal)
    4). Greek (Katerina Psychou)
    5). Egyptian (Heba Magdy)

    Your answers:
    1.) Southern Euro – Incorrect.
    2.) Syrian – Incorrect.
    3.) Lebanese – Correct.
    4.) Southern Euro – Correct.
    5.) Levantine – Close enough, correct.

    Your score: 3/5.

    • Thanks: German_reader
  870. @Chairman Meow
    @Chairman Meow

    Sorry. For some reason the videos with the Tokyo apartments didn't post. Here they are:

    https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=y-1Dwhh7dEc

    https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=TYVJbupG3Xg

    Replies: @Chairman Meow, @Dmitry

    https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=TYVJbupG3Xg

    This girl is cool. Shows if you are a clean and well organized person, you can live in a civilized way without too much space (although perhaps die in a terrible earthquake – she lives in central Tokyo).

    You are trying to compare this to life in Soviet era buildings in Russia though? It feels an atmosphere of utopianism. If you are less lucky with your income level, you can have neighbors in the corridor of your “classic Soviet house”.

  871. @German_reader
    @Coconuts


    I remember on the Congo- there was one famous book giving a figure of 10,000,000 dead
     
    I suppose that's King Leopold's ghost by Adam Hochschild, which seems to have become some sort of standard text. But yes, I suspect it's pretty tendentious.
    I've only read Congo: Epic history of a people by David van Reybrouck, and while he doesn't deny severe atrocities happened in the Free State, he argues genocide is inappropriate as a term for it, that there is no real way to estimate numbers of victims, and that the higher estimates are almost certainly strongly exaggerated. Interestingly, he even claims the chopped off hands which have become such an iconic symbol of Lepold's Congo, usually weren't amputated from living people as a punishment, but were hacked off from corpses by the native Force Publique soldiers, as proof they hadn't wasted ammo on hunting game, but used it against "enemies" of the Free state.
    Obviously hard to evaluate if one doesn't have intensive experience with the relevant sources oneself, but as with so much else the popular image may well be distorted.

    Replies: @songbird

    Congo: Epic history of a people by David van Reybrouck

    What people? Who exactly do they think they are kidding?

    It is a really diverse area, complete with low-level ethnic warfare, and not just between two groups. That is one of the reasons why I wanted to send undesirables who love color-signaling and the word “diversity” there, so they could act as intermediaries, promoting peace.

    Maybe, they suggested that the Belgians conjured up all the differences out of thin air? Stunted the pygmies by limiting their caloric intake? LOL.

    • Replies: @German_reader
    @songbird

    I actually liked the book. It's sympathetic to the Congolese, but quite entertaining (in a dark, horrifying way; and whatever you think about Congolese, something like the Great Congo War did provide a lot of drama), and it's not really pc either. There's some really scathing criticism of Lumumba, and some minor details you wouldn't find in most books (e.g. he mentions some Congolese at the time of independence who thought all the white women in Congo would now be distributed among the Congolese).

  872. @German_reader
    @AP


    The best way to prevent war is to make war as unpalatable as possible for the aggressor (MAD is the obvious example of this).
     
    I admit that's plausible, though there's also the argument that it's exactly the changing military balance and Ukraine's deepening ties with NATO that could trigger a Russian invasion. There's also the issue that one would have to ensure Ukraine doesn't use Western weapons for offensive actions in the Donbass which could serve as a pretext for Russian intervention. But on balance you may well be right, and arms shipments might be the least one can do for deterrence against a Russian invasion (which Russia doesn't have any moral right to, I want to emphasize that I agree it would be an unjustifiable act of aggression).
    I agree about Germany's energy policy, creating such a level of dependence on Russia was very foolish. Personally I also think the abolition of conscription was a mistake, as was the continuing erosion of military capabilities under Merkel (though Germany isn't alone in this, even the British army is now well under 100 000 active personnel). I would be against direct NATO intervention in Ukraine, but as it is it seems doubtful even that NATO forces could defend/recover the Baltic states against Russia. Obviously it's a problem when a miliary alliance might not even be able or willing to protect its existing members.

    Replies: @songbird, @LatW

    AP: The best way to prevent war is to make war as unpalatable as possible for the aggressor

    I admit that’s plausible

    It’s not just plausible, but possibly the only way to make sure one is left alone. The laws of Nature dictate that the weak are beaten, the strong are respected.

    though there’s also the argument that it’s exactly the changing military balance and Ukraine’s deepening ties with NATO that could trigger a Russian invasion.

    Two aspects here: the changing military balance driven by 1) Ukraine’s increasing homegrown military capability and 2) the military support from the West (which in the big picture is small, political support is more encompassing). Which one of these “could trigger a Russian invasion”, as you say? Or not necessarily an invasion but various forms of aggression. Which part does Russia dislike more? Let’s assume that NATO / US steps away entirely. Will Russia calm down? Maybe a little but on principle no, because there is still a sense of cultural self-determination in Ukraine which Russia subjectively perceives as “fascism” and which at this point will never go away as well as military production.

    [MORE]

    There’s also the issue that one would have to ensure Ukraine doesn’t use Western weapons for offensive actions in the Donbass which could serve as a pretext for Russian intervention

    What Western weapons are there to begin with? The Javelin was not even anywhere near the front lines all these years, it was only taken closer recently as the current crisis started. There aren’t many of them to begin with and Ukraine has its own anti-tank missiles (and is working on more serious missiles). If they decided to enter the Donbas, the Javelin are not some deciding factor there (and it’s a small weapon to begin with), they could easily leave the Javelin behind and use their own Stugna missiles (sure, they’d have to produce more). There’s been some talks about giving them Stingers. They need air defense. The truth is that there is a very limited number of “Western weapons” in Ukraine to begin with. If I’m not mistaken, for many years, Germany has forbidden any kind of sale of any serious weaponry to Ukraine. The US has given way more to other actors than Ukraine. There are anecdotes floating around that some foreigners walk into stores in Kyiv and see all the locally made sniper rifles and are stunned by how such advanced rifles can be sold there. So this is ridiculous talk when both the Western skeptics and Russia bring it up, Ukraine has been hanging on mostly by its own strength.

    Personally I also think the abolition of conscription [in Germany] was a mistake

    If you look at the Nordic countries, some of them have (or have renewed) conscription, Germany could’ve just been a slightly bigger version of that. Although Bundeswehr is not all that small, right, something like 200K troops? Do you know what was the size of the troops in the Federative Republic of Germany during the Cold War? I have to look it up, probably a lot.

    I would be against direct NATO intervention in Ukraine

    Intervention, of course no, but if there was a real full on invasion of the left bank (even if that is not all that likely), the regional members should seriously consider any steps they can make to help at least the Western Ukraine feel more secure. That becomes kind of a dilemma, because while Western NATO members such as the Anglo countries and Germany, are not threatened by this, the regional NATO countries are (I don’t want to overuse the term “eastern flang” because, while accurate, it rhetorically divides up NATO). Those who are not threatened should not be allowed to veto those who are. This is all hypothetical, of course, and the regional members need to first strengthen themselves before they can help Ukraine (if they have such a will).

    it seems doubtful even that NATO forces could defend/recover the Baltic states against Russia.

    Even if they could not recover the status quo ante, there are other things they could do to make Russia pay. Besides… Stoltenberg recently said that NATO would fight. This forum really puts down NATO at times, but I wouldn’t downgrade NATO as yet, it might be stronger than it seems. That said, the Baltic States need to start thinking about how to defend themselves on their own. Or in unison with regional partners. The Baltic States have made some progress since 2014, but there are still things that can be done to improve capabilities, there are concepts nowadays, such as the mosaic warfare, that leave some space for exploration.

    Obviously it’s a problem when a military alliance might not even be able or willing to protect its existing members.

    It is, and it raises certain economic and political question for the Baltic States – did it make sense to allow the West access to our resources and allow the West to dictate politically and socially (Ok, they’re not dictating fully, but they’re certainly getting away with more than they should, although I would even speculate that the oppression of your people by the woke is much more severe than mine), if they don’t have the will or the means to assist us against Russia? This could be resolved through raising the local military capabilities, and potentially seeking some amicability with Russia on certain levels (there is a lot of trade and some cultural exchange), but still retaining NATO as an umbrella.

    • Replies: @German_reader
    @LatW


    Although Bundeswehr is not all that small, right, something like 200K troops? Do you know what was the size of the troops in the Federative Republic of Germany during the Cold War? I have to look it up, probably a lot.
     
    Bundeswehr in the 1980s was around 500 000 men (and of course that's just for West Germany) with thousands of tanks, plus reservists in case of war. There's no comparison with the pathetic joke it is today. But as I wrote, Germany isn't alone in this. British army is now set to be reduced to just slightly over 70 000.

    Even if they could not recover the status quo ante, there are other things they could do to make Russia pay.
     
    If Russia invaded the Baltic states, that obviously would be a cause for war, and I would be in favour of any counter-measures against it (short of a nuclear first strike), because it would unequivocally make clear that Russian goals are about re-creating hegemony over all of Eastern Europe (which at the present point isn't clear imo). For various reasons I feel differently about the Ukraine issue, though a full-scale invasion of Ukraine certainly also would necessitate some response.
    But really, what irritates me about a lot of those discussions in Western societies is the fundamental unseriousness, the shitlibs who are for a hard line against Russia (sometimes with idiotic arguments like "Putin helped the butcher Assad and made Trump president") are the same people who are busy undermining all the foundations for a successful defence. Why the hell should any patriotic young man be willing to fight for Ukraine, while there's constant witch hunts in the army and security forces at home, and the only "national"goals are more rights for homos and endless immigration?

    Replies: @LatW, @utu

  873. @Mr. Hack
    More great political satire that ha recently crossed my screen:

    https://www.northsidesun.com/sites/default/files/styles/large/public/field/image/318150_image.jpg
    Biden recently spoke about the Democrat election law bill stalled in the Senate. The bill would ban the use of voter ID cards in spite of over 80% of American voters supporting their use. Biden’s ramblings are depicted above.

    https://patcrosscartoons.files.wordpress.com/2022/01/meat-price-small.jpg?w=1024
    Had a taste for a steak the other day, while shopping at Winco. Ribeye's now cost $15.95/lb - yikes, back to hamburger hopefully for only a while? Biden responding to the rapid inflation of meat prices blamed the 4 major meat packing companies. Never mind that these companies have processing costs that are also affected by inflation; all as of a result of Biden’s monetary policy.

    Replies: @A123

    It is quite amazing what the White House and Fake Stream Media are pushing.

      

    Fortunately, no one is believing the lies coming from Not-The-President Biden. Will he render the DNC into a permanent minority party?

      

    PEACE 😇

    • Replies: @Mr. Hack
    @A123

    At least 26 Democrat House Representatives are abandoning the “Good Ship Lollypop”. What a show of confidence for Biden’s shipwreck!

    , @Yellowface Anon
    @A123

    They will. When Trumpists like whom you want hold onto power tightly and keep on disenfranchising anyone to the left of the political spectrum.

    I'd rather see everyone outside of Independents quitting their seats. (Also all forms of Gerrymandering should stop)

  874. German_reader says:
    @songbird
    @German_reader


    Congo: Epic history of a people by David van Reybrouck
     
    What people? Who exactly do they think they are kidding?

    It is a really diverse area, complete with low-level ethnic warfare, and not just between two groups. That is one of the reasons why I wanted to send undesirables who love color-signaling and the word "diversity" there, so they could act as intermediaries, promoting peace.

    Maybe, they suggested that the Belgians conjured up all the differences out of thin air? Stunted the pygmies by limiting their caloric intake? LOL.

    Replies: @German_reader

    I actually liked the book. It’s sympathetic to the Congolese, but quite entertaining (in a dark, horrifying way; and whatever you think about Congolese, something like the Great Congo War did provide a lot of drama), and it’s not really pc either. There’s some really scathing criticism of Lumumba, and some minor details you wouldn’t find in most books (e.g. he mentions some Congolese at the time of independence who thought all the white women in Congo would now be distributed among the Congolese).

    • Thanks: songbird
  875. German_reader says:
    @LatW
    @German_reader



    AP: The best way to prevent war is to make war as unpalatable as possible for the aggressor
     

    I admit that’s plausible
     

     
    It's not just plausible, but possibly the only way to make sure one is left alone. The laws of Nature dictate that the weak are beaten, the strong are respected.

    though there’s also the argument that it’s exactly the changing military balance and Ukraine’s deepening ties with NATO that could trigger a Russian invasion.
     
    Two aspects here: the changing military balance driven by 1) Ukraine's increasing homegrown military capability and 2) the military support from the West (which in the big picture is small, political support is more encompassing). Which one of these "could trigger a Russian invasion", as you say? Or not necessarily an invasion but various forms of aggression. Which part does Russia dislike more? Let's assume that NATO / US steps away entirely. Will Russia calm down? Maybe a little but on principle no, because there is still a sense of cultural self-determination in Ukraine which Russia subjectively perceives as "fascism" and which at this point will never go away as well as military production.


    There’s also the issue that one would have to ensure Ukraine doesn’t use Western weapons for offensive actions in the Donbass which could serve as a pretext for Russian intervention
     
    What Western weapons are there to begin with? The Javelin was not even anywhere near the front lines all these years, it was only taken closer recently as the current crisis started. There aren't many of them to begin with and Ukraine has its own anti-tank missiles (and is working on more serious missiles). If they decided to enter the Donbas, the Javelin are not some deciding factor there (and it's a small weapon to begin with), they could easily leave the Javelin behind and use their own Stugna missiles (sure, they'd have to produce more). There's been some talks about giving them Stingers. They need air defense. The truth is that there is a very limited number of "Western weapons" in Ukraine to begin with. If I'm not mistaken, for many years, Germany has forbidden any kind of sale of any serious weaponry to Ukraine. The US has given way more to other actors than Ukraine. There are anecdotes floating around that some foreigners walk into stores in Kyiv and see all the locally made sniper rifles and are stunned by how such advanced rifles can be sold there. So this is ridiculous talk when both the Western skeptics and Russia bring it up, Ukraine has been hanging on mostly by its own strength.

    Personally I also think the abolition of conscription [in Germany] was a mistake
     
    If you look at the Nordic countries, some of them have (or have renewed) conscription, Germany could've just been a slightly bigger version of that. Although Bundeswehr is not all that small, right, something like 200K troops? Do you know what was the size of the troops in the Federative Republic of Germany during the Cold War? I have to look it up, probably a lot.

    I would be against direct NATO intervention in Ukraine
     
    Intervention, of course no, but if there was a real full on invasion of the left bank (even if that is not all that likely), the regional members should seriously consider any steps they can make to help at least the Western Ukraine feel more secure. That becomes kind of a dilemma, because while Western NATO members such as the Anglo countries and Germany, are not threatened by this, the regional NATO countries are (I don't want to overuse the term "eastern flang" because, while accurate, it rhetorically divides up NATO). Those who are not threatened should not be allowed to veto those who are. This is all hypothetical, of course, and the regional members need to first strengthen themselves before they can help Ukraine (if they have such a will).

    it seems doubtful even that NATO forces could defend/recover the Baltic states against Russia.
     
    Even if they could not recover the status quo ante, there are other things they could do to make Russia pay. Besides... Stoltenberg recently said that NATO would fight. This forum really puts down NATO at times, but I wouldn't downgrade NATO as yet, it might be stronger than it seems. That said, the Baltic States need to start thinking about how to defend themselves on their own. Or in unison with regional partners. The Baltic States have made some progress since 2014, but there are still things that can be done to improve capabilities, there are concepts nowadays, such as the mosaic warfare, that leave some space for exploration.

    Obviously it’s a problem when a military alliance might not even be able or willing to protect its existing members.
     
    It is, and it raises certain economic and political question for the Baltic States - did it make sense to allow the West access to our resources and allow the West to dictate politically and socially (Ok, they're not dictating fully, but they're certainly getting away with more than they should, although I would even speculate that the oppression of your people by the woke is much more severe than mine), if they don't have the will or the means to assist us against Russia? This could be resolved through raising the local military capabilities, and potentially seeking some amicability with Russia on certain levels (there is a lot of trade and some cultural exchange), but still retaining NATO as an umbrella.

    Replies: @German_reader

    Although Bundeswehr is not all that small, right, something like 200K troops? Do you know what was the size of the troops in the Federative Republic of Germany during the Cold War? I have to look it up, probably a lot.

    Bundeswehr in the 1980s was around 500 000 men (and of course that’s just for West Germany) with thousands of tanks, plus reservists in case of war. There’s no comparison with the pathetic joke it is today. But as I wrote, Germany isn’t alone in this. British army is now set to be reduced to just slightly over 70 000.

    Even if they could not recover the status quo ante, there are other things they could do to make Russia pay.

    If Russia invaded the Baltic states, that obviously would be a cause for war, and I would be in favour of any counter-measures against it (short of a nuclear first strike), because it would unequivocally make clear that Russian goals are about re-creating hegemony over all of Eastern Europe (which at the present point isn’t clear imo). For various reasons I feel differently about the Ukraine issue, though a full-scale invasion of Ukraine certainly also would necessitate some response.
    But really, what irritates me about a lot of those discussions in Western societies is the fundamental unseriousness, the shitlibs who are for a hard line against Russia (sometimes with idiotic arguments like “Putin helped the butcher Assad and made Trump president”) are the same people who are busy undermining all the foundations for a successful defence. Why the hell should any patriotic young man be willing to fight for Ukraine, while there’s constant witch hunts in the army and security forces at home, and the only “national”goals are more rights for homos and endless immigration?

    • Replies: @LatW
    @German_reader


    Bundeswehr in the 1980s was around 500 000 men
     
    Nice. :) Well, you may not need as many now, but it might be good for morale. Of course, if they dropped all the woke nonsense.

    it would unequivocally make clear that Russian goals are about re-creating hegemony over all of Eastern Europe (which at the present point isn’t clear imo).
     
    The so called "Historical Russia" does include the Baltic States (in the Russian imperialist mind), however, their ambitions mostly cover the Slavic nations. How far such a recreated "Slavic Empire" could project its influence in the modern world is hard to say. I'm also not sure how a "Russian hegemony" can even be recreated. The old Soviet hegemony was largely possible because of the local traitors who kept things in line. Also brutal force that mobilized local men (hundreds of thousands of troops), what EE, including Ukrainian, men will now learn Russian and join their army? I'm not sure they can pull that off, maybe in Belarus. They have very little direct control. Above all, it was a consequence of a big event, where they acquired territory that they had never historically owned / controlled before because they had help from the Anglos. Those Anglos that helped them back then, are now their enemies. I think their furthest goals are taking Belarus, parts of Ukraine and then possibly escalating somewhere else at a small spot to show that NATO doesn't function in a real life war scenario. Ofc, keep their missiles everywhere, maybe put missiles on Svalbard.

    Some kind of a soft hegemony would be more possible if they built on their more attractive sides (culture, some kind of grandeur, etc) but that's a very long shot now, especially given the aggression in Ukraine.


    what irritates me about a lot of those discussions in Western societies is the fundamental unseriousness, the shitlibs who are for a hard line against Russia (sometimes with idiotic arguments like “Putin helped the butcher Assad and made Trump president”) are the same people who are busy undermining all the foundations for a successful defence. Why the hell should any patriotic young man be willing to fight for Ukraine, while there’s constant witch hunts in the army and security forces at home, and the only “national”goals are more rights for homos and endless immigration?
     
    I couldn't agree with you more. And they keep attacking exactly those men who would be the first to rise to defend their respective homelands. The first to put themselves on the line and sacrifice themselves. And they want to remove them! That's just stupid. They want a military on their terms but it doesn't work that way.
    , @utu
    @German_reader

    "For various reasons I feel differently about the Ukraine issue" - We know you GR.


    https://ukdefencejournal.org.uk/british-aircraft-avoid-germany-on-ukraine-weapon-supply-run/
    Two British C-17 transport aircraft carrying weapons to Ukraine were forced to fly around German airspace after Germany refused to supply defensive weapons to Ukraine.
     

    Replies: @German_reader

  876. @Mikel
    @A123

    Maybe this is why Best Buy informed us the other day that they weren't able to deliver the dishwasher we had ordered several weeks ago.

    But well, from the undocumented shoppers' perspective it makes perfect sense. Why wait for goods to be delivered to stores in the middle of cities with lots of cameras and (some semblance of) police presence? Just grab them in bulk while they are in transit. It's a logical development.

    They won't be able to escalate and loot the factories though. They are all in China.

    It's quite amazing, how much the people who have enabled this and allow it to continue happening must hate this country.

    Replies: @A123

    The great Los Angeles train robbery issue gets worse. Union Pacific is openly discussing exiting the city: (1)

    Adrian Guerrero, Union Pacific’s director of public affairs, wrote a letter to LA County District Attorney George Gascón, denouncing the local government’s relaxed criminal policies, or rather “well-intentioned social justice goals,” as a catalyst for a wave of rail car thefts.

    “We find ourselves coming back to the same results with the Los Angeles County criminal justice system. Criminals are caught and arrested, turned over to local authorities for booking, arraigned before local courts, charges are reduced to a misdemeanor or petty offense, and the criminal is released after paying a nominal fine,” wrote Guerrero.


    Guerrero said the thefts are so severe and costing the company millions of dollars that it has been “contemplating serious changes to our operating plans to avoid Los Angeles County.”

    Los Angeles is in a state of lawlessness, and there’s no turning back. Far-left progressive policies transform the metro area into America’s new wild west. What the city needs is a regime change. Otherwise, businesses like Union Pacific will leave if criminals aren’t held accountable for their actions.

    How far will goods have to travel in trucks from LA and Long Beach ports to reach the first available train depot?

    Not-The-President Biden and “I am on Paternity Leave” Buttigieg have been spectacularly ineffective at clearing supply chain problems. This will make things worse.

    The door is firmly closed on any possible solution. To fix the problem the White House would have openly oppose George IslamoSoros and his Leftoid, corrupt DA’s. That simply is not going to happen.

    PEACE 😇
    __________

    (1) https://www.zerohedge.com/political/union-pacific-bashes-las-social-justice-reform-threatens-leave-city-soaring-train-thefts

  877. @Yevardian
    @Philip Owen

    I saw his video that he uploaded to RT with Peter "Putin, do you know you're the world's most popular leader" Lavelle, yes, very thick Slavic accent, I was surprised, especially considering his written English is so fluent. Do you mean it's rare for those who marry Saxons to even retain their native accent, or the reverse?

    And mandatory question: dach chi'n gallu siarad gymraeg, neu orioed ddysgoch chi y laith gartre?

    Replies: @Philip Owen

    Dydy i dim yn siarad yng Nghymraeg ond roeddwn i ddysgwr pryd roeddwn i weithio ym Mhontarddulais. My mother spoke some Welsh to me until I was 4 but it is lost to me. When my few Welsh (really a Southern dialect called Wenhwyseg) speaking relatives are around I can follow what they say. My grandmother said that her parents spoke to their (9) children in Welsh. The older ones, pre 1914, replied in Welsh, the younger ones in English. They were all well educated and literate. Prize winning poets, musical conductors and composers and engineers. My Great Grandfather had a well paid “aristocracy of labour” job.

    In my observation those who marry an English person or even don’t marry lose their accents more readily than those married to another Welsh person.

  878. @Coconuts
    @Yahya


    I’m not disputing their distinctiveness. My point is that “Levantines don’t look too different from Iberians”, which I think is demonstrably true.
     
    Levantines do tend to look like Arabs though, and Spaniards tend on average not to look like Arabs. From what I have observed Arabs can be lighter than Spaniards, but often are physically taller, not as slight, have wider faces, more likely to have curving brows and wider foreheads, as well as differences in nose and chin.

    OTOH some Spaniards, especially in the South, have Moorish ancestry, and there are also Spaniards who have various kinds of Latin American ancestry which complicates things. Like there are Italians who have North African and Greek ancestry, and there are people in the Levant and North Africa who have European ancestry or are descended from people like the old Berbers.

    Replies: @Yahya

    From what I have observed Arabs can be lighter than Spaniards,

    Yes, there are many instances of Arabs being lighter than Southern Europeans.

    For example, here is Muslim Egyptian actress Samar Morsi:

    And here is Albanian-Greek singer Eleni Foureira:

    Somewhat humorous that a Muslim from Africa can look whiter than a Christian from Europe. But there it is.

  879. @AP
    @Mr. Hack

    Prior to 2014, Ukraine was moving inexorably towards the West but it was not anti-Russian (in fact, anti-Russian sentiments seem to have been dropping). Even the complaints about Yanukovich in the Western parts of the country were focused on Donbas rather than on Russia itself; the majority of Western Ukrainians had a positive opinion of Russia in 2013, though it was by a smaller margin than in other regions in the country. If that Ukraine were to have joined the EU it would have been as a Russia-friendly country such as Bulgaria or Hungary rather than as a Russia-hostile country such as the Baltics.

    Putin chose to grab Crimea and Donbas at the price of turning the rest of Ukraine into another Baltics or Poland. Crimea is a great strategic asset, and if the rest of Ukraine was going to join the West anyways, maybe it doesn't matter if it was friendly or hostile towards Russia. I am not insisting that Putin's move was a blunder for Russia, it might have been worth the price.

    Replies: @Mr. Hack, @Mikhail

    Putin chose to grab Crimea and Donbas at the price of turning the rest of Ukraine into another Baltics or Poland.

    Putin noted the obvious that Crimea could’ve still been part of Ukraine, were it not for the anti-Russian coup against a democratically elected president, in contradiction to an internationally brokered power sharing arrangement

  880. Regarding the myth that Sullivan is a noticeable moderate to Blinken:

    https://www.strategic-culture.org/news/2022/01/17/dialogue-of-the-deaf-in-geneva/

    Excerpts –

    Yet, America’s other meme-narrative – repeated by Biden in his virtual summit with Putin – is the wearily familiar U.S. one of unprecedented, harsh sanctions being threatened, should Moscow ‘escalate’ in respect to the Ukraine.

    This too, however, lacks substance since both the U.S. Treasury and the State Department are warning that the envisaged sanctions would hurt U.S. allies (i.e. Europeans), more than they would hurt Russia; and that their imposition could even trigger a counter-productive economic crisis that would touch the U.S. consumer, via increased energy prices, thus giving a sharp kick to already record U.S. inflation rates

    &

    A report in Axios has reported that Jake Sullivan prepared for U.S. talks with Russia in Geneva by seeking the advice of well-known Russia hawks across Washington. Predictably their advice focused on confrontation with Russia by sending more arms and military supplies to Ukraine in order to prepare for potential conflict: “A group of Russia experts urged National Security Adviser Jake Sullivan to send more arms to the Ukrainians when he spoke with them ahead of this week’s high-stakes diplomatic meetings with Russian officials, participants told Axios”.

  881. @Yahya
    @silviosilver


    Unlike what you might think, I was actually rather disappointed when I first realized how northern European many Iberians were.
     
    Here's the Syrian national football team:


    https://atalayar.com/sites/default/files/styles/foto_/public/noticias/Atalayar_Siria%20mundial%20%20%283%29.jpg?itok=5SQUiSvI


    Here's the Spanish football team:


    https://cdn.vox-cdn.com/thumbor/jp0slz3X9UP64MlFdwLCigorhSg=/0x0:4273x3010/1200x800/filters:focal(1796x1164:2478x1846)/cdn.vox-cdn.com/uploads/chorus_image/image/61384039/1031700340.jpg.0.jpg


    Here's the Swedish team:


    https://upload.wikimedia.org/wikipedia/commons/5/5a/Sweden_national_football_team_20120611.jpg


    Are Spaniards really closer to Swedes than Syrians?

    Lebanese-Mexican (Carlos Slim):


    https://api.time.com/wp-content/uploads/2015/12/carlos-slim.jpg


    Spanish-Mexican (Andrés Manuel López Obrador):

    https://www.globaltimes.cn/Portals/0/attachment/2021/2021-01-25/569b916f-a56a-45e2-bc8b-56a6cef11a6b.jpeg


    Anglo-American (Bill Gates):


    https://cdn.vanguardngr.com/wp-content/uploads/2020/05/Bill-Gates.jpg


    Who's closer in appearance to AMLO?

    Tough to say.

    Which pretty much demonstrates my point: Levantines don’t look too different from Iberians.


    Pro-white means being pro-identity, pro-standards, pro-responsibility, pro-reality, pro-intelligence, pro-beauty, pro-punishing the guilty.

     

    Hard to argue against that.

    Replies: @Yahya, @German_reader, @LatW

    Re: Soccer teams photo.

    Are Spaniards really closer to Swedes than Syrians?

    The Spanish Nr4 and the goalie could actually pass for Swedes, mainly due to their facial features. The streets of Stockholm are full of slightly lighter versions of Nr4. And even the Swedes themselves can have pretty dark brunette hair (just look at Prince Daniel who has typically Swedish features but dark hair).

    The Spanish team just do not look Middle Eastern. I’d say, to be really picky, they look distinct, neither like the Swedes, nor the Syrians. What really sets them apart is the upper face, the eyes, and maybe even cheekbones a little. The Middle Eastern eyes are shaped in a very particular way, the eyebrows are thicker. This is not to say it can’t be attractive as beauty is universal. But the Middle Easter upper face sets itself apart immediately.

    The Middle Eastern hair is more black, the Spanish hair, while dark, is more chestnut brown. Another example would be the Estevez family (the actors) — who apparently stem from a Northern Spanish ancestry, none of them would pass for Middle Eastern.

    Similarly, Rafa Nadal, who is quite tan, would not pass for Middle Eastern. His facial features are too European. Wife, though, looks a bit ME.

    [MORE]

    You posted a photo of a blonde woman somewhere above, thinking that she might pass for Swedish. She looked Litvak (a light Jewish person). While she could’ve passed for a Swede because of her overall look, she did not have the typical Swedish female features. She had a somewhat large nose, a typical Swedish nose is smaller and somewhat differently shaped.

    I’m quite fascinated by Georgian Kists (who are Chechen (Shishani) originally but live in Georgia). The very particular Caucasian facial features are very well known across the ex-USSR. But in the case of the Kists they are very subtly pronounced. They also have lighter hair, occasionally reddish. With some of them, from afar they can pass for European, only when you look closer, when you notice the distinct eye shape, more prominent eyebrows and the typical long Caucasian nose, only then you can see the difference. It’s a fascinating mix of similar and exotic features, in a rather studly people.

    • Replies: @Yahya
    @LatW


    The Spanish team just do not look Middle Eastern. I’d say, to be really picky, they look distinct, neither like the Swedes, nor the Syrians.
     
    Please read my posts more carefully. My whole point, from the beginning, was that "Levantines don't look too different from Iberians". I didn't say they looked identical to each other, or that they had the exact same facial features etc. just that they looked similar enough.

    When two groups are similar enough to each other, it becomes difficult (though not impossible) to guess their national origin from anonymously selected photos. I demonstrated that fact by providing several examples from reddit, then asking German_Reader to give it a go himself. His success rate was only 60%. Had the images been selected from Indonesians or Zimbabweans instead of Arabs, for example, that success rate would have gone up to 100%.

    I posted another round of images in my reply to AP. You are welcome to give it a shot and "put your money where your mouth is" so to speak.


    You posted a photo of a blonde woman somewhere above, thinking that she might pass for Swedish
     
    No. I said she could've passed for Slavic.

    Thulean Friend, who is Swedish (or perhaps Indian - opinions differ), then re-posted the image (https://www.unz.com/akarlin/open-thread-172/#comment-5114740) and stated that she "looks like she flew straight out of Scandinavia."

    Replies: @Dmitry, @LatW

    , @Dmitry
    @LatW

    My tourist experience is maybe half of people in Spain seem visually quite similar to Arabs, but a significant minority look like Northern Europeans. Varies from the region of the country.

    But you don't really notice that so much. More of the things you notice when you arrive in Spain, is that the Spanish people seem to be smaller compared to any European country. It's almost like East Asia.

    Anyway, better not debating on random photos.


    t live in Georgia). The very particular Caucasian facial
     
    A majority of Georgians look like the Middle Eastern/Caucasian.

    But a significant minority of Georgian look like white Europeans.

    It's like with Chechens, or with Spain. It's a borderzone of populations, with mix of appearance of the people. (You can see a racial diversity of the children with YouTube on school graduations of Georgia https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=kB2WHR2KjCY.)
    By comparison Armenians seem to look like Middle Eastern people homogenously.

    Notice in these naturally mixed race appearing countries like Spain or Georgia, the people don't seem to care, or even to notice their diversity.

    It shows how it is relatively unimportant appearance is really, in statebuilding or peoples' psychology.

    Even Ukrainians are looking a bit ethnically mixed nationalities to my eyes (you can see the mix of the appearance of the Ukrainian kids on this YouTube graduation method https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=LoBw-ntJGrI.) and yet Ukrainians nowadays have more of the ultranationalism and patriotism than any other country in Europe.

    Replies: @Mikel

  882. @LatW
    @Yahya

    Re: Soccer teams photo.


    Are Spaniards really closer to Swedes than Syrians?
     
    The Spanish Nr4 and the goalie could actually pass for Swedes, mainly due to their facial features. The streets of Stockholm are full of slightly lighter versions of Nr4. And even the Swedes themselves can have pretty dark brunette hair (just look at Prince Daniel who has typically Swedish features but dark hair).

    The Spanish team just do not look Middle Eastern. I'd say, to be really picky, they look distinct, neither like the Swedes, nor the Syrians. What really sets them apart is the upper face, the eyes, and maybe even cheekbones a little. The Middle Eastern eyes are shaped in a very particular way, the eyebrows are thicker. This is not to say it can't be attractive as beauty is universal. But the Middle Easter upper face sets itself apart immediately.

    The Middle Eastern hair is more black, the Spanish hair, while dark, is more chestnut brown. Another example would be the Estevez family (the actors) -- who apparently stem from a Northern Spanish ancestry, none of them would pass for Middle Eastern.

    Similarly, Rafa Nadal, who is quite tan, would not pass for Middle Eastern. His facial features are too European. Wife, though, looks a bit ME.

    You posted a photo of a blonde woman somewhere above, thinking that she might pass for Swedish. She looked Litvak (a light Jewish person). While she could've passed for a Swede because of her overall look, she did not have the typical Swedish female features. She had a somewhat large nose, a typical Swedish nose is smaller and somewhat differently shaped.

    I'm quite fascinated by Georgian Kists (who are Chechen (Shishani) originally but live in Georgia). The very particular Caucasian facial features are very well known across the ex-USSR. But in the case of the Kists they are very subtly pronounced. They also have lighter hair, occasionally reddish. With some of them, from afar they can pass for European, only when you look closer, when you notice the distinct eye shape, more prominent eyebrows and the typical long Caucasian nose, only then you can see the difference. It's a fascinating mix of similar and exotic features, in a rather studly people.

    Replies: @Yahya, @Dmitry

    The Spanish team just do not look Middle Eastern. I’d say, to be really picky, they look distinct, neither like the Swedes, nor the Syrians.

    Please read my posts more carefully. My whole point, from the beginning, was that “Levantines don’t look too different from Iberians”. I didn’t say they looked identical to each other, or that they had the exact same facial features etc. just that they looked similar enough.

    When two groups are similar enough to each other, it becomes difficult (though not impossible) to guess their national origin from anonymously selected photos. I demonstrated that fact by providing several examples from reddit, then asking German_Reader to give it a go himself. His success rate was only 60%. Had the images been selected from Indonesians or Zimbabweans instead of Arabs, for example, that success rate would have gone up to 100%.

    I posted another round of images in my reply to AP. You are welcome to give it a shot and “put your money where your mouth is” so to speak.

    You posted a photo of a blonde woman somewhere above, thinking that she might pass for Swedish

    No. I said she could’ve passed for Slavic.

    Thulean Friend, who is Swedish (or perhaps Indian – opinions differ), then re-posted the image (https://www.unz.com/akarlin/open-thread-172/#comment-5114740) and stated that she “looks like she flew straight out of Scandinavia.”

    • Replies: @Dmitry
    @Yahya

    I already replied to you with YouTube videos, which shows much more information than photos. And you didn't respond.

    Palestinian Christian youth parade in Yafo.

    https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=jTM5pthnPNE

    Palestinian Muslim youth parade in Yafo.

    https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=dev0SpqmGvQ


    -

    My impression from using this method, is that Palestinian Christians in this example, look like on average having more "lighter" (less Bedouin influence?) appearance than Palestinian Muslims.

    Many of them would look completely normal in Spain, but Spain's population looks relatively Arabic already.

    But perhaps nobody would look so typical outside of the Southern Europe area. People whose ancestors live in the region they still doo, usually match to their latitude, because vitamin D production is quite important.

    Replies: @Yahya

    , @LatW
    @Yahya


    I demonstrated that fact by providing several examples from reddit
     
    In some of those photos, the ME origin was quite obvious. As I said, it is noticeable around the eyes and the shape of the nose. And just because there are some individuals that are outliers or hard to tell where they're from, it doesn't change the fact that the majority of Middle Easterners look Middle Eastern and are readily distinguishable from the first look.

    No. I said she could’ve passed for Slavic.
     

    She could've passed for Slavic, but she didn't look typically Slavic. The typical Slavic woman has a smaller nose and a rounder shaped face (heart shaped). Northern Russian women have high cheekbones, dainty features. As I said, she looked like a Litvak to me, but it's obvious that she was very light.

    Thulean Friend, who is Swedish (or perhaps Indian – opinions differ), then re-posted the image (https://www.unz.com/akarlin/open-thread-172/#comment-5114740) and stated that she “looks like she flew straight out of Scandinavia.”
     

    She doesn't. Her hair color and eye color, yes, but not her features. TF is probably Swedish, in fact, he's as Swedish as they come.

    Replies: @LatW

  883. @songbird
    @German_reader


    Well, I suppose songbird can defend himself, if he wants to
     
    I'll confine myself to this sentiment, which I think is the most charitable: I wish Aaron B were here to teach Yahya about the benefits of Dhao.

    He need not feel endless resentment towards Euros for their accomplishments, only invent a more non-synchronous version of history than that which he was already invented. It is easy. For instance, what if Alexander did not conquer Egypt, but rather had his heart conquered by the magnificence of Egyptians?

    Nor need he claim that Hungary is the Fourth Reich and must be crushed before it threatens world peace. But only that Arabs invented the internal combustion engine and synthetic chemistry.

    Putting aside his Thomm-like assertions, from the pictures I have seen of that neighborhood, combined with his strange attitude, and the fact that his father married down a few rungs in the socio-economic ladder, I judge that it would also benefit him to adopt some of the more benign elements of Afrocentrism.

    Replies: @Emil Nikola Richard, @Yahya

    Alright, you Celtic sack of sh*t. Get this through your thick head: there is more accomplishment in the tiny plot of sand surrounding the Great Pyramid of Giza than there is in the entire landmass of Ireland. Your people are a historical non-entity. For 85% of recorded history, nothing but a bunch of primitive savages – only a smidge more advanced than the black African. Insofar as you’ve made any advancements, it’s on the back of your Anglo masters. I know this is tough for you to understand – after all, that beating the blacks gave you probably did a good number on your already minimal brain cells. But do try to read some history and gain some perspective on how insignificant your ancestors were.

    I hesitate to trash on the Irish in such a manner; some of my favorite childhood teachers were Irish. But unfortunately for the Irish, your obnoxious, imbecilic person was sadly spawned out of Celtic stock, so they will have to receive a thrashing on your behalf.

    Euros for their accomplishments,

    Tallest man-made structure for 3,800 years:

    A pile of rocks surrounding a small heap of earth:

    Most historically consequential group of people (Middle Eastern Semites):

    Least historically consequential group of people (Celtic Drunkards):

    I suppose that’s why the Medieval Irish – like the Afrocentrists of today – tried to write Egypt into their genealogy (“we wuz kangz!”). After all, unaccomplished people almost always try to appropriate other people’s histories.

    Alexander

    Ancient Greeks were an Eastern Mediterranean people – part of the Greco-Egyptian-Levantine cultural and economic oikumene of the times. They were also genetically composed mostly of Fertile Crescent Farmers – thus physically resembled their Middle Eastern co-racials moreso than say, the Celtic barbarians up North. In other words, they were not part of the same group as your savage ancestors up in Ireland.

    • Replies: @Yevardian
    @Yahya

    Lol, I think you're definitely taking this much too seriously, like Dmitri said, the only healthy way to treat online forums is as some trashy entertainment, or filling in occasional idle time at work.

    But anyway, you've been almost obsessively pointing out throughout this entire thread how frequently Levantine self-described 'Arabs' are indistinguishable from Southern European "whites", as if this was somehow a matter of grave, grave importance. Honestly, it strikes me more of an inferiority complex than anything, can't you simply be content that a beautiful woman like Rania of Jordan (or whomever) is an Arab, without having to rhetorically ask if they could pass for a Spaniard, Bulgarian, etc?

    As for Ireland, well, it's a relatively isolated island whose main channel to the outside of world has always been another, much larger island. Like Armenia (landlocked, resource-poor and religiously/culturally isolated) it's had a combination of bad geography and simple bad luck.

    Anyway, if we wanted to play the mudslinging game, it can be legitimately argued that for over 2000 years, Egypt didn't have a single native (i.e., ethnically Egyptian) dynasty or ruler since the Persians under Cambyses conquered it, some abortive Athenian-supported revolts during that period aside.

    Maybe its just because I come from a relatively small and highly dispersed ethnic group myself, but going for racial stuff in an interpersonal argument seems pretty stupid to me (unless you're Indian).

    Replies: @Yahya

    , @songbird
    @Yahya


    Alright, you Celtic sack of sh*t. Get this through your thick head
     
    IMO, your trolling is poor. All Ad hominem and profane. What riposte can there be to four letter words, especially, of that nature? I read it as "low energy", and it makes me feel "low energy" and disinclined to bother replying.

    Insult me all you want (if I cared I would have blocked you) but I ask you to spare the other commenters.

    Just this once, I will go through the motions, even if you hit me with low energy, but notice how I use the MORE tag:

    it’s on the back of your Anglo masters.
     
    I don't get how this is supposed to make me feel bad. That a larger country of closely related people conquered a smaller country, after several hundred years of trying, and nearly 200 years after the first historical record of them employing gunpowder, there. Moreover, the Normans are my ancestors too, and they would make the fiercest Arabs seem like Thai lady boys.

    Tallest man-made structure for 3,800 years
     
    Well, there is no reason you shouldn't be proud of it. I think it is perfectly fair game for a nationalist to claim, and be proud of, in a postive way.

    But, when it is meant as a barb, as "You dumb Euros, take that!" It is also fair to ridicule it. Short answer is that it is geodeterminism: Egypt was a breadbasket. Easy soil to till and to irrigate. Multiple farming seasons. No harsh winters, so it had a high population. It also had ​a river that uniquely flowed one way, while the wind blew the other. And was protected from invasion (though not for long. Snap!) by its geography.

    I could do other takedowns of it but I will confine myself to this: do you really think that Egyptians, if you plopped them down in Northern Europe (and it was uninhabited) and if they had free food and housing, would have bothered building a great mass of limestone blocks in a climate with repeated freeze/thaw cycles? (I'd guess not). After all the first pyramids look to be in pretty bad shape, as it is.

    No doubt you could hit Northern Euros back with geodetermism against their modern accomplishments. Less malaria/ more river valleys /more grazing for animals. And that would be fair on a certain level, but not so much in 2022.

    A pile of rocks surrounding a small heap of earth:
     
    Well, it is older. And, if you can believe what they tell tourists, the oldest building in the world, still standing. But, anyway, it was built by EEF. (more your people than mine, according to you?) I don't doubt that they were my ancestors, but only in a very small way. Anyway, I think they reconstructed the outside of it, for tourists?

    Least historically consequential group of people (Celtic Drunkards
     
    I think you would be surprised how influential drunken people are generally, and probably even in your case specific sense.

    I suppose that’s why the Medieval Irish – like the Afrocentrists of today – tried to write Egypt into their genealogy
     
    Well, there was a high level of cultural breakage as Christians destroyed a lot of things, so Christians had to make up for it, by making things up. (Maybe, they had their reasons, who knows what blood curling customs used to prevail? Some of the ones suggested are quite frankly odd, if true) But actually, medieval Irish pedigrees are still really long, even if you take that stuff out. It connects to our own ancient mythological figures. Of course, most of the names (but not all) have no meaning now, and few can even connect to them due to later destruction.

    But, honestly, though a lot of the pre-Christian stuff was destroyed, I'm not sure that there still wasn't more cultural continuity in Ireland than in Egypt. The Irish language survived for a long time. Still spoken, though barely. There are pre-Christian Irish heroes whose names people have always recognized (though they may have been altered slightly). Can you say the same? It was common to give warriors the appellation Cú (hound) even into medieval times. That's probably a tradition that goes back to the Pontiac Steppe, to the Yamnaya. (the Kóryos)

    Ancient Greeks were an Eastern Mediterranean people – part of the Greco-Egyptian-Levantine cultural and economic oikumene of the times. They were also genetically composed mostly of Fertile Crescent Farmers
     
    Eh, I honestly never heard a Greek whose family came from Greece claim North Africans or Arabs as kin. And I have known quite a few.

    Replies: @LatW

  884. Wish that there was a version of IMDB specifically designed for cross-cultural and HBD comparisons. I’m talking worldwide (not just Hollywood), but also granular. I want to know things like what percentage of Chinese actresses are Northern Han, and what is the favorite TV show of each caste in India.
    _____
    Though I suspect that celebrity is becoming less important, I had an interesting idea the other day to compare celebrities across entertainment centers, as a way of evaluating the politics of each system.

    Like for example, take Mel Gibson. What is his Hollywood rank in net income? And then compare him to the same number Chinese guy. I guess it might be hard to balance it out because you might have to balance for number of films or age or career years. But the basic idea is there:

    -Have they ever had to disparage their countrymen (call Gibson “American”) in a role? (BTW, yes for Mel “redneck”)
    -Have they ever had to pretend to be gay? Even in a meta-way, where their character wasn’t gay? (Yes, for Mel)
    -Have they ever had to put on pantyhose? Or defoliate their legs? (Yes, for Mel, based on a trailer I remember)

    I could add a lot of other points (I would hope that they would be there), but you get the idea.

  885. Bogus Biden Administration Sanctions Threat

    From last week, there was an absurd Juan-Williams-Brit Hume exchange, with Williams saying that a Russian non-attack on Ukraine might be on account of the Biden admin sanctions threat. Hume added that the proposed sanctions would hurt Russia unlike the US.

    The two below tweets are a tell all on why the proposed Biden admin sanctions are quite flawed. The second tweet really hits home on how such sanctions would really screw up an already problematical global economy. A CNN piece softly acknowledges this point, noting that the US Treasury Department (USTD) has acknowledged this matter.

    The USTD should know that the sanctions against US based American citizens wanting to write for the Strategic Culture Foundation on a fee paid basis, are hurting Americans and making a mockery out of the idea that the USA government promotes diversity.

  886. @Chairman Meow
    @AP


    Thank you for posting pictures of very ugly Soviet buildings to prove the point.
     
    Most people with good taste would find the pictures that I posted rather beautiful. I got more too.

    but at least they are luxurious and roomy in comparison
     
    Did you miss the box apartments that most people live in nowadays in New York that can't even fit one person?

    Also here is Seoul:

    https://preview.redd.it/a25l7n5ws3c81.jpg?width=494&auto=webp&s=617aaba9d629d8fd2d87400b72151656c97eb1bd

    Or by your logic are people in Korea suddenly Soviets and living in commie blocks lol

    “Having a large ugly house is sure better than being cramped with three generations into a small ugly apartment with no elevator.”
     
    You mean like this?

    https://dts4h52y4acn7.cloudfront.net/1060700325701010B910A250D1624813f.png

    below where Soviet “middle class” people such a schoolteachers would live:
     
    Good job posting buildings that haven't been maintained for decades as "proof" of anything. I posted what they looked like above when they where new. Here's more:

    https://i.imgur.com/8JzUiRk.jpeg

    https://i.imgur.com/1NhQa6a.jpeg

    https://i.imgur.com/90Lul3M.jpeg

    https://i.imgur.com/1NhQa6a.jpeg

    Looks pretty European to me in fact.

    Here's America for comparison:

    https://preview.redd.it/pe3toeqxx0k51.png?width=1024&auto=webp&s=a025fa8044038e364a59a088fae68b00259ebf7a

    https://old.reddit.com/r/UrbanHell/comments/al3eyh/americas_contrast_or_no_contrast_really/

    Meanwhile three generations of Soviet families would be crammed into a two room apartment.
     
    Sounds like most of the world not just the Soviet union. Most countries aren't obsessed with Urban Sprawl and cars like America is. Ironically, this leads to increased obesity rates in the US vs everywhere else.

    Stalin murdered and starved to death about 9 million of his own people
     
    LOL. 9 million seems to little. Are you sure Stalin didn't personally shoot 100 million people in the back of the head? How long do you think it took him?

    /sarcasm

    No Europeans did that to their own people in the 20th or 19th centuries
     
    So mass murdering other people in other places is okay? Europe certainly did that in large quantities throughout the 20th century. They far surpassed "9 million" people, that's even if we don't include the Germans.

    Besides "9 million" is a cold war CIA meme LOL. Can't believe you actually fell for it.

    Replies: @AP

    Thank you for posting pictures of very ugly Soviet buildings to prove the point.

    Most people with good taste would find the pictures that I posted rather beautiful. I got more too.

    You have already established that you have poor taste, by posting pictures of very ugly buildings.

    but at least they are luxurious and roomy in comparison

    Did you miss the box apartments that most people live in nowadays in New York that can’t even fit one person?

    New York is a huge city. Soviets were crammed into tiny places even in small cities.

    Also here is Seoul:

    Seoul has nearly 10 million people.

    Pripyat, population 49,000 before the evacuation:

    In such a small place, Americans would be living in their own houses, with rooms for everyone.

    You posted a photo of some homeless encampment. Congratulations, Soviet middle classes lived the dame (materially) as poor American blacks in housing projects, but not quite as bad as homeless junkies.

    Good job posting buildings that haven’t been maintained for decades as “proof” of anything.

    Too bad Soviets didn’t maintain them for decades. They looked like that when I visited the USSR in 1990.

    Most countries aren’t obsessed with Urban Sprawl and cars like America is. Ironically, this leads to increased obesity rates in the US vs everywhere else.

    People with no homes in the jungle are probably also healthy. So?

    No Europeans did that to their own people in the 20th or 19th centuries

    So mass murdering other people in other places is okay?

    None said it was. Don’t change the subject. Soviets treated their own people in the 20th century, like 19th century Europeans at their worst treated colonial subjects.

    Besides “9 million” is a cold war CIA meme LOL.

    No, it’s perhaps a third of Cold War claims.

    • Replies: @Chairman Meow
    @AP


    You have already established that you have poor taste, by posting pictures of very ugly buildings.
     
    LOL no. We've established that you'd rather have people live here:

    https://imgur.com/Gx87gL9

    than here;

    https://i.imgur.com/EBGpAiW.jpeg

    or here:

    https://i.imgur.com/IViA2oA.jpeg

    https://i.imgur.com/7uT0QiR.jpeg

    Looks like you don't like nature and gardens and would rather have never ending urban sprawl


    Seoul has nearly 10 million people.
     
    And? They still live in 'ugly commie blocks' (according to you). Sounds like the rich Koreans copied the Soviets by building identical panel housing.

    Pripyat, population 49,000 before the evacuation
     
    Looks pretty

    In such a small place, Americans would be living in their own houses, with rooms for everyone.
     
    Or they'd be living in one room apartments you can't stand in like in New York because housing is too expensive.

    Or this (population of 70,000):

    https://i.redd.it/e57l4z4z1x051.jpg


    You posted a photo of some homeless encampment.
     
    I posted a photo of people in houses with their own rooms like you said.

    Too bad Soviets didn’t maintain them for decades.

     

    Yeah that's what 7 years of capitalism did.

    Modern Russia looks even worse LOL


    People with no homes in the jungle are probably also healthy. So?
     
    So that's why the US has a smaller life expetancy than Cuba.

    None said it was. Don’t change the subject. Soviets treated their own people in the 20th century, like 19th century Europeans at their worst treated colonial subjects.

     

    I'm not changing the subject. The Europeans where treating their colonies like this until after the 1940's (the Bengali famine was in 1943 caused by the British), and Italy was happily mass murdering its way through Ethiopia between 1935 and 1941 and France was having a grand time mass murdering in 1947 in Vietnam. So either you blame everyone for 'mass murder' at the time or blame no-one and its not an argument.

    No, it’s perhaps a third of Cold War claims.
     
    There was many different cold war claims ranging from 10 million to 100 million. The real number is around 2.3 million purged. Purged =/= killed as it includes those in the Gulags. Which is equivalent to current US prison population.

    Replies: @AP

    , @LatW
    @AP


    Soviet middle classes lived the same (materially) as poor American blacks in housing projects
     
    I'm not sure about this one, while those anthill type of apartment buildings are very far from ideal, the people who lived there were actually less materially constrained than the US blacks. They had access to sports and recreational facilities that blacks don't, cheap theater (ofc, the content could be an issue but not always), many had those outside garden plots next to these anthills, there was general tidiness. These buildings are now over 30 years old and they have outlived their use.

    Besides, I don't know a 100% about Russia and Ukraine but in the Baltic States not everyone lived in the anthills. Also, our anthills weren't as high, they were just 3-5 floors typically. There are pre-Soviet buildings in the city, many detached homes outside of the center and further away from the city. Traditional country properties were even better in some ways (very underrated, as I now realize). The Russians had dachas, didn't they?

    There's a special kind of a feel of desperation that comes with black housing projects, that just wasn't there with the Soviet anthills. Although some of the Russian ones do look scary.

    I'd say if you want to compare that way, you can probably compare to affordable or Section 8 housing where disabled or low class whites live (although some underclass whites live like swine now). I'd say it could compare to a disabled white lady that lives on welfare in her little condo with flowers on the patio keeping everything tidy, that would probably compare better to a Soviet teacher living in a Khrushchovka. But, yea, in many ways it's nothing to write home about. It's just that urbanization was very intense in Russia, big waves of urbanization must have hit in the 70s, in fact, it's continuing even now.

    Replies: @AP, @Svidomyatheart

  887. @LatW
    @Yahya

    Re: Soccer teams photo.


    Are Spaniards really closer to Swedes than Syrians?
     
    The Spanish Nr4 and the goalie could actually pass for Swedes, mainly due to their facial features. The streets of Stockholm are full of slightly lighter versions of Nr4. And even the Swedes themselves can have pretty dark brunette hair (just look at Prince Daniel who has typically Swedish features but dark hair).

    The Spanish team just do not look Middle Eastern. I'd say, to be really picky, they look distinct, neither like the Swedes, nor the Syrians. What really sets them apart is the upper face, the eyes, and maybe even cheekbones a little. The Middle Eastern eyes are shaped in a very particular way, the eyebrows are thicker. This is not to say it can't be attractive as beauty is universal. But the Middle Easter upper face sets itself apart immediately.

    The Middle Eastern hair is more black, the Spanish hair, while dark, is more chestnut brown. Another example would be the Estevez family (the actors) -- who apparently stem from a Northern Spanish ancestry, none of them would pass for Middle Eastern.

    Similarly, Rafa Nadal, who is quite tan, would not pass for Middle Eastern. His facial features are too European. Wife, though, looks a bit ME.

    You posted a photo of a blonde woman somewhere above, thinking that she might pass for Swedish. She looked Litvak (a light Jewish person). While she could've passed for a Swede because of her overall look, she did not have the typical Swedish female features. She had a somewhat large nose, a typical Swedish nose is smaller and somewhat differently shaped.

    I'm quite fascinated by Georgian Kists (who are Chechen (Shishani) originally but live in Georgia). The very particular Caucasian facial features are very well known across the ex-USSR. But in the case of the Kists they are very subtly pronounced. They also have lighter hair, occasionally reddish. With some of them, from afar they can pass for European, only when you look closer, when you notice the distinct eye shape, more prominent eyebrows and the typical long Caucasian nose, only then you can see the difference. It's a fascinating mix of similar and exotic features, in a rather studly people.

    Replies: @Yahya, @Dmitry

    My tourist experience is maybe half of people in Spain seem visually quite similar to Arabs, but a significant minority look like Northern Europeans. Varies from the region of the country.

    But you don’t really notice that so much. More of the things you notice when you arrive in Spain, is that the Spanish people seem to be smaller compared to any European country. It’s almost like East Asia.

    Anyway, better not debating on random photos.

    t live in Georgia). The very particular Caucasian facial

    A majority of Georgians look like the Middle Eastern/Caucasian.

    But a significant minority of Georgian look like white Europeans.

    It’s like with Chechens, or with Spain. It’s a borderzone of populations, with mix of appearance of the people. (You can see a racial diversity of the children with YouTube on school graduations of Georgia https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=kB2WHR2KjCY.)
    By comparison Armenians seem to look like Middle Eastern people homogenously.

    Notice in these naturally mixed race appearing countries like Spain or Georgia, the people don’t seem to care, or even to notice their diversity.

    It shows how it is relatively unimportant appearance is really, in statebuilding or peoples’ psychology.

    Even Ukrainians are looking a bit ethnically mixed nationalities to my eyes (you can see the mix of the appearance of the Ukrainian kids on this YouTube graduation method https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=LoBw-ntJGrI.) and yet Ukrainians nowadays have more of the ultranationalism and patriotism than any other country in Europe.

    • Replies: @Mikel
    @Dmitry


    Notice in these naturally mixed race appearing countries like Spain or Georgia, the people don’t seem to care, or even to notice their diversity.
     
    Well, not exactly. In fact, when Yahyah speaks about Spaniards he almost sounds like a Basque nationalist of the old school :-)
  888. @Yahya
    @LatW


    The Spanish team just do not look Middle Eastern. I’d say, to be really picky, they look distinct, neither like the Swedes, nor the Syrians.
     
    Please read my posts more carefully. My whole point, from the beginning, was that "Levantines don't look too different from Iberians". I didn't say they looked identical to each other, or that they had the exact same facial features etc. just that they looked similar enough.

    When two groups are similar enough to each other, it becomes difficult (though not impossible) to guess their national origin from anonymously selected photos. I demonstrated that fact by providing several examples from reddit, then asking German_Reader to give it a go himself. His success rate was only 60%. Had the images been selected from Indonesians or Zimbabweans instead of Arabs, for example, that success rate would have gone up to 100%.

    I posted another round of images in my reply to AP. You are welcome to give it a shot and "put your money where your mouth is" so to speak.


    You posted a photo of a blonde woman somewhere above, thinking that she might pass for Swedish
     
    No. I said she could've passed for Slavic.

    Thulean Friend, who is Swedish (or perhaps Indian - opinions differ), then re-posted the image (https://www.unz.com/akarlin/open-thread-172/#comment-5114740) and stated that she "looks like she flew straight out of Scandinavia."

    Replies: @Dmitry, @LatW

    I already replied to you with YouTube videos, which shows much more information than photos. And you didn’t respond.

    Palestinian Christian youth parade in Yafo.

    Palestinian Muslim youth parade in Yafo.

    My impression from using this method, is that Palestinian Christians in this example, look like on average having more “lighter” (less Bedouin influence?) appearance than Palestinian Muslims.

    Many of them would look completely normal in Spain, but Spain’s population looks relatively Arabic already.

    But perhaps nobody would look so typical outside of the Southern Europe area. People whose ancestors live in the region they still doo, usually match to their latitude, because vitamin D production is quite important.

    • Replies: @Yahya
    @Dmitry


    I already replied to you with YouTube videos, which shows much more information than photos.
     
    Sure, Youtube videos seem to be more statistically rigorous, so to speak, than individual photos. But as you mentioned, they have their faults - time of day can affect lighting; time of year can affect skin exposure to the sun. Selecting Youtube videos also has it' sampling bias; how do we know which segment of society the youth parade comes from?

    Here's a video of Muslim Palestinians preforming a Levantine dabke. They look lighter than the Jaffa* paraders, both Muslim and Christian.

    https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=dg35ccIXMlM&ab_channel=BaladiCenter

    Why is that? Probably because of differences in sampling.

    *One of my best friend's grandparents were from Jaffa. They fled to Egypt during the conflict and have remained here ever since. I'm calling it Jaffa because that's what they call it.


    My impression from using this method, is that Palestinian Christians in this example, look like on average having more “lighter” (less Bedouin influence?) appearance than Palestinian Muslims.
     
    It's possible that Palestinian Christians are lighter, on average, than Palestinian Muslims. It's too tough to say - there's a lot of overlap i.e. plenty of Muslims are lighter than Christians and vice versa. My experience is that class, not religion, is the main determinant of skin tone in Palestine (and the Arab world at large). If you ever visit my childhood school in Egypt, which is mostly for upper class children, you'd think it somewhere in Southern Europe. If you go out a bit more to the middle class neighborhood; people start looking more Middle Eastern. In the poor areas, a hint of negroid will start becoming more detectable.

    Since Christians tend to be of higher socio-economic status than Muslims, it could mean they are lighter. But that is more of a function of class; rather than genes or religion.


    Many of them would look completely normal in Spain, but Spain’s population looks relatively Arabic already. But perhaps nobody would look so typical outside of the Southern Europe area.
     
    Yes, that's what i've been trying to get at for a few days now.

    Replies: @Dmitry

  889. @Yahya
    @LatW


    The Spanish team just do not look Middle Eastern. I’d say, to be really picky, they look distinct, neither like the Swedes, nor the Syrians.
     
    Please read my posts more carefully. My whole point, from the beginning, was that "Levantines don't look too different from Iberians". I didn't say they looked identical to each other, or that they had the exact same facial features etc. just that they looked similar enough.

    When two groups are similar enough to each other, it becomes difficult (though not impossible) to guess their national origin from anonymously selected photos. I demonstrated that fact by providing several examples from reddit, then asking German_Reader to give it a go himself. His success rate was only 60%. Had the images been selected from Indonesians or Zimbabweans instead of Arabs, for example, that success rate would have gone up to 100%.

    I posted another round of images in my reply to AP. You are welcome to give it a shot and "put your money where your mouth is" so to speak.


    You posted a photo of a blonde woman somewhere above, thinking that she might pass for Swedish
     
    No. I said she could've passed for Slavic.

    Thulean Friend, who is Swedish (or perhaps Indian - opinions differ), then re-posted the image (https://www.unz.com/akarlin/open-thread-172/#comment-5114740) and stated that she "looks like she flew straight out of Scandinavia."

    Replies: @Dmitry, @LatW

    I demonstrated that fact by providing several examples from reddit

    In some of those photos, the ME origin was quite obvious. As I said, it is noticeable around the eyes and the shape of the nose. And just because there are some individuals that are outliers or hard to tell where they’re from, it doesn’t change the fact that the majority of Middle Easterners look Middle Eastern and are readily distinguishable from the first look.

    No. I said she could’ve passed for Slavic.

    She could’ve passed for Slavic, but she didn’t look typically Slavic. The typical Slavic woman has a smaller nose and a rounder shaped face (heart shaped). Northern Russian women have high cheekbones, dainty features. As I said, she looked like a Litvak to me, but it’s obvious that she was very light.

    Thulean Friend, who is Swedish (or perhaps Indian – opinions differ), then re-posted the image (https://www.unz.com/akarlin/open-thread-172/#comment-5114740) and stated that she “looks like she flew straight out of Scandinavia.”

    She doesn’t. Her hair color and eye color, yes, but not her features. TF is probably Swedish, in fact, he’s as Swedish as they come.

    • Replies: @LatW
    @LatW

    If I'm reading her DNA chart correctly, she's 5.6% Cypriot? That's a lot.

  890. @Dmitry
    @Yahya

    I already replied to you with YouTube videos, which shows much more information than photos. And you didn't respond.

    Palestinian Christian youth parade in Yafo.

    https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=jTM5pthnPNE

    Palestinian Muslim youth parade in Yafo.

    https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=dev0SpqmGvQ


    -

    My impression from using this method, is that Palestinian Christians in this example, look like on average having more "lighter" (less Bedouin influence?) appearance than Palestinian Muslims.

    Many of them would look completely normal in Spain, but Spain's population looks relatively Arabic already.

    But perhaps nobody would look so typical outside of the Southern Europe area. People whose ancestors live in the region they still doo, usually match to their latitude, because vitamin D production is quite important.

    Replies: @Yahya

    I already replied to you with YouTube videos, which shows much more information than photos.

    Sure, Youtube videos seem to be more statistically rigorous, so to speak, than individual photos. But as you mentioned, they have their faults – time of day can affect lighting; time of year can affect skin exposure to the sun. Selecting Youtube videos also has it’ sampling bias; how do we know which segment of society the youth parade comes from?

    Here’s a video of Muslim Palestinians preforming a Levantine dabke. They look lighter than the Jaffa* paraders, both Muslim and Christian.

    Why is that? Probably because of differences in sampling.

    *One of my best friend’s grandparents were from Jaffa. They fled to Egypt during the conflict and have remained here ever since. I’m calling it Jaffa because that’s what they call it.

    My impression from using this method, is that Palestinian Christians in this example, look like on average having more “lighter” (less Bedouin influence?) appearance than Palestinian Muslims.

    It’s possible that Palestinian Christians are lighter, on average, than Palestinian Muslims. It’s too tough to say – there’s a lot of overlap i.e. plenty of Muslims are lighter than Christians and vice versa. My experience is that class, not religion, is the main determinant of skin tone in Palestine (and the Arab world at large). If you ever visit my childhood school in Egypt, which is mostly for upper class children, you’d think it somewhere in Southern Europe. If you go out a bit more to the middle class neighborhood; people start looking more Middle Eastern. In the poor areas, a hint of negroid will start becoming more detectable.

    Since Christians tend to be of higher socio-economic status than Muslims, it could mean they are lighter. But that is more of a function of class; rather than genes or religion.

    Many of them would look completely normal in Spain, but Spain’s population looks relatively Arabic already. But perhaps nobody would look so typical outside of the Southern Europe area.

    Yes, that’s what i’ve been trying to get at for a few days now.

    • Replies: @Dmitry
    @Yahya

    You can see the Palestinian Christian youth movement parades in Jerusalem. They indeed seem to have a quite homogenous appearance.

    https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=RFwIm6Q5824

    They look very similar to more neighbor countries like youth movement parades of Cypriots.

    Visually, it looks like they could be the same nationality as native Cypriot population, as the Christian Palestinians.
    https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=oA4IuMwqlyo

    It's probably just the native appearance of many people in the region before the Islamic conquests.

    -

    If you compare with comparison secular Jewish youth movements in Israel, look racially randomized. Because it is n a population being formed by religious derived extremely recent immigrants from all kinds of different latitudes.

    https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=6nXUS70c7h4


    Palestinian Christians are lighter, on average, than Palestinian Muslims

     

    Well don't Negev Bedouins look similar to Saudis.

    Although they also it seems will be happy to absorb other nationalities into their tribes.

    https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=UgzGiaG3aBk

    Replies: @Dmitry

  891. @LatW
    @Yahya


    I demonstrated that fact by providing several examples from reddit
     
    In some of those photos, the ME origin was quite obvious. As I said, it is noticeable around the eyes and the shape of the nose. And just because there are some individuals that are outliers or hard to tell where they're from, it doesn't change the fact that the majority of Middle Easterners look Middle Eastern and are readily distinguishable from the first look.

    No. I said she could’ve passed for Slavic.
     

    She could've passed for Slavic, but she didn't look typically Slavic. The typical Slavic woman has a smaller nose and a rounder shaped face (heart shaped). Northern Russian women have high cheekbones, dainty features. As I said, she looked like a Litvak to me, but it's obvious that she was very light.

    Thulean Friend, who is Swedish (or perhaps Indian – opinions differ), then re-posted the image (https://www.unz.com/akarlin/open-thread-172/#comment-5114740) and stated that she “looks like she flew straight out of Scandinavia.”
     

    She doesn't. Her hair color and eye color, yes, but not her features. TF is probably Swedish, in fact, he's as Swedish as they come.

    Replies: @LatW

    If I’m reading her DNA chart correctly, she’s 5.6% Cypriot? That’s a lot.

  892. @A123
    @Mr. Hack

    It is quite amazing what the White House and Fake Stream Media are pushing.

     
    https://i.imgur.com/rEz0swY.jpg
     

    Fortunately, no one is believing the lies coming from Not-The-President Biden. Will he render the DNC into a permanent minority party?

     
    https://cdn.creators.com/209/318151/318151_image.jpg
     

    PEACE 😇

    Replies: @Mr. Hack, @Yellowface Anon

    At least 26 Democrat House Representatives are abandoning the “Good Ship Lollypop”. What a show of confidence for Biden’s shipwreck!

  893. @AP
    @Chairman Meow


    Thank you for posting pictures of very ugly Soviet buildings to prove the point.

    Most people with good taste would find the pictures that I posted rather beautiful. I got more too.
     
    You have already established that you have poor taste, by posting pictures of very ugly buildings.

    but at least they are luxurious and roomy in comparison

    Did you miss the box apartments that most people live in nowadays in New York that can’t even fit one person?
     
    New York is a huge city. Soviets were crammed into tiny places even in small cities.

    Also here is Seoul:
     
    Seoul has nearly 10 million people.

    Pripyat, population 49,000 before the evacuation:

    https://cdn.vox-cdn.com/thumbor/hzCCbvLSHXB91oQIyIE_4HmcLL0=/0x0:2100x1242/1200x0/filters:focal(0x0:2100x1242):no_upscale()/cdn.vox-cdn.com/uploads/chorus_asset/file/16325854/CHER_102_051418_LD_00120_1_.jpg

    In such a small place, Americans would be living in their own houses, with rooms for everyone.

    You posted a photo of some homeless encampment. Congratulations, Soviet middle classes lived the dame (materially) as poor American blacks in housing projects, but not quite as bad as homeless junkies.

    Good job posting buildings that haven’t been maintained for decades as “proof” of anything.
     
    Too bad Soviets didn't maintain them for decades. They looked like that when I visited the USSR in 1990.

    Most countries aren’t obsessed with Urban Sprawl and cars like America is. Ironically, this leads to increased obesity rates in the US vs everywhere else.
     
    People with no homes in the jungle are probably also healthy. So?

    No Europeans did that to their own people in the 20th or 19th centuries

    So mass murdering other people in other places is okay?
     
    None said it was. Don't change the subject. Soviets treated their own people in the 20th century, like 19th century Europeans at their worst treated colonial subjects.


    Besides “9 million” is a cold war CIA meme LOL.
     
    No, it's perhaps a third of Cold War claims.

    Replies: @Chairman Meow, @LatW

    You have already established that you have poor taste, by posting pictures of very ugly buildings.

    LOL no. We’ve established that you’d rather have people live here:

    View post on imgur.com

    than here;

    or here:

    Looks like you don’t like nature and gardens and would rather have never ending urban sprawl

    Seoul has nearly 10 million people.

    And? They still live in ‘ugly commie blocks’ (according to you). Sounds like the rich Koreans copied the Soviets by building identical panel housing.

    Pripyat, population 49,000 before the evacuation

    Looks pretty

    In such a small place, Americans would be living in their own houses, with rooms for everyone.

    Or they’d be living in one room apartments you can’t stand in like in New York because housing is too expensive.

    Or this (population of 70,000):

    You posted a photo of some homeless encampment.

    I posted a photo of people in houses with their own rooms like you said.

    Too bad Soviets didn’t maintain them for decades.

    Yeah that’s what 7 years of capitalism did.

    Modern Russia looks even worse LOL

    People with no homes in the jungle are probably also healthy. So?

    So that’s why the US has a smaller life expetancy than Cuba.

    None said it was. Don’t change the subject. Soviets treated their own people in the 20th century, like 19th century Europeans at their worst treated colonial subjects.

    I’m not changing the subject. The Europeans where treating their colonies like this until after the 1940’s (the Bengali famine was in 1943 caused by the British), and Italy was happily mass murdering its way through Ethiopia between 1935 and 1941 and France was having a grand time mass murdering in 1947 in Vietnam. So either you blame everyone for ‘mass murder’ at the time or blame no-one and its not an argument.

    No, it’s perhaps a third of Cold War claims.

    There was many different cold war claims ranging from 10 million to 100 million. The real number is around 2.3 million purged. Purged =/= killed as it includes those in the Gulags. Which is equivalent to current US prison population.

    • Replies: @AP
    @Chairman Meow


    Looks like you don’t like nature and gardens and would rather have never ending urban sprawl
     
    In American suburbia people have their own private gardens.

    Seoul has nearly 10 million people.

    And? They still live in ‘ugly commie blocks’ (according to you). Sounds like the rich Koreans copied the Soviets by building identical panel housing.
     
    10 million people in which inhabitants are squeezed into small places is a function of population density. In a small city like Pripyat it is a function of poverty.

    Or this (population of 70,000)
     
    Looks mostly empty, the people have gotten larger places elsewhere.

    Meanwhile people were still living in this place in a city of 68,000:

    https://www.kathmanduandbeyond.com/wp-content/uploads/2018/08/Karosta-Liepaja-Latvia.jpg

    Too bad Soviets didn’t maintain them for decades.

    Yeah that’s what 7 years of capitalism did.
     
    And after 200 years of capitalism somehow American middle class lives much better.

    People with no homes in the jungle are probably also healthy. So?

    So that’s why the US has a smaller life expetancy than Cuba.
     
    They can't afford to get fat and can't drive in Cuba.

    None said it was. Don’t change the subject. Soviets treated their own people in the 20th century, like 19th century Europeans at their worst treated colonial subjects.

    I’m not changing the subject. The Europeans where treating their colonies like this
     
    Again, yes. Europeans treated their colonies like Soviets treated their own citizens.

    There was many different cold war claims ranging from 10 million to 100 million. The real number is around 2.3 million purged. Purged =/= killed as it includes those in the Gulags. Which is equivalent to current US prison population.
     
    You confirm that you believe in fairy tales. I will join German Reader in treating you as one treats someone who believes that they were abducted by aliens, or that the Holocaust didn't happen.

    Replies: @Chairman Meow

  894. @Yahya
    @songbird

    Alright, you Celtic sack of sh*t. Get this through your thick head: there is more accomplishment in the tiny plot of sand surrounding the Great Pyramid of Giza than there is in the entire landmass of Ireland. Your people are a historical non-entity. For 85% of recorded history, nothing but a bunch of primitive savages - only a smidge more advanced than the black African. Insofar as you've made any advancements, it's on the back of your Anglo masters. I know this is tough for you to understand - after all, that beating the blacks gave you probably did a good number on your already minimal brain cells. But do try to read some history and gain some perspective on how insignificant your ancestors were.

    I hesitate to trash on the Irish in such a manner; some of my favorite childhood teachers were Irish. But unfortunately for the Irish, your obnoxious, imbecilic person was sadly spawned out of Celtic stock, so they will have to receive a thrashing on your behalf.


    Euros for their accomplishments,
     
    Tallest man-made structure for 3,800 years:


    https://i.natgeofe.com/n/535f3cba-f8bb-4df2-b0c5-aaca16e9ff31/giza-plateau-pyramids_16x9.jpg


    A pile of rocks surrounding a small heap of earth:


    https://images.squarespace-cdn.com/content/v1/5bdc2b4c4cde7a7610149c8f/1575670355198-7WTY4OFB6UNMIUUFTATC/newgrange.jpg


    Most historically consequential group of people (Middle Eastern Semites):


    http://blog.adw.org/wp-content/uploads/2013/05/Feature-052713.jpg


    Least historically consequential group of people (Celtic Drunkards):


    https://img.rasset.ie/0013dd66-1600.jpg


    I suppose that's why the Medieval Irish - like the Afrocentrists of today - tried to write Egypt into their genealogy ("we wuz kangz!"). After all, unaccomplished people almost always try to appropriate other people's histories.


    Alexander
     
    Ancient Greeks were an Eastern Mediterranean people - part of the Greco-Egyptian-Levantine cultural and economic oikumene of the times. They were also genetically composed mostly of Fertile Crescent Farmers - thus physically resembled their Middle Eastern co-racials moreso than say, the Celtic barbarians up North. In other words, they were not part of the same group as your savage ancestors up in Ireland.

    Replies: @Yevardian, @songbird

    Lol, I think you’re definitely taking this much too seriously, like Dmitri said, the only healthy way to treat online forums is as some trashy entertainment, or filling in occasional idle time at work.

    But anyway, you’ve been almost obsessively pointing out throughout this entire thread how frequently Levantine self-described ‘Arabs’ are indistinguishable from Southern European “whites”, as if this was somehow a matter of grave, grave importance. Honestly, it strikes me more of an inferiority complex than anything, can’t you simply be content that a beautiful woman like Rania of Jordan (or whomever) is an Arab, without having to rhetorically ask if they could pass for a Spaniard, Bulgarian, etc?

    As for Ireland, well, it’s a relatively isolated island whose main channel to the outside of world has always been another, much larger island. Like Armenia (landlocked, resource-poor and religiously/culturally isolated) it’s had a combination of bad geography and simple bad luck.

    Anyway, if we wanted to play the mudslinging game, it can be legitimately argued that for over 2000 years, Egypt didn’t have a single native (i.e., ethnically Egyptian) dynasty or ruler since the Persians under Cambyses conquered it, some abortive Athenian-supported revolts during that period aside.

    Maybe its just because I come from a relatively small and highly dispersed ethnic group myself, but going for racial stuff in an interpersonal argument seems pretty stupid to me (unless you’re Indian).

    • Replies: @Yahya
    @Yevardian


    like Dmitri said, the only healthy way to treat online forums is as some trashy entertainment, or filling in occasional idle time at work.
     
    Who said i'm not being entertained by all this?


    pointing out throughout this entire thread
     
    No. I pointed it out once, then people started contradicting me; so I would present further evidence to prove my assertion. I, like many other people, don't enjoy losing an argument, so will carry on till i'm proven right.

    can’t you simply be content that a beautiful woman like Rania of Jordan (or whomever) is an Arab, without having to rhetorically ask if they could pass for a Spaniard, Bulgarian, etc?
     
    Lol, idiot. Where did I ever do that?

    As for Ireland, well, it’s a relatively isolated island whose main channel to the outside of world has always been another, much larger island. Like Armenia (landlocked, resource-poor and religiously/culturally isolated) it’s had a combination of bad geography and simple bad luck.
     
    As I mentioned previously, my intention is not to insult the Irish, but rather to belittle 'songbird' in the same way he attempted to belittle me; that is through the racial/ethnic route ("the magnificence of Egyptians" etc.) Notice how my initial assault of him was exclusively targeted towards his character and behavior. He brought in the racial/ethnic angle; so I indulged him.

    As for you; it's none of your business what I post. Funny how you wrote a whole comment criticizing the topic and content of my comments; when none if it was directed towards you, nor did I say anything towards you to provoke a negative reaction. But maybe you're just nit-picking type who likes to criticize others from the sidelines.

  895. @AP
    @Chairman Meow


    Thank you for posting pictures of very ugly Soviet buildings to prove the point.

    Most people with good taste would find the pictures that I posted rather beautiful. I got more too.
     
    You have already established that you have poor taste, by posting pictures of very ugly buildings.

    but at least they are luxurious and roomy in comparison

    Did you miss the box apartments that most people live in nowadays in New York that can’t even fit one person?
     
    New York is a huge city. Soviets were crammed into tiny places even in small cities.

    Also here is Seoul:
     
    Seoul has nearly 10 million people.

    Pripyat, population 49,000 before the evacuation:

    https://cdn.vox-cdn.com/thumbor/hzCCbvLSHXB91oQIyIE_4HmcLL0=/0x0:2100x1242/1200x0/filters:focal(0x0:2100x1242):no_upscale()/cdn.vox-cdn.com/uploads/chorus_asset/file/16325854/CHER_102_051418_LD_00120_1_.jpg

    In such a small place, Americans would be living in their own houses, with rooms for everyone.

    You posted a photo of some homeless encampment. Congratulations, Soviet middle classes lived the dame (materially) as poor American blacks in housing projects, but not quite as bad as homeless junkies.

    Good job posting buildings that haven’t been maintained for decades as “proof” of anything.
     
    Too bad Soviets didn't maintain them for decades. They looked like that when I visited the USSR in 1990.

    Most countries aren’t obsessed with Urban Sprawl and cars like America is. Ironically, this leads to increased obesity rates in the US vs everywhere else.
     
    People with no homes in the jungle are probably also healthy. So?

    No Europeans did that to their own people in the 20th or 19th centuries

    So mass murdering other people in other places is okay?
     
    None said it was. Don't change the subject. Soviets treated their own people in the 20th century, like 19th century Europeans at their worst treated colonial subjects.


    Besides “9 million” is a cold war CIA meme LOL.
     
    No, it's perhaps a third of Cold War claims.

    Replies: @Chairman Meow, @LatW

    Soviet middle classes lived the same (materially) as poor American blacks in housing projects

    I’m not sure about this one, while those anthill type of apartment buildings are very far from ideal, the people who lived there were actually less materially constrained than the US blacks. They had access to sports and recreational facilities that blacks don’t, cheap theater (ofc, the content could be an issue but not always), many had those outside garden plots next to these anthills, there was general tidiness. These buildings are now over 30 years old and they have outlived their use.

    Besides, I don’t know a 100% about Russia and Ukraine but in the Baltic States not everyone lived in the anthills. Also, our anthills weren’t as high, they were just 3-5 floors typically. There are pre-Soviet buildings in the city, many detached homes outside of the center and further away from the city. Traditional country properties were even better in some ways (very underrated, as I now realize). The Russians had dachas, didn’t they?

    There’s a special kind of a feel of desperation that comes with black housing projects, that just wasn’t there with the Soviet anthills. Although some of the Russian ones do look scary.

    I’d say if you want to compare that way, you can probably compare to affordable or Section 8 housing where disabled or low class whites live (although some underclass whites live like swine now). I’d say it could compare to a disabled white lady that lives on welfare in her little condo with flowers on the patio keeping everything tidy, that would probably compare better to a Soviet teacher living in a Khrushchovka. But, yea, in many ways it’s nothing to write home about. It’s just that urbanization was very intense in Russia, big waves of urbanization must have hit in the 70s, in fact, it’s continuing even now.

    • Replies: @AP
    @LatW


    I’m not sure about this one, while those anthill type of apartment buildings are very far from ideal, the people who lived there were actually less materially constrained than the US blacks.
     
    First, we are discussing a subset of Blacks who are very poor. I doubt they are as materially constrained as middle class Soviets. They probably haver nicer televisions and radios, and are more likely to own cars (and the ones they own, old American or Japanese ones, far superior).

    They had access to sports and recreational facilities that blacks don’t
     
    Cities in the USA are rather generous with public pools, so I don't think this is accurate.

    cheap theater (ofc, the content could be an issue but not always),
     
    True.

    there was general tidiness
     
    Yes, but that's cultural not material. Obviously a bunch of middle class people living in housing--project style squalor will will still live different lives than lumpens in the same sort of spaces.

    Also, our anthills weren’t as high, they were just 3-5 floors typically.
     
    So are many housing projects, that aren't in huge cities like New York or Chicago.

    Here is a housing project in Buffalo:

    https://dynaimage.cdn.cnn.com/cnn/c_fill,g_auto,w_1200,h_675,ar_16:9/https%3A%2F%2Fcdn.cnn.com%2Fcnnnext%2Fdam%2Fassets%2F210709135752-buffalo-three-year-old-shot.jpg

    It is very green. The poor people living here probably enjoy barbecues in summer. A Soviet schoolteacher or engineer would not live in a place better than this, with kids and perhaps parents.

    Replies: @LatW

    , @Svidomyatheart
    @LatW

    Latw, American blacks are probably the most privileged race on earth aside from Jews in the Western hemisphere.

    How can one compare housing projects with all modern amneties and more to a humble Khrushchevka where some of them didn't have running water or a toilet and instead they were public and outside(outhouses) and where you had a family of 5-6 cramped into 1-2 rooms.

    It may have been a little different in the Baltics and places like Poland where Russians tried to offer you guys small tokens and trinkets in the form of slightly more gibs, living conditions and some slightly better goods just to get you guys to be more complacent(USSR was an affirmative action empire after all)

    And that was all the while still deporting you guys and throwing dissidents in jail. Weird Russian logic in action: we like you guys but we also toss your sane people into jail...


    Recently on their forums I was reading Russians talking about how they tried to treat you guys with "kid gloves" at least in the Russian sense/the Russian version of it and it produced no results. Poland too before 1863 revolt, after ww2, etc.


    There was general tidyness was there because there was nothing else or better to do you didn't have the material goods or money to blow on them where one can buy any x gadget or item you just had nothing but could stare at bare empty walls.

    My mom still gets triggered when something like buying a pair of underwear!! was like a holiday that you did twice a year. She still remembers where you had international sportsmen where they were boasting about how they bought a new pair of clothes on TV in an interview. These were renowned international people talking about something as a trivial as buying clothes..ugh swooping so low and it sounds so cringe if you think about it.

    I know empty materialism produces no results but this complete poverty is just awful there should be a medium between the 2

    Also I have like a 700 word response to your open thread 171 comment bout the war( a much more serious response, war is imminent ) but i dont know if i should post it now or wait for a open thread 173 because this one is probably going to be closed soon as its reaching almost 1000 comments.

    Replies: @LatW

  896. @Yevardian
    @Yahya

    Lol, I think you're definitely taking this much too seriously, like Dmitri said, the only healthy way to treat online forums is as some trashy entertainment, or filling in occasional idle time at work.

    But anyway, you've been almost obsessively pointing out throughout this entire thread how frequently Levantine self-described 'Arabs' are indistinguishable from Southern European "whites", as if this was somehow a matter of grave, grave importance. Honestly, it strikes me more of an inferiority complex than anything, can't you simply be content that a beautiful woman like Rania of Jordan (or whomever) is an Arab, without having to rhetorically ask if they could pass for a Spaniard, Bulgarian, etc?

    As for Ireland, well, it's a relatively isolated island whose main channel to the outside of world has always been another, much larger island. Like Armenia (landlocked, resource-poor and religiously/culturally isolated) it's had a combination of bad geography and simple bad luck.

    Anyway, if we wanted to play the mudslinging game, it can be legitimately argued that for over 2000 years, Egypt didn't have a single native (i.e., ethnically Egyptian) dynasty or ruler since the Persians under Cambyses conquered it, some abortive Athenian-supported revolts during that period aside.

    Maybe its just because I come from a relatively small and highly dispersed ethnic group myself, but going for racial stuff in an interpersonal argument seems pretty stupid to me (unless you're Indian).

    Replies: @Yahya

    like Dmitri said, the only healthy way to treat online forums is as some trashy entertainment, or filling in occasional idle time at work.

    Who said i’m not being entertained by all this?

    [MORE]

    pointing out throughout this entire thread

    No. I pointed it out once, then people started contradicting me; so I would present further evidence to prove my assertion. I, like many other people, don’t enjoy losing an argument, so will carry on till i’m proven right.

    can’t you simply be content that a beautiful woman like Rania of Jordan (or whomever) is an Arab, without having to rhetorically ask if they could pass for a Spaniard, Bulgarian, etc?

    Lol, idiot. Where did I ever do that?

    As for Ireland, well, it’s a relatively isolated island whose main channel to the outside of world has always been another, much larger island. Like Armenia (landlocked, resource-poor and religiously/culturally isolated) it’s had a combination of bad geography and simple bad luck.

    As I mentioned previously, my intention is not to insult the Irish, but rather to belittle ‘songbird’ in the same way he attempted to belittle me; that is through the racial/ethnic route (“the magnificence of Egyptians” etc.) Notice how my initial assault of him was exclusively targeted towards his character and behavior. He brought in the racial/ethnic angle; so I indulged him.

    As for you; it’s none of your business what I post. Funny how you wrote a whole comment criticizing the topic and content of my comments; when none if it was directed towards you, nor did I say anything towards you to provoke a negative reaction. But maybe you’re just nit-picking type who likes to criticize others from the sidelines.

  897. @German_reader

    This was in the context of the USSR being on the receiving end of a war of extermination, with the German lines having reached very, very near to the Caucasus, with Iran, Turkey and the Arab world all being cautiously sympathetic to Germany.
     
    The deportation happened in 1944, at a time when there was no risk of the Soviet Union losing the war, it can't be justified by any security considerations at all. Frankly, if you want to use that type of argument, you could argue with more justifcation that the Young Turks in WW1 were justified in deporting your people to the Syrian desert, after all they were fighting a war against powers that clearly wanted to dismember the Ottoman empire, and Turks had already been on the receiving end of massacres and ethnic cleansing in the Balkans (as had Circassians in the Caucasus at the hands of Tsarist Russia).
    And the deportations of entire peoples during the WW2 era were merely a continuation of policies that had already begun pre-war, namely the national operations in 1937/38, when there were outright acts of mass murder targeting people based on nothing but their ethnicity.
    But frankly, I'm not in the mood for long discussions about this. It's become clear to me long ago that all this pearl-clutching about historical atrocities is mostly fake anyway, it's not like people have any consistent moral standards.

    Replies: @Yevardian

    The deportation happened in 1944, at a time when there was no risk of the Soviet Union losing the war, it can’t be justified by any security considerations at all.

    Yes, well fair enough. I just felt the circumstances were rather different to (say) that of the Bengal famine, the extermination of the Herrero in German Namibia, or Leopold’s Congo (which were rather the exception rather than the rule in late European colonialism anyway).

    The deportation happened in 1944, at a time when there was no risk of the Soviet Union losing the war, it can’t be justified by any security considerations at all. Frankly, if you want to use that type of argument, you could argue with more justifcation that the Young Turks in WW1 were justified in deporting your people to the Syrian desert, after all they were fighting a war against powers that clearly wanted to dismember the Ottoman empire, and Turks had already been on the receiving end of massacres and ethnic cleansing in the Balkans (as had Circassians in the Caucasus at the hands of Tsarist Russia).

    Stalin was more than half-expecting The Allies to declare war on the USSR after they had finished with Germany and Japan, as they did seriously consider with “Operation Unthinkable”, so the extreme paranoia about any proven 5th column was understandable. Not that a blame the Chechens either for any lack of ‘loyalty’ to Russian rule, given their history.
    In general, the Russian conquest to directly annex and rule the North Caucausus was a monumental mistake, buffered by the strongly the strongly pro-Russian Georgia and Armenia and split by the equally pro-Russian Ossetians it wasn’t even really necessary.

    Don’t want to make this into a ‘my genocide vs your genocide’ debate, but state-sponsored Turkish pogroms and massacres against the Armenians predate WWI by quite sometime, really starting with newly modernising/nationalist Sultan Abdul Hamid at the close of the 19th Century.
    Armenians sent in those deportations were fully intended to die, and most of them were killed on-route anyway. At least most Chechens actually survived the Kazakhstan ordeal.

    By the way, not apologising for it at all, I just don’t think its a close comparison.

    • Replies: @German_reader
    @Yevardian


    I just felt the circumstances were rather different to (say) that of the Bengal famine, the extermination of the Herrero in German Namibia, or Leopold’s Congo (which were rather the exception rather than the rule in late European colonialism anyway).
     
    Bengal famine wasn't intentional, I find it bizarre how this is more and more presented as if the British had deliberately decided to starve Bengalis to death just for racist reasons. To be sure, there are certainly many good reasons to criticize British rule over India, and some people in Britain may still have rather too self-congratulatory views of it ("We banned suttee and eliminated the thugs" etc.). But on the other hand, British scholars did a lot to research and recover Indian antiquities, in which they were much more interested than previous Muslim rulers had been. So when you point out the good the Soviets did for previously largely illiterate Central Asian peoples by creating literate cultures for them in their own languages, similar things could be said about the British in India. I'm pretty tired of Soviet apologists like "Chairman Meow" who denounce European colonialism all the time (what a brave thing to do in 2022!), yet deny the Soviet Union's many crimes.
    As for the Herrero, sure, it was certainly at the more extreme end of European colonialist violence and can be seen as genocidal. However, to be quite honest, I feel the prominence this act of mass killing is often accorded nowadays ("the first genocide of the 20th century") and the way it's represented ("the Kaiser's Holocaust", as if the Kaiser himself had given the orders to exterminate the Herrero, not the local commander) has more to do with creating a consistent anti-German narrative than with any sober analysis.

    Armenians sent in those deportations were fully intended to die, and most of them were killed on-route anyway. At least most Chechens actually survived the Kazakhstan ordeal.
     
    Well, one quarter of Chechens did die because of the deportation. But you're probably right that there was more of a genocidal intent behind what the Young Turks did to Armenians, and my intention wasn't to belittle the Armenian genocide. I just wanted to point out that the Young Turks too felt they had good reasons for what they did. So I don't find it all that convincing to argue that Stalin (a paranoid despot if ever there was one) was afraid of external attack and therefore had to remove 5th columns.

    Replies: @Coconuts

  898. @A123
    @Mr. Hack

    It is quite amazing what the White House and Fake Stream Media are pushing.

     
    https://i.imgur.com/rEz0swY.jpg
     

    Fortunately, no one is believing the lies coming from Not-The-President Biden. Will he render the DNC into a permanent minority party?

     
    https://cdn.creators.com/209/318151/318151_image.jpg
     

    PEACE 😇

    Replies: @Mr. Hack, @Yellowface Anon

    They will. When Trumpists like whom you want hold onto power tightly and keep on disenfranchising anyone to the left of the political spectrum.

    I’d rather see everyone outside of Independents quitting their seats. (Also all forms of Gerrymandering should stop)

  899. @Dmitry
    @AP




    squalid and poor relative to the capitalist

     

    For constituent countries, of the USSR, convergence in measures like GDP per capita and life expectancy,* was the closest to Western countries in the late 1960s (i.e. in Soviet times), than in any other time in modern history, before or after.
     
    much of Soviet GDP was captured by military industry and wasn’t reflected in day to day life.
     
    This was sign of (if temporary) economic strength, that there was enough productive capacity to build and operate the world's most powerful army.

    Free market capitalist countries on the other hand had no such ceiling and just saw ongoing vast improvemen..
    They were so poor that even the steep relative decline of the 1990s doesn’t look so steep compared to France because it is just a a series of very low numbers.

     

    This is what 50 years of economic stagnation looks like. But as you can see, the "capitalism under dictatorship" does not regain the former level. Economic problems of this region, are a little deeper than whether you encourage nominally capitalism or not. Vast ongoing improvement are usually only in the capitalist countries with stable legal systems, etc.



    Like a Ford or Toyota versus a Zhiguli? LOL.
     
    Almost, but Ford should be on the other side sharing the disjunction with Zhiguli.
    “Like a Toyota versus a Ford or Zhiguli? LOL.”
     
    Nonsense. Ford is much closer to Toyota than to a Lada, which is in the same category as Yugo
     
    I'm aware a lot of Ford automobiles were (before 1980) very aesthetically cool, so you won't surprise me with photos. I wouldn't be complaining, if people added posters of classic American cars on my walls.

    Especially before the 1973 oil crisis, American cars in general have beautiful aesthetics.

    In terms of other aspects like reliability, we know how they were easily defeated by the Japanese automobiles, which will not sound so different in the history books, to Soviet automobiles being defeated by Japanese and European ones.

    If you have time to waste, I recommend listening on YouTube to Sandy Munro when he discusses this topic.

    -

    And it doesn't seem like Ford recovered so much in these areas, even 40 years later. Look in the latest article by Forbes. (Although it is strange to see German manufacturers, or Tesla, so low in their survey.)

    https://thumbor.forbes.com/thumbor/fit-in/960x/filters:format(jpg)/https://www.forbes.com/wheels/wp-content/uploads/2021/11/Consumer_Reports_2021_Auto_Reliability.png

    https://www.forbes.com/wheels/news/consumer-reports-reliability-study/

    Replies: @AP

    And it doesn’t seem like Ford recovered so much in these areas, even 40 years later. Look in the latest article by Forbes. (Although it is strange to see German manufacturers, or Tesla, so low in their survey.)

    German cars always had a reputation as being as bad as American ones from from the perspective of reliability, so there is nothing surprising about that. At least since the 1980s.

    German cars were more luxurious and/or fun to drive than American ones, but no more reliable. Japanese cars were more reliable than both American and German cars.

    Actual Soviet cars weren’t sold in the USA, only Yugos were. Yugos were several levels worse (less reliable, more terrible, etc.) than American cars.

  900. @Dmitry
    @Chairman Meow


    Soviets expanded on Tsarist era beauty
     
    Russian Empire and Soviet Union, were similar, to say something very obvious about the same country. They mostly change the management, change some packaging. It is still the same country. I think foreigners sometimes are getting more obsessed by this.

    There was a lot of excitement about the "rebranding project" by the new government, which has exploited gullibility of kindly foreigners' hopes and aspirations. But there was sadly not a real socialist revolution that answers our millenarian dreams of happiness and world peace, just an exploitation of those hopes in rhetoric.

    Positive achievements of the Russian Empire were accelerated, like the elite culture, classical music training, railways and beginning of industrialization and science.

    Negative aspects of the Russian Empire were, also accelerated, like secret police, going to labor camp in Siberia, censorship and imperialism.

    I would agree that by the middle of the 20th century, the USSR seems like it is going to exceed the predicted trajectory, and really to defeat flaws of the Russian Empire, such as the vast inequality and low standards of living of the population, or disorganized military power.

    But look at the long term result. It's almost as if was never dreamed, and the situation of equality and normal peoples' rights in postsoviet sphere is probably showing less progress than even pessimistic people of the 19th century would predict.



    (who lived in material conditions similar to those of dirt poor American blacks).
     
    Nonesense. Most of the world does not care for the same things that americans care about, so claiming that they lived in the same material conditions as blacks makes no sense.
     
    Well, I don't understand this part of AP's argument. That's a bad indication for American society, if many African Americans are given housing which is equivalent of a much lower income, recently industrialized country.

    After these pre-fabricated houses constructed from Khrushchev's time, were one of the most successful aspects of Soviet history.

    Even if you don't like their visual appearance, they solved a severe housing crisis, and provided tens of millions of citizens with an unprecedented (for centuries) level of comfort. I mean I'm just writing what is a standard observations of historians or journalists.

    Replies: @AP

    Well, I don’t understand this part of AP’s argument. That’s a bad indication for American society, if many African Americans are given housing which is equivalent of a much lower income, recently industrialized country.

    Most blacks in America don’t live in housing projects but in normal houses that are far more luxurious than anything the Soviet middle class could dream of. But the poorest ones, given free housing by the government, enjoyed material conditions similar to that of the Soviet middle class.

    After these pre-fabricated houses constructed from Khrushchev’s time, were one of the most successful aspects of Soviet history.

    Well sure, before that many Soviets lived in communal apartments or even barracks(!!).

    • Replies: @Chairman Meow
    @AP


    Most blacks in America don’t live in housing projects but in normal houses that are far more luxurious than anything the Soviet middle class could dream of
     
    I don't understand why you are so dense.

    I showed you similar living conditions in Seoul (and throughout Korea in general even in less populouus cities its the same) where people live in Soviet style panel housing. And yet you don't make the argument that "blacks live in more luxrious housing than South Koreans" LOL. This just tells me your "argument" is pure nonesense.

    Besides even in modern Russia, people continue to live in newly constructed panel housing. Guess Capitalism didn't improve much eh.


    Well sure, before that many Soviets lived in communal apartments or even barracks(!!).
     
    Somehow providing affordable housing for the entire population of the USSR after massive destruction and displacement is a bad thing.

    They most certainly didn't have 100, 000 homeless populations like LA LOL with people living in tents

    Replies: @AP

  901. @Yahya
    @songbird

    Alright, you Celtic sack of sh*t. Get this through your thick head: there is more accomplishment in the tiny plot of sand surrounding the Great Pyramid of Giza than there is in the entire landmass of Ireland. Your people are a historical non-entity. For 85% of recorded history, nothing but a bunch of primitive savages - only a smidge more advanced than the black African. Insofar as you've made any advancements, it's on the back of your Anglo masters. I know this is tough for you to understand - after all, that beating the blacks gave you probably did a good number on your already minimal brain cells. But do try to read some history and gain some perspective on how insignificant your ancestors were.

    I hesitate to trash on the Irish in such a manner; some of my favorite childhood teachers were Irish. But unfortunately for the Irish, your obnoxious, imbecilic person was sadly spawned out of Celtic stock, so they will have to receive a thrashing on your behalf.


    Euros for their accomplishments,
     
    Tallest man-made structure for 3,800 years:


    https://i.natgeofe.com/n/535f3cba-f8bb-4df2-b0c5-aaca16e9ff31/giza-plateau-pyramids_16x9.jpg


    A pile of rocks surrounding a small heap of earth:


    https://images.squarespace-cdn.com/content/v1/5bdc2b4c4cde7a7610149c8f/1575670355198-7WTY4OFB6UNMIUUFTATC/newgrange.jpg


    Most historically consequential group of people (Middle Eastern Semites):


    http://blog.adw.org/wp-content/uploads/2013/05/Feature-052713.jpg


    Least historically consequential group of people (Celtic Drunkards):


    https://img.rasset.ie/0013dd66-1600.jpg


    I suppose that's why the Medieval Irish - like the Afrocentrists of today - tried to write Egypt into their genealogy ("we wuz kangz!"). After all, unaccomplished people almost always try to appropriate other people's histories.


    Alexander
     
    Ancient Greeks were an Eastern Mediterranean people - part of the Greco-Egyptian-Levantine cultural and economic oikumene of the times. They were also genetically composed mostly of Fertile Crescent Farmers - thus physically resembled their Middle Eastern co-racials moreso than say, the Celtic barbarians up North. In other words, they were not part of the same group as your savage ancestors up in Ireland.

    Replies: @Yevardian, @songbird

    Alright, you Celtic sack of sh*t. Get this through your thick head

    IMO, your trolling is poor. All Ad hominem and profane. What riposte can there be to four letter words, especially, of that nature? I read it as “low energy”, and it makes me feel “low energy” and disinclined to bother replying.

    Insult me all you want (if I cared I would have blocked you) but I ask you to spare the other commenters.

    Just this once, I will go through the motions, even if you hit me with low energy, but notice how I use the MORE tag:

    [MORE]

    it’s on the back of your Anglo masters.

    I don’t get how this is supposed to make me feel bad. That a larger country of closely related people conquered a smaller country, after several hundred years of trying, and nearly 200 years after the first historical record of them employing gunpowder, there. Moreover, the Normans are my ancestors too, and they would make the fiercest Arabs seem like Thai lady boys.

    Tallest man-made structure for 3,800 years

    Well, there is no reason you shouldn’t be proud of it. I think it is perfectly fair game for a nationalist to claim, and be proud of, in a postive way.

    But, when it is meant as a barb, as “You dumb Euros, take that!” It is also fair to ridicule it. Short answer is that it is geodeterminism: Egypt was a breadbasket. Easy soil to till and to irrigate. Multiple farming seasons. No harsh winters, so it had a high population. It also had ​a river that uniquely flowed one way, while the wind blew the other. And was protected from invasion (though not for long. Snap!) by its geography.

    I could do other takedowns of it but I will confine myself to this: do you really think that Egyptians, if you plopped them down in Northern Europe (and it was uninhabited) and if they had free food and housing, would have bothered building a great mass of limestone blocks in a climate with repeated freeze/thaw cycles? (I’d guess not). After all the first pyramids look to be in pretty bad shape, as it is.

    No doubt you could hit Northern Euros back with geodetermism against their modern accomplishments. Less malaria/ more river valleys /more grazing for animals. And that would be fair on a certain level, but not so much in 2022.

    A pile of rocks surrounding a small heap of earth:

    Well, it is older. And, if you can believe what they tell tourists, the oldest building in the world, still standing. But, anyway, it was built by EEF. (more your people than mine, according to you?) I don’t doubt that they were my ancestors, but only in a very small way. Anyway, I think they reconstructed the outside of it, for tourists?

    Least historically consequential group of people (Celtic Drunkards

    I think you would be surprised how influential drunken people are generally, and probably even in your case specific sense.

    I suppose that’s why the Medieval Irish – like the Afrocentrists of today – tried to write Egypt into their genealogy

    Well, there was a high level of cultural breakage as Christians destroyed a lot of things, so Christians had to make up for it, by making things up. (Maybe, they had their reasons, who knows what blood curling customs used to prevail? Some of the ones suggested are quite frankly odd, if true) But actually, medieval Irish pedigrees are still really long, even if you take that stuff out. It connects to our own ancient mythological figures. Of course, most of the names (but not all) have no meaning now, and few can even connect to them due to later destruction.

    But, honestly, though a lot of the pre-Christian stuff was destroyed, I’m not sure that there still wasn’t more cultural continuity in Ireland than in Egypt. The Irish language survived for a long time. Still spoken, though barely. There are pre-Christian Irish heroes whose names people have always recognized (though they may have been altered slightly). Can you say the same? It was common to give warriors the appellation Cú (hound) even into medieval times. That’s probably a tradition that goes back to the Pontiac Steppe, to the Yamnaya. (the Kóryos)

    Ancient Greeks were an Eastern Mediterranean people – part of the Greco-Egyptian-Levantine cultural and economic oikumene of the times. They were also genetically composed mostly of Fertile Crescent Farmers

    Eh, I honestly never heard a Greek whose family came from Greece claim North Africans or Arabs as kin. And I have known quite a few.

    • Replies: @LatW
    @songbird


    Well, it is older. And, if you can believe what they tell tourists, the oldest building in the world, still standing
     
    Is that Newgrange? When I was there, it left a great impression on me. Especially that there are three cultural layers there, one ancient (they don't know who it was), then druidic and then Christian.
    There is a room there with a window where you look through during Solstice and you can see the sun's rays fall a certain way. It's an amazing place.
  902. @Chairman Meow
    @AP


    You have already established that you have poor taste, by posting pictures of very ugly buildings.
     
    LOL no. We've established that you'd rather have people live here:

    https://imgur.com/Gx87gL9

    than here;

    https://i.imgur.com/EBGpAiW.jpeg

    or here:

    https://i.imgur.com/IViA2oA.jpeg

    https://i.imgur.com/7uT0QiR.jpeg

    Looks like you don't like nature and gardens and would rather have never ending urban sprawl


    Seoul has nearly 10 million people.
     
    And? They still live in 'ugly commie blocks' (according to you). Sounds like the rich Koreans copied the Soviets by building identical panel housing.

    Pripyat, population 49,000 before the evacuation
     
    Looks pretty

    In such a small place, Americans would be living in their own houses, with rooms for everyone.
     
    Or they'd be living in one room apartments you can't stand in like in New York because housing is too expensive.

    Or this (population of 70,000):

    https://i.redd.it/e57l4z4z1x051.jpg


    You posted a photo of some homeless encampment.
     
    I posted a photo of people in houses with their own rooms like you said.

    Too bad Soviets didn’t maintain them for decades.

     

    Yeah that's what 7 years of capitalism did.

    Modern Russia looks even worse LOL


    People with no homes in the jungle are probably also healthy. So?
     
    So that's why the US has a smaller life expetancy than Cuba.

    None said it was. Don’t change the subject. Soviets treated their own people in the 20th century, like 19th century Europeans at their worst treated colonial subjects.

     

    I'm not changing the subject. The Europeans where treating their colonies like this until after the 1940's (the Bengali famine was in 1943 caused by the British), and Italy was happily mass murdering its way through Ethiopia between 1935 and 1941 and France was having a grand time mass murdering in 1947 in Vietnam. So either you blame everyone for 'mass murder' at the time or blame no-one and its not an argument.

    No, it’s perhaps a third of Cold War claims.
     
    There was many different cold war claims ranging from 10 million to 100 million. The real number is around 2.3 million purged. Purged =/= killed as it includes those in the Gulags. Which is equivalent to current US prison population.

    Replies: @AP

    Looks like you don’t like nature and gardens and would rather have never ending urban sprawl

    In American suburbia people have their own private gardens.

    Seoul has nearly 10 million people.

    And? They still live in ‘ugly commie blocks’ (according to you). Sounds like the rich Koreans copied the Soviets by building identical panel housing.

    10 million people in which inhabitants are squeezed into small places is a function of population density. In a small city like Pripyat it is a function of poverty.

    Or this (population of 70,000)

    Looks mostly empty, the people have gotten larger places elsewhere.

    Meanwhile people were still living in this place in a city of 68,000:

    Too bad Soviets didn’t maintain them for decades.

    Yeah that’s what 7 years of capitalism did.

    And after 200 years of capitalism somehow American middle class lives much better.

    People with no homes in the jungle are probably also healthy. So?

    So that’s why the US has a smaller life expetancy than Cuba.

    They can’t afford to get fat and can’t drive in Cuba.

    None said it was. Don’t change the subject. Soviets treated their own people in the 20th century, like 19th century Europeans at their worst treated colonial subjects.

    I’m not changing the subject. The Europeans where treating their colonies like this

    Again, yes. Europeans treated their colonies like Soviets treated their own citizens.

    There was many different cold war claims ranging from 10 million to 100 million. The real number is around 2.3 million purged. Purged =/= killed as it includes those in the Gulags. Which is equivalent to current US prison population.

    You confirm that you believe in fairy tales. I will join German Reader in treating you as one treats someone who believes that they were abducted by aliens, or that the Holocaust didn’t happen.

    • Replies: @Chairman Meow
    @AP


    In American suburbia people have their own private gardens.
     
    And in USSR people had their own private gardens at their dachas. Whats your point

    10 million people in which inhabitants are squeezed into small places is a function of population density. In a small city like Pripyat it is a function of poverty.
     
    I just showed you shithole third world living conditions in New Jersey. What was present in Pripyat was infintely better, with easy access to parks, schools, grocery stores and living quarters.

    They can’t afford to get fat and can’t drive in Cuba.
     
    Which looks even worse for the USA that they have a lower life expectancy than Cuba.

    Again, yes. Europeans treated their colonies like Soviets treated their own citizens.
     
    Not really. Soviets treated their citizens much better because the Euros killed far more people, and much data on Soviet "mass murders" is falsified anyway.

    You confirm that you believe in fairy tales.
     
    you are the one believing in fairy tales thinking that 9 million people killed actually represents reality when Soviet population grew over the period you mention

    Sounds like I should be treating you as I treat most Anglos for being incredibly stupid.

    Replies: @AP

  903. @German_reader
    @LatW


    Although Bundeswehr is not all that small, right, something like 200K troops? Do you know what was the size of the troops in the Federative Republic of Germany during the Cold War? I have to look it up, probably a lot.
     
    Bundeswehr in the 1980s was around 500 000 men (and of course that's just for West Germany) with thousands of tanks, plus reservists in case of war. There's no comparison with the pathetic joke it is today. But as I wrote, Germany isn't alone in this. British army is now set to be reduced to just slightly over 70 000.

    Even if they could not recover the status quo ante, there are other things they could do to make Russia pay.
     
    If Russia invaded the Baltic states, that obviously would be a cause for war, and I would be in favour of any counter-measures against it (short of a nuclear first strike), because it would unequivocally make clear that Russian goals are about re-creating hegemony over all of Eastern Europe (which at the present point isn't clear imo). For various reasons I feel differently about the Ukraine issue, though a full-scale invasion of Ukraine certainly also would necessitate some response.
    But really, what irritates me about a lot of those discussions in Western societies is the fundamental unseriousness, the shitlibs who are for a hard line against Russia (sometimes with idiotic arguments like "Putin helped the butcher Assad and made Trump president") are the same people who are busy undermining all the foundations for a successful defence. Why the hell should any patriotic young man be willing to fight for Ukraine, while there's constant witch hunts in the army and security forces at home, and the only "national"goals are more rights for homos and endless immigration?

    Replies: @LatW, @utu

    Bundeswehr in the 1980s was around 500 000 men

    Nice. 🙂 Well, you may not need as many now, but it might be good for morale. Of course, if they dropped all the woke nonsense.

    it would unequivocally make clear that Russian goals are about re-creating hegemony over all of Eastern Europe (which at the present point isn’t clear imo).

    The so called “Historical Russia” does include the Baltic States (in the Russian imperialist mind), however, their ambitions mostly cover the Slavic nations. How far such a recreated “Slavic Empire” could project its influence in the modern world is hard to say. I’m also not sure how a “Russian hegemony” can even be recreated. The old Soviet hegemony was largely possible because of the local traitors who kept things in line. Also brutal force that mobilized local men (hundreds of thousands of troops), what EE, including Ukrainian, men will now learn Russian and join their army? I’m not sure they can pull that off, maybe in Belarus. They have very little direct control. Above all, it was a consequence of a big event, where they acquired territory that they had never historically owned / controlled before because they had help from the Anglos. Those Anglos that helped them back then, are now their enemies. I think their furthest goals are taking Belarus, parts of Ukraine and then possibly escalating somewhere else at a small spot to show that NATO doesn’t function in a real life war scenario. Ofc, keep their missiles everywhere, maybe put missiles on Svalbard.

    Some kind of a soft hegemony would be more possible if they built on their more attractive sides (culture, some kind of grandeur, etc) but that’s a very long shot now, especially given the aggression in Ukraine.

    [MORE]

    what irritates me about a lot of those discussions in Western societies is the fundamental unseriousness, the shitlibs who are for a hard line against Russia (sometimes with idiotic arguments like “Putin helped the butcher Assad and made Trump president”) are the same people who are busy undermining all the foundations for a successful defence. Why the hell should any patriotic young man be willing to fight for Ukraine, while there’s constant witch hunts in the army and security forces at home, and the only “national”goals are more rights for homos and endless immigration?

    I couldn’t agree with you more. And they keep attacking exactly those men who would be the first to rise to defend their respective homelands. The first to put themselves on the line and sacrifice themselves. And they want to remove them! That’s just stupid. They want a military on their terms but it doesn’t work that way.

  904. @AP
    @Chairman Meow


    Looks like you don’t like nature and gardens and would rather have never ending urban sprawl
     
    In American suburbia people have their own private gardens.

    Seoul has nearly 10 million people.

    And? They still live in ‘ugly commie blocks’ (according to you). Sounds like the rich Koreans copied the Soviets by building identical panel housing.
     
    10 million people in which inhabitants are squeezed into small places is a function of population density. In a small city like Pripyat it is a function of poverty.

    Or this (population of 70,000)
     
    Looks mostly empty, the people have gotten larger places elsewhere.

    Meanwhile people were still living in this place in a city of 68,000:

    https://www.kathmanduandbeyond.com/wp-content/uploads/2018/08/Karosta-Liepaja-Latvia.jpg

    Too bad Soviets didn’t maintain them for decades.

    Yeah that’s what 7 years of capitalism did.
     
    And after 200 years of capitalism somehow American middle class lives much better.

    People with no homes in the jungle are probably also healthy. So?

    So that’s why the US has a smaller life expetancy than Cuba.
     
    They can't afford to get fat and can't drive in Cuba.

    None said it was. Don’t change the subject. Soviets treated their own people in the 20th century, like 19th century Europeans at their worst treated colonial subjects.

    I’m not changing the subject. The Europeans where treating their colonies like this
     
    Again, yes. Europeans treated their colonies like Soviets treated their own citizens.

    There was many different cold war claims ranging from 10 million to 100 million. The real number is around 2.3 million purged. Purged =/= killed as it includes those in the Gulags. Which is equivalent to current US prison population.
     
    You confirm that you believe in fairy tales. I will join German Reader in treating you as one treats someone who believes that they were abducted by aliens, or that the Holocaust didn't happen.

    Replies: @Chairman Meow

    In American suburbia people have their own private gardens.

    And in USSR people had their own private gardens at their dachas. Whats your point

    10 million people in which inhabitants are squeezed into small places is a function of population density. In a small city like Pripyat it is a function of poverty.

    I just showed you shithole third world living conditions in New Jersey. What was present in Pripyat was infintely better, with easy access to parks, schools, grocery stores and living quarters.

    They can’t afford to get fat and can’t drive in Cuba.

    Which looks even worse for the USA that they have a lower life expectancy than Cuba.

    Again, yes. Europeans treated their colonies like Soviets treated their own citizens.

    Not really. Soviets treated their citizens much better because the Euros killed far more people, and much data on Soviet “mass murders” is falsified anyway.

    You confirm that you believe in fairy tales.

    you are the one believing in fairy tales thinking that 9 million people killed actually represents reality when Soviet population grew over the period you mention

    Sounds like I should be treating you as I treat most Anglos for being incredibly stupid.

    • Replies: @AP
    @Chairman Meow


    And in USSR people had their own private gardens at their dachas. Whats your point
     
    Soviet dachas were tiny (typically 600 square meters of land) far from the city and with only a hit or shack. And less than half of families even had one. American suburban lots are about double that size.

    ”They can’t afford to get fat and can’t drive in Cuba.”

    Which looks even worse for the USA that they have a lower life expectancy than Cuba
     
    Being rich can make one less healthy. But not necessarily. In 1980 life expectancy in the USSR was 67.03 years. In USA it was 73.61 years. Among African Americans in the USA it was 68.

    Not only did Soviets live poor lives, they lived short unhealthy ones.

    So under Soviets, not only did middle class people live materially like the poorest African Americans, they even lived shorter lives than African Americans.

    (this is why immigrants from former Soviet countries have trouble taking BLM seriously: they have memories of living under worse material and physical conditions under Soviets, than do African Americans).
  905. @AP
    @Dmitry


    Well, I don’t understand this part of AP’s argument. That’s a bad indication for American society, if many African Americans are given housing which is equivalent of a much lower income, recently industrialized country.
     
    Most blacks in America don't live in housing projects but in normal houses that are far more luxurious than anything the Soviet middle class could dream of. But the poorest ones, given free housing by the government, enjoyed material conditions similar to that of the Soviet middle class.

    After these pre-fabricated houses constructed from Khrushchev’s time, were one of the most successful aspects of Soviet history.
     
    Well sure, before that many Soviets lived in communal apartments or even barracks(!!).

    Replies: @Chairman Meow

    Most blacks in America don’t live in housing projects but in normal houses that are far more luxurious than anything the Soviet middle class could dream of

    I don’t understand why you are so dense.

    I showed you similar living conditions in Seoul (and throughout Korea in general even in less populouus cities its the same) where people live in Soviet style panel housing. And yet you don’t make the argument that “blacks live in more luxrious housing than South Koreans” LOL. This just tells me your “argument” is pure nonesense.

    Besides even in modern Russia, people continue to live in newly constructed panel housing. Guess Capitalism didn’t improve much eh.

    Well sure, before that many Soviets lived in communal apartments or even barracks(!!).

    Somehow providing affordable housing for the entire population of the USSR after massive destruction and displacement is a bad thing.

    They most certainly didn’t have 100, 000 homeless populations like LA LOL with people living in tents

    • Replies: @AP
    @Chairman Meow


    I showed you similar living conditions in Seoul (and throughout Korea in general even in less populouus cities its the same
     
    You showed high rises in a city of nearly 10 million people in order to try to demonstrate that there is nothing pathetic about 3 generations of Soviets in a small city being forced to live in a single small and crappy apartment. Of course you did not show quality of those South Korean high rises and amenities they have that Soviet boxes lacked, such as underground parking, gyms, perhaps even swimming pools.
  906. @Yahya
    @Dmitry


    I already replied to you with YouTube videos, which shows much more information than photos.
     
    Sure, Youtube videos seem to be more statistically rigorous, so to speak, than individual photos. But as you mentioned, they have their faults - time of day can affect lighting; time of year can affect skin exposure to the sun. Selecting Youtube videos also has it' sampling bias; how do we know which segment of society the youth parade comes from?

    Here's a video of Muslim Palestinians preforming a Levantine dabke. They look lighter than the Jaffa* paraders, both Muslim and Christian.

    https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=dg35ccIXMlM&ab_channel=BaladiCenter

    Why is that? Probably because of differences in sampling.

    *One of my best friend's grandparents were from Jaffa. They fled to Egypt during the conflict and have remained here ever since. I'm calling it Jaffa because that's what they call it.


    My impression from using this method, is that Palestinian Christians in this example, look like on average having more “lighter” (less Bedouin influence?) appearance than Palestinian Muslims.
     
    It's possible that Palestinian Christians are lighter, on average, than Palestinian Muslims. It's too tough to say - there's a lot of overlap i.e. plenty of Muslims are lighter than Christians and vice versa. My experience is that class, not religion, is the main determinant of skin tone in Palestine (and the Arab world at large). If you ever visit my childhood school in Egypt, which is mostly for upper class children, you'd think it somewhere in Southern Europe. If you go out a bit more to the middle class neighborhood; people start looking more Middle Eastern. In the poor areas, a hint of negroid will start becoming more detectable.

    Since Christians tend to be of higher socio-economic status than Muslims, it could mean they are lighter. But that is more of a function of class; rather than genes or religion.


    Many of them would look completely normal in Spain, but Spain’s population looks relatively Arabic already. But perhaps nobody would look so typical outside of the Southern Europe area.
     
    Yes, that's what i've been trying to get at for a few days now.

    Replies: @Dmitry

    You can see the Palestinian Christian youth movement parades in Jerusalem. They indeed seem to have a quite homogenous appearance.

    They look very similar to more neighbor countries like youth movement parades of Cypriots.

    Visually, it looks like they could be the same nationality as native Cypriot population, as the Christian Palestinians.

    It’s probably just the native appearance of many people in the region before the Islamic conquests.

    If you compare with comparison secular Jewish youth movements in Israel, look racially randomized. Because it is n a population being formed by religious derived extremely recent immigrants from all kinds of different latitudes.

    Palestinian Christians are lighter, on average, than Palestinian Muslims

    Well don’t Negev Bedouins look similar to Saudis.

    Although they also it seems will be happy to absorb other nationalities into their tribes.

    • Replies: @Dmitry
    @Dmitry


    don’t Negev Bedouins look similar to Saudis.

     

    Druze often seem to remind more of Greeks in their appearance? Even Arabic-speaking Muslim population in Israel, has some diversity, considering how different can look the populations from Druze to Bedouin.

    https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=nSD08oCWyiM

    https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=UmjOzMvGs0g
    https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=zFzKSgqrveQ

  907. @German_reader
    @Chairman Meow


    In 1901 alone 50,000 congolese died from African sleeping sickness.
     
    And then the Belgians put a stop to it.
    As for Chechens, it's estimated a quarter of them died due to the deportation between 1944-1948. Soviet aplogogists have no moral basis at all to condemn European colonialism, especially not its relatively humane mid-20th century form.
    Anyway, you are quite simply wrong about lots of issues and just engaging in the usual commie apologetics, not going to waste any time on that.

    Replies: @Chairman Meow, @Yevardian, @Chairman Meow

    especially not its relatively humane mid-20th century form.

    Humane Ethiopian massacres by Italy in 1935-36?

    Humane French massacres and mass rapes in 1947 in Vietnam?

    I think you need to read up on your history some

  908. @Thulean Friend
    @melanf


    Art should reach the viewer’s heart by itself and not through books. To draw bulls and horses (as an artist), you need to have something that Picasso did not have – the talent of an artist. Scandals, radical leftist views, etc. cannot replace talent
     
    As songbird pointed out, he did paint pretty well by age 15.

    https://upload.wikimedia.org/wikipedia/en/d/d6/Science_and_Charity_by_Picasso.jpg

    Picasso's regression tracked closely to the art world in general. A younger female in my social circle bought this tasteless pillow to me as a joke:

    https://i.imgur.com/W43cpCW.jpg

    She clearly understands that it's low class, fit for a joke, even if the motif is a work by Picasso. (I haven't worked up the courage to throw/give it away since she would be upset if she noticed it missing).

    So here a clear regression from someone who was obviously talented. We cannot explain this by lack of talent. Was it an individual matter? No, because since Picasso's time, art has degenerated and outright regressed further:

    https://i.imgur.com/SEgFi1l.jpg


    It's a systematic shift. Once such a shift occurs in a society, it produces incentives to create trash. Artists are no less corruptible than any of us, despite pretensions suggesting otherwise.

    Replies: @melanf

    As songbird pointed out, he did paint pretty well by age 15.

    Of course, Piсasso knew the technique of painting. But in order to create something great, in addition to technology, you also need talent – but Picasso did not have talent. He was an ordinary child prodigy who learned very early to create very ordinary paintings – and this was probably his limit. But Picasso succeeded as a “modern artist” – that is, the world-famous bubble with emptiness, which creates a cryptocurrency for tikons. Picasso’s paintings have as much artistic talent as Bitcoin
    The “salon” painters, like Alma-Tadema or Semiradsky, who were spat upon by criticism, as artists surpassed Picasso absolutely

    • Replies: @utu
    @melanf

    The whole discussion about Picasso is pointless. But you are correct that painters like Semiradsky, who are virtually unknown, were great. Also the 19th century orientalism in painting was great.

    https://upload.wikimedia.org/wikipedia/commons/7/7e/Chassériau_Esther_1841.jpg

    https://upload.wikimedia.org/wikipedia/commons/c/c9/Le_Bain_Turc%2C_by_Jean_Auguste_Dominique_Ingres%2C_from_C2RMF_retouched.jpg

    https://upload.wikimedia.org/wikipedia/commons/7/7f/Geromeslavemarket.jpg

    And there are so many more good paintings out there that I haven't been exposed to while undergoing art education because it was all about impressionism, expressionism, cubisms, surrealism and so on. While there are some good paintings that were created by impressionists and even by some abstract expressionists in general most of them are forgettable. It seems that the whole movement of modern paintings was a one big mistake. Now I feel like loathing impressionism when I think of it.

    But I have a great respect for Marcel Duchamp because he saw through it (he was the first who saw it) that on the conceptual level one can exhaust all possibilities pretty fast so he tried everything showing that he also can and then he came with 'Fountain' as the final statement one can make in art. Unfortunately he was mistaken by not taking the financial aspect into account and then he succumbed to money by making replicas of 'Fountain' years later. But he was right the first time.

    Replies: @German_reader

  909. @songbird
    @Yahya


    Alright, you Celtic sack of sh*t. Get this through your thick head
     
    IMO, your trolling is poor. All Ad hominem and profane. What riposte can there be to four letter words, especially, of that nature? I read it as "low energy", and it makes me feel "low energy" and disinclined to bother replying.

    Insult me all you want (if I cared I would have blocked you) but I ask you to spare the other commenters.

    Just this once, I will go through the motions, even if you hit me with low energy, but notice how I use the MORE tag:

    it’s on the back of your Anglo masters.
     
    I don't get how this is supposed to make me feel bad. That a larger country of closely related people conquered a smaller country, after several hundred years of trying, and nearly 200 years after the first historical record of them employing gunpowder, there. Moreover, the Normans are my ancestors too, and they would make the fiercest Arabs seem like Thai lady boys.

    Tallest man-made structure for 3,800 years
     
    Well, there is no reason you shouldn't be proud of it. I think it is perfectly fair game for a nationalist to claim, and be proud of, in a postive way.

    But, when it is meant as a barb, as "You dumb Euros, take that!" It is also fair to ridicule it. Short answer is that it is geodeterminism: Egypt was a breadbasket. Easy soil to till and to irrigate. Multiple farming seasons. No harsh winters, so it had a high population. It also had ​a river that uniquely flowed one way, while the wind blew the other. And was protected from invasion (though not for long. Snap!) by its geography.

    I could do other takedowns of it but I will confine myself to this: do you really think that Egyptians, if you plopped them down in Northern Europe (and it was uninhabited) and if they had free food and housing, would have bothered building a great mass of limestone blocks in a climate with repeated freeze/thaw cycles? (I'd guess not). After all the first pyramids look to be in pretty bad shape, as it is.

    No doubt you could hit Northern Euros back with geodetermism against their modern accomplishments. Less malaria/ more river valleys /more grazing for animals. And that would be fair on a certain level, but not so much in 2022.

    A pile of rocks surrounding a small heap of earth:
     
    Well, it is older. And, if you can believe what they tell tourists, the oldest building in the world, still standing. But, anyway, it was built by EEF. (more your people than mine, according to you?) I don't doubt that they were my ancestors, but only in a very small way. Anyway, I think they reconstructed the outside of it, for tourists?

    Least historically consequential group of people (Celtic Drunkards
     
    I think you would be surprised how influential drunken people are generally, and probably even in your case specific sense.

    I suppose that’s why the Medieval Irish – like the Afrocentrists of today – tried to write Egypt into their genealogy
     
    Well, there was a high level of cultural breakage as Christians destroyed a lot of things, so Christians had to make up for it, by making things up. (Maybe, they had their reasons, who knows what blood curling customs used to prevail? Some of the ones suggested are quite frankly odd, if true) But actually, medieval Irish pedigrees are still really long, even if you take that stuff out. It connects to our own ancient mythological figures. Of course, most of the names (but not all) have no meaning now, and few can even connect to them due to later destruction.

    But, honestly, though a lot of the pre-Christian stuff was destroyed, I'm not sure that there still wasn't more cultural continuity in Ireland than in Egypt. The Irish language survived for a long time. Still spoken, though barely. There are pre-Christian Irish heroes whose names people have always recognized (though they may have been altered slightly). Can you say the same? It was common to give warriors the appellation Cú (hound) even into medieval times. That's probably a tradition that goes back to the Pontiac Steppe, to the Yamnaya. (the Kóryos)

    Ancient Greeks were an Eastern Mediterranean people – part of the Greco-Egyptian-Levantine cultural and economic oikumene of the times. They were also genetically composed mostly of Fertile Crescent Farmers
     
    Eh, I honestly never heard a Greek whose family came from Greece claim North Africans or Arabs as kin. And I have known quite a few.

    Replies: @LatW

    Well, it is older. And, if you can believe what they tell tourists, the oldest building in the world, still standing

    Is that Newgrange? When I was there, it left a great impression on me. Especially that there are three cultural layers there, one ancient (they don’t know who it was), then druidic and then Christian.
    There is a room there with a window where you look through during Solstice and you can see the sun’s rays fall a certain way. It’s an amazing place.

    • Thanks: songbird
  910. @LatW
    @AP


    Soviet middle classes lived the same (materially) as poor American blacks in housing projects
     
    I'm not sure about this one, while those anthill type of apartment buildings are very far from ideal, the people who lived there were actually less materially constrained than the US blacks. They had access to sports and recreational facilities that blacks don't, cheap theater (ofc, the content could be an issue but not always), many had those outside garden plots next to these anthills, there was general tidiness. These buildings are now over 30 years old and they have outlived their use.

    Besides, I don't know a 100% about Russia and Ukraine but in the Baltic States not everyone lived in the anthills. Also, our anthills weren't as high, they were just 3-5 floors typically. There are pre-Soviet buildings in the city, many detached homes outside of the center and further away from the city. Traditional country properties were even better in some ways (very underrated, as I now realize). The Russians had dachas, didn't they?

    There's a special kind of a feel of desperation that comes with black housing projects, that just wasn't there with the Soviet anthills. Although some of the Russian ones do look scary.

    I'd say if you want to compare that way, you can probably compare to affordable or Section 8 housing where disabled or low class whites live (although some underclass whites live like swine now). I'd say it could compare to a disabled white lady that lives on welfare in her little condo with flowers on the patio keeping everything tidy, that would probably compare better to a Soviet teacher living in a Khrushchovka. But, yea, in many ways it's nothing to write home about. It's just that urbanization was very intense in Russia, big waves of urbanization must have hit in the 70s, in fact, it's continuing even now.

    Replies: @AP, @Svidomyatheart

    I’m not sure about this one, while those anthill type of apartment buildings are very far from ideal, the people who lived there were actually less materially constrained than the US blacks.

    First, we are discussing a subset of Blacks who are very poor. I doubt they are as materially constrained as middle class Soviets. They probably haver nicer televisions and radios, and are more likely to own cars (and the ones they own, old American or Japanese ones, far superior).

    They had access to sports and recreational facilities that blacks don’t

    Cities in the USA are rather generous with public pools, so I don’t think this is accurate.

    cheap theater (ofc, the content could be an issue but not always),

    True.

    there was general tidiness

    Yes, but that’s cultural not material. Obviously a bunch of middle class people living in housing–project style squalor will will still live different lives than lumpens in the same sort of spaces.

    Also, our anthills weren’t as high, they were just 3-5 floors typically.

    So are many housing projects, that aren’t in huge cities like New York or Chicago.

    Here is a housing project in Buffalo:

    It is very green. The poor people living here probably enjoy barbecues in summer. A Soviet schoolteacher or engineer would not live in a place better than this, with kids and perhaps parents.

    • Replies: @LatW
    @AP


    They probably haver nicer televisions and radios, and are more likely to own cars (and the ones they own, old American or Japanese ones, far superior).
     
    Well, electronics and cars were much better in the USA, of course (in the 70s, 80s). Although we had decent speakers. :)
  911. @Dmitry
    @Yahya

    You can see the Palestinian Christian youth movement parades in Jerusalem. They indeed seem to have a quite homogenous appearance.

    https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=RFwIm6Q5824

    They look very similar to more neighbor countries like youth movement parades of Cypriots.

    Visually, it looks like they could be the same nationality as native Cypriot population, as the Christian Palestinians.
    https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=oA4IuMwqlyo

    It's probably just the native appearance of many people in the region before the Islamic conquests.

    -

    If you compare with comparison secular Jewish youth movements in Israel, look racially randomized. Because it is n a population being formed by religious derived extremely recent immigrants from all kinds of different latitudes.

    https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=6nXUS70c7h4


    Palestinian Christians are lighter, on average, than Palestinian Muslims

     

    Well don't Negev Bedouins look similar to Saudis.

    Although they also it seems will be happy to absorb other nationalities into their tribes.

    https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=UgzGiaG3aBk

    Replies: @Dmitry

    don’t Negev Bedouins look similar to Saudis.

    Druze often seem to remind more of Greeks in their appearance? Even Arabic-speaking Muslim population in Israel, has some diversity, considering how different can look the populations from Druze to Bedouin.

    https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=zFzKSgqrveQ

  912. SWIFT sanctions are overrated IMO, Russia has done a lot of work de-risking their financial system over the past decade. In addition, gas prices are at record highs and Russia can hit Germany (and the EU) where it hurts the most without much effort.

    I continue to believe that the risk of an actual Russian invasion is very low, but Russia is now in a much better position to play hardball than it was during 2014, especially as oil prices are now rising whereas they were falling back then.

    The grievances Russia have are not new. What’s new is their ability to withstand pushback from the West, which is arguably better than in many decades. Hence this crisis.

    • Agree: LondonBob
  913. It’s pretty amazing to me how obsessed people on this blog are over appearances. A bit amusing, even. Judge a people by the fruits of their labour, not the shapes of their noses or the tone of their skins.

    • Replies: @Dmitry
    @Thulean Friend

    I would agree peoples' appearance is not too interesting in modern countries like America, as we know it is mostly population descended from immigrant mongrels from Europe (or kidnapping victims from West Africa), without too many historical mysteries.

    But discussion of appearance of the people in the Middle East or Caucasus is interesting, as you try to imagine in peoples' faces, ancient movements of the populations and the changeover of the religions.

    Anything in Mediterranean culture (especially Eastern Mediterranean), also is a little magical, as it touches to the biblical and classical texts.

    Palestinian Christians and Druze are reminding visually of Greeks. You can guess that the historical Biblical characters, would not be too distinct from the appearance of modern Greeks.

    Bedouins look more like Saudis. Of course, postzionist Jewish population of the region are a randomized mix of races, as they are recent immigrants from many different races there - but as we notice in the Israel-Arab conflict, the Zionist mix of ideology, language and religion, can be more effective for statebuilding than a blood connection would be.

    Replies: @Yahya

    , @LatW
    @Thulean Friend

    You're right, we're a bit too "lookist". A person's real value is their soul, not how they look.

    It's just that Yahya tried to blur the lines too much.

  914. @AP
    @LatW


    I’m not sure about this one, while those anthill type of apartment buildings are very far from ideal, the people who lived there were actually less materially constrained than the US blacks.
     
    First, we are discussing a subset of Blacks who are very poor. I doubt they are as materially constrained as middle class Soviets. They probably haver nicer televisions and radios, and are more likely to own cars (and the ones they own, old American or Japanese ones, far superior).

    They had access to sports and recreational facilities that blacks don’t
     
    Cities in the USA are rather generous with public pools, so I don't think this is accurate.

    cheap theater (ofc, the content could be an issue but not always),
     
    True.

    there was general tidiness
     
    Yes, but that's cultural not material. Obviously a bunch of middle class people living in housing--project style squalor will will still live different lives than lumpens in the same sort of spaces.

    Also, our anthills weren’t as high, they were just 3-5 floors typically.
     
    So are many housing projects, that aren't in huge cities like New York or Chicago.

    Here is a housing project in Buffalo:

    https://dynaimage.cdn.cnn.com/cnn/c_fill,g_auto,w_1200,h_675,ar_16:9/https%3A%2F%2Fcdn.cnn.com%2Fcnnnext%2Fdam%2Fassets%2F210709135752-buffalo-three-year-old-shot.jpg

    It is very green. The poor people living here probably enjoy barbecues in summer. A Soviet schoolteacher or engineer would not live in a place better than this, with kids and perhaps parents.

    Replies: @LatW

    They probably haver nicer televisions and radios, and are more likely to own cars (and the ones they own, old American or Japanese ones, far superior).

    Well, electronics and cars were much better in the USA, of course (in the 70s, 80s). Although we had decent speakers. 🙂

  915. @utu
    @Yahya

    How Europeans who are against immigration from ME and Africa should talk and make their case that would not hurt your feelings somewhere there in Egypt? But the case must be made that Europe should no longer accept ME and African immigrants. I am writing this believing that you too want to stop emigrations of your countrymen. Let's make a deal: you stop coming and we promise you won't hear a single bad word about Arabs and Muslims from us.

    Replies: @Yahya, @Dmitry, @Svidomyatheart

    You are lashing out at rank and file muslims meanwhile, the elephant in the room is this:

    In just the last 2 weeks since 2022 you have 2 cases of Europe massively supporting Muslims once again

    case 1

    https://www.rferl.org/a/eu-balkans-bosnia-serbs-dodik-/31648435.html

    Case 2

    https://www.euractiv.com/section/energy/news/greece-fumes-as-washington-loses-interest-in-eastmed-gas-pipeline/

    Something must be very serious if Israel’s needs were overridden. Or maybe US and Israel working together on something secret who knows….the bottom line remains is that Europe is saving the Turks for the 1000th time.

    • Replies: @utu
    @Svidomyatheart

    "You are lashing out at rank and file muslims " - I do not.

    , @A123
    @Svidomyatheart

    Not everything is about Israel. The U.S. has an illegitimate coup leadership and Europe has elevated incompetence to unprecedented levels of authority.


    Case 2 -- https://www.euractiv.com/section/energy/news/greece-fumes-as-washington-loses-interest-in-eastmed-gas-pipeline/

     

    Not-The-President Biden's regime has the same hydrocarbophobia as Scholz in Germany. Biden hates cheap energy at home, and he hates cheap energy abroad. It is hard to find more context than the core SJW/DNC message of science denial.

    Greece, Cyprus, and Italy all continue to support EastMed. Three years of opposition from an illegitimate White House, while unwelcome, is a very limited impediment.


    Europe is saving the Turks for the 1000th time.
     
    Europe keeps bribing Turkey to limit refugee flows. Given Erdogan's weakness in this regard, the policy is quite flawed. However as I, and many others, have pointed out, the EU is a dysfunctional institution. They seem to be stuck with this position. There is no consensus to replace it were with one that could work.

    Another issue is Turkey's NATO membership. Any NATO use of force in Ukraine would require significant cooperation from Erdogan.

    PEACE 😇

  916. @Thulean Friend
    It's pretty amazing to me how obsessed people on this blog are over appearances. A bit amusing, even. Judge a people by the fruits of their labour, not the shapes of their noses or the tone of their skins.

    Replies: @Dmitry, @LatW

    I would agree peoples’ appearance is not too interesting in modern countries like America, as we know it is mostly population descended from immigrant mongrels from Europe (or kidnapping victims from West Africa), without too many historical mysteries.

    But discussion of appearance of the people in the Middle East or Caucasus is interesting, as you try to imagine in peoples’ faces, ancient movements of the populations and the changeover of the religions.

    Anything in Mediterranean culture (especially Eastern Mediterranean), also is a little magical, as it touches to the biblical and classical texts.

    Palestinian Christians and Druze are reminding visually of Greeks. You can guess that the historical Biblical characters, would not be too distinct from the appearance of modern Greeks.

    Bedouins look more like Saudis. Of course, postzionist Jewish population of the region are a randomized mix of races, as they are recent immigrants from many different races there – but as we notice in the Israel-Arab conflict, the Zionist mix of ideology, language and religion, can be more effective for statebuilding than a blood connection would be.

    • Replies: @Yahya
    @Dmitry


    I would agree peoples’ appearance is not too interesting in modern countries like America, as we know it is mostly population descended from immigrant mongrels from Europe (or kidnapping victims from West Africa), without too many historical mysteries.

    But discussion of appearance of the people in the Middle East or Caucasus is interesting, as you try to imagine in peoples’ faces, ancient movements of the populations and the changeover of the religions.
     

    Yes, some us enjoy discussing phenotypes; just as others may enjoy discussing art, music or architecture. After all, the human form is just as aesthetically pleasing as any collage painted by Picasso, music composed by Mozart, or architecture designed by Zaha Hadid.

    I think you're right, Dmitry, most people here are from boring parts of the world; where people look bland and generic. Perhaps that is why they are not interested in phenotypic discussions. As for the Aussie brigade around these parts, well Australia is famously lacking in any interesting culture or history; so perhaps it's inevitable they would not partake in discussions which are more of interest to people from ancient cultures and histories.


    Druze often seem to remind more of Greeks in their appearance? Even Arabic-speaking Muslim population in Israel, has some diversity, considering how different can look the populations from Druze to Bedouin.
     
    The beautiful lady in the first video looks Ashkenazim. Are you sure she's Druze?

    Druze do have a somewhat Greek look to them. One eminent figure in Arabic music is an elegant Druze lady who went by the name Asmahan. Her life story is the stuff of movies; born to a Syrian Druze father and a Lebanese Druze mother; her aristocratic family were prominent in the fight against the French occupation of Syria. They then fled to Egypt under the sponsorship of Egyptian nationalist leader Saad Zaghloul; who was friends with her father, as he had been a prominent Ottoman governor during the last days of the Empire. During World War 2, she was recruited by the French and British intelligence services to urge Druze fighters not to resist French occupation for the duration of the war. The Gestapo murdered her for her role in helping the British and French.

    https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=85NKWF1mFYA&ab_channel=sabinelol

    Asmahan also has a Greek-like appearance, though her phenotype can also be found in abundance among the predominantly Muslim Syrian upper class. Again, class not religion is the main determinant of phenotypic appearance in the Arab world.

    Replies: @silviosilver, @Dmitry

  917. @German_reader
    @LatW


    Although Bundeswehr is not all that small, right, something like 200K troops? Do you know what was the size of the troops in the Federative Republic of Germany during the Cold War? I have to look it up, probably a lot.
     
    Bundeswehr in the 1980s was around 500 000 men (and of course that's just for West Germany) with thousands of tanks, plus reservists in case of war. There's no comparison with the pathetic joke it is today. But as I wrote, Germany isn't alone in this. British army is now set to be reduced to just slightly over 70 000.

    Even if they could not recover the status quo ante, there are other things they could do to make Russia pay.
     
    If Russia invaded the Baltic states, that obviously would be a cause for war, and I would be in favour of any counter-measures against it (short of a nuclear first strike), because it would unequivocally make clear that Russian goals are about re-creating hegemony over all of Eastern Europe (which at the present point isn't clear imo). For various reasons I feel differently about the Ukraine issue, though a full-scale invasion of Ukraine certainly also would necessitate some response.
    But really, what irritates me about a lot of those discussions in Western societies is the fundamental unseriousness, the shitlibs who are for a hard line against Russia (sometimes with idiotic arguments like "Putin helped the butcher Assad and made Trump president") are the same people who are busy undermining all the foundations for a successful defence. Why the hell should any patriotic young man be willing to fight for Ukraine, while there's constant witch hunts in the army and security forces at home, and the only "national"goals are more rights for homos and endless immigration?

    Replies: @LatW, @utu

    “For various reasons I feel differently about the Ukraine issue” – We know you GR.

    https://ukdefencejournal.org.uk/british-aircraft-avoid-germany-on-ukraine-weapon-supply-run/
    Two British C-17 transport aircraft carrying weapons to Ukraine were forced to fly around German airspace after Germany refused to supply defensive weapons to Ukraine.

    • Replies: @German_reader
    @utu

    Yeah, sure, because I'm a German government official making such decisions, right. And in my previous comments I already stated that I'm coming around to the view it would be better to send arms shipments to Ukraine for deterrence (I emphasize for deterrence - I'm not keen on Ukraine then shelling Donbass, so Russian media can go on how the "Banderites" are killing innocent Russian civilians with Western weapons). I don't want Ukraine to be invaded by Russia. But the issues aren't as black and white as you paint them, and calling me an appeaser, Putin puppet etc. is really low-effort.
    Are you only here now for insulting other commenters btw? You've always come across like somewhat of a cantankerous old man, but recently you seem to have turned into a caricature of yourself.

    Replies: @songbird

  918. @Svidomyatheart
    @utu

    You are lashing out at rank and file muslims meanwhile, the elephant in the room is this:

    In just the last 2 weeks since 2022 you have 2 cases of Europe massively supporting Muslims once again

    case 1

    https://www.rferl.org/a/eu-balkans-bosnia-serbs-dodik-/31648435.html

    Case 2

    https://www.euractiv.com/section/energy/news/greece-fumes-as-washington-loses-interest-in-eastmed-gas-pipeline/

    Something must be very serious if Israel's needs were overridden. Or maybe US and Israel working together on something secret who knows....the bottom line remains is that Europe is saving the Turks for the 1000th time.

    Replies: @utu, @A123

    “You are lashing out at rank and file muslims ” – I do not.

  919. @Thulean Friend
    It's pretty amazing to me how obsessed people on this blog are over appearances. A bit amusing, even. Judge a people by the fruits of their labour, not the shapes of their noses or the tone of their skins.

    Replies: @Dmitry, @LatW

    You’re right, we’re a bit too “lookist”. A person’s real value is their soul, not how they look.

    It’s just that Yahya tried to blur the lines too much.

  920. https://graymirror.substack.com/p/a-new-foreign-policy-for-europe

    Moldbug post on Ukraine, to get away from the what is she topic. Only relevant q is wb or wnb.

  921. ?

    • Replies: @songbird
    @Dmitry

    Seems like pretty rational geopolitics.

    It is not difficult to fly around Germany, so you don't make anyone too mad.

    And what does Germany have to gain by pissing off Russia? Even Stalin and Beria, both extreme psychopaths, wanted to withdraw from East Germany.

    The Nordstream 2 stuff seems pretty crazy though. Easy to see that as simple toadying, not in the national interest.

    Replies: @Dmitry

  922. @melanf
    @Thulean Friend


    As songbird pointed out, he did paint pretty well by age 15.
     
    Of course, Piсasso knew the technique of painting. But in order to create something great, in addition to technology, you also need talent - but Picasso did not have talent. He was an ordinary child prodigy who learned very early to create very ordinary paintings - and this was probably his limit. But Picasso succeeded as a "modern artist" - that is, the world-famous bubble with emptiness, which creates a cryptocurrency for tikons. Picasso's paintings have as much artistic talent as Bitcoin
    The "salon" painters, like Alma-Tadema or Semiradsky, who were spat upon by criticism, as artists surpassed Picasso absolutely

    https://img4.goodfon.ru/original/1920x1408/5/ca/lawrence-alma-tadema-lourens-alma-tadema-provozglashenie-kla.jpg


    https://upload.wikimedia.org/wikipedia/commons/d/d2/Genrich_Ippolitovich_Semiradsky_-_Roma%2C_1882.jpg

    Replies: @utu

    The whole discussion about Picasso is pointless. But you are correct that painters like Semiradsky, who are virtually unknown, were great. Also the 19th century orientalism in painting was great.

    And there are so many more good paintings out there that I haven’t been exposed to while undergoing art education because it was all about impressionism, expressionism, cubisms, surrealism and so on. While there are some good paintings that were created by impressionists and even by some abstract expressionists in general most of them are forgettable. It seems that the whole movement of modern paintings was a one big mistake. Now I feel like loathing impressionism when I think of it.

    But I have a great respect for Marcel Duchamp because he saw through it (he was the first who saw it) that on the conceptual level one can exhaust all possibilities pretty fast so he tried everything showing that he also can and then he came with ‘Fountain’ as the final statement one can make in art. Unfortunately he was mistaken by not taking the financial aspect into account and then he succumbed to money by making replicas of ‘Fountain’ years later. But he was right the first time.

    • Replies: @German_reader
    @utu


    Also the 19th century orientalism in painting was great.
     
    That's basically just soft porn, catering to fantasies about sex slavery. Not much artistic merit here.
  923. @Mikhail
    @sudden death


    @Mikhail

    … just after he signed an internationally brokered power sharing agreement.

    Which at the time even was refused to be acknowledged as mandatory and not signed by RF itself, which somehow started to making most fuss about it, while not being a supporter or official participator
     

    The RF oversaw it, while not rejecting the agreement. Shortly after the signing, Sikorski lauded the Russian manner on it. Where do you get this "which at the time even was refused to be acknowledged as mandatory... "?

    Replies: @sudden death

    Where do you get this “which at the time even was refused to be acknowledged as mandatory… “?

    RF was the only side that officially refused to sign the agreement, and their own official envoy for that deal said quite clearly “…we decided we do not need to tie ourselves with formal agreements, mandatory signings…”

    Вот как конкретизировал мотивы неподписания Владимир Лукин. “Мы его не подписали. Мы решили, что не надо себя связывать какими-то формальными соглашениями, обязательствами и подписями, потому что были вопросы и проблемы, с каким субъектом переговоров мы будем иметь дело в ближайшее время, как будут развиваться события, кто будет отвечать за те решения, которые принимались, и кто за что отвечает вообще”, – сказал российский омбудсмен.

    https://www.1tv.ru/news/2014-02-21/52462-vladimir_lukin_ne_podpisal_soglashenie_mezhdu_vlastyu_i_oppozitsiey_na_ukraine

    • Replies: @Mikhail
    @sudden death

    So what. The bottom line is that Russia didn't oppose it, with France, Poland and Germany brokering a signed power sharing agreement between the then democratically elected Ukrainian president and the opposition to him.

    Replies: @sudden death

  924. @Thulean Friend
    @Yevardian

    What would a caucasoid like you know about any of this? The achievements of your "people" can be summed up on the back of a postage stamp.

    Replies: @silviosilver

    I understand that you were just trying to insult him rather than develop an argument, but it’s not even a good insult. Anyone hearing that couldn’t help but think that at least part of you feels that a person’s ancestry limits what he is permitted to form an opinion about, which is not a good look for you.

    Not all of us can descend from intellectual aristocrats (like AP, “several” of whose in-laws are not only professors, but specifically professors of medicine – others in that distinguished lineage supposedly having branched out into professorships in other fields). Are we supposed to cry about it? Personally, I think it’s easier – and a lot more fun – to laugh about it.

    I think I realized by around the age of fifteen that if my own people had never existed, the history of the world would scarcely have been altered. Whenever I encountered anyone doing the local version of the “we wuz kangz” routine, it would astonish me that they couldn’t see how silly they sound. One of the best things about leftism is that it made it permissible to admit that “I ain’t shit, and that’s okay,” rather than to have to desperately put on airs in order to feel acceptable.

  925. @LatW
    @AP


    Soviet middle classes lived the same (materially) as poor American blacks in housing projects
     
    I'm not sure about this one, while those anthill type of apartment buildings are very far from ideal, the people who lived there were actually less materially constrained than the US blacks. They had access to sports and recreational facilities that blacks don't, cheap theater (ofc, the content could be an issue but not always), many had those outside garden plots next to these anthills, there was general tidiness. These buildings are now over 30 years old and they have outlived their use.

    Besides, I don't know a 100% about Russia and Ukraine but in the Baltic States not everyone lived in the anthills. Also, our anthills weren't as high, they were just 3-5 floors typically. There are pre-Soviet buildings in the city, many detached homes outside of the center and further away from the city. Traditional country properties were even better in some ways (very underrated, as I now realize). The Russians had dachas, didn't they?

    There's a special kind of a feel of desperation that comes with black housing projects, that just wasn't there with the Soviet anthills. Although some of the Russian ones do look scary.

    I'd say if you want to compare that way, you can probably compare to affordable or Section 8 housing where disabled or low class whites live (although some underclass whites live like swine now). I'd say it could compare to a disabled white lady that lives on welfare in her little condo with flowers on the patio keeping everything tidy, that would probably compare better to a Soviet teacher living in a Khrushchovka. But, yea, in many ways it's nothing to write home about. It's just that urbanization was very intense in Russia, big waves of urbanization must have hit in the 70s, in fact, it's continuing even now.

    Replies: @AP, @Svidomyatheart

    Latw, American blacks are probably the most privileged race on earth aside from Jews in the Western hemisphere.

    How can one compare housing projects with all modern amneties and more to a humble Khrushchevka where some of them didn’t have running water or a toilet and instead they were public and outside(outhouses) and where you had a family of 5-6 cramped into 1-2 rooms.

    It may have been a little different in the Baltics and places like Poland where Russians tried to offer you guys small tokens and trinkets in the form of slightly more gibs, living conditions and some slightly better goods just to get you guys to be more complacent(USSR was an affirmative action empire after all)

    And that was all the while still deporting you guys and throwing dissidents in jail. Weird Russian logic in action: we like you guys but we also toss your sane people into jail…

    Recently on their forums I was reading Russians talking about how they tried to treat you guys with “kid gloves” at least in the Russian sense/the Russian version of it and it produced no results. Poland too before 1863 revolt, after ww2, etc.

    There was general tidyness was there because there was nothing else or better to do you didn’t have the material goods or money to blow on them where one can buy any x gadget or item you just had nothing but could stare at bare empty walls.

    My mom still gets triggered when something like buying a pair of underwear!! was like a holiday that you did twice a year. She still remembers where you had international sportsmen where they were boasting about how they bought a new pair of clothes on TV in an interview. These were renowned international people talking about something as a trivial as buying clothes..ugh swooping so low and it sounds so cringe if you think about it.

    I know empty materialism produces no results but this complete poverty is just awful there should be a medium between the 2

    Also I have like a 700 word response to your open thread 171 comment bout the war( a much more serious response, war is imminent ) but i dont know if i should post it now or wait for a open thread 173 because this one is probably going to be closed soon as its reaching almost 1000 comments.

    • Agree: AP
    • Replies: @LatW
    @Svidomyatheart


    How can one compare housing projects with all modern amenities
     
    We're talking about the 80s. Google New York housing projects in the 1980s. Some of it looks like Dresden after the bombings... ok, maybe not that bad but still... At the time they were still having 4-5 children each. And the crime, trash, etc. Btw, those brown brick buildings are not great, very tight and no ventilation inside.

    It may have been a little different in the Baltics and places like Poland where Russians tried to offer you guys small tokens and trinkets in the form of slightly more gibs
     
    Whatever "trinkets" we had we made ourselves. The industries were built based in many cases on pre-existing factories that had been built during the Tsar's time and later developed in the 1930s republic, as well as built then (1930s was a time of growth and prosperity for us). Even during the Soviet era, many Baltic people did not live in the anthills, but houses that were built during the 30s or before.

    I'm not saying life wasn't spartan, but to compare to projects, with all the specific things that come with it, is just not accurate. I'd be the last to lionize the Soviet system, but one has to compare apples to apples. And besides... the American middle class probably lived on average better anyway than even their Western European counterparts. I'm a bit curious about how the Scandinavians lived in the 80s, I'm sure they lived well, but they mostly lived in apartments, too (same as they do now).

    Ofc, I do remember of all the parents' stories about the hockey players who went overseas and came back with better clothes, lol. Stepping out of the bus wearing jeans and cool sunglasses and what not. LOL Do you remember the meme about this one Soviet chick that once the travel to the West opened up, she walked into a Western grocery store and had a mental breakdown. All the preconceptions about the "evil capitalists" collapsed.



    And that was all the while still deporting you guys and throwing dissidents in jail. Weird Russian logic in action: we like you guys but we also toss your sane people into jail…
     
    Yes, it happened to one of my granpas, too (the consequences of the communist terror are more far reaching than it first appears). For not sharing the fruits of his labor. Anyway... nowadays I try to take the Russian "phantom limb" stories with some humor, as a coping mechanism, in my youth I was more triggered. Most of them are also not crazy like that, there are normal ones out there.

    I know empty materialism produces no results but this complete poverty is just awful there should be a medium between the 2
     
    Agree 100%, the best is to find some way to keep a spartan spirit but still have some wealth.

    Also I have like a 700 word response to your open thread 171 comment bout the war( a much more serious response, war is imminent ) but i dont know if i should post it now or wait for a open thread 173 because this
     
    Please, do post it (you can hold on for now), I really want to hear your thoughts. I apologize if I said anything above that sounded trivial or insensitive about Ukraine (ofc, the occupation of the left bank Ukraine would be horrible, even if they as little as move there should be a strong reaction), the situation is very serious (it's upsetting that the good people of Ukraine are bullied and tormented daily with these threats of some impending attack). We have to prepare, life could change.

    Replies: @songbird, @A123, @AP

  926. @sudden death
    @Mikhail


    Where do you get this “which at the time even was refused to be acknowledged as mandatory… “?
     
    https://zn.ua/img/forall/u/0/-1/users/Feb2014/84317.jpg

    RF was the only side that officially refused to sign the agreement, and their own official envoy for that deal said quite clearly "...we decided we do not need to tie ourselves with formal agreements, mandatory signings..."

    Вот как конкретизировал мотивы неподписания Владимир Лукин. "Мы его не подписали. Мы решили, что не надо себя связывать какими-то формальными соглашениями, обязательствами и подписями, потому что были вопросы и проблемы, с каким субъектом переговоров мы будем иметь дело в ближайшее время, как будут развиваться события, кто будет отвечать за те решения, которые принимались, и кто за что отвечает вообще", - сказал российский омбудсмен.
     
    https://www.1tv.ru/news/2014-02-21/52462-vladimir_lukin_ne_podpisal_soglashenie_mezhdu_vlastyu_i_oppozitsiey_na_ukraine

    Replies: @Mikhail

    So what. The bottom line is that Russia didn’t oppose it, with France, Poland and Germany brokering a signed power sharing agreement between the then democratically elected Ukrainian president and the opposition to him.

    • Replies: @sudden death
    @Mikhail

    lol, it is way nicer to live in some fantasy worlds of course, but usually in real world regarding official documentation matters refusal to sign is equal to nonsigning=nonsupport=rejection of offer and vice versa ;)

    Replies: @Mikhail

  927. @Mikhail
    @sudden death

    So what. The bottom line is that Russia didn't oppose it, with France, Poland and Germany brokering a signed power sharing agreement between the then democratically elected Ukrainian president and the opposition to him.

    Replies: @sudden death

    lol, it is way nicer to live in some fantasy worlds of course, but usually in real world regarding official documentation matters refusal to sign is equal to nonsigning=nonsupport=rejection of offer and vice versa 😉

    • Replies: @Mikhail
    @sudden death

    The Russian government isn't expected to govern Ukraine. On the other hand, the then democratically elected Ukrainian president signed an internationally brokered power sharing agreement with the main opposition to him. That agreement was violated by the opposition.

    So much for your fantasy world.

    Replies: @sudden death

  928. @sudden death
    @Mikhail

    lol, it is way nicer to live in some fantasy worlds of course, but usually in real world regarding official documentation matters refusal to sign is equal to nonsigning=nonsupport=rejection of offer and vice versa ;)

    Replies: @Mikhail

    The Russian government isn’t expected to govern Ukraine. On the other hand, the then democratically elected Ukrainian president signed an internationally brokered power sharing agreement with the main opposition to him. That agreement was violated by the opposition.

    So much for your fantasy world.

    • Replies: @sudden death
    @Mikhail

    It was multisided agreement and one of the most important sides refused to sign it, so did the agreement even came in to power in existing situation then - it can be said that the last sentence of that agreement, where it was said that EU&RF urges that all forms of violence will not be used against protesters anymore was the most important at the moment, but you are pretending now that RF was just walking by accidentally there and its non signing did not mean anything really knowing the gravity of situation at the time.

    Replies: @Mikhail

  929. @Mikhail
    @sudden death

    The Russian government isn't expected to govern Ukraine. On the other hand, the then democratically elected Ukrainian president signed an internationally brokered power sharing agreement with the main opposition to him. That agreement was violated by the opposition.

    So much for your fantasy world.

    Replies: @sudden death

    It was multisided agreement and one of the most important sides refused to sign it, so did the agreement even came in to power in existing situation then – it can be said that the last sentence of that agreement, where it was said that EU&RF urges that all forms of violence will not be used against protesters anymore was the most important at the moment, but you are pretending now that RF was just walking by accidentally there and its non signing did not mean anything really knowing the gravity of situation at the time.

    • Replies: @Mikhail
    @sudden death

    Once again, those signing it did so with the understanding to obligate the agreement. Russia isn't expected to govern Ukraine, unlike the then democratically elected Ukrainian president and his main opposition.

    As previously noted, Radek Sikorski lauded the Russian involvement shortly after that agreement was signed.

    On the subject of signed agreements, are there any excuses for the Kiev regime not honoring the Minsk Protocol?

  930. @sudden death
    @Mikhail

    It was multisided agreement and one of the most important sides refused to sign it, so did the agreement even came in to power in existing situation then - it can be said that the last sentence of that agreement, where it was said that EU&RF urges that all forms of violence will not be used against protesters anymore was the most important at the moment, but you are pretending now that RF was just walking by accidentally there and its non signing did not mean anything really knowing the gravity of situation at the time.

    Replies: @Mikhail

    Once again, those signing it did so with the understanding to obligate the agreement. Russia isn’t expected to govern Ukraine, unlike the then democratically elected Ukrainian president and his main opposition.

    As previously noted, Radek Sikorski lauded the Russian involvement shortly after that agreement was signed.

    On the subject of signed agreements, are there any excuses for the Kiev regime not honoring the Minsk Protocol?

  931. @Yahya
    @Yahya


    Levantines don’t look too different from Iberians.
     
    Some Levantines look more Spanish than Spaniards themselves.

    Palestinian:


    https://64.media.tumblr.com/947e1ca50ca51d038fcd1e006ee4352d/99c88f2fe4741b9c-04/s500x750/79c3d0e1d3667af306882aee51739adbdc9103a8.jpg


    Spaniard:


    https://imgwoman.elperiodico.com/f9/3d/cd/marian-hernandez-600.jpg


    Mariam Hernández

    Replies: @silviosilver

    Some Levantines look more Spanish than Spaniards themselves.

    That’s the key term, isn’t it: some. But what proportion is “some”? Do even 5% of Levantines actually look that white? And if not, don’t you think it looks kinda sad/desperate/pathetic to try and argue for your point by posting a one-pic comparison? Couldn’t an Afghan do the same thing? What could it possibly “prove”? Even if you “win” the internet argument (as by your own admission you’re determined to do), if anyone convinced by it ever encounters a bunch of Levantines together at the same time, he will quickly have his opinion of “what they look like” reshaped by that experience, and all your effortposting will have been for nothing.

    • Replies: @Yahya
    @silviosilver

    That post was meant as a joke.

    Since you chose to latch onto a throwaway line, instead of rebutting my more substantive posts, as many others have been incapable of doing, i'm now satisfied that I proved my point.

    Replies: @silviosilver

  932. @Yahya
    @German_reader


    There’s some superficial overlap between the Spanish team and the Syrian one, but imo they’re clearly distinct on the whole.

     

    I'm not disputing their distinctiveness. My point is that "Levantines don't look too different from Iberians", which I think is demonstrably true.

    wouldn’t be mistaken
     
    With hindsight, of course you can tell who is Spanish and who is Syrian. But what if their images were put up anonymously on reddit, would you have correctly identified their national origin?

    Most people (including myself) were not able to correctly discern this ladies' national origin:

    https://www.reddit.com/r/phenotypes/comments/rgjq9j/can_you_guess_where_im_from/?ref=share&ref_source=embed&utm_content=title&utm_medium=post_embed&utm_name=694e3cae8afa43cc9f550d015a2c8cb2&utm_source=embedly&utm_term=rgjq9j

    Or this one:

    https://www.reddit.com/r/phenotypes/comments/rkpqg3/where_is_this_woman_from/

    And these two:

    https://www.reddit.com/r/phenotypes/comments/rmj8dx/where_are_these_women_from/

    It's harder than it looks. I'll post 5 images below the "more" tag. Try to guess their geographic origin (MENA vs Southern Europe). I'll reveal their names and origin in a few hours.


    generically European
     
    How's it possible for there to be a "generic European" appearance when 99% of Swedes look completely different from 99% of Greeks; who in turn look different from even nearby Croatians, who might as well be aliens to Lithuanians?

    wouldn’t be mistaken for Arabs imo.
     
    Depends on the context. If a Spaniard were in Spain, sure, they wouldn't get mistaken for an Arab (why would they?). But they would if they came to Egypt for example. I recall an Unz commentor once complaining that he got mistaken for an Arab frequently when he was touring Egypt, though can't find his comment in the archives. My Egyptian mother (who looks even more European than I am) frequently got mistaken for a Spaniard last time we were visiting Spain (though no-one would mistake my Saudi father for an Iberian).

    Girl #1


    https://iv1.lisimg.com/image/8475709/726full-dorra-zarrouk.jpg


    Girl #2


    https://www.hola.com/imagenes/actualidad/20190721146178/alicia-sanz-william-levy-promesa-hollywood/0-703-497/alicia-sanz-getty-t.jpg


    Girl #3


    https://www.savoirflair.com/wp-content/uploads/2014/11/Razane-Jammals-Beauty-Routine.jpg?x88026


    Girl #4


    https://greekcitytimes.com/wp-content/uploads/2021/11/259994797_962752357651056_5831371210586394549_n-1-819x1024.jpg


    Girl #5


    https://see.news/wp-content/uploads/2020/08/1.png

    Replies: @German_reader, @AP, @Coconuts, @silviosilver

    My Egyptian mother (who looks even more European than I am) frequently got mistaken for a Spaniard last time we were visiting Spain

    How do you know she was mistaken for an ethnic Spaniard? Obviously it can’t be just that she was addressed in Spanish by people, since it’s natural for someone in Spain to be addressed in Spanish.

    • Replies: @Yahya
    @silviosilver


    How do you know she was mistaken for an ethnic Spaniard?
     
    Because my Saudi father, who doesn't look Iberian at all, was never addressed in Spanish or assumed to be one. Whereas my mother was all the time.

    My mother has a somewhat similar phenotype (save for the light eyes) as the Egyptian actress I posted an image of above:

    https://i.ibb.co/x74v72L/Samar-2.png


    You think that's not enough of a resemblance to get mistaken for a Spaniard?

  933. @silviosilver
    @Yahya


    Some Levantines look more Spanish than Spaniards themselves.
     
    That's the key term, isn't it: some. But what proportion is "some"? Do even 5% of Levantines actually look that white? And if not, don't you think it looks kinda sad/desperate/pathetic to try and argue for your point by posting a one-pic comparison? Couldn't an Afghan do the same thing? What could it possibly "prove"? Even if you "win" the internet argument (as by your own admission you're determined to do), if anyone convinced by it ever encounters a bunch of Levantines together at the same time, he will quickly have his opinion of "what they look like" reshaped by that experience, and all your effortposting will have been for nothing.

    Replies: @Yahya

    That post was meant as a joke.

    Since you chose to latch onto a throwaway line, instead of rebutting my more substantive posts, as many others have been incapable of doing, i’m now satisfied that I proved my point.

    • Replies: @silviosilver
    @Yahya


    That post was meant as a joke.
     
    Oh, I right. I see. Looking back at it now, it's perfectly clear. I can't believe I missed it. It was nothing like any of your other posts at all.

    You think that’s not enough of a resemblance to get mistaken for a Spaniard?
     
    Rofl, I think Yevardian was right, you are taking all this very seriously. It's actually quite funny.

    Part of the reason I am laughing right now is that I had actually intended to begin that post with a statement like "Bro, I'm not questioning whether your mother could pass for a Spaniard or not, but..." and then going on to write what I did, precisely in order to avoid setting you off. But I decided to go to the toilet before posting and when I came back I forgot to include that part.

    So, let me now state for the record: Hear ye, hear ye, let it henceforth be known throughout the land that, based on the evidence thus far provided, I silviosilver do definitely believe Yahya's mother could be mistaken for an ethnic Spaniard.


    Because my Saudi father, who doesn’t look Iberian at all, was never addressed in Spanish or assumed to be one.
     
    That doesn't make sense to me. There are hundreds of thousands of Arabs in Spain. It's hard to believe that none of them would ever be addressed in Spanish, or that it would up to them to initiate discourse in Spanish every single time. You really think that's a legit possibility?
  934. @silviosilver
    @Yahya


    My Egyptian mother (who looks even more European than I am) frequently got mistaken for a Spaniard last time we were visiting Spain
     
    How do you know she was mistaken for an ethnic Spaniard? Obviously it can't be just that she was addressed in Spanish by people, since it's natural for someone in Spain to be addressed in Spanish.

    Replies: @Yahya

    How do you know she was mistaken for an ethnic Spaniard?

    Because my Saudi father, who doesn’t look Iberian at all, was never addressed in Spanish or assumed to be one. Whereas my mother was all the time.

    [MORE]

    My mother has a somewhat similar phenotype (save for the light eyes) as the Egyptian actress I posted an image of above:

    You think that’s not enough of a resemblance to get mistaken for a Spaniard?

  935. @German_reader
    @Yahya


    How’s it possible for there to be a “generic European” appearance when 99% of Swedes look completely different from 99% of Greeks
     
    Yes, I suppose I should have phrased that differently. What I meant to say is that imo most of the members of the Spanish team have a look that is typically Iberian. But they wouldn't be completely out of place in many other European countries. Probably not in Sweden, but in a broad stretch of countries from France over the Alpine regions to Hungary and the Balkans, imo you couldn't be certain that they might not be a native. I don't think you can say that for most Syrians, despite the undoubted overlap of phenotypes between different Mediterranean peoples.
    Anyway, I find this debate a bit weird in some ways. Intra-European racism certainly exists, but what people write on WN message boards might not be the best guide (I have no doubt that Silviosilver's family experienced some discrimination from Anglo-Australians, but on the other hand, his family presumably immigrated back when there was still a "white Australia" policy, so even then they weren't seen as non-white).

    Try to guess their geographic origin (MENA vs Southern Europe).
     
    Ok, I'm going to embarrass myself.

    1.) Southern Euro.
    2.) Mideast (Syria?).
    3.) Mideast (Lebanon?).
    4.) That girl is pretty dark. You wouldn't have picked her if she were from the Mideast, so I'd guess southern Spain or southern Italy.
    5.) She's got light eyes, so the reverse applies. I'd guess Turkey, but since you're Arab, I suppose she's Levantine.

    Replies: @Yahya, @silviosilver

    (I have no doubt that Silviosilver’s family experienced some discrimination from Anglo-Australians, but on the other hand, his family presumably immigrated back when there was still a “white Australia” policy, so even then they weren’t seen as non-white).

    Oh of course. It’s no great secret. It’s possible that someone born after, say, 1995 might have no personal experience of it, although it’s hard to imagine that their parents wouldn’t have at least informally hinted at what it used to be like.

    The last time I experienced anything direct of that sort was about a decade ago. I was at one end of a table in a smoker’s courtyard at this bar in a smaller regional city, one that had not really experienced much in the way of immigration. There were three kinda rednecky dudes at the other end of the table, deliberately speaking loud enough for me to hear them (or so I felt).

    First dude:”Whaddaya reckon this cunt here [me] is, Eye-talian?”

    Second dude:”Yeah, he looks like a bit of an Italian stallion.”

    Third dude: “Mate I can’t stand these cunts. They come here right, and they think they’re better than ya…” [I’m pretty sure he was referring to that particular city with “they come here,” not to Australia as a whole.]

    Mind you, I hadn’t actually done anything to provoke that remark. I was just sitting there with a beer and a cigarette. Sometimes if you look good and are well dressed, it’s enough to incite male envy even without the ethnic factor. But it’s perfectly possible they’d had bad experiences with out-of-town people who look like me and my presence there presented them with a choice target for their derision. I didn’t feel insulted by it, I actually thought it was quite funny. I have gotten many a laugh sharing that story with friends.

    Re the “white Australia” policy, that’s partly true. I don’t really know much about how it operated, but whiteness seems to have been determined by country of origin, not by appearance. There were more than a few not-even-close-to-white gypsies from Yugoslavia who made it in, even back in the 1950s. And the Lebanese got their foot in the door with it, though I think most of them arrived after their civil war started, by which point the white Australia policy had been abandoned.

    • Replies: @songbird
    @silviosilver


    Second dude:”Yeah, he looks like a bit of an Italian stallion.”

    Third dude: “Mate I can’t stand these cunts.
     
    Sounds like a gay bar.

    Replies: @silviosilver

  936. @silviosilver
    @German_reader


    (I have no doubt that Silviosilver’s family experienced some discrimination from Anglo-Australians, but on the other hand, his family presumably immigrated back when there was still a “white Australia” policy, so even then they weren’t seen as non-white).
     
    Oh of course. It's no great secret. It's possible that someone born after, say, 1995 might have no personal experience of it, although it's hard to imagine that their parents wouldn't have at least informally hinted at what it used to be like.

    The last time I experienced anything direct of that sort was about a decade ago. I was at one end of a table in a smoker's courtyard at this bar in a smaller regional city, one that had not really experienced much in the way of immigration. There were three kinda rednecky dudes at the other end of the table, deliberately speaking loud enough for me to hear them (or so I felt).

    First dude:"Whaddaya reckon this cunt here [me] is, Eye-talian?"

    Second dude:"Yeah, he looks like a bit of an Italian stallion."

    Third dude: "Mate I can't stand these cunts. They come here right, and they think they're better than ya..." [I'm pretty sure he was referring to that particular city with "they come here," not to Australia as a whole.]

    Mind you, I hadn't actually done anything to provoke that remark. I was just sitting there with a beer and a cigarette. Sometimes if you look good and are well dressed, it's enough to incite male envy even without the ethnic factor. But it's perfectly possible they'd had bad experiences with out-of-town people who look like me and my presence there presented them with a choice target for their derision. I didn't feel insulted by it, I actually thought it was quite funny. I have gotten many a laugh sharing that story with friends.

    Re the "white Australia" policy, that's partly true. I don't really know much about how it operated, but whiteness seems to have been determined by country of origin, not by appearance. There were more than a few not-even-close-to-white gypsies from Yugoslavia who made it in, even back in the 1950s. And the Lebanese got their foot in the door with it, though I think most of them arrived after their civil war started, by which point the white Australia policy had been abandoned.

    Replies: @songbird

    Second dude:”Yeah, he looks like a bit of an Italian stallion.”

    Third dude: “Mate I can’t stand these cunts.

    Sounds like a gay bar.

    • Replies: @silviosilver
    @songbird

    Haw haw haw.

    Seriously though, having been around as long as you have, have you never been informed that "cunt" in Australian can be used neutrally to mean something like "guy" or "dude"?

    Replies: @songbird

  937. @Chairman Meow
    @AP


    Most blacks in America don’t live in housing projects but in normal houses that are far more luxurious than anything the Soviet middle class could dream of
     
    I don't understand why you are so dense.

    I showed you similar living conditions in Seoul (and throughout Korea in general even in less populouus cities its the same) where people live in Soviet style panel housing. And yet you don't make the argument that "blacks live in more luxrious housing than South Koreans" LOL. This just tells me your "argument" is pure nonesense.

    Besides even in modern Russia, people continue to live in newly constructed panel housing. Guess Capitalism didn't improve much eh.


    Well sure, before that many Soviets lived in communal apartments or even barracks(!!).
     
    Somehow providing affordable housing for the entire population of the USSR after massive destruction and displacement is a bad thing.

    They most certainly didn't have 100, 000 homeless populations like LA LOL with people living in tents

    Replies: @AP

    I showed you similar living conditions in Seoul (and throughout Korea in general even in less populouus cities its the same

    You showed high rises in a city of nearly 10 million people in order to try to demonstrate that there is nothing pathetic about 3 generations of Soviets in a small city being forced to live in a single small and crappy apartment. Of course you did not show quality of those South Korean high rises and amenities they have that Soviet boxes lacked, such as underground parking, gyms, perhaps even swimming pools.

  938. @AP
    @Dmitry


    "squalid and poor relative to the capitalist.."

    "For constituent countries, of the USSR, convergence in measures like GDP per capita and life expectancy,* was the closest to Western countries in the late 1960s (i.e. in Soviet times), than in any other time in modern history, before or after."
     
    And by the 1980s (let's say, after only 15 years) they descended into relative poverty. Also, much of Soviet GDP was captured by military industry and wasn't reflected in day to day life.

    The relative gains into the late 1960s suggest that industrialization and modernization was bound to lead to some improvement but under a centrally planned socialist economy there was a ceiling that was reached in the 1970s, after which further improvement was very small. Free market capitalist countries on the other hand had no such ceiling and just saw ongoing vast improvement.

    However, you should also compare the USSR to countries of similar pre-Soviet development. It may be easier for very poor countries to catch up a little to much richer ones.

    So for example, Portugal and Greece only had about 2/3 of Russia's per capita GDP PPP in 1913. By 1973 Portugal had about 90% of the USSR's GDP PPP and Greece was richer than the USSR. All three of these countries had made relative gains to the rich Western countries, but the USSR's relative gains were smaller and it was falling behind these other poor European countries.

    This chart only goes back to 1987 for Ukraine and 1989 for Russia (so last 5 years of USSR for Ukraine and 3 for Russia), but we see countries that are already very poor, much poorer than France, and not improving at all:

    https://i.imgur.com/xJOSMoH.png

    They were so poor that even the steep relative decline of the 1990s doesn't look so steep compared to France because it is just a a series of very low numbers.

    Like a Ford or Toyota versus a Zhiguli? LOL.

    Almost, but Ford should be on the other side sharing the disjunction with Zhiguli.

    “Like a Toyota versus a Ford or Zhiguli? LOL.”
     
    Nonsense. Ford is much closer to Toyota than to a Lada, which is in the same category as Yugo (exported to the USA and the butt of jokes).

    The cheapest Ford in the USA:

    https://s38.wheelsage.org/format/picture/picture-preview-large/f/ford/escort_glx_4-door/ford_escort_glx_4-door.jpg

    Compare to Zhiguli:

    https://i.radiopachone.org/img/9ea84cbef8672e6ff26b9cad42eb79.jpg

    They were just in different categories. Zhiguli was pretty much 1960s technology, smaller, slower.

    An interesting review and comparison of Lada Samara (much improved over the Zhiguli):

    https://www.flickr.com/photos/triggerscarstuff/4475997889/in/photostream/

    The Samara approached the cheap Escort in some areas, and appears to have been slightly more fun to drive. But the quality was much lower and it was much less refined, such that the reviewer concluded that people who could afford an Escort would not buy a Samara. And moreover this was the worst and cheapest of the Fords.

    Replies: @Chairman Meow, @Dmitry, @Shortsword

    Constant nominal prices is basically useless for comparing countries. I mentioned this to you before and why. You don’t seem to understand what the statistic means.

    I don’t really disagree with your post otherwise though.

    • Replies: @AP
    @Shortsword

    That chart was the one that went furthest back. It wasn’t nominal but PPP.

  939. @Svidomyatheart
    @utu

    You are lashing out at rank and file muslims meanwhile, the elephant in the room is this:

    In just the last 2 weeks since 2022 you have 2 cases of Europe massively supporting Muslims once again

    case 1

    https://www.rferl.org/a/eu-balkans-bosnia-serbs-dodik-/31648435.html

    Case 2

    https://www.euractiv.com/section/energy/news/greece-fumes-as-washington-loses-interest-in-eastmed-gas-pipeline/

    Something must be very serious if Israel's needs were overridden. Or maybe US and Israel working together on something secret who knows....the bottom line remains is that Europe is saving the Turks for the 1000th time.

    Replies: @utu, @A123

    Not everything is about Israel. The U.S. has an illegitimate coup leadership and Europe has elevated incompetence to unprecedented levels of authority.

    Case 2 — https://www.euractiv.com/section/energy/news/greece-fumes-as-washington-loses-interest-in-eastmed-gas-pipeline/

    Not-The-President Biden’s regime has the same hydrocarbophobia as Scholz in Germany. Biden hates cheap energy at home, and he hates cheap energy abroad. It is hard to find more context than the core SJW/DNC message of science denial.

    Greece, Cyprus, and Italy all continue to support EastMed. Three years of opposition from an illegitimate White House, while unwelcome, is a very limited impediment.

    Europe is saving the Turks for the 1000th time.

    Europe keeps bribing Turkey to limit refugee flows. Given Erdogan’s weakness in this regard, the policy is quite flawed. However as I, and many others, have pointed out, the EU is a dysfunctional institution. They seem to be stuck with this position. There is no consensus to replace it were with one that could work.

    Another issue is Turkey’s NATO membership. Any NATO use of force in Ukraine would require significant cooperation from Erdogan.

    PEACE 😇

  940. @Yahya
    @silviosilver

    That post was meant as a joke.

    Since you chose to latch onto a throwaway line, instead of rebutting my more substantive posts, as many others have been incapable of doing, i'm now satisfied that I proved my point.

    Replies: @silviosilver

    That post was meant as a joke.

    Oh, I right. I see. Looking back at it now, it’s perfectly clear. I can’t believe I missed it. It was nothing like any of your other posts at all.

    You think that’s not enough of a resemblance to get mistaken for a Spaniard?

    Rofl, I think Yevardian was right, you are taking all this very seriously. It’s actually quite funny.

    Part of the reason I am laughing right now is that I had actually intended to begin that post with a statement like “Bro, I’m not questioning whether your mother could pass for a Spaniard or not, but…” and then going on to write what I did, precisely in order to avoid setting you off. But I decided to go to the toilet before posting and when I came back I forgot to include that part.

    So, let me now state for the record: Hear ye, hear ye, let it henceforth be known throughout the land that, based on the evidence thus far provided, I silviosilver do definitely believe Yahya’s mother could be mistaken for an ethnic Spaniard.

    Because my Saudi father, who doesn’t look Iberian at all, was never addressed in Spanish or assumed to be one.

    That doesn’t make sense to me. There are hundreds of thousands of Arabs in Spain. It’s hard to believe that none of them would ever be addressed in Spanish, or that it would up to them to initiate discourse in Spanish every single time. You really think that’s a legit possibility?

  941. @songbird
    @silviosilver


    Second dude:”Yeah, he looks like a bit of an Italian stallion.”

    Third dude: “Mate I can’t stand these cunts.
     
    Sounds like a gay bar.

    Replies: @silviosilver

    Haw haw haw.

    Seriously though, having been around as long as you have, have you never been informed that “cunt” in Australian can be used neutrally to mean something like “guy” or “dude”?

    • Replies: @songbird
    @silviosilver


    have you never been informed that “cunt” in Australian can be used neutrally to mean something like “guy” or “dude”?
     
    Didn't know that.

    Honestly, there seems to still be an amazing level of cultural disconnect between Anglophone countries. Like, I believe that there are harmless gestures in America that are considered extremely offensive among Aussies or English (depending on the gesture)

    And in England, I think "pants" means "women's underwear" or something. IMO, that's way more bizarre than some of these false cognates in German or other langauges.

    Replies: @A123, @silviosilver

  942. @Chairman Meow
    @AP


    In American suburbia people have their own private gardens.
     
    And in USSR people had their own private gardens at their dachas. Whats your point

    10 million people in which inhabitants are squeezed into small places is a function of population density. In a small city like Pripyat it is a function of poverty.
     
    I just showed you shithole third world living conditions in New Jersey. What was present in Pripyat was infintely better, with easy access to parks, schools, grocery stores and living quarters.

    They can’t afford to get fat and can’t drive in Cuba.
     
    Which looks even worse for the USA that they have a lower life expectancy than Cuba.

    Again, yes. Europeans treated their colonies like Soviets treated their own citizens.
     
    Not really. Soviets treated their citizens much better because the Euros killed far more people, and much data on Soviet "mass murders" is falsified anyway.

    You confirm that you believe in fairy tales.
     
    you are the one believing in fairy tales thinking that 9 million people killed actually represents reality when Soviet population grew over the period you mention

    Sounds like I should be treating you as I treat most Anglos for being incredibly stupid.

    Replies: @AP

    And in USSR people had their own private gardens at their dachas. Whats your point

    Soviet dachas were tiny (typically 600 square meters of land) far from the city and with only a hit or shack. And less than half of families even had one. American suburban lots are about double that size.

    ”They can’t afford to get fat and can’t drive in Cuba.”

    Which looks even worse for the USA that they have a lower life expectancy than Cuba

    Being rich can make one less healthy. But not necessarily. In 1980 life expectancy in the USSR was 67.03 years. In USA it was 73.61 years. Among African Americans in the USA it was 68.

    Not only did Soviets live poor lives, they lived short unhealthy ones.

    So under Soviets, not only did middle class people live materially like the poorest African Americans, they even lived shorter lives than African Americans.

    (this is why immigrants from former Soviet countries have trouble taking BLM seriously: they have memories of living under worse material and physical conditions under Soviets, than do African Americans).

  943. @Chairman Meow

    Thank you for posting pictures of very ugly Soviet buildings to prove the point.
     
    Most people with good taste would find the pictures that I posted rather beautiful. I got more too.

    but at least they are luxurious and roomy in comparison
     
    Did you miss the box apartments that most people live in nowadays in New York that can't even fit one person?

    Also here is Seoul:

    https://preview.redd.it/a25l7n5ws3c81.jpg?width=494&auto=webp&s=617aaba9d629d8fd2d87400b72151656c97eb1bd

    Or by your logic are people in Korea suddenly Soviets and living in commie blocks lol

    “Having a large ugly house is sure better than being cramped with three generations into a small ugly apartment with no elevator.”
     
    You mean like this?

    https://dts4h52y4acn7.cloudfront.net/1060700325701010B910A250D1624813f.png

    below where Soviet “middle class” people such a schoolteachers would live:
     
    Good job posting buildings that haven't been maintained for decades as "proof" of anything. I posted what they looked like above when they where new. Here's more:

    https://i.imgur.com/8JzUiRk.jpeg

    https://i.imgur.com/1NhQa6a.jpeg

    https://i.imgur.com/90Lul3M.jpeg

    Looks pretty European to me in fact.

    Here's America for comparison:

    https://preview.redd.it/pe3toeqxx0k51.png?width=1024&auto=webp&s=a025fa8044038e364a59a088fae68b00259ebf7a

    https://old.reddit.com/r/UrbanHell/comments/al3eyh/americas_contrast_or_no_contrast_really/

    Meanwhile three generations of Soviet families would be crammed into a two room apartment.
     
    Sounds like most of the world not just the Soviet union. Most countries aren't obsessed with Urban Sprawl and cars like America is. Ironically, this leads to increased obesity rates in the US vs everywhere else.

    Stalin murdered and starved to death about 9 million of his own people
     
    LOL. How long did it take him to personally shoot 9 million people in the back of the head?

    Or wait, was it 100 million?

    No Europeans did that to their own people in the 20th or 19th centuries
     
    So mass murdering other people in other places is okay? Europe certainly did that in large quantities throughout the 20th century. They far surpassed "9 million" people.

    Besides "9 million" is a cold war CIA meme LOL. Can't believe you actually fell for it.

    Replies: @Shortsword

    There is a big difference between Soviet Union and Korea. Korea is much smaller and most of the country is mountainous regions which is unsuitable to either live on or to grow food on. They simply don’t have the space for low residential density. Soviet Union on the other hand…

  944. @Shortsword
    @AP

    Constant nominal prices is basically useless for comparing countries. I mentioned this to you before and why. You don't seem to understand what the statistic means.

    I don't really disagree with your post otherwise though.

    Replies: @AP

    That chart was the one that went furthest back. It wasn’t nominal but PPP.

  945. @silviosilver
    @songbird

    Haw haw haw.

    Seriously though, having been around as long as you have, have you never been informed that "cunt" in Australian can be used neutrally to mean something like "guy" or "dude"?

    Replies: @songbird

    have you never been informed that “cunt” in Australian can be used neutrally to mean something like “guy” or “dude”?

    Didn’t know that.

    Honestly, there seems to still be an amazing level of cultural disconnect between Anglophone countries. Like, I believe that there are harmless gestures in America that are considered extremely offensive among Aussies or English (depending on the gesture)

    And in England, I think “pants” means “women’s underwear” or something. IMO, that’s way more bizarre than some of these false cognates in German or other langauges.

    • Replies: @A123
    @songbird


    And in England, I think “pants” means “women’s underwear” or something. IMO, that’s way more bizarre than some of these false cognates in German or other langauges.
     
    Having picked up UK vernacular via reading, I can confirm this issue.

    American, pissed = Angry
    UK, pissed = Drunk

    American, car trunk = UK, boot
    American, shock absorber = UK, damper

    NO WORRIES 😇

     
    https://i.imgflip.com/mwlfl.jpg

    Replies: @songbird

    , @silviosilver
    @songbird


    Didn’t know that.
     
    To clarify, it's a lower class thing, to be sure. But I suppose nowadays it would not really sound out of place for better off 20-somethings to mimic that kind of speech, at least when inebriated.

    Like, I believe that there are harmless gestures in America that are considered extremely offensive among Aussies or English (depending on the gesture)
     
    Oh come on, you can't just leave it at that. Like what? (I honestly have no idea what you could be referring to.)

    Since you mentioned gestures, and I'm in the mood to chit chat, when you flip someone the bird (a term that isn't used here; you'd say to give someone the finger, or an "up yours"), you used to have a choice of either the middle finger or both the index and middle finger. If you did it the latter way, you wouldn't just hold your hand there, you would usually move it up and down a couple of times. As a kid, I caught the tail end of that optionality, but even then middle-finger-only was already dominant. People who at some point might have used the two-finger method have by now probably forgotten the option ever existed.

    Replies: @songbird

  946. How many times has Chris Chappell warned about the Chinese creating an artificial moon?

  947. @Yahya
    @German_reader


    I suppose falling birth rates might eventually defuse this danger somewhat

     

    Birth rates in Egypt, as with the rest of the Arab world, have indeed steeply declined (by roughly 50%) from ~5-6 TFR to ~2-3 TFR over the previous few decades. Last I checked Egypt’s estimated TFR stood at 2.61 by the end of 2021, lower than in 2020 (2.93), 2015 (3.68), and 2010 (3.37). I'd predict it would reach replacement levels in 20-or-years. Incidentally, Egypt’s current TFR would put it below Israel at 2.99, which means almost every Arab country is now below Israel in fertility. A humorous turn of events. Also demonstrates that Israel is the real model for any first world country seeking to increase their TFR.

    https://www.unz.com/wp-content/uploads/2020/06/global-baby-bust-2020.png

    I have somewhat mixed feelings regarding Egypt’s rapid population expansion in the 20th century. On one level, the population increase had very real tangible negative consequences on the environment and physical surroundings. I’m reminded of this every time I drive through downtown Cairo; and see the mass of people living in make-shift brick-houses which were quickly built in the 70s-90s to accommodate the incoming mass of migrants from the countryside. Older people in Egypt are quick to point out that Cairo in the 50s and 60s looked more like Paris than the Sao Paolo it is today.

    And of course the population size has made it all but impossible for Egypt to be self-sufficient agriculturally; the Nile couldn’t keep up with the population explosion. Whereas in antiquity Egypt had been a breadbasket of the Roman Empire; and its wealthiest and most economically vital province; the country is sadly now a net food importer. Net imports might account for about 20% of domestic consumption. The Malthusian dynamics also made it difficult for Egypt to make substantial gains in per capita GDP in the 20th century; though this is starting to change (more on this below).

    But, as this blog's host once perceptively noted: population is power. Egypt's population gives it more power and importance; and more importantly, the potential for cultural renaissance should contingent factors come into alignment at a point in time. Population is a very much understated and overlooked factor in explaining why some civilizations rise and fall. A look at 1900 demographics would demonstrate how that is:

    https://i.imgur.com/we6EIjI.png

    https://brilliantmaps.com/worlds-population-in-1900/

    Here's a quick list of figures for various European/Western nations:
    US = 76M
    Russia = 68M
    German Empire = 56M
    Japan = 42M
    France = 38M
    UK = 38M
    Italy = 32M

    A now here's a list of MENA countries/entities:
    Ottoman Empire = 30M
    Egypt = 8M
    Morocco = 8M
    Persia = 7M
    Arabia = 4M
    Algeria = 4M
    Tunisia = 1.9M
    Libya = 0.4M

    When comparatively tiny France (38M) has a bigger population than the entirety of North Africa (23M) from Egypt to Morocco; does it not become obvious why France was able to dominate the region during the 20th century? When Britain's population likewise exceeds the entirety of the Ottoman Middle East; even excluding it's subjects in India or the Far East; does it not become obvious why Britain was able to control and bully the previously powerful Ottoman Empire?

    And couldn't the Western European ascendancy and intellectual flourishing, which far outstripped that of any previous civilization, be in large part explained by their demographic heft? This isn’t to say population is everything; 2021 Bangladesh (164M) is no more powerful or culturally vital than Russia (144M). Moreover, population increases can be harmful if they only occur at the bottom. Thankfully, in Egypt, the educated class were and are only slightly less fertile than the masses; so the absolute number of educated Egyptians has increased alongside the peasantry. In the upper class; there is no good data, but I counted the family sizes of my schoolmates; and they came to an average of 6 (2 parents, and 4 kids); which incidentally means the Egyptian upper class may be more fertile than the middle (though less than the lower). At any rate, population size in an absolute sense is certainly a vital factor that ought to be on the mind of every long-term thinking strategist.

    As for Egypt; the population is currently at around 100M and is projected to reach 143M by 2050, according to the Population Reference Bureau (PRB) data sheet. As population increases, the absolute number of cognitive elites (>130IQ) increases; no matter how small a fraction they are as a percentage of population. In the case of Egypt; there is no reliable data on average IQ (the Lynn study was comical; it only had a few hundred samples for Egypt); and is at any rate severely depressed due to a variety of environmental factors; (a) mass illiteracy (30% for over 15s), (b) malnutrition (see this UN report: https://www.unicef.org/egypt/nutrition), (c) cousin marriage (30-40% in certain areas), (d) cultural values (fatalism) etc. The best proxy we have for Arab genotypic IQ is Israel; which is at least developed so removes the environmental depressors to a large extent (though not entirely). Arabs there score around 92-94 in proxy tests; which I think is about right (I would appreciate if you can alert me of any IQ studies done on Arabs in Germany should they appear).

    If we assume average genotypic IQ in Egypt is 93, and SD a typical 15; a quick calculation of z-scores on excel provides the absolute number of cognitive elites (130IQ+) for a population of 100M:

    Average IQ = 93
    Standard Deviation = 15
    Population = 100M

    There are 668,886 Egyptians with IQ's of 130 and above. By 2050, should the population reach 143M, Egypt's cognitive elite would increase in size to 975,097. A very ample number for cultural production. Put in perspective, a country like Ireland, with a population of 5.5M and average IQ of 100; has 147,126 IQ130+ individuals; roughly 4.5 times less cognitive elites than 2021 Egypt; and 6.6 times less than 2050 Egypt. Greece (10M) has 227,501 cognitive elites. The Arab world at large, with a population of 380M people, has roughly 2.6M IQ130+ individuals. Germany, with a population of 80M and average IQ of 100, has 1.8M cognitive elites.

    As you can see, whereas in 1900, the German Empire had more people than the entirety of MENA; today there are 5 times more Arabs than Germans; and there are more smart Arabs than there are smart Germans. And there is the story of the rise and fall of the German Empire.


    but I really wonder about all those ill-educated masses in Egypt and other Arab countries who have little to hope

     

    The first thing to understand is that Egypt is not as poor as you’d expect. People, not entirely unreasonably, generally perceive Egypt to be a poverty-ridden basket case, in part because it’s in Africa, and the associations of poverty associated with that continent. In addition, they are vaguely aware of the foreign aid the US provides to Egypt, and so assume Egyptians are only able to feed themselves on behalf of their generous donors. All of the above is exaggerated at best, and flat out wrong at worst. Egypt is not a “poor country”, but can more appropriately be termed a “middle income country”, which incidentally is the designation given to it by multiple world agencies. A look at per capita GDP (PPP) for a variety of countries would demonstrate how that is:

    Brazil: $15,643
    Ukraine: $13,943
    Egypt: $13,083
    Vietnam: $11,677
    Pakistan: $5,224
    Nigeria: $5,280

    Egypt is more along the level of Ukraine and Brazil, than Nigeria or Pakistan. As for foreign aid; almost all of it comes from the US in the form of military equipment, not food or developmental initiatives. And foreign “aid” only constitutes a minuscule proportion of GDP - 1% of gross national income. So in summary, Egypt isn’t really that poor, nor does it rely on donors for food or sustenance. As for it’s future prospects; things are looking good as of present. The economy grew at a solid clip over the previous decade (4-6%); and should continue to grow as Egypt escapes its Malthusian trap and makes improvements in literacy and education. According to the Maddison project; in 1950 Egypt's GDP per capita was roughly 13% of the United Kingdoms in 1970 the ratio went down to 11% - no doubt due to Nasser's disastrous Socialist policies. In 1980 it improved to 16% as Sadat took measures to liberalize the economy; though the ratio stalled throughout the 80s. By 1990 Egypt reached 20% of the UK's per capita GDP; and has been gaining on the West ever since. Today the ratio stands at 31%.


    might follow some demagogue, whether of an Islamic nature, or of some other kind which can’t be foreseen right now

     

    It's within the realm of possibility that Egypt collapses into a state of Islamist morass; or even secular demagoguery. It would be less likely if the West stopped insisting on "democracy" at every turn, which is more likely to encourage demagoguery than discourage it. I don't know what the future holds; but for me personally, I don’t have any intention of departing Egypt for richer countries like Saudi Arabia (where I have citizenship) or the West (where I could easily get one).

    The reasons are manifold. But the one most relevant for you is this: it's not at all bad to live in a "poor" country like Egypt - especially if you are somewhat well off. There are advantages after all which are not obtainable in richer countries - affordable drivers and maids, cheap food and other essential goods etc. And educated people abandoning a poor country for richer ones is just despicable in my opinion. I can see why the poor people would want to immigrate, but there's not much reason for the affluent - life is just as good here (I've had experience in both). Anyway, the way this is relevant to you is that Germany may not become an "inhospitable" third-world hellhole for your progeny, even if demographics change. If your children are intelligent and hard-working; and armed with a practical education (i.e. not gender studies) they can have as good a standard of living in post-German Germany as they could in the Fatherland. This is isn't to say you shouldn’t oppose immigration on ethnic and cultural grounds; but don't worry too much about economics.


    But imo you’re making the same mistake as utu and are ignoring the larger context. songbird would probably face severe social ostracism or even persecution by the state if he made such comments in public. Whereas the ethnocentrism, and I think at least in some cases quite blatant anti-white racism, of American blacks seems to be quite deliberately stoked by the establishment.
     
    Engaging in whataboutism ("blacks are racists too!"), or weak argumentation ("he's only an obnoxious racist online because he's too cowardly to be offline!") is not typical of your otherwise logical and level-headed comments.

    So on some level I feel like my country has to foot the bill for developments we haven’t had much agency over.

     

    Welcome to the club.

    Replies: @German_reader, @Shortsword

    Birth rates in Egypt, as with the rest of the Arab world, have indeed steeply declined (by roughly 50%) from ~5-6 TFR to ~2-3 TFR over the previous few decades. Last I checked Egypt’s estimated TFR stood at 2.61 by the end of 2021, lower than in 2020 (2.93), 2015 (3.68), and 2010 (3.37).

    I’ve read that Sisi has urged people to not have more than two children. Is this only something he’s said or does Egypt have any policies in place for this?

  948. @Dmitry
    ?
    https://twitter.com/geoallison/status/1483150153255198720

    https://twitter.com/geoallison/status/1483154803538776067

    https://twitter.com/geoallison/status/1483162488124456964

    Replies: @songbird

    Seems like pretty rational geopolitics.

    It is not difficult to fly around Germany, so you don’t make anyone too mad.

    And what does Germany have to gain by pissing off Russia? Even Stalin and Beria, both extreme psychopaths, wanted to withdraw from East Germany.

    The Nordstream 2 stuff seems pretty crazy though. Easy to see that as simple toadying, not in the national interest.

    • Replies: @Dmitry
    @songbird

    The problem is this shows the United Kingdom believe there can be a military operation by the Russian Federation in Eastern Ukraine. In Russia, there is an atmosphere of chill, and that nothing will happen except threats.

    If there is a military conflict in East Ukraine, this is very bad news, so we all have to hope that this is still empty threats.

    -

    However, there was today in Russia also sign of nervous speculation in the ruling class. In Russia, the upper class, keeps most of their money outside Russia.

    This money is cleaned outside and a part of it returns to Russia as "FDI" (although it's not really FDI, but just the upper class money re-entering the country).

    Today, there was an issue where the Moscow Bursa is collapsing over 5%. This is probably showing some of the upper class are moving their "FDI" money back to Switzerland, Cyprus and Jersey, for re-allocation to some safer investments in London, etc.

    https://i.imgur.com/KjUTHRL.jpg

    When this happens, it shows some of the upper class are returning their money from offshore, and moving it back outside Russia again.

    So, I'm not saying the upper class knows anything we cattle don't know. But it could be a sign of nervous speculation from the upper class about the international situation, that they are nervous enough to move the money out of Russia again (which has requires transaction cost, so might not be completely empty indicator).

    Hopefully this is still explained within the nervous tension generated by journalists, genre.

    Replies: @German_reader

  949. @songbird
    @silviosilver


    have you never been informed that “cunt” in Australian can be used neutrally to mean something like “guy” or “dude”?
     
    Didn't know that.

    Honestly, there seems to still be an amazing level of cultural disconnect between Anglophone countries. Like, I believe that there are harmless gestures in America that are considered extremely offensive among Aussies or English (depending on the gesture)

    And in England, I think "pants" means "women's underwear" or something. IMO, that's way more bizarre than some of these false cognates in German or other langauges.

    Replies: @A123, @silviosilver

    And in England, I think “pants” means “women’s underwear” or something. IMO, that’s way more bizarre than some of these false cognates in German or other langauges.

    Having picked up UK vernacular via reading, I can confirm this issue.

    American, pissed = Angry
    UK, pissed = Drunk

    American, car trunk = UK, boot
    American, shock absorber = UK, damper

    NO WORRIES 😇

     

    • Replies: @songbird
    @A123

    Heard an anecdote that began this way once:

    An Englishman (maybe a cabbie?) went to the door of a young American women's house in order to pick her up in his car, and said to her "Hello. I am here to knock you up." (In American parlance - impregnate)

    Replies: @A123

  950. @Dmitry
    @Thulean Friend

    I would agree peoples' appearance is not too interesting in modern countries like America, as we know it is mostly population descended from immigrant mongrels from Europe (or kidnapping victims from West Africa), without too many historical mysteries.

    But discussion of appearance of the people in the Middle East or Caucasus is interesting, as you try to imagine in peoples' faces, ancient movements of the populations and the changeover of the religions.

    Anything in Mediterranean culture (especially Eastern Mediterranean), also is a little magical, as it touches to the biblical and classical texts.

    Palestinian Christians and Druze are reminding visually of Greeks. You can guess that the historical Biblical characters, would not be too distinct from the appearance of modern Greeks.

    Bedouins look more like Saudis. Of course, postzionist Jewish population of the region are a randomized mix of races, as they are recent immigrants from many different races there - but as we notice in the Israel-Arab conflict, the Zionist mix of ideology, language and religion, can be more effective for statebuilding than a blood connection would be.

    Replies: @Yahya

    I would agree peoples’ appearance is not too interesting in modern countries like America, as we know it is mostly population descended from immigrant mongrels from Europe (or kidnapping victims from West Africa), without too many historical mysteries.

    But discussion of appearance of the people in the Middle East or Caucasus is interesting, as you try to imagine in peoples’ faces, ancient movements of the populations and the changeover of the religions.

    Yes, some us enjoy discussing phenotypes; just as others may enjoy discussing art, music or architecture. After all, the human form is just as aesthetically pleasing as any collage painted by Picasso, music composed by Mozart, or architecture designed by Zaha Hadid.

    I think you’re right, Dmitry, most people here are from boring parts of the world; where people look bland and generic. Perhaps that is why they are not interested in phenotypic discussions. As for the Aussie brigade around these parts, well Australia is famously lacking in any interesting culture or history; so perhaps it’s inevitable they would not partake in discussions which are more of interest to people from ancient cultures and histories.

    Druze often seem to remind more of Greeks in their appearance? Even Arabic-speaking Muslim population in Israel, has some diversity, considering how different can look the populations from Druze to Bedouin.

    The beautiful lady in the first video looks Ashkenazim. Are you sure she’s Druze?

    Druze do have a somewhat Greek look to them. One eminent figure in Arabic music is an elegant Druze lady who went by the name Asmahan. Her life story is the stuff of movies; born to a Syrian Druze father and a Lebanese Druze mother; her aristocratic family were prominent in the fight against the French occupation of Syria. They then fled to Egypt under the sponsorship of Egyptian nationalist leader Saad Zaghloul; who was friends with her father, as he had been a prominent Ottoman governor during the last days of the Empire. During World War 2, she was recruited by the French and British intelligence services to urge Druze fighters not to resist French occupation for the duration of the war. The Gestapo murdered her for her role in helping the British and French.

    Asmahan also has a Greek-like appearance, though her phenotype can also be found in abundance among the predominantly Muslim Syrian upper class. Again, class not religion is the main determinant of phenotypic appearance in the Arab world.

    • Replies: @silviosilver
    @Yahya


    Yes, some us enjoy discussing phenotypes; just as others may enjoy discussing art, music or architecture.
     
    Well that's the cover story, sure. But what it really is, one suspects, is angling for compliments, and the hope is that someone will eventually say "damn bro, those people in that pic are so white they could pass for Spaniards for sure!" Rofl

    well Australia is famously lacking in any interesting culture or history
     
    We got the Dreamtime. That's way older than the first pyramid.

    Of course, people like me had nothing to do with it, but if muzzie sandniggers can lay claim to the pharaohs then I don't see any reason why med swarthoids can't lay claim to the Dreamtime.

    So "We wuz kangaz!" (A kanga is an Australian slang abbreviation for kangaroo, and in the Dreamtime humans could indeed be kangaroos.)

    Replies: @Yahya

    , @Dmitry
    @Yahya


    Australia is famously lacking
     
    There was a person who was from Australia who posted on this forum (Drdoom). Australia is surely one of the best countries in world, from an objective point of view. But if I recall, he was always complaining about Australia.

    I was imagining, he is in Australia, enjoying high incomes, stable legal system, political stability, warm weather and vitamin D.

    You can imagine him drinking a cold beer, in a beautiful suburban house, after he returns from the day surfing in the beach, and starting writing about "apocalypse in Australia" in between our discussion about Ukraine, Moldova and Kazakhstan.


    beautiful lady in the first video looks Ashkenazim. Are you sure she’s Druze?
     
    She is Druze Muslim wife of a Druze policeman, who was killed by a Muslim terrorist, trying to save lives of Jews in an attack against a Haredi synagogue in Jerusalem. There is the Byzantine nightmare of the Middle East.

    lady in the first video looks Ashkenazim.
    Druze do have a somewhat Greek look to them.
     

    Some overlap with Turks, Bulgarians, Serbs, Greeks, etc. I guess all this overlap of nationalities, is just the underlying nationalities of the Eastern Mediterranean were quite similar in the Ancient times, and Arab conquest includes assimilation of the pre-existing nationalities.

    Druze also like to remind of Ottoman times with their hat style. Whereas Circassians' hats are more like Breslovniks.

    https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=x8ojYQeORMI

  951. More proof that the Antisemitic Defaming League [ADL] exists to hate Jews for being Jewish. (1)

    you might think that after an Islamic jihadi stormed a Texas synagogue and took hostages, the ADL would be drawing attention to Islamic anti-Semitism, as well as to the targeting of synagogues by Islamic jihadis in the past. Instead, it once again proves that it is more interested in preserving the Leftist narrative than in combating anti-Semitism: the ADL is very concerned that some of the reactions to the hostage-taking incident have been, in its view, “Islamophobic.”

    Regardless of its origins, one thing is certain — The current ADL serves Muslim causes, not Jewish ones.

    PEACE 😇
    __________

    (1) https://pjmedia.com/news-and-politics/robert-spencer/2022/01/17/in-wake-of-texas-synagogue-hostage-taking-anti-defamation-league-warns-against-islamophobia-n1550218

  952. @songbird
    @silviosilver


    have you never been informed that “cunt” in Australian can be used neutrally to mean something like “guy” or “dude”?
     
    Didn't know that.

    Honestly, there seems to still be an amazing level of cultural disconnect between Anglophone countries. Like, I believe that there are harmless gestures in America that are considered extremely offensive among Aussies or English (depending on the gesture)

    And in England, I think "pants" means "women's underwear" or something. IMO, that's way more bizarre than some of these false cognates in German or other langauges.

    Replies: @A123, @silviosilver

    Didn’t know that.

    To clarify, it’s a lower class thing, to be sure. But I suppose nowadays it would not really sound out of place for better off 20-somethings to mimic that kind of speech, at least when inebriated.

    Like, I believe that there are harmless gestures in America that are considered extremely offensive among Aussies or English (depending on the gesture)

    Oh come on, you can’t just leave it at that. Like what? (I honestly have no idea what you could be referring to.)

    Since you mentioned gestures, and I’m in the mood to chit chat, when you flip someone the bird (a term that isn’t used here; you’d say to give someone the finger, or an “up yours”), you used to have a choice of either the middle finger or both the index and middle finger. If you did it the latter way, you wouldn’t just hold your hand there, you would usually move it up and down a couple of times. As a kid, I caught the tail end of that optionality, but even then middle-finger-only was already dominant. People who at some point might have used the two-finger method have by now probably forgotten the option ever existed.

    • Replies: @songbird
    @silviosilver


    Oh come on, you can’t just leave it at that. Like what?
     
    The English one is giving the peace or V-sign. Facing one way (which?), it is harmless. The other way, it is supposedly a medieval battlefield taunt, referencing cutting a bowman's draw fingers off, after the other side gets defeated in battle.

    Honestly, I'm even foggier on the Aussie one. I'd probably keep my hands in my pockets. But I think it was the thumbs up? Or, maybe, the okay sign? Or was it (as I think) holding up the index finger, while here it would be like a kind of braggadocios or strutting version of "Thank you, God!"

    Thinking back to the "cunt" thing, I wonder if that might be because there were few women there at first.

    when you flip someone the bird
     
    And in England women are called "birds!" Can't even begin to guess why. To me that is nearly like calling them "lizards" or something.
  953. I don’t think sovoks like Chairman Meow should spar with capitalist apologists over economic dick-measuring contests. Instead they should ponder this quote from Alain de Benoist: “Better to wear the helmet of a Red Army soldier than to live on a diet of hamburgers in Brooklyn.”

  954. @A123
    @songbird


    And in England, I think “pants” means “women’s underwear” or something. IMO, that’s way more bizarre than some of these false cognates in German or other langauges.
     
    Having picked up UK vernacular via reading, I can confirm this issue.

    American, pissed = Angry
    UK, pissed = Drunk

    American, car trunk = UK, boot
    American, shock absorber = UK, damper

    NO WORRIES 😇

     
    https://i.imgflip.com/mwlfl.jpg

    Replies: @songbird

    Heard an anecdote that began this way once:

    An Englishman (maybe a cabbie?) went to the door of a young American women’s house in order to pick her up in his car, and said to her “Hello. I am here to knock you up.” (In American parlance – impregnate)

    • LOL: A123
    • Replies: @A123
    @songbird

    UK insults can be entertaining in a way that eludes U.S. usage.

    PEACE 😇

    https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=865g8S4d2dQ

    Replies: @songbird

  955. @silviosilver
    @songbird


    Didn’t know that.
     
    To clarify, it's a lower class thing, to be sure. But I suppose nowadays it would not really sound out of place for better off 20-somethings to mimic that kind of speech, at least when inebriated.

    Like, I believe that there are harmless gestures in America that are considered extremely offensive among Aussies or English (depending on the gesture)
     
    Oh come on, you can't just leave it at that. Like what? (I honestly have no idea what you could be referring to.)

    Since you mentioned gestures, and I'm in the mood to chit chat, when you flip someone the bird (a term that isn't used here; you'd say to give someone the finger, or an "up yours"), you used to have a choice of either the middle finger or both the index and middle finger. If you did it the latter way, you wouldn't just hold your hand there, you would usually move it up and down a couple of times. As a kid, I caught the tail end of that optionality, but even then middle-finger-only was already dominant. People who at some point might have used the two-finger method have by now probably forgotten the option ever existed.

    Replies: @songbird

    Oh come on, you can’t just leave it at that. Like what?

    The English one is giving the peace or V-sign. Facing one way (which?), it is harmless. The other way, it is supposedly a medieval battlefield taunt, referencing cutting a bowman’s draw fingers off, after the other side gets defeated in battle.

    Honestly, I’m even foggier on the Aussie one. I’d probably keep my hands in my pockets. But I think it was the thumbs up? Or, maybe, the okay sign? Or was it (as I think) holding up the index finger, while here it would be like a kind of braggadocios or strutting version of “Thank you, God!”

    Thinking back to the “cunt” thing, I wonder if that might be because there were few women there at first.

    when you flip someone the bird

    And in England women are called “birds!” Can’t even begin to guess why. To me that is nearly like calling them “lizards” or something.

  956. German_reader says:
    @Yevardian
    @German_reader


    The deportation happened in 1944, at a time when there was no risk of the Soviet Union losing the war, it can’t be justified by any security considerations at all.
     
    Yes, well fair enough. I just felt the circumstances were rather different to (say) that of the Bengal famine, the extermination of the Herrero in German Namibia, or Leopold's Congo (which were rather the exception rather than the rule in late European colonialism anyway).

    The deportation happened in 1944, at a time when there was no risk of the Soviet Union losing the war, it can’t be justified by any security considerations at all. Frankly, if you want to use that type of argument, you could argue with more justifcation that the Young Turks in WW1 were justified in deporting your people to the Syrian desert, after all they were fighting a war against powers that clearly wanted to dismember the Ottoman empire, and Turks had already been on the receiving end of massacres and ethnic cleansing in the Balkans (as had Circassians in the Caucasus at the hands of Tsarist Russia).

     

    Stalin was more than half-expecting The Allies to declare war on the USSR after they had finished with Germany and Japan, as they did seriously consider with "Operation Unthinkable", so the extreme paranoia about any proven 5th column was understandable. Not that a blame the Chechens either for any lack of 'loyalty' to Russian rule, given their history.
    In general, the Russian conquest to directly annex and rule the North Caucausus was a monumental mistake, buffered by the strongly the strongly pro-Russian Georgia and Armenia and split by the equally pro-Russian Ossetians it wasn't even really necessary.

    Don't want to make this into a 'my genocide vs your genocide' debate, but state-sponsored Turkish pogroms and massacres against the Armenians predate WWI by quite sometime, really starting with newly modernising/nationalist Sultan Abdul Hamid at the close of the 19th Century.
    Armenians sent in those deportations were fully intended to die, and most of them were killed on-route anyway. At least most Chechens actually survived the Kazakhstan ordeal.

    By the way, not apologising for it at all, I just don't think its a close comparison.

    Replies: @German_reader

    I just felt the circumstances were rather different to (say) that of the Bengal famine, the extermination of the Herrero in German Namibia, or Leopold’s Congo (which were rather the exception rather than the rule in late European colonialism anyway).

    Bengal famine wasn’t intentional, I find it bizarre how this is more and more presented as if the British had deliberately decided to starve Bengalis to death just for racist reasons. To be sure, there are certainly many good reasons to criticize British rule over India, and some people in Britain may still have rather too self-congratulatory views of it (“We banned suttee and eliminated the thugs” etc.). But on the other hand, British scholars did a lot to research and recover Indian antiquities, in which they were much more interested than previous Muslim rulers had been. So when you point out the good the Soviets did for previously largely illiterate Central Asian peoples by creating literate cultures for them in their own languages, similar things could be said about the British in India. I’m pretty tired of Soviet apologists like “Chairman Meow” who denounce European colonialism all the time (what a brave thing to do in 2022!), yet deny the Soviet Union’s many crimes.
    As for the Herrero, sure, it was certainly at the more extreme end of European colonialist violence and can be seen as genocidal. However, to be quite honest, I feel the prominence this act of mass killing is often accorded nowadays (“the first genocide of the 20th century”) and the way it’s represented (“the Kaiser’s Holocaust”, as if the Kaiser himself had given the orders to exterminate the Herrero, not the local commander) has more to do with creating a consistent anti-German narrative than with any sober analysis.

    Armenians sent in those deportations were fully intended to die, and most of them were killed on-route anyway. At least most Chechens actually survived the Kazakhstan ordeal.

    Well, one quarter of Chechens did die because of the deportation. But you’re probably right that there was more of a genocidal intent behind what the Young Turks did to Armenians, and my intention wasn’t to belittle the Armenian genocide. I just wanted to point out that the Young Turks too felt they had good reasons for what they did. So I don’t find it all that convincing to argue that Stalin (a paranoid despot if ever there was one) was afraid of external attack and therefore had to remove 5th columns.

    • Agree: songbird
    • Replies: @Coconuts
    @German_reader


    Bengal famine wasn’t intentional, I find it bizarre how this is more and more presented as if the British had deliberately decided to starve Bengalis to death just for racist reasons. To be sure, there are certainly many good reasons to criticize British rule over India, and some people in Britain may still have rather too self-congratulatory views of it (“We banned suttee and eliminated the thugs” etc.).
     
    At the moment I get the impression they are aiming to build up some sort of 'Black Legend' around the British Empire, it's like one of the local manifestations of broader Western Wokeism (there is obviously a strong Post-Colonial/Anti-Racist perspective around this issue). Slavery is usually the 'main event', the Indian Empire is in a supporting role. On the basis of this history of darkness they can then institute some kind of de-Nazification program modelled on Germany's:

    https://www.msn.com/en-gb/news/world/backlash-to-colston-four-s-acquittal-over-statue-toppling-shows-why-school-lessons-on-slavery-are-so-crucial/ar-AASCAuS?ocid=msedgntp

    Speculating about why this is going on, an obvious thing is a response to Brexit and the phenomena of 'Populism', and progressives piggy backing on BLM and the anti-Trump phenomena in the US. Then, the bigger issue, major demographic change due to mass immigration. I have come across tentative attempts in the mainstream media to start to address the issue, I am guessing in preparation for the publication of the results of the census last year, but generally there is enough data available for anybody aware to predict how demographically things might start to change fairly rapidly in the next 10-20 years. It's very possible that this will become hard to ignore politically as it reaches all of the normies and low information electorate in the regions, so they are taking steps to anticipate or manage the emergence of any kind of political response in advance.

  957. @Yahya
    @Dmitry


    I would agree peoples’ appearance is not too interesting in modern countries like America, as we know it is mostly population descended from immigrant mongrels from Europe (or kidnapping victims from West Africa), without too many historical mysteries.

    But discussion of appearance of the people in the Middle East or Caucasus is interesting, as you try to imagine in peoples’ faces, ancient movements of the populations and the changeover of the religions.
     

    Yes, some us enjoy discussing phenotypes; just as others may enjoy discussing art, music or architecture. After all, the human form is just as aesthetically pleasing as any collage painted by Picasso, music composed by Mozart, or architecture designed by Zaha Hadid.

    I think you're right, Dmitry, most people here are from boring parts of the world; where people look bland and generic. Perhaps that is why they are not interested in phenotypic discussions. As for the Aussie brigade around these parts, well Australia is famously lacking in any interesting culture or history; so perhaps it's inevitable they would not partake in discussions which are more of interest to people from ancient cultures and histories.


    Druze often seem to remind more of Greeks in their appearance? Even Arabic-speaking Muslim population in Israel, has some diversity, considering how different can look the populations from Druze to Bedouin.
     
    The beautiful lady in the first video looks Ashkenazim. Are you sure she's Druze?

    Druze do have a somewhat Greek look to them. One eminent figure in Arabic music is an elegant Druze lady who went by the name Asmahan. Her life story is the stuff of movies; born to a Syrian Druze father and a Lebanese Druze mother; her aristocratic family were prominent in the fight against the French occupation of Syria. They then fled to Egypt under the sponsorship of Egyptian nationalist leader Saad Zaghloul; who was friends with her father, as he had been a prominent Ottoman governor during the last days of the Empire. During World War 2, she was recruited by the French and British intelligence services to urge Druze fighters not to resist French occupation for the duration of the war. The Gestapo murdered her for her role in helping the British and French.

    https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=85NKWF1mFYA&ab_channel=sabinelol

    Asmahan also has a Greek-like appearance, though her phenotype can also be found in abundance among the predominantly Muslim Syrian upper class. Again, class not religion is the main determinant of phenotypic appearance in the Arab world.

    Replies: @silviosilver, @Dmitry

    Yes, some us enjoy discussing phenotypes; just as others may enjoy discussing art, music or architecture.

    Well that’s the cover story, sure. But what it really is, one suspects, is angling for compliments, and the hope is that someone will eventually say “damn bro, those people in that pic are so white they could pass for Spaniards for sure!” Rofl

    well Australia is famously lacking in any interesting culture or history

    We got the Dreamtime. That’s way older than the first pyramid.

    Of course, people like me had nothing to do with it, but if muzzie sandniggers can lay claim to the pharaohs then I don’t see any reason why med swarthoids can’t lay claim to the Dreamtime.

    So “We wuz kangaz!” (A kanga is an Australian slang abbreviation for kangaroo, and in the Dreamtime humans could indeed be kangaroos.)

    • LOL: songbird
    • Replies: @Yahya
    @silviosilver


    one suspects,
     
    Don't suspect and don't project.

    muzzie sandniggers
     
    Ah, the distasteful racial insults start flying once the obnoxious racists start losing the argument.

    We got the Dreamtime.
     
    Cute.

    Of course, people like me had nothing to do with it, but if muzzie sandniggers can lay claim to the pharaohs then I don’t see any reason why med swarthoids can’t lay claim to the Dreamtime.
     
    Lol, imbecile. Egyptians laying claim to their ancestors achievements is nowhere near comparable to a Euro immigrants laying claim to aboriginal "achievements".

    I've been very patient with you; notice how none of my comments attacked your person in any way this whole time. But since you've resorted to being a petty, obnoxious twit; I shall respond in kind. You are a pathetic huckster who thinks supporting the WN cause will lead to a good outcome for you and your kind. Little do you know that, once the racial purity commissars get rid of the blacks, Asians, Indians etc. they are coming for impure, greasy dagos like yourself next. You think your ilk have a place in the Aryan dream nation? Think again, sonny boy.

    Replies: @silviosilver, @silviosilver, @sher singh

  958. German_reader says:
    @utu
    @German_reader

    "For various reasons I feel differently about the Ukraine issue" - We know you GR.


    https://ukdefencejournal.org.uk/british-aircraft-avoid-germany-on-ukraine-weapon-supply-run/
    Two British C-17 transport aircraft carrying weapons to Ukraine were forced to fly around German airspace after Germany refused to supply defensive weapons to Ukraine.
     

    Replies: @German_reader

    Yeah, sure, because I’m a German government official making such decisions, right. And in my previous comments I already stated that I’m coming around to the view it would be better to send arms shipments to Ukraine for deterrence (I emphasize for deterrence – I’m not keen on Ukraine then shelling Donbass, so Russian media can go on how the “Banderites” are killing innocent Russian civilians with Western weapons). I don’t want Ukraine to be invaded by Russia. But the issues aren’t as black and white as you paint them, and calling me an appeaser, Putin puppet etc. is really low-effort.
    Are you only here now for insulting other commenters btw? You’ve always come across like somewhat of a cantankerous old man, but recently you seem to have turned into a caricature of yourself.

    • Replies: @songbird
    @German_reader

    Did utu ever mention his nationality? Once I remember him mentioning Switzerland, but more in the way of a tourist, I think. Still, I had the vague idea that he might be part German.

    If never, that seems more cowardly, than having one's elites not commit to picking sides in some probably pretend war.

    Utu would probably justify himself by saying arms dumped on a super-corrupt country never get resold, or lead to unforeseen problems down the road.

    And I don't believe he has joined Ukraine's volunteers, but instead seems to want to hand out white feathers from behind his keyboard, and encourage other people to be killed.

    Replies: @German_reader, @AP

  959. @silviosilver
    @Yahya


    Yes, some us enjoy discussing phenotypes; just as others may enjoy discussing art, music or architecture.
     
    Well that's the cover story, sure. But what it really is, one suspects, is angling for compliments, and the hope is that someone will eventually say "damn bro, those people in that pic are so white they could pass for Spaniards for sure!" Rofl

    well Australia is famously lacking in any interesting culture or history
     
    We got the Dreamtime. That's way older than the first pyramid.

    Of course, people like me had nothing to do with it, but if muzzie sandniggers can lay claim to the pharaohs then I don't see any reason why med swarthoids can't lay claim to the Dreamtime.

    So "We wuz kangaz!" (A kanga is an Australian slang abbreviation for kangaroo, and in the Dreamtime humans could indeed be kangaroos.)

    Replies: @Yahya

    one suspects,

    Don’t suspect and don’t project.

    muzzie sandniggers

    Ah, the distasteful racial insults start flying once the obnoxious racists start losing the argument.

    We got the Dreamtime.

    Cute.

    Of course, people like me had nothing to do with it, but if muzzie sandniggers can lay claim to the pharaohs then I don’t see any reason why med swarthoids can’t lay claim to the Dreamtime.

    Lol, imbecile. Egyptians laying claim to their ancestors achievements is nowhere near comparable to a Euro immigrants laying claim to aboriginal “achievements”.

    I’ve been very patient with you; notice how none of my comments attacked your person in any way this whole time. But since you’ve resorted to being a petty, obnoxious twit; I shall respond in kind. You are a pathetic huckster who thinks supporting the WN cause will lead to a good outcome for you and your kind. Little do you know that, once the racial purity commissars get rid of the blacks, Asians, Indians etc. they are coming for impure, greasy dagos like yourself next. You think your ilk have a place in the Aryan dream nation? Think again, sonny boy.

    • Replies: @silviosilver
    @Yahya


    Ah, the distasteful racial insults start flying once the obnoxious racists start losing the argument.
     
    Lol, I think it's pretty clear who the sore loser here is. I don't even have any against you personally, nor do I even disagree much with the views you've presented. But that you are prickly, thinskinned third world assclown has been obvious from the get go, and that's just too tempting a target not to have some fun getting a rise out of.

    You think your ilk have a place in the Aryan dream nation? Think again, sonny boy.
     
    But that isn't what I expect at all. What I hope to gain from supporting their cause is for it to catalyze an ingathering of my own people. Whether that means segregation or partition or even a collective return to our homelands is of secondary importance to me. (Obviously the first of those would be the easiest, and a good place to start regardless of what one's ultimate desire is.)

    Replies: @Yahya

    , @silviosilver
    @Yahya


    Ah, the distasteful racial insults start flying once the obnoxious racists start losing the argument.
     
    A note on this I forgot to add. Look, of course it's distasteful to let fly with racial insults. IRL, I've never spoken and would never speak that way to anyone. But getting slapped with a dose of cold hard reality is part of the rough and tumble of internet bloodsports - indeed, it's part of the allure. It reminds me of a line in a poem I've heard about the city of Lynn, MA: "you never come out the way you went in."

    Hell, it's worth posting in full:

    Lynn, Lynn, the city of sin
    you never come out the way you went in

    You ask for water, they give you gin
    The girls say no, yet always give in

    If you're not bad, they don't let you in
    It's the damndest city I've ever lived in
    , @sher singh
    @Yahya

    Abrahamics have no claim on pagan achievements.Christcucks squatting in Evropa are same thing.

    https://twitter.com/steve_sailer/status/1105226110898384896?lang=en

    Also, it's perfectly natural to tribally align with whites against niggers.
    Ur bitch made focus on lifting & Ghazwat. Also if WN is bad then promoting it among whites is good :shrug:

    ਵਾਹਿਗੁਰੂਜੀਕਾਖਾਲਸਾਵਾਹਿਗੁਰੂਜੀਕੀਫਤਿਹ

  960. @Yahya
    @silviosilver


    one suspects,
     
    Don't suspect and don't project.

    muzzie sandniggers
     
    Ah, the distasteful racial insults start flying once the obnoxious racists start losing the argument.

    We got the Dreamtime.
     
    Cute.

    Of course, people like me had nothing to do with it, but if muzzie sandniggers can lay claim to the pharaohs then I don’t see any reason why med swarthoids can’t lay claim to the Dreamtime.
     
    Lol, imbecile. Egyptians laying claim to their ancestors achievements is nowhere near comparable to a Euro immigrants laying claim to aboriginal "achievements".

    I've been very patient with you; notice how none of my comments attacked your person in any way this whole time. But since you've resorted to being a petty, obnoxious twit; I shall respond in kind. You are a pathetic huckster who thinks supporting the WN cause will lead to a good outcome for you and your kind. Little do you know that, once the racial purity commissars get rid of the blacks, Asians, Indians etc. they are coming for impure, greasy dagos like yourself next. You think your ilk have a place in the Aryan dream nation? Think again, sonny boy.

    Replies: @silviosilver, @silviosilver, @sher singh

    Ah, the distasteful racial insults start flying once the obnoxious racists start losing the argument.

    Lol, I think it’s pretty clear who the sore loser here is. I don’t even have any against you personally, nor do I even disagree much with the views you’ve presented. But that you are prickly, thinskinned third world assclown has been obvious from the get go, and that’s just too tempting a target not to have some fun getting a rise out of.

    You think your ilk have a place in the Aryan dream nation? Think again, sonny boy.

    But that isn’t what I expect at all. What I hope to gain from supporting their cause is for it to catalyze an ingathering of my own people. Whether that means segregation or partition or even a collective return to our homelands is of secondary importance to me. (Obviously the first of those would be the easiest, and a good place to start regardless of what one’s ultimate desire is.)

    • Replies: @Yahya
    @silviosilver


    I don’t even have any against you personally,
     
    Oh, so that's why you started firing insults and ad hominen?

    Lol, I think it’s pretty clear who the sore loser here is.

     

    That would be the person who started attacking his interlocutor, after failing to rebut his counterparties' polite arguments on a factual basis.

    third world
     
    GDP per capita (PPP):
    Saudi Arabia = $56,817
    Australia = $55,492

    Replies: @silviosilver

  961. @German_reader
    @utu

    Yeah, sure, because I'm a German government official making such decisions, right. And in my previous comments I already stated that I'm coming around to the view it would be better to send arms shipments to Ukraine for deterrence (I emphasize for deterrence - I'm not keen on Ukraine then shelling Donbass, so Russian media can go on how the "Banderites" are killing innocent Russian civilians with Western weapons). I don't want Ukraine to be invaded by Russia. But the issues aren't as black and white as you paint them, and calling me an appeaser, Putin puppet etc. is really low-effort.
    Are you only here now for insulting other commenters btw? You've always come across like somewhat of a cantankerous old man, but recently you seem to have turned into a caricature of yourself.

    Replies: @songbird

    Did utu ever mention his nationality? Once I remember him mentioning Switzerland, but more in the way of a tourist, I think. Still, I had the vague idea that he might be part German.

    If never, that seems more cowardly, than having one’s elites not commit to picking sides in some probably pretend war.

    Utu would probably justify himself by saying arms dumped on a super-corrupt country never get resold, or lead to unforeseen problems down the road.

    And I don’t believe he has joined Ukraine’s volunteers, but instead seems to want to hand out white feathers from behind his keyboard, and encourage other people to be killed.

    • Replies: @German_reader
    @songbird

    The general belief is that utu is Czech, but yeah, he's never confirmed or denied it iirc. He certainly seems to have grown up in some Eastern Bloc nation during the early Cold War. Which I suppose explains his enthusiasm for Cold War 2 (both against Russia and China), as a way of getting back at the commies who made his youth more miserable than it had to be.
    Anyway, I'm not here to defend the German government. I'm annoyed by Molotov-Ribbentropp accusations against Germany (inappropriate imo), but it probably is a mistake not to make it absolutely clear to Russia that an invasion of Ukraine will have severe consequences. I certainly don't see how the NS2 pipeline could be retained in such a scenario, and probably there would have to be other consequences as well.

    Replies: @songbird

    , @AP
    @songbird

    I strongly suspect he is an ethnic Silesian.

  962. German_reader says:
    @songbird
    @German_reader

    Did utu ever mention his nationality? Once I remember him mentioning Switzerland, but more in the way of a tourist, I think. Still, I had the vague idea that he might be part German.

    If never, that seems more cowardly, than having one's elites not commit to picking sides in some probably pretend war.

    Utu would probably justify himself by saying arms dumped on a super-corrupt country never get resold, or lead to unforeseen problems down the road.

    And I don't believe he has joined Ukraine's volunteers, but instead seems to want to hand out white feathers from behind his keyboard, and encourage other people to be killed.

    Replies: @German_reader, @AP

    The general belief is that utu is Czech, but yeah, he’s never confirmed or denied it iirc. He certainly seems to have grown up in some Eastern Bloc nation during the early Cold War. Which I suppose explains his enthusiasm for Cold War 2 (both against Russia and China), as a way of getting back at the commies who made his youth more miserable than it had to be.
    Anyway, I’m not here to defend the German government. I’m annoyed by Molotov-Ribbentropp accusations against Germany (inappropriate imo), but it probably is a mistake not to make it absolutely clear to Russia that an invasion of Ukraine will have severe consequences. I certainly don’t see how the NS2 pipeline could be retained in such a scenario, and probably there would have to be other consequences as well.

    • Thanks: songbird
    • Replies: @songbird
    @German_reader


    but it probably is a mistake not to make it absolutely clear to Russia that an invasion of Ukraine will have severe consequences.
     
    Honestly, I don't see it in realpolitik terms. At least, not from a German perspective.

    As I inferred previously, I don't see a realistic military threat to Germany from Russia, weak as Germany is now. Beria is well-known to have wanted to pull out of East Germany. I have heard that Stalin also wanted to, shortly before his death. (not without concessions) Maybe, he had some ulterior purpose in mind? Political revolution? Guess it is possible.

    But I don't see Putin doing it, or his successors, unless they are invited in. Numerous reasons, starting with demographics. But also nuclear weapons, greater economic integration. The fact that the Chinese are much more powerful.

    And I really don't see him invading Ukraine unless the NATO thing happens, and think he would probably be justified in that case. Even putting aside other reasons, the US has turned into quite a dark creature.

    Replies: @German_reader

  963. Wonder whether it would be safer to question the idea that more education is always better in Sweden than in the oil rich states of the Middle East, like UAE, Qatar, Bahrain, Saudi. That’s the impression that I get.

  964. @silviosilver
    @Yahya


    Ah, the distasteful racial insults start flying once the obnoxious racists start losing the argument.
     
    Lol, I think it's pretty clear who the sore loser here is. I don't even have any against you personally, nor do I even disagree much with the views you've presented. But that you are prickly, thinskinned third world assclown has been obvious from the get go, and that's just too tempting a target not to have some fun getting a rise out of.

    You think your ilk have a place in the Aryan dream nation? Think again, sonny boy.
     
    But that isn't what I expect at all. What I hope to gain from supporting their cause is for it to catalyze an ingathering of my own people. Whether that means segregation or partition or even a collective return to our homelands is of secondary importance to me. (Obviously the first of those would be the easiest, and a good place to start regardless of what one's ultimate desire is.)

    Replies: @Yahya

    I don’t even have any against you personally,

    Oh, so that’s why you started firing insults and ad hominen?

    Lol, I think it’s pretty clear who the sore loser here is.

    That would be the person who started attacking his interlocutor, after failing to rebut his counterparties’ polite arguments on a factual basis.

    third world

    GDP per capita (PPP):
    Saudi Arabia = \$56,817
    Australia = \$55,492

    • LOL: Yevardian
    • Replies: @silviosilver
    @Yahya


    That would be the person who started attacking his interlocutor, after failing to rebut his counterparties’ polite arguments on a factual basis.
     
    Oops, you're right, I forgot that you proved being spoken to in Spanish in Spain means they think you're an ethnic Spaniard. You completely hammered me on that one.

    GDP per capita (PPP):
    Saudi Arabia = $56,817
    Australia = $55,492
     
    The harder you keep trying, the funnier it gets.
  965. @songbird
    @A123

    Heard an anecdote that began this way once:

    An Englishman (maybe a cabbie?) went to the door of a young American women's house in order to pick her up in his car, and said to her "Hello. I am here to knock you up." (In American parlance - impregnate)

    Replies: @A123

    UK insults can be entertaining in a way that eludes U.S. usage.

    PEACE 😇

    • Replies: @songbird
    @A123

    As I recently hinted darkly to Mr. Hack, I have a deep, deep prejudice against British television.

    I remember many years ago: I was out in the country, on vacation, in a very isolated place, probably about 50 miles from the nearest broadcasting station, and we had an old TV, and my brother rigged up an antenna by pulling it up with a rope like forty feet, and the one channel we could get in came in very fuzzily, and it was Doctor Who.

    After about, thirty seconds of shlocky dialogue and seeing some garbage pail which they called a "Dalek", spin around, i quietly backed away, even though it was raining outside and I had already strained my eyes reading old issues of Nat Geo.

    But I don't hate all of it. The Saint was okay. They used to make very good history and nature documentaries. In fact, I had the idea recently to track down Kenneth Clarke's series.

    Replies: @A123

  966. @German_reader
    @songbird

    The general belief is that utu is Czech, but yeah, he's never confirmed or denied it iirc. He certainly seems to have grown up in some Eastern Bloc nation during the early Cold War. Which I suppose explains his enthusiasm for Cold War 2 (both against Russia and China), as a way of getting back at the commies who made his youth more miserable than it had to be.
    Anyway, I'm not here to defend the German government. I'm annoyed by Molotov-Ribbentropp accusations against Germany (inappropriate imo), but it probably is a mistake not to make it absolutely clear to Russia that an invasion of Ukraine will have severe consequences. I certainly don't see how the NS2 pipeline could be retained in such a scenario, and probably there would have to be other consequences as well.

    Replies: @songbird

    but it probably is a mistake not to make it absolutely clear to Russia that an invasion of Ukraine will have severe consequences.

    Honestly, I don’t see it in realpolitik terms. At least, not from a German perspective.

    As I inferred previously, I don’t see a realistic military threat to Germany from Russia, weak as Germany is now. Beria is well-known to have wanted to pull out of East Germany. I have heard that Stalin also wanted to, shortly before his death. (not without concessions) Maybe, he had some ulterior purpose in mind? Political revolution? Guess it is possible.

    But I don’t see Putin doing it, or his successors, unless they are invited in. Numerous reasons, starting with demographics. But also nuclear weapons, greater economic integration. The fact that the Chinese are much more powerful.

    And I really don’t see him invading Ukraine unless the NATO thing happens, and think he would probably be justified in that case. Even putting aside other reasons, the US has turned into quite a dark creature.

    • Replies: @German_reader
    @songbird


    I don’t see it in realpolitik terms. At least, not from a German perspective.
     
    One can see it like that (I certainly don't believe Putin intends to conquer Germany), but Germany can't ignore the concerns of its eastern neighbours completely. And attacking other countries on pretexts and annexing territory is a severe breach of the security order in Europe, whose maintenance is also in Germany's interest (and yes, of course NATO can be accused of having done the same in Kosovo, I know).

    Even putting aside other reasons, the US has turned into quite a dark creature.
     
    That's really the complicating factor for me, as little sympathy as I have for the megalomania of Russian chauvinists with their "Ukrainians are little Russians, they just don't know it yet". If I'm honest, I think the US today is a force for evil in the world. Its foreign policy is aggressive, has caused immense carnage (and played an important role in bringing millions of Arabs, Afghans etc. to Germany) and clearly aiming at total global domination. US cultural influence with its increasing anti-white tilt is also really pernicious (and of course there are also more specific German concerns relating to Germans' status as most evil people ever™). So it's really a difficult situation. I wish there was more of an independent German or European position, to safeguard our collective interests against the US, Russia and China (none of whom can be regarded as friendly from my perspective), but that seems hardly possible now.

    Replies: @Thulean Friend, @Matra, @AP

  967. @utu
    @melanf

    The whole discussion about Picasso is pointless. But you are correct that painters like Semiradsky, who are virtually unknown, were great. Also the 19th century orientalism in painting was great.

    https://upload.wikimedia.org/wikipedia/commons/7/7e/Chassériau_Esther_1841.jpg

    https://upload.wikimedia.org/wikipedia/commons/c/c9/Le_Bain_Turc%2C_by_Jean_Auguste_Dominique_Ingres%2C_from_C2RMF_retouched.jpg

    https://upload.wikimedia.org/wikipedia/commons/7/7f/Geromeslavemarket.jpg

    And there are so many more good paintings out there that I haven't been exposed to while undergoing art education because it was all about impressionism, expressionism, cubisms, surrealism and so on. While there are some good paintings that were created by impressionists and even by some abstract expressionists in general most of them are forgettable. It seems that the whole movement of modern paintings was a one big mistake. Now I feel like loathing impressionism when I think of it.

    But I have a great respect for Marcel Duchamp because he saw through it (he was the first who saw it) that on the conceptual level one can exhaust all possibilities pretty fast so he tried everything showing that he also can and then he came with 'Fountain' as the final statement one can make in art. Unfortunately he was mistaken by not taking the financial aspect into account and then he succumbed to money by making replicas of 'Fountain' years later. But he was right the first time.

    Replies: @German_reader

    Also the 19th century orientalism in painting was great.

    That’s basically just soft porn, catering to fantasies about sex slavery. Not much artistic merit here.

  968. @Yahya
    @silviosilver


    one suspects,
     
    Don't suspect and don't project.

    muzzie sandniggers
     
    Ah, the distasteful racial insults start flying once the obnoxious racists start losing the argument.

    We got the Dreamtime.
     
    Cute.

    Of course, people like me had nothing to do with it, but if muzzie sandniggers can lay claim to the pharaohs then I don’t see any reason why med swarthoids can’t lay claim to the Dreamtime.
     
    Lol, imbecile. Egyptians laying claim to their ancestors achievements is nowhere near comparable to a Euro immigrants laying claim to aboriginal "achievements".

    I've been very patient with you; notice how none of my comments attacked your person in any way this whole time. But since you've resorted to being a petty, obnoxious twit; I shall respond in kind. You are a pathetic huckster who thinks supporting the WN cause will lead to a good outcome for you and your kind. Little do you know that, once the racial purity commissars get rid of the blacks, Asians, Indians etc. they are coming for impure, greasy dagos like yourself next. You think your ilk have a place in the Aryan dream nation? Think again, sonny boy.

    Replies: @silviosilver, @silviosilver, @sher singh

    Ah, the distasteful racial insults start flying once the obnoxious racists start losing the argument.

    A note on this I forgot to add. Look, of course it’s distasteful to let fly with racial insults. IRL, I’ve never spoken and would never speak that way to anyone. But getting slapped with a dose of cold hard reality is part of the rough and tumble of internet bloodsports – indeed, it’s part of the allure. It reminds me of a line in a poem I’ve heard about the city of Lynn, MA: “you never come out the way you went in.”

    Hell, it’s worth posting in full:

    Lynn, Lynn, the city of sin
    you never come out the way you went in

    You ask for water, they give you gin
    The girls say no, yet always give in

    If you’re not bad, they don’t let you in
    It’s the damndest city I’ve ever lived in

  969. @Yahya
    @silviosilver


    I don’t even have any against you personally,
     
    Oh, so that's why you started firing insults and ad hominen?

    Lol, I think it’s pretty clear who the sore loser here is.

     

    That would be the person who started attacking his interlocutor, after failing to rebut his counterparties' polite arguments on a factual basis.

    third world
     
    GDP per capita (PPP):
    Saudi Arabia = $56,817
    Australia = $55,492

    Replies: @silviosilver

    That would be the person who started attacking his interlocutor, after failing to rebut his counterparties’ polite arguments on a factual basis.

    Oops, you’re right, I forgot that you proved being spoken to in Spanish in Spain means they think you’re an ethnic Spaniard. You completely hammered me on that one.

    GDP per capita (PPP):
    Saudi Arabia = \$56,817
    Australia = \$55,492

    The harder you keep trying, the funnier it gets.

  970. @A123
    @songbird

    UK insults can be entertaining in a way that eludes U.S. usage.

    PEACE 😇

    https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=865g8S4d2dQ

    Replies: @songbird

    As I recently hinted darkly to Mr. Hack, I have a deep, deep prejudice against British television.

    I remember many years ago: I was out in the country, on vacation, in a very isolated place, probably about 50 miles from the nearest broadcasting station, and we had an old TV, and my brother rigged up an antenna by pulling it up with a rope like forty feet, and the one channel we could get in came in very fuzzily, and it was Doctor Who.

    After about, thirty seconds of shlocky dialogue and seeing some garbage pail which they called a “Dalek”, spin around, i quietly backed away, even though it was raining outside and I had already strained my eyes reading old issues of Nat Geo.

    But I don’t hate all of it. The Saint was okay. They used to make very good history and nature documentaries. In fact, I had the idea recently to track down Kenneth Clarke’s series.

    • Replies: @A123
    @songbird

    Old Doctor Who was a children's program, often with marginal writing and always negligible budget. The original presentation format had a longer story broken up into four or six ~ 25 minute chunks. This further stilted the writing to achieve "cliffhangers" based on that timing.

    The 2005 reboot of the series was budgeted and written for adults. That served up much better fare with Eccleston, Tennant, and, Smith. Sketchy choices started being made halfway through Capaldi's run as the 12th Doctor. Then the series went ultra woke with the introduction of Jodie Whittaker as the 13th Doctor.

    PEACE 😇

     
    https://content.assets.pressassociation.io/2017/07/10153803/PA-319998131-640x391.jpg

    Replies: @songbird

  971. @songbird
    @German_reader

    Did utu ever mention his nationality? Once I remember him mentioning Switzerland, but more in the way of a tourist, I think. Still, I had the vague idea that he might be part German.

    If never, that seems more cowardly, than having one's elites not commit to picking sides in some probably pretend war.

    Utu would probably justify himself by saying arms dumped on a super-corrupt country never get resold, or lead to unforeseen problems down the road.

    And I don't believe he has joined Ukraine's volunteers, but instead seems to want to hand out white feathers from behind his keyboard, and encourage other people to be killed.

    Replies: @German_reader, @AP

    I strongly suspect he is an ethnic Silesian.

    • Thanks: songbird
  972. @Svidomyatheart
    @LatW

    Latw, American blacks are probably the most privileged race on earth aside from Jews in the Western hemisphere.

    How can one compare housing projects with all modern amneties and more to a humble Khrushchevka where some of them didn't have running water or a toilet and instead they were public and outside(outhouses) and where you had a family of 5-6 cramped into 1-2 rooms.

    It may have been a little different in the Baltics and places like Poland where Russians tried to offer you guys small tokens and trinkets in the form of slightly more gibs, living conditions and some slightly better goods just to get you guys to be more complacent(USSR was an affirmative action empire after all)

    And that was all the while still deporting you guys and throwing dissidents in jail. Weird Russian logic in action: we like you guys but we also toss your sane people into jail...


    Recently on their forums I was reading Russians talking about how they tried to treat you guys with "kid gloves" at least in the Russian sense/the Russian version of it and it produced no results. Poland too before 1863 revolt, after ww2, etc.


    There was general tidyness was there because there was nothing else or better to do you didn't have the material goods or money to blow on them where one can buy any x gadget or item you just had nothing but could stare at bare empty walls.

    My mom still gets triggered when something like buying a pair of underwear!! was like a holiday that you did twice a year. She still remembers where you had international sportsmen where they were boasting about how they bought a new pair of clothes on TV in an interview. These were renowned international people talking about something as a trivial as buying clothes..ugh swooping so low and it sounds so cringe if you think about it.

    I know empty materialism produces no results but this complete poverty is just awful there should be a medium between the 2

    Also I have like a 700 word response to your open thread 171 comment bout the war( a much more serious response, war is imminent ) but i dont know if i should post it now or wait for a open thread 173 because this one is probably going to be closed soon as its reaching almost 1000 comments.

    Replies: @LatW

    How can one compare housing projects with all modern amenities

    We’re talking about the 80s. Google New York housing projects in the 1980s. Some of it looks like Dresden after the bombings… ok, maybe not that bad but still… At the time they were still having 4-5 children each. And the crime, trash, etc. Btw, those brown brick buildings are not great, very tight and no ventilation inside.

    It may have been a little different in the Baltics and places like Poland where Russians tried to offer you guys small tokens and trinkets in the form of slightly more gibs

    Whatever “trinkets” we had we made ourselves. The industries were built based in many cases on pre-existing factories that had been built during the Tsar’s time and later developed in the 1930s republic, as well as built then (1930s was a time of growth and prosperity for us). Even during the Soviet era, many Baltic people did not live in the anthills, but houses that were built during the 30s or before.

    I’m not saying life wasn’t spartan, but to compare to projects, with all the specific things that come with it, is just not accurate. I’d be the last to lionize the Soviet system, but one has to compare apples to apples. And besides… the American middle class probably lived on average better anyway than even their Western European counterparts. I’m a bit curious about how the Scandinavians lived in the 80s, I’m sure they lived well, but they mostly lived in apartments, too (same as they do now).

    Ofc, I do remember of all the parents’ stories about the hockey players who went overseas and came back with better clothes, lol. Stepping out of the bus wearing jeans and cool sunglasses and what not. LOL Do you remember the meme about this one Soviet chick that once the travel to the West opened up, she walked into a Western grocery store and had a mental breakdown. All the preconceptions about the “evil capitalists” collapsed.

    [MORE]

    And that was all the while still deporting you guys and throwing dissidents in jail. Weird Russian logic in action: we like you guys but we also toss your sane people into jail…

    Yes, it happened to one of my granpas, too (the consequences of the communist terror are more far reaching than it first appears). For not sharing the fruits of his labor. Anyway… nowadays I try to take the Russian “phantom limb” stories with some humor, as a coping mechanism, in my youth I was more triggered. Most of them are also not crazy like that, there are normal ones out there.

    I know empty materialism produces no results but this complete poverty is just awful there should be a medium between the 2

    Agree 100%, the best is to find some way to keep a spartan spirit but still have some wealth.

    Also I have like a 700 word response to your open thread 171 comment bout the war( a much more serious response, war is imminent ) but i dont know if i should post it now or wait for a open thread 173 because this

    Please, do post it (you can hold on for now), I really want to hear your thoughts. I apologize if I said anything above that sounded trivial or insensitive about Ukraine (ofc, the occupation of the left bank Ukraine would be horrible, even if they as little as move there should be a strong reaction), the situation is very serious (it’s upsetting that the good people of Ukraine are bullied and tormented daily with these threats of some impending attack). We have to prepare, life could change.

    • Replies: @songbird
    @LatW


    Google New York housing projects in the 1980s. Some of it looks like Dresden after the bombings
     
    Think I heard that they filmed the 1961 movie Judgment at Nuremberg in the Bronx.

    In other words, by then, the Bronx already worked as a stand-in for bombed out Germany.
    , @A123
    @LatW


    Do you remember the meme about this one Soviet chick that once the travel to the West opened up, she walked into a Western grocery store and had a mental breakdown. All the preconceptions about the “evil capitalists” collapsed.
     
    I do not remember her name, but it sounds suspiciously like Moscow on the Hudson. Robin Williams has a break down while overwhelmed by the coffee selection in an average grocery store. Tom Clancy's Hunt for Red October also covered similar ground, though much less over dramatically.

    PEACE 😇

    , @AP
    @LatW


    Google New York housing projects in the 1980s. Some of it looks like Dresden after the bombings… ok, maybe not that bad but still… At the time they were still having 4-5 children each. And the crime, trash, etc.
     
    But things like crime and trash are cultural rather than material. Obviously living in the same small cheap places with teacher and engineer neighbors is going to be better than among lumpens. Yet materially, not much difference.
  973. The same UK that can’t, or won’t, defend its own borders during a pandemic or its own teenage girls from Pakistani rape gangs, and that actively undermines its own citizens in Northern Ireland is going to get tough about Ukraine’s borders. lol Like their footballers taking a knee for American black nationalism – the country’s been on its knees since Suez – they just instinctively play the role of Europe’s American mini-me.

    On Spaniards, plenty of them have light features. The most distinguishing physical characteristic I’ve noticed when seeing them in European cities is how small they are compared to everybody else, including Arabs. Even their football team has hardly anybody of sufficient height to make it worthwhile crossing the ball from corners and free kicks.

    • Replies: @silviosilver
    @Matra


    The most distinguishing physical characteristic I’ve noticed when seeing them in European cities is how small they are compared to everybody else, including Arabs.
     
    How do you know they're all Spaniards? And how do you know the taller people you're seeing are not Spaniards?

    Shouldn't the fact that Spain has dominated European basketball for a decade (without importing Africans, like France) suggest that maybe your impressions are faulty?

    Replies: @Dmitry

  974. German_reader says:
    @songbird
    @German_reader


    but it probably is a mistake not to make it absolutely clear to Russia that an invasion of Ukraine will have severe consequences.
     
    Honestly, I don't see it in realpolitik terms. At least, not from a German perspective.

    As I inferred previously, I don't see a realistic military threat to Germany from Russia, weak as Germany is now. Beria is well-known to have wanted to pull out of East Germany. I have heard that Stalin also wanted to, shortly before his death. (not without concessions) Maybe, he had some ulterior purpose in mind? Political revolution? Guess it is possible.

    But I don't see Putin doing it, or his successors, unless they are invited in. Numerous reasons, starting with demographics. But also nuclear weapons, greater economic integration. The fact that the Chinese are much more powerful.

    And I really don't see him invading Ukraine unless the NATO thing happens, and think he would probably be justified in that case. Even putting aside other reasons, the US has turned into quite a dark creature.

    Replies: @German_reader

    I don’t see it in realpolitik terms. At least, not from a German perspective.

    One can see it like that (I certainly don’t believe Putin intends to conquer Germany), but Germany can’t ignore the concerns of its eastern neighbours completely. And attacking other countries on pretexts and annexing territory is a severe breach of the security order in Europe, whose maintenance is also in Germany’s interest (and yes, of course NATO can be accused of having done the same in Kosovo, I know).

    Even putting aside other reasons, the US has turned into quite a dark creature.

    That’s really the complicating factor for me, as little sympathy as I have for the megalomania of Russian chauvinists with their “Ukrainians are little Russians, they just don’t know it yet”. If I’m honest, I think the US today is a force for evil in the world. Its foreign policy is aggressive, has caused immense carnage (and played an important role in bringing millions of Arabs, Afghans etc. to Germany) and clearly aiming at total global domination. US cultural influence with its increasing anti-white tilt is also really pernicious (and of course there are also more specific German concerns relating to Germans’ status as most evil people ever™). So it’s really a difficult situation. I wish there was more of an independent German or European position, to safeguard our collective interests against the US, Russia and China (none of whom can be regarded as friendly from my perspective), but that seems hardly possible now.

    • Replies: @Thulean Friend
    @German_reader


    If I’m honest, I think the US today is a force for evil in the world
     
    This isn't even up for debate. No other country has been as destructive in recent history. The Western left is too weak on US imperialism. The US right is too "patriot-tard" not to take an honest look in the mirror.

    Yahya has a lot of bad takes, but he isn't wrong about the deleterious impact of US imperialism. And Europe is to blame too, for being too cowardly to stand up to Uncle Sam.

    The 2015 refugee crisis had its origins in the Syrian civil war where the West backed the worst criminal jihadist scum against Assad. Even today, most Westerners are not aware of this gruesome part played by their governments, as the Western media keeps them fed with lies or don't tell them any details.

    I've said it before and I'll say it again: Europe is a colony of the US and if "sovereignty" should mean anything it should be about severing ties with the US rather than "standing up to China" which is just running errands for the America.

    Replies: @A123

    , @Matra
    @German_reader

    The US is far worse than Russia because the former is pumping its cultural sewage into every living room and school in the West, weaponsing even our own cultures against us. It's NGOs & corporations are more pernicious than anything coming from any other country/culture (Russia, China, India, or the Muslim world). As for Russia, many conversations here with Russian nationalists & sovoks have demonstrated that Russians will never exercise much influence over us as they tend to alienate everyone they come into contact with! They've no soft power - they don't seem to think it matters - and their hard power is limited too, to mostly their "near abroad".

    On this subject, I recall reading in one of John Lukacs' books that when he returned to Hungary in 1972 (he escaped just before communism), the Soviet satellite country was more culturally American than before he left, with little trace of Russian influence beyond hard politics. Hungarian politicians may have had to vote with the USSR in the UN but I bet they weren't forced to take "racist" maths off their kids' school curriculum.

    , @AP
    @German_reader


    And attacking other countries on pretexts and annexing territory is a severe breach of the security order in Europe, whose maintenance is also in Germany’s interest (and yes, of course NATO can be accused of having done the same in Kosovo, I know).
     
    When two countries are mismatched in size and power, the best deterrent to war is to build up the smaller and weaker side (the opposite is true, of course, when two sides are equal - in that case building up one will tempt a war).

    A country such as Germany that is preventing the strengthening of the weaker side is increasing the chances of war.

    Of course one can apply this to Donbas - strengthening Ukraine may encourage an attempt to reassert control over Donbas. Russia's presence, however, probably cancels out this effect. The prevention of a much larger and more deadly due to scope Russia-Ukraine war is probably more important.
  975. Lots of happening in Ukraine over the past 24 hours.

    – Canadian special forces deployed

    – UK supplying anti-tank weapons

    – Moscow begun removing diplo staff to bare minimum in Ukraine

    – There are also seeming disagreements within NATO over Swift. Germany purportedly not only is against it, but has also insisted that any sectoral sanctions against Russian banks contain loopholes to facilitate payment of oil and gas, thus effectively knee-capping any serious sanctions from the getgo.

    The fundamental fact remains that Russia’s hand is much stronger today than it has been for many years. German industry is already dealing with massive inflation spikes and supply-chain constraints. If Germany is going to accept a hammerblow to its economy, then NATO should let it know what it gets in return.

    In 2014, the West could lose Crimea but at least gain Ukraine as the country moved decisively in its direction. Russia was also hampered by low oil prices and it hadn’t yet de-risked its financial system, it didn’t even have an alternative to SWIFT.

    Today? If Russia invades, there are no geopolitical upsides for Europe. Sanctions would hurt Europe just as much as it hurts Russia or possibly more. Germany understands this and is castigated falsely for “appeasement” when it is just the simple reality. NATO has backed itself into a corner and it doesn’t know how to get out. Russia is no longer as weak and it knows it.

  976. @German_reader
    @songbird


    I don’t see it in realpolitik terms. At least, not from a German perspective.
     
    One can see it like that (I certainly don't believe Putin intends to conquer Germany), but Germany can't ignore the concerns of its eastern neighbours completely. And attacking other countries on pretexts and annexing territory is a severe breach of the security order in Europe, whose maintenance is also in Germany's interest (and yes, of course NATO can be accused of having done the same in Kosovo, I know).

    Even putting aside other reasons, the US has turned into quite a dark creature.
     
    That's really the complicating factor for me, as little sympathy as I have for the megalomania of Russian chauvinists with their "Ukrainians are little Russians, they just don't know it yet". If I'm honest, I think the US today is a force for evil in the world. Its foreign policy is aggressive, has caused immense carnage (and played an important role in bringing millions of Arabs, Afghans etc. to Germany) and clearly aiming at total global domination. US cultural influence with its increasing anti-white tilt is also really pernicious (and of course there are also more specific German concerns relating to Germans' status as most evil people ever™). So it's really a difficult situation. I wish there was more of an independent German or European position, to safeguard our collective interests against the US, Russia and China (none of whom can be regarded as friendly from my perspective), but that seems hardly possible now.

    Replies: @Thulean Friend, @Matra, @AP

    If I’m honest, I think the US today is a force for evil in the world

    This isn’t even up for debate. No other country has been as destructive in recent history. The Western left is too weak on US imperialism. The US right is too “patriot-tard” not to take an honest look in the mirror.

    Yahya has a lot of bad takes, but he isn’t wrong about the deleterious impact of US imperialism. And Europe is to blame too, for being too cowardly to stand up to Uncle Sam.

    The 2015 refugee crisis had its origins in the Syrian civil war where the West backed the worst criminal jihadist scum against Assad. Even today, most Westerners are not aware of this gruesome part played by their governments, as the Western media keeps them fed with lies or don’t tell them any details.

    I’ve said it before and I’ll say it again: Europe is a colony of the US and if “sovereignty” should mean anything it should be about severing ties with the US rather than “standing up to China” which is just running errands for the America.

    • Agree: sher singh
    • Replies: @A123
    @Thulean Friend

    The continuation of the refugee crisis from the Syrian civil war comes from backing the most evil, criminal, jihadist Iranian scum in existence. Even today, most Muslims are not aware of the gruesome part played by sociopath Khamenei. For example, Islamic media refuses to admit the proven ties between Iranian Hezbollah and the Nasrallah-shima blast that levelled Beirut's port.

    In case you missed the news from Texas. Iranian Hamas linked Malik Faisal Akram committed terrorism to agitate for the release of Al'Qaeda terrorist Aafia Siddiqui. Anyone claiming ISIS and Iran are 'opposite' sides is woefully misinformed. Khamenei is more than willing to back Al'Qaeda targeting of infidels.
    _____

    Pointing the finger at Western problems is incredibly ineffective while simultaneously covering up the horror that Iran is inflicting in the MENA region and beyond. It comes across as blatant hypocrisy.

    PEACE 😇

  977. @Dmitry
    @LatW

    My tourist experience is maybe half of people in Spain seem visually quite similar to Arabs, but a significant minority look like Northern Europeans. Varies from the region of the country.

    But you don't really notice that so much. More of the things you notice when you arrive in Spain, is that the Spanish people seem to be smaller compared to any European country. It's almost like East Asia.

    Anyway, better not debating on random photos.


    t live in Georgia). The very particular Caucasian facial
     
    A majority of Georgians look like the Middle Eastern/Caucasian.

    But a significant minority of Georgian look like white Europeans.

    It's like with Chechens, or with Spain. It's a borderzone of populations, with mix of appearance of the people. (You can see a racial diversity of the children with YouTube on school graduations of Georgia https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=kB2WHR2KjCY.)
    By comparison Armenians seem to look like Middle Eastern people homogenously.

    Notice in these naturally mixed race appearing countries like Spain or Georgia, the people don't seem to care, or even to notice their diversity.

    It shows how it is relatively unimportant appearance is really, in statebuilding or peoples' psychology.

    Even Ukrainians are looking a bit ethnically mixed nationalities to my eyes (you can see the mix of the appearance of the Ukrainian kids on this YouTube graduation method https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=LoBw-ntJGrI.) and yet Ukrainians nowadays have more of the ultranationalism and patriotism than any other country in Europe.

    Replies: @Mikel

    Notice in these naturally mixed race appearing countries like Spain or Georgia, the people don’t seem to care, or even to notice their diversity.

    Well, not exactly. In fact, when Yahyah speaks about Spaniards he almost sounds like a Basque nationalist of the old school 🙂

    • LOL: Yahya
  978. @LatW
    @Svidomyatheart


    How can one compare housing projects with all modern amenities
     
    We're talking about the 80s. Google New York housing projects in the 1980s. Some of it looks like Dresden after the bombings... ok, maybe not that bad but still... At the time they were still having 4-5 children each. And the crime, trash, etc. Btw, those brown brick buildings are not great, very tight and no ventilation inside.

    It may have been a little different in the Baltics and places like Poland where Russians tried to offer you guys small tokens and trinkets in the form of slightly more gibs
     
    Whatever "trinkets" we had we made ourselves. The industries were built based in many cases on pre-existing factories that had been built during the Tsar's time and later developed in the 1930s republic, as well as built then (1930s was a time of growth and prosperity for us). Even during the Soviet era, many Baltic people did not live in the anthills, but houses that were built during the 30s or before.

    I'm not saying life wasn't spartan, but to compare to projects, with all the specific things that come with it, is just not accurate. I'd be the last to lionize the Soviet system, but one has to compare apples to apples. And besides... the American middle class probably lived on average better anyway than even their Western European counterparts. I'm a bit curious about how the Scandinavians lived in the 80s, I'm sure they lived well, but they mostly lived in apartments, too (same as they do now).

    Ofc, I do remember of all the parents' stories about the hockey players who went overseas and came back with better clothes, lol. Stepping out of the bus wearing jeans and cool sunglasses and what not. LOL Do you remember the meme about this one Soviet chick that once the travel to the West opened up, she walked into a Western grocery store and had a mental breakdown. All the preconceptions about the "evil capitalists" collapsed.



    And that was all the while still deporting you guys and throwing dissidents in jail. Weird Russian logic in action: we like you guys but we also toss your sane people into jail…
     
    Yes, it happened to one of my granpas, too (the consequences of the communist terror are more far reaching than it first appears). For not sharing the fruits of his labor. Anyway... nowadays I try to take the Russian "phantom limb" stories with some humor, as a coping mechanism, in my youth I was more triggered. Most of them are also not crazy like that, there are normal ones out there.

    I know empty materialism produces no results but this complete poverty is just awful there should be a medium between the 2
     
    Agree 100%, the best is to find some way to keep a spartan spirit but still have some wealth.

    Also I have like a 700 word response to your open thread 171 comment bout the war( a much more serious response, war is imminent ) but i dont know if i should post it now or wait for a open thread 173 because this
     
    Please, do post it (you can hold on for now), I really want to hear your thoughts. I apologize if I said anything above that sounded trivial or insensitive about Ukraine (ofc, the occupation of the left bank Ukraine would be horrible, even if they as little as move there should be a strong reaction), the situation is very serious (it's upsetting that the good people of Ukraine are bullied and tormented daily with these threats of some impending attack). We have to prepare, life could change.

    Replies: @songbird, @A123, @AP

    Google New York housing projects in the 1980s. Some of it looks like Dresden after the bombings

    Think I heard that they filmed the 1961 movie Judgment at Nuremberg in the Bronx.

    In other words, by then, the Bronx already worked as a stand-in for bombed out Germany.

  979. @songbird
    @A123

    As I recently hinted darkly to Mr. Hack, I have a deep, deep prejudice against British television.

    I remember many years ago: I was out in the country, on vacation, in a very isolated place, probably about 50 miles from the nearest broadcasting station, and we had an old TV, and my brother rigged up an antenna by pulling it up with a rope like forty feet, and the one channel we could get in came in very fuzzily, and it was Doctor Who.

    After about, thirty seconds of shlocky dialogue and seeing some garbage pail which they called a "Dalek", spin around, i quietly backed away, even though it was raining outside and I had already strained my eyes reading old issues of Nat Geo.

    But I don't hate all of it. The Saint was okay. They used to make very good history and nature documentaries. In fact, I had the idea recently to track down Kenneth Clarke's series.

    Replies: @A123

    Old Doctor Who was a children’s program, often with marginal writing and always negligible budget. The original presentation format had a longer story broken up into four or six ~ 25 minute chunks. This further stilted the writing to achieve “cliffhangers” based on that timing.

    The 2005 reboot of the series was budgeted and written for adults. That served up much better fare with Eccleston, Tennant, and, Smith. Sketchy choices started being made halfway through Capaldi’s run as the 12th Doctor. Then the series went ultra woke with the introduction of Jodie Whittaker as the 13th Doctor.

    PEACE 😇

     

    • Replies: @songbird
    @A123


    The 2005 reboot of the series was budgeted and written for adults.
     
    was that the one that had a spinoff starring two gay men or something? My brother (who does like Doctor Who and Red Dwarf) was very angry about that.

    Used to think that I hated everything that's hammy, but I recently came to realize that I appreciate Hollywood movies from the '50s targeted toward teenagers, like High School Confidential or I Was a Teenage Werewolf (think Aaron B would like that last one).

    I'm not even sure why I like that stuff. I almost think it is meant to be subversive but it is so bottled up that it seems earnest (which I appreciate). Of course, I also appreciate the aesthetics.

    Maybe, hamminess is impossible to pull off with diversity? Whenever I see it in combination, I feel like it is a message to "be stupid" or to "play stupid."

    Replies: @A123

  980. @Matra
    The same UK that can't, or won't, defend its own borders during a pandemic or its own teenage girls from Pakistani rape gangs, and that actively undermines its own citizens in Northern Ireland is going to get tough about Ukraine's borders. lol Like their footballers taking a knee for American black nationalism - the country's been on its knees since Suez - they just instinctively play the role of Europe's American mini-me.

    On Spaniards, plenty of them have light features. The most distinguishing physical characteristic I've noticed when seeing them in European cities is how small they are compared to everybody else, including Arabs. Even their football team has hardly anybody of sufficient height to make it worthwhile crossing the ball from corners and free kicks.

    Replies: @silviosilver

    The most distinguishing physical characteristic I’ve noticed when seeing them in European cities is how small they are compared to everybody else, including Arabs.

    How do you know they’re all Spaniards? And how do you know the taller people you’re seeing are not Spaniards?

    Shouldn’t the fact that Spain has dominated European basketball for a decade (without importing Africans, like France) suggest that maybe your impressions are faulty?

    • Replies: @Dmitry
    @silviosilver

    This is my tourist impression, that Spanish on average are unusually short.

    If you are a normal height man in Europe, go to Spain and can experience what it is like to be an awkward tall person, looking above the surrounding small dark peoples' hair.

    That is also my first impression of the country. Perhaps because I live my life in Europe as a normal height person, I find it unusual to arrive in a country in Europe, and to be suddenly the tallest person there.

    In Italy, people seem normal height at least so I don't remember anything special there, so not about the Mediterranean there.

    Replies: @songbird, @Coconuts, @Yahya

  981. @A123
    @songbird

    Old Doctor Who was a children's program, often with marginal writing and always negligible budget. The original presentation format had a longer story broken up into four or six ~ 25 minute chunks. This further stilted the writing to achieve "cliffhangers" based on that timing.

    The 2005 reboot of the series was budgeted and written for adults. That served up much better fare with Eccleston, Tennant, and, Smith. Sketchy choices started being made halfway through Capaldi's run as the 12th Doctor. Then the series went ultra woke with the introduction of Jodie Whittaker as the 13th Doctor.

    PEACE 😇

     
    https://content.assets.pressassociation.io/2017/07/10153803/PA-319998131-640x391.jpg

    Replies: @songbird

    The 2005 reboot of the series was budgeted and written for adults.

    was that the one that had a spinoff starring two gay men or something? My brother (who does like Doctor Who and Red Dwarf) was very angry about that.

    Used to think that I hated everything that’s hammy, but I recently came to realize that I appreciate Hollywood movies from the ’50s targeted toward teenagers, like High School Confidential or I Was a Teenage Werewolf (think Aaron B would like that last one).

    I’m not even sure why I like that stuff. I almost think it is meant to be subversive but it is so bottled up that it seems earnest (which I appreciate). Of course, I also appreciate the aesthetics.

    Maybe, hamminess is impossible to pull off with diversity? Whenever I see it in combination, I feel like it is a message to “be stupid” or to “play stupid.”

    • Replies: @A123
    @songbird


    was that the one that had a spinoff starring two gay men or something? My brother (who does like Doctor Who and Red Dwarf) was very angry about that.
     
    Yes. However, the character Captain Jack Harkness was both well written and well acted. The spinoff Torchwood lasted two seasons (in its original form) and was not activist woke. There was only one potentially objectionable episode in the run. It was given a late night spot "after the watershed" in UK parlance, and was allowed to tackle some very dark topics.

    The key relationship highlighted in the series was not Captain Jack and Ianto. It was a decidedly middle class marriage with Torchwood agent Gwen Cooper having to keep secrets from her husband Rhys.

    https://4.bp.blogspot.com/_Fxpg6ouBCmQ/SOjaXj5zPiI/AAAAAAAACYU/RHpFwZJqq3I/s400/Gwen+and+Rhys.jpg

    PEACE 😇

    Replies: @songbird

  982. @Thulean Friend
    @German_reader


    If I’m honest, I think the US today is a force for evil in the world
     
    This isn't even up for debate. No other country has been as destructive in recent history. The Western left is too weak on US imperialism. The US right is too "patriot-tard" not to take an honest look in the mirror.

    Yahya has a lot of bad takes, but he isn't wrong about the deleterious impact of US imperialism. And Europe is to blame too, for being too cowardly to stand up to Uncle Sam.

    The 2015 refugee crisis had its origins in the Syrian civil war where the West backed the worst criminal jihadist scum against Assad. Even today, most Westerners are not aware of this gruesome part played by their governments, as the Western media keeps them fed with lies or don't tell them any details.

    I've said it before and I'll say it again: Europe is a colony of the US and if "sovereignty" should mean anything it should be about severing ties with the US rather than "standing up to China" which is just running errands for the America.

    Replies: @A123

    The continuation of the refugee crisis from the Syrian civil war comes from backing the most evil, criminal, jihadist Iranian scum in existence. Even today, most Muslims are not aware of the gruesome part played by sociopath Khamenei. For example, Islamic media refuses to admit the proven ties between Iranian Hezbollah and the Nasrallah-shima blast that levelled Beirut’s port.

    In case you missed the news from Texas. Iranian Hamas linked Malik Faisal Akram committed terrorism to agitate for the release of Al’Qaeda terrorist Aafia Siddiqui. Anyone claiming ISIS and Iran are ‘opposite’ sides is woefully misinformed. Khamenei is more than willing to back Al’Qaeda targeting of infidels.
    _____

    Pointing the finger at Western problems is incredibly ineffective while simultaneously covering up the horror that Iran is inflicting in the MENA region and beyond. It comes across as blatant hypocrisy.

    PEACE 😇

  983. How do you know they’re all Spaniards?

    I know Spanish when I hear it.

    They also have this habit of travelling in large groups so it is striking when one sees a dozen or so walking about (speaking Spanish!) and they are all short. I guess it’s possible they could all be Mexicans but I very much doubt it.

    Shouldn’t the fact that Spain has dominated European basketball for a decade (without importing Africans, like France) suggest that maybe your impressions are faulty?

    No. It’s a nation of well over 40 million, with advanced sports infrastructure, where basketball is played by just about every schoolboy, so it’s hardly surprising they are good at it.

  984. @songbird
    @A123


    The 2005 reboot of the series was budgeted and written for adults.
     
    was that the one that had a spinoff starring two gay men or something? My brother (who does like Doctor Who and Red Dwarf) was very angry about that.

    Used to think that I hated everything that's hammy, but I recently came to realize that I appreciate Hollywood movies from the '50s targeted toward teenagers, like High School Confidential or I Was a Teenage Werewolf (think Aaron B would like that last one).

    I'm not even sure why I like that stuff. I almost think it is meant to be subversive but it is so bottled up that it seems earnest (which I appreciate). Of course, I also appreciate the aesthetics.

    Maybe, hamminess is impossible to pull off with diversity? Whenever I see it in combination, I feel like it is a message to "be stupid" or to "play stupid."

    Replies: @A123

    was that the one that had a spinoff starring two gay men or something? My brother (who does like Doctor Who and Red Dwarf) was very angry about that.

    Yes. However, the character Captain Jack Harkness was both well written and well acted. The spinoff Torchwood lasted two seasons (in its original form) and was not activist woke. There was only one potentially objectionable episode in the run. It was given a late night spot “after the watershed” in UK parlance, and was allowed to tackle some very dark topics.

    The key relationship highlighted in the series was not Captain Jack and Ianto. It was a decidedly middle class marriage with Torchwood agent Gwen Cooper having to keep secrets from her husband Rhys.

    PEACE 😇

    • Replies: @songbird
    @A123

    I think Stargate SG-9 is the only sci-fi show that I remember watching back in the day that wasn't super woke on some level.

    Replies: @A123

  985. @LatW
    @Svidomyatheart


    How can one compare housing projects with all modern amenities
     
    We're talking about the 80s. Google New York housing projects in the 1980s. Some of it looks like Dresden after the bombings... ok, maybe not that bad but still... At the time they were still having 4-5 children each. And the crime, trash, etc. Btw, those brown brick buildings are not great, very tight and no ventilation inside.

    It may have been a little different in the Baltics and places like Poland where Russians tried to offer you guys small tokens and trinkets in the form of slightly more gibs
     
    Whatever "trinkets" we had we made ourselves. The industries were built based in many cases on pre-existing factories that had been built during the Tsar's time and later developed in the 1930s republic, as well as built then (1930s was a time of growth and prosperity for us). Even during the Soviet era, many Baltic people did not live in the anthills, but houses that were built during the 30s or before.

    I'm not saying life wasn't spartan, but to compare to projects, with all the specific things that come with it, is just not accurate. I'd be the last to lionize the Soviet system, but one has to compare apples to apples. And besides... the American middle class probably lived on average better anyway than even their Western European counterparts. I'm a bit curious about how the Scandinavians lived in the 80s, I'm sure they lived well, but they mostly lived in apartments, too (same as they do now).

    Ofc, I do remember of all the parents' stories about the hockey players who went overseas and came back with better clothes, lol. Stepping out of the bus wearing jeans and cool sunglasses and what not. LOL Do you remember the meme about this one Soviet chick that once the travel to the West opened up, she walked into a Western grocery store and had a mental breakdown. All the preconceptions about the "evil capitalists" collapsed.



    And that was all the while still deporting you guys and throwing dissidents in jail. Weird Russian logic in action: we like you guys but we also toss your sane people into jail…
     
    Yes, it happened to one of my granpas, too (the consequences of the communist terror are more far reaching than it first appears). For not sharing the fruits of his labor. Anyway... nowadays I try to take the Russian "phantom limb" stories with some humor, as a coping mechanism, in my youth I was more triggered. Most of them are also not crazy like that, there are normal ones out there.

    I know empty materialism produces no results but this complete poverty is just awful there should be a medium between the 2
     
    Agree 100%, the best is to find some way to keep a spartan spirit but still have some wealth.

    Also I have like a 700 word response to your open thread 171 comment bout the war( a much more serious response, war is imminent ) but i dont know if i should post it now or wait for a open thread 173 because this
     
    Please, do post it (you can hold on for now), I really want to hear your thoughts. I apologize if I said anything above that sounded trivial or insensitive about Ukraine (ofc, the occupation of the left bank Ukraine would be horrible, even if they as little as move there should be a strong reaction), the situation is very serious (it's upsetting that the good people of Ukraine are bullied and tormented daily with these threats of some impending attack). We have to prepare, life could change.

    Replies: @songbird, @A123, @AP

    Do you remember the meme about this one Soviet chick that once the travel to the West opened up, she walked into a Western grocery store and had a mental breakdown. All the preconceptions about the “evil capitalists” collapsed.

    I do not remember her name, but it sounds suspiciously like Moscow on the Hudson. Robin Williams has a break down while overwhelmed by the coffee selection in an average grocery store. Tom Clancy’s Hunt for Red October also covered similar ground, though much less over dramatically.

    PEACE 😇

  986. @silviosilver
    @Matra


    The most distinguishing physical characteristic I’ve noticed when seeing them in European cities is how small they are compared to everybody else, including Arabs.
     
    How do you know they're all Spaniards? And how do you know the taller people you're seeing are not Spaniards?

    Shouldn't the fact that Spain has dominated European basketball for a decade (without importing Africans, like France) suggest that maybe your impressions are faulty?

    Replies: @Dmitry

    This is my tourist impression, that Spanish on average are unusually short.

    If you are a normal height man in Europe, go to Spain and can experience what it is like to be an awkward tall person, looking above the surrounding small dark peoples’ hair.

    That is also my first impression of the country. Perhaps because I live my life in Europe as a normal height person, I find it unusual to arrive in a country in Europe, and to be suddenly the tallest person there.

    In Italy, people seem normal height at least so I don’t remember anything special there, so not about the Mediterranean there.

    • Replies: @songbird
    @Dmitry

    Have you ever been in a place where the dusky-hued women were visibly leering at you because of your light phenotype? I have - the USA.

    , @Coconuts
    @Dmitry

    In my experience the same thing applies in Portugal, possibly on average they may even have been shorter than Spaniards.

    I used to get the bus every day when I was a student and became used to being 8" or more taller than everyone else in the queue.

    , @Yahya
    @Dmitry


    This is my tourist impression, that Spanish on average are unusually short.

     

    There is no need to rely on your intuition in this instance. There are plenty of statistics on average height for each country out there.

    Here is a reliable source: https://www.worlddata.info/average-bodyheight.php

    Average male height
    Netherlands: 1.84m
    Sweden: 1.80m
    Germany: 1.80m
    Greece: 1.79m
    Lebanon: 1.78m
    Russia: 1.76m
    Spain: 1.76m
    Turkey: 1.76m
    China: 1.75m
    Italy: 1.74m
    Portugal: 1.74m
    Bulgaria: 1.73m
    Japan: 1.72m

    As you can see, while Spain is one of the shortest countries in Europe; it's not far off from the rest. It's tied with Russia, which was rather unexpected.


    She is Druze Muslim wife of a Druze policeman, who was killed by a Muslim terrorist, trying to save lives of Jews in an attack against a Haredi synagogue in Jerusalem.
     
    Well that's very commendable. I was surprised to see the Druze lady speak Hebrew in that video; is this common among the Druze in Israel? Has their identity shifted from Arab to Israeli? Would you say they are accepted as "fellow Israelis" by Israeli Jews?

    There is the Byzantine nightmare of the Middle East.
     
    Byzantine is the right word for the situation. A complex mess of entanglements, identities, and loyalties. Funny thing is, they shift rapidly and almost cyclically. One day your group is a sworn enemy of another; the next day you are best friends for life. One can witness this playing out live with Gulf States vis-a-vis Israel. I wouldn't be surprised if somewhere down the line; Israeli Arabs make a U-turn and adopt an Israeli identity. Though my guess is it would require a language shift as a necessary pre-condition. I wouldn't object too much if they were to do so; after-all Israel is elevating them economically and aesthetically, which I think is of great importance. Though I would be saddened to see Arabs abandon their identity and ethnicity. I wonder how likely it is that Jews adopt Arabic instead of Arabs adopting Hebrew. In many ways that would make more sense; as many Israeli Jews are of Arab origin; and were in fact themselves "Arabs" not too long ago. Jews adopting the Arabic language would also integrate them into the broader Arab world. I kind of miss the days when you can find Arabs professing all three Abrahamic faiths. Perhaps we shall return to the days of Al-Andalus.

    https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=4R0N48wmdA8&ab_channel=AbdelKarimEnsemble-Topic


    Druze often seem to remind more of Greeks in their appearance?
     
    The Druze wife does look Greek; but her Druze husband looks more like your typical, quasi-Hispanic, working-class Palestinian Muslim. Which pretty much confirms my general view that phenotypes in the Levant, as with the rest of the Arab world, range from quasi-Hispanic to quasi-European; even among the same religion, region, nation and family. The key to predicting the phenotype is class, not religion.

    Palestinian Christians and Druze are reminding visually of Greeks. You can guess that the historical Biblical characters, would not be too distinct from the appearance of modern Greeks.
     
    Do these Palestinian Christians look Greek to you?

    https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=cTeRiAeKJVs&ab_channel=ComunidadPalestinadeChile

    How about these Palestinian Muslims?

    https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=dg35ccIXMlM&feature=emb_logo&ab_channel=BaladiCenter

    Well, much more of them can pass for Greek. Why? Because they're from a higher class background. It's that simple.

    Again, focus on the class; not the religion.

    Anyway, this is probably my last comment on this subject, as I think our critics are right; it's getting a bit tiresome.

    Replies: @Dmitry

  987. @German_reader
    @songbird


    I don’t see it in realpolitik terms. At least, not from a German perspective.
     
    One can see it like that (I certainly don't believe Putin intends to conquer Germany), but Germany can't ignore the concerns of its eastern neighbours completely. And attacking other countries on pretexts and annexing territory is a severe breach of the security order in Europe, whose maintenance is also in Germany's interest (and yes, of course NATO can be accused of having done the same in Kosovo, I know).

    Even putting aside other reasons, the US has turned into quite a dark creature.
     
    That's really the complicating factor for me, as little sympathy as I have for the megalomania of Russian chauvinists with their "Ukrainians are little Russians, they just don't know it yet". If I'm honest, I think the US today is a force for evil in the world. Its foreign policy is aggressive, has caused immense carnage (and played an important role in bringing millions of Arabs, Afghans etc. to Germany) and clearly aiming at total global domination. US cultural influence with its increasing anti-white tilt is also really pernicious (and of course there are also more specific German concerns relating to Germans' status as most evil people ever™). So it's really a difficult situation. I wish there was more of an independent German or European position, to safeguard our collective interests against the US, Russia and China (none of whom can be regarded as friendly from my perspective), but that seems hardly possible now.

    Replies: @Thulean Friend, @Matra, @AP

    The US is far worse than Russia because the former is pumping its cultural sewage into every living room and school in the West, weaponsing even our own cultures against us. It’s NGOs & corporations are more pernicious than anything coming from any other country/culture (Russia, China, India, or the Muslim world). As for Russia, many conversations here with Russian nationalists & sovoks have demonstrated that Russians will never exercise much influence over us as they tend to alienate everyone they come into contact with! They’ve no soft power – they don’t seem to think it matters – and their hard power is limited too, to mostly their “near abroad”.

    On this subject, I recall reading in one of John Lukacs’ books that when he returned to Hungary in 1972 (he escaped just before communism), the Soviet satellite country was more culturally American than before he left, with little trace of Russian influence beyond hard politics. Hungarian politicians may have had to vote with the USSR in the UN but I bet they weren’t forced to take “racist” maths off their kids’ school curriculum.

    • Agree: German_reader
  988. @A123
    @songbird


    was that the one that had a spinoff starring two gay men or something? My brother (who does like Doctor Who and Red Dwarf) was very angry about that.
     
    Yes. However, the character Captain Jack Harkness was both well written and well acted. The spinoff Torchwood lasted two seasons (in its original form) and was not activist woke. There was only one potentially objectionable episode in the run. It was given a late night spot "after the watershed" in UK parlance, and was allowed to tackle some very dark topics.

    The key relationship highlighted in the series was not Captain Jack and Ianto. It was a decidedly middle class marriage with Torchwood agent Gwen Cooper having to keep secrets from her husband Rhys.

    https://4.bp.blogspot.com/_Fxpg6ouBCmQ/SOjaXj5zPiI/AAAAAAAACYU/RHpFwZJqq3I/s400/Gwen+and+Rhys.jpg

    PEACE 😇

    Replies: @songbird

    I think Stargate SG-9 is the only sci-fi show that I remember watching back in the day that wasn’t super woke on some level.

    • Replies: @A123
    @songbird

    Stargate SG-1 was constrained by the fact that key members of the cast were depicting military characters in the 1990's. That placed huge limits on any potential wokeness.

    While there were a few individual episodes that were problematic, Farscape and Babylon 5 were not woke and well short of super woke. B5 was staggeringly pro-union, left liberal in multiple episodes, but that is different & less inflammatory.

    Eureka was later and the main relationship was multi-racial. The series did not dwell on race/wokeness, but the issue was rather front & center. Mildly NSFW pictures of Dr. Blake & Deputy Lupo below [MORE].

    Star Trek TNG started super woke. It tried to become less woke over time, but never really escaped. DS9 started with limited wokeness, but acquired more issues over time. Much has been made of the "lesbian kiss" scene, however that was in vogue at the time and seems much more like a one-off, cheap grab at crass commercialism rather than genuine wokeness.

    Perhaps there were "super woke" shows, but none of them maintained enough audience to survive.

    PEACE 😇



    http://scifiempire.net/wordpress/wp-content/gallery/continuum/eureka-salli-richardson-in-lingerie-as-doctor-blake.png

     

    https://i.pinimg.com/originals/21/bc/c7/21bcc753b3e0ee4ea3f29be55592231d.jpg

    Replies: @songbird

  989. @Dmitry
    @silviosilver

    This is my tourist impression, that Spanish on average are unusually short.

    If you are a normal height man in Europe, go to Spain and can experience what it is like to be an awkward tall person, looking above the surrounding small dark peoples' hair.

    That is also my first impression of the country. Perhaps because I live my life in Europe as a normal height person, I find it unusual to arrive in a country in Europe, and to be suddenly the tallest person there.

    In Italy, people seem normal height at least so I don't remember anything special there, so not about the Mediterranean there.

    Replies: @songbird, @Coconuts, @Yahya

    Have you ever been in a place where the dusky-hued women were visibly leering at you because of your light phenotype? I have – the USA.

  990. One pro-natalist idea that I would like to propose is that people who use the term “parents” for a pet lose caste.

    • Replies: @Thulean Friend
    @songbird


    One pro-natalist idea that I would like to propose is that people who use the term “parents” for a pet lose caste.
     
    Better than calling themselves "owner" which is creepy and evil. The proper term should be guardian, since that is what those who look after pets should view themselves as.

    P.S. grats for the 1000th post. Maybe Unz can create a new OT as this one is becoming very slow to load.

    Replies: @songbird, @Emil Nikola Richard

  991. @Yahya
    @Dmitry


    I would agree peoples’ appearance is not too interesting in modern countries like America, as we know it is mostly population descended from immigrant mongrels from Europe (or kidnapping victims from West Africa), without too many historical mysteries.

    But discussion of appearance of the people in the Middle East or Caucasus is interesting, as you try to imagine in peoples’ faces, ancient movements of the populations and the changeover of the religions.
     

    Yes, some us enjoy discussing phenotypes; just as others may enjoy discussing art, music or architecture. After all, the human form is just as aesthetically pleasing as any collage painted by Picasso, music composed by Mozart, or architecture designed by Zaha Hadid.

    I think you're right, Dmitry, most people here are from boring parts of the world; where people look bland and generic. Perhaps that is why they are not interested in phenotypic discussions. As for the Aussie brigade around these parts, well Australia is famously lacking in any interesting culture or history; so perhaps it's inevitable they would not partake in discussions which are more of interest to people from ancient cultures and histories.


    Druze often seem to remind more of Greeks in their appearance? Even Arabic-speaking Muslim population in Israel, has some diversity, considering how different can look the populations from Druze to Bedouin.
     
    The beautiful lady in the first video looks Ashkenazim. Are you sure she's Druze?

    Druze do have a somewhat Greek look to them. One eminent figure in Arabic music is an elegant Druze lady who went by the name Asmahan. Her life story is the stuff of movies; born to a Syrian Druze father and a Lebanese Druze mother; her aristocratic family were prominent in the fight against the French occupation of Syria. They then fled to Egypt under the sponsorship of Egyptian nationalist leader Saad Zaghloul; who was friends with her father, as he had been a prominent Ottoman governor during the last days of the Empire. During World War 2, she was recruited by the French and British intelligence services to urge Druze fighters not to resist French occupation for the duration of the war. The Gestapo murdered her for her role in helping the British and French.

    https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=85NKWF1mFYA&ab_channel=sabinelol

    Asmahan also has a Greek-like appearance, though her phenotype can also be found in abundance among the predominantly Muslim Syrian upper class. Again, class not religion is the main determinant of phenotypic appearance in the Arab world.

    Replies: @silviosilver, @Dmitry

    Australia is famously lacking

    There was a person who was from Australia who posted on this forum (Drdoom). Australia is surely one of the best countries in world, from an objective point of view. But if I recall, he was always complaining about Australia.

    I was imagining, he is in Australia, enjoying high incomes, stable legal system, political stability, warm weather and vitamin D.

    You can imagine him drinking a cold beer, in a beautiful suburban house, after he returns from the day surfing in the beach, and starting writing about “apocalypse in Australia” in between our discussion about Ukraine, Moldova and Kazakhstan.

    beautiful lady in the first video looks Ashkenazim. Are you sure she’s Druze?

    She is Druze Muslim wife of a Druze policeman, who was killed by a Muslim terrorist, trying to save lives of Jews in an attack against a Haredi synagogue in Jerusalem. There is the Byzantine nightmare of the Middle East.

    lady in the first video looks Ashkenazim.
    Druze do have a somewhat Greek look to them.

    Some overlap with Turks, Bulgarians, Serbs, Greeks, etc. I guess all this overlap of nationalities, is just the underlying nationalities of the Eastern Mediterranean were quite similar in the Ancient times, and Arab conquest includes assimilation of the pre-existing nationalities.

    Druze also like to remind of Ottoman times with their hat style. Whereas Circassians’ hats are more like Breslovniks.

  992. @songbird
    One pro-natalist idea that I would like to propose is that people who use the term "parents" for a pet lose caste.

    Replies: @Thulean Friend

    One pro-natalist idea that I would like to propose is that people who use the term “parents” for a pet lose caste.

    Better than calling themselves “owner” which is creepy and evil. The proper term should be guardian, since that is what those who look after pets should view themselves as.

    P.S. grats for the 1000th post. Maybe Unz can create a new OT as this one is becoming very slow to load.

    • LOL: sher singh
    • Replies: @songbird
    @Thulean Friend

    Thanks.


    Better than calling themselves “owner” which is creepy and evil.
     
    Guess it is even less politically correct, but I like the old term "master", which suggests hierarchy rather than inanimate materialism. (One of the unfortunate things we lost along with cats and dogs called "Nigger", as in the English color.)

    But only for special animals, like dogs. Not for stuff like snakes or fish or chickens or alligators.

    Cannot think of his name but there was some famous evangelical preacher in America in the '30s I believe, who used to say something like (I can only poorly paraphrase), "Doesn't a master, love his dog? Think how much more God, who is your master, and more perfect than us, must love you."
    , @Emil Nikola Richard
    @Thulean Friend


    Maybe Unz can create a new OT as this one is becoming very slow to load.
     
    Commisioner Gordon perhaps we should send up the Bat Signal!

    https://upload.wikimedia.org/wikipedia/en/f/f1/Bat-Signal.jpg
  993. @songbird
    @Dmitry

    Seems like pretty rational geopolitics.

    It is not difficult to fly around Germany, so you don't make anyone too mad.

    And what does Germany have to gain by pissing off Russia? Even Stalin and Beria, both extreme psychopaths, wanted to withdraw from East Germany.

    The Nordstream 2 stuff seems pretty crazy though. Easy to see that as simple toadying, not in the national interest.

    Replies: @Dmitry

    The problem is this shows the United Kingdom believe there can be a military operation by the Russian Federation in Eastern Ukraine. In Russia, there is an atmosphere of chill, and that nothing will happen except threats.

    If there is a military conflict in East Ukraine, this is very bad news, so we all have to hope that this is still empty threats.

    However, there was today in Russia also sign of nervous speculation in the ruling class. In Russia, the upper class, keeps most of their money outside Russia.

    This money is cleaned outside and a part of it returns to Russia as “FDI” (although it’s not really FDI, but just the upper class money re-entering the country).

    Today, there was an issue where the Moscow Bursa is collapsing over 5%. This is probably showing some of the upper class are moving their “FDI” money back to Switzerland, Cyprus and Jersey, for re-allocation to some safer investments in London, etc.

    When this happens, it shows some of the upper class are returning their money from offshore, and moving it back outside Russia again.

    So, I’m not saying the upper class knows anything we cattle don’t know. But it could be a sign of nervous speculation from the upper class about the international situation, that they are nervous enough to move the money out of Russia again (which has requires transaction cost, so might not be completely empty indicator).

    Hopefully this is still explained within the nervous tension generated by journalists, genre.

    • Replies: @German_reader
    @Dmitry


    If there is a military conflict in East Ukraine, this is very bad news, so you have to hope that this is still empty threats.
     
    There are people who suggest it would be on a really large scale, so presumably not limited to East Ukraine:
    https://twitter.com/TadeuszGiczan/status/1483086684417835011?cxt=HHwWhoCyvere_ZQpAAAA
    https://twitter.com/KofmanMichael/status/1483100755099856896?cxt=HHwWgMC5ne2RhJUpAAAA

    Sounds rather ominous tbh.

    Replies: @Yellowface Anon, @Dmitry

  994. @songbird
    @A123

    I think Stargate SG-9 is the only sci-fi show that I remember watching back in the day that wasn't super woke on some level.

    Replies: @A123

    Stargate SG-1 was constrained by the fact that key members of the cast were depicting military characters in the 1990’s. That placed huge limits on any potential wokeness.

    While there were a few individual episodes that were problematic, Farscape and Babylon 5 were not woke and well short of super woke. B5 was staggeringly pro-union, left liberal in multiple episodes, but that is different & less inflammatory.

    Eureka was later and the main relationship was multi-racial. The series did not dwell on race/wokeness, but the issue was rather front & center. Mildly NSFW pictures of Dr. Blake & Deputy Lupo below [MORE].

    Star Trek TNG started super woke. It tried to become less woke over time, but never really escaped. DS9 started with limited wokeness, but acquired more issues over time. Much has been made of the “lesbian kiss” scene, however that was in vogue at the time and seems much more like a one-off, cheap grab at crass commercialism rather than genuine wokeness.

    Perhaps there were “super woke” shows, but none of them maintained enough audience to survive.

    PEACE 😇

    [MORE]

     

    • Replies: @songbird
    @A123

    I can see I made a funny typo. I'll correct it here: Stargate SG-(10-9). Somewhere earlier I wrote "Pontiac", instead of "Pontic".

    I think part of the problem with TNG was that it was part of a franchise series, a sequel to an earlier show. So, you had the existing loyal fans who were so starved for more material that they would put up with some wokeness. And I'll bet that there were already some people touting the first show by that time for its woke moments, so the producers wanted to outdo that and send an even more progressive message.

    Replies: @A123

  995. @Thulean Friend
    @songbird


    One pro-natalist idea that I would like to propose is that people who use the term “parents” for a pet lose caste.
     
    Better than calling themselves "owner" which is creepy and evil. The proper term should be guardian, since that is what those who look after pets should view themselves as.

    P.S. grats for the 1000th post. Maybe Unz can create a new OT as this one is becoming very slow to load.

    Replies: @songbird, @Emil Nikola Richard

    Thanks.

    Better than calling themselves “owner” which is creepy and evil.

    Guess it is even less politically correct, but I like the old term “master”, which suggests hierarchy rather than inanimate materialism. (One of the unfortunate things we lost along with cats and dogs called “Nigger”, as in the English color.)

    But only for special animals, like dogs. Not for stuff like snakes or fish or chickens or alligators.

    Cannot think of his name but there was some famous evangelical preacher in America in the ’30s I believe, who used to say something like (I can only poorly paraphrase), “Doesn’t a master, love his dog? Think how much more God, who is your master, and more perfect than us, must love you.”

  996. German_reader says:
    @Dmitry
    @songbird

    The problem is this shows the United Kingdom believe there can be a military operation by the Russian Federation in Eastern Ukraine. In Russia, there is an atmosphere of chill, and that nothing will happen except threats.

    If there is a military conflict in East Ukraine, this is very bad news, so we all have to hope that this is still empty threats.

    -

    However, there was today in Russia also sign of nervous speculation in the ruling class. In Russia, the upper class, keeps most of their money outside Russia.

    This money is cleaned outside and a part of it returns to Russia as "FDI" (although it's not really FDI, but just the upper class money re-entering the country).

    Today, there was an issue where the Moscow Bursa is collapsing over 5%. This is probably showing some of the upper class are moving their "FDI" money back to Switzerland, Cyprus and Jersey, for re-allocation to some safer investments in London, etc.

    https://i.imgur.com/KjUTHRL.jpg

    When this happens, it shows some of the upper class are returning their money from offshore, and moving it back outside Russia again.

    So, I'm not saying the upper class knows anything we cattle don't know. But it could be a sign of nervous speculation from the upper class about the international situation, that they are nervous enough to move the money out of Russia again (which has requires transaction cost, so might not be completely empty indicator).

    Hopefully this is still explained within the nervous tension generated by journalists, genre.

    Replies: @German_reader

    If there is a military conflict in East Ukraine, this is very bad news, so you have to hope that this is still empty threats.

    There are people who suggest it would be on a really large scale, so presumably not limited to East Ukraine:

    Sounds rather ominous tbh.

    • LOL: Mikhail
    • Replies: @Yellowface Anon
    @German_reader

    You have to head for the nearest nuclear bunker.

    , @Dmitry
    @German_reader


    ominous
     
    It starts to look scary, when you look at e.g. the United Kingdom government statements.

    Still I would be hopeful, that these are just empty threats and diplomatic maneuvers.

    I was in Russia couple weeks ago, nothing much in media or people mentioning about Ukraine. No sense you should be worrying about it.

    Internal political situation for the government, is not especially popular at the moment. So a standard media narrative can be, that the Kremlin needs to create distractions and an external military success in Ukraine.

    Some aspect of this narrative, can seem true.

    Inflation is really bad at the moment. Officially it is supposed to be only 8%, but Navalny's team is claiming as high as 40% for groceries (and grocery shopping is a large part of peoples' expenditure, unlike in wealthy countries).

    Also much of the government data has been always faked, but people even in opposition media only start to report about how fake government data is recently, notice the statistical anomalies in it. Even though, this is a country where government census can miscount by millions .

    Ordinary peoples' income in Russia is always crazy low, but household incomes have been falling relative to inflation for almost 9 years. Because of coronavirus mismanagement, life expectancy in Russia is lower than in Bangladesh again. Male life expectancy will be 64 years this year, while the pension age was supposed to be raised to 65. So there would be -1 years of retirement to enjoy, with those proposed pension reforms.

    All such bad news for the population, which would support the narrative that the government can be motivated to create an external military victory to regain popular consent. We saw a similar situation with Aliev in October 2020, where Azerbaijan's military victory against Armenia could have secured him against the country's poor economy and falling living standards. However, I don't think this is justified to result in some external policy madness in Russia, as the reality of the country, is that the population is so passive and nonrebellious, regardless of living standards. Perhaps I am too naive, but I don't just think government will be needing a victory so much to the extent of creating wars which could cause thousands of deaths.

  997. @Dmitry
    @silviosilver

    This is my tourist impression, that Spanish on average are unusually short.

    If you are a normal height man in Europe, go to Spain and can experience what it is like to be an awkward tall person, looking above the surrounding small dark peoples' hair.

    That is also my first impression of the country. Perhaps because I live my life in Europe as a normal height person, I find it unusual to arrive in a country in Europe, and to be suddenly the tallest person there.

    In Italy, people seem normal height at least so I don't remember anything special there, so not about the Mediterranean there.

    Replies: @songbird, @Coconuts, @Yahya

    In my experience the same thing applies in Portugal, possibly on average they may even have been shorter than Spaniards.

    I used to get the bus every day when I was a student and became used to being 8″ or more taller than everyone else in the queue.

  998. @A123
    @songbird

    Stargate SG-1 was constrained by the fact that key members of the cast were depicting military characters in the 1990's. That placed huge limits on any potential wokeness.

    While there were a few individual episodes that were problematic, Farscape and Babylon 5 were not woke and well short of super woke. B5 was staggeringly pro-union, left liberal in multiple episodes, but that is different & less inflammatory.

    Eureka was later and the main relationship was multi-racial. The series did not dwell on race/wokeness, but the issue was rather front & center. Mildly NSFW pictures of Dr. Blake & Deputy Lupo below [MORE].

    Star Trek TNG started super woke. It tried to become less woke over time, but never really escaped. DS9 started with limited wokeness, but acquired more issues over time. Much has been made of the "lesbian kiss" scene, however that was in vogue at the time and seems much more like a one-off, cheap grab at crass commercialism rather than genuine wokeness.

    Perhaps there were "super woke" shows, but none of them maintained enough audience to survive.

    PEACE 😇



    http://scifiempire.net/wordpress/wp-content/gallery/continuum/eureka-salli-richardson-in-lingerie-as-doctor-blake.png

     

    https://i.pinimg.com/originals/21/bc/c7/21bcc753b3e0ee4ea3f29be55592231d.jpg

    Replies: @songbird

    I can see I made a funny typo. I’ll correct it here: Stargate SG-(10-9). Somewhere earlier I wrote “Pontiac”, instead of “Pontic”.

    I think part of the problem with TNG was that it was part of a franchise series, a sequel to an earlier show. So, you had the existing loyal fans who were so starved for more material that they would put up with some wokeness. And I’ll bet that there were already some people touting the first show by that time for its woke moments, so the producers wanted to outdo that and send an even more progressive message.

    • Replies: @A123
    @songbird


    I can see I made a funny typo
     
    I have been struck by autocorrect fails so many times the difference between SG-9 & SG-1 is a non issue.

    I wish that UR had a minor edit feature that allowed changing a few characters after the 5 minute window, but that is technically not as easy as it sounds.

    I think part of the problem with TNG was that it was part of a franchise series, a sequel to an earlier show. So, you had the existing loyal fans who were so starved for more material that they would put up with some wokeness
     
    The Original Series [TOS] technology was impressive versus 1960's when it aired. Advancing it to TNG capabilities opened genuine plot / back story issues.

    There are implications from transporter / replicator technology. Unlimited food of perfect quality, unlimited housing size based on site limits. How does one signal superiority in a non source limited society? While humanity may be TFR >1, one has to believe that Earth is rapidly depopulating.

    Why would anyone with TNG level the technology volunteer for hideously dangerous Starfleet "red shirt death" service?

    PEACE 😇

    Replies: @songbird

  999. @Dmitry
    @AP


    bourgeoisie are simply middle class,
     
    Only within the agricultural, pre-industrial economy, were they. As there is industrialization, burghers became the upper class, while the former elites of the agricultural economy, were becoming a middle class, unable to pay for their previous lifestyle. When there is such a historical "sector rotation" in the economy, one class displaces another, and the former class become owners of a kind of "rust belt" that doesn't generate so much money anymore.

    This transition was slower or faster in different countries, and historical boundaries are overlapping.

    If you on a tour in London, they will show you about when the landowning elites started to build the largest houses inside the city in the 18th century already, to network with the burghers . By the 19th century, they start to send their children to educational institutes created by the bourgeoisie, who now have the largest houses.

    In the late 19th century, the lawndowning aristocracy are desperately marrying their children to the bourgeoisie's children, often with direct intention to try to save their finances and not lose their properties. Although most of the landowners houses in London, were sold by the families who had constructed them, and by the late 19th century do not have money to live in them.


    positive and negatives about that but it isn’t good for culture when it takes everything over.

     

    I haven't books about this topics, but from my tourist knowledge I believe the Italian Renaissance was mainly funded by the burghers. These were the urban citizens of the city states.

    Italy was centuries more advanced than many economies, and Medicis themselves were from an agriculture industry family, but they develop their power as pioneers in the banking industry. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Medici_Bank


    because the aristocrats were too poor to afford to clean or make everything proper, it was because they didn’t care to do these things. A feature of the middle-class

     

    It was exactly because they were becoming too poor. This is why half of Europe's aristocracy in the 19th century, were trying to marry Barings or Rothschilds and other bourgeois families. While the bourgeois families attain in exchange the status and palaces of the former elite.

    Without these marriages, they were selling their houses. A large proportion of former landowning families, lost their glamorous life, lost their property, dissolved to the middle class.

    An example where they were able to save their status, is Winston Churchill. His father even has been able to marry a daughter of American stockbroker, so they can still be part of an upper class, and don't have to sell their palace. Even after this marriage, they were only on a lower border of the upper class. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Early_life_of_Winston_Churchill

    This is the same for all of the Spencer Family. They were the one of the most wealthy and elite family in Early Modern history of England.

    However, they could only survive in upper class, through strategic marriage to the new economic elites. So, Princess Diana's greatgrandfather could still finance an upper class life, by marrying to Baring Bank family (famous London burghers).
    https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Albert_Spencer,_7th_Earl_Spencer#Early_life


    middle-class (even when they become rich) is that they are strivers, who want everything to be proper. The aristocrats didn’t care. They would tell dirty jokes
     
    Perhaps among very disciplined, religious elites, like Puritans in America.

    But in most of the world, the upper class will become playboys in a single generation. This is also in America. Donald Trump or John Kennedy were crazy playboys, after one generation of wealth. They are only second-generation wealthy people.

    If Trump or Kennedy father was like Henry VII of England. Trump and Kennedy are already acting like Henry VIII. Human nature does not change.

    Although I am doubting Ivanka Trump will become like Elizabeth I.

    Replies: @AP, @Philip Owen

    In the UK, the Liberals had invented Death Duties as a way of increasing taxes after WW1. They thought it would be painless. However, so many young aristocratic men died that there was a glut of land sales in the early 1920’s. Land prices plummeted (so even more land was sold to meet the tax). A considerable number of competent farmers became owners rather than renters too. (It is part of the back story of the Archers versus the Grundys for Radio 4 followers). Dan Archer’s father beat Jo Grundy’s father to raising the money to buy Brookfield. The new owners tended to invest more and out competed the aristocracy who mostly spent the rents rather than improve the estate.

    It happened in Ireland but the Civil War was an even better factor in removing the aristocracy.

    Not qite the Russian Revolution but going that way. Not so much change in German speaking Europe. I don’t know about Italy and the East.

    • Replies: @Coconuts
    @Philip Owen


    A considerable number of competent farmers became owners rather than renters too. (It is part of the back story of the Archers versus the Grundys for Radio 4 followers)
     
    I didn't know about this part of the back story; the fortunes of the Grundys really fell in later years.
  1000. @German_reader
    @Yevardian


    I just felt the circumstances were rather different to (say) that of the Bengal famine, the extermination of the Herrero in German Namibia, or Leopold’s Congo (which were rather the exception rather than the rule in late European colonialism anyway).
     
    Bengal famine wasn't intentional, I find it bizarre how this is more and more presented as if the British had deliberately decided to starve Bengalis to death just for racist reasons. To be sure, there are certainly many good reasons to criticize British rule over India, and some people in Britain may still have rather too self-congratulatory views of it ("We banned suttee and eliminated the thugs" etc.). But on the other hand, British scholars did a lot to research and recover Indian antiquities, in which they were much more interested than previous Muslim rulers had been. So when you point out the good the Soviets did for previously largely illiterate Central Asian peoples by creating literate cultures for them in their own languages, similar things could be said about the British in India. I'm pretty tired of Soviet apologists like "Chairman Meow" who denounce European colonialism all the time (what a brave thing to do in 2022!), yet deny the Soviet Union's many crimes.
    As for the Herrero, sure, it was certainly at the more extreme end of European colonialist violence and can be seen as genocidal. However, to be quite honest, I feel the prominence this act of mass killing is often accorded nowadays ("the first genocide of the 20th century") and the way it's represented ("the Kaiser's Holocaust", as if the Kaiser himself had given the orders to exterminate the Herrero, not the local commander) has more to do with creating a consistent anti-German narrative than with any sober analysis.

    Armenians sent in those deportations were fully intended to die, and most of them were killed on-route anyway. At least most Chechens actually survived the Kazakhstan ordeal.
     
    Well, one quarter of Chechens did die because of the deportation. But you're probably right that there was more of a genocidal intent behind what the Young Turks did to Armenians, and my intention wasn't to belittle the Armenian genocide. I just wanted to point out that the Young Turks too felt they had good reasons for what they did. So I don't find it all that convincing to argue that Stalin (a paranoid despot if ever there was one) was afraid of external attack and therefore had to remove 5th columns.

    Replies: @Coconuts

    Bengal famine wasn’t intentional, I find it bizarre how this is more and more presented as if the British had deliberately decided to starve Bengalis to death just for racist reasons. To be sure, there are certainly many good reasons to criticize British rule over India, and some people in Britain may still have rather too self-congratulatory views of it (“We banned suttee and eliminated the thugs” etc.).

    At the moment I get the impression they are aiming to build up some sort of ‘Black Legend’ around the British Empire, it’s like one of the local manifestations of broader Western Wokeism (there is obviously a strong Post-Colonial/Anti-Racist perspective around this issue). Slavery is usually the ‘main event’, the Indian Empire is in a supporting role. On the basis of this history of darkness they can then institute some kind of de-Nazification program modelled on Germany’s:

    https://www.msn.com/en-gb/news/world/backlash-to-colston-four-s-acquittal-over-statue-toppling-shows-why-school-lessons-on-slavery-are-so-crucial/ar-AASCAuS?ocid=msedgntp

    Speculating about why this is going on, an obvious thing is a response to Brexit and the phenomena of ‘Populism’, and progressives piggy backing on BLM and the anti-Trump phenomena in the US. Then, the bigger issue, major demographic change due to mass immigration. I have come across tentative attempts in the mainstream media to start to address the issue, I am guessing in preparation for the publication of the results of the census last year, but generally there is enough data available for anybody aware to predict how demographically things might start to change fairly rapidly in the next 10-20 years. It’s very possible that this will become hard to ignore politically as it reaches all of the normies and low information electorate in the regions, so they are taking steps to anticipate or manage the emergence of any kind of political response in advance.

  1001. @Philip Owen
    @Dmitry

    In the UK, the Liberals had invented Death Duties as a way of increasing taxes after WW1. They thought it would be painless. However, so many young aristocratic men died that there was a glut of land sales in the early 1920's. Land prices plummeted (so even more land was sold to meet the tax). A considerable number of competent farmers became owners rather than renters too. (It is part of the back story of the Archers versus the Grundys for Radio 4 followers). Dan Archer's father beat Jo Grundy's father to raising the money to buy Brookfield. The new owners tended to invest more and out competed the aristocracy who mostly spent the rents rather than improve the estate.

    It happened in Ireland but the Civil War was an even better factor in removing the aristocracy.

    Not qite the Russian Revolution but going that way. Not so much change in German speaking Europe. I don't know about Italy and the East.

    Replies: @Coconuts

    A considerable number of competent farmers became owners rather than renters too. (It is part of the back story of the Archers versus the Grundys for Radio 4 followers)

    I didn’t know about this part of the back story; the fortunes of the Grundys really fell in later years.

  1002. Nazerbayev turned up on TV today, seated motionless at a desk. He looked as though he had had a stroke. Anyone else see this?

    • Replies: @Mikhail
    @Philip Owen

    Re: https://www.nytimes.com/2022/01/18/world/europe/kazakhstan-nursultan-nazarbayev-video.html

    He's up there in years.

  1003. @songbird
    @A123

    I can see I made a funny typo. I'll correct it here: Stargate SG-(10-9). Somewhere earlier I wrote "Pontiac", instead of "Pontic".

    I think part of the problem with TNG was that it was part of a franchise series, a sequel to an earlier show. So, you had the existing loyal fans who were so starved for more material that they would put up with some wokeness. And I'll bet that there were already some people touting the first show by that time for its woke moments, so the producers wanted to outdo that and send an even more progressive message.

    Replies: @A123

    I can see I made a funny typo

    I have been struck by autocorrect fails so many times the difference between SG-9 & SG-1 is a non issue.

    I wish that UR had a minor edit feature that allowed changing a few characters after the 5 minute window, but that is technically not as easy as it sounds.

    I think part of the problem with TNG was that it was part of a franchise series, a sequel to an earlier show. So, you had the existing loyal fans who were so starved for more material that they would put up with some wokeness

    The Original Series [TOS] technology was impressive versus 1960’s when it aired. Advancing it to TNG capabilities opened genuine plot / back story issues.

    There are implications from transporter / replicator technology. Unlimited food of perfect quality, unlimited housing size based on site limits. How does one signal superiority in a non source limited society? While humanity may be TFR >1, one has to believe that Earth is rapidly depopulating.

    Why would anyone with TNG level the technology volunteer for hideously dangerous Starfleet “red shirt death” service?

    PEACE 😇

    • Replies: @songbird
    @A123


    I wish that UR had a minor edit feature that allowed changing a few characters after the 5 minute window, but that is technically not as easy as it sounds.
     
    A pity. Sometimes, I would like to just change one letter.

    Why would anyone with TNG level the technology volunteer for hideously dangerous Starfleet “red shirt death” service?
     
    I guess Scalzi had some fun with that.

    Part of the fun of Star Trek is taking it apart. It is funny to contrast the Federation with other groups, like the Klingon Empire:

    The message of the Federation seems to be "Diversity is our strength!" And yet there are a lot of inconsistencies in that, like them teaming up with the Klingons. Or the fact that, even though they have like hundreds of races cooperating together, they seem to be at more or less technical parity with the Romulans, the Cardassians, and the Klingons.

    The Vulcans are very logical and intelligent. They have had space travel for how many thousands of years? enough so that they are slightly dimorphic with the Romulans. They live in a universe where different alien species can interbreed, and yet, Spock aside (who seems to be some sort of diplomatic experiment for understanding humans - they need a half human to understand them, as a whole is too much), they seem to have admixed with aliens not any more than the Romulans (Tasha, who was a blonde).
  1004. A good take down of the Scottish UK defence minister:

    https://irrussianality.wordpress.com/2022/01/18/if-the-russians-were-in-scotland/

    Excerpt –

    But – and now I’m getting to my point – one would be telling the truth if one noted that ‘Scotland has been separate from England for far longer in its history than it was ever united’. The Kings of Scotland date back to the ninth century, giving the country some 800 years of independent existence compared to 300 years of unity with England.

    Why do I say this? Because Wallace is not only a Scot, but a former Member of the Scottish Parliament for the Scottish Conservative and Unionist Party, ‘Unionist’ being the word in point. Wallace views England and Scotland as one. He’s a fierce opponent of Scottish separatism. Speaking in the House of Commons, he once denounced a member of the Scottish National Party by saying, ‘The honourable lady is making a brilliant argument for why we don’t want to put borders between countries.’

    Wallace and his fellow Tories should have thought of that before backing Brexit, of course. But that’s not why I bring it up. The point is that Wallace doesn’t think that it’s a good thing to split up peoples that have long lived together – at least where Britain is concerned. You’d think, therefore, that he’d have a bit more empathy towards Russians (and Ukrainians) who feel that efforts to further divide Russia and Ukraine are to be regretted. In short, you’d think he have a bit of understanding of Putin’s position. But it seems that what applies to us doesn’t apply to you.

    Let’s take this a bit further. Imagine that Scotland became independent. And imagine that it then asked to join the Eurasian Economic Union and the Collective Security Treaty Organization, and that it invited Russia to deploy military forces on its soil. And imagine that the prospect arose of Scotland becoming a base for Russian missiles capable of reaching London in five minutes. What do you think Wallace’s reaction would be then?

    He’d be leaping up and down with fury! He’d be demanding action. He’d be screaming about Russian aggression (as he does already, in fact, even though there are no Russian troops within 1,500 kilometres of London). That’s what he’d be doing. In short, he’d be doing everything that Putin’s doing, and maybe even then some.

    As I said, a lack of self-awareness and strategic empathy. Britain needs better than this.

    The England-Scotland and Russia-Ukraine comparison goes back to at least 1994, when NYT letters were longer and had more clout, given the time period before the present internet use and greater availability of 24/7 cable TV networks:

    https://www.nytimes.com/1994/06/28/opinion/l-same-roots-nourish-russia-and-ukraine-521140.html

    Excerpt –

    True, some Ukrainians are stridently anti-Russian, as some Scots bridle at the dominating role of England in Britain. Yet both Scots and Ukrainians feel a high degree of affiliation with their neighbors.

    In terms of what has happened since 1994 (and the shortly beforehand Soviet breakup), post-Soviet Russia has been criticized within pro-Russian circles for taking Ukraine for granted, whereas the anti-Russian leaning perspective has been arguably more adept in positioning itself in the former Ukrainian SSR.

    The pro-Russian perspective in Ukraine can make a comeback as I recently suggested:

    https://www.eurasiareview.com/09122021-russian-ukraine-coverage-continues-to-lack-insight-oped/

    Excerpt –

    NATO prefers prospective members to have peacefully agreed borders – something not evident with Kiev regime controlled Ukraine. Are the authorities in Kiev willing to give up its claims to Crimea and the rebel held Donbass territory in exchange for NATO membership? Would Russia be especially pleased with that scenario?

    The answer to the second question is probably not. In Kiev regime controlled Ukraine, there’re some areas with a noticeable pro-Russian contingent – something that will not be so easy for Russia to formally see drift further away.

    A clearly stated provision that Ukraine will not be in any military alliance will face obstacles as well. Among pro-Russian advocates, there’s the belief that Russia and Ukraine could be allies again at some point in the future. There’s also the Biden-NATO view, which rejects a red line on NATO expansion.

    A more Russia friendly Ukraine not being in NATO or the CSTO might work as a compromise.

  1005. @Philip Owen
    Nazerbayev turned up on TV today, seated motionless at a desk. He looked as though he had had a stroke. Anyone else see this?

    Replies: @Mikhail

  1006. @Dmitry
    @silviosilver

    This is my tourist impression, that Spanish on average are unusually short.

    If you are a normal height man in Europe, go to Spain and can experience what it is like to be an awkward tall person, looking above the surrounding small dark peoples' hair.

    That is also my first impression of the country. Perhaps because I live my life in Europe as a normal height person, I find it unusual to arrive in a country in Europe, and to be suddenly the tallest person there.

    In Italy, people seem normal height at least so I don't remember anything special there, so not about the Mediterranean there.

    Replies: @songbird, @Coconuts, @Yahya

    This is my tourist impression, that Spanish on average are unusually short.

    There is no need to rely on your intuition in this instance. There are plenty of statistics on average height for each country out there.

    Here is a reliable source: https://www.worlddata.info/average-bodyheight.php

    Average male height
    Netherlands: 1.84m
    Sweden: 1.80m
    Germany: 1.80m
    Greece: 1.79m
    Lebanon: 1.78m
    Russia: 1.76m
    Spain: 1.76m
    Turkey: 1.76m
    China: 1.75m
    Italy: 1.74m
    Portugal: 1.74m
    Bulgaria: 1.73m
    Japan: 1.72m

    As you can see, while Spain is one of the shortest countries in Europe; it’s not far off from the rest. It’s tied with Russia, which was rather unexpected.

    She is Druze Muslim wife of a Druze policeman, who was killed by a Muslim terrorist, trying to save lives of Jews in an attack against a Haredi synagogue in Jerusalem.

    Well that’s very commendable. I was surprised to see the Druze lady speak Hebrew in that video; is this common among the Druze in Israel? Has their identity shifted from Arab to Israeli? Would you say they are accepted as “fellow Israelis” by Israeli Jews?

    There is the Byzantine nightmare of the Middle East.

    Byzantine is the right word for the situation. A complex mess of entanglements, identities, and loyalties. Funny thing is, they shift rapidly and almost cyclically. One day your group is a sworn enemy of another; the next day you are best friends for life. One can witness this playing out live with Gulf States vis-a-vis Israel. I wouldn’t be surprised if somewhere down the line; Israeli Arabs make a U-turn and adopt an Israeli identity. Though my guess is it would require a language shift as a necessary pre-condition. I wouldn’t object too much if they were to do so; after-all Israel is elevating them economically and aesthetically, which I think is of great importance. Though I would be saddened to see Arabs abandon their identity and ethnicity. I wonder how likely it is that Jews adopt Arabic instead of Arabs adopting Hebrew. In many ways that would make more sense; as many Israeli Jews are of Arab origin; and were in fact themselves “Arabs” not too long ago. Jews adopting the Arabic language would also integrate them into the broader Arab world. I kind of miss the days when you can find Arabs professing all three Abrahamic faiths. Perhaps we shall return to the days of Al-Andalus.

    [MORE]

    Druze often seem to remind more of Greeks in their appearance?

    The Druze wife does look Greek; but her Druze husband looks more like your typical, quasi-Hispanic, working-class Palestinian Muslim. Which pretty much confirms my general view that phenotypes in the Levant, as with the rest of the Arab world, range from quasi-Hispanic to quasi-European; even among the same religion, region, nation and family. The key to predicting the phenotype is class, not religion.

    Palestinian Christians and Druze are reminding visually of Greeks. You can guess that the historical Biblical characters, would not be too distinct from the appearance of modern Greeks.

    Do these Palestinian Christians look Greek to you?

    How about these Palestinian Muslims?

    Well, much more of them can pass for Greek. Why? Because they’re from a higher class background. It’s that simple.

    Again, focus on the class; not the religion.

    Anyway, this is probably my last comment on this subject, as I think our critics are right; it’s getting a bit tiresome.

    • Replies: @Dmitry
    @Yahya


    reliable source
     
    It's likely not a reliable source, based on equal ages, self-reported vs measured, etc.

    accepted as “fellow Israelis” by Israeli Jews
     
    Druzim in the Carmel region, are viewed as Israel's most patriotic community, that contribute a lot of military figures, like current commander of the Golani Infantry Brigade.

    On the other hand, Druzim in the Golan Heights are nominally loyal to the Syrian government, and support al-Assad (although from some luxury of Israel). I've stayed in guesthouse of a Druze family in the Golan Heights and (although very cold house) they look to me as integrated and friendly village though. So who knows what the reality is like there, as the nominal tribal loyal does not necessarily represent the ordinary life

    It's also perhaps not the best strategy to be too loyal to a government, until they agree to invest in your region. Druze in Carmel are ultra-patriots, but it might not be such good bargaining or have resulted in benefits for them.

    Carmel region is a beautiful, romantic area for driving in the car. But a lot of those villages (as also a lot of Jewish cities in Israel to be fair) appear poor and underinvested.

    Israel has now 15 years of relatively consistent economic growth, so there is becoming less and less excuse for them not to start re-investing money to developing these areas and invest more money to the Arab communities. Yet probably many Arab areas are receiving almost nothing from the government.


    Do these Palestinian Christians look Greek to you?

     

    Or they look Turkish or Cypriot.

    And lot of Jews in Israel, are darker than those Christian Palestinians, as they came from more Southern latitude countries. If you look at working class Jewish areas, and the population is more dark than some of the Palestinian population.

    https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=YVx9HNfJhtI

    I always wonder why Israel has such bad marketing with the leftists in Western Europe, when a lot of Jews are more "people of color", while many Arabs can be more white appearing than the Jewish population.


    . Why? Because they’re from a higher class background. It’s that simple.

     

    Why is that? Is class in the Arab society of Levantine region, associated with lower mixing with Bedouin or something like that?

    It doesn't seem like this in the Arabian Peninsula. I know I studied with Saudi classmate who were very dark. And yet my Saudi classmates, tell us about their comfortable, subsidized lifestyle.
  1007. @German_reader
    @Dmitry


    If there is a military conflict in East Ukraine, this is very bad news, so you have to hope that this is still empty threats.
     
    There are people who suggest it would be on a really large scale, so presumably not limited to East Ukraine:
    https://twitter.com/TadeuszGiczan/status/1483086684417835011?cxt=HHwWhoCyvere_ZQpAAAA
    https://twitter.com/KofmanMichael/status/1483100755099856896?cxt=HHwWgMC5ne2RhJUpAAAA

    Sounds rather ominous tbh.

    Replies: @Yellowface Anon, @Dmitry

    You have to head for the nearest nuclear bunker.

    • Disagree: German_reader
  1008. @LatW
    @Svidomyatheart


    How can one compare housing projects with all modern amenities
     
    We're talking about the 80s. Google New York housing projects in the 1980s. Some of it looks like Dresden after the bombings... ok, maybe not that bad but still... At the time they were still having 4-5 children each. And the crime, trash, etc. Btw, those brown brick buildings are not great, very tight and no ventilation inside.

    It may have been a little different in the Baltics and places like Poland where Russians tried to offer you guys small tokens and trinkets in the form of slightly more gibs
     
    Whatever "trinkets" we had we made ourselves. The industries were built based in many cases on pre-existing factories that had been built during the Tsar's time and later developed in the 1930s republic, as well as built then (1930s was a time of growth and prosperity for us). Even during the Soviet era, many Baltic people did not live in the anthills, but houses that were built during the 30s or before.

    I'm not saying life wasn't spartan, but to compare to projects, with all the specific things that come with it, is just not accurate. I'd be the last to lionize the Soviet system, but one has to compare apples to apples. And besides... the American middle class probably lived on average better anyway than even their Western European counterparts. I'm a bit curious about how the Scandinavians lived in the 80s, I'm sure they lived well, but they mostly lived in apartments, too (same as they do now).

    Ofc, I do remember of all the parents' stories about the hockey players who went overseas and came back with better clothes, lol. Stepping out of the bus wearing jeans and cool sunglasses and what not. LOL Do you remember the meme about this one Soviet chick that once the travel to the West opened up, she walked into a Western grocery store and had a mental breakdown. All the preconceptions about the "evil capitalists" collapsed.



    And that was all the while still deporting you guys and throwing dissidents in jail. Weird Russian logic in action: we like you guys but we also toss your sane people into jail…
     
    Yes, it happened to one of my granpas, too (the consequences of the communist terror are more far reaching than it first appears). For not sharing the fruits of his labor. Anyway... nowadays I try to take the Russian "phantom limb" stories with some humor, as a coping mechanism, in my youth I was more triggered. Most of them are also not crazy like that, there are normal ones out there.

    I know empty materialism produces no results but this complete poverty is just awful there should be a medium between the 2
     
    Agree 100%, the best is to find some way to keep a spartan spirit but still have some wealth.

    Also I have like a 700 word response to your open thread 171 comment bout the war( a much more serious response, war is imminent ) but i dont know if i should post it now or wait for a open thread 173 because this
     
    Please, do post it (you can hold on for now), I really want to hear your thoughts. I apologize if I said anything above that sounded trivial or insensitive about Ukraine (ofc, the occupation of the left bank Ukraine would be horrible, even if they as little as move there should be a strong reaction), the situation is very serious (it's upsetting that the good people of Ukraine are bullied and tormented daily with these threats of some impending attack). We have to prepare, life could change.

    Replies: @songbird, @A123, @AP

    Google New York housing projects in the 1980s. Some of it looks like Dresden after the bombings… ok, maybe not that bad but still… At the time they were still having 4-5 children each. And the crime, trash, etc.

    But things like crime and trash are cultural rather than material. Obviously living in the same small cheap places with teacher and engineer neighbors is going to be better than among lumpens. Yet materially, not much difference.

  1009. @German_reader
    @songbird


    I don’t see it in realpolitik terms. At least, not from a German perspective.
     
    One can see it like that (I certainly don't believe Putin intends to conquer Germany), but Germany can't ignore the concerns of its eastern neighbours completely. And attacking other countries on pretexts and annexing territory is a severe breach of the security order in Europe, whose maintenance is also in Germany's interest (and yes, of course NATO can be accused of having done the same in Kosovo, I know).

    Even putting aside other reasons, the US has turned into quite a dark creature.
     
    That's really the complicating factor for me, as little sympathy as I have for the megalomania of Russian chauvinists with their "Ukrainians are little Russians, they just don't know it yet". If I'm honest, I think the US today is a force for evil in the world. Its foreign policy is aggressive, has caused immense carnage (and played an important role in bringing millions of Arabs, Afghans etc. to Germany) and clearly aiming at total global domination. US cultural influence with its increasing anti-white tilt is also really pernicious (and of course there are also more specific German concerns relating to Germans' status as most evil people ever™). So it's really a difficult situation. I wish there was more of an independent German or European position, to safeguard our collective interests against the US, Russia and China (none of whom can be regarded as friendly from my perspective), but that seems hardly possible now.

    Replies: @Thulean Friend, @Matra, @AP

    And attacking other countries on pretexts and annexing territory is a severe breach of the security order in Europe, whose maintenance is also in Germany’s interest (and yes, of course NATO can be accused of having done the same in Kosovo, I know).

    When two countries are mismatched in size and power, the best deterrent to war is to build up the smaller and weaker side (the opposite is true, of course, when two sides are equal – in that case building up one will tempt a war).

    A country such as Germany that is preventing the strengthening of the weaker side is increasing the chances of war.

    Of course one can apply this to Donbas – strengthening Ukraine may encourage an attempt to reassert control over Donbas. Russia’s presence, however, probably cancels out this effect. The prevention of a much larger and more deadly due to scope Russia-Ukraine war is probably more important.

    • Agree: utu
  1010. This thread has now passed 1,000 comments, so I’ve opened a new one for all of you:

    https://www.unz.com/akarlin/open-thread-173/

    • Thanks: Emil Nikola Richard, Dmitry, A123, sher singh
  1011. @Thulean Friend
    @songbird


    One pro-natalist idea that I would like to propose is that people who use the term “parents” for a pet lose caste.
     
    Better than calling themselves "owner" which is creepy and evil. The proper term should be guardian, since that is what those who look after pets should view themselves as.

    P.S. grats for the 1000th post. Maybe Unz can create a new OT as this one is becoming very slow to load.

    Replies: @songbird, @Emil Nikola Richard

    Maybe Unz can create a new OT as this one is becoming very slow to load.

    Commisioner Gordon perhaps we should send up the Bat Signal!

  1012. @Yahya
    @Dmitry


    This is my tourist impression, that Spanish on average are unusually short.

     

    There is no need to rely on your intuition in this instance. There are plenty of statistics on average height for each country out there.

    Here is a reliable source: https://www.worlddata.info/average-bodyheight.php

    Average male height
    Netherlands: 1.84m
    Sweden: 1.80m
    Germany: 1.80m
    Greece: 1.79m
    Lebanon: 1.78m
    Russia: 1.76m
    Spain: 1.76m
    Turkey: 1.76m
    China: 1.75m
    Italy: 1.74m
    Portugal: 1.74m
    Bulgaria: 1.73m
    Japan: 1.72m

    As you can see, while Spain is one of the shortest countries in Europe; it's not far off from the rest. It's tied with Russia, which was rather unexpected.


    She is Druze Muslim wife of a Druze policeman, who was killed by a Muslim terrorist, trying to save lives of Jews in an attack against a Haredi synagogue in Jerusalem.
     
    Well that's very commendable. I was surprised to see the Druze lady speak Hebrew in that video; is this common among the Druze in Israel? Has their identity shifted from Arab to Israeli? Would you say they are accepted as "fellow Israelis" by Israeli Jews?

    There is the Byzantine nightmare of the Middle East.
     
    Byzantine is the right word for the situation. A complex mess of entanglements, identities, and loyalties. Funny thing is, they shift rapidly and almost cyclically. One day your group is a sworn enemy of another; the next day you are best friends for life. One can witness this playing out live with Gulf States vis-a-vis Israel. I wouldn't be surprised if somewhere down the line; Israeli Arabs make a U-turn and adopt an Israeli identity. Though my guess is it would require a language shift as a necessary pre-condition. I wouldn't object too much if they were to do so; after-all Israel is elevating them economically and aesthetically, which I think is of great importance. Though I would be saddened to see Arabs abandon their identity and ethnicity. I wonder how likely it is that Jews adopt Arabic instead of Arabs adopting Hebrew. In many ways that would make more sense; as many Israeli Jews are of Arab origin; and were in fact themselves "Arabs" not too long ago. Jews adopting the Arabic language would also integrate them into the broader Arab world. I kind of miss the days when you can find Arabs professing all three Abrahamic faiths. Perhaps we shall return to the days of Al-Andalus.

    https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=4R0N48wmdA8&ab_channel=AbdelKarimEnsemble-Topic


    Druze often seem to remind more of Greeks in their appearance?
     
    The Druze wife does look Greek; but her Druze husband looks more like your typical, quasi-Hispanic, working-class Palestinian Muslim. Which pretty much confirms my general view that phenotypes in the Levant, as with the rest of the Arab world, range from quasi-Hispanic to quasi-European; even among the same religion, region, nation and family. The key to predicting the phenotype is class, not religion.

    Palestinian Christians and Druze are reminding visually of Greeks. You can guess that the historical Biblical characters, would not be too distinct from the appearance of modern Greeks.
     
    Do these Palestinian Christians look Greek to you?

    https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=cTeRiAeKJVs&ab_channel=ComunidadPalestinadeChile

    How about these Palestinian Muslims?

    https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=dg35ccIXMlM&feature=emb_logo&ab_channel=BaladiCenter

    Well, much more of them can pass for Greek. Why? Because they're from a higher class background. It's that simple.

    Again, focus on the class; not the religion.

    Anyway, this is probably my last comment on this subject, as I think our critics are right; it's getting a bit tiresome.

    Replies: @Dmitry

    reliable source

    It’s likely not a reliable source, based on equal ages, self-reported vs measured, etc.

    accepted as “fellow Israelis” by Israeli Jews

    Druzim in the Carmel region, are viewed as Israel’s most patriotic community, that contribute a lot of military figures, like current commander of the Golani Infantry Brigade.

    On the other hand, Druzim in the Golan Heights are nominally loyal to the Syrian government, and support al-Assad (although from some luxury of Israel). I’ve stayed in guesthouse of a Druze family in the Golan Heights and (although very cold house) they look to me as integrated and friendly village though. So who knows what the reality is like there, as the nominal tribal loyal does not necessarily represent the ordinary life

    It’s also perhaps not the best strategy to be too loyal to a government, until they agree to invest in your region. Druze in Carmel are ultra-patriots, but it might not be such good bargaining or have resulted in benefits for them.

    Carmel region is a beautiful, romantic area for driving in the car. But a lot of those villages (as also a lot of Jewish cities in Israel to be fair) appear poor and underinvested.

    Israel has now 15 years of relatively consistent economic growth, so there is becoming less and less excuse for them not to start re-investing money to developing these areas and invest more money to the Arab communities. Yet probably many Arab areas are receiving almost nothing from the government.

    Do these Palestinian Christians look Greek to you?

    Or they look Turkish or Cypriot.

    And lot of Jews in Israel, are darker than those Christian Palestinians, as they came from more Southern latitude countries. If you look at working class Jewish areas, and the population is more dark than some of the Palestinian population.

    I always wonder why Israel has such bad marketing with the leftists in Western Europe, when a lot of Jews are more “people of color”, while many Arabs can be more white appearing than the Jewish population.

    . Why? Because they’re from a higher class background. It’s that simple.

    Why is that? Is class in the Arab society of Levantine region, associated with lower mixing with Bedouin or something like that?

    It doesn’t seem like this in the Arabian Peninsula. I know I studied with Saudi classmate who were very dark. And yet my Saudi classmates, tell us about their comfortable, subsidized lifestyle.

  1013. @German_reader
    @Dmitry


    If there is a military conflict in East Ukraine, this is very bad news, so you have to hope that this is still empty threats.
     
    There are people who suggest it would be on a really large scale, so presumably not limited to East Ukraine:
    https://twitter.com/TadeuszGiczan/status/1483086684417835011?cxt=HHwWhoCyvere_ZQpAAAA
    https://twitter.com/KofmanMichael/status/1483100755099856896?cxt=HHwWgMC5ne2RhJUpAAAA

    Sounds rather ominous tbh.

    Replies: @Yellowface Anon, @Dmitry

    ominous

    It starts to look scary, when you look at e.g. the United Kingdom government statements.

    Still I would be hopeful, that these are just empty threats and diplomatic maneuvers.

    I was in Russia couple weeks ago, nothing much in media or people mentioning about Ukraine. No sense you should be worrying about it.

    Internal political situation for the government, is not especially popular at the moment. So a standard media narrative can be, that the Kremlin needs to create distractions and an external military success in Ukraine.

    Some aspect of this narrative, can seem true.

    Inflation is really bad at the moment. Officially it is supposed to be only 8%, but Navalny’s team is claiming as high as 40% for groceries (and grocery shopping is a large part of peoples’ expenditure, unlike in wealthy countries).

    Also much of the government data has been always faked, but people even in opposition media only start to report about how fake government data is recently, notice the statistical anomalies in it. Even though, this is a country where government census can miscount by millions .

    Ordinary peoples’ income in Russia is always crazy low, but household incomes have been falling relative to inflation for almost 9 years. Because of coronavirus mismanagement, life expectancy in Russia is lower than in Bangladesh again. Male life expectancy will be 64 years this year, while the pension age was supposed to be raised to 65. So there would be -1 years of retirement to enjoy, with those proposed pension reforms.

    All such bad news for the population, which would support the narrative that the government can be motivated to create an external military victory to regain popular consent. We saw a similar situation with Aliev in October 2020, where Azerbaijan’s military victory against Armenia could have secured him against the country’s poor economy and falling living standards. However, I don’t think this is justified to result in some external policy madness in Russia, as the reality of the country, is that the population is so passive and nonrebellious, regardless of living standards. Perhaps I am too naive, but I don’t just think government will be needing a victory so much to the extent of creating wars which could cause thousands of deaths.

    • Thanks: German_reader
  1014. @A123
    @songbird


    I can see I made a funny typo
     
    I have been struck by autocorrect fails so many times the difference between SG-9 & SG-1 is a non issue.

    I wish that UR had a minor edit feature that allowed changing a few characters after the 5 minute window, but that is technically not as easy as it sounds.

    I think part of the problem with TNG was that it was part of a franchise series, a sequel to an earlier show. So, you had the existing loyal fans who were so starved for more material that they would put up with some wokeness
     
    The Original Series [TOS] technology was impressive versus 1960's when it aired. Advancing it to TNG capabilities opened genuine plot / back story issues.

    There are implications from transporter / replicator technology. Unlimited food of perfect quality, unlimited housing size based on site limits. How does one signal superiority in a non source limited society? While humanity may be TFR >1, one has to believe that Earth is rapidly depopulating.

    Why would anyone with TNG level the technology volunteer for hideously dangerous Starfleet "red shirt death" service?

    PEACE 😇

    Replies: @songbird

    I wish that UR had a minor edit feature that allowed changing a few characters after the 5 minute window, but that is technically not as easy as it sounds.

    A pity. Sometimes, I would like to just change one letter.

    Why would anyone with TNG level the technology volunteer for hideously dangerous Starfleet “red shirt death” service?

    I guess Scalzi had some fun with that.

    Part of the fun of Star Trek is taking it apart. It is funny to contrast the Federation with other groups, like the Klingon Empire:

    The message of the Federation seems to be “Diversity is our strength!” And yet there are a lot of inconsistencies in that, like them teaming up with the Klingons. Or the fact that, even though they have like hundreds of races cooperating together, they seem to be at more or less technical parity with the Romulans, the Cardassians, and the Klingons.

    The Vulcans are very logical and intelligent. They have had space travel for how many thousands of years? enough so that they are slightly dimorphic with the Romulans. They live in a universe where different alien species can interbreed, and yet, Spock aside (who seems to be some sort of diplomatic experiment for understanding humans – they need a half human to understand them, as a whole is too much), they seem to have admixed with aliens not any more than the Romulans (Tasha, who was a blonde).

  1015. @Yahya
    @silviosilver


    one suspects,
     
    Don't suspect and don't project.

    muzzie sandniggers
     
    Ah, the distasteful racial insults start flying once the obnoxious racists start losing the argument.

    We got the Dreamtime.
     
    Cute.

    Of course, people like me had nothing to do with it, but if muzzie sandniggers can lay claim to the pharaohs then I don’t see any reason why med swarthoids can’t lay claim to the Dreamtime.
     
    Lol, imbecile. Egyptians laying claim to their ancestors achievements is nowhere near comparable to a Euro immigrants laying claim to aboriginal "achievements".

    I've been very patient with you; notice how none of my comments attacked your person in any way this whole time. But since you've resorted to being a petty, obnoxious twit; I shall respond in kind. You are a pathetic huckster who thinks supporting the WN cause will lead to a good outcome for you and your kind. Little do you know that, once the racial purity commissars get rid of the blacks, Asians, Indians etc. they are coming for impure, greasy dagos like yourself next. You think your ilk have a place in the Aryan dream nation? Think again, sonny boy.

    Replies: @silviosilver, @silviosilver, @sher singh

    Abrahamics have no claim on pagan achievements.Christcucks squatting in Evropa are same thing.

    Also, it’s perfectly natural to tribally align with whites against niggers.
    Ur bitch made focus on lifting & Ghazwat. Also if WN is bad then promoting it among whites is good :shrug:

    ਵਾਹਿਗੁਰੂਜੀਕਾਖਾਲਸਾਵਾਹਿਗੁਰੂਜੀਕੀਫਤਿਹ

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