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Politics/Slapfights - Ancient history to modern day!

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Joblom
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Re: Politics/Slapfights - Ancient history to modern day!

Postby Joblom » November 23rd, 2019, 7:12 pm

Vol wrote:t they need the black vote, which Trump is doing outreach for, and apparently doing decent with.


He's gonna raise the Republican share of the black vote from 7% to 8%. Amazing!


Vol wrote:
I'd disarm them, honestly. Only get to carry a service weapon when there's a real and present risk of being murdered on your beat. And even then, I'd not trade a single innocent civilian's life for all of theirs combined. But the reality is, as agents of the state, they're just about immune to anything but a preponderance of wrongdoing, which even if you have, does not guarantee they won't keep their jobs or their cushy pensions.


Deport the problem populations and the crime will go away and we'll have no more need for such militant police. You know, how it used to be.


Regarding the American Republic; you can't have a free country with a sick people. Modern day Americans are not made of the right stuff.

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Vol
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Re: Politics/Slapfights - Ancient history to modern day!

Postby Vol » November 23rd, 2019, 10:57 pm

Cops are laying siege to a guy's house in NY for refusing to comply with a red flag law. Veteran from Afghanistan war, got narced on for having 30 round magazines. Militia boys are showing up. Cellphone jammers, arresting the protesters, APCs, online info is being scrubbed on 4chan and social media.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=MOMnioDknpQ&feature=emb_title

Also they've shut down the 911 line in the area from call spam. No emergency help for you citizens, we have _30 round magazines_ to confiscate.

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Joblom
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Re: Politics/Slapfights - Ancient history to modern day!

Postby Joblom » November 24th, 2019, 10:46 am

Vol wrote:Cops are laying siege to a guy's house in NY for refusing to comply with a red flag law. Veteran from Afghanistan war, got narced on for having 30 round magazines. Militia boys are showing up. Cellphone jammers, arresting the protesters, APCs, online info is being scrubbed on 4chan and social media.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=MOMnioDknpQ&feature=emb_title

Also they've shut down the 911 line in the area from call spam. No emergency help for you citizens, we have _30 round magazines_ to confiscate.


I'm still very unclear about this incident.

In related news:

https://www.foxnews.com/story/whites-ge ... tudy-finds

Fox News/Cornell wrote:"White Americans are both genetically weaker and less diverse than their black compatriots, a Cornell University-led study finds.

Analyzing the genetic makeup of 20 Americans of European ancestry and 15 African-Americans, researchers found that the former showed much less variation among 10,000 tested genes than did the latter, which was expected.

They also found that Europeans had many more possibly harmful mutations than did African, which was a surprise."


I denounce this study and declare it to be total BS because race doesn't not exist and thus can't be distinguished. There is no way to tell populations apart because there is no fundamental difference between them. This supposed study is a hoax because in reality it would be impossible to carry out.

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Vol
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Re: Politics/Slapfights - Ancient history to modern day!

Postby Vol » November 24th, 2019, 11:16 am

"Published February 22, 2008 Last Update January 13, 2015"

Odd, that.

The article is poorly written. In essence, it's about how certain phenotypes have been affected by population bottlenecks on the genetic level. While in the practical world, whites are the physically strongest and most varied in their gene expressions. It's obvious information for anyone who's taken a biology course wrapped in usual journalistic buffoonery.

Though certainly better than how this would be phrased in this waning decade.

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Raga
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Re: Politics/Slapfights - Ancient history to modern day!

Postby Raga » November 24th, 2019, 11:57 am

That sample size leaves a lot to be desired too.

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Re: Politics/Slapfights - Ancient history to modern day!

Postby Sinekein » November 24th, 2019, 1:01 pm

Joblom wrote:I denounce this study and declare it to be total BS because race doesn't not exist and thus can't be distinguished. There is no way to tell populations apart because there is no fundamental difference between them. This supposed study is a hoax because in reality it would be impossible to carry out.


Please, PLEASE, stay away from genetics, because you obviously do not understand anything about what is happening.

Raga's criticism is valid - indeed, the sample size is very small. I'll add that I am iffy about any study that "ranks" ethnicities without any obvious medical reason to do so, because it tends to easily look like supremacy.

But yours is utterly clueless. Of course it is possible to tell populations apart with genetics. That's how we discovered how much of our genome came from Neandertal (0-3%, depending on the people) or Denisovians. That's how we can explain why people in Nepal are way better at tolerating higher altitudes. That's how we can explain why white Australians have waaaaay more skin cancer than aboriginals.

I mean, the melanine gene should be a pretty obvious clue to distinguish populations, and that's only one of many. Black curly hair also has a genetic origin, if you have the gene that allows you to get an afro cut, chances are you are not a Irish redhead.

And there also are tons of "invisible" genes that can be used to distinguish populations, like pathogen resistances as a whole, since different regions are exposed to different pathogens. And then, you have thousands of non-coding areas of the genome - so, DNA, but not genes - that you can use to tell two populations apart thanks to statistics because all populations have a limited rate of cross-breeding.

So insult the study as much as you like because it does not fit your abundantly mentioned racist worldview, but don't try to act as if you have any clue as to how genetics work.

Vol wrote:While in the practical world, whites are the physically strongest and most varied in their gene expressions. It's obvious information for anyone who's taken a biology course wrapped in usual journalistic buffoonery.


Physically strongest - that's just run-of-the-mill white supremacist cherry-picked BS. Strength has environmental factors, like how much food you get to eat, and those tend to favor white people. Genetics have nothing to do with it. Also, there has been no actual study that properly tested the average strength of people of different races because A/ that would obviously be racist B/ that would be rather pointless C/ there are way too many factors that could skew the results.

And finally, if you take track and field gold medals as a basis for your conclusion, then yes, the strongest people are white (more accurately, they're Eastern European, between Germany and Russia), but yet again there is a cultural bias in that those are the regions where those specialties are the most popular. If you add Viking games and the such, then the only participants (and the only people actually remotely interested in it) are Scandinavians, so it's hard to conclude that others wouldn't be as good if they never really tried.

Another thing: it says nothing of the average white person. I have no data to back it up, but I am pretty sure that if you are looking for the population on Earth that is the physically strongest on average, then it's probably Polynesians. In rugby, a sport in which many white (and black) people are playing at a very high level, the most impressive athletes still tend to come from islands that are fifty times less populated than the major nations like England, Australia or South Africa, and their supply looks infinite. I heard you had a number of Polynesians in the NFL too. And even if I end up being true on my prediction, then I'm sure it's not all fine and dandy because Polynesians also have a way higher susceptibility to becoming obese - and that's related to their genetics (stockpiling fat reserves was an advantage for long maritime travels, and many of them were fishermen - also, they tended to have a very, very high protein rate in their alimentation because they mostly ate fish and had little room for agriculture).

And finally, the "most varied" part, I would really love to have some source that properly studied that, because hearsay doesn't cut it. Maybe it exists, mind you, but if it does I'm quite sure "white people" is not the term that was used (as that also includes Palestinians or Berbers).

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TTTX
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Re: Politics/Slapfights - Ancient history to modern day!

Postby TTTX » November 24th, 2019, 2:00 pm

Joblom wrote:I denounce this study and declare it to be total BS because race doesn't not exist and thus can't be distinguished. There is no way to tell populations apart because there is no fundamental difference between them. This supposed study is a hoax because in reality it would be impossible to carry out.

Genetics is a thing that is proven and even in the same species can be different from each other in other populations which humans have all around the world.

Even if you don't believe races exist, however history have already proven that genetics across the human race isn't the same (because of thousands years of isolation of different populations have produced slightly different genetics, because different environment, dieases, breeding with other humanoids like neanderthals, etc) as seen with natives in the USA not being immune to the dieases that European bought with them from the Europe.
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Re: Politics/Slapfights - Ancient history to modern day!

Postby Alienmorph » November 24th, 2019, 4:59 pm

Oh? A ficticious, poorly researched study trying to demonstrate the that one race is genetically worse than some others?

Gee, I wonder where I've heard of those before.

Even putting THAT aspect aside, I find it's a pretty damn pointless thing. I think anyone with a basic knowledge of genetic and population growth would be able to tell you that the descendents of a relatively small few colonies all originated from a small corner of the world is gonna be lacking in genetic diversity, with everything that can entail. Especially compared to a population descending from a former slave caste tbat used to be much more numerous than the colonists, and had members picked from all over an entire bloody continent.

Also we're more than just the sum of our genes, our environment and cultural upbringing matter just as much as our genetic makeup.

So it'either a very "captain obvious" study about how bottlenecking a population results in less genetic variety, or something truly stupid and/or ill-intended.

I honestly thought we were beyond crap like "let's use (poorly done) science to demonstrate the superiority or inferiority of this or that branch of humanity" at the very least. Guess not.

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Vol
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Re: Politics/Slapfights - Ancient history to modern day!

Postby Vol » November 24th, 2019, 6:18 pm

Sinekein wrote:Physically strongest - that's just run-of-the-mill white supremacist cherry-picked BS. Strength has environmental factors, like how much food you get to eat, and those tend to favor white people. Genetics have nothing to do with it. Also, there has been no actual study that properly tested the average strength of people of different races because A/ that would obviously be racist B/ that would be rather pointless C/ there are way too many factors that could skew the results.

And finally, if you take track and field gold medals as a basis for your conclusion, then yes, the strongest people are white (more accurately, they're Eastern European, between Germany and Russia), but yet again there is a cultural bias in that those are the regions where those specialties are the most popular. If you add Viking games and the such, then the only participants (and the only people actually remotely interested in it) are Scandinavians, so it's hard to conclude that others wouldn't be as good if they never really tried.

Another thing: it says nothing of the average white person. I have no data to back it up, but I am pretty sure that if you are looking for the population on Earth that is the physically strongest on average, then it's probably Polynesians. In rugby, a sport in which many white (and black) people are playing at a very high level, the most impressive athletes still tend to come from islands that are fifty times less populated than the major nations like England, Australia or South Africa, and their supply looks infinite. I heard you had a number of Polynesians in the NFL too. And even if I end up being true on my prediction, then I'm sure it's not all fine and dandy because Polynesians also have a way higher susceptibility to becoming obese - and that's related to their genetics (stockpiling fat reserves was an advantage for long maritime travels, and many of them were fishermen - also, they tended to have a very, very high protein rate in their alimentation because they mostly ate fish and had little room for agriculture).

And finally, the "most varied" part, I would really love to have some source that properly studied that, because hearsay doesn't cut it. Maybe it exists, mind you, but if it does I'm quite sure "white people" is not the term that was used (as that also includes Palestinians or Berbers).

Are you claiming that genetics do not affect the physical capabilities of the human body? I would cite every person who has every lived as evidence to the contrary. And then in the extremes of human capability, you will find people who have those innate advantages that allows them to surpass those who do not, even with equal effort and resources. That is not opinion, that is the reality of a species that is not composed of identical clones. Someone must have the gene expressions that will allow them to be stronger than anyone else. Barring any evidence to the contrary, it appears those expressions occur most commonly in a general region of Europe/Scandinavia, which until very recently, were considered the homelands of subgroups of white people.

Yes, it appears Polynesians, when exposed to western diets, show remarkable ability to put on mass and perform athletically compared to other groups. Dwayne Johnson is half Polynesian, half American black, and he looked like this at 15: Image

He must've had a lot of calories and social support to grow a collarbone like that.

What metrics would you like to use for recording physical diversity? Height? Hair color? Eye color? Skin color? Nose shape? Eye shape? Hair type? Fat distribution? Skeleton shape?

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Re: Politics/Slapfights - Ancient history to modern day!

Postby Vol » November 24th, 2019, 6:27 pm

Alienmorph wrote:Also we're more than just the sum of our genes, our environment and cultural upbringing matter just as much as our genetic makeup.

I look at it that our genes are our limits, our affinities, but we have no obligation to follow them. Joy of sapience, you might be built for manual labor and be real good at digging holes, but you can go sit in a cubicle and make Powerpoints for 50 years if you want.

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Raga
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Re: Politics/Slapfights - Ancient history to modern day!

Postby Raga » November 24th, 2019, 6:37 pm

Some of this argument is a waste of time because so far as I know literally nobody in this forum has ever claimed that genetics are irrelevant in determining traits of various groups of humans.

All that's been claimed is that complex social phenomenon and complex cognitive work we are only barely beginning to understand cannot be neatly rooted in certain prescriptive genes. And that such genetic observations as we do make do not obviously and conveniently overlap with preconceived social groups in ways that people with agendas want them to.

The idea that anybody in here has claimed that genetic variations are made up and that everything is a social construct is a straw man. Nobody said that.

The most radical thing that's been said that I'm aware of is that digging into this with an agenda is itself suspicious because the underlying reality is so complex that it defies people's preconceived agendas.

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Re: Politics/Slapfights - Ancient history to modern day!

Postby Sinekein » November 25th, 2019, 1:22 am

Vol wrote:Are you claiming that genetics do not affect the physical capabilities of the human body? I would cite every person who has every lived as evidence to the contrary. And then in the extremes of human capability, you will find people who have those innate advantages that allows them to surpass those who do not, even with equal effort and resources. That is not opinion, that is the reality of a species that is not composed of identical clones.


That is absolutely not what I have said. How the hell did you manage to turn my post into this?

Vol wrote:Someone must have the gene expressions that will allow them to be stronger than anyone else. Barring any evidence to the contrary, it appears those expressions occur most commonly in a general region of Europe/Scandinavia, which until very recently, were considered the homelands of subgroups of white people.


And that is the BS I am calling. Where are your studies proving that? If you are using anecdotal evidence and turning them into a law, then it's just plain not how science works. Because I can claim that those expressions occur most commonly in a general region of Laos/Vietnam barring any evidence to the contrary and you won't have any more evidence to present. Seriously, where do you pull that idea from? Olympic Gold medals? I'll post it again, but opportunity to practice is key in sport performances. A New Zealander is not born with an innate ability to properly kick or carry oval balls, but since almost all of them play rugby in school, then they almost never miss on potential talent. For the longest time, only Eastern Europe cared about throws in the Olympics, but lo and behold, now that other federations also invest, podiums have started to change, with Javelin being the most obvious (athletes from Trinidad and Kenya got medals in the last decade), but you also got a couple medals for Chinese or Japanese athletes, and the best female shot putter for the last ten years has been a maori.
Vol wrote:Yes, it appears Polynesians, when exposed to western diets, show remarkable ability to put on mass and perform athletically compared to other groups. Dwayne Johnson is half Polynesian, half American black, and he looked like this at 15.

He must've had a lot of calories and social support to grow a collarbone like that.


Western diets? What the fuck man. Here is the Tuilagi family.

Image

All five of them are high level rugby players, playing for the Samoan national team. Manu, the youngest, middle-center, plays for England and was just out of a world cup final. They all grew up in the Samoa, with absolutely not Western diets, and all five of them roughly had The Rock's body when they were pro athletes. The only difference is that they didn't become cinema stars so had no reason to keep looking in supershape. I could also have used the Vunipola brothers, both of them also England internationals, both of them also having grown in their native Tonga islands.

Their collarbones don't need "Western civilization" to grow. And I can honestly give you ten more examples of absolute physical monsters that grew up in Fiji, Tonga or Samoa and came to Europe absolutely massive already.

By the way, the Fiji are Olympic gold medallists in rugby, and all of their players grew up at home. If you have a look at pro Sevens rugby players, you'll notice they aren't exactly tiny, even though they are slightly more lithe than XV ones (but not by much, and most transition from one to another without any issue, some even ending among forwards where the biggest guys are like Leone Nakarawa).

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Re: Politics/Slapfights - Ancient history to modern day!

Postby Sinekein » November 26th, 2019, 1:07 am

I know how critical I can be, so when something real good happens it would be hypocritical to look the other way.

https://abcnews.go.com/amp/Politics/pre ... oWuTBNsDRo

One thing that I wish could also be voted here, but there are a couple of "traditions" that stop it from being universally adopted. Namely, foie gras production - that one hurts a little because the method to obtain it is barbaric but damn that is an absolutely delicious meal, still, it's not like we are lacking in the good meat-based meals department - and corridas in the Southwest - this one has absolutely zero reason to exist in the 21st century.

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Raga
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Re: Politics/Slapfights - Ancient history to modern day!

Postby Raga » November 27th, 2019, 8:49 am

A good law for the most part. I'd argue that laws like this need more clarity on when it's legal to kill dogs. I came across a couple that needed killing just this week that were chasing people and harassing deer on public land. I had rabbits as a kid and my dad killed some that killed several of my rabbits. In Texas I can shoot a human to recover stolen property but unless a dog is literally chewing on your face or you witness it killing your livestock, you are mostly in a legal no man's land.

It's a somewhat fringe concern but a legit one that hardly even seems to get thought about in laws like this.

I personally would add am unambiguous legality to killing loose dogs that kill or harass wildlife. Same for cats though I admit that one is harder because I'm a cat person. I'd argue a better methodology with cats is trapping them and taking them to animal control. Cats tend to come in colonies anyway.

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Re: Politics/Slapfights - Ancient history to modern day!

Postby TTTX » November 27th, 2019, 11:13 am

Raga wrote:A good law for the most part. I'd argue that laws like this need more clarity on when it's legal to kill dogs. I came across a couple that needed killing just this week that were chasing people and harassing deer on public land. I had rabbits as a kid and my dad killed some that killed several of my rabbits. In Texas I can shoot a human to recover stolen property but unless a dog is literally chewing on your face or you witness it killing your livestock, you are mostly in a legal no man's land.

It's a somewhat fringe concern but a legit one that hardly even seems to get thought about in laws like this.

I personally would add am unambiguous legality to killing loose dogs that kill or harass wildlife. Same for cats though I admit that one is harder because I'm a cat person. I'd argue a better methodology with cats is trapping them and taking them to animal control. Cats tend to come in colonies anyway.

well in some areas in the world cats are more of a pest and then a pet because of the species it endanger, so keeping the population down is a good thing, much like dogs because of the damage they cause.
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Re: Politics/Slapfights - Ancient history to modern day!

Postby Raga » November 27th, 2019, 2:36 pm

I don't disagree. I just meant there is almost always more than one or two cats. In the US feral problem dogs come in ones or twos and cats come in dozens. There's really no way to get rid of the cats other than trapping if you actually want to get all or most of them.

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Re: Politics/Slapfights - Ancient history to modern day!

Postby TTTX » November 27th, 2019, 2:42 pm

Raga wrote:I don't disagree. I just meant there is almost always more than one or two cats. In the US feral problem dogs come in ones or twos and cats come in dozens. There's really no way to get rid of the cats other than trapping if you actually want to get all or most of them.

yeah, it's one of the reasons why Cats is one of the worst invasive and destructive species on the planet.
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Re: Politics/Slapfights - Ancient history to modern day!

Postby Raga » November 30th, 2019, 1:38 pm

So a while back, the New York Times set up this wildly ahistorical, blinkered, and ideological project called the 1619 Project which seeks to reframe all of American history as being mostly about slavery and 1619 (the date the first slaves where brought to the geographical US) as the "real" founding of the country. They explicitly billed this as educational and sought to provide pedagogical tools to various teachers so they could indoctrinate students with this stuff.

Fortunately, this does not appear to have made the giant splash that they hoped that it would because I've seen next to no pickup of it other than by some conservatives who got loudly on the outrage wagon as soon as it appeared. It appears to have mostly passed over like the sensationalist, partisan rubbish that it is. However, it's been out long enough that it's garnered much more substantive criticism from people who know what they are talking about and not just from FOX News and Co.

So just to put the hopefully dead horse to bed, here's two of the most venerable living historians on US history (Gordon Wood who is an expert on the American Revolution and McPherson who is an expert on the Civil War) explaining at length why the 1619 Project is a bunch of hot garbage. And to put the cherry on top of that, it's a socialist website conducting the interviews so the criticism is coming from the left.

Full interviews:

Gordon Wood
James McPherson

Short video:

https://www.youtube.com/watch?time_continue=43&v=1X9kREN0MXs&feature=emb_logo

Interviews with two other less prominent historians for good measure:

Wilfred M. McClay
James Oakes

I don't know anything about those second two, but the first two are like core historians taught to undergraduates. I had assigned books and readings from both of them in undergrad in American history classes.

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Re: Politics/Slapfights - Ancient history to modern day!

Postby Sinekein » December 1st, 2019, 5:25 pm

Raga wrote:And to put the cherry on top of that, it's a socialist website conducting the interviews so the criticism is coming from the left.


That part is really unsurprising. I don't know if the division has any academical value, as I'm giving the tags here, but for a while the left has been split between "socialists" and "liberals". The latter includes people who are involved in the fight against various forms of discrimination, like sexism, racism, homophobia, etc... They include those that are branded "SJW" - whether they deserve the name or not is not the topic here - and various "intersectional" supporters who consider that there is no such thing as an unworthy cause. They are basically what right-wing people think about when they imagine a left-wing person as of right now, as their causes have clearly been put in the front page in the era of social media and insta-outrage, the kind that is very, very often mentioned on this very forum (proving that it keeps working, natch).

But the "socialists" are a distinct part, and they are much closer to the ideals of Marx, and they do not hold the same beliefs as the "liberals" mentioned above. In particular, their core belief is that class struggle defines all inequalities in the current society, and that you need to fight it and "solve" it if you wish to solve other problems - which includes racism, sexism, homophobia, etc etc. It does not mean that they are racist or sexist - although there are a few raging misogynists in their ranks - but they simply believe that energy should be spent fighting for your social class as a whole, instead of restricting it to "one problem" like anti-racists do.

So seeing a "socialist" website criticizing a "liberal" project is not much of a surprise. It is similar to a libertarian criticizing conservatives, despite both belonging to "the right" as a whole. In the short time I spent on Twitter, some of the ugliest sexism came from left-wing "socialists" who devoted an unholy amount of time just thrashing feminists - you know, an activity that you would associate more easily with right-wing 4chan trolls.

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Re: Politics/Slapfights - Ancient history to modern day!

Postby Raga » December 1st, 2019, 9:41 pm

The thing is that the school of thought that the New York Times is pulling from are basically uber critics of capitalism quasi Marxists. The Oakes interview gets into it. The socialists are actually engaging in criticism of a sister philosophy and not just trying to pull some "racism is made up and everything is class struggle" strategic coup.

Now obviously they have a longer term agenda here but it doesn't stop these from being credible in the moment. And for whatever my word is worth, as much as anything is my "official" thing it's US history (and what my degrees are focused in) and I didn't see anything in the interviews that raised obvious red flags.
Last edited by Raga on December 1st, 2019, 9:48 pm, edited 1 time in total.

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Re: Politics/Slapfights - Ancient history to modern day!

Postby Sinekein » December 1st, 2019, 9:47 pm

They are credible inasmuch as they are offering constructive criticism. Which they do because their own theories are not in the limelight at the moment I think, so they are reacting to what is prominentaly displayed.

Both "liberals" and "socialists" are very critical of capitalism, at that point it's almost required if you call yourself "left-wing". In the US the most pro-free market politicians make the central aisle of both political parties. Biden isn't really a leftist by any definition of the term.

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Re: Politics/Slapfights - Ancient history to modern day!

Postby Raga » December 3rd, 2019, 1:07 pm

Are liberals against marriage

Written by Ross Douthat, the New York Times resident, domesticated social conservative so he's really pulling punches here, but interesting nonetheless.

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Re: Politics/Slapfights - Ancient history to modern day!

Postby Joblom » December 4th, 2019, 12:58 pm

Raga wrote:I don't disagree. I just meant there is almost always more than one or two cats. In the US feral problem dogs come in ones or twos and cats come in dozens. There's really no way to get rid of the cats other than trapping if you actually want to get all or most of them.


I suppose in a more ideal world we'd have some stringent enforcement of laws that come with hefty penalties for people who don't get their cats spayed and neutered. My own mother is really bad about this and it drives me crazy. However I'm not sympathetic, at least in certain regions, to the concept that cats are driving native species to extinction. I think you can blame the massive environmental changes brought by humans before you can the cats. This is not the same for islands, such as Hawaii though. In the end though I think you'll have nearly as hard a time controlling cat populations as you do rats, which are also an invasive and destructive species. It was likely they who drove the Dodo to extinction.



TTTX wrote:Genetics is a thing that is proven and even in the same species can be different from each other in other populations which humans have all around the world.

Even if you don't believe races exist, however history have already proven that genetics across the human race isn't the same (because of thousands years of isolation of different populations have produced slightly different genetics, because different environment, dieases, breeding with other humanoids like neanderthals, etc) as seen with natives in the USA not being immune to the dieases that European bought with them from the Europe.


In response to this post I went back and read some Charles Darwin and noticed that he uses minute differences in the Finch populations of the Galapagos islands to establish his theory about evolution. To me this sounds like dog-whistling about "human biodiversity". He was probably a proto-fascist.

I am now a Creationist but I don't believe in the Christian God, rather I believe in Gaia.


Too on the nose?


Oops, did not mean to duplicate. Someone delete those since it seems I can't.
Last edited by Joblom on December 4th, 2019, 1:01 pm, edited 1 time in total.

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TTTX
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Re: Politics/Slapfights - Ancient history to modern day!

Postby TTTX » December 4th, 2019, 12:59 pm

Joblom wrote:It was likely they who drove the Dodo to extinction.

Well Rats and Pigs.

Turns out pigs can rather destructive once they get lose.
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Re: Politics/Slapfights - Ancient history to modern day!

Postby TTTX » December 4th, 2019, 1:04 pm

Joblom wrote:
Too on the nose?

I have no idea.
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Re: Politics/Slapfights - Ancient history to modern day!

Postby Raga » December 4th, 2019, 1:44 pm

Joblom wrote:I suppose in a more ideal world we'd have some stringent enforcement of laws that come with hefty penalties for people who don't get their cats spayed and neutered. My own mother is really bad about this and it drives me crazy. However I'm not sympathetic, at least in certain regions, to the concept that cats are driving native species to extinction. I think you can blame the massive environmental changes brought by humans before you can the cats. This is not the same for islands, such as Hawaii though. In the end though I think you'll have nearly as hard a time controlling cat populations as you do rats, which are also an invasive and destructive species. It was likely they who drove the Dodo to extinction.


This is probably correct. Especially in places that have some kind of actual native wildcat because the animals there would presumably already have evolved certain defenses against that type of predator. I think one difference with domestic cats and wildcats however is that domestic cats will live in a psuedo pride-like "colony" in which large numbers of cats will live in a small area. This is exacerbated by people feeding them, availability of human trash to scavenge, and a preponderance of rats and such that also come along with cities and human settlement. One or two cats roaming lose probably won't drive anything to extinction, but a colony of potentially dozens of cats all operating inside a small area could much more realistically extirpate a species from that area at least.

This isn't just a city thing either. My dad's neighbor out in West Podunk was the epicenter of a cat colony that consisted of dozens of cats. He and a friend of his got rid of them by multiple months of consistent trapping. I can't remember exactly how many they said they caught between them but it was like 40 or 50 cats. I can believe that 40 or 50 cats concentrated inside half a square mile or so could turn that zone into a no man's land for any number of species.


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Re: Politics/Slapfights - Ancient history to modern day!

Postby Vol » December 5th, 2019, 12:50 am

"Smarter Trumpism" is betraying the point of Trumpism. It was a very loud rejection of the GOP, the political elites, the neocons, at the core. And then all the usual Republican voters eventually coalesced around that as the only viable way to ensure we don't have more Sotomayers and such. It's a purposefully simple, not completely coherent philosophy. Fuck China, fuck forever war, fuck the weasels in all seats of power, fuck illegals, so on and so forth. It worked very well, the election was close, but he clearly tapped into the right vein to beat all those projections from very well educated, professional hucksters. Good chance for reelection too, though I have the suspicion this is the Democrat's way of "cleaning house" by letting the progressives go wild, letting Schiff pretend he's going to do anything, and then punt the election.

My point being, people are trying to build a house with the planks of Trumpish. It does not work though. Not because they're irreconcilable, but because the process repeatedly results in sucking off the neocons. They are the acceptable right-wing, and Big Tech/social crusaders are doing their damnedest to ensure it stays that way. Not many thought leaders are going to deal with the unending tides of social, financial, criminal, and physical bullshit that comes with defying those powers and planting a flag. Namely because you're not going to make a living doing so, and whatever you do have, you are going to lose, as somewhere in the financial chain, you will be excised.

That's the context for a Smarter Trumpism. It's a rejection of some GOP orthodoxy, nearly all the Acceptable Political Matrix says, and attempts to make it smarter have repeatedly turned into the same shit it's meant to oppose. An honest attempt would look like some mix of pre-WW1 policy, popular welfare state ideas with a tighter belt, and some vague language about returning to pre-1965 immigration quotas.

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Re: Politics/Slapfights - Ancient history to modern day!

Postby Mobius_118 » December 5th, 2019, 4:52 am

It's deliberate retardation.
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Re: Politics/Slapfights - Ancient history to modern day!

Postby Sinekein » December 5th, 2019, 5:37 am

"Smarter Trumpism" is an oxymoron that's more moron than oxy.

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Re: Politics/Slapfights - Ancient history to modern day!

Postby Mazder » December 5th, 2019, 7:12 am

Image

Honestly I wondered how long people would make this joke after the attack in London last week.

If you didn't know there was a terror attack in London last week at the top end of London Bridge, stabbed a few people and ran, one guy fought him with a Narwhal tusk, others used a fire extinguisher and their bare hands, they dropped the terrorist to the ground and held him there for the police to get there. The guy had kitchen knives taped to his hands. He was disarmed by a plainclothes Transport Police Officer.
They then saw the guy had a bomb vest on. Most fled, one guy kept the terrorist down and potentially laid down his life to save others. Armed cops then arrived. Got the civvie guy off the terrorist, shot the terrorist upon seeing the bomb vest. Later it was found the vest was a fake.

Props to the random guy who stayed on the guy even though he didn't know the bomb vest was fake.
Props to the transport officer for disarming.
Props to the armed officers who did not hesitate once all civilians were free from harm.

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Re: Politics/Slapfights - Ancient history to modern day!

Postby Raga » December 5th, 2019, 1:42 pm

The title of that podcast episode is admittedly fairly click-baity. If "smarter Trumpism" doesn't work, more or less insert "smarter globalization skepticism coupled with a functioning welfare state" because that's really what's being covered in it.

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Re: Politics/Slapfights - Ancient history to modern day!

Postby Joblom » December 5th, 2019, 6:07 pm

Vol wrote:
That's the context for a Smarter Trumpism. It's a rejection of some GOP orthodoxy, nearly all the Acceptable Political Matrix says, and attempts to make it smarter have repeatedly turned into the same shit it's meant to oppose. An honest attempt would look like some mix of pre-WW1 policy, popular welfare state ideas with a tighter belt, and some vague language about returning to pre-1965 immigration quotas.


It's never going to work because the Republic is fucked. Bureaucratic and corporate tyranny is what we can expect. It's just a question of how long it lasts. Trumpism is just people trying to resist the corruption and decay, but it is too little too late.

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Re: Politics/Slapfights - Ancient history to modern day!

Postby Vol » December 5th, 2019, 11:13 pm

@Raga: Right, that's what I took away from what you said. I wanted to grandstand for a moment on why Trumpism has not and probably will not be given intellectual structure. Mainly because having to filter my ideas down to palatable chunks as a thought experiment is grim.

@Job: Corporate tyranny because a consequence of weak little men (and some broads) getting into government and allowing it. I can't hate China for exploiting us when our leaders let them get away with it all, I hate our fucking leaders for being ineffectual cocksockets who have no patriotism or sense of duty for their elected office.

Semi-related, but Pelosi's been strongarmed into going ahead with the impeachment vote, so that'll be fun to see how dumb it all gets in the Senate. Especially since the GOP will run it, and after Schiff's little one-man band in the House, they might as well return the favor and refuse to let the Dems do much of anything. That'll keep all the Senators running for President tied up too, they can't campaign during the trial, oh me oh my.

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Re: Politics/Slapfights - Ancient history to modern day!

Postby Raga » December 6th, 2019, 4:33 pm

Donald Trump is Incidental to the Culture War

Kinda obvious, but well stated anyway.

Also from New York Times:

Why the Wokest Candidates are the Weakest

The guy misconstrues that criticism of wokeness a bit. Trumpism is a revolt of the base against the party elites. "The Great Awokening" is a revolt of the party elites against the base.

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Re: Politics/Slapfights - Ancient history to modern day!

Postby Alienmorph » December 6th, 2019, 5:05 pm

I don't think he was entirely incidental. We were already on our way to this whole Culture War bullcrap anyway, yes, but getting him elected basically made him a catalyst to make the damn mess blow out of proportions. Now literally every damn crazy leftist extremist feels validated in his positions because an ultra-conservator capitalist got to be president at the worst possible moment. It's like the worst of both worlds.

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Re: Politics/Slapfights - Ancient history to modern day!

Postby Raga » December 6th, 2019, 5:54 pm

@Alien

That's true. I'm of the opinion that some kind of massive flareup was probably inevitable with or without Trump, but it's hard to argue that there is hardly anything or anybody else more perfectly tailored to be gasoline on that particular smoldering fire.

Also:

Christians Doomsayers Have Lost It

New York Time's actually putting up multiple interesting articles today. I follow some of those Christian "doomsayers" as a sort of hobby. I'm a complete apostate by their standards, but I feel like a lot of them have a finger on the pulse of the moment a lot better than various moderates do.

Anyway, this guy misconstrues what they are flipping out about. They aren't flipping out because society is insufficiently prudish. They are flipping out because they believe that the Left in power will persecute them and try to kill any conservative understanding of the faith by making it impossible to catechize their kids without interference.

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Re: Politics/Slapfights - Ancient history to modern day!

Postby TTTX » December 6th, 2019, 6:20 pm

Raga wrote:@Alien

That's true. I'm of the opinion that some kind of massive flareup was probably inevitable with or without Trump, but it's hard to argue that there is hardly anything or anybody else more perfectly tailored to be gasoline on that particular smoldering fire.

sometimes the circumstances is just right for bad people to be elected as seen with some presidents and other leaders through out history.

However he has proven that the left is worse then he is after all he is an idiot politician but what does that say about the left that lost to him?
not to mention they keep screaming that it was Russian bots, racists and a bunch of other stuff when the left lost and it makes them look rather crazy.
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Re: Politics/Slapfights - Ancient history to modern day!

Postby Raga » December 6th, 2019, 7:28 pm

I think there was a general desire for an iconoclast in 2016 and it was deeply ambiguous which particular type of iconoclast would dominate. It's true that the radicalized left is currently more dangerous because they control most cultural institutions here. However, I think the right would have flipped out just as hardcore if Clinton had won. She's only one step removed from Antichrist in militant right wing circles.

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Re: Politics/Slapfights - Ancient history to modern day!

Postby TTTX » December 6th, 2019, 7:42 pm

Raga wrote:I think there was a general desire for an iconoclast in 2016 and it was deeply ambiguous which particular type of iconoclast would dominate. It's true that the radicalized left is currently more dangerous because they control most cultural institutions here. However, I think the right would have flipped out just as hardcore if Clinton had won. She's only one step removed from Antichrist in militant right wing circles.

Maybe, we'll never know.

Personally I hope the extreme on both soon get put to the side and hopefully some more level headed people will become the next leders.
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Re: Politics/Slapfights - Ancient history to modern day!

Postby Vol » December 7th, 2019, 3:01 pm

https://www.idrlabs.com/fascism/test.php

42%, and the second test they offer at the end, slightly above average with highs in dominance/submission hierarchy, dislike of outsider culture, and so on.

Honestly surprised it wasn't higher, though all the questions where I answered with, "But also, the state can go fuck itself in this matter," surely helped.

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Re: Politics/Slapfights - Ancient history to modern day!

Postby Grand Admiral Cheesecake » December 7th, 2019, 3:39 pm

27% for me.

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Re: Politics/Slapfights - Ancient history to modern day!

Postby Raga » December 7th, 2019, 4:39 pm

50%. That doesn't surprise me because as I've said before I'm a communitarian and I also have strong paleo conservative leanings and both of those overlap with fascism in some pretty noteworthy ways.

They share a lot of fascism's beliefs about culture, but like with Vol, I fail out on all the "And the state should stomp this down people's throat" stuff.

On the 2nd test I scored 19.6% higher tendency towards authoritarianism then the average person. I was average on all of the individual categories except I scored very high on Destructiveness-Cynicism and high on Anti-Degeneracy. The 2nd one doesn't surprise me but the 1st one does. I knew I was sort of skeptical but I wouldn't really have ever considered myself a cynic.

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Re: Politics/Slapfights - Ancient history to modern day!

Postby Mazder » December 7th, 2019, 4:58 pm

I got 40% but most of my shit is neutral because I either don't understand them or I have no opinion on their subject, or their phrasing is really leading.

According to that site's F Scale test I am apparently 5.4% less Authoritarian than the Average person.
Where they gather their averages from I don't know.

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Re: Politics/Slapfights - Ancient history to modern day!

Postby Alienmorph » December 7th, 2019, 5:35 pm

32%

It was... interesting. A few questions in there on things I don't ponder about very often. Some food for thought.

Overall, seems to confirm I'm quite the egalitarian type who doesn't really like either extreme of the political spectrum.

Also just did the F-scale test. Turns out I'm 11.4% less authoritarian than the average, according to them, but that I'm a big time cynic/misantrope guy. Gee... what a surprise.

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Re: Politics/Slapfights - Ancient history to modern day!

Postby TTTX » December 8th, 2019, 4:47 am

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=TArZJzn7bQM

Gotta love those double standrads. :roll:
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Re: Politics/Slapfights - Ancient history to modern day!

Postby Alienmorph » December 8th, 2019, 6:31 am

Yeah, but don't worry, the comic-book industry is in trouble just because people don't read phisical media anymore. Yeeep, that is the oooonly problem...

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Re: Politics/Slapfights - Ancient history to modern day!

Postby TTTX » December 8th, 2019, 7:06 am

Alienmorph wrote:Yeah, but don't worry, the comic-book industry is in trouble just because people don't read phisical media anymore. Yeeep, that is the oooonly problem...

of course it is.
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Re: Politics/Slapfights - Ancient history to modern day!

Postby Sinekein » December 8th, 2019, 2:12 pm

Got 38% on the first test, mostly because of the statements hinting at socialist beliefs, and then 17% on the F-Scale test making me 21% less authoritarian than the average person. The only outlier was Destructiveness-Cynicism where I scored average, the rest was low to very low.

Sounds about right.

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Re: Politics/Slapfights - Ancient history to modern day!

Postby TheodoricFriede » December 8th, 2019, 3:14 pm

32% on the fascism test and a whole lot of scores I didn't understand on the other leading to a 43%.

Whatever Destructiveness-Cynicism is, I scored a 92%, though I dont really understand why.


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