I won't be participating any time soon, but I support the idea.
If there is sufficient discussion and/or reviewing, I'd be reading the related threads. My book backlog is too long as it is, but I'm willing to add more titles to it if I hear about something interesting.
Good to hear a report on how other nations are doing.
I am sorry to be blunt, but, are there avenues for political (peaceful) correction of these problems? If there are not, then that is the state demanding your violence.
Perhaps it is a modern problem to take freedoms and rights for granted, though. I think it's important to be aware of the concept of liberty, and how it means that you only have the rights you risk your own neck for. Of course every society should motivate its citizens to make better lives for their children - but this is a trap that breeds complacency and reliance on the state. After all, you are relying on the state to maintain the rights you fought for for your children, because the state will outlive you. Maybe it just seems wrong to many parents out there to teach their children the value of fighting (whether civil struggles or violent).
Couldn't they be niggers too? Openly denigrating your nation's native tongue is a niggerish action. At best, they'd be some type of racialist for treating a class of people like pets.
What if those shelves are stocked with bugs instead of normal food?
Ethnic Collectivism as a methodology of political control isn't really a new thing.
I have trouble remembering historical dates, so I was assuming that that kind of depopulation effort wasn't a big thing since ww1 cooled down. But maybe part of that cool down process was depopulation; Germany got fucked hard by the end of that war, but other nations must have had some problems to fix.
Irritating, I'm still trying to work backwards, so I need to have better understanding of ww2 before I get into ww1 too hard. Some of our current bullshit is helping me grasp some things, at least. I respect the economic lens approach you seem to be able to use, but it's a little dense for me to dig through right now. Thinking it might serve well to help cut out some of the sensationalism.
British Liberal
Ughh, so it was this label that had the regional variants. I was just assuming a definition of "pushing the boundaries of what's accepted" since I see it often treated as the opposite of conservatism's "maintain status quo". I don't think I'll be able to remember it if it's this complicated.
Pretty much Spok and Picard.
I think that's fine for role models. They each present a variety of traits to aspire towards.
Closest I got was various fictional characters that I would rather be. It did not take a deep analysis to realize how depressing that was, nor how there was no trait to aspire towards. I was ultimately just desiring less suffering - I didn't have a clue how to achieve that didn't involve death.
I think there might be some fundamental mindset necessary for the development of role models, even on the basis of sound judgement. Desperation really hinders the ability to make good choices. Other kids were learning how to function in society while I was learning how to survive at home - it didn't seem safe to devote resources to societal integration when I had to make plans for when would be the most secure time to sleep.
Though, I'm confused why you would think you couldn't have made a different choice. You can always make a different choice.
Sounds naive to me, even now. I'm not theistic, but I do follow my own form of soft determinism. Not every choice, but some choices are false choices. Like getting a multiple choice test question where the options are A, B, and C - but the correct answer is E. Likewise, a human cannot be expected to make a choice that does not appear to be an option to them (even if it's possible, it's unrealistic to expect it).
An example, since I'm having a bad day. There was a short period of time where I could have gotten help from a relative before they died. The possibility was not unknown to me, but there was not even a glimmer of hope from it at the time because they'd been making a bad impression on me, I was too demoralized to muster any motivation, and I was being coerced beyond my understanding to not complain. So I think about it, playing "what if" and realize that it wasn't actually possible under those circumstances. Any one thing being different might have permitted the path. It's painful to think about even so, because I realized too late how much that relative actually cared.
I technically chose to do nothing, though, and I do believe I had some wiggle room to at least try to make some small things better. Looking back now, of course I see all the flaws in my choices, but it all seemed like the best choices available back then. For me to have chosen anything else would have been me choosing a sub-optimal strategy intentionally. Since I think that's illogical, I consider it a non-choice; you're given choices A, B, and C, and B sounds better than A and C, so of course you're going to choose B.
In summary, I think free will doesn't actually exist, but for all intents and purposes it should be treated as real because to do otherwise leads to some really decrepit philosophies like nihilism. (Similarly, I use a form of agnosticism where I believe that religion is disrespectful without a personal sign from god - because there not being a sign given to you personally is indication that all existing deities actively desire you to live without knowledge of them.) I'm open to refutation, but I'm already working on it myself by bothering to examine my past choices in any capacity.
Perhaps there's a semantic problem in there as well. Assumptions about causality. If a bad thing happens, how many involved choices can fault be placed upon? How many points of blame should a single person receive when making multiple choices leading up to a bad thing? Not that it's wrong or useless to place fault in either way. Part of taking responsibility should be the seperation of your own responsibility from the responsibility of others.
The entire Left-Right dichotomy is false. That's why I keep saying Left & Anti-Left. There is no "Right". The Right is simply: that which opposes the Left's current policies.
I like that. I can imagine some normie counters to it, but they aren't difficult to deal with. I think it's a lot more helpful as framing to say anti-left because a bystander that doesn't know better is going to assume that "the right" has its own qualifying set of principles that don't change (which I guess is part of the point of it being used so much by the left).
I don't think it's a hard sell to suggest that nobody's truly satisfied with our present system of crime punishment. Paying a fine or going to jail aren't adequate for correcting some behaviors.
All illegality necessarily implies is government intervention. Community self-policing is quite adequate, but denying the government's proposed monopoly on violence is a big no-no.
Other depopulation efforts that occurred intentionally by all other forces, Axis or Allies, I would not include as part of that.
I'm unsure what exactly you mean by this. Everyone else was doing some sort of depopulation activity in that same time period?
I want to say that depopulation can be good or healthy, but I honestly don't know enough history to give a real example. Or maybe I'm not grasping the full extent of "depopulation". You wouldn't include forms of segregation in it, I assume.
Best I can make up is that a government has some group of citizens that it wishes to have all moved to a certain area. The germans went overboard in forcing such a thing violently, but a different motive could have bred some positive motivator like offering a tax incentive or low interest loan to any member of that group that decided to relocate. But I think it turns into something else if there's already a community in that target area that doesn't get along with this motivated group.
The moment someone says "it wasn't real socialism" you can be pretty certain they are a Leftist.
I wish I didn't have to bring this up, but it crosses my mind every time we get a new thread here dunking on "libertarians": "that isn't libertarianism". I understand that there's a core difference between the two statements, but memetically they appear similar and I fully expect the two to be treated the same way in a public forum because of this.
I once read that the true modern libertarians don't really enter the public sphere because they're simply too tired of making sincere responses to retarded gotchas like "who will build roads". Personally, I'm just too lazy to bother.
Anyway, I wanted to ask you to do some more lifting for me and tell me what's beneath "it wasn't real socialism". I gather it's something having to do with the definition of it demanding a certain set of factors, because otherwise it turns into a different form of government that's more functional. I see the boilerplate meme dropped a lot, but I think I've only seen it explained twice in the past 8 years.
weaponized the heroic narrative, tried to assert a (mythological) traditional culture, unified all ethnic Germans, and kept the Socialist policies that Leftists thought would work
This sounds like a legitimate government strategy when you take out some of the context. A citizenry with strong bonds forged in traditional culture, promoting heroism as an aspiration. But then there's the weaponization, the focus on ethnicity, and the socialist policies.
Being one of the people that's done that without a family or community, I've done it by denying myself a lot of vices, and making most of my vices cheap. I swear most people could have more money than they know what to do with if they just didn't fucking spend so much on cellphones, alcohol, and cigarettes. Seriously.
One of the first lessons I learned on building money was to never spend it. I reached the financial goals I laid out, but I wasn't clever enough to make goals for my own health.
I have to assume you were lucky enough to have functional coping mechanisms. I think most vices are just substitutes for coping mechanisms. I've experienced the allure of having alcohol to "take the edge off", using cigarettes not for the nicotine but as a ritual destressor, and other indulgences to try to give meaning to my otherwise wholly miserable life.
Or perhaps you had positive role models growing up? I see it implied all too often that a fatherless child is a doomed child, but I wonder if the heart of such an idea is actually about role models. I had only negative role models available to me (the ones who would have been positive all died before I had a chance to know them), so what I had to work with was "I should do what I can to avoid ___". A person with a positive role model instead thinks "I should do what I can to achieve ___". It also ties into my theory about negative goals (wanting X to not happen) being general corruptors, while positive goals (wanting X to happen) lead to healthier and more stable outcomes.
The theory could be applied politically as well, now that I think of it. Like conservatism, it's a non-positive goal where the ideal is a total lack of movement. Versus liberalism, which is doing anything that makes grandpa unhappy (the motive is negative, but the goal inspires action). Conservatism is doomed because it inherently cannot act; it can only curl into a ball and try to ignore opposing forces. What would be a positive goal variant is some group that actively pursues a restoration of traditional values.
The things I think about to try to come to terms with my life. I'm not sure if I could have sought out a positive role model. I am not interested in discarding all responsibility for my failings, but I do want to be certain that I am responsible for each one. Some kind of agency complex. Like I can't learn properly from my own mistakes until I'm certain that I could have possibly made a different choice. So my sympathy for the dregs of society stops when they try to blame others for their choices. 90+% of them are on easy street compared to me anyway.
Let's put your MathMagician username to the test.
It's mostly just a reference to a one-shot character from Dexter's Laboratory. Despite having majored in mathematics.
I do understand your point, though I feel like I've been accused of autism.
Though now I have to question if the left-right scale is actually useful. Seems like it's sure to leave blindspots, like trying to describe the world with a communism-capitalism scale. It's a bit annoying to get another gamergate analogue where it's "you're either with us or against us". But I should be able to put the updated definitions to use easily.
It's the same people, making the same mistakes, BECAUSE SOCIALISTS NEVER FUCKING LEARN.
While I appreciate the ability to deny communist efforts in countries that were victims of communism, I was honestly hoping that we could deny those efforts just fine with the aid of available history lessons and not need to edge gradually towards a hot conflict.
Some people need to be ruled, sure. I don't think libertarianism is in line with totalitarianism, so any one wishing to not rule themselves should be permitted to live as peasants.
Though I think a larger problem than bad government is that governments are not allowed to fail. A failed government basically means all its citizens die, and that is unacceptable in large scale society. Since failure is not permitted, there's no incentive to fix bad systems or for any new system to be well thought out. So I'd propose a severe de-scaling into citystates that self-govern - many will fail, and death is inevitable, but that's only a problem if you cannot leave a dying society (either as a refugee to another, or as a new settler).
I believe that such a trial by fire is necessary to discover what works and what does not work - and perhaps more importantly provide recordable evidence to outsiders that is convincing enough to influence how they handle their own governance.
Let all the villains and perverts build their own nests. If they survive, then it proves their merit (or that a foreign power has money to burn).
But hate is not very useful, since it is usually self-destructive.
I think every negative emotion has a potential benefit. At the least, noticing a hatred response to some stimuli can provide you with knowledge of your own beliefs. Of course, if you act on this feeling, you're likely to suffer because you likely live in a civil society. Civility gives a lot of great stuff, but it is not kind to primitive impulses. If you live like an ape in the woods, then relying on emotion and instinct probably becomes more useful.
One of the last useful things I ever saw on /pol/ was "hatred is the immune system of the soul". I agree with it, after translating it to "hatred shows you when and where your deepest most foundational principles have been violated". Despite our civil advances, I don't believe most of our populace could be considered philosophical enough to not have need of this data.
I wonder if there is some form of psychological damage, if one is conditioned to always suppress or deny anger.
I'm broken enough to confirm this. Do not develop a habit of bottling up your anger. That will fucking break you and you won't see it coming. You'll think you're doing just fine until it's too late. It either seeps out in small bits every day, or it explodes all at once.
You can ignore hatred because it's just a view of your personal boundaries. Worst that should happen is you stop noticing when your boundaries change. Anger comes more from injustice, so failing to handle it gradually teaches you that you cannot expect justice from your world - people can be very dangerous when they expect everything to go wrong. I'm no emotion expert though, so I can't say much about the areas where hatred and anger overlap.
I agree with everything else you said. Wasn't sure if I should touch on any of it since I assume most people here are familiar with the villainy that can be found so easily now. I suppose I should respect the success of emotions as an attack vector, but I do despise it - I just hope our society develops some cultural antibody to it in the future.
Dunkirk
I was really surprised with the subtlety of this movie. Made it seem more realistic to not have every character saying "nazi". I don't think they even specified nationalities? It seemed like a movie made for adults, which I respected. I barely recall anything about the history, though, even being similarly told about it beforehand.
Perhaps I should have asked you to define The Holocaust, as most of my points are going to revolve around it being the "disputed" eradication of millions of jews. If you pull it back to include the, erm, civilian antics, then I wouldn't have much to say.
If Germany had been Fascist instead of National Socialist, it wouldn't have happened. The war still would have been bloody, but the explicit extermination of the Jewish race was an imperative to National Socialism and Nazi argument of Judeo-Bolshevism, the Racial Theory of History, and Socialism as applied to race.
The meat of the issue, to me, comes before they were being rounded up in camps. There was some clear hostility. It was being encouraged among the citizens and backed by the state to various degrees. I do agree about this being desirable for the political philosophy at play - I just don't want to feel trapped by a real death toll to justify claiming that it was a bad idea.
Like..one of the arguments I liked from HD (holocaust deniers) was that the camps were intended as transitional spaces for the jews. This is the idea that they didn't need to die, they just needed to get out. Obviously there are some flaws in this, but I'm not trying to argue that it's true. My point is that it led me to the thought experiment of assuming it was true, and that even if zero jews had died, it doesn't make everything happy and fun. Bad things were done. I think the death part really undermines the tragedy at play, in fact.
Even in Genocides, people flee. The National Socialists made sure they couldn't.
I don't know much about this part, I never really saw it mentioned before. But I'll accept it here. Even in a savior theory where the state offers their protection to jews because those crazy citizens are out of hand, so come to our safe camp until things settle down (made up the most generous theory I could) - the ideologies at play are wholly responsible for things getting that bad in the first place and it turns into one of those disgusting displays where the plague-bearer is selling cures.
I do wonder how much of this is that classic german efficiency versus how much was politically inevitable for a modern sort of society.
Stating that it is a moral imperative, as the National Socialists concluded, is really intolerable to all moral creatures
I'll agree here. I can't quite describe why, but something about the argument troubles me. Something about totalitarianism. Do whatever you want on your own land, but don't demand your neighbors do the same. Modern problem being that small scale societies may not exist anymore, as if totalitarianism is an evolutionary certainty.
It's a way of hoisting the Marxists and Communists on their own petard
The way you describe it in this section, makes it sound like the ideology was refined for the purpose of dominating socialism-adjacent philosophies. Do you think that's true?
Admittedly I share sympathies with it there. I think it's hard not to with how skewed society is right now. Living paycheck to paycheck really sucks and no amount of effort can dig you out of that hole if that effort isn't directed just right. Impossible to lift your head and look around when you're exhausted and demoralized. And we don't all have family or friends to count on for sound advice.
If they all didn't make such terrible arguments/suggestions, maybe I'd be caught up in "anti-capitalism" as well. I'm dreading the time when I have to talk one of my dumb relatives down, they're heading that way.
That should concern the fuck out of you given how many Racial Socialists are appearing on the right and are making all the same claims.
Sort of an aside here, but how do you even classify "the right"? It's no fun to look up definitions for these things. I tried to make a definition based off the thing you say about leftism being a philosophy of war. Since leftism is about power, that'd make 'rightism' about principle, wouldn't it? I don't see this asked often enough online, considering the frequency of "right-wing" being passed out as a label.
What I'm most concerned about is the civil unrest and authoritative racialism and how they're being interwoven. Seems too much like that Weimar period to me. Even if I don't think we're gonna have any death camps here, I can't shake this fear. There's much worse things than death anyway.
Edit:
In my experience it's basically doing a project, reading Night, and reading Maus
Kinda jealous here. My most memorable experience for holocaust learning was a highschool german class where my bleeding heart teacher had us watch Schindler's List and got really upset when I laughed at something in the movie (some directorially hamfisted moment; I wasn't openly edgy). Ironically way more involved and manipulative than anything I ever got from history class.
I've been considering this a lot recently: hate is now a forbidden emotion. This is the groundwork of emotional manipulation (perhaps even abuse). The implication is that experiencing this emotion is a sin and must be avoided at all costs. The why is in the face of their words, believing that hatred is the devil of emotion - as if no wrong action may be performed in absence of hatred.
I don't know the big brain term for this, though.
If I ever bothered to talk to such people, I might try explaining the value of hatred to them, just to see how they react. Having their premise rejected is not what they're expecting - they're expecting you to argue on their grounds by associating a particular emotion with an unrelated idea. It's almost as if they need you to do this to upkeep their own dogma.
I found the cartoon to be much better than the movies. The episodic format is suitable. The movie does its job on establishing the cast and premise, but there isn't much time left in a movie slot to tell all their adventures.
I also have a personal dislike for Bill Murray, who I recall making a stink over the voice actor playing his character, causing a voice actor changeup that just wasn't the same. (I thought this was detailed on wikipedia, but now I'm not sure where I read it.)
An awkward topic. You're aware of how this subject is taught in schools, I assume. The well has been not only poisoned but turned into a toxic dump. I have questions about both sides of the coin, but I'm too tired of the subject to ask.
I've pretty much settled on "it doesn't matter one way or the other". It's taught for political purposes rather than historical understanding, and I don't think propaganda deserves serious consideration (though it can help people understand how much of a farce school is).
Even if it didn't happen, it doesn't change the context of the war. It doesn't even change the aftermath. Things were fucked, for sure, and I mostly find myself annoyed by this distraction that impedes my understanding of the relevant events.
Personally, I blame the laws banning holocaust denial over there. Negative reinforcement is easy because it works poorly. Similarly, if we were encouraged to understand instead of simply memorize, I think most people wouldn't give it so much weight.
I have a decently sized backlog of old games to play. I abhor keyboard+mouse as a method of input for gaming as well. Homebrew emulation on 3ds and psp is going a long way for me.
New stuff isn't all that good. I'm not hip enough with the trends. I like to strip java off sites I visit and manually clean up some bad site design choices with ublock. I like plain text; give me irc over discord any day.
Eventually new hardware will no longer support whatever version of Windows you're using. Are you not going to upgrade your computer in forever, or will your components not expire?
This is the thing that worries me. Eventually my hardware will die. I'm hoping I can find some replacement hardware at a thrift store. I've gotten so accustomed to laptop typing that I'd really like to build my own laptop, but it seems to not really be a thing. I can barely understand desktop building anyway.
I'm pretty much prepared to just stop, though. There's plenty of books to read. I can get a mechanical typewriter for my filing.
I'm a little reluctant to agree after seeing some of the silly reports dealing with our military recently, but foundationally it'd certainly be a step up.
The only way to be free is to think for yourself and reject all masters, real and imaginary.
This works great when all power (priviledges and responsibilites) in a society is withheld from people who wish to be slaves. That does not fit the USA. I don't personally believe it's possible to uplift every person to self-actualization.
I think there are two possible remedies: stratify the citizenry into tiers of power, or de-scale into citystates so the city hives may not vote alongside the rural men.
I have no advice for where to go. If you wait too long, you'll be committing a crime by attempting to leave and thus you'll need to engage your nearest black market associate. But then, if you're gonna be a criminal anyway, there's more useful actions than running.
There have always been bad posters and retarded ideas tossed around. Now the scales might be getting tipped, but there's still occasionally some good conversations to read here.
I do not know where the missing good posters went. Perhaps they started families or just took their ideas to private forums. It's not a problem as long as we can attract or generate some replacements.
If you're looking for a new place for spicy intellectualism, I can't help much. Maybe try r/themotte, if you can stomach some of their bizarre traditions and obsessively dense verbiage.
I think the appropriate response is to sharpie an "N" on all such bills.
Assuming http://thegg.net/aboutus/ is the correct site, what's the appeal? I'm not running a charity, you want my money I need a product in return.
There's several employees listed there, but I checked the articles section and it's 80% articles about online casinos. So now I'm put off and just asking upfront where I should be finding the appeal.
I shouldn't even be forced to make an assumption about the url. If you seriously wanted to help your friend, you wouldn't force us to research and discover the site on our own - you'd have it in your OP.
I don't think much of him. Sounded like a smart guy when I read the summaries of his works and the glowing reviews. Sounded like a doofus when I tried reading his stuff directly - reminded me of highschool philosophers. I specifically was put off by him creating nonsense definitions for real words just to make his theories work.
So I have the impression that he's either a really likeable guy to get his fans to do his lifting for him, or it takes a certain kind of person to appreciate his thoughts.
I've been thinking about rewatching this recently, it's been a long time. Since it's been so long, I can't really discuss the finer points of the show.
One of the things that allows the show to be as good as it was is that it's an anime original. I like to imagine that anime originals are basically a portfolio for the studio, so a new studio can say "hey, we're available to hire, here's what we can bring to your project". Studios aren't a huge profit maker in the first place, so it can be a risky gamble (Manglobe went down for bankruptcy shortly after their second original anime Samurai Flamenco (which I think shines brighter)). So, with it being a gamble, the studio has to put more effort and passion into the project. There's also the bar of manga to climb over; you don't want to embarass your business with a bad story. So I'd recommend checking out other anime originals sometime.
Very interesting and dare I say, based. Not even gonna pirate, but I appreciate it getting made.
It was simpler to not see it because the internet limited our vision, and the media hard controlled the narrative and you didn't have any reason to not trust them.
I'm kinda stuck between both your stance and his, but I thought I'd chime in for this bit. I didn't gain access to the internet until the mid-2000s. I engaged media far more heavily than my peers during the 90s, but it was pretty much just vidya and cartoons. I avoided many types of media like the news because I learned real early how to spot emotional manipulation. So my experience seems to contradict your view, since I believe I got to have the colorblind thing.
Looking back, however, I understand that the reason no one around me had anything to say about other races was because my town was 99% white. There was no reason to bring them up outside the context of some hellhole city on the other side of the country. I interacted personally with one black kid during school, and he was a real jackass, but he was nothing like a city nigger. I got red-pilled on that stuff after I left home and worked side by side with real scum.
I consider that to be the truth behind the colorblind experience: you have no reason to think about race until you're given a reason. Get those socjus college kids to work a summer alongside some hood rats and they'll learn quick. I consider it common knowledge that anybody seriously advocating for open borders-tier nonsense has never had to experience another culture. I'm glad I got some bliss out of my ignorance, and I think it's fair to strive for providing that kind of shelter to the next generation.
You believe education directly translates to or promotes talent? Our present system is good for very little other than teaching compliance and memorization.
I do support the idea of a meritocracy, but it should be acknowledged that it is in the best interest of corrupt elites to suppress the rise of talented elites (or anyone else that doesn't "play ball"). So most pre-existing elite class will actively hinder approaches towards meritocracy. This does include the elites of foreign nations unless you can pull off a miracle isolation for your new society.
I don't recall if Plato bothered with the real methods by which his republic could be developed - rather, I don't remember him considering how to solve the problem of bad actors.