California is liberal, sure, but it is much more heterodox/”PC-totalitarian” than New England, where the Puritans of yore have merely put on problem glasses.
California is more of a colorful playground for all sorts of eccentrics. Personally, I would characterize it as a nation-state sized coffee salon, even by American standards – just look at all the groups/personalities from all kinds of disparate spheres and ideological backgrounds that have congregated there over the decades:
- Most of the core rationalist/LessWrong people
- Most of the transhumanists
- Half the neoreactionaries and the nationalist-populist wing of the conservative moment
- Burning Man
- The OG PUAs (Ross Jeffries etc.)
- Last but not least, like, half the Unz Review (Ron and Steve live there, I lived there)
While Silicon Valley is famous for its technological innovations, the region is, if anything, even more impressive as a generator of social ideas and cultural counter-trends.
Where do you get all the biggest SJW scandals? As Steve Sailer remarked, that would be North-East colleges. Evergreen and [AK: My bad] Middlebury are the two names are come to mind. Even amongst the elite colleges, it seems you had a lot more such episodes amongst the Ivies, not UCB/Stanford.
Kevin McDonald had a productive career as a tenured prof within the UC system. Yes, somewhat shunned by his colleagues towards its tail end, from what I heard. But how long would he have lasted anywhere else, considering how “hardcore” his work was?
This is not my idiosyncratic view. My Tweet on this largely met with agreement, e.g. King Baeksu (expat to Korea): “At Berkeley and afterwards, most of my mates and acquaintances were lefties, but we often gently mocked politically correct shibboleths and argot because it was more “hip” to be urbane and knowing than slavishly doctrinaire.”
This is a pretty typical outlook amongst people who have actually lived in California.
Generally speaking, for people high on the Openness personality trait, California seems to be much more interesting than the liberal monotony of BosWash. Or the conservative monotony of “flyover country” (it is easier to admire rednecks/vatniks from afar).
In the “Divided States of America” trope, it is usually California that becomes the People’s Republic. But if Communism ever triumphs anywhere in the US, I would bet the epicenter will be in the urban centers of the North-East.
After all, it is New England that produced the “witch hunt”, whereas California is more into goofy but harmless things like “flower power.”
Please keep off topic posts to the current Open Thread.
If you are new to my work, start here.
California is special – and awesome. People do seem happy there, and more independent. Its also stunningly beautiful.
This is a fair characterization of California as compared to the East Coast.
Perhaps they’ll still be able to make Landmasters to bring the vaccine to Boston, but will they be willing to do so?
https://upload.wikimedia.org/wikipedia/en/8/8e/Landmaster.jpg
Those are all leftists.
Just because they’re the “cool” kind of leftists that say the N word doesn’t mean the politics are heterogeneous
Was he in Berkeley before 2010? Being an edgy liberal was all the rage during Bush and early Obama. Most of the over 30’s calling your employer over jokes were “gently mocking politically correct shibboleths and argot” irl and on sites like SA/4chan.
You didn’t provide much in terms of argumentations other than “my friends are cool and they live there” and “the proles are boring”. Like all the HBD/nrx arguments about cities attracting high IQ “interesting” people who are also “not vatniks” flew over your head.
California will go NAZBOL GANGIST in any case if it becomes independent as a single state
California is bigger than the state. Colorado and Idaho at least are versions of CA. They were a plane ride from San Jose Municipal Airport in the early days of Silicon Valley when it made hardware. The Red Lion by the airport hosted many a key industry shaping conference.
Remember, the woods north of San Francisco are haunts of survivalists, if not on an Idaho scale. I am not so sure about Oregon/Washington or the South Western desert states.
A minor correction; Evergreen is not a N.E. college, It’s in Olympia, Washington (the capital of the state), the wet, west, left-coast side. East-side is Right side. Ranch country, looks like rural New Mexico. Grows wheat, buys kitchen towel racks made out of horseshoes made by really talented blacksmiths.
Also, the midwest is not home to boring people. Many are quirky freaks. People there are not easily categorized. You’re as likely to run into an individual who misspent a portion of his early teens on perfecting his gasoline-motor powered bicycle as a middle-aged man who builds world-class Shelby Ford replicas. Don’t make the mistake of misapprehending these people. They not only are quirky, but tolerate quirkiness in their fellow townspeople and neighbors. Expect it even. Are disappointed if you don’t display any because you give them nothing to gossip about. (Their gossip is generally benign. They will not put you in the stocks.)
I broke a spring in my trailer as I was traveling through Omaha, Nebraska on a brutal, cold wintry day. Luckily, it happened near an off ramp and I eased into a motel. Next morning I disassembled the axle in the parking lot. Looked in the yellow pages and located–believe it or don’t–an outfit that specialized in spring repair. Called and they said, “Bring it on in.”
I took the good spring in with me so they had a pattern. The guy looked at it and said, “I don’t have one like it but I can make you one.”
What? Make me one? How much will that cost? But I had no choice so I said, “Go ahead.”
He let me watch. He unrolled some steel from a coil and cut it off. Twice as thick as the ones being replaced. Bent the eyes in a jig. Heat treated them and forty five minutes from the time I walked in said, “Well, that’s it. I made you two of them so they’re a matching pair. Balanced on your axle. Stronger than the originals.”
Okay. I asked (fearfully, since having no viable options, he had me over a barrel) “How much?”
“Thirty dollars.”
THIRTY DOLLARS??? Are you kidding me? He could have charged me two hundred dollars and I wouldn’t have had any reason to complain. (1995 dollars)
That’s the midwest. You won’t find that around NYCity or Chicago
Aren’t those female dominated liberal arts schools? Those are filled with extremely horny young women who are frustrated by lack of available men and are dissatisfied with pump and dumps. So they take it out on the rest of us, and worship power, be it government or bad boy blacks. But can it be generalized to the rest of the region?
I like rednecks/vatniks. Sure, not much in common to talk about, but if you want to do something together, they are great. Like build a shelf, fix a car or motorbike, or skin a deer over beer. Even though they are religious, they are far less judgy and more accepting compared to leftists/liberals. Also, we have similar views on Russia and corporate media propaganda, something liberals swallow whole. I’m yet to meet a redneck who would say anything negative about Russia in non-ironic manner (vodka and bear jokes don’t count). Liberals… ugh. Tough having “where are you from” conversations with them.
What would be the Russian equivalent to New Englanders? Any Russian subgroups with sticks up their rears?
True.
That reminds me of a podcast I listened to a few years back with Mike Enoch (Right Stuff/Daily Shoah) and Greg Johnson. Enoch introduced the topic of how unfairly maligned rednecks were by the media, and how he’s had to reconsider what he always thought, and how they’re really good people, and they have all these useful skills (hunting, handyman etc). And there’s Johnson doing his best to enthusiastically agree (because of course what else was he going to do?), but he didn’t really having anything he could add, since rednecks are about the last people on earth a homosexual intellectual like him would want anything to do with. Enoch kept on the topic for long enough that I wondered at the time if Johnson felt like he was being set up (he’s certainly suspicious enough to think something like that).
Black students already are graded so leniently that there might as well be such a policy in place. Why not codify it? Would have saved me a ton of time when I taught college courses.
About California? I’m sure that even in its current, half-wrecked state it’s mighty appealing to the typical third-world migrant. Similarly, perhaps to a lesser degree, with the USA overall.
It’s those of us who were born and raised in California, and in the USA, who have to lament the wreckage. We know what these places used to be like.
The LessWrongers and the transhumanists overlap to a large extent. But both groups engage in basically a kind of science-fiction street theater which hasn’t accomplished anything useful that I know of.
Eliezer Yudkowsky in the LessWrong camp, especially, has never impressed me. He strikes me as a charlatan and a grifter who came up with his scary fantasies about “hostile AI’s” as a way never to have to get a real job. Funny how quickly he latched onto the Effective Altruism fad when it came along, when he realized that he could exploit it to rationalize getting bigger donations to support his parasitic lifestyle.
“California Isn’t the SJWtopia of Right-Wing Fantasies”
ok, but that doesn’t square with the sheer insanity of the political and legal decisions that i see come out of there, or that Cal itself is often the source of extreme far left anti-America ideas that spread to the rest of the nation. Cal is the worst generator of this stuff, worse than Harvard and so on.
meanwhile the 9th Circuit Court in San Francisco is, by far, the most extreme far left, anti-America court in the US. it’s been that way for a while too, that’s not new. Dirty Harry was bashing the California courts in 1971.
i’ve been ‘on the ground’ in California too, and all i see is that since the citizens vote like 75% Democrat, this ensures that insane people occupy all the political offices. which does, in fact, make California not only only SJW Utopia, but in actuality, a boat anchor on the entire rest of the nation.
Per Forbes:
California Assembly Passes Reparations Bill
California. not New York, not Illinois, most Massachusetts, not a southern state filled with africans, will be leading the charge to send the country into reparations. California, a free state that never had slaves, and is only like 6% africans.
you were saying?
“Those are all leftists.”
yeah, i didn’t think he made his case that well. almost everybody in the state is either a leftist or a lifetime Democrat voter. Elon Musk and Peter Thiel were the only 2 guys left who were not leftists.
all mexicans, africans, muslims, asians, indians, jews and white liberals vote Democrat. Hollywood votes 95% Democrat. Silicon Valley votes 90% Democrat. even the people who aren’t leftists like Joe Rogan are lifetime Democrat voters. the people who weren’t, like James Hetfield and Phil Mickelson, have largely moved out. now even the Democrats who aren’t leftists like Rogan are looking to move out. this leaves behind middle of the road lifetime Democrats like Jay Leno who are old, too rich to be affected, and are gonna die there and are fine with it, while they complain about how the Democrats are going too far.
so who isn’t a Democrat. this leaves the oakies and dirt people in the rural areas to vote Republican, which is…exactly the same as all rural european peoples do across the nation. so California is not weird or strange at all in that regard. that’s no exception whatsoever compared to other Democrat machine states where the urban areas control everything. New York and Illinois are exactly the same as California there. the rural counties vote Republican.
It seems California is overwhelmingly Democratic not for ideological reasons but ethno-demographic ones. Most Mexicans and other immigrant groups vote for Democratic Party for either More Gibs or More Immigration. They don’t vote Democratic for the ideology.
If GOP offered ‘conservative values’ with more gibs and more immigration while the Democratic party offered ‘liberal values’ and less gibs and less immigration, I think most Mexicans would vote for GOP.
But because immigrant group vote heavily for Democrats, the Democratic elites made up of Jews, homos, and flaky radicals get to call all the shots, even though their tribal interests(Zionism) and ideological leanings may not have much support from the brown voters.
Backward beaner votes led to supremacy of Jewish and homo elites.
But then, look at the GOP. Its voting base has been Christian Right and white middle class. These people never wanted Wall Street nihilism but that’s what they got because the politicians they voted for were owned by Big Money.
Democratic Party is Jewish-Homo supremacy elected by black/brown votes, and GOP is Jewish-Cuck supremacy elected by middle class white folks.
I have a good friend in Seattle who tells me the atomwaffen contingent in Seattle is not Burning Man sized, but it is the size that Burning Man was around 1990 or so. Some of them have freaking swastika tatoos on muscled torsos that they love to take off their shirts and display which sounds pretty gay to me but she liked it quite a bit.
The big PC Hoopla about blacks throwing white people out of of Evergreen State College was in Olympus, WA. That’s hardly the NE.
I grew up in Northern California on a 15,000 acre ranch, and I can say that ‘a country boy can survive’, i.e., by moving to idaho so the ranch can be subdivided in bankruptcy court and sold off to pot growers and child molestors.
Dang silver crash ruined everything.
The valley still has a lot of good old boys.
I took a political test once, I was labeled center left. Even though I answered that I supported the death penalty, gun rights and an end to all favoritism/discrimination base on race.
What you described is what some like to call, “The Koscher Sandwich”. Either way, Jews win.
California sent Adam Schiff to Congress. Case closed. Worst state.
Actually, that’s just totally confused. If you’re actually interested, you might want to read an old article of mine that discusses the political transformation of CA in detail:
https://www.unz.com/runz/immigration-republicans-and-the-end-of-white-america-singlepage/
One thing that would probably surprise non-Californians is that over the last decade or two, the statewide politics and politicians here have become extremely bland and boring. Fortunately, they’re reasonably competent, or at least I think more so than most other states.
You’re right, AK. Cali has a higher O level.
It really is quite diverse: Orange County, Santa Clara County, Marin County, State of Jefferson — definitely not generic SJW monoculture.
New England is sort of varied (Trump came within about 3,000 votes of winning New Hampshire) but overall it is less leftist than California, NY or the DC area. However its leftists may be more intrusive and controlling, like their Puritan ancestors.
A lower percentage of voters in CA voted for Trump than anywhere in NE other than Vermont:
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/2016_United_States_presidential_election
And Vermont is so far to the left due to non-New England immigrants like Bernie.
Evergreen is in Oregon.
Kevin McDonald was not within the UC system. He was at Cal State Long Beach
From what I can tell Jews completely dominate California politically. Any place that lets Jews run the show is a shitty place, sorry.
Karlin is a transhumanist, so he is going make this a plus when talking about California, but transhumanism is just sjwism on steroids (or is it more correct to say on exaflops?).
No, transhumanism is like Mr. House from Fallout: New Vegas, whereas SJWs are like the Railroad from Fallout 4.
This encounter is likely one source of Johnson’s enduring butt-hurt at Enoch & “wignats” in general – his tea-pinky-effete shorthand for rednecks who don’t care for Nancy-boys and don’t read Evola.
Johnson’s written some good material over the years in support of White identity and nationalism but he’s never matured into a leader because like all homosexuals he’s unable to put collective interests and values ahead of his own selfish gratifications and grudges.
The people of inland California, especially the highlands, are a much better crowd than the coastal bugmen who tend to symbolize California for outlanders.
Politically it’s a lost cause without Balkanization but the people themselves don’t universally deserve the government they get.
This is
https://www.vgr.com/wp-content/uploads/2018/07/Much-of-the-Legions-Content-Was-Cut-Prior-to-Release-924×520.jpg
better than this
https://i.pinimg.com/originals/f8/74/5d/f8745d6223a85c5f27265b0e1cec1c56.jpg
The Chad Hegelian vs. the Virgin transhumanist
California sounds a bit like Oxford
Only for about 20 years or so. If you have things to do for the next few centuries, Mr House >> Legion guy.
https://i.redd.it/nm4mhwaavtmz.png
I think Johnson does outstanding work. I don’t want to speculate on the exact reasons for the numerous interpersonal spats he’s had (and which he does his own bit to drag out longer than necessary), but I would agree that he’s lacking in leadership ability. That’s a common enough failing that I can’t hold it against him. I really have to question his judgment on some of the people he has chosen to surround himself with though. That “Jeelvy” kid? I’d have serious misgivings about close collaboration with an extreme petty nationalist larper like that. Despite all this, I still give Johnson a high grade. Head and shoulders above the legions of loons who have surfaced over the decades.
Jensen was at Berkeley. Can you imagine the protests against him now, if he were still alive?
I thought this deserved a more serious reply.
Transhumanism can be used to serve the goals popularly described as social justice, to an extent which “luxury gay space communism” is sometimes bandied about by leftists. I think it is more of their effort to glomp onto buzzwords in transhumanist concepts rather than transhumanism itself.
Transhumanism entails the idea of maximizing and breaking limits, so insofar as it tries to exceed any natural limits, it certainly breaks with conservatism. As Nick Land noted, feminism is quite irrelevant if an all-female society will simply bypass the existence of males. Transhumanism’s greatest heresy is a kind of Gnostic urge to surpass the physical to become perfect: like the Gnostic mandate of abandoning the body to become a perfect spirit, so transhumanism has elements of ascension to a digital being freed from the confines and restrictions of the physical.
But it fundamentally speaks nothing toward values of equality, and in that sense, is arguably opposed. Eugenics and genetic engineering toward a perfection is encouraged, for example. Life extension is to be pursued, even if it applied unevenly and will most likely benefit the wealthy first. The notion of a general AI, a singularity of a Machine God, is the fundamental idea of a superior intellect to humanity. Visions of transhumanism might even suggest for speciation, further differentiating humanity.
Transhumanism is essentially orthogonal to most left-right definitions, and in that sense, perhaps the most hopeful direction: neither stagnation for tradition, nor stagnation for equality.
Plus you get catgirls.
Unless transhumanists are exterminated like in Star Trek/StarCraft/Warhammer/Star Wars, best start as early as possible and uproot them root, fruit, branches and all. We saw with globohomo and Warhammer what happens if you do not nip wrong beliefs ideologies in the bud. And no skitaris and imperial Marines are not really transhuman either.
If you use strict definitions of transhumanism.
The fantasies of American conservatives are very strange. Heaps of midwestern Protestants tune into FOX each week, to listen to wealthy Irish Catholics from New York (Hannity, O’Reilly) rant about how awful “coastal elites” are, and how wonderful New Yorker Trump is.
Somewhat OT, but if we want to talk about the concept of evolutionary successfulness, aren’t Muslims and Blacks evolutionary successful, if you talk about the ability to simply reproduce your species, like cockroaches, rabbits, and rats are successful.
Except that they are both useless childish nonsense.
So basically the old Enlightenment dream of mans perfectability through Reason, a sister movement to the Leftist attempt to perfect humanity through eliminating inequality and racism.
All attempts to perfect man through Reason are essentially Leftist.
Which is not necessarily a bad thing.
The Right is the “pessimist” view that man cannot be perfected.
The mystic view is that man does not need to be perfected.
That alone transcends left and right.
Your points are invalid, we haz catgirl
They are. Because on this planet, evolution was chosen as preferred process for developing advanced technology rather than intelligence. This choice is rather concerning as far as humanity goes (history of life is telling us we are heading for dead end), but it is what it is. The only way to challenge that is, well, transhumanism.
Your great great parents were tree rats hiding from the dinosaurs some 200 million years ago. While some intelligence was required to avoid the dinos, in the long run, it was utterly irrelevant if one tree rat had more nuts vs another or composed poetry in his spare time. The only thing that matters is that they bred, because without that we wouldn’t be here. The breeder rats set our genetic lineage and made us who we are. And when the big rock from the sky hit, they hid in the hole, and had sex. That was all that mattered. Those who did not got erased, their genetic lineage wiped, and forgotten.
Same will happen to us. Even 500 years from now, nobody will care about you, or your car, or your money, or dishwasher or whatever other worthless tech gadget you invent. The only thing that will go on is your genetic line, just like tree rats. Or it will not.
In that sense, feudalism represents peak human accomplishment – they may have been ignorant inbred hicks, but they cared about their bloodlines, which is what creates the future and carries on. Sadly, based on current fertility trends and female breeding preferences, it looks like we only have two medium to long term civilizational choices – feudalism with its respect for the bloodlines, or transhumanism with its radical technological breakthroughs that will finally make intelligence a competitive process compared to evolution. There are no alternatives, everything else is just chaff to be washed away with time, extinct.
You can stop using technology at any time.
I do try to limit my use of technology.
Anyways I’m not trying to dissuade you or persuade you of anything.
I’ve lost interest in changing the world. But it is fun to observe it.
I was going to say that being compared to a shriveled corpse in a tube concocting laughably fragile plans for world domination while society is being overrun by primitive tribals wasn’t very flattering, but then I realized how starlingly apt a metaphor that was for the transhumanist movement.
Many of those tribals are on the corpse’s payroll.
Does this regional comparison work for domains other than universities?
Not everyone who disagrees with you is a leftist. I mean, all those groups are to the left of the hardcore alt-right, but some would be considered very right-wing by mainstream standards. It’s kind of like the mirror image of the German Communists in the Weimar Republic who referred to Social Democrats as ‘Social Fascists’, because there was ‘no real difference’ between social democrats and fascists. They got a very rude awakening.
What’s so right wing about PUA’s and Burning Man? That they have heterosexual males? Is the bar that low now?
Nice horseshoe theory, but you’re wrong.
Agreed.
Although I was underwhelmed by the Sierras and the southern ranges the first time I visited that state decades ago. More than the alpine-style mountains I was used to in Europe, they looked like a high-altitude forest, due to the very high timberline. Now that I live in the US, I have discovered some wonderful corners on the eastern side of the Sierras that easily compare in beauty with the Rockies or the Alps. But they are surprisingly far away from any urban center.
The Pacific coast could also do with warmer waters and less fog. While not as frigid as in South America at the same latitude, you still see people wearing scarfs in August in San Francisco.
As for the countercultural tradition of California, I don’t think that everything was negative when it started in the 60s-70s. At the very least, it inspired the best pop music ever. If only the current SJWs had any decent musical or aesthetic innovations to offer, they might come off a little less insufferable. Where are the SJW-Antifa-BLM equivalents of Bob Dylan, Janis Joplin, The Mamas and the Papas, the Beach Boys, symphonic rock…?
In fact, what is new about SJW-Antifa-BLM? The expansion to the rest of the alphabet of the LGBT movement?
Yes, the western side of the Sierras don’t have that dramatic Alpine or Rocky mountain scenery, unless you go very high up and very deep – but you have to hike there, the car roads go through lower passes. But places like Kings Canyon and Mr Shasta have pretty good mountain scenery.
I just finished a 20 day camping trip this April near Lone Pine, on the eastern side of the Sierras – snowcapped Mt Whitney on one side, the desert on the other. The whole route 395 is amazing.
What’s great about Cali is you have desert, mountain, pine forest, rolling hills with oak trees, and dramatic coastline, all in one place. And the light and the air have an incredible quality.
Yes, there was much that was incredibly positive about the 60s revolution. Its really too bad it did not head in the right direction. People then seemed clearer on what aspects of the culture were problematic.
You’re right about the music. I remember in the late 90s bring struck by how music from the 60s and 70s had a “spiritual” quality and a range of themes that had disappeared. Most music today is lite love songs with little depth.
San Francisco is a really beautiful city in my opinion, at least if you can desensitize your eyes and ears – or even view as some kind of entertaining circus amusement – its crazy homeless people and one-armed beggars.
It’s one of the most walkable cities of America, and has so much “charming” historical architecture (to the extent it has survived despite earthquakes).
I understand why Alfred Hitchcock was making so many of his films there.
On the other hand, it’s surprising how boring and without this historicaly charm in comparison, many of surrounding cities are. E.g. San Jose/Palo Alto/Berkeley/Oakland. (Although the train service in this area is also unusually good for America).
Fact there is no associated new music, culture – or even political concepts -, makes it clear they do not involve a change in historical stage (in any comprehensive/Hegelian way).
By comparison, with the youth revolution of 1960s California – there was an exciting new youth culture – change of music, social norms, fashion, etc. It seemed to be a change in the historical stage, at least for contemporary observers.
Cultural changes today, seem to be just minor modifications to match social technology. If you wrote again a television series like “Friends” of 20 years ago – what would change in terms of social norms of the urban young Americans, who were its desired original audience? I assume, just change it so some of the stories would involve internet, smartphones, etc. And there would be a political concession to have one of the characters by an afroamerican or hispanic actor.
It’s true, but at the same time – the spiritual quality and range of themes in music of 1960s-70s, is less than exists in music of the 1940s-1950s or 1920s-1930s. And in the latter – there is less in those dimensions, than music of e.g. 1860s-70s.
California is our Alsace-Lorraine
It must be taken back.
Chicago hasn’t been a dominant media player since the days of Col. McCormick
Demographically, the Central Valley is Latino Latifundia
The coastal California is closed by Nimbyism, and the once dominant oil industry has been gelded.
The “Jefferson” part of California is similar to Oregon, and routinely voted the wrong way on questions of social matter.
https://uselectionatlas.org/RESULTS/state.php?fips=6&year=2005&f=0&off=60&elect=7
https://uselectionatlas.org/RESULTS/state.php?fips=6&year=1972&f=0&off=0&elect=0
You’re definitely right that “high culture” music was at a higher level before the 60s, but in terms of popular music from what I’ve heard – and I could be wrong – much of the pop music of the 40s and 50s was very light and fluffy stuff.
Maybe Jazz an exception?
As per your point above, which I like, the 60s did have a new spirit on the popular level, and popular music reflected the new concern with spiritual issues – for a time, anyways.
The lack of new good music now probably does mean there is no real depth to this revolt – it’s a good point.
You’re right that there is a lot of good stuff out there today, but much of it is niche and hard to find (while in the 60s it was widespread).
Icelandic band Sigur Ros, for instance, creates beautiful music I can only describe as deeply spiritual, but they are hardly mass popular.
French band M83 also produces some stuff (not everything) that has a very spiritual vibe, but again, not as popular as Taylor Swift or Katie Perry.
It would be called Amigos.
If you don’t mind my asking, how can a person who enjoys a 20 day camping trip near Lone Pine (something that I could very well be doing if I didn’t have a 5 yr old child) live in New York?? It’s hard to imagine a more antithetical place to the Lone Pine surroundings than New York.
And didn’t you have any problem entering California in April? I was headed that way in late March but I was told at a gas station that hey were sending people back at the California border and I also risked being forced to quarantine. I don’t think anybody knew very well what was going on exactly but I decided to return home.
PS- Quite true, what you say about US route 395. Lone Pine is a bit low in elevation. Not enough snowfall in winter for my taste. But I could very well live in a place like Bishop, a bit further North. However, my wife would not appreciate living 2-3 hours away from the nearest Walmart and 4-5 hours away from a big city like LA or Vegas, so I guess I’ll settle for my place in the Central Rockies. It’s also very scenic and, while not being so sunny and the ocean being much further away, we’re also in a picturesque desert-mountain transition zone.
I’m not sure what you have in mind when you speak about the music of the early 20th or middle 19th centuries but if we talk about pop music, a concept that hardly existed in those periods but still exists today, nothing compares to the revolution of the 60s-70s. When I was a kid in my small hometown the big boys in the know would play Supertramp or Pink Floyd themes in the game room jukebox. Totally novel music of high quality that somehow was able to become popular quickly. Now they would have to choose some Justin Bieber or Demi Lovato anodyne crap.
It would be interesting to hear from natives like Sailer who are actually from California.
SJW’s aren’t about equality. The essence of the SJW is to force people to believe in the most batshit stupid beliefs, the more batshit the better. It’s a kind of absurdist Gnosticism; complimentary to the rationalist Gnosticism of the transhumanist, but ultimately stemming from the same root.
P.S. As such, SJWism makes much more sense than transhumanism. You can’t expect to transcend reality playing by reality’s rational rules; better deny reality outright and drive it into nonexistence.
So the tribals are stealing money from the corpse? That makes the corpse even more cucked then I initially thought.
California might not be SJWtopia but it’s bad for middle class whites, assuming there are many left.
Things such as high cost of living, rent control laws which forbid eviction of bad tenants and high taxes drive thousands of Californians out of the state every year.
California is good for poor immigrants and rich people, i.e. Mexicans, Jewish Hollywood moguls and high tech entrepreneurs. That’s it!
Yes, of course libertarians like open borders, so what’s new. But for middle class whites, it’s bad.
Transhumanism is SHIT. Only the demented or the satanic are in favour of it.
So actually, I looked at the date of my last picture from the trip and its 2/21/19 – do i was there in February, sorry!
As for living in NY, I would move to Cali – or anywhere in the West – in a heartbeat if I could!
To be perfectly honest, there is a part of me that thrills to huge, chaotic cities – I have a theory that they are “uncontrolled environments” so on some level they are a “natural” environment too complex for rational human control and thus a kind of wilderness, which accounts for their exhilarating effect. Much like the wild, a mega-city can never fully be “known” – so many hidden alleys and passageways, so many stores and such variety, etc, and the beautiful, grand architecture mimics the impressive natural formations you find in the wilderness.
The highest function of culture is to return us to nature – the highest art is a tonic to release us from the disfigurement of civilization.
But as I leave my youth behind, I must confess I wish more and more to live in true nature and near true wilderness, and find big cities fatiguing.
Luckily, for several months a year I can work remotely or take off from work entirely – I negotiated this freedom in exchange for lesser pay and lessee chance of career advancement, and am learning to live on less and less, save more, and spend more time in the wild and travelling. A most un-American choice 🙂
I have heard that in Switzerland, one can choose if one wishes to work a full week or a partial week – even a very short week. What a rational system that satisfies both the ambitious and the ub-ambitious!
Alas, in America there is still immense social pressure to be ambitious, although that is changing.
Lone Pine is a fantastic place with its isolation and stunning scenery, but it is too ragged and tumbleweed a town for most people, I agree. Bishop is a better choice, but colder and snowier – which may be good for some people. I think only an hour or two from Carson City, NV, no, with reasonable shopping?
Central Rockies sounds amazing – nothing to complain about there. You’re also closer to Utah red rock country, which is one of the best places in America.
There are significant ideological similarities between Puritan/Calvinists and Jews. Indeed, at some stages in the historical development of Puritanism/Calvinism, Puritans considered themselves the Lost Tribe of Israel. They believed the mantra of God’s Chosen People had pasted from the Jews to them. They were sure of their election based on their purity and virtue. They also loved regressing to the Old Testament and the Patriarchs in their stringent efforts to purge Christianity of corrupt and heretical Catholic/medieval traditions.
To wit: Didn’t both the Puritans/Calvinists and Jewish Communists commit to establishing the City of God on earth? Different historical eras; same dystopian and authoritarian tendencies.
The current phenomenon of religious revival in the mid-Atlantic and New England states can be attributed to Puritan culture (again) recasting and re-expressing their original Doctrines of Predestination and Election into postmodern agnostic/atheistic forms. They remain the Light on the Hill predestined to finally unite humanity into a Global Empire of Peace and Purity as the latest version of the City of God on earth unfolds on their watch. Sound familiar?
It is no wonder that the manifestations of Jewish culture and Puritan culture have historically worked so well together in the United States. They are mirror images of each other in their doctrinal asperations. They reinforce each other in creating the political and social conditions for saving humanity from itself, which includes those who do not want to be saved.
God spare us!
I am sure that coffee salons during the Dark Age of Technology are one of the places that you should look for when looking at how the Age of Strife started, ironic how people who claims to be fans of Warhammer 40k can not grasp the takeaway from that series that not all research doors are meant to be opened, and actually, transhumanism is protrayed negatively, in terms of how most of the Space Marines view the humans that they are supposed to serve and protect as being inferior being and annoying pets as best, and no better than livestock at worst.
Those who do not follow the Imperial Way or the Greater Good can always be Exterminatused.
https://wh40k.lexicanum.com/wiki/Adeptus_Mechanicus
It is clear when you know how to read that the majority of Imperial Marines see Imperial Guardsmen and normal humans as inferior being, a little bit above weeds and pests, that they have to unwillingly put up with. And the Mechanicum has ambiguous intentions and loyalty to the Imperium, and they a lot of times seem to be working at cross purposes, but then technically they are an allied nation state, the Monitorum basically puts up with them and the Imperial Marines because the Imperium cannot exist without them. Plus there are instances in the series where the Adeptus decides to keep discoveries to themselves instead of sharing them with the Imperium in a timely manner.
Although historically illiterate people claim things like “free love” are from the 1960s California.
However, really “free love” was more discussed in the 1860s, than the 1960s. For example, Nietzsche is often writing his criticisms of the supporters of “free love”. (Wagner was a supporter of it, before he discovered Schopenhauer – and has to re-write the Ring). Even Marx writes against the supporters of “free love” in 1840s Paris, in the essays he wrote during his honeymoon there.
So “free love” was fashionable in Paris, – rejected by newly married Marx – 120 years before the 1960s California.
And the fact that research into AI is banned in the Imperium and all research is legally mandated to proceed at a glacial pace is a condemnation of the idea of unrestricted scientific inquiry. Or is anyone going to argue that the Imperium as a libertarian state where people enjoy the right to bear arms and freedom of speech and assembly? Like what happens to you if you are promoting the overthrow of the Imperium and its replacement by the enlightened genestealer government?
It goes in cycles.
Its the dialectic between romanticism and bourgeois society that has been going on since the 18th century.
Even if we are limited to the very popular music – I think blues of the 1940s-1950s can be more spiritual, than the Rolling Stones who were influenced by it in the 1960s-1970s?
But “elitist” music of the 1950s could still have a mass popularity then – Dave Brubeck’s Take Five (1959), became a dukebox hit across America (in 1961).
In the 1950s, it was an exciting time for American music; Art Pepper and Mingus of Los Angeles, or Miles Davis, Thelonious Monk, Bud Powell, Coltrane, etc, at the peak of their career in New York. Free jazz of Ornette Coleman is still an interesting genre.
In the Soviet Union, – popular songs of the 1950s are classics (warm, spiritual kind of pop music), and in elite culture: Shostakovich was still composing some of his most famous symphonies.
That’s not to say there is so easy to notice a decline from the 1950s to 1960s. But I feel usually that overall, there is by the 1970s music, definitely less spirituality on average. In the 1970s, there are signs of decline across different genres.
And for example, jazz in America, by the 1980s – it is a pensioner, and there are already conservatives like Wynton Marsalis viewing it like some museum artifact.
Thanks for your answer.
When I was a teenager and my parents used to send me to London to learn English (and/or to get rid of me for a couple of months) I also became fascinated by that metropolis. I would go to explore its most remote corners by bus or in the tube just for the crack of it.
But as I grew older I leaned towards the great outdoors and I have very little use for cities nowadays. The only two cities in the world that I sometimes feel like visiting are Las Vegas, just to become decadent for a couple of days and break the routines, and Donostia in the Basque Country, a very nice seaside city where most of my family lives and that brings me good memories.
It would also be interesting to visit San Diego some day again. When I first visited it around 1990 I thought that it was the nicest city I had ever seen. It had a combination of very credible Spanish colonial atmosphere with American/Anglo good taste and tidiness. I hope it hasn’t changed.
No, it takes a good 4-5 hours to drive to Carson City (if you can get there at all during the snow season).
Yes. In fact, you get red rock outcrops in many different places of the West: Valley of Fire in Nevada, Southern California, Arizona, Western Colorado,… but probably Southern and Eastern Utah is where the red rock country is most majestic and prevalent.
I am definitely a mountain man but living close to the desert is a great bonus for a nature lover. Hiking or biking deep into the desert, where there is nothing but silence under the sky and lying down while you listen to some good symphonic rock can be a very-very trippy experience.
https://media.deseretdigital.com/file/ce04411765
You seem to have a better knowledge of the history of music than me. I just trust my ears. When I listen to the greatest hits of the last 7-8 decades I see that in the 60s-70s innovative styles of high-quality music became quickly popular like it hadn’t happened before or afterwards. This new music was also associated to a big cultural change.
Since then, it feels like a gradual impoverishment has taken place reaching an all-time low in the last decade or so, when Latin and rap rhythms prevail, along with very bland melodies that I can barely remember the second time I hear. In the last few years the best new melodies I’ve heard were composed for the Eurovision festival. Enough said.
I’m actually going on a 2 day backpacking trip in upstate NYC tomorrow – about an hours drive from NYC.
Lately I’ve been exploring the NY wilderness, and while it can’t compare to the West, I’m finding it surprisingly pristine, pure, and beautiful – so close to the city, I’m shocked! If you are willing to hike like 8 hours in, you get to some really secluded and solitary areas, pristine backcountry lakes. Technically you’re not supposed to camp in non designated areas, but deep in the woods there just isn’t anyone around. And the woods are very different from the West but wild and beautiful in their own way, with huge boulders and fallen trees, etc.
Perhaps soon I will relocate to the West – in the meantime, enjoy your self out there Mikel. I envy you in the West. Politics is nonense anyways, just an endless tale of ego vs ego. It never changes. The Wild is where its at.
Cheers.
Cali is gone. The only two nice cities are San Diego and Santa Barbara (and they are very nice) but they are outnumbered.
Nevada is also on its way out. Colorado is also getting terminally Californianized.
If this is what you want, St. George and Cedar City, Utah are very nice. The latter has a Shakespeare festival. They are large enough to have some shopping and nice restaurants, while also being surrounded by a natural paradise. You would have to not mind being surrounded by Mormons, however.
See above. I’ve always had a thing for out-of-the-way Nevada, though. Ignore the lights of Vegas, go camping on weekends at the Valley of Fire (the stone is like magic, they are so easy to climb, even with small kids), visit Cathedral Gorge State Park outside Pioche, the wild undeveloped hot springs outside Panaca…
Ha! When reading your comment, I already pictured you in my head as a guy from San Sebastián, because Mikel Arteta was my sporting hero growing up (our most talented player by a mile when I was still closely watching Everton). He grew up on the same street as Xabi Alonso – must be something in the water supply in that part of town…
San Diego is a beautiful city, have some in-laws living there and I’m sure it’s partly linked to that fact that we visit only the nice places – but great seafood, views and beautiful people, feeling much safer than any other large American city.
If you are saying there is a decline of pop music in the last couple decades, I agree.
Example I was thinking of lifeless pop songs now, is “The One That Got Away” by Katy Perry.
Girls love singing this at karaoke night, and it sounds like a simulacra of a song which was famous.
Part of the reason it sounds so like a “classic song” is the harmony is quite classic – the same one as first half of chorus of famous song by Queen “We are the Champions” .
“(I) steal your parents liquor and climb to the roof (iii) talk about future like we had a clue (vi) never planned that one day I’d be losing (VI) you (I)”
“(IV) in another (I) life I would be your girl (iii) we keep all our (vi) promises be us against the (IV) world in another (I) life I would make you stay (iii) so I don’t have to (vi) say you were the one that got (IV)away (I)”
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Ahha3Cqe_fk
Why is song so empty and lifeless, despite the beautiful harmony?
Music is not matching the meaning of the words she is trying to express – (“Steal your parents liquor and climb to the roof” – on such sad (I) to (iii) change) and she sings randomly sad phrases on the most optimistic harmonies (“I’d be losing you” (during the vi-IV-I).
For example at 0:56 – “the one that got away” she sings over the most spiritually positive harmony change (vi-IV)
at 2:40 (“and now I pay the price.. in another life”) singing over this euphoric (V-IV)
The subdominant (IV) chord in this harmonic progression after (iii-vi) is really beautiful and musically says something spiritual like “life is beautiful everything will be ok”. It’s the same as Beatle’s “Let it be let it be”. Or Bob Marley “No woman no cry”.
–
Meaning of words and harmony do not have to match exactly, but they at least need to have an interesting relationship.
Whereas here music undermines the words – but in an uninteresting way which makes her sound insincere and “lifeless”.
I think it’s clear Katy Perry doesn’t write the words as the same time as the music. She is tone-deaf to the meaning of the music that she sings over, even while the music itself is using cool harmonies.
Oops these time stamps were while I was listening to the lyrics video from YouTube, not the music video.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=fDTouU0iABA
^ I had the same thing. But the summer schools never in directly London, – and we were allowed to explor the cities, but more often wasting our evening smoking cigarettes on the grass, and trying to talk to tanned female classmates from countries like Italy.
Another year I went to summer school in a music academy – where we learned to compose modernist music -, and another year I was on a tennis summer school, where we were also playing tennis every afternoon. And another year, in a summer school for weeks studying German in Austria – although I still can’t speak German.
Except for the transhumanists who lift weights, engage in sports, practice shooting firearms, go hiking and so forth. These transhumanists sound very bodily-oriented to me. I guess you could call them the “Heinleinian” transhumanists.
Interesting replies. I could write an essay about several of them, especially AP’s remarks about Saint George and Cedar City. But who’s reading this old thread?
Anyway, I hope AaronB enjoyed his hike in the NY Appalachians. Me, I’ve been having a lot of work lately and decided to spend the weekend in Las Vegas, a night at the Caesar’s Palace and a helicopter tour. Life is hard.
Thanks. Happen to agree about Nevada – vast and empty. Driven across and up and down it multiple times. Always a treat.
Perhaps my favorite state. I have old friends there and will return to visit some day.