Open Thread 163

I was at the Army-2011 expo this week. Very cool, sort of like a military-themed Geek Picnic. POWERFUL COMMENT. Thorfinnsson on the Japanese economy. Adam Tooze: Chartbook #35: It’s not the fall that kills you …. Afghanistan’s looming triple crisis. “Afghanistan as a country where the costs of central governance exceed local capabilities, and is only […]

Ukraine Shuts Down Independent Media

Since the start of this year, the Ukraine has mounted an accelerating campaign to shut down all “pro-Russia” (apostrophes because more often than not they’re not so much explicitly pro-Russian, as merely less anti-Russian and more oppositionist than the mainstream) media. Examples include: This February saw the shutdown of three TV channels (112 Ukraine, NewsOne […]

Commie Anti-Vaxxers

Politics is tribal. “Conservatism” is situational. And so you can get some “unlikely comic book crossovers” if looking at the world through country-specific ideological prisms. According to one recent poll, the most pro-vax Russians are United Russia (i.e. the most pro-Putin) voters, presumably reflecting the official state position which is and has always been pro-vaxx. […]

Open Thread 162

*** AFGHANISTAN The terrorist attacks today. The Taliban did free all those Islamist militants, not all of them would have been strictly suborned to the Taliban themselves. What’s so surprising? Notable foreign relations developments. Tajikistan has adopted a cold tone to the Taliban, accusing them of gong and has reportedly supplied the NRF holed up […]

Open Thread 161

MUSTREAD. @pseudoerasmus thread on the history of the Taliban. Steve Sailer on Pashtun proverbs. * Erik D’Amato: 20 Hungarian Lessons the West Is Still Missing Noah Carl: Observations on Afghanistan Lyman Key thread on Chinese TFR. We still don’t really know what’s going on there. MUSTREAD. Philip Lemoine: Why COVID-19 Is Here to Stay, and Why You Shouldn’t Worry […]

Where Are the Afghanis?

The past is the best guide to the future, so there’s no surprise that there is already a rebellion breaking out against the Taliban. Finding its core in the natural fastness of the Panjshir Valley, which foiled repeated Soviet attacks during the 1980s, the Northern Alliance is reconstituting itself under Ahmad Massoud (the son of […]

Taliban Rule is the Democratic Will of 13% of Afghans

It is true that Afghans probably have the highest “Islamism Quotient” in the world. Support for sharia, as Steve Sailer reminds us, is basically universal. He refers to a 2013 PEW poll, which Razib Khan and I had covered a few years back. Furthermore, 79% of Afghans who support sharia also support the death penalty […]

Afghanistan: 20 Years, $2 Trillion, 20 Days

First thought is that the US spent 20 years and $2 trillion trying to build a democracy in a half-literate country of goatherders that disintegrated within 20 days. Think what you could have done with that (dependent on your preferences). “Green New Deal”. Free college. 335 ship Navy. Mars base. This adventure must have set […]

It’s a Zoomer’s Market

Like them, hate them, or consider them genderfluid TikToking herbivores, but one thing the zoomers undoubtedly get right is that they know the value of their labor and aren’t afraid to spell out their conditions to seething boomers. Behold…the entitled generation: pic.twitter.com/Rjl0gN8TqZ — Natalie F Danelishen (@Chesschick01) August 11, 2021 Isn’t this, like, the free […]

Rainbow Ascendant

I mentioned this Ipsos poll on global attitudes to LGBT in a previous Open Thread, but it really deserves a separate post on account of its significance. I think it demonstrates three things: LGBT rights (as in marriage and adoption) have become universalized beyond their Western core, with the Rest sliding into line soon after […]

Open Thread 160

Emil Kirkegaard: The ‘Hereditarians bad people’ objection. On the recent spat between Cathy Young vs. Charles Murray, Steve Sailer, and other hereditarians. Ended with Steve being blocked by Cathy. Hungary has become an object in the culture war. Their demographic problems long predate Orban, who was actually more successful on the economy than on the former (at […]

India in the Olympics

It’s fascinating to think that what is now a solidly lower-middle income country with a population that is on the cusp of overtaking’s China’s has just two medals in the Olympics so far. It’s a bit less surprising when one considers that the average Indian man might only be about as strong as the average […]