This week’s Open Thread.
Open Thread 137
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was written by Anatoly Karlin for Russian Reaction on January 22, 2021 .144 Comments
Anatoly Karlin is a transhumanist interested in psychometrics, life extension, UBI, crypto/network states, X risks, and ushering in the Biosingularity.
Inventor of Idiot’s Limbo, the Katechon Hypothesis, and Elite Human Capital.
Apart from writing books, reviews, travel writing, and sundry blogging, I Tweet at @powerfultakes and run a Substack newsletter.
This is the current Open Thread, where anything goes – within reason.
If you are new to my work, start here.
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I always thought that South Africa was late to the TV scene due to other priorities. They still had old time radio (with actors and plots) in the ’70s. But actually it was not about development: they had a Calvinist political party that banned TV for a while, even though Rhodesia had TV. Some South Africans actually moved to Rhodesia partly because it had TV. They got some military officers that way.
Though, they might have been right to ban it. Especially in a multiracial society. I mean, at least if you look at American or British TV now.
I don’t know if I’ll get the exact year right, but I read somewhere a while back that the Papal States only banned slavery in about 1831.
I guess it was probably only a formality by that time, in Italy, but, anyway, it seems an interesting counterpoint to this idea that the Church is universalism on steroids.
A funny story about a bunch of Reddit Robin Hooders rolling up an institutional short seller. Who knew that shorting a stock 140% in an age where we print money to goose up the market could backfire? Gamestop is up 1500%.
https://www.ign.com/articles/gamestop-stock-surges-to-record-highs-as-investors-battle-redditors
Biden won Georgia by 10k, Wisconsin by 20k and Arizona by 10k. Had they all gone to Trump it would’ve been 269-269. That’s pretty close. Maybe if Trump had done some anti-tranny fearmongering?
https://twitter.com/Cernovich/status/1352331902296887296
We are Anonymous. We are Legion. We do not forgive. We do not forget. Expect us.
https://twitter.com/YourAnonCentral/status/1352671032448929793
The most disturbing thing about that group is that they demonstrate that that awful, pozzed movie V for Vendetta resonated with some people.
I’m not sure.
The “bathroom bill” in North Carolina led to the GOP Governor losing in ’16, while Trump won the state.
Trump won the state again last year, while the Dem Governor was re-elected.
When it comes to easily offended moderate women, abortion outweighs trans almost every time.
The people running that account have some establishment ties, as given their shift towards neoliberal rhetoric. Not surprised if it is the CIA.
Since Louis Farakhan is here, I wonder when Unz is going to invite NAMBLA to join this website, or David Icke?
Or homeopathy advocates?
It was only in the 19th Century that the Papal States removed capital punishment from its law statutes!
What happens when the left stupidly embraces censorship of “fascists” because they’ve been infiltrated by woke ideologues?
https://twitter.com/ggreenwald/status/1352716628690137088
This is why we should all laugh when we see rightoids claim that “marxists” control the Western cultural institutions. The antifa trash are just useful idiots having played their role and are now discarded.
https://twitter.com/nypost/status/1352612247827263489
We live in a neoliberal oligarchy. Rightoids’ brains have been fried by too many Bezemenov interview video re-runs to understand that ‘marxists’ don’t run anything, not even universities. Leftists idiotically allowed themselves to be co-opted by woke politics and embraced censorship, now find themselves being thrown under the bus by the same forces they empowered. This is why principles must always trump party allegiences. Political tribalism is what got us all into this terrible place.
The only solution is a truly liberal, classical liberal, system. Not an authoritarian oligarchy masquerading as liberal for propaganda purposes.
ThuFri, read Shwab’s Great Reset already.
Liberalism is as dead as Marxism. Anyway, at their very core all these “isms” are not about ideology, but about the “who whom” thing.
But don’t you worry you gonna have your biking trails/paths/roads aplenty…
(Also the corp of some Zuckerberg censoring some pro-Palestinian organization. What’s surprising about it ?)
Let’s talk about China and how 2020 will be seen as a seminal year. Angus Deaton’s recent paper on COVID-19’s impact on inequality notes in an important passage that:
The period from 1980 until 2020 was a period of broad convergence between the rich and the poor when weighted by population. This is likely the end of that era. China’s population will not grow much. Sub-Saharan Africa will add several billions in this century and India will probably end up as Hindu Brazil. As a result, divergence will likely be the new normal from henceforth. The only countries left with any strong convergence potential are likely in ASEAN, principally Vietnam, but they are too small population-wise to matter.
It is noteworthy that China will only pass the world average income this year, underscoring how poor so much of the world truly is.
I’m a technological optimist but a convergence pessimist. China was the last major train to leave the developing world. The post-1980s era of broad convergence has now ended, and 2020 was the seminal moment.
—
More optimistically, 2020 was another record year for China.
https://i.imgur.com/t0qUzPY.png
2020 was the year when China formally announced a climate-neutral policy. From this moment, China will increasingly be a climate leader rather than a climate villain. They have their work cut out for them, starting with their coal addiction. But the course is now set, starting from the very top with Xi’s announcement.
In climate change policies, last year will be seen as a turning point as well.
—
China’s most crucial weakness has long been semiconductors. SMIC, their main foundry, managed to get down to 7 nm in 2020, jumping straight from 14 nm.
From 7 nm down to 3 nm, the current leading-edge node, it will become far harder to achieve without EUV machines. ASML, the Dutch company which has a strangehold monopoly on EUV machines have been told to stop supplying Chinese firms and since the Netherlands is a U.S. puppet like most of Europe, it meekly complied.
It is this context, that China’s carbon nanotube breakthrough should be seen. CNTs are near-perfect semiconductors but technical limitations have hindered widescale adoption thus far.
If you look at the Nature Index, China is skewed towards materials science and chemistry compared to the US (which tend to dominate in medical and life sciences). So perhaps this shouldn’t surprise us, yet it was one of the biggest stories last year that got barely any coverage. It will take time to commercialise, and China is running a seperate EUV track of homegrown start-ups hedge their bets. Chips is the last frontier where China is at a real disadvantage and 2020 was another turning point in changing this.
—
The last point is mostly notes on the margin. There has been a discussion about HSR on this blog in the past. Two independent research organisations, first the World Bank and now Marco Polo have both come to the conclusion that the project is both profitable and has a high annual return on investment.
https://twitter.com/hancocktom/status/1352447340699807747
FYI, the World Bank study puts the figure even higher, at 8% (page 77).
There should be a massive HSR buildout programme across the world. There are no more excuses anymore.
From last week’s open thread, you seem to indicate a fondness for the Green Goddess, absinth. Any crazy experiences that you’ve had while under the influence that you’d care to share here? I’ve never tried it, and probably never will. I usually drink red wines, beer or if I’m in the mood and have the right food in front of me I’ll drink a straight brandy or vodka to warm things up.
I was a bit more experimental in my youth and had some bizarre experiences under the influence of tequila. Once, after drinking not a huge amount with a friend, we decided to swim across a small lake (?, clearly impaired judgement), where towards the end of our swim, I nearly blacked out. Another such time, during the winter time, a friend of mine decided to surprise me with an unexpected visit with his newlywed. We left her at home, and went to visit another friend of ours, who had a nice home with a pool table and fireplace in the finished basement. After starting with some straight scotch I decided to move on to tequila. All I remember is that after a while, I could no longer see anything, even with my eyes wide open. This lasted for about 15 minutes, until I regained my eyesight after drinking lots of black coffee. Needless to say, I stay away from tequila. 🙂
https://youtu.be/ewSA6Sh177A
Could it be the start of the road to finally finding succesful treatment for currently irreversible human spinal cord traumas too?
Would China Invade Taiwan for TSMC?
https://thediplomat.com/2020/12/would-china-invade-taiwan-for-tsmc/
When I want a glimpse of the news as it looks in Russia, I usually check Kommersant. But I guess that’s a business-oriented and somewhat ‘liberal’ publication. Can anyone suggest additional news sites worth browsing?
China is quite a bit ahead of the world average in most ways. Look any industrial indicator, electricity production etc. Countries in general can’t go directly from poor to high income service based economies.
Most countries don’t have anywhere near the state capacity of China so they would probably have more comparable outcomes to EU. EU is the region with the second best high speed rail other than China anyway. The countries which would benefit the most from a developed high speed rail network are the densely populated Asian countries but I can’t imagine any of them being as efficient as China in building it. Chinese export of infrastructure to the rescue?
People who still take Anonymous seriously (and are not 13 years old) should be regarded as modern Plebeians and be treated with disdain
Absinthe is very overrated. I don’t really drink anyway. My last couple of comments on the previous OT about the Azov witch were rather sarcastic. But I imagine very well these fine specimens having a bottle of Absinthe at Zelda bar in Odessa. Looks like a place where they might like to go when in town.
That account got taken over in 2014. It went from pro-Assange to anti-Assange in an instant. All old pro-Assange tweets are actually still up. After that the account started being obsessively anti-Russian and anti-Assad.
It plays the strategy of being vaguely anti-USA but calling all real opposition Russian agents that should be jailed. So there might be tweets saying “American militarism is bad” but at the same time the account is staunchly against US reducing military deployment because “it plays into the hands of Russia and China”.
https://astralcodexten.substack.com/p/still-alive
https://i.imgur.com/cgVlM8k.jpg
Members of antifa should all be required to dye their hair neon colors to highlight how they are the caste that takes away the nightsoil of the oligarchs.
Air travel would be made infinitely more congenial, if Sunnis were banned from flying in the West, except in special military charter planes, under heavy escort. And, perhaps, it would not even need to be all Sunnis, but only Sunnis from certain regions.
Of course, “Americans” is pretty meaningless now, but I sometimes get the idea that videos like that – (insert European nationality) “react to ____” are made, from the ground-up to subvert the idea of nationalism by allowing fresh-off-the-boat Africans LARP as Europeans, and then getting Youtube to promote the videos.
It is propaganda without a script required.
I get a silly idea in my head sometimes, and then because I like to write about things, I take off and see what I can do with it. After watching the video that I presented and another one too, I started to get a queezy feeling in my stomach…green beer has the same effect. 🙁
Here’s the real “Green Goddess” that’s actually good for you!
https://youtu.be/LrAAZRl5a8k
Anybody know why the price of celery has doubled almost overnight?
The virgin Metropolitan police
https://i.ibb.co/JBpKjZ4/blm.jpg
versus, the Chad Russian riot police, which bows to no one but the Tsar himself
https://thumbsnap.com/i/dgAbQLnL.mp4
BTW, why the unflattering sobriquet “Azov Witch” for Ms. Semenyaka? I just got through reading the article that AP posted about her, and I find that the article presents a biography of somebody very driven, serious and quite intelligent who on the whole offers a positive impression. Similarly, I don’t know why AP can’t seem to make up his own mind about her? There seems to be a dichotomy here within the UNZ reading community, where all white nationalist movements are viewed in a positive light, all except Ukrainian nationalism? Ms. Semenyaka has taken what looks like traditional Ukrainian nationalism and has repackaged it into a more palatable modernistic European context, anything wrong with that?
The program she presents borrows heavily from O9A tropes. She’s most probably an O9A nexion member or an individual nexion (both are possible). In her case witch is the accurate and neutral expression.
It’s easy to kick babushkas. Nothing glorious about it. The guy is a lowlife.
Absinthe is vile stuff. The only people I know who endorse it are in the same set that find ketamine appealing. Ketamine is a chemical that you only have to witness a user one time to swear it off. People who use the term K-hole aren’t going to party with the discriminating.
It’s kind of the opposite of those magazine glossy ads for “what sort of man drinks Canadian Club?”
Even meth and opiates are a rung above.
Once again, you’re throwing around jargon that means little to me. I’m not familiar with the evils of O9A tropes or its “nexion” followers? Sounds more like comic book stuff, that doesn’t at all resemble the type of movements and authors that the article indicates Semenyaka likes to couch her modern day Ukrainian nationalism within?
Ukrainian Nationalism is just a tool for these people, any nationalism is just a tool. They don’t care about nations, cultures and/or ethnic groups.
I agree, never liked it either.
The current wikipedia page on order nine angles has 225 (!) footnotes.
As near as I can tell it is a huge conglomeration of complete poppycock. The wikipedia page, I mean.
Don’t know but best guess: O9A is a concoction of a British Intelligence committee to collect right wing misfits and give them harmless hobbies and a patsy for a once-in-blue-moon covert op. The thing that has generated a perpetual buzz for going on twenty years is their grimoire includes a recipe for ritual human sacrifice.
It’s about as real as the guy in the Friday the 13th movies.
There was an article on the front page of unz the other day.
https://www.unz.com/estriker/national-justice-exclusive-notorious-nazi-satanic-group-is-an-illegal-counter-intelligence-operation-controlled-by-two-career-fbi-informants/
In a word: LGBQWERTY-anon. That stuff we wrote when we were college freshman the third time we got baked makes as much sense.
I read their “scriptures” – boring as hell (pun intended). But some of the more “advanced ” stuff looks more appealing for some people.
https://omega9alpha.wordpress.com/
What got me interested in them was Nick Land recommendation. He basically written that they are also an Accelerationist movement that uses Left Hand Path and (pseudo) Traditionalist vocabulary (I know it’s actually quite funny).
When one thinks about it, some parallels between Russian Cosmism and Communism vs O9A and European Nationalism come to mind. A smaller but nastier mind parasite hiding inside another bigger mind parasite so to say.
Their purported final goal is “Master Race Galactic Emporium ” (no kidding). They would infiltrate whatever movement necessary, as the Ismailis did in the Islamic middle ages.
And this Semenyaka woman is most probably one of them.
I notice parallels between Ukrainian and Irish nationalism, the leaders of both are globalists who care nothing for borders, race, etc, and their identity seems to be mainly defined by hating their largest neighbour and being as close to the EU as they possibly can out of spite. Both also have a significant violent, militant element too.
What a creep.
You take it too seriously though. The ideology is just part of the aesthetic to attract lost young men and make them depraved, for the political purposes of the FBI and the monetary reward of the founder (FBI informants are paid on a per commission basis, from what I read in books about entrapment of Muslims it can be tens of thousands for each).
Best Nick Land trope:
Alan Turing was a time traveling bot a la’ The Terminator who polluted our academy with the Turing Test disinformation meme. The future AI superintelligent overlords are beyond Turing testing.
Nick Land did his best work under the influence of alcohol and methamphetamine. He might not have had that full steam ahead of resentment if he could have afforded proper cocaine for abuse.
Wheat grass in juiced form has its support as a “green goddess”:
https://www.medicalnewstoday.com/articles/320210#_noHeaderPrefixedContent
According to the infomerical Dr. Gundry, it has limited nutritional benefit because it doesn’t get absorbed.
I think Nick Land has a good sense of humor. And he is far from stupid, quite the opposite. There are interesting aspects to his take on Accelerationism.
Not really. I am aware that this cult is most probably an intelligence agencies’ asset. It doesn’t change the fact that many ultranationalist youths embrace their destructive narrative. ISIS was most probably also partly an anti-Shia project by the Western intelligence agencies and Mossad. That didn’t make it less harmful quite the opposite.
Here are best sources on left hand path occultism:
good
https://www.amazon.com/Dark-Lord-Lovecraft-Typhonian-Tradition/dp/0892542071
better
https://www.amazon.com/Stephen-Flowers-Ph-D/dp/1594774676/
best
https://www.amazon.com/Julius-Evola/dp/0892813687/
Julius Evola gives example of Hindu ritual incest. He has editorial remarks that left-hand path magicians are pretty much scum. Levenda pleads Absolute Agnosticism. When last spotted, Flowers was evangelizing for Zoroastrianism. (His version; Zoroastrianism does not accept converts.)
Gundry’s backing research makes sense. When eating or juicing greens, I always look for produce that is high in Vitamin K. Kale, Swiss chard, spinach and celery are all great candidates, plus each one has other valuable nutrients. I’m cooking some borshch right now, and in addition to beets, carrots and potatoes, I’m adding cabbage and Thai Basil (why not, I love the stuff anyway, and think it’ll add an interesting taste profile to the borshch). Dill and parsley at the end. Stick with what your ancestors knew, and you’ll come out Okay! 🙂
A “truck” can fit a platoon, so with 10 + 30 for logistics you have a battalion.
Backed up by air power that’s the equivalent of a brigade/Regiment.
Enough to hold a sector,
Pretty based if Karlin posts bifurcation on 25th then finally covers the tractor rally on 26th in Delhi.
https://twitter.com/amaanbali/status/1352818748651040768?s=20
Also, the only green Goddess is Bhang.
I think it is because traditionally servitude and slavery in itself was not understood to be intrinsically against the moral law by the Church, but a problem because in practice it mostly constitutes a serious moral hazard.
Similarly with capital punishment, this is explicitly approved by the Bible and was supported by nearly all of the major Church fathers up until recent times, the current Pope caused some trouble by trying to change the wording of the Catechism to make it seem like capital punishment was intrinsically immoral. The Popes were the temporal lords of the Papal states and I think during much of the period they existed the temporal power not making use of capital punishment would have been seen as immoral.
About 10 years ago there was loads of criticism of the RCC on the exact opposite basis, that it was and had been far too reactionary.
I stated that her Satanism makes unacceptable to me, whatever her other charms might be. She is a cute witch, though.
I agree.
Again I agree completely.
I was replying to your comment #397. I don’t believe that her involvement with the dark arts was brought up until several hours later by Bahibuzuk in comment #400.
In comment 397 I provided a link to an article that described her Satanism. Bashibuzuk quoted from it.
Yes, I see that now. It’s too bad that her attraction to Black metal music and “Aryan Luciferianism” may have added to the idiosyncratic nature of her ideas. Definitely an interesting person, so thanks for bringing her to our attention here.
That’s actually the inner ideology of Azov Battalion that you have summarized here Mr Hack. And I’m not kidding.
Why do I suspect, if you were to point to the Russian version of the Azov Battalion, you’d find a similar cultural milieu? 🙂
Azov is based in Kharkiv and tends to be filled with people from eastern Ukraine. Where is Semenyaka from? Her undergraduate degree was in Kiev. To paraphrase Chesterton, “people who don’t believe in God will believe in anything.” Or more aptly, Ernst Junger – “ruined altars are populated by demons.” It would be nice if she followed his path to Christianity. It is never too late. She does have some good instincts.
I think her Satanism is another symptom of societal degradation inflicted on Ukraine by Soviet rule.
It appears she is mixed up with this Ukrainian anti-feminist organization called “Silver Roses:”
https://babel.ua/ru/texts/40616-ne-hodyat-na-vybory-hotyat-nosit-oruzhie-pohoronili-feminizm-v-grobu-kto-takie-sriblo-troyandi-bolshoy-profayl-organizacii
Here they are burying feminism:
https://vsirazom.ua/wp-content/uploads/2020/04/photo_2020-03-09_00-37-04-1024×682.jpg
And her personal website:
https://helenasemenyaka.wordpress.com/
O9A has exclusively lesbian covens among its nexons.
Kurt Waldheim seems to have been quite a cuck despite his rumored background.
https://twitter.com/KenRoth/status/1353325386411757570
It would be interesting to see an alt history where the Papal States survive. It would be a much different dynamic than the Vatican, if the Church actually controlled a substantial territory.
I wonder how much it would have affected the politics of the modern Church.
A lot of people fighting with Azov Battalion are Russian ultranationalists. Azov Battalion is a battle training ground for the Luciferan White Nationalist network with many international ramifications. They have connections with exactly the same type of groups in US, Canada and Europe.
These people are extreme Right Wing accelerationists. They want the death of the current human civilization so they can build a Luciferan Galactic Civilization. I am not kidding here. They have followed Evola’s logic to the very end: this world cannot be saved as it is now, push it to the Abyss and then climb to the Heavens. It’s exactly the ideology of O9A.
The Saturn Sun (Black Sun) symbol of Azov Battalion is a well known symbol of Ahnenerbe that has been used also by Brenton Tarrant the Christchurch terrorist.
Here is a nice song about the Black Sun by Boyd Rice (a homosexual Church of Satan high priest, industrial music pioneer and Neo-Nazi militant):
https://youtu.be/GyYynOSyMCU
This is a poetic statement about what they want to see happening to our civilization.
Ethno-religious chauvinism.
Russian lunatics is more accurate?
Thank you for highlighting the disgusting nature of some of this stuff. Of course people from Russia, which was also morally damaged by the Soviets, would join Azov.
Basically yes, all these people are crazy. A normal person would not join this type of network. But our world is rapidly becoming a planetary asylum, so there will be more violence and more insanity further into the future.
Correct me if I’m wrong, but as I understand you, the Azov Battalion is made up of both Ukrainian ultra-nationalists and Russian ultra-nationalists, that have fought bloody battles against another branch of Russian ultra-nationalists, often including neighboring Caucasian mercenaries, in Donbas?
The world is getting stranger and stranger all of the time…
Just saying!
The issue being how well the body absorbs nutrients in varying forms. I’ve found beets to provide great energy before a HIIT workout. Specifically, a blended 16 ounce combo of beets, apple, carrot, lemon, ginger and turmeric.
https://youtu.be/11sfIop-dDs
https://encrypted-tbn0.gstatic.com/images?q=tbn:ANd9GcQqif8r_9WOsOx6xRfTC9CjUonRYmE1A3BKQw&usqp.jpg
https://encrypted-tbn0.gstatic.com/images?q=tbn:ANd9GcQUFynHjWe8BUsbFbDWgqV_O3R9Y1KJXMcp2g&usqp.jpg
https://encrypted-tbn0.gstatic.com/images?q=tbn:ANd9GcQqDk22DyabD633yeyZnyEw1FVMEGqlaC0HWg&usqp.jpg
It is curious how Israel has a different Holocaust day.
There are hundreds of Westerners who have fought with Azov Battalion. Many of them are exactly of the type I described above. It is an international phenomenon, they have never really cared about Ukraine, Russia or any ethnic group or culture. They are the extreme- Far Right equivalent of Trotskyists, they want a global change through cultural and spiritual subversion and race war. And then they will have their Utopia with their type at the helm.
Of course they are delusional and are manipulated by more intelligent people. That doesn’t make them less harmful.
https://hedgewik.com/wp-content/uploads/2021/01/goyim-trust-plan-again-hedgewik-comic.png
See my reply to AP in the comment above.
Basically it goes along these lines :
1) 1950ies >> Operation Gladio >> Julius Evola is kept alive and allowed publishing + 1960ies European Situationists >> Direct Action >> 1970ies Italian Traditionalist Far Right (dozens of terrorist attacks per month).
2) 1970ies UK >> O9A >> Luciferan Racialism + 1960ies Savitri Devi and Miguel Serrano’s kind of Ariosophism >> 1980ies Esoteric UK Neo-Nazi revival >> 1990ies US Neo-Nazi Satanism
3) 1980ies Dugin’s circle >> Pamyat’ society >> Russian Traditionalism + 1990ies Slavic neo-Paganism
1 + 2 + 3 = M8L8TH type NSBM>> Azov Battalion >>> Atomwaffen, Feuerkrig and Misanthropic Divisions = Luciferan Neonazi International + Nick Land’s Dark Enlightenment type of Accelerationism >> Ultra-Right Wing Accelerationism
https://www.bellingcat.com/news/uk-and-europe/2019/09/04/the-hardcore-russian-neo-nazi-group-that-calls-ukraine-home/
This is an intentional oversimplification on my behalf. But I believe it is a good approximation.
Are you familiar with any of the Tracy Twyman Boyd Rice drama? It is alternately hilarious and horrifying which there isn’t one word for both of those in English but there must be a great one in German.
No, I didn’t really follow what he had become after NON. But I remember him being associated with some “artist” degenerates who published pedophile cartoons online in the early 2000.
I’ve noticed there is a significant element of white nationalists who seem to despise the concept of nations as much as Communists do. These people seem to want a white ethno-state where the only identity is being white, or at least what they determine to be “white”.
They see different nationalities, cultures, religions, even languages as being things that just divide white people and need to be wiped out and replaced by a sort of “white globalism”. I wonder if these white nationalists are really just a branch of the NWO, tasked with furthering the one world no borders agenda, perhaps mostly unwittingly, amongst people inclined to far-right politics.
I have to say, a part of me thinks that the Holy Inquisition would have known what to do with such people, and society would have been better off for it. There is a mess that needs to be cleaned up.
This is mainly a feature of American White Nationalism, I think a lot of European ethnic nationalists would be for the idea of a union of European nations where there is something similar to today’s freedom of movement however, the petty nationalism of 50-60+ years ago is likely not going to come back.
As I have previously commented it’s an “Accelerationists unite!” type of situation. It’s a dialectics: Left, Right – nevermind. The most important thing is to thoroughly debase the global middle class to enforce a rapid and radical civilizational change.
Don’t think it is likely to happen. BTW, the opposite extreme of the political spectrum is also a psycho zoo full of apocalyptic freaks. It’s a dialectics with the normal people ending up caught in the middle.
Supposedly, 70% of Rhodesia’s army and police force was black. I don’t know if they had any black officers though.
No, I think there could be Orthodox fanatics but even the most extreme Old Believers couldn’t be said to be Lucifierian or have similar ambitions. The most I’ve heard involves self-mutilation, even castration, but that’s a very different impulse from what drives Left Handers.
I wonder what the worst major city in Western Europe is now. Birmingham? Brussels? Or somewhere else?
London and Paris have changed a lot for the worse, but they still have a lot of prestige, probably due to historical factors.
I’d say Birmingham would be a strong contender for worst city. Full of Muslims and blacks, and has almost zero cultural attractions and prestige as a major city. Also seems to have a lot of violent crime, a lot of car jacking, etc. It’s one of the biggest cities in Western Europe, yet not very well known outside of the UK.
Birmingham and Milan have roughly the same population in their metro area, yet it goes without saying which one is more famous.
Like most Northern cities, it has a nice art gallery full of Pre-Raphaelites (if you are a commenter other than Europa Europa and a foreigner and are about to make a snide comment about English art, please refrain from doing so. If you are a Russian, or, God forbid, a Ukrainian, then please reflect first on your own nation’s accomplishments in the visual arts, the relative population sizes of the two nations etc.)
I’m going to tentatively guess that Brussels is the worst capital city. Maybe, Birmingham would be the worst city with a population greater than a million. I wonder if there would be a worse one below that but above 500,000.
Holy fuck 30% S Asian, 10% Black, 25% Muslim.
Is the wiki demography section on the metro or the city itself?
Also, another deadline ends
BIFURCATION ESSAY WHEN?
The problem is that there is no good football club called “Birmingham United” or “Birmingham F.C.”. There is a “Birmingham City F.C.” but it looks like they suck.
Those statistics looks insane. In 2001 whites were 70% and in 2011 down to 58%. The number of whites decreased in absolute numbers from 690k to 620k. Is this really correct? What are the numbers for 2021?
Too many happenings keep pushing it back.
Well if you roll Canada, Australia and New Zealand together with Britain, the population disparity with Russia isn’t much. Russia may win the competition in terms of visual arts.
From page 7 of Birth characteristics in England and Wales: 2015
https://i.ibb.co/ZLRpcQf/births.png
https://www.ons.gov.uk/peoplepopulationandcommunity/birthsdeathsandmarriages/livebirths/bulletins/parentscountryofbirthenglandandwales/2019
I can’t find any ethnicity statistics for 2019. Is there any?
On that page there is an interesting map where it’s shown the percentage of live births born to non-UK-born mothers for each region (local authority district) by year from 2007 to 2019. Most regions haven’t changed that much, the general trend is just a small increase. But some regions have really changed. Just looking over the map I found 15% to 37%, 19% to 30%, 31% to 47% and 25% to 49%.
There does not seem to be any ethnicity data for live births in 2019, I have found this data which shows the ethnicity of the live births over the period between 2014 and 2018
https://i.ibb.co/WzbJ4TV/2014-2018.png
The live birth data for 2019 can be found here, but the spreadsheet contains no ethnicity data as I mentioned earlier.
I think you are referring to Boston in relation to the authority that witnessed the “25% to 49%” increase, Boston actually had the highest proportion (75.6%) of people who voted Leave in 2016, in fact if one looks at the list of most heavily Leave voting areas, and check out their increases in babies born to foreign-born mothers, you will see a huge increase in most of them.
Were many of these people professed Catholics?
The Holy Office is still around, it is officially the Congregation for the Doctrine of the Faith; Cardinal Ratzinger used to head it.
You’ve got enough here to write a novel as interesting and nuanced as anything that Umberto Eco ever wrote. The article is quite interesting. Keep ’em coming!
Why do you place both “Orthodox fantacs” “Old Believers” and “Luciferian” all in one sentence?
Why are you implying that the Azov Batallion and other similar hardcore nationalist groups are “leftwingers”?
As a matter of contrast.
Why do you think the elites have allowed these movements to flourish in Ukraine and Russia but have allowed the state authorities to crush them in Britain?
Today even the slightest hint of Neo-Nazism in a political movement in Britain would result in it being banned and its members jailed for a long time. My guess would be because the elites want stability in Britain because it is one of the main seats of their power, whereas they favour chaos in Ukraine and Russia?
Although that said the British elites have allowed Irish republicanism and BLM to flourish, so it’s clear they do allow chaos, just of a different type.
Actually, on further thought it seems to me that the elites do permit just as much chaos in Britain, the difference is they see it as more expedient to empower left wing, violent anti-British groups like Irish republicans (IRA, etc) and blacks (BLM) and then politically remove the ability for the native British to organise and defend themselves in any meaningful way.
So the elites absolutely do want violence and chaos in Britain, the difference is here it’s the native British themselves who are the targets. Brexit almost certain plays into this agenda.
https://twitter.com/TheBhujangi/status/1353427040708521984?s=20
https://twitter.com/TheBhujangi/status/1353610547833528320?s=20
🙂
LOL, but thanks, the trolling is appreciate, I did tell my readers to harass me.
Why are the Indian protests happening?
https://twitter.com/akarlin88/status/1353699660729360384
https://twitter.com/frontierindica/status/1353701164504686593
China overtakes US as top FDI destination
https://www.globaltimes.cn/page/202101/1213873.shtml
There’s a more mundane reason: Ukraine doesn’t really have the state capacity to “stop them” really and part and parcel of that is that Ukraine also needs them to help fight its battles. UK is in a completely different situation.
I think an often overlooked problem with Britain is that it suffers from “brain drain” probably more than most other Western nations. A lot of high IQ native British professionals leave for the US, Australia, NZ, Canada, etc, and even Western Europe to a lesser extent, and are replaced and then some by third worlders.
The British high IQ educated elite mostly have zero loyalty to this country, in fact I’d go as far to say most of them despise it with varying degrees of intensity and are constantly looking for opportunities to leave.
The only countries I can imagine UK having net brain drain to is UK and possibly Canada.
According to estimates by two workforce statisticians, England and, in particular, London’s foreign population has fallen significantly:
https://www.escoe.ac.uk/estimating-the-uk-population-during-the-pandemic/
Meanwhile, Great Britain will open its borders to Hong Kong BN(O) passport holders next Monday.
http://theconversation.com/amp/hong-kong-china-crackdown-is-likely-to-boost-migration-to-uk-152766?espv=1
Whatever the exact final numbers end up being, Britain is going through significant demographic changes in the near future.
I imagine a lot of foreign workers in the UK have been furloughed so have probably taken the opportunity to go back to their own countries while still receiving most of their normal wages. Most probably come from countries where the lockdown regime is less strict too, so that’s another incentive for them to go home temporarily. It’s impossible to say whether this population decline will be permanent until the furlough scheme ends.
As for Hong Kongers, I find it difficult to imagine many of them would want to leave HK for Britain, most of them are considerably wealthier and more affluent than the average British person. Swapping HK for Britain seems like it would be a downgrade in almost every way. Judging by the way the US flag seems to have become their protest banner, it appears the US is the country they have most affinity for. I think the UK would prove a poor substitute for it.
I may be wrong, but from my understanding furloughed staff are not counted as unemployed.
http://www.marketwatch.com/amp/story/u-k-claimant-count-climbs-by-94-400-in-july-as-jobless-rate-stays-flat-11597126625?espv=1
(Just a rough calculation, I am aware that various things ex. household income and annual full-time employee salary don’t match up completely)
Hong Kong median monthly household income: HK$ 27500 (2019, annualised, HK$ 330,000)
Median annual earnings for full-time employees in the United Kingdom: £31,461 (2020)
https://www.statista.com/statistics/962649/hong-kong-median-monthly-household-income/#:~:text=In%202019%2C%20the%20median%20household,Kong%20dollars%20in%20Hong%20Kong.
https://www.statista.com/statistics/1002964/average-full-time-annual-earnings-in-the-uk/
Using (XE, 25 January) currency calculator, HK$ 330,000 gives us £31,140.42
Cost of living, Hong Kong vs London:
https://www.numbeo.com/cost-of-living/compare_cities.jsp?country1=Hong+Kong&city1=Hong+Kong&country2=United+Kingdom&city2=London
Cost of living, United Kingdom vs Kong Kong
https://www.numbeo.com/cost-of-living/compare_countries_result.jsp?country1=United+Kingdom&country2=Hong+Kong
So in terms of affordability, living in London is not really worse than living in Hong Kong and living elsewhere in Britain is much better.
Since the UK handed back its former colony Hongkong 23 years ago, relatively few of the territory’s residents – less than 16,000 – have become British citizens. A large percentage of which have chosen to return to Hongkong/China and live there instead.
BN(O) status was virtually useless before, not like it is now.
Emigration/immigration is a function of both desire and opportunity.
But if you are sceptical of mass emigration you are welcome to provide your own estimates of the numbers and time limit for how many will leave, as well as why that is if you want to.
In the future, I hope MLK Day is turned into a 24 hr fast day for both progressives and blacks.
I also hope that they will be forced to select one book to act as their Bible. Or, perhaps, two books put together, like the Old and New Testaments: Narrative of the life of Frederick Douglas and Oprah’s biography.
A historic year, indeed.
https://i.redd.it/4gm1ssgo5jd61.jpg
I could imagine this in a scenario where somehow the French managed to either successfully invade Germany in 1870, or to repel the German attack (Marshal Bazaine unexpectedly proved to be a genius commander of some kind). Then the French never withdraw their garrison from the Papal states, and a unified Italy including the Papal States doesn’t come into being in 1870.
It would be interesting at least.
When the Portuguese were fighting to hang onto their African colonies in the 1960s and early 70s about 75% of the forces in Guine were black and about 2/3rds of the troops in Angola. They had black officers.
My dad had a friend who served in the Rhodesian Army during the independence conflict. He could speak a few African languages so I guess a lot of the troops were black.
https://twitter.com/tomselliott/status/1353696712066478083
There’s been some news that Biden is ending the support for Saudi Arabia in the Yemen war. There has also been calls in mainstream media for Biden to take off Houthis from the terrorist designation. What’s this about? This gives me the impression United States is not happy with Saudi Arabia for some reason and this is their way of signaling this.
But remember that Papal States had already lost most of its lands to Italy, only Lazio/Latium was left.
https://upload.wikimedia.org/wikipedia/commons/0/00/Italian-unification.gif
Mr. Hack no matter how much or little we believe in the authenticity of the Ukrainian nationhood, there are Slavic nations that have less legitimacy in the eyes of history. Like Macedonia, Belarus, Montenegro, Slovenia and Bosnia( and Slovakia, sorry Slovaks, I cherish your country and believe that you deserve your own nation, but historical reality is that you were for centuries known as a part of Hungary). But its always Ukraine with you?
To AP
Norway, Denmark and Sweden were each established in the 9th century. Therefore I can claim that at least Sweden and Denmark have had over one thousand years of history as separate nations. Norway was unitary part of Denmark, but after Napoleonic wars it was as punishment separated from the Napoleons ally Denmark and given to Sweden, but Norway was not an unitary part of Kingdom of Sweden, but in personal union with Sweden.
Your Austrian example is utterly worthless, vast majority of Austrians wanted to join Germany after WWI but were prevented by the victorious Entente, only a biggest war in the history of mankind and dismemberment and occupation of Germany forced them to walk on their own path as a nation. Spain, France, Germany, Italy all were multiple nations before the modern era, yes theres Switzerland, but they are a successor of medieval polity and an exception, their nationhood was created in a very peculiar and pre modern circumstances. They are an anachronism, but highly successful one.
Excuse me? Who the hell nowadays thinks that borders should be drawn based on the swiftness of travelling? You yourself probably understand why that’s a worthless argument. Normally drawing of borders is based on geographical, historical and ethno-religious factors, at least in the old world and not on quick travelling. Especially geographic features and ease of administration have been the crucial factor when determining the borders between the countries, now and in the ancient times too.
By the way AP, as you know I have often been quite harsh towards the Catholic church, but I must admit that there have been some very interesting Catholic fellows who have genuinely done much for authentic Christian-Buddhist dialogue. Like Thomas Merton, the Trappist monk. I dont agree with all of Mertons conclusions and thoughts, but I think that he was on the right track.
https://www.americamagazine.org/faith/2012/07/13/thomas-merton-and-dialogue-buddhism
If we speak in the language of theology, then the gulf between Christianity and Buddhism is enormous. Like the Christ saying that salvation comes only through him and so on. But if we speak language of heart, then our differences are not so substantial. Didnt Christ himself say and imply in numerous ways that God is love? If so, then yes even we Buddhists would agree that salvation is only possible through such God.
https://www.gannett-cdn.com/-mm-/307a3d06f4fd6d846b20eba3192006465db3901a/c=0-183-1855-2656/local/-/media/2015/09/24/Louisville/Louisville/635786917632061025-LCJBrd2-04-11-2015-KY-1-A004–2015-04-10-IMG-IMG-IMG-merton1.jpg-1-1-1EAFJ3VA-L593958368-IMG-IMG-IMG-merton1.jpg-1-1-1EAFJ3VA.jpg?quality=50&width=640
Merton was probably killed by CIA in Thailand in 1968…
https://www.irishtimes.com/opinion/this-turbulent-monk-did-the-cia-kill-vocal-war-critic-thomas-merton-1.3718440?mode=amp
Wind and solar overtaking coal is good news.
“Renewables overtaking fossil fuels”, though, is:
– a misleading header and
– a pipedream.
A good percentage of the, so called, renewables is made up of biomass/biofuels which create the same class of pollutants as fossil fuels.
Also, nuclear energy, which is not a renewable source of energy is, conveniently, nowhere to be seen.
Thanks.
I was replying to Thulean Friend #116 – “A historic year indeed”.
Somehow, it ended up as a new comment.
What are peoples’ thoughts on regional accents/dialects? Do you think people should be encouraged to express themselves in and maintain regional accents/dialects, or do you think people should be encouraged to conform with a more standardised/national way of speaking?
I think that encouraging a national dialect is an important part of nation building, that’s why the Chinese government promotes standard Mandarin everywhere ahead of other dialects like Cantonese, Hakka, etc. Ultimately it’s the same reason why the Parisian dialect of French has become the standard everywhere in France, or why High German is the standard everywhere in Germany and Austria.
Newest Ukrainian polls:
Boyko 53% vs Poroshenko 47%
Zelensky 55% vs Poroshenko 45%
There is no Boyko vs Zelensky but it looks like it would be relatively close.
https://www.kiis.com.ua/?lang=ukr&cat=reports&id=1000&page=1
There has been interesting surge of Korean tourists in Russia. From 100k visitors in 2013 to 450k in 2019. This is mostly a Vladivostok thing. Number of Korean visits to Vladivostok has gone from under 10k in 2012 to 230k in 2018 (and this number was likely even higher in 2019 because Korean visits to Russia increased almost 20% from 2018 but I don’t have Vladivostok specific numbers for 2019).
There’s an research article about it here: https://journals.sagepub.com/doi/full/10.1177/1879366520920639
Russia encourages de-westernisation of tourist flows (both inbound and outbound) towards Asia.
Asian countries are the top 3 senders of tourists to Russia, as well as the top 3 biggest destinations of Russian tourists now.
A good idea to de-westernise the population.
https://www.bloomberg.com/news/articles/2021-01-26/youtube-ceo-talks-up-economic-benefits-amid-regulatory-scrutiny
That’s a lot of removed videos.
This part is pretty interesting.
Sure, and separate warring Rus principalities were established in the 12th century. In the 14th some of them were annexed by Lithuania and Poland.
Today, the languages of Norway, Denmark and Sweden are more similar to each other than the languages of the southwestern and northeastern Rus.
For nearly 300 years. Twice as long as Ukraine was a unitary part of Russia (see below).
In that case, Central, Eastern Ukraine and Volhynia were a unitary part of Russia only from around 1780 until 1917, and Galicia never was. Prior to that they were a Hetmanate and after a separate SSR. So only about 150 years.
A brief period of time. Support had become much les secure by the mid 1930s. Hitler did not chose to invade before the Austrians made their own referendum for a reason.
So neither Austrians not Swiss want to be part of Germany and for most of history did not want to. And they even speak the same language basically. The Dutch, whose language and culture as about as close to German as Ukrainian is to Russian, are also separate.
There is nothing unique about Slavic “fragmentation.”
Poroshenko remains deeply unpopular. The pro-Russians (about 25% of the country) plus a large chunk of the rest (who would vote for Zelensky) oppose him.
I doubt it because a lot of the Boyko vote in the Boyko-Poroshenko contest would go to Zelensky.
In the poll, Boyko polls in 4th place – behind Zelensky, Tymoshenko and Poroshenko.
So clearly a lot of Boyko’s vote in the matchup vs. Poroshenko would be Zelensky voters. They would just stick with Zelensky. Probably many of Poroshenko’s voters would also choose Zelensky, as a lesser evil.
Started today:
https://sdg.iisd.org/events/world-economic-forum-annual-meeting-2021/
And fifty years ago the first European Management Symposium, the precursor of the World Economic Forum, was launched by Otto Von Hapsburg and Klaus Schwab.
https://ru-ru.facebook.com/worldeconomicforum/photos/klaus-schwab-world-economic-forum-annual-meeting-1971-european-management-sympos/10150229212286479/
Two generations later we are witnessing the beginning of the Great Reset of Capitalism, while the Communism in its Soviet form has died a little more than a generation ago.
You’re probably right. The total of the pro-Russian parties is only 28.4%. In Donbass there is a big majority for pro-Russian parties but in Eastern and Southern Ukraine pro-Russian parties sit just under 50% and in Western and Central Ukraine pro-Russian parties get at most 15%.
There is a of course a difference between not being pro-Russian and being anti-Russian. There are much fewer anti-Russians in Eastern and Southern Ukraine than in the Western and Central regions.
I think Boyko (or any pro-Russian candidate) could get 40% vs Zelensky. So not really close. On the other hand if the Crimean population and separatists voted it could be even. But that really means that Ukraine getting back those regions would be politically disastrous.
I’ve been the recipient of a bit of medical attention in Australian hospitals over the last few years .
A huge number of the doctors -and nurses – are British and Irish . Chatting to a few they have said that they have come to stay .
Of course they are being replaced in the UK by personnel from the ( so called ) developing world .
Because of the pandemic there have been a lot of medical stories from everywhere on TV in the last year . Both US and UK medicine don’t look very white from what I’ve seen (I see a huge number of South Asians especially . In Australia the main minority is ethnic Chinese )
No doubt the NYT/ Guardian crowd would openly say that this is all part of globalisation and a good thing but I do wonder whether they really would want that African doctor with so so English to be operating on themselves
I’d guess about 25% to 30% of people in Ukraine are pro-Russian and around 35% to 40% are anti-Russian. The rest are neither pro- nor anti- but lean pro-west. Zelensky won in a landslide by getting most of the neutrals (who are pro-West but not anti-Russian), a few anti-Russians who were fed up by Poroshenko’s corruption, and all of the pro-Russians who viewed him as a clear lesser evil than the anti-Russian Poroshenko.
Poroshenko’s rating vs Zelensky has improved because Zelensky has not reined in corruption as he had promised to do. Accordingly, many of the neutrals and the anti-Russians have gone back to Poroshenko. He lost the election with only 25% of the vote but is now up to 45%. Despite the dramatic increase in support, its not enough to enable Poroshenko to win.
Now, if Zelensky were to become an openly pro-Russian candidate he would probably turn off enough neutrals to lose the election to Poroshenko.
Of course, it is possible that Zelensky’s support will slide further so that he may lose vs. Poroshenko. In such a case it would be helpful for him for Ukraine to regain Donbas, because that would add large numbers of voters for whom Zelensky would be a lesser evil than Poroshenko. I imagine if it looks like Zelensky will lose to Poroshenko in 2024 there will be serious attempts to integrate Donbas; he may become more pro-Russian and Russia may force Donbas to join. He would have to be careful to hold onto just enough neutral voters to win. If it became strictly pro-Western vs. pro-Russian even the Donbas voters wouldn’t be enough (remember there is no way Crimea is coming back).
Adding Donbas to Ukraine would be bad for Ukraine if course.
Depends on the accent, obviously
The Welsh accent should be preserved, Brummie not.
I assume you can fluently read Russian Shortsword.
https://www.eastrussia.ru/material/primore-no-turisto-problema-fatale/
https://primpress.ru/article/25603
Some positive developments in the word today –
https://www.theguardian.com/world/2021/jan/24/as-birth-rates-fall-animals-prowl-in-our-abandoned-ghost-villages
As populations fall, a great “rewilding” is taking place, with Nature restoring balance and reasserting her rights. To think, as recently as the 70s, the fear was of over-population! It should be obvious to everyone that the world is overpopulated and that life will be better with fewer people.
Nor is there any connection between population size and intellectual progress. Athens, 18th century London, Edinburgh, and Paris, with its less than a million population, vs today’s sprawling multi-million metropolises, or China vs the US, etc.
Early pre-state peoples did not value high numbers of people and actively limited their growth. It seems the more people=wealth mindset began with settled agricultural societies, and the need for slaves and a surplus. Conservatives today, as usual, are perpetuating yesterday’s social technology.
The rise of automation has obviated the need for a large surplus producing population. It is interesting how the move away from many of the evils of agricultural society are being accomplished through technology rather than a reversion to pre state lifestyles – “the way out being through”. It seems agricultural society contained the seeds of its own self-trancendence. UBI and the return of a more playful and less work focused life will be the result of the fullest developments of the work-and-development obsession of agricultural society – its final self transcendence.
Of course conservatives will fight tooth and nail against this, not understanding the new possibilities.
Another wonderful development is the rise of drop out culture and hermit culture in China. We must always remember that the current “rule by engineers” in China does not represent the “Chinese soul” but rather the rise of the Chinese Philistine, the fat, obtuse, practical man. Every country has such types – as Nietzsche said, such types are useful as the practical servants of the intellectually sensitive and spiritual types, but they are not meant for rulership as they are too simple and obtuse and only see the “practical” side of things. Alas, when they rise to power.
Worth remembering also that the Legalist regime in early China was the shortest in China’s history- a mere 14 years. A salutary reminder that harsh, repressive, controlling systems never last long.
The CCP is benefitting from the rise of China from a very low base – ironically by creating much more freedom – but once that naturally culminates, the Chinese will clamor for greater freedom.
https://www.sixthtone.com/news/1003932/the-hermit-culture-living-on-in-chinas-misty-mountains
http://www.sixthtone.com/news/1006694/in-chinas-new-age-communes%2C-burned-out-millennials-go-back-to-nature
I just tried searching for Donetsk on Youtube (in Russian) and it resulted in the first 13 videos being from RFE/RL. Out of the first 30 videos 20 of them are RFE/RL. It really feels like the search algorithm is tampered with.
China was actually intending to buy a lot of engines from Motor Sich. This will kill any potential the company had.
This will kill any potential the Chinese owned company had. Win win.
This will kill any potential the Chinese owned company had. Zelensky Genius! The Chinese are forbidden to sell it, who would buy it from them anyway? The Ukrainians essentially got 2.5 billion for free!
https://upload.wikimedia.org/wikipedia/commons/7/79/Ilja_Jefimowitsch_Repin_-_Reply_of_the_Zaporozhian_Cossacks_-_Yorck.jpg
At least they were going to sell engines to China. But now the industry will completely die out in Ukraine.