- Scott Alexander – Welcome Polygenically Screened Babies. First baby polygenetically screened born to a family with a history of breast cancer which wanted to reduce to reduce those chances. SA implies the client was a reader. Eventually it could be possible to do this for intelligence and other personality traits.
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Putin’s Q&A with Russia. I’ll have a separate short post about that.
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Artyom Lukin says China made strategic decision to replace US corn with Russian wheat (based on convo with Russian agribusiness specialist).
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BASED. Serbia’s Vucic stabs Drumpf in the back, reneging on the commitment to move his embassy to Jerusalem, also proclaims he “firmly believes that the Communist Party of China will continue leading the Chinese people to stride forward along the path of socialism with Chinese characteristics.”
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As expected, US withdrawal from Afghanistan means China is sidling in. Plans for road to Pakistan.
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Brian Jacques’ Redwall children’s fantasy series (essentially, heroic mice and surdy badgers fight evil rats and wicked weasels) is being made into an animated series. Minor AK lore: I pretty much learned English from reading this series.
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/r/europe has Europe map of cash payments as % of transactions. Balkans not a surprise, but it’s curious how allergic the Germans are to going digital; or that Russia is more digital is more digital than Estonia.
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Robin Hanson – The Coming Cosmic Control Conflict. Basically, if his Grabby Aliens model is correct (e.g. isn’t constrained by Katechon Hypothesis or something similar), the possible conflicts that may occur along the borders of their expanding spheres of control could make for epic stories.
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Justin Murphy – Urbit and the Telos of the Creator Economy. (h/t MJ). The best introduction to urbit I’ve seen to date.
“If you think the stock price of woke politics is currently higher than it should be in equilibrium, then buying Urbit address space (i.e. Urbit “land”) is a way to bet on this belief.”
FWIW, I never bought the Moldbug association FUD. I don’t think it being loosely tied to an NRx thinker who has long distanced himself from the project will matter if it becomes attractive to use and people come there. Main risk is just that it’s outcompeted by some other solution, just like nobody now remembers Bebo. 95% of crypto-related smallcaps go to zero. Still, it’s one of the most solid projects out there, while I certainly don’t deign to give financial advice, picking up a star in the bear market might be an idea.
Another very good point here is that Big Tech sucks up a lot of human capital that could be more productively harnessed (just like the financial sector). Is Goolag really worth this? Relative to these misallocations, the energy costs of, say, running the Bitcoin network would appear trivial.
- Steve Sailer – New Racial Admixture and Cognitive Performance Study. Here is the paper:
Connor, G., & Pesta, B. J. (2021). Linear and partially linear models of behavioural trait variation using admixture regression. In bioRxiv (p. 2021.05.14.444173).
All the expected results for US Blacks, replicated yet again.
- Humorous but IMO accurate /pol/ explainer on what various lower IQ categories “mean” in practice.
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Center of Bitcoin mining is moving away from China (to Kazakhstan, mostly, as I gather). It’s curious how few mention that this removes one of the big FUDs against Bitcoin.
https://twitter.com/akarlin88/status/1395946341059252224
- IT’S COMING HOME? Not much into football. But my guess is that Italy beats Spain, England beats Denmark, and England beats Italy.
This is the current Open Thread, where anything goes – within reason.
If you are new to my work, start here.
Commenting rules. Please note that anonymous comments are not allowed.
Anyone still follow Spandrell?
He is still on Urbit right? What has he been up to? Is he still “tweeting” but on urbit now?
Harry Kane hat-trick in the final and Boadicea’s ghost joins the celebrations.
What’s the point in getting all the way up into the top of a great power if you’re not going to smash states and remake the world? Finessing tax policy just doesn’t have that megalomania appeal. All imperialism starts with just a road, and all imperialism is great fun for the Emperors.
New Russian National Security Strategy.
http://static.kremlin.ru/media/events/files/ru/QZw6hSk5z9gWq0plD1ZzmR5cER0g5tZC.pdf
Chinese view on it
https://www.globaltimes.cn/page/202107/1227805.shtml
Austrian view on it.
https://russian.rt.com/inotv/2021-07-04/Der-Standard-novaya-Strategiya-nacionalnoj
British view on it.
https://www.themoscowtimes.com/2021/07/05/new-national-security-strategy-is-a-paranoids-charter-a74424
German view on it
https://www.dw.com/en/russia-putin-approves-strategy-to-counter-western-influence/a-58151622
New study: western whites of european descent to become minorities in their own countries this century, even under equal birth rates with migrants, if current migration levels persist.
http://www.mankindquarterly.org/archive/issue/61-4/10
https://cs14.pikabu.ru/post_img/2021/07/05/7/1625483141150433498.png
https://cs14.pikabu.ru/post_img/big/2021/07/05/7/1625483208183892259.png
A new vaccination point in Moscow is designed for vaccination of 6000 per day. As soon as the tail was slightly pinched for those who did not want to be vaccinated, the number of those who were vaccinated with the first dose jumped from 120,000 to 500,000 per day
Taliban takes over North Eastern Afghanistan, former home of the Northern Alliance.
https://twitter.com/billroggio/status/1411305024408465414
Taliban control in Afghanistan
https://www.longwarjournal.org/mapping-taliban-control-in-afghanistan
Linh Dinh seldom disappoints with his insightful commentary regarding the state of things in the world today. He takes a very leveled shot at transhumanism in his latest thread, exposing it as an ugly and menacing practice that will be reserved for the elites who place their own hedonistic pleasures above everything and everyone else. It’s a part of a world, that I’m glad to say, I’ll never see:
A “powerful take” that you should include in your column, eh Anatoly?
https://www.unz.com/ldinh/useless-eaters/
Russia should demand reparations from the United States for its genocide of their Far East diaspora.
https://twitter.com/Underground_RT/status/1411999279523274753
An ideological triumph for the cult of George Floyd and the kneelers?
Anyway, here is an England versus Ukraine football match from the 1970 Ukraine SSR cartoon Козаки (Cossacks)
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Qf2SfTcb4eI
Redwall has long been animated now…
13 – 3 would have been a much better score in favor of the Kozaks. Apparently, they never were able to watch this clip. 🙂
Just depopulating? There are more uses for emulations of humans for sadistic purposes.
http://www.infinityplus.co.uk/stories/colderwar.htm
It would be a good idea not to be among the losers.
I don’t think the elite will ever want to get rid of the lower classes. The whole point of being elite is so that you can feel superior to someone. There is literally no other point.
If you look at past elites, they loved to have huge armies of retainers and servants to do completely useless tasks like dress them which they could easily do themselves. The point of it was that you glorified yourself by taking care of an army of retainers who were loyal to you on turn.
Today, it’s been speculated that lots of corporate bosses have revived the practice and many jobs are essentially just being a medieval retainer to add to the glory of the boss.
Elites and the lower classes exist in an interdependent and symbiotic relationship. In fact, I would say elites need the lower classes to feel good about themselves far more than the lower classes need the elites.
Even Linh Dinh would not be able to enjoy his favorite pastime, the delicious thrill of feeling sorry for himself and feeling that he is an unjust victim of evil elites. Without whining and bitching, you would take away Dinh’s main pleasure in life and reason for existence.
And how many people among the lower classes can blame the basic unsatisfactoriness of life, and their personal inadequacies, on an evil elite unjustly oppressing them?
The elite serve a massive psychological pressure release for the lower classes as well. Both classes need and depend on each other.
The problem is that the elite occasionally forget that they need the lower orders to feel good about themselves and get too oppressive towards the lower classes, and a rebalancing has to take place. And the lower classes often forget their need for a elite they can blame everything on and try and eliminate the elite, with disastrous consequences.
One can see this as good or bad, but Russia is a lot more digital than the US or any country in Europe. I got my first contactless credit card in the US just a year ago, whereas in Russia this was the norm for years. Not to mention that virtually all financial transactions in Russia, including paying for goods and services, can be done using smartphone, whereas the US and Europe are way behind in this. The spread of Wi-Fi in Russia is also greater than anywhere in the world (although in some cases Wi-Fi is weak and slow, like in intercity trains).
“but it’s curious how allergic the Germans are to going digital; or that Russia is more digital is more digital than Estonia.”
Germanic people aren’t very keen on credit/debit cards either which is why they have always had very large banknotes. CHF 1000 banknotes today to the previous Pre Euro German DM 1000 and 5000 Austrian schilling banknotes (more or less the precursor to the 500 euro notes).
I think the driving factor is privacy concerns about leaving a digital trail be it via simple transactions or digitizing medical records.
In terms of ICT infrastructure there is a day and night difference between Germany and Switzerland.
Switzerland is the only country on the planet with cheap(40CHF/month) and widely available 10 Gbps broadband connections. Germany by contrast still relies on copper wire VDSL in most places.
Eternal suffering, to remain vivid, would depend on the contrast of pleasure.
Any being that wanted to subject you to the worst torment would have to subject you to the greatest pleasure periodically to maintain contrast.
He would have to give you Heaven 🙂
Eternal uniform suffering is a superstition – an incoherent idea. People fear it because they have not freed their minds through philosophy and metaphysics.
All dark superstition is dispelled by the light of philosophy, and mankind need not live in fear.
Even w/o this, vaccinations in Russia were easily accessible. I got my first shot of Sputnik V at VDNKh point in June. Every Russian citizen and foreigners with valid permits were inoculated efficiently (still had to stand ~ 1 h in line to get my shot). The drawback is that even though they give you official record, indicating the date, time, and batch of vaccine used, you have to get your second shot in the same place as the 1st. I hoped to do both in June, but that would involve being in the same place for 21 days, which was impractical for me. Now I will get my 2nd shot at VDNKh in July (I need to go to Russia for other business, anyway). Allowing to get two shots at different locations would be a smart move.
Enthusiasts and skeptics
https://a.radikal.ru/a12/2107/71/e0363a9ac5fb.png
This situation has been going on for many months. But now the number of vaccinated people has jumped many times, and the situation has changed. In my town, I went to the polyclinic-there were a lot of people who came hundreds of kilometers away. It turned out that they came to be vaccinated – only in our remote area they are vaccinated immediately, in other polyclinics of St. Petersburg there are queues for a week
Well, a country as big and yet low-density as Russia definitely benefits greatly from mass digitalization.
Doubly so due to the eternal post-communist malaise of corrupt and utterly useless bureaucrats.
Linh Dinh emphasises that the elites will turn their gaze mostly towards the elderly segment within society. These are the “useless eaters” who will supposedly deplete the jealously guarded coffers of the elite, to a segment of society that will consume too much of public finances in relation to their worth and output. Sort of a Marxist viewpoint for the elites, where “From each according to his ability, to each according to his needs” is emulated, but in this case when the elderly have decreasing “ability”, they should just be wiped out.
Linh seems to adjust his opprobrium towards a Western Jewish elite, although not in this particular piece. Naturally, this tendency seems to play well to a large segment of UNZ readership. He has apparently limited his ability to gain meaningful employment because of these controversial viewpoints. All except for Ron Unz, his latest and most loyal employer. Go figure? 🙂
The thing with Montenegro, is that the CCP fully knowingly put them in that position, with the expectation that that frankly utterly unsustainable country will not exist in 10-20 years.
Some people get what they deserve.
Sadly, we will probably be importing these people.
That’s not specific for post-communist countries. In the US there is no petty corruption (like traffic cop taking bribes), but there is large-scale corruption in Congress. More than half of humongous military budget gets stolen (that’s how Russia or China have comparable military for a fraction of the cost). If Congress used the same strict rules for conflict of interest as NIH, there would be no one to vote for or against most pieces of legislation. And that would be good for the country.
Many developments in modern Russia are good. Road cops are largely replaced with cameras that take no bribes, a lot of things can be done via gosuslugi.ru site with no corrupt officials, etc.
There is a joke about Montenegro establishing diplomatic relations with China. Montenegro delegation comes to Chinese Foreign ministry:
– We are from Montenegro, and we would like to establish diplomatic relations with PRC.
– How many of you are there?
– About 600 000.
– And what hotel are you staying in?
BTW, did you ever get a chance to visit the Apache trail? If you wrote about this here anywhere, I seem to have missed it?
https://pbs.twimg.com/media/E5ipG4YXIAEOeqZ.jpg
I’ve often thought that mainland Chinese movies tend to have too many characters in them. Used to think it was some strange effect of the CCP, but then I read that traditional Chinese novels often had over 100 characters in them.
Quite curious. I wonder if it in anyway reflects the Chinese adherence to clans.
https://twitter.com/allowind/status/1411402790438588421?s=20
Mobilisation in Tajikistan in connection with rapid Taliban advance in the North.
https://www.reuters.com/world/asia-pacific/hundreds-afghan-security-personnel-flee-into-tajikistan-taliban-advances-2021-07-05/
https://imgur.com/a/UPzDa2u
https://gab.com/disclosetv/posts/106529168068919406
We live in an age of superabundance. Feeding everyone is trivial.
Eliminating sections of the population is not a typical elite behavior historically, because for them the larger the lower orders the more important and special the elite are, the more retainers they have, etc.
If anything elites always try and enlarge the population, we see historically.
Eliminating sections of the population is typical of lower class revolutions, so I suspect Linh is projecting here. He strikes me as someone who can’t get out of his own psychology.
For many people, Jews are symbolic of “elite” in general. Psychologically, this is fair game as Jews do define themselves as “chosen”. Linh absolutely needs Jews to make himself feel better about his own failures and inadequacies.
If the Jewish elite vanished tomorrow, Linh, like many on Unz, would likely commit suicide as they find their life unbearable 🙂
Before Linh went crazy with Jew fever, he was a little known poet with a middling career. He is right now better known and more successful than he’s ever been. Many of Linh’s strongest promoters before he went Jew crazy were Jews – and now that he went nuts, his promoters are still Jews! 🙂
You could almost see why he’s so obsessed with Jews 🙂
It’s very common for failures to blame large shadowy forces for their inadequacies – it not only makes them feel important enough to be targeted by the great powers (who in reality don’t think about them), it prevents a reckoning with your own failure.
The way out of course is to become spiritual and stop caring about success or failure – the only true cure for this psychological poison, as Jesus understood.
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_international_presidential_trips_made_by_Donald_Trump
Remarkably few.
I did!
It was absolutely stunning and thanks for recommending it! I was going to mention it to you but for some reason I forgot.
The section by the water was unexpected and beautiful. Water by desert is a beautiful contrast. The road was closed at the top and I couldn’t continue all the way to the other side, but I made it fairly high up with stunning views.
I was going to car camp off a side road towards the top, but all the best spots were snagged sadly. Really a very special piece of desert scenery with a special feel. My only minor complaint is that it’s too close to Phoenix so too heavily trafficked, but I went on a weekend. During the week when it’s quite I’m sure it’s perfect.
I’m gearing up for another long trip through the North again in a month – I’m excited!
https://youtu.be/Hc5S51im21w
By now more than a thousand Afghan government military fled to Tajikistan from advancing Taliban. Tadjik strongman Rahmon ordered 20,000 extra troops to strengthen border control.
It is only natural that the US-installed government will suffer the same fate as the USSR-installed, only faster. All neighbors will get thousands of refugees. Another “democracy” successfully installed, no?
Good luck with that, China.
What’s the chance of a proxy war between Uzbek/Turkey, Tajik/Russia, and Pashtun/Pakistan?
Apparently Afghans drink it like water in cities. At times, You can’t find mineral water at shops on highways, but you will always find these drinks, even at the smallest shop.
https://twitter.com/JpLawrence3/status/1410268691279880200?s=20
Not familiar with Redwall, but I’ve become pretty suspicious of anything that anthropomorphizes animals, or otherwise makes its characters non-human.
I’m sure many such stories were meant to be innocent. A select few, like Watership Down, might even be seen as reactionary. But Gumby which was made all the way back in the ’50s was designed to deracinate children. I don’t think that is healthy. IMHO, children should be enmeshed in a culture – not modern anticulture (read multiculture) but something where they see their people and their people’s values represented.
I was recently much amused when I heard they used Arthur the aardvark to do some public service announcement about anti black racism. (So kids are hit with the double-whammy: your group doesn’t exist and you are racist). Surely, there are no blacks in that universe, unless the chimps…
The main products that China exports to Afghanistan are Rubber Tires ($127M), Synthetic Filament Yarn Woven Fabric ($65.5M), and Broadcasting Equipment ($26.4M). During the last 24 years the exports of China to Afghanistan have increased at an annualized rate of 13.1%, from $31.6M in 1995 to $600M in 2019.
Afghanistan’s air cargo corridor to China, launched earlier this year, will enable the landlocked South Asian country to export pine nuts worth 800 million US dollars annually. Farmers in rural parts of the war-torn country are pinning their hopes on this major new development on how their dry fruits can access this important international market and improve their lives.
Afghan President Mohammad Ashraf Ghani inaugurated the China-Afghanistan air corridor on Tuesday with an aircraft carrying 20 tons of pine nuts worth about 500,000 US dollars from Afghanistan’s capital Kabul to Shanghai, timed to coincide with the first China International Import Expo (CIIE) held in the city from November 5-10.
Describing the air corridor as a landmark in strengthening bilateral relations between China and Afghanistan, Ghani stated that Aqrab 15 in Afghan calendar, which falls on November 6, would be marked as National Pine Nuts Day henceforth, according to a statement from the president’s office.
“Twenty tons of pine-nuts will be exported to China per day until the end of the season this year,” said Shokrullah Amiri, an official from Afghan President’s Administrative Office, adding that “Afghanistan’s total pine nuts output is 23,000 metric tons a year, and China is the major importer of the product.”
As many as 50 Afghan companies have partnered with Chinese firms to export pine nuts for the next three months, Reuters news agency quoted Naseem Malekzai, chairman of the Afghanistan-China Business Council in Kabul, as saying. “It’s our first air cargo consignment to Shanghai, but soon we will be sending Afghan products to Beijing and Quanzhou,” he added.
Improving market access
Afghanistan’s economy is heavily reliant on import and is increasingly turning to overseas markets to offset its trade deficit. Imports from China in 2017 stood at 1.09 billion US dollars.
The country also participated at the CIIE, exhibiting a range of products including carpets, saffron, handicrafts, fresh and dry fruits, and precious and semi-precious stones.
Officials hoped that improved bilateral trade and connectivity with China at a time when CIIE showcased Beijing’s keenness in increasing imports to meet rising domestic consumption will boost prospects for Afghanistan’s exports.
Describing China as a lucrative market for Afghan products, the country’s Commerce Ministry Spokesperson Musafer Qoqandi told Xinhua news agency that besides exporting saffron, carpets and pine nuts, Kabul is inching closer to a deal to export millions of cubic meters of marble to China annually.
Afghanistan has initiated a spate of air cargo corridors this year. The China-Afghanistan link “is the 11th air cargo corridor launched to Asian and European countries,” Amiri informed.
Since early this year, Afghanistan has launched two air corridors to India and one each to Turkey, Kazakhstan, Saudi Arabia, and Indonesia, he said.
In September, Afghanistan had inaugurated air cargo corridors with Europe, Russia, and the United Arab Emirates (UAE). The inauguration was marked by a ceremony at Kabul Airport that was attended by ministers and foreign diplomats, Amiri added.
“The first flight of Kabul-Europe air cargo had been initiated through Turkish Airline carrying 20 tons of goods – eight tons of goods to Italy and 12 tons of wool to Finland,” the Afghan official elaborated.
At the launch of the inaugural flight to China, Ghani asserted that his government is committed to bring out its full potential via trade corridors, which are aimed at improving market access for Afghanistan’s agricultural and traditional products.
The Afghan president added that farmers are determined to protect pine nut trees and work to increase their productivity. “Our aim is to change Afghanistan to an exporter country. Pine nuts will be exported to China and to other markets,” Ghani said, describing pine nuts, pistachio and cumin as hidden treasures of Afghanistan.
Pine nuts, known locally as jalghoza, have traditionally been a lucrative source of income for many Afghan farmers and villagers in the eastern region of the country where the dry fruit trees are found in abundance.
Pine nuts trees grow naturally in Afghanistan’s eastern provinces of Nangarhar, Laghman, Nuristan, Kunar, Paktia, Khost and Paktika. Considered as natural treasures, villagers have traditionally shielded the trees.
Afghan pine nut is an expensive dry fruit, and remains extremely popular in Pakistan, India and other South Asian countries.
In Afghanistan’s local markets, a kilogram of pine nuts is sold for about 2,000 afghani (29.41 US dollars) – way beyond the purchasing capacity of most people in Afghanistan, which is still recovering from decades of conflict and violence.
Local traders opine that the price could further double, or even triple, with Afghan pine nuts getting a steady export market in China and other countries. This would, in effect, also increase the earning potential of pine nut farmers.
The Afghan president said local unions will be set up to pave the ground for loans in provinces.
Afghan trader Rasoul Khan reckoned that fresh investment in the sector can result in an increase in productivity. “We can increase our output if the government helps us to change the way of processing from traditional hand collecting to machine collecting and to modernize our packing system”.
Hamisha Gul, a 35-year-old female resident of Afghanistan’s Kanda Chashma village, expressed hope that “modernizing processing and packing of pine nuts would provide more job opportunities for people.”
With the China-Afghanistan air cargo corridor in place, Afghan farmers and traders are hoping to see their dreams become reality.
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Yinon_Plan
Faster, much faster.
https://twitter.com/RichardHanania/status/1412130887748055041
You need to go back, and finish your trip. The end of the trip could be a visit to the very beautiful Boyce Thompson Arboretum near Superior. Visiting during the week is a good idea – check their hours before you plan to go.
https://youtu.be/Y_wGG8jyx6s
As a country, Afghanistan makes no less sense than the USA. Probably more than present-day America.
https://forums.spacebattles.com/threads/best-afghanistan-withdrawal-and-outcome-what-should-the-plan-be-and-what-leverage-does-the-coalition-have.918450/post-76933831
https://forums.spacebattles.com/threads/best-afghanistan-withdrawal-and-outcome-what-should-the-plan-be-and-what-leverage-does-the-coalition-have.918450/post-76686486
yep
Is that really how relative “sense” works in your head?
In reality, the US is the richest non-natural resource and non-tax haven per person country in the world. It has an exceptionally stable form of government and is the world leader is most technologies, with lives mostly led in freedom, peace, safety and plenty. Meanwhile, Afghanistan has been in a constant state of war of all against all for thousands of years and is the most backwards, benighted place on the planet.
You can finesse my descriptions, but you can hardly argue with the point.
https://twitter.com/PilledZoomer/status/1411502669903056899?s=20
https://twitter.com/stillgray/status/1411752361022824450?s=20
The US is a powerful state and empire, not a country.
America is a county, but for how much longer?
And yet it persists despite the lack of a strong state to defend it.
It already was, it was the highlight of my saturday mornings (also based).
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=sUQXAhztE2s
Everywhere persists in some form. Afghanistan as a country has mostly been no more than a label on a map, and not often even that.
If you’re going to make up your own definitions, don’t expect them to count for anything in a dialogue.
A very long time, I imagine. The US changes very fast, which makes it look fragile, but is really an amazing strength. This means that each generation is as united as any generation in any country; which is always what matters in the long-term. Generational conflicts naturally peter out and are extremely unlikely to result in civil war – for, I hope, obvious reasons.
I think Woke politics are awful, but I have faith that people, with a reasonable amount of freedom, will steer themselves onto something better, even if they have to go through their thought process, rather than reversing out.
Holy shit!
I pass through that station every day, and I see that black dude begging every day on the trains! He’s obviously disturbed but usually polite and friendly.
Lol, the problem with NYC is that there are no public toilets anywhere. It’s an absolute scandal! What civilized country expects it’s citizens to not have access to basic toilet facilities?
To be fair to the homeless guy, he didn’t just do it on the floor. He has some sense of decency 🙂
The lack of investment in public amenities in America is shameful. So many issues here. The homeless guy should have free housing in decent conditions. Basic, small units can be constructed so cheaply! Tiny homes can be built for $5,000. And subway stations and public spaces should have freaking bathrooms.
The richest country in the world, during the richest era the world has ever known, when we’ve solved all our problems of housing and feeding.
It’s a question of values and priorities. But it’s more important for Musk to go to space than give everyone a decent living. The two aren’t even mutually incompatible.
https://youtu.be/7-vB3WlAk2c
We are once again witnessing the logical conclusion of what happens to a formerly non muslim country once Muslims outbreed the infidels.
Beirut was once known as the Paris of the East.
Though it may seem far fetched today this could be the fate of France,Germany,Belgium,Sweden and many other countries in the next 50-100 years..
Imagine being this cucked as to not only make such a statement that invites ridicule. But to also believe in the mainstream American version of Pearl Harbor of so-called “sneak” attack.
These days the well-informed in the Sinosphere may possibly have a more nuanced view of dwarves’ reasons for going to war with US/UK than they themselves do.
From 2018
https://www3.nhk.or.jp/nhkworld/en/news/backstories/279/
A Japanese ask for help on the streets of Nanjing, how the Chinese react
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=fQjaWBcsnus
How would that happen short of a collapse? What would be the dynamic of un-woking US – and the West in general?
Even if somehow they would manage to get rid of wokeness, the damage has been done. This is a PR disaster, in most of the world the woke obsessions are shared by only a small minority. West had a certain cache as it was the de facto the leading culture in the world – that is disappearing very quickly. The ridicule and the contempt have started. It will be very hard to come back.
Jonathan Franzen summed-up rather well this need to feel extraordinary…
And btw, Updike’s Rabbit complained that Janice did not give him the one thing men need most — to be told they are great.
In America, there is a clear case for a gain of function argument. Split up the US: end the woke ideology, end the ritual humiliation, the transfer of wealth, the invasion. Increase national IQ.
Now none of that necessarily means that it will split up, or that enough people aren’t satisfied now, or that civil war is desirable, or that they would accept secession, etc. But, anyway, there is a strong gain of function argument.
I don’t know if that is really the case for Afghanistan. Its travails seem to mainly be from geography, low national IQ, and recent wars. It is possibly less diverse than some of its neighbors, going by genetic distance. Certainly, Pakistan and Iran contain some very different-looking people. I mentioned this previously, but in the early ’60s some travelers preferred Afghanistan to either of those countries.
In the end the chase after the extraordinary is a massive trap, one we humans are extremely prone to. It creates an insatiable desire that can never be quenched and is responsible for alcoholism, excessive drug use, wars of conquest, and probably every evil that besets man. Pascal said all the problems in the world comes from our inability to sit in a room and do nothing. Zen sets out to correct this by inventing a form of practice that is precisely sitting in a room doing nothing 🙂
All wisdom traditions eventually counsel a humble and ordinary life – based on the insight that the world in its natural state is as mysterious and extraordinary as anything!
The chase after the extraordinary and superior – as if you didn’t already have it – is to never be able to get it, because you concede that you don’t have it
And yet you can’t find what you don’t already have. This is a great principle. All education is never about acquiring something new – it is about bringing forth into ripeness what is within us.
If you situate superiority or the extraordinary “out there” you have made it forever beyond your reach.
Zen practice is largely about coming to terms with boredom. What else is just sitting and doing nothing?
Montaigne, at the end of his essays, says the greatest thing in the world is an ordinary life without lustre. All striving after greatness is a trap.
https://i.dailymail.co.uk/1s/2019/10/01/21/19174748-7526689-image-a-17_1569962290303.jpg
https://www.timesofisrael.com/lebanese-pm-gave-over-16-million-to-south-african-model-report/
https://www.dreshare.com/wp-content/uploads/2019/10/Candice-van-der-Merwe.jpg
According to the report, van der Merwe made numerous additional trips to the Seychelles and in May 2013 received $15,299,965 from a Lebanese bank. She also received two luxury cars worth over $250,000, which her lawyer said were bought by the same “extremely well-to-do Middle Eastern gentleman” who transferred her the money.
NSFW
https://besacenter.org/wp-content/uploads/2020/01/Sheikh-Hassan-Nasrallah-center-with-Iranian-Supreme-Leader-Ali-Khamenei-and-Quds-Force-commander-Qassem-Soleimani-photo-from-website-of-Ali-Khameini-via-Wikipedia-e1579607187123.jpg
I don’t think you can be a first world country without good public bathrooms. Once, this included the US and UK, but then they shut them down because of drugs and gays. Now, I suspect only Japan qualifies. I’m not sure there is a way around it. I think it requires some form of segregation. Perhaps a social credit system. Or perhaps, the US could go to squatting toilets which are easier to clean.
BTW, have you ever read Poul Andersen’s “The High Crusade?” I found it very amusing, but beyond the comedic tone, I interpreted it as a paean to vitality. I quite enjoyed it.
Why is Turkic identity so powerful?
Anatolians are a mixture of ancient Anatolians, Greeks and Persians. I don’t have the studies in front of me but I am sure there is very little genetic difference between Armenians and Azeris, yet Azeris are very invested in Turkic identity, which is just ridiculous. I t is ridiculous to see Anatolians like Erdogan and Aliyev larp like they are related to broad faced, east-Asian-eyed Kazakhs.
https://pbs.twimg.com/media/EwdGwMTXAAQB1al.jpg
https://pbs.twimg.com/media/EwdFhHHWQAALd59.jpg
https://cdn.i-scmp.com/sites/default/files/styles/1200×800/public/d8/images/canvas/2021/04/28/f447ea4a-4661-4e97-b52c-3b5683714f57_a78b8547.jpg
I don’t think you can be a first world country without good public bathrooms.
LOL
Looks like an attractive nurse. Russian men should be running to get vaccinated.
https://newsmedia.tasnimnews.com/Tasnim/Uploaded/Image/139303010938216932817094.jpg
https://upload.wikimedia.org/wikipedia/commons/thumb/b/b7/Inside_of_the_House_of_Mulla_Sadra_in_Kahan_Qom.jpg/220px-Inside_of_the_House_of_Mulla_Sadra_in_Kahan_Qom.jpg
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Mulla_Sadra
Ya Ali Madad!
I would be terrified if a woman ever told me I’m great! Suddenly there would be something I would have to “live up” to. Luckily no woman has ever told me I’m great – I’d immediately break up with her if she did 🙂
All I ask of a woman is that she tell me I’m adequate. I can do adequate – I think. Better yet, tell me nothing. She can demonstrate her love by continuing to date me 🙂
I once dated a very sweet girl who looked at me with suspiciously excessive admiration. It made me intensely uncomfortable and I had no choice but to break it off.
The Russian tech investments were a really fun start! My friend and I were just talking about how Russian agriculture would also be a great area for investment, as it will only be growing with the coming troubles and bifurcation. Anyone have any ideas for specific companies they would recommend?
I’m excited too about Japanese trainnnnssss! Ha ha ha, such a good time to live.
https://upload.wikimedia.org/wikipedia/commons/0/09/Barbarossa_Hayreddin_Pasha.jpg
https://img.lemde.fr/2021/07/02/131/0/3480/2317/1328/0/45/0/051766a_416930526-000-1oe4xr.jpg
https://www.dzbreaking.com/wp-content/uploads/2018/03/bastion.jpg
People underestimate just how terrible the place is geographically.
There is only 2-3 actually usable areas – around Podgorica and Nikšić and in between, and other small valleys.
The rest is what I’d describe as “Nevada but small and with downpours.” Mountains and rocks with a few bushes that are useless despite having much more rain than even London. Can’t till rocks. It’s all karst.
It’s utterly unsustainable, and for them the highway is completely useless. As a matter of fact we’re the ones that benefit.
They literally can’t even have an economy. They’d try to be some new Switzerland or Monaco but the very fact they’re a Balkan slavic country means that the average western normie jacks off to their extermination and thinks of them as a Borat tier but even worse uber-shithole where they’d only go for arranged marriages or re-enacting the hunger games.
They literally can’t have an economy to back it up.
Yes, the junkies and the homeless tend to dirty public bathrooms up, but I say the city should simply maintain a cleaning crew around the clock. We are immeasurably rich – we have the money. Do what it takes
I think it’s also a problem with our generally “feral” culture that encourages excessive aggression and individual self assertion without regard to others. But I see hopeful signs this is changing. We are becoming more polite and gentle – even the blacks.
I have not! But thanks for the recommendation I will definitely look into it.
How about the Rape of Nanking? Pretty much fraudlies as well?
The biggest simp in recorded history.
Very underrated sci-fi movie recommendation – Oblivion, starting Tom Cruise. It was released to little fanfare but it is a truly beautiful movie. It has a musical score by the fantastic French band M83, and it is very unusual in that there is a steady musical beat throughout nearly the entire film that sustains a sense of intense drama. I haven’t seen music used this way in a film before.
I think it will appeal to all the conservatives here as it touches on themes of patriotism (although to humanity against aliens – but still) in a very moving way. It references the beautiful Macaulay quote “and how can man die better, than facing fearful odds, for the ashes of his fathers, and the temples of his Gods”. I am a liberal – but there is a regrettably atavistic and deplorable side of me that finds those lines thrilling, especially as used in the movie!
However, it does have Morgan Freeman in his classic role as the wise black orchestrator of events, but perhaps our resident racists can forgive that small lapse. Freeman is actually credible in that role
And as a bonus, it features the lovely Ukrainian actress Olga Kurylenko! (At least as she appeared in that movie. She has regrettably declined as of late)
Music recommendation; Porter Robinson, particularly his Nurture album but also his World album and his single Shelter. Officially in the EDM genre but much more than that. His music is inspired by Japanese pop and anime, so it has that sad, “yearning” quality so characteristic of Japanese pop and that is so beautiful. Japanese pop uses a more complex system than Western and achieves a different “mood” that is unique. Similar to a Murakami novel. Porter has a pretty Japanese girlfriend who no doubt also inspires his music 🙂
So pretty much TLDR of Jews is they’re human
https://twitter.com/Parikramah/status/1287792349968556034?s=20
This elite isn’t thinking in terms of population, but resource management.
Less useless eaters, more spare resources.
https://www.reuters.com/world/china/facebook-google-twitter-say-could-quit-hong-kong-over-proposed-data-laws-wsj-2021-07-05/
I never expect the local internet Firewall to be built from the outside, but under the Great Bifurcation, here we are. (Actually there is already a movement away from FB and Google in particular over the 2020 American “elections” and 1/6. In HK. Yes, transposed ideologies.)
The problem is, 90+% is still hooked to American Big Tech’s services, and most aren’t ready to use WeChat, QQ, Weibo, Baidu, etc. It will massively boost VPN sales, being American Big Tech addicts.
But humans are a psychological resource for the elite – the larger the lower class, the more special the elite is. The more retainers, the more servants, the more a sense of specialness.
And there is no scarcity in terms of physical resources, food, housing, etc. There is a superabundance.
Why would the elites try to maximize physical resources when we don’t live in a world of physical scarcity – would they not try and maximize psychological scarcity (the smaller the elite relative to the general population, the more elite)?
Especially when the purpose for an existence of an elite is psychological not physical – feeling superior, not survival.
Greater Lebanon has never been a sustainable country. You have Sunni and Shia peripheral areas joined to the central Maronite + Druze zone and a delicate ethno-religious balance woven into political representation, which easily tipped and led to 15-year long civil war. Add the systematic corruption characteristic of Mediterranean countries and you have this.
Why so? Their language is primarily a Turkic language and they have historically mostly identified with their Turkic roots.
https://youtu.be/IWNRvQdlpvY
Azerbajani Turks protesting against Tehran:
“Iranian security forces disperse Azerbaijani Turks in Tabriz demonstrating against Tehran’s support of Armenia in the occupied Karabakh conflict” 10/01/20
Lack of imagination is your greatest weakness.
Bryan Stelter & Alexey Navalny Busted Up Again:
https://www.rt.com/usa/528433-tucker-carlson-alex-jones-stelter/
https://www.rt.com/russia/528417-liberal-party-rejects-campaigner-nationalist/
Maybe. I think Chinese fiction is basically fond of complexity and tends to spiral off. It probably starts with just having a slightly larger cast so you can play with the idea that cooperation is important, but then each character can get a background and then it just keeps going.
Some wuxias are really infamous for that.
Pakistan is BFF with China. Do you seriously believe that China and Russia are about to fight a proxy war against each other?
Those are all humanist persumptions, while the current elite anticipates posthumanism where much of those are dissociated from the size of biological human beings.
What is the point of being a transhumanist, if you cannot feel superior to mere humans?
I suspect transhumanists will become extremely bored without humans against which they can assure themselves they are superior.
Can you imagine it – eternal life, with nothing to look forward to except some increase in “function”, but completely pointless because no threats, complete security, eternal life – I think they would have to invent humans 🙂
But at worst, transhumanism suggests “indifference” to humans in a world of physical abundance – not active malignity.
But in my view, interdependence 🙂
I envy your optimism.
Straight from British state media, on the “end” of lockdowns:
https://www.bbc.com/news/explainers-52530518
I am not sure if vaccine passports (or substitute testing results) are still going to be used domestically (it taken for granted for international travels), doesn’t seem like so from the phrasing of the article. But more likely it will be promoted thru pressuring business venues and events to adopt it. Johnson isn’t like DeSantis!
I might be overreacting since the HK Chinese reports on this (found on and definitely promoted by FB & Twitter) implies American Big Tech has made a decision (when they refuse to comment on it).
The Plum in the Golden Vase has a list of 54 pages of characters, most of whom seem to share seven surnames.
Children’s books seem to be utter poz these days, but I’d say it’s because of LGBT and the government fag hag army.
The programming seems to have worked too, as a Swedish(!) citizen, i seems to me the US and UK are the most poz-accepting, if not poz-loving, countries in the world.
(The base gets looted … by the troops. The commander gets 10%.)
Dinh does not know much about the elites. The elites need people under them not just for psychological satisfaction as asserted by AaronB but for economic reasons. The higher you are in a hierarchy of people, the more you need people, and the lower you are in the hierarchy, the less the elite can take from you. This is why elites need more people under them. This is close to axiomatic. The elites want and need MORE people, not less. But it is fun as a rhetorical trick to write of elites culling population and living by themselves so there is that.
Every manager I ever worked for considered his importance directly proportional (like virtually 1 to 1) to the number of staff they were on top of. Every school principal measures up their position by the number of students in his school. Every college football coach measures the number of seats in their stadium. Every preacher measures the number in the congregation.
Adam Smith in Wealth of Nations wrote that a nation’s wealth is most easily measured by the number of its people.
There are plenty of exceptions to this but it is absolutely positively definitely the general rule.
Russian vaccination rate started increasing about two weeks ago. It’s up to 700k doses per day. Before that the daily average was under 300k.
Note that increase is only in first doses. The production for the second doses has been underwhelming so it’s possible that many of these people may only get single dose vaccinations (which is marketed as “Sputnik Light”).
https://twitter.com/LouiseMensch/status/1411784593099853825
It’s actually Azerbaijani oil. In fact, “Russia did it” would be more convincing.
Yes but this is only a subterranean desire of much of the elite. It is processed through guilt, unworthiness and many other difficukt feelings.
Posthuman elites might have another way to value things. Perhaps environnement and biodiversity are to be valued more than the subservient masses. Biosphere might become the highest value. If I could live a very long life in the hundreds of years, I would prefer living it on a clean and healthy planet. More people mean more pollution. As a Russian saying goes: больше народу – меньше кислорода.
I have read a (possibly fake) claim that Prince Philip said in 1988 that he wished to be reborn as a virus to solve the overpopulation problem.
“In the event that I am reincarnated, I would like to return as a deadly virus, to contribute something to solving overpopulation.”
https://www.insider.com/prince-philip-quote-reincarnating-deady-virus-resurfaces-twitter-2021-4
Now that I think about it, did the Delta Variant arise after or prior to the untimely demise of the Duke of Edinburgh? (Sarc.)
Stop spamming with your Hindu/Sikh bullshit bhadve. Go masturbate on the TOI forums
Unlikely, but what are the implications if these barriers remain in place?
https://pbs.twimg.com/media/E5hKc_zXMAcHWkK.jpg
https://pbs.twimg.com/media/E5hKc_zXEAI1FRn.jpg
Covishield is already approved by 12 EU countries and will soon be approved by the EMA since many British citizens have been vaccinated with this.
It is basically Astra Zeneca produced in India.
As for the other vaccines if reciprocity is not forthcoming aggrieved countries will mandate quarantine on arrival from such regions which do not recognize vaccinesamong other retaliatory measures.
This is ironic because the most effective vaccine against the delta variant is the Indian Plasmid DNA vaccine(World’s First) developed and made by Zycus.It is a 3 dose intra dermal (needle free) DNA vaccine.
https://www.indiatoday.in/science/story/zydus-cadila-dna-vaccine-efficacy-price-design-clinical-trial-data-1821705-2021-07-01
Yes, friends from Moscow report that there are lines now. People have been spooked by the Delta variant.
Strict immigration control without seeming to be racist.
Putin rejects restoring the former Soviet Union due to high birth rate in Central Asia.
https://www.vedomosti.ru/politics/news/2021/06/30/876344-putin-zayavil-o-netselesoobraznosti-vosstanovleniya-sovetskogo-soyuza
Immigration to developed countries both legal and illegal is big business in the third world.The governments and organizations who benefit from this immigration are resourceful enough to organize the relevant shots.
Pakistan has recently declared that the moderna vaccines it received as covax aid will first be given to people who need to travel to foreign countries..
Vaccines in the next 3-6 months are hardly going to be scarce in any major city for people willing to pay/bribe $100 to get them.
It has nothing to do with Islam, at least not directly – the situation would look similar if one replaced Islam with, say, Hinduism. The general reason for the political mess in Lebanon is the sectarian system already installed in colonial times.
A similar ethnosectarian divide and conquer scheme was forced by the USA occupation forces on Iraq, also with dire consequences (From an Iraqi perspective, not from that of the architects of the invasion – to wreck Iraq and thereby to remove it as a rival to Israel was precisely the whole point of the operation).
The immediate reason for the Lebanese economic crash was a fixed Dollar exchange rate central bank scheme implemented in 1997, that encouraged Dollar influx and allowed Lebanon for years to sustain a current account deficit which devastated the native industry. The USA which has because of the reserve currency status of the Dollar been able to maintain massive current account deficits for even longer is actually in a quite comparable situation and the endgame is likely to look similar.
To be fair I approach the issue with some biases. And Anatolian adoption of central Asian identity challenges some biases. Some quite popular on UNZ.
First. The everyone wants to be European bias, it is an unchallenged when some person who belongs to a conquered race identifies more with the conqueror when the conqueror is European(e.g pro-British monarchist Chinese in Hong Kong). But Turks are the opposite in that European and near European people are identifying with Central Asians.
Second. Race and behavior and genes bias. If culture, behavior and identity are heavily influenced by genes then how could the people of completely different environments and genes share an identity.
Third. There seems to me to be no kind of racial discrimination or bias in an identity based on one ethnicity conquering another. The way lighter skinned Brahmins are identified with the Aryan conquerors of India compared to the darker natives, or how Chinese-Identifying-as-British in Hong Kong might hold British Hapas in higher esteem than non-mixed Chinese.
Turkic identity as proclaimed by its adhenrents is a blood/ethnic identity but it has all the characteristics of a “civnat” or ideological/ identity, yet it has been way more successful than ideological/religious identities, many religions and racial identities have had ‘brother wars’ but to my limited knowledge it seems Turkic people have not.
Could an analogy be made between say, the Slavic Bulgarians and the Turkic Azeris?
This is a good point. I think young children are easily drawn to stories involving animals, but not exclusively, and that can be kind of an excuse not to teach them stories involving real people.
For its part, I read and enjoyed the first Redwall book many years ago, as a child. It was easy to get into. I tried to read the second, but I got bored with it — too many mice for me even as a kid. As I recall Redwall didn’t have anything too objectionable — it was a straightforward story of warfare, and it could perhaps be a gateway to Tolkien, or to the history of the Middle Ages.
It does center around an abbey and some monks but there’s no real religion behind the place — you could call it an abbey of secular humanism, but I recall the book mostly just glossing over this abbey’s entire reason for being. The author is English and I suppose it was a very late 20th-century English look at the whole thing — England still has these beautiful places of worship that most Englishmen would still prefer to preserve, but the English have lost the religion that was their raison d’etre.
All that said, I think I’d still rather my kids enjoy Redwall over Harry Potter, even if the latter involves humans. But yeah, I think there are better options out there than either.
Louise Mensch puts M.A. after her name? That’s pathetic.
Prince Phillip would have liked to be left alone. He is from a background and type that did not particularly enjoy lording it over people; it was just his role.
L’enfer, c’est les autres – Sartre
Muslims unlike non muslims have no desire or record of giving up land to non muslims from a country they have attained an absolute majority for the sake of ‘peace’. The non muslims will either flee ,convert to Islam or live as second class citizens(like Copic Christians in Egypt)especially since once they attain majority through a combination of higher birth rates and conversion/emigration their demographic lead keeps increasing with every generation.
Can you make the analogy for me? I don’t know anything about Bulgarians.
https://www.mintpressnews.com/wp-content/uploads/2020/06/AP_18297492988436_edited.jpg
https://twitter.com/PulseGhana/status/1412356901501693962?s=20
No.
But the narrative is controlled these days by 1. CCP 2. Murica, while the Sino-Japanese War (c: 八年抗战 Eight Year Defensive War, j: 聖戦 Holy War) was almost entirely between KMT and Dwarves, the former is notoriously incompetent at political propaganda, hence why they can’t even hold on to Taiwan; the latter is known for having the worst mastery of English of any race.
For example under Xi,
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Second_Sino-Japanese_War
Whereas under Mao, relations with Dwarves managed far pragmatically if too leniently by renouncing claim to reparations.
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Japan%E2%80%93China_Joint_Communiqu%C3%A9
For US perspective the terms “Rape” and “Holocaust” were initially used by Iris Chang, who (RIP) was not a professional historian much less military historian. Whereas US is entirely indifferent to Yasukuni Shrine, which enshrines many of the same war criminals at Nanjing. So the former can used as a stick to prod Dwarves, and the latter to get on the goat of China and SK.
There were altruistic intentions on US’ part, but they were significantly war profiteers up until the 1940 embargo.
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Second_Sino-Japanese_War#Foreign_aid_and_support_to_China
The German perspective is largely ignored but this was their view
German Mediation in the Sino-Japanese War, 1937-38
https://www.jstor.org/stable/2049139
If you are interested, you can search for in my history the keyword “Chiang”, that’s like half of my comments. And, Google translate the Japanese wikipedia version of the article. It’s the only language that refers to it as Nanjing Incident— Dwarves are quite brazen and shameless in this regard, but deserve to tell their side of the story.
https://senzanubi.files.wordpress.com/2020/12/2020-12-18__-iran-railway-013.png
Now, don’t rush to condemn the man. He behaved rationally: when you get freebies, you use them as you see fit. In contrast, NGO was utterly stupid.
Recently, I’ve come to the realization that I’ve never seen an animated movie from Hollywood that was completely grounded in reality. (For example, a visually striking story set in the past) Maybe, there are some I haven’t seen, or, maybe, the economics aren’t there, in the West – the cheap cost of production that the Japanese can manage in their ecosystem, but somehow I have the suspicion that what it really represents is an astonishing lack of cultural identity for young children.
Heard that in the early ’90s, it was common for straight men in the movie business in LA to shave their legs, in imitation of gays.
I’ve heard that novels were really looked down on in China. That they only esteemed poetry, history, and science.
Maybe, it partly reflects the lack of commercial editors, and people were just writing for their own amusement.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=CEct-uMTnzI&t=12s
I heard about the 5 day visa free regime Belarus has introduced for citizens of 73 countries who want to come to Minsk to get a free Covid vaccination and maybe claim political asylum in neighbouring Lithuania afterwards.
Sometimes Lukashenko can be an imp.
That did not embed correctly. Let me try again.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=jNQAJd8mRV0
Yes, but still this would filter out hordes of refugees. They wouldn’t be bringing their vaccine cards on the boats, and Western governments could even just blanket ban entire countries for the sake of safety. Americans weren’t allowed in Europe until July 1st, despite vaccines. Covid is a convenient excuse.
In Lebanon, Christians and Druze are in the middle:
https://upload.wikimedia.org/wikipedia/commons/thumb/9/90/Lebanon_sectors_map.jpg/300px-Lebanon_sectors_map.jpg
These are a few quote on stock exchanges although the biggest, Miratorg, is privately held. They are mostly a tad overinvested at the moment. Lots of new chicken and pork production units that still have to bed down to make profits, hence the export taxes on grains to keep feed prices down.
The EU when it was 15 countries was a challenge to that. The US is full of natural resource. Idaho is as big as England and Wales (population 60m). Trees, potatoes, beef. Just Idaho.
Not even close. Black Americans earn more than white Britons.
I made that exception to exclude places like Kuwait and Qatar, not places with good potato farming land.
I am trying to figure out whether this fits the Selfish Gene hypothesis…
I see. He was a reluctant Royalty. Did you know him personally?
Most of the Christians are in north-west Lebanon and a large proportion of Shia are in southern Lebanon, so your plan makes no sense.
Re: German cash: I wonder what the east/west breakdown looks like
But Germans are surprisingly woke on similar issues re: modern leviathan: anti-lockdown sentiments, and the EU (read: Fourth Reich) pushed for digital privacy laws, right to be forgotten, etc
You could just give the orange western Shia and the Sunni far northern parts to Syria, and create a Shia min-state in the South. You’ll then have a mostly-Christian and Druze Lebanon, and Syria will have more Shia balancing out its troublesome Sunnis. Everyone benefits.
International travel is dead, obviously.
But those really wanting to get in won’t be scared away from quarantines.
We all know who’s the beneficiacy in dividing Lebanon now.
But why the French expanded Lebanon to include the Muslim parts in the first place?
https://upload.wikimedia.org/wikipedia/commons/7/72/Lebanon_religious_groups_distribution_with_Mount_Lebanon_1862-1917_borders_shown.svg
5 ft tall BLACK pajeet with a white name..
Ok churey||
Yeah its the name of my favorite character- RJ Macready from The Thing chutiye deshbhakt. Apne gaand mai daal desh ke jhande ko or chilla-bharat mata ki maa ki choot. Bharat mata ki maa ka bhosda. Pajeet LMAO!!!
Read this:
https://beyondhighbrow.com/2013/07/23/india-land-of-survivalism-and-chaos/
https://beyondhighbrow.com/2013/06/25/india-as-a-poisonous-culture-indians-as-poisoned-people/
Robert Lindsay is a childless sex offender and you’re unarmed.
I’m a Sikh, I don’t care 4 secular nationalism; India is a fake & gay state that won’t survive the century
Dalits like you will just go back to being bonded labour and wondering how things could be any dif.
Old Brown fool, we’ve been waiting for 5000 years how much longer till you do some Choorey?
ਵਾਹਿਗੁਰੂਜੀਕਾਖਾਲਸਾਵਾਹਿਗੁਰੂਜੀਕੀਫਤਿਹ
I am a brahmin. Fair and well built. I dont look indian.
You’re right in that india won’t survive the century but what makes you think your Punjab/Sikhism will? Remember how after Indira Gandhi’s assasination your kind was killed on the streets? You are a part of india like it or not. If India sinks you go down with it. I couldn’t care less about your religion or your turban and dagger, but the fact is you are in the shit mess that is india.
You guys are known for your valor eh? Maybe your ancestors ought to have shown some valor and resisted indian occupation
Food for thought.
No wonder you hate Pitamah Bhisma Ji for pointing out the low caste of Brahmins.
They wanted a divided troubled place they could have leverage in?
They wanted to create a Lebanon as large as possible while retaining the Christian majority. Many people have pointed out already at the time that the Muslims had a higher natural rate of growth, so that they would become the majority within a few decades.
He behaved rationally:
This was Africa, right? The place where the women do all of the agricultural work and the more wives a man has equates to more food security. Two wives means twice as much food for his children. Where’s the problem?
We already have Hack’s Law. Are we going to add Pajeet’s Law?
This is the problem with institutions and governments. They start making laws and rules and then they can’t stop.
Another thing: you can often tell that the setting of a Japanese anime movie is Japan and that the characters are Japanese.
While in the West, it seems that it is only the rare movie that has a definite setting. And when one does, they seem to not be able to help themselves from undermining the ethnic and cultural coherence of said place.
Chicago would be better governed by a real Pygmy, IMO.
https://akarlin.com/writer/amercouris/
Thanks, we could do with more of these reality checks.
Nuance, friends, nuance. You can be a contrarian without leaping to the most extreme of all extremes. America can have bigger problems than the conventional narrative would have you believe, without being shittier than the shittiest shit country on Earth.
Growing up the Asian kids would always walk around like giant schools of fish.
Also if you watch Asian produced cartoons for kids they have large casts. It is always teams in a slightly older audience cartoons too. It is definitely something cultural.
It’s not everybody that I know that can say that they’ve actually had a law named after themself, that coincidently has been acknowledged internationally. I’m most grateful to Anatoly Karlin for making this all possible. 🙂
Спасибо Толик за такую болъшую честъ!
Let’s be honest: Israel makes little sense as a country. It really needs to be broken up like post-Soviet Yugoslavia, into three countries: an Arab Muslim country and smaller Jewish and Arab Christian countries.
To be fair, let’s make sure that each of the three countries has a bit of seacoast, for economic and defensive purposes.
Each country would also receive a proportional share of underground and offshore resources like oil and natural gas.
To deter aggressors like the “United” States, the former “Israeli” Jews, or a belligerent expanding China, it might be wise to install Russian naval, Air Force, and Army bases, including anti-aircraft and anti-missile batteries, in each of the 3 countries.
Finally, to enable each country to export rather than simply consume its valuable fossil fuels, import Russian-built nuclear power plants and hire RF experts to operate and maintain the plants.
Nothing but unity found within the walls of St. Maron’s church in Minneapolis, near two Ukrainian churches. The Ukrainian Catholic church in the vicinity was gracious enough to share their church for services during the time that the Lebanese community was building their new beautiful church.
https://www.housesofworship.umn.edu/sites/default/files/St.%20Maron%27s.%20602%20University%20Ave%20NE.%20NE%20Mpls.2.JPG
https://i.ibb.co/DYKQNkM/front3-1.jpg
St. Constantine’s Ukrainian Catholic church (consecrated by Patriarch Joseph Slypij), just down the street, one block away.
I’ve only ever had the chance to observe very large numbers of first gen Vietnamese youths. I can attest that they congregate in large numbers, so that they block paths, etc. From watching a travel video once, I also get the sense that it is true of rural Vietnamese.
But I cannot really say firsthand whether it is true of NE Asians or not, or whether there is some analogy with the contrast in sociabilty between Northern and Southern Europe.
I think that was during a specific part of history, like in the 1920s or so, when novels and a lot of fiction were seen as a kind of frippery. Wuxias were particularly denigrated, though, of course, it didn’t change their popularity.
Popcorn emoji.
It’s soothing, really. They are amazing at capturing specific villages, neighborhoods, and cities that are not even Tokyo.
Even if the characters all have different hair and eye colors, but I’m sure it would be maddening making every brown-eyed and black haired. It’s one thing in life to tell Asians apart, but quite another with the “most people look the same” aspect of Japanese animation.
I’m all for the US and Europe completely leaving it for the locals of the region (read: any middle eastern country). Unless a European country finally finds “Old Fashioned Crusader Jesus” and decides to directly annex the Holy Lands and create a new Outremer (this could be Catholic or Orthodox…I don’t think any Protestants care enough for a Christian Holy Land), they should just leave it alone.
If the Palestinians and Jews come to terms with some Hebraic Semitic Nationalism, great. If one exterminates the other, great. If another regional war breaks out, great. The evil is any other country being involved and supporting factions. Looking at us with Israel especially, but it’s not like EU politics isn’t also involved.
Israel is the worst British colony. Canada might have screwed with America for a long time, but at least the troubles they brought us stayed on this continent. If we spent a fraction of the money we spent on arming Israel on invading or bribe-annexing Canada, we’d have a land bridge to Alaska by now and a clear Northern border.
A Slavic people who were briefly by a Turkic tribe called the Bulgars, who assimilated and founded a large Christian Slavic Empire in the mid first millennia AD? I’m fuzzy on what follows next, but it involves Magyar, Byzantine and Ottoman conquests.
The more grounded ones seem to favor natural coloration.
IMO, the danger with aiming for visually idiosyncratic characters, with differing color palettes is that it makes one susceptible to diversity signaling. And I can imagine it can start off innocently enough, as the Japanese don’t have the same experience with these things and for about 150 years, the message that has been promoted to them from abroad seems to have been blank-slatism.
I don’t know Aaron. Out here in the West public restrooms are ubiquitous and clean. Some months ago we replaced the main drain pipe in our house and had to use the restrooms at a trailhead close by during a day, which was perfectly fine. But I’ve used the New York Subway a couple of times and the last thing I would have wanted to do is visit its public bathrooms, if they existed.
Different demographics create different environments. Sometimes radically different within the same country.
As for building a tiny home for $5000, I’m afraid you’re very out of date lol. The other day I spent twice as much just for pouring the concrete footings of my new house.
Apparently, wuxia were banned at different times.
BTW, I think it is quite interesting how China had detective novels earlier, and the ways that they seem to differ, with regard to the portrayal of authority and general style, such as punishments taking place in the Chinese novels.
What best describes Russian Policy?
https://twitter.com/lillianmli/status/1412661449751621634?s=20
(Stepanytch we need to make some “bucks”.)
https://www.currenttime.tv/a/27206098.html
Innovate or don’t innovate, regulate or don’t regulate, as long as you make bucks. Just make bucks…
I don’t know if Haiti has a formal process of succession, in case of assassination. But if not, I propose that they take US blacks in order of seniority, meaning Kamala gets her dreamjob.
Why do you hate Haiti so much?
Exchange rates were different then.
Innovate, then screw up marketing, and let Chinese and Americans grab the technology for pennies on the dollar.
Looks like droplet based space radiator chiller is back in play.
Keldysh Center placed an order for “Капля-2-2” (Droplet-2.2) experimental device. Its a continuation of Капля-2 experiment from 2014. Who knows, maybe we will see those UV lamps in action.
https://zakupki.gov.ru/223/purchase/public/purchase/info/common-info.html?regNumber=32009771905
The point is, it’s an entirely local issue to be resolved locally or by a crusader state.
Peace indeed, for someone somewhere sometime.
Black Americans earn a hell of a lot more than white Britons and white Germans and French and Italians and so on.
The Slavs assimilated local Thracians
Do you actually know Palestinean Christians are mostly on the side of Muslims? Arab identity trumps religious denomination.
Even if Muslim Palestineans were to be ethnically cleansed, Israel would not cease to wipe out the remaining Christians away for the land. A goy is a goy.
But at least you are right about there being no guarantee Muslims wouldn’t start prosecuting Christians if Israel vanished overnight. Christians in many places do it too, that’s what monotheism does.
2 things:
1; Serbia’s government made it clear pretty much after the “Washington Agreement” was signed that it intended to move Serbia’s embassy to Jerusalem only if Israel continued to not recognize Kosovo. The structure of the whole agreement was that Serbia signed it with the USA, not Kosovo Albanians (they only signed it with the USA in turn) or Israel. Bizarre enough (the whole agreement is wierd), Serbia only “promised” to the USA, not Israel, that it would move its embassy to Jerusalem, so it owes Israel nothing (Vucic even made this clear in phone calls to Netanyahu).
The Jewish State of Israel decided to recognize the Albanian “Republic” of Kosovo while the latter moved its embassy to Jerusalem. It’s simply unthinkable that Serbia would reward Israel for such a hostile act.
Also, there was some pressure and activity on the part of Palestine and Turkey to object/protest against Serbia moving its embassy to Jerusaleum. Vucic and Erdogan even had a whole meeting about it where Vucic called out Erdogan for being a hypocrite in recognizing Kosovo while whining about illegal Jewish occupation of Jerusalem.
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Kosovo_and_Serbia_economic_normalization_agreements_(2020)#Unfavourable
At any rate, the “Kosovo-Serbia conflict” and “Israel-Palestine conflict” have become connected issues where Serbia has been reduced to Palestine’s position, especially Serbs south of the River Ibar pretty much endure in nearly the same condition from Albanian settler colonialism that West Bank Palestinians do from Jewish settler colonialism (livestock raid-thefts are an example of a common practices from both settler-colonial groups)…
2; Nothing in the Washington Agreement bans Serbia from having relations with China. Only Huawei 5 G (not referred to explicitly, vague clause). Serbia anyway could use many other different from of economic relations with China before 5G anyway.
https://twitter.com/ArtyomLukin/status/1413125343146352645?s=20
https://www.mapsofworld.com/russia/maps/russia-coal-reserves-map.jpg
https://thecoalhub.com/wp-content/uploads/2021/03/Rosneft-CEO-addresses-issue-of-TSR-and-BAM-limited-capacities.jpg
I just viewed the excellent movie “The Drop.” (2014; Tom Hardy, James Gandolfini, Noomi Rapace, involving a bar in Brooklyn). The Chechens are depicted as extremely: quietly menacing, canny, confident, amoral, and vicious. The other characters are people who really know how to take care of themselves, but they are nothing compared to the Chechens. I was wondering if this portrayal is accurate. Anyway, I recommend the movie highly. The ending is magnificent. And if I’m ever playing online chess with a Chechen, I will resign immediately.
You seem to attach far more weight and respect to what Schwab says (or is alleged to say) than the Russian government, or most other people.
This is a ridiculous claim. If Putin had money where the idiots like Navalny allege, it would have been stolen by Western thieves, like Gaddafi billions (that “disappeared” form a “safe and reliable” Western bank).
Putin is in the same position as Stalin: while he is the boss, he has whatever he wants and does not need any money. If he is still alive and not the boss, no money would help him. Naturally, not being a hopeless moron, he behaves accordingly.
NSFW pic of Klaus:
https://external-preview.redd.it/1D-42hzpwapobtgbdDli3pBb6wSoWROdYH2j8GaTUaI.jpg?auto=webp&s=cbc7c87978196795b4529a1ced03858bad401828
That was exactly the message that Buckhalter conveyed to Putin in 1994: if RusFed moved further into Eastern Ukraine the RusFed elite finances and assets in the West would have been seized.
Putin peed his pants and backed off instantly like the venal bitch he is. While the Donbass women and children he swore to protect kept to suffer and are suffering to this very day. He has always been that way, since his Leningrad times.
Степаныч, бабки делать надо…
https://www.currenttime.tv/a/27206098.html
https://www.currenttime.tv/a/putin-investigation/30515774.html
Some. Many US citizens can’t afford healthcare or education. 18% of GDP is spent on healthcare for worse results than the UK’s 7%. So deduct 11% or more straight away. Then defence. Exactly what is US defence overspend on pontless wars contributing to living standards?
Black American mean household income is about 33% higher than white British income. That is huge.
This is before taxes, so military spending is irrelevant.
Black Americans also either have health insurance included in their job, so it is free, or they get it free; as medical care is not easily refused to them in the US.
Their taxes are also lower, as are their living expenses.
Black people in America are quite possibly materially 50% better off than white people in France or Britain.
Why do you hate this fact so much? I don’t get it. It isn’t like this fact is offensive. Or do you just not like that, given the American political structure, black Americans are better off than you in the UK or you would be in the EU?
Isn’t this amazing given all of the propaganda saying how oppressed and discriminated against those black people are?
Any proof of that? Like, a can write that you are a Martian in different languages, but would that prove anything? From scientific point of view, nothing except my obsession with the idea.
Median black American household income was $45,438 in 2019:
https://www.statista.com/statistics/233324/median-household-income-in-the-united-states-by-race-or-ethnic-group/
Median UK household income is £29,900, or $41,219:
https://www.ons.gov.uk/peoplepopulationandcommunity/personalandhouseholdfinances/incomeandwealth/bulletins/householddisposableincomeandinequality/financialyear2020
In the USA people have to pay for their own health insurance, but then overall tax rate is lower so much of this advantage is lost. I suspect cost of living is higher in the UK than in the USA.
Materially, Black Americans are slightly better off than Brits.
Though white Brits (whose incomes are above the British average) might be slightly richer than American blacks.
I agreed but actually I was wrong in doing so (see my post). African Americans are slightly richer than the average Brit, but slightly poorer than white Brits.
Out of curiosity, where are the figures for this coming from? The ones I find UK income is somewhat higher, if not by a huge amount.
I was surprised by how high African American incomes are, a lot higher than many white countries in Europe.
Given all of the attention being devoted to them and their plight discovering things like this makes me quite angry. The way it is portrayed at the moment they are supposed to be the wretched of the earth groaning under the inhuman oppression of the US white supremacy system.
I am already annoyed from reading the BBC article over on the Sailer blog about how blacks need to be brought into the English countryside to liberate the people there from their racist thinking because …apparently some people who came from those areas in the 17th and 18th centuries were partly responsible for laying the foundation of the future satanic USA.
I might be exaggerating this but I don’t think by much.
You’re right. I screwed it. I used the US “mean” and the UK “median”. I did not realise the second bit. Thank you for correcting me and sorry for the error.
I still find it remarkable, but it is far less than it seemed!
I agree, but I made an error. My point is generally OK, but the extremity of it was wrong.
Can we have a “sorry” react?
It’s the smart fractions in O-Ring industries which tend to determine wages in economies as a whole. Black Americans are highly privileged (at least in material terms) to live in a country with plenty of highly talented people in a legal and regulatory framework optimized to maximize their productivity.
I have posted links, if you want to know read them. Also have a look at what transpired after Buckhalter and Putin meeting, how Putin was shaking in his boots, while Buckhalter was acting like the Chad he is.
Also, Zapol’skyi wrote a whole book about early Putin’s career in Piter.
https://donsimon.net/putinburg/
Sputnik & Pogrom published a few essays by Zapol’skyi too (therefore I am sure Karlin is aware of all this):
https://sputnikipogrom.com/tag/%D0%B4%D0%BC%D0%B8%D1%82%D1%80%D0%B8%D0%B9-%D0%B7%D0%B0%D0%BF%D0%BE%D0%BB%D1%8C%D1%81%D0%BA%D0%B8%D0%B9/
Of course, SiP did not directly describe what Pynya did at the time, but the essays they published are still a great read. If I’m not mistaken SiP was closed shortly after starting to publish Zapol’skyi, probably a coincidence.
I remember Piter well back then, my boss often sent me there from Moscow for business. I also have family there and it was where my ex-girlfriend lived. It was a terrible place then and one of main reasons was because Sobchak and his clan, which included Putin, were bleeding Piter dry, acquiring their first tens of millions.
Then the same gang took control of the whole RusFed and they succeeded because they gave Bor’ka Alkash and his family guarantees that they will never be persecuted. And they acquired tens of billions of wealth, while some 1,5 trillion US $ was moved West by the RusFed kleptocracy which become the new RusFed aristocracy.
I can post multiple links to sites claiming that the Earth is flat. Their existence does not make it any flatter.
By proof I mean something other than someone saying a thing. Talk is cheap. It’s neither here nor there. Documents that can be proven not to be fakes constitute proof.
Mind you, I am not saying that RusFed elite is honest. No elite is. You don’t become elite by being honest. But I doubt that it is any more thieving than, say, the US elite.
https://putinvor.wordpress.com/2020/01/17/zapolski/
Бойцы вспоминают минувшие дни…
When in 2016 I visited a cemetery near the place where my relatives live in Piter, and where some of my family members are buried, I noticed that many graves were those of relatively young people in their 30ies and 40ies who died in the 90ies.
Recently, I have read in Pavel Pryannikov’s Telegram Blog that around 1 million people were murdered in RusFed between 1990 and 2000. I have no idea where Pryannikov got this number from, but he’s usually reliable and well informed. When one reads what is described in the link above, one understands how this might indeed have been possible.
Also, Putin is just Yeltsin 2.0: an enhanced model of post-sovok RusFed kleptocracy. Yeltsin was the root, while Putin is the fruit of this poisonous plant. Many people think that Putin is better than Yeltsin, this is true. But it is only true because Yeltsin was a subhuman scum of such a low level that it is very difficult to be worse than he was. Nevertheless, Putin always demonstrates an utmost respect towards the memory of Bor’ka Alkash. Because Putin knows that without Yeltsin there wouldn’t have been a Putin.
https://lenta.ru/articles/2021/06/11/rutskoy/
Well, the criminal investigations mentioned in the links are well known. But since VVP is the caudilio, no surprise the information is not widely distributed.
But my opinion is that “Western Partners ” have all the files, perhaps since the very days Putin worked in the СВР in Dresden (most people think he was a KGB guy, but that was just a front). At the end, before leaving DDR to go back to Leningrad, VVP supposedly transferred microfilms to the BND and was secretly filmed while doing it. Zapol’skyi supposedly saw this video, although who really knows whether it’s true.
Also the story of “Balcony Anchen” is a little puzzling. The lady was an intimate friend of Putin and his wife in Dresden, and she was also a BND agent spying on the KGB while posing as a translator. She got pregnant by an unnamed “KGB officer” and got exfiltrated to the West before the fall of the DDR. A son was born, I have no idea who the boy’s father was, all I know is that Ludmila Putina stayed good friends with this German spy for many years, they wrote letters to each other until Putins moved to Moscow.
Sorry, you are mixing semi-credible claims with preposterous ones. Just one example: if the Empire or one of its vassals had the dirt on Putin, one, the West would love him, like it loved Borka Alkash, and two, he’d behave like Poroshenko, Zelensky, Bolsonaro, and similar nonentities, not the way he actually behaves.
I don’t know much about the others, but Bolsonaro is as ineffectual as he is, because he has no institutional or elite support in Brazil whatsoever; not even from the military.
Brazillians, like many people, seem to think that you vote in one guy and everything he wants gets done.
The problem is that no one guy could ever do that. Modern societies are very complex and achievements are made through hundreds of thousands of people working in hundreds of institutions. The managerial class determine the direction of the state, though they may be determined themselves, by deeper forces of history etc.
Electing a President to change the course of a country is like trying to reverse an oil tanker’s direction with a tea spoon.
Putin is doing what he has to do: pumping the gas, oil, natural ressources and moneys to the West, while playing the baddie in the Globalized Kabuki Theater. He keeps RusFed predictable and useful. He did his best to ensure that RusFed will never be free from the Globalist yoke. Globalist Cabal needs a scarecrow and Putin is perfect in that role. He’s basically a pseudo-patriotic Globalist agent in RusFed. What’s not to like?
BTW, Globalist take over was planned in FUSSR since the late 1960ies, read about Vienna Institute of System Studies that has been the joint venture of the Western Globalist elites and the degenerate Sovok Nomenklatura. So basically Putin has just become the face of this process at a later stage, a kind of ventriloquist puppet so to speak. They’re all simulacra: Yeltsin, Putin, Obama, Trump, Biden etc. Pelevin hinted at this in his Generation P, but most people think that it’s just a joke. But as Russian saying goes: сказка ложь да в ней намёк, добрым молодцам урок.
Anyway, you’ve got the links, you’re a smart person, you read Russian. See for yourself and make your own assessment. I basically don’t really care whether anyone comes to the same conclusion, it doesn’t change anything for me personally. I do it for nostalgic reasons mainly, AK is right, I still did not forget the 90ies. It is still very vivid for me, but life goes on and future is already knocking at our door: Great Reset and all, we’ll have to live through many other interesting times before we find our final rest.
This is from 2014 article:
A lot of powerful marketing + the fact that their incomes are lower than those of whites. This results in envy by some blacks and also clueless feelings by whites. Americans of all races are rather insulated from the rest of the world, to an extent for understandable reasons. So whites aren’t aware about incomes in Europe, they assume the plight of blacks is extreme.
This discrepancy between household income (the basis of the figures I cited) and the figures you cite may in part be accounted for by family size. Blacks have more kids than American whites (and even more than do most Europeans), so per capita black income would be lower than household income, due to there being more non-working kids among the black population who add people to the per capita equation, but not income.
Obviously the US is not going to collapse and there’s not going to a civil war.
The most likely future for the US (and for the West) in general is that the system will continue to function whilst slowly growing more corrupt and more inefficient. But that doesn’t matter because the US is too big to fail.
Life will probably grow slightly more unpleasant for most people but they won’t notice the change. They’ll assume that things have never been any different.
Freedoms will continue to be slowly eroded and dissent will become more and more impossible. But most people won’t care because they won’t remember a world in which freedom and dissent existed.
There’s no reason whatever to think that ordinary people will ever seriously question crazy ideas like Wokeism. And they’re not going to have a reasonable amount of freedom. They’re going to have slowly but steadily declining levels of freedom. People in the West are much less free today than they were a few decades ago but they don’t care. If they’re under 40 they have never experienced actual freedom and if they’re under 30 they have never experienced even a moderate degree of freedom. They just think it’s normal that unpopular people should be silenced, because if you’re unpopular you must be a bad person.
That, natural resources (certainly higher in America than the UK or other parts of Europe), economies of scale (Big Tech), and then the reserve currency windfall. The smart fraction is a prerequisite of all this, without them none of these would be beneficial much.
COVID lockdowns aren’t a significant change to every single life on this planet.
Contested electoral results isn’t a large crack in the overall legitimacy in Biden’s regime.
There is no political polarization in the US and hence the construction of alternative power poles (conservatives) that mainly oppose the existing establishment (with its wokism).
Yep, civil war isn’t going to happen. The Soviets never fell, too.
(but you are right about the unfree part – simply because people always value security over liberty. Liberty is only a modern liberal obsession.)
It could have been done if (in a LaRouchean way) fusion power development hadn’t been halted when the focus of globalist elites (Schwab included) turned to neo-malthusian economics. It wouldn’t have been convenient enough at first but the potential for safe, abundant and (over time) cheap energy is there.
The ideology is sold as just basic decency and morality. If you say that blacks commit a lot of crimes that means you are at a minimum an asshole, but perhaps just a few steps from becoming a mass murderer like Amon Göth. So it’s not bad because it’s unpopular, it’s bad because it’s bad, and whatever punishment you get you deserve it and you had it coming.
That means the eviction of a majority of Palestineans remaining in Palestine who are descended from Christian converts to Islam and some minor Bedouin elements, whose culture is little different from their Christian compatriots, but often ideologically radicalized by Wahhabism.
You are deliberately not getting my point. Economic land for settlers.
Christian Zionist spotted!
(I do not deny historical Muslim atrocities. But Christians and Jews did a lot of genociding and fraticidal wars, too. Preach peace and then prosecute with a sword.)
You might be unaware that Christians were ethnically cleansed by Zionists in 1948-50, just like Muslims, and often more easily because the Christians often had bolt holes abroad and more money so they left to sit out the war abroad. To their surprise they were not allowed back by Israel after the war. Those who stayed behind were usually booted out as well. Actually I think proportionally more Christians than Muslims were cleansed in the first war. Then it had a knock on effect as Christian Palestinians had more relatives and contacts abroad and so found it easier to leave the Palestinian bantustans as the situation deteriorated.
But obviously Christian Palestinians have little reason to like Jews or Israel.
https://tomluongo.me/2021/07/06/from-the-notebook-eviction-is-just-another-word-for-extinction/
Even in such details as the rent and mortgage moratorium Tom Luongo gets the plot right. While he sees everything from a libertarian perspective and hates it because it id one of the ways that assist the lockdowns, this piece makes sense even from a classical Marxist standpoint: the point of imposing only a rent moratorium, without taking the Michael Hudson pill to cancel rent accrued without corresponding (libertarians can argue this breeds renter irresposibility as much as they like), is to accumulate rent to unpayable levels in order to push housing mortgage debtors and rentee into bankruptcy and dependence.
How so? Give us few examples. Like a list of ten or just five specific areas/items where there is less freedom than 30 years ago?
Yes, the figures were a bit off but IMO the main point you were making was a good and valid one.
There is an interesting aspect to this in terms of the way the US is portrayed in our media here in the UK. The general impression I was getting was that black incomes would only be about $15,000 a year, they live in shanty towns and so on and it is like Jim Crow and slavery only ended the other month (an example of the weird telescoping of time that happens with highly ideological worldviews?).
It seems like in reality most of the problems that black Americans should be solvable within the framework of normal democratic politics, and don’t require rejecting it in the name of the weird far-left and black nationalist beliefs that underpin things like CRT and ‘Whiteness Studies’.
The way this mania about white racism and the evils of colonialism has taken hold is kind of concerning. I just read something along these lines the other day. In one of his last public speeches (Determination to Remain, 1966) the Portuguese prime minister Dr. Salazar made this point:
‘The path of independence alone cannot resolve this problem (of racial discrimination and social inequality of black Africans). It will only be resolved by the gradual ascension of the masses through work and education to the level at which they can aspire to every position and where there is no longer any real basis for social differentiation.
It was fatal that the path that has been followed, raising to the heights of power the repressed hatreds of the subjects of the great empires, should lead to the emergence of another form of racism; racismo negro, with the repudiation and risk of destruction of everything that could constitute and has in fact constituted the foundation of security and progress’.
You might be unaware that Christians were ethnically cleansed by Zionists in 1948-50
I wonder why they made an exception for the Druze and let them throw in on their side?
They push forward a Malthusian outlook because it all at once justifies their privileges, their capability to enforce control and their agency to dictate the pace and direction of social (civilizational) change. If we all had access to the technology that they will have access to in the future “shining tomorrows”, it would be Communist Utopia in the best sense of the term, right here and right now. Can’t allow that to happen, can they?
https://asiatimes.com/2021/03/most-elegant-solutions-to-a-nuclear-fusion-future/
Jonathan Tannenbaum is a former LaRouchean. He is convinced that limitless clean energy is just behind the corner. Perhaps it is and that is why we need to build segregated governance system right now, so we don’t escape into “shining tomorrows” on-board of a “fusion powered spaceship” and don’t end up forgetting that we once had an all powerful elites…
I have become a Pavel Pryannikov’s fan, I strongly suggest you have a look at his Telegram channel / blog Tolkovatel. RusFed fat cats are being anachronistic, unless the idea is just to “steal enough ” et après moi le déluge…
«Глава Минфина Силуанов призвал готовиться к падению доходов из-за «зелёной» энергетики:
«Значительная часть доходов нашего бюджета поступает от экспорта сырья, поэтому нам надо уже сейчас понимать, как мы заменим падающую выручку».
Вот это на самом деле главный стратегический вызов для России на предстоящие 10-30 лет. Безусловно, будет плавный переход с нефти на другую энергию, такое никогда не происходит в одночасье: переход с дров на уголь и с угля на нефть шёл долгие десятилетия. При этом, в потреблении и сейчас остались дрова и уголь.
Но тем не менее, Первый мир наметил стратегию «зелёной» экономики как магистральную, и никуда с неё не сойдёт.
Вероятно, интенсификацию перехода России с нефти на новые виды топлива придётся на новую Оттепель (или, если дела пойдут похуже, на Перестройку) – когда исторически неизбежно aукнется нынешний 25-30-летний цикл консерватизма и заморозки. Так всегда бывает в России – политические циклы совпадают с экономическими.
Пока же мы нисколько не видим у российских правящих семей желания заниматься «зелёной» экономикой. Жирные сырьевые коты сидят на мешках денег – например, один только Сургутнефтегаз отложил в кубышку $52 млрд., но никто из них не хочет инвестировать даже в своё будущее. Например, по всему миру мы видим, как нефтяные ТНК вкладывают в сети электрозаправок, инвестируют в большие ветряные фермы, в биотопливо из водорослей, в водород, аммиак и т.д. У нас же – тишь да гладь.
Даже мэрия Москвы, копирующая сейчас программу левой части Демпартии США, ещё не пришла в «зелёную» экономику, хотя Москва всегда задаёт новации, которые потом кругами расходятся по всей стране. По идее уже сейчас в Москве должны были бы бурно появляться новые и новые электрозаправки для е-мобилей, плоскостные крыши застилаться солнечными панелями, активно идти переработка мусора и т.п. Но ничего этого не видим.
Процесс этот так и так придётся начинать, если Россия захочет выжить. Россия так и останется сырьевой страной, и в этом нет ничего стыдного (например, страны с высшим уровнем развития и человеческого капитала – Австралия, Новая Зеландия и Норвегия – тоже сырьевые). Просто надо вовремя успевать подстраиваться под новые сырьевые товары. Как та же Австралия сейчас активно разрабатывает литиевые месторождения, потому что это металл будущего (для акков в е-мобилях). У России же безграничные возможности для выработки водорода, аммиака и метанола (что? это тоже топливо будущего, и уже сейчас морские суда переводят на них), биотоплива из рапса и древесных отходов, приливных и ветряных ферм, и т.п. Но скорее всего, как мы видим, этим будет заниматься уже новый политический класс в 2030-е.
You can see why this isn’t necessarily the best thing for humankind. (But neither the neo-Malthusian opposite.). In Buddhist terms, we would still be in the realm of Kāma-dhātu and suffering.
https://3.bp.blogspot.com/_KezhQ6waZT0/SZpdmlKwGFI/AAAAAAAAMzc/mQTPnDMtE90/s1600-h/shambhala.2.jpg
Kalachakra Sutra strikes me as an especially Persian-influenced Buddhist work, with its final battle between Shambhala and advanced Mlecchas, and the promise of a Buddhist utopia after that, in the 24th century.
The majority of people living in shantytowns are probably black but the majority of blacks do not live in shantytowns. Average income is probably around 20%-30% lower than for whites, which corresponds to ability. 20%-30% lower than average American white income is still higher than in many European countries.
I actually abhor those kind of Buddhist mythologizing that stands in the way of actual spiritual enlightenment or realizing the philosophical outlook contemplative religions have (just as folk “Taoist” mythologizing goes the way of stacking the heavnly bureaucracy).
So how, in your opinion, does Ukraine figure into all of this? If Russia is actually just one more marionetka in the larger Kabuki theater, how are the elites in the West using the situation between Russia and Ukraine to their advantage? No matter how you look at it, at least for me anyway, Russia’s invasion of Ukraine in 2014 starting with Crimea, was something that Putin concocted, free of any Western influence. It was payback to a weak and defenseless Ukraine for going against his wishes to form a stronger Eurasian Union. I don’t see how any nefarious Western Globalist leaders would have concocted such a scenario or even have given it a green light. Russia has certainly put itself at odds with the US and its Western allies by fomenting this unrest in Ukraine.
Globalists are above national and state level. Just like Imperial Rome was above the tribal level of its barbarian subjects. From a Globalist perspective, Putin is just a parvenu local chieftain of a troublesome relatively large Rossiyane tribe that happens to have settled a too large territory for their own good. A territory that needs being divided one day for the good of all Mankind (Globalists have never hidden that they plan dividing RusFed).
One of the worst possible outcomes would be this tribe growing even larger by incorporating their Ukrainian and Belarusian tribal cousins. That would make this Eastern Slav tribal coalition even more troublesome and less likely to be easily digested and normalized into Globalized sheeple. The territory of the Eastern Slavs would become even larger, wealthier and economically successful. The Eastern Slavs would start again to actively reproduce and generate a large and polluting middle class. Can’t have this!
Enters Putin – Krym Nash and Russkyi Mir ! The Khokhols are definitely pissed off. The future integration of the Eastern Slavs into a confederation becomes impossible in a foreseeable future. Moreover, the troublesome Russian tribe is subjected to sanctions and is vilified as an aggressive barbarian Horde.
This lowers economic development of the RusFed and limits its technological progress (which in RusFed depends greatly on Globalist good will), both lead to RusFed middle class numbers contraction and demographic drop. Meanwhile, moneys and ressources both continue flowing West towards the Globalist center unimpeded.
Divide and Rule for the twenty-first century.
Спасибо Путину за это!
The Druze themselves chose to ally with Israel, and serve in very high positions in the army.
The Christians of South Lebanon also allied with Israel, and many are now settled in Israel and their children serve in the IDF. Israel recently erected a memorial to their service.
It’s almost as if Israel welcomes those who don’t try and destroy it 🙂
There is a growing trend among Israeli Christians to serve in the IDF and identify with Israel. Fascinatingly, there is even a a growing trickle of Israeli Muslims volunteering for the IDF.
Small groups like the Bedouins and the Circassians have always served in the IDF, since the inception of the state.
As always in the Levant, it’s a patchwork quilt of alliances that adheres to a logic that isn’t always evident.
And with the new alliances Israel has made in the Arab world, it seems the system of alliances is getting even more complicated.
There are some broad patterns that are discernible, but it’s a big topic and not relevant here.
Ok, but we have to live with the demographics that we have. And since we are the richest nation in the world and NY the richest city within it, it would be trivial to maintain an army of cleaners and abundant public restrooms – if our priorities were in providing a high quality of life for the citizens.
Maybe 5k is too low a number, but 20×40 cargo containers can be converted to decent homes with plumbing and electric for about 30k . They can be stacked two high. There is a surprising amount of unused space in NYC and the recent use of parking space for outdoor dining shows that we can better utilize the space we have.
Not only the homeless would benefit. Ordinary citizens would too, and it would be a less feral society.
All this and more is possible if we had the right priorities.
Of course I know all of this is utopian. The human ape is not designed to create utopias. As I said above, the elite are not going to forego the delicious thrill they get when they see a dirty and disgusting homeless person, the sense of comfort and security knowing they are not like them.
Realistically, the best we can expect is half measures and palliatives. And this would be good enough, but right now we are too unbalanced on the side of maximizing elite power, status, etc, of maximizing the gulf between the elite and everyone else, so the elite can get the sweet nectar and drug they yearn for – filling their existential emptiness be feeling “superior”.
I am not against an elite. It is absolutely essential to have an elite, and the lower classes absolutely need an elite for a variety of psychological reasons.
But a better balancing is needed.
No; but it’s hard to predict how things will develop long term.
Civil wars don’t happen in civilized places any longer. Who’s going to fight in them? Society is far too sedated and decadent for that. It’s much safer and more fun to play war-themed video games than to get killed attempting the real thing. People who can’t be convinced to go to the gym aren’t going to be convinced to die for an idea, when they already have all the bread and circuses they need.
I pretty much agree with you here. And all because Putin felt that he needed to raise his popularity ratings a few notches in 2014? He didn’t really seem to think this one through very well for the long term. Western sanctions, bad international imaging problems and certainly a “pissed off” Ukraine for many decades. Was it worth it? (a rhetorical question)
Thing is as soon Buckhalter came to talk to him on behalf of our Benevolent Masters, Putin lost all desire to further escalate. Meanwhile, this whole Russkyi Mir things only made sense if they went all in for the whole Novorossiya including Odessa, Kherson etc. So Putin got caught in the middle ever since and there’s no end in sight to the whole thing. He obviously overplayed his hand and is stuck into it. Or he did what he was told to do in order to get a definite wedge driven between the Katsaps and the Khokhols. Go figure…
You seem to give short shrift to the idea (once energetically espoused by Karlin) that to a great extent Putin was motivated to increase his internal Russian popularity ratings, that were certainly lagging before the Crimean invasion, and it worked at least temporarily. He got a huge bump in his ratings You also seem to discount my own proposition (not an original idea, however) that it was all motivated by a payback to Ukraine for defying Putin’s vision to increase participation in his Eurasian Union. Had Putin’s vision been completed with Ukraine’s very important participation, he’d be today treated more as an equal with his global elite counterparts, rather than as a marionetka, wouldn’t you agree?
Could you imagine that such mytholigising might be downstream of experience, e.g chats with such beings, which unfortunately harden into socially received beliefs, rather than an object in and of itself?
The practical difference between the two is that, if from experience, then such encounters are part of the journey, recorded and passed down to reassure others if they experience the same, while if primarily socially transmitted belief, they can become a diversion.
Russian nuclear space tug “Zeus” is getting ready to meet Elon Musks’ Starlink.
https://ria.ru/20210709/zevs-1740535623.html
Russian “Zeus” can be used to disable satellites of potential opponents with electromagnetic pulse and shooting with laser.
Considering that even the base model packs 0.5 MW electric power, greater than anything else currently in space, I believe it. It may be slow to accelerate, but it will be relentless with huge delta v budget (how much maneuvering it can do). Higher orbit should help a bit with slow acceleration. It won’t be able to outrun a Starship, but it will be able to slice the engines off it. Or burn off the high pressure fuel system in the nose, depending on the orientation.
Reminds me of a certain Balkan state.
It seems to be a general Asian thing. Leaving something to assumption is considered “not genuine” or something. Indian literature also tends to be freakishly long, and so do those awful cringy soap operas.
Heck, anime also suffers from this. Jokes about entering a single small cave taking up an entire season are common.
I just think it’s some form of pedantry.
Easy.
1. Freedom of the press. The unanimity of the MSM in the US in 2021 was achieved previously only twice in history: in Hitler’s Germany in the 1930s and in Stalin’s USSR in the same period. No wonder blatant lies abound: “largely peaceful” protests, living a string of lootings, arson, and murders behind; “violent insurrection” in Washington on Jan 6, that was neither violent nor insurrection; etc.
2. “Social media” is heavily censored, which was not the case even 10 years ago. Any dissenter is arbitrarily banned. Google searches used to be honest 10 years ago, now they bring “undesirable” (we know by who) results in the second thousand of hits. This can be easily tested experimentally: do the search with the same key words using Google and non-Google search engines.
3. Spying on citizens. Tucker Carlson just conducted an unintended experiment. He mentioned his desire to interview Putin in a few emails. His emails were read by “someone” (guess who?) and their contents disclosed to a regime shill in Washington. FYI, this is against the US law.
4. Self-proclaimed “Patriot Act” is unconstitutional, as it removes lawful limits on search and entry, spying on citizens, detention, etc.
5. Political culture: anyone not toeing the prescribed line is proclaimed “racist”, “trumpist”, and similar things, deprived of his/her job and often freedom.
That’s just five. One can continue indefinitely, but not to convince you: nobody is as blind as someone who refuses to see.
And speaking of space wars, Americans want to resurrect NERVA project (nuclear thermal rocket, or NTR) for space manuever warfare.
https://www.defensenews.com/opinion/commentary/2021/07/08/maneuver-warfare-in-space-the-strategic-imperative-for-nuclear-thermal-propulsion/
A noble goal, and a theoretically correct one. Indeed, NTR is the best system for short to medium period (such as around a planet) orbital maneuvering and target interdiction as it blends fuel efficiency (ISP, specific impulse) and power (thrust) in just the right combination. Chemical rockets are very powerful but very inefficient and plasma accelerators are very efficient but rather low power.
NTR has a problem however. It only works well with liquid hydrogen (for any other propellant you are better off with a chemical rocket) and the best storage systems lose something like 0.1-1% of liquid hydrogen per day. This makes combat NTR spaceships useless for medium or long term operations.
But what do then? Give up on nuclear space warships? Absolutely not. If you have electricity, you can electrolyze water (1 cubic meter of water contains about 100 kg hydrogen, compared to 1 cubic meter of liquid hydrogen containing about 70 kg hydrogen), unlike hydrogen, you can store water in plastic buckets as long as you have electricity to keep it from freezing.
What to do with remaining 900 kg/m3 oxygen? While oxygen is extremely corrosive in an NTR system, and has very poor efficiency (ISP of about 250 seconds vs 1,000 seconds for hydrogen), it can provide initial high thrust for rasing your apoapsis as you set up for an interdiction. A disposable ceramic exhaust pipe lining that can surving hot oxygen environment, even if briefly, should be able to do it. Once you burned off your oxygen you will end up in a high elliptical orbit with long period where you will switch to either liquid hydrogen for high performance or proton plasma accelerator for high efficiency. Oh, and you can use steam for attitude control thrusters.
TLDR: Americans are correct about NTR being a good system for orbital interdiction and manuever, but they are missing some physics limitations. What you need in space is water and lots of electricity. Russians are solving the electricity problem. Water propulsion will be a natural next step (Americans kicked Russians out of Momentus for a reason – it’s a key strategic technology).
,The Druze themselves chose to ally
I know that you are only a make believe Jew, but try and follow the question.
I thought I answered the question?
Anyways, you’re a little too nasty and unpleasant on the topic of Jews, especially to me, so I’m not really going to be getting into discussions with you anymore.
I’m sure you’ll get an answer more to your liking from someone else.
I don’t think it would be trivial to maintain that army of toilet cleaners, especially if it was staffed only by legal residents, but, in general, what you say sounds sensible. However, I suspect that it wouldn’t work. These people have managed to be homeless living in the richest city of the richest country and to make parts of that city look like the 3rd World. By the same token, they would eventually manage to win the war against the army of cleaners.
In fact, my prediction is that the problem will get more widespread in the US. Here in the Interior West the invasion from the South is becoming more and more noticeable. I personally know South Americans who are bringing their relatives as “refugees”. The going rate some weeks ago was $800 to bribe the Mexican police to let you in knowing that you’re not a tourist (up from $500 a couple of months ago) and $2500 for a coyote in northern Mexico who will take you to the border. Then you just give yourself up quickly to any US authority that you find, claim refugee status and, at least if you have the right nationality, in 1 or 2 weeks you’re free to join your relatives and start working the following day for more money in a month that you ever made in a year.
I have sometimes had the idea of reporting these people to the authorities but it’s kind of funny that there wouldn’t really be anyone to report them to. Local and state law enforcement don’t deal with immigration issues and the Feds are the ones who decided to keep the borders open and release these illegal migrants into the US. So why should anyone else care? The demographic future of the US looks quite certain at this point and it’s the US population that has decided it (even if it’s true that there was considerable fraud in some swing states, Biden undoubtedly won the popular vote).
Yes.
The thing to do is learn enough law that you can know when they overstepped their bounds. When and if you have a good case then sue the ever living fuck out of them. This is the only way to defend yourself in 2021.
I thought I answered the question?
Well, you didn’t.
you’re a little too nasty and unpleasant on the topic of Jews,
I prefer to think that I am open and frank.
especially to me
This is true. It’s not because you are a “Jew”. I would be as hard on any other moonbeam collector. I’ll take another look and try not to be so nasty to you. I am open to self improvement.
Well, Krym Nash considerably increased the RusFed government approval for a couple of years and the war in Donbass offered a distraction from internal problems. But you probably remember how I described the bizarre strategy chosen by Torchinov, who actually surrendered Crimea without firing a single shot despite the Ukrainian top brass being ready to resist the takeover. The Ukrainian government at the time did absolutely nothing to keep Crimea from being annexed, they had a few options and didn’t use any.
https://reddevol.com/articles/kryim_i_nemnogo_faktologii
The EU 15 survey also reckoned that the poorest 20% of US citizens were much worse off than the poorest 20% in the EU. The next 60% about the same. The 15% of minor professionals and self employed were materially better off in the US and the final 5% were much better off in the US.
Then the EU let in Easterners.
(1) It depends how you define what is the MSM and how you normalize it by the segment of market they cover. I do not think you could find a sensible metrics to support your point.
(2) Any new technology with time gets regulated. There was no FAA when Wright brothers built their plane. You could fly in any direction and place you wanted.
(3) Spying was always done but it was not revealed. That it was revealed in case of Tucker and now even a sovok can gripe about US law violations as if he cared I think is a sign of improvement.
(4) I agree that Patriot Act was a step back but overwhelming majority of people are not affected by it while at the same time they re welcoming it to be applied against enemy aliens.
(5) Political culture was always divisive and aggressive. Its as more so. Check some papers form the turn of the 19/10 century but it was more local. Now it is highlighted by media that have universal reach. Anyway, if you can’t stand the heat stay out of the kitchen. Stalin’s Russia was idyllic in this respect.
I agree. One could also add the attacks on double jeopardy protections.
It’s happening throughout the West. There’s been a sustained attack on Habeas Corpus in Britain. In Australia the Racial Discrimination Act has severely curtailed freedom of speech. Hate speech laws have proliferated throughout the West.
Too clumsy. If your supervisor is worth his/her salt, you want be paid for this pathetic failure.
Maybe there is no difference between regulation and censorship where you live. After all, there wasn’t any in Hitler’s Germany and Stalin’s USSR. However, normal people can easily tell the difference between the two.
As to Patriot Act, it affects anyone the regime chooses to. That’s the gist of it.
See also #264.
You really liked the EU as it was? Why?
I appreciate your study, but, not only is it from the EU, but also would have missed things like how the average poor American has a house like a palace, compared to Europeans.
Since the median US household income ($68,703) is much higher than the median European household income (in the UK it was about $45,000), the 60% in the middle could not be the same; they are much richer in the USA.
I do suspect that the poorest Europeans are better off than the poorest Americans – probably the bottom 10%, but maybe the bottom 20%. If you didn’t finish secondary school and are a lifetime cashier at a gas station, you are probably much better off in Europe. But the other 80% are better off in the USA.
Once the US cuts off all support and intervention in the region, Israel will probably become a more or less fine country as it works to further integrate its diverse (religiously) population under one kind of Israeli/Hebraic/United Palestine (whatever they decide to name it) kind of identity. That or finish the Nakbah, but this solution is probably better (Semitic-Hebraic Nationalism and Abrahamic Faiths).
Anyhow, it’s something that should be worked out solely on the local playing fields of realpolitik and national decision making. The most corrupting influence in all of it is British and American intervention, past and present respectively.
Aaron went in to detail on it, but the general idea for any group entering any foreign region is, even not maliciously necessarily, to divide and conquer. In politer and more daily life terms, it means finding people willing to work with you and share common cause.
The Druze are both competent fighters who dwell in influential, yet remote and economically undesirable mountains (Ashkenazi Jewish settlers aren’t going to be desperately trying to settle some mountainous sheep herding regions, so there is no inherent conflict there) AND more importantly, the Druze generally had questionable relations with the wider Islamic community, being syncretic heretics (from a Sunni perspective). This means, when the Jews showed up as the new power, the Druze basically looked at them as a chance to have greater political power under a heathen who doesn’t care about their religious beliefs, than a heretic who absolutely does (to the extent any of the Muslims masses would). The Jews in Israel recognized this opportunity, of course.
This is why we see things like the Orthodox Russians accepting Mongol (Buddhist-Tengriist/Muslim) dominance over submission to Catholicism, The Hmong and Montagnards working with the French and later Americans, and various Indian polities, Muslim and Hindoo, alternatively allying with the Protestant British against each other.
As for whether it was a good decision, the Druze are making off better than the other Palestinians. As for whether it is a good decision long term…well, the future is hard for anyone to guess. I suppose as long as there are mountains there, the Druze too will be, in one form or another.
Looks just like Greece and Turkey (or Cyprus), both sides once at each other’s throats (and Israel and Palestine still are).
Your logic works well for the Megali Idea (and retaking Constantinople is still one of the revanchist agendas of Christian fundamental LARPers like you)
Damn it, I meant to click “Agree”! What you said is true and we need to see through simplistic “us vs them” religious paradigms, and much more motivated by power dynamics of both larger groups (Jews and Arabs) and smaller sections of those groups.
Ignoring that was why Crusader zeal ended up sacking Constantinople and opening up the way for Turks to gain a foothold in Europe.
You’re right. But there isn’t a civil war too after the demise of the Soviet Union.
The Taliban is not very hostile to China. Things might change, but the logic of China being friendly with Pakistan, Russia, Iran, the Central Asians and Afghanistan itself is going to remain compelling for the foreseeable future. The Afghans – regardless of the color of their government – will have little reason to be hostile to any of their neighbors, and likewise their neighbors will have little reason for hostility against the Afghans. The Taliban are no longer the stoning age primitives they used to be (well they still are, but they do the stonings in a more civilized manner), and they are more open to compromise. Whatever one might think of the outcome of the wars of the last half century, the Afghans (and that includes the Taliban) are not keen on repeating the experience.
The mountainous or hilly terrain provided some protection for centuries, but I believe technology is now so advanced that the risks of getting on the wrong side of the stick are now considerably higher than they were in the past.
Yes, looking back it does seem strange that a more aggressive stance to retain Crimea wasn’t taken by Kyiv. One does need to remember, however, that at the time the little green men took over Crimea, chaos was raining in the center and Ukraine had no real leader at the helm, but only a temporary one whose role in all of this is still somewhat murky.
The article that you cite is very unconvincing. The premise that some sort of written agreement had been reached between Kyiv and Moscow about the transfer of this territory to the later, in the absence of proving that such a document exists is the height of tomfoolery. That Ukraine decided to continue to provide Crimea with electricity after the anschluss in no way proves that such an accordance ever took place The guy is only grasping for straws.
Perhaps, but it happened an incredibly long time ago, and also has very little to do with the Palestinian Christians, who are at any rate the descendants of those who stayed. It’s also not like the Arab conquests were particularly bloody or cruel, probably rather the opposite, though doubtless they were pretty violent by 21st century standards.
Paying reparations for real or imagined early medieval crimes is not a realistic demand. Moreover, I don’t demand Jewish reparations for anything. I merely provided an explanation why Christian Palestinians might tend to dislike Jews and Israel. The demand that Palestinian Christians should deal with other injustices (many over a millennium old…) before feeling resentment over the injustices that they themselves have suffered strikes me as strange, to say the least.
Thanks.
I suppose that if I try I can read AaronB’s comment as saying that the reason was realpolitik.
You are saying that the Druze occupied undesirable terrain, were welcoming and lived in compact settlements. I guess none of these applied to the Palestinian Christians?
They were also more hated by the Muslims than the Christians, because while Islam provides dhimmitude protection to Christians, none of those protections apply to heretical Muslims or heathens, and the Druze are either Muslim heretics or they are heathens from a Sunni Muslim viewpoint.
He’s a crusader LARPer who digs out medieval grudges that has definitely been transformed and made irrelevant over the millenium, especially since late Ottoman times when processes of (failed) national construction came into play and partly blurred ethno-religious boundaries.
the risks of getting on the wrong side of the stick
They must still value having the Druze on their side. If I remember correctly, they intervened in the Syrian civil war to the benefit of Druze villages on the other side of the fuzzy line.
Sort of true. Europe has more densely settled areas and fewer suburbs even old ones.
Soome of this is above exchange rates. The pre Euro EU of the 15 had strong currencies in the 1990’s. Oil prices were low. So oil importers like the EU and Japan were favoured over exporters/near balance countries like the US, UK and Russia. Japan lost its chance for economic leadership with the property bubble collapse but Turkey and China started to surge.
Druze in Israel (as opposed to in Golan) live in areas not far above the most “elite Ashkenazi” strip of villages. Daliyat al-Karmel is like 30 minutes of driving from Netanyahu’s cottage in Caesarea, if I recalled accurately.
Reason that Israeli Druze support Israel (while Golan Druze support Syria), is because they live in separate villages from the other Israeli Arabs (so they are self-determined by “mono-national” village elders), and there is a clause in their religion to support the rulers of the country.
Golan Druze are an independent community, and they support the Syrian government, as their elders had given allegiance to the Syrian government before Israel conquered the Golan Heights in 1967.
But that political allegiance is something at the nominal level, rather than in a socioeconomic one. I’ve stayed in a Druze boarding house in the Golan Heights, and these are integrated with the Israeli tourism industry.
Unlike Druze (or Circassians, Jews and some Maronites), Arab Christians don’t have separate villages, and they are living mixed together as a minority with the Arab Muslims. So they have to balance the overall interest of their village and also their Muslim neighbours. Even Nazareth is mainly a Muslim city.
Moreover, as part of their national strategy, the larger Arab Christians across the Middle East have often promoted secular Arab nationalism. Secular Arab nationalism was the surface ideology of the Arab side, in the Arab-Israeli during the Cold War, particularly after Israel has chosen the West, and the USSR has then focused on supporting the Arab side of the conflict. The Soviet Union was able to influence Arab nationalism by focusing on creating an ideology relying on the pan-Arab identities, as the Arab-Israel wars became a proxy part of the Cold War between America and the USSR.
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On the topic of the Israeli Arab Christians complicated loyalties to their different neighbours, and the inter-generational conflicts in those villages, there was an interesting documentary in YouTube.
21st century success of Erdogan’s Turkey will be one of the factors pushing Arab Christians more to the Israeli side, as the Arab world has dual tracks of religion and culture/language.
Turkey is becoming the leader of the Muslim world, but excluded from the Arab one. Israeli Arab Christians are a prestigious niche within the vast Arab world, but excluded from the Muslim world.
The change is reflected in intergenerational conflict, as the elder Arab Christians were educated to be part of the Arab world, and under a strong influence of the Soviet Union that had partly controlled Arab nationalism during later parts of the 20th century.
There are also some of their elders who are claiming not to be part of the Arab world (e.g at 8:00 in the documentary) – this is an indication of changing power balances, and typical minority behaviour when an empire is declining. It reminds of 1980s, Jewish “refuseniks”, that start to claim “we’ve only been speaking Russian for a century”.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Vm9-jGNS1vE
When minority nationalities start to abandon from the ship and claim their ancestors were just arbitrarily learning your language, then it’s probably a bad sign for the Arab world. That said, in the 20th century, the Arab world was always a stillborn fetus on the political level, although it had been fertile and compelling on a cultural one.
Druze haven’t been particularly rewarded for their pro-Israel loyalty. Although they always have high level ministers and politicians, disproportionately many of their young men are killed in the IDF. They have particularly high representation in combat units and the border police that work in Jerusalem and West Bank.
From the point of view of self-interest, it’s better not to be too loyal in Israel.
The term in Israel politics is “sharing the burden”. That’s a burden for the minorities to become too loyal, as the result is being conscripted to the army, which almost doesn’t pay its staff.
The community in Israel which faces the worst and most brutal future are Bedouin, who have for many years volunteered some of the most elite soldiers for Israel. Yet Zionism has brought a modern state to the area, and is now extending into the Negev, and is incompatible with the traditional Bedouin life that grazes freely across the desert without enclosure.
This is quite a typical dilemma of minority nationalities, that if you are too loyal to a state, then you lose a lot of your bargaining power. In extreme example, there is Chechen Republic, receiving multi-billion dollar wealth transfer, while in Yakuts only experience a small proportion of their region’s wealth that is mostly moved to Moscow.
Well, Arab Christians played prominent role in secular Arab nationalist parties, in particular Iraqi Baathism. Saddam may have been the most pro-Christian Arab political figure in history. But what place would Arab Christians have in an Islamist system?
Metropolitan Detroit has the largest Arab community in the USA. In Detroit, the Arab Christians from Iraq deny that they are Arabs and considers themselves to be Chaldeans. They claim descent from Babylonians who were swamped by people they consider to be filthy Arab Muslim invaders. Similarly, Lebanese Christians claim descent from Phoenicians rather than from Arabs. This causes some friction with the local Arab Muslim community. In practice, these Arab Christian groups tend to be a lot wealthier than Muslim Arab immigrants, they live in more expensive suburbs. They tend to be rather materialistic and vulgar, with a preference for flashy Italian clothes and luxury cars. At the Giorgio Armani store in an expensive suburban Detroit shopping center, the workers and customers are mostly Chaldeans.
Maybe some. But when looking at stuff like house size, number of televisions and cars per capita USA is still far ahead of Europe.
In Phoenix Arizona, many within the “Arab” community differentiate themselves by pointing to their “Antiochian” Orthodox religious roots. This would include emigres from Syria, Lebanon, Iraq, and Kuwait. Others point to their “Assyrian” roots and attend the Assyrian Church of the East. It can be a real task when trying to unravel the history and lineages of these various Eastern Churches.
The Assyrian / Syriac Christians are not Arab. They were thoroughly Arabized, but they still use Aramaic as their liturgical language in their churches.
I was talking about being on the losing side in a conflict. The Druze were never exterminated or booted out in the past because they lived in hilly or mountainous terrain and it was difficult to organize a mass extermination. In the 21st century these things are much easier to organize, also mass exodus is easier than in the past. So they can only stay there until there’s some rulers hostile to them.
That’s a good practical analysis, but I think you miss a few important facts.
Druze villages are generally more prosperous than Arab Muslim villages, and while the IDF pays it’s conscripts a pittance (it is after all national service), officers and career soldiers are paid well. Service in good combat units is also key to networking and getting good jobs after the army. Many Druze enjoy good careers as officers, and their civilian careers benefit from having served (Israeli Arabs often complain that they suffer from not having served. True – and that’s their choice). The general commanding the Golani infantry brigade is a Druze – in the 2014 war in Gaza, this Druze general made a Jewish prayer over the radio as his brigade advanced into Gaza. It was very cute.
Beyond the practical angle which you always analyze so well, there is the spiritual angle – which you always neglect, you incorrigible materialist 🙂 The Druze take great pride in serving in good combat units. It’s part of their culture. About ten years ago the first Druze was accepted into the most elite unit in the IDF, Sayeret Matkal, the same unit Benjamin Netanyahu and Naftalie Bennet and Ehud Barak etc served in, and it was a source of immense pride in the Druze community. Unfortunately, he fell off a cliff in an advanced solo nighttime navigation exercise in the Negev desert and died before he could be deployed. Every decade or so, one or two soldiers in elite units die in these solo navigation exercises – they are very tough, you’re basically completely on your own without radio and with only paper maps, in a very harsh environment, with rationed water and food, with limited time to figure out how to make it to your destination, much of the time in darkness under cover of night.
I think a Druze was recently accepted into the most prestigious course in the IDF, the combat pilots course. To the Druze, acceptance into these units have implications for their ability to integrate into Israeli society at a high level. The Druze commander of the Golani Brigade will have no trouble be coming a high ranking corporate executive in prestigious companies.
So, I think the deal has been very good for the Druze.
As for the Bedouin, they do not serve in similarly elite units, you’re mistaken about that. The Bedouin serve generally in a special “tracking” unit, utilizing their excellent skills as trackers and knowledge of the land. They are very good at tracking terrorist infiltrators across the borders.
And yes, what is happening to the Bedouin is indeed tragic. Their beautiful and ancient way of life is being forcefully destroyed by the Israeli state, which is trying to put them in villages with modern plumbing and electricity. It’s a wonderful thing that many Bedouin resist this, and I wish Israel would just let them in peace to pursue their ancient ways. The Negev desert is vast and empty enough.
But such is the relentless encroachment of modernity.
I was once in Sinai on the coast, and began wandering aimlessly into the mountains away from the sea. I came across a single old Bedouin in a tent, and he very graciously invited me in for tea. The whole experience was surreal – the tent was old, there were lavishly embroidered carpets, and ornate old silverware for tea, the man was old and wizened and dressed entirely in traditional garb, and had the manners of a king. For a brief moment, I had left the modern world behind and entered the 8th century in the desert.
That this beautiful way of life is fading is tragic, but I think the Bedouin will have the last laugh. I occasionally like to camp in the desert like a Bedouin, without a tent, and just a tarp.
Somewhat differently, the adherents of the Antiochian Orthodox church can count hellenized Jews and Greeks among the founding ethnic elements within their church history. Today, they undoubtedly would include what we think of as Arabs into their mix. It’s a very vibrant and evangelical movement and they love to reach out to their surrounding community. They have a large and active community in Phoenix, including a large and beautiful church: Rechecking, I see that they have three other churches in the Phoenix area too!
https://fastly.4sqi.net/img/general/width960/42915056_JE3xNLDKHCqGGwwm9_qQwIj8kjEmW9-2mSmcJEvVRTU.jpg
@Boomthorkell
I more or less agree with you. Foreign intervention in the region has on the whole been mischievous.
It all started in the Cold War. The Soviets supported the Arabs in an attempt to dominate the oil rich region, and quite understandably wanted their client states to be most regionally powerful. In 1967, the Egyptian leader Nasser had grand ambitions for the entire region, and had he defeated Israel, his next goal was oil rich Saudi Arabia, which would have displaced the Americans as the the ones calling the shots in this strategically important region. Israel’s defeat of Egypt made the US suddenly see it as a useful foil to the Soviets – and the rest, of course, is history, with unforeseen twists and turns in the relationship, as is always the case.
After the Soviets, European support for the Palestinians and criticism of Israeli self defense is what has kept this conflict constantly simmering. The Palestinians gain confidence to not come to a reasonable compromise when they know the West severely limits what actions Israel takes in self defense. American limitations on Israel have also played this role, so the alliance was in an important sense a double-edged sword. Without such outside support, Palestinians would have come to reasonable terms much sooner.
With foreign support no longer playing such an outside role, the region will naturally stabilize on the basis of real world power balances and the natural human tendency to get along and coexist. I seriously doubt another Nakhba will happen, unless the Arab world manages to muster enough unity and strength to seriously threaten Israel again, and do something really stupid. But trends seem to be going in the opposite direction, with proximity leading to a certain grudging coexistence and a kind of friendship-cum-enemies that is so peculiar to this complicated region that doesn’t like clear cut European categories but prefers ambiguity.
Early on the Soviets supported and armed the Jews. They thought that if the Jews are overwhelmingly Bolshevik in USSR, then they would end up at least Socialist in Palestine. Soviets only started to support secular Arab dictatorships after Israeli sided up with the West in the Cold War.
Part of the reason these people are homeless and so degraded is because the shelter system is so absolutely horrible, dangerous, and with restrictive conditions.
Provided with independent, decent housing, with extensive support, I think most will do reasonably, well.
But I think there is a larger point. I believe a big reason these homeless are so degraded is because they lose all self respect and dignity in a system when your value and worth as a human being is determined by how much of a “success” you can be.
With a cultural shift towards determining the value of a human being not just by how wealthy and successful he is, one can be poor again without a collapse in self respect and sinking into utter degradation and self-neglect.
There used to be the notion of the dignified poor. It is only capitalist societies that produce the utterly degraded poor, because with the collapse in self respect comes utter self-neglect.
There are so many messages in our society designed to make people with various disabilities and disadvantages – or just minority status – accept themselves and feel good about themselves – fat people, gay people, disabled people, minorities. But no one tries to make the poor feel dignified and self accepting. If anything, the poor are encouraged to hope and strive for success, why is simply not possible for many, and increasingly limited for all.
But perhaps, a capitalist society cannot, by definition, allow the category “dignified poor”.
For instance, it took me an unfortunately long time to feel comfortable accepting a lower standard of living in exchange for greater freedom and time to travel and just be idle. Our whole culture was against it.
In addition, with regard to the Third World appearance of parts of NY, public infrastructure in NY is famously neglected in our system of great private wealth and little public investment. Bangkok has nicer subways and airports than NY. I often laugh to myself at the decrepit state of the NY subway and how all these wealthy and refined upper class people are condemned to use it every day, while the humblest fruit seller in Bangkok has a much more pleasant experience.
But it is a question of priorities. The Third World invests in public infrastructure in order to glorify the regime (to impress visitors that they are not Third World) and to legitimize an often autocratic rule, while in the US the philosophy of competitive individualism does not support high levels of public investment but rather encourages the belief that every person must get rich and leave the poor behind.
As for Mexican immigrants, the Mexican neighborhoods in NY are not at all that bad. They are generally a bit funky and less clean, but on the whole pretty reasonable – they are brimming with life and activity and street stalls, and definitely don’t seem sunk in poverty or degradation. Just a different lifestyle, and poorer and less clean, but hardly dire. They are fun to visit.
I don’t know how it is in the West, to be honest, but is it really so bad, the S American areas?
As for the future composition of the US, I imagine at some point it will stabilize. I agree with you in that I wish the US was far less populous and we are clearly heading in the opposite direction, but it is what it is I guess.
I do know that the Soviets were initially friendly to Israel, and even recognized Israel before America. Plus Israel was itself a quasi-socialist state with it’s collective Kibbutz system in it’s early days, so it would seem to be a closer fit with the Soviets.
I also know the Americans put an arms embargo on the region during Israel’s war of independence which primarily impacted Israel, and actually destroyed a massive – and crucially needed – arms shipment organized by American Jews, and the State Department I believe was bitterly opposed to recognizing Israel (and hostile to Israel for decades afterwards). Israel received much of it’s arms from the Czhechs, I believe, in the Soviet sphere.
Also, in the Sinai War in 56, the Americans famously came down hard against Israel, and the British and French, of course.
But until 67, Israel’s relationship to America was very weak. Most of it’s weaponry it got from France – the 67 war was won with French Mirages, not American F-16s. The incredibly close and intertwined relationship Israel has today with the US only began after the 67 victory. Israel got it’s first large scale arms imports from America, including modern American planes, only in the 70s, I believe.
But I am not extremely well versed in the exact politics and side-taking of that era, so maybe your right and it was Israel that moved away from the Soviets. I’ll have to read up on it. But what support do you have for that statement, if you don’t mind my asking?
House size, yes, by a long way. Cars yes but that is rather an imposed necessity. Elizabeth Warren writes about it. Browh and White consumer goods, definitely more at a lower level in the USA, usually as 2nd or 3rd items in the household for Children. White goods are generally bigger and more powerful because houses are bigger. I have a 35 year old Whirlpool electric clothes dryer from the US (long story) that I hang onto for dear life. It is also interesting that I can still get spare parts on my occassional trip to Canada or the US. Less likely in the UK – partly our white goods industry disappeared to Italy/Turkey.
The early Soviet Jewish Troyskyists sent weapons in the late 20ies to their cousins who were members of the Jewish ethnic Socialist Bund party and have chosen to get repatriated to the British mandate in the Palestine after the First World War and the fall of the Tsarist Empire. These weapons were used in the defense of the Jewish settlers against their Arab neighbors who were starting to feel weary of the Jewish encroachment upon their lands (in the very beginning the Arabs and their Ottoman masters were rather open to Jewish immigration).
In the interwar period, the possibility of creating a Jewish homeland in Palestine was not at all taken for granted. That is why Soviet Jews, over represented in the Bolshevik elites came with an alternative plan: to create a Jewish Autonomous Republic in Crimea. USSR received full support on this plan from the American elites and got financial support, Molotov’s wife was directly involved with the project. But Stalin reneged on that agreement and after Second World War supported the repatriation of Eastern European Jews (what was left of them anyway) to the Palestine, where the Right wing Lehi / Irgun and the Left Wing Socialist Zionists were fighting against the Arabs and the British mandate. Stalin thought it clever to create as much problems as possible to the British colonialism.
In 1946 – 1947 the Soviets arranged for weapons from Eastern Europe to be sent to the Israeli defense forces (including the first Israeli military aviation). These weapons were mainly the ones captured from the Axis military in Eastern Europe. To avoid the detection of direct Soviet involvement, the weapons were delivered through Czechoslovakia.
https://www.rbth.com/history/327040-ussr-and-israel-from-friends-to-foes
Russian Jewish immigration to the US got a huge bounce from the Jackson – Vanik amendment (1974) that steadily increased the amount of new Jewish emigres to the US. At first a trickle, but starting from the 1980’s on the Jewish immigration topped 380,000. Physically moving away from the Soviet Union and rarely moving bak, solidified a pro US and anti-Russian bias that the majority has embraced to this day.
However, it will not be sustainable. Perhaps we will see a backlog of approved immigrants eventually making a big splash?
Are there any Wuxia’s you would recommend?
That’s what I understood from your comment.
That there may come a time when the Druze are not “needed.”
Cars are a status symbol for most people. If possible, many people would like to have a huge car, though in many cases it’s limited by practical considerations like a too small garage, too narrow lanes, too small parking lots in general, fuel economy etc. (A number of those considerations are directly connected to general wealth, as a person with a higher income will tend to have a bigger garage and not care for fuel economy that much.) Certainly all else being equal a more powerful car (especially with more torque) is more pleasant to drive (especially in mountainous terrain), and people do care a lot for design and even the brand as a kind of a personal fashion statement.
That said, America is well endowed with natural resources, especially land, but also oil and similar, which makes it easier to build larger houses and afford bigger cars for their population. Bigger American cars are also often of shockingly low quality (for my taste at any rate), so it’s really just the natural resources whose abundance (or lower taxation) they show, not necessarily a higher level of economic productivity.
I don’t think the Jews will just discard them, I was more thinking about a political situation resulting from the collapse of Israel, either a lost war or (way more likely) a South Africa style political transition to a bi-ethnic Palestinian state, which would likely result in the Druze losing their usefulness to Jews and at the same time being still hated by most Arabs.
Thanks.
So it seems Soviet assistance was pre-state, which I sort of knew but not that well.
But I’m still curious as to how/why Israel moved towards the West and how/why the Soviets chose the Arabs as their client state. I will have to read a bit on this.
Yes, that makes sense. But this happened much later, and what I’m curious about is why in 67 the Soviets had already chosen Egypt and Syria etc as their client states. What events led up to this….
The modern Afghan borders were the results of Afghanistan being a buffer between British India and the Russian Empire. Neither entity persisted until the present day and it cannot be argued that they persisted in some form in modern Pakistan/the former southern Soviet Central Asian republics.
Just like diversity!
The less continuity to old America, the better, the stronger!
Civil war is unlikely because the US is rich and US institutions still powerful.
The question is whether it will be rich and powerful enough in the future.
LOL so true
I am disappointed in Montenegro , there is no country in the world with such a love toward Russia and now corrupted traitors rule the country small elite that hate Russia and Serbia but majority of population is pro Russian . Montenegro was recently still at war with Japan lol from 1905 conflict
Druze had a successful military tradition.
You can see the Druze clans had defeated the Christian militias in the 19th century, before international intervention of the French army.
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/1860_civil_conflict_in_Mount_Lebanon_and_Damascus
Note a problem for Druze in Lebanon currently, is the lack of central authority for them to ally to. So Jumblatt clan who had in the 19th century led the conflict against the Christian militias, is trying to ally to Syria.
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Progressive_Socialist_Party
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Hamad_Amar
National minority strategy of Druze seems to be like it can be to ally to their local powers, and then operate politically inside those powers. It seemed more successful than recent strategy of Christian groups, that seemed from the mid 20th century to try to promote secular and pan-Arab movements (many under Soviet education).
They may have had higher literacy rate as well. s.
Secular Palestinian nationalism, was partly written in Moscow in the second half of the 20th century. There is an interesting relic of this still today, with many thousands of Russian and Ukrainian women living with Arab husbands in Israel, in the West Bank and even in Gaza.
I often think about strange results of the 20th century, bringing Russian life to Ashdod or Ashkelon. But there’s thousands of Russian/Ukrainian people even living in Gaza today, as one of the more unlikely human flotsam washed around the world by the titanic conflicts, and ruined ideologies of the 20th century.
I guess that after some generations, some of them assimilated and intermarried to American middle class life, and their Arab heritage becomes as visible as the Native Indian roots of Elizabeth Warren.
For example, the heroine of the Challenger Space Shuttle Disaster, was from 1/4 -Lebanese Maronite origin, and she was a . https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Christa_McAuliffe
(I saw quite a shocking Netflix documentary about this disaster).
This is one of the cultural opposition of Israel from its neighbours like Lebanon.
In Israel, there is worship among the elite of wearing shabby clothes, driving a small Hyundai car, and pretending to be a poor and modest person./
Netanyahu’s wife became hated in the Israeli media, because she tried to renovate the Prime Minister’s house in Jerusalem. For the Israeli elite, there is a belief that the Prime Minister’s house should have mold on the ceiling, and paint falling off of walls.
It’s normal for Israeli women to not wear makeup, to avoid cosmetics, and to walk around the shopping mall wearing pajamas. Wearing high heels or perfume, is more likely only for weddings or special occasions.
I assume the divergence from the stereotypical Mediterranean culture, is from the origin of Israel’s elites being graduates from agricultural socialist pioneers’ groups, and collective farms.
Watching a driving video there, BMW and Mercedes seem to be some of the most common cars in Lebanon. This ostentatious lifestyle might also be a partly adaption for living in a high inflation and tax evading economy.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=6zYRNaUs16U
Luxury products can be also a learned strategy for people who came from cultures like Iraq or Lebanon, with high inflation and/or low property rights. You want to turn your devaluing currency into a concentrated, easily transportable physical object that is not tracked by the authorities.
I recall a story I read about Argentina – that all consumer and luxury products are sold in vast numbers at beginning of the month, because the workers’ want to get rid of the money they receive as salaries as fast as possible before it devalues.
You are probably right.
The Taliban seem to be having discussions with other countries in the region.
What do you suppose will happen in Uzbek, and Tajik areas of Afghanistan? With they make a deal and get some level of autonomy?
American Jewish leaders had the U. S. government put the kibosh on the immigration of Soviet Jews to the U. S. and that forced them to immigrate to Israel. It reminds me of how Medieval Jews in Europe would petition the authorities to not grant any more Jews a charter for settlement.
https://cis.org/Report/Refugee-Resettlement-and-Freedom-Choice-Case-Soviet-Jewry
Yeah, that’s basically the gist. There was some early opposition, but not nearly as intense as with the other Palestinian residents.
Palestinian Christians suffer from the one-two punch of being “gentile” (even if genetically Hebraic Semites more or less) followers of Judaism’s worst and most successful Heretic AND occupying choicer urban and rural real estate. They make out a bit better than the Muslims do, but not by a lot, and that’s more to do with their just being fewer of them and their position in society being one that is less “objectively” threatening to Israeli Jews. They also, politically and culturally, are more fond of the wider Levantine cultural sphere they belonged too, Muslim or not, than what the Ashkenazi settlers came to offer.
Caught between a rock and a hard place, but the Muslims at least like Jesus, even the fundamentalist ones, while the Jews bulldozed multiple Christian sites, including the likely true birth place of Jesus. I don’t have anything personally invested in this conflict, but I can under logically whose side I would rather be on. Takfiris are no go, but they survived millennia of the Muslims. The last 7 decades of Israelis in the other hand… Ha ha!
Still, good and loyal ones tend to do well, which is expected.
It would be quite the turn if they did. Especially so if they could transfer it to a desert on another world, if this one won’t suffer to let them, ha ha!
LOL – you don’t even have an International Passport to be making any of these autistic conclusions you muppet. There is a completely different mentality to car use in US and Europe . In Europe people will walk or cycle a distance that any American will think of as “marathon-like” and simply never have done. Nearly every European who goes to America makes this observation.
Equality or even dominance of bicycles in places like Amsterdam and several other European cities are unheard of in America you cretin. Its ridiculous to associate European lifestyle choice with “lower prosperity”
I suspect 3 hour – long traffic-free drives into work ( then after work) are considered far more normal and prevalent in US, than they are done in Europe also.
…… absolutely nothing to suggest this is something that has been seriously measured you idi*t. And so what anyway? That’s not a sign of wealth but lazy fat Americans watching far more television than anybody else on the planet, while Europeans are not all wanting their kids to waste away their life watching television by giving their 5 year old a TV in their own room.
The ridiculous overconsumptions of Americans has long been something many Europeans have derided and felt pity to – so to equate this overconsumption with “prosperity” relative to Europeans is dumb in the extreme.
I suppose, the next logical step for a demented bastard like you is to claim that “Ukrainians and Jews are one people” LOL. Much of these Jackson-Vanik diaspora from 404 are main drivers in current failure anti-russia project that is “Ukraine”
Sure its difficult for a dummy like you to understand Putin’s masterpiece about why Ukrainians and Russians are the same people – but even you must have accepted all of it as the truth.
You can’t talk about Ukraine by its land…….. because nearly all of it is historic Russian lands and/or generous gifts from the Soviets
You can’t talk Ukraine by its historical icons over the years……. because nearly every one of them are uniquely Russian by self-identity, actions and how they are heralded and imprinted onto Russian national consciousness
You can’t talk about the Ukraine by its so-called nationalist “heroes”……. because all of them were prostitutes and /or traitors who tried to give away Ukrainian land and resources to the west and betray their people in some form…….and they were all mentally sick failures who never tried to fight for independence of the fake state in over a millenium
You can’t talk about Ukraine by its culture, because all of it is Russian world culture, plagiarised by hopeless Galician rejects several centuries later! No such thing as “Ukrainian” architecture, confirming what I have said for years – the Zelensky Kosovorotka farce on “Vishivanka day” perfectly encapsulates the situation……. and in 500 years where is authentically “Ukrainian” nalichniki? LMAO
Genshin Impact :p
I don’t have anything personally invested in this conflict,
Say what?
It’s a game, i thought Wuxia’s had to be books. Though i will look into it.