Putin Raised The Retirement Age, And That’s A Good Thing

Under the measures announced on June 15, in the immediate glowing wake of Russia’s 5:0 football victory over Saudi Arabia, the pensions age is to rise from 60 for men/55 for women to 65 for men/63 for women.

It will be a gradual increase, with the full increase for men only being attained in 2028, and for women in 2034.

The reason why Russia needs to raise its retirement age probably has very little to do with “liberal fifth columnists” and quite a lot more to do with this:

russia-life-expectancy-1959-2017

Here’s another good reason: Russian life expectancy has been tracking the High/Optimistic scenario from my demographic model from 2008, and there’s no reason it won’t continue to do so as the Soviet legacy of alcoholization retreats and medical care continues getting better.

russia-life-expectancy-high-scenario

Russian life expectancy was 73 years in 2017, exactly matching my optimistic scenario (and I myself was more far more optimistic than the average demographer). Projecting forwards, Russian life expectancy will increase to 75 years by 2020, and 78 years by 2030 (incidentally, the targets Putin set on his inauguration, raising life expectancy to 78 years by 2024, are even more ambitious, if highly unlikely).

Finally, Russia already has the lowest retirement age of any OECD or post-Soviet country (sorry/not sorry to disappoint fans of the [massively Russian subsidized] Belorussian model, but they too are increasing their retirement age).

When Russia’s life expectancy was also a downwards outlier, this was sustainable, but now that it is rapidly going up and converging with the developed world – which, I assume, everyone agrees is a good thing – that is no longer the case.

Here’s another relevant graph (via Felix Keverich):

russia-entitlements-spending

With pensions spending approaching 9% of GDP, this makes Russian pensions – as a share of GDP – already more generous than those of the OECD average of 8%, and this burden will only increase as life expectancy continues going up. The government plans to increase spending on health (necessary) and education (much more skeptical) to move them closer in line with the OECD average, and the money for that will have to come from somewhere.

Despite this being a plainly necessary policy, no good deed goes unpunished.

Putin has come under attack from an unholy alliance of cynical neoliberal Russophobes, Far Left “Russophiles”, and all manner of populists, demotists, and sovoks.

I mean, I can hardly be called a fan of Putin. But out of all the reasons to attack him these people OF COURSE pick the most idiotic, baseless, and retrograde one.

On the other hand, when you are attacked like this from all sides, it means that you must be doing something right.

Western headlines have hewed to a narrative in which Russia is proposing to raise the retirement age above the life expectancy. Which is both flat out false (Russian life expectancy is 73 years, with men living to 68 – well above their retirement age, even today) and, moreover, irrelevant (what matters is the life expectancy on reaching the retirement age, which was 13 years for men in 2014).

Commenter reiner Tor furthermore makes the point that these journalists tend to support the same policies in their own countries while cynically condemning Russia for doing the same thing:

Anyway, it’s interesting that the Hungarian reform was praised by the same people who are now condemning the Russian one. Similarly, I bet you these very same people would love to cut social security spending in the US or raising the retirement age in any western country. Like they were praising Macron.

There is of course no shortage of people in Russia itself rushing to make hay of the situation, including the cynical hypocrite neoliberal Navalny and the Communist Party, that great champion of the working class (note that the USSR only introduced pensions for collective farm workers in 1965).

Despite Putin’s attempt to shield himself from the pensions reform by portraying it as an initiative of the much less popular Medvedev Cabinet, the first opinion polls coming in show that his approval rating has plummeted by at least 10% points.

Levada: Putin approval rating fell from 79% in May, having held steady at around 80% ever since Crimea, to 65% in June. Although overall figures are still very high, this is a sudden and unprecedented collapse; his all time lowest rating after becoming President in 2000 was 61% in November 2011, which coincided with the large-scale protests in Moscow.

VCIOM: Putin approval rating fell from 77% in June 10, to 72% by June 17, and 63% by June 24 [1, 2].

FOM: Putin job approval fell from 75% on June 10, to 69% on June 17; percentage of Russians willing to vote for him fell from 62% on June 10, to 54% on June 17.

Alexander Kireev notes that the collapse in Putin approval ratings was concentrated amongst the middle-aged, with the declines amongst the young (for whom retirement is a long ways off) and the elderly (who are already retired anyway) being much more modest.

Although I am not much in the habit of making moral judgments, I will make an exception here. I really do think this confirms once again the superiority of the young Russian generations over their sovok parents. The latter are materialists to the core, protesting over exclusively materialist things: Monetization of benefits in 2005, now the pensions reform. Perhaps their one saving grace is that their moral weakness, personal cowardice, and apatride attitudes also means they’re only going to whine quietly and not go out to do battle with the police on the streets and march for color revolution. The youth march for things such as free and fair elections, against Internet censorship, against massive corruption in the Kremlin, for the Donbass and Novorossiya, for LGBT rights. While I certainly consider some of these causes to be better and more desirable than others, all of them without exception are infinitely more admirable than this whining about getting their gibsmedats slightly delayed (no matter that they would still have one of the lowest retirement ages in the civilized world).

But perhaps I’m being too harsh. After all, it’s not like raising the retirement age is popular in any country.

Thankfully, many countries – including Russia itself – has safeguards against such demotic idiocy. This is a good thing. 

Anatoly Karlin is a transhumanist interested in psychometrics, life extension, UBI, crypto/network states, X risks, and ushering in the Biosingularity.

 

Inventor of Idiot’s Limbo, the Katechon Hypothesis, and Elite Human Capital.

 

Apart from writing booksreviewstravel writing, and sundry blogging, I Tweet at @powerfultakes and run a Substack newsletter.

Comments

  1. German_reader says

    Is this really used that much for anti-Russian propaganda in Western media? Seems unlikely to me given the realities in the west (in Germany there’s already talk about raising the retirement age to at least 69, and when people of my age will be old the entire system will have collapsed anyway).

  2. AnonFromTN says

    One little problem: about 90% of Russian population is against it. Another little problem: life expectancy is Russia now is at all-time high, but that’s only just shy of 71 years (in 2015)(for comparison, in the US it is just shy of 79 years). So, their retirement age of 65 years is equivalent to 73 years in the US, which even the greediest corporations aren’t proposing.

  3. Greasy William says

    …and when people of my age will be old the entire system will have collapsed anyway

    the new immigrants will ensure that the German pension system stays strong in perpetuity

    1. Good thing that the Russian government ignores demotist caprices.

    2. It is 73 years in 2017 (more relevant) and will be in the mid-to-high 70s – the government is aiming for 80 years by 2030 – when the changes filter through (even more relevant).

  4. Spisarevski says

    People are paying mandatory pension tax for decades, it’s disgusting to call the smaller amount they may or may not get back in the end “gibsmedats” and to call fighting for “LGBT rights” ” infinitely more admirable”, even if everything else you said is correct.

  5. AnonFromTN says

    Welcome to the club! By the time I retire the US Social Security system will be broke, primarily because the US government will never repay what it “borrowed” from it, as this government is already 21 trillion in the hole and keeps digging. Another alternative is no better: to repay its debt the US government will have to devalue the US $ about to about 10% of its current purchasing power. Then the Social Security payments would be what they promise numerically, but that would be enough to buy a few burgers. Brave new world!

  6. A descendant and admirer of the aristocracy thinks peons need to work until they drop.

    Who could have predicted it?

  7. reiner Tor says

    Well, I saw it in Hungary. Also in some English language sources, things like “40% of men won’t live long enough to enjoy it” or something similar.

  8. AnonFromTN says

    Sounds familiar. “We will do what’s best for you, whether you like it or not”. That’s Bolshevik policy. We know full well where this lead the country.
    What the government is aiming at is totally irrelevant. Previous one was ostensibly aiming for full communism (everybody gets everything according to his/her needs), and where is it? Pipe dreams do not justify real policies.

  9. Agree!

  10. reiner Tor says

    The pension tax was very low and was used to pay pensions for the very low number of pensioners. Moreover, the pensions themselves were much lower than they are now, when the smaller currently working population pays for the much larger currently pensioner cohorts.

    So it’s basically gibsmedat, whether you like it or not.

  11. German_reader says

    I googled it and didn’t find much in German newspapers, it seems to be reported in a fairly neutral way. They make claims like “funds for kindergardens and schools are cut to help pay for the world cup”, but the pensions issue apparently isn’t seen as suitable for Russia-bashing.

  12. AnonFromTN says

    An informational vignette. After the announcement of planned increase of the retirement age the approval of Medvedev plunged from 41% to 30%. Only 7% of respondents trust him, whereas 26% do not (in May the ratio was 12% vs 17%). Putin’s rating also went down, but not as dramatically: from 77% to 63% approval, whereas 26% disapprove of him now. Of course, Western politicians can only dream of this approval vs disapproval ratio (I don’t think anyone ever had that), but it’s a signal.

  13. Thorfinnsson says

    The solution to this is to turn pensions into defined-contribution accounts which are the private property of the contributor. Obviously this was not feasible when pensions were first introduced, but with today’s financial markets there is no reason not to do so.

    Though I suppose financial markets in Russia are not yet sufficiently mature to entrust people’s retirement savings to the market.

    In Western countries this is however a no-brainer.

    Another nice benefit of defined-contribution accounts is that when the pensioner dies, someone gets to inherit the money.

  14. but with today’s financial markets there is no reason not to do so.

    Many peons make stupid decisions, finanicial ones included.

    You know that, right?

  15. Disagree!!

  16. AnonFromTN says

    There is a little snag in that: the “mature” US stock market is denominated in US $. If the US government ever decides to repay its debt, it would have to decrease the value of the $ (and all people’s savings) to maybe 10% of its current level. The Euro and Yen will plunge with the $, so “international” stocks won’t help, either. It’s a con job. If you believe in markets, you are either mad, or an economist.

  17. Thorfinnsson says

    More on this:

    Shifting pensions from publicly-funded defined benefit to privately-financed defined contribution would make the retirement age nearly irrelevant for most workers.

    You could retire at any age provided you are limited to a maximum annual withdrawal which ensures that your capital will never be exhausted. Historically in America this is 4%, which is called the 4% rule. The inventor of the rule now suggests a 2.6% rule instead owing to expensive equities and bonds (as of last year–equities aren’t expensive anymore). The government can play it safe and declare 2.5%.

    https://www.fool.com/retirement/2017/06/11/forget-the-4-retirement-rule-heres-a-smarter-way-t.aspx

    Amass $2,000,000 in the pension account by the time you’re 40 and comfortable living off $50,000 per year? Go for it!

    Useful tool: https://firecalc.com/

    Higher withdrawal rates are permissible as the person nears death for obvious reasons.

    Minimum contribution levels would be set to ensure steady retirement income comparable to one’s wages by the time one reaches 70½.

    The government could backstop the plan by guaranteeing a certain monthly benefit after the age of 70½ to ensure public trust. But it would likely never need to back that guarantee.

    Downsides to this plan:

    1 – Transition costs
    2 – SJWs will no doubt call for boycotts of certain stocks (though this could be an upside for value investors–think about it)
    3 – Vulnerable to special interest capture (e.g. high-fee “active managers” might get the right to invest on the public’s behalf)
    4 – Plan will be difficult to implement owing to widespread public incompetence about financial markets and hysterical, irrational fear and loathing about THE BANKS, FIAT MONEY, and THE FEDERAL RESERVE

  18. Thorfinnsson says

    Real Soon Now

    See point #4 in this comment: http://www.unz.com/akarlin/putin-raised-the-retirement-age-and-thats-a-good-thing/#comment-2396413

    4 – Plan will be difficult to implement owing to widespread public incompetence about financial markets and hysterical, irrational fear and loathing about THE BANKS, FIAT MONEY, and THE FEDERAL RESERVE

    Paying down debt is deflationary and, all else equal, increases the value of the currency.

  19. Thorfinnsson says

    Indeed, which is why these decisions would not be undertaken by them.

    As an example I recently discovered that my secretary, who is 52, only has $10,000 in retirement assets. Her husband has none. With her current 401(k) contribution rate she’ll only have $100,000 in retirement assets when she reaches 65. Her husband has no retirement assets and will soon be unable to work since he is a roofer and has a drinking problem. Thank God for Social Security and the fact they own their home outright. I foresee a reverse mortgage in their future.

    Needless to say when she comes back to work (plant is closed next week for the holiday) I will talk to her about this so she doesn’t end up destitute in her old age.

    There would be a mandatory minimum contribution, a maximum withdrawal limit, and the plan would invest in a target date fund with a diversified portfolio of equities, bonds, REITs, and perhaps some international assets (hedge against currency risk).

    Needless to stay the target date fund would be strictly rules-based–absolutely no high-fee active managers of any kind.

    The sort of plan a single person could run with four hours a week of work: https://www.bloomberg.com/news/articles/2018-05-04/a-small-college-s-endowment-manager-beat-harvard-with-index-funds

  20. Not really as any future cash strapped government can tax-raid them a’ la Gordon Brown in the UK. People should focus on accumulating wealth during their working life and after that, a train ticket to dignitas.

  21. AnonFromTN says

    Paying down debt is deflationary and, all else equal, increases the value of the currency

    That’s true of the debt you can afford to repay. The US government cannot afford to repay its debt without plunging the value of the US $. What’s more, it keeps borrowing like there is no tomorrow. Every US citizen now owes more than $63,000, and most of them never had that much money in their lives.

  22. Daniel Chieh says

    I naturally assume that all money that the government takes from me will be money that I’ll never see again.

  23. Do they have kids – aka the old-school retirement plan?

    Peace.

  24. Exactly – that’s the rule of thumb I live by.

    Peace.l

  25. Thorfinnsson says

    Why on Earth would the US government pay off the debt to begin with? That was only done once in American history–by Andrew Jackson.

    Even if the US government DID choose to pay off the national debt for some crazy reason, it would be done slowly over time. You know, just like how you pay off your mortgage over 30 years.

    Deficits of this size this late in the economic cycle aren’t responsible, but not really all that concerning.

    But, hypothetically, let’s say the government destroys the value of the currency. That makes defined-benefit pensions useless as well.

  26. Thorfinnsson says

    I’ve seen some left-leaning economists propose raiding 401(k) plans, but it never goes anywhere.

    When Obama suggested limiting 529 Plan deferments for the wealthy, wealthy Democratic voters went ballistic. The proposal was unceremoniously dropped and never mentioned again.

  27. Thorfinnsson says

    Social Security has been going strong for over 80 years now. Neither Ronald Reagan nor George W Bush lasted long when they tried to mess with the system.

    But a wise assumption none the less.

  28. Thorfinnsson says

    Two daughters, one of whom is personally successful and the other has married decently.

    In between their kids, their house, and Social Security they will avoid deprivation.

  29. AnonFromTN says

    Amass $2,000,000 in the pension account by the time you’re 40

    Did they ever teach you the times table or simple math? To do what you propose you have to save ~$100,000 a year between 25 and 40 years of age and invest the money with a decent rate of return. What fraction of the US population, where current median household (not personal!) income is ~$56,000, can afford to salt away ~$100,000 a year?

  30. Thorfinnsson says

    Yes, and since I grew up in a capitalist country they also taught me about compound interest.

    Only $46,377 in annual contributions are required for someone who starts work at age 22 to gain a portfolio value of $2m by the age of 40.

    This is using a total return rate of 8.6%, which is the long-term CAGR of the S&P 500 dating back to 1871.

  31. Excellent – good for them – may God safeguard their future. I hope the kids remember the inestimable debt they owe to their parents.

    Peace.

  32. Thorfinnsson says

    I believe she talks to both her daughters on the telephone daily, so that seems likely.

    But if nothing else perhaps I can avert her becoming a burden on her daughters in the future.

    If she increases her 401(k) contribution to 20% of her paycheck and works until age 70 she can have $15,000 in retirement income annually without drawing down the principal. That goes a long way here, especially when you own your home outright.

  33. I believe she talks to both her daughters on the telephone daily, so that seems likely.

    That’s awesome – I fully support you taking your time to help the people that work for you. I wish more people looked after the people under them on a purely volunteer basis. We need to bring this kind of thinking back. Deeds like this will not be overlooked on the Day of Judgement.

    I am in a management position and my teachers have counseled me to consider myself to be in service of those that report to me and look out for their needs. You have inspired me; it’s been a while since I called them to just check up on them and see how their family life is going.

    May God help you get all your employs on a firm financial footing for their twilight years.

    Peace.

    I’m telling you man, you’re making it harder not to support House Thorfinsson. Again though, charity is good and should be represented on the crest but NO FLOWERS!

  34. all of them without exception are infinitely more admirable than this whining about getting their gibsmedats

    It’s great to be rich. You do not have to go on the streets to make a protest that you want to be richer. It is enough to support LBGT and other identity politics and some other freedoms and liberties, including crossing the borders and ‘nobody is illegal’ thing. You go high, when them the ‘gibsmedats’ riffraff goes low. And then you may even get a ‘moral’ approval from the Karlins of this world.

  35. This is another area where the Russians are clearly not as clever as their “partners” in the west – as Putin might say.

    In the west they justify the ever rising numbers of new immigrants with the need for someone to pay the ever increasing costs of funding the pension system.

    Since Russia has no significant immigration, they have no one else to rely on to pay for the rising cost of pensions due to extended life expectancy.

    While in the west if they really want to solve the problem of financing the pension system, all they have to do is import enough immigrants – and hopefully somewhere down the road, the new immigrants will be kind enough to introduce a wide euthanasia laws for the old white people – so they don’t have to worry about being a burden on the pension system anymore.

  36. Thor, you are dear to my heart. Build me a company town with a good c0mmissary.

  37. Thorfinnsson says

    They’ll raise the retirement age, raise the payroll tax, or cut benefits. Or some combination of all three. If Paul Craig Roberts is still alive when they do so we can expect a flood of outraged columns. 🙂

    And Social Security payments are indexed to inflation.

    $21 trillion sounds like a big scary number but is not really a big deal. Lots of ordinary workers take out home mortgages which exceed their income five times (or more) and don’t run into trouble. And the US government owns assets worth $200 trillion or so.

    While running trillion Dollar deficits this late into an economic expansion is dubious, Scott Adams’ Law of Slow Moving problems applies.

  38. Dan Hayes says

    Talha:

    Of interest was brother Thorfinnsson’s comment regarding one of his mentees:

    “If she didn’t already have kids, small tits, and brown eyes I would ask her to marry me.”

  39. The emperor must have his harem… 😉

    But all kidding aside, his motivations in the elderly couple is obviously different. As I’ve said before; we must encourage the good and discourage the bad in people – no one’s perfect.

    Peace.

  40. Indexed to a fake inflation.

    Maybe one reason to get rid of good jobs is to bankrupt Soc Sec to go along with president’s stealing from the fund.

    Fund Soc Sec same way as DoD, CIA: print the money (most will be used internally)(and nationalize the Fed) and drugs.

  41. reiner Tor says

    I can give you the example of Hungary, with which I’m fairly familiar with. Pensioners’ number only reached 1 million in 1980. Around 2008 (when I was reading about it) it was well above 3 million. Meanwhile, the working age population went down. So there were roughly 5 million people supporting a few hundred thousands in the 1970s (reaching 1 million by the end of the decade), and maybe 4 million supporting over 3 million pensioners in the 2000s. Meanwhile, the average pension in the 1970s was roughly a third of the average salary, but it grew to almost 90% of the average salary by the mid-2000s. To top it off, the 4 million workers in the 2000s were promised that they’d get nearly nothing in exchange for that generous support of the older generations, because they changed the rules around 2007, that anyone retiring after that would receive much lower pensions. I know people who retired at that time, because if they waited a few more years (there were cases of people who could delay it), they’d have received much lower pensions. I’m sure the dynamics is similar, there’s one generation hugely benefiting and the ones before or after don’t.

    It’s a regular gibsmedat.

  42. reiner Tor says

    That’s a fallacy.

  43. reiner Tor says

    Fallacy of composition: if everyone would save so much, the economy would collapse, and so they wouldn’t save so much.

  44. Felix Keverich says

    Oh, I’ve been waiting for Anatoly to write a post about this!

    The reason why support for Putin fell the most among the middle-aged is that these are the people that will be immediately and negatively affected by the reform. Young people can actually benefit from it in the short term, as they may get a bigger piece of the pie. Remember, pension system is a classic redistribution scheme. Less GDP that’s spent on pensions means a greater share of national income, that could be devoted to other things, that young people use.

  45. Felix Keverich says

    Here is the crux of problem: Russian government doesn’t have the money to pay pensions to everyone, who is currently eligible for them. Russian Pension fund is already running a huge deficit, up to 2% of GDP, which is projected to explode in the future, if there is no reform. This threatens stability of Russia’s government finances.

    There are two ways the government can adress the situation: it can gradually devalue the size of the benefits, spreading them in a thin layer across a growing army of pensioners. Or it can raise the retirement age, thus reducing the number of people eligible for benefits.

    Most economists agree that raising retirement age is the more logical, humane way to adress the problem of pension system that is radiply running out of money.

  46. The thing that is absolutely necessary to do is to equalize the retirement age of men and women. The fact that women rely on a pension 5 years earlier than men (and they live for 10 get longer) – real disgusting.

  47. Felix Keverich says

    You have to pay off your debt when it matures. But at this point US goverment is basically running a ponzi scheme with its debt. It borrows new money to repay what they borrowed before and also cover the (rapidly growing) cost of interest payments on the existing debt.

    All ponzi schemes collapse in the long-run. At some point US government is going to run out of people willing to buy its new debt, and will have to turn to agressive money-printing. Or it might default on its debt. Either way, US dollar will be finished as a reserve currency and will likely experience a dramatic devaluation.

  48. Thorfinnsson says

    Why?

  49. Thorfinnsson says

    Household savings rate of India and China would like to meet you.

  50. Thorfinnsson says

    You DON’T need to pay off your debt when it matures, for the simple reason that you can roll it over. Of course you must repay existing bondholders, but you can do so by selling new bonds.

    On a personal devil I use margin debt and 0% introductory credit card debt where available to magnify my returns.

    Daily volume in the Treasury market is $500 billion. Capacity is truly massive.

    That said I don’t approve of going from our current gov’t debt levels to Japanese levels, which could happen.

  51. Thorfinnsson says

    Tell me why it’s fake. John Williams’ Shadow Stats, which has the same nominal price it did a decade ago?

  52. why does altright hates gays.

  53. Thorfinnsson says

    Because they’re disgusting degenerates who primarily identify with their sexual “identity” and thus oppose us.

  54. reiner Tor says

    70%?

    Even if you manage to save that much, you need further savers to draw your savings down. In other words, you need the next generation. Obviously selfish childless people will have higher savings rates than people raising the next generation. Therefore your system of providing these people with a taxpayer financed court system to enforce their contracts will still be a gibsmedat. Once you understand that, you will lose your interest in the particulars of the pension system, whatever it is. Any system which rewards childlessness is not ideal, in my opinion. The distribution of pensions might as well be completely random.

  55. Because they molest children and create drug resistant gonnorhea

  56. reiner Tor says

    Sorry, over 80%.

  57. It’s a regular gibsmedat.

    No it is not.

    Obviously any pension system should operate in an actuarially sound manner, so no discussion of that aspect is required.

    The American Social Security System is a pay-as-you go fund. The defining feature is the “concealed” forced savings imposed on the participants.

    If peons could be counted on to save for retirement in Thor’s plan, the Social Security System would never have been necessary. In fact, it is a defense against gibsmedat.

    All true Republicans in America oppose the existence of SS as did their party at its creation. You should note two defining features of cucks like Speaker Ryan are support for unlimited immigration, (illegal is the best kind), and support for “reform” of the SS System. Elaborate plans like Thor’s are merely a ruse to eliminate the fund.

    Anti-working class people like Thor believe workers should work until they drop. Also, note that he didn’t make a proposal for reform of the Disability Fund which, in fact, is in deep do-do, including being scammed nationwide, but no one wants to work on a “real” problem like that.

  58. The Big Red Scary says

    The government plans to increase spending on health (necessary) and education (much more skeptical) to move them closer in line with the OECD average

    A few months ago, I suggested making university admissions more stringent, and restricting funding to the sciences, the harder-nosed social sciences, and elite subjects in the humanities. After more thought, I propose abolishing public universities altogether, turning the more productive departments into research institutes, and offering entry-level salaries for talented young people to do a few internships in different research institutes, after which they can apply for more permanent positions.
    The point is that currently most students in universities have no real interest in the subject they are studying and so don’t really learn anyway, while those who really do want to learn would do so more productively in the setting of a research institute. But one or the other, we need to restructure society to avoid prolonged adolescence. This plan seems likely to decrease the poz and increase fertility.

    As for more money for health care, I am also skeptical without seeing data that the money is being effectively spent. If your goal is to increase life expectancy, rather than just to make people think that the government is “doing something”, then it seems almost certain that there are cheaper and more effective ways to do this than pouring money into a rotten bureaucracy run by pseudo-scientists. As a rule, the newer an institution in Russia (and perhaps in other places), the better it runs. мой документы comes to mind. So if there is a real need to improve health care in Russia, then I suspect the only way to do it is to build a new institution outside of the control of the traditional bureaucracy.

    Speaking of life expectancy, why do humans (and some other mammals, such as whales and elephants) long outlive fertility? One explanation is that in the past long-lived grandmothers increased the chances of survival of their grandchildren (mother could go foraging further while grandmother watched the toddlers). Nowadays, having a grandmother to help with the kids certainly makes having another more attractive.

  59. Felix Keverich says

    You DON’T need to pay off your debt when it matures, for the simple reason that you can roll it over. Of course you must repay existing bondholders, but you can do so by selling new bonds.

    This is what US government is doing at this time, but it won’t be able to do so indefinitely, as eventually people will stop buying US debt.

    That said I don’t approve of going from our current gov’t debt levels to Japanese levels, which could happen.

    This will totally happen, and you seem to be taking a light view of the situation. Think about it: USA is running trillion dollar deficits (http://www.businessinsider.com/us-budget-deficit-1-trillion-2019-cbo-report-2018-4) at the top of the business cycle, imagine what will happen during the next recession.

    Demand for American debt will evaporate once the market gets the idea, that US is going broke.

  60. I’m not alt-right, but I share many of their concerns and agree with many of their analyses of social and political events.

    Normal homosexuals should go back into the closet.

    We are tired of hearing about LGBQT(n) crap. Some of this is straight up mental illness and we don’t want to be run by the mentally ill and their supporters.

    Normal homosexuality is a “normal” abnormality and they should not be persecuted. However, as I said, they need to stay in the closet, or pretty close to it, and absolutely should not open up about their travails.

  61. The Big Red Scary says

    Around here, I’m the moderate hippie, so I’m not the person to ask. But as I see it, the problem isn’t that some small percentage of the population suffers from a sexual short circuit, but that an even smaller percentage of people is trying to force the majority to “celebrate” this short circuit.

  62. The Big Red Scary says

    Speaking of retirement and index funds, I have a question.

    Suppose I pay into an index fund, say Vanguard, using currency X (X could be USD, CAD, or GBP, for example), and that index fund invests “globally”. Now say currency X undergoes serious devaluation.
    Since the index fund invests “globally”, and not just in the home country of currency X, my intuition is that one should be insulated from the devaluation and it shouldn’t matter terribly much which X you choose. If there were gains to be had by paying into an index fund in one currency rather than another, then presumably many people would already be doing that (there are no hundred dollar bills lying on the sidewalk).

    Is my intuition basically correct?

    Thorfinsson, if I were one of your peons, and told you I could save 15,000 a year for the next twenty years, what would you suggest?

  63. Daniel Chieh says

    Why do you write only one-liners?

  64. Daniel Chieh says

    If you really wanted to increase span and quality of life, preventative health care should be emphasized a lot more. I’m doubtful that is going to happen – obesity is probably one of the most major health concerns that we can tackle now, but how are you going to do that when “fat activism” is a thing?

  65. Guillaume Tell says

    Not to mention the fact that they are full of horrible diseases.

  66. Guillaume Tell says

    Thank you, unlike you I am a full-blown extremist intolerant right-winger, but your take on the fag thing is an exact reflection of my opinion. I could not have summed it up in a better way than you did.

  67. Daniel Chieh says

    I am fond of the works of Oscar Wilde and do not have anything per se against homosexuals; the issue is that normalizing them with ridiculous conceits such as same sex marriage incurs vast negative externalities upon society. There’s no real point for them to be “out of the closet”; among the other costs of doing so is to further reinforce the dynamics of feminism, as they are typically excellent allies to feminists who seek to destroy the “gender binary.”

    Its a great case of how individual liberty they seek is ruinous to the social commons of the society they live in. Its perfectly fine to have a few fag playwrights or independent women(or else we wouldn’t have the fine iffen) but encouraging it as a whole can only bring us to the insanity of the modern day.

  68. reiner Tor says

    OT

    Russia orders twelve Su-57 jets.

    https://www.rt.com/news/431340-su-57-first-contracts/

    Meanwhile, it might carry nuclear weapons.

    http://nationalinterest.org/blog/the-buzz/russias-su-57-might-have-sneaky-little-trick-its-sleeve-26105

    And some say it’s a total fraud because – wait for it! – it’s perhaps only good for downing American stealth fighters, but not so good for other stealth missions.

    https://www.express.co.uk/news/world/969994/russia-stealth-fighter-jet-features-su-57-photos-radars-beaming

  69. Daniel Chieh says

    Russia tried to sell the aircraft as a stealth jet to India, but they backed out in April citing a host of technological shortfalls, and as the relationship between the two nations cooled, Moscow cut its total order for Su-57s to just a dozen planes through 2025.

    Nothing about how Indians wanted the Russians to expose the code on the SU-57 and walk them through on how the code worked?

  70. Felix Keverich says

    I don’t think this is going to work. University diploma is an important status symbol in Russia: if you come from a good family, you’re expected to study in university. All your friends will study in university. Most white collar jobs won’t even consider a candidate without a diploma. So what you’re proposing in effect is to make higher education in Russia private like in America, forcing young people to take on loads of debt to finance their studies, delaying having kids etc.

  71. unlike you I am a full-blown extremist intolerant right-winger, but your take on the fag thing is an exact reflection of my opinion

    Thank you, and I have thought about this commonality, but it does not in any way make me want to revise my opinion. 🙂

    I don’t really keep up with it, but I think some of the more showtime style alt-righters are light in the loafers.

  72. R. Unz should take the money that he wastes trying to red-pill everyone on the Jew-matrix and fund a serious GWAS study on noblesse oblige. I think that its dying out can explain a lot about our condition today. Naturally, Thor, Dan and Talha should be the first three participants.

  73. Felix Keverich says

    You sound like you have zero experience with investing. You don’t pay into an index fund, you buy shares of an index fund. And you can only pay with USD if it’s a US-based fund.

  74. If you really wanted to increase span and quality of life, preventative health care should be emphasized a lot more.

    Absolutely, but herding cats seems to be one of those problems that no one can make progress on.

  75. if you come from a good family, you’re expected to study in university.

    Or rather, if you are not Gopnik you’re expected to study in university

  76. German_reader says

    and fund a serious GWAS study on noblesse oblige. I think that its dying out can explain a lot about our condition today.

    Did noblesse oblige ever really exist? I’m not sure it was the predominant sentiment among American capitalists in previous eras, e.g. in the Gilded age when they had their hired goons gun down workers on strike.
    Part of the explanation surely must be that Western capitalists were somewhat restrained in what they could do as long as the big bad commie empire existed (though this doesn’t mean communism was a good thing).
    I agree with you that it could be interesting if Ron Unz did something about this issue.

  77. Did noblesse oblige ever really exist? I’m not sure it was the predominant sentiment among American capitalists in previous eras, e.g. in the Gilded age when they had their hired goons gun down workers on strike.

    https://www.philanthropyroundtable.org/almanac/people/hall-of-fame/detail/andrew-carnegie

    Andrew Carnegie

    Andrew Carnegie may be the most influential philanthropist in American history. The scale of his giving is almost without peer: adjusted for inflation, his donations exceed those of virtually everyone else in the nation’s history. The magnitude of his accomplishments is likewise historic: he built some 2,811 lending libraries around the globe, founded what became one of the world’s great research universities, endowed one of the nation’s most significant grantmakers, and established charitable organizations that are still active nearly a century after his death. And, perhaps uniquely among businessmen, the quality of his writing has ensured that his thoughts on philanthropy have been continuously in print for more than a century, and remain widely read and studied to this day….

    :::::::::::::

    By 1919, Carnegie donated $350 million dollars in his lifetime, which in today’s money would be over $5 billion

    ::::::::::::

    https://archive.nytimes.com/www.nytimes.com/books/98/05/17/specials/rockefeller-gifts.html

    ossessor of one of the world’s greatest individual fortunes, John D. Rockefeller was beset with pleas for help. His benefactions were huge, $530,853,632 to various institutions. He had a theory about giving that he once expressed as “to solve the problem of giving money away without making paupers of those who receive it.” Explaining his method of scientific giving, he said:

    “I investigated and worked myself almost to a nervous breakdown in groping my way, without sufficient guide or chart, through the ever-widening field of philanthropic endeavor. It was forced upon me to organize and plan this department upon as distinct lines of progress as our other business affairs.

    “I have always indulged the hope that during my life I should be able to establish efficiency in giving, so that wealth may be of greater use to the present and future generations. If the people can be educated to help themselves, we strike at the root of many of the evils of the world.”

    Created Great Foundations

    Mr. Rockefeller’s benefactions from 1855 to 1934 totaled $530,853,632, of which the greater amount went to the four great foundations he established for the purpose of handling his charities. They were the Rockefeller Institute for Medical Research, the Rockefeller Foundation, the Laura Spelman Rockefeller Memorial, in memory of his wife, and the General Education Board. The University of Chicago was another large beneficiary.

    $530 million in 1934 would be $9.9 billion today.

    ::::::::::::::::::::

    One can oppose striking workers and also demonstrate noblesse oblige.

  78. Daniel Chieh says

    I think it was almost more of an agrarian elite rather than a merchantile elite thing. Its an arrogant thing in some ways, but I was raised with the sense that while I was superior to the proles, I also had to have patience and kindness for them because its not like they know better. Its an obligation to them in way.

    I’ve come to realize there’s some truth to it: after being in corporate environments where everyone is rambling pointlessly and nothing is getting done, taking control of things and providing leadership(and taking on ownership/responsibility) really is a service to them. The sheer desire for a lot of people to avoid responsibility can be amazing, but there’s no reason to have contempt for them: its who they are, and we have to work with them the best that is possible, with as much kindness and understanding as it is possible.

    American capitalists were seen as nouveau riche and crass, and their lack of noblesse oblige(and a host of other things) were traditionally criticized.

  79. Did noblesse oblige ever really exist?

    I think that it did, of course it was never predominant. I’m not sure that I would try to find it in Robber Barons, although pure philanthropy can be found there if you look.

    I was thinking more along a strict HBD line and looking for it in actually existing aristocracy. We learned in the previous discussion that the questionable endogamy of various noble lines cannot be dismissed so it might not be feasible.

    Part of the explanation surely must be that Western capitalists were somewhat restrained in what they could do as long as the big bad commie empire existed (though this doesn’t mean communism was a good thing).

    Along these same lines, for the first time I read about the story of Konstantin Rokossovsky. When I read about extraordinary people like that I am completely humbled.

  80. Daniel Chieh says

    To be fair, paternalism can go too far.

    We are born in a Pullman house, fed from the Pullman shops, taught in the Pullman school, catechized in the Pullman Church, and when we die we shall go to the Pullman Hell.

  81. Thorfinnsson says

    I have other plans for dealing with childlessness.

  82. LondonBob says

    Social security has always been going bankrupt, ever since it was founded people being claiming this. Similarly the dependency ratio has always been deteriorating, improvements in productivity meant that this hasn’t been a problem. The issue will be that the decline in human capital, due to immigration, will mean it will go bankrupt.

  83. Thorfinnsson says

    I do indeed believe people should work until they drop, but I’m not opposed to old-age security.

    Hard to be harsh on an elderly person who no longer has the strength and energy of a young man.

    My plan doesn’t eliminate old age security at all and further allows the elderly to help their grandchildren.

    What’s wrong with that?

    I didn’t make a proposal for a disability fund since I’ve never thought about the problem honestly. I did encounter it once however. When I was in jail for a few days five years ago there was a fellow inmate, an 18 year old black guy, who was on disability yet clearly able-bodied and healthy. I’ll get back to you.

  84. German_reader says

    What kind of plans?

  85. Guillaume Tell says

    Force childless women with blue eyes and big tits to reproduce with him 🙂

  86. Jaakko Raipala says

    The press in Western European Social Democracies aren’t going to make a big deal out of Putin raising the retirement age since all our countries are doing the same and on this issue the mainstream press collaborates with the government by willingly being very quiet about a potential populist cause.

    Not a single mention of Russian retirement age in any mainstream Finnish newspaper but media russophobia is even more intense than normally. This weekend is the Helsinki Pride Parade so all the front pages of newspapers are dedicated to it. Of course they all run a story with interviews of Russian homosexual “refugees” who talk about the Homocaust happening in the Putlerreich.

    After the weekend the news will switch to the Trump-Putin summit that’s happening in Helsinki in two weeks. Our press has a lot of difficulty deciding the spin on this as securing such an event for Finland is a major coup so it would ordinarily be celebrated but then, it’s PUTLER AND DRUMPF AT THE SAME TIME.

  87. Inflation is minimized. Items used to gauge inflation changed during Clinton years to minimize soc sec. Soc Sec recipients should be receiving double at least.

    From 2012: https://www.paulcraigroberts.org/2012/02/02/the-real-economic-picture/

    Not much on reading graphs or understanding words but I would say US govt lies regarding inflation to steal money from old timers.

    Also forgot, this opinion meant for earlier: People should work as long as they wish but retirement for benefits should be around 50.

    If money can be created for wars and West Bank/Jerusalem thugs, money can be created for US citizens.

    If needed, take from Greenspan, Bernanke, Geithner, Summers, Paulson, Rubin’s bank accounts.

  88. Explaining his method of scientific giving, he said:

    “I investigated and worked myself almost to a nervous breakdown in groping my way, without sufficient guide or chart, through the ever-widening field of philanthropic endeavor. It was forced upon me to organize and plan this department upon as distinct lines of progress as our other business affairs.

    “I have always indulged the hope that during my life I should be able to establish efficiency in giving, so that wealth may be of greater use to the present and future generations. If the people can be educated to help themselves, we strike at the root of many of the evils of the world.”

    Sounds like proto-Effective Altruism.

  89. Felix Keverich says

    The press in Western European Social Democracies aren’t going to make a big deal out of Putin raising the retirement age since all our countries are doing the same and on this issue the mainstream press collaborates with the government by willingly being very quiet about a potential populist cause.

    Your press is smarter than the British press, if that is the case. Every major UK newspaper had an article on the subject, but the readers in comments mostly used them as an opportunity to complain about British pension system. lol

  90. The Big Red Scary says

    You sound like you have zero experience with investing.

    That’s about right. When I was writing a thesis, I bought a house on bad advice. Fortunately it didn’t ruin me. After that, I had poorly paid temporary research positions in various countries, where I paid 40% toward taxes and “benefits” and most of the rest toward my landlord’s mortgage. Now I have a decently paid long-term research position and I’d eventually like to move my savings out of вклад at the bank and into something more long term.

    . And you can only pay with USD if it’s a US-based fund.

    I mentioned Vanguard, since they have funds based in US, Canada, and the UK. They require a bank account as well as a tax identification number based in one of those countries. If you can suggest a Russian equivalent into which I can look, I would be grateful.

  91. Thorfinnsson says

    My parents are Swedish Boomers and thus I was raised with an egalitarian ethos. It took me some time to realize that I am better than other people and have an obligation to help them.

    Also I’m not particularly noble–I think that idea stemmed from shitposting against Bliss and his we wuz kangz nonsense. One of my four grandparents was a noble. If you go far enough back in my family tree I am actually a descendant of a Holy Roman Emperor (Otto II). That said most people in my family are talented and accomplished.

    Noblesse oblige certainly existed and was in fact a matter of law. A lord was obligated to protect his subjects and provide them with housing. Failure to do so could result in a loss of title.

    As for Western capitalists it has been a mixed bag. There has long been a tendency to philanthropy (dating back to at least Fugger) and paternalism, but as you say one can easily find many examples of ruthlessness.

    My noblesse oblige is also partly self-interested. I pay high wages to get the best talent in town. I offer good benefits so they never quit. I help and counsel them so they emotionally identify with me.

  92. Thorfinnsson says

    Guillaume Tell has the right idea. 🙂

    No reason for childless people to have the same rights or benefits as in tact families.

    Turn back the clock on women’s rights to the 18th century. This means women can’t vote, sit on juries, serve as lawyers, be university professors, or even own property.

    Prohibit abortion (for white women) except in case of dysgenics, incest, or miscegenation. Ban birth control as well except in state-controlled brothels.

    Criminalize fornication and adultery. Remove domestic violence laws and prohibit divorce.

    Voting rights only for married men with children, multiplied by the number of children.

    Pervasive state propaganda in favor of families.

    Financial assistance for eugenic families.

    Safe, affordable, family-friendly, walkable neighborhoods for families with children including schools children can walk to and playgrounds for them to play in.

    You get the idea.

  93. Thorfinnsson says

    What nationality are you? This matters before I can answer your question specifically.

    Since you mentioned Vanguard I assume you’re American?

    Jack Bogle incidentally is a true hero. The man would be worth $10 billion today if he had organized Vanguard as an ordinary corporation. Instead he chose to forego great wealth in favor of helping middle class investors.

    Along with Charles Schwab he did more for ordinary people’s finances than any other American in the past century.

    Sad that these two living legends will soon be gone.

  94. Thorfinnsson says

    Honestly I might just knock her up anyway.

    Next week the factory is closed, but she and I will be working while everyone else is off.

    It will be very difficult to avoid the temptation.

    Her buttocks are hypnotic.

  95. German_reader says

    No offense, but that sounds more like a white sharia fantasy about controlling women than like a realistic proposal.
    It’s a difficult issue though, so far no developed society seems to have found a solution (maybe Israel? But then a significant part of Jewish births there comes from the religious nutcases which could eventually cause serious problems).

  96. Thorfinnsson says

    Why do you assume anything radical is unrealistic?

    If we seize state power we can do anything.

    And yes, women absolutely must be controlled.

    I don’t mean to be rude but do you have much experience with women?

    You yourself admit that modern societies completely fail in this aspect. Do you think this is a coincidence?

  97. reiner Tor says

    OT

    The new American ambassador to Budapest, David B. Cornstein, is a WASP. Just kidding, he’s Jewish.

    Once in Budapest, he immediately visited the Soros university (CEU) whose fate he considered quite important, and then some local Jewish community.

    Apparently he wants to be a caricature of The Eternal One.

  98. reiner Tor says

    The big question is how will you capture state power to the extent that you will be able to implement such radical changes.

  99. Thorfinnsson says

    Trump doesn’t like Soros.

    See if you can get his attention.

    If you’re on Twitter try mentioning this to his son.

  100. German_reader says

    If we seize state power we can do anything.

    That’s a very big if. I know you advocate a “Straussian” approach (that is lying about the true extent of one’s intentions), but still, even if such an approach could work for a time, it just seems very unlikely to me you’ll get mass support for such a programme which would be considerably more radical than going back to 1950s values.
    It seems to me like you think coercion by the state would be some kind of magical solution, but that seems rather dubious to me…have you ever thought about ways for changing the culture, building more traditional communities etc. that don’t rely on having access to a massive apparatus of propaganda and coercion?

    I don’t mean to be rude but do you have much experience with women?

    Certainly not like you seem to have, but then I’ve never claimed to be much of a success in this regard.
    iirc you mentioned once that you’ve been part of the “game” community…how has that influenced your views of those issues?

  101. Thorfinnsson says

    Yes, that is the big question.

    I’m working on it.

    So should you.

    And the rest of us in Karlin’s commentariat.

    Studying the Bolsheviks and the Nazi party is a good start.

    As is making money, though eventually I’ll need to move beyond that.

  102. Thorfinnsson says

    Mass support for a program can be gained through propaganda. You’re German. Ever heard of the Nazi party? And propaganda in line with traditional instincts is much more likely to be effective than propaganda in line with destructive nonsense.

    We are already changing the culture without access to the state and the means of propaganda thanks to the internet. And this is now influencing politics. Would we ever have elected Donald Trump without the internet and a massive army of shitposters?

    That said I have thought about founding communities under specific laws to be tradition and family oriented. Orania in South Africa is quite interesting.

    The Game community has strongly influenced my views on women, but there was something there before I ever discovered it. As a teenager it was clear to me that women were wrong all the time on all sorts of matters and should not be permitted to vote. This was before I ever discovered “Game” and I was in fact very beta with women in my personal relationships with them.

    And really, the views of the Game community are about 90% correct. Women love nothing more than to be dominated by a strong man. When not dominated by a strong man, they relentlessly break down the men around them. Look at all the single women who want rapefugees to invade Europe.

    I’m not a player or a lothario either, this was something I looked into out of intellectual interest. Though it did help me with my personal relationships with women and upgraded both quality and quantity.

    Read the old posts of Roissy/Heartiste (probably the world’s best writer today) and Roosh.

    Their modern posts are mostly about politics and aren’t bad either.

  103. Jaakko Raipala says

    Or more controlled. It is amazing to me how much genuine dissent there is in the British press, it would never happen here. The Nordic Social Democratic model has long been a collaborative symbiosis of the government and the press where the press never criticizes governments for anything except deviating from the Nordic model and the government does what it can to ban or marginalize any new press that pops up to compete with the mainstream by publishing dissent from the model.

    Dissident media here is generally run by exiles who operate either from America with its free speech guarantees or some distant country that just doesn’t give a shit if a Finnish government demands extradition of a hate speaking thought criminal.

    Of course the authoritarian character of northern European states gets no international press and we always end up on top of “freedom of press” rankings created by Western NGOs because all the Western NGOs are full of leftist ideologues. Personally I’ve been hoping that Sweden eventually pisses off Russia badly enough by being the main advocate of Ukraine in the EU because exposing the charade would be so easy with the media resources but it seems like Sweden’s efforts to make itself the arch-enemy of Russia have gone completely unnoticed in the Kremlin.

  104. Thorfinnsson says

    God Bless America. 😀

  105. AnonFromTN says

    If you sincerely believe that saving $46,377 per person per year out of ~$56,000 per household per year is doable, there is no point arguing with you. I can only advise you to get some math training, or visit your shrink, whichever seems easier.

  106. German_reader says

    And this is now influencing politics. Would we ever have elected Donald Trump without the internet and a massive army of shitposters?

    Internet is overrated imo, all that net activism is worthless (and may even be harmful) if it isn’t connected to building up networks and communities away from the net.
    As for Trump…even if one assumes he’s on “our” side (“our” meaning mostly white nationalist-populist Americans in this case), the big weakness is that there really isn’t a coherent movement around him. A Twitter-based personality cult just isn’t enough.
    If there’s ever occasion to do so, I would be interested in reading more about your experiences with the game community and how you used their theories.

  107. AnonFromTN says

    it seems like Sweden’s efforts to make itself the arch-enemy of Russia have gone completely unnoticed in the Kremlin

    Well, elephants often ignore gnats. What else is new?

  108. reply to #52 still in moderation?

  109. Thorfinnsson says

    When you’re in a hole, stop digging.

    My two million example was hypothetical and not intended to be typical. Though if you want to go down this road I personally salt away over $100k every year.

    No, the average worker cannot save $46,377 per year. Duh.

    Why don’t you just admit you don’t invest and don’t understand this topic?

  110. Thorfinnsson says

    I agree with all of this.

    Like I’ve said before, Trump is only the beginning.

    As for “Game”, I suppose it comes down to two major points.

    One is understanding that men and women are fundamentally different and thus have different desires, emotions, and ways of thinking.

    Two is realizing that if you want women, you must work to become an attractive man. Not just physically, but also mentally. Everyone knows what an attractive man is physically, but only the Game community tells you what an attractive man is mentally.

    For me it was a fairly easy transition as I am naturally a 7 on looks (8 or 9 with lifting and good style) and have some kind of dictatorial predisposition which results in people following me and forming cults based on me. The latter happened recently on Discord with teenage girls which forced me to delete my account owing to American laws about age of consent (I did nothing illegal but it was a bad look).

    I don’t recommend spending an inordinate amount of time on attracting women as it’s better to acquire money and power (and then you will get women anyway), but it’s good to familiarize yourself with the theory. It also protects you from getting exploited by attractive women when you do have money and power.

    If you want specifics I suppose I can give them.

  111. This means women can’t vote, sit on juries, serve as lawyers, be university professors, or even own property.

    Disagree.

    Remove domestic violence laws and prohibit divorce.

    Sorry, this is terrible.

  112. I’m not terribly familiar with Effective Altruism but if the idea is that just throwing money at people harms them but investing in ways that help people better themselves is good, then yes.

  113. Thorfinnsson says

    How does it feel to be wrong?

    Elimination of domestic violence laws doesn’t eliminate laws on assault and battery.

    What it does do is eliminate the ability of women to use the police as a weapon.

    Pro-tip: when in an argument with a woman, take her phone away.

    And for the record my parents divorced. When I was 11 years old. It was by far the worst thing that ever happened in my life. It has colored my views on everything. I’m still not over it despite the fact it has been 22 years now and I’m a successful adult.

  114. Jaakko Raipala says

    Sweden is not a gnat, though, it is a giant of diplomacy that has made itself one of the biggest influences on the European Union’s Russia policy. It is extremely foolish for Russia to ignore it. As it happens, in a parliamentary regime (or a sort-of-parliamentary regime like the EU), a dedicated small group pushing an agenda can have a huge influence and that’s what Sweden has been doing.

    The EU policy in Ukraine (and a few other neighbors of Russia) that led to the present disaster of relations is basically this program:

    https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Eastern_Partnership

    The project was initiated by Poland and a subsequent proposal was prepared in co-operation with Sweden.[1] It was presented by the foreign ministers of Poland and Sweden at the EU’s General Affairs and External Relations Council in Brussels on 26 May 2008.[2]

    Inviting Sweden and Poland to decide your policy towards Russia is a bit like inviting North Korea and Cuba to write your policy towards America.

    Sweden has been playing this game where they fly under the radar as a “humanitarian superpower” and politicians in distant countries like France, Spain, Italy etc know nothing about Sweden’s centuries of grievances with Russia. Most of Europe is immediately skeptical if just Poland or the Baltic states push an agenda regarding Russia but when the anti-Russian coalition gets Sweden to be its front the more distant countries don’t realize what’s going on – “Sweden, that’s the goofy liberal do-gooder state, it’s not like they have some national grievance agenda, right?”

  115. Adultery is haram, senor, I must remind the seeker-of-the-crown that even the emperor has his limits.

    If you are able to avoid it, I’ll be very impressed; my guess is along the 1-to-5 odds of success. If one puts themselves in front of sexual charged train tracks, don’t expect to get run the hell over.

    My teachers have taught me to avoid being alone with attractive females AT ALL COSTS. You will lose big time!

    There are of course other ways to guarantee success; make sure not to shower, wear deodorant or bush your teeth. Odds of success will turn 9-to-1 in your favor.

    Peace.

  116. My impression is that the idea was to throw medical care at Africans

  117. And yes, women absolutely must be controlled.

    When women are treated as cattle they tend to resemble cattle. As one sees in the Middle East (notice how even Iraqi or Lebanese Christian girls, or ones from de-Islamified families, tend to look nicer than non-Christian ones). Who needs that? Feminism is also, in a lesser and different way, also mysogynistic, by not valuing femininity or by promoting masculinity among women, with consequences in appearance.

    Pre-femimism was fine, no need to react by imitating the tradtional Muslims. Eastern Europe manages to value women while not promoting feminism, that ought to be the model.

  118. Thorfinnsson says

    I am comfortable with adultery. I was once engaged to a married woman and she got divorced on my behalf. I will never forget the first time I entered her. Still love her but had to move on.

    What I’m not comfortable with is child support and/or death threats.

    And yes, to be clear, I think adultery should be illegal.

    But I take advantage of what I can.

  119. Elimination of domestic violence laws doesn’t eliminate laws on assault and battery.

    Okay. Point taken. That seems fine.

    My problem was the idea that a woman should be forced to stay married to a man who abuses them. This does not mean that divorces ought to be easy or encouraged for frivolous reasons, particularly when children are involved.

  120. The Big Red Scary says

    I’m American but am rather unlikely to live again in the US, which is why I asked the question about currencies. My material assets and income are denominated in rubles, and currently my savings are too. Buying dollars is a nuisance, but it might be a good idea to have some financial assets in dollars. In another few years I should be able to put away 25,000 USD a year (at the current exchange rate).

  121. Thorfinnsson says

    Are you impressed with women in modern societies? Have you seen how fat they are?

    How many women have you been with?

    Anyone with a number under 20 is incompetent to discuss this.

  122. Daniel Chieh says

    My teachers have taught me to avoid being alone with attractive females AT ALL COSTS. You will lose big time!

    Stunning alpha right here.

  123. I will have to agree with AP’s assessment – some of these proposals are far more than even allowed by traditional Shariah-regulated societies; they will come to us in throngs as a traditional-but-more-accommodating alternative.

    The seeker-to-the-crown should reassess his proposals.

    Peace.

  124. Thorfinnsson says

    The first thing you need to do is maximize your tax advantages. It’s free money.

    So that means maximizing 401(k), IRA, and HSA.

    Beyond that use a target date fund or robo-advisor so you don’t need to think about it.

  125. Thorfinnsson says

    Based on my own background I am not fond of divorce.

    But perhaps there could be a way.

  126. Daniel Chieh says

    The greatest single lesson of the Game community for me is:

    Never pay attention to what people say, only what they do.

  127. Daniel Chieh says

    The best defense against abusive men is angry brothers and protective fathers.

  128. I’m not sure what this means, but I can tell you that if I was in a similar situation and an attractive woman was willing (and unfortunately for me, I find it very easy to start conversing to women – it comes naturally and I have to suppress it – it’s even worse for my brother) – all that Sufi training would go out the window.

    The key of Sufi-training is to come to a very realistic understanding of your own soul, its proclivities, its weaknesses. The key is to realize you aren’t the hero of some script that your ego keeps writing and revising for yourself. Thus, in my situation – knowing what I know about myself; I would never, EVER put myself in that situation.

    It’s like an obese guy trying not to eat the box of cookies in his pantry; no way he will win. He should have fought the fight way early on by leaving them on the shelf in the grocery store.

    Peace.

  129. Thorfinnsson says

    Relax. Most women are whores. Why pass it up?

    But when you lock one down, isolate and protect her.

  130. German_reader says

    I am comfortable with adultery.

    That seems contradictory with your belief it should be prohibited…if you recognize it as immoral and harmful for the cohesion of society (as adultery clearly is), why do it?

    I was once engaged to a married woman

    That sounds pretty bad, you can be glad her husband didn’t kill you as he would have been justified in doing.
    Lust not after her beauty in thine heart; neither let her take thee with her eyelids.
    26For by means of a whorish woman a man is brought to a piece of bread: and the adulteress will hunt for the precious life.

    Sound advice imo.

  131. This is true. Shaykh Hamza Yusuf mentioned he never heard of any domestic violence in the area of Mauritania where he traveled. Everyone knew that if somebody beat up his wife and she told her family, the husband would be visited by her father, brothers and possibly cousins and then it wuld spiral from there. You could literally start a tribal conflagration and everyone would be pissed off at you (including your own family) in the aftermath.

    The other good way that fathers interdict this behavior is that they must investigate that the guy seeking their daughter’s hand has no proclivities toward this behavior or grew up in a household where his own father beat up his mother. That makes a world of difference.

    Peace.

  132. Thorfinnsson says

    I do it because I like it. As I’ve said before, hypocrisy is the price of having standards.

    I can do something while at the same time recognizing it is not good for society and should be prohibited.

    You are correct that her husband was justified in killing me, which fortunately for me did not happen. She is back with him now, but we still love eachother and see eachother on occasion.

    I don’t think I will ever stop loving her in fact.

    Miss you Sara. <3

  133. Sound advice up to a point. The narratives people live by are often very revealing.

  134. Why pass it up?

    Apparently you have not read of the punishments that await adulterers in the Afterlife as explicated by hadith.

    That’s why I would avoid with a ten-foot pole – not because I am a eunuch.

    Also, my teachers have mentioned (and they have the experience of counseling thousands of families and young men and women all together) that what goes around comes around. Don’t be surprised if you are eventually cuckolded if you cuckold another man.

    I have your best interests in mind; avoid like the plague.

    Peace.

  135. Daniel Chieh says

    That sounds pretty bad, you can be glad her husband didn’t kill you as he would have been justified in doing.

    Would only that any men have the courage to do anything like that nowadays.

    This reminds me of one of the few times I know something like that happened; one of my “redneck” friends was put in prison because he found someone who had molested his daughter and proceeded to beat him to an inch of his life.

    At the court, he pled guilty, of course. For clemency, they asked if he had any regrets about his actions:

    “I regret that I didn’t kill that sonovabitch.”

    He got a greatly reduced sentence, because, well, he really wasn’t a general threat to society.

  136. Daniel Chieh says

    I say that, but in practice, I’ve known plenty of worthless brothers and absent fathers. Modernity is individualism for better or worse, and returning to such a configuration is an acceptance that a number of women would indeed be in terrible situations. I’m fine with that, and think that the converse has been worse.

    But part of making decisions is to be aware that there are consequences, and they are often unfortunate.

  137. German_reader says

    Apparently you have not read of the punishments that await adulterers in the Afterlife as explicated by hadith.

    Why should Thor read that? He’s not a Muslim.
    According to your religion he and all the other infidels here would be horribly punished anyway even if they led a saint’s life, so using that as an argument against adultery isn’t very convincing.

  138. It is not unusual for the first step back to health to be an overreaction – this is why I think the alt right will be a transitional phenomenon, and although the younger generation of whites is showing signs of health, they still have far to travel. Which is perfectly understandable – and they are still much better than the older commenters here.

    Game too was an understandable overreaction against femininism, but its also a transitional adolescent phenomenon. Game can be useful to break the hold of the poz on a young mans mind, but to remain stuck in it is to remain an adolescent.

    Game in a backhanded fashion still tries to impress women and is still obsessed with women’s opinions – the true “frame” is to not care about women’s opinion, but be guided by a moral code, regardless of how they react.

    But the adolescent always revels by going to the opposite extreme – and it’s a necessary transitional stage. We should not begrudge them that – just gently guide them to see beyond it.

    What a lot of young men don’t realize also is that women powerfully respond to love – showing real love and affection is like catnip to them. Of course, assuming you’re attractive in general.

  139. I get that – but he was asking me why I would pass it up.

    I was sincerely trying to advise him to what is best for his soul.

    I would heavily, heavily advise against hypocrisy:
    “Verily, the hypocrites will be in the lowest depth (grade) of the Fire; no helper will you find for them.” (4:145)

    I’m just putting it out there and giving advice as I’ve learned from my teachers (again from their experiences of collectively counseling thousands of people); do as you please with it.

    Peace.

  140. Daniel Chieh says

    I’m going to hell anyway. Baptists told me that I would go to hell if I believed in evolution.

  141. I can only speak for myself – any young man who comes asking for my daughter’s hand – if successfully engaged will have a sit down with me before the marriage where I will make it clear to him that if I hear he has hurt my daughter, I will wipe the floor with him.

    My wife has already started talking to my boys about how it is not acceptable to hit their wives (or women in general).

    It’s fairly simple actually; my father never lifted a hand at my mother so I never lifted a hand to my wife.

    I’ll never forget the time one of my spiritual teachers sat me and my wife down for our first counseling session to assess the health of our marriage. He stared me down directly into my eyes and asked my wife; “Sister, has he ever cursed at you or ever hit you?”

    He is a 60+ man, but I remember that look conveying; “If she says yes to either of those, boy, I’ll beat the hell out of you!” I’ve never been as frightened of a sexagenarian before or after that moment.

    Peace.

  142. OK – I get that, but there are levels of Hell – not everyone gets treated the same. So even then, don’t settle for low standards.

    Peace.

  143. Are you impressed with women in modern societies? Have you seen how fat they are?

    Yes, I mentioned that feminism also had a deleterious effect. The most attractive women are in Eastern Europe, which has remained relatively free of feminism but where women are not treated as cattle. The West was probably like this prior to the late 1960s.

    How many women have you been with?
    Anyone with a number under 20 is incompetent to discuss this.

    This isn’t evidence of expertise.

    Despite being an intelligent, interesting, physically attractive, honorable (as evidenced by your treatment of those working for you) and wealthy man, you are in your thirties and have failed to establish a solid productive relationship with a woman. You have also not been fortunate to have had experienced a good relationship between your parents. So, I doubt your expertise in this particular area.

  144. Daniel Chieh says

    What a lot of young men don’t realize also is that women powerfully respond to love – showing real love and affection is like catnip to them. Of course, assuming you’re attractive in general.

    Sexual harassment: noun
    Flirting while unattractive.

  145. I get that, but there are levels of Hell

    Correct; Muhammad is in the eighth

  146. Thulean Friend says

    One solution would be to institute paternalism on the part of the wider community. Small groups often have a strong understanding of who is best fit to lead, this dramatically worsens as the group expands and it becomes worthless at a mass scale (democracy). The default should be her brothers/cousins/father but there should be a community veto if they are deemed unfit. That community should not be larger than a few hundred people.

    Of course, that solution is not flawless either, but it does get at this problem while still giving the benefit of the doubt to the individual family men in the first instance.

    Finally, not all women are worthless. Some matriarchs are indeed very capable of running their families with an iron fist and doing so in a able way. I have personally witnessed families where the men are incapable of leading and/or frankly largely useless and where the women make all the wheels run smoothly. So these examples exist, but that being said, male rule should be the norm.

  147. Batting it out the park!

    I think even Roosh has expressed second thoughts about obsession with game. I remember reading an article from him about how it was just not fulfilling for him.

    Anyway, game is something that is simply a side-effect of the breakdown of a healthy patriarchy. No patriarchy worth its salt would allow that nonsense to go on.

    Loss of patriarchy and tradition actually reminds me very much of this in a literal sense…
    https://youtu.be/XmHy34EWlpw?t=2m9s

    Peace.

  148. Ah good old Dante…

    We say he is Sayyid ul-Kownain, the one granted Maqam Mahmood. You say he is false.

    Let’s wait it out and see who is right, shall we?

    Peace.

  149. Sort of.

    But when I get a few drinks in me I get really affectionate and friendly – I am fearless and loving and direct and the last thing in my mind is impressing women with my masculinity or playing aloof mind games or trying to lower them or raise myself in any way – and women who aren’t attracted to me respond really sweetly to me, while women who are attracted to me go nuts.

    I am personally convinced that a fearless display of love is powerfully attractive to women on a primal level, but it takes a kind of courage – you are lowering your defenses and accepting vulnerability.

    This isn’t even mentioned in Game. But Game is just an adolescent phase – I don’t begrudge people going through it, but you can’t settle down in it.

  150. Thorfinnsson says

    God I miss Sara.

    I don’t even care anymore that she’s old and has small tits.

    I want her to be with me.

  151. Pre-femimism was fine, no need to react by imitating the tradtional Muslims.

    History lesson fail:
    https://youtu.be/jfN60ZlZhpY?t=1m45s

    He’s talking about imitating traditional Europeans – has nothing to do with us, chief. I can easly find you photos of women from parts of Sweden circa late 1800s that dress more modestly than hijab-wearing Muslim women today.

    Peace.

  152. Daniel Chieh says

    One solution would be to institute paternalism on the part of the wider community.

    You said that you were a manager. You have a problem in your department. Do you?

    1) Attempt to isolate the problem and solve it through a minimum number of changes.

    2)Attempt to change the entire company culture.

  153. Agreed.

    There are too many problems with game to get into here – why take a beautiful and playful thing like love and kill all spontaneity and fun and and make it into this dreary thing of rules and formulas. Shudder.

    And exchanging love and affection with other humans and is just so much fun – if I had to constantly be on my guard, suppress my natural affection, I might as well go to a prostitute.

    But I understand why it may be necessary for some men to go through a game stage in today’s corrupt culture.

    It is ephemeral though and game will fade away as the culture gets healthier.

  154. Bro, are you channeling Macron?

    Peace.

  155. Guillaume Tell says

    I think we have similar weaknesses.

    By the way I have been married for almost a quarter of a century, and except for a couple of missteps during the first years of marriage, have not been screwing around. But it is very difficult. I love women, am extremely attracted by them, and have on average quite a bit of success with them as a result of my physique and status. In a way that really is a scourge. By the way I truly love my wife who is very pretty, but that does not prevent my mind from racing furiously whenever in contact with a beauty. I think it’s genes, what can I do? My father was the same and my paternal grandfather too.

    I did not know there was this maxim in “the Game”. But it really is Catholic/Orthodox you know (judge people by their deeds, not their words).

    Which reminds me that you never answered an earlier question of mine, where I was asking you if you could talk a bit about this “Game”. I know nothing about it other that seeing Tom Cruise in American Beauty as some kind of instructor at “Game” seminars of sorts. I would really like to read your insights about it.

  156. I am completely incapable of talking about Game since I’ve only been with the woman that I’ve married. The one plus on my side is that my wife came pursuing me through one of our mutual teachers – so that’s kind of cool.

    That’s OK though, if non-Muslims want to be good at Game and figure out how to bed women easily, it’s their business, they just shouldn’t complain that there are then a lack of marriageable women around that aren’t chaste…because, well – mathematics.

    There’s no way Muslim fathers like me are going to let that stuff raise its head in our communities if we can help it. I followed the rules, I expect other young men to do the same.

    Peace.

  157. Daniel Chieh says

    Confidence is always attractive, but I’m not totally sure that is the same thing as love. But I’m pretty sure that love as generally understood by a lot of people, which is puppydom and orbiting, is a good way to get friendzoned and worse.

    Arguably the effusiveness thing is part of the entire “make her say no” part of Game anyway. That said, most of the more technical stuff of Game is just silly amusement crap designed to speak to nerds, who I imagine are the target audience.

  158. Are you suggesting that women in Europe of the 1890s had fewer rights than Muslim women at those times?

  159. puppydom and orbiting, is a good way to get friendzoned and worse

    Right, that’s not what I mean by love. That’s not self respecting behavior regardless of how she reacts.

    And it’s not about getting her to say no, but genuine affection and friendliness. There is nothing hostile in it. Its genuine affection, just unconcerned with whether I’m impressing her with my value.

    Its outside the whole game vs pupoydom framework – its not motivated by fear, but affection, and game is still motivated by fear.

  160. at #88

  161. Nope, by 1890’s they had caught up – especially in the area of property rights. But the stuff he was talking about is stuff older Europeans used to do, not us.

    We didn’t deny divorce or property acquisition or allow a free hand in domestic violence (we still have court records from Ottoman times of wives taking husbands to court over this). And – at least in the Hanafi school – they could be judges over marital and economic disputes (not violent criminal or hudud cases).

    Peace.

  162. In places that were European colonies or in places such as Afghanistan, Persia or the Ottoman Empire?

  163. Daniel Chieh says

    Yes, I also seduce women and believe that I always leave them better than I met them.

    I am not a narcissist.

  164. Well that’s good 😉

  165. In a healthy culture it will be that way.

  166. Daniil Adamov says

    Not that I disagree with the post as a whole (it really does appear to be a necessary measure in the circumstances, and we will survive it), but what is wrong with being materialist? And what is so automatically right with being concerned with lofty nonmaterial nonsense? Wanting to live materially well is a worthy cause. If it is not and if being concerned with ideas and ideals is more important, then why do you dislike the Soviet Union so much? There was a lot of idealistic marching about too, back then, while selfishness and greed were at least publicly denounced.

    (Signed, a materialistic member of the younger generation.)

  167. Abbasid times. This is all classical rules, bro. The Hanafis ruled women could be judges in limited circumstances in like the 9th century.

    Peace.

  168. Daniel Chieh says

    For what it is worth: I handwrote love letters on stationary with pretty nice calligraphy if I say so myself, and left roses bundled in silk and a poem of praise for the spirits of inspiration on the Hill of the Muses close to the Acropolis. So I am more of an embittered romantic than anything. Also going to hell for being a polytheist, clearly.

  169. Фрэнк в СПБ says

    “The youth march for things such as free and fair elections, against Internet censorship, against massive corruption in the Kremlin, for the Donbass and Novorossiya, for LGBT rights.” Is this a misprint? You support the encouragement and approval of these specific sexual perversions amongst your own people?

  170. The Big Red Scary says

    University diploma is an important status symbol in Russia

    Russia is not the only country suffering from this disease.

    Most white collar jobs won’t even consider a candidate without a diploma.

    For the traditional highly skilled professions (medicine, law, and so on), you train in special schools and receive qualification after taking exams. While the system for such professional training could no doubt be made more efficient, I am not suggesting to completely abolish it.

    For most other white collar jobs, there is no reason not to be learning on the job. University is just a drawn out and expensive signaling exercise. Expensive to the state, which has to pay for it, and expensive to the individual in terms of lost opportunities (for becoming an adult, making a living, forming a family). Given a choice between someone who has made a more expensive signal and someone who hasn’t, the employer is of course going to go for the more expensive signal. That’s one reason why the universities have to be abolished, not just disincentivized.

  171. Very nice! Ill agree it’s easy to get embittered these days, with both men and women.

  172. Thorfinnsson says

    I had a great relationship with Sara.

    I miss her.

  173. an 18 year old black guy, who was on disability yet clearly able-bodied and healthy. I’ll get back to you

    Consider that disability payments are not actually enough to survive on so most work off the books. This is a great depressant on the wage level. Combined with illegals it makes it impossible for working people with few skills to get decent pay.

  174. Dear seeker-of-the-crown, I have to ask you to rethink this assessment.

    You had an adulterous relationship with this woman who eventually went back to her previous man after you had felt the relationship had had its due, but now possibly regret the decision.

    I’m pretty sure the lion’s share of humanity would disagree that this was a “great relationship”.

    Now numbers don’t always make right, but doesn’t this give you pause? Just something to think about.

    Peace.

  175. If we seize state power we can do anything.

    Who is this we, Kemo Sabe? You write stuff like this time and again.

    (I’ll be an early signee if you let me be in charge of the guillotine). 🙂

  176. OT

    Congrats! I saw where the EU solved the immigration problem.

  177. LOOOL!

  178. The best defense against abusive men is angry brothers and protective fathers.

    Not every female will have these. How about a community and society with angry and protective males?

  179. My impression is that the idea was to throw medical care at Africans

    It’s rather difficult to make a case against simple vacination programs.

  180. I know you advocate a “Straussian” approach (that is lying about the true extent of one’s intentions)

    Isn’t being crytic or esoteric different from lying?

  181. I am going to be reading your posts more closely, AB.

    Life is a serious of transitions.

    Deep.

  182. Greasy William says

    Tom Cruise was in American Beauty?

    What I have never understood about marriage is, what happens when you aren’t attracted to her anymore? When you are both 90, she is gonna be grossing you out. The idea of “growing old together” is, to me at least, extremely unappealing. Now don’t get me wrong, I simply enjoy being alone, my longest relationship ever was 2 weeks, and I wouldn’t want to be married regardless; but the only way I could ever understand the appeal of a lifetime commitment is if you were both going to stay 25 until you were dead. Those old couples that everybody finds so cute, I just find depressing.

    re Game: I think PUA stuff is a dumb and basically comes down to numbers and how good looking and charismatic you are, but they are definitely right about the way that women will just gravitate towards alphas.

    My advice is that if you aren’t tall and/or super good looking (women don’t care if you are a 7 out of 10, the only way to impress women with your looks is to have 8/10 facial aesthetics minimum) to avoid clubs and internet dating.

  183. That’s OK though, if non-Muslims want to be good at Game and figure out how to bed women easily, it’s their business

    I call you on this, Talha. You can’t just stay in your Muslim bubble and not care about the nation as a whole.

  184. German_reader says

    I agree, that’s not what Leo Strauss meant with his “esoteric” reading of texts (if I understand correctly it was more about truths supposedly hidden in texts due to censorship or because the author didn’t want to make those truths accessible to the masses – but I’ve never read Strauss, so I might be wrong). But Thorfinsson seems to use “Straussian” in the sense of “lying about one’s true programme”, so I went with that usage.

  185. Yes, I also seduce women and believe that I always leave them better than I met them.

    I am not a narcissist.

    Stop it!

    Dan, do you ever stop and think about how few people are in a position to write comments that contain the words: “my redneck friend.”

  186. We are not our non-brother’s keeper. We have no obligation to apply Shariah on non-Muslim populations (we get blamed for being restrictive enough on them as it is). It is their choice. But that doesn’t mean I don’t care; which is why I’m giving our seeker-of-the-crown (SOTC from now on) advice on what I believe is beneficial for him, but I can’t control if he follows my advice nor am I obligated to.

    But I like you calling me out on this though, it means you consider me “your people” and I sincerely appreciate that.

    Peace.

  187. And what is so automatically right with being concerned with lofty nonmaterial nonsense?

    Dude, you put your conclusion in there with your question. That won’t fly with this group.

  188. Mr. Hack says

    Glad to see that you took my advice, Thor’s son:

    Anything over a handful is a waste.

    🙂

    But if she’s married move on. Remember when your parents split up and what pain that has caused you your whole life? Perhaps, she has kids too that want her to stick around with Daddy?…

  189. When you are both 90, she is gonna be grossing you out.

    You really need to work through this at a personal level, Greasy. When she’s 90 and gross, you will be the same.

  190. Gravity doesn’t discriminate.

    Peace.

  191. [AK: Redacted].

  192. Greasy William says

    so basically you’re saying, “yeah she’ll be disgusting but by that point you will be to so you need to just take what you can get.”

    Why is being alone worse than being with somebody gross?

  193. We are not our non-brother’s keeper.

    This is a problem vis-a-vis civic nationalism. I’m not asking for you to bring down a scimitar on their heads, just that if behavior is detrimental to society, it should be condemned. The fact that you come to it because of your religious belief is not crucial.

  194. Ok – hell yeah, it’s detrimental behavior and if other citizens of the US bring about ways (even legal) to curb it universally, I will fully support them.

    I personally feel the first thing we should go after, that is massively detrimental on this front, is porn. It is seriously destroying families. Iceland might show us how it’s done in the West:
    https://www.antarcticajournal.com/iceland-internet-porn-ban/

    Peace.

  195. There are many more important things in life other than personal happiness.

    Happiness is highly over-rated in any case.

  196. I agree with you, but copt to hypocrisy.

    For a long time I have thought that our “free speech” should only apply to political speech and not commercial (porn) speech. I have never been able to sort through a way to separate the two.

  197. Guillaume Tell says

    Merely wishing that someone be tortured/executed by a sub-human POS that should have been put to death long ago, as the one you mentioned (whose name I don’t even want to write in order to not degrade my keyboard), immediately qualifies you for the title of sick bastard. Go away.

  198. It is deep 🙂

    Things can’t be viewed isolated, in the abstract, but as they relate to other things. Something may be a positive sign in one context but a negative in another.

    Alas, I sometimes fear I am not understood on this site!

  199. German_reader says

    Alas, I sometimes fear I am not understood on this site!

    Pearls before swine! Maybe you should try to find a more receptive audience somewhere else, we’re obviously not deserving of your profound wisdom.

  200. Alas, I sometimes fear I am not understood on this site!

    Why, should you fear it? It is a very good thing to be not understood. It all depends on context, right? People may understand more by not understanding. Not understanding is actually understanding. By fearing this or that you show strange attachment to one sidedness of reality while by embracing all of it will liberate you. You will no longer crave to be understood or not understood. Maybe you will even shut up.

  201. Daniel Chieh says

    Probably more if they were willing to reach out and get to know people. Some of the best people I know.

  202. I see I have angered the geriatric brigade 🙂

    Their time is up.

    We should be gentle and kind with them, while firmly escorting them outside the building.

  203. Daniel Chieh says

    Now don’t get me wrong, I simply enjoy being alone, my longest relationship ever was 2 weeks,

    Greasy min-maxing bangs per year.

  204. German_reader says

    I see I have angered the geriatric brigade

    I’m afraid the old people on Unz review like me are just unable to absorb your lessons of wisdom, we’re too set in our ways, so your noble effort is sadly wasted on us. Maybe you should seek more promising grounds for your spiritual mission and transfer yourself to one of those sites where the young congregate…how about /pol/? I’m sure the young enthusiasts there will eagerly and gratefully accept your spiritual nourishment.

  205. I would GR, but you need me – more than anyone here. I will not abandon my duty to you. We shall spiritually uplift you kicking and screaming if need be. You will be an idealist before this is over. Your gloom and pessimism will dissipate like cobwebs in the wind.

    And utu, dear little utu, how can I make you happy? Is there anything I can do for you? Know that you are always in my thoughts and my compassion does not forget you – being a cantankerous old man and a swamp dweller who tries to drag people down, I understand it. But it’s not the true you. I see deeper. Life is disappointing for all of us – that is not a reason to despair. It is a spiritual battle, utu – fight it, and you will win.

  206. You don’t want “males” “protecting” women they would like to sleep with.

  207. Part of the explanation surely must be that Western capitalists were somewhat restrained in what they could do as long as the big bad commie empire existed (though this doesn’t mean communism was a good thing).

    Agreed. The big bad commie empire was a necessary evil. It was a useful reminder to capitalists that if they went too far the huddled masses might actually rise up and that would mean capitalists being lined up against the wall and shot.

    It’s a very healthy thing for capitalists to be lined up against the wall and shot on a fairly regular basis.

    In fact it’s a very healthy thing for ruling classes in general to face the possibility of being hanged from lamp-posts. It’s necessary for a viable political and economic alternative to be seen to exist, as it did in the days of the Soviet Union. It doesn’t have to be a wonderful alternative, as long as it actually exists it will serve its purpose of preventing ruling classes from becoming the sort of selfish short-sighted vicious amoral conniving scum that our current western ruling classes have become.

  208. That’s how I feel. They just don’t know it yet.

  209. Thulean Friend says

    You said that you believed that the most cost-effective way to invest in health care is in preventive treatment(which is not the same as always giving medicine to a patient). I believe in the same principle with regards to cultural habits and norms.

  210. Thulean Friend says

    The SAT, before the 1995 so-called “re-centering”, was closely matched to IQ so that was useful. Fifty years ago, college admission was truly a sign of ~115 IQ or above, which puts you at the top 15% of the population. However, as admissions have increased, the correlation with IQ and college attendence has shrunk.

    I think your proposal are modest but reasonable. Intelligence affects everything, even menial job performance (as Gwern has pointed out in his recent book review of McNamara’s experiments in Vietnam). Of course, more is required than intelligence to be successful in work. Conscientiousness is a key trait aside from intelligence which is highly predictive of performance and AFAIK it is harder to measure well.

    The idea behind college was initially good but it has lost its original utility for the vast many. The question that remains is if the political cost required of reforming such a system is even possible in a democracy, where it has become deeply embedded within striving and aspiring broad layers of the population, so much so where some have even begun to see their own identity as synonymous with having gone to college (and consequently, so must their children, out of sheer social pressure and conformity). People hate when someone take away what they desire most, even if it is bad/unnecessary for them.

  211. Why do you assume anything radical is unrealistic?

    In fact you could argue that our situation is so desperate that only radical solutions are realistic.

    White sharia might turn out to be more realistic than the kinds of pathetic half-measures that respectable conservatives are inclined to support. Your proposals seem pretty sound to me.

  212. reiner Tor says

    They lead to a population explosion of horribly undernourished people.

  213. Thorfinnsson says

    I am not sure if Mediterranean populations require this lesson. To you it may just be common sense?

    I told German_reader that ultimately Game comes down to two lessons.

    The first is that men and women are fundamentally different.

    The second is that to get women, you must work to become an attractive man.

    There are some tricks beyond this, but they’re really just lines and jokes. They aren’t a substitute for being an attractive man.

  214. Thorfinnsson says

    As German_reader said, I am not a Mohammedan.

    But I get similar lessons from Christians.

    Usually these lessons come from men who can’t pull.

    But not always.

    And there is something to it.

    I don’t allow women to have power over me.

    Or do I?

    And no, I would not be surprised to be cuckolded. My default assumption is that all women are whores. That means no one is immune.

    https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=i4DI71X6PeM

  215. Thorfinnsson says

    What do you guys think of organizing a Karlin conference for all of us? Perhaps expanded to Steve Sailer readers as well?

    Would we do it in America or Europe?

  216. Daniil Adamov says

    It was a rhetorical question. The real question would be why he considers “materialism” to be in any way a bad thing – and how he manages to square this with his contempt for various transcendental supervalue-based ideologies like communism or Islam. Are they just the wrong transcendental supervalue-based ideologies, while some sort of ethnonationalist transhumanism is just right?

    And if it is wrong for us to be “materialist” in our thinking, then how is one to take his comments about the Soviet Union’s comparative failure or Putin’s relative success in providing for the populace materially? One would think that all of those concerns would be irrelevant if we mustn’t be concerned with such lowly and selfish interests.

  217. anonymous coward says

    I’m American but am rather unlikely to live again in the US, which is why I asked the question about currencies.

    American investment advise will be useless to you then.

    I suggest you buy into some ПИФ:

    https://www.alfacapital.ru/individual/pifs/opifo_akbond/ — Eurobonds if you want to hedge against currency risks.

    https://www.alfacapital.ru/individual/pifs/opif_akop/ — Russian bonds if you just want a low-risk way to make money with compound interest.

    Note that the vast majority of Russians will invest into real estate instead. (Requires that you have kids and will only pay off in 30-plus years.)

  218. anonymous coward says

    Relax. Most women are whores. Why pass it up?

    They’re only whores because some cad in her youth “didn’t pass it up”. You made them whores.

    But when you lock one down, isolate and protect her.

    Sorry, but you will never ‘lock one down’. Good women don’t associate with males who associate with whores.

    Game is the male equivalent of the eat-pray-love catlady. Don’t get sucked into the taripit.

  219. Felix Keverich says

    How did this thread devolve into discussion of Thorfinnsson’s romantic life??

    You know, I always get sceptical when people start bragging about their wealth and/or sexual prowess on the internet. For someone, who is allegedly a “successful businessman” with 20+ past sex partners, Thorfinnsson spends w-way too much time on this website.

  220. spends w-way too much time on this website

    Heavy presence on internet does not impede onanism.

  221. anonymous coward says

    How many women have you been with?

    Anyone with a number under 20 is incompetent to discuss this.

    That’s like saying that some feminist understands male psychology because she’s had 300 negro dicks during one-night-stands.

    Like I said: Game is just the male version of feminism. If you want to die alone and be cremated by your state’s social services, then do everything Game tells you to.

  222. Felix Keverich says

    You seem to be under impression that people cared about ideology in USSR. They didn’t. It was a deeply cynical society, built on lies. In the end, communist elites sold out Soviet Union because they wanted to convert their power into material wealth. It doesn’t get more materialistic and selfish than that.

    That being said there is nothing wrong with materialism and a desire to “live well”. The issue here is wanting to live well at others expense, and feeling very entitled about it. It’s this ‘entitlement mentality’ that deserves contempt. The people, who are going to protest against the pension reform deserve our contempt, even more so than, say, LGBT activists.

  223. Medvedev says

    In Western countries this is however a no-brainer.

    There is one huge problem with your thinking. Western model relies on a Ponzi scheme. That’s why you have ever-increasing stocks, housing and land prices.

  224. Guillaume Tell says

    Hey Greasy I am sorry I confused American Beauty with Magnolia. Here is the scene:
    https://m.youtube.com/watch?v=bbanWHx5AFQ

    Regarding old decrepit couples: my thoughts exactly. One aspect I can’t speak for of course is how it feels when one is in this situation. The human mind is very well done, in that it has astounding flexibility to adjust to all sorts of conditions. One example: when I was in my early 20s, the people of my parents’ generation seemed old to me and I would never have been attracted by a woman in her 40s. Nowadays it’s exactly the opposite: I find the 20-something beauties dull and unappealing whereas nothing turns me on like a hot woman in her mid-40s, preferably married of course.

    But overall my current reasoning is that I won’t let myself become decrepit and pathetically useless. I am not sure yet about the modalities (Eskimo-style or forever entombment in a Sibrian hermitage) but aside from these implementation details, you get the idea. One aspect of Christianity that I have always had strong disagreement with, is its absolute prohibition of suicide. I think that it some circumstances, it is, to the contrary, the ultimate act of courage and freedom.

  225. Guillaume Tell says

    Strong agreement here.

    I suggest Spain because it is one of the few remaining free countries in Europe. We won’t be jailed just for saying things.

    A nice alternative is Andorra.

    I could help with the logistics.

  226. Felix Keverich says

    That’s not necessarily true. Rising asset prices do not imply the existence of a ponzi scheme. However, forcing the entire population to buy equity, like Thorfinnsson proposes, WILL facilitate the growth of bubbles.

  227. He pays a flat income tax at a rate of 13%. As an American living abroad, unless he makes over $100,000 per year, he’s not liable for tax there. So 401(k), IRA, etc. are not applicable. Furthermore, investing as an American abroad is extremely complicated thanks to the convoluted tax code designed to catch evaders, while completely disregarding the interests of ex-pats.

    My advice to the Big Red Scary for maximizing tax advantages would be to conclude a брачный договор with his Russian wife and put all his assets in her name. If the investments are in his name, he could be taxed to the full extent in the US while simultaneously annulling his below-$100,000/year exemption.

  228. It’s a very healthy thing for capitalists to be lined up against the wall and shot on a fairly regular basis.

    If R. Unz would come through with the coins and fund the GWAS study on the noblesse oblige trait we could save the “good” ones.

    Also, consider using the guillotine, it is much more humane.

  229. It’s rather difficult to make a case against simple vaccination programs.

    They lead to a population explosion of horribly undernourished people.

    It’s rather difficult to make a case against simple food delivery programs to starving people.

  230. What do you guys think of organizing a Karlin conference for all of us?

    I have shot my mouth off with insults too many times, and I am too old to kick ass or get mine kicked, otherwise it sounds like fun.

    What we need is an adjacent chat room to the comment section. A good computer whiz could likely make that available with little effort, although it would have to be one that didn’t dole out agree/disagree tabs like an old maid niggardly handing out cookies to the neighbor kids.

  231. It’s hard to make a case for more Africans

  232. You seem to be under impression that people cared about ideology in USSR.

    It is hard to come up with an example of a group that cared more about ideology than did the Bolsheviks. American communists spied for Russia, German communists deserted and warned the Soviets about Barbarossa ( of course Stalin had them shot as he was prone to shoot the messenger).

    I think you are correct about the later days, it faded into a pure opportunistic scramble.

  233. Governor Big Jim Folsom of Alabama, 1947-1951, 1955-1959, “Niggers is people too.”

  234. It was a rhetorical question.

    Sorry, you went over my head.

    As for AK, I am pretty sure he strongly believes that Russia would have developed materially even more so without the burden of communism.

  235. Daniel Chieh says

    A fair point, I concede.

  236. Guillaume Tell says

    A simpler option might be to formally renounce is US citizenship. If he does not intend to move back to the US ever, the US citizenship is a net liability nowadays.

  237. German_reader says

    How did this thread devolve into discussion of Thorfinnsson’s romantic life??

    Probably my fault, I shouldn’t have asked him about “game”. Sorry!

  238. German_reader says

    The issue here is wanting to live well at others expense

    At the expense of the young.
    How are relations between the generations in Russia? Is AK with his contempt for “Sovok boomers” unusual or do many young people resent the older generations?

  239. Guillaume Tell says

    Please dot not apologize. I think that from this OT question, ensued a discussion on a topic that is in fact profound under an apparently superficial tone: namely, how is a young man to think about his relations with the fair sex, in a world where men/women relations have been all but destroyed by sexual degeneracy, feminism, faggotry, and assorted evils.

    Thorfinnsson’s candid exposition of his suffering, still ongoing, because of his parents’ divorce is not only touching, it also goes straight to the heart of the matter. The destruction of the family leads to successful young men viewing women as whores. Don’t blame him, he is just the messenger here.

  240. The destruction of the family leads to successful young men viewing women as whores. Don’t blame him, he is just the messenger here.

    Stop making excuses for him. He is obviously smart enough to overcome some unfortunate facts of his personal life and place them in a more rational perspective. More destructive than the faggotry and the general poz (indeed, it is part and parcel of it) is the wallowing in self-pity, endless claims of the “disadvantaged,” the clamor for excuses , the endless claims to “special” victimization and the vicious pursuit of someone to blame.

  241. It’s hard to make a case for more Africans

    Are you saying that we shouldn’t send surplus milk powder to starving children?

  242. Probably more if they were willing to reach out and get to know people.

    I think that I see a high initial barrier of distrust and non-acceptance. However, once that barrier is breached it seems to be complete, that is, you are either in or out, and if you are in, it is total. My interactions with non rednecks and other ethnic groups make me think that they hold some levels in reserve, they are more nuanced and make many distinctions among various interactions and situations, you could be in for “this” but not for “that.”

  243. Thorfinnsson says

    I appreciate the kind remarks, but do not consider myself as someone who is suffering. My life is quite good and indeed I am blessed.

    I also accept the criticism of others such as iffen who raise good points about my behavior.

    Back on topic… https://www.reuters.com/article/us-japan-retirement/japan-short-of-workers-eyes-hiking-optional-pension-age-beyond-70-idUSKCN1G106L

  244. Thorfinnsson says

    I think we need to start organizing in meat space.

    How does Vegas sound to everyone?

    Or since we have more Euros here, where is the appropriate conference venue in Europe? Hanover?

  245. What are you thinking of? A Tea Party type approach? I can’t see any of the commenters here doing retail politics and I doubt that the Koch brothers would spring for a group such as us.

  246. reiner Tor says

    The question is loaded. The end result of it will be even more starving children. I used to send money to some charities saving third world children, but I no longer do that, and the reason is that I don’t know if its end result won’t be an increase in human suffering. Actually, I’m sure that the end result will be even more suffering.

  247. The Big Red Scary says

    Certainly it’s a liability, but so far I have workarounds and the formal process of renunciation is expensive (over ten times more than renewing your passport).

  248. Thorfinnsson says

    I don’t know yet. I’m working on it. If you or anyone else has ideas, share them.

    But I do know that if we don’t organize in meat space we’ll never get anywhere.

    This commentariat impresses me more than any other group I’ve been a part of, and I want to make something out of it. That is, out of us.

    I have money and probably so do some other commenters here.

    But more importantly I have a knack for inspiration and leadership.

  249. The Big Red Scary says

    Crimea. Maybe even AP would come, and Mr. Hack could survey the local Tatars to see how things are going for them.

    You do know that Hanover is a dump?

  250. If R. Unz would come through with the coins and fund the GWAS study on the noblesse oblige trait we could save the “good” ones.

    Good idea.

    Also, consider using the guillotine, it is much more humane.

    As long as the capitalists are liquidated I have no great problems with doing it humanely. I’m not a barbarian.

  251. РОССИЯ!!!

  252. Thorfinnsson says

    Crimea is a good idea given the subject of this blog.

    I haven’t been to Hanover. I just know it has an important trade fair.

  253. Is Karlin still refusing to talk about the world cup, even with his team winning?

  254. German_reader says

    Hanover is a leftie-infested shit place that ought to be neutron-bombed. If you wanted to meet in Germany, at least pick something nice like Munich.
    Somewhere in Eastern Europe or Russia would probably be more convenient for most of AK’s European commenters anyway (and certainly more appropriate).

  255. German_reader says

    lol, Russia beat Spain?
    I agree with neutral, AK should at least acknowledge that.
    Congratulations to Russia!

  256. Apparently you have not read of the punishments that await adulterers in the Afterlife as explicated by hadith.

    So you just respond to (imaginary) punishments and rewards, like a mouse in a cage.

    No actual morality?

  257. I have morality, the threat of punishments help when the ego attempts to break out of the cage it’s been confined to.

    There are multiple motivations that keep one in check:
    – Potential loss of one’s position with God
    – Loss of years of the effects of spiritual efforts
    – Finally punishment

    It’s a failsafe.

    We’ll both see if they are imaginary, right? Let’s exchange notes then.

    Peace.

  258. The main difference is, on average, young people are more “liberal”, sophisticated and internationally knowledgeable compared to older generations.

    But comparisons between countries are not perfect, because the history is very different, and the interpretation of even the same ideologies can be too. And differences themselves are where the interesting are.

    A metaphor is that Russia’s watch is not very synchronized with the world clock, or at least the Western watches.

    But is it just lack of synchronization – if you ask when it is 1917 in Petrograd, if it 1789, or 1848, or 1871 in Paris? It’s not only going around the same race-track at different speeds, but rather going round at different speeds, a different race-track, with similar features, but with its own bend and corners, so that a driver on one track cannot learn the corners on his own track from observing another driver, even if he is more advanced through his own course, on a different track – and although the drivers on the less advanced track are commonly making this mistake exactly.

  259. Part of the irrationality of Islam

  260. Because if god, or gods, exist, and they are interested in man to the extent of observing, and then later punishing this same man – they will not be generously to people who simply respond to perceived punishments and rewards like a mouse in a cage.

    Actually this distinction will be very important morally. Whether a person has done something for moral reasons, or because they believe it will result in punishment or rewards.

    The people who behave because of (imaginary or not) punishment or reward, are less moral than the people who disregard punishment and reward.

    Morality happens exactly when people disregard perceived punishment and reward, and nonetheless will do the correct thing, because it is correct, and particularly when it will lead not to reward, but precisely to punishment.

    A god will see instantly, that people doing something because they believes it will reward them, are the most immoral people, or precisely the people who do not have the extra dimension that constitutes real morality, and in this sense no different to an animal in the “Skinner box”.

  261. All behavior is motivated by some kind of reward or punishment.

  262. German_reader says

    A really primitive and reductionist view, especially for someone who constantly goes on about “idealism” and spiritual values.

  263. German_reader says

    The main difference is, on average, young people are more “liberal”, sophisticated and internationally knowledgeable

    Sure, I don’t doubt that. I just wondered how common AK’s sentiments are…his views about Russian “boomers” and their values (too internationalist/not nationalist enough, too much Soviet nostalgia, too selfish etc.) seem very negative. Do many young people in Russia feel like that?

  264. Correct – or in the materialist view – what gives chemical feeeelz-good response to the brain; and different things do that for different people. For some it’s charity, for some it’s a threesome, for some torturing cats to death.

    Peace.

  265. I would agree, except that I would objectively rank the pleasures and not make them a matter of personal preference.

    The person so twisted by bitterness, resentment, and hate that he enjoys torturing cats may indeed derive a certain pleasure from that, but I would say it is an objectively lower quality pleasure than a healthy well constituted person enjoying the pleasures of love or the splendor of nature.

  266. will do the correct thing, because it is correct

    Baloney – no one agrees on what is correct. Human history will attest to this; families with children used to come out to see human being being sacrificed or people being drawn and quartered and thought it was a great use of their time. If you were born into the Mongol Horde, you would have thought nothing of burning a village to the ground after raping every woman you could get your hands on.

    What moral stances are you taking that are not already popular? This morality takes as much effort as breathing.

    The morality you think you have come to through some sophisticated mechanism is simply an inheritance of the post-Christian environment you were born into and – far more important – from a materialist viewpoint, simply the result of your genetic algorithm processing inputs as others through your specific chemical processes. Your morality was determined at the time of the Big Bang – according to you, you and I have no choice in the matter.

    Find me a serious atheist thinker that believes in free-will which is the basis for morality.

    Peace.

  267. As usual, GR, you do not understand the subtlety of my thought, and the many meanings of reward.

    I think you should be required to take a university course in philosophy before you are allowed to read me.

  268. Who would have guessed that AaronB and Bentham agreed on so much?

  269. Sure, I’ll agree to this. I’m sure the guy who likes torturing cats gets a higher pleasure out of a woman writing him a love letter.

    By the way torturing cats was common in certain parts in medieval times. If I recall, in certain places in France, they would light a cat on fire and have it run around town until it collapsed and also a bunch of them in cages.

    Peace.

  270. Literally nothing you wrote is an argument against what he said

  271. Cool – I totally agree with your right to think I am wrong. If his argument appeals more to you then good for him.

    Peace.

  272. Dmitry, the person who does the moral thing irrespective of external punishment or reward does so because the internal reward of doing so is experienced by him as far greater than any external punishment.

    It is still well within the reward punishment schema. Some kind of reward and punishment motivates all our behavior, and must, or we would do nothing. It could be internal reward, intrinsic reward, or external reward. But reward it must be.

    The man who is no longer able to feel a sense of reward for his actions becomes like GR – apathetic, scared of big projects and grand dreams, and bitter against those still connected to their reward system.

    From the religious pov, God is already rewarding us for moral behavior by making it intrinsically pleasurable, and punishing us for immoral behavior by making it intrinsically misery inducing – of c ourse, the effects my not be immediate, which is why people sin and even persist.

    Some theologians believe Hell is simply the horrific state of mind the bad man lives in continuing into eternity – resentment, jealousy, hatred, anxiety, cut from higher pleasures like love, beauty, nature, and only capable of feeling the lower bestial pleasures.

  273. Well, the guy who currently likes torturing cats may not enjoy a love letter as he now is, but if he could feel the pleasure a healthy gets from a love letter, he would rather be that healthy guy.

    Anyways these are just subtle points of philosophy 🙂

    It is truly a shame how cruel Europeans used to be to animals.

  274. German_reader says

    and punishing us for immoral behavior by making it intrinsically misery inducing

    Well, not for everyone, there are of course sociopaths without a conscience.
    And Peter Frost always had those posts about how not all populations are equally empathic (and the difference between cognitive and affective empathy). He advanced that as an explanation for the Paki rape gangs in Britain…in their homeland they would be restrained from such behaviour by external constraints, but those aren’t operative in Britain, and since their inner conscience is rather under-developed, they act like they do and see nothing wrong in it.
    I’m not sure how credible that is, but it’s an interesting theory.

  275. You miss the point.

    The issue is not about what is right and what is wrong.

    The issue is that someone who does what is right, because they believe they will be rewarded for it.

    And someone who avoids what is wrong, because they believe they will be punished for it.

    In both cases, they are not behaving morally.

    On the contrary, they are behaving as a rat in a “Skinner box”.

    So – it’s an example of people without morality, almost in the most basic concept that any god would judge them. It’s just the rat responding to anticipations of cheese or electric shocks.

  276. Thorfinnsson says

    If you Euros want Europe, suggest a place. I will do everything from there.

  277. Dmitry, the person who does the moral thing irrespective of external punishment or reward does so because the internal reward of doing so is experienced by him as far greater than any external punishment.

    It’s not correct.

    (Although perhaps B. F. Skinner would like to reduce humanity to such a condition).

    Precisely the most moral person who would do it – if there was no internal reward, anymore than the lack of external reward.

    The concept of reward itself, results that the action would lose its specifically moral or transcendent component

  278. True, not for everyone, but sociopathic pleasures are objectively lower quality – being in the New York business community, I am around sociopaths all the time. Beneath the shine, they are an unhappy bunch. Their main emotion s seem to be resentment, jealousy, and fear, and they seem cut off from the higher emotions. But they do smile a lot, when they are not a rage fit.

    Why a person chooses to go deeper and deeper into evil and corruption despite the obvious misery of it is one of the mysteries of free will, but some people do it.

    As for genetic variations in empathy, it’s not so much that I don’t buy it as that it would be incredibly difficult to prove as environment and predicament shape so much of our character. I suspect those Pakistanis were just corrupted Muslims – every system corrupts in a different way, when it gets corrupted. Obviously Islam does not encourage grooming gangs, but a corrupted version of the Islamic distinction between believers and non believers may result in lack of empathy to outsiders. It’s similar with corrupted Jews.

    If someone were born with a genetic deficiency in empathy, he’d want to work on developing it.

  279. So he derives pleasure from doing the ‘right’s thing. It’s a semantic distinction.

    If you are literally trying to suggest moral behavior is pleasureless behavior, then you are not just objectively wrong as people obviously get pleasure from it but you are also rendering it meaningless.

    Come to think of it, I seem to remember your way of thinking about morality is representative of certain European strains of thought – which would be one more piece of the puzzle of why Europe became so apathetic and European life so lustrerless and unappealing to high quality whites.

    Moral life disconnected from the reward system!

    Dmitry, can you point me out to philosophers or thinkers whom have this idea?

  280. German_reader says

    being in the New York business community

    I thought you had written a few weeks ago that you’re living outside the US…”New York business community”, lol.
    It’s encouraging though that even you admit that the extreme ingroup/outgroup “morality” of many Muslims might have something to do with those rape gangs.

  281. Kant

  282. transcendent

    It sounds like you merely object to external earthly reward, like praise or money.

    But you recognize a spiritual reward.

    In any event, traditional religions do not understand it this way – they are constantly talking about the sheer bliss and peace and sense of blessedness that result from following their practices – and if morality became associated in the modern European mind with such pleasureless emptiness rather than the bliss giving happiness all the religions say it brings than it is no wonder religion is so widely rejected in the West! neurological

    Religion has become disconnected from the reward system in the European mjnd, and become utterly abstract and tautological- one does it because one does it. One is moral because one is moral. No happiness. No bliss.

    And your description of morality Dmitry is not meaningful – it is tautological.

    No wonder European life became so gloomy!

    Thank you Dmitry, you have helped me with a piece of the puzzle.

  283. Kant was the Categorical Imperative, was he not? That a moral law must apply to everyone in all circumstance?

    Did Kant think moral action carries no intrinsic reward and is just tautological – and thus nihilistic?

    I am genuinely curious.

  284. I never said that. It is my dream and intention to permanently move out of the US. And God willing I will do it soon. But for the time being I am stuck in sociopath-land, and must find what grim humor I can in it.

    Of course I accept that in group out group can become corrupted and lead to bad behavior. It’s a dangerous thing. But it seems unavoidable, and may be the only shot at group love and sense of community most people have. We must use it wisely rather than discard it.

  285. If it is said on Karlin blog, then it’s said on the most important place in the internet.

    But simply and accurately – older generations are politically more aligned with the general views heard on federal television.

    And younger people, are spending more time on the internet, and there is more ideological fragmentation and subcultures developing nowadays, so it’s harder to know what’s happening.

    At the same time, less people interested in politics. Less people even reading books. The people who are teenagers now – will waste increasing time following instagram and YouTube beauty gurus.

    What will be the long-term political impact of these trends? I guess that in the future, you’ll be able to vote for your preferred candidate by clicking ‘likes’ on an internet video, and probably we will move increasingly to a “clickbait politics”.

  286. The moment you introduce reward or punishment, you have removed all the morality dimension.

    I’m not sure I have to explain this? It’s like a tone-deaf person, trying to conceive of music.

    If the person does something because of reward, whether real or imaginary, then it is still a rat in a Skinner box. (That is to say, there has not entered any moral component to their behaviour).

    If you conceive morality simply as a more complicated reward system, you have just introduced a Rube Goldberg machine into rat’s Skinner box, or more tragically, a rat perceiving some imaginary Rube Goldberg machine that will somehow give them the piece of non-imaginary cheese.

  287. guess that in the future, you’ll be able to vote for your preferred candidate by clicking ‘likes’ on an internet video

    This can be quite a democratically educative, and depressing, experience when you realize how weak your voice is, when electronically converted into numerical terms. It is lost within a sea of millions of voices.

    If you ever try voting for or against (I hope against) a Justin Bieber video on youtube?

    I’d like to invent a phrase:
    “Voting for Putin makes as much sense as giving a “like” to Justin Bieber”.

  288. Mitleser says
  289. German_reader says

    I guess that in the future, you’ll be able to vote for your preferred candidate by clicking ‘likes’ on an internet video, and probably we will move increasingly to a “clickbait politics”.

    The quality of political debate is certainly deplorably low in many Western countries, but imo there are real issues and conflicts driving increasing polarization, it’s not just a consequence of new technologies.
    Anyway, you still haven’t told me whether resentment of the older generations is common among the young in Russia…but I suppose that question can’t really be answered, there’s probably no data for it.

  290. According to you, one cannot experience a sense of satisfaction helping someone 🙂 That would make it an amoral act.

    I think you are confused, and are trying to be too abstract. But you’ve helped me better understand again what went wrong with Europe, and why its apathetic and nihilistic.

    Logically, your definition of morality is a tautology, and thus does not convey meaningful information. Rather, it serves the psychological purpose of de-linking morality from our reward system, thus leading to loss of interest in morality and a loss of its capacity to motivate – which was, I suspect, the real purpose behind these abstract European philosophers spinning their spider webs.

    In any event, traditional religions saw matters otherwise, and linked morality with a state of psychological bliss – yet you would even deny the moral person a sense of quiet satisfaction 🙂

    It is an unmotivated act – a mysterium tremendum. And people say I am the mystic!

    But I am not joking when I say you helped me on my path to understand European apathy – and for that I thank you.

  291. Mitleser says

    I think you are correct about the later days, it faded into a pure opportunistic scramble.

    The main thing that forced USSR on the road towards collapse is ideological stagnation inside the communist party. The political elite failed to adapt the official ideology to the changing social structure of the Soviet Union. Initially (immediately post-Revolution and in the 20s) Soviet communists were insanely progressive for their time but in the same time they ruled over a very conservative country, so the more progressive elements of the ideology were curtailed under Stalin mostly because it would be impossible to push for very hard and costly economic reforms at the same time with breaking up traditional society by force. So instead of enforcing the communism ideology on the whole country it was done mostly through education system gradually. Then the War happened which wiped significant portion of the most active members of the Communist party (communists constituted about 15% of the war losses while being less than 5% of the Soviet Union entire population) which again strengthened conservative elements inside the political elite as youngest members of the Party have far more chance to be killed for obvious reasons.

    As the result of all of that the majority of the elite of the Communist party was very much conservative in their nature by the end of 50s. They also became very much afraid of any ideological or even economical reform as such reform would require strong and independent leadership and the last person with such ability was Joseph Stalin which wasn’t remembered fondly by Soviet bureaucracy. In fact every member of the elite who pushed for significant reform was removed from power (for example infamous Laverentiy Beria in his brief period being in power after Stalin’s death actually advocated liberalization of the economy with increased role for small private business and keeping central planning mostly on the country or republic-wide level) by various means.

    In the same time no one really touched the educational system and it still attempted to produce proper communists with progressive views and desire to improve the system. But their aspirations were faced with growing conservatism of the higher ups. And as the top echelon of the Communist party held all real power in the Soviet Union there is no way for a new younger generation of communists to fight this conservatism. One party system with an enforced ban on fractions made sure of that. It is more or less how Soviet dissident movement started. In the beginning most of the Soviet dissidents were communists who turned outwards after being rejected and persecuted by their own leaders. And what alternatives existed outwards? Realistically – only the West, as other Communist alternatives were either under the tight control of Moscow like Warsaw pact or were China and Chinese model in the 60s was not very appealing to say the least. This is how the West became a shining city on the hill for the significant portion of the Soviet educated citizenry.

    How Soviet leadership reacted to the growing dissent within the ranks? Well, new Purge was inconceivable for them as the ghost of Stalin was right behind them, so they doubled down on conservatism in ideology and suppression of any opposition to it. And as princess Leia once told to Tarkin: “the more you tighten the grip, the more systems would slip through your fingers”. Even the education became practically schizophrenic in its nature as they tried to teach an ideology progressive to its very core while also attempting to enforce an unquestioning dogmatism on the top of it. So dissatisfaction grew right within the Communist party itself. There is only so much bullshit a person can absorb without questioning the purpose of it.

    https://forums.spacebattles.com/posts/30459688/

  292. It’s quite simple, if you do an action because of the reward or punishment – then it is not a moral action but simple “self-interest”.

    I don’t know if you have to explain it.

    If a child is play on the railways, and about to be run over by a train – you do not run to save the child because you want a “reward” or fear “punishment”, even as a “spiritual reward” (to get high on applause or whatever). If that is the case, then we cannot call it a moral action, but just a standardly selfish one.

  293. German_reader says

    communists constituted about 15% of the war losses while being less than 5% of the Soviet Union entire population

    Is that really possible? Ok, the Germans systematically killed political commissars and probably other Communist party members as well in the occupied areas, but it seems like a very strange claim.

    They also became very much afraid of any ideological or even economical reform as such reform would require strong and independent leadership and the last person with such ability was Joseph Stalin which wasn’t remembered fondly by Soviet bureaucracy.

    Given how Stalin’s “reforms” had been associated with mass terror, probably with good reason.

  294. No – plenty of younger people are angry with police, authorities, government, etc, as in any part of the world.

    “Angry with old people” – I don’t think this is a common political experience, although there is a psychological designation for this condition: “Gerontophobia”.

    As for the very deep political polarization in America. Of course, there are substantial political policies involved, but as a result of the polarization, they are treated by most people in an unserious way .

    So, you can see the clustering of views (that people supporting one of other side, have a predictable cluster of views on unrelated topics), and that these views are even changing in a random way according to what they think will help the “team” they support as fans.

    For example, in 2012, the anti-Russian rhetoric was on the Republican side (Romney), while the pro-Russian rhetoric was on the Democratic side (Obama: “The 1980s are now calling to ask for their foreign policy back”).

    And yet within 4 years, the Democratic side have dominated the anti-Russian rhetoric. There was no rational reason for the two sides to switch within 4 years. Yet the supporters of the two parties, rapidly change over their positions on the topic, as they perceive it (pro or anti- Russia) will help them to win points politically.

    It changed so fast in 4 years, there is every possibility it (positions on this topic) reverse again by the next American election.

    There’s actually a good phrase for this polarized environment, where the topic is called a “political football”. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Political_football

  295. Right, all actions are ultimately self-interested. Wherever did you get the idea that a self-intetested act can’t be moral!?

    You poor abstract Europeans with your disconnect from warm glowing life! You guys have really fallen into confusion. Really, no wonder you are apathetic.

    By identifying yourself with others in an underlying Unity, by helping others you are helping yourself. Eastern religions are quite explicit about this.

    Did you think religion which sustained people for generations was not self-interested? Did you think aligning oneself with the Tao did not result in happiness but was just an abstract act that had no personal consequences?!

    No unselfintetested act is conceivable – it would be an unmotivated act, and thus mere accident, a reflex – an an accidental act cannot be moral.

    The important thing is to have a correct view of your true self interest – and you will understand that sacrificing your self for others is in your true self interest broadly understood.

  296. In fact, morality is only possible when you look at another and say “this is myself”!

    The bad man looks at another and says “not me”!

    Schopenhauer described this in relation to morality quite well.

    No self interest…rather the largest kind of self interest imaginable, which includes the whole world. Not to shrink ones self interest is morality, but to enlarge so greatly that it encompasses the whole world.

    You poor abstract cut off from life Europeans.

  297. for-the-record says

    As an American living abroad, unless he makes over $100,000 per year, he’s not liable for tax there

    The exemption is only for earned income. So for dividends, interest, capital gains, rental income, etc. he is liable for US tax, though to a certain extent this may be offset by foreign tax credits (but this is generally less than 100%).

    Also important to keep in mind that a substantial percentage of foreign “financial products” cannot legally be offered to US citizens.

  298. This makes me think that once again the European inability to see reality as having multiple levels but rather one dimensional is responsible for this strange theory of morality not being self interested.

    The European sees that morality involves sacrificing self interest on one level, so he cannot conceive that he is compensated on another level. There is only one level. Period. So morality gets defined in a strange way as not involving any kind of reward whatsoever on any level – emotional, psychological, spiritual, etc.

    Because multiple levels don’t exist. There is just the one physical material level, and a sacrifice on that plane is a final sacrifice.

    I weep for my poor stupid European brothers who can no longer think!

  299. Guillaume Tell says

    Andorra

  300. Guillaume Tell says

    Crimea — I second that!!!

  301. So why are social conservatives so incompetent in delivering their message compared to social liberals? On issues like LGBT or feminism, why are liberals just so much better at marketing?

  302. Guillaume Tell says

    Yes because your beloved n0n-Europenas were not cruel to animals, right?

  303. We’ll both see if they are imaginary, right? Let’s exchange notes then.

    No you won’t. You need to pass your notes now.

  304. Indians were gentle and mild to animals. Cows, monkeys, and peacocks live unmolested in their towns and cities.

    Its s beautiful thing.

    I’m not blaming Europeans – it’s the Jewish element in European religion that has led to callousness to animals, although a corrupted version, as Judaism says you should feed your animals before yourself. But still.

    And today the European attitude to animals is admirably humane.

  305. German_reader says

    And today the European attitude to animals is admirably humane.

    Except in factory farms.
    Judaism says “Feed your animals before yourself”? That sounds really dumb, do you have a source for that?

  306. Guillaume Tell says

    These two points, albeit self-evident for me, may very well be no so evident, or even worse, completely foreign to teenage boys of today that are brought up within the liberal consensus.

    Being attractive has of course many sides to it, the physique being the most obvious but certainly not the most important in the long run. The ability to provide and support is, I believe, the main one, especially when you are interested in attracting good mothers for your offspring. This might not be that important of course when was it sought is brief encounters with stunning beauties.

    I think you said somewhere that you were not over yet with your parents’ divorce. I think nobody ever can really be, because it’s totally unnatural for a child to accept that his two co-generators may not love each other anymore. By the way my own parents divorced almost 40 years ago now — and I am still quite pissed at them for that.

  307. https://www.chabad.org/kids/noahsark/default_cdo/aid/577491/jewish/Feeding-Pets.htm

    Why is it dumb? Its beautiful. I’m not the biggest fan of Judaism but it sometimes hits the bullseye.

    Good point about factory farming – that’s horrific. I guess European man still practicesassive cruelty to animals. Although to be fair the rest of the world has joined him in this.

  308. Interesting.

  309. Style over substance?

  310. Guillaume Tell says

    I know and have wondered before whether that would stand in front of the SCOTUS. One implication of the current state of affairs is that one pauper may not renounced his US citizenship. That’s not reasonable.

    That said, let’s imagine for a minute that you make an appointment at US consulate general closest to your home; then request to see the consul or consular officer; then submit a renouncement letter and sign it in front of that person; finally also hand over your US passport, then leave. After that, inform the IRS in writing that you have resigned your citizenship on xx/xx/2018 at the above mentioned Consulate. Finally, ignore all subsequent letters from the IRS.

    In that case, what would happen? I am really wondering if there is anything they could do against you — provided, of course, that you relocate not, and not even travel, to the USA.

  311. Wherever did you get the idea that a self-intetested act can’t be moral!?

    No unselfintetested act is conceivable – it would be an unmotivated act, and thus mere accident, a reflex – an an accidental act cannot be moral.

    Bingo!

    Peace.

  312. Daniel Chieh says

    That sounds accurate. The general lack of hypocrisy which is day to day existence elsewhere is pretty refreshing and not having to guess where to stand in regards to someone. In terms of brotherhood, it was probably something I found nowhere else; I once got into a fight and my friend immediately came to my side. He didn’t bother to ask if it was my fault or not, or who started it; it only mattered that I was his friend. You can’t really find that attitude anywhere else anymore.

    Ultimately, though, I think a lot of it has to do with the fact that “rednecks” are usually pretty low on the money scale and thanks to capitalism, being poor seems to be almost equated with being evil. In a monoculture where money is everything, honor-based subcultures are always going to be bashed. I think its a pity, even though it does have its very real dysfunctions. I imagine these days with meth spreading, it can’t be pretty.

  313. According to you, one cannot experience a sense of satisfaction helping someone 🙂 That would make it an amoral act.

    No – if you do the action in order to obtain “sense of satisfaction” – then it is just selfishness, nothing to do with moral or transcendent actions.

    It’s not difficult to explain, except that explaining it to people who are “tone-deaf” morally – it is like explaining music to a person who is actually tone-deaf.

    And of course, good actions by people who do not believe in some magical “heavenly reward” in afterlife, are a lot more transcendent and interesting, than those actions of people who do believe they will receive such rewards (the latter disqualify any good they might do, by their motivation being no different to a rat in a Skinner box).

    (E.g. The example of Muslims who does something because he believes he will fuck ghostly virgins in the afterlife – this may only add an additional layer of contempt to any gods who would judge them for their moral level, to which it will seem nothing but a particularly greedy rat, who has hallucinated creatively about the functioning of their Skinner box).

  314. Thorfinnsson says

    I was just talking to my mother on the telephone yesterday. She was not the one who chose divorce, though she was not the best wife. As a result of divorce she was forced to remarry a lesser man.

    You never get over it.

    How can you?

    As a result of divorce you’re forced to multiply your holiday travel plans.

    And your parents never truly get what they did to you.

    The 11 year old boy I once was was completely ruined and never recovered. I will never forget when my parents convened a family dinner at the country club and announced to us they were destroying the family. I suspect the same happened to you.

    This has colored my views on everything, even though it has been more than twenty years now.

    We are not alone either. There are millions of us. The woman I mentioned earlier–Sara–went through the same thing as a child. My “work wife” did as well. So did the girl of small tits, brown eyes fame.

  315. I’ve already shared the notes I have on me, people are free to dismiss them and take others’ notes more seriously. What you are asking for is a copy of the exam answers; not possible while the test is in session. We’ll compare further notes after the test is over and once the grades have been handed out.

    Peace.

  316. No – if you do the action in order to obtain “sense of satisfaction” – then it is just selfishness, nothing to do with moral or transcendent actions.

    And of course, good actions by people who do not believe in some magical “heavenly reward” in afterlife, are a lot more transcendent and interesting

    I don’t understand, do moral actions relate to our interests or not? Why would it be interesting if it does not relate to our interests?

    I agree doing a moral act for the intrinsic spiritual bliss it brings is far nobler than doing it to have virgins in the afterlife – but it is still self interest, understood as spiritual self interest.

    You have one good point – the reward for moral acts should be spiritual and intrinsic, not physical. But to then say one should perform a moral act for no spiritual, emotional, or psychological reward is silly. And by mixing these two points and conflating them you are motivated by a particular objective I will mention in my last paragraph.

    We see in real life this isn’t so – the main who fails to rescue the child will feel self disgust, the man who does rescue him will feel satisfaction and perhaps pride. He is trapped in Skinners fat box.

    The real upshot of looking at morality in your rather incoherent and self contradictory way is to create a loss of interest in morality as something that does not pertain to our spiritual or psychological well being, and thus as something hardly worth our time.

    Which, as a materialist nihilist, is, in the end, your point 🙂

    Good luck with that.

  317. Trump may be open to recognition of Crimea’s status?

    https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=EEVLXc9vr_M

  318. That doesn’t answer the question as to why conservatives are so bad at marketing, and why they can not improve their style or marketing flair.

  319. Thorfinnsson says

    Trump must be reading our comments.

    At the G7 meeting he said Crimea is Russian and reportedly called the Ukraine a “fake country” and compared it to Canada.

    With Justin Trudeau in the room.

    Truly we live in great times.

  320. Thorfinnsson says

    Some of us are quite good at it.

    What you perceive is an artifact of the second half of the 20th century when people accepted the left’s definitions of morality and progress.

    I’m over it.

  321. I am understanding more and more clearly why the West is post-Christian. A large reason being that they let materialists frame the debate and gain a monopoly over the terms of such debate – after that, it was simply rope-a-dope.

    To proceed…

    The issue is not about what is right and what is wrong.

    You want to have a discussion about morality and not engage into the epistemic foundation of how one derives right or wrong? Is this a bad joke?

    In both cases, they are not behaving morally.

    Sure…according to YOU. This is your opinion. You are positing it as a fact, but there is absolutely no reason for anybody to assume it as such. A morality divorced from any sort of reward system is what makes sense to YOU. AaronB has already pointed out the flaws in working from this baseline assumption. Sure you can bring philosopher so-and-so to back your viewpoint, but that is simply appeal to authority in this situation which is easily trumped by appealing to God.

    As far as morality in our view, then it cannot be divorced from the belief in God and the Afterlife. As the scholars explain, there are grades of morality, predicated on the target of the individual and their sincerity.

    1. The most moral approach is to do everything only for God’s pleasure and seeking closeness to Him:
      “And they give food in spite of love for it to the needy, the orphan, and the captive, saying; ‘We feed you only for the countenance of God. We wish not from you reward or gratitude.'” (76:8-9)
    2. The second is to seek rewards that are promised like Paradise and its treasures – as this is still tied to one’s belief in what God has promised, even though it is slightly off the mark.
    3. The lowest is to do things to avoid the Fire – again, still tied to belief in the unseen, but of low aspiration.

    Immoral motivations are what one does when they do even laudable acts – like giving charity, acts of worship, etc. – but do it to show off or to feel proud of oneself. These are insincere and have a good chance of being punished at God’s discretion.

    If you say seeking closeness to God and His pleasure is not a valid moral motivation in your estimation, we say:
    https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=pWdd6_ZxX8c

    Now this all might not convince you of anything, but – as Imam Ghazali (ra) pointed out – that is not sound argument, it just means you are not convinced. I mean, I am not convinced of your position, does that make you wrong? Why should it apply in reverse?

    Now, as I had mentioned before, there is not much to debate here. I’m simply about making my position clear, not wasting my time trying to convince anybody of it. People can pick whichever appeals to their heart, intellect or predetermined genetic algorithm.

    To me the most preposterous thing that could result is that a person who believes in an unseen reality and a materialist would actually come to some sort of agreement on the basic definitions and outlines of morality at an epistemic level. Our cosmologies are diametrically opposed to each other.

    Peace.

  322. “Of all the lawful acts, the most detestable to God is divorce.” – reported in Abu Dawud

    I had a convert brother over today – Polish (and mixed European) background. He has three beautiful children – mashaAllah – and plans to have more. He was recounting about his family (including extended ones) when he visits for gatherings. Out of all of his uncles, cousins, etc. his kids are the only next generation – his family is literally dying off and he will likely be the only one to carry on his name.

    One of his uncles never married (and a few have medical issues, like his sister can’t have kids) but as for the rest, the lion’s share of responsibility lies with the rampant divorce.

    It is really, really sad.

    Me and the other guest, a Hyderabadi brother, were just counting our blessings in growing up in our bubble of stable families. It’s when you here from people like this brother and you, that you realize how fortunate and truly blessed one is just to have grown up in a stable family, something people like myself take for granted.

    Peace.

  323. Greasy William says

    If a Muslim and a non Muslim get into a quarrel that has nothing to do with religion and both parties are equally at fault, and the quarrel becomes violent and the Muslim is killed in the ensuing altercation, would the dead Muslim be regarded by other Muslims as a martyr?

  324. am understanding more and more clearly why the West is post-Christian.

    I am too. This discussion has been revealing for me.

    To see morality Dmitry’s way as not related to our deepest and most vital interest is to lose interest in it. It becomes uninteresting – it has nothing to do with us.

    Now it is clear that morality makes no sense from a materialist perspective as it does not bring us any physical benefit and often harms us physically. Since to the materialist only physical benefits are real, morality must be an utterly mysterious thing that does not relate to our deepest benefit at all.

    However, since he is unwilling to white do away with morality, which is a good sign, he can only describe it in an incoherent way.

    He cannot admit that it relates to our benefit because only physical benefits are real – but he is unwilling to entirely get rid of it, so he is reduced to being incoherent. We should act morally for some mysterious reason that has no relation to our interests.

    Truly the materialist system makes no sense – I always say that if the materialists and the logic obsessed really analyzed their assumptions they would cease believing in them. But they never do. They are half believers in logic.

  325. I was s bit too extreme. Morality does often bring material benefits – strong friendships and community.

    But often one must follow its dictates when it is clearly against our physical interests.

  326. I assume this was for me…

    I’m not sure about this, I will have to ask my teachers.

    We did study the rules for martyrdom, the burial rules. They are quite different than the rules for someone who dies normally. For instance, they are not given a bath nor in a burial shroud, they are buried as they are with their wounds as they will be resurrected as such (wounds and all, as a badge of honor).

    The mufti I study with mentioned that, yes, at least in the Hanafi school, a Muslim that is unjustly killed for whatever reason, will be considered a martyr. For instance, there are hadith on this:
    “Whoever is killed while protecting his property, then he is martyr; and whoever is killed while protecting his religion, then he is martyr; and whoever is killed while protecting his life, then he is martyr; and whoever is killed while protecting his family, then he is martyr.” – reported in Tirmidhi

    But the situation you outline is different – it seems just like a street brawl for no good reason. My teacher is out of the country visiting family at the moment, so I’ll ask him when he returns. Remind me if I forget.

    Peace.

  327. he can only describe it in an incoherent way.

    That is why Imam Ghazali (ra) called his book the “Incoherence of the Philosophers”. When he dug deep into the epistemic basis for their claims he found that they didn’t stand firm according to their own standards.

    Again, I personally think it is fruitless to debate this stuff – it simply comes down to picking one side out of many based on what appeals to one’s constitution.

    Peace.

  328. True. This is why I usually don’t get into logical debates – you very soon discover that logic is just a pose, a rhetorical ploy, and people believe what they do based on emotion. I have lately been arguing logically again, forgetting it’s futility.

    In fact, applying logic to other things but refusing to scrutinize logic using its own tools is just an emotional position that you cannot argue someone out of, as its illogical.

    The materialist position was adopted because it seemed for a while to enhance survival, even though it was illogical. It is just past its expiry date.

    Its like an old warrior adopting the longbow when it was s cutting edge innovation refusing to give it up in the age of the machine gun.

    Eventually such people just get killed, as their choices no longer serve their survival but they cannot give them up. This is happening to Europeans today.

    It is an interesting question why people cling to superannuated weapons when they so clearly no longer work.

  329. anonymous says

    no it’s not.

  330. Greasy William says

    I didn’t say for no good reason, I said both were at fault.

    Let’s say the non Muslim honks at the Muslim guy in traffic. They both pull over enraged and yell at each other. A shoving match ensues that escalates into fisticuffs and the Muslim dies. The death is accidental.

    if details are that important, here are some possible scenarios:

    A.) Muslim makes the first shove but non Muslim throws the first punch
    B.) Non Muslim makes the first shove but the Muslim throws the first punch
    C.) Non Muslim makes the first shove and the first punch but not only does the Muslim reciprocate in both cases, but the Muslim was the one who forced the non Muslim to pull over

  331. reiner Tor says

    Some upper middle class readers of this blog can easily make more than $100,000 in salaries and bonus. It’s unlikely in places like Hungary, but not very difficult in Western Europe.

  332. Again you are frustrated with logic and no being understood. Just give up on human speech and return to your native form of communication by tap-dancing and farting. This might be more conducive to ideas you want to convey.

    https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=VW8dgdpce80

  333. for dividends, interest, capital gains, rental income, etc. he is liable for US tax

    Perhaps I wasn’t completely clear, but that was what the remainder of my comment was meant to address.

  334. So why are social conservatives so incompetent in delivering their message compared to social liberals? On issues like LGBT or feminism, why are liberals just so much better at marketing?

    It’s almost as if the entire apparatus of mass media is in the hands of people who are determined to make sure that the social conservative message gets silenced.

  335. I believe the Big Red Scary works in academia, which is why I assumed he probably earns under $100,000 or, if more, probably not that much more.

  336. You are a dirty old man utu 🙂

    Act your age.

  337. You have the internet now to bypass the old media.

  338. Sure I’ll ask – thanks for clarification.

    You do know that ultimately, we make an approximation as to who died as a martyr based on evidence available to us; we can easily make an error in judgement and assume a person not to be a martyr when they are and to assume a person to be one when they aren’t, only God knows their true state:
    “Verily, the first people to be judged on the Day of Resurrection will be a man who was martyred. He will be brought, the blessings of Allah will be made known and he will acknowledge them. Allah will say: ‘What did you do about them?’ The man will say: ‘I fought in your cause until I was martyred.’ Allah will say: ‘You have lied, for you fought only that it would be said you were brave, and thus it was said.’ Then, Allah will order him to be dragged upon his face until he is cast into Hellfire….” -reported in Muslim

    Peace.

    Um…are you confessing to killing a Muslim in a traffic altercation?

  339. Judging by his Twitter feed above, he’s not taking this very well:

    So how do all my critics who like to cuck for the Russian football team feel? 11 minutes, lol. I feel my 3-1 prediction may have been optimistic.

    Well, my criticism is clearly doing wonders for the Russian team. This was a fluke, they can’t attack for shit, will be put out of their misery in the semifinals by Croatia.

    I’m not sure how vastly exceeding expectations is now qualified as misery (perhaps he was thinking about himself), nor how Croatia will be doing anything to Russia in the semifinals since they are meeting in the 1/4 round. My understanding, also, is that the Russians specifically chose a defensive strategy in the match with Spain, and it worked.

  340. Seraphim says

    Take heart! Already people find attractive women of 70! Of course, if your arrow is still able to shoot the apple. No one escapes decrepitude.

  341. anonymous coward says

    You have the internet now to bypass the old media.

    Are you kidding? The Internet is a wholly-owned subsidiary of Google and Facebook.

    It’s as tightly controlled as traditional media.

  342. Seraphim says

    Noblesse oblige existed when noblesse existed. American capitalists were (are) ig-noble (from Latin ignobilis, from in- ‘not’ + gnobilis, older form of nobilis ‘noble’)=common, plebeian, vulgar
    (not honorable): degenerate, mean, base, vile, low-minded, reproachful, shameful, disgraceful.
    Noblesse oblige was the duty of nobility. But nowadays people have only ‘rights’.

  343. reiner Tor says

    Croatia often has a tendency to be brilliant against difficult opponents like Argentina or Spain (the latter at the Euro Cup two years ago) but be overly cautious and unwilling to risk against mediocre opponents with an organized defense. This has resulted in a last minute loss against a clearly inferior Portugal two years ago and the shootout yesterday. They had so few ideas that they actually allowed the inferior Danes to have more chances against them in the second half than they had. Though they almost won in the overtime with the penalty. (Which would’ve been a goal without the foul.)

    I can easily imagine Russia going through to the semi-finals. Of course a Croatian win is the likelier and safer bet.

  344. reiner Tor says

    Though I think it’s an exaggeration. It’s tightly controlled, but not nearly as tightly as normal mass media.

  345. reiner Tor says

    It’s interesting that our postmodern house spiritualist would be taking the side of primitive reductionism.

    There are situations where you have no time to think through the punishments. Maybe you would still be thinking of it on a subconscious level, but even so, it’s obviously on a totally different level than thinking consciously of rewards.

    You are a typical postmodern spiritualist, you have read a few books on Zen Buddhism (as most irreligious people do in their late teens or twenties) and even traveled to India and meditated while there. Wow, much profound! So spirituality! Meanwhile, working at a normal office job making $200,000. You can’t make this shit up.

  346. LondonBob says

    Colombia worry me more than Croatia, already scouting for finals tickets to watch England play Brazil.

  347. reiner Tor says

    People with families traveling across a continent for an online discussion group meetup? I don’t think it’s realistic. It can work for singles, though. I can go if it’s nearby and I don’t have any other obligations.

  348. What does it take to arrange a World Cup match? Were all Spanish players on it or just few? A referee?

  349. reiner Tor says

    I don’t think it’s possible.

    The Spanish football federation sacked its manager just one day before the World Cup. The Spanish have often been known for their many passes resulting in at most one or two goals, with the occasional inability to score at all against anyone with a well organized defense. With the manager gone, they might have had no idea how to overcome the Russian defense, since presumably the new manager had less time to prepare from the potential opponents. He probably also didn’t take the Russians too seriously, which was a big advantage to them. They also had exactly zero pressure to win.

    The Russian football season has been over for a long time, which gave their side a significant advantage in that they both were less tired and had more time to practice together. (They were, presumably and sensibly, practicing their defense.)

    If there was anything illicit in how the Russians achieved their success, it might be some form of doping, epo or something similar to increase their endurance and perhaps something to increase their concentration.

    Now the referee (including maybe his whole team) might have been bribed, since he didn’t award a penalty to Spain in the last few minutes, but it could have been just a regular mistake (the referee also gets tired by the last minutes), or the pressure of the audience, or both, but most commentators wrote that it was actually the good decision.

    So I don’t think the referee was bribed, and I don’t think it’s possible to bribe the players or the coaching team.

  350. reiner Tor says

    I think it’s possible to bribe some international players, especially on youth teams with little or no money, for friendlies. There were rumors of it having happened at a Hungary U21 or U19 or similar match, though none of it was proven. The players (maybe just one of them? a few members of the team were involved in fixing other matches, but I think the accusations for the international friendly matches or maybe just one match, ultimately unproven, were only against one player) didn’t have great careers afterwards. It’s a big career killer to get involved in this kind of stuff. The match was against the Turks, and the player accused was allegedly sold by his Turkish team shortly afterward, and rumors had it that his selling his national (youth) team was one of the most important reasons for it. The Turks rightly considered him to be unreliable.

    And to be honest, I cannot imagine it to happen for the big international matches at a World Cup, or even a qualification match. After Italy won the World Cup in 2006, they were beaten at a friendly by Hungary 3-0, and it was very likely fixed. No one cared for the results. But an important World Cup match? Hard to imagine.

  351. England’s bid to host the 2018 World Cup suffered a major embarrassment last night after the Football Association chairman Lord Triesman was accused of claiming that bid rivals Spain and Russia plan to bribe referees at this summer’s tournament in South Africa.
    https://www.telegraph.co.uk/sport/football/teams/england/7730159/Lord-Triesman-accused-Spain-of-planning-to-bribe-World-Cup-referees.html

    ‘My assumption is that the Latin Americans, although they’ve not said so, will vote for Spain. And if Spain drop out, because Spain are looking for help from the Russians to help bribe the referees in the World Cup, their votes may then switch to Russia.’

    At this point, Miss Jacobs asks: ‘Would Russia help them with that?’

    Lord Triesman: ‘Oh, I think Russia will cut deals.’

    Miss Jacobs: ‘Why will Russia help? Are Russia in the World Cup?’

    Lord Triesman: ‘No, they’re not.’

    Miss Jacobs: ‘Oh no they’re not, they’ve got nothing to lose?’

    Lord Triesman: ‘Absolutely nothing at all to lose. Exactly.’
    http://www.dailymail.co.uk/sport/worldcup2010/article-1278759/World-Cup-2010-FA-chief-Lord-Triesman-accuses-Spain-Russia-bid-bribe-referees-South-Africa.html

  352. The end result of it will be even more starving children.

    This is like a negative effective altruism. We can reduce the total number of people who need help by not helping anyone, thereby reducing the propagation of people who need help.

  353. You can’t make this shit up.

    But it is made up.

  354. The way forward is obvious…
    https://m.youtube.com/watch?v=4UPDUpjkHg0

    Immediate reduction of welfare payouts to elderly and feeds the poor – what’s not to like?

    Peace.

  355. LondonBob says

    Didn’t think it was a pen, Spanish players looking for it, just not enough there. Spain played rubbish all tournament, no real surprise.

  356. reiner Tor says

    It’s certainly possible to bribe the referees (though not the players), as I wrote. But in this case it was not necessary, since the referee didn’t help Russia at all. The only help Russia got was that he allowed the match to be finished without a penalty, but this was the correct decision.

    The referees at South Korea’s World Cup were certainly bribed to favor the South Koreans. But their faulty decisions were obvious. Now there are no obviously wrong decisions. So if the Russians bribed the referee, then they got nothing for their money.

  357. Tastes like chicken!

  358. I would submit that, in your agitation, you have not understood me. It is not, alas, the first time the subtlety of my thought has been misunderstood here.

    If you undertake a course of fasting, meditation,and self purification, then read my comments, you may perhaps understand them.

  359. Daniel Chieh says

    You now have the internet to raise an army of ever more extreme leftists to dox and destroy anyone who mildly expresses and creates anti-liberal messages. Source: actual experience(I’m a writer and produce art content).

    There are ways to work around it, to some extent, but its not fun whenever you create something and then have to wonder: “So, if someone finds out that I wrote this and ruins my life, would I have considered it worth it?”

    Almost all the incentives work toward liberal work at the moment.

  360. Mr. Hack says

    I know that you need some great news to cheer you up (after all of your whimpering lately about your personal problems), but somehow I failed to read this message. Any chance that you can provide a link or a quotation attributed to Trump, so that I can fully share in this wonderful news too? Thanks!

  361. Indeed – or available in other flavors – or colors (if green ain’t your thing)!

    Maybe with the upcoming genetic engineering we can come up with a way to introduce a gene that kicks in once a person reaches 75 that starts producing proteins inside the flesh that make it taste like nacho cheese (just one example). The human then marinates for 5 more years as he goes about his business and – viola! – is ready to be minimally processed and served at 80!

    Peace.

  362. No, I did say some some of those causes were worthier than others. But at least they are marching for ideals.

  363. Guillaume Tell says

    Indeed.

    This is why I think it is more noble to gently leave the scene on one’s terms, rather than being a drag on one’s progeny. And to leave them with the nice memory of à productive individual rather than of some decrepit dead weight.

    It always strikes me when I visit military cemeteries: all these young men, who died at or before their apex, young for eternity. How better does it get, really.

    Even Christ did not get to live past 33.

  364. Guillaume Tell says

    I was not joking when I was suggesting the Kingdom of Spain or, better yet, the Co-Principality of Andorra. There are objective reasons to that (not the least of which being that I could help with logistics).

  365. It’s necessary for a viable political and economic alternative to be seen to exist, as it did in the days of the Soviet Union.

    Except, well, for the people who actually have to live in those experiments.

  366. I mentioned the idea of organizing an Unz.com conference, which I have heard suggested a number of times, to Ron Unz in one of his recent posts:

    http://www.unz.com/runz/why-the-american-conservative-purged-its-own-publisher/#comment-2350625

    Definitely something I’d support and would attend, though obviously I can’t contribute materially, and have no direct experience of organizing large conferences.

  367. I can’t vouch for Thorfinnsson’s game prowess, but the wealth part is accurate.

  368. Guillaume Tell says

    I have experience at organizing conferences, albeit in a completely different field. I have even chaired a medium-sized event a decade ago.

  369. Some proposals:
    * Moscow is a wonderful city these days, even AP would happily confirm; hosts huge amounts of conferences anyway, is cheap for a world-class megapolis.
    * Crimea would be cool, and lots of new infrastructure has been built in the past few years… but logistics would be even more complicated.
    * Visegrad area is highly competitive… Hungary would probably be best: Cheap, central location, many cheap air routes, we have a local there, there’s an Alt Right scene and few antifas. Czechia or Slovakia might be good as well. I am more skeptical about Poland, I wouldn’t put it past them to shut something like this down.
    * London will be very convenient for me personally (I am there twice a year for personal reasons anyway) but UK is horrific from a free speech perspective.
    * The H-Man’s place. I have a good friend who regularly flies between Vienna and Moscow, will be a good reason to join her and finally tick this off.
    * Caesar Salvini’s place. Have never been to Italy, and would dearly like to tick it off as well. Also politically auspicious.
    * Mr. House’s place. If in the US, I am totally down for Vegas; I really love that city. However, return flights there approach $1,000 from Moscow, which is a bit too steep for me at the present time.

  370. reiner Tor says

    I think this is the kind of “low trust useless skepticism” displayed by commenters from the former Soviet sphere. The consequences to it turning out that Thorfinsson is not what he says he is approach zero. So, if he turns out to be an obese 15-year-old transgender homosexual (or whatever), it won’t move my life one inch either way. It’s useless to waste my skepticism on whatever Thorfinsson claims or not of himself.

    Things are different if he uses his claims to further an argument, then you can question his claims, but easier to just ignore them. After all, even if his claims are true, those are just anecdotes, and so don’t really prove much. It’s simply worthless to be a skeptic of such issues as to whether Thorfinsson really lives in the Midwest (or wherever) or whether he really is banging one of his employees.

    Ps.

    I would advise Thorfinsson against banging any of his employees. Sexual harassment etc. could be used against him later, even much later. He also doesn’t need guys who hate him, and I think it’s safe to assume his employees’ husbands will hate him. Possibly, both his employees (the women he’d bang and then leave) and their husbands would hate him. It’s also something that will be used against him once he started his political career.

  371. Supporting your national football team is the normiest thing ever. I am not cut out over that.

    Moreover, when I did support the Russian team, they underwent pain and humiliation time and time again. Now that I don’t support them, they are doing okay. My approach clearly works.

  372. reiner Tor says

    My thinking was not a conference (by the way, Spencer’s conference was shut down in Hungary a few years ago), but simply an informal meetup. A conference is a very different business, it’s prone to being shut down (should some antifa read these pages), or being harassed, or simply the identities of the commenters getting out.

    An informal meetup can be easily held in a cafe or restaurant or bar, and the anonymity of those present can easily be preserved. (It’d be on an invitation basis.)

    The first thing might be to create a mailing list (preferably with some safe email addresses), so that we won’t have to organize it in the open.

    The way I’d start is something like announcing an email address here, and then anyone can write there, but has to comment here (maybe a code word?) that he sent the email. (E.g. Daniel Chieh sends me an email with the text “hi, I’m Dan, my code word is cucumber”, and then writes a comment that “my code word was cucumber.” This makes identification of emails to commenters perfect. Inactive lurkers cannot be invited.)

    Obviously this is not a concern to you, since your anonymity is non-existent already, but rather to the other commenters, who would like to stay anonymous. For example I’d like to do so.

  373. reiner Tor says

    The problem is, how many people would even travel for this? Those who are neither single nor retired are unlikely to travel a lot for this only. So for example if we organize something in Europe, it will be mostly European commenters (and not even all of them).

    To be honest, I have a hard time telling my wife that I’m going to travel a few days to… meet some commenters from an online comment board. I’ll have to lie that I’m going to meet some friends or something, lol.

  374. Daniel Chieh says

    I see no lie.

    Are we not your friends? 😉

  375. reiner Tor says

    German intellectuals often support the opponents of the Nationalelf. So German_reader is a normie in that respect in Germany.

    I also know a lot of Hungarians who do the same, mostly because they consider the Hungarian team to be a national shame. They also resent their tax money going to finance it. So if I didn’t support my national team, it’d be a normie thing in Hungary, too.

  376. reiner Tor says

    I use the word “friend” less extensively than I did a couple decades ago. Basically, I call just a few people (maybe three or four) my “friends,” anyone else is just a buddy or something. I’d never use it to someone I haven’t yet met in meat space. It’s not part of my real life, just an online comment thread.

  377. Daniel Chieh says

    But how can you meet anyone in “meat space” when we are just digits in a simulated reality?

  378. reiner Tor says

    You need to be more open to spirituality.

  379. reiner Tor says

    I am too old to kick ass or get mine kicked

    I highly doubt a meetup of commenters would be anything but friendly.

    Have you ever been to meetups of commenters from such online comment boards?

  380. reiner Tor says
  381. First reaction will be a relief that you are not the only ugly loser who can’t get laid.

    The second reaction will be contempt for the losers.

    The third reaction will be a loss of interest in further interactions with losers who know you are a loser.

  382. German_reader says

    It’s also something that will be used against him once he started his political career.

    His comments on Unz review would probably be potentially more damaging though.

  383. Rattus Norwegius says

    Great idea! This would also encourage more productive behaviour, and if a person is not able to reap the rewards, then the persons closest relatives can.

  384. Daniel Chieh says

    Does this mean that you’ll be joining us, utu?

  385. reiner Tor says

    Probably. Though there’s a chance his comments here will never be found, or not early enough to destroy his career.

  386. I would attend, but I’m afraid utu would injure himself chasing me around the room with his cane, and German Reader would suck out my life force with his energy field of gloom, and reiner Tor would trap me in a corner and show me irrefutable logical proofs for why we must resign ourselves to defeat.

  387. Daniel Chieh says

    For what it is worth, I have – though it was a bit different. It was a forum which was much more of a fraternity of sorts, given that it was all teenage boys at the time, and we got to know each other over a few years pretty much using the forum as a chatboard. Some of us are pretty famous now, though not naming names since I prefer not to either dox myself or them(but you’ve almost certainly seen the artwork of one of them splashed everywhere if you go into a comic book store).

    Anyway, since we were by definition all nerds, we met up at a convention. It all pretty much worked out okay, we had some of the same arguments we had over the board in real life, but now aided by alcohol. In the end, we sold some artwork, creeped each other out, and got a few of us published.

    It was pretty fun.

  388. Right, like all Trumps crazy comments and crazier behavior completely sunk his political career.

    Its a new world, Gloomy One. Get with it.

  389. German_reader says

    Thorfinnsson has written considerably more extreme things than Trump ever did.
    If he ever really wants to run for political office, he should probably ask AK and Ron Unz to delete his comments here, if that’s possible.

  390. Anonymous says

    Now you’re just imagining things. Trump didn’t say anything like that.

  391. Trump is transitional. In a few years Thors stuff won’t seem so crazy, although I’m sure he’ll moderate his position somewhat.

    In the new climate, a history of saying slightly crazy things will be an asset. In revolutionary times you don’t gain points by like the boring old establishment.

  392. reiner Tor says

    I attended a few. Unfortunately I missed the big (and regular) political forum meetups, only attended a few irregular history forum meetups (still big enough) and irregularly met some guys from the political forum.

    These meetups are all fun. Imagine a Jewish guy drinking some kosher spirits with a hard right nationalist, all the while laughing and also debating something. Though usually totally opposing opinions (so like a Jew critic nationalist and a Jewish extreme liberal, but especially an anti-Jewish nationalist and a gentile extreme liberal) will be less cordial, or at least they won’t necessarily seek each others’ company. (Provided it’s a big enough event.)

    Average income level is invariably higher than average. (A function of almost all being educated and/or smart.) Mostly male. (History forum: all male.) Average number of women banged is lower than average, but not by much. There are a few alcoholics. (Speaking of which, we have one commenter here who reminds me a bit of them. Of course there are non-alcoholics who remind me of alcoholics, so, whatever.)

  393. Toronto Russian says

    It’s fun to mock people whose real self contradicts what they say. As “game” was mentioned in this thread, here’s a related example: PUA blog “The Red Pill Room”.

    https://kiwifarms.net/threads/the-red-pill-room-ian-ironwood.9087/page-20#post-1048506

    A member of a forum devoted to watching weird and funny people on the Internet delightfully exposed that alpha patriarch and famous writer as a househusband (to an accomplished woman scientist nonetheless) whose only not-self-published book was this:
    http://clzbooks.r.sizr.io/core/covers/lg/77/77_214302_0_TLMancour_Spartacus.jpg

    Who would take what the guy wrote on his blog seriously after that?

  394. Johann Ricke says

    Inviting Sweden and Poland to decide your policy towards Russia is a bit like inviting North Korea and Cuba to write your policy towards America.

    Except no one thinks the US will annex either North Korea or Cuba. With Russia, the question isn’t whether – it’s when it will make its move. Note that Russia’s most recent annexation, of Crimea, was just a few years ago, and its proxy forces remain in occupation of eastern Ukraine.

  395. Daniel Chieh says

    A member of a forum devoted to watching weird and funny people on the Internet delightfully exposed that alpha patriarch and famous writer as a househusband (to an accomplished woman scientist nonetheless)

    Dunno, he leveraged his psycho-sexual skills to becoming a rich trophy husband?

    That’s a certain kind of winning.

  396. Big if true.

  397. A British nationalist board I have been on for a long time has tried many times to organise a meetup and failed (for the most part) because of mutual paranoia

  398. FR Devlin, the inventor of most of the game theory and terminology, is a failed academic who always seems like a bit of a loser, but it doesn’t really change anything.

  399. Mitleser says

    Except no one thinks the US will annex either North Korea or Cuba.

    They think that America would bomb them to hell* or “liberate” and turn them into a puppet state**.

    • NK’s fate during the Korean War
      ** Cuba’s fate after the end of Spanish rule

    Annexing them would be more human than that.

  400. Guillaume Tell says

    Very good ideas.

    Security approach: simple and yet effective within a small group where we know each other’s commenting mores and it’s easy to ask cryptic questions referring to older comments. We can even add more security layers.

    Out of prudence I would exclude Talha. Talha please no offense taken, nothing personal here, it’s just the islam thing. We cannot take the risk of inviting a potential human bomb at the meeting

    Italy is very good. Hungary not safe based on prior Spencer experience. Russia I am not sure (art. 242, visas). Spain I maintain is very good if we avoid Catalonia.

    At any rate: small informal meeting for the first gathering in meat space. No big-time event. We can always do our own side workshop when an UNZ conference will occur.

  401. Guillaume Tell says

    I would. I see potential in this group.

  402. The Big Red Scary says

    The Big Red Scary works in academia in Russia and would be completely unperturbed by a significant lowering of the $100,000 exemption.

  403. Guillaume Tell says

    Well, based on what I have observed of the real AK in interviews, there certainly would be none of that in that case already. No loser here.

    Also it seems he has already met some other commenters in various places and none of those appeared to be losers.

  404. The Big Red Scary says

    Come on. Hannover makes Bielefeld look attractive.

  405. Guillaume Tell says

    It is worth noting that FOR ONCE I find myself in agreement with Aaron here. Crazy things happen.

  406. Lol, we will all get with the program sooner or later.

  407. reiner Tor says

    Yeah, it happens. But I know of a Hungarian blogger (also a participant at the forum I just mentioned above) who kept bragging about how smart he was (and humblebragging about how there were even smarter people than him, like that Fields medalist who happened to have worked with him), he also wrote how tall he was and how very strong he was in his youth.

    He turned out to be a… mathematician, a relatively tall mathematician, who was mostly working abroad.

    Another guy at the forum kept writing stupid sounding (actually not so stupid) militaristic stuff (and fully pro-Israel), and claimed to know way more about militaries or politics than I “could ever dream of.” Turns out he is a retired general, a former aide of a former Hungarian president (and Jewish).

    There was another commenter claiming to be very important. Turns out he was a famous journalist, once a vice president (second in command) of the Hungarian state television, and always relatively high ranking at one television channel or another. (Director of this or that, whatever.) He also had some wealth, maybe something like Thorfinsson claims to have (but in Hungary fifteen years ago, it was way more than in Nowhereville, WI).

    So, yeah, some people claim to be better than they are. But many relatively important people do comment on forums like this. Not everyone likes to do that fully openly, like the Tweeter-In-Chief.

  408. Out of prudence I would exclude Talha. Talha please no offense taken,

    None taken. I have my (spiritual) tribe already – you guys are trying to constitute yours. I hope you guys have a successful meet-up.

    Peace.

  409. Comments like this make me pine for days when we had newspapers and parakeets.

  410. Except, well, for the people who actually have to live in those experiments.

    Thanks to your peeps for enduring this on our behalf and for the Great Patriotic War Victory!

  411. or whether he really is banging one of his employees.

    If he is we can scratch him from the noblesse oblige study.

  412. If you fed a parakeet my comments he would become a wise and solemn bird, and I would converse philosophically with him.

  413. I can stop any time I want to, I just don’t want to.

  414. Mr. Hack says

    Maybe you can shake it out of him. Although I’ve come to expect most anything from our Fearless Leader (Trump not Thorfinnsson), it would be nice to read more about this from a reputable source.

  415. You have the internet now to bypass the old media.

    That’s pretty much a myth. Social media is firmly in the hands of the same kinds of people who control the old media. The chances of reaching significant numbers of people are virtually nil. For most people social media is the internet.

    The number of people who read blogs or frequent alternative sites such as this one is so small as to be little more than a rounding error.

    You can come up with clever social conservative propaganda but you can be sure that 98 percent of the population will never see it.

    It’s not that we’re drifting towards a soft totalitarianism. We’re already there. Dissent is only tolerated as long as it’s confined to pointless preaching to the converted.

  416. People with families traveling across a continent for an online discussion group meetup? I don’t think it’s realistic.

    We have lots of people with similar views and concerns who use sites like this one to connect. These can be powerful informal networks but they’re terribly vulnerable. If the PTB were able to shut down a few sites such as this those connections between people would vanish. Establishing thicker less vulnerable online connections using multiple methods of connecting might be more worthwhile than getting a handful of people together in meatspace.

  417. You now have the internet to raise an army of ever more extreme leftists to dox and destroy anyone who mildly expresses and creates anti-liberal messages.

    Agreed. You can see the online world steadily becoming more hostile and more hazardous for dissenters and it’s happening quite quickly.

    Almost all the incentives work toward liberal work at the moment.

    Yep. Eventually you have not merely the problem of dissent being crushed, but people becoming so ground down that they no longer even bother to try to express dissent.

  418. No, I did say some some of those causes were worthier than others. But at least they are marching for ideals.

    Do you think that people who march for LGBT rights are actually marching for ideals? In countries where LGBT people already have more rights than anyone else these people still go on protesting.

    In the West it’s pretty clear that these people are marching to express their hatred of their own civilisation. I imagine it’s not much different in Russia. I don’t see that as having anything to do with idealism.

    I also suspect they often march in order to establish their credentials as good obedient liberals who can be trusted to toe the party line. Being able to point to a career of “activism” is very useful if you want a desirable job in academia, the media or the bureaucracy. So again, ideals don’t come into it.

    The same applies to feminism, environmentalism, to all the liberal causes – there’s a handful of true believers but most of the people matching in the streets for these causes are inspired by hate or cynical opportunism.

  419. First time I’ve heard of it. And he makes pretty good sense except for the part where he believes that immigration from Mexico has reversed itself.

    http://blog.dilbert.com/2013/04/15/fact-checking-adams-law-of-slow-moving-disasters/

    Social Security (which I freely admit has been run as a ponzi scheme and piggy bank) is easily fixed by means-testing of benefits–on a sliding scale of course–and separately by raising or removing the payroll cap. Rich people will complain about both, of course, but that’s not the point. The point is that SS is easily fixed.

  420. LondonBob says

    Didn’t Cernovich marry a rich and highly successful Silicon Valley lawyer, then get a big divorce pay off. Sounds like winning to me.

  421. Each of us should calculate the conference cost and then send that amount to UNICEF instead of going to the conference.

    I would only be interested in some sort of political organizing event, and since the only universal that I get from this group is that we are in agreement that cannibalism is a bad thing, I don’t see any point to it.

    A weekly meeting of political junkies to argue over books and ideas would be great if we did it at the local restaurant.

    I don’t know why it is said that you can’t use the internet for political organizing.

  422. Guillaume Tell says

    Each of us should calculate the conference cost and then send that amount to UNICEF instead of going to the conference.

    You must be joking here. That nest of corrupt functionaries? And to help Africa produce more offspring who will ultimately devour us? That comment alone makes me want to spend twice as much on the conference.

  423. Guillaume Tell says

    I have my (spiritual) tribe already – you guys are trying to constitute yours.

    Please stop using this insufferable tone of superiority, which is absolutely not warranted: The fact that some of us here are trying to organize a new group around this blog, is no indication that we would not already have other existing ones.

    In addition we whites are not as tribal as you brown peoples. We don’t belong to one “tribe” typically, but rather are able to function at the intersection of different spheres and networks (cf. Iffen and I for instance).

    We also do not need to ask our “teachers” when someone asks us a question that is not covered by our one-size-fits-all handbook of life.

  424. I understand that we should be cautious with charity and not encourage behavior by “rewarding” it. But the fact remains that you are balancing an actual starving person against one or more possible or theoretical persons in the future.

  425. Guillaume Tell says

    A weekly meeting of political junkies to argue over books and ideas would be great if we did it at the local restaurant.

    It would. Unfortunately we do not have a restaurant which would qualify as “local” for all of us. So we need to figure out something else.

    I don’t know why it is said that you can’t use the internet for political organizing.

    Because ultimately the physical reality is outside the internet. And nothing replaces real inter-personnal interactions, except for autistic individuals, that is.

  426. Guillaume Tell says

    This is true. But I have next-to-zero responsibility with regard to a starving African child. Whereas I have almost-infinite responsibilities towards my own children.

    As a result, even accepting a very small risk that said African child might one day become a rape-fugee where I live in Europe would be totally irresponsible vis-à-vis my daughters.

    There are way too many Africans already.

  427. Because ultimately the physical reality is outside the internet. And nothing replaces real inter-personnal interactions,

    I agree, perhaps I should have said initial organization.

  428. Guillaume Tell says

    I agree, perhaps I should have said initial organization.

    Then we are in violent agreement here 🙂

  429. reiner Tor says

    you are balancing an actual starving person against one or more possible or theoretical persons in the future

    Well, since those “possible and theoretical” persons need to be produced in the tens of millions, at some point you need to decide what your goal is, because I know that you are not dumb enough to be unable to comprehend the consequences of Western charities.

    If you do understand the consequences (i.e. millions of new “possible and theoretical” persons starving ever more and also coming to the West, destroying it in the process), then of course your morality will be judged ever harsher.

    You could claim ignorance of consequences somewhat plausibly if you were dumb and ignorant or if no one ever explained them to you. But it is not the case.

    So now the question is: knowing that your charity will only result in more human suffering (ever more starving people, and, almost as a byproduct, the destruction of Europe and the countries of the European diaspora), do you still support the charity, with all its (mostly negative) long term consequences? Because then you knowingly support a policy whose consequences are disastrous.

    I would identify it as a certain intellectual laziness. Your immediate gut feeling is to help the starving child (this is good, I personally had the same gut feeling), and you’re lazy to change your ways because it requires some mental exertion whenever you think about it. It’s just simpler to go with your gut feeling. I think it’s the deadly sin of sloth.

    Please repent. Sloth is not a good thing.

  430. reiner Tor says

    These policies have been followed for decades. Their results have invariably been more, not less, starving Africans. It’s even easy to understand why.

    At this point, anyone knowingly supporting this policy with disastrous consequences should actually be seen as supporting those consequences. Simply because it’s difficult to overcome the initial gut feeling of “think of the children!” is no argument to continue this disastrous policy. It’s lazy. Laziness resulting in such disastrous consequences over and over again is the deadly sin of sloth.

    I think this should be harshly condemned.

  431. reiner Tor says

    Instead of

    Well, since those “possible and theoretical” persons need to be produced in the tens of millions

    I meant

    Well, since those “possible and theoretical” persons are being produced in the tens of millions

  432. This attitude will make it harder to get better. You whites are in a very bad way now, and lashing out at those who recognize this may feel good but is harming yourself.

    Have the courage to admit it, face up to it manfully, and make things better – don’t whine that Muslims are ten times healthier than you now and resent them for wishing you well. That’s not manly. Learn from them, humbly.

    There is no shame in humility – it is a precondition for greatness.

  433. Why are you reading a tone of superiority into my words? I simply stated a fact. Muslims already have a brotherhood based on specific parameters, thus we don’t feel bad if someone tries to exclude us out of their own group.

    In addition we whites are not as tribal as you brown peoples.

    Sure, Whites haven’t been tribal for a while…I thought that was one of the problems, no? That you are afraid of being run over by more tribal minded people…

    We also do not need to ask our “teachers”

    I 100% support you guys ditching the transmitted generational wisdom of your elders in order to figure things out on your own – good luck.

    Peace.

  434. Guillaume Tell says

    Oh really AaronB, how about you go f@ck yourself too with your condescending tone? I am personally doing very well, thank you, with a great family, a company that works almost in auto-pilot mode, living in a nice and safe area, enjoying an excellent financial situation and a lot of free time as a result of the preceding. In addition I am blessed with good health and above-average physique and my wife is splendid. If this is what it is to be

    in bad way

    , I wonder what being “in great way” looks like.

  435. Guillaume Tell says

    We do agree — it seems that my previous response to Iffen was unclear if you interpreted it as stating that I felt some responsibility towards dying African children: the truth of the matter is that I don’t.

    One of my main reasons to blame the white missionaries (Catholics and Protestants alike, and unlike the Orthodox) is precisely that they share an enormous responsibility for the current demographic swell of Africa.

  436. Daniel Chieh says

    There’s a three part joke/woke/bespoke meme just waiting to be made from this.

  437. Screw unicef – if you want to donate always check your charity first:
    https://www.charitynavigator.org

    Do not give money to any org with less than a stellar review. Just my advice.

    Peace.

  438. Daniel Chieh says

    Sure, Whites haven’t been tribal for a while…I thought that was one of the problems, no? That you are afraid of being run over by more tribal minded people…

    Just because something is prevailing in the current context doesn’t necessarily mean that its something that someone would want to join; we can all acknowledge that gorillas are a lot stronger than we are and would win if we were pitched in a cage fight with them without weapons, but I doubt that many of us would want to be gorillas.

  439. I wonder what being “in great way” looks like.

    No being white (“You whites”). And preferably being Jewish like our Mahayana Tzadik Hochstapler.

  440. Chapeau bas!

  441. I am truly happy for your good fortune, and it is quite obvious you are not any kind of “loser”. I did not mean to imply that.

    And yet you clearly want more out of life than just your material good fortune – and that is to your credit. And you clearly care about your people. Again go your great credit.

    That is what it means to be in a “great way” – to not be satisfied with mere material good fortune, to reach out for more, and to belong to a community through ties of loyalty, faith, and love.

    Most whites lack this, so are in a very bad way indeed despite their material good fortune. And to get better, we must start from the reality, not lash out in false pride.

  442. You whites are

    You are not white in the usual Jewish camelon way or in Rachel Dolezal way or actually your non-Jewish parent was Shvartze? It does not matter as long as we know you do not identify as white This also explains your anti-white anti-Europen animus of your contributions.

  443. Good point.

    I wonder in what context though individualism prevails over some level of tribalism? In the great age of the British empire, British warships would bombard a city for the release of one British national unjustly held. That is surely tribalism.

    Of course, one may not wish to be quite as tribal as other people’s, but it does seem that one of the current problems with white societies is a loss of the level of tribalism their forebears has taken for granted.

    Judging by all the backlash coming from too many whites unwilling to learn from Jews, Muslims, and Asians – it may be too bitter a pill to swallow – it may be better to recall whites to their own lost thinking patterns and emotional patterns.

    Like Tacitus did with his Germanica, he didn’t merely praise the vigorous German tribes but linked them with the virtues of ancient Romans themselves.

    I myself switched to using Jews and and Asians etc as good examples for whites because I thought this was s vivid contemporary example that would have maximum impact – but except for some exceptionally mature and intelligent whites, or secure people like Anatoly who belong to a rising people, it has provoked tremendous resentment it seems, and driven some people like utu to the brink of insanity.

    Perhaps it is time to be more like Tacitus – never praise Jews or Asians or Muslims without explicitly linking it to the exact same mindset that used to exist among whites. Recalling g whites to their old virtues and not asking them to learn from a foreign people – which even though European culture became great by being humble enough to constantly learn from foreigners, is something now beyond the diminished European culture of today.

    Hmmmm. Yes, I think so.

  444. The Big Red Scary says

    People hate when someone take away what they desire most, even if it is bad/unnecessary for them.

    Indeed. Before abolishing the universities, one has to first start by promoting an alternative as being higher status. The most elite alternative would be something like the Thiel Fellowship: http://thielfellowship.org/. A more modest alternative would be something like the code academies run by big IT companies. In Russia, there is the Yandex Academy: https://academy.yandex.ru/.

    Once you have convinced people that university is for drones like Bertie Wooster and real men get down to real work, you can transfer funding for student positions at the universities to apprenticeships in industry (including culture) and research institutes.

    Conscientiousness is a key trait aside from intelligence

    Certainly. So for placement in apprenticeships, give people an SAT like exam to check if they are intelligent, literate, and numerate. The apprenticeships themselves will then select for conscientiousness.

  445. I have no problems with people defining “brotherhood” and in/out group as they please. I have my own defined brotherhood so my natural needs for my in group are satisfied.

    As I mentioned, I had a Hyderabadi and Polish brother over recently – they are my brothers.

    From what I understand, people here are looking to bring about some kind of brotherhood of sorts. I don’t begrudge them that because I know how lonely life would be for me without that sense of belonging.

    Why is why I wished people well in organizing a get together irrespective of whether they want me there or not. I don’t have hostility to nor do I envy you guys trying to form a brotherhood that fits you. Any hostility coming from me is imagined, and frankly – not appreciated.

    Peace.

  446. I do not identify as white or Jewish. Neither community, at the moment, is worth joining or building roots in, although phenotypically I am a blond German or Slav.

    Also I am somewhat of a special case – as someone mystically inclined, I would be happy living in almost any healthy traditional religious community, and I would identify with it and be loyal to it.

    But I am a long term friend of Europeans and whites and wish for them to recover their health – my “anti-European” attitudes are merely opposition to the sick and cancerous modern parts of European culture. The traditional parts I am quite a fan of, as you know.

    But you are thinking with your emotions here and not your head – you’re quite intelligent enough to understand these distinctions, but any criticism by a Jew make a you see red and lose all capacity for rational thought.

    In the end you disappoint me, utu. When I first met you here I had thought better of you.

  447. They turn on you when you offer solutions or well intentioned encouragement to get better, as I found to my own chagrin.

    Many of of them are still in the doubling down lashing out stage – let’s double down on individualism even as they admit the need for greater tribalism and are even organizing for it.

    Its very incoherent and emotion driven at the moment – and that’s understandable.

    They know something is broken and has to get fixed – but they will defend the maladaptive patterns out of blind emotion.

    This too is a transitional phase, and most marked in the bitter older generation. It will pass. Don’t let it bother you.

  448. Well, if R. Unz’s Hispanics can get smart then maybe the Africans will get smart in the not too distant future.

  449. Daniel Chieh says
  450. well intentioned encouragement

    Yeah – hostility to that seems really bizarre. One thing is that maybe it’s a case of projection, the other is that they have internalized hostility so much from the media, government programs, etc. that they can’t imagine someone not being antagonistic to them – like under my “peace” pretenses lies a deeper layer of – “I hope you all die on the same chartered flight kaafir! Bwahahaha!”

    Maybe if I did that some would be more comforted that everyone’s out to get them…hmmm, I wonder where they got that from? Any ideas?

    Its very incoherent and emotion driven at the moment – and that’s understandable.

    Looks like it. Hopefully it’s as you said – just a phase.

    but they will defend the maladaptive patterns out of blind emotion.

    This can be healthy to a certain degree as long as it is channeled properly – it’s the beginnings of recognizing somethings are sacrosanct and not up for negotiation.

    Peace.

  451. Daniel Chieh says

    There are advantages in clannishness and conformity, but I find the argument that you have to mimic something because its working in the current zeitgeist to be false and possibly harmful. If everyone plied their business honorably, for example, and I acted dishonestly, then I would be at an advantage. So would society be improved if everyone copied quickly and dishonesty became a general rule for trade?

    No, probably not.

    I do agree that Europeans have suffered a confidence crisis in their own culture, but I’m not sure if the “health” of say, Asian cultures, is of any reason beyond the mere lag time it takes for them before the individualism meme takes over. Maybe it’ll be even worse, like how Japan has plunging TFR or Taiwan is a cargo cult of the worst of Western liberalism; a collectivist culture that is forced to live by modern atomized standards is what creates the sad spectacle of one-person hot pots and singing alone at karaokes. One can hope, of course.

  452. You set up a dichotomy of dumb or lazy and I suppose I am supposed to be appreciative that you put me in the lazy category.

    If you can’t get 100% agreement with your opinion you don’t seem to know what to argue.

    I put this in:

    I understand that we should be cautious with charity and not encourage behavior by “rewarding” it.
    so that we wouldn’t have to discuss it.

    My point was that we have an actual starving person in opposition to a possible future person. If we can let him starve now because he and his descendants are an existential threat, why are we not justified in killing him now?

    Anyway, that African that starves might have been the next Tennessee Coats, then how would you feel?

  453. but I find the argument that you have to mimic something because its working in the current zeitgeist to be false and possibly harmful

    That is actually an extremely good point, and could be applied to the way the East adopted to some extent the maladaptive culture of modernity because it seemed to be working.

    I myself try and take the broad historical view, and if I focus on contemporary events, I do so because they are more vivid and personal to us – but I do try and situate them in historical contexts. But perhaps lately I have been focusing too much on merely contemporary events.

    You are also correct that the comparative health of Asia may be merely a time lag – quite correct. However, you know I am not a genetic supremacist, and I am merely contrasting elements of Asian culture as they still exist, even if they are on a time lag to destruction, to give an example of why currently Asians appear healthier.

    So even if Asia is on s time lag to the poz it does not really vitiate my arguments – I am contrasting two systems of thought. To the extent one is observed, it conveys health. To the extent the other, decadence.

    Contemporary examples merely flesh out my point – if Asia falls to the poz, I suppose I’d have to fall back on using only historical examples 🙂

    Which may be I should anyways.

    Thanks for your thoughtful comment.

  454. It is s very confusing thing at first. Believe it or not, the decisive break with utu, when he really turned on me, was after I left a string of comments that Europeans should be proud of themselves and not listen to anyone seeking to undermine them!

    It was disorienting, but it makes a kind of sense. Part of having a spiritual disease is clinging to the pain you know rather than healing. Its comfortable and familiar. It doesn’t take courage.

    Being healthy enough for change is already a certain level of health.

    This is why I suspect this is a generational fight really.

    But to be fair to them, it’s a difficult situation – many issues of ego involved, delicate and sensitive issues.

    Maybe if I did that some would be more comforted that everyone’s out to get them…hmmm, I wonder where they got that from? Any ideas?

    In a certain way, yes they would. It would be familiar. It would have the comfort of familiarity and the known. It would be the familiar pain.

    This can be healthy to a certain degree as long as it is channeled properly – it’s the beginnings of recognizing somethings are sacrosanct and not up for negotiation

    Excellent point!

    And I appreciate the sophisticated thinking behind it. An apparently negative phenomena can be a positive phenomena in embryo. Look past appearances.

    This kind of necessary multi-leveled thinking has been lost in the modern West, and I am trying to rehabilitate it.

  455. UNICEF was used because we were on the subject of starving 3rd World children. It was not meant to be literal.

    And good advice from you, it is not easy to be charitable in a trouble free and effective way.

  456. Got it – sorry I misunderstood. I like to donate to charities that are not loaded with overhead costs and that site helps you figure out which ones get you a good bang for your buck. I also like donating to charities from which I personally know people who are trustworthy and can vouch for their practices.

    I highly recommend people give charitably, it is a very honorable thing to do – but that doesn’t mean we give stupidly.

    Even if you want to give to just White people – there are organizations that take care of orphans in places like Hungary, Latvia, etc. Do it, you will never regret it.

    Peace.

  457. Guillaume Tell says

    Anyway, that African that starves might have been the next Tennessee Coats, then how would you feel?

    Oh what a loss that would be, really!

    Seriously: who cares?

  458. Even if you want to give to just White people

    Never! Those loser genes need to be purged!

    I like to give anonymously. Food bank drives are attractive to me. And there is that red kettle at Christmas. Last time I check the Army was one of those low overhead charities.

  459. Guillaume Tell says

    Aren’t you secretly dreaming of behind surrounded by rapefugees?

    This pathological melanophilia might even have genetic causes.

  460. I like to give anonymously.

    That is absolutely the best way to go about it – it is the most sincere way to give. But there is a pragmatic aspect also – it’s much easier, once you have found reliable charities to just get on the monthly donation system. It keeps taking stuff out and you don’t have to pay anymore mind to it and you can plan it out of your normal budget.

    Miserliness in a spiritual disease that must be purified, so give according to what compels you to give and what appeals to your heart – it makes it that much easier.

    My teachers have mentioned it’s like a good investment strategy, a portfolio for returns in the hereafter if you will. Thus it is recommended to be diversified; orphans, general disaster relief, houses of worship, scholarships, etc.

    Peace.

  461. Borderline CTI crap.

  462. OT

    Table, the Danes are beginning to implement a millet system.

    https://mobile.nytimes.com/2018/07/01/world/europe/denmark-immigrant-ghettos.html

    From Rod Drehers commentary –

    “Fight those who believe not in God and in the Last Day, and who do not forbid what God and His Messenger have forbidden, and who follow not the Religion of Truth among those who were given the Book, till they pay the jizyah with a willing hand, being humbled” (9:29)

    The Judeo-Christian blowhards who have been parading this verse for several years to show how intolerant Islam is are actually the missing the point. What I’m about to say is not at all exhaustive as an interpretation of this verse (and the Arabic is more nuanced), but here’s my take:

    When believers in the tenets of Islam are in charge of a territory, it is God’s Law, and law based on revelation, that forms the basis for a community and for the society as a whole. If you do not hold to the tenets of Islam, you have a choice: pay your jizyah and keep your culture and values to yourself and your community (at the same time enjoying the protection of the state from foreign aggression) while acknowledging that law of Islam is going to be the supreme law of the land, or face the consequences.

    Harsh? Maybe, but it works. And it worked. And we see every society, in one form or another, implements a similar policy, in the sense of placing their own culture in a privileged position vis-a-vis the residents in its territory. The Danes are doing ,despite all the pretense to liberal values

  463. Good point in general, but it would depend on the goals (and actual results) of the charity. Charities that are geared towards relief and making life somewhat livable, let’s say, in parts of N.Africa / Middle East, such as relief for Syria, are needed not only for ethical reasons (those who participated in the war should bear the responsibility) but because people want to return to Aleppo (and other destroyed homes or at least want to stay close to relatives). Most refugees are in their neighboring countries. I mean, there are actually people that have returned to their homes in Aleppo and are trying to live inside of half ruined houses, mending windows with plastic wrap. Lots of people living in tents in N.Africa. It makes sense to help them (since the war has already happened, they’re dispossessed and their original goal was not to come to Europe).

    But for Subsaharan Africans – I agree (don’t want to even think about what could help them, contraception might be a good idea but that’s a sensitive topic (and they’re already born!), and who will even handle that!). Given the water crisis, a lot of them will probably simply die.

  464. Even if you want to give to just White people – there are organizations that take care of orphans in places like Hungary, Latvia, etc. Do it, you will never regret it.

    Before you worry about whites in Hungary and Latvia, maybe you should worry about the whites in the US? They’ve taken a bit of a hit the last 10 or so years. Shanty towns are sprawling all across the West coast cities (a lot of white men there, the blacks and recent Somali immigrants have Section 8). There are also plenty of single dads (and moms) who, even if they have food stamps or food from the food bank, still neglect their kids (so the kids get overweight and are still hungry because of all the sugar and carbs and who knows what else they’re consuming – maybe some community cohesion could help there as they’re obviously not following the state nutrition guidelines (and those aren’t great either)?). I mean this in good spirit.

    And with Hungary and Latvia, etc., a lot of the children in need are not really white but Gypsies (the Gypsy issue can be solved not by mere donations, but by leaving the caravans alone). Most orphans in Latvia are no longer in institutions but in foster families (the goal is to have all children that are in need placed within a family, of course, there is both welfare and private donations for foster families). The younger children (especially baby girls) get snapped up very quickly by local adopters. So the ones still in need are really older children (teenagers, especially boys, yes, very sad) and Gypsies.

    I mostly donate to Ukraine these days (including to the orphans of ATO).

    But the whites who are really in need today are the people of Donbas. And who is helping the children of the fallen there?

    Btw, Talha, just wanted to tell you that the situation in Syria (and Yemen) is something that I regard as a complete failure of humanity as a whole (that includes the rich Arab states). But maybe such complexity can’t be resolved. Another thing I’ve pondered is that given the wars in the ME and given how young those populations are, and if the wars (and other calamities) there increase, we’re essentially looking at a large scale infanticide. I didn’t mean to sadden you, just let you know that even if I oppose migration into Europe, I do recognize there is an immense ethical problem there.

  465. Guillaume Tell says

    I suspect the same happened to you.

    A very similar story, a decade before.

    This has colored my views on everything, even though it has been more than twenty years now.

    Same here — and going into 35 years after the fact.

    We are not alone either. There are millions of us.

    Yes. It is an absolute disaster. At that scale, there must be a selective process taking place.

    How was the work at the factory when everyone was off, except the callipygian gal?

  466. Before you worry about whites in Hungary and Latvia, maybe you should worry about the whites in the US?

    Good point, no doubt.

    something that I regard as a complete failure of humanity as a whole

    100% agree. And yes, the Gulf Arab leadership has a huge amount to do with that mess.

    I didn’t mean to sadden you, just let you know that even if I oppose migration into Europe, I do recognize there is an immense ethical problem there.

    Yes, the situation is quite sad in those places. I’m glad people like yourself are able to recognize that the invade part of the invade/invite equation is ethically untenable.

    But the whites who are really in need today are the people of Donbas.

    If you have charities that you can recommend, I would post them for people here.

    Peace.

  467. If everyone plied their business honorably, for example, and I acted dishonestly…

    Some cultures have not evolved to the point of Kant’ s Categorical Imperatives. Besides this customer here explicitly stated that logic and following rules is an obstacle and thus the logic must be discarded.

  468. I’d have to research that. If I find anything that looks legit (and for kids or rebuilding), I’ll let you know. One has to be careful (scammers show up pretty quickly but that shouldn’t deter us).

  469. It begins…

    Peace.

  470. I think its a beautiful system.

    Too bad it violates Kant’s Categorical Imperative 🙂

    The future belongs to people willing to adapt and implement ideas that work.

  471. When believers in the tenets of Islam are in charge of a territory, it is God’s Law, and law based on revelation, that forms the basis for a community and for the society as a whole. If you do not hold to the tenets of Islam, you have a choice: pay your jizyah and keep your culture and values to yourself and your community (at the same time enjoying the protection of the state from foreign aggression) while acknowledging that law of Islam is going to be the supreme law of the land, or face the consequences.

    Harsh? Maybe, but it works. And it worked.

    An entirely sensible solution. One of the really great things about our system of representative democracy is that it ensures that entirely sensible solutions will never, and can never, be adopted.

  472. Mitleser says

    The problem is that the “gibsmedats” mentality among the population is inevitable as long as the same mentality exists among the elite.
    Why expect the population to fight for ideals if the elite does not?

    Putin’s domestic support evaporates on the widespread voter perception that he and the officials he appoints run the economy for the benefit of the oligarchs, and are rewarded corruptly for this policy.

    It is also the near-universal Russian conviction that there is no policy which the government has decided which is not pursued for corrupt reasons. This is what has made the recently announced decisions to increase value-added tax from 18% to 20%, and to extend the retirement age from 60 to 65 (for women from 55 to 63) bellwether issues for the president and the voters. Putin’s support among voters is the default position — if not Putin, the alternative would be worse — except in the war conditions which the Americans have created.

    http://johnhelmer.net/the-sale-of-another-century-the-putin-trump-summit/#more-19429

    Extending the retirement age is a good policy, but I would oppose it if it was pursued at the same time as VAT increase and support for people like Deripaska

  473. Agreed. But then the power holders are not interested in sensible solutions but are pursuing an entirely different agenda.