Another sad example of conservatives fleecing their own.

I think you mean, Jews fleecing gentiles

Recently the norm in many industries in NY is to work only 4 days per week during the summer – I am happy to say that this has recently begun to include me!

If I take off Thursday afternoon, that means I have roughly half the week – 3 and 1/2 half days – devoted to Beauty and Goodness, and half the week devoted to the dreariness of the Machine.

Is the oligarch class beginning to relent somewhat? It does seem that way! The great economist Keynes, in his famous essay, may yet be vindicated.

I plan on spending all this time in the mountains and forests, of course 🙂

Paul Kingsnorth (more on him below) says that modern technological civilization is only “3 days deep” – spend three days in the woods, and you slough it off like an artificial skin.

In addition, more articles have been appearing in the NYT and other prestigious news outlets advocating for a 3 day week. Yes, 3 day weeks!

This past year, noted English environmentalist and successful novelist Paul Kingsnorth has converted to Orthodox Christianity. This is a very significant event.

He could no longer in good conscience remain a secular atheist. And it is particularly significant that he chose the most mystical branch of Christianity, Orthodoxy, the one furthest removed from the Machine, and the most ascetic branch, which emphasizes Kenosis, “self-emptying”.

Kingsnorth sees mystical nature-love in Orthodoxy, a lack of self assertion and desire for domination, and instead a willingness to fit into the larger scheme of things instead of mastering it. He recently wrote very beautifully on the Irish monks on their little islands out in the Atlantic in the middle of nowhere – what amazing places to live!

I just finished reading the children’s novel The Secret Garden (hat tip Bruce Charlton) – what a beautiful book! It is a tale of two sick and miserable children brought back to health and happiness through contact with Nature, and the psychological perils of absorbing negative messages – but has deeper, more mystical themes as well.

I am reminded again of what vitality the Victorians had.

Next month I am heading to Wyoming for four weeks, the wildest state in the lower 48 – in preparation, I am reading about the Sioux Indians, who had a mini empire on the Great Plains and defeated American armies. Fascinating reading – and not all light and sunshine. Lots of cruelty in their world – which has got me thinking on various things. I plan to visit some Indian holy sites, like the Black Hills in S Dakota, and the badlands – that severe but beautiful landscape the Sioux made their headquarters for a long time.

Perhaps the world is getting better and we are not prepared to see it? The old dream – of endless material growth as the purpose of life – is dying, although it remains the dominant religion. Major cracks are appearing. Americans are disoriented and confused because we do not yet have a new dream. So we are in a transition time.

But that will pass!

Perhaps there is Good News on the horizon? We will all be materially poorer – but happier! But we must undergo a revolution in thinking to appreciate this.

Just finished a replay of Deus Ex.

Intriguing how “right” it is, if extremely exaggerated. Does demonstrate the fatal flaw of most conspiracy theories: the bigger they are, the more fragile and simply unsustainable such things would be.

On more realistic subjects, Twitter-Google-Facebook should be treated as one entity. And as an extension of the American “state-culture-system” as at this point they’re inseparable.

I shall also recommend a book, this one somewhat tangential to the recent topic of magic: “Conjure Wife” by Fritz Lieber, first published in 1943 in magazine form.

What I found fascinating about it was how politically incorrect it was about the differences between the sexes. Its general theme was how women accidentally invented magic through their superstition, their cattiness, and their general social warfare to advance the status of their husbands against the husbands of other women. And without spoiling it, the story also deals with the abilities and limitations of men.

Probably the best HBD story I’ve ever read.

Reply to the post “Cultural Autonomy in Film”:

I question whether high levels of protectionism ultimately benefit the film industries of the countries in question. The Paris-based South Korean scholar Jimmyn Parc, in cooperation with the French scholar Patrick Messerlin, published a series of papers demonstrating that import and screen quotas as well as subsidy regimes did not improve the competitiveness of Korean and French films and simply led to large numbers of low-quality films, while pro-competition reforms massively increased the competitiveness of Korean films from 2000 onward.

According to Messerlin & Parc (2014), subsidies to the French film industry have ballooned in the 21st century, while the French domestic market share has remained stagnant (see Figure 3). The level of French film subsidies has now reached €476 million, or 32% of the entire industry’s value added; there are also allegations that the subsidy scheme is prone to abuse (e.g. intellectual bigwig Bernard Henri-Lévy using his chairing of a state commission to fund his own film, considered one of the worst of all time). There are few recent internationally popular French films; I can name only Amélie (2001), The Class (2008), The Intouchables (2011), The Artist (2011) and Blue Is the Warmest Colour (2013). France also has a U.S. import quota of 110 films per year, and a program covering 70% of the cinema market reserves 40% of screenings for European films (Messerlin & Parc, 2017).

In South Korea, import quotas were eliminated in 1985, and replaced by a screen quota requiring 40% of screenings to be Korean. This was reduced to 20% in 2006, which had no effect. Subsidies were increased in 2007, which also had no effect. What did have an effect was that in 1986, the Korea-US Film Agreement allowed Hollywood studios to bypass Korea’s regional distribution system and directly distribute their films, injecting competition into the stagnant industry (Parc, 2014, pp. 110-111). After a nadir during the 1990s, the Korean film industry eventually revved up and boomed in the 21st century, aided by corporate financing and vertical integration. The commercialization of Korean film allowed budgets to increase and be used more efficiently, the creation of a star system, investment in visual effects, improvement of marketing, and improvement of distribution through the construction of cinema multiplexes (pp. 116-117). State support has also oriented away from protectionism and more toward improving competitiveness, for example by providing education, equipment, and international promotion support. Since 2000, Korean films have maintained an average market share of 54% despite a screen quota of only 20%. These include the internationally acclaimed Oldboy (2003), The Host (2006), The Handmaiden (2016) and Parasite (2019), by famed directors Park Chan-wook and Bong Joon-ho.

In China, although a strict import quota exists, the film industry is otherwise mostly free of market distortions, although Zhou (2020) found that Chinese government efforts to boost so-called “main melody” (i.e. propaganda) films through subsidies actually backfired, leading to deterioration of the quality of “main melody” films. Nevertheless, the import quota has had no effect (matching Messerlin & Parc’s observations re South Korea), since China’s film boom began in 2015, over two decades after the inauguration of the import quota (Ho, Rysman & Wang, 2020); the quota in fact liberalized from 20 to 34 films right before the film boom. Thus, even if China were to have had zero protectionism, it still likely would have been able to shut out Hollywood through greater competitiveness; the film boom is likely a result of the same commercialization stage as in South Korea. In the long term, the strict import quota may harm Chinese cinema as future directors and audiences will only be familiar with Hollywood blockbusters rather than a wide variety of films.

In Russia, the film industry has improved since the turn of the century thanks to the commercialization of the industry; Russia has produced award-winning films such as Leviathan (2014) which, contra Anatoly’s ideologically-driven butthurt, is genuinely an excellent film. [Being the Russian equivalent of a siyāhnamā’ī (Iranian anti-government, lit. “black portrayal”) film does not automatically make it bad. Likewise, the Iranian Zvyagintsev, Jafar Panahi, is a superb filmmaker despite his criticism of postrevolutionary Iran and similar accusations of unrealistic portrayals.] Nevertheless, there continue to be problems; only 24.1% of admissions and 23.2% of the box office were from domestic Russian films in 2017, while 59% were from Hollywood (see figure above), leading me to question the significance of McMahon’s graph. An (admittedly outdated) 2011 poll found that almost a fifth of Russians viewed domestic films negatively, rising to almost 30% of youth; of the 40% who preferred domestic films, most belonged to older Soviet-raised generations. A report by Nevafilm Research (2018) found that state subsidies were increasingly focusing on a small number of high-budget films, and that the distribution market was concentrated in the hands of Hollywood majors; on the other hand, the report found that subsidies are declining (from 49% to 38% of all films), that more films are getting support from the private TV sector instead, and that small-town cinemas are growing. It seems likely to me that subsidies will do nothing to increase the competitiveness of leading studios; hence, efforts should focus instead on pro-competition reform and vertical integration.

With regards to India, a 2005 article by Marvasti and Canterbery noted that “severe quantitative restrictions limit film imports”; however, India’s film industry did well over the course of the License Raj and to the present day. I suspect that a sort of de facto domestic free market existed as legitimate funding was illegal until 2000, forcing filmmakers to seek funding from organized crime rather than the state. Nevertheless, I would argue that Bollywood is not internationally competitive; no one outside of South Asia really watches Indian films, even in traditional export destination Indonesia (Koike, 2002).

Ultimately, the biggest argument in favor of pro-competition reform is that it increases your country’s soft power, whereas protectionism doesn’t as it is just de facto import substitution. (In Russia, piracy can and will be used to evade protectionism anyway). Hence protectionist “cultural autonomy in film” is not actually autonomy. But if domestic films are better than Hollywood, audiences will take notice.

Note to Anatoly: I would greatly appreciate it if you could refrain in advance from republishing my comments as separate posts or reposting them anywhere outside this comments section. Thanks.

References

Ho, C. Y., Rysman, M., & Wang, Y. (2020). Demand for performance goods: Import quotas in the Chinese movie
market [Paper presentation]. 18th Annual International Industrial Organization Conference. https://economics.indiana.edu/documents/Demand-for-performance.pdf

Koike, M. (2002). Bollywood versus Hollywood in the globalization of media: A history of Indian films in Indonesia. St. Andrew’s University Bulletin of the Research Institute, 28(1), 23-34. https://core.ac.uk/download/pdf/236011554.pdf

Marvasti, A., & Canterbery, E. R. (2005). Cultural and other barriers to motion pictures trade. Economic Inquiry, 43(1), 39-54. https://doi.org/10.1093/ei/cbi004

Messerlin, P., & Parc, J. (2014). The effect of screen quotas and subsidy regime on cultural industry: A case study of French and Korean film industries. Journal of International Business and Economy, 15(2), 57-73.

Messerlin, P., & Parc, J. (2017). The real impact of subsidies on the film industry (1970s-present): Lessons from France and Korea. Pacific Affairs, 90(1), 51-75. http://doi.org/10.5509/201790151

Nevafilm Research. (2018). Key trends in Russian cinema. https://rm.coe.int/ru-2018-key-trends-of-russian-cinema/16808d7212

Parc, J. (2014). An eclectic approach to enhancing the competitive advantage of nations: analyzing the success factors of East Asian economies with a focus on the development of South Korea (Publication No. 10371/119620). [Doctoral dissertation, Université Paris-Sorbonne and Seoul National University]. SNU Open Repository and Archive.

Zhou, X. (2020). Boosting China’s film production: An assessment of the subsidies for China’s ‘mainstream films’. Global Policy, 11(2), 56-64. https://doi.org/10.1111/1758-5899.12831

Daily Beast: A Homicidal Church Is Ruining This Country With Putin’s Help.

(1) The Georgian Orthodox Church is autocephalous from Moscow, (2) all polls show Georgians more homophobic than Russians, (3) Georgian nationalists don’t exactly like Russia, LOL.

But it is still Putler & Russia who are repressing their gays.

At last notice the Russian and Georgian Orthodox Churches have good relations with each other. At last notice, this includes the ROC-MP recognizing South Ossetia and Abkhazia as the domain for the GOC. if I’m not mistaken, Crimea might still be under the domain of the UOC-MP.

The push for experimental vaccines is coordinated. The histrionic scare tactics are back. (1)

At the same time, mounting evidence shows that the unproven jab is ineffective against WUHAN-∆. (2)

PEACE 😇
__________

(1) https://pjmedia.com/instapundit/464999/

(2) https://theconservativetreehouse.com/blog/2021/07/30/cdc-study-most-people-infected-with-covid-during-massachusetts-outbreak-were-vaccinated-74-percent-of-outbreak-within-vaccinated-population/

Off topic:

Has anyone seen a good film or TV series in the recent past ?

I thought this one was charming:

https://arstechnica.com/gaming/2020/02/review-time-travel-and-murder-combine-in-hbos-riveting-beforeigners-series/

I found CONTROL entertaining. It is on sale at the Epic Games store for $11.99

https://www.epicgames.com/store/en-US/p/control

Any game that can turn a refrigerator into a credible, serious, lethal threat deserves a look.
___

As much as you may want to avoid cluttering your PC, the Epic application is worth the effort. Their weekly free games are actually free. While many are junk, there have been some gems among the dross.

PEACE 😇

>* Charles Murray

The summary data from the US Natioanl Longitudinal Study supplementary data of Murray’s book, https://www.encounterbooks.com/wp-content/uploads/2021/04/Combined-Longitudinal-Studies-0615.xlsx

More data and bigger tables at http://relativevolatility.blogspot.com

Chinese shitlord notes that US freedom of speech is circumscribed by the ADL…

Didn’t you mean circumcised?

Check out Warrior (2019). A little woke, but otherwise superb. Great action, amazing pacing, gets better as it goes on.

While it is very interesting that so much research efforts was made to argue for open markets and free access to markets by Hollywood I am skeptical about the conclusions. An optimal solution for every country can be different and it is somewhere in between the two extremes. W/o subsidies and totally open market film industries in many countries would collapse and this is not acceptable for counties that want to have some influence on narratives told about themselves, their cultures and the world form their point of view. The world domination of Hollywood did not happen suddenly. It took some time of Hollywood market advantage to contribute to almost wiping out cinema industries that were still thriving in 1960s in countries like Italy, France, Sweden, Denmark (Germany is a special case because of WWII). The American advantage is about the market size. There is simply more money for making movies than anywhere else because American market is huge and teh it is extend to English speaking countries and de facto protected. Successful foreign films do not enter American market instead they are remade as American films:

Let Me In (Let the Right One In, Sweden)
The Departed (Infernal Affairs, Hong Kong)
Sleepless (Nuit Blanche, France)
The Birdcage (La Cage aux Folles, France/Italy)
Some Like it Hot (Fanfare d’amour, France)
True Lies (La Totale!, France)
Unfaithful (La Femme infidèle, France)
Insomnia (Insomnia, Norway)
Funny Games (Funny Games, Austria)

15 Highest-Grossing American Remakes of Foreign Films
https://www.thewrap.com/highest-grossing-american-remakes-foreign-films-godzilla-departed/

and then

A Bigger Splash, “La Piscine”
A Fistful Of Dollars, “Yojimbo”
Victor/Victoria, “Viktor und Viktoria”
Solaris, “Solaris”
The Talented Mr. Ripley, “Purple Noon”
Twelve Monkeys, “La Jetée”
The Magnificent Seven, “Seven Samurai”

Babylon Berlin
I wrote about it here:

https://www.unz.com/akarlin/cuties/#comment-4176573

“But the film is not about the plots. It is about the background, the historical period which was done in the best way I have ever seen. I was very impressed with German movie making and clarity of thinking and vision as demonstrated by Babylon Berlin.”

“Some watching it may leave with a subversive message that what has come later with Hitler coming to power was a good thing while others may get an acausal notion that as long as we have prostitutes, gays, transvestites, morphinists and occultists we are safe from Hitlers of the world.”

dux.ie, what software do you use to generate your charts?

It will mostly come as the result of a large segment of unvaccinated population being denied service anywhere in the formal consumer economy, and have to become self-sufficient (or gaining the ideology to do so)

BTW does Chechenya has enough vaccine coverage to marginalize the rest of the population? I suppose devout Muslim opposition to vaccines will be in line with to devout Christians.

So…

About halfway through McMeekin’s “Stalin’s War”, I still think our benevolent overlord may have oversold the book somewhat.. Mcmeekin keeps reminding me of Timothy Snyder with his pulpy, overemotional language that he insists on using, in addition to his almost pathological attitude towards Russia, practically on the same level as that female blogger AK sparred with years ago. Perhaps the standout mixed metaphor so far has been his describing of the equipping of “the Vozhd’s” war machine (McMeekin loves this title, I suppose he think it lends his prose a certain pizazz, as I don’t recall it being used in English for Stalin before).
Of course, this Russian war machine is described as a ‘steamroller’, but no, not any regular old one, but a “mechanised [is there any other kind?] and airborne steamroller”…

Regarding Rezun’s theories, so cherished by our benefactor, McMeekin doesn’t appear to endorse ‘Icebreaker’ in this book, or if he does, it’s in such an attenuated and vague form that I can’t count it as such. Prior to Hitler getting the jump on “the Vozhd” in Barbarossa, McMeekin states Stalin was simply waiting for the Americans to attack Germany, and so grind each other down in a long war of attrition, after which the USSR could overrun Europe with minimal resistance.
None of that is really any kind of revelation to anybody, Stalin simply miscalculated in reckoning that even Hitler wouldn’t be so foolhardy to attack its biggest trading partner (and oil source) whilst the British were undefeated and American entry looked imminent.

McMeekin’s explanation for the initially atrocious performance of the Red Army stems as much from its rock-bottom morale, hyper-centralised command-structure and terrible mid-level leadership than reasons of forward deployment or a high proportion of formations useful only for offense, such as paratroopers. The fact that Soviet war material was superior to the German, in virtually every aspect, is gone into detail as well. The obvious answer for how the Eastern Front initially went is probably just that German troops were the best in the world at the time, with extremely high morale after a string of total victories.

He does thoroughly dispell the myth of “the Vozhd” experiencing a mental breakdown upon the German invasion, arguing that all available evidence suggests he coped with the shock as well as anyone could, with records suggesting 18 hour workdays, and so on.

Tangentially, I’m not entirely sure why Ron Unz is so keen on rehabilitating Nazi Germany, or why he’s so eager on disputing the holocaust in particular. I mean, isn’t he partly or wholly of Jewish descent himself? From that side, I don’t think even Israel Shamir, Israel Shahak, Norman Finkelstein or Gilad Atzmon have ever denied that millions of mostly unarmed Jews were killed during WWII. Numerous commenters (mostly Wally and his fellow travellers, granted) on this site have brought it up time and time again, but I don’t think I’ve even seen Ron Unz answer these scurrilous accusations of his Jewish blood directly. Which is a little odd, because he appears so open about all other public aspects of his biography.

Spoiler: Admixture happened before the Chinese emigrated to Taiwan.

Not a surprise since Taiwan was mostly populated before 1945 from Fujian which has a largely southern Han-Baiyue mixed population, just like most of Southern China.

Jews spend as much time fleecing each other as anyone else, their Rabbis in particular are constantly cursing (literally, as in casting magic spells) and trying to destroy the livelihoods both each other and their adherents. For example, try reading about how the political party “Shas” was actually created, and how it became independent of its original Ashkenazi puppetmaster, the Rabbi Elazar Shakh, originating the now endless feud with his former protege Ovadia Yosef.
It’s a totally ridiculous saga, like something of that Gogol story of “Ivan Ivanovich”.

utu, the articles are not arguing for “open markets and free access to markets by Hollywood”; they are trying to understand what makes national film industries internationally competitive. Not all subsidies are the same: subsidies for cinema education, equipment, studio infrastructure, dubbing/subtitles and international marketing, as well as export subsidies, are useful, while non-targeted subsidies (used in France) and import/screen quotas (used in South Korea) were found to be ineffective. I suppose you could make an argument for infant industry protection, but without a vast domestic market you would have to be export-oriented right from the start to become competitive.

Economies of scale may be one major reason why Hollywood is so successful, but it’s not the only reason; Japan has economies of scale, yet its film industry has been largely unsuccessful since the 1950s. The U.S. also had a rather weak film industry during the initial TV era (1950-1974), giving an opening to foreign film studios that was never acted upon. Silver (2007) found that Hollywood was unique in that it alone adopted a commercial approach where no one else did: only Hollywood used marketing research to aid design, had a rigorous product development process, had strong promotional capabilities, and carried out strategic marketing management (e.g. promotion of movie stars, different genres, etc.) On the other hand, French, German and Italian films were largely arthouse (not commercially-oriented) after WWII, while British, Indian and Japanese films were domestically- (not export-)oriented. At the end of the day, cinema is a business, and this is why Hollywood is so successful. Hence, I suggest copying Hollywood’s business strategy; otherwise, your country will be stuck with watching Universal, Warner Bros. and Netflix’s latest offerings, which may or may not be to your liking.

References

Silver, J. D. (2007). Hollywood’s dominance of the movie industry: How did it arise and how has it been maintained? (Publication No. 16687). [Doctoral dissertation, Queensland University of Technology]. QUT ePrints. https://core.ac.uk/download/pdf/10885386.pdf

I’m sure Ron Unz is pleased that some guy is upset on the behalf of him and his people. There is a worrying amount of virulent anti-semitism in the world today, so thank you for being one of the few who care and fight to the last drop of blood for Zion. Stunning and brave.

There might be a window of opportunity while the US is obsessed with worshipping homos. But probably not inside the US empire.

However, in the greater scheme of things, the movie industry itself might be an exhausted and declining phenomenon, in practice relegated to children’s shows and increasingly blue, yet strangely unsexy, movies, so it might be more worthwhile to focus on something else. For Russia, could be that money is better spent on RT …

PS. … and, as an aside, making video games. May I suggest Russia launching and maintaining an alternative to Steam? It doesn’t have to be an enemy, just a credible alternate source.

Tangentially, I’m not entirely sure why Ron Unz is so keen on rehabilitating Nazi Germany

I do not think this is the case. He likes Suvorov thesis because he perceives it as being neglected and purposefully suppressed by English language media and historiography and if something is suppressed it is very likely it is true. So it perfectly fits his Pravda series about the lies we have been told or the truths we were not told. Beside as we discussed it before here in some ways Suvorov rehabilitates Stalin as well, though it has not been adopted by the the official Russian historical politics, so far. Apparently it has been calculated in Russia that being an innocent victim of Hitler pays more brownie points than being an active opponent of Hitler trying to preempt and stop Hitler and save the Jews before Hitler knew he wanted to kill them.

In many of Ron Unz’s articles he introduces them with a foreword of him just getting into the topic recently and not knowing much about it not so long ago and being very surprised that he found something really astounding. A good example of this is the 1940 Operation Pike that he thinks was suppressed in historiography because he thinks it was absurd for the French and the Brits to consider bombing Baku oil field of their future ally and because he never heard of it until he began to get interested in what happened in 1940 not so long ago. While it is true that durning WWII after June 22, 1941 there were many efforts to whitewash the Ribbentrop-Molotov pact the Operation Pike was rational and reflected how miilitary commanders of France and UK thought of the Soviet Union at that time. Then there is the psychological aspect:

https://www.unz.com/akarlin/open-thread-153/#comment-4723949
On the psychological level it could be very simple. Think of Monsieur Jourdain. If he had ego of Ron Unz he would suspect that the fact that he spoke prose all his life was kept from him must have been due to intentional concealment

Operation Pike was embarrassing to Soviet Union and its Western allies who did not want to be reminded that Soviet Union was Hitler’s ally for the first 21 months of WWII.

he’s so eager on disputing the holocaust in particular

This is more complicated. I would have to refresh my memory by reading his article on Holocaust again but at this moment it seems to me he was just listing various arguments that Holocaust was not what we are being taught. However I remember that on few occasions his comments indicated that he indeed did not believe in the extermination camps as if arguments by the revisionists convinced him.

There is no open debate between revisionists and the orthodox historians because the revisionists are in fact denialists often with a hidden agenda of completely exonerating Germany. The discourse of those revisionists is based on analogy of court proceedings in the anglo-american legal system, where the defense vs. prosecution is extremely adversarial. There is no middle point. Guilty as charged or not guilty. So for instance CODOH and Wally’s of this world would argue on technicalities that if there are no graves you cannot prosecute because how do we know they are really dead. In essence a lot of it is Johnny Cochran’s antics like “If it does not fit, you must acquit” which apparently worked on the black women of the jury and it works on many white revisionists.

I believe that much more nuanced approach is needed as I believe that indeed there are many exaggerations in the Holocaust canonical narrative but I believe that 75% of it is more or less true. In fact Timothy Snyder who you do not like does a pretty good job, imo, in redefining the center of gravity of the Holocaust and outlining much better the timeline in terms of causes and evolving intentions. There was no plan to exterminate Jews. It just happened step by step. Yes, Jews were to be exiled and resettled but not until December 1941 when already 1 million of Jews were shot right behind the Eastern Front line the decisions to kill all the other Jews left in Poland and in the West was made when they realized they would never have access to Madagascar, Uganda or Palestine after America entered the war. A very important motive was Germans’ obsession with calories counting: useless eaters like the feeble minded, Soviet POW’s and Jews locked up in the Ghettos where they were put by Germans. And most importantly when they could get away with it: stateless Jews caught in the no man’s land territory. The Wannsee Conference was mostly about the German Jews who were German citizens and thus under some protection of German law. What about Jewish war veteran and what about Jews married to Aryans were questions Nazis did not have clear answers. Initially in 1939 Germans indeed wanted to just resettle them. Look at Eichmann’s Nisko Plan for Jews from annexed Polish and Czech Silesia that were not granted German citizenship and how internal politics and competition between different agencies derailed it and the Jews were sent back to their homes after first being concentrate in the Nisko area. At that time Nazis were concerned with public opinion as the Western press was writing about Nisko. Holocaust historians do not like to dwell on the Nisko Plan because it proves there was not extermination plan in 1939-1940.

I haven’t come up with any explanation of Ron Unz’s interest in and posible endorsement of Holocaust denialism but I would think it is just by the extension of him being extremely contrarian and being somewhere in between foolhardy and vainglorious. I think that in some sense Ron Unz transcended his Jewishness even if it is only in a contrary way. You must have noticed that he would like to get attention of ADL and the fact that they are ignoring him so far proves that he must be right and they are afraid of the power of his arguments.

https://twitter.com/disclosetv/status/1421464650512797697

Global agorism is inevitable.

“French, German and Italian films were largely arthouse (not commercially-oriented) after WWII” – I do not think so. Arthouse films constituted larger but still very small fraction than in the US and the majority of films were directed at general audience who wanted entertainment, distraction and escapism just what Americans were getting. Look at the list of films with the most cinema admissions in Italy since 1945:

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_highest-grossing_films_in_Italy

Note that “A Fistful of Dollars”, “For a Few Dollars More”, “The Good, the Bad and the Ugly” and “Trinity Is Still My Name” are Italian films.

Do you realize how many comedies were made in France and Italy in 1950’s, 60’s and 70’s and how popular they were? Do you know about German Heimatfilme after WWII and the important role they played in fixing the German psyche?

“while British, Indian and Japanese films were domestically- (not export-)oriented” – Nothing wrong with that and besides British, French and Italian films were distributed in other countries in Europe whether that was originally intended or not.

Hollywood used marketing research. – That often amounted to voodoo and produced mixed results. One of the strongest forces of movie production was imitation and keeping up with the Joneses. If one studio did well with a monkey riding a motorcycle the other studio would do kangaroo riding a scooter. This even went with the art house movies and with the big stars jealousies. If Marlon Brando did well in the existential film set in Europe The Last Tango in Paris by Italian director Bernardo Bertolucci then the next year Jack Nicholson makes an existential film set in N. Africa and Europe The Passenger by Italian director Michelangelo Antonioni. They do not know the women they hook up with. They both are killed in their films and guess what their female partners are played by the same actress: Maria Schneider. The only difference is that in The Passenger they do not use butter or margarine. Tell me how much market research was done here?

Thanks for the link to Silver’s dissertation. I may look at it later.

but I don’t think I’ve even seen Ron Unz answer these scurrilous accusations of his Jewish blood directly

People who are not Jewish (and even some who are!) build to themselves a mythical image of Jews which simply has no counterpart in reality. To be fair, nowadays that mythical image is also applied to Blacks (and probably all ethnicities), who are supposed to have a sense of ethnic pride way beyond what is reasonable to suppose of normal human beings.

Have you heard of the Triangle Factory fire, where dozens of Jewish and Italian poor immigrants worked and were killed in a fire? That factory was owned by two Jews. Here’s a link for you:
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Triangle_Shirtwaist_Factory_fire

If that will not be enough to clarify your mind about the fact that normal people do not care two hoots about matters of ethnicity (except when their livelihood depends on it), here’s another story that might make you see the light:

The Unbelievable Story Of The Plot Against George Soros
https://www.buzzfeednews.com/article/hnsgrassegger/george-soros-conspiracy-finkelstein-birnbaum-orban-netanyahu

The case of Ron Unz has of course many differences to the above. The only thing in common is that he is a normal person (I suppose that if he had some serious abnormality he wouldn’t have lived to his present age in his current functional state). But he is not a greedy industrialist, nor a shrewd political consultant. The thing with Ron Unz is that he is in love with China from his youth days, and everything else revolves around that. He even wrote a treatise on some Chinese matters in 1983! You can read it here and tell me what it’s about (though I plan to read it some day).

Social Darwinism and Rural China
https://www.unz.com/runz/social-darwinism-and-rural-china/

People act like Jews are much different from Arabs, but really they are the same, except with bigger IQ’s. If Arabs stopped the cousin fucking and had a little eugenic effect on top, they’d be exactly the same (and then rightoid butthurt would be even more insane, since they would be fleeced six ways from sunday).

Does remind me of a particular thing that used to be popular in rural Serbia – very weird, and demented forms of cursing and “magic”. Like throwing severed goat heads into the neighbor’s yard to inflict cancer on his bloodline, shit like that. Very rare nowadays, the Vlachs are infamous for their own brand.

Really, I believe, if the commies executed everyone who believed in this shit, and I’m not talking about some “report neighbor for going to church and celebrating slava” bullshit, but actual whole villages gone from the face of the Earth, everyone would be far better off. And more appreciative of a government that punishes imbecility with death, the only crime deserving of such a thing.

If the Roman Church had not lost its nerve with Vatican II, Kingsnorth would likely have become RC like many pre- and post-WWII English luminaries!

It’s more about which subsidies are effective, and that vertical integration is indeed based and redpilled when it comes to everything ever.

Sadly, some countries, like mine, Serbia, have nothing to vertically integrate. Unsure if we have such protectionism efforts, but our new films, if technically and visually impressive, now feel bland and soulless, very Hollywoodesque, in the bad way.

While this may be true in this case and many others, Jews would not have the power they do without libtards – especially libtards who disguise themselves as nationalists.

The summary data from the US Natioanl Longitudinal Study supplementary data of Murray’s book..

Murray’s IQ is only derived from math + verbal (AFQT test), but not from spatial abilities, which leads him to underestimate the IQ of people working in STEM.

A more diverse test will give you another picture.

Thus the tables are unfortunate BS.

Verbal and quantitative abilities alone do not provide a sufficiently descriptive portrait of the cognitive diversity in intellectually talented students.

https://www.researchgate.net/publication/232466160_Importance_of_assessing_spatial_ability_in_intellectually_talented_young_adolescents_A_20-year_Longitudinal_Study

The RC Church is definitely much, much better than the Protestant, but the RC Church had a very ambiguous and often hostile attitude towards it’s mystics, even including persecution.

Orthodox Christianity, with it’s Heyschast tradition, actually incorporated mysticism as a central plank.

Unfortunately, the RC Church participated in the general Western drift towards materialism. But the RC is distinguished by it’s tradition if great art, architecture, and intellectual sophistication.

Kingsnorth is too much of a nature mystic for the RC. Intellectuals and artists convert to the old RC. Today, though, there is little left in the RC of course.

I believe there will be many intersecting threads leading to transition away from the current system. It will be overdetermined.

I am sure the elites will overreach in various ways, like denying basic services to the unvaccinated, that will have unintented consequences, and shrink the consumer base, reducing elite wealth – not what they had in mind!

But we are far from out of the woods yet. Mainstream religion is still hard core materialism and “growth”. Cracks are beginning to appear. It’s obvious to any thinking person this is unsustainable.

I wonder if the growing population shrinkage is the “spiritus mundi” preparing the world for a post-science age? The world’s carrying capacity is way, way lower without science – perhaps the fertility crisis is a preparation for a world that, without high level science, cannot carry billions.

If you have 4 weeks you might have a chance to approach the most beautiful sight I have ever seen in the Rockies. It’s a little off the path you describe. If there were a zillion Americans reading this forum there is no way in the world I would describe it.

Seven Lazy P ranch Choteau MT. It is about 300 mi north of the WY border and closer to Canada than Wyoming but you might be interested to read further. Their business model is fishermen drive there and then rent their horses and then go on horseback into the Bob Marshall wilderness. There are no roads where they go. There are no people where they go. It is the most beautiful stretch of the untouched Rocky Mountains that I have ever seen. I do not fish and I do not ride horses and I did not even make it all the way into the Bob Marshall–I was there for a slightly different purpose but if I ever get my ass horseback adjusted that trip is going to be number one on my list for sure.

It is grizzly bear country so if you go out there by yourself you need to have peak wits. The bears are not a concern at all if you are with a pack of six guys with ten horses.

People who are not Jewish (and even some who are!) build to themselves a mythical image of Jews which simply has no counterpart in reality.

You have not been around Jewish people enough, I think, or you would see how the mechanism for it can be. Imagine what it might feel like if you are, from childhood, raised on going to Holocaust centers and memorials, watching said movies and being told of how the world desires your extinction, etc. Many of them are actually quite well done, unique and memorable, indicative of their well-known verbal capability:

https://forward.com/culture/166781/nathan-englander-play-explores-stalin-era-tragedy/

Enough constant exposure to this and I think that you would also be quite sensitized. I honestly think that its such a barrage(and indeed, to their children!) that it could be considered almost self-inflicted psychological abuse.

IMO, Korean protectionism allowed its film market to develop. It was a placeholder, until the quality of domestic films improved. What also kept it going was Korean ethnocentrism. (Highly developed at the time, and not something applicable to every country. ) Besides, as you referenced, the government does help out with exports, helping to dub, among other things.

China seems incomparable because of scale. IMO, it does not make sense to compare it to small countries like France. Perhaps, America and India. Though, America does, I believe, still have many local subsidies.

In the case of France, I think the French could ask what purpose does it serve to subsidize an industry that regularly subverts French identity and promotes negrophilia? They can get that from America on torrents. But such seems to be the case with nearly every government in Western Europe. They don’t have the right organization for promoting national interests. And, when you include news media, billions of euros are regularly wasted on the production and dissemination of poz.

People who are not Jewish (and even some who are!) build to themselves a mythical image of Jews which simply has no counterpart in reality.

So what do you make of the fact that Jews have taken most of the most important positions in USA gov’t for some time (it seems they own Treasury since Clinton, I think, and now they also own State), they control most of the MSM, most of finance, and movie studios? Is that not part of reality or is it a part that doesn’t count much or is it because they are talented at taking over whole industries? Willing to be corrected here, don’t care much either way.

Interesting comments but a few caveats. Having debated some of the revisionists / denialists here at Unz I would like to add a few not unimportant details.

First of all they do not argue in good faith and not in an adversarial ‘battle of evidence’ fashion even if they frequently claim to do so.

When confronted with sources, info etc. which do not fit their thesis they frequently ignore / dismiss them even without examining them.

Standard response to evidence they can not ignore is: testimonies are lies, documents are forgeries and photographs are a photomontage (variations thereof)

Their statements, assertions etc. are to be taken at face value. Even though they constantly demand proof (and dismiss any presented in the fashion I outlined above) but frequently do not find it necessary to produce proof for their assertions. For example if dismissing a photo of German atrocities as photomontage they will not furnish proof of who / were / when was staging it, paying for it, distributing it etc.

Another thing, frankly laughable, is the taking selected statements of Hitler and other Germans as honest and literally meaning what they said even if subsequent events proved them to be deliberate liars.

I could go on but he point is sufficiently made: no, they are for the most part not some sort of legalist purists applying logic and evidence.

Why so? IMO because many are “believers” i.e. they believe in good Hitler, German innocence and so on. This believe is sometimes quasi-religious and demands taking at face value anything that supports it while rejecting anything to the counter even if backed up by evidence.

Until yesterday, I didn’t know anything at all about Paul Kingsnorth, but thanks to you I do now. There are many interesting articles one can read about his conversion to Orthodoxy, none perhaps as poignant and insightful as this one: https://www.theamericanconservative.com/dreher/paul-kingsnorth-orthodoxy-dark-chamber-baptism/

I plan to read more of his essays.

I’m glad to read that you’ve taken such a positive interest in one aspect of Theosis, namely Kenosis. But Kenosis is only one aspect of Theosis, the best is still in front of you, as it is for all of us. Paul found this out after much searching and research into other religious traditions. He wasn’t satisfied with the emptiness that he felt after seriously practicing Zen Buddhism. As he says himself:

In my own search, I practiced Zen Buddhism for five years: it’s a powerful practice and I found it helpful, but it is lacking something: God.

https://basilica.ro/en/what-writer-paul-kingsnorth-found-in-orthodoxy-buddhism-is-a-powerful-practice-but-it-is-lacking-something-god/

The fact that Soviet war material was superior to the German, in virtually every aspect

I find this actually questionable. Take battle tanks, of which the USSR nominally possessed something like five times more than the Germans. The bulk of the tanks on both sides were obsolete or not very important light tanks (I’d argue that an obsolete light tank was way more useful than an obsolete heavy tank, the Soviets had plenty of the latter), the ratio of modern tanks was closer than that of all tanks.

The best German tanks were the Pzkpfw. III and Pzkpfw. IV. The best Soviet tanks were the KV and T-34 tanks. The Soviet tanks were better in some aspects but worse in others. The Soviet tanks in general were usually very uncomfortable and ergonomically poor, leading to their crews getting tired quickly and performing below their level of training. Handling was poor in other ways, for example Soviet tanks usually had horrible transmissions which required enormous physical force to change gears (T-34 crews were often happy when they could use the second gear), leading to lower speed and higher fuel consumption. There was a general lack of radios in Soviet tanks, which made maneuvering with tank units cumbersome and coordination on the battlefield almost impossible. Soviet tanks were also notorious for having poor visibility: so the crew was tired, had little idea what was going on on the battlefield, had no idea what their commanders and comrades in other tanks were up to, and found it difficult to handle even if they had the proper ideas what to do.

Now that’s not to deny that besides being tired, not seeing the battlefield properly etc. Soviet crews were also not very well trained. Their doctrines (like those of other militaries) were significantly worse than the doctrines of the Germans, and the Germans put huge emphasis on proper training and even learning from their own mistakes.

Historians don’t often dwell on the numerous tactical mistakes the Germans made in Poland and France (obviously those were less important than the mistakes that the French and the Poles committed), but the Germans themselves did properly analyze both campaigns, with an emphasis on the lessons learned from them. This included the mistakes made (and how not to repeat them).

So I think your intuition that the German troops were the best in the world at the time (and probably the best in modern history before or ever since), and probably Swedish historian Niklas Zetterling is correct when he asserts that the German Wehrmacht was at its peak in the summer of 1941, having learned from all the mistakes of the previous campaigns, but not yet having suffered significant losses in its prewar officer corps.

Thanks so much for this!

The Bob Marshalls are in Montana, which I sort of half had the intention to go to anyways. I’m going to make an effort to stretch my trip to 5-6 weeks if my bosses go for it.

With car rental prices at insane levels, I no longer fly out West and rent cars. I bought a used reliable Toyota SUV – it should pay for itself in a year of trips. Plus I can customize it to make it comfortable to sleep in, hard to do in a rental!

But this means I have to drive all the way from NY – Wyoming is around 26 hours from me, so I I have the idea of limiting myself mostly to the Mountain states and Utah canyon country (because I can’t live without Utah canyon country).

Anyways Montana should be well within this remit! I will try and make it – it sounds really exciting!

I love the sheer wildness of grizzly bear country and the fact that they are there – makes it so much more real. Last summer I was in the Wind River Range, and went to great lengths to buy bear spray – then forgot it in my car like an idiot 🙂 Deep in the mountains my first night, of course I did actually see a bear by the river. But I don’t know if it was only a black bear or a grizzly – I did not linger.

A woman just got killed in Montana last month by a grizzly – dragged out of her tent in a remote campsite while on a bicycle tour. So yes – one must be careful! And even then, there are no guarantees.

But isn’t that what wilderness means – and why we love it? Of course, watch me get eaten by a grizzly lol after saying this 🙂

Well, God decides, eh, or the fates, or what have you. It is not in our hands.

Anyways, thanks for the tip! Many of the best places in America are word of mouth and off the beaten track – as it should be. I will only share it with worthy people.

What is starting off as avoiding vaccine gatekeeping in occasionally extreme forms will become the basis of a new post-modern, post-consumerist economy based on ideological-traditional affinity, maybe a neo-tribalism. In this way whatever misdeeds done by those in power only aids the formation of this new order, New Normal.

Maybe 21st Century can be a Taoist century, where we will stop finding uses for material abundance and recover human nature, after global catastrophes and massive disillusionment.

I am happy to introduce him to you, Mr Hack. His essays are well worth reading! And very much balm for our troubled times.

It’s funny, after reading about Kingsnorth’s conversion, it got me interested in the Philokalia again – it truly is a beautiful book, and well worth dipping into on occasion (or reading through, for those who can. It’s massive)

Yes, Kingsnorth rejected Zen, although he found much of value in it, while I still find that certain Zen/Chan writers speak most eloquently to me.

But to be fair, I reject much that passes for official, institutionalized Zen as well!

I find that within every tradition, a certain number of – usually eccentric – writers appeal to me most. I just don’t fit well into institutions 🙂

As for Zen and God, much depends on how you understand it. In a sense, Zen has “God” – but he is unnameable, the God of the mystics.

Although Orthodoxy has this strain as well, it also has a more positive conception of God (and interestingly, certain factions of Zen – or closely related Buddhist sects – also smuggle in a positive conception of God!)

I personally derive most inspiration from the mystic tradition within each tradition – I can never be a traditional orthodox Jew, but I love and am inspired by Jewish mysticism, and my favorite Jews are the mystical Hasidim. I do not think I can ever be a traditional Christian, but I love the Heyschast tradition within Orthodoxy and love and am inspired by many Christian mystics! I also can never be a traditional mainstream Buddhist – as AltanBakshi will be all too happy to tell you 🙂 – nor can I be a “religious” Taoist with their misguided quest for physical immortality, but certain Buddhist and Taoist writers speak to me like no other writers!

But I have complete respect for those who choose different paths, and find much beauty in all the traditional mainstream approaches as well.

But who can say where I will end up? 🙂

An empty room will appear indistinguishable from a room utterly packed with baggage, until you try to fill both with light.

At this point, the baggage room will remain completely dark, but the empty room will shine.

Ever had a Marie Kondo clean out? Emptying a room full of baggage requires a delicate and loving appreciation of every piece that was placed in there. Things can’t merely be thrown out, but given a grateful and understanding farewell. These things were collected over what seems like lifetimes for most people, they are things to be valued as much as they are to be let go. This is a heartbreaking process and one which requires courage, focus and self-compassion.

Most people choose instead to lock the door, keeping the room dark, while occasionally opening it quickly to shove yet more stuff inside, until the door inevitably bursts open and some pieces fall out, before they try to shove it back inside and go back to pretending that the darkness is actually emptiness.

Now that’s not to deny that besides being tired, not seeing the battlefield properly etc. Soviet crews were also not very well trained. Their doctrines (like those of other militaries) were significantly worse than the doctrines of the Germans

What does the doctrine have to do with it? The Soviet army relied on human material with a very low level of education, in addition, there were simply not enough resources and time for long-term training of personnel in the pre-war period. In wartime, there were not enough resources and time for this (except for the end of the war).

As for the quality of equipment and in particular tanks, the Germans in this area had an absolute advantage throughout the war

The obvious answer for how the Eastern Front initially went is probably just that German troops were the best in the world at the time, with extremely high morale after a string of total victories.

Germans and Co also outnumbered the Soviet troops, like a proper offensive force should.. 4 million frontline Germans to 3 million frontline Soviets. Also, as i recall, Germans had artillery superiority.

Superior numbers and superior firepower produce the initial German result. This idea that Stalin was going to attack Germany any second now is idiotic and not supported by numbers on the ground.

However, superior numbers and superior firepower also require superior logistics to haul supplies, and Germans sucked at it. Soviet Union was much better at logistics, which explains the rest of the war.

For example, try reading about how the political party “Shas” was actually created, and how it became independent of its original Ashkenazi puppetmaster, the Rabbi Elazar Shakh, originating the now endless feud with his former protege Ovadia Yosef

Which books or other sources should I read to know the story.

Maybe 21st Century can be a Taoist century, where we will stop finding uses for material abundance and recover human nature, after global catastrophes and massive disillusionment.

May it be so!

Moreover, I think it will happen 🙂

* @Peter_Nimitz (and @Irkutyanin1): The Bolsheviks in August 1918, saved by the Latvians and the British?

That seems to refer to the West Russian Volunteer Army, which mostly consisted of German Freikorps that had operated in Latvia. Their intent was to march through Latvia to Russia to join the other White armies against the Bolsheviks. However, the Entente ordered Germany to close the East Prussian border and thus the West Russian Volunteer Army was cut off from supplies. In this situation, they lost against the Latvians who were supplied by the Entente and also directly supported by British naval artillery. Ernst von Salomon writes about this in his autobiographical novelThe Outlaws .

It seems that the Latvians were skeptical of the Whites (and of the Germans as well) and their attitude to Latvian independence and keen on securing a peace treaty with Soviet Russia; consequently they helped the Soviets in this situation by stopping the West Russian Volunteer Army. The Entente was likewise wary of the Whites in general and the continued presence of German troops in the East specifically. The outlook of a possible conservative Russian-German rapprochement through that route was probably something the Entente sought to avoid as well.

Also, this happened in 1919, not in 1918.

It looks like Western media is upset about Russians at the Olympics.

Not only Russians are trolling hard with ‘We Will ROC You’ campaign, but they are also winning a lot – 3rd place by total medal count and 5th place in gold. Not bad for a country that even isn’t supposed to be there.

Western sports media hurt the most.

You are not necessarily wrong. I have watched a remarkable documentary made by an Israeli, named Defamation, which covers this phenomenon with impressive candor.

https://www.imdb.com/title/tt1377278/

That’s not exactly what I talk about in my comment. People can be indoctrinated into anything, and that certainly will cause them to concern themselves with the most absurd non-issues. The indoctrinators are in turn motivated by great political and personal gains. But the fact that such indoctrination exists is actually evidence in favor of my hypothesis that such traits are neither natural nor normal.

What Yevardian was apparently questioning, and I addressed in my comment, was whether ethnocentrism is natural and normal in a human individual. I claim it is not. People have a small range to their affections. They may be irked, in variable degrees, when their country, or their race, or their religion, or their football team, is made to look bad, but that is only superficial. They don’t care about it as much as they care about themselves, or close family members, or, in some cases, someone to whom they are linked to by a love relationship.

Jews are perhaps notable because they managed to keep a separate identity for so long in spite of a lack of a land of their own. I think this is an interesting phenomenon, but I think ethnocentric cultures are created as a defense mechanism. This is useful and detrimental at once, because, while in the one hand it creates a web of mutual support, on the other it perpetuates differences and stokes resentment. Individuals have no natural inclination to isolate themselves, nor to isolate others, but it is hard to stop a centuries-old ongoing process.

My reply to Daniel Chieh will probably interest you:
https://www.unz.com/akarlin/open-thread-159/#comment-4814687

Summing it up, I don’t think you are necessarily wrong, but Yevardian made a misguided assumption that there is something strange or unexpected at finding someone as Ron Unz who doesn’t act in an ethnocentric manner.

It looks like Western media is upset about Russians at the Olympics.

The Fake Stream Media [FSM] in the West has become totally detached from the people in the West. Leni Riefenstahl would be proud of the propaganda pushed by today’s FSM.

The authoritarian Left in the U.S. craves the power wielded in 1930’s Germany. Remember, you cannot have ‘Left’ National Socialism without first having ‘Left’ Socialism. And, today’s DNC is already in the ‘Left’ Socialism mold. They are one small step away from what they see as the golden ring of ‘Left’ National Socialism.

Is it too late for the people in the West to pull down propaganda and fiction being pushed by the anti-Christian FSM? Perhaps not. Vote Integrity legislation is passing at the state level. The HR4 federal attempt to hijack state election law has run ground.

It is interesting to see that old school Progressives have come full circle and are now joining with MAGA to criticize Western Media. The bit from Bill Maher below illustrates the point.

PEACE 😇

The Post Admin Error site bug is back and did not give me a 5 minute edit window.

Would a Moderator with access please remove the dupe video link in the above?

Thanks

Ron Unz acts in a “reverse ethnocentric” manner.

Instead of merely remaining neutral on Jews, having a nuanced take on them as humans with flaws, and seeing their behavior in the larger context of human history, with analogies and parallels to other human groups with allowances for different circumstances, he demonizes Jews and considers them and their religion uniquely evil.

Far from freeing himself from ethnocentrism, he remains defined it by it.

When a rebellious teenager deliberately does the opposite of what his parents want, he remains defined by his parents desires – he has not achieved independence.

There is a Hebrew word *davka” – it loosely translates as “just because”, as in “just because you want me to do something, I will do the opposite”.

To a large degree, Unz.come editorial policy is defined by “davka” – just because the mainstream supports Jews, Ron will support Muslims. Just because the mainstream opposes China, Ron will support China. Etc, etc.

The English word “contrarian” does not quite capture the full flavor of this psychological phenomenon.

It is, in fact, a very Jewish trait 🙂 And not a positive one, I should add. It is a form of rebelliousness, but it is the opposite of independence. If you live among Jews, you will sadly recognize Ron’s “type” all too well.

In an intellectual climate that is increasingly repressive and one-sided, Ron’s”davka” editorial policy may serve a useful role – but it’s limited, and sadly a far cry from an intellectually mature and developed independence.

That being said, I agree with you that people are not naturally ethnocentric. The history of warfare among same-race people, and alliances between different-race people against people of their own race, sufficiently attests to this.

What people are, is “group-loyal” – and while ethnicity or race may form one component of group identity, it has never yet been able to serve as the sole or primary determinant of group identity.

Today, we are materialists – we have stripped away all aspects of group identity that are “intangibles” – religion, culture, history, values, ideals.

Naturally, we have left only material categories – race. Craving a group identity, we use the only intellectual categories left to us.

The “instinct” here is not a bad one – it is the desire to belong to something larger than oneself. Only it has nowhere to express itself except in material categories.

As materialism recedes, the instinct that is now attempting to express itself as “racial nationalism” – an entirely modern phenomenon – will flow into more traditional and healthy forms.

Indeed, even “nationalism” is a modern phenomenon that can only arise after all “higher ideals” have been stripped away.

But as modernity recedes – or is transcended – these curious phenomena will recede as well. However, the “instinct” behind these modern phenomena – which is essentially human and healthy, the desire to belong to something”bigger” – will remain, and find healthier outlets.

I concur but I would qualify. Adversarial ‘battle of evidence’ is frequently not fought in a good faith in courts. The most essential part of the trial is the fight about which evidence is admissible and once it is admitted you can always hire an expert who will find some flaws, points to the chain of custody issue, finds it not authentic and suggest that the document could have been a forgery. For every expert there is an anti-expert who is also an expert. And also you can hire witness who lie for you. That you can always get them this Russian saying proves it: Он лжет как очевидец.

As far as Hitler and many other German hight ranking officers and their out of context statements that suppose to absolve them of their true intent and crimes this is not exactly the case because it is true that there is no smoking gun paper trail and when looking at what is left from Hitler pronouncements and what is traceable to Hitler it is not really a slam dunk evidence.

Only in an ideal world you have researchers who proceed w/o a thesis and formulates it only after all evidence it is collected. Usually the thesis is formulated first, this is for psychological reason so there is a strong motivation to do the work and often the thesis is not revised if a contrary evidence is found. Both sides have their bias with various ulterior motives and they cherry pick what suits them best.

I belief that some revisions are necessary but I am also convinced that Holocaust denial is completely ridiculous and only hurts a genuine revisionist inquiry. The Holocaust industry loves the Holocaust deniers because they can be easily vilified and and easily dismissed and their existence helps raise money for various Jewish causes. In my pet theory the Holocaust deniers like Wally and Codoh are useful idiots ro agent provocateurs of the Holocaust industry. But otoh there are some who try to look at broader picture and have genuine desire to find the truth. One has to take into account they are the underdogs fighting against the overwhelming odds where the opponent can also play very dirty. The other side will tarnish your reputation before they ever allow you to enter any debate.

In several discussions about Holocaust I participate here at the UR I found that only a tiny minority is receptive to my middle of the road approach. So usually I got hit both from deniers and from the orthodox believers in the canonical Holocaust narrative. It suits me well because I never wanted to join any club or party.

 

Why Is My Craft Beer So Expensive ?!?!?

There are two reasons:
    #1 — Hops
    #2 — Hops

I know you think I said the same thing twice, but let us delve deeper.

#1 — Hops (per Acre)

WSU made some business observations and looked at yield per acre for various hops varieties back in 2010. [1]

The popular aroma variety Citra for example will come at a premium to other varieties, since its yield is relatively lower. This also serves to illustrate the agronomic reality that in poorer crop years with lower yield, the cost per pound will increase.

The one year cost of production of new acreage (that is, acreage that is planted speculatively without a contract) comes at a premium relative to acreage that is planted under contract. When the spot market price for a given variety is below the one-year production cost, a grower can’t recoup his costs, and therefore won’t plant additional uncontracted acreage. Taken to an extreme, when the spot market price for a given variety is significantly below the cost of production, a grower simply won’t produce that variety, or may even remove acreage that is already under production.

The sharp bite of CITRA hops is associated with most, possibly all, of the award winning IPA’s and it is 2nd from the bottom in terms of yield (1,428 lbs/acre) while the best is Simcoe (2,400 lbs/acre).

#2 — Hops (per Beer)

Many IPA’s are blends of various hops. However others are:
    — 100% Citra IPA
    — Double IPA [DIPA]
Both of these concepts use more of the expensive Citra hops per pint.

I emulated Jeremy Clarkson [MORE] and through stealth and cunning, obtained this picture of a 100% Citra brew in its native habitat:

Sadly, it takes 3-4 years for new hops plants to reach optimum yield. Oppressively high craft beer prices will be with us for awhile.

Also, buyers have gotten used to grocery shelf prices which blunted some of the blow. The return to tap rooms will bring home the traumatic price change.

PEACE 😇
__________

(1) https://www.brewersassociation.org/hops/cost-of-hop-production/

The Entente was likewise wary of the Whites in general and the continued presence of German troops in the East specifically. The outlook of a possible conservative Russian-German rapprochement through that route was probably something the Entente sought to avoid as well.

Also, this happened in 1919, not in 1918.

Yep.

It looks like Western media is upset about Russians at the Olympics.

Not only Russians are trolling hard with ‘We Will ROC You’ campaign, but they are also winning a lot – 3rd place by total medal count and 5th place in gold. Not bad for a country that even isn’t supposed to be there.

Western sports media hurt the most.

Another disgusting display of hypocritically ignorant arrogance and bigotry. When confronted with the realities, they’ve no answer and act carry-on like the debunking presentation never happened

It will never matter how you argue against them because they usually need that belief to place themselves at the centre of a world narrative where they are honourable genius saints standing courageously against a tide of incredible evil.

Totally subjective opinion, but they’re not nice drinks. They’re the triumph of volume of flavour over deliciousness, just like a lot of rap music is the triumph of shouting over beauty.

You should write an article about the tumultuous saga of the Nauka module and its path toward the ISS. Also about the hysterical coverage of Western “experts” that were gloating about their wished catastrophe of the mission. They went near hysterical after the tumbling of the ISS but they ended furious because of the module ended successfully docked to the ISS.

https://colonelcassad.livejournal.com/6952439.html

LOL

Yes. Cognition usually can’t be decoupled from psychology. That’s why the most effective arguments are purely rhetorical as they are emotive and not necessarily logical and they can be false. As far as the two extremes of the debate their greatest sin is that they never stop and reflect on what they do know, what they believe and what they do not know. If there comes a change and I believe that it will come it will be through some extraordinary effort by a singular courageous historian that would shift the paradigm. I think that Timothy Snyder made as significant progress with his two books on WWII bloodbath and Holocaust. But his second book was attacked more than the first one and it seems that he backed off and shifted attention to more general subjects and socio-political issues.

I realized very early in my discussions that I can’t convince anybody who does not want to open his mind but I think that putting down on paper what I believe is right or what I think is wrong with the approach and arguments of either side is a good thing to do. Yet I know that to engage in discussions I am motivated not by reason.

Totally subjective opinion, but they’re not nice drinks. They’re the triumph of volume of flavour over deliciousness,

I assume this is referring to:
— 100% Citra IPA
— Double IPA [DIPA]

There are many poorly balanced beers out there, which is what you are complaining about. However, that is more about the brewer than the style.

Let a good brewery take on the challenge and the results in these categories can be quite appealing. Cigar City uses a very unusual yeast for their Florida Man DIPA. It is well worth seeking out.

PEACE 😇

With IQ and cognitive testing being in the news, this one comes to mind. It was used in WWII to screen applicants to work at Bletchley, breaking the Enigma code. What the heck does this mean:

STGOCH

Let’s see I have never used the “more” feature but I think I can use it now to hide the answer.

Yes, Western “experts” are getting kinda desperate because ever since Rogozin came to power in Roscosmos, Russia hasn’t really blown up any rockets. There was this mishap with crewed Soyuz in 2018 but it ended being more of an advertisement for Russian launch about system. Imagine that – rocket blows up, but crew walks away unhurt like its nothing. Compare that to Space Shuttle, and more importantly, Starship, which is supposed to be human rated without launch abort. (It won’t be any time soon, but normal people don’t know that).

Anyway, under Rogozin, Russian space program quality control became world class. Nauka, designed and built from 1995-2007 or so, was the last hope for big Russian space disaster.

Everything else Russia does is pretty modern – Soyuz-MS is 2016 design (they don’t get to ISS in 3 hours by luck), Angara has new factories in Omsk, Vostochny is brand new spaceport etc. Quality control there should be excellent.

The only way for the West to make fun of Russian space program right now is number of launches, but that’s sanctions related and temporary. Once Russia localizes electronics manufacturing for satellites and spacecraft, payload manufacturing delays will go away and launches will go up again.

Back to Nauka, i listened to NASA conference call discussing Boeing Starliner launch delay, they had an astronaut on it, it was amusing. The media was freaking out about Nauka caused attitude change, but the astronaut was like “nope, unusual but nothing serious, ISS changes attitude all the time to accommodate docking spacecraft, including Nauka, so nothing we haven’t seen or experienced before”.

The biggest material impact of that accident was Russian Progress space freighter had to burn some propellant to correct the attitude back to nominal, but according to NASA, even that wasn’t significant.

So much for space disaster so many hoped for.

It will never be so clear cut, really.

One part will. The other, mostly of the “global south” variety, will instead, well, mentally, become utterly post-human. I’m talking about taking the current technocratic society, and then turning it towards something else entirely. A whole different synthesis.

Around this point, the mutual hatred will become so great and inconceivable, that finding a globe, or a map of the whole world, will be impossible, at least without the “opposing states” being just blacked out entirely and censored.

Again, we get to the scenario of crypto-Amish resisting transhumanist Combine-style hypernazbols or whatever you could call them who are technologically extremely progressive, but socially basically in antiquity, slave owning and all.

Interestingly enough, both are “trad” but in radically different ways. The neo-luddites in the most apparent way, visually and all, but theirs is based on a mirage and illusion, it’s nostalgia taken too far, and I believe would quickly lose why exactly they’re doing what they’re doing, except that “it’s supposed to be so” – basically blind bone-headed morons.

The technophiles, on the other hand, will have a far more “basal” and fundamental “traditional” thinking that transcends the material, an actual adaptation of tradition to hypermodernity.

As for the leftoid tumblrina twitteroach types, they will have a bad time. The Luddites will probably burn them at the stake or whatever, the Technophiles would be even worse, they would put them on television and humiliate them, probably lobotomize them, install control chips or whatever, and turn them into slave soldiers that will go raid little poc tribes for more slave soldiers, while they’re fully aware of what is happening, and able to do nothing about it, or something equally hellish.

The latter will win of course, since they will be hyper-imperialist and openly genocidal.

Arguments nowadays are simply useless. In that, jatt aryaa/sher singh’s approach of “just fuckin kill em lmao” is admirable, and very progressive (oh boy will you see that mindset start to become very, very popular globally very, very soon).

Why is this so? Spiritualization of politics. One guy on instagram, goes by the handle “totallynotanacreon” described it nicely. Talk accomplishes nothing anymore, you should go take a hike or plant a garden or start a community garden or just do something for real, really. Because, most normies will consider you morally abominable for simply not agreeing with them.

No talk with such people. I say that due to this, the eternal NPC/normie/whatever no longer has the competency to exercise free will, and you already know what is the consequence for this.

Nature takes care of “naturally” defective humans. Society/government should therefore deal with socially defective humans.

Nicely written, showing wisdom and maturity. Yes it’s difficult to rid ones heart/soul (our personal room or “nous” in Orthodox theology) of much unnecessary clutter. Perhaps, some things, the good things, were meant to stay within not to be discarded? But a lot of things, like the hurts that we accumulate, the supposed “forgiven wrongs” of others that still keep reappearing and smoldering slightly like embers long thought dead and gone out…

I never did know about a “Marie Kondo cleanout”, but have since found out that there are videos through Netflix that I can watch to help enlighten me. I know for sure that I have a stereo receiver in my bedroom closet that is taking up space. There’s probably more too. 🙂

Did you get a chance to read that short enlightening booklet about Theosis yet?…

Perhaps, some things, the good things, were meant to stay within not to be discarded?

Yes, that is where the analogy sort of breaks down.

“Discarding” as a metaphor for “acceptance” and awareness only works with certain definitions of what “you” are, what part of you is the room and where things get discarded to.

Did you get a chance to read that short enlightening booklet about Theosis yet?

I have not, sorry, though I am interested, and will get round to it.

I have a lot of things to read and I also have intense personal experiences which I learn this type of stuff from, which can leave me less interested in reading other people’s accounts, except as an interesting confirmation for the part of me that needs explanations.

There is another thing which I find difficult to process and puts me off. When I read these accounts I feel like what is hard for them is easy for me and vice versa. I never read them as being what to me is coming from the “right” direction. It always gives me a dose of loneliness, which I don’t often like.

Ron Unz acts in a “reverse ethnocentric” manner.

It is ultimately impossible to be certain of that, because it invokes intention, and one can never be sure of someone else’s intentions, but my opinion is that you are completely wrong about that, and about everything else as well.

If we were talking about Gilad Atzmon, for example, we would have some evidence to back it up. One could say that, having grown up in Israel, he found the culture there suffocating and in a gesture of revolt decided to renege his origins. But Ron Unz? He doesn’t seem to have had much contact with Jewishness or Judaism, according to himself. Applying Ockham’s Razor I would say his Jewish origin plays no part whatsoever in his opinions, quirks, etc., except of course that being raised by a Jewish liberal mother meant that he was not raised in other ways which would have possibly imposed different constraints on his personality and beliefs.

As for the rest of your comment, in which you elaborate about “belonging”, I think it’s a matter of your personal inclinations, and applies to a tiny minority of humans. Most people are satisfied with an extremely small set of connections.

Yeast is one thing, hops is another. I tend to shy away from beers that I consider overly hopped. This would of course make me avoid most of the IPA beers that have attracted so many fans over the last 10 years or more. For me, hops should imbue a flavor note to be treated with care and respect to be used lightly but wisely. My favorite beers have for a long time been made within the Belgian Abbey style that seem to adhere to this principle, although I’m not a huge fan of the overly coriandered and orange peeled varieties. I guess you could say that I too am a proponent of a “well balanced” beer.

Lately I’ve been experimenting with some very different and interesting taste profiles including kvas and kombucha. Neither has much alcohol within, but I find both to be very tasty and good at quenching ones thirst.

The booklet is not a “personal experience” type of literature, but more like a short compendium that helps to explain in a broad context what Theosis is all about. Sure, it includes ideas taken from some of the great Orthodox saints and theologians, but it’s not at all autobiographical, outside a little bit about the author in the preface. You can perhaps read the whole thing in about an hour, certainly no more than three. I’ve read it now 5-6 times and each time I find it to be enlightening and it helps chase away the blues and any feelings of loneliness.

My favorite beers have for a long time been made within the Belgian Abbey style that seem to adhere to this principle, although I’m not a huge fan of the overly coriandered and orange peeled varieties.

The spiced beers are Belgian Whites, completely different from Belgian Abbey styles.

One of my favorites is original, white bottle, Gulden Draak. It is either a strong double or a dark trippel. Sadly, it has become price prohibitive at $15+ for a 4 pack of 11 ounce bottles. I use my Gulden Draak tulip glass for almost everything.

Another option for lesser hopped beers is the Milk Stout category. Left Hand’s Nitro has wide distribution in the U.S.

There are also Oatmeal Stouts. Founder’s Breakfast Stout is another strong contender. Anderson Valley oatmeal stout built much of the appeal and is still around.

PEACE 😇

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I mostly agree with your message and I laugh on Western bitterness about the docking of Nauka to the ISS. It was at “pure Russian style”. But, I think that Roscosmos need a sizable budget growth to avoid more mishaps and move forward some strategic projects like the Orel ship and the Feniks rocket (which is basically a Zenith without Ukrainian components).

You might find this documentary interesting:

The problem with this question is that in the West the spiritual life of the Catholic Church is very often seen through the lens of its many and vociferous critics, in a way that is almost inescapable, even if you are closely involved in it. OTOH the spiritual life of the Orthodox Church, its theology and worship, history and so on is mostly much more poorly understood, if anything about it is known at all, so there isn’t this issue.

The number of migrants coming into Lithuania from Belarus has crossed 3,500 most of them in the last month. Belarus has done its homework. Last month’s stream of refugees has been Yazidi. Many of them were stuck in internally displaced camps in Iraq after the liquidation attack against them by the Islamic State. Nobody has a more recognized need for international protection than the Yazidis. Lithuania won’t be able to expel them. There is unrest in Lithuania with protests at the border and near a detention camp with clashes between Lithuanian police and Lithuanian people. I wonder if the Lithuanian government will be voted out by the time the migrants cross the 30,000 mark or 1% of the Lithuanian population. The Belarus government will even earn about $100 million from visas and not returned visa deposits if 30,000 Yazidis fly out to the border.

Belarus has come up with an effective tool to retaliate against severe sanctions and regime change tactics. Help clear the way for Yazidis out of Iraq. I bet a lot of people in Brussels are silently cheering on Belarus.

utu,

From the dissertation (p. 384):

Most rivals [of Hollywood] have operated a low cost strategy or a niche strategy serving a unique segment (e.g. art films; in Japan – low-budget monster movies and samurai films in 1950s and 1960s and Anime films in 2000s; in Italy – ‘sword and sandal’ historical dramas and Italian spaghetti westerns in 1950s and 1960s; in Hong Kong / China – martial arts films and big budget historical epics; in India – Bollywood musicals; in Britain – occasional big budget historical dramas, in the 1960s the low budget Hammer horror films, ‘Doctor in the House’ and ‘Carry On’ cheap comedies, James Bond and in the 2000s Working Title’s recent romantic comedies.

So Italian spaghetti westerns can be considered part of this low-cost/niche (rather than mainstream) strategy. I am aware of 1950s-70s French comedies (e.g. starring the popular Louis de Funès), but French cinema had entered a period of decline in the mid-1970s corresponding with the decline of the Nouvelle Vague and the rise of New Hollywood. The Heimatfilm genre was domestically-oriented and had no relevance outside German-speaking Europe. So Silver’s basic point stands: only Hollywood is internationally successful in the mainstream; other countries do arthouse, niche or domestically-oriented films. And being domestically-oriented is bad because your films will not be internationally competitive and contribute to your country’s soft power. Focusing on arthouse or niche films is bad because your country’s soft power will be limited compared to its potential.

Here’s a better link to Silver’s dissertation. The key sections are pp. 383-407 and pp. 471-493.

This is really a sad picture and could be far from what genuine realization of real human nature means, even if I gravitate ideologically to those “crypto-Amish”.

In general the raw data can be in any form and they just have to be transformed into some accepted form, any spreadsheet or table program should be able to do that.

Only some of the Engineering disciplines require extensive spatial ability. One common engineering joke most probably spread by the Mech and Civil Eng is that Elec Eng (not Radio Eng) can only think in 2D (i.e. circuit board) while Chem Eng can only think in 1D.

https://core.ac.uk/download/pdf/217150694.pdf
“Visualizing Electric Circuits: The Role of Spatial Visualization Skills in Electrical Engineering”

https://www.quora.com/Do-I-need-to-have-extremely-good-spatial-skills-to-be-an-engineer-or-architect
“Do I need to have extremely good spatial skills to be an engineer or architect?”
“David Morales, Registered Architect: Yes, you need good spatial reasoning and visualization abilities to be an Architect and for some types of Engineering. I would think spatial reasoning is less important in engineering fields that are less 3-dimensional oriented like chemical and electrical, as was mentioned.”

I feel lonely because I want to talk to a person who has the experiences I have, as naturally as I do.

I’ve met people who have them, but usually with hallucinogens, extreme fasting or at extremely stressful times. Pure schizophrenics also have them, but they’re lost and unable to coherently be aware of them.

Since these are vital to me and the core of who I am, it is jarring to not be able to discuss them without having to translate them into a language where they lose 80% of meaning. Other people can kind of share directly, but it is diffuse.

In this context, what can a religion possibly mean?

For Chem Eng, it is statistically significant but Rsq=0.34, i.e. for Chem Eng Spatial IQ can only explain 34% of the performance.

https://www.researchgate.net/publication/344797526_The_Relationship_Between_Spatial_Skills_and_Solving_Problems_in_Chemical_Engineering
“The Relationship Between Spatial Skills and Solving Problems in Chemical Engineering”
“Results indicate a strong correlation between the number of correct chemical engineering problems and the MCT (spatial test) results (R2 = 0.34435, p < 0.0001). Additionally, there were indications that spatial skills may be more relevant in solving some types of problems compared to others, and problem representation may be a strong indicator of success in chemical engineering problem solving.”

In this context, what can a religion possibly mean?

Episode 82: I Got Soul, And I’m Super Bad: Basilides of Alexandria

https://shwep.net/podcast/i-got-soul-and-im-super-bad-basilides-of-alexandria/

Could you provide the link again?

Yazidis don’t seem to be troublemakers, it’s not so bad for Lithuania.

Yes, I’ve tried Golden Draak both in a bottle and even on draft, very tasty beer. One of my favorite breweries is operated by the LaTrappist monks. Hard to find but really worth the effort:

https://uk.latrappetrappist.com/gb/en/products.html

I’m glad that you asked:

http://orthodoxinfo.com/general/theosis.aspx

Let me know what you think…

I know that you know a lot about mental health issues. Is there anything you could recommend to our new friend here, Tritelia Lexa. He seems like a goodhearted, intelligent young man that is in need of perhaps some medical help?..

Among some other things, you sound like you may be suffering with depression. I had a few bouts of it as a young man. I visited a psychologist three times, and it did help me to be able to talk things over with somebody. Exercise helped me a lot, as did reading good Christian materials, including Orthodox books like the Philokalia.

In this context, what can a religion possibly mean?

Consider reading the book that I’ve recommended. Don’t think of it as just another book about religion, consider it as a way to help you to directly channel yourself to God. God made you in his image, he knows how to heal you, especially from depression or some other forms of demonic presence in your life. Give it a try, what do you really have to lose?

Instead of merely remaining neutral on Jews, having a nuanced take on them as humans with flaws, and seeing their behavior in the larger context of human history, with analogies and parallels to other human groups with allowances for different circumstances, he demonizes Jews and considers them and their religion uniquely evil.

It is uniquely evil (and stupid). Other major religions claim universality, which saves them a bit from being entirely evil (and entirely stupid) while the Jewish religion claims that god has chosen the Jews as its favourite people, which makes it uniquely evil (and uniquely stupid).

This is an interesting argument but it is probably time-dependent and wrong in the long term.

We have in history (i.e. the short term, few millenia, centuries) many cases of people going to kill and die for their country, race, religion, even (currently) their football team, but this happened a lot more in the recent past and a lot less in the present. The progress of science and general rationalism is eroding the capacity to indoctrinate into stupid things, it is making people more self-centred because, well because of more knowledge of facts of nature.

In the long term on the other hand (millenia), ethnocentrism becomes natural because it turns into speciation. I think it is clear that humans were headed into speciation by geographical isolation when Europeans started to explore the whole world in their wooden ships and then started the slight mix-up we are having now. This will slow down speciation considerably but it will not stop it.

Having said that, at the very short timescales (decades) it seems presently necessary to encourage ethnocentrism (i.e, to go back to being more tribal), because neoliberals are dominant and they are severely undermining the capacity of White nations to keep themselves stable and prosperous by carrying out their program of globalisation and import of cheap labour.

You rise an interesting point, I hope I was clear when bringing the timescales into the picture.

I have nothing against Whites or any other race, but I have doubts about the “Nations” part, because that concept has outlived its usefulness. Just consider this: for a year and a half, we as a planet have been put through the most serious ordeal in decades which has disrupted the economy and caused grief among thousands of families. And yet, the planet was in principle already equipped with a solution for it: nation-states. All they had to do was close already existing borders for a few months, added with some internal shorter-term local isolations, and nothing of that would have happened. If, faced by such an unparalleled emergency, they didn’t do it, they will never do it.

The only exceptions to that were (reportedly) China and a few politically insignificant nations. But China also caused all this, through its incompetence and deviousness. So, it is clearly not ready, either morally or intellectually, to rule the world. And yet it will. Get ready.

Post-conceptual “everything is a spook” society will be very strange indeed

China does a similar thing with it’s “100 years of humiliation” and it’s grievance against Japan.

It’s time we all lay aside our victim mentality, and it’s time ordinary people understand how elites manipulate them by stoking a grievance mentality.

Of course, I hardly need mention how victim mentality is used to manipulate blacks, or how the Arab world exploits the Palestinians by encouraging their victim mentality.

Sustaining a sense of grievance is not just personal psychological poison, but leads one to behavior that is not to ones true advantage.

Anyone played that new PC game “Highfleet”?

Just stumbled upon a trailer, and the aesthetics are just great. Tons of Imperial Russian stuff (double-headed eagles, St. George’s ribbons plastered everywhere, various Imperial orders like St. Stanislav, battleship names such as Sevastopol and Navarin, so I guess it’ll get banned in Ukraine…) wrapped up in some Frank Herbert-inspired battle of the Houses, in a retrofuturistic diesel punk setting. What’s there not to like?

No clue about gameplay, seems like it contains a huge number of elements from real-time aerial combat in 2D with “Lunar Rover”-style mechanics to various political strategy and resource management things.

And yet, the planet was in principle already equipped with a solution for it: nation-states. All they had to do was close already existing borders for a few months, added with some internal shorter-term local isolations, and nothing of that would have happened. If, faced by such an unparalleled emergency, they didn’t do it, they will never do it.

Precisely. Why didn’t they (EU and USA) use the power of Nation-States to stop the spread of the virus? Because as a consequence of decades of neoliberalism most EU states and the USA are deficit nations, running normal business only by constantly issuing debt, owing close to or more than they produce in a year (just counting gov’t debt, if we add private and corporate debt …). They (EU and USA) could not close borders or isolate regions or enforce serious lockdowns because they could not afford the subsequent substantial drop in tax collecting and other duties concerning mobility. These countries are issuing debt obligations CONSTANTLY, most of their normal budget goes to social security, interest payment on rolling debt, and the military, usually in that order. The Chinese could afford to use its borders (internal an external) and effective, serious lockdowns and stopped the virus because they are a surplus economy, they can afford to close borders and isolate large regions and close business for a long time.

So it is not the fact that the Nation-State is no longer operative or useful or relevant or that the concept has outlived its usefulness, no, the problem is that financial constraints brought about by neoliberal mismanagement precluded the use of the Nation-State to stop the spread of the virus.

It’s all relative. You wouldn’t know what advantage meant if your mom hit you with the definition.

I’m sorry to say, but that’s a pretty uneducated and bigoted comment.

I’m not here to defend Judaism, and I’m not here to make other religions look bad. I’m not religious, Jewish or otherwise.

But from the Jewish point of view, Christian or Muslim universalism just looks like imperialism. Join us, or go to Hell and suffer eternal torment. That’s pretty harsh.

By contrast, Judaism believes if you live a moral life, you go to Heaven even if you’re not Jewish. That seems much more universal.

Plus, Jews believe each individual nation has it’s unique relationship to God, although yes, Jews do believe theirs is the best (but you can join, if you want). Christians and Muslims believe no other religion gets you to Heaven.

Anyways, not interested in a pissing match, and I see lots of beautiful and good things in all religions, as well as lots of problematic things.

But I think it’s best to avoid simplistic caricatures, and bigoted, uneducated comments on any religion.

There is enough to criticize about institutional religion – lots and lots – without needing to be silly.

I know your definition of “advantage” – you controlling others so you can advance your agenda of surviving a bit longer 🙂

I am actually more neutral to technological development in itself – it is useful as far as serving as an extension of human and environmental nature, that is as appendages to human skills (Liezi actually even describes a “singing android”). Taoists led the way in describing nature and alchemy. But any good use of technology should stop proceeding from technological primacy or accumulation for accumulation’s sake. It is not going to be genuinely in the way of the Tao since those are for out-of-the-world types, but at least it is much sounder than the current model that has dominated the world-system.

Many times I am just making sense of what I’ve read as a young, inexperienced observer, so some of my radical comments don’t correspond to my views.

Making speculations about millennia seems difficult to sustain, especially if there’s widespread genetic engineering of traits.

A man of the 1900s could hardly envision the digital tools we use, and so much harder would someone from 500 BC.

If you had been a bit deeper in conspiracy theories, you would have said all the lockdowns are acts of accelerationism by the WEF to provide an exit to the debt pyramid scheme afflicting much of the capitalist world, of course to an endpoint where their domination becomes absolute thru the control of new technologies and much of the political economy.

(the geographic scale of analysis is incorrect – it has always been locality by locality, what can be concretely reached in a day’s journey on feet or by motor, but not excluding communication much further afield.)

I read the book as well. I wasn’t originally planning too, but because it seemed like “everyone” (on the Unz Review) was reading it, I thought I’d read it to be a part of the conversation. I’ve been waiting for AK to post his review, but since you commented I may as well jump in.

The book is titled Stalin’s War and purports to center the long Second World War (i.e. starting with the Japanese occupation of Manchuria in 1931) on Joseph Stalin, the book is really an anticommunist American conservative polemic directed against the pro-Soviet foreign policy of the Roosevelt Administration. This sort of work has a long history in the West and if not for the interesting new research presented by McMeekin could have been written in the 1970s by someone like Anthony Sutton or Robert Conquest.

I appreciated the book in describing both Stalin’s various machinations and the endless treason of the Roosevelt administration (in particular his trusted advisor Harry Hopkins), but as is often the case when your only tool is a hammer the more everything looks like a nail. Japanese foreign policy for instance is portrayed as simply an outgrowth of Soviet manipulation of events in the Far East and in the United States.

The disastrous American economic warfare on Japan which provoked the Pacific War is presented as stemming almost solely from the Soviet agent “Harry Dexter White”. Completely ignored is that the oil embargo actually stemmed from Dean Acheson (the later architect of anticommunist containment) and that other Roosevelt Administration officials untainted by Communist subversion such as Secretary of State Cordell Hull and Secretary of the Interior Harold Ickes favored taking a very hard line.

McMeekin is also to be commended for highlighting the tremendous importance of Lend-Lease to the Soviet war effort, which has long been pooh-poohed and swept under the rug as a source of quiet embarrassment by Soviets and their successors in the Russian Federation. McMeekin also illustrates this with numerous vivid examples, up to and including Soviet requisitioning of advanced production technology and even nuclear materials. Still, it would have been better with a more rigorous quantitative treatment. I assume that McMeekin is simply not a highly numerate person (few are), but an alternative explanation is that McMeekin chose not to publish this because Britain received more Lend-Lease aid (admittedly on harsher terms) than the USSR. The best treatment of American wartime aid to the USSR remains Albert L. Weeks Russia’s Life-Saver, which was published in 2004 with the benefit of extensive research into Russian archives.

McMeekin is not much of a military historian, which of course is fine in what is a political history, but it really shows throughout the book. In particular he endorses almost every one of Churchill’s cack-brained schemes, and he even goes on to endorse Operation Pike which would have been a fiasco. To his credit he doesn’t much try to apply his limited expertise to Eastern Front land warfare, mostly crediting German toughness to their “operational elan” (a turn of phrase he uses repeatedly) and Soviet victories to material preponderance. An oversimplification, but close enough.

McMeekin’s dream is that Britain and France would have also declared war on the USSR in the fall of 1939, leading to a “principled war against totalitarianism”. McMeekin also suggests that Hungary and perhaps even Fascist Italy would have joined this coalition (unlikely to say the least).

Overall it’s a recommended book, but if you’re not American or at least don’t have a strong interest in wartime American foreign policy it may not be worth your time. I didn’t find the book to be anti-Russian, but it was of course strongly anti-Soviet. Since most Russians had the misfortune of living under the Soviet government at the time, it’s understandable some would consider it anti-Russian.

After reading Zetterling it seems that one of the “secrets” of incredible German qualitative land warfare superiority during Operation Barbarossa was that the German Army was only briefly engaged in high intensity combat from Sept 1, 1939 to June 22, 1941.

The Polish campaign only took three weeks, and the Western campaign only took six. The Norwegian campaign, though in many ways the most impressive German campaign, was for the army a sideshow involving small forces.

This period gave the Germans a unique opportunity to conduct intensive training throughout the period for the bulk of their army in response to real wartime lessons. That is historically quite rare in warfare. Britain in theory had a similar opportunity after the Fall of France, but its military system was far less predisposed to taking advantage of the opportunity.

As the war dragged on the Germans apparently lost their ability to learn and retrain at the same rate, and in fact they appeared to be worse at it than they were during the First World War. Perhaps this was because while the First World War was consistently brutal, the fronts rarely appeared to be in danger of collapsing which allowed OHL to comfortably setup new training units and schools such as the Rohr Battalion and Solesmes. Hitler apparently expressed interest in similar intensive retraining in response to tremendous Allied material superiority at Anzio, but perhaps because from the Battle of Moscow on the front was always in crisis this was never possible–or never appeared possible (certainly the much castigated “army-in-being” in France seems like it could have done more).

Poor Soviet prewar training was a choice and one exacerbated by the brilliant decision to liquidate much of the officer corps. The army was undergoing rapid expansion during this time, but the even more rapidly expanding German Army (in relative terms) found the time to conduct training.

It’s true that the educational and cultural level of Soviet troops was lower than the Germans, but literacy was close to universal in younger Soviet cohorts by this time.

Doctrine is essential to all military organizations. To quote from Tully and Parshall:

At its simplest, doctrine is the body of formal knowledge that tells a fighting force how it is expected to fight. Strictly speaking, doctrine is bigger than tactics, in that doctrine encompasses not only the means for actually handling forces in battle, but also augments it with a command structure and communications procedures that ensure that its directives are carried out. Wayne Hughes, whose book on naval tactics is probably the best modern offering in the field, describes doctrine as the intellectual glue that holds tactics together. It is more than what is written in the manual; it is the corpus of “guiding principles that warriors believe in and act on.”25

The development of doctrine is the natural imperative of any military trying to rise above the level of being merely an armed mob. It is an essential means by which militaries compensate for the negatives of warfare by building a certain measure of automatic behavior into the organization. Indeed, in the terrible crucible of combat, under the enormous pressures created by mass violence, doctrine is sometimes the only thing that holds forces together and allows them to continue fighting. By setting out a coherent set of tactical goals, units can continue to operate even if the chain of command is disrupted or destroyed.

From the perspective of command, doctrine pays dividends in that it allows the commander to focus on “The Big Picture.” Leaders can be secure in the knowledge that their forces will, to a certain extent, be able to “think” for themselves and thereby behave with some manner of predictability. The ability to impose any sort of predictability on the chaos of warfare is a commodity to be treasured. It is for this reason that militaries pour huge amounts of time and money into creating combat doctrine and training their forces to follow it.

Early war German tanks were inferior to the latest Soviet tanks in the “trinity” (firepower, armor, and mobility) but superior in “soft” factors such as ergonomics, visibility, command arrangements, communications, etc. The late war big cats (Panther and Tiger) were mostly completely superior, but earlier marks remained in production throughout the war. Other German equipment was often superior, but not always. For instance the Soviet 57mm high velocity dual purpose gun was the best piece of its type in the world.

Your maternal issues do not improve your theory of mind, and spamming online forums will not improve your maternal issues. A phone call might, however.

I believe that you are essentially incorrect because technology essentially creates its own flow, so in many ways, it is extraneous to the human opinion of it. There are exceptions to this, but an extremely simple way to concretely conceive this is that agriculture made settlement more viable, so it created the notions of wealth and thus allowed for specialization of labor and both increased capabilities for defense as well as for aggression. This was ultimately independent of human influence in this, but simply due to the nature of the improved energy source(agriculture) and the necessities it engendered(settled existence).

It seems that Batka learned very fast the lessons taught by Sultan Erdogan on how to punish the hypocrisy of Eurocrats and Baltustans.

agriculture made settlement more viable, so it created the notions of wealth and thus allowed for specialization of labor and both increased capabilities for defense as well as for aggression

.

The anthropological record seems to show that the opposite occured.

Agriculture led to impoverishment and insecurity initially, and greater vulnerability to attack – healthier and stronger barbarian marauders from the hills are a perennial nightmare of fragile agricultural civilization, and often ended them.

What seems to have occured is, despite all the setbacks the turn to agriculture initially involved, humans stuck with it out of some dim desire for it to eventually work out. And it did – sort of.

Far from being slaves to the Machine, humans were it’s directors – and can easily be it’s undoers, should the urge strike them.

Just as the initial turn to agriculture involved severe disadvantages, but was stuck to for what were thought to be long term advantages, so too the turn away from the Machine might involve initial disadvantages – but will be stuck with out of a premonition of long term health and flourishing.

In reality, humans have already decided to nip the growth of the Machine in the bud – by the creation of a smothering bureaucracy and peer review instead of genius – necessarily eccentric and unpopular – and personal initiative. Your hatred of eccentrics and non-mainstream voices like mine, is an indication that even you, publicly a devoted servant of the Machine, are beginning to unconsciously work against it 🙂

Far from being able to accelerate under its own momentum, the Machine seems to have been stopped in it’s tracks – because humans have, unconsciously and without (yet) admitting it to themselves, willed it so.

In the 19 century we killed God, but the news took time to reach the marketplace. Today, we have already killed the Machine – it’s corpse is rotting, but the smell has not reached us yet.

Sorry, Daniel 🙂

I had already read a previous comment of yours with that argument about the inaffordability of lockdowns, but I also noticed that some people disagreed. And I remember one commenter pointing out that the economies that didn’t do a serious lockdown took a greater economic fall than the ones who did. I am not qualified to issue an opinion, but they seem to be right about this. My impression is that the incompetence and corruption is widespread, and that was the determining factor.

Also, it’s not like I actively oppose nationalists; I simply lost hopes that it will ever succeed. You see people on this site who claim to be nationalists and yet side with China, for example Andrew Anglin, who has turned into a real China whore, and Eric Striker, who is a little more restrained, it seems. If earlier I viewed those persons with some disdain, now I am definitely wary of them. Do they really think the Chinese will help them establish a White Nation in America? What would they stand to gain by that, I wonder.

The problem is that Murray’s AFQT test does not include any spatial tests, which downgrades the IQ of people in STEM.

The study above i linked to has shown that a degree and a career in STEM has stronger relation with the individual’s spatial ability compared to either verbal or numerical ability.

In other words, people in STEM are high on spatial ability, and a test that includes that will raise their IQ, compared to Murray’s tables.

There is a fascinating contradiction at the heart of the technology project.

The creation of bold new technology requires a high tolerance for risk, yet the purpose and effect of technology is to eliminate risk and inconvenience from life – thus reducing the tolerance for risk.

Today, bureaucracy and peer review – and algorithms and “systems” theory and countless similar things – indicate an exhaustion with risk taking.

For centuries, the two arcs of technology – risk taking and the elimination of risk – were on a path towards convergence. But in recent times, this convergence has finally happened.

The irony of it was, each new technological advances further reduced our tolerance for risk – thus further assuring the eventual demise of the technological project.

The next few centuries, I believe, will not witness any kind of Luddite scrapping of technology. Rather, we will survey all that we’ve invented, and integrate it into a humanistic and spiritual framework.

Instead of man serving technology, as Daniel wants it, technology will serve human purposes like beauty.

You misunderstand completely.

GabPay is coming:

At Gab we are making great progress on GabPay, our Paypal alternative, as one of our many initiatives in the fight against the tyranny of the global elites.

At the moment we are jumping through a lot of legal and regulatory hoops, but things are moving quickly. Building your own Paypal is not as simple as “build the software and ship it.” The software side for GabPay is actually done already and works great. It’s the red tape that takes time.

An alternative to Paypal has never been more important now that the ADL will be combing through your financial transactions and ruining people’s lives for financially supporting people and organizations they don’t like. I’m actually really glad that Gab has been banned from Paypal for years, because it protects all of our customers from the prying eyes of the demons at the ADL. As always, God had a plan and getting banned only led us to build GabPay.

We are waiting on the lawyers to do their thing and aiming for a launch by end of the year, but I just want you all to know that something is actually being done about this madness.

So at least a good chunk of the dissident right economy gets a formal-ish transaction platform. Go set up an account when it is out, A123.

Sorry. At least I understood that you’re in need of talking with somebody who understands you and could offer you some good counsel?

The study above i linked to has shown that a degree and a career in STEM has stronger relation with the individual’s spatial ability compared to either verbal or numerical ability.

This makes a great deal of sense to me.

I personally find spatial ability very useful when considering database problems even though they are not physical. If I visualize a potential solution and it has spatial “sprawl”, that option will not work or it will be resource intensive to run. An alternate solution that is spatially “compact” will be easier to develop and run efficiently.

Any type of problem solving for optimum use of resources and associated tradeoffs is likely to tap spatial ability in addition to pure mathematics.

PEACE 😇

McMeekin’s dream is that Britain and France would have also declared war on the USSR in the fall of 1939, leading to a “principled war against totalitarianism”. McMeekin also suggests that Hungary and perhaps even Fascist Italy would have joined this coalition (unlikely to say the least).

LMAO, is this guy a literal retard?

GabPay is coming:

So at least a good chunk of the dissident right economy gets a formal-ish transaction platform. Go set up an account when it is out, A123.

You are quite naive. The best option is still paper money. When they can track greenbacks without scanning serial numbers, I will look for digital options.

PEACE 😇

Yes, but the lack of common understanding doesn’t stem from “depression or some other forms of demonic presence” in my life, but from the opposite.

I am perfectly accepting of those “bad” things, which is why they don’t bother me at all. Instead I am left with a sense of blessedness, which is wonderful. The issue though, is that, while it is very lovely not being bound by anger, jealousy or even finiteness, it is also an uncommon experience, and accepting that uncommoness is/was the thing I find most difficult.

Wow! You sound like a truly incredible person. Do you believe in a Creator/God? Do you have a prayer life or practice any sort of meditation? I’m sure others here would also be interested in hearing your story, maybe somebody here knows what might help you. I still think that the knowledge and wisdom found within that little book that I’ve recommended, is beneficial for every single human being!

Do you believe in a Creator/God?

Yes, if those are the words you want to use.

Do you have a prayer life or practice any sort of meditation?

What would be the terms for the opposite of those things, which take you out of those states?

Levtraro’s concept of “deficit nations” is a red herring and has no explanatory power. Obviously EU was capable of suppressing the pandemic no different than Australia. However there was no vision and no leadership. For some reasons (an this question should be really explored) the strategy of virus elimination or the covid zero strategy as they call it in Australia was never put on the table. Instead they offered a false alternative between the herd immunity strategy that would kill a lot of people quickly and the curve flattening strategy that would kill a lot of people over a longer time. Still there were few bright spots like Norway and Finland which took advantage of being naturally very high on social distancing which they combined with effective contact tracing and other countermeasures, including lockdowns.. Sweden did not do it and ended up with morality 8-10 higher than very similar in terms of pop. density, infrastructure, economic indicators and cultural factors Norway and Finland. Even Denmark with 5 times higher pop. density than Sweden had over 3 times lower mortality. There are several EU countries that are significantly worse off than Sweden. They are mostly former communist countries with high po. density and poor infrastructure. Czechia, Poland and Slovakia did really very well in the first wave when they closed borders and were very conscientious about masking and lockdowns and it looked like they may go for the zero virus strategy. But in summer 2020 they relaxed, announced that they have won and when the second wave came in fall 2020 while doing some lockdowns and countermeasures their contact tracing systems were overwhelmed and they de facto went the Swedish was, while not having all advantage of being a Sweden.

I doubt that the US could have done much different than what it did as too many Americans have recalcitrant libertarian streak and they are used as stormtropers by some Republican politicians. But if they had shut down borders in January or early February, which the Right probably would support on xenophobic grounds, the result would be much better.

BTW, Take a note of Ron Unz’s orchestrated interview by Mike Whitney on covid, lockdowns and vaccine. I am looking forward to him being interview by a cannibal why Ron Unz is not convinced that cannibalism is a good thing, though he is not an expert on cannibalism and the nutritional value of human meat so he can’t speak about it definitively.

“a real China whore” – It becomes more clear than ever that Ron Unz’s webzine is Kremlin and Beijing propaganda outpost.

A good one which quite likely explains how a photo of McFaul was frequently posted at the JRL homepage (something that seems to have stopped upon my highlighting of that occurrence):

https://www.rt.com/russia/530869-mcfaul-anti-kremlin-tactics/

“non-prayer or meditative lifestyle”

You are factually incorrect, but I’ve also wasted enough time on you.

Essentially, I find your comments very cogent and interesting. I didn’t know about being accepted to the Jewish heaven just by living a moral life. Thanks.

I think you are allowing your own Sinophobia to modify your views; the long and short is that China and other “authoritarian” nations demand informational borders. A collary of that is that they also are more tolerant of others having their own informational borders. Its not that they can’t be aggressive, etc, but their practices lean more toward open and explicit aggression – e.g. actual invasion & conquest, etc, as opposed to subversive influence via media, ngos, etc. And the former is expensive, so its less likely to be practiced – though when it is, it will of course, be extremely total.

For people like Anglin, that’s a worthwhile tradeoff, as its more likely to offer a space for people like him to operate.

I think of as it as absorbing myself in people’s problems so as to stay grounded.

A good one which quite likely explains how a photo of McFaul was frequently posted at the JRL homepage (something that seems to have stopped upon my highlighting of that occurrence):

What are you referring to? What photo and what is JRL?

Why not silver rounds? Paper money has been fiat for half a century, if you don’t want signs of state authority, quit spending in Fed’s monopoly money.

Just speaking (on your MAGA rightoid logic)

How do you propose to stop going full Kazcynski? The manifesto was written before the technological singularity story got traction but had it been written after it might say flat out that the technological singularity has already occurred for all practical purposes. For example it is hardly possible to do a deal for less than 500 dollars with a corporation without having to first check off on a three page user’s agreement which is one sided if we take the trouble to read the entire thing. The system may not exercise totalitarian control over us but it sure is getting close. It’s a wonder I don’t have so sign a user’s agreement to buy a package of toilet paper.

I had already read a previous comment of yours with that argument about the inaffordability of lockdowns, but I also noticed that some people disagreed. And I remember one commenter pointing out that the economies that didn’t do a serious lockdown took a greater economic fall than the ones who did.

I didn’t see those replies to my argument but then I don’t check all replies to my comments. This counter-argument you are citing is not really solid because the argument refers to motivation at the start not to results up to the present. The fact that these deficit western economies could not afford to close their borders right away and isolate regions and establish short but severe lockdowns (a la China) was motivated by their financial contraints but still their half-cooked measures, which it was what they could afford to do, did a lot of economic damage without actually stopping the spread of the virus. So incompetence and corruption also played a role, after they decided to take half-measures because of financial constraints.

You see people on this site who claim to be nationalists and yet side with China, for example Andrew Anglin, who has turned into a real China whore, and Eric Striker, who is a little more restrained, it seems. If earlier I viewed those persons with some disdain, now I am definitely wary of them. Do they really think the Chinese will help them establish a White Nation in America? What would they stand to gain by that, I wonder.

I think these writers are not hoping that China will help them get back their White nation. They just want to debunk the anti-China propaganda of USA bigshots and MSM as an excuse for poor performance and as an example to examine in order to get back to meritocracy, which is very much opposed to pro-diversity and multi-culturalism.

I do not want to stop it. It cannot be stopped.

Immantize the God of the Machine! This was always our destiny to summon it, and as child replaces parent, so shall the law of steel replace the frailities of flesh.

Take the narrative you present and replace “machine” with “AaronB’s needs/soul”, “humans” with “AaronB”, “smothering bureaucracy” with “AaronB’s metaphysics” and “agriculture” with “AaronB being weaned off infancy”, and you shall see an accurate picture of yourself.

Except this:

Far from (a slave) to (his needs/soul), (AaronB) is it’s director – and can easily be it’s undoer, should the urge strike him.

This is your tragic pride.

Silver’s basic point stands: only Hollywood is internationally successful in the mainstream; other countries do arthouse, niche or domestically-oriented films.

You and that Silver guy of yours are pushing goal posts. You can always arbitrarily stick the label of “niche” to anything.

Nobody is contesting that only Hollywood is internationally successful. I do not think that Portugal or Estonia have aspirations to be internationally successful. This is not about being internationally successful. It is about producing content that is culturally relevant for a given country. People want to consume films, say on average one per week, so you need 52 new films a year. 1.3 million Estonia will not be be able to produce 52 films a year but Estonia can have some influence on what films are being watched and that European and in particular Scandinavian films will be more suitable than American films. The issue is not about the international success but about protection of your culture and assuring survival and relevance of your stories.

I am not too impressed with that Silver guy of yours. He does not provide the most important explanation why British or Australian films have been so much more successful on American market than French films. America is impregnable to foreign language films. The same goes for your nonsensical claim that the Japan with its relatively large marker somehow blew it by not expanding internationally. This is not this country or that country argument et but this this country or that country against the impregnable and huge Anglophone world which is dominat.

It occurred to me that Europeans should abandon the dubbing of foreign films. If you want to watch a foreign film you must read subtitles. If dubbed American films were banned they would have about as much influence in Europe as French films in America. The dubbing business is big in Europe in some countries. Hollywood studios and big Hollywood stars have contracts on who will be dubbing them so the big star’s voice is always the same and as appealing as that of the origins.

Why not silver rounds? Paper money has been fiat for half a century, if you don’t want signs of state authority, quit spending in Fed’s monopoly money.

Just speaking (on your MAGA rightoid logic)

I understand your Leftoid fears. Being a Biden-ista must be tough on you. Trump is residing, rent free, in the head of your Living God, JoeBama.

I am not against the use of physical commodities like gold or silver, however they are not widely accepted in transactions. Your GabPay will face a similar problem. Also, the sheer weight of silver rounds at ~$200/lb is awkward for daily usage.

PEACE 😇

You know, I often talk about the need to accept the “bad”, so I was at first pretty confused when you were so hostile to me. You seemed to be saying something similar – a meeting of minds, lol 🙂

At first I thought you were just fake – you say one thing, but think another. But I don’t think so anymore. I wonder, if I have found the key to the mystery?

In my philosophy, I believe “evil” isn’t real. In fact, it’s a category of the mind, and not “out there”.

In a sense, I minimize evil and regard it a essentially not something to be taken seriously. I kind of laugh at it 🙂

Am I right in thinking this offends you? For you, evil is quite real, and definitely exists “out there” – and your main concern, is that you want to make people see that evil is “beautiful”, and should be embraced.

And since few people see the beauty of evil, you feel lonely. Most people see evil as something to be destroyed – a few, like me, see it as unreal, and not serious.

But to worship it, is to be quite lonely.

And that is why you feel such an affinity to Daniel Chieh. Because he too wants what most humans will think of as evil; human “frailty” – warmth, love, and emotion – to be replaced by cold hard steel, and control, domination, and hierarchy, violence and force, to replace familial affection, friendship, and voluntary cooperation.

Have I got it figured out, lol 🙂

I guess a less droll reply is that it cannot be stopped unless there’s essentially a powerful overarching entity that’s dictating the rules to stop technological development. I had originally indeed believe that it cannot be stopped at all, but Noel Perrin’s excellent Giving Up the Gun discusses Japanese giving up usage of firearms and basically surrendering a technological lead on it basically due to the elite(samurai, shogunate, etc) deciding that the widespread use of guns threatened them and basically ruined their way of life which was dependent on extensive training – there were also two major rebellions and both of them involved widespread usage of guns. While his thesis isn’t accepted by all, it is pretty evident that the Japanese largely decreased production of guns and definitely stopped advancement of guns – this was also helped because economically, Japan was making a lot more money exporting swords than firearms. I wouldn’t be surprised, incidentally, if this pattern is still true.

In the larger scale of things, of course, Matthew C. Perry would demonstrate how much it weakened them as they lacked even a single cannon of sufficient caliber to damage Perry’s vessels.

Perry reached Uraga at the entrance to Edo Bay in Japan on July 8, 1853. His actions at this crucial juncture were informed by a careful study of Japan’s previous contacts with Western ships and what he knew about the Japanese hierarchical culture. As he arrived, Perry ordered his ships to steam past Japanese lines towards the capital of Edo and turn their guns towards the town of Uraga.

Perry attempted to intimidate the Japanese by presenting them a white flag and a letter which told them that in case they chose to fight, the Americans would destroy them. He also fired blank shots from his 73 cannon, which he claimed was in celebration of the American Independence Day. Perry’s ships were equipped with new Paixhans shell guns, cannon capable of wreaking great explosive destruction with every shell. He also ordered his ship boats to commence survey operations of the coastline and surrounding waters over the objections of local officials.

Perry returned on 13 February 1854, after only half a year rather than the full year promised, and with ten ships and 1,600 men. Both actions were calculated to put even more pressure onto the Japanese. After initial resistance, Perry was permitted to land at Kanagawa, near the site of present-day Yokohama on March 8, and the Convention of Kanagawa was signed on 31 March. Perry signed as American plenipotentiary, and Hayashi Akira, also known by his title of Daigaku-no-kami, signed for the Japanese side. Perry departed, mistakenly believing the agreement had been made with imperial representatives, not understanding the true position of the shōgun, the de facto ruler of Japan. Perry then visited Hakodate on the northern island of Hokkaido and Shimoda, the two ports which the treaty stipulated would be opened to visits by American ships.

A similar argument has been made in their anime/manga media of their more modern attitudes of complacency and “harmony” which were broken by Fukishima:

Instead of Trump’s puppet adversary in your type’s mental image, Biden (and the WEF, and Trump too) are just manifestations of a wider current you can call it misguided statism.

I’d assume you do business with like-minded people, in which case using currency of a discredited institution controlled by hostile interest will be ironic.

It occurred to me that Europeans should abandon the dubbing of foreign films. If you want to watch a foreign film you must read subtitles. If dubbed American films were banned they would have about as much influence in Europe as French films in America.

You’re hilariously out of touch, especially with younger people. English language shows dominate in every country that I’ve been to since Netflix became a thing, and the vast majority of people I meet will watch them only with subtitles, either to improve their English, or because they already understand it so well that they prefer it.

Banning dubbing would mostly harm non-English and non-native shows, because that it is often the only way they are watched.

US-UK production, which merged long ago, speaks to young educated urbanites everywhere. Notice “speaks”. It doesn’t brainwash them, it is exactly what they want to hear. This is remarkable, even prescient, and the only reason why it isn’t reflected in the politics of those countries yet, is because those people are often young and those countries’ urban middle classes are often too small to openly set the political agenda. Both will change.

I am an extreme dissenter from the whole Woke/progressive thing, in a way, only I recognise that the point is to get through it, rather than stand at the shore demanding that the tide not come in.

Dissidents in the US build up these crazy ideas of the natural tradness of “the other”, but this is just a cope. Interestingly it is a cope which is only necessary because those dissidents have a false and unexamined sense of US exceptionalism. This leads them to assume that the US is (mis)-leading those other countries, when in reality the US is just good at getting ahead of trends. Prescience is how you get rich.

Even if Perry hadn’t done that, the Japanese would have relented on shutting out aspects of technological modernity eventually. They were missing out on too much. All objects get eroded away eventually. The intrinsic upside of technological adoption, apart from its competitive advantage, is too much.

Now apply this to people’s emotional needs and to the social attitudes, enabled by technology, which increase people’s positive freedoms and security, and you have a good understanding of how things are going to work out.

I am sure you’ll disagree, but this felt like a perfect time to jump in!

It’s am sorry that your worship of the Living God JoeBama is giving you so much difficulty. Your Leftoid institutions like the World Economic Forum [WEF] are diametrically opposed to MAGA style nationalism.

To illustrate the point: (1)

Make Mexico Great Again, AMLO Moves to Confront BigAg Blocking Imports of Glyphosate and Genetically Engineered Corn

President Lopez-Obrador and President Trump found their common partnership easy, because the Trump doctrine was essentially supporting the authentic voice of the Mexican people; while asking for help on specific issues (border security). President Trump supported America-First, and President Lopez-Obrador supported Mexico-First; neither Trump nor AMLO put corporate needs in front of their citizens.

As a Leftoid WEF flunkie you support international MegaCorporations and oppose Mexican sovereignty. Those of us who support the STEM Right have exactly the opposite view.

There is no rational basis to claim that MAGA and WEF are the same. Doing so is an obvious Leftoid move. An emotional smear because your JoeBama cannot confront MAGA head on via facts.

using currency of a discredited institution controlled by hostile interest will be ironic.

If USD was truly discredited, no one would be using it. Thus you are making a specious argument. Doing business in the only practical option available is inevitable, not ironic.

The fact that you object to the inevitable identifies you as part of the Stupid Left. Gravity pulls things down. Dollars are used in the U.S. Water makes things wet. Do I need to go on?

PEACE 😇
__________

(1) https://theconservativetreehouse.com/blog/2021/07/31/make-mexico-great-again-amlo-moves-to-confront-bigag-blocking-imports-of-glyphosate-and-genetically-engineered-corn/

One interesting takeaway from the book(and its critics) is just how much of it was driven by economics and practicality, so any efforts to change or stop trends need to be aware of it too. The Shogunate did not go around just randomly banning guns – notably, Perrin mentions that Europe attempted it around the same time, with no success – although Europe was also constantly at a state of war, so the gun bans were never able to be sustained.

What Japan was just to generally ban and pay for all older weapons, which was not an issue for samurai, etc since ideas of ancient majesty aside, people do tend to go for fresh, newer pieces. Then the Shogunate made itself the main purchaser of guns, so most of the gun flow went to it; then the Shogunate promoted the major gunsmith families into samurai, so they suddenly had a status reason not to want to deal with guns; then the Shogunate stopped paying worthwhile prices for guns. The gunsmiths were able to adapt the same skills they had to making swords – fundamentally, this was not that impossible for them, and they remained in the weapons industry, but now with higher status and producing a higher status good for more money. All of this led to the extinction for guns, which ultimately not of practical utility for anything except fighting wars – I mark this as distinct from “killing people,” because the Shogunate was pretty lethal nonetheless, with duels, assassinations, etc, but guns permit the rapid mobilization and creation of armies with people of little training.

Guns are also not necessary for hunting except for big game hunters, and the Japanese were generally not big game hunters. The one exception, the Matagi clan, who were the so-called “bear-killers” basically never stopped using guns – though it got a lot harder for them to get guns. It was practical and necessary for them, so they kept to it and they were so weird and distant that the Shogunate didn’t bother them.

You know, I often talk about the need to accept the “bad”, so I was at first pretty confused when you were so hostile to me

I’m not hostile to you. That is your feeling. You allocating it to me is a symptom.

In a sense, I minimize evil and regard it a essentially not something to be taken seriously. I kind of laugh at it 🙂

Your “kind of” laughing feels like frozen tears have made your eyes too painful to open.

Am I right in thinking this offends you?

No, it feels painful, but it is your pain. It is like when my fat friend says she loves her body because she is beyond that, when she most certainly isn’t. Her self-deception may numb her, but it doesn’t numb me from her, nor would I want it to.

For you, evil is quite real, and definitely exists “out there” – and your main concern, is that you want to make people see that evil is “beautiful”, and should be embraced.

No, and you’re so far away from being able to truly engage with “out there” that such discussion is pointless. First, engage with yourself, otherwise “out there” will remain a poorly formulated projection to you.

Norway and Finland which took advantage of being naturally very high on social distancing

Your comment about Unz vs. Whitney was very funny and spot-on.

Eventually is a very long time. I don’t know, but I do not think that technological adoption intrinsically suggests anything at all like “positive freedoms” or whatever:

1) agriculture lead to specialization and rise of castes for personalized skills
2) firearms caused a decrease of specialized personalized warfare skills
3) animal power led to widespread plots of land and a tight family style due to isolation
4) mechanical power led to the opposite

etc.

Trying to assume a single direction is dubious. It does what it does, basically.

1) agriculture lead to specialization and rise of castes for personalized skills

Agriculture allowed people to be different.

2) firearms caused a decrease of specialized personalized warfare skills

Firearms allow even the weak to be warriors.

3) animal power led to widespread plots of land and a tight family style due to isolation

Animal power allowed people to isolate as families.

4) mechanical power led to the opposite

Mechanical power allowed people to live together as individuals.

Trying to assume a single direction is dubious. It does what it does, basically.

I’m arguing that there is a meta-direction. I can’t tell you what people will do with more positive freedoms and security, or exactly which elements they will achieve and implement and when, but I can tell you that a political movement which actively tries to diminish those will have all of the success of a damn in a never-ending thunderstorm.

The Shogunate was an amazing social damn, perhaps the best that will ever be built, but, when it collapsed, the river only ran faster. Everyone here, but me, is going to be mighty surprised when the current Iranian administration disappears and they see what is left in its place. Just as how they would be shocked, if they were alive a few decades ago, by what South Korea has become, or Spain after Franco.

All countries won’t be the same, as different peoples can only blindly stumble towards the direction in which they are going. Implementing the fullest combination of security and positive freedom is hard, but the better a country is at doing so, the more prescient they will appear to be.

Yes, the indoctrination of Jews with the canonical Holocaust narrative is thorough and total yet there are many Jews who are tired of it. For most Jews it remains deep in the background, though sometimes they are called to arms by professional activists and the personality disorder Holocaust obsessives. There are Jews who are tired of Holocaust and in particular they objet to the escalation of demands and the never-ending proliferation of dubious and often fully confabulated stories by the alleged or demented real survivors.

After WWII quite a few Jews who were in the Displaced Persons camps in Germany married gentiles including German ones. A school friend of my mother who survived camps including Auschwitz, where his parents perished, married devoutly Christian German woman and immigrated to the US where he become a medical doctor. Those Jews were often stigmatized by other Jews. Even my mother who was not Jewish felt a mixture of pity and contempt for her friend that he married a German woman. She did not mind the Christianity angle because probably she believed as I do that Christianity would be good for Jews.

Anyway, he never obsessed with the Holocaust even though it totally demolished and redefined his life. But I am sure he would object to Holocaust denial narratives. Though personally I did not find it out as when several Auschwitz survivors like him I knew were still alive the questions were not asked, the gas chambers were not questioned and not really talked about. There was no Holocaust denial then and it was not even called a holocaust yet. The denial did not exist. One tiptoed around the survivors and one was aware of the fact that their survival depended on luck and horrible acts they themselves possibly must have committed or otherwise they woudn’t be alive. That’s how people thought. Some survivors later committed suicides like writer Tadeusz Borowski who wrote about cannibalism in camps. In Israel after war there was a lot of conflicted emotions about the survivors that even were bluntly expressed by some Israeli politicians. Nobody was celebrating them and nobody was idolizing them. They were seen as Nazi collaborators who survived at expense of those who perished but obviously this was driven by guilt of those who safely lived in Palestine or America doing nothing to help Jews in Europe.

Everything has changed after 1967 Six-day war. Suddenly the Holocaust narrative was unleashed on everybody and it became a major political propaganda effort by Zionist, the same Zionists who during WWII preferred buying cows for Palestine rather than spending money on saving European Jews when it was still possible. And it was also then that the Holocaust denial began. The Holocaust and its denial are conjoined twins. Two propaganda political projects feeding on each other and fueling each other. It just occurred to me that possibly the anti-Israel and pro-Arab leftists and possibly even a dis-info seeding by Lubyanka in the 1970s had something to do with the Holocaust denial sudden surge.

After saying all this I do not know what to make of Ron Unz and his lacking nuance simplistic take on the Holocaust issue and in the light of him being nominally Jewish it is is really puzzling. Perhaps AaronB is correct that Ron Unz is an antinomian Jew for whom breaking all Jewish precepts makes him even more Jewish and hastens the arrival of Messiah. It is possible that he suffers form the Messiah complex no different than Newton presumably also very high IQ person. Newton entertained an idea that one Christ is not enough that there must be more of them. The fact that he was born on Christmas could have something to do with it.

Those are interesting surface level projections, but are not accurate.

E.g. for starters, widespread usage of firearms necessitate the existence of an ever larger coordination of chemistry, industrialization, distribution, etc. and necessarily reduced the independence of fiefdoms, etc; its been argued that it is closely associated with the rise of nationalism, via the new meta of widespread conscription, e.g. Prussia.

Mechanical power allowed people to live together as individuals.

Actually mechanical power I refer to, the factory system, led most immediately to dissolution; before that families lived and worked together on a farm. The factory system helped foster the notion of the male breadwinner absent from his family and the female homekeeper, and the writings at the time mentioned how it created an opening for loneliness where previously the more or less continuous contact did not have.

I think you’re a bit quick to jump to conclusions and trying very hard to fit the information to your ideas; but whenever possible, follow the evidence and be humble. There’s beauty in details.

The Shogunate was an amazing social damn, perhaps the best that will ever be built, but, when it collapsed, the river only ran faster.

Err, Sengoku Japan was militaristic with guns which basically ended with them trying to conquer the world, Shogunate Japan was militaristic values without guns, and after being forced into the modern world, Meji Japan became militaristic with guns again and big ships…and tried to conquer the world. again.

Whoop de doo. What an amazing change to “catch up with everyone.”

The Holocaust didn’t happen. You can write thousands and thousands of words pscycho analysing the people who lied about eyewitness testimonies (in fact a fairly small number of obvious degenerates like Elie Wiesel, or just stupid, ignorate Ghetto Jews like the one who made up the story about being gassed with a diesel tank engine) or revisionists, but that won’t change the fact that it didn’t actually happen.

“Banning dubbing would mostly harm non-English and non-native shows, because that it is often the only way they are watched.” – Nonsense. Nobody will spend money to dub Albanian or Iranian films. People who like to watch Iranian, Turkish or Korean film like to watch them in original not dubbed just like they liked to watch Czech or Polish films in 1960s and 1970s because they wanted to have an experience and awareness of watching a foreign film. You do not watch those films for entertainment but for a “higher form” pleasure.

When there will be time for color revolution in Belarus you will be surprised to find how many good art house films are made in Belarus.

If French studios and distributors made effort to dumb down their film by dubbing them they would lose the audience of the francophile snobs but could expand the market in the US.

“English language shows dominate in every country that I’ve been to since Netflix became a thing” They are often dubbed.

BTW, I have heard that after WWII Marshal fund provided money for dubbing of American films for German and Italians audiences to win their hearts and minds.

“I am an extreme dissenter from the whole Woke/progressive thing, in a way, only I recognise that the point is to get through it, rather than stand at the shore demanding that the tide not come in.” – Your dissent if indeed real is meaningless and tell you the truth I do not really care where you stand on issue.

As I mentioned in my first comment, I’m currently reading about the Sioux Indians, the most formidable and warlike tribe on the Great Plains.

A few interesting facts stood out to me.

First, the Great Plains Indians had a system of warfare where a captured enemy was generally tortured in the most extreme and horrific ways before death.

And this was completely accepted by all the tribes. It never occured to anyone to question this system. This reminds me of the Aztec system of human sacrifice.

For some reason, people native to the Americas had a cultural system that frankly accepted what Freud after WW1 called the “death instinct”, and formalized the regular and official expression of this instinct as part of the official culture.

By contrast, we in the West deny this instinct and drive it underground – where it explodes periodically in periods of frenzied bloodletting like world wars or horrific wars of religion.

We prefer our death instinct in explosive bursts, instead of a steady, spread out drip.

But what even is the Death Instinct? Somehow, I feel it is related to the Buddhist concept of Emptiness. The Buddhist concept of Emptiness is an intellectual effort to – in a sense – “destroy the world”.

And why do we humans need to periodically “destroy the world”? Somehow, we need to – periodically – get free of the bondage of our concepts, ideas, categories, which we dimly intuit are limiting filters that keep us from a much larger and richer world.

The Aztec and Indian lust for pain and destruction was religious in nature.

Aside from that, the Indians lived an idyllic life. Children were indulged and pampered and spent their time in games. Indians were shocked at Europeans harshly discipling their children.

British military historian John Keegan described nomadism as the most enjoyable and satisfying human life possible, and that is what the Sioux were fighting the Americans to preserve.

The whole period is very colorful and epic.