If thou gazest long into the Pit, the Pit will also gaze into thee

#856

Anyone know where I can get an illustrated history book on the Rape of Nanking.

Something appropriate for children - as I would like to donate it to a local primary school.

Or is it elementary?

#855

Keating wrote: ↑ https://s.yimg.com/aah/yhst-83547458988 ... atue-1.jpg

Phwoah.

#854

https://s.yimg.com/aah/yhst-83547458988 ... atue-1.jpg

#853

There are few things sexier than a rock chick.

#852

ThreeFlangedJavis wrote: ↑ That was from the article wot FashTits linked.

Oh you mean the first one on that list:
https://www.openculture.com/2014/08/dr- ... ww-ii.html

Yeah, it's rife with mistakes. Who has time for an History elective college, when there's so many Gender Studies and Anti-Racist requirements?

Check out the cartoon above. It shows an arrogant-looking Hitler next to a pig-nosed, slanted-eye caricature of a Japanese guy. The picture isn’t really a likeness of either of the men responsible for the Japanese war effort – Emperor Hirohito and General Tojo. Instead, it’s just an ugly representation of a people.

Actually, Seuss truly captures Hitler's visage. And although it is more exaggerated, I think that's supposed to be Tojo, not Hirohito.

In 1953, Geisel visited Japan where he met and talked with its people and witnessed the horrific aftermath of the bombing of Hiroshima. He soon started to rethink his anti-Japanese vehemence. So he issued an apology in the only way that Dr. Seuss could.

He wrote a children’s book.

Horton Hears a Who!, published in 1954, is about an elephant that has to protect a speck of dust populated by little tiny people. The book’s hopeful, inclusive refrain – “A person is a person no matter how small” — is about as far away as you can get from his ignoble words about the Japanese a decade earlier. He even dedicated the book to “My Great Friend, Mitsugi Nakamura of Kyoto, Japan.”

There's no atonement in Wokedom, no forgiveness, only either a perpetual Struggle Session or Cancellation.

#851

Clarence wrote: ↑ C) In my opinion the Japanese civilian populace is LESS guilty than the German populace for the warcrimes of its government and army - but before I start I should say I hold neither as intrinsically evil or totally responsible. In both cases these are people living under totalitarian governments where even the slightest dissension can get you tortured, imprisoned, or killed - or all three. The reason I hold that the Japanese civilians largely weren't responsible is that they 1) were even farther removed from the battlefields and thus even more exposed to propaganda about the war and nothing else and 2) Had long had far fewer political rights than the Germans who (at least partly) did after all vote Hitler into a position of some power.

To add to my first reason: It was easier to smuggle in and get competing information about the war and the world in Germany than in Japan. Japan was an isolated Island country with a rather small Japanese language base outside of Japan. Pretty much all of Japans 'news' from the outside world was brought in via radio where the Tokyo censors got hold of it before any of it was passed to the general populace. To say information leaked in and out of Nazi Germany like a flood EVEN during their 'victorious' years, is an understatement. Also Germany was exposed to Allied bombing and propaganda leaflets almost from the beginning, whereas Japan was untouched by allied bombers (let alone any pamphlets) until late 1944, almost 3 years into the war with the USA. The Doolittle raid being the sole exception.

To add to my second reason: Japan had long been ruled by its military (under the Shoguns) and any fledgling democracy was crushed in the 20s and 30s by assassinations committed by ultranationalist members of the Japanese military on various political figures and private individuals thus reestablishing military rule even though there was the laughable pretence of the parliament. I'd also argue that Germany, though authoritarian at its very start, still was less so than Japan. After all, Germans were often exposed to contrary philosophies in their higher education, at least till the Nazis took over. Very few Japanese, on the other hand, had any kind of foreign education, and those that did, for the most part, had a military or technical education. Basically, compared to Germans and most Europeans Japan was a country of "country bumpkins" who didn't understand other peoples at all.

So the Nips were less guilty as a people than the Krauts, cuz they were more indoctrinated into their authoritarian ideology than the Krauts. Got it.

But you're right: assigning guilt/intrinsic evilness to an entire race is never appropriate. Unless it's the Uzbeks.

#850

Matt Cavanaugh wrote: ↑
Wed Mar 03, 2021 8:00 am

ThreeFlangedJavis wrote: ↑
Lsuoma wrote: ↑
Tue Mar 02, 2021 6:35 pm
https://www.google.com/search?q=seuss+r ... s+japanese

Also check out Dr Seuss Goes To War

American propaganda makers depicted Germany in a very different light than Japan. Germany was seen as a great nation gone mad. The Nazis might have been evil but there was still room for the “Good German.” Japan, on the other hand, was depicted entirely as a brutal monolith; Hirohito and the guy on the street were uniformly evil. Such thinking paved the way for the U.S. Air Force firebombing of Tokyo, where over 100,000 civilians died, and for its nuclear bombing of Hiroshima and Nagasaki.
The survivors of historical events in Dresden and Hamburg might find the argument a bit incendiary. I suspect that there was more than just racism playing into perceptions of the Japanese. They didn't have much of a reputation for being gracious in victory, did they, and I think the prospect of losing countless men to millions of nutters with sharpened sticks may have had something to do with the nukes. Wish writers of this kind of thing constructed their opinions from all of the facts instead of using just some of the facts to support their opinions.
Who wrote that?

That was from the article wot FashTits linked.

On the issue of why the Nips were nuked, the standard arguments assume that Japan was down to the dregs of an airforce and navy and pointy-sticked peasants were their secret weapon. In reality Japan had shifted aircraft production to unreachable underground facilities and were producing a lot of aircraft. Those aircraft included some very sophisticated designs including jet fighters and what were essentially high speed piloted missiles. Their failure in the air to that stage was down to pilot attrition but you don't need that skilled an air force to crash into things. They could conceivably have wrecked an invasion attempt although whether the Allies knew that is another matter.

#849

Matt Cavanaugh wrote: ↑

Back in the early eighties, I got into it with historian John Toland at a book reading. He’d asserted that the Japanese people had actually been really nice people the whole time during the war, while it was the Germans who’d been uniformly evil. I asked how this jived with 38 attempts on Hitler’s life vs. 0 on Tojo’s, on the execution of Jews committed in secret by special nazi units vs. the Rape of Nanking committed by regular army troops under orders, etc. His answer: his wife was Japanese, and his in-laws were really nice people.

The USAAF firebombed Japanese cities for the same reason Bomber Command firebombed German medieval city centers: they were highly combustable, and precision bombing had been an abject failure.
I'll add a bit here.
A) There was a racial element - on both sides- between the US and the Japanese that was not present with the Germans/Nazis and the US, except, to an extent with American service members of Jewish extraction. In short, both the Japanese and the Americans had many people, maybe even majorities, who regarded the other race as inferior.
B) Another reason we firebombed the cities was the Japan had decentralized much of its wartime production. Tons of small factories, often in civilian houses were making electronics, rifles, clothing and other things for the Japanese military and it was often impossible to tell a factory in a house from a regular house.
C) In my opinion the Japanese civilian populace is LESS guilty than the German populace for the warcrimes of its government and army - but before I start I should say I hold neither as intrinsically evil or totally responsible. In both cases these are people living under totalitarian governments where even the slightest dissension can get you tortured, imprisoned, or killed - or all three. The reason I hold that the Japanese civilians largely weren't responsible is that they 1) were even farther removed from the battlefields and thus even more exposed to propaganda about the war and nothing else and 2) Had long had far fewer political rights than the Germans who (at least partly) did after all vote Hitler into a position of some power.

To add to my first reason: It was easier to smuggle in and get competing information about the war and the world in Germany than in Japan. Japan was an isolated Island country with a rather small Japanese language base outside of Japan. Pretty much all of Japans 'news' from the outside world was brought in via radio where the Tokyo censors got hold of it before any of it was passed to the general populace. To say information leaked in and out of Nazi Germany like a flood EVEN during their 'victorious' years, is an understatement. Also Germany was exposed to Allied bombing and propaganda leaflets almost from the beginning, whereas Japan was untouched by allied bombers (let alone any pamphlets) until late 1944, almost 3 years into the war with the USA. The Doolittle raid being the sole exception.

To add to my second reason: Japan had long been ruled by its military (under the Shoguns) and any fledgling democracy was crushed in the 20s and 30s by assassinations committed by ultranationalist members of the Japanese military on various political figures and private individuals thus reestablishing military rule even though there was the laughable pretence of the parliament. I'd also argue that Germany, though authoritarian at its very start, still was less so than Japan. After all, Germans were often exposed to contrary philosophies in their higher education, at least till the Nazis took over. Very few Japanese, on the other hand, had any kind of foreign education, and those that did, for the most part, had a military or technical education. Basically, compared to Germans and most Europeans Japan was a country of "country bumpkins" who didn't understand other peoples at all.

If anyone is interested I do have a good idea (based on years of reading and being fascinated by this subject) of WHY the Japanese military committed so many war crimes, but I won't get into that now. I'll just say the average Japanese on the homeland had a far smaller political voice in establishing the regime they lived under than the average German (in both cases I'm talking prior to the establishment of the Authoritarian governments) and also access to far less information on how the war was going, was conducted, etc and thus to me, far less responsibility in total. The Japanese people on the home islands were almost as victimized by their own government as the peoples they were ostensibly 'liberating' from Colonial rule.

#848

ThreeFlangedJavis wrote: ↑
Lsuoma wrote: ↑
Tue Mar 02, 2021 6:35 pm
https://www.google.com/search?q=seuss+r ... s+japanese

Also check out Dr Seuss Goes To War

American propaganda makers depicted Germany in a very different light than Japan. Germany was seen as a great nation gone mad. The Nazis might have been evil but there was still room for the “Good German.” Japan, on the other hand, was depicted entirely as a brutal monolith; Hirohito and the guy on the street were uniformly evil. Such thinking paved the way for the U.S. Air Force firebombing of Tokyo, where over 100,000 civilians died, and for its nuclear bombing of Hiroshima and Nagasaki.
The survivors of historical events in Dresden and Hamburg might find the argument a bit incendiary. I suspect that there was more than just racism playing into perceptions of the Japanese. They didn't have much of a reputation for being gracious in victory, did they, and I think the prospect of losing countless men to millions of nutters with sharpened sticks may have had something to do with the nukes. Wish writers of this kind of thing constructed their opinions from all of the facts instead of using just some of the facts to support their opinions.

Who wrote that?

FDR’s pathological hatred of Germans, stemming from a snubbing by some Junckers as a teenager, permeated American propaganda and policy.

FDR, following the July, ’44 Hitler assassination attempt:

The Gestapo and the SS have done us an appreciable service in removing a selection of those who would undoubtedly have posed as ‘good’ Germans after the war… It is to our advantage therefore that the purge should continue, since the killing of Germans by Germans will save us from future embarrassments of many kinds.

On treating Germany post-war:

We have got to be tough with Germany, and I mean the German people, not just the Nazis. You either have to castrate [them] or you have got to treat them in such a manner so they can’t just go on reproducing people who want to continue the way they have in the past.

In the UK, the influential Lord Vasittart consideread the German people, “a nation of killers.” “Eighty percent of the German race are the political and moral scum of the earth.”

Germany’s first world war cost mankind by and large, directly and indirectly, 25 million lives. And the second, before we are through, will have cost two, three, perhaps even four times as much. Now, a clique can’t do that. The disease is national, and the cure must be national.

Everyone who thinks that the Germans are as other people, only misled, is an enemy of other people…. [W]ho twice tried to strangle humanity? The answer is : all parties in the German nation. Here "is the proof and the story. Its facts show clearly the monster that we shall confront for many years after this war, the prolonged effort and vigilance necessary to tame.

This propaganda never stuck among ordinary Americans or Brits. The sowing-of-salt approach was quickly abandoned, in part because FDR was dead, but also because the propaganda that the Soviets were our slightly more socialist friends quickly wore of.

The hatred of the Japanese as a people in the US was real, and well-earned by the Japanese — though the concept of a ‘nation gone temporarily mad’ certainly applies. Still, THE BEST YEARS OF OUR LIVES contains an interesting exchange between the character who’d fought in the Pacific and his son, who parrots the propaganda about the Japs not valuing life as much as Westerners.

Back in the early eighties, I got into it with historian John Toland at a book reading. He’d asserted that the Japanese people had actually been really nice people the whole time during the war, while it was the Germans who’d been uniformly evil. I asked how this jived with 38 attempts on Hitler’s life vs. 0 on Tojo’s, on the execution of Jews committed in secret by special nazi units vs. the Rape of Nanking committed by regular army troops under orders, etc. His answer: his wife was Japanese, and his in-laws were really nice people.

The USAAF firebombed Japanese cities for the same reason Bomber Command firebombed German medieval city centers: they were highly combustable, and precision bombing had been an abject failure.

#847

Lsuoma wrote: ↑
Tue Mar 02, 2021 6:35 pm
https://www.google.com/search?q=seuss+r ... s+japanese

Also check out Dr Seuss Goes To War

American propaganda makers depicted Germany in a very different light than Japan. Germany was seen as a great nation gone mad. The Nazis might have been evil but there was still room for the “Good German.” Japan, on the other hand, was depicted entirely as a brutal monolith; Hirohito and the guy on the street were uniformly evil. Such thinking paved the way for the U.S. Air Force firebombing of Tokyo, where over 100,000 civilians died, and for its nuclear bombing of Hiroshima and Nagasaki.

The survivors of historical events in Dresden and Hamburg might find the argument a bit incendiary. I suspect that there was more than just racism playing into perceptions of the Japanese. They didn't have much of a reputation for being gracious in victory, did they, and I think the prospect of losing countless men to millions of nutters with sharpened sticks may have had something to do with the nukes. Wish writers of this kind of thing constructed their opinions from all of the facts instead of using just some of the facts to support their opinions.

#846

Would anyone here have second thoughts about going down to their local library to read Huckleberry Finn to a pre-teen audience?

You wouldn't even have a wear a dress to do it.

Just wondering where the line should be drawn on free speech - or alternatively, on what should be made available to children.

(From what I've heard the Asterix & Tintin books had problems in America due to their racial characterization & some of the early Disney & Warner Brothers cartoons have been restricted for decades).

#845

https://www.google.com/search?q=seuss+r ... s+japanese

Also check out Dr Seuss Goes To War

#844

My gametes may be small, but they’re strong swimmers and there’s plenty of them. If the US is having a problem with decreased sperm count, they should give me a call. I can save America 🇺🇸 . I’m willing to sacrifice for my country, it’s what patriots do.
And no...I don’t have Dr in front of my name and PhD behind it.

#843

I want to have more sex than just twice

#842

OK guys about sex and gender. Seems to me that the two get conflated wheras:

Gender - You can have as many as you want. I do not care.
Sex - Male & Female (either big gametes or small) and If you try to make this a spectrum you can fuck off in all directions.

We good on this?

#841

HelpingHand wrote: ↑ https://www.cnn.com/2021/03/02/us/dr-se ... index.html

Was one thing when it was just a school district decoupling a (Dr. Seuss inspired) reading day from Dr. Seuss. Now the very organization with rights to Suess's work is permanently removing six books from publication. Permanent in the sense that I assume the crazy will die down some decade.

The list includes a personal favorite: And to Think That I Saw It on Mulberry Street

Curtis Yarvin points to this academy award winning short film, based on work by Dr Suess:

#840

The Dr. Seuss article used the word 'Orientalism', which caught my eye because Edward Said was a celebrity professor at Columbia U when I was there. He coined the term 'Orientalism' in a book by that name. It's not-just a word for "racism against oriental people". But, rather, it describes a euro-centric (British Empire) wrong-idea that there was something common from 'The Near East' to 'The Far East'... and everywhere in-between. Edward Said said it was silly to make sweeping generalizations about people from Morocco to Afghanistan to India, Tibet, Japan.

Fair enough: except the one way it IS somewhat-fair to make such generalizations is from a specific point-of-view. Such as, say, Britain. "People in those other places Aren't Like Us" is a reasonable statement. It's more of a comment on that 'Us' have certain unique traits, than a comment on all the 'Thems'.

The biggest lasting influence of Said's thesis-- seems to be that it's considered incorrect to call people 'Oriental' now. 'Asian' is substituted in a mindless 1-for-1 swap, and almost everyone who would correct you for saying 'oriental' can't explain Why it's supposedly wrong. At best, they say 'oriental describes things-- like a rug-- Asian describes people.' So it's "offensive" to use a word which reduces people to things. But that strikes me as making-up a rule just so you can be offended when it's broken.

The Seuss article says "That study, published in 2019, examined 50 books by Dr. Seuss and found 43 out of the 45 characters of color have "characteristics aligning with the definition of Orientalism," or the stereotypical, offensive portrayal of Asia." ...a sentence which itself conflates Asia with Asians. And reduces the definition of orientalism-- to racism-against-orientals.

Ironically, the woke shitheads are guilty of actual orientalism: by using the one-size-fits-all term 'Asian' to describe everyone from Muslim rape gangs in the UK, to Hindus in Bombay to Chinese commuist rapists, and their Uyghur rape victims, Hmongnards, and Japs in Japan, and Yellow Americans With Slanty Eyes.

It's politically correct to claim all 'People of Color' share some unified experience & agenda & perspective. And whites are excluded from that, and different. And it's politically incorrect to make the same claim.

#839

https://www.cnn.com/2021/03/02/us/dr-se ... index.html

Was one thing when it was just a school district decoupling a (Dr. Seuss inspired) reading day from Dr. Seuss. Now the very organization with rights to Suess's work is permanently removing six books from publication. Permanent in the sense that I assume the crazy will die down some decade.

The list includes a personal favorite: And to Think That I Saw It on Mulberry Street

But Dr. Seuss had a long history of publishing racist and anti-Semitic work, spanning back to the 1920s when he was a student at Dartmouth College. There, Dr. Seuss once drew Black boxers as gorillas and perpetuated Jewish stereotypes by portraying Jewish characters as financially stingy, according to a study published in the journal "Research on Diversity in Youth Literature."

"In ("The Cat's Quizzer"), the Japanese character is referred to as 'a Japanese,' has a bright yellow face, and is standing on what appears to be Mt. Fuji," the authors wrote.

The study also argues that since the majority of human characters in Dr. Seuss' books are White, his works -- inadvertently or not -- center Whiteness and thus perpetuate White supremacy.

#838

Lots of fun points is prior messages.

Regarding technology.... and the comment that we always develop the technologies that we can and never ask if we should. Well... yeah. There is nothing to be done about this problem... because we are not smart enough to know what will really happen. Take the A-bomb as an example. Many people think it never should have been invented. They claim it will inevitably destroy the world and life on earth.. and mankind... etc. Well... no one can prove this. We are not dead yet... and while people are pretty fucked up, perhaps we are not fucked up enough to destroy the earth. I don't know... and neither does anyone else. I can also say this.... the nuclear standoff has created more peace than almost anything in history. There has been no period of general peace like we have seen since the end of WWII. Now... this is not absolute proof of anything, but it is suggestive that the A-bomb was perhaps not a bad thing. Complicated stuff.

I am also not so convinced things are going down hill as suggested. Sure... people are stupid and media/technology are messing with us. But, people have been messed up all along. It is not like there was some golden age of truth and justice. Hell.... remember the Satanic Panic? or how about the period of people claiming they had repressed memories. People were imprisoned because their daughter went to a shrink and came out thinking she had been abused by daddy. We don't have this problem right now. We have other problems. Stuff like "words are violence", or "children can decide their gender", or "gender is a social construct... but I am really a boy." There is a bunch of random fucked up shit. But we are not doomed and the current tech trends are hard to predict.

One of my favorite books is Frankenstein. It expresses that general fear that something will go wrong because man keeps trying to be more and more like a god. Well... really... nothing has gone wrong in a general sense. Sure, we have problems to fix... but... we fix them. And I feel like we really suck at predicting what will go wrong with any particular technology. In general, we figure out what is wrong and we fix it.... eventually.

On the abortion and "I have bodily autonomy" topic. The most fun I have with this discussion is how every woman who has an abortion is thought of as a victim. Either she is a victim of poverty, or a victim of a man, or a victim of being young, or a victim of having bad parents.... etc.... etc. If a woman wants an abortion the accepted emotional response to to say "Oh... that is so sad for her." If you want your friends to get really mad... when they say..."Oh, it is so sad she had to get an abortion.".. try saying... "Well, I hope she has figured out that she should stop sleeping around!" Haha. Great way to liven up a room.

I will end on a story about my wife and I. So, we were chatting, and I said "Wow... do you remember... back in the 90s... there were claims from some women that they had repressed memories, and some dads were sent to prison by their daughters.... after they were hypnotized... haha... do you remember that?" and my wife says... "Well... it wasn't just women." Haha. Out of that whole sentence she picked out that fact that I said it was women. And I said "Well... It was women." and she says "Well I am sure it was men too." and I said "I don't remember any men doing it... but maybe." So.. this is how it goes.

#837

2 or 3 times in the last few days... I'll be puttering-around, my mind on some mundane task (Where did I leave that packet of guitar strings? It was in my hand a moment ago)...

and a non-sequitur political thought will pop into my head, fully formed, not part of a prior train of thought.

One was this: "The debate over whether there are only 2 genders assumes the 2 genders are male and female. A funny twist would be to enter a debate, arguing 'there are only 2 genders', but then divide gender into 2 parts-- some other way, which the opponent can't dispute. Such as 'There are only Things Which Have Gender and Things Which Don't.' Or 'There are only 2 genders: Cis and Trans'.

Maybe that's clever. maybe not. But it's an odd thing to suddenly receive, like a telegram from Gawd. It didn't come in words, like an inner monologue. It was like a light switches on & you see a whole room. Describing what you see in words is an after-the-fact process.

Another one: "Only libertarian women should be allowed to have abortions."

Or maybe I should write it as: "Therefore, only libertarian women should be allowed to have abortions."

With nothing prior to the 'therefore'. A punchline with no set-up. I had to consciously backtrack & assemble the train of thought which would lead to that odd conclusion. It goes like this:

I've always thought that bearing a child was a huge imposition on a woman, if she doesn't want to be pregnant. It's not a minor thing to tell-her she -must- bear the child, then raise it or part-with-it... by taking-away abortion as an option.

BUT... most chicks who think it's a travesty to force a woman to endure an unwanted pregnancy... are very comfortable demanding that others endure unwanted impositions. They demand someone else pay for their birth control devices, their abortions, their health insurance, their daycare, their kids' education, their housing. If they find it acceptable to demand impositions on others/ then they forfeit their right to not be imposed-upon themselves. Why didn't that ever occur to me, before? Therefore, only libertarian-minded women should be allowed to have abortions.

==
I guess there's a 'normal' way I'm used-to my conscious & unconscious mind interacting. Sometimes they interact differently & the change is an odd surprise. A couple years ago, for a few weeks or months, I started misreading words. I might see the badge on a VOLVO as EVOLVE or ILOVE... and do a double-take.

#836

John D wrote: ↑ Joe B is not "dumb". Neither was G H W Bush. Neither was Trump. I wouldn't call any of them dumb.

They all have a talent for telling the story that people want to hear. I do this kind of thing on my job all the time. I work as a program manager, quality manager, and other roles. I don't lie.... well not exactly... and I don't know all the facts I am talking about... but I frame things in a way where my listeners agree with what actions are needed. Joe and Donald and George are better at this skill than I am. They also have a lot of cronies who push others to follow along... following the party line.

Trumpsters... and Biden fans... etc. are all fairly stupid. They want to be led and they don't want to understand the "facts". They want the story. It makes them feel good. They are watching a TV show.

I can agree with everything you said-- but it would only be true for that-specific definition of 'not dumb'.

Doesn't change the all ways Biden IS dumb.

Just like your talent for gladhandling decision-makers at work. That only gets you so far. It's no substitute for actual quality control... when the cars burst into flames, or roll-over, or the brakes don't work.

Sophists still can't fancytalk us out of genuine crises, just like in Plato's time.

#835

Chest-feeding ad ran during the Golden Globes. Representative of how Hollywood imagines the US population, two of the four dugs are black:

#834

Fiction is great at presenting a narrative.

Not sure how woke the Chinese are though.

#833

Great points. When done well, science fiction asks all those questions. Every robot revolt/tyrannical computer story ever was about rushing for convenience and luxury while ignoring unintended consequences. I recall a short story called "The Iron Chancellor" about a home security/housekeeper robot that kept its rich, suburban family forever imprisoned after it went haywire and conflated them leaving the house with an intruder crossing in. It also fed them nothing but dry toast.

No wonder that wokists would produce science fiction where tech advances only have upsides, and where tweaking on parameter does not perturb the entire system.

And now I read that Facebook thinks adding facial recognition to glasses is a grand idea. What could go wrong?

#832

Interesting essay. One thing that comes to mind as objectionable, is what I call the Jurassic Park problem. Ian Malcolm's claim "Yeah, but your scientists were so preoccupied with whether or not they could, they didn't stop to think if they should." I think this is a real problem with the way the world works, and a particularly strong argument against the moral framework that is presented in the original Star Trek as outlined in that essay.

The best example I like is that we know the USSR tried to cross Ebola and smallpox. While this undoubtedly requires a significant amount of intellectual prowess, it also clearly lacks wisdom. I've come to fear that all technology suffers from this problem. No one would have predicted, for example, that automobiles were such a fantastic means of producing carbon dioxide. This is not to say that discarding all technology and living in Michael Piller's utopia is appealing - I hated the fawning over the insipid Ba’ku too - but, it isn't obvious to me that we can actually achieve good outcomes through reason alone. This seems to be particularly true when new technologies are based on flaws on our evolutionary heritage. Take Brive's insufferable diet posts: He has a real point that food technology has had unintended consequences. Our taste for sugar is almost certainly an evolutionary hack for the nutrients we actually had difficulty finding in antiquity, and is pretty disastrous in the modern world. Social media is another example, hacking into our social requirements in a similar way that seems to have similarly disastrous effects.

I'm not saying that I want to ban Facebook and Coca-Cola, I'm just saying that Huxley's Soma fueled slavery is just as big a problem as a Orwell's tyrannical Big Brother. What's really required are Men with Chests and a consistent means of producing them.

We do have serious technological questions coming up in our future that will have far more profound effects than the development of nuclear weapons. Generalised Artificial Intelligence and human genetic engineering. I have no doubt the Chinese will be producing genetically engineered super humans within my life time. I really don't know how we respond to this in a sensible way. It seems to me a net good if we are able to eliminate genetic diseases prior to birth, but the Gattaca world is definitely not one I'd want to live on or bequeath my descendants.

#831

Stumbled across this well-written article on how the Star Trek franchise devolved from its original true liberal roots into moral relativism, then might-makes-right nihilism:

https://claremontreviewofbooks.com/the- ... star-trek/

#830

Jen... Jen... Jen.... and your little red bottom...

#829

Joe B is not "dumb". Neither was G H W Bush. Neither was Trump. I wouldn't call any of them dumb.

They all have a talent for telling the story that people want to hear. I do this kind of thing on my job all the time. I work as a program manager, quality manager, and other roles. I don't lie.... well not exactly... and I don't know all the facts I am talking about... but I frame things in a way where my listeners agree with what actions are needed. Joe and Donald and George are better at this skill than I am. They also have a lot of cronies who push others to follow along... following the party line.

Trumpsters... and Biden fans... etc. are all fairly stupid. They want to be led and they don't want to understand the "facts". They want the story. It makes them feel good. They are watching a TV show.

#828

Matt Cavanaugh wrote: ↑ It's a quasi-religion.

Hard to sort the genuinely-stupid true believers in the religion/ from the opportunists who know better & are playing-dumb for strategic reasons.

==

Joe Biden is genuinely dumb, tho.

A couple days ago he went to Texas in response to 'the emergency' and spoke for 20 minutes about Covid/ not about the recent freeze or it's causes or effects. He just talked about 'the emergency' he wanted to talk-about, not the one he didn't.

I was struck by a moment in the speech-- where Biden declared he was going-to defeat Covid/ as if saying-so makes it true. Then he proudly declared his greatest achievement was going to be to defeat Cancer. It's not an 'achievement' until you do it. But he's already taking a bow. Then he interrupted himself with a stray thought: maybe his amazing defeat of Cancer isn't even his greatest achievement: he's even greater than he thought! After all, he just landed a rover on Mars!

video:

Of course, that Mars rover was on its way to Mars before Biden took office. And so was fighting-covid and fighting-cancer. But this retarded story is like all the other times Biden improvised a grandiose brag-- Mandela thanking him for getting arrested in South Africa. Biden's 'top of the class' success in college. Biden's imaginary participation in civil rights sit-ins and marches. Dunning-Kruger.

Some of Biden's supporters genuinely believe his b.s. And some pretend to believe, to support The Cause.

#827

Harrison Bergeron was off by sixty years.

Boston Public Schools Will Suspend Advanced Classes Because Too Many Students In Them Are White Or Asian

#826

It's a quasi-religion. So long as the dogma is affirmed, it's double plus good, damn the internal logical contradictions. In the same way christians gush over Alvin Plantiga's circular reasoning and assorted sophistry, pretending he's the demigod of epistemology.

#825

Holy Tip-of-the-Iceberg. I can't name a better site for anti-Biden news... than TYT curating official Biden Admin statements.

Check out Kamala's weird shit about "Covid's toll on WOMEN". ...which is actually a description of how Lockdowns and School Closings screwed women.

And Biden's solution? Those "$1400" checks and tax credits for families-with-children. Neither of which is specific to women.

(Unless only women can bear children. Oh, the transphobia! The bigotry!)

Why did they produce this video at all? Better to stay silent than call attention to to their failed lockdown policies, pandering to the teacher's unions, and their broken $2000 promise.

#824

YouTube offered me clips, posted by The Young Turks, with saucy titles, suggesting these would be slam dunk moments for Jen Psaki and the Biden Admin.

I'm not seeing it. I see evasion, condescension, failure to own responsibility. Blame-Trump-or-Covid for everything.

What does this mean? Has TYT sunk to the level of pure clickbait? Not caring whether their content matches the title, as long as you click?

Or maybe far-left TYT knows these aren't really 'psmackdowns' and they're being passive-aggressive against Republican-lite Biden?

My concern is-- that TYT & their audience really-do think these are highlights. If so, I think they just like her hair or her know-it-all tone. The superficial package looks ok to them & they don't notice the lack of substance. If Biden's empty hand bluffing succeeds, that suggests a major voting bloc of blue-pill addicts. So eager to be told what they want to hear, that they'll accept that instead of demanding real results. Politicians will gladly exploit this-- all talk/ no solutions, while the nation crashes.

Same could be said on the Trump side: I know many MAGA fanboys loved Kaleigh McEnany because she looked like a porn star. And Trump's speeches were piles of purple adjectives, often with a void where substance should have been. Plenty of MAGA hat wearers enjoyed cheering-on-cue, without scrutinizing the message. Taking outlandish swings, indifferent to whether the punch even landed-- was Trump's brand.

But-- I see a difference. Trump actually represented a declassé populist base, which he-himself assembled. Whereas Biden seems like a carpetbagger-- eager to half-ass shapeshift into whatever populist faction he can pander-to. Obama's coattails, Tough-on-crime and/or ACAB abolish the police and/or gun grabbing, Wokeness, Boomer centrism, Green New Deal, teachers unions, tranny hitlers.

#823

Haven’t listened yet. But Dunning has declared Dyatlov a non-mystery so I guess that’s sorted. 👍
https://podcasts.apple.com/au/podcast/s ... 0510804981

Btw for easy listening (but competently assembled) British colonial and Napoleonic military soft-history “Redcoat History” is a good crib. British guy. Living in South Africa. Ex military. Incl some interviews with the British Muzzleloader Group.

https://podcasts.apple.com/gb/podcast/t ... 1464633664

#822

Service Dog wrote: ↑
Sat Feb 27, 2021 10:13 am
Speaking at a Jewish event in Delaware in 2015, a few months after Beau Biden's death, Joe Biden told a Joe Biden story, about trying to seduce a girl: "“I was the Catholic kid. She was the Jewish girl. I still tried. I didn’t get anywhere." That girl grew up & had daughters. And grand-daughters.

Joseph Robinette Biden The Third (known as "Beau Biden")-- forever trying to live-up to Joe Biden's bragging about Joe Biden-- married one of those daughters. And, after Beau died, Hunter Biden moved-in with one daughter, rented a house with the other, and did sexytime with both.

And, according to Beau's widow, Hunter was also sexually inappropriate with the under-age granddaughters. Texts show that Jim Biden & Joe Biden told Hunter they would "shove it down her fucking throat" in response to the concerned mother's 2018 claim.

Texts also show Hunter discussing 'folding clothes' in a Whole Foods Bathroom with the 14-year old grand-daughter. 'Folding clothes' is slang from a 2017 J. Cole rap song about sneaking-away to have sex.

A reaction that accords with the defensive and very aggressive responses he is prone to giving when put on the spot. Never did buy the kindly uncle PR, it's a bad fit. His general demeanour leads me to give some credence to stories like this one https://www.theunionjournal.com/investi ... vestigate/ while keeping in mind how easy it is to get taken in by smears. Joe's public stance on his son is really inadequate. After the laptop went public with all of it's revelations of debauchery all he could say was that he was proud of Hunter? He saw no problem with the Burisma gig? He either snaps back angrily or just brushes off questions on the subject, never giving any real explanation. Questioning him is probably going to become punishable by complete cancellation so he has no worries, at least until Harris wants him disappeared.

#821

If a girl turns you down, wait 50 years and make-out with her teenage grand-daugher.

https://i.imgur.com/tJs9Ap0_d.jpg?maxwi ... ity=medium

#820

And Joe took showers with his teenaged stepdaughter. Who's now completely fucked in the head, cheated openly on her husband, and is continually pulled over -- but let off -- for drunk driving.

The Biden clan saga ranks up with the imperial accounts of Suetonius.

#819

Service Dog wrote: ↑ Texts also show Hunter discussing 'folding clothes' in a Whole Foods Bathroom with the 14-year old grand-daughter.

The child's mother had forbid Hunter from seeing the girl, accusing him of face-time-ing the child nude and smoking crack in front of the child.

Hunter and the child evaded the mother's wishes and exchanged emotional texts about how much they missed each other. Hunter asked the child her location. The child said she was at the mall near her home. Hunter suggested folding clothes with the child in bathroom at Whole Foods.

Hunter Biden still walks free. He still owns his stake in a billion-dollar sweetheart deal with China's Communist Party. The media suppressed the story of statutory rape, as well as Doctor Jill Biden's second husband's role in the cover-up.

#818

Speaking at a Jewish event in Delaware in 2015, a few months after Beau Biden's death, Joe Biden told a Joe Biden story, about trying to seduce a girl: "“I was the Catholic kid. She was the Jewish girl. I still tried. I didn’t get anywhere." That girl grew up & had daughters. And grand-daughters.

Joseph Robinette Biden The Third (known as "Beau Biden")-- forever trying to live-up to Joe Biden's bragging about Joe Biden-- married one of those daughters. And, after Beau died, Hunter Biden moved-in with one daughter, rented a house with the other, and did sexytime with both.

And, according to Beau's widow, Hunter was also sexually inappropriate with the under-age granddaughters. Texts show that Jim Biden & Joe Biden told Hunter they would "shove it down her fucking throat" in response to the concerned mother's 2018 claim.

Texts also show Hunter discussing 'folding clothes' in a Whole Foods Bathroom with the 14-year old grand-daughter. 'Folding clothes' is slang from a 2017 J. Cole rap song about sneaking-away to have sex.

#817

I found this simple video to be pretty entertaining.... magdalena, hannah matilda and david perform 1920 blues from their yard in Germany... including chickens in the background. Is this what the internet should be????.... probably.

#816

ThreeFlangedJavis wrote: ↑
Matt Cavanaugh wrote: ↑ Not only was Hunter Biden fucking his brother's widow while the corpse was still warm, he was sexting her married sister, too.

https://www.dailymail.co.uk/news/articl ... 4a62qw6ZjQ

Lovely family.
Hunter is the apple of Joe's eye and it brings a tear to said eye that he's gone into the family sleaze business. The family is so obviously corrupt. It takes a special set of tinted glasses not to see that when you look at the decades long history of money paid to family members by influence peddlers at opportune times. It beggars belief that he can claim not to know what Hunter is up to with such a long history of graft. He would have to be stupid or blind.

Beau was Joe's favorite, and was tapped to continue the Biden crime family's legacy. Hunter was always coddled, cuz he got more fucked up in the car crash, and Joe always felt a little remorse for being away that night getting a blow job from Jill.

Back when Biden was merely an obstacle to Lizzie Warren, the media published exposés like this:

Biden Inc.: Over his decades in office, ‘Middle-Class Joe’s’ family fortunes have closely tracked his political career.

#815

Ah, the quality of the character of people getting into politics in recent times.

Oh, for the days of people of such high moral character as Bill Clinton, JFK or Boss Tweed.

Though perhaps my bias is showing and there are also relevant examples for those who took the Republican gravy train.

#814

Silly me. Influence purchasers, not influence peddlers.

#813

Matt Cavanaugh wrote: ↑ Not only was Hunter Biden fucking his brother's widow while the corpse was still warm, he was sexting her married sister, too.

https://www.dailymail.co.uk/news/articl ... 4a62qw6ZjQ

Lovely family.

Hunter is the apple of Joe's eye and it brings a tear to said eye that he's gone into the family sleaze business. The family is so obviously corrupt. It takes a special set of tinted glasses not to see that when you look at the decades long history of money paid to family members by influence peddlers at opportune times. It beggars belief that he can claim not to know what Hunter is up to with such a long history of graft. He would have to be stupid or blind.

#812

Not only was Hunter Biden fucking his brother's widow while the corpse was still warm, he was sexting her married sister, too.

https://www.dailymail.co.uk/news/articl ... 4a62qw6ZjQ

Lovely family.

#811

Would have thought Lady Gaga's publicists would have been in crisis mode and managing messaging from hour 1.

Yesterday, every quote in every news article: $500,000 no questions asked for return of the dogs

Today, every quote in every news article: Our foremost concern is the health of Ryan (the dogwalker) and we are giving him our full support

#810

I believe it was Epitectus that said "Do not say: Alas"

Though that may be considered transphobic in the modern context.

#809

Many many other people-- not me-- will see this clip & wish to do violence to Biden's tranny freak nominee.

Those other people-- not me-- will care about the well-being of children as young as age 3-- so much-- that they'd forfeit their own lives in a hail of gunfire, attempting to save those kids from a wicked monster. Not me.

However. The way this piece of shit twice 'answered' Rand Paul's question. With a shameless word-for-word recitation of pre-fab bureaucratic condescension? That's where I draw the line.

I'd personally step on the gas if I saw that thing jaywalking. Waterboard it with gasoline. Feed it to the hogs.

#808

Dangerous Conspiracy Theorist Doesn't Believe Vaccines Work

#807

Service Dog wrote: ↑ Did you see the 'top concerns' of Democrats? #1 concern is "Trump Supporters".

(see also #2, 3, 4, 6, 7, 8, 9, 10 & 12... all pretty much = 'Trump supporters' in TDS-talk)

That was the chart I was hoping to link to. Fucking twitter.

Following the seriously pathological, full-blown obsession with trumpites, the next ten items either are trivial or simply don't exist in that alternate, non-Dem universe known as "Reality." The concern about capitalism is an interesting once, considering most Democrats are feasting quite well of off it.

Of course, these are the pseudo issues the MSM propagandists have blathered incessantly about. Showing that these supposed intellectuals are incapable of forming an original thought. With a little repetition, you could easily slip "Polly want a cracker" in around number six.

#806

Did you see the 'top concerns' of Democrats? #1 concern is "Trump Supporters".

(see also #2, 3, 4, 6, 7, 8, 9, 10 & 12... all pretty much = 'Trump supporters' in TDS-talk)

#805

New poll reveals top concerns of Democrats and Republicans:

#804

If you're drawing a lot of Flak, it must mean you're over the target.

Joy Behar told her co-hosts Wednesday on ABC’s “The View” that ... “Tucker Carlson needs to be tied up and put in the corner somewhere, so we never hear from him again.” As the segment was ending, Behar said, “I don’t mean to imply that anything harmful should happen to Tucker Carlson. I just want him to stop saying stupid things, that’s all.”

#803

Love this guy. Can rely on him confirming the obvious truth without having to sit through an hour long discussion.

#802

Service Dog wrote: ↑
Wed Feb 24, 2021 9:41 pm
Ten Percent Joe

What is he going to do? Is he going to bring back production to the US? Surely that's all Trumpian dreaming, holding out false hope to the white supremacist insurrectionist peasants? Is he now admitting that China are not friends of the US? Has there ever been an administration so intent on erasing the previous one and trash talking it to a ridiculous degree while taking credit for it's achievements?

I don't see much reference to Cho Bi-Ding's Munich "ni**er" slip. TBF I think he fumbled an attempt to say "eager" rather than uttering a touretty N-word. He also went on to slur the word "chancelor" so I think it indicates where the US media are that this isn't being treated as a worrying sign. Maybe Kamala thinks it too soon to declare Biden hunting season.

#801

Ten Percent Joe

#800

14 cops standing around downstairs. And a 'specialized unit' bus in police colors, flashing lights on top. Awaiting a protest march coming over the bridge from Brooklyn. Police radio on the Brooklyn side says there's "fifteen to twenty protesters" and they're "scheduled" & "orderly".

Citizen app commenter: "We live in a police state!"
Reply: "No, we live in a defunded-police state."

#799

John D wrote: ↑
Wed Feb 24, 2021 5:01 pm

Brive1987 wrote: ↑
Haha. She put that fuel hose in her vehicle. It will smell like gas for a year. Oh my god. People are so great!

Somewhere there's a gas station attendant with her voice ringing in his ears standing next to a hoseless gas pump.

#798

My wife got her first shot of the Moderna vaccine yesterday. I don't know why they gave her a shot except that she has all her medical records in an automated system at the local hospital. She has heart disease, diabetes, high blood pressure, fibromyalgia, and is obese. Maybe they looked at her records and said... "Fucking hell... this bitch needs a shot". I don't know.

But all went well. She didn't have a reaction, but she did sleep all day today.... which is kind of normal. Anyway.... that is good news. When she texted me that she had the shot I cried. Next dose in late March.

Thanks Trump.

#797

Brive1987 wrote: ↑

Haha. She put that fuel hose in her vehicle. It will smell like gas for a year. Oh my god. People are so great!

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