The Refuge of the Toads

[deLurch]

SJWs have only themselves to blame for muddying the rules of society through the media and for supporting a "post-truth" postmodern standard which redefined things according to their ideology. Should they really be surprised when their political rivals have adopted the same tactics?

If we exclude political parties, who pretty much across the ocean have played about on par with each other in terms of molesting young truths in their sleep, I don't necessarily see how the people opposing SJWism have been adopting the same tactics.

[deLurch]

OK Kirbmarc, one counterpoint to my point would be when Laughing Witch & others attempted to fuck with Thunderfoot's income, people opposing her started to fuck with her income.

[ROBOKiTTY]

Abraham Lincoln:

How many legs does a dog have if you call his tail a leg? Four. Saying that a tail is a leg doesn't make it a leg.

<snip tangent>

Just because some one or some country claims an "identity" as such and such doesn't mean they possess the attribute that defines the relevant term.

Indeed. It was simply a reductio ad absurdum using Vicky's logic. To use an example closer at hand, we might say, following the same logic, that feminism is a universally accepted western value. Sure, some westerners argue against it, but they're just bickering over semantics/'getting it wrong', since feminism is actually the radical idea that women are people and deserve equal treatment.

The point is to rebut Vicky's notion that western values are universally accepted in the west. The idea of separation of church and state (more broadly secularism), for instance, is very much a western value, but there are many people, especially in the US, who completely reject that idea, want a country based on biblical values, and believe that America is a Christian nation founded on biblical principles. Several European countries continue to have state religions. Although in practice, they have little power, it still goes against secularism.

You can't say 'Oh, but Christian theocrats actually accept separation of church and state if the church in question is not their own.' The idea of state secularism breaks down if even one church gets to run the government.

[MarcusAu]

OK Kirbmarc, one counterpoint to my point would be when Laughing Witch & others attempted to fuck with Thunderfoot's income, people opposing her started to fuck with her income.

Also VoxDay of the Rabid Puppies - has had words and taken some actions which some might find questionable.

[Kirbmarc]

SJWs have only themselves to blame for muddying the rules of society through the media and for supporting a "post-truth" postmodern standard which redefined things according to their ideology. Should they really be surprised when their political rivals have adopted the same tactics?

If we exclude political parties, who pretty much across the ocean have played about on par with each other in terms of molesting young truths in their sleep, I don't necessarily see how the people opposing SJWism have been adopting the same tactics.

I meant Trump and the alt-right, the true political rivals of the "left", not every critic of the SJWs. Lindy West was saying that twitter greased the wheels of Trump's presidency by allowing Trump supporters to spread disinformation and the alt-right to engage in white identity politics. West failed to grasp that the only reason why Trump supporters and alt-right activists engaged in questionable tactics is because the SJWs opened the floodgate.

If "everything is racist and problematic", if it's OK to lie, smear and create echo chambers and blame white males for everything we shouldn't be surprised if some people feels that nothing is racist, that all ideas which are depicted negatively in the media have some truth to them and that white males are being victimized and have to band together to defend their "collective identity".

[Hunt]

Forgive me Father, for I have sinned. I have opened two Netflix taps at the same time.

[Hunt]

*tabs, shit there goes that joke.

[Kirbmarc]

Indeed. It was simply a reductio ad absurdum using Vicky's logic. To use an example closer at hand, we might say, following the same logic, that feminism is a universally accepted western value. Sure, some westerners argue against it, but they're just bickering over semantics/'getting it wrong', since feminism is actually the radical idea that women are people and deserve equal treatment.

The point is to rebut Vicky's notion that western values are universally accepted in the west. The idea of separation of church and state (more broadly secularism), for instance, is very much a western value, but there are many people, especially in the US, who completely reject that idea, want a country based on biblical values, and believe that America is a Christian nation founded on biblical principles. Several European countries continue to have state religions. Although in practice, they have little power, it still goes against secularism.

You can't say 'Oh, but Christian theocrats actually accept separation of church and state if the church in question is not their own.' The idea of state secularism breaks down if even one church gets to run the government.

That's why I don't like to call liberal democratic values "western values". They're not "western", no more than science is "western science". The thinkers and philosophers who formulated them (Voltaire, Locke, Mill, Beccaria, Jefferson, etc.) were mostly Western European or descendants of Western European, but this doesn't make them "western".

The fact that Isaac Newton was a Protestant Englishman or Albert Einstein was a German Jew (albeit in both cases, with a personal and unconventional approach to religion) doesn't mean that the Principia Mathematica are "Protestant English science" or that the theory of general relativity is "German Jewish science*".

Christianity also isn't completely "western". Copt, Syriac Christians, Syro-Malabar Christians, Nestorians and all the other christian cults in the east weren't even European, while eastern orthodoxy wasn't "western". "Western Christianity" is more often than not either Catholicism or Protestantism. The US were a safe haven for dozens of different Protestant churches persecuted in Europe, there was never a single state church in the States. The thought leaders of the US were heretical christians or even Deists, very unlike the "christian reborn" evangelical movements that are today represented in the US right (which were the spawn of preachers like Rousas Rushdoony, active in the Eighties):

As a theologian Rushdoony saw human beings as primarily religious creatures bound to God, not as rational autonomous thinkers. While this may seem an esoteric theological point, it isn't. All of Rushdoony's influence on the Christian Right stems from this single, essential fact. Many critics of Christian Reconstructionism assume that Rushdoony's unique contribution to the Christian Right was his focus on theocracy. In fact, Rushdoony's primary innovation was his single-minded effort to popularize a pre-Enlightenment, medieval view of a God-centered world. By de-emphasizing humanity's ability to reason independently of God, Rushdoony attacked the assumptions most of us uncritically accept.

The idea of the US as a "christian nation" with a christian common theme is a myth just like the myth of the "muslim brotherhood" among Salafis (when in actuality the Ottoman Empire was dominated by an elite of Turks and Turk-friendly "foreigners" and fellow muslim were treated as second class citizens more often than not).

"Tradition" is actually more often than not an innovation inventing its own history by distorting reality. So is "identity". They're modern myths just like those of the "progressives".

*Some Nazis called relativity a "Jewish science" and there's actually evidence that this was one of the factors which slowed down the German wartime research on nuclear bombs.

[ROBOKiTTY]

And you might recollect some earlier Canadian history, particularly the tale of Jean de Brébeuf, a French Jesuit priest:

Brebeuf journeyed to the area around what is now Midland, Ontario and preached to the Huron people of that area. In 1649 an Iroquois raid on a Huron village captured de Brébeuf, aged 56, and others; they were ritually tortured and killed.

While one might argue that many cultures have engaged in such "ritual torture" for fun and profit - for instances, all of the many, largely women by some accounts, who have been burned at the stake for "heresies" of one sort or another; and all of the many crucified by ancient Rome - I'm not sure that one can argue that they're quite the same kettles of fish. For one thing, it seems Western cultures have more or less evolved away from that whereas many other cultures have remained, at least until comparatively recent times, stuck in the barbarisms of previous centuries - for examples, the aforementioned sati and the stoning of women for adultery. You might reflect on the Canadian suffragette Nellie McClung's aphorism to the effect that “No nation rises higher than its women", and ask yourself whether those cases represent "superior" or "inferior" values of their respective cultures relative to the surrounding or larger ones.

I've already told you that the Aztecs were a people from modern-day Mexico and were destroyed by the Spanish before the English even started settling North America, and they never even lived in the US or Canada, so they're entirely irrelevant in this discussion. As for cannibalism, the article you link pointed out that accusations of cannibalism were often suspect, as they were used as a pretext to subjugate natives. Even if cannibalism was practised, it was harmless in the case of ritual cannibalism of their own dead (Kuru has only been found among one people in the entire world), and it is possible to end an undesirable custom without wholesale destruction of culture. In case you accuse me of apologizing for cannibalism, the western custom of kissing a child's scraped knee or sucking on one's finger when it's been cut or pricked would be considered cannibalism by some cultures, so it's highly subjective to insist all cannibalism is barbaric.

You bring up a 17th century anecdote to support a system that began in the late 19th century. So I ask you, was there evidence, at the time the residential/boarding school systems were conceived, not more than two centuries prior, that the natives had values so urgently in need of eradication that their children had to be subjected to human rights abuses and their cultures wiped out? You do realize that in the 1600's, westerners weren't so progressive themselves; Europeans were busy fighting religious wars, the Inquisition was busy burning people at the stake, and the Salem witch trials were yet to come.

Let's look at a more concrete example in modern times: Japan. Before the end of WWII, I think we'll readily agree that Japanese culture had some very unsavoury elements. They were homidically and suicidally nationalistic and deathly loyal to the emperor. They saw all other peoples as beneath them, such that their soldiers abroad committed some of the most horrific war crimes in history. They were used to brutal militaristic dictatorship. The women had no legal rights. And there were Japanese people in the US and Canada.

Japanese-Americans were interned for four years in camps, and Japanese-Canadians were interned for about six to eight years. No attempt was made to eradicate their culture, although there really wasn't enough time to do so anyway. In the aftermath, it was decided that people of Japanese descent posed no threat to national security. There was no need, much less an attempt, to throw their children into schools to be assimilated.

Even over in Japan, the occupation did not see a need to enact such harsh measures to turn the Japanese into a peaceful people that respect human rights. Indeed, the cultural transition mostly happened on its own, with American aid building up their economy to become one of the world's powerhouses. Consider that this money poured into Japan while many native-majority towns back at home still have no roads, clean water, or any infrastructure.

So given that the American/Canadian governments were much more lenient to Japanese people, and it worked out just fine, why was it necessary or even defensible to target our natives so harshly?

Not a case of "conflating natives with Islam". As indicated above, my argument is that some values of some native or indigenous cultures, or even cultures other than Western ones, are inferior to many or most of those of more Western cultures; you seem to think that if I point to a specific case or specific aspect of some culture then that is a categorical condemnation of all aspects of the culture or of all cultures in the same grouping or class.

No, I challenged you to find a more timely and more geographically relevant example. I rejected the Aztec and the sati examples as irrelevant. You failed to bring up a single specific case in the US/Canada in the appropriate time period. If you had said whaling by the Inuit, I might've accepted that as a practice that I would like to see phased out.

That you defend the residential/boarding school systems meant you support or are at least to some degree fine with the destruction of native cultures. Thus, you implicitly condemn all the native cultures if some cultures had elements deemed inferior to western ones.

But some aspects or values are more determinative or carry more weight than others, have more far reaching effects than others. For instance, the type of science and constraints thereon in Chinese culture or in Western culture may have had, arguably did have, substantially different if not profound consequences for their respective cultures. But that says diddly-squat about other values for which the superior/inferior designations may go in the opposite directions. It is rather difficult, and quite problematic, to make categorical assertions about the superiority or inferiority of one culture relative to others; all one can do is assess different aspects, different subsets of values, and make some estimations of the relative effects on general health and well-being of their members.

Indeed. The Chinese practice of foot binding was barbaric and had to go. The Chinese emphasis on rote learning as opposed to independent thinking is probably something they should continue to work on. That Chinese culture has/had negative aspects did not mean they needed something as drastic as the Cultural Revolution, whose intent was to smash harmful old traditions but which ended up damaging the country in ways that cannot be quantified. The residential school system had similar results and could not be justified.

As for the charge of "genuflect(ing) before indigenous cultures", I think you're continuing to do that by refusing to even consider that the cultural values of many North American Indian tribes are a substantial contributing factor to the "dire straits" many members find themselves in.

I don't refuse to consider those things. I just consider those to be secondary in importance and thus off-topic. Here's an analogy. If we're talking about how to help a homeless person, and you say, hey, he's bad with money and put himself in that situation. Now that may be true, but it's irrelevant, because he doesn't have money and needs shelter right now. We could certainly keep that in mind for future discussion, but the priority is to make sure he doesn't freeze in winter and not to worry about something that would require long-term planning and a lot more work.

Not sure if you saw one of Andrew's later comments - "His experience with Indians in Alberta had lead him to expect substandard living conditions, including brand new houses transformed into hovels in a matter of months" - but you might ask yourself if all of that can be laid entirely at the doorstep of Western culture and not substantially at those of the natives and their own culture.

Again, I lay nothing at the doorstep of western culture. I specifically direct blame at the governments' past/present actions and inaction, as well as the system, which is set up in such a way so that natives have little representation or are governed by corrupt chiefs. Now are there cultural elements involved in keeping natives poor and in dreadful mental health? Probably. One specific thing I can say is that a lot of natives need to be more forward-thinking and stop looking at the status quo in terms of the past. Constantly thinking about how much they've been wronged historically and how much better things might've been if only white people never did XYZ is unhealthy and unrealistic in getting anything done. A better effort needs to be made to deal with alcoholism culturally, and realistic achievable goals are needed in negotiating concessions with the government. All of this, of course, is easier said than done, and that's what makes this a difficult problem that can only be tackled in the long-term. And certainly not solved by throwing the kids into boarding schools and not allowing them to speak their languages or have contact with their family.

In the short term, governments can do much more by addressing historical neglect and providing better infrastructure.

Sure. But you seem to think that "human rights" is some kind of indivisible whole, that none of the components can be abrogated in whole or in part. Yet is seems quite clear that many rights, particularly those that seem salient features in Western cultures like freedom of speech and freedom of religion, are limited by other constraints such as how their exercise affects other individuals. So I wonder where you get the idea that I've "insinuated" that those "with backward values do not deserve human rights".

Human rights are a collection of values decided on over a long period of time, so you'd better have some dang good reason to abrogate them even in part, especially if you want to do so selectively. You've decided that the freedom of religion does not apply to Islam, and that people who believe in Islam do not deserve the right to personal security, protection against statelessness, freedom against arbitrary exile, freedom of opinion, freedom of movement, or freedom from discrimination on the basis of religion. That's a lot of human rights you want abolished for a select group of people.

You also defend the residential school system, thus arguing against the freedom from arbitrary arrest, freedom from discrimination on the basis of ethnic origin, and the right to family and the right to participate in the cultural life of community. You have not demonstrated sufficient reason to ignore such a large number of human rights.

[ROBOKiTTY]

That's why I don't like to call liberal democratic values "western values". They're not "western", no more than science is "western science". The thinkers and philosophers who formulated them (Voltaire, Locke, Mill, Beccaria, Jefferson, etc.) were mostly Western European or descendants of Western European, but this doesn't make them "western".

The fact that Isaac Newton was a Protestant Englishman or Albert Einstein was a German Jew (albeit in both cases, with a personal and unconventional approach to religion) doesn't mean that the Principia Mathematica are "Protestant English science" or that the theory of general relativity is "German Jewish science*".

Christianity also isn't completely "western". Copt, Syriac Christians, Syro-Malabar Christians, Nestorians and all the other christian cults in the east weren't even European, while eastern orthodoxy wasn't "western". "Western Christianity" is more often than not either Catholicism or Protestantism. The US were a safe haven for dozens of different Protestant churches persecuted in Europe, there was never a single state church in the States. The thought leaders of the US were heretical christians or even Deists, very unlike the "christian reborn" evangelical movements that are today represented in the US right (which were the spawn of preachers like Rousas Rushdoony, active in the Eighties):

As a theologian Rushdoony saw human beings as primarily religious creatures bound to God, not as rational autonomous thinkers. While this may seem an esoteric theological point, it isn't. All of Rushdoony's influence on the Christian Right stems from this single, essential fact. Many critics of Christian Reconstructionism assume that Rushdoony's unique contribution to the Christian Right was his focus on theocracy. In fact, Rushdoony's primary innovation was his single-minded effort to popularize a pre-Enlightenment, medieval view of a God-centered world. By de-emphasizing humanity's ability to reason independently of God, Rushdoony attacked the assumptions most of us uncritically accept.

The idea of the US as a "christian nation" with a christian common theme is a myth just like the myth of the "muslim brotherhood" among Salafis (when in actuality the Ottoman Empire was dominated by an elite of Turks and Turk-friendly "foreigners" and fellow muslim were treated as second class citizens more often than not).

"Tradition" is actually more often than not an innovation inventing its own history by distorting reality. So is "identity". They're modern myths just like those of the "progressives".

*Some Nazis called relativity a "Jewish science" and there's actually evidence that this was one of the factors which slowed down the German wartime research on nuclear bombs.

It's why I find the term 'western values' unhelpful, as they're nebulous and imply that said values are exclusive to the west and perhaps infer some degree of superiority. If we consider just commonly-shared values in the west, then we must include some less impressive tendencies such as a lack of hospitality, comparatively weak family ties, serial monogamy, obsession with/hypocrisy towards sex and violence, wastefulness, consumerist entitlement culture, etc.

[Bhurzum]

Right fine... so if people were up for a funky week in some pacific paradise anyone into that?

Why would I want to trade this...

https://i.ytimg.com/vi/KYK3KUOSyEw/maxresdefault.jpg

...for a sun-kissed beach in the pacific?

Are you mental?

[Hunt]

PZ continues to crusade against his arch nemesis and love-child Lucas Werner. The thing is, out of shape and obviously mental Werner, 37, could easily date millenials if he were fit and had it together.

We all know why the obsession. He and PZ are fucking psychically joined at the hip.

[Kirbmarc]

It's why I find the term 'western values' unhelpful, as they're nebulous and imply that said values are exclusive to the west and perhaps infer some degree of superiority. If we consider just commonly-shared values in the west, then we must include some less impressive tendencies such as a lack of hospitality, comparatively weak family ties, serial monogamy, obsession with/hypocrisy towards sex and violence, wastefulness, consumerist entitlement culture, etc.

All those tendencies aren't simply "western", either. I find the distinction between "west" and "east" to be nebulous and vague. Cultural differences are more specific than "east vs. west": for example islam shares much more culturally wise with christianity than with Indian or Chinese beliefs, so islam is much more "western" than buddhism or than traditional chinese values.

The tendencies you're talking about weren't present in "western" societies until a few generations ago, and they're pretty much inevitable consequences of modernity, regardless of where you live or of your cultural heritage.

Hospitality is a value in societies where with the expection of the élites (which are considered above "common people") very few people are much richer than others and mutual support is expected, but it's a problem in a society where wealth isn't just concentrated in the hands of the élites, but is spread throughout a middle and a working class, with an underclass of people who are dirt poor and live in an illegal or semi-illegal way.

Crime, in "traditional" society, is something which is practiced by specific groups of people, a criminal caste which everyone avoids (and which is excluded from the hospitality). In modern society crime is spread throughout an entire sub-class of people which blend in within society and aren't ostracized. In a "traditional" society if someone isn't identified as a criminal by a lack of common social understanding it's relatively safe to be kind to them. In a modern society it's much harder to identify ill-intentioned people.

As a consequence of this in "traditional" societies violating hospitality is seen as a horrible sin/crime, and those who violate hospitality are treated as the lowest of the low, even if they simply steal your silverware. In modern society abuse of trust is seen in a negative way but not as a horrible sin, people tend to indulge in victim-blaming ("you shouldn't have trusted a stranger"). Moreover in "traditional" societies fewer people travel around, and those who do have to rely on the kindness of strangers to survive. In modern society people move around frequently and those who move from their hometown to a city often have to live in a lawless or semi-lawless state, where there's not many people you can trust.

This happens in all big, modern cities, from Paris to Kinshasa to Mexico City to Beijing.

Weak family ties and serial monogamy are similarly a consequence of the big exodus from villages to cities. Extended families and long-term marriages are typical of societies where wealth is tied to what you sow or herd, and so cousins often work in the same field or care for the same animals. In a modern city you wealth is tied to your job, and you move where your job is demand, regardless of your family ties. Marriage is no longer the business union of two families but a free choice of partnership between two individuals, which is easier to break and offers less safety nets.

Sex and violence are part of the free market of ideas. All humans react strongly to sex and violence on emotional terms. Traditional societies are violent and sex is part of them as well. What changes is the attitude towards public displays of emotions, which are confined to precise rituals and moments in traditional societies based on local collectives, but are open to the public in general in modern societies. Sex and violence create emotions which aren't inhibited but exploited for commercial reasons.

Wastefulness and consumerism are a product of economical development. In a traditional society there's no incentive to waste or consume things, because your family may use them again, and they're part of your shared wealth. In a modern society there are many incentives to change things and get newer, supposedly better models: the economy thrives on selling, social status is shown by being able to afford the newest items on the market and there's a constant demand for quick improvements.

Modernity is pretty much inevitable. Like it or not it's the direction where we're all going. The world's population is increasingly urban for a series of economic and social reasons:

The report notes that a successful urban planning agenda will require that attention be given to urban settlements of all sizes. If well managed, cities offer important opportunities for economic development and for expanding access to basic services, including health care and education, for large numbers of people. Providing public transportation, as well as housing, electricity, water and sanitation for a densely settled urban population is typically cheaper and less environmentally damaging than providing a similar level of services to a dispersed rural population.

The ancient traditions of rural communities are in crisis, but as with anything they won't just disappear in a puff of modernity. Religious phenomena are largely reactionary and violent, with projects of domination and expansion rather than of conservation. The "old world" is over, and in the new world old traditions are questioned. The reaction is to try to destroy the new world to enact a confused idea of "going back" to an idyllic past that never existed.

In this context religions are no longer just a part of the ensembles of traditional values inherited and shared through the community, they're ideologies that wish to reshape society as a whole and are as utopian, destructive and totalitarian as nazism or communism. Muslim supremacy is the best example of a religion which is no longer an element of a shared culture but a specific ideological project, likely to cause as much damage as other ideological projects.

The muslim supremacist project very likely won't succeed, but it's likely to cause deaths and suffering just like nazism or communism did. It's far better for anyone to accept modernity and try to adapt one's culture to it then to fight it off. Technological improvements won't go away, urbanization rates won't go away, either. The age of small, isolated, self-sufficient and self-governing villages is basically over.

[Lsuoma]

Apparently Kardashian is back on Twatter, so I guess there's no chance the narcissistic hambeast formerly known as Lindy West will keep away.

:cry: :cry: :cry:

[jet_lagg]

Are these fucking idiots that preoccupied with inspecting the contents of their own and each other's stools that they really - genuinely - believe that their 140 letter electronic pukes have any fucking influence on how 98% of people think? Outside of their hair-coloring salons and artisan parsnip chip manufacturers, these fucking airheads believe they, or anyone, has a serious influence through Twitter?

Twitter is where too many of the main stream media reporters go to find their stories and research them.

It's in this sense and this sense only that I agree twitter has an effect on the thinking of the general population. A hack journalist writes up a piece for a mainstream publication using tweets as their primary sources and normal people reading the mainstream publication come to believe, as the hack journalist does, that twitter is somehow representative of the larger culture instead of an internet cesspool where we shitposters entertain ourselves with meme warfare.

[katamari Damassi]

DC's Legends of Tomorrow is using MY SJW Timeline of the Herstory of Western Civilization!



http://slymepit.com/phpbb/viewtopic.php ... 93#p393693

[katamari Damassi]

http://i.imgur.com/8lqkNy3.png

[katamari Damassi]

http://i.imgur.com/oeGAg3x.jpg

[John D]

There are two places my dog lives in. One place is the present. He often lives in the present; eating, chasing squirrels, playing tug-of-war, getting his belly rubbed.

He also lives in a near-future. He certainly understands the future. When I put my shoes on he gets excited because his walk may follow. He makes short term plans. He will stand by the door if he wants and walk our he will whine at my feet.

He does not live in the distant-future. I don't think he considers his own death for example. His fear of the unknown and fear of pain prevent his death. His death is not prevented by any fear of death. He doesn't understand a concept of death.

People, on the other hand, often live in a kind of middle-future. We understand the distant-future, and this distant future includes our death. Knowing our death is inevitable is not particularly useful however. So, we make efforts to deny or ignore the obviousness of our death and seek to make our way in the dimension of the middle-future. We tell ourselves stories about how the middle-future is critical. The middle-future must be important because we know the distant-future simply contains our death.

And this is why we spend so much time talking about, acting upon, and judging other by our ethics. We are convinced our lives are only valuable if we live them correctly in our middle-future dimension. We claim one ethical system is better than another... or that one is true.... or that our live's purpose is to figure this shit out.

Of course, this is all a self-deception. No ethical system is correct. Intellectually we know this. So, we have to deal with nihilistic ideas or post modern ideas. Nothing is true. We cannot find a truly universal moral standard. We cannot think our way to a universal definition of "good".

But, I think I understand the solution to this problem. It is as simple as the acceptance that moral rules are a result of victory.... of survival. It is a kind of evolution. The individuals that survive because they have victorious behaviors create more people with the same sets of behaviors. Successful memes if you want to use that word.

Many ethical models have been passed onto us from Europe and European history. The idea of personal property is one example. Some cultures (native Americans for example) had very different rules regarding land ownership. Ultimately, the European model of land ownership prevailed. This is no ones fault. This does not mean land ownership is an absolute virtue. It just means that the land ownership model was more productive and more successful. It has resulted in a great many ethical models we embrace today. If someone broke into my home, I would be within my rights to kill the intruder (at least here in the US). My personal property is a kind of sacred space that is part of my identity. This ethical model certainly stems from European style concepts of land. This is just one example of what I am talking about.

Without my set of integrated ethical models I would not be able to survive in my middle-future. What would I do from moment to moment? Why would I bother to get out of bed in the morning? How could I manage my relationships? How could I experience complex emotions resulting from righteousness or honor or duty?

So, I think that we cannot ask the question of which culture has superior ethics. Cultures that survive have "superior" ethics by virtue of their survival. The cultures that survive are the ones that perpetuate their ethical rules.

[Shatterface]

DC's Legends of Tomorrow is using MY SJW Timeline of the Herstory of Western Civilization!



http://slymepit.com/phpbb/viewtopic.php ... 93#p393693

Not as bad as Supergirl. The first season had enough girl-power moments but season two has gone full sjw.

In season one Supergirl fought a succession of alien criminals who had crash-landed in a prison ship.

Season two we have a female president and are now told peace-loving aliens have been living among us for years and that humans have always exploited them.

[deLurch]

I had cringed out of Supergirl. So disappointing. And their version of J'onn J'onzz makes me cry.

[Sulman]

DC's Legends of Tomorrow is using MY SJW Timeline of the Herstory of Western Civilization!



http://slymepit.com/phpbb/viewtopic.php ... 93#p393693

Not as bad as Supergirl. The first season had enough girl-power moments but season two has gone full sjw.

In season one Supergirl fought a succession of alien criminals who had crash-landed in a prison ship.

Season two we have a female president and are now told peace-loving aliens have been living among us for years and that humans have always exploited them.

There's an interesting thread in a lot of identity politics which seems to be about the need to be servile. It's very odd and I can't quite put my finger on it, but essentially oppressors are necessary as long as their credentials are correct. The result is apologism for radical islam, or totalitarian facets of the various Communist regimes.

[VickyCaramel]

Appeal to personal experience (aka anecdote), cherrypicking of evidence ('most of them complete tripe', on what basis?), ad hominem, all within the space of a paragraph and a sentence. And you call yourself a sceptic?

You could have just said you have never read a book on the subject. But even if you had, you would need to read the right books, as according to the respected authorities such as Professor Richard English, most of them are tripe. This is largely because they are written by journalists who at best only draw on Western experiences of post-war terrorism.
You deserve the ad hominem, you don't have a clue what you are talking about. The OP confused a state response to a side effect of terrorism with a terrorist objective. You don't have to take my word for it, most of these terrorist organizations have published their manifestos online, in English. This is immensely useful stuff, representatives of al Qaeda not only discuss what they intend to do and why they are doing it, they also discuss what they believe to be the successes and failures of the PKK, PLO, Hamas and Hezbollah. If you are too lazy to read, there are videos with subtitles.

Nonsense. The west spent millennia developing rules of war.

No, for millennia, armies slaughtered, enslaved or ransomed their enemies, raped and pillaged their cities as reward for their mercenary armies.
The rules of war were formulated to protect the state and make non-state actors criminals and have their origins in the Peace of Westphalia in 1648. Many were put in place to give one state an advantage over another state such as the so called full metal jacket rule.

If the rules of war benefit the little people like you and me, thats pure happenstance. States don't do what is right, they do what they think benefits them. Thats why the US and Israel marks targets in populated areas with white phosphorus.

As you have mentioned China -- they have a sizable Muslim population, many separatist groups and I would expect a large number of people who are opposed to communism. They have very few problems with terrorism. The Triads were originally a resistance movement, and while most terror organizations have a tendency to turn into organized crime organizations, they are recognized as being one of the oldest terrorist organizations in the world. They never succeeded in their goal and now probably never will despite the pretense that it justifies their existence.

Torture is largely used to terrorize populations and is in effect a form of terrorism. Contrary to popular opinion, torture is very effective which is probably why it continues to be used. By and large, oppressive regimes don't have a problem with terrorism, that isn't to say they don't experience it, but they don't find it to be a serious problem because they aren't answerable to the public. If things were left to the public in western countries, far from crying about human rights, they would probably want terrorist heads displayed on spikes. I challenge you to find the widespread public outrage about accusations that the British carried out kidnappings and assassinations in Ulster or the Irish Republic... it may create more terrorists but it's not like their votes are being lost.

Despite this, torture is not the antidote to terrorism, it doesn't make it go away, it just suppresses it. And telling the public they have more chance of being struck by lightning does not suppress their thirst of retribution. This is important because you cannot beat terrorism, you can only suppress it and contain it. As soon as IS is beaten, another group will spring up. The rational answer is that we will have to learn to live with it, however humans are not naturally rational and they will refuse to live with it. If Britain or Spain are anything to go by, people WILL actually learn to live with it, they just don't think they have learned to live with it -- by the 1990s people hardly thought about terrorism anymore, nobody worried about getting blown up on a daytrip to London, but the outrage against the terrorist and their community grows not diminishes.

If you think that is going to end well, you might want to remember that anarchism and bolshevism was perceived to be interchangeable with "Jewish problem". I think it is fair to say that the link between Muslims and Islamic Terrorism is easier to grasp.
We would probably agree on far more if I hadn't come to the realization that (1) we have no position on which we can negotiate with the terrorists, (2) that we have been screwing the pooch at least since 2003, probably since the fall of the Ottoman Empire, (3) we live in democratic societies which can eventually elect solutions which satisfy their bloodlust. If Trump, Le Pen and Wilders offend you, just imagine what you will get in another 20 years. President Steersman?

Are you even listening to yourself? You've basically said some westerners cherrypick what they like from western values, but those values are still universally accepted. And North Korea is a country that holds democracy dear, because its founding principles and constitution refer to democracy, and they hold elections every five years. They just get it wrong, but that doesn't mean democracy isn't a universally accepted North Korean value.

If North Korea didn't recognize the legitimacy of Democracy, they wouldn't pretend to be one. (Besides, last I heard they weren't in the West). As Steersman says, a dog with three legs is still a dog.

[Lsuoma]

DC's Legends of Tomorrow is using MY SJW Timeline of the Herstory of Western Civilization!



http://slymepit.com/phpbb/viewtopic.php ... 93#p393693

Not as bad as Supergirl. The first season had enough girl-power moments but season two has gone full sjw.

In season one Supergirl fought a succession of alien criminals who had crash-landed in a prison ship.

Season two we have a female president and are now told peace-loving aliens have been living among us for years and that humans have always exploited them.

kD. You need to update the timeline with the election result.

[CaptainFluffyBunny]

DC's Legends of Tomorrow is using MY SJW Timeline of the Herstory of Western Civilization!



http://slymepit.com/phpbb/viewtopic.php ... 93#p393693

Until you are fairly credited and compensated, I will refuse to give them my money. Not that I was before, or would even ever consider doing, but it's the thought that counts.

[VickyCaramel]

Abraham Lincoln:

How many legs does a dog have if you call his tail a leg? Four. Saying that a tail is a leg doesn't make it a leg.

<snip tangent>

Just because some one or some country claims an "identity" as such and such doesn't mean they possess the attribute that defines the relevant term.

Indeed. It was simply a reductio ad absurdum using Vicky's logic. To use an example closer at hand, we might say, following the same logic, that feminism is a universally accepted western value. Sure, some westerners argue against it, but they're just bickering over semantics/'getting it wrong', since feminism is actually the radical idea that women are people and deserve equal treatment.

The point is to rebut Vicky's notion that western values are universally accepted in the west. The idea of separation of church and state (more broadly secularism), for instance, is very much a western value, but there are many people, especially in the US, who completely reject that idea, want a country based on biblical values, and believe that America is a Christian nation founded on biblical principles. Several European countries continue to have state religions. Although in practice, they have little power, it still goes against secularism.

You can't say 'Oh, but Christian theocrats actually accept separation of church and state if the church in question is not their own.' The idea of state secularism breaks down if even one church gets to run the government.

You do realize that by arguing against western values....
Nevermind, you'll know it when this bites you in the ass.

[CaptainFluffyBunny]

snip
Season two we have a female president and are now told peace-loving aliens have been living among us for years and that humans have always exploited them.

Yet I would bet that all the writers, actors and producers of that show have their landscaping and housekeeping done by Mexicans. Que lastima.

[Kirbmarc]

If you think that is going to end well, you might want to remember that anarchism and bolshevism was perceived to be interchangeable with "Jewish problem". I think it is fair to say that the link between Muslims and Islamic Terrorism is easier to grasp.
We would probably agree on far more if I hadn't come to the realization that (1) we have no position on which we can negotiate with the terrorists, (2) that we have been screwing the pooch at least since 2003, probably since the fall of the Ottoman Empire, (3) we live in democratic societies which can eventually elect solutions which satisfy their bloodlust. If Trump, Le Pen and Wilders offend you, just imagine what you will get in another 20 years. President Steersman?

That's what I fear. If leaders carry on denying the ties between islam and terrorism and minimizing the problems of integration of muslims sooner or later people will vote for the politicians which seem to offer a quick solution to the problem, i.e. blanket bans at best, muslim pogroms at worst.

We need to stop pretending that muslims are oppressed now to avoid them being really oppressed later. We need accountability from muslims, we need them to understand that the muslim supremacist ideas are going to bite them in the ass and that whining about being "the real victims" isn't going to save them.

We need someone who says clearly that there is a conflict between islamic tradition and modernity, and that if muslims want to live in modern states they need to accept modernity and yes, lose part of their tradition. We need people who will defend Mohammed cartoons or criticism of islam without "ifs" and "buts". We need leaders who at least tell the people that they're on their side, and that islam is in the wrong and needs to change, not that the Evil White Males are the Real Problem, that's suicidal.

And if the leftist leaders refuse to do so then right-wing leaders will win. I think that there's still room for liberal democracies to approach the issue without going full Steersman, but the left is chronically unable to even approach the issue, so it's understandable that people vote for the right.

And to be fair I'm sort of relieved. Cynically speaking better a Trump today than a Steersman tomorrow.

[Lsuoma]

We need to stop pretending that muslims are oppressed now to avoid them being really oppressed later. We need accountability from muslims, we need them to understand that the muslim supremacist ideas are going to bite them in the ass and that whining about being "the real victims" isn't going to save them.

Islam has always seemed to me a religion that infantilizes its adherents by telling them that they are not responsible for anything, and that they can do whatever they want as long as it's sanctioned by the the prophet. The idea of personal responsibility, which is key to Enlightenment values and secularism, is entirely absent. Treating them like spoiled children and giving them everything they want when they throw a tantrum is a recipe for disaster. Even worse would be if they get into a position of uncontrolled power such as was wielded by the gangs of besprezornye in post-1917 Russia

[Lsuoma]

On Dec 19 in 1154 Pope Adrian IV succeeds Anastasius IV. Born Nicholas Breakspear, he is the only English pope in history.

[Tigzy]

This is doing the rounds on twitter at the moment. Well worth a share, IMO.

[youtube][/youtube]

[Kirbmarc]

We need to stop pretending that muslims are oppressed now to avoid them being really oppressed later. We need accountability from muslims, we need them to understand that the muslim supremacist ideas are going to bite them in the ass and that whining about being "the real victims" isn't going to save them.

Islam has always seemed to me a religion that infantilizes its adherents by telling them that they are not responsible for anything, and that they can do whatever they want as long as it's sanctioned by the the prophet. The idea of personal responsibility, which is key to Enlightenment values and secularism, is entirely absent. Treating them like spoiled children and giving them everything they want when they throw a tantrum is a recipe for disaster. Even worse would be if they get into a position of uncontrolled power such as was wielded by the gangs of besprezornye in post-1917 Russia

There are many variables about islam and personal responsibility. The biggest point of contention, at the center of a very long debate, is whether muslims under a non-muslim lawmaker should respect the laws of the non-muslim lawmaker. Salafis basically say that having to respect the laws of a filthy kaffir is oppression, no matter what those laws are (it's curiously similar to the concept of "mansplaining" or "whitesplaining" among SJWs). Nowadays this idea is very widespread, especially among young muslims who feel oppressed just because they're not in power.

[feathers]

There are two places my dog lives in.

Quantum dog!

[VickyCaramel]

We need to stop pretending that muslims are oppressed now to avoid them being really oppressed later. We need accountability from muslims, we need them to understand that the muslim supremacist ideas are going to bite them in the ass and that whining about being "the real victims" isn't going to save them.

Islam has always seemed to me a religion that infantilizes its adherents by telling them that they are not responsible for anything, and that they can do whatever they want as long as it's sanctioned by the the prophet. The idea of personal responsibility, which is key to Enlightenment values and secularism, is entirely absent. Treating them like spoiled children and giving them everything they want when they throw a tantrum is a recipe for disaster. Even worse would be if they get into a position of uncontrolled power such as was wielded by the gangs of besprezornye in post-1917 Russia

There are many variables about islam and personal responsibility. The biggest point of contention, at the center of a very long debate, is whether muslims under a non-muslim lawmaker should respect the laws of the non-muslim lawmaker. Salafis basically say that having to respect the laws of a filthy kaffir is oppression, no matter what those laws are (it's curiously similar to the concept of "mansplaining" or "whitesplaining" among SJWs). Nowadays this idea is very widespread, especially among young muslims who feel oppressed just because they're not in power.

Another point I forgot to mention is that we have very little influence over what they think, either here or there. Nor do muslim moderates-- and the more moderate they are, the less influence they have. While we need to talk about what we are going to do, I don't think we can expect what we do to have any positive effect on Muslims, and we certainly can't expect them to do anything. We need to act anyway.

And the worst of it is that you face a whole load of problems as soon as you try. If for example you banned foreign funding of mosques and threatened to confiscate all their assets should they be found preaching whatever.... you will get people, arguing that you can't single out muslims, you can't dictate what they preach, that you need to apply these sanctions to everybody or not at all.

[John D]

There are two places my dog lives in.

Quantum dog!

Schrodinger's Dog!

[Kirbmarc]

Another point I forgot to mention is that we have very little influence over what they think, either here or there. Nor do muslim moderates-- and the more moderate they are, the less influence they have. While we need to talk about what we are going to do, I don't think we can expect what we do to have any positive effect on Muslims, and we certainly can't expect them to do anything. We need to act anyway.

And the worst of it is that you face a whole load of problems as soon as you try. If for example you banned foreign funding of mosques and threatened to confiscate all their assets should they be found preaching whatever.... you will get people, arguing that you can't single out muslims, you can't dictate what they preach, that you need to apply these sanctions to everybody or not at all.

I'm all for applying the same sanctions to everybody, since those sanctions need to be about curtailing subversion and treason, i.e. telling people that the laws of the land must be disobeyed and that institutions are worthless unless they apply religious law. The problem is that the theocratic christians and the isolationist jews would also be targeted, and they're likely to pitch a fit when laws tell them that they can no longer call the secular government the spawn of satan or have their beloved jewish councils administering jewish laws.

No "western" country is truly secular since religious groups lobby to have their principles enacted into law all the time, even at the cost of liberal democratic rights (see the anti-porn/obscenity laws, which are also supported by other illiberal and ideological groups like feminists).

What I think is more likely to happen is that countries where right-wing leaders will tacitly single out muslims through selective immigration rules and selective visits by the IRS or its equivalent. It'll be obnoxious and discriminatory, but it'll be more likely to be more or less tacitly approved that a focus on all theocratic movements.

The alternative, doing nothing, will only make things worse and lead to rising tensions between muslims and non-muslims until some hotheads will form informal or even formal sharia patrol, lead others to form other anti-muslim vigilante groups and have "accidents" happen more and more frequently until Steerzoid ideas about "population transfers" will become more and more popular.

[Sulman]

This is doing the rounds on twitter at the moment. Well worth a share, IMO.

[youtube][/youtube]

Sigh.

[Tigzy]

Sigh.

Heh. Lalo's already on it.

[MarcusAu]

There are two places my dog lives in.

Quantum dog!

Schrodinger's Dog!

Who's Dog!

[Bhurzum]

Who's Dog!

Duane Chapman?

[ROBOKiTTY]

You could have just said you have never read a book on the subject. But even if you had, you would need to read the right books, as according to the respected authorities such as Professor Richard English, most of them are tripe. This is largely because they are written by journalists who at best only draw on Western experiences of post-war terrorism.
You deserve the ad hominem, you don't have a clue what you are talking about. The OP confused a state response to a side effect of terrorism with a terrorist objective. You don't have to take my word for it, most of these terrorist organizations have published their manifestos online, in English. This is immensely useful stuff, representatives of al Qaeda not only discuss what they intend to do and why they are doing it, they also discuss what they believe to be the successes and failures of the PKK, PLO, Hamas and Hezbollah. If you are too lazy to read, there are videos with subtitles.

Now you've gone into full insult mode. But I've read my share of books, so your assumptions are faulty and unwarranted. You know nothing about me or what I've studied and experienced. On the other hand, you're a known troll who like to stir up trouble, so nothing you say is reliable.

No, for millennia, armies slaughtered, enslaved or ransomed their enemies, raped and pillaged their cities as reward for their mercenary armies.
The rules of war were formulated to protect the state and make non-state actors criminals and have their origins in the Peace of Westphalia in 1648. Many were put in place to give one state an advantage over another state such as the so called full metal jacket rule.

Even the Old Testament outlined certain rules of war. In early Christianity, there was the doctrine of just war, and later the Catholic church promulgated additional rules based on the doctrine. Such things did not just pop into existence in 1648.

As you have mentioned China -- they have a sizable Muslim population, many separatist groups and I would expect a large number of people who are opposed to communism. They have very few problems with terrorism. The Triads were originally a resistance movement, and while most terror organizations have a tendency to turn into organized crime organizations, they are recognized as being one of the oldest terrorist organizations in the world. They never succeeded in their goal and now probably never will despite the pretense that it justifies their existence.

You're talking about modern times, but the two punishments I spoke of were abolished by the early 20th century. During the applicable time period, punishment never kept people from rebelling against the government. Until their abolishment, two dozen imperial houses arose and were overthrown.

The Triads were originally a resistance movement against the previous imperial dynasty to restore the one that came before. Since there are no more imperial dynasties, they no longer have a raison d'être.

Contrary to popular opinion, torture is very effective which is probably why it continues to be used.

You need to back this up. Torture is indeed very effective in satisfying people's bloodlust. Its efficacy as a deterrent or method of extracting reliable information is questionable.

The rational answer is that we will have to learn to live with it, however humans are not naturally rational and they will refuse to live with it. If Britain or Spain are anything to go by, people WILL actually learn to live with it, they just don't think they have learned to live with it -- by the 1990s people hardly thought about terrorism anymore, nobody worried about getting blown up on a daytrip to London, but the outrage against the terrorist and their community grows not diminishes.

So you recognize what the rational thing to do is, but wallows in and panders to the irrational.

[ROBOKiTTY]

All those tendencies aren't simply "western", either. I find the distinction between "west" and "east" to be nebulous and vague. Cultural differences are more specific than "east vs. west": for example islam shares much more culturally wise with christianity than with Indian or Chinese beliefs, so islam is much more "western" than buddhism or than traditional chinese values.

The tendencies you're talking about weren't present in "western" societies until a few generations ago, and they're pretty much inevitable consequences of modernity, regardless of where you live or of your cultural heritage.

I find this explanation too simplistic and deterministic. There are differences in culture between cities still. I'm from a very multicultural city, and I can definitely tell the difference between how locals and immigrants act, even if they've come from cities. Given how immigration works in Canada, most immigrants are going to be urbanites anyhow.

With regard to hospitality, there are times when I've talked to immigrants for the first time and then was immediately invited to their home. This is very unlikely to happen with locals, who tend to treat their homes as far more intimate spaces.

As for weak family ties, I'm really more thinking of the New World, where people can have very diverse family trees but be completely ignorant of parts of their roots. In other parts of the world, to not know your family tree inside out is rather unthinkable. In the case of my family, multiple instances of migration over centuries left branches of the extended family on multiple continents, but they're all still in contact.

Wastefulness and consumerist entitlement culture are more of a product of upbringing, I think. People whose parents have gone through famine can grow up picking up very different habits from people who never lacked for anything. I find that westerners throw away frightful amounts of food, for instance, because there hasn't been famine-like conditions in the west in a long time, whereas for people many other cultures, at least the shadow of hunger is still seen as an ever-looming spectre, even if they've long escaped it.

[Aneris]

Even the Old Testament outlined certain rules of war. In early Christianity, there was the doctrine of just war, and later the Catholic church promulgated additional rules based on the doctrine. Such things did not just pop into existence in 1648.

While Vicky's assertions are all over the place, this one is halfway correct. See Grotius':
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/De_jure_belli_ac_pacis

[CaptainFluffyBunny]

PZ continues to crusade against his arch nemesis and love-child Lucas Werner. The thing is, out of shape and obviously mental Werner, 37, could easily date millenials if he were fit and had it together.

We all know why the obsession. He and PZ are fucking psychically joined at the hip.

I always thought Little Paul raged so because of his complete failure as a scientist and especially his flop of a book. But he sure does seem to be getting all worked up...

I suppose I've never given him enough credit. He is a well-rounded failure.

[John D]

Wastefulness and consumerist entitlement culture are more of a product of upbringing, I think. People whose parents have gone through famine can grow up picking up very different habits from people who never lacked for anything. I find that westerners throw away frightful amounts of food, for instance, because there hasn't been famine-like conditions in the west in a long time, whereas for people many other cultures, at least the shadow of hunger is still seen as an ever-looming spectre, even if they've long escaped it.

Americans have access to plentiful food. It is affordable and delicious. It is not worth our time to preserve lots of food. Food is cheap and the farmers need the work.

As a result of cheap food Americans are fat and considered wasteful. I contend that this is a result of the free market and not culture. If food prices went way up and there was a food shortage we would spend more time saving food. Time is money... and why spend precious time chasing down food waste? It's not worth the effort.

Even our poor people are fat:

ObesityByIncomeLevel.jpg

(169.44 KiB) Downloaded 196 times

[CaptainFluffyBunny]

DC's Legends of Tomorrow is using MY SJW Timeline of the Herstory of Western Civilization!



http://slymepit.com/phpbb/viewtopic.php ... 93#p393693

Not as bad as Supergirl. The first season had enough girl-power moments but season two has gone full sjw.

In season one Supergirl fought a succession of alien criminals who had crash-landed in a prison ship.

Season two we have a female president and are now told peace-loving aliens have been living among us for years and that humans have always exploited them.

There's an interesting thread in a lot of identity politics which seems to be about the need to be servile. It's very odd and I can't quite put my finger on it, but essentially oppressors are necessary as long as their credentials are correct. The result is apologism for radical islam, or totalitarian facets of the various Communist regimes.

I think you see it too in the little cults of personality online. People like Brianna Wu, Zoe Quinn and Randi Harper end up as little dictators with small armies of TwitterFucks and the like ready to dogpile and actually harass on command. The followers seem to mindlessly follow and obey, even to the point of illegal activity like SWATting.

[John D]

Wastefulness and consumerist entitlement culture are more of a product of upbringing, I think. People whose parents have gone through famine can grow up picking up very different habits from people who never lacked for anything. I find that westerners throw away frightful amounts of food, for instance, because there hasn't been famine-like conditions in the west in a long time, whereas for people many other cultures, at least the shadow of hunger is still seen as an ever-looming spectre, even if they've long escaped it.

Post Script: I don't spend much time thinking about food waste. I keep my best leftovers and eat them for lunch, but I buy way more food than we can eat. I do this so we have some variety even if we don't finish everything.

My parents grew up poor during the depression. They are significantly shorter than us kids as a result of bad nutrition... normally in the form of too few calories for long periods. Once, my dad had nothing to eat for a week except the tomatoes they had in the garden. I am pretty frugal with my money, but the direct effects of the poor conditions my parents lived through has not resulted in me being particularly concerned about food waste.

[Kirbmarc]

I find this explanation too simplistic and deterministic. There are differences in culture between cities still. I'm from a very multicultural city, and I can definitely tell the difference between how locals and immigrants act, even if they've come from cities. Given how immigration works in Canada, most immigrants are going to be urbanites anyhow.

With regard to hospitality, there are times when I've talked to immigrants for the first time and then was immediately invited to their home. This is very unlikely to happen with locals, who tend to treat their homes as far more intimate spaces.

Where were these people from? The passage from traditional to modern society is gradual, people whose parents lived in a traditional society aren't likely to immediately adopt modern ways of thinking. Give them two generations or three and see if they're still so trusting.

As for weak family ties, I'm really more thinking of the New World, where people can have very diverse family trees but be completely ignorant of parts of their roots. In other parts of the world, to not know your family tree inside out is rather unthinkable. In the case of my family, multiple instances of migration over centuries left branches of the extended family on multiple continents, but they're all still in contact.

This is possible today with cheap communication through the internet but in the last two centuries it was pretty hard to keep in touch between members of the extended family. The nuclear family is the dominant model of modernity, especially in cities.

Wastefulness and consumerist entitlement culture are more of a product of upbringing, I think. People whose parents have gone through famine can grow up picking up very different habits from people who never lacked for anything. I find that westerners throw away frightful amounts of food, for instance, because there hasn't been famine-like conditions in the west in a long time, whereas for people many other cultures, at least the shadow of hunger is still seen as an ever-looming spectre, even if they've long escaped it.

Again, this isn't just a matter of the "west". All "rich" countries have waste and consumerism, it's the way those countries work. Japan and South Korea are as wasteful and consumeristic as European or the US counties.

And by the way it's not true that there haven't been famines in the "west" in a long time (unless with "the west" you only mean the US and Canada). WWII produced famines in Germany, Italy, Eastern Europe and scarcity in France and England, and it ended only 70 years ago. There are people of my age (27) whose grandparents lived through famines in Italy, since Italy, especially Southern Italy, suffered of the consequences of WWII until the mid fifties. Yet the Baby Boomers and the other generations after them were raised in abundance and their parents have worked to get them everything they want.

[biblia]

By the by I want to go on holiday, any pitters want to go crash a Pacific Island for a weekend?

There's always Matiu/Somes. Just a short ferry ride. Cheap as chips! 13$ per night for the campground! Or Kapiti! Can you stay the night on Kapiti?

(They are Pacific islands, after all) :D

[Bhurzum]

Worth it for the Cunk/Cox segment alone.

[youtube][/youtube]

Cunk/Cox starts at 52:12 but you really should watch the whole thing.

[Steersman]

We need to stop pretending that muslims are oppressed now to avoid them being really oppressed later. We need accountability from muslims, we need them to understand that the muslim supremacist ideas are going to bite them in the ass and that whining about being "the real victims" isn't going to save them.

Islam has always seemed to me a religion that infantilizes its adherents by telling them that they are not responsible for anything, and that they can do whatever they want as long as it's sanctioned by the the prophet. The idea of personal responsibility, which is key to Enlightenment values and secularism, is entirely absent. Treating them like spoiled children and giving them everything they want when they throw a tantrum is a recipe for disaster. Even worse would be if they get into a position of uncontrolled power such as was wielded by the gangs of besprezornye in post-1917 Russia

Exactly right - piss on the Prophet. But the proximate cause of my getting banned at WEIT some time ago was that I suggested that Jerry's rather dogmatic insistence on a categorical rejection of any degree of free will was virtually identical to the fatalism of Islam. Part of the reason, in each case, why I tend to emphasize Ronald Reagan's quite cogent argument:

We must reject the idea that every time a law's broken, society is guilty rather than the lawbreaker. It is time to restore the American precept that each individual is accountable for his actions.

Some degree of personal responsibility, not really possible if one entirely rejects the concept of free will, seems a sine qua non for any civilization worth characterizing with the term; Eleanor Roosevelt:

...our children must learn...to face full responsibility for their actions, to make their own choices and cope with the results...the whole democratic system...depends upon it. For our system is founded on self-government, which is untenable if the individuals who make up the system are unable to govern themselves. ....

And there sure doesn't seem to be much evidence of any Muslim country being able to govern itself - and damn few Muslims either:

[Steersman]

If you think that is going to end well, you might want to remember that anarchism and bolshevism was perceived to be interchangeable with "Jewish problem". I think it is fair to say that the link between Muslims and Islamic Terrorism is easier to grasp.
We would probably agree on far more if I hadn't come to the realization that (1) we have no position on which we can negotiate with the terrorists, (2) that we have been screwing the pooch at least since 2003, probably since the fall of the Ottoman Empire, (3) we live in democratic societies which can eventually elect solutions which satisfy their bloodlust. If Trump, Le Pen and Wilders offend you, just imagine what you will get in another 20 years. President Steersman?

That's what I fear. If leaders carry on denying the ties between islam and terrorism and minimizing the problems of integration of muslims sooner or later people will vote for the politicians which seem to offer a quick solution to the problem, i.e. blanket bans at best, muslim pogroms at worst.

You say that like you think that "blanket bans" aren't the most credible and viable solution available. ;-) Apropos of which:

If Islam isn't capable of reforming - and there seems to be diddly-squat in the way of evidence that it can (see "logical dilemma") - then I hardly think it is unreasonable that the West helps it "to die" as expeditiously as possible, at least in the West. (Mecca, nukes, orbit, just to be sure).

In any case, apropos of your leaders "denying the ties between islam and terrorism" - a salient element of Obama's administration and Merkel's too for that matter, you might take a gander at a National Review article:

Does Trump Grasp the Reality of ‘Radical Islam’?

It was the key national-security debate of the 2016 election. Donald Trump won the election, in no small part, because he appeared to be on the right side of it. Appeared is used advisedly: Trump was at least in the general vicinity of the bull’s-eye; his opponent wouldn’t even acknowledge the target existed — except in the most grudging of ways, and only because Trump had forced the issue. The question boiled down to this: Are you willing to name the enemy?

After a quarter-century of willful blindness, it was at least a start. We should note, moreover, that it’s a start we owe to the president-elect. Washington, meaning both parties, had erected such barriers to a rational public discussion of our enemies that breaking through took Trump’s outsized persona, in all its abrasive turns and its excesses. Comparative anonymities (looking down at my shoes, now) could try terrorism cases and fill shelves with books and pamphlets and columns on the ideology behind the jihad from now until the end of time. But no matter how many terrorist attacks Americans endured, the public examination of the enemy was not going to happen unless a credible candidate for the world’s most important job dramatically shifted the parameters of acceptable discourse. ....

Although I think the author, Andrew McCarthy, is a little unclear on the concept that so-called "moderates" are little better that the worst of ISIS, but that too is at least a start.

And to be fair I'm sort of relieved. Cynically speaking better a Trump today than a Steersman tomorrow.

You may wish to reflect on the "good-cop/bad-cop" modus operandus. And on "an ounce of prevention is worth a pound of cure".

[Ape+lust]

I think you see it too in the little cults of personality online. People like Brianna Wu, Zoe Quinn and Randi Harper end up as little dictators with small armies of TwitterFucks and the like ready to dogpile and actually harass on command. The followers seem to mindlessly follow and obey, even to the point of illegal activity like SWATting.

And so many of them should know better. They're smart, but willfully blind and quick to rage when their idols are "attacked". It's astonishing.

Look at this guy. In one move he's about to negate everything he stands for.

http://imgur.com/CxhiQTf.jpg

http://withoutbullshit.com/

[Tigzy]

I see Josh and Brianna's relationship playing out something like this:

http://i.imgur.com/CHvh9R9.jpg

[CaptainFluffyBunny]

I think you see it too in the little cults of personality online. People like Brianna Wu, Zoe Quinn and Randi Harper end up as little dictators with small armies of TwitterFucks and the like ready to dogpile and actually harass on command. The followers seem to mindlessly follow and obey, even to the point of illegal activity like SWATting.

And so many of them should know better. They're smart, but willfully blind and quick to rage when their idols are "attacked". It's astonishing.

Look at this guy. In one move he's about to negate everything he stands for.

http://imgur.com/CxhiQTf.jpg

http://withoutbullshit.com/

That is the most funny thing I've seen all day. Although the Real Housewives of ISIS was pretty good.

[Ape+lust]

I see Josh and Brianna's relationship playing out something like this:

http://i.imgur.com/CHvh9R9.jpg

:D

Wu -- so desirable she claimed she was hit on 5 times between her car and the venue she was speaking in. Apparently, she's the hulking go-go girl of somebody's dreams :lol:

[Ape+lust]

That is the most funny thing I've seen all day. Although the Real Housewives of ISIS was pretty good.

If you want to see a truly bizarre case of someone torching their cred just to sidle up to Wu:

http://imgur.com/oArSHDD.png

[Keating]

The idea of the US as a "christian nation" with a christian common theme is a myth just like the myth of the "muslim brotherhood" among Salafis (when in actuality the Ottoman Empire was dominated by an elite of Turks and Turk-friendly "foreigners" and fellow muslim were treated as second class citizens more often than not).

I think this is bullshit, at least in the way I read your intention. Christianity, and particularly its varieties, imposed certain cultural values on its population that formed a strong cultural heritage that did contribute to the character of the nation. That character is in a large part due to and informed by Christianity. You can see this even today in the US. The cultural differences between the states can be partly traced to the original stock of Europeans who populated it. Those states founded by Puritans are different to those founded by Calvinists, yet both are Protestant.

[Steersman]

<snip>

Nonsense. The west spent millennia developing rules of war.

.... If Trump, Le Pen and Wilders offend you, just imagine what you will get in another 20 years. President Steersman?

I rather doubt that "we" have another 20 years. The barbarians are at the gates - a tsunami of them as feathers suggested recently - along with any number of very active fifth columns. And if we don't start taking a proactive approach - like "outright bans" and deporting the fucking lot - then I expect that the West, at least in Europe, is going to be toast. Or be faced with having to deal with very some "hard rains" - so to speak.

And, on a more personal level, I rather doubt I have 20 years either, at least unless medical technology advances "by leaps and bounds" in the next few years which, of course, it has more or less been doing, no thanks to "Islamic science" ("Spain translates more books from English to its language than the entire Arab world has in 1000 years"). But always ready, willing and able to groom my successor. And Donald Trump seems a worthy candidate ... ;-)

Are you even listening to yourself? You've basically said some westerners cherrypick what they like from western values, but those values are still universally accepted. And North Korea is a country that holds democracy dear, because its founding principles and constitution refer to democracy, and they hold elections every five years. They just get it wrong, but that doesn't mean democracy isn't a universally accepted North Korean value.

If North Korea didn't recognize the legitimacy of Democracy, they wouldn't pretend to be one. (Besides, last I heard they weren't in the West). As Steersman says, a dog with three legs is still a dog.

Not sure that NK "recognizes the legitimacy of Democracy" - seems just a cynical attempt to acquire some of the cachet associated with it without having to do any of the hard work to manifest or implement the substance of it.

But not sure that I was saying "a dog with three legs is still a dog". My point, and that of Lincoln, was more akin to "functional theories of grammar":

Functional theories of language propose that since language is fundamentally a tool, it is reasonable to assume that its structures are best analyzed and understood with reference to the functions they carry out.

And in the case of dog legs, or legs in general, they have the function of locomotion; they're the productive mechanism, a portion of which is where the rubber meets the road that manifests a reaction force that propels the dog, or organism, in a particular direction. Which a tail clearly doesn't and can't do - regardless of whether one calls it a leg or not. Somewhat analogous to the definition for "woman", and the debate thereon: ;-)

[CommanderTuvok]

Some of the alt-right crew are banging on about some white kid being "kidnapped" and forced to say "fuck Trump", or something.

Looks a bit hoaxy to me, but apparently the Chicago police have made arrests. Anyway, we'll see. But in the meantime, the usual suspects have their ammunition loaded.