I prepare most of these a bit in advance. So, before diving in, let's blip a few news items.
* Here's a fascinating interactive article/map of the geographic features involved in any invasion of Ukraine.
* Now way-broaden that map! Elsewhere I've pointed to clear signs that the Ukraine Crisis is about a lot more than Ukraine. As in Fred Pohl's prescient 1981 novel THE COOL WAR, we may have been in a cryptic tit-for-tat undercover struggle with Moscow for a year, helping explain Vladimir Putin's mien of almost-hysteric desperation. Threats to the world's undersea fiber cables and overhead satellites could portent much more than mere troops 60 km from Kyiv,
* Read this by Lucian Truscott IV. If the name sounds familiar, he is scion to a famed Army family with stunning heritage. (Watch "Patton"!) He is now a commentator on world strategies, but also, of necessity... politics. And he uses saber slashes of utterly proved facts.
* Then vow to counter the SOB's. who Truscott describes -- and I describe below -- with confident optimism!
== The damned neo-monarchists are back! ==
Anyone skeptical of the powerful influence of science fiction, even after M. Zuckerberg declared his goal to make real the world of Snowcrash, should read this article describing how far some of our neighbors have gone in a campaign converting MAGA into MADE or “Make America Dead & Exctinct.”
Of course that is drooling fantasy, as their mad cult has waged open war not just on minorities and the powerless, but against every single fact profession - from science, teaching and journalism to law, medicine, civil service and universities, in general - all the 30 million or so fellow citizens who are most dedicated to knowledge, excellence, calm negotiation/deliberation and the supremacy of truthful fact over rage/emotion.
This includes the FBI/CIA/Military officer corps - a million men and women who won the Cold War and the War on Terror and who will capably deal with the latest excrescence of confederate treason. And hence the mad cult dismisses them as “deep state” villains…
…but never Vladimir Putin and his 500 “ex” commissars who smoothly transitioned to classic, billionaire-feudal boyars with nary a twitch, allied with gambling kingpins, hedge parasites, mafiosi and murder princes.
You need to be aware that this is one of the core premises clutched by th oligarchic cabal. They no longer even try to claim they are scions of Adam Smith (who today would be a flaming Democrat. See below.) They now dismiss openly the notion of a flat-fair playing field for creative competition; in fact they avoid that 'c-word' like cancer.
They are now openly calling for a return to 6000 years of utterly failed, never-once-worked, calamitous misgovernment by inheritance aristocracy.
And yes, in this campaign they are aided and abetted by a vast array of fantasy novels and films proclaiming preference for kings and handsome princes, over any hint of loyalty to an egalitarian, meritocratic, democratic enlightenment that gave those 'fantasy' authors and directors everything.
And yes, George, I am looking at you.
== Back to another pair of Georges... George F. Will… the “worst American”... and (yes) George III ==
This drift by the US right into worship of royalty and inherited privilege was for decades encouraged slyly by commentator George F. Will, who deemed himself the heir of Edmund Burke and William F. Buckley... and who now acts shocked... shocked!... as his lifelong campaign against fair comptetition and democracy now becomes explicit.
Okay, I admit to polemics when I called GFW "The Worst American." My standards were particular, though... That he is clearly not a stupid or misled person, but rather one who is both brilliant and well-trained in the skeptical arts. Moreover, unlike other, barely-sapient shills for aristocracy, Will is fully aware that nearly all of human history was a cesspit of malgovernance by owner-cheater-lords and their inheritance brats. And that delusional oligarchy has been tried and found valueless, compared to the rare, vivid, fecund, creative and vastly more-just Periclean experiments.
Erudite and educated, he knows well that Marxism was halted in its tracks not by Republican-Confederatism, or by Wall Street scions, but by the Rooseveltean social contract, accomplishing what Marx never imagined -- inviting the working class into the bourgeoisie and their children into the best schools and marriages. That experiment in flattenng and widening the playing field has by far the best track record, under any criterion of human success, including criteria of creative competition. He knows this...
...as he knows that the urrent counter-putsch by world oligarchy has one paramount aim -- to restore the default human condition of deeply-stupid inherited privilege. And thus, Karl Marx is now risen from his deserved dustbin-sepulchre, to shamble once again across every university campus and every roiling favela around the world.
Thus, alas, it is with utterly open eyes and by deliberate choice that George F. Will spent decades concocting polysyllabic incantations on behalf of an oligarchic world-cabal that he knew, full-well, aims for utter destruction of the civilization and experiment to which GFW owes everything.
And so, when he saw, at last, what he had wrought, his present-day denunciations of Confederate/Putinist/Salafist/Scudderite/Trumpian troglodytism and treason were decades late and a 1775 dollar short... and nothing at all like what we need from him, even now.
Is George Will waiting to see any residual glimmers of sanity on the gone-mad US right?
I am sure he will spy some and leap upon them in joy. And thus evade his one chance at redemption. Alas.
== Some memic upheavals have arrived! ==
I oft express despair that certain ‘obvious” realizations seem never to penetrate even among those with proved (or credentialed) perspicacity. I could list so many examples… and did so in both The Transparent Society and Polemical Judo. Still, sometimes I stare in amazement as obdurate walls finally do come tumbling down!
One I’ve long called for has been for an end to 140 years of revisionist romantic apologias for the Confederacy/secessionist treason of the 1860s. From the night riders led by Nathan B. Forrest to the 1920s KKK-propelled erection of Confed monuments...
...all the way to Buster Keaton’s The General and romanticism chics like Gone With The Wind and Song of the South... urban, northern, educated, or ethnic Americans seemed cowed into accepting the lie that this nostalgia wave was all about underdogs restoring a sense of lost honor and self-respect…
...the same line issued by the 1920s and 1930s Nazis and swallowed stupidly by France and Britain, till it was too late.
Elsewhere I’ve dissected and eviscerated these scandalously Orwellian rewrites of actual history, giving honor to the dishonorable and moral status to the deeply vile. I’ve shown that the 1860s civil war was unalloyedly the fault of a Southern feudal lordly caste and that the war actually began in the 1850s, when squadrons of rapacious southern irregular cavalry went on rampages across northern states, radicalizing those populations to eventually vote for Lincoln. (And in another posting I show how the 1860s ‘civil war” was just one phase, of many that began in 1778 and now rages in phase 8.)
What I did not expect was for this view to suddenly… almost overnight, it seems… become a radicalized meme across all of what is now Blue America (which includes almost every part of the country with a college of university), rejecting (as I called for) every excuse ever made for the Confederate travesty and calling that oath-breaking mountain of evil what it was.
The other thing I’ve asked – for decades – has been a complete re-evaluation of Adam Smith, who far too long was viewed as a founding father of rapacious greed and oligarchy, exactly opposite to everything that good and wise man stood for.
I published articles in Evonomics and elsewhere, demanding that this re-evaluation be propelled by a powerful sense of justice, rescuing Smith from imprisonment by oligarchs who he would (if living) savagely denounce. (And yes, the same holds for the real, historic “Tea Party” which was part of a revolution against aristocracy, not civil servants!)
== And re-discovering the first and greatest Liberal ==
Now, it seems, re-evaluations of Adam Smith are seen everywhere! Take this excerpt from an extensive essay on “black radicalism,” by Paul Crider:
“Smith described a moral system—his Theory of Moral Sentiments—that was constructed from the bottom-up by moral actors observing what actions and feelings earn approval and disapproval from others in their society. We imagine ourselves in the other’s situation and reach for impartiality by reflecting on what an impartial spectator would judge. This “mirror of society” is inherently contextual. This avoids the problems of abstract ethical systems, but it means our moral sense always remains tethered to the social morality around us, however we may stretch our moral sensibilities by seeking out diverse perspectives.
“Smith’s political economy is often pithily summed up as the “system of natural liberty” wherein each person is left free to pursue their own self-betterment by their own lights, within the constraints of justice. But equally important for present purposes is Smith’s attention to historical contingency in shaping institutions. Anticipating Marx, Smith viewed political and economic institutions—including property—as functions of the stage of economic development (on Smith’s stadial schema, these were hunter/gatherer, shepherds, agriculture, and commercial society). In addition, Smith saw a large role for governments in provisioning public goods, education, and support for the arts.
"Smith never missed an opportunity to point out both the unjust privileges of the rich and powerful and the tendency of said elites to jealously guard such privileges. Smith did not develop a concept of distributive justice, but nevertheless evinced a class consciousness that made him favor taxes that undermined privilege where possible, as well as every reform that benefited the worker against the capitalist. Though plainly an egalitarian, Smith was a gradualist rather than a radical, cautioning against abrupt and dramatic change.”
Wow, but it gets better:
“For a BRL (Black Radical Liberal) using Smith, white supremacy obviously already constitutes oppression. But as we’ve seen above, racist oppression can be translated into Smithian terms. And on an expansive conception of the system of natural liberty, the sovereign is charged with protecting every person from racist oppression, up to and including corrective justice to end oppressive racist inequality. Affirmative action to racially desegregate public spaces and public offices (as advocated by Elizabeth Anderson) and reparations for slavery and the rolling institutional assaults on Black flourishing and wealth creation (as described by William Darity and A. Kirsten Mullen) are corrective policies that seem well within the scope of a Black-radicalized Smithian sovereign.”
Woof. A bit outside my bailiwick, now.
And while I enthusiastically support pragmatic investments in ending disadvantage for all poor children, it's not helpful to slap-on deliberately and harmfully provocative labels like "reparations." Separate the shared, practical goal from your sanctimony trip, will ya? They are opposites.
Still, it is a cogent and interesting perspective that I have long (generally) called-for.
Glad to see Adam Smith being welcomed back where he has always belonged.
On our side.
79 comments:
locumranch previously:
Let's put an end to the Kremlin Bashing, too, because it's racist to demean or marginalize an individual or group based on their (Russian) ethnicity
It's not about Putin's ethnicity. We despise him for the content of his character.
But you know that.
locumranch again:
racist terms like "White Supremacy", "White Privilege", "Cracker" and "Nazi" now constitute Hate Speech if & when such terminology is used to demean or marginalize any individual or group based on race or ethnicity.
Nice try.
"White Supremacy" and "White Privilege" are descriptions of real things, such as the fact that white people generally don't worry about being shot to death at a traffic stop. Using those terms isn't marginalization any more than a statement like "Tall basketball players have an advantage over short basketball players." It's not a call to hate on white people for having privilege. It's a call to recognize that other groups who don't share that privilege have a point when they call it out.
"White Supremacy" is a philosophy that the proponents themselves are proud of. They might not use the term, but you can't deny that the philosophy exists and affects our politics. Well, a non-liar couldn't deny it.
"Cracker," is indeed a demeaning term, which is why you've never seen me use it.
"Nazi" is a judgement of character, not of race or ethnicity. Or are you actually asserting that all white people are Nazis? 'Cause that would be an interesting conversation.
Soon, very soon, one can only hope that notorious haters like Matthew, Larry & Robert will either see the error-of-their-privileged-racist-ways or suffer devastating moral correction at the hands of (mostly) peaceful protesters.
Watch the threats. Dr Brin comes down on me when I even mention a theoretical "shootout with Tucker Carlson." Suborning actual violence against an individual here should at least meet that standard of rebuke.
Treebeard: I’m curious how protesting authoritarian vaccine mandates makes one a Nazi
Scidata: Of course it doesn't. In Ottawa, it was the closing down of honest, hard-working mom&pop businesses, desecrating the Terry Fox and Unknown Soldier memorials, and stealing food from the homeless that earned them the label.
Also flying a Nazi flag while protesting, wearing symbols of neo-Nazi organizations, etc…
Just talked to one of my friends in Ottawa, who was rather put out* that a number of protesters decided that the best way to protest was to drive their trucks in a circle around a palliative care hospital, blowing their air horns and hassling staff trying to get to work. Nothing says "I believe in personal freedom" like making a cancer patient's last days on earth a nightmare.
Most of the protesters are not in fact protesting at government buildings. They've settled into residential neighbourhoods and are hassling residents and businesses.
*Which is British for "fucking angry"
Speaking of polemics, I continue to encourage use of the phrase "predator class".
Mark Twain blamed Sir Walter Scott for the Civil War. "He did measureless harm; more real and lasting harm, perhaps, than any other individual that ever wrote."
Monarchy!!
The USA has effectively an elected "King"
This system has not worked long term anywhere else
The Parliamentarian system does not have a "King" - and it works better
Some Parliamentarian systems do have a "Monarch" - like Queen Elizabeth
This is actually a big benefit
The Monarch has zero actual power (except as a single use "fuse") - but the person with the actual power has to bow down before their Monarch - which must have a useful effect on their ego
Imagine how bad BoJo would be if he did not have that brake on his ego
The problem with the Commonwealth is that we share the same Monarch - so Britain gets the benefit of the ego reduction but the rest of us don't
I would be in favor of appointing a Monarch for each of the Commonwealth nations
On the Democracy Index seven of the top ten are Monarchies
From a purist POV a Monarchy is not good
From a pragmatic POV - they work BETTER than any of the alternatives
In fact, I side with Bill Maher on the polemical sins of the "far" left in the US. Not only are many woke-isms a form of preening bullying and sanctimony addiction, but their chief effect is to give Foxites ammo to shout: "See that Tomfoolery! Well we imply that ALL LIBERALS ARE LIKE THAT!"
BAH. The VAST majority of liberals remain the only reasonable and reasoning force left in American civic and political life. The only ones willing to perceive arguments and evidence they deem discomforting to their standard catechisms. The only movement left that welcomes fact-using professions. And by far the only ones defending Enlightenment values of accountability, fair negotiations based on fact, and - yes - flat-fair-oprn-creative competition.
All of which explains why the far-left PC police types hate liberals too, calling us tepid and even republicans-lite, when we're the only ones getting anything done.
And we listen! Many of the lefties' practical suggestions are now agenda items or even already accomplished. And it is a sign of the left's unique madness that they will never, ever, ever acknowledge that. And they will (almost) always stab in the back the leaders of the only coalition that stands a chance of (incrementally) saving the enlightenment, the nation and the world. In fact, preserving that fragile coalition is job#1 for AOC, Stacey, Bernie, Liz, and DNC Chair Jaime Harrison.
WHich means that all jabber about 'left wing tyranny' is fecal idiocy. The US left could not maintain a conspiracy or dictatorship for 3 seconds before shattering... diametrically opposite to the GOP, the most tightly disciplined political force in US history and one that (next chance) will stomp/smash democracy forever.
So yeah, we know sometimes woke-ists say stuff you deem offensive, locum. Tough. Our loose coalition CONTAINS some fringe nutters. Your ENTIRE cult entirely CONSISTS of jibbering, capering-frothy, rabid traitor lunatics. Like you. Contains is different from consists.
@ Duncan: If I understand the British political system correctly, the British monarch in theory has very wide ranging powers the current one simply chooses not to wield.
I assume she could try once, but GB might be a republic thereafter or replaced by her successor. But for a fun turn: Let's assume some right-wing populist became PM of GB and slowly transformed the country into a fascist, authoritarian state ... until the monarch disbands parliament, sends in HER soldiers, and convicts them by HER judges. Or just shoots the PM and goes free (because the monarch can do no wrong), and declares free elections afterwards and saves the democracy for Britain by using her autocratic powers.
When my brother and I were in college, the girl he's now married to used to insist that any statement that distinguished people based on skin color was racist, even something as innocuous as "Black people have darker skin than white people."
Sounds like locumranch is in perfect agreement.
While I disagree, I can understand where a statement like "White people don't realize how good they've got it" could be considered racist. However, the idea that opposition to Putin's belligerence is somehow unfair prejudice based on his race or ethnicity is simply absurd. Even more so, the notion that calling out Nazis who actually wear Nazi uniforms, wave swastika flags, and to the Heil Hitler salute is hate speech against white people.
But as I've said three times already, he obviously knows that, and for some reason gets off on pretending that nonsense sentences constitute an indictment of liberals in general and myself in particular.
Probably time to go back to not hearing the words of traitors.
duncan cairncross:
From a purist POV a Monarchy is not good
Yes, the problem with monarchy is when the monarch functions as an unaccountable dictator. A symbolic monarch is a different thing, in fact... :)
I used to admire the pragmatic American system which keeps its eye on the actual wielders of power and doesn't bother with purely symbolic offices. But in my old age, I've come around to the notion that many Americans seem to need some sort of "king". We tend to vest the presidency with that role, even though that's not what it's supposed to be. And if we don't like the current president, we look to the British monarch or even Vladimir Putin.
The Parliamentary system is easier to implement, and dangerous in its own right. Nazi germany arose out of one. And those constitutional monarchies that are the happiest and richest places on Earth benefited from emerging from WWII mostly undamaged, and then saved and protected and allowed to get by with defense spending on the order of 2% of GDP by the umbrella and indulgence of the Great Republic that saved the USSR, saved the world and then neutralized the Soviet madness... and even now is the only bulwark against every noxious thing.
Yeah, our system of 'states' is spectacularly dumb - (TWO DAKOTAS???) - and the gun thing is insane... and the meme we have spread to the world's children - Suspicion of Auhority - is not being used against us. And boy, did Trump show the dark side of our unitary executive.
I don't think that - despite PM Ardern - the case for parliamentary superiority is at all proved.
I meant "the meme we have spread to the world's children - Suspicion of Auhority - is now being used against us.
those constitutional monarchies that are the happiest and richest places on Earth benefited from emerging from WWII mostly undamaged
Places like Denmark, the Netherlands, Norway… :-)
Robert. Very little actual damage compared to everything south and east.
Just finished reading a variety of articles about the Truckers Tantrum in Ottawa. Saw photographs of people waving "Trump 2024" flags!
In straight political terms, that makes as much sense as someone in America carrying a sign supporting Bernier*.
I suspect it's actually a marker for tribal loyalty, and I find it a touch frightening that a foreign grifter and former politician could become that for a chunk of my country's electorate.
*Our furthest-right politician. Cosies up to the crazies, but doesn't have Trump's psychological issues (or his bulletproof charisma).
We are long past blaming WW2 for todays social wealth
Todays rich democratic countries were poor in the 60's and 70's
The USA was the best place in the world for a working man in the 50's - 60's and 70's -
then it lost that place to the Northern European countries
By the 2000's the Southern European countries had also overtaken the USA
The ex-soviet countries are still behind
I think it was Larry Niven, probably in Ringworld, who said that all politics basically boils down to progressives vs. conservatives. And that makes a lot of sense. Politics is essentially the control system for societies, and control theory consists of excitation/inhibition signals summed within feedback loops, whether we're talking about a thermostat, speed governors, or the animal brain. Neurons activate when the excitation inputs minus the inhibition signals exceed the offset threshold. Stability is only possible with both stop and go signals.
Societies also need some kind of internal regulation, a way to maintain coherency. During the French Revolution the Marquis de Condorcet advocated for progress, while in England Edmund Burke argued for conservatism. Burke wrote that our customs and traditions embodied centuries or millennia of hard-won experience, and any changes were almost guaranteed to be for the worse. Much like mutations to the genetic code. At the same time Condorcet painted glorious visions of the beautiful future we could build if we only had the intelligence, compassion and courage to dare.
Both of them were right of course; the visions of Condorcet are still a work in progress; he dreamed of a future where oppression based on gender and race no longer existed, slavery and exploitation were banished. But despite being the greatest thinker of the revolutionary enlightenment he was executed by power-crazed radicals who seized power in the chaos.
Radical social change is a risky experiment and should be undertaken judiciously. But today the US faces a very different challenge. Change is happening at a dizzying pace, so rapid that our conservatives can no longer distinguish up from down, truth from fantasy. They're so frightened by our changing world that they're panicking. They don't want to play anymore. But instead of running home and looking for their blankie they're kicking over the table. Their violence and and dishonesty won't prevent change from happening, but it could prevent us from adapting to it. Their infantile reaction is to look for a Strongman to take care of them, but somehow their Strongman is a dimwit carnival barker, a malignant narcissist interested in feeding his bloated ego, America be damned.
The US would truly be a great country if we could cut the former Confederacy loose and give a one-way ticket to all the neo-confederate wannabe's polluting the nation.
In fact, I side with Bill Maher on the polemical sins of the "far" left in the US. Not only are many woke-isms a form of preening bullying and sanctimony addiction, but their chief effect is to give Foxites ammo to shout: "See that Tomfoolery! Well we imply that ALL LIBERALS ARE LIKE THAT!"
While I agree that the polemical sins of the far left gives Foxites ammo, I also believe the polemical sins of Bill do so, too.
Because he says he criticizes Democrats for these polemical sins. Which implies that all Democrats are like that. :(
Thus the Foxites can quote Bill and now say, "See, we were right! Even a hard-core anti-Trumpist like Bill Maher can see that Democrats are as radical as we say they are." :(
For what it's worth New Zealand is likely to remain a monarchy until a certain 95 year old woman dies. After that it could change very rapidly. I think Australia is the same.
The Parliamentary system is easier to implement, and dangerous in its own right. Nazi germany arose out of one.
IMHO, the Weimar constitution had some major flaws that enabled the downfall:
1) The presidents ability to bypass parliament by "emergency orders" and even to dissolve it.
2) The strong influence of Prussia in the Reichsrat (carrying 60% of the vote there and thus giving the conservative monarchists - the junkers - of the east a higher strength than they would normally have had; the higher populated west was more the domain of the SPD and Zentrum).
3) Lack of a hurdle for minor parties to avoid paralysis by splintering.
4) No laws and organs ensuring that all parties in the Reichstag, officers of the state and judges have an allegiance to democracy. Nazis and Communists never made a secret out of their desire to overthrow the system.
5) Only limited respect for human rights on one hand, and unlimited free speech on the other.
We fixed most of the points in the second attempt to form a democracy.
Dr Brin:
Yeah, our system of 'states' is spectacularly dumb
Well, the Constitution was written with the idea that the individual states were paramount, and that for specific benefits, they agreed to function together as a country. Much more like a precursor to the United Nations than to countries like France or Greece.
And boy, did Trump show the dark side of our unitary executive.
That's not even supposed to be a thing. I never heard the term anyway, until it was invoked during the W years to assert that Bush could essentially say "F*** you!" to Congress and do whatever he wants. Funny, the concept is never applied to Democratic presidents.
Pedant alert - "everything south and east" would have to include Switzerland. Otherwise, I think you are generally correct. Holland took some serious damage, though: it tried to remain neutral but its capitol city was firebombed in 1940 and it was directly in the path of some brutal fighting in '44 and '45, with a resultant "Hunger Winter" for the civilian population. (Disclaimer: I have Dutch friends.)
As an aside, I remember reading the biography of a US combat soldier (I think a paratroop officer) who was involved in the liberation of southern France - he was incensed to find US citizens living in luxury hotels along the Mediterranean coast who had spent the entire war there, superrich lifestyles almost unaffected, and who complained about the disruptions of being 'liberated'. War is indeed a racket.
Dr. Brin, your "Fourth Vocation of George Gustaf" short story does speak to the human propensity towards some kind of monarchy - if we didn't have one, it wouldn't be so easy to establish one (we also, in general, seem to have a need for some kind of religion: I am dubious about whether either trope is conducive to our species longevity. Both seem to be a way of handing over our rational thought to a 'higher" power.)
Pappenheimer
David,
This article may be of interest:
https://www.politico.com/news/magazine/2022/02/06/ukraine-russia-not-same-country-putin-ussr-00005461
"Ukraine’s separate ethnic identity challenges Russia’s very vision of itself as an empire, and Ukraine’s political identity defies Putin’s authoritarian political model. A successful Ukraine next door could serve as an example to the Russians, who are now deprived of all political freedoms in part because the two recent Ukrainian revolutions have scared Putin so much. If the West helps build a democratic and prosperous Ukraine, its very existence can one day bring about a democratic Russia.
That is what Putin really fears."
Michael Byron
Thanks Mike Byron for coming by. You do good work.
Good points Pappenheimer.
Duncan you focused on the least important part of my response. In add’n to being able to invest vast fractions of their wealth into social stuff and not arms, they were also homogenous, dealing with almost none of the fractious problems of vast immigration and unevenness of background… though that diversity also made us vastly more creative.
AFR says: “I also believe the polemical sins of Bill (Maher) do so, too. Because he says he criticizes Democrats for these polemical sins. Which implies that all Democrats are like that.”
Say WHAT??? How on Earth can you possibly say that? Given Maher’s relentless savaging of Trumpites and Foxites etc… and his assertion that PC attacks on allies and swing voters are especially absurd because they weaken OUR side, there is so little truth to that assertion that I have to wonder what you have been smoking. Almost certainly you haven't been watching.
Der Oger thanks for very informative info on the 1932+ German situation. In addition there was the Junkers control over the press And their assumption that Hindenberg could clamp down at any time. But the last straw was cultural. Hitler’s ability to send out an order for the Hitler Oath and then, once it was recited, the fact that a majority of soldiers then felt obligated to keep the oath.
Dr Brin:
AFR says: “I also believe the polemical sins of Bill (Maher) do so, too. Because he says he criticizes Democrats for these polemical sins. Which implies that all Democrats are like that.”
Say WHAT??? How on Earth can you possibly say that? Given Maher’s relentless savaging of Trumpites and Foxites etc… and his assertion that PC attacks on allies and swing voters are especially absurd because they weaken OUR side, there is so little truth to that assertion that I have to wonder what you have been smoking.
I think AFR has a point. When Maher goes on about the annoying things that the left does which turn off regular voters, the implication seems to be that Biden and Harris and Pelosi are among the guilty parties. He does seem to blame the entire liberal sphere of influence for the sins of the far left, in much the way that FOX does.
* * *
Back to an earlier post, some of the more idiosyncratic elements of US democracy do seem to make more sense if one thinks of the country as a mini-U.N. composed of states rather than as a homogenous nation. After all, there is no such thing in the United Nations as a popular election where each individual human has one vote. Countries get a vote, and some countries are more equal than others.
The idea that the United States is a federation of autonomous states is not so much "wrong" as "outdated".
Clarifying a point, I think Bill Maher is correct that the Democrats suffer for bad messaging, such that many voters think that Dems support defunding the police and legalizing shoplifting.
I disagree, however, that that bad messaging comes from the Democrats. It's coming from the Republicans and FOX.
LH: “When Maher goes on about the annoying things that the left does which turn off regular voters, the implication seems to be that Biden and Harris and Pelosi are among the guilty parties.”
WHAT THE H***? Seriously? That’s how it “seems” to you? O WTF is going on here? Do you even remotely listen? Where the hell do you and AFR get ANY of that?
“He does seem to blame the entire liberal sphere of influence for the sins of the far left, in much the way that FOX does.”
Jesus you are right. It does “seem to” to you. And that really scares me.
Dr Brin:
Do you even remotely listen? Where the hell do you and AFR get ANY of that?
Well, for instance, when he goes on and on about how much better the red states like Florida are at handling the COVID pandemic. As if DeSantis is the one following the science, while California and New York are acting hysterically.
As exemplified by Larry (who just stated that the term 'Nazi' now connotes "a judgement of character" rather than a predilection for genocidal racism), the amount of Cognitive Dissonance amongst left-leaning progressives now approaches Critical Mass.
There's almost too much 'doublethink' to unpack here, especially when this progressive poster boy of privilege accuses me of "suborning actual violence" by supporting mostly peaceful protests. Or is he just another vile racist admitting that the so-called 'peaceful' BLM protests were actually violent riots?
In terms of politics, I predict devastating liberal-progressive reversals in our immediate future, along the lines of (1) Labour Repression because we can't allow those damn Union Truck Drivers to engage in work-stoppages, (2) the ongoing censorship of unofficial misinformation because 'free speech rights' only apply to the left-leaning progressive and (3) Neo-Aristocratic Expert Managerial Rule because the icky deplorable inexpert common voter can't be trusted with democracy.**
Still in denial, US Progressives have already 'jumped the shark' by over-playing the race card, as evidenced by the ADL's new and approved definition of Racism that deletes any mention of either 'whiteness' or 'people of color', possibly after someone at the ADL looked in an actual mirror and noticed the pallor of their own complexion.****
Of course, most true-blue progressives still won't admit (are not even capable of admitting) that the corrective social justice locomotive will just 'keep on rolling' because objects in motion remain in motion until their favorite quote from Cabaret applies to both the left & the right in equal measure.
You still think you can control them?
The distance between the so-called Trucker's Tantrum & the Ludlow Massacre is much much smaller than you think, as is the distance between Censoring Misinformation & the Revocation of Free Speech, as is the distance between the vilification of white self-interest & the vilification of white-adjacent self-interest.
I wish you all luck regardless of your race, ethnicity & nation of origin because, baby, we're all gonna need as much luck as we can possibly get.
Best
_____
**You'll note that I hedged my bets as far as my predictions go, mostly because predictions (1) (2) and (3) have already happened. They are fait accompli, even though you deny them like the Hy-Brasilians in 'Erik the Viking'.
****https://www.cnn.com/2022/02/04/us/anti-defamation-league-racism-definition/index.html
Since 2020, the ADL had described racism as "the marginalization and/or oppression of people of color based on a socially constructed racial hierarchy that privileges White people."
As of Friday, the group's new and "interim" definition states that racism "occurs when individuals or institutions show more favorable evaluation or treatment of an individual or group based on race or ethnicity."
I’m increasingly of the opinion that if the arc of the universe bends toward anything with regard to human society, it’s centralized technocratic power, not justice, democracy or freedom. It may just be that the Tao doesn’t care about the latter ideals as much as we thought, and ultimately favors some kind of techno-totalitarian arrangement—whether it’s led by a Western Big Tech/Big Gov oligarchy, the Chinese Communist Party, or some other transnational technocratic Illuminati.
Personally my money’s on China—they look to be well ahead of the universal arc in implementing the authoritarian techno-progressive society on a grand scale, advancing on all fronts and threatening to leave Westerners, hobbled by quaint 18th century ideas about individual freedom and democracy, in the dust. Adam Smith is nice for nostalgists of liberal capitalism, but at this point the forward-thinker would surely be better off studying Xi Xinping Thought.
I’m not terribly happy about this realization, being a natural eco-anarchist, but the arc of the universe and the logic of Progress don’t much care about my happiness, do they? Now if you’ll excuse me, I have to go continue my reading of volume one of “The Governance of China”, by the greatest Progressive political leader of our time, President Xi.
Locum's diametrically opposite to fact ravings are kinda reassuring, in a way.
LH and I agree on many things, as I also venn diagram maybe 90% with Alfred. But this is just reflexive kwwwwwazee stuff.
Maher despises deSantis and the anti-science lunatic cheaters running Florida.
Maher IS non-standard in some opinions, like that we should declare 'victory' in covid because, well, sane/healthy people are vaccinated and being careful and the most-vulnerable vaccinated are just going to have to do risk reduction and hope the rest of us help reduce their risks further. The remaining population consists of children (mostly safe) and anti-vaxers who have made their choice. And while I think he takes that too far, we all know that we are entering territory where the risks for most of us are becoming "bad flu."
No, the thing I hate is that Colbert and Kimmel NEVER dare to pull a Maher on the worst lefty aberrations that hurt our side. They ought to.
Treebeard has a point that the natural human society is an inherited oligarchy - across 6000 years 99% of the time - and that China's version always included meritocracy. And as I point out in EXISTENCE, a blending of the two could entrench itself forever by gverning better than the other 99% of oligarchies.
But he utterly ignores (and must, psychologically) the other, positive sum attractor state based on Periclean enlightenment methods, including constant opportunity-generated churn in the feedstock into competitive meritocracy. The attractor state that- while rare - has been responsibel for the vast majority of human progress.
If his very life depended on it, he could not paraphrase what I am talking about. I mean he could not describe positive sum if the very world depended on his doing so.
Dr Brin:
LH and I agree on many things, as I also venn diagram maybe 90% with Alfred. But this is just reflexive kwwwwwazee stuff.
Funny. I feel exactly the same about Bill Maher. I agree with him most of the time, even including when he criticizes Democrats, but there are some specifics where I just have to go, "Dude, what are you smoking?" (And he freely admits to smoking, btw. Not tobacco either)
Maher despises deSantis and the anti-science lunatic cheaters running Florida.
And yet (emphasis mine) ...
At minute 5:27 on this video:
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=8bQ2rctogOs
"...
I'm just saying, I've been to Florida, and the atmosphere is night and day from California, which was gloomy, and The Andromeda Strain was out there, and you went to Florida, and I'm just saying, yes there are different factors and, but basically it's like they stayed open and went on with life, and they didn't do a hell of a lot worse, and maybe did better."
* * *
I know I shouldn't, but I can't resist...
locumranch:
As exemplified by Larry (who just stated that the term 'Nazi' now connotes "a judgement of character" rather than a predilection for genocidal racism), the amount of Cognitive Dissonance amongst left-leaning progressives now approaches Critical Mass.
What I said was that calling someone a Nazi (which does indeed imply a predilection for geocidal racism on their part) is a judgment about the character of the genocidal racist, and is not racist on the part of the one making the judgement.
BYKT*.
There's almost too much 'doublethink' to unpack here, especially when this progressive poster boy of privilege accuses me of "suborning actual violence" by supporting mostly peaceful protests.
I presumed that "mostly peaceful protests" was meant as a non-so-veiled threat of some violence. And I was not so much accusing you of actually being able to cause such violence as asking that you be held to the same standard that I am when I sarcastically wonder if a modern civil war might include "a shootout with Tucker Carlson on air" and get told to refrain from even the suggestion of calling for violence.
BYKT*.
Or is he just another vile racist admitting that the so-called 'peaceful' BLM protests were actually violent riots?
Once again, slow...ly...this...time...
Protesting the unjust torture/murder of a suspect in custody is not racism. Pointing out that such things happen to black people because their lives are treated as if they don't matter is not racism. Despising the cop who did such a thing and the racism inherent in the system which allows such things to happen over and over again is not itself racism.
As to "mostly peaceful protests"...Serious question. Short of appearing threatening, what is your suggestion for combatting police brutality and murder when it happens? Obey the police's orders and you won't get hurt? Except that black men reaching for their wallets as ordered are shot because they might have a gun. (Meanwhile, no one says that Ashli Babbitt should have obeyed the police before she was shot--no she's a martyr for disobeying). Protest in a peaceful, orderly manner? Colin Kaepernick did just that, and he's been villainized for doing just that. What you seem to be calling for is for observers of injustice to just shut up and not make waves. Ain't happening, bro.
(* Tired of typing "But you know that" over and over again. )
Re the "Inherited Oligarchy"
For the last 6,000 years - yes
But only since the move to agriculture
For the 30,000 years before that a "Big Man" who got too big for his boots tended to suffer from a bad case of arrows
Duncan, given that male nature was forged MOSTLY before agriculture, I'd say that arguing males didn't bully others to get reproductive advantage is an assertion bearing steep burden of proof.
Bully others YES - the "Big Man"
But it was only after agriculture gave sufficient of a surplus that the "Big Man" could employ others to support his status
For evidence I will point to the work done on hunter gatherer societies
They did have their "Big Men" - but their power was limited to the bullying that they personally could do
With agriculture came the new Big Man with his supporters
Hunter Gatherers are essential equals - they all need to (and can) get their own food
Maybe not arrows.
Sorry, don't have the reference, but a year or so ago read an article by an anthropologist about a contemporary stone age tribe -- a few small ones are still around.
The "too-big Big Man" topic came up. The anthropologist reported that the tribal person merely shrugged and said that sooner or later everyone falls asleep.
To DB's point, I guess such remedies are applied far more often than not after the too-big Big Man has sired children. For starters -- again guesswork here -- because given the nature of stone age life a Big Man is cut a lot of slack before his latest sleep cycle is artificially rendered permanent.
Even the evangelicals had to sit up and take notice...
https://www.nytimes.com/2022/02/04/opinion/evangelicalism-division-renewal.html
...
Russell Moore resigned from his leadership position in the Southern Baptist Convention last spring over the denomination’s resistance to addressing the racism and sexual abuse scandals in its ranks. He tells me that every day he has conversations with Christians who are losing their faith because of what they see in their churches. He made a haunting point last summer when I saw him speak in New York State at a conference at a Bruderhof community, which has roots in the Anabaptist tradition. “We now see young evangelicals walking away from evangelicalism not because they do not believe what the church teaches,” he said, “but because they believe that the church itself does not believe what the church teaches.”
...
Children are "mostly safe"?
Tell that one to my niece. I dare you. She's got three children under 5. Thanks to daycare, they all (in the words of the oldest) "got the rona".
Children are not "safe" in this pandemic. They're just as vulnerable as anyone else, and may wind up disabled for life from long COVID before they even start school.
Duncan, no question that agriculture changed many things. evidence shows ciecu 12,000 years ago there was a huge winnowing of the Y chromosome. Females reproduced and most males did not. Kings & Beer. Kings could shout KILL that drunked sot and bring me his women!
Still, paleo HG tribes are over-romanticized. Look at a Junior High playground or QUEST FOR FIRE.
Toduro and others do you remember this classic?. https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=-FotYss3fRo
LH the number one wager demand that MAGAs always run away from is "Setting aside Utah, bet me whether red or blue states score higher in almost every turpitude, from Domestic violence, addiction, gambling, STDs and teen sex to abortion and,,,"
They always run away.
Jn S I worry about Long Covid. But all appearances are that the very young mostly shrug the rona. I back public health! But have you ever looked at kids wearing masks on a playground? Utterly futile.
Funny. I feel exactly the same about Bill Maher. I agree with him most of the time, even including when he criticizes Democrats, but there are some specifics where I just have to go, "Dude, what are you smoking?"
I feel the same way, too, although maybe not 90 percent. :) But even when he criticizes the far left, I usually am nodding in agreement.
But then he goes off on these rants where facts and statistics are thrown out the window, and I find myself screaming at him. Like his obsession about blaming getting seriously ill with Covid on being overweight. While it is true that obese people have a three-times higher chance of landing the hospital with Covid, in his last piece on Friday, he quoted again (on-screen no less) the statistic that 78 percent of those in the hospital with Covid are either overweight or obese.
Which sounds pretty damning, until you realize that 73.6 percent of Americans are overweight or obese. Suddenly that doesn't seem so ominous, does it, when you'd expect about 74 percent to be in the hospital if weight had no effect at all? :)
And yet he's telling us that if our country got our weight under control, we'd have practically no problem with the disease. :(
HG tribes overly romanticized!
With a murder rate approaching 30% of all death in some tribes we have monitored - and a murder rate 100+ times our rate in even the best of them
On COVID, the excerpt below reflects what I've been thinking for a while. As COVID-19 morphs into less of a horrific death sentence and more of a "cold and flu" disease, personal response will depend on exactly what you are trying to control--whether your concern is overwhelmed ICUs, spread to the vulnerable, long COVID, etc. Bill Maher's "over COVID" thing makes sense when COVID is more like the flu if your main concern is whether hospitals are overwhelmed. If your concern is that your cancer-surviving immunocompromised mother is vulnerable to a disease prevalent in the general population, you'll have a different opinion.
https://www.nytimes.com/2022/02/04/opinion/covid-denmark-end-of-pandemic.html
In Denmark, a clear majority of Danes support rolling back restrictions. My team’s research, which follows Covid-19 behaviors and attitudes in Denmark, six other European countries and the United States, suggests that the proportion of Danes who feel Covid-19 is a societal threat is dropping sharply. Throughout the pandemic, our surveys showed that the primary concern among Danish people was not their personal health, but whether our hospitals were overwhelmed. Now that the risk most Danish people care about is gone, the country can smoothly transition out of crisis mode. (If restrictions need to come back because of a more dangerous variant, there would most likely be support for them.)
Dr Brin:
LH the number one wager demand that MAGAs always run away from is "Setting aside Utah, bet me whether red or blue states score higher in almost every turpitude, from Domestic violence, addiction, gambling, STDs and teen sex to abortion and,,,"
The reason I found the above article about Evangelicals fascinating was not so much because the Evangelical churches who are all in for Trump are hypocrites. That's kind of "Dog Bites Man". No, what I found instructive was that much of the rank-and-file membership are actually noticing and pushing back against their own churches' hypocrisy.
This was the money shot, and it is spot on accurate:
“We now see young evangelicals walking away from evangelicalism not because they do not believe what the church teaches,” he said, “but because they believe that the church itself does not believe what the church teaches.”
I'd say that arguing males didn't bully others to get reproductive advantage is an assertion bearing steep burden of proof.
On a side note, the game Tribes (designed by David Brin and Steve Jackson) allows male characters to intimidate female characters into reproducing. Some of my students figured this out when I was running a game in class and I made an instant decision that "no rape' was a house rule for my classroom.
I'm curious how many playtesters discovered that…
Robert:
On a side note, the game Tribes (designed by David Brin and Steve Jackson) allows male characters to intimidate female characters into reproducing. Some of my students figured this out when I was running a game in class and I made an instant decision that "no rape' was a house rule for my classroom.
Probably good for the sensibilities of modern day students, especially the female participants.
Bad for the game mimicking reality, though.
This 'Who is More Moral' wager to which our host is partial is perhaps the most ridiculous evolutionary theory ever proposed, as MORAL DESERVINGNESS has absolutely nothing to do with either survival or evolutionary fitness.
Quite the opposite, in fact, as history's graveyards are full of conscientious, morally superior & non-violent individuals (and groups) who refused to engage in immorality and the world's rubbish bins are overflowing with perfectly innocent & perfectly moral unborn fetuses who were aborted for someone else's convenience.
To even consider relative Moral Deservingness as an evolutionary survival factor, one would have to argue that humanity is analogous to an errant child whose very survival depends on the curried favour of a divine parent, while neglecting that favour & favoritism have absolutely nothing to do with deservingness by definition.
I therefore retract my previous statement about the cognitive dissonance of left-leaning progressives because we are now well past the point of both critical mass & hubris, having skipped ahead directly to Nemesis.
So now, when I hear liberal-progressives, futurists, pacifists & other End-of-History apparatchiks brag about their moral superiority, I imagine them lifting up their voices in a chorus of "Tomorrow belongs to me" with the identical tragicomic result.
The philosophical absurdity, it burns, and I must absent myself for a while.
Best
Throughout the pandemic, our surveys showed that the primary concern among Danish people was not their personal health, but whether our hospitals were overwhelmed. Now that the risk most Danish people care about is gone, the country can smoothly transition out of crisis mode.
This part is conspicuously absent in right-wing press coverage of the decision here. It's a key fact to omit, given that many Ontario hospitals were regularly over 100% capacity even before Covid, and the only way we managed the pandemic was ruthlessly burning out staff and cancelling a metric shit-tonne of non-critical hospital services. (Including cancer treatments which in some cases have been delayed enough that patients have been effectively condemned to death by the repeated delays.)
Bad for the game mimicking reality, though.
Also not much fun for people playing female characters.
"Probably good for the sensibilities of modern day students, especially the female participants. "
Wrongactually. It was deliberate. It forces players to admit that rape is a problem that societies must solve with rules and enforcement, not by waving a hand and denying it exists. The game encourages tribes to make it illegal and to punish sex-intimidators.
==
re Ukraine. Standard Soviet doctrine going back to the 1930s calls for utterly massive artillery preparation to precede advances by ground troops. Russian assault brigades are very heavy in artillery. Which prompts a set of questions:
1) I do wonder how well this doctrine will do against small, scattered Javelin teams emerging from deep shelters after the barrage, into a cratered terrain.
2) How will a massive churning of bucolic countryside play on live international TV? Will MAGAs thereupon still chant-recite Foxite excuse-making for Putin?
3) In modern tech-context (e.g. drones used by Azerbaijan to defeat Armenia) are artillery batteries sitting ducks?
https://rusi.org/explore-our-research/publications/commentary/what-do-uk-weapons-deliveries-add-ukraines-armed-forces
locum is hilarious. His cult spent 80 years yammering how much more moral they were than city/university folk. Now that's proved to be diametrically opposite to fact, in almost every functional turpitude, including pederasty and child predation... and suddenly moral behavior is no longer pertinent?
Let's see. We deliver vastly better sconomic and scientific and ecological outcomes.
More fairness and liberty.
More opportunity for all children to rise up and COMPETE.
And vastly less vile turpitude...
And tsunamis less treason... Okay then. Time to shout all that from the rooftops along with....
... vastly, vastly more manly guts.
[Apology if this posts more than once—not deliberate]
Re:
will Putin-apologia still be fashionable if the bucolic Ukrainian countryside is churned up in war? Unfortunately, yes. I’ve talked to many rightists who secretly admire Putin’s authoritarianism. Now that Russia is no longer Communist, they see Russia as a bulwark against “liberalism”.
They would overlook casualties in Ukraine resulting from a war, as being collateral damage necessary to protect Russia and the world from ‘Western Liberal imperialism’.
Rightists today are often shockingly mid-educated. Many well-intentioned rightists come from religious families who believe that progress is a threat to their faiths, and not a few are apocalyptic—invoking the Book of Revelation as ‘evidence’.
Also, they claim the US-Mexico border is what matters, not the Russia-Ukraine border.
@Dr Brin,
loc's thesis seems to be that if the universe doesn't enforce morality, there's no point in our aspiring to it.
Re: Ukraine
The main purpose of NATO is no longer to push back the Iron Curtain, but to keep America’s own curtain around Europe. As a British general put it in the 1950s, NATO wants “keep the Russians out, the Americans in, and the Germans down”, and that hasn’t changed. The big worry is that Europe will expand its trade and ties to Russia and China, which is economically and geographically the natural thing to do as they share the same landmass, particularly as the BRI project rolls out. The idea that Europe should, for example, import much more expensive gas from across the ocean rather than use the much cheaper gas from existing pipelines for the benefit of Pax America is an increasingly absurd proposition. But Ukraine could be the issue that finally breaks America’s unnatural grip on the continent. Many European countries are balking at America’s aggressive stance, including Germany and France. Macron, who has called NATO’s continuing Cold War mentality “brain dead”, might see this as an opportunity to look like a strong leader by negotiating directly with Putin and preventing another war in Europe.
The problem, as usual, is America’s military industrial complex, for whom a conventional war against Russia, fought on the other side of an ocean by Europeans and supplied by the American war industry, is a mouth-watering scenario. It’s pure profit, with little domestic political downside, assuming Americans continue to believe what their media tells them and not care about destroying other parts of the world. The outcome of the war is secondary if the money flows and no Americans are coming home in body bags. The catch is that the Europeans themselves, though well-accustomed to being American vassals, are not exactly Vikings these days, and may not go along with the program. Many European leaders don’t appear to be on board, and even the Ukrainian president is telling Biden to calm down. What if the American MIC staged a war on your continent, put all the arms, advisors and propaganda in place, the director said “action!”, but no one showed up to fight on cue? We may get to learn the answer soon.
Okay, this is the ent who has run out of vitamins. It is one long, tedious howl of bile-drenched sputum. I feel soiled and may put on a mask, even from the insane photons.
Alan Brooks:
will Putin-apologia still be fashionable if the bucolic Ukrainian countryside is churned up in war? Unfortunately, yes. I’ve talked to many rightists who secretly admire Putin’s authoritarianism. Now that Russia is no longer Communist, they see Russia as a bulwark against “liberalism”.
I was going to say something like that myself, so thanks for saving me from having to be the downer.
I honestly think the Tucker Carlson crowd would prefer Hitler to American democracy. They really do suck that much.
Treebeard,
several years ago I was told that someone on FB was a Russian agent. I asked him what the relationship between the Russian state and the Mafiya is; he replied “they are fused.”
It was not an encouraging answer.
Perhaps not much can be done about Ukraine or Belarus, at this time: Russia has its hooks in them. But the Baltic states must be protected. Some Russian revanchists think the Baltics still belong to Russia—and Putin might be one of them.
Locumranch must be baffled as to how social species exist at all.
Slow moving artillery batteries are modern day battleships. Fast moving drones will disable them through suicide techniques.
The solution will be to armor or remove the human component.
The counter will be to attack the communications used by the battery.
The counter to the counter...
The real question is how much Russia can afford to spend learning all this. No one should doubt that we can afford to spend more and will since every war is a learning opportunity.
Our inner barbarian will be quite interested to learn.
Amongst reasonable leftists these people are called "tankies", after the communists who supported the tanks going into Hungary and Czechoslovakia.
Sapolsky had quite a bit to say about our male aggressive inclinations and what changed in the nomadic HG / farmer transition. Combine it with other research I've read and I and strongly inclined to believe in two fundamental changes.
1. The transition to agriculture changed the relative power strong men had over women. In nomadic HG bands, the number of allies available to the dominant male was strongly limited. That meant a woman and her sisters could fight back. Slightly less dominant males vying for higher status could find ready allies among the women too.
The key point is nomadic HG bands topped out around 250 people. Strong men couldn't field armies and secret police. See?
2. The transition to agriculture changed the relative power of first born sons to later born sons. The early grains being cultivated truly sucked in the nutritional sense. Our life spans plummeted even though our population exploded. First born sons were more likely to succeed reproductively compared to their brothers because their parents were alive for a larger fraction of their lives.
Daughters were as likely to reproduce no matter their birth order. That has been the case for humanity all through deep history. There is almost ALWAYS a male willing to reproduce if the female is willing and capable.
——
The Y-chromosome bottleneck is attributed to many possible causes. Reality might be "all of the above", but it is important to realize that violence isn't necessary in the explanation for what happened. Terrible nutrition leading to shorter lifespans IS supported by evidence. What's neat about the evidence, though, is there is a small statistical anomaly that should cause us all to smack ourselves in the forehead.
On average, women have about as many boys as girls. Everyone knows the average is slightly biased for boys and we have an easy narrative for why it must be.
What we've noticed recently, though, is the bias is itself biased. Among populations hit hardest by the Y-chromosome bottleneck, there is a higher probability for boys to girls IN THE FIRSTBORN CHILD. The bias vanishes and might even tip to girls IN POPULATIONS HIT HARDEST.
When I read about that bias to the bias I was gobsmacked.
——
Big men have been with us through deep history.
What they can do has changed.
We've also changed a bit, but not enough to argue kings would not have happened among nomadic HG bands if their strong men has possessed the means.
DB: Hunter-gatherer (HG) cultures are getting a bad rap here. Sure, their murder rates are high, but I don't know if the implications about rape and sexual coercion are justified. In my reading of anthropological literature I've never seen any mention of it.
Anthropologist Richard Lee spent a lot of time with the San people of the Kalahari ("Bushmen") and he describes a very interesting set of customs there which form the foundation of our ideas of freedom and justice. We can see the direct effect of these egalitarian/libertarian ideas today in Botswana, a major success story among African nations, but these customs seem to be common to HG cultures all around the world. They aren't unique to the San, but are the common inheritance of mankind. They were eroded and usurped during the transition to agricultural empires, but the West - unique among the civilizations of earth - these archaic customs persisted. One of the advantages of being founded by barbarians.
When Lee was finishing up his fieldwork he resolved to stage a feast for his hosts. He hired a broker to find the biggest, fattest ox on the market to put on a good feed and show his gratitude for all the help he'd received.
Many of these people had become friends over the course of his time with them, but as the time grew near they started carping about the ox. They told him it was skinny and old, he'd been cheated on the price, and how disappointing it was that he'd skimped on the main course. Lee was genuinely hurt by their comments.
Eventually they came clean. When a hunter bagged a big kill, he always downplayed it. When he asked some of the men to go with him to the site so they could butcher it and carry it home, he'd always say he bagged some scrawny little varmint and it was hardly worth the effort to fetch it - especially if it was a really big one. When they got it back to camp he'd be careful to apologize for it, and never would he be praised or lauded for it.
These customs evolved to maintain an egalitarian culture where no one is allowed to lord it over others. As one anthropologist quipped, talking about the "chief" in HG cultures: "one word from the chief, and everyone goes about their business just as they please." In other words, there are no chiefs. No one has any authority over anyone else. The fierce defense of individual liberty and mistrust of the "Big Man" is the direct antecedent of democracy and our Bill of Rights.
HG cultures are more like anarchies than democracies of course, hence the high levels of freedom and murder. Vigilante justice has its problems, but in the absence of jails, judges and cops it's the only game in town. Like they say, freedom isn't free.
Many European countries are balking at America’s aggressive stance, including Germany and France. Macron, who has called NATO’s continuing Cold War mentality “brain dead”, might see this as an opportunity to look like a strong leader by negotiating directly with Putin and preventing another war in Europe.
I presented my views on Germany's position earlier, so I won't repeat it here*. But what eluded me the whole time is what it would mean for Macron if diplomacy fails. The loss of face could cost him his election in a few weeks from now ... and maybe he starts something just to repair his image as a strong ruler, which has still more meaning in France than in Germany. He won't likely declare war on Russia, but might make a 180° turn in supporting Ukraine directly with weapons ... and stage operations against Russian allies like Syria or the Wagner mercenary group.
*Media of all shades pressures the government to rethink their position. Also, Ex-Chancellor Schroeder is loosing more and more allies every day, because of his close personal ties to Putin.
One additional risk of this war I think I have not mentioned (and as far as I can see, nobody else does) are the tens, if not hundreds of thousands of refugees an invasion might produce, and we might very well be the preferred target destination of them.
I like to argue that our archaic HG customs are the result of lack of resources meaning they emerged from the many options available as the better course. We are a relatively young species, though, and cousins to the chimps where males dominate strongly enough for sexual dimorphism to have occurred and cousins to the bonobos where females dominate through coordination, social access, and the support of some males. Our nomadic HG ancestors weren't strongly biased, therefore, toward the emergent norms. Weakly? Sure. I'm sure they persisted long enough to get baked into us genetically to some degree.
——
I also like to argue that in The West, these customs didn't persist from antiquity. They re-emerged at times and then finally found a self-reinforcing trick a few centuries ago. Agriculture enabled relationship options previously maladaptive, but still available to our ancestors. It was the non-nomadic shepherds, though, who made strongest use of the darker forms of dominance across generations. Kings with armies were bad enough for urban populations and their agricultural fringe lands, but the shepherds lived on harder land and had many more smaller boundaries. Once the kings of larger producing areas pushed their boundaries out, life was a little less deadly and dominated. The shepherds didn't have that option as often because their lands were less productive.
Our nomadic HG winning customs re-emerged periodically, but the most fertile ground for them was in urban areas with more distant kings. The field was still quite hostile to the old customs, but not as bad as among the shepherds.
——
I also also like to point out that the best measure of whether the old nomadic HG customs are in use is the ratio between direct and indirect reciprocity when it comes to forms of trade. Our deep ancestors traded, but most of their exchange involved mutual support within their bands. Whether that was tracked for direct reciprocity or left for gossip to detect cheaters reluctant to engage in indirect reciprocity speaks volumes about how close the power of the local king is.
With the iron curtain pushed back past Poland, many of us expected less support for NATO objectives from France. It's not like they've ever been big fans of being told what they must do. 8)
We also expect less support from a unified Germany, but for reasons more related to market needs and remembrance of history. The economic powerhouse of Europe is Germany. We have to pay attention to that.
Having both Germany and France in an alliance like NATO and especially in the EU pretty much ensured disagreements and difficulties in taking action. For the US, that's not really a problem no matter how many of us bitch about it. It's not a bug… it's a feature.
——
This here barbarian points out…
A potential refugee flood is an excellent justification for going to war. Preventing the worst can justify something terrible.
We can see the direct effect of these egalitarian/libertarian ideas today in Botswana, a major success story among African nations, but these customs seem to be common to HG cultures all around the world. They aren't unique to the San, but are the common inheritance of mankind. They were eroded and usurped during the transition to agricultural empires, but the West - unique among the civilizations of earth - these archaic customs persisted.
In Graeber's latest (and last) book he posits that these ideas moved into European culture from the Americans (ie. native North Americans), citing the Wendat (among others).
Most likely outcome is: Russia maintains continuous pressure, while sending more operatives into Ukraine and Belarus.
Russia now has the prime real estate of Crimea, plus much other valuable loot. Russia can continue to Sudetenize Ukraine, and eventually Bohemia-Moravianize the rest of the country. Main task is containment—keeping the Bear out of the Baltics.
AB... what Putin is doing with his troops is VERY expensive and draining. And in 6 weeks the Pinsk Mashes will thaw and become impassable except along narrow roads.
And around then Europe no longer needs Russian gas.
Putin has a use-it-or-lose-it situation in which he needs a face-saving 'victory' to bray about. Biden etc probably WOULD HAVE given him something, if not that any concession at all will boost him back home (and here) as a 'strong man' and chess master. Hence, Biden etc are offing him nothing and it is his own damn fault.
And that's why there may be war. Putin's existential need is to appear strong. We must absolutely deny this to him.
And set up cameras to capture images of a massive, rolling Soviet-style artillery barrage shredding bucolic Ukrainian countryside, if he goes ahead. That footage, should ensure European willingness to shiver in their homes for a few weeks.
What NATO needs to do is declare: "You even touch the subsea fiber cables or blow up LEO and GEO satellite systems and it is war. The real deal."
In this Age of Gullibility (neo-monarchist, anti-democratic), I'm wondering if there are any Magnificos out there, busily tuning their Visi-Sonors. It may not take a huge media empire to bend the arc of history. Hopefully someone with better character than the Mule.
Fortunately, governments are far too plodding and dogmatic.
"The only thing that saves us from the bureaucracy is its inefficiency."
- Eugene McCarthy
Right-wingers openly give money and support to thugs terrorizing citizens on the streets and in their homes, but point guns in "self-defense" or use cars to run over anyone protesting against real atrocities.
It's too bad that protesters against injustice aren't treated the same way that protesters for the right to be assholes are. Or vice versa.
https://www.nytimes.com/live/2022/02/08/world/canada-trucker-protest
In Ottawa on Tuesday, several hundred trucks continued to paralyze the city center, but the nonstop honking of previous days appeared to have subsided. Reports on local radio in Ottawa said residents were able to sleep undisturbed for the first time in over a week. But many businesses have been shuttered during the protests, losing tens of millions of dollars.
...
The Ottawa demonstrations have also become a rallying cry for powerful far-right and anti-vaccine groups around the world.
Prominent far-right figures in numerous countries, including the United States, Australia and Germany, have praised the protests, spreading the images and arguments even more widely. Some, including in the United States, want to replicate the protests.
Donors have contributed millions of dollars meant for the Canadian protesters in online campaigns.
Now, the protests are threatening the supply chain of an industry with deep links between Canada and the United States.
@Dr Brin,
Another possibly-true prediction from The Postman, or at least an analogous one. After the long upheaval due to the pandemic, the country just starts to get back toward normal operation, when disruptions in supplies from truck protesters cause the system to collapse.
If they felt they had to, would the Russians use atomic cannons, not against civilians, but against troops?
Would Putin perhaps stand-down for now and wait until, say, next December to attack? Or does he need a face-saver this winter?
What worries me is how far west the Russians might go. Hypothetically, if they could go all the way to Portugal, would they?
scidata:
In this Age of Gullibility (neo-monarchist, anti-democratic), I'm wondering if there are any Magnificos out there, busily tuning their Visi-Sonors.
I've been insisting for years that Donald Trump had Mule powers--that it was the only theory which explained the way Chris Christie and Ted Cruz and Lindsey Graham went from "Warlord of Kalgan" to "Mule's viceroy".
But much as I glommed onto that theory and made it my own, I was not the inventor. Someone here on this blog--lost to antiquity now--suggested it first. I just ran with it.
Alan Brooks:
What worries me is how far west the Russians might go. Hypothetically, if they could go all the way to Portugal, would they?
Hypothetically, if Hitler could have reached the Urals, would he? The answer to your question is the same.
* * *
Just imagining what would have happened had brutes in threatening vehicles disrupted businesses, residences, and travel in order to protest being subjected to Supply Side economics or abortion bans. I suspect the police would have been armed with tactical nuclear weapons, and used them to thundering applause.
* * *
Dr Brin in the main post:
And yes, in this campaign they are aided and abetted by a vast array of fantasy novels and films proclaiming preference for kings and handsome princes, over any hint of loyalty to an egalitarian, meritocratic, democratic enlightenment that gave those 'fantasy' authors and directors everything.
And yes, George, I am looking at you.
Lucas or R.R. Martin?
Larry illustrates my dilemma. I KNOW with almost complete certainty that the 'mule power' corralling Graham, Cruz and Christie is one used by ALL generations of spies but especially all Russian secret services. Ye I am the only one in the entire nation who is willing to say the B-word aloud. Even though it is absolutely necessary and overwhelmingly sufficient.
I seriously do not know what to do. A guy in my position should consider the possibility that - all alone in this, I might be mad.
But... but no one EVER offers an alternative that is even remotely plausible! Visi-Sonar.... riiiiight. ;-)
===
"And yes, George, I am looking at you."
Ambiguity is vital. Folks assume it is a segue to GF Will. But yeah, I mean my dear friend with the railroad middle.
Onward to a guest blog on SPACE!
onward
disruptions in supplies from truck protesters cause the system to collapse
Except it's mostly not truckers who are protesting. Most (>90%) truckers are vaccinated, and given the general trucker shortage companies are able to put the unvaxxed minority to work on internal routes.
The tantrum was organized by professional right-wing agitators (Tamara Lich and Benjamin Dichter). They are demanding that the duly elected government resign and be replaced by a committee chosen by them. (Does this sound kinda familiar? There's a reason your ex-president supports them, as do many of your wing-nuttier Republicans.) A good chunk of the money supporting them comes from outside the country. (And DeSantis is upset that we don't want it, which is rich coming from a man who gets his panties in a twist about foreigners influencing American politics!)
As a dose of schadenfreude, one of the tantrum organizers apparently slipped and broke his ankle, and is threatening to sue the city because it is apparently their responsibility to see that the sidewalks are kept clear of ice, wven when the roads are blocked by trucks (and the sidewalks by protesters)!
https://ottawacitizen.com/news/local-news/trucker-protest-organizer-slips-on-icy-sidewalk-breaks-ankle-bones-criticizes-ottawa-for-unsafe-conditions
onward
onward
Post a Comment