Of all the ideas in Heinlein fiction that would be useful, the most impossible isn’t his “sensitives” that can communicate telepathically or otherwise circumvent technology. I mean, those seem impossible, but to be honest, we haven’t really tried for them.
The most impossible, which seemed, I think, back when he wrote them, “just within reach” are things that, though I don’t remember the exact names he used (a sure sign it’s time to re-read) involve making the sciences of psychology and sociology, let alone linguistics into exact sciences, so the number is computable and the outcomes precise.
In a way it is a very mid-century idea for the 20th century. Part of the whole rule by experts, and everything being planned from the top down involved of course exact outcomes that could be exactly computed and calculated.
Well… it’s not like that. And we know that’s a good thing, because it keeps the idiots at the top from attempting to herd us like cattle and create what they think is utopia and is in fact a horror. But it doesn’t keep them from trying.
Yes, the commenter who said something about “10% parasites, all is lost” wrote back. He says — and I believe him, btw. This is not an adversarial response, but one that involves answering the ideas. Because the ideas, obviously, are out there. The fact they’re crazy cakes somehow gets lost even to very intelligent people, which my commenter is. So they need airing — he read something about when there is a minority that is determined not to be absorbed and has its own language and costumes, even just 10% of the population, it will destroy the nation. This made me laugh so hard in “European-raised before highways” that I can’t begin to make you understand. BUT I’ll try. Oh, I’ll try.
I suspect it all comes from — who was it — and his idea that if a minority of as much as ten percent holds its breath and threatens to turn blue long enough, the majority will give in. This, I suspect is a way to explain what the left did to the west in the 20th century all while ignoring the elephant in the room. Which is very human and utterly infuriating. It reminds me of explanations for why the artistic and literary establishments were dominated by the left back in the old days, including “The right just isn’t creative” while we who saw this from the other side knew it was because the establishment discriminated on politics. But this never occurred to the analysts.
Anyway, first, the thing the commenter said he meant. This made my jaw drop and my mind blow. I imagine whoever came up with this piece of brilliance (NOT my commenter) is a dyed in the wool racist, and that this was aimed at the US’s black population, which is around 14% I think, at last counting. Yes, they’ve been indoctrinated not to assimilate, and that’s a problem, but it’s a problem caused by the people who instituted public schooling creating they wanted the opposite — integration, in that case of immigrants — and all the kids knowing the same things. Remember that, because it’s what they always do given the chance.
It is not a natural factor, and absent continuous indoctrination and bizarre forms of governmental discrimination in the name of “helping” it would be gone within a generation.
But would the the black population of the US “fully integrated” and not have “distinctive language”? Look bub, it never was. Nor were any of the other tiny groups. Cultures, even after someone gets fully assimilated, when the population retains a group — not an isolated individual — have…..very long half lives.
Did it rip apart the US? Well, no. Not so long as there was a general culture, a civic set of beliefs that made us American.
If you think that we must all have the exact same linguistic expression, set of beliefs and cultural presentation for the country to survive, the country should be no larger than about a thousand people. And about 15 miles square. And that might be pushing it.
Okay, I exaggerate, because we do have highways and mass communication means. But the local variation is much larger than most people realize. And while I realize I’m ESL (Actually ETL) and deaf to boot, regional dialects might not be their own language, but they might as well be.
And all of us have groups we let our hair down with. I know when I realize new acquaintances that I’m desperately trying to be “normal” for reveal themselves as our brand of geek, I can feel the pressure coming off.
Now, is that the same as say importing boatloads of ENIMICAL culture individuals, like, say, Somalians? Who have a different religion, different language and hate us with a burning passion?
No. Will it destroy the country? No. Mostly it will destroy THEM. Because they are too convinced of their own inherent superiority, and let’s face it, they were brought in as weapons by our idiots. So they’re going to go off. After which, they’ll be gone.
Throughout history, the only minorities like that that manage to stay separate and SAFE are the ones that are brought in to be elites, and protected from the populus. Yes, I do realize that this is exactly what our overlords think they’re doing. Our overlords are idiots studying to be morons, okay? They see savagery and mistake it for a warlike disposition. These are not the Teutonic Knights of the Holy Cross. They are not capable of holding the American population (THE AMERICAN POPULATION!) cowed by their superior war like skills. They’re crazy rebarbarized populations, ululating their entitlement and hatred of the general population. We’ll tolerate them as long as they’re tolerable. And then…
Look, even with populations brought in to be overlords, whose dominion lasted centuries, when they stopped being protected/kept in a superior position to the general population, two things happened: A vast number of them got killed. Messily. The rest integrated, with nary a peep.
Oh, there is a third one: the indigestible minority leaves. Or separates into its own country. But that takes either 50/50 separation or…. well, yes, the Jews didn’t integrate. That could also be what the original proponents of this lovely idea were aiming for. Here’s the thing though: the Jews didn’t integrate-ish. But they did. Spanish Jews spoke a different form of Spanish, not a different form of German. And the genes drifted as well. Yes, there is a genetic marker, but that’s not as strong as you’d think.
And for that it took not just a religion, but a strong religion that appeals to very stubborn people and circumstances that for various reasons selected for intelligence and argumentativeness.
Also, contrary to the delusions of the Nazis it tore no country apart. The Jewish minority, in most countries, functions as a fully integrated part of the whole and brings distinct benefits to the nation. Only crazy people think otherwise, though it’s a popular illusion, mind. It’s also one that, when that minority is killed or expelled, leaves the country a mess and materially and culturally impoverished. (No? Fight me, she says in Portuguese! Do you think it’s a coincidence Portugal never rose to world-power again? Also, FYI Henry the Navigator was 1/4 converso. I said and will stick by it, FIGHT me.)
More importantly, everywhere in old Europe, there were little villages with their culture, customs, ideas, and languages, often the remnant of old languages in that area. I can’t be the only one who learned “Standard” language in school for the first time. Now, what we spoke at home was mostly understandable, but not standard in any way. And I found out later when I opened my mouth without thinking, my college professors could pinpoint my origin to within a mile of home.
Those countries weren’t torn apart. Well, they were but fighting other countries, and the cultures in Europe all still demand that. I’m frankly not even mad, more impressed that the EU hasn’t exploded yet.
They weren’t torn apart, because they had a set of beliefs that held them together. In this case a blood-and-soil myth that the borders held ein volk, ein– You get it.
Myth? Oh, dear Lord. My sons call Portugal “the reservoir tip at the end of Europe” and they’re not wrong, due to the duality of being at the extreme edge, and basically a vast seaport with a tiny country attached. I used to be able to — but would now take a lot of alcohol to perform — sing-song all the people’s who had come and stayed, contributing to the “Portuguese race.” But here’s the thing, children…. it’s not a race. It’s not even an integrated nationality. Yes, even to my eyes now, they all look the same-ish. But I remember when I lived there, and I could tell where people came from by their look. Celtic and Germanic is mostly in the North. The South has a lot of Moor still, and– Oh, I might not distinguish all the thirty or so people’s that contributed to the whole, but I could give you a general “feel”. (Germanic looks, btw, were mostly lower class, and not for the reason you expect. You see, the Moors, which were the large last group deposed and subdued by arms had a bad habit of kidnapping blonds and redheads. So. Add a few centuries and shake well…)
And even when I was a kid there were DEEP rifts, in how you cooked, how you kept house, how you LIVED. But the country wasn’t torn apart.
Nor were the other European countries. Now, some might not be quite so promiscuous as Portugal — and some are more — but look you I remember British friends who could tell the ancestry of someone they met to the area of the country they came from. And you know what, according to my linguistic professors, some of that went back to the teapot-sized countries that the nation originated from.
Cultures take time to mix and assimilate. Centuries. But the countries can be healthy nonetheless, provided there is a set of beliefs in the country. Yes, that can be the blood and soil myth in Europe. Here, our constitution is fine, thank you.
What happened in Germany wasn’t the result of an unassimilated minority. It was the result of a culture in deep crisis crossed with a time when it was assumed the “experts” could design everything from the top down. The fact that they were trying to resolve the problem of a deeply wounded national ego by blaming a minority that was VISIBLE because of their different attire and customs, and trying to solve it by eliminating it and pushing conformity from the top down doesn’t mean it’s inevitable.
It means it’s a danger for deeply wounded cultures, with a myth of UNITY and blood-and-soil. For us the danger hinges more on equality, which leaves us wide open to the politics of envy. But the nation isn’t deep crisis. The elites are. They’re just inflicting their psychosis on us.
Anyway, I’ve spent way too long on what is OBVIOUSLY someone’s racist and anti-semitic hangup. I’d guess someone not culturally American. (And no, not my commenter.)
And the original person decided in the beginning these “minorities” were a problem, and then justified it. OBVIOUSLY. Because otherwise, it’s adding two plus two and getting kumquat, and I recommend Thorazine.
Just like the hangups on “EQUALITY”, if a nation is absolutely uniform (and ten percent is a pretty small minority, btw) in income/lifestyle or language/cultural expression, it’s not a sign of health and strength. It’s a sign of a serious totalitarianism, squishing everything down.
I’ll tell you the same I tell the people who list inequality as a problem, “You’re trying to solve a feature as if it were a problem.”
An absolutely unified nation WITHOUT a minority that refused to be assimilated has never existed, outside maybe the earliest nation states. And even there, I doubt it. The problems come when the culture is in crisis and tries to make everyone exactly alike. But a culture in crisis exaggerates even the slightest problems. So, you know, them over there, who use clay pots for their stew instead of cast iron, can become a whole “unintegrated minority” at need. But it’s a mirage, really. And what tears the nation apart is something else. The minority is just something convenient to blame.
So much for that. Yes, we do have a problem (fight me on that too) with not only not encouraging people to speak English, but catering to a dozen langages so as not to be “racist” and refusing to let kids be taught to assimilate. I KNOW I had to fight to keep my kids from being put in Spanish-only (of all things) school, and I am not, nor ever was, a Spanish speaker, and am married to someone whose ancestors have been here from the beginning, save for the ones that met them on the shore. So, you know?
We have a huge problem. It’s called a massive and too powerful government with illusions of intellectual superiority. Remove that, and people will integrate or flee. (And keep in mind I still think most of the newest arrivals are here because they were promised benefits, and we’d be better off without them. In fact, a bunch are running the other way when the teat dries.)
Otherwise? People can and will integrate. No? Laughs in Italian and Irish.
Now, on the other one, the “if a minority holds its breath till it turns blue, we’ll give them what they want because we hate to be mean!”
Do I need to point out that’s bullshit? If that were true, guns would already be forbidden, since they’ve been the main push of the proto-commies and commies since…. oh, forever?
So, where did this analyst of social evolution come up with that? Easy peasy. Disregard the fact that every means of mass communication, down to commercialized artistic expression supported the push of the Marxists, and you come up with some strange sh*t to explain the 20th century.
I’ve pointed this before, and it’s only visible now because it’s no longer working as it used to, but there used to be a push on EVERYTHING for whatever their pet cause was at the time. When their push was to get abortion federally legalized… Well, let’s say I’ve read a lot of period novels. Almost all of them had someone die of a botched abortion. So did the movies. Or worse, they had someone destroyed, going insane from having a “bastard”. ALMOST every one. It was a pervasive wall of propaganda.
And with all that, we don’t even know if it convinced the people at large. Why? Because when that level of propaganda is deployed, people who dissent are afraid to say it. Those of you who were recently college students will know what I’m talking about. Step out of line, and you just ruined all your prospects in life, and people will know you as “that crazy person.” (Or in my case, “A little peculiar.” Yes, very proud of that.)
I know in the present day where, despite their stomping, we can still talk around the edges, and more importantly, the information/entertainment is not unified, they deployed the same thing to make us feel like open borders were the bestest thing. And it’s not working. It’s not working with teeth in it. But Lord, they tried. From city-commissioned murals, to the stories that get awards, to the series that are changed to be all about immigration, to– It’s everywhere. And they can’t understand why it’s not working. (Part of the reason it’s not working is because the quality of entertainment/literature and art that pushes the message has got so bad — because they select creators on the basis of conformity, of course — that people are reading older things, and indie things, and foreign things. And they get news from other countries, as well. So the push is not working.)
But yeah, all the remarkable “gains” of the left during the twentieth century is because cancel culture, whisper campaigns, and hiring and promoting for social conformity were already fully on.
So, the dispirited dissenters thought they were the only ones, and kept their mouths shut.
This is not effective in the long run. In the long run, it leads to Romanian Christmas. BUT in the short run, and if the people doing the analysis refuse to see the elephant in the room, it gives the impression of a minority getting all their crazy wish list, because the majority is just so nice, and doesn’t want to say no.
At any rate, these are things that superficially seem to make sense, but not when you really dig for all the factors, or look at similar situations in history.
Sure, unassimilated minorities are bad. They also only stay ABSOLUTELY separate if the government of the land is enforcing that. And even then they don’t. It just takes them MUCH longer to integrate.
And sure, some cultures are utterly toxic and inimical to civilization. (Judaism might be the opposite. As with cats, where they are, there is civilization.) And they’re very hard to eliminate while keeping the people. And only insane people would invite them into their home country. But our elites are bugnuts, and hate us with the fire of a thousand suns.
Still, the problem is self-resolving when the government stops protecting the invaders. And no, I don’t even mean violence, unless it’s getting what they dish out. And my guess is it will mostly result in fleeing while a small contingent quiet assimilates and disappears into the population. Because frankly the overculture doesn’t work well with tribal mentality. And it won’t.
Anyway, this is why social math, or scientific psychology and sociology don’t exist. You can’t set controlled experiments with that kind of system over time. So, it’s impossible to say “Once you reach x number of dissenters, this happens.” Because you can’t experiment to prove it.
What you have is history, which often in the telling ignores the elephant in the room, for the same reason that fish, if they had language, wouldn’t have a word for “water.” (They’d have 100 words, including one for water that smells like poo, but that’s something else. Just go with the metaphor, okay?) Everyone in one of the fields where the left enforced conformity in the 20th century knew what was happening (What, you thought everyone all at once just needed to write about people dying in botched abortions? Thorazine. You need it.) But they didn’t know/couldn’t see it was universal. So it appears in nothing. And trying to analyze from the “history” is a fool’s errand.
As for psychology, though there was some outright crazy stuff done in the late nineteenth century and also by the Nazis, it’s really hard to eliminate all other factors that lead to outcomes in humans, and experimenting is a chamber of horrors I’d like to keep shut, thank you.
So again anyone who comes up with a number, or a population percentage that guarantees an outcome, is trying to sound super-scientific and is just making shit up. Some might not realize they’re making shit up, so I’ll credit them with stupid honesty. But I suspect most do realize it.
And anyone who comes up with a number or a percentage of the population who is tying their belts funny, or speaking with a weird accent, or eating those disgusting onions, or WHATEVER IT IS as a reason why “everything is lost, give up now.” Is an enemy. An enemy of humans. An enemy of civilization and an enemy of America.
No one runs around telling one side of the fight to just give up if they want it to win. And no one does it when the side is ALREADY defeated.
The only reason to run around saying “Give up now!” is a psi-ops by those who want you defeated, and are afraid you won’t be.
Keep that in mind, before you doom. The times being what they are, and the private pressures being what they are, not to mention the psychological fractures of 2020, a lot of us go through black moments. Actually black moments from the pit of hell are not rare.
HOWEVER try to keep your black moments to a few friends. And don’t trust anyone who shouts them in public, and wants to convince you it’s all lost.
Those people are not your friends. And what they want is not the restoration of America.
According To Hoyt 
I almost did not post this. I have a great deal of respect for, and frankly psychological need for, your optimism about these issues, but… The problem to me is not that I think we will all end up killed, or even that we will end up living in a totalitarian hellhole. I think you are correct that the internal contradictions in the left’s ideas, along with the native stubbornness and strength of Americans will over come that threat. The problem is that we are well on our way to a transformation from an amazingly high trust/unified around a concept of being American society to a a low trust/balkanized into mutually suspicious groups society, and I do not see a path to overcoming that change. Does living in a low trust society equate to doom? No, most of mankind has historically, and does today, live in societies in which trust for anyone not close kin is very limited. But it is something precious we have lost or at least are losing, and I see little chance of our getting it back anytime in the foreseeable future.
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We will I think come out of this very scarred. As scarred as you expect? I doubt it. Look, we survived the ACW as a high trust society. I think it’s the result of WHO we are, a mix of a lot of people who have to trust each other.
BUT I won’t lie. It’s going to hurt us for a while, including in that.
OTOH I’d like to point out I’m NOT an optimist. I’m at best an Apocaloptimist. Someone who thinks everything is going to shit, but we’ll come out all right in the end.
Chin up. Be nor afraid. But be not stupid, either, and sleep with an eye open.
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We did not emerge from the Civil War as a high trust society, although within the victorious side there was high trust. We became one again via the reconciliation movement (which is the period in which all the monuments/base namings for Confederates etc. were built which the left recently destroyed). That was a deliberate movement to overcome the inter-regional hatred and distrust which prevailed throughout reconstruction. It was successful, which is cause for hope, but that was a two way split and it still took a generation to begin to heal, and close to two to really get to a state where southerners felt like Americans again.
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Again, yes. It will take time, and we’ll go through hell. Never said we wouldn’t.
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I suspect high trust is more resilient and more durable than low trust societies. From what I can tell, Japan during the shogun era was a much lower trust society, but what emerged from industrialization and the second world war seems to have been a much higher trust society.
I suspect they are not the only country to go through that, but reading stories and bits throughout their history, the migration was striking.
There still seem to be internal conflicts with their prior system, but it does seem like people just do better in high trust than low trust.
And if that really is the case, I speculate that high trust looks more fragile than low trust would be because high trust societies tend to be very open about their issues, while low trust requires a projection of invulnerability, lest the wolves descend upon you.
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When going through Hell, don’t stop.
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THIS
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No matter where you go, there you are.
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The real difference between hell and purgatory is simple (despite what Dante or any pope said– and me being a Calvinist, why would I care what the pope said): hell is eternal. It’s just a bit of purgatory if you’re coming out the other side.
So keep moving: there’s a queue of us behind you, too, and stopping blocks traffic.
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I beg to differ. We came out of the ACW as two main high trust societies, still southerners who trusted southerners, and northerners who trusted northerners. The melding of trust between north and south has been continuing for over a century, although it can be argued that the MSM and governmental sector have been seriously hindering that melding, especially since the Great, Semi-Black, Community Organizer came to the forefront.
I suspect that level of trust in both groups could be attributed to a strong Judeo-Christian heritage; and the decline of religion (particularly Christian) in this country fairly closely corresponds to the decline in trust. Keeping in mind that correlation does not guarantee causation.
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So. You do not think we are going to end up as Brazil?
The younger ones… IDK. We swept the school boards here on USAianism…
God willing.
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The country, or the movie? :-D
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via GIPHY
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No. No, I don’t. Brazil has a lot of other pathologies. There is nothing even close to Brazil here.
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Not even the LA favelas?
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It’s a tiny tiny portion of the US, not the country. As I like to point out, we are so large we have almost anything you care to point to. BUT it’s not our culture and doesn’t define us.
We do however have a lot of clean up to do. And it will be hard not to go too far.
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That is my hope as well.
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With your permission, of course, I wil heretofore refer to myslef as an apocaloptimist.
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I didn’t make up the term. Someone used it about me.
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I don’t remember who did it first.
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Personally I’m somewhere in between. I think things will shake out into maybe a half dozen successor nations with different takes on things and low trust in the other groups. I also believe they will overcome that distrust over time and reunification, one way or another. What that result looks like, I can’t be sure, but I suspect we would, in fact, recognize it. It just won’t be just like it is now…
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No fucking way. Pardon my French. No way our country divides into nations. First, the culture is still too uniform for that, so divisions will not hold. Second, the terrain doesn’t support it. NO WAY.
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Just to add to that –
I’m sure everyone remembers (even if they need to be reminded) of the California Secession group that popped up after the 2016 Trump win. Despite the high profile that the group had, and the general hysteria on the left after Trump’s win, there was zero interest in California for such a thing.
Despite the disagreements, people aren’t really interested in going their own way.
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Says you. State of Jefferson is real. Not, mind you, realistic.
Californians: +insert eyeroll emoji+
If Putin was basing sympathy for the Donbass et al on our hicks and deplored caste wanting to breakaway from our corrupt clueless citified class and evil gummint who, because of grift are in bed with the Ukraine puppet gummint….
He has a good handle on USAian divisions.
Exploiting the which was KGB SOP.
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I think he was referring to the leftish plan to break up Cali-f’n-ornia into 6 states to get 12 more leftoid senators.
In Flyover County, Oregon, there’s now more talk about Greater Idaho than State of Jefferson. (I love the XX logo for the double-cross it refers to.) I’m not optimistic about the deep-blue axis in the NW corner of the state letting us go, but I think there’s more of a chance of GI happening than SOJ.
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That makes sense. Also agreed about Greater Idaho.
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The problem with six new states out of CA for TPTB is they think they will get 12 new liberal senators. News for them. Northern CA, which would be at least two states, aren’t likely to produce liberal senators (the sections that want to be part of the SOJ). Then there are the remaining new CA divided eastern states, and San Diego section, that also likely to disappoint them and not produce liberal senators. That leaves maybe 4 of the new 12 senators as liberal. I’d call that a major oops, on their part, which is why it won’t happen. (Could they try to gerrymander the state lines, like they do the congress districts? Operative words are “try”.)
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No, I was referring to the push to have California secede from the US following the 2016 election. It gained a lot of publicity, and many on the right were joking about it, but there was no interest here in California.
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Ah. I had forgotten about that, or else (IIRC, Drudge was still related to reality) it got lost in the noise of “Orange President was a Russkie Spy”.
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Eastern WA to Eastern OR: Take me with you…
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They are not a puppet government. The previous one was.
And no, Putin does not get us at all. Thank Bog.
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Also, practically, how does citified Lapop Managerial caste globo-homo vs. Everyone Else* manage to break up into separate nations? Especially since the AWFLs cannot, simply cannot, leave anyone alone to go there own way.
*I think the Mexican Catholic monarchy (-ies?) of Los Colonias might have a shot.
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Um…. do not classify cities like that. That is seriously stupid. Most of the cities being left is fraud at this point. Again, it’s interpreting a result as if it were clean, when it’s not.
Yes, there’s a lot of that. There’s a lot more of PRETENDING to be that. But it’s not the majority. I’ve lived in US cities most of my life. The horrifying thing is that every right wing person thinks they’re alone, and falsifies their own preference unless they REALLY trust you.
Reminds me of publishing in the bad old days.
AND they are as capable as most Americans. The sincere left are the young and indoctrinated. They’ll probably eventually grow out of it, after life slaps them and they poke around for the truth.
There’s also an underclass, but that…. is human.
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The Left is -noisy-. Americans, by and large, are not. Boisterous, sure. But politically we are not typically noisy.
Thus others continually mistake the Largemouth Leftroids for the majority.
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It is not a left-right thing, but of class / caste. And the managerial class will not leave us alone. We have to waste years and money and manpower to stop their fool meddling.
I would be happy to believe that outside of DC, Portland, Seattle. and San Fran (the cities I know), this is not the case. USA is bigger and more different than anyone can manage.
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Sigh. Cities have as many working drones as managers. Ask me how I know.
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Yes. Ask me how I know (shiort answer: union crossover) So yes NAXALT however they are too few or not connected enough to matter.
Yet.
So what does that have to do with the ruling caste there messing with the deplorables in the countryside?
This was all in support of yours and other pointing out that a civil war split ala all the novels was improbable if not impossible.
Unless, and this is the part that gives me hope, they wise up to the toxic positional goods they’ve been sold. Because I think they are. It’s our only hope to save America’s great cities. Which we should, even if we don’t want to live there ourselves.
OTOH if you are arguing that my attitude towards them makes it less likely they’ll reform, as a member of their caste shameing and mocking them…
That’s a fair cop.
*The ones that assume we win, they lose.
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The ruling caste is barely in a position to mess with anything.
Yes, people in cities have been mouthing the same things forever, but I think there’s a great wakening there too, and fraud is getting noticed HARD.
I was surprised how much left fraud there was in COL Springs in a COLLEGE neighborhood.
They wouldn’t do it if they didn’t have to.
I think we need to stop stigmatizing based on “But they vote” when our vote is 75% or so fraud.
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Based on responses I’m seeing on NextDoor. Not just the big things. People are pissed. Saw a discussion shutdown on Nextdoor because the original poster was not getting the affirmation wanted. On people bring their dogs with them to school zones to pick up their children despite school authorities saying not to, unless a service animal (dog/mini-horse). Wasn’t the one to tell poster (essentially) to piss up a tree. Was the one to say “As a service dog handler I know for a fact I still can’t take my service dog into a school building without the schools permission (except certain events/circumstances). Also school officials cannot deny leashed pets from school public outside grounds, parking lots, sidewalks, and fields, anymore than businesses open to public, where pets are not allowed, can bar pets from their parking lots, sidewalks, and other external areas. They can ask. They can’t demand, or threaten.” Someone else also posted that the school boards can talk, but legally they can’t do anything. Allergies or being afraid of dogs is no excuse (essentially I have rights too). Discussion got shut down after second post on the legalities. Other posters were running < 25% in favor of posters complaint. The rest were “are you freaking kidding me?” in tone.
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Yes. I do not believe most urban black Americans have legitimately voted for anyone in half a century. They’re farmed.
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There is a reason why liberal Eugene hasn’t incorporated those of us in the urban county within the urban growth boundary. Just the new development pockets. Partly it is related to the prior failed (as in slapped down hard) attempts (they have to encircle to get us). But also because once they do Eugene will no longer be liberal, or at worse have to fight to be so (UofO doesn’t help conservatives). After all Lane County leans liberal, but that is adding in Florence and other liberal pockets. As it is, I figure it is at most 70%, maybe as little as 65%. With the pockets already incorporated in N. Eugene, and other outlying areas, leaning to the minority conservative.
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This is a favorite dream of the Russians, because they project the soviet union on the US
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I realized while reading this that while I think Americans may do what we call secession. What will really happen is that a few states will vote to secede. I’m looking at you New Hampshire and Texas. Then most red states will join in. Then individual countries will leave blue states…. Until the entire United State minus large urban areas has formed a new/old United States. Then maybe Alberta and some regions of Mexico will join.
Sarah is correct Americans have much in common and will naturally group together in authentic Republican Government (Republican in the technical sense. I reject the left’s democracy)
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I don’t think we drink enough alcohol for that.
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Nah, the left gets nothing, we stay together and some of the more sensible Canadian provinces can join if they want.
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Shared adversity can build trust.
Also, do not confuse “selective/picky trust” for “low trust”.
Some folks are working on earning distrust. Other folks thus getting picky is rational and healthy.
We are a very long way away from “me and my brother and my cousin against the world.” We are so far from that it is alien, not just odd.
Sure, a bunch of unspanked overgrown left-toddlers are going to tantrum. And break stuff. But they lose, and the remainder of us will be harder and wiser for it.
We got this.
We beat worse before.
The time of suckage is near, but it ends well.
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Absolutely alien, that is what all the American Flags are about. Different groups are signaling affiliation with the principals of the United States.
The left knows this, it’s why they hate the flag. America has always been a multicultural society. I think the Union Jack is used similarly in the UK.
I used to watch YouTube videos of European Exchange Students (Mostly Swedish) talking about weird things in america and the prevalence of American Flags was a perennial topic. They often described it as disturbing and militaristic. But that’s not what the flag means to Americans typically. It usually indicates unity and/or gratitude. There is a strong association between the flag and the Bill of Rights.
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The flag shouts “Liberty!”
No onder it is alien to so many. They havent a clue.
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This is why other countries carry the American flag in their rebellions. Unless they’re anti-freedom.
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The flag shouts “Liberty!”
Yep. That’s why I fly it.
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Point of order, the Time of Suckage began when Winnie the Flu was unleashed.
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Point of order, it began in 08. Has been ramping up ever since.
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It was coming before that, but kicked into high gear when the Kenyan got into office.
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I’m starting to think it started with the birth of Roussau…
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The basic ideas date back to Plato, at minimum. The Republic is entirely dedicated to the idea that we should be ruled by ‘benevolent’, but absolute rulers, qualified by virtue of their status as Philosophers, who will then assign all work, all association, including marriage, and all resources.
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Step away from that fruit tree, woman!
(grin)
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🤪🤪🤪😏
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I envy your optimism.
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Laughs in chronic depressive who’s never ever ever ever been an optimist.
EVER. In the history of ever.
If reality checking is “optimism” to you, you might have been doomed, or trying to doom us. You figure out which. I’m out of patience with this shit.
NO ONE EVER told the losing side “you’re losing.” They tell the winning side “you’re losing, quit”. Or the side that MIGHT win.
And you know what? When the FBI and CIA ADMITTED they’re using propaganda techniques on the population — and not on the side of freedom — you should be more aware of those, and not fall for them.
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Local local local.
Be optimistic.
About yourself. Your fam. Your neighbors. Yourvlical gummint.
Inveigh against the rest. They’re all going to hell, and it’s the privilege of troops in the trenches to bitch. Because you are in those local trenches, right? Right! Buncha pool noodles, but we’ll show ’em.
Gamergate was brilliant at mindset. Worth a look Mr. tomolak.
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“when I opened my mouth without thinking, my college professors could pinpoint my origin to within a mile of home.”
Ya, that’s not just Europe. In college I was in the pub and happened to be talking to a former professor. After 15-20 mins he says “You’re from about 50 miles north of Charleston”. Yup, drive 52 miles up highway 52 and take a left and you’ll be in my driveway.
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The single most accurate test for my place of origin and rough age would be to ask what a small, pink, hard rubber ball made by the Spaulding company is called. The answer is something like “spawldeeen”.
My formal speech is NE US standard English, my unguarded speech sounds like a baritone Bugs Bunny.
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They know you are from somewhere close to Dayton, if you can pronounce the same word two or three different ways in the course of a sentence. Hah! I just wish I had been tape recording or had a video of that American Dialects project q and a. It was hilarious.
Regional dialects spoken by native speakers of US English are accelerating and getting more differentiated, which is why Cincinnati and Columbus have several “new” stable dialects inside the city limits. The leading edge of sound changes are teenage girls and their middle-aged dads.
Dayton is hilarious because various major dialects (the current terms are Northern Midlands, Southern Midlands, and Upper Midwestern, but whatever), and several other regional dialects collided and decided to hang out, all at the same time. And generally there is no differentiation by neighborhood, because we just don’t care. This is not how it normally works.
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I’ve confused language people because my accent is a blend of Midwestern Neutral and Central Texan, but my vocabulary ranges from pure Suthun’ and Texun to Oxbridge Academese. In one paragraph.
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I’m normally American Standard/Baltimore (My mom’s best friend when I was learning to talk was from Baltimore), but I got recorded once when I was pretty annoyed. Suddenly, I had a Southern accent, North Carolina variety.
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When I was in college, I took a semester course in linguistics that was, as far as I know, only offered the one time. The first day, the professor had everyone in the class stand up, one at a time, and read a paragraph of prose that she provided. After each reading, she would tell the student where they were from.
I was the only one in the class she couldn’t do that for, because my background involved much travel during my childhood, due to being an Air Force brat whose mother was from northern England.
It turns out that there are resources for linguistics that have maps, often down to small geographic areas, that show where language variations are used, such as pronouncing “greasy” as “greezy,” or where “worsh” is the pronunciation of “wash,” or where the generic term for a fizzy soft drink is “coke,” “pop,” or “soda.”
The paragraph the professor had us read was loaded with words that she could use for that purpose.
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Knew a King of the East (SCA) with a pronounced…we thought Brooklyn at first, but maybe Chersy City (that’s how he said it) accent. He really did say, “youse guys,” on the throne. Court was a hoot.
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I had occasion to meet and live with a fair number of people from the Chicago area and elsewhere in Illinois. I don’t have a good ear for language (and that was when my hearing was actually good), but I could tell the people from the Sout’ side of Chikaga vs those living further north. I couldn’t place rural accents, but there were distinct differences; not surprising since one guy came from near the Wisconsin border and another came from Cairo. (Pronounced “Karo”, he said.)
And then there’s what NE Illinoisians do to French place names… My wife tends to correct me and I’ll correct her right back. ‘Tain’t French, ’tis local. OTOH, my faint memory of Michigan says that the French names there approximate French(tm). Barring Detroit. :)
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“when I opened my mouth without thinking, my college professors could pinpoint my origin to within a mile of home.”
For me, that was often identified as not quite a mile outside of Ignorant, New York.
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We discovered this summer the capital of South Dakota (Pierre) is pronounced, “Peer.” One syllable.
And we visited a town in northeastern Washington which is spelled, “Sequim,” but pronounced, “Skwim”.
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Coming from good old South Dakota – there is also a town in the Black Hills named Lead. You say it “Leed”. When in other parts of the nation as a youngster very few could figure out where I came from by my speech I was always general mid-western. Also, Tom Brokaw is from South Dakota.
There is also the “South Dakota Game” that is, when you, a person from or living in South Dakota runs into someone else from the state you immediately start exchanging names/places to see who you both know. Funny part is you usually find someone in common.
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Lead is pronounced “Leed” because it is a mining term. The main ore body is the “leed”
Lead was the home of the largest gold mine in the northern hemisphere. There is still gold mining in the area unto this day.
Who knows why Pierre is pronounced “peer”. People over thataway are weird.
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Perhaps a progression over the years from Pierre –> pee air –> pee er –> peer?
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When I went to school in Watertown, SD I discovered where the Rs from Boston (where they pahk the cah) migrated to: my neighbors would warsh the car after they changed the earl.
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It took years for me to remove the “r” from wash.
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I’m still working at it.
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I thought that was Oregon & Washington residents? (grin)
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My central Indiana father and grandmother both used the ‘r’ in wash. That’s especially noticeable when you live near west Washington street.
They also substituted a ‘x’ for the ‘s’ in sink. I’ve not heard anyone else do that.
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My experience with most European languages (to be fair, that’s British English, German, and French with a smattering of Texas Spanish) is that most of them have no hard ‘r’ sound. Most of their ‘r’s sound more like an American ‘ah’.
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I open my mouth to pronounce: Willamette, Oregon, Skwim, …
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Will-a-mett? Isn’t that in Oree-gone, somewhere near Chem-a-ketta? (haw! yeah, I used to live out there.)
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Well it does explain why I look at words I can read silently but have no idea on how to pronounce correctly. Because so many Oregon (Ore-gun) places that are absolutely not pronounced the way they are spelled. Oregon is probably the closest. I swear.
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Pierre native here. We really dislike people pronouncing it wrong. ;-)
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And then there’s Chequamegon… (shuh-WAH-mah-gen)
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In Florida there’s El Jobean
pronounced “ell joe bean” because it was named after one L. Joseph Bean
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Here in Utah it’s always fun to hear outsiders pronounce Tooele and Hurricane.
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Hurricane, the town not the weather.
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When I worked for the Army I heard it as, “Too-elly”. Always wanted to go to the depot there, but never did.
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The story is that the spelling of Proveau changed because people were pronouncing it wrong.
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And in Alabama, they have Arab. No, not pronounced, “Ah-rab.” No, it’s A-rab,” as in, “Ahab the Arab.”
Better get that long “A” in if don’t want to sound like a yankee.
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Lots of places in the South where “egg” is two syllables.
(kinda like ai-igg )
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my favorite thing on pronouncing “egg” was my younger son. He thought the word was Ee-Ehg.
We figured it would be spelled Yegg.
Took us a while to figure out it was because of us saying things like “Get the eggs.” very fast. :D
Sometimes we still call them Yeggs for fun. “Hey, you got yeggs. Give me some.”
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Hand them the name of the World Tree from Norse mythology, Yggdrasil
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As long as “it’s their culture” is seen as a basis for excusing antisocial actions we’re screwed. Getting that progressive mindset out of the courts is essential. As long as government supports that silly idea of culture over law we’ll have problems that cannot be resolved.
Fortunately history tells us “this too shall pass”
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That reminds me of the old commercial with the young girl saying the tagline, “It’s shaiyk ‘n baiyk, ‘n ah he-upped!”
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I hear they have a lavender festival (for the plant) there. I’ve never been but one of architecture classmates did his final project about the place.
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Wry G I had the opposite – people thought I was either born several states away, or in Britain or Canada.
What can I say, I watched a lot of Doctor Who….
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I tend to drop into whatever accent is being used by the person I’m speaking to. I do it without thinking. Sometimes it just happens, and I don’t notice.
At one point a woman came up and asked me where I was from. I told her. She exclaimed, “You sound like you’re from Woostersheer” in that definitely British accent. And yes, I used her pronunciation there.
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A college buddy was convinced I had spent extensive time in his obscure El Salvador back-of-beyond village. (this woudl have been back during their near endless civil war)
“But you speak -our- Spanish!”
“I am a a parrot. I am mimicing -you-.”
“You could pass for my uncle!”
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I was standing on top of a pyramid in Yucatan (taking pictures of a larger pyramid and deciding that it was too darn hot to climb it), when I heard someone ask another bystander to take their picture.
The accent was familiar. Not just southern, or from Georgia, or eastern Georgia…I asked if she was from Elbert county.
In just a few minutes of conversation it turned out she was my mother’s second cousin.
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You might like this one. Hit the comments if the link to the person doing Julius Caesar does not work.
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She has a real gift for that. Wow.
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The 10% parasite thing comes out of evolutionary game theory and the free rider problem. Mathematically it’s quite defensible within the abstraction that is game theory. reality, of course, is much more complicated and the predictions of game theory are about as accurate as any other economist’s prediction — not very.
This was my master’s thesis topic at the LSE back in the day — I applied it to companies. It’s a very interesting notion and a good way to understand certain phenomena. It’s is not prophesy, nor really prediction. Just a useful model.
perhaps because so much of what we read and hear comes from stupid people, we put far to much weight on these models.
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For companies, I could absolutely see that.
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It works for populations too. It’s a rough model, but very useful. There does seem to be a level of “cheating” — that’s the term used in the literature — beyond which a system ceases to function. That is silent about the nature of the cheating — what’s a parasite anyway — the length of time, the initial conditions, etc., etc.,
Like all useful models, it’s not new. You see the same (wrong) answer in Plato and it is arguably the theme of Tocqueville’s Democracy in America.
Societies are quite resilient, but there is a level of free riding beyond which Society breaks down. Still 10%, 20%, 1%. Who knows? And Parasite, 10% who are 100% parasitical? It’s all so very tiresome.
“There are more things in heaven and earth, Horatio, than are dreamt of in your philosophy.” seems, to me, to be the beginning of wisdom.
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If our parasites were that much of a problem, we wouldn’t be feeding and sending money to half the world. Sigh. I wish we weren’t, but that’s something else.
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LOL
“Cheating” is also a system.
And some games assume a certain level of cheating built in. NASCAR and poker come to mind. “If I can get away with it, it’s legal.”
How many folks drive 54 in a 55 zone? (In the left lane? You a-hole!) Versus 58 or even 64? The system simply assumes a 4-over or 9-over “cheat”.
Then you get to “big boy rules” where it’s “catch me, F me”.
Still a system. Still a “game”.
Now we get to “Italian income tax” which is CMFM with elan.
Still a system, although 85% unwritten. Only a fool plays such games “straight”.
Etc.
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It’s not the cheating, it’s the being cheated.
The society I grew up in, now exists only in memories.
The destruction was mostly driven by the USDA pressuring farmers to use debt for annual operating expenses for macro-economic goals during stagflation (which became permanent, because government), followed by the laws passed as part of the S&L bailout, which snapped the debt trap into a tight noose (short version: if your net worth doesn’t increase at least every 3-4 years, your loans automatically default, and your collateral is seized in bankruptcy proceedings. Your equipment depreciates…)
Add to that generations of the educational system trying to homogenize the American people, and actively working to stamp out regionalism (not to mention resistance to federal control).
But those were the pebbles starting the avalanche.
Most of the visible avalanche involves foreigners. (Californians qualify). Speculators driving up real estate to prices unapproachable by locals. The unskilled labor market is awash with illegal aliens. The skilled labor workforce features large companies gaming the H1-B visa program, and those employees actively trying to recreate their culture’s caste systems. The local governments bends over backwards for the willfully unassimilated, but are downright eager to smear the citizens who have deep roots in the community. Not to mention economic migration so extreme that the native born comprise less than a majority of the population, and quite possibly less than a plurality (overall. Some areas are obviously places where the local folkways are not appreciated.)
It’s a bad scene.
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There’s a long, dishonorable tradition of identifying the useless parasite… and eliminating them, just to find out they were probably more vital than the ones who eliminated them.
And yet folks keep fancying themselves able to do it.
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Presented by Douglas Adams in, I think, “The Restaurant at the End of the Universe”. Among the folk shipped off were telephone handset sanitizers and then the folk who shipped them off ended up being wiped out by a plague spread by telephone handsets.
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Was supposed to say “Presented in a humorous way…”
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Phone sanitizers…
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I was actually thinking of a bunch of groups I’ve been in, where the pattern is more like the elite headliners deciding they didn’t need the “worthless” folks who only did stuff they didn’t need… story seems to have caught that idea, but ….
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It’s also the one I’ve had the most exposure to. My background is Business and IT.
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In companies, I’d bet this is pretty close to true, but causing collapse? No. Causing all sorts of effing trouble, I’ll buy.
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But then again, how does that play with…. is it the pareto principle? which says in every company 20% of the people do 100% of the work? I mean….. seriously. These numbers just don’t make sense.
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Too many people believe in magic numbers. We’re seduced by their apparent power and precision. It allows us to present ourselves as rational and unsentimental. I don’t believe in magic, numbers or otherwise.
The 10% is about what comes in the basic models as the maximum number of defectors /cheaters/parasites before an “evolutionary stable strategy” model collapses. The static, closed off, abstract models. The models that refer only to themselves. Those models.
Models ain’t reality , especially when one is talking of a dynamic, open, concrete system, like a society.
Anyone who uses the 10% number outside the very narrow area it’s applicable to should be ignored. The model can be useful as an abstraction of one facet of reality, but nothing more than that.
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So…. climate models?
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The Reader hasn’t seen a useful climate model. Although some years the Farmer’s Almanac comes close.
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If you get enough climate models stacked on each other, you can raise your computer monitor to a comfortable position. However, climate models usually do not make good substitutes for toilet paper, no matter how much they resemble fecal material.
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Unless you print them on toilet paper, of course.
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Yeah, but the ink tends to bleed-through and you can get even more confused if you try reading the wrong side. Kind of like trying to get satanic verses from playing Beatles songs backwards.
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There was one that only looked at solar activity. It seemed to backcast decently well.
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That is because climates are regional.
What? You thought they redefined “vaccine” without play testing it?
First they come for our words…
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You presume the utility of climate models is in predicting the climate, but that does not seem to be supported by the evidence.
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WHAT EVIDENCE?????? They’ve been corrupting it for decades.
Read this post on Ace of Spades. Have something to punch handy.
http://ace.mu.nu/archives/407075.php
“Here is some background on the USHCN stations:
• At one point in the 1950s there were 1,218 of these stations.
• By 2020 the number of functioning stations had declined to 830.
• NOAA has chosen to keep the number of database inputs at 1,218.
As a result, NOAA simply estimates the temperature data for the other 388 decommissioned stations. In other words, the temperature records for approximately 1/3 of the USHCN stations are
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That’s what I mean by there is no evidence that any of these climate studies or climate models are actually intended to predict climate. If they were there would be some consequences to being consistently wrong, and the people buying them would have some questions about the validity or even resistance of the input data.
Yet, there is not. Which implies that the people writing the checks for these are, in fact getting what they want, and that what they want are something other than predictive climate models.
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Or epidemiological models. The WuFlu panic was about models being applied to the real world by psychopaths. The models are quite useful to isolate factors and ask questions about them. Beyond that, not so much.
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Yeah. Models. Spit.
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The ‘Climate Scientists’ have yet to come up with a climate model that can accurately predict the climate we have already experienced. If there was any validity to their models at all we would be on our 10th or 12th ‘Climate Catastrophe’ since 1990 and the world would be a barren wasteland.
———————————
When reality fails to conform to your theories, it’s not the universe that’s wrong.
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The Reader’s son has concluded that all climate scientists are idiots. According to him anyone who controls both the model and the inputs ought to be able to duplicate reality. Since they can’t…
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I wouldn’t say idiots. They keep getting government grants, don’t they?
When they’re rewarded for being wrong, why should anybody expect them to be right? They’re just saying what they’re paid to say.
———————————
“Politics perverts science. Scientists are rewarded not for finding and reporting the truth, but for telling those in charge of doling out the money whatever they want to hear. Play the approved tune and you get government grants, you get consulting fees, you get published. Make the wrong waves, and you don’t. Such measures do not produce good science, or good scientists.”
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Bingo.
They’re only stupid because they’re being paid quite well for it. And being contrary gets you kicked out. When their livelihood and social status depend on stupidity, stupid is what most people will be.
That’s just about all you need to understand what’s going on with “climate science.”
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Disagreeing with ‘The Consensus’ will get you excommunicated from Science Itself.
———————————
Why do so many idiots believe that our problems will be solved by the same shitheads that caused them?
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All the climate models treat CO2 levels as a temperature control knob.
All our ice core data shows CO2 increases occur after the temperature increases, not before.
Models that start by confusing cause & effect can’t be tweaked enough to be useful.
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Keep in mind that the models do not cover forgiveness, families, love, or divine intervention.
So super for Bugman world, but not very realistic.
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“20% of the people do 100% of the work?” IMO 20% of the people do 120% 0f the work, the other 80% do minus 20% of the work.
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This.
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I believe that.
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Don’t forget to apply Sturgeon’s Rule to that 120% though.
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Pareto principle: 20% of the people do 80% of the work, and the other 80% do 20%.
And it squares pretty well….. until the 80% make management and get in the way of the 20% with endless DEI sessions, harassment training etc.
Which is where your “get woke go broke” comes in.
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okay. You are correct on the percentages. Seems to hold for everything. even fun gatherings between friends.
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Indeed Pareto principle seems to hold true across any kind of organization. Governments, churches, social groups, businesses. Every once and a while all the heavy performers get piled in one spot by sheer luck of the draw. I had a Software team where all 4 other developers were just frickin’ awesome, made me look like a lazy intellectual midget. Best time I ever had :-). I imagine sometime in the deep past Ogg and Snrk caught all the Mammoths and the rest of the hunters bragged about it even when all they did was snare a few bunnies, it’s something innate in the way we’re built. Pareto principle does put the lie to the 10% model, in Pareto model you’re at 80% parasite/near parasite and yet the system works on. Hell the stupid USSR slugged on for 70 odd years with what had to be 95% plus parasite and a fair number of folk throwing monkey wrenches in the works, societies have a LOT of resilience.
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I suspect the “caught the mammoth” is exactly the place to work– because Ogg and Snrk were in the 80% for at least some of cleaning, butchering, preserving, making weapons, finding the mammoths-
It’s like Sturgeon’s Law. It’s not all the same 20%.
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Dan once worked — ONCE for four glorious years, of the 40 of his career — with a team where everyone worked. They became known as miracle workers, and he loved it. Management took it apart, of course, but–
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Yes, Hewlett-Packard (quietly) used the 80/20 model in 1980. And yes, it wasn’t long before the 80% screwed things up gooder and harder.
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The question is whether I make it to retirement in 5 years, or get fired before then because I refuse to climb on the DEI bandwagon.
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You are not alone.
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Nope.
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Let me guess, Dan’s in the same boat, eh?
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it’s been close a couple of times, and yeah….
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If you do, it is not the end of the world
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True. Puts a crimp on the investment plan, as well as a reshuffling of spending and other activities. But that’s all part of living in an uncertain universe.
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Remember how hard HR struggles to find really good people.
You will get snapped up. Might be a bit before you find the one you want, but you will find it.
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We are better off taking charge of our own investment plans, getting them out of the higher fees 401(k)/Simple IRAs. Even if I hadn’t retired before 59 1/2, I would have started rolling out the Simple IRA moneys into to my self directed IRAs, the money already in there, as well as deposits and matching, as soon as they hit the account (what my bosses were doing). Not that the Simple IRA account holder would have been particularly happy about that. It was a PIA getting the funds rolled over properly as it was. Unfortunately for them, not our first rollover rodeo (more like the 4th, counting hubby’s when he retired). Knew how it worked. First time it was a PIA. We had to use the “Guess we have to get our lawyer involved”, we don’t have a lawyer, although we did get advice for exactly what to say from our regular IRA account holders. Just because we are self directed, doesn’t mean there aren’t advisors we can use if we need them.
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Yeah, moving 401K/pensions to an IRA is not for the faint of heart. We had a super-helpful manager at one of the credit unions (formerly used by the mills and wood products people) who tangled with the firms. I have one on my blacklist to this day, 19 years later. (coughFidelitycough who ended up with the investments from my HP&Agilent 401Ks.)
Had to deal with the old bank we had used in San Jose (same name up here, but ever so slightly different from the one in California) that pulled a fast one on an IRA. Quoted an interest rate up front, but when they saw the check, came up with a rather lower number. I left it in for the minimal time, and eventually dropped all accounts with them. No names needed; they went toes up in the ’08 crunch.
Part of moving the funds involved checking out banks and credit unions. Seems every bank I checked went under/got bought in the ’08 crunch. Three of four credit unions are still around, though one merged into a regional CU. The fourth was too small, and I wasn’t eligible; public employees/students living in Flyover County. They got acquired by the helpful larger (local and going regional) CU. That happened this year. OTOH, that CU never seemed to grow. All of the others have added new branches in county and elsewhere.
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We are with major self directed brokerage that doesn’t have account fees (there are fees, just not fees just because our money is parked there). By the time we were rolling over IRA’s, even the first one, we were well established there. No research needed. Regular account is with a credit union.
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I got laid off in the 2001 Dot com bust, then a year later the consultancy gig died when the sole client went bankrupt. I had just turned 50, and was in the midst of fixing up the house in San Jose. Took time (mostly) and money for materials, but between $SPOUSE and me, we got it done. ($SPOUSE had been laid off a couple of years earlier, and her new job was too toxic and unstable, so she left.)
We were able to use the proceeds from the San Jose house to get our place in $TINY_TOWN. $SPOUSE tapped her Roth IRA (my own savings were, er, slender) for living expenses when we exhausted the house money. OTOH, we could have skipped getting the big garage built and building some of the infrastructure improvements. (DIY builds for those.) It was tight until we could access 401K/IRA money, and we both took Social Security as soon as we were eligible.
It was a big step, but in my industry (semiconductors), the rush to offshore everything would have meant leaving anyway for an uncertain job future. Absurdly early retirement (50) worked for us.
The light at the end of the tunnel isn’t always an oncoming train.
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/nods
Dot com bust got me too, although I didn’t lose the job for that reason (CEO seriously screwed up and lost the Medicare contract for Northen New England and had to can over a third of the company), it did make finding a new one a PITA.
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Try finding new jobs when your job references for last employer are co-workers, also unemployed. “No. Can’t call my last employers. The phones are disconnected. Here is a list of former co-workers. These are my last supervisor/manager home numbers.” At least with IP they could go to corporate and at minimum get “Yes. Worked for us.”
Almost as embarrassing as being informed that a former employer had no idea who you were. All because the application form didn’t have “former names used” as part of the application. They did figure it out before calling me. Not many female “D” working on a field crew, and SS#. The second district knew immediately, if only because I’d reapplied for the ’79 season under my new name. We’d been married 4 months.
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A former gig collapsed and closed, with the refugees scattering elsewhere. Know exactly how that goes.
Find folks to be references and maintain as personal contacts.
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Exactly what I did. Co-workers, including supervisors and managers.
I’m officially out of the job market. Have been for 8 years, on purpose, at age 59.
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Ok. In my case the new tunnel light is usually named “thermobaric…”
(grin)
I have landed OK on several occasions, but its been a weird ride.
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Alas, munitions was not my AFS when I was in the service. But my DTY to Sierra Army Depot just prior to Desert Storm was fun watching them destroy old bombs and shells. Wasn’t quite as much fun when we had to evacuate the shop and drive back to the main base facilities a couple of times a week when the trainees screwed up a bomb or missile warhead though. Fortunately, they only had the usual reportable injuries of crushed or lacerated fingers like any garden variety mechanic; although I seem to remember one guy somehow accidentally put a screwdriver into his thigh.
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Yes. Computer programming was suppose to be a more stable employment environment than timber, starting in the ’80s.
Hindsight, histrionically LOLROF doubled over, with tears. Hubby had two employers (one for a total of 8 weeks, before recalled to prior employer) same job, over 35 years (three locations), timber. I had 4 employers before I got the 4 year degree completed (all but one temp/part time, still should have been a clue), and 3 after. I wasn’t one to jump employers. ALL of them left me. (Even the one that I had when pregnant. They kept me on longer because they knew I’d be “quitting”.) Granted hubby’s job had him laid off every year for 35 years, for weeks, each year.
If I hadn’t lost my seniority (off more than a year), I’d stuck it out too. It was 15 years before they started hiring again, because they started losing people to retirement, not that the jobs were coming back. 1979 – 290 field employees. 1982 – when I lost seniority – 180 field employees (yes, that is 110 employees lost seniority). 2012 – when hubby retired – 40 field employees. USFS and timber companies weren’t any better. I wasn’t the only forester to chase different careers, even into computers. Might have been part of an early wave. Definitely not the only one.
OTOH sister and BIL worked for the same computer company for 25 and 30 years, respectively. Until the company that “never would lay anyone off” asked for volunteer golden parachute applications. Took all those that applied (surprised sister, she barely qualified), then laid off a lot of software engineers. Luckily I was employed with my last employer (total 12 years) by then. I’m good. In fact I am damn good. My career did not stand up to the shine of former HP, or IBM, type employers when they let employees go.
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Has anyone done a study on the interactions between the Pareto Principle and the Peter Principle?
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They don’t make sense in a business, which has to make a profit and justify decisions. But in a government…
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No. I meant it makes sense in how a business would collapse. Sorry. brain short hand
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It’s really starting to get hard to take the left seriously when they keep hitting themselves in the face with the shovel, repeatedly.
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in most countries integrating into the society quite often means leaving behind your cultural norms, language etc. …
but in the US we have seen it is possible to “integrate” into American society and still maintain your cultural past (yes you still have to speak English or American as the English would say) …
I think that in America you can integrate if you DON’T disrupt the flow … we will accept you as long as you go along to get along …
as soon as you start DEMANDING accommodations for your unique “cultural” quirks then all bet are off …
don’t ask us to stop doing something we have done for decades (or since our founding) because it is deemed offensive in your homeland …
(pro tip: you aren’t there anymore, BY YOUR OWN CHOICE sparky) …
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My paternal grandfather was 2nd generation American citizen. Born in Iowa. Didn’t speak or even hear English until he started school in 1st grade at the age of 8. Spoke with a heavy German accent all his life. The area of North Dakota he homesteaded in when he move there with his parents was predominantly German and Polish. Grandma was Polish. Lots of accents there. Not so much now because of TV and public school.
But they were as American as they come. Sure they had family in the Old Country. But THEY we’re American and the Old Country was, well, old and they didn’t live there anymore.
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Lawrence Welk, too.
And it is one of the “nightshade pie” areas where they eat non- poisonous nightshade as a veggie or fruit.
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I smile when a certain blogger (who shall remain nameless) rails about legal immigration destroying Our American Culture from his expat home in Europe.
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Ummmm, yeah that’s a little annoying from Styx….
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but in the US we have seen it is possible to “integrate” into American society and still maintain your cultural past
No, we have not. We have seen that the natural human desire to maintain that same culture used as a tool to block USAian assimilation. A wise society sets the bar for foreigners in the homeland high. Immigration needs to be like a marriage. Not a one night stand. Or a rape.
Vox Day is spot on that mass migrations are used to destroy local culture. Whether it is bleeding hearts for refugees, Marxist subversion, oligarch desire to crush local workers (Swedes brought in to wipe out native USAian and Amerindian stubbornness in WA), or whatever the expletive us going on down at the US border with Mexico, it means to wipe us out.
Legal immigration = / = controlled immigration, unless you fondly imagine Team Brandon and their predecessors are / were subject to the same laws we peons endure.
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I have known a few Swedes. The ones I have known trended stubborn. Taciturn unless you are in the group, then will talk your ear off .They made really good engineers.
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One of the things we’re going to have to reckon with is how pretty much all human psychology is unreproducible pseudo-science.
A lot of pain is and has been flowing from that one.
On the great masses and control of media, I’ve been dealing with a bunch of basically normal people lately, and it has been brain bending trying to wrapy mind about how all they want to do is fit in with their crowd. I suspect this has been the real lever the left used, and part of why we get fixated on the 10% rule.
I suspect there is a large block of the population that just goes with whatever is the flow, so it does not take a gigantic part of the population to shift things. Just a majority of the people who care about it, and everyone else just goes with the flow.
I also suspect that it may not be the same people who care about all the things: i.e. someone who cares intensely about politics may completely not care about some other part of life. Kind of like the Coke/New Coke thing.
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I agree that most people want to go with the flow but the flow has a momentum of its own … and even 10% can’t alter its course … social media quite often does not represent the flow … in fact it seems to be populated mostly by those trying to change the flow … so there is often a conflict between try to fit into the social media world and trying to fit into the real world … and in the end I think the social media world loses that fight … (as it should … it is shallow, fake and unfulfilling) …
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Social media is being heavily censored, don’t forget that.
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I’m on Facebook, but not for that, and X. After that it’s half a dozen websites.
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“Censored” isn’t even the right word. It’s part of it, for sure, but “manipulated” or “gamed” are closer to what’s being attempted.
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yeah. I’ll concede that.
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Nudged. Of course, the “science” behind “nudging” (prospect theory, behavioral economics, etc.,) has been shown to have no basis too. They just made it up. It feeds into the Harvard professor god complex though, so it’ll never go away.
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The Verrah Smaht Peepul always and forever wish to be able to control Duh Masses, and will buy into any rationalization that will serve that purpose.
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Trying to make people “better”.
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I still maintain that the censorship is the entire reason the Dead Internet Theory is a thing.
I remember forums before the net became censored. Very different, much more alive, world. No data can fill the empty spaces.
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Yep.
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True. I don’t really know how many people it takes, but there does seem to be points where things suddenly change, even when they seemed stable.
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I’ve read (can’t remember exactly where) that a committed minority of 25-30% of the population can swing social opinion in any given direction.
It seems about right to me; I’ve seen that percentage play out in various smallish groups (academic departments, workplaces, clubs, blog comment sections), and it seems to me that the effect would be similar at scale.
But what if the larger group just isn’t willing to be pushed by that minority? And what happens if there’s an equally committed 25% on the opposite side? Maybe that’s what has been playing out in America with our commie problem over the past 100 years-ish.
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It’s looking like the relentless persecution of Trump may be pushing into the beginning of a preference cascade for the new “underdog”.
Oh and because of that CNN was fucking whining that Trump might “weaponize the DOJ”. Ya think you worthless mfer’s at CNN?? Revenge is a dish best served cold.
We WANT him to use it to fucking destroy the media.
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Yep
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As long as he knows who to attack — and I’m pretty sure he does — he can “weaponize” the DOJ to his heart’s content as far as I’m concerned. I’ll be voting for him in hopes that he will.
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‘Might weaponize the DOJ’? A-HA-HAAA-HA-HAW-HAAW-HURKK-KK-KKH…
Wait, you mean they’re serious? Dude, that train done left the station six years ago. They must mean they’re terrified Trump might get a finger on the trigger of the various parts of the government that have already been weaponized to persecute him, his family, his lawyers, his employees, and everybody that ever voted for him, wore a MAGA hat or said anything good about him. Along with ‘election deniers’, ‘COVID conspiracy theorists’, ‘Islamaphobics’ and anybody speaking the plain truth about the overwhelming corruption of the Bidens, the Clintons and most of the Democrat party.
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“Dude, that train done left the station six years ago.”
Longer. Much longer. The two-tier justice system was on full display in the Clinton Administration, if you knew where to look.
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We all recall the story of Baen’s tax problems in the years immediately following their publication of Newt Gingrich’s book.
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Honestly, I rather just see him shutter the entire department.
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As satisfying as that would be, the function it nominally serves does need to be filled.
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Past a certain point, an organization is unable to fill those functions, and would be better served by being wiped and started over from first principles.
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My father used this model to superb effect in the military: 10-20% are virtuous. The same number are unregenerate villains. Make the lives of the latter hell. Grant the former obvious perqs. The rest, sheep-like, will follow.
“All we like sheep…” Arete: the only sure defense against NPC-doms.
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RAH was highly impressed with Alfred Korzybski’s General Semantics, though he sometimes suggested S.I. Hayakawa’s Language and Thought in Action as a more accessible introduction to Korzybski’s rather dense prose style.
I think that, from that, Heinlein extrapolated making psychology into a hard science, but I’m not sure he was building on anybody in particular, but rather assuming it would be done, and fitting in ideas of his time that appealed to him, like “Renshawing” as a learning method in… Gulf, I think it was?
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Citizen of the Galaxy
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Thank you, yes. It’s been too long since I’ve read any RAH.
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As I said I realized I need to re-read. After the move and all.
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I’m a bit afraid that if I start, I won’t stop until I’m done a year or so later.
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If you want to see just how wrong Heinlein could be, read “for us the living”
Gah! So much …. crap.
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One of my quirks is that, with authors I really like, I don’t read everything they’ve ever published, so I always have “new” books to look forward to. That’s one RAH I haven’t read, though “looking forward to it” isn’t really my attituded, except in an academic sense — i.e., in terms of ideas, it apparently is a preview of almost everything else he ever wrote.
In fact, now that I think about it, that’s a lot like one of my favorite “trash” filmmakers, Jean Rollin. His first film, Rape of the Vampire, is an amazing mess shot on no money, but it plays like a trailer for the ideas he played with in his future films.
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Seldon’s psychohistory in Asimov’s Foundation series leapt to mind from that prompt.
Though even that only worked statistically for very large groups, not for individuals
I could see linguistics possibly becoming a hardish science – but why would anyone fund the work when it could diminish the ability to obfuscate, temporize, and mislead?
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I always took Asimov’s take on it as a real scientist going “not really, but I’ll make it vague and set it tens of thousands of years in the future, and readers will probably buy it”.
Even the linguists want to use it to do those last three things. Look up George Lakoff sometime. Everything, everything, everything that the left does is about power and control.
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And of course Asimov’s Seldon Psychohistory is kind of similar. With Asimov as a Chemist/Biochemist by training Psychohistory feels like some of the principles of statistical thermodynamics being applied to humans. Statistical thermodynamics is not known for its salubrious effects on practitioners as two of the originators at it (Boltzmann and Ehrenfest) died by their own hands.
There is also a strong admixture of the perfectibility of man found in Soviet Man lurking there in Foundation. Heck even the USAians beloved saint Heinlein got a whiff of that as a young man before wisdom and time prevailed and it seems to lurk a bit especially in his earlier Future History stories.
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A thought on the Jews. One of the reasons they are hated is that, historically, they have been kept out of “the good jobs” by the cultural mean girls, and so have gone to arenas that just weren’t “respectable”, got rich, and made the new arenas more respectable than what they replaced.
In the 1900s and 1910s, the movies were the lowest form of art there was. Actors (already a low-class profession at the time) would change their names if they were forced to appear in movies to make money, so they could keep their good names for the stage. By the 1930s, the movies outshone the stage in the culture, and the Jews who founded the movie studios were rich, respectable, and at the top of the world.
Then, of course, the historically ignorant claim that the Joooooooos control the world, you can tell, because they own Hollywood!
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Yep.
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That explains movies but not the Academy. My money would be on “and” based on their cultural capital and similar successes by the one-step-down-from-Brahmin class Indians.
The control-the-world shtick is the result of the J-6 vs. FBI privilege problem, if the FBI ran around claiming to be J-6-ed. Two parts nasty propaganda to one part real injustice.
Had an interesting convo a while with a black actor about Easter European immigrants. Still ruminating on it.
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If you succeed, time and again, to rise while doing what others look down upon, you must be doing something right. But the people who look down on you for it refuse to believe you have succeeded by virtue. It’s less humbling to believe you have succeeded by devious means, and that belief can draw readily on our endless capacity for envy and resentment.
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From my experience working in business, most people are fairly productive given goodul management. So basically about 50 percent do about 200 percent of the work, 49 percent do about 50 percent, and one percent do -300 percent. That one percent are the upper management that try to make everything about numbers, including literally telling people how many steps to take.
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Good management. Typo there.
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Evading bans for fun and annoyance, again?
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Totally off topic.
Well music is math.
Epic cat. Cool guitar.
Enjoy:
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Cute! And of course, a black cat sings the blues.
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I’m amazed that he succeeded in teaching his cat to meow on cue.
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I am having a slight imagination crisis, because I have been watching a very good documentary on megaliths, called Standing with Stones, on the Prehistory Guys channel.
Duuuuuude. It turns out that some of those famous stone circles are basically tiny. Like garden features. That guy in Springfield who decorated his backyard with concrete sculptures did much more impressive stuff.
I wrote a song about a stone circle that turns out to have stones the size of largeish dogs. There is a time travel novel for kids that is named after a not really exciting dolmen. I grew up with Mound stuff, and a lot of it is much better!
Okay, also younger. But still.
I’m not disgruntled so much as gruntled oddly. It is a neat documentary, and helps picture things better. But argh.
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Yet again, Spinal Tap turns out to be accurate.
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The guy in the Isle of Man who actually had a giant megalith and mound in his front yard… That was cool. (The mowing must be a pain, though.)
Probably a good thing that pics were not available at the height of 1980’s US neopaganism. Because yeah, I am surprised some people didn’t build one at their house.
The mini stone circles look like a great way to get rid of garden rocks. Maybe do one in the woods where you won’t have to mow.
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What nations contributed to the gene pool of Portugal?
Here’s my guess: https://youtu.be/5pOFKmk7ytU
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well, mostly pre-nations. A lot of Frankish and Germanic tribes, also Arabs, Romans, Greeks, Carthaginians, etc.
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Atlanteans and Hyperboreans too? ;-)
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NO. Only people who existed.
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Lemurians then.
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well, I heard tell as them under the Hill came to Ireland from Portugal. So we gots some of that. (Family name Laurel, on my part, so obviously)
But no other imaginary people.
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nods sagely
Lemurians.
Grabs his whiskey and runs
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c4c
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One source of the 10% to takeover (or collapse) might also be the idea that when Islamists form 10% of a population, they then dominate and take over, imposing shariah on the rest of the population. I wonder if that should actually read, “When you have an invasion by an Islamic army equal to 10% of the invaded population, they are able to take over.”
Which does make some historical sense, looking at North Africa, Iberia, the Mughals, and the Ottoman Empire. (If you ignore the problems that weakened the governments to the point that they couldn’t unify and chase the Ottomans et al back out.)
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Yes. But here, they don’t have an army, and we have weapons.
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To add, the US is too big for them to quickly swallow, and we see ourselves as enough of a homogenous whole that an attempt to swallow a single region (say, Dearbornistan) would likely see the rest of the country descend upon them like a ton of bricks. A group would need to have a way of dealing with the entire country all at once. Said group can’t nibble away at the country, one bit at a time.
The closest similarity that I can think of would be like having Muscovites travel to Spain to assist in the Reconquista. Actual Muscovites wouldn’t, because they have little in common with the Iberians. But it’s not out of the realm of impossibility for Los Angelenos to travel to Maine to deal with an incursion there if they thought their assistance would be useful. And the distance from LA to Maine isn’t that much further than it would be for the Muscovites.
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That too.
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As long as the Angelenos weren’t dealing with a simultaneous outbreak of Reconquista by the La Raza loons.
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Then people from Washington would go in both directions to help out.
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Actually, Lisbon to Moscow is about 200 miles less than LA to Portland, ME.
This is a really really big country.
Other fun facts: Seattle to Miami is further than London to Baghdad, and Minneapolis to Houston is further than Stockholm to Sicily.
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Very big. The Continental US is just a bit smaller than China. It’s bigger when you add Alaska.
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Especially if said invaders are being assisted by the most stupid oligarchs in the history of ever, e g. Team Brandon and tha AWFLs
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Sure, I will fight you. The charge of “tearing apart” is laid against implacable others. Think wossnames… Sinhals and Tamils. Or Borderlander Scots and Irish; cracker Blacks vs civilized blacks and whites and well everyone; Islam and the Dar al-Harb; Woke and reality.
The charge laid against Jews is subversion. Different issue, and not a problem for a healthy culture alive to such a problem.
As for the rest… I believe that what God tells us in the Bible is true. So even if one believes that the actual charge is reasonable* the only cure not worse than the problem is evangelism.
Which is applicable to everyone, rendering the JQ moot.
(*based on the unfortunate overlap between Jewish-claimed identity and severe pinko-SJW-wokism)
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And it’s utter bullshit. The charge laid against the Jews. Utter and complete bullshit, with trimmings of shit.
Look, what you’re missing is that the Jews adapted and immigrated the “high culture” of wherever they were. Why? BECAUSE IT’S SAFETY.
It’s not their fault that when they came to the US in large numbers, or when they tried to reestablish in Europe, the culture had adopted Marxism as a positional good.
They just tried to ape that and make themselves “more papist than the pope.” It’s security.
All the rest is bullshit. Unless you’re claiming I’m OBVIOUSLY responsible for La Raza for being Latin origin, you can shut up.
It’s shit being propagated by delusional anti-Semites who feel done down by life.
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When and if the Mexican-identified supporters of LA Raza have enough juice to force open borders, or a two-tiered justice system against non-Mexicans, yes whilst boasting about how it is because of the cosmic superiority of their race then, sadly, other Mexicans will be tarred with that brush. It is unfair to any number of lovely Mexican individuals, but there you are.
The least helpful thing anyone could do who quite likes Mexicans, is to claim that LA Raza does not exist, or is doing (were my hypothetical true, which it is not) what they are doing. While at the same time damning those who complain as dirty anti-vaxxers OWTTE.
I admit, it is a conundrum, because I have run across those who legitimately loathe Mexicans, including those whose origins are cross-border. One would not like to encourage the same as what one feeds will grow.
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}}} it’s a problem caused by the people who instituted public schooling creating they wanted the opposite — integration, in that case of immigrants — and all the kids knowing the same things. Remember that, because it’s what they always do given the chance.
There’s a small town in the northeast, I think in PA, but not sure. There was a report on a network news show (like ABC’s 20/20) — probably John Stossel, but perhaps not. Sometime in the 90s, I’m pretty sure (yeah, I know this is vague as eph, but it’s what I got… it was long before there was internet video, for damned sure).
Anyways, in the later 60s or early 70s, there was a group of people, all of them products of the left, who had the wherewithall to pretty much buy the entire (or almost all of) the town. They did so, and moved there collectively, with the goal of actually creating a post-racial community — all of them believed in racial equality. And clearly, intended to raise their kids to believe in it.
Fast forward to “then present” time, again, ca. the 1990s, Go to the local high school. White kids hung out with white kids, black kids hung out with black kids. There was, of course, some intermixture, and no indications of resentment or strife, but they did not have a mutual mixed-gender “soup” of people. What appealed to white kids and what appealed to black kids was different, even though those same kids were raised by people who thought the races were completely equal. There was, in short, very little of the residual racism that might be found anywhere else in their upbringing.
There are distinctions to be found in racial natures which are not trivial. They aren’t as great as many might suggest they are, but they are there, and they are clearly significant enough to cause a measure of self-grouping in teen cliques. And that can also lead to differences in outcome, as one clique encourages one set of behaviors, and another encourages a different set of behaviors, and those differences may well push towards a higher or lower measure of success in life — as a group — which has zero to do with “societal racism”. Or at least, the only way to combat THAT form of “societal racism” is to force people to do things they don’t wish to do. And that’s hardly a recipe for a good society.
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Genetic survival mechanism, on some level. All animals tend to group with those that look like them. The outlier, the one that looks or acts differently from the group, is a threat to survival and less likely to leave offspring.
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Simpler explanation, with known mechanisms – young children are most comfortable with people who look like mom and dad (resemblance to parents = safety, probably due to hominid subspecies happily killing and eating each other). This nudges them towards racial self-sorting in their friend-groups starting very young (preschool and kindergarden). Absent some major shakeup (which you won’t find in that scenario), those groups remain stable into later childhood/early adulthood.
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I saw an interview with Charlton Heston where he made an observation about his time starring in ‘Planet Of The Apes’ in 1968. At lunch, the actors made up as chimpanzees sat together, the actors made up as orangutans sat together, the actors made up as gorillas sat together, and the actors dressed as primitive humans sat together. Very little mixing between groups differentiated only by costumes and makeup, which they took off at the end of the day.
We’re a tribal bunch, no matter how ‘Progressive’ some might pretend to be.
———————————
Only idiots believe they know how other people should live their lives. The stupider they are, the more blindly they believe it.
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I’ll say America is too mixed for “distinctions in races natures”. American blacks are TECHNICALLY Caucasian in most ways.
There is culture that remains, yes. Culture is not genetic. It’s also more persistent.
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“Culture is not genetic”
No, but physiognomy IS, and the monkey brain’s “Doesn’t look like us” is persistent and has to be taught not to react based on that.
Unfortunately, we’ve had about three generations taught on one side that your appearance entitles you to act out without consequence, and another side told “you deserve it because of your appearance”. Whole basis for the moronic “privilege” propaganda.
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Yes, absolutely that. I’m not disputing any of that. You’re right. I’m disputing the “tastes are genetic.” Yes, but then again no. Technically ALL OF THE WORLD is too mixed for that.
I mean, take me. I can’t think when it’s cold. Makes sense, right? Genetically (though I come from the cold part of Portugal, Mediterranean appearance, etc.) BUT my older son can’t think when it’s hot. Now, yeah, cold climate ancestry, but he also looks Mediterranean.
I think it’s more what you said, plus wanting to fit in.
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The catch is, what does “looks like us” mean?
I’ve had several cats who did not know they were cats. Including one that absolutely HATED cats. (She did not recognize herself in the mirror, obviously.)
Human imprinting is very unlikely to be massively less flexible than a cat’s, a dog’s, or the various food-animals that imprint on the humans to raise them.
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Valeria!
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Pippie.
Say “bad cat!” and she’d go over and bop another cat. Because she was not a cat, she was people, a princess, and do not you forget it.
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Valeria was raised by us from age 2 weeks. She’s not a people person.
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Pippie was about 2 weeks old too, when I brought her home (log yard kitten. Log had been moved, no way was the feral mom finding those kittens, and the log was being moved, again.)
She bonded with the cats we had, and the German Shepard. Just she thought she was people. She traveled with us on weekends because we couldn’t leave her at home for overnight. (Only one of the 16 cats, we’ve had have been people cat, other than the 3 of us. Pippie, for all the times she traveled with us, wasn’t that one. Neither was Tyke, and he went to work with me after I found him, also a log yard kitten, but even younger; which is difficult to do.)
She is also the one where we have a number of funny stories.
One. We thought we’d lost her. Looked all over, getting more and more frantic. Finally figured she must have sneaked outside even tho we were sure she couldn’t have. Just as we get ready to look outside, up she pops her head. “Looking for me?” She’d crawled into hubby motorcycle helmet, black cat and black lining, that was hanging from one of the decorative brackets of the dinning room table. How this kitten that I could hold in one hand, got up there we never figured out. Nothing for her to climb. Too far for her to jump (we thought). Never did figure it out.
Second. Came home from work to find the dog trying to hide in the corner. Very clearly a “I didn’t do this!” Whatever “this” was. No potty messes. Took her out because she needed to go. Came back in, went down the hall. TP spread through the back of the house. Again, have no idea how that tiny kitten was able to reach it, but she had that roll decimated, and pulled throughout the bathroom, hall, and bedrooms. Found her curled up on the bed innocent as can be. Our first brush with putting out empty rolls with “TP in drawer. We have cats.” Not so much that she did this. But the dog’s “Not. Guilty. I’m not!”
She’s also one who learned how to open cabinets (and taught her sibling cats). We had a raised bed with dresser drawers. Foot end had a door. Head end, against the wall was just open, but hubby put a board there to keep the cats out. Didn’t work. Every time Pippie got mad at dad, she’d go in and pull his socks and underwear out between the back slats. Then someone would have to crawl in to retrieve them. Go into the bathroom without turning on a light and you were risking a bruised shin because the drawers or cabinets would be open. We were locking dangerous things up from the 4 legged kids, 10 years before we had a two legged kid.
We’ve all got the cat stories.
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Sorry, a cat person. She’s also not a people person, except for us, but–
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“The catch is, what does “looks like us” mean?”
Or what have people been TOLD it means?
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It bypasses the being told thing, though.
From what I’ve seen, it’s a matter of forming a visual idea of “us,” so– while it’s true, it’s going to be individually true, not easily measured in a group.
For an example, the daughter that screamed when she met my bald uncle who plays Santa complete with a real beard was also freaked out by a black coworker… until he put on his glasses, then he was just A Normal Person.
(Didn’t care if they were sunglasses or normal ones, just had to be glasses. She gave ME the fisheye when I took off my glasses in daytime.)
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Fast forward to “then present” time, again, ca. the 1990s, Go to the local high school. White kids hung out with white kids, black kids hung out with black kids.
I would absolutely not trust their judgement further than I can chuck the empire state building.
How’d the figure who was “black” or whatever?
Did anyone do even the most basic of checking for other things in common, or just assume “oh those guys are hanging out because they’re black,” rather than, “that’s four football players and their siblings”?
Because this doesn’t even map to what I observed in the Navy, and that’s a much broader selection of cultures. Folks grouped up by shared interests in a pretty obvious way.
While I’d love to believe that’s because America’s military is just that awesome, I suspect that’s not why.
It does map to some of the just-so stories I was fed in school, in that era … right about the time we had, on paper, one black student in the high school. He was not just an active criminal, he was a very, very, VERY stupid one. (broke into a store that had been closed to rob the long-empty till. Repeatedly.) His full blooded sister identified as “mixed.” Bio father was from some island like Jamaica or the Caribbean. Could easily have been identified as Puerto Rican. Didn’t dress to “look black.”
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}}} Throughout history, the only minorities like that that manage to stay separate and SAFE are the ones that are brought in to be elites, and protected from the populus.
Well, there are exceptions to this, the obvious two being the Amish/Quaker types and the Mormons. And yeah, there was strife with the Mormons for a good while, until they, at least partly “normed” themselves with the dominant culture. I’d also argue that Jews have a history of being somewhat separatist yet thriving. Not all of their separatism is externally driven.
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Mormons…. not sure they’ll stick long run? It’s a very brief history, sorry. And I’m seeing a lot of wards going… woke? In the woke areas.
Amish…. That’s kind of weird.
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Make Utah Weird Again.
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I puzzled over your son’s name for Portugal: “The reservoir tip of Europe.” What could that mean? Thought, thought, blushed. Oh. (Laughs in Catholic)
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Well, we are too, but I joke we have mental streaks of darkness. We don’t do stuff, but we know it all. :D
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“we know it all.”
Intuitively obvious to the casual observer, is it? 8-)
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No. It’s more like we …. um…. seems to run that way in our minds.
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}}} Also, FYI Henry the Navigator was 1/4 converso.
Open to the idea, but I didn’t see any indication… both the grandmothers seemed very English…. And no indication either of the GFs were anything but Iberian nobles… ?
Not looking to “fight”, just requesting supporting evidence…? :-P
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NO. The other side. His father was an illegitimate son of a previous king (I guess less than 1/4. I was way simplifying. I don’t remember who the king was) who impregnated a farmer’s daughters. The farmers were a converso family.
It’s the sort of gossipy history not in the chronicles, but in the side notes, if that makes sense.
Not fighting. It’s one of those things I collect in the lint trap that passes for a brain. It’s notable only for the fact that he worked with a lot of conversos (and mouriscos) in his discovery enterprise and I always wondered if it was a bit consciousness of his origins. Probably not, but one wonders.
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}}} I’ll tell you the same I tell the people who list inequality as a problem, “You’re trying to solve a feature as if it were a problem.”
I think the real issue is that too many peeps expect equity and not equality, and don’t comprehend the vast difference between the two, and the causes of difference between equity levels and the differences between equality levels don’t have even the same general nature, so something addressing one will ignore or even exacerbate the other.
To paraphrase Thomas Sowell — All the equity in the world will not make me as good a golfer as Tiger Woods.
Inequality, on the other hand, offers us both the chance to succeed equally well, by giving us the chance to succeed each on our own merits, and not be stuck trying to compete over the same fixed pie.
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I still don’t understand what the hell they think equity is. There is no equity. It’s a word highjacked by the left. Equality not qualified by “equality before the law” is bs. Our equality was always equality before the law. The French, otoh….
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Equity a buzzword used, with malice aforethought, to make strife inractable, thus permanent, thus forment Revolution from whence we gain the Radiant Future of Communism. See also “Social Justice” and etc.
You would better spend your time decoding the ravings of folks in the locked psych ward.
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Here’s what started it: “How do you say ‘equality of outcomes’ w/out getting caught, tarred & feathered.
If you google the meme, you’ll find versions adding “liberty” with the fence gone, and versions where people caught on to the gig and had the two taller kids with their ancestors cut off for equity.
But Mr. Mailclerk is on the right track because I have never seen anyone post a version where they bought their own [expletive deleted] tickets.
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It’s an investment. Think home equity — but with value based on one’s position in the hierarchy of the oppressed and investment in their ideology.
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GAAAG
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Yeah, trying to ‘solve’ inequality…
People are not born equal, nor do they grow up equal. Some are just naturally stronger, faster or better coordinated than others. Some are smart, some are stupid, and some don’t take the trouble to use the brains they’ve got. Some are industrious, some are lazy, some are conscientious, some are irresponsible, some are honest, and some are liars. Every attempt to dole out ‘equality’ in prescribed portions like some sort of gruel runs up against that hard reality. It is not possible to give merit to those lacking it, so the Tyrants of Equity always wind up rewarding failure and punishing success, tearing down merit wherever it is found and then wondering why the result is squalor and misery.
What a dull and dreary world it would be if everybody was the same. Let them all be free to seek their own paths, so long as they don’t deny everybody else’s right to seek theirs.
———————————
How can imperfect people create a Perfect World? How could imperfect people live in a Perfect World?
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Speaking of math, here’s something that doesn’t add up. Remember the memory-holed Pelosi hammer dude? He’s been convicted (boy, that trial was quiet) and he claims his motive for attacking the Speaker’s husband was . . . misogyny. That’s right. A Canadian socialist was so radicalized by evil mind-controlling, woman-hating Gamergate memes, that he crossed international borders, breached Secret Service security, to attack a man.
Yeah, I totally buy that.
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I’ve been smashed, plastered, blotto, etc. And I ain’t NEVER been so drunk as to believe that steaming pile of crappola.
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I am 13th generation of my family born in the boundaries of the US and the 1st generation to have English as a 1st language. My father was forced to assimilate and saw the wisdom of being American as opposed to Acadians forced to live in America. Cajuns are still not totally assimilated but have convinced our state government to dis-assimilate many of us through French-immersion.
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