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divabot posted:I have a copy of Superfreakonomics because I got it for Christmas from a loved one desperate to find something they could actually get me for a present. It's the same market Glibwell targets. Jesus christ, I knew that Gladwell was a shilling piece of poo poo, but that revisionist civil rigths history stuff makes him as bad as any of the people in here.
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Jul 7, 2015 01:17
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Someone once called Malcolm Gladwell self-help for people who consider themselves too erudite to read self-help and I cannot help but agree.
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Jul 7, 2015 01:30
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eschaton posted:If you're looking for a guide to "turns-out" "journalism" check out The SHAME Project. It's kind of like this thread, but for hack propagandists in the service of the right wing. Hey, Mark Ames writes for that site! He's got some pretty shameful stuff in his past: quote:We have been pretty rough on our girls. We’d ask our Russian staff to flash their asses or breasts for us. We’d tell them that if they wanted to keep their jobs, they’d have to perform unprotected anal sex with us. Nearly every day, we asked our female staff if they approved of anal sex. That was a fixation of ours. “Can I gently caress you in the rear end? Huh? I mean, without a rubber? Is that okay?” It was all part of the fun quote:Page 153, written from Ames’s perspective: http://fredrikdeboer.com/2014/10/30/the-exile-guys-have-a-lot-to-answer-for/ quote:And Ames's treatment of Russian teenage girls is documented with frightening glee. In the book he recounts one evening with an expat investment banker pal and what he thought were three 16-year-old girls: http://www.chicagoreader.com/chicago/beast-in-the-east/Content?oid=902762
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Jul 7, 2015 01:51
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Hadaka Apron posted:Hey, Mark Ames writes for that site! He's got some pretty shameful stuff in his past: Yep. Doesn't make the stuff he's written for SHAME, NSFWCORP, or Pando wrong. Also, I've heard is that the Exile stuff was more than a bit embellished, but I have no idea how accurate that is. eschaton has a new favorite as of 02:39 on Jul 7, 2015 |
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Jul 7, 2015 02:37
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eschaton posted:If you're looking for a guide to "turns-out" "journalism" check out The SHAME Project. It's kind of like this thread, but for hack propagandists in the service of the right wing..
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Jul 7, 2015 03:23
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You guys are too hard on Aurini. I mean, he's a self-obsessed opportunistic worm, but have you seen how hot his girlfriend is?
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Jul 7, 2015 04:21
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eschaton posted:Also, I've heard is that the Exile stuff was more than a bit embellished, but I have no idea how accurate that is.
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Jul 7, 2015 04:21
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Ah, Mr Aurini, about the child care job. We've just been looking through your Twitter and we'll get back to you. No no, don't call us.
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Jul 7, 2015 23:34
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divabot posted:Ah, Mr Aurini, about the child care job. We've just been looking through your Twitter I like how the other people in that Twitter conversation just keep on trucking like Aurini didn't just say pedophilia was cool.
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Jul 7, 2015 23:52
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My favorite part is that it had nothing to do with what was being discussed.
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Jul 7, 2015 23:58
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The Vosgian Beast posted:My favorite part is that it had nothing to do with what was being discussed. Yeah. I was sorta going "... what? did Twitter hiccup or something?" These are friends talking amongst themselves; possibly they have discussed this topic at length elsewhere. (And isn't that a lovely thought.)
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Jul 8, 2015 00:44
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 I always love rationalist pissing contests.
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Jul 8, 2015 00:52
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Canadian militants are so quaint. They are convinced that the only reason America hasn't invaded (again!) is because of the RCMP being the equivalent of Mossad or something. And they're sooo racist like holy poo poo whoa did that guy just really say that about the aboriginals on the land he now occupies?! 
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Jul 8, 2015 00:53
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coyo7e posted:Canadian militants are so quaint. They are convinced that the only reason America hasn't invaded (again!) is because of the RCMP being the equivalent of Mossad or something. And they're sooo racist like holy poo poo whoa did that guy just really say that about the aboriginals on the land he now occupies?! Yeah. I can confirm that Canada is full of horrible racists. 
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Jul 8, 2015 01:57
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Tiberius Thyben posted:Yeah. I can confirm that Canada is full of horrible racists. Well, Brocket 99 exists, and no one thinks that it's racist. Seriously, none of the Canadians I talked with about that saw much wrong with that.
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Jul 8, 2015 02:29
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coyo7e posted:Canadian militants are so quaint. They are convinced that the only reason America hasn't invaded (again!) is because of the RCMP being the equivalent of Mossad or something. And they're sooo racist like holy poo poo whoa did that guy just really say that about the aboriginals on the land he now occupies?! The last time we tried that you jerks burned down the white house so we're perfectly fine letting you Chanuks pretend you're actually a country now. 
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Jul 8, 2015 03:01
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Hey, so a poster on /r/badsocialscience(a subreddit dedicated to mocking poor understandings of social sciences and sociology on reddit and in general one of the better places on the site) decided to go through and dissect the source on racist subreddit /r/coontown's sidebar. It's pretty great. The connection to the Dark Enlightenment is a bit tenuous, but people like Nick Land, Heartiste, and Steve Sailer get mentioned and some coontown posters get really upset and make fools of themselves in the comments. https://www.reddit.com/r/BadSocialScience/comments/3cdz2z/rcoontowns_human_biodiversity_resource/
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Jul 10, 2015 19:56
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I've been lurking r/badsocialscience with gusto. That series of posts is pretty exemplary. I've had my suspicions about Cochran and Harpending for years now, and those posts make it pretty clear where they fit into all this.
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Jul 10, 2015 21:52
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neonnoodle posted:I've been lurking r/badsocialscience with gusto. That series of posts is pretty exemplary. I've had my suspicions about Cochran and Harpending for years now, and those posts make it pretty clear where they fit into all this. Anyone who's done any research in the field knows how full of poo poo Cochran is, he's not a scientist, but a polemicist. Jon Marks explains here: quote:And Darlington’s work has its successors as well. In particular, a newish dopey genetic history of the human species, called The 10,000 Year Explosion, by a physicist, Gregory Cochran, and an anthropologist, Henry Harpending. The theme is pretty much the same as Darlington’s: The authors know a bit of genetics, and they’re going make that about 10% of the story they want to tell, and creatively imagine the other 90%, but not take too much trouble to distinguish them for readers. Cochran and Harpending begin with the proposition that the human gene pools have been tweaked by things like malaria resistance and lactase persistence over the last 10,000 years, from which they conclude that many aspects of our gene pool have been tweaked as well over much shorter spans of time, for psychological traits, resulting in the major outlines of history, such as the agricultural revolution, scientific revolution, and industrial revolution. Go read the whole article, it's a good rejoinder on modern scientific racism and how it's based on either no evidence or draws unwarranted conclusions from what evidence is there, ignoring all criticism. But yes, most of Cochran's "work" is crap that's not, at the least, mainstream in the relevant fields.
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Jul 11, 2015 06:39
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I'm a bit of a Sam Harris fan and in a recent podcast, he noted that he's currently "in conversation with an AI researcher who doesn't even have a high school degree". So there goes the neighborhood.
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Jul 11, 2015 16:22
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Cingulate posted:I'm a bit of a Sam Harris fan and in a recent podcast, he noted that he's currently "in conversation with an AI researcher who doesn't even have a high school degree". I'm so sorry
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Jul 11, 2015 16:37
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The Vosgian Beast posted:I'm so sorry
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Jul 11, 2015 16:44
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Cingulate posted:It's okay, for a pro-gun interventionist islamophobe whose worldview is the intersection of LSD+Buddhist meditation and 9/11 trauma, he's turned out fairly alright! Well I did really like him in Tropic Thunder and Zoolander.
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Jul 11, 2015 16:52
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The Vosgian Beast posted:Well I did really like him in Tropic Thunder and Zoolander. https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=aof6h6KTOs0
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Jul 11, 2015 16:59
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Cingulate posted:I'm a bit of a Sam Harris fan Why?
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Jul 11, 2015 17:29
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What kind of answer do you want - a biographical one, where I explain how I started listening to Hitchens a lot because I became interested in oratory and so on, an appraisal, where II talk about Harris' arguments I like, or a meta one, where we all (unironically) give that 1. we're all liberals etc. and understand Harris is shunned because he's almost a racist and definitely an imperialist and I have to defend how I could have the audacity to diverge from the implicitly approved groupthink?
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Jul 11, 2015 17:46
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I don't think he's "almost" a racist. He is a racist. Also a fascist sympathizer: Sam Harris posted:"When I search my heart, I discover that I want to keep the barbarians beyond the city walls just as much as my conservative neighbors do, and I recognize that sacrifices of my own freedom may be warranted for this purpose. I expect that epiphanies of this sort could well multiply in the coming years"
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Jul 11, 2015 20:31
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E: I'm dumb
Cingulate has a new favorite as of 20:49 on Jul 11, 2015 |
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Jul 11, 2015 20:41
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Cingulate posted:E: I'm dumb
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Jul 11, 2015 20:54
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Cingulate posted:What kind of answer do you want - a biographical one, where I explain how I started listening to Hitchens a lot because I became interested in oratory and so on, an appraisal, where II talk about Harris' arguments I like, or a meta one, where we all (unironically) give that 1. we're all liberals etc. and understand Harris is shunned because he's almost a racist and definitely an imperialist and I have to defend how I could have the audacity to diverge from the implicitly approved groupthink? Is it too late to still get number three? I think we all want to hear number three.
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Jul 11, 2015 21:17
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twistedmentat posted:With fantasy novels they'd probably be more into Sword of Truth novels, where a single strong white man has to kill everyone who disagrees with him, take any woman he wants, and beat children that mouth off too him. Also, you literally have to devout yourself to him or the leader of the big evil collectivist empire will get you. Didn't he murder all these anti war types in one of the books? I got through the first one where he kicked a child in the mouth causing her to lose her tongue and it was treated as fine. Also how do you get Heavy Metal associated with these people, well besides obviously Vargs and his ilk? Crowsbeak has a new favorite as of 21:40 on Jul 11, 2015 |
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Jul 11, 2015 21:37
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He did murder unarmed pacifists, yes.
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Jul 11, 2015 22:12
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Woolie Wool posted:I don't think he's "almost" a racist. He is a racist. Contrast this with somebody like Aurini, who you'd have to cherry-pick hard to make him look anything but insane. Parallel Paraplegic posted:Is it too late to still get number three? I think we all want to hear number three. tl;dr: I don't follow him on foreign policy suggestions and more generally regarding how to deal with the problems he more or less correctly diagnoses, in large part due to a strange americocentrism, but that does not devalue his points about the logic of belief. You have to understand him as somebody who should never be allowed to speak to anybody but 1. firm liberals who understand their own position well, 2. Christian fundamentalist who consider leaving the movement. If you do that, that which is my thesis becomes much clearer: Harris is not a neoreactionary. He shares some of their views, especially a deep belief in Western-style modes of reasoning and organizing societies (although not in much detail), a self-styled extreme utilitarianism and pragmatism, and technological optimism, and the usual criticism of all of these positions may still apply. But I assume he is fundamentally motivated by liberal, humanist motives, which he understands to be incompatible with religion. Imagine Sam Harris making an argument sort of like this: Islamism leads to the oppression of women, such as Malala being shot for trying to enlighten herself, thus Islamism must be combatted. Consider how you judge his motives here. Possibly, in your head, Harris is motivated by hatred of Islam/Muslims/"arab" culture etc, and disingenuously employs superficially liberal rhetoric, such as the empowerment of women, to make his underlyingly racist case. Yes; this could be true, although even in that case, he wouldn't be a neorectionary, he'd be a disingenious fascist. However, consider that perhaps, Harris would be honest in his motives; that he is truly motivated by liberal goals such as the empowerment of women, and considers Islamism to be inherently incompatible with these goals. Then, he is a progressive, and thus clearly not a neoreactionary. He also becomes much less controversial, because who doesn't support gay rights, feminism, etc.? (Yes, reactionaries.) This is how I understand his arguments, at least. Now, I may be wrong in my understanding of his true motives. But that would not change that his arguments could have worth for progressive causes. Harris' key, and most controversial, theoretical point is, I think, the idea that a lot of the actions of extremists must be understood as truly, deeply, essentially religious; that many extremist are acting out one (out of possibly many, some much less violent) completely coherent interpretation of their faith. I think this is a true and valuable point, and is usually not attacked as such, but as a straw man. A key consequence of this is that knee-jerk defenses of the religion of post-colonial societies and of immigrants to the west are not only misguided, but bad. "This is not Islam, Islam is a religion of peace, this criticism is racist" etc. I understand - and actually support - the motive many liberals have in defending Muslims against Harris' attacks. Yes, we should always show our fullest solidarity to those the West has oppressed for centuries, and to minorities and the disenfranchised of our societies (e.g. immigrants). But that is what should be defended - these people, and the parts of their own, and our joint, culture that are compatible with humanism -; not religion. Religion is, by and large, poo poo, and the religion of immigrants is no exception. Now it can be very complicated to criticize the sin, not the sinner in this case, but it's better than said knee-jerk defenses of actually reactionary movements (e.g. religions, including Islam/Islamism and of course US-style evangelical Christianity). And at the heart of this is the I think very correct observation that extremists' actions are at least in part genuinely religious. You may still disagree with this, but I think his point is actually very strong, and correct. This point is not inherently neoreactionary, either. Harris not only notes an essential connection between a suicide bomber's actions and their theological positions, he also objects to these, because they are incompatible with liberal society. Harris dislikes these actions and concepts because they conflict with emancipation, LGBT rights, democracy, etc. Thus, a progressive position. Even beyond my disagreements on political consequences, there is also much to be said against many of this theoretical points, but none of these objections should be new to anyone ITT, especially as many amount to Harris being unfamiliar with actually good interpretations of the views he detests.
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Jul 11, 2015 22:13
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Crowsbeak posted:Didn't he murder all these anti war types in one of the books? I got through the first one where he kicked a child in the mouth causing her to lose her tongue and it was treated as fine. Also how do you get Heavy Metal associated with these people, well besides obviously Vargs and his ilk?
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Jul 12, 2015 00:24
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Parallel Paraplegic posted:I always imagined the fetishizing of the 50's came from people growing up in the McCarthy era where if you didn't announce what a GREAT AND BEAUTIFUL AND FREE AND NOT COMMUNIST COUNTRY AMERICA IS every 5 seconds you got blacklisted. A lot of the modern in-power conservatives (or their parents, in some cases) came of age in that and took it entirely at face value and then the 60's hit them like a brick and now we must suck since we totally used to love america way more all the time The funny thing is that the high rate of US income tax in the 50s wasn't just higher than the current one (91% vs. 39.6%), it's higher than any other current tax rate in the world.
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Jul 12, 2015 06:18
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Why is Scott so into neoreaction? Because they're wonderfully loving and tolerant people, evidence being not all of them told Justine Tunney to just gently caress off. Furthermore, they're just joking with the ghastly implicit and explicit beliefs, and if you believe otherwise you must be reading The Right Stuff, which of course doesn't exist: let us all hold hands and sing MO-OLD-BU-UG posted:I am not sure what role the weird object level beliefs are playing except maybe as a form of hazing to keep less-than-fully-committed out, the same way religions require painful initiation rites or the renunciation of pleasant things most people don’t want to renounce. Superficial people get hung up on the object level stuff, therefore reveal themselves as superficial, and are kept out of the useful bits. Anyway, neoreactionaries are far nicer to hang around with than those darned feminists, who dare to say things he doesn't understand: feminists stole my utilons posted:Feminism seems to be the opposite. The object level beliefs are almost entirely unobjectionable, but when you look at the meta-level beliefs it starts looking like the entire philosophy is centered around figuring out clever ways to insult and belittle other people and make it impossible for them to call you on it. He also wrote a long post on SSC bitching about Chris Hallquist totally taking his words out of context (by quoting them accurately with a source) and writing as though statements like "blurring the already rather thin line between “feminism” and “literally Voldemort”" seem like they might repel people or something - on the flimsy grounds that Hallquist's post was a detailed piece on Scott having achieved precisely that.
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Jul 12, 2015 18:40
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divabot posted:Why is Scott so into neoreaction? Because they're wonderfully loving and tolerant people, evidence being not all of them told Justine Tunney to just gently caress off. Scott's a true hero, a Charles Lindbergh for the cyber-age. 
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Jul 12, 2015 21:54
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Let me link SSC On Feminism again, suggesting you read Chris Hallquist's post (which Scott refuses to link) first, then Scott's post, then the comments. Oh my God, the comments. (it will help you understand the dynamics here if you know that Chris is going out with Ozy, Scott's ex.)
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Jul 12, 2015 22:35
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divabot posted:Let me link SSC On Feminism again, suggesting you read Chris Hallquist's post (which Scott refuses to link) first, then Scott's post, then the comments. Oh my God, the comments. That kind of makes it amazing, honestly.
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Jul 12, 2015 22:39
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divabot posted:Let me link SSC On Feminism again, suggesting you read Chris Hallquist's post (which Scott refuses to link) first, then Scott's post, then the comments. Oh my God, the comments.
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Jul 12, 2015 23:43
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