@Outsideness We have violent mobs, you have memes. I like our odds tbh
— sadbukharin (@sadladbukharin) February 4, 2017
There’s nothing about this tweet I don’t like.
Memes are ideas that manage their own security. In the Internet Era they get stronger every day (and mobs get weaker).
Urbit perspective on the Chinese century:
The closest thing to a general-purpose personal server today is probably the Chinese service WeChat. If you don’t know much about WeChat, you should really watch this NYT video.
Catch-up would be sensible. (Abandoning the bizarre Western prejudice that the Internet is primarily for political expression would be a start.)
Pointed criticism follows. If Urbit delivers, we could actually see some geographically-distributed competition, which is otherwise looking increasingly unlikely. 2017 should tell, apparently.
Prominent opponent of white nationalism chalked-in to speak at Berkeley, so (of course) this happens.
The Left, as pretty much everyone now recognizes, is a fascism factory.
ADDED: Sailer’s coverage. “Seriously, what % of the political violence in the U.S. over the last 18 months has been from Trump’s side of the spectrum and what % from the respectable side? […] 5% vs. 95%? […] 2% vs. 98%? […] I resist the 1% vs. 99% ratio as improbable (although, admittedly, possible).”
Frum:
When liberals insist that only fascists will defend borders, then voters will hire fascists to do the job liberals won’t do.
(No one’s listening, but historians will.)
The final words (already implicit) are also good: “Angela Merkel and Donald Trump may be temperamental opposites. They are also functional allies.”
The situation is volatile because the old balances have imploded. There is a political vacuum in the heart of the West that cannot easily be filled by the debris, riots, or noooo! What Donald Trump has come into possession of is probably a mystery to him as well. His instinct is to circle the wagons around America. Perhaps that is not as silly as progressives think. You consolidate on general principles precisely when no one knows what is next and only huge shadows are seen moving beyond the campfire.
Posted from Tokyo, first time in Japan, which is awesome so far. An open society without being stupid about it would be the NRx fast-summary (sound, but limited). It was vastly easier to get into Japan than the United States.
Staying in the AirB&B equivalent of a coffin-hotel, but the situation is good (in Ueno).
Civilization level meets high expectations, and friendliness level exceeds them.
Much more English signage than expected, and the inherited Chinese characters have preserved their meanings, if not their phonological values, so the urban landscape is surprisingly intelligible.
Micro-artisan businesses of extreme excellence, typically run by elderly people, are everywhere.
Automation dialed up to eleven.
Yet to see a single over-weight person (which out-performs the stereotype).
Ideological privilege:
This is the difference between the hard Left & hard Right: you can be a violent leftist radical and go on to live a pretty kickass life. This is especially true if you’re a leftist of the credentialed class …
(The whole article is strongly recommended, for topicality among other qualities.)
ADDED: Yeah: in 1971, you could get in a gunfight with cops, shoot a cop, be carrying a gun stolen during a different state’s double cop murder — and get out of prison in less than a year!
Amnesia has been orchestrated.
West:
I like to pride myself on having a very low opinion of people, but even I’m sometimes surprised by how idiotic they are …
(Empirical-realist, and punchy.)
Apparently we’re already in the next phase:
To call Trumpism fascist is to suggest that it demands from us a unique response. We can deploy the “fascism” moniker to Trump’s ascendance by recognizing features like selective populism, nationalism, racism, traditionalism, the deployment of Newspeak and disregard for reasoned debate. The reason we should use the term is because, taken together, these aspects of Trumpism are not well combated or contained by standard liberal appeals to reason. It is constitutive of its fascism that it demands a different sort of opposition.
I doubt whether they’ve thought this through, but don’t let that get in the way of progress.
… is looking like the one thing everyone can agree on (1, 2, 3, linked in order of escalation).
Prompt via.