(Open thread + links)

A cold look at the kill list. Leftists of the right. Singularity skepticism. Why is ‘sexual orientation’ like phlogiston. Social justice and slave morality. NRx and Dixie (also relevant). Not the same people. Fragged Friday. The weekly rounds.

ISIS eyes on Saudi Arabia. Going over the cliff in Greece, and Venezuela.

What religion can do, perhaps. The thin weird line. How atheists lose it. Two religious experiences. SV hipster evangelism.

The Bellcurve, meta-review. More unwanted human biorealism (1, 2, 3). Darwinism and teleology (with vigorous discussion in the comments). The media’s race war. The chan wars. War.

The Machiavelli of India. Dampier reviews Bloom. A contrarian take on Hollywood politics. Philosophers in Starbucks.

It’s not easy to survive from the ‘Net.

Continue Reading

(Open thread, links)

NRx doesn’t vulgarize to a denunciation of Cultural Marxism (1, 2, 3, 4, 5 …). Yes, ‘Duh!’, but well worth making explicit. Widening perspectives in time and space. “[T]he Reactosphere [is] an Illiberal University System.” Against critical thinking (and response). On the holiness problem. A thoughtful appraisal of Neoreaction (1, 2), but I’m reserving judgment on this. Terminal-phase feminism. Fragged Friday. Mitrailleuse off-blog channels. Meta-masters (1, 2, 3).

“Things without boundaries rapidly become unthings.” (This is also good.)

A few of the more notable aftershocks following the Paris massacre, from two generations of Le Pens (this is better), Malcolm Pollack, and the Anarcho-Papist. No go zones? A wide-angle view. Our interesting times are getting more interesting. The Saudi king is dead. The interim successor “has been diagnosed with Alzheimer’s disease, and at many times cannot remember his own name.” ISIS made its move just in time. (Chaos, right?) An analysis of Saudi oil politics. Then back to France (sort of). Auster holds up well.

Venezuela, don’t laugh (related).

The Duck at Chateau Heartiste. Before Yarvin was Moldbug (from 1995). A Scott Alexander no-like list. The long culture war (and a more conventionally humanistic account). Broken democracy. The value of independent corroboration.

Unamused at work. Gregory Hood on MLK. Bookishness is over-rated. On Guillaume Faye on sex. The Economist tip-toes towards reality. Hope for Wikipedia?

(Open thread + links)

Some initial reacto-chatter — Sex and natural law (don’t miss the comment thread). Prepare for World War P. Inception politics. Battered West syndrome. The new alchemy. A new behaviorism. Exosemantics (are we going to get a Coles Notes for this?). A routine that’s still working well. Social Matter audio. “We shall never truly defeat socialism until we abolish private property” (apparently). Secular religion. Whose side is history on? Round-ups from FN and Steves, and continuous flow here.

The compression of ritual space (and a reading list from hell). Scale-free patterns.

Putin, international man of misery. A Pope beyond hope. Romney is perfect (for 1996). Awkward words in China (related). Unthinkable fears. Much of interest here (especially this).

Gibson’s ‘the Jackpot’ — or cross-lashed, polycausal catastrophe — makes a real contribution to contemporary apocalypticism (this article offers no more than a hazy clue).

More Call of Duty: Advanced Warfare reactionary succulence.

Much entertaining frivolity this week (unless it’s just me) — “quite possibly the most racist article you will ever read” (I doubt it, but still …). Racism. Racism and hate. More racism and hate. Not racist. (This is how it used to be done.)

Racial healing from the Duck:

in revenge for #BlackBrunchNYC some uncool white people just flash mobbed a black barbecue joint and forcibly pulled up everyone's pants

— Duck Enlightenment (@jokeocracy) January 5, 2015

(Best way to keep up with the Sith these days is to read the Washington Post.)

(Open thread, stuff, links …)

The Operation is being relocated to New Zealand for a couple of weeks, beginning tomorrow, so there is almost certain to be some disruption in the days ahead. I’m definitely aiming to keep some flow going, with year round-up posts a feature, but chaotic meandering is likely to reach unprecedented levels.

As for the week behind us, NBS’s esential reacto-round-up now has a This Week in Dampier sub-section. Among those highlights, hard and soft money posts, some Gruber contrarianism, and a valuable note on the Bezos effect. Anarcho-papist is another production maelstrom, who requires statistical sampling, in this case substantial input into the left (or ‘demotist‘) singularity and deep state discussions. Scharlach reflects on the state’s monopoly of violence. Nyan recommends escape from local noise. Ash Milton provides a useful introduction to the ENR. Anti-Dem discusses tolerance. SoBL suggests a deal (background). Some posts stretch glib summarization. “Everything is broken” (back-story). Was enlightened.

There’s clearly a stimulating engagement with propertarianism to be had (and this post is especially helpful for orientation). NIO recommendations on game theory and spontaneous order (1, 2). Soapjackal wants us all to spend more time here.

Gallic ‘neo-reactionnaires’ (who aren’t, of course, us) have also been making waves. Has Putin failed? (Venezuela certainly has.) Sony hack weirdness. Deep State ‘action’.

Troll hunters.

Hanson on the deep ideo-politics of plasticity. Defending Leo Strauss (in the lamest possible way). In praise of monarchy. Rage (and hate). TAC on neoconservative and bleeding-heart liberal suckage.

Gates and Shockley (Dampier comments). “Mr. Gates may see Shockley’s experience as a warning: If he cares about his reputation he better keep his mouth shut.” White worries. Eco-miscegeny. Anatoly Karlin reminds us of his fascinating Indian IQ posts (1, 2, 3).

(Open thread + links (I’ve been in Hangzhou over the weekend so some symptoms of partial disconnection are probable))

Jim’s ‘Death of Christianity’ post is the latest installment in a series defending Restoration England. It seems to me that people are being unusually cagey about arguing this out — perhaps a little scared? The religious topic, in particular, tends to draw a high level of interest, which is significant in itself. This might the place to stir the hornets nest with the latest from Pope Francis: The Koran is a prophetic book of peace. It’s not so much the appeasement, moral equivalence, or other red-rags to the right issues that intrigue me most about this — and not even the accommodation of ‘prophecy’ to an outcome that brings it close to sarcasm — but the sheer oddity of the theology behind the remark. To be trolled by the Pope is really something (but what?). (Patheos places the quote in context — which suggests the quality of the trolling is even higher than initially evident.)

Sensible strategic advice. Law and violence. Paleo-humanism. Don’t count on the robocops. 4GW lessons. Anissimov on Brin. Supplementing this link assortment, there’s a whole bunch more from ‘|||||’ here.

Continue Reading

(Open thread, links …)

In and around the NRx (highlights): Steel anarchism (and response). This opaque but intriguing stuff is also, probably, relevant. An epic delve into global complexity. The Gutenberg shock. A Watsoned world (background), further comment. The propertarian alternative (more, and more). Democracy on display (plus a reminder).

Race war round-up: between two worlds (more tightrope walking). Integration from the left: “It’s impos­si­ble for a white per­son to believe in cap­i­tal­ism and not believe in racism,” Mal­colm said in a 1964 dis­cus­sion. “You can’t have cap­i­tal­ism with­out racism.” — which simplifies things. Cut the riot shaming. Blame the cops, or Obama, or leftist race politics, or black family breakdown, or befuddlement, or idiots. “The real message of Ferguson: we are [seeing multiculturalism itself] go up in flames. A polity where the Chief Executive has to address the people over a local law enforcement matter is fatally unstable.” Let it burn. The unsaid. The anti-MLK.

America’s half-hidden welfare state. Bubbelology.

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An instant classic image:

I doubt whether there’s much of interest to say about this stereotypical tribal chaos, but feel free to have a go.

ADDED: Systematic Racism. Race War … the usual.

ADDED: Not wanting to overplay the comical side of this, but …

Thankful for the organizers, advocates, electeds, clergy & community members who will mobilize this outrage into change. #Ferguson

— Sandra Fluke (@SandraFluke) November 25, 2014

ADDED: Giuliani time.

WRM on the politics of amnesty by executive order:

For many liberal Democrats (as well as for some of their Republican opponents) two key beliefs about immigration shape their political strategies. The first is that Latinos are the new blacks: a permanent racial minority or subgroup in the American political system that will always feel separate from the country’s white population and, like African-Americans, will vote Democratic. On this assumption, the Democratic approach to Hispanic Americans should be clear: the more the merrier. That is a particularly popular view on the more leftish side of the Democratic coalition, where there’s a deep and instinctive fear and loathing of Jacksonian America (those “bitterly clinging” to their guns, their Bibles, and their individualistic economic and social beliefs). The great shining hope of the American left is that a demographic transition through immigration and birthrates will finally make all those tiresome white people largely irrelevant in a new, post-American America that will forget all that exceptionalism nonsense and ditch “Anglo-Saxon” cultural and economic ideas ranging from evangelical religion to libertarian social theory.

If conventional wisdom on the subject is this stark — and Mead is a good weather-vane for that — then Obama might as well put on the Kill Whitey T-shirt, because he’s clearly not fooling anybody. (It’s also worth explicitly noting, for the anti-market trads out there, that your besieged cultural norms and laissez-faire capitalism are on the same radical leftist death list, whether you appreciate the company or not.)

(Open thread, links …)

It has been difficult to keep up with Henry Dampier recently, on feminist predictions, discount slaves, incoherent elites, brittanus americanus, globalization and war … and more, and more, and more (plus some genuinely useful advice). This blog is not among those immediately assuming the explanation lies in methamphetamine. Category theorizing. Yuray is digging up some authoritative support for the restoration of Latin. Meta-fragmentation. Hawk politics. No enemies to the left. Greetings! Unity (I don’t get it) — this seems to be related. The basic dissymmetry. Reliable nets.

Paleao-reaction goes mainstream.

Casual Marxism. Curricular Satanism. General Gruberism.

Malthusian mechanics (in pre-industrial England). Escaping the Malthusian trap. Evolution of culture, chain-letters, dark nets, and the (ancient) Egyptian state. Predation games. Killer apes. Genetic ontology. Shrinking brains. Social media hooks. Hmmmm.

Amerika on The Peripheral. Troll points. Auto-cannibalization watch (1, 2, 3). Sound convictions.

British decay in context. East Asia does it better, Japan notably excepted. Hold the fix. Peak delusions. McCloskey on Piketty.

Uses of racism. Race in your face. Villains of Ferguson. Last gasps. Amnesty and disillusionment.

Weekly golden oldies.