Oceans Yet to Burn

[Oceans Yet to Burn]

rocketverliden asked:

I realize the issue of Confederate statues is probably stale by now, but I have thought of a take that is probably you: replace Confederate statues with Union statues to remember the Civil War and take pride in the United States' historical military prowess

Nah, actually I was thinking that there are lots of other southerners we could choose from for replacement statues, specifically ones that weren’t all “rah rah slavery” and so on.  Some of them could be a lot more modern, others from before the war, and so on.  U.S. founding fathers from those states would be the ideal option for many of them - it reaffirms membership in the US, still has lots of historical weight, and so on.

They shouldn’t be more black than the proportional share of the population, though.

The goal here is to provide an alternative, positive regional identity for the white southerners that is not rooted in the racism inherent to the Confederacy.  (And the racism was inherent - at least one governor or whatever went on about how yeah, this was about slavery, and yeah, this was about “the inferiority of the negro race” and so on.)

History is big.  There is a lot that can be chosen from when we decide what to emphasize.  There are many people, with many stories.  With this, we could step sideways.

(The exception is generic confederate soldier statues, which should stay.  After all, the side that wins the war usually thinks it’s the ethical side, since most factions fighting a war think they’re the ethical side, so removing them just means legitimizing the idea of removing monuments to soldiers of losing sides in general.)

However, I don’t think the capital-L Left, in broad strokes, wants the southern whites to have a positive southern identity.  I think it wants to crush them in order to celebrate itself and its righteousness.

It doesn’t like the founding fathers, either.  It doesn’t like the United States of America.  

It could celebrate the power of the very ideals this nation’s founders espoused as the source of some of the very power that overturned the cruelty they allowed at this nation’s founding.  But most of those people were white men, so they won’t.

[Oceans Yet to Burn]

[afloweroutofstone]

East Asian people shamelessly adopting/stealing (a debate to be had there) black American music is a huge growth industry right now. The Teriyaki Boyz were way ahead of their time.

[afloweroutofstone]

Ironically you could argue that they’ve also appropriated the act of appropriating black culture, because that’s a foundation of white American culture

[mitigatedchaos]

Do you believe in cultural intellectual property rights, or not?

That’s the real question posed.

[Oceans Yet to Burn]

[poipoipoi-2016]

I forget who it was that said that Chelsea Manning was going to get eaten alive by the Left for being too pure and good for this world, and uh…. you called it.  

[mitigatedchaos]

I wouldn’t call this being eaten alive.

Yet.

[Oceans Yet to Burn]

[argumate]

hmm arguing with a straight face that racism against white people is bad because it’s a slippery slope that can lead to racism against non-white people

[shieldfoss]

…I

OK separately I think racism against white people is bad because it is racism.

But also I actually think that yes, unironically this? If you officially start designating races and you treat them differently (e.g.: Affirmative action), people will follow suit by thinking of them differently. 

[flakmaniak]

Isn’t this just what @mitigatedchaos argues all the time, that all racism is empowered and normalized by all other racism? (And the generalized version of this for the left’s hypocrisies.)

[mitigatedchaos]

More seriously, while being racist towards white people is bad on its own merits, either as a violation of justice - judging someone for the actions of another - or on more Utilitarian grounds, most of the people that are seriously racist against the whities aren’t going to accept those arguments.

Thus the appeal to something they might actually care about.

It’s possible to create political will out of thin air, but a lot of the time it’s in reaction to historical or material factors, and political will with those factors will have deeper roots.

It’s important to realize along with this, that most politics will occur around the margins - whether groups of white supremacists are growing or shrinking, whether swing voters shift from one party to another, and so on.  Strong believers do have an effect, but it’s necessary to have raw power mass at your disposal.

As such, the question is not about “but if we be nice to our rivals, they will still be maximally evil,” but about “what’s the marginal rate that people will enter or leave our enemy’s coalition?”

Now that doesn’t mean playing along nicely all the time, but for goodness sake people should be very careful and specific in who they are targetting, and most racism is really bad at doing that.

[Oceans Yet to Burn]

[argumate]

hmm arguing with a straight face that racism against white people is bad because it’s a slippery slope that can lead to racism against non-white people

[shieldfoss]

…I

OK separately I think racism against white people is bad because it is racism.

But also I actually think that yes, unironically this? If you officially start designating races and you treat them differently (e.g.: Affirmative action), people will follow suit by thinking of them differently. 

[flakmaniak]

Isn’t this just what @mitigatedchaos argues all the time, that all racism is empowered and normalized by all other racism? (And the generalized version of this for the left’s hypocrisies.)

[mitigatedchaos]

Death to the Imperialists, long live the Empire.

[Oceans Yet to Burn]

[malaise-forever]

Daily reminder no one cares that you have dark hair or dark eyes or slightly ethnic features you are still white and your culture is still as milquetoast as the others

[isaacsapphire]

It’s funny, I hear that border patrol cares and my Jewish friend who has the aforementioned complexion has specifically been identified as someone who will get special attention from law enforcement in the South West.

So IDK about “no one”, if it’s reasonable to expect racist law enforcement attention for a slightly darker phenotype within the range of “White”.

Just no one on the Left…

[mitigatedchaos]

We have developed the ultimate form of Whiteness, a kind of Hyper-Albinism in which the subject exudes a soft glow,

(I misread #whither whiteness as #whiter whiteness.)

[Oceans Yet to Burn]

Anyhow, this discussion of China and racism got me thinking about how American companies talked about how only jobs that Americans didn’t want would be getting outsourced to China, and that it was nothing to worry about.

Which, like, implicit racism.  China isn’t going to climb the ladder of production and become a fierce competitor because?  What, are they just not cool enough?

[Oceans Yet to Burn]

[elementarynationalism]

Honestly if the Indian government buying the bullet train off of the Japanese in the hopes it repeats its zero-accident track record in Delhi isn’t the most ingenious experiment in human biodiversity theory, please find me a better one.

Wait until Dinesh decides the bolts don’t really need to be screwed on as tight as Takashi told him and we’ll see if they match that record.

[mitigatedchaos]

Bro, m8, buddy, pal,

We don’t have a non-corrupt India with which to separate out biological factors, including environmental ones (such as poor nutrition), so “does India fuck up the bullet train” does not work as an experiment for your hypothesis.

[elementarynationalism]

You’re not dealing any more in the scientific method than I am. You hazard to bet the fact that bullet trains won’t work in India is down to something intangible like “corruption” and I’m suggesting it’s got more to do with human capital.

People who shit in the street and ride on the top of freight trains aren’t doing so because of poor nutrition, fam.

[mitigatedchaos]

But they might out of cultural factors.  (Also, poor nutrition, in the aggregate, could harm national IQ and mental health, among other things.)

Corruption is a norm, it can be removed (Singapore) by sufficiently-determined group of actors passing and enforcing the right laws.

The trick is that it’s based on expectations about others engaging in corruption and expectations of getting caught.  It also arises when it’s impossible to function without violating the rules.

When corruption rates are high, there is not only a social expectation that one will get away with it, but there’s also the effect of “but everyone else is doing it - why do they get to benefit, but not me?”  Additionally, there are networks of corruption that can be relied on.

Increasing the odds of getting caught and punished above a certain level eradicates the pro-corruption network effects.  (This could be achieved with a series of sting operations all unleashed at once as a form of shock therapy.)  At that point, corrupt officials become isolated individuals with far less expectation of getting away with it.

After a while, the next generation of bureaucrats rises in which the default is that corruption is almost unthinkable, and the relative rarity at that point makes it much less costly to police.

Under Communism, because it’s so at odds with reality, arresting the corrupt officials won’t work as well because they may have to lie and be corrupt to survive, normalizing corruption.  Similarly, some cultures with a strong external locus of control or other elements may be prone to corruption.

[Oceans Yet to Burn]

Anonymous asked:

Synthesizing the "faux(-)Asian(-)nationalist" and "East Asian is an ethnicity" posts, clearly your destiny is to conquer the west coast in the name of epicanthic folds of non-specific origin.

[ 400 page forum argument between Neo Asiamerican Nationalists over whether Filipinos are Asian or Hispanic ]

[Oceans Yet to Burn]

[elementarynationalism]

Honestly if the Indian government buying the bullet train off of the Japanese in the hopes it repeats its zero-accident track record in Delhi isn’t the most ingenious experiment in human biodiversity theory, please find me a better one.

Wait until Dinesh decides the bolts don’t really need to be screwed on as tight as Takashi told him and we’ll see if they match that record.

[mitigatedchaos]

Bro, m8, buddy, pal,

We don’t have a non-corrupt India with which to separate out biological factors, including environmental ones (such as poor nutrition), so “does India fuck up the bullet train” does not work as an experiment for your hypothesis.