#policy thinkers.

[empirearchives]

“What is fatality to us of today? Policy is Destiny for us.”

— Napoleon to Goethe

Source: Emil Ludwig, Goethe: The History of a Man

[wilwheaton]

I woke up yesterday morning to learn that Don Trump—the famed rapist, convicted felon, and white christian presidential candidate—had mimed performing a blowjob on his microphone stand to the clear delight of his crowd. There's a famous Christian thinker named Jesus H. Christ who you may have heard about; people will often say his full name when they see things like this. [...] It cuts against the dominant social narrative to say we need to fight the white supremacist cult, and this is for the very good reason that our society is traditionally white supremacist. If you suggest that a white supremacist cult's behavior and intentions are indecent and absolutely unacceptable, there is a general realization that this means not accepting it, which would inevitably mean the social exclusion and isolation of people committed to pursuing unacceptable behavior, and who have made indecent and unacceptable behavior a core part of their identity. And it's very unhealthy to be socially excluded and isolated. And who could be against health? In the eyes of those who control the platforms of communication, and in the halls of power, and in the minds of many comfortable and privileged people, it is a far less divisive act to hold a Nazi rally, crammed with racism and hatred and bigotry and Nazi speakers delivering Nazi slogans and Nazi intentions to enact Nazi policies, than it is to refer to such a thing as "a Nazi rally." In the eyes of those who control the platforms of communication, and in the halls of power, and in the minds of many comfortable and privileged people, saying you intend to fight a white supremacist cult is considered far more divisive and radical than being a part of a white supremacist cult who intends to force a fight with everyone else. In fact "we're still going to be sharing a nation with them and there are millions of them" is usually what's said to anybody who suggests we even oppose them. It's said as a reason to not oppose them, as a reason to not even name them for what they have chosen to be. "You can't just get rid of them," it's said. The suggestion seems to be that in so doing we are excluding them from society, isolating them, dehumanizing them, by naming what it is they have chosen to become (which, again, is a white supremacist cult), and by refusing to accept their unacceptable propositions as acceptable. It's not so popular to suggest that the answer is for white supremacists to change their behavior. It's far more popular to say we need to heal the white supremacist cult. It's far more popular to issue reminders that we need to leave paths open for the white supremacist cult to find redemption

Apology Not Accepted

Another exceptional post from Andrew Moxon that I encourage you all to make some time to read.

When all of this is over, no matter how long it takes to send Shitler to prison, I will not forget and I will not forgive the christian nationalist white supremacists who have brought us here.

This includes people I thought I knew.

We must drive these cancerous, violent, hateful people back into social isolation and societal rejection, where they have always belonged.

This includes people I thought I knew.

[centrally-unplanned]

I don't really have anything big to add to Scott's Curtis Yarvin call-out that isn't really already in the post, which is just something someone had to write "for the record". Curtis Yarvin is, of course, an absolute joke of a thinker - but Scott was the person to write this post because he likes the joke. I respect that, a lot, because writing - even nonfiction writing - is primarily entertainment, and you really shouldn't delude yourself otherwise. I don't like Curtis Yarvin, I find his prose insufferable, but there are people like Yarvin who I enjoy who bat about as well on the accuracy scoreboards - The Last Psychiatrist is my own Yarvin-like, someone with impeccable prose who never cared about proving any of their points beyond what was needed for the punchline. Reading a hater who can't see that is like listening to someone's opinion on anime who thinks finding 2D girls hot is Fake News; they aren't capable of "getting it" enough for their opinion to register.

Scott gets it, Scott likes Yarvin, he has read his duct-tape edifice on how you can do "Dictatorship - but Good This Time!" with joy and attention. Which is why he is the best-positioned to call him out for being an absolute sell-out who has contradicted virtually everything he ever wrote in his glory days. Which he obviously has, but someone making the case with citations is valuable proof for your instincts.

Tracing Woodgrains noted that the framing of "selling out" is not cynical enough, that all of Yarvin's contextual caveats and exhortations for apolitical excellence were just a smokescreen, a pretextual shield against criticisms from the liberals as he smuggled populist authoritarianism through the door. To me, this debate is a distinction without a difference because they buy into the idea that 2000's Yarvin was serious at all to begin with. You think the guy writing headlines like these:

Was trying to maximize his odds of building a new political movement? Of course not - he was writing coolboy headlines to set you up for his edgy zinger punchlines about how slavery was good. I am sure he dreamed, like all writers did, but he was far too intelligent to ever think those dreams would really go anywhere in the real. Dude was blogging on the internet. This was a hobby, for fun, and for influence amoung bloggers. And what made it fun was all the complicated rules and nth-level steps to make the system bespoke - if you just said "kill everyone who opposes you" you don't have a blog, you have a tweet. Everything was in service of making good posts.

And then reality decided to punk itself and a cultural wave of conspiracy-brained charlatans took over the American Right and were happy to smash any square peg into the gaping maw of it round, sucking void of aggrieved, performative destruction that didn't care enough to protest. Yarvin nearly missed it happening, running some fringe programming start-up for more than half a decade while the New Right cast about for slightly-less-embarrassing justifications for its illiberalism. But fate gave him a pass on that, this is his time; and now he has to, essentially, pretend he is part of a movement he is in fact tangential to.

You see how that isn't selling out or pretextual? The entire job has changed. None of this fits. Certainly, it is a form of selling out - but entertaining blog posts are not convictions one can really sell. Certainly, it is a form of latent authoritarianism - but entertaining blog posts aren't actual policy platforms one can really dog whistle. That applies far too much agency to any of this - Yarvin has no business being in the room in 2025. Mencius Moldbug isn't even here anymore.

You can really see that in his response to Scott's post, which Hanania neatly mocks. It is basic-bitch culture war anti-elite nonsense that contradicts itself on even a cursory Google check, because it is just barely-warmed-over leftovers from other New Right thinkers. There is no prose here, no effort, no joy. These tweets are 9-to-5. This is a new guy; one that just isn't nearly as fun.

[liberalsarecool]

Not all educated people are liberal, but most conservative rhetoric and failed economic/tax policies depend on highly unserious thinkers.

[psychotrenny]

Fun how the people who hue and cry the loudest about China's "Reform and Opening Up", condemning it as some sort great betrayal of socialism, so often consider themselves aligned with Lenin. Like some sort of defender of true socialism from the golden era against all those later revisionists. As though like the NEP wasn't something that Lenin himself very much supported and implemented. Our wise and tactical introduction of capitalist elements VS their revisionist selling out to the bourgeoisie, something like that

There's probably a couple of things at play here. One contributing factor likely the fetishism of defeat you see all too often among Western socialists, treating the dead and failed experiments of the past as somehow being more pure and truly communist than any still living socialist regime. Another is the excessive attachment to specific individuals you see among those who accept communist ideas without truly embracing dialectical materialist thinking; treating certain thinkers and leaders (i.e. Lenin, Trotsky, Mao) as though they were divine prophets while others (i.e. Deng) are devils sent to lead us astray. Policies are not evaluated in terms of their material effects, the prevailing conditions they were taken in or even their theoretical basis. Rather the focus is on who proposed them; similar policies are good when a good guy supports them and bad when backed by a villain. Finally there's likely an element of underlying racism to all this; these people have faith in the ability of Europeans make the right decisions and build a better society, while no such trust is extended to those "less enlightened" peoples of the world. Surely the end of Socialism in Europe meant the end of any Socialism that matters? Like any nation still calling itself Socialist must be lying or deluded; there's no way those barbarians could have anything to teach us...

[dragoneyes613]

With all the global apoplexy triggered by the idea of shipping out the Palestinians to create a Gazan Riviera, the full import of Trump’s plan has actually gone under the radar. Such is the shock that weeks later commentators are still struggling for a frame of reference.

Here’s what they’re missing: Trump’s program doesn’t just rip up the hoary two-state consensus that has reigned unchallenged since 1967 — it sets the clock back all the way to 1948.

At the heart of Trump’s plan are two assumptions: that the Palestinians can’t remain in Gaza, and that going forward, the Arab world must pick up the pieces.

Attention so far has focused on the first element, with the left foaming at the mouth about ethnic cleansing. But the second part is equally revolutionary, because for the first time in a century, it takes a blowtorch to the real source of the conflict.

The Palestinian victim narrative was born as soon as Israel’s puny forces drove out the armies of six Arab states in 1948. The Nakba — or catastrophe, as the Palestinians refer to their defeat — proved a convenient tool for the Arab world in general.

Keeping the losers and their descendants in refugee camps — as opposed to absorbing them as Israel did for the Jews forced to flee their homes in Arab countries — was great policy as far as generations of Arab leaders were concerned.

Not only were they spared the bother of looking after their supposed brethren — those selfsame leaders soon discovered that Palestinians festering in refugee camps in Jordan and Lebanon pressured Israel to make concessions. So they created the world’s only perma-refugees — a tool with which to bludgeon Israel.

What wasn’t to love about Palestinian misery? If the Arabs couldn’t win on the battlefield, they could win at the (non)-peace table.

Of course, that great con would never have worked without Western connivance. The chattering-class consensus that the only acceptable outcome was further Israeli concessions ultimately enabled Palestinian obduracy.

Along the way there were the rare pro-Israel thinkers who identified the central problem as the Arab refusal to pay the price of defeat. Daniel Pipes, president of the Middle East Forum, called the result a decades-long “war process.” In 2018, the Israel Victory Caucus was founded in Congress to push the novel idea that peace could only come about by recognition that the Palestinians had lost.

- Gedalia Guttentag, Mishpacha Magazine, February 19 2025

[astrologydray]

♍️Virgo Mc in the each of the degrees♍️

If you have a Virgo Midheaven (MC), your career and public image are shaped by Virgo’s themes of precision, analysis, service, and mastery. You likely thrive in careers requiring problem-solving, organization, and attention to detail, such as healthcare, science, writing, education, research, or business administration.

• 0° Virgo (Aries Point) – A powerful initiator in service-based or intellectual fields. May gain recognition in medicine, science, or social reform.

• 1° Virgo – A perfectionist with strong critical thinking skills. Could succeed in editing, analytics, or quality control.

• 2° Virgo – A talented communicator; could thrive in writing, journalism, or teaching.

• 3° Virgo – An analytical mind, ideal for investigative work, research, or forensics.

• 4° Virgo – A love for learning and refinement; may excel in academia, law, or technical writing.

• 5° Virgo – A meticulous worker; likely to succeed in finance, administration, or data analysis.

• 6° Virgo – Naturally inclined toward healthcare, therapy, or alternative medicine.

• 7° Virgo – A precise, creative thinker; may find success in graphic design, architecture, or craftsmanship.

• 8° Virgo – Drawn to healing professions, including nutrition, physical therapy, or holistic medicine.

• 9° Virgo – A problem-solver with innovative ideas. Could thrive in technology, engineering, or logistics.

• 10° Virgo – A strong educator; may work in teaching, coaching, or mentoring.

• 11° Virgo – A tech-savvy, analytical mind; may excel in IT, cybersecurity, or programming.

• 12° Virgo – A perfectionist in fashion, music, or fine arts. Success through precise craftsmanship.

• 13° Virgo – A highly responsible worker; may thrive in law enforcement, military, or humanitarian work.

• 14° Virgo – Health-conscious with a sharp mind. Could be drawn to dietetics, fitness, or medical research.

• 15° Virgo – A master of writing, editing, or academic research.

• 16° Virgo – Business-minded; excels in consulting, financial planning, or business strategy.

• 17° Virgo – A detail-oriented expert; could work in surgery, pharmaceuticals, or scientific research.

• 18° Virgo – A deep humanitarian drive; drawn to nonprofits, environmental work, or psychology.

• 19° Virgo – A critical thinker who excels in law, politics, or policy-making.

• 20° Virgo – A master of their craft; recognized for expertise in specialized fields.

• 21° Virgo – Exceptionally intellectual; may thrive in philosophy, academia, or technical writing.

• 22° Virgo – An innovative thinker; could work in product design, systems development, or efficiency consulting.

• 23° Virgo – A strong researcher; may specialize in history, archeology, or science.

• 24° Virgo – An excellent communicator; may succeed in broadcasting, publishing, or public relations.

• 25° Virgo – A sharp and strategic mind; could work in legal fields, investigative journalism, or intelligence.

• 26° Virgo – A healer at heart; may be drawn to nursing, surgery, or psychological counseling.

• 27° Virgo – A gifted analyst; could thrive in economics, data science, or cybersecurity.

• 28° Virgo – A precise and disciplined artist; success in sculpture, architecture, or technical art.

• 29° Virgo (Anaretic Degree) – A master strategist, perfectionist, or critic. Success comes through expertise, refinement, and precision. However, may struggle with overanalyzing or career indecision.

[whencyclopedia]

Aspasia of Miletus

Aspasia of Miletus (l. c. 470-410/400 BCE) is best known as the consort of the great Athenian statesman Pericles. Her life story has always been given in the shadow of Pericles' fame, but she was a woman of great eloquence and intelligence in her own right who influenced many of the writers, thinkers, and statesmen of her time.

She was a metic (a person not born in Athens) and, accordingly, was not allowed to marry an Athenian and had to pay a tax to live in Athens, but it is most likely because of her foreign status that she was not constrained by Athenian policies regarding women's behavior. She bore Pericles (l. 495-429 BCE) a son (Pericles the Younger, l. c. 440-406 BCE) out of wedlock, taught men and women, and seems to have lived freely however she pleased.

This much is known as well as that she lived, wrote, and worked in Athens c. 450 - c. 428 BCE and operated a salon of some sort, but little else can be said for certain. It is not even known if Aspasia (pronounced Ahs-pah-SEE-uh) was her actual name or a "professional name" as she was famous as a hetaira (a high-class courtesan), and her name means "greeting with affection" or "welcome" or "desired one" according to various translations. Scholars almost universally agree that Aspasia was not the woman's birth name.

Ancient writers from Aristophanes (l. c. 460 - c. 380 BCE) to Plato (l. 424/423-348/347 BCE) to Plutarch (l. c. 45/50 - c. 120/125 CE) reference her eloquence and power in controlling men, and this established her reputation as none of her own works, if she actually wrote any, have survived. In the 19th and 20th centuries, mainly owing to the literary works of Walter Savage Landor (l. 1775-1864) and Gertrude Atherton (l. 1857-1948), respectively, Aspasia came to be viewed as a romantic heroine of the Golden Age of Athens and she and Pericles as exemplifying the romantic couple.

She is recognized as an important figure today as she defied the restrictive policies of Athenian society regarding women (who were seen as second-class citizens) to live her life according to her own vision. In the modern era, she is understood as an intellectual and teacher of enormous ability whose influence on famous male writers and thinkers of her day was significant.

Ancient & Modern Depictions

Whoever Aspasia was, it seems clear she was a woman of impressive accomplishments; even if it remains unclear precisely what those accomplishments were. Although ancient writers allude to her influence over others (such as Socrates, for example), few details are given as to what aspects of others' works should be credited to her.

The claim that she wrote Pericles' famous Funeral Oration cannot be substantiated and, in fact, was originally made as a slur. She vanished from the history of rhetoric for this very reason: the inability of later scholars to identify her with any given extant works.

It has been noted by scholar Madeleine M. Henry that Aspasia is depicted by ancient writers according to those writers' individual biases and so a clear picture of who she was and what she accomplished is almost impossible to grasp. Henry comments:

When we need Aspasia to be a chaste muse and teacher, she is there; when we need a grand horizontal, she is there, when we need a proto feminist, she is there also. (128)

Ancient writers from Plato to Plutarch have characterized her according to their own particular need, and so a modern reader must sift and measure the various accounts in an attempt to come to terms with who Aspasia may have been. A standard depiction of her in modern times reads:

A contributor to learning in Athens, Aspasia of Miletus (c. 470-401/400 BCE) boldly surpassed the limited expectations for women by establishing a renowned girl's school and a popular salon. She lived free of female seclusion and conducted herself like a male intellectual while expounding on current events, philosophy, and rhetoric. Her fans included the philosopher Socrates and his followers, the teacher Plato, the orator Cicero, the historian Xenophon, the writer Athenaeus, and the statesman and general Pericles, her adoring common-law husband (The Oxford Classical Dictionary, 1992).

Ancient depictions, however, vary from Aristophanes' comical charge in his Acharnians that Aspasia started the Peloponnesian War over the abduction of "two whores" of hers to Plato's image of her in his Menexenus where she is Socrates' teacher in rhetoric. It should be noted that the Menexenus is a satirical dialogue and when the character of Menexenus says, "I marvel that Aspasia, who is only a woman, should be able to compose such a speech," Plato is most certainly writing tongue in cheek (Menexenus, 235e).

While Aspasia herself wrote nothing extant, her influence is thought to be apparent in the works of her contemporaries and later writers, but this claim is based on circumstantial evidence since, as noted, it is unclear what works she may have actually contributed to. Scholar Joyce E. Salisbury provides the scenario others point to in claiming Aspasia's influence:

Aspasia's house quickly became the fashionable place for gentlemen of quality to gather. Politicians, playwrights, philosophers, artists, and literary celebrities passed through her doors, and she came to know the most famous architects of the Athenian golden age. (23)

Scholar I. M. Plant contributes to this claim while qualifying how much remains unknown of Aspasia's life and work:

Aspasia is one of the most famous women of classical Greece, yet little is known of her life, and most of what was written about her in her own day is dubious. As the partner of Pericles, Athens' leading statesman in the mid-fifth century BC, Aspasia moved in the highest aristocratic circles and attracted the attention of comic and serious writers. She inspired literary personae which in turn led to the creation of pseudonymous works in her name. (41)

None of these pseudonymous works have survived but are referenced by other writers who either praise or blame Aspasia for her influence over powerful men. Plutarch consistently praises the accomplishments of Pericles and blames any of his mistakes on Aspasia. At one point, in his Life of Pericles, Plutarch seems to wonder aloud:

What great art or power this woman had, that she managed as she pleased the foremost men of the state and afforded the philosophers occasion to discuss her in exalted terms and at great length. (24.1)

Plutarch's question seems to have been asked by many of Aspasia's contemporaries and those who followed after. The philosopher Aeschines of Sphettus (l. c. 425 - c. 350 BCE) seems to answer this by presenting her as a clever speaker and an intellectual of note who made a lasting impression on those who heard her speak. Like Plato, Aeschines of Sphettus wrote philosophical dialogues, including an Aspasia, but these have been lost. All we know of his thoughts on Aspasia come from later writers who have also provided the few details of her life.

Continue reading...

[reality-detective]

Are YOU on the DHS’s “Extremist” List?

The DHS has turned against the people. Critical thinkers like YOU are being labeled “extremists.” Surveillance hubs, tools like Albert Sensors, and entities like Fusion Centers are watching your every move. This is NOT about safety—it’s about CONTROL.

If you question authority, challenge mandates, or stand for your freedoms, YOU’RE ALREADY ON THEIR RADAR. And guess what? So am I. Proudly. But this isn’t just about us—it’s about dismantling a corrupt system before it’s too late.

Fusion Centers: The Orwellian Nightmare

They claim to “prevent terrorism,” but Fusion Centers have become surveillance hubs tracking YOU—the average American. These centers may even monitor real-time election data, controlling the very democracy they pretend to protect.

Albert Sensors & Cradlepoint Routers: Trojan Horses

These so-called “cybersecurity tools” funnel data straight to DHS databases. Worse, many Cradlepoint routers come from China, a nation infamous for surveillance. Why are these devices in our critical infrastructure? What backdoors exist? Who’s watching YOU?

CISA: The Silencer of Dissent

Under the guise of “cybersecurity,” CISA flags opinions, controls narratives, and labels truth-seekers as “disinformers.” This isn’t protection—it’s suppression.

DHS’s True Target: YOU

According to internal memos, DHS targets those questioning elections, mandates, and policies. By branding concerned citizens as threats, they spread fear to suppress dissent. But WE WILL NOT BE SILENCED.

The Solution: Revolution, Not Reform

The DHS is beyond repair. Here’s what must happen:

Abolish Fusion Centers, CISA, and CIS—their surveillance and overreach are cancerous.

Eliminate Albert Sensors and Cradlepoint routers—investigate their misuse and secure our systems.

Demand oversight—no program should exist without public scrutiny.

This isn’t reform—it’s a takedown.

America at a Tipping Point

Liberty cannot survive under constant surveillance. If you value freedom, if you dare to think for yourself, wear their labels as a badge of honor. But don’t stop there.

Speak out. Fight back. Take action. The DHS must be dismantled, and its power returned to the people. This is OUR country, not theirs.

The storm is here... Will you rise? 🤔

[bitchymanlet]

Is Erwin Leftist or Fascist?

I'm basically expanding on what I've already posted on twitter about this.

The fandom seems to be pretty split on whether Erwin would be a Jaegerist or not—I've even seen fans going so far as to say he'd be a Trump supporter in the modern day. These could just be trolls or ignorant teenagers (both?) spewing this bs, but let's be clear,

Overthrowing the government does not indicate leftist or right-wing policy.

One of the most common rebuttals I see to the argument that Erwin is fascist is: "But he overthrew the government!" My guess is they think of revolutions by the people, such as the French and Russian ones, which were progressive, left-wing. But fascists do hostile takeovers too, such as the Blackshirts in Italy, and the January 6th Insurrection (the latter being a failed attempt at one).

Instead of using Erwin's staged coup as evidence that he is leftist, let's look into the reasons why he's Not Fascist.

He values intellectualism. We see in the text that Erwin supports and sees the value in Hange's titan research, and he believes the people deserve to know the truth, ie freedom of press—he was kept in the dark about the truth of their world, and he spent his whole life seeking the truth so that it could be shared with everyone. Fascists don't want thinkers, they want obedience.

Erwin allows those below his station to speak and think freely. We see how Levi, his subordinate, speaks to him informally and to other high-ranking military officials right in front of Erwin, but Erwin doesn't reprimand him or even punish him for his transgressions, because he respects him (an uneducated riffraff from the underground) as an equal. He allows 15 year old fresh out of the Cadet Corps Armin to speak up about his hunches, make suggestions, and he even let Armin give more experienced Scouts orders during their most pivotal battle in the history of the Survey Corps. He encourages his Scouts to question what they're fighting for and who their true enemies are rather than flat-out telling them. Unlike Fascists, he doesn't seem to enforce social hierarchy or genetic superiority of any kind.

He doesn't demonize The Other or motivate his soldiers with fear. He's doesn't rally his soldiers by proclaiming that humans are superior to titans and that they must crush them to assert humanity's dominance and superiority—he doesn't possess a hatred for titans like Eren does. He sees them more as obstacles to finding the truth. A core belief to fascists is proving that they are the chosen ones who will beat down the inhuman degenerates beneath them. He shows no sense of innate superiority.

We can't say for sure if he would be a Jaegerist because he died before all of that, but it is extremely unlikely given his aforementioned anti-fascist qualities. Why would he ever fall for Eren and Zeke's plot? Erwin is certainly smarter than Eren, but Zeke is a competent leader and strategist himself. However, what Zeke lacks that Erwin didn't is Hope. Erwin didn't give up on humanity like Zeke did, instead he valued and sought after knowledge. He saw failures and tragedies as learning opportunities and steps to a better outcome. Suffice it to say, he's not hateful or nihilistic enough to be on either of the Jaeger brothers' side, he'd think of a better solution than revenge or no babies.

So we can deduce that he is not a Fascist.

But is he a Leftist?

Back to the coup de'tat, Erwin staged it not to subjugate civilians, execute his opposers and instate military rule (what fascists do), but to live on to find the truth. That was it. Being a Scout granted him the freedom to venture outside of the walls and to learn more about their world and about the titans. If the Survey Corps dissolved and he got hanged, then the truth would possibly never come to light. The previous government would execute people for trying to leave and seek the truth. Erwin elevating Historia as the rightful monarch and, as a result, the people learning that the former monarch was a fake and that they have been lied to was just a nice bonus. Not why he did it.

There's little evidence for his personal political beliefs, as much of his character arc revolves around him Getting Closer To The Truth. If he were a leftist, he would show support for the common man's struggle and a disdain for the ruling class (like woke class-conscious king Levi). If his coup were politically motivated (in a progressive way), he would have started a revolution to free the people from the king's tyranny, he might have even called for the eradication of the crown altogether and touted democracy and the redistribution of wealth. Instead, he showed uncertainty and remorse for his coup, not confidence that he'd done the right thing for humanity's sake.

Again, Erwin was only saving his own skin so that he could find out what was in Eren's basement. He didn't feel strongly about dismantling the system and creating a more equitable government, which would be leftist. Rather, he feels more comfortable with upholding the status quo while also maintaining individual liberty.

Ergo, based on canon events, I don't think Erwin is a leftist or a fascist, I think he's a liberal.

[the-garbanzo-annex-jr]

by David Christopher Kaufman

Once again, unlike any other minority group, Jews are being tasked with sacrificing our own best interests for the sake of others, including those who have advocated for our extermination. And we’re being told to do so by leaders, such as Rother, supposedly for our own good. It’s disgusting.  

Jews are under no obligation to advocate on behalf of Mahmoud Khalil 

Make no mistake: It’s not our job as Jews, currently the most maligned and imperiled minority group in America, to advocate on behalf of Mahmoud Khalil nor of any terror-aligned jihadi who has run afoul of established Western codes of conduct. 

Almost no one asked African-Americans during the height of the #blm protests to account for, say, the sentiments of whites who did not support their agenda. 

Oh wait, The New York Times did so when it ran an op-ed by Sen. Tom Cotton suggesting that the US National Guard be called in to quell the mayhem. The editor of the Times Opinion section was promptly terminated. 

Of course, Jews who believe that hardline administration policies threaten US civil liberties can and should make their voices heard; that’s the beauty of America. But to claim that doing so is for the sake of Jews themselves is nothing short of perverse. 

It’s also lazy, dishonest, and disingenuous. President Rother of Wesleyan said in the Times that “For Jews, a number of [Administration] agendas... pose a direct threat to the very people they purport to help; Jews who applaud the... crackdown will soon find that they do so at their peril.”

What about the peril posed by the creeping jihadi presence on college campuses or the weaponization of identity politics against Jewish professionals and students? 

Or the increasing instances of job applicants with “Jewish-sounding” names unable to find work. At least according to thinkers like Rother or Tomkin, it seems that those are problems Jews cannot solve, nor should they – unlike the fate of Khalil. 

Because just like the political pickle the Hamas supporter now finds himself in, these are not problems created by Jews in the first place. 

[not-terezi-pyrope]

One thing I hate about modern politics is how compulsive factional flag-planting by the right in an attempt to make everything into a wedge issue for their base leads to the near universal politicization of what are just... Straightforwardly, obviously good ideas. Politics in the US (and tbh a lot of other places) is like:

Scientists: hey so we've discovered a new type of cereal that prevents the disease that makes babies explode. if we started selling it in stores it would save the economy 2 trillion dollars in explosion damage and also it would stop babies from exploding

Liberal politician: huh, sounds neat. you guys interested in the like, uh, anti explosion cereal?

Public: yeah, sure, we like babies

Liberal politician: cool, well in that case-

Conservative thinker (dude with a YouTube podcast that at least five senators secretly watch): -WAIT! STOP! THIS IS A PROPOSAL BY THE EVIL LIBERALS! IT'S A LEFTIST PLOT TO DEPRIVE YOUR CHILDREN OF THE RIGHT TO EXPLODE!

Half the fucking public for some reason: by tarnation, he has the same prejudices as my pops so he must have a point! Can't let those fucking libs get their agenda through!

News anchor, six months later: ...and in other news, the controversial "stop babies exploding" bill, currently polling nationally at 56 points in favour, was blocked in the liberal-lead senate by the conservatives and a liberal minority leading a revolt against their own party's policy. In response, the liberal party president is said to be drafting a modified version of the bill that promises means-tested access to the cereal that stops babies exploding to a randomized subset of 1% of baby and non-baby residents in five test constituencies. The new bill is expected to fail to pass the house some time in the next five years.

[centrally-unplanned]

I know, I am really on a "mocking Tyler Cowen" kick, I will move on from this soon. I just think the ways he is failing these days is very symptomatic of the zeitgeist faux-intellectualism and the ways thinkers are struggling to slot into an openly anti-intellectual movement.

He starts with "USAID is probably good", but in a very compliment-sandwich way. You taught me what a Straussian read is my dear Cowen, so when your "it is good" section is two lines of link dumps, and the rest of the piece is criticism, I am getting the message. So let us set that part aside and dig into those criticisms:

To be clear, I consider this kind of thing to be scandalous.  And I strongly suspect that some of the other outrage anecdotes are true, though they are hard to confirm, or not

The link is to the think tank The Urban Institute putting out a donation call because 1/3rd of its budget is from the Federal government. Which is scandalous...because...uh, why? It is the Urban Institute. They analyze government policy for hire. Their biggest customer is the government. What the fuck? Their latest research - just chosen randomly, top of the list - is an impact evaluation of a program to help at-risk youths graduate high school. Is that bad now?? Does Tyler Cowen no longer think impact evaluations of policy are good??

Imagine describing consulting firms this way: "Oil Well Advisors has hit significant headwinds now that Exxon Mobile is suspending all outside contractors", is that a scandal? Or just absolutely normal behavior for industries with large institutional clients? What is the alternative here? Does he want - in a post subtly praising the Trump Admin - the government to in-house all impact evaluations? I don't disagree that they should do more but, uh, read the room buddy?

I know I am harping on this point but I really wanna emphasize how much of a bad writing call this is - taking an actually insane position (orgs specializing in government contracts shouldn't exist lmao) and because it is so indefensible you instead just handwave it as obvious so the audience maybe doesn't notice. Very cringe.

Okay, moving on:

It does seem Nina Jankowicz and her work received funding, and that I find hard to justify.  It seems to be evidence for something broken in the process. 

The money went to her work with the Center for Information Resilience, which does investigative reporting on war crimes like in the Ukraine War. Maybe her project sucked, I don't even know, but come on. This is incredibly normal behavior for USAID.

 Or how about funds to the BBC?

You mean the BBC Media Action charity, which trains journalists and helps build out mobile & communication networks in developing countries? Should the US build 100% of its own orgs and never fund effective, international partners from US allies? Is that a coherent foreign policy goal I can just wave my hands about and never explain because it is so obvious?

He then goes into the "reforming USAID" angle:

The Samo piece is excellent.  For one thing he notes: “The agency primarily uses a funding model which pays by hours worked, thus incentivizing long-duration projects.”  And the very smart Samantha Power, appointed by Biden to run AID, “…is in favor of disrupting the contractor ecosystem.”  Samo also discusses all the restrictions that require American contractors to be involved. Here is a study on how to reform AID, I have not yet read it.

Which is totally fine, I agree if I ran USAID I could totally like boost efficiency by 50%. I bet a lot of spending is inefficient. But why are you pretending that the current admin is, in any way, aiming for technocratic reform?

Why bother bringing this thread up? That isn't what they are doing! It isn't relevant.

I love this classic trick:

According to the very smart, non-lunatic Charlie Robertson: "My data suggests US AID flows in 2024 were equivalent to: 93% of Somalia’s government revenues, 61% in Sudan, just over 50% in South Sudan and Yemen" While I do not take cutting off those flows lightly, that seems unsustainable and also wrong to me as a matter of USG policy.  Those do not seem like viable enterprises to me.

You can think whatever you want is wrong, your call. But unsustainable? All of USAID is half a percent of the federal government. Payments to Somalia are a rounding error. This is the definition of sustainable! You could run this forever and never even notice.

But okay, maybe you mean like it is creating a culture of dependency or somesuch, not the same thing but I will humor you. Let's look at the latest USAID impact assessment of their work in Somalia:

Oh whoops, looks like our ability to even evaluate programs has been stripped away by the current admin's mass purging of databases like impact assessment reports! Fortunately I have the Wayback Machine, so I can get around this:

"Culture of dependency" this money went to food and clean water for starving people. You can say whatever you want about priorities and all that shit. That it is "unsustainable". But if someone doesn't do this then some of these people die. I notice "let them die" does not appear in your bloodless discussion of "aid dependency". Maybe we should cut aid because they will be forced to get their state together and be better off in the long run. I understand that logic, I really do, you can make that case.

But fucking say it. Say "let them die" to my face. Man the fuck up.

Alright, last one since this is going on too long:

There are various reports of AID spending billions to help overthrow Assad. I cannot easily assess this matter, either whether the outcomes was good or whether AID mattered, but perhaps (assuming it was effective) such actions should be taken by a different agency or institution?

I love this one because it is a peak "attack of opportunity" moment. At the beginning of this very post he says this:

Here is a Samo analysis...The Samo piece is excellent. 

The linked piece, by the Samo Burja, is this:

The piece, to clarify, explains that USAID is not an aid agency, but fundamentally an extension of US foreign policy and conducts itself to achieve foreign policy goals. That this is its explicit, stated purpose. And Tyler Cowen says it is a great piece.

And then proceeds to say that pursuing those goals in Syria should maybe be at a different agency because that isn't "aid".

Bro you don't give a rat's ass about that! You just wanted to score points, you don't care about this at all. It was just on the list, you didn't even think about it, you just said something that sounded plausible. It is pathetic, you don't have to comment on every headline if you don't have a hot take. Just post a meme instead like a normal person.

But he does have to comment, because this post exists to ingratiate himself to the vibe shift. It as transparent as it is embarrassing - it is so limp-wristed, saying things like "the 'Elonsphere' on Twitter is very much exaggerating the horror anecdotes" when their most viral claims are just naked fabrications. Come on, man. You used to be better than this.

[warsofasoiaf]

You're massively overthinking things. It simply boils down to Americans being sick of forever wars as the world's police, picking Trump in 16 over the Bush-party and the establishment SecState, taking-credit-for-Libya Clinton, and in 24, because they have zero interest in tax dollars (or worse) being spent on a corruptocrat bullshit country fighting one with nukes & oil. Trump is simply not smart or prudent enough to refrain from getting hyperbolic in rejecting the anti-Putin mania.

Your hard-on for Putin also has you looking at concessions as "things you don't want Putin to have" instead of "things that might cost AMERICA less than funding the Keystone Kops civil war". How many times do Trump & his supporters have to say "America first" before you get that's what they mean, not "sure, America, but also we have to solve this international issue I did my thesis on/have a consulting job lined up concerning/etc..." that every foreign policy "expert" says is a priority? Final point: "The 80s called, they want their foreign policy back" - the last 100% mentally there POTUS, campaigning for re-election, which he won despite being black, and telling Medvedev on a hot mike that he'd be able to help more in his second term. Making 3 of the last 4 elections where Americans picked the not-fighting-Russia guy. Sorry Ukraine, but maybe don't go bullying ethnic Russian citizens next time. "It does not do to leave a dragon out of your calculations if you live near him."

LOL, this is amazing. Ukraine's corruption is a relic of the Soviet Union and the Russian Federation - they actually want to be our ally.

Public polling said that inflation was a primary concern and that among Americans, they largely were supportive of Ukraine, rather than Russia. People wanted Trump in 16 because they were tired of being condescended to. And let's not forget, in a climate with >5% inflation, Trump squeaked by with 1.4%. He was given the 2024 election on a silver platter and he still managed to almost fuck it up. You're out of touch, deep in your Twitter echo chamber. Touch grass, boyo.

Forever war? Trump is openly fetishizing invading Greenland, Canada, and Panama. He's the forever war candidate butthurt that his current legacy is "the second guy that was a non-consecutive President but also got impeached because he was a little snowflake scared about losing an election that he tried to get oppo dirt."

I'll believe that Trump is "America First" when he actually starts doing policies that benefit Americans. Because right now, he's driving up inflation and driving down the stock market with tariff threats. Cost America less? Idiot wants to ram through 4.5 trillion worth of tax cuts and explode the deficit so don't tell me he cares about fiscal responsibility. Ukraine aid is spent here, in the US, spent at the Lima Plant modernizing our military. That's stuff that actually makes the US stronger. Meanwhile Trump is talking about trying to open up trade with Russia - and torpedoing trade with Europe (a larger partner) to do it. He wants the US to finance Russian reconstruction, the same Russians that tried to kill us in Khasham and that regularly arrest US citizens on flimsy charges so that they can extract concessions via hostage diplomacy. That's not caring about Americans - that's a "Russia First, America after" policy.

Ukraine bullying ethnic Russians. That's fucking rich. Boo-hoo, the ethnic Russians in Ukraine are big sad that everyone doesn't tell them that Russia is the biggest and best boy ever. Cry more, loser.

Try again, buddy! Maybe do some research instead of swallowing Russian propaganda wholesale and believing it makes you a free thinker.

-SLAL

[mariacallous]

He’s not a famous name in the wider world, but copyright lawyer Mark Lemley is equal parts revered and feared within certain tech circles. TechDirt recently described him as a “Lebron James/Michael Jordan”-level legal thinker. A professor at Stanford, counsel at an IP-focused law firm in the Bay Area, and one of the 10 most-cited legal scholars of all time, Lemley is exactly the kind of person Silicon Valley heavyweights want on their side. Meta, however, has officially lost him.

Earlier this month, Lemley announced he was no longer going to defend the tech giant in Kadrey v. Meta, a lawsuit filed by a group of authors who allege the tech giant violated copyright law by training its AI tools on their books without their permission. The fact that he quit is a big deal. I wondered if it had something to do with how the case was going—but then I checked social media.

Lemley said on LinkedIn and Bluesky that he still believes Meta should win the lawsuit, and he wasn’t bowing out because of the merits of the case. Instead, he’d “fired” Meta because of what he characterized as the company and its CEO Mark Zuckerberg’s “descent into toxic masculinity and Neo-Nazi madness.” The move came on the heels of major policy shifts at Meta, including changes to its hateful conduct rules that now allow users to call gay and trans people “mentally ill.”

In a phone conversation, Lemley explained what motivated his decision to quit, and where he sees the broader legal landscape on AI and copyright going, including his suspicion that OpenAI may settle with The New York Times.

This interview has been edited for clarity and length.

Kate Knibbs: Could you go into more detail about how you arrived at your decision to quit representing Meta? What was the deciding factor?

Mark Lemley: I am very troubled by the direction in which the country is going, and I am particularly troubled that a number of folks in the tech industry seem to be willing to go along with it, no matter how extreme it gets. A number of policy changes struck me as things that I would not personally want to be associated with, from the full-throated endorsement of Trump, to the systematic cutting-back on protections for LGBTQ people, to the elimination of DEI programs. All of this is a pattern, I think, that seems to be following what we saw with Elon Musk a couple of years ago. We've seen where that path leads, and it's not somewhere good. Mark Zuckerberg is, of course, free to do whatever he wants to do, but I decided that that wasn't something I wanted to be associated with.

Did Meta make an effort to keep you? Did Zuckerberg say anything to you?

I’ve not had any conversation with Mark Zuckerberg, ever. But any internal conversations that were had is something I probably should not talk about.

Especially right now, it’s apparent that Zuckerberg isn’t the only tech mogul aligning himself with Trump. As you mentioned, Elon Musk comes to mind. But there are a lot of very powerful people in Silicon Valley who are pivoting hard towards MAGA policies. Do you have a list, now, of people you’d say no to representing? How are you approaching this?

I did think Zuckerberg and Musk have been particularly egregious in their behavior. But one of the nice things about being in the position I'm in—having a full-time job teaching rather than practicing law—is that I have probably greater freedom than a lot of people to say I don't need to take that money. Do I have a list? No, absolutely not.

But if you decide that the thing to do with your brand is to associate it with moves towards fascism, that is a decision that ought to have consequences. One of the challenges that a lot of people have is they don't feel that they can speak up, because it's going to cost them personally. So I think it's all the more important for people who can bear that cost to do so.

What has the reaction been like?

When I made this as a personal decision, I decided I should say something about it on social media, both because I thought it was important to explain why I was doing it, and also to explain that it wasn't a function of anything in the case, or my views about the case. I had no idea what I was in for, in terms of the reaction. It's been quite remarkable and overwhelmingly positive. There are plenty of trolls who think I'm an idiot and a libtard. But so far, no death threats, which is a welcome improvement from the past.

Have you heard from people who might follow in your footsteps?

This struck such a nerve, and there are obviously a lot of people who feel that they don't have the power to tell Meta or anyone else to go away, or to stand up for things that they think, and that's unfortunate.

I know your position remains that Meta is still on the right in its AI copyright disputes. But are there any cases in which you think the plaintiffs have a stronger argument?

The strongest arguments are the ones where the output of a work ends up being substantially similar to a particular copyrighted input. Most of the time, when that happens, it happens by accident or because they didn't do a good enough job trying to fix the problems that lead to it. But sometimes, it might be unavoidable. Turns out, it’s hard to purge all references to Mickey Mouse from your AI dataset, for instance. If people want to try to generate a Mickey Mouse image, it's often possible to do something that looks like Mickey Mouse. So there are a set of issues that might create copyright problems, but they're mostly not the ones currently being litigated.

The one exception to that is the UMG v. Anthropic case, because at least early on, earlier versions of Anthropic would generate the song lyrics for songs in the output. That's a problem. The current status of that case is they've put safeguards in place to try to prevent that from happening, and the parties have sort of agreed that, pending the resolution of the case, those safeguards are sufficient, so they're no longer seeking a preliminary injunction.

At the end of the day, the harder question for the AI companies is not is it legal to engage in training? It’s what do you do when your AI generates output that is too similar to a particular work?

Do you expect the majority of these cases to go to trial, or do you see settlements on the horizon?

There may well be some settlements. Where I expect to see settlements is with big players who either have large swaths of content or content that's particularly valuable. The New York Times might end up with a settlement, and with a licensing deal, perhaps where OpenAI pays money to use New York Times content.

There's enough money at stake that we're probably going to get at least some judgments that set the parameters. The class-action plaintiffs, my sense is they have stars in their eyes. There are lots of class actions, and my guess is that the defendants are going to be resisting those and hoping to win on summary judgment. It's not obvious that they go to trial. The Supreme Court in the Google v. Oracle case nudged fair-use law very strongly in the direction of being resolved on summary judgment, not in front of a jury. I think the AI companies are going to try very hard to get those cases decided on summary judgment.

Why would it be better for them to win on summary judgment versus a jury verdict?

It's quicker and it's cheaper than going to trial. And AI companies are worried that they're not going to be viewed as popular, that a lot of people are going to think, Oh, you made a copy of the work that should be illegal and not dig into the details of the fair-use doctrine.

There have been lots of deals between AI companies and media outlets, content providers, and other rights holders. Most of the time, these deals appear to be more about search than foundational models, or at least that’s how it’s been described to me. In your opinion, is licensing content to be used in AI search engines—where answers are sourced by retrieval augmented generation or RAG—something that’s legally obligatory? Why are they doing it this way?

If you're using retrieval augmented generation on targeted, specific content, then your fair-use argument gets more challenging. It's much more likely that AI-generated search is going to generate text taken directly from one particular source in the output, and that's much less likely to be a fair use. I mean, it could be—but the risky area is that it’s much more likely to be competing with the original source material. If instead of directing people to a New York Times story, I give them my AI prompt that uses RAG to take the text straight out of that New York Times story, that does seem like a substitution that could harm the New York Times. Legal risk is greater for the AI company.

What do you want people to know about the generative AI copyright fights that they might not already know, or they might have been misinformed about?

The thing that I hear most often that's wrong as a technical matter is this concept that these are just plagiarism machines. All they're doing is taking my stuff and then grinding it back out in the form of text and responses. I hear a lot of artists say that, and I hear a lot of lay people say that, and it's just not right as a technical matter. You can decide if generative AI is good or bad. You can decide it's lawful or unlawful. But it really is a fundamentally new thing we have not experienced before. The fact that it needs to train on a bunch of content to understand how sentences work, how arguments work, and to understand various facts about the world doesn't mean it's just kind of copying and pasting things or creating a collage. It really is generating things that nobody could expect or predict, and it's giving us a lot of new content. I think that's important and valuable.

[coochiequeens]

‘100% feminist’: how Eleanor Rathbone invented child benefit – and changed women’s lives for ever

She was an MP and author with a formidable reputation, fighting for the rights of women and refugees, and opposing the appeasement of Hitler. Why isn’t she better known today?

Ladies please reblog to give her the recognition she deserves

By Susanna Rustin Thu 4 Jul 2024

My used copy of the first edition of The Disinherited Family arrives in the post from a secondhand bookseller in Lancashire. A dark blue hardback inscribed with the name of its first owner, Miss M Marshall, and the year of publication, 1924, it cost just £12.99. I am not a collector of old tomes but am thrilled to have this one. It has a case to be considered among the most important feminist economics books ever written.

Its centenary has so far received little, if any, attention. Yet the arguments it sets out are the reason nearly all mothers in the UK receive child benefit from the government. Its author, Eleanor Rathbone, was one of the most influential women in politics in the first half of the 20th century. She led the National Union of Societies for Equal Citizenship (Nusec, the main suffragist organisation, also formerly known as the National Union of Women Suffrage Societies) from 1919, when Millicent Fawcett stood down, until the roughly five million women who were not enfranchised in 1918 gained the vote 10 years later. In 1929, aged 57, she became an MP, and remained in parliament until her death in 1946. While there, she built up a formidable reputation based on her advocacy for women’s rights, welfare reform and the rights of refugees, and her opposition to the appeasement of Hitler.

It would not be true to say that Eleanor Rathbone has been forgotten. Her portrait by James Gunn hangs in the National Portrait Gallery. Twenty years ago she was the subject of a fine biography and she is remembered at Somerville college, Oxford – where she studied in the 1890s and ran a society called the Associated Prigs. (While the name was a joke, Rathbone did have a priggish side – as well as being an original thinker, tremendous campaigner, and stubborn, sensitive personality.) She also features in Rachel Reeves’s book The Women Who Made Modern Economics, although Reeves – who hopes shortly to become the UK’s first female chancellor – pays more attention to her contemporary, Beatrice Webb.

A thrilling tome … The Disinherited Family by Eleanor Rathbone. Photograph: Alicia Canter/The Guardian

But Rathbone, who came from a wealthy dynasty of nonconformist merchants, does not have anything like the name-recognition of the Pankhursts or Millicent Fawcett, or of pioneering politicians including Nancy Astor and Ellen Wilkinson. Nor does she enjoy the cachet of writers such as Virginia Woolf, whose polemic about women’s opportunities, A Room of One’s Own, was published five years after Rathbone’s magnum opus.

There are many reasons for Rathbone’s relative obscurity. One is that she was the first woman elected to parliament as an independent (and one of a handful of men at the time). Thus there is no political party with an interest in turning her into an icon. Having spent the past three years writing a book about the British women’s movement, I am embarrassed to admit that when I started, I didn’t know who she was.

Rathbone was not the first person to propose state benefits paid to mothers. The endowment of motherhood or family allowances, as the policy was known, was written about by the Swedish feminist Ellen Key, and tried out as a project of the Fabian Women’s Group, who published their findings in a pamphlet in 1912. But Rathbone pushed the idea to the forefront. A first attempt to get Nusec to adopt it was knocked back in 1921, and she then spent three years conducting research. The title she gave the book she produced, The Disinherited Family, reflected her view that women and children were being deprived of their rightful share of the country’s wealth.

The problem, as she saw it, was one of distribution. While the wage system in industrialised countries treated all workers on a given pay grade the same, some households needed more money than others. While unions argued for higher wages across the board, Rathbone believed the state should supplement the incomes of larger families. She opened the book with an archly phrased rhetorical question: “Whether there is any subject in the world of equal importance that has received so little consideration as the economic status of the family?” She went on to accuse economists of behaving as if they were “self-propagating bachelors” – so little did the lives of mothers appear to interest them.

Rathbone’s twin aims were to end wives’ dependence on husbands and reward their domestic labour. Family allowances paid directly to them could either be spent on housekeeping or childcare, enabling them to go out to work. Ellen Wilkinson, the radical Labour MP for Middlesbrough (and future minister for education), was among early supporters. William Beveridge read the book when he was director of the London School of Economics, declared himself a convert and introduced one of the first schemes of family-linked payments for his staff.

But others were strongly opposed. Conservative objections to such a radical expansion of the state were predictable. But they were echoed by liberal feminists including Millicent Fawcett, who called the plan “a step in the direction of practical socialism”. Trade unions preferred to push for a living wage, while some male MPs thought the policy undermined the role of men as breadwinners. Labour and the Trades Union Congress (TUC) finally swung behind family allowances in 1942. As the war drew to a close, Rathbone led a backbench rebellion against ministers who wanted to pay the benefit to fathers instead.

Rathbone celebrates the Silver Jubilee of the Women’s Vote in London, 20 February 1943. Photograph: Picture Post/Getty Images

It is for this signature policy that she is most often remembered today. At a time when hundreds of thousands of children have been pushed into poverty by the two-child limit on benefit payments, Rathbone’s advocacy on behalf of larger families could hardly be more relevant. The limit, devised by George Osborne, applies to universal and child tax credits – and not child benefit itself. But Rishi Sunak’s government announced changes to the latter in this year’s budget. From 2026, eligibility will be assessed on a household rather than individual basis. This is intended to limit payments to better-off, dual-income families. But the UK Women’s Budget Group and others have objected on grounds that child benefit should retain its original purpose of directly remunerating primary carers (the vast majority of them mothers) for the work of rearing children. It remains to be seen whether this plan will be carried through by the next government.

Rathbone once told the House of Commons she was “100% feminist”, and few MPs have been as single-minded in their commitment to women’s causes. As president of Nusec (the law-abiding wing of the suffrage campaign), she played a vital role in finishing the job of winning votes for women.

The last few years have seen a resurgence of interest in women’s suffrage, partly due to the centenary of the first women’s suffrage act. Thanks to a brilliant campaign by Caroline Criado Perez, a statue of Millicent Fawcett, the nonmilitant suffragist leader, now stands in Westminster, a few minutes walk from the bronze memorial of Emmeline Pankhurst erected in 1930. Suffragette direct action has long been a source of fascination. What is less well known is that militants played little part in the movement after 1918. It was law-abiding constitutionalists – suffragists rather than suffragettes – who pushed through the 1920s to win votes for the younger and poorer women who did not yet have them. Rathbone helped lead this final phase of the campaign, along with Conservative MP Nancy Astor and others.

Rathbone was highly critical of the militants, and once claimed that they “came within an inch of wrecking the suffrage movement, perhaps for a generation”. Today, with climate groups including Just Stop Oil copying the suffragette tactic of vandalising paintings, it is worth remembering that many women’s suffrage campaigners opposed such methods.

Schismatic though it was, the suffrage movement at least had a shared goal. An even greater challenge for feminists in the 1920s was agreeing on future priorities. Equal pay, parental rights and an end to the sexual double standard were among demands that had broad support. After the arrival in the House of Commons of the first female MPs, legislative successes included the removal of the bar on women’s entry to the professions, new rights for mothers and widows’ pensions. But there were also fierce disagreements.

Tensions between class and sexual politics were longstanding, with some on the left regarding feminism as a distraction. The Labour MP Marion Phillips, for example, thought membership of single-sex groups placed women “in danger of getting their political opinions muddled”. There was also renewed conflict over protective legislation – the name given to employment laws that differentiated between men and women. While such measures included maternity leave and safety rules for pregnant women, many feminists believed their true purpose was to keep jobs for men – and prevent female workers from competing.

Underlying such arguments was the question of whether women, once enfranchised, should strive for equal treatment, or push for measures designed to address their specific needs. As the debate grew more heated, partisans on either side gave themselves the labels of “old” and “new” feminists. While the former, also called equalitarians, wanted to focus on the obstacles that prevented women from participating in public life on the same terms as men, the new feminists led by Rathbone sought to pioneer an innovative, woman-centred politics. Since this brought to the fore issues such as reproductive health and mothers’ poverty, it is known as “maternalist feminism”.

Rathbone and other Liverpool suffragettes campaigning in 1910. Photograph: Shawshots/Alamy

The faultline extended beyond Britain. But Rathbone and her foes had some of the angriest clashes. At one international convention, Lady Rhondda, a wealthy former suffragette, used a speech to deride rivals who chose to “putter away” at welfare work, instead of the issues she considered important.

The specific policy points at issue have, of course, changed over the past century. But arguments about how much emphasis feminists should place on biological differences between men and women carry on.

Eleanor Rathbone did not live long enough to see the welfare state, including child benefit paid to mothers, take root in postwar Britain. Her election to parliament coincided with the Depression, and the lengthening shadows of fascism and nazism meant that she, like her colleagues, became preoccupied with foreign affairs. In the general election of 1935, the number of female MPs fell from 15 to nine, meaning Rathbone’s was one of just a handful of women’s voices. She used hers to oppose the policy of appeasement, and support the rights of refugees, including those escaping Franco’s Spain. During the war she helped run an extra-parliamentary “woman-power committee”, which advocated for female workers.

She also became a supporter of Indian women’s rights, though her liberal imperialism led to tensions with Indian feminists. During the war she angered India’s most eminent writer, Rabindranath Tagore, and its future prime minister, Jawaharlal Nehru, when she attacked the Congress party’s policy of noncooperation with Britain’s war effort. Tagore criticised what he called the “sheer insolent self-complacency” of her demand that the anti-colonial struggle should be set aside while Britain fought Germany.

Rathbone turned down a damehood. After their first shared house in Westminster was bombed, she and her life partner, the Scottish social worker Elizabeth Macadam, moved around the corner to a flat on Tufton Street (Macadam destroyed their letters, meaning that Rathbone’s intimate life remains obscure, but historians believe the relationship was platonic). From there they moved to a larger, quieter house in Highgate. On 2 January 1946, Rathbone suddenly died.

Rathbone’s blue plaque at Tufton Court. Photograph: PjrPlaques/Alamy

A blue plaque on Tufton Street commemorates her as the “pioneer of family allowances” – providing an alternative claim on posterity for an address more commonly associated with the Brexit campaign, since a house a few doors down became its headquarters. She is remembered, too, in Liverpool, where her experience of dispersing welfare to desperately poor soldiers’ wives in the first world war changed the course of her life, and where one of her former homes is being restored by the university.

I don’t believe in ghosts. But walking in Westminster recently, I imagined her hastening across St James’s Park to one of her meetings at Nancy Astor’s house near the London Library. Today, suffragettes are celebrated for their innovative direct action. But Rathbone blazed a trail, too, with her dedication as a campaigner, writer, lobbyist and “100% feminist” parliamentarian.

 Sexed: A History of British Feminism by Susanna Rustin is published by Polity Press (£20). To support the Guardian order your copy at guardianbookshop.com. Delivery charges may apply