#unit members: nominations

[companion-showdown]

Who is the best member of UNIT? Nomination Day

the rules are:

must be a member of UNIT, a precursor to UNIT, or a succesor of UNIT

must be emplyed by the relevant organisation (eg Sarah-Jane doesn't count just because she's around UNIT a lot). Some exceptions may be made if for example the relevant organisation doesn't emply anyone, but the character must be as close to an official member as its possible to be

No nominees that are spoilers for series 14, meaning their working for UNIT must be pre-The Giggle

Please bare in mind when you are nominating that I am hoping to keep the number of nominations under 64 to run this as a mini-tournament. This is not a hard rule so if nominations do exceed 64 its not a big deal, just something I'd like everyone to bare in mind

Nominees

at the moment these are just the ones who'll obviously be nominated, nobody has actually nominated them except, I guess, me

The Brigadier

The Doctor

Sergeant Benton

Mike Yates

Liz Shaw

Jo Grant

Harry Sullivan

Martha Jones

Kate Stewart

Petronella Osgood

Mel Bush

actual nominations

Erisa Magambo

Malcolm Taylor

Abby McPhail

Joel

Anthony Sinclair

Ron Winters

Tony Clare

Other Petronella Osgood, + the other other one to replace the other one (zygon/human)

Jane Fonda!Iris Wildthyme

Captain Scarlet (SPECTRUM)

Captain Black (SPECTRUM)

Kathleen (UNISYC)

Adrienne Kramer

Winifred Bambera

Shirley Anne Bingham

Tom Osgood

Muriel Frost

Hamlet Macbeth

Sam Bishop

Josh Carter

Jacqui McGee

Ross Brimmicombe-Wood

The Vlinx

Corporal Bell

Chris Cwej

Roz Forrester

June Turner

Inspector Drake

Inspector Thorn

CCPC

Emily Chaudry

Robert Dalton

Nominations will be open for at least 24 hours (until 29/05, 20:00 BST (GMT/UTC+1))

[dostoyevsky-official]

this a view of someone who's ignored european developments since 2007, opting for a rosy, outdated view of european politics, i.e. the exact type of american committing the exact type of mistake i'm warning about.

to address this point by point: not only has inflation been a global issue, but the US has consistently enjoyed the lowest inflation of any developed economy. american CPI has remained below the british, polish, and eurozone average numbers. european economies have to deal with fallout from the russian invasion of ukraine that the us can ignore: notably, in energy prices, as the US became self-sufficient in energy (and never imported any from russia to begin with, something squeezing the german economy). america is also not hosting millions of ukrainian refugees.

when discussing european instutions—and "europe" in general—one has to be more specific. do you mean the overarching institutions of the EU, criticized for a democratic deficit that many have pinpointed as one source for euro-skepticism and the rise of the far right? the EU Council, widely ignored and headed by charles michel, an incompetent, blatant nepobaby appointment whom everyone grinds their teeth over? the EU parliament, recently filled with a fresh batch of far-right hooligans, which functions more or less as a rubber stamp for the commission? the EU commission itself, headed by VdL, the latest in a string of failed local politician commissioners (who remembers the alcoholic swindler juncker?) masquerading as technocrats? the ECB, which smothers the monetary (and through the maastricht criteria, the fiscal) policy of eurozone members, thereby fueling resentment, far-right movements, and economic disparity? and all of this held hostage by the veto of one orban or fico, —or the german supreme court, when it decides it's had enough with public investment. those institutions, which remain so opaque that even educated americans—and europeans—aren't entirely aware of their function?

or do we mean the institutions of individual countries, ranging from undemocratic autocracies like hungary to the fief of the jupiter king, who called elections in june, lost them, refused to nominate a prime minister from the winning coalition, didn't name any for over a month, and then appointed a rightwing politician from a party that scored dead last, sidestepping his own centrist party? the UK, where sir keir is handing out five years in jail time to climate protesters, raising tuition fees, relying on private investment companies, and through rachel reeves' plan to fix the alleged budget hole left by hunt before further investment, again enacting austerity? this is all front-page headline news from the last half year.

european countries indeed have cheaper healthcare costs, better pensions, and other public goods that the united states does not. when considering "quality of life," remember, however, that most european countries have unemployment rates considered astronomic in america, especially for under-35s:

to focus again and again on european social democracy is to ignore that it has been steadily eroded since the end of the cold war and especially since the great recession by neoliberal political forces that crush the left and open the door for the far right. in the most blatant example, beside's macron's legislative politricks, the IMF-ECB-EC troika cut off euro cash liquidity flow to greece when syriza was trying to undo austerity under varoufakis. the greek collapse consigned a generation to economic failure, killed seniors, and curtailed possibilities for the youth. this erosion happened even in the nordic model, long imagined by americans as nothing short of a utopia:

In part due to the scrapping of wealth and inheritance taxes and a lower corporate tax than both the U.S. and European averages, Sweden has one of the most unequal distributions of wealth in the world today: on a level with Bahrain and Oman, and worse than the United States. Perhaps most dispiriting for Sanders, Sweden also now hosts the highest proportion of billionaires per capita in the world. Many of the country’s trademark social services are now provided by private firms. Its private schools even benefit from the same level of state subsidy as public schools—a voucher system far more radical than anything in the United States and that Democratic politicians would be crucified for advocating. Both here and there, right-leaning commentators in 2020 decried Sanders’s portrait as little more than what Johan Norberg, Swedish author of The Capitalist Manifesto, has called a 1970s “pipedream.” On this, Swedish observers on the left gloomily agree: despite official rhetoric, the “Nordic welfare model” is now more nostalgic myth than reality. (x)

to problematize further, there's an unadressed first world perspective: who's getting the good quality of life, why are the main economies of the EU so wealthy, and how does the EU continue to enrich itself? there are certainly many living outdoors today, drowning in the mediterranean, or dying of exposure in białowieża. fortress europe is a crime against humanity—and it doesn't beat back the far right. it weakens civic and human rights, undermines legal oversight, and criminalizes humanitarian engagement, allowing an authoritarian creep.

you shouldn't understand the political and the historical as a snapshot in time, but as a moving train. this is the state of europe today. all of the above is necessarily a simplification and an abbreviation, but there's a trajectory you can begin to trace out: given all of the above, where do you think europe is headed?

[charlesoberonn]

Trump doesn't qualify to run for president in 2024 due to Section 3 of the 14th Amendment

No person shall be a Senator or Representative in Congress, or elector of President and Vice President, or hold any office, civil or military, under the United States, or under any state, who, having previously taken an oath, as a member of Congress, or as an officer of the United States, or as a member of any state legislature, or as an executive or judicial officer of any state, to support the Constitution of the United States, shall have engaged in insurrection or rebellion against the same, or given aid or comfort to the enemies thereof.

I think it'd be hilarious if he won the Republican nomination only to be disqualified from running and not appear on the ballot in any state.

[gingerteawrites]

Beyond the limelight - Gojo Satoru

A/N: Wow thank you all so much for enjoying Limelight. As promised, here is a short epilogue to conclude the story. If you haven't already, read the main story here.

I will write more actor!Gojo x reader headcannons if requested, so do let me know!

Content: actor!Gojo x female reader, fluff.

Divider by @v6que

Glamor and glitz were the words of the night. Cameras flashing with blinding lights, and the carpet bearing witness to opulence that tethered the line of gaudiness.

Here it was, the culmintation of years of hard work. Of taking on seemingly insignificant roles and incessant practice. Years and years until Gojo finally made it into brightest spot of the limelight. The summum of any actor’s career. The academy awards.

After a rather exciting time on the red carpet, the ‘Romeo and Juliet’ cast and crew members took their place at their assigned table in the decorated theater. Distinct emotions tinged their light chatter; excitement, hope, and palpable nerves. The movie had done phenomenally in theatres, breaking box office records and earning nominations in multiple categories.

And with that came the hope of recognition. Awards were not everything, but they certainly were not nothing. You held the same hope in your heart, nestled between the cushions of your green couch and pillows, eyes fixed on the broadcast.

A series of fanciful montages and an eternity of product placements later, the hosts of the night finally climb the stage to announce the winner of the “best actor” category.

“And finally, the award for best actor goes to…” the lady’s voice draws out the suspense, directing an enigmatic smile at the camera. Your heart was thrumming in your chest, Gojo could hear his heartbeat vibrating in his ears.

A second passed, and you waited with bated breath. Separated by physical distance, but united in sentiments.

“Gojo Satoru! As Romeo,” the host all but shouted into the microphone, and the entire audience erupted in cheers.

You screamed in joy behind your TV, and being nudged out of a daze by the director, Gojo makes his way to the stage on unsteady feet. His hands are still trembling slightly when he is handed the award, but finally standing in front of the microphone, he steadies himself.

“Wow, is this what it feels like to be speechless?” The audience laughs faintly while he takes another moment to gather his thoughts. He breathes out, and leans in closer to the mic.

“I want to thank all of the production team for their efforts in this, everyone worked so, so hard,” he grinned towards his table, “thank you to all my fans who always support my projects, it really means the world,” a dazzling smile is directed into the camera.

He then looks down, his smile morphing into a more subdued one, a more earnest one. “But above all, thank you, my one and only love, watching at home,” he looks into the camera, and even though you are miles apart, you feel his gaze on you. Tears pool in your eyes. “For being my anchor when I felt like I was drifting away. For allowing me the room to grow and flourish. For letting me talk your ears off. I love you forever.”

And with that he stepped off the stage, waving at the assembly that presented a standing ovation.

It is needless to say that social media went into absolute madness after that speech. That bold declaration of love.

[OMG so he’s not dating Yuki?]

[It has to be a non-celeb then]

[So lucky bro]

[This was one hell of a hard launch]

Though you remained anonymous, Gojo honoring his commitment to you, he had still declared his love for you. Even in the brightest spot of the limelight, he belonged with you. And though you stood out of its blinding intensity, you too, belonged with him.

------------------------------------★★--------------------------------------

[Hi love, just a heads up. I won’t be home when you get there, got that one work presentation I told you about] you typed quickly, phone in one hand and sandwich in another. After this lunch break, you were scheduled to present data on a project you were recently put in charge of, and your nerves were running high.

You knew a promotion hung on the line, a long anticipated one.

But Satoru had been there to encourage you all the way, listening to your rants about uncooperative co-workers and offering to help you practice. A smile graced your lips at the thought.

He was as busy as ever, now sought out by most of the major production companies. Gojo Satoru was beyond popular. He was a household name. But beyond the exhausting days and filled out schedules, time made for each other was all the more intentional. Honest conversations and comforting touches. You grew and you loved.

[Gotcha! And remember what I said, don’t stress bby. I know you’re going to kick it out of the park (๑•̀ㅂ•́)و✧] The reply elicited a chuckle from you.

[I’ll remember that. I love you]

[love you too bebe]

You cleaned your hands and returned to your desk, grabbed all the needed documents. You took in a deep breath and relaxed your shoulders. You got this.

------------------------------------★★--------------------------------------

Click clack

You took your keys out of the hole and stepped in, door closing quietly behind you.

Your nose immediately caught whiff of the pleasant aroma that permeated your living room. You heard Satoru’s voice, belting along with Rihanna to umbrella, causing you to smile.

He pauses as soon as he catches a glimpse of you. ”Hey sweetheart!” He beams at you, turning the volume down.

“Hi Satoru,” you’re hanging your jacket, “What are you making?”

“Well, your favorite, of course!” He comes into full view, and you laugh at the sight of his flower-embroidered apron. “Now, cut the suspense. How did the meeting go?”

You look to the ground, sighing dejectedly as you finally manage to slip out of your shoes. Immediately the mood shifts, and Gojo steps closer, arms open.

“Oh I’m so sorry,” he is right about to engulf you in the most comforting hug ever when you look up with a bright smile.

“Sorry for what? I got the promotion!” You jump with joy, and he picks you up, twirling you around the small living room. Gleeful laughs fill the space as you secure your arms around his neck.

He finally sets you down, but still holds your waist, pulling you close for a kiss. Then another. “I’m so proud of you, Y/N. You’ve worked so hard for this,” The earnest words make a pout appear on your lips and tears threaten to fall from your eyes. He promptly kisses them away, dragging you into the kitchen. “And now time for the celebratory meal!”

You’re helping set the table when you notice something.

“Satoru why are there 2 cakes?” he dashes over to you as you open the box with a cake that reads ‘they suck anyway’

“Wrong one,” he swiftly pulls that one away, and opens the one that said ‘I always knew you could do it!’

You burst into laughter, taking in the view of your lover. You fight for each other in big and small ways. The man with whom you grow and learn. Your heart feels more full than your stomach after that dinner. Laid down on your couch, in each others’ embrace.

Reblogs and comments are much appreciated(❁´◡`❁)

[meetinginsamarra]

Fanfics I Really Liked in November 2024

So. Since I keep a list of what I´ve read anyway (there´s always a list), I will rec all the fics I´ve wholly enjoyed on a monthly basis. Old and new, canon or AU, big or small authors, long or short but nearly always Johnlock (-ish).

++++

Sine Nomine by SilentAuror @silentauroriamthereal

As Mycroft reviews the footage from Culverton Smith's morgue, he revisits his original question: whether John Watson would be the making of his brother, or make him worse than ever. He's come to a conclusion, but decides to give John one last chance. So he gives him a choice.

A suspenseful S4 fix-it with a fearsome Mycroft, John's redemption arc and some surprises. Happy ending, of course!

Shallow Grave by SilentAuror @silentauroriamthereal

Starts as Sherlock's plane is taking off at the end of His Last Vow. When he finds out that Moriarty is alive and that he's being recalled from his mission, Sherlock decides that he should have told John how he felt before he left. So he walks off the plane and kisses him.

HLV fix-it with lots of pining and misunderstandings and a happy ending!

My, She Was Yar by blueink3

YAR: adjective (nautical term, of a sailboat) agile, quick, easily manoeuvred

Or, the exact opposite of what Sherlock Holmes is when he stumbles into John Watson's cinema and turns his life upside down.

Lovely different first meeting with a bit of hurt/comfort!

The Skin Over My Heart by standbygo @blogstandbygo

Sherlock and John are still trying to adjust to Sherlock's return from his hiatus when John's friend Bill Murray brings them a case. Someone is targeting the LGBTQA+ members of Bill's unit. John and Sherlock go undercover at the unit, but when they end up having to flirt to flush out the suspect, Sherlock realizes he's in over his head.

Fake boyfriends for a case is always a good start for friends to lovers. LOL

Whispers of Highgate by standbygo @blogstandbygo

During his hiatus, Sherlock is chased into the Paris Catacombs, with unexpected consequences.

A little bit of spookyness and a twist at the end!

Christmas Lights by emma221b

It's tough being homeless, especially at Christmas. When Sherlock finds himself cold and alone on the streets of London, he can see no way back. What he needs now is one more miracle, and he might just be about to find it - even if it's not the one that he thinks that he wants.

I love this young Sherlock and the tragic backstory that made him go homeless. Mycroft is a good big brother. Hurt/comfort.

[contemplatingoutlander]

Seventy-seven Nobel laureates have signed a letter urging the US Senate to reject Robert F Kennedy Jr as Donald Trump’s nominee for health and human services secretary, arguing that he is unfit and would put American public health “in jeopardy”.

It is believed to be the first time in living memory that Nobel prize winners have united against a presidential cabinet pick, and comes against a backdrop of Kennedy’s public support for discredited theories, including a claim that childhood vaccines cause autism.

In their letter, prize winners in the fields of medicine, chemistry, physics and economics castigate Kennedy for a “lack of credentials” and point out that he has been “a belligerent critic” of some of the agencies that he would oversee, including the Food and Drug Administration (FDA), the National Institutes of Health (NIH), and the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC). [...] “In view of his record, placing Mr Kennedy in charge of DHSS would put the public’s health in jeopardy and undermine America’s global leadership in health sciences, in both public and commercial sectors.”

Signatories include Victor Ambros and Gary Ruvkun, who won this year’s Nobel prize for physiology or medicine for their discovery of microRNA. [...] In response, a spokesperson for Trump’s transition team said: “Americans are sick and tired of the elites telling them what to do and how to do it. Our healthcare system in this country is broken, Mr Kennedy will enact President Trump’s agenda to restore the integrity of our healthcare and Make America Healthy Again.”

In response, a spokesperson for Trump’s transition team said: “Americans are sick and tired of the elites telling them what to do and how to do it." [color emphasis added]

Trump's transition team apparently sees no irony in the above statement. They are apparently clueless that RFK, Jr. is about as "elite" as one can get, being a scion of the Kennedy clan.

And aren't Elon Musk and Trump himself members of the "elite" class, not to mention the other billionaires that will have roles in the incoming Trump administration, including: Vivek Ramaswamy, Scott Bessent, Howard Lutnick, Linda McMahon, Jacob Isaacman, Warren Stephens, Stephen Feinberg, Kelly Loeffler, and Charles Kushner.

How long will it be before the average American realizes that Trump is ONLY about building an America where far-right billionaires DICTATE to the rest of us how everything in the U.S. will be.

[truth-has-a-liberal-bias]

New York City marked the inaugural Shirley Chisholm Day on Saturday – honoring the life and legacy of the first Black woman elected to the United States Congress on what would have been her 100th birthday.

The city council’s Committee on Civil and Human Rights voted earlier this month to declare November 30 Shirley Chisholm Day. The resolution was sponsored by council member Farah N. Louis, whose district includes part of Brooklyn, where Chisholm was born.

Chisholm was born Shirley Anita St. Hill on November 30, 1924, and is widely known for her pioneering decision to run for the Democratic presidential nomination in 1972. She was the first Black woman to do so. [...]

[fablepaint]

Even if you are not in a swing state, you might be in a swing district (as I am now). You could have judges, school board members, and comptrollers up for election (all things that extremely impact your well being and community).

And if you want an Federal Trade Commission that is proactive at:

fighting tech bros

tech monopolies

breaking up Google

going after rental cartels

then vote Harris to protect Lina Khan

Lina is the head of the current FTC who has been spearheading these fights, and winning.

yes i am directly endorsing Harris.

I see her administration as the one who will do the most to bolster the CDC and prevent future pandemics, to embolden the FTC and keep big tech on its toes, and to nominate federal and Supreme Court judges who won't take us back to pre-Civil War society.

Not risking my fam and friends' health, esp my future niece, if RFK "brainworms told me vax cause autism" Jr becomes head of the CDC.

I want my sis-in-law to survive a scare, if it happens.

If I lose followers, fine. So long as you know my logic. My clout is less important than their safety.

come at me claiming I dont give a shit about dead babies or voting is stupid, Im blocking you. Im not an idiot, Im aware of world events and our collective culpability as Americans.

But Id rather do at least the MINIMUM to preserve our right to fight our worst excesses than not.

So Im going to vote.

[tempting-seduction]

Born on 31 December 1962, Jeffry Lane Flake is an American politician and diplomat who is the United States ambassador to Turkey. A member of the Republican Party, Flake served in the United States House of Representatives from 2001 to 2013 and in the United States Senate from 2013 to 2019, representing Arizona. He was nominated by Democratic president Joe Biden and confirmed by the Senate for his ambassador post on October 26, 2021.

[mitigatedchaos]

The Floating Causation of Vulgar Anti-Racism

Post for August 12, 2024 ~7,400 words, 36 minutes

-★-

The late 20th century and the early 21st century were an excellent time for 'catch-up' development in under-developed countries. For example, the GDP per capita of the People's Republic of China rose from $312 in 1980, to $12,720 in 2022, more than a 40x increase. This is despite the People's Republic being nominally communist, 92% Han Chinese, and one of the largest potential geopolitical rivals to the United States. This is not a one-off – exports from the Socialist Republic of Vietnam to the United States rose from $50 million in 1994 to $114 billion in 2023.

While the ideologically liberal government of the United States did invade Iraq and Afghanistan, and placed strict limits on Iran, in practical terms, the United States was willing to direct hundreds of billions of dollars of demand, for everything from disposable gloves to rice cookers, to countries that were neither majority white nor, officially, capitalist, which allowed these countries to build up their industrial base.

Inside the United States, as of the early 2020s, Americans of Indian descent, Americans of Asian descent, and a number of other non-white groups are outperforming the median household income of white Americans. It's not uncommon to see an Indian-American as the CEO of a major US corporation, such as Microsoft's Satya Nadella, Google's Sundar Pichai, or IBM's Arvind Krishna. And while Americans of Nigerian descent aren't earning quite as much money as Sundar Pichai, they are doing better than the U.S. national average. [1]

The American economy is willing to award non-white Americans and non-white immigrants with average pay higher than that the average pay for white Americans, and American society is willing to award members of these same groups with highly prestigious positions – Google is one of the most famous American companies, and to be its CEO is highly prestigious indeed.

Why is it that vulgar anti-racists aren't content to leave well enough alone on negative racial messaging, and take advantage of this opportunity to focus on personal development, ingroup development, and national development? Why is it that they have a strange totalitarian bent, such as Ibram Kendi proposing to give veto power over all government policy to a body of unappointed race experts, which would de facto end democracy?

Last month, @max1461 wrote a post, attempting to find a balanced compromise between the social justice movement and its critics in the discourses on racism over the past 10 years. Perhaps this was intended to close the books and allow the participants to move to a saner footing going forward. Subsequently, Max flagged the post as unrebloggable in order to prevent it from being beat up like a piñata. Near the end of the initial chain, Max wrote:

I can’t stress enough that, for all the excesses of DEI seminars and modern anti-racist academia and whatnot, for however unhelpful or even regressive these things may often be, what they exist in response to is fundamentally a horror of an entirely different and incomparable scale; something unspeakably evil and destructive. And, after 200 years of such an evil world order, which only really began to melt in 1945, I think it would be incredibly naive to believe that all the wounds are now healed.

It would seem that for the most part, the wounds that Japan suffered from America in World War II have already healed. The country already went through reindustrialization, followed by a boom period (which startled Westerners), and then a subsequent crash and the 'lost decade' of the 1990s. The Japanese have a favorable view of the United States, as perhaps they should – Japan has prospered in the Post-WW2 international order, in which they can simply purchase whatever materials they need on global markets with no need to invade or occupy anyone.

Yet for others, the past lingers on.

Ibram Kendi is one of the most famous contemporary self-identified anti-racists, a New York Times bestselling author (his most famous book was titled "How to Be an Anti-Racist") who was not only platformed by major corporations such as Microsoft (in 2020, an advertisement on the login screen of Windows 10 computers linked to a search for "anti-racism books," with his at the top), but even received funding for his own anti-racism center (now under attack for its ineffectiveness).

At one time, Ibram Kendi thought that white people were aliens. A roommate talked him out of it, asking how it was that white people could have children with everyone else if that were the case. To his credit, Kendi did change his mind.

...but how could anyone have come up with Kendi's conclusion in the first place?

In school in the United States, children are taught that the Spanish conquered the Aztecs. It is true that Spanish military forces brought about the downfall of the Aztec Empire, but often people forget the details of what they learned in school, and often what they learn in school is itself a simplified story, designed to be told to children. Encyclopedia Britannica's summary of the Battle of Tenochtitlan largely agrees with the gist of Wikipedia's more detailed article on the Fall of Tenochtitlan, which is littered with instances of "[citation needed]."

Wikipedia, however, provides more numbers. In particular, Wikipedia's version provides one of the Internet's favorite parts of wiki battle articles, a listing of the balance of opposed forces (with citations):

There is a racist narrative of the conquest of the Americas in which the brave Spanish explorers overcame the savage, human-sacrificing hordes of the Aztecs. There is an inverted, anti-racist narrative of the conquest of the Americas in which the powerful, cruel Spanish showed up to oppress the weak, innocent Aztecs.

And then there is a third narrative - a narrative that politics happened. A number of tributary states had grievances with the Aztecs, and the small number of Spanish probably didn't seem like enough to conquer the whole territory from the perspective of the tributaries, but did seem powerful enough to rally around to fight the Aztecs and win.

Nobody comes out looking good in this third narrative. The Spanish brought about a brutal war with tens of thousands of casualties, and devastating disease followed their arrival. The Aztecs and tributaries combined failed to overcome a foreign invasion due to (relative to the foreigners being from another continent) local infighting. The Aztecs were awful enough that a number of tributaries sided with an army of foreigners against them.

Now, suppose that we delete the 200,000 native allies from the balance of forces above, but still record a victory for the Spanish. The effect of the native allies remains, but the cause of that effect disappears. This creates an effect without a cause – unattributed causation, which is disconnected from what came before, or what we might call, "floating causation."

Some might call overcoming a force of 80,000 with only 1,000 or so men a miracle. For those not so inclined, the 'floating' causation gets attributed to the Spanish soldiers – their equipment, their valor, their tactics, and their discipline. Each of a thousand Spanish infantrymen is now somehow worth 200 native warriors.

In this cartoon version of history, the Spanish are an unstoppable psychic warrior race. Their steadfast will in the face of danger and their unit cohesion are quite nearly inhuman, and their technological advantage is overwhelming. The natives have not merely made a political miscalculation similar to others of the pre-modern era, such as the decisions of states facing Genghis Khan, but are buffoons to the slaughter, incapable of putting up any real defense.

In this cartoon, the Spanish can go anywhere. They can do anything. And because of this, they are the only people with agency in the whole world.

They sound... like aliens.

Trying to rebalance this cartoon only leads to greater absurdities, such as the idea that only Europeans ever meaningfully engaged in conquest (contradicted by Genghis Khan), or that industrial technology and its resulting pollution are "European" in nature (China has been quite aggressive about industrializing), or that only "European" countries waged modern and industrialized wars of conquest (the Empire of Japan used guns, bombs, and tanks as part of its project to create the Greater East Asia Co-Prosperity Sphere).

All three of the above counter-examples are from Asia, which is usually conspicuously absent from self-identified anti-racist thinking, but none of them are obscure.

-★-

It is my belief that floating causation is a source of distortions across the ideological spectrum.

Ideology is not independent from human beings. Manifestos, one might say, do not print themselves. From the other direction, it is not a piece of paper which murders somebody – it is a human being who pulls the trigger.

There is ideology, which is a system of related rules and beliefs, and there are adherents who adopt ideology, spread beliefs, and put ideological rules into practice.

An ideology can contain taboos which prohibit noticing or explaining the true cause of some outcome, separating the cause from its effect. Practitioners can then attribute that effect to a preferred ideological construct instead, making it seem much more powerful, and often dangerous, than it really is.

The Elephants

Imagine (as this example is entirely made-up) that there is some village in which elephants are considered sacred, but the elephants in the area have a habit of trampling crops in the night. To avoid loss of face, the damage to crops is attributed to "bandits" by an initial group of elders. The young children who do not know better are then taught this explanation. Later, after the death of the elders, the initial truth is lost. Anyone claiming to have seen elephants trampling the fields is denounced as choosing the vile bandits over the virtuous elephants. An outsider who did not realize what was happening might be quite impressed to hear that a bandit in the region ruined a dozen fields in a single night, and assume that the bandit has tremendous physical stamina.

But floating causation is not necessarily the result of an ideological taboo. Someone may be ignorant about the cause of an effect, unable to understand the process by which an effect came about, have powerful emotions about the topic which they are unwilling to confront or may not even be aware of, or may simply have poor judgment. An adherent may be drawn to an ideology for these reasons.

Continuing with our example, a fresh-off-the-boat colonial administrator arriving at the village might be unaware that elephants exist, or trample crops, and conclude that there were ongoing feuds driven by animosity among the villagers, with bandits as the cover-story. Alternatively, the new colonial administrator might love the elephants and hate the villagers, and be unwilling to consider the possibility that the elephants are trampling the crops, including cooking up rather elaborate rationalizations.

Ideology

Issues with not understanding a process are more likely to come up with things like economics – occasionally a worker will post a video to social media complaining that he is not paid the full value of the items he sells or creates, ignoring all the money that went into the construction of the facility, the work from other workers putting together the input materials, and so on.

Liberals in the late 00s and early 2010s had an interest in memetics, which concerns the replication and spread of ideas. (This field is where the term "Internet meme" comes from.) Then, as now, they had a tendency to treat people as too similar to each other, and some of them leaned towards the idea that any person could hold any ideology. Ideologies do (in my judgment) influence behavior – there are far fewer monarchists around these days, and far fewer monarchs with real power, for example – but how a set of beliefs is expressed depend on the emotions, motives, and temperament of the person who holds those beliefs.

So do people choose ideologies, or do ideologies choose people?

One way to view this matter is as a cycle. Someone's social environment is partly a matter of choice, and partly a matter of circumstance. The ideologies that show up in someone's environment are generally going to be ones that spread (as ideologies that don't attract new adherents will die out), but which ideology someone actually chooses and how they practice it will be influenced by what type of person they are.

Another way to view this matter is that emotions, motives, temperament, and beliefs are all things that make certain actions or thoughts either easier (and cheaper) or more difficult (and more expensive). A drug addict who believes in hard work and free market capitalism, but finds himself stealing to feed his habit, may find that the influence of his beliefs is not enough to overcome his addiction. (He is likely to feel miserable.) However, when a religious person is choosing what time of day, or day of the week, to worship, the explicit belief of their religion is likely to have a great deal of influence.

Yet another way to view this matter is to treat things like social relations, ideology, and temperament as interacting layers, and then propose that politics spans multiple layers.

Human Talent

I don't believe that all human beings are equally talented, and I don't believe that they all have identical temperaments. Therefore, one of my beliefs is what might be called the "human capital theory of movements." Ideologies consist of networks of related beliefs which can be used to interpret the world, to guide behavior, or to create arguments. But ideologies do not create beliefs or arguments themselves. Humans do.

When a movement has a lot of talented, virtuous people working for it, these people can create new arguments in order to win debates, and change parts of the ideology, the network of beliefs, to adapt the network to changes in conditions. Without talented people, the ideology of a movement will drift farther from environmental conditions, causing its responses to become more misaligned with conditions on the ground.

Talented people are also needed for the implementation of an ideology. An ideological book is just an inert text. No matter how complex it may be, it is fundamentally limited in its complexity. Applying that text in the environment, bridging the gap between what the text says and what that means in the reality of a specific situation, requires both intelligence and good judgment. Not every person is equally talented, and not every person is equally informed. If someone more talented and with better judgment is around, they can read the situation and come up with some simpler rules or orders for others to follow.

The less talented the adherents of a movement are, the lower the ability of the movement to adapt to conditions over both the short-term and the long-term.

A shift in the distribution of talent can precede other forms of political change. Ideologues may smile as the most disagreeable members are driven out of their movement, but at the same time, the lack of criticism will reduce the movement's ability to respond to change.

There are trade-offs. The use of floating causation may make an ideology less aligned with reality, but it may also be useful for the movement to stoke the emotions of their followers in order to drive action. (This emotional motivation bit is why every election in the United States is "the most important in your lifetime.")

-★-

Beliefs are not intelligence. Nonetheless, a person with a belief may act as though they are smarter (or even wiser) than they actually are. This is just the nature of knowledge (as cached intelligence, wisdom, and observation).

I developed the talent theory in the prior section by observing opposition to racism in the United States prior to 2014. In the United States between 2000 and 2014, there was substantial support for individualist "colorblindness," while at the same time, there was immense social pressure against overt white racial organizing.

Racial organizing takes time and effort. Because white Americans were not subject to racial discrimination, they could simply go out into the market and earn what their work was worth. For talented white Americans, the gains from white racial organizing would be marginal, so the penalties could easily overcome those gains. The less talented would have the most to gain due to the ability to reduce the amount of economic competition they would be up against, but they were also less able to organize. [2]

There was somewhere famous for white racial organizing in the US during this era: prisons.

Racial prison gangs have been particularly noted in the California prison system. Prison gangs offer inmates a credible threat of retaliation if the inmate is harmed, so every inmate has an incentive to join one, and the bigger the gang the better that threat of retaliation is, so every gang has an incentive to recruit. If you're a gang member and a new guy comes in and starts causing trouble, and you don't want to escalate (and thus risk extra charges for your guys or reduced privileges), what are you to do? You would prefer to negotiate with someone that has leverage on him. Race is very visible, even if inmates move around between prisons, so if all inmates get sorted into gangs by race, then someone is responsible for this guy, and by talking to the right people, you can make sure he knows it. (If the troublemaker still doesn't respond, and his own gang cut him loose, then you can punish him without fear of retaliation from other inmates.)

Different incentives produce different results.

Four Options

Glenn Loury is a black man, and an economist at Brown University. He views himself as an American and therefore an inheritor of human rights philosophy of the American founders and their English forebears. He has his own show on YouTube in which he regularly discusses matters with John McWhorter, another black man, who is a linguistics professor at Columbia University. (John strikes me as more liberal, and I heard that he was frightened of Donald Trump, a sentiment shared by many white American culturally liberal Democrats.) Both of these men are quite smart, and if you watch the show, you'll see them easily consider arguments from various perspectives and toss hypotheticals back and forth.

Neither of these men are vulgar anti-racists.

Roland Fryer is a black man, and is an economist at Harvard (although he was suspended for 2 years) who I have discussed previously. He thinks like an economist, and has conducted studies such as paying children to read books. In previous appearances, it seemed that he believes that education gaps can be closed through extremely rigorous selection of teachers and other methods.

Mr. Fryer does not appear to be a vulgar anti-racist.

These men are all relatively prominent voices. If you go looking for the sort of content they produce, they aren't that hard to find. And they're all smart. They might have disagreements with each other and with some of my readers, but smart people can disagree.

However, during the 2014-2022 era, when it was decided to push a black academic to prominence, political forces settled on Ibram Kendi instead. There must have been dozens of other candidates.

When I think about why that happened, I suspect that the answer is that while the first three men care about the interests of black Americans, all three of them are willing to say, "No." Although I doubt they would phrase it in exactly these terms, I suspect that all three understand human rights as rooted in high-order consequences, limits on information, and human bias.

If you proposed to John McWhorter that we should give veto power to a committee of unelected race experts, he would immediately recognize the problem with just that.

Why Vulgar Anti-Racism?

With all of that said, I believe we can think about vulgar anti-racism by means of comparison.

a. Economics

Loury and Fryer are both economists. They know about gains from trade, prices as a distributed form of economic planning, property rights as enabling investment, specialization of labor, economies of scale, and dozens of other things. They understand where wealth comes from.

The typical vulgar anti-racist that you will encounter on an Internet discussion board has little knowledge of economics, and tends to think of total production as fixed. From their perspective, if someone has more resources than another person, it has nothing to do with production, and is purely the result of hoarding.

The typical vulgar anti-racist also doesn't think in terms of entropy, the tendency of things to break down over time. They tend not to discount temporally-distant advantages. (If a well was built 400 years ago, they treat that advantage as retained today.) They tend to think of capital as fixed and not as something that is constantly being rebuilt and adjusted. They don't understand that the ability to create new capital is generally more important than the initial capital in the long-run.

Thinking about production is probably why we see Fryer focused on educational gains. His theory is likely that if the children have a good base of education, they'll be able to produce more, avoid losses, overcome entropy, and net accumulate wealth. If they don't have a good base of education, then they'll be less productive, and entropy will eat a higher percentage of their earnings, leading to reduced wealth.

If someone doesn't know economics, then the wealth of developed countries is "unexplained," and so are the motives of many people within developed countries.

b. History

I don't know about Fryer specifically, but Loury and McWhorter seem to have a good grasp of history.

A solid understanding of history leads to seeing actions as emerging from their historical contexts. This places a limit on the range of expected behavior.

For example, for most of history up until about the 1900s, the child mortality rate was about 50%. That example is relevant for feminism, as under such brutal conditions, we would expect any society that didn't push for women to have at least 4 children to die out. Gender-based oppression didn't occur for no reason, or because of pure male greed, but was influenced by material circumstances.

If we run this understanding backwards, it follows that 1700s or earlier gender norms would be unlikely to return without 1700s or earlier child mortality rates.

Likewise, some basic historical knowledge would reveal that wars of conquest have happened pretty much everywhere, so it's quite unlikely that Europeans are uniquely conquerors. You end up having to declare everything from feuding Chinese kingdoms, to the Māori, to chimpanzees, be "European" in order to fit the model.

The typical vulgar anti-racist's position is, implicitly, "Everyone lived together in peace and harmony, until one day, for no reason at all, the Europeans became possessed by the spirit of greed, and attacked."

If someone somehow doesn't know that war existed outside of Europe prior to 1492, then the wars of colonialism are "unexplained," and so are the motives of the people who fought them.

When vulgar anti-racists do research history, they generally focus on collecting racial grievances in order to build up a case that the group they favor are poor, oppressed, not responsible for anything bad their group has ever done, and are owed indefinite benefits for incalculable harms. They don't proceed from the idea of, "How does this work?" They don't, say, look at the tremendous economic success of South Korea, and ask, "Based on how South Korea obtained their wealth, how can our group achieve such riches?" (They don't even look at South Korea's birthrate and ask how they can avoid such a fate!)

Even before World War 2, Japan did look afar to ask how they could become rich. That kind of mentality is part of how they were able to become a developed country (who could threaten other people with tanks) in the first place.

Looking to Asia is useful for people making comparisons to figure out how things work, but is not useful for collecting racial grievances in order to build up racial claims to make demands. That's why vulgar anti-racists often don't know basic facts about Asian history, like that state testing to determine government positions was practiced in ancient China. [3]

c. Racial Attachment

Even during the individualist colorblindness of 2000-2014, there were still white Americans with some talent engaged in racial organizing. In general, these were people to whom race was very important, and thus who were out-of-step with the mainstream of white America.

It's my opinion that there is a natural range of tribalism among human beings. Sometimes, the rival tribe on the other side of the mountain just want to trade. Other times, they really are out to kill you. The trait doesn't disappear, because wars still happen, and even if they didn't happen, someone could just reinvent war and start it all back up again.

In my view, this tribalism trait isn't attached to race specifically. It can attach to religion. It can attach to sex. Some of the rhetoric from radical feminists sounds the same as rhetoric from hardcore ethnic nationalists – or at least it would, if we treated men as an ethnicity. In our modern environment in which race is highly legible due to intercontinental travel, for a lot of people, it gets attached to race.

Rather than assigning people a single number on a scale from "moral" to "immoral," it's probably better to think of people as having virtues and vices, strengths and weaknesses.

Some level of racial attachment itself is not inherently evil. Based on his research topics, for example, Roland Fryer seems interested in bringing about the success of people with a similar background to himself. His virtue (his interest in truth) and his strength (his intelligence) convert that attachment into something that's beneficial to society.

High levels of racial attachment fly much closer to the wire. A highly racially attached individual might do good work in other domains, but there's a risk that they'll end up routing too much of their sense of self-worth through their race, and become obsessed with guarding their race's self-perceived reputation. For such a person, any information deemed unflattering to the group may be interpreted as an attack on himself (or herself).

The Mayo Clinic (a network of hospitals in the United States) describes narcissism as:

Narcissistic personality disorder is a mental health condition in which people have an unreasonably high sense of their own importance. They need and seek too much attention and want people to admire them. People with this disorder may lack the ability to understand or care about the feelings of others. But behind this mask of extreme confidence, they are not sure of their self-worth and are easily upset by the slightest criticism.

A number of users on Twitter (now known as X.com) began using the term "ethnic narcissism" to describe this sort of disordered thinking when done on behalf of a racial or ethnic group rather than oneself specifically.

2019 and 2020 were banner years for platforming this sort of behavior, with the nation's leading newspaper arguing, in its own words, that we should make the suffering of a particular racial group the core narrative of American history, that everyone should define their identities around:

The 1619 Project is a major initiative from The New York Times observing the 400th anniversary of the beginning of American slavery. It aims to reframe the country’s history, understanding 1619 as our true founding, and placing the consequences of slavery and the contributions of black Americans at the very center of our national narrative.

Obsession with self-perceived ethnic reputation is part of what leads to the "rebalancing the cartoon" behavior I discussed earlier:

Trying to rebalance this cartoon only leads to greater absurdities, such as the idea that only Europeans ever meaningfully engaged in conquest (contradicted by Genghis Khan), or that industrial technology and its resulting pollution are "European" in nature (China has been quite aggressive about industrializing), or that only "European" countries waged modern and industrialized wars of conquest (the Empire of Japan used guns, bombs, and tanks as part of its project to create the Greater East Asia Co-Prosperity Sphere).

How does someone end up so ignorant that they don't know that Genghis Khan existed? By being the kind of person that doesn't want to know that Genghis Khan existed. They don't look it up. If you tell them, they either forget or they take a conflict theorist approach and think that it's some sort of trick.

Unfortunately, while a fairly accurate description of the behavior at issue, the term "ethnic narcissism" can also be used as an attack by ethnic narcissists themselves, as well as people engaged in ethnic conflict. This makes it of limited utility in practice.

The Mysterious Anglo

Option #1: In general, the right wing would consider the vulgar anti-racists to be liars working to selfishly advance their own personal interests and those of their preferred groups. Left-wingers would tend to take a negative view of this, as they believe that right-wingers are unjustly dismissive in order to 'protect the unearned and unquestioned advantages of the privileged.'

In this version, vulgar anti-racists won't drop the issue and hit the GDP gym because they're bullies who think the particular groups they dislike are easy targets. The appropriate response is to become a harder target by systematically defunding any institution that supports them, putting them on the same footing as conventional racial supremacists in the US.

I tend to agree that many of the vulgar anti-racists are just being selfish. There is a question of just how consciously aware of it they are, however.

Option #2: A left-wing view would be that the vulgar anti-racists are "good people, just a bit misguided." Right-wingers tend to take a negative view of this, because if a right-winger published a book titled "Black Fragility" that was as circular in its reasoning as the "White Fragility" of Robin DiAngelo appeared to be, he would be hounded as a racist.

In this version, vulgar anti-racists just need patient guidance to put their empathy back on the right track.

I tend to believe that a good chunk of the vulgar anti-racists are just low-tier progressives who get their opinions socially. If the social consensus changes among progressives, they'll forget ever fretting about "microaggressions." Arguing with them individually mostly won't work, though, because it doesn't override their social consensus, and it won't make them think harder about the issues.

Many left-wingers would disagree with me on this assessment.

Option #3: A more centrist view would be that vulgar anti-racists are a mix of people with excessively high racial attachment, enthusiastic people who are underinformed, and people who serve their niche of the information and political economy, and that this isn't that different from the lower quality wings of other left and right political movements (look how bad "degrowth" is, for example), except that race feels much more core to people's identities (it's certainly not easy to change one's race), so it evokes more powerful emotions. A centrist would likely say that there are more academically and philosophically serious opponents of racism out there, but because the things they say are more serious, they're less controversial, so they get less coverage. ("You wouldn't expect a textbook in the Sunday paper.")

A person with this perspective would say that the appropriate course of action is mostly just to wait for it to blow over.

I would disagree. If vulgar anti-racism is taught in schools for a generation, it would create an expectation that racial blame is the default course of action. This would create a situation which is much more favorable for racial conflict, so it should be shut down now to prevent that from happening.

However, I feel that this does not adequately explain the totalitarian bent. What about other values society might have? What about trade-offs? [4] I would like to throw a fourth possibility into the ring.

Option #4: Life inside the vulgar anti-racist worldview is anxiety-inducing and subtly terrifying.

I don't fully endorse this view, because I think that vulgar anti-racism is a coalition of multiple groups (see the previous three options).

However, while I learned from school that racism and ethnic conflict are extremely dangerous in general (e.g. they can boil over and result in mass murder), the susceptibility of vulgar anti-racists to, "It's impossible to be racist to white people," which is very obviously racist, strongly implies that what they learned was, "Jews good; Germans bad" – basically just a list of which groups are acceptable, and which groups aren't. [5]

I reverse-engineered a sophisticated moral worldview, and when I was young, I assumed that everyone else had done so, too. And for a little while, society approximated that view closely enough for that misconception to kind-of work.

I think that a significant number of people in the vulgar anti-racist coalition don't understand white people.

In terms of anxiety, a number of them seem to think that Europeans and their descendants think about race as much as the vulgar anti-racists do – that they are silently passing judgment, or saying nasty things when others are not listening.

I've been around middle-class and above white Americans my entire life. I've seen some kids make stupid racist jokes, and I can imagine bullying targeting race if it looks like an axis of vulnerability, but in general, among themselves, they don't talk about race much at all.

A skeptic reading this may say that that's just anecdotal. However, according to surveys, "white conservatives" have about the same "racial/ethnic" "ingroup favorability" as either "hispanic moderates" or "asians." "White liberals" were the only group on the chart to have a "pro-outgroup bias."

If we interpret these ingroup favorability measures as racism (which is a stretch, because a favorability measure is not itself a discriminatory policy), then white conservatives have a "normal" (as in typical of most groups) amount of racism. White liberals (probably in the sense that the label "liberal" is used for the entire left in the US) are the only ones who loop around into what might be called "anti-racism." (Razib Khan has his doubts about the stability of this arrangement of anti-racism as opposed to non-racism.)

A vulgar anti-racist doesn't know this, and doesn't want to know this.

Now, for the "subtly terrifying" part. If someone accepts, for instance, that the British were sincere in sending warships to intercept slave traders, then there are all sorts of explanations that they can come up with for that behavior, such as it being a natural result of industrialization, or maybe a result of rising literacy, or motivated by Christianity in combination with previous political developments in England, and so on.

From Wikipedia, here's a map of the British Empire, a map of the Spanish Empire, and a map of the Portuguese Empire. While from the perspective of Europeans at the time, the European states were in competition with each other, if taken together as a group, they were closer to achieving true world conquest than anyone else in history. (Sure, the Mongol Empire was huge, but they didn't make it over to the Americas.)

If someone believes that the Europeans turned off the slave trade for some sincere or enduring reason, then the 1700s are unlikely to come back. If someone believes that the Europeans turned off the 1700s for no reason, or for a secret reason, then one day, they could just... turn the 1700s back on.

And maybe that thought isn't entirely conscious. Maybe it just sits quietly, at the back of the mind.

And they get stuck, much like people who are still focused on "overpopulation" as birthrates plummet in industrialized countries throughout the world.

-★-

Whether they consciously intend to or not, vulgar anti-racists leverage social taboos to make it difficult to argue for one group's innocence without making another, generally more vulnerable, group, look worse. People don't want to be mean and say mean things about a vulnerable group. Vulgar anti-racists exploit this. (This kind of behavior is immoral, but I'm not sure how much vulgar anti-racists consciously understand that.)

Online Tactics

I've developed tactics to argue with them in online space, but I haven't tried them out in in-person institutional spaces where they have institutional influence (power).

In general, you cannot argue with vulgar anti-racists grievance-for-grievance. Building up an ammunition depot of racial or ethnic grievances on behalf of "overperforming" groups won't work – vulgar anti-racists will dismiss you as irrationally motivated by racial hatred and dismiss your entire collection, and normal people will also think it's weird (even though they still don't think many racial or ethnic minorities collecting grievances is weird). [6]

A better approach is to pick one or two grievances to shut down the idea that the group you're defending are "invulnerable." Morally, you shouldn't have to point to, say, children or minors being mass victimized, because it should be obvious that people of any race can be victimized. But that's just the world we live in.

Collect examples of institutional policy, such as by governments, corporations, or universities, that is racially discriminatory against the group you're defending, in order to show that the intent of vulgar anti-racists is racial discrimination. Use center-left, mainstream sources to prevent dismissals. The goal is not to show major harms; most Democrats who are not social justice critical will initially attempt to deny that racial discrimination is a goal of vulgar anti-racism.

(If necessary, it can be emphasized that not wanting to be racially discriminated against is a normal thing to want.)

Vulgar anti-racists will try to shut you down by reciting their list of grievances. Memorizing racial grievances is something that they are strong at. Redirect the conversation to where they are weak: demand that they show whatever policy it is that they want will actually improve things and permanently close racial outcome gaps.

If you find someone who has memorized a list of successful academic or nutrition interventions, you've likely found a philosophical liberal. In my experience, almost no vulgar anti-racist has any even modestly-successful intervention memorized. If they propose an intervention, demand evidence that it will work.

It's possible that they could propose something scientific, but science is undergoing a replication crisis, and 'race scholars' have come under fire for scientific misconduct. If a vulgar anti-racist does come up with something, the next step is to get a binding commitment to close the racial claims against their target group.

If their political leaders will not agree, in writing, with binding mechanisms (and punishments with teeth if they don't follow through), to close out the racial claims against their target groups, conditional on some social intervention going into effect, then they don't believe that the intervention will work.

A working intervention is win-win. Outcomes improve, and the odds of conflict (over this particular issue) decrease.

IRL Tactics

X user CantonaCorona must live somewhere very different from me, because I never hear vulgar anti-racism from people in real life. His advice?

100%. I can’t even tell you the number of times I’ve been in a friendly/polite mutual friend gathering, and someone who knows 10% of the room will add “gawd, white people, gross” etc.

The issue is they are also the person lacking social skills to see the room gets uncomfortable

In 2023ish I started responding by asking them very honest seeming questions and leading them into saying really crazy stuff.

Takes a lot of finesse to not sound like a schizo, but if you can pretend to be genuinely curious it works wonders and someone else will call them out

It does, indeed, take a lot of finesse, even online. Because vulgar anti-racists are exploiting taboos, they have a huge terrain advantage in most encounters due to normal people not wanting to touch reputationally-damaging information. Successfully navigating the situation without sounding "schizo," and without sounding cruel, is difficult.

The advantage of the tactics discussed above are that you don't have to attack the reputation of the vulnerable group that vulgar anti-racists are using to justify their own bad behavior. It isn't surprising that, like a successful hostage rescue, it requires being more careful than the hostage-takers.

"Corrective" racial discrimination that does not permanently close racial outcome gaps is not actually a correction, it's just extra harm for no reason, and the motives of people who support it are suspect.

Demobilization

While the online tactics I've discussed above are reasonably effective for an online debate or argument format (and vulgar anti-racists are increasingly retreating to protected contexts where they don't have to engage in open debate), the long-term goal needs to be demobilization. Ethnic conflict interferes with stability and good government.

There are some supporters that don't recognize the logical errors in their positioning, but they can sense, "Wait, this guy isn't like the others," and flee rather than risk being split off from the social approval of their group.

I propose the fear theory for the potential to develop new angles. If the real motivation is fear, then addressing most of the intermediate arguments won't work, as the intermediate arguments are just products of the fear.

Reportedly, black musician Daryl Davis demobilized many Klansmen just by befriending them. [7] I suspect that most vulgar anti-racists already know a number of white people personally, so that tactic probably won't work here.

I have not conducted field experiments (either online or offline) on using the fear theory during encounters, so I can't provide solid information on its tactical use, yet.

-★★★-

[1] Stylistically, I have chosen to capitalize nationality while not capitalizing racial groups. On a quick reading, the tables provided by Wikipedia don't appear to disaggregate between first-generation immigrants, who have foreign nationality of origin and American citizenship, and second-generation immigrants who only have American nationality. All three CEOs listed were born in India.

[2] The ability to buy off competing talent is one of the reasons for the endurance of capitalism. Capitalist systems tend to be extremely productive. They can offer wages from increased productivity that are higher than the wages that other systems offer from rents.

[3] This is one of the reasons I got into writing about politics. It became common to find people whose professed opinions implied they'd never even heard of Genghis Khan, and at that point, I figured the bar was set pretty low.

[4] Positions on migration appear related, but I'll touch on that in another essay.

[5] One reason it wasn't obvious that people were just making an acceptable targets list at the time was that quite a few people from all over the world have a tendency to get wacky about Jewish people specifically, so putting antisemitism off-limits looked like it was backed by more sophisticated reasoning than it actually was. Obviously, people shouldn't hate Jewish people. The problem with the acceptable targets list approach is that it's fragile – since the list is based on social approval rather than deeper philosophical principles, it can end up being "readjusted" later.

[6] I also suspect that continuing to constantly expose yourself to the worst behavior of other groups may be corrosive. Watching a video where a man is shot on some other street, in some other city, may give you a jolt of adrenaline while you sit helplessly in your chair. Reading about atrocities may make you feel helpless and doomed.

[7] This behavior is morally praiseworthy, not morally obligatory.

[dewdr0pz]

Do you know what annoys the shit out of me? The fact that Dream cannot handle somebody else getting attention.

Quackity's finally creating his own successful SMP & finally pursuing an idea he's had for a while? Dream just has to copy that & create the United SMP.

Wilbur gets to be in a band that's been nominated for an award & he's having the time of his life making music? Dream just has to make music too, even though we all know he never wanted to in the first place.

A couple of his friends are coming out as queer (this one was a while ago)? He just has to post on Twitter saying "Yeah some guys are hot ig" because he needs to put himself in a community we all know he isn't a part of.

It's strategic. He knows that he has a large fanbase, or used to have a large fanbase, that'll mindlessly support him no matter what. & he's so used to having everybody focus on him because he created the Dream SMP, & as soon as the former members of the Dream SMP are doing their own projects or pursuing their own goals or dreams, he just has to steal it from them because he's a narcissistic bitch who can't handle the spotlight being on somebody else for once.

Edit: Forgot to add, but have y'all ever seen the clips of Dream being absolutely fucking disgusting toward Tommy? There's some compilation out there (I forgot the title of the video) that shows how Dream was making sick comments toward Tommy. The majority of the comments were sexual & it's obvious that they made Tommy uncomfortable, & it even got to a point where Wilbur had to step in multiple times & either say "He's 16!" or "That's gross" or "Don't say that, Dream".

[companion-showdown]

can both osgoods be in the tournament or does that not make sense since we never actually knew which one was which?

uhmm, I think it works, they are different people, both separately employed by unit (or at least I would hope thet're both getting a salary

[mydaddywiki]

Newt Gingrich

Physique: Husky Build Height: 6’ (1.83 m)

Newton Leroy Gingrich (né McPherson; born June 17, 1943) is an American politician and author who served as the 50th speaker of the United States House of Representatives from 1995 to 1999. A member of the Republican Party, he was the U.S. representative for Georgia's 6th congressional district serving north Atlanta and nearby areas from 1979 until his resignation in 1999. In 2012, Gingrich unsuccessfully ran for the Republican nomination for president of the United States. Since leaving the House, Gingrich has remained active in public policy debates and worked as a political consultant.

Sure he’s probably one of the most hated men in politics, but I want to fuck him. What? It’s not like I want to marry him. I just want to do things to his face and butt that involves my penis. And if Newt feels a little apprehensive about that, he can always bring along Callista. She could catch one from me too.

Born in Harrisburg, Pennsylvania, Gingrich was raised in Hummelstown (near Harrisburg) and on military bases where his adoptive father was stationed. Gingrich received a Bachelor of Arts degree in history from Emory University in Atlanta in 1965. He went on to graduate study at Tulane University, earning an M.A. (1968) and a PhD in European history (1971).

Gingrich, who was a bit of a whore, has been married three times. He cheated on his first wife, Jacqueline May "Jackie" Battley (whom he had two daughters with) throughout the 1970s with numerous women. One of which was his second wife, Marianne Ginther. In 1993, while still married to Marianne, Gingrich began an affair with third and current wife Callista Bisek, more than two decades his junior.

Damn… Newt was a whore. And I love that. A hot silver-haired chub who loves to fuck. How could I not. I wonder if he and Callista has that open marriage he wanted with his second because clearly I wouldn’t trust Newt alone with another woman. So his only option to cheat is with a man. Preferably me. What? Still want to fuck him.

[matan4il]

One of the worst justifications for the Hamas massacre that I have seen is the idea that the Palestinians had been suffering for 75 years, and such a long period of suffering is what made them be so brutal towards the civilians in the Jewish state.

This ignores, of course, brutal massacres that happened way before decades had passed since Israel's Independence War (which the Arabs started and lost). One such massacre took place on March 17, 1954. Less than five years after the end of that war. The other day, we commemorated 70 years since it happened. In order to remember, one reporter interviewed a survivor.

The entire piece was too long for Tumblr even after I downgraded the vid quality, so I edited out parts that were less relevant to understanding the massacre, and the story of this one child survivor.

Translator's notes:

-> Chaim'keh is the affectionate diminutive for Chaim, Mira'leh is the same for Miri.

-> In another interview, Miri shared that the reason her dad was taking them to Eilat, was because he wanted them to move to Israel's most southern city, meaning he felt Chana and the kids should see it.

-> This is the Ma'ale Akrabim road, you can see how serpentine it is, and the bus was driving uphill, explaining why it had to slow down so much that it became a perfect target for the terrorists.

-> 'Confirmation of killing' is a military term, referring to any situation where after shots have been fired at someone, the shooter comes closer and shoots (or wounds) again, from a much smaller distance, to make sure the victim is indeed dead, and not just wounded.

-> Chaim was shot in the head point blank, but somehow he technically survived. However, he was left in a coma for the next 32 years, before passing away and becoming the final murdered victim of this massacre.

-> Excluding Chaim, but including Miri, 5 people survived the Ma'ale Akrabim massacre.

-> Ha'Shomer Ha'Tzair (Hebrew for: the young guardian) is the first Zionist youth movement, established in 1913. It's also a socialist one.

-> A chuppah is a canopy under which Jewish couples get married.

-> Sayeret Matkal is an elite Israeli unit, whose most well known operation is the 1976 IDF rescue of Israeli and Jewish hostages (all the non-Jewish hostages were released, other than the French air crew of the hijacked Air France airplane, because the Captain refused to leave the Israeli and Jewish hostages on their own. The kidnappers were 2 German terrorists and 2 Arab ones who were members of a Palestinian terrorist organization. The Israeli and Jewish hostages were held in an airport in Entebbe, capital of Uganda, that the terrorists believed the IDF couldn't reach, since the distance was greater than Israel's airplanes could fly to and back, and passed over enemy territory. Several movies have been made about the operation, including an Israeli one, which was nominated for an Oscar, for best foreign film, in 1977).

-> Z"l is the English transcription of the Hebrew abbreviation ז"ל, which stands for may his/her/their memory be a blessing.

(for all of my updates and ask replies regarding Israel, click here)

[mariacallous]

After months of spewing racist remarks about Kamala Harris and ginning up his base about invasions at the border and the promise to harm millions of immigrants, Donald Trump will once again be the president of the United States. Despite his naked racism and misogyny and attacks on his political opponents, the American people have chosen to send him back to the White House. Candidates use the last days of their campaign to make their final case before the American people. They say the thing you want voters to remember as they’re casting their votes on Election Day. The last thing Trump wanted millions of Americans to hear from him and his campaign? A cacophony of bigotry. Trump chose to host a rally in New York City that was reminiscent of a Nazi rally held there 85 years ago. He was set to speak in front of thousands of his fans in his hometown — but first, more than two dozen surrogates would get on stage to make the case for him. Comedian and podcaster Tony Hinchcliffe compared Puerto Rico to a pile of garbage, said Black people carve watermelons on Halloween and made crude comments about the sexual habits of Latinos. David Rem, who the campaign said is a childhood friend of Trump, called Democrats “degenerates.” Former Fox News host Tucker Carlson said Harris was a “Samoan, Malaysian low-IQ” person. (Harris’ father is Jamaican, and her mother is Indian.) The only comment the GOP attempted to do damage control on was the “joke” about Puerto Rico. Having such explicit racism on stage during a rally for a presidential campaign speaks volumes about the Republican Party and America at large. White conservative ideology, and by extension, Trump, has long been threatened by the sense that full racial equality was just on the horizon. It is not an accident that Trump began his political career after America elected its first Black president. During their own presidential campaigns, famous Alabama segregationist George Wallace promoted keeping the races separate and George H.W. Bush deployed an ad implying his opponent Michael Dukakis would let violent Black criminals out of prison. Ronald Reagan touted his love of “states rights” at a speech in Mississippi near the site of where civil rights workers had been brutally murdered 16 years earlier. Critics viewed it as a wink to racist white Southern voters. Still, no other major-party presidential candidate has embraced explicit racism the way Trump has. Trump entered the political foray during the Obama administration by leading the charge in the false claims that the president was secretly born in Kenya and thus ineligible to be president. A few years later, in a now infamous scene, he would come down the escalator at Trump Tower to announce that he was running for president himself and referred to Mexican immigrants as criminals and rapists. His major policy promise was to build a wall along the southern border. As president, Trump instituted a ban on people from several majority-Muslim countries entering the country, told three members of Congress who are women of color to “go back to where they came from,” and tried to send in the military to squash racial justice protesters. His reelection campaign in 2020 was marked by more of the same. During his speech accepting the GOP’s nomination, Trump said Democrats wanted to release “criminals” into suburban neighborhoods and declared on X that “when the looting starts, the shooting starts,” referring to Black Lives Matter protesters. Much of that seems tame compared to the 2024 campaign.

[livelybutterflyy]

introducing my kpop drself

EARLY LIFE :

Moon Seulbi was born October 8th 2004 to a lawyer mother & businessman father in Seoul , South korea. She is the youngest of three siblings , Moon Jinyoung & Moon Intak are her older siblings , Jinyoung (Da’ah) is an actress while Intak is a fellow idol.

During her childhood / teenhood , she traveled and lived in many places, for example , the first 5 years of her life were spent in Tokyo, Japan , where she began dancing . Then she spent two years in Paris , where she first witnessed Fencing, and she begged her mom to learn. 

here are a list of some of the places she lived in as a child:

Seoul , South korea (obv)

Tokyo, Japan

Paris, france

London, England

New York city, United states

SCOUTING STORY :

Her father was a prominent businessman and was friends with JYP , Jyp offered to train his daughter ( Seulbi ) to be an idol, and without her consent, He agreed, on one condition, he would have a manager street cast her first, to take the blame off him.

Seulbi was seven years old when she was walking with her mother to the park when a JYP manager came up to her and asked if she’d like to be an idol. Seulbi, who was extremely emotional and afraid of everything, immediately burst into tears. Her mother agreed on her behalf.

DEARLIE :

DEARLIE was a 4 member kids girl group under JYP entertainment, the group consisted of Minseo, Sieun , Jaylie & Sooyoung. They debuted august 16 2013 with the song “Gee”. The group disbanded in January of 2016 after their contracts were terminated. 

Dearlie was a highly successful group , even with the controversy of a 8 year old debuting, it was marketed as a “kids girl group” for that exact reason. It remained unknown until 2023 why their contracts were mysteriously terminated.

POST-DEARLIE :

Sooyoung was only 11 years old when DEARLIE disbanded, eager to stay in the kpop industry where she felt appreciated, Sooyoung partook in Sixteen, Idol school & Produce 101 , all in the time of 9 months. After failing to debut in the three groups, Sooyoung quit being a trainee but was hired as a producer, stylist, choreographer  and concept designer for JYP , she worked on groups like SKZ, MISS A, TWICE & ITZY. She was the "mind" behind Skz, as she created their concept & discography nearly by herself

During this time, she didn’t even live in Korea ! Sooyoung attended the most prestigious boarding school in the world , Lucent arts academy in England where she majored in dance and minored in mythology until her departure in 2019.

THE NOWHERE GIRLS CLUB :

Sooyoung had been longing for her return to the Kpop industry for a while, so when TNS reached out and asked if she’d like to audition for them, Sooyoung said yes. By July of 2019, Sooyoung was a trainee at TNS, by September of 2019, she was in the debut line up.  !! She had quit JYP by then !!

The nowhere girls club (tngc) debuted June 12 2020 with the song Generation , it was a massive hit both domestically and internationally, with Sooyoung serving as the songs producer & songwriter.

By their second comeback with the full album “Stay out of my secrets” and the double title tracks Girls never die and Girls capitalism, TNGC had secured their place as a force to be reckoned with, not just in the kpop industry, but with the global music industry itself, with being nominated for 6 grammys and going home with 5.

SOLO VENTURES :

Moon Sooyoung is a brand. She is the most popular female idol ever. She has over 200 million followers on her solo instagram account , and she's only had it three years.

Some of her global  brand deals include : vivienne westwood, YSL, burberry , alexander mcqueen & graff diamonds. These are my 5 favs out of her 17 accumulated over the years. She is known as : global it girl, 4th gen fashion icon, dancing prodigy & ace of kpop (there are many more.)

Sooyoung constantly sets trends , including ; Lucky Jelly , off shoulder tops, reverse mirror selfies, heart cheek pose, , Sooyoungism, decorated shoes , custom decorated mics & more !!

For the two year and the four year anniversary of TNGC, each member released a mixtape for the fans, Sooyoung released Sugarcoat as her first solo and released UP! As her second. Despite having small promotions, sugarcoat went extremely viral and got 1 billion streams in only 90 days and received over 13 music show wins in a 2 week timespan. Up! Also went extremely viral, reaching 1 billion streams in only 76 days ! it also received 15 music show wins in the two week promotion period