> Finally, I have thought for a long time about a phenomenon I propose to christen the Incitement to Compatible Opposition. Specific regime doctrines have a way of calling forth opposition that is strangely compatible with orthodox premises.
I've been talking about this dynamic for years, however in a much less significant context. There's two main instances that I've noticed this in.
The first instance I noticed it in was back in 2016. The internet was a simpler time; we just complained about feminism going too far. I started to notice a common thread in a lot of the feminist op-eds that were written primarily by women as well as for women.
The dynamic was subtle and hard to identify, but it kind of went like this. A feminist would write some kind of op-ed superficially calling out some behaviour that she saw herself and other women doing. The surface-level reading of the article would be a straightforward "don't do this". So, for example, imagine a hypothetical op-ed entitled "Why do I keep hooking up with toxic men?". The article would take the surface-level position of "hooking up with toxic men is bad and we should all stop doing it".
However, the subtext of the article would always be something like "Well, we all know that we all do it, and we all know that we're all going to keep doing it, so don't worry too much about it". So even as the article would appear to be taking a position _against_ the activity, the article would simultaneously _normalize_ the activity. In this way, it would actually reinforce a superficial opposition that was, in fact, the point.
The second context in which I noticed this was discussions in the Rationalist communities that fell out of Scott Alexander's Conflict vs Mistake theory (https://slatestarcodex.com/2018/01/24/conflict-vs-mistake/). The theory is simple and superficially compelling: different people are primed to interpret antagonism differently, with some people interpreting it as a conflict to be resolved, while others interpret it as a mistake or an information problem that, if only we all had the same information, we would find we don't actually disagree.
In practice, 'mistake theory' turned out to be a really insidious way of weaponizing framing games. You see, if we are in some kind of conflict or competition with each other, and we both see it as a conflict, then there's a certain honesty to that. We each have conflicting goals. One of us will win, one of us will lose. Nothing personal, kid.
But in practice, the mistake theory side always always always presumed that they were correct. After all, if you are mistaken and you believe you are mistaken, you would have already changed your opinion. In arguments, the mistake theory people would always take the woke progressive tone of the schoolteacher. "I am obviously correct, but you're not a bad guy. You're just _mistaken_. If only you saw things from my point of view, you'd see that I am obviously correct, and you'd change your mind". It functioned as a way of claiming victory by fiat, declaring your opponent not just the loser of a conflict, but fundamentally invalid.
Both of these dynamics share a very important trait with your Compatible Opposition thesis. In all three scenarios, the behaviour functions as a way to smuggle in hidden premises and trick your opponent into accepting them, as a way of declaring them not just wrong, but invalid. Of pulling rank and saying "your position is not allowed". It's a really insidious tactic, because the manipulation is very subtle and most people are still primed to interpret it as object-level conflict. In covid, the hidden premise was "it is reasonable to shut down society when The Science™ says so, we're just arguing over what The Science™ says". In the feminist example, the hidden premise was "Obviously we're all going to keep being hoes, we're just arguing about optics". In the rationalist example, the hidden premise is more abstract as well as more direct: "Obviously I'm correct, we're just nitpicking details".
In the face of this tactic, the only acceptable response is (╯°□°)╯︵ ┻━┻. Rejecting the entire system of argument, rejecting the framing, and refusing to engage. To credibly pre-commit to irrationality in order to compel your opponent to stop being manipulative. This is why I take the 'extreme' position that global warming is fundamentally not real, and every environmental policy needs to be opposed. Obviously, industrialization has left a mark on the planet, and denying that eg atmospheric CO2 levels have changed substantially seems absurd. Nevertheless, my position is "it is more important to punish manipulators for manipulating discourse in this way than it is to achieve _any_ object-level position, and so as long as you all keep playing these frame games, I will live my life as if climate change is completely fake. If you want me to engage rationally, then engage me with respect instead of condescension"
For some advanced food for thought, I encourage you all to read God Emperor of Dune. In a weird way, this is a theme of that book.
(SPOILERS AHEAD)
God Emperor of Dune is the 4th book in the series, taking place hundreds (thousands?) of years after the events of the first three books. It primarily concerns the titular God Emperor, what he's doing and why, and the people who oppose him.
The book mostly revolves around Siona Atreides, the impetuous daughter of the God Emperor's most trusted personal servant. Siona is the leader of a resistance faction attempting to defeat the God Emperor.
A major theme of Siona's plot arc is that she is essentially controlled opposition. The God Emperor is aware of her actions and, in a weird way, condones them. In fact, the God Emperor sees her as the vessel through which his plan for humanity will be enacted, and he sees her childish and impotent rebellion as part of the process of turning her into one who serves his purposes.
I think a lot of politically-allowed opposition to The Regime is like this. It's controlled opposition. They get channeled into impotence, as a way of letting off steam and protecting The Regime from actual, legitimate demands for change. In the process, they reinforce the kayfabe that is our politics and implicitly accept the framing and premises of The Regime.
There's _also_ a really interesting detail in the book that overlooked when I originally read it, that I think foreshadows our current society
(MORE SPOILERS)
One of the other plot points in the book is that the God Emperor's armies are all and entirely staffed by women. I think there's a strong parallel between the themes around that in the book, and our modern, effeminized society
Is it really feminized when women are forced to play male roles? I would argue it’s the opposite, the eradication of the truly feminine. The dark chaotic female half of existence tamed by forcing it into a masculine order.
I don't see how anyone can work in a white collar job and not think that American corporate culture is completely and totally feminized. I just started a new job and there was probably 10 'feelings-related' fuzzy bullshit things for every one job-relevant thing. I don't think the world was like this when men ran it for men. I think this all falls out of corporate-managerial types treating everyone like women.
I think they do that, partly, because women occupy most positions of authority these days, either directly or indirectly through influence. And I think they do that, partly, as a mechanism of social control that is somewhat similar to the "mistake theory" point I made above
Earlier today I listened to an interesting counter argument to your comment in a discussion that argues that we are living in a gynocracy that corresponds well with Eiden's earlier comment. If curious you may find this interesting to consider. The conversation is about some of the details Jasun Horsely explored in his latest book _The Big Mother_.
Your feminism argument is definitely happening. Lots of Tik Tok videos of women who have drank the Kool-Aid. I keep meeting toxic men for casual sex. How do we meet better men for casual sex. The aftermath of the heartache with the cad they wish to avoid is partly a result of engaging in meaningless flings, but that is glossed over by changing the focus. Quite brilliant in its own way.
The thing is, they _want_ to meet toxic men for casual sex. They don't _want_ to meet better men. They just want society to stop judging them for poor life decisions. That's why their op-eds are intended to shift the overton window by smuggling in premises and getting people to accept them.
I'm 34. I make six figures and I have since I was 22. I am very high-status and run several local communities. I'm kind, loyal, smart, funny, and all those husband qualities that women say they're looking for. I'm also 5'4" and bald, and that's why I haven't had a date in 6 years. The women who actually want good men, became good women, found those men, and got married by 25. Everyone else is looking for shitty men.
Yep. It’s a cliche that the good men are all taken, but a true one. Women who want to marry and have kids laser focus on suitable men and take them off the market. These are the girls who grow up. I think the type you’re talking about essentially want an extended adolescence. They want to be cool (lots of lovers can be seen as cool) and have fun (but not many are willing to admit that stranger sex is often not fun at all) for as long as they can. Shockingly, it’s really not that long. If you think you don’t have good dating prospects, try being a woman who’s showing her age.
There is still hope for you. After marrying and divorcing a "toxic" man I met my husband of 44 years when he was 34, bald short with a visual disability! I must add that everyone thought I was doing him a favor by marrying him, if only they knew.
As my late wife might say - late night total joy. Some matches really do work. Twas an Apr-Sep match where she was to help me into my dotage, "but he's an old man".
I quite agree. Lots of venting online about there being no good men. I have noticed more women are countering this and calling out their nonsense. The data is also in. According to the dating apps, where hard numbers are easy to extract, 80 percent of young women now only look at the top 4.5 percent of men. These men are inundated with choices so treat them poorly. The women then assume all men are like this while 95 percent of men are invisible to them.
It is a shame, but the chickens are coming home to roost. Relationships are cratering as men are walking away.
For some personal anecdata, I have a friend. She is 35, very attractive, and generally a walking stereotype of what we're talking about. She is constantly complaining about how she only meets shitty men, is starting to realize she's going to die alone, and is on the hunt for a husband.
Two weeks ago, she called me to rescue her from a shitty tinder date. This guy's crime? He mentioned she was the first tinder date he had gotten in two years. So I picked her up to have a dope friend night.
Long story short, six hours later, she fucked my drug dealer friend on my couch while I was asleep. She says she wants good men. But she took advantage of the one good man in her life for a free ride & excuse while rewarding two shitty men with attention and sex for being shitty. She got exactly what she wanted.
The most upsetting thing to me? When I came to pick her up, her date tried to tag along. Obviously he was not welcome, and she made up an excuse (blaming me!) for why he couldn't come. In the car, she started justifying her behaviour to me with "well, obviously he's just going to go fuck a girl he likes more than me, too, so it's no big deal".
Dude literally told her that she's the only date he's had in years and in her mind, she's _still_ like "oh yeah he's gonna go fuck a dozen other bitches why would he care about me?". In her mind, men can just walk outside and find twelve new women on a moment's notice, because she can (and does!) do this all the time. She is either unwilling or incapable of basic empathy.
Honestly at this point it's becoming a major piece of mental/emotional baggage for me. I've been on exactly one date in the past six years, and (again, long story short) she turned out to be a con artist who was scheming to steal money from me (why can't my life ever be simple and boring?). Any woman I go on a date with, will have another date set up for an hour after our date ends. I'm treating every date I go on as if it is something special and precious, because in my life, it is. The women I'm going on dates with (in the hypothetical world where this happens) are treating me like an interchangeable cog in the dating machine, going so far as to double-book dates on the same night. It is not possible to base a mutually loving and trusting relationship on this foundation.
I have _so many_ stories about friends like this. They always tell me that I'm an amazing guy and a great catch and I'll make _some woman_ really happy some day. Never them though. Definitely never them. Always some other hypothetical one that doesn't exist.
The simplest explanation is usually correct: These women are doing what they want and getting what they want, and their words should be ignored and disregarded.
She's been a friend for five years. When a friend asks me for a ride, I give them a ride. That's just kindness.
But that's my point. A good man is a man who goes out of his way to take care of the people he cares about. A good woman will appreciate that and not take advantage of it. A bad woman will take advantage of it, while throwing herself at the guys who treat her like garbage.
In the aftermath of this, I communicated some pretty strict boundaries, and her reaction has been to not speak to me since. Once again, tells me all I need to know about women and their morality.
As for playing hard to get, it's hard to play hard to get when nobody wants to get you in the first place /shrug. But that's their loss. I'll have fun with my giant pile of money while mocking them all for being poor, used up, and alone. I hate who I have become, but I am not the one who decided what the incentives were
Relations between the sexes have become so bogged-down in ever evolving feminine-focussed rules of engagement and anti-male rhetoric, it almost seems as though someone behind the scenes is pulling the strings to scupper the whole human reproductive project. I think the 'tall-dark-and-handsome' stereotype is part of all that too. And of course as a result of all the legal avenues women now have many avenues to play the victim and to be 'defended' against 'toxic masculinity' , while they themselves prize themselves so highly that they will only 'choose' a good provider. Hooking up with one of these gold-diggers, a man who has done nothing but provide, provide provide as he was expected to do, can nowadays suddenly find himself homeless, childless and in court on Family Violence charges on the most spurious of pretexts. Perhaps staying single is the smarter move for men these days - the development of sex-robots may just turn the tide in masculine men's favour when women realise they are no longer the only ones who hold the power of 'withholding consent'. And those soy-boy types who 'feminise' themselves in order to curry favour are not ever going to win in this fray either- the system is run on behalf of women, so they will inevitably find themselves ditched and broke sooner or later, just like the red-blooded guys.
Eidein, I am a middle aged man, I have a decent woman and kids. I don't have single friends, 90% of the people that I know are married or in a long term, stable relationship. And since I am a kids football trainer at our local club, I know tons of married people with kids.
A lot of the married men I know are short in stature, bald, fat. ugly, boring, shitty jobs. And guess what: Their wives are also short, fat, ugly and boring.
What I am trying to say: Maybe you want women which are out of your reach? If you are short and bald, maybe give an ugly lady a chance?
I should add that I am bald, not particularly pretty and I am not super confident with women, so this comment is not meant to insult you. Gotta be realistic about who to look for.
Eidein - you are not alone - but I'm your opposite. I'm 5'10" , aged 69, have a lovely head of hair, and I am still bombarded by FB adverts for wigs and hidden platform shoes: it must be cruel being challenged vertically and follicly.
In my 20's/ early 30's I was stone broke, (think traveller-type) had hair down to my shoulders, was skinny as a rake, quoted loads of poetry, and was a bit of a woman-magnet.
However, My grandfather was 5' tall, and when he was widowed in his 50's, he joined an old fashioned dating agency, and met my step-grandma, a widow, who was an inch shorter than him, and a sexy as hell.
Apparently they bonked like bunnies, and they enjoyed many lovely years as husband and wife.
That's just the modern western woman: she wants to whore about the place free of charge and consequence.
It's the companion piece of the man similarly whoring about while insisting his chosen one be a virgin.
While I admit people should be free to act such should they so desire, no-one have any obligation to save them from the costs and consequences of their actions, which includes calling them whores and whoremongers.
Don't want the label? Don't behave in such a way that the label fits.
> It's the companion piece of the man similarly whoring about while insisting his chosen one be a virgin.
I slept with 5 women in my life, 4 in a context where I thought we were on the path to marriage. I have never been that kind of man.
In fact, the fact that I wasn't that kind of man was a major source of conflict in my last relationship, where she essentially left because I "wasn't good enough at sex". Obviously you're not going to be good if you don't get any practice. That's true of everything
I find the whole concept of "good at sex" fallacious.
Then again, I've been married for nigh on 30 years now, so I'm not really in a position to judge people on how they deal with the dating-scene today.
My son has often complained that meeting women is easy; meeting someone who is wife-material is akin to chasing unicorns and he is in his thirties. I have friends in the 30-50 age span who complains about the same thing: "partying" yes, settling and raising a family no. The girls just don't want to grow up into adult women, they want to be fancyfree footloose princesses all their lives, is the sum of the lamentations I hear.
Wish I could offer some advice, I do remember the dreadful feeling of thinking one is doomed to solitude for life.
Dear Eidein, I was reading your comments yesterday and I have been mulling them over in my head. What you tell us is that you have not met anyone who would or could be your wife. So maybe what you need is broaden your horizon a bit. I think it's fair to state that you have searched your own environment thourougly and she is not there. That doesn't mean she is not elsewhere in the world. Maybe it is time for you to take a step back, quit your job, rent out your house and start travelling. You will probably find that 'liberalism' or 'feminism' is not an all pervasive trait throughout the world. There are lots and lots of places where women still know how to be a wife and a mother. Just probably not in the US (or large parts of Europe. Eastern Europe would be better than Western). Don't let yourself get bogged down by ephemeral things like jobs or houses. They are worth nothing without love. Go find love instead. I wish you all the love and hapiness in the world!
I, too, deny anthropogenic climate change. Every aspect of the climate cult is just so incredibly dumb For example, if climate change is occurring, there ought to be as well as costs benefits. This is never acknowledged! Also, the cult assumes that humans have no ability whatever to adapt to (gradually!) changing conditions, when in fact our species does this extremely well. That's why there are 7 BILLION of us!
And, finally, here in Virginia, USA, where I live we have had a supremely pleasant and mild winter, followed by a supremely pleasant and mild spring, followed by a very pleasant and mild summer, and now a supremely pleasant and mild fall. If this is a "climate crisis," sign me up for another fifty years of it! As long as I've lived in Virginia, the weather has been absolutely within usual parameters, and nature is flourishing. The forests are lush, the birds are happy and abundant, the foxes, deer and rabbits abound, and there are more fish in the rivers than you can shake a stick at.
"Climate change" is absolute bunk. It would be funny if the cult weren't doing so much real economic and emotional damage.
One of the best ways you can tell that our leaders do not believe what they say about climate change: I'm Canadian. If the globe is warming, Canada dramatically benefits. So why is Canada trying to stop it?
Of course Canada would dramatically benefit. Just think of all the arable land that would be opened up for farming. Also, if shipping were guaranteed year-round in an ice-free arctic, international commerce would become cheaper on many important routes.
I live in Northern Virginia and I agree with you 100%
However, here we have "crisis news and reports" every day. the weather channel, CNN and news org. They need readers and eyes and ear to hear information, the more alarming the better for the organizations, because the drug pusher commercials are not selling the show. or maybe they are.
I live in northern Virginia, too. Even here in suburban DC, nature is flourishing. There are foxes, deer, wild turkeys, beavers (!), herons, cranes, eagles, hawks, raccoons; I see fishermen pulling massive bass out of the Potomac. And head just a little south and west out into the countryside and, oh my goodness, it is so, so beautiful. The Blue Ridge Parkway this summer could have been mistaken for the Garden of Eden, it was so lush, cool, misty and green. Practically the whole state of West Virginia itself is one massive, lush deciduous forest, punctuated by gushing streams flowing off the mountainsides. Rivers and streams are gushing, the beaches around here look great, flora and fauna going gangbusters, really thriving. What I cannot understand for the life of me, then, is how a person can live surrounded by all this evidence of an absolutely thriving natural environment, and negate his/her every day, concrete experience because somebody on TV said something different? It is astounding: What are you gonna believe, your own eyes or the hack reading a teleprompter in a studio somewhere? I really cannot fathom it. And it's not just Virginia. Everywhere I've traveled the last several years has seemed great. Even the desert in southern California this past winter was ablaze with what seemed like millions of colorful flowers because there'd been so much rain and snow over the winter! When are Americans going to shut this blatant con game down? We need to do it now.
P.S. Another couple of obvious signs that the "climate crisis" is a fraud: Ten years ago, water levels in the Great Lakes were falling below recent averages. This was said to be evidence of the impending climate catastrophe! Well, just a few years after that, the lake levels reversed course and rose to a point higher than recent averages. This was said to be evidence of the impending climate catastrophe! And what should be the biggest indicator of all: All year long, and especially in the North American summer, the grocery stores around here are positively bursting with fresh fruits and vegetables, often so abundant they are sold at a steep discount just to get them moved off the shelves. Wouldn't a "climate crisis" mean food is becoming scarcer? Yet, year after year official data on global food production indicate steadily increasing harvests. Give me a break. I cannot stand anymore of this blatant intellectual dishonesty and warmongering from our "leaders" and their lackeys in the media. We Americans have to end this madness right away via the ballot box, yes, but also by speaking the truth about the fraud loudly and often.
agree. the more they feel they can cancel you, for whatever reason, and there are plenty to choose from, they feel personally empowered. We need to continue to view them as silly animals - ignore them. We do not need them.
The TL;DR version of this would apply to the social dynamic that prevents our elite class from getting their comeuppance: "I know I'm guilty, and you know I'm guilty, but you cannot do anything about it, so we're going to keep pretending that I'm not."
Interesting reference to Mistake Theory, because that was already how I thought of my positions. But I'm also willing to, y'know, *actually* be convinced that I'm wrong. Because yes, I recognize that I hold the positions I do because I have reasoned myself into them, but also that I am falliable and don't know everything, as much as I've tried. ;)
Also, glorious tableflip emoji. :D
Also also,
> Nevertheless, my position is "it is more important to punish manipulators for manipulating discourse in this way than it is to achieve _any_ object-level position, and so as long as you all keep playing these frame games, I will live my life as if climate change is completely fake. If you want me to engage rationally, then engage me with respect instead of condescension"
The mods at TheMotte _really_ didn't appreciate me taking that position.
Incidentally, if you are already familiar with Mistake Theory, then I assume you're familiar with TheMotte. I was one of their most popular contributors for five years, until hlynka gave me the only permanent ban in that subreddit's history. It pissed everyone off so hard that they had to appoint a new mod to appease people 🤣
I am familiar with TheMotte in passing. I read SlateStarCodex irregularly, and now AstralCodexTen even more irregularly. But that's about as much of that as I want to spend time on, really. My Reddit time mostly goes to reading fiction. 😁
Hanging around in a subreddit with that crowd all the time would either drive me completely insane, or burn all of my time, or possibly both.
I reached a similar conclusion about the pandemic response when I observed the a priori invalidation of critics and their criticisms (i.e. a facts checker's guide to fact checking).
As you have pointed out, the framing never permited an honest exchange and discussion of competing ideas in the first place. And I have just realised this is possibly the aspect which most disturbed and affected me during the pandemic because I personally so dearly hold the principle of honest discussion as the crucible for testing and probing ideas in the pursuit of truth. I actually wouldn't care which side won if they played "fair" ;)
"never permitted an honest exchange". That the public tolerated the censorship, cancellation and astounding limits on personal freedom has been difficult to watch. That so many governments across the world were supportive of these crimes equally difficult.
We fled to SubStack and writers like eugyppius to find kindred souls in the commentary. We were not alone despite being cancelled elsewhere. And now even the public masses are discovering how they were duped. A bit of reflective anger would be nice.
One thing that seems to have flown under the radar is that, prior to the covid pandemic, there was a rich body of literature on the subject of masking. ALL OF IT said that masking doesn't work.
The most charitable interpretation of the literature could be summarized as "masking _would_ work, if people wore their masks correctly, but even people formally trained in this routinely fuck it up, so there's zero chance that the general public will
Excellent points and observations. This especially should be highlighted:
"So even as the article would appear to be taking a position _against_ the activity, the article would simultaneously _normalize_ the activity. In this way, it would actually reinforce a superficial opposition that was, in fact, the point."
When I learned it as a technique (it was taught when I took rethorics) the lecturer stressed that even if you couldn't change someone's mind, you could make them accept your premises, something that very statement is an example of in itself. After they have done that, all it takes is time and constant exposure to your idea to not only normalise it as aceeptable but make it mandatory as a duty. Frequency of exposure is more important than signal strength, so to speak.
Our study-example was the "gay movement", from the early 1950s to present day (which was the early 1990s).
Complete tangent but the acceptance of LGBT is the single greatest example of how democracy is fake and gay.
Consider the "narrative" of democracy: We are a nation of sober-minded, informed citizens, we studiously ponder issues presented to us. Then we all state our preferred position, and the position with the most support wins.
Implicit in this narrative is the idea that people have coherent, consistent positions and opinions in the first place. Like, for example, we would all agree that casting a vote on the basis of "that politician is hot" would be a violation of the spirit of democracy.
So consider gay marriage. Like 2 years before gay marriage was legal, a large majority of the population opposed it. 2 years after gay marriage became legal, a large majority of the population supported it.
It is not remotely plausible that hundreds of millions of people all went from "gays should be thrown in prison" to "nah they're fine", in the span of two years. What is much, much more likely, is that most of the people who 'opposed' it before it was legal, didn't actually care, and most of the people who 'support' it after it was legal, still don't actually care.
But if that's the case, then you can't meaningfully say that there was a coherent public opinion about it in the first place, because nobody was actually thinking it through and coming to a reasoned position. They were, essentially, bandwagoning in a popularity contest.
Ergo, the idea of 'sober-minded informed voters sharing their sincere beliefs and coming to consensus' is a fantasy, and in reality, it's all propaganda, manipulation, and coercion all the way down
Touching the "third rail" right there! Sadly true, too.
I used to teach among other subject political and social science, so seeing someone able and daring to be so clear about some of the problems with the idea no matter the specific iteration is refreshing. Usually, it's "democracy is good, mm'kay?" and anyone arguing otherwise even just for arguements sake is Hitler.
I've always found it strange that we have politicians who have neither professional skills nor factual knowledge or even the wisdom of life experience decides matters.
Why not just have a lottery for who gets into parliament? Can't get more democratic than that, nor more representative of the demographic in question.
That is, if representation and "by the people, for the people" actually is a goal in its own right.
Great comment. The framing question is primary. Marxists are great at luring people with language, emotional decision-making, and the inflammation of negate emotions into the Blue Pill , Overton Window-shifting realm even though they are always wrong and destructive.
Check out Stephen Coughlin’s “Trimaran Theory” or James Lindsay’s many lectures.
Re: Ecopalypic Global Warmongering - methinks it is the realm where Marxists - heartbroken by the fall of the Berlin Wall - could attack capitalism while on tenture tracks.
It all falls apart with their inability to answer two sciencey questions: What is the Delta (difference) between the current Earth’s temperature and its optimal temperature? Why is that optimal? (Show your work).
A fantastic comment that eloquently writes down something I've engaged in subconsciously for the last few years. When the position of The Enemy is Mistake and when they are unwilling to shift to Conflict, the best course of action is to move to Rational Irrationality. This prevents The Enemy from pushing you into an debate corner using their pre-rehearsed word games that conclude in bad-faith gotchas backed by Science™ sources. No participants of any debate, formal or informal, have ever left that debate with an alternative worldview, hence the use of subliminal messaging attacks during a victim's unguarded moments (eg. TV, infiltration of "echo chambers"). Do not engage in debate with lunatics - that is the surefire way to be immune to their tactics.
I knew from the very first paragraph that this would be epic, vintage eugyppius. A tour de force of insight, sarcasm, and humor. I wasn't disappointed.
Greta pushes for climate tyranny on the plebs, but has she ever mentioned the US military as the world's biggest polluter? Seems like an odd thing to ignore.
And herein lies the real threat: How we came to two generations that take climate change as unquestionable gospel.
I wonder who would be a bigger zealot in an imaginary crisis:
Someone who thinks you killed grandma or someone who thinks you're killing mother earth?
The level of cruelty that can be justified when people believe in a "moral" crusade is boundless because the beast inside is no longer burdened with the boundaries of empathy.
There is nothing so dangerous as a person or group who believe the ultimate testament of their fidelity to a righteous cause requires acts of cruelty to demonstrate their purity.
the pandemic revealed, thanks to the warriors who dug in, that everything health associated is mostly run with big pharma money, which they got mostly funneled through governments from the taxpayers. The scientific journals, the medical schools, the research, all of it is dictated by big pharma. The governments of the world transferred 75 billion dollars to these companies during the pandemic, and they spread it liberally to buy acquiescence and loyalty. From the politicians, to the CDC to your local hospital, doctor's office, and county health.
As the mafia is to government/politicians/lobbyist, the Drug Lords are to big pharma, combined as one gang, they are tyrants of millions of little tyrants. They have the power to change the meaning of words, at their whim, for their purposes, in broad daylight, to the exact opposite of the universally understood prior definition, and have confidence to do so without opposition and with virtually zero detection by the public.
The relationship is fraught with exploitation and myriad landmines of "unintended consequences". Not to mention the breathtaking lawlessness, mendacity, malfeasance, mockery, malice, avarice and abject depravity displayed with no shame, for 3 years of our lives.
They de facto advertised, nonstop for two years, to a captive global population, their ability to subsume your agency with wicked stealth camouflaged by a Cabal of Consensus manufactured to give the appearance that resistance is futile.
They just concluded a global Proof of Concept exercise that validated their idea/product wholesale. They continue to demonstrate their intent; to be the eternal sole guardian of the tools, the tool belt and the blueprints for any "project", of their choosing, at any time, for "emergencies" they define. Of most importance they inadvertently discovered that the subjects of their experiment have no desire to understand the results of the experiment nor to learn whether THE SCIENCE should ever be used again.
The product is CONTROL; the control of a complacent, compliant and cowardly public that gave them the power to appoint themselves the "unmoved mover", free from the demands of external agency, to be the master of your autonomy.
They obliterated the SCIENTIFIC METHOD overnight and turned it into a belief system branded as THE SCIENCE. They have effectively obliterated the only universal reference we have for questioning our world and seeking truth.
They have granted themselves the power to obliterate history.
I don't know about you, but that sounds like a gang of cruel gods that needs to be disbanded, with urgency, before they control the remembrance of an unwitting publics history.
If you think about it, this paradigm (the relationship between government and big pharma) is so creepy that it has they potential for an emergent and self-assembling creeping evil with legions of bureaucrats as hosts.
I've been surprised to see that 'Just Stop Oil' on Britain haven't been more violent. If you *truly* believe you're saving the lives of millions then what's a few hundred along the way? After all, wouldn't you rather Hitler had died in his cradle before he could kill millions?
The best work on this subject that I have read is by Alex Epstein as he carefully goes through the benefits of fossil fuels and how necessary they are if there is to be a transition to something else.
the point you make regarding the need to have energy to enjoy the current lifestyle is something that is completely missed by the climate hysterics as well. I suggest we simply take away all the things they use that are reliant on fossil fuels, notably their iPhones and iPads as well as computers, clothing and transportation, whether EV or not, and let them live their dream, naked in a cave.
You misunderstand one crucial point: the zealots don’t believe they themselves will have to live with the restrictions. After all, they will be running the bureaucracies that implement the rules. As such, they will need phones, transportation etc. The truly rich climateers will merely continue to fly around on their jets as they do now, secure in the knowledge that their carbon has been offset with cash.
au contraire, I completely understand that's what they expect. that's why I think we need them to experience their dream completely. without that, they will never comprehend reality, and that will be a cold hard reality. worth watching
you are correct, but my biggest fear is this is what is coming anyway if they get to implement their ideas. better they should suffer as well, rather than live in their Elysium
I wouldn't go that far. As a person coming from Sweden she should just eat what naturally grows in Sweden. So she can return to her extremely healthy potato diet.
My own position is this: I don't have a strong opinion about man-made climate change because, in order to have a VALID opinion, I would have to devote myself night-and-day to trawling through the data. What I DO know though is that - of the (now probably) hundreds of millions of people who do have a strong opinion - the vast majority haven't trawled through the evidence either; they've just 'heard about it in the media'. I also know that most people (good decent people in other ways no doubt) are intellectual sheep. Group-think is a huge factor in human affairs.
"You Must Not Do Your Own Research When it Comes to Science" I thought that was a Babylon Bee headline. Nope. Forbes. And not sarcasm. Unbe - fucking - lievable.
Not surprisingly, the author's trust in "Science" as related to us by his precious "experts" turned out to be completely misplaced. They were wrong, we were right.
I think it is appropriate to decide amongst experts, which ones most closely align with your own value structure, and use them as your go-to sources. They have already sifted the data and found which sources they consider worthwhile, or the bought shills. Why reinvent the wheel? Your job is to read enough from all the variety of experts, and commentary on them, to find those you align with. That is a large enough task for anyone outside the industry.
I would be happy to consider myself a conservationist of the old guard, with a focus on preserving species, preserving habitat, and eliminating litter. I think that zero-waste is a laudable goal that an advanced industrial society should set for itself. No, it cannot be done at a profit, but I think it would be worth spending the comparatively small amount of tax revenue it would require to reprocess our waste into substances that the biosphere could readily absorb. Anything that is not recycled should be reverted to the four elements by composting, incineration, or pulverization, which are all fairly easy to do at scale.
In keeping with this philosophy, I do not consider carbon dioxide emissions to be a pollutant. Carbon dioxide is the foundational nutrient of all life on Earth, and increasing its base level in the atmosphere by a few hundredths of a percent generally does far more good than harm. Carbon-based fuels have been a blessing all the way around: we have a rich, energy-dense fuel, we get to enjoy the benefits of burning it, and when we're done with that, the waste product is plant food. What's not to like about this arrangement?
It follows that the ludicrous idea of carbon sequestration is one of the most descriptively stupid things an "environmentalist" could ever support. Starving the environment of its key nutrient does not seem like an environmentally friendly activity to me. Thankfully, these carbon sequestration schemes will never be more than an infinitesimal drop in the ocean of the global carbon cycle, but the very idea of the thing is pernicious.
I would be anxious to join (or perhaps start) an environmentalist movement for sane people who actually share my basic beliefs, since sane environmentalism has long since been left by the wayside in the name of climatism.
Indeed it’s a shame that organizations like The Sierra Club and The Nature Conservancy have fallen to regime activism, adopting the narratives demanded by it.
I am, to a degree, similar, although also a pollutionist, but that's because I am personally very negatively affected by pesticides and local air quality like laundry vents.
I want to conserve some lands and water to be lower in pollution. I live in Ontario, as my name states, and some of our Great Lakes are too polluted for me to swim in, for example. But other water bodies, with less agricultural runoff entering them, such as Georgian Bay, are fine for me to swim in. What effects are happening to local wildlife I don't know, but it's probably not good for them either.
Bingo. Climatism & Pandemism are offshoots of the same ideology: we are facing an existential threat and only coordinated top-down control can save us.
'Only if you give up your rights and freedoms can the planet be saved.' The elites' control of the narrative has become so pervasive that some, if not most people actually believe it.
I used to add ™ but capitalizing gets the point across. Scientism works too. In image form it would be Neil Degrasse Tyson shaking while yelling "consensus!"
Please keep writing on this subject. My view, and you put your finger directly on it last column, is that we are ruining our economies for de minimis improvement in CO2 levels and no lowering, none, of global surface temperatures. Meanwhile, China goes merrily on its way building city-sized, coal-burning power plants that pollute the hell out of the planet whether or not they even bother to engage scrubbers. Forget the open-air foundries and who-knows-what toxins running into rivers and streams. But the Chinese make a good show of promoting solar power and EVs. And why wouldn’t they? They own more than 80% of the solar panel production market and they hope to get their EVs there as well. Sorry for the economic and financial take. But they undergird the politics, at least, as they relate to China.
imho one of the most pernicious threats of climatism at this juncture is that a 'climate emergency' can be called a threat to public health, under the direction of a single individual, with no further proof needed, and unleash all the anticipated new powers of the WHO to dictate global equity and taking of resources from 'rich' nations to confer on poorer ones. The creation of 'One Health' initiatives means literally nothing is off the table.
Remember, most of these things seem to coast along because virtue signalling is cheap. Once it becomes expensive it stops.
A survey in the UK showed respondents moderately on board with climate initiatives. Until they were asked if they would give up meat and cut meat consumption for their kids. Only 12 percent said yes. Most were a firm no.
Much of this is driven by the middle classes who have comfortable lives. Once that changes everything changes.
they already stuck the camel's nose in the tent, and can legally take weapons from those they consider mentally unstable. I wonder when they will get around to saying that openly about the people who have different ideas about vaxxines and healthcare.
"atmospheric carbon dioxide levels and global temperatures have fluctuated wildly over the earth’s long history."
Yes, they have. There's a wonderful book, The Ends of the World by Peter Brannen, which describes how "our world has ended five times: it has been broiled, frozen, poison-gassed, smothered, and pelted by asteroids." What struck me about this book was the concept that with each mass extinction, life survived, but in such a totally different form that Earth became essentially an entirely different planet. It's been a while, but I recall the author seem to be on the anthropogenic climate change team. Despite that, it's a great read.
Anyway, what we are experiencing now is probably just one of the slight fluctuations, although we won't know until it's over, will we? Humans have search a short time-span-awareness, they expect things to remain static in perpetuity. That's unrealistic.
A few months ago I read a book by a paleontologist about mammal evolution. Unfortunately, he ruined his book with incessant mentions of the "the threat of anthropogenic climate change," in spite of the fact that his own book was a history of climate change (and the response of mammalian evolution to it) without any human involvement. I got within about two pages of the end of the book and literally stopped reading due to one AGW comment too many. This same author has other books that I would be interested in reading except that he's completely put me off from his work.
Finally, someone points out the advantages of the hydrocarbon economy. Nitrogen-fixing fertilizers are a wonderfully useful by-product of oil refining, and their widespread use has multiplied agricultural productivity, fed the world, and led to an actual decline in cultivated acreage - to the benefit of the environment. As American pundit Patrick Buchanan once pointed out to the climateers who wanted to ban fossil fuels: "Who wants to be the one to tell 800 million Africans that they're going to starve?"
Also note that today people don't starve due to lack of food, they die because there is no food where they are. Those who are saved from starvation are saved by the fossil fuel that's burned to bring them food.
> Finally, I have thought for a long time about a phenomenon I propose to christen the Incitement to Compatible Opposition. Specific regime doctrines have a way of calling forth opposition that is strangely compatible with orthodox premises.
I've been talking about this dynamic for years, however in a much less significant context. There's two main instances that I've noticed this in.
The first instance I noticed it in was back in 2016. The internet was a simpler time; we just complained about feminism going too far. I started to notice a common thread in a lot of the feminist op-eds that were written primarily by women as well as for women.
The dynamic was subtle and hard to identify, but it kind of went like this. A feminist would write some kind of op-ed superficially calling out some behaviour that she saw herself and other women doing. The surface-level reading of the article would be a straightforward "don't do this". So, for example, imagine a hypothetical op-ed entitled "Why do I keep hooking up with toxic men?". The article would take the surface-level position of "hooking up with toxic men is bad and we should all stop doing it".
However, the subtext of the article would always be something like "Well, we all know that we all do it, and we all know that we're all going to keep doing it, so don't worry too much about it". So even as the article would appear to be taking a position _against_ the activity, the article would simultaneously _normalize_ the activity. In this way, it would actually reinforce a superficial opposition that was, in fact, the point.
The second context in which I noticed this was discussions in the Rationalist communities that fell out of Scott Alexander's Conflict vs Mistake theory (https://slatestarcodex.com/2018/01/24/conflict-vs-mistake/). The theory is simple and superficially compelling: different people are primed to interpret antagonism differently, with some people interpreting it as a conflict to be resolved, while others interpret it as a mistake or an information problem that, if only we all had the same information, we would find we don't actually disagree.
In practice, 'mistake theory' turned out to be a really insidious way of weaponizing framing games. You see, if we are in some kind of conflict or competition with each other, and we both see it as a conflict, then there's a certain honesty to that. We each have conflicting goals. One of us will win, one of us will lose. Nothing personal, kid.
But in practice, the mistake theory side always always always presumed that they were correct. After all, if you are mistaken and you believe you are mistaken, you would have already changed your opinion. In arguments, the mistake theory people would always take the woke progressive tone of the schoolteacher. "I am obviously correct, but you're not a bad guy. You're just _mistaken_. If only you saw things from my point of view, you'd see that I am obviously correct, and you'd change your mind". It functioned as a way of claiming victory by fiat, declaring your opponent not just the loser of a conflict, but fundamentally invalid.
Both of these dynamics share a very important trait with your Compatible Opposition thesis. In all three scenarios, the behaviour functions as a way to smuggle in hidden premises and trick your opponent into accepting them, as a way of declaring them not just wrong, but invalid. Of pulling rank and saying "your position is not allowed". It's a really insidious tactic, because the manipulation is very subtle and most people are still primed to interpret it as object-level conflict. In covid, the hidden premise was "it is reasonable to shut down society when The Science™ says so, we're just arguing over what The Science™ says". In the feminist example, the hidden premise was "Obviously we're all going to keep being hoes, we're just arguing about optics". In the rationalist example, the hidden premise is more abstract as well as more direct: "Obviously I'm correct, we're just nitpicking details".
In the face of this tactic, the only acceptable response is (╯°□°)╯︵ ┻━┻. Rejecting the entire system of argument, rejecting the framing, and refusing to engage. To credibly pre-commit to irrationality in order to compel your opponent to stop being manipulative. This is why I take the 'extreme' position that global warming is fundamentally not real, and every environmental policy needs to be opposed. Obviously, industrialization has left a mark on the planet, and denying that eg atmospheric CO2 levels have changed substantially seems absurd. Nevertheless, my position is "it is more important to punish manipulators for manipulating discourse in this way than it is to achieve _any_ object-level position, and so as long as you all keep playing these frame games, I will live my life as if climate change is completely fake. If you want me to engage rationally, then engage me with respect instead of condescension"
this is a really good comment, Eidein. thanks for it.
This is brilliant. I had to read it three times to get my head around it.
Best comment in last few months imo.
I appreciate that.
For some advanced food for thought, I encourage you all to read God Emperor of Dune. In a weird way, this is a theme of that book.
(SPOILERS AHEAD)
God Emperor of Dune is the 4th book in the series, taking place hundreds (thousands?) of years after the events of the first three books. It primarily concerns the titular God Emperor, what he's doing and why, and the people who oppose him.
The book mostly revolves around Siona Atreides, the impetuous daughter of the God Emperor's most trusted personal servant. Siona is the leader of a resistance faction attempting to defeat the God Emperor.
A major theme of Siona's plot arc is that she is essentially controlled opposition. The God Emperor is aware of her actions and, in a weird way, condones them. In fact, the God Emperor sees her as the vessel through which his plan for humanity will be enacted, and he sees her childish and impotent rebellion as part of the process of turning her into one who serves his purposes.
I think a lot of politically-allowed opposition to The Regime is like this. It's controlled opposition. They get channeled into impotence, as a way of letting off steam and protecting The Regime from actual, legitimate demands for change. In the process, they reinforce the kayfabe that is our politics and implicitly accept the framing and premises of The Regime.
Whether it applies or not, your talking about controled opposition reminds me of this scene in the movie "The Ten Commandments" (1956):
Nefretiri:
But beauty of the spirit will not free your people, Moses. You will come to me or they will never leave Egypt.
Moses:
The fate of Israel is not in your hands, Nefretiri
[Moses turns and walks away, but Nefretiri blocks his exit]
Nefretiri:
Oh, isn't it? Who else can soften Pharaoh's heart? Or harden it?
Moses:
[Takes hold of her jaw] Yes. You may be the lovely dust through which God will work his purpose.
wow interesting. I will look into this.
There's _also_ a really interesting detail in the book that overlooked when I originally read it, that I think foreshadows our current society
(MORE SPOILERS)
One of the other plot points in the book is that the God Emperor's armies are all and entirely staffed by women. I think there's a strong parallel between the themes around that in the book, and our modern, effeminized society
Is it really feminized when women are forced to play male roles? I would argue it’s the opposite, the eradication of the truly feminine. The dark chaotic female half of existence tamed by forcing it into a masculine order.
I don't see how anyone can work in a white collar job and not think that American corporate culture is completely and totally feminized. I just started a new job and there was probably 10 'feelings-related' fuzzy bullshit things for every one job-relevant thing. I don't think the world was like this when men ran it for men. I think this all falls out of corporate-managerial types treating everyone like women.
I think they do that, partly, because women occupy most positions of authority these days, either directly or indirectly through influence. And I think they do that, partly, as a mechanism of social control that is somewhat similar to the "mistake theory" point I made above
I would argue that man-buns and skinny jeans accomplish both of your points.
Earlier today I listened to an interesting counter argument to your comment in a discussion that argues that we are living in a gynocracy that corresponds well with Eiden's earlier comment. If curious you may find this interesting to consider. The conversation is about some of the details Jasun Horsely explored in his latest book _The Big Mother_.
https://soundcloud.com/lotuseaters_com/preview-book-club-60-jasun-horsleys-big-mother
Your feminism argument is definitely happening. Lots of Tik Tok videos of women who have drank the Kool-Aid. I keep meeting toxic men for casual sex. How do we meet better men for casual sex. The aftermath of the heartache with the cad they wish to avoid is partly a result of engaging in meaningless flings, but that is glossed over by changing the focus. Quite brilliant in its own way.
The thing is, they _want_ to meet toxic men for casual sex. They don't _want_ to meet better men. They just want society to stop judging them for poor life decisions. That's why their op-eds are intended to shift the overton window by smuggling in premises and getting people to accept them.
I'm 34. I make six figures and I have since I was 22. I am very high-status and run several local communities. I'm kind, loyal, smart, funny, and all those husband qualities that women say they're looking for. I'm also 5'4" and bald, and that's why I haven't had a date in 6 years. The women who actually want good men, became good women, found those men, and got married by 25. Everyone else is looking for shitty men.
Yep. It’s a cliche that the good men are all taken, but a true one. Women who want to marry and have kids laser focus on suitable men and take them off the market. These are the girls who grow up. I think the type you’re talking about essentially want an extended adolescence. They want to be cool (lots of lovers can be seen as cool) and have fun (but not many are willing to admit that stranger sex is often not fun at all) for as long as they can. Shockingly, it’s really not that long. If you think you don’t have good dating prospects, try being a woman who’s showing her age.
Well, I'm not taken.
There is still hope for you. After marrying and divorcing a "toxic" man I met my husband of 44 years when he was 34, bald short with a visual disability! I must add that everyone thought I was doing him a favor by marrying him, if only they knew.
As my late wife might say - late night total joy. Some matches really do work. Twas an Apr-Sep match where she was to help me into my dotage, "but he's an old man".
I quite agree. Lots of venting online about there being no good men. I have noticed more women are countering this and calling out their nonsense. The data is also in. According to the dating apps, where hard numbers are easy to extract, 80 percent of young women now only look at the top 4.5 percent of men. These men are inundated with choices so treat them poorly. The women then assume all men are like this while 95 percent of men are invisible to them.
It is a shame, but the chickens are coming home to roost. Relationships are cratering as men are walking away.
For some personal anecdata, I have a friend. She is 35, very attractive, and generally a walking stereotype of what we're talking about. She is constantly complaining about how she only meets shitty men, is starting to realize she's going to die alone, and is on the hunt for a husband.
Two weeks ago, she called me to rescue her from a shitty tinder date. This guy's crime? He mentioned she was the first tinder date he had gotten in two years. So I picked her up to have a dope friend night.
Long story short, six hours later, she fucked my drug dealer friend on my couch while I was asleep. She says she wants good men. But she took advantage of the one good man in her life for a free ride & excuse while rewarding two shitty men with attention and sex for being shitty. She got exactly what she wanted.
The most upsetting thing to me? When I came to pick her up, her date tried to tag along. Obviously he was not welcome, and she made up an excuse (blaming me!) for why he couldn't come. In the car, she started justifying her behaviour to me with "well, obviously he's just going to go fuck a girl he likes more than me, too, so it's no big deal".
Dude literally told her that she's the only date he's had in years and in her mind, she's _still_ like "oh yeah he's gonna go fuck a dozen other bitches why would he care about me?". In her mind, men can just walk outside and find twelve new women on a moment's notice, because she can (and does!) do this all the time. She is either unwilling or incapable of basic empathy.
Honestly at this point it's becoming a major piece of mental/emotional baggage for me. I've been on exactly one date in the past six years, and (again, long story short) she turned out to be a con artist who was scheming to steal money from me (why can't my life ever be simple and boring?). Any woman I go on a date with, will have another date set up for an hour after our date ends. I'm treating every date I go on as if it is something special and precious, because in my life, it is. The women I'm going on dates with (in the hypothetical world where this happens) are treating me like an interchangeable cog in the dating machine, going so far as to double-book dates on the same night. It is not possible to base a mutually loving and trusting relationship on this foundation.
I have _so many_ stories about friends like this. They always tell me that I'm an amazing guy and a great catch and I'll make _some woman_ really happy some day. Never them though. Definitely never them. Always some other hypothetical one that doesn't exist.
The simplest explanation is usually correct: These women are doing what they want and getting what they want, and their words should be ignored and disregarded.
You are being too nice. I can tell this just from your anecdote. The friend you picked up knew you were available to be used. Other women will too.
Women respect men with boundaries. Lots of material online about this.
The hardest thing for most men to understand women is they respect masculine traits and want men who are not easy to get.
She's been a friend for five years. When a friend asks me for a ride, I give them a ride. That's just kindness.
But that's my point. A good man is a man who goes out of his way to take care of the people he cares about. A good woman will appreciate that and not take advantage of it. A bad woman will take advantage of it, while throwing herself at the guys who treat her like garbage.
In the aftermath of this, I communicated some pretty strict boundaries, and her reaction has been to not speak to me since. Once again, tells me all I need to know about women and their morality.
As for playing hard to get, it's hard to play hard to get when nobody wants to get you in the first place /shrug. But that's their loss. I'll have fun with my giant pile of money while mocking them all for being poor, used up, and alone. I hate who I have become, but I am not the one who decided what the incentives were
right. A lot of people do this.
You are a "friend" only because you are available to bail them out.
Really, no other reasons. A lot of people do this. It is annoying.
Relations between the sexes have become so bogged-down in ever evolving feminine-focussed rules of engagement and anti-male rhetoric, it almost seems as though someone behind the scenes is pulling the strings to scupper the whole human reproductive project. I think the 'tall-dark-and-handsome' stereotype is part of all that too. And of course as a result of all the legal avenues women now have many avenues to play the victim and to be 'defended' against 'toxic masculinity' , while they themselves prize themselves so highly that they will only 'choose' a good provider. Hooking up with one of these gold-diggers, a man who has done nothing but provide, provide provide as he was expected to do, can nowadays suddenly find himself homeless, childless and in court on Family Violence charges on the most spurious of pretexts. Perhaps staying single is the smarter move for men these days - the development of sex-robots may just turn the tide in masculine men's favour when women realise they are no longer the only ones who hold the power of 'withholding consent'. And those soy-boy types who 'feminise' themselves in order to curry favour are not ever going to win in this fray either- the system is run on behalf of women, so they will inevitably find themselves ditched and broke sooner or later, just like the red-blooded guys.
> it almost seems as though someone behind the scenes is pulling the strings to scupper the whole human reproductive project
I know exactly who it is behind the scenes but out of courtesy and not crapping up the quality of discourse here, I'm leaving it unsaid.
Eidein, I am a middle aged man, I have a decent woman and kids. I don't have single friends, 90% of the people that I know are married or in a long term, stable relationship. And since I am a kids football trainer at our local club, I know tons of married people with kids.
A lot of the married men I know are short in stature, bald, fat. ugly, boring, shitty jobs. And guess what: Their wives are also short, fat, ugly and boring.
What I am trying to say: Maybe you want women which are out of your reach? If you are short and bald, maybe give an ugly lady a chance?
I should add that I am bald, not particularly pretty and I am not super confident with women, so this comment is not meant to insult you. Gotta be realistic about who to look for.
Eidein - you are not alone - but I'm your opposite. I'm 5'10" , aged 69, have a lovely head of hair, and I am still bombarded by FB adverts for wigs and hidden platform shoes: it must be cruel being challenged vertically and follicly.
In my 20's/ early 30's I was stone broke, (think traveller-type) had hair down to my shoulders, was skinny as a rake, quoted loads of poetry, and was a bit of a woman-magnet.
However, My grandfather was 5' tall, and when he was widowed in his 50's, he joined an old fashioned dating agency, and met my step-grandma, a widow, who was an inch shorter than him, and a sexy as hell.
Apparently they bonked like bunnies, and they enjoyed many lovely years as husband and wife.
Eidein, you are too right. Especially when you said,
“The women who actually want good men, became good women, found those men, and got married by 25.”
And I missed the boat. Too late now
That's just the modern western woman: she wants to whore about the place free of charge and consequence.
It's the companion piece of the man similarly whoring about while insisting his chosen one be a virgin.
While I admit people should be free to act such should they so desire, no-one have any obligation to save them from the costs and consequences of their actions, which includes calling them whores and whoremongers.
Don't want the label? Don't behave in such a way that the label fits.
> It's the companion piece of the man similarly whoring about while insisting his chosen one be a virgin.
I slept with 5 women in my life, 4 in a context where I thought we were on the path to marriage. I have never been that kind of man.
In fact, the fact that I wasn't that kind of man was a major source of conflict in my last relationship, where she essentially left because I "wasn't good enough at sex". Obviously you're not going to be good if you don't get any practice. That's true of everything
I find the whole concept of "good at sex" fallacious.
Then again, I've been married for nigh on 30 years now, so I'm not really in a position to judge people on how they deal with the dating-scene today.
My son has often complained that meeting women is easy; meeting someone who is wife-material is akin to chasing unicorns and he is in his thirties. I have friends in the 30-50 age span who complains about the same thing: "partying" yes, settling and raising a family no. The girls just don't want to grow up into adult women, they want to be fancyfree footloose princesses all their lives, is the sum of the lamentations I hear.
Wish I could offer some advice, I do remember the dreadful feeling of thinking one is doomed to solitude for life.
But: it's not over until one gives up.
If I was regularly meeting non-wife-material women and having fun I would have a very different perspective. But that hasn't happened for me either.
Dear Eidein, I was reading your comments yesterday and I have been mulling them over in my head. What you tell us is that you have not met anyone who would or could be your wife. So maybe what you need is broaden your horizon a bit. I think it's fair to state that you have searched your own environment thourougly and she is not there. That doesn't mean she is not elsewhere in the world. Maybe it is time for you to take a step back, quit your job, rent out your house and start travelling. You will probably find that 'liberalism' or 'feminism' is not an all pervasive trait throughout the world. There are lots and lots of places where women still know how to be a wife and a mother. Just probably not in the US (or large parts of Europe. Eastern Europe would be better than Western). Don't let yourself get bogged down by ephemeral things like jobs or houses. They are worth nothing without love. Go find love instead. I wish you all the love and hapiness in the world!
it is also in many of the "new" shows and series written for television.
People making stupid choices but that is okay, because they do not care.
Just do not cross them, you will make them cry -- as Amdg says above: A smoking ruin
I think that is becoming apparent. They want to be kings of their domain and are indifferent to it being a pile of rubble.
Excellent.
I, too, deny anthropogenic climate change. Every aspect of the climate cult is just so incredibly dumb For example, if climate change is occurring, there ought to be as well as costs benefits. This is never acknowledged! Also, the cult assumes that humans have no ability whatever to adapt to (gradually!) changing conditions, when in fact our species does this extremely well. That's why there are 7 BILLION of us!
And, finally, here in Virginia, USA, where I live we have had a supremely pleasant and mild winter, followed by a supremely pleasant and mild spring, followed by a very pleasant and mild summer, and now a supremely pleasant and mild fall. If this is a "climate crisis," sign me up for another fifty years of it! As long as I've lived in Virginia, the weather has been absolutely within usual parameters, and nature is flourishing. The forests are lush, the birds are happy and abundant, the foxes, deer and rabbits abound, and there are more fish in the rivers than you can shake a stick at.
"Climate change" is absolute bunk. It would be funny if the cult weren't doing so much real economic and emotional damage.
One of the best ways you can tell that our leaders do not believe what they say about climate change: I'm Canadian. If the globe is warming, Canada dramatically benefits. So why is Canada trying to stop it?
Of course Canada would dramatically benefit. Just think of all the arable land that would be opened up for farming. Also, if shipping were guaranteed year-round in an ice-free arctic, international commerce would become cheaper on many important routes.
I live in Northern Virginia and I agree with you 100%
However, here we have "crisis news and reports" every day. the weather channel, CNN and news org. They need readers and eyes and ear to hear information, the more alarming the better for the organizations, because the drug pusher commercials are not selling the show. or maybe they are.
I live in northern Virginia, too. Even here in suburban DC, nature is flourishing. There are foxes, deer, wild turkeys, beavers (!), herons, cranes, eagles, hawks, raccoons; I see fishermen pulling massive bass out of the Potomac. And head just a little south and west out into the countryside and, oh my goodness, it is so, so beautiful. The Blue Ridge Parkway this summer could have been mistaken for the Garden of Eden, it was so lush, cool, misty and green. Practically the whole state of West Virginia itself is one massive, lush deciduous forest, punctuated by gushing streams flowing off the mountainsides. Rivers and streams are gushing, the beaches around here look great, flora and fauna going gangbusters, really thriving. What I cannot understand for the life of me, then, is how a person can live surrounded by all this evidence of an absolutely thriving natural environment, and negate his/her every day, concrete experience because somebody on TV said something different? It is astounding: What are you gonna believe, your own eyes or the hack reading a teleprompter in a studio somewhere? I really cannot fathom it. And it's not just Virginia. Everywhere I've traveled the last several years has seemed great. Even the desert in southern California this past winter was ablaze with what seemed like millions of colorful flowers because there'd been so much rain and snow over the winter! When are Americans going to shut this blatant con game down? We need to do it now.
P.S. Another couple of obvious signs that the "climate crisis" is a fraud: Ten years ago, water levels in the Great Lakes were falling below recent averages. This was said to be evidence of the impending climate catastrophe! Well, just a few years after that, the lake levels reversed course and rose to a point higher than recent averages. This was said to be evidence of the impending climate catastrophe! And what should be the biggest indicator of all: All year long, and especially in the North American summer, the grocery stores around here are positively bursting with fresh fruits and vegetables, often so abundant they are sold at a steep discount just to get them moved off the shelves. Wouldn't a "climate crisis" mean food is becoming scarcer? Yet, year after year official data on global food production indicate steadily increasing harvests. Give me a break. I cannot stand anymore of this blatant intellectual dishonesty and warmongering from our "leaders" and their lackeys in the media. We Americans have to end this madness right away via the ballot box, yes, but also by speaking the truth about the fraud loudly and often.
Fantastic comment. We will never be engaged with in a respectful manner, and I now accept that. They won’t stop till the place is a smoking ruin.
agree. the more they feel they can cancel you, for whatever reason, and there are plenty to choose from, they feel personally empowered. We need to continue to view them as silly animals - ignore them. We do not need them.
The TL;DR version of this would apply to the social dynamic that prevents our elite class from getting their comeuppance: "I know I'm guilty, and you know I'm guilty, but you cannot do anything about it, so we're going to keep pretending that I'm not."
Interesting reference to Mistake Theory, because that was already how I thought of my positions. But I'm also willing to, y'know, *actually* be convinced that I'm wrong. Because yes, I recognize that I hold the positions I do because I have reasoned myself into them, but also that I am falliable and don't know everything, as much as I've tried. ;)
Also, glorious tableflip emoji. :D
Also also,
> Nevertheless, my position is "it is more important to punish manipulators for manipulating discourse in this way than it is to achieve _any_ object-level position, and so as long as you all keep playing these frame games, I will live my life as if climate change is completely fake. If you want me to engage rationally, then engage me with respect instead of condescension"
Quoted For Truth
The mods at TheMotte _really_ didn't appreciate me taking that position.
Incidentally, if you are already familiar with Mistake Theory, then I assume you're familiar with TheMotte. I was one of their most popular contributors for five years, until hlynka gave me the only permanent ban in that subreddit's history. It pissed everyone off so hard that they had to appoint a new mod to appease people 🤣
I am familiar with TheMotte in passing. I read SlateStarCodex irregularly, and now AstralCodexTen even more irregularly. But that's about as much of that as I want to spend time on, really. My Reddit time mostly goes to reading fiction. 😁
Hanging around in a subreddit with that crowd all the time would either drive me completely insane, or burn all of my time, or possibly both.
Excellent comment!
I reached a similar conclusion about the pandemic response when I observed the a priori invalidation of critics and their criticisms (i.e. a facts checker's guide to fact checking).
As you have pointed out, the framing never permited an honest exchange and discussion of competing ideas in the first place. And I have just realised this is possibly the aspect which most disturbed and affected me during the pandemic because I personally so dearly hold the principle of honest discussion as the crucible for testing and probing ideas in the pursuit of truth. I actually wouldn't care which side won if they played "fair" ;)
"never permitted an honest exchange". That the public tolerated the censorship, cancellation and astounding limits on personal freedom has been difficult to watch. That so many governments across the world were supportive of these crimes equally difficult.
We fled to SubStack and writers like eugyppius to find kindred souls in the commentary. We were not alone despite being cancelled elsewhere. And now even the public masses are discovering how they were duped. A bit of reflective anger would be nice.
One thing that seems to have flown under the radar is that, prior to the covid pandemic, there was a rich body of literature on the subject of masking. ALL OF IT said that masking doesn't work.
The most charitable interpretation of the literature could be summarized as "masking _would_ work, if people wore their masks correctly, but even people formally trained in this routinely fuck it up, so there's zero chance that the general public will
Remember this image? https://www.cdc.gov/niosh/npptl/pdfs/facialhairwmask11282017-508.pdf. Anyone who has a mask on and hasn't shaved their beard is walking proof of the fact that masks don't work
Excellent points and observations. This especially should be highlighted:
"So even as the article would appear to be taking a position _against_ the activity, the article would simultaneously _normalize_ the activity. In this way, it would actually reinforce a superficial opposition that was, in fact, the point."
When I learned it as a technique (it was taught when I took rethorics) the lecturer stressed that even if you couldn't change someone's mind, you could make them accept your premises, something that very statement is an example of in itself. After they have done that, all it takes is time and constant exposure to your idea to not only normalise it as aceeptable but make it mandatory as a duty. Frequency of exposure is more important than signal strength, so to speak.
Our study-example was the "gay movement", from the early 1950s to present day (which was the early 1990s).
Complete tangent but the acceptance of LGBT is the single greatest example of how democracy is fake and gay.
Consider the "narrative" of democracy: We are a nation of sober-minded, informed citizens, we studiously ponder issues presented to us. Then we all state our preferred position, and the position with the most support wins.
Implicit in this narrative is the idea that people have coherent, consistent positions and opinions in the first place. Like, for example, we would all agree that casting a vote on the basis of "that politician is hot" would be a violation of the spirit of democracy.
So consider gay marriage. Like 2 years before gay marriage was legal, a large majority of the population opposed it. 2 years after gay marriage became legal, a large majority of the population supported it.
It is not remotely plausible that hundreds of millions of people all went from "gays should be thrown in prison" to "nah they're fine", in the span of two years. What is much, much more likely, is that most of the people who 'opposed' it before it was legal, didn't actually care, and most of the people who 'support' it after it was legal, still don't actually care.
But if that's the case, then you can't meaningfully say that there was a coherent public opinion about it in the first place, because nobody was actually thinking it through and coming to a reasoned position. They were, essentially, bandwagoning in a popularity contest.
Ergo, the idea of 'sober-minded informed voters sharing their sincere beliefs and coming to consensus' is a fantasy, and in reality, it's all propaganda, manipulation, and coercion all the way down
Touching the "third rail" right there! Sadly true, too.
I used to teach among other subject political and social science, so seeing someone able and daring to be so clear about some of the problems with the idea no matter the specific iteration is refreshing. Usually, it's "democracy is good, mm'kay?" and anyone arguing otherwise even just for arguements sake is Hitler.
I've always found it strange that we have politicians who have neither professional skills nor factual knowledge or even the wisdom of life experience decides matters.
Why not just have a lottery for who gets into parliament? Can't get more democratic than that, nor more representative of the demographic in question.
That is, if representation and "by the people, for the people" actually is a goal in its own right.
Great comment. The framing question is primary. Marxists are great at luring people with language, emotional decision-making, and the inflammation of negate emotions into the Blue Pill , Overton Window-shifting realm even though they are always wrong and destructive.
Check out Stephen Coughlin’s “Trimaran Theory” or James Lindsay’s many lectures.
Re: Ecopalypic Global Warmongering - methinks it is the realm where Marxists - heartbroken by the fall of the Berlin Wall - could attack capitalism while on tenture tracks.
It all falls apart with their inability to answer two sciencey questions: What is the Delta (difference) between the current Earth’s temperature and its optimal temperature? Why is that optimal? (Show your work).
Stay Red-Pilled my friends.
A fantastic comment that eloquently writes down something I've engaged in subconsciously for the last few years. When the position of The Enemy is Mistake and when they are unwilling to shift to Conflict, the best course of action is to move to Rational Irrationality. This prevents The Enemy from pushing you into an debate corner using their pre-rehearsed word games that conclude in bad-faith gotchas backed by Science™ sources. No participants of any debate, formal or informal, have ever left that debate with an alternative worldview, hence the use of subliminal messaging attacks during a victim's unguarded moments (eg. TV, infiltration of "echo chambers"). Do not engage in debate with lunatics - that is the surefire way to be immune to their tactics.
"... the only acceptable response is (╯°□°)╯︵ ┻━┻. "
What is "(╯°□°)╯︵ ┻━┻" ???
Flipping a table over in frustration
And hence they smuggle in the premises that modeling and the ipse dixit of experts are the same as objective data.
I knew from the very first paragraph that this would be epic, vintage eugyppius. A tour de force of insight, sarcasm, and humor. I wasn't disappointed.
Gretas Green Guards are the new Maos Red Guards. The Great Reset is the new Great Leap Forward. Climatism is an ideological cult on implementing Marxism, not science: https://yuribezmenov.substack.com/p/sunrise-movement-maos-red-greta-green-guards
Greta pushes for climate tyranny on the plebs, but has she ever mentioned the US military as the world's biggest polluter? Seems like an odd thing to ignore.
She is totally scripted. A mouthpiece, nothing more.
FACT!
"she gots no brains"
Nah. Currently, she's busy supporting Hamas.
Are you the actual, real Yuri Bezmenov, or just a fan of his? I'm a little star-struck!
A fan who is using him as a pseudonym to write about the subversion he warned us about. The real Yuri passed away in 1993.
Well now I feel quite the fool. I was a little confused, since I assumed he would be like 120 years old by now
Spot on as always!
Mao is a great example
Torsten Mann: Rote Lügen im grünen Gewand. Der kommunistische Hintergrund der Öko-Bewegung. Kopp Verlag, Rottenburg 2009
(Torsten Mann: Red Lies in Green Clothes. The Communist Origins of the Green Movement)https://xyu.livejournal.com/785408.html
Check out this opinion piece in JAMA. The author even said he had to go "tepid" in order to get it published:
https://jamanetwork.com/journals/jama/fullarticle/2809861?utm_source=substack&utm_medium=email
And herein lies the real threat: How we came to two generations that take climate change as unquestionable gospel.
I wonder who would be a bigger zealot in an imaginary crisis:
Someone who thinks you killed grandma or someone who thinks you're killing mother earth?
The level of cruelty that can be justified when people believe in a "moral" crusade is boundless because the beast inside is no longer burdened with the boundaries of empathy.
There is nothing so dangerous as a person or group who believe the ultimate testament of their fidelity to a righteous cause requires acts of cruelty to demonstrate their purity.
the pandemic revealed, thanks to the warriors who dug in, that everything health associated is mostly run with big pharma money, which they got mostly funneled through governments from the taxpayers. The scientific journals, the medical schools, the research, all of it is dictated by big pharma. The governments of the world transferred 75 billion dollars to these companies during the pandemic, and they spread it liberally to buy acquiescence and loyalty. From the politicians, to the CDC to your local hospital, doctor's office, and county health.
I could not agree more.
As the mafia is to government/politicians/lobbyist, the Drug Lords are to big pharma, combined as one gang, they are tyrants of millions of little tyrants. They have the power to change the meaning of words, at their whim, for their purposes, in broad daylight, to the exact opposite of the universally understood prior definition, and have confidence to do so without opposition and with virtually zero detection by the public.
The relationship is fraught with exploitation and myriad landmines of "unintended consequences". Not to mention the breathtaking lawlessness, mendacity, malfeasance, mockery, malice, avarice and abject depravity displayed with no shame, for 3 years of our lives.
They de facto advertised, nonstop for two years, to a captive global population, their ability to subsume your agency with wicked stealth camouflaged by a Cabal of Consensus manufactured to give the appearance that resistance is futile.
They just concluded a global Proof of Concept exercise that validated their idea/product wholesale. They continue to demonstrate their intent; to be the eternal sole guardian of the tools, the tool belt and the blueprints for any "project", of their choosing, at any time, for "emergencies" they define. Of most importance they inadvertently discovered that the subjects of their experiment have no desire to understand the results of the experiment nor to learn whether THE SCIENCE should ever be used again.
The product is CONTROL; the control of a complacent, compliant and cowardly public that gave them the power to appoint themselves the "unmoved mover", free from the demands of external agency, to be the master of your autonomy.
They obliterated the SCIENTIFIC METHOD overnight and turned it into a belief system branded as THE SCIENCE. They have effectively obliterated the only universal reference we have for questioning our world and seeking truth.
They have granted themselves the power to obliterate history.
I don't know about you, but that sounds like a gang of cruel gods that needs to be disbanded, with urgency, before they control the remembrance of an unwitting publics history.
If you think about it, this paradigm (the relationship between government and big pharma) is so creepy that it has they potential for an emergent and self-assembling creeping evil with legions of bureaucrats as hosts.
100% concur, and beautifully detailed.
Thanks!
👏 👏 👏
Terrifyingly true....
I've been surprised to see that 'Just Stop Oil' on Britain haven't been more violent. If you *truly* believe you're saving the lives of millions then what's a few hundred along the way? After all, wouldn't you rather Hitler had died in his cradle before he could kill millions?
No, because then someone like Speer or Guderian or Rommel or Skorzeny would have held the reins of the Reich instead.
And that would have been much, much worse.
It was a thought experiment, but alright.
See also Hamas and jihad.
The best work on this subject that I have read is by Alex Epstein as he carefully goes through the benefits of fossil fuels and how necessary they are if there is to be a transition to something else.
the point you make regarding the need to have energy to enjoy the current lifestyle is something that is completely missed by the climate hysterics as well. I suggest we simply take away all the things they use that are reliant on fossil fuels, notably their iPhones and iPads as well as computers, clothing and transportation, whether EV or not, and let them live their dream, naked in a cave.
Epstein makes many great points
You misunderstand one crucial point: the zealots don’t believe they themselves will have to live with the restrictions. After all, they will be running the bureaucracies that implement the rules. As such, they will need phones, transportation etc. The truly rich climateers will merely continue to fly around on their jets as they do now, secure in the knowledge that their carbon has been offset with cash.
au contraire, I completely understand that's what they expect. that's why I think we need them to experience their dream completely. without that, they will never comprehend reality, and that will be a cold hard reality. worth watching
Ok but the rest of us will suffer more under this scenario
you are correct, but my biggest fear is this is what is coming anyway if they get to implement their ideas. better they should suffer as well, rather than live in their Elysium
I wouldn't go that far. As a person coming from Sweden she should just eat what naturally grows in Sweden. So she can return to her extremely healthy potato diet.
My own position is this: I don't have a strong opinion about man-made climate change because, in order to have a VALID opinion, I would have to devote myself night-and-day to trawling through the data. What I DO know though is that - of the (now probably) hundreds of millions of people who do have a strong opinion - the vast majority haven't trawled through the evidence either; they've just 'heard about it in the media'. I also know that most people (good decent people in other ways no doubt) are intellectual sheep. Group-think is a huge factor in human affairs.
"You Must Not Do Your Own Research When it Comes to Science" I thought that was a Babylon Bee headline. Nope. Forbes. And not sarcasm. Unbe - fucking - lievable.
https://www.forbes.com/sites/startswithabang/2020/07/30/you-must-not-do-your-own-research-when-it-comes-to-science/?sh=50da2b53535e
Not surprisingly, the author's trust in "Science" as related to us by his precious "experts" turned out to be completely misplaced. They were wrong, we were right.
I think it is appropriate to decide amongst experts, which ones most closely align with your own value structure, and use them as your go-to sources. They have already sifted the data and found which sources they consider worthwhile, or the bought shills. Why reinvent the wheel? Your job is to read enough from all the variety of experts, and commentary on them, to find those you align with. That is a large enough task for anyone outside the industry.
Yes true....and how many of my opinionated 'hundreds of millions' do that would you say?
I would round it off to...not very many
only the ones you find on the alternate media, like substack; less than 20% of the general population during the pandemic
and I answered even though your tone was rhetorical
I would be happy to consider myself a conservationist of the old guard, with a focus on preserving species, preserving habitat, and eliminating litter. I think that zero-waste is a laudable goal that an advanced industrial society should set for itself. No, it cannot be done at a profit, but I think it would be worth spending the comparatively small amount of tax revenue it would require to reprocess our waste into substances that the biosphere could readily absorb. Anything that is not recycled should be reverted to the four elements by composting, incineration, or pulverization, which are all fairly easy to do at scale.
In keeping with this philosophy, I do not consider carbon dioxide emissions to be a pollutant. Carbon dioxide is the foundational nutrient of all life on Earth, and increasing its base level in the atmosphere by a few hundredths of a percent generally does far more good than harm. Carbon-based fuels have been a blessing all the way around: we have a rich, energy-dense fuel, we get to enjoy the benefits of burning it, and when we're done with that, the waste product is plant food. What's not to like about this arrangement?
It follows that the ludicrous idea of carbon sequestration is one of the most descriptively stupid things an "environmentalist" could ever support. Starving the environment of its key nutrient does not seem like an environmentally friendly activity to me. Thankfully, these carbon sequestration schemes will never be more than an infinitesimal drop in the ocean of the global carbon cycle, but the very idea of the thing is pernicious.
I would be anxious to join (or perhaps start) an environmentalist movement for sane people who actually share my basic beliefs, since sane environmentalism has long since been left by the wayside in the name of climatism.
Indeed it’s a shame that organizations like The Sierra Club and The Nature Conservancy have fallen to regime activism, adopting the narratives demanded by it.
I thought I was alone in feeling this way, then I found https://amgreatness.com/2023/04/04/how-climate-alarmism-killed-real-environmentalism/
I am, to a degree, similar, although also a pollutionist, but that's because I am personally very negatively affected by pesticides and local air quality like laundry vents.
I want to conserve some lands and water to be lower in pollution. I live in Ontario, as my name states, and some of our Great Lakes are too polluted for me to swim in, for example. But other water bodies, with less agricultural runoff entering them, such as Georgian Bay, are fine for me to swim in. What effects are happening to local wildlife I don't know, but it's probably not good for them either.
Bingo. Climatism & Pandemism are offshoots of the same ideology: we are facing an existential threat and only coordinated top-down control can save us.
'Only if you give up your rights and freedoms can the planet be saved.' The elites' control of the narrative has become so pervasive that some, if not most people actually believe it.
Their polls claim the majority still believe The Science, media and government.
Latest covid shot uptake below 10% reflects reality. And that comes despite unlimited money and power. Demoralization belongs to them.
'Science' with a capital 'S' is akin to mythology or religious dogma.
I used to add ™ but capitalizing gets the point across. Scientism works too. In image form it would be Neil Degrasse Tyson shaking while yelling "consensus!"
it's the mantra of every cult ever. planet, soul...
Amazingly, the people/policies/ideologies that create the problem also offer the solution....
This is the seminal statement from your brief essay:
“Billions and billions would die of famine and disease were we to Just Stop Oil.”
Bullseye. Covid was climate hysteria on steroids.
Yeah, but climate hysteria seems to have no end.
like the poor, the weather will always be with us
Please keep writing on this subject. My view, and you put your finger directly on it last column, is that we are ruining our economies for de minimis improvement in CO2 levels and no lowering, none, of global surface temperatures. Meanwhile, China goes merrily on its way building city-sized, coal-burning power plants that pollute the hell out of the planet whether or not they even bother to engage scrubbers. Forget the open-air foundries and who-knows-what toxins running into rivers and streams. But the Chinese make a good show of promoting solar power and EVs. And why wouldn’t they? They own more than 80% of the solar panel production market and they hope to get their EVs there as well. Sorry for the economic and financial take. But they undergird the politics, at least, as they relate to China.
imho one of the most pernicious threats of climatism at this juncture is that a 'climate emergency' can be called a threat to public health, under the direction of a single individual, with no further proof needed, and unleash all the anticipated new powers of the WHO to dictate global equity and taking of resources from 'rich' nations to confer on poorer ones. The creation of 'One Health' initiatives means literally nothing is off the table.
Remember, most of these things seem to coast along because virtue signalling is cheap. Once it becomes expensive it stops.
A survey in the UK showed respondents moderately on board with climate initiatives. Until they were asked if they would give up meat and cut meat consumption for their kids. Only 12 percent said yes. Most were a firm no.
Much of this is driven by the middle classes who have comfortable lives. Once that changes everything changes.
https://legalinsurrection.com/2023/11/climate-cultists-get-roasted-after-suggesting-climate-warning-labels-should-be-slapped-on-meat/
Private ownership of firearms and "gun violence" as healthcare problems.
they already stuck the camel's nose in the tent, and can legally take weapons from those they consider mentally unstable. I wonder when they will get around to saying that openly about the people who have different ideas about vaxxines and healthcare.
It’s really simple. No CO2, no plants.
No plants, no O2 production.
No O2, we die.
"atmospheric carbon dioxide levels and global temperatures have fluctuated wildly over the earth’s long history."
Yes, they have. There's a wonderful book, The Ends of the World by Peter Brannen, which describes how "our world has ended five times: it has been broiled, frozen, poison-gassed, smothered, and pelted by asteroids." What struck me about this book was the concept that with each mass extinction, life survived, but in such a totally different form that Earth became essentially an entirely different planet. It's been a while, but I recall the author seem to be on the anthropogenic climate change team. Despite that, it's a great read.
Anyway, what we are experiencing now is probably just one of the slight fluctuations, although we won't know until it's over, will we? Humans have search a short time-span-awareness, they expect things to remain static in perpetuity. That's unrealistic.
Your last paragraph hit the nail on the head
A few months ago I read a book by a paleontologist about mammal evolution. Unfortunately, he ruined his book with incessant mentions of the "the threat of anthropogenic climate change," in spite of the fact that his own book was a history of climate change (and the response of mammalian evolution to it) without any human involvement. I got within about two pages of the end of the book and literally stopped reading due to one AGW comment too many. This same author has other books that I would be interested in reading except that he's completely put me off from his work.
Yes! The assumption that climate should be static is built in!
Finally, someone points out the advantages of the hydrocarbon economy. Nitrogen-fixing fertilizers are a wonderfully useful by-product of oil refining, and their widespread use has multiplied agricultural productivity, fed the world, and led to an actual decline in cultivated acreage - to the benefit of the environment. As American pundit Patrick Buchanan once pointed out to the climateers who wanted to ban fossil fuels: "Who wants to be the one to tell 800 million Africans that they're going to starve?"
Also note that today people don't starve due to lack of food, they die because there is no food where they are. Those who are saved from starvation are saved by the fossil fuel that's burned to bring them food.
Climate change is both a fraud and a scam
" . . . that wealthy American protectorate known as Europe." LOL! I'll never think of modern Europe in the same way again.