culture

Psychopathy is an anticoncept

Thumotic proposes that “psychopathy” is an anti concept, created to make men weak. The definition of psychopathy combines traits that are unlikely to be correlated, for example 1: the ability to endure stress and danger calmly, and the propensity to lie casually without regard to the long term consequences. 2: the propensity to act vigorously and competently in pursuit of goals and the lack of realistic, long-term goals The concept …

culture

Taleb refutes Pinker on war

A long time back I criticized Pinker’s “better angels of our nature”, arguing that he mistakes leftism for progress and goodness, arguing that criminal violence by citizens against each other is at extraordinarily high levels, that state violence against citizens in the form of imprisonment and policing is at levels unprecedented except when a state is crushing a hostile enemy population in a condition of war or near war, and …

culture

The moron elite

Twenty two out of twenty three Harvard grads could not explain why the earth gets hotter in summer and cooler in winter. So I asked my cleaning lady, who has received no science education whatsoever, and very little education. She replied that the days were longer in summer and shorter in winter. I then prompted her “Why are they longer in summer and shorter in winter?”, to which she correctly …

culture

After economic leftism

Economic leftism, workers against capitalists, died with the Soviet Union. Now it is women and nonwhites against white heterosexual males. American Hindus have extremely high incomes and are extremely reliable Democrat voters. Hindus are the opposite end of income and education spectrum to Mexicans, yet vote the same. Old fashioned economic leftism doesn’t explain this. And yet there is the sense that something is being redistributed. The country itself is …

culture

Raping Sanza Stark

I have not been watching Game of Thrones since they killed off every character I cared about, but the recent fuss about rape caused me to watch the latest episode. To see the controversy, fast forward to the end. All the rest is people you don’t know or care about talking about things you do not understand, apart from a scene where the youngest Stark kid gets the beating she …

war

Losing Ramadi

Obama is of course a Muslim, progressive, and anticolonialist who hates America and wishes to see America defeated, but allowing Ramadi, and indeed Iraq, to be lost was pretty sensible. The underlying Bush theory was that Iraq would become a well run democracy, like Switzerland, where the Shia majority elected nice moderate progressives, thereby counterbalancing the dangerous influence of the Shia religious crazies in Iran.   The middle east would become …

war

Indonesia, Thailand, and Malaysia capitulate and allow the boats.

Since Tony Abbot has been elected prime minister of Australia, no one is known to have successfully illegally immigrated to Australia. Their boat goes back, or if they are unusually stubborn and persistent, they wind up in a military run prison camp in a third world hell hole. From time to time progressives complain about the conditions in these camps. As far as is known, no one has yet wound …

economics

After white male america

Law enforcement against blacks is inherently racist. Gentrification proceeded under an unprincipled exception. Eric Holder is rolling back that unprincipled exception. Not only does every good progressive know that being black is no indicator of propensity to commit crimes, he also knows that a past history of criminal conduct is no indicator of propensity to commit crimes in future – see “Les Miserables” for the correct progressive position on crime …