If Jimmy Kimmel had been fighting for free speech against cancel culture for the past 10 years, I'd say "let's fight for the guy, doesn't matter if I disagree with him"
But he's past of the faction that hasn't shut up about "silencing misinformation and disinformation", why should anyone? They're hoisted by their own petard. They wanted the government to regulate disinformation and misinformation, and now the government is! They should celebrate their win!
Otoh, if Dave Chappelle wants to make a joke in poor taste about Charlie Kirk, I think I'd want to have his back because he did stand up when it looked like he'd lose everything for going against the crowd. Even if I disagreed with him. He's a man who earned his freedom in fire.
But he's past of the faction that hasn't shut up about "silencing misinformation and disinformation", why should anyone? They're hoisted by their own petard. They wanted the government to regulate disinformation and misinformation, and now the government is! They should celebrate their win!
Otoh, if Dave Chappelle wants to make a joke in poor taste about Charlie Kirk, I think I'd want to have his back because he did stand up when it looked like he'd lose everything for going against the crowd. Even if I disagreed with him. He's a man who earned his freedom in fire.
We create Hell, it isn't imposed upon us by God.
You could invite the damned into heaven, but they'd just turn it into Hell because they want to reject God's light.
You could invite the damned into heaven, but they'd just turn it into Hell because they want to reject God's light.
Is Gen Z the poorest generation ever? I've seen a few videos and posts suggesting that is the case.
Honestly, absolutely not. Not remotely.
Is Gen Z poorer than the boomers? Yes. Is Gen Z poorer than the millennials? Also yes. Are they the poorest in history? Not by a long shot.
Consider that a lot of previous generations struggled to get enough to eat. A lot of previous generations couldn't have actual savings. The bulk of many previous generations weren't even allowed to own anything since private ownership is a relatively recent thing in history.
You know the word "Bandit"? Well historically, that's not just a word, it's a lived reality. You couldn't really travel between cities easily because you'd be jumped by roving bands of such bandits because that's the only way they had to live. In Rome, many bandits were former farmers whose lands were taken by the government and given to soldiers without compensation. They'd be so many the would conquer a city, and they wouldn't hit the Louis Vuitton store, they'd hit the granary because a few tons of grain were worth more to them than luxury goods because they were so poor food wasn't a guarantee.
There have been chokepoints in human history where the average human was so destitute, the race nearly ended. We know of two such chokepoints, mitochondrial eve and Y-Chromosomal adam, where the entire human race has a single female and male ancestor. That doesn't mean that all of humanity was just one woman or one man at that time, but it does mean that humanity came close enough to the brink that such a bottleneck was possible. Comparing that to not being able to buy a nice house and a nice car, and there's no comparison.
Much more recently, workers in the early industrial revolution were constantly on a knife's edge, working their asses off and barely getting enough money for food and shelter, such that an employed worker faced a real potential for starvation.
Even in the past century or so, we have evidence of how destitute the average person was. Most people can barely fit in cars from the 40s and 50s. A Mustang used to be a car you and your wife might use, but today most people would find it uncomfortably cramped. Why? Because individuals face much better material conditions their entire lives and ignoring for a minute that being fat is considered a poor person's disease, people are incredibly tall and muscular compared to the past as well.
I do believe that the millennials and Gen Z are the poorest generation in the history of the world in other ways.
We are the poorest generations in history in that we have lost our connections to local culture and community. Before the postwar boom, more people went to church, more people participated in community clubs, more people had friends they saw in person on a regular basis.
We are the poorest generations in history in that we have some of the weakest family connections in world history. Postmodernism has attacked concepts like the family because they can be deconstructed. Many parents aren't passing on much to their kids except how to use an ipad. The majority of both men and women are seeing a collapsing likelihood of ever having families of their own.
We are the poorest generations in history in that we have lost more of our history and culture disappear than any other -- libraries full of books, and nobody reads. Certain specific societies seemed to have parallels in the bronze age collapse, but oral traditions did continue at that time. We don't even tell old stories because clever postmodernists deconstructed them and told us they were stupid. How many in Gen Z know about the seven Pleiades sisters? How many in Gen Z actually know the stories of King Arthur or Charlamagne? How many in Gen Z can look at the sky and understand the stars? Most of Gen Z can't even see the stars from their cities -- surrounded by lights when most societies were too poor to light every street every night all night, but missing the truth of reality beyond the shroud of that light.
Given that Gen Z and beyond are currently materially wealthy, their futures are bleak. Previous generations were poor, but at least they knew how to grow a potato. How many kids grow up thinking food comes from the store? If entire generations are growing up not knowing how to make the fundamentals of life work, how exactly are they supposed to maintain the immense wealth when it comes time for them to steward it? For that reason, I expect that the poorest generation in history may end up being something like Generation Gamma, after the boomers and even millennials die out, and bring their knowledge to the grave. Surrounded by farms, but nobody knows how to farm. Surrounded by technology that eventually erodes into rocks.
Honestly, absolutely not. Not remotely.
Is Gen Z poorer than the boomers? Yes. Is Gen Z poorer than the millennials? Also yes. Are they the poorest in history? Not by a long shot.
Consider that a lot of previous generations struggled to get enough to eat. A lot of previous generations couldn't have actual savings. The bulk of many previous generations weren't even allowed to own anything since private ownership is a relatively recent thing in history.
You know the word "Bandit"? Well historically, that's not just a word, it's a lived reality. You couldn't really travel between cities easily because you'd be jumped by roving bands of such bandits because that's the only way they had to live. In Rome, many bandits were former farmers whose lands were taken by the government and given to soldiers without compensation. They'd be so many the would conquer a city, and they wouldn't hit the Louis Vuitton store, they'd hit the granary because a few tons of grain were worth more to them than luxury goods because they were so poor food wasn't a guarantee.
There have been chokepoints in human history where the average human was so destitute, the race nearly ended. We know of two such chokepoints, mitochondrial eve and Y-Chromosomal adam, where the entire human race has a single female and male ancestor. That doesn't mean that all of humanity was just one woman or one man at that time, but it does mean that humanity came close enough to the brink that such a bottleneck was possible. Comparing that to not being able to buy a nice house and a nice car, and there's no comparison.
Much more recently, workers in the early industrial revolution were constantly on a knife's edge, working their asses off and barely getting enough money for food and shelter, such that an employed worker faced a real potential for starvation.
Even in the past century or so, we have evidence of how destitute the average person was. Most people can barely fit in cars from the 40s and 50s. A Mustang used to be a car you and your wife might use, but today most people would find it uncomfortably cramped. Why? Because individuals face much better material conditions their entire lives and ignoring for a minute that being fat is considered a poor person's disease, people are incredibly tall and muscular compared to the past as well.
I do believe that the millennials and Gen Z are the poorest generation in the history of the world in other ways.
We are the poorest generations in history in that we have lost our connections to local culture and community. Before the postwar boom, more people went to church, more people participated in community clubs, more people had friends they saw in person on a regular basis.
We are the poorest generations in history in that we have some of the weakest family connections in world history. Postmodernism has attacked concepts like the family because they can be deconstructed. Many parents aren't passing on much to their kids except how to use an ipad. The majority of both men and women are seeing a collapsing likelihood of ever having families of their own.
We are the poorest generations in history in that we have lost more of our history and culture disappear than any other -- libraries full of books, and nobody reads. Certain specific societies seemed to have parallels in the bronze age collapse, but oral traditions did continue at that time. We don't even tell old stories because clever postmodernists deconstructed them and told us they were stupid. How many in Gen Z know about the seven Pleiades sisters? How many in Gen Z actually know the stories of King Arthur or Charlamagne? How many in Gen Z can look at the sky and understand the stars? Most of Gen Z can't even see the stars from their cities -- surrounded by lights when most societies were too poor to light every street every night all night, but missing the truth of reality beyond the shroud of that light.
Given that Gen Z and beyond are currently materially wealthy, their futures are bleak. Previous generations were poor, but at least they knew how to grow a potato. How many kids grow up thinking food comes from the store? If entire generations are growing up not knowing how to make the fundamentals of life work, how exactly are they supposed to maintain the immense wealth when it comes time for them to steward it? For that reason, I expect that the poorest generation in history may end up being something like Generation Gamma, after the boomers and even millennials die out, and bring their knowledge to the grave. Surrounded by farms, but nobody knows how to farm. Surrounded by technology that eventually erodes into rocks.
I feel like those little chinese consoles are a hop skip and a jump away from being the most popular thing on the planet.
I just grabbed this one myself.
It's a golden age of open source game engine ports, hope it lasts a long time.
It's a golden age of open source game engine ports, hope it lasts a long time.
It's in a lot of places: Future Sepsis is on Amazon, Google Play store, kobo, apple store, and a few others. I spread it out this time because some people don't want to use Amazon.
Here it is on amazon.com: https://a.co/d/iUGrk0L
Here it is on amazon.com: https://a.co/d/iUGrk0L
Just checked in, I'm at 15 book sales on Future Sepsis. Which I know doesn't sound that great, but my preliminary goal is 19 sales in the first year -- According to a famous 2012 Penguin House lawsuit, more than 19 sales and you're doing better than like half their books, and I think that'd be funny to have some hillbilly from the sticks selling more than most of a big publisher's catalog.
You'd go back and be like "Hey, this is great! Everyone's still nuts, but look how cheap I can get a McChicken for!"
If the framers intended it to be simple and absolute, then why did they pass the sedition act just a few years after founding? The Sedition act was passed in 1798, and criminalized criticism of the government. Individuals were successfully convicted under the law. The Supreme Court did not strike down those laws, and instead it expired on its own.
That's within the lifetimes of the founders, many of them would still be in office.
To demonstrate that the founding fathers were still around, founding father Thomas Jefferson became president in 1801 after the presidency of founding father (And George Washington's Vice President) John Adams who had signed the bill into law. Jefferson pardoned the people convicted under the law.
Is your argument that the constitution document is simple because it doesn't apply and that's why the supreme court didn't strike the sedition act down when it had the chance? That's the only way what you're saying could make any sense. Otherwise, it's just the sort of abuse of power the Supreme court presumably ought to have protected against.
(And to answer my own question, the major reason the act didn't get struck down was likely that the legal basis for constitutional review of laws by the supreme court didn't really get started until Marbury v. Madison in 1803 which established the practice of the supreme court declaring laws unconstitutional)
Look, this is something that both the left and the right get wrong all the time: Courts and laws are very specific, and very anal about getting things just right and staying consistent with itself over centuries. That goes back before the US to the original common law courts in England in the 1100s. That original common law court is still cited today occasionally, believe it or not. That's how certain doctrines made it into the US legal system without US precedent. That's how a lot of common law concepts that seem at first to be incompatible with US law as you'd understand it on the surface occur. There's a lot of history there, and so slogans and platitudes really don't mean anything -- if you say something simply, you're probably getting it wrong.
The US inherited a lot of stuff from common law that seems counter to the constitution. It's one of the reasons why business advertising is treated differently than political speech, or why obscenity isn't protected under the first amendment and never has been.
That's within the lifetimes of the founders, many of them would still be in office.
To demonstrate that the founding fathers were still around, founding father Thomas Jefferson became president in 1801 after the presidency of founding father (And George Washington's Vice President) John Adams who had signed the bill into law. Jefferson pardoned the people convicted under the law.
Is your argument that the constitution document is simple because it doesn't apply and that's why the supreme court didn't strike the sedition act down when it had the chance? That's the only way what you're saying could make any sense. Otherwise, it's just the sort of abuse of power the Supreme court presumably ought to have protected against.
(And to answer my own question, the major reason the act didn't get struck down was likely that the legal basis for constitutional review of laws by the supreme court didn't really get started until Marbury v. Madison in 1803 which established the practice of the supreme court declaring laws unconstitutional)
Look, this is something that both the left and the right get wrong all the time: Courts and laws are very specific, and very anal about getting things just right and staying consistent with itself over centuries. That goes back before the US to the original common law courts in England in the 1100s. That original common law court is still cited today occasionally, believe it or not. That's how certain doctrines made it into the US legal system without US precedent. That's how a lot of common law concepts that seem at first to be incompatible with US law as you'd understand it on the surface occur. There's a lot of history there, and so slogans and platitudes really don't mean anything -- if you say something simply, you're probably getting it wrong.
The US inherited a lot of stuff from common law that seems counter to the constitution. It's one of the reasons why business advertising is treated differently than political speech, or why obscenity isn't protected under the first amendment and never has been.
>I think being able to freely express yourself without being prosecuted regardless of what it advocating is covered under the first amendment.
Well, you think wrong.
There's all kinds of things that aren't covered by the first amendment. It tends to be covered by strict scrutiny, meaning that you have to pass a 3 part test: It needs to be narrowly tailored, to address a compelling state interest, and it needs to be the least restrictive method necessary to achieve the end.
Examples of limits to the first amendment include fraud, libel, slander, commercial advertising, tobacco advertising, uttering terroristic threats, impersonating a police officer, use of radio communications, and there's more where that came from.
The ideal would have been to amend the constitution back in 1798 when the first Sedition Act was passed and the question of federal laws affecting freedom of speech first came up, but instead jurisprudence went this way long after that point, and the court never ruled on the sedition act.
Looking into it, the first supreme court case regarding the line between freedom of speech and threats to people's safety didn't happen until 1919, because prior to the 14th amendment in 1868, the bill of rights didn't apply to individual states, and generally federal law wasn't used for that sort of think widely until the world wars. Even the 1919 case was under the Espionage act for an individual passing out flyers calling on people to avoid the draft.
But don't get me wrong here -- I'm running my own instance solely because I do believe in freedom of speech, and when rubber meets road I don't domain block any instances or even block individuals on my own account. My main arguments here have been that it's complicated and nuanced and it isn't a deviation from principle to say that there's a line and some people might have crossed it.
Well, you think wrong.
There's all kinds of things that aren't covered by the first amendment. It tends to be covered by strict scrutiny, meaning that you have to pass a 3 part test: It needs to be narrowly tailored, to address a compelling state interest, and it needs to be the least restrictive method necessary to achieve the end.
Examples of limits to the first amendment include fraud, libel, slander, commercial advertising, tobacco advertising, uttering terroristic threats, impersonating a police officer, use of radio communications, and there's more where that came from.
The ideal would have been to amend the constitution back in 1798 when the first Sedition Act was passed and the question of federal laws affecting freedom of speech first came up, but instead jurisprudence went this way long after that point, and the court never ruled on the sedition act.
Looking into it, the first supreme court case regarding the line between freedom of speech and threats to people's safety didn't happen until 1919, because prior to the 14th amendment in 1868, the bill of rights didn't apply to individual states, and generally federal law wasn't used for that sort of think widely until the world wars. Even the 1919 case was under the Espionage act for an individual passing out flyers calling on people to avoid the draft.
But don't get me wrong here -- I'm running my own instance solely because I do believe in freedom of speech, and when rubber meets road I don't domain block any instances or even block individuals on my own account. My main arguments here have been that it's complicated and nuanced and it isn't a deviation from principle to say that there's a line and some people might have crossed it.
You can disagree with my argument, but you can't reasonably say it's absurd. At best it's wrong.
A bunch of political violence keeps happening. They tried to kill Kavanaugh. They tried to kill Trump and they did kill Comperatore. They did kill Kirk. And the threats keep coming.
The violence and the speech aren't equal and I don't think my argument ever claimed that directly, but the fact that violence keeps happening and people keep threatening more violence does mean that the two are much closer than disagreement would be.
Context does matter, and nuance matters. If you want to flatten what I said into "speech is violence", then you're just the same as the progs -- modernist flattening of complexity into something that never existed.
Given that my post had multiple paragraphs looking at things from different viewpoints and you collapsed it into four words, I suggest you might want to find someone who believes what you want to argue against instead of wasting your time on me.
A bunch of political violence keeps happening. They tried to kill Kavanaugh. They tried to kill Trump and they did kill Comperatore. They did kill Kirk. And the threats keep coming.
The violence and the speech aren't equal and I don't think my argument ever claimed that directly, but the fact that violence keeps happening and people keep threatening more violence does mean that the two are much closer than disagreement would be.
Context does matter, and nuance matters. If you want to flatten what I said into "speech is violence", then you're just the same as the progs -- modernist flattening of complexity into something that never existed.
Given that my post had multiple paragraphs looking at things from different viewpoints and you collapsed it into four words, I suggest you might want to find someone who believes what you want to argue against instead of wasting your time on me.
In The Graysonian Ethic chapter called Basics, I talked about how different rights bump up against one another. There's no such thing as rights that are absolute, unless you only have one right.
It seems to me that a lot of people, both Leftist and Conservative, forget that the right to not be murdered is the basic human right, and so if someone is out there trying to violate that, that's not unpopular speech, but a potential violation of another person's basic human rights. People who follow up a murder by cheering for it and calling for more murders of specific people? They're walking a fine line and if they happen to trip I don't have much sympathy.
On the other hand, disagreeing with someone who was just murdered or died for any other reason? Well, that could be unpopular but it's probably not reaching the level of violating another person's rights, since you don't have any right to have people say nice things about you.
That being said, I think more people need to be pointing out that when someone says "but" after "no political violence" and then just uses the opportunity to talk about how they disagree with a person who was just assassinated, you're kind of erasing the whole "no political violence" thing by justifying political violence. At that point it isn't even about laws, it's about "Are you sure you disagreed with this guy so much that you think he should be assassinated?" because I don't think a lot of these individuals are thinking through the implications of what they're saying. I mean, if some dweeb arguing with dumb college kids deserves to be assassinated, then anyone on the left or the right probably deserves it. That doesn't sound like a fun world to live in.
It seems to me that a lot of people, both Leftist and Conservative, forget that the right to not be murdered is the basic human right, and so if someone is out there trying to violate that, that's not unpopular speech, but a potential violation of another person's basic human rights. People who follow up a murder by cheering for it and calling for more murders of specific people? They're walking a fine line and if they happen to trip I don't have much sympathy.
On the other hand, disagreeing with someone who was just murdered or died for any other reason? Well, that could be unpopular but it's probably not reaching the level of violating another person's rights, since you don't have any right to have people say nice things about you.
That being said, I think more people need to be pointing out that when someone says "but" after "no political violence" and then just uses the opportunity to talk about how they disagree with a person who was just assassinated, you're kind of erasing the whole "no political violence" thing by justifying political violence. At that point it isn't even about laws, it's about "Are you sure you disagreed with this guy so much that you think he should be assassinated?" because I don't think a lot of these individuals are thinking through the implications of what they're saying. I mean, if some dweeb arguing with dumb college kids deserves to be assassinated, then anyone on the left or the right probably deserves it. That doesn't sound like a fun world to live in.
I've never been opposed to using public debt to pay for public goods, but there's three caveats to that:
1. You take out a loan, you have a plan to pay back the loan in your lifetime. If you take out a loan and never intend to pay it back, you're selling your kids into slavery. Many such cases.
2. Never "privatize" public goods. If a private investor wants to make a thing, they can pay to make a thing.
3. Public debt for public goods, not consumption. The past decade has seen trillions of dollars of public debt we're never going to pay back that was spent on direct payments to businesses and individuals solely for consumption.
Unfortunately, these three points mean most public debt violates my principles.
People will make arguments that intergenerational debt is ok because it's important to the economy. As I consider intergenerational debt (particularly of either consumption spending or of public goods that are then sold to the private sector) as slavery, then the same argument applied for slavery proper -- people didn't want to give up the institution of slavery because it was important to certain economies.
Now perhaps you might go "But how are we going to manage macroeconomic swings?" -- and I'd answer that if you really want that, then there's only one real way: A sovereign wealth fund that is built up in the good times and drawn down in the bad times. You pay as you go. The benefit of this is that you only really want to draw down that fund if you need to, and once it's gone it's gone. What we're seeing right now is like someone addicted to debt: During the bad times they rack up debt, but during the good times they rack up debt too because they have no reason to feel the pain of the spending they want to do if they can just pass it off until tomorrow.
If you actually don't like subsidizing the capitalist class, then all this is obvious. Handing massive amounts of money to the capitalist class because they lend you money is just making people who do have money richer. My investments in that regard have been doing great, which is good for me but bad for western civilization.
One of the sleights of hand used in the 21st century is "Debt to GDP". The debt can grow forever, but if the economy keeps growing number goes down even though it isn't really. That sounds great, as long as economic growth continues to rise forever. For advocates of degrowth, or for people ringing alarm bells about the current unavoidable demographic collapse, it's a rationalization that works until it stops working: You can take crystal meth to work harder and make more money and rationalize that you're not spending more on meth as a % of your income, but if you lose your job suddenly you're spending tons of money on meth compared to your income and you're addicted to meth.
An example of this is Japan. Japan was said to have been in a "lost decade".... 20 years ago. Structurally, Japan looked super-rich because they spent so much money through debt, but now they're levered up on debt and they can't solve the problem because their demographics won't let them magically grow.
1. You take out a loan, you have a plan to pay back the loan in your lifetime. If you take out a loan and never intend to pay it back, you're selling your kids into slavery. Many such cases.
2. Never "privatize" public goods. If a private investor wants to make a thing, they can pay to make a thing.
3. Public debt for public goods, not consumption. The past decade has seen trillions of dollars of public debt we're never going to pay back that was spent on direct payments to businesses and individuals solely for consumption.
Unfortunately, these three points mean most public debt violates my principles.
People will make arguments that intergenerational debt is ok because it's important to the economy. As I consider intergenerational debt (particularly of either consumption spending or of public goods that are then sold to the private sector) as slavery, then the same argument applied for slavery proper -- people didn't want to give up the institution of slavery because it was important to certain economies.
Now perhaps you might go "But how are we going to manage macroeconomic swings?" -- and I'd answer that if you really want that, then there's only one real way: A sovereign wealth fund that is built up in the good times and drawn down in the bad times. You pay as you go. The benefit of this is that you only really want to draw down that fund if you need to, and once it's gone it's gone. What we're seeing right now is like someone addicted to debt: During the bad times they rack up debt, but during the good times they rack up debt too because they have no reason to feel the pain of the spending they want to do if they can just pass it off until tomorrow.
If you actually don't like subsidizing the capitalist class, then all this is obvious. Handing massive amounts of money to the capitalist class because they lend you money is just making people who do have money richer. My investments in that regard have been doing great, which is good for me but bad for western civilization.
One of the sleights of hand used in the 21st century is "Debt to GDP". The debt can grow forever, but if the economy keeps growing number goes down even though it isn't really. That sounds great, as long as economic growth continues to rise forever. For advocates of degrowth, or for people ringing alarm bells about the current unavoidable demographic collapse, it's a rationalization that works until it stops working: You can take crystal meth to work harder and make more money and rationalize that you're not spending more on meth as a % of your income, but if you lose your job suddenly you're spending tons of money on meth compared to your income and you're addicted to meth.
An example of this is Japan. Japan was said to have been in a "lost decade".... 20 years ago. Structurally, Japan looked super-rich because they spent so much money through debt, but now they're levered up on debt and they can't solve the problem because their demographics won't let them magically grow.
@Tactical congrats on the release of your latest entry in the Blade of the Betrayer series. Just saw the pre-order dropped for me today.
Don't worry though, you're still allowed to hate the minority Catholics who keep getting their churches burned down.
If someone tries to murder you with a gun in America, just say no.
In America, murdering someone with a firearm is a crime, and therefore they will be forced to stop or risk breaking the law.
In America, murdering someone with a firearm is a crime, and therefore they will be forced to stop or risk breaking the law.
The neo-assyrian empire bragged about having some captured men grind their family's bones into dust in the carvings they made.
The final result was that the rest of the region banded together to shut down that empire.
A lot of the time you see that with aggressive ideologies. You think violence will help, but it isn't as effective as you'd hope over time.
The final result was that the rest of the region banded together to shut down that empire.
A lot of the time you see that with aggressive ideologies. You think violence will help, but it isn't as effective as you'd hope over time.
Not to mention, most people who talk about how bad racism is today are usually the most racist, and explicitly white supremacist, people you'll ever meet.
It's a word that is code for something entirely different from what the dictionary or most rational people would tell you.
It's a word that is code for something entirely different from what the dictionary or most rational people would tell you.