tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-46798639356474751022024-02-20T03:28:49.485-08:00The School BluesStudent in Bluehttp://www.blogger.com/profile/10389797203632675234noreply@blogger.comBlogger14125tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-4679863935647475102.post-53610689616094332082017-10-24T07:27:00.001-07:002017-10-24T07:27:53.820-07:00Globalism, Nationalism: Definitions Matter<div abp="40">
You can't fight what you don't know. You can't aim at something you don't see.</div>
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Just this morning, someone had shared a screenshot with me of a lady cheering about how nice it was that they as nationalists had international allies. The sharer's comment was how the lady wasn't using words correctly.</div>
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The sharer was an idiot.</div>
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He was conflating "international" with "internationalism", and thus equating it with "globalism". Any attempt at pointing out how he himself was conflating words was just "being autistic".</div>
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Definitions matter. There's a reason why liars actively attempt to stretch words past their definitions into an unrecognizable shape, because it allows them to quickly shift away from any lie they've told. "Now see, when I said ABC I really meant XYZ, so you can't really get so mad at me."</div>
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Clearly defining goals means you can actually, factually achieve them. Vague goals remain constantly out of reach no matter how far you progress, while clear and defined coals are within possibility. It may take a journey of a thousand miles but you can reach it eventually.</div>
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Defining who your enemies are allows you to defeat them. You don't spend time faffing about with whether certain person is really actually on your side or not, nor do you spend time and energy attacking people who are not actively working against you. Having clearly defined enemies is an aspect of the Geneva Conventions for a reason, and it's why guerrilla tactics are so frustrating because then it becomes almost impossible to define who's an enemy without including the entire population, and thus genocide.</div>
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Knowing the definitions of your ideology and of competing ideologies remains just as equally important, as not only do you have a clear goal to progress towards, knowing competing ideologies gives you a guideline on how <em abp="55">not </em>to slip into their concepts. Take the Conservatives in America. They have no actual guidelines, no core fundamentals, and it shows. The entirety of their accomplishments has been telling the Liberals, "Yes, but just not so fast". Exactly nothing has been conserved because they have no ideology other than "Well I liked things 20 years ago, but I can compromise".</div>
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If you know yourself and know your enemy, you will win 100% of your battles. <em abp="58">Definitions. Matter.</em></div>
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So to define what the sharer got wrong, Globalism is the effort to make every nation the same. No borders, no restrictions on travel. They believe that all nations can profit together, <em>all the time</em>. And the reason why they do this, the end goal, is for one governmental entity to control as much as possible. Idealistically, this means one government that controls the world. Somehow this huge entity will put the entire world's resources to good use and do cool stuff like colonize Mars, or make all wars redundant, and never ever be corrupt and tyrannical.</div>
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Nationalism, amusingly enough, is only particularly defined in dictionary.com as being either patriotic feelings, or when you try to hold your country as being more important than other countries. Realistically, to understand nationalism is to understand what a nation is, and why it's different from a state. There's a reason why "nation-state" is a concept and not just a redundancy after all.</div>
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A nation is a group of <em>genetically-related</em> people. Always has been. The Cherokee Nation IS the Cherokee tribe. From small to large, it goes from you, your family, your tribe/nation. If you're genetically related, you have a large group of people that look like you for the most part, and act like you for the most part. That's powerful for building an identity, and an identity is crucial for mental stability.</div>
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The state is simply the government in charge of an area. When Rome had occupied Israel around Christ's time, they were the State. They definitely weren't genetically related to the Israelites. Empires are made up of many different nations of people, but the empire exerts power over them to bind them together as long as possible. That empire is the state. Thus, the nation-state is where a nation governs <em>itself, </em>and not others. Easy enough to understand.</div>
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Nationalism thus, in contrast to globalism, understands that not all nations can profit together all the time, and if you have to make a choice whether it's the other group or your group, your group comes first. Because if you don't place your group first, other groups certainly won't. It's hard to be non-identitarian in a world full of identitarians, after all -- you eventually wind up dying out.</div>
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Nationalism thus, in contrast to globalism, believes that one world government will never work, and every nation needs to govern themselves. No one will know their own nation as well as their own nation.</div>
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Germany for the Germans, France for the French. America, for the Americans. You know Americans, right? That genetic group of people who don't feel that incessant urge to hyphenate their ethnicity before the word "American"?</div>
Student in Bluehttp://www.blogger.com/profile/10389797203632675234noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-4679863935647475102.post-35526247435489279612016-02-05T07:55:00.002-08:002016-02-05T07:55:19.939-08:00Status update...I'd actually completely forgotten about this. I've been busy with making a game and this completely slipped my mind.<br />
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Haven't had the need to rant about much lately I suppose.Student in Bluehttp://www.blogger.com/profile/10389797203632675234noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-4679863935647475102.post-37468277744563064102015-12-22T06:32:00.000-08:002015-12-22T06:32:00.736-08:00"Toxic Masculinity"A feminism favorite, Toxic Masculinity is one of those big bad evils that everyone needs to be on the lookout for.<br />
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What exactly is it? Besides a buzzword full of noise and no content, that is.<br />
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Whenever men do evil, it is chalked up to "Toxic Masculinity". It's not chalked up to humanity, it's linked to men, because only men fight, abuse, rape in the feminist's mind. Women are always the victim, so thus men are always the perpetrator.<br />
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And if it's a lesbian couple? Well, one of them was acting too much like a man then. Easy-peasy.<br />
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Of course, you saw the shift in language that happened in that last sentence, correct? It changed from "evil that men do, from too much machismo" to being "evil <em>because</em> of being like a man". The former is what sane people think when they hear of the term Toxic Masculinity for the first time, but the latter is what it is in effect.<br />
Machismo is, by effect, too much masculinity in the first place. The latter effect is different in that it's not excess, but <em>any trace of Masculinity is Toxic. </em><br />
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Of course, there's the argument of "What does too much masculinity <em>look like</em> in effect anyway? Just assuming it's bad and there's too much is dumb, like assuming that too much femininity is bad in the first place." In this argument we can see the essence of Feminism distilled - pure femininity doesn't commit acts of terrible things, but pure masculinity does, thus we should do away with the masculine. This completely misses the point of femininity being reactive, and masculine being active. By shifting from masculine to feminine, nothing gets done, and as evidence just simply look around you at any beta schlub -- they're always waiting for something to just <em>happen </em>to them, whether it's the Love Of Their Life, their next promotion at work, or anything else that carries a modicum of risk.<br />
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So in the end, it's really about men supplicating themselves, as anything masculine IS toxic, and to make it more confusing, feminine traits get rebranded as masculine. Subservience, not action in face of risk, is suddenly masculine. Saying yes dear constantly like a whipped dog is suddenly masculine.<br />
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It's a running gag with false ideologies, the constant inversion of reality in order to preserve their core conceits. It's perverting reality because reality is distasteful to them.Student in Bluehttp://www.blogger.com/profile/10389797203632675234noreply@blogger.com1tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-4679863935647475102.post-59439378281679909982015-12-10T10:18:00.003-08:002015-12-10T10:18:34.144-08:00Who Is My Neighbor?The story of the Good Samaritan is one used very often to encourage immigration, by pointing out that the outsider Samaritan was a neighbor when Jews who should have been merciful were not.<br />
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In the book co-authored by Vox Day and John Red Eagle, <em>Cuckservative</em>, the authors tackle this by pointing out the Samaritan did not move the man into his home, force the government into paying for everything, and allow the man to move in his entire family as well.<br />
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While an excellent point, this rebuttal misses the point of the verse which already proves the immigrationists wrong.<br />
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<span class="text Luke-10-25"><sup class="versenum">25 </sup>On one occasion an expert in the law stood up to test Jesus. “Teacher,” he asked, “what must I do to inherit eternal life?”<sup class="crossreference" data-cr="#cen-NIV-25389B" data-link="(<a href="#cen-NIV-25389B" title="See cross-reference B">B</a>)"></sup></span><br />
<span class="text Luke-10-26" id="en-NIV-25390"><span class="woj"><sup class="versenum">26 </sup>“What is written in the Law?”</span> he replied. <span class="woj">“How do you read it?”</span></span><br />
<span class="text Luke-10-27" id="en-NIV-25391"><sup class="versenum">27 </sup>He answered, “‘Love the Lord your God with all your heart and with all your soul and with all your strength and with all your mind’<sup class="footnote" data-fn="#fen-NIV-25391a" data-link="[<a href="#fen-NIV-25391a" title="See footnote a">a</a>]">[<a href="https://www.biblegateway.com/passage/?search=Luke+10%3A25-37#fen-NIV-25391a" title="See footnote a">a</a>]</sup>;<sup class="crossreference" data-cr="#cen-NIV-25391C" data-link="(<a href="#cen-NIV-25391C" title="See cross-reference C">C</a>)"></sup> and, ‘Love your neighbor as yourself.’<sup class="footnote" data-fn="#fen-NIV-25391b" data-link="[<a href="#fen-NIV-25391b" title="See footnote b">b</a>]">[<a href="https://www.biblegateway.com/passage/?search=Luke+10%3A25-37#fen-NIV-25391b" title="See footnote b">b</a>]</sup>”<sup class="crossreference" data-cr="#cen-NIV-25391D" data-link="(<a href="#cen-NIV-25391D" title="See cross-reference D">D</a>)"></sup></span><br />
<span class="text Luke-10-28" id="en-NIV-25392"><span class="woj"><sup class="versenum">28 </sup>“You have answered correctly,”</span> Jesus replied. <span class="woj">“Do this and you will live.”<sup class="crossreference" data-cr="#cen-NIV-25392E" data-link="(<a href="#cen-NIV-25392E" title="See cross-reference E">E</a>)"></sup></span></span><br />
<span class="text Luke-10-29" id="en-NIV-25393"><sup class="versenum">29 </sup>But he wanted to justify himself,<sup class="crossreference" data-cr="#cen-NIV-25393F" data-link="(<a href="#cen-NIV-25393F" title="See cross-reference F">F</a>)"></sup> so he asked Jesus, “And who is my neighbor?”</span><br />
<span class="text Luke-10-30" id="en-NIV-25394"><sup class="versenum">30 </sup>In reply Jesus said: <span class="woj">“A man was going down from Jerusalem to Jericho, when he was attacked by robbers. They stripped him of his clothes, beat him and went away, leaving him half dead.</span></span> <span class="text Luke-10-31" id="en-NIV-25395"><span class="woj"><sup class="versenum">31 </sup>A priest happened to be going down the same road, and when he saw the man, he passed by on the other side.<sup class="crossreference" data-cr="#cen-NIV-25395G" data-link="(<a href="#cen-NIV-25395G" title="See cross-reference G">G</a>)"></sup></span></span> <span class="text Luke-10-32" id="en-NIV-25396"><span class="woj"><sup class="versenum">32 </sup>So too, a Levite, when he came to the place and saw him, passed by on the other side.</span></span> <span class="text Luke-10-33" id="en-NIV-25397"><span class="woj"><sup class="versenum">33 </sup>But a Samaritan,<sup class="crossreference" data-cr="#cen-NIV-25397H" data-link="(<a href="#cen-NIV-25397H" title="See cross-reference H">H</a>)"></sup> as he traveled, came where the man was; and when he saw him, he took pity on him.</span></span> <span class="text Luke-10-34" id="en-NIV-25398"><span class="woj"><sup class="versenum">34 </sup>He went to him and bandaged his wounds, pouring on oil and wine. Then he put the man on his own donkey, brought him to an inn and took care of him.</span></span> <span class="text Luke-10-35" id="en-NIV-25399"><span class="woj"><sup class="versenum">35 </sup>The next day he took out two denarii<sup class="footnote" data-fn="#fen-NIV-25399c" data-link="[<a href="#fen-NIV-25399c" title="See footnote c">c</a>]">[<a href="https://www.biblegateway.com/passage/?search=Luke+10%3A25-37#fen-NIV-25399c" title="See footnote c">c</a>]</sup> and gave them to the innkeeper. ‘Look after him,’ he said, ‘and when I return, I will reimburse you for any extra expense you may have.’</span></span><br />
<span class="text Luke-10-36" id="en-NIV-25400"><span class="woj"><sup class="versenum">36 </sup>“Which of these three do you think was a neighbor to the man who fell into the hands of robbers?”</span></span><br />
<span class="text Luke-10-37" id="en-NIV-25401"><sup class="versenum">37 </sup>The expert in the law replied, “The one who had mercy on him.”</span><br />
<span class="text Luke-10-37">Jesus told him, <span class="woj">“Go and do likewise.”</span></span><br />
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<span class="passage-display-bcv">Luke 10:25-37</span><br />
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Everyone, without fail, places themselves in the feet of the Samaritan, and so intuit that the point of the story is to be like the Samaritan and help foreigners even if they hate you.<br />
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No, Jesus was answering the question of "who is my neighbor?", so that the believers may keep the Law which says "Love your neighbor as yourself." As Jesus was very likely addressing a crowd of Jews, they were expected to put themselves in the place of the man, not the foreigner.<br />
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Jesus is telling them, the person you must love is the one who shows mercy to you, for they are your neighbor. The priest and the Levite did not, so they <em>were not</em> the man's neighbor! It's absolutely clear the only one the expert of the law was commanded to show love to was the one who had shown mercy to him, even if it was a Samaritan.<br />
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In nowhere is it commanded to give love to those who do not show mercy. Why then, are we giving love to those who have shown no mercy to our Christian brethren in the Middle East, burning, raping, killing them?<br />
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At the very least, the Parable of the Good Samaritan in no way endorses mass immigration from people who are not neighbors, who show no mercy.Student in Bluehttp://www.blogger.com/profile/10389797203632675234noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-4679863935647475102.post-62109579142736889842015-12-09T10:50:00.002-08:002015-12-09T10:50:53.769-08:00The Case for Syrian RefugeesThere is none.<br />
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Fullstop.<br />
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The only reason why we should do it is "feels". Logically, there are no pros, there are only cons.<br />
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At best, the 'refugees' which are invariably a very solid majority young men are deserters, fleeing their homeland when it got tough. With that amount of morals and convictions, would you really want them as citizens in your nation, when they'd flee again when times got hard instead of working harder to fix it?<br />
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And at worst, they're active combatants, whether it's ISIS, one of the other various Islamic terrorist cells, or just waging cultural war by making America into West Pakistan.Student in Bluehttp://www.blogger.com/profile/10389797203632675234noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-4679863935647475102.post-4185299208486587072015-11-23T12:37:00.001-08:002015-11-23T12:37:49.854-08:00SpergsThere's something about those people who pick out a small unimportant detail of something and obsess over it. Colloquially they're known as spergs, or sperglords, because their obsession over trivialities completely misses basic social principles, very much like Asperger's Syndrome.<br />
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While I'm not entirely sure if those with Asperger's are naturally sperglords, it does appear to me that not all spergs <em>have</em> Asperger's. Seemingly a pointless triviality, sure, but there are enough differences to make the remark worthwhile.<br />
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Practically by definition those with Asperger's (Asperger's sufferers? Natural Spergs?) just simply do not instinctively understand social situations and social behaviors. For them to improve in social ability they have to train themselves in the minutiae - it's not so much a simple "Oh I get it now" that normal people get when they connect the dots. <br />
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Meanwhile, sperglords can be an otherwise adjusted person who can make friends, but there's something off or untrue in their understanding of reality. In many ways, their amygdalae are underdeveloped (re: r/K selection theory) and they are oversensitive to things that are "suggested" if they notice it or think it's there. If they don't notice it, it takes an extremely large amount of effort to do so.<br />
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Sperglords aren't so much completely unknowing of social situations, they're just extremely focused on things. And in many cases those things are very unimportant, so their priorities get completely screwed up. They keep on a topic and stay sensitive to said topic for a long time.<br />
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What's common between the two is a lot of rationalizing that happens. Spergs aren't the hyperlogical rationale-robots they'd like you to believe, they're people who make decisions based on their emotions and rationalize it away after the fact. Asperger Drones also completely misunderstand something, take offense, and then start rationalizing after-the-fact.<br />
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It kills me how many of them sit there thinking they're completely rational... when they aren't. It makes conversing with them completely impossible if you attempt to do it via pure logic, which is what you'd <em>think</em> would be the correct method in dealing with autistics. No, you have to hammer them with hatefacts, facts laden with triggering rhetoric so that they are persuaded even as their rationalized mind attempts to grapple with the dialectically true facts.<br />
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My current working theory is that the current bumpercrop of spergs come from having a naturally logically-bent mind built on faulty concepts of life and relationships, with the number one problem amongst spergs (universally men, sperglike women are just... women) is a faulty understanding of the masculine and the feminine. So many lies have been spread about what women find attractive, what masculinity is, what femininity is, all because of a poisonous ideology that thinks if only we could have men and women acting like each other everything will be just grand.<br />
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Yes, I'm blaming the current surplus of spergs on feminism.Student in Bluehttp://www.blogger.com/profile/10389797203632675234noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-4679863935647475102.post-2039238870008710592015-11-18T12:35:00.001-08:002015-11-18T12:35:37.313-08:00Thought Experiment: Great LiteratureAs I grow older, I realize that a number of the great literature really are great. Not altogether sure if it's due to a maturing mind, or if it's simply that when I was younger I was still mired in the falsehoods being taught. <br />
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If the latter, great literature is still useful for teenagers as long as they aren't wallowing in a false reality (re: Feminism). If the former, then English classes would be greatly improved by not trying to trudge through dreary poetry with "important" ideas, but rather something more akin to fables - entertaining stories that still have important concepts to discuss and swallow.<br />
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Literature classes might better be mixed with philosophy classes, anyway.Student in Bluehttp://www.blogger.com/profile/10389797203632675234noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-4679863935647475102.post-40241629188612605792015-11-18T06:52:00.004-08:002015-11-18T06:52:53.784-08:00What Makes an SJW?SJWs are the current pathology du jour, and Vox Day has written an <a href="http://www.amazon.com/gp/product/B014GMBUR4">excellent book</a> on how to fight them.<br />
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Unfortunately, it is only for how to identify and fight them, not so much as <em>why</em> there are SJWs.<br />
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In the early days of Gamergate, there was an interesting dig/testimonial done by someone who had hung around SomethingAwful for a really long time, and witnessed its transformation from a site and forums that poked fun at <em>anything</em>, to a safespace hugbox that has an essentially protected class not allowed to be made a mockery of.<br />
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The term SJWs comes more immediately from Tumblr, where they self-identified as warriors for social justice and Jim, known then as Internet Aristocrat, now as Mister Metokur, devoted a numerous amount of videos making fun of them and almost singlehandedly spread the term of SJW and associated it with mockery. Then Gamergate happened, and the rest of the world found out about how pointless SJWs are.<br />
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Tumblr was always a stronghold for special snowflakes however, which is why it's more interesting to look at the SomethingAwful case. In many cases, the <em>very same people</em> who were for mocking everything were now ardent Social Justice Warriors. It wasn't even a clear-cut instance of entryism, but rather conversion.<br />
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To cut right to the point, I've determined that SJWs exhibit their symptoms because they are constantly denying reality. They always lie to themselves and others because the truth completely upends their religion and worldview. They always double down because <em>it is their religion and worldview</em>. It is also the only concept with which almost all of them are familiar with: they are basted in Social Juices since preschool, taught that equality is uber alles, while constantly avoiding the critical thinking that would show that equality is impossible. They're taught that women and men are essentially the same, just with different fiddly bits, taught that war is never ever ever ever the answer, and taught that competition is bad. And by extension, SJWs always project because A) they very often don't know anything else (whether modes of attack, other forms of ideology, or just that other people actually ARE different), and B) are reacting emotionally because SJWism can't be maintained logically.<br />
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They're so stressed and triggered and unhappy because they're constantly fighting reality. If something happens that contradict their view, their entire world is rocked.<br />
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Now, back to SomethingAwful... there was still a strong undercurrent of feminist modes of thinking from public school in the forums and site. They'd "wrongly" make fun of things that were taboo, like 9/11 a couple of days after it happened, but they still had that sense that it was 'wrong' and making jokes about women being in the kitchen was 'wrong'. It's really why they found it hilarious.<br />
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After raiding Tumblr a couple of times because they were a bunch of crybabies, said SJW concepts infested the feminist mindset that SomethingAwful had. There was nothing incompatible with it, in fact it was an outgrowth of sorts. Everything SJW was what feminists had taught, just taken to a slightly higher degree and being applied to everyone. It was radicalized, and it appealed to the guilty conscious of SomethingAwful (because yeah they made fun of taboo stuff, and they knew it was wrong). In short,<br />
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<strong>SJWism is radical feminism.</strong>Student in Bluehttp://www.blogger.com/profile/10389797203632675234noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-4679863935647475102.post-54926485004539539732015-11-14T15:43:00.004-08:002015-11-14T15:43:56.381-08:00Pray for ParisWith the mass immigration of those who hate them, it was only a matter of time.<br />
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If only innocent people didn't have to die for people to wake up and see reality...Student in Bluehttp://www.blogger.com/profile/10389797203632675234noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-4679863935647475102.post-42665185373394833672015-11-12T14:52:00.002-08:002015-11-12T14:52:38.800-08:00Quick noteHad the day off yesterday, wound up not writing anything.<br />
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Still alive. Had some interesting discussions lately, so I have plenty to write about. Spent literally three hours standing by someone's car just chatting about everything.<br />
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So in terms of updating, I'm going to try and aim for Sunday/Tuesday/Thursday, but there may be posts on other days.<br />
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In other news, Cail Corishev mentioned on his blog he was wanting or going to write a book about Game. I might touch on the subject on this blog here as well. It's an interesting subject especially on the very fundamental levels.Student in Bluehttp://www.blogger.com/profile/10389797203632675234noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-4679863935647475102.post-36348671374026840272015-11-09T08:57:00.003-08:002015-11-09T09:07:48.032-08:00The Oughts Have ItHad a rather rough and eventful weekend. I'm only now catching back up on writing.<br />
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To continue my thought from the earlier post, there is certainly some very valuable info that can be gleaned from fiction. Consider popular fiction written in the early 20th century - the zeitgeist of the time was spectacularly different, so even though people weren't quite cognizant of it, there's a lot of underlying assumptions about... well, reality as a whole.<br />
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It can be hard to read current fiction and see the same assumptions, particularly if you're already swallowed up in the mode of thinking of the time. If the world's sky has always been green in your lifetime, you're not going to think about stories where the sky is assumed to be green. It's an unconscious assumption that makes sense.<br />
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Following that same pattern of thought, if some form of democracy is the only system you've known, having fantasy kings abdicate <em>of their own will</em> so the citizens can elect their own leader in a democratic fashion makes perfect sense.<br />
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Except this makes absolutely zero sense in a historical sense. If people have been used to a direct, effective monarchy, they aren't clamoring for a democracy, they're going to clamor for a better king. The exceptions where that hasn't happened are just that: exceptions.<br />
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It also pops up <strong>constantly</strong> where just being a sensitive, caring man will somehow mystically win the girl's heart, mystically because women are incomprehensible mysteries don't you know. This also flies in the face of history, but if you don't know any better this is what romance <em>ought</em> to be. It's a sort of ought/is disparity that what ought to be is completely divorced from reality and what is.<br />
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Fiction and nonfiction are in a constant tug-of-war between "ought" and "is". While fiction has to maintain enough "is" in order to keep a suspension of disbelief, nonfiction needs to be firmly grounded in what *is*, else it becomes simply fantasy if it spends its majority of time in what ought to be.<br />
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The more "is", the more realistic. The more "ought", the more of a caricature people and systems wind up becoming.<br />
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NB, I believe it's entirely possible to have a piece of fantastic fiction be completely "is". This is also not to say that caricatures are inherently bad, or that "realism" is inherently good in fiction. Nor does it mean that moderation is the key here.<br />
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Instead, what needs to occur, the "ought" if we're being tongue-in-cheek, is that the "ought" ought to be more like "is" is. Or to put it in another way, don't have what-ifs and what-could-be completely divorced from reality. Not a balance between "is" and "ought", but instead a change of the quality of "ought" so that it's not the polar opposite of "is".<br />
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Next time, we'll delve more into what current fiction is telling us about the current zeitgeist.Student in Bluehttp://www.blogger.com/profile/10389797203632675234noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-4679863935647475102.post-26085101023754114892015-11-05T11:00:00.000-08:002015-11-05T11:00:02.683-08:00Fiction as TruthI argued with my brother once about nonfiction vs fiction. It was a while ago but I recall him arguing something along the lines that fiction is devoid of any sort of useful content - that it is strictly entertainment, something that wastes away the hours instead of bettering yourself.<br />
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While he was certainly correct that a lot of fiction is entertainment, that does not mean it is anymore or less entertainment than nonfiction. One of the vectors of argument were that fiction was intended to be entertainment, while nonfiction is intended to educate. Then, what are books intended to teach little kids to read? The stories often portrayed are fiction, but the intention is to educate children to read - and even enjoy reading.<br />
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So then is Dr. Seuss a solid piece of nonfiction, right up there with the dictionary?<br />
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Certainly, trying to make the argument that the difference between fiction and nonfiction is of intention is pointless.<br />
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By its very function, fiction is when the author constructs a new world, rather than attempts to recall what used to be. Therefore we have fiction that is not particularly entertaining but can be certainly used to glean some information from.<br />
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The contra is true as well, that we have nonfiction that is not particularly educating, but can certainly be a good chuckle. Briefly I recall real-life accounts of policemen in their dealings with particularly stupid criminals. It happened, and it wasn't particularly enlightening except in that sense that you learn that people <em>can</em> be that stupid, and it was certainly a riot.<br />
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I think it's accurate to estimate the average work of fiction to be intended for entertainment and the average work of nonfiction to be intended for education. But like as before, just because it's intended for such doesn't mean it's worthwhile - and in fact the average of education one can glean from fiction outstrips the average one can glean from nonfiction.<br />
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In short, fiction can tell you what people think the world is or ought to be far more honestly than seeing their nonfiction. You will always get a glean of their perceptions, of their understanding of the underworkings of the world from the basic mechanics of how their characters and world function and go about their life.<br />
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You know right up front that everything in fiction is constructed, even if it may be based on something else. You do not get that same luxury with nonfiction - you have to determine whether or not it is true or false. If it's true and you realize it's true, you are educated. If it's false and you realize it's false, you are educated as to the author's ideas and perceptions. If it's different from what you think it is, you are actively <em>un</em>educated. At best you have gotten no education out of it, at worst you have been compromised by a faulty premise.<br />
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Therefore, on average fiction is more educational than nonfiction. It's even more true than nonfiction, given that everyone knows exactly what it is, rather than nonfiction which sometimes is truth and sometimes is a lie.<br />
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This does not mean that the value of the education you get out of fiction will necessarily be higher than from nonfiction. Nor does it mean the contra.<br />
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The information you can glean out of fiction is surprising, and I'll go into it at a later day.Student in Bluehttp://www.blogger.com/profile/10389797203632675234noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-4679863935647475102.post-80419945977808066712015-11-03T18:48:00.002-08:002015-11-03T18:48:38.603-08:00Thought Experiment: Good Fences Make Good Morals?Goodness, it's hard to keep track of what I want to write about sometimes. There'll be thought experiments late at night, or while driving, and there's no guarantee it'll pop up later.<br />
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Regardless, this is one I had, and it is based on how children in a playground don't make full use of the playground <u>unless</u> there is a fence. If there's no fence, they clump up in the middle, as they are unsure of boundaries.*<br />
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Moral relativism removes that fence around right and wrong, and you know what I see happening? I see a very, <i>very</i> vicious in-group policing whenever someone dares set foot outside the inner group. If you disagree with your peers on a topic, you will be heavily pressured to censor yourself.<br />
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Contrast that with Christianity even within a denomination. There can be a rather wide ranging degree of opinions on basic to very complex theology, but as long as the <u>predefined</u> boundaries are not crossed then you won't be expelled or branded a heretic. And even then during the history of the Church, potential heretics are approached first and are attempted to be reasoned with, so it's not an immediate excommunication for misspeaking during a sermon.<br />
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If those without defined morals (i.e. SJWs and those of the like) step out of line, the guilty party has to excoriate themselves immediately, no excuses. There is a single-minded direction which is almost unnatural to the observing outsider.<br />
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*Unfortunately I can't find a specific name of whichever study determined this as everyone who recounted it was as vague as I was just there, but that's fine as I'm using it as a metaphor anyway.Student in Bluehttp://www.blogger.com/profile/10389797203632675234noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-4679863935647475102.post-21517506333572427482015-11-01T11:20:00.000-08:002015-11-01T11:23:34.548-08:00The War SaintsHappy Feast of All Saints, everyone. Cribbing directly from my church's bulletin:<br />
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The early Church commemorated all the martyrs on a specific day that varied throughout the Church. In the ninth century, the date of November 1 was fixed in the western Church as the day to commemorate all of God's saints who had died in the faith. Today we observe the Feast of All Saints as we remember all those who have departed to be with the Lord[....] </blockquote>
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May each of us follow their example of faith as we look towards our Lord's return on the Last Day </blockquote>
The Gospel reading was Matthew 5:1-12, aka the Beatitudes. As always, Christ prescribes methods that are completely at odds with the world and what the world knows to be wise - Blessed are those who mourn? Blessed are the poor in spirit? It seems like utter foolishness to a worldly man.<br />
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But like all of the Bible, cherry-picking aspects for personal reasons happens even here, such as verse 9, "Blessed are the peacemakers, for they shall be called sons of God."<br />
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Easy, right? "Don't fight, fighting's bad. Turn the other cheek. Just suffer in silence."<br />
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If it's in the Bible, it's demanded of us, and it seems easy... it's probably because you misread it.<br />
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To be a peacekeeper is obviously to seek a peaceful resolution whenever you can, but no one ever seems to bring up the times when you <i>can't</i> find a peaceful solution. What then? Is it truly bringing peace to quietly accept annihilation?<br />
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The only thing that can truly bring peace is to preach the Good Word. To not go down quietly, but <i>loudly</i> proclaiming your faith. And do not just blithely allow yourself to be killed, for that is suicide. Do not leave your family unguarded, for how is that love of them that you'd leave them up to those who wish them harm?<br />
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When someone brings war to you, the quickest road to peace is a decisive victory, not a long drawn-out placation where your nation is completely subverted.<br />
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Ah, but the martyrs died! Let us be like the martyrs. However, a martyr is not a martyr because he is suicidal, but because between the option of death and renouncing Jesus he'd rather die every time. <br />
Suicide remains a sin.<br />
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If peace was simply no hostilities, then we ought to be doing whatever makes other people most happy... which in many cases would be to shut up, stop talking about Jesus, stop worshiping Him!<br />
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Do your best to perish the thought, not yourself. Student in Bluehttp://www.blogger.com/profile/10389797203632675234noreply@blogger.com0