Links - 30th October 2021 (2) (General Wokeness)

Steve on Twitter - "As a white person, I refuse to eat at black owned restaurants. Being served by black cooks and waitresses conjures horrifying but familiar imagery of black servitude under white supremacy. My money will only go towards white owned restaurants."

Wilfred Reilly on Twitter - "A Big Lie of center-left media is "No one ever criticizes white people" - which becomes a tag-line for probably one in five crime and pop-culture stories...all hyper-critical of white people. As a Black dude, I often find this more funny than outraging, but it's...noticeable."

Roads Are Getting Deadlier For Pedestrians; Fatality Rates Are Worse For Minorities : NPR
I like how the race baiting media NPR manages to spin this racially

Too Many African Americans in TV Ads? - "“By my count, nearly 50 percent of the folks in commercials are African Americans,” it began. “That is not the ratio of the general population. It is an attempt to be politically correct, but a feeble one.“There are few Asians, Native Americans or Latinos. African Americans are way more sensitive and activist about their image.“Does this diversity in advertising create more sales for the advertised product? I don’t think so, but that is only my opinion.“Mixing a social issue with product promotion may only dilute the product message.”... Andrew Rojecki, an associate professor of communication at the University of Illinois-Chicago, is co-author of “The Black Image in the White Mind: Media and Race in America,” published in 2000.He and co-author Robert M. Entman found that in their sample of 1,620 ads on ABC, NBC, and Fox, African Americans appeared in 32 percent of them.  Additionally, 3.3 percent of the ads featured only black actors, 28.7 percent featured both black and white actors, 58.8 percent featured only whites, and 9.1 percent had actors of an “East Asian facial cast.”"
White supremacy means blacks are almost 3x as common in ads as in the population

Neighbors With 'Black Lives Matter', 'Asian Lives Matter', And 'Hispanic Lives Matter' Yard Signs Getting Awfully Close To 'All Lives Matter' | The Babylon Bee - "Thankfully, a solution has been proposed to help cut down on yard signage. Many have discovered they can get the same message across by putting up a single sign that simply says "White Men Are The Worst"."

Michael Knowles on Twitter - "The Left controls every major institution in America: mainstream media, the academy, administrative government, Hollywood, Big Tech, etc. So if “institutional racism” really did exist, whose fault would that be?"

Candace Owens starches Dem candidate who replied to her message about black-on-black crime with a KKK hood - "A black woman posted a factual statement regarding black-on-black crime and followed that up with her perspective on the sOciAl jUsTiCe movement in America.This guy then replied with a picture of a KKK hood. In many such cases, a the story might have been buried. Leftists have a history of making racist statements against black conservatives and treating them as subhuman while they laud their moral superiority.Candace Owens, however, is not a person who goes quietly into the night... Candace said Twitter didn't think the tweet was a violation of their rules, so she posted Twitter's response for everyone suing the platform over bias"

Nic Rowan on Twitter - "Really wild stuff downtown. A Stop Asian Hate rally is clashing with a Pro-Uighur drive by. The pro-Uighur group is shouting “F— China!” The Asian rally is responding by calling them “racist.”"
Apparently the Chinese government is more oppressed than the Uighurs, so by progressive logic it's racist to criticise the Chinese government for genocide, or indeed anything at all

Blind Spots in the ‘Blind Audition’ Study - WSJ - "It is one of the most famous social-science papers of all time. Carried out in the 1990s, the “blind audition” study attempted to document sexist bias in orchestra hiring... They collected four decades of data from eight leading American orchestras. But the data were inconclusive: The paper includes multiple warnings about small sample sizes, contradictory results and failures to pass standard tests of statistical significance. But few readers seem to have noticed. What caught everyone’s attention was a big claim in the final paragraph: “We find that the screen increases—by 50 percent—the probability that a woman will be advanced from certain preliminary rounds and increases by severalfold the likelihood that a woman will be selected in the final round.”... The research went uncriticized for nearly two decades. That changed recently, when a few scholars and data scientists went back and read the whole study. The first thing they noticed is that the raw tabulations showed women doing worse behind the screens. But perhaps, Ms. Goldin and Ms. Rouse explained, blind auditions “lowered the average quality of female auditionees.” To control for ability, they analyzed a small subset of candidates who took part in both blind and nonblind auditions in three of the eight orchestras.The result was a tangle of ambiguous, contradictory trends. The screens seemed to help women in preliminary audition rounds but men in semifinal rounds. None of the findings were strong enough to draw broad conclusions one way or the other.So where did Ms. Goldin and Ms. Rouse get their totemic conclusion that blind auditions dramatically improved the success of women candidates? After warning that their findings were not statistically significant, they declared them to be “economically significant.” What does that mean in this context? “That doesn’t mean anything at all,” writes Columbia University data scientist Andrew Gelman, in a recent post about the study. “Some fine words but the punchline seems to be that the data are too noisy to form any strong conclusions.” My guess is that the authors thought they had detected something with real-world relevance despite an absence of statistical rigor. But that’s a reason to call for more research, not to declare the transformative power of screens in women’s quest for equality. Still, isn’t it obvious that the screens at least contributed to equal hiring? No. The screens might have been a reflection of changing attitudes, and perhaps those attitudes, not the screens, helped women. After all, women didn’t need blind auditions to move ahead in law, business, medicine or the academy—or at the Cleveland Orchestra, which, according to the study, did not use them...  The subsequent research is a morass of baseless claims, retracted statements and contradictory findings. There is, however, one study that stands out for its rigor and transparency. In 2017 a team of behavioral economists in the Australian government published the results of a large, randomized controlled study entitled “Going Blind to See More Clearly.” It was directly inspired by the blind-audition study. Iris Bohnet, a Harvard Kennedy School dean and Goldin-Rouse enthusiast, served as an adviser.For the study, more than 2,000 managers in the Australian Public Service were asked to select recruits from randomly assigned résumés—some disguising the applicant’s sex, others not. The research team fully expected to find far more female candidates shortlisted when sex was disguised. But, as the stunned team leader told the local media: “We found the opposite, that de-identifying candidates reduced the likelihood of women being selected for the shortlist.” It turned out that many senior managers, aware that sexist assumptions had once kept women out of upper-level positions, already practiced a mild form of affirmative action. Anonymized hiring was not only time-consuming and costly, it proved to be an obstacle to women’s equality. The team plans to look elsewhere for solutions.
I previously linked the Australian study. "Women's Equality" means equal results

Here's woke guru Ibram X. Kendi making an absolute mockery of Jesus, the Gospel, and Christianity ... inside a church - "Ibram Kendi, speaking in a Manhattan church, says "antiracists" fundamentally reject "savior theology" ("the Christian is to go out and save these individuals who are behaviorally deficient") and embrace liberation theology ("the Christian is to revolutionize society")."

Racist Black Man Stabs 12-Year-Old Boy in the Neck at McDonald's While Ranting About 'White Devils' - "A black man stabbed a white 12-year-old boy at McDonald’s in Pittsburgh in what appears to be a clear anti-white hate crime.The child is in stable condition after being stabbed by Charles Edward Turner, 51... “According to the criminal complaint, Mr. Turner fought with officers as they tried to arrest him. The complaint alleges that Mr. Turner used racial slurs against officers, patrons and employees during his arrest and bit one of the witnesses.” According to local television reports, Turner was muttering “white devils” and other anti-white slurs at the crime scene, though the Post Gazette opted not to include the details about the “racial slurs” he was using... Turner is charged with criminal attempted homicide, four counts of aggravated assault, two counts of simple assault, and resisting arrest. He is currently being held in the Allegheny County Jail.He has not been charged with a hate crime."
When a white man attacks a minority, it is a hate crime and the media goes crazy. When a minority attacks a white person and shouts racial slurs, it's mental illness (or the fault of white supremacy) and the media kill the story

Steve Sailer on Twitter - "I've been lied to by the last 30 years of "Law & Order."From watching "L&O," I'd assumed that most New York City shooters were Park Avenue corporate attorneys named Lippincott Saltonstall IV. But 2017 NYPD stats on shootings tell a different story:"
"On NYPD Blue, Det. Sipowicz's son and wife are shot to death, in separate incidents, by White people. The show did have black perps, but definitely not in proportion to reality."
"I knew a young blond guy who was trying to make it as an actor. The only roles he got were as a burglar in a home security commercial and as the South Side Rapist on a show set in Chicago. He decided to learn to code."

Warner Bros Omits Johnny Cage From Latest Mortal Kombat Film Because He’s White - "The character of Johnny Cage is an arrogant action movie star who enters the Mortal Kombat tournament as a hero and later becomes a love interest of Sonya Blade, another original character. However for this new movie, WB introduces the character of Cole Young played by Asian actor Lewis Tan. Why you ask? Because casting white men as heroes in 2021 is not progressive... white men are not allowed to be heroes in movies, even if the movie is based on a series in which said white guy is the hero.The decision was very telling seeing how Kano, another original white character IS in the movie however Kano is a villain. So the filmmakers had no problem displaying white characters that are evil, they just couldn’t allow a white guy in the film to be perceived as good. Other questionable decisions the film makes is casting a black woman in the role of ‘Mileena’ and toning down the violence from what is seen in the games."

Lauren Chen on Twitter - "Asians are successful because our cultures tend to value family and education. It's not because white people treat us better as pet minorities or some other garbage. It's freaking ridiculous that I even need to explain this."

| PLUM | VK - "Black lives matter is not an anti white movement.
Feminism is not an anti men movement.
Pride is not an anti straight movement.
This is not about you." - _kill.all.men

Meme - "My husband's white co-worker came in today so proud. He had some "Chinese" snacks and jokingly asked my husband if he wanted some. They were Mandarin snacks. My husband is Cantonese and can't read Mandarin. This is an example of well meaning micro aggression."
From Pam Pho @NerdyPam
When you want to grievance monger and start talking rubbish

Battlestar: Falcon and Winter Soldier may be committing a cardinal MCU sin - "Lemar Hoskins (Clé Bennett) first appears early in the episode as John Walker’s friend, but when the new Captain America later shows up to help Sam Wilson and Bucky Barnes out of a jam, Lemar is quickly elevated to sidekick status... his appearance in the Marvel Cinematic Universe opens up a conversation with one of the superhero franchise’s worst and most dangerous tropes — one that we had hoped was already behind us... When Battlestar is introduced in Falcon and the Winter Soldier, Marvel is careful not to make the same mistake again. Lemar Hoskins clearly identifies himself as John Walker’s “partner,” not sidekick.The way the scene is framed also echoes this idea. Sam and Bucky (clearly equal partners) sit opposite these two new characters. Marvel’s message is clear: there are no sidekicks in this car.But is that what’s really what’s happening? And will anyone who watched Falcon and the Winter Soldier Episode 2 come away thinking Battlestar is anything but John Walker’s sidekick? From their corny high-five on top of a moving truck to Lemar’s already apparent role as the tech guy, it seems like Marvel is slipping into sidekick territory, and not for the first time. The MCU has a long and documented history of casting actors of color as sidekicks to white superheroes. From Ned in the Spider-Man movies to Maria Rambeau in Captain Marvel to even the Captain America franchise with Anthony Mackie in Winter Soldier, it’s hard not to see a pattern of white superheroes supported by non-white sidekicks"
The lengths people go to to grievance monger
Given that for blacks alone, War Machine, Falcon, Black Panther, Valkyrie and Monica Rambeau are all superheroes in their own right, and Nick Fury is black too, this is rich

Racism in ‘Harper’s Magazine’ - "EmailThere’s a certain type of black public intellectual who is becoming increasingly common. A leftist identitarian, as it were, his constant subject is racism—namely, what he believes to be the ongoing systemic white oppression of blacks.His justification for this belief, however, is quite facile. He references group differences (or inequalities) and the past slavery and other past mistreatments of blacks, as if these things by themselves suffice to prove his case. They don’t—not even close.What is more, for all his indignation and high-toned words, in many instances, it’s plainly he himself who is the racist. What really bothers this hypocrite, his reasoning reveals, is not racial injustice, but lack of black dominance. He is motivated by envy, not righteousness. He wants power, not equality... whether it’s commissioning an article “on police violence” or teaching A People’s History of the United States, the white liberal intellectual is usually self-serving. He doesn’t really care much about blacks or other victim groups, but is like a big child playing ping-pong. Today he bats around race, tomorrow it’s class, next week it’s feminism, and on and on. Fundamentally, the game doesn’t vary, and as with Nancy Pelosi, Chuck Schumer, and other Democrat politicians, he isn’t serious about changing the status quo. On the contrary, in effect if not in intent, he uses pseudo-moral manipulation to preserve it, so that he himself continues to benefit. Smith and other black public intellectuals see through this pretense, and it’s to their credit that they frankly say so. And yet, there are profound problems with this passage, which ought to embarrass the magazine’s unexacting editors. Does “a white audience” really need anyone to argue “in favor of black people’s humanity and right to life”? No. It’s 2018, not 1818. The trouble is that Smith has evidently given no thought to the context in which police violence against blacks occurs. Although they constitute only 13 percent of the population, blacks commit 53 percent of all homicides and are disproportionately represented in violent crimes generally. Most violent black crimes are committed by black men under 40; that is, about 4 percent of the population. Disproportionately represented in violent situations, this group seems disproportionately shot and killed by police. But once you account for the criminal disparities—something few people want to do—the notion of an epidemic of police violence against young black men becomes untenable. Of course, there are instances in which police unjustly commit violence against and kill young black men, and needless to say, each is a great evil. But again, the data don’t bear out the common belief that there’s an epidemic of police violence against this group. In fact, a police officer is 18 times more likely to be killed by a black man than vice versa. Though they’re only 6 percent of the population, black males have made up 42 percent of all cop-killers in the past decade. The actual epidemic in this country is young black men killing young black men... He asks us to “consider the amount of energy expended by black writers and pundits defending the character of victims of police violence.” Yet he doesn’t mention that violent thugs like Michael Brown don’t merit such defense.Not that we should be surprised by these omissions, for the problem here is the irrational nature of human morality itself, which produces endless confusion that people take for wisdom and virtue. Much of morality consists of trying to apply certain a priori intuitions—values we have because of the sort of person we are—to matters wherein they may or may not be applicable. Thus, in their pity, or resentment, or in some complex of both, and with the frequently unjust American history of black and white relations in mind, people are motivated to believe in a terribly simplistic story: the bad white cops versus the innocent young black male victims. This falsehood the media, whose god is lucre, propagates incessantly. Meanwhile, the truth is far more complicated... “To participate in this dialogue requires an excavation of black pain for the consumption of a white public.” Cheap and implausible, this series of mere assertions suggests that Smith’s underlying intent is to make blacks seem like endless victims who never do any wrong. If an editor asks you to write about a certain subject, then you can take on the assignment if you wish. If you do, that will mean you write about that subject, as opposed to countless other possible ones. But it doesn’t follow that you can’t write about other subjects (“the questions we are able to ask”), or about ones that you think are more important, elsewhere. Nor is it true that by writing about a certain subject you leave “no room for new ideas or even real debate.” Utterly devoid of substantive support, Smith’s thought is incoherent, paranoid, and melodramatic... Smith takes it for granted that a mostly white staff and readership are moral evils. But America itself is majority white. Whites have significantly higher mean IQs than blacks, and at the far-right side of the bell curve—that is, the domain of genius—the gap is even greater. It’s largely white people who have founded magazines (I’m currently doing so myself, for example). And as Thomas Sowell, Larry Elder, and other black conservatives have often lamented, black culture is proudly anti-intellectual. Harper’s readers are mostly white, but then so is the readership of Mind, The Hudson Review, Dissent, and of countless other magazines. Nor are white people to blame for black people’s relative lack of interest in these.Smith’s shoddy way of thinking could be applied to virtually any context, and the result would be equally absurd. To take just one example, both Asians and men are disproportionately represented at Google. Does that mean these groups are “gatekeepers” in some exclusionary sense? No.Smith lumps his white editors and white readers into the same category that he appears to put all white people, “the oppressor.” This is so ridiculous that one may feel sorry for the man. And yet, how much pity can one have for someone whose self-pity knows no bounds, and who is so contemptible besides?... Smith’s perpetual subject is race, or rather, himself—for there’s no difference in these cases. Like them, he’s written a memoir. And again like them, his mind was ruined by the dreadful academy. One sees this at the end of his essay, when Smith quotes an exchange between James Baldwin and Audre Lorde at length. “It is precisely these kinds of dialogues,” he writes, “that white people would rather we did not have.” Such resentment and jargon are quite amusing since today you can open Harper’s, The Atlantic, The New Yorker, and the like leading liberal magazines almost at random and find “precisely these kinds of dialogues.” Many of the people who edit these magazines, and who write for them, are generic ignoramuses, boring idolaters who cannot think without reference to Foucault and Derrida, Said, Butler, and other celebrated windbags and charlatans. They’re forever emphasizing the need to have “a dialogue,” and the many important subjects that, we’re supposed to believe, they aren’t permitted to discuss. It’s all so much posturing. These persons have nothing new or interesting to say. Although not indeed constrained, they dare not write anything their former graduate advisers wouldn’t approve of." People confused over Muppets’ race after new Black muppets are announced: ‘Are the red and blue and green muppets supposed to be white?’ - "People have been left confused over the race of the Muppets after it was announced that two new Black Muppets would be introduced to the Sesame Street cast.It was announced earlier this week that the franchise’s latest characters – five-year-old Wes and his father Elijah – would offer a lesson on race.The video was released on Tuesday (23 March) as part of the Sesame Street’s digital content series called “The ABCs of Racial Literacy”, which hopes to “provide families with the tools they need to build racial literacy”.The series was launched by Sesame Workshop, the non-profit organisation behind Sesame Street, as part of its “commitment to racial justice”... “But… none of the other Muppets or Monsters on Sesame Street are any clear ethnicity? Unless you’re saying Elmo, Grover, Oscar, Cookie Monster, The Count, etc. are white…? Or are we now assigning ethnicity and race to them now?”“I never thought of Sesame Street muppets as having any race,” said someone else, while a fourth user wrote: “It’s telling that despite Muppets being all manner of green, fuchsia & orange that they are still considered default white thus Black Muppets are needed.”"
When virtue signalling spoils your original message In New Sesame Street Episode, Elmo Joins Antifa And Torches Local Businesses | The Babylon Bee - "The new entry in the Sesame Street series also features a subplot where the Cookie Monster learns to be body-positive despite having diabetes and one where the Count is canceled after his old tweets reveal he believes in math, which is a white supremacist dog whistle.Bert and Ernie also get married at the end of the episode.The episode also features the Sesame Street characters singing along with fan favorites like "Q is for Q Anon," "Somebody Come and Attack a Cop with Me," and "One of These Things Is Not Like the Others (So Let's Attack It For Being Different).""

James Lindsay - Posts | Facebook - Rachel Knox, Endocannabinologit & Certified Cannabinoid Medicine Specialist: "BIL patients and clients do best when aigned (sic) with professionals who look like us. Please champion the development of BIL health and medical leaders in cannabis. Visit www.achemed.org to learn more" (Association for Cannabis Health Equity & Medicine)
"We've progressed away from POC to BIPOC and now to BIL (Black, Indigenous, and Latinx), just to make absolutely effing sure Asians and Latinos won't be included in the grift group."

Is liberalism really a mental illness?

Is liberalism really a mental illness? - The Spectator World
Getting right in the head

Conservative pundits like Michael Savage and Mark Dice like to ruffle feathers by claiming that liberalism is a mental disorder. Well…is it?

No. Of course not. It’s crude and dangerous to pathologize the political beliefs of half the population — beliefs which have often changed the world for the better.

However, this pathologizing has been done to conservatives since the end of World War Two. In his theory of anti-democratic authoritarianism, Theodor Adorno identified a number of ‘symptoms’ of an authoritarian personality ‘syndrome’, including sexual inhibition, support for conventional values, and admiration of toughness and power. The political bias of the concept was sealed by psychologist Bob Altemeyer in 1981, when he coined the hugely popular concept ‘right-wing authoritarianism’.

Since then, psychologists have condemned conservativism as dysfunctional. For example, Van Hiel, Mervielde and De Fruyt (2004) investigated the link between right-wing ideology and ‘maladaptive personality’; right-wing beliefs are routinely linked to prejudice (e.g., Ekehammar et al., 2004); and studies have reported that conservatives have, on average, lower IQs (e.g., Onraet et al., 2015; a rare example of leftist academics admitting that IQ tests do measure intelligence and that group differences in intelligence do exist). Meanwhile, the esteemed American Psychological Association has endorsed pseudoscientific leftist ideas like toxic masculinity and white privilege.

Psychological interventions likewise seem strangely often to tend towards left-wing goals. For example, Broockman and Kalla (2016) used ‘deep canvassing’ (encouraging empathetic perspective-taking during door knocking) to increase voter support for transgender bathrooms, without ever considering whether it was ethical to do so. More recently, psychologists have found that magnets, applied to certain areas of the brain, can ‘cure’ religiosity and in-group preference (Holbrook et al., 2016). The adoption of this tech is foreshadowed today by ‘unconscious bias training’ corporate seminars. It’s not enough to control your behaviors: progressives now want to get right inside your brain and eradicate what they don’t like there, too. If you thought censorship of conservatives on Twitter and Facebook was bad enough today, consider whether Silicon Valley would draw the line at shadow-banning your thoughts before they happen.

Outside of academia, the corporate media likewise deifies liberals and demonizes conservatives. As just one illustration, the press ridiculed ‘tradwives’ (called ‘radicalized’ by the Times of London, with ‘a dark heart’ by the Guardian), while speaking in gushing terms about Bella Thorne’s $1 million OnlyFans payday (The Mirror talked about her ‘smashing records’ while the Mail reported on how she ‘celebrated’ her ‘success’). The media promotes a Sex and the City lifestyle, while ignoring the fact that the show’s writer, Candace Bushnell, said she regrets choosing a career over children and is now ‘truly alone’.

This is despite number of premarital partners longitudinally predicting substance abuse (Ramrakha et al., 2013), and some research suggesting that frequency of casual sex predicts suicidal thoughts later in life (Sandberg-Thoma and Dush, 2013).

Anyway, the narrative is clear: right-wing bad, left-wing good.

This is not to say that the aforementioned points are not valid; conservative beliefs likely are correlated with certain disorders in the population at large. Rather, the issue here is the weight of focus on conservatism compared to liberalism — unsurprising, given that liberals outnumber conservatives in psychology academia by a ratio of 14:1 (Duarte et al., 2015). Indeed, a search on Google Scholar returns almost six times as many results for ‘right-wing violence’ as it does for ‘left-wing violence’. As radical Marxists burn, loot and murder across the US, would anyone seriously argue that leftist violence is not equally worthy of study? Of course it’s right to analyze Hitler’s pathologies — but what about those of Mao or Stalin?

Fortunately, academics have recently started to explore the psychopathologies of the left. Thirty years ago, a typical paper on the subject would be that published in Political Psychology under the title ‘The Myth of Left-Wing Authoritarianism’ (Stone, 1980). Yet, by 2018, the tide had started to turn: in their paper ‘Finding the Loch Ness Monster: Left-wing Authoritarianism in the United States’, Conway and colleagues (2018) found evidence that left-wing authoritarianism — as measured through items like, ‘The only way our country can get through the crisis ahead is to get rid of our “traditional”  values’ — was a viable construct’. Even more recently, the ‘horseshoe hypothesis’ was supported by a study finding that authoritarianism exists on both the far-right and the far-left (Costello et al., 2020). Indeed, this year, endorsement for totalitarian COVID-19 measures (e.g., increased government powers, immunity certificates, banning the sale of firearms) has been predicted by both left- and right-wing authoritarianism (Manson, 2020).

Evidence is plentiful, therefore, that pathology can exist on both sides of the political spectrum. However, there is also evidence that liberalism may be associated with its own unique disorders.

Firstly, the modern self-identified strain of ‘liberalism’ is explicitly correlated with mental illness. Studies of the mentally ill have found that they tend to vote less conservative and more liberal (Howard and Anthony, 1977; Kelly, 2014) . One paper, for example, found that 78 percent of mental illness outpatients in Germany preferred liberal political candidates, compared to just 56 percent of the general public. More recently, Kirkegaard (2020) analyzed the General Social Survey data and found that extreme liberals had a 150 percent increase in the rate of mental illness compared to moderates. Conservatives — even extreme conservatives — were 17 percent and 24 percent less likely than moderates, respectively, to have been diagnosed with mental illness. Meanwhile, Pew Research Center’s March 2020 American Trends Panel Survey similarly showed that 38 percent of ‘very liberal’ whites have been told by a doctor that they have a mental health condition (compared to 20 percent of moderates and 15 percent of the ‘very conservative’).

More broadly, the same strain of (illiberal) ‘liberalism’ has been associated with destructive and unhealthy behaviors. Conservatives tend to be happier (Napier and Tost, 2008), healthier (Subramanian and Perkins, 2009), and — you guessed it — more attractive (Peterson and Palmer, 2017). Believing, as they do, that they have personal responsibility for their lives, they also tend to live longer (Kondrichin and Lester, 1998; Smith and Dorling, 1996). Studies suggest that liberals, meanwhile, are more likely to drink alcohol (Yakovlev and Guessford, 2013), take drugs (Nour, Evans and Carhart-Harris, 2017), and be promiscuous (Hatemi, Crabtree and McDermott, 2017).

These unhealthy behaviors perhaps share a common neurobiological root with liberal political beliefs.

A disorder called the behavioral variant of frontotemporal dementia (bvFTD) sheds some light. Miller and colleagues (2001) reported on a 63-year-old patient who was conservative before developing bvFTD. She then became ‘politically opinionated’ about her anti-conservative political beliefs, to the point of confronting strangers; she started dressing in a more casual manner; and she developed an interest in animal rights; altering her preference for collecting jewelry to collecting stuffed animals.

As if these qualities weren’t suggestive enough of many antifa types, the Association for Frontotemporal Degeneration lists the following among the symptoms of the disorder: rude and offensive comments, inappropriate sexual behavior, neglect of personal hygiene, binge eating, repeating words or phrases, clapping (it remains silent on the emoji ‘clap’ which has become so ubiquitous), rereading the same book over and over again, questionable financial decisions (see $150k liberal arts degrees; not to mention the left’s blind addiction to government borrowing), frequent and abrupt mood changes (see 2015-2020), and, perhaps most crucially of all, blaming others for the consequences of socially unacceptable behavior. The neurobiological root of such liberal traits is highlighted by research into bvFTD. Namely, it is associated with a reduced emotional response to negative emotional stimuli (Jacques et al., 2015), reduced attention to threat (Joshi et al., 2014), and reduced reactivity to disgusting stimuli (Eckart et al., 2012). In short, people with the disorder are less sensitive to danger. As a result, it can impair the self-protection instinct (Shinagawa, 2015).

Overall, there seem to be three main traits which define what one might call ‘pathological liberalism’, all of which may have a core of reduced threat sensitivity.

The first is an extreme openness to new things and tolerance of ambiguity. Liberalism is indeed associated with the personality trait ‘openness to experience’: that is, adventurous and tolerant of new ideas and change (e.g., Schoen and Schumann, 2007; Vecchione et al., 2011). Looking at personality more broadly, conservatism tends to be associated with preferences for stability, order and structure, while liberalism tends to be associated with curiosity, creativity, and novelty-seeking. It is also — credit where it’s due — associated with thinking deeply and rejecting simple solutions (Jost et al., 2003; Carney, Jost and Gosling, 2008; Jost, Federico and Napier, 2009; Caparos et al., 2015). Indeed, liberals tend to have more gray matter in the part of the brain that deals with processing signals for potential change (Amodio et al., 2007; Kanai et al., 2011; Schreiber et al., 2013). Liberals are more likely to prefer abstract art (Wilson, Ausman and Mathews, 1973) and have messy work spaces (Carney, Jost and Gosling, 2008).

There is a huge amount of value in being open-minded but not — as G.K. Chesterton said — so open-minded that your brain falls out. On this point, Woodley (2010) proposed the idea of ‘clever sillies’ — intelligent people who lack common sense and overanalyze things to produce sophisticated rationalizations for nonsense. In the words of George Orwell: ‘There are some ideas so absurd that only an intellectual could believe them.’

Similarly, the cultural mediation hypothesis argues that intelligent people are — rightly or wrongly — more likely to follow the crowd because they have the cognitive ability to rationalize doing so and to predict the social benefits therein (Woodley, 2011).

The second determinant of pathological liberalism is extreme emotionality and empathy. Liberals tend to be more empathetic (Hirsh et al., 2010), and more agreeable in general (Schoen and Schumann, 2007; Vecchione et al., 2011); they are also more likely to reject group loyalty (see Haidt, 2012) and, as discussed, are less prejudiced towards ‘out-groups’. From a neurobiological perspective, political liberalism has been linked to activity in the part of the brain that deals with interpersonal trust (Belfi, Koscik and Tranel, 2015). Bringing this all together, a study of Twitter users found that those following Republicans used more words emphasizing group membership (such as in-group identity, national identity, and religion), while those following Democrats used more emotional language (e.g., feelings, anxiety, positive emotions and expletives; Sylwester and Purver, 2015).

Again, there are many benefits to such altruism — up to a point. Many researchers have also explored the concept of pathological altruism (Oakley et al., 2011), in which charitable giving actually does more harm than good (by, for example, fostering dependence and undermining organic economic development. One illustration comes from the donation of second-hand clothing to countries like Kenya, which has all but killed the once-thriving garment industry there.

But when liberal altruism becomes pathological, it can also be at the subject’s own expense. For example, a survey by the American National Election Studies in 2018 asked respondents to rate how warm they felt towards their own race compared to others. All groups were biased in favor of their own except for one: white liberals, who feel warmer to others than to their own people. In other words, in contrast to all other groups, white liberals put others above themselves.

This prostration before other groups introduces the third trait that defines pathological liberalism: low self-esteem. Die-hard liberals seem to live in a world of self-loathing: they believe they are born dirty thanks to new varieties of ‘original sin’; and they never recognize the good things their history has contributed, instead campaigning to actively ‘dismantle’ their own culture. Their protests are invariably forms of self-abuse or self-abasement, like lying in front of traffic or getting on their knees. A function of low self-esteem is also believing that one has little control over one’s life. Research has indicated that having an external ‘locus of control’ (i.e., believing that your fate is determined by powerful people and forces) is typically linked to a leftist ideology (e.g., Levenson and Miller, 1976). In surely one of the great reversals of history, a 2019 Cato Institute survey found that just 33 percent of people identifying as ‘very liberal’ agreed that ‘[their] life is determined by [their] own actions’, compared to 52 percent of those who are very conservative. It in turn makes sense that those who feel less in control of their own destiny would support ‘free’ healthcare, ‘free’ education, more welfare, and more regulation. As Edmund Burke said, ‘Society cannot exist, unless a controlling power upon will and appetite be placed somewhere; and the less of it there is within, the more there must be without.’

This external locus of control has recently manifested itself in victimhood culture — the Marxist belief that one is a perpetual victim of omnipotent but invisible power structures, from which only the same Marxist authorities can rescue such victim groups. What is less well known is a recent paper which found that those who exhibit these ‘virtuous victimhood’ behaviors were more likely to have ‘dark’ personality traits, including narcissism (Ok et al., 2020). Twenge, Zhang and Im (2004) explain the contradiction between low self-esteem and narcissism in terms of locus of control; the pathological liberal likely believes that, when something good happens in their life, it was their achievement; when something bad happens, they are the victim of oppression.

Pride is the vice with the strongest correlation with narcissism (Veselka, Giammarco and Vernon, 2014). This narcissistic culture of pride is another defining trait of pathological liberalism — even manifesting in parades to celebrate pride. A ‘born this way’ mindset which embraces unhealthy lifestyle groups like the obese can only lead to disaster. As Thomas Aquinas said, pride is the worst vice and the source of all other vices. Without looking up towards the heavens, why would we ever seek to improve? 

Ultimately, those suffering from pathological liberalism may have too much regard for others and too little self-respect; they may be too tolerant of uncertainty and novelty; and they may be too insensitive to potential danger. A few manifestations of this might include the mayor of Florence starting a ‘Hug a Chinese’ campaign to fight racism at the start of COVID-19; a pop-up restaurant in Toronto where all the chefs have Aids; and Drag Queen Storytime, where toddlers are read to in public libraries by crossdressing fetishists.

That’s not to say the aforementioned traits are inherently bad. Such liberalism has produced some societal benefits that we all enjoy, of course. The opposing argument could be — and frequently is — made about conservatives being too closed-minded and intolerant. These two forces act on one another in a sort-of Hegelian dialectic, like yin and yang, with the resulting tension keeping society in motion. Ralph Waldo Emerson (1903) noted that ‘the two parties which divide the state, the party of conservatism and that of innovation, are very old, and have disputed the possession of the world ever since it was made.’

Rather, the issue is when the pendulum swings too far in one direction: ‘All things in moderation, including moderation,’ as Oscar Wilde said. Liberals control academia, the press, and Hollywood and are tightening their stranglehold on the internet day by day. In light of pathological liberalism, can we be sure these institutions are safe in only their hands?

Links - 30th October 2021 (1)

Conflict in literature : coolguides - "Conflict in literature:
Classical:
Man vs nature
Man vs man
Man vs God
Modern:
Man vs society
Man vs self
Man vs no God
Postmodern:
Man vs technology
Man vs reality
Man vs author"
Illustrated with Looney Tunes

Opinion | The Real Divide in America Is Between Political Junkies and Everyone Else - The New York Times - "The common view of American politics today is of a clamorous divide between Democrats and Republicans, an unyielding, inevitable clash of harsh partisan polarization.  But that focus obscures another, enormous gulf — the gap between those who follow politics closely and those who don’t. Call it the “attention divide.”  What we found is that most Americans — upward of 80 percent to 85 percent — follow politics casually or not at all. Just 15 percent to 20 percent follow it closely (the people we call “deeply involved”): the group of people who monitor everything from covfefe to the politics of “Cuties.”... Among Democrats, the political junkies think the influence of wealthy donors and interest groups is an urgent problems. But less-attentive Democrats are 25 percentage points more likely to name moral decline as an important problem facing the country — a problem partisan Democrats never even mention.  These gaps extend beyond issues to feelings about the other party. Hard partisans are twice as likely as people who pay less attention to politics to say that they would be unhappy if their child married someone of the opposing party. Hard partisans are also more likely to speak out about these political likes and dislikes. Almost 45 percent of people who are deeply involved say they frequently share their views on social media — in some cases, daily. It’s only 11 percent for those without a politics habit. To put this in perspective, a Pew study finds that 10 percent of Twitter users are responsible for 97 percent of all tweets about politics. This gap between the politically indifferent and hard, loud partisans exacerbates the perception of a hopeless division in American politics because it is the partisans who define what it means to engage in politics. When a Democrat imagines a Republican, she is not imagining a co-worker who mostly posts cat pictures and happens to vote differently; she is more likely imagining a co-worker she had to mute on Facebook because the Trump posts became too hard to bear... How can politics better match the opinions of a majority of Americans? The fact is, it’s not an easy problem to solve. We can try to give the hardened partisans less voice in the news. Featuring people who exemplify partisan conflict and extremist ideas elevates their presence in politics (though of course by definition, it is the partisans who are most closely watching the news who are also most likely to give their opinions). This is particularly true of social media: What a vocal minority shares on social media is not the opinion of the public. Yet such political tweets, as the political communication scholar Shannon McGregor finds, are increasingly making their way into news coverage as stand-ins for public opinion."

You’re Not Listening. Here’s Why. - The New York Times - "In an in-depth study of 38 graduate students, confirmed in a larger online survey of 2,000 people representative of all Americans, the Harvard sociologist Mario Luis Small found that slightly more than half the time, people confided their most pressing and worrisome concerns to people with whom they had weaker ties, even people they encountered by chance, rather than to those they had previously said were closest to them — like a spouse, family member or dear friend. In some cases, the subjects actively avoided telling the people in their innermost circle because they feared judgment, insensitivity or drama.  You’ve probably experienced this phenomenon when someone close to you revealed something that you didn’t know while the two of you were talking to someone else. You might have even said, “I didn’t know that!”  The revelation most likely occurred because the additional person was listening differently than you previously had. Maybe that person showed more interest, asked the right questions, was less judging or was less apt to interrupt. Again, it’s not that people in close relationships are purposefully neglectful or inattentive, it’s simply human nature to become complacent about what we know."

Meme - Nassim Nicholas Taleb @nntaleb: "Borat is nearly the most racist movie in history, overtly degrading the ople of #Kazakhstan. Yet many get "cancelled" for misusing a certain words out of context. So Sacha Baron Cohen & authors get a free pass by the "left" because he attacks Giuliani?
I blocked every person who wrote "Borat is parody", don't be a snowflake, etc. Yes, I know it is parody. My point is the double standard with "parodies": if racist jokes (actually insults) are allowed for some races & not others, it is racism in its worst form.
I visited Kazakhstan a few times. Every time, locals brought the subject & insisted that Borat was not representative, that it was unfair, that it cause a lot of damage, etc. One day I mistakenly called the driver, whose name was Marat, "Borat". It led to a huuuge reaction."

Facebook - "I see the meta in Borat - that it impugns just how ignorant the Western world is of other countries in the world. In fact, the subtext is that you have no idea how free you are and how equal you are.
Not sure I would say it’s a “racist” movie but yet I see what Professor Taleb is saying about the hypocrisy. I would also say that they’re lucky the Kazakhs are white-looking. Imagine making fun of the regressiveness of another culture or country whose people have darker skin?"

The Rudy Giuliani Scene In the New Borat Movie Isn’t What You Think - "Trump’s lawyer was caught on camera in a hotel room...tucking in his shirt."

Meme - "It's over, conservatives. We're going to destroy the government, eat the rich, slaughter police and abolish gender and religion"
"Ok I guess I'll fight you"
"Wow that's mean :( We just want free healthcare :("
On liberals gaslighting everyone by claiming the far left just wants free healthcare

Facebook - "Someone made a video of bats upside down, and it looks like a goth nightclub."

UK doing more than any other country to end scourge of modern slavery - "Countries doing the most and least to combat modern slavery, 2018
10 best countries
1) United Kingdom
2) Netherlands
3) United States
4) Portugal
5) Sweden
6) Argentina
7) Belgium
8) Spain
9) Croatia
10) Australia
10 worst countries
1) North Korea
2) Eritrea
3) Libya
4) Iran
5) Equatorial Guinea
6) Burundi
7) Democratic Republic of Congo
8) Congo
9) Russia
10) Somalia"
Clearly, "white supremacy" is at the root of the problem

"Police warned angry goat on roof only respects one man" : funny

The Best Decade Ever - "According to Johan Norberg, a native of Sweden and author of the book, “Progress: Ten Reasons to Look Forward to the Future”, the 2010’s were the best decade ever. That’s a pretty bold statement for sure. Here are ten reasons he cites when making this claim:
1) 28% of all the wealth mankind has ever created (measured as GDP per capita), was created in these ten years.
2) Extreme poverty more than halved, from 18.2% to 8.6%. The number of poor was reduced by 158,000 – every day.
3) The child mortality rate was reduced by a third. As a result, 2.1 million children’s deaths were prevented this year (2019).
4) Life expectancy increased from 69.5 to 72.6 years. So every day in the past decade, the average life span increased almost 8 hours.
5) The share of people governed by laws criminalizing consensual same-sex acts declined from 40% to 27% (down from 74% in 1969).
6) The share of countries with laws protecting women from violent partners increased from 53% to 78%.
7) The global death rate from indoor and outdoor pollution declined 19%.
8) Despite global warming, deaths from climate-related disasters declined by a third, to 0.35 per 100,000 people. A reduction by 95% since the 1960’s.
9) Many rich countries have reached “peak stuff”. The consumption of 66 out of 72 resources tracked by the US Geological Survey is declining.
10) Despite setbacks and strongman nostalgia, the share who live in a “not free” country declined from 34% to 26% (down from 42.5% in 1980).
Unfortunately, we don’t hear or read much about this in our news sources due to the media’s mantra of ‘if it bleeds, it leads’. It is certainly true there are still challenges and issues we face on this planet, not everything is perfect. But it is critical that we be mindful of the progress we are making and celebrate it, that we teach our kids about it. Then get back to work and continue to improve from here. As one of my business coaches taught me many years ago: our focus should be on progress, not perfection"

Meme - "Uh yeah sure I have five personality disorders and mental illnesses, hate my life, myself, my job, and my family but TRUST ME dude, my worldview and ideology are the KEY to a healthy happy life"

Meme: Political Compass - "Authoritarian Right: Martin Luther King Jr, Political views heavily influenced by his religion, Fought for the betterment of his race, Has a Federal Holiday in his onorh
Authoritarian Left: George Washington, Fought against British Colonialism, Expanded the powers of the Federal Government, Used force to crack down on disgruntled tax payers in the Whiskey Rebellion
Libertarian Left: Adolf Hitler: Was a vegetarian, Passed laws to protect animal rights, Hated ((Capitalism)), Did a shit ton of drugs
Libertarian Right: Kim Jong Un, Has a stockpile of illegal nuclear weapons, No taxes in North Korea, Hates the US government, constantly spied on by the CIA, Might literally be the fattest person in North Korea"

Angry Robot on Twitter - "Count Dracula was 412 when he moved to England in search of new blood. Sauron was 54,000 years old when he forged The One Ring. Cthulhu had seen galaxies flare into life and fade to darkness before he put madness in the minds of men. It's never too late to follow your dreams!"

Sam on Twitter - ""There is a considerable overlap between the intelligence of the smartest bears and the dumbest tourists." -Yosemite Park Ranger on why it's hard to design a bear-proof garbage can."

Erik Hearne's answer to How do chefs crack open large quantities of eggs? - Quora - "Easy! They don’t.  Most restaurants, (with fancier restaurants being the exception) use cases of liquid egg. These cases contain 5 or 10 pound bags of cracked whole eggs which have been pasteurized and mixed with a small amount of citric acid as a preservative. These bags have a pour spout and some restaurants have dispensers for these bags."

Facebook - "Ask an artist for free work, he will be tRigGeReD cry laobeh laobu dua pek gong LYK ah gong as if you killed his laobeh, name and shame you on social media 'IT IS NOT 30MIN OF MY TIME; IT IS 10 YEARS OF MY TRAINING' ask an accountant for free work, he will smile and refuse politely, and go on with life. These artists have a victimhood complex which makes them triggered at anything and everything"

Man goes on first date with woman, she brings 23 family members along for the meal- - " The story begins in Zhejiang Province, where a 29-year-old man who’d been having trouble finding love during the pandemic was set up on a date by his mother. He was looking forward to the date, and arranged to meet her at a restaurant for a meal together.  When he went to the restaurant as they had planned, he walked in to find his date had turned up with 23 of her relatives. She said, “Let’s all eat together”, and despite not receiving any advance warning that the party for two had turned into a party for 25, the man sat down and ate with the family.  As they ate, the table filled up with expensive meals and alcohol, which his date and her family members devoured happily. At the end of the meal, the man was given the bill by restaurant staff and he was gobsmacked to find it came to a total of 19,800 Yuan (US$2,962).  Unable to pay the bill, the man snuck out of the restaurant without anyone noticing and returned home, leaving the woman to foot the bill... Asked why she brought her family members with her to the first date, the woman said: “I was testing whether the man who might potentially be my boyfriend would be generous enough to pay for all 25 people, including himself and myself.”
She went on to insist that she was the victim, as she ended up having to pay for the meal."

Thomas Chatterton Williams on Twitter - "Someone pretending to like you more than they do so they can have sex with you feels like a criminal offence to me. I feel like I should be within rights to sue"
"Let’s just cut to the chase and outlaw being alive"

Matt Walsh on Twitter - "Yes I am the beneficiary of “privilege.” The privilege is this: I had two parents. They stay married. They made sure I stayed in school. They gave moral guidance. My kids have the same privilege. Anyone with this privilege will have a fair shake at life. Anyone. Any race.
Of course this isn’t so much privilege as it’s just the way it’s meant to be. But if we’re looking for advantages that a child can be given early in life, this is it."

Facebook - "I totally disagree with this! Artists, or, for that matter, Human Resource Managers ARE essential.
It depends on the context. When we are moving from an unemployment or low employment situation to finding jobs for people, Human Resource Managers will be of great service.
I want to come back to artists - not just theatre folks, but musicians, dancers and all.
Many are my personal friends and associates but why I want to stand up for all of us is because of our professionalism.
In recent months, we have not been just sitting around and shaking legs. Many of us have had to invent different ways of reaching out.
Why do we want to reach out? Not that we want to be rich and famous and are egotistical.
We hear from many out there, who are being urged to stay at home, that they want, in fact need, the products and services we can offer. I have had the privilege of being inspired by the varied online presentations of many, many Singapore artists. And most of this done for free! How is this not essential?
We, in ACT 3 Theatrics, are being approached by organisations for productions that parents are clamouring for to keep their children engaged and entertained. Not essential?
Why is this need to publicly proclaim as to who is doing important work and who is doing lesser ones. If nothing else, we have feelings. We, too, hurt when pricked. Words of Shakespeare, an artist.
Amy J Cheng  #singaporeartists"
Artists and their supporters have poor comprehension skills, since they don't understand that "essential" is in the context of covid. And since this story made it to international publications, it's not just in Singapore that they are sensitive and easily triggered
Keywords: artists are essential

Rishabh Gahlot on Twitter - "Former U.S. President Obama condemns violence at protests"
"The man who dropped 100,000 bombs on 8 different countries throughout his Presidency, murdering and displacing millions of men, women and children, wants to lecture us about “violence”."

The things we do to get that one awesome pic! Esdeath x Akame Reverse Bunnies shoot with r/gumiho 🥰 : MikomiHokina

Meme - "I hate it when men relax. What's so calming The thought of misogyny?"
"dudes just chillin thread. can we start a thread of dudes just chillin?"
Addendum: Imagine being triggered by this. This is the sort of person who complains about "white fragility"

How Canadians see each other. btw thats a fried bologna sandwich from Nfld & Lab : onguardforthee

Female Medical Professionals Shamed For Posting Bikini Pics in Published Study - "A group of researchers published a study that recently went viral last week for judging young doctors’ professionalism based on their social media posts... the study was published behind a paywall in the Journal of Vascular Surgery and looked at the social media accounts of 480 recent vascular-surgery graduates from 2016 to 2018... 61 of the 235 medical residents they reviewed had “unprofessional or potentially unprofessional content.”
These types of content were defined in their paper as: “drinking alcohol, using profane language, and wearing Halloween costumes, and sharing bikini photos.”...
“Account holders who self-identified as vascular surgeons were more likely to be associated with unprofessional social media behavior,” the paper continued. “Young surgeons should be aware of the permanent public exposure of unprofessional content that can be accessed by peers, patients, and current/future employers.”
Public reaction:  When the study became free to view last week and was recently promoted on social media, it caught the attention and disapproval of many. The hashtag #MedBikini started trending on both Twitter and Instagram with medical professionals posting photos in their swimwear and showing their support for fellow “unprofessional” medical professionals.
Social media users found the study deplorable for “shaming” female doctors and nurses... The study was retracted on Friday by the journal's editorial board after being published in the August 2020 issue"
So much for academic freedom, and for saying what everyone knows even if they don't want to acknowledge it. Who will suffer by not acknowledging reality? Young surgeons who will face professional consequences. It's more sexy to shoot the messenger

Report: hiring managers reveal what to do and what not to do on social media - "You should never post online pictures of yourself naked and drunk, but if you’re going to do it, do it on Tumblr. According to our most recent survey, hiring managers don’t check there... While a recent survey by social recruiting platform Jobvite found that 93% of hiring managers will screen candidates via social media, our study found that only 63% say they do so. The other 37% are not looking at your social profiles... We also asked employers whether they have seen something that has moved them to not hire a candidate. Nearly half of respondents, 48%, said yes. What did they see? The most common themes were “inappropriate” behaviours, including:
“Partying”
Drinking
“Inappropriate” dress
Drug use...
Ten things employers saw in social profiles that made them not hire that person
“Negative comments about previous employers.”
“Saw a post that they were going out drinking at the same time as their scheduled employment interview, which they obviously didn’t show up for. Needless to say they didn’t get the job.”
“Drinks in hand, partying in a bikini, comments on pictures using profanities, comments about hating the 9 to 5 grind.”
“Suggestive photos easily visible on Facebook. Not the image we want for our company.”
“A young man who had presented himself as very clean cut and well mannered had pictures of himself and his friends engaged in a fistfight with another group of individuals. The comments were outrageous targeting the other group based on race and economic status.”
“Sexist postings objectifying women.”
“Very angry face on the profile picture.”
“Inappropriate posts that were opinionated and ill informed. Candidate did not get to interview stage.”
“The person’s profile had many pictures of them engaging in illegal drugs.”
“A personal website dedicated to the promotion of their personal belief in an impending alien apocalypse.”"
Why give people good advice if they're going to get offended by it and then cancel you? It's telling that all the hiring managers here are anonymous

Power and provocativeness: The effects of subtle changes in clothing on perceptions of working women - "The current study investigates the effects of subtle changes in professional women’s dress on women’s perceptions of power and competence. We replicate and extend Howlett, Pine, Cahill, Orakcioglu, and Fletcher’s (2015) research showing that women in provocative clothing are rated as less competent. We used a larger sample, tested a second independent variable, and fine-tuned the design for higher face validity. Participants (N = 198, 170 women and 29 men) from a Midwestern university in the USA rated four photographs of professionally dressed women whose blouses varied in the number of buttons left undone and whether they wore a camisole. We found main effects of buttons (undone/done) and camisoles (on/off) for participants perceptions of intelligence, competence, powerfulness, and on a global rating score. Results also showed significant interaction effects between buttons and camisoles on ratings of powerfulness. The results have many implications for how women dress professionally."

Links - 28th October 2021 (2) (General Wokeness)

Say NO to Foreign Intervention in Singapore's Politics - Posts | Facebook - "2021 Pinkdot garnered 6800+ viewers, very slight increase from last year. So now we know what is their true support base. Hong Lim Park can fit around 3000-4000 plus overseas viewers so 6800 that's about all. Obviously Pinkdot was lying about the 27,000 physical attendance."

Meme - "Looks like the whites are at it again. Are you sick of the white race doing dumb shit? Hey look a tag group...
Group Rules from the Admins
Don't be a bigot. No transphobia or homophobia."
At least they didn't say "no racism"

The Sniper Ghost Warrior Press Event Made Me Pretend To Kill Arabs And I Hated It - "A recent press event for Sniper Ghost Warrior: Contracts 2 highlighted just how casual American culture is about violence towards Arab people."
It's a Polish game
Comment: "Wait till he hears what we do to Germans every other Battlefield game."

Meme - Katie Dupere @ @katiedupere: "I wrote about stigma around fake nails in the queer community, and about how I won't take off my long nails for sex. Tinder link in bio."
"ppl not wanting to have their box torn up by your talons is not a "stigma," Katherine"
"its not that deep kate"
"so, what you're saying is that you're sad no one will ever sleep with you, even though there is a very clear reason why??"

OPINION: A Lamento Borincano in the Shooting Death of a Puerto Rican Couple - "The couple was celebrating Chicago’s Puerto Rican Day Parade, flying a big Boricua flag attached to their car when they were ambushed. The graphic video of the attack went viral and blew up a story that otherwise would have slipped under the wire as just another violent day in an American city... This also happened to be the first official federal celebration of Juneteenth... “As you saw from the horrific video, it wasn’t just one person. There’s one person who dealt the fatal shot. But there were others who were standing by who dragged that poor woman out of the car. The man who was killed literally used his body as a shield and paid for that with his life,” the mayor said... The couple was one of 10 victims who died and 65 wounded in a weekend of violence. Most of the United State’s media categorized the brutal attack as a local story—one fit for the city’s crime blotter. It hardly made national news. No hashtags, no thoughts, and prayers, no protests on the street, and just a small fist of flowers in a makeshift memorial. Un lamento borincano. Instead, the lead story this week that featured Latinos was the growing outrage at a high school coach in California who had been fired after tortillas were thrown at Hispanic opponents after a championship game. The incident was also caught on video. Tortillas vs two Boricuas killed brutally. What a choice. In Puerto Rico, the story received even less coverage. It gained some traction when a popular social media figure, Molusco, said that the couple was killed because they were flying a Puerto Rican flag... The story only began to gain traction after the graphic video went viral on social media. By Monday morning, at least 571,000 people on Twitter had viewed the fatal shooting. This focused national attention on what had happened and on the escalation of violence in Chicago and nationwide. The video is the reason so many people are talking about it, not the media... The fact that two young people —Puerto Rican— can be executed out in the open and the media considers it just a horrible local crime —and not much else— should give us ample cause for concern. If there wasn’t a racial element to the attack, then we should look at how the coverage was approached. This was an attack that speaks volumes about the state of the U.S. now. We must also not allow the narrative to be hijacked by political agendas. Conservative columnist Ann Coulter shared the video and claimed that the media ignored because African Americans gunning down Puerto Ricans in Chicago doesn’t fit the Democrat’s narrative about racism in the United States. A Democrat activist named Richard Taite snapped back that the couple had it coming because they were flying a Confederate Flag."
Considering she also pointed out the media ignored the story it's odd she slams Coulter

Meme - "Psychosispsositivity: PSYCHOTIC PEOPLE HAVE THE SAY ON PSYCHOSIS ISSUES. We are the experts on our own lives Non-psychotics, no matter how much ti..."
This is a logical endpoint of identity politics

Meme - Zachary Miller @_ZecharyMiller: "Modernity is so lame. We used to be ruled by kings, samurai, warrior priests, and polymaths. No we're ruled by Jeff Bezos, sociology professors, and Janet from HR."

Black Tampa Police Officer Fired for Using Racial Slur - "Delvin White, a Black police officer, was terminated Tuesday after Tampa Police say he used the N-word while wearing his body camera."

The word Caucasian is ‘racist’ and must be banned, say academics - "The word Caucasian should be banned in scientific studies and papers because it is "associated with a racist classification of humans", according to a group of leading academics."

Lindsey Shaw Apologizes For Racist TikTok Video - "Lindsey mocked a TikTok dance trend started by Black creators. "Hey, are we OK? What the fuck is this?" she said, before showing a clip of the popular movement."
Nothing black can be criticised and anyone who doesn't like anything black is Racist

Meme "You shouldn't feel proud of your ancestor's accomplishments. But you should feel crippling shame over their wrong-doings.""

Jesse Singal on Twitter - "The people who litigate every single conflict by simply defaulting to who has the more 'oppressed' identity are outraged -- outraged! -- that people seem to view 'oppressed' identities as some sort of currency or something"

Meme - "Kj shakur @kjgbrks: ALL WHITE PEOPLE ARE RACIST. you cannot decide whether or not you are, you can actively unlearn it, but there are still inherent biases and privileges that you have that contribute to and maintain the structure of racism."
"So basically you are judging people by the color of their skin? Interesting..."
Imagine saying this about any other race. Meanwhile liberals continue to gaslight us about "white supremacy"

Meme - "Racism against nonwhites is viewed as the most evil, unforgivable and irredeemable thing a person can be in American society. Racism against whites is either outright encouraged, ignored or treated as a mere disagreement we have with the person expressing it."

In 'It's A Wonderful Life' Remake, Angel Tells George Bailey To Kill Himself Because He's White | The Babylon Bee - "The film will be only 20 minutes long and it will end with George Bailey asking forgiveness for his oppression. He then donates all his life insurance money to BLM and jumps off a bridge."

Coca-Cola’s posts are getting ratioed hard for their “be less white” training and the comments are - "Coca-Cola was requiring employees to take aNti-rAciSt training from author Robin DiAngelo that literally told them "try to be less white."A noticeable shift has occurred on Coke's social feeds since then."

To Fight White Supremacy, Coca-Cola Discontinues Vanilla Coke | The Babylon Bee - ""We will do better," he said before resigning, canceling and doxing himself, and banishing himself to a remote island in the Caribbean to think about his whiteness."

Coca-Cola is now requiring even their AFFILIATED LAW FIRMS to meet intersectional diversity quotas! - ""Coke said it will require quarterly reporting about the makeup of legal teams that do work for itand self identify as American Indian, Alaska Native, Asian, Black, women, Hispanic/Latinx, LGBTQ+, Native Hawaiian, Pacific Islander or persons with disabilities," said the Atlanta Journal-Constitution. "For those working on new matters for Coke, 'at least 30% of each of billed associate and partner time will be from diverse attorneys, and of such amounts at least half will be from Black attorneys.'"
The soft drink maker wants that percentage to hit at least 50% of time from "diverse attorneys" with half of that time from black individuals. Any company that fails to meet these quotas will lose 30% of their contract fees (or be kicked to the curb entirely).Yep, instead of being hired or promoted based on character, merit, and capability, company lawyers instead will need to work on upping their intersectional game in order to get a raise or advance in their careers."

Woke Coca-Cola Was Invented By Slave Owning Confederate Colonel Who Was Addicted To Morphine - "the Coca-Cola company is seemingly running away from its own history and creator: slave owning Confederate Army colonel and morphine addicted John Pemberton."

LinkedIn Removes Racist "Be Less White" Course - "The course, entitled “Confronting Racism” went viral last week, when an internal whistleblower from Coca-Cola sent Karlyn Borysenko screenshots from the course on LinkedIn Learning, and claimed that employees at the company had been forced to take it. The course teaches people to “be less white,” and implies that to be white is to be arrogant, defensive, ignorant, and oppressive... After facing severe backlash, Coca-Cola claimed in a statement provided to National File that the course was “not part of the company’s learning curriculum,” despite being accessible on the LinkedIn Learning platform to their employees. The statement differed from an earlier one attributed to the company, where they had confirmed that it was a part of their curriculum, but simply “not a focus” of their training. By Monday, the anti-white course was pulled from LinkedIn’s site. In a statement, Nicole Leverich, the vice president of corporate communications for LinkedIn, said that the course by DiAngelo is “no longer available in [their] course library, at the request of the third party content provider we licensed this content from”... It seems that the request originated from DiAngelo herself. A spokesperson for DiAngelo said that she was unaware that the course had even been created, and that “she had no involvement in it… did not approve its distribution, [and] did not know it was being used in corporate settings,” with the course being taken down as a result."

Poll: Americans REJECT Coca-Cola after woke company's political pandering | The Post Millennial - "A new Rasmussen poll has found that many Americans are less likely to buy Coca Cola after the company came out against the controversial Georgia voting laws passed in March. 37 percent of American adults that responded to the poll say they are less likely to buy Coca-Cola products due to their recent political stance. In contrast, just 25 percent of respondents said they would be more likely to buy Coca-Cola products, with another 30 percent saying that the comments the company made didn't matter much in their decision... Coca-Cola originally came out against the voting laws, calling them "unacceptable" and "a step backwards," but quickly had to change their tune. The company then backtracked and instead issued a statement to the Washington Examiner saying that they wanted to bring people together to listen and collaborate, and to find common ground."

Kaepernick made sure his new company's board has zero white people on it. Can you feel the diversity? Can you feel the tolerance? - "Colin Kaepernick, failed NFL quarterback turned Marxist, race-baiting grifter, is forming a "special purpose acquisition company" (SPAC) that hopes to acquire a billion-dollar company "to effect social and cultural change" (lol ok).Kaep's new filing with the SEC, filed just yesterday, specifies and even glories in the fact that the board of his new company contains exactly zero white people."

‘White Abolition’: New York Public School Urges White Children to Become Race ‘Traitors’ - "Rufo received a principal’s notice from a New York public school advocating for “white abolition” and urging students to become “traitors” to their race. If this type of propaganda were aimed at black people, this would likely be considered genocide training.The propaganda, sent to parents from the principal of East Side Community School in New York, classified white people into eight different groups: White Supremacist, White Voyeur, White Privilege, White Benefit, White Confessional, White Critical, White Traitor, and White Abolition. Indoctrinating children to become traitors and then to advocate for their own destruction is the end game."

Julie Gunlock on Twitter - "The Thanksgiving Tale We Tell Is a Harmful Lie. As a Native American, I’ve Found a Better Way to Celebrate the Holiday"
"This is what an ⁦@ACPSk12⁩ principal just sent around via email as suggested reading over the Thanksgiving break. At a time when ppl have lost family members and a comforting and uplifting message of unity is needed, this is the message families get. What a shame."

Coleman Hughes on Twitter - "Many sum up MLK's views on race with the essay, "Letter to Birmingham Jail," where he rightly criticizes white moderates. But read all the sermons he gave, his essays, & books. You'll find dozens (& dozens) of examples of him framing CR movement in nonracial, universalist terms... As you read, consider how bizarre it would be to hear a #BLM leader utter even one of these quotes.
"As I stand here and look out upon the thousands of negro faces, and the thousands of white faces, intermingled like the waters of a river, I see only one face––the face of the future."
"The important thing about man is...not the texture of his hair or the color of his skin but the quality of his soul"
"All men are one"
"All men are brothers"
"We need this movement. We need it to bring about a new kind of togetherness between blacks and whites."
“Racial segregation is a blatant denial of the unity which we have in Christ; for in Christ there is neither Jew nor Gentile, bond nor free, Negro nor white.”
"Black supremacy is as dangerous as white supremacy, and God is not interested merely in the freedom of black men and brown men and yellow men. God is interested in the freedom of the whole human race"
"Any program that elects all black candidates simply because they are black and rejects all white candidates simply because they are white is politically unsound and morally unjustifiable."
"The problem is not a purely racial one, with Negroes set against whites...it is not a struggle between people at all...Nonviolent resistance is not aimed against oppressors but against oppression. Under its banner consciences, not racial groups, are enlisted."
“Let us be dissatisfied until that day when nobody will shout 'White Power!'––when nobody will shout 'Black Power!'––but everybody will talk about God’s power and human power.”
"We do not wish to triumph over the white community. That would only result in transferring those now on the bottom to the top. But, if we can live up to nonviolence in thought and deed, there will emerge an interracial society based on freedom for all"
"What we need is a restless determination to make the ideal of brotherhood a reality in this nation and all over the world"
"As the human rights movement becomes more confident and aggressive...we will not ask our neighbor's color but whether he is a brother in the pursuit of racial justice"
"In an effort to achieve freedom...we must not try to leap from a position of disadvantage to one of advantage...Our aim must not be to defeat or humiliate the white man. We must not become victimized with a philosophy of black supremacy"
Ironically, many who point to "Letter from Birmingham" as a representative sample of MLK's rhetoric proceeded to accuse me of "cherry-picking" in my recent WSJ op-ed. As someone once said, that's not only not true, it's the opposite of the truth."
MLK was a damn White Supremacist!
Nowadays, accusing someone of "cherry picking" is a j'accuse without even pretending to try to put the "cherry picked" bits in context

NWI congressional candidate's white supremacy post condemned by party leadership - "The Republican candidate seeking to represent Northwest Indiana in Congress appears to endorse white supremacy in an item posted late Friday night to his Facebook page.GOP 1st Congressional District nominee Mark Leyva refused to discuss his rationale for posting an image of a white woman wearing sunglasses and what appears to be a bathing suit with the phrase: "Know the warning signs of white supremacy."The post then lists the "warning signs" — "1. Full time employment; 2. Literacy; 3. Professional or technical degree; 4. Regular church/temple attendance; 5. Auto insurance; 6. Good credit rating; 7. No criminal record.""
It is telling that full time employment is condemned

WOKE WATCH: Millennials rejoice! China app reports 'mistaken opinions' | Toronto Sun - "The rarified rumble infecting New York’s most elite private schools is an exercise in “demonizing white people,” one principal said. Grace Church School principal George Davison made the comments to off message teacher Paul Rossi, who taped the conversation. Rossi was booted for slamming the school’s “anti-racism” policies. He released an audiotape of his woke boss agreeing with him. “We’re demonizing kids, we’re demonizing white people for being born,’’ Davison allegedly told Rossi. “We are using language that makes them feel ‘less than’ — for nothing that they are personally responsible for. The fact is, I am agreeing with you that there has been a demonization that we need to get our hands around in a way in which people are doing this [understand].”"
One liberal tactic is to do a motte and bailey and disavow grievance mongers who get caught

“Racist” Tweet And Facebook Post Gets School Trainer Nixed - "On Facebook, the trainer posted that she will “continue challenging whites and destroying white dominance,” and she added, “Whites prove DAILY that whites must be challenged and white dominance must be destroyed. Otherwise, whites would stalk brown and Black women.”"

Aella on Twitter - "If you swap the races in a conversation and it suddenly feels like a KKK meeting, then the discourse is bad."

Ibram X. Kendi on Twitter - "So what does “not racist” mean? The term has no meaning other than denying when one is being racist. We should not have words in the dictionary that don’t have definitions."
Brilliant. He's setting himself up for perpetual employment

Escape The Echo Chamber - Posts | Facebook - "A Teen Vogue columnist believes that the Al Qaeda attacks on 9/11 were about taking down the heteropatriarchal capitalistic systems of the United States. You can’t make this stuff up."
"We have to be more honest about what 9/11 was and what it wasn't. It was an attack on the heteropatriarchal capitalistic systems that America relies upon to wrangle other countries into passivity. It was an attack on the system many white Americans fight to protect."
Wait till he discovers "patriarchy" in Muslim countries

Meme - "Omg stop 'brainwashing' your kids with religion! Let them choose!"
"Interesting. If I don't instill my own religious values in my own children then who's values will they follow instead?"
"Well...um...well..."
"Yours...right? It's almost like that's exactly what you want, to shift the 'brainwashing' in your favour."

This is so dumb. A judge in Virginia ruled that a black defendant wouldn't have a fair trial unless all portraits of white judges are removed from the courtroom. - "Everything is racist. Apparently, even the mere presence of portraits of judges in a courtroom can lead to "inequity." At least that's the conclusion of Fairfax County Circuit Court Judge David Bernhard... Bernhard went on and, in an apparent reference to the protests over the killing of George Floyd, added that the current moment calls for "heightened attention to the past inequities visited upon persons of color."... By the way, if you hear a judge start talking about "equity" and not "equality," RUN."

'Woke snitching forums' used to report lecturers' microaggressions could land universities in court - "Lawyers have told the prestigious Russell Group of 24 institutions that they risk infringing freedom of expression, after The Telegraph found six websites set up for students to denounce their lecturers. Durham University’s 'Report + Support' site lists "not giving someone eye contact" and "constantly criticising and never praising" as potential offences. There is also a button to "anonymously report" individuals to campus authorities. At St Andrews university, the 'Report + Support' site lists potential transgressions as backhanded compliments, avoiding or turning one’s back on certain people and asking a black person if they are wearing their natural hair... Toby Young, general secretary of the Free Speech Union, said: "These woke snitching portals are much more widespread than most people think. "The shocking thing is that most universities have just bought these portals off the shelf and have stuck them on their websites, along with some legally questionable guidance about what is and isn’t a reportable offence, without stopping to consider their legal duty to uphold free speech. "This has left them vulnerable to legal challenge… and the Free Speech Union won’t hesitate to take action." Prof Frank Furedi, a sociologist at Kent University, said: "Even in totalitarian societies, thought policing was a bit more hands off. What they were interested in is what you said, rather than these so-called hidden biases that you have." It comes after Cambridge took down its microaggressions reporting site last month where dons could be flagged for raising an eyebrow, following a revolt on campus."
The Stasi would be proud

Meme - "Left wing 1990's: "Fuck you, I won't do what you tell me"
Left wing 2020's: "Fuck you, do what they tell you""

Minnesota theater cancels Cinderella play for cast being 'too white' - " “It was 98 percent white,” the theater’s director, Michael Brindisi, said of the show’s actors Wednesday. “That doesn’t work with what we’re saying we’re going to do.” Brindisi said he considered recasting but instead decided to put a self-inflicted spin on cancel culture — and “scrap this and start fresh with a clean slate.” The production company has hired a diversity consultant and says it plans to focus on becoming “a more intentionally anti-racist theater” with “identity-conscious casting”... But the theater firm — which is based in the largely white Minneapolis suburb of Chanhassen — may have trouble finding people of color to fill roles. Chanhassen’s population is 92 percent white, 3 percent hispanic and 1 percent black"

John Hawkins on Twitter - "White people have done everything to make my life miserable. Yet I'm supposed to not hate white people?"
"Oh my gosh! I was at the white people's meeting last week when your name came up and they were discussing our plans to make your life miserable. We were so afraid that you'd blame yourself for your own failings instead of us. It's so great to see that we're making a difference!"
Pretty sure if you showed a liberal Saira Rao's tweets (with no identity), he'd claim she was a Russian bot trying to make liberals look bad

Schopenhauer and Pessimism

"1788 Arthur Schopenhauer is born in Danzig. In later years, he looks back on the event with regret: ‘We can regard our life as a uselessly disturbing episode in the blissful repose of nothingness.’ ‘Human existence must be a kind of error,’ he specifies, ‘it may be said of it, “It is bad today and every day it will get worse, until the worst of all happens.” ’ Schopenhauer’s father Heinrich, a wealthy merchant, and his mother Johanna, a dizzy socialite twenty years her husband’s junior, take little interest in their son, who grows into one of the greatest pessimists in the history of philosophy: ‘Even as a child of six, my parents, returning from a walk one evening, found me in deep despair.’

1803–5... Schopenhauer travels through France, he visits the city of Nîmes, to which, 1,800 or so years before, Roman engineers had piped water across the majestic Pont du Gard to ensure that citizens would always have enough water to bathe in. Schopenhauer is unimpressed by what he sees of the Roman remains: ‘These traces soon lead one’s thoughts to the thousands of long-decomposed humans.’

Schopenhauer’s mother complains of her son’s passion for ‘pondering on human misery’.

1809–1811 Schopenhauer studies at the university of Göttingen and decides to become a philosopher: ‘Life is a sorry business, I have resolved to spend it reflecting upon it.’

On an excursion to the countryside, a male friend suggests they should attempt to meet women. Schopenhauer quashes the plan, arguing that ‘life is so short, questionable and evanescent that it is not worth the trouble of major effort.’...

1818 He finishes The World as Will and Representation, which he knows to be a masterpiece. It explains his lack of friends: ‘A man of genius can hardly be sociable, for what dialogues could indeed be so intelligent and entertaining as his own monologues?’

1818–19 To celebrate the completion of his book, Schopenhauer travels to Italy. He delights in art, nature and the climate, though his mood remains fragile: ‘We should always be mindful of the fact that no man is ever very far from the state in which he would readily want to seize a sword or poison in order to bring his existence to an end; and those who are far from believing this could easily be convinced of the opposite by an accident, an illness, a violent change of fortune – or of the weather.’ He visits Florence, Rome, Naples and Venice and meets a number of attractive women at receptions: ‘I was very fond of them – if only they would have had me.’ Rejection helps to inspire a view that: ‘Only the male intellect, clouded by the sexual impulse, could call the undersized, narrow-shouldered, broad-hipped, and short-legged sex the fair sex.’...

1820 Schopenhauer attempts to gain a university post in philosophy in Berlin. He offers lectures on ‘The whole of philosophy, i.e. the theory of the essence of the world and of the human mind.’ Five students attend. In a nearby building, his rival, Hegel, can be heard lecturing to an audience of 300...

1821 Schopenhauer falls in love with Caroline Medon, a nineteen-year-old singer. The relationship lasts intermittently for ten years, but Schopenhauer has no wish to formalize the arrangement: ‘To marry means to do everything possible to become an object of disgust to each other.’ He nevertheless has fond thoughts of polygamy: ‘Of the many advantages of polygamy, one is that the husband would not come into such close contact with his in-laws, the fear of which at present prevents innumerable marriages. Ten mothers-in-law instead of one!’...

1828 Turns forty. ‘After his fortieth year,’ he consoles himself, ‘any man of merit … will hardly be free from a certain touch of misanthropy.’

1831 Now forty-three, living in Berlin, Schopenhauer thinks once again of getting married. He turns his attentions to Flora Weiss, a beautiful, spirited girl who has just turned seventeen. During a boating party, in an attempt to charm her, he smiles and offers her a bunch of white grapes. Flora later confides in her diary: ‘I didn’t want them. I felt revolted because old Schopenhauer had touched them, and so I let them slide, quite gently, into the water behind me.’ Schopenhauer leaves Berlin in a hurry: ‘Life has no genuine intrinsic worth, but is kept in motion merely by want and illusion.’

1833 He settles in a modest apartment in Frankfurt am Main, a town of some 50,000 inhabitants. He describes the city, the banking centre of continental Europe, as ‘a small, stiff, internally crude, municipally puffed-up, peasant-proud nation of Abderites, whom I do not like to approach’.

His closest relationships are now with a succession of poodles, who he feels have a gentleness and humility humans lack...

1859 As fame brings more attention from women, his views on them soften. From having thought them ‘suited to being the nurses and teachers of our earliest childhood precisely because they themselves are childish, silly and short-sighted, in a word, big-children, their whole lives long’, he now judges that they are capable of selfiessness and insight. An attractive sculptress and an admirer of his philosophy, Elizabeth Ney (a descendant of Napoleon’s Maréchal), comes to Frankfurt in October and stays in his apartment for a month making a bust of him.

‘She works all day at my place. When I get back from luncheon we have coffee together, we sit together on the sofa and I feel as if I were married.’...

1860 Increasing ill-health suggests the end is near: ‘I can bear the thought that in a short time worms will eat away my body; but the idea of philosophy professors nibbling at my philosophy makes me shudder.’ At the end of September, after a walk by the banks of the Main, he returns home, complains of breathlessness and dies, still convinced that ‘human existence must be a kind of error.’"

--- The Consolations of Philosophy / Alain de Botton