Crichton used to claim this was why the “myth” of global warming was being manufactured.
He was SERIOUS even though this book is a work of fiction. You can go look up his old interviews.
P.S.: We’re not allowed to discuss what causes low trust.
I’ve read the same thing.
I think so too. I was watching a JP video after all this talk about him in this thread and he says he “lives his life as if God exists” even though he doesn’t believe in a deity.
Seriously, can you at least give a hint. I don’t understand what is so taboo about this “reason”. Is it nationalism? I don’t think the concept of nationalism is controversial. Multiculturalism? Won’t the solution be to facilitate assimilation through social acceptance? An unselective, non-merit based immigration policy? I agree with this.
I don’t think so. I think the more authoritarianism runs high, the more people don’t give a shit about establishing good social rules amongst themselves and instead rely on the government to tell them how to live their lives.
Look up Japan as an example. They couldn’t do any real lockdowns because the government DOESN’T HAVE THE LEGISLATIVE POWER to do so.
But everyone knows what their society is like. I’m Chinese brought up on Catholicism and Confucian ethics and I feel like a barbarian when speaking and interacting with Japanese people.
Not really.
But speaking of assimilation, I ask you or anyone here, if you can assimilate anywhere, say Qatar, Saudi Arabia, Tanzania, or Somalia? You know, take any guys here, especially the tech-heavy, freedom-loving, women’s-rights-advocating, moral-relativistic, stock-market-savvy, atheistic, English-speaking, accolade-heavy ones and drop ‘em off and we see how it works out. The more tribal, the better. Then we can see how the libertarian, libertine, and-or Randist worldview and non-agression principle works out. It would be great to see how individualism works too when pretty much all of mankind outside of the Anglosphere doesn’t play this suckers’ game.
Singapore’s done it. But you have to be selective about your immigration policy. As in let in, and grant residency to people with higher educations who qualify for higher paying jobs. Lower paid migrant workers are given work permits which expire once their job contracts end and they have to leave, and they live in special dorms far away from the local population. It’s what I was saying in my last post.
EDIT:
I think Hong Kong’s done something similar. China may be on it’s way there in the next couple of decades. I don’t think this should be a controversial topic because it’s an issue of pragmatism that warrants discussion(merit based immigration) and I definitely agree and disagree with some things.
As for the rest of your post, I know NOTHING about Rand and only have superficial knowledge of libertarianism. But you guys keep bringing up Sweden and it’s like SJW Land when it comes to social policies so you can see why I’m confused here.
EDIT:
Why I say “assimilate”, I don’t mean they give up their individual cultures/religions. I mean they can practice their own traditional ceremonies and stuff in their communities while going with social norms in, and interacting harmoniously with society as a whole.
I should have said assimilate to, meaning can you or anyone else here assimilate into the aforesaid countries. How would you or I fare there? After all, what’s proposed is anyone can assimilate anywhere.
Hmm, this was something I have read. Digging deeper, it appears I wasn’t completely correct. Me being incorrect about this, would not support what I have said I am not convinced of (that religion is to be credited for building society).
It appears, after some digging that many of the “Islamic” academics were fairly irreligious. That is news to me as I thought at that time almost everyone in that area was Islamic.
My experience shows something different. At least from the western perspective. Much like your family, my family are escapees from communism.
The European\ Cuban perspective was an adversarial relationship with the government. Since they could not trust the government, they had to rely on each other. And that led to a creation of a society where the common people were for each other against members of the communist party. And where the people did have control, the communist party was not welcome and the commoners were united in their distrust and hatred of the communists.
I am not sure how that played out in the cities, but the smaller towns all took care of each other and were super protective of each other’s families and friends. Nobody ratted on each other and they shared stories of oppression.
Plus, they were all economically disadvantaged to say the least, so they needed each other to maintain a vibrant black market.
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Actually, that’s what I was alluding to. High “trust” in the government achieved through authoritarian means like press control by the State leads to the opposite of what you’ve described. In other words, people don’t know they’re being fucked in the ass by the government because narrative of the State controlled press all state the opposite.
The Japanese don’t trust their government. Look at how their culture is like. People will even publicly shame you if you litter in some circumstances.
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I made the exclusions to include people like yourself. ANTIFA\ BLM for instance, are examples of godless heathens running around breaking shit, burning shit and killing people.
They are different than unreasonable (meaning people who don’t use logic) but live by a code, like a religious code, who don’t go around demolishing lives.
So sure, it’s likely that most people do not behave based in rational, reason based thought. But the ones who engage in mob mentality and fly from on chaotic scene to another shew towards the godless heathen type.
The average God-fearing Joe, isn’t going to go around and act a fool most of the time.
I’ll stick with the 3rd party write in (American Solidarity party like Dreher himself) I plan to make, but yeah…
Thank you.
I am not sure that they are much different than typical Americans when it comes down to how they affiliate with religion. Not all BLM are black people, but black people are highly affiliated with religion. I would guess Antifa is closer to how you describe than BLM, but not really sure. This is just my perspective on it.
It is funny how perspective can change over time. When I was involved heavily with religion (Baptist), I thought perhaps somewhere between 10-30% of Americans were Christian. Now as an unbeliever, I think the numbers are much higher.
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I could bring up history to show how ignorant this statement is but I don’t need to as we have the present: the Middle East.
Do you have anything an article or timeline on middle east history? I was basing the slow down of science with Islam on an article I read. Further digging showed that may not be completely true (more complicated than I thought, with many of the prominent “Islamic” scholars seeming to have rejected religion).
Something that doesn’t get mentioned is how the Mongol invasion of the Middle East, which included the destruction of Baghdad and its libraries, dealt a blow to Islamic scholarship.
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I’ll look into that.
The warmed themselves by a fire made from a stack of Bibles in Portland which is the epicenter of ANTIFA.
The publicly denounce religion. They burned down 3 churches and destroyed numerous religious statues in the riots, which are still happening, though to a lesser degree. They call religion ‘white privilege’.
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Sure, my general feeling on it is that your statement might apply to Antifa, but it didn’t align with BLM (the protestors, not the founders) in my mind.