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German article:
https://www.derstandard.at/story/2000119319520/oesterreichische-streamerin-die-gamer-community-hat-ein-sexismusproblem
Basically a female streamer complaining about “sexism”. LOL.
This is her instagram:
https://www.instagram.com/shurjoka/
Yeah, I’m sure she is suffering a lot. All the money from these horney teenagers must really hurt her.
She’s playing The Witcher III a solid five years after its release date. Somehow, I suspect that people are not watching her stream because of her gaming prowess.
On a serious note, who are the best female videogame streamers? (I’m referring to skills, not looks, but feel free to list a few hot chicks, too.)
Honestly, don’t know a single one.
But I’m not a lot on twtich, mostly watch starcraft2 tournaments on it
Only female pro gamer I know is “Scarlett” from starcraft2, but she is not hot, only average.
Has anyone here read the novel 1984 by George Orwell? I’ve never read it, but all of the quotable lines seem like basic common sense. LOL reviewers have said the same things about Aaron’s books.
I would like to add that common sense isn’t common.
Probably the only bumper sticker slogan that I ever learned anything from.
I have read it.
It might appear as common sense to you because you are sane.
It might also appear as common sense to you that there are only 2 genders.
But tell that to the brainwashed masses.
“Sanity is not statistical” is probably my favorite line I’ve read quoted from the book.
I read it at least twice. First time I was too young to understand it. Orwell was spot on and even prescient on many of his observations.
Masses dumbed down by mindless entertainment? check
Imposition of overarching state sanctioned ideology? check
Perpetual technologically enabled vigilance? check
Cynical, self serving manipulating elites? check
Perpetual state of war against mostly unseen (and undefeatable) enemies? check
Distorted or outright falsification of historical memory? check
Destruction of language to hamper discussion and dissent? check
Truth is, Orwell knew what he wrote about because none of this was new even in Orwells time. Human nature has not changed much since 1948. He just laid it out more clearly than anyone else.
When Trump was elected the books sales briefly shot up because some numbnuts went to buy it, thinking it might describe a totalitarian dystopia like they thought Trump would usher in. It actually looks more descriptive of woketopia.
I strongly recommend to read it.
Aaron,
What do you think of the way Roosh has gotten uber religious and even deleted all of his previous game stuff? Do a lot of game veterans get this way? I notice as I get older I just seem to care less about women but for some reason he did like a total 180. I don’t get why he is so obsessed with morality now it’s kind of weird.
He is just going full retard. Or maybe trying to scam specific segments of his fanboys.
Anyways, becoming a tradcuck is not a solution to feminism. They are still slaves to women.
The solution is sex robots and artifical wombs. Make women obsolete.
Will maybe take another 40-50 years.
…but another option is to offer a chick cash to do a nude photoshoot.
Sorry, my comment above belongs under a different comment.
Or maybe you secretly want to do a nude photoshoot of Roosh hhehheheh
Aaron, I read your review of Riding in Cars with Boys. Very glad you liked it. I need to rewatch the whole thing. But the scene where the son told his single mom off was very emotional for me.
One of these days myself and my mom are going to have a one on one similar to what is shown in the movie. My mom thinks that everyone in our immediate AND extended family (there are quite a few of us) needs therapy……and that they are all addicts. She only needs therapy because of everyone else, and has no vices. This from a woman that has dumped probably 10s of thousands of dollars into Las Vegas slot machines over the years. Shit, that’s not even counting the California lottery.
About the unrealistic ending. From what I’ve read the book makes Beverly look worse. Not sure if it ended so rosy. She was going to fund her son going to college because of the book she wrote, supposedly. The publishing of a book does not guarantee anything to an author. And I bet she never dreamt it would become a successful movie.
Remember when the kids dad said that it’s in women’s nature to help us? Even if we are fuck ups? But we have to ask for it? After the son told off his mom, he tearully asked for forgiveness and help.
Then she decided to fund his educational expenses, conforming what the dad said. My take:. narcissistic women need people to depend on them. That’s the power that they hold over their victims heads, so they can continue to abuse them.
I watched this back when it first showed on TV, mainly because I thought Drew Barrymore was hot (who didn’t back then?). I’ll give it another look as an adult now.
I don’t think Drew Barrymore was ever hot. Her chin completely ruins her face. I even looked up if she is Jewish because I wondered if she was a case of a Jewish actress being promoted despite not fulfilling Hollywood beauty norms. This has happened before. Barbara Streisand is a very good example.
Yeah, I know she wasn’t gonna be everyone’s cup of tea, but she was very popular back then in her own right. Her surname gave her entry by the way, not Jewish ancestry.
In terms of eye candy, the late Brittany Murphy was just as good a reason to watch the movie in question.
Brittany Murphy was by far the most attractive female in that movie, in my opinion. I think it would have done a lot better at the box office if she had been the main actress.
Aaron,
This may be a dumb question but what do you think about propositioning a woman(who is not an escort) for sex or whatever sexual service you may be interested in? I’m not talking about a totally random woman, but say you see this person weekly in the store or always see them at the local bar and you may be on a “Hey” basis. Do you think this is a broachable subject? If so how would you go about it?
I know it sounds a little “Anti-social” but I feel like there are certain women I would definitely pony up an amount that may be worth their while and they would therefore maybe consider it. This could have ramifications of more than just a typical rejection if she thinks it’s extremely creepy and may let everyone she knows what just happened.
If you were a woman, what would you do when being offered such proposals?
As my desire to pursue women is dropping precipitously but I’m likely to be financially successful in the near future again, I’m considering this option.
I haven’t done it, but my guess is one way to do it is to go step-by-step, and go from there. No need to have “sex” as the very first goal. But you can ramp up from there if response is good.
(all a theory so far, I haven’t actually attempted/experimented with this yet)
I’ve witnessed it and seen it a couple of times, every single time the girl said yes. Never seen a girl react all negatively. And mind you this was a guy walking up to much younger girls, complete strangers. He would straight up offer them money for a night.
Ironically the reason girls act all offended when a guy approaches them is not because they’re offended a guy is interested in their body.
They’re offended the guys thinks he’s good enough to get it “for free”, which in their mind is reserved for chads.
Let me clarify this a little better…
Let’s say that for girls quick casual free-of-charge sex is something you do with guys 2-4 ranks above you (which it is, read studies on short term vs long term mating).
– If a 7 guy approaches a 7 girl and starts going all sexual right from hello, she gets offended
– If a 10 guy approaches that same 7 girl, same approach, she doesn’t get offended
Why?
Well the way they parse this is “7 guy approaching a girl and asking for quick easy free sex” is like “ARE YOU SAYING I AM A 3?!?!” Of course this isn’t a conscious thought, but that’s where the offense is coming from, not from the fact that you’re up for quick casual sex. She’s offended because you’re “calling her a 3”. Because for girls quick casual sex offers are something given to girls beneath you.
That’s why they don’t get offended when a chad/rich guy does the same. He’s so above them that it doesn’t mean he’s “devaluing her”.
For me the big question is how much to offer relative to local escort prices. Anyone know anything about this?
My guess is you would have to offer significantly more. (but I never tried this… so I could be wrong)
If a woman was willing to work for escort prices, she probably would be an escort to begin with.
Probably this also depends on how attractive she finds you.
There is another issue with this:
Woman who works as escorts/prostitutes don’t want any of their customers to know their real identity, for obvious reasons.
But if you offer this to a random girl, she risks that you blackmail her later if you know who she is.
I plan on playing it safe. Offering a lot of money for very little to obviously super-slutty women who don’t care about reputation, and then learning the ropes from there… lowering the offered money and asking for more in return with future attempts (girls) until I learn what the right amount is.
Alexnovy,
What do you mean by doing it step by step? If what you mean is get coffee first etc, what I’m talking about is just being articulate and kind and broaching the subject right off – especially if it’s a woman who may want to be discrete for one reason or another.
Another way I thought about going about is that if you can find their number, which is not too difficult in this day of age, you can text them your proposition from a burner number. The benefits of this is that you may get a more natural reaction from it and it’s a little “mysterious”.
Hahahah 😀 Oh man that gave me such a good belly laugh 🙂 Thanks I needed that.
Let me spell it out for you…
– You could offer a woman x amount of money to fuck her
– Or you could offer her her z in exchange for something less than putting your penis inside of her
Was that a good enough of a hint? 🙂
I’ll leave it that. If you can’t figure it out, I don’t think you’re ready go around asking women for sex right off the cuff. Not even in the same universe as ready.
I just had the thought that it might make sense to offer cash to chicks who are on the fence about you. Like maybe some chick whose number you got, but who isn’t eager to meet up. Not sure if it’s a good idea, but the though is that you may not have to offer as much.
@Alek
I think you’re hinting at a blow job. Some chicks find a blow job more intimate than intercourse. For those chicks you can always fall back to a hand job :)) But in any case, doing it step by step makes sense, if for no other reason then for your own comfort.
I used to read this blog by a Russian guy who frequented prostitutes. He wrote that offering cash to “civilians” works surprisingly well. Chicks that you wouldn’t expect to accept, accepted without much ado.
No I don’t mean blowjob 🙂 A girl who would do a blowjob for money would also fuck for money. It’s not a lower level product just less product.
Here’s another hint… There are many ways that women sell their body/sexuality for cash.
Because you guys aren’t getting the hints, I’ll go a step further. Here’s a completely random example.
Chicks who do webcamming or onlyfans crap for money. That’s levels lower than taking money for a penis getting inside of her, but it’s on the same marketplace.
Women doing lapdances for money are in the same marketplace as well.
In transactional sex this is correct. However, and this is deserving of a blog post I eventually want to write, there is no clear ordering among regular women with regards to which sexual acts are seen as more precious. For instance, you can encounter supposedly traditional women who will do everything except allow you to penetrate them vaginally. Then there are women who do not want to make out with dudes they only have a one-night stand with. As was pointed out before, some women consider a blow job a more intimate act than vaginal intercourse. In contrast, there is a clear ordering in prostitution, i.e. handjob < blowjob < vaginal < anal. I don't know enough about prostitution to properly place "girlfriend experience" (GFE)acts in this list. I'd assume, though, that an escort who offers a GFE with making out, BJ without condom etc. charges significantly more than a common prostitute who does not.
@Alek
I don’t know why you don’t just come out and say what you have in mind specifically. But in any case there is obviously a continuum of shit you could ask a chick from anal fisting to a cup of coffee.
I don’t think figuring out AlekNovy’s particular plan qualifies one as ready to try this.
…but another option is to offer a chick cash to do a nude photoshoot.
[posted this under in the wrong comment before]
I have my reasons for not spelling things out directly. I ask you to respect them. I’m not obliged to even give you things indirectly either, but at least I’m doing that and you seem like you’re acting like you’re owed a direct answer. Nobody is owed anything.
I hope I don’t have to spell out the reasons why I can’t spell things out that can be done directly, but I have to guide you to the answer.
They’re not on the same continuum though.
Here’s the trick.
How eagerly a woman accepts a coffee date with you tells you *nothing* at all about the possibility she would accept cash for putting penis in her vagina.
In fact, they’re completely unrelated. Plenty of whores who’d easily take your dick for little money would abruptly shut down a coffee date. Plenty of girls who would enthusiastically accept a coffee date would never bang for cash. So they’re not on the same continuum at all.
See, you’re getting there. Now that is something a lot more directly correlated to her willingness to trade cash for pussy penetration. You’re welcome.
Remember, I didn’t spell out this example, you did. Now go further down that line and you can come up with even more ideas.
Google strawman.
– The discussion was about lowering the risk from going directly into “hey you wanna take my dick for cash?”
– Can you see why a suggestion like “ask her to suck your dick for cash instead?” doesn’t fit the discussion of “lowering risk” while still finding women who’d bang for money?
– And do you see how “asking women to grab a coffee together” is completely unrelated to “banging for cash”?
And yes, if you don’t have enough sexual awareness to understand sexual levels and social cues, you probably aren’t gonna fare well walking up to women asking them ‘hey you wanna fuck me for cash’. IN FACT IT COULD LAND YOU IN JAIL
My suggestion was about attempting lower risk shit (which doesn’t PUT YOU IN JAIL), and learning from the responses and social cues you get.
Yah I completely butchered that sentence. Would have edited it out within seconds of posting if I could. Unfortunate phrasing.
I meant to say that asking “hey you wanna suck my dick for cash” is not any less risky than “hey can I fuck you for cash?”
Both would result in the same “are you calling me a whore” offense.
Whereas a chick who’s not offended by being offered cash for fucking, would not be offended being offered cash for sucking dick and vice versa.
Which one is more or less precious is a different manner. I just meant from the perspective of risk and offense.
@Alek
I get that you’re trying to be helpful and thank you. I wasn’t expecting you to necessarily reply at all. I was just commenting.
Here’s where the misunderstanding happened:
“I’ll leave it that. If you can’t figure it out, I don’t think you’re ready go around asking women for sex right off the cuff. Not even in the same universe as ready.”
I thought you meant “if you can’t figure out my exact plan” while what you really meant was “if you can’t figure out lower risk offers that are indicative of willingness to take D for $.”
I definitely respect your reasons for not spelling it out. But I thought we were all operating anonymously here, so it didn’t occur to me that one may not wish to state some things too explicitly. There is no perfect anonymity, of course, so it makes sense.
More specifically I more mean sexual awareness of how and what is and isn’t considered crude and offensive in which context and how to tell apart the social cues when you can attempt what without too much risk.
For example I’m sure it would be low risk for someone with Aaron’s level of experience and he could tell a woman’s readiness to hear such an offer. That comes from experiencing all facets of female sexuality and developing the ability to differentiate the different levels/planes of sexuality and cues for each.
In the good old PUA days plenty of uncalibrated guys did get *arrested for soliciting* when trying the “ask for sex right off the bat” approach. And that was without offering money for it, which is why those laws are even invented for.
With an understanding of which is on which plane of sexuality (as in there are multiple planes… purely transactional sexuality… “looking for a provider” sexuality, “lust-driven” sexuality etc…)
If someone can’t tell apart cues from one as different than cues for another, he most likely hasn’t developed that awareness and reading ability yet. And he’s quite likely to get the cops called on him if he skips that many levels.
The above thread about offering cash to regular women in exchange for sex relates nicely to a large comment about male infidelity that I’ve been wanting to write since @CQV brought it up last week.
By the way, @CQV, do you know the saying “a tool for every job”? I think Aaron’s focus was always on debunking the PUA community first, and debunking the mainstream community later. Holistic approach to women will only come when he publishes his book on relationships, I think.
Guys, we already discussed the possibility of a Kamala Harris presidency. I predicted that they would suddenly report on the Covid deaths accurately, and the whole thing will come to an end.
Here is another prediction: As a non-white woman she will have more leverage to do Wall Street’s bidding, simply because she doesn’t look like them. She will sign yet more “free” trade agreements, claiming it helps poor people in the Third World. She will start a war with Iran, claiming that it’s to liberate women there.
The possibilities are endless for a minority woman to get away with doing the bidding of the globalist elites.
A frontpage headline of a Swedish newspaper recently stated that due to increased police raids, incidents of prostitution (remember, it’s only a crime for the man) have dropped in the country. Yet, the lead paragraph quickly pointed out that this was bad for women because there is now downward pressure on prices as there are fewer men requesting their services. The level of double-think is off the charts. They really have constructed a reality in which prostitution exists but it is bad for women if they have to have sex with men for money but if they don’t it’s also bad because it means they make less money than they used to.
Unreal. Prostitution Is bad For women and banning it is bad for women. Guess they should just be paid to do nothing. Oh wait, Sweden has plenty of people doing that already
I’ve concluded that the majority of people in the world are simply too stupid to experience cognitive dissonance.
Obviously in an ideal world men would just pay women for doing nothing
Isn’t that what the welfare state and government jobs are about?
Go woke, Go broke as they say
Do you guys think there is a place for chivalry in today’s Western world? I guess it just depends on the girl and her femininity. Thoughts?
If you find a traditional women, yes.
but they are like less than 1% now. so good luck.
Just go for Asian girls, they still dig that kind of stuff.
This is an excellent article that summarizes US/UK war propaganda efforts from the last century to today:
https://www.unz.com/lromanoff/the-anger-campaign-against-china/
I recommend reading it as it might make you question a lot of the anti-China propaganda that is currently being pushed, albeit not very successfully. If you have not been exposed to that kind of material, I suggest you spend a few evenings reading up on the history of public relations and war propaganda as it will make you view mainstream media messaging in a much different light.
Anti-semitism again?
I said nothing at all about Jews. Yes, some prominent Jews were involved in the war propaganda efforts of the US and UK, but that does not mean that pointing out the disastrous effect of war propaganda makes you an “anti-semite”. This wouldn’t even be the case if war propaganda was a 100% Jewish enterprise. Why would you even use the term anti-semitism anyway? You only let others know that you can’t think critically. Your reasoning is, in fact, a very common Jewish stratagem as anything that can be remotely construed as criticism of Jews and Israel is first attempted to get shot down by bringing out the “anti-semitism” bazooka. It’s a transparent (and very lame) attempt at deflection.
Someone needs to check their privilege.
I’m just going to leave this here for anyone who is interested. This work needs a lot of fact checking, but I found it quite interesting.
The Great Albanian Masque: https://samisdat.info/books/the-great-jewish-masque-1935/1935%20-%20Great%20Jewish%20Masque%20-%20Arnold%20Leese,%201878-1956.pdf
“I said nothing at all about Jews. Yes, some prominent Jews were involved in the war propaganda efforts of the US and UK, but that does not mean that pointing out the disastrous effect of war propaganda makes you an “anti-semite”. This wouldn’t even be the case if war propaganda was a 100% Jewish enterprise. Why would you even use the term anti-semitism anyway? You only let others know that you can’t think critically. Your reasoning is, in fact, a very common Jewish stratagem as anything that can be remotely construed as criticism of Jews and Israel is first attempted to get shot down by bringing out the “anti-semitism” bazooka. It’s a transparent (and very lame) attempt at deflection.”
The title of that page is a “collection of interesting, important, and controversial perspectives largely excluded from the American mainstream media”, which reminds of the site Zero Hedge, another rightist site.
Given your past advocacy for the revival of the image of Hitler and the third Reich, and most astounding argument “The Nazis weren’t quite the monsters the Jews make them out to be.”
https://www.aaronselias.com/2020/05/03/remarks-on-arthur-bryants-unfinished-victory-1940/
I have some personal reasons to believe that you will go on engaging in another article which ushers conspiracy theory.
Your article doesn’t just include some prominent Jews, it contains this segment:
“It shouldn’t be a secret, though it still seems to be, that neither of the two World Wars were started (or desired) by Germany, but were the creation of a group of European Zionist Jews with the stated intent of the total destruction of Germany.”
“In 1940, these European Zionist and media owners (hiding behind the stage-set of the UK government) initiated what they called an “anger campaign” with the stated cause of “instilling personal hatred against the German people and Germany”, the related parties pleased that the original 6% of the British population that ‘hated Germany’ increased to over 50% by the end of the campaign, and it didn’t stop there. The radio waves were full of descriptions of the “cruelty and blackness of the German soul”
(Is the writer even aware that the year of 1940 is the year of the battle of Britain, where German Luffwaffe raided the British sky and completed the work of death and wanton destruction?) That same year France was fallen into the hands of the Nazi.
“Germany was widely accused of using propaganda against the Jews, while our history books have airbrushed out the massive and unspeakably evil storm of worldwide hate propaganda against Germans by the Jews prior to and during both World Wars. Details below.”
Each and every segment is not included with extensive notes nor the enumeration of sources.
I have looked into this guy Larry Romanoff, and have found a couple of other articles, mediocre in quality at best:
https://www.unz.com/lromanoff/american-exceptionalism/
Nothing substantial but rants!
And of course, I’ve almost forgot, to add that your effort of vindicating Communist China.
Dude, in my comment I did not mention Jews at all. You can’t go around digging for anything that is not even tangentially related to an article you don’t like and pretend it invalidates all points the author makes. Instead of going off massive tangents you could have read that article and see if there is anything of value in it. Quite often there is. I find quite a few non-mainstream writers very thought-provoking. In contrast, mainstream figureheads tend to only make me roll my eyes due to their transparent shilling, lack of intellectual depth, and non-existent principles. I’m surprised you keep visiting my blogs as I push a non-mainstream agenda. Apparently you’ve realized that my non-mainstream views on women are much closer to reality than mainstream bullshit. Maybe you should consider the possibility that my non-mainstream views on anything else may be a lot closer to the truth than the crap the mainstream keeps shoving down your throat.
“Dude, in my comment I did not mention Jews at all. ”
In my comment, I intend to ask whether the article is another anti-semitism. The article is my chief aim, not your comment, sorry for not point it out.
” Apparently you’ve realized that my non-mainstream views on women are much closer to reality than mainstream bullshit. ”
You do have a considerable and admirable authority on subjects such as women. However, when it comes to politics, we are not on the same page.
” I’m surprised you keep visiting my blogs as I push a non-mainstream agenda.”
Your view on History, Humanities (maybe your definition of Humanities is more restricted than mine) are problematic, in my opinion.
As for mainstream media, I don’t follow news, my house doesn’t have a TV with cable. I dislike watching News on any channel, including BBC, CNN and Radio Francaise Internationale (RFI).
For example, if I wish to read news about China, I go to Xinhua.net, read all the official news of Chinese media outlets. Then I will read or listen to BBC, CNN and RFI. If any piece of information is not provided by two sides, I simply don’t pursue.
I’m quite certain that you can find people who agree with my political views yet consider my views on women and relationships “problematic”. What’s your point? You seem to be unable to realize that you are not making generalizable statements but instead you only argue from your own personal perspective.
“Then, Mr. Pompeo tells us, “The truth is that our policies . . . resurrected China’s failing economy, only to see Beijing bite the international hands that were feeding it.”[55] Further, that (due to COVID-19) China “caused an enormous amount of pain, loss of life,” and the “Chinese Communist Party will pay a price”.”
I have watched Pompeo’s speech in full. I am in agreement with him about his assessment of China. The kind of shameless intellectual thief that is practiced in that country deserves serious condemnation. I challenge China to maintain the growth of their economy without resorting to stealing intellectual properties of other countries. I have seen enough of Chinese education system to say, with a frank tone, that almost all of their students will not be able to come up with any kind of groundbreaking achievement in science.
Your article’s style of quoting also leaves much to be desired:
“Of course, we all know that “China” stole the COVID-19 virus from a lab in Winnipeg, Canada, then released it onto the world – and Pompeo has proof”
The CNN article that the author quoted also states these clearly:
“Although Pompeo still speaks out forcefully against the Chinese government for its role in failing to stem the pandemic outbreak and a lack of transparency, the secretary recently seemed to back away from the theory the virus originated in a lab. In an interview in mid-May, he conceded, “We know it began in Wuhan, but we don’t know from where or from whom, and those are important things.”
So Pompeo didn’t totally adhere to this conspiracy theory. Yet your article makes no mention of it.
China has been propping up Western standards of living due to cheap labor, my dude. Fat Mike Pompeo can blather all he wants but the fact of the matter is that his country is living large on IOUs.
Economic growth itself is a bullshit measure. Here’s a simplified example: more people means more consumption and thus entails a higher GDP. Yet, increased competition for resources means that quality of life for the bottom 99% goes down dramatically as a consequence and even the 1% will feel the pinch. On that note, the ultra-rich are fleeing NYC as they can no longer shield themselves from all the wonderful diversity they have been foisting upon society:
https://web.archive.org/web/20200820041037/http://endoftheamericandream.com/archives/escape-from-new-york-wealthy-residents-flee-in-droves-as-the-city-degenerates-into-a-hellhole
“China has been propping up Western standards of living due to cheap labor, my dude. Fat Mike Pompeo can blather all he wants but the fact of the matter is that his country is living large on IOUs.”
Can you explain better what is “propping up” in this case? Also what is IOUs?
IOU is a synonym for debt.
IOU = “I owe you.”
@Aaron Sleazy
As Old Anon has explained, let me ask you whether have you looked at China’s foreign debt?
All countries in this world are financed by debt? So what is your point?
And we haven’t talk about the credibility of figures dolled out by the Communist government. The issue of transparency and accuracy of these information are topics worth dissecting in their own.
Let fact be summoned among candid readers. US standard of living and quality of education far surpass China’s.
The United States has a higher debt-to-GDP than China. That country is living large. Looking at China vs the US, which country seems to be on an upward trajectory?
“Looking at China vs the US, which country seems to be on an upward trajectory?”
Both are moving upwards, yet China already shows sign of slowing down. Their so-called cheap labour is unsustainable in future.
It is no exaggeration to say that China will need another century to catch up with the US in terms of living standard.
No country so far demonstrates that they lead the world by innovation as the US.
“The United States has a higher debt-to-GDP than China. ”
Debt to GDP of China is 45%-50%, that is no small ratio for a developing country. Besides, debts alone speak little of that country’s economy efficiency. State-owned enterprises in China are notorious examples of slaggers. Ghost cities are other examples of inefficiency.
When it comes to a country’s economy, the prime factor that I care about is the standard of living.
Another example of debt to GDP, Russia has an ideal ratio 12% roughly. Yet which country is moving upwards? China or Russia? Russia or the US?
Are you deliberately conflating those two issues? China has a better debt-to-GDP ration than the US. Also, for the average Chinese, life is getting better. Would the average American say the same about their circumstances?
“Are you deliberately conflating those two issues? China has a better debt-to-GDP ration than the US. ”
Yet in the end of the day, what does it say? Russia has much lower debt to GDP ratio, yet you cannot say she is on the upward trajectory when we compare her to China or the US. A similar argument can be stated, that although the debt-to-ratio of China is lower than the US, that’s not the indicator for the health of China’s economy, nor her superiority to the economy of her counterpart.
“Also, for the average Chinese, life is getting better. Would the average American say the same about their circumstances?”
What drug have you taken so that your mind can fly freely in the limitless plain of fantasy and illusion?
Here is a translation of a facebook post of 方梓彬, it was posted in June 24 this year,
当看到这招聘广告，顿时感觉很是羞辱。如服务员工资3500人民币起，包吃住。自2015年以来，我国的薪资水平像是原地踏步了，可物价却还是涨，涨到天上去。都什么年代了，这点工资怎么活？说明我国目前经济水平还是”同志还需努力，革命尚未成功”，跟发达国家水平相比，那是被狠甩多条街。
As I am looking at the hiring board, I suddenly felt shameful. For example, the salary of a waiter is around 3500 RMB, including meals and lodging. Since 2015, our income has came to a halt (the original 原地踏步了 walking on a flat plane, which means they are stagnated), yet the cost of living keeps rising, rising to the sky. What time and period is this, how can one lives with this kind of work? This is the evidence that the current economic development of our country is at the stage where “comrades should exert more efforts, revolution has not born fruit yet.” If we compare ourselves with the developed countries, we are clearly lagging behind.
https://www.facebook.com/permalink.php?story_fbid=1418306511686867&id=100005225956424
方梓彬 is a Chinese member who has learnt Vietnamese and perfected it to an astounding degree.
China living standard still has a lot to catch up with Malaysia, let alone the US, let alone improving years by years.
The phrase 狠甩多条街。with 甩 means abandon, leaving behind, and 多条街 multiple streets, roads. Together, it means China has been left behind by Western countries for several streets.
Here are few lines of Assanova:
“This is life. Sometimes it’s easy, and sometimes it isn’t. It’s not like you are in some third world country where you are pretty much stuck in poverty no matter what you do. People will continuously throw money at you for education in the western world, even after you screw-up.”
“It’s not like you are in some third world country where you are pretty much stuck in poverty no matter what you do.”
Let that line sink in, because it speaks voluminously of China.
I haven’t dwelt into the hardship of starting small business in China, where you have to wipe off corrupted government officials who wish to eat out your substance and have to deal with the conflicting labyrinth of absurd regulations. With its almost incorruptible system of government and effective regulation, there is wonder why the US is still a land of opportunity for small business owners. My cousins are prime example for this.
How much educational support is there in the US for poor, white men? You seem to be living in a fantasy land. The United States is one of the worst developed countries in terms of social mobility.
“How much educational support is there in the US for poor, white men? You seem to be living in a fantasy land. The United States is one of the worst developed countries in terms of social mobility.”
In the very least, we have Pell’s Grant. After that different forms of financial aid and extensive webs of community college. If you are exceptional in terms of academic performance, and belong to the disadvantageous family, many more state or private funds are opened to you. My friends all benefit from these funds, who manage to graduate from large state universities with roughly 10,000 USD.
There are bountiful scholarship if you are an Asian scholarship hunters.
If you are not that bright, fields such as help desk, dental assistant, nurse are still open with little initial investment!
10,000 USD in debt, I mean.
Besides, last time I read that you complain about high taxes in Europe, yet make little commendation of Europe low-cost or free education. Now you complain the US unfree education and obviously forget to mention lower taxes?
This is a false dichotomy. You can have low-cost high-quality education. We used to have it. Also, we used to have much lower taxes in Europe. I don’t think there is anyone seriously claiming that today’s higher education is better than what we had in the 1970s in terms of the quality of the education as well as the quality of the student body. What absurdity is it to hand out high-school diplomas like free candy and send a majority of those people to university?
Oh, I forget to mention that you can always join the army, your education burden shall be all alleviated. The same can be said for corporations. I was offered tuition coverage when I worked for TD bank. The condition is to choose fields such as finance, accounting, economy, etc. Not my cup of cake so I didn’t take it up.
“This is a false dichotomy. You can have low-cost high-quality education. We used to have it. Also, we used to have much lower taxes in Europe. I don’t think there is anyone seriously claiming that today’s higher education is better than what we had in the 1970s in terms of the quality of the education as well as the quality of the student body. What absurdity is it to hand out high-school diplomas like free candy and send a majority of those people to university?”
Think of upkeeping high quality dental labs, various forms of science labs. Those cost heftily. Time has changed.
As for the body of students, when I attend Community College of Philadelphia, the students who got into Precacl 2 were far from intelligent. Yet, when I got to Cacl 2, the body almost completely changed. Brighter students were sitting for exams. They asked more wonderful questions, some even approached the boundary that separates Cacl and Real Analysis.
English Comp 2 is another wonderful example.
If anything, I would question the quality of Chinese students in any middle-tier Chinese university, who have to stay in for PHD and yet cannot find a job. No student debts, sure, but no jobs either.
The malaise of Chinese and Vietnamese education is that graduates are not prepared to work. The education they receive do not prepare them for entering the workforce.
You sound like an establishment shill. Obviously, some degree programs are very expensive to run, including dentistry and medicine. Others, however, are incredibly cheap as they only require access to books and academic journals.
Western education very often does not prepare you for work either. Think of the armies of people with a degree in the humanities! (Fun fact: I once checked enrollment and graduation numbers of a few degree programs of one of the larger and better Swedish universities and found out, to my astonishment, that they churn out way more gender studies degree graduates than computer science graduates.)
“You sound like an establishment shill. Obviously, some degree programs are very expensive to run, including dentistry and medicine. Others, however, are incredibly cheap as they only require access to books and academic journals.”
Subscription to JSTOR is cheap? We are talking about funding scientific researches. Obviously I am not a master of college financial budgets. But US universities are very competitive to one another. And we are talking about modern infrastructure. Salary for your tenured members and not tenured ones of your faculty. Computer labs? Software purchases
“Western education very often does not prepare you for work either. Think of the armies of people with a degree in the humanities! (Fun fact: I once checked enrollment and graduation numbers of a few degree programs of one of the larger and better Swedish universities and found out, to my astonishment, that they churn out way more gender studies degree graduates than computer science graduates.)”
Perhaps this is more of a European issue. Because high cost of education requires people in the US to think much harder about the usefulness of their degrees.
Here in China, both a degree in Math and a degree in education leads you to questionable career path. Otherwise, you wouldn’t have a long flock of Phd at Shanghai University of Science and Technology. Your Phd is held in low regards compared to a Western-earned degree anyway.
A major cost driver of US higher education is the absurd number of administrators they nowadays employ. Also, there are fewer Chinese students coming to the United States, instead opting to pursue degrees in China. As far as I recall, that trend started before Trump’s aggressive posturing towards China.
“Maybe you should consider the possibility that my non-mainstream views on anything else may be a lot closer to the truth than the crap the mainstream keeps shoving down your throat.”
This is a dangerous liason and generalization. You enjoy a considerable and admirable authority on women because you was a successful seducer. When it comes to politics, your current career trajectory, your experience, your family background all don’t hint at the same kind of success.
I have said, as I say now, that to judge the quality of life in one country, there is no substitution for the fact that you must bag your things and go there and live a life like any native. Only after certain years can you start to form your own judgment.
So far, all I see is that you live vicariously through the experience of others, through information informed to you by the press, and through snippet views of “non-mainstream” articles.
This makes your view no more authoritative than words and heresays of my neighbor.
Hard experience speaks a louder volume than knowledge, in this case.
I’m doing pretty okay in life. Thanks for your concern. I’d like to advise you to choose your words a bit more carefully in the future because my patience does have its limits.
I was able to deduce that the seduction community was highly fraudulent before I even actively pursued women. I very quickly arrived at that conclusion because PUA advice was inconsistent with observed reality. Likewise, the failings of contemporary politics are quite easy to see that, for instance, diversity really isn’t as much of a strength as its proponents would like to point out. There is something tremendously useful about an analytically trained mind: you are able to identify bullshit no matter where you look as, in the abstract, the underlying issue is the same.
“your family background all don’t hint at the same kind of success.”
I don’t mean that you are currently not successful with your career, rather you have no success in any political activities, including become a candidate for a running election campaign.
“How much educational support is there in the US for poor, white men? You seem to be living in a fantasy land. The United States is one of the worst developed countries in terms of social mobility.”
Why does the US become your chief prey for criticism? And not Australia, Canada or even Great Britain. Education costs in these countries are as expensive as the States, yet only the States become the aim of your anger?
“This is a false dichotomy. You can have low-cost high-quality education. We used to have it. Also, we used to have much lower taxes in Europe. ”
I would be enlighten if you dwell a bit deeper on this subject.
France, strikes me, as a country with high quality education. According to my modicum and humble information, they also exact heavy taxes on the working population.
Even if you want to graduate as a computer science major, you still need to rely on extensive up-to-date computer labs. Software purchases are no small costs.
So you are saying that in order to comment on politics, you need to run for office? That doesn’t make a lot of sense now, does it?
The United States sets the tone for the rest of the Western world, which is done via the activities of the Deep State as well as various think tanks like the Trilateral Commission. Does it not strike you as somewhat odd that social issues that are pretty irrelevant in Europe get a lot of attention there as well? An example are BLM protests, which people tried staging all over the place, even though that is not how societal guilt-tripping in Europe works. We also didn’t have plantations in the South. Once the US falls, we’ll see that a lot of progressive topics will very quickly disappear.
Computer Science is one of cheapest degrees there is. In fact, you can teach yourself the entire curriculum with a used laptop for $100 and an Internet connection. All the software you need is available as open source. For instance, why do you think Microsoft used to combat Linux for so long?
“(Fun fact: I once checked enrollment and graduation numbers of a few degree programs of one of the larger and better Swedish universities and found out, to my astonishment, that they churn out way more gender studies degree graduates than computer science graduates.)”
I recently read your article on “high intelligence in verbal makes you an idiot” (a paraphrase). If I am correct, the target of your attack is more of “gender studies”, “education”, etc. I wonder why you are so disdain of Humanities.
I am currently reading various correspondences and documents of the founding fathers of the United States. Yes, John Adams, Thomas Jefferson, even less the commonly known John Dickinson. Their style is so elevated that “elegance” is not enough to convey my admiration. Such is the power of an education with a heavy emphasis on Humanities. Most of these men are lawyers. Style and elegance were both shared by the people of two continents.
To enlarge the scope of my reading, I am also enjoy learning by heart many sonnets of Shakespeare, enjoying reading “Paradise Lost” of John Milton, certain works of Alexander Pope and John Dryden. They all benefit me tremendously in shaping the style of my writing.
I don’t see why verbal intelligence is the obstacle for improving your intellectual power.
If you think that to write well is a small feat, maybe set yourself up the task of composing 154 sonnets just like Shakespeare, and see if it is anything less challenging than manipulating infinite series like Euler.
This argument isn’t convincing. There are countless graduates with degrees in Philosophy or English who have not learned anything of value. The fact that we have a few great dead white men does not mean that people who pay a lot of money to read their books are in any way worthy of reverence. I have met enough Humanities majors to know that their fabled transferable skills often don’t amount to a lot.
Also, re-read my article. You may then understand better what its argument was.
“A major cost driver of US higher education is the absurd number of administrators they nowadays employ. Also, there are fewer Chinese students coming to the United States, instead opting to pursue degrees in China. As far as I recall, that trend started before Trump’s aggressive posturing towards China.”
I have seen that reason being named among the newspapers, yet I don’t know how true it is. Now, assume that it is true, one needs to know the cause for such an upsurge of administrators. Clearly, these people must play some crucial roles in managing their affairs of higher education institutions.
As for the trend of students coming less to the US, I highly doubt that. The community college that I went to in Philly, as lacking federal and state funds as it is, is flooded with Chinese students. It is no secret that those who are wealthy and those who are in power push their children to either the US, the UK, or Australia for education. They even buy expensive real estates to form a safety nest in case they fall from power.
6 years in China, studying in a university that boasts the most advanced program in linguistics in Shanghai, has given me enough insight into the malaise of Chinese education system. For the current state of affairs, I’d say the US has not ever been surpassed in education quality by China.
I have mentioned, as I mention now, that trading monetary sums for degrees is not an opened secret among the Chinese society. It has been a trend since the 1980s for government officials to trade money for a degree in whatever higher education institutions they attend. The system of selecting officials in China is far from being meritocracy. (I don’t believe much in the power of meritocracy, human nature again and again proves that we are all too concerned about the well-being of our offsprings so as to leave the position of power to outsiders, no matter how competent they are).
“So you are saying that in order to comment on politics, you need to run for office? That doesn’t make a lot of sense now, does it?”
Yes, by being an inside player, your commentaries carry much more weight, just like you can be much more incisive when criticizing the PUA community. Sure, you may derive certain conclusions from their claims even before becoming a seducer, but only by being a seducer can you gain much more insight.
The amount of information you receive as an inside player is much more interesting than anything an outsider can whisper to your ears. Think of being the US president, and being able to access into intelligence information of the CIA. Or being a state governor, and have access to the information of many state departments.
You don’t have the intimate knowledge of how the system works. That is the advantage of being a poltician.
You learn by doing, not by observing.
Sure, let’s throw out all great political theorists because they didn’t hold office, from Plato to Sam Francis. Instead, let’s wait for Obama’s memoirs or some other whitewashed bullshit because, clearly, it’s not enough to observe that the world around you is falling apart because of moronic political decisions.
“This argument isn’t convincing. There are countless graduates with degrees in Philosophy or English who have not learned anything of value. The fact that we have a few great dead white men does not mean that people who pay a lot of money to read their books are in any way worthy of reverence. I have met enough Humanities majors to know that their fabled transferable skills often don’t amount to a lot.
Also, re-read my article. You may then understand better what its argument was.”
Take me for example, I don’t choose a degree in Philosophy because I feel it is a headache. I don’t choose a degree in English, because of many reasons including a restriction on the source materials that I can read.
My aim is to become a speech therapist, with a specialization in accent reduction. Once I am able to yield a degree, and I will be free, and will be in a position, to help new immigrants speak well English and remove the shackles imposed upon them by their mother tongue (though I have manufactured a saying, mother-tongues never leave their sons).
I come to conclude that your observation is probably skewed. You choose the dark side, thus darkness is all you can see.
“This argument isn’t convincing. There are countless graduates with degrees in Philosophy or English who have not learned anything of value. The fact that we have a few great dead white men does not mean that people who pay a lot of money to read their books are in any way worthy of reverence. I have met enough Humanities majors to know that their fabled transferable skills often don’t amount to a lot.”
Ever heard of a Philosophy student who perform very well on a Math test of Algebra? It was said by Ngo Bao Chau, the first and so far the only Vietnamese mathematician who win the Field Medal. I will have to look for the videos if you insist on a hard proof. The context is that he is speaking of the difference between Vietnamese and American students, emphasizing on the fact that American students do not go to special schools for training in Math, yet still outperform Vietnamese students.
I strongly adhere to the view that education ought to well-rounded. For me, for example, my education of Math reaches a basic level, I understand well the concept of derivative and Riemann integral. Further excursion into this field is not sustainable by me because I can’t even fathom the simple proof that 1+1=2 by using the Peano’s axioms.
Taking a hypothetical person who roughly equal me, yet have a better eye-sight, he could dwell into computational linguistics, a fine hybrid of natural and social science.
Yet, at the very least, you can always become a teacher, teaching and guarding our children.
If there is anything that I find abominable about the US, it is the low wages paid to teachers. They deserve a much better living standard. I also detest of hiring adjunct professors, instead of conferring track tenure on well deserved doctorates.
“Likewise, the failings of contemporary politics are quite easy to see that, for instance, diversity really isn’t as much of a strength as its proponents would like to point out.”
You mean racial diversity? I see no other options for the US, at least for the US. It is the only meaningful way to combat low birth rate among the native population. The first generation of immigrants will most likely suffer from hardship, but the second generation is promised the right to succeed in America.
Diversity hiring is a continuation of the doctrine of equal rights propounded by the Enlightment philosophers. You are given an equal right of admission, regardless your skin colour. If you are incompetent, you will never be able to move up the ladder, and that is your fault, not ours. I have been hiring despite skin colors by TD bank. The majority of my co-workers are people of diverse ethnic background. Black, white, Jamaican, Dominican, Brazilian, Haitian, etc. We all work well together as a team.
I’m close to putting your comments on the moderation queue again because you just don’t seem to be arguing in good faith. “Diversity hiring” means that you do not hire based on competence but on other factors. Of course, if you hand out jobs, for instance, based on sexual orientation instead of skills, you undermine meritocracy. Also, there are plenty of examples of people who move up the ladder despite a lack of competence. Here is one very prominent example:
https://blog.aaronsleazy.com/index.php/2017/09/14/equifax-leaks-150m-private-data-sets-cio-is-female-diversity-hire/
” The fact that we have a few great dead white men does not mean that people who pay a lot of money to read their books are in any way worthy of reverence. ”
So it is the men, not the education that receive, that is at fault here, is it not? I can’t figure out how a person can become deaf to Reason if they sift through the collections of great works in Humanities.
Perhaps bestowing upon an idiot the education of Humanities is just as good as bestowing upon him the education of Natural Sciences?
Cuong Quoc Vu no offence, but if you think a society can sustain itself when more people are studying bullshit like gender studies than STEM, you are deluded.
“Sure, let’s throw out all great political theorists because they didn’t hold office, from Plato to Sam Francis. Instead, let’s wait for Obama’s memoirs or some other whitewashed bullshit because, clearly, it’s not enough to observe that the world around you is falling apart because of moronic political decisions.”
They are all theorists. It is those who weld power know the game of power.
Maybe a few more will serve our interests:
Alexiad of Anna Komnene
Commentary on the Gaulic War by Ceasar
Meditations by Marcus Aurelius
The Annalect by Confucius
Mencius
etc
And perhaps you should listen to them once in a while.
Speaking of political memoirs of current politicians, I never read them. What attracts me is the opening of archives which reveals silent truths hidden so well from us.
Oh, and I forgot to add
Memoirs of Khruschev
“I’m close to putting your comments on the moderation queue again because you just don’t seem to be arguing in good faith. “Diversity hiring” means that you do not hire based on competence but on other factors. Of course, if you hand out jobs, for instance, based on sexual orientation instead of skills, you undermine meritocracy. Also, there are plenty of examples of people who move up the ladder despite a lack of competence. Here is one very prominent example:”
Thank you for expanding on the sexual orientation of diverse hiring, when I wrote those lines, I only think of races, not sexes.
For every example of lack of competence, we have examples of competence as well. Otherwise, do you think all great enterprises shall collapse immediately? Think of Berkshire Hathaway?
This was just one example. It doesn’t matter what you use for the argument. No matter what value you substitute X for in this case, the outcome will be that you undermine meritocracy. If you think this is irrelevant and that meritocracy doesn’t matter because everybody is looking out for their family first, then I encourage you to study why some countries never advance. A prime cause is indeed corruption due to handing out jobs to distant cousins instead of someone who can actually do the job. You can’t sustain anything without meritocracy. In fact, I think that the many issues that have been popping up in macOS are due to Apple diversifying their hiring pool. My employer gave me a decked out 16″ Macbook Pro, and the amount of crap I have to deal with is beyond belief. For instance, there is a long-standing bug that leads to the operating system counting used memory twice, which then leads to your system becoming unresponsive because it caches files to the hard drive, e.g. https://docs.google.com/document/d/17ZiQC1Tp9iH320K-uqVLyiJmk4DHJ3c4zgQetJiKYQM/edit#heading=h.f2w3saq6j9so
I’ve privately bought Mac laptops for almost 20 years. My next purchase likely won’t be an Apple machine anymore.
I said nothing about “immediate collapse”. Decay is normally gradual (and often unnoticed), then it accelerates, and the final collapse will come quite quickly. Anybody who played RTS games or who is familiar with chess probably has plenty of first-hand experience of this phenomenon.
Speaking on reading the writings of politicians, think of their large selections of declassified writings. Most writings of US presidents from Washington to Lincoln should be available online. Yet recently, I discover that you could read a bit of Eisenhower as well:
https://www.loc.gov/rr/program/bib/presidents/eisenhower/bibliography.html
For Kennedy
https://www.jfklibrary.org/asset-viewer/archives/JFKPP
JFK gave speeches in which he warned the public of the power of “secret societies”. He was also fascinated by Hitler, calling him “the stuff of legends”: https://www.bbc.com/news/world-us-canada-39371715
Oh, JFK also got killed. I wonder if it had anything to do with him brushing up against the Deep State. Nah, probably not.
“Cuong Quoc Vu no offence, but if you think a society can sustain itself when more people are studying bullshit like gender studies than STEM, you are deluded.”
Did I say I support people to study gender studies? That’s why it is Sleazy who needs to define which field of Humanities he is talking about.
Here are few that I think are not included in his blacklist:
History
Political Science
Philosophy
…
Which fields are he talking about? Sleazy’s style of writing rarely specify the target of his attacks, here are few examples:
Western World (rarely defined the inclusion of exclusion of the US, Australia or Canada)
Humanities (rarely defined the inclusion or exclusion of abc field)
If anything, I think we lack courageous historians who dare to write a well researched work on the current state of affairs of the world.
This whole conversation of STEM vs Humanities should not be born if not the strong bias of Sleazy, who extols science yet disdain Humanities, rarely considers that the combination of both deliver the most effective program of education.
You could have very rigorous academic programs in History, Philosophy, and many other fields of the Humanities. In reality, however, those are all pretty non-rigorous disciplines that offer little more than far-left indoctrination. A few years ago I would have written “thinly veiled indoctrination”, but the veil has come off.
Look at what Oxford is doing to their once-revered Classics program:
https://quillette.com/2020/02/24/making-homer-and-vergil-optional-at-oxford-wont-diversify-classics/
A decade or two ago, you could walk into an investment bank with a Classics degree from Oxford as it meant that you were really smart and hard-working. Those days are gone now, and the big banks in London nowadays much prefer hiring people with demonstrable quantitative experience whereas back in the days, they assumed that graduates of certain colleges were generally smart and could be trained to learn whatever they needed to know.
“This was just one example. It doesn’t matter what you use for the argument. No matter what value you substitute X for in this case, the outcome will be that you undermine meritocracy. If you think this is irrelevant and that meritocracy doesn’t matter because everybody is looking out for their family first, then I encourage you to study why some countries never advance. A prime cause is indeed corruption due to handing out jobs to distant cousins instead of someone who can actually do the job. You can’t sustain anything without meritocracy. In fact, I think that the many issues that have been popping up in macOS are due to Apple diversifying their hiring pool. My employer gave me a decked out 16″ Macbook Pro, and the amount of crap I have to deal with is beyond belief. For instance, there is a long-standing bug that leads to the operating system counting used memory twice, which then leads to your system becoming unresponsive because it caches files to the hard drive, e.g. https://docs.google.com/document/d/17ZiQC1Tp9iH320K-uqVLyiJmk4DHJ3c4zgQetJiKYQM/edit#heading=h.f2w3saq6j9so
I’ve privately bought Mac laptops for almost 20 years. My next purchase likely won’t be an Apple machine anymore.
I said nothing about “immediate collapse”. Decay is normally gradual (and often unnoticed), then it accelerates, and the final collapse will come quite quickly. Anybody who played RTS games or who is familiar with chess probably has plenty of first-hand experience of this phenomenon.”
I don’t believe in the essence of meritocracy. Any system of political power, including any system of governments hiherto exist in this world, do not follow the rigid code of meritocracy. Nepotism is the norm. This is how humans function. We tend to shelter our own kin men and our own supporters.
Politicians come to power from a predefined pools. We should be led to believe that they are groomed to become politicians. Incidence like the election of Abraham Lincoln was rare and far from being the norm, and if it happen, it happened in the US.
I have read elsewhere that you extoll the Prussian system. Yet the head of that very government, king Frederick the Great, didn’t pass his throne to a fresh newcomer, more able ruler, but to Frederick William II.
It comes clearer and clearer to me that the political opinions of Sleazy are deeply rooted in his German origin. He endeavours to build a state after an ideal German model. Only this could explain the tendency of supporting the ideal of a benelovent monarch or a dictator.
“If you think this is irrelevant and that meritocracy doesn’t matter because everybody is looking out for their family first, then I encourage you to study why some countries never advance.”
My view is that nepotism is the norm. Apart from countries where indirect democracy reigns, I see not much of a difference. It is my view that meritocracy is an ideal that is worth reaching, but in reality shall never be reached because it is encoded in our nature to take care of our kindred, our associates, our supporters, or those we can negotiate and come into an agreement, beneficial for our interests.
Even in the history of the United States, presidents all come from a predefined pool. Very few presidents have a background in fields unrelated to politics. Think of the spoil system during the presidency of Andrew Jackson.
I have heard that, in general, the Prussian political system, was meritocratic during the time of Frederick the Great. However, I don’t think this is the case. If anything, only the military was meritocratic. The creation of the Prussian Generalstab, leading the world in military thinking and planning, was an example of this. I don’t know how meritocratic it was for civilian posts.
“then I encourage you to study why some countries never advance.”
This can be easily countered. China, for example, was always ahead of the world despite a long history of nepotism. Emperors appointed cabinets based on their liking. He was the master of the universe, thus his will was imposed on all political figureheads. Yet they still managed to nourish the largest population in History.
Sure, nepotism and meritocracy can co-exist. The emergence of a gentry class, replacing the old aristocratic families, whose chief aim was to pass the imperial examination, did come to power due to their talents. Yet even in this system of meritocracy, we still see individuals being appointed due to their political affinity, and not purely due to their merits.
Complete meritocracy is an unattainable ideal, similarly to complete freedom of speech.
China is a very meritocratic country, much more so than any Western country. Just look at the doofuses in our governments! You can be a waitress who spends a lot of time on her back and knees and almost over night you’ll have a place in the U.S. Congress. In contrast, in China, politicians rise through the ranks by getting results, quite similar to well-run capitalist organizations.
Why did you come to the United States? Surely because of the opportunities that country promises. How come you don’t have those opportunities back home? Could it have anything to do with nepotism that leads to incompetents getting chosen over people who could actually do the job? I find it quite fascinating that you want to benefit from the opportunities the West provides, yet you cling to your third-world attitudes. This is why there is “third-worldization” in the West. This has now gotten so obvious that you have to be blind to not see it, e.g. people increasingly being unreliable, not bothering to follow processes, and a general lack of long-term thinking or an inability to just think through the consequences of their actions. You likewise seem unable to understand the long-term social ramifications of rampant nepotism. So, what country will your kids emigrate to once the United States is run like Vietnam? (This is a serious question.)
“A decade or two ago, you could walk into an investment bank with a Classics degree from Oxford as it meant that you were really smart and hard-working. Those days are gone now, and the big banks in London nowadays much prefer hiring people with demonstrable quantitative experience whereas back in the days, they assumed that graduates of certain colleges were generally smart and could be trained to learn whatever they needed to know.”
Isn’t this because they are looking to hire quants, or scientists who couldn’t find an available academic seat and thus decide to strike out a new path for themselves? Quantitative trading seems to be the new rising trend in this segment of banking.
My experience with the commercial banking world is that candidates are hired due to a diverse background. Most of them come from the financial world, holding a degree in accounting or finance. My boss graduate in a Liberal Art degree, he didn’t disclose which field is it. In this case, seniority and experience counts more than the degree from which you graduated.
Quants are a minuscule number of the workforce in a bank. Also, that job existed decades ago already. Ten to fifteen years ago, the hiring objective was basically interviewing people from Oxbridge and LSE regardless of degree. The last time I checked, ads for “graduate schemes” put an emphasis on quantitative fields instead.
How will you get seniority if you don’t get a foot in the door? Your boss was lucky because he got in when you could still make it in this industry with a Liberal Arts degree. Today, that may only be possible if you come from the very best schools and even then you’ll compete against people from the same cohort who have a quantitative major or minor. Also, the old world of banking is under massive pressure so the reputation game may be up soon. There are “neo-banks”, i.e. FinTechs who hire a bunch of data scientists and software engineers who need a fraction of the workforce of a traditional bank. We’ve entered a world in which there is very little room for Humanities graduates from mediocre to good schools and at the top schools, likely only those with excellent connections will succeed but for those people, it doesn’t really matter what they study.
“We’ve entered a world in which there is very little room for Humanities graduates from mediocre to good schools and at the top schools, likely only those with excellent connections will succeed but for those people, it doesn’t really matter what they study.”
If you count jobs that pay well and decently, then yes. I belong to an affluent family so my basic needs have been covered. My future job is going to be something that dedicates to new immigrant to the United States.
For people who have no natural inclination for quantitative subject, they seem to be forced to work jobs that don’t pay that well.
“China is a very meritocratic country, much more so than any Western country. Just look at the doofuses in our governments! You can be a waitress who spends a lot of time on her back and knees and almost over night you’ll have a place in the U.S. Congress. In contrast, in China, politicians rise through the ranks by getting results, quite similar to well-run capitalist organizations.
Why did you come to the United States? Surely because of the opportunities that country promises. How come you don’t have those opportunities back home? Could it have anything to do with nepotism that leads to incompetents getting chosen over people who could actually do the job? I find it quite fascinating that you want to benefit from the opportunities the West provides, yet you cling to your third-world attitudes. This is why there is “third-worldization” in the West. This has now gotten so obvious that you have to be blind to not see it, e.g. people increasingly being unreliable, not bothering to follow processes, and a general lack of long-term thinking or an inability to just think through the consequences of their actions. You likewise seem unable to understand the long-term social ramifications of rampant nepotism. So, what country will your kids emigrate to once the United States is run like Vietnam? (This is a serious question.)”
Your paragraph shows that you utterly lack any kind of common sense when it comes to China or Vietnam. You said my country is steep in nepotism, but China is very meritocratic. Someone who has been to both countries will roll on the floor with their belly up when they read this. Why? Because Vietnam is just a miniature of China. Both share the same political systems. Modern Vietnam cannot be born without China as its birthing (or midwife). If the system in Vietnam is highly nepotic, it also means that system in China is nepotic.
Let me draw a rather broad overview of how you are selected for a government post in China or Vietnam. The first and foremost is not how able you are, but your political background. If your family, for up to 4 generations, has any background of following a party that is besides the Communist Party or any of its affiliated party, or worse, following a party that is a rival to the Communist Party, you will forever be barred from high ranking government position. While this has been relaxed somewhat lately, the prerequisite for being a Party member is still deeply felt. My mother, who has a family history of brothers pursuing military posts in the rival Southern Vietnam, could not find any opportunity to advance because she is not accepted into the Communist Party. When I was in China, Vietnamese students who went there by winning a governmental scholarship all hurried to apply for a membership to the Communist Party. This is the guarantee of higher positions in life.
The more you want to advance in the Communist system, the more background you need to be able to be accepted.
I, for one, cannot become a Communist Party member at the age of 18, because I have never been elected to be a member of the Komsomol, even though they hurriedly accept me into the Youth Pioneer to fullfil certain predefined quota. This means I won’t even be able to attend a special school for students who demonstrate a good command of foreign languages. Children whose family background is attached to the Party would go there very easily.
Now, we have mentioned the boring fundamentals. Let us move on to the more interesting part. After being admitted to the Communist Party of China or Vietnam, you shall have to pass a series of tests in order to be qualified for your aimed government official position. What comes after that is how well you can align yourself with the existing political alignment between your superiors. If you happen to side with the side that win the advancement, you will be typically promoted to a higher position, following a well-penned letter of recommendation of your superiors. If you ever side with the losing side, you will be sidelined, will be appointed to a boring and unprofitable position.
As it was in the past, as it is now, government posts that stay close to the stream of public incomes are always desirous. You want to be in those positions in order to reap the benefits. We call this corruption. Let us take the Central Tax Bureau as an example, positions that audit private companies are always vied for, because it is in these positions that companies can bribe you in exchange of for altering tax audit records. They will not send you direct money, they will send gold bars, rings, diamonds, heap of precious gifts for Christmas or Chinese New Year. As long as you play the game, you will reap the benefits as mentioned.
You can do this to test the truth. Select any high ranking Chinese officials, google them, read their biography, particularly their family origin to see if what I say is correct. Bo Xilai, a charismatic and highly corrupted high ranking official, was a fourth son of Bo Yibo:
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Bo_Xilai
Read on the biography of Xi Jinping
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Xi_Jinping
Jiang Zemin, who didn’t hail from a high-ranking leaders of Communist China, has joined the political party since he was young:
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Jiang_Zemin
The process of becoming a Communist member is a process of constant indoctrination, self-censure and self-adjustment. Every word or line that is deemed injurious to the upper echelon of leaders will result in your termination of post and your reduction in life.
I have given you a political overview, admittedly from my juvenile experience. If my mother could write well in English, she would give much deeper insights into how a Communist society works, based on her extensive contact with the government.
I come to the US because I am guaranteed certain inalienable rights, rights that have been taken away or silenced by the Communist Party. We come because the future of our children and our posterity will be markedly more bright than in our own home country.
As for my belief in nepotism, it is simply an observation of basic human instincts. We are all interested in securing for our posterity a good station in life. The love and care that we have for our children do often overshadow the urge to appoint an outsider to a position. Think of parents who run hotels, they wish to transfer the ownership to their children or kins, not to outsiders. Few humans can overcome this instinct to promote or confer a leadership position to a stranger, even though he demonstrates impressive ability and talents. Marcus Aurelius stopped the long train of appointing good adoptee, known as the Five Good Emperors, and elected his son, Commondus, to be throne of Rome. This is just an example.
Besides kinship, we also have a tendency to promote advancement to people who support us.
My observation still stands even in the US, when candidates to offices are narrowly selected from a source, or a stream. Yet, we have the election of members of the Congress, the House of Representatives and the Senate. People do have a chance to let their voice be known. This is something, so precious, that do not exist in China or Vietnam, where all leadership must come from a single Communist Party. Many times, the election of a president to power poses a challenge to the system of government delineated by founding fathers, yet in all these instances, the system remain intact.
It is easily observable that an enlightened despot, no matter how wise he is, cannot pass down his political wisdom to his children. What we need, is a system that adheres to the doctrine of check-and-balance, ensuring a peaceful transfer of power, and to hold in check any tendency of usurpation of power. It is the system that we are interested in, not any single individual who come and go according to the cycle of life.
“yet you cling to your third-world attitudes. ”
That is not a third world attitude. That is the distillation of precious common sense derived from years of exploring political history of China, and recently, of the United States.
If you ever devote your time to read the Classics of China, you will discover that kinship is held in much higher regard than in Europe. This is why you have the law of Primogeniture. A more diligent attempt to uncover the truth of Imperial China shall dictate that bloodline matters the most. It is known as the Mandate of Heaven. Kings of Han dynasty must bear the family name Liu, Kings of Tang dynasty must bear the family name Li, kings of Song dynasty bear the family name Zhao, kings of Ming dynasty bear the family name Zhu, kings of Yuan dynasty must be a descendant of Cinggis Khan, kings of Qing ought to be from the Aisin Gioro clan.
“China is a very meritocratic country, much more so than any Western country. Just look at the doofuses in our governments! You can be a waitress who spends a lot of time on her back and knees and almost over night you’ll have a place in the U.S. Congress. In contrast, in China, politicians rise through the ranks by getting results, quite similar to well-run capitalist organizations.”
Your paragraph shows that you utterly lack any kind of common sense when it comes to China or Vietnam. You said my country is steep in nepotism, but China is very meritocratic. Someone who has been to both countries will roll on the floor with their belly up when they read this. Why? Because Vietnam is just a miniature of China. Both share the same political systems. Modern Vietnam cannot be born without China as its birthing (or midwife). If the system in Vietnam is highly nepotic, it also means that system in China is nepotic.
Let me draw a rather broad overview of how you are selected for a government post in China or Vietnam. The first and foremost is not how able you are, but your political background. If your family, for up to 4 generations, has any background of following a party that is besides the Communist Party or any of its affiliated party, or worse, following a party that is a rival to the Communist Party, you will forever be barred from high ranking government position. While this has been relaxed somewhat lately, the prerequisite for being a Party member is still deeply felt. My mother, who has a family history of brothers pursuing military posts in the rival Southern Vietnam, could not find any opportunity to advance because she is not accepted into the Communist Party. When I was in China, Vietnamese students who went there by winning a governmental scholarship all hurried to apply for a membership to the Communist Party. This is the guarantee of higher positions in life.
The more you want to advance in the Communist system, the more background you need to be able to be accepted.
I, for one, cannot become a Communist Party member at the age of 18, because I have never been elected to be a member of the Komsomol, even though they hurriedly accept me into the Youth Pioneer to fullfil certain predefined quota. This means I won’t even be able to attend a special school for students who demonstrate a good command of foreign languages. Children whose family background is attached to the Party would go there very easily.
Now, we have mentioned the boring fundamentals. Let us move on to the more interesting part. After being admitted to the Communist Party of China or Vietnam, you shall have to pass a series of tests in order to be qualified for your aimed government official position. What comes after that is how well you can align yourself with the existing political alignment between your superiors. If you happen to side with the side that win the advancement, you will be typically promoted to a higher position, following a well-penned letter of recommendation of your superiors. If you ever side with the losing side, you will be sidelined, will be appointed to a boring and unprofitable position.
As it was in the past, as it is now, government posts that stay close to the stream of public incomes are always desirous. You want to be in those positions in order to reap the benefits. We call this corruption. Let us take the Central Tax Bureau as an example, positions that audit private companies are always vied for, because it is in these positions that companies can bribe you in exchange of for altering tax audit records. They will not send you direct money, they will send gold bars, rings, diamonds, heap of precious gifts for Christmas or Chinese New Year. As long as you play the game, you will reap the benefits as mentioned.
You can do this to test the truth. Select any high ranking Chinese officials, google them, read their biography, particularly their family origin to see if what I say is correct. Bo Xilai, a charismatic and highly corrupted high ranking official, was a fourth son of Bo Yibo
Read on the biography of Xi Jinping, a son of Xi Zhongxun, a clique of Communist member
The process of becoming a Communist member is a process of constant indoctrination, self-censure and self-adjustment. Every word or line that is deemed injurious to the upper echelon of leaders will result in your termination of post and your reduction in life.
I have given you a political overview, admittedly from my juvenile experience. If my mother could write well in English, she would give much deeper insights into how a Communist society works, based on her extensive contact with the government.
So you don’t believe that there are any inherent differences between Vietnamese and Chinese? You thus say that the people don’t matter. If we use the same political system, we get the same political outcome. Then it may surprise you that the GDR was the most successful socialist country. Surely, it could have had nothing to do with there being any difference between Germans and, say, Cubans.
https://indianexpress.com/article/opinion/columns/is-china-meritocratic-society-gaokao-examination-5254088/
This article, written by India, perhaps hostile China, is not that impartial when it comes to reporting news, but this part rings true to my experience:
“Some years ago, it was reported that the Tsinghua and Peking universities, two of the most prestigious Chinese universities, both based in Beijing, took 84 out of every 10,000 candidates carrying Beijing hukous, but only 3 out of every 10,000 from the poorer Anhui province. ”
Children from disadvantageous province must compete with those who are native to largest cities like Shanghai or Beijing. Few make it through. Those who stay back in their poorer provinces have access to less elite education. Not that elite universities in China are elite compared to top-notched US colleges anyway.
“How will you get seniority if you don’t get a foot in the door?”
If you mean to gain an entry position such as a bank teller, then no college degrees are needed. You shall rise in five or so years as a result of your competence and experience. I was a bank teller, and they said this upon my first meeting after my application being approved: “Your education background is impressive.”
I dare to think that it is not that impressive, it’s just American nicety.
You live in a total fantasy world. You are not going to move up much from the lower ranks if at all. A progression from bank teller to CEO is not going to happen. In general, this problem was diagnosed by some US sociologist (Vance Packard?) over half a century ago where he argued that large, modern corporations may tell stories about rapid advancement, which will normally not materialize. He also has a story of a clerk or factory worker who wants to “move up” and asks about available white collar jobs and decides to talk to HR. At first they tell him there are no such jobs available but, dishonestly, they also tell him that he should ask again in the future. In the end, they grow hostile towards him. It’s quite tragic as the guy apparently really believed he could move up.
https://www.scmp.com/article/971188/executives-lose-millions-buying-fake-degrees
Trading money for an education degree. In the land of Confucius, this is the most injurious act to him, if he could read.
Look into the recent US elite college admissions scandal:
https://www.cnn.com/2019/05/02/us/china-stanford-college-admissions-scandal/index.html
“You live in a total fantasy world. You are not going to move up much from the lower ranks if at all. A progression from bank teller to CEO is not going to happen. ”
What is this? I am talking about being promoted from Bank Teller to Personal Banker (Customer Representative) and from Personal Banker to Branch Manager (with Vice Branch Manager in between). When did I say you can move up from Bank Teller to the pinnacle of power, CEO? 5 years if you want to be promoted to Branch Manager, if you are really good.
In my bank, I have seen a Brazilian coworker being promoted from part-time Bank Teller to part-time Personal Banker in 3 years.
“So you don’t believe that there are any inherent differences between Vietnamese and Chinese? You thus say that the people don’t matter. If we use the same political system, we get the same political outcome. Then it may surprise you that the GDR was the most successful socialist country. Surely, it could have had nothing to do with there being any difference between Germans and, say, Cubans.”
There exists certain differences, but they are usually very difficult to distinguish. For example, the structure of leadership in China and Vietnam, both historically and in present, is rather different. Let the clock being winded back to the age of Mao, we see the that Mao help absolute power over the Communist Party, and over Chinese society. Yet, concurrently, Ho Chi Minh, while being a revered figurehead, did not hold absolute control of his Party. Power was distributed to his lesser members, including Do Muoi, Pham Van Dong, and especially Le Duan.
As of now, we can see that it remains rather similar such a pattern. In China, Xi Jinping absolutely hold power in China. Nguyen Phu Trong, the current president of Vietnam, do not rule with a single iron fist. There are no newspaper trumpeting his political thoughts. I posit that while being Communist, Vietnam hasn’t technically formed a government that is truly totalitarian government, only authoritarian, because no single powerful individual hold power like the Stalin or Mao.
” Then it may surprise you that the GDR was the most successful socialist country. Surely, it could have had nothing to do with there being any difference between Germans and, say, Cubans.”
This is irrelevant. Remember I said that Vietnam cannot be born without China being its mid-wife? The connection between the two parties are so well recorded that one only need to open a history book. China supported Vietnam in 1950 when Communist won the Civil War in 1949. China helped Vietnam to carry out the bloody Land Reform in 1953, following the model and experience of China. China agreed to be the intermediate to help to transport weapons and equipment from the Soviet Union to North Vietnam during the Vietnam War. China supported Vietnam with her own weapons and equipment during that war.
No such intimate relationship can be found between DDR and Cuba. The geographic and the cultural difference is much greater than in the case of China and Vietnam.
Sino-Vietnam relation became sour with the border of conflict of 1979. Yet when the Soviet Union collapsed and dissolved, it was Vietnam who actively sought to normalize the diplomatic relationship with China. The existence of the Chinese Communist Party is vital to the existence of Vietnamese Communist Party.
I thought you guys might be interested in how one of the top 5 or so richest women in the world earned her billions.
Check out this amazing gal: https://files.catbox.moe/jfned5.jpg
She’ll serve as inspirations for generations of women to come.
Oh yea, she’s extraordinary. She even went as far as to make a list of exactly how much and to where she donated a total of about $1.7 billion. So humble, and brave.
-Racial Equity: $ 586,700,000
-LGBTQ+ Equity: $ 46,000,000
-Gender Equity: $ 133,000,000
-Economic Mobility: $ 399,500,000
-Empathy & Bridging Divides: $ 55,000,000
-Functional Democracy: $ 72,000,000
-Public Health: $ 128,300,000
-Global Development: $ 130,000,000
-Climate Change: $ 125,000,000
CORRECTION:
” I wonder why you are so disdain of Humanities.”
Disdainful
@sleazy. The money made men site on your sidebar is permanently gone. To make a long story short, there was too much risk in having my job compromised. Thanks for linking.
That’s a shame. Good luck to you!
I’m sorry to hear that. Those are crazy times indeed but there is hope that we will enter a less repressive future.
With Aaron’s approval, would you be willing to write guest posts, or comments in the open thread, from time to time?
I really enjoyed your perspectives.
I would be more than happy to. Assanova, you have my email address. Just reach out to me if you’re interested in writing the occasional guest post.
Thanks. Things are definitely different than ten or so years ago when we didn’t have to worry about PC and cancel culture. I’ll still be commenting from time to time, but mostly just laying low and not trying to draw too much attention. Having a family definitely affects how I go about posting on the internet.
“You could have very rigorous academic programs in History, Philosophy, and many other fields of the Humanities. In reality, however, those are all pretty non-rigorous disciplines that offer little more than far-left indoctrination. A few years ago I would have written “thinly veiled indoctrination”, but the veil has come off.”
I don’t know about Philosophy, but I minor in History. It depends on the period that interests you. I used to be deeply interested in Chinese History of the middle age (Tang-Song dynasty), so I can write rather freely about that period. As a rule of thumb, if the time period is very close to your present time, you will have less freedom to do research.
My own exposure to the history of the US, as attended 2 semesters in a lack-of-funding college, is that we can discuss issues rather openly.
I am a newcomer to modern History so I have very little to say on this matter.
As for medieval History, I find that there is a insurmountable degree of freedom in the US.
My impression is that my teachers both question certain tenets of the Left. So perhaps, Sleazy is speaking of Humanities as it is in Europe.