Open Thread

Open Thread #324

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41 thoughts on “Open Thread #324

  1. The PISA results in December will hit like a bombshell. The previous studies on the reading and maths skills of German pupils already paint a bleak picture, but PISA will probably “catapult” us to 40th place in the rankings. We used to be in the top 10.

    Germany is going down the drain and everyone is watching (even if I don’t think the Jews are behind it ;=) )

  2. Just took a look at the news today:

    Zelensky has rejected peace talks with Russia, and has promised to commit more troops to gain land faster, asking for more weapons.

    Civilian toll in Gaza has exceeded 10000, as Israel bombed hospitals, food, water facilities and refugee camps.

    Sam Bankman Fried found guilty of stealing 10 billion dollars in his crypto scam, and now risks up to 110 years in jail.

    Also, in totally unrelated news, lots of rallies around the world in support of Palestine, which are apparently worrying because they show a rise in antisemitism for absolutely no reason at all.

    1. I can’t quite put my finger on it, but it seems that the first three examples have something in common. Perhaps it is some kind of camouflaged nation building and prosperity creation that will only become evident in hindsight, so let us not prematurely draw any conclusions.

    2. “Civilian toll in Gaza has exceeded 10000”

      According to Hamas sources.

      Don’t ask the frogs in a swamp 😉

    3. Zelensky is either badly deluded, or he maybe has no choice because nazi hardliners in this government may have a gun to his head.

      This war was already lost for Ukraine long ago. The last good time to negotiate with Russia was october 2022, after they had successfully wrapped up the Kharkiv and Kherson counteroffensives.

      But the 2023 counteroffensive was a disaster, turns out western supplied tanks and armor burn just as well and russian ones, and they barely made a dent in russian defenses. They lost a lot of personnel and increasingly field commanders are refusing orders to attack. Now Russia is advancing again, and i dont think the ukros will be able to hold their lines much longer.

      And from the point of view of NATO, shoving more money and materiel to Ukraine is just sinking more resources in a lost cause.

      Even if the West could give them enough gear to rebuild an army (which they can´t, because production is limited and a lot of it will be sucked up by Israel now), they dont have the manpower anymore. As of today, the average age of the ukrainian armed forces is 43, and they are enlisting ever less fit people. According to NYT yesterday, they are enlisting women already – never a good sign.

    4. @Gerd

      The Gaza health authorities are controlles by Hamas, but there are also other international aid organizations present. AFAIK casualty numbers from past bombings have been corroborated to an extent that you can more or less reasonably take them at face value.

      That being said, the 10.000 figure is likely an understatement. There are likely many bodies under the rubble that could not be recovered yet.

    5. @Yarara
      Zelensky likely wanted to use Azovites to do the dirty work and then get rid of them. Azovites probably are doing the dirty work with the intention of getting rid of Zelensky afterwards.

      I don’t see Russia advancing again, they tried to storm Adveeka and got wrecked badly. But similarly, Ukrainians advances has almost completely stopped. The Battlefield turned again into a giant meat grinder, which of course is hurting Ukraine considerably more than Russia due to its far more limited resources.

    6. The Ukraine is totally done. The Ukrainian real-world superhero Zelenskyy is currently telling the world that if he can’t get money then he would also accept credit, which he will pay back. He has about the same level of credibility as some druggie who will absolutely, definitely pay you back, as long as he gets his next hit.

  3. YouTube overdoes it with the frequency of advertising. I have absolutely nothing against one or two short advertising clips, but 6 clips in a 10-minute video ruin the video flow. YouTube’s cheeky anti-adblocker mechanisms top it all off.

    I use ublock origin, AdGuard Premium and I’m going to try Revanced and New Pipe.

    1. You also get ads in the videos themselves. Overall, I find the experience of using YouTube somewhat quite lacking. The really interesting content is long gone and the few critical voices need to use coded language. Words such as rape, sex, woke, or even “vaccination” and Covid-19 lead to videos getting penalized, with the ultimate consequences of demonetization and deplatforming. Another issue is that the YouTube algorithm seems to prioritize long videos, which leads to many creators stretching out their content. I have barely used TikTok and I pay little attention to the YouTube knock-off “YouTube Shorts”, but I have come across a few one-minute long videos that made their point very well. This does not work for long-form political commentary but watching a few short videos of bizarre bugs in triple-vaxxed games like Cyberpunk or Starfield is arguably as enlightening, if not more, as going through one thirty-minute video where some IQ100 dude needs to explain in excruciating detail what you see on the screen.

    2. Yeah, the commercials are way to fucking long. And too many. I have zero issue with letting commercials run in the background while I do other things. But these commercials have become their own shows……..and then they play another.

      Damn I miss old YouTube.

    1. I’m pretty sure Japanese Herbivore men became popular before MGTOW exploded,so I suspect there’s probably more to the story that it makes it not worth marrying or even being involved in relationships in Japan.

      There’s probably a lot more below the surface than the “cool girlfriend image” the Japanese chicks are displaying here.

    2. I think the herbivore thing might be more related to the economy. Young guys saw their father’s slave their lives away and intuitively know that relationships and having families is not in the cards for most of them. The Japanese guys that are coupled up are probably in high demand and get special privileges like fucking prostitutes. The chicks in the short would rather they have sex with pros and not get attached than fuck other chicks and potentially leave them.

    3. From what I gather, the attitude in Southern Europe and South America is similar. This is simply an honest acknowledgment of dating realities: in relationships, women care about resources and commitment, which are not challenged if the guy treats himself to a teenage whore every once in a while. However, women bring loyalty and chastity to the table, which is why the same reasoning does not apply to them. The video you liked to got a good chuckle out of me when that chick says that whoring is fine if there is a good reason such as the guy accompanying his boss. I have been hearing stories from guys working in b2b sales in the West that were quite similar, with entertainment, like a visit to the brothel, getting “comped”, i.e. the company pays for it. This does not seem to happen any longer, though, thanks to wokism in HR.

    4. “The chicks in the short would rather they have sex with pros and not get attached than fuck other chicks and potentially leave them.”

      – Definitely a smart compromise on their part. If I had a wife like that (provided of course that she’s a great companion all around),I probably wouldn’t be interested in dipping my feet in the dating scene again.

      Women expecting their dudes to never want other chicks,ESPECIALLY when the eventually lose attraction for the guy and stop putting out…well,expecting to be able to maintain that with harmony is a unicorn fantasy needless to say.

    5. I wonder how representative of average Japanese woman’s opinion it actually is. Also the girls in the video are not particularly attractive, maybe they can compensate their relatively low value by allowing guys to go to prostitutes (if you can afford to bang whores you probably make enough to be a good husband). Perhaps better looking ones will react differently?

      At the same time, I’ve definitely heard anecdotes about it many times. Japanese women not willing to have sex and then telling their husbands to go to prostitutes instead.

    6. “maybe they can compensate their relatively low value by allowing guys to go to prostitutes (if you can afford to bang whores you probably make enough to be a good husband). Perhaps better looking ones will react differently?”

      – You know,you’re reminding me of Roosh back in the day advocating for the strategy of marrying an “agreeable 7”. Its true that hotter women generally have pleasant personalities,but they tend to have higher demands/expectations (and I don’t think we should hold that against them BTW. They are wisely playing the cards they are given. they’d be devaluing their prospects in life if they just slept with us who have no intentions of committing)

      I don’t know whether or not Roosh ended pulling that off (with his horrid reputation,I really doubt it. Hopefully whatever dough he’s made out of the PUA business is worth his reputation in shambles for the rest of his life),but its an interesting concept.

      Someone who you wake up to that you find pleasant to look at (obviously none of us are advocating having to wake up to a warpig everyday. god,I can’t imagine putting up with that! X_X) who lets you do most of what you want and on-board with your long term vision beats a physical 10 who is mostly incompatible with you. I think most of you will agree that the hottest chick you can get is not necessarily who you are going to want to be with long term. (or even short term depending on how batshit she is)

      I’d imagine if you ever release that book on relationships,this would probably be part of your message,Aaron.

    7. Roosh’s idea does not work as 7s, in particular agreeable ones, have the highest number of suitors. More attractive women are intimidating to many men, so fewer of them will try their luck. Roosh could have figured this out for himself with a bit more experience.

    8. Someone who you wake up to that you find pleasant to look at (obviously none of us are advocating having to wake up to a warpig everyday. god,I can’t imagine putting up with that! X_X) who lets you do most of what you want and on-board with your long term vision beats a physical 10 who is mostly incompatible with you.

      Especially if she’s fine with you renting 10s on the side. Definetely a good deal. Better to have a pleasant 7 for your main partner and bang on the side, than a “10” who’s “all yours” but can’t do anything except her.

    1. I came across this a few days ago, but I could not watch it for more than a few seconds as the intonation of those characters is incredibly grating to my ears.

    2. This article might be a bit biased, but it appears that the military’s attempt at recruiting fighting-capable goyim isn’t quite as successful as they’d hoped for: https://www.informationliberation.com/?id=64112

      Not only are a certain proportion of people not quite so enthusiastic about fighting for Israel, but I think that Americans in general are pretty weary from constantly being at war and failing at it. Also, the economy is getting worse and instead of tightening the budget the government somehow is able to allocate more and more resources for seemingly endless conflict while the standard of living keeps dropping.

    3. I don’t have a Twitter account, so I cannot view any replies. Thus, I was not aware of the somewhat subdued response the US Army has gotten. I got a good laugh out of it. The US is really in a tricky situation. After the Afghanistan debacle they wanted to defeat Russia, and I am sure that if there had been any chance of victory, the US would have revealed their involvement instead of operating in a clandestine manner. Now that the Ukraine has been a disaster, they want to fight the Moslem world for Israel. I strongly support accelerationism. So, Uncle Sam, please send all your troons to the Gaza strip and get this over and done with!

      Speaking of the Israeli slaughter of the Palestinians, the cost of this genocide is a very significant hit on the Israeli economy. It seems the plan is to get more billions from the US. However, the US dollar has been rapidly losing importance in world trade, so Israel may want to hurry up because otherwise, all this paper money may not amount to all that much anymore.

  4. Aaron,
    Have you read the book When Money Dies? It chronicles the hyperinflation that happened in Germany after WWII. There are quite a few examples in history where government replaced its old currency to fight off hyperinflation. If hyperinflation does happen either in Europe and/or America what would be some of the solutions government needs to take? Increase the number of exports and decrease the imports to protect the local market to increase its GDP? Refrain from having sanctions on exports?

    1. I am not familiar with this book but it sounds interesting. I have added it to my list. The problem is letting hyperinflation happen in the first place. Once the cat is out of the bag, it will be too late. The issue is an excess of money in circulation. There is the view that you can inflate the monetary supply if the supply of products and services increases in lockstep, but this still means that your money is worth less than it otherwise would be. In this case, the government still robs you of your money’s purchasing power, it is simply camouflaged better.

  5. Aaron, our discussion about Scorsese’s movies got me thinking. Why are today’s movies so terrible? Wokism? Over-trliance on CGI? Shallow young generation to sell to?

    1. Hollywood movies started sucking before full blown wokism already, so while it is certainly a factor, it is not the only one. Wokism may well be the final blow. I think that there was precursor to wokism which we used to call political correctness, this is a term from the 1980s I think, and it is largely left wing.

      As with many other industries, I suspect that the increasing requirements of higher “education” titles in order to land a job in the cultural production industries probably creates an increasingly uniform collective mindset over time, since most people have to go through a round of socialization in a university setting, where the social pressure to conform will bake in a lot of worldwievs and positions.

      You can see this in journalism, for example – how many journalists of working class background can you find in media today? It used to be the case that people with talent and common sense could land a job in journalism despite having only high school diploma, these days not so much. The requirement of going through those extra hoops forces the people through a socializing experience that tends in a certain direction,

      Regarding film (and TV), it used to be the case also that directors used to have much more leeway to innovate, experiment, take, risks, be contrarian. Todays productions are much more controlled by upper management, where there will be more risk aversion. To a point it is understandable given that the production and marketing costs have risen astronomically, sometimes marketing costs more than the actual movie itself.

      So studios may be more comfortable betting on “safer” investments. Thats why you see the endless milking of once excellent franchises, because they already own the intellectual property and they can bank on an existing fanbase or nostalgia value.

    2. I looked into the costs of making movies and how it changed over time. Interestingly, the big block busters got more and more expensive. Otherwise, technology kept costs at a relatively steady level. However, it seems that there no longer is much of a market for risky low to mid-buget movies. Quite recently I rewatched RoboCop, which cost a little less than 14 million to make, and brought in about $54m. The first Terminator movie just cost $6m. Both are quite brutal. In particular RoboCop has several scenes that are quite shocking. Yet, movie executives seem to think that targeting an older audience is not an option, so you end up with lame, homogenized movies. In that regard, Terminator 2 is a good example as there is a strong narrative shift from a dystopian story to some kind of action comedy for the entire family. Well, box office results seemed to have proved the executives right as Terminator 2 made a lot of money. In absolute terms, it was a lot more than the prequel, but the ROI, in percent, was significantly lower.

    3. Those are all good points. Wokism is arguably the biggest issue. By this I do not necessarily mean that white men and women are minorities in movies but that modern Hollywood no longer seems to be meritocratic. It used to be the case that if you made a good movie, you could easily get money to make another movie, and so on. These market dynamics are completely distorted, with big studios putting out one stinker after another. Disney even deliberately ruined Star Wars.

    1. I am not sure that you can say that Japanese men are simply “unattractive”, compared to Japanese women. However, being short and petite makes a woman more attractive. Japanese men are likewise shorter and thinner than their Western counterpart, and this is why Western women do not find them attractive. The inverse would be if here was a people whose men and women are all tall and muscular. The men would be in high demand the world over but the women would be seen as highly unattractive. Perhaps Iceland is a good example. The few Icelandic women I have seen came across as pretty masculine. Their men seem quite burly, as you would expect. The same seems to be true for Samoans, but I have never met any in real life.

    2. Well, Japanese men have a feminine demeanor, low weight, soft faces, tiny arms. That makes them look not very maskuline.

  6. I just read that Ubisoft has big plans for the next Assassin’s Creed game, which is set in Japan. You are given the choice to play as a female ninja or a black gentleman:
    https://metro.co.uk/2023/07/28/assassins-creed-red-stars-an-african-samurai-female-ninja-rumour-19211846/
    You can bet that the female ninja is not going to give you a boner. It is almost as if the big game studios want to figure out how to piss off their fanbase the most. Ubisoft’s latest entry in the Assassin’s Creed series has done so poorly that instead of sales figures they told us about the number of virtual cats players petted:
    https://insider-gaming.com/ubisoft-stats-mirage/

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