patrick.net

Methinks race is more like the breeds of dogs. Now dogs are an extreme-but you can still breed a male Chihuahua to a bigger dog and get puppies. The same with horses- draft horses were bred for work and strength-plow the fields, pull carts, logs etc. Lighter saddle horses were bred for riding and other tasks and then you had special breeds for pulling carraiges etc. Smooth gaited horses for carrying you along smoothly across long distances to get somewhere. Temperament was also important, with many breeders culling foul tempered foals-unless of course if they were pit ponies or consigned to some worthless task.

I am guessing, in the days of yore, humans evolved to their circumstances and geography. That we can interbreed and successfully produce babies, shows we are not that far removed.

I was in Jordan and really surprised at the number of white Jordanians-red heads and blue eyes. But given their history-it should be of no surprise. But their culture is what makes them different-that white jordanian is going to be very different than the white Midwestern fat dude-even though they may be the same race. The Muslim chechnyans are probably closer to Saudi wahabbists then their Russian brothers. germans are probably quite different than the French -race might and does have a difference-but methinks culture will have a bigger difference.

Now as with dogs, raise a Rottweiler in the most loving environment, it will still has its base tempermanet, but I wonder hwo much of a base tempermanet does each "race" have in ahuman and then does it vary by sub-race-for example is irish different from Scottish or Russian or german or Swedish? In the same way would blacks from Congo be different than south Africa, Tanzania or a black raised here in say Louisiana?

japan and germany are successful precisely because of their lack of diversity

This is one of those things that would seem to be self-evident. Diversity, which is a cousin to the word divisive, is by its very nature a negative influence because it emphasizes differences, which while they may be true, hardly lend themselves to harmonious relationships. I remember in the early 90's when our company jumped on board with the diversity business. We had a department of diversity which began the process of sending all the employees to diversity training. I never had to go because I guess they thought it would be a waste of time. I remember how every month when the diversity calendar (I'm not kidding) came around, how we'd laugh at it--every day was some hitherfore unknown day of importance to some unknown race or tribe somewhere.

Europeans were aided by a deadly secret weapon they weren't even aware they were carrying: Smallpox.

There also originated in those ancient times a Biblical custom of which the population could not have been aware of its practical benefit. It was noted during the plagues that the Jewish populations had noticably lower mortality rates than those of gentiles, adding further to the hatred of Jews as they believed they must in some way be complicit in the high death rates of non-Jews. The Jew's religion commanded them to pray before every meal, and since a Jew could not approach God with unclean hands, he symbolically purified himself by washing his hands in vessels filled strictly for that purpose--of course in the process, he was unknowingly washing away the contaminents that were being spread far and wide in the general population. And thus washing one's hands before a meal has become ubiquitous in this day of awareness of germs. I expect a lot of wisdom is contained in that admonition to avoid fornication as well, but that's not going to be accepted in this day and time either.

It's kind of ironic that Germany and Japan, being so wonderful because of relative homogeneity, also are both countries that had plans of subjugating or killing all of the *inferior races*, not so very long ago.

Was that a feature or a bug ? ( Did it prove they really are superior ? Or that they really aren't ? I say the latter. Sometimes everyone thinking the same way is very very bad )

I think high on the agenda if we were planning for our future is figuring out how humanity is not going to destroy itself. And I'm pretty sure that concluding that we really are the superior race ( whomever "we" represents ) is not a key to doing this. On a related note, it's interesting that the Arabs, that Patrick spends a lot of time railing against and obsessing about, have a lot in common with him, when it comes to ideas about race, and the superiority of their group.

1. The "race" mentioned in the article is very different from what the vernacular concept of race is. There is statistical distribution of alleles (alternative possible DNA bases at a specific location on the chromosome) exhibited by difference races. That is a far cry from saying what most people's concept of "race" is real. For example, each "race" has different bell curves on IQ; however, it would be absurd to say a person is White just because his IQ is 100, or Asian if his IQ is 110, or Black if his IQ is 85. On top of that different chromosome sites in the same individual may correlated statistically with different "race" groups.

2. "Eugenics" is what every man and woman does in picking and choosing mate(s): better/healthier looks, smarter, higher income, etc. etc. Government-run "Eugenics" however is a whole different ball of game: because government bureaucrats would have a very strong incentive to cheat and give reproductive advantages to themselves and their friends. It's just like market/exchange/trade is a good thing, but government-run market with price fixing is a terrible corruption of market process; science is a good thing, but government-run big-science is what gives you new theology like AGW.

3. It's interesting to note that the biggest historical break-through in standards of living and productivity came about because the more intelligent, hard-working and capable of delayed gratification got to reproduce more, and had their offsprings gradually pushing down the relative social standing and displacing the less competent. This is exactly the opposite process of what the modern welfare state does: incetivising the bottom of the gene pool to reproduce more and hope they could replace the reduced fertility among the more competent that are too heavily taxed and regulated.

Diversity introduced by the market place is a good thing: it offers genetic as well memic robustness. Diversity introduced by government coercion is counter-productive.

Germany and Japan were able to develop quickly in the late 19th precisely because they had relatively diverse and fragmented polities: Germany had zillions of principalities that had quite different geography as well as different populations; Japan's "reformation" was once again possible because of powerful local lords that could challenge and overthrow the central government. The "unified centralized homogeneous" Germany and Japan are fictions created in the 20th century for political reasons, and it didn't take long before both became fascist and counter-productive.

Reality says

This is exactly the opposite process of what the modern welfare state does: incetivising the bottom of the gene pool to reproduce more and hope they could replace the reduced fertility among the more competent that are too heavily taxed and regulated.

THe flaw in your very right wing biased view is that with automation and technology, we have some big decisions to make. One of the more humane choices is going to include a guaranteed income of some kind. You suggest the kneejerk right wing view that:

Reality says

because government bureaucrats would have a very strong incentive to cheat and give reproductive advantages to themselves and their friends

I don't see that that is clearly true at all. And to the somewhat small extent that it may be, only if we allow it to be, how is it worse than all of the corruption that naturally takes place (people taking care of their own and their friends) in the market place ?

Yes, designing and implementing an institutional process for deciding who can reproduce would be difficult and possibly somewhat of a bureaucratic nightmare, making the DMV look like a picnic. But there are so many problems that it eliminates over time. IT would actually go a long way towards decreasing the polarization and income equality that we deal with today.

From a purely evolutionary advantage perspective, mixing races is the way to go! Bottling up people in racially homogeneous nations keeps them stuck at one point with nowhere to go, and no way to introduce the genetic diversity that's needed for evolution to proceed to improve the species. I also think this is true of culture, where racially homogeneous societies have proven poor at adapting to change or encouraging innovation. In fact, they usually tie the old ways of doing things with racial identity, thus reinforcing their supposed superiority while crippling themselves and avoiding positive change.
Change is painful and so is evolution. America has chosen to embrace change and give its people every opportunity to improve themselves.
My kids are mixed race white Germanic and Asian. They're fantastic, combining beauty, brains, and athletic ability. Plus they're cute as heck. I see plenty of pure breed people who lack even one of the genetic advantages my kids have. Their being somewhat unique in appearance is also a plus. I consider my kids a step forward on the ladder from either of their parents, and I'm glad we could combine to give them their advantages. They're going to need them.

marcus says

It's all ridiculous and outrageously racist to even ponder such things.

ah, so even pondering "bad thoughts" as you define them is blameworthy. interesting. that fits very well with the PC attempt to control language as a way of controlling thoughts.

fwiw, i don't consider myself a racist except in the scientific sense of admitting that people from different places in the world are genetically different. that's not a value judgement, just a fact.

i know this fact can rapidly lead to bad behavior, like a ban on intermarriage, or even slavery or fascism and genocide. but to lie about reality erodes your credibility and moral authority.

of course there's a whole other level of argument going on as well, not rational at all, just subtext or assumptions about subtext. eg, if i post something pointing out that race is real, i must have some agenda of oppressing races that are not like me. not true, but of course PC sensitivities in this country are really twitchy and shoot first with accusations and labels, asking questions later.

i have no problem with arabs per se. christian arabs are genetically the same people, but gosh, they have a record of what, absolutely zero terrorist attacks? this is one reason i conclude that islam itself is a major factor in islamic terrorism. that's not racism, just a willingness to cross the PC line and talk about reality.

i'm also a fan of genetic diversity in general, because it really does help (a select subset of lucky) people cope with new diseases and other adversity.

the second image would be somehow less racist if it used "you're" instead of "your".

but i totally agree with the top image. being a "proud white man" is utterly forbidden by PC culture. it's an invitation to get fired from your job, even though racism against whites is itself is pure racism.

japan and germany are successful precisely because of their lack of diversity.

Shhh! That's dangerous talk!.

Seriously, by having a largely homogeneous population, it's easier to solve problems as everybody is unified. You can't blame various social problems on another race, since there really aren't any sizable numbers of them, and since it's not an issue, improving things is actually a lot easier. Businesses can't play the "Insert Name of Latest Immigrant Group" is hard working, but "Other Groups" are lazy game.

I try to explain to my wife that having an easier time getting along when you are a member of the majority is called "normal", not a "privilege".

Han Chinese, Japanese, etc. are not "privileged" when they live in China or Japan.

Japan now takes in about 10 refugees per year - and they handpick the ones with Japanese Ancestry. That isn't a typo.

Assholes are now complaining that being asked "Where are you from?" is a microaggression.

http://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC299980/

The CCR5-Δ32 deletion allele is currently under intense selection in populations with a high prevalence of HIV-1 (14). However, HIV has not infected humans long enough to account for the selective rise of this resistance allele, the frequency of which is estimated at an average of ≈10% in European populations (4, 12, 15-18). The allele is virtually absent in African, Asian, Middle Eastern, and American Indian populations, suggesting a recent origin, specifically estimated at 700 years based on coalescent theory (16). The assertion that the high frequency of the variant in Europe arose through strong selection from bubonic plague (16) has become known as the classic example of the signature of historical selection on a clinically important locus. This hypothesis has been gaining widespread acceptance in both population genetic and medical literature, despite the absence of quantitative assessment. Here, we evaluate the feasibility of the hypothesis that bubonic plague provided the selective pressure that brought CCR5-Δ32 to high frequencies in Caucasian populations. Three lines of evidence indicate that the smallpox Variola major virus is a more likely candidate

looks like plague and/or smallpox immunity also protects against HIV. but only about 10% of europeans seem to have that protective gene.

the second image would be somehow less racist if it used "you're" instead of "your".

It is a narrow mind that thinks there is only one way to spell a word.

marcus says

Was that a feature or a bug ?

Racism is the easiest thing to bamboozle the masses with.

The left half of the IQ curve wants to feel special too, so even if they placed relatively low in the IQ lottery you can still bullshit them about winning the race lottery, get them punching down at inferior races instead of kicking up at their economic betters.

I'm a middle-class middle-age white man and oh I'm so oppressed. I can barely get out of bed some mornings when I think about how the entire society is now structured to oppress me.

It's been an unending struggle since day 1, I tells ya.

Bellingham Bill says

The left half of the IQ curve wants to feel special too, so even if they placed relatively low in the IQ lottery you can still bullshit them about winning the race lottery, get them punching down at inferior races instead of kicking up at their economic betters.

is that a good reason to lie about the truth that race exists?

if you say it is a good reason to lie, isn't that a kind of bigotry in itself, assuming that dumb white people are incapable of critical thought, and incapable of knowing when they're being used? why not just put those dumb white people in concentration camps if you don't trust them at all?

marcus says

It's all ridiculous and outrageously racist to even ponder such things.

ah, so even pondering "bad thoughts" as you define them is blameworthy. interesting. that fits very well with the PC attempt to control language as a way of controlling thoughts.

You could use THE EXACT same reasoning to claim that there is no such thing as an evil thought, or an evil proposition.

Also, my observing that such thinking is ridiculous and outrageously racist doesn't mean I'm trying to control or blame your thinking. But I guess I am judging you for thinking in this way, just as you are willing to judge one race as inferior to another (or defend those who judge one race as inferior to another).

marcus says

just as you are willing to judge one race as inferior to another (or defend those who judge one race as inferior to another).

uh, never judged any race as inferior, or defended anyone for doing that.

uh, never judged any race as inferior, or defended anyone for doing that.

Then what was this ?

marcus says

How would one measure superior ? What qualities are most important in being human ? Once you have a metric for the quality of a human (which is ridiculous), then you'd have to ask, what's better, a group (i.e. race) that has a high standard deviation for this metric ? A low standard deviation ? It's all ridiculous and outrageously racist to even ponder such things.

ah, so even pondering "bad thoughts" as you define them is blameworthy. interesting. that fits very well with the PC attempt to control language as a way of controlling thoughts.

nothing about race in my reply, only pointing out that you have appointed yourself the thought policeman.

uh, never judged any race as inferior, or defended anyone for doing that.

And yet the whole point of this thread is something along the lines that it's so important that we are honest with ourselves about differences that race bring to a person, strictly in the biological sense (not due to relatively short term cultural differences).

nothing about race in my reply, only pointing out that you have appointed yourself the thought policeman.

Either a lie, or you're stupid. Go back and read it. If you said that you think grilled human baby legs are delicious, and I comment that that's fucked up, it doesn't make me some kind of thought policeman, it makes me an observer of the truth, which you claim to respect, when it's your incorrect truth.

By your reasoning, this whole thread is about your policing the way people want to think. A certain kind of thinking is PC BS in your view because it doesn't fit your prejudice.

By the way, I have never heard the phrase that "race doesn't exist," other than from you. OF course it exists. But this accepted view:

A longstanding orthodoxy among social scientists holds that human races are a social construct and have no biological basis

Is a view that I more or less agree with. To the extent that it's not true, this can be overcome (if it were desired ) in a few short generations of adapting to another culture. The authors point about recent changes in the human genome, supports rather than contradicting this point.

No less than 14% of the human genome, according to one estimate, has changed under this recent evolutionary pressure.

IF change can happen so quickly, in just hundreds of years, again, this supports the idea that the behavioral differences from one race to another are indeed primarily a social construct.

Clark has documented four behaviors that steadily changed in the English population between 1200 and 1800, as well as a highly plausible mechanism of change. The four behaviors are those of interpersonal violence, literacy, the propensity to save, and the propensity to work.

Profound events are likely to have profound causes.Homicide rates for males, for instance, declined from 0.3 per thousand in 1200 to 0.1 in 1600 and to about a tenth of this in 1800. Even from the beginning of this period, the level of personal violence was well below that of modern hunter-gatherer societies. Rates of 15 murders per thousand men have been recorded for the Aché people of Paraguay.

Social scientists are going to use this notion of short term evolutionary changes in the genome as evidence that they are right that significant differences are due to culure and social differences. But that's not saying that "race doesn't exist."

thunderlips11 says

japan and germany are successful precisely because of their lack of diversity.

Shhh! That's dangerous talk!.

Seriously, by having a largely homogeneous population, it's easier to solve problems as everybody is unified.

Yes. WW2 proved what awesome problem solvers the Germans and Japanese are.

The PC view is not to have a view . Which renders anyone who subscribes to this BS, moronic.

A longstanding orthodoxy among social scientists holds that human races are a social construct and have no biological basis. A related assumption is that human evolution halted in the distant past, so long ago that evolutionary explanations need never be considered by historians or economists.

Social scientist is almost an oxymoron. Has anyone ever heard a biologist say that evolution in our species has come to a halt? I didn't think so.

Clearly our species is still subject to evolution and natural, as well as artificial, selection. And clearly there were, and to a much lesser extent still are, isolated lines of lineage along which the filtering of genes has happened within our species. One need only look at red hair or blue eyes as examples of this.

I don't read too much about what social scientists say, but the biologists, anthropologists, and geneticists all agree that the historical notion of race is largely arbitrary. That's not to say that one could not come up with a definition of race that is scientific and precise and models our species genetic diversity, but so far no one has come up with a scientific definition of race.

What we call race is like what we call continents and oceans. What is the definition of a continent? A large land mass? That's not a definition. It does not let you distinguish continents from each other or from other things. Is India part of the large land mass that includes Europe and Asia? What's the criteria for deciding that?

The Webster definition is

one of the great divisions of land (such as North America, South America, Europe, Asia, Africa, Australia, or Antarctica) of the Earth

That's not a real definition either! It's a list! And going by that "definition", no other planet in the universe would have continents even if it were an atom for atom copy of Earth because by definition only Earth has continent.

And oceans are no different. Planet Earth has only one ocean, but we give it several different names, which vary across the world, even though they are all one body of water. The division between the Atlantic and the Pacific is an imaginary and arbitrary line that all the fishes ignore.

So what is race? If race is defined by physical characteristics like it has been traditionally, then shouldn't red heads be considered the Ginger race? Red hair sticks out more than skin color especially on the battlefield. Shouldn't blue-eyed blondes get their own race? And such physical characteristics contradict the genetic lineages shown in the original post. I know many Indians (hey, I work in IT, what do you expect?) that are darker than the average African American, yet they are Caucasians like me. I know many Chinese women who are far whiter than me. I mean porcelain white. We Italians look like Mexicans compared to them. So skin color, the defining characteristic of race historically, clearly isn't an accurate genetic/lineage based grouping.

And if we are going by genetic code, which seems reasonable and the point of this thread, then why are Africans only one race even though Africans, being the oldest population, is also by far the most genetically diverse. Shouldn't there be several races instead of one African race?

Furthermore, Caucasians like us of European stock, are genetically closer related to Africans and Indians (India, not Native American) than Asians and Native Americans are. I'm not sure I'd like buying into the 19th century theories that the further way from Africa your lineage is, the more evolve you are. That would make Native Americans the most evolved, followed by Asians, and then us Europeans far behind. Yet, we Europeans were the ones who created democracy, rational philosophy, and science. Not bad for a third-place race.

I have no problem with a scientific definition of race, but I sincerely doubt that any scientific, genetically meaningful definition of race would generate the same groupings that human history has, just like the definition of continental plate does not remotely relate to the continents we historically named.

WTF? That looks nothing like the seven continents!

Since any scientific grouping of people by genetics and lineage isn't going to look anything like the historic races, why even use such a loaded word that will cause everyone to reject it? Why not come up with a new word that represents the criteria for the grouping and carries no historical baggage. I think that is what scientists would most likely do.

Of course, today populations are interbreeding and people are moving away from their region of origin by hundreds, thousands, and even over 10 thousand miles for work or seeking a better life. The little genetic diversity our species has, and it's damn little compare to our closest relatives the chimps, is going to be eliminated over the next few hundred years anyway.

In time, the genetic difference from different lineages will all be piled into a single group, the world population, and the same filters will apply to the entire group. Diversification requires time and isolation, and we have lost isolation. So eventually, we'll all look Brazilian, a country full of interbreeding of various ethnicities. And given how hot Brazilians are, maybe that's not a bad thing.

Of course, we could take an even better route. Let's get rid of these organic bodies, digitize the human mind, and run our brains as virtual neural networks that can
- be backed up
- be downloaded into robotic bodies
- spawn multiple instances of ourselves
- periodically synchronize those instances so we retain a single identity

If we do that, we cure death along with so many other problems our world has.

This single statement irrefutably validates your severely handicapped rose colored glasses tainted intellect.

Dan8267 says

If we do that, we cure death along with so many other problems our world has.

www.youtube.com/embed/iauIP8swfBY?start=13&end=37

SoftShell says

This single statement irrefutably validates your severely handicapped rose colored glasses tainted intellect.

In your worthless opinion. What is an organic body other than a machine subject to disease and decay? What thought or sensation could not be experience through technology instead of biology? The answer is none.

I always knew Dan was Cypher!

We are spiritual beings. Not to be confused with religion, i.e. we do not have souls, we are souls. Think Thomas Aquinas.

It is hard to replace something that is not organic to the physical universe with something that is...

indigenous says

we do not have souls, we are souls.

Define soul. And I mean define it, not provide some vague-ass description that leaves wiggle room for bullshit.

PC Is About Control, Not Etiquette

I’d like to speak today about what political correctness is, at least in its modern version, what it is not, and what we might do to fight against it.

To begin, we need to understand that political correctness is not about being nice. It’s not simply a social issue, or a subset of the culture wars.

It’s not about politeness, or inclusiveness, or good manners. It’s not about being respectful toward your fellow humans, and it’s not about being sensitive or caring or avoiding hurt feelings and unpleasant slurs.

But you’ve heard this argument, I’m sure. PC is about simple respect and inclusiveness, they tell us. As though we need progressives, the cultural enforcers, to help us understand that we shouldn’t call someone retarded, or use the “N” word, make hurtful comments about someone’s appearance, or tolerate bullies.

If PC truly was about kindness and respect, it wouldn’t need to be imposed on us. After all, we already have a mechanism for the social cohesion PC is said to represent: it’s called manners. And we already have specific individuals charged with insuring that good manners are instilled and upheld: they’re called parents.

Political Correctness Defined

But what exactly is PC? Let me take a stab at defining it: Political correctness is the conscious, designed manipulation of language intended to change the way people speak, write, think, feel, and act, in furtherance of an agenda.

PC is best understood as propaganda, which is how I suggest we approach it. But unlike propaganda, which historically has been used by governments to win favor for a particular campaign or effort, PC is all-encompassing. It seeks nothing less than to mold us into modern versions of Marx’s un-alienated society man, freed of all his bourgeois pretensions and humdrum social conventions.

Like all propaganda, PC fundamentally is a lie. It is about refusing to deal with the underlying nature of reality, in fact attempting to alter that reality by legislative and social fiat. A is no longer A.

To quote Hans-Hermann Hoppe:

[T]he masters … stipulate that aggression, invasion, murder and war are actually self-defense, whereas self-defense is aggression, invasion, murder and war. Freedom is coercion, and coercion is freedom. … Taxes are voluntary payments, and voluntarily paid prices are exploitative taxes. In a PC world, metaphysics is diverted and rerouted. Truth becomes malleable, to serve a bigger purpose determined by our superiors.

But where did all this come from? Surely PC, in all its various forms, is nothing new under the sun. I think we can safely assume that feudal chiefs, kings, emperors, and politicians have ever and always attempted to control the language, thoughts, and thus the actions of their subjects. Thought police have always existed.

To understand the origins of political correctness, we might look to the aforementioned Marx, and later the Frankfurt school. We might consider the work of Leo Strauss for its impact on the war-hungry think tank world. We might study the deceptive sloganeering of Saul Alinsky. We might mention the French philosopher Foucault, who used the term “political correctness” in the 1960s as a criticism of unscientific dogma.

But if you really want to understand the black art of PC propaganda, let me suggest reading one of its foremost practitioners, Edward Bernays.

Bernays was a remarkable man, someone who literally wrote the book on propaganda and its softer guise of public relations. He is little discussed in the West today, despite being the godfather of modern spin.

He was the nephew of Sigmund Freud, and like Mises was born in Austria in the late nineteenth century. Unlike Mises, however, he fortuitously came to New York City as an infant and then proceeded to live an astonishing 103 years.

One of his first jobs was as a press agent for President Woodrow Wilson’s Committee on Public Information, an agency designed to gin up popular support for US entry into WW1 (German Americans and Irish Americans especially were opposed). It was Bernays who coined the infamous phrase “Make the World Safe for Democracy” used by the committee.

After the war, he asked himself whether one could “apply a similar technique to the problems of peace.” And by “problems,” Bernays meant selling stuff. He directed very successful campaigns promoting Ivory Soap, for bacon and eggs as a healthy breakfast, and ballet. He directed several very successful advertising campaigns, most notably for Lucky Strike in its efforts to make smoking socially acceptable for women.

The Role of “Herd Psychology”

Bernays was quite open and even proud of engaging in the “manufacturing of consent,” a term used by British surgeon and psychologist Wilfred Trotter in his seminal Instincts of the Herd in Peace and War published in 1919.

Bernays took the concept of herd psychology to heart. The herd instinct entails the deep seated psychological need to win approval of one’s social group. The herd overwhelms any other influence; as social humans, our need to fit in is paramount.

But however ingrained, in Bernays’s view the herd instinct cannot be trusted. The herd is irrational and dangerous, and must be steered by wiser men in a thousand imperceptible ways — and this is key. They must not know they are being steered.

The techniques Bernays employed are still very much being used to shape political correctness today.

First, he understood how all-powerful the herd mind and herd instinct really is. We are not the special snowflakes we imagine, according to Bernays. Instead we are timorous and malleable creatures who desperately want to fit in and win acceptance of the group.

Second, he understood the critical importance of using third party authorities to promote causes or products. Celebrities, athletes, models, politicians, and wealthy elites are the people from whom the herd takes its cues, whether they’re endorsing transgender awareness or selling luxury cars. So when George Clooney or Kim Kardashian endorses Hillary Clinton, it resonates with the herd.

Third, he understood the role that emotions play in our tastes and preferences. It’s not a particular candidate or cigarette or a watch or a handbag we really want, it’s the emotional component of the ad that affects us, however subconsciously.

What We Can Do About It

So the question we might ask ourselves is this: how do we fight back against PC? What can we do, as individuals with finite amounts of time and resources, with serious obligations to our families, loved ones, and careers, to reverse the growing tide of darkness?

First, we must understand that we’re in a fight. PC represents a war for our very hearts, minds, and souls. The other side understands this, and so should you. The fight is taking place on multiple fronts: the state-linguistic complex operates not only within government, but also academia, media, the business world, churches and synagogues, nonprofits, and NGOs. So understand the forces aligned against you.

Understand that the PC enforcers are not asking you, they’re not debating you, and they don’t care about your vote. They don’t care whether they can win at the ballot box, or whether they use extralegal means. There are millions of progressives in the US who absolutely would criminalize speech that does not comport with their sense of social justice.

One poll suggests 51 percent of Democrats and 1/3 of all Americans would do just that.

The other side is fighting deliberately and tactically. So realize you’re in a fight, and fight back. Culturally, this really is a matter of life and death.

We Still Have Freedom to Act

As bad as PC contamination may be at this point, we are not like Mises, fleeing a few days ahead of the Nazis. We have tremendous resources at our disposal in a digital age. We can still communicate globally and create communities of outspoken, anti-PC voices. We can still read and share anti-state books and articles. We can still read real history and the great un-PC literary classics. We can still homeschool our kids. We can still hold events like this one today.

This is not to say that bucking PC can’t hurt you: the possible loss of one’s job, reputation, friends, and even family is very serious. But defeatism is never called for, and it makes us unworthy of our ancestors.

Use humor to ridicule PC. PC is absurd, and most people sense it. And its practitioners suffer from a comical lack of self-awareness and irony. Use every tool at your disposal to mock, ridicule, and expose PC for what it is.

Never forget that society can change very rapidly in the wake of certain precipitating events. We certainly all hope that no great calamity strikes America, in the form of an economic collapse, a currency collapse, an inability to provide entitlements and welfare, energy shortages, food and water shortages, natural disasters, or civil unrest. But we can’t discount the possibility of these things happening.

And if they do, I suggest that PC language and PC thinking will be the first ornament of the state to go. Only rich, modern, societies can afford the luxury of a mindset that does not comport with reality, and that mindset will be swiftly swept aside as the “rich” part of America frays.

Men and women might start to rediscover that they need and complement each other if the welfare state breaks down. Endless hours spent on social media might give way to rebuilding social connections that really matter when the chips are down.

More traditional family structures might suddenly seem less oppressive in the face of great economic uncertainty. Schools and universities might rediscover the value of teaching practical skills, instead of whitewashed history and grievance studies. One’s sexual preferences might not loom as large in the scheme of things, certainly not as a source of rights. The rule of law might become something more than an abstraction to be discarded in order to further social justice and deny privilege.

Play the Long Game

I’m afraid it might not be popular to say so, but we have to be prepared for a long and hard campaign. Let’s leave the empty promises of quick fixes to the politicians. Progressives play the long game masterfully. They’ve taken 100 years to ransack our institutions inch by inch. I’m not suggesting incrementalism to reclaim those foregone institutions, which are by all account too far gone — but to create our own.

PC enforcers seek to divide and atomize us, by class, race, sex, and sexuality. So let’s take them up on it. Let’s bypass the institutions controlled by them in favor of our own. Who says we can’t create our own schools, our own churches, our own media, our own literature, and our own civic and social organizations? Starting from scratch certainly is less daunting than fighting PC on its own turf.

Conclusion

PC is a virus that puts us — liberty loving people — on our heels. When we allow progressives to frame the debate and control the narrative, we lose power over our lives. If we don’t address what the state and its agents are doing to control us, we might honestly wonder how much longer organizations like the Mises Institute are going to be free to hold events like this one today.

Is it really that unimaginable that you might wake up one day and find sites with anti-state and anti-egalitarian content blocked — sites like mises.org and lewrockwell.com?

Or that social media outlets like Facebook might simply eliminate opinions not deemed acceptable in the new America?

In fact, head Facebook creep Mark Zuckerberg recently was overheard at a UN summit telling Angela Merkel that he would get to work on suppressing Facebook comments by Germans who have the audacity to object to the government’s handling of migrants.

Here’s the Facebook statement:

We are committed to working closely with the German government on this important issue. We think the best solutions to dealing with people who make racist and xenophobic comments can be found when service providers, government, and civil society all work together to address this common challenge.

https://mises.org/library/pc-about-control-not-etiquette-0

Dan8267 says

Define soul. And I mean define it, not provide some vague-ass description that leaves wiggle room for bullshit.

You want a physical universe description of something that is exterior to the physical universe. It is something that is not organic to the physical universe.

indigenous says

You want a physical universe description of something that is exterior to the physical universe. It is something that is not organic to the physical universe.

If it's exterior to the physical universe, where does it exist?

How much does it weigh?

Is a soul made of hydrogen, helium or carbon?
Where is the Soul Code stored? In Soul DNA?
Do other animals have souls, or only savannah apes? Not Chimps, Whales, Dolphins, or other higher order animals?

Where does a soul come from? How does it merge with a human being? At birth or in the womb?

How can you know that something that can't be quantified exists?

I'm not surprised somebody who believes in an economic philosophy that insists quantitative measurements are nonsense, believes in baloney like souls.

indigenous says

Think Thomas Aquinas.

Why? He's a religious thinker who 'proved' that masturbation was worse than rape using the Bible.

indigenous says

PC Is About Control, Not Etiquette
...
PC is best understood as propaganda

An example of even a broken clock being right some of the time and why the content, not the source, determines the validity of a point.

Political correctness on the left and Fox News on the right are both propaganda in a culture war that us liberals are sick and tired of. I don't give a shit if you listen to the Beatles or Garth Brooks, climate change is still happening and the solution isn't to hug a tree. This goes for all other problems. We need good engineering solutions, not political pettiness.

thunderlips11 says

Where is the Soul Code stored?

In a place that has no time, that has no dimension, and has no form, i.e. it, we are exterior to all.

thunderlips11 says

I'm not surprised somebody who believes in an economic philosophy that insists quantitative measurements are nonsense, believes in baloney like souls.

And I'm not surprised by your conclusion. You are well read but don't offer much insight...

Dan8267 says

An example of even a broken clock being right some of the time and why the content, not the source, determines the validity of a point.

As Socrates said knowing that you don't know is THE prerequisite to learning. You need that remedial...

indigenous says

You want a physical universe description of something that is exterior to the physical universe. It is something that is not organic to the physical universe.

So in other words, a soul is by definition supernatural. Then your soul is bullshit and does not exist.

Nothing supernatural could interact with the natural world in any way shape or form without violating conservation laws, which simply does not happen. A ghost could not lift a penny because doing so would introduce measurable amounts of energy to the system as well as violating the conservation of momentum. Put simply, if anything interacts with the natural world, it must obey natural laws, and is therefore natural, not supernatural, itself. So if anything does exist out of nature, by natural law, it cannot interact with anything in nature. It cannot even send a signal or message to nature.

Therefore, the soul you postulate can not exist as you require it to both be supernatural and to have an effect in nature.

Whether or not you accept this argument is irrelevant. It is logically consistent and only depends on well-accepted laws of nature that have never been observed to be violated. And if you truly reject those laws, then you should be daftly afraid of the U.S. possessing nuclear weapons as well as being afraid of airplanes and automobiles because all of these technologies depend upon our accepted laws of nature being accurate.

thunderlips11 says

indigenous says

You want a physical universe description of something that is exterior to the physical universe. It is something that is not organic to the physical universe.

If it's exterior to the physical universe, where does it exist?

How much does it weigh?

The attempt of proof is easier done via a negative. To this day computers are not able to emulate a soul with all its complexities and feelings. People have been saying that it's just a matter of time for a while now, but there is something lacking in AI which has had a tremendously hard time in becoming even vaguely human in any way.

thunderlips11 says

Why? He's a religious thinker who 'proved' that masturbation was worse than rape using the Bible.

I'm just talking about the one aspect of his work. No one should be deified as perfect.

thunderlips11 says

If it's exterior to the physical universe, where does it exist?

How much does it weigh?

Is a soul made of hydrogen, helium or carbon?

To know an object is to be able to describe its properties and behaviors. For example, I know what a ball is because I can list its properties (radius, color, elasticity, mass, etc.) and behaviors (throwing, bouncing, rolling, interactions with other objects). I know what an electron is because I can its properties (charge, mass, speed and location (granted with a degree of uncertainty), etc) and its behaviors (attraction to positive charges, lack of decay, interactions with photons, etc.). Knowing a thing is knowing its properties and behaviors.

If you cannot list the properties and behaviors of a soul, then you don't know what it is. If you don't know what it is and there is no reason to believe it exists, then you are just making up bullshit. I could just as easily say that every person has an invisible, undetectable, supernatural elf in his ass that is responsible for every thought, every feeling, and every action made by that person. Such an argument would carry as much weight as indigenous's soul argument.

thunderlips11 says

indigenous says

Think Thomas Aquinas.

Why? He's a religious thinker who 'proved' that masturbation was worse than rape using the Bible.

So true. People who appeal to authority using Thomas Aquinas are idiots. He's a typical Dark Age pseudo-intellect.

The belief in souls is just evolutionary and cultural baggage. This is how the fiction of a soul was invented.

www.youtube.com/embed/V9mFNgu6Cww