Month: July 2018

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The fundamental drive of human beings is [not] reproduction…

…and it’s a fundamental error to think that it is.

Yes, human beings have the various drives (desires, behavioral dispositions, or whatever) that they have because, at crucial points in our evolutionary past, those drives tended to maximize inclusive fitness.

So, roughly speaking, gals want to mate with high-status guys.

And guys want to achieve high status & take advantage of their position to, well, take advantage of every gal in sight.

But hardly anybody really wants to maximize the representation of his or her genes in  future generations.

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thezman vs libertarianism

This 

…is quite interesting, and well worth a listen.

Throughout the podcast, thezman excoriates libertarians for their unrealistic beliefs about human nature – and, mostly, I find myself nodding along in more-or-less, sorta/kinda agreement.

But then, at 55:00, he comes out with this:

“The fundamental drive of human beings is reproduction – like every other living thing on this planet. And, for social animals like us, that quickly scales up to wanting to preserve and advance our people. We want the people who look like us, who sound like us, who love the things that we love, who hate the things that we hate, we want those people to be successful. You know, they’re our people, they’re us. That’s why group loyalty is as old as man. It’s in our nature.”

Almost every sentence, here, seems to me every bit as unrealistic as the libertarian fantasies he’s just been criticizing.

Before getting into the weeds with a word by word critique – just plug in “Swedes” for “human beings” in the above, and see how far you can get before you begin to doubt.

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Was Dostoevsky Right?

If there is no God, is everything permitted?

Jordan Peterson seems to think so. And so do I.

So there’d better be a God, or we’re in deep trouble. But where to find him?

The God of Abraham, Isaac & Jacob? No. He’s a monster – a bloodthirsty tribal elder.

The God of Jesus of Nazareth? No. Another monster – dealing out eternal torment for any failure to believe the unbelievable.

The God of Mohammed?

As if.

So what is one to do?

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The Magnitsky Hoax

Andrei Nekrasov’s documentary “The Magnitsky Act – Behind the Scenes,” available, for the moment, at least, on Bitchute, is really quite astounding.

Yet another case where vast swathes of hugely consequential American public policy are based on proven lies.

But it seems I can’t link to it here.

So let’s try this:

http://www.unz.com/pgiraldi/is-bill-browder-the-most-dangerous-man-in-the-world/

(scroll down and you’ll find it).

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Cinderella at the Mikhailovsky

Sorry, this is a really self-indulgent post, but I just can’t contain myself…think of it as an addendum to Go East, Old Man, below.

The current production of Prokofiev’s ballet Cinderella at the Mikhailovsky Theatre in Saint Petersburg is absolutely magical – the sort of thing that even a fairly jaded opera & ballet-goer like me dreams about. I had hoped to go last March, but due to a scheduling conflict ended up giving my tickets away. So only last night did I finally make it.

Gorgeous sets & costumes, wonderful performance from the orchestra, amazing dancing (as one would expect at the Mikhailovsky) and, last but not least, truly brilliant use of digital effects – swirling autumn leaves in the foreground, fountains & fireworks in the background…I’ve seen this sort of thing attempted before, but never with such complete success.

Prokofiev’s score is, of course, a little more “modernistic” than Tchaikovsky’s ballets, which might deter a few particularly cautious folks, but it’s full of memorable tunes, and, believe me, grows on you with repeated listening.

Unfortunately, the few remaining seats for the last three days of the season are prohibitively expensive. – but it’s back in September.

Can’t wait to see it again.

Dissident Righter’s take note: Russia today is a place you really need to experience.

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What if they kill him?

In the early years of the Obama administration, Democrats indulged in quite a bit of assassination-porn, anticipating, in a sort of ecstasy, the killing of their president and his ascension to the exalted status of Holy Martyr, alongside Martin Luther King Jr.

Strangely enough, Obama survived his presidency, and is now busily plucking the fairest flowers of the pay-for-play circuit.

Will Trump be so fortunate?

I worry, because if Trump goes, there’s nobody that I can see to replace him.

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Nietzsche on Ben Shapiro

Nietzsche:

“In England one must rehabilitate oneself after every little emancipation from theology by showing in a veritably awe-inspiring manner what a moral fanatic one is.”

My…ummm…paraphrase, for our times:

In America one must rehabilitate oneself after every little emancipation from liberalism by showing in a veritably awe-inspiring manner what an anti-racist one is.

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Go East, Old Man

So here I am again in Санкт-Петербург, for the fourth year in a row, enjoying (mostly) the Mariinsky Theatre’s “Stars of the White Nights” Festival. Last night it was Stravinsky’s Apollo at the Historic Theatre, Tomorrow it’s Madama Butterfly at Mariinsky II – and so on and so forth. All told, I’ll be attending about twenty performances during my four weeks, here, costing a total of about what you’d pay for a single ticket to Hamilton on Broadway.

And all that while keeping up with my KGB handlers!

Anyway, though I (unfortunately) haven’t a drop of slavic blood flowing through my veins: this is a part of the world that any aging white guy needs to see, if he want’s reassurance that all is not yet lost.

Go to Russia. Go to Poland. Go to Czechia. Go to Slovakia.

If only they could all get along.

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…and when he’s wrong, he’s wrong.

Since Vox Day discovered the existence of Jordan Peterson, a few months ago, he must have posted about a thousand attacks on the guy, sometimes working himself up into a frenzy where he more or less accuses Peterson of cannibalism and/or satan-worship.

Earth to Vox Day: give it a rest, already.

Yes, politically speaking, Peterson seems to be pretty much a standard-issue liberal, much like, say, Jonathan Haidt or Stephen Pinker.

And no, religiously speaking, he’s not a believing Christian.

But then, who is, these days?

Pope Francis? LOL.

You? Theodore Robert Beale? ROTFLOL.

There’s so much ammunition in your posting history, Francisco Jiménez de Cisneros would  have you toasting on the grill faster than you can say “heresiarch.”

Anyway, Peterson has been punching in the right direction, lately.

I hope he keeps it up.

 

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When he’s right, he’s right

Vox Day is more than a bit of a crazy man, but this is on target:

…the reason that he doesn’t trust US intelligence is because US intelligence is number one, always wrong. Number two, isn’t loyal to the United States, and number three, is part of the very problem that the president was elected to solve, and that is to break the power of the globalist deep state…

Precisely so.

Our “intelligence community” today is about a thousand times more dangerous to what little is left of American “democracy” than anything Vladimir Putin could ever dream of.