partisan ups and downs

chowing on low-hanging fruit in a virtual cult compound

I've been challenging Islamophobes to offer convincing evidence of a correlation between Islam and violence for some time now, specifically with new atheists in mind what with their professed commitment to rationality and science. Hundreds of Islamophobes have seen this challenge and, until recently, no one accepted it. Finally, someone bit:

The Islamophobe challenge is open to anyone and I'd rather get a bigger name but this is the first/best attempt to date, so I'll share the gruesome, hilarious, amazing yet mostly predictable details. A fair number of twitterers joined in, all on the Islamophobe side, all agreeing with the same basic story so I'm going out on a limb here -- usually I keep it much tighter -- but it seems fair to say this person is entirely typical of the New Atheist cult (there's a small chance this person is a far-right Christian Islamophobe; difficult to definitively tell them apart if they don't announce it). I bet you're wondering about the evidence he brought to bear. Fucking game-changing, but you'll have to wait. 

After some prodding I finally got a standard dictionary definition out of him. 

So at this point it's already game over. 

I start listing some of the more egregious cases of US violence that meet his definition. Non sequitur, he says. That was his first response to evidence running counter to his "thesis." What led him to so bravely accept the Islamophobe challenge was a claim to the effect that falsifying evidence is categorically inadmissible. US terrorism is categorically impossible. At the risk of offending decent religious people, new atheists are religiously committed. They have central, unfalsifiable beliefs, i.e., beliefs that are entirely placed off limits to rational or scientific inquiry. Terrorism is a normatively loaded tribalist term used to define us and them, good and bad that is unconcerned with violence as such.

Then I spell it out, explaining how these cases of US violence meet his definition, at which point the definition predictably starts to change, i.e., he starts moving the yardstick. Terrorism has to inflict maximum casualties, he says. I give examples of the US doing that. But that was total war, he says, and total war isn't terrorism, you see because of his religious commitments um...so I give an easily google-able non-total war example (Indochina) that's met with "prove it," essentially a denial of well-established facts. (I'd say "non-acceptance" if I wasn't talking about creationist-level religiosity repeatedly demonstrated but I am, so denial seems like the right word.) It's not terrorism unless it's routine (he thinks US terrorism isn't routine!). It's not terrorism if "whatever specific thing I can find to set us apart from them." Textbook ingroup bias.

The whole time he keeps asking me the same two loaded questions, both diversions intended to commit me to aspects of his cultish narrative by enticing acceptance of flawed buried premises:

This question is of course unrelated to the challenge I posed, which was a basic descriptive one. And he's yet, at this point, to attempt to show any correlation.

The other loaded question:

 

So I accept the worst case interpretation up front, that the religious texts in question encourage genocide. He misses the point that there's now no big reveal for him where he could hammer me with holy text evil.

He keeps asking me if I've read it, I keep asking when he's gonna show that correlation between Islam and terrorism. Finally, he shows his hand:

                    So that's it. That's what correlation is. Words in a text that say "do X" and anecdotes about members of a group known to frequent that text doing X.

Here's the Twitter thread.

Here's a summary of the entire thread, other Islamophobe twitterers included:

Here's a song:

NFL week 13 daily picks

Two ways to exploit Yahoo prices:

1. They don't take recent role changes and expected volume into account (seem to price mainly on perceived skill). Takeaway is no-name RBs with new roles end up way underpriced.
2. Prices are set early in the week so inefficiencies follow new injury info that pops up after prices were set.

QBs:

Roethlisberger ($33) -- Arguable #1 projectable QB this week is a bargain.

RB:
David Johnson ($10) -- Most obvious call. See #1 above. Projects as top 10 RB for the minimum, so you're pocketing the difference between him and, say, Gurley ($29). Spend that money on elite WRs.

Shaun Draughn ($11) -- Projected true non-committee RB volume a steal at this price.

CJ Anderson ($14) -- I don't trust him but he has a high ceiling.

J. Allen ($19) -- Draughn for $8 more. Consider as flex.

Rawls ($23) -- D. Johnson for $13 more. Consider as flex.

WR:
Anyone $28 and up. Also M. Bryant ($26)

TE:
S. Chandler ($10) -- Discounted volume. Only had part of a game to establish himself as a target hog so that's a small question mark but really, should get target volume.

J. Thomas ($13) -- Sees volume with A. Hurns out.

B. Watson ($18) -- See #2 above. Snead's injury came up during the week. Those targets will go somewhere and B. Cooks has a terrible matchup. Assuming the price was fairly accurate when it was set, the expected target increase makes him projectably better than this price.

DEF:
Least bankable "position" (crapshoot) but I like:
NE ($15)
CIN ($14)
ARI ($13)

QB/receiver combos:
*B. Roethlisberger + A. Brown + M. Bryant
C. Newton + G. Olsen ($26) (pricey though)
E. Manning + O. Beckham
R. Fitzpatrick + B. Marshall + E. Decker
T. Brady + B. Lafell + D. Amendola + S. Chandler

not praying for Paris

#nothingtodowithislam

Bowler A: I started a new diet a couple days ago. No carbs. Now look at me. I'm throwing rocks tonight.

Bowler B: Yeah I don't think that's gonna improve your performance much. Maybe a little, I don't know, but it would take a while. Could be a placebo effect or...

A: Bowling isn't a sport you dummy.

B: *painstakingly explains that whether bowling is a sport or not isn't the issue, that it involves muscle memory, motor control, sensorimotor feedback loops, etc. and anyway, bowling performance enhancement was the starting point provided by A*

A: Nah. Bowling isn't a sport. And anyway, like I said, I'm throwing rocks tonight! Are you saying this has nothing to do with my new diet? I mean this food is in my body right now! Boom!

B: Well, you're right that diet has something to do with performance. You're getting energy from your new diet and using it to bowl, but "something to do with" is near meaningless. The question is how your new diet compares to your old one with regard to bowling performance. You need an apples to apples...

A: So my new diet does have something to do with my awesome bowling.

B: No! I mean yes but I just explained this, weren't you...*realizing*... Oh, you must be a new atheist.

A: Yeah, how did you know?

B: Educated guess.

A: Those anti-science religious nuts, man. Skygod-worshipping fools. Christians, Jews, oh, and the worst, obviously -- Muslims. They have this book that says all this crazy stuff and, you know, basic cause and effect, voila, they're always blowing stuff up. You get it? Crazy beliefs over here *dramatic hand gesture*, crazy violent actions over here.  I mean you don't have to be a neuroscientist...

B: Have you thought about other belief diets, if you will?

A: Huh?

B: Let me ask you a question. What do you think about the Middle East?

A: Well I used to think hey just let those crazies blow each other up, let God sort...uh...well now I think we need to kill the worst ones.

B: With drones?

A: Sure.

B: Did you know nearly 90% of people killed in drone strikes were not the target?

A: Well, we're trying.

B: They're not trying?

A: They're trying to hit civilians. They do it on purpose.

B: Have you heard of agent orange, white phosphorous, napalm, that deliberate attack on the Médecins Sans Frontières hospital in Kunduz...

A: It's not the same though. They...

B: Where were you radicalized?...

NFL week 9 daily picks

I don't give the NFL any of my money. It's a terrible organization any way you look at it. Even liberals agree. But predicting sports results is fun and I'm good at it so here are my daily picks for week 9, using Yahoo prices. Asterisk means I really like. If you're playing in a big group where you need to finish 1st out of 50 or more, it makes sense to take risks. Pair your QB with a receiver, make a low floor/high ceiling play.

QB
J. Winston $30 -- NYG got torched by Brees last week. JW has been good not great.
*D. Carr $34 -- My favorite QB play this week. No one would be surprised by a 5 TD game at this point.
B. Roethlisberger $42-- Always a threat to go off. As good a chance at a huge game as anyone.
E. Manning $41-- NYG defense is terrible so will need to throw; TB defense also terrible; perfect setup.
D. Brees $40 -- 7 TDs last week, pretty safe as well; terrible NO defense keeps him throwing.

RB
*J. Langford $14 -- Most obvious call this week; low-end RB1 at RB3/4 price.
CJ Anderson $18 -- If R. Hillman sits, this is a bargain. Denver will be running here.
D. McFadden $20 -- RB1 for RB2 price. Very good bet to get 20+ touches.
L. DeBlount $23 -- Risk/reward play; game sets up as NE blowout which should mean DeBlount getting volume; multiple TDs wouldn't be surprising but Belichick is unpredictable.
T. Gurley $38 -- Obvious play if you can afford it.

WR
D. Inman $10 -- 5th option for SD but WRs ahead aren't target hogs and SD projects to put up points and yards; worth it for this super cheap price
M. Floyd $17 -- A costlier Rivers target
M. Evans $27 -- Risk/reward play; V. Jackson out, will get volume
M. Bryant $27 -- If Roethlisberger goes off, will likely be involved
*A. Jeffery $29 -- Top 5 WR for very good price

TE
*AS Jenkins $15 -- Health is sketchy, check to make sure he's in lineup, but big upside -- 110 yards, 2 TDs in week 1; if he plays, should get targets: if a scratch, take Tamme (below), also a 4 o'clock game
J. Tamme $14 -- Recent production worth this price, should see extra targets with Hankerson out
R. Gronkowski $33 -- Safe, obvious play if you can afford it

DEF
DEN $17 -- Best D in NFL faces struggling IND
ATL $15 -- Up against historically bad B. Gabbert in his 1st game with SF, replacement level RBs, generally dysfunctional team

not objective but descriptive, not subjective but normative

I haven't read any philosophy classics in well over a decade so I'm a bit rusty but I want to buzzsaw through modern philosophy in order to explain the rise of the normative/descriptive distinction and the fall of the subject/object distinction (which isn't quite dead, I just think it should be).

Start with Descartes, who drew a thick line between subject and object. The subject aligned roughly with what we'd call conscious experience while the object was dead mechanism. The subject was immaterial, the object material. He suggested they met in the pineal gland and somehow, whatever...there was a lot of straw-grasping.

Meanwhile the term subjective came to mean arbitrary and referred to matters of taste and private experience while objective came to mean, roughly, naive realistic straightforward quantifiable things in the world that are what they are, existing apart from the subjects who know about them.

The most obvious problem with Cartesian subjects is they're immaterial and operate outside natural law. Hit a human in the head with a sharp enough object and you'll find they're susceptible to natural law. No pineal gland theory can save you here, Descartes. You said immaterial. Further, it appears at this point in history nothing other than noocentric conceit to think humans operate outside natural law, or are immaterial, at all.

The most obvious problem with naive realistic objectivity is neglect (or in Kant's terms finitude). Cognition systematically neglects information. Abstractions become more powerful when they leave information out. Human vision picks up only a sliver of the light spectrum. Human brains don't have access to what they cognize in the way suggested by the term objective. There is no object in the simple sense intended by Descartes.

-----------------

Hume famously pointed out that you can't, logically, get from an "is" statement to an "ought" statement. What is and what ought to be is the descriptive/normative distinction. Nietzsche later wrote a brilliant, even by his standards, piece called "Beyond Good and Evil" in which he made the case that there is no "good and evil," only "good and bad." Every time humans claim something is evil, what they really mean is "I don't like it." Hume's ought/is distinction is really a distinction between statements with a built-in good/bad (for the cognizer) element and statements without one.

-----------------

The terms descriptive and normative are compatible with a materialist approach to the human. Both are simply ways the material brain cognizes. Both are susceptible to bias, presumably the normative more so. Both are subject to natural laws. Both occur in the world. Both neglect information.

Descriptive means "whatever you or I think about its goodness/badnesss, X is the most accurate (leaving aside whether accuracy is good or bad) model of Y. Descriptive is the new objective. The term normative, on the other hand, refers to whether one likes the results of the descriptive process.

elliot rodger, rape, MGTOWs

The line between male and female is thick and unmistakeable, drawn clearly not by individual consciousnesses but by society-wide repetition. Lines cognized and acted out nonconsciously. They function without being made explicit. We learn language first by using it. If you're lucky/unlucky, you can learn different things by analyzing it later. But children understand grammar, specifically, how to use it, while lacking the ability to analyze and explain it. The gender distinction is learned by using it.

Undiluted (thankfully it's often diluted) the distinction is this: boys need to kill everything and replace it with themselves...or die. Dominance or emasculation, penis or no penis, boy or girl, life or death.

The boy, having become this message, needs to reconcile it with his asymmetrical relationships with women. It's humiliating for a hyper-gendered boy to be dominated by a woman. So he comes up with narrative fixes, outs, explanations where he's not actually being dominated. He believes these, tenuously. They're pretty obviously bullshit and reality is always knocking.

He hits puberty, "knows" he needs to fuck a woman in order to be a man. This is a huge change, and a huge challenge. To request this fucking is to risk rejection. Rejection is emasculation and death. A simple binary, the line around it in the worst cases impermeable. Santa Barbara killer Elliot Rodger went to great lengths to put himself in a position to be accepted without risking final rejection. He never, apparently, made any kind of advance on a woman. Instead, he spent great amounts of time and money on his own appearance, went to places he expected to find good-looking (blonde) women and hoped they noticed him. He never "put himself out there." He left himself an out. Maybe next time. No one actually said no. Or, as Jim Carrey's Lloyd Christmas said in Dumb and Dumber to his love interest's assessment of his odds of getting with her as one in a million..."so you're saying there's a chance."

This is really amazing. A single woman saying "I'm not interested" or "go away, creep" or laughing was far and away the most powerful force in his life. No, the possibility of that.

The MGTOW (Men Going Their Own Way) phenomenon is an obvious out. "Hey, women-we-want-to-fuck: we don't want you anyway. You are not rejecting us." It's understandable, I mean, given the above. They're trying to go pre-puberty. Back to a time when they could less implausibly claim to be not-dominated (where non-hyper-dominance means being dominated -- again, it's a pretty strict binary). Before the need-to-fuck-to-be-a-man challenge. They'd been talking about how they could easily dive off the 10 meter platform but now they're up there. Do it! *Tries to find a way out, can't, shoots a bunch of people instead.* That's Elliot Rodger.

Rapists take away the chance for rejection. This is the point. Rape is the most extreme form of masculinity. (I worry a broken rapist somewhere is thinking "yay I make sense! yay, masculinity!" but it should be clear this is a condemnation of masculinity.) OK, outside the parentheses, still worried this could be taken the wrong way, given certain positive associations with masculinity, but really just want to end this post. OK.

control which guns?

"Gun control" is a term that refers to non-state guns only. Everyone just gets what you mean when you say it. Somewhat amazingly, no one feels the need to indicate that they're not referring to state guns, which are the biggest and deadliest guns. F-16 guns, cops with guns and tasers, etc., are not considered guns, just as Hiroshima and Nagasaki are not considered violence. What the ingroup does is the very definition of good. And just about everyone's in it for the state, completely unaware they're referring to guns as not-guns.

atheism exists, naturally

To understand what "God (or Thor) exists" and "God (or Thor) doesn't exist" mean, you need a brain and an act of cognition. Each takes place in a brain and involves natural systems embedded in natural systems (that, conveniently for Harris, are mostly opaque at this point in human history). To take a position on the existence of God is an event, not the absence of an event or a non-event. 

If you're a rock, baby, or monkey, nothing happens involving the term God. There's an absence of things happening related to the term God. That's a non-event.

Harris rejects the assertion "God exists." He doesn't admit as much, but he does reject it. 

What atheists do lack is the cognitive act of agreeing to the proposition that God exists. If you think that's what atheism is, maybe you're as misguided as Sam Harris. Again, atheists reject God belief. They answer negatively to the "does God exist?" question. They've dedicated considerable brain resources to the question of God. Absence of an affirmative is part of a complex process, and, unlike monkeys' thoughts on God, it exists. And unlike beliefs about Thor, it matters.

So why do New Atheists denaturalize and deobjectify atheism? I'd suggest it's so that it can't be studied and measured against theism. This is, ironically, an intellectual move theists are known for -- remove God from the material world and declare him off limits to scientific investigation.

Now it's really quite simple to naturalize non-God-belief (NGB). I just did, in fact. You simply situate it in the brain, identify it as the brain event it is. It's also very easy to make apples to apples comparisons between atheists and theists. This is as good a time as any to admit my bias -- I believe that atheists exist. The only reason the ontological status of atheists' belief that God doesn't exist is relevant is that so many atheists insist on using it to immunize themselves from scrutiny. Apples to apples, theists to atheists. 

Theism versus atheism, on the other hand, is a philosophical question. It deals with unmeasurable abstractions. If it turns out that no harm comes from theism, no 21st century intellectual should have a problem with it. There'd be no good argument for antitheism. But Harris claims that harm comes from theism. Theism versus atheism, the philosophical debate about God's existence, has nothing to say about harm. To answer that question, you study atheists versus theists. 

Harris implies that God-belief (GB) causes bad things whereas NGB doesn't cause anything. If he wanted a decent hypothesis, doing away with the absurd "absence of belief" angle and comparing apples to apples, he could suggest that GB causes more of these or those specific bad things than NGB, then compare, for example, atheist and theist levels of violence, and speculate about what causes the difference in violence levels, whether it's really GB or something else and if GB, what about GB it might be. In order to compare violence levels, you'd need to factor out rationalizations for violence (because they near-universally accompany it), which means, contrary to Harris's line of argumentation, that F-16s, napalm, white phosphorous, nuclear weapons, etc. all get filed under "violence" when used, regardless of who uses them, at which point Harris would be (further) exposed as the western secular violence apologist he is.

What is New Atheism?

New Atheists:

1. ...are proud of non-God belief. NGB is an important part of their identity.

2. ...consider God-belief a significant cause of violence (and other ills). Think a world without God-belief would be more peaceful. Think this is obvious.

3. ...consider atheism categorically incapable of causing violence because no one ever says "I kill you in the name of the no-God." By implication, metacognitive reports in regards to one's own motivations are seen as both important and reliable. If you say "I did the bad thing because FDR told me to," that's the reason. To phrase it less generously, self-ascribed motivations are taken at face value and assumed to be causal. ("I killed her because I loved her"-- "cause of death: love")

4. ...think or assume western state violence (WSV) is either generally well-intended and therefore not actually violence so much as, say democracy and freedom (good violence = 0 violence) or, far less often, that it is actual violence but simply not religious because it's rarely (NAs seem to assume never) accompanied by God-words. So WSV is either non-religious nonviolence or non-religious violence. Either way, WSV is entirely distinct from religious violence.

5. While atheism is responsible for 0 violence, religions, whose adherents sometimes proclaim their God belief as the reason for their violence (and when they don't, c'mon you know they're thinking about it), are not all equal. Rather, violence varies by religion, depending on geopolitics how, um, bad they seem to be if you use your western ideals and kinda think about it. So Christianity and Judaism are bad but Islam is considered, in the words of prominent New Atheist Sam Harris "the motherlode of bad ideas." No evidence has been given by New Atheists. You just kinda know.

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Bonus Q & A

Q: What if an atheist kills someone?

A: They do it for non-religious reasons.

Q: Doesn't that make non-religious reasons a cause of violence?

A: Yes, but...

Q: So atheists can be violent, but atheism never is?

A: That's right. Atheism is the good and the true and people who follow its teachings can call themselves Brights, or, to paraphrase, The Finders of the Way. 

Q: I want to be good and true. Can I be a New Atheist?

A: Probably.

in the name of the no-God

I've been over the following several times but someone on twitter called me a "religtard" so I feel especially confident, like I've leveled up, in addressing a common refrain he used to the effect that no atheist ever killed in the name of God. Apologies if you've heard this before.

If a 100% atheist country invades a 100% Muslim country, slaughters millions and takes their diamonds, stating "Islam is evil and scary" as their rationale, were any atheists responsible for mass-killing? Not according to New Atheist math. As long as you don't say "in the name of the no-God," not only is atheism not responsible, atheists aren't either. By the law (fallacy) of no True Scotsman, they weren't acting AS atheists. This transparent tribalism is exactly the kind regularly used by god religions. Atheists are the good guys by definition, a classic ingroup scam. Of course in this example, the atheists are imperialists using a bullshit rationalization, using language to turn murder into heroism.

Maybe Stalin killed "in the name of communism." Maybe Hitler killed "in the name of nationalism." What did Charles Manson kill in the name of? What did Teddy Roosevelt kill in the name of? Why would you take what people say about their own motives at face value? People killed before god religion, they'll kill after god religion. God is one tool in the human "rationalization of killing and thieving" kit. The difference between cause and rationalization eludes people whose tribalist interests require they not understand this difference and that they not understand the actual causes pushing humans actions and world events.

demilitarization

The liberal call for demilitarizing the police means things like:

1. don't treat the domestic population with the same level of violence you use on state enemies abroad

2. take the militarization of police down to 19xx levels 

3. smarter or more cost-effective militarization

4. militarization I can get behind, this is embarrassing 

5. militarization that doesn't scare the shit out of me

But in fact police are militants through and through. If you lose the militancy, you lose the police. Demilitarization means "no more police."

gaijin gawking, or whenever I go outside

Hello [gaijin caricature, welcome to our land!
to show you how OK we are,
shall I shake your hand?
that's how you do it, right?
You're super white,
Did you have a nice flight?
You're not in Japan,
your feet aren't touching land,
this is a dream,
you're in between here and, hey,]
where are you from?

I live down the street.

No, where are you from?

My mom.

No, no, where are you from?

Your mom?

No, I mean where [which gaijin tribe] are you from [do you belong to]?

Where the fuck are you from?

Haha, I am Japanese.

Is this your land?

Yes, of course [and welcome, we are very friendly here].

Did you fight for it? Can you sell it? Can you do what you want to it? Can you shit wherever you want without consequence?

I am Japanese! [I don't understand.]

I know.

the valves that control transitude

Rachel Dolezal played a black woman but was outed as white. She was acting black, but was actually white. Actually white. So there's an interesting notion. In order to exclude Dolezal from the group "black," race, and its actualness, is invoked.

But the origin of race is this: several centuries ago, tribalist lines were rearranged according to a color-oriented phenotypic scheme to serve an emerging global order violently dominated by light-skinned humans. Blackness was created as an outgroup term by the same people who created whiteness as an ingroup term. But in order to resist white encroachment, appeals are made to blackness, which was created by whiteness. The actualness of both whiteness and blackness were created by whiteness.

Power externalizes costs while internalizing gains. Everything is power. Existence is power. Everything wants more existence, or, to repeat. 

Where tribal lines are drawn, you'll find valves. The group that controls the valve is the group that built it. For a new group to take power, it needs to define its outgroup and in doing so, build a new valve. Whiteness built the valve between itself and blackness. Whiteness will take what blackness has to offer but will give much less in return -- just enough to maximize the take.

Here's a metaphor: shit flows downstream. For blackness to say: "you can't enter here" is to build a dam, to control the valve to some extent. 

Blackness evolved for centuries without access to knowledge of the socially constructed character of race. Heels were dug in. Blackness did amazing things in the face of almost indescribable horrors. 

When the Dolezal story surfaced, comparisons were made to Caitlyn Jenner. If transgender is OK, why not transracial? Caitlyn had been Bruce Jenner, the epitome of white male bogus empowerment (my term for privilege). Moving from a downstream group to an upstream group is a good thing, on the lefty view (extensive norm). But wasn't Caitlyn Jenner moving downstream, collecting benefits without all the costs? That's where we get into the murky business of lived experience. You can make the case for Caitlyn's actually having suffered through the abuses heaped on trans-ness, but it's hard to show it, and she certainly "benefitted" empirically from being perceived as white, male, etc. 

Blackness and the exclusion of Dolezal is racist in the way that self-defense is violent. In a vacuum, excluding people from a group is bullshit. In a shitstorm, bullshit is often the best kind of shit.

Where a shat upon group's argument is victimhood, its virtue is the same as Democrats' and Republicans' "not them." Dichotomous excellence. Goodness is the sum of not-themness.

Where its argument is excellence, its argument is against other possible worlds and non-existence.

Its argument for excellence is an argument for power, and as such is rationalization.

Every group is shat upon. Every group is limited, every group dies. Every group is pushed in upon. Every group has the life sucked out of it.

the power happiness relation and radical rage

When I'm not copying and pasting from facebook and forgetting to click "remove formatting," I'm linking to me covering Violent Femmes songs on facebook and forgetting to set the audience to "public." If you like that song, it's not a terrible rendition except for the parts where it is. Reposting.

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Good political analysis is naturalistic -- it takes human intentions, which are mostly inscrutable, out of the picture. It doesn't matter what Joe Biden is thinking -- that information is almost useless. Actions tell the story.

But then there's a very strong tendency to jump back over from the high resolution naturalistic system approach, after the accurate analysis, to groundless assumptions about low resolution lived experience. While it's fine to usher in intentionality, much like evolutionary biologists do when they use the word "design," and say that a person who gets pass out drunk, for example, "gets what they wanted," it's a mistake to assume that the entirety of the experience was something they enjoyed or something that was good for them. That's an unwarranted jump.

Elliot Rodger, the "kissless virgin" who went on a killing spree last year in Isla Vista, CA got what he wanted. He was as "privileged" as they come. He was likely as miserable as any human has ever been. Read his Kampf, it's hard to miss. He was an evil bastard and he was a victim, if victim means a person who suffers a great deal. You can say he could have done this and that but you don't know and, in any case, he didn't. The relation between naturalistically getting what one wants (a system doing what it does, the way power works) and lived experience is complicated and mostly inscrutable.

-----

Radicalism is the mirror image of oppression, just as real self-defense is the mirror image of aggression. If someone has their boot on your neck and you punch them, is it violence? Yes, but without a self-defense exception, you end up with a giant hole in human ethical thinking, which is a natural system with real effects, some of which are valuable.

Radicalism needs to be approximately as stupid as aggressive violence. The radical approach to Elliot Rodger is fuck that guy. The radical approach is rage. The radical approach is to deny his humanity, the fact that he suffered. If you're looking for an accurate naturalistic picture, this is a mistake. If you're looking to survive, or meaningfully resist oppression, there's a decent case for rage.

common people

Liberal empathy for underclass comes with caveat of get to keep superiority am praised for this?

Bonus link

dawkins reverse dawkins

The Dawkins fallacy (false difference):

Where the severe unnecessary human-caused suffering of A negates the lesser abuse of B, thereby, by implication trickeration, justifying the actions of those abusing B. In other words, if someone is spitting on you, the Dawkins fallacist will emphasize the fact that somewhere else, someone is getting punched. If someone's punching you, someone else is getting whipped, etc. All of this serves to silence the abused party and functions as a defense of the lesser offender (the spitter).

The reverse Dawkins fallacy (false equivalence):

Where B equates its own abuse to A's without recognizing the difference in severity, generally in order to advance its narrower interests while leaving the more abused behind. B uses A, is yet another abuser of A.

alternate universe Anderson Cooper

Here's Anderson Cooper:

You don’t think bringing guns to a mosque while families are praying inside, wearing t-shirts that say ‘F Islam’ and shouting whatever it is you’re going to shot at them, as they come and as they go — you don’t think that’s promoting violence at all?

Funny thing is, alternate universe Anderson Cooper, who's not owned by the U.S. establishment, has been asking pretty much the same question for years. 

You don't think bringing guns and tanks into American neighborhoods -- you don't think that's promoting violence at all?

Alternate universe Anderson Cooper is a blogger with 10 readers who understands what cops do.

social contract thrownness

society: Hello newborn, we love you and want the best for you. You know it's true because look at our smiles.

newborn: Hi. Well I'm genetically inclined to trust you, take on your views, become you, so...

society: And we wanna let you know you've already signed a social contract by virtue of existing.

newborn: Whaa...? Waa, waa!

society: Do you agree that oligarchy is the best political arrangement, that your life should be dedicated to production and consumption, that 100 is a good number of Senators....

newborn: I'd like to see some research.

society: Well, asking was a courtesy. We don't owe you anything, you little fuck. Like we said, you already signed the social contract when you started existing. *starts singing "We Are the World"*