Were Genocidal Tyrants Especially Evil?

One of the peculiarities of living in a secular era is that our conceptualization of “good” and “bad” is now almost exclusively based in the behaviors and actions of other human beings- rather than stories and myths about gods, spirits or demons. The flip side of this change is that our understanding of “good” and “evil” is now linked to the identities of other human beings- who are as mortal as you or me. Today the image of evil is associated with people like Hitler, Stalin, Mengele, Pol Pot, Slave Traders, white people with southern accents wearing white hoods.. actually pretty much every conservative white person with a southern accent. But some manifestations of secular “evil” are more interesting than others and one category in particular elicits far more interest and curiosity than the rest.

Genocidal tyrants or rulers such as Hitler, Stalin and Mao are the most well-known, interesting and studied forms of secular “evil”. They have reached that hallowed spot because of the sheer scale and number of deaths due to their actions and decisions. They are the secular equivalent of ‘The Devil’ or ‘Satan’. It also helps that we have a lot of archival film footage and photographs which document (often in great detail) their lives, speeches, public appearances and the effect of their decisions and actions. Compare that to the very inadequate and fragmentary description of ‘Satan’ in Judeo-Christian literature. It also does not help that religious literature documents that ‘God’ killed many more people than ‘Satan’.

As many of you know, I do not believe in any explanation of “evil” based on it being somehow beyond the range of normal human behavior. In my opinion, labeling anything as “good” or “evil” says more about your viewpoint than the action, event or behavior. For example: Would the Jewish holocaust have been seen as evil, or even criminal, if the Nazis had won WW2? And was it really more evil than the genocide of a million something Armenians by Turks prior to WW1, or the slightly earlier genocide of tens of millions of black people in Belgian Congo? Or what about the tens of millions of Chinese who died in Japanese-occupied parts of China in the 1930s and 1940s? Then there is the issue about what happened to millions of indigenous people in the Americas after 1492, or the fate of slaves imported from Africa.

It appears that popular definitions of “good” and “evil” are based on subjective criteria such as race, money, skin color of the victims and presence or lack of photographic evidence of the events.

While a certain percentage of the population can handle the idea that “good” and “evil” are subjective, almost nobody wants to talk, let alone think, about the next logical question. If “evil” is subjective, is it also possible to label “good” or “neutral” as “evil”? What if people who are widely seen as “evil” not really that “evil”? This question has a peculiar connection to the issue of whether genocidal tyrants are “evil” because you can classify them into two groups based on their motivations.

The first groups contains those who did it to make themselves richer, more powerful, improving the lives of their kids, relatives, clans etc. The vast majority of tyrants fall into this category and pretty much every Arab Dictator, Mongol Warlord, Spanish Ruler of some new world colony, South and Central American Despot and many of the “beloved” presidents in American history fall into that category- as do people like Winston Churchill. The common thread that runs through all these leaders is they used their position almost exclusively for personal profit.

In contrast to the first group, the second contains far fewer individuals. However these people had a far greater impact on history (both in absolute terms and number of people killed) than almost anyone from the first group. Let us start with Hitler.. Can you really say that his actions or decisions were predominantly driven by the personal profit motive? Did any members of his family make out like bandits under his leadership? Was the guy living in 5 different palaces and constructing 10 more like some Arab Despot? Was all the money and gold seized from the conquered people going towards his clothes, residences or lavish party budget? I am not saying that he did not live well, but it is very clear that he did not spend on himself at anywhere near the level he could have.

Or take Stalin.. Given the absolute degree of his power, isn’t it a little odd that he did not live like the Tsars before him? Pretty much every Russian sovereign before him had lived in an extremely ostentatious fashion and it is unlikely that people would have noticed or spoken up even if he done so. Also note that he grew up in poverty and had every reason to go bling-crazy after he consolidated his power. But he did not.. I am not implying that he did not live well, but they guy was clearly not after money, ‘bling’ or comfort. Even his kids did not get any plum posts nor did they become super rich- and the same goes for his relatives. The guy was far more interested in seeing which factory did not meet its production quota than an endless supply of hot hookers and booze? Why?

My explanation for the somewhat odd behavior of a few but important such as Hitler and Stalin goes something like this- They were in it for the power and fulfillment of their vision. Personal profit was probably an afterthought- at best. The genocides they perpetrated were driven by ideology rather than any personal profit motive. While that does not immediately make their actions acceptable- it puts them in a very different category from those perpetrated by typical Arab, Mongol, White Hispanic, Black or WASP despot.

It also explains why their genocides ended up with such high body counts. People who kill for personal profit typically kill the bare minimum necessary for obtaining whatever they want- respect, money, women etc. But those who do it for implementing their personal ideology or vision will not be content until they have removed every single person who stands in the way of their ideological utopia. You might have noticed that both Hitler and Stalin were into heavily invested in destroying the previous order because they hated it with a passion. They wanted to get rid of anyone who represented the old power structures and institutions. This is very different from your typical despot, populist or not, who merely seeks to install himself and his family/friends at the top of the old structures and institutions.

What I am trying to say is that ideologically driven tyrants are not doing it for financial gain or personal comfort. They are therefore not “evil” in the same way as the far more common type of tyrant. Infact it could be argued that their actions, whether they ultimately failed or not, did result in a better world. Let us face it, the 20th century was so productive largely because of the direct and indirect actions of people like Hitler and Stalin.

What do you think? Comments?

Large Corporations: Image Vs Reality

Many readers might have noticed that depictions of people and institutions in popular culture are often at odds with reality. In previous eras, the gap between fictional images and reality was less glaring, because people had access to only one or two sources of information, often under the control of elites. Furthermore the communitarian nature of living in those eras made it difficult to hold opinions and ideas that were at odds with the “majority” even if the consensus was stupid, irrational and suicidal. The spread of ubiquitous communication technologies, such as the internet, and very high levels of social atomization has irreversibly changed that situation. Hence the gap between fiction and reality is now wider and far more obvious.

For example- It is now common knowledge that both sides in the American Civil War were almost equally racist and believers in some kind of mythical white racial supremacy. Likewise, many now know that those who founded the American Republic did so to enrich themselves, rather than start some noble experiment in democracy. Another example is the now widespread understanding that the ‘New Deal’ and other populist sops from the FDR era were driven by political, rather than humanitarian, considerations. However these now common, if somewhat alternative views, are still rarely depicted in mass media which tries to unsuccessfully reinforce the old myths.

One of the widely promoted dissonance in popular culture and media concerns the large gap between the image of various institutions and measurable reality. TV shows are full of noble cops, smart detectives, thoughtful judges, competent and selfless physicians, teachers who care about their students when even a cursory observation of real life suggests that the converse is true. TV and Films (henceforth referred to as ‘Hollywood’) even promote the idea that intelligence agencies are full of competent, motivated and enthusiastic people possessing tons of ‘super-secret’ and useful technologies with an almost omnipotent control over events when events in real life have repeatedly shown that to be wishful thinking.

Let us now explore the dissonance between the media-driven image of large corporations and compare that to observable reality.

The story-lines of many popular films from the last 30-odd years such as Blade Runner, Alien and its sequels, Prometheus, Gattaca, Terminator and its sequels, Robocop and its sequels, Resident Evil and its sequels, Total Recall, Watchmen, The Island, V for Vendetta and many more revolve around or involve large corporations. These large corporations are depicted as being greedy, amoral, omnipotent, led by competent people and based on long-term plans and strategies. But how much of that is reflective of reality?

While there is no argument about corporations being supremely greedy and amoral; the remaining attributes are some combination of mythology, paid propaganda and wishful thinking.

Ask yourself.. Do you see much evidence that corporations led by competent, disciplined, creative and intelligent people? Do they act as if they are led by people with any of those qualities? Do their changing fortunes reflect that? Why do most large corporations cease to exist for a decade or two? Why is the downfall of large corporations usually due to obvious mistakes? Why are these deadly and obvious mistakes rarely fixed in a competent manner? Why do plans to fix obvious mistakes frequently cause larger mistakes? Does the observed behavior and life cycle of large corporations resemble an intelligent entity or a pretty stupid but greedy parasite?

Then there is the issue of large corporate projecting an image of omnipotence and efficiency. Is that really so? Are large corporations capable of anything approaching omnipotence? Are corporations capable of stable governance on the size- and time- scale associated with governments? Can they exist without a friendly government that will help them socialize losses and privatize profits? Do large corporations actually have realistic long-term plans or strategies? Do they have realistic ability to implement them on their own?

Large corporations talk a lot about meritocracy, but does the preponderance of evidence suggest that to be the case? Do you see evidence of corporations promoting competent or intelligent people? Why is promotion inside corporations so dependent on your social network and milieu than any demonstrated ability? Why are the upper ranks of corporations always made up of bullshitters, scammers, sociopaths and other assorted conmen who are good at networking, playing the system or just being lucky? Why are the top executives and decision-makers in corporations almost always clueless about the business models of the enterprises they run? Why do those in top corporate management positions jump ship so frequently, usually after collecting massive bonuses not linked to the long-term fate or outlook of the corporations they head? And why does paying these people tens to hundreds of millions in bonuses for their expertise in making corporations run better in the long-term always achieve the opposite?

Talking about innovation and incentives to innovate.. Why are large corporations so bad at innovating even though they spend so much money, manpower, time and powerpoint shows to make themselves more ‘innovative’? Corporations claim to have ‘superior’ leadership, corporate structure and in-house ‘geniuses’- yet they require so a lot of publicly funded assistance from governments. Why do large corporations require so many tax breaks, direct payouts, protectionist laws and tariffs and sweet-heart deals to even approach profitability? Why do the long-term plans and visions concocted by the best and brightest almost always fail? Can corporations actually put together, let alone implement, any long-term strategy? And yet after all this publicly funded assistance they still fail, implode, run aground, require government bailouts or help with remarkable frequency and regularity. How come?

Why do those who talk about rugged individualism, free enterprise, capitalism, personal responsibility and ‘going galt’ expect to be nursed, coddled and treated like severely sick, retarded or spastic kids? Why do the proud ‘producers’ behave like pathetic ‘moochers’ they claim to detest?

Which brings us back to the main question posed in this post- Why is the Hollywood image of large corporations so incongruous with reality? And why has the degree of dissonance increased over time? In my opinion, the mass media image of large corporations is based in a myth that those in power desperately want others to believe. The media image of corporations is best understood as propaganda and disinformation. It is an attempt to make the masses believe that the current system is “natural”, meritocratic, omnipotent and capable of defending itself. In a way, the media image of corporations is similar to the propaganda pumped out in totalitarian regimes which extols the virtues and greatly exaggerates the power of ruling party, coalition or oligarchic families.

The reality is rather different and rapidly becoming apparent. It is now obvious to a growing number of people that large corporations are pretty much the opposite of what they claim to be. Their apparent successes in the past are increasingly seen as some combination of scam, luck and parasitism. I however do not expect the Hollywood image of corporations to reflect this rapidly growing awareness. It is likely that they will, if anything, double down and amp up the propaganda- because dying parasites have no other option.

What do you think? Comments?

On the Continued Worship of Brain Damaged Morons

In the past, I have written about the arbitrariness of social definitions for what constitutes sane and insane behavior. I have also pointed out that behavior and attitudes considered insane today were once seen as hallmarks of sanity, and vice-versa.

To put it succinctly, definitions of sanity and insanity other than those associated with easily measurable physical or biochemical brain damage are almost entirely subjective.

But it gets worse.. Throughout human history, most so-called “normal” people have actually followed, revered and worshiped people who likely had measurable brain damage. Don’t believe me? OK, let us take a cynical and critical look at the founders, prophets and saints of almost all traditional religions. Have you ever noticed that a lot of their so-called revelations, visitations by non-human deities, mystical or cosmic experiences and voices in their heads have a lot more in common with the symptoms of serious brain disorders such as schizophrenia, temporal lobe seizure, assorted brain tumors, episodes of hypomania and even the effects of hallucinogenic drugs than anything remotely paranormal.

I would go so far as to say that all traditional religions are largely based on creative interpretations of the rantings and ravings of a few people, who were lucky to have the right amount and type of brain damage at the right time. A person who seriously believes in any religion, especially of the traditional ‘revealed’ variety, is therefore basing his or her life and worldview on the selectively edited experiences of a few brain-damaged people. Given the role and importance of traditional religions in shaping human history, customs and behavior- it is fair to say that the world we live in today was largely shaped by the minds of brain-damaged people. Maybe that is why all civilizations, past and present, are so bizarre, irrational, dystopic and generally fucked up.

But it does not end there.. In the last 200 years, we started replacing traditional religions with secular ones such as capitalism, communism, randism, consumerism, neo-liberalism etc. While these newer religions might appear to be different from each other, they do have a few peculiar common characteristics. One of them is their obsession with money.

All secular religions are really about the “right” way to create, distribute and circulate money.

While they all try to cloak the true nature of their obsession through the use of rhetoric, philosophy, logic and reason- it is easy to see through their smokescreen by posing one simple question.

Does the ideology in question mean anything in a world without money?

The idea of a world without money might seem odd, most transactions in human history and prehistory did not involve the exchange of money. Even after the concept of money was invented, most people did not use it as they had little or no money to exchange for goods or services. Yet for some peculiar reason, the world did not stop nor did humans go extinct. Money as we know and use it today came into being in the post-renaissance world, especially the last 200 years.

Now, some of can grasp the idea that all forms of money are notional and therefore not real. The ability to create, lend, spend and transfer money is therefore based on the ability of institutions to enforce rules and regulations which favor a few people over everyone else. Money appears to be real only because almost everybody is a willing participant in the mass delusion.

But what does all of this have to do with worshiping and revering brain-damaged people?

The answer lies in how we perceive, rate and treat other people. In most parts of the world, the behavior and attitudes of people towards others are largely based upon how much money one participant in the interaction estimates the other one has or can demonstrate possession of via some proxy display.

Therefore almost everyone wants to have as much money as they get their hands on, preferably by depriving everyone else of it.

This zero-sum behavior might sound irrational to some since the utility of money is directly proportional to the level of function (or dysfunction) in that society. That is why even a dollar millionaire in India has to put up with inconveniences which somebody with a decent job in a developed country would never have to. Similarly, rich people in many western countries can go about their lives without worrying about kidnappings and the level of violence routinely seen in South and Central American countries. But why is that so? Why are most developed countries reasonably safe, functional and relatively nice places to live in? and were they always like that?

The answers to these questions lie in numerous large changes to the social, economic and legal structures of these societies within the last 100-odd years. Prior to that, the quality of life in these countries was pretty low and comparable to what is seen in many parts of the ‘third world’. Most rivers and lakes in developed countries were once toxic open sewers, epidemics of infectious diseases were common, malnutrition was rife, high level of day-to-day violence and brutality were seen as normal and the rich also suffered the consequences of living in such dysfunctional societies. Then a lot of events (various labor movements, communist revolutions, WW1, WW2) happened and forced the rich in developed countries to accept a more equal distribution of wealth. This trend went on until the late 1970s when an extended period of peace let the old ways and ideas creep back into societies. Popularly called neo-liberalism or neo-conservatism, it is really a form of neo-feudalism.. one with far fewer downsides and many more upsides to an increasingly international class of moneyed people.

But what does any of this have to do with people still worshiping and revering brain-damaged morons?

The answer to that question requires us to understand an important but often ignored shift in the nature of religiosity in developed countries. Most of the populace no longer believes in traditional religions, especially the ones who claim to be pious. However the desire to believe in scams.. I mean religions has not changed and most people now believe in one or more of the many secular religions such as free-market capitalism, libertarianism, feminism etc. But as I said a few paragraphs ago, all secular religions are really about to who gets to control creation, distribution and circulation of money. It is therefore fair to say that most people are actually worshiping various socio-economic models, none of which have much to do with reality. And all this to get some sort of secular salvation.

Which finally brings us to what the past 1,100 words were leading up to..

Are the founders of secular religions any less brain-damaged than those who founded the older ones? Is somebody who claims to perceive the ‘invisible hand of free market’ any less delusional or sophistic than the guy who heard an ‘angel speaking from within a burning bush’? Is the concept of ‘homo economicus’ any more real than ‘original sin’? Is somebody who believes in making money at all costs that different from some guy who wants to save the souls of heathens or convert infidels at any cost? Is a priest who justified the rants of a greedy sociopath that different from an academic who shills for some ideology.. any ideology that will pay him enough to afford a comfortable life? Are people who are willing to destroy the lives of thousands and millions so that they can have a couple of billion dollar really alright in the head?

And what about all those morons who worship, revere, follow and obey banksters, managers, businessmen and other rich people who just got lucky? and why do these morons listen to the priests.. I mean academics who are slavish turd polishers? Believing in models of the world that clearly diverge from observable reality is always a bad idea and it never ends well, yet most people don’t seem to care. But why?

What do you think? Comments?

Religious Radicalization as a Response to Socio-Economic Dysfunction

I was originally going to post this article a few days ago. However my desire to be reasonably sure about what I am about to say made me procrastinate till the general direction of information was more supportive of my hypothesis.

A lot of people are wondering if the Boston marathon bombers were driven by religious beliefs. While there is no doubt that their actions were influenced by a certain set and interpretation of religious beliefs, that angle does not explain how they became radicalized and extra-religious in the first place.

As we all know, both were Chechens who were born and partly grew up (especially the older brother) in an era when the outside world was especially unstable and hostile from their viewpoint. Having said that, they did not come from a family that was especially poor or religious nor had they lost any close relatives in the conflict. Their father and uncle appear to be reasonably well-educated and secular, if somewhat shady, people. If you look at older pictures of that family, they just don’t give off the ‘we are so religious’ aura.

So what happened? How does a guy who was into sports, clothes, cars, babes and making lots of money become a religious radical? Why does a guy who was looking forward to getting american citizenship and perhaps a spot on the american olympic boxing team as late as 2009 decide that bombing the Boston Marathon was his purpose in life? and what about his younger brother? How does a reasonably popular stoner who made extra cash by selling pot and involvement in car theft rackets decide that joining his older brother in waging “holy war” against the country he grew up in was a good idea?

The conventional explanations for this turn of events range from something about hot-blooded Chechens, some mysterious radicalizing preacher, the internet, a conspiracy to advance public acceptance for militarization of american police forces and a host of other explanations that you can find on the intertubes. But what if we are missing a far more obvious and straightforward explanation for their religious radicalization?

Is religious radicalization, especially of the Islamic variety, a consequence of systemic socio-economic dysfunction?

It is hard to ignore that the increasing religiosity and radicalization of the Tsarnaev brothers, and their mother, has a pretty strong correlation with their declining fortunes and hope for a better future in the USA. Tamerlan, the older of the two brothers, was not an especially religious Muslim or even a traditional Chechen in his late teens and early 20s. He moved out of his parents house, was chasing chicks in nightclubs, living with pretty attractive women, was perhaps involved in pot-grow operations and trained for MMA competitions. He did not exhibit any strong interest in spreading the word of Islam beyond trying to convert his pretty fit girlfriends.

The younger brother, Dzhokhar, was even less of a religious guy. The interviews of people who used to hang out with him suggest that he was pretty much your basic stoner who sold extra weed on the side. There is very little in his background or known tastes in lifestyle, music, media or women to suggest that he was a religiously observant person. If anything, he comes across as the small-time drug dealer/ entrepreneur type rather somebody who believed in 72 virgins.

I believe that the roots of their radicalization lie in the changing nature of american society. For many decades, but especially between the 1950s to mid-1990s, USA was the best place to immigrate- legally or “illegally”. There used to be lots of real opportunities for immigrants to make it big, or failing that- at least lead a pretty comfy and prosperous middle-class lifestyle. Even poor and ‘less-educated’ immigrants had a pretty decent chance of making it into the middle-class. However things started to change for the worse in the late 1990s. It became harder and harder for both “native-born” and immigrant americans to remain in the middle-class, let alone climb into it.

We can come up all sorts of explanations for what drove this change, but the net effect has been that a rapidly increasing number of americans (especially among younger age groups) do not believe that the system will treat them fairly. They routinely see connected ivy-league educated sociopaths make mistakes and still collect their millions and billions, while competent and loyal people like them get screwed over. While this double standard has always been a feature of american society, the system had kept it from becoming the dominating feature of american society for many decades. I believe that the collapse of the soviet union in the late 1980s-early 1990s unleashed the full greed of the ‘elites’ resulting in the openly and highly dysfunctional society we live in today.

While CONservative morons might not see anything wrong with this change, almost everyone with more than half a brain understands (at some level) that the current socio-economic system is highly dysfunctional. All stable and functional societies remain so only as long as most people living in them believe that the system is largely fair, reasonable and worth their while. People will either withdraw from or stop co-operating with systems that are seen as dishonest, abusive or non worth their while.

It is very likely that the Tsarnaev family immigrated to the USA in the early 2000s under the impression that they would be afforded the same opportunities as people like them used to as late as the early 1990s. But a lot changed between the early-1990s and the early-2000s. Many of the paths and opportunities that would have allowed them to move into the middle-class or beyond simply did not exist. The father was reduced from a stable legal job in a ministry to fixing cars as an unlicensed mechanic. The mother went from a homemaker to somebody hustling for small jobs. While these trials and tribulations might initially have been dismissed as temporary, they soon realized that was not the case.

It certainly did not help that Tamerlan’s promising boxing/MMA career started to unravel for reasons that were unfair and beyond his control. The younger brother, Dzhokhar, while clearly not stupid was just not an academic. He, like his older brother, preferred a life with booze, drugs and babes- and who can blame them. Which rational person would prefer to live like an under-sexed dweeb for the ‘chance’ of higher future earnings in a society with an obviously broken contract.

To make a long story short- the rather shitty experience of the Tsarnaev family in the USA, as individuals and as a group, was very likely what drove Tamerlan and Dzhokhar on a path of self-directed religious radicalization. In a way, they are far more like James Holmes (Aurora Theater Massacre)and Adam Lanza (Sandy Hook Shooter) than somebody who was indoctrinated from birth to fight some religious war. Also note that Holmes and Lanza came from highly secular backgrounds and therefore found secular justifications for their actions (mental illness, autism/nihilism). The Tsarnaev brothers justified their actions through religious beliefs mainly because they were more familiar with religion than fashionable psychiatric mumbo-jumbo.

What do you think? Comments?

MGTOW in Low-Fertility Societies

Some of you might be aware of a phenomena known as MGTOW in which men slowly disconnect from society and have no intention or desire to fulfill traditional social roles or expectations. While the initial reasons behind this shift in developed countries might have been the loss of manufacturing jobs during the late-1980s coupled with the social and legal effects of feminism- that is no longer the case. MGTOW has often been characterized as ‘losers’ trying to justify their relative poverty and social ostracism. While I am not denying that the initial wave of MGTOWs might have done so out of necessity, it is clear that the ones who are going in that general direction now are a rather different and far more numerous group.

But before we go there, lets us quickly talk about why the impact of MGTOW was rather limited through most of human history and pre-history. As I have said before, societies where the average woman could expect more than three of her kids to reach adulthood functioned under a very different dynamic from those where women has replacement to sub-replacement fertility. Under the zero-sum conditions and mentalities that have characterized humans throughout their history, extra kids were just more fodder for the machine. High fertility rates ensured an endless supply of morons to scam, abuse, work to death and generally try to cover systemic mistakes. In such societies, a man who went MGTOW was not particularly missed and often quickly forgotten as the other human apes went about living their sad, shitty and meaningless lives. That plus the low-level of social organisation and technology meant that going MGTOW had almost no deleterious effects on wider society.

Things fundamentally changed once the average number of kids per woman dropped first below three and then under two. But why? What does sub-replacement fertility do to a society as far as it ability to function under the old scheme is concerned? The answer lies in the rapidly growing divergence between old assumptions and reality. Under the old assumptions (also known as culture and tradition) young people were disposable widgets who could be used, abused, scammed and exploited to levels that are fundamentally incompatible with civil society. The so-called ‘losers’ could be rapidly replaced with fresh and naive morons so that the cycle could on and on- with periodic disruptions such as war and pandemics.

But as the industrial revolution spread and changed societies all over the world, the underlying assumptions started changing. Initially there was a population explosion as technology increased the number of kids who would survive to adulthood. However within a generation of two, most people caught on to the changes and started having fewer and fewer kids. This reduction in fertility is now global and even ‘extra-religious’ middle-eastern countries have rates below three- something that would be unthinkable even two decades ago.

But what does all of this have to do with MGTOW? How do men slowly dropping out of society and traditional expectations affect the system at large?

The answer lies in understanding the principal delusions and main belief under which all societies operate. All societies are based around the idea that world around them is in some sort of stable and ‘natural’ equilibrium that is very hard to disrupt. While most people can accept the idea that a comet hitting earth or something along those lines will change their ‘reality’ forever, they are largely and willfully blind to less dramatic and slower changes in the conditions which make their ‘reality’ appear stable. The vast majority of people, especially those who grew up in a previous era, believe that the world never really changed since their teens and twenties. In their mind the world of today is different from the one they grew up in largely because of better gadgets, pills, cars and some superficial social changes.

Consequently, patterns of social organization and functioning are still based on assumptions that may have been true 60 or even 40 years ago. But what did society look like four or six decades ago? The average fertility for one was still comfortably above replacement as were lifetime jobs and expectations of socio-economic progress for all. A lot of how society operates today is still based on the continued validity of these assumptions. The older morons still believe that most people will still marry, have kids, live in suburban houses and endure long commutes to their meaningless jobs by cars. While that assumption had some validity as long as the last surplus generation with some hope, aka Baby Boomers, were heavily represented in the working age group- that is no longer the case.

However a significant part of the economy is also dependent on these assumptions holding true- or at least not changing too quickly. Entire sectors of the economy such as the education, housing, financial planning etc are completely dependent on the status quo as are many not-so-obvious ones such as tax revenue estimates, electoral politics and many others that appear unconnected (physician remuneration) but are not. Even assumptions about how people will work or not work, behave or not behave, think or not think are based on the old models being true. Which brings us to one of main, if not the main, assumption underlying belief in continuity of the status quo.

All developed, and almost all developing, societies are grounded in the continuity of a very specific male mindset. It is best described as a scenario where the vast majority of guys will slave away, sacrifice and generally endure abuse for a reasonable chance at getting some mediocre pussy, some respect and children. While that scenario played out very well in the age before effective contraception, feminism, unstable jobs and social atomization- that is no longer the case. The average woman thinks she is too good for the average guy and can even profit from such behavior. While men from older generations still believe in the validity of the older ways, the younger ones clearly do not and hence are far less likely to be married or in LTRs. It is hard to believe something if you can see evidence to the contrary at every turn and almost none to support it.

Today the majority of men disengaging from society are young, well-educated and aware of their odds. They are not 50-something guys ruined by their divorce after decades of believing the lies that society told them. Nor are the younger bunch disengaging from society to live a hermit-like existence. They are still connected to society to some extent, but they are certainly not engaged with it. They are very distrustful of the system and don’t care about its future. They are best seen as cynical and informed opportunists who are acting in their own self-interest.

But how will this change affect society? Will women beg men to take them back to an earlier time? Will society recognize the folly of its ways? In my opinion neither women nor society will move in a direction as large groups of people are fundamentally incapable of non-viral behavior. They will always try to optimize for the short-term even if doing so was almost certain to cause long-term problems.

So how does widespread MGTOW among the younger generation enter into this equation? and how does it affect the possible outcomes?

To understand this, you have to look at how entities faced with declining long-term prospects shore up their short-term. The usual and almost certain response involves more extensive rent-seeking and exploitation in the short-term. It is therefore not surprising that school systems want more money, universities keep on raising their tution costs, cars and houses become more expensive, physicians and hospitals demand more money etc. They do so even when it is very obvious that those paying for it are increasingly unable to do so. But the belief in, and addiction to, growth is so entrenched that they would rather eat their seed corn than try to fix the problem.

There are, of course, longer-term limits to such behaviors based in reality rather than perception. Eating your seed corn, cannibalizing your future and crapping on your future supporters works only as there is an adequate supply of fresh suckers to replace the dead, burnt out and cynical ones. But is that a realistic option in a world with low-fertility rates? Modes of behavior that work when the average woman had over three kids who made it to adulthood just don’t work in a world where the average woman has less than two kids.. period. Even computerization and extensive automation do not solve the problems as machines do not consume or circulate money.

To summarize, MGTOW among the younger generation of men will destabilize the current system by inducing it to react in a way that increases its short-term gains while simultaneously destroying its longer-term viability.

What do you think? Comments?

Understanding the Delusion of Institutional Competence

One of the most peculiar beliefs exhibited by human beings, especially when acting in large groups, goes something like this..

“Institutions that appear to be big, powerful or long-lived are especially competent and capable at what they claim to be doing.”

But is that true? Are such ‘successful and persistent’ institutions really competent and capable, or are other factors at work? What makes some institutions bigger, more powerful and long-lived than others? I am trying to compare and contrast what can be observed in the real world to what many people (even the ‘smart’ ones) apparently believe. So let us begin by asking a few simple and related questions- Do institutions, successful or unsuccessful, really give a shit about so-called ‘sacred’ concepts like meritocracy? Do they actually hire and promote the most competent and visionary? How do they become successful, bigger and long-lived?

I have noticed that most human beings desperately want to believe that we live in a ‘just world, because the alternative to that simple-minded belief is pretty depressing. But the universe we live in is not bounded by our models about its functioning. Therefore most people have to regularly perform extensive and often unconscious revisions to the narratives they want to believe. Almost nobody wants to admit that they made incorrect, hasty or bad decisions. Even fewer want to admit that they were short-sighted, greedy, stupid, cowardly, arrogant or driven by the decisions of people around them. It is psychologically much easier to be wrong like almost everybody else that right like the heretic who thinks differently.

Of course, being wrong like everybody else has never been particularly desirable or profitable. The quality of human existence throughout most of history and pre-history was so poor precisely because people preferred to be wrong and stupid like everybody else.However, people tend to have a short and selective memory about that sort of stuff. I would go so far as to say that we celebrate the bad decisions, simple mindedness, deprivations, stupidity and shortsightedness of yesteryears under the guise of tradition.

So what does all of this have to do with belief in institutional competence?

The answer lies in how people explain the surrounding world to themselves. If you believe in a ‘just world’ driven by meritocracy and existing for a higher purpose, you might also believe that apparent success in that world is due to real or intrinsic superiority and competence.

For example- The longevity of the Catholic or Orthodox Churches could then be interpreted as a sign of the intrinsic superiority, competence and timelessness rather than luck, chance and the result of human stupidity and credulousness. Similarly the dominance of Microsoft in certain sectors of the software market could pass as a sign of intrinsic competence and guile rather than a series of lucky breaks and mistakes by potential and often superior competitors.

Another example is the supposed superiority of the american socio-political system and ideologies. It is easier for most people to believe the ideologies and behaviors which supposedly make it so, are superior as long as the system can deliver some token and highly publicized signs of its ability. But as we have seen in the last decade, but especially in the last 5 years, it is increasingly obvious that the whole system and ideologies underlying the facade were rotten, defective and full of lies and fake promises.

Sooner or later, all human institutions run out of the ability to repair cracks in the facade and put on impressive-looking shows to distract the willingly gullible majority. However most people will never lose their belief in institutions till they literally collapse in front of their eyes, and even then a few will never accept that they were willing participants in their own deception. Why wake up from a dream that almost everybody around you also seems to enjoy? But a dream is just that- a dream.

What do you think? Comments?

Factors Underlying the Worldwide Decline in East-Asian Fertility

Some of you might have recently heard that the Chinese government in considering changes to its one child policy. While many see this as a reasonable attempt to reverse the demographic decline, a few commentators have expressed doubts about whether such a change would have any effect on the willingness of the Chinese to have more children. They point out that ethnically and culturally similar neighboring countries have fertility very similar to those in China, even though they lack an official one-child policy. If anything, China has a slightly higher fertility rate (1.6) than more affluent east-asian countries such as South Korea (1.2), Japan (1.4) and Taiwan (1.1). Even many culturally similar but not that affluent countries in the region have pretty low fertility rates; Vietnam (1.8), Thailand (1.6). Only the war-ravaged, poor or extra-religious countries (Laos, Cambodia, Philippines and Malaysia) in East-Asia have fertility rates above 2.

So what is going on? Why do so many east-Asian countries have such low fertility-rates in the modern era? Was it always so? When did it start to change and why?

Conventional explanations for this phenomena have tried to spin this low fertility rate as evidence of East-Asian intelligence, thoughtfulness, conscientiousness or degree of investment in their offspring. There is however a very big problem with any such “positive” explanations for this precipitous drop in fertility in that region. For almost all of recorded history, fertility rates in East Asia were freakishly high. Furthermore the general living conditions, levels of over-crowding, frequency of food shortages and mortality from infectious diseases etc were much bigger problems in the past than they are today.

Any hypothesis based on the idea that East-Asians are devoted parents would have a hard time explaining why so many of them are having no children or just one token child. But aren’t we all told that East-Asian parents are very devoted to the welfare of their kids and deeply involved in the lives- maybe a bit too deeply? Why would a socio-cultural-ethnic grouping with such a strong tradition of having children and raising them “properly” stop having them at the very time in human history when doing so has become very easy and safe?

Even more curious than the low-fertility rates of East-Asians in modern times is a look at what factors are associated with having the least number of kids. Other than higher levels of education, it is wealth and status that are associated with few or no kids. While this correlation has been previously observed in other developed countries, it is especially striking in East-Asian countries where the combination of a first-world lifestyle and high levels of education almost always translate into one or no kids. So what else can explain the precipitous drop in fertility rates in East-Asia in the last 60-70 years? Why haven’t the rates stabilized or recovered to levels of around 2- even in countries which have enjoyed reasonable economic stability? Why are economic incentives so ineffective at getting them to have more kids?

There is another way to look at this issue. However taking that route involves killing many ideological ‘holy’ cows and beliefs about what human beings are and are not.

Most of us want to believe that human beings are fundamentally intelligent, thoughtful, reasonable, capable of objective thought and largely rational in their actions. However a brief reading of human history or even short interactions with a few people around you will show that it is not the case. I could write entire books on why the self-image of human beings is so at odds with reality, but that is something for another day. For the purpose of this post, let us concentrate on the effects of such self-delusion on humans and the societies they live in.

While most human beings want to have children of their own, the mix of reasons and beliefs that drive them to have kids is sensitive to their circumstances and true motivations. People who used to live as hunter-gatherers or in small agriculture-based communities wanted kids for company, help, status and future care. Since accumulation of money was either absent or irrelevant in such communities, their motivations for having and caring for kids were not tainted by such extraneous considerations.

“Civilization” changed that.. Large scale agriculture, even in the pre-industrial era, created highly hierarchical societies which depended on a constant supply of naive and disposable workers who could be conned into working hard with the promise of a better future. While slaves and indentured laborers were one option, having more children was a much better option. It is not an exaggeration to say that people who belong to long-lived civilizations are far more likely to see other humans, but especially their own kids, as the principal means of improve their monetary and social status regardless of the cost of such behavior on their kids.

A lot of the ‘peculiarities’ in East-Asian parenting styles make sense if you are willing to consider the possibility that the relationship between parents and their children in those cultures is far closer to an employer and their employees.

The ‘tough love’, striving for higher productivity and ‘quantifiable’ achievement at all costs, enforced conformity and obedience, unspoken rules and protocols in everyday behavior that seem to characterize relationships between East-Asian parents and their children are exactly the things you expect in work relationships. This commercialization of the parent-child relationship is however not without its drawbacks and problems. For one, it creates damaged and very unhappy human beings who require constant threats and external pressures to behave “properly”.

The system worked for as long as it did because of the lack of effective contraception. The introduction and spread of effective contraception made it easier for unhappy and dysfunctional people to avoid having children. Also women can now make decent money by working and can thus achieve all of their material goals without the inconvenience of having kids. Since East-Asians, more than any other group, have seen kids principally as a means to attain their own material goals- it stands to reason that they would have far fewer kids if other (and easier) avenues to reach those goals were available.

What do you think? Comments?

Solutions That Sound Like Common Sense Are Usually Disingenuous: 1

Vocal believers in many peculiar ideologies such as CONservatism, LIEbertarianism and LIEbralism like to believe, or at least pretend, that they have optimal solutions to a host of problems and non-problems facing society. While these ‘solutions’ frequently sound reasonable, feasible and at least superficially rational- they are either unimplementable or attempts to do so end up causing far more harm than good.

So why do solutions based on ‘common sense’, ‘experience, ‘rationality’ or other authoritative sounding words fail so badly? Why are so many of these solutions unimplementable?

Some of you might say that human beings themselves are the source of their own suffering. Entire religions and similar belief systems have been built around the general idea that human beings are somehow ‘born in sin’ or not evolved enough. However these belief systems have not made things any better and frequently end up screwing things even more. So what is happening? How can every attempt to fix things fail or make it worse?

I believe that the most important and widespread problem underlying all attempts to improve humanity is based in the highly subjective nature of human self-image. The vast majority of human beings desperately want to believe that they are right, good, justified, moral, chosen or deserving inspite of overwhelming evidence to the contrary.

The Spanish Conquistadors actually believed that killing and enslaving mesoamericans was the christian thing to do- in addition to being a highly profitable way to make a living off stolen gold. The various muslims invaders of North India actually believed that killing and enslaving infidels was their religious duty- in addition to being very profitable. The southern whites who used black slave labor to build their fortunes actually believed that they were good christian people engaged in a morally correct behavior. The guys who ran concentration camps and gulags actually believed that they were good workers and many of them took great pride in their efficiency at killing Jews and political prisoners. I am sure that many american soldiers who served in Iraq and Afghanistan also believed that they were doing the right thing- even if the evidence around them did not support their beliefs.

The sad fact is that most human beings cannot face the reality of who they really are. They are either unwilling, or unable, to look at the world around them in an objective manner. In that respect, children are far more realistic and objective and we try hard to make them lose the ability or courage to keep on being objective or realistic. Humans are therefore not inherently irrational, subjective or delusional. It takes many years and a lot or practice to become an ‘adult’. Now I am not saying that human beings are inherently ‘good’ by any objective or subjective measure. Indeed, what constitutes ‘good’ or ‘bad’ is too often a very subjective judgement. My claim, instead, is that most human beings are not inherently fucked up in the head and are capable of a basic level of objective thinking.

The real question then is: Why do people believe in things and concepts that just don’t add up? How can being a member of religions that promises enlightenment and peace translate into committing theft and genocide? How can being a good worker for an organisation translate into pride in killing other human beings? Even scientists who consider themselves as the paragons of objectivity believe in things such as dark matter, dark energy and anthropogenic global warming.

The answer to these questions is deeply linked to the original question posed in this post, namely why solutions based on ‘common sense’, ‘experience, ‘rationality’ or other authoritative sounding words fail so badly?

Let us, for a minute, consider the possibility that human beings are rather different from what we want to believe about ourselves. I have partially tackled these issues in a couple of my recent posts (Cults, Religions and Ideologies Merely Unmask Human Nature and Cults, Religions, Ideologies and Willful Self-Delusion). The gist of those posts was that the behavior of human beings is functionally closer to mindless, poisonous and invasive weeds than sentient apes. It is just that humans ego is unwilling to accept its quantifiable self-image. Belief in religions, secular ideologies and institutions are merely complex justifications and self-rationalizations for acting in a manner that is contrary to the idealized self-image.

Believers are faithful, followers are unquestioning and zealots are zealous because they have invested much more than simple faith in their worldviews. In many cases, their whole self-image and self-worth is linked to, and dependent upon, continued belief in whatever fairy tale they choose to believe in.

But what does belief in adult fairy tales have to do with real world problems and our inability to solve them? Why is the ability to believe in bullshit so detrimental to human happiness? What is the connection between a malformed mental model of the external world and an inability to solve problems or practical importance.

It comes to two interlocking problems- willful blindness in some areas complemented by ‘seeing things’ in other areas.

Let us look at the second problem first.. People often go into hysterics about things that don’t really matter. I see these as made up ‘problems’ which don’t really exist.

For example- many people express outrage at other people using recreational drugs or having some forms of consensual sex because they are concerned about “public morality” and “want to protect the children”. It it really your problem if some other people prefer opioids, stimulants or marijuana over alcohol or tobacco? Isn’t the criminality and high cost of “illegal” drugs predominantly because they are “illegal”?. You could easily churn out high-quality morphine, methamphetamine and high-grade marijuana at a 10-20 cents per adult dose and still make a profit- if they were legal. Instead we spend tens of billions of dollars per year to fight the failed ‘War on Drugs’, not to mentioned the tens of billions more to incarcerate and punish millions of predominantly non-white “offenders”. In the USA, alcoholism is a disease while “illegal” drug use is a moral failure.

Similarly the USA spends tens of billions trying to control prostitution which, as many of you know, is the most honest and equal male-female relationship out there. However we do count alimony, child-support payments or buying bigger homes etc for wives as payment for sex- though I cannot see any other justification for those money transfers and transactions. Let us face it- prostitution compares rather favorably with marriage and even long-term relationships in the amount of great sex per unit of money spent on obtaining it. Yet people never tire of coming up with newer solutions to the non-problems of “illegal drug use” and “prostitution”.

Here is the thing.. you can only solve a problem if it is real. Trying to classify a non-problem as a problem and then trying to solve it will always make things worse than before for almost every person in that society other than the scumbags who profit from such ‘holy’ crusades.

On the other end of the spectrum, people ignore very real, highly visible and serious problems by claiming that they don’t really exist. We ignore youth unemployment and underemployment by believing that the problem will just go way if we ignore it- inspite of the fact that we no longer live in a high-fertility world. People keep on telling themselves that the ‘problems are temporary’, the ‘young have a poor wok ethic’, ‘life is unfair’ etc without factoring in that we have run out of the constant supply of naive youngsters to screw over. We try to solve these problems by kicking the can down the road, asking everyone to take loads of debt to go to university, talking about a ‘bright’ future etc when almost anyone can see that things are in a death spiral.

In future parts of this series, I will write more about how the bizarre tendency to convert non-problems into problems while ignoring real ones defines human beings as a species.

What do you think? Comments?

Inspite of its Cheerleaders, the American Healthcare System is Crap

As many of you know, the last 4 years have seen a lot of breathless talk about the effects of ‘ObamaCare’ (RomneyCare) on the future of the ‘best health care system’ in the world. This post, however, is not about my views on the supposed ‘perils’ of ‘socializing the medical system’. Instead I will focus on the myth that the USA has the ‘best health care system’ in the world.

Let us start by asking ourselves- What do people mean when they say that the USA has the ‘best health care system in the world’? What are the criteria for making that statement? What sort of data is used to support the statement? How do the ‘true believers’ in that worldview treat doubters and critics? Who do they blame when available data does not support their worldview?

In my opinion, non-proprietary measures of overall life expectancy are the most objective proxies for comparing multiple healthcare systems. Readers are welcome to suggest other “more realistic or logical” criteria for judging the effectiveness of a healthcare system. In any case, the USA lags behind all other developed countries by all commonly used measure of longevity (average life expectancy, median life expectancy, post-65 life expectancy)- often by more than 2 or 3 years.

There are those who blame the ‘high’ percentage of black people in the USA (10-13% ?) on its less than stellar performance on various measures of longevity. These morons want to believe that blacks are genetically ‘meant’ to die an earlier age. However the statistics from other affluent western countries with a worthwhile black population (especially of Caribbean descent) suggest otherwise. For example- Blacks of Caribbean descent in the UK live longer than indigenous whites matched by income and education. While they may suffer from a different mix of disease conditions, it is clear that blacks have no genetic predication to die earlier than whites. I should also point out that Hispanics who outnumber blacks in the USA are known to live even longer than measurably more affluent american whites.

Another series of ‘explanations’ for the dismal performance of the american healthcare system is based on the solipsistic belief that ‘all those other people are lying’ and ‘only we are telling the truth’. This takes the form of outright lies and a few half-truths about how those ‘other’ countries define and report statistics about live births, incidence of various diseases and causes of death. While explanations based on intentional fudging of statistical data by other countries would be believable if only a few countries consistently outperformed the USA on any measure of longevity- that is not the case. Every developed country and most moderately well-off countries routinely surpass the USA on almost all of those measures. Furthermore the differences in definitions of live births are too small to have any worthwhile (more than a 2-3 week) effect on various statistical measures of longevity.

I also find it hard to believe that white Americans are the most honest and objective people in the world’ for reasons that are only too obvious.

Then there are those who like you to believe that the cost of healthcare in the USA is higher because ‘We spend so much money on developing new drugs and technology to extend human life’. Apart from the bizarre hubris inherent in this line of defense, the statement is factually incorrect- at least as far as developing drugs or technology that actually cure diseases or extend human life.

Let us consider the facts. The biggest improvements in life expectancy are non-medical in nature. The provision of clean drinking water, safe and adequate amounts of food, proper sewage treatment and disposal, public health measures to contain infectious diseases, vaccines for some common and particularly deadly diseases caused the bulk of the increase in life expectancy during the last 150 odd years. We can also add the improvements in workplace safety, cleaner births and abandonment of older dangerous medical interventions (inorganic mercury, inorganic arsenic, lead based medicines and primitive surgery) to the list of non-medical interventions that improved life expectancy. Many western countries had already passed the 60 year mark for average life expectancy in the 1930s before the ‘drug’ or ‘technology’ revolution began in earnest.

Talking about drugs.. anti-microbial drugs, especially anti-bacterial drugs, are the most important class of drugs as far as extending human life expectancy is concerned. It is fair to say that they have extended human life expectancy by somewhere between 10 and 15 years. However almost all of them were introduced between 1930 and the mid-1960s. Moreover their discovery and development was usually heavily supported by government programs such as those run by the american government during and immediately after WW2. Pharma companies merely profited from the fruits of programs run and supported by the government- especially the american government.

Based on the returns for investment, the government support of discovery and development of anti-microbial (and anti-cancer) drugs during the first two decades after WW2 was among the most profitable use of taxpayer money- as far as the taxpayers are concerned. Which brings us to all those other wonderful drugs discovered between the mid-1930s and early-1990s. Contrary to what many of you think, the first of almost every single class of new drugs discovered in that era were discovered in European countries or labs of american companies based in European countries. I can provide you a fairly detailed list of this claim- if you are interested.

The sad truth is that the american research system (academic and industrial) has always been rather inadequate at producing truly innovative drugs. They are however very good at projecting the image of competence and innovation- something that greedy and mediocre minds excel. They are also pretty good at stealing credit for a discovery or developing a slightly better copycat version of an innovation.

But what about all that impressive looking technology which is much more visible in american hospitals. Doesn’t that count for anything? The short answer is that beyond a certain level- diagnostic and intervational technology do not improve global patient outcomes. While they may keep a slowly dying 90-something alive for a few weeks longer, the cost and bullshit associated with expensive technology based systems decreases the availability and quality of care for everyone else. More perversely, they often cause more harm by making questionable medical intervention profitable and more common. Many technologies for catching cancers in their early stages often encourage further diagnostic tests and treatments that do not improve overall life expectancy, while simultaneously causing adverse effects of their own.

It really comes down to the fundamental lie that underlies much of the problems seen in american society today- appearances matter more than reality. The appearance of education, the appearance of reputation, the appearance of action, the appearance of competence and the external appearance and trappings of technology and ‘science’ matter more than the reality.

What do you think? Comments?

Some Advice to ‘KneeHow’ and Others Like Him

More than a few of you might have noticed that one of the frequent commentators on this blog for the last few weeks is a person with the handle “Knee’. You might also have noticed that his questions are largely about issues related to using escorts for the first time. While I initially thought that he was just another young guy trying to get more information about using escorts etc, I now see that this is about something far deeper than escorts. So I did a little looking around on the ‘inter-tubes’ to understand why he was asking the same questions again and again. After looking through a lot of stuff, I have come to some preliminary conclusions about his predicament and here is my advice.

1. As much as I hate to say this, his traditional-minded parents are the single biggest problem in his life.

I was reading through posts on other bulletin boards to which ‘kneehow’ might have posted and one thing stood out- though he never said that openly. His relationship with his parents is strained in a very peculiar way. On one hand they have gone to great lengths to help him get the best education possible, yet on the other hand they have infantilized him (in their minds at least) to the extent he deeply resents it. While their attitudes and actions might have something to do with his chronic health issues- I could not escape the feeling that he sees their influence on his life as largely negative.

Let us specifically consider the possibility that his chronic health issues might result in his premature death. The very fact that his mother is negatively concerned about his interest in prostitutes inspite of the knowledge about his health status and general awkwardness around women is really sad. Then again, her attitudes are unfortunately common among those from Asian cultures where a narrow-minded autistic drive for money and education supersedes even the most basic human desires. Unfortunately this is also the one area where I cannot directly help him or anybody in his position.

I guess that being upfront with one of his parents might work especially if they understand the implications that their child has a chronic life-threatening health condition. Then again, the Asian ‘mind’ works in bizarre ways.

2. A lot of his other problems are due to poor self-image.

While there may be very valid reasons behind his poor-self image, trying to fix them beyond a point is worse than useless. You can certainly dress better, get a nice haircut, work out etc- but the benefits of such changes will quickly reach a point of saturation for what he really wants. There is a big gap between being a stylish and fitter version of yourself and being a male actor or model. The reality is that almost no amount of self-improvement can get him what the type of attention he so desperately wants. The alternative is to improve to the level you can and ignore the opinions and views of other people. Fact it.. in this era the opinions of others around you are largely irrelevant as almost nobody who you know will lend you 20$- even if you desperately needed it. We no longer live in a world where relatives, friends or good acquaintances can be trusted or relied upon.

So don’t bother with impressing people who don’t matter. Furthermore, there is also no point in going overboard trying to impress women when 180$/hr can get them to have great sex with you- regardless of how you look (though looking like a hideous creature might not be helpful). However I don’t think ‘kneehow’ looks like a hideous creature- so he has to learn to ignore the opinions of those who don’t matter. Never forget that the opinions of almost everyone on earth except a few people you have known for decades are worse than useless and irrelevant. Becoming a misanthrope, like me, also helps.

Now that does not mean you should act like a spontaneous and complete asshole. Just remember that you have no obligation, whatsoever, to treat ANYONE better than they treat you- regardless of how much they need you.

What do you guys think? Comments?

How Do Below-Average Looking Women Get Laid?

OK, here is a question which has haunted me for many years. I am sure that some of you also have had similar thoughts.

How do below-average looking women get laid?

While I have no doubt that they can (and do) find some guy to fuck them- the question still remains. How can a guy get a decent erection for penetrating a woman who is obese, ugly, older or hairy? I mean .. seriously, how can a guy get it up for such a creature unless he is fantasizing about someone else?

I am fully aware that the vagina, asshole or mouth of below-average looking women will feel very similar to hot chicks- though the fatter and hairier creatures might stink more. However since men are visual creatures, it would be hard to have sex with your eyes closed at all times. Plus your fingers and the rest of your skin will feel things such as rolls of fat or excessive body hair- even if you wanted to ignore such flaws.

while I can entertain the possibility of an inexperienced and very horny teenaged guy ignoring obvious visual flaws- what about a slightly older guy (mid-20s) who has fucked a few different women? Wouldn’t the below-average looks of a naked chick make him ‘less than enthusiastic’ about the experience, even if tried to will otherwise? Let us face it- average sex does not feel much better than jerking off to high-resolution pictures or movies with hot chicks in them.

Only skilled or enthusiastic sex with a better-than-average looking woman feels significantly better than jerking off to high-resolution porn.

One of the main reasons behind my preference of paying for sex is that escorts (at least outside the USA) are consistently better looking and more skilled than average, or below-average, women. After many years of using escorts, I find it hard to understand why any guy with a shred of self-respect would have sex with a below-average chick unless she offered to blow you while watching porn.

So why do men fuck below-average looking women? How can any self-respecting guy hang around or be seen with below-average looking woman? Don’t they hate themselves for doing such disgusting things (pun intended)?

What do you think? Comments?

Circular Reasoning and Nostalgia in the CONservative Mind

One of the more peculiar fetishes of the CONservative mind is it obsession with the world as it used to be. Somehow they believe that things, institutions and mores are good simply because they have ‘stood the test of time’. As some of you might realize, this is a form of circular reasoning whereby people justify something they want based on the belief that it used to always exist.

It is as if the prior existence of something, however undesirable, legitimizes its existence in the CONservative mind.

These disingenuous morons are however oddly selective about labeling something as good based on its prior existence. So according to them rule by assorted kings, nobility and hereditary elite is fine but living in cities without a functional sewage system is not. Given that the rise of greedy assholes and the poor sewage disposal are both consequences of urbanization and agriculture, why celebrate one but reform the other? Surely the best way to enjoy the former is to live in an era where half-starving people crap/piss everywhere and bathe once a month (or less).

But why stop there.. what about trying people for witchcraft and killing them? Since accusations of malicious witchcraft have been a part of human society for a few thousand years and across lines of race or religion, bringing back public trials for witchcraft should provide entertainment while maintaining a long-beloved tradition. Witch trials just fits in so well with slavery and indentured labor- practices which the USA is returning to anyway. While we are at it- What about rehabilitating Pederasty a most beloved institution of the greco-roman world which is supposed to the fountainhead of western ‘civilization’. Why let Afghan warlords have all the fun?

Then there is the issue of religion based wars. What was so wrong about crusades, jihads and other assorted religion-based wars? Since killing people because they believe in the ‘wrong’ voice in your head was OK for most of the last few thousand years, what is wrong in bringing such things back. We cannot forget mass murder based on race or ethnicity.. wasn’t that stuff very popular right into the last century. Or what about stealing land from other people? For all the talk of “property rights” and “western civilization” it is hard to imagine the world of today without the genocide of indigenous populations in the Americas and Australia.

What do you think? Comments?

What Drove the NYC Nanny to Kill?

I often analyze contemporary events from view points that don’t ignore the obvious, but largely unsaid, factors contributing to said event. As many of you have heard by now, a nanny stabbed two kids of her employer to death before trying to commit suicide. A number of media outlets are trying to demonize the nanny and try to convince you that killing the children of a rich white couple was an especially inhumane. But is that really the case?

Let us first summarize what we know about the ‘killer nanny’ at this time. Firstly, she (Yoselyn Ortega) was originally from the Dominican republic but had lived in the USA for over a decade. It is interesting to note that Yoselyn had worked for the Krim family for over two years and they had no real issues with her until she killed their two kids. To me, this suggests that the nanny was not intrinsically evil or diabolical. We then have to ask the next question- What drives a 50 year old woman who had worked in child care for many years to stab to death the very kids she was supposed to care for?

One of the first clues about what drove her actions comes from reading between the lines of an article about whether financial problems contributed to the murders.

A source told the Post that “Ortega, a Dominican who has been an US citizen for 10 years, complained of money troubles, and her employers, Marina and Kevin Krim, had given her more hours of work. They even hooked her up with a family they knew for a baby-sitting job on the side — but the family turned her down after an interview because she was, ‘a little too grumpy,’ a law-enforcement source said.”

I cannot but help wonder why her employers were so unwilling to give her enough money to live a half-decent life in NYC. What is the harm in paying your employees enough to live a decent life?

However, the person Ortega was renting the apartment from returned and kicked her and her son out, sending them to live with her sister. The Times adds, “Twice, Ms. Ortega asked Ms. Lajara to pray that a woman would pay her for makeup she had given her to sell. The amount, Ms. Lajara said, was about $100, and it was important to her… Ana Bonet, 40, a neighbor, said that besides her nanny job, Ms. Ortega sold inexpensive jewelry and makeup to neighbors. Others said she also earned money by cooking rice and chicken dishes for parties.”

So, she was not paid enough to be able to afford renting an apartment with her presumably adult son. She (and her son) ended up moving in with her sister inspite of caring for the kids of people who had thousands of times more money than her. Her financial situation was so tight that she was concerned about making 100$ more from selling makeup. Did I mention that she also worked catering gigs.

What type of society pays people so badly that even a hard-working person with multiple jobs can barely make ends meet? Does such a society even deserve to exist?

How would you feel if you were struggling for a couple of hundred bucks while the rich assholes who employed you to take care of their kids did precious little to help you. Words of sympathy don’t pay bills or the rent. Does a society which pretends to care about you while screwing you at every turn deserve to exist? How long will people take such abuse before making their tormentors hurt?

Now there are those of you who might agree with me about the systemic mistreatment part but say that killing her employers kids was still not the right thing to do. In my opinion the killing of her employers kids was the most rational response because only something as irreversible as the death of their own children can hurt people to the same extent as a life time of systemic socio-economic abuse. In any case, these kids would have grown up to be consummate parasitic plutocrats just like their parents. We don’t mourn the death of baby parasites, just because they are not adults.

I see her actions as far more rational than most people who keep up taking such abuse without striking back at their oppressors. What is the point in taking abuse if you have no better future to look forward to? What is the point in letting assholes live just because they are well dressed whites? What is the point in letting life long anger and depression at your mistreatment only hurt you?

If systemic abuse, deprivation and depression are the rewards of playing by the rules- why not share these rewards with others? If fucking someone over for years builds the characters of poor people, won’t it do the same for rich people?

What do you think? Comments?

Making Humans Disappear: 2

In my previous post in this series, I had mentioned that the next one would be about how the rise of ‘free agents’. Now most of you might be wondering- “how can individuals get anything done?”

Throughout history, humans have primarily relied on collective actions to get things done. Even today most of you think that any ‘real’ change will require mass demonstrations, occupy type protests, wars or revolutions. I however think that we have reached a point where asynchronous individual actions are far more disruptive to the system than collective actions. But that is not my only objection to collective action being an effective agent of change.

The real problem with using collective action to achieve anything is that most human beings are dishonest cowards who will delude themselves into believing that are otherwise.

You might have noticed that mass movements, protests, wars and revolutions often replace one group of assholes with a marginally better versions of them. It is as if mass actions, for all the sacrifices of their members, fall far short of their goals. Conventional explanations for this phenomena talk about betrayal of the cause etc.. conveniently forgetting that all people who want to be leaders are remarkably alike.

You cannot replace one defective structure with another one based on the same basic plan and expect change.

Any real change requires destroying the defective structure without building a replacement. However most people will not do that because they are afraid of an uncertain future and will always choose a recycled shitty world over one that truly breaks from the past. But why do people choose a guaranteed shitty existence over a reasonable chance of change and/or nonexistence? Some of you might say that people are afraid of death, but that is only a partial explanation at best. Pretty much every human understands that they and their creations are mortal and perishable. Furthermore, we have no shortage of people who will indulge in activities and enter professions with a realistic chance of premature death.

So what has stops most people from destroying the system that makes their lives miserable?

To understand what I am going to talk about next, you have to start looking at human history and societies as a real outsider- almost an extraterrestrial alien. One of the most well-known, but often ignored, aspect of human beings is that they are social animals who require others of their kind to exist for reasons beyond basic needs. A lot of the stupid, bizarre and self-destructive behavior of humans only makes sense if you factor in the need to belong to a group.

But is this need to belong to a group independent of the result of previous efforts to do so?

Will you keep on going back to the same people who exploited your desire to belong? While people might continue trying to play nice with shitheads upto a point, everybody has a breaking point beyond which they have no interest in belonging to that group. It does not help that modern neo-liberal societies continuously try to abuse the desire to belong for short-term profits. Today belonging to almost any group or participating in any social institution is an act of stupidity as you will lose far more than you get from such interactions. You might have noticed that almost everything from marrying, buying and living in your own house, working hard to move up in life or belonging to any ‘real life’ social group is a big fucking waste of time with negative gains for the individuals who indulge in such activities.

We live in a ‘stranger’ society where everybody pretends to be friendly but is secretly to stab each other in the back- and we all know it. Social atomization is a rational response to living in a world where even your own kith and kin are almost guaranteed to betray you for negligible gains. We have reached a point where there is no reason for individuals to care about the effect of their actions on other people around them. Throughout most of history, people stopped acting out on their innermost desires for vengeance due to their concern about how society might perceive them. While that was rational in eras where at least a few people cared about you and would stand behind you, that is no longer the case.

The hope that restraint would be rewarded in this life, or the mythical next, is gone.

I would recommend that you read a series of articles (13 to date) tagged Hello from the Underclass at gawker.com about the personal stories of unemployed people in the USA. While that site is famous for tabloid type news and stories, this series about the chronically unemployed is probably one of the better attempts at serious journalism. One of the unspoken but recurring themes in the series is that many people never expected to end up like that or be treated by society and society as worthless pariahs. Almost all of these people are articulated, educated, with decent incomes and lifestyles for many years to decades and still ended up as virtual untouchables with no hope for the future.

A couple of years of chronic instability and utter neglect/abuse from people and institutions they believed in made them see the world in a very different light.

While such chronic instability and material deprivation is not new, its combination with an absence of a social support network is unprecedented. Furthermore, people are not capable of normalizing their condition by believing in the old bullshit.. I mean religion. It certainly does not help that a low birth rate greatly reduces the number of new suckers to use, abuse and exploit. Consequently a rapidly increasing number of people have become ‘free agents’ in that they have no loyalty, obligations or consideration for anybody but themselves. Periodic and recurring stints of unemployment and social ostracization only reinforce this realization.

So why do I find ‘free agents’ so interesting?

Well.. for one they are a rapidly increasing minority in modern societies. However my interest in them is linked to how they act under stress. Historically, societies could defend themselves against disgruntled but still ‘attached agents’ through a variety of means from fake hope to lying and treachery. However the information revolution has made many of these means obsolete as it is much easier for people to see that most humans beings are crap and hope is largely a scam. Social atomization has done the rest by ensuring that people who hate society and humanity in general can do so and easily reach extremely high levels of misanthropy.

To put it another way, we now live in a world with a rapidly increasing minority of people who are highly misanthropic, extremely cynical and devoid of expectations for a better future.

It does not take a genius to figure out that such people might be interested in ways to ‘repay society’ for all the things it had done for them. Given the numbers involved and the organization of modern societies, even a small number of people who ‘repay society’ will destabilize the system- even if such repayments are asynchronous.

But how can asynchronous behaviors by a few individuals destabilize large systems? The answer to that question lies in understanding how the response of society to such behaviors greatly amplifies the effect of the primary events and will be the subject of the next part of this series.

What do you think? Comments?

The Increasing Cost of Car Ownership is Capitalism in Action

The last two years have seen a flurry of posts about why ‘Gen Y’ is not that interested in cars. In a previous post, I had summarized my views on that topic as-

The lack of interest in cars (and automobiles in general) by Gen-Yers is the rational result of a combination of long-term trends and the profit hungry short-sighted mindset which characterizes the later stages of capitalism.

While that post listed and briefly explained the main long-term trends that make autos less desirable, it did not really go into the other part of the problem (short-sighted capitalism) in any worthwhile detail. So let us fix that..

Evangelists of capitalism and its numerous minor flavors such as free-market capitalism, libertarianism, fascism, corporatism etc keep on telling us that capitalism is self-correcting. But what does such “self-correction” lead to? Do social or economic systems really have a stable equilibrium? While we can certainly engage in sophistic arguments about what capitalism is or isn’t; such talk is no different from trying to say that soviet- and mao-style communism wasn’t “real” communism.

I am going to use the response of contemporary society and its institutions to the “new car owner crisis” to demonstrate that capitalism-based systems are not self-correcting. Indeed, they have a very strong tendency to destroy themselves and damage the underlying social fabric.

The responses of car companies to this emerging crisis comes in two forms-

a1. Trying to find new car owners in emerging markets such as China, Brazil, Russia and India. They hope that they can get enough new customers to make up for the stagnation and decline in western countries. While the idea is not without merit, it assumes that whatever is causing the crisis in developed countries won’t occur in these emerging markets. While that assumption might have had some merit a few decades ago, that is no longer the case and trends from female fertility, rates of marital discord and other socio-economic trends spread much faster today than they used to. But let us ignore that for a moment and move on to the next response.

a2. They are hiring “trend consultants” and “designers” to create “hip” and “quirky” cars that will hopefully appeal to ‘Gen Y’. While doing so will make a few consultants wealthy, it does not address why things have gone downhill. Designing “hip” cars is about giving the appearance of action. It is similar to putting a colorful band-aid on a cut artery or giving aspirin to a person suffering from a serious infection. In both cases, it allows people to shield themselves from accusations of inaction.

The auto-makers response seems to be a combination of abandoning ship and casting spells to entice new car buyers. What about the government? Are they any better?

Now you might think that people in the government would be interested in keeping the status quo, if only to ensure the continuity of their scams. While they are aware of the potentially disastrous effects of declining rates of car ownership and use on their bottom line, it is apparent that they cannot get their shit together and act rationally. But why not?

b1. A government is a ever-morphing collection of scamsters and vested interests- just like any corporation. While the older version of this institution (from 1935 to say 1985) had some interest in ensuring their future through keeping the underlying society healthy, the newer version is full of rent-seekers. The governments of developed countries are now largely made up of factions and groups that have absolutely no interest in solving problems or building a better future. Indeed, they try hard to create more problems and opportunities to use legal coercion to collect rent. Consequently they spend most of their time trying to collect more and ever larger traffic tickets, build toll roads in preference to public access roads, and write rules and regulations to makes car ownership more expensive and onerous.

b2. Another factor that affects the government’s ability to respond meaningfully is that they employ an ever-increasing number of people to regulate and micromanage rather than do something useful. While this trend was a response to decreasing opportunities for employment in the private sector due to capitalism, it has created lobbies and cliques that want to justify their jobs, expand their domains and abuse others. While doing that is equivalent to killing the goose that laid the golden eggs, most people are too short-sighted to think (let alone act) otherwise.

OK, so the government is solidly into rent-seeking and kicking the can down the road. But what about society in general? How are people trying to address the problem?

c1. The first and most predictable response is denial as most humans believe that reality requires their explicit consent to manifest itself. The strategies to deny this particular problem range from seeing it as good for the environment, a sign of the end of suburbia to seeing it as a reversion to the mean of ‘impoverished’ existence. While I have hate suburbs, I can see that they were about reestablishing racial and economic segregation. Cars just made the process a whole lot easier. The aggregate sum of the pollution caused by cars pales in comparison to that put out by coal powered electric generation in China. Furthermore, comparing our age with any previous one in human history is as meaningless as comparing a fish to a rat.

c2. Then there are those who hope and pray for a second coming of job based prosperity. But is that possible in a world where automation and machines increasingly do most important jobs? Face it, most jobs today are about scamming, bullshitting, zero-sum competition to do tasks that have a net negative utility to society. We can pretend that jobs in education, law, medicine, management, human resources, sales and other sectors are about creating a better world. But is it true? It is also important to understand that automation, technology and machines are increasingly replacing human labor in even these areas.

c3. We cannot also forget the CONservative, and often older, subhumans who try to convince everyone that they are lucky to alive as slaves. These are often the same asswipes who never try of telling others how they bought and worked on their first beater in the 1960s and 70s. They conveniently miss out the part about relatively stable jobs, low (or no) student debt and living under a less predatory version of capitalism. Some of you see such behavior and beliefs as an example of a simple misunderstanding, but I do not. Many of the morons who exposure such beliefs are just greedy cynics who believe that they are ageless and immortal.

Did you notice something common to every major point in this article? Institutions and people are letting boundless greed, delusional beliefs and absolute self-interest rule their very existence. Some many say that doing so is human nature, but is it just human nature? Isn’t that how capitalism really works?

What do you think? Comments?