I have recently come to realize that the left's insistence on "systematic racism" is a canard, a knee-jerk habit, pure drivel. It is the left's conspiracy theory that racists will take over the world. The left's previous conspiracy theory, back at the turn of the 20th century when eugenics had the fresh-car smell of solid science, held that Jews were going to take over the world. While 21st-century progressives still retain remnants of that original eugenic anti-Semitism (Governor Cuomo, call your office), they now use the new "systemic racism" conspiracy theory because it plays to a wider audience. At the end of the nineteenth-century, pretty much everyone hated Jews, so the old anti-Jewish theory worked to bring liberals together and outsiders into the fold. Today, pretty much everyone hates racists, so they play that conspiracy card instead.
But that doesn't make it any less a nonsensical conspiracy theory. After all, systems only exist where
intent, acted out logically, exists. Logic is not natural, in the sense
that fallen man is not naturally attracted to being logical. God is pure
reason. Logic is participation in a divine attribute, and systems
require logic to operate.
In order for systematic racism to exist, you have to be able to point to powerful government or non-governmental organizations that are intentionally enforcing rules that explicitly differentiate on the basis of skin color. The old Jim Crow laws and other segregation rules, all of them created and enforced by Democrats, were certainly systematically racist. But all of those rules are gone. There is no intentional system, there is no governing body saying "Do this to blacks, but don't do this to non-blacks" or "accommodate whites in this way, but do not extend this accommodation to non-whites."
Certainly the simple fact that Asians, Jews and Nigerians are arrested much less often than whites show that no such "skin test" system exists anywhere in the US. Even Harvard (which famously denied Jewish and Asian students entrance, and even tracked its own Jewish students through the 1980s), admitted as much. The systems are gone, which means the forethought and expressed intent is gone. At most, all we have left is habit.
Habit is the result of a
previous logical sequence which, by its very definition, is no longer
being thought about. I am ruled by habit precisely because I am NOT thinking. For example, while Harvard opened up its entrance requirements so that Jews were as acceptable as any other kind of student, they did maintain the habit of tracking their Jewish students for decades. Why? Force of habit. They had established the system for a reason at the beginning of the 20th century, and continued it even after the reason no longer existed.
To say that a society has a habit is NOT
the same as saying society has a system. System implies rational
thought, it implies foresight and intent. Habit implies no rational
thought, nor foresight, nor even intent. Habit implies unthinking, knee-jerk response.
Habit might be what bureaucracies do, but insofar as a bureaucracy does it, that bureaucracy is not a system, it's just a convulsive reaction. It may be a pun, but it is also true: bureaucracies are considered "unthinking" and irrational for a reason. People who reject rational thought, or find it difficult and burdensome, embrace bureaucracy precisely because its habits replace the need for rational thought and rational thought is too much a participation in the divine nature, it is too much work, to embrace.
Unfortunately for those who wish to wage a war so as to unite their coalitions, "habitual racism" has not the power of "systematic racism". Precisely because "system" implies intent, "system" implies a legitimately bad actor. "Habit", on the other hand, implies lack of intent, lack of thought. Anyone can fall victim to habit. There is no bad actor to attack, no evil person around which we can coalesce, no malice to wipe out. The person who falls prey to a habit is barely a victim, and without victims there can be no war to unite our side.
But, given that there is literally no system of racism left to identify, all that is left is the vestiges of habit. If you want to talk about habitual racism, I'm not prepared to disagree. But systemic or systematic racism? That's ridiculous.
UPDATE:
Thomas Sowell, Larry Elder, Walter Williams and Coleman Hughes all question whether there is such a thing as systemic racism
Thursday, June 18, 2020
The End of Logic
As automation takes on more and more aspects of life, human beings will be boxed into smaller and smaller areas of activity. Paid work is increasingly circumscribed into that which is not, or cannot easily be, automated. Automation only works where systems exist. Computers excel at implementing systematic, logical thinking. They are not very good with non-systematic, emotional reaction.
Everything that is systematized will be automated because that's what computers do: they automate systems. Any systematic body of knowledge with rule-based procedures is subject to automation. Remember, people are the largest cost in any production system. Once an area is automated, once people are removed from the equation, the human work value associated with that area drops close to zero. Which means, as time goes on, humans can increasingly generate value only by engaging in areas where logical, systemic organization is not an advantage.
So, as automation advances, available job categories decrease. The primary job areas that will survive the current automation apocalypse will be in entertainment, as the explosion of Youtube entrepreneurs and social media "influencers" already demonstrates. But this won't last long. As people pour into the entertainment space, among the last spaces that cannot be automated, the income streams for entertainers will drop across the board. Too much product, not enough audience.
Thus, ironically, as the remorseless logic of computers take over various aspects of industry, the value of logic and systematic thinking in human interactions drops. Why should I train myself to think logically if the job which requires me to be logical is already automated by a machine, a machine which can do logic much more remorselessly, effortlessly and speedily than I can? Similarly, it is useless for me to train myself in logic if the only place I can earn money is in the entertainment space, that is, the only way I can earn money is by generating emotions. These twins, disincentive to be logical, incentive to be emotional, are even now driving society away from logical thought.
This is the world of Star Wars, where the robots do the logic, and all rigorous training goes into "feelings". "FEEL the Force, Luke!" The Apostle Luke "carefully investigated everything from the beginning", providing logical evidence of God's incarnation. The 20th century Luke trains only in feelings, refusing the Aristotelian law of non-contradiction. In the 21st century, Jesus is not God, He is a Sith Lord.
Just as technology lowered the social value of motherhood to essentially zero, so, technology will render the social value of logic obsolete. Society will become more and more subject to wild emotional swings because logic will no longer carry human economic value. Any logical, systematic approach to the universe, whether it be Aristotelian, Thomistic, even deconstructionist, is increasingly discarded as irrelevant within the human interaction space. While the people who move in this direction are to be pitied, the people who move in this direction are not wrong. Euclid alone may have looked on beauty bare, but the beauty of Euclid's logic, which has always been somewhat esoteric, is becoming increasingly ephemeral. Machines apply logic. Increasingly, people apply only emotion. Man is no longer homo sapiens, the creature of logic, reason, and it's fruit, wisdom, but now only homo motus, the being that can only feel and react.
Everything that is systematized will be automated because that's what computers do: they automate systems. Any systematic body of knowledge with rule-based procedures is subject to automation. Remember, people are the largest cost in any production system. Once an area is automated, once people are removed from the equation, the human work value associated with that area drops close to zero. Which means, as time goes on, humans can increasingly generate value only by engaging in areas where logical, systemic organization is not an advantage.
So, as automation advances, available job categories decrease. The primary job areas that will survive the current automation apocalypse will be in entertainment, as the explosion of Youtube entrepreneurs and social media "influencers" already demonstrates. But this won't last long. As people pour into the entertainment space, among the last spaces that cannot be automated, the income streams for entertainers will drop across the board. Too much product, not enough audience.
Thus, ironically, as the remorseless logic of computers take over various aspects of industry, the value of logic and systematic thinking in human interactions drops. Why should I train myself to think logically if the job which requires me to be logical is already automated by a machine, a machine which can do logic much more remorselessly, effortlessly and speedily than I can? Similarly, it is useless for me to train myself in logic if the only place I can earn money is in the entertainment space, that is, the only way I can earn money is by generating emotions. These twins, disincentive to be logical, incentive to be emotional, are even now driving society away from logical thought.
This is the world of Star Wars, where the robots do the logic, and all rigorous training goes into "feelings". "FEEL the Force, Luke!" The Apostle Luke "carefully investigated everything from the beginning", providing logical evidence of God's incarnation. The 20th century Luke trains only in feelings, refusing the Aristotelian law of non-contradiction. In the 21st century, Jesus is not God, He is a Sith Lord.
Just as technology lowered the social value of motherhood to essentially zero, so, technology will render the social value of logic obsolete. Society will become more and more subject to wild emotional swings because logic will no longer carry human economic value. Any logical, systematic approach to the universe, whether it be Aristotelian, Thomistic, even deconstructionist, is increasingly discarded as irrelevant within the human interaction space. While the people who move in this direction are to be pitied, the people who move in this direction are not wrong. Euclid alone may have looked on beauty bare, but the beauty of Euclid's logic, which has always been somewhat esoteric, is becoming increasingly ephemeral. Machines apply logic. Increasingly, people apply only emotion. Man is no longer homo sapiens, the creature of logic, reason, and it's fruit, wisdom, but now only homo motus, the being that can only feel and react.
Saturday, June 13, 2020
Kente and the Slave Masters
In order to represent their position in reference to George Floyd, Democrat leaders wore the kente cloth of African slave traders. Politifact has tried, and failed, to change the historical facts on this, facts which are quite, quite clear.
As the Ultimate History Project points out:
As the Ultimate History Project points out:
"While Kente cloth was a product of a global trade route which stretched from Asia through Europe to Africa, this cloth and the people also came to be associated with another global trade route---the slave trade. In fact, the history of the Ashanti people, who lived on the West Coast of Africa, is strongly tied to the history of the slave trade.
As was true of many pre-modern societies in Africa, Asia and Europe, the Ashanti practiced slavery. When Europeans, specifically the Portuguese, came into contact with the Ashanti during the sixteenth century, both Europeans and the Ashanti traded gold, ivory, and slaves."The University of Pittsburgh agrees, but notes that it is a part of the area's history that no one wants to acknowledge. History professor Rebecca Shumway wrote The Fante and the Transatlantic Slave Trade (University of Rochester Press). The university's review of her work includes this:
"While at the University of Ghana, Shumway studied with a Fante professor, John Kofi Fynn, who earned his PhD in the United Kingdom and wrote about Fante state formation. He was a proud teacher, a man of noble birth who was unafraid to critique Ghanaian politics and who often held class in a local pub. He rarely, however, covered Fante history and never even whispered about the slave trade. It was almost as if the slave trade didn't exist, recalls Shumway. The silence only made her more curious about those unspoken years....
In documenting an era when it was either enslave or be enslaved, Shumway's own march across the archives and fields of Fanteland reveals the light and the dark sides of Africans' agency in the slave trade. Here, the elite Asante were among the most powerful and wealthiest in West Africa, but they were also the main slave traders in Ghana. In the 18th century, their brilliant Kente cloth was woven with threads of silk, cotton, and wool— textiles imported from abroad and often paid for in human lives."In All You Need Is Love: The Peace Corps and the Spirit of the 1960s, by Elizabeth Cobbs Hoffman, the author notes:
The slave trade... brought treasure to warrior tribes like the Ashanti of Ghana, who displayed riches from the slave trade in gold furniture and regal kente cloth, in which they wove silk from the Orient together with native cotton. Adinkra cloth, also made by the Ashanti and decorated with their ancient symbols, even had a special marking for the lucrative traffic in captives: two interlocking squares meaning "You are the slave of him whose handcuffs you wear."
Wednesday, June 03, 2020
Suppressing the Rioters.
The 2nd Amendment says that
we are armed so we can form militias if we want.
Article 1, Section 8, Clause 15 says the militias are supposed to "execute the Laws of the Union, suppress Insurrections and repel Invasions."
So, the one thing the Constitution does NOT say, is that we have the right to bear arms to START an insurrection against the government.
On the other hand, the only time a sitting president ever personally led troops into battle was when President Washington mounted up and led troops into the field to suppress the Whiskey Rebellion. At no point did he disarm anyone, not even the men and women who were rebelling against the government.
Should the federal government suppress the rioters by calling forth the militia? Well, Washington's action certainly looks like precedent for that.
Over 80% of black men die at the hands of other black men. In America, black men constitute 6% of the population, but they comprise 50% of the murderers and 50% of the murder victims.
Corrupt, racist cops are a serious problem, a problem that should be dealt with and eliminated.
Article 1, Section 8, Clause 15 says the militias are supposed to "execute the Laws of the Union, suppress Insurrections and repel Invasions."
So, the one thing the Constitution does NOT say, is that we have the right to bear arms to START an insurrection against the government.
On the other hand, the only time a sitting president ever personally led troops into battle was when President Washington mounted up and led troops into the field to suppress the Whiskey Rebellion. At no point did he disarm anyone, not even the men and women who were rebelling against the government.
Should the federal government suppress the rioters by calling forth the militia? Well, Washington's action certainly looks like precedent for that.
Over 80% of black men die at the hands of other black men. In America, black men constitute 6% of the population, but they comprise 50% of the murderers and 50% of the murder victims.
Corrupt, racist cops are a serious problem, a problem that should be dealt with and eliminated.
But, the black community has much more serious problems than corrupt,
racist cops. If we saw riots, with widespread burning and looting, every
time a black man killed a black man, not a building in the black
community would be left standing today. Martin Luther King Jr. said it best. The black community needs better responses to their own violence.
Tuesday, June 02, 2020
A List of Looting
Seen on the web
Man stomped and stoned for trying to defend a bar from being looted
Destroying store and beating unarmed woman and her husband
Beating and stomping guy on the ground Santa Monica
Restaurant manager beaten and stomped for trying to defend his workplace
Stopping, beating and stomping a truck driver while protesters yell to kill him
Protesters attack a media member and then pummel him
Chasing guy and kicking him in the face for defending flag in Portland
Police officer beaten on the streets
Car runs over a cop
Protesters set homeless man’s belongings on fire
Throwing fireworks at the cops
Looting a FedEx truck then looter gets dragged when truck tries to escape
Chasing and beating guy with red had
Rioter sets himself on fire while trying to set a building on fire
Fireworks thrown into CNN hq / Police officers
Protester runs over the cops with an SUV
Destroying/looting/setting on fire Old Navy
Guardhouse in front of WH set on fire
Dozens of cars destroyed/torched near CNN hq – Atlanta
St Louis neighborhood on fire
Building on fire while self-proclaimed Mexicans say fuck white people
Destroying police SUV
Near a torched car audio speakers propaganda that all crime is legal
Destroying/looting bank in Montreal
Pharmacy destroyed/looted in Dallas
The remains of whole neighborhood destroyed
Destroying stores – Dallas
Destroying police SUV – Austin
Police SUV torched LA
Looting target/beating disabled person in Minneapolis
Future apartment building destroyed with fire in Minneapolis
Looting pharmacy – Minneapolis
Destroying business in Minneapolis
More businesses on fire in Minneapolis
Ransacked Target Minneapolis
Building burning in neighborhood Minneapolis
Boy drove car into a store
Post office looted/destroyed
Minneapolis third police precinct set on fire
More buildings on fire Minneapolis
Autoparts Store getting destroyed/looted
Autozone on fire
Looting in Minneapolis
Adults loot with their children
Cars torched – Minneapolis
Looting an ATM in Minneapolis
Remains of destroyed/looted Cub Foods
Business and stores on fire in Minneapolis
Brenda Lenton’s home and belongings destroyed by a fire – Minneapolis
Aftermath of whole neighborhood being set on fire in Minneapolis
Nashville city hall set on fire while rioters cheer
Fox reporters chased out with projectiles thrown at them near White House
Attacking drivers Tulsa, Okla
Setting St. John’s Church on fire
Destroying/looting stores Montreal
Destroying/looting store in Downtown Oakland
Bar destroyed/Trying to loot a safe
Stolen Bulldozer in Oakland
Two police SUVs torched in Seattle
Multiple cars torched in Philadelphia
Ohio Statehouse being destroyed
Trying to breach Justice Center/central police precinct Portland
Destroying/Looting Justice Center Portland
Looting small business in Portland
Destroying/looting small business Portland
Looting Louis Vuitton store
Driving stolen cars into stores – Portland
Destroying Chase Bank – Portland
Setting Chase Bank on fire – Portland
Destroying/Looting Apple Store – Portland
Looting in St. Paul
Looting Shoe Store
Looting apple store
Looting North Face store – NYC
Nike Store being looted – NYC
Looting in Union Square – NYC
Looting T-mobile store
Shop owner saves store from looters with a firearm
Business owner defends his store from looters with a firearm
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