The Tom Swift Academy is devoted to implementing Point 15. Even while wider society slides into Paleolithic oblivion, I do believe it is both feasible and worthwhile to reverse these trends at a local scale, preferably within those flyover states where the cost of living is still bearable. Creating alternatives to the degenerate oral monoculture will be a necessity if a high level of technological development is to be maintained. It is unlikely that artificial intelligence will replace the more physical aspects of technical careers, as it tends to perform poorly when confronted directly with the caprice and variety of real world environments. Therefore, in order to build a corpus of engineers necessary to colonize other planets, or even to develop fusion power, it will be of paramount importance to promote a positive technical culture within the middle ranks of men .
I would disagree with Point 18, as low skilled immigration tends to disincentivize automation, as well as promote agricultural consolidation. As is demonstrated in the history of medieval Europe and the American North, labor shortages are one of the most potent drivers of technological development. This issue will be explored further in an essay regarding the still-birth of Greco-Roman industrial technology. In the Nebraskan context, low-skilled migration has led to the expansion of modern-day latifundae in the form of agribusinesses at the expense of small, independent farmers. This has led to most Nebraskans moving to the suburbs and becoming button-clicking drones, abandoning their traditional way of life.
It's not just the reparations poison pill, but also your old "Move the capital to the Midwest" proposal as well.
Also, to piggyback no 20:
On every US moral awakening the US is not a rational foreign policy actor.
Solving no 17 (Reparations pill & move capital to Midwest) should be a central issue to the US today.
---------
Also, if I would add for no 21:
Florida should be the center of US relations to non-WEIRD areas / cultures, similar to British Indian colonial officers are forced to learn Urdu and overwhelmingly came from Scotland / Ireland + Chinese diplomats to SEA are overwhelmingly came from the provinces.
This is for naked interest reason alone:
**Trump is INSANELY good for third world countries, Arab states, Indonesia etc. Because he didn't whine about human rights.** This is your own transactionalism / honor culture in practice; I just recommend how you can expand that to foreign policy
As for the dealing with fellow Western countries like Europe & Canada, the Northeast Puritan establishment are expert at this to the point where they identify with Western European countries more than their own countryman in the Midwest - which is why Trump pissed them off so much.
If anything these people need check and realization that they are not the center of the universe and has to represent America somewhat - hence "Move the capital to the Midwest".
No, no, there's a reason I mention Florida specifically.
Because as Wally B says Florida is one place where Puritan WASP morality makes zero sense, and this is the very key to understanding why despite everything Trump is very good for Arab States & Indonesia: Because Trump don't whine about human rights.
That WASP Aryan morality literally CANNOT work in places like SEA - you'll genociding the entire area (You don't have enough nukes for this) or getting the entire SEA to China in a silver platter.
So my recommendation:
The US need a place for its people to learn how to deal with non-WEIRD cultures. Florida is the best "bridge" for this.
- Put all diplomat to non-WEIRD countries training centers & policymaking training centers for dealing with non-WEIRD cultures to Florida
- Research centers to non-WEIRD cultures = Move to Florida universities
- Indopacific Command, 7th Fleet etc generalship & general staff -> Overwhelmingly staff with Floridians
- Diplomat to Arab states & SEA countries: Overwhelmingly Floridians
- EAP (East Asia, Southeast Asia & Pacific) directorate in State Department = Overwhelmingly Floridians
This is the same logic with
- Britain used the Scots & Irish to govern India, then force these Scots & Irish to learn Urdu
- Chinese diplomats to SEA overwhelmingly came from the provinces
Wouldn't call it the Brahmin Question. Indians from all castes who come to the US are highly selected, and some aren't even Hindu and therefore don't even believe in caste. The Indian government released a document recently where it said it should use the influence of its diaspora in the Anglophone world to serve New Delhi's strategic interests. So, there's going to be a group of elite diaspora Indians who are uber liberal national propositionalists in America but who support the right-wing BJP and Hindu nationalism in India. The Indian document suggested the Israel lobby as a model.
If we don't choose our beliefs then we shouldn't listen to any argument since beliefs are not chosen, just an automatic process. If we can be influenced, the "non-choice" of not reading is the only thing that can prevent the automatic process of influence. But really, determist philosophy runs into this problem of what exactly do you think you're doing when thinking through and arguing rationally for things if you negate the reflective capacity to do so as your ground of the psyche? It is nonsensical in that way.
Your analysis is excellent, however your solutions are short-term bandaids to keep the corpse of Western Civ shambling along for another generation or 3.
The only long-term solution is to unite into 1 people, with similar ethics and expectations. The only way to do that is racial nationalism. Everything else still boils down to individuals and tiny groups fighting to get one over on all the other groups, with the result of what we see now in the West.
Your writing is frenetic, like you're on a permanent coke-bender, but the words you use are a delight.
That said, this statement in your number 2:
"Platonic forms don’t exist in any objective sense, and the same applies to all categories, aggregative heuristics, and even contiguous objects as such...";
and this one, immediately following:
"...in the language of materialism (which is to say the scientific map with the greatest explanatory / predictive precision—clearly a wholly different thing from the map of lived experience) the cosmos is basically just a frothing orgy of quarks and gluons and strings..."
are self-contradictory: "materialism", "cosmos", "quarks", and "gluons", are all "categories", "aggregative heuristics"(??!!), and/or "contiguous objects".
Unless, of course, you have recondite definitions for all of those terms. Which I doubt.
But that is as may be: perhaps you've read Bas van Fraassen. Empiricist, par excellence: every scientific theory, or "paradigm", is just a story we tell ourselves about what we (think we) perceive.
Where are the hard truths? Much of what you say seems uncontroversial, especially within the context of this platform. Furthermore, much of what you say doesn't seem to be affirmed by yourself very strongly, revealing that these are soft truths, if they're true at all.
The Tom Swift Academy is devoted to implementing Point 15. Even while wider society slides into Paleolithic oblivion, I do believe it is both feasible and worthwhile to reverse these trends at a local scale, preferably within those flyover states where the cost of living is still bearable. Creating alternatives to the degenerate oral monoculture will be a necessity if a high level of technological development is to be maintained. It is unlikely that artificial intelligence will replace the more physical aspects of technical careers, as it tends to perform poorly when confronted directly with the caprice and variety of real world environments. Therefore, in order to build a corpus of engineers necessary to colonize other planets, or even to develop fusion power, it will be of paramount importance to promote a positive technical culture within the middle ranks of men .
https://swiftenterprises.substack.com/p/tom-swift-academy
I would disagree with Point 18, as low skilled immigration tends to disincentivize automation, as well as promote agricultural consolidation. As is demonstrated in the history of medieval Europe and the American North, labor shortages are one of the most potent drivers of technological development. This issue will be explored further in an essay regarding the still-birth of Greco-Roman industrial technology. In the Nebraskan context, low-skilled migration has led to the expansion of modern-day latifundae in the form of agribusinesses at the expense of small, independent farmers. This has led to most Nebraskans moving to the suburbs and becoming button-clicking drones, abandoning their traditional way of life.
This whole post could have been written in one word: nihilism. The rest is just pseudo-intellectual bloviating.
> On no 17
It's not just the reparations poison pill, but also your old "Move the capital to the Midwest" proposal as well.
Also, to piggyback no 20:
On every US moral awakening the US is not a rational foreign policy actor.
Solving no 17 (Reparations pill & move capital to Midwest) should be a central issue to the US today.
---------
Also, if I would add for no 21:
Florida should be the center of US relations to non-WEIRD areas / cultures, similar to British Indian colonial officers are forced to learn Urdu and overwhelmingly came from Scotland / Ireland + Chinese diplomats to SEA are overwhelmingly came from the provinces.
This is for naked interest reason alone:
**Trump is INSANELY good for third world countries, Arab states, Indonesia etc. Because he didn't whine about human rights.** This is your own transactionalism / honor culture in practice; I just recommend how you can expand that to foreign policy
I would expand your proposed No. 21 further.
The West Coast should be our portal to the Asian world.
The Upper Midwest/Northeast should cultivate transatlantic ties with Europe.
As for the dealing with fellow Western countries like Europe & Canada, the Northeast Puritan establishment are expert at this to the point where they identify with Western European countries more than their own countryman in the Midwest - which is why Trump pissed them off so much.
If anything these people need check and realization that they are not the center of the universe and has to represent America somewhat - hence "Move the capital to the Midwest".
No, no, there's a reason I mention Florida specifically.
Because as Wally B says Florida is one place where Puritan WASP morality makes zero sense, and this is the very key to understanding why despite everything Trump is very good for Arab States & Indonesia: Because Trump don't whine about human rights.
That WASP Aryan morality literally CANNOT work in places like SEA - you'll genociding the entire area (You don't have enough nukes for this) or getting the entire SEA to China in a silver platter.
So my recommendation:
The US need a place for its people to learn how to deal with non-WEIRD cultures. Florida is the best "bridge" for this.
- Put all diplomat to non-WEIRD countries training centers & policymaking training centers for dealing with non-WEIRD cultures to Florida
- Research centers to non-WEIRD cultures = Move to Florida universities
- Indopacific Command, 7th Fleet etc generalship & general staff -> Overwhelmingly staff with Floridians
- Diplomat to Arab states & SEA countries: Overwhelmingly Floridians
- EAP (East Asia, Southeast Asia & Pacific) directorate in State Department = Overwhelmingly Floridians
This is the same logic with
- Britain used the Scots & Irish to govern India, then force these Scots & Irish to learn Urdu
- Chinese diplomats to SEA overwhelmingly came from the provinces
All this, particularly #18 and #19 stem from #1, i.e., from the fact that you are banging a jewette.
Wouldn't call it the Brahmin Question. Indians from all castes who come to the US are highly selected, and some aren't even Hindu and therefore don't even believe in caste. The Indian government released a document recently where it said it should use the influence of its diaspora in the Anglophone world to serve New Delhi's strategic interests. So, there's going to be a group of elite diaspora Indians who are uber liberal national propositionalists in America but who support the right-wing BJP and Hindu nationalism in India. The Indian document suggested the Israel lobby as a model.
There is no honorable way to play the Holocaust Card, for obvious reasons.
hard truth: this is dumb as hell
oh man i just said i was going to apply stoicism to comment sections failed once again
If we don't choose our beliefs then we shouldn't listen to any argument since beliefs are not chosen, just an automatic process. If we can be influenced, the "non-choice" of not reading is the only thing that can prevent the automatic process of influence. But really, determist philosophy runs into this problem of what exactly do you think you're doing when thinking through and arguing rationally for things if you negate the reflective capacity to do so as your ground of the psyche? It is nonsensical in that way.
Your analysis is excellent, however your solutions are short-term bandaids to keep the corpse of Western Civ shambling along for another generation or 3.
The only long-term solution is to unite into 1 people, with similar ethics and expectations. The only way to do that is racial nationalism. Everything else still boils down to individuals and tiny groups fighting to get one over on all the other groups, with the result of what we see now in the West.
I'm a new reader, and a fellow logophile.
Your writing is frenetic, like you're on a permanent coke-bender, but the words you use are a delight.
That said, this statement in your number 2:
"Platonic forms don’t exist in any objective sense, and the same applies to all categories, aggregative heuristics, and even contiguous objects as such...";
and this one, immediately following:
"...in the language of materialism (which is to say the scientific map with the greatest explanatory / predictive precision—clearly a wholly different thing from the map of lived experience) the cosmos is basically just a frothing orgy of quarks and gluons and strings..."
are self-contradictory: "materialism", "cosmos", "quarks", and "gluons", are all "categories", "aggregative heuristics"(??!!), and/or "contiguous objects".
Unless, of course, you have recondite definitions for all of those terms. Which I doubt.
But that is as may be: perhaps you've read Bas van Fraassen. Empiricist, par excellence: every scientific theory, or "paradigm", is just a story we tell ourselves about what we (think we) perceive.
Works for the physical stuff, anyway.
20 <s>Hard Truths</s>Greatest Hits
Having women pay for their longer lifespan could be a game changer.
Where are the hard truths? Much of what you say seems uncontroversial, especially within the context of this platform. Furthermore, much of what you say doesn't seem to be affirmed by yourself very strongly, revealing that these are soft truths, if they're true at all.
you ever get tired of repeating yourself?
Never