Chad Denton

Oh God, her. I'll never forgive her for hating Ken Russell.

I do! I also remember being confused as a kid because the "reformed" Brotherhood of Evil Mutants that became a group of mutants working for the U.S. government was also named Freedom Force.

And it's not always in obvious ways. No Elizabeth I might mean no Anglican Church and a more extreme Protestantism takes hold in England, which could mean no Puritans decide to leave England, which changes the entire course of the English settlement of North America...

So basically my grand theory is "most people are right about what drives history, but no one is completely right." Maybe that sounds like an easy way out, but still, it always seems like "It's complicated and situational" is the best answer for many things.

Maybe someone might have come along and organized more expeditions from Greenland to the Americas, introducing European pathogens to indigenous American populations centuries sooner and without the resources and organization to colonize, but that person died carrying out a raid or from a disease.

I even will sometimes subscribe to a sort of Neo-Great Person/Awful Person theory, at least partially. The world really would be unrecognizable without Jesus, Muhammad, Joan of Arc, FDR, Elizabeth I, Einstein, maybe even cultural figures like, I don't know, Shirley Jackson or William Gaines.

What's my grand theory of history, no one is asking? Honestly, I probably come closest to believing geography and climate are kind of important depending on the situation, but so are class/economics and social/cultural forces.

The book is just the same old geographic determinism, but with a little more self-awareness over the racist and neo-colonialist implications of that determinism and maybe getting a little closer than Diamond to the theoretical limits of that determinism.

...Portuguese sailors working out how to sail down the coast of Africa at exactly the right time (or the worst possible time, depending on your point of view), the fall of Constantinople triggering a push to find trade routes that could bypass the Ottomans, etc.

That said I think it is partially geography and climate but more importantly a number of historical accidents, like the Greenland colony failing (something I think Morris doesn't address nearly enough), China getting unified but Europe remaining divided in highly competitive states...

Right, well, I don't go so far as some people and think the question of why the West took over the world in the 1800s is inherently problematic. I just don't think it's as important or interesting as some other questions.

I just really outright hate positivism and futurism, think that they're almost always wrong, and history getting mixed up with them is less like chocolate and peanut butter but more like broken glass and peanut butter. Anyway...what was I talking about?

The cover to Ian Morris' WHY THE WEST RULES - FOR NOW.

The good news is I got my study guide job back. The bad news is I have to write on yet another Jared Diamond-esque "data-driven" history about why the West "won" that has a conclusion dripping with nonsense about technological progress being the biggest thing about history and the Singularity.

The responses to this article are why I don't like "YIMBYs" anymore than "NIMBYs."

"Okay, our voters are morons or don't pay attention. We only have to leave the economy alone, not screw over our new Hispanic voters, and not start a war in the Middle East."
"So we should Institute 19th century trade policies, terrorize and round up anyone with brown skin, and attack Iran. Got it!"

Admittedly it is the best case scenario but it's also the dumbest, so I think it is the likeliest.

This is all going to end with Trump just abruptly and suddenly announcing he made a deal with Iran and then we just move on, even if we do actually have troops in the Middle East, isn't it?

Remember that Biden ran on restoration—an easier goal then—and basically shot his (and Harris’) project in the foot by (1) backing genocide in Gaza and (2) not putting Trump in jail. Then Trump won and proceeded to destroy US soft power while using military power for blatantly imperial purposes.

Thank you! That's what I get for missing the last conclave.

i don't care about any arguments against this. right now the sum total of my political advocacy is: crush the Republicans and make them pay. i don't care what comes after because until we do that nothing better is possible.

I apologize on behalf of my people, gay men.

I can’t believe how stupid everything is

Purely anecdotal, etc., but thank God this isn't happening in Pittsburgh as far as I know (it's bad enough that, as a migrant into Yenzerland, I have to watch out for the notorious "Pittsburgh left").

Trump officially declares Iran a state sponsor of wrongful detention. No really. With a straight face. I swear.

They're going to write books about all the big brain moves of this gang of imbeciles and among them will be "Spending a year trying to kill renewable energy and then launching a war that sends oil prices soaring"

Well, gas is expensive, and food is expensive, and we’re doing a war nobody wants, but at least there are no jobs

So I guess this means that the plague of annoying people on social media, who will treat a wealthy Congressperson having to retire as exactly equivalent to someone in their 60s not being able to get a well-paying office job, isn't going to end anytime soon.

Wikipedia Banned This Photo For Being "Too Funny" YouTube video by Tor's Cabinet of Curiosities

I do rather enjoy stories of the bizarre, epically non-consequential controversies that emerge in places where autistic people tend to gather, so this exploration of the war over Wikipedia's "Guy standing sitting" photo is right up my alley.
youtu.be/A48oR4Zc9ik?...

At the very least they really don't seem to understand that other countries also have their own self-interest and national pride.

“MAGA’s fundamental shared quality is a total lack of theory of mind for other people” is a theory that keeps getting validated by reality - look at almost every decision they’ve made in the war with Iran, and how they seem constantly surprised by the unanticipated actions of other parties.