Here’s an interesting talk between two Trump-hostile liberals (director of Thiel Capital Eric Weinstein and novelist Bret Easton Ellis) who nonetheless have figured out how badly Trump Derangement Syndrome and Social Justice has screwed their side.
A few interesting points, most from Weinstein:
A mention of Weinstein’s essay on Kayfabe, professional wrestling’s shared fake reality. From that essay:
Because professional wrestling is a simulated sport, all competitors who face each other in the ring are actually close collaborators who must form a closed system (called “a promotion”) sealed against outsiders. With external competitors generally excluded, antagonists are chosen from within the promotion and their ritualized battles are largely negotiated, choreographed, and rehearsed at a significantly decreased risk of injury or death. With outcomes predetermined under Kayfabe, betrayal in wrestling comes not from engaging in unsportsmanlike conduct, but by the surprise appearance of actual sporting behavior. Such unwelcome sportsmanship which “breaks Kayfabe” is called “shooting” to distinguish it from the expected scripted deception called “working”.
Were Kayfabe to become part of our toolkit for the twenty-first century, we would undoubtedly have an easier time understanding a world in which investigative journalism seems to have vanished and bitter corporate rivals cooperate on everything from joint ventures to lobbying efforts. Perhaps confusing battles between “freshwater” Chicago macro economists and Ivy league “Saltwater” theorists could be best understood as happening within a single “orthodox promotion” given that both groups suffered no injury from failing (equally) to predict the recent financial crisis. The decades old battle in theoretical physics over bragging rights between the “string” and “loop” camps would seem to be an even more significant example within the hard sciences of a collaborative intra-promotion rivalry given the apparent failure of both groups to produce a quantum theory of gravity.
What makes Kayfabe remarkable is that it gives us potentially the most complete example of the general process by which a wide class of important endeavors transition from failed reality to successful fakery.
Mention of preference falsification. “You needed to say how horrible [Trump] was if you were part of the institutional milieu, or if you needed to keep a job or weren’t on the wrong side or your clients.”
Here’s a long money quote:
The dominant idealism of a time is usually a false narrative about how people can make money during that time. ‘We Are The World'” as a portrayal of concern about Africa, the poor in Asia, what can we do to uplift people. But really it was a story about if we don’t break our bonds to our fellow countrymen, if we don’t make sure that we can not have to take care of Appalachia and the poor in the South and the downtrodden in our inner cities, we’re not going to be able to make money. The way to make money is to move operations overseas, to keep [your] headquarters wherever it’s tax advantaged. There was some process by which globalization was the betrayal of your countrymen. And that thing was portrayed as the Davos idealism. And the Davos idealism is cratering. Because it was a wealth transfer program posing as a philanthropic effort. And so the reason that nobody wants the Clintons, nobody wants the Democratic Party. Nobody wants the sanctimonious nonsense about, you know, our thirst for justice in our hatred of oppression is, is that this is a search for a constituency. That’s large enough to get people elected who can continue to keep people making money.
“He knows what the inference patterns of the left are.”
“The institutional left [forcibly] transfuse one group to supply blood to another.”
Reservoir Dogs: “Mr. Blonde is the psychopath who has shot up the jewelry store. They can’t figure out who they can trust. The only person you can trust is the psychopath, because the psychopath isn’t under control. Well, Trump came through as Mr. Blonde. The one person we know isn’t under institutional control is Donald Trump because he would never say those things. So now we’ve got a new paradigm where the only trustworthy person is the least trustworthy person.”
“You can’t wake people up because they’re dying to get back to the process of making money by betraying their fellow countrymen. The globalization thing came to an end. There’s no new idea about how to make money, right. And the pyramid schemes are collapsing.”
Ellis talks about how freedom of speech has become so constrained by leftists shibboleths. “I can’t say this, I can’t express myself…this is maddening. I can’t live!” And how many people confided to him secretly that they were going to vote for Trump, even though they could never say it in public.
“So Trump is going to hit this thing over and over again, the left is programmed to say certain things, to defend certain things. If you have to make the point that there is absolutely zero connection whatsoever between Islam and terror, there is no connection whatsoever, zero, it’s an illusion, somebody can hit that all day long, every day.”
“There is, there was once upon a time, a heuristic that said the best way to have a multicultural society is that you have to have some load bearing fictions. Like all religions are equally problematic in all ways. There’s no way that’s true…As a result, those heuristics hardened into dogmas.”
“‘Why are those everybody complaining about the trade deals we inked since they helped people in Mexico?’ As if American voters are gonna vote to help Mexican peasants. I mean, it’s great if Mexican peasants are helped, but I just don’t see the lowest echelons of American society having as their top priority, helping Mexicans with their vote. I mean, none of this makes any sense.”
Ellis: “Trump presented something extremely new into the conversation and the left couldn’t deal with it. The media couldn’t deal with it. I always felt that they had kind of dealt with them in a neutral way and just reported what he did without all his hyperbole. I don’t know if he would have won necessarily.”
Weinstein (in response): “All just, smart, honest people had to be rejected from the institutional layer. Universal expulsion of people who will not go along with the gated institution. My theory about this [is] that we grew very quickly in a very stable way. That was totally anomalous post world war II to about 1972, and every single institution that you see has an expectation of that kind of growth continuing. And so what happened is, is that all of those institutions, when they went pathological, they became Ponzi schemes and you needed to have a group of people in that institution who would not reveal the Ponzi scheme. And so effectively our expert class has been selected for as the people who will not blow the whistle on the fact that they’re lying.”
“It’s easy to be Trump. It is. But the only problem is is that if you beat Trump in the way that’s easy to beat Trump, you will not service the people with second and third homes in the Hamptons. And so those people are saying, well, I wasn’t thinking of spending that much to beat Trump.”
“Do you, do you really want nine conservative Supreme court justices? If you do, if that’s what excites you, I highly recommend talking about reparations for slavery.”
I have significant ideological disagreements with Weinstein on various issues, but his analysis of how Democratic dogma, institutional hypocrisy and Trump Derangement Syndrome have driven the left insane is insightful.
Nancy Pelosi says she wants to be Speaker again. How nice of her to fire up the Republican base for midterms…
Democratic advantage on generic congressional ballots down to 1.2%. And that’s from Reuters, which is not known to be particularly Republican or Trump friendly…
I’m thinking that the Democrats who are making such a big deal out of these ads really don’t themselves believe in democracy. They have been going on and on for a year and a half about how Donald Trump shouldn’t be President. Personally, I want to believe in democracy, and what I saw back in November 2016 is that the American people voted Donald Trump into office. I accept that he is rightfully President because he won the election. It bothers me tremendously that so many people won’t do that. I think they do not believe in democracy. And I know they are leaning very hard into the argument that what happened wasn’t real democracy. Look at those stupid ads they’ve made such a big deal about!
AND: Please don’t tell me about Hillary Clinton winning the popular vote. What if Donald Trump had held rallies in upstate New York and various places in California, etc. etc.? He won the election that was held. She won an imaginary election that he wasn’t competing in.
Baghdad now has thriving night life and bars again. Plus men sport hairstyles that look like they’re auditioning to play the next alien race on Star Trek. Also this: “As the war against ISIS wound down, [Iraqi Prime Minister Haider al-]Abadi began removing the drab, ugly concrete blast walls that once divided neighborhoods. The government is moving many of these barriers to the Syrian border, where it is creating a wall to keep out ISIS militants.” (Hat tip: Instapundit.)
Bret Easton Ellis on Kayne West’s redpilling: “As someone who considers themselves a disillusioned Gen-X’er, I think there IS a backlash brewing against leftist hysteria…What I used to semi-align myself with has no answers for anything right now, just constant bitching and finding ways to delegitimize an election.” And if you can’t trust the author of American Psycho to offer unbiased political commentary, who can you trust?
“Cultural appropriation is not a glitch of American life. It’s a feature. It’s part of what makes the country great. We take your culture, we get rid of the oppression, the mass murder, the slavery, the intransigent poverty and the endless internecine wars. We keep the pasta and the funny hats.”
Uber software decided pedestrian was a false positive. Result: Dead pedestrian.
Since Dick’s Sporting Goods has decided to lobby for gun control (just how does that increase shareholder value for a sporting goods company?), Springfield Armory has cut ties with them.
Now some links from the “Old News Is So Exciting!” file:
Since I was distracted primary week by a dying dog, this bit of news slipped under the radar and I only recently realized I forgot to report it: Democratic State Rep. Dawnna Dukes went down in flames back in March, along with fellow Democratic state reps Roberto Alonzo of Dallas, Tomas Uresti (brother of convicted felon and former state senator Carlos Uresti) of San Antonio, and Diana Arevalo of San Antonio.
From 2015: “Police find 3,700 knives, satanic shrine in mobile home of Florida woman who tried stabbing an officer.” I think that’s taking your cosplay too far. Also, unless your ID card says “Sarah Kerrigan,” you don’t get to be the Queen of Blades…
This Penny Arcade post is actually from several years ago. I thought it was a swell piece of writing then, and since Tycho relinked to it recently, I read it again, and still think it’s a swell piece of writing. I commend it to your attention.