RT @KYuga2020: @curtdoolittle @bobby_dread Women are no more virtuous then men, they just hide their nihilism and venality behind men for p…
Source date (UTC): 2019-08-13 13:32:21 UTC
Original post: https://twitter.com/i/web/status/1161269259491860485
THE RUSSIAN SYSTEM
by Igor Rogov
Russian system is still poorly understood in the west. De-facto it is a rule of a small pool of families, who are made of Nomenclatura, shaped in Brezhnev era, or at least vast majority of it, their children and relatives, and their immediate confidants, forming extended clans, somewhat resembling what Ibn Khaldun wrote about. Secondary (or primary, depending on your angle of view) to that is a framework of power, created by what used to be KGB, which underwent curious transmutation and returned as FSB + plethora of “siloviki” or semi-private institutions of enforcement.
Enforcement of what? Certainly not of the law. Law in Russia is fundamentally a pretext, an excuse to persecute those who challenge the ruling elite, which does not and will never follow their own laws, – this is again has to be understood better from Ibn Khaldun ingenious point of view, rather that from modern Western.
Russia on a surface looks like slightly odd imitation of the West. Yet it is but a theatrical decoration.
Yet the further, the more the West itself begins to resemble Russia, so in a few decades everyone has to study Ibn Khaldun, not Spenser and Mill, in order to understand what the hell is going on.
Source date (UTC): 2019-08-07 15:50:58 UTC
Original post: https://gab.com/curtd/posts/102576492245643716
ON ITALY’S NEED FOR SEPARATION
by Francesco Principi
In Italy, the constant increase in public debt, the unstoppable economic decline, the moral breakdown of the ruling class, the political vacuum that has been happening for four decades now, pose the question of productive areas.
The North of the Peninsula with the awareness of being not only the most productive part of the country, but also the most damaged by the current institutional organizations.
The real fracture in Italy is not between the right and the left, but between those who filled the bag and those who emptied it, between those who produced taxes and those who consumed them.
The division is easily identifiable from a geographical point of view, in short, between North and South. In fact, beyond the current rhetoric, after more than a century and a half since unification, the two parts of the country still seem extremely distant.
For the centralized and Jacobin Italian state the question is simple in its essence: that underground river of money that flows constantly towards the south must not be interrupted. In fact, each year more than 85 billion euros leave the northern and central-northern regions and end up feeding unproductive consumption and political rents in the South.
This fact is destroying the most productive part of the Peninsula and prevents the economic and cultural development of southern Italy, which through its subsidized economy represents an inexhaustible resource of votes and consents.
Source date (UTC): 2019-08-07 15:50:38 UTC
Original post: https://gab.com/curtd/posts/102576490938806297
IBN KHALDUN’S TRIBAL VS WESTERN STATES
by Igor Rogov
The major distinction Russian scholars make between Ibn Khaldun description of his reality (and by extension, reality in post-USSR) and the so-called West:
Ibn Khaldun notes the most important structures within Caliphate: Asabiyyah, Mulk, Davla. Davla could be translated as “State” but this leads to misconceptions when read by the westerner. Western State (or Stato) is distinct from Davla.
State is (ideally) neutral and is powered by self-evolving law system, mechanically converting the reality into the set of rules. The Machiavellian ideal Prince (and American president) simply has to watch and adjust the balance of powers, so no one could cease and destroy this wonderful machinery. All other tasks are secondary.
Davla is categorically different. It is powered by an impulse to dominate by the ruling elite (Asabiyyah is not exactly the tribal unity, but more like a passion – a will to rule the world by a warring tribe).
Mulk is something special too. It is a sovereignty enforced by violence and nothing much else, keeping the Davla/Caliphate in dynamic unity. There are no “sovereign borders” in Western understanding of this, – only the dynamic, shifting line, depending on the current level of Mulk.
Source date (UTC): 2019-08-07 15:47:08 UTC
Original post: https://gab.com/curtd/posts/102576477163338546
DYSGENICS IN THE USA AND UK REAL DECLINE IS 1.23/DECADE
Woodley, Michael A. (2015). “How fragile is our intellect? Estimating losses in general intelligence due to both selection and mutation accumulation”. Personality and Individual Differences. 75: 80–84. doi:10.1016/j.paid.2014.10.047.
HIGHLIGHTS
•g Losses due to dysgenic selection in nine US and UK studies are meta-analyzed.
•A decline of .39 points per decade is found.
•Mutation load should enhance losses due to selection.
•Each year of paternal age adds 2 new mutations and reduces offspring g by .084 points.
•Combining selection and mutation losses reveals decadal g decline of 1.23 points.
ABSTRACT
Two dysgenic models of declining general intelligence have been proposed. The first posits that since the Industrial Revolution those with low g have had a reproductive advantage over those with high g. The second posits that relaxed purifying selection against deleterious mutations in modern populations has led to g declining due to mutation accumulation. Here, a meta-analytic estimate of the decline due to selection is computed across nine US and UK studies, revealing a loss of .39 points per decade (combined N = 202,924). By combining findings from a high-precision study of the effects of paternal age on offspring g with a study of paternal age and offspring de novo mutation numbers, it is proposed that, 70 de novo mutations per familial generation should reduce offspring g by 2.94 points, or .84 points per decade. Combining the selection and mutation accumulation losses yields a potential overall dysgenic loss of 1.23 points per decade, with upper and lower bound values ranging from 1.92 to .53 points per decade. This estimate is close to those from studies employing the secular slowing of simple reaction time as a potential indicator of declining g, consistent with predictions that mutation accumulation may play a role in these findings.
Source date (UTC): 2019-08-07 15:45:52 UTC
Original post: https://gab.com/curtd/posts/102576472174471993
THE REASON AMERICANS ALWAYS BACK THE SAUDIS
by Anonymous
Oil is traded in US dollars primarily as a handshake and security contract between Saudi Arabia and USA since the 1970’s. World Trade of oil in US dollars keeps US dollar strong and inflation low in USA, what Americans can buy for a US dollar.
The countries holding most of the gas in the world are thinly populated countries like Qatar and Saudi Arabia, their rulers need US blessings to survive. Since the petrol producers demand payments in US dollars ( In reality they do not have that much need for US dollars), all other countries from Africa to Asia have need for US dollars to pay for oil.
So US issues trillions of dollars of debt in US treasuries which results in lot of currency in the market that should drive inflation in USA. But these oil producers suck up US treasury debt keeping US dollar the king. Other countries chase US dollar again keeping demand for US dollar high.
Imagine if world oil trade moved away from US dollar, you will have trillions of dollars who nobody suddenly needs. USA has a policy to keep demand for US dollar high in the world. This helps Americans live in low inflation and almost zero interest environment. It’s been this monetary system for a long time. Only one that can fix it is not even USA, it is GCC (Gulf Cooperation Council). It will take long time for another currency to take place of USD.
Source date (UTC): 2019-08-07 15:41:31 UTC
Original post: https://gab.com/curtd/posts/102576455071529008
WHY IS OIL PRICED IN DOLLARS (AND WHY DOES IRAN WANT TO CHANGE THAT?)
by Michael Kosh
Oil is priced in dollars because through Bretton Woods the dollar was pegged to gold and everything else was essentially pegged or floated to the dollar. The world was flooded with dollars after WWII which partially led to the present American consumerism, but it also enabled the world to essentially use the dollar as they would gold. Reserves soon played a role and in order to maintain stability the gold window was closed and eventually the US went off the gold standard all together. In the meantime though, oil, which is a global commodity, was traded using the dollar which drastically simplified the whole system. The system has remained in place due to inertia.
In order to change the currency used, the world would have to be flooded with a different currency (which doesn’t make sense since the US has the world’s largest economy except for perhaps the Euro which is extremely unstable) and while the Fed may whit away the value of the dollar, it’s highly unlikely that it will default and therefore it is not susceptible realistically to any speculative attacks. While currencies such as the Euro hold a substantial percentage of reserve holdings, the dollar is still THE reserve currency and those holding dollars wouldn’t want to see their holdings drop in value from a drop in demand (it’s bad enough for them that QE3 is skyrocketing the supply and at some point it could possibly be abandoned, but not until a certain level of desperation kicks in).
Under the present circumstances, the only realistic alternative would be to have a somewhat balanced basket of currencies including the dollar be the drivers of world trade, but then do you buy oil with yen one week and pounds the next? A basket of currencies is inherently unstable from a global perspective since the constant shifting of portfolios would add volatility to the market. Granted, the Federal Reserve has somewhat of a blank check, but there is no perfect system. If not the dollar, what currency? In addition, how do you transfer from a system based on one currency to one based on another smoothly?
An analogy I would make is look at Russia with the New Economic Policy in 1921 and then following the collapse of the Soviet Union. In one case the shift was to a command economy and the other it was a shift away (although Putin still has his hands in the oil industry through companies like Gazprom) but both put considerable strains on the economy. This actually brings up another point though, if the shift away from the dollar were to occur it would likely stem largely from Russia’s initiatives. Regardless, there’s too much at stake with the oil trade to risk a global fiasco in order to change currencies. The price of American hegemony in the currency realm is still the cheapest option to other countries for the time being at least.
Source date (UTC): 2019-08-07 15:40:49 UTC
Original post: https://gab.com/curtd/posts/102576452262591997
TEACHER’S SALARIES VS ATHLETE’S SALARIES
by Luke Weinhagen
Having school age children I often hear complaints about teachers salaries.
They frequently take the form of “there is something wrong with a society that values entertainment so much more than education that it pays its athletes millions while teachers struggle to get by”.
Right comparison, wrong complaint.
There is something wrong with a society who’s standards and application of rigor to be a professional teacher are so significantly lower than those required to be a professional athlete that this pay disparity can survive.
Source date (UTC): 2019-08-07 15:40:17 UTC
Original post: https://gab.com/curtd/posts/102576450229603777
MYSTICS ALWAYS RUN THINGS ASS-BACKWARDS
by Bill Joslin
This is what I find perplexing: Many people paint materialism as a philosophy that guts the life and beauty out of the world.
But here’s the thing, any organism – that is any living thing which is not literally rooted into soil (a plant) – must seek out opportunity to acquire resources to stay alive.
This necessitates some feedback system of detection, adaptation to direct fruitful action.
In other words; memory, cognition, prediction exist as a broad description of the means by which humans (and other mammals) survive – and this system would be completely useless in any other universe which was not predominantly and fundamentally materialistic.
(That’s not to say ONLY materialistic a, but rather primarily materialistic) – this means materialism is what puts the life and beauty into humans and reality.
Mystics always run things ass-backwards
Source date (UTC): 2019-08-07 15:39:46 UTC
Original post: https://gab.com/curtd/posts/102576448226337290
THE VEIL OF MONEY
by Michael Churchill
There is a concept called “the veil of money” which is that money is the means of exchange (and/or unit of account) but that that’s basically all it is. You change the number of zeros on the currency but it doesn’t really change anything. Somebody still has to make widgets. And each widget will have a certain value relative to a bushel of corn etc etc
MONEY IS A VEIL IN THE LONG RUN
The veil of money and, as a related issue, the quantity theory of money have special importance in economic theory throughout the 20th century. Actually, 20th century economics can be interpreted as a sequence of theoretical answers to the question whether money is only a veil or not. Different theories can be judged by their implied ideas as to the neutrality of money. In the simplest models and in the simplest form of the quantity theory of money, money is completely neutral, that is, changes in the money supply do not affect anything real. However, in the more elaborated models the neutrality theorem was applied rather to long-run considerations. For both Milton Friedman and Robert E. Lucas money was not a mere veil in the short run, so money was assumed to have real effects in the short run. The mechanisms through which money could exert these real effects were radically different and so were the sets of assumptions these authors created to establish their models. For example, Friedman postulated adaptive expectations, while Lucas assumed his economic agents to be able to form rational expectations. For both of them, money was only neutral in the long-run – that is, money was not just a veil in the short-run – but the scope of countercyclical economic policy was radically curtailed in new classical macroeconomics. In the case of rational expectations the monetary authority is not able to carry out systematic countercyclical economic policy – that is, it cannot exploit the existing short-run Phillips curve. However, it can be realized that if any of the conditions necessary to the ineffectiveness of systematic economic policy is not met, economic policy can be effective again, so, money is not only a veil.
Source date (UTC): 2019-08-07 15:25:33 UTC
Original post: https://gab.com/curtd/posts/102576392223596795