Happy Thanksgiving

This is the official happy thanksgiving post. The reason why it wasn't posted yesterday was that I took the day off from the computer.  Its a little easier to appreciate your blessings and give thanks for what you have been given when you have abstained from it, at least for a little while. Among the many things that I am thankful for this year, I want to take the time to mention my gratitude toward my fellow bloggers, for the high standard they have set in their own works and for giving me the motivation to hammer out a decent post here and there.

These bloggers include Vox Day, Heartiste, Ferdinand Bardamu, Dennis Mangan, Karl Denninger, Keoni Galt, Elusive Wapiti, G.L Piggy, Proph, OneSTDV, Mark Sisson, Out of Sleep, Bruce Charlton,The Obsidan, Edward Feser, Greg Nyguist, Roosh, and the many more whose output I read and admire.

Conservative Hypocrisy on Occupy Wall Street.

A fun but depressingly easy thing to do when examining political movements is spotting the double standards contained therein.

For the past few decadesyears, conservative Republicans have constantly vented about how current policies, particularly the profligate spending and subsequent debt incurred, will place a disproportionate and unjustified burden upon future generations. And yet, I have to hear any conservative of the mainstream variety, none, express any sympathy for the Occupy Wall Street crowd - they prefer to remind them that it was their individual shortcomings that have doomed them to the fate of a homeless and indignant protestor.

But where is the contradiction? You may ask.

Simple.  Occupy Wall Street is an inevitable consequence of the Baby Boomer's destructive policies.  Dutiful to their narcissistic and indulgent tendencies, the boomers started and were beneficiaries of the greatest credit bubble in U.S history, having the combined effect of temporary and unsustainable prosperity as well as huge hikes in college tuition and medical expenses. True to their juvenile nature, they seized the short-term benefits of de-facto slave labor in the form of illegal immigrantion and Chinese outsourcing, thereby robbing middle-class Americans an opportunity for a decent job. Except the college-educated, so they brainwashed their kids with the idea that they had to get a college degree, even at a cost that approached a hundred thousand dollars.

Well, the future generation has arrived, the bubble has burst, and their college educated kids can't find a job.  And since their parents spent a dime for every penny made, they're stuck with loans that cannot possibly be payed off. And guess what, the same people who conservatives said will have to shoulder the burden placed by previous generations, are somehow wholly responsible, and deserve ridicule. The youngins did exactly what every authority in their lives told them to do, all for nothing.  The youth cannot be expected to think for themselves regarding the ways of the world.  Whatever faults they collectively had for taking such foolish advice, the blame must ultimately be placed on the deceiver, especially if that deceiver is the God-instituted owner responsible for teaching the offspring. .

Both socionomics and history inform us that civil unrest spawns during hard economic times and that mass resentment, usually in the form of riots, is the result of oppression and treason. So boomers, let me offer, out of my humble faculties, a suggestion that should resonate fairly well within your narcissistic minds: look in the mirror; you may be the problem.

#OWS, Minsky, Evolutionary Psycology, and I.Q

Ferdinand Bardamu writes of his experience with Occupy Wall Street.  This is why I read Ferd.

Vox Day on Steve Keen's new book: Debunking economics is definitely on my reading list. 

Roissy/Heartiste answers the question are "Women less principled than men?". In another post, he demonstrates that feminists are scared of the implications of evolutionary psychology. Its always vexed me that the majority of secularists, the nihilist manosphere notwithstanding, are the foremost perpetuators of the numerous PC lies of the left, even as the evolutionary biology they so readily cling to continues to demolish those politically correct beliefs.

Dennis Mangan on inheritability, I.Q, and success. My view is that success comes from a number of factors: innate talent, intelligence, culture, personality, upbringing, hard work, deliberate practice, connections, etc. The question is not whether it is Nurture vs Nature; both clearly have a role to play. The question is which one plays a more significant role. I suspect it depends on what you are talking about.

The insanity of a modern American ideal

As it happens, the mainstream idea of what America is is a contradiction.  A racially and ethnically diverse society is not one that can survive its historical state for long.  Nor is it stable. In fact, more and more sociological evidence strongly indicates that it is inherently unstable. 

A growing body of evidence suggests that an important factor underlying whether we show someone compassion or cruelty is the person's perceived similarity to us. It should take little introspection to realize we feel the pain of those with whom we seem to share some commonalities. Countless studies have demonstrated that we not only consistently show more compassion to those we deem "like us." ...

These psychological mechanisms were at work ... for the people who came out in droves to help the victims of 9/11, Katrina, and the Haitian earthquake -- the crises shifted their focus away from all their squabbles and differences and onto their shared identity as human beings. But once the worst was over and they slipped back into their "us/them" mentality, their compassion swiftly abated. It only takes a quick glance at the headlines to see that most conflicts -- be they national, political, religious, or personal -- often come down to this very simple and automatic "like us"/"not like us" split. [Out of Character, 127-128]

As Pat Buchanan demonstrated in his book Suicide of a Superpower,  diversity is not a unifying force.  The American axiom that "Our Diversity is Our Strength" has always gone against the grain of history, as differences tend to create conflicts, not empathy and peace.

This is definitely an interesting time in history; the next few decades should empirically announce its verdict on the modern American dream of fully integrated multi-cultural/ethical/racial ism.

Some motivational videos on Weightlifting

I have been a fan of Greg Plitt for some time now. The reason he is so successful in helping other aspirants is not just because of the information he gives on fitness and health, but because of his ability to motivate and inspire them to get their buts in the gym.

 Information can only take you so far; you have to have the motivation and mindset to utilize it in an optimal manner.  Heres another one of his videos: