Ah, this must be her reparations for the Islamic slave trade which enslaved approximately 15 million Africans; around 35 times higher than the number that were taken to North America. Itâs a nice gesture from the Islamists, given that they donât have as many descendants to compensate in Arab countries because they historically castrated many of their slaves.
@NE_good_life Somehow I missed this story while I was briefly distracted in my embodied world, so I am laughing while trying to imagine what this is referring to đč. Feels like I woke up from a coma and somebody said the world has been saved by a boner.
What if the west isn't the villain they told you it was?
Weâve spent years accepting accusations about racism, intolerance, and slavery without challenging the bigger historical reality:
The societies most condemned today are also the ones that led the world in ending slavery, expanding rights, and building the most tolerant nations on earth.
Thatâs the conversation nobody wants to have.
A truth about Critical Theory.
Critical theory is described by its creators, like Max Horkheimer, and most prominent exponents, like Herbert Marcuse, as being a kind of "second dimension" of theoretical thought. Here's the secret: it's UTOPIAN IDEALISM.
The game in critical theory is to hold out belief in an ideal circumstance and to criticize the real, existing thing against the idea of that ideal. That's what a critical theory is and does. It doesn't describe a better circumstance; it criticizes the current circumstance for not being some kind of ideal thing someone might be able to imagine or, in fact, almost imagine.
If someone is holding a real thing to an ideal standard, even if that thing does not or cannot exist, and criticizing the real thing according to that standard, they're doing a critical theory. That's what it is.
The "second dimension of thought" represented by Critical Theory is idealism.
Technically speaking, a full critical theory a la Horkheimer, Marcuse, the Frankfurt School, and the Woke Left (along with all Marxists) is a kind of negative idealism.
It doesn't hold out an ideal. It merely claims that the idea of an ideal is across the horizon of imagination (read their literature and see how often they talk like this!). What it does is maintains that the existing world isn't actually ideal, so it must be wrong.
This relieves them of even having to articulate what the ideal would look like. They don't have to know what it would look like at all. They don't even have to be able to imagine it. They just have to know it wouldn't be like this, and the this becomes the target of the critique at the heart of their critical theory.
Critical Race Theory doesn't know what an ideal world would look like, but it wouldn't have any racially disparate outcomes or racism at all. It has no idea what the ideal is, just what it is not. That's negative idealism.
Communists never had a clear description of what the ideal "stateless, classless society" would actually look like, despite floating some ideas. They had no idea what that ideal would look like, just what it is not (based on private property and exchange). That's negative idealism.
Anytime you see someone criticizing a real thing against the mere idea of an ideal that isn't like this, you're dealing with a critical theory.
That is, you're dealing with Woke thinking.
Thank you for your attention to this matter!
I admire her enthusiasm and hope she continues to research this topic, but she is an amusing mix of very right and very incorrect on this topic.
Sheâs likely correct that the thalamus is involved in schizophrenia symptoms, though this isnât a particularly novel idea and the thalamus has been included in multiple past studies. You could say that itâs somewhat novel that sheâs placing more emphasis on it in relation to a major symptom component. But multiple brain regions are impaired in schizophrenia, which contributes to the full constellation of symptoms.
Sheâs correct that there is evidence of impaired glucose processing in schizophrenia (along with other bioenergetic deficits). Many studies have evaluated this - Iâll post the link to a recent review paper on this topic below. Note that itâs not an issue of âlow glucoseâ, itâs about an inability to properly use it for fuel (due to multiple different possible defects in this complex pathway).
Iâm scientifically perplexed and rather concerned about her negative framing of low carbohydrate diets. It might not be suitable for all people, but there is actually substantial emerging evidence that ketogenic diets can be extremely beneficial in schizophrenia, with some patients able to stop antipsychotics completely. (This makes sense theoretically if glucose processing is impaired in the brain - It can instead use the alternate fuel source of fats for energy). Once again, she is incorrect here in saying that the brain can only use glucose (carbs) for primary fuel.
Sheâs also incorrect that antipsychotics only target dopamine (they target multiple neurotransmitters, though dopamine is usually among them), and sheâs incorrect that they do not target the thalamus (the thalamus has lots of dopamine receptors). Counterintuitively, antipsychotics do seem to further impair glucose processing as she said, but this might actually be causing the brain to shift to fats (ketone) use as alternate fuel, which may help symptoms.
Her strongly negative framing of keto diets made me suspicious that maybe sheâs actually a plant from the pharma industry trying to dissuade people from attempting keto diets for mental health, while pretending to be a critic of big pharma! But maybe I have schizophrenic paranoia đč
The Islamic Ethic and the Spirit of Parasitism
Many Muslim countries today are rich due to an accident of geology: the discovery of oil. But before the world ran on internal combustion engines, what made the great Islamic societies wealthy and powerful? The answer is darker than the black gold that enriches many of them now.
The Qurâan commands Muslims to fight even the âpeople of the bookâ (that is, Jews, Christians, and a few other groups): âFight against those who do not believe in Allah or the last day, and do not forbid what Allah and his messenger have forbidden, and do not follow the religion of truth, even if they are among the people of the book, until they pay the jizya [a head tax] with willing submission and feel themselves subdued.â (Qurâan 9:29) The subjugated people were known as dhimmis, protected people, in the Mafia sense of paying protection.
Muhammadâs second successor as spiritual, political and military leader of the Muslim community, Umar ibn al-Khattab, told the Muslims to be sure to collect the jizya, for the Muslims depended upon it: âI advise you to fulfill Allahâs Convention (made with the Dhimmis) as it is the convention of your Prophet and the source of the livelihood of your dependents (i.e. the taxes from the Dhimmis.)â
This advice has been heeded throughout Islamic history. Islam teaches no work ethic, as The Tragedy of Islam: Failure and Excuses explains in detail. It was characteristic not only of Arabs but of Muslims in general to find manual labor distasteful, and even to consider work to be a curse, something that slaves and non-Muslims ought to do, but that the Muslims, âthe best of peoplesâ (Qurâan 3:110) should try to avoid.
The ideal Islamic state thus has Muslims living on the backs of non-Muslims, while discriminating against the non-Muslims so severely that the host cannot indefinitely continue to support the parasite. And so Islamic states inevitably go into decline and have to wage more jihad to find more non-Muslims to support them.
This can be seen clearly in the rise and decline of one of the most successful Islamic states in history, the Ottoman Empire. The last Islamic caliphate, the Ottoman Empire was once the worldâs most fearsome power â but it depended upon the jizya. By the middle of the sixteenth century, when the Ottoman Empire was at its height and was striking terror in the hearts of Christians all over Europe, the tax on Jews and Christians was its largest revenue source.
@no_men_as_women@MrAndyNgo You might want to read the post. It has nothing to do with men actually being women. It just talks about who tends to kill the people who identity as such (mostly black men killing sex workers).
Utopia is not the standard. Reality is.
Every civilisation has sins if you judge it by todayâs moral standards. You can build an entire career doing nothing but listing them. That is easy.
The harder question and the only one that matters is this: compared to actual, existing alternatives, who has done better?
I am not claiming the West is perfect. It is not. No society is. But if you are honest about measurable progress on rights, equality, and self-correction, it is still ahead of every other major system in the world today.
So stop asking "is it perfect?" That is a childish question.
Ask: "compared to what?"
@elie_mcn There must be a lot of heat on this, because my likes and bookmarks for this post are being repeatedly removed. (This âglitchâ seems to happen a lot for sensitive or controversial posts).
A MASSIVE SCANDAL is unfolding in Ontario!
But thatâs just the tip of the iceberg.
Because this reveals the untold story of Canadaâs $40 billion international student scandal!
Watch my latest investigation. Link below!
We had a former President of the United States & a guy who runs Sorosâs Open Society Foundation in Toronto this past weekend. Obama even spoke at the engagement where Carney was & other Liberal Government MPâs attended.
The media was not allowed to attend & not one single photo or video has been shared from that event.
Why isnât the media asking questions? What was said that needed to be hidden from the public? These are public servants who work for us. Secret events with former world leaders doesnât sit well.
The Left had to change from calling for equality to âequityâ when it became blindly obvious that they didnât want equality under the law at all. They want special treatment for their favoured voting blocks.