American Sophist

The exception that proves the rule

[Sturgeon's Law @Sturgeons_Law]

It's apparently antisemitic to describe Chagall as *anything* other than a Jewish artist. Do the Jewish identitarians who say things like this know how insane they sound? Was Chagall being antisemitic against himself when he said "I think of myself as a Russian artist?"

[ellington @not_ellington]

It is such a funny twist of fate that OpenAI, led by an ex-YC product guy, is putting out groundbreaking math/physics/cs research while Anthropic, led by a physics PhD, is primary putting out a coding product.

[Richard Hanania @RichardHanania]

“Forget eat the rich. Eat grandma.”

Bill Maher comes out strong against gerontocracy. This is a very encouraging development.

[steve hsu @hsu_steve]

In the comments, Eric S. Raymond on revealed preference:

"They'll say they prefer the shy physics nerd making a lot of money. Then they'll bang the frat bro after a couple of drinks, and then they'll date the nerd but make him wait for sex to find out if he's controllable."

[Werner Zagrebbi @zagrebbi]

Very annoying post here.

"Aesthetica" did what people often do when attempting to build up a losing high school debate case: He wrote up a massive "spread" of weak or fake points, along with plenty of winks and nudges, to give off a strong impression that his argument—Indian immigrants are BAD!—is correct beyond a doubt. It’s then left to others to show that each one of his points is specious, one by one, and that what he's built up is in reality a false impression based on a lot of individually false claims and completely unjustified assumptions.

I have actually looked into #7 and #8: Indian engineers favor co-ethnic hires about as much as Chinese and white engineers do, and non-Muslim South Asians commit no more white-collar crime per worker than whites.

Even if some of the peculiarities he managed to find can’t fully be ruled out, the case overall is far, far less impressive than he's made it out to seem. He probably realizes this: he feels the need to mislead because the narrative he wants others to believe won’t stick if he sticks to the facts alone.

If you don't like Indian immigrants for religious or racist reasons, just say so! That would be a lot better than this bullshit. A subculture with no epistemic standards has nothing: why would anyone trust us on the things we're actually right about?

[Katherine Dee 🐬/acc @default_friend]

Ezra Klein and Ethan Klein are different guys. Noted.

[Devin Brent @bogcheese8922]

Ethan Klein will never recover from what he lost.

[Crémieux @cremieuxrecueil]

In the UK, as in America, interracial pairings are sex-biased:

With Asians, the man is more likely to be White. With Blacks, the reverse.

[Werner Zagrebbi @zagrebbi]

Hard not to miss this era of Hanania Thought

We had so much fun

[Rory Dunn @TheTrueRory]

I've now seen like 4 or 5 clips from this show and these are the least charismatic, least interesting, least funny people I think I've ever seen. Why would literally anyone watch this

[BENZO-KAZOOIE @BENZOTOOIE]

Now they won’t be able to go through a Holocaust museum without reliving painful memories.

[Richard Hanania @RichardHanania]

The Indian nepotism thing is the fakest narrative ever.

I remember back when racists used to pride themselves on uncovering data others ignored.

Now they just make things up.

[Marino Linich @MarinoLinich]

America's concept of the "incel" is culturally unique. As a Croatian, I observed months ago how this word doesn't really exist conceptually in my language. Over time, I've realized that the root of the difference is actually the distinction between Calvinism and Catholicism (or Calvinism and everything else).

In Croatia, sexlessness is ridiculed as frustration. It's a temporary and situational state. It is redeemable.

In America, sexlessness is an essentialized and fatalistic identity category. Incel is *who you are*, and there's not much you can do about it. You can see the connection with Calvinism, where people are sorted into distinct categories of "winners" and "losers."

Croatia also lacks the rapid pathologization of every experience and personality trait—this used to be as common in America a few decades ago. For example, you weren't considered "autistic," you were just one of the cousins who's a little "touched in the head."

There is also probably something to be said about hyper-individualist vs collective cultures (which exist on a spectrum). In a hyper-individualist environment, individual character traits are a bigger and more fundamental part of the identity because identity is self-constructed.

[Richard Hanania @RichardHanania]

The Atlantic: “Median household income for Indian Americans is $151,200, compared with $92,530 for white Americans. About three-quarters of Indian adults 25 and older in the U.S. hold a bachelor’s degree, against a national average of 38 percent. Nearly half have graduate degrees, and the poverty rate, 6 percent, is among the lowest of any ethnic group. Indian Americans tend to be employed and law-abiding.”

Rightoids will tell you this is all a conspiracy theory, that Indians have no talent, that their success is a fraud.

They've adopted the ideology of the lowest black race hustlers.

[Richard Hanania @RichardHanania]

Indian CEO talking white American doofus president out of renaming the ocean.

[Westside L.A. Guy @WestsideLAGuy]

Alex Cooper has unironically made men hyper aware of female dual mating strategy: casual sex with men they’re attracted to while delaying sex for husband material men while extracting resources from them.

This unfortunately accelerated the transactional aspect of dating.

[Corey Walker 🇺🇸 @CoreyWriting]

Alex Cooper is like a weapon of mass destruction and she's the reason a lot of women are going to end up lonely, childless, and miserable.

[Razib Khan 🧬 ✍️ @razibkhan]

is there a manosphere equivalent that's as mainstream/popular? because this seems to be the female equivalent, but a lot of this stuff is big on podcasts and "women's magazines" etc.

[ib @Indian_Bronson]

I think it’s plausible attractive women are a universal top signal for any industry.

But I think we should look for business models that make attractive women a durable mainstay.

[i/o @avidseries]

I'm not even going to attempt any nuance here: I despise this person possibly even more than I despise Trump. They both dish out huge sloppy servings of cringe whenever they open their mouths. Harris might not be as corrupt and boorish as Trump, but her mediocrity is unbearable.