Morn Mäger

[Wesley Yang @wesyang]

There are many people who claim in all sincerity to have been saved by giving all their money to Scientology or the Moonies. This may even be true. We look at them and feel pity -- but the cult gave them what they were lacking in life. It gave them community. It gave them a sense of purpose. It gave a structure to their desire and their striving.

That is what cults sell and what its salesmen sell successfully precisely because they are themselves true believers in their product because they did in fact derive many of the benefits they sell to others from their own immersion in the cult.

This is what transgenderism sells to its adherents. It sells a story of magical self-transformation that is also the attainment of an authentic self. It does so through rituals of self-mortification that impose a sunk cost so great on those inflicting them on themselves that escaping the resulting immersion in a fictive, pseudo-reality that would vindicate such a sacrifice -- constructed in the same way that all social realities are constructed, through institutional validation -- becomes nearly impossible. "Death before detransition." It does so by creating intense trauma bonds between those who have undergone the rituals, which are further intensified by the cultivated sense of being oppressed unto death by the cisnormative world that surrounds them.

In a liberal, pluralistic society that honors freedom of speech and freedom of association, we don't ban commercial cults. We allow them to proselytize. What we don't do is give them access to schools to recruit children, we don't brainwash children in the millions to accept their beliefs as the only truth, we don't give their cult rituals the imprimatur of medicine, we don't allow them to use state power to force people to pay obeisance to their cult dogmas. The President doesn't affirm their dogmas or direct his executive agencies to propagate them.

Transgenderism is novel in this way. Sharing aspects of many prior group psychological phenomenon -- the social contagions of eating disorders and Recovered Memory Syndrome, the business model of multi-level marketing schemes, the trauma-bonding of the gang initiation or the hazing ritual -- it melded these elements with institutional capture via two masquerades in which it successfully passed as something it is not: firstly, as a form of medicine, secondly, as a civil rights movement.

Undoing this unbelievable concatenation may actually be beyond the critical and epistemic capacities of the Western world.

[Eesti NOKIA @EestiNokiaAS]

Raha sitaks https://t.co/bD70qWMtOG

[Noah Smith 🐇🇺🇸🇺🇦🇹🇼 @Noahpinion]

China's demographic headwinds will start to bite, IF they ever bite, about 15 years from now.

But by then, how much will labor supply even matter?

[Ryan O'Leary @RyanO_ChosenCoy]

Mines. The answer is mines. Mass amounts that cost money, manpower and time to clear.

FYI the BLU44 or PFM types are probably the perfect mass area denial mine ever produced.

[Carnegie Europe @Carnegie_Europe]

While Russia is not ready to sue for peace on Europe’s terms, it could still either seek a ceasefire in Ukraine or try escalation.

Brussels needs to prepare for both and prioritize that preparation over normative discussions, argues @KadriLiik.
https://t.co/tP5AmX63Xg

[Morn Mäger @MornM2ger]

SIGNE VIIMSALU ⟩ Ettevõtluskeskkond on katki. Kulu maksumaksjale ulatub sadadesse miljonitesse eurodesse aastas
https://t.co/BTLy9vculM

[Andrew A. Michta @andrewmichta]

🧵Recently, I was given another lecture by another utterly predictable virtue-signaling member of “Euro-intelligentsia” about the end of America, Trump, America racism etc etc etc. Full disclosure: My entire professional career I have worked to strengthen transatlantic ties. 1/8

[ChrisO_wiki @ChrisO_wiki]

1/ Nikolai Patrushev, a key adviser to Vladimir Putin, says that Russia is fighting a pan-European neo-Nazi alliance, and advocates Russian naval action in the English Channel. He warns the Baltic states of "the end of ... peaceful, carefree life and sovereignty." ⬇️

[Julie Bindel @bindelj]

2013: I messaged @suzanne_moore and said, "Trouble at mill, sister". 'Why', she asked? "Julie Burchill has defended us in the Observer and all hell is going to break loose!" Guess what happened next? https://t.co/CqM9nfTDSP

[Andrew A. Michta @andrewmichta]

🧵I've been in Europe for 2 months (Poland, Estonia, France, next Hungary, Belgium, Germany). I'd like to share a few observations before @NATO summit in Ankara. BLUF: Most of Euro policy elites don't understand current US politics--and often refuse to understand their own. 1/11

[Adrian P 🇷🇴🇺🇦🇪🇺 @AdrianP_doc]

Building North Stream 2 was a war crime.
Blowing it up was an act of heroism for European civilization.

[ArianaGic/Аріянॳць @GicAriana]

"Russia's attacks on civilians serve no purpose."
Oh, but they do. They are an integral part of Russia's genocidal objective in its war of extermination against Ukraine.

[Anvar Samost @anvarsamost]

Mini-stalineid on kõik kohad täis.

https://t.co/1czGkUL14Q #ERR

[Carilyn Johnson @CarilynJohnson]

That is exactly why so many of us (Civil Rights lawyers) are pushing back. This type of situation was never meant to be a protected class. Once you allow any “feeling” to be protected, then all other genuine protections are meaningless. And it is shocking, frankly, that so many academics who should know better are willing to sell their souls to support something that undermines absolutely everything they believe in.

[Urmas @ojaurm]

@PeeterEspak @paivootele Sotsid käisid Madise välja ja nüüd sotside "palgaline klähvits" nimetab endi poolt välja käidud kandidaati veiderdajaks?! See on juba uus tase sotside käitumises.

[Peeter Espak @PeeterEspak]

@paivootele Te ütlete iseenda kohta "palgaline klähvits" niimoodi otse? Leian siiski, et antud kontekstis pole teil küll põhjust ennast defineerida või esitleda "palgalise klähvitsana" - te oskate sellist juttu ajada ka täiesti iseenda loomusest tulenevana.

[Paweł Wójcik 🦋 @SaladinAlDronni]

The decision that moved into action such geopolitical repercussions that we are feeling them and will continue to do so for many years to come. Reading Obama's comments after a decade makes me particularly exhausted from their sheer pretentiousness and arrogance.

[Денис Казанський @den_kazansky]

Российский военный Даниил Туленков, откровенно написал о том, как его командир пытал гражданских в Бердянске. Людей насиловали при их детях.

Это не украинская пропаганда, не ИПСО. Это пишет реальный российский участник «СВО», который уже успел стать писателем и написать книгу “Шторм Z” про свой опыт на войне.

Фильм «Груз 200», который многие считали какой-то адской чернухой - на самом деле просто детский мультик, в сравнении с тем, что в реальности творят российские выродки.

Все это никогда нельзя забывать. Каждое такое признание очень важно запоминать и документировать. Чтобы никто потом не сказал, что этого не было.

[Urmas @ojaurm]

"Metsade tuleviku kujundavad tuhanded maaomanikud oma otsuste kaudu, mitte arengukavad. " https://t.co/exMX8Jb27u

[Pieter Cleppe @pietercleppe]

The EU Commission in Brussels has shut off airco, but only for the lower floors, where the lower ranks work:

“It’s like feudalism,” a Commission official working on a lower level of the Berlaymont, granted anonymity to speak freely, told POLITICO on Friday, referring to the fact that upper floors housing commissioners got to keep their AC on. A second official agreed it was a “disgrace.” https://t.co/DWUnu3Wz3C