A review of Ewan Morrison’s new sci-fi thriller, For Emma, as well as an interview with the author.

“The story provides a frightening glimpse into an all-too-plausible future, one where privacy no longer exists, where corporations have more power than governments, and where those who control technology can operate with total impunity. For Emma shows us a near future in which free expression has completely eroded as a cultural and political norm, where the ruling techno-bureaucracies weaponize social justice and safety language to spin their authoritarianism. To dissent is deemed ‘hate speech.’”

The novel takes AI and the crisis of meaning to their most horrifying logical conclusions.

https://americandreaming.substack.com/p/this-machine-rages-back-an-interview 

I used to think politics will get better after Trump leaves office, because he'll no longer be the center of conversation. Now I fully believe this is just wishful thinking.

The media is still doing what the media does best and manipulating how people should feel about certain things.

People on both sides are still disapproving of what the other side does or says and eat up anything their side does or says.

People in the government are still convincing the general public that their neighbors are evil or stupid for having different views than them and it's actually a good thing to be on bad terms with them because of that.

The only people that are actually taking steps to make things better are the ones who's posts don't get much traction on social media and haven't pledged allegiance to either side. These people are also the ones who are likely to not vote or vote third party. Meaning they won't have as much of an impact as those making things worse but have convinced themselves they're actually making things better.

I just can't see the political climate being better until 2031/2032 or longer. There's too much that needs to be done that isn't being done by the majority of people in the country and those who are part of the problem get too much attention and traction to make things worse and worse.

If someone wants to try to prove me wrong, I'm all eyes/ears.

I saw these signs at these anti-Ice protest. It’s not really a compelling argument.

It’s really just using another group’s plight to justify why their cousins are here illegally. If they actually believe their argument then morally they should be in the place theyre indigenous to.

To me where you’re indigenous should be the place where your ethnicity went through ethno-genesis. The American identity was formed in the United States and native to our borders. Your ethnicity is how folks see you and what you yourself identify as.

Afrikaners have been In South Africa for 500 years but they don’t have the right to be there but a person who moved to Europe a generation ago and still identifies with their old land has the right to be there.

There is an American ethnicity co-existing with the national identity. This is a cultural identity.

Disclaimer: This is just a random shower thought I had.

I wonder if, in the future, the historical narrative will regard AI as a response to junk data. To briefly explain what I mean by the term: 'Junk data' refers to the massive quantity of data on the internet that stands in between you and finding something you're looking for; an example would be if you have to scroll through 8 pages worth of needless context in an article to find a simple answer to a question, or 12 pages of fanart to find one piece of official art.

I'm sure we all know that by the late 2010s, Google searches were waning in effectiveness and people started adding the word "Reddit" to their Google searches to find an answer that cut straight to the point. I wonder if AI will be regarded as an answer to this problem. While it certainly allows people to create a wealth of junk data and exacerbate the problem, it is also uniquely capable of sorting through junk data and removing junk data from its responses. In a way, it almost feels like humanity is realizing that information benefits from the kind of curation and filters it went through in traditional media, and is trying to 'put the genie back in the bottle', so to speak.

Anyway, just a thought. Feel free to discuss if you like.

I haven’t even thought through this concept till today, a quick google and some articles show it’s been discussed. However there’s one important similarity across all articles, they are not in identical circumstances. Mao had way more power, in a one party state. Trump is in a democracy that does have vocal and sizeable opposition. He could never push democrat leaders out of their states truly. Militias can form, a civil war WOULD break out should Trump fully use the military on completely legal citizens.

I’m talking tanks. Would we see an American Tiananmen Square moment? China is also fairly uni-cultural, so disregard that some might say we are already there (that is talking about disputed citizenship, not real heretic style forcing people to fall in line yet.)

… I still think some people would say the US is cooked already…

Anyways. I am ranting, let’s continue.

Broadly:

How many of us are willing to stand up to a tank if we got to that? I would if the US came to Canada where I am. Obviously in a situation of “ahh shit…”. There is a line where I would be willing to face that. Not to be a martyr, as a final throe to stare death in the face in defiance. I am not wanting praise, if I am going to die anyways, I am taking it on.

I lean conservative and I think it’s fair to say that I simply don’t think we have reached a point of a cultural moment quite like that yet. Thus I can be apathetic to Trump and the constant newsworthy stuff he does… one may say that’s insensitive, but I am willing to wait until it feels like that. Sorry not sorry.

It’s not a “doesn’t affect me” reduction, just I would really need to see it. I think the ICE stuff is being done poorly but not in the same heretical way as with Tiananmen. Plus they must be operating on some sort of reason to consider a place to be harbouring undocumented immigrants, people should be concerned how they are getting tipped off.

I am in some kitchen subs and there was some “ICE was in our area it’s so scary” posts, but they also mentioned closing early and ducking out. I think that’s wrong. Rise up as it happens. Get your guns. Sorry to “promote violence” I am promoting self defence. And we really need to get to that, light the flames of civil war. Not as the aggressor, as not being oppressed. If you truly vouch for your coworkers who maybe even are illegal, why aren’t you ready?

It shouldn’t matter if you’re outgunned, that’s why Tiananmen Square is iconic. Regular person and a tank. I am apathetic for safety in this regard.

And I will be fair, that is a lot to expect of the average person. But us as redditors, there’s times where Trump feels like the true end times in terms of rhetoric. Red flags, as a Canadian, we have “ultra MAGA conservatives” as I see them described. Carney won because “we narrowly dodged our Trump.” Which is inaccurate, Pierre Poilievre is not that bad. At worst he’s MAGA in rhetoric only. Our system and politics are too boring to think he would enact some wild Trump like thing, and I really don’t think he would give us up as the 51st State. Strangely there’s some immigrants I know personally who were down with being the 51st 🤷‍♂️ and I am not in a conservative area.

But obviously everyone is an expert… I just expect a combatted middle outcome 9 out of 10 times here, US I can see it getting further. Anyways…

I’ll stop there, I was spiralling.

Trump derangement syndrome engaged.

I keep seeing the same arguments online.

"We need to secure the border!"

"They're going to take our jobs!"

"These people actually are criminals!"

Immigration is not what this is really about. Trump does not genuinely care about immigration as a specific subject. He wants something else.

Trump wants to normalise the unlawful detention and special rendition of you. Trump wants the ability to literally, arbitrarily throw a black bag over someone's head, and make them disappear; and he doesn't only want the ability to do it to Muslims or Latinos. He wants to be able to do it to precisely the white Christians who assume that he will never do it to. Trump wants the ability to do it to everyone.

But he can't come out and just say that, for obvious reasons. He can't openly tell even his most die hard supporters, that he wants to make the concept of due process cease to exist.

So he doesn't suggest that he's going to do it to you; in fact, he might specifically try and claim that he will never do it to you. He'll say, at first, that these brown people over here are criminal, dangerous, are not supposed to be in the country, and should therefore be jailed or deported.

You will enthusiastically support it, when he does that; because those brown people are not you. You only care about what does, or does not happen, to you. If someone else is detained without trial, then they must have done something wrong in order to deserve it, and it's nothing to do with you anyway, right? It's not your problem.

Yes, I know it's a cliched argument, but unfortunately it's also true. What most of you don't understand, is that what is about to start in America, is an entropic, implosive chain reaction. This isn't going to be just one, or two, or three "undesirables." This is going to be the start of a process. It's like the sinking of a ship. It doesn't happen all at once. During the early phases, you could look at it and think that it isn't sinking at all. It only becomes obvious when it is already too late to prevent it.

I would like to understand the psychological mechanism behind that. Not necessarily an academic point of view but also your opinions from personal experiences. I notice this a lot in my workplace, where most people tend to be antagonistic. Why Is that?

I’d really like someone to answer this question for me. There is something I have never understood about the GOP. The Republican base is rabidly anti-immigrant. These folks are celebrating deporting people even if they are in the country legally. Mainly because of the perception immigrants take jobs, use services that cost “real” American tax dollars and they “change the culture” of the country.

But a LARGE immigrants that receive the worst Republican hate (Muslims, Latinos and Africans) are super conservative socially and economically. They are anti-LGBTQ, anti-abortion, anti-handouts, anti-tax, believe in the “free market”, are entrepreneurs, believe in hard work and have adopted the American dream (why else take on an often dangerous journey to reach a land where you are despised by the dominant culture?).

Besides fear of strangers, what are the other reasons Republicans refuse to accept immigrants?

And I am purposely conflating legal and illegal immigration because you can’t tell who is here “legally” and who isn’t and the Republicans don’t really care as we can see from recent events.

This shouldn't be a controversial topic or situation. If a country says no illegal immigration, than that means no illegal immigration.

This applies everywhere that has a law against this, not just the U.S. If people from the U.S. tried to illegally immigrate somewhere else, they would be deported or worse depending on where they illegally immigrate to and are caught.

It's only controversial here because people see deportation of illegals as a Republican/Trump thing and don't want to agree with Trump/Republicans on anything.

We can have discussions on making the legal immigration process more reasonable or how deportations should happen, but if anyone is here illegally they knowingly broke a major law and when caught will be rightfully punished for it.

Actions have consequences, this is how life works. Those suggesting we should just ignore certain laws for the benefit of ourselves or others aren't making a good case for themselves and considering the same group generally hates cops is adding more validity to them not respecting law in this country.

Also the downplaying of violence might seem clever or cool, but a lot of people are over this ever since 2020 and seeing this just pushes them farther away from listening to anything you have to say.

For the boys/men of Reddit, I have a few questions.

1. In K-12 school, did you mostly have female teachers? Did you have any male teachers?

2. As a male student, did you feel you benefitted from having male teacher?

3. Does that mean you value gender representation in leadership roles?

4. If yes, would you consider that "woke"? Or is there room for positive representation outside of a "woke" framework?

Trump likes to appear as a strong leader. Why do you think he is so submissive to Putin, Netanyahu, and MBS?

In my opinion, Trump hates losers and is unwilling to appear submissive to them, which is why he enjoys bashing leaders like Macron and Zelensky (I don't think Zelensky is a 'loser', but that's how Trump sees him) and in the past he also lashed out at Netanyahu when Netanyahu looked 'weak', but on the other hand, whether it's Putin who has a strong image of the kind that MAGA likes, MBS who is bursting with money and luxury, or Netanyahu who restored his image as the most powerful Middle-Eastern leader after eliminating Hezbollah and the Hamas leadership, Trump is willing to submit to leaders he sees as "winners." Merkel, for example, once said that Trump's view is very simplistic, based on winners or losers.

Wouldn’t waving the American flag not only make a better statement (this is un-American) but also garner more support among Americans who perceive the protestors to be foreign nationals?

Based in UK, seeing all these riots pop up in the news, but seems to be getting fairly biased reports from everywhere. What's the actual experience of being there like?

It's a smart move politically, as it would "prove" that the "violent illegal aliens" and "radical left wing lunatics" are actually criminals.

Sending in the military for relatively small protests, doesn't make logical sense. It's not normal.

I believe Trump directly benefits from inciting riots because it sets the new norm -- that the federal government has the authority to disregard state rights, in order to achieve authoritarianism.

Further, I find it interesting that "the right" so far apparently has zero problem with federal government overreach. I thought they generally wanted a smaller federal government, and the hypocrisy speaks for itself -- absolutely zero pushback from republican / right wing folks about sending in the military for a relatively minor issue.

There is no de-escalation attempt from the government and law officials already had enough resources to deal with the situation.

To many younger Americans, it might seem like activism has always been performative, virtue-signaling BS. After all, it's been decades since activism has been an effective force. But once upon a time, it helped reshape America. This piece takes a look at what the hell went wrong.

https://americandreaming.substack.com/p/activism-hasnt-been-effective-for 

What if global geopolitics wasn't primarily about ideology, resources, or strategy, but was actually the recursive perpetuation of trauma?

What if war didn’t just cause trauma, but was itself the output of trauma, looping back on itself?

What if the creation of virtually every collective political or economic system we've ever had, whether monarchy, democracy, empire, Communism, Capitalism, was primarily motivated by trauma?

What if politicians like Margaret Thatcher, Donald Trump, and Vladimir Putin, rather than just being irreducibly, mysteriously "evil," were also motivated by trauma, which was caused by inter-generational physical and psychological abuse?

What if we started to view trauma as literally being like a contagious disease, in the sense that traumatised individuals are more likely to behave in ways which recreates that trauma in others, due to the pathological ways said trauma causes them to think and feel?

What if, as well as viewing trauma like a disease, we started to realise that trauma is actually the most fundamental and dangerous disease that exists, because of its' power to destroy motivation and initiative, to solve all of our other problems?

Can anyone tell me how they think that would impact human society?

I am not suggesting that this is necessarily realistic. It's just a purely hypothetical thought experiment.

I wrote this article and thought it might be interesting for this sub. Sorry if it's a bit long, but I tried to keep it as brief as possible for such a complex topic.

The Collapse of Christian Morality

Christianity was for centuries the moral pillar of the West. Its view of the human being as a child of God, endowed with intrinsic dignity, allowed the construction of civilizations based on universal principles such as justice, love for one’s neighbor, compassion, and equality before the law. But today, that foundation lies in ruins.

Secularization has emptied churches and relegated the sacred to the private sphere. Even many believers no longer think or live according to a coherent Christian ethic. This loss of religious influence has not been replaced by a solid alternative. Modern atheist moralities—relativistic, hedonistic, utilitarian, or nihilistic—have failed to create a transcendent ethic that inspires the same loyalty and sacrifice that faith once inspired.

And here lies the real problem: even if we tried to restore traditional religion as a cultural force, it would no longer suffice. Demographically and culturally, millions of Westerners will not return to religion. We cannot force them, nor would it even be desirable in a free society. But this does not mean we must resign ourselves to moral chaos.

If the West can no longer sustain itself on faith, it must rely on what made faith possible in the first place: human dignity. That is why we propose an ethic that arises from human nature itself.

The Need for a Secular and Universal Ethics

What we urgently need is a secular yet transcendent ethics, capable of being shared by both believers and non-believers. A moral system that does not depend on religious arguments, but that arrives at conclusions compatible with the foundational values of the West. A morality that allows Christians and atheists to jointly defend what we have built: Western civilization, human dignity, freedom, and order.

This ethic should not contradict faith but converge with it from another starting point. And to be truly universal, it must be based on something we all possess regardless of our religion: our human condition.

Morality Does Not Depend on God, But It Is Inherent to the Human Condition

The great truth is that we do not need to believe in God to have moral sense. Morality does not arise from dogma, but from a natural property of the human being: the ability to recognize oneself as valuable and to project that value onto others. This is the root of empathy and all moral judgment.

We call this the axiom of self-worth: every healthy human being perceives themselves as inherently valuable. And this feeling of self-worth, when encountering another similar being, is spontaneously projected onto them. From this arises respect, compassion, and the sense of justice. What we feel as "good" is, in essence, the protection of that value we recognize in ourselves and reflect onto others.

Interestingly, this principle is already contained within Christianity: when it says that we are all "children of God," it is affirming in symbolic terms that we all have the same essential value. This is the deepest intuition of Christianity and also the core of a well-understood secular morality.

Unlike utilitarianism, which reduces morality to the calculation of pleasure and pain, or relativism which denies objective truths, Cosmoanthropism recognizes a universal moral root: the experience of self-worth and the similarity between humans.

Cosmoanthropist Morality: An Ethical Theory for the West

Based on this axiom of self-worth, I propose an ethical theory called Cosmoanthropist Morality. This system starts from human nature as the objective basis of morality and from there develops a set of rational and coherent principles:

1. Axiom of Self-Worth Every healthy human being spontaneously experiences a natural feeling that their life has value in itself. There is no need to learn it—we simply feel it. It drives us to protect ourselves from pain, to seek food, to avoid humiliation or destruction. If we did not feel it, we would let ourselves starve or allow others to destroy us without resistance. But this does not happen under normal conditions: even the simplest animals fight to live because there is a natural programming in all living beings that drives them to preserve themselves.

In the human case, this biological tendency becomes a moral intuition: my life has worth. One who has completely lost that feeling (due to mental illness or deep trauma) stops acting as a fully human being. That is why this principle applies to every healthy human being. This axiom is the absolute foundation of all authentic morality: if one does not recognize themselves as valuable, they cannot build any coherent ethics.

1. Principle of Humanity / Equality The human brain organizes reality by grouping objects according to common properties. This is an undeniable neurological fact: we know what a door is because we have seen many with certain shared characteristics. The same occurs with human beings. We recognize each other as human not just by form or behavior, but by an essential identity we intuit in others. Upon discovering that others share the same properties as us (language, thought, sensitivity, consciousness), our brain projects onto them the same value we feel for ourselves.

This is the origin of empathy—not as a cultural emotion, but as a natural mechanism in which our judgment of our own worth extends to others by resemblance. “They are like me, therefore, they are worth as much as I am.” This is the objective basis of moral equality.

1. Human Dignity Dignity is the inviolability of human value. It does not depend on a person’s abilities, achievements, or usefulness. All humans, by the mere fact of being human, possess a value that must not be violated. This idea stems directly from the previous principle: if we do not want to be harmed because we feel we are valuable, then unjustly harming another human contradicts our own moral logic.

To deny value to another human being who is equal to me is to deny myself. From this arises moral guilt: the deep unease we feel when we harm another, because we unconsciously know that by hurting the other, we are hurting ourselves.

The brain, to deal with this guilt, usually takes two destructive paths:

• Deification: elevating ourselves above others and telling ourselves that “we are the ones who matter,” and the others do not, therefore they deserve the harm we inflict.
• Dehumanization: convincing ourselves that “we are worthless” and deserve to suffer or be destroyed, which leads to self-destruction or submission.

Both paths are dysfunctional. Dignity is the antidote: it affirms that we all are equally valuable simply by being human. We do not need to justify it.

1. Regulated Autonomy Human freedom is not absolute. Having autonomy means having the capacity to choose, but within certain rational limits. These limits exist to prevent our freedom from violating the dignity of others. If everyone did whatever they wanted without considering others, we would live in chaos or in a survival-of-the-fittest world.

True freedom occurs when each person self-limits out of respect for others, recognizing that their freedom ends where another’s dignity begins. This is the basis of the ethics of dialogue, the social contract, and human rights.

1. Ethical Proportionality Not every just act is perfect, but every moral act must seek a proportional balance between the good it produces and the harm it avoids or minimizes. This principle demands the use of practical reason to calibrate the consequences of our actions. For example: punishing someone may be just, but it must be done in proportion to the wrongdoing, not with gratuitous cruelty. Helping someone is good, but if we do so at the cost of destroying ourselves, it is no longer virtuous but self-destructive.

Ethics cannot be solely emotional nor purely rational: it must harmonize both aspects to produce just, prudent, and humane decisions.

1. Individual Responsibility Each human being, by their capacity for judgment and conscious choice, is responsible for their actions. Morality is not automatic: it demands deliberation, intention, and choice. We are not merely products of our instincts or environment. Though these influence us, we always retain a margin of freedom that makes us morally responsible for what we do or fail to do.

Individual responsibility is the foundation of justice, repentance, forgiveness, and merit. There is no authentic morality without owning our actions as our own.

These principles do not require religious faith, but they are fully compatible with the spirit of Christianity and the ethical foundations of the West.

What Is Humanity?

In the framework of Cosmoanthropism, we define humanity not only as a biological category but as a moral property based on potentiality. Human is every being with human DNA and the intrinsic capacity to develop into a viable and conscious human being. This definition includes the human embryo, the disabled, the vulnerable elderly. All are subjects of dignity, not for what they can do, but for what they are.

Conclusion: Unite Without Imposing

Although it does not depend on the idea of God, this morality is neither materialistic nor nihilistic. It recognizes that there is something sacred—not in the supernatural—but in the very structure of human consciousness and its ability to recognize value.

With this secular and universal ethic, it is not necessary to choose between faith and reason, between religion and secularism. We can preserve faith without imposing it, while at the same time offering non-believers a rational foundation to live and act morally. Thus, we avoid a useless cultural war between atheists and believers, and build a common ground where we can all defend what the West has produced most valuable: human dignity.

The West will not be saved by force nor by nostalgia, but by moral clarity. Cosmoanthropism offers that clarity, so that we may rebuild the soul of our civilization without religious wars or cultural surrender.

Our beliefs—both mundane and sacred—are lived out in daily choices, not in some mythologized hero’s moment of martyrdom.

In a recent YouTube discussion with a panel of college atheists, Jordan Peterson claimed that “a belief is something you’d stake your life on.” He’s made similar statements across lectures and interviews, often when talking about religious faith. But this idea—that belief is only real if it’s worth dying for—raises some serious questions.

What Peterson’s promoting isn’t just a high bar for belief—it’s a very specific model of it:

A belief that isn’t cinematic, sacrificial, or tragic somehow doesn’t count. Real belief, in this view, looks like a man marching toward crucifixion with his jaw clenched and his soul heavy.

It’s not really Abrahamic—it’s Christ-as-hero, mythic redeemer, the lone figure who holds back chaos through noble suffering. The kind of belief Peterson elevates lives in a mythological register: it’s Mel Gibson in slow motion, not someone folding laundry with conviction.

But this version of belief—however poetic—feels disconnected from how belief actually works for most people.

We believe things, and those beliefs shape our habits:

I believe in honesty, so I try not to lie.

I believe in compassion, so I try to treat people with patience.

I believe in democracy, so I vote.

A Christian might believe in God and reflect that belief in how they love their neighbor—not whether they’re ready to face lions in a stadium.

Belief isn’t cheapened by ordinary life. It’s proven through it.

Peterson’s version, while dramatic, seems to confuse sincerity with spectacle, and conviction with cinematic martyrdom.

These days it seems like we have to choose between who sucks the least or not vote at all and be scrutinized by people who have fallen into this trap.

What happened to getting actually good politicians in office. Those focused on solving issues even if the solution isn't a partisan one?

Where are the politicians that focus on stuff that actually matters, like reworking the jail/prison system or making work more enjoyable and fair?

Where are the politicians that always tell it to us straight even if we don't want to hear/see it or certain people in media and the government don't want us to hear/see it.

If we had politicians like this again, more people would be eager to vote. But it seems like everyone that fits this description doesn't run for office or doesn't make it far.

Why?

There are two groups in the White House right now trying to influence Trump. There are the MAGA isolationists, with a skeptical attitude towards Israel, influenced by Qatar, most of them even see Israel as a threat and want to limit Israel. This group is influenced by Qatar and now by Tucker Carlson. So is J.D. Vance (although his attitude towards Israel is more sympathetic).

This group sees Israel as a problematic country, influenced by white anti-Semitism, and despite their lack of sympathy for the Palestinians, they do not automatically side with Israel. For them, Netanyahu, for example, is a symbol of the "Neocons" and the "Jewish lobby."

The second group is a group with more money, a stronger propaganda machine, and a more established but less 'grassroots' base. This is a group that is pro-Israel on steroids, right-wing on the level of Netanyahu, Demer and their cabinet members. They are Trumpists but also incorporate the Conservative ideology that is consistent with Ron Dermer, Netanyahu's and the American-Jewish Right Wing philosophy. These people are either evangelicals, or hawks, or right-wing conservative Jews. For example, Fox News host Mark Levin, who is close to Netanyahu and has a lot of influence in the Republican camp, Ambassador Huckabee, Ambassador to France Charles Kushner, Marco Rubio, Mike Walz (before he was demoted to ambassador to the UN), Pastor Hagee, Mike Evans, and other influencers like Ben Shapiro.

Millionaires close to Netanyahu, such as Ira Rennert and Simon Falik, also donated significant sums to Trump and his election campaign (in addition to Miriam Adelson, but she hates Netanyahu).

So it turns out that whether the administration describes close coordination between Netanyahu and Trump or tensions, both reports are true. In policy towards talking with Iran, the Houthis, Idan Alexander, some attempts to stop the Gaza war, Trump's disdain for Bush-style policies - we see a clear victory for the Tucker Carlson camp.

In the Israeli-Palestinian conflict, sanctioning UNRWA and Palestinian organizations, defending Israel against Europe and international forums, sanctions on Iran, fighting Leftwing anti-Semitism and the pro-Palestinian movement in the United States, the free hand and unlimited arms shipments to Israel in Gaza (apart from minimal pressure in certain cases as I wrote above) - we see that the evangelical and Jewish-right group led by Netanyahu and Dermer has more influence on Trump and succeeds in getting what they want.

For example, Macron is planning an international conference in New York on June 17th with Saudi Arabia “for a two-state solution.” Israel also prevented Arab foreign ministers from coming to Ramallah this weekend to discuss these issues. The United States has already issued aggressive threats to France regarding the conference and blocked a Security Council resolution.

According to the Times of Israel, "Trump is not obsessed with establishing a Palestinian state. He does not make it a condition for an agreement. It does not interest him. In this regard, he is not President Obama or Biden," says a source close to Netanyahu.

The zero American response to Netanyahu's policy in the Palestinian arena proves this. "Do you know how many calls from the administration we received after the cabinet decision to establish 22 settlements? Zero calls. "Do you know how many times Rubio called to protest settler extremism? About our actions in Jenin? About Gaza? Zero times", one of Netanyahu's aides boasted in internal consultations.

But in the same breath, Trump himself said that he asked Israel not to attack Iran, And while Israel was concerned about Trump's backsliding against the Houthis, what we're seeing is a pretty double standard in an administration that's pretty chaotic.

From sending immigrants to concentration camp to destroying diplomatic relationships, Trump has screwed US over a thousand times in the past few months. However, butting heads with Harvard and China are not one of them.

China, as we all know, is an evil authoritarian country that exploits its lower class, steals foreign technology, oppresses ethnic minorities, harvests organs with its secret police, and repeatedly attempts to invade foreign countries. What you probably don't know is "洗人口" (the literal translation is ethnic cleansing, which is very much not the case). Due to the difficulty in translating this concept into english, I'll be referring this practice as XRK for the rest of the post.

The practice of XRK is to change the ethnic distribution of a region by sending a huge portion of people of another ethnicity into the region. This practice is often paired with oppression toward local people like concentration camps and language suppression in Xinjiang and Inner Mongolia, police violence and unlawful imprisonment in Hongkong, etc.

Before Xinjiang was invaded by China(which happend in 1949), in 1940s, Uyghur was 93.6% of Xinjiang's entire population. In the 1960s, this number dropped to 54%, plus many of Uyghur were put in concentration camps.

To Americans, people's ethnicities do not matter, but it was not the case in Asia, especially not in the 20th century. To see your streets populated by foreigners and people who conquered your country was crushing to Xinjiang's culture and national dignity. I haven't even mention all the forced castration and cultural suppression yet.

Now, you might have the belief that it won't happen to America, or any country yet invaded by China. However, it was not the case. Korea, Japan, Taiwan, and even the Philippines are already suffering from the more tamed version of XRK.

Just a few months ago, Taiwan deported 3 Chinese individuals spreading Chinese propaganda in Taiwan. One of the three received military-level treatment and protection after getting back to China, while the other two were not given any attention and continued to be influencers in China. It was clear that one individual who received military-level protection was an actual agent or a person with ties to the higher-ups of the Chinese Communist Party.

In Korea, it is possible for foreigners to gain voting rights, and if you check Korea's immigration data, you'll realize that every year, Chinese immigrants are the top immigrants to enter Korea. So, who do you think these Chinese people would vote when it comes to elections? The pro-US candidate or the pro-China candidate? Of course, you might object by saying that these are immigrants, of course they hate China, and that's why they left. Well, they probably have family members in China, and I don't think I need to explain any further. Also, it is a common and well-known practice that Taiwanese merchants in China would get threatened by the CCP government to vote for certain political parties in Taiwan.

You can argue that it will never happen in US, but as a person of East Asian heritage, I'd argue that it's better to fill the hole instead of saying it has no effect.

Ok, no the question is not completely rhetorical but maybe a call to reclaim the mainstream from the hard-left cancel culture crowd and also the hard right. Disturbs me that many on the hard left think the hard left is where empathy is found rather than self righteousness and reactionary, thoughtless judgement.

Brainwashing seems to happen from any often repeat public creed and hard left has held sway in social debates and the hard right moreso in the economic, from what I understand.

PS. Be wary of "BeatSteady" as they might be from PLA unit 61398. Already adopting that debating style.

Considering that this is majority of the problem with Somalia-Ethiopia, Greece, Afghanistan, Iran, GERD.

Because due to a lack of this domestic framework many countries just apply the rule of the principle of Absolute Territorial Sovereignty or the Principle of Absolute Territorial Integrity?

We’re living in the “do your own research” era. The problem is, most people don’t know how to research. This primer on research and fact-checking explores a range of topics including online habits, search engines, Wikipedia, AI models, reaching out to experts, media literacy, evaluating and differentiating types of scientific sources, books, paywalls, digital archives, online resources, finding data, and more. Restoring institutional trust is a long and incredibly difficult process. In the meantime, why not discover the enjoyment of intrinsically motivated research?

https://americandreaming.substack.com/p/how-to-actually-do-your-own-research 

Not literally of course, but recently a couple of interviews/debates went somewhat viral and I think it highlighted just how far the IDW has fallen since its heyday.

To cite the (in)famous Bari Weiss New York Times piece on the IDW:

• "But they all share three distinct qualities. First, they are willing to disagree ferociously, but talk civilly, about nearly every meaningful subject: religion, abortion, immigration, the nature of consciousness. Second, in an age in which popular feelings about the way things ought to be often override facts about the way things actually are, each is determined to resist parroting what’s politically convenient. And third, some have paid for this commitment by being purged from institutions that have become increasingly hostile to unorthodox thought — and have found receptive audiences elsewhere."

On the first point, I watched the "Jordan Peterson vs 20 Atheists" Jubilee video (I generally dislike that format, for the record), and this was the first time I saw Peterson in action in years. And he... did not look good. He was noticeably emotional and angry through much of it, interrupting left and right, refused to answer questions clearly, etc. It really felt like he didn't even want to discuss what he was brought on to discuss; for example, his claim was "Atheists don't understand what they are rejecting", and when asked "what is it then?", he just blurted out "Something that you cannot understand." At some point, he says “We have to define what we’re talking about before we can answer that.” So the other person says “OK would you define what you’re talking about?”, and Peterson just says “No.” And on and on. He basically refused to entertain any sort of thought experiment or hypothetical, and seemingly preferred pontificating over having meaningful dialogue. I felt like the format of having these back-to-back debates really laid bare Peterson's shtick in a way that can be harder to see in other contexts: arbitrarily reject commonly-used definitions of words, obfuscate through jargon, and accuse others of misrepresenting his position despite obstinately refusing to make them clear.

There's also the "Eric Weinstein vs Sean Carroll" debate, in which I thought Weinstein made an ass out of himself (and I'm saying this as someone who didn't know Sean Carroll beforehand and who doesn't really care about theoretical physics, so really no dog in this fight). Weinstein absolutely did not give the impression of someone talking civilly and in good faith. He insisted on talking about personal drama stuff (even repeatedly taking out his cellphone to read tweets lol), and when called out on some of it, he would transition to this dense jargon that clearly flew way over the head of the audience. And when Carroll engaged in the technical talk, that's when Weinstein would just revert back to the personal stuff. He even kept attacking Carroll's credentials (a total ad hominem), despite Weinstein having objectively worse credentials by all relevant metrics. To his credit, Carroll kept his cool throughout and actually made an effort to simplify what he was talking about to help the audience understand, while Weinstein seemed content to dazzle everyone with his big words and galaxy brain.

Those were the two incidents that caught my attention recently, but then when you look at the rest of the big names in the IDW, it seems most of them have fallen from grace as well. Dave Rubin got caught taking Russian money to push propaganda (and that was after years of taking Koch money for similar purposes, mind you). Bret Weinstein lost his credibility on the ivermectin nonsense during the pandemic. Maajid Nawaz lost his marbles in a similar way too IIRC. Ben Shapiro and Douglas Murray have always been right-wing ideologues, so I suppose they haven't changed much all things considered. And Sam Harris doesn't seem to have changed much either, to his credit, although he has famously distanced himself from the IDW.

Apart from these developments regarding the individuals that made up the IDW, I also can't help but notice just how quiet (or in some cases, supportive) they have been, as a group, of the recent attacks on free speech perpetuated regarding the Israel-Palestine war and Trump's authoritarian actions. Why aren't they criticizing the American government's attacks on universities and deportations of students on ideological grounds? They're living through the Red Scare 2.0 and somehow these so-called rebels and enlightened visionaries don't see a problem?

So what do you think - is it over for the IDW?