Like I said, filling the gaps is really going to come down to what other resources you have, but from what I've heard and what I've found in my experience you're going to need these resources regardless of which book/course you choose.

Mastering Arabic will take you through the Intermediate level of MSA, roughly. The difference in vocabulary between it and a book like Al Kitaab is significant, but that would be the case with most books compared with Al Kitaab. So you'll probably want to supplement your vocabulary from real world readings, from a dictionary, or from other types of work books. Not that Mastering Arabic leaves out a lot of vocabulary, but each book is roughly 200 pages so there just isn't going to be as much vocab covered as in a college textbook.

The rest of it is really grammar and verbs, for which you'll want to use things most any other Arabic student will use. A good grammar book like the ones I pointed out before, either 501 Arabic Verbs or ACON for verbs, and then anything else you can get your hands on. If you're self-learning, you have to understand that no one resource is going to take you all the way there. I think Mastering Arabic is the clearest book out there, especially for a self-learner, but you're going to need more than the page and 8-10 examples they provide on grammar points.

I think the activity books help solidify vocabulary and some grammar points for me, plus it's just extra practice because you can't learn a language without a decent amount of practice. It's not a bad idea to go without them, but I've found them helpful for the most part.

Here's one of the grammar books I mentioned, and it's one that's highly recommended. The other one I rely on is here. You'll also get a lot of use likely out of the websites arabic.desert-sky.net, GLOSS, and Youtube channels like this one and this one. And that's just scratching the surface. /r/learn_arabic has a lot of great threads and resources available (I saw you posted this there as well), and google is your friend. And after a number of years and a couple of attempts at becoming fluent, the best advice I can give you is to be patient and to practice as much as possible and use what you have available to you.

Once you crack the Intermediate stage, take a look at books like Media Arabic and websites like Foreigncy. But at that point your learning will be mostly done with your dictionary, a grammar book, and things to read/listen to from the real world.

Good luck! Arabic is a beautiful and amazing language that continues to surprise me.

If I was going to provide someone with a list of books that best expressed my current thinking on the Political Economy these would be my top ones:

1. The Law - While over a century old this books stands as the perfect intro to the ideas of Classical Liberalism. When you understand the core message of this book you understand why people oppose so many aspects of government action.
   
2. Seeing Like A State - The idea that society can be rebuilt from the top down is well demolished in this dense but important read. The concept of Legibility was a game changer for my brain.
   
3. Stubborn Attachments - This books presents a compelling philosophical argument for the importance of economic growth. It's hard to overstate how important getting the balance of economic growth vs other considerations actually is.
   
4. The Breakdown of Nations - A classic text on why the trend toward "bigger" isn't a good thing. While various nits can be picked with this book I think its general thesis is holding up well in our increasingly bifurcated age.
   
5. The Joy of Freedom - Lots of books, many objectively better, could have gone here but this book was my personal pivot point which sent me away from Socialism and towards capitalism. This introduction to "Libertarian Capitalism" is a bit dated now but it was powerful.
   
   There are, of course many more books that could go on this list. But the above list is a good sampling of my personal philosophy of political economy. It is not meant as a list of books to change your mind but simply as a list of books that are descriptive of my current belief that we should be orientated towards high (sustainable) economic growth & more decentralization.
   
   Some honorable mentions:
   
   As a self proclaimed "Libertarian Crunchy Con" I have to add The Quest for Community & Crunchy Cons
   
   The book The Fourth Economy fundamentally changed my professional direction in life.
   
   Anti-Fragile was another book full of mind blowing ideas and shifted my approach to many things.
   
   The End of Jobs is a great combination of The Fourth Economy & Anti-Fragile (among other concepts) into a more real-world useful set of ideas.
   
   Markets Not Capitalism is a powerful reminder that it is not Capitalism per se that is important but the transformational power of markets that need be unleashed.
   
   You will note that I left out pure economic books, this was on purpose. There are tons of good intro to econ type books and any non-trained economist should read a bunch from a bunch of different perspectives. With that said I am currently working my way through the book Choice and if it stays as good as it has started that will probably get added to my core list.
   
   So many more I could I list like The Left, The Right, & The State or The Problem of Political Authority and on it goes...
   I am still looking for a "manifesto" of sorts for the broad movement towards decentralization (I have a few possibilities on my 'to read list') so if you know of any that might fit that description let me know.

Well he actually goes a step further, a good deal of Graeber's anthropological work goes towards examining alternatives to capitalist and state capitalist economic arrangements. Gift economies, markets, etc.

His anthropological work shows that there are different origins for currency but I think you might be interested in stuff like "Towards An Anthropological Theory of Value"

>This innovative book is the first comprehensive synthesis of economic, political, and cultural theories of value. David Graeber reexamines a century of anthropological thought about value and exchange, in large measure to find a way out of quandaries in current social theory, which have become critical at the present moment of ideological collapse in the face of Neoliberalism. Rooted in an engaged, dynamic realism, Graeber argues that projects of cultural comparison are in a sense necessarily revolutionary projects: He attempts to synthesize the best insights of Karl Marx and Marcel Mauss, arguing that these figures represent two extreme, but ultimately complementary, possibilities in the shape such a project might take. Graeber breathes new life into the classic anthropological texts on exchange, value, and economy. He rethinks the cases of Iroquois wampum, Pacific kula exchanges, and the Kwakiutl potlatch within the flow of world historical processes, and recasts value as a model of human meaning-making, which far exceeds rationalist/reductive economist paradigms.

Or some of the work done by his forebears like Mauss' "The Gift: The Form and Reason for Exchange in Archaic Societies"

>Since its first publication in English in 1954, The Gift, Marcel Mauss's groundbreaking study of the relation between forms of exchange and social structure, has been acclaimed as a classic among anthropology texts.

>A brilliant example of the comparative method, ?The Gift? presents the first systematic study of the custom—widespread in primitive societies from ancient Rome to present-day Melanesia—of exchanging gifts. The gift is a perfect example of what Mauss calls a total social phenomenon, since it involves legal, economic, moral, religious, aesthetic, and other dimensions. He sees the gift exchange as related to individuals and groups as much as to the objects themselves, and his analysis calls into question the social conventions and economic systems that had been taken for granted for so many years. In a modern translation, introduced by distinguished anthropologist Mary Douglas, ?The Gift ?is essential reading for students of social anthropology and sociology.

On the Roman side, you have the comedies of the author Plautus, which are actually adapted from Greek New Comedy. Greek New Comedy came around in the Hellenistic World, and was less of the raunchy fart jokes of Aristophanes (and is thus less fun), and more poking fun at social class. Menander is the only extant author we have of this type of comedy, but the Roman authors like Plautus translated some plays, and wrote others in the same tradition. These comedies are based on stock characters...the most popular of these is the "clever slave". My favorite of Plautus is Amphitryon, which mocks the parentage of Hercules...unfortunately, it's hard to find a good translation. Miles Gloriosus is also popular, and a fairly good translation is here.

Laughter in Rome was actually considered good luck in some instances, because it could divert the Evil Eye. For other instances of Roman laughter, check out satire in Juvenal and Martial. If you want to go earlier in the Greek world, there are a few lyric poets who make fun of people, such as Semonides.

I don't know about the eastern side of this, although I do know that tricksters such as those featured in the Chinese text Monkey were meant to be funny. It might at least give you a start for the east...wikipedia link here. It's a really fun read. Come to think of it, trickster tales from all sorts of cultures might help you...the book Trickster Makes This World.

Wall of text incoming:

Al-Kitaab fii Ta'allum Al-'Arabiyya (al-Kitaab generally) is nearly universal for beginning and intermediate Arabic learning in the States. There are three books, and it teaches fusha, which is media Arabic. All educated Arabs are proficient in this dialect, though it is rarely used outside formal settings.

Only one dictionary you'll need: Hans Wehr is the Arabic student's bible. You won't find much use for it off the bat because it's not strictly alphabetical, it's alphabetical by root. So until you learn to spot the root of a word it'll be hard to look anything up. It's also only Arabic-to-English, but al-Kitaab provides more than enough vocab to get you on your feet and Google Translate can fill in gaps (ONLY use Google Translate for individual words, then Hans Wehr to verify; Google Translate will botch sentences).

The most widely understood dialect would most likely be Egyptian, though oddly it is also one of the weirdest/most divergent from Classical Arabic due to Coptic influence. Fortunately, because it's so popular, there are lots of materials out there. That said, probably best to start with fusha, and branch out into dialects after you have a good handle on it. It'll help you understand where a lot of dialectical words come from. Additionally, al-Kitaab has a small Egyptian lesson at the end of each chapter, so you can get some basic exposure without having to functionally learn two languages at once.

Farther down the line, you can get Media Arabic, which is a collection of short articles by topic, with little exercises and loads of really useful vocab. Not strictly necessary if understanding the news isn't in your wheelhouse, but if you're serious about learning Arabic it's a really good intermediate/advanced step.

If you get serious about Egyptian, Pimsleur's Egyptian course is a good jump start, but also not really necessary and hard to do right because of the time commitment. It gets expensive, too, so make sure you're going to use it.

Some of my favorite books for Egyptian come from the American University in Cairo Press:

the Kallimni Arabi series is basically al-Kitaab for Egyptian Arabic. Very useful place to start.

the Arabi Liblib series
gets really into the weeds of how Egyptian speakers communicate. They're basically dictionaries of dialectical adjectives, idioms, and proverbs.

In addition to books, check out Memrise. It's a great vocab tool, and entirely user-generated, so there's a lot of content.

I also like to listen to BBC Arabic Radio. It's 24/7 so you can just pick it up whenever. Both fusha and various dialects. Exposure is extremely important in language learning, and even moreso when learning a language as alien to English as Arabic is.

On top of all this, just putz around on YouTube and Twitter. Arabs are all over social media and it's not hard to get exposure there.

:-) So happy to hear that. Sounds like he's lucky to have a friend as good as you.

If you or he want more information at any time, please don't hesitate to PM me.

(Also, for those who have the patience for it, Shiri Eisner's rather dense book Bi: Notes for a Bisexual Revolution is absolutely fantastic.)

Good luck, and thank you so much for being a good friend. I wish I had someone like you when I was wrestling with the feelings he is wrestling with right now. Take care!

In addition to the other great suggestions in this thread, check out feminism, too. While these consumerist trends are certainly universal, I noticed that many of the topics you particularly felt pressured by were ones directed extra strongly towards women. Reading up on society's views of sex and gender and how it often tries to pigeonhole us, women and men, into sexist stereotypes, can give you the mental ammo to better deal with this consumerism.

Where to begin? A really good book about consumerism and beauty pressures is Naomi Wolf's The Beauty Myth. The blurb:

>The bestselling classic that redefined our view od the relationship between beauty and female identity.

>In today's world, women have more power, legal recognition, and professional success than ever before. Alongside the evident progress of the women's movement, however, writer and journalist Naomi Wolf is troubled by a different kind of social control, which, she argues, may prove just as restrictive as the traditional image of homemaker and wife. It's the beauty myth, an obsession with physical perfection that traps the modern woman in an endless spiral of hope, self-consciousness, and self-hatred as she tries to fulfill society's impossible definition of "the flawless beauty."

Sound somewhat familiar?

^Wow, ^there's ^a ^typo ^in ^the ^official ^blurb.

Counterfactual questions can be useful, but I've generally had an ambivalence toward them for several reasons. There's one reason, in particular, though, that I'd like to use to open up further questions and comments.

Most who frequent this subreddit might be familiar with this book. It's a fun read, but a quick look at the table of contents reveals that the essays are overwhelmingly addressing questions about military. Now, this isn't surprising, given that the book's concept is an expansion of an earlier one focused solely on military history. Thirty-three of the forty-five essays in the book revolve around "what-if-this-person-lost-this-battle" or "what-if-a-certain-war-had-been-won-by-the-other-side."

I figured that a lot of those essays were written with a different audience in mind, and since it wasn't my cup of tea, I didn't give it much further thought. But after reading this question and looking back through the book, I think that table of contents might explain my uneasiness with counterfactual historical questions.

It wasn't the fact that those questions were overwhelmingly on a subject for which I had only a tangential interest that bothered me, but that all of them, save for a handful, were placing the power to significantly alter history into the hands of a few great men. Napoleon Bonaparte, Otto von Bismarck, Robert E. Lee, Alexander the Great, Adolf Hitler, Franklin D. Roosevelt, Abraham Lincoln, V. I. Lenin, and George Washington all figure prominently in these essays; there is little about everyday people, scant minority voices, and nothing about women.

However, I wonder if this isn't just a casualty of the way these questions are posed; even the most intriguing essays that attempt to incorporate multiple voices - the one at the end asking what would happen if potatoes were never transplanted to Europe from Peru is a good example - end up ultimately placing the power of changing history into the hands of a single man. In this case, it's completely on Pizarro bringing back the potato; there's no chance that peasants in Europe would have chosen not to cultivate it, there's no room to speculate if it might have gotten there by some other means.

This raises several questions, then (and this is the TL;DR version): Are counterfactual questions only useful or interesting when they're posed about the "big players" in history? Is it possible to ask such questions about "lesser" figures? And does focusing on the counterfactual marginalize the power/agency that everyday people had to alter the course of history?

Dr. Thomas Sowell wrote an amazing book on this topic. The Vision of the Anointed: Self-Congratulation as a Basis for Social Policy

Sowell discusses the premise behind Vision of the Anointed

>Sowell presents a devastating critique of the mind-set behind the failed social policies of the past thirty years. Sowell sees what has happened during that time not as a series of isolated mistakes but as a logical consequence of a tainted vision whose defects have led to crises in education, crime, and family dynamics, and to other social pathologies. In this book, he describes how elites—the anointed—have replaced facts and rational thinking with rhetorical assertions, thereby altering the course of our social policy.

Also Intellectuals and Race

>Intellectuals and Race is a radical book in the original sense of one that goes to the root of the problem. The role of intellectuals in racial strife is explored in an international context that puts the American experience in a wholly new light.

>The views of individual intellectuals have spanned the spectrum, but the views of intellectuals as a whole have tended to cluster. Indeed, these views have clustered at one end of the spectrum in the early twentieth century and then clustered at the opposite end of the spectrum in the late twentieth century. Moreover, these radically different views of race in these two eras were held by intellectuals whose views on other issues were very similar in both eras.

>Intellectuals and Race is not, however, a book about history, even though it has much historical evidence, as well as demographic, geographic, economic and statistical evidence-- all of it directed toward testing the underlying assumptions about race that have prevailed at times among intellectuals in general, and especially intellectuals at the highest levels. Nor is this simply a theoretical exercise. The impact of intellectuals' ideas and crusades on the larger society, both past and present, is the ultimate concern. These ideas and crusades have ranged widely from racial theories of intelligence to eugenics to "social justice" and multiculturalism.

>In addition to in-depth examinations of these and other issues, Intellectuals and Race explores the incentives, the visions and the rationales that drive intellectuals at the highest levels to conclusions that have often turned out to be counterproductive and even disastrous, not only for particular racial or ethnic groups, but for societies as a whole.

For Trans liberation I would read Leslie Feinberg's Beyond Pink and Blue.

For Gay and Lesbian liberation I'd read Harry Hay's Radically Gay

On Feminism there's a lot. So you may want to grab Shulamith Firestone's The Dialectic of Sex and Silvia Federici's Revolution at Point Zero. Both will give you a historical and economic understanding of women's struggle.

On the African struggle I would read Thomas Sankara's The Burkina Faso Revolution.

For the Indian struggle, I suggest Anuradha Ghandy's Scripting for Change if you can find a copy somewhere.

That's it for stuff outside of the purely economic sphere.

As for fiction that intersects with communism, I suggest Iain M. Banks's Culture Series. Considering Phlebas, The Player of Games and Use of Weapons. The late Banks did a tremendous job at portraying a classless, stateless, moneyless, post-scarcity society with access to cornucopia technology.

For generally entertaining Sci-Fi that'll keep you turning pages, and is also written in a non-traditional way, you have to read the Warhammer 40,000 Ciaphas Cain series. Get yourself the two omnibi Hero of the Imperium and Defender of the Imperium you'll enjoy yourself to no end. Commissar Ciaphas Cain just kicks all kinds of arse.

If you enjoy Fantasy, and want a bit with a Marxist Dragon, then I recommend Alan Dean Foster's The Spell Singer Adventures series. Specifically books 1 and 2, Spellsinger and The Hour of the Gate. It's also laugh out loud funny.

If you're more into old fashioned adventures, like Conan the Barbarian kind, then you need to read Michael Moorcocks's Elric series. You can get your toes wet with Elric: The Stealer of Souls. The stories are great fun, Elric is an absolute Byronic anti-hero, he's physically weak, he has to dope himself up, he causes the downfall of his own civilisation, and yet he's a great swordsman, poet, philosopher, and so on. Very much a nihilist, very much a tragic hero.

Finally if you want to delve into the Paranormal, and specifically into the romance category (and why not, I say?). I think you should absolutely read Jeaniene Frost's Night Huntress series. Starting with Halfway to the Grave. Written by a woman, with a female protagonist, all from her first person perspective. It's a vampire story, and as far as the lore is concerned follows very closely to the White Wolf idea of the Masquerade. It's nothing like Twilight, you'll enjoy it and if you're like me, get hooked on the series.

INTP/ENTP "spiritual person" here. Your routine and motivation is not the root issue. The self-hate is the root issue. The way you view yourself and how you relate to yourself (and by extension, the world) is very very dysfunctional, and I guarantee it's fucking up your life in more ways than one.

The negative self-talk is not reality, not objective, and not who you really are. The voice in your head is not only wrong and destructive, it's not even you.

You have a disconnect between different parts of yourself. You hate being "grounded" because when you're in that state, your ego isn't in charge, and you're forced to look at everything inside you you've been fighting. Learn to sit with that pain and not fight it... just let it happen, and watch it swell and then recede. This is, in essence, mindfulness meditation.

Try reading some of these, based on what stands out to you. They are all helpful.

• The Power of Now --A book about the true nature of self and reality. Heavy Eastern influence. This book has influenced me the most out of the list, and maybe even altered the course of my life.
  
  
• Radical Acceptance --A Buddhist book about loving yourself fully and completely. You are worth it!
  
  
• 12 Rules for Life: An Antidote to Chaos --A book by a brilliant man about how to live in a world defined by pain and suffering. Heavy Jungian influence. Quotes and references the Bible a lot, but from a Jungian/Campbellian perspective. Occasionally questionable politics.
  
  
• Iron John --A sort of esoteric book filled with poetry and fairy tales about how to be a man. Heavy Jung/Campbell influence.
  
  
• The Enchiridion by Epictetus --This is one of the best introductions to Stoicism, and it's free. Written circa 125 CE.
  
  
• Feeling Good --CBT book clinically shown to be as effective as antidepressants. Your post is filled with things this book addresses directly. HIGHLY RECOMMENDED
  
  
• The Happiness Trap --A book about ACT, which is similar to CBT with more mindfulness. Basically CBT tries to get rid of/replace the distorted images of yourself and the world, and ACT tries instead to see them for what they really are, which are meaningless ramblings of an organ using evolved mechanisms to protect its host, and as such are safely ignored.
  
  Tl;dr: Learn to be kind to yourself, love yourself, and accept yourself just as you are right now, flaws and all.

Yes, waiting can be hard. It took 4 months to get into a gender therapist in Boston. It is worth it though. In the meantime there are some books that may help them to better understand their feelings and options. There are two workbooks that I read that were okay:

• You and Your Gender Identity: A Guide to Discovery
  
• My New Gender Workbook: A Step-by-Step Guide to Achieving World Peace Through Gender Anarchy and Sex Positivity
  
  A Guide to Gender - The Social Justice Advocate's Handbook and the author is great and this Ted Talk he did is awesome.
  
  Some others are:
  
  
• The Queer and Transgender Resilience Workbook: Skills for Navigating Sexual Orientation and Gender Expression (New Harbinger Self-Help Workbook)
  
• How to Understand Your Gender
  
  Perhaps these will help them and even yourself find your answers.

I agree that radical feminism is ultimately a bourgeois and reactionary ideology, and we should combat it in all communist organizations. I have a couple questions though:

> "homosexuality is cultural"

I've never seen a radical feminist say this, I've seen the opposite more often ("homosexuality is something you're born with and is attraction to the same sex" and other transphobic shit like that)

I would say that gay behavior is not a socially constructed phenomenon but gay identity and the social position of LGBT people in capitalist society is. Thoughts?

As for articles and stuff from a marxist position against radical feminism:

Trans People and the Dialectics of Sex and Gender: Against Radical and Liberal Feminism by Alyx Mayer

Gender Nihilism: An Anti-Manifesto this isn't specifically a Marxist analysis, its influenced by several trends (queer anarchism, post-modernism, Marxism, and post-colonialism) but its easy to see that the analysis is easily adaptable into a more specifically Marxist framework.

Sexing the Body by Anne Fausto Sterling. This also isn't a Marxist book but it tears apart biological essentialism that radfems love and is a good book (its written by a biologist too so its not just some random person writing this, its a real scientist)

Trans Liberation: Beyond Pink or Blue by Leslie Feinberg. Argument for transgender liberation by a Marxist-Leninist trans woman. All of her stuff is excellent and worth reading.

Philosophical Trends in the Feminist Movement by Anuradha Gandhy. Another great piece that lays out the basis of Proletarian Feminism

Yes, you are attracted to men and women, so you fall under the bisexual umbrella. That's great. That's your part of bisexuality. However, I'm bisexual, and I am attracted to loads of different gender expressions - I am attracted to SAME and OTHER genders that myself. I am not pan, because this is what bisexuality have always meant:

"Bisexuals are people with the (some include "inborn" or "innate") capacity to form enduring physical, romantic, (some include "spiritual") and/or emotional attractions to: (1) those of the same gender as themselves (2) those of different genders/gender presentations from themselves."

You should definitely check out this book, I think you'll find it very interesting. The author goes over the history of bisexuality, and how the community's widely accepted definition have been surpressed by academia and the lg community.

I'd say it's not an inherently leftist value at all, but the left definitely does a better job at mobilizing and implementing new urbanism ideas.
I've seen quite a bit of pushback against the neoconservative suburb-loving mainstream figures on the right, and lots of academics (such as writers at First Things, various authors at the Front Porch Republic and the signatories behind "Against the Dead Consensus") have worked to make the right more friendly to the conservative benefits that come from well planned cities.

Robert Nesbit is a great resource for this. He began as a leftist but eventually came to intellectual conservatism, specializing in human sociology. This is key.
His book "Quest for Community " argues that the rise of the powerful modern state has eroded the sources of community—the family, the neighborhood, the church, the guild. Alienation and loneliness inevitably resulted. One of his solutions to this alienation is for things simply be done on a human scale. Neighborhoods, streets, towns, all need to consider first and foremost the necessity of human connection and localism, and the goods that come from them. This could mean having wider sidewalks, taking the car out of the city, etc.
Same goes for Leon Krier. Began as a modernist with liberal tendencies and saw that a traditional urban setting was far more conducive to human flourishing than modernism or suburbia.
The list goes on and on. One of the key trends I've noticed amongst pro-New Urbanism individuals on the right is the split between conservatism and traditionalism. You are much more likely to find the oil money, suburb loving, trickle down/anti-urbanism economics amongst neoconservatives and other mainstream republicans.

Not that you'd care what my opinion is, but just to be clear I'm not necessarily asking for the more political videos. I'm perfectly fine with whatever output you decide to do as I enjoy the Jim Bakker/Jimmy Fallon/Chubby/etc stuff just as much. Frankly I'm so bummed out after the election that I've found myself avoiding anything Trump related, so your other videos are a nice break from it all.

On the subject of Alex Jones, are you familiar with any of the work Jon Ronson has done related to Jones? Ronson is somewhat "responsible" for helping in Jones's rise when he helped him "infiltrate" Bohemian Grove back in the late 90's. He wrote a short book a few months ago that detailed him catching up with Jones again and also the interaction the Trump campaign was having with Jones's show (specifically through Roger Stone). It's a pretty scary and intimate look at Alex Jones's world view, I think you'd enjoy it.

This one by Allan Sheahen is considered to be one of the best books on the topic, and Allan Sheahen is one of the oldest supporters of UBI in America.

This one is also great, from a more libertarian perspective. Charles Murray is a well-respected libertarian thinker.

If you're looking for something academic, these textbooks are pretty awesome- one and two.

Of course it's "logical" for women to buy into patriarchy - but it's only logical after one has accepted that this is the way things are and they cannot change.

>So why is it that when men hold a sexist ideology, their positions are attributed to a well established (and by many, respected) ideology, but when women analyze the same information, and come to the same conclusions, is it assumed that she's internalized this completely irrational ideology that supposedly belongs to men alone, as if she's somehow been brainwashed and manipulated?

This is confusing - I think feminists would say both have been equally socialized (they wouldn't say "brainwashed") to believe patriarchal constructs. Part of the confusion seems to be that you're using "rational" to mean "self-interested." A man buying into patriarchy is purely self-interested, right, because he's reaching for the highest status in his given society, accepting no limitations on that status. Women who buy in are also trying to achieve the highest status possible in their society, and in that way are self-interested, but the woman is accepting that there are limitations for her. She is trying to be the highest-status subordinate. From that wider perspective, she's not acting in self-interest if she does not challenge her ultimately subordinate status. That doesn't mean it's irrational, but it does make buying into the patriarchy as a man vs. as a woman inherently different, because a man's position in patriarchy is by definition different from a woman's.

I think you could go further, though, and argue that men buying into patriarchy are not actually truly acting in their own best interests, because as we all well know, patriarchy hurts men too. But it's different from internalized misogyny because it's still completely self-interested within the logic of the system - within the way patriarchy defines value - if not truly self-interested in the context of other (more organic?) systems of value.

Edit: There are also different ways of "buying into patriarchy." My discussion above has in mind women who accept and embrace a very traditional feminine role. But there are also women that are what Ariel Levy has called "female chauvinist pigs", who essentially adopt a sexist masculine persona in order to try to achieve higher status than women are generally allotted in patriarchy (since, again, in patriarchy masculine>feminine). Again, this is completely rational within the context of patriarchy, arguably even more "logical" (self-interested) than the traditional woman's strategy, but as Levy points out:

>There's just one thing: Even if you are a woman who achieves the ultimate and becomes like a man, you will still always be like a woman. And as long as womanhood is thought of as something to escape from, something less than manhood, you will be thought less of, too.

https://www.amazon.com/Intellectuals-Race-Thomas-Sowell/dp/0465058728

Heads up : Author is black guy. World known intellectual. He owns multiple books about race, discrimination and economics. There is huge amount of numbers there gathered from last 60 years.

​

> It’s like we have to do this once a week now. Y’all need to work on your memory recall.

You need to work on your attitude. Virtue signaling doesnt make your arguments more valid. In the end, if you really wanted to see larger picture, you could google numerous literature outside of feminist narrative.

When you are ready, please enlighten me and show me statistics for :

-income compared to whites

-family wealth compared to whites

-middle class status

-education

-life expectancy

Compared to black people in 2019 from your knowledge and perspective. I wait.

Female Chauvinist Pigs: Women and the Rise of Raunch Culture by Ariel Levy really brilliantly examines female sexuality in modern US culture in a way that is very thoughtful and thought-provoking. I read this when I was in high school and it has definitely helped shape how I define my own sexuality. There are some really great chapters that describe the commodification of sex, and I feel like that section can speak to both sexes.

The Gospel of Mary of Magdala by Karen King. Read this in college and have never considered the Bible in the same way again. Whenever people reference the Bible as if it's this concrete resource that just sprang into being as it is, I want to bop 'em over the head with this book. There are other writings that didn't make it into the Bible as "canon," due to the judgement of the Council of Nicaea, and the Gospel of Mary is only one of those excluded, but it serves as a nice reminder that the Bible is not the so-called "word of God," but a man-made scrapbook.

And there's been some mention of this already, but definitely some Calvin and Hobbes up in this thread. Yeah, it's a comic, but there's a lot of depth to Watterson's quick little quips, and his strips on the public education system in the US are hilariously, terrifyingly accurate, like this one.

This video is amazing. I, for one, am irked when large businesses tackle social issues and it's seen as a sustainable practice. It reminds me of that time freaking Forbes came to our school to tell us how "capitalism is great" because of this (here's the poster for that).

Interestingly enough, the social changes that reward these empty gestures of multiculturalism and progressiveness are nothing new; it's a trend that exploded in the US after the 50s but also existed in other parts of the world before then.

There's two great books on this phenomenon that give the historical context in the US, even if they don't provide a direct solution:

Bobos in Paradise - David Brooks (bourgeois bohemians = "bobos")

Everything but the Coffee - Bryant Simon (talks a lot about how Starbucks was able to manipulate social changes)

Yup, I am doing anthropological research in Haiti for my PhD and I've become so incredibly cynical about the vast majority of non-profit work done in Haiti and other places. For those who are unaware, I highly recommend two books: Killing with Kindness and Travesty in Haiti both of which document how destructive these kinds of things are.

Also relevant: http://www.theatlantic.com/international/archive/2012/03/the-white-savior-industrial-complex/254843/?single_page=true

Edit: I should add that I don't think all non-profits, NGOs, and charities are a shit show. There are some great ones that I would even recommend to people. But in places like Haiti (AKA The Land of NGOs) there are thousands and thousands of them most of which are highly ineffective and some which are downright harmful. I'm a charity snob now in the sense that I never just hand out my money without investigating the organization first. I've seen too many examples of how well meaning people go into a community and do more harm than good with those donations. And I never donate used clothing to foreign countries (a few exceptions being natural disasters) because it is always damaging to local economies. Fuck the NFL and other groups who do that and try to spin it as a positive PR move. When presented with the opportunity to help either with donations or manpower think a minute about how it will impact that local community, look up how they've spent their donations, and do some research on the issue & organization.

TL;DR: Don't give up on non-profits, aid, and charities altogether. Just donate smart.

These decisions that we make are not created in a vacuum. We have all been socialized to accept skin "imperfections" on men more than women. The high standards of beauty have caused us to self police. So no one has to tell the woman that doesn't wear makeup that she looks tired---it might be on her mind anyway and that's not an accident. There's an entire billion dollar industry that tells us that beauty is self care, self esteem, and self improvement. And there are rewards for buying into this idea. So I wouldn't ever lay the responsibility on women for making these decisions---some people are more affected by this marketing than others but none of us are immune.

I used to think that I was "lazy" when it came to my appearance. But I had a therapist point out to me that that it's BS. All that is required of me as a human (regarding my appearance) is that I maintain good hygiene and dress appropriately for the occasion. I've realized that women are made to feel lazy if they don't go above and beyond because our appearance (unfairly) plays such a huge role in our status. Heels, makeup, hair appointments, waxing and on trend fashion are all ~extra~. Finding "flattering" clothing is all about hiding the things that we have been socialized to believe are unsightly. We are made to believe that we are supposed to be skinny, poreless, hairless art objects.

This book is not perfect, but The Beauty Myth by Naomi Wolf is about this very subject....published in 1990, critics saw it as heresy!

No problem, it is a fascinating topic. I don't know what to suggest, there's way way too many books.
Really top of my head, any anthropologist here will probably crucify me for forgetting something, I would suggest the following :

• Mead - Sex and Temperement
  
  
• Levi-Strauss - Savage Mind
  
  
• Descola - Spears of Twilight
  
  
• Mauss- The Gift
  
  
• Malinowski - Argonauts of the Pacific
  
  
• Clastres - Society against the State
  
  
• Levi-Strauss - Tristes Tropiques
  
  Some are more or less technical and harder to read without a background, I remember Malinoswki, Descola and Mead to be fairly easy to read. Tristes Tropiques is also very easy, it's like a novel. Mauss, Clastres and Savage Mind can be a bit more "advanced" but they are very readable.
  
  EDIT : Fun fact about something similar to cargo cult. Some tribes, don't remember if it's in Africa or Oceania, value foreign objects as possessing supernatural powers. As such, they cover their shields (which are absolutely amazing) with stickers, such as beer brands. The anthropoligist that told me this said that he tried to tell them that they are ruining the beautiful shield and they just thought he was an idiot, the shield looked much nicer with the stickers.

One of my profs in grad school worked extensively in Haiti on tree-planting projects. One of them involved purchasing plots of land and hiring locals to plant tree saplings; it didn't work very well as far as getting trees to grow since the same locals would let their goats onto the plots at night to eat the saplings.

My profs innovation was to instead give the saplings away for the locals to plant on their own property and raise as essentially a cash crop; it also largely bypassed the permanent chain of corruption running from DC through the Haitian government. Since the project was very successful, resulting in millions of trees planted, it of course had the plug pulled on it after three years.

For anyone interested in Haiti, I heartily recommend these two books: Travesty in Haiti and The Great Haiti Humanitarian Aid Swindle.

Personally, I'd argue that the archetype of the trickster is one of the oldest there are. One book you might be curious to read is Trickster makes the World by Lewis Hyde. Hyde goes through the more elements of trickster characters, such as Hermes, Coyote, or Raven very well and outlines their common patterns.

Essentially, the reason I expect trickster archetype to be very old (might not always have been a coyote) is that it is a very common archetype worldwide and due to something else, a hypothesis I'm sort of working on.

Now, that hypothesis hinges on one interesting motif: If you want to get a trickster to reveal itself when it is cloaked, is to spread some filth around and it is forced to roll in it. (See African Mbulu stories as one example)

If I were to take my own dog, who is a sweet lab mix. He has no cunning or trickery in him. He is straightforward, predictable and extremely well mannered. The only time he ever ever does anything to "trick" is when he finds filth to roll in, to hide his scent. That is truly the only trick he knows.

So my theory is, that if evolutionarily this is the first trick, or the origin of the archetypal pattern which later in our bigger brains became the idea of the trickster, then this 'character' must be very old because it is common in lots of animals as a form of disguising themselves. That's just my hunch but I hope it helps, and I'd love feedback on what you all think as well.

Edit:

Since we're dealing with the topic of Tricksters and tricks, I felt the need to hide one in this post. Have fun!

• Pronunciation (any language): Try Alexander Arguelles' Shadowing technique
  
• Grammar: Use a textbook like Mastering Arabic to learn the grammar and practice new concepts. Once you feel ok with a new grammar point, practice what you just learned by writing little essays on Lang-8 - native speakers will correct them for you and it allows you to practice both grammar and vocabulary.
  
• Vocabulary: If you're studying MSA, Media Arabic could help you. There's lots of vocabulary books out there, like this one, or if you want to practice reading as well, this could be of interest
  
  Have a look at Memrise and Anki where people have put entire decks of flashcards to learn vocabulary. That way you can practice during your commute or any free time you may have.

There's an awesome book called Female Chauvinist Pigs that looks at how we went from women burning bras to 18 year olds posing for girls gone wild. It's a great read and I highly recommend it! It explained a lot about my own journey into feminism. =)

http://www.amazon.com/gp/aw/d/0743284283?pc_redir=1414449178&robot_redir=1

There are several. Here’s just a few I’ve enjoyed.

King, Warrior, Magician, Lover: Rediscovering the Archetypes of the Mature Masculine https://www.amazon.com/dp/0062506064/ref=cm_sw_r_cp_api_i_04ugDbXGHB18G

Iron John: A Book about Men https://www.amazon.com/dp/0306824264/ref=cm_sw_r_cp_api_i_h5ugDb5X2WAJ8

The Hero with a Thousand Faces (The Collected Works of Joseph Campbell) https://www.amazon.com/dp/1577315936/ref=cm_sw_r_cp_api_i_y5ugDbNTGC2GM

The answer you are looking for is either:

Toward an Anthropological Theory of Value: The False Coin of Our Own Dreams by David Graeber

or

Sacred Economics by Charles Eisenstein

but

The Gift: The Form and Reason for Exchange in Archaic Societies by Marcel Mauss is the cornerstone of the field and very enjoyable, though shorter than the other two. It may be helpful to have read Mauss in order to understand the previous two mentioned.

I agree that this would be a cool project. If we are investigating the process by which user data becomes a commodity, then Marx's concept of commodity fetishism would also be an interesting lens to analyze the relationships between users of social media, user data, and the owners of the social media platform.

For those interested in an interesting reading of commodity fetishism, I recommend checking out David Graeber's Toward an Anthropological Theory of Value (you can also find PDFs of this book floating around the internet).

You are now getting closer to the real argument, I applaud you.

Getting rid of Medicare seems like a bad idea. In fact, society as a whole would likely be better off if everyone had healthcare (cost per person goes down, less health-induced poverty related crimes, etc) - but getting to that point is hard in a nice libertarian fashion. Charles Murray's idea to have a UBI coupled with a requirement to spend some on healthcare might be better than our status quo, but probably has some externalities that make it undesirable.

As for the other issues, I think many UBI advocates would handle the Social Security problem as an issue that will eventually phase out. You take anyone getting SS >1000/month and you give them their 1000/month in UBI plus the difference in SS. 1000 from UBI, 400 from SS. All people retiring after some cutoff don't get any SS top-up. Eventually phases out as an issue. Yes, if UBI stays at 1000/month and costs increase, this can be bad for the elderly. But it is also bad for the elderly to have an entire youth generation living in poverty, unable to get training. How do people retire? By purchasing the labor of the young with assets they acquired while young. One can't retire by hoarding assets unless there are people willing to do work to get those assets. Unless fully robotic retirement facilities pop up.

As for the gross price tag still being large, there are many arguments to be made on how to handle that issue, but I won't make them here as they typically require increased taxes of some kind and such discussions don't go far in this subreddit.

I would bring up the issue with treating money as a scarce resource. I like to look at money as valuable tool that helps facilitate market operations and allows a measuring of the value of a thing to a person. It measures a slice of goods owned to the holder. What does giving every adult 12k/year really mean? It means we think everyone deserves at least a small piece of the total goods produced; a base minimum before any productivity. No longer does anyone deserve 0%, even if they produce nothing. The real question is whether we want to move that direction as a society - and not whether X trillions of dollars is too costly.

Can society as a whole produce enough food, housing, and healthcare for all? Definitely. Many non-essential goods while doing it? Sure. We have a distribution problem, not a production problem.

We're going a bit off topic, but a strong theory is that the world will have a population decline or stagnation. Hopefully at that point we can live better, and maintain cultural ties to eating meat.

You've already had some good suggestions, which I'd suggest following. I have a BA in geography and even after school found these interesting reads.

Cultural and Historical Geography

Eratosthenes' "Geography"

The World of Gerard Mercator: The Mapmaker Who Revolutionized Geography

Guns, Germs, and Steel: The Fates of Human Societies

Race And Culture: A World View

Technical, GIS, Cartography

How to Lie with Maps

Thinking About GIS: Geographic Information System Planning for Managers

An Introduction to Geographical Information Systems

I know most of these won't be of much use with a BS degree, but gives you a good foundation for thinking geographically. For the more science aspects; a good understanding of physics, chemistry, and to a lesser extent biology, will really give you a leg up when starting out.

I started to make one a while back but didn't get too far. There are just too many great books to choose from.

Classics 1950-1970

What is Conservatism?

The Conservative Mind

The Road to Serfdom

The Constitution of Liberty

Ideas Have Consequences

The Quest for Community

Economics in One Lesson

Capitalism and Freedom

In Defense of Freedom


Age of Reagan 1970-1990

The Conservative Intellectual Movement Since 1945

Modern Times

Knowledge and Decisions

A Conflict of Visions

Anarchy, State, and Utopia

Roots Of American Order


Modern Must Reads 1990-Today

The Clash of Civilizations

A History of the American People

The Vision of the Annointed

Intellectuals and Society

Illiberal Reformers

Restoring the Lost Constitution

How To Be A Conservative

Per Nisbet and Deneen, it does logically follow that a hyper-liberal view of immigration (it is immoral to bar people from moving across states, open-borders), would require an expansion of the state to uphold order and replace the stability and social trust original communities had a priori the effective dissolution of them via widespread immigration. Individualism and the state march hand in hand.

But this political compass is fucking absurd, on that I think we can all agree.

Two that I think are great without going back too far are Naomi Wolf's The Beauty Myth, and Female Chauvinist Pigs.

I'm looking at amazon.com and thinking of ordering a new one from bell hooks, who I've always liked. As an African-American woman, hooks has always had a broader perspective.

I'd also recommend Susan Faludi's Backlash.

Amanda Marcotte's recent It's a Jungle Out There was a quick read and good.

I'm currently looking at Valenti's Full Frontal Feminism and by Siegel and Baumgardner's Sisterhood, Interrupted: From Radical Women to Grrls Gone Wild, but they're about 4th and 5th on my current reading list and I can't yet say how I'd rate them.

Also on my reading list is Does Feminism Discriminate Against Men?: A Debate (Point/Counterpoint) by Warren Farrell, Steven Svoboda, and James P. Sterba on my list. Looking forward to that one. Warren Farrell is a former feminist and the father of the men's liberation movement. The movement had progressive roots, but I think Farrell's moved more center, and certainly the men's movement has some very conservative branches. I think it will be interesting splitting apart any anti-feminism from the pro-men's liberation stuff.

I personally don't think there's any conflict between men and women's liberation, but I want to be more informed as to the current arguments.

I thought that was coined by David Brooks?

The way he uses it, it doesn't mean hipsters in the sense of urban youth, but of old-style hippies who grew up and became successful but held onto many of their hippie values. Hence bourgeois.

The hipsters I know aren't really capitalists.

I really loved Iron John by Robert Bly. It's a book that tries get at old wisdom of what it means to be man through myths and mythology.

My therapist from a few years ago, who was a woman, gave it to me.

It's hard to put it into words what it's about as the book is mostly allegory and metaphor. But I still recommend it.

Thomas Sowell is a black economist and author who writes on these (and other) topics very clearly and convincingly. In short: it's not about race at all - various ethnicities have been subjugated and marginalized throughout history around the world. Many have overcome adversity and become wildly successful...but it's always due to cultural values of work ethic, focus on education, and trying to create better opportunities for children, in spite of whatever social barriers may exist. Whenever political methods of "equalization" are tried they never work, because they don't come from within that group and don't address what's necessary for a given group to become successful.

I'm really sorry you are going through this tough time. Gender and identity can be tricky and heartbreaking for millennial in liberal cities (like me), it can be much harder for people in your situation. But that doesn't mean its impossible.

​

I imagine that this will be tricky to suppress for the rest of your life. Being in touch with who we are is important, even if it can be tough. But that doesn't mean it needs to happen all at once, or in a disorganised manner. Sometimes having a few people who know the 'real you' can alleviate some of the pressure. One of those people might be a therapist who can help you work through any other options that are available.

​

You might find this book helpful, Meg John Barker is an excellent writer on gender (gen x, I would guess). I've also heard good things about Kate Borstein's Gender Outlaw (and she narrates the audiobook so you could listen to it on your commute) - she's gen x as well.

​

I hope this helps, and my thoughts are with you.

You're bi, you're awesome, live your best life.

One thing that helped me was learning about other famous bisexual people, reading their stories, hearing their words. It's very affirming.

Some books you might consider reading:
Bi: Notes for a Bisexual Revolution https://www.amazon.com/dp/1580054749/ref=cm_sw_r_cp_apa_i_meWnDb4RYF9WB

Getting Bi: Voices of Bisexuals Around the World, Second Edition https://www.amazon.com/dp/0965388158/ref=cm_sw_r_cp_apa_i_VeWnDbX28YXHB

Bi Any Other Name - Bisexual People Speak Out https://www.amazon.com/dp/1626011990/ref=cm_sw_r_cp_apa_i_ufWnDb1EWEQDE

Recognize: The Voices of Bisexual Men https://www.amazon.com/dp/0965388174/ref=cm_sw_r_cp_apa_i_xhWnDbFK28M2N

Thomas Sowell, probably the greatest black intellectual alive today has been saying as much for a long time. And of course I doubt whites have more sensible political opinions, the only difference is that blacks have an easier time asking for handouts and special treatment (even if in reality it harms them more than help), whites would do the same stupid things if they could.

Race and Culture: A World View and Black Rednecks and White Liberals are two great books by Thomas Sowell on the subject.

Of course, in the current climate of political correctness paranoia, anything that can in any way be interpreted as criticism of a 'minority' is not acceptable, whatever it is true or not.

Well anyways, here's a NRx reading list I'm slowly making my way through...

​



Introduction

The Dark Enlightenment Defined*
The Dark Enlightenment Explained*
The Path to the Dark Enlightenment*
The Essence of the Dark Enlightenment*
An Introduction to Neoreaction*
Neoreaction for Dummies*

Reactionary Philosophy in a Nutshell*
The Dark Enlightenment – Nick Land*

The Neoreactionary Canon

The Cathedral Explained*

When Wish Replaces Thought Steven Goldberg *

Three Years of Hate – In Mala Fide***

****

The Decline

We are Doomed – John Derbyshire*
America Alone – Mark Steyn*
After America – Mark Steyn*
Death of the West – Pat Buchanan***
The Abolition of Britain – Peter Hitchens

****

Civil Society and Culture

Coming Apart – Charles Murray
Disuniting of America – Arthur Schlesinger
The Quest for Community – Robert Nisbet
Bowling Alone – Robert Putnam
Life at the Bottom – Theodore Dalrymple
Intellectuals and society – Thomas Sowell

****

Western Civilization

Civilization: The West and the Rest – Niall Ferguson
Culture Matters – Samuel Huntington
The Uniqueness of Western Civilization – Ricardo Duchesne

****

Moldbuggery

Mencius Moldbug is one of the more influential neoreactionaries. His blog, Unqualified Reservations, is required reading; if you have not read Moldbug, you do not understand modern politics or modern history. Start here for an overview of major concepts: Moldbuggery Condensed. Introduction to Moldbuggery has the Moldbug reading list. Start with Open Letter series, then simply go from the beginning.*

****

​

You don't need to worry about what other people think about the orientation you identify as...it's your identity and you are the one who identifies it and the one who matters! You don't need to prove your orientation to anyone (not even yourself) with any sexual behavior...orientation isn't about behavior, but rather longer-term potential for attraction. Some people may re-identify with experiences, growth, or time, but people need to be believed for what they say...doubt to this is usually just rude and misconcieved. We are #stillBisexual for years and to the end of our life.

As to stereotype and intersectionality, the best and most empowering book I've read is from Shiri Eisner, Bi: Notes on a Bisexual Revolution. It explains why stereotypes exist and then spins them around to reexamine what they say about culture.

There is a great deal of subjective evidence. When it is analyzed using the tools of comparativism, it becomes much stronger. Overwhelming, I dare say.

But there is objective evidence too. It's important that atheists never stop seeking it out. To that end, here are just a few of the books that I have read that I think every atheist should also read.

https://www.amazon.com/Varieties-Anomalous-Experience-Examining-Scientific/dp/1557986258

https://www.amazon.com/Introduction-Parapsychology-Harvey-J-Irwin/dp/0786430591

https://www.amazon.com/Extraordinary-Knowing-Science-Skepticism-Inexplicable/dp/0553382233

https://www.amazon.com/Outside-Gates-Science-Time-Paranormal/dp/1560259868

https://www.amazon.com/Mysticism-Evelyn-Underhill/dp/1463612354

https://www.amazon.com/Thousand-Faces-Collected-Joseph-Campbell/dp/1577315936

https://www.amazon.com/Trickster-Makes-This-World-Mischief/dp/0374532559

https://www.amazon.com/Trickster-Paranormal-George-P-Hansen/dp/1401000827

https://www.amazon.com/Shakespeare-Goddess-Complete-Being-Hughes/dp/0571166040

UBI, in the way Murray wants, it is not an expansion of the social safety net. He wants it to replace all other social services.


>This is the Plan, a radical new approach to social policy that defies any partisan label. Murray suggests eliminating all welfare transfer programs at the federal, state, and local levels and substituting an annual $10,000 cash grant to everyone age twenty-one or older. In Our Hands describes the financial feasibility of the Plan and its effects on retirement, health care, poverty, marriage and family, work, neighborhoods and civil society.


The libertarian version of UBI is a massive reduction in the benefits the average person uses

A lot of it is just how you feel internally. I'm amab, but don't usually present in a feminine way in public due to how many assholes are out there. When I do, I make sure that I'm armed.

This book would probably answer all of your questions, and it does so in a very user friendly and easy to understand way, even for people who are straight and cis: How to Understand Your Gender https://www.amazon.com/dp/1785927469/ref=cm_sw_r_cp_apa_i_txISDbVPY8001

But the combination of the Japanese and Germans could over time.


If Hitler had made the decision not invade the USSR, the Luftwaffe had actually built heavy bombers(instead of medium/light bombers) and not attacked population centers, and the German navy had invested even more into submarines, I very much think the war could have gone differently for England.


Edit: If you love answers/questions like these, you'll love this book. I read it as a child and it is what made me a history teacher.

>This is a foundational text and deserves to be read.

I'll second this. The book contains a wealth of references to research that is hard to find otherwise - experimental results that science fails to acknowledge because it cannot explain them. The author comes surprisingly close to outlining the basis of a magickal system.

I'd like to add Trickster Makes This World: Mischief, Myth and Art, for an analysis of trickster's many tales. If you know how to look, it's a good introduction to trickster magick.

And also Mutants and Mystics: Science Fiction, Superhero Comics, and the Paranormal - a comparative theologian's fascinating excursion into pulp fiction weirdness, the magick of writing, and how to make a hypersigil.

None of these books are likely to appear in the occult section, but I've found them more useful in developing my understanding of magick than many books that address the subject directly.

The study itself: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Eyferth_study

Thomas Sowell's book where he talks about this study and much, much more: https://www.amazon.com/Intellectuals-Race-Thomas-Sowell/dp/0465058728

Sowell also talks a lot about the subject in his autobiography-- and he has a really good perspective on this as a black man who grew up in Harlem, became a Marxist, studied economics, and then later became fiscally conservative after working at the labor department and realizing that they actually didn't want him to prove the truth about the minimum wage due to the political implications: https://www.amazon.com/Personal-Odyssey-Thomas-Sowell/dp/0684864657

If you don't want to read the books, here's a fairly quick youtube interview on the Intellectuals and Race book: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=H6ImP-gJvas

The activist paradigm the world over is very much the people described in Bobo's In Paradise. Europeans included.


^(Do you believe that spending $15,000 on a media center is vulgar, but that spending $15,000 on a slate shower stall is a sign that you are at one with the Zenlike rhythms of nature? Do you work for one of those visionary software companies where people come to work wearing hiking boots and glacier glasses, as if a wall of ice were about to come sliding through the parking lot? If so, you might be a Bobo.
In his bestselling work of "comic sociology," David Brooks coins a new word, Bobo, to describe today's upper class -- those who have wed the bourgeois world of capitalist enterprise to the hippie values of the bohemian counterculture. Their hybrid lifestyle is the atmosphere we breathe, and in this witty and serious look at the cultural consequences of the information age, Brooks has defined a new generation.)

I highly recommend you read them at some point - alternate histories have a lot of stigma surrounding them in the field of history. But this is a rare instance where famous academic historians at the top institutions just fucking went for it - they ignored that stigma and wrote essays that are paired with little introductory fiction stories that occur in these universes. You'll love it.


https://www.amazon.com/Collected-Eminent-Historians-Imagine-Might/dp/0399152385

Also, Ronson's short piece "Elephant in the Room."


https://www.amazon.com/Elephant-Room-Journey-Campaign-Alt-Right-ebook/dp/B01LXOO7UQ

I think Ronson is the perfect person to do a long expose on Jones. Him and Jones have a long relationship and Jones seems to trust Ronson.

I would first recommend reading the Beauty Myth.

https://www.amazon.com/Beauty-Myth-Images-Against-Women-ebook/dp/B0014H32D0

There is no Deus ex Machina in that story. It is all metaphor. There's an entire book that breaks down that one story.

https://www.amazon.com/Iron-John-Book-about-Men/dp/0306824264/ref=sr_1_1?ie=UTF8&qid=1536061283&sr=8-1&keywords=iron+john

If books like that interest you I'd also recommend Lion's Honey. It breaks down the story of Samson and Delilah.

https://www.amazon.com/Lions-Honey-Samson-David-Grossman/dp/1841959138/ref=sr_1_1?s=books&ie=UTF8&qid=1536061367&sr=1-1&keywords=lion%27s+honey

Okay, how about https://psmag.com/social-justice/commercializing-counterculture-summer-music-festival-went-mainstream-86334

and the book Bobos in Paradise: The New Upper Class and How They Got There

Do they have to be sources from social science journals?

http://eprints.uwe.ac.uk/31448/1/1-s2.0-S0160738316301761-main.pdf

I'd recommend the book Iron John by Robert Bly.

https://www.amazon.com/Iron-John-Book-about-Men/dp/0306824264

This book gives a high-level, in the clouds presentation of how boys become men. There's a normal attachment children have with their mother until about 10-12 or so. It's different for different kids; it's not black and white. But there comes a time when the boy must make a break with "the Mother". Bly goes through a few different cultures and how the break is made with some rite of initiation.

Your children will naturally listen to the mother until they get close to this "make the break" time. Too early of a break because of an unloving mother or problems in the home or whatever, and some problems can arise. Too late of a break with the mother ... well ... soy boys and men that can't adult and other problems.

I compare the book Iron John to TWOTSM ... just applied to raising boys. Kind of spiritual, kind of ethereal ... but the understand it can impart is great.

This is really great. This is the first time I have heard an analysis of what really is going on.

He only goes so far here. To carry his ideas further, leaving more money in the hands of two-income families where the two incomes are similar, more money for their parenting, is still making the woman work. A woman who has to work is going to have fewer children than one who is home, and she may divorce from sheer exasperation and exhaustion.

But his ideas are right, about the parental wage concept, and about the valuing of parenting specifically and visibly. A very exciting speaker and writer, this guy Lyman Stone.

"Hi. I'm Suzie. I want to bankrupt you by marrying you and having children" is not a nice pick-up line. That's how you get "men going their own way."

Or, "Hi. I'm John. I want to make you work and raise kids too. I'll help when I can, but money will be tight, and you will be tired, and miss the kids all day. Sorry, but that's the best I've got, under the present tax system." Not much better.

I wish Lyman Stone would write a book. I tried to find his name on Amazon but it's not there. He could just self-publish on Amazon, simply bundling the articles he has already written. I also want to hear from his wife. Let her contribute a piece to this book.

This is another book: I haven't read it.

https://www.amazon.com/Empty-Planet-Global-Population-Decline/dp/1984823213/ref=sr_1_1?keywords=empty+planet&qid=1570079917&sr=8-1

Hanging around /r/conspiracy does not imply that I should take theories at face value. I think that there are power structures designed to keep people in power, but I disagree that they're based on race, race division is nothing but another diversion tactic from those that are truly in power, to divide and conquer.

You've pointed me towards no proof or any reasonable indicator that black people are truly oppressed. Black people that have decided to transcend the culture that would bring them down have been successful, those that decide to blame others for their problems probably have not. It's really that simple. You can't argue inequality and oppression when black people have the same rights and can even rise to be president or attorney general, this is something that you have not addressed.

I recommend this book:

https://www.amazon.com/Intellectuals-Race-Thomas-Sowell/product-reviews/0465058728/ref=cm_cr_dp_text?ie=UTF8&showViewpoints=0&sortBy=helpful#R3PI46WC1VDA6T

Sowell explains why cultural differences and not genetic or racial discrimination determine how certain minorities excel and others not so much.

I also recommend taking a look at the crime statistics coming from the USA census bureau and the FBI. They show that black people commit a disproportionate amount of crimes in proportion to their % of the overall population, this is something that many people don't get into their heads, the concept of representation.

He also had a little kindle single about the 2016 campaign and the alt-right, featuring a reunion with Alex Jones (it was written before the election, so Ronson was still confident Trump would remain a fringe character like Jones).

Here's actual data on why I urge you to not screw up your relationship, if you are with a good man.

This book was published this year https://www.amazon.com/Girls-Sex-Navigating-Complicated-Landscape-ebook/dp/B0111YAT0Y

>They are considerably less likely, for instance, to receive oral sex in casual encounters, and when they do, it’s rarely to climax: only 17 percent of women reported orgasms in first hookups that included oral sex alone, as opposed to 60 percent whose most recent cunnilingus experience was in a relationship. (Men in hookups, incidentally, overestimate their partners’ orgasms by a third to a half.) In hookups involving intercourse, 40 percent of women said they’d come (half the rate of men who did), as opposed to three-quarters in serious relationships.

>Perhaps one could argue that it takes time for men to learn a female partner’s body and responses, but it also requires interest—and basic respect. Young men routinely express far less of both for hookup partners than for girlfriends or even “friends with benefits.”

Also based on this book from from 11 years ago, 70% of women having casual sex were not having orgasms https://www.amazon.com/Female-Chauvinist-Pigs-Raunch-Culture/dp/0743284283

If you aren't satisfied with sex with your boyfriend, I can suggest some books to fix that too.

Another great is "The Gift: The Form and Reason for Exchange in Archaic Societies" By Marcel Mauss. This book changed my life. It opened the door to a whole new stream of thought dealing with 'ecomonies' or relationships people create and the obligation to reciprocity that bind people not only to other people to create culture but also binds people to objects within a time and space.

http://www.amazon.com/Gift-Reason-Exchange-Archaic-Societies/dp/039332043X#_

Not analytical, but [The Marriage of Cadmus and Harmony] (https://www.amazon.com/dp/0679733485/ref=cm_sw_r_cp_apa_WeFzyb8P38Y07) and [Trickster Makes This World] (https://www.amazon.com/dp/0374532559/ref=cm_sw_r_cp_apa_rgFzybHSHHMHP) are both pleasurable reads.

The issues are more complex than this one thing.

I was reading a great book on demographics called Empty Planet which suggests that developed nations like Canada do not have a birth rate to required to replace those who die. Our national rate is 1.5 births / woman, and 2.1 is needed to keep the population we have. In fact,

>1971 was the last year our birth rate matched where it needed to be to renew the population without immigration. source

Because of our ageing population, most women are past prime childbearing years, and if you look at the population pyramid on this site it looks like more than 1/2 our population is over 40 years old.

From this source it looks like only NL has a lower fertility rate than QUE.

In general, entry level jobs need younger people, and with immigration and the children they bring, there will be many entry level jobs with few workers to fill them, and few top end jobs, with a surplus of people over 40 looking for them.

This reminds me of a book: "Bobos in paradise"

http://www.amazon.com/Bobos-In-Paradise-Upper-Class/dp/0684853787

Learn as much Creole as you can. Don't bring gifts you just give away. Also read the following books.

http://www.amazon.com/Travesty-Haiti-Christian-orphanages-trafficking/dp/1419698036

http://www.amazon.com/The-Big-Truck-That-Went/dp/023034187X

Expect poverty. People will surprise you with their friendliness and generosity.

Also where did you go?

My favorite term is "racialized", because it really highlights the fact that white is the default assumption.

edit: highly recommended source: Bi: Notes for a Bisexual Revolution, by Shiri Eisner, which touches on lots of intersectional issues, including race

Leslie Feinberg's Trans Liberation: Beyond Pink or Blue is fantastic!

FWIW, I'm pretty sure I heard all these arguments first from a black law professor (Steven Carter ) and a black economist (Thomas Sowell). They are common views among those who have an economics-influenced worldview. (which is to say, more common among libertarians and conservatives than liberals)

To be more specific with regard to your bolded claim: in practice the intent to practice AA in colleges has had the effect of requiring Asian applicants to achieve much higher SAT scores than others in order to get admitted to the same set of colleges. When this has been noticed, the ideology seems to encourage covering it up or moving the mechanism which accomplishes it into harder-to-quantify areas.

I left off another argument, which is that AA helps already-privileged members of minority groups (who would have succeeded without it) while either failing to help or actively harming the less-privileged members of those same groups. That was the main thrust of Carter's book .

Of course, the body of ideas that constitute "AA" is ever-changing, just like the body of ideas that constitutes, say "communism". One can always claim some criticism doesn't apply to YOUR version of AA (or communism, or liberalism) and sometimes that is actually true, but more often it's a no-true-Scotsman effort. At its heart, AA policies are based on a set of premises about what is likely to be fair or effective or beneficial, and these premises are reasonably disputed by AA's critics.

(Side note: some of the past intellectual basis for AA used the concept of "stereotype threat", which has since been a casualty of the replication crisis.)

You're making me math?? Oh, you cruel fiend :)

This book + this dvd should be $22.21, if I didn't mess up my math :) .

Of course it's redistribution of wealth, and that's not against libertarian principles. Charles Murray wrote a whole book about it. The Cato Institute has thoroughly discussed the idea in mostly glowing terms. It's far from universally supported among libertarians, but it has solid traction.

If anyone would like to learn about Alex Jones I recommend a book by a guy who actually knows the guy. Jon Ronson actually happens to know Alex Jones. He worked with him for a while and they diverged. One went into conspiracy theories and the other into journalism. The book goes into a lot of it. He also spends a lot of time talking about Roger Stone and more. I... I just really like the book.

> The Elephant in the Room: A Journey into the Trump Campaign and the “Alt-Right

It's free to read (in the US) if you have Amazon Prime.

http://www.amazon.com/Trickster-Makes-This-World-Mischief/dp/0374532559

This one's a great book for trickster gods across cultures: the Raven, Coyote, Odysseus, Hermes, Krishna, etc.

Have you read Trickster Makes This World (excerpt here? Great book on the use and meaning of Trickster stories.

https://www.amazon.com/dp/0465058728/?coliid=IV5OVDM0KKXN2&colid=33OPSQMTB84F&psc=0&ref_=lv_ov_lig_dp_it

Enjoy, I did.

First, I don't have anything to say about the UK, but someone already ran numbers for replacing the US welfare system (the entire system mind you; welfare, TANF, disability, SS, medicare, medicaid) with an unconditional basic income system that provides 10k per year per person for everyone over 21, starting in 2010 or so, and it was roughly even. The book is In Our Hands: A Plan to Replace the Welfare State http://www.amazon.com/books/dp/0844742236 . Some countries, such as Australia and Brazil already have some degree of basic income systems in place, so just because such a thing might not be viable today, or for everyone yet, doesn't mean the concept has no merit.

Second, an economy runs on the flow of money. I don't find it terribly complex to understand the following argument: a) increasing automation will lead to higher capital/investment costs and lower ongoing costs for businesses b) businesses will need less employees and spend less money over time to produce their products c) wealth will collect in the accounts of the people that own the capital and businesses because they have minimal costs to pay; no employees, production costs are paid upfront, etc d) economy grinds to a halt as the owners continually make more money than they spend or lose through taxes until no one else has any money.

We're already seeing this happen to some degree; corporations are sitting on stacks of cash because they have no reason to invest it because there's no one left who can/will consume more of their products. Inflation seems by far to be a minor concern compared with this kind of problem, where we have the effective capability to provide for the needs of everyone, but we don't because of the mechanisms of our economic system isn't capable of dealing with our technological progress. In such a world money is much less important as a means of storing value than it is as a means of efficient resource distribution/allocation.

And finally, I'm missing the issue with corporate taxes. Corporate taxes are on profits; I don't see how this affects consumers, and I don't see how its a bad thing or affects investment. Corporate taxes should encourage investment by my measure, because it means you're better off spending a chunk of cash on R&D or whatever instead of putting 70% of that in your bank account and sending the other 30% to the government. Unless I'm missing something, in which case by all means, enlighten me.

>citation

In Empty Planet, John Ibbitson and Darrell Bricker find that a smaller global population will bring with it many benefits: fewer workers will command higher wages; the environment will improve; the risk of famine will wane; and falling birthrates in the developing world will bring greater affluence and autonomy for women.

But enormous disruption lies ahead, too. We can already see the effects in Europe and parts of Asia, as aging populations and worker shortages weaken the economy and impose crippling demands on healthcare and social security. The United States and Canada are well-positioned to successfully navigate these coming demographic shifts--that is, unless growing isolationism leads us to close ourselves off just as openness becomes more critical to our survival than ever.

I don't think that we're overpopulated at all. And human population has already entered the beginning stages of global decline. John Ibbitson wrote a good book on it called Empty Planet. I find it a convincing argument as to why the major issue now is population stagnation and decline.

Naw, trump would’ve nuked Iran or NK or Puerto Rico by now if that was true.

The thing is, experts in trickster archetype scholarship (all 13 of us) know exactly what’s going on here. Things look bad now, but in the future a new and better world will come from all this bullshit.

https://www.amazon.com/Trickster-Makes-This-World-Mischief/dp/0374532559

Good point.

The Collected What If? Eminent Historians Imagine What Might Have Been https://www.amazon.com/dp/0399152385/ref=cm_sw_r_cp_apa_i_a0c5BbQAK65MJ

Race and Culture is another good one.

If you are interested in learning more about this, there is a famous economist you may have heard of called Thomas Sowell, who has written extensively on this topic.

His most extensive work on the topic, from my perspective, is the book below:
http://www.amazon.com/Race-And-Culture-World-View/dp/0465067972

edit: spelling

No, but they are perpetuating the same stereotypes that justified not giving you those rights for generations and generations.

See: Enlightened Sexism and Female Chauvinist Pigs

Race and Culture, by Thomas Sowell.

Now can we please move on?

http://www.amazon.com/exec/obidos/ASIN/0844742236/ref=nosim/nationalreviewon

Great minds think alike... some of the details are different but the general idea has been out there for a while. Also google "basic income guarantee."

Read this book and then loan it to your friend. If your friend thinks the Catholic Church isn't making a profit off it's "charity" (or any church for that matter) she must be informed. Also have her read Hitchens book on Mother Theresa. Disgusting.

https://www.amazon.com/Travesty-Haiti-Christian-orphanages-trafficking/dp/1419698036

Sowell does write about race and culture, too.

But he is also a serious economist, yes.

What do you think about the Collected What If? It's presented as a collection of essays, rather than a novel.

Just recently bought three alternate history books that have some what if's


Election of Theodore Roosevelt in 1912, how Germany might have won the war in 1915, etc.


Some of the stories do overlap if you take a look at the books but I will come back with my impressions of the WW1 chapters (Would take a very long time for me to read all three books)


The books are


http://www.amazon.com/What-If-Foremost-Military-Historians/dp/0425176428

http://www.amazon.com/What-If-II-Robert-Cowley/dp/042518613X

http://www.amazon.com/Collected-Eminent-Historians-Imagine-Might/dp/0399152385

Here it is!

I normally do link books whenever I mention them, don’t know why I didn’t this time.

Also, Ronson wrote a short follow-up in 2016 at the height of the campaign season, The Elephant in the Room, about Jones, the Alt-Right, and the Trump Campaign, generally about the rise of extreme conspiracy theories becoming mainstream and a presidential candidate (sadly now POTUS) embracing them and endorsing someone like Jones, who has now become famous and people all over buy into his crap. Interesting section where Ronson “reconnects” with Jones, 20 years after their adventure. Which, by the way, Jones had a completely different interpretation of, naturally.

Well, not a dozen books. Let's start with one, maybe?

https://www.amazon.com/Trickster-Makes-This-World-Mischief/dp/0374532559

a few people requested so here is the amazon link, i saw it in a Barnes and Nobles one day and bought it on impulse it features what if questions all across history from D-day, civil war, Cold war, Conquest of Alexander and several more it's a really good read, i'm a civil war dork so that section was really interesting to me but i've yet to finish it but it's really good
Edit: i forgot to put the link in http://www.amazon.com/Collected-Eminent-Historians-Imagine-Might/dp/0399152385/ref=sr_1_4?ie=UTF8&qid=1371068935&sr=8-4&keywords=What+if%3F+Robert+Cowley

In a nutshell, Ms. Levy asserts that women are at least partially to blame for the "raunch" culture -- women making other women and themselves sex objects.

If you are interested in learning more, here is a link from amazon.com: http://www.amazon.com/Female-Chauvinist-Pigs-Raunch-Culture/dp/0743284283/ref=sr_1_1?ie=UTF8&qid=1347384465&sr=8-1&keywords=female+chauvinist+pigs.

I would suggest you check it out from your local library.

She just wanted to brag that she buys expensive butter and organic coconut oil. Standard Bobo stuff.
http://www.amazon.com/Bobos-In-Paradise-Upper-Class/dp/0684853787

https://www.amazon.com/Our-Hands-Replace-Welfare-State/dp/0844742236

https://www.wsj.com/articles/a-guaranteed-income-for-every-american-1464969586

http://www.forbes.com/sites/timworstall/2016/06/04/of-course-we-can-afford-a-universal-basic-income-do-we-want-one-though/#5f62aa4ae00a

Why don't you just read his book on the topic?

https://www.amazon.co.uk/Our-Hands-Replace-Welfare-State/dp/0844742236

There are lots of other great documents and videos of Murray explaining his idea that he details in his book In Our Hands: A Plan to Replace the Welfare State

I'm reading Trickster Makes This World, I'll throw down all smarty-pants with yas.

If you read Jon Ronson's Kindle single about Alex Jones and the RNC, apparently Trump tried to get Beck on board with a trip to Mar-a-Lago, and Beck viewed it as manipulative.

I prefer: Non-fiction (Wide range)

Currently reading:

Intellectuals and Race, by Thomas Sowell.

http://www.amazon.com/Quest-Community-Background-Essential-Conservative/dp/1935191500

This book?

Here is the mobile version of your link

Charles Murray (conservative) wrote a book about universal minimum income, at 10K/adult https://www.amazon.com/Our-Hands-Replace-Welfare-State/dp/0844742236

unsure if that would work, but he put the idea out there

There is a book called The Elephant in the Room by Jon Ronson that details the influence Alex Jones has on Donald Trump.

No matter how trivial YOU find him, the person leading this country takes him quite seriously. That is something none of us can afford to take lightly. Trump quoted Jones at the RNC! Called him "Very Smart" and meets with the clown. Talk about a Confederacy of Dunces, we got one now and it's not nearly as entertaining as the book by John Kennedy Toole.

There are many more that exist, of course, but here are some of my favourites:

Bitchfest - A collection of essays from Bitch magazine

Female Chauvanist Pigs: Women and the rise of raunch culture by Ariel Levy

Men explain things to me - Rebecca Solnit

Backlash - Susan Faludi

Bad feminist by Roxane Gay - I'm just in the middle of reasing this now, really enjoying it.

You are an idiot. There are no "low-IQ areas" or-"high-IQ areas" and all of humanity's modern economic, scientific, and cultural achievements are not driven by my people from low birth rate countries. It is correct that most Western, industrialized countries do not have birthrates at or greater than replacement fertility. For better discussion of this I recommend the book Empty Planet. India's fertility rate is above replacement rate and yet immigrants from India seem to do fine Western industrialized countries. Actually, there are too many nutty things in your post for me to address so I'm going to stop here. Go back to your gaming.

My favourite line from Jon Ronson's The Elephant in the Room: A Journey into the Trump Campaign and the "Alt-Right" was when he was talking to a Trump supporter who told him Hillary was a 'known luciferian' and he replies 'She's not a known luciferian', 'well yes and no' comes the response. Where I come from the only people who believe in luciferians and satanists are 13 year old death metal fans.

Some people are born in areas where resources are more or less plentiful, this is not fair. That being said, some cultures or demographics make more babies who make more babies at rates which continue to ensure the limited resources available are certainly incapable of handling the population. Well what to do besides fuck if there is nothing to hunt, well their is war, political power, etc...Or their is entering the labor force through education and training. But it doesn't exist, ok import it, NOPE IMPERIALISM! rant off/
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_sovereign_states_and_dependencies_by_total_fertility_rate

May I suggest Sowell for an interesting viewpoint on historical choices of individuals as they relate to their particular advantages or disadvantages within certain areas, types of legal framework, ethnic groups, and culture... https://www.amazon.com/Race-Culture-World-Thomas-Sowell/dp/0465067972/ref=la_B000APQ7EI_1_17?s=books&ie=UTF8&qid=1495232293&sr=1-17&refinements=p_82%3AB000APQ7EI

He has written maybe a dozen books about it:

https://www.amazon.com/Race-Culture-World-Thomas-Sowell/dp/0465067972

https://www.audible.com/pd/The-Economics-and-Politics-of-Race-Audiobook

https://www.amazon.com/Intellectuals-Race-Thomas-Sowell/dp/0465058728

https://www.amazon.com/Race-Economics-Thomas-Sowell/dp/067930262X

https://www.amazon.com/Discrimination-Disparities-Thomas-Sowell/dp/154164560X

But here is a speech he wrote about three such books (Race and Culture, Migrations and Culture, and Conquests and Cultures.)

https://www.tsowell.com/spracecu.html

Note he immediately points out not only that things aren’t equal or just, but also that there’s no reason one should expect equality, nor that we should expect everyone to behave morally. That’s specifically what I was responding to re. your post.

> absent the necessary punishments of parasitism?

Are you claiming that this can only be provided by a State? Come on man, you're better than that.

>Your guys' political economy has no other explanation for why Africa is so low trust other than "they were brainwashed, man!"

I don't know which "guys" you are referring to, but I personally find the issue far more complex than that. In my opinion, there are environmental, cultural and ultimately genetic reasons why we Africans are so damn poor. We were not just "brainwashed, man".

> The Trickster's Skin

Ah, realized I got the name wrong :It's "Trickster Makes this World"
https://www.amazon.com/Trickster-Makes-This-World-Mischief/dp/0374532559

I'll look up Galveston :)

Yeah, GOT doesn't hold up in the later seasons when I think about it. Makes me sad.

I'm just gonna leave a link to Marcel Mauss's book about gift-exchange (though you can read the wikipedia entry which will totally give you the gist of it). I know a lot of anthropology can seem pretty effete, but despite the phrase "archaic societies" in the title, even in today's society we see a lot of social ties acted out by acts of reciprocal exchange in the form of gift-giving. I've noticed this in particular with women in tight-knit communities. I used to think it was kind of dumb to give gifts because you have to, or for specific occasions... I'd rather opportunistically buy a gift that fits the recipient as an individual. But now, I think these little rituals do help us bond with one another. The women that I see regularly exchanging seemingly meaningless gifts with my mom (and sometimes me) are the ones who come through if she (or I) gets sick, or moves, or needs help with something serious.

Here are a couple of readings on the topic that explain the problem:

The Crisis of American Lonliness

The Quest for Community

Aw. I have a book of this kind of thing that's super interesting. There's a good deal of WW2 era stuff in there, but most of it is about the events of the war going differently (what if Normandy failed? what if they never cracked the Enigma machine?) Or looking at the 1930s if WW1 had ended differently.

Europe is able to have such a massive welfare state because we pay for their defense budgets. And destructive "fuck you, I'll do what I want" individualism is a result of the state. [Society is emergent, people cooperate to reach common goals without government and through the market] (http://www.amazon.com/Quest-Community-Background-Essential-Conservative/dp/1935191500/ref=sr_1_1?s=books&ie=UTF8&qid=1377371743&sr=1-1&keywords=the+quest+for+community). [After the welfare state was expanded in the 60's, people could engage in destructive behavior that most people disproved of (out of wedlock pregnancy, divorce, promiscousnous, addiction) because that behavior was subsidized by the government] (http://www.amazon.com/Losing-Ground-American-1950-1980-Anniversary/dp/0465042333/ref=sr_1_1?s=books&ie=UTF8&qid=1377371787&sr=1-1&keywords=losing+ground). Libertarians are the greatest friends of poor minorities. Even after desegregation, [the war on drugs] (http://www.amazon.com/The-New-Crow-Incarceration-Colorblindness/dp/1595586431), [occupational licensing laws] (http://www.amazon.com/State-Against-Blacks-Walter-Williams/dp/0070703787/ref=sr_1_1?s=books&ie=UTF8&qid=1377371682&sr=1-1&keywords=state+against+blacks), and the lack of school choice are institutional barriers that have kept minorities poor. [Public institutions have always been erected to take care of the poor, whether there is government involvement or not] (http://www.amazon.com/Mutual-Aid-Welfare-State-Fraternal/dp/0807848417/ref=sr_1_1?s=books&ie=UTF8&qid=1377371988&sr=1-1&keywords=david+beito).

>I'm saying Thai particular time racial prejudice in NYC was a major factor.

And I'm saying you need to have more of a reason than, "Because black murders weren't on the front page of the news paper there's racial injustice."

Would you please quit the personal attacks? The only thing you have to defend yourself are personal attacks at this point. I'm telling you that saying, "Because something happened to a white person and not a black person. Or because something happened to a black person and not a white person, that's racism." Isn't enough of a reason to call someone a racist. It's ridiculous. But it's really the only way liberals can keep up the facade of a racist culture and create an image of being a protector of minorities.

>First of all that's not the name of the book. It's "society" not "race."

Actually I'm talking about the book Intellectuals and Race. http://www.amazon.com/Intellectuals-Race-Thomas-Sowell/dp/0465058728

Some people agree and disagree with his work. Is it any wonder intellectuals take issue with him when he criticizes their culture and methods so heavily?

Interestingly, I'm not totally opposed to it, as long as it is implemented as a replacement for current welfare systems (or at minimum a massive reduction). I actually really like Charles Murray's version in his book In Our Hands, and would actively support it.

The problem is most conservatives oppose it "morally" (people don't deserve my money) for the same reasons they oppose welfare, and most liberals oppose it because they want it in addition to our current welfare system, which is economic suicide and doesn't actually fix any of the problems with welfare as is. For many liberals, people deserve a basic income, and welfare, and basically whatever they want, because rich people have "too much" money, so they're unlikely to support a replacement of welfare with UBI, which is (in my opinion) the only viable solution.

Murray sells it really well, but sadly I don't see how either political view would buy it. Which is too bad.

Side note: I also believe we should drop half of our mandatory humanities programs in school and replace them with finance education. Giving people money when they don't know how to use it is pointless, and it's insane we give more attention to Oliver Twist than budgeting, paying bills, avoiding debt, and investing.

Giving the poor money is necessary to eliminate poverty in the short term, but if you want to keep them out, we need to be teaching people personal finance. It's more universally applicable than sex ed (not everyone will have sex, but everyone will deal with money), yet we spend even less time on it.

A UBI combined with basic finance education minus our horrid welfare state would be, in my opinion, a huge economic bonus to the United States and those in poverty. It only helps the poor, not special interest groups and voting blocks, however, so it'll probably never go anywhere.

For anyone interested in my notes on this interview with Harvard, Columbia, and University of Chicago educated Thomas Sowell, on his book Intellectuals and Race (no affiliate link), please see below. I was watching it on Youtube at 1.5.x, and it's just so packed full of common sense, backed by research, that I had to take notes to do it justice. Keep in mind these are my notes, and not all are just straight quotes. So there's some intelligence guided by experience.

Substandard English (e.g. black-speak) is holding black people back. Aspects of the language (e.g. "axe" for "ask" ) traces back to both the south and Britain before that - not Africa.

In societies where widespread multiculturalism and diversity exists, you find societies that are barely able to constrain widespread violence. (e.g. India barley coheres as a nation; the number of killed between Hinduism and Muslims ran into the hundreds of thousands when Britain made India free).

Diversity in college acceptance policies doesn't produce integration. Before affirmative action, particularly in the form of diversity quotas in College acceptance policies, and you find increased division. Institutions in eras prior to diversity mandates generally had better integration and less racial division. The data for diversity programs doesn't support the existence of diversity programs - it refutes it.

The black subculture in America today is is holding blacks back. Intellectuals today should be fixing the problem, instead of extending, or exploiting it.

Progressives were the racists. Under Woodrow Wilson, certain aspects of segregation began enforcement. Liberals by insisting on their views repeatedly, without data supporting their views, setup an intellectual culture that made things worse - not better. Multiculturalism - bringing students into institutions that they're ill-qualified for, sets the students back. The " intelligentsia" pays no price for its views because there's not test, nor evidence for the basis of their ideas.

"Intellectuals" have deep intelligence in very limited areas and it's dangerous. E.g. they're a mile-deep, but an inch wide. Most have not studied affirmative action, multiculturalism, etc. But the ideas, amidst the intellectual crowd have expanded - like a plague.

"No individual or Group can be blamed for being born into circumstances that lack... advantages. But neither can 'society' be automatically assumed to be either the cause or the cure for such disparities." - Despite centuries of slavery, Jim Crow laws, bad policy in urban environments, etc. For the child born into challenging circumstances (e.g. Detroit vs. Greenwich, CT) - no one (e.g. not society, not whites, not me) is to blame (expect perhaps that child's parents). The average black kid today is, materially, better off than the average black kid growing up in the 50s. The difference today, is that the schools are worse, and that's bad policy (primarily, bad liberal policy - since liberals run many/most urban schools). Circumstances are not the fault of slavery, or anything else that happened 100 - 200 years ago.

James Flynn; after the Second World War, black and white American Soldiers had children. And those children, growing up in Germany, showed no IQ differences at all. The black and white kids had the same IQ. The reason that blacks and whites had the same IQ in Germany, unlike int he US, according to Flynn, is that the children growing up in Germany grew up with no black subculture. (e.g. there was no gangster rap in Germany).

... Also, just because I think it's appropriate... "Ignorance is preferable to error, and he is less remote from the truth who believes nothing than he who believes what is wrong. - Thomas Jefferson