The Limit of Absurdity: Yaron Brook on the Nice attack

[Mark]

New on ARI Watch:

The Limit of Absurdity

about Yaron Brook’s recent remarks on Muslim terrorism in Europe.  Just when you thought he couldn't sink any lower ...

 

 

[KorbenDallas]

This almost sounds like a religious argument, "the problem with the West is God isn't in society, if the Muslims only knew the grace of God they would be converted, you have to find God so that you will be better and society will be better, only then can others be brought to the Lord, and only then will peace and prosperity happen again--by God's grace."

 

[Brant Gaede]

Yaron Brook is an ideologue, not even an expert in his ideology nor anything else I can figure.

Comparatively, Ayn Rand was not an ideologue. She would have called terrorists "savages" and wouldn't have let them into the country out of the country's derivative right to exist--derivative from its citizens right to exist. She would have also denounced Islam.

--Brant

ideological reasoning if off clear principles and returns to them after embracing relevant, valid data--otherwise it's tautological wearing faux clothes

 

[Wolf DeVoon]

8 hours ago, Mark said:

New on ARI Watch:

The Limit of Absurdity

about Yaron Brook’s recent remarks on Muslim terrorism in Europe.  Just when you thought he couldn't sink any lower ...

Mark, kudos. You are rendering a valuable service. Here's a Brook readout I want to address:

Quote

“Particularly in a ... free society – I think this is also true in a mixed economy [i.e. America today] but certainly in a free society – the idea that ... a really consistent, Objectivist political system ... would somehow be threatened by people coming in ... that we wouldn’t have the self-esteem, or the ability to convince and persuade, that the immigrants ... would not be convincible within a generation or two, that we would somehow succumb to their ideas, that they wouldn’t succumb to our ideas, given that our ideas are so ... superior to theirs, it strikes me as taking such a position of weakness relative to the rest of the world.

“I would take ten immigrants to every citizen in a completely free society and feel completely confident that we would not lose freedom as a consequence of their coming into the country. Quite the contrary, we would be converting them, or at least their children, to the cause of liberty.”

I remind those present to reflect on the fact that the cause of liberty has waned in America, and ARI has done nothing to reverse that decline.

 

[Neil Parille]

It's hard to take Brook seriously.  I wonder he takes himself seriously.

As far as self-confidence and all that goes, the West was able to colonize most of the Muslim world from 1850 (not sure on the start date) to around 1950 with a minimal number of forces.  That didn't cause Muslims to change their ways, nor did that self confidence do anything for the Muslims who started coming into Europe in the late 1950s and early 60s.

10 immigrants for every native?  That's the entire population of Muslims times 2.

 

[william.scherk]

2 hours ago, Neil Parille said:

As far as self-confidence and all that goes, the West was able to colonize most of the Muslim world from 1850 (not sure on the start date) to around 1950 with a minimal number of forces.

Those days are gone, when either British or French or Spanish or Portuguese or Dutch kingdoms controlled the political fate of the 'Muslim World.' If you are not sure of the start dates of Muslim-world colonization, I'd say it might be time to review.

If you take a closer look at the near-East and mid-East and north Africa closer in time, since say the end of the first World War, it was a clean sweep for a while. At one point Algeria was part of metropolitan France. At one point Spain was controlling Morocco. At one point France and Britain carved up zones of control in the aftermath of the Ottoman defeat. At one point France ruled in Damascus and in Beirut. At one point Britain was the final authority in Egypt and Sudan and Sinai and what is now Israel and its walled-off neighbours.  Muslim India came under the imperial crown of Victoria.

If you had an afternoon to review and update historical knowledge, you could add illustrative examples to bring you up to 1950. Then you might have something to argue about on behalf of race-realism and the dire effects of liberalized immigration to the Western World.  I find it kind of sad/hilarious that you spend your Objectivish time on the anti-Muslim hate-site that is the present SOLO, and rarely raise and sustain an argument here.

Quote

That didn't cause Muslims to change their ways, nor did that self confidence do anything for the Muslims who started coming into Europe in the late 1950s and early 60s.

I don't know what that sentence means.  However, I'll take a guess, starting with some actual places.  

Thinking about France, Germany, and Holland. Each nation has had a history of immigration from Muslim lands.  But the three nations not only 'imported' these folks in different ways, but the places of origin were different. The Dutch in-coming were a mix of peoples over time -- from the East Indies during the Dutch colonial period, from Turkey and Morocco in the latter 20th century. Today the Dutch Muslim population is a varied mix of folks who came at different times and assimilated at different rates. 

In Germany, the great post-war influx of Turkish migrant workers was accomplished under a Gastarbeiter statute: the incoming were treated as 'guest labourers' ... and not initially offered a path to German citizenship.  The 'problem' was that the workers acculturated to Germany, and began to build families.  Five decades later ...

France of course was a world-straddling empire in its time. During and after empire and massive colonization, there remained always a balance of incoming and outgoing.  For example, when the war for Algerian independence was over, there was in effect a population transfer of loyal "French" citizens back to the motherland. In any case, the long-standing relationship of tutelage in Algeria and Tunisia especially, the relationships of trade and commerce, these relations were accompanied by folks moving from the colonies and mandates and protectorates to the Metropole. 

-- Neil, you worked so hard to critically analyze the world of Jim Valliant. You were meticulous in your critical attention.  Here, on the subject of race-realism, I get the impression that you do not apply that same critical lens and blade to race-realist arguments.  

As for Mark's latest compendium of alt-white butt-ache, I take his point that Brook takes an extreme position on 'open immigration.'  The position is stupid on its face, in my eyes, because it relies on a future Objectivist Utopia, a "free world."  In this imaginary space, the movement of people will be accomplished with no paperwork. Fwee ... fwee, we will all be fwee!  This is purely magical, in my opinion.  I do find his talks to veer into the sky, to a Wonderland, and thus I rarely give his arguments more than a head-shake.  

And on the narrow subject of how does one defend Israel in its asylum policies, its religious test for citizenship, its detention and deportation schemes for non-Jewish Africans, well, I can't do it.  The hardline Israel Can Do No Wrong aspect of Brook's magical thinking ... well, this is enclosed in a separate world again, in another universe where the Fweedom America Magic No-Papers Human Movement and Settlement unicorn-verse does not impinge. 

This is same separate magic kingdoms of justice  and fweedom  that shows in Blumenthal pere et fils:  there are stark differences between Jews on the subject of Israel.  It is just the way things are.  The Joo does not operate as a unified Thing.

 

But the remainder of Mark's article, and besides the 1997 HTML ugliness of his web-site, it rehashes the same old Perfidious Joo line that is ARI-watch's stock-in-trade.  There are 32 mentions of Joo in this article, surprise surprise.  Much of this insidious ethnic perfidy is assessed second-hand by the motley white-spackled crew at VDare, in this case, the esteemed race-realist Kevin MacDonald, who really has a bone to pick.  

Joo!

Quote

Prof. Kevin MacDonald analyzes Mr. Brook’s technique in his article  “Is Immigration Really a ‘Jewish Value?’ ”

Given the ingroup morality of traditional Jewish society, whence this self-image of American Jews that they are following a universalist ethic that commands them to admit tens of millions of non-whites into countries established and (precariously now) dominated politically and culturally by whites?...

Diaspora Jewish groups in the West see themselves as benefiting from displacement-level immigration because it lessens the power of the White majority. ... [8]...

Indeed, the image that homogeneous, racially conscious White societies are fundamentally morally depraved has become the central cultural theme throughout the West ...

Disoriented by this constant drumbeat, Western peoples have been defenseless against their own disempowerment. They can only begin to defend their legitimate interests when they challenge the hypocrisy, and historical inaccuracy, of Jewish immigration enthusiast claims to a unique, and imperative, moral vision....

7  “Is Immigration Really a ‘Jewish Value’?”
by Kevin MacDonald, Vdare Foundation  April 5, 2014
www.vdare.com/articles/is-immigration-really-a-jewish-value

 

There are only six mentions of White-itude in Mark's confection.  I like these ones, in the sense that they show the game rules clearly:

• Not all Muslims may be violent at heart but per capita far more of them are than whites.

• How can you support a Jewish Israel and at the same time oppose a white America?
   

Here's a guy who doesn't mention The Joo at all.  He is up somewhere in Neil's part of the country. Talking the talk. Making sure  shots are fired at the right people.

 

Edited August 27, 2016 by william.scherk
punct

[william.scherk]

On 8/27/2016 at 11:32 AM, william.scherk said:

On 8/27/2016 at 9:16 AM, Neil Parille said:

As far as self-confidence and all that goes, the West was able to colonize most of the Muslim world from 1850 (not sure on the start date) to around 1950 with a minimal number of forces.

Those days are gone

Over yonder, where remnants of forums past have fenced off a free-speech haven, middle-aged boy band Hate Darky racks up the B sides. Our   'race-realist' Mark started a song cycle over yonder as above, But guess who showed up but Amy Peikoff?  After a mild slagging as airhead and burkini babe for not riding Neil's Hobbyhorse harder.  Or something, something to do with the swirl of magical thinking that is Yaron Brook.

Anyway, there were problems in the general mix of one-eyed hate-stupid and alt-right whoopee.  The Air-Conductor got vexed, and former forum-destroyer nemesis "Doug Bandler" got a comment deleted and, gasp, moderated!  Gadzooks. No need to open a can of irony, there is plenty on the table.

You bellyache away about OrgOists not showing up here to debate, and when one does show up you both repair immediately to vile and untrue ad hominem and drive her away! Why would anyone hang around to put up with that?!

Vile and Untrue Ad Hominem!  fetch me the smelling salts.

How to turn your forum into a bog, in three easy downward plunges.

[Neil Parille]

Yaron Brook attacks the alt right.

http://www.blogtalkradio.com/yaronbrook/2016/10/08/radical-capitalist-episode-67-alt-right-and-the-decline-of-civilization

I don't know much about the alt right (from what little I do I think Brook misrepresents it) but he doesn't have a clue about IQ.

[Brant Gaede]

Does Mr. Brook have an area of expertise?

Decades ago in Reason magazine (1978) Edith Efron identified the "Petr Principle," named after my friend Petr Beckmann. Basically, if you have true expertise it informs everything else you talk about if you come from that context--that is, expertise travels. It may be that an expert knows expertise and so knows it enough elsewhere not to make foolish and ignorant comments. While I don't quite agree with this--Petr made some statements that were just wrong--there is some real oomph possible that way. I don't see that in Yaron. And why he thinks people want to listen to yammer is beyond me. If you put the yammer into text I can look over it in a few minutes, even less, and ID all the value and dis-value on the apropos subjects. This goes too for almost all podcasts ever proffered to me by anybody.

--Brant

Ayn Rand would roast Yaron alive and make Leonard cry and condemn and contemn any institute with her name on it (and when her text was modified for posterity she'd have come out of her grave if that were possible)

[BaalChatzaf]

19 minutes ago, Brant Gaede said:

Does Mr. Brook have an area of expertise?

Decades ago in Reason magazine (1978) Edith Efron identified the "Petr Principle," named after my friend Petr Beckmann. Basically, if you have true expertise it informs everything else you talk about if you come from that context--that is, expertise travels. It may be that an expert knows expertise and so knows it enough elsewhere not to make foolish and ignorant comments. While I don't quite agree with this--Petr made some statements that were just wrong--there is some real oomph possible that way. I don't see that in Yaron. And why he thinks people want to listen to yammer is beyond me. If you put the yammer into text I can look over it in a few minutes, even less, and ID all the value and dis-value on the apropos subjects. This goes too for almost all podcasts ever proffered to me by anybody.

--Brant

Ayn Rand would roast Yaron alive and make Leonard cry and condemn and contemn any institute with her name on it (and when her text was modified for posterity she'd have come out of her grave if that were possible)

Petr Beckmann  claimed  that Einstein's theory of Special Relativity was incorrect.  SR is one of the best corroborated theories in physics and is one of the pillars  of quantum field theory which is also one of the best corroborated theories in physics. Beckmann believed in the existence of luminiferous aether,  which was empirically falsified by Michelson and Morely in 1887

[Brant Gaede]

1 hour ago, BaalChatzaf said:

Petr Beckmann  claimed  that Einstein's theory of Special Relativity was incorrect.  SR is one of the best corroborated theories in physics and is one of the pillars  of quantum field theory which is also one of the best corroborated theories in physics. Beckmann believed in the existence of luminiferous aether,  which was empirically falsified by Michelson and Morely in 1887

So you read his book (Einstein Plus Two)? I'm the one who told you about it in the first place some years ago. Efron was focusing on his expertise in energy safety and production and non-politicialized/politicalized cost as reflected in his (still being published) Access to Energy. I'd like the reference to his views on aether. It sounds in the same knowledge category as Dark Matter, which seems just assumed to explain supposed missing mass in the universe.

My basic difference with Petr on Relativity is it's valid until replaced by a better theory. Petr wanted reversion to Newtonian mechanics. My understanding is his friend Edward Teller did not agree with him. Jack Wheeler, not a physicist, feels Einstein merely miss-named his theories "Relativity" causing confusion. Instead he propose something like "Gravitational Constant" or "Universal Constant" or "Speed of Light Constant"--I'll try to look it up.

--Brant

edit: "The Theory of Constancy" (the speed of light--no matter the "speed" of the source)

http://www.tothepointnews.com/2005/02/aristotle-einstein-and-ayn-rand/

my layman's brain in on Einstein's side, not Petr's

Edited October 9, 2016 by Brant Gaede

[BaalChatzaf]

28 minutes ago, Brant Gaede said:

So you read his book (Einstein Plus Two)? I'm the one who told you about it in the first place some years ago. Efron was focusing on his expertise in energy safety and production and non-politicialized/politicalized cost as reflected in his (still being published) Access to Energy. I'd like the reference to his views on aether. It sounds in the same knowledge category as Dark Matter, which seems just assumed to explain supposed missing mass in the universe.

My basic difference with Petr on Relativity is it's valid until replaced by a better theory. Petr wanted reversion to Newtonian mechanics. My understanding is his friend Edward Teller did not agree with him. Jack Wheeler, not a physicist, feels Einstein merely miss-named his theories "Relativity" causing confusion. Instead he propose something like "Gravitational Constant" or "Universal Constant" or "Speed of Light Constant"--I'll try to look it up.

--Brant

edit: "The Theory of Constancy" (the speed of light--no matter the "speed" of the source)

my layman's brain in on Einstein's side, not Petr's

Until we replace it with a better theory.  That is true of ALL our physical theories.  A finite amount of corroboration does NOT prove a scientific theory.  We have no assurance that the next fact we discover will not falsify our dearest held theory.   But until that happens SR will be used. 

In physical science there is no Final Theory that is absolutely and positively true.  Why?  Because we will never have ALL the facts.

 

By the way, I knew of Beckmann's work before you mentioned it.  Beckmann is an interesting case.  He was a competent engineer and mathematician  but he held onto some crackpot notions anyway.  One could not simply dismiss Beckmann as just another crackpot.  

the same fate befell Herbert Dingle a genuine physicist  who completely did not "get"  Einstein's twin paradox.  Until his dying day he did not admit the paradox existed at all, but it has been corroborated experimentally with the Twin Clock Experiment. 

[Brant Gaede]

See my previous post for a link (requires a subscription which you can cancel after the initial lay down).

--Brant

[Neil Parille]

Does Mr. Brook have an area of expertise?

Finance, I guess.  But he thinks he's an expert on everything.  He said The Bell Curve was mostly wrong, but it was good science then and the evidence is only getting stronger.

[Brant Gaede]

George H. Smith is the most expert poster on OL I know of--a gold standard for brains and content. I've always been in awe of the quality of his first book written when he was only in his early twenties (pub. 1973). I know I'm basically okay with envy for I've never envied him. It's simply admiration.

--Brant

[BaalChatzaf]

18 minutes ago, Brant Gaede said:

George H. Smith is the most expert poster on OL I know of--a gold standard for brains and content. I've always been in awe of the quality of his first book written when he was only in his early twenties (pub. 1973). I know I'm basically okay with envy for I've never envied him. It's simply admiration.

--Brant

I second the emotion.   Our other Very Smart Correspondent is Stephen B.  who is very well versed in science.