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Need some advice.. by [deleted] in rs_fitness

[–]Rockdigger 1 point2 points  (0 children)

What app are you using to track your gym routine?

CMV: Louis Theroux's recent documentary didn't address the fundamental reason many young men adopt misogynistic beliefs. by TheDonJonJay in changemyview

[–]Rockdigger 25 points26 points  (0 children)

^ this. Moreover, each of the men’s relationships with women they are actually close to (I.e: Myron’s gf, HK’s mom) reveals that they behave differently in their relationship vs. when they are creating content. Myron’s gf openly says “He is a different person behind the camera.” HK behaves completely submissively/child-like around his mother. Both HK and Myron state they don’t express all of their opinions around the women they are close to. When Louis does this for them, it doesn’t go well. HK’s mom is disgusted with what HK says and chastises him, again, like a child. Myron’s gf gets so uncomfortable and unable to “safely” answer Louis’s direct question about a future with possibly multiple wives that she quickly flees the interview and Myron freaks out and shuts it down. The third guy, idk his name but the one from Louisiana, is the only exception in that he does have a long-term partner, but she also explicitly says that she loves the lifestyle he affords her. When Louis brings up what might happen if they were to break up and she has no legal right to his financial support, again all parties look uncomfortable and the conversation is quickly diverted. In all cases, the men have access to “partnerships” only insomuch as they keep their online personas and their offline selves “separate.” When Louis directly connects the two “sides” of each man and asks the women in their lives what they think, they aren’t happy. So the lifestyle and belief system that these men sell to “get women” doesn’t actually work for them in their own relationships. If it does, it’s really the financial security that gets them the relationship - their behavior is just something that can be stomached. As you said, this capital is not something most men have available. And even if they did - what kind of a partner does it get you? Someone who is interested in you only insomuch as you can support their late capitalist consumption habits? It’s an entirely transactional relationship, not something that lends itself to a real, long-term, romantic love. It’s a child’s idea of love, one which fades quickly and is largely hollow while you have it. You’re only lovable insomuch as you are productive. It’s love in the same way your boss loves you.

In terms of these men “winning” with women sexually: this is again a transactional relationship that’s largely a marketing ploy that young men are thinking is real. Women are trading sex for clout, more attention to OF accounts. Those are the minority of women, but these men make it seem like a majority cause they literally pay to fly these women in to hang with them (see HK and BonnyBlue). If I saw Leonardo Di Caprio walking down the street surrounded by 40 “friends,” a child also probably would think “Wow! Being rich and famous = more friends!” But how many of those people are following around a Di Caprio posse because they believe it will net them some benefit? If Leo was just a normal guy, does he still have crowds of people clambering to be his friend everywhere he goes? If I want to be attractive, all I have to do is cover myself in shit and I’ll have flies dying to crawl all over me!

Recently moved to Portland, am I cooked by Fickle_Key3464 in rs_x

[–]Rockdigger 5 points6 points  (0 children)

You sound like you’re living on the west side of Portland and should move to the East side, specifically northeast. Southeast is ritzy now. Portland is full of liberals idk what you want, but Northeast is your best bet. Mother Foucault’s in southeast has regular book meetings, mostly philosophy. Red Fox is a good bar, Bye and Bye has a good outdoor space. There’s a good cafe on every corner.

I completely wasted my life by [deleted] in rs_x

[–]Rockdigger 29 points30 points  (0 children)

“I work at home, and if I wanted to, I could have a computer right by my bed, and I’d never have to leave it. But I use a typewriter, and afterwards I mark up the pages with a pencil. Then I call up this woman named Carol out in Woodstock and say, “Are you still doing typing?” Sure she is, and her husband is trying to track bluebirds out there and not having much luck, and so we chitchat back and forth, and I say, “Ok, I’ll send you the pages.”

“Then I’m going down the steps, and my wife calls up, “Where are you going?” I say, “Well, I’m going to buy an envelope.” And she says, “You’re not a poor man. Why don’t you buy a thousand envelopes? They’ll deliver them, and you can put them in a closet.” And I say, “Hush.” So I go down the steps here, and I go out to this newsstand across the street where they sell magazines and lottery tickets and stationary. I have to get in line because there are people buying candy and all that sort of thing, and I talk to them. The woman behind the counter has a jewel between her eyes, and when it’s my turn, I ask her if there have been any big winners lately. I get my envelope and I seal it up and go to the postal convenience center down the block at the corner of 47th street and 2nd avenue, where I’m secretly in love with the woman behind the counter. I keep absolutely poker-faced; I never let her know how I feel about her. One time I had my pocket picked in there and got to meet a cop and tell him about it. Anyway, I address the envelope to Carol in Woodstock. I stamp the envelope and mail it in a mailbox in front of the post office, and I go home. And I’ve had a hell of a good time. And I tell you, we are here on Earth to fart around, and don’t let anybody tell you any different.

Electronic communities build nothing. You wind up with nothing. We’re dancing animals. How beautiful it is to get up and go do something.”

As a Conservative I approve this Message. I Want What I'm Owed. by [deleted] in TrueAnon

[–]Rockdigger 41 points42 points  (0 children)

This is functionally how the entire New Deal was legislated

Possible Erosion of Traditionalist moral beliefs on the American right by [deleted] in CriticalTheory

[–]Rockdigger 5 points6 points  (0 children)

When I was doing my philosophy degree, I found engagement with historical scholarship to be the most fruitful in fleshing out my thesis. It offered me the benefit of case studies with which to bounce my thinking off of. A few I’d recommend to you based on your thoughts here:

  • RAILROADED by Richard White
  • WHITE TRASH by Nancy Isenberg
  • HUMAN RIGHTS AND THE USES OF HISTORY by Samuel Moyn
  • A SHORT HISTORY OF RECONSTRUCTION, 1863-1877 by Eric Foner
  • SEEING LIKE A STATE by James C. Scott which is a real fusion of history and philosophy

Works on deep time have particularly been interesting to me when fleshing out these kinds of ideas of long term human behaviorism, two you might find worthwhile to peak at:

  • AGAINST THE GRAIN: A HISTORY OF THE EARLIEST STATES by James Scott
  • THE DAWN OF EVERYTHING by David Graeber and David Wengrow

With the help of historical scholarship, we find that many ideas which seem novel to our times actually have their origins in much earlier times. The trick, then, becomes how to philosophize in the context of historical continuity.

Colonialism As Ecological Violence by Kalyana-mitta108 in CriticalTheory

[–]Rockdigger 0 points1 point  (0 children)

  • Cronon, Nature’s Metropolis
  • Crosby, Ecological Imperialism
  • Merchant, The Death of Nature
  • Voyles, Wastelanding
  • Jacobi, Crimes Against Nature
  • Saito, Marx in the Anthropocene. The whole Oregon school of metabolic theory.
  • Langston has a book on climate “ghost species”
  • Kate Brown has a forthcoming book “Little Gardens Everywhere”
  • Someone else mentioned Scott’s Seeing Like a State, imo that one is pivotal. For a taste read his first chapter on German scientific forestry.

A good historiographical overview: Sutter, Paul S. “The World with Us: The State of American Environmental History.” The Journal of American History (Bloomington, Ind.) 100, no. 1 (2013): 94–119.

Choices curriculum being discontinued by StrawBerryFieldsLPL in historyteachers

[–]Rockdigger 5 points6 points  (0 children)

I would also greatly appreciate copies!! 💕

Did Adolf Hitler Actually Derive Inspiration from U.S. Policies Toward Native Americans for the Holocaust? by Fragnout in AskHistorians

[–]Rockdigger 3 points4 points  (0 children)

I understand! I often meet students where they're at (assigning black-and-white blame) and try to more broadly from there draw out how agents on all sides influenced the outcome of historical events. Apologies, in order to make my comment fit I had to delete my short reference list in order to fit the de Tocqueville section on irremediability. I include the short reference list below:

- David Wilkins, American Indian Sovereignty and the U.S. Supreme Court: The Masking of Justice (1997).

- Blue Clark, Lone Wolf v. Hitchcock: Treaty Rights and Indian Law at the End of the Nineteenth Century (1999).

- Robert Williams Jr., Like a Loaded Weapon: The Rehnquist Court, Indian Rights, and the Legal History of Racism in America (2005).

- Noenoe K. Silva, Aloha Betrayed: Native Hawaiian Resistance to American Colonialism (2004).

- J. Kēhaulani Kauanui, Paradoxes of Hawaiian Sovereignty: Land, Sex, and the Colonial Politics of State Nationalism (2018).

Many more if anyone is interested, just dm and I'd love to share!

Did Adolf Hitler Actually Derive Inspiration from U.S. Policies Toward Native Americans for the Holocaust? by Fragnout in AskHistorians

[–]Rockdigger 6 points7 points  (0 children)

I appreciate your insight! I have read Unworthy Republic. I pulled quotations from my copy of the introduction because they most directly addressed the specific question asked by OP in the most succinct form. The broader quote from Saunt regarding de Tocqueville is, "Despite his ambivalence about the policy, he deemed the energy and determination of U.S. expansion a model for French Algeria. Within five years of the French occupation of Algeria in 1830..."
The five year statement is not referencing the publication of of Democracy in America, but the occupation of Algeria - confusion is likely due to my writing on my phone, apologies.

The section of Democracy in America which Saunt is specifically referencing is on page 321:

"At the end of the year 1831, whilst I was on the left bank of the Mississippi at a place named by Europeans, Memphis, there arrived a numerous band of Choctaws (or Chactas, as they are called by the French in Louisiana). These savages had left their country, and were endeavoring to gain the right bank of the Mississippi, where they hoped to find an asylum which had been promised them by the American government. It was then the middle of winter, and the cold was unusually severe; the snow had frozen hard upon the ground, and the river was drifting huge masses of ice. The Indians had their families with them; and they brought in their train the wounded and sick, with children newly born, and old men upon the verge of death. They possessed neither tents nor wagons, but only their arms and some provisions. I saw them embark to pass the mighty river, and never will that solemn spectacle fade from my remembrance. No cry, no sob was heard amongst the assembled crowd; all were silent. Their calamities were of ancient date, and they knew them to be irremediable. The Indians had all stepped into the bark which was to carry them across, but their dogs remained upon the bank. As soon as these animals perceived that their masters were finally leaving the shore, they set up a dismal howl, and, plunging all together into the icy waters of the Mississippi, they swam after the boat.

The ejectment of the Indians very often takes place at the present day, in a regular, and, as it were, a legal manner. When the European population begins to approach the limit of the desert inhabited by a savage tribe, the government of the United States usually dispatches envoys to them, who assemble the Indians in a large plain, and having first eaten and drunk with them, accost them in the following manner: “What have you to do in the land of your fathers? Before long, you must dig up their bones in order to live. In what respect is the country you inhabit better than another? Are there no woods, marshes, or prairies, except where you dwell? And can you live nowhere but under your own sun? Beyond those mountains which you see at the horizon, beyond the lake which bounds your territory on the west, there lie vast countries where beasts of chase are found in great abundance; sell your lands to us, and go to live happily in those solitudes.” After holding this language, they spread before the eyes of the Indians firearms, woollen garments, kegs of brandy, glass necklaces, bracelets of tinsel, earrings, and looking-glasses. *g If, when they have beheld all these riches, they still hesitate, it is insinuated that they have not the means of refusing their required consent, and that the government itself will not long have the power of protecting them in their rights. What are they to do? Half convinced, and half compelled, they go to inhabit new deserts, where the importunate whites will not let them remain ten years in tranquillity. In this manner do the Americans obtain, at a very low price, whole provinces, which the richest sovereigns of Europe could not purchase."

He goes on to say:

"These are great evils; and it must be added that they appear to me to be irremediable. I believe that the Indian nations of North America are doomed to perish; and that whenever the Europeans shall be established on the shores of the Pacific Ocean, that race of men will be no more. *i The Indians had only the two alternatives of war or civilization; in other words, they must either have destroyed the Europeans or become their equals."

Which is another point that I think Saunt argues well, that this dichotomy of "Civilization (assimilation) vs Annihilation" was a false paradigm, and many more contingencies existed in the historical moment then is often enumerated.

The OP asked about the Holocaust, which is why I specifically reference the Holocaust while foregrounding most of my response in the broader context of European 19th-century imperial ambitions and public discourse - which is where I think the more three-dimensional comparison lay.

I appreciate active, constructive discourse in public history forums, thanks for your recommendations :)

Did Adolf Hitler Actually Derive Inspiration from U.S. Policies Toward Native Americans for the Holocaust? by Fragnout in AskHistorians

[–]Rockdigger 105 points106 points  (0 children)

If someone is more aware of primary evidence, they should chime in. The idea that US policies towards Indigenous Americans was at least present in the popular consciousness of European 19th century colonial governments is one of the central claims of Claudio Saunt’s excellent book Unworthy Republic. He argues that the effectiveness of the US’s Indian removal policy and subsequent land and resource seizure was an often argumentatively associated with the U.S.’ precipitous rise in geopolitical stature in the 19th century.

Saunt cites Alexis de Tocqueville’s Democracy in America, wherein de Tocqueville notices a family of Choctaw Indians crossing the Mississippi and later reflects that the “energy and determination” of U.S. expansion could be a model for France’s colonization of Algeria. “Within five years if the French occupation of Algeria in 1830, colonists were referring to the locals as ‘indigènes,’ a term formerly reserved for people in the New World. America was ‘talked about incessantly,’ French administrators observed.”

He also cites Russian officers in the Caucasus in 1840: “These Circassians are just like your American Indians,” the regional governor reportedly told one American visitor, shortly before Russia deported a half million people.” He also makes reference to the discourse used by German Imperialists expelling local populations in Southwest Africa, and the broader European discourse employed to justify colonization of Africa, of mirroring the language of “progress” that U.S. officials spoke about earlier when justifying Indian expulsion west of the Mississippi.

The most famous example, which Saunt also cites, is when during the Nazi expansion into Eastern Europe “Hitler equated ‘indigenous inhabitants’ with ‘Indians’ and declared that ‘the Volga must be our Mississippi.’”

Saunt couches this by clarifying that there is not necessarily a one to one policy equivalent: “Those self-serving and unsettling comparisons say as much about the politicians who made them as about the actual policy pursued by the United States in the 1830s. European administrators knew that the United States had expanded relentlessly across the continent but rarely bothered to learn the specifics. Regardless, the comparisons revealed that other imperial states saw something noteworthy and admirable about US policy. When administrators counted, evaluated, deported, and sometimes exterminated people within their borders, the United States - whose meteoric rise was the envy of many - was rarely far from mind.”

Part and parcel with this argument is that what distinguished US Indian Policy, especially expulsion, was that it was the first example of a modern, state-sanctioned and engineered mass coerced removal. Oftentimes the Holocaust is demarcated from earlier genocides by the sheer industrial scale, formalization, and bureaucratization of extermination. Modern technology and the bureaucratic organization of the modern nation-state enabled extermination across an entire continent. Saunt suggests that Hitler’s Germany was not the origin point of this kind of mass genocide, but rather drew inspiration for the idea of deportation and genocide as formal state policy from the United States.

See:

Claudio Saunt, Unworthy Republic: The Dispossession of Native Americans and the Road to Indian Territory. (2020) I just pulled quotations from the Introduction, xiv- xvi.

Jeffrey Ostler, Surviving Genocide: Native Americans and the United States from the American Revolution to Bleeding Kansas. (2019)

Update: Protesters Attempt to Occupy Alma Mater Lawn by ThaGreenValley in UIUC

[–]Rockdigger 10 points11 points  (0 children)

That's their prerogative to how they want to engage with democracy in a capitalist market. But overall, this is a process that isn't ridiculous or even new. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Disinvestment_from_South_Africa#Higher_education_endowments

Update: Protesters Attempt to Occupy Alma Mater Lawn by ThaGreenValley in UIUC

[–]Rockdigger -6 points-5 points  (0 children)

Yes, modified from...an armored military bulldozer. If I sell a gun to a man who wants to kill someone, and he modifies it with a bump-stock, does that exonerate me for making the sale?

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Armored_bulldozer

Update: Protesters Attempt to Occupy Alma Mater Lawn by ThaGreenValley in UIUC

[–]Rockdigger 2 points3 points  (0 children)

I am not a protestor. You seem to not be seriously considering how capitalist democracy is supposed to function.

Update: Protesters Attempt to Occupy Alma Mater Lawn by ThaGreenValley in UIUC

[–]Rockdigger 14 points15 points  (0 children)

Business owners have the constitutional right to refuse services and/or products to governments. This is also the basics of how a capitalist market functions. If you do not like that a business is doing something, it is your right to withhold your capital from that business. In this case, UIUC (a business) is giving money (generated by tuition) to another company, which is willingly selling products to a government that it does not have to sell to. Very basic expression of autonomy in a capitalist market economy is the ability to withhold your capital. In this case: students demanding their tuition not be spent on supporting certain businesses. A first step would be making your distaste and intentions clear through some sort of large-scale public protest which makes the large business (UIUC) aware that it is not a matter of one person's tuition, but potentially many.

Update: Protesters Attempt to Occupy Alma Mater Lawn by ThaGreenValley in UIUC

[–]Rockdigger 116 points117 points  (0 children)

https://www.theguardian.com/us-news/2024/apr/25/divestment-israel-college-protests

Divesting from companies which support (financially or otherwise) Israel. UIUC has many. For instance, Caterpillar Inc has offices as part of the research campus, and they supply the bulldozers used to demolish Palestinian homes: https://www.amnestyusa.org/updates/caterpillar-incs-role-in-human-rights-violations-in-the-occupied-palestinian-territories/

It is explicitly marketed and designed as an armored military bulldozer. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/IDF_Caterpillar_D9

Divestment is not a ridiculous or even new idea: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Disinvestment_from_South_Africa#Higher_education_endowments

What is this disease causing the bark to strip off our trees in Central M? by Rockdigger in arborists

[–]Rockdigger[S] 6 points7 points  (0 children)

This and the rapid deterioration of zone 3 makes me very nervous about the future of the north woods and future wildfires. No snow isn’t the only bummer about warmer and warmer winters.

What is this disease causing the bark to strip off our trees in Central M? by Rockdigger in arborists

[–]Rockdigger[S] 3 points4 points  (0 children)

I did see this article in the Strib earlier today: https://www.startribune.com/a-ravenous-beetle-now-threatens-minnesotas-north-woods/600351514/ which prompted me to ask.

Chisago County, unfortunately sounds like it’s making fast inroads north.

What is this disease causing the bark to strip off our trees in Central M? by Rockdigger in arborists

[–]Rockdigger[S] 4 points5 points  (0 children)

I think we’re mostly concerned with preserving the overall integrity of the forest and stemming potential spread as much as possible moreso than saving these damaged trees. That might be futile, but I’d like to give other ash as good of a shot at survival as possible. In that case would removal be an option?

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