Monthly Archives: May 2018

Manosphere sour grapes

Men

I have read many of Roosh’s books and enjoyed all of them. I still read his blog, with pleasure.

But I am fed up with the sour grapes I see time and time again in Roosh and the associated manosphere.

It seems that whenever a manosphere guy describes the world, all he sees is blue-haired shrieking feminists and bitches with tattoos who, at best, are good for a singular nut. I don’t buy it. Which is to say, I totally buy that there are many, many unattractive self-mutilating women out there, but I know it is even more true that men make their own destiny and that women submit to men making their own destiny.

Personally I have gone through a lot of girls before I found one I love. In my search I encountered many women of the kind manosphere guys complain about, but in the end I needed to find only 1 good girl, and I found her, have been together with her for a couple of years now.

Am I so singularly amazing that I have found the last good girl left in the world, or is the manosphere selling me sour grapes?

It seems to me that for men, unlike for women, complaining does not fix anything. Don’t get me wrong, I empathize with the complaints, but I empathize with action more. Seems to me the right course of action is to find a good girl, start a family and teach your children to laugh at old fat lonely spinsters driving by in mobility scooters.

(Although the laughing part is probably overdoing it, because everyone knows, including childless feminists, that the last laugh inevitably goes to he who lives his life well, which is why unhappy people tend to resent happy people.)

Now, perhaps settling and having kids ain’t your thing, and although it seems to me to be programmed in our genes to settle and have kids, who am I to judge? But then, please sleep in the bed you’ve made for yourself. Stop bitching about women, stop bitching about Western society suiciding. We’re working on it.

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Panzram & Hitler’s Table Talk

Book reviews

At the recommendation of Jordan Peterson I read two books: Panzram, A Journal of Murder and Hitler’s Table Talk.

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Hitler’s table talk was interesting, for the first 20 pages or so. After that I got bored and stopped reading. Hitler has excellent cadence and word choice, exactly what you’d expect from a renowned orator, but boy he is repetitious. Typical syndrome of a man in power surrounded by yes-nodders; he does not understand that what he says is exactly what he said the day before, thus less interesting with each consecutive day.

The takeaway is that the reactionary analysis of Hitler as a 50s leftist is accurate. Hitler was into renewable energy, into hydrogen gas, into nature, into turning ze Ukrainian plains into a flourishing farmland for ze German people! He said some interesting things, he said more nonsense. He was pretty obsessed with Russia.

In the end Hitler promised escape from a degenerate Weimar republic, but his escape plans were white socialist figments of his own imagination. Wish I had more to say about him but I really don’t.

On the bright side, with help of the book I have been able to pull off a decent Hitler impression. My girl absolutely loathes loves it.

220px-Carl_Panzram

Panzram was a good book, because Carl Panzram is an interesting character. As it says on the cover: ‘Panzram is one of those people who doesn’t exist in your mind until you come across him in life or, as here, in a book, and then he never leaves it.’ True.

Carl Panzram, born 1891 in Minnesota, hated everyone and everything. He murdered twenty-something people, sodomized many more, stole everything he could get his hands on and set fire to every church he crossed. He did not care about the consequences of his actions. Every time he was disciplined (which was a lot) he’d react by spitting in the face of those that disciplined him. He spent most of his time in prison, and of that time spent most of his time in solitary confinement. In his thirties he murdered a prison guard and demanded the death penalty for it, because he wanted to die. He eventually received it and was hung in Kansas, 1930. His last infamous words to the hangman: “hurry it up, you Hoosier bastard! I could kill a dozen men while you’re screwing around!”

The book, being a 20th century book, not so subtly puts the blame for Panzram’s hatred on Christianity, since in his early teens he was sent to a Chistian correctional school. ‘If only Panzram weren’t treated so cruelly by fundamentalist Christians, perhaps he’d have grown up with love in his heart!’ Seem like leftist nonsense to me. Jeffrey Dahmer and Ted Bundy had relatively tranquil childhoods and murdered a bunch of people anyway. Conversely some people are abused and mistreated when they’re young but turn out fine anyway. Which is not to say abusing young Panzram and apparently also raping him did not leave its marks on him, just that Panzram would have been stealing, lying and killing regardless, was in fact shown to be stealing and lying before he was sent to correctional school (hence, why he was sent to correctional school in the first place).

Some people are born with hatred in their hearts, or hatred in their genes if you prefer scientific over poetic accuracy. That’s just the way it is. Panzram was one of those people.

Question is, how do you deal with a guy like Panzram, a guy who just wants to see the world burn?

Panzram received a lot of corporal punishment. Though I have no problem with a bit of corporal punishment, the amount Panzram received seemed to me needless violence doled out by sadistic men. Counterproductive.

Panzram received re-education. This seems to me a leftist device to decriminalize criminals. Consider Panzram’s re-education: he was rewarded for good behavior, he was allowed to carry the flag for the prison marching  band and in the end, he was allowed some modicum of freedom so as to rebuild his trust with society. So, what happened? Well, Panzram escaped, stole a gun and almost killed someone before he was recaptured. Counterproductive.

The reason leftists obsess with re-education is because criminals make a potentially good ally against law and order. The point of re-education is not to change criminals, the point is to decriminalize criminal behavior: your bike was stolen? How dare you complain, don’t you know the thief had a rough childhood!

The punishment of criminals is the act of being in prison. You can add some amount of corporal punishment, and a very minor amount of re-education, but being confined to prison is the punishment. If a man does not accept punishment and, like Panzram, continues to murder people even in prison, the death penalty seems to me perfectly appropriate. Similarly, if an ex-convict continues to murder people outside prison, the death penalty also seems to me perfectly appropriate. That is how I think you should deal with a guy like Panzram.

Enforced monogamy

Women

A champagne socialist from the New York Times observes that enforced monogamy suspiciously resembles the kind of redistribution of goods rightists supposedly oppose. As always, it is good to take leftist venom with a grain of salt, but this point is worth addressing.

First, I’m no libertarian. I like capitalism because it creates wealth and prosperity, but I also like using the market to help my allies, hurt my enemies. Hence I oppose the redistribution of my goods and tax money through the government, as the government tends to be my enemy, as tends to be custom with socialism, but I have no big problem with Trump’s steel tariff, as Trump is my ally.

As Giovanni argues, socialist wealth redistribution makes perfect sense on the side of socialists: it is the victors handing out the spoils, in this case leftists helping their allies, hurting their enemies. I don’t want wealth redistribution because I believe that, generally, the nature of the free market is such that it helps my allies, hurts my enemies.

Women are goods that, when left free on the sexual market, are monopolized by my enemies, e.g. asshole men who would rather pick a fight with me than tell me the time of day. I know this, because when I was single acted exactly the same in order to get laid. You can’t trust single men.

The nature of free pussy is such that it hurts my allies and helps my enemies, for women cheat on the beta males that build and maintain the society I live in, and have sex with the asshole drug dealers that steal my bike.

Women are not meant to roam free; they are meant to be divided among the winning tribe, they expect to be divided among the winning tribe. To the victor goes the spoils.

That many white males have trouble with women tells us that white males are not the winning tribe. Once they become the winning tribe, best to divide the loot fair and square: obvious enforced monogamy is obvious.

The Orb of Covfefe, Part IX: SS Escape

The Orb of Covfefe

Start
Previous

 

When Barron had emerged out of the dark, dank tunnel, he found himself surrounded by a big shrub at what seemed to be the end of Nigel’s street. In the distance Barron saw and heard police sirens rushing towards the Farage estate. No doubt his friends would be in shackles soon. Barron really hoped nothing worse would happen to them. Images flashed in his mind; the pistol aimed at mrs Farage’s wife, the utter rage in Khan’s eyes when he socked Nigel. Guilt and terror struck Barron. He turned and ran.

After calling the phone number and receiving instructions to head for a harbor city, Barron hailed a cab, whose Indian driver did not show any signs of recognizing Barron. After stopping only so Barron could buy sunglasses and a hat they drove straight to Ipswich. Barron checked Perv’s Twitter. Nothing.

The drive took only an hour, yet the meter pointed to a bit over 300 pounds. When Barron questioned the fee, the driver shrugged. ‘inflation’s up 20% mate.’

The drizzling summer rain and the quant English streets made for beautiful scenery, but Barron was not in the mood to enjoy them. He checked into a hostel using his fake passport and spent the remainder of the time in bed with the curtains closed.

The meeting with Colin however went much better than Barron expected. Not only did Colin seem like a genuine fan of his father, the guy claimed he could get Barron out of England, no questions asked. On the way to the hostel it stopped raining and Barron didn’t feel like sleeping yet. Scared to enter a pub, but with lifted spirits, he bought a can of beer in a night shop and drank it sitting on a brick wall overlooking the sea. This journey wasn’t panning out the way he expected, but at least it didn’t seem like the end yet.

The next morning, an anxious Barron met an excited Colin. ‘So something big is going on eh!’ was the first thing Colin said. ‘Harbor security checks are up. I guess they’re looking for you. Don’t worry, we’ll get you across.’ He gave Barron a yellow safety helmet. ‘Put it on. Let’s go!’ He led Barron around the harbor and while doing so, explained their plan. Turned out Colin was a sailor on a ferry between Ipswich and Rotterdam. The captain’s ferry was a staunch nationalist who wanted nothing more than to personally deport all foreigners on his ferry, and Colin knew he considered helping Trump’s son to be an honor. As for getting past customs, well… Colin smiled and said nothing.

Half an hour passed. They were walking amidst shipping containers, cranes, and a big chain link fence that separated public British territory from private harbor territory. In a secluded spot, Colin pointed at the fence. ‘Look, you can see it’s been repaired here.’ Indeed, the fence’s reparation showed that there had previously been a man-size hole cut in it. ‘This was one of the spots illegal refugees entered Britain through. Of course it took months before we were allowed to plug this hole.’ Colin winked. ‘But now, let’s open it for some opposite immigration shall we?’ He grabbed a fence cutter from his backpack and they re-opened the hole. ‘OK, great. Now, go through it, walk straight ahead until you hit the sea, then turn left. Search for a big blue boat, by the name of Thatcher II. Here’s your ticket. I’ll meet you aboard.’ And with that Barron was alone again.

Things worked out just like Colin said. Barron found the boat, got aboard without problems and sat among the tourists as if it were the most normal thing in the world, though he was sure not to take of his glasses and hat. He’d like to think the unshaven chicken hair on his chin and jaw helped him stay unrecognized.

When the boat left shore, it’s horn blowing, Barron let out a sigh of relief. He hoped the remainder of the journey would be easier.

On Perv’s Twitter account a new tweet was posted: “Important mission against NWO underway! Battle fills frogtwitter loyalist with grit!” It was accompanied by a picture of a muscled blond man in boxers posing in front of a waterfall with a gun.

Soros’ phone rang. He answered the call, and a groveling voice spoke to him.

‘My deepest apologies mr Soros, we couldn’t have known Farage had an escape hatchet installed. We’ve arrested his entire team and we’ll use this incident to further cement our posi…’

‘I do NOT care about his team, nor do I care about your PETTY domestic politics’ interrupted Soros. ‘I want the kid stopped. I specifically instructed you to stop the kid. You did not. Your failure does not shine well on your future career, mr Khan.’

‘I understand mr Soros, I understand. I have men at all continental transport connections, airports, trainstations, harbours…. We will stop him before he reaches the mainland, of this I assure you.’
– ‘It is likely that he has already reached the mainland. It seems that I require better help. You’ll be hearing from us.’
‘Mr Soros, wait mr…’
*click.*

Soros put a hand on his forehead and rubbed his eyes. All important loose ends were under control, but this Trump kid was getting further than he was supposed to. No more time for games. He searched his phone index and clicked on the contact called ‘mr Lenin’. The phone rang twice before a gruff voice answered.

‘yes.’
-‘good day, mr Lenin. I have an assignment for you.’
‘hm.’
– ‘Donald Trump’s youngest son, Barron Trump. Barron currently travels through Europe, unaccompanied. He wants to get to Saudi Arabia to retrieve the Orb of Covfefe. He must be stopped.’
‘For the president’s son I ask triple price.’
– I will pay you quadruple if you succeed. Furthermore, consider all my continental assets to be at your disposal.
‘Ok.’
*click*

Somewhere in Paris, a huge bald man sitting on the edge of his bed put away his phone. Behind him, the voice of a young man: ‘you have to go, mon amour?’ Mr Lenin answered without turning his head: ‘no, you have to go. I have to prepare.’

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The Eurovision Songfestival is peak bioleninism

Popular Culture

Do not feel like spending too many words on Eurovision.

For non-Europeans: the Eurovision is a contest in which every European country + Israel enters one artist with one song. Winner is determined by votes. It is pretty big.

Why is it pretty big? Because Eurovision has become the symbol of our progressive overlords. It’s where all the bioleninists gather each year to celebrate the progress on immanentizing the eschaton. Just like the Romans had the colosseum, the progressives have Eurovision. And so the media pushes it through everyone’s throats.

Which is not to say it isn’t entertaining. It is fine entertainment. The artists, songs, costumes and performances are fun to watch. Certainly not gladiator fight level entertainment, but not bad.

The problems with progs is of course that everything they touch turns into a holiness spiral. The propaganda has become cringe-worthy: 2013’s slogan was a hive-minded ‘We Are One’, 2014’s slogan repeated the hive-mind with ‘#Join Us‘, and who can forget 2016’s subtle slogan broadcasted from Kiev, Ukraine: ‘Celebrate Diversity‘. Take that Putin!

As it goes with the slogans, it goes for the artists. The last time people listened to Eurovision songs outside Eurovision was in 1974 when ABBA won. Nowadays your best shot at winning is to be a drag queen with HIV. But, I have to say that this year’s winner takes the cake in terms of peak bioleninism:

 Schermafbeelding 2018-05-14 om 12.41.17Schermafbeelding 2018-05-14 om 12.41.17Schermafbeelding 2018-05-14 om 12.41.17 I can’t breathe.

Just so I have this straight: the winner of 2018 Eurovision is an obnoxious, fat, Jewish chick complaining about being #9 #29 on a badboy’s booty call list?

You can’t make this up. You just can’t.

So. That’s the Eurovision Songfestival for you.

The dancing monkey’s monkey dance

Reflection

 

The world’s a stage, and all the men merely players.

According to Darwin we are all monkeys. Darwin was right. Tyler Durden from Fight Club then said we are all monkeys waiting to be shot into space. Tyler was right. Tyler Durden from Real Social Dynamics then said that being a dancing monkey is being try-hard. He was selling a purple pill lie.

The truth is that we are all dancing monkeys. People are piqued when I tell them this, as if the notion that you are putting on a show implies that you are not being real, not being yourself. Nonsense.

When I leave my house, I am a dancing monkey, because I know that cooperation/cooperation outcomes require good dancing. I meet people, I dance, they dance, we dance. That is simply the way humans communicate. We don’t know others like we know ourselves, hell, we rarely know ourselves, so we do the next best thing, which is to act out a dancing version of ourselves which communicates to others as effectively as possible who we are. It is show – of course it is show! – because that is what communication requires. Whether or not you consciously experience the need to dance, the end result is the same: you go out in the world, perform your monkey dance, and you reap the results of said dance. You may assign as much meaning to that as you want to, but in the end that is all there is to it. You are just 1 monkey, in a world of 7 billion monkeys. You dance, or someone else will dance on your grave. It is self-deluded pride to think otherwise.

At this point it is important to repeat that being a dancing monkey is a red pill, not a black pill. Our challenge is to turn it into a white pill: make it so we enjoy performing our monkey dance. Dancing is meant to be fun, after all. I enjoy my dancing, am as relaxed in my dancing as I can be (I rarely completely relax, because Gnon punishes unguarded relaxation), and as a result I enjoy my life.

By the way, what’s the last time you literally danced? Should be at least somewhere in the last 7 days. You’re not just your brain.

But let us look at women. For ages men have looked and women and discussed among themselves the age-old question: why do women love soaps?

I watched 5 episodes of a soap. It confused me. I just didn’t get it. What is the point of 30 minutes of fighting about Maria, who carries her sister Theresa’s baby, a baby Theresa made with Chad, Chad who turned out just cheated with Helga, Helga who is not only the mother of Theresa and Maria but also heir to the Sippensdale Imperium, the Sippensdale Imperium which Chad’s brothers hate to the bone! Oh an Maria is also a transgender. During the 5th episode I specifically remember thinking: what the fuck am I watching.

Of course, now I get it. Women can’t distinguish between the monkey dance and the monkey reality. For a women, the monkey dance is the reality. Soaps are a bunch of very pretty monkeys in pretty clothes performing dances on steroids. Of course they love it.

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pretty monkeys in pretty clothes

Now let us look at men.

The trick is to get men to enjoy their monkey dance.

Self-development used to be religious. Both are about your identity and place in this world. Now, people are very different, but people are also pretty similar. Men need property, need a woman, need monetary purpose, need männerbund, need children. None of these are absolutely necessary, but exclusion of any goes against our genetic programming. A happy father is a happy dancing monkey: it is good to feel in control of your life.

Modern life lacks feedback mechanisms that reward our natural dancing instincts. Teachers say you suck. Universities say you’re wrong. Companies say you don’t matter. Media says you’re evil. Etcetera etcetera. We are told our land is not really ours, and the same thing goes for our family, work and friends.

Dancing in such an environment sucks — our monkey instincts are too strongly abused. Unsurprisingly everyone is increasingly sick, which goes double for those who are officially designated to heal the sick: all psychologists are depressed, all psychiatrists are in denial.

I am struggling with how to end this. Some kind of uplifting message? Not sure. Getting to co-op/co-op outcome with men is hard. Requires time, trust, and something for all parties to gain. Am I dancing with my readers or just doing some autistic solo performance? Eh. We’ll see.

Scott Aaronson, one last time, or: how smart people can be pretty stupid

Uncategorized

I’ve talked about Aaronson here and here.

Scott Aaronson is the typical example of a high IQ philosophizing engineer who is supposed to guide us into the next phase of the information age. He knows physics, he knows quantum mechanics, he knows lots of fancy words. Elon Musk is for the proles, Scott Aaronson is for the intellectuals! Take his last post, a 6000-word juggernaut which contains beautiful sentences such as:

 According to my complexity-theoretic refinement of Aumann’s agreement theorem, which I later published in STOC’2005, two Bayesian agents with a common prior can ensure that they agree to within ±ε about the value of a [0,1]-valued random variable, with probability at least 1-δ over their shared prior, by exchanging only O(1/(δε2)) bits of information—completely independent of how much knowledge the agents have.

Isn’t that exactly what you’d expect a supersmart engineering philosopher to sound like? Yes. Well. Truth be told, I don’t know what he means and I have no intention of finding out.

See, when we boil Aaronson’s post down to its essentials we get the following:

> A witch hunt has begun against Robin Hanson for crimethink.
> I commit crimethink sort of similar to Robin Hanson
> I am angry and scared
> I am very different from Robin Hanson though
> Robin Hanson does not respect wahmen
> I respect wahmen!
> I respect wahmen so much!
> I hereby dub it the 0th commandment to respect wahmen
> pls don’t witch hunt me

Sigh.

Let’s give Aaronson a small Moldbuggian thought experiment.

Say there’s a nation, call it Oyth. There used to be peace and prosperity on Oyth, only lately it has collapsed into war and chaos because parents are forbidden from parenting their children. ‘Children are autonomous!’ is the party line. The consequence is disaster: children eat too much candy, don’t go to school, do self-destructive stupid stuff like playing Fortnite while driving their dad’s car. Families have fallen apart. But every time an adult protests that children should listen to their parents, the party cracks down hard: no no no, how dare you suggest children are not strong and independent!

In this thought experiment, is Aaronson still the hero he imagines himself to be? Or is he preventing parents (men) from controlling their children (women), e.g. doing evil with a smug smile?

He is doing the latter, of course. Back on earth, men and women are stuck in defect/defect equilibrium with all the expected consequences, which Robin Hanson hints at, which Aaronson screams is untrue and horrible to even think of.

Naturally, such a thought experiment goes right over Aaronson’s head, and he will immediately think of a million reasons why it is wrong. This is the annoying side of high IQ people: contrary to high IQ people opinion, high IQ does not mean better affinity for truth. High IQ means better affinity for status. Smart people are good at replicating and improving high-status memes. That is high-status memes, not truthful memes. This is why plenty leftists are very smart people: they use their high IQ to invent 50 shades of high-status bullshit. As always, power trumps truth. Gnon smiles upon us.

And so it is with Scott Aaronson, who perhaps invents only 25 shades of bullshit, yet who out of the palm of his hand shakes 6000 words of argumentation on how why he should really not be next on the witch hunt. It is the lament of the low-testosteron beta: ‘I want to be liked! Please like me!’  In his own words, he is ‘practically on his hands and knees begging you here: show him that his fears are unjustified.’

Poor guy.

Scott, your fears are entirely justified. It gets even worse: no one cares about you white knighting women. Not leftists, who take your placating for an admission of guilt, not rightists, who take your placating for virtue-signalling, and not in the least women, who really have just been shit-testing you all the time. But hey, at least it’s all within ±ε about the value of a [0,1]-valued random variable.

Inconspicuous title

Religion

I wanted to title this post Jimianity but I thought it too dramatic.

It is finally time for a decent split within neoreaction. Supposedly, all intellectuals on this side of the internet agree on how the world works, but in reality, all intellectuals on this side of the internet are as much in agreement with each other as I am in agreement with Scott Alexander.

So, let us do away with the pretense. I like the NRx community, but I like me better. Man is wolf to other man and LARPing friendship on the internet ain’t gonna change that.

I prefer a clear hierarchy on truth. You speak truth, you are my friend. Truth follows canon, ergo you’ll see truth-seekers following a similar canon.

Jim’s canon is on the edge of truth. It is neoreaction, but it is also a solution to end the war of the sexes. It is the evolution of Christianity, uncucked and red-pilled.

Many neoreactionaries break with Jimianity when women are concerned; be it the idea of treating women as your property (sexist!), treating 10-year old girls as sexually aggressive (horrible!) or the idea that emancipation is the biggest inverse influencer of fertility (simplistic!). Personally I’ve found Jim’s ideas to make perfect sense.

They say no enemies to the right, no reason to pick a fight when no one is looking for a fight, but fuck it, I’ve never been one to shy away from a good fight. Moldbug diagnosed the problem correctly and those who agree with his diagnosis are neoreactionaries. Jim prescribes a solution for the problem and those who agree with his solution are… Jimians? I guess. Points to Jim for having such a memeable name.

They say we need a new religion. I say we stop shoving around the burden of responsibility. We are the new religion.

How to have POWERFUL game like Joe Biden

I counted them. 94 categories actually.

“Alf, I’ve stuck with many strange things you’ve said, but this one takes the cake. Joe Biden is a creepy son of a bitch groping young girls and I refuse to have anything to do with him.”

Well it hurts my heart to hear that. Perhaps you can watch this cute cat video instead of reading this post and we won’t discuss it further.

Personally, of course I’m going to look at Joe Biden’s STRONG game and try to learn from it. This is the Dark Enlightenment™ after all. We believe only in POWER and those strong enough to grab it. Yes, just like Voldemort.

If you don’t know about Joe Biden’s dark side, here’s something to give you an idea:

Biden Kisses -very young- women he just met on the face, he flips their hair, smells their hair, grabs them by the arm, pulls them close to him, rests his arm dangerously low on their backs. And perhaps even more impressively; he does this all publicly, in front of the camera, for all to see. Does not matter if the women is an 8 year old girl or Hillary Clinton, Biden simply establishes DOMINANCE. Here is a more complete analysis. I recommend watching it all, but just the first 10 minutes will give you a good idea of Biden’s game.

ALPHA!

Please note I am not being sarcastic when I call Biden alpha. You might label him a creepy predator, but he is an alpha creepy predator nonetheless. As Rollo Tomassi said, alpha is not what you’d like it to be; it simply is what it is. Joe gets away with his DOMINANT behavior, ergo Joe is alpha.

Biden follows the rule that it is better to ask for forgiveness than for permission. He is very focused on physically establishing dominance with women. The power grab is his most interesting signature move: he firmly grips women around their arm. It’s really quite an effective move and I recommend copying it. Instead of gently asking women for their attention like every boring beta male, you grip them by their arms (I prefer underarm, although upper arm works too) and pull them towards you. The trick is to balance the force of your grip: tough enough to make sure she knows you mean it, not so tough as to crush her arm or put her off balance. Firmness is key. The magic of this move is that, rightly executed, it communicates to women that you do this more often, and it should not surprise you that women love love love a man who grabs and steers women around whenever he feels like it.

The second thing to notice is that, as the woman in the analysis points out, Biden only pushes when he senses weakness. This is where he and I differ. I like to throw off people no matter how weak or strong they are, but Biden clearly follows the rule that you keep your hands off the strong and grip the submissive. Thus the touchy touchy with the girl in red, but hands off when Sessions slaps his hand away. We should see the prolonged hug with Hillary Clinton in the same light. Biden deliberately used that hug to exercise dominance over Clinton. No man in a better position to smell and abuse Clinton’s weaknesses than Biden.

So, if I am so much less creepier than Biden, how come he is one of the most powerful men on earth and I am not? Here we touch upon a painful truth of nature: Biden’s techniques work. They work very well. If you piss on the strong, the strong will piss on you harder. If you piss on the weak, the weak will be glad that someone strong notices them.

It is only from a safe distance that you can observe what is going and that you can say: ‘wait a minute, that’s an ex vice-president of the most powerful country in the world groping young girls!‘ You can’t say that up close, because the same techniques Biden uses to grope young girls are what made him ex-vice president of the most powerful country in the world! Now isn’t that a black pill to chew on…

Dutch Royalty: an unprincipled exception

I have over 40 categories

Meet the Dutch Royalty:

koing-gezin-ANP
From left to right: Princess Alexia, king Willem Alexander, Princess Amalia (first in line), Queen Maxima and Princess Ariane.

You’ll notice they resemble more a wealthy family than a royal family. This is mostly a Dutch ‘do normal then you do crazy enough’ cultural thing. But, also, Dutch royalty historically never had that much of a defining presence.

The first WIllem in the line of Dutch kings was Willem the First. He was the son of Willem V, whose reign as the last Stadtholder (‘cityholder’) ended when French revolutionaries occupied the Netherlands. The Stadtholders was the de facto leader of the Dutch provinces from the 16th century onward. Sort of like a king, just more low-key. You know, ‘do normal then you do crazy enough.’  Originally Stadtholders were in service of the Habsburg house, but following the independence war with Spain they found themselves on top of the Dutch food chain. Considering the Dutch golden age, Dutch naval dominance and Dutch overseas colonies, they did pretty well.

Now, Willem I knew the tradition of Stadtholders and knew that, following the defeat of Napoleon, the position was his, but he was a man of bigger dreams. He looked at the history of kings and queens in Europe and thought to himself: why couldn’t the Netherlands have a king? And why couldn’t it be me? So he pitched to the victors over Napoleon the idea of a strong United Kingdom of the Netherlands, as to deter France from similar shennanigans in the future. The Prussian, English and Russians agreed.

Thus it was that Willem I pronounced himself first King of the Netherlands (which included Belgium and Luxembourg). This happened in 1815, when liberalism was already creeping through the West and England had more than 800 years of monarchy behind it.

Nonetheless, Willem I was quite the monarch. If there ever was a guy who thought that secure power is righteous, it was everyone-answers-to-me Willem I. He invested in railroads, waterworks, steam engines, the metric system, roads, industry. With very squinted eyes he was the 19th century Steve Jobs king. Everything reactionaries love about monarchs, Willem I embodied.

Unfortunately, mr Willem’s rule did not go down well with everyone. Especially the Belgians, who still had that French-freedom-fever, figured they could do without some roleplaying king. They rebelled. Willem I sent his troops.

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Willem I. Apart from the camel toe: pretty cool portrait

Problem 1: The Belgium revolt was supported by the last French king, who sent troops that defeated the Dutch. Problem 2: Willem did not accept defeat. He persisted, in spite of not getting the international support he hoped he’d get, in spite of the treasury slowly emptying, in spite of his war effort failing. Like women who want men they can’t get, Willem I wanted power he couldn’t get. And so it was only under great and prolonged pressure that the great conservative king Willem I had to accept the secession of Belgium.

With his failure came new pressure by haters and all of this proved too much for Willem I: he abdicated. I am not sure how accurate the below portrait of Willem I in his final days is, but it does seem to aptly characterize his situation:

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“I’m not angry, just disappointed”

His son and successor, Willem II, did not enjoy his father’s legacy. He sat on an uneasy throne and saw revolutions happening all around. So, he famously turned from conservative to liberal, overnight (the Dutch version of liberalism! Closer to libertarianism). The constitution was rewritten, parliament became head of the state, and Willem II felt he could breathe easier.

From there on the monarchy has mostly been ceremonial with lots of hand-waving and ribbon-cutting, though I hear they do good diplomacy behind the scenes. One attempted revolt by 1920’s socialists was a fail and affirmed the royal house’s popularity with the Dutch.

Back to our current king Willem-Alexander, who prefers that name above the title one would historically expect him to take: king Willem IV. Isn’t he in an interesting position?

Let’s pitch my thoughts on his situation. The royal family is popular in the Netherlands, except among rabid leftists. But, everything is in flux, nothing is static. Official Cathedral position is that the royal house is a horrible unprincipled exception, that poor taxpayers bleed millions of euros to fatten the purses of the royal family and that every time the royal house tries to come off as generous it is only further proof of how horribly evil they are. Right now the Dutch culture war is entrenched around Sinterklaas, but who says a new front can’t be opened? On the radio you hear occasional whispers — ‘we should really have this discussion‘. Also, I feel like I see less orange each year on king’s day. Though that might just be the weather.

In the king’s most recent Christmas speech he called for more openness towards our fellow countrymen, for ‘not a better I, but a great we’. He helpfully offered that ‘Twitter can make a debate bitter”. Clearly, Willem-Alexander does not see the same danger I see.

Eh, who knows. King’s day was good at least. Also good: memes of tourists still arriving for Queen’s day, which used to be 3 days later.

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Why is everybody staring at us?