News of the Week for May 11th, 2025
News of the Week for May 11th, 2025
In the hopes of encouraging a more civil, and illuminating, discourse, here is another episode of William F. Buckley, Jr.’s “Firing Line”.
The complaints about how attention spans have shortened and the technological equivalent of a sugar high have harmed young Americans, complete with the destruction of morals, is not a new one. Let us look back forty years when this and more was discussed with novelists Bret Eaton Ellis, Fernanda Eberstadt, and William F. Buckley Jr. who asked “what are our young novelists up to?”
Until next Friday.
Another “quick takes” on items where there is too little to say to make a complete article, but is still important enough to comment on.
The focus this time: They just don’t seem to understand how ridiculous they look to those outside their bubble.
First, a little mood music:
Carrying on…
Not only is Shakespeare getting a trigger warning at the University of West England… their getting 220 trigger warnings!
“Drama students are being warned of suicide in Romeo and Juliet after a university put more than 200 trigger warnings on works of Shakespeare.
“The University of the West of England (UWE) has issued warnings for ‘blood’ and ‘psychological trauma’ in Macbeth as well as ‘storms’ and ‘extreme weather’ in The Tempest.
“One theatre show of the shipwreck play was highlighted for containing the ‘popping of balloons’.
“A total of 220 warnings were added to the Bard’s works and adaptations on stage and screen, which included depictions on the BBC and ITV, as reported by The Sun.
“For Macbeth, in which a Scottish general overthrows the King by murdering him, there are warnings for murder, suicide, violence, knives and family trauma.”
“If you can’t beat ‘em, join ‘em” seems to increasingly be the motto of much of the modern post-conservative Right. The argument has ceased to be about supporting or opposing Marxist inspired ideology, but about which flavor of Marxist thought to adopt. It is the false dilemma fallacy that the choice is a binary one of Bolshevik vs. Menshivik, or if you will, Stalinist vs. Trostkyite. The purported Right has embraced Marxist thinkers with the fools’ conceit that they can substitute their eschaton for that of the Left even when engaging in the same immanentization. Christopher Rufo is one such fool.
In essence, it is a declaration that “Cultural Marxism is good, actually”. Or to put it another way, REAL Gramscian Marches just haven’t been tried, so as to speak. This is not a new idea, some have been pushing “fighting like the Left” for a while now. The enemy ceases to be the enemy’s intellectual framework and analysis, but the “classical liberalism” that stands in the way of using that framework and analysis to achieve one’s own desired end goals. Ah yes, “classical liberalism” is so broken, we have no other choice except to… adopt an alternative that has demonstrably proven to be even worse.
Gramscian schemes and Critical Theories are not value neutral tactics that are tantamount to merely not pre-emptively surrendering. They are tactics and pseudo-intellectual frameworks designed to achieve particular goals. To believe otherwise is like using a cake recipe and expecting to come out with a prime rib because that’s what you wanted.
Rufo, as many others do, try to justify their untenable position by invoking false parallels with American historical figures or figures from the broader Western Civilization. This is a Motte & Bailey fallacy. This is the equivalent of trying to justify the modern “Social Justice” movement by invoking St. Francis of Assisi. If they simply mean fighting like the Founding Fathers, then why not say we should fight like the Founding Fathers? If this is but an application of Machiavellian machinations, then why not just say we should fight in a Machiavellian manner? The reason is that they don’t want to do what the Founding Fathers did or for what Machiavelli believed in and supported—what they want is a Gramscian world where the oppressor/oppressed labels are switched.
Fighting Communist ideology with Communist ideology will inevitably lead to Communist ideology. Use Communist means; get Communist ends.
Between creating artificial skin, muscle, and brain organoids, the advancement towards living “bioroids” had made great leaps, though there are still many challenges ahead. A quick review where we are at shows not only the medical promise, but the true promise of such technology.
Rather than just a bioroid dog, why not a bioroid inumimi girl?
“Minor Attracted Person” or “MAP” is a euphemism for “pedophile”. The person in this video is Tick Segerblom, a County Commissioner of Clark County, Nevada (where Las Vegas is). Drag Queens are… Drag Queens. All that and more in this just over half-minute clip.
My God…
Nevada Clark County Commissioner Tick Segerblom admits on camera that he’s not only a Communist, but also a “Minor Attracted Person”
He’s arguing with a bunch of mama bears because they don’t want Drag Shows for children.
These sickos should be in no position of… pic.twitter.com/4YNJqGeEAg
— MJTruthUltra (@MJTruthUltra) March 7, 2025
If there is more to this that is somehow exculpatory, I sure hope we all se it.
News of the Week for May 4th, 2025
Today is Victims of Communism Day. It is also “May Day,” where “useful idiots” march and demonstrate in free countries, while those who have to actually live under Communism are made to march lest they face dire consequences.
One of the architects for the modern far Left’s “long march through the institutions” was Italian Communist Antonio Gramsci. Understanding Gramsci allows one to see just how pervasive the infiltration of Communism has been in Western society. Sadly, some of those above “useful idiots” wish to “fight fire with fire” by immanentizing the Gramscian eschaton for themselves by employing his praxis, which was designed to achieve his, and not their, goals.
When someone is trying to sell you something—anything—the use of high pressure sales tactics is clear warning of caveat emptor. Between the urgency and pressure, the intent to to deny you a chance to think things through, or to act in a well considered way, in the hopes of the veracity of the claims are not examined and second thoughts not given time to form. This is true in politics as it is true in other aspects of life, from commerce to faith.
The political message that certain things have to happen right now lest irreversible dire consequences happen if delay is brooked, is just such a high pressure sales tactic. There is no further time to think, which begs the question of what it is they don’t want you to think about. The sentiment that things are so perilous that we must tear everything down and act without constraint in doing so, or not restrain ourselves in our fervor so as to preserve anything of value would otherwise be destroyed, is a sentiment common upon the fringe of the proverbial political horseshoe. In both cases, this need to dismantle a society so irredeemable that only complete reconstruction along the intelligent design of its core proponents is an idea common to the many revolutions that arose in Europe from the French Revolution through the Russian Revolution and onto the modern day call to fundamentally transform society. It is the fierce urgency of now that can brook no delay, no tempering, and no doubts.
Don’t think. Don’t question. Just do.
That urgency to act now with wild abandon, because that the advocates of such abandon seek to destroy and replace, justifies an act of collective self-defense without limit by the ochlocratic mob and those who seek to use them. Against this stands conservatism, which serves not as a proscriptive ideology to be implemented by any means necessary, but a descriptive one that serves as constraint on the ambitious, and also as the wisdom that serves as enlighten bad decisions some would rather keep in the dark.. The value of this wisdom can be clearly seen by the chaos and violence of the French Revolution as contrasted when well measured and considered reflections made against it.
This is the urgency of those whose shibboleth is “do you know what time it is?”
There is no clearer example of emotionally manipulative hyperbole to justify overturning everything, including its own well reasoned past understanding, than the once vaunted Heritage Foundation. Rather than a slow Gramcian march through the institution, the Heritage Foundation fell victim to a short bus drive of fervent revolutionaries—not of the 18th Century American variety—but of a continental European type, which started with the French Revolution.
It’s less “Spirit of ‘76” than the “Spirit of ‘48”. No wonder the need to obfuscate this by denigrating America as an “idea”, doing so makes it easier to sell people on replacing it with an idea that came from a foreign people in a foreign land without further shared history.
Bridging the man-machine divide has been an ongoing endeavor of science, from artificial neurons to combining a brain with artificial circuits. The development of experimental hybrid devices that use human neurons with machine interface has been a breakthrough. Now, a computer that runs on human neurons can be yours for the low, low price of $35,000.
“Cortical Labs has gone a step further, by placing these cells in a system where they receive information from a program (a piece of hardware). This information is subsequently processed by the cells, with a result being produced that interacts with an external environment.
“‘When neurons are cultured, they typically don’t receive data; they’re simply arranged in a dish, emitting and collecting their own electrical activity. But that’s not what actually happens naturally inside a living being. So, we created a system that allows us to build simulations that neurons can process,’ Chong explains.
“To keep this hybrid organism alive, the CL1 has an internal structure that regulates the flow of gases, pumps and temperature. The device has a futuristic design, with a rectangular shape and a weight of almost 13 pounds. It measures just over 20 inches long and six inches wide. The top is transparent, allowing you to see the cables and tiny tubes that make the computer work. On the front, a touchscreen provides information about the system’s status, such as temperature.
“…
“On the operational side of things, the CL1 operates with a biological intelligence system called bioS, which allows users to execute code through neurons and perform computing tasks. The connection between the organic and technological parts is achieved through a microprocessor that acts as an interface, receiving and sending electrical impulses to the nerve cells.
“The CL1 is priced at around $35,000, but it’s not designed for the average user. Despite having an open system with USB ports that allow it to connect to other devices, its use is intended for researchers and scientists. ‘The device requires a laboratory to provide the cells with what they need to grow in a healthy manner. We want to ensure that people who acquire it have the ability to grow the cells themselves and know how to use it. At the moment, we’re taking orders and evaluating customers,’ the neuroscientist clarifies.”
Combined with the technology to transplant braincells, the next logical step is clear: Bioroid Catgirls!
The CLI, 猫耳 version.