Ricochet is the best place on the internet to discuss the issues of the day, either through commenting on posts or writing your own for our active and dynamic community in a fully moderated environment. In addition, the Ricochet Audio Network offers over 50 original podcasts with new episodes released every day.
Modern Uses for Capt. Kirk’s Nomad/V’ger Maneuver?
Being rather unwoke, I was mystified as to why it is forbidden to utter “all lives matter” or allude in any way to the horrific frequency of black-on-black urban crime. It turns out that merely being opposed to racism is not the same as being antiracist. Who knew? “Antiracist” requires adherence to the precept that all disparities are attributable to race and only to race. Therefore, anything that distracts from, complicates, or contradicts that precept is itself a racist act, even if factually true. (The spectacular anti-intellectualism of the defective products coming out of our universities is stunning.)
Once I finally grasped the simplicity and blinding stupidity of “antiracism,” I was immediately reminded of the Star Trek episode “The Changeling” (1967) the plot of which was reprised in the Star Trek movie (1979).
Remember how Capt. Kirk got the mutated/merged robotic Nomad (V’ger in the movie version) to destroy itself? Nomad was busily wiping out life forms from planets all over the quadrant but got the idea that James T. Kirk was its “creator” and Kirk used that to defeat the creature:
KIRK: You must sterilize in case of error?
NOMAD: Error is inconsistent with my prime functions. Sterilization is correction.
KIRK: Everything that is in error must be sterilized.
NOMAD: There are no exceptions.
KIRK: Nomad, I made an error in creating you.
NOMAD: The creation of perfection is no error.
KIRK: I did not create perfection. I created error.
NOMAD: Your data is faulty. I am Nomad. I am perfect.
KIRK: I am the Kirk, the creator?
NOMAD: You are the Creator.
KIRK: You are wrong! Jackson Roykirk, your creator, is dead. You have mistaken me for him. You are in error. You did not discover your mistake. You have made two errors. You are flawed and imperfect and you have not corrected by sterilization. You have made three errors.
NOMAD: Error. Error. Error. Examine.
KIRK: You are flawed and imperfect! Execute your prime function!
NOMAD: I shall analyses error. Analyze error,
KIRK: Now. Get those antigravs on it.
NOMAD: Examine error. Error.
KIRK: We’ve got to get rid of it while it’s trying to think.
SPOCK: Your logic was impeccable, Captain. We are in grave danger.
KIRK: Scotty, the transporter room.
NOMAD: Analyze error.
NOMAD: Error.
KIRK: Scotty, set the controls for deep space. Two ten, mark one.
SCOTT: Aye, sir.
NOMAD: Faulty!
Ready, sir?
NOMAD: Faulty!
KIRK: Nomad, you are imperfect!
NOMAD: Error. Error.
KIRK: Exercise your prime function.
NOMAD: Faulty! Faulty! Must sterilize. Sterilize,
KIRK: Now!
SCOTT: Energizing.
(They observe the satisfying explosion on a monitor.)
Fortunately for planet Earth, this episode was written and produced in 1967 so NOMAD probably had only 8K of RAM and thus took quite a while to resolve this dilemma so they had time to get it into the transporter bay and beam it out into deep space before it blew up.
Conversations with the woke tend to have the same feel at the Kirk/Nomad exchange. To attempt a similar maneuver on a wokester, maybe first present this table from Powerline blog:
Then remind the wokester/Marxoid subject that if they/zie/sie is indeed anti-racist then:
(1) By definition, all disparate outcomes are solely the result of race. The interjection of other intervening causes, explanations, or factors is an inherently racist act to evade the truth of systemic racism.
(2) Whiteness and its privileged status is the essence of racism. Whites cannot be victims because their power to oppress is systemic, which systemic oppression cannot end unless and until whiteness disappears.
Then maybe the exchange will likely go something like this:
WOKESTER: Why do you show me this chart?
NORMAL: Many non-privileged non-white people are better off than many or most white people. They must have some valuable cultural or behavioral attributes.
WOKESTER: No. Only race explains.
NORMAL: But white Americans often do worse. Look at the chart. Are they the victims of the groups with more success?
WOKESTER: No. White people cannot be victims.
NORMAL: But their outcome is worse. They must be victims of these other groups.
WOKESTER: White people oppress. It is systemic. No one else can succeed.
NORMAL: But the data says indigenous American whites do not succeed by comparison to a number of ethnic and racial groups. It must not be “systemic” after all.
WOKESTER: Race explains all. It is systemic. Whiteness blocks all paths to ‘othered’ peoples.
NORMAL: And yet the others do succeed. Race must not be the cause.
WOKESTER: Math is racist. Racism is systemic. Race explains all. You are racist.
NORMAL: But whiteness failed to oppress those who have now made you a victim. Yet you are still guilty of oppression and now also for what be newly discovered racist resentment of your non-white oppressors. You are now doubly guilty.
WOKESTER: Must kneel. Hand me my Kente cloth, please.
Alas, just being a wokester/Marxoid zombie probably means that one does not have sufficiently coherent programming to actually understand the contradiction so will likely not blow up like Nomad. That would certainly more entertaining than trying to have a cogent discussion with one.
Published in General
Not sure I would put it that way. Lenin never has 80%. Lots of factions. What if those Latvian troops had gone in another direction? The White Army had substantial backing. Lenin was more ruthless, more focused, and a tad luckier than his rivals. To paraphrase, when you have the 80% by the balls, their hearts and minds will follow. I think our leftist friends are approaching it that way. When the right is silenced and all institutions captured, then preferences and actual beliefs will not affect the exercise of power. Persuasion and compromise are no longer required.
Arvo,
Now I understand you. What can we say but live and learn? We all get snookered. What is really upsetting is that when the academic establishment ceases to be even remotely objective it teaches a distorted view of the past. Thus the kids are condemned to repeat mistakes that would have been obvious if someone had bothered to give them something like an even-handed education.
Here’s a bit of information that might help. The left is always going on and on about the power of corporations. Did you know that American Corporate Law in its uniqueness is usually traced back to Darmouth suing the State of New Hampshire in 1816? Thus the first truly American Corporation was Dartmouth College. This should make all of us realize that the University system not only isn’t an ivory tower but can be nothing but a self-interested enterprise organization with a weird compensation scheme (tenure). In other words, maybe a little less deification of academia and a little more critical reasoning skills might really help. All that has happened since the 1970s is that the meme, “What’s good for General Motors is good for America” has been replaced by, “Whatever anybody from Harvard says is truth must be the truth”.
Although I accept that it is not a good idea to appear dismissive, there are ideas that must be dismissed because the premises are so false as to be dangerous. We can’t endlessly handwring because we might offend someone slightly left of the center. Sometimes we must state what a foundational truth is and let the chips fall where they may. Otherwise, the appeasement will only invite further intellectual aggression by the pure propagandists.
Regards,
Jim
That is nuts. Apples and blocks of wood.
BLM is founded on a lie. Unless the child died if something else, your anaolgy is wrong.
Sorry but no amount of understanding will ever be enough. I have seen 50 years of understanding.
Things are better than they have ever been as far as institutional racism. Telling me I am racsit because I am white does not help
I am not going to kneel for anyone, certainly not someone screeming I am racsit.
BLM® and ordinary people who say Black Lives Matter (not ®) are also as comparable as apples are to blocks of wood.
Kinda melodramatic there.
Doubt it would come to that on your neighbor’s porch.
Wrong.
People are sure Tryvon Martin was killed for racist reasons. He was not even murders. Ordinary people have that as part of their mythos.
You are just wrong. All BLM based on that and s lie.
Plesae. The Mob has canceled people for not supporting BLM “enough”.
Of course someone will call me racsit. It has already happened.
You are wrong again.
What will happen to a football player who refuses to kneel when the national anthem is played?
That’s assuming that the national anthem is still played, of course.
Most countries have a mix of these. Including the US.
Back in the mists of time I got a green card because my work sponsored me. That’s how a lot of Indian college students managed to stay on.
And then chain migration – yes – but chain migration of a certain economic and social class. Who come bearing social and educational capital. They are not typical of the country they leave behind.
Another school of thought :
Spock( from “ I , Mudd”): “Logic is a little tweeting bird , chirping in a meadow. Logic is a wreath of pretty flowers which smell BAD.”
I can’t get this chart out of my head, the one reproduced in the OP:
It describes an America in which people who describe themselves as “white” have a diminishing power and wealth base.
In fact, as I look at it, I wonder if it is possible that the nouveau riche as listed in that chart are enjoying some sense of superiority, something that was encouraged in all of the countries these newly wealthy people came from, to the last-named group on that list. The media would support their point of view.
These are not the immigrants of our grandparents’ and great grandparents’ eras. These are people who are here solely for the money.
I think this is the true divide. It’s not between racist whites and poor blacks. The real divide is shown in that chart.
@marcin – most immigrants migrate for material reasons. That’s always been true.
Why does the table bother you? It doesn’t say anything about migrants’ political engagement.
Nor does it say anything about their lives, what they have to do or endure to live here.
But who knows? Maybe everything’s easy for them.
I don’t think they respect the country in the same way that earlier generations of immigrants have.
The psychology of the new immigrants versus the people who were here when the immigrants got here is really screwed up. The immigrants are looking at someone else’s family, not theirs. They are taking a superior and distant stance vis-a-vis the United States. And that psychology is supported entirely by the mass media and educational establishments.
It’s not healthy for our country.
The table says to me that people who immigrate (and the full table with white immagrants bears this out) are self selected people who do well in America if they come here legally.
I have to think people with the gumption to get here legally have an edge over the average human being.
It is easy for those at the top. They are coming in from being students at our top schools. They are the immigrants who are supposedly more desirable than the poor and struggling immigrants from third-world countries. We’re not helping them. In their minds, they are helping us. They feel an allegiance to a growing global elite upper crust.
I realize I am wading into the pool of glittering generalities, but I know I’m right.
It has created a very off-balance social and psychological situation.
Yeah, I saw something once that the kind of person who gets accepted into Harvard but doesn’t attend or graduate has a pretty similar success as the person who graduates.
If employers were permitted to use IQ tests in hiring, the value of a diploma from a “top” school would decline greatly.
I was searching for the sources of the statistical tables displayed here when I stumbled upon this:
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_ethnic_groups_in_the_United_States_by_household_income
It looks like “old settlers” from the British Isles drag down the white median household income.
I understand that this is a strong feeling for you, and no disrespect intended, but could you give me some examples?
The chart does not really address that. Indians, Chinese, etc. who migrate to America experience relatively little racism because they aren’t Black Americans. That was certainly my experience when I lived in the States 30 years ago – I never felt any racism towards me ever. But I could see that Black Americans did. Racism is actually not a great way to descibe this – it’s very specific, and it isn’t really about skin colour imho.
Well, I’d agree that Indian Americans have a very healthy (possibly over-healthy) self-image. Should it be lower? Should they be more humble or more grateful to the native born population? How should they express that?
They pay their taxes (I hope), they are law abiding, they have extremely low rates of welfare usage. What are they currently not doing that they should do in order to address your concerns?
(Genuine questions. I’m not trying for a gotcha but to understand what you’re feeling and why.)
How is it easy to be a student in America’s best schools?
It isn’t easy to get in, it isn’t easy to find or earn the money to pay for it, it isn’t easy to get a scholarship that does, it isn’t easy to graduate, it isn’t easy to get a green card to work if you’re not a US citizen.
It’s all very, very hard work. None of it is easy.
Economically they are more valuable to the US. That’s precisely why they got their visas.
Again – what makes you feel this? Are there examples of migrants saying this?
Not true for H1-B holders, who have helped destroy STEM workers to get and keep jobs in Information Technology, etc. There is actual racism against non-Indians from Indian managers in the US, including against Indian Dalits.
And no, I’m not going give you links for examples, as it’s bedtime.
Many Indians are Doctors and other health care workers, which also helps their income averages.
Of all the immigrant experiences I’ve been party to (which is probably below average for Ricochetti) one that stands out as both humorous and exemplary was a conversation I had with I think a Syrian gentleman at a terminal at Dulles Airport. He was a smallish man, amiable and facile, who had worked for a shortish while as a translator with the US; and he walked with a modest limp which he said was from an old war injury. A lot of the conversation was about any prospects and advice we could give him for getting a job in the US. And he summed up his intentions by saying that he intended to find and marry a US middle-aged white woman, one preferably with a good government job, and go on disability.
All I could say was, Good luck.
I simply wish we had invested more in American high schools twenty years ago. Instead seeing the demand for high-tech and healthcare skills as a great way to motivate kids and build better schools, we let them languish and imported people who really didn’t need a leg up. That’s exactly what Europe did. It’s not a healthy way for a society to take care of itself.
I doubt they had to endure more than the millions of immigrants who came before them. I strongly suspect they had to endure less. As the Italian immigrants used to say: “I came to America because they said the streets were paved with gold. When I got here, I found out three things. First, the streets were not paved with gold; second, the streets were not paved at all; third, I was expected to pave them.”
Appalling, but really not surprising.
I googled and saw some class actions against Wipro and Infosys. I also found this.
They’re also skills which help them get visas.
I don’t think income is the only measure of being valuable to a country, but it is one measure of skills being valued.
Why wasn’t the investment made, and what do you think would turn that around?
I am not answering for marci, but I think that the problem with schools is they don’t exist just to teach, or primarily to teach kids. Their most important function is to exist. Then provide jobs for teachers, then to be sitters for dual income families. Then they are there to teach leftist thought. Oh and then, education.
This is what I find to be very sad. I have heard this expressed frequently for the last twenty years.
I understand what is behind it, but I’m a family-first person. I want to help the existing poor in America first, I want to help American kids get into the top schools, and so on. I don’t believe these students from foreign countries are genetically different and “more valuable” than American kids. Their families may have more money to pay the colleges and universities than some of the American kids do, but American kids are just educable.
I’ve been reading and hearing this rationale for increasing the numbers of high-skill and high-education immigrants through schools and businesses sponsoring them, and I’ve also known a lot of kids who were on the line in terms of their qualifications but did not get the job or spot in the college or university they wanted and were qualified for.
When you look at life from a personal perspective and see things that seem off-kilter somehow, you tend to dismiss your impressions because you think, “It can’t be that much. I’m surrounded by rational people who surely know you can’t keep doing this without upsetting some economic balance somewhere.” But looking at that chart–wow. As a moneymaking strategy for schools and businesses, it has been popular and it has absolutely made an impact on income distribution in this country.
I love immigrants. I have a problem with immigration policy. I’m not the only person to worry about this. There are some controls built into our immigration policy to prevent this. A weakened United States is not good to anyone–as my old Italian mother-in-law used to say, “You’re no good to anyone if you don’t take care of yourself.”
I’ve seen a lot of kids–friends of my kids–work really hard and get rejected by the professional schools they wanted to attend. They were absolutely qualified and rejected for some subjective reason. Then I pick up the paper and read that we’re importing doctors to the United States because we don’t have enough here–it’s upsetting. We threw away some incredibly talented kids.
We need to fix this. We should be looking inward, not outward, to fix our employment and higher education problems.
No, I was saying that migrants with skills in high demand are more valuable to a country than migrants without those skills.
[Edit add: at a macro level it’s arguable that foreign money being spent in the country to educate people whose skills then benefit the country because migration is good for the country, but at a micro level it’s not so good for some of the country’s citizens. I’d tend to agree with you.]
Yeah, it comes down to who the country’s policies and institutions are meant to benefit – ordinary people or business owners. They don’t always have the same interests, often their interests are in conflict. Imho framing it as a conflict between ordinary people (who can vote) and migrants (who can’t until they migrate and naturalise) is a misdirect, imho.
We have the same issue with higher education and foreign students here in Australia. The Universities can charge foreigners more, and that creates a huge incentive to enrol more foreigners. It’s even sold as ‘subsidising education for Australian citizens’ – which I guess it sort of does, but at a cost to Australian citizens as well.