Russian empire aerospace refugees (2021)
scottlocklin.wordpress.com
scottlocklin.wordpress.com
> The US has been working itself up to this for about 20 years now, since the “war on terror” started, and the oligarch weaponization of “woke” politics to keep the left from raising their taxes post Occupy Wall Street. Now it’s a war of terror, and the enemy, as they say, is us.
The "Woke Left" is coming to shoot us! Any day now!
> Conservative family-oriented religious people like Sikorsky and Seversky [...] being the backbone of every functioning civilization for all of human history.
Honestly, nobody is getting "cancelled", harassed, or whatever, for manifesting these adjectives. It's ALWAYS something beyond.
[1]: https://americanmind.org/salvo/thats-not-happening-and-its-g...
However, after being pointed to an example of that, you actually support it. (by implying that people "taking away equal-rights from homosexuals" should be cancelled).
The article I linked to explores this phenomenon in more detail.
Also, homophobia is a charged word. Heteronormativity [1] is probably more descriptive.
And also my second point: "Homophobia is not happening", it's just being conservative. But also, "homophobia is happening! and it's a good thing!"
I don't know about heteronormative/homophobic. But wanting to make gay marriage illegal sure sounds very much like hating those people specifically. It hurts noone if they marry, but they hurt a lot if they can't. I think "homophobic" is the correct nomenclature in this case, and "heteronormative" is more about your personal or your group's preference and manifestation.
Right, it often does. But yet again, that means that people do get cancelled because of voicing and supporting socially conservative beliefs.
> it's just being conservative
Heteronormative is an important part of social conservatism in the US. If you think that's not the case, I'd be curious to know what do you think a person who is "just" socially conservative believes in.
If merely your own preference were "heterosexuality, family-oriented and religious" without interfering in other's lives, then of course "homophobic" would not apply and nobody would call you that.
> what do you think a person who is "just" socially conservative believes in.
"Conservative" can mean many things, I admit that especially in the US it can mean opposing homosexual marriage. But the article was speaking in global terms ("every functioning civilization for all of human history"), and in that context it can mean many even more many different things.
All in all I find this game of "secretly being homophobic" pathetic, and that you would quote "That’s Not Happening and It’s Good That It Is" is extremely ironic. Just be straight with it and say that you hate gays, or that certain people are lesser people or whatever you think. You're gonna get in trouble anyway. Or is it worth the trouble to hate people? Good luck.
This last paragraph is just a boring personal attack/implicit threat, and obviously not OK. You are not going to have a lot of luck convincing people who disagree with you like that. And you may get yourself in trouble on HN. [1]
[1]: From https://news.ycombinator.com/newsguidelines.html:
> Comments should get more thoughtful and substantive, not less, as a topic gets more divisive.
> When disagreeing, please reply to the argument instead of calling names. "That is idiotic; 1 + 1 is 2, not 3" can be shortened to "1 + 1 is 2, not 3."
> Please don't fulminate. Please don't sneer, including at the rest of the community.
Probably not in this generation but there's a theoretical possibility in some future generation, and it also applies the other way, polygamy, incest, etc., can also theoretically be made legal.
It's unlikely for a huge chunk of the population to intentionally lower their own status, but it's not a 0% chance.
It would be more difficult to do in Canada or some other countries, but also not totally impossible.
That's what voting and majorities and supermajorities means.
In some countries a wide degree of relationships are today being legally accepted as "family", such as brothers or friends living in a household. The important thing is that this does not affect anybody wanting to live in a traditional family.
If democracy was purely about what the majority votes, and not also protecting the minorities to some degree, we should not call it civilization then. Reducing it it to a "legal majority rule" does not make e.g. slavery legitimate or morally acceptable.
There are some extreme scenarios where that would no longer apply, but passing readers will get the point without needing to read every possible corner case.
he contributed $3000 to a political campaign against gay marriage, 6 years prior to losing his job for that reason
The linked article suggests that Russia might have kept its educated people if the Bolsheviks hadn't taken power and driven all those people into emigration. Few people would dispute that, and it is important to note that the Bolsheviks did not overthrow the tsar: he was already gone by the October Revolution, having been deposed in the February Revolution earlier in the year.
So, it’s not about praising the tsar. If Bolsheviks specifically hadn’t screwed everything up, Russia may well have remained on the same path of development under the tsar-free regime brought in during February 1917.
> having his favorite translation of the futurist manifesto
In spite of Futurism's undeniable links to early Italian Fascism, I suspect that, overall, the Futurist Manifesto is discussed as an important piece of literary history and an interesting text by more people who are broadly on the left, than people who literally believe in fascism. After all, Futurism was an example of Modernism in the arts, but much fascism today often makes it a point to rejects Modernism.
The linked site is well known for being quite on the right, and arguably too unhinged to deserve HN links. But there is so much better evidence you could have pointed to for that, than your two assertions I quoted here.
The arc from Russia in 1917 to California today is absurd.
Russia lost World War I and fought a terrible civil war for a few years. I imagine San Francisco as a paradise in comparison.
Example: https://scottlocklin.wordpress.com/2021/11/20/us-public-heal...
(And don't go to war repeatedly, war is always a gamble)
> As America descends into the California model of madness and tech-mediated kakistocracy, the smart and adventurous Americans; the kind that found tech companies, or build devilish new weapons for governments, will leave. I know many who have. Virtually everyone I speak to (of course a biased set) is thinking about it. Left wing, right wing: people in tech, military technology, finance, crypto; they see the US heading over the waterfall into madness and want no part of it.
Assuming for a moment that this observation is correct, what are the destinations that the smart and adventurous Americans are leaving to? What places in the world are now the most hospitable and the most rewarding for talent? My naive impression was that Wester European countries are even less agile and enterprising than the US, and anyway, move in lockstep with it. Russia is obviously out. I doubt people are moving to African countries. Nor do I think I heard about an immigration wave into China. And despite Balaji's bullishness on India, I thought net migration is still out of India rather than the other way around. Same with Eastern Europe. So where are these Americans going? Australia? Israel? Singapore?
I buy that people they spoke to "think" about it, like people saying they were going to leave the US when trump was elected but no mass exodus occurred. it feels like pure fear mongering with people "thinking" or "considering", since that means nothing. The US isn't falling or dying, and even if it was its worth saving rather than running away. they're even spouting misinformation like the USG is preventing people from revoking citizenship because they dont want people to leave, despite the reason this was occuring was because of COVID regulations.
The US is the greatest country in the world, bar none. It has a lot to improve upon and these intelligent people should try their hardest to improve it. this article is anti-american at best and is abundant with conspiracy theories to the point it is noncredible.
[1] - https://buildremote.co/companies/companies-leaving-californi...
[2] - https://www.telegraph.co.uk/business/2023/04/10/norway-wealt...
Nowhere? Americans are (almost) the only people subject to income tax even on income not made in the US. You'd need to get a very good income to live on two sets of taxes (how unfree for such supposedly free people...)
Which is why Tina Turner died a Swiss citizen.
https://www.irs.gov/individuals/international-taxpayers/figu....
That means that for your first $120k earned, if you pay tax on that in your country of residence and meet other criteria, you will not be double taxed by the US.
America has a habit of making laws that it compels other countries to follow, and banking is definitely one of those. Foreign banks dealing with US nationals have a mountain of paperwork, rules, and regulations to abide to the point that US citizenship is often a substantial hurdle to foreign banking. And, as usual, the extremely high wealth types that acts like FATCA [1] ostensibly target have little difficulty finding ways around it. It's the 'normal' people who get hit the hardest.
[1] - https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Foreign_Account_Tax_Compliance...
(plus you still have to pay outstanding taxes, plus an exit fee that goes up substantially if you make a lot of money; plus I'm pretty sure the Swiss median income, for Tina Turner's example, is higher than 120k USD per year so you're always paying taxes)