Writer and host of @aksubversive podcast
Romania
Joined March 2014
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Some thoughts on crashing out and my answer to the question "What's wrong with the online right?"
Alex Kaschuta retweeted
How to argue that feminization is ruining society.
1. Call everything that is truth seeking "masculine"
2. Call everything that seems irrational "feminine"
3. Ignore evidence that contradicts your thesis that is politically inconvenient richardhanania.com/p/the-fem…
I agree with a lot of the observations in this article, but probably wouldn't describe the high school entrance exam as an IQ test. Would be interested to see how G-loaded the test is. When I took it, it was very much based on rote memorization.
Also, the massive amounts of private tutoring can’t be understated. Pretty much everyone in my class had a tutor for 2-5 subjects before the national exams.
The exam results are also affected by extensive cheating. I don't know how it is now, but when I took them, everything from copying the answers straight from a book of “variante” (they published the few hundred possible versions of the test 6 months prior to it for some reason), paying off teachers who supervised the test, paying off teachers who corrected the tests, and teachers encouraging the better students to help the laggards during the actual test were very common.
My latest article is in @palladiummag
The article is about Romania, and specifically, why it seems to do so incredibly well in international academic competitions
If you look at Romania, it's not what you'd expect
As I explain, the answer is its hyper-stratified school system
Alex Kaschuta retweeted
My latest article is in @palladiummag
The article is about Romania, and specifically, why it seems to do so incredibly well in international academic competitions
If you look at Romania, it's not what you'd expect
As I explain, the answer is its hyper-stratified school system
Alex Kaschuta retweeted
common manipulative writing tactics to hijack I see (I want more people to immunize against this nonsense)
many of these can be fine in subtle ways but the combo of them and repetition of them in conjunction with selling expensive things or an idealized identity of success can really be manipulative
please add on to this list of other things youve seen
extreme framing of very normal paths:
"the default path is a mind virus"
"the employee mindset is a trap"
secret knowledge
"youve been lied to"
"woe is them" h/t @kaschuta for this phrase
"dont end up mediocre like then, going through life accomplishing nothing, you want to be successful"
"too many people accept mediocrity/passivity"
“Most people drift through life accomplishing nothing.”
"most people are asleep"
"99% will never make it"
pathologize normal things
"comfort is your enemy"
"If you ever feel satisfied, you are already losing"
"wanting work-life balance is
"You’re not really living. You’re surviving.”
fake rags to riches stories
- spends 2 weeks couchsurfing, sells it as "broke"
fear of regret
"on your deathbed youll wish you took action"
everything is easy
- "steal this simple formula"
This week's chat features economist @NGruen1 on how to achieve a politics that represents the will of the people but mitigates the impact of "they're putting nanochips in our soda."
Alex Kaschuta retweeted
I think there’s a parental safety arms race happening where a fringe group decides something is super dangerous, slightly less crazy people are convinced, and within 5 years so few people are doing it that people call the cops on you for it
Alex Kaschuta retweeted
cc: @kaschuta
Alex Kaschuta retweeted
Safetyism : if the acceptable amount of risk is zero, the acceptable amount of activity is zero
Alex Kaschuta retweeted
If Trump is serious about tariffs on movies, it's a very dangerous escalation. Tariffs have not traditionally been applied to services, and the United States is a massive net exporter of services. We would be extremely vulnerable to any service-based retaliation.
Alex Kaschuta retweeted
How bad in RFK on vaccines? I decided to read a chapter of his book on Fauci. It has this seemingly impressive quote. But it turns out it is both edited very inappropriately and the authors are not making the claim he wants. They are saying that vaccines did not cause a decline in deaths from diseases in the 1st part of 1900s because they were not yet widely used. A simple observation that someone dishonestly edited. It's common in the conspiracy circles.
Alex Kaschuta retweeted
Maybe a spicy take: liberals have a mild taboo against talking about personal choices making their lives better (systemic issues! It’s Privilege!), and conservatives don’t, so people looking for stuff about how to make choices to make their lives better tend to find conservatives
Alex Kaschuta retweeted
the notion of a “fake email job” is structurally the same as a belief in communism. the communist looks at a system far more complex than he can understand and decides the parts he doesn’t understand must have no real purpose & are instead due to human moral failing of some kind.
Alex Kaschuta retweeted
Want to hear me talk about many of your favorite topics? Check out this interview with me with @kaschuta on The Subversive Podcast
This quoted post is unavailable.
Alex Kaschuta retweeted
Quick story about nuclear power and MAGA's approach to "abundance."
Last week, we got news that 60% of staff at the Dept of Energy's Loan Programs Office would be let go. LPO, as it's called, finances big energy projects. It's one of the only orgs in the US offering the sort of money needed to build nuclear plants.
The Trump admin seemed so blasé about letting LPO wither away that nuclear advocates signed an open letter explaining how catastrophic this would be for nuclear power.
Yesterday, a top Trump tech adviser drops a rah-rah tweet about the need to accelerate nuclear power construction in the west. What. Is. Happening.
Some people have observed in the last few weeks that I seem to have abandoned my neutrality in evaluating the administration. Maybe I have. But I promise you: I'm trying to evaluate the administration neutrally, based on their own stated goals.
If your goal is to revive US manufacturing, it's bad to create a trade war that raises input prices. If your goal is to build nuclear, you maybe shouldn't dismantle the most important nuclear-financing institution in America.
Alex Kaschuta retweeted
These guys know how unpopular the moron tariffs are going to be with consumers.
Their strategy--"make Amazon lie so consumers don't blame Trump"--reeks of desperation.
1) Why doesn't @amazon allow a "Made in America" filter?
2) Trump should call their bluff... freeze all H1b workers
Alex Kaschuta retweeted
He really just thinks that a trade deficit is a measure of wealth flowing out of the U.S. and into other countries.
Alex Kaschuta retweeted
The reason men are confused about women's preferences here is they don't understand how women evaluate attractiveness in bodies
Women are not attracted to the thing itself, they are attracted to what it signifies, and the one on the right signifies an annoying hobby / lifestyle
