Tribalism is interested in you

To borrow from Trotsky, you may not be interested in tribalism, but tribalism is interested in you.

Lots of my readers find tribalism viscerally uncomfortable.  They would prefer to live in a nation or a world where such considerations were insignificant.  Unfortunately, we don't live in such a world.  Particularly in pseudo-democratic societies, groups which are less tribal face a significant disadvantage against groups with more political and cultural unity.  One fairly easy way to see who has the tribalism 'advantage' is to ask, who do people of mixed race, say 1/2 or 1/4 typically identify with, when the choice isn't forced on them?  Does someone who is half Hispanic call themselves that, or call themselves White?  Obviously these choices can be influenced fairly heavily by what legal 'plusses' each choice gives.  Getting rid of the bonuses given for not being white should be a fairly significant focus for white reactionaries and conservatives---not simply because every bonus to someone else in zero sum games is a penalty to our own, but because the presence of such modifiers tends to cause the mixed race to identify more with the other.  You'll know you're winning the tribal wars when the 1/2 and 1/4 start trying to 'pass'.

Here's a significant wake up call, aimed particularly at libertarians.  As white demographic hegemony decreases, expect things like affirmative action and racial wealth transfers to increase, not decrease.  These issues aren't about moral principles at all, they're about who is to enjoy higher status and a larger share of society's goodies.  And to those who say that immigration reduces support for the welfare state, I ask, how's that working out for you in California?

It is patently unreasonable to expect that a group that has a significant---even, say a 1/2 sigma---disadvantage in a major metric of success in your country will not seek to use the political process to overturn said disadvantage.  The only group that ever tolerated another group playing its game better than it does is white people, and those only relatively recently. 

Scorn and defiance; slight regard, contempt

Ridicule and mockery are among the most powerful weapons available to us.  Here are some good examples of it: http://www.taxcheatstamps.com

This site sells stamps to replace Tim Geithner with 'Tax Cheat' on currency. I wholeheartedly approve, as this is like defacing an altar of the Cathedral. Music is another way to propagate ridicule. Reactionaries and conservatives really need to get on the stick in this regard. Helicopter Ben, for instance, is eminently mockable. My little ones really love the silly stories I spin with their toy helicopters and little people about 'Helicopter Ben' tossing bags of money to starving bankers on Wall Street.  They especially love it when 'Farmer Jed' appropriates Ben's helicopter and drops bags of manure instead of money on said bankers.

Here's some decent ridicule set to music via youtube. http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=tqTLTHEJEI8

Yes, I won't claim their song is for the ages, but songs in this genre don't need to be. Anything that reduces the prestige of the Cathedral is a good thing, because in hard times prestige is what allows the center to hold.

The Reactionary's Cross to Bear

Low Agreeability is the cross that reactionaries must bear.  On a moments reflection, the reason should be obvious.  The existing culture exacts a strong social price for expressing reactionary opinions, so reactionaries must therefore be drawn disproportionately from the subset of the population with low agreeability.  Come the Reaction, we'll be able to make nearly everyone with high agreeability bend to the reactionary zeitgeist, but that is a battle for another day.

Today we must consider the fact that Reaction is not a monolith, nor does it even have a single banner.  And we Reactionaries are a fractious lot.  Many of us expend obscene amounts of energy fighting against other reactionaries---frequently on issues of religion or the Jewish Question.  Some reactionaries, such as myself, are traditionalist Christians.  Yet others believe that Christianity is the enemy.  I believe that most Christian elites, like most other elites today, have sold out their rank and file for social prestige and status.  Can anyone name an elite group in the US today that hasn't sold out their coreligionists or coethnics?  I can think of maybe one, the Hispanic elite, which generally pushes the agenda of demographic hegemony for their coethnics.  Everyone else's elites are screwing their parent populations obscenely:
Most white elites are traitors on issues of demographic hegemony AND supporting interracial transfer payments
Most Christian elites are traitors for the same two reasons
Most Black elites are serious traitors on demographic issues, as in many areas Mestizos are in effect ethnically cleansing them. 

Most Jewish elites are seriously hurting the Jewish brand, which will lead to, I predict, dire consequences of the historical variety for ordinary Jews, 60% of whom are against demographic displacement in the US.

Reaction is positively surrounded by enemies to its Left.  There is absolutely no shortage of targets to engage at in that direction.  So why is it that there is so much ammunition expended by us towards the Right?
The amount of this activity is wasteful, and the cycle created is destructive.  I suggest that, for now at least, we ignore any enemies to the Right of us.  For my part, if you're against the loss of demographic hegemony for me and mine, you are not my enemy.  It matters not for that purpose whether you're a free marketeer, a national socialist, a Georgist, or whatever.  It matters not for that purpose whether you're a Christian, Asatru, Wiccan, Jewish, or whatever.  It also matters not whether you love Jews, hate them, or hold them in indifference, or something more nuanced.  Yes, it is true that some of your 'not enemies' today may become your enemies in the future as Reaction's banner rises.  But one must get through each day before tomorrow comes.  Reaction has a long term plan---an emergent one that its components are executing quite nicely without any central coordination---that will bring victory.  But such generational plans take a very long time to come to fruition, and there are battles in the here and now that must be won.  In said battles, we can ill afford to waste ammunition.

In defense of mercenary physicians

In the past couple of decades, I wish I'd bought an ounce of silver every time I heard someone pontificating about 'greedy doctors' (usually with an aside about the infernal insurance companies as well).  I'm not here to talk about insurance today---I discussed that some time ago in the context of the fundamental theorem of reaction.  Instead, I'd like to say a few words in defense of medical mercenaries.

We have an unreasonable expectation regarding a lot of the so-called 'helping professions'.  We expect them to be either altruistically motivated or to at least pretend such in public.  However, lets be honest, if only in private on the Internet.  Most doctors, nurses, and educators don't feel a calling to their profession (operationally, we can say someone has a 'calling' if they'd have entered the profession if it paid half or less what it paid when they began).  Instead, they chose it as a way to provide for their families.  They might derive more satisfaction from their job than most other professionals, but their primary motivation is mercenary.

There is absolutely nothing wrong with this, and I shudder to think how difficult it would be to access the level of medical service that we've become accustomed to were we limited to only those with a 'calling'.  Moreover, the physician has something really bad going for him that most other high IQ professionals don't:

He has to spend a lot more time on a daily basis interacting with people with less than average intelligence.

Consider an engineer by contrast.  A lot of engineers have zero contact on a regular basis with anyone less than about a sigma above normal intelligence.  Not so a doctor, and it isn't just lack of intelligence they have to grapple with, they also see a disproportionate amount of dysfunction as well.  I don't envy them that.   To induce me to practice medicine would require considerably more money than I presently earn.  Yes, I have beefs with their national guild bodies, and their overall lack of transparency in business, but that is rarely the fault of the individual physician.  So let us avoid attempting to use the spiked club of expected altruism to beat on our doctors.

A meditation on the library, and a question for readers

I noticed a few days back that my wife and I had neglected to return 'The Unincorporated Woman' to the library on time---it being overdue by a couple of days.  Now, having the 'middle class honor' that Half Sigma likes to write vaguely disparagingly of, we of course hastened to return it and pay the few pennies in library fines.

I thought a bit during this about library fines and the possibilities that exist there.  It strikes me that library fines are defined by two main parameters---how long you get to keep the book without any fine and the fine per unit time.  Sometimes they also have a fine cap and sometimes the fine per unit time is nonlinear.

What I wonder about it this:  Are there any explicit legal limits on what values these parameters can take?

For instance, imagine that the first parameter was effectively zero.  Imagine that the 2nd parameter was dependent on the type and 'newness' of a book---being, say $1/day for a new release of something that actually typically sells quite a few copies.
All of the sudden, with tweaks to just a couple of parameters, you've created an entirely new business model---a model I've never seen in practice.  It's essentially like a video rental store, except with books.  Surely there's a reason this is illegal :-)  I know there are a lot of people like myself that view the main utility in books as devouring them and have considerably less use for owning them long term.  I'd love to be able to effectively rent a new book for 3 days for $3 or so, read it, and return it so the next person in the queue could do the same.  It also seems that if you could obtain books near their wholesale or sale price, there'd be plenty of profit margin in the business. 
So why is it that this business model essentially doesn't exist?  Certainly it would be profoundly disruptive, but doesn't there exist a doctrine of the first sale?
 http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/First-sale_doctrine
Seems to me such an establishment could also do a groupon like thing where they'd purchase a copy of a book if N people agreed to check it out. So where is the hidden barrier to entry?
Of course, like most of my offerings, this is yours to use in any way you like---even claiming it is your original idea and gaining social status or fantastic amounts of money.

Taqiyya, a gift from Mohammed for the neurotypical

Sometimes I find myself incredibly backlogged in my writing.  This post is nearly a year overdue--I said it was coming soon in November of last year.  But, since it is a gift from well over a thousand years ago, I suppose a year is a small matter.
Obviously my purpose in this writing isn't to make you followers of Mohammed.  But our profound theological differences should not blind us to the weapons that he can gift us.

Taqiyya, loosely translated, means holy deceit.  In practice what it means is that as a follower of Islam, it is acceptable and often religiously praiseworthy to deceive the infidel as a stratagem in the 'House of War' (i.e., anywhere that Islam isn't in control).  This really isn't that surprising a concept after some reflection.  I mean, if you're at war, obviously the use of ruse, flanking, et al are all perfectly acceptable.  All warfare is made by means of deceit after all.  If you are strong, appear weak, if weak, appear strong.  The innovation of Islam is the application of this to the cultural battlespace.

Here's why it is so important.  Neurotypical people generally require a mental narrative that explains their actions to themselves.  Let's say you've been required in a public place to say 30 Hail Obamas, and this is a frequent requirement in the area wherein you live, or you will face at minimum some social sanction.  The neurotypical mind gets ground down over time by this because the least uncomfortable narrative is that I say this because I really like Obama.  The alternative narrative is that I say it because I'm afraid of the sanctions involved.  People really don't like having to believe that.  Ever wonder why pledges of allegiance and the like are so popular as requirements?  Thank the customary wiring of the neurotypical.  People have spent a LONG time hacking that Human Operating System, and precious few patches have been delivered.

However Taqiyya offers an alternative narrative.  You're a spy on a holy mission.  For you it is perfectly acceptable to fool the infidel dogs, it merely stokes your contempt for them.   Your own brain ceases to be your adversary in maintaining your convictions and once again becomes your ally.

War and Reaction

First I should be careful to note that not all reactionaries, or even necessarily a supermajority of such will agree with what I have to say.

War, especially modern war, is a horror.  It is a terrible thing, although it is not necessarily the worst thing.  Being conquered, for instance, is usually a worse thing.  But I can't say I've lived through a war (albeit they're not usually named that), that from the perspective of a superpower like the US, was advantageous materially or morally to get involved in.

I subscribe, as I suspect do most reactionaries, to the all or nothing school of warfare.  Either you're willing to commit the requisite blood, treasure, and bloodshed to accomplish your stated objectives in a conflict or you are not.  If you are, and can reasonably foresee your will persisting over the course of the conflict, then perhaps you can justify engaging in said conflict.  If not, don't even try.  Don't just do something, stand there.

At the beginning of any conflict when you're contemplating getting involved, consider these things.  How much is this, in dollars and lives on our side, going to cost?  Then, how many of Them is it going to be necessary to kill or maim to compel capitulation to our aims?  Then ask the question, is this calculus acceptable to us?  Some case studies are useful in this regard---consider Germany and Japan.  Both of them were opponents with strong morale and a profound dislike for being conquered.  Both capitulated more or less unconditionally.  Both required an immense amount of blood and treasure to defeat and suffered immense numbers of casualties themselves.

Having this debate in open and honest terms is likely to forestall much nonsense about rules of engagement should you actually decide that you have to fight.  The US WWII and prior knew how to actually conduct a conflict of this type and more or less invariably succeeded in its aims.  Moldbug, for instance, has linked to a number of WWII and prior documents produced by the US army as regards occupation and similar unpleasantness.  But I think you'll find that most of the time, you'll decide that the best answer is not war.

War is also immensely socially destructive, especially when large numbers of casualties are involved.  For one thing, it disrupts the natural male-female ratios profoundly, often resulting in the breakdown of moral standards.  It typically also involves massive amounts of debt, which frequently spreads a large amount of moral hazard all throughout society like shrapnel as well.   Frequently that debt ultimately destroys currencies.   Lastly, it drags all the worst impulses of rent-seeking out of the population.  Is it any wonder that a lot of the 2nd wave of entitlements came out of the Vietnam era?  I think not.  Lastly, there is this point:  when you are a superpower, the threat of what you would be able to do, when it is not manifest obviously, is frequently far scarier than the reality.  The British found this during their days of Empire---getting entangled in one war frequently led to becoming mired in several more because the awe of your incredible power was diminished in the eyes of the opportunistic. A sword is best used to keep another in its sheath.

Of course this last point is nearly unthinkable to Americans---sometimes, you may find that your aims are not achievable at the price that you're willing to pay.  In layman's terms, you might lose.  Losing is nearly universally agreed to suck, even when it fails to be accompanied by enemy soldiers goose-stepping down your avenues.  One could compress nearly the entire message of 'The Art of War' from the perspective of a major power into this:  Never get your country involved in a war that will later be of interest to wargamers.