zazen

I wrote this in another thread: Arnaud rebutting De Villepin: “Universalism isn't Europe's salvation - it's largely what destroyed it. This way of dealing with the world whereby you proclaim yourself the gatekeepers of values and principles that you deem universal, and insist the rest of the world adopt, is over. And this "great fight to be fought" between different conceptions of humanity that Villepin sees coming is precisely what we need to avoid, because it doesn't need to be fought: we should make our peace with the coexistence of different civilizations and cultures. And not only is this universalist approach over, it is now thoroughly counterproductive as it screams of hypocrisy after Europe's own performance with regards to its stated values and principles. Gaza in particular completely obliterated this, and De Villepin ought to know this given how vocal he's been on the matter. He speaks of Europeans as being "guardians of the law," but he knows all too well that no-one had done more to undermine international law than the West these past few years. The new multipolar world we're entering into is not, as De Villepin suggests, an arena for a "great fight" between competing universal visions - the fight between "American individualism, Chinese collectivism and European citizenship" as he puts it. Instead it must become the age of understanding and managing differences between civilizations and cultures. Europe's biggest challenge going forward is to learn some measure of humbleness. We need to relearn that there is no measuring scale between civilizations and, especially looking at its record these past few decades, that Europe certainly isn't the paragon of anything. And if there's a fight to be fought, Europe needs to fight to avoid the emergence of a civilizational war, a fight to promote coexistence and mutual understanding. Granted, it is undeniable there are such things as universal values and principles. For instance I think we can all agree that killing innocent civilians is bad. We can also all agree that there shouldn't be child soldiers. We can all agree there is but one Earth and that protecting it is important for our collective survival. And, as such, international law has a place. But given its record, if Europe truly believes in these principles it should support them and the institutions that underpin it - like the ICC or the ICJ - in the way an ex-convict promises to behave: with humility and a commitment to do better - not with the sort of misplaced arrogance of presenting itself as their guardian or moral custodian, which would be completely out of order given its own failures to uphold them. Lastly, perhaps more than anything, the way universalism destroyed Europe is by destroying the notion of sovereignty in Europe. Because see, if you're convinced as Europe has been that your values and principles are universal, then the world becomes borderless since any deviation from them within your own borders becomes not just a difference of perspective or a sovereign choice, but a moral failing that must be corrected. When every political or cultural difference is framed as a deviation from universal norms rather than an expression of national sovereignty, the very concept of meaningful self-determination goes away. If a policy is framed as implementing universal values - whether on migration, economic policy, or social issues - then national populations' objections can be dismissed as parochial or even morally suspect. This effectively turned universalism into a tool for circumventing genuine democratic deliberation at the national level, all while claiming to act in democracy's name. The result was a gradual hollowing out of national decision-making power through the implicit assumption that resistance to "universal" norms was itself illegitimate. The tragic irony is that this universalist approach actually always loses out when you have nations out there that actually do act in their sovereign interests, as they should. Because you end up with a deep asymmetry: a bunch of nations in Europe whose leaders are essentially denationalized, seeing themselves as vectors of an ideology often explicitly at odds with their own nations' wellbeing, versus leaders who remain grounded in the concrete reality of national interests and understand their primary duty as protecting and advancing their people's prosperity and security. This mismatch creates an almost absurd dynamic where European leaders regularly sacrifice their nations' vital interests while facing counterparts who view such behavior as nothing more than naïveté to be exploited. The United States, in particular, has masterfully taken advantage of this situation - happy to let European leaders indulge in grand universalist proclamations while systematically advancing American interests, often at Europe's expense. De Villepin correctly identifies this "system of predation and vassalization," but fails to see how Europe's own universalist pretensions enable it. And how could it be otherwise? When one side's leaders fundamentally see themselves as working to transcend and even dismantle their own nation's sovereignty, while the other's remain firmly committed to national advancement, the outcome is predetermined. That's not the way to approach universal values or international law. European nations should approach international institutions and universal principles as sovereign equals entering into mutual commitments, not as self-appointed moral arbiters. The path forward lies in first reclaiming genuine sovereignty, for only sovereign nations can make meaningful choices. From this foundation, European nations can then exemplify their values through concrete actions: by treating other nations with respect rather than condescension, by accepting that different paths of development are legitimate, and most crucially, by focusing first on doing right by their own citizens. This last point is essential - a nation that cannot or will not protect and advance the wellbeing of its own people has no business lecturing others about universal values. True universalism, if it is to exist at all, must emerge organically through the example of nations that successfully balance sovereign self-determination with voluntary participation in a world order, not through moral imperialism disguised as universal principles. The stake isn't, as De Villepin suggests, whether "universal man exists" - it's whether we can respect and coexist with those who see humanity differently.”

https://x.com/AngelicaOung/status/1881710711828840780 ''Most people probably don't realize how bad news China's Deepseek is for OpenAI. They've come up with a model that matches and even exceeds OpenAI's latest model o1 on various benchmarks, and they're charging just 3% of the price. It's essentially as if someone had released a mobile on par with the iPhone but was selling it for $30 instead of $1000. It's this dramatic. What's more, they're releasing it open-source so you even have the option - which OpenAI doesn't offer - of not using their API at all and running the model for "free" yourself. If you're an OpenAI customer today you're obviously going to start asking yourself some questions, like "wait, why exactly should I be paying 30X more?". This is pretty transformational stuff, it fundamentally challenges the economics of the market. It also potentially enables plenty of AI applications that were just completely unaffordable before. Say for instance that you want to build a service that helps people summarize books (random example). In AI parlance the average book is roughly 120,000 tokens (since a "token" is about 3/4 of a word and the average book is roughly 90,000 words). At OpenAI's prices, processing a single book would cost almost $2 since they change $15 per 1 million token. Deepseek's API however would cost only $0.07, which means your service can process about 30 books for $2 vs just 1 book with OpenAI: suddenly your book summarizing service is economically viable. Or say you want to build a service that analyzes codebases for security vulnerabilities. A typical enterprise codebase might be 1 million lines of code, or roughly 4 million tokens. That would cost $60 with OpenAI versus just $2.20 with DeepSeek. At OpenAI's prices, doing daily security scans would cost $21,900 per year per codebase; with DeepSeek it's $803. So basically it looks like the game has changed. All thanks to a Chinese company that just demonstrated how U.S. tech restrictions can backfire spectacularly - by forcing them to build more efficient solutions that they're now sharing with the world at 3% of OpenAI's prices. As the saying goes, sometimes pressure creates diamonds.'' **Some one asks: To me it is absolutely insane that they are just charging 3% of the price. Why would they do this? Why not charge 50% which already undercuts your competitor deeply for an equivalent product? Heck why not 20% which already makes it affordable for much more people? 3% is loony! Arnaud: First of all because they can I think: they're still making money at those prices. Also it speaks to a different philosophy/vision on AI: ironically named "OpenAI" is basically about trying to established a monopoly by establishing a moat with massive amounts of GPU and money. Deepseek is clearly betting on a future where AI becomes a commodity, widely available and affordable to everyone. By pricing so aggressively and releasing their code open-source, they're not just competing with OpenAI but basically declaring that AI should be like electricity or internet connectivity - a basic utility that powers innovation rather than a premium service controlled by a few players. And in that world it's a heck of a lot better to be the first mover who helped make it happen than the legacy player who tried to stop it.

@PurpleTree I guess people are just angered at how the West has been brutal and continues to be so today by even backing Israel. @Twentyfirst Half the population of Israel are of European descent rather than indigenous. So it makes sense that they brought the colonizing thinking along with them. Their connection to the land is faith based, not indigenous based. It’s like if Muslims who aren’t native to Saudi Arabia, said they belong to the land because of their religious ties to it and it being holy in Islam. They be like “gimme some of that oil money” lol

Thought he did it just once in the heat of the moment, but then he whipped out another salute.

@PurpleTree I get you. What a nasty thing - glad the Brits lit the fire that put an end to such a thing. Can’t believe it was just some default setting for humans to do shit like slavery until only recently. Thank God, Allah it’s over (except Libya) Trump should make it mandatory for airlines to only put on Leo content. Then people can do the rawdog challenge on Leo’s videos and get enlightened. Mandatory satori.

@Twentyfirst Being in the West myself, but heavily exposed to other regions - it is one heck of a mission to unlearn misconceptions about not only the outside world, but the Western world which is a world in and of it self. For example, just put the following two facts to any American: the US has the 5th highest incarceration rate in the world yet still has the highest homicide rate among developed nations. If their so developed and embody high values - why would their still be such high homicide rates even after they have locked up and imprisoned so many of their criminals? This is a clear sign of systemic rot. They don’t even have the excuse of war, destabilisation or extreme poverty - like the other nations they criticise do - and that they feel superior to lol

If your referring to Libya where slavery is happening in the traditional sense ie being sold literally - that’s not Islamically sanctioned, that’s criminal activity due to a breakdown of governance - after a power vacuum was left when the West overthrew Gaddafi. It’s inaccurate to conflate things with Islam bro. It’s like me saying mass school shootings happen in America so there must be a problem with Christians or Democracy. Conflating the norms and practices of the past, such as conquest and slavery which were widely practiced across civilizations and now regarded as repugnant - with the teachings of religions as though those religions actively promoted them is inaccurate. It’s not about who practiced such and such norm we find regressive from today’s stand point, it’s about how they engaged in those norms and practices relative to others at their time. Often, Muslims engaged with more ethics than their counterparts. You even term it Arab Islamic slave trade - that’s like me saying remember the Trans Atlantic Christian slave trade. If that sounds off it’s cos it is lol.

Interesting conversation you guys are having. I commented in another thread regarding some of these themes - Islam, stagnation and conflation. Ya’ll may find it interesting.

The Wests higher values on display. Us Westerners love to conflate development with higher values, and wealth with worth. Never mind how we developed or obtained that wealth - which was through the lower values of exploitation, domination, accumulation and materialism. We then use the material gains of this as evidence of embodying higher values. We claim to uphold high values, but approach them through lower values. Freedom comes through dominating others, democracy comes through the deception of elitists playing musical chairs. Its plutocracy wearing the costume of democracy - Halloween ended just under three months ago. The more we trumpet these higher values, the more we sink lower in practicing them, and the more the hypocrisy becomes glaring. Even if we do practice these values domestically (lol) they very much disappear when we deal with other nations. We don’t have partners but vassals. We think we found these values, never mind that they are universally aspirational and that other cultures may even approach them in more multi dimensional and mature way. That lesser freedoms are given up for larger ones, or that dignity is in modesty rather than the freedom of vulgarity. That freedom is not absolute but relational, or that human rights must balance individual and collective well being. We conflate that because we are democratic - that this confers some higher paradigm or supremacy. The plutocratic reality of the West is not an aberration but a continuation of the West’s feudalistic roots, where power was concentrated in the hands of the few. If governance reflects values, then the West’s plutocratic system reveals its true priorities: wealth, power, and control, not the higher ideals of equality, justice, and freedom it claims to champion. By this logic, Western governance reflects lower values, not higher ones. Perhaps, countries can approach development and higher values differently - and the Wests approach to these higher values isn’t the only valid one.

That’s like telling someone in a headlock to focus on their breathing lol

@Raze Iran challenges US global hegemony just as Russia and China do. A superpower like the US doesn’t have existential threats - they have examples of defiance that are a threat to their global dominance. Israel is definitely a factor that intensifies the animosity. But regardless, any nation that is important enough and independent enough to not subordinate its sovereignty to the West - comes in their cross hairs. * Another nuance is that it isn’t always about what a nation can do for another - because those making the moves aren’t always concerned with the nations they make those moves from. They are trans national elites operating from nations, but with no care for the interest of those nations, except their own.

Clown show continues the night before inauguration

From Chat GPT: ''China’s censorship laws are not random or ideologically driven—they are largely reactionary, developed in response to specific historical events and perceived threats, particularly from Western powers like the U.S. These laws reflect China’s belief in safeguarding its national security, political stability, and cultural integrity in the face of external interference. From the Tiananmen Square protests to the Hong Kong unrest, China has consistently tightened its grip on information following moments where foreign platforms or ideologies appeared to challenge its control. Understanding this context shows that China’s censorship is less about suppressing freedom for its own sake and more about protecting sovereignty in a world it views as hostile and destabilizing.'' The West loves to boast about its freedom to surf the net. When a Western super power uses the internet and permeability of democratic systems / NGO's as a tool to destabilize foreign nations, its no wonder other nations hesitate to open up. The US has a successful track record of doing this, and doesn't stop at any rate even till today. Imagine your a developing nation of over a billion people that requires stability in order to grow and provide a decent quality of life to your people - to lift as many of them out of poverty. You need to get rich enough before your country gets old enough - so that you may have the resources to support the elderly and avoid the pressure your nation will face from having inverted demographics. For nations like China or India, the stakes couldn’t be higher. Allow unfettered access, and they risk foreign actors exploiting their vulnerabilities, stoking unrest, and halting progress. For nations and regions already wealthy and food secure such as Europe, they may be able to be as free as they like and indulge in such freedoms - but for nations who have many of its people barely getting by, they can't afford to be sabotaged or slowed down by external interference. The issue is that if they tighten control, they're labeled "authoritarian" and accused of repressing freedoms - from Westerners who have been deepthroated this absolutist idea of freedom as a apex value, who are unable to understand that some freedoms are taken away to have access to the larger freedom of life and security. The two girls which went viral for 100 guys in a day, now do 1000 guys in 24 hours - she celebrates by doing a cum-walk. This is why China has a different version of Tik Tok domestically, no vulgarity, violence etc - purist libertarian and liberals will cry freedom of speech of course. Turkey denies this cultural export with some sharia energy. Would anyone family person with a son or daughter want their children seeing this kind of behavior be normalized or even ''accepted'' in your society?

Like Twentyfirst said above, there's plenty of incentive driven interest for the West to be doing what they're doing regardless of Zionists. I don't think its either or, but more so both working symbiotically together for their own ends. The relationships become so intertwined and the lines blurred that its hard to tell who's the dog wagging the tail and vica versa. A interesting take from Norman Finklestein below indicates that the US has the power to dictate to Israel. A parallel to this ceasefire is the one that occurred in 2009 right before Obama's inauguration on the 20th of January. Operation Cast Lead ended with a ceasefire on the 17th of January with a MOU signed between Israel and the US with the US providing Israel security related assurances. His reasoning is that they don't want a US ally like Israel who is a settler colonial occupying apartheid state committing war crimes - to taint the US image. Basically optics. Also: The greatest terrorist states the US and Isreal - will have their day.

Good listen:

@Breakingthewall Yeah the age is heavily disputed and debated among scholars, because in the past they didn't consider the importance of time keeping and dates as we do today. Of course there are religious people who will exploit this historical fact for their own perversion in the present day. The point is the messiness of human sexuality including its depravity occurs in all places and at all times, even today. People tied to a religious identity use religion as a retroactive justification to cover for their perversion. This isn't uniquely religious, but religion is used after the fact as justification. Child marriage still occurs in the West today - ''Close to 300,000 minors were married between 2000 and 2018 in the US, according to a study conducted by Unchained at Last; a small number of them were as young as 10.'' https://www.theguardian.com/society/article/2024/jul/09/child-marriage-laws Because Westerners don't have a visible religious identity it's harder for us to point to any ideological driver behind their behavior. But perhaps it isn't so much ideological as much as it is some weird biological perversion which uses any ideological justification if their happens to be one - in the case of Muslims, they cherry pick and twist Islam or the case of the prophet marriage to Aisha for their own interests. For example, incest is being discussed on this forum elsewhere in a context completely detached from religion - the point being that human sexuality and its manifestations still exist today and aren't driven by religion or Islam per se. I think a better way of viewing people, cultures etc is that they are behind vs they are backwards. Behind implies they just need to catch up and that they can, backwards has a more negative connotation and almost implies something is inherent rather than external factors. The problem isn't the religion but the development of the minds approaching the religion. The fact Islam was applied in a way that was less rigid before tells us this is possible - when they had a more developed and thriving civilization. There's this concept within Islamic jurisprudence called Urf (custom), which allows Muslims to reflect the ethical and practical norms of a given society and time. Islam was never meant to be a time capsule from the 7th century. There are essential principles like justice, compassion or human dignity etc that need to be applied across time in different contexts. Urf marries those eternal principles to contemporary times. It's easy for people to think Islam mandates certain practices like hijab or apostasy laws but these are historical interpretations that developed through Urf - the custom of their time and place. The death penalty talk around apostasy came from specific historical contexts where leaving the faith meant essentially committing treason against the entire social order - because at the time when they had warring tribes it meant allying with the adversary. It was treated as treason - similar to how the legal punishment for treason in the US is the death penalty. The Quran says for example "No compulsion in religion" - any warnings given are spiritual consequences, not social mandates that mortals are supposed to deal to people wanting to leave the faith or who lose faith in the religion. That's a shit interpretation that shitty minded Muslims have taken upon themselves. Even for the Hijab - it isn't explicitly said or mandated anywhere. All that is called for is modesty and even for men to ''lower their gaze''.

There may only be temporary breaks from conflict but there will never be a permanent ceasefire until the conditions (occupation and denial of sovereignty) cease to exist - which necessitate resistance to those conditions.

Max Blumenthal making Blinken blink in disbelief. Craig Mokhiber’s the guy who stepped down as director of the New York office for the United Nations High Commission for Human Rights (OHCHR) due to their failure to act.

Americans and Chinese interacting 😂

Gad Saad is heavily biased. I follow him on X and see his rhetoric which he loves to deliver with plenty of sarcasm. You’re correct to view his misconception as inaccurate. He’s conflating things at a kindergarten level. It’s like saying Judaism is inseparable from Ultra-Zionism or the KKK is inseparable from Christianity. When people say Islamism they’re referring to a militant extremist form of the religion which is a freakish fringe manifestation of Islam amongst 2 billions Muslims.

If Tate doesn’t become UK prime minister this may be his next grift. After all, he’s already got experience keyboard fronting as a cam girl scamming desperate men - the same men he proclaims to champion for. The last pic is inspo for the “operation money” angle

Les hope for the best! But what does this actually say about the Biden admin - why is a ceasefire coming now that Trump is coming in? Is it just coincidental timing or illustrative of weak leadership or will on Biden and co’s part.. Did Israel even achieve their proposed objective of degrading Hamas..according to Blinken Hamas are still active and replenished with new resistance fighters - because Israel’s actions call for nothing else but resistance. Ukraine, Israel - even US’s actions towards China is backfiring with their TikTok ban. Western hegemony is on the ropes and groggy, and their image utterly tarnished.

Elon must be fuming Arnaud: ”The TikTok thing is a good old shakedown (literally "agree to sell yourself to us or we ban you") because the US cannot bear the existence of a major tech company out there that they don't own, and because US tech companies lobby their government to kill a competitor they're losing lots of users to. Think of the precedent this would set: all the Chinese companies that become successful and internationalize would be forced into a fire sale to the US... Obviously unacceptable. Think also of the message this would send to other nations and companies. It essentially declares that success in the US market comes with a mandatory exit clause - either sell to American interests or be legislated out of existence. TikTok isn't just defending itself or Chinese interests here but broader principles which ironically used to be championed by the US themselves less than a decade ago: the notion that companies should be able to compete fairly in international markets without facing politically-motivated forced sales, that success shouldn't be punished simply because it comes from a foreign company, and that the rules of commerce shouldn't be rewritten whenever they become inconvenient for some country's interests. The sheer amount of gaslighting and propaganda on this topic is absolutely insane but at heart this is a fight for whether non-US companies are allowed to exist at the top of the global tech hierarchy. The US has shown its hand - its answer is an unequivocal no, 'free market principles' evaporate when they stop serving American interests. Anyone who actually care about fair competition, digital sovereignty, and preventing a new era of digital colonialism where the US annexes successful foreign tech companies should stand firmly behind TikTok in this fight.”

https://amp.cnn.com/cnn/2025/01/14/tech/rednote-china-popularity-us-tiktok-ban-intl-hnk World peace perhaps lol “The Tao never acts, yet nothing is left undone. If rulers could hold to this principle, all things would transform themselves.” - Lao Tzu

There’s no doubt the West is developed (though now declining) and has a lot going for it. But if we simply look at things rather than through them - we miss a whole lot. Many people know how this development has historically been achieved and how it's maintained today. The list of countries above is an indictment rather than an indication of “look how great we are”. 1. The abundance of small nations skews these rankings, plenty of which are in Europe, creating a false impression that Western style governance reigns supreme. Small, socially cohesive populations are far easier to govern than larger, more divided ones. That stability enables the chance for development. And stability is something many nations missing from these lists lack - something the West has been a culprit in undermining. But stability must also be seized by the people which is something Western nations have been great at. Size, stability, and seizing those conditions has good outcomes. That's a big part of why non-Western nations like Uruguay, Chile, Costa Rica, and Singapore make the list. ''And those non western countries have a very similiar political alignment to us anyway. '' - Singapore didn't rise due to the typical Western style democracy, but by the firm hand of Lee Kuan Yew who governed for over 30 years and was very restrictive on certain freedoms, for the greater freedom of development for his own people - he restricted political opposition, tightly controlled the media, and suppressed dissent. Speaking of smaller nations, the fact that UAE or Oman aren’t even on the list tells me that these rankings prioritize Western ideological metrics like being a liberal democracy, ignoring the fact it's possible to achieve a high quality of life without conforming to that system. Instead we get Brazil, with some of the highest in-equality and crime on the list. The only country in the Middle East on the list is Israel - who's quality of life has been enabled by literally disqualifying natives to their own sovereignty. They have been un-aliving and de-developing the region through their battering ram uncle Sam (US) - then have the audacity to claim to be the only developed democracy in the neighborhood. On Piers Morgan last week Jordan Peterson implied that the inability of many Muslim majority nations to embrace democracy reflects some inherent cultural deficiency or pre-disposition - completely ignoring the West’s history of intervention and regime change in the region that toppled democracies and propped up dictators. A modern day settler colonial apartheid state makes the list, but not UAE or Oman who are in the same region and arguably have a higher quality of life which is apparently high enough for people to be flocking to Dubai for. I’m supposed to believe that Mauritius, Romania, Hungary and Bosnia have a higher quality of life than UAE? 2. Another visible pattern is that the list is made up of either former colonial powers turned modern day imperial powers, or those who haven't been subjugated by those powers or intervened in after their independence (Brazil, Singapore, Thailand, Malaysia). The UK, France, Spain, and their European cousins dominate these rankings. That wealth, infrastructure and quality of life wasn't built solely by genius or governance - it was fueled by centuries of global exploitation. The nations they colonized were extracted from and structured to serve imperial interests. Most of those nations don't make the list - beside recovering from colonialism, these nations and regions are still being destabilized and intervened in today. Centuries of colonialism were followed by post colonial meddling, coups, sanctions, and proxy wars. Entire regions have had their borders drawn up along sectarian lines causing plenty of internal instability and social tensions. Their absence from these lists doesn’t necessarily reflect their systems failures but does reflect the success of Western systems in sabotaging their development. How can nations rebuild when external powers continually pull the rug out from under them? This doesn't celebrate Western brilliance but indicts them in their brutality. 3. Even within these rankings, cracks are evident. In the more populous nations like UK, US and France there is wealth inequality, crumbling infrastructure, rising crime and populism. These aren’t paragons of development, they’re more like developing countries with rich cities attached. France has widespread discontent and protests like all the time ie yellow vests. The fact of populism raging across the West and that UK had Brexit years before Trump's cheeky ass rode down the golden elevator indicates that the people clearly don't think they have a decent quality of life. This is a large driver behind a lot of populism and it's discontents.