South Africa: difficulty getting good information

[Alexis Jacobi]

Alexis Jacobi: Intellectualized Cultural Supremacy

Alexis refers to Black South Africans and other historically marginalized groups as “primitive” and culturally unfit to govern without external tutelage. He advocates for “assent” to a Western civilizational order, which he views as objectively superior.

Though expressed in philosophical language, this is a clear assertion of civilizational hierarchy. He sees resistance as futile and cooperation (submission) as the only rational path. His framework requires belief in free will: if people simply chose to align with superior values, they would succeed.

Summary:

Cultural racism disguised as realism
Free will-based worldview: responsibility lies with the individual or culture to choose the “right” path—ignoring historical coercion.

[Please note my “superior” formatting! Using those giant fonts is distracting and messes up the aesthetic.]

I pointed out a clear, obvious, and really undeniable set of historical facts: when culturally and technologically more advanced Europe encountered ‘primitive’ cultures — notably in Africa and the Americas — inevitable processes began. Those processes are complex and they can, of course, be noted and talked about.

There is a certain commonality between 1600s European settlement in the southern cone of Africa and the European settlement of N America. In both there was no interest in amalgamating the differing races. There were very strict social prohibitions against interbreeding. That in contradistinction to the Spanish political conquest. Another similarity was that in each there was a strong desire to “build a world” in the settled land. And strictly in accord with European cultural forms. In Latin America the initial purpose of conquest was to exploit.

Beyond any doubt the tribes of 1600s southern Africa were ‘primitive’. The former anthropological term was ‘barbaric’. And there is no doubt that Europeans saw the world through such lenses. These ‘lenses’ are very interesting to research and think about. They have much to do with the vision of the world expressed in the physics and metaphysics of The Great Chain of Being.

What Mike is doing is a bizarre form of moral revisionism. He refuses to see the facts as they were at that time and projects back in time a revised anthropology of equality and inclusion. DEI applied to historical analysis and undergirded by a truly bizarre (freakshow on wheels) level of determinism expressed through ultra-modern wokism. Strange rigid mathematical moralism expressed through a truly bizarre metaphysical idea-imposition expressed in totalizing, absolutist forms. (Energy drinks must have some effect in the intensity of the focus but here I speculate.)

He advocates for “assent” to a Western civilizational order, which he views as objectively superior.

That is exactly right. But I express it through a strong declarative statement for the sake of clarity. A strong generalism allows for a basic fact to be expressed and thought about.

this is a clear assertion of civilizational hierarchy. He sees resistance as futile and cooperation (submission) as the only rational path.

Also quite accurate. Here where I live there is a need to integrate marginal peoples (Afro-Colombian, indigenous Colombian, and the poor classes generally) into the developing system and economy. Better primary education especially in rural areas, expansion of the public university system, and definitely a general development of the economy by stimulating the development of micro businesses and small enterprises generally. And very important in that process will be the raising of education standards so that a greater social consciousness develops so that extreme corruption can be confronted. This corruption exists everywhere as a moral defect.

The ‘resistance’ models often create resentment and counter-productive attitudes and when leaders are elected who arrive in power on the basis of social resentment it never seems to turn out well. Obviously my political position is center-right and obviously (more) conservative.

The best education is classical European: essentially the so-called Great Books of the European tradition. All this dovetails with the creation and strengthening of the modern state.

[BigMike]

Flash, fair point—let me ask you this though:

How do you interpret accelafine’s latest post, where she quoted my summary—“No racist attitudes expressed / Determinist worldview: people don’t choose where they start…”—and responded only with:

“This is too funny ”

What exactly do you think she finds so hilarious?

I think she's a loon and I don't worry much about her specific intent with any individual post. If she thinks she's getting under your skin, that's normally when she breaks out the emoticon spam. Her go-to move is always to accuse you of hypocrisy, usually for something that she has accused you of being like "kind" that you never adopted as a self-description.

Honestly, the glorious 5 star reviews you leave for yourself at every opportunity do invite some of that though.

Is it the idea that racism should be identified and called out?
Is it the notion that injustice stems from inherited structural imbalance?
Or is it just the refusal to center blame on the disadvantaged that strikes her as “woke comedy”?

She's a bit racist and she hates being called on it, and she has dedicated and rededicated her declining years to complaining about that. It's not really necessary to look deeper than that, she doesn't have depths.

I’m not asking rhetorically. If she’s mocking the idea that justice requires accounting for unequal starting conditions, then I’d argue that’s not just a reactionary impulse, it’s tied to the belief that everyone is responsible for their position in life—and that’s the hallmark of a free will framework, even if she doesn’t articulate it that way.

Sure, if the only tool you have is a hammer, then every problem must be a nail, right? All you really have going for you is the determinism thing. Accelafine might not be the only one who is a tiny bit shallow in this thread.

Now, you say she's been a determinism “cheerleader”—and fair enough, she might claim that. But as you know, people are full of contradictions. Cheering for determinism while simultaneously laughing off its ethical implications is like praising science while denying its conclusions when inconvenient. That’s not determinism—it’s opportunism.

Yeah, she thrives on conflict and she seems to think you have an elegant way of insulting people, that's why she liked you. Don't read too much into it. Cognitively, she can side with the determinists in a debate, but she doesn't actually care about philosophy or entailments, she cares about name calling. If it's you against everyone then siding with you gives her more opportunity to call people names than siding with the majority does.

You also say “nobody defines themselves” by this stuff. I’d say: not overtly. But when people defend inherited hierarchies, mock efforts to level the field, or reject the causal roots of inequality—they’re acting out a worldview. Whether they name it or not, it matters.

That’s what I’m trying to unpack. And I’m still up for honest conversation about it—if anyone else is.

Well you insist on defining everything this way. Nobody else does. I'd invite you to think more about that, but you would just blame it on determinism, you don't have any other moves.

Flash, you're right about one thing—I do define everything through the lens of determinism. That’s not just a rhetorical preference or a personality quirk. It’s because, to me, this isn’t a philosophical parlor game—it’s a foundational truth grounded in the conservation laws and the fundamental interactions that govern all matter and energy. In my view, this is the bedrock of reality. Everything else—thought, behavior, culture, inequality—flows from that.

So when you say “Nobody else does,” that may be true. But “nobody else” has offered me a better framework that explains human behavior, morality, politics, or history with the same level of consistency and coherence. I’m always open to being challenged on that—but brushing it off as my “only move” doesn’t engage with the position. It just avoids it.

I get that most people are comfortable switching lenses when convenient—invoking determinism when it’s safe, and flipping back to free will when it’s emotionally satisfying or socially expedient. I’m just not willing to do that. That’s not stubbornness. That’s commitment to a principle I think the world desperately needs to take more seriously.

You said earlier that people might see things more deterministically in some contexts and less in others. That’s fair. But the more consequential the topic—racism, justice, poverty, violence—the more important it becomes to not casually slip back into assumptions of agency and blame that the physics just doesn’t support.

So yeah, I define everything this way. Because in my view, there is no other way that holds up under scrutiny.

[Alexis Jacobi]

When Jacobi says "demographics is destiny" he means it in an entirely racist sense, he believes in racial destiny, that's not free will.

First we must examine the statement: “Demographics is destiny”. Is it true? in the sense of is it accurate? Is it a worthwhile idea (interpretation) to think about?

I say that it has ‘features’ that can be examined productively. It is inaccurate (indeed calumnious as I have said about FDP’s assertions) to say I ‘believe in’ racial destiny. But Flash, similar to Mike, has absorbed a modern revisionism to the point that any idea that discords with his own version of “wokism” is described as Nazism. In this they are ‘birds of a feather’.

All of Europe and for the longest time tended to define itself through a set of views about what made Europe and European man what they are. And in the impetus based in those definitions they moved out into the larger world and established a world-wide civilization. If I do anything it is not to overtly condemn what happened in history through ultra-weird historical retrofitting!

My views are therefore far more balanced and tolerant of a wide range of interpretive platforms. However, I have staked out my own value-set in the foundations of Occidental paideia. That is certain.

[Alexis Jacobi]

It’s because, to me, this isn’t a philosophical parlor game—it’s a foundational truth grounded in the conservation laws and the fundamental interactions that govern all matter and energy. In my view, this is the bedrock of reality. Everything else—thought, behavior, culture, inequality—flows from that.

God help us! It is intellectual mania!

[Flannel Jesus]

It’s because, to me, this isn’t a philosophical parlor game—it’s a foundational truth grounded in the conservation laws and the fundamental interactions that govern all matter and energy. In my view, this is the bedrock of reality. Everything else—thought, behavior, culture, inequality—flows from that.

God help us! It is intellectual mania!

How the fuck did a thread about south Africa turn into a conversation about how all matter and energy works?

[BigMike]

It’s because, to me, this isn’t a philosophical parlor game—it’s a foundational truth grounded in the conservation laws and the fundamental interactions that govern all matter and energy. In my view, this is the bedrock of reality. Everything else—thought, behavior, culture, inequality—flows from that.

God help us! It is intellectual mania!

How the fuck did a thread about south Africa turn into a conversation about how all matter and energy works?

Jesus, how the fuck is it not relevant?

We're talking about inequality, injustice, violence, historical power structures—human behavior at scale. And what drives human behavior? Not magic. Not divine spark. Causality. Physics. The same laws that govern stars and atoms also govern brains and societies.

So when people argue that certain groups succeed or fail because of willpower, values, or "cultural fitness," they're smuggling in metaphysical assumptions—usually about free will. I'm just refusing to let that slide.

You don't have to agree with my framework. But don't pretend it's off-topic when we're literally dissecting the roots of how people treat each other, and why. You want to talk about South Africa without talking about how cause-and-effect built it? That’s like trying to treat cancer without mentioning cells.

So yeah—matter and energy are in the room. Always have been.

[Alexis Jacobi]

You also say “nobody defines themselves” by this stuff. I’d say: not overtly. But when people defend inherited hierarchies, mock efforts to level the field, or reject the causal roots of inequality—they’re acting out a worldview. Whether they name it or not, it matters.

That’s what I’m trying to unpack. And I’m still up for honest conversation about it—if anyone else is.

Your so-called “unpacking” is very interpretive. It is an ultra form of Marxian inspired revisionism. And it has been constructed on the basis of a specific scientism ideology.

This needs to be made clear. In Mexico when I spent some time with theorists of the theology of liberation (I stayed for a while in a very remote village in rural Chiapas where an Argentine and an Italian priest of this revolutionary school of thought were directing the entire village) I was introduced to the term and the policy of “applied anthropology”.

Your views, dear one, are those of a man driven by idealistic and scientistic anthropological redefinitions of man, nature and being.

And in your last post (to illustrious Flash) you made it very clear.

Honest conversation, you say? But wait! Since by your own declaration you have the view correctly situated in ‘reality’ it follows logically that only you can be honest.

You are not really here to ‘converse’ but to ‘convert’.

Your ultra-idealisms must in my view be seen for what they are.

That is “honest clarification”.

[Alexis Jacobi]

How the fuck did a thread about south Africa turn into a conversation about how all matter and energy works?

I don’t know. But what I do know is that when I receive energy from the god Rā whose diamond eye is focused directly on me, my photosynthetic processes result in cleaner, clearer translations of that god’s will for manifest life on our planet. The solar panels of my mind are in general more efficient.

[Flannel Jesus]

You don't have to agree with my framework. But don't pretend it's off-topic when we're literally dissecting the roots of how people treat each other, and why.

But that's what it means for me to disagree with your framework - it means I think it's off topic when we're dissecting the roots of how people treat each other. If I have to think it's on topic, that means I have to agree with your framework more than I actually do.

[Skepdick]

Flash, you're right about one thing—I do define everything through the lens of determinism. That’s not just a rhetorical preference or a personality quirk. It’s because, to me, this isn’t a philosophical parlor game—it’s a foundational truth grounded in the conservation laws and the fundamental interactions that govern all matter and energy. In my view, this is the bedrock of reality. Everything else—thought, behavior, culture, inequality—flows from that.

So when you say “Nobody else does,” that may be true. But “nobody else” has offered me a better framework that explains human behavior, morality, politics, or history with the same level of consistency and coherence. I’m always open to being challenged on that—but brushing it off as my “only move” doesn’t engage with the position. It just avoids it.

I get that most people are comfortable switching lenses when convenient—invoking determinism when it’s safe, and flipping back to free will when it’s emotionally satisfying or socially expedient. I’m just not willing to do that. That’s not stubbornness. That’s commitment to a principle I think the world desperately needs to take more seriously.

You said earlier that people might see things more deterministically in some contexts and less in others. That’s fair. But the more consequential the topic—racism, justice, poverty, violence—the more important it becomes to not casually slip back into assumptions of agency and blame that the physics just doesn’t support.

So yeah, I define everything this way. Because in my view, there is no other way that holds up under scrutiny.

This is why you are an ass-clown that nobody can take seriously.

You keep missing the THEORETICAL in "theoretical physics".
The THEORETICAL lenses are idealizations for modeling the world; and jokes like "Assume the cow is circular and has no drag" would probably go over your head. Both the deterministic and non-deterministic theories offer explanatory and scientific utility.


But those are properties of our models; not properties of reality; which is why people are perfectly happy with delineating each model/paradigm to its domain of applicability without totalizing it into a grand narrative. Horses for courses.

You are incapable of functioning without a Grand Totalizing Narrative. That's why you keep fucking up in practice.

In practice determinism is just a front for your totalitarian tendencies.

And this is without even getting into complexity theory. You lack any sense of scale/proportion so you keep using tools which are meant to be used for small-scale systems (like physics); but you keep misapplying the tools to the most complex systems in the universe - societies.

[BigMike]

You don't have to agree with my framework. But don't pretend it's off-topic when we're literally dissecting the roots of how people treat each other, and why.

But that's what it means for me to disagree with your framework - it means I think it's off topic when we're dissecting the roots of how people treat each other. If I have to think it's on topic, that means I have to agree with your framework more than I actually do.

Fair enough—thanks for saying it plainly.

But here’s the thing: if we’re asking why inequality persists, why oppression happens, or why people act with cruelty or indifference toward others, aren’t we already asking a question about causation? About what leads people to behave as they do? Whether you trace that to psychology, economics, history, or biology, you’re doing causal analysis.

All I’m saying is: let’s not stop halfway.

You don’t have to agree that conservation laws and physical determinism explain everything—but if you think they explain nothing about human behavior, I’d really like to understand why. Because to me, once you admit causality exists, the question becomes: how deep are you willing to go?

[Atla]

Conclusion: Free Will Is the Hidden Engine of Racism

Why not the other way around? For example a free-willer may expect everyone to have the same mental abilities, whereas a determinist may claim that in Africa the average IQ is 20+ point lower, so they are determined to be mentally inferior. It's getting old that he/it thinks that every problem in the world is caused by free will and the solution to all of them is determinism.

[BigMike]

Conclusion: Free Will Is the Hidden Engine of Racism

Why not the other way around? For example a free-willer may expect everyone to have the same mental abilities, whereas a determinist may claim that in Africa the average IQ is 20+ point lower, so they are determined to be mentally inferior. It's getting old that he/it thinks that every problem in the world is caused by free will and the solution to all of them is determinism.

Atla, that’s a fair challenge—so let’s unpack it honestly.

You’re absolutely right that determinism can be misused—just like any framework. If someone claims determinism proves certain groups are “mentally inferior,” they’re not applying determinism; they’re abusing it to smuggle in a hierarchy they’ve already decided on. That’s not a causal analysis—it’s biological essentialism, dressed up in scientific language.

But here’s the difference: true determinism, rooted in physics and systems thinking, doesn’t stop at surface-level traits like IQ scores. It demands we ask: why are there disparities in test results? What caused the environmental, nutritional, educational, and systemic conditions that shape those outcomes?

Determinism, when applied rigorously, doesn’t say “they’re born this way.” It says “nothing happens without a cause.” And that includes the long history of exploitation, colonialism, trauma, and inequality that shaped global disparities—including in Africa.

So no—I’m not saying determinism solves everything. I’m saying it forces us to stop blaming people for conditions they didn’t create. And that shift in perspective is key to building systems that are fairer, more humane, and more grounded in reality.

Free will thinking, by contrast, too often assumes: “they chose this.” And that’s how racism, classism, and cruelty get justified.

So it’s not that determinism is a magic solution. It’s that free will is often the hidden fuel behind moral judgment, blame, and systemic neglect. That’s worth calling out.

[Atla]

Conclusion: Free Will Is the Hidden Engine of Racism

Why not the other way around? For example a free-willer may expect everyone to have the same mental abilities, whereas a determinist may claim that in Africa the average IQ is 20+ point lower, so they are determined to be mentally inferior. It's getting old that he/it thinks that every problem in the world is caused by free will and the solution to all of them is determinism.

Atla, that’s a fair challenge—so let’s unpack it honestly.

You’re absolutely right that determinism can be misused—just like any framework. If someone claims determinism proves certain groups are “mentally inferior,” they’re not applying determinism; they’re abusing it to smuggle in a hierarchy they’ve already decided on. That’s not a causal analysis—it’s biological essentialism, dressed up in scientific language.

But here’s the difference: true determinism, rooted in physics and systems thinking, doesn’t stop at surface-level traits like IQ scores. It demands we ask: why are there disparities in test results? What caused the environmental, nutritional, educational, and systemic conditions that shape those outcomes?

Determinism, when applied rigorously, doesn’t say “they’re born this way.” It says “nothing happens without a cause.” And that includes the long history of exploitation, colonialism, trauma, and inequality that shaped global disparities—including in Africa.

So no—I’m not saying determinism solves everything. I’m saying it forces us to stop blaming people for conditions they didn’t create. And that shift in perspective is key to building systems that are fairer, more humane, and more grounded in reality.

Free will thinking, by contrast, too often assumes: “they chose this.” And that’s how racism, classism, and cruelty get justified.

So it’s not that determinism is a magic solution. It’s that free will is often the hidden fuel behind moral judgment, blame, and systemic neglect. That’s worth calling out.

You're not a determinist then, your reply seems to be once again AI-generated, and AI is always politically correct. Determinists can absolutely arrive at the view that a group is mentally inferior compared to another group.

"True determinism" looks at all causes. Not just at environmental, nutritional, educational, and systemic conditions, you're acting like a free-willer. But also at genetical causes, yes according to determinism different groups can absolutely be born with different average IQs. This way determinism can "prove" certain aspects of racism.

[Alexis Jacobi]

You’re absolutely right that determinism can be misused—just like any framework. If someone claims determinism proves certain groups are “mentally inferior,” they’re not applying determinism; they’re abusing it to smuggle in a hierarchy they’ve already decided on. That’s not a causal analysis—it’s biological essentialism, dressed up in scientific language.

Wait, those who bother to be concerned about which race on which continent is either more or less intelligent, would likely say that determined processes of physical evolution led to each outcome. I notice that were this to be the assertion describing racial differences (in intelligence), it would necessarily be one based in the determinism that you subscribe to.

So, why would it be ‘misuse’?

I can assure you (having read some of those who believe they have ‘scientific evidence’ for intelligence differences between some races) that they do not see themselves as misusing the science data they say they have gathered.

In my view a position of hard determinism would tend to arrive at acute conclusions about such things as variations in intelligence and other physical differences. And please note that your brand of determinism locates intelligence in the brain and the brain alone. What organ more conditioned by deterministic evolution than the human brain?

Really, Mike. You really should be a flaming racist absolutist! What went wrong with you?!