Is this the end of Israel’s war in Gaza? (11-23-23)

01:00 Life is a spiral staircase, https://lukeford.net/blog/?p=17292
08:00 If books could kill podcast, https://lukeford.net/blog/?p=153431
10:30 John Mearsheimer: U.S. Welcome China Playing a Major Role. Will Russia & China intervene in Gaza?, https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=X37X-Sne5i0
30:00 Richard Spencer predicts that Trump will win in 2024,
35:00 The Duran: Argentina elects Javier Milei. Enter USD, exit BRICS, https://podcasts.apple.com/us/podcast/argentina-elects-javier-milei-enter-usd-exit-brics/id1442883993?i=1000635455192
44:00 Malta resolution moves UN closer to binding ceasefire, https://podcasts.apple.com/us/podcast/malta-resolution-moves-un-closer-to-binding-ceasefire/id1442883993?i=1000635353363
48:00 My first use of adderall for adhd
56:00 Obama’s ex-National Security Council advisor Stuart Seldowitz, 84, SMILES as he’s perp walked after being charged with five counts including a hate crime for asking halal food vendor ‘did you rape your daughter like Muhammad did?’ in vile Islamophobic rant, https://www.dailymail.co.uk/news/article-12781909/Obamas-ex-director-National-Security-Council-ARRESTED-Islamophobic-outburst-NYC-halal-food-vendor-mocked-Quran-Israels-war-against-Hamas.html
1:19:00 US military fighting with militias in the Middle East intensifies, https://podcasts.apple.com/us/podcast/us-military-fighting-with-militias-in-the-middle/id1442883993?i=1000634788225
1:23:00 What is the U.S. Role in the Israel-Hamas War?, https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=sNKNEgBe2oU

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If Books Could Kill

I love this left-wing podcast by Michael Hobbes (the gay guy who sounds like a girl) and Peter Shamshiri (the straight guy) that decodes airport best-sellers.

The latest episode is about The Subtle Art of Not Giving a F*ck.

Peter: “On Reddit, someone was saying that they read this book a few years ago and they thought it was so insightful and it helped them a lot and then they read a few years later and they thought, what the fuck is this? A lot of self-help is like that. It’s getting people when they need advice… The feeling that you are receiving advice is therapeutic. A lot of people are at a crossroads in their life and they read a book like this and it gives a good impression because they needed to be talked to.”

This reminds me of Dr. Stephen Marmer’s point that life is a spiral staircase.

Michael: “I have no contempt for people who read and enjoy these books but bottomless contempt for the authors. They’re fulfilling a real emotional need for people and sometimes you just need a pep talk… I get that they are an individualist frame and they never cover structural solutions. The limitations of the genre are baked in. There are responsible ways for doing this — that you are not a piece of shit and you can do this. The core advice of this book is set a goal and work towards it.”

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Behind The Staff Revolt At That Pro-Israel Cafe

I’ve noticed that when I start publicly advocating something, I rarely set off an inevitable chain reaction in furtherance of my stated goals. Instead, I usually force people to react to me, and just as often as not, they’re going to oppose what I’m supporting, and the more I argue for my side, the more they hate what I’m saying.

As often as I turn people’s latent support to explicit support, I turn people’s latent opposition into explicit opposition. Many times I would be better off letting sleeping dogs lie.

For example, the more I talk about the glories of the Dallas Cowboys, the more people around me will feel incentivized to knock the Dallas Cowboys. When I push one type of politics, many people around me will either tune me out or push back. So I’ve learned to minimize my full-steam-ahead in-your-face attempts to change people because these maladaptive habits of mine don’t help me and they don’t help the world.

Usually, I am better suited to the role of observer rather than activist, though I usually feel happier when I’m in the dance as opposed to sitting on the sidelines.

In his 2010 book, Applied Economics: Thinking Beyond Stage One, Tom Sowell wrote:

Political thinking tends to conceive of policies, institutions, or programs in terms of their hoped – for results — “drug prevention” programs, “gun control” laws, “environmental protection” policies, “public interest” law firms, “profit – making” businesses, and so forth. But for purposes of economic analysis, what matters is not what goals are being sought but what incentives and constraints are being created in pursuit of those goals…

The point here is not simply that various policies may fail to achieve their purposes. The more fundamental point is that we need to know the actual characteristics of the processes set in motion — and the incentives and constraints inherent in such characteristics — rather than judging these processes by their goals. Many of the much discussed “unintended consequences” of policies and programs would have been foreseeable from the outset if these processes had been analyzed in terms of the incentives and constraints they created, instead of in terms of the desirability of the goals they proclaimed. Once we start thinking in terms of the chain of events set in motion by particular policies — and following the chain of events beyond stage one — the world begins to look very different.

The New York Times had a great article about unintended consequences on Nov. 21, 2023:

Did a Cafe’s Pro-Israel Stance Cause a Staff Revolt? It’s Complicated.

When the owner of a New York City coffee shop said his workers had quit over his support of Israel, customers and Instagram influencers flocked to it.

For several days this month, New Yorkers stood in a line that snaked down Lexington Avenue and around the corner of East 71st Street, waiting up to 90 minutes to order a drink at Caffè Aronne. Members of the city’s Jewish community, spurred by messages on social media, turned out in droves to support a coffee shop owner who had said that his employees had walked out to protest the company’s support for Israel during the war with Hamas.

The cafe’s owner, Aaron Dahan, 25, stood on the sidewalk on Nov. 7, reflecting on the spectacle that had unfolded. “Our morning shift decided to come in, unlock the store, open up and leave,” he said. “Put us in a bit of a pickle.”

The story was two things at once: a display of solidarity but also an illustration of the current divide in a city that is shaped by both its progressive ideals and its Jewish culture. It was irresistible fodder for Instagram and beyond. The Daily Mail wrote about it, as did The Jerusalem Post. A few days later, a first-person essay under Mr. Dahan’s byline was published in The New York Post with the headline: “All of N.Y.C. helped when my pro-Hamas staff quit Caffe Aronne.”

But the initial accounts of what happened between the staff and the owner of the Upper East Side coffee shop were not the whole story. On the day that the conflict burst into public view, just one of two scheduled morning-shift workers walked out. The other stayed and made espresso drinks for hours. As the situation went viral on social media, other staffers resigned.

Interviews with five former employees, and a review of text and email messages, indicate that employees were uncomfortable with the way that their boss, who lost a family member in the violent Hamas incursion on Oct. 7, had turned their workplace into what they described as a “political space.” Suddenly, just by showing up for work, they said they were being forced to align with one side of a divisive conflict that some of them knew little about.

They said the owner was insensitive to the safety concerns that followed his displaying fund-raising fliers, Israeli flags and posters of kidnapped Israelis. At least one woman, working alone at night, said she was harassed by customers angered by the display; others reported a variety of uncomfortable interactions with customers about the war.

Now, the cafe’s former employees say they are stunned to be accused of supporting Hamas and terrorism. They said they are worried about being recognized in the neighborhood and are disappointed by their dramatic break from an employer whom most of them had liked and respected.

I would expect that most American Jews felt visceral horror at what Hamas did on Oct. 7 and as a result of the massacre in southern Israel, many increased their in-group identity, including in their work place. This in turn forced non-Jews around them to react and many of them began saying something that would never have previously occurred to them, “Free Palestine!”

If you discover your employer is passionately pro-Israel, and you have some ambivalence or even negative feelings about your employer, you’re likely to oppose Israel. There’s no action without a reaction. Most people go to work to get a pay check. They want to enjoy themselves as much as possible at work and to feel at ease. Pushing hot button issues such as the Middle East conflict that provoke customers is not a way to help your workers have a nice time at work.

When I see posters of Israelis held hostage, they are sacred objects to me because I have a strong in-group Jewish identity. I often touch these posters to connect with their holiness. For someone with different views from me on the Arab-Israeli conflict, however, these posters are likely to be hateful reminders of a vicious Jewish oppressor who bears ultimate responsibility for all lives lost in Gaza.

Different people have different gifts, different interests, and different experiences of the world.

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Sad Converts Need To Get Reflexive (11-21-23)

I notice that converts (to a religion or to another hero system) often become disillusioned and then describe themselves as sad at discovering the flaws of their compatriots. It seems to rarely occur to converts that their primary source of sadness should be with themselves and their own willful denial of reality.

When I became excited about Judaism in the fall of 1989, it took me a while to meet actual Jews, but when I did, I became sad that they weren’t living up to Judaism. I rarely felt sad, however, at my own inability to live up to Judaism. It took me decades to feel sadness at my own needs to think that I had found a crowd in Orthodox Jews who transcended the human condition.

I was not happy with myself when I began my interest in Judaism. I wanted to throw much of myself away and merge with a greater whole. Over decades, however, I discovered I couldn’t throw myself away. It always went with me.

The morality of your group is going to approximate their average IQ. Empathy is a form of abstract thought and IQ measures your capacity for abstract thought.

Different groups have different gifts. Orthodox Jews, for example, rarely commit violent crime. They tend to have strong family lives, sexual discipline, and strong in-group identity. But these traits don’t automatically flow into one through conversion. There’s no hero system you can join that will automatically transform you.

On Sunday, English fighter Stephen J. James joined my show. His life has been crippled by ADHD but he has always refused to take ADHD medication. His condition has made a normal life impossible but by refusing to take ritalin or adderall as prescribed, he can tell himself, “At least I see through the bullshit. I don’t get to have normal joys, but at least I see through the bullshit.”

Many people in my audience don’t want him to take pills. Sick people will always want you to stay sick. “You’re one of us, don’t go thinking you can change” will be their anthem. The worst thing about being an emotional cripple is that only the crippled will want to hang out with you.

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America Primed For A Massive Attack On Iran (11-19-23)

01:00 Will US attack Iran? https://podcasts.apple.com/us/podcast/us-military-fighting-with-militias-in-the-middle/id1442883993?i=1000634788225
22:00 Peter Zeihan: China-US Relations: What Did Xi and Biden Discuss
https://podcasts.apple.com/us/podcast/the-duran-podcast/id1442883993
26:00 Biden’s disastrous press conference
38:00 Stephen J James joins
48:00 Describing Dooovid
58:00 My ADHD diagnosis
1:15:00 SJJ feels robbed by covid from sporting success
1:21:00 Where does SJJ get his self-esteem?
1:33:00 Where’s Mama JF?

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