“This is an age that judges everybody so harshly through the lens of identity politics that if you resist the threatening groupthink of ‘progressive ideology,’ which proposes universal inclusivity except for those who dare to ask any questions, you’re somehow fucked. Everyone has to be the same, and have the same reactions to any given work of art, or movement or idea, and if you refuse to join the chorus of approval you will be tagged a racist or a misogynist. This is what happens to a culture when it no longer cares about art.”
-Brett Easton Ellis
2019
Zulu Kilo 
good points about the society being or becoming degenerate. the ancient polynesians were survivalists. they were pretty good at it, but were in many cases pushing the limits to survival. when they first found Easter, it must have looked pretty good. just like when the Vikings first found Iceland. then, they started to use their proven methods to survive and live well off the land.
both societies were fooled by a fragile environment posing as something they were familiar with elsewhere. the forests were not as resilient on Iceland, but the Vikings only found this out the hard way, e.g., sheep grazing ruined the fragile soils there. if it didn’t work out for them in some areas, they could move on to others, or leave. the Easter islanders did not have as many choices and managed to isolate themselves (no replacement boats). no leaving the island and fewer choices in a limited area.
ignorance and degeneracy can look the same. failing to act on a lesson learned can be fatal.
Well, the vikings were ignorant and largely gave up on Greenland (at least raising sheep there) after maybe one generation. I guess.
The Polynesians had been on Easter Island for maybe 1000 years. They knew the territory, its limitations and what they needed to survive there. Their degeneracy, their inability to acknowledge said limitations, prevented change, not ignorance per se.
Same here in the USA, no one wants to admit that times have changed. Maybe willfull ignorance?
a couple of comments.
it would be interesting to know exactly when in their 1000 year occupation the Easter islanders lost the last of their palm trees. surely there must be some C-14 or historical dates.
related: out here in the islands, locals husband their coconut trees. they are easy to plant and grow. 5-gal buckets are usually used. hard to believe the Easter islanders did not do similar.
your comment: “Same here in the USA, no one wants to admit that times have changed. Maybe willfull ignorance?”
can you list some examples?
That America can be made great, again
the USA is the leader of the “free world”
Immigrants can achieve the “American Dream”
Drill, baby, drill
We can balance the budget
the national debt will be repaid
climate change can be controlled
we’re equal under the law (well, no one ever believed that. at least I never did.)
etc…
Great list, dave.
“That America can be made great, again.”
when was it ever great? perhaps the 1950-60s. all is related to access to cheap energy. i interpret this MAGA stuff as ‘let’s get the crooks out of DC’, nothing more.
“the USA is the leader of the “free world”.”
depends on how you define “free world”. if you mean those Axis powers the US had a hand in defeating in WWII, plus UK, Canada, Australia, NZ and various Central and South American countries, other Euro-based countries, then the US is leading them by threat of military force. the so-called “free world”. China, India, Russia and SE Asia are BRICS based, and not so intimidated by the US.
Immigrants can achieve the “American Dream”
if picking crops and cleaning rooms count, then there still is an American Dream.
Drill, baby, drill
yeah, that’s code for exploitation of any national reserves remaining. time to suck the spildt beer from the rug.
“We can balance the budget.”
what a joke, on us, the taxpayer. why do we continue to pay taxes? i guess it’s part of the sham that the budget can be balanced.
“the national debt will be repaid.”
sure, recall Dick Cheney’s statement that “deficits don’t matter”. some people really believe him.
“climate change can be controlled.”
all they can do is talk about it, because talk is cheap.
“we’re equal under the law (well, no one ever believed that. at least I never did.)”
recall Orwell’s “Animal Farm”. all farm animals are equal, but some (the pigs) are moron equal than others.
Yeah, I kind of envision the Polynesians saying shit like:
The gods want us to keep cutting down trees and making giant stone heads. The gods will cure us of the rats…Something along those lines.
IOW they were degenerate. They could no longer see the reality of their situation…Something like that.
i’ve been musing on these degenerate Easter islanders. we all know some of them were master rock carvers. they made all these moi with stone hats, etc. they needed boats and they needed pots for their baby trees. they knew what a dugout canoe looked like. instead of cranking out all these moi, they could have made a large dugout canoe(s) from the porous rock. okay, it’s porous, so fill the pores with something waterproof. maybe baked clay. even made out of rock, they would displace water and float, just like a modern aircraft carrier. could have made them double hulled, like a Polynesian voyaging canoe. maybe the first voyages would have been without sails, just paddle power. so get to an island with timber, to make some masts. tapa sails (from coconut husks). Pitcarin had timber, unless they had already cut them all down.
kinda like a “what if” experiment. they had the materials, and they had the carving skills. what they lacked was imagination. that, and being a bunch of degenerate moi worshipers.
writing of Easter islanders, here’s a recent “no collapse” post:
https://www.cnn.com/2024/06/21/science/easter-island-what-happened-civilization-collapse-scn/index.html
“What’s more, while it was initially thought the islanders cut down trees in part to move the carved heads, a January 2017 study suggested that the native palm vegetation was burned to make the soil more fertile.”
moron evidence that they really were morons?
trying to place this reply in the right place…
so the Easter islanders (the Rapa Nuians) were apparently practicing “slash and burn” agriculture on the island. it’s an obvious way to return nutrients to nutrient-poor soil. you can get away with this approach in a big jungle area like the Amazon in Brazil, where plants grow fast near/on the equator and there are plenty of tree reserves to burn. trying to do that on a limited size island in a slower-growth, more temperate climate (almost 28 south) is suicidal. Hawaii is roughly at 21 north.
the immediate results probably looked promising. the problem, obvious to us, is the limited reserve of trees, irregardless of their seeds being eaten by rats, or not. i wonder if they were that stupid. maybe the trees were dying of some disease, and they were just using the dead trees to make some burnable compost for the soil.
a sign would the the length of time they did this practice. it should have been obvious to the locals how fast those trees grew. in Hawaii, the native coconut palms grow at a rate of 1 foot per year. the Samoan imports grow slower, at about 0.5 foot per year. unsure of a date palm’s growth rate.
yeah, I don’t know. But I keep coming back to the idea that they were there for a long time, on a tiny island. They knew what they needed to do to survive there. If they saw rats eating there seeds, if they were in their right minds, they would have done something about.
I guess.
nice. her top reminds me of those worn by olympic women swimmers.
D. Orlov
Jun 21 23:57
What are the Ukrainians fighting for?
In posing this question to Ukrainian POWs working on construction sites in the now Russian Mariupol (a town named after Mary Magdalene) the answers they gave were most surprising. They have nothing to do with nationalism, or national identity, or language (most Ukrainians speak Russian well and Ukrainian either poorly or not at all). They have nothing to do with democracy or a desire to be part of the West. Rather, they are fighting out of fear.
The most obvious type of fear that drives the Ukrainians to fight is the fear of being mistreated by their own for not fighting. Behind every bunch of recruits stand some number of ideologically brainwashed volunteers ready to shoot them for retreating or attempting to surrender.
There is also a less obvious type of fear. The Ukrainians are afraid of the Russian way of doing things:
• They are afraid that the Russians will require them to get their papers in order and to stop forging them.
• They are afraid that the Russians will make it impossible for them to run unlicensed cash-only businesses and will impose a value-added tax on all sales.
• They are afraid that the Russians will make them criminally liable for providing services that do not comply with public safety requirements.
• They will force them to get construction permits and will inspect the results, fining them for code violations.
• They will demolish private buildings that have been put up on public lands without obtaining permits.
• They will liquidate all the illegal taps into water mains, gas mains and electric mains.
• They will outlaw unlicensed waste dumps and landfills.
• They will impose heavy fines on dumping untreated sewage into rivers and streams.
• They will force everyone to install smoke alarms and fire alarms and require that they be regularly tested.
• They will install traffic cameras on highways and intersections and issue automatic speeding and traffic tickets.
• More than everything, they are deathly afraid that the Russians will make it impossible to resolve all problems simply by bribing the right people and (this fills them with utter trepidation) would start jailing both the bribe-giver and the bribe-taker.
Let us not be too quick to blame them: this is the only system they know — a system of corruption. To summarize, what the Ukrainians are fighting for is corruption. Corruption equals the Ukraine. When the Russians roll in, corruption (mostly) goes away, and so does the Ukraine.
It seems to me that the Ukrainians, and their sponsors, are degenerate. The Russians, not so much.
But, Orlov’s pro Russian bias is obvious.
I think that many of these women stand on their tip toes, or wear extreme high heels, in order to show off the development of their calf muscle.
The girl in the back is Qimmah Russo, who I am obviously deeply in love with.
perhaps, but many of them are just plain short.
sisters?
It came out of the sky…
https://x.com/CNSpaceflight/status/1804542638034661522?ref_src=twsrc%5Etfw%7Ctwcamp%5Etweetembed%7Ctwterm%5E1804542638034661522%7Ctwgr%5Ea8b16d8e2263d890f00778d6c773a76ae3140a3f%7Ctwcon%5Es1_&ref_url=https%3A%2F%2Fwww.rt.com%2Fnews%2F599808-china-spacecraft-debris-fall%2F