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Mar 18, 2023Liked by Niccolo Soldo

Well done

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Carnival in the Arabian Peninsula continues (for what it’s worth anecdotally - people here are perfectly happy with repairing the relationship with Iran, and prefer it 100x to the normalization with Israel)

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Another great article, Niccolo. I'd like to say that your take on Korea is rather informative. I think your take on the competitiveness in the sexual marketplace is an accurate view and it begs the question: Is the answer to the inability to compete in a game theoretic perspective simply to not play the game aka to not engage and to divorce from the gene pool altogether? This same approach comes from many men as well and it does have its own rationale in a nihilistic way. For those who can't compete or cannot or refuse to subject themselves to nature's standards, is walking away the answer or to simply make oneself repulsive/defensive to rationalize the fact that one can't measure up (it's often addressed through standard reduction in other policy proscriptions elsewhere) aka take the easy way out. In Korea, this phenomenon is simply the Tumblr Asia version (as you mentioned) but also because Korea is very urban heavy and hyper competitive (children spend their entire lives in after school academies and status and hierarchy are extremely rigid which means for the large number of students getting into the select/small number of available positions from the entrance exams is viciously competitive). Also, the open immigration+internet+English teacher/foreign jobs programs has made the Korean native culture vulnerable to US subversion on behalf of the American elite aka the left wing ideologues.

A small mention the Saudi and Middle East perspective, I think it makes actually perfect sense. The US and Europe are hell bent on attacking fossil fuels. Saudi Arabia and the rest of the Middle East are fossil fuel economies. It is basically their entire economic value proposition. Why would the West not expect defections considering basically America is openly expressing its desire to make the Middle East obsolete. I suppose it can be understood in a way that since the failures of all the Middle East crusades embarrassed US foreign policy, another approach would be to just render the area simply unnecessary or reducing its importance. America and the West has a wonderful strategy of undermining competition (and allies for the matter) and then wrapping oneself up in rhetorical cosmetics in a policy of denialism (plausible deniability is the elixir of the elite). Of course, the self interest of the oil rich nations would start to impose itself at some point (not the mention the US nat gas industry wants its market share and the Middle East is a competitor in this arena as well).

Have a great weekend and keep up the good work! Until next time

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Mar 18, 2023Liked by Niccolo Soldo

A lovely riff on “history belongs to those who show up” ↓↓ 😏

🗨 In perpetrating a revolution, there are two requirements: someone or something to revolt against and someone to actually show up and do the revolting. Dress is usually casual and both parties may be flexible about time and place, but if either faction fails to attend, the whole enterprise is likely to come off badly. ~~Woody Allen

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The condition of South Korea is ominous. If an economically successful, prosperous, country with a Sino-Confucian culture can be undermined by the dissemination of Western gender ideology accompanied by consumerism who is safe?

Even as it decays Turbo America undermines other cultures and eradicates inherited ways of life. American political and military weakness is offset by the power of its toxic culture.

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I think it's natural that South Korea birthrates have dropped even before the jabs.

The economic situation is to blame.

Housing and other essentials have been inflated in cost for decades, not just now.

People don't want kids in that society because having kids is too expensive.

It's not feminism to blame, it's the living standards.

I face the same here, how many orphans exist? How many people in general are homeless?

What would adding population do to this mess?

Why is having kids the ultimate goal and who decided this?

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Mar 18, 2023Liked by Niccolo Soldo

KSA is not going to be aligned with Iran. They merely re-established diplomatic relations. Iran is seen as a nefarious influence locally in Yemen (including via attacks on Saudi proper), Bahrain and Qatar. In Iraq and Syria, Iranian sponsored sectarian militias have murdered many Sunnis. KSA and Iran are not going to be buddies. The Saudis wanted Chinese money and China wanted to broker the diplomatic relations a as a PR move (positive fir China, and to embarrass the US) as part of the investment deal, IMO.

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Mar 18, 2023·edited Mar 18, 2023Liked by Niccolo Soldo

Herbivore men in Japan, herbivore women in South Korea. To each, their own.

SK interests me because of its superlative statistics. They lead the world (or are in the top ten) in terms of work hours, alcohol consumption, plastic surgery, and suicide. Incredibly successful and hardworking, yet their elderly are treated poorly. And they survived several wars.

Btw, there's much more to K-Pop than boy bands.

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Mar 18, 2023Liked by Niccolo Soldo

Youngmi: She began to realize that “you know, men do not do that — men do not feel the pressure to buy clothes every season or wear makeup.”

Why would they? Women do not pressure them to do these things.

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Mar 18, 2023Liked by Niccolo Soldo

Speaking of China, in your Lent break from the heaven site, you missed Jordan Peterson retweeting some sort of bondage pornography and claiming it was a CCP torture facility. His daughter told him to pull it down and it was quietly deleted with no mea culpa or self deprecation since Peterson is a humorless spastic with a messiah complex.

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Mar 18, 2023Liked by Niccolo Soldo

You can see a pretty big decline in levelheadedness from the last American administration to this one in the realm of foreign policy. Whatever ones gripes with Israel are it seems much more of a practical goal to foster good relations between them and the saudis that’s pro American and anti Iran. It also made sense to at least have dialogue with the ruskies. Now we’ve spent enormous funds and political capital on antagonizing the ruskies, hardly a peer geopolitical rival while letting a rising rival draw in the saudis and ruskies. I’m not very bullish on the Chinese overall but at the same time why risk it for no real gain

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Great stuff. Thanks especially for the piece on Russia vs nato in Africa. The FT has a slanted but interesting series on this that was a good read: https://www.ft.com/russiainafrica

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Mar 18, 2023·edited Mar 18, 2023Liked by Niccolo Soldo

What's so admirable short-sighted about the Korean rebellion against "norms" (and sexes against each other) is that they still unwilling to abandon the rules of the game: must go to university and must churn, churn, churn.

Show me a Korean who says fuck to all of that, and then we'll have a rebel.

I for one view my years at uni the biggest waste of time in my life (and it was for free, and I do have a comp sci degree out of it). We're inundated with horror stories of the ultra-competitive East Asian higher education system, yet it seems they see no other path to money and status, even the young and rebellious, then participation.

BTW, Korean feminists: you losing respect for your men is not a symptom of the patriarchy winning. Quite the opposite. Just like you didn't put on makeup to please men, men don't care. Other women do.

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Mar 18, 2023Liked by Niccolo Soldo

From what I know about Korean culture, there is a serious stigma against marrying or having relations with a non-Korean.

Those who know better than I do, feel free to correct me or explain.

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All I'm hearing here is "visit Korea"

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