Negative Externality Taxes to Counter Chinese and Russian Aggression

Ricardo Hausmann makes a decent argument that large negative externality import taxes would do more to reduce Russian oil and methane profits than Western bans on their importation. But it's doubtful anyone in the establishments noticed. No one in the establishments is an actual policy wonk.

Large Pigouvian taxes would also be a decent choice against Chinese aggression, though supply and demand elasticities vary greatly among Chinese products.

The ruling classes must not demand that we sacrifice millions of our lives, if not hundreds of millions, to save Taiwan from Chinese rule, along with millions of additional casualties left suffering for generations. Taiwan spends a mere two percent of GDP on defense. It is a currency manipulator. It produces much larger per capita current account balances than China. It is a Western ally in name only. 

Why should we make astronomical sacrifices to defend Taiwan's borders when our totalitarian ruling classes won't even defend our own from invaders, who will prove even worse for us in the long run than the Chinese will for Taiwan?

Large wars almost always go much worse than their promoters envision. That's not even counting the huge opportunity costs that politicians almost always ignore. 

The fact that ordinary Taiwanese are the kindest Asians should not manipulate us into sacrificing almost everything, especially when Taiwanese refuse to make sufficient sacrifices themselves.

It's one thing for elites to pretend we will defend Taiwan, utterly rotten if they really think it's a good idea.

Tit-for-tat Conflicts

An important point about tit-for-tat conflicts: most sides regard themselves as the victims, no matter which sides objectively behave worse. This victimization mentality adds to outrage on other sides.

Many individuals act as if they would rather be killed in a tit-for-tat conflict, than stop the tit-for-tat downward spiral. 

Tit-for-tat conflicts are highly probable in and among multicultural white societies where a) pan-Europeanism is considered verboten, b) mass media are extremely one-sided, with narrow, poorly reasoned Overton windows, c) leaders habitually blame shift and eye poke on domestic issues, then extend those habits to foreign policy issues, d) ethically truthful dissenters are slurred and banished as extremists, e) massive power imbalances exist among  grandstanding, dark triad ruling groups and the peoples they rule over, f) ruling groups despise the people they rule over.

The more dark triad elites interact, the more conflicts increase. Remember to include interactions with diversity plus proximity equals war. 

Bait-and-switch, divide-and-screw is the habit of the militaristic, multicultural, oligarchal beast.

High GPA, Lower Than Expected Standardized Test Score Students

Many colleges are now dropping standardized tests. Having been around many, many high GPA, lower than expected test score students, I'll offer some small sample thoughts. For brevity, I'll refer to these students as GPAers.

GPAers tend to be hard working memorizers. On the plus side, they seldom sink into lifestyles of nihilism or detached irony. But they struggle with difficult abstract ideas, often frustrated, eventually deciding the abstract ideas must be worthless. When struggling, they demand test retakes or extra credit opportunities. They get angry at teachers when students they regard as inferior understand subjects better than themselves.

Many GPAers avoid classes with difficult abstract ideas, which is good. A top National Honor Society student from my high school was in my modern physics class. Modern physics is an easy class--no differential equations or other difficult math. She withdrew from the class in utter confusion, costing her time and money. GPAers sometimes become valedictorians without taking any available advanced placement classes.

GPAers trend toward opportunism and conformity. They reject ideas outside popular Overton windows. They place great value on formal secondary education for themselves and their children--while higher test score, lower GPA students often regard secondary education classes as sick jokes, massive time sinks.

In the work force, many GPAers realize their limits. But other GPAers, often in positions of power, resort to insipid slogans and agreement with evil above them.

Good ethics is abstract and complex. Evil is easy. While most courses at colleges shouldn't exist, there are some beneficial subjects that require high IQs, along with hard work. Thus, standardized test scores should continue to be used when weighing college applications.

Multicultural Contradictions, Part XIX

1. Older whites sometimes say, "I don't care. I'm not gonna be around much longer," about multicultural mass destruction, while at the same time caring about trivial partisan wedge issues.
2. Multicultural media tell us Hispanics don't commit more crime than whites, using predictably false self-reports from Hispanic criminals.
3. The fervor of Antifas. For what? Being useful tools of corporations Antifas despise? Being massively, relentlessly wrong?
4. Multicultural feminism cares mostly about promoting Marxism and glass ceiling issues, not helping ordinary women, often ignoring or suppressing news about rapes or beatings or murders when Muslims or people of color commit them.
5. The self-described reality based community would not let you know that George Floyd died from a drug overdose.
6. Whites disproportionately die in the wars created by multiculturalists, but multiculturalists pretend the deaths are disproportionately American blacks. "In the Korean War, 80 percent of military deaths were white; 8.4 percent were African-American. In Vietnam the military death ratio was 85.6 percent white to 12.4 percent black. In the first Gulf War it was 76.3 percent white compared to 17.2 percent black; in Afghanistan (Operation Enduring Freedom), 85 percent white compared to 8 percent black; and in Operation Iraqi Freedom through 2014, the military death ratio was 82 percent white to 10 percent black."
7. Multiculturalists operate as if their believing something and frequently repeating it makes it true but ridicule others for doing the same nonsense.
8. Multiculturalists praise unity, meaning everyone conforming to do the evil things multiculturalists support, while blasting conformity among outgroups.

Multicultural Contradictions, Part XVIII

1. Even award winning, super excellent special education teachers fail to turn cognitively impaired students into mediocre students.
2. "All religions share the same basic truths." Nope.
3. Greedy, egalitarian university administrators ruling over extremely unequal institutions.
4. Affirmative action often puts students in educational situations beyond student competence, leading to anxiety, frustration, depression, dropping out, and unpaid college debts. Or plummeting educational standards. Or both.
5. So-called egalitarians make harsh moral judgments based on ethically irrelevant looks, height, clothing, and hair styles.
6. Millions of multicultural whites walk around thinking they didn't get a decent job because others were better qualified, never realizing that affirmative action and HR multiculturalism played major roles.
7. Someone with severe cognitive impairments gets compassion and paternalistic protections from the state. Someone with mild impairments in IQ and conscientiousness gets exploited by powerful groups and insulted for their lack of success.
8. Most multiculturalists seem unaware that the greatest inequalities exist between the healthy and the unhealthy, not race.
9. Multicultural elites habitually suck up to people with more money or power than themselves and punch down at people with less money or power than themselves while mouthing egalitarian platitudes.
10. Multicultural public policies are often based on lotteries, tribalism or bribing the right officials, not the so-called new meritarianism of multiculturalism.
11. Multiculturalism pressures individuals into becoming real world method actors, willing to adopt or feign allegiance to whatever rotten idea multiculturalists concoct next, raising numerous ethical questions: Do these method actors fake it until they make it? Do they become less able to experience cognitive dissonance? Do they become more Machiavellian? Do they develop mental illnesses?