The Off Topic Topic

[crazy canuck]

Well yeah. An analogy for 400 years of history is never going to be perfect for every situation.
The context in which I heard it was quite new imperialism slanted.

As to your they were there to stop others profiting... It's the same with tech start ups too. Spend huge now to try and dominate so much and push out all competition so when profits eventually come you've got a captive market.
French West Africa =Uber :p

I heard an interesting analogy to day that makes a lot of sense- European colonial empires were much like modern tech startups.
Cool and trendy, attracted massive investment on the promise of vast wealth...most consistently made a loss and kept themselves going with constant investment and the promise of profitability soon.

I don't think tech start ups routinely invade or attack countries, commit mass murder or enslaven whole races of people?

Josq, was it Marty who told you that analogy?

Don't tell me you don't think Musk et al wouldn't commit a genocide or two if they felt it would actually help their balance sheet and not just be negative PR for no obvious gain

Tech startup's don't spend to dominate, they burn money to become noticed and bought out by others who want to dominate.

[Sheilbh]

Although the business strategy is often Amazon's model to become a monopoly first. It was Uber's strategy (which failed) and has been Netflix - it's why they care about new subscriptions more than revenue and may be failing.

I am not sure it's a model that we'll see survive the end of 0% interest rates.

[Sheilbh]

Prompted by Marie Le Conte - polling of young Poles. Basically the Polish version of establishment parties are most disdained (Civic Platform and Law and Justice). But also young men are very interested in a really radically far-right party (far more far-right than PiS and aiming at turning Poland "into a ethnocracy and culturally homogenous nation built around traditionalist-Catholic principles"). Women are more divided but also more likely to back the left.


To an extent this is something that seems to be happening around the world a lot (similar-ish picture with Italy, France but also think of the DeSantis memesters) - especially young men particularly lining up with the far or radical right. Britain is a bit of an outlier on this as there isn't much of a gender divide in voting behaviour and broadly speaking the far or radical right support increases with age (unclear how much is a function of age v education). But I wonder if that might shift if there's a Labour government.

But the thing I wonder and would love to read about is what the love life/dating world is like for straight young people in countries where this divide is happening. It's not just incels but it feels like there's a fairly significant block of young men globally who are radicalising online into some weird cultural streams and political ideas and I'd kind of love to know what it looks like in terms of relationships. Mainly for the women I think I've seen a fair few pieces on (incel adjenct) angry young men online, radicalising and lonely off-line. Maybe it would just be more extreme in Poland but I'd love to read pieces about what it's like for young women, just looking for a boyfriend and facing their dating pool radicalising into tradwife memes and "traditional Catholic moral positions"

It's not something I'd experience and I imagine most of us wouldn't (as we're older and mainly men), but also iti's an angle I've not seen - even the pieces on those young men radicalising tend to be tonally more "concerned parent" which is possibly just reflecting the audience of the NYT, New Yorker etc.

[DGuller]

For quite a while now I had a long-term fear that Europe's embrace of multiculturism would be more short-lived than assumed, and an even darker fear as to how that multiculturism would get reversed.  Nations are not just some arbitrary political clusters, especially not European nation-states.  Nations like Poland exist because Polish people needed a nation to protect their interests as Poles. 

Assuming that people who are not part of that majority group would be accepted as equals indefinitely, from generation to generation, seems like not taking into account how people operate, especially when the good times end and people start more aggressively segmenting other people into "ours" and "not ours".  History has countless examples of how centuries of tolerance can be canceled out by a few years of extreme intolerance.

[crazy canuck]

Although the business strategy is often Amazon's model to become a monopoly first. It was Uber's strategy (which failed) and has been Netflix - it's why they care about new subscriptions more than revenue and may be failing.

I am not sure it's a model that we'll see survive the end of 0% interest rates.

I am not what you have in mind when you say that is "often" the strategy.

In my experience that is very much the exception.

It is much easier to attract investors and convince them to pour money into a tech start up that has a chance of getting bought.

[Sheilbh]

Sure, but aren't they different things?

Totally agree that's the pitch for investors and the founders' strategy and the goal. But the business model of how do we make our product attractive to eventual buyers is often basically to find a market and corner it, like Amazon did (or Uber or Netflix tried).

I find it particularly on the enterprise side.

[Jacob]

In my observation the "classic" tech start up was all about becoming a near monopoly in a market, typically by leveraging the network effect to establish an incumbent advantage. Hence the obsession with market share over revenue or profitability.

Then, as FANG + Microsoft dominated, a second order motivation took over as CC says - to be acquired by one of the big players. In my eyes the underlying business logic remained though - the way to make yourself attractive as an acquisiton is to be on a path to dominate a specific subset of the market. The major companies then acquire you to defend their dominant position and leverage their established network, or to expand their reach either into blue sea areas of business or to threaten their rivals in their core areas.

The underlying strategy remains the same, though: the pursuit of near-monopoly and entrenching incumbent advantages especially via the network effect. The thing that changed is that as the major companies got fully entrenched, start-ups pitched themselves to fit themselves into the majors' strategy rather than make a play for independent dominance themselves.

That's my read anyhow.

[Jacob]

Prompted by Marie Le Conte - polling of young Poles. Basically the Polish version of establishment parties are most disdained (Civic Platform and Law and Justice). But also young men are very interested in a really radically far-right party (far more far-right than PiS and aiming at turning Poland "into a ethnocracy and culturally homogenous nation built around traditionalist-Catholic principles"). Women are more divided but also more likely to back the left.


To an extent this is something that seems to be happening around the world a lot (similar-ish picture with Italy, France but also think of the DeSantis memesters) - especially young men particularly lining up with the far or radical right. Britain is a bit of an outlier on this as there isn't much of a gender divide in voting behaviour and broadly speaking the far or radical right support increases with age (unclear how much is a function of age v education). But I wonder if that might shift if there's a Labour government.

But the thing I wonder and would love to read about is what the love life/dating world is like for straight young people in countries where this divide is happening. It's not just incels but it feels like there's a fairly significant block of young men globally who are radicalising online into some weird cultural streams and political ideas and I'd kind of love to know what it looks like in terms of relationships. Mainly for the women I think I've seen a fair few pieces on (incel adjenct) angry young men online, radicalising and lonely off-line. Maybe it would just be more extreme in Poland but I'd love to read pieces about what it's like for young women, just looking for a boyfriend and facing their dating pool radicalising into tradwife memes and "traditional Catholic moral positions"

It's not something I'd experience and I imagine most of us wouldn't (as we're older and mainly men), but also iti's an angle I've not seen - even the pieces on those young men radicalising tend to be tonally more "concerned parent" which is possibly just reflecting the audience of the NYT, New Yorker etc.

... kind of depressing.

I mean, I'm also interested in what the perspective is from the perspective of young women, and wonder how it'll work itself out (or not) over time in terms of relationships.

I also rather worry that if there's a generational shift to the reactionary right, we'll see a lot more war and misery (and terrorist actions)  in the next few decades.

[Sheilbh]

I mean, I'm also interested in what the perspective is from the perspective of young women, and wonder how it'll work itself out (or not) over time in terms of relationships.

Yeah I've no idea. Will the men grow out of it and change their behaviour to get a girlfriend (not unheard of) - which is maybe the hopeful take?

I'd also love to know - as I'm certain women have them - what are the red flags on dating profiles etc? And presumably women are talking about experiencing going on dates and realising the guy they're with is a fascist - I'd be really interested to hear what it's like.

I also rather worry that if there's a generational shift to the reactionary right, we'll see a lot more war and misery (and terrorist actions)  in the next few decades.

I also worry about the death of the WW2 generation and the impact that will have. I think we're already seeing shoots of "actually the Axis/Stalin were right" or Holocaust denialism that I think is going to be even more difficult to push back against without the actual people in our society.

The equivalent in the US that I find really, really worrying is how easily people (primarily on the right) are talking about it as being a "cold civil war".

Obviously people minds change - I don't buy demographics is destiny on this more than anything else. But it is really striking and worrying and I don't know where it goes.

[Jacob]

As an aside, I remain convinced that a significant contributor to the seriousness of this issue (which is probably naturally occuring), is Russian funding and agitprop.

[Valmy]

"actually the Axis/Stalin were right" or Holocaust denialism that I think is going to be even more difficult to push back against without the actual people in our society.

One of the things that used to really irritate me back when I watched WW2 stuff on TV was how much WWII documentaries relied on fucking propaganda film from both sides. The fact that the Nazis were morons who torched Germany's economy in order to score propaganda points to the point they were pretty much compelled to start the war. The fact that their army was mostly foot sloggers hauling shit around on horses. There are often shocking to people who think they know a lot about World War II because German propaganda is still very influential in how Nazi Germany is perceived. It is wild.

So I get it. Soviet propaganda about the war took less of a hold in the West thanks to the Cold War (though I still see it sometimes) but I am sure it is similarly powerful on the psyche of people in Europe.

[Zanza]

The red flag on dating profiles is apparently mentioning you are apolitical.  That actually means you are a fascist, but learned that's not appreciated by women.

[Josquius]

The red flag on dating profiles is apparently mentioning you are apolitical.  That actually means you are a fascist, but learned that's not appreciated by women.

Makes sense.
Often see them claiming to not care about left or right - usually means they care very much indeed about being really right..

But on the broader topic. Yeah. It's definitely an issue. One I've heard a lot about before. Boys have big problems and there's certain groups only too keen to exploit and mischaracterise these.
I often recount the tale of the time I met Boris Johnson 15 years ago. He came to my uni to give a talk and a big topic he prattled about I remember was that too many girls were going to university and they'd have nobody to marry.
Could be he was on to something? :p

[PJL]

The red flag on dating profiles is apparently mentioning you are apolitical.  That actually means you are a fascist, but learned that's not appreciated by women.

Sounds like a another variant of don't knows being mainly a 'shy right wing' voter effect that polling companies have to figure out. Alos, the same with would not votes and 'independents' too.

[Sheilbh]

Or how "classical liberal" on social media normally means a more than casual interest in race "science"