I just kind of find this whole thing a little hilarious because I Iive 65% of the life that this guy is living right now – don't have spouse or kids at the moment – and he makes it out to be way more idealistic than it is. I have a ton of local friends who give me resources, and I cook for them in exchange. I get discounts at the local mechanic; I was a construction manager for a year and met some Based Tradesman™ who like me; I have a great relationship with my landlord who is also on city council. Blah, blah, blah, etc., who cares?
There are quite a number of people here in this town of <3000 who've been here for twelve generations or whatever, and they do not hardly all see each other at this kumbayah polity at all. There are tons of inter=family and inter-church fights. Catholics by-and-large, especially in the South, have barely any overarching social, cultural, or political power.
If anyone has the type of asabiyyah that he is talking about, it is the Baptists who are overwhelmingly involved in disaster preparedness & local PD training & maintaining state parks and all the other localist stuff he harps on, and they basically hate the Catholics.
There's also a ton of meth-heads and petty criminals who live in the countryside, too. Why doesn't he mention those?
What would be overwhelmingly excellent is if I could stay in this rural hideout and also get a bullshit $90K data analyst job (which would fund me and my future husband's buying and building of a custom house) because then I could dip my toes into both geographical and digital networks: start traveling a bit to key conferences and other holdouts and meet all my digital friends and then come back to the simple life to recharge. This is an essential part of my plan anyway.
Both people and money matter. For some reason, this is approach seen as "damaging my soul" (is it more less damaging to my soul than being attracted to men? I'm highly curious. Actually, I'm not, I know the answer and it bores me).
He is right in saying that your unbridled trust in the health of our precarious financialized economy going on forever (e.g. petrodollar, free shipways, trade surpluses, etc.) is kind of misplaced; BUT THAT DOESN'T AUTOMATICALLY MEAN the alternative is total collapse.
I guess this is a long way of saying I'm better and more right than both of you, I vote for myself 😂.
I can only mention so much on a single Podcast - different locales have different issues. We have had our meth guys move away over the years. I honestly don't know if the local baptists are organized - I'll check in on that. There's more clan organization, outside of my budding Catholic polity, than any religious one.
In the last local election, I know the sheriff and state senator both came to our little community; I don't believe they did to theirs.
I never said that money, in itself, is bad. I said the means of attaining it needs to be kept in mind. It should also be kept in mind, at least from a Christian perspective, that wealth does, in fact, make it harder for anyone to be more virtuous.
As far as people and money... yes? I know we can literally build houses for less than the cost of materials, because we can produce our own lumber. We have two mills in the community, trades, people that work for the utility company, heavy machinery, etc. Or, for when the bills have to be paid and people can't work for free as a favor, it at least stays in the community. But I'll literally be helping pour a foundation for a young couple to be wed next Oct on Monday, and their 400 sq/ft starter home is estimated to cost 15k, and will be a grandma's house after they move out.
So, we get it done, and it gets done without collapse, and building for the next generation.
*edit to add*
The reason I mention these to try and show that this is the kind of wealth and community that I'm trying to show and demonstrate in the writings I do, and it wasn't something I brought up in the podcast. But they're achievable fairly reasonably by people without needing a giant bankroll. Skills and dedication to adding value to the people around you because you love where you live, and you love the people you live by, creates bonds that are beyond value, and you simply see it reflected in the material choices that people make with their spending and purchasing decisions as they build a future together
The problem is that you make the implication that "without needing a giant bankroll" therefore means "shouldn't pursue a giant bankroll" and you justify it with some ridiculous spiritualism about how wealth makes virtue more difficult. Because, for some reason, Catholics, out of all the Christians, have this addiction to fetishizing poverty as sacred.
I don't disagree that people should give a lot of intentionality to how they make money; I fundamentally disagree that what logically follows is "job-stacking is bad in principle" or doesn't fit into a "morally congruent praxis".
And, fine, I'm not Christian so you don't have to care about my opinion, but I'm positive many other Christians find my perspective to be more true and efficacious than yours. Because they belong to the Church community I'm part of, and I talk to them about this stuff sometimes; in fact, as soon I as get my next bullshit job, I'm going to make a significant tithe to them – because of the loyalty many of those specific individuals have engendered within me.
A podcast, and specifically one where Walt is going all over the place in topics, is not one where I can get into the details of Catholic theology on wealth. There is nothing wrong with wealth, per se. Again - I pushed against the MEANS of Walt's acquiring it as being deleterious towards his soul as the main point
I did make points that it is harder for people to be wealthy and virtuous. I don't know what you mean by Catholics "fetishizing" poverty - it is nothing more than what scripture says, and history of the Church teaches. I promise you Orthodox do the same with their reference of the hermit saints and monks as we do. Giving up things of this world, to focus on God, is good. Some different pagan sects do the same thing, though with different theology behind it, sure.
And that's fine if you don't agree that job stacking is morally congruent. I'm not going to convince everyone that breaking social norms and trust is part of a disordered society and doing so further speeds the break down of the Empire while importing their failings into your own perspective, worldview, and life because you're doing what they did to third world nations. That being a Pirate to loot and plunder hasn't been viewed as a historically noble job that you want to have in your community and trust your daughters with.
I simply view it as something you have to stop the evil with somewhere if you want to live a life that is morally congruent, and not have a cycle of it in your life, your soul, family, or community. Aristotle and Thomas Aquinas are all in agreement that the Virtuous man is happy, even in adversity and trial, where as the unjust man is unhappy even in wealth as he's tormented by how to retain it from those he's plundered and oppresses.
So, which do you chose or advocate others to chose?
This does feel largely like a false dichotomy. The best way to combine both ideas would be to move to a rural polity, job stack for $250k, properly tithe $25k annually, spend your Sunday at Church and volunteering, and if things do collapse, you can trust that your community will have your back after how long you helped them. You can also be a doomsday prepper if you want, and save up canned goods and MRE.
But again, that misses the point of what happens to one’s soul, the means of getting the money, and everything else.
Look, I spent one day each of the last two weeks and cleared 2.5k. I was able to take my 7 y/o son on the jobsite (it was the same job) one of those days. He’s able to learn the skills around the house and with me. The rest of the time I capture the value and productivity of my labor completely, and teach him skills. I have him begging to be with me and learn.
What can a job stacker teach his sons/daughters to do with his job during the day?
Part of the downfall of the household during the industrial period was the movement of the man OFF of the home to begin with. The wife became more insecure in seeing the husband gone all day, and not having him around to discipline children, help emotionally to support, with homeschooling, etc. I’m there when things go bad.
I’m also building out another building for slaughtering animals that I can rent out to the community, that he gets to see me work on. He’s there helping when he can. This is a mental, spiritual, and material wealth building with him too! I’ve had jobs where he turns, at 7 y/o a 8 hour job into a 6 hour one.
To say nothing about the joy of simply spending the day working with my son.
This struck me as classic city mouse v. country mouse.
I don't understand the assumption that everyone who lives in an urban area or even the suburbs doesn't have a network to depend upon, or real skills. I live in a metro area of more than 1M, and these are recent community aid/skills trading/bartering things I can think of that have occurred in just the past few months, by myself or husband (okay let's be honest mostly him, he's the handy one):
- Just this morning, went to help fix friend's sprinkler system
- Same friend a few months ago came over and helped weld together a steel ramp
- Helped dog-hiker install nerf bars on her truck
- Mutually built stone wall with neighbor on property line
- Took different neighbor's dogs for weekend when she left town, she did the same for me a couple weeks ago
- Hooked up neighbor's son with a friend that's giving him a free place to store his RV in exchange for him mowing property-owner's land
- Spent day pulling down friend's collapsing shed to build a new one
These all seem like normal things that people do everywhere. If you live in NYC you don't need sprinklers or a fence, but people help each other in whatever ways giant metro people need. Also, my entire livelihood depends on personal referrals with zero marketing, and somehow I am always busy with work despite being a transplant and having no multi-generational history in the area.
I'm familiar with UB's frame of mind and have a few relatives of the avowedly rural variety who tend to view things like that. It seems to just be personal comfort level with the number of people around you and relative potential chaos. I'm not someone who gets off on being in crowds of people I don't know, or crowded traffic, and I'd be fine living somewhere less dense, but there are also benefits to density and one of them is just many more contacts and opportunities for friendship, business, hobbies, etc.
What I don't understand is the hostility that seems to always accompany the rural mindset. Whatever people are doing in towns and cities does not impact them, yet they seem constantly resentful and mad about the city people. And they DEFINITELY hate when a rich city person moves to their area. My assumption is that they're just generally more distrustful and have a disposition that tends towards never giving the benefit of the doubt.
As for society collapsing, perhaps we can get a group pooled wager going. I'm betting on Walt's side on that. I went way down the impending-collapse rabbit hole around 2010, became obsessed with self-sufficiency and being able to live off the grid, and was convinced it was all coming to a head. Fifteen years later and all is still chugging along just fine, you can always go down those rabbit holes and people have been predicting collapse since the 70s, yet the line just keeps going up and to the right. Doesn't mean it could never happen, but it's hard to imagine how in a country as large as diffuse as ours.
Thanks for having me on Walt. It was an enjoyable debate - it's been awhile since I've had one with someone so far diverging from my own views. I'm interested to see the responses
I don't think Christianity really brings whites and Asians together because Asian Protestants tend to have their own churches, and a lot of people attend for the purpose of being around co-ethnics. Roman Catholicism is a bit different (katholikos=universal) since the Latin rite's designed for everywhere and everyone, but in that case it also brings whites and blacks together.
They seem to be outliers though. Most Asian Protestants go to ethnic churches unless they're whitewashed. Catholicism seems to be the only one that breaks down ethnic barriers, and it does so for black people too
On the Russo-Ukrainian War, it's basically like the Iran-Iraq War in that it's had relatively fixed lines for years now. In fairness to the Russians, they did manage to bite out a fifth of the country in the opening weeks of the war even though they failed to seize the capital. I don't think the Ukrainians would've made significant gains with more US aid because the two are pretty evenly matched in resolve and are both conscript armies, but Russia has more manpower, a more efficient military industrial complex, and North Korean artillery stockpiles (big advantages in a protracted conventional war) and their defensive lines were impregnable. Ultimately they're both economic basket cases, and if Russia didn't have nuclear weapons, it wouldn't be relevant in the world. It's still basically Upper Volta with rockets (as well as a hub for human trafficking and internet piracy)
I think a another opportunity you missed to fold his "our country is so prosperous" talk was to point out the basis of this "wealth" is mountains of un-payable and unsustainable debt at every level of society (government, commercial, and consumer)
Agreed, but I didn’t feel like arguing MMT and realism or going down that rabbit hole. I’d also just be sad if he said we should Euthanize all the old people to make the budget work.
I think both combatants hearts are in the right place and I have a lot of time for both points of view. While we may be closer than ever to a crisis I think UB's way has a lot of challenges he doesn’t go into crisis or no crisis (maybe health insurance, physical impairment, def resentment from children) and even if you dispense with “means” morality Walt's best case scenario still faces the very real challenge of the hedonic treadmill (however remote work could de-fang a lot of that). Would love for Walt to replace "big house and vacations" with farm compound 2nd property and physical gold/silver. The high earner can secure 3 or 4 non-computerized tractors and underground diesel tanks pretty easily and just be an armed rent seeker in the collapse. I think Walt’s direction tempered by Barbarians admonishments (good to keep an eye on that soul) represents a super compelling path.
Charles Haywood probably represents a good midpoint here.
Samaritan health insurance is incredibly affordable for families. 650 a month for a family of 5 children and 2 adults will get you wonderful coverage, at cheaper prices than you can find anywhere.
On the health, I totally get it. Completely. I was diagnosed with MS about a month ago, have had brain surgery, etc. Ongoing health issues. Trust me in that I definitely have a grasp on the health issues as I live with them and am building towards that - my 5-10 year goal is to put a rental house on the front three acres of my property that will, in time, be a house for one of my children. Then after that I'll build another on the other 3 acres on the other side of my driveway. Give me means to provide should my body/mind give out. But, as I've said to others here, I can do that with my own labor, at less than cost of materials most likely. I might get investment from my parents, as they'll also be grandparents houses to take care of them should the need arise.
Look at my response to how you work with children on jobsites to another commenter. You simply include them in everything and offer them the same dream and future. Most of the resentment I see in trad communities in children is only there if there’s no future for them. Working with them, and giving them a life that’s realistic, loving, and beautiful has seen wonders where I’m at.
Look, just in case it got lost in the debate, I am completely open to others NOT living the rural life, and finding ways to make their life congruent with their own principles and living in harmony with those. I have plenty of friends at an urban church about an hour away, and have nothing wrong or against their choices. I think they'll have a harder time in the future, but they've made their bets with the hand they've been dealt. I honestly think that Walt has chosen a lifestyle congruent with his morals as well. I simply don't agree with those principles or think they're good for people - and this is the source of the debate! Which makes it enjoyable to see people's reactions, and respond as honestly and openly as I can.
Look, just in case it got lost in the debate, I am completely open to others NOT living the rural life, and finding ways to make their life congruent with their own principles and living in harmony with those. … I think they'll have a harder time in the future, but they've made their bets with the hand they've been dealt.
I mean, I think this is a really good faith attitude; it does seem like we’re at a time where people have to get really comfortable endorsing their own frameworks and the consequences thereof; and that there’s not a ton of a room for ‘dialogue’ so-to-speak anymore. But you seem like a decent gentlemen, if not someone who just has vastly different sensibilities in a way that’s probably impossible to bridge. Best of luck with your projects.
I'm quite torn, my heart 100% comes down on your side and I want to live a rural life, am freshly out and glad to be rid of the big city but will have to be satisfied with a fairly perfect suburbish life for now and figure out the farm/land plan later. My family had less money than all my friends so I'm obsessed in that area, and I was homeschooled and spent way too much time writing book reports on saints instead of getting tutored in math. Love my parents, but I hope I’m better at guiding my kids. I haven't known any Catholics in real life who had intellectual interests that jived with mine but am very fond of some I'm found online. I'm not practicing but love the Church however homilies are not easy and the leftism at the top is gross. Awesome about the health insurance, maybe that was a leftist boogyman I ignorantly repeated. It sounds like you've thought through everything well but I still think it's a high degree of difficulty path for many. Keeping one’s eyes on the ultimate prize is obviously key but it’s tricky.
"America has robust power." Really, LOL! The U.S. military can't even stop some Houthi savages from pirating western ships.
Also you are leaving out the important factor of trust in IRL communities. Those people who services you bought will turn on you if your relation is strictly transactional and monetary, this is not true in rural IRL communities where bonds are deeper than monetary.
Also you need less money to live the survivalist life. I bought a house and land for 29K outright in the sticks, that's not even a down payment on a suburban or urban house.
I'll focus on the rhetorical parts of the debate. In terms of convincing style and compelling rhetoric, I believe Bismarck came out on top in this one.
Uncouth's approach of asking questions from incredulity mainly served only those who already agreed with his positions, but otherwise just offered the floor again to Bismarck. Coupled with that many of these questions from incredulity were not followed up by a position as articulated as Bismarck's made his opponent seem more confident and thought-out, which weakened his overall standing.
Another factor were Uncouth's relatively long, breathy pauses whenever faced with a question or point. While it is good to take one's time in answering in a debate, too long a pause combined with little hesitating breaths of air (maybe just a consequence of a microphone sensitivity or lack of pop-guard) further deepened the impression of being caught off-guard or lack of confidence.
I believe Uncouth could improve on the efficacy of his rhetoric by avoiding the question-composition of his counter-points. Questions, especially questions from incredulity, are only effective if they hammer in on a weak, non-confident portion of the opposing argument. Otherwise they just t-up the ball for the opponent to swing at again. Better to assert where one would be going with the spirit of the retort anyway with a statement that Walt's position is untenable/immoral/absurd because x, y, z... It will preserve speaking time and give the impression of greater mastery over positions, particularly when the opponent is doing the same. This also drags your opponent into territory that isn't his home turf, forcing him to think on his feet in turn and opening up weaknesses to hammer.
And for the pauses, studying the likely courses of argument one knows he will make on the subject before going in will equip him with basic counter-points to present so he's not forced to concoct objections on the spot in breathy pauses. Bismarck is adept at switching to new grounds to try new angles of argumentative approach, and if you let him he will select the grounds on which he will argue every time - which is just to his advantage. It can be fun to go along for the ride, but it's much harder to convince the audience of your points when you're not perceived as the driver of points.
Overall debates are fun and I think both sides did well. With more familiarity with one another's approaches and practice with the particular flavors of rhetoric presented here, I suspect future debates will be even more engaging and interesting for participants and audience alike.
Not everyone is yuppie who can just pick up and move on a dime. Nor would I want to, I like the individual place I live, from that it doesn't follow that I think America as a whole has a bright future.
- On race/ethnicity: race causes ethnicity, because people notice the phenotypic differences between each other and that causes group identification. Ethnicity causes race, because it causes people to mate within their own group. In the long term, this separation leads to cultural, linguistic, and genetic changes which further enhance the distinctions. The concepts of race and ethnicity are tightly correlated but they are not really the same -- race refers more to heredity while ethnicity is a social marker.
- America has never been one people, partially due to size, but also due to the fact that it was formed by culturally (and genetically) distinct European groups.
- The "you are a slave" discussion was weird as hell.
- This guy is delusional wrt collapse. See BAP thread on this subject. In terms of my thoughts, climate change/mutational load/AI foom are all psyops and the only plausible cause of collapse I see is if nukes are much worse than we think they are. The international relations stuff is completely unpredictable.
Why are you working for an institution that hates you? All you are doing is cultivating bitterness and cynicism in your soul if you are working for people you hate with the attitude of ripping them off.
I loved this conversation. I think you guys are mostly talking past each other. You both to my mind exemplify the genius of America, and unlike most people, would probably thrive in a general state of societal collapse too.
On balance, for spiritual reasons I lean toward UB's position. Walt seems in a more precarious position relatively speaking, because of his faith in the system. Also, Walt, when you use phrases like "buttfuck Idaho", act like the riffraff should just learn to code, a patch of ground doesn't matter, that we would beat Russia if we just threw more armament at them, and talk repeatedly about how rapacious black people can be, your position becomes indistinguishable from the neoliberal, which is doomed.
On the “would you have a beer with them” index both of these guys come off as fairly insufferable. Walt is looting the empire, UB is building a new one.
Fwiw I sent the job stacking article to several wagie friends and they all declared it unethical & incompatible with their faith.
I just kind of find this whole thing a little hilarious because I Iive 65% of the life that this guy is living right now – don't have spouse or kids at the moment – and he makes it out to be way more idealistic than it is. I have a ton of local friends who give me resources, and I cook for them in exchange. I get discounts at the local mechanic; I was a construction manager for a year and met some Based Tradesman™ who like me; I have a great relationship with my landlord who is also on city council. Blah, blah, blah, etc., who cares?
There are quite a number of people here in this town of <3000 who've been here for twelve generations or whatever, and they do not hardly all see each other at this kumbayah polity at all. There are tons of inter=family and inter-church fights. Catholics by-and-large, especially in the South, have barely any overarching social, cultural, or political power.
If anyone has the type of asabiyyah that he is talking about, it is the Baptists who are overwhelmingly involved in disaster preparedness & local PD training & maintaining state parks and all the other localist stuff he harps on, and they basically hate the Catholics.
There's also a ton of meth-heads and petty criminals who live in the countryside, too. Why doesn't he mention those?
What would be overwhelmingly excellent is if I could stay in this rural hideout and also get a bullshit $90K data analyst job (which would fund me and my future husband's buying and building of a custom house) because then I could dip my toes into both geographical and digital networks: start traveling a bit to key conferences and other holdouts and meet all my digital friends and then come back to the simple life to recharge. This is an essential part of my plan anyway.
Both people and money matter. For some reason, this is approach seen as "damaging my soul" (is it more less damaging to my soul than being attracted to men? I'm highly curious. Actually, I'm not, I know the answer and it bores me).
He is right in saying that your unbridled trust in the health of our precarious financialized economy going on forever (e.g. petrodollar, free shipways, trade surpluses, etc.) is kind of misplaced; BUT THAT DOESN'T AUTOMATICALLY MEAN the alternative is total collapse.
I guess this is a long way of saying I'm better and more right than both of you, I vote for myself 😂.
I can only mention so much on a single Podcast - different locales have different issues. We have had our meth guys move away over the years. I honestly don't know if the local baptists are organized - I'll check in on that. There's more clan organization, outside of my budding Catholic polity, than any religious one.
In the last local election, I know the sheriff and state senator both came to our little community; I don't believe they did to theirs.
I never said that money, in itself, is bad. I said the means of attaining it needs to be kept in mind. It should also be kept in mind, at least from a Christian perspective, that wealth does, in fact, make it harder for anyone to be more virtuous.
As far as people and money... yes? I know we can literally build houses for less than the cost of materials, because we can produce our own lumber. We have two mills in the community, trades, people that work for the utility company, heavy machinery, etc. Or, for when the bills have to be paid and people can't work for free as a favor, it at least stays in the community. But I'll literally be helping pour a foundation for a young couple to be wed next Oct on Monday, and their 400 sq/ft starter home is estimated to cost 15k, and will be a grandma's house after they move out.
So, we get it done, and it gets done without collapse, and building for the next generation.
*edit to add*
The reason I mention these to try and show that this is the kind of wealth and community that I'm trying to show and demonstrate in the writings I do, and it wasn't something I brought up in the podcast. But they're achievable fairly reasonably by people without needing a giant bankroll. Skills and dedication to adding value to the people around you because you love where you live, and you love the people you live by, creates bonds that are beyond value, and you simply see it reflected in the material choices that people make with their spending and purchasing decisions as they build a future together
The problem is that you make the implication that "without needing a giant bankroll" therefore means "shouldn't pursue a giant bankroll" and you justify it with some ridiculous spiritualism about how wealth makes virtue more difficult. Because, for some reason, Catholics, out of all the Christians, have this addiction to fetishizing poverty as sacred.
I don't disagree that people should give a lot of intentionality to how they make money; I fundamentally disagree that what logically follows is "job-stacking is bad in principle" or doesn't fit into a "morally congruent praxis".
And, fine, I'm not Christian so you don't have to care about my opinion, but I'm positive many other Christians find my perspective to be more true and efficacious than yours. Because they belong to the Church community I'm part of, and I talk to them about this stuff sometimes; in fact, as soon I as get my next bullshit job, I'm going to make a significant tithe to them – because of the loyalty many of those specific individuals have engendered within me.
Rajeev,
A podcast, and specifically one where Walt is going all over the place in topics, is not one where I can get into the details of Catholic theology on wealth. There is nothing wrong with wealth, per se. Again - I pushed against the MEANS of Walt's acquiring it as being deleterious towards his soul as the main point
I did make points that it is harder for people to be wealthy and virtuous. I don't know what you mean by Catholics "fetishizing" poverty - it is nothing more than what scripture says, and history of the Church teaches. I promise you Orthodox do the same with their reference of the hermit saints and monks as we do. Giving up things of this world, to focus on God, is good. Some different pagan sects do the same thing, though with different theology behind it, sure.
And that's fine if you don't agree that job stacking is morally congruent. I'm not going to convince everyone that breaking social norms and trust is part of a disordered society and doing so further speeds the break down of the Empire while importing their failings into your own perspective, worldview, and life because you're doing what they did to third world nations. That being a Pirate to loot and plunder hasn't been viewed as a historically noble job that you want to have in your community and trust your daughters with.
I simply view it as something you have to stop the evil with somewhere if you want to live a life that is morally congruent, and not have a cycle of it in your life, your soul, family, or community. Aristotle and Thomas Aquinas are all in agreement that the Virtuous man is happy, even in adversity and trial, where as the unjust man is unhappy even in wealth as he's tormented by how to retain it from those he's plundered and oppresses.
So, which do you chose or advocate others to chose?
This does feel largely like a false dichotomy. The best way to combine both ideas would be to move to a rural polity, job stack for $250k, properly tithe $25k annually, spend your Sunday at Church and volunteering, and if things do collapse, you can trust that your community will have your back after how long you helped them. You can also be a doomsday prepper if you want, and save up canned goods and MRE.
That’s a fair point on the money front.
But again, that misses the point of what happens to one’s soul, the means of getting the money, and everything else.
Look, I spent one day each of the last two weeks and cleared 2.5k. I was able to take my 7 y/o son on the jobsite (it was the same job) one of those days. He’s able to learn the skills around the house and with me. The rest of the time I capture the value and productivity of my labor completely, and teach him skills. I have him begging to be with me and learn.
What can a job stacker teach his sons/daughters to do with his job during the day?
Part of the downfall of the household during the industrial period was the movement of the man OFF of the home to begin with. The wife became more insecure in seeing the husband gone all day, and not having him around to discipline children, help emotionally to support, with homeschooling, etc. I’m there when things go bad.
I’m also building out another building for slaughtering animals that I can rent out to the community, that he gets to see me work on. He’s there helping when he can. This is a mental, spiritual, and material wealth building with him too! I’ve had jobs where he turns, at 7 y/o a 8 hour job into a 6 hour one.
To say nothing about the joy of simply spending the day working with my son.
Yeah, I live the hermit version of UBs life. I honestly could give a fuck about "community," but land and direct access to natural resources is key.
This struck me as classic city mouse v. country mouse.
I don't understand the assumption that everyone who lives in an urban area or even the suburbs doesn't have a network to depend upon, or real skills. I live in a metro area of more than 1M, and these are recent community aid/skills trading/bartering things I can think of that have occurred in just the past few months, by myself or husband (okay let's be honest mostly him, he's the handy one):
- Just this morning, went to help fix friend's sprinkler system
- Same friend a few months ago came over and helped weld together a steel ramp
- Helped dog-hiker install nerf bars on her truck
- Mutually built stone wall with neighbor on property line
- Took different neighbor's dogs for weekend when she left town, she did the same for me a couple weeks ago
- Hooked up neighbor's son with a friend that's giving him a free place to store his RV in exchange for him mowing property-owner's land
- Spent day pulling down friend's collapsing shed to build a new one
These all seem like normal things that people do everywhere. If you live in NYC you don't need sprinklers or a fence, but people help each other in whatever ways giant metro people need. Also, my entire livelihood depends on personal referrals with zero marketing, and somehow I am always busy with work despite being a transplant and having no multi-generational history in the area.
I'm familiar with UB's frame of mind and have a few relatives of the avowedly rural variety who tend to view things like that. It seems to just be personal comfort level with the number of people around you and relative potential chaos. I'm not someone who gets off on being in crowds of people I don't know, or crowded traffic, and I'd be fine living somewhere less dense, but there are also benefits to density and one of them is just many more contacts and opportunities for friendship, business, hobbies, etc.
What I don't understand is the hostility that seems to always accompany the rural mindset. Whatever people are doing in towns and cities does not impact them, yet they seem constantly resentful and mad about the city people. And they DEFINITELY hate when a rich city person moves to their area. My assumption is that they're just generally more distrustful and have a disposition that tends towards never giving the benefit of the doubt.
As for society collapsing, perhaps we can get a group pooled wager going. I'm betting on Walt's side on that. I went way down the impending-collapse rabbit hole around 2010, became obsessed with self-sufficiency and being able to live off the grid, and was convinced it was all coming to a head. Fifteen years later and all is still chugging along just fine, you can always go down those rabbit holes and people have been predicting collapse since the 70s, yet the line just keeps going up and to the right. Doesn't mean it could never happen, but it's hard to imagine how in a country as large as diffuse as ours.
Thanks for having me on Walt. It was an enjoyable debate - it's been awhile since I've had one with someone so far diverging from my own views. I'm interested to see the responses
You slayed! :-)
I'm glad you liked it sir!
I don't think Christianity really brings whites and Asians together because Asian Protestants tend to have their own churches, and a lot of people attend for the purpose of being around co-ethnics. Roman Catholicism is a bit different (katholikos=universal) since the Latin rite's designed for everywhere and everyone, but in that case it also brings whites and blacks together.
not on a large scale but there are def special snowflake communities let RDS mentioned
They seem to be outliers though. Most Asian Protestants go to ethnic churches unless they're whitewashed. Catholicism seems to be the only one that breaks down ethnic barriers, and it does so for black people too
On the Russo-Ukrainian War, it's basically like the Iran-Iraq War in that it's had relatively fixed lines for years now. In fairness to the Russians, they did manage to bite out a fifth of the country in the opening weeks of the war even though they failed to seize the capital. I don't think the Ukrainians would've made significant gains with more US aid because the two are pretty evenly matched in resolve and are both conscript armies, but Russia has more manpower, a more efficient military industrial complex, and North Korean artillery stockpiles (big advantages in a protracted conventional war) and their defensive lines were impregnable. Ultimately they're both economic basket cases, and if Russia didn't have nuclear weapons, it wouldn't be relevant in the world. It's still basically Upper Volta with rockets (as well as a hub for human trafficking and internet piracy)
I think a another opportunity you missed to fold his "our country is so prosperous" talk was to point out the basis of this "wealth" is mountains of un-payable and unsustainable debt at every level of society (government, commercial, and consumer)
Agreed, but I didn’t feel like arguing MMT and realism or going down that rabbit hole. I’d also just be sad if he said we should Euthanize all the old people to make the budget work.
I think both combatants hearts are in the right place and I have a lot of time for both points of view. While we may be closer than ever to a crisis I think UB's way has a lot of challenges he doesn’t go into crisis or no crisis (maybe health insurance, physical impairment, def resentment from children) and even if you dispense with “means” morality Walt's best case scenario still faces the very real challenge of the hedonic treadmill (however remote work could de-fang a lot of that). Would love for Walt to replace "big house and vacations" with farm compound 2nd property and physical gold/silver. The high earner can secure 3 or 4 non-computerized tractors and underground diesel tanks pretty easily and just be an armed rent seeker in the collapse. I think Walt’s direction tempered by Barbarians admonishments (good to keep an eye on that soul) represents a super compelling path.
Charles Haywood probably represents a good midpoint here.
Samaritan health insurance is incredibly affordable for families. 650 a month for a family of 5 children and 2 adults will get you wonderful coverage, at cheaper prices than you can find anywhere.
On the health, I totally get it. Completely. I was diagnosed with MS about a month ago, have had brain surgery, etc. Ongoing health issues. Trust me in that I definitely have a grasp on the health issues as I live with them and am building towards that - my 5-10 year goal is to put a rental house on the front three acres of my property that will, in time, be a house for one of my children. Then after that I'll build another on the other 3 acres on the other side of my driveway. Give me means to provide should my body/mind give out. But, as I've said to others here, I can do that with my own labor, at less than cost of materials most likely. I might get investment from my parents, as they'll also be grandparents houses to take care of them should the need arise.
Look at my response to how you work with children on jobsites to another commenter. You simply include them in everything and offer them the same dream and future. Most of the resentment I see in trad communities in children is only there if there’s no future for them. Working with them, and giving them a life that’s realistic, loving, and beautiful has seen wonders where I’m at.
Look, just in case it got lost in the debate, I am completely open to others NOT living the rural life, and finding ways to make their life congruent with their own principles and living in harmony with those. I have plenty of friends at an urban church about an hour away, and have nothing wrong or against their choices. I think they'll have a harder time in the future, but they've made their bets with the hand they've been dealt. I honestly think that Walt has chosen a lifestyle congruent with his morals as well. I simply don't agree with those principles or think they're good for people - and this is the source of the debate! Which makes it enjoyable to see people's reactions, and respond as honestly and openly as I can.
Look, just in case it got lost in the debate, I am completely open to others NOT living the rural life, and finding ways to make their life congruent with their own principles and living in harmony with those. … I think they'll have a harder time in the future, but they've made their bets with the hand they've been dealt.
I mean, I think this is a really good faith attitude; it does seem like we’re at a time where people have to get really comfortable endorsing their own frameworks and the consequences thereof; and that there’s not a ton of a room for ‘dialogue’ so-to-speak anymore. But you seem like a decent gentlemen, if not someone who just has vastly different sensibilities in a way that’s probably impossible to bridge. Best of luck with your projects.
Thanks! I'm glad I clarified that for you, and hope it does for others as well. Best of luck to you, and your future husband as well!
I'm quite torn, my heart 100% comes down on your side and I want to live a rural life, am freshly out and glad to be rid of the big city but will have to be satisfied with a fairly perfect suburbish life for now and figure out the farm/land plan later. My family had less money than all my friends so I'm obsessed in that area, and I was homeschooled and spent way too much time writing book reports on saints instead of getting tutored in math. Love my parents, but I hope I’m better at guiding my kids. I haven't known any Catholics in real life who had intellectual interests that jived with mine but am very fond of some I'm found online. I'm not practicing but love the Church however homilies are not easy and the leftism at the top is gross. Awesome about the health insurance, maybe that was a leftist boogyman I ignorantly repeated. It sounds like you've thought through everything well but I still think it's a high degree of difficulty path for many. Keeping one’s eyes on the ultimate prize is obviously key but it’s tricky.
"America has robust power." Really, LOL! The U.S. military can't even stop some Houthi savages from pirating western ships.
Also you are leaving out the important factor of trust in IRL communities. Those people who services you bought will turn on you if your relation is strictly transactional and monetary, this is not true in rural IRL communities where bonds are deeper than monetary.
Also you need less money to live the survivalist life. I bought a house and land for 29K outright in the sticks, that's not even a down payment on a suburban or urban house.
P.S. there are literally no black people within a half hour drive of me, lol.
I'll focus on the rhetorical parts of the debate. In terms of convincing style and compelling rhetoric, I believe Bismarck came out on top in this one.
Uncouth's approach of asking questions from incredulity mainly served only those who already agreed with his positions, but otherwise just offered the floor again to Bismarck. Coupled with that many of these questions from incredulity were not followed up by a position as articulated as Bismarck's made his opponent seem more confident and thought-out, which weakened his overall standing.
Another factor were Uncouth's relatively long, breathy pauses whenever faced with a question or point. While it is good to take one's time in answering in a debate, too long a pause combined with little hesitating breaths of air (maybe just a consequence of a microphone sensitivity or lack of pop-guard) further deepened the impression of being caught off-guard or lack of confidence.
I believe Uncouth could improve on the efficacy of his rhetoric by avoiding the question-composition of his counter-points. Questions, especially questions from incredulity, are only effective if they hammer in on a weak, non-confident portion of the opposing argument. Otherwise they just t-up the ball for the opponent to swing at again. Better to assert where one would be going with the spirit of the retort anyway with a statement that Walt's position is untenable/immoral/absurd because x, y, z... It will preserve speaking time and give the impression of greater mastery over positions, particularly when the opponent is doing the same. This also drags your opponent into territory that isn't his home turf, forcing him to think on his feet in turn and opening up weaknesses to hammer.
And for the pauses, studying the likely courses of argument one knows he will make on the subject before going in will equip him with basic counter-points to present so he's not forced to concoct objections on the spot in breathy pauses. Bismarck is adept at switching to new grounds to try new angles of argumentative approach, and if you let him he will select the grounds on which he will argue every time - which is just to his advantage. It can be fun to go along for the ride, but it's much harder to convince the audience of your points when you're not perceived as the driver of points.
Overall debates are fun and I think both sides did well. With more familiarity with one another's approaches and practice with the particular flavors of rhetoric presented here, I suspect future debates will be even more engaging and interesting for participants and audience alike.
Not everyone is yuppie who can just pick up and move on a dime. Nor would I want to, I like the individual place I live, from that it doesn't follow that I think America as a whole has a bright future.
The bottom line is you are 100 percent dependent on a dying system. Me and UB aren't, good luck.
Live comments:
- On race/ethnicity: race causes ethnicity, because people notice the phenotypic differences between each other and that causes group identification. Ethnicity causes race, because it causes people to mate within their own group. In the long term, this separation leads to cultural, linguistic, and genetic changes which further enhance the distinctions. The concepts of race and ethnicity are tightly correlated but they are not really the same -- race refers more to heredity while ethnicity is a social marker.
- America has never been one people, partially due to size, but also due to the fact that it was formed by culturally (and genetically) distinct European groups.
- The "you are a slave" discussion was weird as hell.
- This guy is delusional wrt collapse. See BAP thread on this subject. In terms of my thoughts, climate change/mutational load/AI foom are all psyops and the only plausible cause of collapse I see is if nukes are much worse than we think they are. The international relations stuff is completely unpredictable.
https://x.com/bronzeagemantis/status/1804942688782815678
- "How many rich people live virtuous lives". Tradcaths are really something.
Gave up at 45:00
Why are you working for an institution that hates you? All you are doing is cultivating bitterness and cynicism in your soul if you are working for people you hate with the attitude of ripping them off.
Źzzz this is not interesting, at least the first 20 minutes and that's all I can do. I don't care about your $ measuring contest.
I loved this conversation. I think you guys are mostly talking past each other. You both to my mind exemplify the genius of America, and unlike most people, would probably thrive in a general state of societal collapse too.
On balance, for spiritual reasons I lean toward UB's position. Walt seems in a more precarious position relatively speaking, because of his faith in the system. Also, Walt, when you use phrases like "buttfuck Idaho", act like the riffraff should just learn to code, a patch of ground doesn't matter, that we would beat Russia if we just threw more armament at them, and talk repeatedly about how rapacious black people can be, your position becomes indistinguishable from the neoliberal, which is doomed.
On the “would you have a beer with them” index both of these guys come off as fairly insufferable. Walt is looting the empire, UB is building a new one.
Fwiw I sent the job stacking article to several wagie friends and they all declared it unethical & incompatible with their faith.