> There are zero ways to interpret this that are okay if you have a sliver of moral integrity in you
I think democracies are innately superior, including morally, to autocracies. I think market-based economic systems are innately competitive against--and in their capacity to empower individual production, morally superior to--command economies.
A lot of broad assumptions and black or white categorisation of things that are too big to fit into such narrow terms as superior or inferior.
This is a discussion that will never be improved by system proponents proclaiming theirs as superior, and bringing dangerously connotated terms like innate to the table is only making it worse.
Of course not. But one of its fundamental advantages is its ability to build alliances and accept immigrants. Historically, those have been strengths of republics. That’s “innate” to the structure of the society.
> the world's largest democracy is in south Asia
India is a great example of Western culture hybridising with a local culture to produce a sum that’s greater than its parts. The British were dicks, particularly in India, and I’m not arguing that colonisation is okay. But I think it’s fair to say that a unified, democratic India very much flows from its exposure to Western systems of law and government. (India had indigenous democratic city-states. But in the south and never at scale.)
“The west” as a culture or thought definitely doesn’t include Russia - like in a other comment in this thread it’s the US, EU and allies, so mostly NATO
Some common definitions of the west are white people, western European countries and their former colonies, and the US and their allies. Many such countries are democratic currently. None are democratic innately.
Immigrants and white people are unrelated categories.
> Okay, so your argument is that "the west" can only mean something "innate"?
Karp said the west is innately superior. JumpCrisscross suggested this was acceptable because democracies are innately superior to autocracies. But western countries are not innately democratic. And democracy is not innately western. Superiority is not innate if its basis is not innate.
> What makes makes the US "innately" white?
People who define the west as white people do not consider all Americans part of the west. And I said it was a common definition. Not good.
> I think democracies are innately superior, including morally, to autocracies.
Even if the democracy commits mass genocide? I think the most dangerous societies/systems/governments are those filled by people who think they or their system are innately superior ( especially morally ) as it gives them moral cover to commit all kinds of evil.
Then again, Socrates and Plato thought democracies were innately inferior...
History certainly hasn't shown democracies to be innately morally superior.
Well at least for pigs, cross-breeding is innately superior to consanguinity....
I don't think that is what Palantir's boss was getting at here though.
That’s a cute setup there, but misses the point. The west—aka white people—don’t have any ”innate“ traits that make them superior to other humans. The entire foundation of our lives is built on the exploitation of others over hundreds of years. Suggesting that is the natural order of things is twisted bullshit, and we’ve heard it a hundred years before. It was wrong then, it is wrong now. Even alluring to that school of thought is wrong.
And no amount of „admit you like being privileged“ changes that.
This is the problem. Western culture isn't just white. Hell, the term 'white' is really a New World race. In the Old World, Europeans were enslaving each other and being enslaved by e.g. the Mamluks and Ottomans.
Do you have sources to backup your claim that Karp is only envisioning white people as part of the west? Is he a known white supremicist? I could not find such a claim.
I found he wrote this on his letter to shareholders…
> “As Samuel Huntington has written, the rise of the West was not made possible ‘by the superiority of its ideas or values or religion ... but rather by its superiority in applying organized violence.’
“He continued: ‘Westerners often forget this fact; non-Westerners never do.’”
That you have created a new category of people: 'white', that were historically not considered belonging to the same group does not subsume the history of western thinking; which arguably started in the middle east, was further developed by europeans, and is now fully multi-cultural.
The west, as a culture, absorbs what is useful and discards the not useful.
Notice that you are just admitting the superiority of the west here, no weak culture with subpar technology or weak people can exploit or conquer others. And pretty much everyone has tried to exploit others as much as they possibly could, that's unfortunately just how humans are. Everyone has at least one objectively bad ancestor, no matter the race or culture.
People often use "racism" as a stand-in for all bigotry. You are correct that this technically isn't racist, but it is instead textbook xenophobia, so your comment is mostly just an annoying pedantic correction that doesn't actually address the underlying point being made about the bigotry of the original statement.
> it is instead textbook xenophobia, so your comment is mostly just an annoying pedantic correction
We're in the midst of a backlash to reducing the word racism to a banal definition. Let's learn from it.
Karp's statement is xenophobic, jingoistic and bigoted. It's worded to not offend racists, because we have a lot of them in government right now. But it's not racist per se, and will be found agreeable by many non-racists in a non-racist way.
Quite honestly I do not care about the feelings of anyone who self-identifies as xenophobic and is offended at being called racist or vice versa. Bigotry is bigotry and bigotry of any form shouldn't be tolerated, excused, or empowered.
> Japan is in the West and last time I checked they were still Asians.
Japan is not in the west. Japan is not a western country. They are not a western peoples. They don't speak a western language. They don't have western culture. They don't even use western script.
In what world is Japan "in the West"? Ask a japanese person whether they are in the west or are westerners. They'd laugh in your face.
The west is narrowly western european or western european descended majority nations. Broadly it's european majority nations.
And the US crushed them, pretty hard. It was mostly white people who defeated that evil nation. Just like it was mostly white people that defeated Nazi Germany. Maybe people back then should have been more into the current "whites are all the same" level of thinking to prevent all those pointless wars.
You are hallucinating arguments that I never made.
I said “the west” in the context of what Palantirs CEO was talking about refers to countries that are mainly seen as populated by white people.
I never said “white people bad” but that is what you seem to understand, I wonder where it came from?
I was replying to your comment saying "Japan racist and nazi ally" existing in this specific context that is filled with the crystal clear logic: "the west" equals "white people" equals "bad" which means "Karp literally racist and nazi too".
Your comment doesn't even make much sense in the vacuum except maybe as a quick fact check, but then you can consider my reply as just an extension of your comment. There is always someone who doesn't know that the WWII was not really about white people vs. non-white people type of thing.
No, that was propaganda the Germans were fed, though even then it was never about "Whites" (just consider the disdain for the British and Americans), but "Germans". But that wasn't in earnest, ever.
> The famous "Right is what is good for the German people" was meant only for mass propaganda; Nazis were told that "Right is what is good for the movement," and these two interests did by no means always coincide. The Nazis did not think that the Germans were a master race, to whom the world belonged, but that they should be led by a master race, as should all other nations, and that this race was only on the point of being born. Not the Germans were the dawn of the master race, but the SS. The "Germanic world empire," as Himmler said, or the "Aryan" world empire, as Hitler would have put it, was in any event still centuries off.
> Moreover, according to some around him, Hitler came to view the German people as having failed him, unworthy of their great mission in history and thus deserving to die alongside his regime.
I think you could say for Hitler, it was only about Hitler. For his inner circle, it was about Hitler and them, and so on. Each layer used and deceived the outer layers.
Maybe those racists should have gotten together, forget their minor differences, and commit even more atrocious acts since folks these days think they were all baddies (and white, the worst thing of them all!) anyway. The wars they fought were completely pointless.
If only there was someone to tell them that all whites are really the same, so they would have understood. Well, Hitler had some ideas of unity close to that (with idiotic things like excluding "those stupid eastern slavs"). Modern racists see nothing but the skin colour, they don't even bother measuring your skull. That's how bad things have gotten.
Wouldn't say that racists were in the minority. Hitler starting several wars turned them off from fascism, in Britain as well, but regular old racism and white supremacy was strong.
Well, until quite recently in the US polite society, the Irish were not considered white... So entering into any kind of debate with such ill defined terminology as "the West" or "White" seems extremely pointless to me. Only snake-oil salesmen would use such terms in earnest.
It can be both depending on the context. A westerner is a european or a european descended person.
> For example many Asian people are more western than many white Americans.
What does this even mean? How can an asian person be more western than a white american. That's like saying a white american be more "eastern" than a chinese person.
I've never heard an asian person say they are a westerner. There may be asian people who appreciate western culture more than some westerners, but that doesn't make them a westerner. No more than a white american who appreciates chinese culture more than the average chinese makes him a chinese person.
> Would you really not consider e.g. adoptive children to be part of the culture of their adoptive parents?
Sure. But culture isn't "innate". But being a westerner is innate. I could learn chinese, but that doesn't make me a chinese person. A chinese person could learn english but he is still "innately" chinese.
> Very easily, since one is an ethnicity, while the other is a nationality/culture.
I already acknowledged that. My point is what do you mean by a western person or a westerner. Anyone can partake in a culture. You can eat chinese food or indian food but that doesn't make you a chinese person or an indian person.
Am I wrong here. Or is the term "west/westerner" used differently around the world.
Would a child of European descent born and raised in China be a 'westerner' in your eyes? What about a second generation child, still fully ethnically European?
> Would a child of European descent born and raised in China be a 'westerner' in your eyes?
Not just to my eyes. To chinese eyes, african eyes, middle eastern eyes, etc. There have been tiktoks and youtube videos of westerners born in china who were called foreigners by the chinese themselves.
> What about a second generation child, still fully ethnically European?
Elon Musk was born in south africa, a non-western country in a non-western continent. Charlize Theron was born in south africa. They are both westerners. Doesn't matter where you were born.
The european person born in china can become a chinese citizen. But he can never become "chinese". Just like a chinese person can never become a european/westerner. He can become a EU citizen. He can become an american citizen. But he can't become a westerner. Am I wrong here?
Innate in this context may just well refer to the fact that he strongly believes that values rated pretty high in the west like democracy are inherently good and they should be promoted to the rest of the world. Note that I don't personally agree with that, I strongly think everyone should be minding their own business. Truly superior ways are copied and emulated sooner or later anyway.
The West is clearly a culture, not a race. It's also the most diverse culture there is.
Considering we're on HN, it's probably worth reading HN's founder's take on "x-isms" as a substitute for truth or honest debate: https://paulgraham.com/heresy.html
I'm proud of Western culture. But this is difficult to assert. There are more extant languages in many Eastern cultures; that arguably counts as a cognitive diversity more meaningful than skin colour or geographic breadth. (To say nothing of more individuals outside the West than within it.)
> it's probably worth reading HN's founder's take on "x-isms" as a substitute for truth or honest debate
You're linking to a decent essay. But it's fair to note that Graham has gone off the deep end recently, putting intellectual honesty below kowtowing to political powers (or just strong personalities who might make him more money). An appeal to his authority might not be your strongest argument.
> There are more extant languages in many Eastern cultures
My family comes from Eastern Europe and I've traveled it (and Asia) extensively, and while I agree skin color isn't the hallmark of diversity some call it, I think the East's cultures are really similar, and the diversity of thought within those cultures much smaller.
All the division and hatred we're seeing is, a negative manifestation of, but an indication of how diverse the West is.
> An appeal to his authority might not be your strongest argument.
His article literally mentions how it should be about the content of our words, rather than appeal to authority.
I just thought it funny and relevant that this is happening on the website he created, but maybe better to cite it without mentioning who he is. Wasn't meant as an appeal to authority but fair it could be interpreted that way.
FWIW, I disagree with Graham on a lot recently politically, but I still think the heresy comparison is extremely on-point.
“The unfortunate thing, either in business or politics, is that many of one's adversaries and antagonists will never respond to anything but strength—that crude form of power that does not ask for but which requires compliance and deference.
And so strength we have built.”
“As Samuel Huntington has written, the rise of the West was not made possible ‘by the superiority of its ideas or values or religion ... but rather by its superiority in applying organized violence.’
“He continued: ‘Westerners often forget this fact; non-Westerners never do.’”
Alex Karp has a tendency to say inflammatory things.
Now that he's made the press several times for this kind of thing, one has to wonder: does he make these statements because he believes them, or because the press that comes after such a statement is useful to him somehow? Does it endear him with the right kind of decision-maker? Does it just get attention? Or does it just direct press attention away from some other aspect of Palantir in a given newscycle?
It's not really relevant what he "actually believes". It's just like Elon's seig heil, who cares, the bits of information aren't in his actions but in the reaction to it. They want people to know what team they're on.
There’s a lot in Western culture which is borrowed from their prior conquerors. Islamic culture, in particular, left a significant mark on Western thought [1]. In general, I think it benefits societies to create humane cultures because all populations are subject to a normal distribution of individual capabilities. If you create a culture where someone can claim “superiority” simply by belonging to a certain group, it’s detrimental to the prolonged health and survival of that society.
That said, I think it’s gauche and irresponsible for security products company CEOs to make statements like this because it makes you sound jingoistic whereas your outward demeanor, at the very least, should just be oriented towards favoring defense. The goal shouldn’t be to unnecessarily alarm your supposed opponents, that’s counter to your defense goals.
Finally someone who gets it. I am not being facetious when I say that meritocracy is inherently inhumane.
As to prolonged health: I'm not sure western civilization, or indeed any culture which reflexively valuate humans even... will be able to consistently embrace universal humanism (humanity?) without first suffering paroxysms.
Maybe a more practical question is, how to organize a humane police force :)?
Don't know if Palantir is working on that? (Not sarcasm)
Societies are innately tribal, so I think realistically such a project will devolve into something inhumane in any society, regardless of perceived racial or religious homogeneity, because of inter-group competitions. Moreover, no one really ever trusts the policing apparatus in any state, regardless of its true nature or intention, so there will always be resistance to any such policing. However, people are likely to trust culture, and ideas related to that culture, with the caveat that there is some principled approach to updating laws per the needs of the population as conditions change; the latter half, principled updating, is currently missing from democracies as the current modus operandi is updating laws by request via petitioning or lobbying, so whoever is the loudest or most well-funded wins. The end result is that there is discontent because democracy by favoritism, or policing, is not a democracy. If the goal is to maintain cultural and national stability, then governance structures should be flexible enough to absorb shocks from changing cultural viewpoints. Practically, that looks like what is commonly derided as centrism, or essentially, not holding allegiances to political tribes, but instead to a sense of upholding cultural and national strength. So, I think instead of building literal policing structures, which will always be inherently fragile, democratic nations are better off focusing on building a sense of national cultural identity for heterogeneous populations, without any particular focus on race or religion.
We're fighting lord of the rings memes with silmarillion memes and ontologies with ologs (category theory) over at http://silmarils.tech , join the resistance!
> And, tbh, democracy, freedom of speech, and gender equality are pretty great values to endorse.
But none of those are "innately" Western. Most of the current West do not have free speech. Western civilization ( going back to socrates ) has been against democracy. Not to mention western civilization has been against gender equality.
The values you listed are actually innately anti-western values counter to 3000 years of western tradition.
If you argued for latin, greek language, history, civilization,culture ( something actually innately western ), then I'd agree.
Now I'm convinced that these degenerates saw the Slaughterbots[1] video and thought "what a great idea!" Tyranny as a service is coming and the techno-fascists are thrilled to be in control. Welcome to the torment nexus.
