The Madeleine & Anvi Gallery of Excellent Effortposts

[politicus]

Sam Spade is damaged beyond repair, so I thought I would set up a new one. Please do not argue in it and no short posts.

[Antonio the Sixth]

I approve of this initiative.

[King]

tl;dr

[free my dawg]

Yeah, I don't think this is going to go well. The GPG's p much irredeemable.

[Oakvale]

I disapprove of renaming the GPG. The late, great Sam Spade should not be forgotten.

In any event, the GPG, like literally all the various Mines apart from the Comedy one has always been basically trash with the occasional pearl buried every couple of pages.

A good case in point is the truly awful Simple Truth or whatever mine/gallery/institute. No one will ever, ever read a good post in there and it exists only as a way to move an empty quote of agreement from the original thread to a zoo for sentences like "Republicans are bad". The Deluge should also be wiped out since any truly absurd or bad post is usually inherently funny and could thus fit in the Comedy mine.

[politicus]

Sorry this took me so long! Long week.




Christianity concentrates in the west, but not for the same reasons as Buddhism (or as we shall see in the next map, Shintō). This rather has to do with the directions from which missionization came during the Nanban Trade period, which basically set the plot for subsequent Japanese Christianity despite the two hundred and fifty-odd years of vicious persecution that separate it from modern Japanese Christian life. The missionization during this period came from the west and concentrated on what a lot of histories of Japan call, during this time and up to about the middle of the Meiji Era, the 'southwestern periphery'--Kyūshū, the southern half of Shikoku, and the westernmost tip of Honshū--and on the Seto Inland Sea, which at the time was the main avenue of trade and transport between the Spanish and Portuguese mission sites and the power centers in Kansai. For a generation or two in the late sixteenth and very early seventeenth centuries before the persecution started, parts of Kyūshū and Shikoku were majority-Christian. A lot of these Christians went into hiding, obscuring their faith in rituals that cosmetically resembled those of Buddhism and eventually drifting further and further away from orthodoxy due to their lack of priests and Bibles. Most of these 'Hidden Christians' rejoined the Catholic Church after the Meiji Restoration but some have persisted to the present day as 'Separated Christians', and are worthy of study and might make a fascinating thread topic some day in and of themselves.

Note that the most Christian prefecture is to this day Nagasaki. It’s the very dark red area in the far west, a group of barely-connected peninsulas and islands—that is in fact a prefecture and not just a bunch of overlapping lines and blotches! It's 5.8% Christian and was first the main hub of Catholic missionary work and later the only area that was partially open to Europeans throughout the Tokugawa bakufu. The insular portions of this prefecture are where the vast majority of the remaining Separated Christians live.

The Tōkyō Metropolis is the second most Christian prefecture because it's Tōkyō. Tōkyō has a lot of everything.

William Temple once said that the Church was the only organization that existed for the benefit of its non-members. This wasn’t even close to being true and it doesn’t even make Christianity unique among religions in that the formal Shintō shrine network exists to cater to the needs of as many people who don’t belong to it as possible as well. There are a few generally highly specific and arcane things for which formal membership in a shrine helps but in general in order to participate in most aspects of Shintō worship one basically just has to show up (or volunteer, in the case of things like carrying portable shrines at festivals). It’s enough of an ethnoreligion that people who are obviously not Japanese might get looked at a little askance but even that is not insurmountable. Indeed, I’m really not sure why anybody would feel the need to be a formal member of a Shintō organization exactly, other than clergy and their families; and indeed, few enough people are that this group is actually smaller than Christianity by some measures.

There’s a softer instance of the same general patterns from the Buddhism map in this map, but other than that what’s interesting here is basically just one prefecture, Kōchi. It, Akita, Tottori, Miyazaki, and Kagoshima are the only prefectures that stands out enough that it is basically impossible to argue that it’s statistical noise, and Kōchi (5.5% formal Shintō) stands out the most among these by a considerable margin. It stood out on the mushūkyō map too, so clearly the idea of Shintō over against other religions has some sort of strong appeal here. There are very specific, locally powerful shrine networks in these five prefectures, which rely partially on the religious equivalent of patronage, but I wasn't able to figure out exactly what the nature of these shrine networks is. Shimane Prefecture in the southwesterly part of the Sea of Japan coastline, the location of the Izumo Grand Shrine, is part of a cluster of prefectures with slightly higher rates of formal Shinto adherence than most of the country, but doesn't even stand out as much as neighboring Tottori does; Mie Prefecture between Nagoya and Kansai, the location of the Ise Grand Shrine, doesn't stand out at all, which surprises me.

[TDAS04]

I agree with the idea behind this.

[Grumpier Than Uncle Joe]

I disapprove of renaming the GPG. The late, great Sam Spade should not be forgotten.

I literally want to vomit at the thought of agreeing with oakvale 1000%.

[Sopranos Republican]

Christ, I mean yes I love Nathan, but spade was a legend, and for f***'s sake what's with the name? Excellent effortposts?

[Joe Republic]

I don't know who the people in this title are.  Does Anvi have a indy IL avatar?

[Marokai Backbeat]

Will the latest incarnation of this gallery be another way for people to repost opinions they agree with without having to enter the discussion themselves, inevitably engulfing this thread in bickering that could've been had elsewhere?

[politicus]

Will the latest incarnation of this gallery be another way for people to repost opinions they agree with without having to enter the discussion themselves, inevitably engulfing this thread in bickering that could've been had elsewhere?

The idea with naming it after Madeleine and Anvi was too avoid it. Only genuine well argued and knowledgeable effortposts.

I will close it if it degenerates.

But now: Please stop arguing and post excellent posts!

(if you want to argue about the merit or lack of merit of galleries and mines then create a thread for that).

[Mr. Smith]

I don't know who the people in this title are.  Does Anvi have a indy IL avatar?

Seen anvi a few times but I can't vouch for him, but you might know Madeleine better as his former name of Nathan.

No matter what side of the fence you sit, it's impossible to deny that Maddy tends to have very well executed arguments and not only that, but she does posts very sincerely with diddly-squat for sarcasm. She tends to be very respectful of other viewpoints as well when she feels need to rebut.

There truly is not a better honor title than hers for a thread of this intention (It's a different story if this actually manages to hold.)

No way, no how.

[Grumpier Than Uncle Joe]

I don't know who the people in this title are.  Does Anvi have a indy IL avatar?

Yes.

[Sopranos Republican]

  I have been called a troll (and worse) at many forums.  But do you know what the opposite of a troll is?  A fairy.  As in homosexual.  It's too bad that so many people are only interested in homosexual conversation.  But I refuse to stoop to that level.

  There is a concept in this country called "Freedom Of Speech."  I already know that forums aren't obliged to allow it.  But the people who run forums probably personally believe in the concept of freedom of speech.  So for them to deny somebody theirs at their forums is hypocritical.  As well as showing a severe lack of decency, honor and dignity.

  You may have heard of people out there who say, "I may not agree with what you say.  But I will defend with my life your right to say it."  I already know without any shadow of doubt that this is utterly pointless.  But I challenge the people who run this forum to live up to that morality.  Even a little.  Because I have things to say that they and probably you won't like.  But if what you have to say doesn't offend some people, then chances are that what you have to say has no real value.

  It is my intent to debate people here on any point that I make.  Will this forum allow such debate?  It is a certanty that they won't.  But it is always interesting to see how long it will take, and just how feeble the excuse they give is, for them to ban me.

[Joe Republic]

I don't know who the people in this title are.  Does Anvi have a indy IL avatar?

Seen anvi a few times but I can't vouch for him, but you might know Madeleine better as his former name of Nathan.

Ohhhh.  Got it.  Didn't know that.

[Gustaf]

Sam Spade is damaged beyond repair, so I thought I would set up a new one. Please do not argue in it and no short posts.

As long as people insist on being too cowardly to argue in real threads and instead opt for empty quoting into post mines, I think bringing the arguments there is perfectly legit.

[Mr. Smith]

Very good poster certainly, although I don't completely agree with some of his interpretations of history and sometimes his "New England Irishphobic Puritan Republican Federalists" type posts get a bit repetitive.

Granted.

I do admit on the subject I do have a bit of a chip my shoulder.  This might not seem the way to others but all too often I feel like a lot of people act like the only reason our ancestors were strongly Democratic was because they hated blacks (see blatant example here: https://uselectionatlas.org/FORUM/index.php?topic=204846.msg4444968#msg4444968 which as far as I am concerned is barely masked bigotry under the guise and excuse of historical facts ) and not because they lived in areas populated by people who literally viewed them as vermin (and further, as has been noted by me several times earlier, the Irish were voting heavily Democratic (and extra emphasis on the word "heavily") since the times of Jefferson, it was not some thing that happened because of the Civil War draft).  It is almost as if the several hundred years of anti-Celtic prejudice, both in the Great Britain and in the largely Anglo and protestant parts of the colonies, suddenly vanished overnight when America became a country.  Given how often the former is stressed by ill educated people I find it necessary to bring this up whenever it is applicable.

The point is largely that the point of history is to learn from it, not to defend it.  The guys who "freed the slaves" were no saints just like many of the anti-Chinese Irish railroad workers in the west were no saints.  I guess I just feel that when actually examining the past and considering the issues many perceive New England Federalists, Whigs, and Republicans to somehow be faultless and good moral people just because they opposed slavery (so did the British Empire. . . . . ).  They tend to leave out things like the repeatedly mentioned anti-Irish bigotry, the anti-Jewish bigotry (of which even I don't cover as much as I should), the anti-Italian bigotry, the anti-Polish bigotry, hell most anti-ethnic white bigotry, the classism, support for what basically amounted to protestant supremacy in the form of moralistic legislation, the support for regressive tax and tariff policies with the main intent to fatten the pocketbooks of robber barons, as well as the indifference and cruelty of the Protestant Work Ethic ^TM to actually address issues like wage slavery and living conditions in the poor neighborhoods of urban areas.

The goal of modern liberalism should be to learn from those past mistakes and use those lessons to advance a more egalitarian and equal society.  We should no longer have to choose between racists and elitists.  We should no longer have to choose between moralists and corrupt urban bosses.  We should no longer have to choose between slavers and bankers.  The people of the past need no defense, they were extremely flawed people.  Which is why you often hear such clichés as "judge them in the context of their times!" even by far left people like myself (though I generally believe that the more accurate saying would be "judge them in the context of where you would be in the times").  People often act like when talking about the past one side has to be completely right.  Well, especially in the case of American History, this is wrong.  Winning the Civil War didn't prevent the GOP from being blamed for the Great Depression.  Being on the side of the "common man" didn't prevent the Democrats from being on the wrong side of the Civil War.  And etcetera etcetera.

And further, the lesson from the bigotry of the New England elites, which is largely whitewashed to protect the agenda of financial elitists and others, is that racism goes far beyond skin color and is more about the dominance and privilege of elite groups (this is also very true of the Southern planters and their slaves).  In other words, knowledge of such history is knowledge of exactly why elitism (which is openly embraced by many Democrats nowadays without any knowledge or care of the roots of cultural elitism in the country) is horrible and the party needs to embrace more economic populism (note, I mean that as in being advocates of the poor, not "muh fiscally liberal and socially conservative") to advance a liberal agenda.

I make no apologies, just like a Jew makes no apologies for bashing Hitler.

Hasn't been a better post explaining the fault of how history often tends to be looked at here, which generally does tend to be given some good 'ol narrative painting which all of us are a little guilty of [including Mecha himself].

[Simfan34]

Sam Spade is damaged beyond repair, so I thought I would set up a new one. Please do not argue in it and no short posts.

Am afraid I'm going to have to disappoint you. I was going to write a long post describing my frustration with... certain elements demeanor on the forum but I've decided it's not worth the effort. I'll just say, Politicus, that your tendency to try to "shut down" debate when its not to your liking, as you are doing here, try to tell people what or is or isn't appropriate to post, or to ignore those who've earned your disdain (which, unsurprisingly, may be what makes their reactions to what you post so contemptuous in the first place), is not particularly pleasant and, frankly, comes off as arrogant in the extreme. (I was going to use the line "occasionally imperious and self-righteous demeanor".) I'll give just one example of what I am talking about:

@Charlotte

You are a funny kind of a lass, aren't you? On top of your usual self-righteous attitude you are now lecturing a native speaker of Estonian on how to properly translate Estonian political party names.

It is the Moderate People's Party, not People's Party Moderates.

''Rahvaerakond'' - People's Party. ''Mõõdukad'' - Moderates. ''Rahvaerakond Mõõdukad'' - People's Party Moderates. Moderate People's Party would be ''Mõõdukas Rahvaerakond'' in Estonian. See the difference?

Now of course the real name did sound clumsy, but it did so both in Estonian as well as in English. While they were trying to rebrand themselves around the late 2003 some commentators humorously suggested that, well, why not just take all the proposed names and rename themselves e.g. ''Social Democratic Labour Party Moderates''.

Look, I like you, politicus, quite a bit (no, not in that way ). Your analysis on the elections and politics of the more overlooked parts of the world are damn near invaluable on a forum where, say, provincial by-elections in Canada get more attention than (more important, objectively speaking) elections in other parts of the world; general elections in Indonesia or Nigeria, or indeed, most parts of the world where white men do not tend to live, even if I honestly might snicker when you cover elections in the Marshall Islands or whatnot- one, after all, could treat Rwandan elections the same way, which I would disagree. So to each her own. But I think this is something, if not something everyone is going to agree with me on, that needed to be said. And no, not by PM.

Now, if we're wondering about people getting off topic in Post Galleries and Institutes and the like, perhaps the moderators should consider splitting off the divergent discussion into a separate thread in a more relevant part of the forum. You can do that, right?

[Mr. Smith]

I believe this qualifies for both the  Good Post thread, and this.

First and most importantly, things would not be better if you were dead.  That's not just my opinion, Clint, it's a fact.  Your family and many others would be devastated and the world would be a worse place without you in it.  Retromike is absolutely right that if the folks you mentioned were real friends, they'd have understood.  They might've joked around a bit about the "whipped" thing (and that's normal), but they wouldn't have done it in a harassing sort of way and certainly wouldn't have stopped being your friend because of it if they were ever real friends.  You'll start with a blank slate in college and meet plenty of new people, some of whom may very well end up becoming real and life-long friends.  Another thing to keep in mind is that some of the your former friends may get over whatever they're mad at you about (whether you'd be willing to forgive their behavior if this happens is another story and something only you can decide).  The end of high school has a way of healing grudges and old wounds.  Senior classes often come together as the end approaches and everyone wants to leave with good memories about each other in the last few months (at least, that was how it was at my high school).

As for the the girl, that's gonna hurt for awhile, there's no getting around that.  Ultimately, however, the best thing you can do is to try to move on.  It won't happen over night, but as someone who went through a pretty devastating situation of my own involving a girl whom I was in love with (and actually in a serious relationship with), I can promise you that time will gradually heal all wounds.  I'm not gonna get into the details of what I went through because this isn't about me, but I will say that I know from first hand experience that things will get better (even if the healing process is slow and this hurts like a son of a b!tch in the meantime).  

Right now, it may seem like there couldn't possibly be anyone else who can make you feel the way this girl did, but in time you'll find that there are other girls (and some may even be interested in having a serious relationship if you play your cards right).  Think of it this way: Realistically, there have to be a number of people out there for everyone, otherwise no one would ever have a happy relationship (let alone a happy marriage).  If there was just one "right" person for everyone, there'd be too many people for anyone to ever find the "right" person for them.  So statistically speaking, the idea that there is one "right" person for you or anyone else is simply not grounded in reality.

From what you described, it sounds like what may've happened in this situation was that the girl wasn't ever interested in being anything more than friends (if so, the use of terms like "us" certainly wouldn't have helped matters) and that when she said stuff like "I don't know" or "I haven't thought about it," she was trying to tell you that without hurting your feelings.  Many girls genuinely think they're softening the blow by saying stuff like "I don't know," "I haven't really thought about it," or "let's just be friends."  Ironically, that can sometimes send mixed signals and actually make it a more drawn out, uncomfortable, and painful process for everyone involved (whether inadvertently giving the impression that they really do want to still be friends or by causing someone to essentially have a "so you're saying there's a chance?" type reaction).  I obviously wasn't there, so I don't know, but from what you described, it sounds like that may've been what happened.  In other words, you may well have simply misunderstood the signals she was trying to give you causing her to get increasingly irritated with you.  

Incidentally, I should note that it is never a good idea to try to start a relationship with a girl if she already has a boyfriend (for a wide variety of reasons, some pertaining to moral issues and others to practical considerations).  It's something that probably won't end well for whoever does it and will almost inevitably leave at least one person (and quite possibly everyone involved) feeling serious emotional pain.

I know you may not want to hear this, but he truth is that the best thing you can do is to give her space and begin the slow process of moving on both intellectually and emotionally.  I'm not saying that she'll want to be with you if you do that, but it'll both allow the healing process to begin and reduce the chances of her feeling like you're harassing her and refusing to accept that her answer is no.  At the end of the day, the best thing you can do (for a variety of reasons) is to slowly stand back up, dust yourself off, climb back in the arena, and focus trying to move on at both an intellectual and emotional level.  

For better or worse, life has ups, downs, and everything in between.  No one gets through for free, we all have our struggles, challenges, and demons.  Things may feel pretty bleak today and maybe even tomorrow, but I promise that sooner or later the sun will come up again.

One other thing: Cathcon is absolutely right that you should ignore Deus' terrible advice!

Given how detailed, how empathetic it is, and generally well-meant, it's near impossible to deny a lot of effort was put in to it.

[Antonio the Sixth]

General distaste for all intellectual projects to recreate society.

What counts as an "intellectual project to recreate society"? Is it better to perpetuate the mistakes of the past, and leave things broken, because to do otherwise would be to "recreate society"?  Even if doing so in actuality pledges your fealty to a previous such intellectual project?  Even if inaction has victims– real living, breathing victims– of its own?

More generally, does everything always get worse over time?  Is there any space in your worldview to try and make the world a better place (in full knowledge that success is never guaranteed), or is it all just funhouse anti-Whiggishness all the way down?

[Oakvale]

I don't see what's excellent about that post. It's just the kind of rhetoric about Progress that Mikado's implicitly critiquing. "The mistakes of the past", "leave things broken", etc.

[Antonio the Sixth]

I don't see what's excellent about that post. It's just the kind of rhetoric about Progress that Mikado's implicitly critiquing. "The mistakes of the past", "leave things broken", etc.

So you think no mistakes were ever made in the past and nothing is broken?

[DC Al Fine]

I don't see what's excellent about that post. It's just the kind of rhetoric about Progress that Mikado's implicitly critiquing. "The mistakes of the past", "leave things broken", etc.

So you think no mistakes were ever made in the past and nothing is broken?

Effort posts usually require a good deal of... well effort. Not two short paragraphs typed in 90 seconds.

[Oakvale]

I don't see what's excellent about that post. It's just the kind of rhetoric about Progress that Mikado's implicitly critiquing. "The mistakes of the past", "leave things broken", etc.

So no mistakes were ever made in the past and nothing is broken?

Of course not, but the problem I have (and I don't know if Mikado shares this) is that Progress implies a continuum with barbarianism at one end and utopian supermen at the other. Taken to its extreme that thinking gave us the USSR and fascism. And what follows from this is that a dogmatic notion of Progress implies inevitably and permanence, which is obviously absurd. I think abolishing segregation and the invention of birth control were good things, but I don't think they form part of a steady march towards a "better world". This kind of atheist religious thinking is neatly summarised in that quote about the "arc of history bending towards justice" or whatever. I don't think there's any reason to believe that's the case.