TracingWoodgrains

No Retvrn—Asterisk An American tradition of embracing modernity.

New article from me: No Retvrn, a meditation on what it means to embrace tradition when your ancestral tradition is to leave traditions that no longer work

asteriskmag.com/issues/11/no...

Tetraspace 💎 on X: ""I'm a woman, so I'm going in the woman's bathroom." "Sex is based on biology, come with me." "Ah, sorry, I mean, I'm not a woman, blokes who pretend to be women are just mentally ill." "Also not legal, come with me."" / X "I'm a woman, so I'm going in the woman's bathroom." "Sex is based on biology, come with me." "Ah, sorry, I mean, I'm not a woman, blokes who pretend to be women are just mentally ill." "Also not legal, come with me."

while also still—well.

x.com/tetraspacewe...

well, I appreciate that and I appreciate the nudges towards introspection here

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I think this search should be reasonably well indicative of my own views on this point (in short: I vocally agree)

x.com/search?q=fro...

me too! it disturbs me a lot and has left me feeling like I’m in a yet smaller space than I’d hoped

but small or not, that’s the space I try to remain in

re: not defending the left on economics, we ofc agree there, but what I want to point to is the way the sort of social coercion I highlight at the top of this thread browbeats people into silence about catastrophic policies that have progressive vibes. The social context and the economics align.

they’re not wrong that it’s “terf island,” but that too is a phenomenon of the left in Britain. The radical feminists at the center of it were basically all Labour voters, and their frame reflects that even as they’ve diverged from the US left

yeah, I want the same—I’ve just seen the damage judges can do, have done in the US, and are doing across the Anglosphere, with vanishingly little memory or accountability. Originalism is fake cope but expansive views of judicial power are often much worse.

Unaccountable & stagnant decisionmakers out of view is a direct result of eg even mainstream liberal judicial philosophy, in ways that have caused immense and hard-to-unwind damage in many polities.

I’d take liberal politicians and FedSoc judges if I could.

To mean lefties? No. To “nice” lefties? In many cases, yes. Much of its stagnation and/or decay can be directly attributed to economic-left policy defended by charges of bigotry or heartlessness if you oppose it. See eg Birmingham’s bankruptcy.

2. Publicly: Risk of increased terrorism, political violence, crime, and disorder. Risk of Englandification or even more serious economic/social collapse.

Here are some of the personal and public threats I see:
1. Personally: the more they control public perception, the more I will be deliberately slandered in the public sphere, leading to potentially extreme reputational and professional harm. I have oriented my life around minimizing this risk.

To be clear, I mean that I see them as a genuine threat to me above and beyond, even, the catastrophic harm I anticipate and have historically seen from many of their cultural and policy goals. Direct physical harm isn’t the only possible threat.

(& I appreciate the kind words)

yes.

X has the advantage of being larger and more established and as such still attracting a wider range by default, so eg the liberal & left part of it is livelier and more serious than the center or right (lol) part of Bsky, but I agree in terms of zeitgeist

As a specific example, the Mangione fan club here is every bit as vile as the stuff you mention. And I absolutely refuse to present a frame that implies guys like him in a culture like this have the moral high ground. I’m trying to build elsewhere for a reason.

But it’s not just irritating to be placed on the “enemy” side of the line by many leftists, it makes them getting more power a genuine threat to me, aside from and above my deep-running substantive disputes with the culture and policies they want. …

I appreciate the thoughts.

I critique those guys pretty harshly—enough that eg Yarvin’s first action after rejoining Twitter was to get into a slapfight with me. They also happen to be in political power right now, which does validate more focus on them than I’m naturally inclined towards. …

“a little rude” is perhaps a fair charge, but I don’t think “this site has some charming people in quiet corners” and “the prevailing zeitgeist on this site lauds cruelty towards many including often me and mine” are inconsistent

eg I used Reddit for a long while but would describe it similarly

I have been very quiet here!

got it, cheers

the “stupid games” here being caring about the specifics of how kids learn and wanting to understand if you have a coherent plan for it, or being engaging with an openly malicious poster at all?

right, got it

so since you know about education policy, what level should those two kids be taught at and why?

on the note of honesty, did you ever come up with anything you think was actually inaccurate about my reporting you were insulting?

bsky.app/profile/trac...

Good of you to join us here.

Should a ten-year-old reading at a “first grade” level have instruction tailored to their level or be taught at the level of an average kid their age. What about one reading at a “twelfth grade” level?

A one-size-fits-all approach, and an approach that systematically rejects the idea of funding or pushing kids as soon as they're above average, can never accomplish that.

Faster students, like the rest, deserve to be kept in their zones of proximal development.

I believe we should have free schools every bit as academically serious as the best private schools, to enable "minority," "disabled," and otherwise "disadvantaged" kids, alongside his own "gifted" kids, to climb as fast and as far as they can towards their goals.

There's something incredibly condescending about someone contrasting his own "gifted" kids with other "minority and disabled" kids to mock the idea of testing people and teaching to their levels.

Neither "minority" nor "disabled" is a monolith. All kids benefit from tailored instruction.

all three, even!

have fun with that, then. good luck in your quest to find one

and assert claims you can’t substantiate in order to smear me? if you’d like

The Full Story of the FAA's Hiring Scandal Inside a decade of struggle to bring a scandal to light

against my better judgment, I’m curious to know what you think I made up in my reporting

www.tracingwoodgrains.com/p/the-full-s...