PS: Good evening, Achmed,

Yes. They are very easy to use. Much easier than the cube.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=nVRNt3K0umg

Easy enough for a child. ☮

PS: "Are you familiar with the Svengali deck?"

I wasn't, Mr. Smith, but I am now - we just looked it up. Are they easy to use?

PS: Good evening, Mr. Moderator (& Friends)...

Yes, Achmed, that is the trick. I hope it works as well for you has it has for me.
(And yes... I'll keep the other links coming!)

BTW, as you turned me on to the rubik's cube, and as long as we're talking about tricks...

Are you familiar with the Svengali deck?

Cheers! ☮

PS: Thanks for the story, Mr. Hail, about the young man in Alaska. I hope he made out OK. That's been a last frontier of sorts until fairly recently, I guess. Lately, I've been surprised to hear of all the happenings that are the same sad story as here in the lower 48.

I think you should take what you have here and make it into a really good blog post - seen nothing on your site in a couple of months, I believe.

"As for White adults, the negative changes of our time have produced a vast class of highly disgruntled people unwilling to participate in civic life, people who view themselves as a form of "White-Western 'Palestinian'," i.e., under a form brutal and hostile occupation and without a visible future. Hence the rise of demagogues in recent times, who preach Ghost Dance rituals and Cargo-Cults to these unhappy people. The central figure of that which I mean has a certain unusual hair-color."

Ha, the latter's rhetoric doesn't sound so much like Ghost Dancing to me though. He is way too optimistic that all we have to do is reverse a few policies here and there. However, I agree with your take on the psychology of lots of the remaining White men. When it comes to this attitude, it doesn't take the kind of hard work that reversing the politics would, if even possible (rather than a total reset). All it would take is a few well-known people to lead us out of this - hate to use the word - malaise. I think a more positive attitude, tone, and view of our place in the world could change pretty quickly. We are overwhelmed only in spirit and political power by the Woke crowd, but not numerically and militarily, as the Indians were with their Ghost Dancing.

PS: Adam, I see, so that's the trick, got it. I will try that, but I still appreciate all the links you've got - on other stuff, that is.

PS: Mr. Hail, those seem to be the options other than which was not your point, I know - sticking on one's own ground here and trying to change things by... what, voting? I don't know, but that option (0) will probably only work if the financial SHTF happens pretty soon. It's not like I'm looking forward to that, and also, who's to say things won't go in the completely wrong direction, and we go full Commie here. (The Hildaeast just let fly some of their proposals...)

Anyway, your point that option (3) "won't scale" is a good one. That's the term I should have used. Yeah, those few countries that look so enticing can't take even 5% of us without themselves being changed, not for sure for the better either.

(4) could scale, I suppose, but it makes the White man a nationless people, perhaps like Jews just wanting to form a homeland...

Indeed, I've read many of the same pundits brag about, or encourage others, especially young men, to go for option (4) - not good for White society at all though, so more of an "I got mine" thing. That's understandable for a family man like "Calvinist" and there's also getting prepared for option (4), in case, like the RadicalCenter commenter. (Yeah, they are just handles on the internet, but for most on the iSteve threads, they are intelligent and consistent, so I have no reason not to believe them.)

Well, I will write more in response here, Mr. Hail, but it'll be later today, as I have to go.

PS: Greetings, Mr. Moderator,

Here's a link to page 2...
https://archive.ph/W7t3G

Not all the links on "page 2" have been archived. If there is something (anything) you'd like to read just copy the original URL and then go to archive.ph and paste your link in the red box at the top. It might take a couple minutes, but it 𝒖𝒔𝒖𝒂𝒍𝒍𝒚 works.

One man's graffiti could be another man's street art.(?) And graffiti on a tram might not be so bad in a high trust, low crime community. Kids will be kinds and all that.

https://i.ibb.co/HT02H69/Good-Publicity.jpg
https://archive.ph/

☮

PS

"How did she go about picking Portugal is what I want to know. She's got friends there - that's a start."

Among the Western-political diaspora in Portugal is a right-wing family-counselor and self-help guru named Noah Revoy.

Noah Revoy is a close associate of right-wing political-philosopher Curt Doolittle, whom I occasionally mention on these pages.

Curt Doolittle himself spent years in Ukraine, after leaving his tech-businesses in the early 2010s to start his think-tank, which is reasonably successful for what it is, the Natural Law Institute. Doolittle's time in Ukraine is similar in motivation to Shriver (and Noah Revoy) in Portugal, and any number of other cases, including a large share of the Steve Sailer commenters, such as Last Real Calvinist who says he has lived many years in Hong Kong (with a Hong Kong wife), and others.

As for Noah Revoy, the American right-wing psychologist in Portugal, who I believe is of very-conservative Protestant background: He has lived in Portugal some years, as far as I know. He talks well of it, in a similar way to how Lionel Shriver is doing. In his capacity as a commentator on feminism, Noah Revoy also says Portugal lacks the worst of Western-feminism, a point Lionel Shriver is less likely to talk about for obvious reasons.

-- --- --

The problem, as usual, and directly stated, is this:

None of this "scales up"!

At high-end, there may be 500 million White-Christians living in Western countries which are subject to Wokeness-hegemony, cultural-decline, such things as drug-addiction, crime, anti-family ideology, distortion of everything through the Internet-pseudoreality prism untempered by a grounded-reality, immigration racial-replacement, and other forms of associated decline.

Where are the safety-valve outlets, or "frontiers," for these ca. 500m White-Europeans of Christian origin? People identify some, here and there. But they have a way of fading in the misty distance, and those places could not realistically absorb very many of the 500 million.

Within the vast spaces inhabited by these 500m White-Europeans of Christian origin -- which includes all of North America and much of the pre-2000s NATO bloc in Europe -- there are also many "internal 'Portugals'," or outlets to which to flee without leaving the national-boundaries or larger cultural-sphere. USA-residents know how this works well, even if polite-company doesn't like to talk about it. I think the very-same "White Flight" phenomena are also now observable across Western Europe, for those so-attuned as to notice. (Remember, every immigrant-ghetto in Europe was originally host to a White-European population.)

In North America, alas, you can never QUITE be sure the Wokeness-behemoth will not find you, target you, and trample you underfoot, wherever you are. Unless you're living off the grid, there is a risk the Wokeness-hegemonic system corrupts your children. This itself seems a big reason for the White-TFR in the USA having fallen now to perhaps 1.35. People sense that a White-child will be in for a rough time.

As for White adults, the negative changes of our time have produced a vast class of highly disgruntled people unwilling to participate in civic life, people who view themselves as a form of "White-Western 'Palestinian'," i.e., under a form brutal and hostile occupation and without a visible future. Hence the rise of demagogues in recent times, who preach Ghost Dance rituals and Cargo-Cults to these unhappy people. The central figure of that which I mean has a certain unusual hair-color.

In the comments made here and elsewhere by the good Mr. SafeNow, who lives somewhere of deep-White-minority in Southern California, one detects the adult form of the disgruntlement. Mr. SafeNow himself is too polite to turn into a radical critic and prefers to stick to the values he knew from an earlier, White-Western America, which is commendable in an abstract way. Values of fair-play and respect for others (even though he will lament that the Migrants don't show such respect for us).

-- -- --

The ca. 500m White-Westerners of Christian origin who live under anti-White Wokeness regimes, and who have means and ambition to oppose the regimes and the hegemonic-ideology under which they live, have four options:

(1.) Tough it out, staying under the Wokeness regime (using a variety of psychological-political strategies);

(2.) Emigrate internally, to a brighter-looking frontier in your own region or nation (White Flight) (this could be a German from deep in Wokeness-controlled western Germany looking to set up a life in some part of eastern Germany, where Wokeness is weaker, prices are low, and even dissident-ethnonationalist politics have had serious degrees of strength, and now the soft-ethnonationalist AfD stands ready to take over one state-government after another in coming eleciton-cycles);

(3.) Emigrate to a "Portugal," i.e., a foreign-country to which you have no meaningful ties but which is or seems largely free of Wokeness-hegemonic rule.

(4.) Emigrate to a completely non-Western country and try for some kind of life among non-Western people. (See the phrase "Memsahib"). This outlet is the least-scalable of all, of course. In our time, I don't think option-4 leads to very many productive, family-formations of White couples in the far-abroad. The Internet-personalities you see promoting it have questionable motives and often distorted worlds of their own (see the mega-troll and Internet-pseudoreality-addict A. Anglin, said to have lived in the Philippines many years).

-- -- --

Among those who consciously choose option-1 in my list, and try to the best of a bad situation, is the commenter SafeNow. His reports from a deep-White-minority location in Southern California in which no White civic-life any more remains, are the reports of someone who has chosen option-1, or for any other reason cannot leave. (If you are reading this, Mr. SafeNow, let me know if you think I've mischaracterized your position or views, which are a synthesis of what I've read from you on these pages.)

Both options two and three are highly tempting fantasies to the young White-Western man of our time. The average young White-Western man among us does NOT see a bright future in his own climes, in the way most generations of his ancestors have done for the past few centuries. Option four is also tempting to some; but if one seeks cultural-continuity, it is not really a good bet.

I should also add a caveat that all of these options are modified to some extent by pre-existing relationships/marriages and pre-existing work commitments. These options are really for the would-be long-term expatriate making a move of his own volition, like Lionel Shriver here. Shriver's choice would be different if her husband had been hired by some major business in Lisbon to oversee shipping operations, or somesuch thing.

Options two, three, and four also each have a "mirage" aspect to them, to an extent. What, exactly, is the future one hopes to build in Portugal, really? Do you just see yourself living like a dissident in exile, to return triumphantly when the Wokeness-regime has passed? You go to Portugal, it's interesting, there is less overt cultural-blight. You get a job somewhere, somehow, on the local economy, but you don't save much money. Then five years pass. Then another five years pass. What's the plan?

A few years ago, I was in a southern-maritime portion of British Columbia and Alaska. I met one such young man who, despite showing a brave face, was clearly frightened. He had a small-to-medium-sized car absolutely crammed full of things, all of it food and supplies, I later learned. I ended up talking to him at some length, hours in all, over two days. He was a White male, early twenties, from the mid-Atlantic, on the fringe of a major metro area, and said he was emigrating to Alaska, hoping to survive in part off fishing and hunting, and would find a local wife and have many children. He had the look of the "seeker," hoping to accomplish a "number-two" in my system there (emigration to an internal frontier).

From talking to this young White man, it became clear that he was basically an ethnonationalist dissident, feeling angry and powerless at dispossession. It seems that he had made contact through social-media of some kind with another young man already going the same, and he was on the way to that other man's cabin. Within a week he gave up on that and I saw him returning to the same place where I had met him, saying the other guy was not to his liking and he couldn't stay. His new plan, formulated during the course of the second day I knew him, was to seek employment at a restaurant in town said to pay high wages. He had no home and would have to rent out lodgings. Still he expressed hope he could find a local wife and end up with a normal life, which he was certain he couldn't find in major-metro-area USA among migrants, LGBTQIAX+ flags that fly above the state and local flags, and doctrinaire-Wokeness types all around.

At one point in my hours of sympathetic conversations with him, I remember counseling that he try to go to Europe if possible. There is a robust network of cheap-travel options, and maybe he will find something he is seeking there. Mother Europe, a place many disgruntled and demoralized Americans find more inspiring than the USA. With the right luck and connections, he might be able to pay his way with some English-teaching jobs, but even if not, if he had any money at all, or could save a few thousand dollars from working in tourist restaurants and such, he could make it work. The world is full of opportunity that there is always some reason for optimism. (But then the lockdowns happened, pushed by fanatics and idiots.)

I have no idea what became of the Alaska-bound young man. It's not impossible that he stayed in Alaska. But I'd bet against it. If he did stay in Alaska, to what end was he staying?

PS: Mr. Smith I had thought that last tiny url was going to be a .jpg of a whole lot of fish. Instead it is a 45 min tourist guide video. I appreciate that and will know where to find it now. I did wonder why there was graffiti on the back/front of the tram. That's the only thing a little bit worrisome for anyone who'd like to try to make that home.

Anyway, it's probably just dreaming, and the grass is always a little gree... errr, Whiter on the other side of the border.

PS: Mr.Smith, thank you for the Lionel Shriver novel .pdfs! While I'm (OK, you're) at it, I clicked on all the links from that first archive page of this writers columns. When I click on the link to page 2, it of course goes to the Spectator site, which is no good for us. Do you have an easy way from me to get to p.2 or further even? (I don't even want to know how - no, not for legal jeopardy reasons, but it might make my brain freeze.)

BTW, I am surprised that there were at least 2 of the columns with which I didn't agree much at all. That was on the Ukraine and one other. I will say, when she write about financial things, I am in full agreement.

PS: Greetings, y'all...

https://www.newyorker.com/magazine/2020/06/01/lionel-shriver-is-looking-for-trouble

(I forgot that link in the last comment.)

Mrs. Smith and I once thought about going to Portugal just to gorge on fresh seafood...

https://tinyurl.com/3bpnw8uj

☮

PS: Good evening, gentlemen,

I was going to post these yesterday, but there were too many to choose from and I had to decide which ones to upload so I could post them.
(Translation = I am lazy.)

Abominations (1.3mb .epub)
https://tinyurl.com/2p8pk82h

Big Brother (631kb .epub)
https://tinyurl.com/2yaxt8v8

Big Brother (15.6mb .pdf)
https://tinyurl.com/muybr37n

Happy Sunday! ☮

PS: Mr. Blanc, "backwards" sounds pretty good to me right now, but then I (and same thing with millions of us who would consider bugging out) have money in US Dollars, so I'll be the rich guy who hires the Uber guy who drives the horse & carriage. ;-} Kidding, but the idea is to get your money out of US $ and also not rely one what is RIGHT NOW a decent sum coming in a check monthly.

OTOH, it's important whether the place has a tendency to occasionally go tits up with dictators, Commies, or whoever else might want to confiscate real assets, i.e. property.

There's no true safe haven, or we'd all be there, and you can't go home again either. Damn!

PS: Thanks, Tarheel.

PS: Re asset class, I'm talking about US debt-treasuries.

PS I spent three weeks or so in Portugal in March 1977. It was a very enjoyable time. I found the cheap wine rather better than the cheap wine in Spain. The weather was very good, especially compared with March in the Chicago area. Portugal was very economically backward compared with northern Europe. I saw some horse-drawn transport. I suppose that it’s more developed now, but my guess is that it will always be relatively backward.

PS: Yes, I remember your telling us you came from the same town as Lionel Shriver in NC, Tarheel. I'll insert that. I also remember your book recommendation - I'll hopefully be able to get that one from the 'brary and read it soon. This reminded me I want to write a review on a book about China first.

I assume "that" asset class is "The Precious" right? Actually, I didn't watch that whole movie - just remember the line - would that be precious metals? Or, do you mean land/housing, as per this post?

PS: As I may have mentioned before, LS and I spent our early childhoods in the violent mill town of Gastonia, NC. We never met afaik. Her selection of essays "Abominations" provides a more complete insight into her views. I still recommend her novel "Big Brother."
My more immediate concern has to do with her prescience in "The Mandibles" re US debt. Every financial pundit is strongly recommending that asset class now because of the high interest payouts and purported safety. I start to wonder whether this is a herding technique in advance of debt repudiation.

PS: Yes, I read that article, 'SafeNow. I thought it was that one which mentioned her funny deal with the sombreros.

That's probably it - she want to leave the troubles of the world behind, since the more you know, the more you see troubles around you. "A Less Wallowing Life" sounds like a self-help or Christian book.

PS
There is an excellent piece in The New Yorker, 2020, entitled “Lionel Shriver is looking for trouble.” (it is available online). At the very end of this long, great piece that captures Shriver’s essence, the author asks Shriver if she is interested in proposing solutions to the world’s mess. Shriver basically replies, nah, what I love to do is to “wallow” in the problems. Well, it sounds like Shriver has decided to stop wallowing - - personally at any rate - - and move to a less-wallowing life.