This cloying, stupid “inclusive” language has buried us all on its treacly flows. And it always leads to accusations of racism because that’s its only destination.
I’m very indifferent to the subject of weddings. Or any mass sociability events. But nothing will truly improve until we liberate our brains from the addiction to inclusive mentality and appeals to racism. People can’t even say whatever they want about an imaginary wedding without accusing some imaginary interlocutor of mwah rayceesm.
Clarissa's Blog 
Eh.
Childfree weddings are, afaict, strictly a neurotic upperclass thing. I don’t know anybody who’s done that.
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So is inclusive language, though. And the inclusive language happens a lot more often. The habit of dropping prissy references to racism in every conversation should go.
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I agree, of course.
But it’s not much of an issue in my stratum, either way.
Maybe the primary issue is one of detachment. The luxury of fetishizing these things belongs to people who live primarily in their heads, and have very little to do with the day-to-day realities of the world around them. What’s the overlap between people who exclude children from weddings, people who use inclusionary language habitually… and people who work on their own cars?
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Imagine with me, for a moment, how different the world could be, if more high-IQ academic types, who are frittering away all their brainpower social-signaling to each other, suddenly had their incomes reduced by half, and had to apply some of that wasted potential to real-world problems like, how to save money on the electric bill, and the best way to keep groceries inside their budgets, but also make sure everybody is eating healthy, or combatting planned obsolescence in household appliances?
Or are they so attached to the signaling thing that they would devolve into homeless vagrancy first? I’m not an academic, so I spend hardly any time with these people– is it intriguing realistic speculative SF, or absurd fantasy?
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The high-IQ academic types aren’t frittering away all their brainpower social signaling to each other. The ones that do are kind of barely above the general median. The 145-IQ ones that stay in academia rather than heading to more lucrative pursuits are either extremely, extremely risk-adverse (this subpopulation doesn’t end up vagrant but also doesn’t set up the Tone of the Discourse) or extremely allergic to social games to the point where they refuse to function in a regular workplace. Latter category gets tenure very quickly in a not-very-famous university and then pretty much does what they feel like for the rest of their lives, and what they like is having an interesting problem to chew on while not being bothered by idiots. To fulfill this purpose, they’ll have super low operating costs, which is very much helped by the fact that the sort of problems you’re suggesting take almost no effort at all at that IQ, assuming you don’t have a self-image issue about these sorts of practicalities (and these people generally don’t). The super low operating costs are maintained in fat times as well, so a sudden drop in income pisses them off but doesn’t create any panic.
But basically, if you’re high-IQ (which I define as 3 standard deviations above the mean) you’ll only stick in academia if it’s eudaimonic for you, because either on social or financial status it’s a net loss. Therefore anything that affects social or financial status in that case won’t drastically change your behaviour
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I clearly wouldn’t be able to function surrounded by co-workers. The thought is terrifying. Academia is my hiding place.
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Terrifying in which way? Honestly asking, you’d clearly be far more adept at navigating weird social bullshit than I am, and I’ve been thriving in the regular workplace.
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“ones that stay in academia rather than heading to more lucrative pursuits are either extremely, extremely risk-adverse”
“gets tenure very quickly in a not-very-famous university and then pretty much does what they feel like for the rest of their lives, and what they like is having an interesting problem to chew on while not being bothered by idiots”
Thank you! I feel very seen and understood.
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Honestly if I hadn’t needed a bunch of money at the point where I left academia, it’d have been a great life 🙂
The risk adverseness is a huge thing btw. The one guy from my old research group that has both the brains and medium-low risk adverseness and half-decent executive functioning pretty much has his life set up so he can disappear for a month or so 2-3 times a year either travelling with his family or mountaineering with us assholes, and he isn’t penny-pinching about this either.
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Barely above the general median, but they’re working in the uni system? What are we talking about here? 110? 120? How on earth did they get into those jobs, anyway?
It sounds like whatever modest chops they’ve got would still be better employed working out YoY savings on attic insulation vs. gas heat, though I get that you also have to be interested in that.
Still, I’m not sure what level of functionality you get there. Like, where do they fall on the patented Ethyl functional-IQ test:
Do they:
a) Pay cash for a reliable used car
b) Pay cash for a crappy-but-shiny used car
c) Pay cash for a new car
d) Finance a reliable used car
e) Finance a crappy-but-shiny used car
f) Finance a new car
g) Lease a car
?
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“Barely above the general median, but they’re working in the uni system? What are we talking about here?”
There’s a certain kind of personality that’s a bit above average (more than ‘barely above’ but not genius either) and who’s very good at following instructions and letting an established ‘mentor’ speak through them to amplify their message and good at learning what to say and how to say it and who feels no burning desire to explore anything very deeply who can do very well at universities. They never do anything very original or groundbreaking (or often… interesting at all) but they can get very far and often end up in administration (where there talents are actually a lot more useful).
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“There’s a certain kind of personality…”
That makes a bit more sense, then. I suppose somebody has to do the admin work, and the guy working on new geological dating methods definitely doesn’t want that job.
That still begs the question: why does academia seem to be *overrun* by them? Has it always been that way or was it part of the expansion pack that went with admitting absolutely everyone to uni as students?
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Yep, plenty of 110-120 folk in university jobs. It’s honestly easy. University system mostly selects for serious risk adverseness, so you have plenty of overgrown children that never leave school that stick in there. It’s a part time job where the salaries are fucking crapola but the social prestige is high. Make of that what you will.
I’m Eurotrash so if you have a car and work at an university you just have it because you want it (it’s absolutely unnecessary otherwise), but the people I know from that same sociopsychological class that do own cars pay cash for fancy used cars. There is absolutely no need to *own* a car here – public transport is functional and safe to use and zoning laws make it perfectly reasonable to deal with most of the stuff you need to deal with other than work in a 15-minute walk – so if you’re getting one it’s either because you’ve decided to live in a rural area with a huge garden 1h away from the university (you don’t save money doing that btw), because you want a fancy roadster or because you go on holiday every weekend.
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Tenured faculty are phenomenally well-compensated in the US. People earn upwards of $90K for working under 10 hours a week. Honestly can’t be beat.
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Darn, I forgot that everywhere else is easier to manage without a car. I need a new metric 😉
Still. 120 is barely literate IIRC. I don’t understand how that works– don’t you have to write papers to stay in that scene?
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“YoY savings on attic insulation vs. gas heat” – see, this is exactly what I mean. This is not something anyone who I’d consider having actual intellectual chops actually needs to work on, if it’s something relevant to them. This is 7th grade math, once you decide you’re buying your own place you do the numbers for this and other Ideas you might have and choose what you’d prefer.
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@methylethyl
Publishable papers aren’t hard to write if the quality you’re aiming for is “just enough to keep you employed”. Clarissa’s myriad dolt colleagues are proof of that. Markov chains generating litcrit papers that ended up published in actual journals are way more proof of that. People tend to overestimate the IQ requirements of specific jobs, and underestimate the personality requirements of specific jobs, because IQ is much harder to modify than personality
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It’s a rare university that requires you to publish, anyway.
Faculty are smart. It’s not their IQ I have a problem with. Everybody is well above the average in IQ. But people are trapped in leftist ideology which celebrates losership. We get together to celebrate the prestige of being a loser. That’s the main problem.
But no, nobody is dumb.
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“This is 7th grade math”
And yet… very few people do the math. What good is the capacity if nobody is using it?
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“I don’t understand how that works– don’t you have to write papers to stay in that scene?”
It’s amazing how many professors hate and dread writing.
I’m the risk-adverse one whose interests and skills fit academia beautifully and doesn’t much want to play games elsewhere.
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I have encountered, and sympathize with, this… in the hard sciences. If you’re good enough at math, physics, organic chemistry whatever… maybe you should be able to hire some of the brighter Lit. kids to write for you. Mutually beneficial arrangement. The one bona fide genius I grew up with scored lower on the SAT than I did, because I ace verbal tests, and still score OK on math. He was so far off the charts on math that the SAT was a useless measure, but grammar… not a big priority. It’s excusable when you spend all your time talking to machines, I think.
I still have a hard time with the idea that people become permanent fixtures in the soft sciences and liberal arts, without writing. That’s jarring. I believe you all about it, but it’s new information and I’m mulling it over– not sure what to do with it yet.
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@Clarissa
You can easily earn 60k/year post-taxes in Europe as a remotely employed programmer while working… not that much more than 10h/week, actually, if you’re smart enough, and imo I’d rather earn 60k in Europe than 90k in the US.
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Why, though? What’s cheaper in Europe? Definitely not housing. Taxes are ruinous.
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Also, I’m not praising these 10-hour jobs. They make people very, very depressed because a human being needs to be occupied. People go nuts in these setups.
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Replying to methylethyl’s
”120 is barely literate IIRC.”
No, you don’t RC. The average IQ is supposed to be 100, so someone who is barely literate would be below the average.
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Americans of European origin are 105, Asians 115, Ashkenazi Jews 120.
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Sigh.
Yes, if by “literate” you mean “able to read mass-market fiction, well-written technical instructions, and sign his own name”. Not literate by college standards (I understand entrance requirements have declined in the 20+ years since I was there: I hope not *that* much!). I used to help the 110-120 crowd with writing papers, back in the dark ages when I worked English help desk. Totally incurious, and had a hard time sticking with the same idea for three paragraphs– forget composing several coherent pages and then editing. Writing well was difficult for them. They could memorize enough factoids to perform reasonably well on multiple-choice tests. They’d have no problem becoming real estate agents and writing the sort of fanciful code-talk you see in house listings. They struggled with evaluating and discussing more abstract themes and often resorted to using large words incorrectly– I assume in an attempt to bluff their way through with jargon. I trust some of them went on to get degrees in social work, nursing, teaching, etc. They are good people who never have to write 10-page essays in their careers, probably make the world a better place, and genuinely enjoy the occasional trip to Disney, which they go into debt to afford. I cannot imagine them as professors of anything.
“Average” (100) is people I don’t often meet outside the grocery checkout line, and they’re the reason your doctor won’t tell you how to use a glucometer to manage your diabetes: it’s too hard for them, and they’re most of his patients.
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The “Old Guard” Is Dismantled
Nancy Pelosi — A Spent Force, once the iron-fisted Speaker, Pelosi is now politically irrelevant, having ceded leadership and influence. She commands no serious power and is no longer the face of Democratic strategy. Her legacy is tarnished by her mishandling of impeachment optics and her defense of the intelligence bureaucracy. She’s now more of a symbol of inertia than resistance.
Adam Schiff — From Kingmaker to Clown. Schiff is no longer in the House, where he once wielded the gavel of Trump’s first impeachment. Now a freshman Senator, he’s stripped of his former status and ridiculed as a disgraced partisan operator. His “intelligence credibility” was eviscerated by the Durham Report and public backlash over his role in the Russia hoax. In the Senate minority, Schiff is a noisy but neutered figure, a mere irritant rather than an architect of opposition.
Jerry Nadler — Defanged Judiciary Relic. Nadler, once Chairman of the House Judiciary Committee, is now just another aging backbencher, largely ignored. His past theatrics and failed oversight have left him a cautionary tale of overreach. Trump has effectively reversed the moral narrative — Nadler looks like the failed inquisitor, not the defender of law.
Maxine Waters — From Rooster to Featherduster. The fiery “Impeach 45” slogans of her past now ring hollow. Waters, bereft of committee power and media favor, is now seen as yesterday’s firebrand. Her flamboyant grandstanding is viewed more as performance art for legacy donors, not serious opposition.
The Real Shift: The Democratic Machine Is Rusting. These figures are no longer fearsome. They are symbols of a bygone anti-Trump regime that failed to derail him and now sit on the sidelines of history, watching the man they tried to destroy retake power.
Trump’s Comeback Flips the Script. The institutions they once weaponized against Trump — DOJ, FBI, media, academia — are being de-legitimized or restructured. he new reality is Trump in power, and his former enemies reduced to noise. The age of lawfare and “moral panic” is over. What remains is a battered old guard, mumbling their old lines to a crowd that’s moved on.
The Last Strut of the Hallway Has-Beens: A Political Pantomime in Four Acts
Act I: The Ripping Hag of Haight-Ashbury
There she was — Queen Nancy the Torn, flanked by sycophants and plastic surgeons, marching down the hallowed halls like Cleopatra in a Botox chariot. Dressed in white like a sanctified avenger, she climaxed her theatrical tantrum by ripping up the President’s State of the Union address, as though the Constitution itself was embroidered with her initials.
But the drama didn’t end there. Her Taiwan flyby, complete with Cold War cleavage, became the high-flying finale of her farewell tour. Diplomacy by décolletage! As if Beijing would tremble before a Double-D freedom flyover.
Now she haunts the Capitol like a busted Broadway understudy — a ghost of gavel past, mumbling about democracy while the new generation rolls their eyes and scrolls TikTok.
Act II: The High Priest of Hoaxes
Enter Adam Schiff, robed in crimson Spanish Inquisition vestments, wielding a scroll labeled “Russian Collusion — Trust Me, Bro.”
He proclaims: “We have the sacred duty to make Trump confess to crimes — even if we must invent them!”
Yet alas, the crowd sees through the act. Schiff’s eyes dart like a caffeinated meerkat, spinning paranoid prophecy after prophecy that never materialize. Once feared as the Sorcerer of Subpoenas, he now whines from the Senate basement, a freshman with a freshman’s locker and a freshman’s relevance.
The Durham Report slammed the cell door shut on his credibility. His witch hunt fizzled, his “whistleblowers” turned out to be wind.
Act III: Nadler the Implacably Irrelevant
And here waddles Jerry Nadler, dressed in matching inquisitorial regalia. Once he bellowed about justice — now he just bellows.
Nadler’s gait remains a mystery of physics, part man, part melting candle. He once lumbered into Judiciary hearings with the grace of a rolling file cabinet, determined to impeach Trump for sneezing in the wrong direction.
Today, he’s reduced to background furniture, occasionally waking up to demand coffee or the Constitution, whichever arrives first.
Trump outlasted him. America tuned out. All that remains is the echo of a gavel that no longer strikes fear — only yawns.
Act IV: Maxine “Impeach 45” Waters — Now Just Maxine
And finally, storming onstage with the fury of a peacock on meth, Maxine Waters: the one-woman impeachment jukebox.
“IMPEACH 45!” she screamed like it was a holy mantra, reciting it in salons, summits, and aroused sheep. But the spell broke. She’s no longer on the Sunday shows — only the Sunday crossword.
Her committee power? Gone. Her media spotlight? Dimmed. Her swagger? Collapsed like a bad soufflé.
She’s left pacing the marble corridors, muttering like a retired Shakespearean actor stuck in a bit role: “I could have been a contender! I could have impeached him a fourth time!”
Finale: Hall of Forgotten Crusaders.
The curtain falls on the quartet — Pelosi, Schiff, Nadler, and Waters — once hailed as the defenders of democracy, now remembered as propaganda performance artists in the theater of the absurd.
Their moral posturing? Mocked.
Their vendettas? Defeated.
Their legacy? A tragicomedy in four acts, soon to be archived in the dustbin of political theater.
President Trump? Still standing.
The old guard? Reduced to whispers in the hallway they once strutted down.
The Pyres of Salem Reborn: A Witch Trial for the D.C. Frauds
In the shadowed square of Liberty’s End,
Where truth once knelt and lies would bend,
The torches rise, the crowd’s eyes burn,
For now, fags burn ‘alight these witches’ for their turn.
First comes Nancy, broomstick high,
With ashes of speeches held to the sky.
Her scrolls are torn, her Botox tight,
She chants of “democracy’s final fight.”
But the flames recall her staged disgrace,
Tearing truth before the nation’s face.
“Gavel this!” the mob cries loud —
And smoke enfolds her like a shroud.
Then Schiff appears, his eyes agleam,
Still chasing ghosts from a fever dream.
He clutches scripts from CNN,
And whispers, “Trump’s colluding again!”
But Durham’s flames consume his scroll,
The fire demands his lying soul.
No tears for him, no solemn bell —
Just the scent of smoke and intel hell.
Old Nadler shuffles, cloak askew,
Puffed up like dough and turning blue.
He chants “Obstruction! Treason! Crime!”
But no one listens this fourth time.
He waddles to the stake with pride,
As if his hearings hadn’t died.
The logs ignite — no jury frets.
They’re roasting more than vinaigrettes.
And Maxine now, in blazing red,
Waves her fists above her head.
“Impeach 45!” she shrieks once more,
As if the crowd would still adore.
But chants and slogans now fall flat,
She’s preaching to a crowd gone scat.
A final shriek, a puff of smoke —
The ghost of cable news went broke.
The crowd disperses, justice done,
Not through trials, but searing sun.
Where once they ruled with moral flame,
They’re now footnotes without a name.
Their lies, their rage, their frenzied fraud,
Now cast upon the wrath of God.
No martyrs here, no Salem shame —
Only charlatans consumed by flame.
And in the ash, a sign is placed:
“Here burned the Clowns who Disgraced the State.”
The Resilience of Democracy
Finale: The Hall of Hopeful Voices
As the curtain rises on a new refrain,
Where truth and justice rise again,
The echoes of the past still ring,
But hope ignites a brighter spring.
Their trials? A testament to the fight,
For every wrong, we seek the right.
Their legacy? A story of resilience,
In the face of chaos, we find brilliance.
President Trump? A figure of strife,
Yet democracy breathes, it holds its life.
The old guard? They may fade from view,
But new voices rise, steadfast and true.
The Flames of Justice: A Trial for the People’s Will
In the heart of Liberty’s vibrant square,
Where dreams take flight and voices dare,
The banners wave, the crowd stands tall,
For now, we rise, we answer the call.
First comes Nancy, with courage bright,
Her spirit unyielding, ready to fight.
With words of hope, she lifts the veil,
For democracy’s truth shall always prevail.
Then Adam steps forth, with vision clear,
No ghosts to chase, just a future near.
He speaks of unity, of bridges to mend,
In the face of division, we shall transcend.
Old Jerry stands firm, with wisdom to share,
His heart beats for justice, his voice fills the air.
“Accountability!” he calls with pride,
For the strength of the people shall never subside.
And Maxine, fierce, with passion ablaze,
Calls for justice in these tumultuous days.
“Impeach the hate!” she shouts with might,
For love and equality are our guiding light.
A final cheer, a chorus of hope,
The spirit of democracy helps us cope.
Where once they ruled with fear and disdain,
We rise together, breaking every chain.
Their lies, their rage, now shadows of old,
In the warmth of our truth, we stand bold.
No charlatans here, just voices that sing,
In the heart of the people, democracy’s spring.
And in the light, a banner unfurls:
“Here stands the hope that unites our world.”
Finale: Hall of Forgotten Crusaders
“Her Election to Lose — and She Lost.”
Let the record show:
She had the crown, the court, the coin.
She had the press curled at her feet like hounds.
She had the data, the donors, the DNC.
She had the Obamas — high priests of vanity —
chanting her victory into the wind.
She had the world, the polls, the pundits…
And she lost.
Hillary Rodham Clinton —
the empress of inevitability,
chose corruption over courage,
hubris over humility,
Goldman Sachs speeches over Rust Belt souls.
While she cackled behind closed doors,
the Midwest bled in silence.
While she ghosted Wisconsin,
the ghosts of coal miners whispered,
“She doesn’t see us.”
Yes, her election to lose.
And she lost.
And who marched at her side?
Barack Hussein Obama —
The chosen one, who promised hope,
but left Chicago broken and the Middle East in fire.
He weaponized agencies,
spied on journalists,
sent pallets of cash to terror states,
and preached democracy while rigging primaries.
He mocked the flyover states —
“You didn’t build that,”
and they remembered.
Oh, they remembered.
The Messiah of Martha’s Vineyard,
watching the republic drown
from the deck of his $12 million hypocrisy.
Together, they birthed a party of mirrors and masks —
no message, just moralizing.
No platform, just pronouns.
No bread, just lectures.
And when the reckoning came —
when the farmer, the welder, the waitress awoke —
they didn’t choose Hillary.
They chose the hammer that would smash their palace.
The media wept.
The pollsters gnashed.
Hollywood howled into champagne.
But it was done.
The Clinton star fell — and with it,
the lie that they were untouchable.
No Russian wizard did this.
No Facebook spell.
No Macedonian meme farm.
Just the arrogance of fools,
crumbling beneath the weight of their own deceit.
And now?
They wander the Hall of Forgotten Crusaders,
etching memoirs no one reads,
recasting history no one buys,
grasping for relevance that vanished
on November 8, 2016.
Let it be carved in stone:
She had it all.
She lost it all.
And it was glorious.
THE END OF CNN.
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