Keith Woods
202 words / 1:35:22
Greg Johnson welcomed Keith Woods (Twitter, Substack) back to Counter-Currents Radio in the first part of our latest broadcast to talk about his debate with Neema Parvini, a.k.a. Academic Agent, on ideology vs. power. It is now available for download and online listening. You can read their exchange here:
- The James Lindsay Debate Club Theory of History.
- Academic Agent Is Still Wrong about Ideology.
- Reply to Keith Woods on Power, Ideology and History.
- Surfing against the Tide of History.
See also:
- Greg Johnson, “Neema Parvini’s The Populist Delusion.”
- Greg Johnson, “The Machiavellian Method.”
Topics discussed include:
00:02:23 Summary of the positions in the debate
00:06:22 Power determines ideology, but what motivates power?
00:10’05 On the conspiratorial nature of Parvini’s theory
00:11:43 Everything is post hoc justification
00:13:18 How does one debate with someone who doesn’t believe in ideology?
00:15:56 On sincerity
00:22:02 You can’t organize mass society without an ideology
00:30:13 How to lessen infighting on the Right?
00:33:37 On Eric Striker
00:39:04 Greg speaks against materialism
00:47:47 On Joseph Bronski and mutational load
00:59:41 On Nathan Cofnas‘ theory of woke
00:28:03 Greg defines “systemic racism”
01:33:02 On Richard Hanania
01:39:08 Comment on the Google Gemini fiasco
To listen in a player, click here or below. To download, right-click the link and click “save as.”
12 comments
Say, why do I never get invited to counter currents gatherings?
Re runaway evolutionary traits, ie the tails of the peacock and bird of paradise, they are sexually selected by the female. The females find the tails “hot” so to speak, but they are outside the typical selection pressures of the environment. They don’t arise at random. I would even say they are exaggerations of certain traits which were at root adaptive, eg healthy beautiful plumage suggests a fit male. These runaway traits occur in animals who have so over mastered their environment, as with the flight of birds, that they can expend wasteful energy investment in a ridiculous long tail. If they were transferred into a more competitive environment, say with lots of eagles and predators, they would quickly go extinct.
True, however, that humans are in such an ecological position, thanks to tool making and intelligence, that we are susceptible to many runaway traits like this, both physical and mental. We have a lot of room for non adaptive wasteful energy loss in all sorts of directions. I would like to discuss some, but they might not be entirely pc.🥸
Oh, was gj trying to say that the IT is a runaway evolutionary trait? I see…well maybe superficially, but it’s a sign of a more deeply rooted antipathy.
Is there any evidence that peahens care about the tail feathers of peacocks? It strikes me as a just-so story. Beyond that, why would beauty have to be reduced to a sign of “fitness”?
Evolution is not really an experimental science, so you could broadly make that statement about any of its tenets. The complex mating displays of male birds and their bright colors more generally are usually associated with mate selection and winning. Exaggerated traits such as cumbersomely long tails must be actively selected for, else random chance would allow for mutations in either direction. This isn’t my own thought—it’s in the textbooks.
Of course they are beautiful, but a bird that is malnourished or otherwise weak will not display bright colors and good plumage, hence female birds will realize he is less fit.
I don’t mean this to detract from the overall awesomeness of the podcast, however.
Mariko Takahashi actually studied peacock mating for seven years and found no empirical evidence for the mate selection hypothesis. It is a ‘just so’ story. That said, I generally disagree with the almost Gouldian anti-adaptationist line that Greg & Keith seemed to take at parts of the interview.
A study by a single person or group which finds no evidence for a hypothesis is generally not enough to safely reject the hypothesis. Particularly in the absence of an alternative explanation I wouldn’t consign costly signalling to the ‘Just So’ bin quite yet.
Looking at the abstract the authors remark that the train and its display are necessary for success, albeit the fanciest ( to human eyes ) plumage is not preferred by hens. It may be a now fairly stable trait which underwent sexual selection long ago.
This is like Socrates against the Sophists all over again
Thanks. The Sophists always come back.
Enlightened exchange
Circa 47:00. As an admirer of both TANSTAAFL and Dr Johnson I can well imagine them coming to blows. The apparently disinterested genetic and cultural idealism of a man who recognises his mistake in marrying out and advocates a society excluding his own offspring, might just be a recognition of his much larger genetic and cultural interest in the wider American people and Western Civilization generally. It is more evolutionarily adaptive for him to advocate for the continued health of the vast reservoir of his genes present in his own ethny, his genetic interest.
@1:28:00. Mr Collett was backed into a corner with two questions following on from the logic of ethno-nationalism over the universalism of Islam. After the first he acknowledged the 300,000 native British Muslim converts as his people. He then explained why he believed Britons are converting to Islam, namely because it’s a haven from atomisation, feminism and degeneracy. Then the question about a fully Muslim Britain was posed. The wriggle out of ‘if it happened organically’ was important. It was a strong interview by Collett, with a British Bengali called Dilly on the Blood Brothers podcast of Islamic news channel Five Pillars.
I’m not anti-evolution and I’m no expert in this domain, but as I said before, I think aspects of it tend to be confusingly described, like “actively selected for”. I much prefer the term “still happening to exist” over fitness which covers more sins.
Complexity itself opens the door to a greater potential for failure across the board. If arbitrary fitness and passing on genes at any cost were everything it would be a lot easier if everything were bacteria or other prokaryotes.
Of course what we mean is conditional fitness, contextual in some very specific set of parameters at the time for a specific organism.
But just as the anti-evolutionist believes everything is created by a God making these machines, the pro-evolutionist tends to think he understands everything he is looking at and “has it all worked out”. But we may be looking at the same human bias from the other end.
Now on this podcast. I don’t have much time for AA. I think he’s getting at something with some truth in it though. If you look at Jewish movements I think the trappings of those movements- although different and seemingly at odds, are largely irrelevant.
They are all looking to increase a Jewish foothold on power and influence. There may be some self deception facilitates all this.
I didn’t really understand why people were applauding Cofnas in this interview.
Cofnas is obviously trying to manufacture premises and arguments that suit the upward mobility of Jews.
I see no reason at all to take his views in good faith and they should be viewed with great caution.
I think the most important thing is that we need to raise white birth rates as a first priority, regardless of how we take power. It’s white man needs to better themselves so they’re more attractive mates. Everyone should read a book called what women want by Tucker Max. We should also look up looks Maxxing guides. For flirting look up Todd Valentine on YouTube.
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