More Rome and Odds and Ends

Several issues.

Read this.  Emphasis added:

Although inhumation was practiced regularly in archaic Rome, cremation was the most common burial practice in the Mid- to Late Republic and the Empire into the 1st and 2nd centuries. Crematory images appear in Latin poetry on the theme of the dead and mourning. In one of the best-known classical Latin poems of mourning, Catullus writes of his long journey to attend to the funeral rites of his brother, who died abroad, and expresses his grief at addressing only silent ash.[13] When Propertius describes his dead lover Cynthia visiting him in a dream, the revenant's dress is scorched down the side and the fire of the pyre has corroded the familiar ring she wears.[14]

Ultimately, inhumation would replace cremation; a variety of factors, including decreasing levels of urbanization and changes in attitudes to the afterlife, would contribute to this marked shift in popular burial practices.

So, a problem with the recent Rome paper – that is of course not their fault but they could have specifically mentioned it as a limitation of their study – is that they had to work with the samples available, those that were inhumed. They do make a statement in their supplementary section about class differences in Rome and how they believe they have a relatively representative sample, but they really cannot know this. 

In any case, consider the cremation issue. First, this may in part explain why they had so few Iron/Age Republics samples.  Second, and perhaps more importantly, it raises issues of representation later on as well. Were certain classes of Roman society more likely to cremate vs. inhume in any given period?  One finding of the paper was that the dominant ethnotype of the Iron Age/Republic samples – the more “West Mediterranean” type – was grossly under-represented in the Imperial samples. Was that because of a demographic displacement/replacement so significant as to be mirrored in the sample representation?  Or is at least part of the explanation that during the Imperial period most of the old Roman stock cremated their dead, while newcomers were more likely to inhume?

Sample sizes and assumptions about how representative the samples are – these are the two biggest weaknesses of the study. There’s nothing the authors can do about what the Romans did for their funerary practices but, as stated, they should have mentioned this, explicitly, in the main text of the paper. One can hope for more studies on other samples, if such are available.

With respect to “movement” heavy breathing, these issues can cut in both directions. Der Movement may wish to claim that all the Dolph Lundgrens in a toga were cremated and thus not analyzed; a counter-argument could be that the old Roman upper classes were all Julius Evolas in a toga, and that these are under-represented in the Iron Age/Republic because of cremation.  

Ancient Rome has become an excavation site known for its rather extravagant cemeteries. All in all, the commoners and wealthy families of Rome were buried in the same cemeteries; the wealthy, however, had more elaborate tombs. The tombs of the wealthy were typically cut out of bedrock and rectangular in shape. 

Any way of correlating the remains studied to social status?  According to the authors, no.

A Medicist critique of the paper by Crimson Guard:

They do not use any ancient samples aside from the Italian ones, but instead choose to use modern non Europeans Middle Eastern peoples as if these people have never underwent change,lol.  A minority of the Imperial samples group around Cypriots and where Ashkenazi/Sephardic Jews would often cluster around. Such Jews are mixed with European (primarily Roman era Italians and Greeks). It also does not take into account that certain Mediterranean populations like Druze and Turks tend to be closer to Southern Europeans due to a Neolithic and Bronze/Iron Age connection(including Sea People/Philistines) along with West to East migrations, here they interpret everything based on historical movements where its basically one way admixtures. They try to connect African to mean Sub-Saharan and Phoenicians with Sub-Saharan Africans and do the same with the North-African Ibero-Maurasian(which somehow also means or includes Neolithic Moroccans to them)  - meanwhile the R475 sample Etruscan is no where near North Africa let alone  Sub-Saharans Yoruba.  R80 and R132 are much more closer to Cypriots than to North Africans.

They also claim that I-M253 haplogroup arose in Northern Europe meanwhile early examples were found among  Linear Ware samples from Hungary.  LBK   had affinities to modern-day populations from the Near East and Anatolia. Steppe peoples were not Western Hunter Gathers either and they were not "European either.

These criticism are mostly correct.  And the inclusion of Basques in the Central/Northern Europe cluster is not only mindboggedly stupid, but is made to look nonsensical by the PCAs they included in their own paper. The haplotype sharing data became skewed by these bizarre and subjective decisions, never mind the labels they gave to various genetic ancestry components.

I’m sure the Nordicists will have different complaints and/or wildly alternative explanations.  I have repeatedly said that it is difficult to separate politics from population genetics. And if you believe that population geneticists themselves are free of political bias when it comes to their science, then you are painfully naïve.

However, there is much useful information in the paper, so we need to sift through the trash to find the isolated useful nuggets.

From the paper's supplementary section (emphasis added):

…highlighting the substantial influence of this “eastern” influence on the genetic makeup of central Italians in Iron Age. Furthermore, the influence of this “eastern” ancestry is not limited to R437 and R850, as R1016 and R1015 can also be modeled as RMPR_CA + Anatolia_IA.SG, and R1016 (but not R1015) as RMPR_CA + Armenia_LBA

Thus, the Iron Age/Republic samples, at least some of them, seem more “Mediterranean” than those from the preceding Copper Age.  This is not consistent with “movement” dogma, despite whatever “spin” they would like to give.

Further, the higher WHG-related ancestry in some Iron Age/Republic samples are most likely due to derivation from the Copper Age situation in which higher WHG ancestry came into play, possibly through admixture with Neolithic populations with greater WHG percentages.  Based on the PCA data, those would seem most likely to be of the Ibero-Basque West Mediterranean type.

HBD fraud on display.

Yet another of the pitiful juvenile retards that Greg Johnson is dredging out of the Alt Right sewer to “write” for Counter-Currents.  The kids are alright!  Or Alt Right? 

We’re thin, fit, handsome, with strong jaw lines and good haircuts…We dominated them not only physically with our high testosterone voices….

Brandon/Brendan is getting ready to flirt.

Where does Johnson find these people?  Does he advertise? Wanted: Immature Millennial numbnuts to write for “traditionalist” ethnonationalist webzine. Triple digit IQ not required.

In all seriousness, it is good that these “Groypers” are challenging the false conservatives (that includes Trump himself by the way, that “sincere man of genuine greatness”), but the “kids” need to grow up.

Der Alt Right marches on:

Jane Dough 

Oh good. Another article telling the alt-Right to man up. We need more of those.

Gregory, please let us know the date and location for your IRL counter-insurgency, I'll mark it on my calendar and try to attend.

What's that, Gregory? Your job is to inspire others to man the barricades?

Oh. Okay.

txjon18  Jane Dough 

Conte is a dunce. Skipping to keep up with Richard Spencer, who himself has the brain of a woman. The problem with the American Alt-Right are the dumb people attempting to speak for it.

Russell McGinnis 

Oh, Good God, who keeps posting the whining and wailing of the Charlottesville drama queens?

They're gonna continue to have for sure *plenty* to kick, whine, wail and shout about as they get bent over by the opposition...

...they are now Palestinians and have been for some time.

This author is "lazy and weak" because neither he nor his comrades will be caught dead actually taking the time to model the problem and design an actual material response that doesn't involved whining, histrionics and 40 year jail terms.

Videogames have destroyed an entire generation

Of general Afrowop interest.

Putting aside the Beavis-and-Butthead aspects of the podcast, and whatever ideological criticisms I have – they are essentially (whether they admit it  or not) pathetic pro-minority Christian civil nationalists – the criticisms they make of Spencer and the Alt Right are on point. Unfortunately, these idiots are just as bad as what they criticize.  

Great Christians there who say “go fuck yourself” to anyone who disagrees with them.  Yes, you idiots, I don’t believe in “god” ‘– “god is the truth.”  I will quote Pontius Pilate – “what is truth?”  Cue these idiots telling me to “go fuck yourself.”  Very “godly” that! Godly!  Christian!  The mocking and ridicule of Richard Spencer – Godly! Christian!  I dislike Christians not only for ideological reasons but because of their consistent personal hypocrisy.  In my life I have known many people who called themselves “Christian” but in fact I have never known a single authentic Christian – someone who walks the walk and not just talks the talk.  Nietzsche was right - there was only one Christian and he died on the cross.  On second thought, St. Francis was also a genuine Christian – so here is a role model for all the Christnats to emulate.

Speaking of Christians.

And so one night, before bed, I decided to try it. I knelt down, next to my futon, adjusting my bare knees on the hard floor. I put my hands together, did one last eye-roll, cleared my throat, and commenced speaking to God.

It wasn’t a long conversation. But I did notice a certain calm come over me as I whispered in the dark. Also, it clarified in my mind what was really important in my life at that moment. That I stay sober. That I support my family and friends. That I be a good person to whatever degree I could.

I felt a sense of completion and satisfaction when I was done. Who, specifically, I was talking to when I did this, I could not determine then, and have never bothered to figure out since. My “God” is neither an old man on a cloud or the supernatural father of Jesus. He remains the same formless presence that appeared across from me that first night.

But if I actually stop and think about it, I would have to admit that this invisible entity definitely feels more male than female. To me, God is like a wise older man . . . a father, or a coach. But he isn’t always older. At times he’s like a close friend, a person who knows me better than I know myself, and whose perspective is larger than my own. In that sense, my personal God probably is male. To be totally honest, I cannot picture God as a female.

This is the guy cruising around Eastern Europe looking for native women to lay.  Apparently God – in the guise of Roissy and Roosh – was advising him on that. Note as well we’re apparently dealing with another Alt Right drunk.

The worst writer in the history of the Far Right strikes again.

Why would a handsome Prince of the Realm be dating Gavin Newsom’s 50-year-old sloppy seconds? Kim Guilfoyle is a year older than Melania Trump, and unlike the First Lady, does not carry the Balkan genes which have made Barron Trump a giant among men…

Cue Greg Johnson sweatily comparing the height of Barron Trump to that of Tom Cruise. Perhaps he can borrow some really big calipers from Durocher to accomplish the task.

But assuming you’ve got no time, patience, or energy for more than one Jeelvyan irascible philippic per day, the operative concept is the following: In order to shore up their relevance, Alt Lite, center-Right, and centrist types have to constantly proclaim victory after victory and loudly trumpet the size and scope of their following.

Sounds like Der Movement, no?  But then….

The deeper, Dissident Right doesn’t need to be massive…

That’s good, since the influence of the “Dissident Right” can be measured in microns.

…or even win all that often…

Good to see they are sufficiently self-aware there.

…in order to be relevant…

Which they’re not.

…our legitimacy…

Is non-existent.

…is derived from our allegiance to the truth. 

Hah!

We do not have to signal our high status…

There’s nothing to signal.

…it is self-evident from our quest for the answers to the really tough questions. 

Tough question – how to squeeze more “D’Nations” from all them suckers?

This makes us robust…

As a mouse.

…even a little bit antifragile to failure.

Good to hear it, or else they’d be falling apart several times per day.

Laugh at this.

I’ve noticed that whenever there is a Jew-Gentile conflict in the United States, there is often a Yankee vs. Jew situation in play…This also applies in the in the Demjanjuk case. Of course, Demjanjuk’s ancestors weren’t on the Mayflower or Arbella, he was most certainly not a Unitarian Universalist or Congregationalist, and he’d probably never heard of Cotton Mather. However, put his son and son-in-law (both shown in the film) in a blue Union Army uniform and they wouldn’t look out of place in Mr. Lincoln’s Army.

I mean, this is incredibly, outrageously retarded even for Counter-Currents. This idiotic author inserts a completely superfluous aside about “Yankee vs. Jew situation” conflict – which hasn’t existed for decades, quite the opposite according to Lind's “American Tribes” paradigm - in an essay about the Demjanjuk case, and then tries to justify using a Ukrainian to illustrate the “Yankee vs. Jew situation” with “…put his son and son-in-law (both shown in the film) in a blue Union Army uniform and they wouldn’t look out of place in Mr. Lincoln’s Army.”  If I actually tried to mock and ridicule Counter-Currents by attempting to invent some sort of absurdity one would expect from the site as it is exists today, I couldn’t be able to come up with anything so ludicrous. Congratulations for hitting a new low.

It is amazing that even after the embarrassing collapse of the Alt Right, the complete exposure of WN 2.0 as a pitifully pathetic empty shell, and the humiliations of Trump’s endless betrayals, the Beavis-and-Butthead crowd are still pushing the Pepe nonsense.

But, but, but…He’s a sincere man of genuine greatness, and don’t you forget it!  Also, send in those “D”Nations” to Counter-Currents.  After all, those who give live in the golden age today!

And what if someone’s entire “activist” history is one long “faux pas?”  Any accountability?

Hey! If affirmative action is still banned in Washington state, then why do we have “movement leaders” living there?

A book for Der Movement.

Fisking Zman:

One of the curious things about conservatism, as in Buckley-style conservatism, is that it never examined its failures. Even today, when asked about why they were unable to muster a defense against the homosexualization of the culture, a guy like Charlie Kirk is poleaxed by the question. He’s standing in front of a sign that reads “culture war” alongside a homosexual and he is baffled about the question. Even the more thoughtful and honest among conservatives have a huge blind spot for their past.

Rewritten:

One of the curious things about Der Movement, as in the Alt Right, is that it never examined its failures. Even today, when asked about why they were unable to muster a defense against the homosexualization of the “movement,” activists are poleaxed by the question. They talk about “traditionalism” alongside homosexuals and are baffled about the question. Even the more thoughtful and honest among Alt Righters have a huge blind spot for their past.

Back to Zman:

Conservatives never stop to think that maybe California is what the ruling class wants for all of North America. After all, the people running those tech giants are living great lives. In fact, they live lives no mortals have experienced in the history of man, so from their perspective, the system works. It’s not just the plutocrats at the top. All the way down the line, the managerial elite is now living as aristocrats. Sure, there is rot down toward the bottom, but that’s true of all ruling elites.

Rewritten:

Rank-and-file activists never stop to think that maybe Der Movement is what the ruling class wants for all of racial activism. After all, the people running those blogs and organizations are living great lives. From their perspective, the system works. It’s not just the “rock stars” at the top. All the way down the line, the Quota Queens are now living as racial aristocrats. Sure, there is rot between the ears, but that’s true of all “movement” elites.

Back to Zman:

The United States was never a nation in the tradition sense. It was always a federation of nations. The structure the Founders created was an explicit acknowledgement of it. The regional difference in the colonies at the time of the founding were not superficial. Those regional differences are still with us today, despite the migrant wave unleashed on many parts by the ruling class. America was always a house with many mansions.

These guys extend their ethnonationalism to the concept of America itself.  There is nothing they don’t try to divide. Ever notice that all these types are supporters of HBD?