Inquisitive and harmless wyvern. Interested in human nature and patterns of history. Otherwise known as Paul Cossins.

Canada
Joined June 2014
Whyvert retweeted
I don't have a strong view on whether Holmes should be in prison or not. But I think its fascinating how our culture(s) oscillate between the social norms of gender equality & the social norms of chivalry. This argument is an example of the latter xitter.cf/TheFP/status/211261250…
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This is the problem with putting multinational peacekeeping forces into Haiti. El Salvador joined the latest one. Now it is getting dragged deeper into the quagmire. Putting troops into Haiti is a thankless task. Private military contractors may be a better option.
BREAKING: Bukele announces that El Salvador is launching a military operation in Haiti against the gangs. The goal is to free 4 Salvadoran citizens kidnapped by the Haitian gangs. Bukele threatens that El Salvador will eradicate the Haitian gangs if they hurt the kidnapped men: “To the gang leaders and gang members holding our four compatriots hostage in Haiti: Our kidnapped men are not combatants. They are aviation technicians who are part of our mission in Haiti, within the framework of an international mission. Our mission consists only of pilots and technical personnel, whose primary job is to carry out medical evacuations and save lives, not to wage war. However, they were kidnapped in a cowardly manner while returning after buying food at a market in the area. That is why, today, we have launched a military operation to rescue them. We have a single objective: to bring our four compatriots back home alive, without any harm. However, I want you, the gang leaders, to understand one thing very clearly: today's attack is nothing compared to what is coming if we do not get all four hostages back alive. And do not take our word for empty threats. We have already finished with the gangs in El Salvador, and we can finish with you too. We still have time to avoid this. Return our four compatriots to us alive, without any harm, and everything will go back to how it was before the kidnapping. The decision is in your hands”
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Whyvert retweeted
Another study showing that peers, not professors, shift opinion leftward during university. Left-leaning professors cater to left-leaning students. Data shows very few conservative profs, so student priors are reinforced, not challenged. micah-baum.github.io/files/b…
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Life in Haiti? Foreigners provide necessities like food, clothing, basic medical. Housing is free: just build a shack. Earn a little by services like clipping fingernails or hawking. The problem is other Haitians. Gangs. Government provides no services.
Progress in Haiti against the gangs. The US gave the police better weapons. They now look like an army. The government hired Erik Prince's mercenaries, who use drones. We'll see if this is enough. Better than the failed peacekeeping forces previously tried.
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Rural Haitian women "habitually fondle the genitals of male infants, toddlers, and boys up to the ages of nine and ten years propagate the myth that a celibate man can go insane, become ill, and may die tease timid boys and ridicule celibate men, taunting them with names like jay-jay (retarded) and masisi (gay) goad younger brothers and even sons into pursuing nubile young women" From an anthropologist on polygyny in Haiti timothyschwartzhaiti.com/pol…
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the so-called myth that a celibate man can go insane, become ill, and may die
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Whyvert retweeted
Rank maintained overall but organised in descending order based on per capita rates based on 2000 populations.
🌍 European countries that added the most migrants (2000–2024) 1. 🇬🇧 United Kingdom: +7.1M 2. 🇪🇸 Spain: +6.8M 3. 🇩🇪 Germany: +6.4M 4. 🇹🇷 Türkiye: +5.8M 5. 🇮🇹 Italy: +4.4M 6. 🇫🇷 France: +3.0M 7. 🇦🇹 Austria: +1.4M 8. 🇳🇱 Netherlands: +1.4M 9. 🇨🇭 Switzerland: +1.3M 10. 🇧🇪 Belgium: +1.3M 11. 🇸🇪 Sweden: +1.3M 12. 🇵🇱 Poland: +917K 13. 🇮🇪 Ireland: +840K 14. 🇳🇴 Norway: +720K 15. 🇷🇴 Romania: +521K 16. 🇵🇹 Portugal: +476K 17. 🇩🇰 Denmark: +475K 18. 🇭🇺 Hungary: +393K 19. 🇨🇿 Czechia: +386K 20. 🇫🇮 Finland: +378K Europe's migrant population grew by 40.8 million between 2000 and 2024, up 67%. The UK, Spain and Germany together account for almost half of that increase. Source: UN DESA
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Progress in Haiti against the gangs. The US gave the police better weapons. They now look like an army. The government hired Erik Prince's mercenaries, who use drones. We'll see if this is enough. Better than the failed peacekeeping forces previously tried.
CNN gains exclusive access to Erik Prince's operation in Haiti as security forces battle gangs that control much of Port-au-Prince. Nick Paton Walsh reports. Watch the full report on cnn.com/allaccess.
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CNN shows some of the private military contractors in Haiti. CNN says they are former special forces. Accent sounds Aussie to me.
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The former central built-up area of Port-au-Prince is abandoned. The city looks like a vast sprawling village.
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We know that culture drives fertility more than money these days, but what specifically is it about culture? In wonderful report published today, @FamStudies surveyed 10,000 people around the world to learn what it is about culture that leads people to have kids or not. 🧵.
In this new report, @lymanstoneky @PeterRFB and @DrJasonCarroll begin the work of opening the black box of fertility culture. We explore the specific factors across and within societies that lead some people to have many more children than others. We used a survey of nearly 10,000 people spanning over a dozen countries. Most of our survey covered questions that have rarely, if ever, been surveyed cross-nationally, or have not been surveyed in a research program that also. As a result, we can present first-of-a-kind evidence on what specific. cultural norms typify successful pronatal cultures. Here are our main findings: 1. Friends and family matter to fertility intentions. 2. The family lives of celebrities (and the visibility of celebrity family lives) influence the family lives of fans. 3. Effective pronatal beliefs entail positive attitudes towards family life, but not necessarily any particular sense of obligation. 4. Division of household labor does not have a big impact on fertility. 5. Active faith matters to fertility desire and outcomes. 6. A willingness to take risks and an optimism about the future both predict intentions to have children and the number of children a respondent already has.
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First polls after the October 17 riots: Marine Le Pen wins in the run-off no matter who her opponent is. Her margins have never been so wide.
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White leftists do ideological violence (political target). MENA and Africans do extractive violence (looting).
BREAKING: The far-left extremist Hodei Ciarra has been identified as the man who burned down the historic town hall in Limoges
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Canada got sneered at for being bland and vanilla. As if to prove how desperate for status and approval they are, Canada's elite went crazy on immigration. But still there's sneering at Canada for being bland and vanilla. Those desperate efforts were worthless.
Recently @TheEconomist called Canada a “blandly rich vanilla milkshake of a country.” But in reality, we’re a diverse, educated and rich in resources the world wants. We’ve got dim sum, biryani, pasta, perogies and pho to name a few. If you find Canada bland, I have questions about your research. And your lunch.🥪 🍜 🍝 🥟 🇨🇦
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Nothing more low status than being so desperate to gain high status, of course. People can smell it.
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The most and least difficult subjects at Penn, according to student reviews:
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39% of men support allowing self driving cars, versus 32% wanting to ban them. Among women, 19% support allowing, compared to 48% wanting a ban.
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Using the power of AI, I've compiled data from 30+ countries concerning how well their migrant groups do on a variety of metrics (education, crime, income, PISA etc.). There's a lot of oddities with particular countries or datasets, but overall, you get a 0.80 correlation with national IQs adjusted for migrant selection (education level of migrants vs. host average). All data public, you can explore and download it all. Post away! I am also missing certain pesky countries that make it difficult to obtain good data, like Belgium. emilkirkegaard.dk/migration
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Rwanda controls a big chunk of Congo with about 15,000 troops (half of its army), plus around 30,000 local auxiliaries of the M23 group. Rwanda has one of the more effective armies in Africa. Congo has always had one of the world's worst: often unpaid, looting civilians.
Replying to @ryanmofarrell
Most recent estimates put RDF’s deployments in Congo at 14,000-18,000 in early 2026, around 40-50% of the Rwandan army’s total manpower of 35,000. This is a substantial increase from 900-1,000 in May 2022, 3,000-4,000 in early 2024, and 6,000-10,000 in early 2025.
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